Free Republic

Ajit Pai, the sole Republican Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), inferred in a Tweet that President Barack Obama’s secret, 332-page “Net Neutrality” document is a scheme for federal micro-managing of the Internet to extract billions in new taxes from consumers and again enforce progressives’ idea of honest, equitable, and balanced content fairness.

A Nevada court has ruled FBI agents can dress up as ISP repairmen to blag their way into a suspect's home without a search warrant – but must tell the courts about it when they do. The ruling stems from a case brought by the Feds against Malaysian poker player Wei Seng Phua and his son, whom the agency accused of running an illegal betting syndicate from a luxury Las Vegas villa during last year's FIFA World Cup. The duo hired the house in the grounds of Caesars Palace casino on the famous Strip, and asked for large-screen monitors, laptops,...

As millions of Americans brace for tax season, the Internal Revenue Service is requesting a $2 billion boost to its budget and 9,000 new employees as it prepares to enforce Obamacare’s tax provisions. President Obama released his $4 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2016 this week, which includes $13.9 billion for the Internal Revenue Service. The agency asked Congress for close to $2 billion more for operations than last year—a 16 percent increase. The billions of dollars will help the agency bolster its staff by adding more than 9,280 full-time employees. The proposed jump in employment at the IRS...

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) collects 220 million pieces of information about foreign phone calls and SMS every day, Zeit Online reported on Friday. According to BND documents seen by journalists, five locations around Germany are used to collect the millions of so-called “metadata” about foreigners’ phone calls. It is not yet clear where the BND obtains this much data. But the parliamentary committee at the Bundestag (German parliament) investigating surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) has established that the BND taps satellite communications and internet cables. …

A top EU official wants internet and telecommunication companies to hand over encryption keys to police and spy agencies as part of a wider crackdown on terrorism. The EU’s counter-terrorism coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, in a document leaked by London-based civil liberties group Statewatch, says the European Commission should come up with rules that require the firms to help national governments snoop on possible suspects. “Since the Snowden revelations, internet and telecommunications companies have started to use often decentralized encryption, which increasingly makes lawful interception by the relevant national authorities technically difficult or even impossible,” notes de Kerchove in the...

The Internal Revenue Service, which claims to be so understaffed that it can’t bother to collect unpaid taxes, or search backup tapes for Lois Lerner’s “missing” emails, apparently has plenty of time to read the comment threads on conservative blogs that have been critical of the agency (Hi there, IRS agents!). William Jacobson, one of the best-informed and most effective critics of the agency, writes on Legal Insurrection: Hey, remember the Reader Poll we did about whether it was okay to follow and try to interview Lois Lerner in her neighborhood? Do you approve of media confronting Lois Lerner in...

Venezuela's ruling socialists have set up a telephone hotline to denounce "infiltrators" they say are jeopardizing the legacy of beloved late leader Hugo Chavez by seeking to destroy the government. "The enemy who most harms us is the enemy within our ranks. It's the one who calls himself 'Chavista' but is not 'Chavista,' " said Francisco Ameliach, governor of the state of Carabobo and a high-ranking member of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or PSUV.

DESOTO COUNTY, MS (WMC) - You might expect to find an army in DeSoto County ... an army of drones, that is. A Southaven man has an army of hand-crafted drones, all controlled from inside of his customized command center. Estes built drones that provide infrared thermal imaging; they also detect human movement inside of a home or car. And what he is doing is legal. "You can do good things with this, or you can do bad things with this," Estes acknowledged. Estes wrote letters to the Federal Aviation Administration about his drone capabilities. Right now, the FAA requires...

The IRS may have inadvertently figured out how to win its legal battles against aggrieved tea party groups: Give them what they wanted in the first place — tax-exempt status. That was a major reason a Republican-appointed federal judge on Thursday threw out two lawsuits brought by more than 40 conservative groups seeking remedies for being singled out in the tea party targeting scandal, a victory for the IRS.

The sickening transformation of these United States into an authoritarian police state with an incarceration rate that would make Joseph Stalin blush, has been a key theme of my writing since well before the launch of Liberty Blitzkrieg. American Police Make an Arrest Every 2 Seconds in 2012. In the event you never read it, I suggest taking a look before tackling the rest of this piece. Fast forward to fall 2014, and the Wall Street Journal has a powerful article about how children in schools systems across the U.S. are being arrested or turned over to police custody for...

If the 5 pastors used pulpits for politics, their sermons are fair game. Were instructions given on filling out anti-HERO petition?-A— Annise Parker (@AnniseParker) October 15, 2014

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have required police to obtain warrants for surveillance by drone, making California the latest state to weigh on an issue that is dividing lawmakers across the country. Mr. Brown's decision comes as the nation grapples with how to balance concerns over privacy and civil liberties with a technology that police departments say can serve as a powerful law-enforcement tool.

Cooperation between Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, and America's NSA is deeper than previously believed. German agents appear to have crossed into constitutionally questionable territory.

It's not often that the press exposes its own bias. But a Washington Post story this week reveals both the Obama administration's attempts to censor the news and the media's complicity in that effort.

The Democrat's attack on political speech will come to a point this week when the Senate votes on a measure that would overturn the Citizens United decision and give federal authorities the power to regulate all manner of political speech including books and pamphlets.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is launching a broad investigation into the practices of the Ferguson, Missouri, police department. That's according to Attorney General Eric Holder. He announced the investigation following the shooting last month of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb.

Well, this sounds interesting and probably sinister and open to manipulation: The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and hate speech on Twitter. The National Science Foundation is financing the creation of a web service that will monitor “suspicious memes” and what it considers “false and misleading ideas,” with a major focus on political activity online. The “Truthy” database, created by researchers at Indiana University, is designed to “detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution.” The university has received $919,917 so far for the project. “The project stands...

This is a real headshaker that should send chills down your spine.Washington Free Beacon: The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and hate speech on Twitter. The National Science Foundation is financing the creation of a web service that will monitor “suspicious memes” and what it considers “false and misleading ideas,” with a major focus on political activity online. The “Truthy” database, created by researchers at Indiana University, is designed to “detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution.” The university has received $919,917 so far for the project....

MADISON, Wis. – Conservative targets of a Democrat-launched John Doe investigation have described the secret probe as a witch hunt. That might not be a big enough descriptor, based on records released Friday by a federal appeals court as part of a massive document dump. Attorneys for conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth point to subpoenas requested by John Doe prosecutors that sought records from “at least eight phone companies” believed to serve the targets of the investigation. O’Keefe and the club have filed a civil rights lawsuit against John Doe prosecutors, alleging they violated conservatives’...

Microsoft's "SmartScreen Filter" is blocking Sarah Palin's new website (sarahpalinchannel.com). When I went to the site anyway (it's hard to do), the videos would not play. Whatever is wrong may have been caused by a deliberately orchestrated group of people reporting the site as unsafe to Microsoft, or it may simply be that Microsoft simply does not like Sarah Palin. Regardless of the cause, it may help if people go to the site and click on the "Report this site does not contain threats" choice.