Free Republic

The city council in Jacksonville, Florida, has taken up a proposal that, if approved, would make it illegal for residents to park their cars in any manner that prevents law enforcement from seeing their rear license plates from the street. For those who live in single-family homes with off-street parking, such a law would make backing into the driveway to park an illegal act. Florida is among a handful of states that don’t require car owners to display license plates at the front of their cars. The proposed local bill would also require people who use car covers to figure...

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents who detained conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe at the airport specifically asked him about the work he’s done investigating the “federal government.”O’Keefe was detained by U.S. customs agents Monday after arriving at the airport in Nassau, Bahamas en route to Miami. Agents told O’Keefe that he was being detained for crossing back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border while dressed as Osama bin Laden in a video that was published by The Daily Caller. Agents marked his passport with an “X” and explained that he would be detained every time he enters U.S. territory henceforth....

“Free worlders” is prison slang for those who are not incarcerated behind prison walls. Supposedly, those fortunate souls live in the “free world.” However, appearances can be deceiving. “As I got closer to retiring from the Federal Bureau of Prisons,” writes former prison employee Marlon Brock, “it began to dawn on me that the security practices we used in the prison system were being implemented outside those walls.” In fact, if Brock is right, then we “free worlders” do live in a prison—albeit, one without visible walls. In federal prisons, cameras are everywhere in order to maintain “security” and keep...

The United States Department of Justice is using federal grand jury subpoenas to identify anonymous commenters engaged in typical internet bluster and hyperbole in connection with the Silk Road prosecution. DOJ is targeting Reason.com, a leading libertarian website whose clever writing is eclipsed only by the blowhard stupidity of its commenting peanut gallery. Why are the government using its vast power to identify these obnoxious asshats, and not the other tens of thousands who plague the internet? Because these twerps mouthed off about a judge. Last week, a source provided me with a federal grand jury subpoena. The subpoena1, issued...

link only: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/kalief-browder-1993-2015

WASHINGTON — In a remarkable reversal of national security policy formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Senate voted on Tuesday to curtail the federal government’s sweeping surveillance of American phone records, sending the legislation to President Obama’s desk for his signature. The passage of the measure, achieved after a vigorous debate on the Senate floor, will lead to the reinstatement of government surveillance efforts that were blacked out on Monday after Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, blocked their extension. The vote was a rebuke to Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, as...

The McLennan County Re-Education Camp Neither the United States Department of Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Governor of Texas, the President of the United States nor any of the score of smurfs and fools currently running for President has so far dared to come to the defense of the scores of men and at least two women who remain unjustly imprisoned under cruel and unusual circumstances in the McLennan County Jail. The Southern Nevada Confederation of Clubs has stated that the jail is desperately overcrowded, that some prisoners are not being fed and that others cannot...

The FBI is operating a small air force to spy on Americans Associated Press Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan and Eric Tucker, Associated Press Jun. 2, 2015, WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned. The planes' surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge's approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency...

The Department of Justice is concentrating on “far-right” groups in a new study of social media usage aimed at combatting violent extremism. The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded Michigan State University $585,719 for the study, which was praised by Eric Holder, the former attorney general, earlier this year. “There is currently limited knowledge of the role of technology and computer mediated communications (CMCs), such as Facebook and Twitter, in the dissemination of messages that promote extremist agendas and radicalize individuals to violence,” according to the NIJ grant. “The proposed study will address this gap through a series...

Obama’s Department of Justice is working on “more than a dozen” new gun control regulations it plans to begin implementing apart from Congress. Some of the regulations are set to be put in place by November, others simply by the end of the Obama administration. According to The Hill, “the regulations range from new restrictions on high-powered pistols to gun storage requirements” and the issuance of “new rules expanding criteria for people who do not quality for gun ownership.” Part and parcel to this new “criteria” will be an ATF-implemented ban on gun ownership for anyone “convicted of a misdemeanor...

President Obama pressured the Senate on Saturday to immediately authorize the USA Freedom Act. “Today, I’m calling on Americans to join me in speaking with one voice to the Senate,” Obama said in his weekly address. “Put the politics aside,” he said. “Put our national security first. Pass the USA Freedom Act — now.”

“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not.”— Arthur Rizer, former civilian police officer and member of the military Only now—after the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense have passed off billions of dollars worth of military equipment...

Behind the orchestrated riots that were allowed to strike Baltimore in recent weeks, and Ferguson, Missouri, before that, lies an agenda that has nothing to do with the fact that “Black Lives Matter.” As the Obama administration and more than a few race-mongers allied with the White House have already made clear, the real goal involves further chipping away at local self-government and community control over police departments — and expanding federal control over local law enforcement in its place. In between fanning the division and unrest with racialist rhetoric, Obama is also exploiting the chaos he is helping to...

For close to 20 years now, I’ve been observing and reporting on a disturbing trend in law enforcement – the federalization and militarization of local police forces. Until recently, practically no one noticed what was happening. But with the focus on police shootings and the civil disturbances that have followed – sometimes involving tanks, military-style gear and Kevlar – it’s hard not to notice that local cops don’t exactly look like Officer Joe Bolton anymore. It was none other than Al Sharpton (I won’t call him reverend) who suggested recently that the answer to the use of excessive force by...

(You will hear and obey me) Baltimore will soon be the first national police force that Obama promised and Al Sharpton has been promoting. (I’m waiting for the IRS to announce they made a mistake and instead of owing taxes, Sharpton has a 20 million dollar refund coming) For a while it looked like Ferguson would hold this distinction after Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder announced that the police force there was racist, but they weren’t willing to roll over. Obama will force it on them eventually, but Baltimore will be the first. The mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has...

California Attorney General Kamala Harris has gotten an extension to the Monday deadline her office faced for processing a proposed ballot initiative that advocates killing anyone who engages in gay sex. Harris asked a state court in late March for permission to reject the measure, calling it obviously unconstitutional.

The urban legends about black helicopters, clandestine military camps, tunnels underneath major airports, secret cabals, hidden detention camps, trains loaded with caskets and body bags and the like were around long before the Internet. The Web just made them easier and quicker to reproduce. One of the tea-party organizations even has reported an anonymous claim there were train cars moving around the country with prison-like shackles installed. Most people dismiss such reports as hyperbole. Fiction. The fretting of nutcases. But now there are powerful new forces aligning with those who are suspicious of the federal government, doubt the official...

Time is running out.  The American people had better get a clue, and acquire an education about what is REALLY happening all around them. Obama is a thug who will NOT voluntarily give up his "throne". Remember all the talk and rhetoric about a "third term?" Maybe they're planning an "unelected third term." Consider: *  We have a sitting 2nd term President whose campaign started in the living room of a former leader of America's most violent and notorious Marxist revolutionary group, Bill Ayers.  *Ayers group, Weather Underground, bombed federal buildings, attacked police stations, and planned the extermination of 25...

The Associated Press is asking whether our police will change the way they deliver service to the people of the cities and towns they patrol. The answer is a definite Yes and No. Yes they will; but No; those who will be watching won’t perceive the difference. Police work requires the continual processing of data drawn from your surroundings. What a police officer sees and does not see is far more subjective than those who have never done a tour in a radio car can possibly imagine. As a patrol officer you process information constantly and on some days make...

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) didn't think much of the Baltimore riots that erupted in protest of the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. Speaking with Bob Schieffer on Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS, Cummings spoke of the violence as a "situation" that "could've been a lot worse." The violence that erupted in Cummings's city caused the entire crowd gathered at the Baltimore Orioles' stadium to be stuck in lock down mode while the "protestors" raved outside smashing cop cars and hurling flaming barrels. Cummings, who was there at the time, said he had a direct hand in...