Free Republic

The president of FamilyTreeDNA, one of the country’s largest at-home genetic testing companies, has apologized to its users for failing to disclose that it was sharing DNA data with federal investigators working to solve violent crimes. In the booming business of consumer DNA testing and genealogy, FamilyTreeDNA had marketed itself as a leader of consumer privacy and a fierce protector of user data, refusing, unlike some of its competitors, to sell information to third parties. But unbeknown to its users, the Houston-based firm quietly and voluntarily agreed in 2018 to open its database of more than two million records to...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday offered a way to break the deadlock over the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, calling for a “creative” compromise to allay concerns over the future of Irish border arrangements.

Summary Many conservatives accuse Hitler of being a leftist, on the grounds that his party was named "National Socialist." But socialism requires worker ownership and control of the means of production. In Nazi Germany, private capitalist individuals owned the means of production, and they in turn were frequently controlled by the Nazi party and state. True socialism does not advocate such economic dictatorship -- it can only be democratic. Hitler's other political beliefs place him almost always on the far right. He advocated racism over racial tolerance, eugenics over freedom of reproduction, merit over equality, competition over cooperation, power politics...

‘Trump is the target’ “Prosecutors have this enormous power. They can threaten not only the person but also his relatives and friends and associates,..Judge [T.S.] Ellis pointed that out in the Manafort case. People like Manafort and Stone are not the real targets of the investigation. President Trump is the target.” ...”The obvious purpose of indicting (stone) him on these obstructing and false statement charges is to put pressure on him to flip. That’s the goal,” said Dershowitz “The fact that they arrested him this morning rather than allowing him to appear is another evidence that they are trying to...

CNN producer David Shortell admitted that he was "waiting" outside Roger Stone’s house at 5am, an hour before FBI agents and police arrived to arrest the former Donald Trump associate. [Snip] When questioned as to why he was outside Stone’s home over an hour before the arrest when neither Stone or his attorney even knew the raid was coming, Shortell claimed that his "reporter's instinct" was to thank and that he "thought maybe something was happening" because of "unusual Grand Jury activity in Washington DC yesterday".

Joseph Stalin’s firearms registration and confiscation was a tremendous success for the Socialist state. Under the Tsar, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. That all changed when Stalin and the communists took control. Stalin was able to control, starve, punish and imprison a defenseless people… after he took their guns. (Zinnfigur) This video is a shocking reminder on how Stalin was able to control, starve, punish and imprison a defenseless people. It’s no secret that Democrats are hoping to repeat this history here in the United States. The Boston Mayor’s Office is pushing a new...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has adopted a new rule that allows the agency to collect social-media data from those who cross the border. The agency claims the exemption from Privacy Act provisions is necessary because it needs “to identity and understand relationships between individuals, entities, threats and events, and to monitor patterns of activity over extended periods of time that may be indicative of criminal, terrorist, or other threat.” A number of privacy groups and interests had opposed the expansion of the exemptions to the privacy law, but the agency in a filing in the Federal Register explained that...

While the press is abuzz with stories of Chinese technology theft and Russian hacking, there is a hole that has gotten too little attention. “When Trump phones friends, the Chinese and the Russians listen and learn,” the New York Times reported, exposing a huge lapse of national security. In fact, those nations are listening in on cell phone calls across the country through cell site simulators, often known as stingrays, dirtboxes, and international mobile subscriber identity catchers that mimic towers to trick cell phones into transmitting information. They are commonly used to identify the location of a cell phone in...

Police say they thwarted a plot involving two 14-year-old Middlebury Union Middle School students to carry out a shooting this week on the school’s campus. Dennis Wygmans, the Addison County state’s attorney, said Tuesday evening that the investigation is ongoing and if any charges are filed, they “most likely” would be brought in juvenile court. “We believe there is no longer a threat, but folks should remain vigilant,” the prosecutor added. “If they do learn of anything, they should contact Middlebury Police.” Because the case involves juveniles, authorities say they are not releasing the names of the students involved. The...

This year’s McKinsey & Company retreat in China was one to remember. Hundreds of the company’s consultants frolicked in the desert, riding camels over sand dunes and mingling in tents linked by red carpets. Meetings took place in a cavernous banquet hall that resembled a sultan’s ornate court, with a sign overhead to capture the mood. “I can’t keep calm, I work at McKinsey & Company,” it said. Especially remarkable was the location: Kashgar, the ancient Silk Road city in China’s far west that is experiencing a major humanitarian crisis. About four miles from where the McKinsey consultants discussed their...

A parent who sent an email critical of the Florida school superintendent who implemented a radical transgender policy that strips away parent rights, found officers from the school district’s brand new police force at his door the next day. This is a fairly shocking level of intimidation, and certainly at least some parents must have got the message: Shut up, sit down and let us handle your children. Or else we may come knocking. We wrote about this radical policy last week, but confess we did not see this tactic coming. The essentials are this: At the recommendation of the...

BROU-SUR-CHANTEREINE, France, September 18, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A pro-life French obstetrician who described abortion as homicide is drawing fire from France's pro-abortion media and the country's government itself. Even his own union is distancing itself from the pro-life physician's comments on abortion. Dr. Bertrand De Rochambeau, president of France's union of gynecologists and obstetricians, stood up for his right to refuse to commit abortions in an interview with a French television reporter. Reporter Valentine Oberti states in that interview that a conscientious objector clause to allow physicians in France to opt out of committing abortions is something that angers some...

English police are now calling on citizens to report hate incidents. Reporting friends and neighbors to the police has terrible historical connotation, and for good reason. It is legitimate fascism. Timid citizenries are easy to control — fear that even a coworker could file a report to the police can keep people in check.The latest call for action in England is from the South Yorkshire Police on Twitter. Similar reporting requests are posted on the United Kingdom government website. Two tweets from the South Yorkshire Police over the weekend requesting citizens to report hate matters to police should grab...

After days of being dressed down by the judge overseeing the Paul Manafort case, federal prosecutors sought Thursday to put their foot down -- filing a motion complaining that Judge T.S. Ellis III had unfairly admonished them in front of the jury. Ellis has memorably and repeatedly criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during the trial for the former Trump campaign chairman. On Wednesday, Ellis ripped into prosecutors for letting a witness, IRS Agent Michael Welsh, sit in the courtroom before his testimony. But in a five-page motion filed Thursday, Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann and other attorneys on the team...

A southern Missouri sheriff and a deputy with whom he had an affair were both indicted...including assault, robbery and harassment...Former Texas County Sheriff James Sigman, 48, and Lt. Deputy Jennifer Tomaszewski, 38, also were indicted on child endangerment and unlawful use of a weapon...Tomaszewski hit an inmate with the mental capacity of a 9-year-old in the face with her elbows after he was rendered unconscious,..."He was completely unconscious and his lips were turning blue,"...she pointed a firearm at several people, including a 1-year-old,...she thought they were video recording the officers...

In the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, a police officer wearing facial recognition glasses spotted a heroin smuggler at a train station. In Qingdao, a city famous for its German colonial heritage, cameras powered by artificial intelligence helped the police snatch two dozen criminal suspects in the midst of a big annual beer festival. In Wuhu, a fugitive murder suspect was identified by a camera as he bought food from a street vendor. With millions of cameras and billions of lines of code, China is building a high-tech authoritarian future. Beijing is embracing technologies like facial recognition and artificial intelligence to...

The National Security Agency is deleting more than 685 million call records the government obtained since 2015 from telecommunication companies in connection with investigations, raising questions about the viability of the program. The NSA’s bulk collection of call records was initially curtailed by Congress after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing extensive government surveillance. The law, enacted in June 2015, said that going forward, the data would be retained by telecommunications companies, not the NSA, but that the intelligence agency could query the massive database. Now the NSA is deleting all the information it collected from the queries....

Full title................'This is harassment and racial profiling!' California woman forces Border Patrol agents off a Greyhound bus using the Fourth Amendment after they demanded to see everyone's documents......................The incident took place at a border post which used to be used to check for fruit being brought into California because of an invasive species of fly. But on this occasion when the bus stopped, Smalls said the driver announced: 'We are being boarded by Border Patrol. Please be prepared to show your documentation upon request.' Smalls said she stood up and began shouting: 'This is a violation of your Fourth amendment...

"The best prophet Sulayman approached his son and said to him, ‘I have received a message from God. I want you to circle the Earth and see if there are more people who are alive in spirit or more people who are dead in spirit.’ After a period the son returned and said, ‘Father I went to many places and everywhere I went I saw more people who were dead than those who were alive.’” Hasan shared that message on a WeChat social-messaging group in 2015, when he was 23... He described himself to Darren Byler, an anthropologist from the...

..... Website: http://www.laurensouthern.net Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lauren_southern On Friday May 25th, 2018, Tommy Robinson was arrested for “breaching the peace” while filming outside Leeds Crown Court during the trial of a Muslim grooming gang. The "breaching the peace" charge morphed into another “contempt of court” charge, leading to Robinson’s preexisting suspended three month sentence for “contempt of court” being reinstated and an additional 10 month added. Robinson was swept off the streets and imprisoned within hours - placing him in a facility filled with individuals who would love to see him injured or killed. The court also instituted a shocking “reporting restriction”...