Free Republic

Ok, sorry it has a paywall---this is only my review of it. Everyone needs to read this powerful book. It's DENSE, and took me about 4 hours to read, but the insight into how the big social tech companies are stealing our lives is important. Previously in my substacks I had written part 1, covering the first 1/3 of the book. This covers the last 2/3.

Legislation Reversing $600 Threshold for Reporting Payments to IRS Filed by U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty April 11, 2025 Tom Pappert Bill Hagerty U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) filed legislation on Thursday to reverse the decision to require third-party payment processors to report transfers more than $600 to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Hagerty called the three-year-old policy an “egregious and unwarranted overreach” into citizens’ privacy. Hagerty introduced the Stop the Nosy Obsession with Online Payments (SNOOP) Act, which his office said would remove the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code created by former President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP),...

Apple and Facebook reportedly provided sensitive customer information to hackers who faked being law enforcement officials in 2021. Facebook parent company Meta and Apple gave the hackers basic customer details — such as phone numbers, home addresses, and IP addresses — in response to forged "emergency data requests," Bloomberg reported. Typically, such data requests can only be granted through search warrants or subpoenas provided by a judge, but emergency requests don't require a full-court order. The hackers who duped the companies are affiliated with cybercrime groups known as “Recursion Team,” who have a history of using fake legal requests to...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed three gun control bills on Thursday. The bills ban certain gun mods, make gun shops post clearer warnings, and change how gun sales are tracked. “New Yorkers are sick of weapons manufacturers ignoring their role in the gun violence epidemic,” said Democratic Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, who sponsored the bill in the Assembly. “Glock has known that its pistols can be easily and cheaply converted into illegal fully-automatic machine guns. It’s time to put people over profit.” S745/A439 changes how credit cards categorize gun vendors, requiring the companies to use new merchant codes for...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed new controls into law last week, including one that allows credit cards to track ammunition purchases. She described the ammunition control as one that “[refines] how credit card companies track purchases at gun dealerships.” Hochul noted, “This gives law enforcement the opportunity to find out exactly who may be stockpiling ammunition. And this is an indicator that something untoward could be happening, so it’s an important data point for us to have.”

Tucker Carlson caused a stir in a recent interview that may cause some Americans to do a double take on the vehicles they are driving. During an interview with automotive designer and internet personality Casey Putsch last week, Tucker mentioned that he is a lifelong fan of Chevrolet trucks but felt he had to “immediately” sell his latest one after spotting a disturbing message on the car’s dashboard. “I bought a truck last year…A Chevy truck, which I’ve always had, and I was at a gas station, he said. “And all of a sudden at a gas station, it says,...

In the early republic, the right to keep and bear arms consisted of the right to own arms without a government registration of arms. No registration of arms was known in law until the late 19th century. Much of the conflict over the right to keep and bear arms has become a conflict over privacy. The most successful playbook in eliminating the right to own weapons in functioning democracies has been to create the power of governments to know what people have what weapons. The strategy has been this:Claim governments can control crime by controlling who has access to weapons.Claim...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is implementing a data privacy policy that allows people with private jets to hide travel information from the public. “Starting today, they can submit a request through the Civil Aviation Registry Electronic Services (CARES) to withhold this information from public display on all FAA websites.” In its statement, the FAA said the data protection decision was taken based on a privacy provision included in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. The provision allows aircraft owners to request that certain personally identifiable information not be made publicly available via FAA websites. “The FAA will publish a...

The encrypted-messaging service Signal is the application of choice for dissenters around the world. The app has been downloaded by more than 100 million users and boasts high-profile endorsements from NSA leaker Edward Snowden and serial entrepreneur Elon Musk. Signal has created the perception that its users, including political dissidents, can communicate with one another without fear of government interception or persecution. But the insider history of Signal raises questions about the app’s origins and its relationship with government—in particular, with the American intelligence apparatus. Such a relationship would be troubling, given how much we have learned, in recent years,...

Looking for Patterns in Chaos Tilla Bradley, March 16, 2010 The government is constantly looking for ways to identify threats to national security before American citizens are threatened. Since the 1980s, the intelligence community has struggled with the challenges of monitoring electronic communication while protecting the privacy of its citizens. Journalist Shane Harris, the author of The Watcher: The Rise of the U.S. Surveillance State addresses these challenges and the solutions that the government is attempting to develop in his latest book. Also on the panel to comment on the book were former journalist, and analyst with the Cato Institute...

During the first two months of Trump's second term, I have noticed that the sheer volume of protests has far exceeded what took place in DC during the first months of his first term. I noticed something else, too: the crowds are far older than any time in the past. What does this tell me? Well, for one it says that young people are not the ones taking to the streets of our nation's capital anymore. Trump gained significant ground on the younger demographic in the most recent election. While MAGA was considered to be a fringe political movement populated...

The Treasury Department announced March 2 that it will no longer enforce the Corporate Transparency Act or the associated Beneficial Ownership Information reporting requirements. Furthermore, the agency announced that, “Not only will it not enforce any penalties or fines associated with the beneficial ownership information reporting rule under the existing regulatory deadlines, but it will further not enforce any penalties or fines against U.S. citizens or domestic reporting companies or their beneficial owners after the forthcoming rule changes take effect either.” The Treasury Department said it will further be issuing a proposed rule that will narrow the scope of the...

As noted a few months ago, Mozilla -- maker of the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client -- is facing an 80% revenue drop due to investigations into its “revenue-sharing” deals with Google. That revenue drop is apparently prompting Mozilla's all-out search for alternate revenue streams. Mozilla's changes last week to the Firefox browser's privacy notice and usage terms indicate that users' privacy may be sold out. Specifically, Mozilla's new use terms provide: “When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and...

Two dozen cameras capable of reading license plates may soon be in operation at locations selected by the police department across the City of Niagara Falls. City council members have been asked by Mayor Robert Restaino’s administration to consider approval of a $300,100 grant-funded contract with SHI International Corp., a New Jersey company that offers surveillance equipment to municipalities in partnership with another firm, Flock Safety. The proposed agreement is on the agenda for consideration by city lawmakers during today’s council meeting. Under the proposed contract, the city would pay SHI International Corp. $12,100 to install 24 new, outdoor, solar-powered...

Nearly 3.7 million consumers who bought the software from Avast between August 2014 and January 2020 can expect emails to arrive in their inboxes this week or next notifying them of their eligibility to apply for compensation, the FTC stated.According to regulators, Avast for years collected information on customers through its antivirus software and browser extensions including data on:religious beliefshealth concernspolitical leaningslocationsfinancial status

Meanwhile not a single student can read at grade level in 30 Illinois schools. Democrats are trying to screw over families whose parents are pulling their kids out of the government’s failed schools.

Allstate Insurance and its subsidiary Arity are being sued for col­lect­ing, using, and sell­ing over 45 mil­lion Amer­i­cans' dri­ving data to insur­ance companies without consent, according to Malwarebytes. This case comes amid a tumultuous year for insurance companies, mainly on the home insurance front, as many have recently come under fire for dropping coverage ahead of major weather disasters.

Attorneys general in over a dozen states are threatening to sue the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, citing privacy concerns. The 14 attorneys general include California Attorney General Rob Bonta, as well as those representing Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Vermont. They begin their joint statement pointing to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, writing that it has “given Elon Musk access to Americans’ personal private information, state bank account data, and other information that is some of our country’s most...

🚨 Rep Harriet Hageman: The IRS is ILLEGALLY surveilling Americans“We have learned is that the IRS, in fact has been using AI to access bank accounts of American citizens without any kind of a search warrant or even without any specific claim that they have committed a crime”… “An undercover journalist. — what they found is that the IRS has claimed that they have access to every single person's bank account.” “This person also indicated that they've been working with the Department of Justice, and that they have absolutely no problem whatsoever going after the little guy to make sure...

…. Where We Store Your InformationThe personal information we collect from you may be stored on a server located outside of the country where you live. We store the information we collect in secure servers located in the People's Republic of China .Where we transfer any personal information out of the country where you live, including for one or more of the purposes as set out in this Policy, we will do so in accordance with the requirements of applicable data protection laws. Information relating to children under 18Our Services are not aimed at children under the age of 18....