Tag: police state

How the Federal Government Buys Our Cell Phone Location Data

Over the past few years, data brokers and federal military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies have formed a vast, secretive partnership to surveil the movements of millions of people. Many of the mobile apps on our cell phones track our movements with great precision and frequency. Data brokers harvest our location data from the app developers, and then sell it to these agencies. Once in government hands, the data is used by the military to spy on people overseas, by ICE to monitor people in and around the U.S., and by criminal investigators like the FBI and Secret Service. This post will draw on recent research and reporting to explain how this surveillance partnership works, why is it alarming, and what can we do about it.

Where does the data come from?

Weather apps, navigation apps, coupon apps, and “family safety” apps often request location access in order to enable key features. But once an app has location access, it typically has free rein to share that access with just about anyone.

That’s where the location data broker industry comes in. Data brokers entice app developers with cash-for-data deals, often paying per user for direct access to their device. Developers can add bits of code called “software development kits,” or SDKs, from location brokers into their apps. Once installed, a broker’s SDK is able to gather data whenever the app itself has access to it: sometimes, that means access to location data whenever the app is open. In other cases, it means “background” access to data whenever the phone is on, even if the app is closed.

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Everything We Know About the 31 Patriot Front Members Arrested in a U-Haul

For years, many members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front have mostly managed to keep their identities under wraps. 

But now, the mask is off. Thirty-one members of the notoriously secretive, optics-obsessed group, including their leader, were arrested in Idaho over the weekend. And mugshots and names of all 31 arrestees were released by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office. 

The group was traveling in the back of a U-Haul on Saturday, apparently headed to downtown Coeur d’Alene where an annual LGBTQ Pride event (and a far-right counter-event) was underway, when they were intercepted by local law enforcement. 

Coeur d’Alene police said that a “concerned citizen” called the cops when they noticed a group who resembled “a little like an army” clambering into the back of a U-Haul with shields. 

Video footage showed police rolling up the rear door to reveal men packed like sardines into the back of the truck. All the men were in Patriot Front uniform—khakis, navy jackets, sunglasses, caps, gloves, and white balaclavas covering their faces. 

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Met Police Invokes “National Security” about Epstein Meeting with US Senators in the UK 

In connection with Whitney Webb’s upcoming book on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, One Nation Under Blackmail, Unlimited Hangout filed a Freedom of Information request asking UK law enforcement and the Ministry of Defence the identity of two sitting US senators who were present at Foxcote House in North Warwickshire, UK on September 1, 2002. UH contributor Johnny Vedmore had previously obtained information from eyewitnesses of that meeting that, not only were two US Senators present at that location that day, but that Metropolitan Police officers had supplied security for the meeting. The FOI request was filed to Metropolitan Police, the UK Ministry of Defence and North Warwickshire Police and only a response from the Metropolitan Police was received.

The motive for UH’s FOI request is as follows. It is known that Jeffrey Epstein, as attested to by Epstein’s flight logs, was present in this part of the UK during this same period (from August 31, 2002 to September 2, 2002) and eyewitnesses saw him attend this specific meeting at this location with two attractive and glamorously dressed women on each arm. One of these women was Nicole Junkermann, a former model and apparent intelligence asset as revealed in Vedmore’s previous investigative work. The other woman was described by eyewitnesses as a tall brunette. Per those eyewitness accounts, Epstein personally escorted the two women into the room where the two senators were waiting.

Notably the house where this meeting took place, Foxcote House, has been owned by the family of Leslie Wexner, specifically his wife Abigail Wexner, since 1999. Wexner’s role in financing much of Jeffrey Epstein’s activities, legal and illegal, is a major focus of Webb’s upcoming book and Wexner has encountered considerable difficulty in explaining away his relationship with Epstein, despite the largely servile posture of mainstream media in this regard.

Given the circumstances, it seems highly likely that this meeting was a high-profile instance of Jeffrey Epstein engaging in the sexual blackmail of sitting American politicians. However, due to the well-known scandal around Jeffrey Epstein, his name was not used in our FOI request in order to avoid potentially “spiking” the response.

Despite the omission of Epstein’s name, Metropolitan Police responded to the request stating that they can “neither confirm nor deny whether it holds” the requested information. Their response goes on to state that confirming or denying “whether any United States of America (USA) senators were afforded protection could undermine the safeguarding of national security.” It also notes that it blocked providing the requested information on four other grounds aside from “national security” (five in total), including “international relations”, “law enforcement”, “health and safety”, and “personal information.” It also states that providing the requested information could place “those who are afforded protection, protection officers and members of the public at risk.”

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Ex high-ranking Seattle cop who displayed Nazi insignia to get $1.5M from city

A suburban Seattle city will pay more than $1.5 million to settle a dispute with a former assistant police chief who was disciplined for posting a Nazi rank insignia on his office door and joking about the Holocaust.

Former Kent Assistant Police Chief Derek Kammerzell, who had been with the department for nearly three decades, was initially given two weeks of unpaid leave after the 2020 incident. Outraged residents and members of the Jewish community prompted Mayor Dana Ralph to put Kammerzell on paid administrative leave and demand his resignation.

The city’s attempt to essentially discipline Kammerzell a second time led to a dispute between his lawyers and the city that appeared headed for litigation. But interim city Chief Administrative Officer Arthur “Pat” Fiztpatrick, who is also the city attorney, said Friday the city had resolved the matter through negotiation, The Seattle Times reported.

Ralph, in calling for Kammerzell’s resignation in January, acknowledged that the decision to revisit the discipline issue would likely “come at a high cost.” The city said Friday it would pay him $1,520,000 to resign.

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Democratic Philly Mayor Wants To Arrest Man for Defending Himself During Mass Shooting

Democratic Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney, who during last year’s historic crime wave cut police funding, wants to throw a man in jail for defending himself during a mass shooting, even as the city’s far-left district attorney admits the man was acting in self-defense.

Prosecutors told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Gregory Jackson, 34, shot Micah Towns, 23, leading Towns to return fire and kill Jackson. In the melee that followed, a third man, Quran Garner, 18, pulled a gun and began firing into a nearby crowd. While police told the Inquirer that “the precise sequence of the confrontation was unclear” and that more gunmen might have been involved, the incident left 3 people dead and 12 wounded.

Kenney said during a virtual gun-violence briefing that “anybody who fired a gun that day should be locked up.” The mayor said Towns, who remains hospitalized in critical condition, is partially responsible for escalating the shooting because he didn’t walk away from the fight.

Kenney’s call to jail Towns comes as mainstream media sources claim that “a good guy with a gun” is “a myth” and “a deadly American fantasy.” Towns is far from the only armed individual to try to stop a mass shooting, however. Just weeks earlier, an armed off-duty Border Patrol agent helped evacuate Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, during the May 24 mass shooting at the school.

Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner (D.), a soft-on-crime prosecutor who has received more than a million dollars from liberal megadonor George Soros, blasted the mayor’s words, saying Towns was acting in self-defense.

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The FBI knew RussiaGate was a lie — but hid that truth

The FBI knew the Trump-Russia collusion narrative was utter bunk even as it suggested otherwise to Congress, the courts and the public early in 2017. Evidence revealed by special counsel John Durham proves it beyond dispute.

At RealClearInvestigations, Paul Sperry lays out the case.

Declassified for Durham’s probe, a March 2017 memo prepared by Lisa Page for FBI head James Comey’s meeting with Congress’ “Gang of Eight” — the bipartisan House and Senate leaders who oversee the most classified stuff — was a total cook-up job. 

It advised Comey to present accusations that Trump’s campaign chair Paul Manafort and foreign policy adviser Carter Page were working with the Russian government as coming from a confidential Russia-based source with real intel-community chops. In fact, the FBI had already established that the root source was US-based former Brookings flunky Igor Danchenko’s utterly speculative gossip with an ex-girlfriend and a Democratic Party hack.

That, plus publicly reported info, was all Christopher Steele (a retired British spy who doesn’t even speak Russian) ever had to back up his “dossier.” And the FBI knew it since at least January 2017, when it interviewed Danchenko.

Comey hid all this during his meetings, and after. Yet the public only learned it years later, once the Durham probe began.  

The Comey meeting where he served up these nonsense stories prompted both House and Senate Intelligence committees to open probes. But that was hardly the only poisoned fruit. 

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