Tag: police state

Macron Says Showing Police Your Papers to Visit a Cafe is About “Freedom”

After video emerged of Parisians having to show their vaccine passport papers to police in order to sit outside a cafe, President Macron asserted that the system protected people’s “freedom.”

Yes, really.

As we highlighted yesterday, footage showed uniformed French police patrolling cafes and restaurants demanding proof of vaccination.

Those unable or unwilling to show their papers face massive fines, while business owners could even go to prison if they refuse to enforce the system.

However, the new program may end up putting a lot of people out of business given the multitude of images that showed normally busy cafes and restaurants all but empty.

Ignoring the threat of legal action, half of the establishments canvassed by Reuters said they were refusing to enforce the checks.

Despite the fact that the French haven’t experienced such an intense ‘papers please’ society since the Nazi occupation, President Macron insisted that vaccine passports were about protecting people’s “freedom”.

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New South Wales’ Chief Health Officer Tells Aussies Not to Talk to Each Other: We Need to Limit Our Movements, Minimize Interactions with Others

New South Wales’ Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said the quiet part out loud and admitted the Covid mandates are about ‘restricting movement.’

Kerry Chant told Australians to ignore their own next door neighbors.

“We all need to work together. We need to limit our movements. We need to consider whenever we leave our house, that anyone with us and anyone that we come into contact with could convey the virus,” Kerry Chant said.

Chant told Aussies to view everyone outside of their home as a threat and admitted face masks don’t work.

“Whilst it is in human nature to engage in conversation with others, to be friendly, unfortunately this is not the time to do that. So even if you run into your next door neighbor in the shopping center, in the grocery shop… don’t start up a conversation. Now is the time for minimizing your interactions with others even if you’ve got a mask – do not think that affords total protection.”

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Cop Ruled Justified Despite Video of Him Shooting Innocent Child While Killing Suspect

Rylan Wilder was a 15-year-old boy who made history in 2019 by becoming the youngest person to have ever played at the music festival Riot Fest in Chicago’s Douglas Park. He is the lead guitarist and vocalist for his band, Monarchy Over Monday. Unfortunately, however, Wilder may never be able to play music again after he was shot twice by police as they pursued and killed a robbery suspect, Christopher Willis.

Now, nearly two years after the shooting, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office has announced that the officer who started wildly firing into the occupied music school, Des Plaines Police Officer James Armstrong, will not face charges, and Wilder’s bullet holes were ruled “justified.”

“I don’t want to say they ruined my life, but they took away a huge part of it that I loved and they just don’t say anything,” Wilder told WGN. His family pointed out that police never even offered so much as an apology for shooting him.

“Will I ever be able to play guitar again?” was Wilder’s first question after coming out of surgery. According to his doctors, the answer to that question is unknown as he has undergone 14 surgeries since that day on his arm and abdomen. He has yet to regain control of his arm. Wilder told reporters that police are acting as if they never shot him.

Two years later and the government has still refused to take responsibility for the incident.

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New Ashli Babbitt Docs Show Fingerprints Sent To D.C. Govt Official, Email Returned With Chinese Characters.

Documentation just obtained by Judicial Watch confirm that a request to cremate Ashli Babbitt’s body was submitted by the Chief Medical Examiner only two days after having obtained custody of the body, and further reveal that Babbitt’s fingerprints, emailed to an alleged government worker on January 6, caused the return of Microsoft “undeliverable” messages in Chinese characters.

The 1160 pages of documentation contain numerous revelations about the actions of government officials following the homicide shooting of unarmed Air Force veteran Babbitt by an unidentified law enforcement officer at the Capitol on January 6. The documents come from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) in Washington, D.C., and prove that OCME submitted a request to obtain permission to cremate Ashli Babbitt just two days after having custody of the body, an application labeled “completed successfully” on January 8. Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Francisco Diaz, based on the “high profile nature” of Babbitt’s case, further requested the creation of a limited access, secure electronic file for the records concerning Babbitt.

As early as January 6 itself, an OCME official was emailing Babbitt’s fingerprints, which were forwarded to someone with the result that “undeliverable” messages apparently in Chinese characters were returned.

The unarmed Babbitt had been attempting to climb into the Capitol through a “broken interior window. . .outside the Speaker’s Lobby off the House Floor” at the time of the shooting. According to videos from the same time, several law enforcement officers are reportedly able to be seen standing amidst the same crowd of protestors in which Babbitt was.

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The NSA’s Inspector General Opens Investigation Into Allegations of Illegal Spying on Tucker Carlson

The independent watchdog agency which investigates potential wrongdoing by the National Security Agency (NSA) announced on Tuesday morning that it has opened an investigation into “recent allegations that the NSA improperly targeted the communications of a member of the U.S. news media.” Though the oversight unit, the NSA’s Office of the Inspector General, did not specify the journalist in question, the statement leaves no doubt that the investigation pertains to news reports that the identity of Fox News host Tucker Carlson had been improperly “unmasked” and illegally revealed within the intelligence community.

The NSA’s Inspector General, Robert P. Storch, is a long-time Executive Branch functionary. He was first appointed to this position by President Obama in 2016 but failed to receive Senate confirmation. He was then re-appointed by President Trump in 2018 and the Senate then confirmed him. A widely respected bureaucrat in Washington, he also previously served as deputy Inspector General in Obama’s Justice Department, and, prior to that, was a federal prosecutor. It is, to put it mildly, difficult to imagine him opening an investigation into frivolous allegations.

The scandal began when Carlson announced on his show in late June that he had heard from a source inside the government that the NSA was in possession of his communications, as proven by their knowledge of what he was doing. The NSA then issued a meaningless non-denial denial, insisting that the Fox host “has never been an intelligence target of the Agency.” Even Fox’s critics acknowledge the irrelevance of that claim: there are many ways for the NSA to spy on an American citizen without having them be a formal “target” of the agency. In a follow-up interview on Fox, Carlson said he was told by a second source that the NSA had discovered his attempts to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin and viewed leaking of that information as potentially damaging to his reputation.

Corporate media outlets largely sided with the NSA, mocking Carlson for being conspiratorial and even accusing him of fabricating a story. One might think that journalists would have more interest in finding out whether the NSA was abusing their powers to discredit a journalist than cheering the security state for partisan reasons, but one would be wrong. Disdain for Carlson’s claims were widespread in media circles.

But Carlson’s concerns appeared to be at least partially corroborated when Axios’ Jonathan Swan reported that “U.S. government officials learned about Carlson’s efforts to secure the Putin interview.” Though Swan emphasized that none of this meant that the NSA was targeting Carlson for surveillance or even that his communications had been “incidentally” collected — meaning that the NSA read his emails or heard his conversations because he was communicating with one of their targets — their knowledge of Carlson’s activities raised the question of whether Carlson’s identity had been “unmasked” by the agency. As Swan wrote:

In order to know that the texts and emails were Carlson’s, a U.S. government official would likely have to request his identity be unmasked, something that’s only permitted if the unmasking is necessary to understand the intelligence.

When the NSA learns about the communications or activities of an American citizen without having a warrant from the FISA court to spy on that person, they are required by law to engage in “minimization” efforts to protect the privacy of that citizen. In particular, when preparing reports involving such spying, they are required to conceal — to “mask” — the identity of the American about whom they learned information, referring to them only by a generic title sufficient to describe their work or status without revealing their specific identity (e.g., “an American journalist” or “a business executive”).

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Proposed Bill Could Soon Land You in Prison for Filming the Police

A bill proposed in Florida, which is receiving widespread support from police, House Bill 11, filed by Rep. Alex Rizo, (R-Hialeah), could be yet another massive blow to your right to film the police.

According to the bill, anyone who is “hindering” law enforcement in their duties, which could include filming them with a cellphone, could be arrested, fined, and even imprisoned.

The loosely written language of the bill allows for rife abuse left up to the officer’s scope of discretion. According to the bill:

Approaching a law enforcement officer after a warning with intent to impede, provoke, or harass.— (1) As used in this section, the term “law enforcement officer” has the same meaning as in s. 943.10(1). (2)(a) It is unlawful for any person, after receiving a warning from a law enforcement officer not to approach, to violate such warning and approach or remain within 30 feet of a law enforcement officer who is engaged in the lawful performance of any legal duty with the intent to:

1. Interrupt, disrupt, hinder, impede, or interfere with the law enforcement officer’s ability to perform such duty;

2. Provoke a physical response from the law enforcement officer; or

3. Directly or indirectly harass the law enforcement officer.
(b) A person who violates this subsection commits a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 31 775.082 or s. 775.083.

Think about every police brutality video you have seen in which the person filming or bystander begs the officer to “stop beating him” or saying, “he didn’t do anything,” and consider the language in the bill above.

Telling officer Derek Chauvin to stop beating George Floyd easily could have been interpreted by the officers as an attempt to “interrupt, disrupt, hinder, impede, or interfere.”

What’s more the people who filmed Chauvin kill Floyd were much closer than 30 feet, which would have made all of them criminals according to this legislation.

“I think they are trying to hide something, like you don’t want people recording. Why, if you not doing nothing wrong?” Fort Lauderdale resident, Dushont Morrison told Local 10 when asked about this bill.

But those who support the bill claim it’s to protect cops from attacks.

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Pasco County Cops Harassed Them and Searched Their Homes Without Warrants. A Judge Says They Can Sue.

It’s not every day you receive a letter from the local police department congratulating you on your acceptance into an exclusive program. Such is the story shared by several residents in Pasco County, Florida, a community in the Tampa area. One problem: None of the recipients applied.

“We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to participate in a Prolific Offender Program,” reads a letter from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO). “Research indicates that barriers to successful living may involve struggles with mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence, homelessness, finding a job, or several other challenges many people face on a daily basis. It is possible you have struggled with some of these issues. If so, please know the Pasco Sheriff’s Office is committed to support you in overcoming these challenges through this program.”

The “support” it offers, originally detailed in an investigation by the Tampa Bay Times, includes sending cadres of cops to people’s homes, where officers show up unannounced, harassing them and their family members, performing warrantless searches on their homes, and trying to nab them on petty offenses, like having grass that is too tall. The lucky winners were “selected as a result of an evaluation of your recent criminal behavior,” according to the PCSO, “using an unbiased, evidence-based risk assessment designed to identify prolific offenders in our community.”

In other words, the program is ostensibly trying to keep people out of trouble and deter future criminal behavior before anything goes dramatically awry. That sounds well-intentioned on the surface. But its “relentless pursuit” of community members has ruthlessly entangled people with the state—including targets’ family and friends—trampling over their Fourth Amendment rights in the process, says a recent lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm.

Their clients received good news this week: Though the PCSO sought to have the suit dismissed on a litany of different grounds, a federal judge struck each down in a ruling issued on Wednesday, allowing the claim to proceed.

“The Fourth Amendment protects the right to be safe and secure in your person and property,” says Ari Bargil, an attorney on the suit. “This program violates that right,” he notes, “because it allows and requires Pasco County Sheriff’s Office deputies to approach people at their home, harass them, refuse to leave, and in some instances demand entry without a warrant. These are obvious and clear Fourth Amendment violations.”

Sheriff Chris Nocco, the brains behind the program, openly admitted that it’s intended to do more than what the congratulatory letter implies: He hopes it will “take them out” of the community, he said, with one of his former employees conceding that their job was to “make their lives miserable until they move or sue.”

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