Free Republic

Being proved right isn't always fun. Just weeks after my warning in the March issue that our modern high-tech cars are tracking us and sharing data with manufacturers, cops, and parties unknown, came a report of soaring auto insurance premiums because of snitching vehicles. The consequences get worse from there. Fortunately, there are ways to keep your snoopy ride from contacting the mothership. Your Driving History May Be Transmitted and Stored "Car companies are collecting information directly from internet-connected vehicles for use by the insurance industry," Kashmir Hill reported this month for The New York Times. "Sometimes this is happening...

Look at this: http:www.globalnews.ca/news/10351645/winnipeg-pla-cyber-attacks-canada/ Canadian gov't apparently fast-tracked entry into Canada of a couple who have ties to the Chinese cyber-warfare training college, despite objections raised by Canadian Border security office upon their (separate) arrivals in Canada. They live in Winnipeg under the dubious concept of having retired there (for clean air quality). What else is dubious? They are in their 40s. You don't retire (in China) at 40. It is laughable, nobody in Canada would retire to Winnipeg, the Novosibirsk of the prairies. But it is close to that lab where Chinese scientists obtained and absconded with virus products...

You really need to keep an eye on the Department of Injustice these days because you never know what they're up to. The latest example comes to us from Forbes this week. It involves Google and a collection of YouTube videos that have attracted the attention of the feds. It's not just the creators of the videos who are of interest, however. Forbes uncovered warrants showing that the FBI had demanded user data on everyone who watched particular videos. We're talking about tens of thousands of viewers in some cases. It remains unclear how many of these cases resulted in...

If you've ever jokingly wondered if your search or viewing history is going to "put you on some kind of list," your concern may be more than warranted. In now unsealed court documents reviewed by Forbes, Google was ordered to hand over the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and user activity of Youtube accounts and IP addresses that watched select YouTube videos, part of a larger criminal investigation by federal investigators. The videos were sent by undercover police to a suspected cryptocurrency launderer under the username "elonmuskwhm." In conversations with the bitcoin trader, investigators sent links to public YouTube tutorials on...

Let’s not pretend this is about countering communist China or protecting Americans. It’s about using CCP tactics here at home.Given all we know now about how U.S. intelligence agencies conspire with Big Tech firms and nongovernmental cutouts to spy on and manipulate U.S. citizens, together with what the Twitter Files revealed last year about how the FBI and DHS deputized social media companies to censor Americans and throttle free speech, you’d think lawmakers who ostensibly care about the First Amendment would balk at expanding the online censorship industry’s reach in the United States.But you’d be wrong. Last week in Washington...

I drive an older car--a Lexus LS430 from 2005, so I can rest assured of two things: an amazingly comfortable ride and that the tech in my vehicle is way too old to collect data to be sold online. You, however, may not be so lucky. Some late-model cars are secretly collecting data on your driving habits, and selling the results for profit. Full Story: https://t.co/2vmg92Q3Yw— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) March 13, 2024Not only is this practice super creepy, but it could be costing you money and, if what I suspect is the case, giving the government a window into your...

Here’s what’s actually going on with the TikTok fight right now. Deep State toadies are taking advantage of anti-China sentiment to transfer TikTok’s surveillance apparatus from China’s evil surveillance state to the U.S. government’s evil surveillance state. TikTok isn’t going to be banned, because neither the CCP-run Chinese government nor the CCP-owned U.S. government wants to lose such a valuable tool for spying on Americans and poisoning the minds of their children. Instead, the corrupt U.S. intelligence bureaucracy wants control of TikTok, which is why it included the divestment mandate. Only a handful of U.S. companies are capable of buying...

Two extremist groups financed by billionaire George Soros have been named in the emerging scandal involving federal law enforcement colluding with financial institutions to spy on Americans’ private transactions. Part of this Orwellian collusion involved federal law enforcement circulating documents to private financial institutions to jawbone them into giving up sensitive customer data, without them necessarily having to be suspected of committing any crimes. One of the scariest examples involved federal law enforcement passing around a 2020 “hate groups” blacklist to financial institutions that included “conservative” and faith-based organizations, according to The Washington Times. The circulated list was drafted in...

Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21 percent. Quotes from other insurance companies were also high. One insurance agent told him his LexisNexis report was a factor. “It felt like a betrayal,” Mr. Dahl said. “They’re taking information that I didn’t realize was going to be shared and screwing with our insurance.” Automakers and data brokers that have partnered to collect detailed driving data from millions of Americans say they have drivers’ permission to do so. But the existence of these partnerships is nearly invisible to drivers, whose consent is...

Not even clear that reams of Jan. 6 bank customer information was useful to Treasury and FBI, hearing witnesses say. Jordan Peterson warns China model is coming. Congressional Democrats are so concerned about losing statutory workarounds for the Fourth Amendment that they appear willing to tolerate red states using financial transactions to track women who have abortions, a major concern after the Supreme Court struck down federal abortion rights. That's the impression from hearing Thursday of the House Judiciary Committee's Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee on alleged collusion between the federal government and banks for politically motivated surveillance in...

Some Chinese-made cranes used at US ports contain communications equipment with no clear purpose or record of their installation, according to a new congressional investigation that will heighten US concerns that the cranes could be used for surveillance or sabotage. The investigation by the House Committee on Homeland Security and House select committee on China focused on the more than 200 Chinese-made cranes installed at US ports and related facilities. It comes amid heightened US-China tensions over national security and as the Coast Guard last month ordered the ports to better secure the Chinese-made cranes. House lawmakers found that the...

An investigation has revealed suspicious communications devices inside Chinese-made cargo cranes used widely at US ports, supporting fears that the equipment could be part of an espionage plot. Cranes made by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC), a state-owned Chinese company, in some cases carry cellular modems, according to a congressional investigation reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The modems offer a potential backdoor for remote access, and do not appear to support the normal operations of the equipment, the investigation found. The discovery of the modems, which had not been previously disclosed, supports growing fears in US intelligence...

BREAKING: The federal government has been illegally surveilling and building profiles for Americans in secret portal called DSAC for those who oppose firearm restrictions, lockdowns & vaccine mandates, and or support border security and are labeling them as domestic extremists.

A congressional investigation has discovered strange communication equipment on Chinese-built cargo cranes at U.S seaports, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Rather than building them domestically at potentially higher costs, the U.S. relies heavily on Chinese-built cargo cranes that are relatively cheap to produce and equip at seaports across the country. The congressional probe discovered that several of these cranes, built by Chinese mega-manufacturer ZMPC, contain communications devices that were not requested or don’t appear to support standard operations, heightening existing espionage concerns, according to the WSJ. U.S. intelligence has warned that Chinese cranes – equipped with an array...

Apparently Big Tech isn’t the only sector that the U.S. government is exploiting to achieve its dystopian ends against Americans. An explosive new congressional report unveiled another field of abhorrent government collusion with financial institutions to surveil citizens’ private transactions. The House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released a 36-page interim report March 6 outlining the extent of the “mass” government spying effort. “This financial surveillance was not predicated on any specific evidence of particularized criminal conduct and, even worse, it keyed on terms and specific transactions that concerned core political and...

Chinese spy balloon spotted over US airspace in 2023 Commercial fishermen found what is believed to be a spy balloon off the coast of Alaska. The fishermen were instructed to bring the debris ashore and meet with FBI agents waiting at the port. CNN reported: Commercial fishermen off the coast of Alaska have found what officials are concerned could be another spy balloon and are bringing it to shore with them, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN. FBI agents will meet the fishing vessel when it comes into port, which is expected to be sometime over the weekend....

The Biden Administration has asked a court, rather than Congress, to renew controversial warrantless surveillance powers used by American intelligence and due to expire within weeks. It's a move that is either business as usual or an end-run around spying reforms, depending on who in Washington you believe. Both may be true. US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) railed at the US Department of Justice's decision to seek a year-long extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to end in mid-April unless Congress reauthorizes it. "A broad bipartisan, bicameral coalition agrees that FISA Section 702...

A pair of Chinese scientists who worked in a Canadian biological laboratory were marched out of the lab in 2019 and fired in 2021. The pair, who are married, claimed they were being targeted because they are Chinese but an investigations by Canada's intelligence agency found they were sharing information with China including at one point with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Trudeau government has sat on the information related to the case ever since but finally this week some unredacted documents were released.On Wednesday, the government released hundreds of pages related to the firing of Xiangguo Qiu and...

In a report released on Monday, Politico talked with 18 intelligence professionals, including a number of former Trump appointees who subsequently became vocal opponents of the president, and they issued a warning that the potential purge might "undermine the integrity of American intelligence." According to a former senior intelligence officer, "Trump plans to go after the intelligence community." "He will begin the procedure again, having begun it before. The procedure includes punishing and removing individuals. Trump detractors said that the next president would replace "those viewed as unfriendly to his political agenda with inexperienced supporters," as Politico put it. Former...

The revelation that the U.S. intelligence community, under the Obama administration, sought the assistance of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Donald Trump’s associates before the 2016 election is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to protect its interests and challenge its adversaries. (The Five Eyes countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) This bombshell, reported by a team of independent journalists, exposes a dark chapter in American political history, where foreign intelligence services were reportedly mobilized against a presidential candidate. The alleged operation against Trump...