Tag: police state

Supreme Court Allows Biden Admin to Continue Enforcing Ghost Gun Regulations

On Monday, the Supreme Court vacated an order from a lower court, allowing the Biden administration’s new regulations on ghost guns to take effect.

A Texas-based judge ruled against President Joe Biden’s new rules on ghost guns, firearms without serial numbers. However, a request to vacate the order was filed to Justice Samuel Alito and referred to the full court, which ruled in favor of vacating the order.

Alito issued an order on October 6, giving ghost gun manufacturers Blackhawk Manufacturing Group and Defense Distributed until Wednesday to provide a better reason as to why they should not have their firearms regulated the same way as other gun manufacturers.

Keep reading

 Israeli minister seeks arrest of journalists who ‘harm national morale’

Israel‘s communications minister is proposing emergency regulations that would allow police to arrest citizens and journalists who publish content deemed to “harm national morale”.

Under Shlomo Karhi’s proposal, those restrictions could be placed upon publications that have been used as a “base for enemy propaganda”.

Journalists and other citizens could have their homes searched, property seized and could be placed under arrest for speech the government deems undesirable.

The proposal comes on the ninth day of fighting between Israel and Palestinian groups, which has killed at least 2,450 Palestinians in Gaza, including 724 children and 458 women. In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, 56 people have been killed by Israeli fire. Meanwhile, at least 1,300 people have been killed in Israel.

Earlier on Sunday, Karhi said he was seeking a possible closure of Al Jazeera’s local bureau, accusing the Qatari news station of pro-Hamas incitement and of exposing Israeli soldiers to potential attack from Gaza.

Keep reading

Labour Party to Make ‘Misgendering’ a Crime in Britain with Up Two Years in Prison

The left-wing Labour Party in Britain is reportedly planning on making ‘misgendering’ someone a crime with up to two years in prison.

In a move that would introduce compelled speech laws, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is preparing to create new hate speech legislation that would punish people for referring to someone with the “wrong” gender pronoun.

According to a report from the Mail on Sunday, a Labour government would seek to elevate misgendering an “aggravated offence” putting it on the same level as assault or harassment motivated by race or religion, which comes with up to two years in prison.

Responding to the report, Caroline Ffiske of Conservatives for Women said: “Thousands of women dispute the notion of ‘gender identity’ and particularly the idea that it should be prioritised over biological sex.

“We have serious and legitimate concerns over being expected, in the workplace, when using public services or in private life, to refer to a man as ‘she/her’.

“Is there a risk with this policy that a woman could be accused of harassment for correctly sexing a man and then for that to be treated as an aggravated offence?”

Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox added: “You can take your pronouns and your compelled speech and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

“Looks like anyone who isn’t clinically insane is going to be spending some time in chokey with our new Labour overlords in power from next year.”

Keep reading

FBI TARGETS MUSLIMS AND PALESTINIANS IN WAKE OF HAMAS ATTACK, CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES WARN

FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT agents have questioned and detained Palestinian nationals and made visits to mosques in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel, according to civil rights advocates.

Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC, said that his organization has fielded multiple reports of individuals and mosques being visited by the FBI this week. The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a police accountability group, also said it had received reports of federal agents intimidating Palestinians and their supporters. 

The interactions are reminiscent of surveillance and targeting of Muslim and Arab communities in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and Ayoub told The Intercept that they are contributing to a resurgence of fear among Muslim communities. “Like, ‘Oh my god, this is happening again, how are we going to protect ourselves?’”

Keep reading

Homicidal Memphis detention cop shoots the next boyfriend

Monique Johnson intentionally shot and killed her cop boyfriend in 2006 and never served time for the murder Now she shot the next boyfriend and was just booked again.

On October 13, 2023, Monique Johnson was arrested for shooting her second boyfriend. He told police that he had been asleep when he was awakened by being hit by her, saw a black handgun pointed at him with Johnson telling him that she would kill him. She then fired a shot that hit his shoulder. He wrestled the gun from her and was shot through the hand in the process but was able to disarm her.

This was the second boyfriend shot by Johnson. She served only a few days’ time in the 2006 murder of her then-boyfriend Tony Hayes.

On September 4, 2006, Officer Tony Hayes was killed by his girlfriend Monique Johnson.She testified that she was a domestic violence victim and he had beaten her and she had to defend herself and shot him.

As the story evolved, he had been caught by his girlfriend, Monique Johnson who went through his cell phone and found evidence of relationships with other women. She shot and killed him point blank with 6 bullets, then enlisted her 12-year-old son to help her stuff his body into his own vehicle, a 1999 Lexus. Police would find his decomposing body in the trunk of his car 4 days later, on September 8, 2008. They also found his clothes cut up and stuffed in the trash where Johnson had thrown them in a fit of rage.

Her son had told investigators a very different story than the one she presented. In her narrative, she had claimed to have been beaten by Hayes and that she in self-defense shot and killed him. The son stated that she had shot and killed him through a closed door and that she had asked him to swap the door with a new door at a nearby construction site. Investigators found the bullet-riddled door at the construction site the son had pointed them to, confirming the story the son had told of what sounded like a killing not justifiable as self-defense.

Keep reading

The EU Could Push its Private Message Ban as Early as Next Week

The EU is getting ever closer to pushing through the legislation known among critics as “chat control” – officially, Child Sexual Abuse Regulation, CSAR – and is hoping to reach a deal on this within the bloc as early as next week.

One of those who have been consistently opposed to the controversial upcoming rules, a German member of European Parliament (MEP) and lawyer Patrick Breyer, has reacted by warning once again that regardless of some minor changes if passed, the bill would effectively spell the end of proper encryption and private messaging in the EU.

Instead, the implication is, that CSAR would usher in the era of indiscriminate mass surveillance in this part of the digital space.

Warning that a recent “minor concession” the EU member-states have managed to agree on was a bid to finally come up with a majority and push the plans over the top, Breyer, referring to the proposal as “chat control 2.0,” calls it an “unprecedented” (at least for the EU) example of mass surveillance.

The summary of the regulation is that online services that provide messaging and chat would, going forward, have to implement automatic scanning of all private text and images – looking for potential abusive content, and then let the EU know about it.

There is no shortage of controversy and misgivings here, with two clearly standing out: once in place, what can this infrastructure be used for next (if politicians decide) – and the other, how are online platforms even supposed to make it work accurately and fairly, technically speaking?

Now, we are hearing that the EU Council is looking to “soften the blow,” at least rhetorically, but saying that the scanning would at first only apply to “previously classified CSAM (child sexual abuse material)” – but then later still expand it to everything.

Keep reading

If Ohio Voters Pass Marijuana Legalization Measure, Senate President Says He’ll Push For ‘Reviewing It And Repealing Things’

As early voting in Ohio kicked off this week, Republican state senators passed a resolution urging residents to reject an adult-use marijuana legalization initiative on the November ballot. But if the cannabis reform measure passes, Senate President Matt Huffman (R) also warned that GOP lawmakers may seek to scuttle some of its core components.

If Ohio voters approve Issue 2, he said during a speech on the Senate floor this week, “this initiated statute is coming right back before this body.”

“We’re going to have a mental health crisis on our hands,” if legalization becomes law, Huffman cautioned. “We are going to pay for this for years and years and years, and it’s only going to get worse.”

Huffman later clarified to local reporters that he wouldn’t seek to repeal the legalization plan entirely if it’s approved by voters, saying that he would instead “advocate for reviewing it and repealing things or changing things that are in it.”

He specified that he’s concerned about some of the measure’s provisions, including one that would funnel put a portion of state tax revenue from legal marijuana toward financial assistance and technical support for people who apply for cannabis business licenses under the initiative’s social equity program.

In his speech to colleagues, however, the Senate president took aim squarely at legalization.

“If Issue 2 passes, there will be more teenagers in the state of Ohio committing suicide,” he warned. “And our reaction to that will not be, ‘Let’s make marijuana illegal,’ because by that time, more people will be making lots of money. It will be, ‘Maybe we should hire drug counselors, get into the schools, talk about kids not taking drugs.’ But by then it will be too late. It’ll be even more part of our culture. And no, I’m not a scientist, but I’m a person who can look at facts and listen to scientists and know that that’s true.”

“If it’s in your home, if people can purchase it for you, if adults can purchase it for you,” he added, “children are going to have this more often.”

Keep reading

Alabama Cops Who Arrested Mechanic for Not Giving Them His ID Denied Qualified Immunity

A federal court has sided with Roland Edger, an Alabama man who says he was wrongfully arrested after he declined to give police officers his driver’s license in 2019. While a lower court had granted qualified immunity to the officers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit overturned that decision, ruling that the officers clearly violated Edger’s Fourth Amendment rights and that Edger’s suit against them may go forward.

In June 2019, Edger, a mechanic in Huntsville, Alabama, received a call from a customer, who told him that his wife’s car had broken down and asked him to come out to repair it. The car was in the parking lot of a local church, where the customer’s wife worked. The customer told Edger he could pick up her keys at the church’s front desk.

When he arrived at the church on June 10, a few days after the customer had called, Edger retrieved the keys from the church and began inspecting the car. According to the ruling, Edger says he believed something was wrong with the car’s steering or tires and that he’d need to return with the necessary tools to fix the vehicle.

Keep reading

German Lawmakers Delay Marijuana Legalization Bill Debate Due To Conflict In Israel

German lawmakers say that initial consideration of a bill to legalize marijuana will be delayed until at least next week due to the ongoing conflict in Israel that’s shifted international attention—though one legislator outlined a revised schedule that still puts the country on track to enact the first part of the government’s legal cannabis plan by early next year.

While Germany’s federal parliament, called the Bundestag, was scheduled to take up the cannabis reform legislation for a first reading on Friday, the scheduled debate has been postponed until next week, according to Carmen Wegge and Dirk Heidenblut of the Social Democratic Party.

They said the “global political situation” is the reason for the delay, but lawmakers “will make sure that everything gets done somehow in the next week,” according to a translation.

Keep reading