Tag: police state

The FBI’s FOIA Blacklist

The Freedom of Information Act was designed to empower citizens to hold their government accountable. But evidence suggests the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has quietly adopted a practice that turns that principle on its head: labeling some of the people who file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as “vexsome.”

In effect, the agency has created a FOIA-specific blacklist. Yet when asked, it denies having done so.

The FBI has maintained what it calls a list of “vexsome” FOIA filers for years. The label itself is odd — the proper term would be “vexatious” — but the implication is clear enough. Certain individuals and organizations who file frequent records requests are flagged internally as troublesome.

That practice is deeply at odds with the very text of the Freedom of Information Act. FOIA exists because the late Representative John Moss (D-CA) spent 10 years encountering delays, evasions, and outright refusals by federal agencies and departments to give him information he needed for oversight purposes. Moss understood that many citizens and watchdog groups asked the same kind of persistent questions of executive branch officials as he did, but they lacked a statutory basis to force such information disclosures. It’s why Moss worked so hard to get FOIA into law. Investigative journalists, transparency organizations and researchers often file dozens — sometimes hundreds — of requests in pursuit of public records. The law anticipates and protects that behavior.

There is nothing in the FOIA statute authorizing federal agencies to maintain lists of “vexatious” requesters or to single out particular citizens for special scrutiny because they use the law frequently. The statute’s presumption is exactly the opposite: that access to government records belongs to the public, and that agencies must justify withholding them.

Yet internal records obtained through FOIA requests by transparency researcher John Greenewald, who runs the document archive The Black Vault, show that the FBI has indeed categorized certain requesters in this way.

The Cato Institute learned this firsthand when the FBI labeled it a “vexsome” FOIA requester during the previous administration. More recently, when I filed a FOIA request seeking records explaining how the FBI defines or uses that designation, the Bureau responded that it could find no records responsive to the request — even though records labeling individuals or groups as “vexsome” were previously available to Greenewald.

The FBI cannot both maintain a category of “vexatious” requesters and simultaneously claim no records exist describing how that category is used. That’s why Cato has filed a new FOIA lawsuit to force the FBI to produce the records at issue.

The deeper problem is what such labeling represents. FOIA was enacted in 1966 to prevent federal agencies from deciding which members of the public deserve access to government information. Congress deliberately structured the law so that requests are judged by their legal merits — not by who submits them or how often they do so. Indeed, the statute has been updated multiple times over the past 60 years in response to agency or department tactics designed to evade the statutes’ very purpose.

Once agencies begin categorizing requesters as nuisances or troublemakers, they create a de facto enemies list composed of the very taxpayers and citizens they are sworn to serve. A system meant to promote transparency risks becoming one in which the government quietly tracks and stigmatizes those who seek to hold it accountable for its conduct — or misconduct.

Agency and department heads routinely claim that FOIA is administratively burdensome — yet they never ask Congress for line-item appropriations to ensure processing is quick and efficient. Agencies process hundreds of thousands of requests each year — and in tens of thousands of cases invoke one or more of FOIA’s nine exemptions to keep information secret that in most cases should never have been withheld in the first place. Those tactics alone force requesters to retain lawyers capable of litigating through the delays, obfuscations, and denials. The FBI’s “vexsome FOIA filer” program takes this bureaucratic game to a whole new level.

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UK’s New Pandemic Plan Would Turn Big Tech Into a Mass Location Tracking Network

Britain’s new £1 billion ($1.3m) pandemic strategy treats a future outbreak as a “certainty” and proposes building a contact tracing system that would feed on real-time location data harvested with the help of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies.

The plan, published by the Department of Health and Social Care, also calls for PPE stockpiles, new emergency legislation, and a biosecurity research hub in Essex.

But the centerpiece that deserves the most scrutiny is the contact tracing proposal, which would create a surveillance architecture designed to track the movements of millions of people, ready to switch on at a moment’s notice.

The UKHSA will run the new system, which the strategy document says will use “live location data” and artificial intelligence to provide “a more rapid, large-scale detection and alert system during pandemics.”

The agency plans to “explore options to work with ‘big tech’” to build it, with deployment targeted for 2030. The government is pre-building a location surveillance system in partnership with companies whose entire business model depends on harvesting as much personal data as possible.

The strategy doesn’t name which companies, what data-sharing agreements would look like, or what happens to your location history once the pandemic ends.

The UK government has already tracked its own citizens through their phones without telling them. A 2021 report by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviors (SPI-B) revealed that government-funded researchers tracked one in ten people in Britain via their mobile phones in February of that year, without the users’ knowledge or permission.

Researchers used cell phone mobility data to select over 4,200 vaccinated individuals, then monitored them through 40 call data records with corresponding location observations. The data was used for behavioral analysis, tracking radius of movement on vaccination day, whether people visited businesses during opening hours, and whether they went straight home afterwards. None of this was made public at the time.

When the tracking came to light, a spokesperson for Big Brother Watch said citizens would be “disturbed to discover they were unwittingly tracked and subjected to behavioral analysis via their phones.”

“No one expects that by going to get a vaccine they will be tracked and monitored by their own Government,” the spokesperson said. “This is deeply chilling and could be extremely damaging to public trust in medical confidentiality. Between looming Covid passports and vaccine phone surveillance, this Government is turning Britain into a Big Brother state under the cover of Covid. This should be a wake up call to us all.”

The government’s defense was that the data was collected at cell tower level, not the individual level, and that it was “GDPR-compliant” data provided by a company that “collected, cleaned, and anonymized” it.

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The Free Speech Act: A Demolition Plan For Britain’s Speech Laws

The Adam Smith Institute has published the Free Speech Act 2026, a model bill that would dismantle virtually the entire legal architecture the British state uses to police speech.

Written by Preston Byrne, an Adam Smith Institute Senior Fellow, alongside co-authors Elijah Granet and Michael Reiners, the legislation runs to 32 sections and seven schedules.

It would repeal seven entire Acts of Parliament, create a statutory right to free expression, ban the state from censoring lawful speech directly or through third parties, and give citizens a private right of action to sue when their rights are violated.

Byrne, a dual-qualified English solicitor and US attorney, is best known as the lawyer who responds to Ofcom’s enforcement notices with cartoon hamsters.

He represents 4chan in its federal lawsuit against the UK’s speech regulator in Washington, D.C., and acts for every current US-based enforcement target of the Online Safety Act.

He is also the architect of the GRANITE Act, the first foreign censorship shield bill in American history, which passed the Wyoming House of Representatives 46-12 before running out of time in the state Senate.

All of that, Byrne writes, was prologue. “The big fight, the real fight, is to restore free speech in the UK. Publishing this Model Bill today, we mean to start it.”

The Bill’s stated purpose is to answer a single question: “If the UK wanted to enact something like the First Amendment, what would the resulting statute look like?”

The answer is a controlled demolition.

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US State Dept Settles Free Speech Suppression Lawsuit

The US State Department has settled a lawsuit brought by The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and the State of Texas, accepting a consent decree that bars it from using, financing, or promoting technology designed to suppress or “fact-check” the constitutionally protected speech of American citizens and domestic media outlets.

The settlement also prohibits the Department from working with foreign governments or NGOs for those purposes, whether through formal agreements or informal arrangements.

We obtained a copy of the joint motion for you here.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance, which represented The Daily Wire and The Federalist, secured what amounts to a binding admission that the government had been doing exactly what it was accused of. The Department now acknowledges that its plaintiffs’ speech on COVID-19, sexual ethics, the biological nature of sex, and election integrity was constitutionally protected all along. It took three years of litigation to get the government to say that out loud.

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Missouri Senate Passes Bill To Ban Intoxicating Hemp THC Products

After nine hours of debate over competing proposals to ban intoxicating hemp products, the Missouri Senate finally approved a House bill Tuesday night that would align state law with a federal ban set to take effect in November.

It also includes provisions to protect marijuana consumer privacy and cannabis workers’ right to organize.

It now heads back to the House, which can either ask for a conference to work out differences with the Senate or send it to the governor.

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Dave Hinman of O’Fallon, would prohibit hemp products from containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container, which is among the limits included in a provision in the federal spending bill Congress approved last year.

Even if Congress reverses course and decides to allow the sale of these products, Hinman’s bill would only permit them to be sold in Missouri’s licensed marijuana dispensaries. And if Congress chooses to delay the ban for a couple years, Missouri would still ban all products, except for intoxicating beverages.

“I had just a good opportunity over in the Senate to work with several of the senators to get some of the things that they wanted to get on there that I think actually benefit the bill,” Hinman told The Independent Wednesday morning. “So I’m very happy with the things that were done last night and look forward to bringing that to the House tomorrow.”

Resistance to the bill came from Republican senators who expressed concern that the hemp industry members weren’t included in the final negotiations that took place for more than 12 hours Tuesday.

And Democratic state Sen. Karla May of St. Louis argued Missouri would be taking a more restrictive approach than the federal government because the proposals would deem the intoxicating hemp products as “marijuana.”

“They claim they’re mirroring the federal regulation,” May said during the debate Tuesday. “There’s some things in there that’s going far beyond the federal regulation, such as…hemp-derived cannabinoids will be put under the marijuana umbrella and have to be sold in dispensaries.”

May successfully led a nearly seven-hour filibuster on the first bill brought for discussion, sponsored by Republican state Sen. David Gregory, which would have made the ban effective as soon as the governor signed it.

“We spent pretty much from 11 a.m. until really 9 p.m. trying to figure out where we wanted to go, trying different things,” Hinman said, regarding Gregory’s bill. “We couldn’t get everyone really to agree, and so the senator [Gregory] suggested, ‘Let’s just go back to Hinman’s bill and go with that.’”

In an unusual move, the senators decided to reconvene the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee at about 10 p.m. The same committee had decided not to vote on Hinman’s bill earlier that day, saying Hinman needed to reach a resolution with the hemp industry.

There was no public notice of the fiscal oversight committee’s evening meeting, which ended when senators voted to move the bill forward and allowed the full Senate to take it up for debate.

An amendment was approved to keep dispensaries from collecting marijuana consumers’ information unless they “opted in,” Hinman said, and another ensured all cannabis workers can unionize and shouldn’t be considered “agricultural workers” who aren’t protected under federal law. A group of workers in St. Louis have been battling this point since 2023.

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Children’s Health Defense Wins Settlement in Landmark Censorship Case

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) finalized a settlement in CHD’s landmark class action censorship lawsuit against key Biden administration officials accused of colluding with tech companies to censor social media content.

In a press release, the DOJ cited President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, Executive Order “acknowledging that ‘the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve.’ 90 Fed. Reg. 8243 (Jan. 28, 2025).”

CHD, along with its then-Chairman Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sued the Biden administration in March 2023.

The lawsuit, Kennedy v. Biden, became CHD v. Trump after Trump became president of the U.S., and Kennedy, who first left CHD to run his own presidential campaign, was later named secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration.

The class action lawsuit against then-President Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top administration officials and federal agencies alleged they “waged a systematic, concerted campaign” to compel the nation’s three largest social media companies to censor constitutionally protected speech.

Jed Rubenfeld, attorney for CHD, called the settlement a “tremendous win” against government censorship.

“We brought this case years ago to challenge the Biden administration’s assault on free speech,” Rubenfeld said. “Today, the government, under a new administration, acknowledged that assault. And via a previously issued Executive Order, the president prohibited government officials from pressuring social media companies in the future to trample on Americans’ First Amendment rights.”

As part of the settlement with CHD, the government agreed to pay attorneys’ fees.

The DOJ also settled a similar lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, and issued a consent decree in the case.

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US Immigration’s Expanding Gulag

The March 4, 2026, edition of the Arizona Daily Star put the facts succinctly:

“A Haitian asylum seeker held for four months at Florence Correctional Center died Monday at a Scottsdale hospital due to complications from an infected tooth.” It seems the infection spread from his tooth to his lungs, and he developed the pneumonia that killed him.

In other words, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) allowed a prisoner to die of a toothache. His name was Emmanuel Damas. He was 56 years old and the father of two.

And we can only expect medical treatment at ICE centers to deteriorate further. As Judd Legum at Popular Information reported in January 2026:

“ICE… has not paid any third-party providers for medical care for detainees since October 3, 2025. Last week, ICE posted a notice on an obscure government website announcing it will not begin processing such claims until at least April 30, 2026. Until then, medical providers are instructed ‘to hold all claims submissions.’”

Emmanuel Damas’s unnecessary death would be outrageous enough, were it the only one of its kind. In fact, 32 people died in ICE custody during 2025, the most in two decades. Another six died in January 2026 alone, among them Geraldo Lunas Campos, a Cuban father aged 55, at Camp East Montana detention center in El Paso, Texas.

Although ICE initially claimed Lunas Campos had attempted suicide, the American Immigration Council reports that “the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide arising from asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”

Of course, it’s pretty hard to strangle yourself to death.

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Female Napa Valley winery owner slapped with $4M in fines for putting on wine tasting and yoga classes on 8-acre land

A California winery owner has been slapped with nearly $4 million in fines after losing a court battle over hosting wine tastings and events on her eight-acre property.

Lindsay Hoopes, owner of Hoopes Vineyard in the rolling hills of Napa Valley, has been embroiled in a years-long court battle with Napa County.

The county filed suit in 2022, accusing Hoopes of creating a ‘public nuisance’ by hosting yoga classes and wine tastings, and selling items like greeting cards and hand sanitizer while failing to obtain a permit for a 120-sq-ft chicken coop. 

The legal fight hinges on whether small wineries established before 1990 – prior to new regulations – can host tastings without a permit. Central to the dispute is the ‘Small Winery Exemption,’ which the county argues does not allow such events. 

Hoopes has repeatedly challenged the county’s stance, continuing to allow the public onto her property despite what officials describe as ongoing ‘illegal activities,’ including farm animals on-site and unpermitted string lights. 

In the latest blow to Hoopes, a judge ruled against her, ordering an end to all on-site tastings, public events and sales on her vineyard, according to CBS News.

‘This is the most inhumane thing I’ve ever seen,’ Hoopes told the outlet in response to the ruling.

‘Drinking wine at a winery should never, ever, ever force a business owner/mother to essentially defend her livelihood or protect her children,’ she added. ‘I mean, the whole thing has been so grossly abusive and punitive.’

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AOC Slams Federal Drug Laws That Restrict Marijuana And Psychedelics Despite Their Medical Value

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tore into the current U.S. drug scheduling system on Thursday—making the case that placing substances like marijuana and LSD in the most restrictive category runs counter to evidence showing their medical potential, hinders research and is associated with criminal penalties that haven’t effectively prevented harms from substance misuse.

In some cases, the congresswoman said during a hearing before the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee, classifying drugs as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) can exacerbate the overdose crisis, leading to the introduction of new, sometimes more dangerous drugs into the illicit marketplace.

The panel on Thursday took testimony on a variety of bills aimed at curbing overdose deaths and responding to emerging public health threats posed by illegal drugs such as xylazine and other opioid-like synthetics that are often more potent than the analogues that came before them.

Ocasio-Cortez said it was time to “take a step back” and “really explore and examine the scheduling system in the United States as a whole and really how we think about this,” directing her questions to Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the University of North Carolina who served as an expert witness for the hearing.

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New York Democrats Introduce Bills to Preserve Mandatory Vaccines

Democrats in New York have introduced legislation that would preserve requirements for certain vaccines for children recommended by state health officials and major scientific organizations, even if federal authorities rescind approval of the shots.

State Rep. Amy Paulin, a Democrat, on March 26 unveiled one of the bills, which would alter the state public health law in New York that sets out required vaccines for children, including vaccines against polio, measles, and hepatitis B.

The bill, Assembly Bill 10711, would remove language stating that the vaccines need to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Instead, the law would say that parents are required to have their children receive the vaccines “in accordance with regulations issued by the [state’s health] commissioner, utilizing generally accepted medical standards and taking into consideration recommendations of” nationally or internationally recognized scientific organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics.

A second piece of legislation would require insurance companies to cover vaccines even if they are not recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provided they are recommended by the commissioner based on recommendations from the same organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, or national or international groups.

New York has historically mandated only vaccines that are approved and recommended by federal health agencies.

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