Amish organic farmer faces hefty fine, jail time for producing CLEAN MEAT

An Amish organic farmer is facing a hefty fine and a prison term for the simple crime of producing clean meat.

Amos Miller runs a holistically managed farm in Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, where he breeds cows, chickens and pigs. The animals in his century-old farm are bred without the use of chemicals and medications mandated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). According to Miller, he raises his animals in the way he believes God intended them to be raised – in accordance with nature.

However, a federal judge ordered the Amish farmer to cease and desist all sales of his organic meat. This same magistrate also ordered Miller to pay $250,000 for “contempt of court” last summer. He added that the farmer needs to pay an initial $50,000 as a “good faith” payment to avoid jail.

To make matters worse, armed U.S. marshals raided his property, farm store and freezers at the behest of the federal judge. They took an inventory of all his meat to ensure he will no longer be able to sell or slaughter any more animals. (Related: Small town business owner spent 7 years building up organic meat company, only to be shut down by village board.)

Miller, who runs a private members-only food distribution network, alleged that the federal government is prosecuting him for practicing his religious freedom in the way he raises and prepares food. “Our members don’t want any of that. They want fresh, raw meat with no additives. Our members want it straight from the farm with no preservatives on it.”

The members of Miller’s private food club agree, saying they do not like their grass-fed meat laced with chemical preservatives mandated by the USDA. Numbering around 400, they have also signed contracts that state their awareness of the meat not being processed in USDA-inspected plants or treated with preservatives.

Keep reading

Americans warned: Police now authorized to track you via cell phone

Police across America now can track citizens through their cell phones – without a warrant – despite the Fourth Amendment’s ban on warrantless searches, according to a team of civil-rights lawyers at the Rutherford Institute.

That’s the result of the U.S. Supreme Court deciding not to intervene in a lower court decision that authorized exactly that.

The institute had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case Hammond v. U.S. that challenged the tracking of people through their cell phones as unconstitutional.

That tracking can tell police a person’s location with great precision, “whether that person is at home, at the library, a political event, a doctor’s office, etc.,” the organization reported.

“Americans are being swept up into a massive digital data dragnet that does not distinguish between those who are innocent of wrongdoing, suspects, or criminals. Cell phones have become de facto snitches, offering up a steady stream of digital location data on users’ movements and travels,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.

“Added to that, police are tracking people’s movements by way of license plate toll readers; scouring social media posts; triangulating data from cellphone towers and WiFi signals; layering facial recognition software on top of that; and then cross-referencing footage with public social media posts, all in an effort to identify, track and eventually round us up. This is what it means to live in a suspect society,” he said.

Keep reading

Tulsi Gabbard Points Out What the US Now Has in Common with Dictatorships

Those on the right aren’t the only ones criticizing the Biden administration’s new Disinformation Governance Board. Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard pointed out on Fox News’s “Hannity” that such an apparatus is a hallmark of dictatorships around the world.  

“This is the kind of thing that you see in dictatorships, this ministry of truth, this department of propaganda that the Biden administration has just stood up. And the reason why you see this in dictatorships is because they are afraid of us—they are afraid of the people,” she explained. “They are afraid that we might actually think for ourselves.”

The Hawaii Democrat said the DGB will carry out two functions. 

“No. 1, they will use taxpayer dollars to work through the mainstream media and flood the airwaves with whatever their propaganda narrative is that they are pushing at any given time and try to drown out anyone with alternate views,” she said. “And No. 2, they will silence dissenting voices through intimidation.”

The tactics are not new, Gabbard explained. 

Keep reading

YouTube to shift video flagging powers towards NGOs and Government Agencies

Starting in May, YouTube will not allow individuals in its controversial Trusted Flagger program, instead focusing “exclusively on key partnerships with a variety of NGOs and Government Agencies.”

The Trusted Flagger program began in 2012 as a communal volunteer effort to remove content that violates YouTube’s policies. It worked with NGO and government agencies as well as hand-picked individuals that were never publicly disclosed.

Those participating in the program have access to a variety of tools not available to ordinary users. For instance, they can flag multiple videos simultaneously, their reports are prioritized, and they get to understand how YouTube makes content removal decisions.

Last year, Tubefilter reported that individual flaggers had begun noticing a decline in their experience within the Trusted Flaggers program. Additionally, those who reached Google’s global director of information policy, government affairs, and public policy Derek Slater were reportedly told that the program would no longer be available to individuals.

Keep reading