Tag: police state

Tim Walz Goes It Alone: Uses Executive Orders for Gun Control After Legislature Rejects His Push

Gov. Tim Walz (D) signed executive orders Tuesday expanding Minnesota’s red flag law and creating a “Statewide Safety Council” intended to prevent “mass violence” and “targeted attacks.”

Walz’s gun control executive orders come after the state legislature refused to pass gun control measures he pushed after the August 27, 2025, Minneapolis Catholic school attack, in which a transgender man who had been identifying as a woman opened fire during mass.

According to KSTP, Walz said:

These actions today don’t limit your freedoms at all. Being shot dead in your school certainly does. … There’s no one fix to this, but there are certainly things that we know, there are certain things we’ve learned globally that make a difference, and these two actions will be another step in that direction.

Walz did not mention that the Catholic school attacker used three guns–a pistol, a rifle, and a shotgun–and that he bought all three guns legally, which means he complied with the left’s gun controls on acquisition.

Keep reading

Twitter user is jailed for 18 months for two anti-immigration tweets made after Christmas market car attack that were viewed just 33 times

A Twitter user who posted two anti-immigration tweets that were viewed just 33 times has been jailed for stirring up racial hatred.

Luke Yarwood, 36, received an 18-month sentence after tweeting in the wake of the Christmas market car attack in Magdeburg, Germany, in December 2024.

His posts were reported to the police by Yarwood’s own brother-in-law who he did not get on with.

The case has drawn comparisons with Lucy Connolly, the 42-year-old wife of a Tory councillor from Northampton, who was jailed after she called for people to ‘set fire’ to asylum hotels in the wake of the Southport attack in July 2024.

Siobhan Linsley, prosecuting, said Yarwood’s ‘extremely unpleasant posts’ had the potential to trigger disorder at one of three high-profile migrant hotels in Bournemouth, Dorset, near to where he lives.

His barrister argued the posts had 33 views between them and were the ‘impotent rantings of a socially isolated man’ that had no ‘real-world’ consequences.

But Judge Jonathan Fuller said Yarwood’s ‘odious’ tweets were designed to stir up racial hatred and incite violence, and jailed him.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard Yarwood from Burton, near Christchurch, Dorset, made a series of anti-Muslim and anti-immigration posts from December 21, 2024 to January 29, 2025.

It started the day after the car attack in Germany in which six people were killed. At the time misinformation on social media suggested the person responsible was an Islamic extremist.

Yarwood responded to a post that stated thousands of Germans were taking to the streets and they wanted their country back.

Yarwood replied: ‘Head for the hotels housing them and burn them to the ground.’

While further posts by him displayed a ‘rabid dislike’ for foreigners, particularly Islam, these did not stir up racial hatred or incite violence.

For example, Yarwood wrote about the amount of foreign people in Bournemouth, stating: ‘Walking for ages and not hearing a word of English.’

He also wrote of his disgust at seeing ‘asylum seekers outside the hotel staring at young college girls’.

The second illegal tweet was made in response to a post by GB News.

Keep reading

The UK’s Plan to Put an Age Verification Chaperone in Every Pocket

UK officials are preparing to urge Apple and Google to redesign their operating systems so that every phone and computer sold in the country can automatically block nude imagery unless the user has proved they are an adult.

The proposal, part of the Home Office’s upcoming plan under the premise of combating violence against women and girls, would rely on technology built directly into devices, with software capable of scanning images locally to detect material.

Under the plan, as reported by FT, such scanning would be turned on by default. Anyone wanting to take, send, or open an explicit photo would first have to verify their age using a government-issued ID or a biometric check.

The goal, officials say, is to prevent children from being exposed to sexual material or drawn into exploitative exchanges online.

People briefed on the discussions said the Home Office had explored the possibility of making these tools a legal requirement but decided, for now, to rely on encouragement rather than legislation.

Even so, the expectation is that large manufacturers will come under intense pressure to comply.

The government’s approach reflects growing anxiety about how easily minors can access sexual content and how grooming can occur through everyday apps.

Instead of copying Australia’s decision to ban social media use for under-16s, British ministers have chosen to focus on controlling imagery itself.

Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has praised technology firms that already filter content at the device level. She cited HMD Global, maker of Nokia phones, for embedding child-protection software called HarmBlock, created by UK-based SafeToNet, which automatically blocks explicit images from being viewed or shared.

Apple and Google have built smaller-scale systems of their own. Apple’s “Communication Safety” function scans photos in apps like Messages, AirDrop, and FaceTime and warns children when nudity is detected, but teens can ignore the alert.

Google’s Family Link and “sensitive content warnings” work similarly on Android, though they stop short of scanning across all apps. Both companies allow parents to apply restrictions, but neither has a universal filter that covers the entire operating system.

The Home Office wants to go further, calling for a system that would block any nude image unless an adult identity check has been passed.

Keep reading

There’s No Evidence Australia’s Strict Gun Control Laws Are Effective

emocrats in the United States repeatedly praise Australia’s 1996 gun confiscation law as a successful model to emulate, while many Australians — especially after the Bondi Beach terror attack earlier this week — argue that the confiscation helped but failed to go far enough. Yet the supposed benefits of this policy rest on deeply flawed statistical analysis.

After the Minneapolis school shooting in September, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz claimed, “When they had a school shooting in Scotland or they had an incident in Australia, they simply made changes. … And since they did those things, they don’t have them. We’re an outlier amongst nations in terms of what happens to our children.” Prominent Democrats, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, have echoed this praise for Australia’s 1996 gun confiscation law.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reinforced this narrative on Monday after the massacre, stating that a prior administration’s gun laws “have made an enormous difference in Australia and are a proud moment of reform, quite rightly, achieved across the parliament with bipartisan support.” Supporters typically point to declines in firearm homicides and firearm suicides as evidence of success.

Relying on that perceived success, Albanese has promised even stricter gun control, arguing that tighter laws would yield even greater benefits. Policymakers already advocate proposals such as limits on the number of firearms individuals may own and periodic license reviews.

For years, major media outlets — including USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post — have published stories crediting Australia’s 1996–1997 gun confiscation with cutting firearm homicide and suicide rates in half and eliminating mass public shootings.

Keep reading

UK To Introduce ‘Anti-Muslim Hate’ Definition

Ministers in the UK are steeling themselves for a storm of criticism as Communities Secretary Steve Reed prepares to unveil a new official definition of “anti-Muslim hate” this week. 

Critics, led by the Free Speech Union, warn that the expansive terminology risks creating a de facto blasphemy law, stifling legitimate debate on issues like grooming gangs and Islamist terrorism.

The shift away from the term “Islamophobia” aims to provide guidance for public bodies, councils, and businesses in combating prejudice against Muslims. Yet, according to leaked drafts, it could label prejudicial stereotyping or “racialisation designed to incite hate” as hateful acts, potentially encompassing discussions that highlight patterns in crimes predominantly involving Muslim perpetrators.

Keep reading

Oxford University student, 20, is charged with stirring up racial hatred after allegedly promoting an antisemitic chant at pro-Palestine demonstration

An Oxford University student caught on camera allegedly making antisemitic chants at a pro-Palestine demonstration has been charged with a public order offence.

The Metropolitan Police said Samuel Williams, 20, was charged with stirring up racial hatred at a Palestine Coalition demo in Whitehall, central London, on Saturday, October 11.

He was charged today and will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court in the new year.

Williams was identified by the Daily Mail after footage emerged of a man allegedly chanting an antisemitic chant at the pro-Palestine protest.

Williams was arrested at a property in Oxfordshire on suspicion of inciting racial hatred following an investigation launched by Scotland Yard detectives.

The philosophy, politics and economics student at Balliol College was also suspended by Oxford University.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said there had been an ‘unacceptable increase in anti-Semitism’ at universities and added that many Jewish students did not feel safe on campus.

She called on universities to strengthen protections for Jewish students and said the Government was funding training to help staff and students ‘tackle this poison of antisemitism’.

Keep reading

86-year-old fined $335 for littering — after spitting out leaf that blew into his mouth

This certainly leafed him with a bad taste in his mouth.

An 86-year-old Englishman was hit with a preposterous fine for littering after two enforcement officers saw him spit out a leaf that had blown into his mouth.

Roy Marsh had stopped for a rest while walking through a parking lot in the tourist town of Skegness, on England’s east coast, when the wind blew a “big reed” into his mouth, he told the BBC.

“I spat it out, and just as I got up to walk away, two [enforcement officers] came up to me,” Marsh said.

The bewildered octogenarian said that when officers accused him of spitting on the ground, he responded by calling one of them a “silly boy.”

However, Marsh quickly realized they were not joking — and he was fined £250 ($335).

“It was all unnecessary and all out of proportion,” he recalled to the BBC.

Marsh said the fine was expected to be reduced to £150 ($200) after an appeal, but he was still required to pay the full amount.

County councillor Adrian Findley described the case as one of many examples of officers being “heavy-handed” with enforcement in the seaside town, which relies heavily on tourism.

“They are taking it too far,” Findley told the outlet.

Keep reading

UK Lawmakers Propose Mandatory On-Device Surveillance and VPN Age Verification

Lawmakers in the United Kingdom are proposing amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that would require nearly all smartphones and tablets to include built-in, unremovable surveillance software.

The proposal appears under a section titled “Action to promote the well-being of children by combating child sexual abuse material (CSAM).”

We obtained a copy of the proposed amendments for you here.

The amendment text specifies that any “relevant device supplied for use in the UK must have installed tamper-proof system software which is highly effective at preventing the recording, transmitting (by any means, including livestreaming) and viewing of CSAM using that device.”

It further defines “relevant devices” as “smartphones or tablet computers which are either internet-connectable products or network-connectable products for the purposes of section 5 of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022.”

Under this clause, manufacturers, importers, and distributors would be legally required to ensure that every internet-connected phone or tablet they sell in the UK meets this “CSAM requirement.”

Enforcement would occur “as if the CSAM requirement was a security requirement for the purposes of Part 1 of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022.”

In practical terms, the only way for such software to “prevent the recording, transmitting (by any means, including livestreaming) and viewing of CSAM” would be for devices to continuously scan and analyze all photos, videos, and livestreams handled by the device.

That process would have to take place directly on users’ phones and tablets, examining both personal and encrypted material to determine whether any of it might be considered illegal content. Although the measure is presented as a child-safety protection, its operation would create a system of constant client-side scanning.

This means the software would inspect private communications, media, and files on personal devices without the user’s consent.

Such a mechanism would undermine end-to-end encryption and normalize pre-emptive surveillance built directly into consumer hardware.

The latest figures from German law enforcement offer a clear warning about the risks of expanding this type of surveillance: in 2024, nearly half of all CSAM scanning tips received by Germany were errors.

Keep reading

Privacy For The Powerful, Surveillance For The Rest: EU’s Proposed Tech Regulation Goes Too Far

Last month, we lamented California’s Frontier AI Act of 2025. The Act favors compliance over risk management, while shielding bureaucrats and lawmakers from responsibility. Mostly, it imposes top-down regulatory norms, instead of letting civil society and industry experts experiment and develop ethical standards from the bottom up.

Perhaps we could dismiss the Act as just another example of California’s interventionist penchant. But some American politicians and regulators are already calling for the Act to be a “template for harmonizing federal and state oversight.” The other source for that template would be the European Union (EU), so it’s worth keeping an eye on the regulations spewed out of Brussels.

The EU is already way ahead of California in imposing troubling, top-down regulation. Indeed, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act of 2024 follows the EU’s overall precautionary principle. As the EU Parliament’s internal think tank explains, “the precautionary principle enables decision-makers to adopt precautionary measures when scientific evidence about an environmental or human health hazard is uncertain and the stakes are high.” The precautionary principle gives immense power to the EU when it comes to regulating in the face of uncertainty — rather than allowing for experimentation with the guardrails of fines and tort law (as in the US). It stifles ethical learning and innovation. Because of the precautionary principle and associated regulation, the EU economy suffers from greater market concentration, higher regulatory compliance costs, and diminished innovation — compared to an environment that allows for experimentation and sensible risk management. It is small wonder that only four of the world’s top 50 tech companies are European.

From Stifled Innovation to Stifled Privacy

Along with the precautionary principle, the second driving force behind EU regulation is the advancement of rights — but cherry-picking from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights of rights that often conflict with others. For example, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2016 was imposed with the idea of protecting a fundamental right to personal data protection (this is technically separate from the right to privacy, and gives the EU much more power to intervene — but that is the stuff of academic journals). The GDPR ended up curtailing the right to economic freedom.

This time, fundamental rights are being deployed to justify the EU’s fight against child sexual abuse. We all love fundamental rights, and we all hate child abuse. But, over the years, fundamental rights have been deployed as a blunt and powerful weapon to expand the EU’s regulatory powers. The proposed Child Sex Abuse regulation (CSA) is no exception. What is exceptional, is the extent of the intrusion: the EU is proposing to monitor communications among European citizens, lumping them all together as potential threats rather than as protected speech that enjoys a prima facie right to privacy.

As of 26 November 2025, the EU bureaucratic machine has been negotiating the details of the CSA. In the latest draft, mandatory scanning of private communications has thankfully been removed, at least formally. But there is a catch. Providers of hosting and interpersonal communication services must identify, analyze, and assess how their services might be used for online child sexual abuse, and then take “all reasonable mitigation measures.” Faced with such an open-ended mandate and the threat of liability, many providers may conclude that the safest — and most legally prudent — way to show they have complied with the EU directive is to deploy large-scale scanning of private communications.

The draft CSA insists that mitigation measures should, where possible, be limited to specific parts of the service or specific groups of users. But the incentive structure points in one direction. Widespread monitoring may end up as the only viable option for regulatory compliance. What is presented as voluntary today risks becoming a de facto obligation tomorrow.

In the words of Peter Hummelgaard, the Danish Minister of Justice: “Every year, millions of files are shared that depict the sexual abuse of children. And behind every single image and video, there is a child who has been subjected to the most horrific and terrible abuse. This is completely unacceptable.” No one disputes the gravity or turpitude of the problem. And yet, under this narrative, the telecommunications industry and European citizens are expected to absorb dangerous risk-mitigation measures that are likely to involve lost privacy for citizens and widespread monitoring powers for the state.

The cost, we are told, is nothing compared to the benefit.

After all, who wouldn’t want to fight child sexual abuse? It’s high time to take a deep breath. Child abusers should be punished severely. This does not dispense a free society from respecting other core values.

But, wait. There’s more…

Keep reading

End Of An Era: Pro-Democracy Icon Jimmy Lai Found Guilty Of Sedition In Hong Kong

The high profile trial of Hong Kong’s foremost pro-democracy media tycoon has just wrapped up, and it puts a symbolic cap on the end of an era in terms of prior large scale anti-China activism in the city.

Jimmy Lai, who long spearheaded huge protests and local media criticism of Beijing, was found guilty on Monday in a landmark national security case, marking an end to the 156-dady trial. He could spend the rest of his life in prison based the series of sedition-related convictions.

Prosecutors accused him of conspiring with senior executives of the fiercely pro-democracy and independent Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily and others to request foreign forces to impose sanctions or blockades to thwart Beijing influence in Hong Kong. 

Further, he’s alleged to have engaged in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China, which hearkens back to prior years of long-running street protests which sometimes descended into violence and vandalism, or at times large student takeovers of entire university buildings.

China had long alleged a foreign intelligence ‘hidden hand’ behind the protests. This was in part due to student activists being in semi-regular communication with Western officials and NGOs, and sometimes even honored at events hosted in Europe or the US.

A panel of three government-approved judges convicted the 78-year-old, after Lai had consistently denied all charges. He was first detained in August 2020 under Hong Kong’s Beijing-imposed national security law.

The security law has been widely seen as the final nail in the coffin of Hong Kong’s long-running autonomy, and was a response to the major 2019 protests which were widely covered in international press reports.

Lai upon the verdict being read appeared upbeat, as he waved to supporters in the public gallery, which included his wife, son, and Hong Kong’s Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen.

Western leaders, including of the US and Britain, are expected to lobby for his freedom, especially given that this is being viewed as ultimately a crackdown on Western values in influence on one of the globe’s main financial hubs.

Sebastien Lai, one of his children, issued a statement on behalf of the family, saying they are saddened by the verdict, describing it as a twisting of justice. “In the 800-page verdict they have there is essentially nothing, nothing that incriminates him,” Lai told reporters in London. “This is a perfect example of how the national security law has been molded and weaponized against someone who essentially said stuff that they didn’t like.”

Keep reading