Tag: police state

UK’s Renewed Ban on Palestine Action Confirms Legal Overreach in the Designation of Terrorism

In a dispiriting ruling yesterday, the Court of Appeal in London overturned a ruling in February, by the High Court, that the government’s proscription of the direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, which was passed by Parliament last July, was unlawful.

The High Court’s ruling, in response to a judicial review submitted by Huda Ammori, one of Palestine Action’s two co-founders, repudiated the two counts on which the High Court had ruled the proscription unlawful.

Garden Court Chambers, whose barristers represented Huda Ammori at the judicial review in February, explained that these two counts were, firstly, that the Court “upheld the Claimant’s challenge that the Home Secretary failed to comply with her own policy when making the decision to proscribe Palestine Action”, and, secondly, that “proscription breached the rights of Freedom of Expression and Assembly as protected under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”

The Court of Appeal shamefully reinstates the terrorism proscription

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal overturned both. The repudiation of the first was a long and detailed analysis of the home secretary’s powers regarding proscription, in which it was noticeable that, in dismissing it, the Court of Appeal not only poured scorn on the High Court, declaring that they had “adopted an excessively analytical approach to the interpretation of the Proscription Policy”, but also showed repeated and obsequious deference to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary at the time of the proscription, and her “expert” advisers from the police and the intelligence services.

At one point, for instance, the judges described how they were “required to attach special weight to the judgments and assessments of a primary decision-maker with special institutional competence” — yes, that really is a fawning description of Yvette Cooper! — and elsewhere, in deference to the executive branch of government, they noted that “The Proscription Decision lies in the area of national security which, before the Human Rights Act 1998, would have been regarded as unsuitable for judicial scrutiny at all.”

On the ECHR issues, described by the Court of Appeal as “questions of proportionality and the fair balance between the rights of individuals (free speech and freedom of assembly) and the rights of the community (national security and the rights of others)”, the Court acknowledged difficulties involving “the rights of the many law-abiding citizens wishing peacefully to protest, hold placards and otherwise support Palestine Action”, over 3,500 of whom have now been arrested — although they did also note that all of them ought to have been aware that doing so had become a “criminal act.” They also acknowledged “the ‘chilling effect’ that proscription may have upon those wishing to support the Palestinian cause, but who may be dissuaded from doing so by fear of committing offenses under the 2000 Act.”

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Gun Shops File Lawsuit Against Colorado’s ‘Warrantless Searches’ and Gun Registry Requirements

A lawsuit brought by firearms dealers in Colorado is challenging a new law which implements “warrantless searches” and requires Federal Firearm License holders (FFLs) to maintain a gun registry.

The Courthouse News Service noted that the plaintiffs in the suit includes “the Centennial Gun Club, five firearms dealers and organizations.”

Defendants are Gov. Jared Polis (D), Attorney General Phil Weiser (D), and Colorado Department of Revenue executive director Heidi Humphreys.

The suit centers on HB26-1126, which Polis signed into law on June 2, 2026. The new law requires an FFL to also have a state firearms permit in order to transfer guns and broadens record-keeping requirements, so as to “apply to all retail transactions.” The record must contain “the name of the person that received the firearm and the recipient’s age and address.” This record-keeping becomes the registry and partial motivator for the current lawsuit.

Under HB26-1126, law enforcement can visit the FFL’s store and check the records and “the dealer shall make the records…available at all times for inspection by a duly authorized peace officer.”

The Courthouse News Service noted that “dealers who refuse to allow their records to be inspected can be charged with a class 2 misdemeanor.”

Moreover, in the lawsuit filed by the Centennial Gun Club and others, plaintiffs claim the searches violate privacy rights: “The Fourth Amendment broadly protects businesses from warrantless searches, including businesses engaged in commerce with customers who exercise no independent constitutional rights.”

Additionally, the lawsuit says: “The regime…injures plaintiffs’ customers, who face the prospect that their lawful firearms purchases will be surveilled without warrant protections, chilling the exercise of constitutionally protected rights.”

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Telegram Founder Warns UK Social Media Ban Is Digital Iceberg About To Sink The Free Internet

Telegram founder Pavel Durov told the Freedom Forum audience in Oslo that Western societies have already struck the iceberg and started sinking – yet most citizens remain in their cabins, convinced the ship of personal freedoms is unsinkable.

His remarks arrive precisely as Keir Starmer’s government rams through a social media ban for under-16s that functions as the perfect pretext for mandatory digital ID, device-level scanning on every phone, and the practical elimination of anonymous speech online.

The policy is dressed in the familiar language of child protection. In practice it requires every major platform to verify ages with facial scans, passports or credit card data. What starts as a restriction on minors rapidly becomes a national system of internet passports.

Encrypted messaging apps currently sit outside the ban, but the same Online Safety Act framework already contains the levers to demand backdoors later. Tech executives who refuse to turn every smartphone into a government scanner face up to five years in prison.

Durov drew on two decades running major platforms and direct experience with state pressure in Russia, the EU and France. The core message was unmistakable.

“Our ship has already hit the iceberg. We have already started to sink without even realizing it. And I’m talking about the ship of our personal freedoms.”

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UK Tech Minister Hints at Potential VPN Ban to Enforce Social Media Restrictions

The British government has suggested it may ban VPN services as it seeks to enforce its upcoming social media ban for children under 16.

The censorious left-wing UK government said that it will announce plans for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) next month amid growing questions about how it intends to ensure that children do not subvert the upcoming social media prohibition.

Critics have warned that the social media ban for under-16s will require the state to implement a digital ID system to verify internet users’ ages, potentially impacting the privacy of all citizens, including law-abiding adults.

Others have also questioned what the government intends to do about children who simply use VPNs to mask their IP addresses and access the internet from countries that don’t prohibit children from using social media sites.

While VPNs were once mostly used by people in authoritarian countries like Communist China, Islamist Iran, or Vladimir Putin’s Russia to unblock vast swathes of the internet, they have grown in popularity in Western countries in recent years amid rising state censorship.

Indeed, according to data collected by the IT Asset Management Group, Google searches for “VPN” rose by 165 per cent after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer formally announced plans to ban social media for those under 16 on Monday, City AM reported.

Technology Minister Liz Kendall told the BBC on Tuesday morning that the government will “make further statements in July about VPNs and further restrictions.”

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US Is Terrorizing Its Own Citizens With “Less-Lethal” Weapons, Victim Says

n March 28, 18-year-old University of Southern California student Tucker Collins documented a protest outside the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center.

“I didn’t even see any of the officers who had their weapons out,” Collins told Truthout. “[I was] standing back from the crowd and, you know, focused on trying to frame up the crowd, and then the next thing I know, I can’t see anything.”

A federal agent shooting from behind a fence struck Collins in his right eye with a .68 caliber FN 303 projectile, destroying Collins’s eyeball and fracturing his orbital bone.

While often mislabeled as common pepper balls, FN 303 projectiles carry more than just the chemical irritants found in typical paintball-style rounds. They have a hard plastic casing and a metal front payload, adding weight and kinetic energy to “temporarily disable” targets with “a sufficiently dissuasive level of pain,” according to their manufacturer.

“Less-lethal” weapons are broadly defined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as weapons or instruments that are “designed or intended to be used in a manner that is not likely to cause death or serious bodily injury.” Such weapons include pepper balls, rubber bullets, tear gas, and more. While many of these weapons have the capacity to kill, they are often referred to as “less-than-lethal,” according to DHS.

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UK’s Social Media Ban: The Monumental Pretext For Total Digital Surveillance 

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s announcement of a social media ban for under-16s represents one of the most sweeping advances of the surveillance state in modern British history. 

Framed as “giving children their childhoods back,” the policy demands that big tech implement mandatory age verification across major platforms. In reality it forces every adult in the UK to surrender identity documents, facial scans, passports or credit card details simply to post, scroll or communicate online. 

What begins as a restriction on minors quickly becomes a national digital ID regime, device-level monitoring on every phone and tablet, and the effective end of anonymous speech. 

The move builds directly on years of incremental power grabs and aligns with identical efforts now rolling out in Canada, Australia and the EU. It ignores the government’s own evidence of no causal harm from social media while accelerating the very infrastructure that hands the state permanent visibility into private lives. 

This is not reform. It is the construction of a permissioned internet where access itself requires state-approved identity.

The scale is breathtaking. Age verification will not stop at one app. It will require systems capable of checking every user on Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. 

Additional rules turn off livestreaming and stranger communication by default for under-18s on gaming platforms, and impose overnight curfews plus infinite-scroll ‘breaks’ for under-18s. 

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Congress’s Failure Is Liberty’s Gain

Congress accidentally protected the American people’s liberty this week when it failed to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign citizens. However, it has been “interpreted” by the FISA court to allow US intelligence agencies to wiretap conversations between a US citizen and a foreign target of Section 702 surveillance. The intelligence agencies can then conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans who communicate with that American.

Section 702 has been promoted to the American people by promising that the warrantless wiretapping it authorizes would be used to protect Americans from terrorism. However, Section 702 warrantless surveillance is used for investigations of non-terrorist crimes like drug war crimes and is shared with the FBI.

An additional threat to privacy is contained in Section 622 of this year’s Intelligence Authorization Act. This new provision requires the president to share with Israel intelligence related to “cybersecurity threats, terrorism, sanctions evasion, plans and intentions of state and nonstate actors, adversarial technology proliferation, missile threats, unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, air and space domain awareness, and other aerial threats.” Requiring the president to share intelligence with a foreign government is unprecedented and arguably violates the president’s constitutional authority as commander-in-chief. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who is the sponsor of this bill, is the type of military hawk who usually supports giving the president absolute power in foreign and military affairs, even when the president’s actions are blatantly unconstitutional.

There is nothing in Section 622 prohibiting US intelligence agencies from giving Israel intelligence information regarding American citizens collected via warrantless wiretapping. This provision may lead to increased surveillance of Americans who are working to end to US government’s uncritical support for Israel on the grounds that they may pose a security threat to the United States or Israel.

One reason Congress did not extend Section 702 last week was controversy over President Trump’s nomination of Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte as interim director of national intelligence. Some Democrats, and Republicans, objected to Pulte’s lack of experience in national security and intelligence. A reason Democrats opposed Pulte’s nomination is concern he will use the position to target the president’s political enemies similar to the way he Pulte used his current job to launch high-profile federal investigations into foes of President Trump like Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

President Trump and some of his aides and supporters claim they were targeted for unconstitutional surveillance as part of the “Russiagate” investigation. Also, several members of Congress have been targeted for warrantless surveillance. Yet President Trump and a bipartisan majority in Congress still support the surveillance state.

According to a declassified report, US intelligence agencies failed to implement reforms to minimize the collection and use of US citizens’ information. The agencies promised to make these reforms following Edward Snowden’s revelations of the extent of warrantless surveillance of US citizens.

The only way to protect the American people’s liberty is to dismantle the surveillance state and stop trading real liberty for phantom security. True security comes from replacing militarism and authoritarianism with liberty and peace.

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Starmer’s Social Media Ban, the Reinvention of the Surveillance State

Here is a fun fact to keep in your back pocket the next time a politician appears on the morning TV sofas to explain that the government’s new face-scanning and digital ID regime is really, deep down, about protecting your children.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, spent the first half of his career as a human rights lawyer and the second half running the Crown Prosecution Service.

He has argued for the individual against the state and he has aimed the full weight of the state at the individual. He has, in other words, seen this particular movie from both seats.

So when he tells you he has stumbled, blinking and innocent, into the most comprehensive surveillance apparatus in British peacetime history, do not extend him the courtesy of believing it. He spent twenty years learning precisely what these powers do to a person. He is not building this in his sleep.

And what he is building is a country in which you must ask permission to exist online. Not ask the platform. Ask the state. Before you read, post, store a photo, or send a message, you are expected to step up to the booth, show your papers, and prove you are a citizen the government has pre-approved.

The default setting of a free society, that you are left alone until you give the state a reason, is being flipped on its head. The new arrangement is that you are a suspect with a phone until you prove otherwise, and you prove it constantly, because proving it has been welded onto the act of going online and speaking at all.

That is the whole game. Everything else is set dressing.

Monday’s headline was a ban on under-16s using social media which, to some, sounds about as sinister as a wholesome ribbon-cutting until you ask the obvious question nobody in Downing Street wants asked aloud: how, precisely, do you stop a fourteen-year-old from opening Instagram without first checking the age of the forty-year-old?

You don’t. You can’t. So everyone gets carded. Britain is lifting the system wholesale from Australia, where a computer first scans your face and guesses your age from your cheekbones, then, failing that, surveils you to death, studies your browsing habits and the hours you keep, and then, when the algorithm throws up its hands, simply demands your passport.

The face scan is sold to you as the polite option, the velvet rope. It is, in fact, the funnel and, at the bottom of the funnel, sits the national identity check that three million people already told this government, in no uncertain terms, to scrap.

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A Nation of Suspects

Some of the recent legal challenges to the use of surveillance by the Department of Homeland Security upon Americans have resulted in the revelation of truly terrifying behavior by the government, in direct defiance of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. We now know that the federal government spies on innocent Americans without suspicion and without warrants.

The spying seems to fall into several categories. The National Security Agency, which is in the Department of Defense, employs about 60,000 domestic spies. These are the folks who want us to believe that they go through the trouble of making applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for warrants to spy on foreigners.

Actually, from time to time they do go to this court, but their travels there — where judges are frisked upon entering and leaving the courthouse by the NSA agents who appear before them — serve as fig leaves for their massive warrantless spying on Americans. The FISA Court is unconstitutional because it issues warrants based on probable cause of communicating with a foreign person, rather than on probable cause of crime as the Fourth Amendment requires.

The courts have ruled consistently since the 1960s that spying — surveillance, as the feds call it — is a search, and the capture of data from a surveillance is a seizure.

The Fourth Amendment protects all persons in America — not just Americans — from warrantless searches and seizures of their “persons, houses, papers, and effects.” There are some well-recognized exceptions to this constitutional baseline, such as evidence that will quickly vanish or be seriously degraded, but those exceptions do not apply here as the NSA captures in real time all keystrokes on all digital devices and all fiber optic data transmitted into, out of and within the United States.

The judges of the FISA Court surely know that the Department of Justice lawyers and NSA agents who appear before them are going through a charade, and the court has been made a part of it. The charade is the pretense that all spying is done pursuant to the warrants that FISA Court judges issue. Former NSA agents have revealed publicly that this is hardly the case.

Nevertheless, the lowered standard from probable cause of crime to probable cause of communicating to a foreign person was crafted by Congress — in another of its many moments heedless of the Constitution. After a few years of this, the FISA Court began to issue warrants for spying on the Americans who communicate with foreigners, out to the sixth degree. A sixth grader can do the math, as this leads to hundreds of millions of Americans whose communications are captured.

A second category of spying is employed by the DHS. The DHS — now a 250,000-person strong federal police department nowhere countenanced by the Constitution — has sophisticated software that can read fingerprints at 15 feet and irises at 15 inches. So, if you wave goodbye or good riddance to an ICE agent, and he holds up his mobile phone, and you are in the federal system for any benign reason, he has captured your bank, health, legal and commercial records on the spot. If he talks to you in your car and is within 15 inches of your face, he can capture the same data.

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