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Free Speech Upsets Powers that Be

By Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute | July 14, 2023

The Biden administration, along with mainstream politicians and journalists, are really upset that U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty has forbidden the executive branch of the central government from communicating with social-media platforms for the purpose of censoring or otherwise suppressing constitutionally protected speech. Judge Doughty’s action came in an important free-speech lawsuit filed against the government.

He wrote in an accompanying statement:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’

So-called respectable government officials, journalists, and pundits — the alleged adults in a room — consider the judge’s temporary injunction the worse thing that could possibly happen. The headline in the “progressive” publication The American Prospect screamed in panic: “Trump Judge Effectively Names Himself President.” (That “Trump judge,” by the way, was confirmed by the Senate 98-0.)

Imagine it: agents from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and other government agencies may not even “suggest” to Facebook, Twitter, etc., that they ought to take down or hide posts that take issue with the government’s official line about … whatever. Of course, when government officials suggest something to a private party, the suggestion may be interpreted as being accompanied by the subtle threat to retaliate legally if the suggestion is ignored. Think of protection racketeer telling a shop owner, “You have a nice place here. It would be a shame if it burned down.” Get the picture?

As we know, the government has been doing stuff like this for years, whether the matter was related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hunter Biden laptop, the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia’s alleged collusive 2016 election tampering, and who knows what else. According to a congressional committee, the FBI apparently even collaborated with Ukrainian intelligence to censor Americans’ frowned-on discussion of the Ukraine war on social media.

The posts that government agencies wanted suppressed included not only statements that were perhaps provably wrong  — incorrect speech per se is constitutionally protected, incidentally — but also accurate information that the government simply found inconvenient, like posts and links that might make people hesitate to get the COVID-19 vaccine, wear masks, accept totalitarian social lockdowns, or trust that the coronavirus came from a Chinese market rather than a U.S.-funded lab in Wuhan, China.

Let’s remember that much of the challenge to the government’s take on the pandemic and other matters — criticism belittled as “tin-foil” conspiracy-mongering — turned out to be true. Contrary to the government’s position, the search for the truth requires the freedom to openly disagree and debate. That search abhors centralization, coercion, and the exclusion of anyone but the politically anointed “experts.” The right to free speech is a practical necessity if we are to pursue our well-being. Any step toward the paternalistic centralization of research and control of communication is not only immoral (by whatever standard you like) but also inimical to health, wealth, and other aspects of a fully human way of life.

In other words, as the judge acknowledged, the central government has gone to extraordinary lengths to control what the public can read and say on social media. It’s as if free speech were not a pillar of liberal philosophy and tradition — liberal in the older and best sense of a presumption of individual liberty in all spheres. Further, it’s as if the first restriction on government power in the Bill of Rights was not the absolute prohibition on the infringement of free speech and press. It’s a well-established principle of American law that the government may not pressure private parties to do what it itself may not constitutionally do. Yet that’s exactly what happened — repeatedly. It’s a disgrace. How can the government be trusted? It never could be.

Since the Biden administration, urged on by the power elite and the insecure establishment media, does not like being told that it may not violate our freedom of speech, it asked Judge Doughty to suspend his temporary injunction while the Justice Department appeals it. Judge Doughty said no. So the action moved to the appellate court. The Washington Post said that “The Justice Department’s filing signaled that it could seek the intervention of the Supreme Court, saying that at a minimum, the 5th Circuit should put the order on pause for 10 days to give the nation’s highest court time to consider an application for a stay.”

I sense desperation. The judge must have done something right. Remember that the injunction, alas, does not bar all government contact with social-media companies: he listed exceptions for actual criminality and national security. Only interference with constitutionally protected expression was included. I don’t remind readers of these exceptions to comfort them — the government will likely abuse the exceptions. I remind readers only to show that the order contains those exceptions. So what is the government so worried about? It says that the judge’s order is hopelessly vague and doesn’t address every possible eventuality. The answer is easy: if the choice is between vagueness in restricting government power and violating individual liberty, I know which I prefer. This is supposed to be America, isn’t it? Rights precede government.

Good people have enough to be concerned about when it comes to social media restricting their expression. Yes, they are private companies, and it’s easy to think of people who are so obnoxious that one wouldn’t want to encounter them online.

On the other hand, no one has reason to be confident that Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (Google), etc., will use that right judiciously. That you have a right to do something does not mean you should do it. Can does not imply ought. YouTube reportedly deleted Jordan Peterson’s interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because it contains what it regards as — and well may be — misinformation about vaccines. Kennedy is challenging Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. One need not agree with Kennedy on vaccines (I’m inclined not to) to be uneasy about YouTube’s decision. We also can’t rule out that YouTube acted in anticipation of the government’s disapproval. Government casts a shadow over everything.

We mustn’t call on the government to manage social media through antitrust or regulation. We should favor real competition. But we should insist on a prohibition of government action, direct and indirect, to suppress speech on those platforms or anywhere else. Judge Doughty understands that. Let’s hope other judges do too.

July 14, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

In a Free Society…

BY DAVID THUNDER | THE FREEDOM BLOG | JULY 13, 2023

Recent years have demonstrated just how confused Western societies are about the value of freedom. So herewith a little reminder of some simple truths about what it means to live in a free society:

In a free society…

  • your right to speak in public does not depend on the permission of a Ministry for Truth.
  • your right to speak in public does not depend on whether or not someone feels upset or out of sorts because of your words.
  • the government cannot cancel your civil rights or put you under house arrest in order to protect your health.
  • the government cannot fire you, fine you, stop you from getting public transport, or exclude you from hospitality venues, just becase you refuse a medication the government thinks you really should take.
  • you cannot have your bank account frozen because you participated in a protest against the government or engaged in a form of political activism that the government happens to dislike.
  • you cannot be locked out of the banking system or deprived of a credit card just because your political opinions differ from those of the banking establishment
  • you cannot be harassed on a daily basis because you have chosen to keep your breathing unobstructed.
  • you cannot be forced by a school to expose your children to whatever type of sex education the Minister for Education has deemed, in their “wisdom,” is necessary for everyone.
  • you are not frequently shouted down or “cancelled” at institutions of higher education or other public venues, by mobs who find your views disagreeable.
  • you are not charged with a “hate offence” because you suggested biological men should not participate in female athletic contests.
  • you are not controlled in your spending habits by a central bank technocrat who can turn your cash flow on and off with the flick of a switch.

July 14, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

MK expelled from Knesset for condemning Israel invasion of Jenin

MEMO | July 14, 2023

The Hadash-Ta’al list’s Chairman, Ayman Odeh, was forced out of the Knesset plenary last week during a vote on the Counterterrorism Law after condemning the Israeli attack on the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin.

He said: “People killed in Jenin. People wounded in Tel Aviv. A killed soldier. All of their blood is because of your damned occupation. Occupation blinds you. Power blinds you. You are not only acting like occupiers, you are acting like idiots.”

His speech came just days after Israel concluded its largest military operation in Jenin in more than 20 years. At least 12 Palestinians were killed, including four children, and more than 140 were injured in the offensive, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The raid also left a massive trail of destruction across the West Bank city, with dozens of homes, vehicles, shops and utility lines destroyed.

“Every action has a reaction. These are the rules of nature,” added Odeh. “There’s a reaction to the occupation, so there will be resistance. Resisting against occupation is legal. Occupation is illegal. Long live the Jenin! Long live the Palestinian people! Long live their resistance! Shame on you! Take me down!  But the Palestinian people will continue to fight!”

In response, Almog Cohen from the far-right Otzma Yehudit Party, shouted: “The blood of those murdered is on your hands; go to Gaza. The more terrorists we kill, the better.”

It all came amidst the approval of the Counterterrorism Law, which specifies that anybody who expresses support for “terrorists” may face up to five years in prison.

Religious Zionist Party MK Zvi Sukkot introduced the bill “to stop the probability test that is required today due to the seriousness of expressing solidarity or sympathy for an act of terror or its perpetrators.”

Following MK Odeh’s criticism against the Israeli invasion of Jenin, Sukkot appealed to the Ethics Committee of the Knesset, Israel Police, and the Attorney General to open an investigation against the MK for expressing his support for the residents of Jenin.

July 14, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

PA troops arrest Palestinian journalist for criticizing political arrests

The Cradle | July 14, 2023

Palestinian Authority (PA) forces arrested journalist Aqil Awawdeh on 13 July after he refuted a statement from PA officials claiming there are no political arrests in the occupied West Bank.

“There is no case of arrest on the basis of political affiliation in the West Bank, and all that is being circulated about its existence are baseless rumors,” the PA statement released on Thursday reads.

Moments later, Awawdeh took to social media to refute this claim, highlighting that students and journalists are arrested regularly for supporting the resistance.

Hours after posting this video, PA troops took Awawdeh from his workplace in Ramallah under charges of “insulting the security services and leaders of Fatah.” Officials have yet to issue a statement on his arrest.

At least 54 political prisoners are currently being held in PA prisons, as the PA regularly hands over detainees directly to the Israeli army, Resistance News Network reported via Telegram.

Two years ago, Awawdeh was severely beaten inside a police station after covering a protest against the PA.

As discontent with PA rule in the occupied West Bank continues to grow exponentially, officials have maintained their grip on power by violently silencing dissent and crushing popular mobilizations.

In June 2021, Palestinian activist Nizar Banat was beaten to death by PA troops for accusing the PA of corruption and criticizing Ramallah’s security cooperation with the Israeli military. Last December, Banat’s family took the case to the International Criminal Court, accusing the PA of alleged war crimes and torture.

Last month, the repressive tactics of the PA once again made headlines following the violent arrest of student leader Abdul Majeed Hassan from his home in Ramallah.

“From the scene of the arrest, we thought that the kidnappers were Israeli undercover units since they have arrested many university students in this brutal way. Beating, dragging, undressing, and screaming were all Israeli means of arrest, but unfortunately, they were mimicked by the Palestinian security services against Abdul Majeed,” Ibrahim Bani Odeh told Middle East Eye about Hassan’s arrest.

July 14, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

The appropriations committee marked up their bill and the budget for the WHO remains at zero!

MERYL NASS | JULY 13, 2023

Furthermore, there is also in the bill no money for operationalizing the Pandemic Treaty unless it goes through the Senate for approval:

July 13, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Santa Clara University Students Must Take Covid Vaccines or Withdraw

By Lucia Sinatra | Brownstone Institute | July 11, 2023

College COVID vaccine mandates remain some of the most coercive mandates ever declared. While most colleges have now rescinded their mandates, some colleges refuse to let go, and Santa Clara University in California is one of the most oppressive.

In late April 2021, after most incoming freshmen had committed, SCU announced that all students were required to get COVID vaccines for fall enrollment or after full approval, whichever was later.

Then by mid-summer, SCU announced that students would be required to receive the vaccine even if it remained authorized only for emergency (EUA) and despite the fact that the CA Health and Safety Code codifies the Nuremberg Code. Section 24172 states

“(t)here is, and will continue to be, a growing need for protection for citizens of the state from unauthorized, needless, hazardous, or negligently performed medical experiments on human beings. It is, therefore, the intent of the Legislature, in the enacting of this chapter, to provide minimum statutory protection for the citizens of this state with regard to human experimentation and to provide penalties for those who violate such provisions.”

SCU (and many other CA colleges and universities) are in direct violation of this Code for removing informed consent by mandating EUA medical treatments.

Despite lack of efficacy or adequate safety data for this overwhelmingly healthy young adult population, in December 2021, SCU mandated the booster, midway through the academic year when students would have no choice but to comply or leave tens of thousands of dollars behind. SCU’s three-dose requirement remained through the 2022-23 school year.

In complete disregard for the end of the emergency declarations, in early April 2023, when most universities like nearby Stanford were announcing the end of their COVID vaccine mandates, SCU updated its requirement for incoming freshmen.

On May 8th, one week after the fall 2023 enrollment deadline, SCU quietly updated its COVID vaccine policy to require one bivalent dose for incoming freshmen (but not returning students) regardless of how many COVD vaccines they had previously taken. SCU backdated this announcement to May 1st thinking no one would take notice, but in private emails from incoming students we learned that some were furious. We encouraged them to withdraw and accept another offer.

On May 31st, SCU updated its policy again. They now require either three previously taken monovalent doses or one bivalent dose for all community members. As with the University’s previous mandates, SCU offers no religious exemptions and limited medical exemptions for students even in the most extreme of circumstances as explained below. Faculty and staff, however, are permitted to request exemptions.

SCU’s policy is determined by its opaque “COVID-19 team,” believed to be led by campus physician Dr. Lewis Osofsky, who also holds several positions at Santa Clara County Medical Association (SCCMA). SCCMA partners with the Santa Clara County Public Health Department (SCCPH) to maximize COVID-19 vaccinations. Santa Clara County is one of the most vaccinated counties in the country, with more than a third having received the bivalent booster, twice the national average, and 88.5 percent having received the primary series.

Osofsky’s positions in the SCCMA include chair of the Professional Standards and Conduct committee, tasked with promoting high ethical standards for physicians and investigating disputes involving unethical conduct. This is ironic, as Osofsky is believed to be a driving force behind SCU’s ethically-indefensible mandate. Medical ethics would require, at a minimum, both transmission prevention and a proven benefit for students. An antibody increase from vaccines, with no established antibody level correlate of protection, wanes in mere weeks, and cannot support the ethics of a mandate. In fact, a recent study demonstrated that the “greater the number of vaccine doses previously received the higher the risk of COVID-19.”

It is alleged that Osofsky has improperly denied student medical exemptions. In a March 2022 lawsuit filed against SCU, Harlow Glenn, one of the student plaintiffs, claims that she had serious adverse reactions to her primary series COVID vaccines, including an emergency room visit due to leg paralysis and abnormal bleeding. According to the complaint, Osofsky refused to grant her a medical exemption for the required booster and actively interfered with her doctor-patient relationship by contacting her private doctors to persuade them to retract their medical exemption documentation.

Such aggressive tactics are nothing new for Osofsky, as he apparently employs them against patients in his private pediatric practice. Parents have complained in online reviews that Osofsky’s office forced vaccines and didn’t listen to their concerns. As it turns out, Blue Cross Blue Shield pays pediatricians in private practice a $40,000 bonus for every 100 patients under the age of 2 that they fully vaccinate, if at least 63 percent of the patients are fully vaccinated (including the annual flu vaccine).

Osofsky’s roles with SCCMA, which is in partnership with the SCCPH whose goal is to maximize COVID vaccination, as well as his aggressive private practice approach to vaccination, have likely played a large role in SCU’s continued COVID vaccine mandates.

On June 14, 2023, attorneys for the plaintiffs filed their opening brief against SCU in the Sixth Appellate District in California. It is expected that SCU will oppose the appeal and insist on its right to demand that students submit to EUA boosters to “protect the campus community.” Protect the community? That justification went out the window long ago when CDC Director Rochelle Walensky admitted that the COVID vaccine did not prevent infection or transmission. Recently released documents confirmed that Walensky actually knew this information in January of 2021, well before colleges announced COVID vaccination requirements.

Given that the emergency is officially over, and the shots have proven to be both ineffective and in some cases harmful, now more than ever, SCU must defend the science and ethics behind their refusal to drop them.

In the absence of such transparency, we are left to assume that Osofsky, along with SCCMA and SCCPH, must be using SCU students as mere pawns to achieve their unscientific and authoritarian vaccination goals and quotas.

Lucia is a recovering corporate securities attorney. After becoming a mother, Lucia turned her attention to fighting inequities in public schools in California for students with learning disabilities. She co-founded NoCollegeMandates.com to help fight college vaccine mandates.

July 13, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Targeted for Tyranny: We’re All Suspects Under the Government’s Precrime Program

By John & Nisha Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute | July 12, 2023

We’re all being targeted now.

We’re all guilty until proven innocent now.

And thanks to the 24/7 surveillance being carried out by the government’s spy network of fusion centers, we are all now sitting ducks, just waiting to be tagged, flagged, targeted, monitored, manipulated, investigated, interrogated, heckled and generally harassed by agents of the American police state.

Although these precrime programs are popping up all across the country, in small towns and big cities, they are not making us any safer but they are endangering individual freedoms.

Nationwide, there are upwards of 123 real-time crime centers (a.k.a. fusion centers), which allow local police agencies to upload and share massive amounts of surveillance data and intelligence with state and federal agencies culled from surveillance cameras, facial recognition technology, gunshot sensors, social media monitoring, drones and body cameras, and artificial intelligence-driven predictive policing algorithms.

These data fusion centers, which effectively create an electronic prison—a digital police state—from which there is no escape, are being built in partnership with big tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon, which helped to fuel the rise of police militarization and domestic surveillance.

While these latest expansions of the surveillance state are part of the Biden Administration’s efforts to combat domestic extremism through the creation of a “precrime” crime prevention agency, they have long been a pivotal part of the government’s plans for total control and dominion.

Yet this crime prevention campaign is not so much about making America safer as it is about ensuring that the government has the wherewithal to muzzle anti-government discontent, penalize anyone expressing anti-government sentiments, and preemptively nip in the bud any attempts by the populace to challenge the government’s authority or question its propaganda.

As J.D. Tuccille writes for Reason, “[A]t a time when government officials rage against ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ that is often just disagreement with whatever opinions are currently popular among the political class, fusion centers frequently scrutinize peaceful dissenting speech.”

Indeed, while the Biden Administration was recently dealt a legal blow over its attempts to urge social media companies to do more to combat so-called dis- and mis-information, these fusion centers are the unacknowledged powerhouses behind the government’s campaign to censor and retaliate against those who vocalize their disagreement and discontent with government policies.

Already, the powers-that-be are mobilizing to ensure that fusion centers have the ability to monitor and lockdown sectors of a community at a moment’s notice.

For instance, a 42,000-square-foot behemoth of a fusion center in downtown Washington is reportedly designed to “better prepare law enforcement for the next public health emergency or Jan. 6-style attack.” According to an agency spokeswoman, “Screens covering the walls of the new facility will show surveillance cameras around the city as well as social media accounts that may be monitored for threatening speech.”

It’s like a scene straight out of Steven Spielberg’s dystopian film Minority Report.

Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike—facial recognition, iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on—are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, the dystopian visions of past writers is fast becoming our reality.

What once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.

The American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick have all been rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.

In this way, the novel 1984 has become an operation manual for an omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state in which ordinary Americans find themselves labeled domestic extremists for engaging in lawful behavior that triggers the government’s precrime sensors.

With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state.

It’s also a setup ripe for abuse.

For instance, an investigative report by the Brennan Center found that “Over the last two decades, leaked materials have shown fusion centers tracking protestors and casting peaceful activities as potential threats. Their targets have included racial justice and environmental advocates, right-wing activists, and third-party political candidates.”

One fusion center in Maine was found to have been “illegally collecting and sharing information about Maine residents who weren’t suspected of criminal activity. They included gun purchasers, people protesting the construction of a new power transmission line, the employees of a peacebuilding summer camp for teenagers, and even people who travelled to New York City frequently.”

This is how the government is turning a nation of citizens into suspects and would-be criminals.

This transformation is being driven by the Department of Homeland Security, the massive, costly, power-hungry bureaucracy working hard to ensure that the government is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful.

Yet here’s the thing: you don’t have to do anything illegal or challenge the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.

In fact, all you need to do is live in the United States.

It’s just a matter of time before you find yourself wrongly accused, investigated and confronted by police based on a data-driven algorithm or risk assessment culled together by a computer program run by artificial intelligence.

Before long, every household in America will be flagged as a threat and assigned a threat score.

Without having ever knowingly committed a crime or been convicted of one, you and your fellow citizens have likely been assessed for behaviors the government might consider devious, dangerous or concerning; assigned a threat score based on your associations, activities and viewpoints; and catalogued in a government database according to how you should be approached by police and other government agencies based on your particular threat level.

Combine predictive policing with surveillance, overcriminalization and precrime programs, then add in militarized police trained to shoot first and ask questions later, and as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, you’ll be lucky to escape with your life.

If you’re not scared yet, you should be.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

July 12, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Syrians lash out at Israeli plan to raze entire village in occupied Golan Heights

Press TV – July 11, 2023

Residents of the occupied Golan Heights have staged a demonstration to express their fierce opposition to the Tel Aviv regime’s plan to completely raze a village in the strategic plateau to build a military base, in a blatant violation of international law.

According to a report by Syria’s official news agency, SANA, protesters rejected the demolition of the remaining homes in the village of Ain Fiet, whose residents were forcibly displaced by the Israeli regime over the past years.

“The Zionist entity aims to obliterate the national identity, establish a military outpost on our lands and Judaize them,” the protesters said.

They said the regime’s scheme to raze the village is contrary to the United Nations Security Council resolution 497.

The UN resolution, adopted unanimously on December 17, 1981, declares that the Israeli annexation of the occupied Golan Heights is “null and void and without international legal effect” and further calls on the Tel Aviv regime to rescind its action.

The protesters further reiterated their devotion to their homeland and Syrian identity in the face of the Israeli regime’s practices, including arbitrary arrests and systematic oppression.

In 1967, Israel waged a full-scale war against Arab territories, during which it occupied a large area of the Golan and annexed it four years later – a move never recognized by the international community.

Israeli forces destroyed Ain Fiet, one of the most fertile and beautiful villages in the Syrian Golan Heights, following the 1967 Six-Day War.

Nearly 131,000 people living there were forcibly displaced, while 7,000 people opted to remain in six other nearby villages, namely Majdal Shams, Masa’da, Baqatha, Ain Qunya, Ghajar and Sahita.

Later on, the Israeli military razed Sahita village and turned it into a military post. It forced its local residents to abandon the village and move to Masa’da.

In 1973, another war broke out and a year later, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire and established a buffer zone between the Israeli and Syrian forces. The UN also adopted several resolutions calling for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan, but the regime has ignored them.

Earlier this month, Israel further occupied Ghajar village by erecting fences to the north of the area, cutting it off completely from Lebanon.

Last month, dozens of residents and landowners in the towns of Majdal Shams and Masa’deh were prevented from reaching their lands by Israeli forces, leading to confrontations.

The Israeli forces have raided the farmlands to install wind turbines, which according to the farmers, could pose environmental hazards to their lands and interfere with their farming practices.

Israel has over the past several decades come up with dozens of illegal settlements in the occupied Golan in defiance of international calls for the regime to stop its illegal construction activities there.

In 2019, former US president Donald Trump signed a decree recognizing Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan Heights, in a move that was widely condemned by the international community.

Syria denounced the US decision as a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In December 2021, Israel announced its plan to double the number of its illegal settlements in the Golan Heights despite a resolution by the UN General Assembly demanding that the regime stop its settlement activities and withdraw from the occupied territory.

Damascus has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over the area, saying it must be completely restored to its control.

July 12, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Judge Denies Biden Administration’s Attempt To Halt Injunction Against Censorship

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | July 11, 2023

On Monday, a federal judge from the Western District of Louisiana, Terry Doughty, upheld his ruling, preventing the Biden administration from engaging in specific types of communication with key social media entities.

The initial request to lift the ban on these interactions came from the administration on July 6th, but has now been met with refusal by Doughty. The judge had previously instituted this ban in response to a lawsuit by the Republican state attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, who are challenging the manner in which government agencies cooperate with social media behemoths to curb the propagation of inaccurate or misleading information regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and election security.

Judge Doughty reasoned that the chances of success for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were high, and therefore upheld his order. The judge also rejected the notion that the administration would suffer any “irreparable injury” due to the communication restrictions between government agencies and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

“The First Amendment free speech rights of Plaintiffs by far outweighs the Defendants’ interests,” Doughty said in his judgment.

Doughty also dismissed the administration’s assertion that his preliminary injunction issued on July 4 was too extensive. He held that the injunction was specifically designed to block only those types of collaboration with social media companies that could infringe upon users’ “protected free speech.” He further opined, “Defendant officials can be and should be trained to recognize what speech is protected and what speech is not prior to working with social-media companies to suppress or delete postings.”

While the ruling restricts certain types of interaction, it does not ban all communication between the government and social media corporations. Doughty’s injunction allows for the continuation of meetings between the government and social media companies, specifically on subjects like cyberattacks.

July 11, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

US House Panel Reportedly Concludes FBI Helped Ukrainian Intel Censor US Accounts

Sputnik – 11.07.2023

WASHINGTON – The FBI helped the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) censor social media accounts based in the United States as part of an effort to combat alleged Russian disinformation, US media reported, citing a US House Judiciary Committee report.

The FBI forwarded Meta an SBU-provided list of accounts flagged for removal, based on their alleged involvement in spreading disinformation, the Monday report detailed. However, the list included some US-based accounts, including the US State Department’s own Russian-language Instagram account.

The FBI and SBU marked authentic accounts belonging to the US government and journalists in an effort to have them censored, the report said.

The Judiciary Committee’s allegations are reportedly based on information gained through subpoenas sent to Meta and Alphabet – the parent company of Google and YouTube.

Google was inundated with censorship requests following the launch of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the report said, citing a senior Google cybersecurity official. The requests primarily came from the Ukrainian government, other Eastern European governments, the EU and European Commission, the employee reportedly said.

The judiciary panel’s report was developed alongside the subcommittee on the weaponization of the US government, which is investigating governmental abuse of authority and collaboration with private companies to suppress certain viewpoints.

The FBI’s actions constitute unconstitutional misconduct and endanger national security, the lawmakers’ report said. The subject is expected to arise during a committee hearing with FBI chief Christopher Wray later this week.

The allegations mirror those made earlier this year in the so-called “Twitter Files” release, which featured an email demonstrating collaboration between the FBI and SBU to forward censorship requests to Twitter.

July 11, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Former head of Disinformation Governance Board: Government flagging content has “nothing to do with censorship”

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | July 9, 2023

Last week, in a significant victory for free speech, a federal court stepped in to curb potential overreach by the Biden administration in its collaboration with social media platforms to suppress online content. The court ruling, issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana on Tuesday caused critics to complain that it hinders the administration’s efforts to counter online conspiracy theories and “disinformation.”

But in the usual doublespeak in an interview with MSNBC, the former head of the government’s controversial Disinformation Governance Board Nina Jankowicz claims that the government flagging content that goes against Big Tech’s policies has “nothing to do with censorship” and “is not about removing speech.”

“This is a weaponization of the court system. It is an intentional and purposeful move to disrupt the work that needs to be done ahead of the 2024 election, and it’s really chilling,” she said to the Guardian.

The ruling inhibits key federal agencies and officials from intervening in the content posted on tech platforms. It has been suggested that without such a check in place, the government’s efforts could easily spill over into manipulating public discourse and controlling information, with potentially dangerous effects on free speech and political balance.

The injunction comes as conservative leaders and groups have been vocal in their opposition, accusing the Biden administration of collusion with social media companies in an attempt to suppress conservative viewpoints.

Judge Doughty supported the arguments of Republican attorneys general from Louisiana and Missouri who filed the lawsuit. They contend that the Biden administration’s tactics infringe on First Amendment rights to free speech. He expressed the sentiment that the government seemed to be exploiting its power to stifle opposing voices, and he ominously compared the handling of social media content by the administration during the COVID pandemic to the “Orwellian Ministry of Truth.”

Nina Jankowicz, a former government appointee to lead a new Department of Homeland Security unit aimed at countering online misinformation, has defended the government’s actions, insisting that they do not amount to censorship. However, critics might question her impartiality, considering she was initially named as a defendant in the case but was later removed due to no longer holding a governmental role.

Adding to the controversy, this unit was swiftly disbanded after facing intense criticism from conservatives who claimed it was stifling conservative speech. This has led some to question whether the government’s efforts to fight misinformation are truly unbiased or, as many suspect, are a veiled attempt to suppress dissenting opinions.

The ruling, which temporarily bars several agencies and officials from pressuring social media companies to remove or delete “protected free speech,” sends a strong message that government interference in the digital public square must be carefully scrutinized. This order stands as an affirmation of the fundamental right to free speech.

July 9, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Revenge of the Praetorian Guard

Brownstone Institute | July 9, 2023

There was no censorship, but it’s good that they censored misinformation. 

Defenders of the Covid regime have adopted this Doublethink in response to Judge Terry Doughty’s recent injunction against the government’s collusion with Big Tech. As Orwell describes in 1984, they “hold simultaneously two opinions which cancel out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.”

Consider the language of the Biden administration’s call for an “emergency stay” of the injunction from Missouri v. Biden that stops the government from telling social media companies what they should and should not allow their users to post. The appeal says government is not censoring but must have the power to continue “working with social media companies on initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.”

Grave harm… from free speech!

Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe exemplifies this authoritarian advocacy. For decades, Tribe built a reputation as a legal scholar. He authored the country’s leading constitutional law treatise, advised presidents, and appeared on television as a legal commentator.

But age has a way of eroding veneers. Tribe is a defender of a political regime, a member of a Praetorian Guard comfortable with abolishing constitutional liberties when it advances his political preferences.

In the last three years, Tribe has argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin rigged the 2016 presidential election for “Thief in Chief, Donald Trump,” led the Justice Department to argue that the CDC eviction moratorium was constitutional, and successfully lobbied President Biden to unilaterally cancel student loans.

If he were on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Tribe might be accused of spreading misinformation and unconstitutional theories that threatened our democracy. Instead, he continues to serve as a mouthpiece for the country’s most powerful forces.

On Wednesday, Tribe co-authored an article with Michigan Law Professor Leah Litman attacking Judge Doughty’s injunction against the federal government’s collusive censorship of its political opponents. Their argument is notable for its false assertions of fact and improper implications of law. They remain obtuse to the allegations in the case, the principles of the First Amendment, and the historical ploys to overturn civil liberties. All the while, they maintain a posture of moral superiority that the Biden White House has mimicked.

A “Thoroughly Debunked Conspiracy Theory” 

The professors begin their article with a false premise: “The impetus behind the case is the now thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that the government is somehow strong-arming Big Tech into censoring conservative speech and speakers in violation of the First Amendment.”

They don’t offer an explanation for this description. They fail to address the documented censorship of Alex Berenson, Jay Bhattacharya, the Great Barrington Declaration, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and others. There is no mention of Facebook banning users who promoted the lab-leak hypothesis after working with the CDC, the Biden Administration’s public campaign urging social media companies to censor dissent in July 2021, or the Twitter Files’ documentation of the US Security State’s influence on Big Tech.

Instead, Tribe and Litman dismiss censorship as a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory. They didn’t need to look far for examples – the opinion documents multiple instances of the coordination between Big Tech and the Biden White House in silencing opposition.

“Are you guys fucking serious?” White House Advisor Rob Flaherty asked Facebook after the company failed to censor critics of the Covid vaccine. “I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.”

At other times, Flaherty was more direct. “Please remove this account immediately,” he told Twitter about a Biden family parody account. The company compiled within an hour.

His boss demanded Twitter remove posts from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., writing: “Hey Folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP.”

There are too many incidents to list, but it is clear that censorship was more than a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory. Either Tribe did not read the decision, or his ideology blinded him from reality.

“A cesspool of disinformation”

The professors’ debunked conspiracy theory premise contradicts their position later in the article.

Like many of their peers, Tribe and Litman hold an incompatible set of views: on one hand, they argue that allegations of censorship are illusory. At the same time, they argue that the government is justified in suppressing speech because of the dangers of “disinformation.”

Censorship doesn’t exist, but it’s good that it does.  

They write that the ruling incorrectly defends Americans’ right of “existing in a cesspool of disinformation about election denialism and COVID.” They hold that this is an incorrect application of the First Amendment. The natural corollary to their argument would be that the government is justified in censoring “disinformation.”

But the First Amendment does not discriminate against false ideas. Labeling speech “disinformation” or smearing it with associations about “election denialism” does not take away its constitutional protections.

“Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea,” the Supreme Court held in Gertz v. Welch. “However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries, but on the competition of other ideas.” Tribe and Litman wouldn’t defer to the conscience of judges and juries – they would leave corrections to unelected White House bureaucrats.

“Some false statements are inevitable if there is to be an open and vigorous expression of views in public and private conversation,” the Court held in United States v. Alvarez. The Framers knew the dangers of central government acting as arbiters of truth, so they banned that form of informational totalitarianism. Now, Tribe and Litman advocate to overturn that system of liberty.

It “will make us less secure as a nation and will endanger us all every day”

The professors resort to the familiar campaign of conflating dissent with danger. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes compared handing out leaflets opposing World War I to “shouting fire in a crowded theater.” The Bush Administration eroded civil liberties in the War on Terror through the false dichotomy: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” Now, Tribe resorts to national security hysteria in defending the assault on the First Amendment. “If left standing,” he writes, the injunction “will make us less secure as a nation and will endanger us all every day.”

The professors explicitly accuse Judge Doughty of endangering Americans. So what does the judgment demand that calls for this accusation? Judge Doughty’s order prohibits government actors from communicating with social media companies to censor “content containing protected free speech.” The Biden Administration can denounce journalists, give its own press briefings, and take advantage of the friendly media environment; it just can’t encourage private companies to censor constitutionally protected speech.

“It is also axiomatic that a state may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish,” the Court held in Norwood v. Harrison. Judge Doughty applied that axiom to the digital age, and defenders of the regime have accused him of assaulting the republic.

The Biden Administration has adopted the same view as Tribe, writing in its appeal that the injunction hinders its ability to pursue “initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.” Again, the language mimics Orwell’s description of Doublethink: “to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy.”

The appeal rests on the argument that the “immediate and ongoing harms to the Government outweigh any risk of injury to Plaintiffs.” Considering what Judge Doughty’s order prohibits, the Biden Administration is saying that the inability to work with social media companies to censor “content containing protected free speech” creates “immediate and ongoing harms” that outweigh Americans’ First Amendment liberties.

The Praetorian Guard

In sum, Tribe and Litman’s arguments are divorced from the facts of the case and the protections of the First Amendment. Their work is not legal scholarship; it is a defense of the regime. They advance unconstitutional agendas to pursue their political interests. More alarmingly, the White House has adopted their point of view.

Tribe is familiar with this tactic. He has promoted clearly unconstitutional programs related to the debt ceiling, student loans, and COVID because he agrees with their progressive aims. President Biden has enjoyed and followed Tribe’s advice in each initiative.

Tribe is not unfamiliar with the ramifications of censorship. “It would be a mistake to leave judgments about the ‘proper’ distribution of speech to politicians. Arming them with a roving license to level the playing field by silencing or adjusting the volume of disfavored speakers is an invitation to self-serving behavior and, ultimately, tyranny,” he wrote eight years ago. Now it is clear that he accepts, perhaps demands, tyranny provided it advances his political beliefs.

Maybe the tyrannical impulse is benign – Tribe may think abolishing the country’s constitutional guardrails would be best for the nation. The law, however, does not have a carve out for claims of moral pursuit.

In Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More asks his son-in-law, William Roper, if he would give the Devil the protection of the law. Roper responds that he’d “cut down every law in England” to get to the Devil.

“Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?” More asks. “This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down… do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”

Tribe and the Biden Administration may think that they have a divine mission in censoring alleged misinformation, that the Devil’s reincarnation has taken multiple forms in the bodies of Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr., Alex Berenson, and Jay Bhattacharya. Woodrow Wilson had a devout certainty in his persecution of dissidents, as did George Bush in his War on Terror. The self-professed nobility of their missions, however, does not excuse violations of Constitutional rights.

None of us ever wanted to live in a country in which the ruling regime openly expresses opposition to core constitutional rights that many generations of Americans thought were guaranteed by law. The injunction of Missouri v. Biden does nothing other than remind the government of those rights. And this is precisely why the Biden administration so strongly objects.

July 9, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

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