Free Republic

An internal ruling made by the Venezuelan Ministry of Defense, published on Tuesday, January 27, in state newsletter Gaceta Oficial, legalizes the use of lethal weapons by the national armed forces (FANB) against protesters. [snip] Under Venezuelan law, the Defense Ministry does not have the authority to override or ignore the Constitution and the norms contained therein. María Esperanza Hermida, coordinator for enforcement in Venezuelan NGO (Provea) argued that the measure violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), as well as transferring competencies to the military which are the...

Are you starting to forget just how creepy government agencies can be when they decide to spy on average (law abiding) citizens? Well, this should help refocus your distrust of big government. According to AP News:The Drug Enforcement Administration abandoned an internal proposal to use surveillance cameras for photographing vehicle license plates near gun shows in the United States to investigate gun-trafficking, the agency's chief said Wednesday.Um, good… Also: “What the heck?”So the DEA was planning on tracking everyone that went to a gun show? Wow… Nothing like being innocent until proven guilty, right? It might be time to start borrowing...

The creator, director and producer of the controversial movie about the encroaching police state and FEMA camps in America, David Crowley, has been found dead with his wife and young daughter over the weekend. The police are calling it a murder-suicide incident yet not ruling out anything suspicious. The movie was currently in production and Crowley had recently received a contract of $30 million to complete the project of his dreams. While depression can have its harshest affects on people, his friends and co-workers have stated that the police story is highly unlikely.

A multi-unit suspect manhunt is ongoing in Polk County after an armed robbery Thursday afternoon led to a chase and the discovery of two apparent murder victims in a Haines City home. According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, two armed and dangerous suspects remain at large. A search for the suspects is ongoing and residents in the Chanler Ridge community have been asked to stay in their homes and lock their doors. Meanwhile, some residents that tried to come home later have been kept out of their neighborhood since Thursday afternoon. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said that two...

Do you know what an “extremist” is? In the wake of the horrible terror attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in France, Barack Obama is speaking very boldly about the need to win the war against “extremists”, and he has announced plans to host a major global summit on “extremism” next month. And on the surface that sounds great. But precisely how are we supposed to determine whether someone is an “extremist” or not? What criteria should we use? As you will see below, your definition of an “extremist” may be far, far different from the definition that Barack...

The National Security Agency may have violated U.S. law for over a decade with the unauthorized surveillance of U.S. citizens' overseas communications, according to new reports on the agency's intelligence collection practices released by the NSA on Wednesday. The U.S. spy agency released the highly confidential reports in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). According to documents posted on the NSA website on Christmas Eve, the examples of violations include sending data on Americans to unauthorized recipients, storing such data on unprotected computers and retaining them after they were meant...

The federal government and the Obama administration are under fire for a variety of unconstitutional programs aimed at both militarizing and controlling local police and law enforcement, including supplying a vast array of sophisticated U.S. Defense Department “weapons of war” to city and county governments. Billions of dollars in military equipment has already been handed to municipal police departments and county sheriffs’ offices nationwide under the rapidly expanding federal schemes, but concerns from across the political spectrum are growing quickly as well. This year alone, over 150 so-called “mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles,” or MRAPs, used by U.S. forces in Iraq, were...

Cleveland killer officer shot to death 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was playing on a playground with a toy gun, no charges filed. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz was shot 7 times in 10 seconds by a California killer deputy early on a clear afternoon, he grand jury refused the case and the DA exonerated. Christopher Roupe, 17, was shot and killed after opening the door to a killer officer, mis-identified a remote control in Roupe’s hand' shot him in the chest with his Glock, at three ft. it exploded both the child's lungs.

Britain could be pushed towards a “police state” in which officers are turned into Orwellian “thought police” in the battle against extremism, one of the country’s top cops has warned.Sir Peter Fahy, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, said police should not be left to decide what is acceptable free speech as the threat of severe terrorist attack intensifies.Instead politicians, academics and others in civil society should have to decide when radical Islam veers into extremism and when anti-gay or anti-women’s rights sentiments cross the line.The vice-chair of the police’s terrorism committee warned that unless this happened, it would...

The U.S. National Security Agency should have an unlimited ability to collect digital information in the name of protecting the country against terrorism and other threats, an influential federal judge said during a debate on privacy. "I think privacy is actually overvalued," Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said during a conference about privacy and cybercrime in Washington, D.C., Thursday. "Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct," Posner added. "Privacy is mainly about trying to improve your social and...

The Department of Homeland Security is poised to ditch all records from a controversial network monitoring system called Einstein that are at least three years old, but not for security reasons. DHS reasons the files -- which include data about traffic to government websites, agency network intrusions and general vulnerabilities -- have no research significance.

NODAWAY COUNTY, Mo. – A homeschooling family has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit after they say their home was illegally searched by the sheriff’s department. The Home School Legal Defense Association is aiding Laura and Jason Hagan. Their house was raided by Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White and Chief Sheriff’s Deputy David Glidden.

Rapid DNA technology makes it easier than ever to grab and store your genetic profile. G-men, cops, and Homeland Security can't wait to see it everywhere. Robert Schueren shook my hand firmly, handed me his business card, and flipped it over, revealing a short list of letters and numbers. "Here is my DNA profile." He smiled. "I have nothing to hide." I had come to meet Schueren, the CEO of IntegenX, at his company's headquarters in Pleasanton, California, to see its signature product: a machine the size of a large desktop printer that can unravel your genetic code in the...

A former Colorado jail officer has been arrested and charged with murdering his wife, three years after local detectives allegedly covered up evidence of his crime and ruled her death a suicide - even though she was shot in the back of the head.  Ashley Fallis' family never believed the 28-year-old mother of three had killed herself and they campaigned for three years for police in Evans, Colorado, to reopen the case and investigate whether her husband, Tom Fallis, was responsible for the New Years Day 2012 shooting.  Fallis, 34, was arrested today in Bloomington, Indiana, where he had been...

For at least the second time since 2012, the federal government has brought criminal charges, accusing someone of training people on how to beat a polygraph test. On Friday, prosecutors announced an indictment against Douglas G. Williams, a 69-year-old man from Norman, Okla., who’s accused of coaching people “how to lie and conceal crimes” during federally administered lie-detector tests. Mr. Williams, who operates a company called Polygraph.com, says the mail fraud and obstruction of justice charges leveled against him are an “attack on his First Amendment rights.” The indictment follows the federal prosecution of an Indiana man who received eight...

WASHINGTON — The federal government has significantly expanded undercover operations in recent years, with officers from at least 40 agencies posing as business people, welfare recipients, political protesters and even doctors or ministers to ferret out wrongdoing, records and interviews show. At the Supreme Court, small teams of undercover officers dress as students at large demonstrations outside the courthouse and join the protests to look for suspicious activity, according to officials familiar with the practice. At the Internal Revenue Service, dozens of undercover agents chase suspected tax evaders worldwide, by posing as tax preparers, accountants drug dealers or yacht buyers...

Students, teachers and parents were taken by surprise after an “active shooter drill” brought the Winter Haven middle school into lockdown as armed police officers burst into classrooms with their weapons drawn. Students at Jewett Middle Academy said they were terrified when police officers burst in the doors for a planned active shooter drill – but students and teachers are irked they were not told ahead of time. snip “We actually thought that someone was going to come in there and kill us,” the station quoted her as saying. But police say they conduct these drills for the absolute safety...

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of cellphones through fake communications towers deployed on airplanes, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations. The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program. Planes are equipped with devices—some known as “dirtboxes” to law-enforcement officials because of the initials of the Boeing Co. unit that produces them—which...

Former CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson — who claims the government hacked her computer, TV and phone while she reported on the Benghazi terror attack — has released a new video showing what could be evidence of the government taking over her computer. “That very night, with [White House spokesman Eric] Schultz, [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with [Thomas] Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line...

A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light says she was spied on by a “government-related entity” that planted classified documents on her computer. In her new memoir, Sharyl Attkisson says a source who arranged to have her laptop checked for spyware in 2013 was “shocked” and “flabbergasted” at what the analysis revealed.