Free Republic

A 41-year-old woman is facing felony charges in Nebraska for allegedly helping her teenage daughter illegally abort a pregnancy, and the case highlights how law enforcement can make use of online communications in the post-Roe v. Wade era. Police in Norfolk, Neb., had been investigating the woman, Jessica Burgess, and her daughter, Celeste Burgess, for allegedly mishandling the fetal remains of what they'd told police was Celeste's stillbirth in late April. They faced charges of concealing a death and disposing of human remains illegally. But in mid-June, police also sent a warrant to Facebook requesting the Burgess' private messages. Authorities...

Leaders in the Democratic Party are backing legislation to reduce carbon emissions. Some of them are also sponsoring bills that would expand the cannabis industry, ranging from the MORE Act to the Safe Banking Act and now the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act just introduced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Co-sponsors have publicly chastised President Joe Biden for not doing enough to help in their effort. They are seemingly unaware that although today’s cannabis may seem “green” - after all, it traps carbon dioxide in organic material and generates oxygen in the process - its similarity to other...

Every day seems to bring a new Liberal attack on our freedom. The Trudeau Liberals have launched yet another front in their assault on freedom: Going after your private communications. As reported by Blacklock’s, Liberal-appointed censorship advisors are now talking about putting “misleading political communications” under government regulation: “Misleading political communications” should be federally regulated, say censorship advisors appointed by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. Unregulated political discussion and disinformation was a kind of pollution that “erodes the foundations of democracy,” said the group: “By polluting the information environment with false, deceptive or misleading information, disinformation undermines citizens’ rights to form...

Under the newest version of a code of conduct originally established in 2018, nearly three dozen entities vowed to step up efforts to detect false claims, to label political advertising more transparently and to restrict advertising around disinformation, among other moves. Demonetizing disinformation is the “cornerstone” of the new initiative, said Thierry Breton, a European commissioner and one of the EU’s top digital regulators. Many of the biggest platforms signing onto Thursday’s agreement had already been operating under the older set of 21 commitments, which ranged from supporting fact-checking to scrutinizing ad placement. This week’s expansion grows the list of...

Statistics Norway wants to receive several million daily receipts from food stores, signalling a new era in state data collection. Privacy advocates and the supermarkets themselves are unhappy. People living in Norway are used to big government. But the latest news coming out of Oslo is a surprising new step down the road of data collection that not everyone is happy with. Statistics Norway (SSB) is the state-owned entity responsible for collecting, producing and communicating statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels. Because everything about an individual living in Norway is linked to...

Trudeau’s Justice Minister and Canadian Attorney General David Lametti announced this week that Canadians do not have an “absolute right to own private property.”

Today in 1949, George Orwell's '1984' was published.

Almost 4,000 passengers were fined for breaking COVID-19 mask rules on London’s public transport, Mayor Sadiq Khan revealed on Monday. Khan, who also chairs Transport for London (TfL)—a local government body responsible for most aspects of London’s transport system—said more than 7,000 people were denied service for not wearing face coverings. During the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic, face coverings were twice made mandatory on England’s public transport, first for around a year between July 4, 2020 and July 18, 2021; then for eight weeks between Nov. 30, 2021 and Jan. 26, 2022. Rule-breakers would be issued a Fixed...

Top House Republicans are demanding answers from the FBI after court-ordered information came to light showing that the federal agency had collected the information of over 3 million Americans without a warrant. In a May 25 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Mike Turner (R-Ohio) asked Wray to explain why his agency had wiretapped and gathered personal information on over 3.3 million Americans without a warrant (pdf). Limited authority to gather foreign intelligence information is granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Specifically, section 702 of the bill says: “the Attorney General (AG) and...

Weibo showed Bill Gates as being in Henan, Messi in ShanghaiChinese social media platforms began rolling out geolocation features in late April, triggering heated discussion among the country’s netizens. Using their IP address, Weibo started displaying the location of users from Thursday, April 28, for the sake of creating a “healthy online environment,” according to WhatsonWeibo. In the days that followed, Douyin, Toutiao, Xiaohongshu and Zhihu all followed. The user’s location is not only visible on account pages, but also alongside any comments or posts they make. The function cannot be turned off in the settings section. The new...

I have been wondering about a couple of things. First, Faraday cages protect electronics within them from EMPs, right? So would the metal body of a car act as a Faraday cage and protect the electronics within the car? And I was also wondering... there is a foil-lined envelope I can keep my credit card in to prevent a passerby with a special machine from stealing the info... I wondered if a similar envelope could protect my phone from being located all the time? And maybe that would also protect the phone from EMPs? Note: I am not going anywhere...

…to accessibility within public places such as concerts, sporting events, and other assemblies. High social scoring individuals within the social credit market will be granted preferred access to both real and digital assets.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. A promotional video from the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA) helps to neatly connect all the dots about why the Canadian government made such a quick reversal in their bank asset seizures in the last 24 hours {Go Deep}. And yes, as we suspected, it was almost certainly contact from the World Economic Forum to Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland that triggered the change in position.When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced they would use the Emergency Act declaration to target the financial support systems, banks and accounts of the people...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refused to provide evidence to support its claims that COVID-19 “misinformation” and “false or misleading narratives” inspired violent terrorism during 2021. DHS issued a terrorism advisory bulletin Monday warning that of the dangers of online misinformation, which the agency said has been exploited by “threat actors” and to inspire acts of terrorism. “The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic...

Spoiler: Yeah, why not?The modern world hurts my brain. Let’s take the news that Apple enables users to store their COVID vaccination certificates in the Wallet and Health apps as an example. When I first heard about it, I was pumped. Flashing my QR code to enter a restaurant or grab a coffee would be far simpler if it sat in my Apple Wallet. Friends, the time I’d save! But, of course, the world had something to say about that. We talked to 4 successful entrepreneurs This is what they wish they knew before getting started While putting my digital...

KATY, Texas — From a secluded spot in her high school library, a 17-year-old girl spoke softly into her cellphone, worried that someone might overhear her say the things she’d hidden from her parents for years. They don’t know she’s queer, the student told a reporter, and given their past comments about homosexuality’s being a sin, she’s long feared they would learn her secret if they saw what she reads in the library. That space, with its endless rows of books about characters from all sorts of backgrounds, has been her “safe haven,” she said — one of the few...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -(Ammoland.com)- Congressional Representative Michael Cloud (R-TX) and 51 other Republican Congress members recently sent a letter (embedded below), to ATF questioning the Bureau’s growing database of personal information about American’s gun purchases.“We are concerned that this Administration is leveraging its power in a way to establish a federal gun registry. Moreover, we are opposed to a recent(sic) proposed regulation that would require federal firearms licensees (FFLs) to facilitate the creation of a federal gun registry.”.According to a response letter (embedded below), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) acknowledged it has over 920 million firearms records,...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will soon require taxpayers to submit a scan of their face in order to access certain features and tax records. The change, first reported on by Krebs on Security, will force users to sign into the IRS website through an account with third-party firm ID.me, and provide a government identification document with their photo alongside a selfie to verify their identity, according to the IRS website. The IRS first announced its partnership with ID.me in November, arguing the arrangement would “improve accessibility” and security for users.

So I find out today I've been cancelled by "neighborly" NextDoor. This is absurd - and perhaps I was "reported" (snitched) by the last jerk I replied to last week. He was telling everyone how there aren't many of us (around here - indeed) and we're just posting alot (not true) and WE SHOULD REPORT THEM AND GET THEM BANNED. I gave him a piece of my mind in public. That goes for ND - and FB, and YT also.

For Immediate ReleaseTuesday, October 5, 2021Office of Press Relationspress@usaid.govToday, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching an ambitious new project that will work with partner countries and the global community to build better preparedness for future global health threats. Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens - Viral Zoonoses (DEEP VZN), a five-year, approximately $125 million project (pending availability of funds), will strengthen global capacity to detect and understand the risks of viral spillover from wildlife to humans that could cause another pandemic.The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how infectious diseases threaten all of society, up-ending people’s lives and...