Showing posts with label surveillance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surveillance. Show all posts

September 30, 2019


Brett Kavanaugh debate exemplifies culture war between left and right

fromTheHill: Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is either a sexual brute or a badly-aggrieved victim of a witch hunt. The debate on this question exemplifies two diametrically opposed approaches to justice.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Face masks to decoy t-shirts: The rise of anti-surveillance fashion

fromThompsonReutersFoundation: Fashion designers are coming up with novel ways to stay private in public.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Court says using chalk on tires for parking enforcement violates Constitution

fromNPR: Anything that weakens the state's ability to exploit the citizen with confiscatory fines is ok with me.
Regulation Nation

This law allows hospitals to kidnap you for profit

fromTheDailyBell: "Florida’s Baker Act allows doctors, police, or judges to involuntarily commit patients to psychiatric hospitals for up to 72 hours if they show signs that they may hurt themselves or others."
The Government is Not Us

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - That Existential Threat

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Tucker Carlson explores the veracity of claims that climate change is as “existential threat.” Do the presidential candidates who advocate policies based on that premise believe it themselves?
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery           Economic Policy: Statism Vs The Free Market

51% of young voters believe humanity could be wiped out within 15 years

fromScottRasmussen: No wonder poor little Greta is a basket case. She has been convinced that climate change is an existential threat. See video above.

September 27, 2019


A license for outrageous police conduct

fromReason: Qualified immunity protects cops from liability for actions that would land ordinary people in jail. Another double standard favoring government agents.
Police State America

IRS testing behavioral analytics to verify online users

fromNextGov: The agency is piloting a proof-of-concept that will track how individual taxpayers interact with its online systems by tracking behavior and movements through phones.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Food is freedom: How Washington’s food subsidies have helped make Americans fat and sick

fromTheDailyBell: All told, the U.S. government spends $20 billion annually on farm subsidies, with approximately 39 percent of all farms receiving some sort of subsidy.
Economic Policy: Statism Vs The Free Market

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Dismantling America

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Upon completion of his book Dismantling America, in 2010, Dr. Sowell is interviewed by Peter Robinson of Uncommon Knowledge.
The Government is Not Us

The world’s most-surveilled cities

fromComparitech: Six are in America (San Francisco is one of them).
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Why Is the CDC still fostering potentially deadly confusion about vaping and lung disease?

fromReason: Contrary to the evidence, public health officials and journalists continue to link the recent outbreak of respiratory illnesses with legal e-cigarettes.

June 24, 2019


House votes down amendment to ban warrantless spying on Americans

fromDigitalJournal: The Charlatans, who are SO quick to swear on the Bible that they will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, have just effectively repealed the Fourth Amendment.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make           The Government is Not Us

Warrantless arrest and the role of probable cause

fromSearchLight: “Probable cause” are a powerful words for police officers, but that doesn't mean they can arrest a person on a hunch. Although there need not be absolute certainty, there must be more than mere suspicion.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

The Jackboots are coming: Mass arrests, power grabs and the politics of fear

fromTheRutherfordInstitute: How do you persuade a populace to embrace totalitarianism, that goose-stepping form of tyranny in which the government has all of the power and “we the people” have none?
Police State America           The Government is Not Us

Sanders-Ocasio-Cortez plan to cap credit card interest rates will backfire on consumers

fromUSAToday: The effective elimination of usury ceilings transformed the credit card market, as many previously-excluded consumers gained access to credit cards for the first time.

June 7, 2019


Congress proposes legislation to screen adults and children to predict if you pose a threat

fromFreeThoughtProject: The TAPS Act would encourage law enforcement to give everyone a personal threat assessment (kids and adults) and single out those that they deem as future threats.   
Government is Watching Every Move You Make        Police State America

Republicans join Democrats to kill Rand Paul's Pennies Plan because no one cares about the debt

fromWashingtonExaminer: It wouldn't solve our debt crisis, but it would ameliorate it somewhat. So naturally, a large bipartisan majority voted to block it from the Senate floor.  
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

VIDEO: Don Boudreaux - Why Free Trade is ALWAYS Best Policy

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Economist Don Boudreaux eloquently explains how, despite the economic policies of other countries, free trade is always the most beneficial policy for the citizens. 
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Hey Trump: Remember Wikileaks?

fromRonPaulInstitute: Governments hate it when the truth is told about them. They prefer to kill the messenger rather than face the message.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Watchdog says FBI has access to about 640M photographs

fromAP: A government watchdog says the FBI has access to about 640 million photographs — including from driver’s licenses, passports and mugshots — that can be searched using facial recognition technology.  

June 5, 2019


Could prostitution be next to be decriminalized?

fromNYTimes: Marijuana has gone mainstream, casino gambling is everywhere and sports wagering is spreading. Could prostitution be next? It will happen just as soon as the government figures out how to replace the pimp as profiteer.  
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

"It's all a fraud": Deceptive edits found in Mueller Report

fromZeroHedge: Mueller's deceptive edits beg the question; what else may have been manipulated by the special counsel to make Trump look guilty?
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Police to use TSA-style scanners to spy on people in public places

fromMassPrivateI: TSA-style body scanners are coming to public spaces, and that should scare the hell out of everyone.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

VIDEO: Julian Assange - Wikileaks and the 2016 Presidential Election

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Journalist Julian Assange gives a fascinating interview in 2016 by Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi, regarding the Wikileaks disclosures that affected the 2016 presidential election.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Cops raid innocent family, stop mom from breastfeeding for ‘smelling weed’—they found none

fromTheFreeThoughtProject: If you wonder why some folks have an adversity to cops, you need only watch these bullies harassing a family under the pretense of having smelled weed. And they claim to be public servants.
Police State America

Walter E Williams: Colleges committed to ideological diversity

fromCreators: Students "have to walk on eggshells, respect taboos, snitch on fellow students for politically incorrect jokes and learn to use ad hominem arguments as a means to attack ideas they find "disagreeable."

May 31, 2019


Alexa ‘could be about to get even creepier,’ Amazon patent reveals

fromYahooNews: It would alter how Echo works - so that instead of waiting for its ‘wake word’, Alexa, it would effectively be listening all the time. Only a potent 2nd Amendment will keep this from eventually being mandatory.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

VIDEO: Victor Davis Hanson - Evaluating Donald Trump

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: A brilliant analysis of the phenomenon known as Donald Trump.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Press freedom: Widespread confusion about who counts as a journalist and whether it matters

fromCreators: We have a First Amendment. Freedom is not a special privilege that belongs only to officially recognized journalists. It applies to all of us when we use technologies of mass communication.
The Government is Not Us     Indoctrination and Censorship

Cops strip-searched a 4-year-old after mom's errand took too long

fromReason: How dare the authorities not only second-guess a mom's very safe decision, but take their investigation so far beyond the bounds of common sense—and decency?
Police State America

Tide of public opinion is turning in Assange’s favor

fromConsortiumNews: The indictment of Julian Assange under the Espionage Act has profoundly affected press coverage of the WikiLeaks founder.
The Government is Not Us     Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption      Indoctrination and Censorship

The Right’s latest tactic on gun laws? Just don’t enforce them

fromRollingStone: Counties across the country are sticking it to “big city elites” by declaring themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries”

May 22, 2019


College students believe that hate speech is not free speech

fromNewser:   They are obviously not taught that the First Amendment expressly exists to protect unpopular speech, since popular speech needs no protection.
Indoctrination and Censorship

You’ve been warned: Widespread US face surveillance is ‘imminent reality’, says tech privacy report

fromRT:   Georgetown researchers are warning Americans about a sophisticated real-time face surveillance system that’s about to become an “imminent reality” for millions of citizens across the country.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

US prosecutors to 'help themselves' to Julian Assange's possessions

fromTheGuardian:   Julian Assange’s belongings from his time living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London will be handed over to US prosecutors on Monday, according to WikiLeaks.
The Government is Not Us       Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Walter E Williams: Socialist promises

fromCreators:   Socialism promises a utopia that sounds good, but those promises are never realized. It most often results in massive human suffering.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

His house Is worth $125K. The fine over his lawn Is $30k

fromNewser:   His lawn was higher than ten inches for two months. This is one way local governments are financing their deficit spending.
The Government is Not Us       Regulation Nation

Three reasons flawed capitalism is still better than perfect socialism

fromTheDailyBell:   With the example of suffering Venezuelans right before their eyes, it seems incredible that so many Americans are still buying into the promises of socialism.

May 20, 2019


Why everyone in the U.S. who counts wants Julian Assange dead

fromCommonDreams:   It's not for being a jerk that the Establishment state wants the Wikileaks publisher dead. They want him dead for publishing videos like these. Only the bravest will watch the video contained within.
The Government is Not Us       Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption    Defense Versus The War Machine

Some US cities are moving into real-time facial surveillance

fromWired:   The lack of federal rules on facial recognition may create a patchwork of surveillance regimes inside the US.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Camille Paglia: Neo feminism teaching women to live in ‘a permanently juvenile condition’

fromCommonDreams:   “What I am saying throughout my work is that girls who are indoctrinated to see men not as equals but as oppressors and rapists are condemned to remain in a permanently juvenile condition for life."
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

VIDEO: Larry Elder - Reparations for Slavery

fromLibertyPen/YouTube:   Commentator/author Larry Elder comments on a scheme to extract money from people who were never slave owners and give it to people who were never slaves.

Federal funding for California bullet train boondoggle formally canceled

fromReason:   Jerry Brown's bait and switch scheme goes up in flames, as taxpayers suffer another ramification of the Obama administration.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Is California ready to ban gas-powered cars? Not yet. But they're thinking about it

fromUSAToday:   Fresh of the high-speed rail fiasco, state politicians plot yet another way to torture citizens.

May 13, 2019


President Trump's tariffs, once described as negotiating tools, may be here to stay

fromGreenwichTime:   Failure of the United States and China to reach agreement Friday on a comprehensive trade deal raises the possibility that high tariffs on imported goods may be a permanent feature of the U.S. economy.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - Trump's Claims of Spying

fromLibertyPen/YouTube:   From Tucker Carlson Tonight, a look back at Trump’s allegations that the Obama administration was spying on him and the accompanying media coverage as well as the upshot to the story.
Media Bias on Parade        Politics and Other Official Act of Corruption

Food prices to soar thanks to the trade war's tariffs

fromSHTF:   The consequences of the Trump Administration’s trade war on China and other countries will be rising food prices for the American consumer.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

The new green serfdom

fromReason:   The Green New Deal is a path to a more militarized and authoritarian society.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Walter E Williams: Higher education in America

fromCreators:   "Colleges should be forced to share in covering loan defaults, namely they need to have some skin in the game. More importantly, Vedder says that we should end or revise the federal student aid program."
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Idaho repeals its regulatory code

fromMercatus:   Forcing a fresh start by repealing the entire regulatory code may be the newest arrow in the red tape cutter’s quiver.

April 27, 2019


The Feds are dropping child porn cases instead of revealing info on their surveillance systems

fromReason:  Human Rights Watch and other groups say these systems draw serious concerns. 

VIDEO: The original role of Clinton-Podesta in the Trump collusion narrative

fromTargetLiberty:  Amazing! Left-wing comedian uses facts and documents to show the original role of Clinton-Podesta in the Trump collusion narrative
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Taxpayers hit for $270k after cops beat, kidnap 4’11” grandma for refusing warrantless search

fromFreeThoughtProject:  For refusing to allow police to illegally search her home, an innocent grandma was attacked, kidnapped, injured and denied treatment -- and taxpayers, not cops were held accountable. 
Police State America

Google may be helping the government conduct warrantless searches in 'massive file scanning program'

fromDailyMail:  The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed an amicus brief concerning Google's role in helping the government seize data via warrantless searches. 

Assange’s imprisonment reveals even more corruption than WikiLeaks did

fromCaitlinJohnstone:  Understanding everything that WikiLeaks has done to shine light where powerful people want darkness makes it abundantly clear why powerful people want to sabotage it. 
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Facial recognition creeps up on a JetBlue passenger and she hates it

fromZeroHedge:  Facial recognition systems don't want you to stop and think about them. This is what happens when someone does. 

April 15, 2019


Julian Assange and WikiLeaks deserve our thanks for making governments more transparent

fromReason:  The world is a better place now that it's harder than ever for governments to keep secrets.
The Government is Not Us       Government is Watching Every Move You Make     

The Washington establishment seems pretty happy about Julian Assange’s arrest

fromReason:  Deep state tyrants figure to sleep a little better if they can eliminate Assange.
The Government is Not Us       Government is Watching Every Move You Make 

Assisted dying: The death panels are coming

fromGaryNorth:  Rationing is inevitable in a world of scarcity. You can ration by price: high monetary bid wins. You can ration by standing in line: first come, first served. You can ration by bureaucratic procedure: fill out forms. 
But there is always rationing.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Why an internet regulator is a bad idea

fromSpiked:  We should be stripping away curbs on speech – not adding more.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Looking into surveillance

fromProvidenceJournal:  If our government has improperly used its immense power to spy on citizens for political purposes, it is vital that it be stopped, and those involved be punished, lest we become a police state.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make        Police State America

Your Volvo will soon call the cops on you if it thinks you've been drinking

fromZeroHedge:  It is unclear if demand for Volvos will collapse as a result of big brother watching over every move, or if potential customers will welcome this latest incursion of their privacy.

April 12, 2019


Alexa is listening to everything you say

fromBloomberg:  Tens of millions of very foolish people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

The best reason to not buy any new car

fromEricPetersAuto:  Free health care, free college tuition, free child care are the beacons for the liberal Left. Everything but the freedom to think for yourself.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

The miserable, squalid campaign to stifle Tucker Carlson

fromTheSpectator:  The Fox News host’s only real crime is daring to be provocative in a dull media world.
Media Bias on Parade

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - The Shame of White Privilege and Other Leftist Crimes

fromLibertyPen/YouTube:  A look at the apologetic whining from Democratic presidential candidates for having been born white, advocating borders, failing to champion reparations to blacks and other high PC crimes.


Mar 1, 2019


The Left wants everything free, except free speech

fromAmericanThinker:  Free health care, free college tuition, free child care are the beacons for the liberal Left. Everything but the freedom to think for yourself.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Victor Davis Hanson: California's rendezvous with reality

fromTownhall:  For years, high-speed rail has drained the state budget of transportation funds that might have easily updated nightmarish stretches of the Central Valley's Highway 99.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market      The Government is Not Us

Scientists want Orwellian A.I. sentient smart assistants to snitch on owners and discuss contacting police

fromActivistPost:  Smart assistants like Siri, Google Home, and Amazon Echo could soon be implemented with a “moral AI” to decide whether to report their owners for breaking the law. George Orwell does not hold the patent. 
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Military intervention in Venezuela would be a reckless, dangerous option

fromReason:  The push for intervention is no surprise, and it should be given no quarter.
Defense Versus The War Machine

Oregon passes nation's first statewide rent control law

fromReason:  The bill comes with new risks for tenants and property owners alike.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

No permit required. Oklahoma Becomes 15th gun-carry state

fromFreeBeacon:  Residents of Oklahoma just got freer and safer. Protection is everywhere

Feb 27, 2019


Trump supports for new bill giving nationwide right to carry concealed weapons

fromLATimes:  Police state advocates are not pleased.
2nd Amendment Assaults

Google’s LISTENING: Nest security system has a secret embedded microphone

fromOrganicPepper:  “The on-device microphone was never intended to be a secret and should have been listed in the tech specs. That was an error on our part," says Google. After all, NSA knew all along.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Venezuelans regret gun ban, 'a declaration of war against an unarmed population'

fromFoxNews:  As Venezuela continues to crumble under the socialist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro, some are expressing words of resentment against a six-year-old gun control bill that stripped citizens of their weapons.
2nd Amendment Assaults

Please don't help the Alabama authorities catch this escaped drug dealer

fromReason:  Dyron Rashad Primus is serving 15 years for synthetic marijuana charges.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Tesla driver killed in high-speed Florida crash and fire

fromNewser:  Government-subsidized death traps. Apparently rescuers could not get to the trapped driver because there was no door handle on the outside of the door.
Economic Policy: Government Versus The Free Market      Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

The AI morality push which might make climate change compliance compulsory

fromWaatsUpWithThat:  If AI researchers get their way, in the near future we may no longer have the option of straying even slightly outside the politically correct mandates of our national leaders.

Feb 26, 2019


California lawmakers propose soda tax, outlawing super-size sugary drinks

fromLATimes:  California's tyrannical politicians cannot stop minding YOUR own business.

How The Jussie Smollett hoax reveals the scope of the surveillance state

fromActivistPost:  Modern technology is changing the approach to justice right before our eyes, as well as the See Something, Say Something citizen watch program.  This is the new surveillance state.

Venezuela aid trucks set ablaze as Maduro tells Trump: "yankee, go home"

fromZeroHedge:  The socialist goals of equality will have been achieved once everyone starves to death.

Study shows concealed carry permit holders break laws far less than cops

fromFreeThoughtProject:  A study of gun statistics across the country found that concealed carry permit holders break the law far less than police officers.

Walter E Williams: Hate crime hoaxes - the bad and the good

fromCreators:  This type of hoax is part and parcel of the left's broad agenda of victimology, fraudulence and gimmickry, plus gross media gullibility, incompetence and political attention seeking.

Trump vs. the FBI: Who are the good guys?

fromDailyBell:  “All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.” -Frank Herbert, Author of Dune

Feb 22, 2019


How socialism broke Venezuela

fromCommentaryMagazine:  The tragic journey from Perez to Chavez to Maduro.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

FBI plotting to keep DNA of ENTIRE population on file to create ‘nation of suspects’

fromDailyStar:  President Donald Trump has signed the Rapid DNA Act into law which means the police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested but not yet convicted of a crime.
The Government is Not Us            Government is Watching Every Move You 

Our disastrous obsession with equality

fromMises:  “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.” — Milton Friedman
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Victor Davis Hanson: Changing reality with words

fromTownhall:  Beware of euphemisms. Radical changes in vocabulary are usually admissions that reality is unwelcome or indefensible.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Study: Crackdown on prescriptions drove up Hep. C infections

fromFreeBeacon:  Government regulations succeeded only in transforming Oxycontin users into heroin addicts.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange      Regulation Nation

Arizona trying to become first in U.S. to require citizen DNA

fromActivistPost:  The ruling class finds it in their interest to know more about their human livestock.

Feb 11, 2019


The real reason 4 cops got shot in Houston last week

fromDailyBell:  When you look deeper at the case, you realize these cops didn’t get shot because of anti-police rhetoric. They got shot because they invaded an innocent couple’s home without announcing themselves.
Police State America   

Green new deal—same old progressive policies

fromReason:  Using climate change to justify government-guaranteed jobs, health care, and housing.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Jackboots in the morning: No one Is spared from this American nightmare

fromRutherfordInstitute:  Whatever dangerous practices you allow the government to carry out now— rest assured, these same practices can and will be used against you when the government decides it wants.
Police State America

Bezos protests invasion of his privacy, as Amazon builds sprawling surveillance state for everyone else

fromTheIntercept:  If the surveillance powers of the NSA, FBI or other agencies were used to obtain incriminating information about Bezos due to their view of him as a political enemy ...
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

New York police killed her son, then refused to answer her questions. The law they’re hiding behind.

fromReason:  An obscure provision designed to protect personnel records makes it nearly impossible to hold the state’s cops accountable.
Police State America      Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

The libertarian case for a border wall

from71Republic:  Though the wall would require a small amount of force, its long-term savings in government spending shows a principled and pragmatic necessity.

Feb 6, 2019


Donald Trump: ‘We’ve got to get out of these endless wars’

fromBreitbart:  President Donald Trump detailed his position Sunday on withdrawing troops United States from Afghanistan and Syria.
Defense Verses The War Machine

Major DNA testing company sharing genetic data with the FBI

fromBloomberg:  FamilyTreeDNA is the culprit. Unwitting citizens are paying to have their genetic information sent to the FBI and other government databases.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Are you a woman traveling alone? Marriott might be watching you.

fromReason: The surveillance tactics that have been adopted by hotel chains are part of a disturbing partnership between hospitality businesses and federal law enforcement to track the movements of people, especially women.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

How the drug war eats the poor

fromVice:  According to a new report by the NGO Health Poverty Action, prohibition drives poverty and criminality in places like Brazil and India.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Hawaii considers ban on cigarette sales

fromABC30:  Vice cops look for new products as busybodies seek to mind YOUR own business.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Capitalism has been the bane of poverty worldwide

fromReviewJournal:  Bill Gates noted that the proportion of people on Earth living in extreme poverty has declined from 94 percent in 1820 to below 9 percent today. “Most of the credit … must go to capitalism and free trade.”