Free Republic

The Internet has become a tool for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to keep its citizens in place. Through the web, the government surveils their every move and puts them behind bars if their online behavior is not in line with Beijing’s sentiment. Recently, Chinese officials began developing a social credit system in which the government keeps what amounts to an Internet credibility score on each citizen. Experts discussed the system during the ongoing China Forum in Washington, D.C., which they say reveals a real-world 1984-style totalitarian state in the making. “It will mark the rival of an unprecedented information...

Why is the the Confederate Battle Flag/culture under 1st Amendment attack (the Right of free speech) because 1 lone nut killed 9 people in a church? However, these same "brave" politicians/media DO NOT HOLD THE SAME STANDARD..., to the culture that killed over 3000 people on September 11th, 2001? Oh I know... because we cannot blame an entire group of people for what happened by 19 nuts on September 11th, 2001. Okay so then why are we now blaming an entire group of people for 1 lone nut? Just saying....

Everywhere we turn the Democrats are sounding more like Benito Mussolini every day. They’ve become the fascist party. Fascism is a system of government where the party in power forcibly suppresses opposition and criticism. We’re seeing over the issue of same-sex sexuality, ‘gay rights,’ homosexuality, whatever you want to call it. Any opposition will be shut down, fined, and put out of business. The call for toleration is the foot in the door to political, economic, and social repression, and once the objective has been achieved, toleration discarded. The ideological door is now shut. No more debates, and you will...

The internet is under assault. At the Federal Communications Commission, regulators are hard at work crafting a plan that would turn the internet into a taxable utility. In Congress, lawmakers are determining whether and how best to tax the sales that occur on the internet. And over at the Federal Election Commission, the regulation of political speech that takes place on the internet is back on the table. In October, then FEC Vice Chairwoman Ann M. Ravel promised that she would renew a push to regulate online political speech following a deadlocked commission vote that would have subjected political videos...

It has taken five-and-a-half years to learn that the Obama administration has been censoring White House print pool reports—and that the media has quietly acquiesced until now. The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi reported Tuesday evening that the Obama administration has abused its role as distributor for the print pool reports by exercising prior restraint on the reports. Farhi cites numerous instances where the Obama press office refused to release pool reports until changes demanded by Obama operatives were made. Farhi reports several examples of reporters acquiescing to Obama’s censorship of the media. Farhi reports on the Washington Post caving twice...

The Faith & Freedom Coalition demanded Monday the release of a secret legal agreement between the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice and atheist organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation charging that it is likely to censor churches by "potentially infringing upon their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association". The agreement was reached on July 17 in federal court to settle a lawsuit filed by the FFRF in 2012. The group celebrated it as a victory last month. "We're proud that FFRF's litigation should ensure that the IRS will now resume enforcing the law, and go...

"I just Googled “America showtimes” and got one hit towards the bottom which redirects you to a different site that makes you have to click another couple times before finding showtimes. For pretty much every other single movie you google the title and showtimes and the first hit is showtimes at the theaters nearest you."

I have an OCD -- Whenever I read a story about a particularly gruesome or senseless crime I have a compulsion to search the names and check their race. I've been doing this for years. Now all a sudden, I'm having difficulties getting hits on the names to get the pictures up. Bing and Google have been problematic in that they aren't returning valid results, just usually hodgepodge of unrelated pictures. Anybody else experiencing similar? And if anybody else has a similar compunction, what search techniques do you think are best?

The Los Angeles Times is giving the cold shoulder to global warming skeptics. Paul Thornton, editor of the paper’s letters section, recently wrote a letter of his own, stating flatly that he won't publish some letters from those skeptical of man’s role in our planet’s warming climate. In Thornton’s eyes, those people are often wrong -- and he doesn’t print obviously wrong statements.

It's a small sign with a big message, but Bartow residents are now being ordered to uproot their "God Bless America" yard signs. About 300 of the signs were handed out at First Baptist Church of Bartow following a Fourth of July sermon. But three months later, City of Bartow Code Enforcement says the temporary signs have worn out their welcome. Residents have three days to pack it up or pay a minimum fine of $25 a day. "Being a veteran, I felt like I was just kicked in the gut. I couldn't believe it, that I couldn't display my...

He brutally killed unborn babies by jamming medical scissors in the back of their necks, but the major network television stations have engaged in a blackout of coverage of his murder trial. To response, 20 prominent leaders of the conservative movement have joined Media Research Center President Brent Bozell in demanding the broadcast networks stop censoring coverage. They are also upset at the lack of coverage of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates lobbyist who testified in favor of allowing the killing of children who survive botched abortions. MRC’s Culture and Media Institute finds that ABC, CBS, and NBC...

A French judge will decide this week if Twitter must hand over the identities of users sending anti-Semitic tweets. The case, brought against Twitter by a Jewish student organization, pits America's free speech guarantees against Europe's laws banning hate speech.The controversy began in October, when the French Union of Jewish Students threatened to sue Twitter to get the names of people posting anti-Semitic tweets with the hashtag #unbonjuif, or "a good Jew.""If I type 'un bon Juif' ... I can see it was full of tweets against Jews," says Eli Petit, vice president of the Jewish student organization. "It was...

For the first time ever, Twitter censored a controversial account at the request of local government earlier this week. It was run by neo-Nazis. The ban, which is the first of its kind under a relatively new Twitter policy that gives the company "the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country -- while keeping it available in the rest of the world." As such, the ban is only effective in Germany.

The group opposes a law curtailing Jew hatred.Breaking news: CAIR, perennial agitator for language purges and “hate speech” regulation, is suddenly the champion of First Amendment free expression. It proves, once again, that Islamists and leftists are just like defense lawyers. A defense lawyer who has a good case can be very persuasive. If the defendant really is innocent, or if the prosecution’s case really is flawed, defense counsel can take one main line of defense and pound away at it relentlessly. That is how doubt is sown, which is the defense lawyer’s objective. A credible story that the prosecutor...

As far as diet goes, I believe you should adhere to the old adage “everything in moderation” and avoid extreme regimens of all kinds. I don’t know what you think of this counsel, but North Carolina’s position seems to be the following: I just broke the law. Blogger Steven Cooksey found this out the hard way — when the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition ordered him to take down part of his diet-advice website. The 51-year-old resident of Stanley, North Carolina, became passionate about nutrition after a 2009 hospitalization during which he learned he had Type II diabetes and was...

It's been a cheerily good spring for FOSS fans here in the Linux blogosphere, so we may perhaps be forgiven for our utter shock and disbelief at the affront recently committed against us by a certain brick-and-mortar purveyor of books and magazines. Yes, that's right -- it's Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) Linux Girl is referring to; specifically, its decision to yank the very excellent Linux Format magazine from its U.S. shelves -- apparently because of a cover story on the topic of "hacking.""We've just learned that issue 154 of Linux Format, the one with 'Learn to Hack' on the...

Two Christians Prosecuted for Reading the Bible in Public Faith Issues/Christian Newswire Yesterday, a trial court in Riverside County, California, heard arguments why the prosecution's case should be dismissed in the case of People v. Brett Coronado. Advocates for Faith & Freedom are defending Pastor Brett Coronado and Mark Mackey on misdemeanor charges after they were arrested in front of a California DMV while Mr. Mackey was reading the Bible out loud. The incident took place on February 2, 2011, in front of a group waiting for the DMV to open for business. This case has generated national news, such...

A Marine sergeant who started a Facebook group that is openly critical of President Barack Obama and posted comments saying he will not follow the unlawful orders of the commander in chief is facing possible dismissal from the Corps.

A local radio station has yanked the Rush Limbaugh Show from its airwaves in response to remarks in which the controversial talk-show host called a female law student a "slut" and "prostitute" over her support of health insurance coverage of birth control. On Monday, AM 1420 WBEC , along with KPUA in Hilo Hawaii, dropped the weekday syndicated program because of Limbaugh’s offensive remarks last week toward Sandra Fluke. "Certainly his comments were outrageous," said WBEC General Manager Peter Barry. "There’s no reason to resort to derogatory comments." WBEC and KPUA are the first of the 645 stations that air...

A Glimpse Of The Future Under SOPA: Warner Bros. Admits It Filed Many False Takedown Notices from the is-this-what-we-want? dept While entertainment industry execs still continue to pretend that it's obvious when things are infringing, they continually ignore the very real concerns raised by many of us about SOPA/PROTECT IP/ICE seizures. The concern isn't about taking down the infringing content. It's about the overreach of these efforts, and how it can and will be used to take down other, legal content. This is not some hypothetical scenario. We hear about bogus DMCA notices being issued all the time, and...