Tag: police state

House Weaponization Committee Report Warns of AI-Enabled Censorship Echoing 2020 Social Media Suppression

A Republican report from the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday raised alarms over possible AI-enabled censorship on a massive scale, reminiscent of Twitter and Facebook’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop exposé in 2020.

The accusations focus on a series of AI tools currently under development. Financial backing for this venture has reportedly come from the Biden administration, leading to concerns about the permeation of political influence in freedom of speech.

We obtained a copy of the report for you here.

According to the report, the administration has invested millions of funds in AI research. The objective of this activity, as stated, is the creation of handy tools capable of targeting and suppressing “misinformation.” Once operational, these utilities could ostensibly be handed over to major social media platforms.

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It’s Time to Retire Super Bowl ‘Sex Trafficking’ Stings and Myths

Super Bowl LVIII is fast approaching. For many Americans, that will mean gathering with friends to watch the game, enjoy some sort of dip-based snacks, and gripe about the halftime show. But for sex workers and those who would like to patronize them, it will mean a higher chance of getting nabbed by cops.

Under the guise of “stopping sex trafficking,” authorities tend to ramp up prostitution stings around Super Bowl time. The ostensible motive behind this is that large sporting events like the Super Bowl draw an influx of traffickers and their victims to the locales hosting these events.

Yet no one has managed to marshal evidence of these hordes of traffickers allegedly descending on Super Bowl cities. The best authorities can do is sometimes point to a spike in Super Bowl weekend arrests of sex workers and their customers—a spike easily explained by the fact that cops are making a concerted effort to catch people offering to sell or pay for sex.

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VP Kamala Harris Touts Marijuana Pardons In Pitch To Black And Young Voters, Saying ‘Nobody’ Should Be Jailed For ‘Smoking Weed’

Vice President Kamala Harris says the administration’s move to pardon people for federal marijuana possession offenses is an example of how it is delivering for Americans, particularly young and Black voters who could be key to President Joe Biden’s reelection bid this year.

The White House also cited the cannabis clemency move in a new fact sheet on efforts to “advance racial justice and equity and ensure the promise of America for all communities.”

Speaking with Gray DC in South Carolina ahead of the state’s primary election last weekend, Harris was asked about the significance of the Black youth vote for the Biden-Harris campaign. She stressed the importance of reaching that demographic and said cannabis clemency is one action that should be uniquely appealing.

“Another issue [is] what we have done to pardon tens of thousands of people for simple marijuana possession under the federal law—because, frankly, nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed,” Harris said.

“So these are some of the things that we have done that I think really do resonate with young people, with Black voters and young Black voters, with young Black men,” she said, also citing efforts to increase access to high-speed internet and fund historically Black colleges and universities. “And there’s more to do.”

While Harris said “tens of thousands” have been pardoned under President Joe Biden’s October 2022 and December 2023 clemency proclamations, the Justice Department estimates that roughly 13,000 people have been granted relief under the executive action.

But inflated rhetoric around the pardons has been a consistent theme, with Biden himself frequently exaggerating the impact by falsely suggesting that people were released from prison over marijuana and that criminal records were expunged. A pardon simply constitutes formal forgiveness, and nobody who received a pardon was actively incarcerated in federal prison over simple possession.

As advocates have also pointed out, there are still people in federal prison over other non-violent marijuana offenses. They’ve pushed the Biden administration to do more, including keeping his key cannabis campaign pledge to decriminalize marijuana.

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Ghost guns in Ohio: 3D-printed firearms among Columbus police seizures in 2023

As 2024 began, Columbus police highlighted dozens of untraceable, homemade firearms they seized through the course of the past year, but not because the guns themselves are illegal.

The data on 2023 firearm seizures came alongside the Columbus Division of Police reporting that it found an “astronomical” number of illegal Glock switches, which convert the brand of handguns into fully automatic weapons. One of the ways the plastic part was made is 3D printing, Sgt. James Morrow previously told NBC4.

But beyond individual gun parts, entire firearms churned out from the plastic extruders also turned up in Ohio’s capital city. Because of their lack of an identifying serial number, 3D-printed guns fall under the umbrella of “ghost guns,” which also include metal and polymer guns assembled at home through kits.

“Some people just get Glock parts and attach them, since the majority of the ‘ghost gun’ manufacturers are selling Glock clones,” said CPD Sgt. Joe Albert.

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Revealed: An Israeli businessman’s post-genocide plan for Gaza

An Israeli entrepreneur who participated in the genocide in Gaza has pitched a plan to a European firm for the territory’s future.

The Gaza Strip – which the plan assumes would be conquered and controlled by Israel – would be divided into two zones. In the northern zone, Palestinian collaborators would be permitted to live in relative comfort, while those who refuse to serve and obey their Israeli masters would be banished to a southern “area of terror.”

The Electronic Intifada has seen a copy of this so-called “day-after plan.”

The pitch exposes the frightening colonial mindset and condescendingly racist view of Palestinians pervasive in Israel. It also reveals an underlying desire to conquer and control every inch of Palestine, including Gaza.

The plan was submitted by Or Bokobza, an Israeli reserve officer in the Sayeret Matkal elite commando unit, who was deployed in Gaza for several weeks during October and November.

Bokobza lives in New York City, but was in Israel on 7 October when the Palestinian resistance group Hamas led a military operation that destroyed the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, which is responsible for enforcing Israel’s siege on the territory.

Bokobza “immediately reported for duty and was deployed to root out the Hamas fighters that day,” according to a glowing profile in The Wall Street Journal.

Bokobza, who spent eight years in Israel’s army, far longer than the mandatory service requirement, has also participated in “every war since 2005.”

He is also the chief executive of Venn, a company that makes software for large-scale residential landlords to manage, monitor and extract maximum rents and revenue from tenants. It has received $100 million in venture capital, according to The Wall Street Journal.

At least 15 percent of his employees also enlisted as reservists with Israel’s military after the genocidal war on Gaza was declared.

Now Bokobza undoubtedly hopes to profit from the destruction and slaughter – although his proposal is pitched as good for Israel and even good for Palestinians in Gaza.

Another Israeli businessman Eran Haggiag is also named in the proposal, The Electronic Intifada learned. Haggiag is a co-founder of Bokobza’s company Venn.

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Northwestern students face criminal charges for pro-Palestinian newspaper parody

Students at Northwestern University, in the Chicago suburbs, woke up on October 25 to face an unexpected allegation. “Northwestern complicit in genocide of Palestinians,” declared the school’s venerable student newspaper, the Daily Northwestern, in a front-page story.

The students, however, weren’t really looking at the Daily Northwestern. Instead, they had found the Northwestern Daily, a parody newspaper attacking the school’s stance on Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

The mock front page featured fake quotes from school officials, accusations of Israeli war crimes, and a fake ad for Birthright Israel — the travel abroad program that sends young American Jews to Israel — with the tagline “One man’s home is another man’s former home!” Overnight, someone had pinned the mock papers on bulletin boards, spread them on desks in lecture halls, and even wrapped the false front pages around roughly 300 copies of the Daily Northwestern itself.

The stunt quickly sparked a furor among Israel’s supporters online. One writer, at the conservative National Review, said the fake newspaper included an antisemitic “blood libel.” The university itself said the spoof “included images and language about Israel that many in our community found offensive.”

The parent company of the school paper, Students Publishing Company, or SPC, announced that it had “engaged law enforcement to investigate and find those responsible.” The results of the inquiry are just now coming to light.

Following the investigation, local prosecutors brought charges against two students for theft of advertising services. The little-known statute appears to only exist in Illinois and California, where it was originally passed to prevent the Ku Klux Klan from distributing recruitment materials in newspapers. The statute makes it illegal to insert an “unauthorized advertisement in a newspaper or periodical.” The students, both of whom are Black, now face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

“I have never seen anyone charged with theft of advertising,” said Elaine Odeh, a lawyer who formerly supervised public defenders in Cook County, Illinois, which includes Evanston, where Northwestern is based.

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IRS To Boost Enforcement Workforce By 40% By Year-End 2024

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to raise its enforcement personnel by 40 percent by the end of this fiscal year, with revenue agents seeing the largest workforce increase.

For fiscal year 2024, the IRS plans to boost enforcement staff by a net 5,462 employees, according to a Jan. 29 report by IRS watchdog Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). This would take the total number of enforcement personnel at the tax agency to 18,960 by the end of fiscal 2024, which is 40 percent higher than the staffing at the beginning of October 2023.

Out of the 5,462 net additions, 4,704 will be revenue agents who are tasked with conducting “face-to-face audits of more complex returns.”

The tax agency intends to add a net 493 special agents for the year, who are armed officials investigating “potential criminal activities.” Staffing of revenue officers will rise by 265 employees. Revenue officers are tasked with collecting delinquent taxes and securing delinquent returns.

By fiscal 2024-end, revenue agents will comprise close to 70 percent of the enforcement personnel. Armed special agents will make up 13.5 percent and revenue officers will account for 16.4 percent.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided the IRS with $79.4 billion in supplemental funding that is available for the agency until September 2031. By the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2023, the agency had used $3.5 billion of the funds.

The IRS spent $1.4 billion out of the $3.5 billion IRA funds on its employees, “nearly doubling expenditures in this object class category in the fourth quarter.”

Most of the labor costs were accounted for by taxpayer services, which the TIGTA said “helped support the IRS’s efforts to hire additional customer service representatives to answer taxpayer telephone calls, as well as employees to staff Taxpayer Assistance Centers for the 2023 filing season.”

The IRS employed 89,767 people by the end of fiscal 2023. In addition to hiring staff to improve taxpayer services, the tax agency “focused on expanding enforcement on taxpayers with complex tax filings and high-dollar noncompliance to address the tax gap.”

“Tax gap” refers to the difference between taxes owed and paid to the government. The IRS claims the tax gap rose to $688 billion in 2021 alone, which is $192 billion more than estimates from 2014–16 and $138 billion more than 2017-19.

In October, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel pointed to the tax gap to justify the importance of “increased IRS compliance efforts on key areas.” At the time, he said that the agency would use IRA funding to strengthen compliance on “high-income and high-wealth individuals” as well as businesses.

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Kolstad Family Faces Imminent Arrest Amid Legal Battle After Losing Custody of Daughter in Gender Transition Dispute

Krista and Todd Kolstad have been informed that they will be arrested upon returning to Montana, the family’s spokesperson told The Gateway Pundit.

This news comes amidst allegations that Governor Greg Gianforte (R-MO) is orchestrating a smear campaign against the family, accusing them of being unfit parents after they refused to send their 14-year-old daughter out of state for mental health care.

The Kolstad family has been in the spotlight after their daughter, Jennifer, who now wished to be called “Leo” and use male pronouns, was taken into state custody.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that their daughter was transported to Wyoming, a state with different laws regarding the medical transition of minors, by the Montana CPS for treatment of her sudden onset “gender dysphoria,” despite the parents’ express disapproval.

In August 2023, police informed the Kolstads of a text message from their daughter claiming she was suicidal. They were notified by police that their daughter had allegedly ingested drain cleaner and taken an overdose of ibuprofen.

The hospital found no evidence of drain cleaner and ibuprofen, which was later confirmed by a negative toxicology report. Despite this, Jennifer was admitted for observation.

“The hospital continued to call our daughter Leo, even though she’s a minor, and after I stated it’s against our wishes, our religion, and our core family values, the hospital told me to call their lawyer if I have an issue, as they will do what the patient tells them,” Krista Koldstad said in a video.

“I said to them, according to State Bill 99, they may not under the law provide transgender care nor transition our child. Their response was, they are not providing surgery or hormones, so they’re operating in the gray area of the law. I further explained that my understanding of the law was a minor is a minor, and there’s no difference between a four-year-old and a 14-year-old, and we prefer to be called by her birth name,” she added.

A hospital aide discussed “top surgery” (elective double mastectomy) with the girl, leading to a complaint from Krista Kolstad.

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Alan Winston Filion Created a Website and Was Selling His Swatting Services Online to Radical Leftists Where They Could Purchase His Swat for a Fee

California teen Alan Filion, a 17-year-old from California, was arrested and is now facing legal repercussions in Florida for his alleged involvement in a series of dangerous swatting incidents across the United States.

The Seminole County State Attorney’s Office announced that Filion was extradited to Florida on January 30 to face charges related to a swatting call made to a mosque, marking a significant development in a case that highlights the dangerous trend of swatting.

The incident in question involves a threatening call made to the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida, in May 2023. Filion allegedly claimed he was armed with a handgun and explosives, intending to commit a mass shooting “in the name of Satan,” a claim underscored by the sound of gunfire played during the call. This hoax prompted a massive law enforcement response, with approximately 30 officers dispatched to the mosque.

FOX 35 reported, “The teen’s arrest affidavit states that he has been offering to treat this like a job since 2021, offering to make swatting calls for money all over the country. Investigators captured an online post they said Filion made, offering to call 911 about a gas leak or fire for $40 or make a mass shooting or bomb threat for $75.”

Approximately 30 politicians, journalists, and other political figures have swatted in America since November.

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Government-Funded Entities Build Network to Flag “Misinformation” In Private Messages

More reports are emerging about the various forms in which the Big Tech/government collusion is taking place in the US.

It’s not just directly pressuring, or “communicating with” – as current White House officials like to put it, social sites; reports are now emerging about companies getting hired to make massive databases of supposedly unlawful speech that are compiled thanks to users effectively spying and reporting on each other on messaging platforms like WhatsApp.

Former State Department official, now executive director of Foundation For Freedom Online, Mike Benz, calls this “a snitch network of citizen informants.” Information thus obtained is then analyzed using some form of AI, resulting in identification of “misinformation trends.”

One of these companies is Algorithmic Transparency Institute. The money comes from firms that receive government funds and congressionally chartered organizations.

The need to resort to “old school” citizen-informant methods arises from the nature of the platforms the government would like to spy on, and get content flagged and eventually censored. It’s the likes of WhatsApp and Telegram, where, due to the nature of (particularly encrypted) private messaging, the now established forms of “monitoring” places like Facebook or YouTube cannot be used.

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