‘Disloyal’ Palestinians can be stripped of citizenship and made stateless, rules Israel Supreme Court
MEMO | July 22, 2022
Palestinians can be stripped of their citizenship and made stateless; the Israeli Supreme Court ruled yesterday in a judgement that further reinforces the apartheid status of the occupation state.
Israeli citizens that are found to be in “breach of loyalty” can have their citizenship revoked, but rights groups insist that the policy will only be applied to non-Jews even if it makes them stateless.
Many countries have laws that allow revocation of citizenship, a trend that has grown over the past two decades following the start of the so called “war on terror.” Though such a policy is highly controversial because it is primarily directed at non-white populations, no government has exercised such draconian powers if it makes individuals stateless.
Under international law no government is allowed to strip citizens of their citizenship if it leads to statelessness.
Yesterday’s ruling addressed a 2008 Citizenship Law in Israel that gives the state authority the ability to revoke citizenship based on actions that constitute a “breach of loyalty”. It came following separate appeals in the cases of two Palestinian citizens of Israel who were convicted of carrying out attacks that killed Israeli citizens. The two were handed long sentences but the state sought to strip them of citizenship.
The Supreme Court denied the removal of citizenship in these two cases based on what has been described as “serious procedural flaws” but ruled that the practice itself was constitutional, even if a person became stateless as a result.
A joint statement in response to the ruling by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Adalah, an Arab rights group, reported in Reuters, called the law discriminatory and said it “will likely be used exclusively against Palestinian citizens of Israel”. Some 20 per cent of Israeli citizens are Palestinians. Nearly all are descendants of Israel’s ethnic cleansing in 1947/48 which drove the indigenous non-Jewish population out.
“There are many cases of Jews in Israel who took part in terror and not even once has the interior ministry thought to appeal to revoke their citizenship,” the ACRI’s Oded Feller told Reuters. “The only cases that were submitted to the court were of Arab citizens.”
Press TV correspondent in Ukraine ‘placed on kill list’
Press TV – July 22, 2022
Press TV’s correspondent in Ukraine Johnny Miller says he has been placed on a “kill list” by Ukrainian ultranationalists following his revelations about Ukrainian atrocities against pro-Russian children and other civilians in the Donbas region.
Reporting from the war-torn country on Friday, Miller said that the neo-Nazi group wants him dead following his repeated reports about Ukrainian forces’ violence in the east of the country.
In an interview with Press TV, Miller said that he was placed on the kill list after he sent a journalistic inquiry to the website that had published a kill list of hundreds of people.
“Actually I contacted the website for a statement, which is normal in journalistic standards, but they didn’t reply to my statement… rather, they put me on the list,” the correspondent said.
“It’s clear that some parts of Ukrainian society [are] witnessing some kind of Kafkaesque nightmare, when a journalist does a legitimate story about a kill list and they put him on the same list,” he added.
He warned that most of the people on the list, including a 13-year-old teenager who was interviewed by Miller, “have already been receiving threats of physical violence.”
“There is no doubt that this list does promote violence, and the killing of anybody on that list,” he noted, adding that there are “over 300 children” on that kill list right now.
Miller called on international organizations such as the UN to take down this list and said that it’s so shocking that there is no pressure from such organizations.
“There should be more pressure from western countries to take down this list, [which is] promoting violence against children and journalists through an extremist behavior and ideology.”
“The Ukrainian government has the power to take down this list; NATO countries have a huge influence over Ukraine, but there doesn’t seem to be any pressure to take down this list at the moment,” Miller said.
He said that in spite of Western media’s supposition, there is a considerable degree of “extremism” in Ukraine, which he has been trying to highlight through the years.
The development comes as a number of journalists have been killed in Ukraine after being put on the list.
Miller is famous for his revealing reports in the east of Ukraine since the Russian offensive started on Feb. 26.
In a damning report last month, Miller revealed that the Ukrainian army has been shelling civilians in the areas surrounding the Donetsk region, while accusing the Russian army of atrocities.
“The uncomfortable truth is that Ukraine is killing civilians, indeed its own civilians, as it has been doing so for the last eight years,” said Miller, who traveled to the Petrovsky district near the frontline in Donetsk to investigate the incidents.
Back in May, the Russian army also confirmed that Ukraine’s shelling killed and injured its civilians in the southern region of Kherson, pounding southern and eastern areas with missile strikes.
According to Russia’s RIA news agency, Ukrainian missile strikes hit a school, kindergarten, and cemetery in the villages of Kyselivka and Shyroka Balka in the Kherson region in early May.
Brits could lose passports for using drugs
Samizdat | July 19, 2022
Recreational drug users in the UK could soon be stripped of their passports or driving licenses under a series of new laws proposed by the Home Office on Monday.
In the document titled ‘SWIFT, CERTAIN, TOUGH New consequences for drug possession,’ the Home Office proposes introducing three tiers of punishments for possession of illegal drugs such as cocaine and cannabis.
The penalties vary from being forced to pay for a drug awareness course to being issued with a hefty fine, and could even result in the loss of an offender’s passport and driving license.
“Tier 1: A person should be issued with a fixed penalty notice as an alternative to prosecution, which requires them to attend and pay for a drugs awareness course,” the white paper suggests, adding that if the individual does not attend the course, they will be forced to pay an increased fine.
The second tier suggests that persons caught with illegal drugs could be offered a caution which could include “a period of mandatory drug testing alongside attendance at a further stage drugs awareness course.”
Under the third tier, the person would “likely” be charged for their offense, and, on conviction, could be faced with an exclusion order, drug tagging, passport confiscation, and driving license disqualification.
Home Secretary Priti Patel explained the need for harsher punishments for drug-related offenses by insisting that “illicit drugs are at the root of untold harm and misery across our society.”
She added that more people die every year as a result of drug misuse than from “all knife crime and traffic accidents combined.”
“Drugs also cause enormous harm to children and young people, impacting on their health and their ability to work and learn. The total cost to society and taxpayers is huge too, running close to £22 billion ($26.4 billion) a year in England alone,” she wrote in the document.
Patel stated that the purpose of this newly proposed legislation is to ensure that drug users are “more likely to be caught” and face “tougher and more meaningful consequences.”
“We want to see swift and certain interventions delivered which can deter drug use and, alongside other measures, reduce demand for drugs,” she concluded.
The document sets out a goal of clamping down on the “cohorts of so-called recreational users” and driving down demand for illicit substances. However, it does not seek to address illicit drug use among children or adults with drug addiction.
It also notes the dangers of the drug trade, stating that “too often, individuals who choose to use drugs casually are sheltered from or wilfully ignore the human cost of the drugs trade which is immediately around them. They are putting money into the pockets of dangerous drug gangs and fueling violence, both in the UK and across the globe. We want this to change.“
According to the document, in 2019/20, over three million people in England and Wales reported using drugs in the last year. The Home Office argues that these people were putting themselves at risk, making communities less safe and handing lucrative profits to criminals driving a violent and exploitative supply chain.
They want you to feel climate change is a “personal threat”. Here’s why.
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | July 21, 2022
“The climate crisis is a public health crisis”, that is a tweet by Hillary Clinton’s official twitter account yesterday afternoon.
The tweet included a link to a news story claiming that Spain and Portugal had seen over a thousand people had die in the past week, due to the heatwave (they’ve since amended that number to over 2000).
I don’t want to get into the maths of it, but across two countries totalling around 58 million people, 2000 in a week is not very many at all.
And, as I have pointed out, in a post-Covid world we can’t really be sure what “died due to the heat” even means.
Case in point – we’re already seeing drownings termed “heatwave deaths”… because they wouldn’t have been swimming if it wasn’t so hot.
But we’re not here to fact-check yet more figures or definitions. The point of this article is to highlight the message behind the tweet, and it’s not a new one. It’s all about taking the powers the states have acquired through “covid”, and then applying them to “climate change”
Maybe that means “climate lockdowns”, or “climate passports”, or rationing fuel or banning travel… but whatever terms or phrases they eventually use, it’s definitely some authoritarian fantasy made flesh.
That’s the target, and it has been from the beginning.
Since the earliest days of the “pandemic” there have been consistent (and ludicrous) attempts to try and associate “Covid” and “climate” in the public mind.
They started by directly linking the two, and to this day try and make out that climate change will cause more zoonotic pandemics. But that never really hit home.
The more consistent and pervasive messaging has been an effort to rebrand “climate change”, not as an environmental problem but as a “public health” problem.
This messaging first appeared in March 2020, when the pandemic was less than three months old the British Medical Journal published a paper titled “The WHO should declare climate change a public health emergency”, which argued that global warming was far more dangerous than a simple virus, and should be treated just as seriously.
Nobody really listened. In the two years since they’ve tried to bring it back over and over again, but it never lands.
Just weeks into lockdown we were already being told that lockdowns were healing the planet, and journalists were asking “if we can do this for covid, why not climate?”
By September of 2020 they were talking about “avoiding a climate lockdown”.
March of 2021 saw reports springing up claiming we needed a “covid lockdown every two years” to meet out climate goals.
In summer of 2021 the latest IPCC report prompted talk of “hinging from covid to climate” that never really took off.
This past March the think tank Public Policy Project repeated the demand that the WHO recognise climate change as a “public health emergency”.
And just yesterday, the BMJ was back at it, publishing two articles on the same topic. One warning about “The inconvenient truths of health and climate crises that can’t just be ignored” and another titled Groundhog day: the signs of a climate emergency are with us again
There’s a new push in the works, and the thinking behind it is clear.
After decades of propaganda that saw “global warming” become “climate change” become “global heating” and eventually “climate emergency”, people simply are not scared of it.
Maybe it’s subconscious knowledge that it’s a propaganda campaign, maybe it’s the literal 60 years of failed prophecies, but whichever it is people are not scared, not like they were of Covid anyway.
The powers-that-be have pretty much admitted this themselves, there’s a revealing Sky News article about it from just a couple of days ago, headlined:
Why is it so hard to get people to care about climate change?”
We saw, during Covid, the UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team published a memo which said people were not scared enough of Covid, and the messaging needed to change in order to scare people into compliance:
The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.
That same thinking holds with climate change. They want it to be the new covid, but to get there they need people to feel “an increased level of personal threat”.
That means hitting the dangers of climate change hard. It means fudging death numbers and manufacturing alarming statistics. And it means peppering those headlines with influential figures – like Hillary Clinton – calling climate change a “public health crisis”
That’s why the heatwave is being talked about in such absurd terms. That’s why the UK declared its first ever “heatwave” national emergency, and why Biden is considering declaring a “climate emergency” (whatever that means).
It’s why we’re seeing warnings of “thousands dying”, and suddenly getting “wildfires” (that turn out to be arson).
It’s why doctors have started literally diagnosing “climate change”, as if it were a disease.
They want – and need – to change the climate conversation. It’s not going to be about the environment anymore, it’s going to be about “public health”.
Climate change is being rebranded – it will no longer be a threat to the planet, from now on it is a threat to you.
And as soon as they that message has a grip on people, they will turnaournd and say “so, about those climate lockdowns.
Watershed Moment for Sceptics as PM Candidate Rishi Sunak Makes Election Pitch Saying “I Stopped Lockdown”
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | JULY 21, 2022
In a watershed moment for lockdown sceptics, Prime Minister candidate Rishi Sunak has said his opposition to lockdown is a reason that Conservative members should vote for him to lead the country.
In an interview with Andrew Marr on LBC, the former Chancellor said that last December he cut short an overseas trip and flew back to London to intervene and “stop us sleepwalking into a national lockdown”.
“We were hours away from a press conference that was going to lock this country down again because of Omicron,” he said. “And I came back and fought very hard against the system, because I believe that would be the wrong thing for this country, with all the damage it would have done to businesses, to children’s education, to people’s lives.”
It is the first time a leading politician, whether from the Government or opposition, has suggested that being opposed to lockdown is a reason to vote for him or favour him for office. It is indicative of a significant shift in public opinion about Covid restrictions, particularly that Sunak felt able to be so bold in trumpeting his opposition to lockdown and his role in defeating it without a need to couch it in careful language about taking the virus seriously and being cautious. That his interviewer, Andrew Marr, didn’t challenge him on it is further indication of how opinion has changed. This is despite a number of recent high profile calls for restrictions to be reintroduced, most recently by the editors of the BMJ and HSJ.
It offers hope that the future lies with politicians willing to turn their back on the ruinous and illiberal restrictions of 2020 and 2021.
Here is what Rishi said in full.
I’ll tell you what I was doing in December, though, because I still remember it quite vividly. You know what I did in December was fly back from a Government trip I was on overseas and I flew back to this country to stop us sleepwalking into a national lockdown. Because we were hours away from a press conference that was going to lock this country down again because of Omicron. And I came back and fought very hard against the system, because I believe that would be the wrong thing for this country, with all the damage it would have done to businesses, to children’s education, to people’s lives.
That’s really important in December Andrew because we were hours away, we were hours away from a national lockdown, but I came back and challenged the system, and said this is not right and we don’t need to do this and I’m glad I won the argument. But it should give people some confidence that in the same way I stood up for Brexit, in the same way I did that, I am prepared to push hard and fight for the things that I believe in even when that’s difficult.
Watch it here (from 28:45).
Court Strikes Down “Quarantine Camp” Regulation in New York State
By Bobbie Anne Flower Cox | American Thinker | July 19, 2022
We have had a tremendous victory here in New York: a Supreme Court Judge has struck down Governor Kathy Hochul’s forced quarantine regulation! On July 8, 2022, Judge Ronald Ploetz ruled that the “Isolation and Quarantine Procedures” regulation is unconstitutional and “violative of New York State law as promulgated and enacted, and therefore null, void and unenforceable as a matter of law.”
Shockingly, New York’s Governor, Kathy Hochul, and Attorney General, Letitia James, plan to appeal the decision. Yes, that’s right… the Governor and AG, both unabashedly support quarantine camps! One would think that this fact, in and of itself, would be disturbing enough but add to it the fact that they’re both running for election this November, and you can see just how unconstitutionally brazen and wholly out-of-touch with New Yorkers each of these “leaders” is.
For anyone who missed my prior article on this horrific forced quarantine regime, the regulation truly shocks the conscience. Without exaggeration, it’s something out of a dystopian horror movie. It gives the unelected bureaucrats in the Department of Health the power to pick and choose who they want to “detain,” if they believe it’s even possible you might have a communicable disease. They don’t have to prove you’re actually sick.
And when I say “detain,” I mean lock you in your home or force you from your home into a facility. The government chooses which “detention center” and the length of your stay there is purely at the government’s discretion. That’s right: No time limit so it could be for days, months, or years…. Furthermore, there is no age restriction so that the government could force you, your child, your grandchild, or your elderly parent into detention.
This illegal quarantine regulation allowed for endless possibilities of abuse because there were no due process protections built in to safeguard against government abuse. Once targeted by the DOH, you would have no recourse whatsoever: No chance to prove that you aren’t actually infected with a disease. No chance to confront your jailers, see their supposed evidence against you or challenge their quarantine order in a court of law before getting locked up. Judge Ploetz stated in his decision that the regulation “merely gives ‘lip service’ to Constitutional due process.”
It gets worse. In the true fashion of a dictatorship, the government could tell you what you could and couldn’t do while in quarantine. For example, bureaucrats and politicians could decide to deprive you of your cell phone or internet access, thereby totally cutting off your communications with the outside world. They might also decide to restrict your food intake or force you to take certain medicines or “treatments” that the government deems appropriate. They could even choose to discriminate against those with certain views or beliefs, creating political prisoners, all in the name of supposed “health and safety”.
Judge Ploetz noted in his decision that, “[i]nvoluntary detention is a severe deprivation of individual liberty, far more egregious than other health safety measures, such as requiring mask wearing at certain venues. Involuntary quarantine may have far-reaching consequences such as loss of income (or employment) and isolation from family.”
I fully concur and so, when I first read this regulation last year, I knew I had to strike it down. It was clear to me that this “regulation” violated the separation of powers that is so clearly laid out in our Constitution. It violated existing New York State laws that have been on the books for decades. It violated due process protections.
I knew that, if I didn’t strike it down, then “quarantine facilities” could become a new norm in New York State. And if that happened, I knew it would spread like a cancer to other states across the nation. At that point, there’d be no place left to run and hide. This was not a fight only for New Yorkers; it was a fight for all Americans.
An inspirational note: When I started this lawsuit, I had no support whatsoever. Because I’ve been handling the case pro bono, nobody else wanted to work with me for free and it was near impossible to find anyone who shared my vision and my strategy for success. You see, this was the very first lawsuit of its kind in the entire nation and, very possibly, in the world. So, it took a tremendous amount of my time, energy, and resources to execute.
The Governor and her co-defendants are represented by New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James. She has hundreds of lawyers working for her, all armed with unlimited resources. After all, it’s our tax dollars they use to pay all those attorneys. It’s truly a David v. Goliath story, especially because, while I once worked in a large, prominent, international Manhattan law firm, for the past 20+ years, I’ve had my own small law office in the suburbs of NYC. Since I’m handling this case pro bono, I don’t have the Attorney General’s team of attorneys or her unlimited resources.
Eventually, I found a few fabulous allies. Namely, my petitioners (Senator George Borrello, Assemblymen Chris Tague, and Mike Lawler) and, eventually, Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay, and Assemblyman Joseph Giglio who filed an Amicus Brief to support my case. Plus, attorney Tom Marcelle, who is now running for New York State Supreme Court judge.
After months of battling against the AG, last week we won the case! I’ve successfully struck down a severely unconstitutional regulation that the Governor and her Department of Health brazenly issued without any care whatsoever for the rights of the people. Now, I hope that other attorneys in states across the nation can use my lawsuit as a roadmap to help them strike down unconstitutional regulations in their states. Even international attorneys are contacting me to learn the details about how I structured and won this case. I hope it will aid them, too.
During one of my recent interviews, the host posted a picture of President Kennedy with a quote, “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.” She said that quote reminds her of me. Well, I hope that quote and this story inspire you to try!
Senator Borrello and Assemblymen Tague and Lawler are calling on the Governor to back off an appeal and to let this decision stand. If you’re a New Yorker, you can help with this effort. Call, email, or write to Governor Hochul (518- 474-8390 Twitter: @GovKathyHochul) and the Attorney General (800-771-7755 Twitter: @TishJames) to tell them that the voters do not want an appeal filed; that an appeal would be going against the will of the people; and that it would be a tremendous waste of taxpayer money.
To find out more about our monumental lawsuit, sign up for weekly updates, or support the lawsuit, go to www.UnitingNYS.com/lawsuit. You can find me on Substack at: https://attorneycox.substack.com/
Dr. Peter McCullough | Full Interview | Planet Lockdown Series
Planet Lockdown | June 19, 2022
In this interview we spoke with Dr. Peter McCullough, an American cardiologist and outspoken critic of the questionable handling of the COVID-19 “pandemic.” He is one of the most notable and credentialed voices speaking out in the United States and is a wealth of information. He was vice chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and a professor at Texas A&M University, and one of the largest donors to the school, leading to a scholarship named after him. Upon speaking out the university shamelessly attacked him. He is articulate, balanced and a voice of reason.
In this interview he clarifies the following points:
– PR testing methodology
– Therapeutic Nihilism
– Myocarditis amongst the vaccinated
– Early treatment suppression prior to the pandemic
– Persecution of medical personnel for exercising their licensed authority
– The upside down irrational nature of COVID-19 policies including vaccine mandates
– The efficacy of a global, indiscriminate mass vax campaign, in contrast to vaccination of mainly at-risk patients
Please donate to the project. Your contribution makes a real difference:
https://planetlockdownfilm.com/donate/
Subscribe to the email list for updates on the film and interviews:
https://planetlockdownfilm.com/lists/?p=subscribe
Watch more full interviews and educate yourself!
https://planetlockdownfilm.com/full-interviews/
Share and enjoy!
Independent SAGE’s Dumb “Seven-Point” Covid Plan
By Igor Chudov | July 19, 2022
Many of my readers had one Covid a long time ago, or never had Covid, are not having another Covid so far, and may not realize how badly are things going in Covid-land in Europe and highly vaccinated areas of USA.
More than one out of 15 Brits is having COVID today (Jul 19, 2022). This is higher than ever before. An “unexpected” largest-ever wave of a yet-another variant Ba.5 is reinfecting highly-vaccinated countries one more time. Hospitals are strained, because sick, force-injected health care workers are staying home due to their Covid reinfections, and patients are hospitalized at record rates. Excess mortality is rising.
People are, naturally, becoming worried as they or their relatives have two-week-long bouts of Covid reinfections that do not feel mild to them and leave them exhausted. My own opinion is that we are on the verge of significant increases in overall mortality. I am quite worried about that.
Rumblings of discontent are appearing. The powers-to-be are wondering what to do.
So, the so-called “Independent SAGE” just came up with a “seven-point plan” to combat COVID. The plan is so spectacularly stupid that it reads like a parody. Here it is, from the British Medical Journal no less.
This plan is the product of supposedly the “best Covid minds”, the leading thinkers of UK science, whose recommendations influence UK policy. What did these minds produce? Let’s look.
They are proposing to do more of same!
The “clear and consistent messaging” is a theme of the pandemic, it relates to a bad idea that all officials should parrot one line during a so-called “emergency”, to avoid confusing the public. The result of this policy was a lack of independent thinking, as well as censorship of any dissenting voices, that led to groupthink. What message, pray tell, should such “clear and consistent messaging” convey? The seven-point plan?
The efforts to promote “vaccine uptake” are particularly laughable in July of 2022. Here’s how vaccine uptake looks in the UK:
Of special interest is a need to have a “clear long-term plan to address waning immunity and immune escape”. What they are saying is that they do not have such a plan. They merely want to have a plan, which they do not have, as of now.
The concept of “air filtration” refers to a sincerely expressed, but misguided idea that retrofitting buildings with “air filtration devices” will stop the pandemic. While I personally like almost all people who advocate it, I also recognize that it is largely futile, for many reasons having to do with physics and gas dynamics.
Air filtration that could effectively capture airborne virions, would need to turn over enormous volumes of air every minute, through the finest filters, continuously. This is not compatible with existing buildings’ HVAC systems. It would also cost a fortune in electric bills and create a lot of heat. I do not want to get into this discussion too much, but “air filtration” of that kind is not possible in most establishments or homes.
The “FFP3 masks” are obvious non-starters because of difficulties wearing them. Making the public wear such masks in 2022 is impossible.
The worst part of this proposal is the so-called “equitable global provision of vaccines”. This is a code word for bribing governments of poor countries into forcing their citizens to take “vaccines” that these wise but poor people refuse to take voluntarily. The countries with unvaccinated majorities are the future of humanity, in my opinion. They are largely at herd immunity precisely because they refused to vaccinate. Yet, Independent SAGE wants to inject them with non-working “vaccines” in the name of “equity”. Why?
The crazy “Independent SAGE” advisers are anything but sage, are actually stupid, and I am very sorry that they have been UK’s thought leaders since 2020.
Here’s a clip from “Idiocracy”. While it is funny, it shows President Camacho actually solving his country’s problem of dying plants, with his three-point plan of hiring the smartest person in the world named Not Sure. Not Sure figured out the problem and proceeded to stop using Brawndo to water plants.
Brawndo’, which owned the FDA, went bankrupt. The plants started growing, given clean water. Any parallels with the present?
P.S. Please do not think that I am badmouthing the UK by criticizing British Covid experts: Covid experts in the USA are so much worse and could not even come up with a “seven-point plan”. So there is no “USA Covid plan” that I could criticize.
Facebook introduces encrypted links to hinder privacy efforts
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 18, 2022
Facebook is actively fighting back the attempts by browsers to provide their users with better protection against unwanted tracking on the web.
And for all the talk about using encryption to ensure privacy and improve security in its apps, Facebook seems to have managed to find a way to turn encryption against internet users’ best interest.
In order to prevent browsers like Brave and Firefox from deploying URL stripping that removes tracking parameters added to links by Facebook and others, like Amazon, Facebook is reportedly turning to encrypting links.
Instead of changing tracking parameters in URLs, they are now encrypted and cannot be automatically removed. This means that browsers at this time cannot do anything to prevent tracking via Facebook URLs.
One recourse is to stop using Facebook, and another not to sign into it and delete site data and cookies often – since URL tracking alone is not as efficient a tracking tool for Facebook if not paired with the latter two.
For now at least, the URL stripping functionality is still useful in a large number of other cases where parameters are appended in order to track users across the internet when they’re not on the sites that are tracking them, Ghacks reports.
Until now, Facebook used its “click identifier” (fbclid): Google’s version is known as “gclid,” while Microsoft has “msclkid.” These added parameters have only one purpose – to track users, and are not needed for sites to operate correctly. Unless, that is, the personal data-hungry sites like Facebook make it impossible to remove them.
In that case, a link to a post will lead to the main Facebook page of an account, rather than the post itself.
Brave Browser has been stripping tracking from URLs by default for several years now, while Firefox introduced it (“Query Parameter Stripping”) with the version rolled out this June.
In Firefox, the feature is on by default only in so-called private browsing mode. Users can also activate it by going to the settings and choosing “strict” Tracking Protection, or via the configuration page (“about:config”).
Or they can use an add-on, like the open-source ClearURLs that automatically removes tracking elements from URLs to protect privacy.
Nations Fail to Restrain Surveillance Industry 1 Year After Pegasus Revelations
Samizdat | July 18, 2022
The international scandal over Pegasus spyware, used by the Israeli authorities to spy on “terrorists,” broke in July 2021 after a joint media investigation unveiled that the spyware had also been used by private company NSO Group to conduct unlawful surveillance on politicians, businessmen, activists, journalists and opposition figures around the world.
Following the disclosures, human rights watchdogs have been repeatedly calling for the surveillance industry to be regulated, with some steps made “in the right direction,” yet governments’ action has been insufficient, Amnesty International said in a statement.
“The Pegasus Project offered a wake-up call that action was urgently needed to regulate an industry that is out of control. Shamefully, governments worldwide are yet to step up and fully deal with this digital surveillance crisis,” Deputy Director of Amnesty International – Technology Danna Ingleton said.
Currently, there are open investigations against NSO Group in France, India, Mexico, Poland and Spain. In November 2021, the United States designated the NSO Group as an entity engaged in “in activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests.” In March, the European Parliament set up the PEGA Committee to probe the misuse of Pegasus and other spyware across Europe. Nonetheless, most states have failed to mount a robust response to unlawful surveillance, Amnesty International noted.
“One year after the Pegasus spyware revelations shocked the world, it is alarming that surveillance companies are still profiting from human rights violations on a global scale… We continue to call for a global moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of spyware until human rights regulatory safeguards that govern its use are in place,” Ingleton added.
Under international law, states are not only obliged to uphold human rights, but also to protect them from abuse by third parties, including private companies, the watchdog said, stressing that unlawful surveillance infringes on the right to privacy as well as the rights to freedom of expression, belief, association, and peaceful assembly.
Featured Video
“Trump’s presidency is at risk of being destroyed” Col Douglas Macgregor
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Mutually Assured Delusion (MAD)
By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | November 5, 2013
Groupthink: A pattern of thought charaterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.
Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets, by Roland Benabou, published in the Review of Economic Studies. Benabou also has a talk (ppt slides) on this subject.
First, a definition of groupthink (from the ppt slides):
Janis (1972)’s eight symptoms [of groupthink]:
- illusion of invulnerability
- collective rationalization
- belief in inherent morality
- stereotyped views of out-groups
- direct pressure on dissenters
- self-censorship
- illusion of unanimity
- self-appointed mind guards
Sound like any groups that we know? … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- “Trump’s presidency is at risk of being destroyed” Col Douglas Macgregor
- Iran has legal right to act in Hormuz, holds US responsible for disruptions: UN mission
- Sudan’s RSF leaders build Dubai property empire with UAE backing: Investigative group
- West losing leadership position to Global South: Russia’s president
- How Cognitive Science Explains Our Looming Nuclear Crisis
- Have the US and Israel killed non-proliferation?
- Moscow, Tehran to support each other amid US aggression: Russia’s defense minister
- Iran says EU’s insistence on sanctions hastens its ‘embarrassing descent into irrelevance’
- Argentina’s Javier Milei sells out his country for Israel
- Putting Nukes in Finland Won’t Make Country Safer, Finnish Politician Cautions
- If Americans Knew
- By Week’s End, Trump’s War Will Be Plainly Illegal
- CBS News Reportedly Ousts London Bureau Chief Over Differences With Bari Weiss Over Gaza Coverage
- State Department Says US Is in Conflict With Iran ‘At the Request’ of Israel
- What ceasefire? Israel won’t stop killing in Gaza, Lebanon – Daily Update
- Palestinians in Gaza Want to Rebuild Food Systems. Israel Isn’t Letting Them.
- Under Trump, Green Card Seekers Face New Scrutiny for Views on Israel
- Sheep Theft Sent Shockwaves Through a Palestinian Village. Then, a 12-year-old Boy Was Shot Dead
- Trump alum helps Israel mount AI influence campaign
- Dispatches From Catastrophe
- Despite Denials, AIPAC Is Now Funding Campaign of Ala Stanford In Philadelphia
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
Aletho News 