Tag: police state

Nepalese government blocks access to nearly every major social media platform

The government of Nepal has blocked public access to 26 social media and communications platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and X, due to the companies’ failure to comply with the government’s demand for registration.  The deadline to register was 4 September 2025.

The Nepal Telecommunication Authority ordered the platforms to be taken offline under government direction, citing a Supreme Court-mandated compliance push that requires all digital platforms to formally register and monitor content deemed inappropriate by officials.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology had given the platforms seven days to comply with the “Directive on Regulating the Use of Social Media, 2080.”  The failure to do so resulted in the access being revoked, as stated by the Ministry’s spokesperson, Gajendra Kumar Thakur, who confirmed that unregistered social media platforms would be deactivated immediately.

The blocked list includes nearly every major social media platform, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, X, Reddit, Rumble, LinkedIn, Signal, Pinterest, Threads, Discord, WeChat and more, Reclaim the Net said.

TikTok and Viber have not been blocked because they had completed the registration process earlier, as well as Telegram, Wetalk, Nimbuzz and Global Diary, which are either registered or currently in the process of registration.

The government’s action is a response to a collection of legal petitions filed over several years, aimed at regulating unregistered digital platforms that broadcast advertising and media content in Nepal.  Officials, including Nepal’s Minister for Communications and Information Technology, have stated that the companies were warned repeatedly to register and comply with the government’s request.

The government insists that access to the blocked platforms will be restored immediately once they comply with the registration demands, which include appointing a local representative, establishing a complaints process and taking responsibility for censoring speech, as outlined in the strict rules introduced by the Government.

The move has caused widespread confusion, disrupted communication for migrant workers, affected the tourism industry and sparked protests.  Private operator Ncell warned that 50 per cent of its internet traffic comes from social media platforms and that shutting them down would severely hurt business.

The Government says it is part of a broader effort to regulate online content and combat misinformation, although critics warn it threatens freedom of expression and press freedom.

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Josh Hawley Proposes AI Regulations, Section 230 Repeal, and Digital ID Checks for Chatbots

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is pushing for broad new regulations on artificial intelligence, including age verification for chatbot access, data ownership rights, and the full repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

While the proposals are framed as efforts to curb corporate overreach in the tech industry, they will ignite concern among digital rights advocates who warn that such measures could undermine online privacy and freedom of expression.

At the National Conservatism Conference, Hawley accused AI developers of building their systems by collecting and using copyrighted material without permission. “The AI large language models [LLMs] have already trained on enough copyrighted works to fill the Library of Congress 22 times over,” he said.

“Let me just put a finer point on that — AI’s LLMs have ingested every published work in every language known to man already.” He claimed that creators were neither consulted nor compensated.

In July, Hawley introduced the AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act, which would allow individuals to sue companies that use personal data without consent and would establish property rights over certain categories of digital information.

However, two key components of Hawley’s platform are raising some alarm. His call to repeal Section 230 has been criticized for potentially damaging the open internet.

Section 230 currently shields online platforms from legal liability for content created by users. Without it, many sites could be forced to preemptively remove user content out of legal risk, resulting in widespread over-moderation and silencing of lawful speech.

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A Police State Presidency: When ‘Rule of Law’ Becomes ‘Rule by Gunpoint’

“The world will soon understand nothing can stop what is coming.”—President Trump

Donald Trump has always been a master of imagery.

From his red MAGA hats to his choreographed rallies, he understands the language of spectacle. Now he has discovered the perfect propaganda machine: AI-generated images.

AI allows the creation of endless variations of Trump-as-warrior, Trump-as-enforcer, Trump-as-savior. These images spread across social media, replicated, remixed, and shared until they become familiar, even normalized.

The latest AI-generated images of Trump, shared on his social media accounts, depict him in the militarized black uniform of a SWAT officer, or in police dress blues.

These memes are carefully crafted signals of how Trump envisions power in America.

These algorithmically perfected images, generated to flood the digital landscape and shape the subconscious of millions, are neither accidental nor new: they are psychological warfare—propaganda that is as old as time.

Propaganda does not persuade through logic. It persuades through familiarity. And Trump’s AI propaganda machine is doing its job: normalizing the sight of a president in a SWAT uniform.

Throughout history, despots have used martial imagery to elevate themselves above the people and justify power by force.

Mussolini wrapped himself in the black shirts of his paramilitaries to rally fascist Italy. Hitler’s carefully staged uniforms and parades signaled total control of the German nation. Stalin and Mao surrounded themselves with martial iconography to convey power over life, death, and law.

The message was always the same: I am not just your leader—I am your protector, your executioner, your law.

Today, Trump joins that lineage—not on a battlefield, but in digital space.

But unlike his predecessors, Trump does not need mass rallies or parades to craft this imagery. Algorithms now do the work of propaganda ministries. And unlike past dictators who required massive propaganda apparatuses, Trump needs only an internet connection and an AI tool to clothe himself in the trappings of authoritarianism.

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Israeli intelligence data: Militants account for only 1 in 4 Gaza detainees

Only one in four Palestinians captured by Israeli forces in Gaza were identified by the army as militants, with civilians making up the vast majority of “unlawful combatants” detained in Israeli prisons since October 7, a joint investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal.  

This is what emerges from figures obtained from a classified database managed by Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate (known by the Hebrew acronym “Aman”), in addition to official Israeli prison statistics disclosed in legal proceedings. Testimonies from former Palestinian detainees and Israeli soldiers who served in detention facilities further indicate that Israel has knowingly abducted civilians en masse and held them for long periods in appalling conditions.

Detention figures cited by the state in May in response to High Court petitions revealed that a total of 6,000 Palestinians had been arrested in Gaza during the first 19 months of the war and held in Israel under a law for incarcerating “unlawful combatants” — a legal tool that allows Israel to imprison people indefinitely, without charge or trial, if there are “reasonable grounds” to believe they participated in “hostile activities against the State of Israel” or that they are a member of a group that has.

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Ukraine Gov’t Looks to Ban Branch of Orthodox Church over Ties to Russia

The Ukrainian government has declared that a branch of the Orthodox Church has failed to sever its longstanding ties with Moscow – and could soon be banned.

The looming ban affects one of the two rival branches of Orthodoxy in the country and further underscores the turbulent role of religion as Ukraine fends off the Russian invasion. Orthodoxy is the majority religion in both Russia and Ukraine and has served as a cultural and spiritual battleground in tandem with the wider war.

The action comes a year after the Ukrainian Parliament passed a law banning the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church due to its strong support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The law also authorized banning any organization tied to the Russian church. A government investigation into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with its centuries-old ties to Moscow, soon followed.

The UOC denounced the full-blown Russian invasion from the start in 2022. It declared its independence from the Moscow church the same year and reiterated that stance in 2025.

Even so, the government says the UOC has refused to take necessary steps, such as revising its governing documents, to complete that separation.

The Aug. 27 government action, while long in the works, still requires more legal processes to take full effect.

The government has petitioned a court to ban the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church itself. The church, if it loses, would have the right to one appeal to a higher court before the case is finalized – a process that could be completed in months, its lawyer said.

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ICE Reactivates Contract With Israeli-linked Spyware Firm Paragon

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reactivated a $2 million spyware contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli-founded firm now owned by a U.S. private equity group. The move lifts a Biden-era freeze and signals a deeper embrace of invasive surveillance tools in domestic immigration enforcement.

It is also only the latest sign of how far the federal government’s surveillance apparatus has grown under the banner of “immigration enforcement.” ICE has become one of its most powerful nodes — a conduit through which cutting-edge spyware, data analytics, and AI-driven tools are deployed inside U.S. borders.

Contract Reborn

On September 1, journalist Jack Poulson, citing the official procurement note, reported that ICE quietly lifted a stop-work order on the Paragon contract. The order had been in place since October 2024, after the Biden administration paused the deal under Executive Order 14093. That order barred agencies from buying foreign spyware tied to human rights abuses.

Paragon

Paragon is an Israeli spyware company founded in 2019 by veterans of Israel’s cyberwarfare Unit 8200, the equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Among the early backers is Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a longtime political heavyweight and known associate of Jeffrey Epstein. From the start, it marketed itself as the “ethical” alternative to Pegasus, another notorious Israeli spyware.

Citizen Lab reports that by 2021 Paragon had launched a U.S. subsidiary and staffed it with former CIA, Air Force, and defense contractor officials. That gave it a foothold in Washington. Within two years, ICE had signed a $2 million contract for its spyware; U.S. Special Operations Command disclosed more than $11 million in related purchases.

In late 2024, ownership shifted. All shares in Paragon Israel were transferred to Paragon Parent Inc., a new Delaware corporation. The deal, reportedly led by Florida-based private equity firm AE Industrial Partners, was valued at $500 million up front, with another $400 million tied to performance goals. Soon after, Paragon was folded into REDLattice, a Virginia contractor already known for offensive cyber tools. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show REDLattice’s parent company then added ex-CIA and U.S. Army chiefs to its board.

Once Paragon became “American-owned,” ICE lifted the freeze on its spyware contract. In effect, the U.S. government blocked the deal when the company was Israeli but allowed it once Americans — many with intelligence and military ties — took control. The spyware itself did not change, only the ownership structure, and it is far from clear how much influence Israeli intelligence veterans still wield inside the company.

Graphite

Graphite is Paragon’s flagship spyware. Unlike Pegasus, which can take full control of a phone, Graphite focuses on breaking in to encrypted messaging apps. It can pull data from WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage without seizing the entire device.

Investigators have shown that Graphite often relies on “zero-click” exploits. These attacks require no action from the target. Once inside, the spyware extracts texts, call logs, photos, videos, and even microphone input. All of it is sent to remote servers controlled by the operator. Citizen Lab’s forensic report from this June confirmed the tool had been deployed against journalists in Europe. Their devices were fully updated yet still compromised until Apple patched the flaw in iOS 18.3.1.

This technical profile explains why Graphite is so attractive to governments. It is stealthy, precise, and hard to detect. But its use has raised alarms well beyond Israel and the United States.

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Macron’s Global Censorship Push Exposed: Leaked Files Reveal France’s Covert Speech Control Campaign

As European leaders push to shape global speech rules under the guise of trade policy, new internal records reveal that the French government quietly built a system to enforce censorship worldwide.

Leaked internal communications from Twitter, now known as X, expose a sophisticated campaign led by President Emmanuel Macron and aided by state-aligned organizations to pressure the platform into suppressing speech far beyond what French law requires.

While publicly promoting values like free expression, France’s leadership was privately demanding crackdowns on political content, anonymous users, and anything that veered from government-approved narratives.

The latest TWITTER FILES – FRANCE, published by Public, which is worth reading, documents how Paris pioneered the modern censorship-by-proxy model; using lawsuits, coordinated NGO pressure, and personal outreach at the highest levels to mold a global moderation regime in France’s image.

One of the more revealing moments in the documents comes from October 2020, when Twitter’s Public Policy Director in France noted unusual persistence from the Élysée Palace.

“President Macron’s team has been asking me (again!) Jack [Dorsey]’s number because the President wants to text him some supporting words re our new policies and functionalities on Election integrity,” the message read.

The only issue? Dorsey didn’t hand out his number, even to heads of state. Staff reminded Macron’s team that a direct message would be more appropriate, though they acknowledged the President didn’t use Twitter personally. Alternatives like Signal, Telegram, and even iMessage were considered.

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Democratic Party Official in South Korea: “If We Gather Every Opposition Voter and Bury Them in One Day, Democracy Will Advance”

A shocking development in South Korea took place recently: a senior official of the ruling Democratic Party, a former lawyer who now leads the Party’s Education and Training Institute, openly advocated for the elimination of opposition voters during a public book talk.

He referred to conservative voters as “No. 2 voters” (a derogatory label for supporters of the People Power Party, South Korea’s main opposition), and stated that if they were “all gathered in one day and buried, democracy would advance.” He also targeted the Yeongnam region (Daegu, Busan, Gyeongbuk, etc.), South Korea’s traditional conservative stronghold and home to strong support for opposition parties and President Yoon Suk-yeol, claiming residents there “lack thought and cannot judge right from wrong.”

This is not a mere slip of the tongue. It represents a disturbing call for the political elimination of South Korea’s pro-freedom electorate, undermining democratic norms and dehumanizing millions of citizens.

From The New Daily on September 4, 2025.

Full Article Translation below:

Title: Exclusive: In 2nd-victimization scandal, Choi Kang-wook — “If we gather the ‘No. 2 voters’ in one day and bury them, democracy will advance”

Choi Kang-wook, head of the Democratic Party’s Education and Training Institute—who is embroiled in a second-victimization controversy over sexual harassment—was confirmed to have made derogatory remarks about opposition voters and regional residents in a recent lecture. In a book talk format, he referred to supporters of the opposition party as “No. 2 voters,” suggesting they avoid thinking and cannot weigh right and wrong.

On September 4, political circles confirmed that Choi held a book talk for his work “Beneficial Conservatism, Righteous Progressivism” on August 30 in Naju, Jeollanam-do.

There, he said: “Lately people use the term ‘No. 2 voters’,” adding, “It’s used as a pejorative, ‘they voted #2,’ so why complain or jump down on them for it?”

(“No. 2 voters” refers to supporters of the People Power Party, the main opposition. Former DP head Lee Jae-myung once used the term in a 2024 campaign and later apologized.)

Choi continued: “When I go to Gyeongsang or the southeast, the atmosphere is intense. In Daegu and Gyeongbuk, or even Busan, Democratic Party citizens live like independence fighters. Every day is too painful—it’s maddening.”

He then mocked why people supported Park Geun-hye: “Because ‘she’s pretty.’ Or Yoon Suk-yeol—people say, ‘he speaks well, drinks well—real men are like that.’ In Naju, people can’t say that; they’d be called fools. But in Yeongnam, these people are the mainstream.”

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Germany Targets X Executives in Unprecedented Criminal Probe over Refusal to Hand Over User Data in “Hate Speech” Cases

German authorities have opened a criminal investigation targeting three managers at X, accusing them of “obstruction of justice” for refusing to directly provide user data in online speech-related cases.

Two of the employees are American, and one of them is reportedly Diego de Lima Gualda, the former head of X’s operations in Brazil, who previously faced off against legal demands in his home country before resigning in April 2024.

The alleged problem for Germany is X’s policy of forwarding German requests for user data to US authorities, following procedures established under a bilateral Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT).

That treaty lays out the legal framework for cross-border data sharing, requiring requests from German prosecutors to be reviewed and processed through US legal channels before X is compelled to hand over user information.

Despite this legally grounded process, prosecutors in Göttingen have decided to treat the policy as criminal interference, marking what appears to be the first time in German legal history that social media executives are being investigated for how they respond to international legal requests.

German prosecutors have reportedly been frustrated by X’s unwillingness to grant them direct access to account data, particularly in cases involving posts that include banned symbols like swastikas or comments that authorities allege may amount to defamation.

The inability to obtain data has resulted in stalled investigations and dropped cases, including one where a post containing a swastika could not be traced to its author.

Although X restricted that post within Germany, the company declined to release identifying information.

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At The FBI, The Rotten Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree

You can’t make this up.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Put these clichés together and you have the chilling saga of two FBI agents linked by blood whose conduct has forever stained the Bureau’s reputation.

One bad apple is former FBI Deputy Director Larry A. Potts. He was in a supervisory role during the Waco raid and demoted in the 1990s following the Ruby Ridge fallout, two of the bloodiest incidents in FBI history.

The other is Walter Giardina, who was among several senior FBI officials terminated by Director Kash Patel in August 2025. His firing came after months of Senate Oversight letters citing whistleblower allegations about his role in Trump-related investigations.

As I recount in my new book “I Went To Prison So You Won’t Have To,” Giardina was also the FBI agent who put handcuffs and leg irons on me after orchestrating my circus-style arrest at Reagan National Airport, an ambush that dragged my fiancée into the spectacle as collateral damage.

Here’s the you can’t make this up kicker: Potts is Giardina’s father-in-law.

Potts: A Study in Bad Apple FBI Culture

In the early 1990s, Larry A. Potts rose quickly at FBI headquarters, eventually becoming the Bureau’s second-in-command as deputy director. His ascent coincided with the Ruby Ridge tragedy of 1992. Potts was in the Washington oversight chain when the Bureau abandoned its standard deadly-force policy and adopted special “rules of engagement” for that operation.

Under normal FBI policy, agents were authorized to use lethal force only when facing an imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm. At Ruby Ridge, however, the rules were rewritten. The order declared that “any armed adult male observed in the vicinity of the Weaver cabin could and should be shot.”

This was not the restrained standard of constitutional policing. It was a license to kill. Within 24 hours, Randy Weaver’’ 14-year-old son was dead, as was Vicki Weaver, killed while holding her infant daughter in her arms. Barely a year later came Waco. After a 51-day standoff, the FBI’s siege — armored vehicles, CS gas, aggressive psychological tactics — ended in a fire that killed 76 men, women, and children.

Under intense scrutiny, FBI Director Louis Freeh demoted Potts; he then retired in 1997.

But not before “Pottsgate.”

To justify billing the Bureau for Potts’ lavish retirement dinner, senior managers created paperwork for an ironically named “ethics conference” at Quantico. When exposed, letters of censure followed. Rank-and-file agents fumed: falsify records as a line agent and you’re fired; do it for a boss’s party and you get a slap on the wrist. (DOJ OIG—Potts retirement; GAO).

Potts would later sit at the family table with his daughter and son-in-law Walter Giardina. Giardina is not just the FBI thug who put me in handcuffs; he also tried, in my view, to take down Donald John Trump.

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