Free Republic

A majority of Americans support restricting the freedoms of people who have not taken a coronavirus vaccine, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey released this week. According to the survey, taken March 8-9, 2021, among 1,005 respondents, 72 percent view it as at least somewhat important to know if the people around them have been vaccinated for COVID-19. The survey listed a series of scenarios for everyday activities — including traveling on an airplane, enrolling in school, working out at the gym — and asked respondents to indicate if they agree that individuals should be required to be vaccinated before engaging...

Michael Horowitz, the (Justice Department inspector general) who wrote the Dec. 9, 2019, Review of Four FISA Applications, recently reaffirmed his earlier statements that Trump fired two inspectors general “for doing their jobs” and called Trump’s presidency “a challenging time … particularly in the last year” during a Feb. 10 ( online discussion) hosted by Harvard Law School and moderated by Jack Goldsmith.[snip]Neither man acknowledged Trump’s early actions in shutting down travel from China on Jan. 31, 2020, nor did Horowitz exhibit any signs of disagreement with Goldsmith and Woodward, although he was clearly more careful with his wording.At one...

Recent court documents have indicated that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) possesses a tool allowing them to access encrypted messages on the Signal app. Signal has rapidly gained in popularity as Silicon Valley monopolists have grown more openly hostile to free speech, but the platform may be vulnerable to backdoors that undermine the privacy protections provided through the encrypted messaging service. According to documents filed by the Department of Justice and first obtained by Forbes, Signal’s encrypted messages can be intercepted from iPhone devices when those Apple devices are in a mode called “partial AFU,” which means “after first...

Times Opinion was able to identify individuals from a trove of leaked smartphone location data. In 2019, a source came to us with a digital file containing the precise locations of more than 12 million individual smartphones for several months in 2016 and 2017. The data is supposed to be anonymous, but it isn’t. We found celebrities, Pentagon officials and average Americans. It became clear that this data — collected by smartphone apps and then fed into a dizzyingly complex digital advertising ecosystem — was a liability to national security, to free assembly and to citizens living mundane lives. It...

The 4th Amendment right against warrantless searches of a person’s home is a pillar of Americans’ constitutional liberties. Before a police officer, or any other government official, can enter your home, they must show a judge that they have probable cause that they will discover specific evidence of a crime. There are some limited exceptions to this right. There is an “exigent circumstances” exception. If a police officer looks through a home’s window and sees a person about to stab another person, the officer can burst through the door to prevent the attack. There is also the “emergency aid” exception....

Fox News host Tucker Carlson Thursday night revealed Bank of America searched through customer data and provided the data to the feds after the Capitol riot. Bank of America gave data and information to the feds at the request of the US government, without the knowledge or consent of the customers. One innocent Bank of America customer was actually interrogated by the feds and ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. How is this even legal? Bank of America scanned through customer records to flag the following: Were they in DC between January 5 and January 6 Purchased a hotel stay or...

Facebook is giving the FBI data on users who took part in the Capitol Hill riot, including their private messages, as many of the events that took place on January 6 appear to have been organized on the social media platform. A criminal complaint filed on Wednesday against New York resident Christopher M. Kelly reveals that a search warrant was issued on his Facebook account, according to a report by Forbes.

The USPS uses a program called Mail Imaging, which takes a photograph of the outside of every piece of mail sent in the U.S. While the primary purpose of taking the pictures is to process the mail, law enforcement agencies are able to request images of mail sent and received by a target they are investigating.

Once she joins the court, she’ll provide a crucial vote in a Supreme Court term that will cover everything from voting rights and healthcare to immigration and LGBTQ discrimination. Here are the biggest cases coming up after Barrett’s likely confirmation: 2020 Election: (mail-in voting deadlines in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina; dozens of voting rights lawsuits are still playing out in lower courts, and any post-election disputes that arise) Voting Rights: (ballot harvesting) LGBTQ/Religious Discrimination: (religious exemption) Health Care: (whether the Affordable Care Act should be struck down). U.S. Census (excluding illegals from Congressional apportionment Mueller Report Materials: (whether House...

Democrat-dominated Santa Clara County, California, used spies to infiltrate North Valley Baptist Church and fined the church $10,000 when they caught worshipers singing during indoor religious services. .... the church was fined $5,000 for holding a religious service on Sunday morning and another $5,000 when the spies caught the Christians praying again on Sunday evening. Various left-wing protests have taken place in the county. And while it's not clear if the county sent spies in to also "monitor" the lefties (highly doubtful), angry protesters have sung, chanted, shouted, and spittled as they express their hatred for the police and contempt...

A Florida appeals court ruled Wednesday that police violated the rights of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and others when they secretly video recorded them paying for massage parlor sex acts, barring the tapes’ use at trial and dealing a potentially deadly blow to their prosecution. The state 4th District Court of Appeal ruled Kraft's rights were violated under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. “The type of law enforcement surveillance utilized in these cases is extreme. While there will be situations which may warrant the use of the techniques at issue,...

The New York State Supreme Court last week granted a motion ordering the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to turn over the name, zip codes and license category of anyone who was granted a firearm license in 2018. The New York Daily News made the request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request process, which provides public information from government agencies to citizens and journalists. ... The Daily News argues that the information can be turned over because of a state law – known as the SAFE Act – that declared "that names and addresses of all firearms...

It's been less than two weeks since Miami-Dade County announced it would be fining people for not wearing masks in public. Already, Florida media outlets are filled with stories of people cited for wearing masks improperly, lowering masks to sip a drink, or removing their face coverings once outside of a store. On Thursday, the Miami Herald reported that the Miami-Dade Police Department has issued 162 citations for violating the county's mandatory mask ordinance, which comes with a $100 penalty. One woman, Johanna Gianni, says she removed her mask in the parking lot of a Publix grocery store in North...

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Michigan state police are “monitoring all of the conversations” of protesters planning to descend on the capitol Thursday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told reporters. “I don’t know the group, I’ve not vetted the data, I can’t vouch for it,” she admitted. Whitmer was then asked if she “wants to see” the Michigan State Police ticket protesters who are violating social distancing orders. “I think the Michigan State Police is monitoring all of the conversations around this event tomorrow – that they are prepared and are working with the attorney general,” she said. She said they are prepared to ticket protesters “if...

Thank you for contacting me about reforming the National Security Agency's mass surveillance program. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue. As you may know, I have been fighting against overly broad domestic surveillance for well over a decade, and I remain deeply concerned about protecting Americans' Fourth Amendment privacy rights from unnecessary government surveillance. Currently, a controversial law referred to as Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act permits the National Security Agency (NSA) to engage in a mass surveillance program targeting Americans and their data. The Section 215 law is set to expire in March 2020,...

(warning upset West Hollywood, California home owner that is not happy about street bums living on his property uses a little profanity) Look at the homeless epidemic in Los Angeles due to failed liberal policies, high taxes, and high crime. Police are now demanding citizens allow homeless people to camp on their private property, threatening this man with arrest if he moves them. https://twitter.com/MichaelCoudrey/status/1233928266764828672 

From beginning to end, Robert Mueller and his squad used Roger Stone as an object lesson to frighten anyone who had high-level contact with the Trump campaign in the lead-up to and immediately after the election. Stone is not a savory character, but the treatment meted out to Stone, now 67, had a revolting aura of police state hanging about it from the start. Now, it turns out that this un-American police state set up a kangaroo trial to shuttle Stone into prison. The Mueller mob started its press against Stone in January 2019, when Stone, who ought to have...

Last week, the Herald Publication in Mascoutah, Illinois revealed that the City of Fairview Heights entered into an agreement with the IDOT to install automatic license plate readers (ALPR) on highway trusses to allegedly “prevent, deter and solve crimes.” Which is typical government doublespeak to explain away Big Brother tracking innocent motorists. Taken at face value, Fairview Heights reasons for tracking everyone is nothing new, they use the same cookie-cutter excuses that law enforcement across the country have been using. But what really caught my eye was the “other resolution approved by the council.” The other resolution calls for the...

Are you confident that police will not break down your door tonight? If so, it's probably because you assume the warrant required for such an armed invasion of your home has to be based on reliable evidence of criminal activity. But that is not true in Houston, as a federal indictment unsealed last week shows. According to the indictment, a drug raid that killed a middle-aged couple on Jan. 28 was based on lies from start to finish, which should alarm anyone who thinks the Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable searches. The indictment says the no-knock raid at 7815...