Tag: police state

Biden Plans Expansion of Feds’ Army of Snitches in ‘Dollars for Collars’ Program

The Biden administration may soon recruit an army of private snoops to conduct surveillance that would be illegal if done by federal agents. As part of its war on extremism, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may exploit a “legal work-around” to spy on and potentially entrap Americans who are “perpetuating the ‘narratives’ of concern,” CNN reported last week. But federal informant programs routinely degenerate into “dollars for collars” schemes that reward scoundrels for fabricating crimes that destroy the lives of innocent Americans. The DHS plan would “allow the department to circumvent [constitutional and legal] limits” on surveillance of private citizens and groups. Federal agencies are prohibited from targeting individuals solely for First Amendment-protected speech and activities. But federal hirelings would be under no such restraint. Private informants could create false identities that would be problematic if done by federal agents.

DHS will be ramping up a war against an enemy which the feds have never clearly or competently defined. According to a March report by Biden’s office of the Director of National Intelligence, “domestic violent extremists” include individuals who “take overt steps to violently resist or facilitate the overthrow of the U.S. government in support of their belief that the U.S. government is purposely exceeding its Constitutional authority.” Perhaps like setting up a private informant scheme to evade constitutional restrictions on warrantless surveillance?

One DHS official bewailed to CNN: “Domestic violent extremists are really adaptive and innovative. We see them not only moving to encrypted platforms, but obviously couching their language so they don’t trigger any kind of red flag on any platforms.” DHS officials have apparently decided that certain groups of people are guilty regardless of what they say (“couching their language”). The targets are likely to be simply people with a bad attitude towards Washington. That will include gun owners who distrust politicians who vow to seize guns.

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Cops Claim Not Being Able to Arrest People for Weed Smell Causes Spike in Gun Violence

Over the past several years, the city of New York has been loosening their grip on the war on cannabis. In 2014, Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch famously grabbed a bad of oregano and gave a fear mongering speech about what was going to happen after New York stopped arresting people for possessing less than 25 grams of pot.

“We do not want police officers left holding the bag if crime rises because of poor policy,” Lynch said. “Writing a summons to someone who does not respect the law can result in a volatile situation. Police officers always have to be on guard for violent reaction and resistance which can put them in danger of physical harm and potential disciplinary charges.”

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North Carolina police advise residents to ‘limit nonessential travel’ as fuel shortage grips the East Coast

Police in a North Carolina city advised residents Wednesday to “limit non-essential travel” and stop hoarding gasoline as the state grapples with a fuel shortage following a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline.

The city of Charlotte, which has seen 71% of its gas stations out of fuel, relies heavily on the Colonial Pipeline, said Capt. Brad Koch of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. He advised residents to leave their homes sparingly and check on their elderly neighbors as frustrations mount in the area.

“Limit nonessential travel,” Koch said. “If you do not have to come out and go out, please do not. … Check on your neighbors — your elderly neighbors that might not be able to get out. Just see if they need something. See if when you’re going out to the store, if you can pick something up.”

“Do not hoard fuel,” he continued. “We are going to get through this, similar to whenever we have severe weather and we seem to lose a lot of bread and milk at the stores, similarly to last year at the beginning of the pandemic.”

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DHS to scan social media posts looking for “domestic terrorists” after Capitol breach

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to launch a warning system to detect “domestic terrorism” threats by gathering and analyzing intelligence on public social media posts and making predictions on future actions.

The purpose of the system is to detect the sort of posts that allegedly proceeded the breach of the US Capitol on January 6. Law enforcement agencies were criticized for ignoring or missing the posts.

According to a DHS official involved in the efforts, the focus is supposedly not on the posters, but to identify the targets of domestic terrorism. The official also said that, for now, the DHS is using human data analysts, not computer algorithms, to analyze public social media posts.

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DEA Report Shows Marijuana Arrests And Seizures Up In 2020

Data recently released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency shows that federal law enforcement agents and their state and local partners seized more than 4.5 million marijuana plants in 2020, a figure that is up nearly 20% over 2019. The annual DEA report also shows that federal law enforcement officers made nearly 5,000 cannabis-related arrests in 2020, a year wracked by the social and economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the data published in the DEA’s yearly Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program Statistical Report, approximately 4.54 million cannabis plants were seized and eradicated in 2020, up from about 4 million plants in 2019. The totals include more than 3.7 million cannabis plants seized from 4,151 outdoor grow sites and more than 830,000 plants confiscated from 1,286 indoor cultivation operations.

“In 2020, the DEA continued its nationwide cannabis eradication efforts, providing resources to support the 127 state and local law enforcement agencies that actively participate in the program,” the agency wrote on its website. “This assistance allows the enhancement of already aggressive eradication enforcement activities throughout the nation.”

The data in the DEA report also showed that nearly 5,000 arrests for federal marijuana-related offenses were made by law enforcement officers in 2020. That figure is up slightly over 2019 when 4,718 arrests for federal marijuana crimes were made by agents. 

California saw the largest percentage of both arrests and confiscated cannabis plants in the country, a trend that continues from previous years. In 2020, approximately 82% of the seized cannabis plants and 40% of the marijuana-related arrests nationwide occurred in California. Nationwide, agents seized more than $41 million in assets related to the DEA’s marijuana eradication efforts in 2020.

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The Criminalization of Dissent. “Covid Deniers”and “Anti-Vaxxers” under Surveillance

One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the criminalization of dissent. Not just the stigmatization of dissent or the demonization of dissent, but the formal criminalization of dissent, and any other type of opposition to the official ideology of the totalitarian system. Global capitalism has been inching its way toward this step for quite some time, and now, apparently, it is ready to take it.

Germany has been leading the way. For over a year, anyone questioning or protesting the “Covid emergency measures” or the official Covid-19 narrative has been demonized by the government and the media, and, sadly, but not completely unexpectedly, the majority of the German public. And now such dissent is officially “extremism.”

Yes, that’s right, in “New Normal” Germany, if you dissent from the official state ideology, you are now officially a dangerous “extremist.” The German Intelligence agency (the “BfV”) has even invented a new category of “extremists” in order to allow themselves to legally monitor anyone suspected of being “anti-democratic and/or delegitimizing the state in a way that endangers security,” like … you know, non-violently protesting, or speaking out against, or criticizing, or satirizing, the so-called “New Normal.”

Naturally, I’m a little worried, as I have engaged in most of these “extremist” activities. My thoughtcrimes are just sitting there on the Internet waiting to be scrutinized by the BfV. They’re probably Google-translating this column right now, compiling a list of all the people reading it, and their Facebook friends and Twitter followers, and professional associates, and family members, and anyone any of the aforementioned people have potentially met with, or casually mentioned, who might have engaged in similar thoughtcrimes.

You probably think I’m joking, don’t you? I’m not joking. Not even slightly. The Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (“Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz”) is actively monitoring anyone questioning or challenging the official “New Normal” ideology … the “Covid Deniers,” the “conspiracy theorists,” the “anti-vaxxers,” the dreaded “Querdenkers” (i.e., people who “think outside the box”), and anyone else they feel like monitoring who has refused to join the Covidian Cult. We’re now official enemies of the state, no different than any other “terrorists” … or, OK, technically, a little different.

As The New York Times reported last week (German Intelligence Puts Coronavirus Deniers Under Surveillance), “the danger from coronavirus deniers and conspiracy theorists does not fit the mold posed by the usual politically driven groups, including those on the far left and right, or by Islamic extremists.” Still, according to the German Interior Ministry, we diabolical “Covid deniers,” “conspiracy theorists,” and “anti-vaxxers” have “targeted the state itself, its leaders, businesses, the press, and globalism,” and have “attacked police officers” and “defied civil authorities.”

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