Tag: police state

Utah Passes Law Requiring Porn to Be Blocked on All Cellphones, Tablets in the State

The free thinking argument, that blows away the notion of illegal prostitution, is that of pornography. Pornography, or porn, is nothing more than prostitution that has been state-sanctioned, taxed, filmed, and distributed. However, because it is taxed — politicians have generally left it alone — until now. Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed a bill Tuesday that calls for all smartphones and tablets sold in the Beehive State to have adult content filters.

If one is truly for freedom, outlawing consensual acts between adults should be resisted — even if these acts involve the swapping of bodily fluids. And, although the state claims the right to kidnap and cage people for engaging in these consensual acts, it does not mean they are somehow immoral.

The Free Thought Project has long objected to the prohibition of sex work as it creates crime, sends sex workers into dangerous situations, and outlaws one of the oldest professions in the world. While the prohibition of sex work is bad enough, the governor of Utah passing a law that will filter out legal pornography on all tablets and smartphones sold in the state is outright tyrannical.

If someone wishes to access porn on their device, they must first get permission from their cellphone provider and they will be put on a list of people allowed to view porn.

According to House Bill 72, the so-called filter would “prevent the user of the device from accessing material that is harmful to minors on the device; enable certain users to deactivate the filter for the device or for specific content; and notify the user when content is filtered.”

Cox said the move would send an “important message” about preventing children from accessing explicit content on the Web.

“We really want to empower parents,” Cox said. “If nothing else it sends an important message.”

But blocking pornography on 100 percent of devices in the state does absolutely nothing to “empower parents.” There are already programs and filters available to empower parents to block porn on devices and they are free. All this law does, as the ACLU of Utah put it “infringes upon the general public’s First Amendment rights to freely access the internet.”

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UK: Govt Islamophobia Advisor Says Images of Muhammad Should Be as Unacceptable as the N-Word

The UK Government’s Islamophobia advisor has suggested that showing images of Muhammad should be made as socially unacceptable as saying the n-word.

Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire in the north of England faced protests this week from Muslim parents, after one teacher dared to show images of Muhammad during class. The school, which was about to break up for the Easter holidays, had had to switch to remote-learning as a result of the protests. The headteacher “unequivocally apologised” for the actions of the teacher in question, and suspended him, despite the fact that he had received a number of serious death threats from angry Muslims.

However, rather than criticising the actions of the protestors for attacking the free speech of the teacher, Imam Qari Asim MBE, chair of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB), and the Government’s adviser on Islamophobia, called for a “change in social attitudes” as a result of the protests, and suggested that sharing images of Muhammad should be as socially unacceptable as saying the n-word:

I guess when we talk of a potential curb or limitation on free speech, I think that sets alarm bells ringing, leaving some people [wrongly] thinking that Muslims are asking for restrictions on free speech. But I think what we should try and emphasise is that there’s already a phenomenon in place in that actually there are boundaries to free speech. Like, for instance, people cannot use the ‘n-word’ – and quite rightly so – because this is derogatory and causes deep pain and hurt. I’m not in favour of restriction and curbing or free speech, but I think we already have boundaries based on social norms.

Asim, despite his relations to the government, also is a trustee for the hardcore leftist organisation, Hope not Hate, who regularly engage in attacks on anyone on the right of politics, describing organisations such as Turning Point as being “extreme.”

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Nation’s first ‘vaccine passport’ coming to New York

The nation’s very first “vaccine passport” is coming to the Big Apple. 

The program, dubbed the “Excelsior Pass,” is an app that will allow New Yorkers to prove their vaccination status, or recent history of a negative COVID-19 test, in order to gain entry to events and businesses, Governor Cuomo announced in a news release Friday.  

“Similar to a mobile airline boarding pass, individuals will be able to either print out their pass or store it on their smartphones using the Excelsior Pass Wallet app,” the news release explains. 

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Campaigner Calls For 2 Year Lockdown, Government Permission to Leave House

A campaigner on Twitter is calling for the UK government to impose a lockdown that lasts for a minimum of 2 more years as well as a law where citizens would have to apply for government permission to leave their homes.

Yes, really.

The account came to attention yesterday after a bizarre post that also called for a 24 hour curfew during winter and only “one essential shop trip allowed by law” per week.

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Bloomberg Op-Ed: “We Must Start Planning for a Permanent Pandemic”

Bloomberg has published an article by Andreas Kluth which argues that new variants of COVID-19 mean the pandemic will be “permanent” and that there will be an “endless cycle” of restrictions.

Kluth says that the idea the world will at some point go “back to normal” is “almost certainly wrong” and that SARS-CoV-2 will become “our permanent enemy, like the flu but worse.”

The author cites “the ongoing emergence of new variants that behave almost like new viruses” which means that “we may never achieve herd immunity” because current vaccines are “powerless against the coming mutations.”

“If this is the evolutionary trajectory of SARS-CoV-2, we’re in for seemingly endless cycles of outbreaks and remissions, social restrictions and relaxations, lockdowns and reopenings,” says Kluth. “At least in rich countries, we will probably get vaccinated a couple of times a year, against the latest variant in circulation, but never fast or comprehensively enough to achieve herd immunity.”

Despite the fact the global population has been hit with worse pandemics which at the time it had far less medical expertise to deal with and eventually got over them, Kluth somehow thinks that won’t be the case with COVID.

Kluth is by no means the first to suggest that the pandemic won’t end for years if ever.

In his book Covid-19: The Great Reset, World Economic Forum globalist Klaus Schwab asserts that the world will “never” return to normal, despite him admitting that coronavirus “doesn’t pose a new existential threat.”

A senior U.S. Army official also said that mask wearing and social distancing will become permanent, while CNN’s international security editor Nick Paton Walsh asserted that the mandatory wearing of masks will become “permanent,” “just part of life,” and that the public would need to “come to terms with it.”

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Colorado Democrat Introduces Law to Fully Censor and License Internet Use

A Colorado State Senator is introducing one of the most draconian anti-free speech pieces of legislation in American history, seeking to create a governmental press licensing commission to regulate online speech.

Kerry Donovan of Vail’s “Colorado Digital Communications Act” would require internet platforms to register with the government in Colorado and submit to censorship demands. The bill targets platforms such as Parler, Gab, and Big Tech monopolies such as Facebook, (unconstitutionally) threatening the websites with fines of $5,000 a day for refusing to register with the Digital Communications Division.

The “communications division” would be obligated to fight against what Donovan says are “unfair or discriminatory digital communications practices,” raising serious questions about the standard the Democrat intends to use to justify government crackdowns.

Donovan’s act goes on to define unfair or discriminatory digital communications practices as “practices that promote hate speech; undermine election integrity; [and] disseminate intentional disinformation, conspiracy theories, or fake news.” Under Donovan’s tyrannical law, claiming JFK was shot by two shooters would be criminal. Her standard for criminal speech is little more than “fake news,” in an utterly lazy power grab to ban (truthful) online right-wing speech.

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Google repeatedly hands over user data to law enforcement without a warrant

Google is turning over user data to US law enforcement, even when requests for that come without a warrant, in the form of requests that are not court-ordered.

That emerges from information shared with the LA Times by an anonymous Google user, who said they were notified about this in an email from the tech giant, who said the request came from the Department of Homeland Security, without including the request itself in the email.

When this Google user asked to see the document, it turned out to be an administrative subpoena issued by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while the data the agency was requesting from Google included the user’s name, home, email, and IP addresses, as well as sources of payment associated with the account.

And here, the term “account” covers any Google service and app, such as Gmail, Google Pay, YouTube, etc.

In the original email that arrived from the giant’s Legal Investigations Support, the user was advised that this data would indeed be handed to the agency as requested unless they obtained a federal court stamped motion to quash the subpoena within seven days.

For most people, Just Futures’ co-founder Paromita Shah suggested, this is a task they would be unlikely to accomplish, as it requires hiring a lawyer and going to federal court, and do it all in such a short period
of time.

According to available data from the company’s transparency report covering the first half of 2020, Google received 15,500 subpoenas and complied in turning over “some data” in 83% percent of cases.

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