This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.
— Hannah Arendt
In a perfect example of the Nanny State mindset at work, Hillary Clinton insists that the powers-that-be need “total control” in order to make the internet a safer place for users and protect us harm.Clinton is not alone in her distaste for unregulated, free speech online.
A bipartisan chorus that includes both presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has long clamored to weaken or do away with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which essentially acts as a bulwark against online censorship.
It’s a complicated legal issue that involves debates over immunity, liability, net neutrality and whether or not internet sites are publishers with editorial responsibility for the content posted to their sites, but really, it comes down to the tug-of-war over where censorship (corporate and government) begins and free speech ends.
As Elizabeth Nolan Brown writes for Reason, “What both the right and left attacks on the provision share is a willingness to use whatever excuses resonate—saving children, stopping bias, preventing terrorism, misogyny, and religious intolerance—to ensure more centralized control of online speech. They may couch these in partisan terms that play well with their respective bases, but their aim is essentially the same.”
In other words, the government will use any excuse to suppress dissent and control the narrative.
The internet may well be the final frontier where free speech still flourishes, especially for politically incorrect speech and disinformation, which test the limits of our so-called egalitarian commitment to the First Amendment’s broad-minded principles.
On the internet, falsehoods and lies abound, misdirection and misinformation dominate, and conspiracy theories go viral.
This is to be expected, and the response should be more speech, not less.
As Justice Brandeis wrote nearly a century ago: “If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
Yet to the government, these forms of “disinformation” rank right up there with terrorism, drugs, violence, and disease: societal evils so threatening that “we the people” should be willing to relinquish a little of our freedoms for the sake of national security.
Of course, it never works out that way.
The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, the war on COVID-19: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns only to become weapons of compliance and control in the government’s hands.
Indeed, in the face of the government’s own authoritarian power-grabs, coverups, and conspiracies, a relatively unfettered internet may be our sole hope of speaking truth to power.
The right to criticize the government and speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom.
You see, disinformation isn’t the problem. Government coverups and censorship are the problem.
Unfortunately, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech that challenges its power, reveals its corruption, exposes its lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices. Every day in this country, those who dare to speak their truth to the powers-that-be find themselves censored, silenced or fired.
While there are all kinds of labels being put on so-called “unacceptable” speech today, the real message being conveyed by those in power is that Americans don’t have a right to express themselves if what they are saying is unpopular, controversial or at odds with what the government determines to be acceptable.
Where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.
Remember, this is the same government that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably.
This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identify potential threats.
This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.
This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.
For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.
Thus, no matter how well-meaning the politicians make these encroachments on our rights appear, in the right (or wrong) hands, benevolent plans can easily be put to malevolent purposes.
Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation. For instance, the very same mass surveillance technologies that were supposedly so necessary to fight the spread of COVID-19 are now being used to stifle dissent, persecute activists, harass marginalized communities, and link people’s health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools.
We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.
The next phase of the government’s war on anti-government speech and so-called thought crimes could well be mental health round-ups and involuntary detentions.
Under the guise of public health and safety, the government could use mental health care as a pretext for targeting and locking up dissidents, activists and anyone unfortunate enough to be placed on a government watch list.
This is how it begins.
In communities across the nation, police are already being empowered to forcibly detain individuals they believe might be mentally ill, based solely on their own judgment, even if those individuals pose no danger to others.
In New York City, for example, you could find yourself forcibly hospitalized for suspected mental illness if you carry “firmly held beliefs not congruent with cultural ideas,” exhibit a “willingness to engage in meaningful discussion,” have “excessive fears of specific stimuli,” or refuse “voluntary treatment recommendations.”
While these programs are ostensibly aimed at getting the homeless off the streets, when combined with advances in mass surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence-powered programs that can track people by their biometrics and behavior, mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA), threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, precrime initiatives, red flag gun laws, and mental health first-aid programs aimed at training gatekeepers to identify who might pose a threat to public safety, they could well signal a tipping point in the government’s efforts to penalize those engaging in so-called “thought crimes.”
As the Associated Press reports, federal officials are already looking into how to add “‘identifiable patient data,’ such as mental health, substance use and behavioral health information from group homes, shelters, jails, detox facilities and schools,” to its surveillance toolkit.
Make no mistake: these are the building blocks for an American gulag no less sinister than that of the gulags of the Cold War-era Soviet Union.
The word “gulag” refers to a labor or concentration camp where prisoners (oftentimes political prisoners or so-called “enemies of the state,” real or imagined) were imprisoned as punishment for their crimes against the state.
The gulag, according to historian Anne Applebaum, used as a form of “administrative exile—which required no trial and no sentencing procedure—was an ideal punishment not only for troublemakers as such, but also for political opponents of the regime.”
This age-old practice by which despotic regimes eliminate their critics or potential adversaries by making them disappear—or forcing them to flee—or exiling them literally or figuratively or virtually from their fellow citizens—is happening with increasing frequency in America.
Now, through the use of red flag laws, behavioral threat assessments, and pre-crime policing prevention programs, the groundwork is being laid that would allow the government to weaponize the label of mental illness as a means of exiling those whistleblowers, dissidents and freedom fighters who refuse to march in lockstep with its dictates.
Each state has its own set of civil, or involuntary, commitment laws. These laws are extensions of two legal principles: parens patriae Parens patriae (Latin for “parent of the country”), which allows the government to intervene on behalf of citizens who cannot act in their own best interest, and police power, which requires a state to protect the interests of its citizens.
The fusion of these two principles, coupled with a shift towards a dangerousness standard, has resulted in a Nanny State mindset carried out with the militant force of the Police State.
The problem, of course, is that the diagnosis of mental illness, while a legitimate concern for some Americans, has over time become a convenient means by which the government and its corporate partners can penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors.
In fact, in recent years, we have witnessed the pathologizing of individuals who resist authority as suffering from oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), defined as “a pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures.”
Under such a definition, every activist of note throughout our history—from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. to John Lennon—could be classified as suffering from an ODD mental disorder.
Of course, this is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced, declared unfit for society, labelled dangerous or extremist, or turned into outcasts and exiled.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is how you subdue a populace.
The ensuing silence in the face of government-sponsored tyranny, terror, brutality and injustice is deafening.
The post Disinformation Isn’t the Problem: Government Coverups and Censorship Are the Problem first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Authorities in the Chinese capital are stepping up security measures ahead of celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China on Tuesday, slapping restrictions on who may enter the city, rights lawyers and activists told RFA Mandarin.
Police have been following rights activists and lawyers, detaining their family members, or preventing them from entering Beijing, while the phones of outspoken journalist Gao Yu remain blocked ahead of the National Day holiday, they said.
The moves form part of China’s “stability maintenance” operations, which kick in ahead of politically sensitive dates or major events, in a bid to stave off potential threats to the ruling Chinese Communist Party before they can occur.
One of the first to be targeted was Li Wenzu, the activist wife of prominent rights attorney Wang Quanzhang, who was detained on entering Beijing in recent days, Wang told RFA in an interview on Monday.
“Li Wenzu got back to Beijing from out of town a few days ago, and was stopped by police at the railway station,” Wang said. “They detained her in the police station on the pretext of checking her ID.”
“This was because Oct. 1 is a major holiday,” said Wang, in a reference to China’s National Day, which marks the founding of the People’s Republic of China by late supreme leader Mao Zedong on Oct. 1, 1949.
“She was detained for a few hours, before being picked up by officials from the local government [where we live],” he said. “Li Wenzu has been to Beijing dozens of times in the past and has never been stopped or had her ID checked.”
“It shows that they’ve stepped up their so-called stability maintenance operations,” Wang said.
Wang said he was also followed by state security police for 50 kilometers while driving away from Beijing on Sunday.
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Independent political commentator Ji Feng, a former student leader of 1989 pro-democracy movement on Tiananmen Square, said he has been barred from entering Beijing.
“I’m currently in Yanjiao,” Ji said, referring to a town just outside Beijing city limits in the northern province of Hebei. “Beijing is just across the river.”
But Ji, who once lived in Beijing but was exiled to his hometown in southwestern Guizhou province in June 2023, has been warned off trying to cross the bridge by state security police.
“They straight up told me I can’t enter Beijing, that no politically sensitive figures are allowed in during sensitive periods,” he said.
“This year is the 75th Anniversary, which is a medium-importance milestone compared with the major milestones every 10 years,” Ji said.
China’s President Xi Jinping speaks during a National Day reception on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on September 30, 2024. While a person familiar with the situation of the Tiananmen Mothers, who campaign for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, said they haven’t been forced to leave the city, the authorities have stepped up monitoring of key activists who already live in the city.
State security police are on high alert, and one activist told RFA Mandarin they have left the city of their own accord to avoid unwanted surveillance, and plan to return after the National Day celebrations are over.
Communication blocked
Meanwhile, a friend of independent political journalist Gao Yu, who has been incommunicado since last month, said police have succeeded in blocking all of her attempts at making phone calls or going online in recent weeks.
“A well-wisher recently gave Gao Yu a sim card, but when she inserted it into her phone and went to make the first call, the phone was blocked again,” Gao’s friend told Radio Free Asia on Monday. “Gao Yu can’t even make a phone call.”
“She needs to use the phone to make an appointment with her doctor,” they said.
Rights activists in Wuhan, Shanghai, Changsha and other parts of China have told RFA Mandarin that they have also been told by local authorities not to go anywhere during the National Day celebrations, and that they will be under close surveillance during the holiday period.
But a shortage of money means that fewer activists are being taken on supervised, out-of-town “vacations” than in previous years, one activist said.
Instead, the authorities are stepping up surveillance of people in their own homes to save time and money, they said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Joshua Lipes.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Campaign group Big Brother Watch warns that workplace surveillance is on the rise. It is hosting a presentation of a report at the Labour conference. And it highlights the dangers of this for our health, rights, privacy, and democracy. But will Keir Starmer listen?
The dangers of “Bossware” at the Labour conference
After a nine-month investigation, the group has released the report Bossware: The dangers of high-tech worker surveillance & how to stop them. In the worst cases, it says, these practices include:
- Spyware recording every click and keystroke of desk workers, often on work from home devices in sectors including insurance and recruitment.
- Construction workers, forced to use biometric sign-ins and GPS tracking apps while on site
- National Express coach drivers subject to AI-powered “fatigue monitoring” while they’re at the wheel
- Office workers’ attendance monitored using Wi-Fi connection records
- Supermarket workers’ ‘pick rates’ and performance assessed by handheld computers
Big Brother Watch has been “working alongside some of the UK’s largest trade unions” to finalise some recommendations that could limit the most offensive aspects of workplace surveillance. But that will require putting pressure on Keir Starmer’s Labour Party government to implement them. These suggestions are:
- Legally require employers to be more transparent about high risk workplace surveillance and to consult staff and unions before introducing it
- Update data protection law to protect workers from automated decisions being made about them
- Make AI bias testing mandatory and make employers proactively responsible for using discriminatory algorithms
- Prevent employee tracking from being used to ratchet performance targets or for disciplinaries without good reason
- Ban so-called “emotion-recognition” surveillance from workplaces
- More guidance should be published by the UK’s privacy regulator, the ICO, to protect workers from surveillance
Excessive surveillance “directly undermines the democratic health of the country”
In a campaign email, the group insisted that:
Excessive workplace surveillance can breach individuals’ data and privacy rights, but it also directly undermines the democratic health of the country.
It added:
We need to get the message out that power imbalances in the workplace leave workers particularly vulnerable to having their data rights infringed upon.
Big Brother Watch is hosting the launch of its report at the Labour conference:
Tomorrow: We're launching a groundbreaking NEW REPORT on workplace snooping at #LabConf24
23 Sept at 3pm
Hilton, Liverpool
@DawnButlerBrent | @silkiecarlo | @IWGBunion | @FutureWorkInst Get your ticket now
https://t.co/EbbmuCREC7 pic.twitter.com/mVdjnUGQ5E— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) September 22, 2024
However, given the party is in thrall to bosses, it is unclear whether Starmer and Co will listen or not.
For more, check out the full report or their video on 5 ways your boss could be spying on you at work:
Featured image via Big Brother Watch and the Canary
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
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Three recent books offer a searing portrait of the calculated brutality of the ongoing Uyghur genocide.
This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.
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September 11. Melbourne. The scene: the area between Spencer Street Bridge and the Batman Park-Spencer Street tram stop. Heavily armed police, with glinting face coverings and shields, had seized and blocked the bridge over the course of the morning, preventing all traffic from transiting through it. Behind them stood second tier personnel, lightly armed. Then, barricades, followed by horse mounted police. Holding up the rear: two fire trucks.
In the skies, unmanned drones hovered like black, stationary ravens of menace. But these were not deemed sufficient by Victoria Police. Helicopters kept them company. Surveillance cameras also stood prominently to the north end of the bridge.
Before this assortment of marshalled force was an eclectic gathering of individuals from keffiyeh-swaddled pro-Palestinian activists to drummers kitted out in the Palestinian colours, and any number of theatrical types dressed in the shades and costumery of death. At one point, a chilling Joker figure made an appearance, his outfit and suitcase covered in mock blood. The share stock of chants was readily deployed: “No justice, no peace, no racist police”; “We, the people, will not be silenced. Stop the bombing now, now, now”. Innumerable placards condemning the arms industry and Israel’s war on Gaza also make their appearance.
The purpose of this vast, costly exercise proved elementary and brutal: to defend Land Forces 2024, one of the largest arms fairs in the southern hemisphere, from Disrupt Land Forces, a collective demonised by the Victorian state government as the great unwashed, polluted rebel rousers and anarchists. Much had been made of the potential size of the gathering, with uncritical journalists consuming gobbets of information from police sources keen to justify an operation deemed the largest since the 2000 World Economic Forum. Police officers from regional centres in the state had been called up, and while Chief Commissioner Shane Patton proved tight-lipped on the exact number, an estimate exceeding 1,000 was not refuted. The total cost of the effort: somewhere between A$10 to A$15 million.
It all began as a healthy gathering at the dawn of day, with protestors moving to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre to picket entry points for those attending Land Forces.
Over time, there was movement between the various entrances to prevent these modern merchants of death from spruiking their merchandise and touting for offers. As Green Left Online noted, “The Victorian Police barricaded the entrance of the Melbourne Convention Centre so protestors marched to the back entrance to disrupt Land Forces whilst attendees are going through security checks.”
In keeping with a variant of Anton Chekhov’s principle, if a loaded gun is placed upon the stage, it is bound to be used. Otherwise, leave it out of the script. A large police presence would hardly be worthwhile without a few cracked skulls, flesh wounds or arrests. Scuffles accordingly broke out with banal predictability. The mounted personnel were also brought out to add a snap of hostility and intimidation to the protestors as they sought to hamper access to the Convention. For all of this, it was the police who left complaining, worried about their safety.
Then came the broader push from the officers to create a zone of exclusion around the building, resulting in the closure of Clarendon Street to the south, up to Batman Park. Efforts were made to push the protests from the convention centre across the bridge towards the park. This was in keeping with the promise by the Chief Commissioner that the MCEC site and its surrounds would be deemed a designated area over the duration of the arms fair from September 11 to 13.
Such designated areas, enabled by the passage of a 2009 law, vests the police with powers to stop and search a person within the zone without a warrant. Anything perceived to be a weapon can be seized, with officers having powers to request that civilians reveal their identity.
Despite such exercisable powers, the relevant legislation imposes a time limit of 12 hours for such areas, something most conspicuously breached by the Commissioner. But as Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS) group remarks, the broader criteria outlined in the legislative regime are often not met and constitute a “method of protest control” that impairs “the rights to assembly, association, and political expression” protected by the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.
The Victorian government had little time for the language of protest. In a stunningly grotesque twist, the Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allan, defended those at the Land Forces conference as legitimate representatives of business engaging in a peaceful enterprise. “Any industry deserves the right to have these sorts of events in a peaceful and respectful way.” If the manufacture, sale and distribution of weapons constitutes a “peaceful and respectful” pursuit, we have disappeared down the rabbit hole with Alice at great speed.
That theme continued with efforts by both Allan and the opposition leader, John Pesutto, to tarnish the efforts by fellow politicians to attend the protest. Both fumed indignantly at the efforts of Greens MP Gabrielle de Vietri to participate, with the premier calling the measure one designed for “divisive political purposes.” The Green MP had a pertinent response: “The community has spoken loud and clear, they don’t want weapons and war profiting to come to our doorstep, and the Victorian Labor government is sponsoring this.”
The absurd, morally inverted spectacle was duly affirmed: a taxpayer funded arms exposition, defended by the taxpayer funded police, used to repel the tax paying protestors keen to promote peace in the face of an industry that thrives on death, mutilation and misery.
The post Protecting the Merchants of Death: The Police Effort for Land Forces 2024 first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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It is both apt and ironic that the anniversary of 9/11, which paved the way for the government to overthrow the Constitution, occurs the week before the anniversary of the day the U.S. Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787.
All sides are still waging war on our constitutional freedoms, and “we the people” remain the biggest losers.
This year’s presidential election is no exception.
As Bruce Fein, the former associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, warns in a recent article in the Baltimore Sun, “In November, the American people will have a choice between Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance. But they will not have a choice between an Empire and a Republic.”
In other words, the candidates on this year’s ballot do not represent a substantive choice between freedom and tyranny so much as they constitute a cosmetic choice: the packaging may vary widely, but the contents remain the same.
No matter who wins, the bureaucratic minions of the Security/Military Industrial Complex and its Police State/Deep State partners will retain their stranglehold on power.
Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris have the greatest of track records when it comes to actually respecting the rights enshrined in the Constitution, despite the rhetoric being trotted out by both sides lately regarding their so-called devotion to the rule of law.
Indeed, Trump has repeatedly called for parts of the Constitution to be terminated, while both Harris and Trump seem to view the First Amendment’s assurance of the right to free speech, political expression and protest as dangerous when used to challenge the government’s power.
This flies in the face of everything America’s founders fought to safeguard.
Those who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the government exists at the behest of its citizens. It is there to protect, defend and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them.
Unfortunately, although the Bill of Rights was adopted as a means of protecting the people against government tyranny, in America today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.
In the 23 years since the USA Patriot Act—a massive 342-page wish list of expanded powers for the FBI and CIA—was rammed through Congress in the wake of the so-called 9/11 terror attacks, it has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.
The Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments—the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments—and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well.
The Patriot Act also redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience are now considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.
In fact, since 9/11, we’ve been spied on by surveillance cameras, eavesdropped on by government agents, had our belongings searched, our phones tapped, our mail opened, our email monitored, our opinions questioned, our purchases scrutinized (under the USA Patriot Act, banks are required to analyze your transactions for any patterns that raise suspicion and to see if you are connected to any objectionable people), and our activities watched.
We’re also being subjected to invasive patdowns and whole-body scans of our persons and seizures of our electronic devices in the nation’s airports. We can’t even purchase certain cold medicines at the pharmacy anymore without it being reported to the government and our names being placed on a watch list.
In this way, “we the people” continue to be terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance by a government that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.
The bogeyman’s names and faces have changed over time (terrorism, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, a viral pandemic, and more to come), but the end result remains the same: in the so-called name of national security, the Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded with the support of Congress, the White House, and the courts.
A recitation of the Bill of Rights—set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and the like (all sanctioned by Congress, the White House, and the courts)—would understandably sound more like a eulogy to freedoms lost than an affirmation of rights we truly possess.
What we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Sadly, most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights.
If there is any sense to be made from a recitation of freedoms lost, it is simply this: our individual freedoms have been eviscerated so that the government’s powers could be expanded.
So what’s the solution?
It was no idle happenstance that the Constitution opens with these three powerful words: “We the people.”
In other words, it’s our job to make the government play by the rules of the Constitution.
From the President on down, anyone taking public office should have a working knowledge of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and should be held accountable for upholding their precepts. One way to ensure this would be to require government leaders to take a course on the Constitution and pass a thorough examination thereof before being allowed to take office.
Some critics are advocating that students pass the United States citizenship exam in order to graduate from high school. Others recommend that it must be a prerequisite for attending college. I’d go so far as to argue that students should have to pass the citizenship exam before graduating from grade school.
Here’s an idea to get educated and take a stand for freedom: anyone who signs up to become a member of The Rutherford Institute gets a wallet-sized Bill of Rights card and a Know Your Rights card. Use this card to teach your children the freedoms found in the Bill of Rights.
A healthy, representative government is hard work. It takes a citizenry that is informed about the issues, educated about how the government operates, and willing to do more than grouse and complain.
As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, “we the people” have the power to make and break the government.
The post Overthrowing the Constitution: All Sides Are Waging War on Our Freedoms first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by The Intercept.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning.
—Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes
It’s not easy being a child in the American police state.Danger lurks around every corner and comes at you from every direction, especially when Big Brother is involved.
Out on the streets, you’ve got the menace posed by police officers who shoot first and ask questions later. In your neighborhoods, you’ve got to worry about the Nanny State and its network of busybodies turning parents in for allowing their children to walk to school alone, walk to the park alone, play at the beach alone, or even play in their own yard alone.
The tentacles of the police state even intrude on the sanctity of one’s home, with the government believing it knows better than you—the parent—what is best for your child. This criminalization of parenthood has run the gamut in recent years from parents being arrested for attempting to walk their kids home from school to parents being fined and threatened with jail time for their kids’ bad behavior or tardiness at school.
This doesn’t even touch on what happens to your kids when they’re at school—especially the public schools—where parents have little to no control over what their kids are taught, how they are taught, how and why they are disciplined, and the extent to which they are being indoctrinated into marching in lockstep with the government’s authoritarian playbook.
The message is chillingly clear: your children are not your own but are, in fact, wards of the state who have been temporarily entrusted to your care. Should you fail to carry out your duties to the government’s satisfaction, the children in your care will be re-assigned elsewhere.
This is what it means to go back-to-school in America today: where parents have to worry about school resource officers who taser teenagers and handcuff kindergartners, school officials who have criminalized childhood behavior, school lockdowns and terror drills that teach your children to fear and comply, and a police state mindset that has transformed the schools into quasi-prisons.
Instead of being taught the three R’s of education (reading, writing and arithmetic), young people are being drilled in the three I’s of life in the American police state: indoctrination, intimidation and intolerance.
Indeed, while young people today are learning first-hand what it means to be at the epicenter of politically charged culture wars, test scores indicate that students are not learning how to succeed in social studies, math and reading. Rather, government officials are churning out compliant drones who know little to nothing about their history or their freedoms.
In turn, these young people are being brainwashed into adopting a worldview in which rights are negotiable rather than inalienable; free speech is dangerous; the virtual world is preferable to the real world; and history can be extinguished when inconvenient or offensive.
What does it mean for the future of freedom at large when these young people, trained to be mindless automatons, are someday running the government?
Under the direction of government officials focused on making the schools more authoritarian (sold to parents as a bid to make the schools safer), young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.
From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment he or she graduates, they will be exposed to a steady diet of:
- draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior,
- overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech,
- school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students,
- standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking,
- politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them,
- and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.
This is how you groom young people to march in lockstep with a police state.
As Deborah Cadbury writes for The Washington Post, “Authoritarian rulers have long tried to assert control over the classroom as part of their totalitarian governments.”
In Nazi Germany, the schools became indoctrination centers, breeding grounds for intolerance and compliance.
In the American police state, the schools have become increasingly hostile to those who dare to question or challenge the status quo.
America’s young people have become casualties of a post-9/11 mindset that has transformed the country into a locked-down, militarized, crisis-fueled mockery of a representative government.
Roped into the government’s profit-driven campaign to keep the nation “safe” from drugs, disease, and weapons, America’s schools have transformed themselves into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, strip searches and active shooter drills.
Students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.
Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.
Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water, in some cases getting them expelled from school or charged with a crime.
Not even good deeds go unpunished.
One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.
Having police in the schools only adds to the danger.
Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers (a.k.a. school resource officers) to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.
Indeed, the growing presence of police in the nation’s schools is resulting in greater police “involvement in routine discipline matters that principals and parents used to address without involvement from law enforcement officers.”
Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.
In the absence of school-appropriate guidelines, police are more and more “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”
Not even the younger, elementary school-aged kids are being spared these “hardening” tactics.
On any given day when school is in session, kids who “act up” in class are pinned facedown on the floor, locked in dark closets, tied up with straps, bungee cords and duct tape, handcuffed, leg shackled, tasered or otherwise restrained, immobilized or placed in solitary confinement in order to bring them under “control.”
In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids—some as young as 4 and 5 years old—for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums.
Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.
Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers in the nation’s public schools.
This is what happens when you introduce police and police tactics into the schools.
Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.
For example, a middle school in Washington State went on lockdown after a student brought a toy gun to class. A Boston high school went into lockdown for four hours after a bullet was discovered in a classroom. A North Carolina elementary school locked down and called in police after a fifth grader reported seeing an unfamiliar man in the school (it turned out to be a parent).
Police officers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill in an effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actual shooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst into classrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.
These police state tactics have not made the schools any safer.
The fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated like hardened criminals: handcuffed, arrested, tasered, tackled and taught the painful lesson that the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) doesn’t mean much in the American police state.
Likewise, the harm caused by attitudes and policies that treat America’s young people as government property is not merely a short-term deprivation of individual rights. It is also a long-term effort to brainwash our young people into believing that civil liberties are luxuries that can and will be discarded at the whim and caprice of government officials if they deem doing so is for the so-called “greater good” (in other words, that which perpetuates the aims and goals of the police state).
What we’re dealing with is a draconian mindset that sees young people as wards of the state—and the source of potential income—to do with as they will in defiance of the children’s constitutional rights and those of their parents. However, this is in keeping with the government’s approach towards individual freedoms in general.
Surveillance cameras, government agents listening in on your phone calls, reading your emails and text messages and monitoring your spending, mandatory health care, sugary soda bans, anti-bullying laws, zero tolerance policies, political correctness: these are all outward signs of a government—i.e., a monied elite—that believes it knows what is best for you and can do a better job of managing your life than you can.
This is tyranny disguised as “the better good.”
Indeed, this is the tyranny of the Nanny State: marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and inflicted on all those who do not belong to the elite ruling class that gets to call the shots.
This is what the world looks like when bureaucrats not only think they know better than the average citizen but are empowered to inflict their viewpoints on the rest of the populace on penalty of fines, arrest or death.
So, what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now but for the future of this country, when these same young people are someday in charge?
How do you convince someone who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?
Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when, for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, we must start by running the schools like freedom forums.
The post What It Means to Go Back-to-School in the American Police State first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Lhasa’s Dystopian Grid System – Image: earthstar geographics – click for more detail
The Tibetan people are controlled through a number of layers of ‘security’ imposed by the occupying Chinese regime. These include bio-metric identity cards, housing registration, facial-recognition CCTV systems, and 24/7 monitoring across the internet and social-media platforms.
In addition to such asphyxiating measures residential areas are also laid out in a grid system which enables in-situ surveillance of Tibetans. With communist party cadres and so-called residents’ committees to ensure compliance with the dictates of Xi Jinping. Informants populate each designated component of these grids, and any sign of dissent or ‘wrong thinking’ is reported to the authorities.
Below is an extract we researched and translated from a document, issued August 2024, by the so-called ‘Lhasa Municipal Party Committee’. Like all Chinese official documents its saturated with euphemisms, we’ve emphasized those for easier reference.
“Grass-roots governance work, Wiba village uses “grid + police grid” the dual-grid linkage mechanism to achieve party building led by the “multi-network fusion”, weaving firm pluralistic common governance “a net”. Wiba village sound grid work mechanism, a reasonable division of five integrated grid, each grid is equipped with a grid leader, a full-time grid, a community worker, part-time grid several, co-ordination of public security police and other grass-roots forces, to optimize grid services. In order to further promote the grid management work, and constantly improve the “three understandings” rate of knowledge, participation, give full play to the function of the grid, to provide quality and efficient service to the masses. Wiba village grid is covered by, the village task force, and the grid of the police’s name, contact information, such as contact information of the convenience of the people’s contact card, to ensure that the masses have something to find Grid members, to promote the integration of resources and power to the front line, service to the masses in-depth to the front line, urgent problems in the front line, so that the people have a call, must be responded to..”
This post was originally published on Digital Activism In Support Of Tibetan Independence.
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What you smell is the stench of a dying republic.
Our dying republic.
We are trapped in a political matrix intended to sustain the illusion that we are citizens of a constitutional republic.
In reality, we are caught somewhere between a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens).
For years now, the government has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the American people, letting us enjoy just enough freedom to think we are free but not enough to actually allow us to live as a free people.
In other words, we’re allowed to bask in the illusion of freedom while we’re being stripped of the very rights intended to ensure that we can hold the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution.
We’re in trouble, folks.
This is no longer America, land of the free, where the government is of the people, by the people and for the people.
Rather, this is Amerika, where fascism, totalitarianism and militarism go hand in hand.
Freedom no longer means what it once did.
This holds true whether you’re talking about the right to criticize the government in word or deed, the right to be free from government surveillance, the right to not have your person or your property subjected to warrantless searches by government agents, the right to due process, the right to be safe from militarized police invading your home, the right to be innocent until proven guilty and every other right that once reinforced the founders’ commitment to the American experiment in freedom.
Not only do we no longer have dominion over our bodies, our families, our property and our lives, but the government continues to chip away at what few rights we still have to speak freely and think for ourselves.
My friends, we’re being played for fools.
On paper, we may be technically free.
In reality, however, we are only as free as a government official may allow.
We only think we live in a constitutional republic, governed by just laws created for our benefit.
Truth be told, we live in a dictatorship disguised as a democracy where all that we own, all that we earn, all that we say and do—our very lives—depends on the benevolence of government agents and corporate shareholders for whom profit and power will always trump principle. And now the government is litigating and legislating its way into a new framework where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights of the citizenry.
With every court ruling that allows the government to operate above the rule of law, every piece of legislation that limits our freedoms, and every act of government wrongdoing that goes unpunished, we’re slowly being conditioned to a society in which we have little real control over our lives.
As Rod Serling, creator of the Twilight Zone and an insightful commentator on human nature, once observed, “We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.”
Indeed, not only are we developing a new citizenry incapable of thinking for themselves, but we’re also instilling in them a complete and utter reliance on the government and its corporate partners to do everything for them—tell them what to eat, what to wear, how to think, what to believe, how long to sleep, who to vote for, whom to associate with, and on and on.
In this way, we have created a welfare state, a nanny state, a police state, a surveillance state, an electronic concentration camp—call it what you will, the meaning is the same: in our quest for less personal responsibility, a greater sense of security, and no burdensome obligations to each other or to future generations, we have created a society in which we have no true freedom.
Freedom, or what’s left of it, is being threatened from every direction.
The threats are of many kinds: political, cultural, educational, media, and psychological. However, as history shows us, freedom is not, on the whole, wrested from a citizenry. It is all too often given over voluntarily and for such a cheap price: safety, security, bread, and circuses.
This is part and parcel of the propaganda churned out by the government machine.
That said, what we face today—mind manipulation and systemic violence—is not new. What is different are the techniques used and the large-scale control of mass humanity, coercive police tactics and pervasive surveillance.
We are overdue for a systemic check on the government’s overreaches and power grabs.
By “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.
Where we find ourselves now is in the unenviable position of needing to rein in all three branches of government—the Executive, the Judicial, and the Legislative—that have exceeded their authority and grown drunk on power.
If we continue down this road, there can be no surprise about what awaits us at the end.
So, what’s the answer?
For starters, stop tolerating corruption, graft, intolerance, greed, incompetence, ineptitude, militarism, lawlessness, ignorance, brutality, deceit, collusion, corpulence, bureaucracy, immorality, depravity, censorship, cruelty, violence, mediocrity, and tyranny. These are the hallmarks of an institution that is rotten through and through.
Stop holding your nose in order to block out the stench of a rotting institution.
Stop letting the government and its agents treat you like a servant or a slave.
You’ve got rights. We’ve all got rights. This is our country. This is our government. No one can take it away from us unless we make it easy for them.
You’ve got a better chance of making your displeasure seen and felt and heard within your own community. But it will take perseverance and unity and a commitment to finding common ground with your fellow citizens.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we’re making it way too easy for the police state to take over.
So, stop being an accessory to the murder of the American republic.
The post The Political Matrix Sustains the Illusion of Freedom first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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China has stepped up emergency pandemic drills across the country and announced tighter surveillance of incoming travelers amid warnings that a more lethal and transmissible strain of the mpox virus is spreading internationally.
From Aug. 15, anyone arriving in China from countries and regions where mpox cases have been confirmed, or with symptoms like fever, headache, back or muscle pain, swollen lymph nodes or a rash is now required to declare their condition to customs authorities on entry, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday.
sThe move comes after the World Health Organization on Wednesday declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern, sounding the alarm over its potential for further international transmission, with several African countries, Sweden and Pakistan all reporting confirmed cases of the deadly virus.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mpox is spread through “close contact,” including sexual contact, and by touching contaminated surfaces. But The Lancet medical journal cited animal studies in March 2023 as showing that transmission through the air is also possible with some variants of the virus.
Data from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited by Xinhua showed that during the past week alone, more than 2,000 new mpox cases have been reported in African countries, with 38,465 mpox cases and 1,456 deaths across the continent since January 2022.
Worries about another lockdown
Authorities across China recently began emergency pandemic preparedness drills, resulting in photos of personnel clad from head to toe in white personal profective equipment, or PPE, and widespread concern on social media as people wondered if lockdowns were in the cards once more.
Local authorities rolled out emergency drills to prepare for “pneumonia of unknown cause” in Henan’s Zhengzhou city, Zhangye in the western province of Gansu, southwestern Sichuan and the megacities of Beijing and Chongqing.
Workers take part in an emergency pandemic drill in Beijing’s Shijingshan district, Aug. 7, 2024. (Beijing Municipal Health Commission) Similar drills happened ahead of the World Military Games in Wuhan in 2019, while COVID-19 was also initially described as “atypical pneumonia” when it tore through the central city of Wuhan in December 2019 before being named by the WHO as a global pandemic.
According to a post on X by citizen journalist “Mr. Li is not your teacher,” the drills form part of a nationwide disease control and prevention action plan. The financial news service Yicai.com said the drills will be rolled out across 10 provinces by the end of August.
Photos from emergency infectious disease drills in Chongqing on July 4 included a photo of two people in full-body PPE collecting samples from two chickens, although there was no mention of avian influenza in the official report.
Some online comments referred to “post-traumatic stress syndrome” caused by the three years of lockdowns, compulsory quarantine and mass-testing of ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy, which ended amid nationwide protests in late 2022.
“This is so we can be on a war footing again, right? I think if this happens again, the Chinese Communist Party will bring about its own downfall,” said one comment, while another said: “We don’t want to go through that again.”
The first comment also alluded to a renewed wave of COVID-19 infections in China, adding: “It’s still out there, and it’s peaked again recently, but it’s too hot to mention.”
More behind the scenes?
Lin Xiaoxu, a former virology researcher at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center said there could be more going on in China currently than meets the eye, citing the government’s track record in trying to cover up public health emergencies.
“Generally speaking, the government still conceals a lot of health information, especially during public health crises,” Lin said. “I don’t think they’re doing these so-called emergency drills for no reason.”
Chinese social media users seem to be thinking along similar lines.
A recent wave of COVID-19 infections in the southern province of Guangdong was listed among “hot topics” on Weibo on Thursday, claiming that the latest strain of the coronavirus was causing more severe symptoms in younger people.
Clicking on the search term refers readers to a video on the official account of the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper and N Video, in which reporters visit Guangzhou Xinshi Hospital to investigate the recent spike in COVID-19 cases, quoting an expert as saying that the latest wave of the disease is hitting younger people with more pain and fever than previous variants.
Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News and the Luzhong Morning News both reported a sharp spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in July, with “more obvious symptoms” in young people.
Workers take part in an emergency pandemic drill in Beijing’s Shijingshan district, Aug. 7, 2024. (Beijing Municipal Health Commission) Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Japan, Europe and the United States are all currently seeing a wave of COVID-19 infections, and that cases in China appear to be following the same pattern.
“China is getting this too, but I don’t see any pattern suggesting any essential mutations that would make it different from what is happening overseas,” Huang told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Thursday.
Young people hit
He said the latest strains of COVID-19 have hit younger people harder everywhere, not just in China, likely due to impaired immunity caused by repeated infections.
“The number of young people infected is increasing, so I think that a large proportion of Chinese population has impaired immunity, with a lot of people who’ve been repeatedly infected, but the Chinese government basically doesn’t report it much,” Huang said.
He said a return to citywide lockdowns could happen if the Chinese authorities find the current wave is getting out of control.
“Given that the whole economy and the unemployment situation are very bad right now, the government could use a public health crisis as an excuse to impose more stringent social controls, as a way of clamping down on social unrest,” Lin said.
But he said the current emergency drills may not relate to COVID-19 at all, citing anthrax as another possible target.
Officials reported on Aug. 2 that anthrax had been found at a beef cattle farm in Liaocheng city in the eastern province of Shandong, while an unconfirmed Weibo post reported anthrax near Shijiazhuang city in northern Hebei province.
Lin said the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang had warned local residents on July 3 to take precautions against the spread of anthrax during the flood season, adding that such warnings were “very unusual.”
“My greatest suspicion is that there was a serious outbreak in Heilongjiang, but they didn’t make it public,” Lin said.
Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kitty Wang for RFA Mandarin.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Since early August, Chinese authorities have dramatically boosted surveillance of Tibetans in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa by putting more police on the streets, cracking down on social media users and – in a new wrinkle – hiring food delivery workers to serve as auxiliary police officers, sources inside Tibet say.
The increased monitoring activities coincided with the start of a major annual festival, the Shoton Festival, on Aug. 4. Also known as a yogurt festival, it is observed when monks complete their annual religious retreats and involves the unveiling of a 500-square-meter thangka painting, performances of Tibetan opera and huge picnics.
“The government has been taking various measures to tighten its vigilance in response to sensitive situations in Tibet, but this August, it has suddenly taken even more drastic measures,” said one source from inside Tibet.
Authorities are calling it a “summer public security crackdown and rectification operation,” the sources said.
The precise reasons behind the stricter measures – which continue – are not known, but Beijing has steadily tightened surveillance in Tibet over many years. One source said the measures were to ensure stability for the government’s commercial activities to stimulate economic growth.
That may be true on the surface, but comments from a senior security official point to a deeper motive. Zhang Hongbo, vice chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region and director of the Public Security Department told state media that security forces would focus on national unity and fight separatism or secession.
Tibet was once an independent country, but Chinese forces invaded in 1950 and have controlled the territory ever since. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India amid a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Since then, Beijing has sought to legitimize Chinese rule through the suppression of dissent and policies undermining Tibetan culture and language.
Authorities are hyper-sensitive to any hints of protest against Chinese rule or resistance to those efforts.
Here are three ways that authorities are boosting surveillance in Lhasa:
One: Greater police presence on the streets.
This includes plainclothes officers, and an increase in the number of traffic and police inspection points.
Lhasa’s Public Security Bureau deployed more than 1,200 police officers, set up 65 inspection and traffic checkpoints and conducted inspections of more than 2,000 venues and 24,000 vehicles, according to a Chinese state media report on Aug. 5.
Two: Authorities have deployed civilians – mostly food delivery drivers – as auxiliary police officers.
Lhasa authorities launched a pilot program hiring delivery drivers from food delivery company Meituan to perform “voluntary patrol and prevention work,” Chinese state media reported on Aug. 8 – although sources say the workers are essentially forced to do the work.
They are helping police to keep an eye on ordinary residents, including serving at night watchmen in certain areas.
The measure suggests China is using Tibet as a testing ground for its surveillance tactics because they are similar to civilian-police integration efforts China employs in border areas, said Sriparna Pathak, associate professor of China studies at the O.P. Jindal Global University in Haryana, India.
China has set up civilian-police integrated units in sensitive border areas of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Tibet Autonomous Region, both in the far western part of the country. The units comprise civilians, policemen, militiamen and government officials working with People’s Liberation Army soldiers to ensure security.
“China’s efforts to rope in delivery riders for surveillance is in line with the effort to further consolidate its grip in Tibet,” said Kalpit Mankikar, an expert at the New Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation.
Hiring Meituan delivery workers for surveillance also signals a link between the Chinese government and private enterprises, showing how the government drafts companies to fulfill certain national objectives, Mankikar said.
Three: Crackdown on social media use among Tibetans.
In the past, Tibetans could sign up for social media with only a phone number.
But at the end of July, the government announced that social media users had to re-open their accounts and provide personal details, the sources said.
Re-registering involves providing a password connected to one’s personal cell phone or identity card that is accessible to the government, one of the Tibetans said.
“If you do not have proper social media account registration, you will receive a summons from the government to re-register, and your phone will be examined,” one of the sources said.
Authorities also began stopping individual Tibetans in Lhasa to check for use of virtual private networks, or VPNs, that allow users to get around China’s internet restrictions, often dubbed “China’s Great Firewall,” two sources from inside Tibet said.
In early August, authorities in Lhasa arrested three people for using a VPN but released them with an administrative punishment, the Municipal Public Security Bureau said on its website.
The government said the latest measure was meant to protect personal data information, properly manage internet society and prevent telecommunication network fraud.
Lhasa police said Tuesday that it was inspecting the entire internet network and city streets for two days and nights to ensure public safety and security.
This comes on top of authorities’ strict monitoring of Tibetans’ use of social media, including Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.
Authorities have banned Tibetans from using the Tibetan language on social media sites – part of an effort to undermine their language and assimilate into Chinese culture.
Additional reporting by Dickey Kundol, Tenzin Dickyi and Yangdon for RFA Tibetan. Written and edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Tibetan.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The sordid story on the CIA-backed operation against the WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange during his time cramped in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy continues to froth and thicken. US officials have persisted in their reticent attitude, refusing to cooperate with Spain’s national high court, the Audiencia Nacional, regarding its investigation into the Agency’s espionage operations against the publisher, spearheaded by the Spanish security firm Undercover (UC) Global.
Since 2019, requests for assistance regarding the matter, including querying public statements by former CIA director Mike Pompeo and former head of counterintelligence, William Evanina, along with information mustered by the relevant Senate Intelligence Committee, have been made to US authorities by judges José de la Mata and Santiago Pedraz. These have been treated with a glacial silence.
On December 12, 2023, the General Subdirectorate of International Legal Cooperation furnished the US authorities “an express announcement” whether such judicial assistance would be denied.
Spain’s liaison magistrate in the US, María de las Heras García, duly revealed that the tardiness to engage had been occasioned by ongoing legal proceedings being conducted before the US District Court of the Southern District of New York. As Courtney E. Lee, trial attorney at the US Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs explained, supplying Spain’s national high court with such information would “interfere” with “ongoing US litigation”. Hardly a satisfactory response, given requests made prior to the putative litigation.
The litigation in question involved a legal suit filed in the US District Court of the Southern District of New York by civil rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler, media lawyer Deborah Hrbek, and journalists John Goetz and Charles Glass.
In their August 2022 action, the complainants alleged that they had been the subject of surveillance during visits to Assange during his embassy tenure, conduct said to be in breach of the Fourth Amendment. The plaintiffs accordingly argued that this entitled them to money damages and injunctive relief from former CIA director Mike Pompeo, the director of the Spanish security firm Undercover (UC) Global David Morales, and UC Global itself.
On December 19, 2023 District Judge John G. Koeltl granted, in part, the US government’s motion to dismiss while denying other portions of it. The judge accepted the record of hostility shown by Pompeo to WikiLeaks openly expressed by his April 2017 speech and acknowledged that “Morales was recruited to conduct surveillance on Assange and his visitors on behalf of the CIA and that this recruitment occurred at a January 2017 private security industry convention at the Las Vegas Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.”
The litigants found themselves on solid ground with Koeltl in the finding that they had standing to sue the intelligence organisation. “In this case, the plaintiffs need not allege, as the Government argues, that the Government will imminently use their information collected at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.” The plaintiffs would “have suffered a concrete and particularized injury fairly traceable to the challenged program and redressable by favorable ruling” if the search of the conversations and electronic devices along with the seizure of the contents of the electronic devices were found to be unlawful.
The plaintiffs also convinced the judge that they had “sufficient allegations that the CIA and Pompeo, through Morales and UC Global, violated their reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their electronic devices.” But they failed to convince Koeltl that they had a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their conversations with Assange, given the rather odd reasoning that they were aware the publisher was already being “surveilled even before the CIA’s alleged involvement.” Nor could such an expectation arise given the acceptance of video surveillance of government buildings. Problematically, the judge also held that those surrendering devices and passports at an Embassy reception desk “assumed the risk that the information may be conveyed to the Government.”
Sadly, Pompeo was spared the legal lash and could not be held personally accountable for violating the constitutional rights of US citizens. “As a presidential appointee confirmed by Congress […] Defendant Pompeo is in a different category of defendant from a law enforcement agent of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.”
In February this year, US Attorney Damian Williams and Assistant US Attorney Jean-David Barnea clarified the Agency’s line of response in a submission to Judge Koeltl. “Any factual inquiry into these allegations – whether they are true or not – would implicate classified information, as it would require the CIA to reveal what intelligence-gathering activities it did or did not engage in, among other things.” As the agency could not “publicly reveal the very facts over which it is seeking authorization to assert the State Secrets Privilege, it is not able to respond to the relevant allegations in the complaint or to respond to any discovery requests pertaining to those allegations.”
Richard Roth, an attorney representing the four litigants, found this reasoning bemusing in remarks made to The Dissenter. “From our vantage point, we cannot imagine how there is any privilege at all that relates to proprietary information of American citizens who visited the Ecuadorian embassy.”
In April, CIA director William J. Burns sought to further draw the veil in submitting a “classified declaration” defining “the scope of the information” concerning the case, claiming it satisfactorily explained “the harm that reasonably could be expected to result from the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.” For those in such lines of work, alleged harm has no quantum or sense of proportion.
Again, Roth was unimpressed, issuing a reminder that this case had nothing to do with “terroristic threats to destroy America that were uncovered through technology or a program that must never be disclosed or else the threat will succeed.” The case, importantly, concerned the CIA’s search and seizure of cell phone and laptop devices in the possession of “respected American lawyers and journalists, who committed no crime, and who have now stood up against the loss of liberties and the government’s intrusion into their private lives by copying the contents of their cell phones and laptops.”
As long as the Agency stifles and drags out proceedings on the grounds of this misused privilege, the Justice Department is bound to remain inert in the face of the Spanish investigation.
The post Assange, CIA Surveillance and Spain’s Audencia Nacional first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This content originally appeared on VICE News and was authored by VICE News.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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With the global rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), countries have increasingly adopted regulations to restrict the use of this new technology, exemplified by the AI Act in the European Union. In contrast, Gulf governments have taken a more business-friendly approach to AI regulation, raising concerns about potential breaches of their populations’ privacy rights. Notably, Saudi Arabia has sought to create an attractive environment for data and AI businesses and has so far avoided implementing binding regulations.
Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in AI as part of its Vision 2030 initiative and plans to integrate various AI technologies into its futuristic city-building project, Neom. These intentions raise significant concerns about potential human rights abuses by the Saudi government involving the use of AI, such as ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence language model making international headlines. These concerns are not limited to AI but extend to the misuse of a broader range of digital technologies. Recent high-profile cases involving Saudi Arabia include the use of digital technologies to spy on dissidents and their families overseas, as well as attempts to infiltrate Twitter to identify government opponents using anonymous accounts. Thus, AI presents yet another opportunity for the Saudi government to infringe on people’s most basic rights to privacy through surveillance and manipulation, exacerbating existing injustices.
These concerns would be less severe if the Saudi government introduced rules to regulate AI. However, the kingdom has only issued guidelines for AI use, without enforcing any legally binding regulations. This absence of strict regulations means that the Saudi government could potentially violate international human rights laws and standards on privacy without breaching its own laws. Given Saudi Arabia’s tendency to disregard the international right to privacy with its current digital technology, this situation poses significant risks for the future of not only the Saudi population but also any person visiting their future mega city, Neom.
To address these concerns, it is crucial for the international community to take action. Governments and international organizations should apply pressure on Saudi Arabia to implement comprehensive and binding AI regulations. Such regulations should ensure the protection of human rights and privacy, adhering to international standards. Additionally, countries should collaborate on establishing a global framework for AI governance that promotes ethical use and prevents abuses.
Furthermore, multinational corporations and AI developers should be encouraged to adopt ethical guidelines and refuse to participate in projects that could lead to human rights violations. By fostering a culture of accountability and ethical responsibility, the international community can mitigate the risks associated with the misuse of AI technologies.
The post AI Regulation in Saudi Arabia: Innovation over Human Rights appeared first on Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain.
This post was originally published on Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain.
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A failed assassination attempt on a presidential candidate. An incumbent president withdrawing his re-election bid at the 11th hour. A politicized judiciary that fails to hold the powers-that-be accountable to the rule of law. A world at war. A nation in turmoil.
This is what controlled chaos looks like.
This year’s election-year referendum on which corporate puppet should occupy the White House has quickly become a lesson in how the Deep State engineers a crisis to keep itself in power.
Don’t get so caught up in the performance that you lose sight of what’s real.
This endless series of diversions, distractions and political drama is the oldest con game in the books, the magician’s sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.
It works the same in every age.
This is how the police state will win, no matter which candidate gets elected to the White House.
You know who will lose? Every last one of us.
Politics today is about one thing and one thing only: maintaining the status quo between the Controllers (the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the corporate elite) and the Controlled (the taxpayers).
In other words, no matter who wins this next presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we—the permanent underclass in America—will continue to be forced to march in lockstep with the police state in all matters, public and private.
Consider the following a much-needed reality check, an antidote if you will, against an overdose of overhyped campaign announcements, lofty electoral promises and meaningless patriotic sentiments that land us right back in the same prison cell.
FACT: According to a scientific study by Princeton researchers, the United States of America is not the democracy that it purports to be, but rather an oligarchy, in which “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy.”
FACT: Despite the fact that the number of violent crimes in the country is down substantially, the lowest rate in sixty years, the number of Americans being jailed for nonviolent crimes such as driving with a suspended license continues to skyrocket.
FACT: Thanks to an overabundance of 4,500-plus federal crimes and 400,000-plus rules and regulations, it is estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. In fact, according to law professor John Baker, “There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime. That is not an exaggeration.”
FACT: Despite the fact that we have 38 million Americans living at or below the poverty line, 13 million children living in households without adequate access to food, and 1.2 million veterans relying on food stamps, enormous sums of taxpayer money continue to be doled out on wasteful programs that do little to improve the plight of those in need.
FACT: Since 2001 Americans have spent $93 million every hour for the total cost of the nation’s so-called war on terror.
FACT: It is estimated that 5 million children in the United States have had at least one parent in prison, whether it be a local jail or a state or federal penitentiary, due to a wide range of factors ranging from overcriminalization and surprise raids at family homes to roadside traffic stops.
FACT: At least 400 to 500 innocent people are killed by police officers every year. Indeed, Americans are now eight times more likely to die in a police confrontation than they are to be killed by a terrorist. Americans are 110 times more likely to die of foodborne illness than in a terrorist attack. Police officers are more likely to be struck by lightning than be made financially liable for their wrongdoing.
FACT: On an average day in America, over 100 Americans have their homes raided by SWAT teams. Most of those SWAT team raids are for a mere warrant service. There has been a notable buildup in recent years of heavily armed SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Education Department.
FACT: For all intents and purposes, we now have a fourth branch of government: the surveillance state. This fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.
FACT: Everything we do will eventually be connected to the Internet. By 2030 it is estimated there will be 100 trillion sensor devices connecting human electronic devices (cell phones, laptops, etc.) to the Internet. Much, if not all, of our electronic devices will be connected to Google, which openly works with government intelligence agencies. Virtually everything we do now—no matter how innocent—is being collected by the spying American police state.
FACT: Americans know virtually nothing about their history or how their government works. In fact, according to a study by the National Constitution Center, 41 percent of Americans “are not aware that there are three branches of government, and 62 percent couldn’t name them; 33 percent couldn’t even name one.”
FACT: Only six out of every one hundred Americans know that they actually have a constitutional right to hold the government accountable for wrongdoing, as guaranteed by the right to petition clause of the First Amendment.
Perhaps the most troubling fact of all is this: we have handed over control of our government and our lives to faceless bureaucrats who view us as little more than cattle to be bred, branded, butchered and sold for profit.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if there is to be any hope of restoring our freedoms and reclaiming control over our government, it will rest not with the politicians but with the people themselves.
One thing is for sure: the reassurance ritual of voting is not going to advance freedom one iota.
The post Engineering a Crisis: How Political Theater Helps the Deep State Stay in Power first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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The U.S. government is working to re-shape the country in the image of a totalitarian state.
This has remained true over the past 50-plus years no matter which political party held office.
This will remain true no matter who wins the 2024 presidential election.
In the midst of the partisan furor over Project 2025, a 920-page roadmap for how to re-fashion the government to favor so-called conservative causes, both the Right and the Left have proven themselves woefully naive about the dangers posed by the power-hungry Deep State.
Yet we must never lose sight of the fact that both the Right and the Left and their various operatives are extensions of the Deep State, which continues to wage psychological warfare on the American people.
For years now, the government has been bombarding the citizenry with propaganda campaigns and psychological operations aimed at keeping us compliant, easily controlled and supportive of the government’s various efforts abroad and domestically.
For example, in 2022, the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, the branch of the military responsible for psychological warfare, released a recruiting video that touts its efforts to pull the strings, turn everything they touch into a weapon, be everywhere, deceive, persuade, change, influence, and inspire.
“Have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings?” the psyops video posits. “Anything we touch is a weapon. We can deceive, persuade, change, influence, inspire. We come in many forms. We are everywhere.”
This is the danger that lurks in plain sight.
Of the many weapons in the government’s vast arsenal, psychological warfare may be the most devastating in terms of the long-term consequences.
Aided and abetted by technological advances and scientific experimentation, the government has been subjecting the American people to “apple-pie propaganda” for the better part of the last century.
Consider some of the ways in which the government continues to wage psychological warfare on a largely unsuspecting citizenry in order to acclimate us to the Deep State’s totalitarian agenda.
Weaponizing violence in order to institute martial law. With alarming regularity, the nation continues to be subjected to spates of violence that terrorizes the public, destabilizes the country’s ecosystem, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.
Weaponizing surveillance, pre-crime and pre-thought campaigns. Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence. When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies.
Weaponizing digital currencies, social media scores and censorship. Tech giants, working with the government, have been meting out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship, muzzling whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. Digital currencies, combined with social media scores and surveillance capitalism, will create a litmus test to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society.
Weaponizing compliance. Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on COVID-19, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.
Weaponizing behavioral science and nudging. Apart from the overt dangers posed by a government that feels justified and empowered to spy on its people and use its ever-expanding arsenal of weapons and technology to monitor and control them, there’s also the covert dangers associated with a government empowered to use these same technologies to influence behaviors en masse and control the populace.
Weaponizing desensitization campaigns aimed at lulling us into a false sense of security. The events of recent years—the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the lockdowns, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers—have conspired to acclimate the populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.
Weaponizing politics. Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government and control a populace, dividing the people into factions, and persuading them to see each other as the enemy. This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset.
Weaponizing the dystopian future. With greater frequency, the government has been issuing warnings about the dire need to prepare for the dystopian future that awaits us. For instance, the Pentagon training video, “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” predicts that by 2030 (coincidentally, the same year that society begins to achieve singularity with the metaverse) the military would be called on to use armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems. What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security. The chilling five-minute training video paints an ominous picture of the future bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have-nots. “We the people” are the have-nots.
The end goal of these mind control campaigns—packaged in the guise of the greater good—is to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in undermining our freedoms.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the facts speak for themselves.
Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests, nor is it in any way a friend to freedom.
The post Project Total Control: Everything Is a Weapon When Totalitarianism Is Normalized first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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No matter what carefully crafted sound bites and political spin get trotted out by Joe Biden and Donald Trump in advance of the 2024 presidential election, you can rest assured that none of the problems that continue to undermine our freedoms will be addressed in any credible, helpful way by either candidate, despite the dire state of our nation.
Indeed, the 2024 elections will not do much to alter our present course towards a police state.
Nor will the popularity contest for the new occupant of the White House significantly alter the day-to-day life of the average American greatly at all. Those life-changing decisions are made elsewhere, by nameless, unelected government officials who have turned bureaucracy into a full-time and profitable business.
In the interest of liberty and truth, here are a few uncomfortable truths about life in the American police state that we will not be hearing from either of the two leading presidential candidates.
1. The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.”
2. By gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect our constitutional rights while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government.
3. Republicans and Democrats like to act as if there’s a huge difference between them and their policies. However, they are not sworn enemies so much as they are partners in crime, united in a common goal, which is to maintain the status quo.
4. Presidential elections merely serve to maintain the status quo. Once elected president, that person becomes part of the dictatorial continuum that is the American imperial presidency today.
5. The U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on foreign aid programs it can’t afford, all the while the national debt continues to grow, our domestic infrastructure continues to deteriorate, and our borders continue to be breached. What is going on? It’s obvious that a corporatized, militarized, entrenched global bureaucracy is running the country.
6. 1984 has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state.
7. When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals. In the current governmental climate, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can easily render you an “enemy of the state.”
8. If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it. Americans only think they’re choosing the next president. In truth, however, they’re engaging in the illusion of participation culminating in the reassurance ritual of voting. It’s just another manufactured illusion conjured up in order to keep the populace compliant and convinced that their vote counts and that they still have some influence over the political process.
9. More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.
10. The government knows exactly which buttons to push in order to manipulate the populace and gain the public’s cooperation and compliance. This draconian exercise in how to divide, conquer and subdue a nation is succeeding. This is how you use the politics of fear to persuade a freedom-endowed people to shackle themselves to a dictatorship.
11. The government long ago sold us out to the highest bidder. The highest bidder, by the way, has always been the Deep State.
12. Every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent.
13. “We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled.
14. Privacy, as we have known it, is dead. Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by the U.S. government’s vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops.
15. Private property means nothing if the government can take your home, car or money under the flimsiest of pretexts, whether it be asset forfeiture schemes, eminent domain or overdue property taxes.
16. If there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off.
17. From the moment they are born to the time they legally come of age, young people are now wards of the state.
18. All you need to do in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.
19. The government is pushing us ever closer to a constitutional crisis.
20. Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
These are not problems that can be glibly dismissed with a few well-chosen words, as most politicians are inclined to do.
No matter which candidate wins this election, the citizenry and those who represent us need to own up to the fact that there can be no police state—no tyranny—no routine violations of our rights without our complicity and collusion—without our turning a blind eye, shrugging our shoulders, allowing ourselves to be distracted and our civic awareness diluted.
Likewise, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, these problems will continue to plague our nation unless and until Americans wake up to the fact that we’re the only ones who can change things for the better and then do something about it. After all, the Constitution opens with those three vital words, “We the people.”
There is no government without us—our sheer numbers, our muscle, our economy, our physical presence in this land.
We are the government.
The post Electing the Next Dictator: Ugly Truths You Won’t Hear from Trump or Biden first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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ANALYSIS: By Ian Parmeter, Australian National University
Among the many sayings attributed to Winston Churchill is, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
This sentiment seems appropriate as Israel potentially appears ready to embark on a war against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said this week a decision on an all-out war against Hezbollah was “coming soon” and that senior commanders of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had signed off on a plan for the operation.
- READ MORE: Rafah fighting ‘intensifying’ as Israel strikes north, south, central Gaza
- Are Israel and Hezbollah on the verge of full-blown war?
- Other War in Gaza reports
This threat comes despite the fact Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza is far from over. Israel has still not achieved the two primary objectives Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put forth at the start of the conflict:
- the destruction of Hamas as a military and governing entity in Gaza
- the freeing of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas (about 80 believed to still be alive, along with the remains of about 40 believed to be dead).
Why Hezbollah is attacking Israel now
Israel has cogent reasons for wanting to eliminate the threat from Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been launching Iranian-supplied missiles, rockets and drones across the border into northern Israel since the Gaza war began on October 8.Its stated purpose is to support Hamas by distracting the IDF from its Gaza operation.
Hezbollah’s attacks have been relatively circumscribed – confined so far to northern Israel. But they have led to the displacement of some 60,000 residents from the border area. These people are understandably fed up and demanding Netanyahu’s government takes action to force Hezbollah to withdraw from the border.
This anger has been augmented this week by Hezbollah publicising video footage of military and civilian sites in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, which had been taken by a low-flying surveillance drone.
The Israeli army said plans for an offensive in Lebanon were “approved and validated” amid escalating cross-border clashes with Hezbollah and a relative lull in Gaza fighting https://t.co/H0nq61Gbay pic.twitter.com/qzzFq3nDt5
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 18, 2024
The implication: Hezbollah was scoping the region for new targets. Haifa, a city of nearly 300,000, has not yet been subject to Hezbollah attacks.
The most far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, have openly called for Israel to invade southern Lebanon. Even without this pressure, Netanyahu has ample reason to want to neutralise the Hezbollah threat because residents of northern Israel are strong supporters of his Likud party.
US and Iranian interests in a broader conflict
The United States is obviously concerned about the risk Israel will open a second front in its conflicts. As such, President Joe Biden has sent an envoy, Amos Hochstein, to Israel and Lebanon to try to reduce tensions on both sides.In Lebanon, he cannot publicly deal directly with the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, because the group is on the US list of global terrorist organisations. Instead, he met the long-serving speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, who as a fellow Shia is able to talk with Nasrallah.
But Hezbollah answers to Iran — its main backer in the region. And it’s doubtful if any Lebanese leader can persuade it to desist from action approved by Iran.
Iran’s interests in the potential for an Israel-Hezbollah war at this time are mixed. It would obviously be glad to see Israel under military pressure on two fronts. But Iranian leaders see Hezbollah as insurance against an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities.
Hezbollah has an estimated 150,000 missiles and rockets, including some that could reach deep into Israel. So far, Iran seems to want Hezbollah to hold back from a major escalation with Israel, which could deplete most of that arsenal.
That said, although Israel’s Iron Dome defensive shield has been remarkably successful in neutralising the rocket threat from Gaza, it might not be as effective against a large-scale barrage of more sophisticated missiles.
Israel needed help from the US, Britain, France and Jordan in countering a direct attack from Iran in April that involved some 150 missiles and 170 drones.
Israel and Hezbollah conflict: escalating cross-border tensions. Video: ABC NewsLessons from previous Israeli interventions in Lebanon
The other factor – especially for wiser heads mindful of history – is the country’s previous interventions in Lebanon have been far from cost-free.Israel’s problems with Lebanon started when the late King Hussein of Jordan forced the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), then led by Yasser Arafat, to relocate to Lebanon in 1970. He did that because the PLO had been using Jordan as a base for operations against Israel after the 1967 war, provoking Israeli retaliation.
From the early 1970s, the PLO formed a state within a state in Lebanon. It largely acted independently from the perennially weak Lebanese government, which was divided on sectarian grounds, and in 1975, collapsed into a prolonged civil war.
The PLO used southern Lebanon to launch attacks against Israel, leading Israel to launch a limited invasion of its northern neighbour in 1978, driving Palestinian militia groups north of the Litani River.
That invasion was only partially successful. Militants soon moved back towards the border and renewed their attacks on northern Israel. In 1982, then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin decided to remove the PLO entirely from Lebanon, launching a major invasion of Lebanon all the way to Beirut. This eventually forced the PLO leadership and the bulk of its fighters to relocate to Tunisia.
Gaza Genocide: 17th June: In depth report on escalation of cross border conflict: Hezbollah v Israel: Dissolving of genocidal war cabinet by Netenyahu to select others: visit by U.S. Hochstein today & far right fascists Gver/Smotrich jostling for war cabinet positions pic.twitter.com/g5J44afWeB
— JANET Gibson (@JANETGi59151282) June 17, 2024
Despite this success, the two Israeli invasions had the unintended consequence of radicalising the until-then quiescent Shia population of southern Lebanon.
That enabled Iran, in its early post-revolutionary phase under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to work with Shia clerics in Lebanon to establish Hezbollah (Party of God in Arabic), which became a greater threat to Israel than the PLO had ever been.
Bolstered by Iranian support, Hezbollah has become stronger over the years, becoming a force in Lebanese politics and regularly firing missiles into Israel.
In 2006, Hezbollah was able to block an IDF advance into southern Lebanon aimed at rescuing two Israeli soldiers Hezbollah had captured. The outcome was essentially a draw, and the two soldiers remained in captivity until their bodies were exchanged for Lebanese prisoners in 2008.
Many Arab observers at the time judged that by surviving an asymmetrical conflict, Hezbollah had emerged with a political and military victory.
For a while during and after that conflict, Nasrallah was one of the most popular regional leaders, despite the fact he was loathed by rulers of conservative Sunni Arab states such as Saudi Arabia.
Will history repeat itself?
This is the background to discussions in Israel about launching a war against Hezbollah. And it demonstrates how the quote from Churchill is relevant.Most military experts would caution against choosing to fight a war on two fronts. Former US President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq in 2003 when the war in Afghanistan had not concluded. The outcome was hugely costly for the US military and disastrous for both countries.
The 19th century American writer Mark Twain is reported to have said that history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Will Israel’s leaders listen to the echoes of the past?
Dr Ian Parmeter, research scholar, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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All eight Members of Parliament from Vanuatu’s Tafea Province have made a bold and powerful call to French President Emmanuel Macron to “stop the violence and killing” being committed against the Kanak people of New Caledonia.
The MPs include Trade Minister Bob Loughman, a former prime minister; Internal Affairs Minister Johnny Koanapo; Youth and Sports Minister Tomker Netvunei; Agriculture Minister Nako Natuman; Jotham Napat; Andrew Napuat; Xavier Harry; and Simil Johnson.
“We, the MPs of Tafea Province, in this 13th Legislature of the Parliament of the Republic of Vanuatu, make the following statement based on the undeniable historical cultural links, which has existed from time immemorial between our people of Tafea and the Kanaky people of New Caledonia . . .,” their signed statement said.
- READ MORE: Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: Pro-independence militant leaders arrested
- Other New Caledonia unrest reports
Nine people have been killed during the unrest that began on May 13, five of them Kanaks and two were gendarmes.
“As Melanesians to call for greater solidarity and bring to the spotlight the despicable acts of France as a colonial power that still colonises the island nations and maritime boundaries of our nations,” the statement said.
“The recent events in New Caledonia is provoked by various ingredients which France has been cunningly cooking on their agenda over the years including the amendment of the electoral list which they understand very well that the Melanesians living in their own Kanaky mother land in New Caledonia are strongly opposed to it.
“Because they know that France is deliberately using ways to alienate their voices in their own motherland.”
‘Honour Nouméa Accord’ call to France
The MPs called on France to honour its commitment under the Nouméa Accord and engage in political dialogue, as was the custom in Melanesia and the Pacific.The MPs said it was “unfair to the helpless people of New Caledonia to be confronted by a world military power such as France and shoot, imprison, and expose them to fear in such a manner that we have recently witnessed”.
They said France could not and must not act like this in the Pacific.
“France simply needs to dialogue with the Kanak leaders, listen and respect them as equals,” their statement said.
“The Kanaky [sic] are not their subjects of unequals. They are asking for their political autonomy. That’s all.
“Why is France still colonising countries when the world has gone past the colonisation decade? Why can’t they choose to colonise another country in Europe?
“France as an old democracy must end colonising people in this day and age. If the colonised people are yearning for freedom and they cannot fight with weapons to get their right to freedom, France must not act like a dictator to silence the dissenting voices who are yearning for freedom.
‘Listen . . . not silence them’
“We call on France to listen, learn [from] the voices of the people, and not silence them with the barrel of a gun and other military weapons.“We want to see France as a civilised state to take responsibility and not shoot Melanesians from land and air as if they are in a war. Stop killing Melanesians.”
The leaders from TAFEA also call on Kanaky leaders, both Independentists and non-independentists, to come together and discuss a common solution.
“We see dialogue as a fundamental part of our Melanesian culture, and the state and all political parties must recognise the value of political dialogue,” they said.
“. . . [We] ask all the people of the Republic of Vanuatu, including the government, chiefs, and churches, to stand in solidarity with our Melanesian families in New Caledonia.
“We ask all praying Christians to pray for God’s intervention in the situation in New Caledonia, to restore peace, and to bring calm to the people of New Caledonia. God bless the people of New Caledonia.”
Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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Like the proverbial boiling frogs, the government has been gradually acclimating us to the specter of a police state for years now: Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality.
This is how you prepare a populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.
You don’t scare them by making dramatic changes. Rather, you acclimate them slowly to their prison walls. Persuade the citizenry that their prison walls are merely intended to keep them safe and danger out. Desensitize them to violence, acclimate them to a military presence in their communities, and persuade them that only a militarized government can alter the seemingly hopeless trajectory of the nation.
It’s happening already.
Yet we’re not just being acclimated to the trappings of a police state. We’re also being bullied into silence and subservience in the face of outright injustice and heavy-handed political correctness, while simultaneously being groomed into accepting government tyranny, corruption and bureaucratic ineptitude as societal norms.
What exactly is going on?
Whatever it is, this—the racial hypersensitivity without racial justice, the kowtowing to politically correct bullies with no regard for anyone else’s free speech rights, the violent blowback after years of government-sanctioned brutality, the mob mindset that is overwhelming the rights of the individual, the oppressive glowering of the Nanny State, the seemingly righteous indignation full of sound and fury that in the end signifies nothing, the partisan divide that grows more impassable with every passing day—is not leading us anywhere good.
Certainly, it’s not leading to more freedom.
This draconian exercise in how to divide, conquer and subdue a nation is succeeding.
It must be said: the various protests from both the Right and the Left in recent years have not helped. Inadvertently or intentionally, these protests have politicized what should never have been politicized: police brutality and the government’s ongoing assaults on our freedoms.
We may be worse off now than we were before.
Suddenly, no one seems to be talking about any of the egregious governmental abuses that are still wreaking havoc on our freedoms: police shootings of unarmed individuals, invasive surveillance, roadside blood draws, roadside strip searches, SWAT team raids gone awry, the military industrial complex’s costly wars, pork barrel spending, pre-crime laws, civil asset forfeiture, fusion centers, militarization, armed drones, smart policing carried out by AI robots, courts that march in lockstep with the police state, schools that function as indoctrination centers, bureaucrats that keep the Deep State in power.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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?
You persuade the people that the menace they face (imaginary or not) is so sinister, so overwhelming, so fearsome that the only way to surmount the danger is by empowering the government to take all necessary steps to quash it, even if that means allowing government jackboots to trample all over the Constitution.
This is how you use the politics of fear to persuade a freedom-endowed people to shackle themselves to a dictatorship.
It works the same way every time.
Strangely enough, in the face of outright corruption and incompetency on the part of our elected officials, Americans in general remain relatively gullible, eager to be persuaded that the government headed up by their particular brand of political savior can solve the problems that plague us.
We have relinquished control over the most intimate aspects of our lives to government officials who, while they may occupy seats of authority, are neither wiser, smarter, more in tune with our needs, more knowledgeable about our problems, nor more aware of what is really in our best interests.
Yet having bought into the false notion that the government does indeed know what’s best for us and can ensure not only our safety but our happiness and will take care of us from cradle to grave—that is, from daycare centers to nursing homes—we have in actuality allowed ourselves to be bridled and turned into slaves at the bidding of a government that cares little for our freedoms or our happiness.
The lesson is this: once a free people allows the government inroads into their freedoms or uses those same freedoms as bargaining chips for security, it quickly becomes a slippery slope to outright tyranny.
Nor does it seem to matter whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican at the helm anymore. Indeed, the bureaucratic mindset on both sides of the aisle now seems to embody the same philosophy of authoritarian government, whose priorities are to milk “we the people” of our hard-earned money (by way of taxes, fines and fees) and remain in control and in power.
Modern government in general—ranging from the militarized police in SWAT team gear crashing through our doors to the rash of innocent citizens being gunned down by police to the invasive spying on everything we do—is acting illogically, even psychopathically. (The characteristics of a psychopath include a “lack of remorse and empathy, a sense of grandiosity, superficial charm, conning and manipulative behavior, and refusal to take responsibility for one’s actions, among others.”)
Indeed, we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic. Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.”
We are walking a dangerous path right now.
No matter who wins the presidential election come November, it’s a sure bet that the losers will be the American people.
We have been saddled with a two-party system and fooled into believing that there’s a difference between the Republicans and Democrats, when, in fact, the two parties are exactly the same. As one commentator noted, both parties support endless war, engage in out-of-control spending, ignore the citizenry’s basic rights, have no respect for the rule of law, are bought and paid for by Big Business, care most about their own power, and have a long record of expanding government and shrinking liberty.
Never forget, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, that the lesser of two evils is still evil.
The post Mission Creep: How the Police State Acclimates Us to Being Modern-Day Slaves first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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How to cut ties with genocide.
The post Cutting Ties with Citibank first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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On 12 June 2024, Human Rights Watch published a useful, short “questions-and-answers” document which outlines key questions on the global trend of transnational repression.
© 2024 Brian Stauffer for Human Rights Watch - What is transnational repression?
- What tactics are used?
- Is transnational repression a new phenomenon?
- Where is transnational repression happening?
- Do only “repressive” states commit transnational repression?
- Are steps being taken to recognize and address transnational repression?
- What should be done?
What is transnational repression?
The term “transnational repression” is increasingly used to refer to state actors reaching beyond their borders to suppress or stifle dissent by targeting human rights defenders, journalists, government critics and opposition activists, academics and others, in violation of their human rights. Particularly vulnerable are nationals or former nationals, members of diaspora communities and those living in exile. Many are asylum seekers or refugees in their place of exile, while others may be at risk of extradition or forced return. Back home, a person’s family members and friends may also be targeted, by way of retribution and with the aim of silencing a relative in exile or forcing their return.
Transnational repression can have far-reaching consequences, including a chilling effect on the rights to freedom of expression and association. While there is no formal legal definition, the framing of transnational repression, which encompasses a wide range of rights abuses, allows us to better understand it and propose victim-centered responses.
What tactics are used?
Documented tactics of transnational repression include killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, unlawful removals, online harassment, the use of digital surveillance including spyware, targeting of relatives, and the abuse of consular services. Interpol’s Red Notice system has also been used as a tool of transnational repression, to facilitate unlawful extraditions. Interpol has made advances in improving its vetting systems, yet governments continue to abuse the Red Notice system by publishing unlawful notices seeking citizens who have fled abroad on spurious charges. This leaves targets vulnerable to arrest and return to their country of origin to be mistreated, even after they have fled to seek safety abroad.
Is transnational repression a new phenomenon?
No, the practice of governments violating human rights beyond their borders is not new. Civil society organizations have been documenting such abuses for decades. What is new, however, is the growing recognition of transnational repression as more than a collection of grave incidents, but also as an increasing phenomenon of global concern, requiring global responses. What is also new is the increasing access to and use of sophisticated technology to harass, threaten, surveil and track people no matter where they are. This makes the reach of transnational repression even more pervasive.
Where is transnational repression happening?
Transnational repression is a global phenomenon. Cases have been documented in countries and regions around the world. The use of technology such as spyware increases the reach of transnational repression, essentially turning an infected device, such as a mobile phone, into a portable surveillance tool, allowing targeted individuals to be spied on and tracked around the world.
Do only “repressive” states commit transnational repression?
While many authoritarian states resort to repressive tactics beyond their own borders, any government that seeks to silence dissent by targeting critics abroad is committing transnational repression. Democratic governments have also contributed to cases of transnational repression, for example through the provision of spyware, collaborating with repressive governments to deny visas or facilitate returns, or relying upon flawed Interpol Red Notices that expose targeted individuals to risk.
Are steps being taken to recognize and address transnational repression?
Increasingly, human rights organizations, UN experts and states are documenting and taking steps to address transnational repression.
For example, Freedom House has published several reports on transnational repression and maintains an online resource documenting incidents globally. Human Rights Watch has published reports, including one outlining cases of transnational repression globally and another focusing on Southeast Asia. Amnesty International has published a report on transnational repression in Europe. Many other nongovernmental organizations are increasingly producing research and reports on the issue. In her report on journalists in exile, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression dedicated a chapter to transnational repression. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights used the term in a June 2024 statement.
Certain governments are increasingly aware of the harms posed by transnational repression. Some are passing legislation to address the problem, while others are signing joint statements or raising transnational repression in international forums. However, government responses are often piecemeal, and a more cohesive and coordinated approach is needed.
What should be done?
Governments should speak out and condemn all cases of transnational repression, including by their friends and allies. They should take tangible steps to address transnational repression, including by adopting rights-respecting legal frameworks and policies to address it. Governments should put victims at the forefront of their response to these forms of repression. They should be particularly mindful of the risks and fears experienced by refugee and asylum communities. They should investigate and appropriately prosecute those responsible. Interpol should continue to improve vetting process by subjecting governments with a poor human rights record to more scrutiny when they submit Red Notices. Interpol should be transparent on which governments are continually abusing the Red Notice system, and limit their access to the database.
At the international level, more can be done to integrate transnational repression within existing human rights reporting, and to mandate dedicated reporting on cases of transnational repression, trends, and steps needed to address it.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/06/12/qa-transnational-repression
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
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…all those McCarthy-Loving Feds and Politicians have tapped the nerds and software billionaires to watch our every fucking move!!!!!!!
The post We Do Need those Stinking Badges first appeared on Dissident Voice.Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!
The real quote from B. Traven’s book, Treasure of Sierra Madre.
“Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don’t need badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges, you god-damned cabron and ching’ tu madre! Come out there from that shit-hole of yours. I have to speak to you.”
(For the Spanish-deprived among you, “cabron” is cuckold, “chingar” is “fuck,” and “tu madre” is “your mother.” Clearly the dialogue was cleaned up for the film.)
Oregon offers both a standard card and a Real ID Act-compliant card. Both types of cards allow you to legally drive and prove identity and age for things such as cashing a check. *Beginning May 7, 2025, a standard card cannot be used to board a domestic flight. See the TSA website for federally acceptable documents. [Does the passport work for domestic travel starting May 7, 2025?]
Federal banking laws and regulations do not prohibit banks from requesting that you provide a fingerprint or thumbprint to cash a check. Banks may use fingerprinting as a security measure and a way to combat fraud.
Employers sometimes check credit to get insight into a potential hire, including signs of financial distress that might indicate risk of theft or fraud. They don’t get your credit score, but instead see a modified version of your credit report.
Employer credit checks are more likely for jobs that involve a security clearance or access to money, sensitive consumer data or confidential company information. Such checks may also be done by your current employer before a promotion.
Pre-employment drug tests are required by some employers as a condition of job offers.
• These tests typically screen for the presence amphetamines, marijuana, cocaine, opiates, and phencyclidine, but employers can also request testing for additional substances.
• Pre-employment drug tests help protect workplace safety and boost productivity while reducing accidents and turnover.
• Testing methods can include urine, saliva, hair, and blood, but urine is the most common.
• Most employers in regulated industries are required to perform pre-employment drug tests. Private-sector, non-regulated employers are not required to conduct pre-employment drug tests but can do so as long as they comply with state and local laws.
Criminal Records Check and Fitness Determination/ OAR 125-007-0200 to 125-007-0330/ Status: Permanent rules effective 1/14/2016
Overview:
The Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) implemented statewide administrative rules related to certain aspects of criminal records checks on January 4, 2016 (ORS 181A.215).
These rules streamline the criminal records check process for all of Oregon. They provide guidelines for decreasing risk to vulnerable populations from people who have access or provide care.
ODHS and OHA background check rules have been updated to follow DAS rules, while maintaining specific requirements needed for ODHS and OHA employees, contractors, volunteers, providers and qualified entities.
Keystroke technology is a software that tracks and collects data on employees’ computer use. It tracks each and every keystroke an employee types on their computer and is one of a few tools companies have to more closely monitor exactly how staff spend the hours they are expected to work.
Newer features allow administrators to also take occasional screenshots of employees’ screens.
One firm providing the tools is Interguard, which uses software allows administrators to view logs of employee computer use data, including desktop screenshots of employee activity. It also alerts administrators when certain employees’ computer activity diverts from their normal patterns.
Workplace surveillance is becoming the new normal for U.S. workers
What is forced arbitration?
In forced arbitration, a company requires a consumer or employee to submit any dispute that may arise to binding arbitration as a condition of employment or buying a product or service. The employee or consumer is required to waive their right to sue, to participate in a class action lawsuit, or to appeal. Forced arbitration is mandatory, the arbitrator’s decision is binding, and the results are not public.
As more and more workplaces return to work in the next few months, these social distancing monitors are likely to become a minor boom industry of their own: Bloomberg News has reported that Ford planned to enforce social distancing by having its workers wear RFID wristbands, developed by Radiant RFID, that would buzz when a worker got too close to a colleague and would also provide supervisors with alerts about employees who were congregating together in larger groups.
Another company, Guard RFID, published a blog post detailing how its technology could be used for “infection control in the workplace,” including through the use of wearable RFID tags that would “alarm when tagged individuals come within close proximity to each other.” (Guard RFID and Radiant both declined to comment on their ventures into social distancing solutions.)
“A lot of tracking of workers happens under the rubric of worker safety or ensuring that workers are not injuring or hurting themselves,” she said. “But the boundaries between that and using the data in ways that are punitive or negative are hard to establish.”
A Wisconsin company is offering to implant tiny radio-frequency chips in its employees – and it says they are lining up for the technology.
The idea is a controversial one, confronting issues at the intersection of ethics and technology by essentially turning bodies into bar codes. Three Square Market, also called 32M, says it is the first U.S. company to provide the technology to its employees.
The company manufactures self-service “micro markets” for office break rooms. It said in a press release that obtaining a chip is optional, but expects that about 50 employees will take part.
CEO Todd Westby said that the company believes the technology will soon be ubiquitous:
“We foresee the use of RFID technology to drive everything from making purchases in our office break room market, opening doors, use of copy machines, logging into our office computers, unlocking phones, sharing business cards, storing medical/health information, and used as payment at other RFID terminals. Eventually, this technology will become standardized allowing you to use this as your passport, public transit, all purchasing opportunities, etc.”
The state laws on social media passwords are intended to protect social media pages that applicants have chosen to keep private. If you have publicly posted information about yourself without bothering to restrict who can view it, an employer is generally free to view this information. However, employers still need to follow other employment rules.
Antidiscrimination laws. An employer who looks at an applicant’s Facebook page or other social media posts could well learn information that it isn’t entitled to have or consider during the hiring process. This can lead to illegal discrimination claims. For example, your posts or page might reveal your sexual orientation, disclose that you are pregnant, or espouse your religious views. Because this type of information is off limits in the hiring process, an employer that discovers it online and uses it as a basis for hiring decisions could face a discrimination lawsuit.
Your Free Speech Rights (Mostly) Don’t Apply At Work
A noncompete agreement is a contract that an employer can use to prevent employees from taking certain jobs with competitors after they leave the company. Sometimes, an employer can make signing a non-compete agreement a condition of employment. These contracts benefit a company by preventing former employees from using trade secrets to give another company a competitive advantage or starting a company that competes with a former employer.
A noncompete agreement can also be referred to as a covenant not to compete, a noncompete covenant, a noncompete clause, or simply a noncompete.
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The Man With the Stolen Name: They know what he did. They just don’t know who he is.
“John Doe,” of Owego, New York, was sentenced today to 57 months in prison for aggravated identity theft and misuse of a social security number. Doe used the name, social security number and date of birth of a homeless U.S. Army veteran to fraudulently obtain $249,811.93 in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and an additional $588,645.85 in state benefits. Doe’s true identity has yet to be confirmed.
The announcement was made by United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Gail. S. Ennis, Inspector General for the Social Security Administration (SSA).
United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman stated: “We don’t yet know the defendant’s name, but we know what he did. Today’s sentence justly punishes him for stealing the identity of a homeless veteran to fraudulently obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars in government benefits. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of local, state and federal investigators, we were able to bring John Doe to justice in spite of not knowing his true identity.”
SSA Inspector General Gail S. Ennis stated: “This individual stole the identity of a U.S. Army veteran to fraudulently obtain Supplemental Security Income benefits, a critical safety net for those in need. This sentence holds him accountable for his unlawful actions. My office will continue to pursue those who steal another person’s identity and misuse a social security number for personal gain. I appreciate the work of our law enforcement partners in this complex investigation and I thank Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adrian S. LaRochelle and Michael Gadarian for prosecuting this case.”
Doe was found guilty following a 4-day trial in May 2022. The evidence established that from approximately 1999 until June 2021, Doe received SSI benefits under the name, date of birth, and Social Security number of a homeless U.S. Army veteran living in North Carolina. When Doe’s use of the veteran’s identity was ultimately discovered and Doe was questioned by federal agents, Doe continued to falsely claim the identity as his own and provided agents with a photocopy of the victim’s birth certificate and Social Security card, claiming these documents were his own. Agents located the veteran and established through fingerprint and DNA analysis that Doe is not the person he claims to be.
United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino also ordered Doe to serve a 3-year term of supervised release following his release from prison and ordered Doe to pay a total $838,457.78 in restitution in connection with the benefits he unlawfully received under the victim’s name.
This case was investigated by the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General, the Tioga County Sheriff’s Office, the Tioga County Department of Social Services, and the New York State Police, with assistance provided by the U.S. Marshals Service. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adrian S. LaRochelle and Michael D. Gadarian.
WE ARE WITNESSES — The American criminal justice system consists of 2.2 million people behind bars, plus tens of millions of family members, corrections and police officers, parolees, victims of crime, judges, prosecutors and defenders. In We Are Witnesses, we hear their stories.
Early one summer morning, Son Yo Auer, a Burger King employee in Richmond Hill, Georgia, found a naked man lying unconscious in front of the restaurant’s dumpsters. It was before dawn, but the man was sweating and sunburned. Fire ants crawled across his body, and a hot red rash flecked his skin. Auer screamed and ran inside. By the time police arrived, the man was awake, but confused. An officer filed an incident report indicating that a “vagrant” had been found “sleeping,” and an ambulance took him to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Savannah, where he was admitted on August 31, 2004, under the name “Burger King Doe.”
Other than the rash, and cataracts that had left him nearly blind, Burger King Doe showed no sign of physical injury. He appeared to be a healthy white man in his middle fifties. His vitals were good. His blood tested negative for drugs and alcohol. His lab results were, a doctor wrote on his chart, “surprisingly within normal limits.” A long, unwashed beard and dirty fingernails suggested he had been living rough. But the only physical signs of previous trauma were three small depressions on his skull and some scars on his neck and his left arm.
We live in an age of extraordinary surveillance and documentation. The government’s capacity to keep tabs on us—and our capacity to keep tabs on each other—is unmatched in human history. Big Data, NSA wiretapping, social media, camera phones, credit scores, criminal records, drones—we watch and watch, and record our every move. And yet here was a man who appeared to exist outside all that, someone who had escaped the modern age’s matrix of observation.
His condition—blind, nameless, amnesiac—seemed fictitious, the kind of allegorical affliction that might befall a character in Saramago or Borges.
Even if he was lying about his memory loss, there was no official record of his existence. He lived on the margins, beyond the boundaries mapped by the surveillance state. And because we choose not to look at individuals on the margins, it is still possible for them to disappear.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has quietly but steadily been implementing a nationwide policy that silences the voices of people incarcerated in federal prisons by preventing them from sharing the same email and phone contacts for people on the outside, also known as a “double contact ban.” The policy, which gives prison authorities wide leeway to censor communications, appears to have gone…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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I did not know Israel was capturing or recording my face. [But Israel has] been watching us for years from the sky with their drones. They have been watching us gardening and going to schools and kissing our wives. I feel like I have been watched for so long.
— Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poetIf you want a glimpse of the next stage of America’s transformation into a police state, look no further than how Israel—a long-time recipient of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid from the U.S.—uses its high-tech military tactics, surveillance and weaponry to advance its authoritarian agenda.
Military checkpoints. Wall-to-wall mass surveillance. Predictive policing. Aerial surveillance that tracks your movements wherever you go and whatever you do. AI-powered facial recognition and biometric programs carried out with the knowledge or consent of those targeted by it. Cyber-intelligence. Detention centers. Brutal interrogation tactics. Weaponized drones. Combat robots.
We’ve already seen many of these military tactics and technologies deployed on American soil and used against the populace, especially along the border regions, a testament to the heavy influence Israel’s military-industrial complex has had on U.S. policing.
Indeed, Israel has become one of the largest developers and exporters of military weapons and technologies of oppression worldwide.
Journalist Antony Loewenstein has warned that Pegasus, one of Israel’s most invasive pieces of spyware, which allows any government or military intelligence or police department to spy on someone’s phone and get all the information from that phone, has become a favorite tool of oppressive regimes around the world. The FBI and NYPD have also been recipients of the surveillance technology which promises to turn any “target’s smartphone into an intelligence gold mine.”
Yet it’s not just military weapons that Israel is exporting. They’re also helping to transform local police agencies into extensions of the military.
According to The Intercept, thousands of American law enforcement officers frequently travel for training to Israel, “one of the few countries where policing and militarism are even more deeply intertwined than they are here,” as part of an ongoing exchange program that largely flies under the radar of public scrutiny.
A 2018 investigative report concluded that imported military techniques by way of these exchange programs that allow police to study in Israel have changed American policing for the worse. “Upon their return, U.S. law enforcement delegates implement practices learned from Israel’s use of invasive surveillance, blatant racial profiling, and repressive force against dissent,” the report states. “Rather than promoting security for all, these programs facilitate an exchange of methods in state violence and control that endanger us all.”“At the very least,” notes journalist Matthew Petti, “visits to Israel have helped American police justify more snooping on citizens and stricter secrecy. Critics also assert that Israeli training encourages excessive force.”
Petti documents how the NYPD set up a permanent liaison office in Israel in the wake of 9/11, eventually implementing “one of the first post-9/11 counterterrorism programs that explicitly followed the Israeli model. In 2002, the NYPD tasked a secret ‘Demographics Unit’ with spying on Muslim-American communities. Dedicated ‘mosque crawlers’ infiltrated local Muslim congregations and attempted to bait worshippers with talk of violent revolution.”
That was merely the start of American police forces being trained in martial law by foreign nations under the guise of national security theater. It has all been downhill from there.
As Alex Vitale, a sociology professor who has studied the rise of global policing, explains, “The focus of this training is on riot suppression, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism—all of which are essentially irrelevant or should be irrelevant to the vast majority of police departments. They shouldn’t be suppressing protest, they shouldn’t be engaging in counterinsurgency, and almost none of them face any real threat from terrorism.”
This ongoing transformation of the American homeland into a techno-battlefield tracks unnervingly with the dystopian cinematic visions of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, both of which are set 30 years from now, in the year 2054.
In Minority Report, police agencies harvest intelligence from widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, precognitive technology, and neighborhood and family snitch programs in order to capture would-be criminals before they can do any damage.
While Blomkamp’s Elysium acts as a vehicle to raise concerns about immigration, access to healthcare, worker’s rights, and socioeconomic stratification, what was most striking was its eerie depiction of how the government will employ technologies such as drones, tasers and biometric scanners to track, target and control the populace, especially dissidents.
With Israel in the driver’s seat and Minority Report and Elysium on the horizon, it’s not so far-fetched to imagine how the American police state will use these emerging technologies to lock down the populace, root out dissidents, and ostensibly establish an “open-air prison” with disconcerting similarities to Israel’s technological occupation of present-day Palestine.
For those who insist that such things are celluloid fantasies with no connection to the present, we offer the following as a warning of the totalitarian future at our doorsteps.
Facial Recognition
Fiction: One of the most jarring scenes in Elysium occurs towards the beginning of the film, when the protagonist Max Da Costa waits to board a bus on his way to work. While standing in line, Max is approached by two large robotic police officers, who quickly scan Max’s biometrics, cross-check his data against government files, and identify him as a former convict in need of close inspection. They demand to search his bag, a request which Max resists, insisting that there is nothing for them to see. The robotic cops respond by manhandling Max, throwing him to the ground, and breaking his arm with a police baton. After determining that Max poses no threat, they leave him on the ground and continue their patrol. Likewise, in Minority Report, police use holographic data screens, city-wide surveillance cameras, dimensional maps and database feeds to monitor the movements of its citizens and preemptively target suspects for interrogation and containment.
Fact: We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed, corralled and controlled by technologies that answer to government and corporate rulers. This is exactly how Palestinian poet and New Yorker contributor Mosab Abu Toha found himself, within minutes of passing through an Israeli military checkpoint in Gaza with his wife and children in tow, asked to step out line, only to be blindfolded, handcuffed, interrogated, then imprisoned in an Israeli detention center for two days, beaten and further interrogated. Toha was finally released in what Israeli soldiers chalked up to a “mistake,” yet there was no mistaking the AI-powered facial recognition technology that was used to pull him out of line, identify him, and label him (erroneously) as a person of interest.
Drones
Fiction: In another Elysium scene, Max is hunted by four drones while attempting to elude the authorities. The drones, equipped with x-ray cameras, biometric readers, scanners and weapons, are able to scan whole neighborhoods, identify individuals from a distance—even through buildings, report their findings back to police handlers, pursue a suspect, and target them with tasers and an array of lethal weapons.
Fact: Drones, some deceptively small and yet powerful enough to capture the facial expressions of people hundreds of feet below them, have ushered in a new age of surveillance. Not even those indoors, in the privacy of their homes, will be safe from these aerial spies, which can be equipped with technology capable of peering through walls. In addition to their surveillance capabilities, drones can also be equipped with automatic weapons, grenade launchers, tear gas, and tasers.
Biometric scanners and national IDs
Fiction: Throughout Elysium, citizens are identified, sorted and dealt with by way of various scanning devices that read their biometrics—irises, DNA, etc.—as well as their national ID numbers, imprinted by a laser into their skin. In this way, citizens are tracked, counted, and classified. Likewise, in Minority Report, tiny sensory-guided spider robots converge on a suspected would-be criminal, scan his biometric data and feed it into a central government database. The end result is that there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide to escape the government’s all-seeing eyes.
Fact: Given the vast troves of data that various world governments, including Israel and the U.S., is collecting on its citizens and non-citizens alike, we are not far from a future where there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. In fact, between the facial recognition technology being handed out to law enforcement, license plate readers being installed on police cruisers, local police creating DNA databases by extracting DNA from non-criminals, including the victims of crimes, and police collecting more and more biometric data such as iris scans, we are approaching the end of anonymity. It won’t be long before police officers will be able to pull up a full biography on any given person instantaneously, including their family and medical history, bank accounts, and personal peccadilloes. It’s already moving in that direction in more authoritarian regimes.
Predictive Policing
Fiction: In Minority Report, John Anderton, Chief of the Department of Pre-Crime, finds himself identified as the next would-be criminal and targeted for preemptive measures by the very technology that he relies on for his predictive policing. Consequently, Anderton finds himself not only attempting to prove his innocence but forced to take drastic measures in order to avoid capture in a surveillance state that uses biometric data and sophisticated computer networks to track its citizens.
Fact: Precrime, which aims to prevent crimes before they happen, has justified the use of widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, precognitive technology, and snitch programs. As political science professor Anwar Mhajne documents, Israel has used all of these tools in its military engagements with Palestine: deploying AI surveillance and predictive policing systems in Palestinian territories; utilizing facial recognition technology to monitor and regulate the movement of Palestinians; subjecting Palestinians to facial recognition scans at checkpoints, with a color-coded mechanism to dictate who should be allowed to proceed, subjected to further questioning, or detained.
Making the Leap from Fiction to Reality
When Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931, he was convinced that there was “still plenty of time” before his dystopian vision became a nightmare reality. It wasn’t long, however, before he realized that his prophecies were coming true far sooner than he had imagined.
Israel’s military influence on the United States, its advances in technological weaponry, and its rigid demand for compliance are pushing us towards a world in chains.
Through its oppressive use of surveillance technology, Israel has erected the world’s first open-air prison, and in the process, has made itself a model for the United States.
What we cannot afford to overlook, however, is the extent to which the American Police State is taking its cues from Israel.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we may not be an occupied territory, but that does not make the electronic concentration camp being erected around us any less of a prison.
The post What’s Next for Battlefield America? first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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I did not know Israel was capturing or recording my face. [But Israel has] been watching us for years from the sky with their drones. They have been watching us gardening and going to schools and kissing our wives. I feel like I have been watched for so long.
— Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poet
If you want a glimpse of the next stage of America’s transformation into a police state, look no further than how Israel—a long-time recipient of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid from the U.S.—uses its high-tech military tactics, surveillance and weaponry to advance its authoritarian agenda.
Military checkpoints. Wall-to-wall mass surveillance. Predictive policing. Aerial surveillance that tracks your movements wherever you go and whatever you do. AI-powered facial recognition and biometric programs carried out with the knowledge or consent of those targeted by it. Cyber-intelligence. Detention centers. Brutal interrogation tactics. Weaponized drones. Combat robots.
We’ve already seen many of these military tactics and technologies deployed on American soil and used against the populace, especially along the border regions, a testament to the heavy influence Israel’s military-industrial complex has had on U.S. policing.
Indeed, Israel has become one of the largest developers and exporters of military weapons and technologies of oppression worldwide.
Journalist Antony Loewenstein has warned that Pegasus, one of Israel’s most invasive pieces of spyware, which allows any government or military intelligence or police department to spy on someone’s phone and get all the information from that phone, has become a favorite tool of oppressive regimes around the world. The FBI and NYPD have also been recipients of the surveillance technology which promises to turn any “target’s smartphone into an intelligence gold mine.”
Yet it’s not just military weapons that Israel is exporting. They’re also helping to transform local police agencies into extensions of the military.
According to The Intercept, thousands of American law enforcement officers frequently travel for training to Israel, “one of the few countries where policing and militarism are even more deeply intertwined than they are here,” as part of an ongoing exchange program that largely flies under the radar of public scrutiny.
A 2018 investigative report concluded that imported military techniques by way of these exchange programs that allow police to study in Israel have changed American policing for the worse. “Upon their return, U.S. law enforcement delegates implement practices learned from Israel’s use of invasive surveillance, blatant racial profiling, and repressive force against dissent,” the report states. “Rather than promoting security for all, these programs facilitate an exchange of methods in state violence and control that endanger us all.”
“At the very least,” notes journalist Matthew Petti, “visits to Israel have helped American police justify more snooping on citizens and stricter secrecy. Critics also assert that Israeli training encourages excessive force.”
Petti documents how the NYPD set up a permanent liaison office in Israel in the wake of 9/11, eventually implementing “one of the first post-9/11 counterterrorism programs that explicitly followed the Israeli model. In 2002, the NYPD tasked a secret ‘Demographics Unit’ with spying on Muslim-American communities. Dedicated ‘mosque crawlers’ infiltrated local Muslim congregations and attempted to bait worshippers with talk of violent revolution.”
That was merely the start of American police forces being trained in martial law by foreign nations under the guise of national security theater. It has all been downhill from there.
As Alex Vitale, a sociology professor who has studied the rise of global policing, explains, “The focus of this training is on riot suppression, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism—all of which are essentially irrelevant or should be irrelevant to the vast majority of police departments. They shouldn’t be suppressing protest, they shouldn’t be engaging in counterinsurgency, and almost none of them face any real threat from terrorism.”
This ongoing transformation of the American homeland into a techno-battlefield tracks unnervingly with the dystopian cinematic visions of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, both of which are set 30 years from now, in the year 2054.
In Minority Report, police agencies harvest intelligence from widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, precognitive technology, and neighborhood and family snitch programs in order to capture would-be criminals before they can do any damage.
While Blomkamp’s Elysium acts as a vehicle to raise concerns about immigration, access to healthcare, worker’s rights, and socioeconomic stratification, what was most striking was its eerie depiction of how the government will employ technologies such as drones, tasers and biometric scanners to track, target and control the populace, especially dissidents.
With Israel in the driver’s seat and Minority Report and Elysium on the horizon, it’s not so far-fetched to imagine how the American police state will use these emerging technologies to lock down the populace, root out dissidents, and ostensibly establish an “open-air prison” with disconcerting similarities to Israel’s technological occupation of present-day Palestine.
For those who insist that such things are celluloid fantasies with no connection to the present, we offer the following as a warning of the totalitarian future at our doorsteps.
When Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931, he was convinced that there was “still plenty of time” before his dystopian vision became a nightmare reality. It wasn’t long, however, before he realized that his prophecies were coming true far sooner than he had imagined.
Israel’s military influence on the United States, its advances in technological weaponry, and its rigid demand for compliance are pushing us towards a world in chains.
Through its oppressive use of surveillance technology, Israel has erected the world’s first open-air prison, and in the process, has made itself a model for the United States.
What we cannot afford to overlook, however, is the extent to which the American Police State is taking its cues from Israel.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we may not be an occupied territory, but that does not make the electronic concentration camp being erected around us any less of a prison.
The post What’s Next for Battlefield America? Israel’s High-Tech Military Tactics Point the Way first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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The police state does not want citizens who know their rights.
Nor does the police state want citizens prepared to exercise those rights.
This year’s graduates are a prime example of this master class in compliance. Their time in college has been set against a backdrop of crackdowns, lockdowns and permacrises ranging from the government’s authoritarian COVID-19 tactics to its more recent militant response to campus protests.
Born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, these young people have been raised without any expectation of privacy in a technologically-driven, mass surveillance state; educated in schools that teach conformity and compliance; saddled with a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion; made vulnerable by the blowback from a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies; policed by government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment’s notice; and forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences.
And now, when they should be empowered to take their rightful place in society as citizens who fully understand and exercise their right to speak truth to power, they are being censored, silenced and shut down.
Consider what happened recently in Charlottesville, Va., when riot police were called in to shut down campus protests at the University of Virginia staged by students and members of the community to express their opposition to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine.
As the local newspaper reported, “State police sporting tactical gear and riot shields moved in on the demonstrators, using pepper spray and sheer force to disperse the group and arrest the roughly 15 or so at the camp, where for days students, faculty and community members had sang songs, read poetry and painted signs in protest of Israel’s ongoing war in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.”
What a sad turn-about for an institution which was founded as an experiment in cultivating an informed citizenry by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, champion of the Bill of Rights, and the nation’s third president.
Unfortunately, the University of Virginia is not unique in its heavy-handed response to what have been largely peaceful anti-war protests. According to the Washington Post, more than 2300 people have been arrested for taking part in similar campus protests across the country.
These lessons in compliance, while expected, are what comes of challenging the police state.
Free speech can certainly not be considered “free” when expressive activities across the nation are being increasingly limited, restricted to so-called free speech zones, or altogether blocked.
Remember, the First Amendment gives every American the right to “petition his government for a redress of grievances.”
Along with the constitutional right to peacefully (and that means non-violently) assemble, the right to free speech allows us to challenge the government through protests and demonstrations and to attempt to change the world around us—for the better or the worse—through protests and counterprotests.
If citizens cannot stand out in the open and voice their disapproval of their government, its representatives and its policies without fearing prosecution, then the First Amendment with all its robust protections for free speech, assembly and the right to petition one’s government for a redress of grievances is little more than window-dressing on a store window—pretty to look at but serving little real purpose.
After all, living in a representative republic means that each person has the right to take a stand for what they think is right, whether that means marching outside the halls of government, wearing clothing with provocative statements, or simply holding up a sign.
That’s what the First Amendment is supposed to be about: it assures the citizenry of the right to express their concerns about their government to their government, in a time, place and manner best suited to ensuring that those concerns are heard.
Unfortunately, through a series of carefully crafted legislative steps and politically expedient court rulings, government officials have managed to disembowel this fundamental freedom, rendering it with little more meaning than the right to file a lawsuit against government officials.
In more and more cases, the government is declaring war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.
Indeed, there is a long and growing list of the kinds of speech that the government considers dangerous enough to red flag and subject to censorship, surveillance, investigation and prosecution: hate speech, conspiratorial speech, treasonous speech, threatening speech, inflammatory speech, radical speech, anti-government speech, extremist speech, etc.
Clearly, the government has no interest in hearing what “we the people” have to say.
Yet if Americans are not able to peacefully assemble for expressive activity outside of the halls of government or on public roads on which government officials must pass, or on college campuses, the First Amendment has lost all meaning.
If we cannot stand peacefully outside of the Supreme Court or the Capitol or the White House, our ability to hold the government accountable for its actions is threatened, and so are the rights and liberties that we cherish as Americans.
And if we cannot proclaim our feelings about the government, no matter how controversial, on our clothing, or to passersby, or to the users of the world wide web, then the First Amendment really has become an exercise in futility.
The source of the protest shouldn’t matter. The politics of the protesters are immaterial.
To play politics with the First Amendment encourages a double standard that will see us all muzzled in the end.
The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is the final link in the police state chain.
If ever there were a time for us to stand up for the right to speak freely, even if it’s freedom for speech we hate, the time is now.
The post From COVID-19 to Campus Protests: How the Police State Muzzles Free Speech first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Last week, leading up to Mother’s Day, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) introduced the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS Act), a bill that would create a federal database for pregnant people nationwide. Specifically, the database would be called “pregnancy.gov,” and provide resources related to pregnancy — including adoption agencies and pregnancy care providers — but it excludes abortion…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
