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Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis backs petition calling for Canada to exit UN, WHO

MP Leslyn Lewis (Haldimand-Norfolk) speaks at Save our Charities Rally on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Nov. 24, 2021
By Anthony Murdoch | Life Site News | October 18, 2023

OTTAWA, Ontario –– Conservative Party of Canada MP Leslyn Lewis has endorsed an official House of Commons petition demanding the nation’s federal government “urgently” withdraw from the United Nations and its subgroup, the World Health Organization (WHO), due to the organizations’ undermining of national “sovereignty” and the “personal autonomy” of citizens.

“We, the undersigned, Citizens and Residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to Urgently implement Canada’s expeditious withdrawal from the U.N. and all of its subsidiary organizations, including WHO,” reads the petition, which was initiated by Doug Porter from Burnaby, British Columbia, and then endorsed by Lewis. 

As of press time, the petition, which was opened on October 10, has just over 36,000 signatures. It will remain open for signing until February 7, 2024.  

The petition states that Canada’s current membership in the UN along with the WHO has resulted in “negative consequences on the people of Canada,” which far outweigh “any benefits.” 

Additionally, the petition reads that the UN’s “Agenda 2030″ undermines “national sovereignty and personal autonomy.” 

Many of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government goals, notably its environmental ones, are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”  

Agenda 2030 is a plan that was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, and through its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), seeks to “transform our world for the better,” by “taking urgent action on climate change,” as well as “support[ing] the research and development of vaccines and medicines.” Some of the 17 goals also seek to expand “reproductive” services, including contraception and abortion, across the world in the name of women’s rights. 

According to the UN, “all” nations working on the program “will implement this plan.” 

Part of the plan includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades. Canada is one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, however, Trudeau has made it one of his goals to decimate the industry.  

In a blow to the globalist UN agenda, however, Canada’s oil and gas sector recently scored a huge win after the Supreme Court of Canada declared Trudeau’s government’s Impact Assessment Act, dubbed the “no-more pipelines” bill, is mostly “unconstitutional.”   

As for Lewis, she is pro-life and has consistently called out the Trudeau government for pushing a globalist, anti-life agenda on Canadians. 

Early this year Lewis noted that the World Economic Forum (WEF) is “not our government” and that Canadians did not “sign up” to be attached to one of its charters. Lewis herself helped expose Canadians to the fact that Trudeau’s Liberal government signed onto the WEF charter in 2020.

Petitions to Canada’s House of Commons can be started by anyone but must have the support of five Canadian citizens or residents, along with the support of a sitting MP. 

Once a petition has over 500 verified signatures, it is presented to the House of Commons, where it awaits an official government response. 

Petition calls out UN’s sex-ed programs, saying Canadians did not vote for these to be pushed on kids 

The Lewis-backed petition states that Canada should have nothing to do with the UN’s sexual education programs as they have been pushed on the populace without the “consent” of the people. 

The petition reads that Agenda 2030’s SDGs, as well as its “Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE)” program, its UN Judicial Review, and its International Health Regulations (IHR) are being “rapidly implemented,” with the absent awareness and “consent of the People or their elected representatives.” 

The petition reads that SDGs have “negative impacts on potentially every aspect of life,” in Canada, including “religious and cultural values, familial relations, education, nutrition, child development, property rights, economic and agricultural productivity, transportation, travel, health, informed consent, privacy and physical autonomy.” 

When it comes to the UN’s CSE, the petition states that publicly funded educational institutions have been “damaging children while concealing information from parents.” 

As a result, the CSE’s “normalization” of “sexual values and activities with regard to children are endorsed and enforced, beginning at birth.” 

As for the WHO, it claims that the CSE gives kids “accurate, age-appropriate information,” however it then says sexual education should start at the age of 5 as per UN guidelines.  

“Learning is incremental; what is taught at the earliest ages is very different from what is taught during puberty and adolescence,” reads the CSE. 

A report which was published by the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in collaboration with the WHO, told kids aged 5 to 8 that “people can show love for other people through touching and intimacy.” 

UN’s health regulations look to violate Canadians’ charter rights, says petition  

Lastly, the petition states that the UN’s goals intend to impose “sweeping impacts on public and private life,” and only “serve the interests of UN/WHO and unelected private entities (e.g. World Economic Forum, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, International Planned Parenthood Federation, etc.), while diminishing the health rights and freedom of Canadians.” 

The WHO says that the IHR is a legally binding international body to which all UN members are committed to.  

Lewis has before blasted Canada’s involvement with the IHR and insisted last year that the Canadian government “defend our healthcare sovereignty” and vote against proposed U.S. amendments to the the IHR. 

The WHO’s IHR provides an “overarching legal framework that defines countries’ rights and obligations in handling  public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders.” 

“The IHR are an instrument of international law that is legally-binding on 196 countries, including the 194 WHO Member States,” notes the WHO. 

So far this year, there have been more than 300 proposed amendments to the IHR when it comes to the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. 

Lewis recently called out the proposed amendments, saying that if enacted it would negatively affect how Canada deals with any future health crisis.  

On September 26, she presented to the House of Commons a petition specific to the IHR, which called for “urgent” debates on the amendments. 

Critics have sounded the alarm over the Trudeau government’s involvement in the WEF and other globalist groups, pointing to the socialist nature of the “Great Reset” agenda and its similarities to Communist China’s totalitarian Social Credit System. 

Lewis in June of this year had asked for a full disclosure of all “contracts, transfer payments, memoranda of understanding, letters of intent, charters, accords, projects and associations between the government and the WEF since November 4, 2015.”  

The outcomes from the Order Paper resulted in a 127-page response that was tabled in the House of Commons on September 18.  

Lewis has in the past blasted the WEF and its Known Traveller Digital Identification (KTDI) programs as “glitching failures.”   

October 22, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Missouri v. Biden, the Federal Government Social Media Censorship Case

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | October 21, 2023

A notable stride has been made in the long-waged battle against the Censorship Industrial Complex, with the US Supreme Court deciding to weigh in on the matter. The case in question, Missouri v. Biden, has the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana pitted against the Biden administration, accusing it of advocating for censorship on social media platforms, particularly concerning discussions around Covid and election-related matters.

The constitutional examination of the Censorship Industrial Complex is seen as a significant step toward upholding or dismantling barriers to free expression on digital platforms.

The court decided to take up the case after the Biden administration asked for a stay on an injunction against its online censorship pressure.

Justice Alito, with whom Justices Thomas and Gorsuch join, dissented on the request for a stay, and this part is worth reading in full:

This case concerns what two lower courts found to be a “coordinated campaign” by high-level federal officials to suppress the expression of disfavored views on important public issues. To prevent the continuation of this campaign, these officials were enjoined from either “coerc[ing]” social media companies to engage in such censorship or “active[ly] control[ling]” those companies’ decisions about the content posted on their platforms. Today, however, a majority of the Court, without undertaking a full review of the record and without any explanation, suspends the effect of that injunction until the Court completes its review of this case, an event that may not occur until late in the spring of next year. Government censorship of private speech is antithetical to our democratic form of government, and therefore today’s decision is highly disturbing.

This case began when two States, Missouri and Louisiana, and various private parties filed suit alleging that popular social media companies had either blocked their use of the companies’ platforms or had downgraded their posts on a host of controversial subjects, including “the COVID–19 lab leak theory, pandemic lockdowns, vaccine side effects, election fraud, and the Hunter Biden laptop story.” According to the plaintiffs, Federal Government officials “were the ones pulling the strings,” that is, these officials “‘coerced, threatened, and pressured [the] social-media platforms to censor [them].’” Based on extensive findings of fact that spanned 82 pages, the District Court held that the plaintiffs were likely to be able to prove their claims and were threatened with irreparable harm, and it therefore issued a preliminary injunction against a number of Executive Branch agencies and officials.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court’s assessment of the evidence, which, in its words, showed the existence of “a coordinated campaign” of unprecedented “magnitude orchestrated by federal officials that jeopardized a fundamental aspect of American life.” The Court of Appeals found that “the district court was correct in its assessment—’unrelenting pressure’ from certain government officials likely ‘had the intended result of suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.’”

To stop this “campaign,” the injunction, as it now stands, prohibits the covered officials from doing two things. First, they may not “coerce” social media platforms to make “content-moderation decisions.” Second, they may not “meaningfully contro[l]” social media platforms’ “content-moderation” efforts. Displeased with these restrictions, the Government filed an emergency application asking us to stay the effect of this injunction pending certiorari.

Under a straightforward application of the test we use in deciding whether to grant a stay, the Government’s application should be denied. To obtain a stay pending the disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, an applicant must show, among other things, “a likelihood that irreparable harm will result from the denial of a stay.” A stay is an “extraordinary remedy that may only be awarded upon a clear showing that the plaintiff is entitled to such relief.” Thus, the Government in this case must make a “clear showing” of irreparable harm. And to do that, it is not enough to “simply sho[w] some ‘possibility of irreparable injury.’” A mere “‘possibility’ standard is too lenient.” Instead, the Government must prove that irreparable harm is “likel[y].” Here, the Government’s attempts to demonstrate irreparable harm do not come close to clearing this high bar.

Instead of providing any concrete proof that “harm is imminent,” the Government offers a series of hypothetical statements that a covered official might want to make in the future and that, it thinks, might be chilled. But hypotheticals are just that—speculation that the Government “may suffer irreparable harm at some point in the future,” not concrete proof. And such speculation does not establish irreparable harm.

Moreover, it does not appear that any of the Government’s hypothetical communications would actually be prohibited by the injunction. Nor is any such example provided by the Court’s unreasoned order. The Government claims that the injunction might prevent “the President and the senior officials who serve as his proxies” from “speak[ing] to the public on matters of public concern.” Application 36; accord, id., at 3 (suggesting that the Fifth Circuit’s decision implicates “the use of the Office’s bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans”). The President himself is not subject to the injunction, and in any event, the injunction does not prevent any Government official from speaking on any matter or from urging any entity or person to act in accordance with the Government’s view of responsible conduct.

The injunction applies only when the Government crosses the line and begins to coerce or control others’ exercise of their free-speech rights. Does the Government think that the First Amendment allows Executive Branch officials to engage in such conduct? Does it have plans for this to occur between now and the time when this case is decided?

Despite the Government’s conspicuous failure to establish a threat of irreparable harm, the majority stays the injunction and thus allows the defendants to persist in committing the type of First Amendment violations that the lower courts identified. The majority takes this action in the face of the lower courts’ detailed findings of fact. But “[w]here an intermediate court reviews, and affirms, a trial court’s factual findings, this Court will not ‘lightly overturn’ the concurrent findings of the two lower courts.” And the majority suspends the relief afforded below without a word of explanation.

Applying our settled test for granting a stay, I would deny the Government’s application, but I would specify in the order that in the unlikely event that a concrete occurrence presents a risk of irreparable harm, the Government can apply for relief at that time, including, if necessary, by filing an emergency application here. Such an order would fully protect the ability of Executive Branch officials to speak out on matters of public concern.

At this time in the history of our country, what the Court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the Government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news. That is most unfortunate.

Jenin Younes, a staff attorney for the New Civil Liberties Association, who has been working closely with Columbia Law Professor, Philip Hamburger, shared the sentiment of many anti-censorship advocates when she penned, “We look forward to vindicating the 1st Amendment rights of our clients, and all Americans, in the nation’s highest court.” The duo, alongside their represented clientele which includes academia stalwarts like Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya, former UC Irvine psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty, and Harvard professor, Martin Kulldorff, find themselves on a shared mission to protect the sacred ground of free speech.

October 22, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The EU Demands “Disinformation” Answers From Meta and TikTok

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 22, 2023

The European Union has instigated investigations into two technological titans, Meta, the company that owns Facebook, and TikTok. The probes focus on assessing the actions these two companies have taken to halt the proliferation of “illegal content and disinformation” in the aftermath of the recent Hamas assault on Israel and subsequent escalation of conflict.

Notably, this process represents one of the first set of actions initiated under the newly minted EU legislation targeting online speech.

Prior to this, the EU had sparked similar inquiries into X. The request for information from Meta hinges specifically around the amplification and spread of “disinformation” and illicit content linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict. In a parallel vein, the EU is seeking to garner insight into TikTok’s strategy to combat the diffusion of terrorist provocation, violent material, and “hate speech.”

This legal altercation raises significant questions about internet censorship and its potential impact on free speech. With the EU demanding more details from Meta about its “mitigation measures to protect the integrity of elections,” there’s a looming fear of global tech behemoths capable of influencing political narratives and public opinion.

The two companies under probe have, respectively, October 25 and November 8 deadlines to answer to the EU’s demand for information, with the latter date serving for less urgent inquiries.

The DSA was enforced in August for “very large” platforms, encompassing Meta and TikTok, which boast more than 45 million monthly European users. The DSA threatens tech companies with potential fines equivalent to six percent of a firm’s global turnover if they permit the hosting of illegal online speech.

Thierry Breton, the EU’s chief tech enforcer, sent cautionary letters to various tech CEOs, such as TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai.

In response, Meta announced it was allocating special resources to tackle problematic and illegal content related to the Israel-Hamas conflict, exemplifying the pressure exerted by the EU’s censorship crusade.

October 22, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

New York AG Letitia James Backtracks on Censorship Demands of Rumble

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 22, 2023

In the face of determined resistance in defense of free speech, New York Attorney General Letitia James has withdrawn her overreach in demanding that Rumble, the social media platform, censor expression related to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

This move arrives in reaction to the advocacy of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), asserting that her initiative blatantly contravened the First Amendment and a federal court order restraining the enforcement of New York’s Online Hate Speech Law.

On October 12, James, orchestrated a drive against the freedom of expression, challenging multiple social media platforms, including Rumble, Meta, and Reddit. Her request to these platforms was for information on what steps they are taking to inhibit the dissemination of “hateful content” in relation to the escalating conflict in the Middle East and report back on their adopted policies regarding content administration.

One day later, following pushback, James climbed down from her position for FIRE plaintiff Rumble. This result was celebrated by FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner, who declared that “her letter was ill-advised and violated a court order.”

Related: Rumble wins injunction against New York’s online censorship law

October 22, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s ambassador pushes to shut down pro-Palestinian activism

By Yves Engler | October 21, 2023

Israel wants Canada to criminalize growing displays of solidarity with Palestinians.

In a bid to amplify calls to ban Palestine solidarity marches, Israel’s ambassador Iddo Moed told the Canadian Press on Thursday, “I don’t think that democracies allow people to hate and to incite, and I think that that is something that is looked at very carefully in many places, including Canada.” He added, “when is a line crossed that is between supporting a cause and between changing our values in a way that incites hatred and violence and even glorification of horrendous terrorist attacks.”

As a purported example of the “hatred” Moed is referring to, the CP story reported “One sign spotted at the Oct. 9 protest outside Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square read: ‘Occupation is a crime, resistance is a response.’”

Moed is seeking to boost a push to change Canada’s criminal code. Last week the Globe and Mail published “Rallies raise question of whether Canada should have a law against public cheering of terrorism” and the National Post’s John Ivison called for federal legislation to criminalize the protests in “Tolerating the glorification of terror and slaughter is societal suicide”. Similarly, the host of CBC’s Power & Politics David Cochrane asked foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly whether Canadians participating in Palestine solidarity rallies should be prosecuted for supporting terrorism while National Post reporter Tristin Hopper mused about banning the Palestinian flag. On Twitter Hopper noted, “So when do we declare the Palestinian flag a hate symbol? I’m not seeing a lot of them being waved by people who *don’t* support mass-murder.”

Taking a page from Hopper’s line of thinking, a principal at an Ottawa elementary school recently asked a student to remove the Palestinian flag as their profile picture. “We will follow up with your family because we want to keep all students feeling safe, welcome and included in our classrooms,” the principal is recorded saying.

This isn’t an isolated case. On Thursday prominent Toronto teacher Javier DaVila tweeted, “I’ve received dozens of reports from parents of children in Ontario education who’ve been targeted, attacked or suspended for wearing Keffiyehs, displaying Palestinian flags, expressing solidarity with or even saying Palestine.”

In a bid to blunt opposition to Israel’s genocidal policies, the media and politicians have hounded CUPE Ontario leader Fred Hahn and Hamilton NDP MPP Sarah Jama. They’ve also vilified student unions standing for Palestinian rights and called for them to be defunded.

While they obsess about one-sided student union statements, the media has all but ignored racism spouted by more influential pro-Israel actors. They are uninterested that the head of Montreal’s Federation CJA told an audience, which included multiple elected officials, that “the barbarians are at the gate” or that Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs hosted a speaker days after he tweeted an image of an Israeli military boot crushing a Palestinian cockroach. The leaders of the four main political parties spoke at the same CIJA conference.

Without a hint of awareness of the irony, organizations that proclaim Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East” and condemn anyone who draws parallels between Nazi behaviour and Israel’s, as well as newspaper columnists who decry leftists when they “de-platform” right wingers, target the jobs of Palestine’s supporters.

Zionist campaigners have targeted multiple individuals’ livelihoods. Under outside pressure, a number of public servants are being “probed for anti-Israel posts” while a doctor who has done humanitarian work in Gaza and elsewhere, Ben Thomson, was suspended by Mackenzie Health for his Palestine advocacy. Air Canada even fired a pilot for posting Palestine protest photos on social media.

In response to the witch-hunt, Labour 4 Palestine has launched an action campaign titled “Defend free speech. Stop the attack on Palestine solidarity.” For its part, Scholar Strike Canada released a statement condemning “University Administrators and the Western media for their ongoing Threats against Scholars and Students in Solidarity with Palestinian People in Gaza.” In response to the Ontario premier’s smears, Jama formally threatened a defamation suit against Doug Ford.

Notwithstanding the witch-hunt, tens of thousands of Canadians have taken to the streets in recent days. On Tuesday night multiple thousands rallied and marched in emergency protests in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Toronto against Israel killing hundreds at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza. A few days earlier more than 5,000 marched in Montréal against Canada’s complicity with Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza.

More protests are planned Friday and this weekend. The best way to respond to repression of solidarity is to amplify Palestine solidarity work.

October 22, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

CDC Wants Pregnant Women to Get 4 Vaccines — More and More Women Are Saying ‘No’

By Mike Capuzzo | The Defender | October 18, 2023

NBC News on Tuesday led its online broadcast with what the network said was the biggest news in the world: “President Biden to visit Israel and vaccine hesitancy on the rise for pregnant women.”

As the winter respiratory illness season rapidly approaches, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the first time is recommending four vaccines during pregnancy: the flu vaccine, Tdap vaccine (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis, or whooping cough), RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine, and the COVID-19 vaccine.

But more women are saying “no” to their doctors who recommend COVID-19 and the other vaccines — even shutting down conversations with, “I’m not going to talk about it,” according to the NBC News report.

“We are meeting more resistance than I ever remember,” said Dr. Neil Silverman, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UCLA Health. “We didn’t get this kind of pushback on this scale before the pandemic.”

“Now all vaccines are lumped together as ‘bad,’” he said.

NBC based its report on a CDC study, “Influenza, Tdap, and COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage and Hesitancy Among Pregnant Women,” published in the agency’s Sept. 29 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Medical experts interviewed by The Defender criticized the CDC’s recommendations and its report on vaccine hesitancy.

One of those experts, Dr. James Thorp, a Florida physician, board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology who has practiced obstetrics for more than 42 years, urged more women to say no to COVID-19 vaccines, in particular, which he called “an abomination of science and an abomination of a corrupted health care system.”

By continuing to push dangerous mRNA COVID-19 vaccines on pregnant women, Thorp said, the CDC is breaking the “golden rule” of pregnancy.

“The golden rule of pregnancy is you don’t ever, ever use a novel substance in pregnancy, ever,” he said. “And you don’t have to be a physician or nurse, you don’t have to have any education, to know that.”

Only 27% of survey respondents took COVID booster shot

The CDC study analyzed data from an internet panel survey conducted from March 28 to April 16, 2023. The CDC surveyed 1,814 respondents who were pregnant at any time from October 2022 to January 2023.

Key findings include:

  • Only 27.3% of women chose to take the COVID-19 bivalent booster vaccine before or during pregnancy during the 2022-23 flu season, nearly half the percent who agreed to take some other vaccines, the signal in the study indicating fear of COVID-19 vaccines tainted other vaccines, public health experts said.
  • Skepticism about vaccines has ballooned to taint the flu shot in the eyes of pregnant women, though the flu shot has been given to millions of pregnant women over several decades. Last year, the CDC study found, 47.2% of expectant mothers got their flu shots, down from 57.5% who got their flu shots during the pre-COVID-19 2019-20 season.
  • Among most of the 2,000 women who were pregnant during the peak of last year’s cold and flu season, or when the survey was conducted in March and April, almost a quarter said they were “very hesitant” about getting a flu shot, a significant increase in “vaccine hesitancy” over the 17.2% who said they had reservations during the 2021-22 respiratory illness season.
  • 55.4% of women with a recent live birth elected to receive Tdap vaccination during pregnancy, a number inching back from pre-pandemic levels, but “self-reported hesitancy towards influenza and Tdap vaccination during pregnancy increased among pregnant women from 2019–20 to 2022–23.”

Dr. Denise Jamieson, vice president for medical affairs at the University of Iowa Health Care and a spokesperson for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told NBC News that “even prior to the pandemic, it was a struggle to get pregnant women vaccinated.”

She said she is dismayed that “Tdap is just barely recovering from pre-pandemic levels” and “the number of women vaccinated for Covid is disappointing.”

Dr. Linda Eckert, an OB-GYN and global health and immunization expert at the University of Washington, said more of her patients have “a bias … about how they feel about a vaccine.”

When Eckert recommends a vaccine, more pregnant women now reply, “I’m not going to talk about it,” she said.

Dr. Melissa Simon, an OB-GYN at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, decried the rise in vaccine “myths, what I would call blatant disinformation that is intended to be more politically charged, not based in science.”

Pregnancy ‘much safer’ without ‘risks of vaccination’

Thorp, a specialist in maternal-fetal medicine who sees 6,000-7,000 high-risk pregnant patients a year, said he was horrified by the unprecedented level of complications, miscarriages and fetal deaths among his pregnant patients and their unborn children after the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are “the deadliest drug in the history of medicine, whether you call it a vaccine, a drug, a gene medicine, a medical intervention, whatever you call it,” he said. “And they knew it. The CDC knew it. HHS knew it. Pfizer knew it and tried to bury the data, which showed 1,223 deaths from its vaccine in the first 10 weeks, for 75 years.”

Thorp cited the more than 1 million illnesses and disabilities and thousands of deaths following COVID-19 vaccination reported in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), run by the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“If you take all the other vaccines in the U.S. in the last century and do a literature search,” he said, “the deaths and illnesses associated with the mRNA vaccines dwarf the dangers of all other vaccines combined.”

Captured government agencies and major media have for nearly three years continued to ignore the most dire vaccine impacts in U.S. history, which are especially tragic for pregnant women and their unborn children, Thorp said.

In December 2022, Thorp was the lead author of a groundbreaking preprint article on the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines to pregnant women and unborn children. The article was peer-reviewed and published in spring 2023 in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

The study analyzed adverse events after COVID-19 vaccines experienced by women of reproductive age, focusing on pregnancy and menstruation. It used data collected by the VAERS database from Jan. 1, 1998, to June 30, 2022, to compare injury reports on flu vaccines versus COVID-19 vaccines.

The study found that COVID-19 vaccines, when compared to flu vaccines, are associated with a greater than double rate of reported “menstrual abnormalities, miscarriage, fetal chromosomal abnormalities, fetal malformation, fetal cystic hygroma, fetal cardiac disorders, fetal arrhythmias, fetal cardiac arrest, fetal vascular malperfusion, fetal growth abnormalities, fetal abnormal surveillance, fetal placental thrombosis, low amniotic fluid, preeclampsia, premature delivery, preterm premature rupture of membrane, fetal death/stillbirth, and premature baby death.”

“Pregnancy complications and menstrual abnormalities are significantly more frequent following COVID-19 vaccinations than Influenza vaccinations,” the authors concluded.

According to Thorp, when he first alerted the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology — the most powerful of the three medical boards in his specialty — about the signals in VAERS, the board threatened to decertify him for spreading “misinformation.”

The board has since backed off, Thorp said, because “they know they’re wrong and I’m right.”

Thorp said he proved, with documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, another one of the three major OBG-YN medical societies, took “large sums of money” from the federal government to participate in “the largest 5th generation psyops warfare in the history of the world, a massive propaganda program to bury the data,” and threatened 61,000 doctors with loss of board certification that would end their careers if they deviated from the government line that the vaccines were “safe and effective and necessary.”

The CDC and other public health authorities, backed by major media, “targeted my patients with their propaganda,” Thorp said.

“They targeted women because women make all the healthcare decisions, not men,” he said. “And they went after women because pregnant women are the most vulnerable population in the world, not children, not the elderly. If you can capture pregnant women when you’re implementing a drug you can convince everyone in the world they should follow.”

Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, disputed that any of the four CDC-recommended vaccines during pregnancy is necessary, but he said the COVID-19 vaccine is especially dangerous.

“It is my belief that the safety of those vaccines have never been truly proven, especially in terms of them leading to increased rates of many chronic illnesses in childhood,” he said.

Kory said he was appalled by what he said was an ongoing propaganda campaign of misinformation. “This is both absurd and unsurprising,” he said. “The level of pharmaceutical industry influence is being revealed to more Americans on a daily basis.”

Kory pointed to the CDC’s “truly alarming,” maternal mortality data for 2021. “My recommendation to the CDC is to focus more on why so many American mothers died suddenly in 2021, rather than continuing to blindly recommend mass vaccination of that patient population.”

Using the CDC’s mortality data from its March 16, 2023, report, Kory created a chart breaking out mortality rates for pregnant mothers under 25 years old. It showed a 38% increase in deaths for all mothers of all races and more than an 83% increase for young Hispanic mothers.

Dr. Peter McCullough told The Defender he was “concerned that unnecessary vaccines during pregnancy will cause fever in some women.”

“Fever is one of the most common triggers for miscarriage, stillbirth and premature labor,” he said. “Pregnancy is much safer when left to the natural progression of gestation without the risks of vaccination.”

“As a mother, the first thing I did, the first thing all mothers do, is evaluate what you’re consuming because it’s going directly into your baby,” said Laura Sextro, CEO of The Unity Project, a California-based nonprofit that fights for medical freedom and parental rights. “Pregnant women cut out fish because of high levels of mercury and lead, or maybe stop drinking Diet Coke.”

While mothers “go to great lengths to protect their child in the womb,” she urged more to become aware of the dangers of “injecting yourself” with the mRNA vaccine, which poses risks, both proven and unknown, to mothers and children.

“It’s an atrocity we’re seeing,” she said. “We’re seeing a dramatic uptick in spontaneous abortion in certain trimesters after women are given this vaccine.”

Sextro advised pregnant women that “the best way to protect you and baby is always make sure you’re asking questions.”

“If you’re not getting answers, it’s your right as a parent — just because the baby is in the womb doesn’t mean you’re not a parent — it is your responsibility to make sure that you stay informed and protect your child.”

Mike Capuzzo is the managing editor of The Defender. He is a former prize-winning reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald, a science writer, and a regional magazine founding editor and publisher who has won more than 200 journalism awards as a writer, editor and publisher.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

October 20, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 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

Journalist killed by Israeli gunfire in southern Lebanon

Palestine Information Center – October 20, 2023

BEIRUT – A journalist was killed and another injured by Israeli gunfire in a southern Lebanon border area, the Lebanese army said early on Friday.

The Lebanese army said that “a media team of seven people was covering the events near the Israeli enemy’s Al-Abbad site in the outskirts of Hula town when Israeli forces opened their machine gun fire at them, killing a journalist and injuring another.”

An official for the United Nations peacekeeping troops in the region, UNIFIL, stated a civilian was killed in an exchange of fire.

“The Lebanese Army requested UNIFIL’s help for seven people stranded near the Blue Line during an exchange of fire across the Blue Line,” UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti stated. He said one person lost his life while the others were successfully rescued,” the spokesperson confirmed.

The Lebanese army described the seven people as media personnel, saying that Israeli forces targeted them with machine guns, killing one and wounding another. It did not provide their identities.

The incident came nearly a week after a Reuters journalist was killed, and other journalists injured, in an Israeli bombing in southern Lebanon.

October 20, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , | 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

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