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The Double Standard Applied by the Covid Inquiry

When Taking Evidence from John Edmunds and Carl Heneghan Yesterday Inquiry Reveals its Bias

BY KIERAN SAXON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 20, 2023

The contrast between the evidence sessions of Prof. John Edmunds (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, SAGE modeller) and Prof. Carl Heneghan at the Covid Inquiry yesterday was absolutely shocking and raises huge questions about the professionalism of the Inquiry.

The King’s Counsel in the morning spent hours questioning Edmunds in a friendly, at times obsequious manner, as he explained how misunderstood the modelling was, how it wasn’t needed to justify lockdowns – as the indicative Basic reproduction number (R0) and Indicative Fatality Rate (IFR) were enough – to justify earlier and harder lockdown measures. Yet, according to Edmunds, the modelling would still be needed in the future. Truly an “all things to all men modelling” – useful when needed to justify future lockdowns, yet hides in the corner when retrospectively scrutinised and compared with real-world data. Three key flaws in the Covid modelling have been highlighted:

  1. Over-estimation of the effect of mandatory NPIs versus under-estimation of the effect of voluntary NPIs.
  2. Over-estimation of ICU per hospitalised rates, where the Imperial College team doubled the rate of hospitalised patients going into ICU to 30% based on flawed data from China.
  3. Failure to take into account the impact of prior and innate immunity in the population, especially children and the asymptomatic.

These aren’t flaws that can be explained away by saying the scenarios changed with the reality of lockdowns. For example, ICU rates are unaffected by shelter-in-place orders and school closures.

The dangerous implication here is that the Covid Inquiry is lining us up for future restrictions based on indicative RO and IFR, a lockdown hair-trigger switch that gives more authority to the modellers.

The soft-ball questioning and praise from the Inquiry continued as the discussion moved to Summer 2020, circuit breakers and the elision from “flatten the curve” to “zero Covid”.

Then the Inquiry moved on to the Downing Street Summit, where other voices – counsel highlighting as the ‘let it rip’ brigade – were invited at short notice. The big reveal was that Angela McLean, who has replaced Sir Patrick Vallance as Chief Scientific Officer, referred to Carl Heneghan as a “f*ckwit” in a contemporaneous WhatsApp chat, while Edmunds challenged Heneghan’s epidemiological knowledge. In my view, the Inquiry raising the point in this way is indicative of a lack of professionalism.

The Inquiry was also keen to include another pet villain – Doctor Death – the sobriquet applied by McLean to refer to Rishi Sunak, for the perceived crime of pushing for Eat Out to Help Out to reinvigorate the pub and restaurant industry, and providing a much needed moral boost to the nation.

The questioning continued for hours, covering the narrative classics of Long Covid, why the Vaccine rollout should have been broader, etc., all carried out in a cosy relationship included Baroness Hallett’s freely-given praise for Edmund, Ferguson and the whole modelling team.

By contrast, the interrogation of Carl Heneghan started out with a blatant attempt to undermine his credentials, strongly re-buffed by Carl, setting a tone for the only adversarial evidence session I have seen at this Inquiry so far. Any discussion that strayed from the narrative was met with aggressive and hostile demands for ‘yes/no’ answers.

Counsel objected to Carl’s answer rightly pointing out the danger of lockdowns to care homes, as he wanted to concentrate on focused protection and the misrepresentation of it by Counsel as hermetically sealing up the old and vulnerable. The minimum of critical thinking could have told Counsel that it was about reducing risk where it was highest, rather than across the board.

Carl was challenged on his views on the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) – he broadly agreed with it, he explained, but didn’t sign at the time as he needed more evidence on the details as you would expect, before Counsel dived into the Downing Street conference call.

Carl was challenged on his definition of ‘Endemicity’ on that call (presumably Edmunds’ gotcha epidemiological point), with Counsel demanding that the spread of infection be “broad and predictable” for it to qualify as endemic, when seasonal spikes shown on a graph means it wasn’t. This was rebuffed in a strong response from Prof. Heneghan, emphasising the seasonal pattern of endemic respiratory viruses and the variability of testing data and evidence on the ground.

Carl’s response to being challenged on the “f*ckwit” comment was dignified and professional, indicating it signified a lack of professionalism from the author as well as a lack of willingness to engage in debate, and an assumption of certainty where there was great uncertainty. He further pointed out that the entire lockdown response was driven by modelling and failed to take into account empirical data or the reality on the ground. Counsel scuttled along to that favourite fallback of the lockdown zealots – Long Covid – where Carl educated the Inquiry by telling it there was no greater risk of lingering disease from Covid than from any other seasonal respiratory disease.

At this point, Counsel decided to end the very short proceedings, presumably to shield the carefully constructed narrative to live another day.

It was hard not to notice the stark contrast in the attitude and approach to the two witnesses and it raises further serious questions on the ability of this long and expensive public inquiry to professionally and impartially challenge the decision making that led to lockdowns.

Kieran Saxon is a member of UsForThem.

October 20, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Rights groups push back against EU censorship chief Thierry Breton after he pressured platforms to censor “disinformation”

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 20, 2023

European (EU) Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton is asked to answer some tough questions after his (latest) escapade, now seen as a new attempt to pressure tech platforms to censor content – while he was explaining that as, combating “disinformation.”

Both politicians, and tech platforms, have been hearing this for a long time, many years now, from people opposed to the obvious censorship: don’t let it “find a home” in the heart of your governments and media, or political discourse – because once it does, it may never leave.

Sure, on any given day, it might feel great to suppress information about an election, a side you don’t like in a war, etc, by just labeling it as “disinformation.”

But what happens once those causes you do support start to get affected, as well? Unfortunately, that’s all there seems to be to it, regarding Breton’s latest outrageous moves – although one would hope and wish for a more universal understanding of the importance and need of protection of free speech, full stop.

Now groups like the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT Europe), Access Now, Article 19, and about two dozen others are expressing their extreme discomfort with Breton’s letter to X, TikTok, Google (YouTube) and Meta.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

It has to do with the latest Middle East escalation. The groups behind the initiative are attempting to influence Breton mainly by asserting that his actions – penning a letter pressuring tech platforms demanding the censorship of “disinformation” on this particular geopolitical issue – as essentially contravening EU’s own Digital Services Act (DSA).

The long and the short of the civil society groups’ attempt here is that Breton is creating “a false equivalency” between illegal content and disinformation – as per the DSA.

To be honest – the EU is such a winding and “blinding” bureaucracy, that it’s not entirely impossible that some of its scriptwriters don’t fully understand their own plot.

Regardless, the letter the CDT now joins claims that Commissioner Breton – in his “censor-right-now” letter to big platforms – “incorrectly and confusingly invoked obligations under DSA to make several demands from these online platforms to swiftly address this content, which are not in fact required by the law.”

Obviously, nobody from these groups is ready to address the EU’s core policy – it’s all procedural.

Or – maybe they do – just a little bit?

“The Commissioners’ (Breton’s) highly politicized engagement risks pressuring online platforms to take actions in ways that are not guided by the law and may undermine human rights, which in this case disproportionately affects human rights defenders, advocates, and journalists. His actions further risk undermining the authority and independence of the Commission’s DSA Enforcement Team,” CDT’s Asha Allen is quoted.

October 20, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Internet Censorship, Everywhere All at Once

By Debbie Lerman | Brownstone Institute | October 19, 2023

It used to be a truth universally acknowledged by citizens of democratic nations that freedom of speech was the basis not just of democracy, but of all human rights.

When a person or group can censor the speech of others, there is – by definition – an imbalance of power. Those exercising the power can decide what information and which opinions are allowed, and which should be suppressed. In order to maintain their power, they will naturally suppress information and views that challenge their position.

Free speech is the only peaceful way to hold those in power accountable, challenge potentially harmful policies, and expose corruption. Those of us privileged to live in democracies instinctively understand this nearly sacred value of free speech in maintaining our free and open societies.

Or do we?

Alarmingly, it seems like many people in what we call democratic nations are losing that understanding. And they seem willing to cede their freedom of speech to governments, organizations, and Big Tech companies who, supposedly, need to control the flow of information to keep everyone “safe.”

The locus for the disturbing shift away from free speech is the 21st-century’s global public square: the Internet. And the proclaimed reasons for allowing those in power to diminish our free speech on the Internet are: “disinformation” and “hate speech.”

In this article, I will review the three-step process by which anti-disinformation laws are introduced. Then, I will review some of the laws being rolled out in multiple countries almost simultaneously, and what such laws entail in terms of vastly increasing the potential for censorship of the global flow of information.

How to Pass Censorship Laws

Step 1: Declare an existential threat to democracy and human rights 

Step 2: Assert that the solution will protect democracy and human rights

Step 3: Enact anti-democratic, anti-human rights censorship fast and in unison

Lies, propaganda, “deep fakes,” and all manner of misleading information have always been present on the Internet. The vast global information hub that is the World Wide Web inevitably provides opportunities for criminals and other nefarious actors, including child sex traffickers and evil dictators.

At the same time, the Internet has become the central locus of open discourse for the world’s population, democratizing access to information and the ability to publish one’s views to a global audience.

The good and bad on the Internet reflect the good and bad in the real world. And when we regulate the flow of information on the Internet, the same careful balance between blocking truly dangerous actors, while retaining maximum freedom and democracy, must apply.

Distressingly, the recent slew of laws governing Internet information are significantly skewed in the direction of limiting free speech and increasing censorship. The reason, the regulators claim, is that fake news, disinformation, and hate speech are existential threats to democracy and human rights.

Here are examples of dire warnings, issued by leading international organizations, about catastrophic threats to our very existence purportedly posed by disinformation:

Propaganda, misinformation and fake news have the potential to polarise public opinion, to promote violent extremism and hate speech and, ultimately, to undermine democracies and reduce trust in the democratic processes. – Council of Europe

The world must address the grave global harm caused by the proliferation of hate and lies in the digital space. – United Nations

Online hate speech and disinformation have long incited violence, and sometimes mass atrocities. – World Economic Forum (WEF)/The New Humanitarian

Considering the existential peril of disinformation and hate speech, these same groups assert that any solution will obviously promote the opposite:

Given such a global threat, we clearly need a global solution. And, of course, such a solution will increase democracy, protect the rights of vulnerable populations, and respect human rights. – WEF

Moreover, beyond a mere assertion that increasing democracy and respecting human rights are built into combating disinformation, international law must be invoked.

In its Common Agenda Policy Brief from June 2023, Information Integrity on Digital Platforms, the UN details the international legal framework for efforts to counter hate speech and disinformation.

First, it reminds us that freedom of expression and information are fundamental human rights:

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 19 (2) of the Covenant protect the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, and through any media.

Linked to freedom of expression, freedom of information is itself a right. The General Assembly has stated: “Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and is the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.” (p. 9)

Then, the UN brief explains that disinformation and hate speech are such colossal, all-encompassing evils that their very existence is antithetical to the enjoyment of any human rights:

Hate speech has been a precursor to atrocity crimes, including genocide. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide prohibits “direct and public incitement to commit genocide”.

In its resolution 76/227, adopted in 2021, the General Assembly emphasized that all forms of disinformation can negatively impact the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. Similarly, in its resolution 49/21, adopted in 2022, the Human Rights Council affirmed that disinformation can negatively affect the enjoyment and realization of all human rights.

This convoluted maze of legalese leads to an absurd, self-contradictory sequence of illogic:

  • Everything the UN is supposed to protect is founded on the freedom of information, which along with free speech is a fundamental human right.
  • The UN believes hate speech and disinformation destroy all human rights.
  • THEREFORE, anything we do to combat hate speech and disinformation protects all human rights, even if it abrogates the fundamental human rights of free speech and information, on which all other rights depend.
  • Because: genocide!

In practice, what this means is that, although the UN at one point in its history considered the freedom of speech and information fundamental to all other rights, it now believes the dangers of hate speech and disinformation eclipse the importance of protecting those rights.

The same warping of democratic values, as delineated by our international governing body, is now occurring in democracies the world over.

Censorship Laws and Actions All Happening Now

If hate speech and disinformation are the precursors of inevitable genocidal horrors, the only way to protect the world is through a coordinated international effort. Who should lead this campaign?

According to the WEF, “Governments can provide some of the most significant solutions to the crisis by enacting far-reaching regulations.”

Which is exactly what they’re doing.

United States

In the US, freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution, so it’s hard to pass laws that might violate it.

Instead, the government can work with academic and nongovernmental organizations to strong-arm social media companies into censoring disfavored content. The result is the Censorship-Industrial Complex, a vast network of government-adjacent academic and nonprofit “anti-disinformation” outfits, all ostensibly mobilized to control online speech in order to protect us from whatever they consider to be the next civilization-annihilating calamity.

The Twitter Files and recent court cases reveal how the US government uses these groups to pressure online platforms to censor content it doesn’t like:

Google

In some cases, companies may even take it upon themselves to control the narrative according to their own politics and professed values, with no need for government intervention. For example: Google, the most powerful information company in the world, has been reported to fix its algorithms to promote, demote, and disappear content according to undisclosed internal “fairness” guidelines.

This was revealed by a whistleblower named Zach Vorhies in his almost completely ignored book, Google Leaks, and by Project Veritas, in a sting operation against Jen Gennai, Google’s Head of Responsible Innovation.

In their benevolent desire to protect us from hate speech and disinformation, Google/YouTube immediately removed the original Project Veritas video from the Internet.

European Union

The Digital Services Act came into force November 16, 2022. The European Commission rejoiced that “The responsibilities of users, platforms, and public authorities are rebalanced according to European values.” Who decides what the responsibilities and what the “European values” are?

  • very large platforms and very large online search engines [are obligated] to prevent the misuse of their systems by taking risk-based action and by independent audits of their risk management systems
  • EU countries will have the primary [oversight] role, supported by a new European Board for Digital Services

Brownstone contributor David Thunder explains how the act provides an essentially unlimited potential for censorship:

This piece of legislation holds freedom of speech hostage to the ideological proclivities of unelected European officials and their armies of “trusted flaggers.”

The European Commission is also giving itself the power to declare a Europe-wide emergency that would allow it to demand extra interventions by digital platforms to counter a public threat.

UK

The Online Safety Bill was passed September 19, 2023. The UK government says “It will make social media companies more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms.”

According to Internet watchdog Reclaim the Net, this bill constitutes one of the widest sweeping attacks on privacy and free speech in a Western democracy:

The bill imbues the government with tremendous power; the capability to demand that online services employ government-approved software to scan through user content, including photos, files, and messages, to identify illegal content.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to defending civil liberties in the digital world, warns: “the law would create a blueprint for repression around the world.”

Australia

The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 was released in draft form June 25, 2023 and is expected to pass by the end of 2023. the Australian government says:

The new powers will enable the ACMA [Australian Communications and Media Authority] to monitor efforts and require digital platforms to do more, placing Australia at the forefront in tackling harmful online misinformation and disinformation, while balancing freedom of speech.

Reclaim the Net explains:

This legislation hands over a wide range of new powers to ACMA, which includes the enforcement of an industry-wide “standard” that will obligate digital platforms to remove what they determine as misinformation or disinformation.

Brownstone contributor Rebekah Barnett elaborates:

Controversially, the government will be exempt from the proposed laws, as will professional news outlets, meaning that ACMA will not compel platforms to police misinformation and disinformation disseminated by official government or news sources.

The legislation will enable the proliferation of official narratives, whether true, false or misleading, while quashing the opportunity for dissenting narratives to compete.

Canada

The Online Streaming Act (Bill C-10) became law April 27, 2023. Here’s how the Canadian government describes it, as it relates to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC):

The legislation clarifies that online streaming services fall under the Broadcasting Act and ensures that the CRTC has the proper tools to put in place a modern and flexible regulatory framework for broadcasting. These tools include the ability to make rules, gather information, and assign penalties for non-compliance.

According to Open Media, a community-driven digital rights organization,

Bill C-11 gives the CRTC unprecedented regulatory authority to monitor all online audiovisual content. This power extends to penalizing content creators and platforms and through them, content creators that fail to comply.

World Health Organization

In its proposed new Pandemic Treaty and in the amendments to its International Health Regulations, all of which it hopes to pass in 2024, the WHO seeks to enlist member governments to

Counter and address the negative impacts of health-related misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and stigmatization, especially on social media platforms, on people’s physical and mental health, in order to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and foster trust in public health systems and authorities.

Brownstone contributor David Bell writes that essentially this will give the WHO, an unelected international body,

power to designate opinions or information as ‘mis-information or disinformation,’ and require country governments to intervene and stop such expression and dissemination. This … is, of course, incompatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but these seem no longer to be guiding principles for the WHO.

Conclusion

We are at a pivotal moment in the history of Western democracies. Governments, organizations and companies have more power than ever to decide what information and views are expressed on the Internet, the global public square of information and ideas.

It is natural that those in power should want to limit expression of ideas and dissemination of information that might challenge their position. They may believe they are using censorship to protect us from grave harms of disinformation and hate speech, or they may be using those reasons cynically to consolidate their control over the flow of information.

Either way, censorship inevitably entails the suppression of free speech and information, without which democracy cannot exist.

Why are the citizens of democratic nations acquiescing to the usurpation of their fundamental human rights? One reason may be the relatively abstract nature of rights and freedoms in the digital realm.

In the past, when censors burned books or jailed dissidents, citizens could easily recognize these harms and imagine how awful it would be if such negative actions were turned against them. They could also weigh the very personal and imminent negative impact of widespread censorship against much less prevalent dangers, such as child sex trafficking or genocide. Not that those dangers would be ignored or downplayed, but it would be clear that measures to combat such dangers should not include widespread book burning or jailing of regime opponents.

In the virtual world, if it’s not your post that is removed, or your video that is banned, it can be difficult to fathom the wide-ranging harm of massive online information control and censorship. It is also much easier online than in the real world to exaggerate the dangers of relatively rare threats, like pandemics or foreign interference in democratic processes. The same powerful people, governments, and companies that can censor online information can also flood the online space with propaganda, terrifying citizens in the virtual space into giving up their real-world rights.

The conundrum for free and open societies has always been the same: How to protect human rights and democracy from hate speech and disinformation without destroying human rights and democracy in the process.

The answer embodied in the recent coordinated enactment of global censorship laws is not encouraging for the future of free and open societies.

Debbie Lerman, 2023 Brownstone Fellow, has a degree in English from Harvard. She is a retired science writer and a practicing artist in Philadelphia, PA.

October 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

New York Attorney General Letitia James Demands Censorship of Speech Regarding Israel-Hamas Conflict

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 19, 2023

New York’s state attorney general, Letitia James, has learned nothing after the state was sued for its “anti- hate” law that was an affront to free speech and the First Amendment.

James is demanding social media companies shed light and provide clarification on their actions regarding “hate speech” and calls for violence posted on their platforms.

James has dispatched letters to a host of tech giants including Google and Meta, along with others such as X, TikTok, Reddit, and neutral video platform Rumble. The letters contain probing questions on their handling of calls for violence that have become rampant across their platforms recently.

We obtained a copy of the letters for you here.

The pro-censorship AG seeks to understand the platforms’ strategy about content moderation policies and how these are applied to mitigate the propagation of alleged hate-filled threats.

James wrote: “In the wake of Hamas’ unspeakable atrocities, social media has been widely used by bad actors to spread horrific material, disseminate threats, and encourage violence. These platforms have a responsibility to keep their users safe and prohibit the spread of violent rhetoric that puts vulnerable groups in danger.”

Analyzing this through a lens of censorship and free speech becomes all the more critical now. This is not merely a question of inflammatory content but also concerns the elasticity of these platforms’ policies, which could potentially threaten the core tenets of free speech.

It forces one to question what might be classified as “hate speech” under these policies and what could potentially be deemed a permissible expression of personal beliefs.

James has called on these companies to explain their tactics for combating such threats and their plans to ensure online platforms are not misused for promoting terror activities, concluding: “I am calling on these companies to explain how they are addressing threats, and how they will ensure that no online platform is used to further terrorist activities.”

FIRE, who is already part of a lawsuit against James for a previous New York censorship law that has been accused of violating the First Amendment, wrote to James and requested that she retract her letter.

FIRE, writing in its capacity as counsel for neutral video platform Rumble, demanded the “immediate and unequivocal retraction of [James’] October 12, 2023 investigation letters to six internet platforms, including Rumble.”

In the letter seen by Reclaim The Net, FIRE’s attorneys say James’ demand letters “violate (1) a federal district court’s injunction against the enforcement of New York General Business Law § 394-ccc (the Online Hate Speech Law); (2) the active stay of all proceedings in that case as to Rumble; and (3) the First Amendment rights of the Investigated Platforms and their users.”

James has until the end of the day today to respond.

October 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Former ambassador and Assange advocate Craig Murray detained under UK terror laws

By Kit Klarenberg · The Grayzone · October 17, 2023

On the morning of October 16, counter-terror police in Glasgow Airport detained journalist, whistleblower, human rights campaigner, and former British diplomat Craig Murray upon his return from Iceland. After grilling him intensively about his political beliefs, officers seized Murray’s phone and laptop.

Murray, a proud Scottish nationalist, flew back to Glasgow after several days in Reykjavik, where he attended a popular Palestine solidarity event, and also met with high-ranking representatives of the Assange Campaign, which raises awareness about the plight of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Once his travel documents were processed at passport control, the officer informed him he would be detained for questioning. They then led him to a small backroom to be grilled by three nameless British counter-terror agents.

Murray told The Grayzone that British police warned him he would be committing a criminal offense and would be prosecuted if he refused to answer questions, answered untruthfully, deliberately withheld information, or refused to provide passcodes for his electronic devices. After his phone and laptop were seized for analysis, the interrogation began.

“First, they grilled me about the private Assange Campaign meeting,” Murray told The Grayzone. “You might think they would ask who was there, but they didn’t,” he said, adding, “my guess is they somehow knew already.”

Instead, “all the questions were financial,” Murray says. According to the former British ambassador, officers wanted to know “whether I get money for my contributions to the Campaign, if I get paid by WikiLeaks, Don’t Extradite Assange, even Julian’s family.”

“The answer each time was ‘no,’” Murray says, explaining: “My sources of income and where my money comes from were of particular interest to the officers.”

The one-time diplomat’s popular personal blog was also of interest to the officers, who reportedly demanded Murray tell them whether anyone else had access to it or could publish content on the platform, and if anyone other than himself authored any of its posts.

Strangely, Murray said he was not asked about a single article published on his website. Equally puzzling, he remarked, were the questions about the Palestine solidarity event he attended.

Officers apparently wanted to know why Murray had attended in the first place — “a strange question to ask of someone attending a protest,” he told The Grayzone. Nonetheless, he made it clear that he had gone because he was friends with one of the speakers, a former Icelandic interior minister.

Police reportedly also demanded details on the content of various speakers’ addresses at the event — information which Murray says he could not offer as he doesn’t speak Icelandic. When asked if he planned to attend any similar pro-Palestine events in Britain, he told them, “probably.”

“The weirdest question was, ‘how do I judge whether to share a platform with someone or not?’” Murray says, adding: “I do so based on who’s organizing the event.”

In this particular case, Murray continued, “it was [the] Palestine Solidarity Committee, so I was confident I was in safe hands.” Still, it struck the former ambassador as a bizarre line of questioning.

“My lawyer has never heard of such a question being asked during interrogations before,” Murray said, adding that “they speculate police have a surveillance photo of me in the proximity of someone they consider a ‘terrorist.’”

“I’ve no idea who that could be,” the outspoken human rights campaigner admitted. But, as he quickly observed: “If you attend a rally where 200,000 people are present, you can’t know who everyone is!”

Murray has since consulted with lawyers, who informed him that according to Section 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act — the draconian legislation under which he was subjected to the intensive questioning — he would be legally entitled to consult a lawyer if the interrogation lasted longer than an hour.

‘A sledgehammer to crack a nut’

Once the hour of questioning was up, the officers sent him on his way, but failed to return his phone or laptop. “I’m used to the idea of British and American spies having my computers,” Murray said.

On a trip to Germany at the end of 2022, two laptops belonging to Murray were stolen in separate locations. The second laptop happened to have been a locally-bought replacement for the first. He believes the thefts were “probably” carried out by “security services,” an interpretation reinforced by the fact the first laptop was stored in a bag containing a large sum of cash, along with vital heart medicine. The culprits inexplicably ignored the former, while pocketing the latter.

When probed by counter-terror cops about the contents of his laptop, Murray says he openly disclosed that device contained copies of leaked private emails of Stewart McDonald, a hawkish, deep state-connected Scottish National Party.

But “I’m not worried about any content on there,” he explained, so “it’s not a problem they have it.”

“I told the officers I pitied whichever poor bastard has to wade through McDonald’s emails,” he joked.

“Interestingly,” Murray notes, “one of them volunteered in response that the contents of seized digital devices are sifted electronically, rather than an individual going over the whole contents.”

“Presumably, algorithms run by keyword searches do the legwork, and whatever that throws up is studied and shared with different agencies,” he speculates.

Murray’s lawyers are now looking into the stop, with an eye on whether his interrogators told him the truth before his questioning began.

This April, British counter-terror police detained the French publisher and political activist Ernest Moret, who had led large protests in Paris against the neoliberal reforms of President Emmanuel Macron. Moret was detained under the same powers as Murray, then arrested when he refused to hand over passcodes to his electronic devices. He was ultimately held in British custody for almost 24 hours.

In July, a damning report by Britain’s terror legislation watchdog concluded the officers who detained Moret had made “exaggerated and overbearing” threats when they claimed that he would never again be able to travel overseas if he didn’t disclose information, as he’d be listed as a terrorist in international intelligence databases. The report also found police grilled him illegitimately regarding legally privileged conversations he had with his lawyer during the interrogation.

Schedule 7 is “powerful” and “must therefore be exercised with due care,” the reviewer said, before ultimately comparing police’s usage of the legislation to interrogate Moret to “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”:

“This was an investigation into public order for which counter-terrorism powers were never intended to be used,” the report noted, concluding “the rights of free expression and protest are too important in a democracy to allow individuals to be investigated for potential terrorism merely because they may have been involved in protests that have turned violent.”

But when it comes to carrying out political detentions, the legislation in question is not the only one in British officers’ arsenal.

Absent from the report was any reference to Schedule 3, Section 4 of Britain’s 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, which was used to authorize the detention of this journalist at London’s Luton Airport this May. The provision grants authorities sweeping powers to delve into the personal and professional affairs of dissidents. According to Murray, British counter-terror cops appear to have approached him using “the same playbook” they employed with me.

Under the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, which has been harshly criticized by the UN, an individual can be said to be serving “hostile” foreign powers without even knowing or intending to — or the powers in question being aware they are. This Orwellian precept was reinforced by London’s new National Security Act, which was passed in July 2023.

Anyone who has agitated the British national security state and plans on traveling to the UK may want to be careful what they keep on their devices. As one of Ernest Moret’s interrogators boasted to him, Britain is “the only country where authorities can download and keep information from private devices” forever.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Canadian Government Wants To Boost Opinion Monitoring, Under The Guise of Reducing “Misinformation”

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 18, 2023

The Canadian Department of Heritage appears to be aligning itself with a potentially alarming stance, according to a recent write-up by Blacklock’s Reporter. Liberals within the administration have expressed the need for a significant boost in funds to target what they deem as “incorrect” political perspectives. This request is centered around the Digital Citizen Initiative (DCI), a program set into motion by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in 2018 under the tagline of combating online disinformation to aid democracy and social inclusion.

The DCI appears to outstretch its reach. The program puts forth that its resources are insufficient and demands more financial backing. It claims that disinformation right now poses extensive damaging potential, affecting Canadians’ health, safety, political beliefs, trust in media, and their civic and democratic engagement. However, upon raising these grave concerns, it offers no substantial evidence or instances to back them up.

This widening net also engulfs various societal groups, claiming that disinformation creates an environment rife with discrimination, stigma, and marginalization, possibly fueling social divisions. Groups like people with lower digital competency and those from minority backgrounds, it maintains, might be susceptible to this so-called disinformation campaign.

In response, Canada’s government granted DCI $7.5 million for two years, intending to fund activities centered around digital, news, and civic literacy.

But the appetite of DCI seems insatiable. An additional $19.4 million was given to DCI and the Digital Citizen Contribution Program (DCCP) for research correlated with the government’s aim of understanding, tackling, and revisiting online misinformation.

Several key universities, non-profit organizations, and policy forums, amongst other institutions, across Canada have been the beneficiaries of DCI’s grants.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Israeli Minister Calls For Arrest of Journalists and Citizens That Share Information That Harms “National Morale”

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 17, 2023

In a moment where the essence of free speech is under scrutiny worldwide, a controversial move by Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has sparked profound concern among proponents of free expression and the principles of a democratic society. Karhi is in the process of advancing regulations, authorizing the arrest of individuals and seizure of property based on the subjective judgment that their communication undermines “national morale” or aids enemy propaganda.

These proposed rules, known as “Limiting Aid to the Enemy through Communication,” were crafted in coordination with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Broad in their scope, these regulations aren’t confined to potential misinformation or enemy rhetoric but extend to factually accurate statements and mainstream media coverage, both domestic and international. It would allow Israeli police to arrest Israeli citizens, including journalists, for sharing information that is critical of Israel.

This move stands in stark contrast to its initially declared goal – curbing the influence of Al Jazeera in Israel.

Derived under the aegis of Section 39 of the Basic Law: The Government, these draft regulations explicitly characterize “aiding the enemy through communication” as not just direct assistance to adversaries, but any information dissemination that the authorities perceive as weakening Israel’s societal or military morale or that echoes enemy propaganda.

The reach of these regulations is comprehensive, encompassing all forms of audio and visual communication. The power vested in the communications minister is extensive; it allows for the cessation of broadcasts, confiscation of broadcasting equipment, and even the physical removal of individuals from certain locales, all under the subjective banner of national security.

In totality, these developments represent a troubling trend towards the erosion of journalistic freedom and the sanctity of free speech, pivotal pillars of any democratic establishment and some that often get undermined in times of war.

October 17, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

The Great Travel Reset

Corbett • 10/17/2023

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Are you aware of the Great Travel Reset that is already underway? You should be! Are you outraged about the fact that one of your most basic human rights is being stolen from under your very nose? You ought to be! Are you willing to spend more than a few minutes a week informing yourself about this issue? You’d better be! If you want a two-minute explainer on this topic, go to TikTok. For everyone else, this is The Corbett Report.

Watch on Archive / BitChute / Odysee / Rokfin / Rumble / Download the mp4

DOCUMENTATION

Own Nothing, Be Happy
Time Reference: 00:00

 

Schwab on “automatically guided cars”: The New Global Context and Its Impact on the Role of Government
Time Reference: 02:26

 

Accenture World Economic Forum Known Traveller
Time Reference: 03:18

Airport of the Future
Time Reference: 03:45

France bans short domestic flights to cut carbon emissions
Time Reference: 04:18

 

Virtual Reality: The Future of Travel?
Time Reference: 04:35

 

Flight-Shaming Is Now A Thing – Will It Keep You From Traveling?
Time Reference: 09:24

 

Why ‘flight shame’ is making people swap planes for trains
Time Reference: 09:29

 

41% of French population favors restricting EVERYONE to ONLY 4 airplane flights in their ENTIRE LIFE to ‘fight against global warming’
Time Reference: 09:58

 

Carbon Passports Are The Next Dystopian Surveillance Threat
Time Reference: 13:05

 

A Sustainable Future for Travel: From Crisis to Transformation
Time Reference: 14:17

 

CLEAR’s new Health Pass service to help screen for coronavirus: CEO
Time Reference: 16:51

 

Finland tests world’s first digital passport | Tech it Out
Time Reference: 17:40

 

“Get to Know the Known Traveller Digital Identity” In Partnership With Accenture
Time Reference: 18:20

 

No gas cars by 2035?
Time Reference: 19:32

 

‘These deeply illiberal, unBritish 15-minute cities are beyond the pale’ | Mark Dolan
Time Reference: 20:12

 

London mayor’s climate crackdowns are about ‘controlling our lives,’ says Nigel Farage
Time Reference: 21:12

 

The B20 calls on the G20 to adopt vaccine passports using WHO standards #bali
Time Reference: 26:23

 

WHO global digital health certificate (REJECT DIGITAL ENSLAVEMENT)
Time Reference: 28:44

 

UPDATE: WHO Approves Extension of Amendment Working Group Deadline
Time Reference: 33:59

 

Interview 1839 – A Million People Need to Share This Video on CHD TV
Time Reference: 35:07

 

October 17, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Dozens And Dozens Of Doctors Team Up To Fight “Chilling Attack” On The Freedom Of Speech Of Senior Doctor

Dr Aseem Malhotra with his father Prof Kailash Chand OBE, who he believes died from a sudden cardiac arrest due to the Pfizer vaccine.
By JJ Starky | The Stark Naked Brief | October 16, 2023

In June, a group of doctors, some of whom are general practitioners (GPs), initiated legal action against the General Medical Council (GMC). The basis of their claim was the GMC’s alleged failure to address misinformation about the Covid vaccines.

The doctors, who prefer anonymity – cowards – delivered a pre-action protocol letter to the GMC, signalling their intent to pursue legal action. Earlier in January, this group had urged the regulator to assess Dr. Aseem Malhotra’s suitability to practice medicine, citing his alleged “prominent dissemination of misinformation regarding Covid-19 mRNA vaccines.”

Dr. Malhotra, a renowned cardiologist, activist, and author, boasts over half a million Twitter followers, with his latest content primarily centering around the safety, or the lack there of, of the Covid vaccines.

Prior to receiving an official denial from the GMC, the doctors contended in an April letter that the regulator should determine if Dr. Malhotra’s professional conduct had been compromised by his alleged “anti-Covid-19 vaccine stance”. They stressed that inaction could jeopardise patient safety and public trust in both the medical field and the GMC.

Professor Trish Greenhalgh, an Oxford University GP, highlighted the GMC’s reluctance to tie perceived “anti-vaccine statements” to direct harm inflicted upon a patient. She emphasised the expansive reach of “misleading statements” in the era of social media, necessitating a reevaluation of the definition of “harm” in this context.

To defray the legal expenses for challenging the GMC, the group embarked on a fundraising campaign, collecting a reported £5,000.

Dr. Malhotra defended his stance, citing a commitment to evolve his position in line with new evidence. He mentioned his own early vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine and efforts to combat vaccine hesitancy, but stressed his belief that the mRNA vaccines present serious risks while noting their approval despite the absence of long-term safety data.

Earlier today, Doctors For Patients UK, the UK Medical Freedom Alliance, and Health Advisory & Recovery Team, issued a press release in response to the Good Law Project.

(It constitutes a bit of an ass-whopping in my opinion so I dare not summarise it. Here it is in its entirety):

Dear Editor

We, the undersigned doctors, and the campaign groups Doctors for Patients UK, UK Medical Freedom Alliance and HART, wish to publicly state our support for Dr Aseem Malhotra, a well-published academic and cardiologist who has been a popular commentator on medical and public health matters in the UK media for many years. We condemn the actions of a group of (mostly anonymous) doctors, supported by the Good Law Project (GLP), in seeking to silence and punish Dr Malhotra for speaking out about his concerns about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines. This is a serious and chilling attack on the freedom of speech of a senior doctor.

Dr Malhotra is the son of the late BMA stalwart and NHS campaigner, Dr Kailash Chand. Following the unexpected death of his father from previously undetectable heart disease, Dr Malhotra made public statements highlighting his concerns that his father’s Covid-19 vaccinations were a causal factor in his death.

Despite initially endorsing and promoting the Covid-19 vaccines on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on 5th February 20212 he is now calling for an immediate suspension of the novel mRNA Covid-19 vaccines and a full investigation into their adverse effects, for reasons detailed in the 2-part, peer-reviewed paper he wrote, published in September 2022 in the Journal of Insulin Resistance. This is entirely in line with his duty as a responsible doctor, to protect the British public from the harm which he believes his family have suffered and to uphold the fundamental principle of medical ethics to “First do no harm”.

Dr Malhotra presented his concerns to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Vaccine Damage, on 20th October 2022 at Portcullis House, Westminster. His impassioned call to prioritise patient safety resulted in a group of anonymous doctors reporting him to the General Medical Council (GMC) for ‘high-profile promotion of misinformation about Covid-19 mRNA vaccines’, demanding they investigate his fitness to practice. When the GMC refused to carry out a Fitness to Practice (FtP) investigation, Dr Matt Kneale, a junior doctor in the group, instructed The Good Law Project (GLP) to begin crowdfunding for a legal action against the GMC’s decision, and launched a judicial review against the GMC in the High Court.

Dr Malhotra is a senior cardiologist, a well-established commentator and campaigner on public health issues, and a long-standing advocate for patient safety. His previous campaigns have raised awareness about heart disease, obesity, the harms of sugar, and corruption within the pharmaceutical industry. As an ambassador for the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, he was the lead author in this joint initiative with the BMJ to tackle the harms of overprescribing and unnecessary medical interventions. It is a mark of Dr Malhotra’s high regard for medical ethics that he felt compelled to speak publicly about his new and growing concerns of a link between Covid-19 vaccines and heart damage, despite initially endorsing the mRNA jabs.

It is deeply unsettling that the GLP, an entity funded primarily by the public, would turn its legal machinery toward silencing an ethical doctor. This is especially troubling given the organisation’s stated commitment to transparency and a better world. Rather than exerting legal force to silence professionals, should they not focus instead on compelling the full release of the Covid-19 vaccine trial data? The absence of such vital information from public and medical scrutiny is not just a lapse; it’s a serious breach of trust and a blow to patient safety.

By contesting the GMC’s decision to support Dr Malhotra’s right to free speech and not to carry out a formal FtP investigation (on the grounds that his statements were not sufficiently egregious to merit action), the legal action supported by the GLP risks undermining the resolve of medical professionals to speak candidly on serious health issues, a move that would have profound consequences for patient safety and the ethical practice of medicine.

The GLP challenge against the GMC decision is misconceived, misguided, and threatens doctors’ individual right to free speech and proper scientific debate on matters relating to protecting the public from dangerous products. It is deeply regrettable in a democratic society that instead of being applauded for his courage in raising the alarm, Dr Malhotra is being persecuted in this way.

Thousands of doctors worldwide and in the United Kingdom11 share Dr Malhotra’s reasonable concerns regarding Covid-19 vaccine safety. Many have spoken out on this issue, including the eminent US cardiologist, Dr Peter McCullough, who called for an immediate withdrawal of these products in a speech made in the EU Parliament on 13 September 2023. The undersigned doctors and organisations are aware of multiple harms associated with the Covid-19 vaccines; among them frontline doctors who have reported vaccine-associated injuries and deaths in their own patients.

The list of signatories and co-signatories is something to behold:

  • Dr Ayiesha Malik, MBChB, MRCGP (2014)
  • Dr Clare Craig BM BCh, FRCPath
  • Dr Elizabeth Evans, MA, MBBS, DRCOG
  • Lord Moonie, MBChB, MRCPsych, MFCM, MSc, House of Lords, former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State 2001-2003, former Consultant in Public Health Medicine
  • Professor Angus Dalgleish, MD, FRCP, FRACP, FRCPath, FMedSci, Professor of Oncology, University of London; Principal, Institute for Cancer Vaccines & Immunotherapy
  • Professor John A Fairclough, BM BS, BMed Sci, FRCS, FFSEM(UK), Professor Emeritus, Honorary Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon
  • Dr Ali Ajaz, MBBS, BSc, MRCPsych, PGCert, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist
  • Dr Victoria Anderson, MBChB, MRCGP (2016), MRCPCH (2013), DRCOG, General Practitioner
  • Dr Lucy Apps, MBBS, MRCGP, General Practitioner
  • Dr Michael Bazlinton, MBChB, MRCGP, DCH, General Practitioner
  • Dr Mark A Bell, MBChB, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, Consultant in Emergency Medicine
  • Dr Gill Breese, BSc, MBChB, DTM&H, DFFP, General Practitioner
  • Dr Emma Brierly, MBBS, MRCGP, General Practitioner
  • Dr Rachel Brown, MBChB, LLM, CFMP, MRCPsych
  • Mr John Bunni, MBChB (Hons), Dip Lap Surg, FRCS [ASGBI Medal], Consultant Colorectal and General Surgeon
  • Dr Selena Chester, MBBS, Medical Practitioner
  • Dr David Cartland, MBChB, BMedSci, General Practitioner
  • Mr Ian F Comaish, MA, BM BCh, FRCOphth, FRANZCO, Consultant Ophthalmologist
  • Dr Phuoc-Tan Diep, MBChB FRCPath. Consultant Histopathologist
  • Dr Jonathan Eastwood, BSc, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner
  • Dr Jonathan Engler, MBChB, LLB
  • Dr Bob Gill, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner
  • Dr Catherine Hatton, MBChB, General Practitioner
  • Dr Tony Hinton, MBChB, FRCS, Consultant Surgeon
  • Dr Rosamond Jones, MBBS, MD, FRCPCH, retired Consultant Paediatrician
  • Dr Tim Kelly, MBBCh, BSc, Hospital Doctor
  • Dr Caroline Lapworth, MBChB, General Practitioner
  • Dr Theresa Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD, Director, Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd, Bath
  • Dr Andrew Lees, MB BS, MRCGP, DCH, retired General Practitioner
  • Mr Malcolm Loudon, MB ChB, MD, FRCSEd, FRCS (Gen Surg). MIHM, VR, Consultant Surgeon
  • Dr Imran Malik, MBBS, MRCP (2006), MRCGP (2007), General Practitioner
  • Dr Fiona Martindale, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner
  • Dr Janet Menage, MA, MBChB, retired General Practitioner
  • Dr Alan Mordue, MBChB, FFPH, retired Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Epidemiology
  • Dr Campbell Murdoch, MBChb, General Practitioner and PCN Clinical Director, Somerset
  • Dr Greta Mushet, MBChB, MRCPsych, retired Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy
  • Dr Angela Musso, MD, MRCGP, DRCOG, FRACGP, MFPC, General Practitioner
  • Dr Sam McBride, BSc (Hons) Medical Microbiology & Immunobiology, MBBCh BAO, MSc in Clinical Gerontology, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, FRCP(Edinburgh), NHS Emergency Medicine & geriatrics
  • Mr Ian McDermott, MBBS, MS, FRCS(Orth), Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon
  • Dr Geoffrey Maidment, MBBS, FRCP, retired Consultant Physician
  • Dr Fairoz Miller, BSc, MBBCh, MRCP (1999), MRCGP (2016), General Practitioner
  • Dr Alistair J Montgomery, MBChB, MRCGP, DRCOG, retired General Practitioner
  • Dr Sarah Myhill, MBBS, Dip NM, retired GP, Independent Naturopathic Physician, UKMFA Director of Medical Ethics
  • Dr Dean Patterson, Consultant Cardiologist and General Physician, MBChB, FRCP
  • Dr Jessica Robinson, Bsc (Hons), MBBS, MRCPsych, MFHom
  • Dr Susannah Robinson, MBBS BSc MRCP MRCGP General Practitioner
  • Dr Jon Rogers, MB ChB (Bristol), MRCGP (1981), DRCOG (1980), retired General Practitioner
  • Mr T. James Royle, MBChB, FRCS, MMedEd, Colorectal and General Surgeon
  • Dr Magdalena Stasiak-Horkan, MBBS, DCH, MRCGP (2003-2017), General Practitioner
  • Dr Rohaan Seth, BSc, MBChB, MRCGP (2012), retired General Practitioner
  • Dr Jannah van der Pol, iBSc, MBBS, MRCGP, General Practitioner
  • Dr Helen Westwood, MBChB (Hons), MRCGP, DCH, DRCOG, General Practitioner
  • Dr Lucie Wilk, BSc, MD, FRCPC (2013), Consultant Rheumatologist

You can find a full copy of the press release here.

Currently working on a new exposè concerning the coordinated attempt to tarnish “conspiracist” celebrities. It is, however, proving to be more time-consuming than I originally expected. I should have it up in the next few days.

October 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

The hounding of an inspirational headmaster who spoke out on Covid

By Sally Beck | TCW Defending Freedom | October 12, 2023

Headmaster Mike Fairclough was the darling of primary school education after creating an unorthodox forest school in a council estate in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Alongside the usual lessons, from 2004 Mr Fairclough provided an extraordinarily rich rural curriculum that you would never expect in a state school. He leased 120 acres of marshland opposite West Rise school, the site of a former Bronze Age settlement. The children learned how to build fires and how to whittle wood with knives to make arrows. They learned fly fishing, how to skin rabbits and pluck pigeons. They tended beehives, sheep and even water buffalo.

Mr Fairclough won the admiration of his peers, and in 2015, the Times Educational Supplement ‘Primary School of the Year’ award. Dame Judith Hackitt, chairman of the Health & Safety Executive, said more school head teachers should be following Fairclough’s example. The underperforming school’s Ofsted rose from ‘Satisfactory’ to ‘Good’ and for 19 years, West Rise thrived. The number of pupils doubled from 179 to 360, as did the number of staff from 30 to 60.

Mr Fairclough enjoyed a good relationship with his staff and his local authority East Sussex County Council but resigned last month after a witch hunt using anti-terrorism legislation left him feeling a broken man. In his resignation letter he said: ‘I feel that I have been discriminated against, harassed, and bullied for exercising my right to lawful free speech and for expressing my philosophical belief in the importance of critical thinking, free speech, and safeguarding children.

‘As a headteacher, I have had a legal duty to safeguard children against harm. My professional field of expertise is child development and education. I have publicly shared my opinion that lockdowns harm children, that I disagree with masking children, and that I feel that the risks from the Covid vaccines for children outweigh any possible benefits. It has therefore been entirely reasonable and relevant for me to express my lawful opinions on these matters in the interest of safeguarding children against harm.’ Other heads agreed privately but 50-year-old Mr Fairclough, a father of four, was the only headteacher of 20,000 in the UK to say so publicly.

‘I first started to lose heart during the pandemic,’ he said. ‘The fear of Covid trumped learning, so children weren’t sitting next to each other and couldn’t share resources. Some schools were having children learning outside in the cold, so they weren’t able to concentrate, and it felt like adults’ fear of dying, which was irrational because we were told early that we were at minimal risk of dying of Covid, meant they were using children in their care as human shields. That made me think that the Department for Education weren’t really bothered about kids at all.’

His lawful response put him under scrutiny at the highest levels. Mr Fairclough found out through freedom of information (FOI) that he had been monitored by the government’s Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) and their Department for Counter Extremism, although he was cleared of any wrongdoing by East Sussex County Council.

Some people objected to his negative views on vaccinating children against Covid, opinions expressed outside the school setting, on social media and in podcasts. They fell into four main points, all of which are hard to challenge:

·       Healthy children were at low risk of serious illness from Covid. (Office of National Statistics figures show that just six under-tens died between January 2020 and May 2021. They do not say whether the children had underlying health problems. For context, around 1,000 children die on the roads each year.)

·       Covid vaccines posed known and very serious risks. (Potentially fatal myocarditis, and pericarditis, inflammation of the heart, are known risks.)

·       A child can still catch Covid and spread Covid when vaccinated. (Covid vaccinations were not recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination (JCVI) for under-16s, a decision overridden by the chief medical officers in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.)

·       There was no long-term safety data, trials do not finish until this year, and the potential risks outweighed any benefit.

Mr Fairclough said: ‘I tried to communicate with parents who were undecided in a way that didn’t make me sound like I’m mad. I do think there are some in the freedom movement who say things in a way that doesn’t endear themselves to people with a different view.’

In the end 89.4 per cent of five to 11-year-olds remained unvaccinated although the numbers are hard to find and are not reported by the BBC.

So, who complained about this popular and effective headmaster? The first investigation was launched in June 2021. It was made by a group of retired NHS workers on Twitter (now X) whose mission it was to find anyone in education who appeared to be antivax and anti-lockdown. Mr Fairclough does not know who made the second complaint but the third was made by a concerned group of parents and teachers. ‘No parent came to me,’ Mr Fairclough said. ‘I have an open-door policy and they know they can talk to me at any time. I don’t know exactly which staff complained, but I have my suspicions. There was a small group within the school who did not agree with me although most were aligned with my thinking.’

It was December 1 2022 when the third complaint arrived, reported under the Prevent duty, the government initiative that requires all education providers to safeguard learners from extremist ideologies. Mr Fairclough was also reported to the DfE’s Counter-Extremism Division and was being framed as an extremist and potential terrorist, an intimidating move by the local council that left Mr Fairclough traumatised. He was signed off suffering with stress. He said: ‘I found sleeping difficult. I kept dreaming about what was happening and woke up thinking about it. I’m not a terrorist, all I was doing was discussing the alterative narrative.’

We know utopia does not exist and Mr Fairclough had his run-ins. ‘It wasn’t that I never fell out with parents. Say for example they felt like a teacher hadn’t dealt with a bullying issue, then of course they would come in and kick off and I’d have to look into the matter. But what surprised me with the resignation is that even parents that I’d had that kind of fractious relationship with have actually contacted me personally to say, “we’re really gutted that you’re not here any more”. That surprised me. I thought at least one would say good riddance.’

His absence has sent the school into freefall. An Ofsted report carried out in July, seven months after he was signed off, saw West Rise downgraded from ‘Good’ to ‘Requires Improvement’.

Our education system is increasingly focused on learning by rote rather than teaching critical thinking, a skill Mr Fairclough thinks is essential. He said: ‘Education is highly political under the Conservative government, it’s all about acquisition of knowledge to be retained and regurgitated for a memory test on the other side.’

His unusual approach had the full support of parents, the Health and Safety Executive, Ofsted and the media. Some of his pupils gained places at the local agricultural college and now run their own herds in the Sussex South Downs. A number entered media in film, art, and drama, mainly thanks to his ‘Room 13’, where children could go and have complete creative autonomy.

He is not sure what comes next, but he is sure of one thing: advocating for children cost him his much-loved career in our inverted world. He said: ‘Critical thinking and lawful free speech are not dangerous; they go hand in hand in safeguarding children. Open debate on important matters is the bedrock of any democratic society and no one should be pursued for speaking out.’

Mr Fairclough is not giving up on free speech and is crowdfunding to take his former employer to court. You can donate here.

He hopes his future will include writing more books like Wild Thing, which is about how embracing childhood traits into adulthood can lead to happiness. He recently started a Substack which you can see here.

October 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

My trial lawyer buddies won’t like this essay

They are not the fearless, justice-seeking advocates they want us to think they are.

BY BILL RICE, JR. | OCTOBER 14, 2023

I’ve now written several articles pointing out the obvious. Namely, that all important organizations that are supposed to discover the truth are completely captured.

One of the most-important of these professions is Plaintiffs’ Trial Lawyer firms. These are attorneys and law firms that are supposed to exist to represent people who suffered grave harms from malfeasance or nefarious (and illegal) acts.

First questions: Where are these fearless, justice-seeking lawyers today? What are they doing with their lives and careers?

We know what they are NOT doing: They are not suing any person or company whose activities directly or indirectly injured or killed hundreds of millions of possible plaintiffs who are pleading for justice.

Potential lawsuits might expose (and give some compensation or “justice”) to tens of millions of people who suffered harm from lockdowns, iatrogenic deaths and injuries, vaccine deaths and injuries and/or vaccine mandates that resulted in people losing their jobs and incomes.

FWIW, such lawsuits might also stop these horrific practices, saving countless people from pain, suffering and even death.

So why aren’t these lawsuits being filed? Why won’t 99 percent of these firms even consider representing a potential plaintiff class that’s so massive in size?

Nobody wants to leave the safety of the herd 

Or: club membership bestows benefits

My answer is that plaintiff trial lawyers are part of a “club” that’s now completely captured. It’s more important to these attorneys to remain in this privileged and protected club than it is to do the job lawyers were created to do.

Basically, to remain a member in good standing of this club, these attorneys know what lawsuits they can file … and, more importantly, what lawsuits they cannot file.

I also note that the members of the Plaintiff’s trial bar are among the wealthiest people in the world. If they file a case and win, they pocket at least 40 percent of the financial judgement.

I also understand most of these lawsuits never even go before a jury. They are settled long before that point – so plaintiff lawyers don’t even have to fully try a case, which, with appeals, could take years to adjudicate.

In short, if you become part of the group that can file authorized lawsuits … and identify enough winnable cases, this is a lucrative gig.

You are going to be a member of the best country club in town and your family is going to be able to take vacations to the south of France.

Why jeopardize your inclusion in a profitable profession?

A key point is that this group never runs out of “winnable cases.”

Every day, an 18-wheeler (owned by a trucking company with deep pockets or good liability insurance) is going to be involved in a fatal traffic accident. Asbestos lawsuits are still making lawyers millionaires decades after asbestos was identified as a potential killer.

If “contaminated water” at a military base might, decades later, have made some people sick that’s a potential windfall for lawyers who recruited enough possible victims.

If you were perhaps discriminated against because of your LGBT status or maybe because of your race, this could produce enough money for a lawyer to live like a king for a couple of years.

Even hospitals or surgeons can be sued for malpractice … if they commit malpractice that is on the authorized “sue list.”

In short, no plaintiff trial attorney needs to file Covid-related lawsuits to continue to make a great living. There’s enough easy judgments out there to keep suing lawyers happy and content.

A thought experiment …

However, what would happen to these lawyers and their law firms if they suddenly started filing lawsuits against Pfizer, or Moderna or their local hospitals and doctors, people who are the most respected people in their towns?

What if they sued a random scientific expert, and their employers at the local university, who evidence showed were intentionally producing harmful and bogus science and who were retaliating against individuals who were trying to tell the truth?

What if they sued a big local employer, led by “civic-minded” and well-respected CEOs, who nonetheless helped enforce all the harmful and discriminatory Covid mandates?

If any of these things actually happened – if some serious lawsuits were filed – I don’t think the attorneys or law firms that brought these cases would remain in this exalted club for long.

Lawyers are smart. My guess is they understand all of this.

They know how cancel culture works. They saw that even Tucker Carlson, who had the No. 1 rated TV news show in the world, could be fired in retaliation for trying to expose club members.

Attorneys, more than most citizens, can probably tell which way the wind is blowing and who really possesses the most power in society. (The same dynamic applies to mainstream media “journalists,” who know what stories they can write … and which ones they can never write).

In a way, it makes sense that attorneys wouldn’t want to get sideways with certain people and organizations.  It’s now been confirmed repeatedly that sociopaths, or those who covet status, are not amused when someone breaks ranks and challenges their status and control.

Here’s the lawyers’ go-to defense …

It would be interesting if some real journalist surveyed some of the most prominent plaintiff trial firms and asked their managing partners why they are not representing millions of gravely injured citizens.

I can guess what their answers would be.

The common answer would be that potential defendants in lawsuits are immune from liability.

This is no doubt true in some cases, but definitely not all possible cases, involving all victims.

As noted, lawyers are smart. If they wanted to file a case, they could find myriad legal grounds to bring said cases.

But, IMO, the real reason would be unspoken.

“Are you crazy? We’re not going to agitate the most powerful and politically-connected organizations in the world. They’d retaliate and put us out of the lawsuit-filing business.”

This is no doubt true, so the world’s elite lawyers are not suffering from paranoia.

Which brings me to my main point …

But what these attorneys would really be admitting is they are not the “fearless,” justice-seeking lawyers they depict in their TV commercials.

If you were injured in an accident involving a big-rig truck, they’ll talk to you. But if your case would involve debunking the claims of Anthony Fauci or any of the non-pharmaceutical interventions endorsed by every important organization in the world … go talk to Robert Kennedy Jr’s law firm.

What these lawyers in their $5,000 suits are really admitting is that they do fear repercussions from the most powerful entities in the world.

They are either scared as hell of getting on the wrong side of the “Powers that Be”  … or they are admitting they’d prefer to remain a member in good standing of the club that rules the world.

The Operative Quid Pro Quo

For the third time in this essay, I’ll note that lawyers are smart.

Lawyers, hypothetically, can represent any plaintiffs who’ve suffered unnecessary or avoidable injuries. Many key attorneys also represent big companies that want to eliminate or minimize the possibility they’ll have to pay vast legal settlements for corporate malfeasance.

When I think about the machinations of “club” members, it occurs to me that many of the best and brightest lawyers in the world have spent decades re-writing laws and regulations that will protect certain companies from lawsuits brought by millions of possible victims.

I’ve come to believe there was a quid pro quo with plaintiff trial lawyers: If you guys don’t sue the wrong defendants, we’ll make sure there’s enough people left in the world that you can sue and still make a great living.

Remaining a member of “The Club” is far more important to 99 percent of attorneys than representing victims … if said victims happened to be harmed by the policies embraced by the Club.

Why this matters …

None of this would matter if lawyers and successful lawsuits didn’t or couldn’t make a difference. But they can and could … if we had many more attorneys who were genuinely fearless justice seekers.

In fact, society probably wouldn’t need a large number of attorneys who were brave enough to bring these cases. Once one jury returned for the plaintiffs, armies of lawyers would probably want to get their piece of this justice pie.

It’s possible legions of members of Plaintiffs Trial Bar are waiting for one brave lawyer in their group who does say, “Damn the torpedoes” and starts suing away.

Of course, this scenario would entail a handful of judges who would allow good cases to go to trial … and this possibility is being blocked as well.

It turns out that the judges are lawyers too. This makes one think everyone who could make a difference …. won’t … because they’re all members of the same captured club.

October 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

French satellite operator Eutelsat takes Hamas-affiliated channel al-Aqsa TV off air

Press TV – October 15, 2023

France’s broadcasting watchdog has ordered the satellite provider Eutelsat to pull the plug on the Palestinian Arabic-language Al-Aqsa television channel and take the station, which is affiliated with the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, off the air over allegations that it violated rules on incitement.

Eutelsat, Europe’s leading satellite operator, said the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA) had asked the firm to stop broadcasting al-Aqsa TV.

The Hamas-run channel denounced the French move on its Telegram channel on Saturday, stating that it had to stop broadcasting from Eutelsat 8 West B satellite due to French pressure.

“In light of the massacres being committed against our people in the Gaza Strip as they are unwearyingly and steadfastly fighting the Operation al-Aqsa Storm, and in line with continued targeting and killing of journalists in Gaza, the French company responsible for Eutelsat satellite made the decision to block the channel’s broadcast,” the television station wrote in its statement.

“The channel was taken off the air in response to pressure from the French government and submission to the occupying Zionist regime,” the statement added.

The channel also condemned its suspension as “a blatant and shocking violation of all standards of freedom,” stating that the move “contradicts the international laws that guarantee freedom of expression and the right to communicate the voice of oppressed people to the whole world.”

Hezbollah: Eutelsat complicit with Israeli enemy in brutal Gaza war

The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement censured the decision by satellite provider Eutelsat to take the Hamas-run al-Aqsa TV off the air, stating that the measure dealt a hard blow to Palestinian media.

“In the midst of a ruthless campaign by the Zionist enemy against Palestinian people, the European satellite operator, Eutelsat, opted to cease the broadcast of al-Aqsa television channel. The move was meant to prevent the world public opinion from observing the oppression that Palestinians are exposed to, and ultimately challenging the West’s so-called commitment to media neutrality and freedom of expression,” it said in a statement.

Hezbollah lambasted Eutelsat for “shamelessly collaborating with the Israeli enemy in its ongoing brutal onslaught against defenseless Palestinian civilians.”

The movement views this decision as a “deliberate attempt to conceal the atrocities of Zionist forces, which are increasingly coming to light on the global stage. They also draw a connection to the tragic killing of journalists in Gaza and Lebanon.”

Hezbollah underscored its “unwavering support for al-Aqsa TV as well as all independent media outlets dedicated to exposing the Israeli regime’s crimes and uncovering the truth behind them.”

October 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

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