A more appropriate question…
Tag: police state
Cellebrite: Israel’s Good Cyber Cop is Big Tech’s Backdoor to Breaching Your Privacy
Privacy and security have long-been one of the top selling points for iOS devices in the interminable marketing fracas between Apple and its competitors, with fancy additions to their suite of protection features like fingerprint scanning and facial recognition. Android devices, by contrast, always seemed to lag behind in the personal encryption space, but have caught up fairly recently in the consumer’s mind, at least.
The cat, as they say, is out of the bag thanks to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, who decided to test the mobile security systems of two of the biggest mobile device makers, Apple and Google. Their findings reveal that the layers of security protecting our data are only skin deep and that much of the encryption structures built into these devices remain unused. “I’ve come out of the project thinking almost nothing is protected,” Matthew Green, the professor who oversaw the study told Wired.
Using the companies’ own data and records spanning over a decade, the team of cryptographers found a plethora of security loopholes that can and are being exploited “by hackers and law enforcement alike.” The latter’s access to our mobile devices is of particular concern, given “the privacy risks involved in unchecked seizure and search.” Significantly, it is not your local police precinct that necessarily has the right tools to extract any readable data from your cell phone or laptop (though that is changing), but rather, these unique abilities are reserved for private cybersecurity companies who offer their services to police and other government entities.
One such firm, Israeli cyber forensics firm Cellebrite, boasts about their ability to “unlock and extract data from all iOS and high-end Android devices,” a service they have been selling to governments around the world and which they have more recently integrated into a product called Universal Forensic Extraction Device or UFED, which has been purchased by multiple law enforcement agencies across the globe, including the Hong Kong Police, which used Cellebrite’s hacking technology to “crack protestors’ smartphones” during the anti-extradition riots of 2019 and the NYPD, which enrolled in Cellebrite’s “UFED Premium program” that same year and gives ‘New York’s finest’ the capability to extract ostensibly private citizens’ data from the department’s own computers and laptops.
Kamala’s shoes…
UK COVID Cops Arrest Man For Handing Out Free Soup
Police in the UK arrested a man for handing out free soup in a park, claiming that he had violated COVID-19 restrictions.
Nick Smith had been giving out free soup to people in his village for 17 weeks before Sussex Police intervened, claiming he had violated COVID rules by encouraging people to gather.
However, Smith cited exemptions under the rules for volunteering, which allows for up to 15 people to gather either indoors or outdoors.
Smith said he found the whole experience “very shocking” and insisted he was only trying to help people struggling with mental health issues as a result of the lockdown.
“Showing up every week and being a feature they can rely on is what I wanted to do. They just come because they don’t see anybody they don’t talk to anybody and they’re going crazy,” he said.
Dems push psychological evaluations for gun owners and ‘family members’
In a plan that easily could be called the “head shrink job protection bill,” Democrats have proposed a massive and exhaustive gun-control plan that would require gun owners and their family members to undergo “psychological evaluations.”
Gun owners also would have to pay the government $800 “insurance” fees, the plan demands. And a long list of weapons simply would be banned.
The bill from U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, follows on comments from Joe Biden during his campaign that he would appoint to run his gun control program a failed presidential hopeful who insisted that yes, the government was coming to confiscate guns.
Biden Administration Tear-Gassed ‘Peaceful Protesters’ Just Hours After Inauguration
A Democratic Party headquarters was damaged, an American flag burned, and marchers filled the streets in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday, following Joe Biden’s inauguration. Antifa was reportedly behind the activities, known during the summer as “peaceful protests.”
The New York Times reported that “federal agents in camouflage — now working under the Biden administration — blanketed streets with tear gas and unleashed volleys of welt-inducing pepper balls as they confronted a crowd that gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown.”
Some in the group of about 150 people smashed windows and spray-painted anarchist symbols at the political party building. Police said eight arrests were made in the area. Some demonstrators carried a sign reading, “We don’t want Biden, we want revenge!” in response to “police murders” and “imperialist wars.” Others carried a banner declaring “We Are Ungovernable.”
There was a huge amount of outrage last summer after President Trump was accused of having “peaceful protesters” tear-gassed without provocation to clear the area so he could “get his photo op” at the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had been burned in the riots the night before. The United States Park Police (USPP) denied this allegation and the claim that the D.C. protesters were peaceful was also completely false. Over the course of four days, protesters, armed with baseball bats, metal poles, and glass bottles for projectiles, vandalized property and injured 51 USPP officers.
So, where is the outrage over the Biden administration using actual tear gas (according to the New York Times) to break up “peaceful protesters”? They are peaceful, are they not? I mean, that’s what we were told about this behavior all summer. CNN and MSNBC, for example, specifically avoided calling the BLM riots “riots.”
MSNBC reporter Ali Velshi even called the riots “mostly peaceful” as he stood amongst rampant violence in front of a burning building.
NYPD Deploys Counter Terrorism Unit To Protect Wall Street in Response To Gamestop Protests
The Charging Bull statue in Manhattan’s Financial District has become the sight of protests amid a wider financial rebellion happening online. On Friday, a handful of activists were seen in Bowling Green Park, posing with the bull, and holding signs that said “Tax Wall Street Trades.” A thin band of tape was also placed on the statue’s head and rear end, featuring slogans like “Hold the line” and “WSB” — both allusions to the GameStop insurrection against hedge funds organized by Reddit’s “Wall Street Bets” community. A similar fate befell the new Fearless Girl statue, which faces the New York Stock Exchange building. Both the bull and the girl are meant to symbolize the power, bravery and daring of the city’s financial traders.
In response, the New York Police Department (NYPD) mobilized its anti-terrorism unit, sending masked, blad clad police officers wearing armor and carrying assault rifles to protect and secure the area. “The Stock Market has had an interesting week to say the least. We are happy to report that the Wall Street Charging Bull is secure and continues to preside over Bowling Green for the foreseeable future,” it announced. The bull was covered in a blue tarp to prevent further vandalism.
Washington Examiner: Capitol Protesters Are ‘Terrorists’ Like Al Qaeda Who Must Be ‘Ruthlessly Hunted Down’
The Washington Examiner ran a hysterical column on Monday from “former” CIA officer Kevin Carroll calling for Americans who took part in the mostly peaceful protests at the Capitol to be “ruthlessly hunted down” and treated like Al Qaeda terrorists.
From The Washington Examiner, “How to fix our domestic terrorist problem”:
Democrats such as Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should use their executive and legislative power over the next 23 months to do the following five important things.
First, bring the heaviest felony charges possible on as many participants in the insurrection as the Justice Department can identify and believes it can confidently convict. We ruthlessly hunted down foreign terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and must do the same to their domestic equivalents. […]
Second, make fire and police departments that receive federal grants have their members sign commitments not to engage in acts to overthrow the government. Prosecute any who subsequently violate their oaths. We could also cut or suspend federal funding to departments that fail to introduce these measures. […]
Third, do not worry about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Rather than ban extremist chatter through government censorship or private de-platforming, use radical chat rooms as honeypots, as FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces have done with violent, radicalized Islamists since 2001. […]
Fourth, use the supremacy of federal law to ban “militias” beyond the National Guard. […]
Fifth, add domestic terrorism as a predicate to the material support for terrorism statute, including its civil liability provisions. This will provide new means of successful prosecutions and gradually increased deterrence against domestic terrorists. […]
Kevin Carroll served as senior counselor to the secretary of homeland security and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and as a CIA and Army officer in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.
Carroll’s bio says he worked for a branch of The Lincoln Project.
Death of Maryland man shows continued out-of-control nature of SWAT, no-knock raids
One of the most positive developments from last year’s political strife was a stronger focus on police abuses and no-knock raids. Some states and cities have imposed new restrictions, others are working toward greater transparency when it comes to police shootings. Unfortunately, Maryland, a state that has wrestled with some of the most egregious SWAT and no-knock cases in the country, remains mired in controversy.
The state has a long record of SWAT debacles. After police wrongfully raided a mayor’s house and killed his dogs in 2008, Maryland required police to report every SWAT raid. Between 2010 and 2014, police in Maryland conducted more than 8,000 raids, killing nine people and injuring almost a hundred civilians.
Despite controversies, statistics were no longer collected after 2014. Strong police unions have blocked numerous efforts at legislative reform. As a result, Marylanders continue to be vexed by the same kind of deadly no-knock debacles that killed Breonna Taylor last March in Louisville, Kentucky.
Duncan Lemp is one of Maryland’s latest victims.
CDC—No Longer Constrained By Trump—Issues Order That Makes Not Wearing A Mask On Public Transportation A Federal Crime
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no longer restricted by the Trump administration, issued an extensive federal public health order late Friday requiring all individuals to wear masks over their mouth and nose on nearly all forms of public transportation and private ride-sharing services—and makes refusal to wear a face-covering a violation of federal law.
Hellbound and Down 
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