Tag: police state

UK Gov’t ‘Disinfo’ Unit Shifts From Lockdown Dissenters To Spying On Mass Migration Critics

A shady government outfit in the UK that was previously tasked with identifying and monitoring COVID lockdown dissenters has been repurposed to spy on critics of mass migration and so called ‘asylum’ hotels, the Telegraph reports.

The body, now known as the National Security and Online Information Team (NSOIT) has been lobbying social media companies such as TikTok to take action against users who post what it describes as “concerning narratives” about immigration and ‘two tier policing’.

The unit operates within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and was previously known as the ‘Counter Disinformation Unit’ during the pandemic.

During the COVID lockdowns, the unit was tasked with pressuring social media companies to target and censor those critical of the stay at home orders and those questioning the mass vaccination of children. Discussions opposing vaccine passports were also flagged.

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Can’t Make This Up… Aussie Premier Jacinta Allan Sets Up ‘Machete Drop Boxes’ for Locals to Dispose of Their Banned Swords

Jacinta Allan is an Australian politician serving as the current premier of the state of Victoria since 2023.

Jacinta is a member of the Labor Party, a “center” left party in Australia.

And, she’s a nut.

A new ban on the sale and possession of machetes will soon take place in Australia and Allan is ready for it.

Recently, Jacinta set up “Machete drop boxes” for locals to drop their unwanted or unneeded machete swords. Apparently, machetes are a huge danger in Australia these days for some reason.

Jacinta announced the machete drop box initiative this past week with a lecture to the masses.

Jacinta Allan: On the First of September, when the ban on machetes takes place, we are rolling out through Victoria Police at 247 police stations, the safe disposal bins.

These will be at locations right across the state. They’ll be locations where people can come and lawfully dispose of any machete that they may already have at one of these bins, safely and securely.

And we’ve done this because we want to get these knives off the streets, because these knives destroy lives.

She sounds very proud of herself as she pushes this machete initiative.

What’s next – butter knife disposal drop boxes? Where does it stop with these loons?

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Putin Criminalizes Online Searches for ‘Extremist’ Content

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a law that criminalizes searches for “extremist” content on the internet, with fines of up to 5,000 rubles ($64) for each violation.

The Moscow Times noted that even some of Russia’s more enthusiastic censors are uneasy about the new law because they might get busted for seeking out extreme content so they can censor it:

Yekaterina Mizulina, head of the Kremlin-aligned Safe Internet League and a prominent advocate of online censorship, voiced unease over the bill earlier this month. She warned that it could obstruct the League’s work, roughly 30% of which involves identifying extremist content and forwarding it to authorities.

Mizulina claimed that the legislation could even put police officers at legal risk for viewing content as part of their duties.

In a similar vein, the head of Russian state propaganda network RT, Margarita Simonyan, lamented that her apparatchiks would be hindered in their quest to “investigate and bring to shame” critics of the Kremlin and the Ukraine war if they were “forbidden to even read them.”

The vote in the Russian parliament to pass the bill was more divided than usual, with opposition from factions that usually give Putin what he wants, including the Communist Party. An aide to a liberal Russian politician who protested the bill by comparing it to the Big Brother dystopia of George Orwell’s 1984 was immediately arrested.

Internet freedom advocates, meanwhile, raised the objection that “extremism” can be difficult to define and Putin is likely to stretch the term to include all criticism of his government.

Human Rights Watch pointed out that Putin has previously designated anti-corruption groups, LGBT organizations, independent media outlets, human rights groups, and political opponents as “extremists.” It is a safe bet that Russian courts will find most criticism of the Ukraine war to be “extremist” in character.

The new law empowers Putin’s enforcers to go after people who search for “extreme” content, not just those who create it. The chilling effect on dissent will be formidable in a nation where dissent was already half-frozen to death.

Putin’s digital minister, Maksut Shadayev, was predictably evasive when asked how the regime would define “extremist” content, or tell the difference between users who intentionally seek it out compared to those who stumble across it by accident. Shadayev said it would be up to prosecutors to demonstrate “intent.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Putin’s new law was the “most serious step in censorship and the fight against dissent” since the 2022 bill that established 15-year prison sentences for disseminating “fake news” about Russia’s military activities.

“This vaguely worded, fast-tracked bill shows a clear disregard for open debate and create an even more repressive environment for the media and the public,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Senior Researcher Anna Brakha.

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How to Mount a Religious Liberty Challenge to a Childhood Vaccine Mandate

In 2024, IT specialist Lisa Domski was awarded $12.7 million in a religious discrimination lawsuit against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. The health company had fired her for refusing a Covid-19 vaccine that was developed using aborted fetal cell lines—to which she objected as a Catholic. 

Domski’s case isn’t unique. Hers is one of at least five major lawsuits pitting vaccine mandates against religious liberty in recent years.

Most Americans might assume that the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment would extend to vaccines given to both adults and children. Most states do recognize such a right, but California, Connecticut, Maine, New York, and West Virginia do not.

Should they? With ever-growing public concern about vaccine mandates, it’s only a matter of time before this question reaches the Supreme Court. 

The Court has never ruled directly on the question of religious liberty and vaccine mandates, but it has dealt with mandates. Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) involved an adult man, Henning Jacobson of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The city, following a state statute, had mandated the smallpox vaccine during an epidemic and had fined Jacobson five dollars for failing to comply. He argued that his state’s mandate violated his right to individual liberty under the 14th Amendment.

The Supreme Court disagreed with Mr. Jacobson. It ruled 7-2 that states have broad authority under their police powers to enact public health measures, including compulsory vaccinations, when necessary to protect the community. 

In Zucht v. King (1922), the Supreme Court ruled that schools could mandate vaccines. In Cantwell (1940), however, the Court found that states needed to have a compelling state interest to restrict religious freedom. Half a century later, Smith (1990) lowered the bar for states to overrule religious liberty claims. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993) partially rebalanced the scales. And recent Court decisions suggest that the Court may soon send Smith to the recycle bin.

None of these cases, however, involved a potential conflict between religious liberty and a vaccine mandate. So, these questions remain: If presented with the issue, should the Supreme Court require that state laws recognize religious liberty objections to vaccine mandates? And if so, under what conditions?

I’m neither a legal scholar nor a prophet, so I won’t venture a prediction about how the Court would rule. Still, the Court should recognize the legitimacy of at least some religious liberty objections to vaccine mandates. This is true even if one believes the seven-vote majority decided correctly in 1905 that states could mandate the smallpox vaccine.

Such mandates always involve crucial questions of fact. In Jacobson, the Court took for granted several of what it viewed as facts: (1) Smallpox vaccines, they assumed, had a long history of immunizing recipients against a highly infectious and deadly disease. (2) There were few alternative treatments for the infected. (3) The cost of refusing the Massachusetts mandate—a small fine—was not all that burdensome. (4) The risk of the vaccine itself was quite low. (5) Finally, they assumed, such a mandate was needed for public safety. 

Given all this, they rejected his appeal to personal liberty.

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This Hollywood-Backed Bill Would Give Government Power To Block Websites

Lawmakers in Washington are once again attempting to give the United States a legal pathway to block websites, a power the federal government has never officially held on a broad scale.

The latest push comes in the form of the Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors Act, better known as “Block BEARD,” introduced in the Senate by Thom Tillis, Chris Coons, Marsha Blackburn, and Adam Schiff.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

On its face, the bill targets foreign websites accused of piracy. But the mechanism it creates would establish something far more significant: a formal, court-approved process that could be used to make entire websites vanish from the American internet.

Under the proposal, copyright owners could go to federal court to have a site labeled a “foreign digital piracy site.” If successful, the court could then order US service providers to block access to that site.

The reach is broad. The term “service provider” here mirrors the broad definition in the DMCA, potentially covering everything from ISPs and search engines to social media platforms, and perhaps even VPNs.

Proponents say this is about protecting the entertainment industry. In reality, it’s about setting a precedent. Once the government has a tool to block certain sites, history shows the definition of “unacceptable” content can expand. Piracy today could easily become something else tomorrow.

The ramifications go beyond the music and movie business. If courts can order an ISP to make a site disappear from view, the same logic could eventually apply to other types of content deemed problematic.

And because the bill has no public transparency requirements, the public could be kept entirely in the dark about which sites are blocked, why they’re blocked, or how long the blocks remain in place.

Supporters in the entertainment industry, including the RIAA and Motion Picture Association, are openly cheering the bill, pointing to similar measures overseas they claim have worked without harming free speech.

But the US is not the same as other countries. The First Amendment’s protection of speech and access to information means this kind of censorship tool carries far more constitutional baggage here than it does elsewhere.

What Block BEARD really represents is a milestone. If passed, it would be the first time the US creates a standing legal process for cutting off access to entire websites at the network level.

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State Gives a Deadly Gift to Fentanyl Makers, Big Pharma, and Drug Warriors — A Ban on Kratom

This Friday, August 1, 2025, Louisiana will criminalize a leaf. Not fentanyl. Not meth. Not synthetic opioids that kill over 100,000 Americans every year. No, lawmakers have decided to outlaw kratom — a safe, natural plant in the coffee family — and those caught with it could face six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

To understand the full weight of this insanity, you have to peel back the curtain on the drug war’s real purpose. It’s not about keeping people safe. It’s about criminalizing autonomy. It’s about corporate profits, institutional control, and punishing people for the crime of treating themselves outside of state-approved chemical dependency.

Kratom isn’t the threat. The threat is what it replaces.

The Lie That Keeps Killing

For years, scientists, doctors, and hundreds of thousands of kratom users have warned the federal government: ban this plant, and opioid deaths will rise.

In 2018, a group of scientists wrote to the DEA and White House, blasting the FDA’s push to classify kratom as a Schedule I drug. They made it clear: kratom, when used in its natural form, does not cause respiratory depression — the primary cause of death in opioid overdoses. More importantly, the plant has become a lifeline away from opioids for millions.

“Placing kratom into Schedule I will potentially increase the number of deaths of Americans caused by opioids,” the scientists warned, adding that the FDA’s data blaming kratom for dozens of deaths was riddled with inconsistencies, co-ingestions, and zero proof of causation.

In fact, many of those “kratom deaths” were linked to adulterated products, synthetic extracts, or pre-existing conditions — not the raw plant. One such alkaloid, 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), has been artificially concentrated in some unregulated kratom extracts to mimic opioid-like effects, but this is not kratom. This is corporate bastardization — the same playbook used to demonize cannabis while pushing synthetic THC.

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Irish High Court Rejects X’s Challenge to Online Censorship Law

The Irish High Court has thrown out a legal challenge by X, dealing a blow to the company’s pushback against Ireland’s new censorship rules for online video-sharing services.

X had taken aim at Coimisiún na Meán, the country’s media watchdog, accusing it of stepping beyond legal limits with its Online Safety Code.

The rules demand that platforms hosting user-generated videos take active steps to shield users from “harmful” material. The company had described the regulator’s actions as “regulatory overreach.”

Mr Justice Conleth Bradley, delivering judgment on Wednesday, found no merit in X’s application for judicial review. The court concluded that the regulator’s code was lawful and that its provisions fell within the scope of both the EU’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) and Ireland’s 2009 Broadcasting Act.

According to the ruling, the code does not clash with the Digital Services Act and can function in tandem with EU law.

Responding to the outcome, Coimisiún na Meán said it welcomed the decision and intended to examine the ruling closely before offering more detailed comment.

The case comes as X begins rolling out new age verification systems to meet obligations under the Irish code, alongside compliance efforts aimed at satisfying UK and wider EU digital censorship regulations.

The ruling marks a significant moment in the ongoing struggle over who decides the boundaries of online speech and content moderation.

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UK Government Emails Reveal Push to Pressure Tech Platforms to Remove Lawful Speech on Immigration and Policing

A series of internal emails from the UK government has revealed an aggressive push to monitor and suppress online posts deemed “concerning,” sparking alarm over creeping censorship under the banner of combating misinformation and community unrest.

The documents, shared by US Rep. Jim Jordan, paint a picture of state officials flagging lawful speech, pressuring tech companies to remove content, and targeting what they described as “concerning narratives about the police and a ‘two-tier’ system.”

One of the most widely circulated videos under scrutiny featured a street celebration in Manchester where participants waved Pakistani flags. Captioned “It looks like Islamabad but it’s Manchester,” the video, posted by Radio Genoa on X, amassed over 14 million views.

Government emails described this kind of footage as misleading or dangerous, with one note labeling it an example of content that is “shared out of context in order to incite fear of the Muslim community.”

Another email, dated August 3, 2024, acknowledged “significant volumes of anti-immigrant content” online and pointed to “concerning narratives about the police and a ‘two-tier’ system that we are seeing across the online environment.”

The correspondence shows government officials not only monitoring speech but actively collaborating with platforms to address posts, even ones not violating the law or even the platform’s terms of service.

Officials were asking for direct intervention. One message requested clarity from platforms about “what content you are seeing across your platform; and b) any measures you have taken in response.” A follow-up email urged platforms to act quickly, stating, “We’d be grateful if you could come back to us on those two points as soon as you are able to.”

In one particularly troubling exchange dated August 4, government officials flagged a video showing someone scrolling through a freedom of information request that referred to asylum seekers as “undocumented fighting age males.”

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Exonerated Missouri woman sues police for conspiracy and coverup that put her in prison for 43 years

Sandra Hemme’s federal lawsuit accuses St. Joseph Police of suppressing and destroying evidence that pointed to a fellow officer who was guilty of the 1980 murder. Before being freed last year, Hemme served the longest sentence of any wrongly convicted woman in American history.

Sandra Hemme, the Missouri woman who spent 43 years in prison for a murder she did not commit, has sued the city of St. Joseph and eight police officers in a 10-count federal lawsuit alleging malicious prosecution, a coerced confession and conspiracy.

“There was never any objective evidence tying Plaintiff (Hemme) to the crime,” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit also points the finger at a former police officer, Michael Holman, as the killer of librarian Patricia Jeschke in 1980.

“To protect Holman, the Defendants concealed evidence of his guilt and chose not to follow the evidence leading to Holman,” according to the lawsuit. Holman died in 2015.

Hemme served the longest sentence of any wrongly convicted woman in American history, her lawyers have said. She was finally exonerated and freed last year after a lengthy legal battle that saw the Missouri Attorney General fighting to overturn her innocence ruling.

A year ago, in July 2024, Livingston County Circuit Court Judge Ryan Horsman overturned Hemme’s conviction — writing that she was “the victim of a manifest injustice.”

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey battled all the way to the state Supreme Court to keep Hemme in prison. She won her final freedom after the Missouri Court of Appeals rejected all of Bailey’s arguments, and in March the Buchanan County prosecutor declined to refile charges.

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Royal Bank of Canada closes Freedom Convoy lawyer’s accounts over ‘risk concerns’

The Royal Bank of Canada is shutting down a Freedom Convoy lawyer’s accounts over “risk concerns.”

In a July 23 post on X, Freedom Convoy layer Eva Chipiuk revealed that the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) terminated its banking relationship with her, citing “risk-related concerns” due to “recent activity” being outside their “client risk appetite.”

“As a federally regulated financial institution, RBC is required by law to comply with applicable legislation,” the letter, posted on X, read. “These laws require that we implement certain processes and procedures which directly support the formulation of RBC’s positions with respect to risk.”

“After careful consideration, we regretfully advise you that the recent activity in your accounts is outside of RBC’s client risk appetite, and consequently we are no longer in a position to continue our banking relationship with you,” it continued.

The decision followed a flagged Bitcoin transaction, after which RBC froze her account and asked her questions about her crypto activities, which she described to the Western Standard as “strange and demeaning.”

The bank gave her until August 18, 2025, to find a new financial institution, cryptically referencing compliance with federal regulations but providing no specific law or detailed explanation.

Chipiuk, who has been vocal about her criticism of Canadian institutions, suggested the debanking might be linked to her involvement in the Freedom Convoy or her public stance.

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