Tag: police state

Government Agency Admits That They’ve Copied Phone Data at Massive Scale – 4th Amendment Violations?

A massive database has been growing at Customs and Border Protection as CBP officers extract data from electronic devices.

A report in The Washington Post last week said that during a summer briefing, CBP leaders told congressional staff that information from about 10,000 people a year is added to the database.

CBP officials said the data is kept on file for 15 years.

CBP agents routinely inspect phones, laptops, tablets, and other electronic devices when travelers enter the country — including those of American citizens, the Post reported.

In a letter to CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said CBP is wrong for “allowing indiscriminate rifling through Americans’ private records.”

“Innocent Americans should not be tricked into unlocking their phones and laptops,” Wyden wrote.

“CBP should not dump data obtained through thousands of warrantless phone searches into a central database, retain the data for fifteen years, and allow thousands of DHS employees to search through Americans’ personal data whenever they want,” he wrote.

Wyden noted in the letter that CBP personnel searching the stored records don’t have to provide any reason for the search.

In a statement to the Post, CBP spokesman Lawrence Payne said CBP conducts “border searches of electronic devices in accordance with statutory and regulatory authorities” and has imposed rules to ensure the searches are “exercised judiciously, responsibly, and consistent with the public trust.”

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10 Ways in Which Our Rights Have Been Usurped

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” — Abraham Lincoln

It’s easy to become discouraged about the state of our nation.

We’re drowning under the weight of too much debt, too many wars, too much power in the hands of a centralized government, too many militarized police, too many laws, too many lobbyists, and generally too much bad news.

It’s harder to believe that change is possible, that the system can be reformed, that politicians can be principled, that courts can be just, that good can overcome evil, and that freedom will prevail.

So where does that leave us?

Benjamin Franklin provided the answer. As the delegates to the Constitutional Convention trudged out of Independence Hall on September 17, 1787, an anxious woman in the crowd waiting at the entrance inquired of Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic,” Franklin replied, “if you can keep it.”

What Franklin meant, of course, is that when all is said and done, we get the government we deserve.

Those who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the government exists at the behest of its citizens. It is there to protect, defend and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them.

Unfortunately, although the Bill of Rights was adopted as a means of protecting the people against government tyranny, in America today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

“We the people” have been terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance by a government that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.

The bogeyman’s names and faces have changed over time (terrorism, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, a viral pandemic, and more to come), but the end result remains the same: in the so-called name of national security, the Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded with the support of Congress, the White House, and the courts.

A recitation of the Bill of Rights—set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and the like (all sanctioned by Congress, the White House, and the courts)—would understandably sound more like a eulogy to freedoms lost than an affirmation of rights we truly possess.

What we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Sadly, most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights.

Here is what it means to live under the Constitution, twenty-plus years after 9/11 and with the nation just emerging from two years of COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates.

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President Trump Calls for Death Penalty for Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers During Ohio Rally

On Saturday night, President Trump gave a speech at a Save America rally held in Youngstown, Ohio. He was there to campaign for U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance. Additional speakers include Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Bill Johnson (R-OH) and congressional candidates Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, J.R. Majewski and Max Miller.

Trump’s Save America Super PAC said in a statement that the rally continues an “unprecedented effort to advance the MAGA agenda by energizing voters and highlighting America First candidates and causes.”

At the rally, President Trump advocated for the death sentence for drug dealers and human traffickers, which will reduce drug distribution and crime in our country.

“Congratulations Democrats! What a rotten job you’re doing! You’re destroying our country,” said Trump.

According to President Trump, “carjackings in the city are up 57%. Much of the crime wave is caused by drug dealers who, during the course of their lives, will kill an average of 500 American citizens.”

“It’s an invasion of crime. And remember, much of the crime that we talk about is caused by drugs,” he added.

According to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), trafficking of illegal drugs and human trafficking often happen together.

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CNBC Anchor Proud of Orwellian Nightmare He Created for Gun Owners

As part of his appearance on NBC’s Today show on Friday, CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin bragged that his Orwellian idea to monitor gun owners through their credit card purchases at gun stores was becoming a reality.

Leading into the segment, NBC anchor Craig Melvin touted how “major credit card companies are going to start using a new code to keep track of sales at gun stores” by using what are called “merchant category codes, or MCCs.” Although, he did note that, “when it comes to firearms, critics fear a loss of privacy.”

It wasn’t until the very end of the segment that Sorkin admitted that he was an early proponent of this Orwellian scheme to track those who purchased stuff at gun stores:

And I should say in full disclosure, I wrote columns about this in 2018 after Parkland. I started – as a business correspondent – to thinking about the connection between business and Wall Street and these shootings and how to prevent them. And this was one of the ideas that I present inside a column then, that now, four years later, is being implemented.

Sorkin’s main argument for tracking law-abiding gun owners is some vague “pattern” that banks would be looking out for to spot potential mass shooters.

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Hong Kong man jailed for “sedition” for criticizing government online

53-year-old Raymond Chen has been sentenced for four months for violating Hong Kong’s “sedition” law. He had shared 23 posts online, criticizing Beijing and the Hong Kong government. Some of the posts called for the independence of Hong Kong.

Chen pleaded guilty to sharing posts criticizing the government. He shared the posts on his Telegram Channel between July 2020 and June 2022.

The Telegram Channel, called “HK’s upcoming War of Independence,” had over 500 users. Some of the posts had the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.” The slogan was the used for the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

Other posts claimed that the police and MTR Corporation were working with the triads. Others had images of a national emblem that had been desecrated. And other posts blamed the government for the Covid-19 pandemic and sparking the anti-government protests in 2019.

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