Tag: police state

NYC Mayor Eric Adams: “Big Brother is protecting you”

In New York City, political rather than professional considerations seem to be dictating the way the police will proceed in fighting crime, including the degree to which this will include the use of invasive technology.

And Mayor Eric Adams must not have read the book, because, in dystopian form, he has just declared that “Big Brother” is actually the good guy.

Namely, reports suggest the mayor, now a year in office, is well aware of how the city has spiraled into crime – there’s been a whopping increase of 23.5 percent during the past year alone.

This “lawlessness” allegedly came as a consequence of the pandemic measures that among other things exacerbated the problem of homelessness, anti-police protests, and the erosion in morale among the force.

Now Adams, a Democrat, wants to please both his “moderate” supporters by dealing with crime, and the “progressives on the left” who oppose most anything that might resemble backing the police, by doubling down on methods as controversial as facial recognition and surveillance cameras.

The mayor appears to be one of those who believe that law enforcement suddenly has no means to fight crime, even though it has done it before this technology became available. And so the focus of his tenure going forward will be in employing “techniques to more accurately identify common criminal patterns and develop profiles of perpetrators,” Politico sums up the tactic Adams prefers.

While at it, Adams would also like to give “Big Brother” – a symbol of ruthless authoritarian state surveillance – an image makeover.

With this in mind, he accused his fellow politicians of being afraid to “embrace technology” and of instead considering technology-driven surveillance “a boogeyman” – that many will agree it is.

Not Adams.

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The FBI flagged tweets on Ukraine and vaccines

The latest Twitter Files revelations have shed light on the US government’s “constant contact” with the platform, showing the push for censorship of accounts that were critical of aspects of war in Ukraine or the Covid-19 vaccine.

The latest release suggests Twitter executives struggled against government claims of foreign interference supposedly occurring on their platform.

“The #TwitterFiles show execs under constant pressure to validate theories of foreign influence – and unable to find evidence for key assertions,” journalist Matt Taibbi wrote in the latest revelations.

“‘Found no links to Russia,’ says one analyst, but suggests he could ‘brainstorm’ to ‘find a stronger connection.’”

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Disinformation, Censorship, And Information Warfare In The 21st Century

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”– Sun Tzu, the Art of War

In recent years, prominent national security officials and media outlets have raised alarm about the unprecedented effects of foreign disinformation in democratic countries. In practice, what they mean is that democratic governments have fallen behind in their command of the methods of information warfare in the early 21st century. As outlined herein, while information warfare is a real and serious issue facing democratic governments in the 21st century, the war on disinformation, as currently practiced, has backfired spectacularly and done far more harm than good, as evidenced most clearly by the response to COVID-19.

We begin with the definitions and history of a few key terms: Censorship, free speech, misinformation, disinformation, and bots.

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The Big List of former federal agents now working for Big Tech

For those who think Big Tech has been a little more Big Brotherish lately, there’s a reason.

The concern has been raised because Big Tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook have in recent years openly censored messaging that conflicts with Democrat ideology.

They even shut down the channel for the voice of a sitting president of the United States, Donald Trump, because his opinion about the 2020 election disagreed with theirs.

Of course, the corporations called the speech they censored “misinformation,” but the American public now understands that accusation itself was misinformation.

But the real reason Silicon Valley sometimes is sounding like the FBI headquarters is that Big Tech companies are literally “riddled” with former CIA agents, former FBI staffers, and more.

“So many ex-FBI work at Twitter they have Slack channel and Google is rife with ex-CIA,” a new report says.

The Daily Mail has assembled a list of those who left spy operations for the government and now are in Big Tech, and it runs on for pages. And pages.

The revelation about the large number of former FBI, CIA, NSC and State Department operatives now working for Big Tech “comes amid fears the FBI operated control over Twitter censorship and the Hunter Biden laptop story,” the report said.

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Cops raid hospital room of terminally-ill Kansas man, 69, with just weeks left to live to seize THC paste and weed vape he uses to ease cancer pain – then order him to appear in court even though he can’t move

A terminally-ill Kansas man’s hospital room was raided by cops because he used a weed vape and THC paste to ease the symptoms of the cancer that will kill him within weeks.

Greg Bretz, 69, was targeted by police in Hays Medical Center on December 23. He was after officers found marijuana products within his room, and ordered to appear in court on January 2 – despite being so sick he cannot get out of bed or even move. 

Kansas is one of only three US states where medical marijuana is still illegal. Bretz told the Kansas City Star his doctor had told him to use whatever was necessary to relieve his pain, including products containing THC – the active ingredient in cannabis. 

But another member of staff is believed to have snitched on Bretz and sparked the subsequent raid.  

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Camila Giorgi among the suspects for fake vaccinations

Camila Giorgi would be among the suspects in the investigation opened by the Vicenza prosecutor’s office, in Italy, for false anti-Covid-19 vaccinations. According to what emerged and reported by Italian media, Camila would have only pretended to have been vaccinated against Covid-19, with the intention of obtaining the green pass in any case and not having travel restrictions, as well as regularly participating in the tournaments of the WTA Tour that expressly required the administration.

The news was launched in these hours and has inevitably attracted the attention of the world of sport and music. We now await insights and updates on the matter, which confirm or deny the latest news. It all started last February, when the Vicenza prosecutor’s office conducted an investigation that led to the arrest of three doctors, all accused of various crimes such as corruption for acts contrary to official duties, ideological falsehood committed by the public official in public deeds and embezzlement.

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Governments are Still Free to Use the Pegasus Software Without Human Rights Safeguards in Place

In September 2022, Szabolcs Panyi, a Hungarian investigative journalist with Direkt36, published a story on how the Pegasus software was brought to Hungary. The report demonstrates how easily governments can exploit surveillance technologies without human rights safeguards in place.

Panyi — also a target of Pegasus — explained the circumstances under which Pegasus was brought to Hungary and the National Security Service’s (NSS) role in the transaction. Direkt36 revealed in 2021 that journalists and politicians in Hungary could have been tapped with the tool.

According to Direkt36, the National Security Service commissioned Communication Technologies Ltd. in 2017 to acquire the spy software developed by the Israeli company NSO Group. According to sources familiar with the circumstances of the transaction, the spyware was purchased for HUF 3 billion (approx. EUR 7.45 million). The investigation found that the whole transaction remained secret because, in October 2017, Parliament’s National Security Committee voted unanimously and without question to exempt the purchase of the spy software from public procurement.

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New ‘Twitter Files’ Release on Christmas Eve Exposes FBI Denials About Political Censorship Operation

Despite the FBI’s denials that evidence that the nation’s premier law enforcement agency colluded with Big Tech platform Twitter to unconstitutionally censor Americans’ political speech, a brand-new Twitter Files dump shows that the FBI did just that.

The latest Twitter Files revelations starts off with independent journalist Matt Taibbi discussing the FBI’s response to the first batches of Twitter disclosures.

“It didn’t refute allegations. Instead, it decried ‘conspiracy theorists’ publishing ‘misinformation,’ whose ‘sole aim’ is to ‘discredit the agency,’” Taibbi wrote, referencing the way the FBI dismissed censorship allegations as a conspiracy theory.

The Christmas Eve revelations suggested that the FBI acted as a “doorman to the vast program of social media surveillance and censorship.” Taibbi says more government agencies were involved – from the “State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”

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You’d Better Watch Out: The Surveillance State Is Making a List, And You’re On It

You’d better watch out—you’d better not pout—you’d better not cry—‘cos I’m telling you why: this Christmas, it’s the Surveillance State that’s making a list and checking it twice, and it won’t matter whether you’ve been bad or good.

You’ll be on this list whether you like it or not.

Mass surveillance is the Deep State’s version of a “gift” that keeps on giving…back to the Deep State.

Geofencing dragnets. Fusion centers. Smart devices. Behavioral threat assessments. Terror watch lists. Facial recognition. Snitch tip lines. Biometric scanners. Pre-crime. DNA databases. Data mining. Precognitive technology. Contact tracing apps.

What these add up to is a world in which, on any given day, the average person is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother.

Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by a vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops.

This creepy new era of government/corporate spying—in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted—has been made possible by a global army of techno-tyrants, fusion centers and Peeping Toms.

Consider just a small sampling of the tools being used to track our movements, monitor our spending, and sniff out all the ways in which our thoughts, actions and social circles might land us on the government’s naughty list, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong.

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