Free Republic

U.S. spies and cops are vacuuming up huge amounts of data about Americans from data brokers — a trend that puts us on a dangerous path already trodden out by authoritarian regimes such as China. In America, we curtail government powers and guarantee civil liberties by limiting the amount of information citizens provide to the state. Police need a warrant to strap a GPS device on your car or listen to your telephone calls. Intelligence agencies and military units are banned from targeting Americans for surveillance and are supposed to focus their attention overseas.

Banks routinely snitch on customers and even deny services to people politicians don’t like. The House Judiciary Committee is investigating banks for sharing Americans' financial information with the FBI without regard for privacy concerns. In fact, there's no doubt about the threat to civil liberties posed by the government's leverage over the financial industry; that's long established. At question in this investigation is whether the danger to our freedom inherent in that cozy relationship is being wielded in political warfare between the country's political factions. But the larger problem should be fixed no matter what lawmakers discover. "Today, Chairman Jim...

The Department of Homeland Security listed pro-life mothers as potential “radicalization suspects” in a violence prevention training guide just days after President Biden took office, documents obtained by a conservative legal watchdog show. DHS’s Office of Terrorism and Violence lists profiles of various domestic extremists in an internal memo dated Jan. 29, 2021 — including a “middle-aged pro-life advocate” — and asks participants to make “real-life decisions” to confront each. “This is Ann, a resident of Elkville in rural America,” one profile reads. “Ann has always been religious but since the death of her mother, she’s become increasingly devout. She’s...

A woman is claiming she was able to infiltrate a conservative-leaning dating app and ended up reporting several profiles to the FBI for saying they'd participated in the January 6 riots. Ryann McEnany designed the 'invite-only' platform, called The Right Stuff, in an attempt to help 'young conservatives' find 'people that see the world the right way,' after she said she noticed that other dating apps had 'gone woke.' Caitlin Berg, an ostensibly liberal woman on TikTok, said she ran a scam where she played a 'yeehaw'd version' of herself to get an invitation to use the app. She said...

Attorneys for Tyre Nichols' family suggested a white cop involved in the victim's arrest got special treatment.Officer Preston Hemphill was placed on paid leave in connection to the fatal beating of Nichols. "Why is his identity and the role he played in Tyre's death just now coming to light?" the lawyers asked.Attorneys for the family of Tyre Nichols — the Black man who died after being beaten by police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, earlier this month — suggested on Monday that the only known white officer involved in the victim's arrest was getting special treatment. The Memphis Police Department confirmed...

Ahead of his transfer to a West Virginia prison, inmates there traded bets over how much time mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger had left to live, illustrating how well-known his location was around the time of his move, a Justice Department watchdog found. A remarkable flurry of mishaps and bureaucratic blunders preceded the ill-fated transfer as officials in the federal Bureau of Prisons took minimal security precautions, despite Bulger being a renowned informant to law enforcement, according to the watchdog report. But the DOJ's inspector general report stopped short of accusing BOP workers of acting maliciously. "We found that did...

Sam Bankman-Fried: I don’t know where $10 billion went. The Pentagon: We don’t know where $2.2 trillion went. The IRS: You just sent $601.37 don’t forget to report it.” The Biden administration is recruiting 87,000 IRS agents, allegedly to keep an eye on billionaires. .. aiming at the little fish of the gig economy instead. Taking payments for a side hustle via PayPal or Venmo? Not only is the IRS reminding you those payments are taxable income, it’s deputizing those payment companies to snitch on you. ... But wait — it gets worse. People get payments through these companies for...

ALBANY – Albany County is creating an online portal to let residents report violations of the state's new indoor mask mandate, as well as other issues they see involving mask and vaccine requirements.

The FBI launched an ad campaign to encourage people to report hate crimes. Hate crime reports have been rising all across the country. According to the FBI, last year saw a 13% increase of hate crimes nationally. The FBI's new public awareness campaign will feature ads with hotline numbers on public places, encouraging residents to come forward with reports on hate crimes. Attacks on people based on how they look, how they act or how they worship are considered hate crimes. "The FBI defines a hate crime as a criminal offense against an individual or property that’s motivated by bias...

To enforce President Joe Biden’s forthcoming COVID-19 mandate, the U.S. Labor Department is going to need a lot of help. Its Occupational Safety and Health Administration doesn’t have nearly enough workplace safety inspectors to do the job. So the government will rely upon a corps of informers to identify violations of the order: Employees who will presumably be concerned enough to turn in their own employers if their co-workers go unvaccinated or fail to undergo weekly tests to show they’re virus-free. What's not known is just how many employees will be willing to accept some risk to themselves — or...

Political commentator Bill Kristol said Friday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that the new Texas abortion law is “extreme” and “un-American.” Anchor Ana Cabrera said, “The Supreme Court formally denied a request to block a Texas law banning most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. And I want to bring in Bill Kristol. He served in both the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. He is now editor at large for The Bulwark and director of Defending Democracy Together. Bill, you are among those against abortion, but you say this law even hurts the anti-abortion effort. You call it a step...

Okay, people on this forum KNOW by now that I tell the truth. Beware the Ides of March, one once said. I just got a phone call from a "truck driver" in North Carolina. The number is 984-302-1xxx. (Freepmail me if you want the whole number). He wanted a handgun I had posted online. This was a black man who said he was a truck driver. His phone number was from out of state, so I assumed (correctly) that his driver's license was out of state. I told him that it was a state felony to sell a weapon to...

On Friday, the Justice Department announced the indictment of two members of the “Proud Boys” stemming from their conversations before the riot at the US Capitol on January 6.Dominic Pezzola, 43, of Rochester, New York, and William Pepe, 31, of Beacon, New York, were indicted today in federal court in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy; civil disorder; unlawfully entering restricted buildings or grounds; and disorderly and disruptive conduct in restricted buildings or grounds. Pezzola was also charged with obstruction of an official proceeding; additional counts of civil disorder and aiding and abetting civil disorder; robbery of personal...

"The FBI is seeking information that will assist in identifying individuals who are actively instigating violence in Washington, DC.,” the FBI wrote in a statement on its website. “If you have witnessed unlawful violent actions, we urge you to submit any information, photos, or videos that could be relevant at fbi.gov/USCapitol.”

Khaleaf Sistrunk talked to police about the people who were killing his family and friends. And so he had been marked for death. In 2018, he told police what he knew about the drive-by killing of his older brother. A year later, he testified as an eyewitness at the trial of the teenager who shot his friend to death as they shopped on South Street on Easter Sunday. For that, he was branded a “snitch.” And people started shooting at him. Eight times in the last two years, his family said. Mostly in the streets by his South Philadelphia home....

Policing minister Kit Malthouse has said that people should snitch on their neighbours if they think they are breaking the new coronavirus rules. He said he also hopes to roll out “COVID-secure marshalls” across the country to help enforce public “compliance”. From Monday, it is illegal for Britons to gather in groups of more than six in public or private, indoors or outside. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last week when he announced the measures that people breaking the law would be told to disperse, fined, or even arrested.

Online form allows NJ residents to report violations of coronavi Online form allows NJ residents to report violations of coronavirus restrictions New Jersey is urging residents to speak out if they see people violating coronavirus restrictions. A new online form allows people to report something that violates Gov. Phil Murphy's executive orders. Examples of violations would be not following social distancing requirements or people holding large indoor events. Residents can report violations anonymously, but officials say that may make it harder to investigate.

A resident of Forest, Va. has assembled a list of over 1,200 snitches who reported their neighbors for potential violations of the state’s COVID-19 lockdown. Isaiah Knight compiled the list after filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which gave him the name of people who participated in the Soviet-style snitching campaign against their fellow man. He received information from the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) that 1,293 people made complaints to authorities. “The short answer is I wanted to see how many people would rat out Anne Frank. And it’s essentially that,” Knight said...“What you see on this...

An Idea Whose Time Has Come I’ve had this observation on my mind for over ten years and today my Pastor’s message moved me to express it on paper. This may take a bit but I do have a goal in mind regarding solutions toward real and perceived racism in America. On June 10, 1964, Everett Dirksen (R-IL), the Republican Leader in the U.S. Senate, condemned the Democrats’ 57-day filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Leading the Democrats in their opposition to civil rights for African-Americans was Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV). Byrd spoke against the bill for fourteen straight...

You knew it was a matter of time before Louisiana entered the realm of lots of other states where the government officially solicited the involvement of citizens to rat each other out. But the rats are now here. For the most part, so far there hasn’t been a plethora of examples here of police harassing or abusing people for the sin of exercising their freedom of speech or association as in places like Wisconsin, California, North Carolina or New Jersey, and thankfully Gov. John Bel Edwards hasn’t issued forth any anti-semitic threats like New York mayor Warren “Bill DeBlasio” Wilhelm...