Free Republic

James Howard Kunstler is a writer, blogger of "ClusterF[***] Nation"and host of the podcast “Kunstler Cast.” On the podcast he talks his website being down for over a week and if it was nuked. Lawfare ramping up, illegals invading this country, state of Europe, 2nd assassination attempt on Trump, the surveillance state and much more.

If it were up to Larry Ellison, the exorbitantly rich cofounder of software outfit Oracle, all of us will soon be smiling for the camera — constantly. Not for a cheery photograph, but to appease our super-invasive, if not totally omnipresent, algorithmic overseers. As Business Insider reports, the tech centibillionaire glibly predicts that the wonders of AI will bring about a new paradigm of supercharged surveillance, guaranteeing that the proles — excuse us, "citizens" — all behave and stay in line. "We're going to have supervision," Ellison said this week at an Oracle financial analysts meeting, per BI. "Every police...

Governments are pushing the public to switch to smart vehicles to reduce fossil fuel consumption, but there is also a second motive – surveillance. This September, Ford filed a new patent to eavesdrop on riders. They plan to share this information with third-parties to personalize the advertisements riders hear. Ford will also take the driver’s destination into consideration to determine location-specific advertisements and suggestions. The technology will factor in the weather, traffic, and all external sensors to fine tune when and what to market to passengers. Advertisements are perhaps the least ominous use of voice data based on the plans...

As an old congressional investigator, some things really bother me. Dishonesty at the Justice Department is one. Attorney General Merrick Garland is a disgrace – and danger. He opposes textual interpretations of the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. He resents individual rights, and how they limit government power to suppress rights – which is why they were framed. Now, he disavows another core principle, called “separation of powers.” To be clear, separating powers among those who make our laws, administer them, and interpret them is ancient. It is not a MAGA idea. It goes back to the French...

True the Vote made an exciting announcement on their X social media page on Tuesday, stating that they will be working with sheriff offices across the county to provide live-streamed surveillance footage of ballot boxes. True the Vote describes itself as a leader in the effort to ensure free and fair elections in America. Our work focuses on empowering citizens to safeguard the electoral process and to protect their vote from fraud so their voice is not diminished Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder of True the Vote, outlined the details in a video shared on the organization’s account, emphasizing that this...

“This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet and magazine. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and X.” (Required for republishing) Everything is bigger in Texas—including state police contracts for surveillance tech. In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year...

FBI : New symbols guide leaked which indicated that terms such as “Molon Labae”, “Prepping”, and “Second Amendment (2A) can be sign of 'militia violent extremists(MVE) according to the document and the Ammoland article. "Lawyer Stephan Stamboulieh on X (formerly Twitter) released more documents from the FBI’s symbol guide. This list seems to be an updated list of those previously released to the public. At the same time AmmoLand News received the same print outs.”

WASHINGTON, DC: Former Democratic Congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard confirmed that she continues to be under surveillance by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) under their controversial 'Quiet Skies' program on Sunday, August 25. A vocal supporter of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, Gabbard shared evidence of her being monitored in an Instagram story, where she posted a picture of her flight ticket with "SSSS" printed at the top. She encircled the part, marking it as a known indicator of the "Quiet Skies" watchlist, and used the hashtags "#AndStill #QuietSkies". What is 'Quiet Skies'? According to the Boston Globe, "Quiet...

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is attempting to get to the bottom of the Transportation Security Administration’s watchlist and blacklist programs following several high-profile cases and whistleblowers scrutinizing these TSA systems. “Recent disclosures from whistleblowers raise serious concerns that these mechanisms may have been improperly employed to target individuals based on their political views and participation in constitutionally protected activities, rather than legitimate security threat,” the Kentucky Republican wrote to TSA Administrator David Pekoske in a Wednesday letter shared with The Daily Signal. Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is reportedly among the victims of this effort to surveil and control...

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi weighs in on a new report that Tulsi Gabbard has been added to the T.S.A's terror watch list. Link to transcript below video.

In a major decision on Friday, the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that geofence warrants are “categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.” Closely following arguments EFF has made in a number of cases, the court found that geofence warrants constitute the sort of “general, exploratory rummaging” that the drafters of the Fourth Amendment intended to outlaw. EFF applauds this decision because it is essential that every person feels like they can simply take their cell phone out into the world without the fear that they might end up a criminal suspect because their location data was swept up...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Murthy v. Missouri (2024) takes place at a pivotal moment in American history. In this case, the Court declined to prevent the federal government from colluding with social media firms. This move raises the possibility of a crushing recurrence of state-sponsored cowardice better known as totalitarianism. The Murthy case sets an ominous precedent that reinforces Senator Mark Warner's claim that it is absolutely essential for the federal government to communicate with social media companies to prevent malign foreign election interference. Shortly after the Court’s decision, the FBI announced that it was resuming coordination with...

Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang said China is directing the 'full power' of its industries toward AI ... Chinese government is spending three times as much as the U.S. government is to become the world’s undisputed AI leader. "The country that is able to most rapidly and effectively integrate new technology into warfighting wins. If we don’t win on AI, we risk ceding global influence, technology leadership and democracy to strategic adversaries like China," Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI, told members of the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. "The Chinese Communist Party deeply understands the potential for AI...

A gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump was able to fly a drone and get aerial footage of the western Pennsylvania fairgrounds shortly before the former president was set to speak there, law-enforcement officials briefed on the matter said, further underscoring the stunning security lapses ahead of Trump’s near assassination.

A new national divide is emerging among states over whether to track sales by gun stores Should gun store sales get special credit card tracking? States split on mandating or prohibiting it. Beginning Monday, a California law will require credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard to provide banks with special retail codes that can be assigned to gun stores in order to track their sales. But new laws will do the exact opposite in Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and Wyoming by banning the use of specific gun shop codes. The conflicting laws highlight what has quietly emerged as one of...

Records reveal that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has been sharing information from thousands of Americans’ letters and packages with law enforcement over the past decade. This practice, known as the “mail covers program,” involves conveying details from the outside of boxes and envelopes to federal agents and police officers without requiring a court order. Postal inspectors fulfill such requests primarily to aid in finding fugitives or investigating crimes. Notably, 97% of these requests were approved, covering days or weeks of mail sent to or from specific individuals or addresses.

How Did a Small Group Do This?A very interesting study appeared last week by two researchers looking into the pandemic policy response around the world. They are Drs. Eran Bendavid and Chirag Patel of Stanford and Harvard, respectively. Their ambition was straightforward. They wanted to examine the effects of government policy on the virus. In this ambition, after all, researchers have access to an unprecedented amount of information. We have global data on strategies and stringencies. We have global data on infections and mortality. We can look at it all according to the timeline. We have precise dating of stay-at-home...

Popular smartphone apps used to track people’s location and provide weather reports may hand over driving data to a firm that sells the information to insurance companies for the purposes of setting rates for unsuspecting motorists... apps Life360, MyRadar and Gas Buddy are providing user data to an Allstate-owned company, Arity, which computes the numbers to create a “driving score” that takes into account any risky behavior behind the wheel... That information is then sold to other insurance firms — with user consent — which set rates for their customers ... Life360, which is used by parents to keep track...

Two Chechen men who spoke broken English were found near the soldier's home. The family alleges the suspected intruder, 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev of Chicago was taking photos of their children. When confronted near a power line in a wooded part of the property, an altercation ensued and Daraev was shot several times at close range. -snip Sheriff Ronnie Fields said in a statement: "The caller indicated that an individual was observed taking photographs on the property and had become aggressive towards a resident outside their home…. The deceased was found approximately 250 yards from the roadway, along a powerline on...

On May 16, Foreign Policy magazine published an article by three experienced intelligence officers, including one who has chronically politicized U.S. intelligence, who argued that the U.S. intelligence community (IC) is getting a bad rap at a critical point in history for unfortunate, unjustified reasons. Only the first part of the assertion is correct. Far more accurate would have been a judgment that the declining respect for the IC reflected in polls is a direct result of the recent partisan political activism and dishonesty of ostensibly respectable senior former intelligence officers and many inaccurate “leaks” by current intelligence officers, mainly...