Tag: police state

Assange verdict branded as ‘travesty of justice’

Human rights and press freedom activists have fiercely condemned a UK court ruling paving the way for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be extradited to the US where he faces espionage charges.

The UK High Court on Friday granted the US’ request to extradite Assange, a request it had previously blocked due to Assange’s declining mental health. While the ruling is not final and can be appealed by Assange’s legal team, it brings the former WikiLeaks boss one step closer to a trial on US soil, where he faces a possible 175 years behind bars if convicted of espionage.

“These proceedings, and today’s ruling, are a black mark on the history of press freedom,” wrote Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “That United States prosecutors continued to push for this outcome is a betrayal of the journalistic principles the Biden administration has taken credit for celebrating,” Timm, who previously testified in Assange’s defense, continued.

Reporters Without Borders joined in the condemnation, with Secretary-General Christophe Deloire stating that Friday’s ruling “will prove historic for all the wrong reasons.”

“We fully believe that Julian Assange has been targeted for his contributions to journalism, and we defend this case because of its dangerous implications for the future of journalism and press freedom around the world,” Deloire wrote.

Assange’s plight has long been recognized by free speech and press freedom activists, and the deprivations endured by Assange during his years in detention have been criticized by human rights organizations. Amnesty International’s Europe Director Nils Muiznieks described the court’s decision as “a travesty of justice.”

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Illinois Bill Proposes To Strip Unvaxxed Of Their Health Insurance

Illinois Representative Jonathan Carroll wants to push through a change to the state’s insurance law that would mean health insurers no longer have to cover unvaccinated people who get Covid, forcing people to pay their medical bills out of pocket.

The Democrat lawmaker told the Chicago Sun-Times:

I think it’s time that we say ‘You choose not to get vaccinated, then you’re also going to assume the risk that if you do catch COVID, and you get sick, the responsibility is on you,’”

The potential corruption and abuse of such a rule should be obvious to anyone familiar with just how mendacious insurance companies can be.

In all likelihood insurance companies will simply demand a negative Covid test before paying anything, and if you test positive, no matter what you were treated for, you will be called a “covid case” and forced to pay out of pocket.

The bill could, essentially, wipe all health insurance off the books for unvaccinated people.

The vaccinated should take no comfort from this, because their vaccinated status is entirely temporary, and subject to rules that could change on a whim.

Any “double jabbed” who misses a booster, or got a brand of vaccine that was subsequently unapproved or discontinued, or wasn’t updated for the latest variant, could suddenly find themselves one of the “unvaccinated” underclass.

Of course, once it applies to vaccination status it can apply to other things. You travelled to the wrong place, or you didn’t wear a mask, you “associated with known anti-vaxxers”.

And, even more concerning, is the potentially slippery slope this starts us down. Unvaccinated don’t get health insurance. Neither do smokers who get lung cancer. Or overweight people who get diabetes. And so on and so on.

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Epic Ratio: Dallas Cops Brag About Civil Forfeiture and Get Owned on Social Media

Civil forfeiture is not a popular government activity. For those of you who don’t know, civil asset forfeiture according to the ACLU “allows police to seize — and then keep or sell — any property they allege is involved in a crime. Owners need not ever be arrested or convicted of a crime for their cash, cars, or even real estate to be taken away permanently by the government.”

If that sounds crazy to you, I assure you, it’s real. I don’t know how it’s real, because it’s certainly not constitutional—who needs the Fourth Amendment, am I right?— but it is real.

The Dallas Police Department stepped in a hornet’s nest on social media when they posted a braggadocious photo of a seizure of $100,000 in cash. Police confiscated the haul at Dallas Love Field Airport and then posted the photo on social media. The local CBS station picked it up and wrote a glowing article about it. I guess they thought the photo of an adorable German Shepherd (good boi!) standing over piles of cash he found with his incredibly smart and furry nose would make everyone forget that the police just robbed someone…legally. It didn’t work.

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New Zealand BANS smoking: Radical new laws will stop young people from EVER buying cigarettes as nation goes ‘smoke-free’

New Zealand is banning young people from ever being allowed to buy cigarettes in a rolling scheme that aims to make the entire country smoke-free.

People aged 14 and under in 2027 will never be allowed to purchase cigarettes in their lifetime in the Pacific country of five million, under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s radical new laws.

Each year the age limit will be increased until it is illegal for the entire nation.

‘We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it an offence to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to new cohorts of youth,’ associate health minister Ayesha Verrall said on Thursday. 

However, the new law will not impact vaping, with Dr Verrall saying tobacco smoking is more harmful and remains a leading cause of preventable deaths in New Zealand, killing up to 5,000 people each year. 

The measures will make New Zealand’s retail tobacco industry one of the most restricted in the world, just behind Bhutan where cigarette sales are banned outright. 

Official in New Zealand, where packets of 20 Marlboro cigarettes cost around NZ$33 (£17), have not said how they plan to police the ban, nor which retailers would be barred from selling tobacco products. More detail is expected to be provided when legislation is brought before parliament next year. 

At the moment, tobacco retailers face fines of between NZ$500 and NZ$1,000 for selling cigarettes to minors. 

Although many experts have welcomed the move, others have warned that it could cause a ‘gradual prohibition’ and create a black market for tobacco, prompting a crime wave.

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VACCINE MANDATES RESULT FROM THE ABUSE OF TRUE SCIENCE

There is an alarming degree of uniformity between the governments of many western countries when it comes to instituting tyrannical measures like mandatory medical injections at workplaces and vaccine passports. In doing so, they have departed from liberal values and principles, by no longer recognizing or respecting private spheres, personal goals, or individual freedom and rights. They have also ignored the fact that living in a liberal democratic society means the state is limited to a reasonable level of activity or interference that is neither detrimental nor destructive to various types of freedoms, including negative, positive, individual, subjective, and objective freedom.

At this point, it is clear that vaccine passports and mandates have nothing to do with safeguarding public health or mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather, they are purely coercive measures designed to punish disobedience by taking away one’s ability to provide for his family, shape his future, engage in activities that bring him happiness, and live his life in ways that allow him to flourish and advance his well-being. That is to say, they are effectively capable of destroying people’s dreams, goals, self-respect, self-esteem, self-development, aspirations, etc. They are also damaging for public health and the common good, as a society cannot provide a safe, secure and healthy environment for its citizens without an adequate number of people to provide key social services, including police forces, health care workers, fire fighters, sanitation workers, and teachers.

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While Awaiting Jail for Demanding Sex for Leniency, Disgraced Cop Busted Trying to Have Sex with Child

Last month, disgraced Maui police officer, Brandon Saffeels, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for arresting a woman and later demanding sexual favors in exchange for his beneficial testimony at her trial. During the course of Saffeels’ trial, other victims came forward and this cop’s sadistic ways were exposed.

According to court documents, Saffeels arrested a woman for DUI in 2019. Apparently, the sick wheels in his head started spinning after her arrest, so he contacted her after the fact and told her that if she allowed him to have his way with her, he would throw his testimony at her trial.

The woman, a single mother, was scared to go to police with the story as she feared they would cover it up. So, she took her case straight to the media. She had the officer’s text messages and even recorded his calls in which he told her to come to his home where he would carry out his “bad intentions.”

After this mother of three made her case public on Hawaii News Now, Saffeels was arrested on numerous charges. After his arrest, other victims came forward alleging that Saffeels made similar advances toward them, including one woman who was the victim of a crime.

A total of four of them are now suing MPD.

In November, Saffeels took a plea deal and his first victim took the stand at his sentencing hearing to let him know how she felt.

“Am I still scared? Very. Do I worry about retaliation still? Yes,” said the woman, adding that Saffeels going to jail gave her some solace.

“I do feel like I’ve gotten a little of my power back. I feel like I can breathe again,” she said after hearing he’d be carrying out his 30 month sentence in another state. “I just encourage everyone else out there going though something like this to take a stand. Be brave. You’re not alone.”

Saffeels was not ordered to immediately report to jail and instead his sentencing was deferred until January 7, 2022 where he would be sent to a federal facility in Oregon. That plea will likely be thrown out now, however, as this cop is unable to control his sick desires.

After his conviction, while waiting to serve his prison sentence, this disgraced cop was busted again — this time, trying to have sex with a 13-year-old girl. Apparently, he wanted to create one more victim before being locked up. Luckily, however, that 13-year-old girl was actually an undercover agent with Operation Keiki Shield — a joint operation by county, state and federal agencies to track down child predators.

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You’d Better Watch Out: The Surveillance State Has a Naughty List, and You’re On It

“He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows when you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness’ sake!”

—“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”

Santa’s got a new helper.

No longer does the all-knowing, all-seeing, jolly Old St. Nick need to rely on antiquated elves on shelves and other seasonal snitches in order to know when you’re sleeping or awake, and if you’ve been naughty or nice.

Thanks to the government’s almost limitless powers made possible by a domestic army of techno-tyrants, fusion centers and Peeping Toms, Santa can get real-time reports on who’s been good or bad this year. This creepy new era of government/corporate spying—in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted—makes the NSA’s rudimentary phone and metadata surveillance appear almost antiquated in comparison.

Consider just a small sampling of the tools being used to track our movements, monitor our spending, and sniff out all the ways in which our thoughts, actions and social circles might land us on the government’s naughty list.

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