Free Republic

EU Europe is increasingly abandoning a civilized approach to dissenting opinions. The raid on the Paris offices of Elon Musk’s company X appears to be just the tip of the iceberg. Today, those who resist are being attacked on multiple levels, while those who submit are largely spared. It is time to increase pressure on Brussels. Elon Musk’s communications platform X has become caught between systemic fronts. On one side stands the American understanding of free speech, which has experienced a political revival under Donald Trump’s new presidency. On the other, an increasingly repressive EU control regime is eroding the...

More than two dozen privacy and advocacy organizations are calling on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to remove a network of covert license plate readers deployed across Southern California that the groups believe feed data into a controversial U.S. Border Patrol predictive domestic intelligence program that scans the country’s roadways for suspicious travel patterns.“We ask that your administration investigate and release the relevant permits, revoke them, and initiate the removal of these devices,” read the letter sent Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Imperial Valley Equity and Justice and other nonprofits. An Associated Press investigation published in November revealed that the...

Discord has announced a major change coming to the service as part of its aim to improve teen safety features. Starting in March, all users globally will be required to submit age verification via a face scan or submitted ID, or be given teen-level access restrictions. Age verification across apps and social platforms has been an increased focus of legislative bodies around the world in the last couple years. In response, Discord has announced a major initiative to ensure that only adults see adult-designated content, while teens are restricted to age-appropriate access. To do this, Discord says all users worldwide...

This piece is premised on the book American Stasi, available free at AmericanStasi.com, and at all major booksellers. The book attempts to show that the nations of the West have all deployed East German Stasi-like ground surveillance in their communities, to monitor all the citizens, and make sure none can ever rise high enough in government to see the rampant fraud and abuse. The surveillance is most notable through its vehicular units, which follow established procedures, and which you can even see on Google Streetview, as they perform surveillance on the Google car as it moves through communities. Here we...

Oct 2, 2024 Which company is the premiere surveillance Big tech company that really seeks to know you well for their AI? The answer to this question will often be tainted by the marketing moves of these companies and guaranteed that for the normie, the answer will be wrong. The reason is that people don't understand the motives of each of these companies? Why do they need to know each of us so well? What's in it for them? If you really understand this, you will be surprised at the answer.

The UK government has pledged to introduce a digital ID system for all UK citizens and legal residents by the end of the current Parliament (so no later than 2029). The integration of digital ID into government services, though already under way, has hitherto been largely voluntary. However, it is becoming steadily less optional, as the government has said it will now be required as a precondition for work in the UK, and a version of it (GOV.UK One Login) is already being imposed unilaterally upon company directors throughout the UK. Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones has...

They’re tracking what you do, who you talk to, and where you go. Your every move is being scored—and once the system locks in, there’s no way out. Palantir’s CEO said the quiet part out loud—and no one blinked. He claims his software “single-handedly” stopped the rise of the “far right” in Europe. Read that again. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s called algorithmic electioneering—where unelected tech elites shape political outcomes with code, not votes. Now add shadowbans, blacklists, real-time emotional profiling, AI-driven behavior scoring…. And ask yourself: are you still the one making the decisions? This isn’t just about...

Why is my doctor worried about my mortgage payments? So I found myself wondering as I filled out a questionnaire before a recent primary-care visit. Along with the usual prompts about my health, I encountered a series of questions related to my financial situation. The form asked whether in the last 12 months I was unable to pay my mortgage or rent on time, and if I was “worried that my food would run out before I got the money to buy more.” These questions weren’t an attempt to gauge whether I would pay my medical bill; they were part...

LG Electronics’ Australian operation has declined to disclose the extent of the downturn in its local television business, following comments from its South Korean parent at CES that weak consumer demand — particularly for TVs — was a major factor behind an expected quarterly loss. The company is reportedly set to post a loss of approximately A$169 million for the most recent quarter, traditionally one of the strongest periods for consumer electronics manufacturers. LG has been steadily losing ground to arch rival Samsung in the OLED TV segment and continues to struggle to remain competitive in the LED market. While...

A viral post highlighting biometric surveillance at a Wegmans grocery store in New York City is sparking renewed privacy concerns. "Biometric identifier information collected at this location," a sign attached to the door of a Wegmans reads. "Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. collects, retains, converts, stores or shares customers' biometric identifier information, which may include" facial recognition, eye scans and voiceprints, the sign states. Wegmans confirmed it is collecting the biometric readings, telling Fox News Digital in a statement the "safety of our customers and employees is a top priority." The company went on, "Like many retailers, we use cameras to...

Gary D. Barnett warns that humanity is being taken over through digitisation, digital ID, algorithmic confinement and technocratic incarceration, which will lead to the end of freedom and property. The transformation of mankind involves the intentional fusing of human and machine through neuroscientific nanoscale brain-computer interfacing, with methods including “vaccines,” geoengineering, mRNA platforms and precision medicine. The only solution to stop this technological transhuman invasion, he writes, is through education, exposure and mass non-compliance. (snip) I do not know how many more times I will have to bring up the subject of the AI takeover; digitisation, digital ID, algorithmic confinement...

The Texas attorney general says television companies have become unwelcome visitors in consumers' homes. Ken Paxton announced five separate lawsuits, including two against Chinese companies, alleging that the television companies are secretly spying on Texans by recording what they watch at home. The Texas AG said in a press release that the method through which the companies were conducting their spying is called Automated Content Recognition technology. Labeling it an "uninvited" and "invisible" digital invader, Paxton said that the software is capable of capturing screenshots of a user's TV display every 500 milliseconds. Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL each...

As the Euro-Globalist failing leaders try to whip their countries into an anti-Russia Frenzy, Germany is trying to come out of this process as the country with the largest military and – it appears – the meanest intelligence services. (snip) “Spies will also be allowed to install spyware on computers belonging to enemy suspects and secretly enter their homes. When operating overseas, spies will be allowed to install tracking devices on enemy technology or weaponry – or destroy it altogether.”

Republicans on Capitol Hill who have championed the tech industry’s race to dominate artificial intelligence are confronting a growing political obstacle: voters angry over the soaring energy demands and utility costs tied to the data centers. The politics of data centers are still very much in flux, but GOP politicians may be particularly vulnerable to a voter backlash because of their pro-development views and President Donald Trump’s all-in support for AI — including blocking states from setting their own rules. Some are starting to seek distance from the White House. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis floated new limits on data...

Over a decade ago, Google showed off a pair of smart spectacles called Google Glass, sparking a major ethical debate over wearables being used to covertly film people without their permission. At the time, the outrage was enshrined by the derogatory neologism “glasshole,” meaning a Google Glass wearer who was accused of having little regard for the privacy of those around them. A seeming eternity later, Meta has attempted to revive the idea with its Ray-Ban Meta glasses. While it’s arguably a significant technological leap over Google’s early forays, the debate has seemingly remained the same. Case in point, as...

‘We are building these things so damn fast that by the time they are online and activated, the problems are already built in.’Since returning to office, President Trump has made the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) a key focal point of his second administration. Just last week, the president signed an executive order launching the “Genesis Mission,” a new “national effort” that seeks to utilize AI to “transform how scientific research is conducted and accelerate the speed of scientific discovery.”“With the Genesis Mission, the Trump Administration intends to dramatically expand the productivity and impact of Federal research and development within...

What’s Actually Happening Most of you already know what’s going on, but just in case you don’t: under the current rules, a government agency has to perform a security audit on DJI. If they don’t complete one by December 23rd, DJI automatically gets placed on the FCC’s Covered List. The truth is, no agency wants to be the one to step forward and take on that responsibility. There’s no incentive. There’s actually political risk. There’s liability. So the most likely scenario is that no audit is going to happen and DJI gets listed by default. It’s an underhanded way to...

OpenAI must produce millions of anonymized chat logs from ChatGPT users in its high-stakes copyright dispute with the New York Times (NYT.N), and other news outlets, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled. U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang in a decision made public on Wednesday said, that the 20 million logs were relevant to the outlets' claims and that handing them over would not risk violating users' privacy. The judge rejected OpenAI's privacy-related objections to an earlier order requiring the artificial intelligence startup to submit the records as evidence. "There are multiple layers of protection in this case precisely because of...

Hours before the sun rose on Dallas police Chief Daniel Comeaux’s first day on the job, an elderly man in a wheelchair was shot dead near Fair Park. Two days later, the new chief stood among a cluster of officers outside the suspected gunman’s home in west Oak Cliff. He was impressed by one tool the investigators had used to arrive there: the network of license plate-reading cameras scattered across the city. “I was like, ‘Alright,’” Comeaux recalled saying, referencing the April case months later in an episode of Bridging the Divide, the Assist the Officer Foundation’s podcast, “‘explain this...

The EU is working at full speed to complete its online surveillance-and-informant network. By the end of the year, all EU member states are required to present so-called “Trusted Flaggers” -- institutions tasked with identifying “problematic” content -- to Brussels for accreditation. Politicians from Germany’s Christian Democratic Union appear especially eager. Hendrik Wüst, CDU politician and Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia, is a child of the current zeitgeist. As the leader of Germany’s most populous state, he views it as his mission not merely to preach the dominant ideology of the CO2-neutral society, but to enforce it rigorously. Together with...