Tag: police state

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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Maryland Senators Take Up Bills To Let Police Search Vehicles Based On Marijuana Odor And Protect Gun Rights For Cannabis Patients

Maryland senators took up two GOP-led marijuana bills on Friday: one that would let police search vehicles based on the smell of cannabis and another that’s meant to protect gun rights for medical marijuana patients.

Members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee discussed the legislation during a hearing, listening to testimony in support and opposition, but did not vote on the proposals.

Sen. William Folden (R) is sponsoring the bill to authorize law enforcement searches based on marijuana odor, a measure he said attempts to “correct a wrong, an error, that the legislature made” when it passed reform legislation that was enacted last year to specifically prevent such searches given that the state has legalized marijuana.

If the smell of cannabis is emitted from a car, that’s a “strong indicator that person is in violation of law and potentially impaired at the time,” Folden said, adding that “this strong odor is definitely discernible by law enforcement and those in the community.”

Two county prosecutors also testified in favor of the measure. But drug policy reform advocates, including ACLU of Maryland Public Policy Director Yanet Amanuel, defended the current policy that bars police from conducting cannabis odor-based searches.

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The Very Illegal Cafe Where You Can Take Shrooms and Chew Coca

“Cops and raids can’t keep us down,” reads a sign outside of the Coca Leaf Cafe and Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary in downtown Vancouver, Canada. In November last year, the emporium – which sells not just Bolivian coca (from which cocaine derives) and hallucinogenic mushrooms, but all manner of psychedelics – was raided by the police for the first time since opening in 2020, along with two other dispensaries under the same ownership. Thousands of dollars in cash and drugs worth tens of thousands were seized.

Owner Dana Larsen was arrested and held in custody for seven hours, but he reopened the cafe the next day after being released without any immediate charges. Staff at his other two outlets greeted psychonauts, microdosers and the psychedelic-curious once more a few days later. The immediate reopening was a brazen move, even for Larsen, a 52-year-old veteran of entrepreneurial drug law reform activism, who was chewing coca leaves when we first met. His next play was even more audacious.

For Christmas, he sent festive cards to the addresses of all 87 members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, and gifted each of the politicians a coca leaf and one gram of Golden Teacher magic mushrooms. In the card, he wished them “the happiest of holidays”, lauded the plants’ “beneficial therapeutic properties”, and included a membership form for the dispensary. Larsen told local media: “I encourage them to try the mushroom in a safe and responsible setting and to have that experience – it can be very beneficial.” It’s unclear whether any of them took him up on the offer; in fact, some of them called the police.

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The Greatest Trick Big Brother Ever Pulled

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist” is a quote generally attributed to Charles Baudelaire – or possibly Keyser Söze depending on who you ask on the internet. Something similar can be said about Big Brother.

When you think about what our emerging surveillance state will look like, you think 1984. You imagine East Germany powered by Google and Amazon. You recall your favorite dystopian sci-fi film – or maybe horror stories of China’s social credit system. Thoughts of a frustrated middle-aged police chief from a mid-sized Midwestern town attempting to procure security cameras with innovative new features probably don’t come to mind. You definitely don’t think of a guy in a lawn chair jotting down the license plate numbers of passing vehicles in a notebook. And that’s partly how the surveillance state is going to emerge as it creeps its way into one small town at a time.

Whether a surveillance state is the end goal is hard to say. The police chief of Pawnee, Indiana probably isn’t plotting the development of his own mini-Oceania. But, 18,000-plus mini-Oceanias operating across multiple platforms with varying degrees of integration, both locally and nationally, is undoubtedly the direction in which we are heading as salespeople peddle shiny new surveillance gadgets to cities big and small, making often unverified but intuitively appealing claims of how their devices will decrease crime or prove to be useful investigative tools.

Facial recognition tends to be the surveillance gadget that receives the most attention these days. You’ve seen it in movies and maybe feel some unease over visions of government agents sitting in a penumbrous room illuminated only by the faint glow of countless monitors with little boxes tracking the faces of every person walking down a busy city street. Likely, by now, you’ve also probably heard of facial recognition being used for relatively petty purposes or leading to incidents in which innocent people were harassed or arrested because a program made a mistake. Maybe you’ve even been following the efforts to ban the technology.

Yet, other surveillance gadgets that aren’t quite as sexy or as prevalent in pop culture manage to remain under the radar of even the most privacy-conscious as they are promoted through law enforcement peer referral programs organized by surveillance gadget companies seeking to have their devices in every town in America.

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The Sprawling Radio Network That China’s Firewall Can’t Stop

Locked inside the crowded Chinese prison, blind lawyer Chen Guancheng hid his most treasured possession from the guards – inside a single serve milk box.

A pocket-size shortwave radio.

For three years, Mr. Chen looked forward to the hours after curfew. With a blanket wrapped over his head and the radio’s metal antenna parallel to his body, he lay still as the vibrating device under his ear brought to life a world outside the prison’s walls. Petitioners, protesters, human rights abuses, a grassroots movement to cut ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—in that tiny murmuring voice, he saw them all. He was free.

Over the decade since Mr. Chen escaped to the United States, the pool of Western broadcasters for information-hungry Chinese like him has shrunk considerably.

Radio powerhouses—BBC, Deutsche Welle, Voice of America—have either cut back on their China service or moved programs online. Meanwhile, the “Great Firewall,” the regime’s censorship apparatus aimed at isolating China digitally, seems only to grow taller by the day.

Bucking the trend is a largely volunteer-run radio network called Sound of Hope, whose 10 p.m. and midnight segments kept Mr. Chen informed about current affairs in China during his years in prison.

The company now boasts one of the largest shortwave broadcasting networks around China, with about 120 stations beaming signals to China 24/7.

Allen Zeng, Sound of Hope’s co-founder and CEO, sees shortwave as the answer to the regime’s information blackout.

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How Australian undercover police ‘fed’ an autistic 13-year-old’s fixation with Islamic State

Counter-terrorism police encouraged an autistic 13-year-old boy in his fixation on Islamic State in an undercover operation after his parents sought help from the authorities.

The boy, given the pseudonym Thomas Carrick, was later charged with terror offences after an undercover officer “fed his fixation” and “doomed” the rehabilitation efforts Thomas and his parents had engaged in, a Victorian children’s court magistrate found.

Thomas spent three months in custody before he was granted bail in October 2022, after an earlier bail was revoked because he failed to comply with conditions.

Thomas, an NDIS recipient with an IQ of 71, was first reported to police by Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and then by his parents because of his fixation with Islamic State, which included him accessing extremist material online and making threats to other students.

On 17 April 2021, his parents went to a police station and asked for help because Thomas was watching Islamic State-related videos on his computer and had asked his mother to buy bomb-making ingredients such as sulphur and acetone.

Thomas was investigated and charged with two terror offences by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT), which comprises Australian federal police, Victoria police and Asio members.

The court granted a permanent stay on the charges in October last year, but a copy of the decision has only recently been published.

“The community would not expect law enforcement officers to encourage a 13-14 year old child towards racial hatred, distrust of police and violent extremism, encouraging the child’s fixation on ISIS,” magistrate Lesley Fleming said in the decision.

“The community would not expect law enforcement to use the guise of a rehabilitation service to entice the parents of a troubled child to engage in a process that results in potential harm to the child.

“The conduct engaged in by the JCTT and the AFP falls so profoundly short of the minimum standards expected of law enforcement offices [sic] that to refuse this [stay] application would be to condone and encourage further instances of such conduct.”

Fleming found the JCTT also deliberately delayed charging Thomas with offences until after he turned 14, as it made it harder for him to use the defence of doli incapax, which refers to the concept that a child is not criminally responsible for their actions.

Police also inappropriately searched Thomas’s property shortly before he was charged, Fleming found.

“There was a deliberate, invasive and totally inappropriate search of [Thomas’s] bedroom without lawful excuse.

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