Free Republic

Planet Fitness has refused to walk back its decision to ban a member who exposed a 'trans woman' shaving in the female locker room. The statement, which was shared by the Libs of TikTok Twitter account, said although some members may feel uncomfortable sharing facilities, 'This discomfort is not a reason to deny access to the transgender member.' The comments come after Patricia Silva detailed at incident at her Alaska gym where she saw a transgender woman shaving in her locker room. Silva had just finished working out at Planet Fitness' Fairbanks location, when she saw the person, whom she...

The World Economic Forum and United Nations are so concerned that the goals of Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development and the Great Reset (aka technocracy under a one-world beast system) are in jeopardy of not being fulfilled by the appointed date, that they have called for a summit in September to discuss how they can kickstart their stalled totalitarian agenda. The September 18-19 Summit in New York will “mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals,” according to the U.N. website. The WEF, founded in 1971 by German economist and engineer Klaus Schwab under...

The full-throated roar of Buffalo Bills fans may be heard during next season's games at Highmark Stadium – but only if they are vaccinated and can prove it. Same goes for next season's Sabres games. "Our goal is to have a 100% full house for the Bills and the Sabres, starting in the fall," Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said during Tuesday's weekly media briefing.

More and more people are having the disturbing experience of seeing their doctors spend more time pecking at a computer keyboard than examining them. The doctors are entering data into their patients’ electronic health records (EHRs) in compliance with federal rules introduced a few years ago. EHRs drive doctors crazy. Their own experience tells them that electronic recordkeeping interferes with care, by taking time away from patients. In a survey conducted by the Deloitte consulting group, three of four doctors said EHRs are not worth the cost. The influential RAND Corporation, which had long endorsed EHRs, reported in 2013 that...

Over the past 2 decades, Republican and Democrat Administrations have joined forces to require the use by physicians and hospitals of government-certified, interoperable electronic medical records systems, or EMRs. These online record keeping systems will send personal patient information collected by all participating providers directly to the centralized Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, a newly created government agency whose job is making the medical records of the American people “inter-operable–” that is, instantly accessible to any “qualified” agency or agent. For example, if the patient of a New Jersey physician should become the victim of a...

Never has your voice been more important and never has your voice mattered more. Your voice is necessary. Your voice is needed — now. Engineers have created a vast array of exciting and pertinent technologies that have revolutionized the way we communicate, work, and play. Yet they have also opened gaping loopholes for tyranny. What’s the latest one? The little black box. On a daily basis, we are discovering the invasions of the federal government into our private lives. They are using the very tools we crave, value, and refuse to relinquish: cell phones, e-mails, Google searches. The government now...

The Washington Post has published a remarkable report showing that the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been monitoring the central servers of major Internet companies -- Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple -- and "extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time." Why did a government source leak information of this program, dubbed "PRISM," to the Post? What follows is perhaps the most chilling paragraph I've read to date about U.S. government surveillance: Firsthand experience with these systems,...

Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation of whether Internal Revenue Service employees broke the law when they targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status — the latest setback for an agency that is the subject of withering bipartisan criticism and multiple congressional inquiries. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday that the Justice Department and the FBI began the probe after the IRS acknowledged that it selected conservative groups with the words “tea party” and “patriot” in their names for special reviews. “We are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations,” Holder said at a news...

Three hours after I gave my name and e-mail address to Michael Fertik, the CEO of Reputation.com, he called me back and read my Social Security number to me. [snip] In the past few months, I have been told many more-interesting facts about myself than my Social Security number. I've gathered a bit of the vast amount of data that's being collected both online and off by companies in stealth — taken from the websites I look at, the stuff I buy, my Facebook photos, my warranty cards, my customer-reward cards, the songs I listen to online, surveys I was...

The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama's promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet. Defenders of the White House actions said the Presidential Records Act requires that the administration gather the information and that it was justified in taking the additional step of asking a private contractor to "crawl and archive" all such material. Nicholas Shapiro, a White House...

(CNSNews.com) – Two top House Democrats told CNSNews.com on Friday that a section in the $787-billion economic stimulus bill that requires the creation of “electronic health records for each person in the United States by 2014” does not mean that the medical records of every American must be included in the new national infrastructure. In the bill, which passed both chambers of Congress on Friday and which President Obama is scheduled to sign Tuesday, $3 billion is allocated for a “National Coordinator for Health Information Technology” to create and meet the objectives of a strategic plan to build a national...

SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) - Two provisions in President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan could give the federal government the authority to oversee the medical decisions made between doctors and patients, critics warn, which could result in the rationing of health care. The plan to make all health records electronic and establish an effectiveness board to review health care costs was part of the $838 billion economic stimulus bill that passed the Senate Tuesday." SNIPPET: "Further, the legislation also spends $1.1 billion to establish a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, which would serve as an umbrella group for all federal...

Broad, invasive provision touches nearly every aspect of American commerce. ~~~ Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd's 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America’s small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill's managers without debate this week, would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government. *** Call Congress and Tell Them to Oppose The eBay Reporting Provision in the Housing Bill: 1-866-928-3035 *** FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey commented: "This is a provision with...

The explosive idea of forcing Internet providers to record their customers' online activities for future police access is gaining ground in state capitols and in Washington, D.C.... Mandatory data retention requirements worry privacy advocates because they permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity that normally would have been discarded after a few months. And some proposals would require providers to retain data that ordinarily never would have been kept at all.... Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the free-market Cato Institute, was the member of the Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity...

Government plans for national identity cards were approved by the Commons last night despite more than a quarter of MPs not voting. Although Conservative and Labour rebels failed to derail the Identity Cards Bill, they provoked a highly embarrassing mass abstention. The Bill was given a second reading by 385 votes to 93, a Government majority of 292, indicating that dozens of Labour and Tory backbenchers abstained. Of a total voting strength of 651, 173 MPs were absent or decided not to vote on one of the Government's flagship measures proposing the biggest changes to individual liberties for 50 years....

COVER STORY: RUBBISH! ....... [This Report is a LOL Scream !] Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage--so we grabbed theirs.by CHRIS LYDGATE AND NICK BUDNICK It's past midnight. Over the whump of the wipers and the screech of the fan belt, we lurch through the side streets of Southeast Portland in a battered white van, double-checking our toolkit: flashlight, binoculars, duct tape, scissors, watch caps, rawhide gloves, vinyl gloves, latex gloves, trash bags, 30-gallon can, tarpaulins, Sharpie, notebook--notebook? Well, yes. Technically, this is a journalistic exercise--at least, that's what we keep telling ourselves. We're upholding...