#civilliberties — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #civilliberties, aggregated by home.social.
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Gloria Steinem’s Final Essay before her death this week - "When you’re lucky enough to have lived a long life, as I have done, your role is to remind us how far we have come." https://periscope.corsfix.com/?https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fculture%2Flife-and-letters%2Fgloria-steinems-final-essay= #civilliberties #women #girls #law #civilrights #justice #equality #publichealth #choice #privacy #freedom #voting #democracy
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this.weekinsecurity:
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Vigilantism comes for Flock
"
"More Americans than ever are destroying Flock license plate cameras amid rising backlash against the company. Is the tide turning on intrusive U.S. mass surveillance, and where does the privacy fight go next?"https://this.weekinsecurity.com/vigilantism-comes-for-flock/
4.9.2026
#BigBrother #CivilLiberties #Flock #Freiheitsrechte #Kennzeichenscanner #LicensePlateCamera #LicensePlateTracking #Massenüberwachung #MassSurveillance #Privacy #Surveillance #Überwachung
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Texas: Faith, Freedom, and Mind Your Damn Business
By Cliff Potts, CSO
Editor-in-Chief, WPS NewsBaybay 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)
#churchAndState #CivilLiberties #educationPolicy #personalFreedom #religiousFreedom #TexasPolitics #TexasReligion #WPSNews
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. -
"While standing in a private parking lot in Sussex, Wisconsin, on May 4, 2025, Napoleon Jones witnessed a traffic stop made by an out-of-county police officer. "It just didn't sit right with me," Jones told TMJ4 News, a local NBC News affiliate. "So I did what I legally could do, and I walked over and recorded it."
Jones, a United States Navy veteran, was well within his rights to record the police stop. But even though he recorded from a safe distance without interfering, that didn't stop the Waukesha County Sheriff's deputy, Brandon Shayhorn, from later unlawfully stopping and arresting Jones.
After Shayhorn completed the traffic stop, Jones returned to his vehicle. But before Jones could exit the parking lot, Shayhorn turned on his lights and initiated a second stop, claiming Jones' temporary license plate, displayed in the rearview window, was unreadable, reports TMJ4 News. Shayhorn demanded to see Jones' driver's license, but Jones refused, arguing that he'd been unlawfully pulled over on private property. Video clips of the encounter show the deputy opening Jones' door and pulling him from his vehicle."
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Ontario's cash bail law is unconstitutional – and Ford knows it. BUT "they deliberately undermine confidence in #courts, plow under the Charter and #civilliberties, and use real human suffering to manufacture a political grievance." https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion/ontarios-cash-bail-law-is-unconstitutional-and-ford-knows-it/394586
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Flock is in Lafayette. Who else is watching you?
Everyone’s heard of Flock cameras. But they’re not the only ones watching Lafayette.https://thecurrentla.com/2026/flock-is-in-lafayette-who-else-is-watching-you/
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What #Flock’s defenders are missing
As cities reconsider the tech, it’s worth asking how design choices have shaped trade-off between solving crimes and protecting civil liberties
New policies don’t address broader concerns from #civilliberties and #privacy groups that Flock is turning crime-stopping tool into #masssurveillance. Criticisms led to a growing backlash that already has some cities canceling contracts and some states trying to ban #ALPR
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/17/1142200/what-flocks-defenders-are-missing/
https://archive.ph/q3iXJ -
Since 2001, the Australian government has passed more than 100 pieces of "national security" legislation that limits our speech, our liberties, our rights and our movements, in ways most people don’t understand until it applies to them.
#australia #ausgov #authoritarianism #civilliberties #activism #surveillance
https://www.deepcutnews.com/p/dave-hughess-common-sense-is-just -
“The fact that Trump is now taking inspiration from Britain’s repression of the movement for Palestinian freedom exposes just how dangerous this ban is and should be a wake-up call to anyone who cares about #FreeSpeech and #CivilLiberties.”
#UKPol #USPol #PalestineAction
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/26/us-issues-sanctions-uk-based-palestine-action
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Flock’s license-plate network was used by Wisconsin police to track a man’s trips to Michigan and justify a car search. 🚨
As some cities drop Flock, others are replacing it with Axon ALPR systems that can blend into existing street infrastructure. 📷#TechNews #Flock #Axon #ALPR #Surveillance #Privacy #DigitalRights #CivilLiberties #Security #Technology #PoliceTech #DataPrivacy #SmartCities
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A US activist faces felony charges after using GrapheneOS’s duress code to erase his phone during a border search. 🔐
The DOJ alleges the deletion violated a law barring destruction of property to prevent seizure. ⚖️#TechNews #GrapheneOS #Privacy #DigitalRights #Encryption #OpenSource #Security #FOSS #UserControl #Technology #Mobile #CivilLiberties #Cybersecurity
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Which topic at "The Forever War and the First Amendment" are you most curious about? Share in comments👇
📍The Lee C. Bollinger Forum, Columbia University
📅 September 9–10
RSVP: knightcolumbia.org/events/the-f...
#FirstAmendment #PressFreedom #WarOnTerror #CivilLiberties #Journalism
The Forever War and the First ... -
"This designation lacks any real legal weight because U.S. law has no formal domestic terrorist organization category. Creating one risks infringing on First Amendment protected speech. #DomesticTerrorism itself is not a chargeable offense."
https://www.govexec.com/defense/2026/07/trump-directive-reshaped-governments-counterterrorism-approach/414869/
#NSPM7 #USpol #USpolitics #stateRepression #civilLiberties #freedomOfSpeech #Trump #Rubio #justice #fascization -
🚨 A 23-year-old Florida woman spent 13 days in jail and seven months under threat of life in prison for a triple-fatal hit-and-run she had nothing to do with.
On Oct 4, 2025, a speeding Dodge Durango caused a chain-reaction pileup on I-4 near DeBary, killing motorcyclist Joaquin Deno and Flagler County Deputy Administrator Jorge Salinas and his wife Nancy. Witnesses said the SUV was black, and a Flock license-plate reader had caught Lindsey Isaacs' black 2025 Durango about 3 miles west of the crash minutes before it happened. FHP seized her car that night and arrested her in April on eight felony counts, including three counts of vehicular homicide.
The case fell apart quickly: her SUV had zero damage, a 911 caller had reported the fleeing SUV was maroon (with the first three digits of its plate), and maroon paint transfer was found on one of the struck cars. Charges were dropped May 22, and Alisa Montalvo, 47, was arrested instead. Her maroon Durango had its driver-side doors replaced and airbags removed or stuffed back in to hide the crash.
The camera did what it was asked; the investigators just stopped looking once it handed them a suspect. Isaacs has since filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against FHP.
Read more:
https://www.wesh.com/article/woman-wrongfully-arrested-in-deadly-i-4-crash-speaks-out-after-charges-dropped/71393304
https://reason.com/2026/08/13/flock-cameras-and-license-plate-readers-are-everywhere-can-we-trust-cops-with-them/
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2026/05/24/wrong-woman-jailed-in-deadly-i-4-hit-and-run-after-witnesses-misidentified-suv-color-records-show/ -
#CivilLiberties groups Monday asked #SCOTUS to hear their challenge of a #Texas #law requiring that all #PublicSchools’ classrooms display the #TenCommandments, potentially setting up a landmark clash over the #SeparationOfChurchAndState.
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"A Sacramento immigration law firm claims #ICE agents arrived at its office without a warrant, threatened to break in, and targeted the firm based on a list of addresses allegedly linked to undocumented immigrants":
https://www.kcra.com/article/sacramento-immigration-law-firm-ice-agents/73441433
#brutality #thuggery #recklessness #HumanRights #CivilLiberties #politics -
Flock cameras, and automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are _inherently_ unlawful, _unavoidably_ contrary to the U.S. Constitution.
Yet another expert's view: youtube.com/shorts/DUQGu...
#USpol #law #CivilLiberties #CivilRights #FourthAmendment #4thAmendment
Ohio professor specialized in ... -
Flock cameras, and automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are _inherently_ unlawful, _unavoidably_ contrary to the U.S. Constitution.
Yet another expert's view: https://youtube.com/shorts/DUQGu4l4a2g
#USpol #law #CivilLiberties #CivilRights #FourthAmendment #4thAmendment
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“France's Constitutional Council on Friday, August 14, struck down the ban on social media for children under 15, a flagship policy of President Emmanuel Macron's second term, calling the measure "a disproportionate restriction" on freedom of expression.
The Council ruled that Article 1 of a law adopted in July, intended to protect minors from the risks associated with the use of social media, "constitutes a restriction that is not appropriate, necessary or proportionate" to the freedom of expression and communication of under-15s.
While recognizing the "constitutional requirement to protect the best interests of the child," the judges said that such a broad ban "could apply to online communication services for which the risks to the health and safety of minors (...) have not been established."”
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Despite 'New' Updates, Flock's Creepy #Cameras Remain Major #CivilLiberties Threat
In response to Flock’s announcement of operational changes, the #ACLU breaks down why many fall short.
#alpr #flock #surveillance #privacy -
The US reportedly ran a mass surveillance campaign targeting leftwing and anti-ICE protesters. The key detail worth examining: what legal authorities were invoked, what data was collected, and whether oversight mechanisms flagged anything. Protest activity as an intelligence target raises concrete questions about scope, retention, and proportionality. #Surveillance #CivilLiberties #infosec
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/13/us-government-spied-anti-ice-protesters -
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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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
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Québec’s Bill 9 doesn’t just ban symbols — it bans obligations
#Quebec #Canada #Bill9 #Bill21 #ReligiousFreedom #Law #HumanRights #Islam #CharterRights #Secularism #Faith #SupremeCourt #Politics #QuebecPolitics #CivilLiberties #FreedomOfReligion #Politics
https://the-14.com/quebecs-bill-9-doesnt-just-ban-symbols-it-bans-obligations/ -
Revealed: Trump’s War on ICE Protesters Is Collapsing in Court
https://www.rawamerica.com/p/revealed-trumps-war-on-ice-protesters
• The billionaires own the government
• Trump’s sons are quietly building a defense tech empire funded by your tax dollars
• True history of the Capitol attack
#TrumpAdministration #America #Truth #UnitedWeStand #OneNation #UnderGod #AmericanJustice #CivilLiberties #SocialTruth #ICECourt #FederalAgents #FederalCourt #Government #Billionaires #TrumpsWar #CapitalRiots #CyberPolice #AIPoliceForce
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Hollow Mockery: Douglass, Jefferson, and 250 Years of a Promise Unkept
Mike Cone
“Your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license . . . your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.”
— Frederick Douglass (1852)These words still resonate today.
In the wake of our celebration of the 250th birthday of our independence, let us not forget the ugly truths in the birth and history of this nation. To wash over these truths, as our current administration is wont to do, is tantamount to erasing that part of our past which we should strive to learn from, and to better ourselves as a people, to truly become that nation where the words penned by Thomas Jefferson are not just hollow mockery, but true:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are the unalienable rights bestowed upon us. These rights are not to be infringed upon for any reason, whether it be race, color, ethnicity, religious beliefs or social status. For this to be true, we as a people need to understand and accept that indeed “ALL” men are created equal. In this regard, we have failed as a nation time and time again. There are numerous examples of our nation suppressing the civil liberties of the many throughout our history: chattel slavery, the Tulsa Race Massacre, forced dispossession of ancestral Native American lands, Selma, Alabama, Jim Crow laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese internment, Kent State, the Patriot Act, just to name a few. Hell, even Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.
My point in all this is we need to do better. It is morally important that we learn from our past and not ignore or erase it just because at times it can be ugly and messy. We need to continue to move forward, toward morality and virtue, because virtue will always prevail.
Our current president is unwilling in this regard.
President Trump is the converse of morality and virtue and continually seems to move us backward with his version of revisionist history, distorting, altering and even falsifying historical evidence to fit his agenda. He is forever suppressing or attempting to suppress the civil liberties of those who oppose him. He has actively supported and empowered local governments to ban and remove books from public institutions. He has removed or altered exhibits, plaques and monuments from our National Parks, exhibits he terms “inappropriately disparaging to Americans past or living.” These exhibits include the nation’s first executive mansion, which detailed the nine people enslaved by George Washington; the Bunker Hill Monument, to eliminate language he deemed contrary to founding principles; and locations highlighting Japanese American internment and Native American conflicts. He has sent federal troops into our cities in direct defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act. He has allowed his defense secretary, who some call a Christian White Nationalist, to deny high-ranking promotions to senior Army and Navy officers, the majority being women and minorities, and to intervene in a Navy one-star admiral promotion list, removing nine highly vetted officers. The final list of 22 nominees contained zero women and only two non-white officers. Finally, his immigration policies appear to be an obvious attempt to rid the country of Black and Brown people. This is just a small sample of Trump’s penchant for authoritarianism and what this author feels is a deep hatred and disdain for anyone other than his own race. Donald Trump is the ideological antithesis to the phrase “all men are created equal.”
With that said, I was having a conversation with my good friend Nick Allison, an Army combat veteran and fellow Chaos Section contributor, the other day and mentioned my feelings of anger and visceral disgust for our current administration, so much so that I could not find a reason to celebrate our 250 years of independence, particularly as a veteran. I’ll end with Nick’s response:
“You know what? I think we can always find a reason to celebrate, regardless of the current occupant in the Oval Office, because there are always things and ideas and people worth celebrating. This is still a great country with great people and a wonderfully unique experiment in constitutional representative freedom. It gets messy and sometimes runs off the rails, but that’s kind of the whole point of the experiment: we’re a nation of people governing ourselves, which means it’s on us to correct course when things go sideways. Most of human history has been kings, monarchs and strongmen who never had to answer to anybody. Making it 250 years as a self-correcting experiment, messy and beautiful and stupid and wonderful all at once, is reason enough to celebrate. Don’t let one egotistical, narcissistic old man who will be out of office in a couple years, dead within ten, take that away from you.”
Mike Cone is a Marine Corps infantry veteran who served as a mortarman and forward observer in Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. “Hollow Mockery” is his first piece for The Chaos Section. He lives on Long Island with his wife Cynthia.
#250thAnniversary #AmericanHistory #authoritarianism #civilLiberties #FourthOfJuly #FrederickDouglass #IndependenceDay #JapaneseInternment #NativeAmericanHistory #PosseComitatusAct #racialEquality #revisionistHistory #trump #Veterans -
Hollow Mockery: Douglass, Jefferson, and 250 Years of a Promise Unkept
Mike Cone
“Your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license . . . your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.”
— Frederick Douglass (1852)These words still resonate today.
In the wake of our celebration of the 250th birthday of our independence, let us not forget the ugly truths in the birth and history of this nation. To wash over these truths, as our current administration is wont to do, is tantamount to erasing that part of our past which we should strive to learn from, and to better ourselves as a people, to truly become that nation where the words penned by Thomas Jefferson are not just hollow mockery, but true:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are the unalienable rights bestowed upon us. These rights are not to be infringed upon for any reason, whether it be race, color, ethnicity, religious beliefs or social status. For this to be true, we as a people need to understand and accept that indeed “ALL” men are created equal. In this regard, we have failed as a nation time and time again. There are numerous examples of our nation suppressing the civil liberties of the many throughout our history: chattel slavery, the Tulsa Race Massacre, forced dispossession of ancestral Native American lands, Selma, Alabama, Jim Crow laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese internment, Kent State, the Patriot Act, just to name a few. Hell, even Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.
My point in all this is we need to do better. It is morally important that we learn from our past and not ignore or erase it just because at times it can be ugly and messy. We need to continue to move forward, toward morality and virtue, because virtue will always prevail.
Our current president is unwilling in this regard.
President Trump is the converse of morality and virtue and continually seems to move us backward with his version of revisionist history, distorting, altering and even falsifying historical evidence to fit his agenda. He is forever suppressing or attempting to suppress the civil liberties of those who oppose him. He has actively supported and empowered local governments to ban and remove books from public institutions. He has removed or altered exhibits, plaques and monuments from our National Parks, exhibits he terms “inappropriately disparaging to Americans past or living.” These exhibits include the nation’s first executive mansion, which detailed the nine people enslaved by George Washington; the Bunker Hill Monument, to eliminate language he deemed contrary to founding principles; and locations highlighting Japanese American internment and Native American conflicts. He has sent federal troops into our cities in direct defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act. He has allowed his defense secretary, who some call a Christian White Nationalist, to deny high-ranking promotions to senior Army and Navy officers, the majority being women and minorities, and to intervene in a Navy one-star admiral promotion list, removing nine highly vetted officers. The final list of 22 nominees contained zero women and only two non-white officers. Finally, his immigration policies appear to be an obvious attempt to rid the country of Black and Brown people. This is just a small sample of Trump’s penchant for authoritarianism and what this author feels is a deep hatred and disdain for anyone other than his own race. Donald Trump is the ideological antithesis to the phrase “all men are created equal.”
With that said, I was having a conversation with my good friend Nick Allison, an Army combat veteran and fellow Chaos Section contributor, the other day and mentioned my feelings of anger and visceral disgust for our current administration, so much so that I could not find a reason to celebrate our 250 years of independence, particularly as a veteran. I’ll end with Nick’s response:
“You know what? I think we can always find a reason to celebrate, regardless of the current occupant in the Oval Office, because there are always things and ideas and people worth celebrating. This is still a great country with great people and a wonderfully unique experiment in constitutional representative freedom. It gets messy and sometimes runs off the rails, but that’s kind of the whole point of the experiment: we’re a nation of people governing ourselves, which means it’s on us to correct course when things go sideways. Most of human history has been kings, monarchs and strongmen who never had to answer to anybody. Making it 250 years as a self-correcting experiment, messy and beautiful and stupid and wonderful all at once, is reason enough to celebrate. Don’t let one egotistical, narcissistic old man who will be out of office in a couple years, dead within ten, take that away from you.”
Mike Cone is a Marine Corps infantry veteran who served as a mortarman and forward observer in Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. “Hollow Mockery” is his first piece for The Chaos Section. He lives on Long Island with his wife Cynthia.
#250thAnniversary #AmericanHistory #authoritarianism #civilLiberties #FourthOfJuly #FrederickDouglass #IndependenceDay #JapaneseInternment #NativeAmericanHistory #PosseComitatusAct #racialEquality #revisionistHistory #trump #Veterans -
Hollow Mockery: Douglass, Jefferson, and 250 Years of a Promise Unkept
Mike Cone
“Your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license . . . your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.”
— Frederick Douglass (1852)These words still resonate today.
In the wake of our celebration of the 250th birthday of our independence, let us not forget the ugly truths in the birth and history of this nation. To wash over these truths, as our current administration is wont to do, is tantamount to erasing that part of our past which we should strive to learn from, and to better ourselves as a people, to truly become that nation where the words penned by Thomas Jefferson are not just hollow mockery, but true:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are the unalienable rights bestowed upon us. These rights are not to be infringed upon for any reason, whether it be race, color, ethnicity, religious beliefs or social status. For this to be true, we as a people need to understand and accept that indeed “ALL” men are created equal. In this regard, we have failed as a nation time and time again. There are numerous examples of our nation suppressing the civil liberties of the many throughout our history: chattel slavery, the Tulsa Race Massacre, forced dispossession of ancestral Native American lands, Selma, Alabama, Jim Crow laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese internment, Kent State, the Patriot Act, just to name a few. Hell, even Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.
My point in all this is we need to do better. It is morally important that we learn from our past and not ignore or erase it just because at times it can be ugly and messy. We need to continue to move forward, toward morality and virtue, because virtue will always prevail.
Our current president is unwilling in this regard.
President Trump is the converse of morality and virtue and continually seems to move us backward with his version of revisionist history, distorting, altering and even falsifying historical evidence to fit his agenda. He is forever suppressing or attempting to suppress the civil liberties of those who oppose him. He has actively supported and empowered local governments to ban and remove books from public institutions. He has removed or altered exhibits, plaques and monuments from our National Parks, exhibits he terms “inappropriately disparaging to Americans past or living.” These exhibits include the nation’s first executive mansion, which detailed the nine people enslaved by George Washington; the Bunker Hill Monument, to eliminate language he deemed contrary to founding principles; and locations highlighting Japanese American internment and Native American conflicts. He has sent federal troops into our cities in direct defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act. He has allowed his defense secretary, who some call a Christian White Nationalist, to deny high-ranking promotions to senior Army and Navy officers, the majority being women and minorities, and to intervene in a Navy one-star admiral promotion list, removing nine highly vetted officers. The final list of 22 nominees contained zero women and only two non-white officers. Finally, his immigration policies appear to be an obvious attempt to rid the country of Black and Brown people. This is just a small sample of Trump’s penchant for authoritarianism and what this author feels is a deep hatred and disdain for anyone other than his own race. Donald Trump is the ideological antithesis to the phrase “all men are created equal.”
With that said, I was having a conversation with my good friend Nick Allison, an Army combat veteran and fellow Chaos Section contributor, the other day and mentioned my feelings of anger and visceral disgust for our current administration, so much so that I could not find a reason to celebrate our 250 years of independence, particularly as a veteran. I’ll end with Nick’s response:
“You know what? I think we can always find a reason to celebrate, regardless of the current occupant in the Oval Office, because there are always things and ideas and people worth celebrating. This is still a great country with great people and a wonderfully unique experiment in constitutional representative freedom. It gets messy and sometimes runs off the rails, but that’s kind of the whole point of the experiment: we’re a nation of people governing ourselves, which means it’s on us to correct course when things go sideways. Most of human history has been kings, monarchs and strongmen who never had to answer to anybody. Making it 250 years as a self-correcting experiment, messy and beautiful and stupid and wonderful all at once, is reason enough to celebrate. Don’t let one egotistical, narcissistic old man who will be out of office in a couple years, dead within ten, take that away from you.”
Mike Cone is a Marine Corps infantry veteran who served as a mortarman and forward observer in Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. “Hollow Mockery” is his first piece for The Chaos Section. He lives on Long Island with his wife Cynthia.
#250thAnniversary #AmericanHistory #authoritarianism #civilLiberties #FourthOfJuly #FrederickDouglass #IndependenceDay #JapaneseInternment #NativeAmericanHistory #PosseComitatusAct #racialEquality #revisionistHistory #trump #Veterans -
Hollow Mockery: Douglass, Jefferson, and 250 Years of a Promise Unkept
Mike Cone
“Your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license . . . your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.”
— Frederick Douglass (1852)These words still resonate today.
In the wake of our celebration of the 250th birthday of our independence, let us not forget the ugly truths in the birth and history of this nation. To wash over these truths, as our current administration is wont to do, is tantamount to erasing that part of our past which we should strive to learn from, and to better ourselves as a people, to truly become that nation where the words penned by Thomas Jefferson are not just hollow mockery, but true:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are the unalienable rights bestowed upon us. These rights are not to be infringed upon for any reason, whether it be race, color, ethnicity, religious beliefs or social status. For this to be true, we as a people need to understand and accept that indeed “ALL” men are created equal. In this regard, we have failed as a nation time and time again. There are numerous examples of our nation suppressing the civil liberties of the many throughout our history: chattel slavery, the Tulsa Race Massacre, forced dispossession of ancestral Native American lands, Selma, Alabama, Jim Crow laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese internment, Kent State, the Patriot Act, just to name a few. Hell, even Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.
My point in all this is we need to do better. It is morally important that we learn from our past and not ignore or erase it just because at times it can be ugly and messy. We need to continue to move forward, toward morality and virtue, because virtue will always prevail.
Our current president is unwilling in this regard.
President Trump is the converse of morality and virtue and continually seems to move us backward with his version of revisionist history, distorting, altering and even falsifying historical evidence to fit his agenda. He is forever suppressing or attempting to suppress the civil liberties of those who oppose him. He has actively supported and empowered local governments to ban and remove books from public institutions. He has removed or altered exhibits, plaques and monuments from our National Parks, exhibits he terms “inappropriately disparaging to Americans past or living.” These exhibits include the nation’s first executive mansion, which detailed the nine people enslaved by George Washington; the Bunker Hill Monument, to eliminate language he deemed contrary to founding principles; and locations highlighting Japanese American internment and Native American conflicts. He has sent federal troops into our cities in direct defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act. He has allowed his defense secretary, who some call a Christian White Nationalist, to deny high-ranking promotions to senior Army and Navy officers, the majority being women and minorities, and to intervene in a Navy one-star admiral promotion list, removing nine highly vetted officers. The final list of 22 nominees contained zero women and only two non-white officers. Finally, his immigration policies appear to be an obvious attempt to rid the country of Black and Brown people. This is just a small sample of Trump’s penchant for authoritarianism and what this author feels is a deep hatred and disdain for anyone other than his own race. Donald Trump is the ideological antithesis to the phrase “all men are created equal.”
With that said, I was having a conversation with my good friend Nick Allison, an Army combat veteran and fellow Chaos Section contributor, the other day and mentioned my feelings of anger and visceral disgust for our current administration, so much so that I could not find a reason to celebrate our 250 years of independence, particularly as a veteran. I’ll end with Nick’s response:
“You know what? I think we can always find a reason to celebrate, regardless of the current occupant in the Oval Office, because there are always things and ideas and people worth celebrating. This is still a great country with great people and a wonderfully unique experiment in constitutional representative freedom. It gets messy and sometimes runs off the rails, but that’s kind of the whole point of the experiment: we’re a nation of people governing ourselves, which means it’s on us to correct course when things go sideways. Most of human history has been kings, monarchs and strongmen who never had to answer to anybody. Making it 250 years as a self-correcting experiment, messy and beautiful and stupid and wonderful all at once, is reason enough to celebrate. Don’t let one egotistical, narcissistic old man who will be out of office in a couple years, dead within ten, take that away from you.”
Mike Cone is a Marine Corps infantry veteran who served as a mortarman and forward observer in Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. “Hollow Mockery” is his first piece for The Chaos Section. He lives on Long Island with his wife Cynthia.
#250thAnniversary #AmericanHistory #authoritarianism #civilLiberties #FourthOfJuly #FrederickDouglass #IndependenceDay #JapaneseInternment #NativeAmericanHistory #PosseComitatusAct #racialEquality #revisionistHistory #trump #Veterans -
Hollow Mockery: Douglass, Jefferson, and 250 Years of a Promise Unkept
Mike Cone
“Your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license . . . your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.”
— Frederick Douglass (1852)These words still resonate today.
In the wake of our celebration of the 250th birthday of our independence, let us not forget the ugly truths in the birth and history of this nation. To wash over these truths, as our current administration is wont to do, is tantamount to erasing that part of our past which we should strive to learn from, and to better ourselves as a people, to truly become that nation where the words penned by Thomas Jefferson are not just hollow mockery, but true:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are the unalienable rights bestowed upon us. These rights are not to be infringed upon for any reason, whether it be race, color, ethnicity, religious beliefs or social status. For this to be true, we as a people need to understand and accept that indeed “ALL” men are created equal. In this regard, we have failed as a nation time and time again. There are numerous examples of our nation suppressing the civil liberties of the many throughout our history: chattel slavery, the Tulsa Race Massacre, forced dispossession of ancestral Native American lands, Selma, Alabama, Jim Crow laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese internment, Kent State, the Patriot Act, just to name a few. Hell, even Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.
My point in all this is we need to do better. It is morally important that we learn from our past and not ignore or erase it just because at times it can be ugly and messy. We need to continue to move forward, toward morality and virtue, because virtue will always prevail.
Our current president is unwilling in this regard.
President Trump is the converse of morality and virtue and continually seems to move us backward with his version of revisionist history, distorting, altering and even falsifying historical evidence to fit his agenda. He is forever suppressing or attempting to suppress the civil liberties of those who oppose him. He has actively supported and empowered local governments to ban and remove books from public institutions. He has removed or altered exhibits, plaques and monuments from our National Parks, exhibits he terms “inappropriately disparaging to Americans past or living.” These exhibits include the nation’s first executive mansion, which detailed the nine people enslaved by George Washington; the Bunker Hill Monument, to eliminate language he deemed contrary to founding principles; and locations highlighting Japanese American internment and Native American conflicts. He has sent federal troops into our cities in direct defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act. He has allowed his defense secretary, who some call a Christian White Nationalist, to deny high-ranking promotions to senior Army and Navy officers, the majority being women and minorities, and to intervene in a Navy one-star admiral promotion list, removing nine highly vetted officers. The final list of 22 nominees contained zero women and only two non-white officers. Finally, his immigration policies appear to be an obvious attempt to rid the country of Black and Brown people. This is just a small sample of Trump’s penchant for authoritarianism and what this author feels is a deep hatred and disdain for anyone other than his own race. Donald Trump is the ideological antithesis to the phrase “all men are created equal.”
With that said, I was having a conversation with my good friend Nick Allison, an Army combat veteran and fellow Chaos Section contributor, the other day and mentioned my feelings of anger and visceral disgust for our current administration, so much so that I could not find a reason to celebrate our 250 years of independence, particularly as a veteran. I’ll end with Nick’s response:
“You know what? I think we can always find a reason to celebrate, regardless of the current occupant in the Oval Office, because there are always things and ideas and people worth celebrating. This is still a great country with great people and a wonderfully unique experiment in constitutional representative freedom. It gets messy and sometimes runs off the rails, but that’s kind of the whole point of the experiment: we’re a nation of people governing ourselves, which means it’s on us to correct course when things go sideways. Most of human history has been kings, monarchs and strongmen who never had to answer to anybody. Making it 250 years as a self-correcting experiment, messy and beautiful and stupid and wonderful all at once, is reason enough to celebrate. Don’t let one egotistical, narcissistic old man who will be out of office in a couple years, dead within ten, take that away from you.”
Mike Cone is a Marine Corps infantry veteran who served as a mortarman and forward observer in Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. “Hollow Mockery” is his first piece for The Chaos Section. He lives on Long Island with his wife Cynthia.
#250thAnniversary #AmericanHistory #authoritarianism #civilLiberties #FourthOfJuly #FrederickDouglass #IndependenceDay #JapaneseInternment #NativeAmericanHistory #PosseComitatusAct #racialEquality #revisionistHistory #trump #Veterans -
Dawn of our Country's Semiquincentennial at the Lewistown Courthouse. #Semiquincentennial #anniversary #usaanniversary #usacelebration #celebration #history #historical #celebrate #patriotic #jingo #jingoism #civilwar #civilwarmonument #monument #concrete #courthouse #civilliberties #civilrights #scotusiscorrupt #potusiscorrupt #flotusiscorrupt #corruption #corruptioningovernment #governmentcorruption #EndCitizensUnited
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Battle of The Beanfield
There are certain moments in modern British history that seem to sit just beyond the edge of official memory. Events that everybody vaguely remembers, yet somehow never quite make it into the comfortable national story we tell ourselves.
The Battle of Orgreave is one. The miners’ strike is another. The poll tax riots. Hillsborough. Brixton. They linger in photographs, old television footage and the memories of those who were there, carrying the uncomfortable reminder that Britain is not always as civilised, measured and orderly as it likes to imagine itself to be.
The Battle of the Beanfield belongs firmly in that category.
Forty years on, it remains one of the most controversial policing operations in modern British history. More than 1,300 police officers confronted a convoy of around 600 New Age Travellers attempting to reach Stonehenge on 1 June 1985. By the end of the day, dozens of people had been injured, hundreds had been arrested and an entire way of life had effectively been marked for destruction.
What happened in that Hampshire beanfield has never been the subject of a full public inquiry. Yet for many people who witnessed the decline of Britain’s traditional industries during the Thatcher years, the images remain painfully familiar.
I grew up in Yorkshire through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I watched pit villages hollow out. I watched steelworks close. I watched communities that had existed for generations suddenly find themselves described as obstacles to progress. There was a language that emerged during those years. Certain groups became “the problem”. Miners. Trade unionists. Travellers. Alternative communities. Anyone who stood outside the increasingly rigid idea of what Britain was supposed to become.
That is one reason the Battle of the Beanfield still matters.
To understand the confrontation itself, we first need to understand the strange, colourful and often misunderstood world that produced it.
The Stonehenge Free Festival began in 1974. It emerged from the wider countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining music, environmentalism, spiritual exploration, political activism and communal living. Over the following decade it grew steadily, becoming one of the largest free gatherings in Britain. By the early 1980s thousands of people travelled to Stonehenge each summer to celebrate the solstice. The festival attracted an eclectic mix of punks, bikers, druids, musicians, environmental campaigners, anarchists, hippies and families living on the road.
The people who became known as the Peace Convoy were not a single organisation. They were a loose collection of travellers, festival-goers and alternative communities who spent much of the year moving between free festivals, protest camps and temporary settlements. Some were escaping unemployment. Some rejected consumer culture. Others simply wanted a different way of living. Many travelled in converted buses, coaches, ambulances and vans that doubled as homes.
To their supporters they represented freedom, creativity and resistance to conformity.
To their critics they represented disorder.
By 1984 tensions were reaching breaking point. The Stonehenge festival had become enormous. Estimates suggested attendance reached around 100,000 people. Concerns were raised about damage to the archaeological landscape, litter, unauthorised trading and open drug use. English Heritage, which had recently taken over management of the site, came under increasing pressure to act. Local authorities and police forces were equally determined that the gathering should not continue in its existing form. A High Court injunction was obtained to prevent the 1985 festival from taking place. The state had drawn a line.
On the morning of 1 June 1985, the Peace Convoy left Savernake Forest and began moving towards Stonehenge. Around 140 vehicles carried approximately 600 people. Many were families. Children were travelling alongside adults who had spent years living on the road. They knew there would be police opposition. Few appear to have anticipated what was waiting for them.
Police had prepared extensively.
The miners’ strike had ended only months earlier. During that bitter industrial conflict police forces had developed new methods of coordination, rapid deployment and large-scale public order operations. Senior officers later openly acknowledged that lessons learned during the strike had informed preparations for dealing with the travellers.
A four-mile exclusion zone had been established around Stonehenge. Roadblocks were prepared. Officers from multiple forces were assembled. Some estimates place police numbers at around 1,300. Others suggest even higher figures by the end of the operation.
The convoy encountered its first major roadblock near Shipton Bellinger, several miles from Stonehenge. According to police accounts, some traveller vehicles attempted to push through the blockade and rammed police vehicles. Travellers and independent witnesses tell a very different story. They describe a convoy seeking negotiation before finding itself trapped and surrounded.
Whatever happened during those first moments, the situation rapidly escalated.As vehicles attempted to leave the road and move into adjacent fields, police began smashing windows and making arrests. The convoy became scattered across farmland. Families were separated. Children became lost in the confusion. What followed would become one of the most infamous confrontations in modern British policing.
Television footage remains difficult to watch even now.
Officers in riot gear strike vehicle windows with truncheons. People are dragged from buses and vans. Terrified children can be seen inside shattered vehicles. Journalists and witnesses described police hitting men and women indiscriminately. Several accounts alleged pregnant women and individuals carrying babies were assaulted during the operation. Numerous vehicles that functioned as homes were systematically damaged.
The Earl of Cardigan, whose family owned Savernake Forest and who had followed the convoy on a motorcycle, later provided testimony that proved deeply damaging to official police narratives. He described officers rushing vehicles with drawn truncheons, shouting at occupants and creating scenes of intimidation and violence that contradicted many early police claims.
Journalists present that day reported similar concerns.
ITN footage captured scenes that shocked many viewers. Photographer Alan Lodge later described the event as an ambush rather than a battle. Others argued the very name “Battle of the Beanfield” created a misleading impression of two evenly matched sides. One side possessed riot shields, command structures, communications systems and overwhelming numerical superiority. The other consisted largely of civilians living in vehicles.
By the end of the operation, 537 people had been arrested. It remains one of the largest mass arrests of civilians in modern British history. Most of the charges eventually collapsed or were dismissed.
That fact alone raises uncomfortable questions.
If hundreds of supposedly dangerous lawbreakers had been lawfully apprehended while carrying out serious criminal acts, one might expect hundreds of successful prosecutions to follow. Instead, much of the legal case simply evaporated.
Years later, travellers successfully pursued civil actions against Wiltshire Police. Damages were awarded for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and property damage. One police sergeant was convicted of actual bodily harm arising from the events of that day.
Yet despite these outcomes, there has never been a full public inquiry.
Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield was about more than Stonehenge.
Looking back now, it feels impossible to separate it from the wider atmosphere of Britain in the mid-1980s. This was a country being transformed at extraordinary speed. Traditional industries were disappearing. Unemployment was soaring in many regions. Entire communities were fighting for survival. Alternative lifestyles increasingly found themselves portrayed as threats to public order rather than expressions of individual freedom.
For many people in mining and industrial areas, there is a recognisable pattern.
First comes the language.
A group is described as troublesome, outdated or undesirable.
Then comes the media narrative.
Then comes the justification.
Then comes the force.
That does not mean every traveller was a saint, any more than every miner was. Human beings are messy. Large gatherings bring problems. Some attendees at the Stonehenge festivals undoubtedly caused damage. Some individuals within the traveller movement undoubtedly committed crimes. A serious historical assessment has to acknowledge that reality. The archaeological concerns surrounding Stonehenge were genuine. Local residents had legitimate complaints. Authorities were entitled to seek solutions.
But none of that explains the scale of what happened on 1 June 1985.
The images of smashed homes, frightened children and riot police advancing across fields continue to disturb because they seem wildly disproportionate. They suggest a state determined not merely to enforce an injunction but to send a message.
And the message was received.
The traveller movement never fully recovered.
Legislation introduced during the following years increasingly restricted nomadic lifestyles and unauthorised gatherings. The Public Order Act 1986 and later the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 created new powers that made life significantly harder for travellers, free festivals and eventually the emerging rave culture.
In many ways the Beanfield became a blueprint. The same language used against travellers would later be applied to ravers, squatters, protesters and environmental activists. Alternative communities were increasingly framed not as citizens exercising freedoms but as public order problems requiring management.
Yet the legacy of the Beanfield refuses to disappear.
Songs were written about it. The Levellers turned it into a folk-punk anthem that introduced a new generation to the story. Hawkwind referenced it. Writers, filmmakers and activists kept returning to it. Every summer solstice the memory resurfaces among those who remember what happened.
Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield sits at the crossroads of so many larger questions.
Who gets to occupy public space?
Who decides what constitutes a legitimate way of living?
How much power should the state possess when dealing with communities that reject mainstream norms?
And perhaps most importantly of all, what happens when governments begin to see certain groups not as citizens but as enemies?
Forty years later those questions feel remarkably current.
The travellers who set out for Stonehenge in 1985 were not trying to overthrow the government. They were trying to reach a festival. They were trying to celebrate a solstice. They were trying, in their own eccentric and imperfect way, to live differently.
Many paid a heavy price for that.
For those of us who grew up watching pits close, furnaces go cold and communities written off as inconvenient relics of the past, the Beanfield feels like part of the same story. Different people. Different landscape. Different politics perhaps. But the same underlying lesson.
When power decides a group no longer belongs, it rarely begins with dialogue.
It begins with exclusion.
Then comes the roadblock.
Further Reading
Andy Worthington, The Battle of the Beanfield
Christopher Chippindale, Stoned Henge: Events and Issues at the Summer Solstice, 1985
Emma Hallett, BBC News, Summer Solstice: How the Stonehenge Battles Faded
Tony Thompson, The Observer, Twenty Years After, Mystery Still Clouds Battle of the Beanfield
English Heritage, Stonehenge 1977–85: A Dig in Time and a Confrontation
Copyright © Mysterious Times 2026. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from Mysterious Times, except in the case of brief quotations used for review, criticism or scholarly reference.
#1980sBritain #1985Events #AlternativeBritain #AlternativeCommunities #AlternativeLifestyles #BattleOfTheBeanfield #BritishCounterculture #BritishFolklore #BritishHistory #BritishProtestCulture #BritishSociety #BritishSubcultures #CivilLiberties #CivilRights #ContemporaryHistory #CounterculturalHistory #Counterculture #CountercultureHistory #culturalHeritage #CulturalResistance #Druidry #EnglishCountryside #EnglishHeritage #FestivalCulture #ForgottenHistory #FreeFestivals #FreeSpiritBritain #FreedomOfMovement #Hampshire #HiddenHistory #HistoricalAnalysis #HistoricalConflict #HistoricalControversies #HistoricalMysteries #HistoryFeatures #LongReadHistory #LostBritain #MargaretThatcher #MiningCommunities #ModernBritishMythology #ModernFolklore #ModernLegends #MysteriousTimes #NewAgeMovement #NewAgeTravellers #Paganism #PeaceConvoy #PeopleSHistory #PoliceHistory #PoliticalHistory #ProtestHistory #ProtestMovements #PublicOrder #RoadProtestHistory #RuralEngland #SocialChange #SocialCommentary #socialHistory #SocialJustice #SolsticeCelebrations #SolsticeTraditions #StatePower #Stonehenge #StonehengeFreeFestival #StonehengeHistory #SummerSolstice #ThatcherEra #Thatcherism #TravellerMovement #TravellerRights #TravellingCommunities #UKHistory #UndergroundBritain #UnofficialBritain #Wiltshire #WorkingClassHistory #YorkshireHistory -
🤯 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
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Don't miss Eben Moglen's "Snowden and the Future — Part IV: Freedom's Future"! A compelling deep dive on surveillance, privacy, and how to defend digital freedom. Thought-provoking and urgent — perfect for anyone who cares about rights online. #EbenMoglen #Snowden #Privacy #DigitalRights #Surveillance #Freedom #CivilLiberties #LaQuadratureDuNet #PeerTube #English
https://video.linuxtrent.it/videos/watch/f65e64f8-cd90-426f-8bc7-cfbeb1f1cb4c -
EFFecting Change: Get the #Flock Out of Our City
Flock contracts have quietly spread to cities across the country. But Flock #ALPR erode #civilLiberties from the moment they're installed. While officials claim these #cameras keep neighborhoods safe, evidence tells a diff story. The data reveals how Flock has enabled #surveillance of people seeking #abortions , #protesters exercising #FirstAmendment #rights , & communities targeted by #discriminatory policing
#privacyhttps://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/effecting-change-get-flock-out-our-city
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EFFecting Change: Get the Flock Out of Our City
February 19, 2026 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm PST Online
But #Flock #ALPR erode #civilliberties from the moment they're installed. While officials claim these #cameras keep neighborhoods safe, the #evidence tells a different story. The data reveals how Flock has enabled #surveillance of people seeking #abortions , #protesters exercising #FirstAmendment #rights , and communities targeted by discriminatory policing.
#privacyhttps://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-get-flock-out-our-city
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"You were born gay, and you 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘤𝘵 gay" seems very antithetical to the whole purpose of the LGBTQ movement: increased sexual/marriage freedom.
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2025 #Elections : #Voters Came Out in Record Numbers to Defend Key #CivilLiberties Issues Across the Country
Across the country, voters took to the ballot box to make their voices heard on Tuesday. The results overwhelmingly demonstrate that voters want leaders who will push against the #Trump administration’s cruel policies and abuses of power and work to make life better for the American people.
#2025elections -
The Kavanaugh Stop’s Legacy: 50 Days, 170+ Detained Citizens, Zero Answers
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U.S. #deportees, freed from #Salvadoran #prison, describe ‘horror movie’. 3 #Venezuelans released last week from #Terrorism #Confinement Center repeatedly #beaten denied access to #lawyers. #civilliberties #maga #trump #gop #republicans #courts US paid #NayibBukele $6 million to hold hundreds of #migrants rounded up in Trump’s mass removals — many without ties to #ElSalvador, many without #criminal charges — at the world’s largest prison. Free link WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/07/22/salvador-cecot-detainee-describes-beatings/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzUzMTU2ODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzU0NTM5MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3NTMxNTY4MDAsImp0aSI6IjgzNGM5Mjc2LWQwOWUtNGQwOC1hODdiLWZhMWJkYmQ0ZTc1ZSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS93b3JsZC8yMDI1LzA3LzIyL3NhbHZhZG9yLWNlY290LWRldGFpbmVlLWRlc2NyaWJlcy1iZWF0aW5ncy8ifQ.ItxKO60K_zj4bEqQUIfpnTTLmpPTcUEvaI6nuIxLcbg #democracy
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#Texas just gutted #FreeSpeech on #college #campuses. Is your state next?
New laws in the Lone Star State will silence dissent and undermine #faculty authority.
By Laura Benitez and Jonathan Friedman
July 14, 2025"As thousands of students return to college campuses this fall, they will find themselves stepping into an environment reshaped by political and ideological mandates. Across the country, state legislators have been racing to exert new influence over free expression in higher education. Now, Texas has surged to the forefront, closing its 2025 legislative session by passing two alarming laws that take effect Sept. 1.
"Signed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in June, the new laws amount to a stunningly aggressive legislative crackdown on campus protest (#SB2972) and academic shared governance (#SB37) at public colleges and universities. The laws will not just silence dissent and undermine faculty authority in Texas; they provide a blueprint for how to dismantle academic freedom and chill speech on campus state by state.
"Only a few years ago, conservative lawmakers railed against college 'free-speech zones,' arguing that liberal administrators were muzzling students on the rest of campus. In 2019, Texas legislators joined other states in taking action by declaring all outdoor spaces on public campuses open for protest and speech by students, employees and the general public.
"Now, some of the same legislators have done an about-face. The campus protest law actually directs public colleges and universities to implement a version of free-speech zones and adopt sweeping limitations on protests. #Encampments? Banned. #Megaphones or #speakers during 'class hours'? Forbidden — if anyone claims your 'expressive activity' is one that 'intimidates others' or 'interferes' with an employee’s duties. Even wearing a mask during a protest — something many do for safety — could land a student or employee a disciplinary hearing resulting in 'sanctions.' And any expressive activity between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. is off-limits altogether."
Read more:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/14/texas-campus-free-speech/Archived version:
https://archive.ph/2LuBD#TexasProtestLaws #ProtestLaws #ProtestLawsTexas #Project2025 #AntiProtestLaws #Authoritarianism #SilencingFreeSpeech #Censorship #AcademicFreedom #AntiMaskLaws #Fascism #USPol #CivilLiberties #Texas
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Police arrest 83-year-old at silent protest against Palestine Action ban
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyGOmqk_XsQ
“we are losing our civil liberties”
Police in London have arrested an 83-year-old woman for holding a sign expressing support for Palestine Action, the activist group was recently proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000.
#London #Protest #CivilLiberties #AbuseOfPower #Terrorism #WarCrimes #AntiGenocide #SilencingDissent #PalestineSolidarity #StandUpFightBack #CriminalGovernment #UK
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How Civilian Phone Civil Liberties are Violated
https://archive.org/details/DanielRigmaiden-AaronSwartzDay2017
#AaronSwartz #cut #suicide #AaronSwartzDay
#Feds #AdministrativeSubpoena #IMEI #NIC #BaseTransciever #CellSiteSimulator #Masquerade
DRT Inc. , Key/w --> #ThirdParty #CivilLiberties
#LEAP - Local Number Portability Enhanced Analytical Platform
#ISP #Cellular #PenLink #E911 #ACABhttps://archive.org/
subject:“Cell Phone Surveillance”
#Brax #Phone #iodeOS #HighWare -
2/2 US Protest Law Tracker - Updates to #Federal #Protest Laws introduced in 2025.
Latest updates: Jun. 10, 2025 (US Federal)
#S982: Potential penalties for #universities based on protest #policies
Would make federal accreditation of colleges and universities—and thus their access to federal funds—contingent on the institution’s policies on responding to protests. Under the “No Tax Dollars for College #Encampments Act of 2024,” universities would have to regularly disclose how they respond to campus “incidents of civil disturbance,” defined to include “a demonstration, riot, or strike,” and their accreditation would be linked to such policies and practices. The bill sponsor cited #ProPalestine campus protests as motivation for the bill; he introduced the same bill in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/982)
Status: pending
Introduced 12 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Riot#HR2065: Harsh penalties for protesters who conceal their identity
Would make it a federal crime, subject to a lengthy prison sentence, to wear a #mask or other disguise while protesting in an "intimidating" or “oppressive” way. Under the “Unmasking Hamas Act,” anyone "in disguise, including while wearing a mask" who "injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person" exercising their constitutional rights could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison as well as fined. The bill does not define “oppress,” nor does the bill specify what is meant by “disguise,” other than that it includes a “mask.” The bill’s substantive provisions are identical to the “Unmasking Antifa Act,” which lawmakers have introduced in several previous sessions. Sponsors of the bill made clear that it is a response to pro-Palestine protesters, some of whom have worn masks to avoid retaliation.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2065/text?s=1&r=64&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22actionDate%3A%5C%22119%7C2025-03-11%5C%22+AND+%28billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22+OR+type%3A%5C%22AMENDMENT%5C%22%29%22%7D)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): #FaceCoveringS 937: Barring student protesters from federal loans and loan forgiveness
Would exclude student protesters from federal financial aid and loan forgiveness if they commit any crime at a campus protest. The bill would cover someone convicted of “any offense” under “any Federal or State law” that is “related to the individual’s conduct at and during the course of a protest” at a college or university. As such, a student convicted of even a nonviolent, state law misdemeanor at a campus protest, such as failing to disperse, would be deemed ineligible for federal student loans; they would also be ineligible for having existing federal loans forgiven, cancelled, waived or modified. The sponsor of the bill said it was a response to pro-Palestine protests at colleges and universities.
(Read full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/937)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Limit on Public Benefits#HR1057: Penalties for protesters on interstate #highways
Would create steep new penalties for protesters deemed to be “deliberately delaying traffic,” “standing or approaching a motor vehicle,” or “endangering the safe movement of a motor vehicle” on an interstate highway “with the intent to obstruct the free, convenient, and normal use of the interstate highway.” The new federal offense would be punishable by up to $10,000 and 15 years in prison—a far harsher penalty than is the case under many states' laws, which generally already criminalize walking or standing on the highway. The bill provides an exception for “any lawful activity” authorized by federal, state, or local law. However, it could still seemingly cover far more than “blocking” the interstate, including a peaceful protest on the shoulder of an interstate or a convoy-style, driving protest that slowed traffic. The sponsor of the bill made clear that it was in response to protesters. The same bill was introduced as HR 7349 in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1057)
Status: pending
Introduced 6 Feb 2025.
Issue(s): #TrafficInterference#ProtestLaws #protestors #protestors_in_prison #CivilLiberties #Fascism #USA #USPol #NoKings #Project2025 #TrumpIsAFascist
-
2/2 US Protest Law Tracker - Updates to #Federal #Protest Laws introduced in 2025.
Latest updates: Jun. 10, 2025 (US Federal)
#S982: Potential penalties for #universities based on protest #policies
Would make federal accreditation of colleges and universities—and thus their access to federal funds—contingent on the institution’s policies on responding to protests. Under the “No Tax Dollars for College #Encampments Act of 2024,” universities would have to regularly disclose how they respond to campus “incidents of civil disturbance,” defined to include “a demonstration, riot, or strike,” and their accreditation would be linked to such policies and practices. The bill sponsor cited #ProPalestine campus protests as motivation for the bill; he introduced the same bill in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/982)
Status: pending
Introduced 12 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Riot#HR2065: Harsh penalties for protesters who conceal their identity
Would make it a federal crime, subject to a lengthy prison sentence, to wear a #mask or other disguise while protesting in an "intimidating" or “oppressive” way. Under the “Unmasking Hamas Act,” anyone "in disguise, including while wearing a mask" who "injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person" exercising their constitutional rights could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison as well as fined. The bill does not define “oppress,” nor does the bill specify what is meant by “disguise,” other than that it includes a “mask.” The bill’s substantive provisions are identical to the “Unmasking Antifa Act,” which lawmakers have introduced in several previous sessions. Sponsors of the bill made clear that it is a response to pro-Palestine protesters, some of whom have worn masks to avoid retaliation.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2065/text?s=1&r=64&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22actionDate%3A%5C%22119%7C2025-03-11%5C%22+AND+%28billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22+OR+type%3A%5C%22AMENDMENT%5C%22%29%22%7D)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): #FaceCoveringS 937: Barring student protesters from federal loans and loan forgiveness
Would exclude student protesters from federal financial aid and loan forgiveness if they commit any crime at a campus protest. The bill would cover someone convicted of “any offense” under “any Federal or State law” that is “related to the individual’s conduct at and during the course of a protest” at a college or university. As such, a student convicted of even a nonviolent, state law misdemeanor at a campus protest, such as failing to disperse, would be deemed ineligible for federal student loans; they would also be ineligible for having existing federal loans forgiven, cancelled, waived or modified. The sponsor of the bill said it was a response to pro-Palestine protests at colleges and universities.
(Read full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/937)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Limit on Public Benefits#HR1057: Penalties for protesters on interstate #highways
Would create steep new penalties for protesters deemed to be “deliberately delaying traffic,” “standing or approaching a motor vehicle,” or “endangering the safe movement of a motor vehicle” on an interstate highway “with the intent to obstruct the free, convenient, and normal use of the interstate highway.” The new federal offense would be punishable by up to $10,000 and 15 years in prison—a far harsher penalty than is the case under many states' laws, which generally already criminalize walking or standing on the highway. The bill provides an exception for “any lawful activity” authorized by federal, state, or local law. However, it could still seemingly cover far more than “blocking” the interstate, including a peaceful protest on the shoulder of an interstate or a convoy-style, driving protest that slowed traffic. The sponsor of the bill made clear that it was in response to protesters. The same bill was introduced as HR 7349 in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1057)
Status: pending
Introduced 6 Feb 2025.
Issue(s): #TrafficInterference#ProtestLaws #protestors #protestors_in_prison #CivilLiberties #Fascism #USA #USPol #NoKings #Project2025 #TrumpIsAFascist
-
2/2 US Protest Law Tracker - Updates to #Federal #Protest Laws introduced in 2025.
Latest updates: Jun. 10, 2025 (US Federal)
#S982: Potential penalties for #universities based on protest #policies
Would make federal accreditation of colleges and universities—and thus their access to federal funds—contingent on the institution’s policies on responding to protests. Under the “No Tax Dollars for College #Encampments Act of 2024,” universities would have to regularly disclose how they respond to campus “incidents of civil disturbance,” defined to include “a demonstration, riot, or strike,” and their accreditation would be linked to such policies and practices. The bill sponsor cited #ProPalestine campus protests as motivation for the bill; he introduced the same bill in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/982)
Status: pending
Introduced 12 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Riot#HR2065: Harsh penalties for protesters who conceal their identity
Would make it a federal crime, subject to a lengthy prison sentence, to wear a #mask or other disguise while protesting in an "intimidating" or “oppressive” way. Under the “Unmasking Hamas Act,” anyone "in disguise, including while wearing a mask" who "injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person" exercising their constitutional rights could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison as well as fined. The bill does not define “oppress,” nor does the bill specify what is meant by “disguise,” other than that it includes a “mask.” The bill’s substantive provisions are identical to the “Unmasking Antifa Act,” which lawmakers have introduced in several previous sessions. Sponsors of the bill made clear that it is a response to pro-Palestine protesters, some of whom have worn masks to avoid retaliation.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2065/text?s=1&r=64&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22actionDate%3A%5C%22119%7C2025-03-11%5C%22+AND+%28billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22+OR+type%3A%5C%22AMENDMENT%5C%22%29%22%7D)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): #FaceCoveringS 937: Barring student protesters from federal loans and loan forgiveness
Would exclude student protesters from federal financial aid and loan forgiveness if they commit any crime at a campus protest. The bill would cover someone convicted of “any offense” under “any Federal or State law” that is “related to the individual’s conduct at and during the course of a protest” at a college or university. As such, a student convicted of even a nonviolent, state law misdemeanor at a campus protest, such as failing to disperse, would be deemed ineligible for federal student loans; they would also be ineligible for having existing federal loans forgiven, cancelled, waived or modified. The sponsor of the bill said it was a response to pro-Palestine protests at colleges and universities.
(Read full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/937)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Limit on Public Benefits#HR1057: Penalties for protesters on interstate #highways
Would create steep new penalties for protesters deemed to be “deliberately delaying traffic,” “standing or approaching a motor vehicle,” or “endangering the safe movement of a motor vehicle” on an interstate highway “with the intent to obstruct the free, convenient, and normal use of the interstate highway.” The new federal offense would be punishable by up to $10,000 and 15 years in prison—a far harsher penalty than is the case under many states' laws, which generally already criminalize walking or standing on the highway. The bill provides an exception for “any lawful activity” authorized by federal, state, or local law. However, it could still seemingly cover far more than “blocking” the interstate, including a peaceful protest on the shoulder of an interstate or a convoy-style, driving protest that slowed traffic. The sponsor of the bill made clear that it was in response to protesters. The same bill was introduced as HR 7349 in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1057)
Status: pending
Introduced 6 Feb 2025.
Issue(s): #TrafficInterference#ProtestLaws #protestors #protestors_in_prison #CivilLiberties #Fascism #USA #USPol #NoKings #Project2025 #TrumpIsAFascist
-
2/2 US Protest Law Tracker - Updates to #Federal #Protest Laws introduced in 2025.
Latest updates: Jun. 10, 2025 (US Federal)
#S982: Potential penalties for #universities based on protest #policies
Would make federal accreditation of colleges and universities—and thus their access to federal funds—contingent on the institution’s policies on responding to protests. Under the “No Tax Dollars for College #Encampments Act of 2024,” universities would have to regularly disclose how they respond to campus “incidents of civil disturbance,” defined to include “a demonstration, riot, or strike,” and their accreditation would be linked to such policies and practices. The bill sponsor cited #ProPalestine campus protests as motivation for the bill; he introduced the same bill in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/982)
Status: pending
Introduced 12 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Riot#HR2065: Harsh penalties for protesters who conceal their identity
Would make it a federal crime, subject to a lengthy prison sentence, to wear a #mask or other disguise while protesting in an "intimidating" or “oppressive” way. Under the “Unmasking Hamas Act,” anyone "in disguise, including while wearing a mask" who "injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person" exercising their constitutional rights could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison as well as fined. The bill does not define “oppress,” nor does the bill specify what is meant by “disguise,” other than that it includes a “mask.” The bill’s substantive provisions are identical to the “Unmasking Antifa Act,” which lawmakers have introduced in several previous sessions. Sponsors of the bill made clear that it is a response to pro-Palestine protesters, some of whom have worn masks to avoid retaliation.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2065/text?s=1&r=64&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22actionDate%3A%5C%22119%7C2025-03-11%5C%22+AND+%28billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22+OR+type%3A%5C%22AMENDMENT%5C%22%29%22%7D)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): #FaceCoveringS 937: Barring student protesters from federal loans and loan forgiveness
Would exclude student protesters from federal financial aid and loan forgiveness if they commit any crime at a campus protest. The bill would cover someone convicted of “any offense” under “any Federal or State law” that is “related to the individual’s conduct at and during the course of a protest” at a college or university. As such, a student convicted of even a nonviolent, state law misdemeanor at a campus protest, such as failing to disperse, would be deemed ineligible for federal student loans; they would also be ineligible for having existing federal loans forgiven, cancelled, waived or modified. The sponsor of the bill said it was a response to pro-Palestine protests at colleges and universities.
(Read full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/937)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Limit on Public Benefits#HR1057: Penalties for protesters on interstate #highways
Would create steep new penalties for protesters deemed to be “deliberately delaying traffic,” “standing or approaching a motor vehicle,” or “endangering the safe movement of a motor vehicle” on an interstate highway “with the intent to obstruct the free, convenient, and normal use of the interstate highway.” The new federal offense would be punishable by up to $10,000 and 15 years in prison—a far harsher penalty than is the case under many states' laws, which generally already criminalize walking or standing on the highway. The bill provides an exception for “any lawful activity” authorized by federal, state, or local law. However, it could still seemingly cover far more than “blocking” the interstate, including a peaceful protest on the shoulder of an interstate or a convoy-style, driving protest that slowed traffic. The sponsor of the bill made clear that it was in response to protesters. The same bill was introduced as HR 7349 in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1057)
Status: pending
Introduced 6 Feb 2025.
Issue(s): #TrafficInterference#ProtestLaws #protestors #protestors_in_prison #CivilLiberties #Fascism #USA #USPol #NoKings #Project2025 #TrumpIsAFascist
-
2/2 US Protest Law Tracker - Updates to #Federal #Protest Laws introduced in 2025.
Latest updates: Jun. 10, 2025 (US Federal)
#S982: Potential penalties for #universities based on protest #policies
Would make federal accreditation of colleges and universities—and thus their access to federal funds—contingent on the institution’s policies on responding to protests. Under the “No Tax Dollars for College #Encampments Act of 2024,” universities would have to regularly disclose how they respond to campus “incidents of civil disturbance,” defined to include “a demonstration, riot, or strike,” and their accreditation would be linked to such policies and practices. The bill sponsor cited #ProPalestine campus protests as motivation for the bill; he introduced the same bill in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/982)
Status: pending
Introduced 12 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Riot#HR2065: Harsh penalties for protesters who conceal their identity
Would make it a federal crime, subject to a lengthy prison sentence, to wear a #mask or other disguise while protesting in an "intimidating" or “oppressive” way. Under the “Unmasking Hamas Act,” anyone "in disguise, including while wearing a mask" who "injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person" exercising their constitutional rights could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison as well as fined. The bill does not define “oppress,” nor does the bill specify what is meant by “disguise,” other than that it includes a “mask.” The bill’s substantive provisions are identical to the “Unmasking Antifa Act,” which lawmakers have introduced in several previous sessions. Sponsors of the bill made clear that it is a response to pro-Palestine protesters, some of whom have worn masks to avoid retaliation.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2065/text?s=1&r=64&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22actionDate%3A%5C%22119%7C2025-03-11%5C%22+AND+%28billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22+OR+type%3A%5C%22AMENDMENT%5C%22%29%22%7D)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): #FaceCoveringS 937: Barring student protesters from federal loans and loan forgiveness
Would exclude student protesters from federal financial aid and loan forgiveness if they commit any crime at a campus protest. The bill would cover someone convicted of “any offense” under “any Federal or State law” that is “related to the individual’s conduct at and during the course of a protest” at a college or university. As such, a student convicted of even a nonviolent, state law misdemeanor at a campus protest, such as failing to disperse, would be deemed ineligible for federal student loans; they would also be ineligible for having existing federal loans forgiven, cancelled, waived or modified. The sponsor of the bill said it was a response to pro-Palestine protests at colleges and universities.
(Read full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/937)
Status: pending
Introduced 11 Mar 2025.
Issue(s): Campus Protests, Limit on Public Benefits#HR1057: Penalties for protesters on interstate #highways
Would create steep new penalties for protesters deemed to be “deliberately delaying traffic,” “standing or approaching a motor vehicle,” or “endangering the safe movement of a motor vehicle” on an interstate highway “with the intent to obstruct the free, convenient, and normal use of the interstate highway.” The new federal offense would be punishable by up to $10,000 and 15 years in prison—a far harsher penalty than is the case under many states' laws, which generally already criminalize walking or standing on the highway. The bill provides an exception for “any lawful activity” authorized by federal, state, or local law. However, it could still seemingly cover far more than “blocking” the interstate, including a peaceful protest on the shoulder of an interstate or a convoy-style, driving protest that slowed traffic. The sponsor of the bill made clear that it was in response to protesters. The same bill was introduced as HR 7349 in 2024.
(Full text of bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1057)
Status: pending
Introduced 6 Feb 2025.
Issue(s): #TrafficInterference#ProtestLaws #protestors #protestors_in_prison #CivilLiberties #Fascism #USA #USPol #NoKings #Project2025 #TrumpIsAFascist
-
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 InterferenceHeightened 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): RiotHR 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 -
#anncavoukian #CanadianCharter #CanadianConstitutionFoundation #canadianlaw #civilliberties #constitutionalrights #digitalsurveillancecanada #distracteddriving #dominicnaimool #dronepolicing #dronesurveillance #joshdehaas #KingstonPolice #lawenforcementtechnology #legalchallenge #personalprivacy #policedrones #policetechnologyethics #privacyrights #publicsafety #Section8 #surveillancecontroversy #trafficenforcement #unreasonablesearchandseizure
