Aldous Huxley on perpetual war…
Tag: police state
Israel expanded an apartheid law last week. No one is talking about it.
There has been a lot of noise from the Israeli protests concerning the judicial overhaul. The recent central law that was passed last week reduced the supreme court’s ability to overturn government policy, the so-called “reasonableness law.” But another law also passed just a day later — an amendment to a core apartheid law known as the “Village Committees Law” of 2010, more officially named the Cooperative Societies Ordinance. It passed without opposition, and was hardly noticed.
Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, explained how “these committees, which to date exist in the Galilee and in the Naqab (Negev), have the power to approve or to deny applicants who wish to reside there, based on their perceived ‘social suitability’ to the ‘social and cultural fabric’ of a community. In practice, this power has led to the exclusion of Palestinian citizens of Israel from these communities, which are built on state-controlled land.”
The amendment that was passed (nr. 12) expands the existing law, which was limited to towns of up to 400 households, by introducing a new category called a “Continued Communal Town,” which allows towns with up to 700 households to have such admission committees. “Furthermore,” Adalah notes, “in five years, the Minister of Economy and Industry will be authorized to permit admissions committees in towns with more than 700. This provision, de facto, cancels the restriction on the number of households specified in the law.”
Texas man found ‘not guilty’ after being ticketed for feeding homeless
A Texas man was found not guilty after he was ticketed for feeding homeless people in Houston.
According to Fox 26, Phillip Picone opted to go to trial after being ticketed while volunteering for Food Not Bombs, a group that has been feeding homeless people near the public library in Downtown Houston for 20 years.
The city had outlawed setting up feeding stations, initially citing public health and safety concerns after violent incidents near the library. It asked that charities moved their services to the old Houston Police Headquarters.
The jury unanimously found Picone “not guilty.”
Picone received his ticket on March 3 and is the first of dozens of volunteers to go to trial. Attorney Paul Kubosh represents him and 37 other volunteers.
“What I’m hoping for is vindication,” Kubosh told Fox 26 before the hearing. “I’m hoping for not guilty. If you’re trying to affect the lives of homeless and trying to make their situation better, you don’t do that by attacking the Samaritan. This law is not about the homeless. It’s about the Samaritan.”
The city of Houston defended the charges in a statement.
“The City of Houston intends to vigorously pursue violations of its ordinance relating to feeding of the homeless,” city attorney Arturo Michel said. “It is a health and safety issue for the protection of Houston’s residents. There have been complaints and incidents regarding the congregation of the homeless around the library, even during off hours.”
FBI Made ‘Inappropriate Use’ of Foreign Surveillance Program To Spy on Americans
A White House advisory board has recommended that Congress place new restrictions on the FBI’s access to a foreign surveillance tool to prevent the bureau from using it to spy on Americans’ electronic communications.
That surveillance program—authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—was intended to track foreign spies and potential terrorists but has predictably morphed into a way for law enforcement agencies to get a warrantless peek at Americans’ phone records, emails, and other electronic communications. In the report published Monday, the White House’s Intelligence Advisory Board said the FBI’s use of the databases created by Section 702 should be limited to investigations dealing with foreign intelligence—the same standard that is used at the other intelligence agencies with access to that data.
“FBI’s use of Section 702 should be limited to foreign intelligence purposes only and FBI personnel should receive additional training on what foreign intelligence entails,” the report recommends. The report says the FBI has made “inappropriate use of Section 702 authorities, specifically U.S. person queries.”
While the full scope of Section 702 data collection remains unknown, there’s no doubt about the FBI’s aggressive use of the database. In 2021, for example, the FBI ran more than 3.3 million queries through the Section 702 database, according to a government transparency report. Separately, a 2021 report from the secret federal court responsible for adjudicating FISA-related matters documented 40 instances in which the FBI accessed surveillance data as part of investigations into a host of purely domestic crimes, including health care fraud and public corruption.
Say Goodbye to Permissionless Travel
Once upon a time, citizens of the United States could travel to almost every country in the European Union for 90 days without asking any government for permission beyond showing a passport at the initial point of entry. It was—and still is, for a few waning months—a marvelous if underacknowledged achievement for liberty.
Alas, the days of frictionless travel will soon be a memory. Starting at a so-far-unspecified date in early 2024, Americans and residents of 62 other countries that currently enjoy visa-free visitation to the Schengen Area of the E.U. will need to pay a fee and submit an online application (including biometric information, work experience, medical conditions, and initial itinerary), then pass a criminal/security background check, before enjoying that croissant in gay Paree. The grimly named European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) is projected to cost 7 euros per application and take up to 14 days to render a decision.
Before you start shaking your fist at freedom-hating Eurocrats, know that ETIAS is the belated continental answer to a system the U.S. has imposed on residents of friendly countries since 2009, called the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA. Like ETIAS, ESTA is a response to 21st-century terrorist attacks and combines modest fees ($21) with less-than-instantaneous turnaround times (a promised 72 hours). Both either tweak or torpedo (depending on your point of view) the notion of reciprocal “visa waiver” travel between high-trust countries.
U.S. passports have long been given the red carpet treatment worldwide, due to the country’s economic heft and traditional leadership role in negotiating down international barriers to the movement of people (and goods). That latter ethic began to deteriorate after the Cold War, with the rise of bipartisan anti-illegal immigration politics in the early 1990s, and then in earnest after Saudi nationals pulverized the World Trade Center with highjacked planes on September 11, 2001.
New Files Show Biden Admin Forced Facebook To Censor “True Information” On Vaccine Side Effects
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan released a second batch of files Friday showing that the Biden administration was forcing Facebook to censor content relating to COVID vaccines, including what employees there described as “true information”.
Jordan noted that Facebook knew it was removing “humorous or satirical content that suggests the vaccine isn’t safe,” as well as “true information about the side effects.”
Jordan also noted that Facebook employees were annoyed at being made to take down content they knew was accurate, describing the administration’s definition of misinformation as “completely unclear” and noting that the White House was using “untested assumptions” to demand censorship.
“It also just seems like when the vaccination campaign isn’t going as hoped, it’s convenient for them to blame us,” one employee noted.
Another agreed, responding “This seems like a political battle that’s not fully grounded in facts, and it’s frustrating.”
The Government Wants to Turn Blockchain Firms into Servants of the State
In recent years, blockchain surveillance (BS) companies have become increasingly important players in the cryptocurrency industry. Their business model consists in developing proprietary software that collects and interprets public data available on public blockchains and in selling their services to governments, banks, exchanges, and others that need access to this data. Usually, governments are interested in collecting information about financial crimes, while other institutional players use BS companies for compliance, especially with regard to customer due diligence. This article argues that BS companies can be understood as governmentalities.
Michael Rectenwald deploys this term to “refer to corporations and other non-state actors who actively undertake state functions.” The partnership between the state and BS companies threatens cryptocurrency users’ privacy and their ability to transact freely, away from the prying eyes of unwanted third parties.
The CBDCs Are Coming, And The Elite Plan To Use These “Digital Currencies” To Enslave Humanity
Central bank digital currencies are feverishly being developed all over the globe, and this is something that should deeply alarm all of us.
For a moment, I would like for you to imagine a world where the government instantly knows whenever you buy or sell something. No transaction would ever be truly private, not even your most personal or embarrassing ones. In addition, your money would not be truly your own under such a system. Your access to the digital currency system would be a privilege which could potentially be suspended or revoked with the click of a mouse. All of a sudden you would not be able to buy or sell anything and you would become an outcast from society. Under no circumstances should any government ever be given such power.
Unfortunately, the CBDCs are coming, and they are going to radically change how commerce gets done.
Here in the United States, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has posted a job listing for a “Senior Crypto Architect” to work on the development of a digital dollar.
U.S. Representative Warren Davidson is very upset about this, because he believes that a CBDC issued by the Federal Reserve would be the “financial equivalent of the Death Star”…
The job description specified that the Federal Reserve seeks a technologist to “perform central bank digital currency (CBDC) research and development.”
The expert will work to “ensure the Federal Reserve is well-positioned to design, develop, and implement technology to support a CBDC as may be required by the Board of Governors.”
Although the job listing shows that the Federal Reserve is only working on CBDC research, Rep Davidson believes it is a sign of what is to come and described it as the “financial equivalent of the Death Star.”
Davidson added that CBDC would turn money into a tool of coercion and control.
Sadly, he is right on target.
Once “digital dollars” issued by the Federal Reserve become the dominant form of currency in our nation, whoever has power over that system would truly have an unprecedented “tool of coercion and control”.
So we must not allow this to happen.
Sadly, CBDCs are now in development all around the world.
Missouri Marijuana Businesses Could Lose Licenses Over Violations At Events They Organize Under New Rules
As Missouri went to celebrate the first 4/20 after the state legalized recreational marijuana, a licensed cannabis business in Kansas City organized a huge festival.
For the first time, people were able to smoke pot openly at a large public event in Missouri, with approval under local government rules.
“It was the first of its kind,” said Amy Moore, director of the state’s cannabis regulation, during a legislative committee hearing in May.
Organizers did an “excellent job” of trying to adhere to state regulations, Moore said, but other events haven’t gone as well. Regulators at the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services have had trouble holding medical-marijuana businesses accountable for things that went against their rules.
“If a licensee chooses to organize or offer an event to the public, they should be responsible for what happens,” Moore said of businesses that landed state licenses to grow or sell marijuana.
So when the new cannabis regulations go into effect on Sunday, officials will have that power to hit marijuana facilities with fines, suspend their operations or even revoke their licenses if they host events where unlawful activity occurs.
“There would be a call to make on whether whatever happened…was really due to the way they organize their event and the format that they provided for the behavior at issue,” she told legislators in May.
A SWAT Team Destroyed an Innocent Man’s Shop. Then the City Left Him With the Bill.
It took Carlos Pena decades to build his local business after immigrating to North Hollywood, California, from El Salvador. It only took a few hours to destroy it.
While Pena is the one who created NoHo Printing & Graphics, where he fashioned commercial signs and banners, T-shirts, headshots, and other products, he is not the one who did the damage, despite the fact that he has been left with the bill and without a livelihood.
In early August of last year, after a fugitive violently thrust Pena from his shop and barricaded himself inside, a SWAT team from the City of Los Angeles fired more than 30 rounds of tear gas canisters over the course of 13 hours. When the government entered the building, the officers found their target had escaped. Left inside was a shop that was a shell of itself, with Pena’s inventory ruined and the bulk of his equipment unusable.
Pena didn’t fault the city for attempting to subdue an allegedly dangerous person. But he objected to what came next: The government refused his requests for compensation, strapping him with expenses that exceed $60,000 and a situation that has cost him tens of thousands of dollars in revenue, as he has been resigned to working at a much-reduced capacity out of his garage, according to a lawsuit he filed this month in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
“Apprehending a dangerous fugitive is in the public interest,” the suit notes. “The cost of apprehending such fugitives should be borne by the public, and not by an unlucky and entirely innocent property owner.”
Pena is not the first such property owner to see his life destroyed and be left picking up the pieces. Insurance policies often have disclaimers that they do not cover damage caused by the government. But governments sometimes refuse to pay for such repairs, buttressed by jurisprudence from various federal courts which have ruled that actions taken under “police powers” are not subject to the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
That’s what happened to the Lech family in Greenwood Village, Colorado, after cops destroyed their residence while in pursuit of a suspected shoplifter, unrelated to the family, who forced himself inside their house. The $580,000 home was rendered unlivable and had to be demolished; the government gave them a cool $5,000.
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