Tag: police state

Federal judge blasts Rubio’s 75-country visa freeze as ‘Orwellian,’ strikes down policy

A federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s freeze on immigrant visas from 75 countries Friday, ruling Secretary of State Marco Rubio lacked the legal authority to order denials for applicants otherwise found eligible to enter the United States.

U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, a Biden appointee in Manhattan, vacated the State Department policy and any visa refusals based solely on it, directing the government to revisit those cases.

“The Court holds that the Policy is contrary to law and was issued in excess of Secretary Rubio’s statutory authority,” Vargas wrote in her 61-page opinion.

The State Department enacted the policy in January, suspending immigrant visa issuance to nationals of 75 countries the department deemed at high risk of becoming dependent on public benefits. The list spans Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Rubio’s policy instructed consular officers to review each applicant individually. But even applicants who passed that review showed “additional evidence that demonstrates he or she overcomes the public charge refusal” and had no other reason to be denied were still refused visas if they came from one of the 75 designated countries.

“While the Policy permits consular officers to exercise their normal functions up to a point, whatever determinations they make as to eligibility for the applicants subject to the Policy are ultimately irrelevant,” Vargas wrote. “The outcome is predetermined. The visa will be refused.”

The judge said the directive effectively imposed a nationality-based ban on immigrants from nearly 40% of the world’s countries and sidelined the consular officers Congress charged with deciding whether individual applicants qualify for visas.

Keep reading

Debate Over Flock Surveillance Cameras Takes Unexpected Turn in SoCal As ‘Darth Vader’ Weighs In

Well here’s some fun Saturday night nuttery for you.

We’ve written on the ongoing debate in this country about Flock license-plate reading cameras. They’ve been used to thwart mass terror attacks — but they’ve also been used by unscrupulous law enforcement officers to keep an eye on their exes. Creepy.

One thing you might not have expected, however, is for Darth Vader to come down from space and weigh in on the matter at a San Diego City Council Public safety meeting Wednesday. I have to say, the guy’s got Mr. Vader’s breathing sounds down perfectly, and his voice work is pretty solid too.

If whoever was behind the spot was trying to get attention, he achieved his goal, because the clip has been viewed millions of times. 

His little speech was way out there, but it would seem he was using the occasion to mock the city’s 500 Flock cameras installed on streetlights. Several of the folks in attendance appeared to struggle to contain their laughter.

The council member who announced that it was his turn to speak didn’t seem to flinch in the slightest when she introduced him. “Thank you,” she said to a citizen who had just finished her remarks. “Darth Vader?”

Maybe they’re used to this kind of thing on the Left Coast:

The Emperor is a fan of Flock, and we must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the Rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium, because we all know that the Flock cameras are not only following the license plate readers… They are following children in parks and gymnasiums, and we need this.

Keep reading

Chaos Agent: Anthony Fauci Represents A System That Needs To Be Cleansed

I think nothing enrages Americans more than a lack of accountability from government officials. Yes, it happens often, and the public hasn’t taken up torches and pitchforks (yet), but I would point out that these incidents are cumulative and they light a growing fire within the collective memory. Eventually, people are going to snap if they don’t see action taken to rectify past wrongs.

This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci faced a flurry of questions from the Senate Homeland Security Committee over his handling of the covid response as well as his involvement in the gain of function research which likely led to the creation of the viral variant that spread around the world and nearly triggered a permanent Orwellian police state.

Fauci pleaded the Fifth over 100 times.  It’s not a sign of confidence in his own innocence.

He knows he’s untouchable legally, but I think what the man fears most is public judgment, and he’s not going to offer any confirmation that conservatives and the alternative media were right about him all along.  Unfortunately, even with substantial evidence, there is very little that any congressional committee or even the Trump Administration can do about him.

Fauci is well protected, and not just by the sweeping pardon “signed” by Joe Biden which covers the Doctor back to 2014. No, Fauci is also protected by the system – The bureaucracy and the globalist network of which he is a member.  Fauci is a chaos agent and he served his purpose well. They’re not going to let him face punishment.  If they did, then they might find it harder to procure the cooperation and loyalty of other bureaucrats in future schemes.

Keep reading

The Flock Camera Backlash Is A Very Good Sign

In a year as chaotic, violent, and economically destructive as this one has been, it is interesting that, to many Americans, the great villain of 2026 is turning out to be a traffic camera.

But, indeed, we are seeing visceral, cross-partisan opposition to so-called Flock cameras—named after the leading manufacturer of these automated license plate readers—take hold in communities across the country. And that opposition is, to be sure, entirely legitimate.

Flock’s camera networks are based on the idea that, while it would obviously be illegal and unconstitutional for law enforcement at any and all levels to put GPS trackers in everyone’s cars, it would be legal for a cop standing on some street corner to report that they had seen a specific vehicle drive by if it later turned out that that car had either been stolen or used to commit a crime.

But, taking that idea that public observations are not violations of privacy, Flock and similar companies help set up networks of cameras that record and register the license plate, make and model, and identifiable details of every single passing vehicle into a timestamped and searchable national database. And, as more and more of these cameras are added to streets and parking lots all over the country, and they, therefore, get harder and harder to avoid, the data the government has access to becomes essentially indistinguishable from what they would have if there were government GPS trackers in all of our cars.

There are currently around 120,000 of these cameras across 49 states, with more being added every day. And the American people are not happy about it.

In a genuine grassroots movement spreading primarily through local Facebook groups and the like, with little coverage outside local media, concerned citizens are doing everything from pressuring local lawmakers to rescind their contracts with Flock Safety to donning masks and cutting the cameras down with electric saws.

And this opposition is starting to have some success. More than 50 jurisdictions have ended their relationships with Flock after local backlash. And, after Flock tried and failed for months to get the wider public to view organizations that track the location of these cameras as terrorists because some have used those locations to avoid, disable, or destroy some, the company announced last week that it was implementing several changes to try and defuse the public anger.

Keep reading

Mom sentenced to prison for trying to rescue her son from transitioning into a girl…

There are cases where the law tells you what happened but leaves out almost everything that explains why it happened… and that can be very troubling, and you go straight into the weaponization pool.

Shana Gaviola’s case feels like one of those situations.

The federal government’s version of this case is brutal and really straightforward. They say Gaviola violated a restraining order involving her teenage son, arranged to have him taken from California to a Christian boarding school in Missouri, and the people transporting him kept him handcuffed for more than 24 hours.

She broke the law, a jury convicted her, and now she’s been sentenced to three years in federal prison.

But that very dry and clinical version of the story leaves out the chunk that turned this case into a rallying cry for parental-rights warriors.

According to Gaviola and her supporters, this fight began after her teenage son wanted to transition into a girl, and the people around him, including his school, affirmed his decision without his mother’s approval. Gaviola believed her confused child was headed toward a life-changing decision he would likely regret, and she refused to just stand by and watch it happen.

Keep reading

Chinese Christian Detained After Listening to the Bible in His Car

A Christian living in northwestern China was reportedly arrested after listening to the Bible with a USB device in his car.

The unnamed believer — referred to as Brother AK in an Aug. 13 report from Premier Christian News —  was stopped at a checkpoint while driving with his family through a Muslim-majority part of China to visit other Christians.

He reportedly told officials that “because I believe in Jesus, I was listening to the Bible through the USB.”

Brother AK was detained for questions, and his wife and children — including their baby — were separated from him.

Several days passed without news of his whereabouts as the family stayed with nearby Christians.

Then the host family received a call from authorities inquiring into their relationship with Brother AK’s family.

Keep reading

The Gloves Are Off: ICE, Electric Shock Weapons and Secret Police

“Electric shock has long been a common method of inflicting torture or other forms of ill-treatment worldwide. While electric shocks are sometimes inflicted using makeshift equipment—for instance, car batteries, mains wires or cattle prods—a wide variety of electric shock devices are specifically designed for and marketed to law enforcement.”—Amnesty International

This is what comes of giving a lawless agency unlimited funds to build detention centers, terrorize communities, and act as a secret police force.

Anything goes.

Masked raids. Unmarked vehicles. Warrantless arrests. Racial profiling. Sweeping surveillance. Detention camps. Excessive force. Citizens dragged off the streets. Protesters targeted. Congressional oversight obstructed. Government agents operating behind masks while refusing to identify themselves or explain the authority under which they act.

Now add electric shock gloves to the arsenal.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to spend as much as $20 million to equip its agents with thousands of gloves capable of delivering painful electric shocks through direct contact with a person’s skin.

The devices are called G.L.O.V.E.s—Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters—and the government has dressed them up in the predictably sanitized language of the police state as “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices.”

Don’t be fooled by the benign-sounding euphemisms.

These are pain-compliance weapons.

ICE agents wearing the gloves will be able to touch a person’s exposed skin and deliver an electric shock intended to compel obedience.

White House border czar Tom Homan has been remarkably candid about the purpose: “It’s another device to help someone get compliant when they are not.”

There is that word again: compliance.

It has become one of the most dangerous words in the vocabulary of the American police state.

Increasingly, government agents are being taught—and the public conditioned to accept—that refusal to immediately comply with a government agent’s command is sufficient justification for force.

Question an officer. Hesitate. Pull away. Protest. Demand to know why you are being detained. Refuse to surrender your phone. Attempt to record an arrest. Insist on your constitutional rights. Fail to obey quickly enough.

The government’s answer is increasingly the same: comply or die—comply or suffer the consequences.

Now those consequences may come through the touch of a gloved hand.

Keep reading

BURQA LAW: Portugal Begins To Enforce Ban on Face Coverings in Public Spaces

Those who breach the law face fines ranging from $175 to $3,500.

In Portugal, President António José Seguro has enacted a law that bans face coverings in public spaces.

The legislation is seen as targeting Muslim women who wear burqas and niqabs.

There are exemptions for health, professional, artistic, or weather-related reasons.

Face coverings are also permitted in places of worship, diplomatic missions, and on aircraft.

Keep reading

US prosecutors charge Atlanta man after GrapheneOS phone wipes itself during airport search

 A federal case in Atlanta is raising questions about a privacy-focused mobile operating system, with prosecutors arguing that its features were used to erase evidence. The US Department of Justice is attempting to prosecute Atlanta resident Sam Tunick under a federal statute that makes it a crime to destroy property in an effort to prevent it from being seized.

The case centers on Tunick’s use of GrapheneOS, an open-source operating system that works on Google Pixel phones and lets users enter a passcode to wipe a device clean.

Experts said the legal approach is unusual and may be the first time the law has been aimed at an operating system. “It’s concerning – and sends the message that [GrapheneOS] is criminal by default,” said Christophe Boutry, a cybersecurity and surveillance expert. Boutry and Bill Buddington, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, both said they had not seen a similar case.

The incident began at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on January 24 of last year. Tunick had just returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic when he was stopped for questioning. According to court testimony, federal agents had already circulated his name and photo internally, saying he was under investigation for “suspected terrorism activities” because of his alleged association with the movement against Cop City.

Keep reading

Former ABC Reporter Terry Moran Says Fauci Censored ‘Nightline’ Segment on COVID Origins

Former ABC News Correspondent Terry Moran said the network censored his COVID-19 lab-leak story for “Nightline” in 2021, after Dr. Anthony Fauci reviewed it just hours before it was set to air.

In an interview last week on “The Fifth Column” podcast, Moran said it was the only time in his nearly 20-year career at ABC News that he felt the “heavy hand of censorship.”

ABC News fired Moran in June 2025 for violating its news policies after he called President Donald Trump and top White House Aide Stephen Miller “haters” on social media. After he left the network, Moran started the news outlet Real Patriotism.

On the podcast, Moran said that “Nightline” had been planning to air his segment on the origins of COVID-19 and evidence that the virus may have been created in — and leaked from — a lab.

He said he pitched the idea to “Nightline” in early 2021 after people he thought were “smart and serious” argued the virus likely came from a lab.

The segment contained interviews with molecular biologists and former Trump administration officials. It also “broke a little news” based on information from sources in the “three-letter agencies” who said the Chinese military had funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the lab that was researching coronaviruses.

“At the end of the day,” Moran said he thought the virus probably had a natural origin. However, he didn’t share that conclusion in the “Nightline” piece.

The segment was ready to air and went for review. When Moran got the edited script back, he said it was “incomprehensible,” adding, “I’d never been angrier.”

Moran said the script was reviewed by “lawyers’ standards, and — I was told — Fauci.”

Keep reading