Free Republic

Two police officers walked into a doughnut shop. It’s not the opening line of a joke; it’s what I saw as I was working on an early draft of this story in March at the Staunton Dunkin’, about a quarter mile from where my vehicle was captured on a Flock camera in January and February coming back from my trips to Cardinal’s Roanoke office. Their eyes may have strayed to the racks of Boston creme, lemon-filled and coconut-covered doughnuts as they strode to the counter with purpose, but they were here for something else. Surveillance footage. The research for State...

Woke capitalism is alive and well. Don’t be fooled by American companies’ public statements suggesting they’re abandoning identity-based diversity, equity and inclusion policies in favor of merit and diversity of thought. I’m here to prove it: I’ve been canceled. Again. This time, bounced from a conference boasting a theme of “breaking down walls.” Five months ago, Peer 150, a networking group for top human resources executives, asked me to speak at one of its events. I was pleasantly surprised: I’m pretty well known at this point as being aggressively non-woke. In 2020, I was the only C-suite executive in a...

In 2006, a retired AT&T engineer knocked on the door of the EFF's office in a rundown part of San Francisco's Mission district and asked, "Do you folks care about privacy?" With him he carried schematics exposing the largest US government domestic spying operation since Watergate.That person was Mark Klein, who died on March 8 this year from cancer. He was 79.After a life working in telecoms, Klein realized he had helped the NSA wire up a listening station in AT&T's San Francisco switching facility - the infamous Room 641A - that was being used to illegally spy on Americans.The...

No, not even if you do it in a county that borders Mexico.One of President Donald Trump's Day 1 executive orders designated "certain international cartels" as "foreign terrorist organizations," a classification that according to the State Department "play[s] a critical role in our fight against terrorism and [is] an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business." To that end, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced a new rule cracking down on cash transactions this week, but only in certain geographical regions. No matter...

On the heels of Veep JD Vance’s 100% correct slam on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over speech rights, the latest Big Brother stunt from the United Kingdom has hit the airwaves. A 74-year-old Scottish woman was arrested for silently holding up a sign outside an abortion clinic asking people walking in if they wanted to chat with her. Rose Docherty is the first person arrested under the so-called “Safe Access Zones Act,” a 2024 law forbidding even the peaceful exercise of speech within 200 meters of abortion clinics. Vance restricted himself with Starmer to criticizing the terrible effects UK...

A British judge has sentenced a man to 28 weeks in prison for sending “hateful” emails intended to “disparage, insult, and offend” London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, government minister Jess Phillips, and Matt Twist, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Jack Bennett, 38, was convicted of four counts of sending malicious communications and one of using a public communication network to send offensive emails. .. Bennett had been motivated to send his emails by the “perceived” incompetence of the authorities in tackling Muslim rape gangs, which preyed on primarily white, working-class girls in Britain virtually unchecked for decades.

In our modern age of camera-equipped cellphones and laptops, ubiquitous social media websites, and constant GPS tracking that everyone seems to use to go anywhere, you are not paranoid if you worry that Big Brother—the government—along with companies like Google and Facebook, are recording your every move. If the allegations made by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are true, you can add automobile insurance companies and a host of third-party app developers to that list. That is according to a lawsuit filed by Paxton that brings up shades of George Orwell’s book “1984” and the constant surveillance of citizens he...

There is nothing reconcilable about American Liberty when contrast with a looming surveillance state. There is no facet of American values, the essential core of what we define as Americanism, that can exist without true liberty. While the Declaration of Independence is long regarded as the greatest written declaration of purpose, the latter created Bill of Rights, the first Ten original amendments to the U.S. Constitution, is just as important. The first declared our intent; the second defined how our founders intended to retain the intent during our collective assembly. Together they outline what set the course to make America...

[Catholic Caucus] "Do you only get into heaven with a QR code?" - Giuseppe Nardi on the Vatican as surveillance statePope Francis has introduced a new condition for obtaining a jubilee indulgence for the Holy Year 2025, thereby abusing the jubilee year to advance the globalist agenda.In order to pass through the Holy Door, the faithful must submit to the digital cage. They must identify themselves and register with all their personal data in order to receive a QR code, because only with this code can they pass through the Holy Door. Santa Marta is implementing another building block of...

Unfortunately, The Trump Cabinet Will Likely Expand the Surveillance StateDecember 25, 2024 | SundanceThe surveillance state is an outcropping of the Fourth Branch of Government, which is, essentially, the unelected intelligence community in control of our government.The surveillance state comes from the creation of the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) which is an entirely inward-looking agency. Prior to the Patriot Act, the surveillance sweep searching for terror threats focused outward, looking outside the U.S borders. The Patriot Act took the surveillance sweep a full 360 degrees and looked inside the Homeland for terror threats. Hence, DHS was created.The office of...

Serbian authorities have rejected the claims they used forensic tools from Israeli company Cellebrite and bespoke spyware for illegal surveillance, calling them "nonsensical". Serbian police and intelligence services have used advanced spyware alongside other digital tools to hack the phones of activists and journalists and illegally surveil them, Amnesty International said in a report published on Monday. Mobile forensic products made by Israeli firm Cellebrite are being used by authorities in Serbia to extract data from individuals' phones, while new Serbian spyware — dubbed "NoviSpy" by Amnesty — has been developed to covertly infect devices and capture information, according to...

Before January 6th, 2021, financial surveillance in the United States was largely limited to a well-defined framework designed to combat money laundering and terrorism. Judicial oversight and clear legal protocols acted as key safeguards, ensuring that government access to citizens' financial information respected the rule of law. However, after the Capitol protests, these boundaries have shifted dramatically. Under the Biden administration, the purpose of surveillance has shifted from securing national interests to a tool for targeting political dissent—particularly individuals linked to Donald Trump and the "MAGA" movement. Take, for instance, the scrutiny faced by those who attended rallies or made...

The former FBI informant charged with lying about a $10 million-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden´s family is set to appear in a California federal court on Monday. A judge will determine whether Alexander Smirnov, 43, must remain behind bars while he awaits trial. Special counsel David Weiss' office is pressing U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II to keep Smirnov in jail, arguing the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence is likely to flee the country. A different judge last week released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring, but Wright ordered the man to be...

Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib recently sent a letter to Kroger over the grocery giant’s purported plan to introduce digital price tags that could be changed in an instant to raise or lower prices for shoppers based on the time of day, the weather, or any other number of factors. But one particular detail in Kroger’s plan is raising the most eyebrows: The company intends to put cameras in stores that would be used for facial recognition. News leaked over the summer that grocery giant Kroger was partnering with Microsoft to use electronic shelf labels, shortened in the grocery industry as...

Do you want to live in a society where you are required to have your face scanned wherever you go? If not, you may want to speak up now while you still can. As you will see below, the U.S. government is aggressively expanding the use of facial recognition technology for identification verification purposes. For now, the use of facial recognition technology will be optional. But as we have seen before, once a voluntary option is adopted by enough people our leaders have a way of making it mandatory. Of course it isn’t just our government that is pushing facial...

City leaders, along with law enforcement officials gathered to announce the launch of a program that will install 100 license plate reading cameras in the San Fernando Valley that authorities believe will help police track criminals down. Officials said that some neighborhoods north of Rinaldi Street in Porter Ranch have some of the highest crime rates in the city, which is why several cameras have already been installed in the area. “Last year, the Devonshire District reported that homes north of this very street experienced a 103% jump in home burglaries,” District 12 Councilman Jon Lee said at the event....

London's Metropolitan Police chief warned that officials will not only be cracking down on British citizens for commentary on the riots in the U.K., but on American citizens as well. "We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News. Riots have broken out across the United Kingdom in recent days over false rumors spread online that an asylum seeker was responsible for a mass stabbing at...

And hates free speech, free markets, self-government, and world peace! Right now, the United Kingdom is barreling toward totalitarianism. After a second-generation immigrant reportedly murdered several children in a vicious stabbing attack last week, native Brits took to the streets to denounce their country’s criminally dangerous open borders. If these outraged citizens had been members of Antifa, the press would have compassionately framed their actions as “mostly peaceful protests” deserving of praise. Instead, because the public’s fury is directed toward one of globalism’s sacred cows — mass migration — angry parents have been condemned for fomenting “violent riots.” Protecting children...

The number of children being educated at home has been growing for the past few decades. No one knows by how much, and that is part of the problem. Home­school­ing is barely tracked or regulated in the U.S. But children deserve a safe and robust education, whether they attend a traditional school or are educated at home.The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported that by last count, in 2019, nearly 3 percent of U.S. children—1.5 million—were being home­schooled. This number, calculated from a nationwide survey, is surely an undercount because the home­schooling population is notoriously hard to survey, and...

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Mall of America now has a new way to keep shoppers safe. A new high-tech layer of security has been added after gun-related incidents in recent years. Signs let you know you're coming face to face with new facial recognition technology. "Very mixed feelings about this because it could be useful and not so useful sometimes," said Melva Bargiela, a long-time Minnesota resident who is now living in Spain. Cameras with the ability to map faces have been installed to give shoppers peace of mind while detecting potential threats. "I think they're watching us all the...