Tag: police state

Pentagon’s Information Warfare Review Should Cover the Domestic Side, Too

The US Department of Defense has ordered “a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare,” the Washington Post reports. The apparent reason for the review is an August disclosure, by Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory, that Twitter and Facebook, of social media accounts opened under fake identities and used to feed disinformation to “audiences overseas.”

That’s all well and good, but while they’re at it I wish the Pentagon would also review — and cease — its information warfare campaigns against the American public.

Among supposed American constitutional values are separation of the military from politics, and its subservience to civilian government. While those values have always proven more noticeable in the breach than in the observance in wartime, the post-World-War-Two national security state has turned that breach into a well-funded, 24/7/365, campaign of political influence.

Senior military officials routinely attempt to affect policy (and politicians, and voter sentiment) with public statements designating the next Enemy of the Week and begging for more money and more operational authority to fight the wars it chooses rather than the wars Congress declares (the last time Congress was willing to take that kind of responsibility was  in 1942, when it added Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania to its list of World War Two opponents).

The Department of Defense maintains an “Entertainment Media Office” to support filmmakers with military resources. Needless to say, only productions which glorify the US armed forces need apply. The most recent prominent example (involving no fewer than two US Navy aircraft carriers, multiple aircraft and military pilots, etc.) is mega-hit Top Gun: Maverick.

In 2015, the public learned that the National Football League’s apparently heartfelt love of military pageantry —  color guards, tributes to veterans, even aircraft flyovers and parachute jumps — was actually just a bought and paid for (with millions of taxpayer dollars) DOD marketing scheme.

And yes, they’re constantly coming for our children. I was recruited into the US Marine Corps in high school myself in the 1980s, but even I was surprised at the sheer volume of mail my own kids received from armed forces recruiters from about the time they hit the age of 16 a few years ago. They’re all over the public schools, not just to fill their recruitment quotas but to make positive impressions on future voters.

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FBI Whistleblower Alleges Bureau Took Agents Off Child Sex Abuse Cases To Pursue Political Probes

The House Judiciary Committee Republicans released a letter this week that they sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray that featured claims from a whistleblower from the Bureau who claims that FBI agents were moved off child sex abuse cases to work on political investigations.

“We continue to hear from brave whistleblowers about disturbing conduct at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including politicization within the Washington Field Office (WFO),” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Ranking Member on the Committee, at the start of the letter. “On July 27, 2022, we wrote to you about protected whistleblower disclosures that FBI officials including an Assistant Special Agent in Charge from the WFO-were pressuring agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violent extremism’ (DVEs) even if the cases do not meet the criteria for such a classification.”

The letter stated that since then, the Committee has learned of new whistleblowers who allege that the Bureau is “deliberately manipulating the way case files related to January 6 investigations are maintained in order to create a false and misleading narrative that domestic violent extremism is increasing around the country.”

The letter goes on to state how the FBI allegedly overstates the domestic violent extremism threats in the U.S. and how the Bureau has allegedly “not followed regular procedure” with respect to January 6 cases.

“The manipulative casefile practice creates false and misleading crime statistics,” the whistleblower stated. “Instead of hundreds of investigations stemming from a single, black swan incident at the Capitol, FBI and DOJ officials point to significant increases in domestic violent extremism and terrorism around the United States.”

“In other words, the FBI’s case categorization creates the illusion that threats from DVE are present in jurisdictions across the nation, when in reality they all stem from the same related investigation concerning the actions at the Capitol on January 6,” Jordan’s letter stated. “Such an artificial case categorization scheme allows FBI leadership to misleadingly point to ‘significant’ increases in DVE threats nationwide. These allegations are consistent with disclosures we have received from other whistleblowers that high-ranking FBI officials–including a senior WFO official–are pressing front-line agents to categorize cases as DVE matters to fit a political narrative.”

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NTSB Calls for All New Vehicles to Be Fitted With ‘Alcohol Impairment Detection Systems’

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended that “alcohol impairment detection systems” be fitted into all new vehicles in the United States to prevent an intoxicated person from getting behind the wheel.

The recommendation comes following an investigation into a crash near Avenal, California on Jan. 1, 2021, that killed nine people, including seven children.

Investigators found that the driver of the vehicle lost control because of a “high level of alcohol impairment,” with NTSB noting that his blood alcohol concentration was more than double California’s limit of 0.08 grams per deciliter.

In a press release on Sept. 20, NTSB said that as a result of the investigation into that crash, the agency is recommending a string of new in-vehicle technologies that “can limit or prohibit impaired drivers from operating their vehicles” as well as technologies aimed at preventing drivers from speeding.

“Technology could’ve prevented this heartbreaking crash — just as it can prevent the tens of thousands of fatalities from impaired-driving and speeding-related crashes we see in the U.S. annually,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. “We need to implement the technologies we have right here, right now to save lives.”

Such technologies include “passive vehicle-integrated alcohol impairment detection systems,” as well as “advanced driver monitoring systems” or a combination of both that would prevent or limit vehicle operation if a driver is over the legal alcohol limit.

The NTSB, which has no regulatory authority and can only ask other agencies to act, is recommending that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) require all new vehicles to be equipped with such systems.

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Kentucky court suspends prosecutor who allegedly had sexual relationship with, received nude photos from defendant in exchange for legal favors

The supreme court of the commonwealth of Kentucky has temporarily suspended a prosecutor after it was discovered that he had repeatedly requested nude photos from a defendant in exchange for prosecutorial favors.

On Friday, the commonwealth supreme court issued its suspension of Ronnie Goldy, who has been the commonwealth’s attorney for Rowan, Bath, Menifee, and Montgomery Counties since 2013. According to investigations, Goldy has been caught requesting — and receiving — nude photos of incarcerated defendant Misty Helton of Salt Lick. The Courier Journal reported that since their meeting in 2015 or 2016, Goldy and Helton have exchanged 230 pages of messages on Facebook Messenger. During their conversations, Goldy repeatedly promised to do legal favors for Helton in return for the photos.

For example, after Helton sent him a series of nude photos of herself in May 2018, Goldy replied, “Wow Nice I do have most of those I think But they are very nice I’m sure you have some even better.” Then later that summer, Goldy told Helton that she “owed” him a video and that “It better be worth the wait.”

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California’s war on internet freedom

California appears to be waging war on internet freedom.

Last week, California governor Gavin Newsom signed off a new social-media transparency law that poses a serious threat to free speech. Known as AB 587, the law will force social-media companies to disclose their content-moderation policies, and submit detailed descriptions of their efforts to police speech in certain categories, including hate speech, extremism and harassment. Failure to demonstrate that they are regulating, editing and no doubt censoring what appears on their platforms could land social-media companies with big fines.

As noted by Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, the law will have draconian consequences. It effectively forces social-media companies to please the regulatory authorities now empowered to watch over them.

But that was not the only attack on online freedom launched by California lawmakers last week. Newsom also signed the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law. This is arguably an even more troubling move than AB 587.

The Age-Appropriate Design Code Act aims to protect children from harmful online content, by insisting that children’s interests are prioritised when businesses are designing and developing their online services. This law effectively insists that all internet users should be treated like children.

After all, the law will apply to any business ‘likely to be accessed by a child’, or unable to establish the age of its consumers ‘with a reasonable level of certainty’ – which goes for most businesses. Businesses will therefore have to assume that the child, defined by the act as any individual under 18, is the default user

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DHS to spend almost $700,000 of taxpayers’ cash on studying “extremism” in video gaming

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded researchers a $699,768 grant to investigate extremism in gaming.

As reported by VICE, the money will go to Logically, a company committed to the issue of “bad” online behavior, Middlebury Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC), and Take This, a nonprofit that specializes in mental health in video gaming.

“Over the past decade, video games have increasingly become focal points of social activity and identity creation for adolescents and young adults. Relationships made and fostered within game ecosystems routinely cross over into the real world and are impactful parts of local communities,” the grant announcement on the DHS website said. “Correspondingly, extremists have used video games and targeted video game communities for activities ranging from propaganda creation to terrorist mobilization and training.”

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Zelensky and NATO plan to transform post-war Ukraine into ‘a big Israel’

The NATO-backed Atlantic Council has proposed apartheid Israel as a blueprint for a hyper-militarized Ukraine. The paper was authored by Obama’s former ambassador to Tel Aviv, now an Israeli spy-tech consultant.

Just forty days after Russia’s military campaign began inside Ukraine, Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky told reporters that in the future, his country would be like “a big Israel.” The following day, one of Israel’s top promoters in the Democratic Party published an op-ed in NATO’s official think tank exploring how that could be executed.

Zelensky made his prediction while speaking to reporters on April 5, rejecting the idea that Kiev would remain neutral in future conflicts between NATO, the European Union, and Russia. According to Zelensky, his country would never be like Switzerland (which coincidentally abandoned its Napoleon-era tradition of nonalignment by sanctioning Russia in response to its February invasion). 

“We cannot talk about ‘Switzerland of the future,’” the president informed reporters. “But we will definitely become a ‘big Israel’ with its own face.”

For those wondering what a “big Israel” would actually look like, Zelensky quickly elaborated on his disturbing prophecy.

“We will not be surprised that we will have representatives of the Armed Forces or the National Guard in all institutions, supermarkets, cinemas — there will be people with weapons,” Ukraine’s president said, predicting a bleak existence for his citizens. “I am sure that our security issue will be number one in the next ten years.”

Though the web post was based on comments Zelensky made to reporters, the president’s office mysteriously excised a section of his remarks in which he declared a future Ukraine would not be “absolutely liberal, European.” Instead, along with his vision for a heavily militarized Ukraine, the post emphasized Zelensky’s readiness to join NATO “already tomorrow.”

For NATO’s power brokers, however, Zelensky’s intimated willingness to join the military alliance was perhaps the least remarkable aspect of his statement. Instead, within 48 hours of his comments, the Atlantic Council – NATO’s semi-official think tank in Washington – published a “road map” exploring how to transform Ukraine into “a big Israel.” 

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