Free Republic

I saw a social media post and if you have a newer car, enter the VIN and see what the insurance company, manufacturer and government have on you. It's mind blowing. You just need you VIN. There are ways to opt out of all the snooping.

Privacy is essential to individual liberty.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has delivered a knockout punch to Google, securing a record-shattering $1.375 billion settlement for the Big Tech’s covert surveillance of everyday Americans. This staggering sum is nearly a billion dollars more than what 40 states combined were able to wring from Google for similar offenses — a testament to Paxton’s unrelenting crusade against Big Tech tyranny.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The criminal investigation into an allegedly illegal gun registry maintained by the City of Jacksonville continues to widen, with nine current and former city officials named in a new subpoena issued by the State Attorney’s Office. The State Attorney is seeking all emails and texts containing 15 keywords, including things like “constitutional carry” and “registry.” “Subpoenas are flying. This is clear confirmation that the State Attorney is in the middle of a criminal investigation,” Councilmember Nick Howland (R-Group 3 At-Large) said. Howland was the first to tell Action News Jax about the list of gun owners who...

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) on Wednesday proposed legislation to eliminate the intelligence community’s surveillance tools that “erode” Americans’ civil liberties.“For over two decades, rogue actors within our U.S. intelligence agencies have used the PATRIOT Act to create the most sophisticated, unaccountable surveillance apparatus in the Western world,” Luna said in a written statement to Breitbart News.Luna introduced the American Privacy Restoration Act, a bill that would repeal the USA PATRIOT Act, a sweeping September 11th, 2001 terrorist bill that drastically expanded government surveillance.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The City of Jacksonville may have created an illegal gun registry. That’s the claim of a prominent Republican city council member. Only Action News Jax spoke with Councilman Nick Howland (R-Group 3 At-Large), who broke down what he’s learned about the alleged list of gun owners who have entered at least two city buildings. It’s the same day Mayor Donna Deegan officially came into office. Action News Jax Logo WATCH (Opens in new window) Councilman claims the City of… Drag to Resize Video Local Councilman claims the City of Jacksonville may have created an illegal gun registry...

Health insurance giant Blue Shield of California is notifying millions of people of a data breach. The company confirmed on Wednesday that it had been sharing patients’ private health information with tech and advertising giant Google since 2021. The insurer said that the data sharing stopped in January 2024, but it only learned this February that the years-long collection contained patients’ personal and sensitive health information. Blue Shield said it used Google Analytics to track how its customers used its websites, but a misconfiguration had allowed for personal and health information to be collected as well, such as the search...

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...