Tag: police state

34 Police Depts Kill Citizens At Higher Rates Than the US Murder Rate

According to the most recent count of police killings, police in America have killed 1,039 people this year. Exactly 21 of these victims were at or under the age of 18 when their lives were taken by police officers who swore an oath to protect and serve. Many were unarmed while others were entirely innocent. All of them, however, were innocent until proven guilty — yet never got the option to plead their cases.

So far this year, there have only been 17 days in which police have not killed someone.

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DHS Works to Improve Biometric Scanning of Masked Faces

Perhaps the most-worn accessories of 2020, face masks mark an unexpected new constant in people’s lives providing necessary protection against COVID-19—but they’re also known to pose some trouble for contemporary facial recognition systems. 

The Homeland Security Department, one of the government’s biggest biometrics systems users, is now steering research to confront the complexities limiting existing technology and help push forward tools to safely verify people’s identities at security checkpoints in a pandemic.    

Initial results from one recent effort “are actually quite promising,” according to Arun Vemury, director of DHS’ Biometric and Identity Technology Center. 

“We’re getting to the point with this technology, where at least from the preliminary results, it looks like there’s some combinations of biometric acquisition systems, the camera systems and the matching algorithms—when you combine them together, you could match eight or nine out of 10 people without asking them to remove their masks,” Vemury told Nextgov during a recent interview. “This means that for the vast majority of people in airports, they might not have to remove their masks anymore to even go through the security checks, and we could do a really good job of still matching them. So, I think it’s very promising from that perspective. Is it 100%? Is it perfect? No. But it reduces the number of people who potentially have to take their masks off.”

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How a Young Joe Biden Became the Architect of the Government’s Asset Forfeiture Program

Biden, a young Senator from Delaware, had to do something to show that despite his “liberal” reputation, he could be just as tough on crime as his Republican colleagues. He took notice of the RICO law, and he realized that law enforcement agencies were not taking advantage of it, particularly in regards to the Drug War. He turned to the General Accounting Office and asked them to produce a study on the potential uses of RICO for drug enforcement.

The report showed that the RICO Act granted enormous powers to police to confiscate drug-related assets, but these powers were not being taken advantage of: “The government has simply not exercised the kind of leadership and management necessary to make asset forfeiture a widely used law enforcement technique,” the report stated. By the time the report came in, Ronald Reagan was settling into office and getting ready to wage a renewed War on Drugs.

Reagan brought the FBI into the Drug War, and he gave the director, William Webster, a mission. His agents would use the RICO Act powers to find drug rings and take away their assets. Drug cartels must be rendered unprofitable.

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2020: The Year We Let Ourselves Be Infantilised And Dehumanised

“Stay Alert. Control the Virus. Save Lives.”

What on earth is this actually supposed to mean?

Stay Alert? For what? Are we supposed to be on our guard for a virus that is approximately 120 nanometres, or around 1,000th the width of a human hair? Are we to carry an electron microscope around with us wherever we go, just in case? One of my favourite signs is an electronic one I sometimes see on my occasional drives into the office. On one day, it says, “Stay Alert. Control the Virus.” On another, it says, “Stay Alert. Watch out for Cyclists.” It should be noted that cyclists are considerably bigger than 120nm and even often wearing the kind of hi-vis jackets that coronaviruses refuse to wear.

Control the Virus? Say what? You mean they actually think we’re stupid enough to think they’re clever enough to devise schemes that can actually control those little invisible 120 nm virus particles that are in the air and on surfaces. Apparently so.

Save Lives? I am yet to hear a convincing argument as to how I and my family, not having any symptoms and thus not being infected by the virus, can possibly stop the spread of said virus that we don’t have by staying at home or wearing a piece of cloth over or respiratory passages, such that we save lives.

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American Teenagers Jailed For 4 Months For Violating COVID-19 Quarantine Rules In Cayman Islands

Skylar Mack, 18, of Georgia, broke her two-week quarantine after two days because she wanted to watch her boyfriend, Vanjae Ramgeet — a 24-year-old jet ski racer from the Cayman Islands — compete in a local race on Nov. 29, People reported.

Under Cayman’s coronavirus guidelines, travelers are required to undergo a 14-day quarantine-in-residence upon arriving on the island.

Mack pled guilty to removing her geo-fencing bracelet and breaking quarantine for seven hours in order to watch her boyfriend compete in a local jet-ski race. He pled guilty to aiding and abetting her.

The couple was initially sentenced to a fine and community service by Magistrate Angelyn Hernandez.

However, Patrick Moran, the Director of Public Prosecutions for the Cayman Islands, appealed the sentence. He claimed it was too lenient and therefore, unlikely to deter others from breaching COVID guidelines.

Moran then sought prison terms for Mack and Ramgeet for the nonviolent transgression. Neither were infected with COVID-19 when Mack breached quarantine.

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Lawmakers to Debate Elimination of Religious Exemption to Vaccines

Before COVID hit in March, the hottest topic at the state capitol was whether to eliminate the religious exemption to childhood vaccines. With the COVID vaccine on everyone’s mind, does that complicate the debate? 

“It’s probably not complicated by the facts but probably more complicated by the emotion of it,” incoming House Speaker Matt Ritter said.  

Ritter has promised a vote on the issue next year.

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