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AOC Calls For Tucker Carlson to be Banned From Television

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | April 24, 2023

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for Tucker Carlson to be banned from television over the nebulous accusation that he is ‘inciting violence’.

AOC made the comments during an interview with former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on MSNBC.

The lawmaker highlighted, “Federal regulation, in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t.”

“And when you look at what Tucker Carlson and what of these other folks on Fox do, it is very very clearly incitement of violence, very clearly incitement of violence and that is the line that we have to be willing to contend with,” she said.

Despite accusing Carlson of “very clearly” inciting violence, AOC failed to provide one single example.

Commentators responded by asserting that AOC was simply using a nebulous justification to completely silence her political adversaries.

“Their goal is the criminalization of political opposition,” said Auron MacIntyre. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar or a fool.”

Journalist Glenn Greenwald argued that AOC was essentially calling for a form of fascism.

As we previously highlighted, Ocasio-Cortez has a history of making fake claims about people supposedly inciting violence.

She previously accused Ted Cruz of “almost” having her “murdered” during the January 6 riot, one of a number of claims about what happened that day that subsequently turned out to be false.

Some pointed out that AOC herself has legitimized violence before in the context of “marginalized communities” being encouraged to riot.

It’s okay when we do it!

April 24, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

UK minister calls for tech execs to be jailed if they ignore censorship demands

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 23, 2023

UK’s Technology and Science Secretary Michelle Donelan has recommended jail time for social media bosses who refuse to remove “harmful” content from their platforms. The proposal is part of the authoritarian Online Safety Bill.

The bill would give broadcasting regulator Ofcom regulatory authority over social media platforms. The platforms would be required to censor “all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred” based on protected characteristics like race, religion, gender, disability, and gender identity.

Citing the protection of children, Donelan said that social media executives who ignore the requirement and restrictions of the Online Safety Bill should go to jail, The Telegraph reported.

The measure would be used as a last resort for executives that “have consented or connived in ignoring enforceable requirements” to remove content such as “disinformation” by a foreign state.

Currently, the bill would see companies fined up to 10% of global turnover for failing to comply with the censorship demands.

April 23, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Broken Trust

Can the relationship with state healthcare ever be repaired?

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | April 21, 2023

For many people, the words ‘trust the experts’ now invoke a sort of pavlovian horror response. This trope serves as a visceral reminder of 3 years’ constant gaslighting for daring to question the narrative, the relentless stream of celebrity medics repeating the ‘safe and effective’ mantra and the bullying and coercion to take a ‘vaccine’ that millions of people didn’t feel they needed or wanted. It had all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship. Core medical ethical principles were destroyed, the weaknesses of protocolised top-down healthcare delivery were exposed and of course there was direct harm to individuals. Is it any wonder that a great many of the British public never want to hear the words ‘our NHS’ ever again, cringing as they remember the weekly clapping ritual.

An inclination to throw the baby out with the bathwater is now a strong instinct for many who feel completely let down. If the relationship with state healthcare stands any chance of being repaired, harms enacted in recent years need to be properly acknowledged and people’s concerns carefully listened to. The uncomfortable question as to whether the NHS can function in its current incarnation should be aired. For a lot of people a ‘great reset’ of the medical profession would be a necessary condition of return. Indeed, many medics wonder if they can remain in a system that is clearly failing those it is supposed to serve.

As one doctor with decades of experience laments:

“If I continue to practise conveyor belt and recipe book medicine under the current system, the benefit is only to the Medical Business Model; hospitals, laboratories, diagnostic centres and the pharmaceutical industry all benefit in a model designed to keep the patient sick.”

Another consultant doctor reflecting on the past few years, had the following comments:

“The most odious revelation to me was when early on the directive came forth forbidding doctors, on pain of GMC punishment, to use their own initiative to treat a Covid patient with any other substance, drug, or agent whatsoever than that which was approved officially (of course at this point there was nothing in that category), save only for using it in an officially approved Clinical Trial. I felt utterly betrayed as a doctor. The whole essence of the doctor-patient relationship was abruptly abolished. We were now in the CMO-patient relationship. My role was merely to be a minor minion box-ticking algorithm slave. No clinical discretion. No discussion along the principles of best interest of the patient with informed consent. Oh no, that’s old hat! I saw the moral authority and overshadowing support of the entire medical establishment wither up like Jonah’s gourd.”

Multiple articles are now appearing reporting that morale for those working within the NHS is at an all-time low.1,2,3 One can only imagine that bearing witness to some of the most inhumane policies in NHS history for 3 years straight has not helped. Add to this the long hours on low pay, with increasingly limited time to spend with patients due to unmanageable waiting lists, and you have a perfect recipe for abysmal job satisfaction. Do we really want those in charge of our healthcare decisions to be forced to work under these conditions?

So now to the question of trusting medical advice that has been co-opted, protocolised and politicised, not to mention censored and distorted by financial interests. The UKHSA is supposed to be the government gatekeeper that is ‘responsible for protecting every member of every community from the impact of infectious diseases’. Just yesterday the agency was still urging people on Twitter to go and get their first and second covid vaccine. This is now so ludicrously at odds with the available evidence that any sane member of the public should conclude that the regulatory system in the UK is officially broken. It is worth taking the time to read the comments under the tweet to see that the public’s natural survival instincts seem to have well and truly kicked in. This random selection suggests the UKHSA may need to read the room:

If you tuned in to the Twitter Space on Sunday ‘Are mRNA injections causing cancers?’ hosted by Dr Kat Lindley and Neil Oliver, you would have heard a heated exchange between consultant orthopaedic surgeon Dr Ahmad Malik and London-based oncology professor, Angus Dalgleish. Dr Malik wanted to get to the bottom of why Professor Dalgleish felt moved to write an article advocating for young people to take the covid vaccine in July 2021 entitled:

What every young person who fears the jab MUST be told: Vaccine expert ANGUS DALGLEISH dismantles beliefs that have seen rates stall among the 18-30s

Well that seems like a pretty clear message. Get the damned vaccine.

Given his background in vaccine research, Prof Dalgleish would have been very clear that long-term safety data is not an optional extra when injecting young people or pregnant women. When questioned, Prof Dalgleish revealed that he did not actually write the article himself. There was a phone interview with a Daily Mail journalist, which he described as ‘bullying’ and the article was an entirely perverted representation of that call. Nonetheless, his name appears alongside the article with the effect that the message therein appears to come from a distinguished professor of medicine.

Professor Dalgleish dramatically revised his position on covid injections after his son suffered acute myocarditis following the shots. Whilst it is obviously a good thing that he was courageous and open-minded enough to change his stance, it is very worrying that he is still an outlier. One can count on one hand the working medics willing to speak out on this issue. And it begs the question, what if Professor Dalgleish’s son hadn’t been injured? Would there have been more advertorials in the Daily Mail with his name alongside? Why are journalists ‘bullying’ through a particular narrative on medical matters? This rather suggests they have a particular agenda. As one Dr Roger Hodkinson, an eminent Cambridge educated pathologist says, “when politics plays medicine, that’s a very dangerous game.” Notably Dr Hodkinson is now only available to view on Bitchute, having been deplatformed from the more mainstream channels such as YouTube. More media censorship of highly qualified counter-narrative voices.

Working for a monopoly such as the NHS, with a mortgage and a family to feed, one might well find medical ethics end up somewhere below personal financial obligations. This is regrettable but understandable. Medics are human beings. Perhaps it is the fault of an increasingly secular society that somehow medics have been elevated to demi-gods and as a result their word is often deemed infallible. However, many more people now realise that this is simply not the case. If this disordered power dynamic is to be realigned, certain conditions need to be met:

  • A genuine admission that mistakes were made. Not that ‘The Science™’ changed. It did not change and millions of people who resisted the military grade psy-op are fully aware of this;
  • An overhaul of medical training so that clinicians do not feel afraid to speak out when they see something is wrong, and in fact should be encouraged to do so;
  • The gaslighting must stop altogether. Those who have suffered injury or trauma need to be given proper air time and have their concerns addressed. They also need to be properly and fairly compensated.
  • Open and unfettered discussions need to take place, allowing medics to speak freely about what has happened during the past 3 years, identifying with honesty and integrity what must not be repeated.

Taxpayers spend in excess of £220 billion per annum on the NHS. Weekly excess deaths are presently consistently way above average, whereas after a period of high mortality in the frail and elderly it should be well below normal levels. The public (and indeed the staff) deserve better. If this is impossible, perhaps the entire system needs to be completely reimagined.

Footnotes

  1. Former Grange paramedic reveals morale in NHS at ‘all time low’
  2. Staff morale at an all time low at hospitals in York trust
  3. Staff morale at Bronglais Hospital at ‘all-time low’, doctor says ahead of strike vote

April 22, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Facebook Should Keep Removing COVID ‘Misinformation,’ Oversight Board Says

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 21, 2023

The oversight board for Facebook’s parent company, Meta, on Thursday recommended the social media giant “maintain its current policy” of removing COVID-19 “misinformation” from its platform until the World Health Organization declares an end to the global pandemic.

The board made the recommendation despite widespread outcry about social media censorship after the Twitter Files and several ongoing lawsuits revealed collusion between state actors and social media companies to censor dissenting opinions and factual information that contradict official narratives, including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The recommendation came in response to a request by Meta in July that the oversight board — an independent panel of tech and legal experts selected by Meta to weigh in on content policy issues — assess whether “a less restrictive approach” to censoring misinformation might “better align with its values and human rights responsibilities.”

Meta’s current misinformation policy sets different categories of harm content might cause, making that content subject to removal. Content is censored if the platform deems that it contributes to the “risk of imminent physical harm,” could cause “interference” with the functioning of political processes or contains “certain highly deceptive manipulated media.”

But the board didn’t find inconsistency between Meta’s “misinformation policy” and its “values and human rights responsibilities.” Instead, it said Meta’s current “exceptional measures” of eliminating disinformation are “justified.”

The board also urged Meta to “begin a process” to reassess which “misleading claims” it removes, to be more transparent about government requests for information, to consider making its “misinformation” policies more localized and to investigate how the architecture of the platform facilitates the spread of misinformation.

Meta said Thursday it will publicly respond to the board’s non-binding recommendations within 60 days.

Suzanne Nossel, a board member and CEO of PEN America, told The Washington Post that the board’s recommendations are not just relevant to COVID-19, but could shape Meta’s approach to anticipated future global health emergencies.

“The decision is less perhaps about the COVID pandemic per se or exclusively than about … how Meta should handle its responsibilities in the context of a fast-moving public health emergency,” she said.

How Facebook and Instagram censor COVID ‘misinformation’

The recommendation specifically assessed Meta’s “misinformation about health during public emergencies” policy, under which it removes 80 distinct “COVID-19 misinformation claims” posted on its platforms, such as claiming masking or social distancing lack efficacy or that the vaccines can have serious side effects.

Between March 2020 and July 2022, Facebook and Instagram, also owned by Meta, removed 27 million instances of COVID-19 “misinformation,” 1.3 million of which were restored on appeal.

The social media giant also designates a second type of COVID-19 “misinformation,” which does not reach the standard of removal, but is still subject to manipulation by the platform.

For example, information in that category is “fact-checked” where it is labeled as “false” or “missing context,” and then linked to a fact-checking article. That content is then also demoted so that it appears less frequently and prominently in users’ feeds.

Meta also treated other information with what it calls “neutral labels,” where it labeled posts with statements such as “some unapproved COVID-19 treatments may cause serious harm” and then directed people to Meta’s COVID-19 information center, which provides approved information from public health authorities.

Last July, the company said it had connected more than 2 billion people across 189 countries to “trustworthy information” through the portal. But it decided to stop using the neutral labels in December 2022, to ensure they would remain effective in other health emergencies, according to the oversight board’s report.

The basis for determining what is misinformation is whether the information conforms to what public health authorities deem to be true, according to the board’s recommendation and the Facebook policy page.

But throughout the pandemic, public health authorities have had to concede they were wrong about things — and that they lied about things — they had previously pronounced to be science-backed facts.

These “facts” include, for example, flip-flopping on masks, the lab-leak hypothesis, the effectiveness of natural immunity and numerous claims about vaccine efficacy, including that it stops transmission.

That means the platforms eliminated and demoted facts and information that were true. Even CNN conceded that “the company applied the labels to a wide range of claims both true and untrue about vaccines, treatments and other topics related to the virus.”

‘This kind of abuse of power should terrify all of us’

The board recommendations don’t mention the events that led Meta to consider changing its policies — controversy over recent revelations about how government officials coerced social media companies into toeing the government line.

In 2021, President Biden directly criticized Facebook and other platforms, saying they allowed “vaccine misinformation” to spread and they contributed to deaths from COVID-19.

He said they were “killing people” and that the pandemic was only “among the unvaccinated.”

Biden’s accusation was accompanied by threats of regulatory action from from high-ranking members of the administration — including White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — if the social media companies did not comply.

Psaki said government officials were in regular touch with social media platforms, telling them what — and in some cases whom — to censor, Jenin Younes reported.

DHS even created a video in 2021, since removed from youtube, encouraging children to report their own family members to Facebook for ‘disinformation’ if they challenge U.S. government narratives on COVID-19.

Writing in Tablet Magazine this month, civil liberties attorney Jenin Younes recounted the story of a Facebook support group for people who experienced adverse events related to the COVID-19 vaccines being shut down for spreading harmful “misinformation.”

Last month, in the Twitter Files release about Stanford University’s Virality project, Matt Taiibbi revealed that Stanford, with the backing of several government agencies, had created a cross-platform digital ticketing system that was processing censorship requests for all of the social media platforms, including Meta’s.

The Virality Project claimed its objective “is to detect, analyze, and respond to incidents of false and misleading narratives related to COVID-19 vaccines across online ecosystems.”

Taibbi said the Virality Project was “defining true things as disinformation or misinformation or malformation,” which he said signifies “a new evolution of the disinformation process away from trying to figure out what’s true and what’s not and just going directly to political narrative.”

That reflects Meta’s policy to censor statements that don’t conform to official public health authority doctrine as “misinformation.”

Meta’s policies do not mention the tips and directions it receives from government agencies about misinformation.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday published an op-ed in The Hill calling for an end to censorship practices, pointing out that statements about COVID-19 made on platforms like Facebook that are now supported by evidence were flagged as disinformation.

”Statements including my own, that our government once labeled as ‘disinformation,’ such as the efficacy of masks, naturally acquired immunity, and the origins of COVID-19, are now supported by evidence,” he said.

“In reality, the most significant source of disinformation during the pandemic, with the most influence and greatest impact on people’s lives, was the U.S. government,” he added.

Rand pointed to critiques of DHS’s “abusive practices” by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and highlighted a Brennan Center for Justice report published last month that found at least 12 DHS programs for tracking what Americans are saying online.

“This kind of abuse of power should terrify all of us regardless of which side of the aisle you are on,” he said.

Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

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.

April 22, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Tower for Twitter? UK Minister Calls for Jailing Social Media Bosses Who Do Not Censor Speech

By Jonathan Turley | April 21, 2023

As previously discussed, after Musk decided to buy Twitter, Hillary Clinton called upon European countries to force social media companies to censor Americans.  The European Union quickly responded by threatening Musk and other executives. Now, Technology and Science Secretary Michelle Donelan has announced plans to jail social media executives if they fail to censor so-called “harmful” content on their websites. The government, of course, will determine what is deemed too harmful for citizens to see or hear.

Donelan is seeking speech arrests under the UK’s Online Safety Bill, a draconian censorship bill that would effectively ban end-to-end encryption for private internet users.

The bill uses Britain’s broadcasting regulator Ofcom to censor “all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred” based on various progressive characteristics, including transgenderism. So the government can censor anyone who it views as promoting or justifying hatred against virtually any group. Those who do not censor can now be rounded up by Donelan and her minions.

According to a report by The Telegraph, companies will also face fines of up to 10 per cent of their global revenue should they dare to ignore Britain’s demands to preemptively delete or obscure posts violating its coming censorship regime.

The decline of free speech in the United Kingdom has long been a concern for free speech advocates. A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”

Recently we discussed the arrest of a woman who was praying to herself near an abortion clinic. English courts have seen criminalized “toxic ideologies” as part of this crackdown on free speech.

Donelan is only the latest voice of a rising generation of censors. These officials proudly parade their intent to silence or jail those with dissenting views. Yet, they do so in the name of tolerance. This is why free speech is in a free fall in Europe and why we must remain vigilant in this country to resist figures like Clinton who want to bring European censorship to our shores.

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

Canadian Medical Association Journal article calls for governments to “address the risks of misinformation” online

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | April 21, 2023

An article published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) has undertaken a formidable task: to engage in lockdown revisionism – while stating that it is fighting lockdown revisionism.

The lockdown here refers to the radically restrictive, invasive and long-lasting measures the authorities put in place during the Covid pandemic, but the article believes that the very word “lockdown” has now gained not only a powerful, but also “perverted” meaning.

Talk about “perverted” use of language – this development which worries CMAJ has taken place not only during the pandemic, but during “the infodemic.”

For those not in the know, “infodemic” is a pandemic-era neologism pushed by the likes of the World Health Organization (WHO) et al., meant to signify “an overabundance of information – some accurate and some not – that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and Access to the right reliable guidance when they need it.”

In other words, people don’t know what’s good for them, and in come all sorts of “trustworthy sources” to sort “the truth” out for them; the CMAJ article in particular wants to deal with “misinformation on lockdowns” and calls that – “lockdown revisionism.”

It is this – rather than any actions taken by governments – that has eroded trust in public health initiatives over the past three years, the journal is convinced.

The article’s authors also curiously insisted on peppering it with the mention of “democratic governments” engaging in these initiatives, possibly to bolster the “trustworthiness” of their own argument here (in reality, all sorts of governments did this – and some viewed as democratic then, did not emerge from the pandemic with that image unscathed.)

The CMAJ wants these “good” governments to now do more controversial things, such as, put euphemistically, “address the risks” of what is seen as misinformation amplification on social media.

Some of this “misinformation,” specifically regarding lockdowns as a tool of repression, not only physical, but also intellectual (considering censorship faced by those expressing their skepticism on those social sites), is defined pretty well – although, clearly from CMAJ’s point of view, as a negative phenomena (“elements of outlandish conspiracies”).

Things like this: “Lockdowns have been framed as reckless and unscientific, as junk science, as an excuse to permanently oppress populations, as gaslighting with ever-shifting goalposts.”

If that sounds about right, the CMAJ considers you a misinformation peddler with possibly a knack for outlandish conspiracies.

And now, how to fix that?

“Governments could consider strategies — including increased regulatory scrutiny — to address the risks of misinformation being amplified on social media,” is one of the ideas presented in the article.

April 21, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Rep. Stacey Plaskett threatens journalist Matt Taibbi with jail over his Twitter Files testimony

A chilling letter that’s a further attack on free speech

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 20, 2023

Rep. Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate representing the Virgin Islands in the US Congress, has intensified her attack on independent journalist Matt Taibbi.

Previously, during a House Judiciary Select Subcommittee hearing on the Federal Government’s Weaponization, Plaskett had dismissed Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger as “so-called journalists” and attempted to discredit their testimony on government pressure influencing speech restrictions on Twitter.

Plaskett sent a letter to Taibbi accusing him of perjury and hinting at a potential five-year imprisonment sentence. The letter was obtained by investigative journalist Lee Fang. In the letter, Plaskett highlights that giving false testimony to Congress carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

The basis for Plaskett’s perjury accusation lies in several alleged errors Taibbi made during the publication of the Twitter Files. These alleged inaccuracies were brought to light by MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan, who criticized Taibbi during an interview and used them to claim that the entire Twitter Files project was fundamentally flawed.

While Taibbi did make a mistake, such as confusing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a federal government entity, with the Center for Internet Security (CIS), a nonprofit organization, Hasan failed to explain how this error invalidated the basis of the Twitter Files revelations.

Taibbi acknowledged the honest mistake in a tweet, pointing out that both organizations were part of the Election Integrity Partnership, a Stanford University initiative aimed at monitoring election-related social media discourse.

Nevertheless, Plaskett’s claim that Taibbi intentionally made the error and committed perjury is unfounded. “Taibbi has admitted mistaking CIS for CISA in a single tweet in one of his many threads, but his testimony to Congress was entirely different,” Fang wrote.

“Hasan deceptively conflated this quickly corrected tweet with Taibbi’s testimony.”

Fang went on to say, “… the evidence shows that Taibbi’s congressional remarks were correct. CIS and CISA collaborated with EIP on moderation requests, with both organizations directly appealing to Twitter for censorship, making Taibbi’s overall point and particular argument completely accurate.”

Fang has written more about this here.

Plaskett alleges that the mistake in confusing CISA and CIS was “intentional,” attempting to undermine the idea that the government is stifling speech, while, at the same time, threatening a journalist with imprisonment, effectively weaponizing her power against a member of the free press.

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

UK police condemned over arrest of French publisher

RT | April 20, 2023

London’s Metropolitan Police has come under fire for its treatment of a French national who was arrested under anti-terrorist legislation earlier this week. Publisher Ernest Moret was reportedly told that his involvement in protests in his homeland were behind his detention in the UK capital.

Moret’s employer, French publishing house Éditions La Fabrique, issued a press release with fellow publisher Verso Books on Thursday in which they described the actions of British police officers as “scandalous.”

“We consider these actions to be outrageous and unjustifiable infringements of basic principles of the freedom of expression and an example of the abuse of anti-terrorism laws,” the statement added.

The publishers further claimed that Moret’s arrest was the latest example of a “slide towards repressive and authoritarian measures taken by the current French government in the face of widespread popular discontent and protest.”

According to the statement, Moret had arrived in London on Monday to take part in the London Book Fair. While at St. Pancras Station, he was allegedly “pulled aside by police officers acting under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and detained for questioning without a lawyer present.”

The arresting officers reportedly explained that Moret was taken into custody because he had participated in recent anti-government protests back in France.

The two publishing houses insisted that the case proves there is “complicity between French and British authorities on this matter.”

The formal reason for Moret’s arrest was stated as obstruction of police duties. His colleagues alleged that officers had demanded that Moret hand over his cell phone and unblock it, which he supposedly refused to do.

Pamela Morton from the UK’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) wrote: “It seems extraordinary that the British police have acted this way in using terrorism legislation to arrest the publisher who was on legitimate business here for the London Book Fair.”

The Metropolitan Police confirmed in a statement that “at around 1930hrs on Monday, 17 April, a 28-year-old man was stopped by ports officers… under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.”

The AFP news agency later reported that Moret had been released on bail.

France has been gripped by mass protests in recent weeks as people vent their dissatisfaction at a retirement age increase pushed through by President Emmanuel Macron.

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

Facebook Censors Seymour Hersh’s Article About US Involvement in Nord Stream Pipeline Attack

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | April 20, 2023

Facebook is censoring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s story about US involvement in the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines using a ‘fact checker’ with links to the Norwegian government in what represents a clear conflict of interest.

Earlier this year, Hersh published a report asserting that the pipelines were destroyed by the US as part of a covert operation which was organized with the aid of the Norwegian government, Norwegian Secret Service and Navy.

Journalist Michael Shellenberger first noticed the issue when he tried to post Hersh’s article to Facebook, but saw the social media giant had slapped a warning label on the link stating, “False information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.”

Except the ‘fact-checkers’ in question aren’t independent at all.

As Shellenberger notes, “Hersh is infinitely more independent than Facebook’s Norwegian fact-checker. The fact-checking organization is a partnership with a Norwegian government-owned media company, NRK, which has a direct self-interest in censoring the story.”

By censoring the article with a dubious ‘fact check’, Facebook is preventing it from reaching a much wider audience, relegating it in the algorithm.

This is yet another example of how the ‘fact-checker industrial complex’ serves to censor legitimate information at the behest of governments by posing as an independent, non-bias actor when in reality it is merely a front for state control.

Facebook’s claim, made a few years ago, that it cannot act as “the arbiter of the truth” for any contentious issue, has been proven dishonest once again.

“Whether Hersh is wrong or right, his reporting should be debated publicly, not censored. Facebook’s actions are antithetical to America’s tradition of free and open debate and its rejection of secretive, authoritarian censorship,” writes Shellenberger.

“The American people have given Facebook broad liability protections under Section 230 that other media companies don’t get. And yet Facebook is acting like a media company, not a platform. As such, Facebook is putting its Section 230 protection at risk. And censoring Hersh may only attract more attention to it.”

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

Texas State University is sued over speech restrictions

Publicly funded universities are bound by The First Amendment

By Ben Squires | Reclaim The Net | April 19, 2023

Free speech nonprofit Speech First has sued Texas State University over its “harassment” and computer policies, alleging they violate students’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

The university’s harassment policy bans “unwelcome verbal, written, graphic, or physical conduct” deemed “sufficiently severe or pervasive” targeted at people based on factors like sex, gender, and race.

The lawsuit argues that the policy chills the speech of students by discouraging them from “expressing views that are outside the mainstream about the political and social issues of the day.”

The computer policy bans students from using “informational resources” provided by the university to “affect the result of a local, state, or national election.”

The lawsuit argues that the policy bans students from using university email accounts to send political emails, and describes it as a “vague, content-based, and overbroad restriction of protected speech.”

The lawsuit claims that three students are suffering “concrete injuries” as a result of the harassment policy and they fear that the expression of their deeply held views is prohibited.

The students also cannot send political emails for fear of punishment, the lawsuit alleges.

April 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The RESTRICT Act will usher in a new era of censorship under the guise of “national security”

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | April 17, 2023

45 days after 9/11, the United States government passed the PATRIOT Act — a chilling law that used the guise of “national security” to greatly expand the federal government’s secret surveillance powers.

Almost 23 years later, another far-reaching bill, the “Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act,” better known by its acronym, the RESTRICT Act, is using the same national security talking point to justify further federal government encroachment on Americans’ rights.

Although the bill doesn’t mention TikTok, its authors, Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Republican Senator John Thune, have framed it as “the best way to counter the TikTok threat.”

However, the impact of the bill extends far beyond TikTok and gives the US government sweeping powers to ban a wide range of apps and services.

The bill authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to review and prohibit “current, past, or potential future transactions” involving technology products or services with more than one million US-based annual active users that:

  • Are deemed to pose an “undue or unacceptable risk” in various areas (such as national security and election interference)
  • Involve anyone determined to be “owned, directed, or controlled” by a “foreign adversary” (a term that can currently be applied to China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela but can be extended to other nations by the Secretary)

The Secretary of Commerce can also refer these tech products and services to the President who can take action to “compel divestment of, or otherwise mitigate the risk” associated with them.

Caitlin Vogus, the deputy director of rights group the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Free Expression Project, warned that these powers target the free speech rights of Americans. In a statement to Motherboard, she said:

“The RESTRICT Act could lead to apps and other ICT [information communication technology] services with connections to certain foreign countries being banned in the United States. Any bill that would allow the US government to ban an online service that facilitates Americans’ speech raises serious First Amendment concerns.”

Rights groups have also sounded the alarm about the RESTRICT Act’s threats to fine or imprison those who attempt to “evade the provisions” of the bill — a threat that they fear could be aimed at US citizens who attempt to access banned apps or services.

The RESTRICT Act states: “No person may engage in any transaction or take any other action with intent to evade the provisions of this Act.”

The bill even makes it unlawful to “approve” of “any act” that tries to evade the provisions of the bill.

People that violate these rules can be fined up to $1 million and imprisoned for up to 20 years.

Senator Warner has insisted that these penalties won’t be used to target individual users.

However, digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), has noted that the bill doesn’t actually prevent individual users from being targeted. In an article about the RESTRICT Act, the EFF warned:

“Due to undefined mitigation measures coupled with a vague enforcement provision, the bill could also criminalize common practices like using a VPN or side-loading to install a prohibited app.”

Another concerning aspect of the RESTRICT Act is that it allows the Secretary of Commerce to form technical advisory committees without them being subject to Chapter 10 of part 1 of title 5 of the United States Code.

This section of the law aims to reduce “the undue influence” of special interests and lobbyists. It allows Congress to review the proposed activities of advisory committees before they’re formed and ensure that these committees aren’t being “inappropriately influenced” by special interests. It also requires advisory committees to report their activities and goals to Congress, make their meetings open to the public, make transcripts available to the public, and file reports with the Library of Congress.

Excluding RESTRICT Act advisory committees from this section of the law opens the door for lobbyists representing US tech giants to serve on these committees, push for their competitors in other countries to be banned, and further cement their dominance.

And the problems don’t end here. The RESTRICT Act also limits judicial, congressional, and public scrutiny of the government’s actions.

Actions taken by the Secretary of the Treasury under this act are exempt from sections 551, 553-559, and 701-707 of title 5 of the United States Code — sections that require federal officials and agencies to provide public notice when proposing rule making, allow interested persons to participate in the rule making, and give those who suffer legal wrong as a result of government action the right to judicial review.

The scope of judicial review under the RESTRICT Act is limited to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the court is prohibited from disturbing “any action taken” by the Secretary or the President when they review or prohibit transactions or take action against tech products and services, unless a petitioner demonstrates that the action is unconstitutional or violates a statutory command.

Additionally, Americans have “no right of access” to the information that the government uses when deciding whether to prohibit transactions involving technology products or services under this bill. The Freedom of Information Act also doesn’t apply to any information submitted by affected parties or created by the government when reviewing such transactions.

We obtained a copy of the RESTRICT Act for you here.

Despite the glaring problems with the bill, its architects are blaming TikTok for the criticism and claiming that the owners of the app are “spreading false claims about the Restrict Act in an effort to continue operating with impunity.”

According to Warner, the RESTRICT ACT has more than 20 bipartisan cosponsors.

The bill also has the full support of the Biden White House which has already demonstrated that it’s no fan of free speech and is currently being sued for alleged First Amendment violations.

If the RESTRICT Act passes, the Biden admin and any future pro-censorship administrations will be handed new powers to continue their crackdowns on online speech.

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

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