15 nations have made their position on the WHO sovereignty grab public before the WHA meeting commences
How many other countries are entirely fed up with the World Stealth Organization’s misleading spin about “equity”?
BY MERYL NASS | MAY 12, 2024
The negotiations have been controlled by globalists, not nations, from day one.
Eleven nations informed the UN General Assembly they were not going along with the UN’s support for the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Agenda last September. In alphabetical order:
- Belarus
- Bolivia
- Cuba
- Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
- Eritrea
- Islamic Republic of Iran
- Nicaragua
- Russian Federation
- Syrian Arab Republic
- Venezuela
- Zimbabwe
The Netherlands’ government has been instructed to delay the WHO votes or vote No by the lower house of Parliament.
Slovakia said it will not sign current drafts of both documents.
Croatia’s new majority party is against the WHO’s pandemic preparedness plan
Italy’s Senator Borghi said Italy will vote No on the treaty and furthermore that there are 10 more months in which to reject the IHR Amendments.
It is very unusual to have this level of disagreement made public even before the start of the World Health Assembly meeting. And with “hybrid negotiations” aka backroom horse-trading, leading right up to the meeting, nobody will have time to consider the treaties before they are due to be voted on. It has been a corrupt process from start to finish. It could only succeed with stealth (no one knowing what is really in the treaties) and bribes.
Now that the US has announced that 100 countries are being paid off to develop their pandemic preparedness agenda, will the bribes be enough to get these treaties across the finish line? Will the unbribed be miffed? How much will it cost the US taxpayer for the world’s nations to agree to dictatorial control of pandemics and health information going forward?
How hawks in US are trying to demonize students protesting Israeli genocide
By Mohsen Badakhsh | Press TV | May 12, 2024
The US government has resorted to brutal measures not only to suppress the growing student movement in colleges across the country against the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza but also to demonize it by labeling protesters as “criminals” and “terrorists.”
Such oppressive measures – by a country that routinely uses its propaganda machinery to project itself as the “leader of the free world” – evoke familiarity as Washington has always falsely accused countries, organizations and individuals critical of its hegemonic policies of such measures.
In the past week, many American lawmakers across the political spectrum have labeled these protesting students and professors at America’s most prominent universities as Iran-backed “terrorists”, “pro-Hamas fanatics” and “criminals,” while referring to the traditional Palestinian keffiyehs as “terrorist headdress” and the protest encampments on college campuses as “little Gazas.”
Such racist and derogatory language against Palestinians as well as American critics of Washington’s military and economic support for the Israeli apartheid regime and the ongoing Gaza genocide was employed by members of the US Congress at the behest of the powerful pro-Israel lobby.
Take note of the following remarks by Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas made last week while introducing legislation to cut off federal funding of universities that have not done enough to suppress student protests against the persisting US-Israeli genocide in Gaza.
“We’re here to discuss ‘little Gazas’ that have risen upon campuses across America and liberal college administrators and politicians who refuse to restore law and order and protect other students. These ‘little Gazas’ are disgusting cesspools of anti-Semitic hate — full of pro-Hamas sympathizers, fanatics and freaks,” Cotton stated.
“The terrorist sympathizers in these ‘little Gazas’ aren’t peacefully protesting Israel’s conduct of the war. They’re violently and illegally demanding death for Israel, just like their ideological twins: the ayatollahs in Iran,” he hastened to add, trying to connect the pro-Palestine campus movement to Iran.
Such remarks point to Washington’s long-held strategy of linking Iran, a country that has dared to challenge the Western hegemony, to any meaningful criticism of its Israeli ally while falsely depicting the Islamic Republic and resistance groups as instigators of terrorism and human rights violations.
This is while top American officials have admitted to establishing, enabling and funding the world’s most notorious terrorist groups – such as Daesh (ISIS) – to wage wars of terror and destabilize countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Washington has also earned notoriety for waging military coups to topple popular governments and install ruthless dictators to push their interests in different regions, including Iran, all in the name of “democracy” and “rule of law.”
Joining the hawkish Arkansas senator in sponsoring the so-called ‘Bailouts for Campus Criminals Act’ were 18 other Republican senators that likened peaceful student protesters to “terrorists” and “criminals” just for taking a stand against US support for the Israeli regime’s genocidal war on Gaza.
“Hamas sympathizers engaging in criminal behavior on college campuses should be ineligible for student loan bailouts,” said Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee who co-sponsored the bill.
“We must hold these criminals accountable and ensure taxpayer dollars do not go toward paying off their debt,” she added, while having no word on billions of dollars worth of weapons sent to Tel Aviv by US President Joe Biden that are used to slaughter Palestinian children and women.
Meanwhile, Republican Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Rick Scott of Florida, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, and others also demanded a freeze on federal funding for US universities that have not done enough to condemn and punish student protesters.
The move also signifies that major US higher education institutions rely heavily on federal funding and are expected to abide by Washington’s policies, including its support for genocidal war crimes in Gaza.
Unfazed by the hostile and repressive crackdown on student protests at major American universities, teenage high school students in numerous US cities have started their own protest rallies against Washington’s ironclad support for persisting Israeli war crimes across occupied Palestine.
The emergence of the new protest movement led by the younger American student community in major US states such as New York, California, Illinois, Texas, Oregan, Maryland and Washington clearly points to the futility of harsher measures taken by US officials aimed at deterring and punishing any opposition to its oppressive policies – nationally as well as through foreign interference.
The development has raised new fears among US politicians and analysts about likely repercussions in the presidential and congressional elections next November for both political parties amid concerns about a potential upheaval and violence in the rematch presidential race between the 82-year-old Biden and the 80-year-old former president Donald Trump.
Moreover, a dozen American senators have also issued strongly-worded warning to the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan against the UN court’s possible handing of arrest warrants against the Israeli regime officials over their persisting genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
“Target Israel and we will target you,” vowed pro-Trump Republican senators that included Tom Cotton, Mitch McConnell, Rick Scott, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio.
The move came amid speculation that the court may issue arrest warrants against top Israeli officials over the genocidal war in Gaza that has so far killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Also this week, the largest American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization slammed the US House of Representatives for passing a controversial legislation that criminalizes any criticism of the Israeli apartheid regime.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) insisted that the so-called ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023’ is a “one-sided, and dishonest” document that ignores persisting anti-Palestinian racism across the United States.
The House approved the bipartisan bill, introduced by New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler, in a 320-91 vote and forwarded it to the Senate for passage and likely enactment by Biden’s signature.
Pointing to Washington’s traditional support for persisting Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian population, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei reiterated earlier this month the validity of Tehran’s distrust of the US and rejection of the apartheid Zionist regime, citing American complicity in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its brutal crackdown on student protests.
Ayatollah Khamenei declared that the only solution to the Palestinian issue would be the return of the entire land to its rightful owners and allowing them to decide what to do with the Zionist occupiers.
He further pointed to the expansion of the American student protest movement to universities across Europe and other parts of the globe, insisting that “Gaza remains the leading concern of the world” with a growing realization about the evil nature of the Zionist regime as well as the validity of the Islamic Republic’s unrelenting policy of rejecting the legitimacy of the Israeli occupying entity.
It remains to be seen what Washington’s defiance of the growing worldwide condemnation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza will spell for it in a highly sensitive election year in the face of a very divisive Congress and persisting tensions with Russia, China and the West Asia region over various military, political, economic, and strategic issues.
Mohsen Badakhsh is an educator and freelance journalist.
The Myth of Online Radicalisation
By Iain Davis | The Disillusioned Blogger | May 10, 2021
In 2021, following the tragic murder of David Amess MP, the UK legacy media reported that Ali Harbi Ali, the man subsequently convicted of murdering Mr Amess, was quite possibly radicalised online:
Social media users could face a ban on anonymous accounts, as home secretary Priti Patel steps up action to tackle radicalisation in the wake of the murder of MP David Amess. [. . .] Police questioning Ali Harbi Ali on suspicion of terrorism offences are understood to be investigating the possibility that the 25-year-old [. . .] was radicalised by material found on the internet and social media networks during lockdown.
The police had already stated that the crime was being investigated as a terrorist incident. They reported a potential motive of Islamist extremism.
Ali Harbi Ali had been known to the UK government’s Prevent counter-radicalisation program for seven years, prior to murdering Mr Amess. In 2014 Ali Harbi Ali was referred to the Channel counter-terrorism programme, a wing of Prevent reserved for the most radical youths. A referral to Channel can only have come from the UK Police. The official guidance for a Channel referral states:
The progression of referrals is monitored at the Home Office for a period, with a view to offering further support if needed. An audit of non-adopted referrals is undertaken where these did not progress to police management. The Home Office works with Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters to share any concerns and agree necessary steps for improvement in partnership with the local authority and police.
It is likely, therefore, that Ali Harbi Abedi was known to the UK government, counter-terrorism police and the intelligence agencies. Yet we are told, having been flagged as among the most concerning of all Prevent subjects, for some seemingly inexplicable reason, Ali Harbi Ali was not known to the intelligence agencies. To date, there has been no explanation for this, frankly, implausible claim.
Following his conviction, the UK legacy media reported that Ali Harbi Ali was an example of “textbook radicalisation.” This was a quite extraordinary claim because there is no such thing as “textbook radicalisation.”
Ali Harbi Ali said that he had watched ISIS propaganda videos online. This was also highlighted at his trial. Consequently, the BBC reported:
[. . .] for a potentially bored teenager living a humdrum life in suburban London – the [Syrian] war not only appeared like an exciting video game on social media, it came packaged with an appealing message that there was a role for everyone else. [. . .] Harbi Ali told himself he could [. . .] join the ranks of home-grown attackers – on the basis of an instruction [online videos] from an IS propagandist who played a major role in the spread of terrorism attacks in western Europe.
The story we are supposed to believe about Ali Harbi Ali’s alleged path toward radicalisation is that he became a terrorist and a murderer because he watched YouTube videos and engaged in online groups that support terrorism. This is complete nonsense.
What is the Radicalisation Process?
In 2016, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson issued a report to inform potential UN strategies to counter extremism and terrorism. Emmerson reported there was neither an agreed-upon definition of “extremism” nor any single cogent explanation of the “radicalisation” process:
[M]any programmes directed at radicalisation [are] based on a simplistic understanding of the process as a fixed trajectory to violent extremism with identifiable markers along the way. [. . .] There is no authoritative statistical data on the pathways towards individual radicalisation.
This was followed, in 2017, with the publication of “Countering Domestic Extremism” by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS report stated that domestic “violence and violent extremist ideologies” were eventually adopted by a small minority of people as the result of a complex and poorly understood “radicalisation” process.
According to the NAS, there were numerous contributory factors to an individual’s apparent radicalisation, including sociopolitical and economic factors, personality traits, psychological influences, traumatic life experiences and so on. Precisely how these elements combined, and why some people were radicalised, while the majority who experienced the same weren’t, remained unknown:
No single shared motivator for violent extremism has been found, but the sum of several could provide a strong foundation for understanding
In July 2018, researcher team from from Deakin University in Australia largely corroborated Emmerson’s and NAS’ findings. Adding some further detail and research, their peer-reviewed article, “The 3 P’s of Radicalisation,” was based upon an meta-analysis of all the available academic literature on the radicalisation. They identified three broad drivers that could potentially lead someone toward violent extremism. They called these Push, Pull, and Personal factors.
Push factors are created by the individuals perception of their social or political environment. Awareness of things likes state repression, structural deprivation, poverty, and injustice can lead to resentment and anger. Pull factors are the elements of extremism that appeal to the individual. This might include an ideological commitment, a group identity and sense of belonging, finding a purpose, promises of justice, eternal glory, etc. Personal factors are the aspects of an individual’s personality that may predispose them to being more vulnerable to Push or Pull influences. For example, mental health problems or illness, individual characteristics, their reaction to life experiences and more.
Currently, the UN cites it’s own report—Journey To Extremism in Africa—as “the most extensive study yet on what drives people to violent extremism.” Building on the work we’ve just discussed, the report concluded that radicalisation is the product of numerous factors that combine to lead an individual down a path to extremism and possible violence.
The myriad of contributory factors to the radicalisation process acording to the UN’s “best study.”
The UN stated:
We know the drivers and enablers of violent extremism are multiple, complex and context specific, while having religious, ideological, political, economic and historical dimensions. They defy easy analysis, and understanding of the phenomenon remains incomplete.
The BBC report of “textbook radicalisation” was total rubbish. Everything we know about the radicalisation process reveals a convoluted interplay between social, economic, political, cultural and personal factors. These factors, which “defy easy analysis,” may combine to lead someone toward violent extremism and potentially terrorism. In the overwhelming majority of cases they do not.
It is extremely difficult to predict which individual’s may be radicalised. Millions of people experience all of the Push, Pull and Personal contributory factors and only a minuscule minority turn to extremism and violence.
We can say that watching videos and hanging around in online chat groups may be part of the radicalisation process but, absent all the other contributory elements, in no way is it reasonable to claim that anyone becomes a terrorist simply because they are “radicalised online.” The suggestion is absurd.
This absurdity was emphasised by the UN in its June 2023 publication of its report “Prevention of Violent Extremism.” The UN reported:
[. . .] deaths from terrorist activity have fallen considerably worldwide in recent years.
During the same period global internet use had increased by 45%, from 3.7 billion people in 2018 to 5.4 billion in 2023. Quite clearly, if there is a correlation between internet use and terrorism—doubtful—it’s an inverse one.
Adopting the precautionary principle we should perhaps be encouraging more people to have more access to a wider range of online information sources. There is a remote, but possible chance that this assists, in some unknown way, the reduction of violent extremism and deters the tiny minority from turning toward terrorism.
Marianna Spring
Exploiting the Online Radicalisation Myth
State propagandists, like the BBC’s Marianna Spring, have been spreading disinformation about online radicalisation for some time. They have been doing this to deceive the public into thinking that government legislation, such as the Online Safety Act (OSA), will tackle the mythical problem of online radicalisation.
In a January 2024 article she titled “Young Britons exposed to online radicalisation following Hamas attack,” Marianna Spring wrote:
It is a spike in hate that leaves young Britons increasingly exposed to radicalisation by algorithm. [. . .] Algorithms are recommendation systems that promote new content to a user based on posts they engage with. That means they can drive some people to more extreme ideas.
Building on her absurd Lord Haw-Haw level tripe, in reference to the work of the UK Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) Spring added:
The focus is on terrorism-related content that could lead to violence offline or risk radicalising other people into terror ideologies on social media.
Building on this abject nonsense Spring continued:
So what about all of the hate that sits in the middle? It’s not extreme enough to be illegal, but it still poisons the public discourse and risks pushing some people further towards extremes. [. . .] Responsibility for dealing with hateful posts – as of now – lies with the social media companies. It also lies, to some extent, with policy makers looking to regulate the sites, and users themselves. New legislation like the Online Safety Act does force the social media companies to take responsibility for illegal content, too.
This blurring of definitions from “terrorist” to “hate” to “hateful posts” to “extremes” was a meaningless slurry of specious drivel designed to convince the public that terrorists become terrorists because they watch YouTube videos or are influenced by the “hurty words” they read and share on social media. None of which was true.
Spring’s evident purpose was to lend some credibility to the State’s legislative push to silence all dissent online and censor legitimate public opinion. Spring spun the idea, that online radicalisation exists, to encourage people to give away their essential democratic rights in order to stay safe.
This moronic argument convinced the clueless puppeticians—we keep electing to Parliament by mistake—to pass the Online Safety Act into law in October 2023. They were told that it would protect children and adults from “harm”:
The kinds of illegal content and activity that platforms need to protect users from are set out in the Act, and this includes content relating to [. . .] terrorism.
Imagining this is what the Online Safety Act was supposed to protect adults from, the OSA received its Royal assent. Now that we have it on the statute books all the anti-democratic oppression it contains has been let loose.
The UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) creates the offence of “sending false information intended to cause non-trivial harm.” Quite what “non-trivial harm” is supposed to mean isn’t entirely clear. The UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) certainly doesn’t understand it:
Section 179(1) OSA 2023 creates a summary offence of sending false communications. The offence is committed if [. . .], at the time of sending it, the person intended the message, or the information in it, to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience. [. . .] Non-trivial psychological or physical harm is not defined [. . .]. Prosecutors should be clear when making a charging decision about what the evidence is concerning the suspect’s intention and how what was intended was not “trivial”, and why. Note that there is no requirement that such harm should in fact be caused, only that it be intended.
Its seems the legal profession can’t quite grasp the horrific implications of the new punishable offence the UK State has created. Perhaps because they still imagine they serve a democracy. There’s no need for any confusion. The UK State has been quite clear about the nature of its dictatorship:
These new criminal offences will protect people from a wide range of abuse and harm online, including [. . .] sending fake news that aims to cause non-trivial physical or psychological harm.
“Fake news” is whatever the State, the Establishment and their “epistemic authorities” say it is. what constitutes “non-trivial harm” is also an entirely subjective judgement for the State. The Online Safety regulator, Ofcom, will decree the truth and the State will punish those who dare to contradict its official proclamations based upon whatever the Secretary of State tells Ofcom to outlaw.
If you think this sounds like “thought crime,” you are right. That is precisely what it is.
The idea that the OSA has something to do with protecting children and deterring people from online radicalisation was a sales pitch. Propagandists like the BBC’s Marianna Spring were dispatched to make the ridiculous arguments to deceive the public into believing their own speech needs to be regulated by the State.
The State is Completely Disinterested In Terrorist Content Online
Inciting violence, crime or promoting terrorism, sharing child porn and the online paedophile grooming of children has been illegal in the UK for many years. The Online Safety Act adds absolutely nothing to existing laws. The problem has never been insufficient law it has been insufficient enforcement.
In addition, it couldn’t be more obvious that the UK State and its propagandists are not in the least bit interested in tackling alleged “online radicalisation.” It is revealed in Marianna Spring’s article (referenced above) she reportedly got her wacky ideas about online radicalisation from CTIRU team members.
The CTIRU was set up in 2010 to remove “unlawful terrorist material” from the Internet. It makes formal requests to social media and hosting companies to take down material deemed to be terrorist related. If online radicalisation were a thing, which it isn’t, the CTIRU has been tasked for 14 years with stopping it. It doesn’t appear to have done anything at all.
The group Jabhat Fateh al Sham (JFS) was formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra (alias al-Qaeda in Syria, or al-Qaeda in the Levant). It subsequently merged with Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq, and the Nour al–Din al-Zenki Movement to form Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), or ‘Levant Liberation Front’.
HTS’ objective is to create an Islamic state in the Levant. According to the UK Government’s listing of proscribed terrorist groups:
The government laid Orders, in July 2013, December 2016 and May 2017, which provided that the “al-Nusrah Front (ANF)”, “Jabhat al-Nusrah li-ahl al Sham”, “Jabhat Fatah al-Sham” and “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” should be treated as alternative names for the organisation which is already proscribed under the name Al Qa’ida.
HTS, then, is officially defined as Al-Qa’ida. It is the same group supposedly responsible for 9/11.
In 2016, six years after the CTIRU was formed, BBC Newsnight interviewed Al-Qa’ida’s Director of Foreign Media Relations, Mostafa Mahamed, about the ambitions of Al-Qa’ida. The BBC gave him ample airtime to explain how Al-Qa’ida was leading the fight against the elected Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The BBC claimed that JFS—now HTS—had formerly split from Al-Qa’ida. Probably attempting to justify its promotion of a proscribed terrorist organisation. The UK Government does not share the BBC appraisal but its Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit doesn’t appear to be overly fussed.
The BBC HTS promo video is still available to watch on YouTube. Alternatively, you could watch a JFS promotional video, or perhaps spend less than a minute searching YouTube to find the slew of videos it provides promoting proscribed Islamist terrorist groups.
You can still watch Channel 4’s in-depth 2016 report extolling the heroics of the Nour al-Din al-Zenki terrorists. This is the group that publicly beheaded a twelve-year-old boy. In fact, Channel 4 promoted those directly responsible for the despicable crime. Channel 4 said the child murderers had won a “famous victory”.
When it was pointed out that these people decapitate children, the BBC leapt to their defence, pointing out that the child was probably a combatant. The BBC didn’t ask its terrorist interviewee, Mostafa Mahamed, whether he was against murdering children in principle.
Such videos have been available online for years and have been shared liberally by mainstream media outlets such as Al-Jazeera, Channel 4, the BBC, AP, France24 and many others. This all seems rather odd, because in 2018, then CTIRU Commander Clarke Jarrett said:
It’s vital that if the public see something online they think could be terrorist-related, that they ACT and flag it up to us. Our Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) has specialist officers who not only take action to get content removed, but also increasingly, are in a position to look at those behind online content — which is leading to more and more investigations.
What does CTIRU mean by “terrorist-related” if not promotional videos made by terrorist organisations? How much investigation is needed to “take down” BBC interviews with Al-Qa’ida spokesmen, and to prosecute those who made and broadcast it?
Why aren’t the hundreds, if not thousands, of terrorist promos currently available via Google services deemed unlawful? Are only some terrorist groups unlawful while others are fine? Why are some terrorists promoted and others not?
The truth is the whole thing is a monumental sham. Not only is online radicalisation a myth the State couldn’t care less about terrorist promotional material. The online radicalisation myth has been punted by propagandists for one reason only. To convince you to submit to online censorship.
Is Your Car Spying on You?
By Andrew P. Napolitano | May 9, 2024
I predict future happiness for Americans,
if they can prevent the government from
wasting the labors of the people under
the pretense of taking care of them.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Last week, Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward Markey of Massachusetts revealed that automobiles sold in the United States with a GPS or emergency call system accumulate the travel data of the vehicle on computer chips located in the vehicle and the vehicle manufacturers have remote access to the computer chips. They revealed this is a letter to the Federal Trade Commission that, at this writing, has gone unanswered.
The senators complained that the computer chips in late-model vehicles retain the records of the location and driving habits utilized by the operator of each vehicle.
One probably expects some of this as most GPS systems ask if you are looking for directions to a location to which you have traveled in the past. That very request on your dashboard should trigger the observation that the vehicle’s computer chip has stored the requests you have input to the GPS.
But it doesn’t stop with a record of your GPS requests. What the two senators revealed was truly startling. The computer chips record every movement and speed of the vehicle; and some vehicles — those equipped with certain sensors and exterior cameras — also record the surroundings of the location of the vehicle.
Both senators complained that Americans largely do not know that the manufacturer of the vehicle they drive has remote access to the computer chips in the vehicle, and most Americans are largely unaware that the vehicle manufacturers make this data available to the government without a search warrant.
Is this constitutional? In a word: NO.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution was written to protect the quintessential American right — the natural human right — to be left alone. Justice Louis Brandeis called it the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized persons.
It presumes that you can think as you wish and say what you think and read what you want and publish what you say, that you can exclude whomever you wish — including the government — from your property and from your thoughts; that you can move around from place to place; and do all this without a government permission slip, fear of government reprisal or the government’s prying eyes.
This natural right is expressly protected by the Fourth Amendment, which requires a warrant issued by a judge based upon probable cause of crime before the government can invade your property or spy on you, directly or indirectly. When the government has access to the data in your personal vehicle, it is simultaneously invading your property and spying on you.
The warrant requirement serves three purposes.
The first is to force the government to stay in the lane of crime solving, rather than crime predicting.
The colonists loathed when the British entered their homes with general warrants ostensibly looking to see if the colonists had purchased government stamps as the Stamp Act required. The true goal of these forced entries was to search for revolutionary materials in order to help the government predict who might be planning the revolution that came in 1776.
The second purpose of the warrant requirement is to prevent fishing expeditions using general warrants. General warrants permit the bearer to search wherever he wishes and seize whatever he finds. Thus, the Fourth Amendment also requires that the warrants specifically describe the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized.
The third and most fundamental purpose of the warrant requirement is to reduce to writing the right to privacy. All persons naturally yearn for privacy. The Framers knew this and believed they had guaranteed it in the Fourth Amendment. They were wrong.
Some have argued that the culprits with these computer chips are the vehicle manufacturers. They are wrong. The culprit is the government.
The federal Department of Transportation — found nowhere in the Constitution — mandates the specs for the computer chips installed in vehicles sold in the United States. And the recent amendment to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires all persons and entities that manufacture or install facilities that transmit data over fiber-optic cables in the U.S. to make those facilities available to the federal government’s spies.
That mandate includes the CIA, even though its charter forbids it to spy domestically or engage in domestic law enforcement; the FBI, even though the federal prosecutors for whom FBI agents work cannot use evidence in federal prosecutions obtained via surveillance without a search warrant; and the National Security Administration, the federal government’s 60,000 dedicated domestic spies, whose management falsely claims it obtains warrants from the FISA court for all its spying.
What have we here?
What we have is the slow silent erosion of personal liberty perpetrated by a Congress afraid of the intelligence community it created in 1947 and which it is supposed to regulate, enabled by every president since Ronald Reagan who has looked the other way when the spies plied their foul crafts, and carried out by nameless faceless bureaucrats with large and awful eyes whose appetites for acquiring private data about ordinary Americans as to whom there is no suspicion or probable cause of criminal behavior is utterly and literally insatiable.
Even former President Donald Trump, who was infamously the subject of unlawful and unconstitutional spying when he was a private citizen and while in the White House, has fallen for all this.
What we have here is only lip service by our elected representatives to the words, their meanings and the underlying values of the Constitution. Efforts to stop this in the House and the Senate last month fell short by a single vote in each house. And that was before the Wyden/Markey revelations about your car spying on you!
Do you know anyone who has consented to this? Who will protect us from lawless government? Don’t we know by now that sacrificing liberty for safety leads to neither?
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
Lukashenko on Polish judge defector: ‘A completely normal person, patriotic Pole, Putin is interested in his story’
BY GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK | REMIX NEWS | MAY 10, 2024
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced that he has instructed the police to protect Tomasz Szmydt, a former Polish judge who has fled Poland and asked for political asylum in Belarus.
Lukashenko addressed the issue of the Polish citizen seeking asylum after Thursday’s Victory Day celebrations, where he mentioned that the defection of officials from Poland is a “trend.”
He refuted claims that Belarus and Russia recruit such individuals, labeling these allegations as “complete nonsense.” According to Lukashenko, he only saw Tomasz Szmydt at a press conference and found him to be “a completely normal person.”
The Belarusian leader learned about Szmydt’s situation the day before from the KGB and initially ordered a background check on him. Describing the judge’s escape as a blow to Polish authority, Lukashenko commented: “And then they start: traitor, this and that. He is not a traitor, but he really looks at everything, compares Poland with Belarus and draws conclusions.”
Lukashenko also revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken an interest in Szmydt’s story, indicating the significance of the matter. He dismissed accusations of recruitment by Belarus as “complete stupidity,” challenging Warsaw to present facts to support their claims.
In his interview with the state news agency BełTa, Lukashenko further stated that he had ordered the judicial authorities to ensure Szmydt’s protection, expressing concern for his safety. “So these scoundrels don’t kill the man, although he says: ‘I know what I am heading towards.’ A brave man. A normal man, as far as I am informed now.”
Tomasz Szmydt was until recently a judge at the Second Department of the Administrative Court in Warsaw and has held various positions within the Polish judiciary. On Monday, during a press conference in Minsk, he announced his request for political asylum in Belarus, citing it as a protest against Poland’s policies towards Belarus and Russia.
On Thursday, the president of the Supreme Administrative Court accepted Szmydt’s declaration of immediate resignation from his judicial position, meaning he is no longer a judge.
Protecting Israel Is Washington’s Number One Job
The White House and Congress rally around the Star of David Flag
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MAY 8, 2024
When, as expected, President Joe Biden signs off on the Antisemitism Awareness Act the Department of Education will be empowered to send so-called antisemitism monitors to enforce civil rights law at public schools as well as at colleges to observe and report on levels of hostility towards Jews. The monitors’ reports will eventually wind up in Congress which can propose remedies as required, including cutting funding and recommending civil rights charges in extreme cases. One of the more regrettable features of the act is that it accepts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism as it applies to the state of Israel, making criticism of the Jewish state ipso facto antisemitism. Its text includes the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity” as an antisemitic act. In reality, however, actual antisemitism is not as prevalent as Israel partisans claim. Most of what they call antisemitism is simply criticism of the legally self-proclaimed apartheid “Jewish State” and most of the animosity Israel experiences is opposition to its brutal treatment of the Palestinians. Giving legal sanction to that presumption that Israel must be protected from bigots means that the United States is well on the way to forbidding any criticism of Israel at all. Americans can criticize their own country or nations in Europe, or at least they are able to do so currently, but bad-mouthing Israel could soon constitute a criminal offense.
The Antisemitism Awareness Act is just one aspect of how the power of organized Jewish groups over the government and media is shaping the kind of society that Americans will be living in in the near future. It will be a society devoid of several fundamental constitutional rights, like free speech, due to deference to the preferences of one tiny demographic. And the one most interesting aspect of that power is how it has successfully hidden the fact that it even exists while also propagating the myth that Jews and Israel are especially worthy of special consideration because they are frequently or even always perceived as victims, an extension of the holocaust myth.
Indeed, Israel is recently always in the news and most often completely protected by the media and the talking heads elements, particularly true if one sinks to watching Fox or reading the Wall Street Journal, New York Times or Washington Post. Even the loathsome Benjamin Netanyahu frequently gets good press while nonviolent student peace demonstrators are invariably described as anti-Israeli or pro-Hamas terrorists even when they are assaulted by Zionist thugs led by an Israeli special ops officer and funded and armed by Jewish billionaires as occurred recently in Los Angeles.
Nevertheless, sometimes something slips through the defenses that reveals all too clearly what is going on. In responding to a question from a journalist, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made a claim recently that absolutely no one who has spent any time in Washington will believe. The journalist had asked whether the Federal Government in making its foreign policy decisions tended to favor and/or excuse the behavior of some countries while condemning others for exactly the same actions. Blinken replied “We apply the same standard to everyone. And that doesn’t change whether the country in question is an adversary, a competitor, a friend or an ally.”
Everyone in the room understood very clearly that Blinken wasn’t telling the truth and was trying to preserve the fiction that the United States holds allies and clients to the same “rules based international order” standard that it uses for others, most notably competitor nations like Russia and China or adversaries like Iran. No one takes what Blinken says seriously in any event, and it does not help his general credibility when he feels compelled to lie for no reason whatsoever.
Would that someone in the room had had the temerity to cite one of Blinken’s most egregiously partisan comments, his greeting to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the airport tarmac of Ben Gurion airport shortly after the October 7th Hamas attack. He said “I come before you as a Jew. I understand on a personal level the harrowing echoes that Hamas’s massacres carry for Israeli Jews – indeed, for Jews everywhere.” It prompted one to mutter, “No Anthony, you are the Secretary of States of the United States of America. You are there to represent American interests in avoiding a major war in the Middle East, not to represent the interests of your tribe by declaring yourself one of them.”
The Blinken meeting with Netanyahu was particularly telling as few in Washington would doubt that the Joe Biden White House and Congress have totally surrendered to Israeli interests rather than serving the needs of their constituents in the United States. Paul Craig Roberts describes it as “The US Congress has become an extension of the Israeli government.” To answer the journalist’s question honestly Blinken should have admitted that the Biden government is fully committed to protecting Israel and even its perceived interests when they conflict with normal US policy. On Wednesday the Biden administration indicated that it has indefinitely delayed a required report investigating potential Israeli war crimes in Gaza that was supposed to be released by the US State Department. If the report had concluded, which it should have, that Israel violated international humanitarian law, the US would have to stop sending foreign aid due to the Leahy Law, which makes it illegal for the US government to provide aid to any foreign security forces found to be committing “gross violations of human rights.” So Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken decided to deep six the report instead to protect Israel by breaking US law, though they have reportedly delayed one shipment of bombs lest they be used on civilians in Rafah. Nevertheless, Biden clearly means what he says when he repeatedly stumbles to confirm that US security guarantees to Israel are “ironclad.” Indeed, the tie with the Jewish state goes well beyond what is generally due to anyone even described as an ally, which Israel, also no democracy, is not in any event, as an alliance requires both reciprocity and a precise understanding of the red lines in the relationship.
Nothing illustrates the total subservience of Washington to Israel better than how the United States is unnecessarily getting itself involved in an argument that might well prove to be a major embarrassment as well as trouble in America’s relationship with many foreign states. And, as is often the case, it involves Israel. There have been confirmed reports that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is preparing to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and two other senior Israeli officials in connection with war crimes related to the ongoing genocide directed against the Gazans. Netanyahu is reportedly reaching wildly out to his many “friends” to prevent such a development. And, in line with Washington-Jerusalem thinking that every good crisis deserves an excessive use of force or even a military solution, there are already reports that pressure, including threats, is being exerted both by Israel and the US against the jurists on the court and even directed against their families. The Israeli government warned the Biden administration that if the ICC issues arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, it will take retaliatory steps against the Palestinian Authority that could lead to its collapse, further destabilizing the region. Israel is also conducting a parallel diplomatic channels outreach in Europe to convince the local governments to advise their representatives on the court that it would be desirable to squash its investigation.
Netanyahu, who called President Joe Biden and asked for help, has in response to news reports tweeted that Israel “will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense. The threat to seize the soldiers and officials of the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state is outrageous. We will not bow to it.” Netanyahu also denounced the possible warrants as an “unprecedented antisemitic hate crime.” As ICC deliberations are secret it would appear that an American or British jurist must have leaked the story to enable Netanyahu to mount a campaign against it. The White House and Congress are already moving full speed ahead to make the warrants go away and are exploring options to directly confront and discredit the court if the Israelis are actually punished.
The US has nothing to gain and much to lose in confronting the ICC as the court is generally well respected. And more might be coming. There are reports that prosecutors from the ICC have interviewed medical staff at two of Gaza’s largest hospitals in their investigation of other possible war crimes committed by Israel in connection with the mass graves recently discovered. ICC was founded in 2002 as a last resort court to deal with war crimes and crimes against humanity that were not addressable otherwise. The court was established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute). Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute and does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. However, should a warrant in Netanyahu’s name be issued, his travel could be restricted, as the 123 countries that recognize the court may consider themselves obliged to arrest him.
As of March 2023, there were 123 member states of the Court. The United States is no longer a member because on May 6th, 2002, the United States, having previously signed the Rome Statute, formally withdrew its signature and indicated that it did not intend to ratify the agreement. Another state that has withdrawn its signature is the Sudan while some states that have never become parties to the Rome Statute include India, Indonesia, and China. United States policy concerning the ICC has varied by administration. The Clinton administration signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but did not submit it for Senate ratification. The George W. Bush administration, which was the US administration at the time of the ICC’s founding, stated that it would not join the ICC. The Obama administration subsequently re-established a working relationship with the Court as an observer. There has been no change in the status since that time, but the relationship is regarded as inactive.
What will the United States do to bail out Israel one more time? It has already made its position known. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre stated “We’ve been really clear about the ICC investigation. We do not support it. We don’t believe that they have the jurisdiction.” Deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel doubled down on that declaring “Our position is clear. We continue to believe that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the Palestinian situation.” The White House was joined by leading congressional Republicans. Zionist Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has pressured the White House and State Department to “use every available tool to prevent such an abomination,” explaining how conceding the point to ICC “would directly undermine US national security interests. If unchallenged by the Biden administration, the ICC could create and assume unprecedented power to issue arrest warrants against American political leaders, American diplomats, and American military personnel.”
There is a precedent to the US taking action against the ICC. On September 2, 2020, the United States government imposed sanctions on the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, in response to an investigation by the court into US war crimes in Afghanistan, so there is some sensitivity to the fact that as the US is the world’s leading source of war crimes, it would be wise to delegitimize agencies that would look too deeply into that fact. But the ICC sometimes has its uses as when the Biden administration publicly welcomed a war crimes investigation by the ICC against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. Asked why the United States supported an International Criminal Court investigation into Russian officials, Patel declared that “There is no moral equivalency between the kinds of things that we see [Russian President Vladimir Putin] and the Kremlin undertake in comparison to the Israeli government,” once again demonstrating that what Blinken said to the journalist was nonsense.
The Republican Party is seeking to outdo the White House in demonstrating its love for Israel. A letter signed by twelve GOP Senators was sent to Karim Khan, chief prosecutor on the ICC. The letter threatens members of the court over the possible indictment of Netanyahu and company. The group of 12 Republican senators who I like to refer to as the “Dirty Dozen” due to the large political contributions they receive from pro-Israel sources, sent a letter to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan that threatens “severe sanctions” if the court goes ahead with the plan to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his Defense Minister and one other senior official. The letter, dated April 24, referenced the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, a law that authorizes the president to use any means to free any US personnel detained by the ICC even though it does not apply to Israel. It says, ridiculously, that “If you issue a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli, we will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but as a threat to the sovereignty of the United States” and goes on to deny that the ICC even has jurisdiction to issue warrants since Israel is not a member of the court. The apparent drafter, Senator Tom Cotton, was seemingly unaware that Palestine is a member of the ICC and the arrest warrants would be based on war crimes committed by Israel on its nominal territory, Gaza and the West Bank.
The letter concludes with a heavy-handed threat: “The United States will not tolerate politicized attacks by the ICC on our allies. Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in this report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and your associates, and bar you and your family from the United States. You have been warned.” A few days later, the ICC issued a statement condemning the threats made against the court and said attempts to “impede, intimidate, or improperly influence” ICC officials must “cease immediately.” The 12 Republican senators who signed on to the letter include Mitch McConnell, Tom Cotton, Marsha Blackburn, Katie Boyd Britt, Ted Budd, Kevin Cramer, Ted Cruz, Bill Hagerty, Pete Ricketts, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and Tim Scott. Only Lindsay Graham was missing and he was probably busy drumming up support for his plan to “destroy the enemies of the state of Israel.” Cotton, who has recommended that people who are inconvenienced by protesters should confront them and beat them up, has also introduced legislation denying college loan relief to students who faced state or federal charges while demonstrating against the deaths in Gaza. Some other Republican congressmen who are short on brain cells but strong on Israel are seeking to have protesters “convicted of unlawful activity on the campus of an American university since October 7th 2023” deported to do six months community service in Gaza, though how that would be implemented is not clear. Congressman Randy Weber of Texas explained “If you support a terrorist organization and you participate in unlawful activity on campuses, you should get a taste of your own medicine. I am going to bet that these pro-Hamas supporters wouldn’t last a day, but let’s give them the opportunity.”
So the United States will again go to bat for Israel and Israel will ignore what comes out and dodge any consequences. The real losers in the process will be the American people, who more clearly than ever will see and hopefully recognize that they have a government that spends an awful lot of time and money on Israel and doing things that are being promoted by Jewish groups. We have a legislature and executive branch that have been corrupted and compromised from top to bottom, always doing what is wrong for the most selfish reasons, often out of loyalty to foreign governments like Israel that could care less. The United States was once a symbol of freedom and opportunity. Now it has become an international embarrassment.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Ireland Calls on Tech Giants to Muzzle Election “Misinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 8, 2024
Ireland’s Electoral Commission Chief Executive Art O’Leary is warning tech companies behind major social media platforms to adhere to what he considers their responsibilities in the electoral process.
On the one hand, O’Leary is effectively threatening they could be facing unspecified “reputational consequences” that are “not good” in case they are found to be uncooperative in what appears to be the ultimate goal here – censorship, i.e., “removal of material” that is found to be causing “damage to democracy.”
On the other hand, the Electoral Commission chief seems satisfied that the companies the Irish authorities would like to keep under control during the campaign period are in fact “very conscious” of the circumstances, and will, in other words, “behave.”
This obvious attempt to secure that tech firms censor content of their own accord is necessary since the current laws in Ireland do not allow the Commission to impose such decisions; but O’Leary is optimistic and says that the organization he heads has forged “positive relations” with these companies – all the way to “mechanisms to ensure disinformation is taken down quickly,” say reports.
The elections O’Leary has in mind are local Irish and European Parliament ballots scheduled for early June, and as far as the authorities in that country are concerned, “disinformation” is expected from only one corner of the domestic political spectrum – what they brand as “the far-right.”
That’s because groups allegedly espousing such views are planning protests in Dublin – and despite the fact that their political opponents plan the same, that is, to hold so-called “counter-rallies.”
But only the “far right” is singled out as the potential source of “disinformation,” which has a decent chunk of the state apparatus, (national police security and intelligence department, broadcasting regulator, etc.) mobilized to deal with it and what are considered “online harms.”
Now the Election Commission is also joining these efforts, with O’Leary sharing his thought process in an interview he gave the Irish Examiner.
He admitted that there has been “no real evidence” that foreign countries are trying to interfere in the elections, yet this does not prevent alarmist rhetoric, including around that possibility, and AI generated content.
Another of O’Leary’s ideas is to consider extending the moratorium on election coverage imposed on legacy media to online outlets.
Washington police clear pro-Palestine encampment, arrest dozens
Press TV – May 8, 2024
US police have arrested dozens of students after clearing an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Just before dawn, hundreds of officers entered the campus and used pepper spray to disperse the protesters and clear the encampment, according to GW Hatchet, the university’s independent student-run newspaper.
“Officers gave their third and final warning to demonstrators to move at about 3:30 a.m., saying all who remained in U-Yard and the stretch of H Street in front of the plaza would be arrested,” GW Hatchet wrote.
Between 30 and 40 protesters were arrested, according to CNN.
Citing familiar sources, the newspaper said police charged several protesters with unlawful entry.
Protesters were carrying signs that read, “Free Palestine” and “Hands off Rafah.”
Since mid-April, students have been demonstrating against Israel’s war on Gaza at about 140 colleges in the United States.
The demonstrators are demanding their universities cut direct or indirect financial ties with US weapons manufacturers and Israeli institutions.
Many also want their universities to end academic relationships with the regime’s institutions.
Similar demonstrations have also spread to campuses in Britain, France, Australia, Canada and elsewhere.
In New York, hundreds of protesters have been marching through the city on Wednesday against Israel’s invasion of Rafah, and US support for the regime’s military.
An estimated 1.4 million people, displaced from elsewhere in Gaza by Israel’s seven-months war, are now sheltering in the southern city of Rafah.
Israel on Tuesday seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing, prompting fears of a planned ground offensive on the last refuge of the Palestinians.