NY county bans masks used to hide identities in Pro-Palestine protests
Al Mayadeen | August 7, 2024
A bill banning people from wearing masks to shield their identity during pro-Palestine protests against the US support for “Israel’s” genocide in Gaza was passed in Nassau County in New York state on Monday, with 12 Republicans in the legislature voting in favor of the new law, while seven Democrats abstained.
Republican lawmakers claim that the bill applies to any form of public demonstrations to prevent protesters engaging in “violence and hate crimes” from hiding their identities and eluding responsibility. Civil rights advocates and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) have criticized this new legislation, deeming it a violation of the right to free speech.
“Masks protect people who express political opinions that are unpopular,” Susan Gottehrer, Nassau County regional director of NYCLU, said. “Making anonymous protest illegal chills political action and is ripe for selective enforcement.”
If demonstrators break the newly passed law, they would be charged with a misdemeanor where they can face up to a year in imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. However, the bill exempts wearing masks for medical and religious reasons.
“Unless someone has a medical condition or a religious imperative, people should not be allowed to cover their face in a manner that hides their identity when in public,” Republic Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said.
“Nassau County police offers are not health professionals or religious experts capable of deciding who needs a mask and who doesn’t,” Gottehrer said, highlighting the inadequacy of the exceptions.
Germany convicts pro-Palestine activist for ‘From river to sea’ chant
The restriction of freedom of speech when it comes to protesting in solidarity for Palestinians while condemning the ongoing aggression in Gaza is not limited to the United States, and is a common theme with governments complicit in the genocide.
A Berlin court has convicted pro-Palestine activist Ava Moayeri, a 22-year-old German-Iranian national, for the “crime” of leading the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” back in October.
The presiding judge, Birgit Balzer, ordered Moayeri to pay a 600 euro fine. While the 22-year-old’s defense team argued that the conviction was a violation of free speech.
Balzer argued that precedents documented in different courts that describe the slogan as “ambiguous” were incomprehensible, considering the chant a declaration against the “right of the State of Israel to exist.”
Moayeri co-organized an October 11 protest in Berlin’s Neukölln district, allegedly to condemn school violence after a teacher smacked a pro-Palestinian student protesting. Police claimed the protest featured Palestinian flags and Kouffiyehs, disputing her testimony.
Moayeri’s legal team defended the slogan as part of the Palestine solidarity movement and denied any antisemitism.
It’s Weird to See a Retired General Scotch a Plea Bargain
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | August 5, 2024
Given that we have all been born and raised under a national-security state form of governmental structure, no one in the mainstream press is batting an eyelash over Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s role in a plea bargain into which military prosecutors had entered with three men who are accused of participating in the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawix. Austin scotched the plea bargain because it eliminated the possibility of a death sentence for the three men.
To be sure, there are some mainstream pundits who have expressed disagreement with Austin’s decision to cancel the plea bargain. But none of them question the very notion that a retired military general is making a major decision in a case involving criminal justice. That’s because the mainstream press, along with many Americans, has come to accept the normality and permanence of the judicial system that the Pentagon established in Cuba after the 9/11 attacks.
But the fact is that Austin’s role in a criminal prosecution is weird — extremely weird. A retired military general serving as U.S. Secretary of Defense has no more legitimate role in America’s criminal-justice system than he does in America’s public-school system.
The U.S. Constitution established one judicial system. It consists of U.S. District Courts, federal courts of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. It encompasses both civil and criminal jurisdiction. Under the Constitution, when the U.S. government targets someone with criminal prosecution, it must do so within the rules and constraints of the federal-court system.
In other words, the Constitution did not set up two dual, competing criminal-justice systems — one run by civilians and one run by the military. It set up only one criminal-justice system. And that one judicial system is subject to the constraints of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, specifically the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments.
Contrary to popular opinion, terrorism is not an act of war. It is a criminal offense under the U.S. Code. When someone is charged with the crime of terrorism, the Constitution requires that he be treated like any other defendant in the federal-court system.
What happened after the 9/11 attacks, however, was that the military-intelligence establishment seized on the crisis, panic-filled environment to establish a brand new dual, competing judicial system at its imperial outpost in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mind you, there was no constitutional authority for such a judicial system but given the climate of “emergency” and the dominant role that the national-security establishment had already come to play in America’s federal governmental system, the Pentagon knew that no one would interfere with its new judicial system.
Thus, under America’s dual, competing judicial systems, the military now decides how an accused terrorist is going to be handled. If the military decides that an accused terrorist, whether foreigner or American, should go into the constitutional system, that’s where he will go. In fact, there have been a number of criminal prosecutions for terrorism in America’s federal-court system, both before and after the 9/11 attacks.
However, if the military decides that an accused terrorist, including an American citizen, will instead be placed in the military’s judicial system at Gitmo, that’s where he will end up. That’s why the plea bargain into which the accused 9/11 planners entered was done with military prosecutors rather than with U.S. Attorneys and assistant U.S. Attorneys.
The difference between these two judicial systems is like day and night. In the constitutional system, the accused has the right to a speedy trial, the right to trial by jury, the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishments, and other procedural protections.
None of those protections exists for people who are shunted into the military’s judicial system at Gitmo. That’s why criminal defendants have been held there for some 20 years without a trial — there is no right to a speedy trial at Gitmo. The accused can also be convicted on hearsay evidence, which means that he has no right to confront and cross-examine witnesses. He can be tortured into confessing to his crimes. He has no right to trial by jury. Instead his guilt or innocence is determined by a military commission whose kangaroo-court-like verdict will inevitably turn on pleasing superior officers.
This entire dual, competing judicial system is about as weird as weird can get, including the fact that a retired military general now wields the authority to involve himself in plea bargains in criminal prosecutions. The fact that this weird judicial system has become a normal and permanent part of American life just goes to show how the national-security establishment controls, manages, and directs the federal government, with the other three branches simply playing a supportive role. See National Security and Double Government by Michael J. Glennon.
FBI To Resume Meetings With Social Media Companies, Ignoring Censorship Concerns
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | August 5, 2024
Here we go again – another US election is coming up, and there’s another push to find ways to censor “disfavored” voices, and one of those ways is the focus on the foreign malign influence (FMI) boogeyman.
Americans (and the world) have seen this play out already before and after the contested 2020 vote.
The infamous case of the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop news story came after the FBI issued a warning to social media companies about an incoming FMI “disinformation dump” – from Russia.
We know how that went and was eventually debunked, the laptop being authentic, rather than a figment of some “disinformation” peddling operation’s imagination. But here is the FBI again, more than just emboldened by the recent Supreme Court’s ruling in the Murthy v. Missouri case.
That decision lifted an injunction that banned the US government from colluding with Big Tech in order to promote censorship. Now the case is back in the lower courts, and in the meanwhile, mere months before the election, the legal hurdle to resume suspected collusion has been cleared.
And so the FBI will now “resume regular meetings” with social media companies, the pretext being finding ways to combat “potential” FMI threats. The Hunter Biden laptop scandal illustrates very well how the supposed hunt for FMI can go astray, straight into the political censorship territory.
But none of that seems to matter now, as the current White House presses on with the old practices. On July 12 this year, just after the Supreme Court’s decision, Department of Justice (DOJ) Associate Deputy Attorney General George D. Turner penned a memo that shows the collusion never really stopped – even after last October’s court injunction restricting this type of “collaboration.”
We obtained a copy of the memo for you here.
The memo reads that after this, the DOJ – always “appropriately accounting for First Amendment considerations” (wouldn’t it be easier to say – without violating the First Amendment?) – “began developing a standardized approach for sharing FMI information with social media companies.”
Come February, and the FBI started using that standardized approach and “actively sharing FMI threat information with social media companies on a continuing basis.”
And now, on top of that, the FBI is free to resume regular meetings with social media companies.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson Is Encouraging Residents To Report Neighbors for “Misinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 6, 2024
Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has launched a campaign to root out supposed “election misinformation” – by urging the state’s residents to report each other.
As if more chaotic divisiveness was needed ahead of the November vote, the idea here, in one of the swing states, seems to be to get people to keep an eye on their neighbors, and if what they see and hear is interpreted as “misinformation” – report it, complete with a photo, “if possible.”
A document from Benson’s office provides a Michigan government email as the address for such reports, while the call to this type of action can be found on the official page about “voter education resources.”
The Michigan Bureau of Elections has published a document that aims to address a host of threats to “a healthy democracy” – foreign, domestic, partisan, “or simply malicious.”
Their actions – and that would be “misinformation” about the election process, voter rights, “or even an issue on the ballot” – are presented as a serious threat to election security.
Other than reporting anything they consider to be misinformation about voting and elections in the state, residents are encouraged to seek sources of information and media outlets that offer “true” stories.
Voters are treated as not entirely capable of critical thinking regarding their news, so to help with this, the Bureau recommends itself as a “trusted, verified, non-partisan” place where information can be checked as true or untrue.
Here come the “fact-checkers.” These are the places people in Michigan are recommended to go to in order to seek “truth about elections”: the state’s own government’s “SOSFactCheck” page, but also left-leaning Snopes, FactCheck, and PolitiFact.
The Bureau, however, says they are in the business of debunking misinformation, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and verifying the “accuracy of political speech” – whatever that may include – as well as of ads, debates, interviews, statements, press releases.
Speaking of “non-partisan” activities, the Democrat secretary of state just recently introduced a program called “Democracy Ambassador,” which promises those who join will receive information about “non-partisan facts and resources” which they should then spread in their communities.
“Squash misinformation before it spreads,” is one of the messages.
But that’s not all from Jocelyn Benson. Yet another recent document from her office focused on “misinformation and AI.” Here, residents are warned about “partisans, grifters, and other opportunists here at home” out to “hack the minds of American citizens.”
Argentina’s AI and the Rise of Pre-Crime Digital Surveillance
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | August 5, 2024
Argentina’s new initiative to launch the Applied Artificial Intelligence for Security Unit (UIAAS) represents a concerning step toward a surveillance-heavy approach to tackling crime. Under the guise of innovation, this unit, embedded within the Ministry of Security, integrates artificial intelligence to not only sift through vast amounts of historical crime data but also to monitor social media activities ostensibly to predict and preempt criminal behavior.
This approach raises significant ethical questions, especially regarding privacy and civil liberties. The idea that AI can predict future crimes based on patterns might sound efficient, but it harbors risks of overreach, profiling, and potentially unjustified surveillance. The emphasis on monitoring social media activities and detecting “potential threats” could easily slide into invasive scrutiny of everyday citizens’ lives under a loosely defined mandate.
Critics have voiced many concerns. Their skepticism highlights a broader apprehension about the trade-offs between using AI in law enforcement and the erosion of personal freedoms. The capacity for AI to be misused under the pretext of security could set a dangerous precedent, potentially leading to a dystopian reality where personal spaces and freedoms are heavily compromised by state surveillance.
Argentina’s pioneering step, therefore, should be viewed critically, demanding rigorous scrutiny and debate to ensure that the pursuit of security does not trample the very liberties it aims to protect. The line between safeguarding citizens and surveilling them must be navigated with caution to prevent an unsettling shift towards an AI-driven surveillance state.
London police chief attacks journalist’s equipment
RT | August 5, 2024
Britain’s top law enforcement official ripped out a reporter’s microphone after being asked a question about double standards in policing the immigration-related riots across the UK.
Sir Mark Rowley of the Metropolitan Police Service had just left a government meeting in Westminster about handling the unrest when journalists approached him on Monday.
“Are we going to end two-tier policing sir?” a Sky News reporter asked. Rowley responded by destroying his recording equipment and continuing to walk to his car. He took no questions from the press.
Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt described Rowley’s actions as a “petulant, childish even” response to a “perfectly legitimate” question.
“It was a storm in a teacup, but perception is everything,” Brunt said, adding that Rowley’s explanation that he had been in a hurry was “mitigation, not a defense.”
Though the Sky reporter could have pressed charges for assault, criminal damage, or misconduct in public office, he reportedly chose to give Rowley a pass.
Dozens of British towns and cities have seen protests and riots since last Monday, when a British teenager of Rwandan descent killed three children and injured ten others in a mass stabbing in Southport, near Liverpool. While the initial outrage was sparked by a rumor misidentifying the perpetrator as Muslim, demonstrations have since grown into a wider backlash against mass immigration, Islam, and the perception that UK authorities are more concerned with suppressing domestic dissent than tackling immigrant crime.
More than 150 people were arrested on Saturday for rioting in Liverpool, Manchester, Stoke, Leeds and other cities. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed that the rioters will “face the full force of the law.”
Whitehall’s crackdown has prompted Reform Party leader Nigel Farage to suggest that there was “the impression of two-tier policing,” in comparison to the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots related to the death of George Floyd in the US.
“There is no two-tier policing. There is policing without fear or favor, exactly as it should be,” Starmer responded. “So that is a non-issue.”
According to Starmer, a “standing army of specialist officers” will be deployed to deal with the riots. “This is not protest – it is pure violence and we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or our Muslim communities,” he added.
The British government has also said it would “hold to account” social media companies that do not remove “disinformation.”
‘The Movement is Winning.’: Polling Shows Drop in Support for Free Speech
By Jonathan Turley | August 2, 2024
In my new book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I write about a global anti-free speech movement that is now sweeping over the United States. While not the first, it is in my view the most dangerous movement in our history due to an unprecedented alliance of government, corporate, academic, and media forces. That fear was amplified this week with polling showing that years of attacking free speech as harmful has begun to change the views of citizens.
As discussed in the book, our own anti-free speech movement began in higher education where it continues to rage. It then metastasized throughout our politics and media. It is, therefore, not surprising to see the new Knight Foundation-Ipsos study revealing a further decline in students’ views concerning the state of free speech on college campuses.
The study shows that 70 percent of students “believe that speech can be as damaging as physical violence.” It also shows the impact of speech codes and regulations with two out of three students reporting that they “self-censor” during classroom discussions.
Not surprisingly, Republican students are the most likely to self-censor given the purging of conservative faculty and the viewpoint intolerance shown on most campuses.
Some 49 percent of Republican students report self-censoring on three or more topics. Independents are the second most likely at 40 percent. Some 38 percent of Democrats admit to self-censuring.
Sixty percent of college students strongly or somewhat agree that “[t]he climate at my school or on my campus prevents some people from saying things they believe, because others might find it offensive.”
The most alarming finding may be that only 54 percent of students believe that colleges should “allow students to be exposed to all types of speech even if they may find it offensive or biased.” That figure stood at 78 percent in 2016.
The poll follows similar results in a new poll by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) of the population as a whole. It found that 53% of Americans believe that the First Amendment goes too far in protecting rights. So there is now a majority who believe that the First Amendment, including their own rights, should be curtailed.
The most supportive of limiting free speech are Democrats at a shocking 61%. However, a majority (52%) of Republicans also agreed.
Roughly 40% now trust the government to censor speech, agreeing that they trust the government “somewhat,” “very much,” or “completely” to make fair decisions about what speech should be disallowed.
It is no small feat to convince a free people to give up their freedoms. They have to be afraid or angry. These polls suggest that they appear both very afraid and very angry.
It is the result of years of indoctrinating students and citizens that free speech is harmful and dangerous. We have created a generation of speech phobics who are willing to turn their backs on centuries of struggle against censorship and speech codes.
Anti-free speech books have been heralded in the media. University of Michigan Law Professor and MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade has written how dangerous free speech is for the nation. Her book, “Attack from Within,” describes how free speech is what she calls the “Achilles Heel” of America, portraying this right not as the value that defines this nation but the threat that lurks within it.
McQuade and many on the left are working to convince people that “disinformation” is a threat to them and that free speech is the vehicle that makes them vulnerable.
This view has been pushed by President Joe Biden who claims that companies refusing to censor citizens are “killing people.” The Biden administration has sought to use disinformation to justify an unprecedented system of censorship.
Recently, the New York Times ran a column by former Biden official and Columbia University law professor Tim Wu describing how the First Amendment was “out of control” in protecting too much speech.
Wu insists that the First Amendment is now “beginning to threaten many of the essential jobs of the state, such as protecting national security and the safety and privacy of its citizens.” He claims that the First Amendment “now mostly protects corporate interests.”
There is even a movement afoot to rewrite the First Amendment through an amendment. George Washington University Law School Professor Mary Anne Franks believes that the First Amendment is “aggressively individualistic” and needs to be rewritten to “redo” the work of the Framers.
Her new amendment suggestion replaces the clear statement in favor of a convoluted, ambiguous statement of free speech that will be “subject to responsibility for abuses.” It then adds that “all conflicts of such rights shall be resolved in accordance with the principle of equality and dignity of all persons.”
Franks has also dismissed objections to the censorship on social media and insisted that “the Internet model of free speech is little more than cacophony, where the loudest, most provocative, or most unlikeable voice dominates . . . If we want to protect free speech, we should not only resist the attempt to remake college campuses in the image of the Internet but consider the benefits of remaking the Internet in the image of the university.”
Franks is certainly correct that those “unlikeable voices” are less likely to be heard in academia today. As discussed in my book, faculties have largely cleansed with the ranks of conservative, Republican, libertarian, and dissenting professors through hiring bias and attrition. In self-identifying surveys, some faculties show no or just a handful of conservative or Republican members.
The discussion on most campuses now runs from the left to far left without that pesky “cacophony” of opposing viewpoints.
One of the most dangerous and successful groups in this anti-free speech movement has been Antifa. I testified in the Senate on Antifa and the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States. I specifically disagreed with the statement of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler that Antifa (and its involvement in violent protests) is a “myth.”
In the meantime, Antifa continues to attack those with opposing views and anti-free speech allies continue to “deplatform” speakers on campuses and public forums. “Your speech is violence” is now a common mantra heard around the country.
Faculty continue to lead students in attacking pro-life and other demonstrators.
Antifa is now so popular in some quarters that it recently saw two members elected to the French and European parliaments.
Antifa is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. It is laid out in Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” in which he emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech: “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”
Bray quotes one Antifa member as summing up their approach to free speech as a “nonargument . . . you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”
However, the most chilling statement may have come from arrested Antifa member Jason Charter after an attack on historic statues in Washington, D.C. After his arrest, Charter declared “The Movement is winning.” As these polls show, he is right.
Landmark Ruling Strikes Down Warrantless Device Searches of US Citizens at Borders
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 1, 2024
The District Court for the Eastern District of New York has ruled that the US government must reverse course on its policy of warrantless searches of US (and foreign) nationals’ electronic devices as they enter the country.
We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.
This is not the only court decision on this issue, while this particular outcome, requiring that border agents obtain court-issued orders before performing such searches, concerns the district that is the court’s seat – therefore also a major port of entry, JFK International Airport.
It was precisely at this airport that an event unfolded which set in motion a legal case. In 2022, US citizen Kurbonali Sultanov was coerced (he was told he “had no choice”) into surrendering his phone’s passport to border officers.
Sultanov later became a defendant in a criminal case but argued that evidence from the phone should not be admitted because the device was accessed in violation of the Fourth Amendment (which protects Americans against unreasonable and warrantless searches).
Of course, all these envisaged protections refer to US citizens, and even there prove to be sketchy in many instances. Foreign travelers (even though entering the country legally) are effectively left without any protections regarding their privacy.
Sultanov’s argument was supported in an amicus brief filed the following year by the Knight First Amendment Institute and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who said that the First Amendment is violated as well when law enforcement gains access to phones without a warrant since it invalidates constitutional protections of speech, freedom of the press, religion, and association.
The New York Eastern District Court’s decision is by and large based precisely on that amicus brief. One of the arguments from it is that journalists entering the US are often forced to hand over their devices.
The court agreed that “letting border agents freely rifle through journalists’ work product and communications whenever they cross the border would pose an intolerable risk to press freedom,” said Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press attorney Grayson Clary in a press statement.
Meanwhile, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said they were reviewing this ruling – and would not comment on what the agency said are “pending criminal cases.”
Thousands join peace and freedom rally in Berlin
RT | August 4, 2024
Thousands took to the streets of Berlin on Saturday for a “peace and freedom” rally to protest against what was called Germany’s “belligerent” foreign policy and the country’s continued arms supplies to Ukraine.
The event was organized by so-called Querdenker (‘lateral thinking’) groups, a movement initially formed during the Covid-19 pandemic in order to protest against the German government’s lockdown policies and the overall pandemic response. It has since absorbed other government critics. Some German media outlets have referred to the movement as rife with conspiracy theorists or having links to far-right groups.
Some 5,000 people registered for the march, according to the city police. Several local media outlets put the number of participants at 9,000, citing law enforcement estimates. Many people carried blue flags with a white dove of peace, while others had banners and placards that read: “No US missiles on our soil!” “No missiles against Russia!” “No arms shipments to Ukraine and Israel!” or “Peace talks!”
Some demonstrators also carried banners bearing the slogan “Create peace without weapons!” This phrase comes from the 1982 Berlin Appeal, an outspoken petition crafted by two East German dissidents that called for disarmament.
Having started at Ernst Reuter Square in central Berlin, the demonstrators eventually made their way to Tiergarten Park for a rally attended by some 12,000 people, according to police estimates. Protesters called for “regionality, direct democracy and limiting the power” of the government, which, many claimed was filled with “absolute idiots.”
Some of the demonstrators still wanted the government to “bear responsibility” for what they believed were unjust lockdown policies during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Participants also demanded that Germany be “capable of peace instead of being ready for war” in an apparent reference to a statement in June by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that the nation “must be ready for war by 2029” while advocating military reform and a “new form of military service.” The minister had previously made similar statements, citing the alleged threat posed by Russia in particular.
Some speakers at the rally urged Germany to leave NATO. “We want a government that represents our interests and not that of the USA and big business,” one said, according to local media reports. Thousands of protesters reportedly stayed at the rally site for many hours. Some 7,000 people were still demonstrating in the early evening, according to law enforcement estimates.
The event was largely peaceful, with just a handful of detentions, the police said, adding that most of those detained had violated the rules on banned symbols, such as the logo of the German Compact Magazine, which has been deemed extremist by the country’s domestic security service (BfV).
Some smaller counter protests organized by various left-wing groups were also held in the city on Saturday.
Bringing Back Vaccine Passports
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | August 2, 2024
One of the major authoritarian measures adopted at the beginning of this decade in the name of countering coronavirus was “vaccine passports.” These certifications, on paper or in electronic form, that a person had received the government specified minimum number of experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots were required by select governments across the world for individuals to carry and present at checkpoints in order to go about their activities.
In America, the New York government jumped in early on mandating vaccine passports. Vaccine passports were also implemented by other governments around the world, including in parts of Europe.
Today, most Europeans are over the coronavirus panic. They are enjoying the exercise of freedom unrestrained by coronavirus crackdowns.
Some European politicians, bureaucrats, and their “private sector” partners, however, are jonesing for a return to the crackdown days. The coronavirus crackdowns were in many ways a high point of power for government and of profits for connected companies. Compulsive meddlers and profiteers want that back, and permanent.
Thus, it should be no surprise that a group of five European nations — Belgium, Germany, Greece, Latvia, and Portugal — are working with the European Union on pilot testing a new European Vaccination Card. The card that will be tested in physical and electronic form and will contain individuals’ vaccination records for a variety of shots is intended to be implemented this decade. Michael Nevradakis provides the details in a Tuesday Children’s Health Defense article.
Interestingly, Nevradakis notes in his article that the European Union’s development of the European Vaccination Card dates back to 2018. Much like the September 11, 2001 attacks in America allowed the United States government to implement as the USA PATRIOT Act a wish list of authoritarian legislation that had been sitting on a shelf, the creating of a crisis out of coronavirus allowed for an early testing of vaccine passports. Now, the process continues toward imposing vaccine passports on a permanent basis.
The prospect of vaccine passports is frightening if the vaccine passports serve to restrict people’s activities only because they have not taken mandated shots. That is an extreme violation of free choice. It is also, as was shown with the coronavirus shots that turned out to be both dangerous and ineffective instead of the incessantly propagandized “safe and effective,” a major health threat.
But, vaccine passports, as I wrote an August of 2021 article, can be expected to transform into “everything passports.” Once vaccine passports are put in place for a limited purpose, the temptation will be to start using them to restrict people’s activities based upon innumerable other criteria.
Americans should pay attention to what is happening in Europe in regard to vaccine passports. There are certainly politicians, bureaucrats, and connected companies in America similarly itching to implement such a scheme. They will be looking to European efforts for direction.
Disinformation Board Chief Sued Fox News For Alleging She Was Pro-Censorship. A Judge Agreed With Fox News.
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 31, 2024
America’s attempt to set up what critics called the “Ministry of Truth” failed miserably last year when the Disinformation Governance Board was quickly set up as an advisory to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – and then quickly dissolved, under massive public pushback.
The Board’s head was Nina Jankowicz, whose role some of those same critics, among politicians and media among them, summed up as “misinformation czar.”
Let’s say that this is a kind way of saying, “censorship czar.” But, reporting to this effect still personally offended Jankowicz enough to file a defamation lawsuit against Fox News.
And now, a federal judge has dismissed that suit.
We obtained a copy of the order for you here.
Jankowicz stated in the filing that Fox was making false claims about her intent to censor Americans, denying also that she “wanted to give verified Twitter users, including herself, the power to edit others tweets,” or that she was actually fired (rather than resigning).
The reason she had to leave the Board, Jankowicz asserted, was the “harassment” she endured because Fox published reports that contained those claims.
US District Court for the District of Delaware Judge Colm Connolly, however, dismissed these three arguments. Jankowicz cited 37 statements heard on Fox, but the judge said 36 of them were about the Board in general, not her in particular.
And the one instance that could be construed to refer to Jankowicz (her picture was used to illustrate a report about the Board) doesn’t count, either.
The Fox report said the Board was “dedicated to working with the special media giants for the purpose of policing information.”
The judge decided to express himself plainly: “The statement is not defamatory because it is not false.”
And he didn’t stop there: “The Board was formed precisely to police information and to work with non governmental actors,” Connolly wrote.
The fact that the Board was to “coordinate” with private companies to tackle what they identified as “misinformation”, is an objective that Connolly said is “fairly characterized as a form of censorship.”
As for the claim that Fox lied regarding the Twitter controversy, the ruling reads: “The complaint itself quotes Jankowicz confirming in a Zoom session that she endorsed the notion of having ‘verified’ individuals edit the content of others’ tweets.”
Fox commented on this outcome by saying they were satisfied that the court supported the First Amendment, while Jankowicz told her GoFundMe supporters, who are raising funds for her legal fees, that she would appeal.
The case is just one episode in the legal battles raging in the US, that fall into the broader category of “supercontroversy” that is the the Big Government-Big Tech collusion.
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From the Archives
Should Europeans ‘Thank’ the Americans for Destroying Nord Stream?
By Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 29, 2022
With an investigation continuing into the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline that provided energy supplies to Europe from Russia, there appears to be just one prime suspect, and that should surprise nobody.
Following the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski already seemed to know the identity of the perpetrator when he tweeted out: “Thank you, USA.”
At first glance, it seemed that Sikorski was speaking sarcastically, berating Washington for carrying out an attack that will have severe repercussions for the people of Europe. After all, how could anyone see any good coming from the termination of Europe’s primary source of gas reserves with winter just around the corner? It was Sikorski’s homeland of Poland, after all, that urged its citizens to collect firewood in the face of dwindling gas reserves.
In fact, the Polish diplomat was speaking one-hundred percent literally… continue
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- Iran denies responsibility for ‘depraved’ attack on Kuwait desalination plant
- Bring The Troops Back. End This War Now!
- Can we please stop calling Israel the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ now?
- US should start removing its troops for Germany, proposes AfD co-leader Chrupalla
- Iran Red Crescent: 600 educational centers attacked in US-Israeli ‘war crimes’
- Russian Oil Tanker Arrives in Cuba Amid U.S. Blockade
- America Racing to Strategic Defeat in Iran: Lt Col Daniel Davis
- FTC Warns Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe Over Political Debanking
- Russian tanker approaches Cuba despite US oil blockade
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli police block Catholic cardinal from entering Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday
- Israel is assassinating journalists again, more than any other nation, anywhere, ever – Not a ceasefire Day 170
- Over 300 US service members wounded, majority have brain injuries – Not a ceasefire Day 169
- Researchers at Human Rights Watch Resign Over Blocked Report on Palestinian Refugee Return
- Jewish Groups Are Backing a War Americans Don’t Want
- Eric Fingerhut Thinks He’s the President of the Jews
- Top Jewish Philanthropists, Rabbis Urge Israeli President to Take Action Against ‘Jewish Extremists’
- Don’t Be Fooled. Zionist Leaders Have Always Wanted to Control Southern Lebanon
- Israel’s widespread use of torture is a core element of its genocide against the Palestinian people
- In Israel’s War on Iran, Many Middle East US Bases Rendered “All But Uninhabitable”
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
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