Tag: police surveillance

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We the Exploited: The U.S. Government Buys and Sells Its Citizens for Profit and Power

By John & Nisha Whitehead
November 15, 2023

Americans have become easy prey for hackers, scammers, snitches, spies, and con artists.

But don’t be fooled into thinking the government is protecting you.

To the contrary, the U.S. government is selling us (or rather, our data) to the highest bidders.

By the way, those highest bidders also include America’s political class and the politicians aspiring to get elected or re-elected. As the Los Angeles Times reports, “If you have been to a political rally, a town hall, or just fit a demographic a campaign is after, chances are good your movements are being tracked with unnerving accuracy by data vendors on the payroll of campaigns.”

Your phones, televisions and digital devices are selling you out to politicians who want your vote.

Continue reading “We the Exploited: The U.S. Government Buys and Sells Its Citizens for Profit and Power”

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We the Targeted: How the Government Weaponizes Surveillance to Silence Its Critics

By John & Nisha Whitehead

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” — President Harry S. Truman

Ever since Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his groundbreaking “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963, the Deep State has been hard at work turning King’s dream into a living nightmare.

The end result of the government’s efforts over the past 60 years is a country where nothing ever really changes, and everyone lives in fear.

Race wars are still being stoked by both the Right and the Left; the military-industrial complex is still waging profit-driven wars at taxpayer expense; the oligarchy is still calling the shots in the seats of government power; and the government is still weaponizing surveillance in order to muzzle anti-government sentiment, harass activists, and terrorize Americans into compliance.

This last point is particularly disturbing. Continue reading “We the Targeted: How the Government Weaponizes Surveillance to Silence Its Critics”

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Whether You Live in a Small Town or a Big City, the Government Is Still Out to Get You

By John & Nisha Whitehead

“I can’t remember what all Frank had fighting in the jar that day, but I can remember other bug fights we staged later on: one stag beetle against a hundred red ants, one centipede against three spiders, red ants against black ants. They won’t fight unless you keep shaking the jar. And that’s what Frank was doing, shaking, shaking the jar.”— Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

There’s a meme that circulated on social media a while back that perfectly sums up the polarized, manipulated mayhem, madness and tyranny that is life in the American police state today: Continue reading “Whether You Live in a Small Town or a Big City, the Government Is Still Out to Get You”

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Mental Health Round-Ups: The Next Phase of the Government’s War on Thought Crimes

“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is a dangerous activity.”—Hannah Arendt

Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes: mental health round-ups and involuntary detentions.

Under the guise of public health and safety, the government could use mental health care as a pretext for targeting and locking up dissidents, activists and anyone unfortunate enough to be placed on a government watch list.

If we don’t nip this in the bud, and soon, this will become yet another pretext by which government officials can violate the First and Fourth Amendments at will. Continue reading “Mental Health Round-Ups: The Next Phase of the Government’s War on Thought Crimes”

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Targeted for Tyranny: We’re All Suspects Under the Government’s Precrime Program

“There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America.”― James Bamford, journalist

We’re all being targeted now.

We’re all guilty until proven innocent now.

And thanks to the 24/7 surveillance being carried out by the government’s spy network of fusion centers, we are all now sitting ducks, just waiting to be tagged, flagged, targeted, monitored, manipulated, investigated, interrogated, heckled and generally harassed by agents of the American police state.

Although these precrime programs are popping up all across the country, in small towns and big cities, they are not making us any safer but they are endangering individual freedoms. Continue reading “Targeted for Tyranny: We’re All Suspects Under the Government’s Precrime Program”

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Geofence Surveillance: First, They Spied on Protesters. Then Churches. You’re Next

By John & Nisha Whitehead

“I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”—Senator Frank Church on Meet The Press, 1975

If you give the government an inch, it will always take a mile.

This is how the slippery slope to all-out persecution starts.

Martin Niemöller’s warning about the widening net that ensnares us all, a warning issued in response to the threat posed by Nazi Germany’s fascist regime, still applies.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Continue reading “Geofence Surveillance: First, They Spied on Protesters. Then Churches. You’re Next”

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Yes, Jesus Would Have Been Branded a Domestic Extremist Today

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.”—Howard Thurman, theologian and civil rights activist

The Christmas story of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one. Continue reading “Yes, Jesus Would Have Been Branded a Domestic Extremist Today”

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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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After a Year Under Lockdown, Will Our Freedoms Survive the Tyranny of COVID-19?

“Americans deserve the freedom to choose a life without surveillance and the government regulation that would make that possible. While we continue to believe the sentiment, we fear it may soon be obsolete or irrelevant. We deserve that freedom, but the window to achieve it narrows a little more each day. If we don’t act now, with great urgency, it may very well close for good.”—Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson, New York Times

Databit by databit, we are building our own electronic concentration camps. Continue reading “After a Year Under Lockdown, Will Our Freedoms Survive the Tyranny of COVID-19?”

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Rutherford Institute Calls for Greater Protections for the Citizenry in the Face of Unwarranted, Citywide Aerial Surveillance by the Police

February 04, 2021

BALTIMORE, Md. — Citing the need to rein in the surveillance state, The Rutherford Institute is calling on the Maryland General Assembly to broadly forbid the police from carrying out persistent, citywide aerial surveillance on the citizenry except in specific, constitutionally prescribed circumstances. Weighing in on House Bill 159, which attempts to address aerial surveillance, Institute attorneys point out that, as currently drafted, the legislation falls short by leaving government entities free to conduct citywide aerial surveillance so long as it is not part of a criminal investigation. Law enforcement agencies already possess an invasive arsenal of integrated surveillance tools, including license plate readers, high-definition cameras, and facial recognition software, which they employ ad hoc to invade the citizenry’s privacy and erode their fundamental right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Continue reading “Rutherford Institute Calls for Greater Protections for the Citizenry in the Face of Unwarranted, Citywide Aerial Surveillance by the Police”