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The number of public school employees who celebrated the political assassination of Christian and conservative commentator Charlie Kirk has reached such a high level that teachers’ unions are now tracking Kirk’s supporters and preparing to coordinate the legal defense for teachers whose jobs are now in jeopardy. An internal union email obtained by the Maine Wire shows the National Education Association (NEA) has told its members that it’s monitoring supporters of the slain conservative activist and is preparing legal and communications defenses for school teachers who publicly celebrated his assassination.The email, sent by the head of the NEA’s Portland Education...

https://x.com/JohnMcCloy/status/1967990814794977687

Why no eyes in the sky ?

In July, 2024, a group of Chinese technologists and researchers met at an office in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region, to discuss efforts to stop internet users bypassing the Great Firewall, China’s vast online censorship and surveillance apparatus. Even by Chinese standards, internet controls in Xinjiang are intense, a legacy of a years-long crackdown by the authorities targeting Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. Preventing people from dodging these controls – to access banned websites or download secure messaging apps – was a key government priority, part of a “long-term struggle and technical confrontation” vital to nationwide “anti-terrorism” efforts, according...

Sayfullo Saipov’s neighbors and acquaintances have been coming forward to paint a portrait of the suspected New York City terrorist. One Tampa neighbor casually dropped a remarkable detail deep in a Washington Post story on Wednesday: a group of “about 30 men, young and old, gathered at Saipov’s house to pray” on “most weekends.”

'I think it's becoming very, very common,' Amy Bach, Executive Director at consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, told the outlet. 'People are getting dropped on basis of, "We see mold on your roof," or "We see damaged roof tiles," or "There's trees touching your house," risk factors that insurance companies are increasingly on the lookout for.' Schueler found company to remove the branches in time, and so was able to keep her coverage. 'It ended up costing $1,200. I had no choice,' she told CBS. Her policy was renewed for another year, but having her home monitored without her being...

Do you spend too much time in your car? Your local state authorities think you do — and they’re quietly pushing through laws that will give them the power to do something about it. Meet Massachusetts Senate Bill S.2246. Introduced by state Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem, it sets the stage for a future where the government tracks and potentially limits how many miles you drive each year. This isn’t a fringe proposal — it’s working its way through the legislature right now, and similar ideas are being tested in other states across the country. Is this really about emissions...

"I’m about to launch GIDEON, America’s first-ever AI threat detection platform built for law enforcement." "It scrapes the internet 24/7 using Israeli-grade ontology…" Pre-crime policing starts NEXT WEEK.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP/Atlanta News First) — One of the nation’s leading operators of automated license-plate reading systems announced Monday it has paused its operations with federal agencies because of confusion and concern about the purpose of their investigations. The Atlanta-based Flock Safety, whose cameras are mounted in more than 4,000 communities nationwide, put a hold last week on pilot programs with the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection and its law enforcement arm, Homeland Security Investigations, according to a statement by its founder and CEO, Garrett Langley. Flock Safety’s cameras capture billions of photos of license plates each...

Drudge is giving this banner treatment but I’m not sure why. Of course Al Qaeda is on the brink of a dirty bomb. Their comrades-in-arms in the Taliban are the jihadist proxy of one of the world’s biggest nuclear proliferators, aren’t they? If the filthbags in Pakistani intelligence want Al Qaeda to have nuclear material, they’ll find a way to smuggle some out of the state supply, I’m sure. In fact, according to a new piece in the NYT, Pakistan’s practically swimming in fissile material these days. Never mind the dirty bombs; how long before AQ or Lashkar e-Taiba or...

Shenghua Wen, 42, received around $2 million (€1.7 million) from North Korean officials to ship firearms and ammunition from California. A Chinese national in California has been sentenced to eight years in prison for shipping firearms and ammunition to North Korea. North Korean officials paid Shenghua Wen around $2 million (€1.7 million) to ship two containers of weapons and other items from Long Beach in California to North Korea via Hong Kong in 2023, according to the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. The 42-year-old pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. wants all Americans to use “wearable” technology to track their health as part of his “MAHA” agenda. The Kennedy-clan strongman revealed his agency’s plan Tuesday for a massive push for Americans — who have an obesity rate of 40% — to use wearable data-collecting technology such as FitBits, Oura Rings, and Apple Watches, to promote healthier lifestyles. “We’re about to launch the biggest advertising campaign in HHS history to encourage Americans to use wearables,” Kennedy said in a House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing on Tuesday. ...

The EU is inching toward the biggest peacetime surveillance experiment in its history, with plans to quietly search every private message before you hit send. The European Union is still wrestling with a controversial plan that would turn private messaging services into surveillance tools. For over three years, talks have stalled over whether providers should be forced to scan every user’s messages for possible illegal material and forward anything suspicious to law enforcement. The European Commission is still pushing for a universal scanning requirement. In contrast, the European Parliament insists any checks should apply only to unencrypted messages from people...

A controversial European Union proposal dubbed “Chat Control” is regaining momentum, with 19 out of 27 EU member states reportedly backing the measure. The plan would mandate that messaging platforms, including WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, must scan every message, photo and video sent by users starting in October, even if end-to-end encryption is in place, popular French tech blogger Korben wrote on Monday. Denmark reintroduced the proposal on July 1, the first day of its EU Council presidency. France, once opposed, is now in favor, Korben said, citing Patrick Breyer, a former member of the European Parliament for Germany and...

Beale Air Force Base, Calif. – On the evening of July 31st, a TU-2S Dragon Lady from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing took off from Beale Air Force Base (AFB) to begin a flight unlike any the U-2 airframe had done before. Seventy years after the very first Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady’s accidental maiden flight in 1955 by Tony LeVier over Groom Lake, Nevada, the U-2 would finish the longest single flight this platform had ever attempted, flying across all 48 contiguous states of the United States. An icon of the Cold War, the U-2 continues to provide high altitude intelligence,...

Executive Summary: - The PRC is exporting an integrated system of smart devices, data infrastructure, and governance standards. Through industrial policy, state-backed overproduction, and strategic data asymmetry, Beijing is building a global IoT architecture designed to embed PRC standards, influence, and governance into the connected environments of other countries. - By dominating core components like cellular IoT modules and steering global standards through initiatives like China Standards 2035, Beijing is creating long-term supply chain dependencies and rewriting the rules of digital interoperability. - Devices manufactured by PRC firms often carry embedded risks: unpatched vulnerabilities, mandated government access under China’s Data...

Toll Aviation has signed a deal to bring a new AI-based uncrewed aerial system (UAS) to Australia. V-BAT, made by US-based company Shield AI, is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAS that its manufacturer says can meet “a broad array of civil and defence mission requirements” through its capacity for multi-mission payload sets.

House Republicans are calling on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to expedite a national security review of Chinese drone manufacturers like Shenzhen Da-Jiang Innovations Sciences and Technologies Company Limited (DJI Technologies) pursuant to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. In a letter to ODNI signed by representatives Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.; Rick Crawford, R-Ark.; and John Moolenaar, R-Mich., the lawmakers requested timely execution of the review as drone technology quickly accelerates. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month prioritizing the accelerated integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into U.S. national airspace. But before that fully...

So long as the world is entertaining worst-case scenarios, the media does Americans no favors in omitting that Iran-Hezbollah has for years prepared to strike in their own hometowns. Weirdly absent from much of the professional speculation about where and how Iran will exact its promised “severe revenge” for the U.S. drone strike killing of Quds Force Gen. Qassem Suleimani is mention of the dead man’s highly suggestive hint. During a time of intense saber rattling between Iran and President Donald Trump in July 2018, Suleimani gave a speech during which he called out the American president: “Mr. Gambler, Trump!...

A Queens woman found what looked like a phone buried in her front lawn — but it wasn’t just lost property. Mary Kehoe, who’s lived in her Forest Hills home for 35 years, spotted the strange device outside. It looked like an Android phone wrapped in black tape, with only the camera exposed — like it was made to watch, not call. “Why us? I had lots of things going through my head as to why they chose our lawn but realized we are in the middle of the block,” Kehoe told KTVZ 21. Experts warn that these kinds of...