Free Republic

Louis Rossmann opens by greeting viewers and introducing a discussion about televisions that now require a Walmart account for full functionality, highlighting how this has become a real trend. He references a Consumer Rights Wiki article explaining that certain newer Vizio TVs—and other brands using the Vizio operating system—require users to create or log into a Walmart account just to complete setup and access smart features. Walmart frames this as a way to streamline setup and connect streaming activity with retail behavior, but he argues the real motivation is clear: companies now make more money from advertising and user data...

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s targeting of Kash Patel and numerous congressional Republicans as part of his lawfare against Donald Trump was worse than originally thought, new records show. Released Tuesday by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the new documents demonstrate that Smith and his team’s efforts to acquire Patel’s phone records during his time as a private citizen were far more extensive than previously reported. The bid to acquire such information came as part of Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation, which ultimately became his elector lawfare against Trump. Now-FBI Director Patel originally told Reuters last...

Alleged Iranian spies with ties to regime bigwigs have been charged with infiltrating Silicon Valley. Last month, a federal grand jury indicted three Iranian software engineers for allegedly stealing trade secrets from tech companies, including Google. Two of the suspects are sisters, Samaneh Ghandali, 41, and Sorvoor Ghandali, 32. They were charged alongside Mohammadjavad Khosravi,40, who is Samaneh’s husband, with allegedly using their employment at unidentified technology companies to “obtain access to confidential and sensitive information,” according to the Department of Justice. The tech workers then allegedly “exfiltrated confidential and sensitive documents, including trade secrets related to processor security and...

“A federal judge has struck down some of the Defense Department's strict controls on how journalists with access to the Pentagon are allowed to report — ending a policy that caused many news outlets to leave the Pentagon. U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman sided with the New York Times and a reporter at the newspaper, Julian E. Barnes, who sued in December, arguing the new Pentagon policy violated the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and due process provision of the Constitution.”

he United States expressed outrage when Great Britain revealed two years ago that its voter registration databases were hacked by China in what became a global scandal. But it turns out the U.S. intelligence harbored its own secret at the time, knowing since 2020 that Beijing also gained access to American voter registration data, according to documents reviewed by Just the News and interviews with officials with direct knowledge. “[Redacted] Chinese intelligence officials analyzed multiple U.S. states' [Redacted] election voter registration data, [Redacted] to conduct public opinion analysis on the 2020 US general election,” stated a once highly classified April...

Millions of Americans depend on medical devices — pacemakers, infusion pumps and patient monitors — to stay alive. But some of that equipment is made in China and it may be spying on us – or worse. In January 2025, the Food and Drug Administration and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a stark joint warning: patient monitors made by Contec Medical Systems, a Chinese company based in Qinhuangdao, contain a hidden backdoor. These devices, used in hospitals across the United States, can transmit sensitive patient data to a hard-coded IP address in China. Even more troubling, the backdoor...

Your next car purchase comes with an unwelcome passenger: a federal mandate requiring surveillance technology that monitors your every blink, glance, and head nod. Thanks to Section 24220 of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, NHTSA must finalize rules forcing all new passenger vehicles to include “advanced impaired driving prevention technology”—essentially turning your dashboard into a judgment-free zone that’s anything but judgment-free. The Technology That’s Watching Infrared cameras and sensors create a constant biometric assessment of driver alertness and sobriety. The tech involves infrared cameras mounted on steering columns or A-pillars, tracking eye movement, pupil dilation, and drowsiness patterns....

To understand how China has corrupted academic research in the West, including in the United States, begin at the top. China is currently headed by a man, Xi Jinping, who is himself an academic fraud. While serving in various government posts between 1998 and 2002, Xi was enrolled in an “in-service” doctoral program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. His dissertation on the marketization of rural areas was ghost-written by one of his staff members in a local government in southern Fujian Province, Liu Huiyu. She was later given a plum post at Jiangxia University in Fujian handling “library materials.” Xi’s...

Spain will launch a tool to measure hate speech on digital ‌platforms as part of a broader strategy ‌to increase oversight of social media companies, Prime Minister Pedro ​Sanchez said on Wednesday. The country announced a wider plan last month to regulate social media, including a ban on its use for younger teenagers and ‌measures to hold ⁠platform executives accountable for illegal or hateful content hosted on their services. The new ⁠tool, called HODIO — an acronym in Spanish for Footprint of Hatred and Polarisation — will allow the ​government to ​systematically track the presence, ​amplification and impact of ‌hate...

The bipartisan push to remove anonymity from the internet is ushering in an era of unprecedented mass surveillance and censorship.

Planning to tie the knot in Spain? It’s highly expensive wherever you wed. But, if you are, you had better take it into account Hacienda (the tax agency). Newlyweds across Spain now face unexpected tax demands as Hacienda intensifies scrutiny on wedding gifts. Authorities now actively remind couples that cash and presents from guests qualify as taxable donations, potentially adding thousands to post-wedding bills. The idea behind this move is to close loopholes in revenue collection with digital transfers becoming more prevalent. Average weddings in Spain exceed €24,000, everything taken into consideration, including wedding meals alone consuming €13,000 to €14,000,...

The war in Iran is not only going to show us how evil the regime actually is, but it's also going to open the eyes of Western nations to just how many sleeper terrorists they've imported thanks to their lax immigration policies. There is real concern that Iranian and other Islamic sleeper cells may retaliate for the Iran strikes, while Democrats continue to keep the Department of Homeland Security shut down. In Austin, a Senegalese immigrant named Ndiaga Diagne killed several at a bar before being taken out by police. Diagne was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that read "Property of...

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‘I hope they put Jack Smith behind bars for this!’ said Mark Davis, one of many conservative victims of the special counsel and ‘Arctic Frost’. The people who cheered on Jack Smith’s corrupt investigations into Donald Trump and his allies are suddenly silent after a bombshell report detailing the Biden FBI’s politically-charged spying ops. Reuters this week reported the Democrat-led FBI subpoenaed records of phone calls made by current FBI Director Kash Patel and Susie Wiles, Trump’s campaign manager who now serves as his White House chief of Staff, in 2022 and 2023 when they were private citizens. Two anonymous...

"Age Attestation on Computing Devices" (Colorado State Bill 26-051) would require age verification on all Operating Systems (both Open Source and proprietary), with fines for violations.

A confidential government report exposing the reach of an FBI dragnet of arbitrary spying published by Racket News last week did not detail specific matters that fell into its web, but new documents reveal that the legal team of President Donald Trump fell under the watchful gaze of the bureau while he remained the sitting president in 2020. The FBI flexed its investigative muscle in the tense period between Election Day and the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, not bothering to wait for the formal transition of power to President Joe Biden before it began digging. About a...

China has seeded the West with thousands of agents pushing propaganda, engaging in espionage, fomenting protests, and silencing domestic dissent. In 2023, the FBI arrested two Chinese-Americans, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, for operating a Chinese police station in Manhattan. Chen pleaded guilty and faces up to five years in prison for acting as a Chinese agent, while Lu, who has connections to Chinese authorities, pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. He faces 20 years for obstruction of justice. According to the Department of Justice (DoJ), the police station was established to monitor and intimidate Chinese dissidents in the...

There is a fundamental difference between how China and the United States view higher education. Grasping that difference is essential to national security. Top Chinese graduate students are cultivated with the expectation that their expertise will advance state priorities. So when Beijing sends its top students to matriculate at American universities, it is not pursuing benign cultural exchange; it is deploying strategic assets. Seen through that lens, China is using the American university system as a conduit for absorbing American know-how, extracting technical expertise, and moving valuable research and intellectual property back to China. The practical effect is that People’s...

Chinese students and scientists who are members of the Chinese Communist Party, attended schools tied to the Chinese military or worked with companies connected to Beijing's theft of U.S. technology have “infiltrated” several top American universities, according to a watchdog group report that raises fresh concerns about America's vulnerabilities to its most fierce adversary. A conservative non-profit oversight group, the American Accountability Foundation, reported that it found nearly two dozen Chinese academics working at elite U.S. schools and labs “who because of the dual-use threat of their research, close ties to the military research sector in China, and/or clear ties...

Oct 2, 2024 Which company is the premiere surveillance Big tech company that really seeks to know you well for their AI? The answer to this question will often be tainted by the marketing moves of these companies and guaranteed that for the normie, the answer will be wrong. The reason is that people don't understand the motives of each of these companies? Why do they need to know each of us so well? What's in it for them? If you really understand this, you will be surprised at the answer.