Tag: police state

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Kazakhstan’s internet shutdown is the latest episode in an ominous trend: digital authoritarianism

While security forces in Kazakhstan cracked down on street protests, the country’s internet service went dark.
AP Photo/Vladimir Tretyakov

Margaret Hu, Penn State

The Kazakhstan government shut off the internet nationwide on Jan. 5, 2022, in response to widespread civil unrest in the country. The unrest started on Jan. 2, after the government lifted the price cap on liquid natural gas, which Kazakhs use to fuel their cars. The Kazakhstan town of Zhanaozen, an oil and gas hub, erupted with a protest against sharply rising fuel prices. Continue reading “Kazakhstan’s internet shutdown is the latest episode in an ominous trend: digital authoritarianism”

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The Right to Be Let Alone: What to Do When COVID Strike Force Teams Come Knocking

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.”—Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

A federal COVID-19 vaccination strike force may soon be knocking on your door, especially if you live in a community with low vaccination rates. Will you let them in?

More to the point, are you required to open the door?

The Biden Administration has announced that it plans to send federal “surge response teams” on a “targeted community door-to-door outreach“ to communities with low vaccination rates in order to promote the safety and accessibility of the COVID-19 vaccines. Continue reading “The Right to Be Let Alone: What to Do When COVID Strike Force Teams Come Knocking”

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The FBI’s Mafia-Style Justice: To Fight Crime, the FBI Sponsors 15 Crimes a Day

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
June 17, 2021

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”— Friedrich Nietzsche

Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government against the citizenry—purportedly to keep us safe and the nation secure—has come about as a result of some threat manufactured in one way or another by our own government.

Think about it.

Cyberwarfare. Terrorism. Bio-chemical attacks. The nuclear arms race. Surveillance. The drug wars. Domestic extremism. The COVID-19 pandemic.

Continue reading “The FBI’s Mafia-Style Justice: To Fight Crime, the FBI Sponsors 15 Crimes a Day”

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Drivers Beware: The Deadly Perils of Blank Check Traffic Stops

“The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official. The framers would be appalled.”—Herman Schwartz, The Nation Continue reading “Drivers Beware: The Deadly Perils of Blank Check Traffic Stops”

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Total Tyranny: We’ll All Be Targeted Under the Government’s New Precrime Program

It never fails.

Just as we get a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, there might be a chance of crawling out of this totalitarian cesspool in which we’ve been mired, we get kicked down again.

In the same week that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared that police cannot carry out warrantless home invasions in order to seize guns under the pretext of their “community caretaking” duties, the Biden Administration announced its plans for a “precrime” crime prevention agency.

Talk about taking one step forward and two steps back. Continue reading “Total Tyranny: We’ll All Be Targeted Under the Government’s New Precrime Program”

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Rule by Fiat: When the Government Does Whatever It Wants

By John Whitehead

Rule by brute force.

That’s about as good a description as you’ll find for the sorry state of our nation.

SWAT teams crashing through doors. Militarized police shooting unarmed citizens. Traffic cops tasering old men and pregnant women for not complying fast enough with an order. Resource officers shackling children for acting like children. Homeowners finding their homes under siege by police out to confiscate lawfully-owned guns. Drivers having their cash seized under the pretext that they might have done something wrong. Continue reading “Rule by Fiat: When the Government Does Whatever It Wants”