Free Republic

I assumed that school boards were cowards if they didn’t have a publicly announced plan to physically defend their students. I was wrong. The issue is more involved. Many of those boards adopted an attitude of “Don’t ask and don’t tell.” There are unresolved issues we face as we protect our kids at school. Our school boards need our help to do the right thing.

A security guard was beaten to death by a mob of at least nine people outside a starry Hollywood nightclub which counts Tyga, Megan Thee Stallion and Wiz Khalifa as fans. The man in his 30s was beaten and stomped on by the assailants at around 2am Sunday while he was working at the popular Dragonfly club on Santa Monica Boulevard. Cops are still searching for the suspects. The victim, who has not been identified, is seen lying on the street in video captured from the scene, which showed first responders attempting life-saving measures which ultimately proved unsuccessful. Once the...

A Tennessee-based engineer is being investigated by the Pentagon for a “critical compromise” of communications across 17 Air Force facilities. The unnamed engineer, who hasn’t been formally charged, is alleged to have taken home more than $90,000 worth of government radio technologies and gained “unauthorized administrator access” to the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command (AETC). The security breach comes just three months after a junior Air National Guardsman allegedly leaked a massive number of classified documents online. Jack Teixeira, although relatively low-ranking, used his top-secret security clearance to post hundreds of Ukraine war documents on the Russians and...

A Mastodon server that focuses on left-leaning political activists, recently had an unencrypted copy of its database confiscated by the FBI.Source: Pixabay The recent news that a copy of Kolektiva.social’s database was confiscated by the FBI as the result of a raid at the home of one of the organization’s administrators, should serve as a cautionary tale for activists taking advantage of Mastodon’s federated nature to form online communities. Specifically, you should should do some research into the security in place at an activist-focused server, as well as the servers privacy policies.Actually, the same advice would hold even if you...

I am planning to install an around the house night vision camera system. Hardwired. My electrician can run the negligible additional wiring needed. I would like it to record to an on site recorder. I would like it to alert us when people arrive and allow us to look through phone or tablet. I would like to be able to move it to internet surveillance when we are off the property. Is this doable? I see systems prices all over the map. At what sort of cost Who could do it? An electrician? I have had big deal national alarm...

A group of Republican senators are probing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) over its partnership with Chinese biotech firm BGI, warning that the collaboration could give China a competitive edge while putting U.S. security in danger.The Chinese genomics giant, which has been blacklisted by both the Defense and Commerce Departments, has been working with the USDA since as early as 2018 on the Earth BioGenome Project, which aims to sequence the genomes of over 1.5 million species over a 10-year span to catalog the earth’s biodiversity.Following the partnership’s announcement, the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service awarded $1 million to BGI....

Liberal Suburbs Have Their Own Border WallThe New York City suburb of Scarsdale, located in Westchester County, New York, is one of the country’s wealthiest communities, and its residents are reliably liberal. In 2020, three-quarters of Scarsdale voters cast ballots for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. One can safely presume that few Scarsdale residents are ardent backers of Trump’s wall on the Mexican border. But many of them support a less visible kind of wall, erected by zoning regulations that ban multifamily housing and keep non-wealthy people, many of them people of color, out of their community....The huge inequalities between...

A group of cybersecurity researchers has uncovered what they believe is an intentional backdoor in encrypted radios used by police, military, and critical infrastructure entities around the world. The backdoor may have existed for decades, potentially exposing a wealth of sensitive information transmitted across them, according to the researchers. While the researchers frame their discovery as a backdoor, the organization responsible for maintaining the standard pushes back against that specific term, and says the standard was designed for export controls which determine the strength of encryption. The end result, however, are radios with traffic that can be decrypted using consumer...

Patient data at UT Southwestern Medical Center, including social security numbers for some, was stolen in a cyberattack on the Dallas hospital's software, officials announced Thursday. The hospital was notified on May 30 that two days earlier, on May 28, "an unknown individual exploited a previously unidentified vulnerability within the software," allowing them to access files stored on the hospital's MOVEit server. The hospital's privacy office confirmed that some protected health information was stolen as a result of the attack. The information included patient data that could have included name, medical record number, date of birth, name of medication, dosage...

Even though I started writing this column days ago, apparently Wednesday was National Situational Awareness Day. So much for my digital self-awareness. But the timing couldn’t be better: The US Concealed Carry Association (USCCA) dropped a hypothetical restaurant layout on their Facebook page a few days ago, asking their readers to pick their preferred seat and why. The idea may be overly simplistic, but anything that helps people literally open their eyes is probably worthy of a discussion. So, looking at the above floor plan, what seat would you pick and why? ( graphic of restaurant seating arraingement at blog...

The recent arrest of three Transportation Security Administration officers reveals critical safety vulnerabilities at America’s airports, experts told The Post. TSA officers Elizabeth Fuster, Labarrius Williams and Josue Gonzalez are facing felony charges of organized scheme to defraud following Thursday’s bust at Miami International Airport. Surveillance video from checkpoint E caught the trio conspiring to “distract passengers as they were being screened,” to steal cash from bags, according to arrest affidavits obtained by The Post. Fuster, 22, and Gonzalez, 20, confessed to “numerous thefts” from travelers, admitting to stealing an average of $1,000 daily while working together. Williams refused to...

(The Hill) – A Texas kayaking company has sued Gov. Greg Abbott (R) over his plan to install floating barriers in the middle of the Rio Grande River that would prevent people from being able to swim across it. Jessie Fuentes, owner of Epi’s Canoe & Kayak Team, filed a suit in Austin, Texas on Friday to stop the state from placing the buoys which he claimed would prevent him from giving tours on the river and cause his company “imminent and irreparable harm.” The buoy construction near Eagle Pass, Texas, has already forced Fuentes to cancel a number of...

"...there's no evidence that more video surveillance footage keeps communities safer."

A security guard for a CVS store in Manhattan is facing murder charges for allegedly stabbing a serial shoplifter to death on Thursday, according to police. The incident occurred just after midnight at the chain’s Times Square location on Broadway and 49th Street, NBC New York reported. The security guard, Scott Enoe, reportedly tried to stop the man from stealing from the store. The men then fought, and Enoe allegedly ended up stabbing the man, according to police.

Facebook founder and deranged liar Mark Zuckerberg loves to lecture ‘the little people’ about what is good for them.But that doesn’t get in the way of him living his best life.Zuckerberg has donated millions to anti-police organizations, including PolicyLink, the group behind DefundPolice.org, according to investigative reporter Lee Fang shared on his substack.While he may support defunding the police for the rest of us, that doesn’t stop him from lavish spending on his own private security, a cost in excess of $43.4 million over the last three years.

Government officials are investigating a mysterious company that has bought around 55,000 acres of dry farmland around a USAF base in California. Travis Air Force base, northeast of San Francisco, houses large transport aircraft used for refueling smaller planes and sending aid and munitions around the world. Starting in 2018, a company called Flannery Associates LLC has spent around $800million buying swathes of land around the base, leaving local, state and federal officials flummoxed as to who they are and what they want with it. An attorney representing Flannery told The Wall Street Journal the company is controlled by US...

When we first heard the story of a hazmat situation and the White House being evacuated on Sunday, we were told by the media that they’d found cocaine hydrochloride “near the White House.” Then it was described as being on the White House complex. That could be anywhere, including on the grounds. It was also described as “cocaine hydrochloride,” with suggestions it could be an anesthetic.Then came the report that it was in the White House library, which is on the ground floor of the executive mansion, according to the Washington Post.But now the Secret Service is contradicting that report...

This is a great analysis of the US's global security stategy. It is not that much about Ukraine and it is well worth understanding. Watch Summary: We are not this invincible collasus bestriding the world. The US is not investing at home where we need to: energy and high end manufacturing and agriculture. It is absurd to be thinking about another war with China 6000 miles away when we are bogged down in Ukraine Lengthy analysis of the history of Ukraine and how we and NATO got involved. Includes all the sins of Stahlin and so forth but then NATO...

Apressure campaign to get communist China energy executives to pay money. Classified memos improperly stored in an insecure garage, An FBI informant’s allegation of bribery in Ukraine. A false claim of Russian disinformation to sway an election. The swell of scandalous evidence engulfing Joe Biden’s family right now is raising a tantalizing question: if he weren’t president could he still get a security clearance if he applied for a job at the CIA or FBI? The answer, some experts say, is an unequivocal “no.” “I put it this way,” former CIA analyst and National Security Council chief of staff Fred...

"They're tapping into the American food structure and this country. And we should be looking at that as food security, people," National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd Jr. said on "Cavuto: Coast to Coast" Tuesday, "because they're tapping into American farms and tapping into the hog industry, all of these industries that China is quietly taking over here in the United States." Farmers have voiced their concerns for more than two years over Chinese-owned companies purchasing large swaths of rural farmland in states like Oklahoma, Minnesota, North Carolina and Virginia. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data from 2021 indicates...