Things are so much better now or not…
Tag: police state
New A.I. Device Will Activate Cameras and Alert Police When It Detects Crime-Related Noises (Gunshots, Glass Breaking, Tires Screeching)
Experts have warned for years about using Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) technology (see 1, 2, 3). Embarrassing as well as tragic examples of A.I. inaccuracies continue to be reported (see 1, 2, 3, 4).
People have been accused and convicted of crimes based on inaccuracies (see 1, 2) including from the use of A.I. based ShotSpotter technology. Nevertheless, a new A.I. device is being marketed to American communities and police departments.
Crowd-Sourced Suspicion Apps Are Out of Control
Technology rarely invents new societal problems. Instead, it digitizes them, supersizes them, and allows them to balloon and duplicate at the speed of light. That’s exactly the problem we’ve seen with location-based, crowd-sourced “public safety” apps like Citizen.
These apps come in a wide spectrum—some let users connect with those around them by posting pictures, items for sale, or local tips. Others, however, focus exclusively on things and people that users see as “suspicious” or potentially hazardous. These alerts run the gamut from active crimes, or the aftermath of crimes, to generally anything a person interprets as helping to keep their community safe and informed about the dangers around them.
These apps are often designed with a goal of crowd-sourced surveillance, like a digital neighborhood watch. A way of turning the aggregate eyes (and phones) of the neighborhood into an early warning system. But instead, they often exacerbate the same dangers, biases, and problems that exist within policing. After all, the likely outcome to posting a suspicious sight to the app isn’t just to warn your neighbors—it’s to summon authorities to address the issue.
And even worse than incentivizing people to share their most paranoid thoughts and racial biases on a popular platform are the experimental new features constantly being rolled out by apps like Citizen. First, it was a private security force, available to be summoned at the touch of a button. Then, it was a service to help make it (theoretically) even easier to summon the police by giving users access to a 24/7 concierge service who will call the police for you. There are scenarios in which a tool like this might be useful—but to charge people for it, and more importantly, to make people think they will eventually need a service like this—adds to the idea that companies benefit from your fear.
These apps might seem like a helpful way to inform your neighbors if the mountain lion roaming your city was spotted in your neighborhood. But in practice they have been a cesspool of racial profiling, cop-calling, gatekeeping, and fear-spreading. Apps where a so-called “suspicious” person’s picture can be blasted out to a paranoid community, because someone with a smartphone thinks they don’t belong, are not helping people to “Connect and stay safe.” Instead, they promote public safety for some, at the expense of surveillance and harassment for others.
Dr. Fauci: A tyrant from out of The Twilight Zone
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. —Plato
Observing Doctor Fauci’s behavior since the start of this COVID-19 pandemic, I am reminded of an episode of the original Twilight Zone series written by Rod Serling: “On Thursday We Leave for Home.” According to The Twilight Zone Companion, by Marc Scott Zicree, Serling considered it the best episode of the fourth season. It is an excellent example of tyrants — how they are made and how they behave. It’s also consistent with Plato’s succinct definition.
James Whitmore plays William Benteen, the leader of a colony of Earth people who have been living on a colony planet. They left Earth because of the conditions there and went in search of their own paradise. The colony planet was anything but a paradise. In order to keep up their spirits, Benteen tells the people stories of how wonderful Earth was when he lived there. Many of the people are too young to remember or were born on the colony planet.
Benteen learns that a rescue ship is coming to take everyone home on Thursday. When the people learn of this rescue mission, Benteen changes his stories about Earth. When they remind Benteen of the fact that he told them stories of how wonderful Earth was, his response is, “I lied to you to make you feel better. Now I’m telling you the truth for your own good.”
This is consistent with the flip-flops that Doctor Fauci has given us from the beginning. He said masks don’t protect you. In fact, years earlier, he said that very thing. At the time, he called them a paranoid tool. Then he changed his tune and said everyone should wear a mask. Next, he suggested a mask mandate. When he was confronted with his own words, he echoed Benteen’s response: I lied to you so there wouldn’t be a rush on masks. Now I’m telling you the truth for your own good.
It’s troubling that he didn’t concern himself with the hoarding and shortages of toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, or food. That’s exactly what happened when he called for a home quarantine for fourteen days to “flatten the curve.”
Benteen begins to respond in such a way that it becomes apparent that he is afraid of losing his power over the colony’s people. He changes from the great protector to the authoritarian. He insists that if they return home, the colonists must remain isolated from the rest of Earth for their own good. Doctor Fauci refers to this same mandate as “social distancing,” which he said may be necessary until 2022. He has stated that he wasn’t sure if we should cancel Christmas this year again, like his Grinch-like mandate of 2020.
Think back to how Doctor Fauci was portrayed by the media at the beginning of this pandemic versus now. In the beginning, he was the great protector, just as Plato describes in his definition. A baker in my hometown made a Doctor Fauci donut to honor the great doctor. There was other fawning over him, including a disastrous first pitch at a baseball game. The accuracy of that pitch parallels his medical advice.
The Empire of Lies Breaks Down: Ugly Truths the Deep State Wants to Keep Hidden
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”—Albert Einstein
America is breaking down.
This breakdown—triggered by polarizing circus politics, media-fed mass hysteria, racism, classism, fascism, fear-mongering, political correctness, cultural sanitation, virtue signaling, a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness in the face of growing government corruption and brutality, a growing economic divide that has much of the population struggling to get by, and militarization and militainment (the selling of war and violence as entertainment)—is manifesting itself in madness, mayhem and an utter disregard for the very principles and liberties that have kept us out of the clutches of totalitarianism for so long.
In New York City, for example, a 200-year-old statue of Thomas Jefferson holding the Declaration of Independence will be removed from the City Council’s chambers where it has presided since 1915. Despite Jefferson’s many significant accomplishments, without which we might not have the rights we do today, he will be banished for having been, like many of his day, a slaveowner. Curiously, that same brutal expectation of infallibility has yet to be applied to many other politically correct yet equally imperfect and fallible role models of the day.
In Washington, DC, a tribunal of nine men and women spoke with one voice to affirm that the government and its henchmen can literally get away with murder and not be held accountable for their wrongdoing. The Supreme Court’s latest rulings are yet another painful lesson in compliance, a reminder that in the American police state, “we the people” are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to ‘serve and protect.”
Cop Walks Past ‘Beware of Dog’ Sign, Tries to Kill Dog, Shoots Fellow Cop Instead
Over the weekend, police were called out to a disturbance report during which they walked past a “Beware of Dog” sign, and encountered a resident’s dog. During the debacle, one of the deputies with the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office did what so many other police officers do when confronted with dogs — he tried to kill it. Instead of killing the dog, however, he shot his fellow deputy.
According to Maj. Frank Stout, the incident unfolded on Sunday around 7 p.m. as police were called out to the alleged “disturbance.” The disturbance was reportedly taking place at the home with the “Beware of Dog” sign and police were warned there were dogs at the residence.
When deputies knocked on the door, they saw two pit bulls inside the home so they backed up off the porch and waited for the homeowner to answer. When the door opened, according to the deputies, a pit bull ran out of the door “aggressively” at them.
“Deputies retreated from the house and porch after they knocked because of the aggressive nature and size of the bulldog,” Stout said. “The door opened and the pit bull aggressively came at the deputies. One deputy was able to divert the charging pit bull and it turned toward another deputy and lunged at him. That deputy fired, striking the bulldog. One of the rounds fired by the deputy ricocheted off the ground and struck the first deputy in the leg.”
The Great New Normal Purge
So, the Great New Normal Purge has begun … right on cue, right by the numbers.
As we “paranoid conspiracy theorists” have been warning would happen for the past 18 months, people who refuse to convert to the new official ideology are now being segregated, stripped of their jobs, banned from attending schools, denied medical treatment, and otherwise persecuted.
Relentless official propaganda demonizing “the Unvaccinated” is being pumped out by the corporate and state media, government leaders, health officials, and shrieking fanatics on social media. “The Unvaccinated” are the new official “Untermenschen,” an underclass of subhuman “others” the New Normal masses are being conditioned to hate.
You can see the hatred in the New Normals’ eyes …
But it isn’t just a purge of “the Unvaccinated.” Anyone deviating from the official ideology is being systematically demonized and persecuted. In Germany, Australia, and other New Normal countries, protesting the New Normal is officially outlawed. The New Normal Gestapo is going around to people’s homes to interrogate them about their anti-New Normal Facebook posts. Corporations are openly censoring content that contradicts the official narrative. New Normal goon squads roam the streets, checking people’s “vaccination” papers.
And it’s not just governments and corporations carrying out the New Normal Purge. Friends are purging friends. Wives are purging husbands. Fathers are purging children. Children are purging parents. New Normals are purging old normal thoughts. Global “health authorities” are revising definitions to make them conform to New Normal “science.”
And so on … a new official “reality” is being manufactured, right before our eyes. Anything and anyone that doesn’t conform to it is being purged, unpersoned, memory-holed, erased.
None of which should come as a surprise.
College students lash out at draconian COVID-19 measures: Schools enforce ‘bio buttons,’ GPS tracking, restrict off-campus travel and threaten to ARREST kids who don’t declare their vaccine status
College students at schools across America are lashing out against ongoing COVID-19 rules that include tracking them with apps, restricting their travel, threatening them with arrest unless they disclose their vaccination status, and making them leave the classroom if they want to take a sip of water.
The messy new era of the pandemic has some students and millions of Americans increasingly frustrated, with one student calling it ‘the growth of the surveillance state’ and that it ‘feels like the school is blackmailing me.’
The rules vary by school. In some, they apply only to unvaccinated students, with those who have received the shots able to come and go as they please once they prove they are vaccinated.
But in some, even vaccinated students are being told they must undergo weekly testing and continue to wear masks in classrooms.
Colorado State University, where tuition is $31,712 a year for out-of-state students, is going further and threatening any student who doesn’t register their vaccine status with arrest for trespassing.
The University of Southern California, where fees are $60,446 a year, will not allow students to even take sips of water in class because it means they would have to slip their masks down to their chins. They must leave the room if they want to have a drink.
Harvard is mandating vaccines for all students and staff, and Yale is enforcing it among students. Other Ivy Leagues, like Princeton, are forcing unvaccinated students to continue wearing masks.
Many students say the rules are an ‘overreach’ by college staff and a violation of their privacy.
Civil Liberties Are Being Trampled by Exploiting “Insurrection” Fears. Congress’s 1/6 Committee May Be the Worst Abuse Yet.
When a population is placed in a state of sufficiently grave fear and anger regarding a perceived threat, concerns about the constitutionality, legality and morality of measures adopted in the name of punishing the enemy typically disappear. The first priority, indeed the sole priority, is to crush the threat. Questions about the legality of actions ostensibly undertaken against the guilty parties are brushed aside as trivial annoyances at best, or, worse, castigated as efforts to sympathize with and protect those responsible for the danger. When a population is subsumed with pulsating fear and rage, there is little patience for seemingly abstract quibbles about legality or ethics. The craving for punishment, for vengeance, for protection, is visceral and thus easily drowns out cerebral or rational impediments to satiating those primal impulses.
The aftermath of the 9/11 attack provided a vivid illustration of that dynamic. The consensus view, which formed immediately, was that anything and everything possible should be done to crush the terrorists who — directly or indirectly — were responsible for that traumatic attack. The few dissenters who attempted to raise doubts about the legality or morality of proposed responses were easily dismissed and marginalized, when not ignored entirely. Typically, they were vilified with the accusation that their constitutional and legal objections were frauds: mere pretexts to conceal their sympathy and even support for the terrorists. It took at least a year or two after that attack for there to be any space for questions about the legality, constitutionality, and morality of the U.S. response to 9/11 to be entertained at all.
For many liberals and Democrats in the U.S., 1/6 is the equivalent of 9/11. One need not speculate about that. Many have said this explicitly. Some prominent Democrats in politics and media have even insisted that 1/6 was worse than 9/11.
Joe Biden’s speechwriters, when preparing his script for his April address to the Joint Session of Congress, called the three-hour riot “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” Liberal icon Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), whose father’s legacy was cemented by years of casting 9/11 as the most barbaric attack ever seen, now serves as Vice Chair of the 1/6 Committee; in that role, she proclaimed that the forces behind 1/6 represent “a threat America has never seen before.” The enabling resolution that created the Select Committee calls 1/6 “one of the darkest days of our democracy.” USA Today’s editor David Mastio published an op-ed whose sole point was a defense of the hysterical thesis from MSNBC analysts that 1/6 is at least as bad as 9/11 if not worse.S.V. Date, the White House correspondent for America’s most nakedly partisan “news” outlet, The Huffington Post, published a series of tweets arguing that 1/6 was worse than 9/11 and that those behind it are more dangerous than Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda ever were.
‘Coffee cup Gestapo’: Australian cops slammed for checking man’s beverage to verify his excuse for not wearing Covid-19 mask
Video footage of Melbourne police checking whether a man’s coffee cup was empty to verify his excuse for not wearing a mask is stirring the latest round of online outrage over Australia’s dystopian Covid-19 policies.
While it is unclear when exactly the video was recorded, the clip went viral on social media on Friday and Saturday, showing several police officers confronting a man on what appears to be a park trail. One of the officers grabs the man’s coffee cup while asking, “Do you mind if I check if there’s actually anything in that?” He shakes the cup, and after apparently establishing that there was liquid inside, he backs away and tells the man, “Enjoy your coffee.”
The 10-second clip ends with the coffee drinker telling the police, “Jesus loves you all. God bless. I’ll be praying for you all.”
While the parkgoer dealt with the confrontation calmly and cordially, and it remains unclear when exactly the footage was recorded, online observers expressed shock over yet another example of Australia’s apparent Covid-19 “authoritarianism.”
Hellbound and Down 
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