Tag: police state

Teacher Spying Is Instilling Surveillance Culture Into Students

For the teachers, it began in October at the California Teachers Association’s 2021 LGBTQ+ Issues Conference. Lori Caldeira and Kelly Baraki explained how they identified potential new members of UBU, the school’s club of LGBTQ supporters. “When we were doing our virtual learning—we totally stalked what they were doing on Google, when they weren’t doing schoolwork,” Caldeira said. “One of them was Googling ‘Trans Day of Visibility.’ And we’re like, ‘Check.’ We’re going to invite that kid when we get back on campus.”

Whatever you think of LGBTQ issues, the fact that a teacher can remotely track what students do online should give you pause. This was not a case of a teacher reviewing the browser history on a classroom computer after school. As Caldeira said, albeit with her tongue in cheek, they were stalking the kids. (The title of Caldeira and Baraki’s presentation declared that it was about running such clubs “in conservative communities.” Needless to say, conservative teachers can snoop on kids’ online activities too.)

The Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas, California, where Caldeira is employed (and is currently on leave, following the uproar over the story), uses GoGuardian, a standard software tool for monitoring what students do during Zoom classes. GoGuardian, which promotes itself as powering “digital learning environments where every student can thrive,” is being used in about 30,000 schools.

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Democrat Congressman Sparks Backlash After Suggesting to Seize Trucks From Protesters Headed to D.C., Give Them to Growing Businesses

Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego (AZ) called for seizing the trucks of protesters headed to Washington, D.C., and then giving the property to businesses looking to grow.

“Perfect time to impound and give the trucks to small trucking companies looking to expand their business,” Gallego tweeted in response to the following news headline: “Trucker convoy could shut down DC Beltway tomorrow.”

“Law enforcement agencies in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. are monitoring what could be a number of trucker convoys coming to D.C.,” the report said. “Truckers apparently spurred on by the recent protests in Canada want their voices heard, but the extent of the protests and how disruptive they may be is still unclear.”

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The Left’s Support of the Persecution of Ottawa Protesters Ensures That It Will Be Used Against Them Next

A Western democracy is currently being toppled from within and turned into a fascist police state in which members of the political opposition to the ruling elite are being hunted down by the state. The Canadian government has viciously persecuted citizens, not just for protesting the vaccine mandates, but anyone who provided monetary support to them. This level of tyranny in the West should be raising alarm bells and red flags — especially among supposed advocates of civil liberties — but it’s not. Instead, many folks are supporting it.

The left has not only chosen to look the other way in regard to the treatment of the protesters and their supporters, but they have embraced the state’s tyrannical response. Even Anonymous has gone full fascist shill, and is applauding the abuse and subsequent response by the Trudeau regime.

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Scotland Stops Publishing Covid Vaccine Death Statistics, Blames ‘Anti-Vaxxers’ For Raising Alarm

Public Health Scotland has announced it will no longer publish information about deaths and hospitalizations related to Covid-19 vaccination status, citing concerns the data is being “misused” by anti-vaccination campaigners.

Scotland’s public health watchdog announced the sudden change in policy last week in its most recent Covid-19 report, saying the frequency and content of the data would be reviewed.

Instead, officials will focus on publishing more complex data that promotes the idea of vaccine effectiveness.

Remarkably, Public Health Scotland officials admitted they will no longer publish the vaccination status of deaths in the country due to the activities of anti-vaccination campaigners.

The report published last week will be the last weekly publication to include data which includes information on death rates, broken down by the number of doses received.

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On This Presidents Day, Stop Worshiping the Imperial Presidency

Ah, Presidents Day: a much-needed moment to slow down and commemorate presidents past and present, because we definitely don’t have enough of that in this country.

I jest!

Walking around Los Angeles, you’d be hard-pressed not to pass someone sporting BIDEN-HARRIS merchandise—a shirt, a bumper sticker, a sweatshirt, a mask. Back where I grew up in Virginia, the same is true, though they have a different hero: For years, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” adorned the lawns, cars, and hats of those who wanted you to know they stood, and perhaps still stand, with former President Donald Trump.

That’s not news. Public displays of affection for the U.S. president have become standard in everyday American life, extending well past election cycles and rock-concert-esque inaugurations, as if who you voted for is a personality trait. That’s the conventional wisdom, it seems. So, on this fair Presidents Day, a reminder: Presidents aren’t saints. They aren’t monarchs. They aren’t celebrities. And they aren’t your friends! The executive leader is an employee of the country—someone whose job was, and still should be, limited in size and scope.

It has become something decidedly different over the years, with each president becoming more powerful than the last. That maybe explains, to some degree, why the political fangirling has grown in tandem. Though I can’t step back in time to the 18th and 19th centuries, I would venture to say Americans weren’t donning shirts with presidents’ faces or branding horse-drawn carriages with the names of current and erstwhile U.S. leaders. Nor do I think former President George Washington, whose birthday serves as the inspiration for this holiday, would have wanted that sort of hero worship, when considering that the bedrock of America’s founding specifically sought to create a new order—one without a king or king-like figure.

“The founders of our republic did not want to put that much [power] in the hands of a single leader,” Mark Rozell, the founding dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, told The Christian Science Monitor. “America’s addiction to executive power has become dangerous for this country.”

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Canadian Police Freeze 206 Financial Products, Including Bank and Corporate Accounts, Allegedly Involved in Ottawa Protests

Canadian authorities have frozen the financial assets of individuals and companies that are allegedly involved in the ongoing protests in Ottawa Mike Duheme, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) deputy commissioner of federal policing, announced on Feb. 20.

Duheme said at a news conference that the RCMP froze 206 financial products, including bank and corporate accounts, and disclosed the information of 56 entities associated with vehicles, individuals, and companies.

RCMP also shared 253 bitcoin addresses with virtual currency exchangers; and froze a payment processing account valued at $3.8 million, Duheme said.

It is unclear what will happen to the money that has been frozen by financial institutions.

“We continue to work at collecting relevant information on persons, vehicles, and companies and remain in daily communication with the financial institution to assist them,” Duheme said.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Feb. 15 that banks would be able to freeze the personal and corporate accounts of anyone suspected to be linked with the protests, and would not require a court order to do so.

Crowdfunding platforms and the payment services providers they use would now fall under anti-money laundering and terrorist financing laws, with the changes covering all forms of transactions including those in cryptocurrencies, Freeland explained.

“The illegal blockades have highlighted the fact that crowdfunding platforms and some of the payment service providers they use are not fully captured under the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act,” said Freeland.

Her announcement came as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canada’s history to address the impact of the ongoing protests against COVID-19 mandates and restrictions by truckers and their supporters.

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Highly Decorated D.A.R.E. Cop Admits to Running Enormous Child Porn Ring That Abused Toddlers

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program should better be called an egregious exercise in how not to convince kids to keep away from substances the state deems illegal. As cops hopped on their high horses and had children pledge not to do drugs, the rate of drug use skyrocketed — thrusting the country into one of the worst drug epidemics in human history. The hypocrisy by the cops who pushed the D.A.R.E. program has been well-documented over the years, explaining, at least in part, as to why the program was such a failure from the start. Now, another cop who pushed kids to ‘just say no’ has pleaded guilty to disturbing criminal activity. 

Parents whose children participated in the D.A.R.E. program in Beavercreek, Ohio now need to question their children who may have had contact with former Beavercreek police officer Kevin A. Kovacs. In April 2019, Kovacs, 60, was arrested at his home for unspeakable crimes against children. This week, he admitted to all of it and it’s utterly horrifying.

“Videos featured the sexual abuse of children as young as toddler aged,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. “One video depicted a toddler lying on a diaper whose arms and legs were bound by black tape.”

In total, as of December 2019, Kovacs possessed more than 780 images and 5,100 videos of child pornography, according to the release. He had used online messenger, social media, cloud storage and email accounts to transport and possess child pornography.

This disgusting individual will now be spending up to the next 240 months in a cage, where he belongs.

“The conduct he is alleged to have committed is both disgusting and extremely disappointing,” said former Beavercreek Police Chief Dennis Evers at the time of Kovacs arrest. “As a former D.A.R.E. officer who received departmental and community awards for his work, he, of all people, knew this criminal activity to be exploitation of children and unlawful.”

Less than two years before this cop was arrested for running a child porn ring, Officer Kovacs received the “Law Enforcement Officer of the Year” Award. When presented with the honor, the Beavercreek police department praised him for his work with young children.

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New Zealand, amazingly, has gotten even more totalitarian about COVID

From practically the first day that COVID appeared, New Zealand’s government was on the front line of totalitarianism in terms of trying to keep the virus off its shores. The country’s lockdown was total. With every fanatic rule, it was hard to imagine the government topping itself. And yet that’s exactly what the government is doing. The newest initiative is to fine people for refusing COVID tests—and, if they ignore the fine, destroying them financially and imprisoning them in fortress New Zealand.

Beginning in March 2020, New Zealand closed its borders to the world and put the country (and its economy) in almost complete lockdown, with only occasional intermittent breaks from these national prison conditions — and of course, the government-mandated vaccine passports, which are effectively vaccine mandates for those who wish to function in the country.

The latest initiative is, apparently, enforced COVID testing.  Libs of TikTok tweeted out a Notice someone received for “COVID-19 Testing Non Compliance.”  The fine is NZD 330, which is USD 220.  If the person fails to pay the fine, another NZD 102 (USD 68) gets added to the fine.

But wait!  There’s more!

That additional $102 fee seems to be intended to cover the costs of the more serious consequences for non-payment of the fine (and, presumably, the continued refusal to have that swab stuck up your nose).

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The Neoliberal War on Dissent in the West

When it comes to distant and adversarial countries, we are taught to recognize tyranny through the use of telltale tactics of repression. Dissent from orthodoxies is censored. Protests against the state are outlawed. Dissenters are harshly punished with no due process. Long prison terms are doled out for political transgressions rather than crimes of violence. Journalists are treated as criminals and spies. Opposition to the policies of political leaders are recast as crimes against the state.

When a government that is adverse to the West engages in such conduct, it is not just easy but obligatory to malign it as despotic. Thus can one find, on a virtually daily basis, articles in the Western press citing the government’s use of those tactics in Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and whatever other countries the West has an interest in disparaging (articles about identical tactics from regimes supported by the West — from Riyadh to Cairo — are much rarer). That the use of these repressive tactics render these countries and their populations subject to autocratic regimes is considered undebatable.

But when these weapons are wielded by Western governments, the precise opposite framework is imposed: describing them as despotic is no longer obligatory but virtually prohibited. That tyranny exists only in Western adversaries but never in the West itself is treated as a permanent axiom of international affairs, as if Western democracies are divinely shielded from the temptations of genuine repression. Indeed, to suggest that a Western democracy has descended to the same level of authoritarian repression as the West’s official enemies is to assert a proposition deemed intrinsically absurd or even vaguely treasonous.

The implicit guarantor of this comforting framework is democracy. Western countries, according to this mythology, can never be as repressive as their enemies because Western governments are at least elected democratically. This assurance, superficially appealing though it may be, completely collapses with the slightest critical scrutiny. The premise of the U.S. Constitution and others like it is that majoritarian despotism is dangerous in the extreme; the Bill of Rights consists of little more than limitations imposed on the tyrannical measures majorities might seek to democratically enact (the expression of ideas cannot be criminalized even if majorities want them to be; religious freedom cannot be abolished even if large majorities demand it; life and liberty cannot be deprived without due process even if nine of out ten citizens favor doing so, etc.). More inconveniently still, many of the foreign leaders we are instructed to view as despots are popular or even every bit as democratically elected as our own beloved freedom-safeguarding officials.

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