Tag: police state

Mayor Garcetti Bans Walking As Latest LA Lockdown Begins

As LA Mayor Eric Garcetti kicks off the most restrictive lockdown in the country in the City of Angels, it appears even walking and exercise are now banned as California takes a page out of Australia’s COVID-19 playbook.

During comments earlier this week, the LA Mayor warned “it’s time to cancel everything”, including “unnecessary travel on foot” – also known as ‘walking’.

Keep reading

THE MICROSOFT POLICE STATE: MASS SURVEILLANCE, FACIAL RECOGNITION, AND THE AZURE CLOUD

NATIONWIDE PROTESTS AGAINST racist policing have brought new scrutiny onto big tech companies like Facebook, which is under boycott by advertisers over hate speech directed at people of color, and Amazon, called out for aiding police surveillance. But Microsoft, which has largely escaped criticism, is knee-deep in services for law enforcement, fostering an ecosystem of companies that provide police with software using Microsoft’s cloud and other platforms. The full story of these ties highlights how the tech sector is increasingly entangled in intimate, ongoing relationships with police departments.

Keep reading

CDC urges ‘universal’ indoor mask use when not at home

Lewandowski, Bossie added to Pentagon advisory board after latest purge

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday recommended the “universal use of face masks” as a key step to fighting the coronavirus pandemic, warning the U.S. has “entered a phase of high-level transmission.”

The agency recommended in a report that officials at the state and local level “issue policies or directives mandating universal use of face masks in indoor (nonhousehold) settings” as one strategy to combat the virus, a tactic President Trump and many GOP governors have resisted.

The CDC said wearing a mask is most important when someone is indoors somewhere besides their house and outdoors when six feet of distance cannot be maintained. Masks should also be used inside one’s household when someone is infected or has had recent exposure to the virus, the report said.

Keep reading

San Francisco bans smoking tobacco inside your apartment, marijuana is totally fine though.

Officials in San Francisco have banned all tobacco smoking inside apartments, citing concerns about secondhand smoke. Don’t worry though the ban only includes tobacco products, smoking pot in your home is still allowed.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 Tuesday to approve the ordinance making San Francisco the largest city in the country to ban tobacco smoking inside apartments.

Apparently, the reason marijuana smoking isn’t banned is that such a ban would not provide any space for people to actually legally smoke pot, as it’s still illegal under state law to smoke pot in public places.

Keep reading

This Forfeiture Victim Waited 2 Years Without a Hearing. Is That Due Process?

Civil asset forfeiture laws, which allow the government to seize property allegedly tainted by crime without ever charging the owner, are fundamentally rigged in favor of the law enforcement agencies that get a cut of the proceeds. Even when an owner manages to challenge a forfeiture by arguing that he was not involved in any criminal activity, he has the burden of proving his innocence, and the process often costs more than the property is worth. Adding insult to injury, the government can drag out the process for so long that even innocent owners feel compelled to surrender. The Institute for Justice (I.J.) challenges that aspect of civil forfeiture in an appeal it filed this week, asking the Supreme Court to rule that due process requires a prompt post-seizure hearing.

Early civil forfeiture laws in the United States recognized the importance of that safeguard. The Collections Act of 1789, I.J. notes, required a hearing within 14 days after the government filed its forfeiture complaint, which was supposed to happen shortly after the seizure. A decade later, Congress amended the law to emphasize that forfeiture suits must be commenced “without delay.” Nowadays, by contrast, property owners routinely wait months or years before they get a chance to challenge a seizure before a neutral adjudicator.

Keep reading