Tag: police state

New Jersey Lawmakers Are Considering 2 Bills To Heavily Regulate Homeschooling

New Jersey has as many as 94,518 homeschooled students, according to 2022 data from the National Home Education Research Institute. A series of bills being considered by the New Jersey Legislature aim to heavily regulate homeschooling and restrict parents’ and students’ educational freedom in the state.

In June, Assemblyman Sterley S. Stanley (D–East Brunswick) introduced Assembly Bill 5825, which would require all homeschooling parents at the beginning of the school year to send a letter to the local school district’s superintendent that includes the name and age of the student and the name of the instructor administering the home education program. Parents will also be mandated to share a copy of the homeschooling curriculum, “which shall be aligned with the New Jersey Student Learning Standards.” In addition to setting requirements for mathematics and science, state learning standards require lesson plans to cover issues such as climate change and diversity, equity, and inclusion in K-12 classrooms.

The bill would also require supervisors of the homeschooling program to maintain a portfolio of student records, such as writing samples, worksheets, and reading lists. The portfolio, which is to be submitted to the district superintendent annually, must also include a written evaluation of the student’s educational progress by a qualified evaluator. That person can be a licensed psychologist or teacher but not the student’s parent or guardian.

New Jersey is one of 12 states that don’t require families to check in with, obtain approval from, or file with the government to legally homeschool. Will Estrada, senior counsel at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, tells Reason that no states currently require a homeschool curriculum to align with the public schools. Many parents, he adds, have pulled their children out of public school specifically because the public education system’s one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for their child’s individualized needs.

New Jersey is also considering A.B. 5796. Introduced by Assemblyman Cody D. Miller (D–Turnersville) in June, the bill requires homeschooling families to annually meet with a public school official for a basic child welfare check.

While preventing abuse is a noble goal, lawmakers’ concerns over the welfare of homeschoolers appear to be misguided. Estrada points to a 2022 peer-reviewed study that found homeschooled children do not face higher rates of abuse and neglect. The study incorporated nationally representative data from 1,253 “previously homeschooled and conventionally schooled (public and private schools) adults,” who were asked to anonymously report about school-age experiences of abuse and neglect. The survey found that the type of school students go to “is a non-issue” in determining the likelihood of abuse “after considering the role played by demographics” such as family structure, years in foster care, large family size, and household poverty. The report’s findings are supported by a 2017 study, which found that “legally homeschooled students are 40% less likely to die by child abuse or neglect than the average student nationally.”

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FDACS removes over 85K illegal hemp products in child safety crackdown

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson announced results of “Operation Safe Summer,” a statewide enforcement effort resulting in the removal of more than 85,000 hemp packages that were found in violation of state child-protection standards.

In the first three weeks of the operation, hemp-derived products were seized across 40 counties for “violations of Florida’s child-protection standards for packaging, labeling, and marketing,” according to a press release from the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Simpson said they will continue to “aggressively enforce the law, hold bad actors accountable, and put the safety of Florida’s families over profits.”

The state previously issued announcements advising hemp food establishments on the planned enforcement of amendments to Rule 5K-4.034, Florida Administrative Code, a press release said.

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GOP Senator Who Helped Federally Legalize Hemp Is Seeking To Close ‘Loophole’ By Banning Products With Committee Vote This Week, Sources Say

The senator who championed the federal legalization of hemp is now seeking to reverse much of the reform by pushing legislation at a committee hearing this week to ban on consumable products with quantifiable amounts of THC, industry stakeholders say.

Several sources told Marijuana Moment on Tuesday that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the former majority leader in the Senate who led the push for hemp legalization as part of the 2018 Farm Bill, is behind forthcoming language in agriculture spending legislation that would effectively wipe out the consumable hemp product market.

The bill text has not been released at this point, however, and there are efforts within the cannabis space to get it amended before it goes to a vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. Marijuana Moment reached out to McConnell’s office for comment, but representatives did not respond by the time of publication.

Two of the sources said that the hemp provisions will be identical to what the House Appropriations Committee passed late last month, with noted cannabis prohibitionist Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) leading the charge to correct what he’s described as a “loophole” in the Farm Bill that led to the proliferation of consumable—and in certain cases intoxicating—cannabinoid products such as delta-8 THC that have gone largely unregulated.

Another source said McConnell is aware that hemp legalization is part of his legacy in the Senate and wants closing the so-called “loophole” that has allowed the proliferation of intoxicating products to be part of that history.

Industry experts say the language wouldn’t just ban controversial hemp products found at gas stations and headshops across the country, however. Based on the House text, it would prohibit all products containing any amount of THC, and the concern is that it would mean even CBD items would likely be banned because it’s extremely rare that the extraction of that non-intoxicating cannabinoid would have no THC.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Marijuana Moment recently that he’s opposed to cannabis language included in the House agriculture appropriations bill that’s now heading to the floor. He said “I think would completely destroy the American hemp industry.”

“I don’t know how you’d be able to sell CBD oil with that,” he the senator said.

While Harris amended report language attached to the bill that clarifies it’s not the intent of the committee to stop people from accessing “industrial or nonintoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoid products with trace or insignificant amounts of THC,” the House bill itself still says that products containing any “quantifiable” amounts of THC couldn’t be marketed. And it’s rare to find CBD items without any natural traces of THC.

Again, while industry sources familiar with the discussions say the Senate version will contain identical language in its current form, the text isn’t publicly available and it’s possible it could be revised ahead of Thursday’s committee markup. But if the language is the same, that would raise serious concerns in the hemp sector, significantly increasing the likelihood that it could be enacted into law.

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Saudi Arabia Keeps Executing Foreigners On Drug Charges At ‘Horrifying’ Rate

There has been a surge in executions in Saudi Arabia, particularly in relation to drug offences, a new report published by Amnesty International on Monday has revealed.

The kingdom executed 1,816 people between January 2014 and June 2025, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. Of those, nearly one third (597) were for drug-related offences, which may not be punishable by death under international human rights law and norms. Around three quarters of those executed for drug offences were foreign nationals.

“We are witnessing a truly horrifying trend, with foreign nationals being put to death at a startling rate for crimes that should never carry the death penalty,” Amnesty’s Kristine Beckerle said. 

Executions in Saudi Arabia have risen steadily over the past year and a half. In 2024, the kingdom executed 345 people – the highest annual figure that Amnesty has recorded in over three decades. 

So far this year, 180 people have been executed. Last month alone, 46 executions were carried out, 37 of which were for drug-related offences. 

They were made up of nationals from Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria. In January 2021, Riyadh had announced a moratorium on drug related-executions, but that was lifted in November the following year.

‘Cruel, inhuman and degrading’

Last month, inmates and their relatives told Middle East Eye that executions could take place “any day”. The men were all from Ethiopia and Somalia and had been convicted of drug trafficking. 

“They have told us to say our goodbyes,” one of the convicted men told MEE. “We were told that executions would begin shortly after Eid al-Adha (5-9 June), and now they have started.”

In its report, Amnesty interviewed the families of 13 inmates on death row, as well as community members and consulate officials. It also reviewed court documents. 

Based on the testimonies and evidence, it concluded that limited levels of education and disadvantaged socio-economic status of foreign nationals increased their risk of exploitation and lack of legal representation. 

The family of 27-year-old Khalid Mohammed Ibrahim, who was put on death row on alleged drug trafficking charges, told MEE it had been a harrowing seven years for the family since he was arrested.

“He tried to enter the country through Yemen,” his older brother Muleta said. “A border guard encouraged him to tell his jailers that he was a drug smuggler, saying it would get him sent to court and quickly cleared since there was no evidence. He believed them.”

In addition to drug offences, Amnesty reported on the use of the death penalty against Saudi Arabia’s Shia minority on “terrorism” related charges. 

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Government REFUSES to release ‘eSafety’ data behind YouTube kids ban

Labor Communications Minister Anika Wells has refused to release the research that underpins the eSafety Commissioner’s push to ban 15-year-olds from using YouTube.

The contentious recommendation, made by eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, has sparked widespread concern among stakeholders and the public. Yet Wells has declined to release the data informing the advice, citing the regulator’s preference to delay publication.

Sky News reports that the eSafety regulator has repeatedly blocked its attempts to access the full research, instead opting to “drip feed” select findings to the public over several months. This is despite the Albanese government expected to make a final decision in just weeks.

A spokesperson for Wells said: “The minister is taking time to consider the eSafety Commissioner’s advice. The minister has been fully briefed by the eSafety Commissioner including the research methodology behind her advice.”

However, the Commissioner’s own “Keeping Kids Safe Online: Methodology” report reveals several weaknesses in the data. The survey relied entirely on self-reported responses taken at one point in time and used “non-probability-based sampling” from online panels, described in the report as “convenience samples”.

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London is the Testing Lab for Big Brother Mass Facial Scanning Tech

Since the start of 2024, the Metropolitan Police has been quietly transforming London into a testing ground for live facial recognition (LFR).

Depending on who you ask, this is either a technological triumph that’s making the capital safer or a mass surveillance experiment that would make any privacy advocate wince.

The numbers are eye-watering: in just over 18 months, the Met has scanned the faces of around 2.4 million people. And from that sea of biometric data, they’ve made 1,035 arrests. That’s a hit rate of 0.04%. Or, to put it plainly, more than 99.9% of those scanned had done absolutely nothing wrong.

The police, of course, are eager to present this as a success story. Lindsey Chiswick, who oversees the Met’s facial recognition program, calls it a game-changer. “This milestone of 1,000 arrests is a demonstration of how cutting-edge technology can make London safer by removing dangerous offenders from our streets,” she said.

Of those arrested, 773 were charged or cautioned. Some were suspects in serious cases, including violent crimes against women and girls.

But here’s where things get complicated. To secure those 1,000 arrests, millions of innocent people have had their faces scanned and processed.

What’s being billed as precision policing can start to look more like casting an enormous net and hoping you catch something worthwhile.

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‘Delete, Silence, Abolish’: America’s estranged allies ramp up perceived censorship, speech rules

Overt government control of the internet is expanding within America’s increasingly estranged allies and threatening to spill over national boundaries, likely renewing earlier confrontations with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the world’s richest man and creator of America’s newest nascent political party.

The European Union last week made its officially voluntary three-year-old “Code of Practice on Disinformation” legally binding under the Digital Services Act. It’s now a “Code of Conduct” to be used as a “relevant benchmark for determining DSA compliance” for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Bing, TikTok, YouTube and Google Search.

These “very large” online platforms and online search engines were already signatories of the 2022 code, whose commitments include taking “stronger measures to demonetise disinformation,” increasing fact-checking across the EU and its languages and improved reduction of “current and emerging manipulative behaviour.”

Australia imposed an age-verification law for harmful content that makes the Texas law recently upheld by the Supreme Court look like a type-your-age prompt, applying to not only pornography but also “violent content” and “themes of suicide, self-harm and disordered eating,” in the words of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant.

Last week she registered three of nine “codes” submitted by the online industry, covering “search engine services … enterprise hosting services and internet carriage services such as telcos,” and has sought “additional safety commitments” on remaining codes for “app stores, device manufacturers, social media services and messaging” and broader categories.

The same day, Canada suspended a U.S. tech firm tax to avoid trade recriminations from the Trump administration. Justice Minister Sean Fraser told the Canadian Press that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is taking a “fresh” look at predecessor Justin Trudeau’s proposed Online Harms Act, which went down in Trudeau’s political downfall.

Anti-censorship group Reclaim the Net flagged pressure on Carney’s government to revive C-63, which famed Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson claims would criminalize wrongthink. Trudeau-appointed Senator Kristopher Wells pressed Government Representative Marc Gold to commit to further criminalizing “hate” in a “questions period” last month.

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Oregon Police Improperly Used Aerial Camera To Bust Marijuana Grow, State Appeals Court Says

Oregon’s Court of Appeals chided the state’s police force on Wednesday for using warrantless “technologically-enhanced surveillance” to bust an illegal marijuana operation, sending the court’s clearest message yet about how law enforcement may use the increasingly popular, but controversial technology.

The case, captured in an eight-page ruling from a three-judge panel, centers on a June 2021 multi-county investigation involving the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and Oregon State Police. The defendant, 54-year-old Sengdara Nakhiengchahn, was not the target of the investigation, but Oregon State Police Sergeant Tyler Bechtel, a leading officer on the case, noticed “what looked to be a massive agricultural operation” that “was likely a marijuana grow,” while flying in a surveillance plane nearly 5,000 feet in the air, according to the ruling.

The defendant was charged in August 2021 with two felonies for possession and manufacturing of marijuana. She pled guilty in a conditional deal that allowed her to get the possession charge dropped by serving two years of probation, court records show. But she maintained her right to appeal the charges, arguing the evidence gathered from aerial surveillance constitutes a warrantless and unlawful search and should not have been admissible.

The appeals court agreed with Nakhiengchahn, returning the case back to the trial court where she can withdraw her guilty plea. Bechtel did not respond to an email seeking comment.

“While the trial court didn’t agree with us, we’re grateful the appellate court did,” said Luke Miller, Nakhiengchahn’s trial attorney, in a statement. “It’s important for Oregonians to maintain the right to privacy, and be free from government intrusion absent legal justification for such intrusion.”

Jenny Hansson, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Justice, said officials were still reviewing the decision and could decide to appeal the court’s ruling in the coming weeks.

Jolene Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Oregon State Police, declined to comment on the ruling or its findings, but said in an email the agency “remains committed to following applicable laws and court directives.”

The ruling was lauded by civil rights advocates and privacy watchdogs who were fresh off of a fight in the Oregon Legislature over Senate Bill 238, which would have extended unprecedented power to police to use unmanned aerial surveillance devices like drones when responding to 911 calls, executing a warrant or responding to “exigent circumstances.” The bill ultimately died in the House Rules Committee without a vote.

The ACLU of Oregon opposed the bill, warning in a news release that it was unnecessary and “undermines basic rights including privacy and free speech.”

Kelly Simon, legal director of the ACLU of Oregon, said Wednesday’s ruling marks an “important decision to ensure that as police technology advances, we are maintaining the integrity of our warrant requirements under the Oregon Constitution.”

“We’re beginning to see in the surveillance tech industry all sorts of high-powered enhancements,” she told the Capital Chronicle. “It is important that our courts maintain the integrity of our warrant requirements by making sure that if law enforcement wants to use those enhancements, they go to court first, they present the evidence they have against a person and they get permission to do that.”

In the ruling, Justice Scott A. Shorr wrote that state police saw “materially different information” through a camera attached to their aircraft than what could’ve been seen with a naked eye, striking down a decision by Polk County Circuit Judge Rafael A. Caso to allow evidence tied to the camera footage to be admitted at trial.

“We have never upheld as constitutionally permissible an officer’s technologically enhanced surveillance to see what was otherwise indiscernible. We decline to do so here,” Shorr said. “In this case, the officer used technology to obtain information from inside defendant’s private structures that was undetectable from his vantage point in public airspace.”

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CHANGE: Trump’s TSA Reportedly Ending Stupid Shoe Removal Policy at Airports With a Catch

One of the most notorious elements of security theater is going away from our nation’s airports for at least some passengers.

The New York Times reported on Monday that for the first time since 2006, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is actually letting people keep their shoes on during airport screenings. Precheck passengers had enjoyed this perk at most U.S. airports.

A source told the outlet the TSA began dropping the requirement over the past few days.

There is a catch, however. As Yahoo notes, individuals must have a pre-approved, mandatory Real ID document to qualify.

People who do not possess a Real ID may still have to take their shoes off in the nasty airports and get subjected to further screening by TSA agents.

So, people will essentially have a choice between what type of invasion of privacy they prefer. Does this really enhance our Constitutional liberties?

The TSA responded to this reported change with neither a confirmation nor a denial.

“TSA and DHS are always exploring new and innovative ways to enhance the passenger experience and our strong security posture,” a spokesman for the agency told The New York Times. “Any potential updates to our security process will be issued through official channels.”

As CBS notes, the no-shoes rule was implemented by TSA nationwide five years after British citizen Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber,” tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoe in December 2001.

Thankfully, his plan failed, and the plane landed safely in Boston after passengers helped take him down. Massachusetts State Police officers took him into custody.

Reid is currently serving a life sentence.

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Data Collection Can Be Effective and Legal

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Data Collection Can Be Effective and Legal

Introduction

It’s an Artificial Conundrum

It is not necessary to make an end-run around the U.S. Constitution to thwart terrorism and other crimes.

Those claiming otherwise have been far from candid – especially since June 2013, when Edward Snowden revealed gross violations of the Fourth Amendment by NSA’s bulk electronic collection. U.S. citizens have been widely misled into believing that their Constitutional right to privacy had to yield to a superseding need to combat terrorism.

The choice was presented as an Either-Or conundrum. In what follows, we will show that this is a false choice. Rather, the “choice” can be a Both-And. In sum, all that is needed is to place advanced technology that has been already demonstrated into the hands of officials not driven by lust for a cushy retirement.

Sophisticated collection and processing technology that also protects the right to privacy has been available for decades, enabling highly efficient and discriminating collection. Despite that, top officials have opted for quasi-legal, cumbersome, ineffective – and wildly expensive – technology that has done little more than line the pockets of contractors and “old-friend” retirees.

U.S. officials have been caught lying under oath – with impunity – with false claims about the effectiveness of the intrusive, high price-tag technology they procured and implemented.

In the Annex to this Memo we briefly portray the illustrative behavior of one such senior official. We do so in the belief that a short case study may shed light on the apparent motivation of many senior officials who seem to take far too lightly their oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States.

We took the same oath. It has no expiration date.

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