Free Republic

President Obama will announce a $200 million commitment from nine foundations Thursday afternoon to bolster the lives of young men and boys of color. The funding is part of a larger initiative from the White House to bring private businesses, non-profits and local governments together to intervene in key moments in the lives of young black and Hispanic men to ensure they stay in school and eventually train for and get good jobs. As Yahoo News first reported, the cause will be a major focus of Obama’s—and the first lady’s—even after he leaves office. "I think it’s something that's deeply...

According to the Washington Post, just days after the story broke, DHS shelved its plans to create or tap into a national database of license plate recognition data. According to an Immigration & Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, the solicitation "was posted without the awareness of ICE leadership" and "will be reviewed to ensure the path forward appropriately meets [the agency's] operational needs.” However, DHS may still be accessing national license plate data—collected by the private company Vigilant Solutions—on an ad hoc basis.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of a plan by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to develop a national license-plate tracking system after privacy advocates raised concern about the initiative. The order came just days after ICE solicited proposals from companies to compile a database of license-plate information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers. Officials said the database was intended to help apprehend fugitive illegal immigrants, but the plan raised concerns that the movements of ordinary citizens under no criminal suspicion could be scrutinized.

Pandora Knows How You’ll Vote, and It’s Not Keeping Your Secret The online music service is telling campaigns what music you listen to, which they say gives away your party affiliation. The music streaming service announced last week it is launching targeted advertising—allowing candidates to reach voters based on age, location and music preference. According to Pandora, that information can tell with 75-80 percent accuracy how a person will vote.

Dubai: At a conference in Dubai this week, an American futurist painted an intriguing, at times unsettling, picture of the coming world. As Dr Peter Diamandis went over his presentation slides at The Government Summit on Tuesday, there were plenty of raised eyebrows. In the future, the slides suggested, privacy will be a thing of the past, robots will take over our jobs, 3D printers will pop out everything from human organs to houses, and man will mine asteroids in deep space for unfathomable mineral wealth. The 58-year-old said hyper-tech breakthroughs are already hurtling us towards that future, today. “The...

The database should track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system from a variety of sources (access control systems, asset recovery specialists, etc.) The NLPR data service should provide... a fully compiled PDF case file report (with maps, vehicle images, and ALL pertinent detection & “Hot-List” record information) with each proactive email alert notification.

Would you let your child be tested like this? There is now a bill in the New York State Assembly that would require every child in public school to have a psychological examination before they could go to school

Remember when John McAfee warned us in November that anybody who signed up to the Obamacare site might have their bank account cleaned-out by hackers? The eccentric genius and former fugitive called the government website 'a hacker's wet dream', adding that there were 'NO safeguards' that would stop someone from starting a fake Obamacare website 'for a couple hundred dollars' that could 'empty your bank account' in hours.  McAfee added unambiguously that 'It's going to happen, and it's going to happen soon... nothing in the Obamacare system safeguards against this.'  And I thought he was just trying to sell...

The Startling New Way Big Brother Is Tracking Your Health January 28, 2014 by B. Christopher Agee As ObamaCare continues to eat away at the private American healthcare system that the rest of the world once envied, the federal government now has a hand in virtually all aspects of the medical industry. The intrusion is well-documented and is not limited to any particular federal agency. Among the most recent developments is the Environmental Protection Agency’s promise to scour social media posts for clues about potential outbreaks of disease. Apparently taking a page out of the NSA’s playbook, the EPA announced...

HSBC Bank Blocking Large Withdrawals Without ‘Evidence’ Of Spending Need It seems that the bank, HSBC, has been a little overzealous in the implementation of some new, well meaning regulations, and now has egg on its face. Recently, some HSBC customers were prevented from withdrawing large amounts of cash because they could not provide evidence of why they wanted it. Apparently, customers were prevented from withdrawing amounts ranging from £5,000 to £10,000. HSBC admitted it has not informed customers of the change in policy, which was implemented in November, but the bank says it has now changed its guidance to...

Verizon Wireless (VZ), in its first such disclosure, says U.S. officials requested data about subscribers some 322,000 times in 2013, along with another 1,000 to 1,999 requests in the form of "National Security Letters." "Our report reflects the fact that telecom providers receive more government demands than companies in perhaps any other industry," Verizon General Counsel and Executive Vice President Randal Milch wrote in a Wednesday blog post. The company says the 321,696 total requests it received from government and law enforcement officials were up from 2012, but it didn't say how many requests it received in 2012.

Amazon.com knows you so well it wants to ship your next package before you order it. The Seattle retailer in December gained a patent for what it calls “anticipatory shipping,” a method to start delivering packages even before customers click “buy.”

Would you rather sip on unpasteurized milk or a cold glass of soda? Do you prefer Saturday lunch at a fast food joint or a farmers market? Regardless of your choices, your food freedom -- your right to grow, raise, produce, buy, sell, share, cook, eat, and drink the foods you want -- is under attack. Here are ten food freedom issues to keep an eye on in 2014. 1: FDA May Ban or Restrict a Growing Number of Food Ingredients. The FDA has proposed banning oils containing trans fats, an ingredient found in foods like coffee creamers and muffins....

Could there be a group that looks more insular, elitist and out of touch than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? One strategist for the chamber says they want "no more fools" nominated for office by the Republicans. By "fools" he meant Tea Party candidates and their ilk, and the chamber is readying to spend $50 million to defeat them in 2014. This, from an organization that has launched a thousand sinking ships. Recall that this is the same crowd that helped Mitt Romney and John McCain win GOP nominations for president. (They also supported Fred Thompson, who turned out to...

The NSA's TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency's top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting. In January 2010, numerous homeowners in San Antonio, Texas, stood baffled in front of their closed garage doors. They wanted to drive to work or head off to do their grocery shopping, but their garage door openers had gone dead, leaving them stranded. No matter how many times they pressed the buttons, the doors didn't budge. The...

A federal judge in New York has ruled that the National Security Agency's massive collection of American citizens' telephone records is both legal and useful. U.S. District Judge William Pauley wrote in his opinion issued Friday that the program "represents the government's counter-punch" to eliminate al-Qaeda's terror network. Pauley raised the specter of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and how the phone data-collection system could have helped investigators connect the dots before the attacks occurred. Pauley's decision appears to conflict with a ruling earlier this month by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, who granted a preliminary injunction against the...

Police surveillance of downtown Houston will expand with the addition of 180 new cameras. The installation of the cameras means police will have nearly 1,000 surveillance feeds available to them. Most cameras are pointed on public areas around downtown, stadiums and the theater district. Police Chief Charles McClelland says Houston has more critical infrastructure than New York City and must rely on video to provide necessary police coverage...

If your New Year’s resolution is to change your light bulbs, don’t worry—the federal government’s here to help. Beginning January 1, 2014, the federal government will ban the use of 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent light bulbs. The light bulb has become a symbol in the fight for consumer freedom and against unnecessary governmental interference into the lives of the American people. 2007, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law an energy bill that placed stringent efficiency requirements on ordinary incandescent bulbs in an attempt to have them completely eliminated by 2014. The law phased out 100-watt and...

VICTORIA, Texas (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas is supporting a gay couple after the men said they were kicked out of a South Texas nightclub for dancing together to country music. The incident occurred Saturday night at a Victoria nightclub when Justin Meyer, 21, said he and his partner danced together to the country song "Cowboys and Angels," the Victoria Advocate reported (http://bit.ly/Jrh5hV ). The men said a manager approached them and told them Cactus Canyon had a policy barring two men from dancing together to country music. Meyer's partner, James Douglas, 30, said the manager...

NEW YORK (AP) - Mix blatant bigotry with poor spelling. Add a dash of ALL CAPS. Top it off with a violent threat. And there you have it: A recipe for the worst of online comments, scourge of the Internet. Blame anonymity, blame politicians, blame human nature. But a growing number of websites are reining in the Wild West of online commentary. Companies including Google and the Huffington Post are trying everything from deploying moderators to forcing people to use their real names in order to restore civil discourse. Some sites, such as Popular Science, are banning comments altogether.