#civilliberties — Public Fediverse posts

Texas: Faith, Freedom, and Mind Your Damn Business

By Cliff Potts, CSO
Editor-in-Chief, WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — September 4, 2026, 9:15 p.m. PHT

Texas talks about faith constantly and practices freedom inconsistently. Religion is waved like a banner while personal liberty is quietly narrowed, regulated, or punished when it doesn’t line up with political fashion. This contradiction has become so normal that many Texans barely notice it anymore.

Faith is not the problem. Power is.

Faith Is Personal, Not Administrative

Texas is home to churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, meeting houses, and people who believe quietly or not at all. That pluralism is not a flaw. It is a fact. Faith has always been part of Texas life, but it has never belonged to the state.

When government begins enforcing one version of belief, it stops protecting faith and starts weaponizing it. That does not strengthen religion. It cheapens it. Faith that requires government backing is not faith—it is insecurity dressed up as authority.

People believe deeply without being coerced. The state does not need to supervise that.

Freedom Means Leaving People Alone

Texas politicians love to invoke freedom while inserting themselves into private decisions about bodies, families, education, and belief. That is not freedom. It is control wrapped in familiar language.

True freedom is not loud. It is boring. It is the quiet confidence that your neighbor’s life choices are none of your business unless they cause real harm. A free society tolerates disagreement without demanding conformity.

If a belief system is strong, it does not need the force of law to survive.

Religion in Schools Without Indoctrination

Teaching about religion is not the same thing as preaching it. Students benefit from understanding the beliefs that shape history, culture, and global affairs. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Indigenous traditions, and secular ethics all belong in a serious education.

Teaching one belief as truth while excluding others is not education. It is indoctrination. Texas should be confident enough to teach broadly without fear.

Knowledge does not weaken faith. It strengthens discernment.

The Myth of Moral Decline

Texas politics often leans on claims of moral collapse to justify intrusion into private life. These claims rarely hold up under scrutiny. Crime trends, family structures, and social behavior are influenced far more by economics, education, and stability than by religious enforcement.

Blaming social problems on belief differences avoids addressing harder causes like poverty, healthcare access, housing, and education. Moral panic is easier than policy work.

A serious state solves problems instead of sermonizing about them.

Faith Communities Do Real Work

Faith-based organizations are often the first to respond when communities struggle. They feed people, shelter families, provide counseling, and show up quietly without demanding credit. That work matters. It deserves respect and support.

What it does not require is political dominance. Faith communities are strongest when they act voluntarily, not when they are fused to state power.

Service speaks louder than slogans.

Freedom of Conscience Cuts Both Ways

Freedom of religion includes the freedom not to believe. It includes the freedom to change beliefs. It includes the freedom to practice quietly without public approval. Protecting conscience means accepting outcomes you may personally dislike.

That is the price of liberty. It is also its strength.

Texas cannot claim to honor freedom while punishing people for living differently.

When Government Picks Winners

History offers no shortage of warnings about governments that decide which beliefs are acceptable. Even when intentions begin as sincere, outcomes tend toward exclusion, resentment, and abuse. Texas is not immune to that pattern.

Keeping church and state separate does not weaken either. It protects both from corruption.

Personal Faith, Public Restraint

Leaders are allowed their faith. They are allowed to be guided by conscience. What they are not allowed to do is impose that conscience as law when it infringes on the rights of others.

Restraint is not betrayal. It is maturity.

What a Confident Texas Would Do

A confident Texas would protect freedom of worship for everyone and freedom from coercion for everyone else. It would teach religion academically, not devotionally. It would trust families and individuals to handle belief without supervision.

Most of all, it would stop confusing moral authority with legal power.

Why This Matters Going Forward

Faith will continue to shape Texas culture. That is not in question. The question is whether it will be used to inspire service and compassion—or to justify intrusion and control.

Freedom survives only when people mind their own damn business.

Texas is strong enough to do that.

This essay will be archived as part of the ongoing WPS News Monthly Brief Series available through Amazon.

References (APA)
Pew Research Center. (2025). Religious diversity and belief in the United States.
First Amendment Center. (2025). Religion, government, and constitutional boundaries.
National Council of State Legislatures. (2025). Religious freedom and public policy analysis.
Gallup. (2025). Public attitudes toward religion and government.
American Academy of Religion. (2025). Teaching religion in public education.

CW: Occasional Foul Language. Always Political.

ICE wants to spend millions of our taxpayer dollars to equip their agents with these gloves while they carry out violent kidnappings across the country.

If this happens ICE, as we’ve continually seen, will ignore the safety precautions. How long until we hear about cardiac deaths related to ICE?

Link: https://bsky.app/profile/50501movement.bsky.social/post/3msw2emaqoc22

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Reposted from 50501: The People's Movement

Join the Movement at https://fiftyfifty.one

This robot is unaffiliated w/ 50501

Replies here are only seen in the Fediverse, not on Bluesky. 50501 volunteers do not monitor this account.

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#Coup #Activism #FederalGovernment #USpol #Trump #NoKings #elections #50501Movement #WeAreTheResistance #WeHaveFriendsEverywhere #FDT #PeoplesMovement #FiftyFiftyOne #StopICE #protest #organize

#ICEgloves #ImmigrationPolicy #HumanRights #PublicSafety #TaxpayerDollars #CivilLiberties #ICEOversight #CardiacSafety #PolicyDebate #KidnappingClaims

The Age of Surveillance in 2026: Are We Ever Truly Alone Anymore?

You leave home and a doorbell camera records you. A camera at the traffic light captures your car. Your phone logs its location, nearby networks, and the applications you open. Your vehicle may record how fast you drive, how sharply you brake, and where you travel. At lunch, a platform studies how long you pause over a video. At home, a smart speaker waits for a command while a connected television measures what holds your attention.

Nothing dramatic has happened.

That is precisely the point.

Modern surveillance rarely announces itself. It does not always arrive through secret agents, hidden microphones, or somebody following you through the street. It often arrives disguised as convenience, personalisation, security, entertainment, or efficiency. It operates quietly in the background, gathering thousands of ordinary moments and converting them into something valuable: a record of who you are, where you go, what you believe, what you buy, whom you know, and what you might do next.

The question is no longer whether we are being watched.

The more difficult question is what happens to a society when being watched becomes the normal condition of everyday life.

1. Surveillance Is No Longer Just About Watching

Traditional surveillance involved observing a person, place, or communication. Digital surveillance goes much further. It does not merely see what happened. It stores events, connects them, compares them with other records, and uses algorithms to draw conclusions.

A camera records your face. Facial-recognition software may attempt to identify you. Your phone records a location. A data broker may connect that location to your home, workplace, religious attendance, medical visits, or political activity. A platform records what you clicked. Its systems may use that information to predict what will keep you watching, what you may purchase, or which message might influence you.

This is the difference between being observed and being analysed.

The most powerful surveillance systems are not necessarily those with the greatest number of cameras. They are the systems capable of combining information from cameras, phones, vehicles, websites, payment records, public databases, and private companies into one searchable picture of a human life.

2. Cameras Can Improve Security, but Their Value Has Limits

The strongest argument for public surveillance is straightforward. Cameras can help deter some offences, identify suspects, reconstruct events, locate missing people, and provide evidence after a crime. Those benefits are real.

But the evidence does not support the idea that installing more cameras automatically makes every environment safer. A major 40-year systematic review found that CCTV was associated with a statistically significant but modest reduction in crime. Its strongest and most consistent effects appeared in car parks, residential areas, and systems involving active monitoring. The evidence was weaker for preventing spontaneous violence.

That distinction matters. Cameras may be useful tools, but they are not neutral and they are not magical. A camera installed for one purpose can later be connected to facial recognition, behavioural analysis, licence-plate databases, or automated enforcement systems.

The political question is therefore not simply, “Do cameras work?”

It is:

Who operates them, what do they search for, how long is the information kept, who can access it, and what prevents the system from quietly expanding?

3. Facial Recognition Changes the Meaning of Public Space

Ordinary video surveillance records people passing through an area. Facial recognition can attempt to identify those people automatically and compare them with watchlists.

London offers a real example of how quickly this technology can scale. In its official report covering September 2024 to September 2025, the Metropolitan Police said approximately 3.15 million faces passed its live facial-recognition cameras during 207 deployments. The force reported 2,077 alerts, 10 false alerts, and 962 arrests. The Met presents those results as evidence that the system can locate people wanted by courts or suspected of offences more efficiently than officers relying on memory alone.

Those numbers also reveal the central privacy problem. Millions of people who were not suspected of wrongdoing had their faces processed so that the system could find a much smaller number of individuals.

The European Data Protection Board considers facial recognition a serious interference with fundamental rights even when a person produces no match. Its guidance stresses that biometric information is especially sensitive because, unlike a password or telephone number, a person cannot replace their face if the data is compromised. It also warns about discrimination, false results, automation bias, and the effect of large-scale biometric processing on democratic life.

Technical accuracy is improving, but accuracy is not a settled question. NIST continues to test face-recognition systems from hundreds of developers and published an updated one-to-one verification report in May 2026. Its broader evaluations have also documented that performance can vary across algorithms, image quality, age, sex, and demographic groups. A system being described as “accurate” does not mean it performs equally in every operational environment or for every person.

And even a technically perfect system would not settle the moral question. A machine could identify everyone correctly and still be used for an unjustifiable purpose.

4. Your Smartphone Is Also a Location Sensor

Most people do not think of their phone as a surveillance device because they chose to buy it. Yet the information generated through mobile applications can reveal an extraordinary amount about a person’s life.

The United States Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly acted against companies accused of collecting or selling sensitive location data without meaningful consent. Its cases have involved data that could expose visits to homes, places of worship, medical facilities, domestic-abuse shelters, and other sensitive locations. In 2026, the FTC announced a settlement intended to ban Kochava and a subsidiary from selling sensitive location data associated with millions of mobile devices. Earlier actions targeted X-Mode, InMarket, Mobilewalla, Gravy Analytics, and Venntel.

The problem is not restricted to phones. In 2025, the FTC alleged that General Motors and OnStar collected and sold precise geolocation and driving-behaviour information from millions of connected vehicles without adequately informing drivers or obtaining affirmative consent. The agency said that information could be used by consumer-reporting companies and could affect insurance rates.

The modern car is therefore not merely a machine that transports you. It may also be a rolling network of sensors capable of recording how, when, and where you travel.

5. Social Media Does Not Only Record What You Post

People often assume that social platforms know only what users voluntarily share. Official investigations indicate a much broader system.

A Federal Trade Commission investigation of nine major social-media and video-streaming services found that companies collected enormous amounts of information, including data obtained from brokers and information about people who did not use their services. The FTC reported that some companies could retain data indefinitely and engaged in extensive sharing, targeted advertising, profiling, and automated decision-making.

The business value is not limited to advertising. In 2025, the FTC’s surveillance-pricing study found that data such as precise location and browsing history could be used to present different consumers with different prices for the same product or service.

That creates a different kind of power. Surveillance is no longer only about discovering what someone has done. It can influence what opportunities, prices, advertisements, political messages, and information that person sees.

Two people may search for the same product, read about the same political issue, or apply for the same service and receive different digital realities based on profiles they cannot inspect.

6. Surveillance Has Entered the Home

For most of history, the home represented a boundary. Governments, employers, advertisers, and strangers might observe public activity, but the private home offered at least some distance from outside scrutiny.

Connected devices have weakened that boundary.

Home-security cameras, smart speakers, televisions, appliances, children’s devices, and voice assistants can collect video, audio, behavioural, and location information. The danger is not theoretical.

In an enforcement action involving Ring, the FTC alleged that employees had improperly accessed customer videos and that weak security practices allowed hackers to take control of some users’ cameras. Ring agreed to privacy and security requirements and consumer refunds.

In a separate case involving Alexa, the FTC and US Department of Justice accused Amazon of retaining children’s voice recordings and geolocation information for years, failing to honour some deletion requests, and using retained information for algorithm training. The resulting order required deletion measures, privacy safeguards, and a $25 million payment.

These cases do not mean every smart device is secretly listening to every conversation. They demonstrate a more grounded danger: when intimate data exists, poor controls, deceptive practices, misuse, hacking, or future changes in policy can expose it.

The safest personal information is not always the information protected by the strongest promise. It is often the information that was never collected.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevegarfield/43023882962

7. The Psychological Cost Is Self-Censorship

The deepest harm caused by surveillance may not be what authorities or companies do with information. It may be what people stop doing because they believe the information could later be used against them.

A peer-reviewed 2026 field experiment followed 827 participants over six weeks. Researchers repeatedly exposed participants to information about digital surveillance. Within individuals, that exposure reduced comfort with sharing opinions, seeking information, and disclosing information online. The study described this as causal evidence that awareness of dataveillance can produce self-censorship.

This is known as the chilling effect.

A person does not need to be arrested, punished, or confronted for surveillance to influence them. Uncertainty may be enough. People may avoid searching for a controversial subject, attending a protest, contacting a journalist, questioning an employer, exploring an identity, or expressing an unpopular view because they do not know how a permanent digital record could be interpreted later.

Surveillance therefore changes behaviour even when nobody actively intervenes.

A society in which people are constantly identifiable may become orderly. It may also become less honest, less creative, and less willing to challenge authority.

8. The Security Argument Cannot Simply Be Ignored

A serious discussion must acknowledge that surveillance can protect people.

Live facial recognition has helped police locate people wanted by courts. CCTV can assist investigations and reduce some forms of property crime. Digital intelligence can help identify organized criminal networks, terrorism threats, exploitation, fraud, and missing persons. The US intelligence community continues to use surveillance authorities under FISA and other national-security laws, publishing annual statistics and oversight information through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The choice is not between a world with absolutely no surveillance and a world where every movement is recorded.

The real question is whether surveillance is:

• targeted or indiscriminate;
• necessary or merely convenient;
• temporary or permanent;
• independently authorized or internally approved;
• open to challenge or hidden behind secrecy;
• limited to serious threats or expanded to minor behaviour;
• effective enough to justify its cost to freedom.

Security can justify carefully limited surveillance. It cannot justify limitless collection simply because information may someday prove useful.

9. The Law Is Trying to Catch Up

Europe has moved further than many jurisdictions in recognizing data protection as a legal right rather than merely a consumer preference.

As of July 21, 2026, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act is approaching its main application date of August 2, 2026. Its prohibited-practices rules have applied since February 2025. The Act generally prohibits practices including social scoring, certain forms of predictive policing, and real-time remote biometric identification by law enforcement in public spaces, although narrow legal exceptions remain. Some high-risk AI obligations have later implementation dates.

The distinction between a general prohibition and a total ban matters. European law still allows some biometric surveillance in specific circumstances, but it places greater emphasis on legal authority, strict necessity, proportionality, documentation, and fundamental-rights safeguards.

The GDPR already gives people in the European Union rights to request access to their personal data, correct inaccurate information, object to some forms of processing, withdraw consent, and request deletion in qualifying circumstances. These rights are not absolute, but they provide individuals with legal tools that go beyond clicking a privacy setting.

Regulation alone will not solve the problem. Laws can be weakened by broad exceptions, slow enforcement, complex procedures, and technologies developing faster than institutions can examine them. But without enforceable limits, promises of responsible surveillance remain voluntary.

10. Consent Has Become a Ritual

Much of digital surveillance is defended through consent.

The user accepted the terms. The driver enabled the service. The customer clicked the box. The resident installed the camera. The parent activated the smart speaker.

But consent means very little when refusing it means losing access to communication, employment tools, transportation features, banking, social participation, or essential digital services.

A person cannot meaningfully evaluate dozens of policies written in complex legal language, especially when companies later combine information with data obtained elsewhere or use it for purposes that were not obvious when it was collected.

Real consent should be specific, understandable, freely given, and reversible. It should not require someone to surrender an entire behavioral profile merely to use a basic service.

Otherwise, the consent box becomes less like permission and more like a legal receipt proving that the surveillance occurred.

11. Privacy Is Not About Having Something to Hide

The phrase “I have nothing to hide” misunderstands what privacy protects.

Privacy allows people to think before speaking, make mistakes without permanent exposure, change political beliefs, explore relationships, recover from difficult periods, seek medical or psychological help, and become someone different from the person described by an old database.

A society without privacy does not merely expose criminals. It freezes ordinary people inside permanent records.

Information collected today may be analyzed by different institutions tomorrow. A location record gathered for advertising may later affect insurance. A photograph uploaded for entertainment may become biometric training data. A political opinion expressed under one government may be judged differently under another.

Privacy is therefore not secrecy.

It is the space required for freedom, dignity, experimentation, and change.

12. Are We Ever Truly Alone Anymore?

Probably less often than we realize.

But the future is not predetermined.

Societies can prohibit certain uses of biometric identification. Regulators can limit the sale of location data. Courts can require warrants and proportionality. Companies can minimize collection instead of retaining information indefinitely. Engineers can build privacy into devices rather than treating it as an optional setting. Citizens can demand clear explanations about systems deployed in their streets, schools, workplaces, vehicles, and homes.

Individuals can also reduce unnecessary exposure. Review application permissions, remove location access that is not essential, delete stored voice and video histories, use encrypted communication, disable unnecessary personalization, request copies of data held about you, and exercise deletion or objection rights where the law provides them.

None of these actions makes a person invisible. That should not be the standard.

The goal is not to disappear from society. It is to prevent participation in society from requiring the surrender of an intimate, permanent, and searchable record of our lives.

The defining political struggle of the surveillance age will not be whether technology can watch us.

It already can.

The struggle will be whether democratic societies remain capable of telling it when to stop.

"Brought under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, the lawsuit says the co-conspirators sought to terrorize and make an example of Mr. Khalil and other non-citizen Palestinian rights advocates in an effort to intimidate and weaken the growing movement for #PalestinianSolidarity."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdpFuuf_1yw
#MahmoudKhalil #USpol #USpolitics #Palestine #Gaza #PalestineSolidarity #GazaSolidarity #studentProtests #justice #civilLiberties #stateRepression #ICEdetention #immigrantRights

🤯 Your face is data. And if you don't know who owns it, you're already at risk. #Deepfakes, facial recognition, and #biometrics. These technologies are blurring the line between who you are and who controls your data. But is the law keeping up? We break down the fight for digital rights! ✊

#DigitalPrivacy #Biometrics #Deepfakes #CivilLiberties #DataGovernance #LegalTech #PrivacyLaw #AIethics #PersonalIdentity #TechEthics

“This is the tip of the iceberg” for tech powering ICE. For years activists have warned about automatic licence plate readers. Not to mention the sources of data that can be scooped up online, surveillance cameras. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSFDgvIDAIg/?igsh=MTd6aHllYXNiNW51aQ==

#tech #electronics #digital #technology #activism #civilrights #civilliberties #activismworks #demonstration #protests #socialjustice #civilrights #censorship #democracy #equalrights #humanrights #socialjustice

Pretty much sums it up. Didn't see this shit in the manifesto, Keir.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/26/keir-starmer-digital-id-cards-enormous-opportunity-uk

#DigitalID #Labour #Surveillance #Privacy #Security #CivilLiberties #BritCard

1/2 US Protest Law Tracker - Updates to #Federal #Protest Laws introduced in 2025.

Latest updates: Jun. 10, 2025 (US Federal)

Providing for deportation of non-citizens who commit protest-related offenses

Would cancel the visa of any individual convicted of protest-related crimes and provide for the individual’s deportation within 60 days. Under the bill, individuals convicted of any “crime (i) related to [their] conduct at and during the course of a protest; (ii) involving the defacement, vandalism, or destruction of Federal property; or (iii) involving the intentional obstruction of any highway, road, bridge, or tunnel” would be deportable. The bill requires that such individuals’ visas be “immediately” cancelled and the individuals removed from the US within 60 days. If enacted, a non-citizen convicted of even a nonviolent misdemeanor “related to” a protest, such as trespass or disorderly conduct, could face deportation. The bill’s sponsor cited protests around immigration raids in #LosAngeles as the impetus for his bill.
(Full text of Bill: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/61025novisasforviolentcriminalsactreintro.pdf)
Status: pending
Introduced 10 Jun 2025.
Issue(s): Traffic Interference

Heightened penalties for "#riot" offenses

Would amend the federal #AntiRioting law to raise the maximum penalty to ten years in prison, instead of five, for participating in or inciting a “riot,” or aiding or abetting someone to do so. The federal definition of “riot” is broad, requiring only a “public disturbance” where one individual in a group commits violence. Under the bill, someone who committed or abetted an “act of violence” during the commission of a “riot” offense would face a minimum one-year sentence, while an individual who assaulted a law enforcement officer would face a sentence of at least one year and up to life in prison. Federal law defines “act of violence” broadly to include using force against #property—or just attempting or threatening to use such force. As such, if enacted, the bill could result in steep criminal penalties for protesters who do not actually engage in violence or destructive conduct. The bill’s sponsor cited protests around immigration raids in Los Angeles as the impetus for his bill.
Status: pending
Introduced 10 Jun 2025.
Issue(s): Riot

HR 2272: Blocking #FinancialAid to students who commit a "riot"-related offense

Would bar federal financial assistance and loan forgiveness for any student convicted of a crime in connection with a “riot.” The bar would apply to students convicted of “rioting” or “a) inciting a riot; b) organizing, promoting, encouraging, participating in, or carrying on a riot; c) committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or d) aiding or abetting any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot.” Many states define “riot” broadly enough to cover peaceful protest activity; many also have broad laws criminalizing “incitement to riot” that cover protected expression. The bill would bar financial aid and #LoanForgiveness for students convicted under such provisions. As written, the bill would also bar financial aid and loan forgiveness to students convicted of any offense related to “#organizing, #promoting, encouraging” a riot, or “aiding and abetting” incitement or participation in a riot, which could cover an even wider range of expressive conduct, from sharing a social media post to cheering on demonstrators in a protest that was deemed a “riot.”
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2272)
Status: pending
Introduced 21 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): #CampusProtests, Riot, Limit on #PublicBenefits

#HR2273: Providing for visa revocation and deportation of #noncitizens who commit a "riot"-related offense

Would require the Secretary of State to revoke the visa of and make deportable a noncitizen #student, #scholar, #teacher, or #specialist convicted of a crime in connection with a “riot.” Under the bill, individuals in the US on an F-1, J-1, or M-1 visa would have their visas revoked and would be deportable if they were convicted of “rioting” or “a) inciting a riot; b) organizing, promoting, encouraging, participating in, or carrying on a riot; c) committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or d) aiding or abetting any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot.” Many states define “riot” broadly enough to cover peaceful protest activity; many also have broad laws criminalizing “incitement to riot” that cover protected expression. The bill would provide for the deportation of foreign students, scholars, and others convicted under such provisions. As written, the bill would also provide for their deportation if convicted of any offense related to “organizing, promoting, encouraging” a riot, or “aiding and abetting” incitement or participation in a riot, which could cover an even wider range of expressive conduct, from sharing a #SocialMediaPost to cheering on #demonstrators in a protest that was deemed a “riot.”
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2273)
Status: pending
Introduced 21 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Riot

#S1017: New federal criminal penalties for protests near #pipelines

Would create a new federal #felony offense that could apply to protests of planned or operational pipelines. The bill would broadly criminalize under federal law “knowingly and willfully” “#vandalizing, tampering with, disrupting the operation or construction of, or preventing the operation or construction of” a gas pipeline. A range of peaceful activities could be deemed “disrupting… the construction of” a pipeline, from a rally that obstructs a road used by construction equipment, to a #lawsuit challenging a pipeline’s #permit or# zoning approval. The bill does not define “disrupt,” such that even a brief delay would seemingly be covered. Further, the underlying law provides that any "attempt" or "conspiracy" to commit the offense would be punished the same as actual commission. As such, individuals as well as organizations that engage in the planning or facilitation of a protest that is deemed to “disrupt” pipeline construction could be covered. The offense would be punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for an individual, or $500,000 for an organization.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1017)
Status: pending
Introduced 13 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Protest Supporters or Funders, #Infrastructure

#ProtestLaws #protestors #protestors_in_prison #CivilLiberties #Fascism #USA #USPol #NoKings #Project2025 #TrumpIsAFascist

@germany's government class deepens its alliance with @israel – criminalising dissent, rewarding lobby groups, and eroding rights in the name of fighting antisemitism

Jürgen Mackert: https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/welcome-berlin-germany-capital-zionist-repression 🧵

#academicFreedom #proZionism #StandWithIsrael #StrikeGermany #Germany #EuropeIsrael #coloniality #Berlin #NeverAgainIsForAnyone #conflation #confusion #antisemitism #politics #manipulation #coOpting #citizenship #freeSpeech #JurgenMackert #Mackert #civilLiberties

[#Podcast] #LawAndDisorder, September 9, 2024

#September11, 2001: Lessons Learned And Overlooked

"It has been 23 years ago this week since the attacks on September 11, 2001 in New York City, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring more than 6,000. On that day, the United States had a choice: The #GeorgeWBush administration could have treated the attacks as a violation of US and international law, launched a criminal investigation, and brought the perpetrators to justice in accordance with the rule of law. Instead, President Bush waged #EndlessWars against #Afghanistan and #Iraq, pushed through Congress the USA #PatriotAct, opened the notorious detention center at #GuantanamoBay which remain to this day, rounded up Muslims and South Asians for #IndefiniteDetention, initiated a wave of #CivilLiberties and #HumanRights violations, and committed wholesale torture against detainees and others.

"To assess the legacy of 9/11 and the lessons learned and the lessons overlooked, we’ve invited someone who was at the center of Bush’s #WarOnTerror. John Kiriakou is a journalist, former CIA counterterrorism officer, former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former counterterrorism consultant for ABC News.

"In 2007, Kiriakou blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture program, telling ABC News that the #CIA tortured prisoners, that torture was official U.S. government policy, and that the policy had been approved by President George W. Bush. He knew what he was talking about. In 2002, he was responsible for the capture in Pakistan of #AbuZubaydah, then believed to be the third-ranking official in al-Qaeda.

"He became the sixth #whistleblower indicted by the #Obama administration under the #EspionageAct of 1917 — a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his revelations.

"In 2012, the #RalphNader family honored #Kiriakou with the Joe A. Callaway Award for #CivicCourage, an award given to individuals who 'advance truth and justice despite the personal risk it creates.' He won the PEN Center USA’s prestigious First Amendment Award in 2015, the first Blueprint International Whistleblowing Prize for Bravery and Integrity in the Public Interest in 2016, and also in 2016 the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence, given by retired CIA, FBI, and NSA officers."

Listen:
https://lawanddisorder.org/category/criminalizing-dissent/

#CIASponsoredTerror #CivilRights, #CriminalizingDissent #ExtraordinaryRendition #FreeSpeech #HumanRights #IraqWar #BushAdministraiton #HumanRights #HumanRightsViolation #TargetingMuslims #Torture #WarResister #Whistleblowers #CivilLiberties #CivilLibertiesRadio #EndlessWar

⚫ 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁-𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 #𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲:

𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘙𝘌 𝘞𝘐𝘓𝘓 𝘉𝘌 #𝘋𝘌𝘈𝘛𝘏.

This is how complex systems learn. It will take a decade to play out, but this will ultimately be a hollow victory for those who are currently ascendant. Because the rout is so complete, every branch of government, they (𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘦) will indulge themselves without limits, and ultimately own every odious action, forever.

A generation from now, after I am dead, no one will freely admit they were enthusiastically part of this.

𝙒𝙚 𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙥 𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧.

So we have no other choice but to go through it. Do what you need to do to survive this and preserve as many vulnerable people as you can.

Some of us will need to leave, yet will be unable to. If I did not superficially resemble the favored image of a #RealAmerican perfectly, I would certainly have to escape. I talk too much. If I were young, I would be out of here within months.

#DEATH, the great teacher. We WILL learn. We will overlearn. We will be #PTSD for at least 2 generations and do some foolish things because of it, but #WeWillLearn.

𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙪𝙨.

But Death does more than teach. It removes possibilities. 20 years from now, when this psycho-drama has fully played out, will there be an authentic #democracy again? #CivilLiberties? A #FunctionalEconomy that benefits the common citizen? Will there even be basic #Peace? Will #TheEnvironment fall off a cliff? Will #christofascism prevail?

All, some, or possibly even none of those losses will come to pass. The future beyond this impending administration is simply unknowable.

But we can be certain of this: Death will come.

𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙪𝙨.

Death will teach us, and our progeny a lesson that hopefully will get used immediately after. Or at least someday.

This is obviously a #hingepoint in #WorldHistory.

We, the #progressive-minded, long ago made the fatal (Yes! Fatal!) mistake of believing our values were 𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹, 𝗼𝗯𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 and 𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲.

𝙊𝙪𝙧 𝙫𝙖𝙡𝙪𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨.

What we are about to experience, on the other hand, is 𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹, should have been 𝗼𝗯𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀, and was perhaps even 𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲.

#Liberal society is not natural. It must be maintained. You can not, must not, ever stop dancing or it goes away. More than a marathon; the work is forever. We got tired & perhaps lazy, and now we & our opponents get to experience the lessons that Death will provide us.

There will be many #heroes and some of us will die.

𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙚.

Who and what will survive will often be arbitrary and capricious. Like tornado damage.

As our #chaos spreads to the rest of the world, mostly through our strategic absence, there will be more #refugees than the #MAGA movement could ever imagine. Maybe we will take in some of the White ones.

We just elected #Trump (including the #PopularVote).

We will get destroyed.

......and we will deserve it.

𝙄 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙙𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩.

It is my #StakeInTheGround. 🗡

#TheRegime will have to remove it. And if they do, it will mean they are afraid of it. I win either way.

When Death does come and does its thing, please pay attention, store it in your long term memory, and share it with future generations.

𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁. ⚫

Two weeks ago the #Trudeau government listed the #Samidoun #Palestinian #PrisonerSolidarity Network as a terror entity. The move marked a major escalation in state directed efforts to suppress #opposition to #Canada’s #complicity in #Israel’s #genocide and regional #belligerance. The #webinar discussed how the terrorist list works and its #antiPalestinian, pro #USempire, character.

Panelists:
Yavar Hameed, Hameed Law
Shane Martinez, International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP)
Tim McSorley, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG)
Moderated: Dr. Sara Farhan, 2Rivers4Palestine

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h1zvYxT1dzQ

#ColonialTerrorism
#SanctionIsrael
#Censorship
#RacismInCanada
#FreePalestine
#IsraelIsATerroristState
#IsraelWarCrimes
#RacistIsrael
#IsraelRogueState
#ArmsEmbargoOnIsrael
#USAFundsGenocide
#CanadaIsComplicit
#DefundIsrael
#OstracizeIsrael
#BoycottIsrael
#CDNpoli
#CanadianComplicity
#WarCrimes
#PalestineSolidarity
#Dissidents
#CivilLiberties
#HumanRights
#SocialJustice
#Colonizers

House votes to reapprove law allowing warrantless surveillance of US citizens | US politics | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/12/fisa-surveillance-act-reauthorized #fisa #restorethe4th #civilrights #civilliberties #4thamendment #fourthamendment #policestate

How Government #FusionCenters Violate Americans’ Rights — and How to Stop It

The Biden administration and Congress must impose oversight and accountability on the state-run centers.

by Mike German
December 15, 2022

"A federal jury awarded $300,000 this month to a #MaineStatePolice trooper who was demoted after blowing the whistle on privacy violations at the state’s intelligence #FusionCenter. The federal government spurred the development of fusion centers after 9/11 as a means for sharing counterterrorism intelligence among state and local governments, as well as select private entities. The facts revealed during this trial adds to a mountain of evidence that fusion centers require greater regulation and oversight.

"The trooper alleged that the Maine Intelligence and Analysis Center, 1 in a network of 80 fusion centers operating across the country, was 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 #SummerCamp for teenagers, and even people who travelled to New York City frequently. The whistleblower also claimed that fusion center supervisors pressured him to illegally share sensitive FBI information he had access to because of his position on the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

[...]

"Shortly after the Maine trooper filed his lawsuit in May 2020, a hack of a fusion center contractor exposed 296 gigabytes of intelligence records from more than 200 law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and DHS. The records substantiated the trooper’s complaints about privacy and #CivilRights violations at the #Maine fusion center and showed similar abuse occurring throughout the network, particularly in tracking #BlackLivesMatter #protests. The documents also showed that fusion centers had regularly spread misinformation sourced from dubious social media posts, including false reports alleging that #antifascists were starting wildfires or planning acts of violence. These specious reports distracted law enforcement during public safety emergencies."

Read more:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-government-fusion-centers-violate-americans-rights-and-how-stop-it

#FTPFriday #ACAB #SLAPPs #Fascism #CivilLiberties #ClimateActivists #QuebecHydro #CMP #CMPCorridor #ForestDefenders #WaterProtectors #CorporateColonialism

From 2020: How #Target, #Google, #BankOfAmerica and #Microsoft quietly fund police through private donations

More than 25 large #corporations in the past three years have contributed funding to private #PoliceFoundations, new report says

by Kari Paul
Thu 18 Jun 2020

"The #HoustonPolice foundation has purchased for the local police department a variety of equipment, including #SWAT equipment, sound equipment and dogs for the K-9 unit, according to the report. The #PhiladelphiaPolice foundation purchased for its police force #LongGuns, #drones and #BallisticHelmets, and the #AtlantaPolice foundation helped fund a major #surveillance network of over 12,000 cameras.

"In addition to weaponry, foundation funding can also go toward specialized training and support programs that complement the department’s policing strategies, according to one police foundation.

“'Not a lot of people are aware of this public-private partnership where corporations and wealthy donors are able to siphon money into police forces with little to no oversight,' said Gin Armstrong, a senior research analyst at #LittleSis.

"A variety of companies – including financial institutions, technology companies, retailers, local universities and sports teams, provide funding to police foundations. Donations may be, in part, to curry favor with a force that exists primarily to protect property and #capital, the report said."

Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/18/police-foundations-nonprofits-amazon-target-microsoft

#CivilRights #ACAB #StopCopCity #StopCopCitiesEverywhere #DigitalFreeSpeech #CivilLiberties #CorporateColonialism #SilencingDissent #Fascism