Tag: police state

Ministers accused of a cover up as it is revealed shadowy army unit DID spy on British critics of Covid lockdown policies

Ministers were accused of a cover-up last night after it was revealed that soldiers did secretly spy on British critics of the Government’s response to Covid.

The release of new documents contradict official assertions that a shadowy Army unit had only been monitoring foreign powers.

The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this year that military operatives in the UK’s ‘information warfare’ brigade were part of a sinister scheme to keep a close eye on politicians and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the pandemic response.

They compiled dossiers on public figures – such as ex-Minister David Davis, who questioned the modelling behind alarming death toll predictions, and The Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens – and reported their dissenting views back to No 10.

Documents obtained by the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch revealed the Government cells included the MoD’s 77th Brigade, which deploys ‘non-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to adapt behaviours of adversaries’.

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Elon Musk Warns Irish They Could Be Arrested For Having a Meme on Their Phone

Elon Musk has warned Irish people that they could literally be arrested and imprisoned for having a meme on their phone if new hate speech laws are passed.

The new laws were introduced in response to the Dublin riots, with authorities keen to punish people who were angry over an Algerian migrant stabbing three children in broad daylight.

The law creates a new crime of inciting violence or hatred againsts persons by possessing material which offends the “protected characteristics” of an individual or group.

Musk responded to the controversy by posting on X, “Language being proposed as law in Ireland means this could literally happen to you for having a meme on your phone.”

The post was accompanied by a video of a SWAT team smashing down a door and invading someone’s house.

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NewsGuard Is Selling Its Government-Funded Censorship Tool To Private Companies

The for-profit censorship giant NewsGuard is now selling its “Misinformation Fingerprints” technology to private companies to silence Americans’ speech — technology the federal government helped NewsGuard develop to the tune of nearly $750,000 in taxpayer funding. So while NewsGuard is now making headlines for trying to take down Elon Musk’s X, the bigger story concerns the federal government’s funding of the censorship-industrial complex.

NewsGuard launched a Thanksgiving-week attack on the social media company former known as Twitter, claiming some 200 ads from prominent advertisers appeared on feeds of users spreading lies about the Israel-Hamas war. Elon Musk returned fire, calling NewsGuard “a propaganda shop” that “uses these reports to pressure companies to buy their ‘fact-checking’ services.”

“It’s a profit over any principle model,” the X owner countered.

The verbal sparring between Musk and NewsGuard is likely to continue for some time, but the war on free speech being waged by NewsGuard extends much beyond X and is being subsidized by our tax dollars.

“In September 2021, NewsGuard was awarded a grant through the Small Business Innovation and Research program, which funds early-stage companies to develop products and technologies that can be helpful for government,” NewsGuard announced in its 2021 Social Impact Report. “Under the grant,” the report explained, “NewsGuard plans to further develop the Misinformation Fingerprints tool and test the effectiveness of the Fingerprints in detecting state-sponsored disinformation campaigns.”

Federal records show the Department of Defense funded the Small Business Innovation and Research program’s award of nearly $750,000 to NewsGuard for the further development and testing of the Misinformation Fingerprints tool. And according to NewsGuard’s 2021 Social Impact Report, its “Misinformation Fingerprints” catalog traced “762 false narratives,” “providing one-of-a-kind tracking seeds for the AI tools used by defense industry clients.”

By the following year, NewsGuard reported in its 2022 Social Impact Report that its “Misinformation Fingerprints” technology had accumulated 1,122 supposedly false narratives and been “deployed at scale” — including by social media companies. Since then, NewsGuard has highlighted the use of the Misinformation Fingerprints tool by social media companies “seeking to mitigate falsehoods on their platforms…”

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Inside The UN Plan To Control Speech Online

A powerful United Nations agency has unveiled a plan to regulate social media and online communication while cracking down on what it describes as “false information” and “conspiracy theories,” sparking alarm among free-speech advocates and top U.S. lawmakers.

In its 59-page report released this month, the U.N. Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) outlined a series of “concrete measures which must be implemented by all stakeholders: governments, regulatory authorities, civil society, and the platforms themselves.”

This approach includes the imposition of global policies, through institutions such as governments and businesses, designed to stop the spread of various forms of speech while promoting objectives such as “cultural diversity” and “gender equality.”

In particular, the U.N. agency aims to create an “Internet of Trust” by targeting what it calls “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “hate speech,” and “conspiracy theories.”

Examples of expression flagged to be stopped or restricted include concerns about elections, public health measures, and advocacy that could constitute “incitement to discrimination.”

Critics are warning that allegations of “disinformation” and “conspiracy theories” have increasingly been used by powerful forces in government and Big Tech to silence true information and even core political speech.

Just this month, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee released a report blasting the “pseudoscience of disinformation.”

Among other concerns, the committee found this “pseudoscience” has been “weaponized” by what lawmakers refer to as the “Censorship Industrial Complex.”

The goal: silence constitutionally protected political speech, mostly by conservatives.

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Conor McGregor Being Investigated For ‘Online Hate Speech’ For Comments on Mass Migration

Martial artist superstar Conor McGregor is being investigated by Irish authorities for ‘online hate speech’ after he expressed anger at children being stabbed in Dublin.

Over the last week, McGregor has been outspoken about the impact mass migration is having on his homeland, remarking, “Ireland, we are at war,” in relation to the chronic housing shortage that has made basic living unaffordable for many citizens.

“Do not let any irish property be took over unannounced. Evaporate said property. It’s a war,” he added.

Following the stabbing of three children by an Algerian migrant in Dublin, the former UFC champion condemned authorities for targeting Irish people who staged fiery but mostly peaceful protests in response.

“Innocent children ruthlessly stabbed by a mentally deranged non-national in Dublin, Ireland today,” he posted on X. “Our chief of police had this to say on the riots in the aftermath. Drew, not good enough. There is grave danger among us in Ireland that should never be here in the first place.”

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Bodycam footage shows elderly Atlanta deacon being fatally tased by police

Bodycam video footage of the interaction between an Atlanta deacon and a police officer has been released, clarifying what exactly happened in the moments leading up to the officer fatally tasing the man.

The incident took place on 10 August, when the 62-year-old deacon, Johnny Hollman, was getting arrested by Officer Kiran Kimbrough after a minor car crash.

The bodycam footage, which spans almost an hour, captures Officer Kimbrough talking to Hollman and the other driver at the scene of the collision.

Hollman repeatedly insisted that the other driver hit him. The exchange escalated after the officer told the deacon that he didn’t turn his car properly, again blaming him for the crash.

At one point, the officer, who has since been fired, can be heard repeatedly telling Hollman: “Sign the ticket.” Although Hollman clearly doesn’t want to sign it, he eventually concedes as the officer approaches him, saying he’ll sign the ticket. That’s when the physical altercation begins.

The officer tried grabbing Hollman’s arm, but Hollman swatted his arm away, while complaining, “My right arm really hurts, man.” Seconds later, Hollman is on the ground, with the officer’s hands pressed up against his back.

“I ain’t doing nothing,” Hollman yelled. “Why are you hurting me like this, man?”

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A Secret Phone Surveillance Program is Spying on Millions of Americans

According to a letter obtained by WIRED, a little-known surveillance program called Data Analytical Services (DAS) has been secretly collecting and analyzing more than a trillion domestic phone records within the U.S. each year. The program, which was formerly known as Hemisphere, is run by the telecom giant AT&T in coordination with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

The program uses a technique known as chain analysis, which targets not only those in direct phone contact with a criminal suspect but anyone with whom those individuals have been in contact as well. This means that innocent people who have no connection to any crime can have their phone records swept up and scrutinized by the authorities.

The program allows law enforcement agencies to access the records of any calls that use AT&T’s infrastructure, which covers a large portion of the country. The records include the phone numbers, dates, times, durations and locations of the calls, as well as the names and addresses of the subscribers.

The DAS program raises serious concerns about the privacy and civil liberties of millions of Americans. It operates without any judicial oversight or public accountability and violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures.

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County Eminent Domains the Strip Club Next Door to Make Room for More Parking

North Carolina strip club patrons might not be able to touch the dancers, but nothing stops the government from seizing the building they work in.

That’s the revealing truth in an eminent domain case out of Wilmington, North Carolina, where the New Hanover County government (which contains Wilmington) is trying to seize the neighboring Cheetah Premier Gentlemen’s Club to build what it claims is much-needed parking.

“The county identified a need to expand parking facilities to better accommodate our citizens when visiting the newly constructed government center. Exercising eminent domain to acquire the neighboring property is a legal and measured step towards fulfilling this need,” said County Manager Chris Coudriet in an emailed statement to Reason earlier this month.

The county commission voted to authorize eminent domain of the Cheetah Club during its late Monday night meeting on November 6. The resolution authorized the county to spend $2.36 million acquiring the club.

Conspicuously, the resolution authorizing the seizure of the club wasn’t on the commission’s agenda, and was only introduced in the final minutes of the meeting by Coudriet, reports local public radio station WHQR. The station also reports that Coudriet referred to the property only by its tax ID number and didn’t mention why the property was being seized, other than to say it was for public use.

That left the owners of both the business and the underlying property blindsided.

Property owner Jerry Reid describes the eminent domain resolution as “coming out of the blue.” Michael Barber, a lawyer for the owners of the Cheetah Club likewise said the first time he heard about the seizure was early Tuesday morning, after the commission vote.

The presence of such an “adult” business next to the county center of government has caused its fair share of embarrassment. One county commissioner told the local Port City Daily that “the optics have always been an issue.” North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell also criticized county commissioners about their offices’ proximity to a strip club at a hearing earlier this year.

The sudden, seemingly surreptitious effort to seize the club has Barber speculating that the eminent domain effort has more to do with public appearances than public facilities.

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THE “TERRORIST,” THE RAPIST, AND ME

THE FBI STING had elements of a B-movie production. Federal agents used a car chop shop in Seattle that was an FBI front, placed a prayer rug and a copy of the Quran inside the office, and designated it the scene for the final bust. The FBI’s informant was a registered sex offender named Robert Childs, who had told agents that his friend Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif had a vague plan for a terrorist attack on a military base in Washington state. The FBI furnished Childs with weapons, including assault rifles and grenades.

At the chop shop, Childs met with Abdul-Latif and his friend Walli Mujahidh, who had a mental illness, and showed them the weapons he’d acquired for their supposed attack. The guns and grenades had been disabled, and hidden FBI cameras captured Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh holding rifles, even though neither man knew how to use them. “He didn’t even understand how to work the breech,” Childs would later tell me, referring to Abdul-Latif’s inability to load the firearm.

Suddenly, FBI agents, dressed in tactical uniforms, tossed in a smoke grenade and charged toward the men; they handcuffed Childs as part of the show.

“When the feds rushed in, I knew it was Robert Childs,” Abdul-Latif later told me. “I knew he’d set us up.” As Abdul-Latif saw it, Childs had manipulated and betrayed him for money. The FBI, meanwhile, described Childs as valiant. “But for the courage of the cooperating witness, and the efforts of multiple agencies working long and intense hours, the subjects might have been able to carry out their brutal plan,” Laura Laughlin, then the FBI’s special agent-in-charge in Seattle, said in a 2011 press release. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer later described Childs as “the unlikely hero” of the bust.

After years of talking to both men and sorting through conflicting claims, I can finally explain the origins of this high-profile case that the FBI and the Justice Department have misrepresented to the public and the courts. The FBI hired a convicted sex offender as an informant, even as a rape kit with his DNA sat untested on a shelf. They paid him $90,000 to set up his friend and his friend’s mentally ill buddy in a terrorism plot concocted from nothing more than an over-the-top statement by Abdul-Latif, landing both Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh in prison. A decade later, Childs is in prison as well, serving a life sentence for the crime documented by the rape kit that the Seattle Police Department left untested for 13 years.

Last winter, with nothing left to lose, Childs contacted Abdul-Latif and me to come clean about the FBI terrorism sting he’d helped engineer.

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Hawaii Attorney General’s Office Defends Marijuana Legalization Proposal From Law Enforcement Attacks

The office of Hawaii’s attorney general is pushing back against criticism of the official’s recently released marijuana legalization plan, defending its public health and safety provisions as members of the law enforcement community voice opposition to the reform.

After announcing in April that her office would support efforts to enact legalization, Attorney General Anne Lopez (D) unveiled a comprehensive cannabis bill last week, earning praise from supporters in the legislature and mixed reactions from advocates who want to see it revised to more aggressively address equity issues and reduce criminalization.

On the other side of the debate, however, Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm says representatives of law enforcement are firmly against legalizing marijuana in general and the attorney general’s plan specifically, arguing that the current system of prohibition is “not broken,” and regulating adult-use cannabis would lead to increased hospitalizations without mitigating the illicit market.

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