Tag: police state

Indiana Woman Must Shut Down Business After County Officials Determine Her Farm Isn’t Zoned for Commercial Goat Yoga or Goat Snuggling

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Jordan Stevens has been running Indiana’s only full-time goat yoga operation on her farm in rural Hamilton County. She’s since been forced to stop offering that service by the planning officials who say her property isn’t zoned for goat yoga uses.

Her application for a zoning variance that would have legalized the business, Happy Goat Lucky Yoga, was also denied by the county. The expense of that process plus the added costs and hassle of not being able to run her business on her own property has Stevens, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, considering shutting down her goat yoga business entirely and applying for disability benefits.

“It sucks,” she tells Reason. “They take so much money from people who are already taxpayers and then we can’t even do the things we want to on our own property that aren’t even hurting anyone.”

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State using COVID robot dog to take temperatures of homeless

The Honolulu Police Department in Hawaii is using a $150,000 robot named “Spot” to take the temperatures of homeless people in its effort to combat COVID-19.

Lt. Joseph O’Neal, acting lieutenant of HPD’s community outreach unit, justified the cost, which was borne by pandemic relief funds. He argued a tool that “takes transmission out of the equation” is not “a waste” from a long-term perspective.

KHON-TV in Honolulu reported Spot, a product of Boston Dynamics, is capable of taking a person’s temperature from a distance of seven feet in a fraction of a second.

“It also has two-way communication and can deliver PPE (personal protective equipment), food and water to someone who does test positive for COVID,” the news anchor said.

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10yo Girl Handcuffed, Arrested, Jailed for Drawing a Picture that Upset Her Bully’s Parent

In yet another instance highlighting the problem of police in schools, another child has fallen victim to the school to prison pipeline. This time, it was a 10-year-old girl who was handcuffed, arrested, and jailed for drawing a picture that offended a parent of a student at the school.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii has filed a lawsuit this week against the Honolulu Police Department, the state Department of Education and the state attorney general’s office over the incident.

According to the lawsuit as detailed in a letter, they are asking these agencies to adopt policy changes, expunge the child’s records, and pay $500,000 in damages for the “harm and suffering” caused by such an egregious arrest and treatment of a child.

The incident unfolded in January 2020 when a parent reportedly called Honowai Elementary School to complain about a drawing made by the child, identified as “N.B.” in the lawsuit. The parent demanded the school involve police in the situation.

The school obliged and the police were dispatched to handle a 10-year-old girl who drew a picture. When police arrived, they questioned the girl before handcuffing her, placing her under arrest, and hauling her down to the police station. She was 10 and drew a picture.

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New A.I. Device Will Activate Cameras and Alert Police When It Detects Crime-Related Noises (Gunshots, Glass Breaking, Tires Screeching)

Experts have warned for years about using Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) technology (see 1, 2, 3).  Embarrassing as well as tragic examples of A.I. inaccuracies continue to be reported (see 1, 2, 3, 4).

People have been accused and convicted of crimes based on inaccuracies (see 1, 2) including from the use of A.I. based ShotSpotter technology.  Nevertheless, a new A.I. device is being marketed to American communities and police departments.

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Crowd-Sourced Suspicion Apps Are Out of Control

Technology rarely invents new societal problems. Instead, it digitizes them, supersizes them, and allows them to balloon and duplicate at the speed of light. That’s exactly the problem we’ve seen with location-based, crowd-sourced “public safety” apps like Citizen.

These apps come in a wide spectrum—some let users connect with those around them by posting pictures, items for sale, or local tips. Others, however, focus exclusively on things and people that users see as “suspicious” or potentially hazardous. These alerts run the gamut from active crimes, or the aftermath of crimes, to generally anything a person interprets as helping to keep their community safe and informed about the dangers around them.

These apps are often designed with a goal of crowd-sourced surveillance, like a digital neighborhood watch. A way of turning the aggregate eyes (and phones) of the neighborhood into an early warning system. But instead, they often exacerbate the same dangers, biases, and problems that exist within policing. After all, the likely outcome to posting a suspicious sight to the app isn’t just to warn your neighbors—it’s to summon authorities to address the issue.

And even worse than incentivizing people to share their most paranoid thoughts and racial biases on a popular platform are the experimental new features constantly being rolled out by apps like Citizen. First, it was a private security force, available to be summoned at the touch of a button. Then, it was a service to help make it (theoretically) even easier to summon the police by giving users access to a 24/7 concierge service who will call the police for you. There are scenarios in which a tool like this might be useful—but to charge people for it, and more importantly, to make people think they will eventually need a service like this—adds to the idea that companies benefit from your fear.

These apps might seem like a helpful way to inform your neighbors if the mountain lion roaming your city was spotted in your neighborhood. But in practice they have been a cesspool of racial profiling, cop-calling, gatekeeping, and fear-spreading. Apps where a so-called “suspicious” person’s picture can be blasted out to a paranoid community, because someone with a smartphone thinks they don’t belong, are not helping people to “Connect and stay safe.” Instead, they promote public safety for some, at the expense of surveillance and harassment for others.

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Dr. Fauci: A tyrant from out of The Twilight Zone

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. —Plato

Observing Doctor Fauci’s behavior since the start of this COVID-19 pandemic, I am reminded of an episode of the original Twilight Zone series written by Rod Serling: “On Thursday We Leave for Home.”  According to The Twilight Zone Companion, by Marc Scott Zicree, Serling considered it the best episode of the fourth season.  It is an excellent example of tyrants — how they are made and how they behave.  It’s also consistent with Plato’s succinct definition.

James Whitmore plays William Benteen, the leader of a colony of Earth people who have been living on a colony planet.  They left Earth because of the conditions there and went in search of their own paradise.  The colony planet was anything but a paradise.  In order to keep up their spirits, Benteen tells the people stories of how wonderful Earth was when he lived there.  Many of the people are too young to remember or were born on the colony planet.

Benteen learns that a rescue ship is coming to take everyone home on Thursday.  When the people learn of this rescue mission, Benteen changes his stories about Earth.  When they remind Benteen of the fact that he told them stories of how wonderful Earth was, his response is, “I lied to you to make you feel better.  Now I’m telling you the truth for your own good.”

This is consistent with the flip-flops that Doctor Fauci has given us from the beginning.  He said masks don’t protect you.  In fact, years earlier, he said that very thing.  At the time, he called them a paranoid tool.  Then he changed his tune and said everyone should wear a mask.  Next, he suggested a mask mandate.  When he was confronted with his own words, he echoed Benteen’s response: I lied to you so there wouldn’t be a rush on masks.  Now I’m telling you the truth for your own good.

It’s troubling that he didn’t concern himself with the hoarding and shortages of toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, or food.  That’s exactly what happened when he called for a home quarantine for fourteen days to “flatten the curve.”

Benteen begins to respond in such a way that it becomes apparent that he is afraid of losing his power over the colony’s people.  He changes from the great protector to the authoritarian.  He insists that if they return home, the colonists must remain isolated from the rest of Earth for their own good.  Doctor Fauci refers to this same mandate as “social distancing,” which he said may be necessary until 2022.  He has stated that he wasn’t sure if we should cancel Christmas this year again, like his Grinch-like mandate of 2020.

Think back to how Doctor Fauci was portrayed by the media at the beginning of this pandemic versus now.  In the beginning, he was the great protector, just as Plato describes in his definition.  A baker in my hometown made a Doctor Fauci donut to honor the great doctor.  There was other fawning over him, including a disastrous first pitch at a baseball game.  The accuracy of that pitch parallels his medical advice.

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The Empire of Lies Breaks Down: Ugly Truths the Deep State Wants to Keep Hidden

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”—Albert Einstein

America is breaking down.

This breakdown—triggered by polarizing circus politics, media-fed mass hysteria, racism, classism, fascism, fear-mongering, political correctness, cultural sanitation, virtue signaling, a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness in the face of growing government corruption and brutality, a growing economic divide that has much of the population struggling to get by, and militarization and militainment (the selling of war and violence as entertainment)—is manifesting itself in madness, mayhem and an utter disregard for the very principles and liberties that have kept us out of the clutches of totalitarianism for so long.

In New York City, for example, a 200-year-old statue of Thomas Jefferson holding the Declaration of Independence will be removed from the City Council’s chambers where it has presided since 1915. Despite Jefferson’s many significant accomplishments, without which we might not have the rights we do today, he will be banished for having been, like many of his day, a slaveowner. Curiously, that same brutal expectation of infallibility has yet to be applied to many other politically correct yet equally imperfect and fallible role models of the day.

In Washington, DC, a tribunal of nine men and women spoke with one voice to affirm that the government and its henchmen can literally get away with murder and not be held accountable for their wrongdoing. The Supreme Court’s latest rulings are yet another painful lesson in compliance, a reminder that in the American police state, “we the people” are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to ‘serve and protect.”

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Cop Walks Past ‘Beware of Dog’ Sign, Tries to Kill Dog, Shoots Fellow Cop Instead

Over the weekend, police were called out to a disturbance report during which they walked past a “Beware of Dog” sign, and encountered a resident’s dog. During the debacle, one of the deputies with the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office did what so many other police officers do when confronted with dogs — he tried to kill it. Instead of killing the dog, however, he shot his fellow deputy.

According to Maj. Frank Stout, the incident unfolded on Sunday around 7 p.m. as police were called out to the alleged “disturbance.” The disturbance was reportedly taking place at the home with the “Beware of Dog” sign and police were warned there were dogs at the residence.

When deputies knocked on the door, they saw two pit bulls inside the home so they backed up off the porch and waited for the homeowner to answer. When the door opened, according to the deputies, a pit bull ran out of the door “aggressively” at them.

“Deputies retreated from the house and porch after they knocked because of the aggressive nature and size of the bulldog,” Stout said. “The door opened and the pit bull aggressively came at the deputies. One deputy was able to divert the charging pit bull and it turned toward another deputy and lunged at him. That deputy fired, striking the bulldog. One of the rounds fired by the deputy ricocheted off the ground and struck the first deputy in the leg.”

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