Now I'm a simple guy, one who believes that the Bill of Rights means what it says, and applies even to whack environmentalists who don't like cops. And so this seems like something that the Courts should swat down:
The U.S. Justice Department is prosecuting an American for allegedly providing U.S. border authorities with a
The
case centers on a feature included in GrapheneOS, a custom Android
operating system that runs in place of the software on most modern
Google Pixel devices. Tunick’s attorneys confirmed GrapheneOS was
running on his phone.
passcode that wiped the contents of his phone, according to an indictment and media reports.
This is thought to be the first known case in the United States where federal prosecutors have charged someone for the alleged destruction of data using a “duress” password built into a phone’s software.
Accordingto The Guardian, which covered the story earlier this week following the court’s first hearing on Monday, Atlanta resident Samuel Tunick is fighting the charges. Tunick’s attorneys said that it was unlawful for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to seize his phone as he arrived back in the U.S. last year and that any evidence — including the alleged wiping of his phone — should be thrown out.
The Einsteins at DoJ say that the Border Agents didn't need a warrant to search his phone because he "hadn't entered the US" - even though this all took place at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta. Oooooooh kaaaaaaay.
It looks like they guy has some pretty high powered legal help - including the Electronic Frontier Foundation - so hopefully the right precedent will get established here: i.e. that the 4th and 5th Amendments mean what they say.
This is all about a software feature called a "Duress Passcode":
The case centers on a feature included in GrapheneOS, a custom Android operating system that runs in place of the software on most modern Google Pixel devices. Tunick’s attorneys confirmed GrapheneOS was running on his phone.
We did it by treated German POWs held in the USA well. Not just the US Government, but the American people treated them well. They had been told by the Nazis that America was weak, divided, and a mongrel race. The POWs saw the American people and society with their own eyes and then went home after the war.
And then built modern Germany.
We came to America as enemies, as Nazis, as believers in a lie. We left as friends, as democrats, as men who had seen the truth.
Many of the POWs who were employed on Kansas farms corresponded for decades with the families who showed them friendship as POW workers.
Playback has been disabled for this video (from which I got the quote above), but I encourage every reader to go watch it. If you don't - like I did - end up with watery eyes then we just cant be friends anymore. And to those who think this video is a one-off, there are more. So many more. You can watch them at the link (from Youtube suggestions) or you can watch this:
And a note to the Usual Suspects who fancy themselves as "Anti Nazi": this is what anti-Nazi is really about. This is how you turn actual, you know - Nazis - into anti-Nazis. It must really bust your chops to have Primary Sources telling you that your philosophy of life is full of shiest. You Commie Bastards.
Oh, this will too (note the substitution of the word freiheit - freedom - for freunde - I could translate for you but I wouldn't want to insult you; me, I think that Schiller would have approved of Bernstein's substitution at the fall of the Berlin Wall).
So an Irish chap (Graham Lineham) who is a resident of Arizona posted some stuff to Twitter. And so the British authorities arrested him at Heathrow airport essentially for exercising his First Amendment rights in America.
So how is it possible that the Administration has not summoned His Magesty's Ambassador and given them 24 hours to free him and drop all charges? Or. Else.
I really don't understand the political optics here. Sure, sure - "all politics is local" and all that. I understand why His Magesty's Government would be happy to stick a thumb in Trump's eye, but what's up with Trump?
I mean there's no domestic downside to bringing the hammer down - nobody here cares about Europe, everyone here loves free speech, everyone here hates the woke censors, and Trump has been going after the DEI (woke censor) brigade here on these shores.
How on earth is it possible that they are letting this golden opportunity slide? I mean, it's not like the UK has made themselves our greatest ally over the last decade. And it's not like Kier Starmer wouldn't fold like a house of cards over this.
The Home Office's war on encryption – its most technically complex and controversial aspect of modern policymaking yet – is starting to look like battlefield failure after more than ten years of skirmishes.
First tabled by former prime minister David Cameron in 2015 following a terrorist shooting at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, vague wording alluded to a potential ban in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.
...
However, it seems Home Office staff are now coming to terms with the fact that the Trump administration will block any attempt to further strongarm Amercia's tech companies.
Insiders told the Financial Times, speaking on condition of anonymity, that the Trump administration's disapproval of the UK's plans, which the president has previously likened to Chinese-style policymaking, is the main obstacle in achieving its encryption-busting ambitions.
Being compared to Red China* has got to hurt. But you know how not to get compared to Red China? Don't act like Red China.
Remember, Government mandated encryption backdoors are a bad idea. Really.
* I only use the term to bother the Right Sort of people.
The Sound of Music was an enormous commercial success, not only winning hte best picture Oscar but becoming the highest grossing film of all time for a number of years.
The film has an interesting pedigree. Maria von Trapp (the person played by Julie Andrews in the film) wrote the story which was originally turned into a pair of films in West Germany (The Trapp Family and The Trapp Family in America) which were the most successful films in West German history. The story became a very successful stage musical before being filmed.
This song was added almost as an afterthought to the musical. It was written to sound like an old Austrian folk song but was entirely new. It was the last song that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote together before Hammerstein died from stomach cancer. It fooled people all over the world: one Austrian gentleman once told Rodgers that he loved the song in the film but of course had learned the lyrics in the original German.
This scene reminds me of the "battle of the anthems" scene in Casablanca, although much more understated. The audience singing along was a great big middle finger to the Nazis.
One final bit of trivia about this song: The Queen Of The World plays this on her ukulele. She's really good.
And the next time some mouth-breathing gun banner asks you why you need a 30 round magazine, tell them that the Rooftop Koreans had not just 30 round magazines, but (legal) full auto. The LA Riot was in 1992, only six years after the super-sketchy Hughes Amendment, approved by voice vote rather than roll call.
They have said for years that they are libertarian. That's not true. By their works shall ye know them, and all that.
Rather, they're Washington Establishment, Libertarian Department. Everything is not pro-liberty, it's anti-Trump, all the time. (Speculation Alert) Probably their big donors insist on this, and you can't jeopardize the gravy train.
Case in point: Trump's biggest libertarian action to date (which dwarfs the DOGE spending cuts) is his executive order requiring each Agency to post all the regulations they have promulgated which have criminal penalties, and requiring the Agencies to rescind all that do not have a Mens Rea requirement. Seemingly there are hundreds of thousands of these, and not even the Agencies themselves know exactly how many. Thus, the need for the executive order.
Mens Rea is the legal term that defines knowledge that you are about to commit a crime - regulations with criminal penalties where you don't even have to know that it's a crime are basically the definition of tyranny.
You'd think that libertarians would be cheering this executive order from the rooftops.
[crickets]
I can only find one article on the subject which, despite its reluctance to do so gives credit where it is due. They even say this sort of regulation turns the rule of law into a cruel joke. So where's the celebration of a huge win for freedom? Where's the victory lap for self-proclaimed champions of "Free Minds and Free Markets"?
To ask the questions are to answer them. Donald Trump obviously provides the Wrong Sort of freedom. [rolls eyes]
The political story of the West in the 21st Century has been one of devolution of power. Several EU referenda were soundly voted down (e.g. Netherlands and France) although the Powers That Be made the publics there vote again and again until the "got it right". Brexit was a shock to the elites, as was the election (and re-election) of Donald Trump.
All of these are statements of majorities rejecting the Conventional Wisdom of centralized power controlled by credentialed "expert" elites (scare quotes used intentionally).
Now it's Canada's turn. Alberta is making serious noises about leaving Canada and joining the USA. Here is a forceful statement from Alberta's Premier laying out the causes of their unhappiness with Ottawa, and quite frankly making numerous demands of the central government.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
That's what this speech is. And it includes an "or else" after the demands, that next year will see an Alberta referendum.
Last week I posted about the Congressional request that DNI Gabbard look into the UK government's demand that Apple put an encryption backdoor into their products. She has done so:
In a written response to members of Congress, Gabbard said this week that such a demand would violate Americans’ rights and raise concerns about a foreign government pressuring a U.S.-based technology company.
“This would be a clear and egregious violation of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” Gabbard told Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who had written to express their worries.
...
Gabbard has asked the heads of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies to study the U.K. demand and said she will discuss it with her British counterparts. She noted that existing agreements between the two nations prohibit either country from demanding cloud data about citizens or residents of the other.
This seems unprecedented to me - the relationship between the US and UK intelligence communities has been very close for literally decades - I have personal experience of this in the 1990s and it predates that by a lot.
Europe seems really intent on making all sorts of relationships worse.
So UK Prime Minister Keir "Two Tier" Starmer has decreed that people saying hateful things will be jailed because their speech is actually violence, and he's making room for them in His Magesty's prisons be releasing violent criminals because their violence is actually speech, you guys.
All this totalitarianism reminds me of a joke from the Soviet Union, back in the day. It was said about Leonid Brezhnev (and likely others). I've somewhat rewritten it for modern times. See if you can tell the difference.
So this guy goes to Red Square Hyde Park Speaker's Corner and yells "Leonid Brezhnev Keir Starmer is a senile fascist old fool!" Of course, the police swarm him and drag him off to Ye Olde Gaol. He is sentenced to ten years and ten days in durance vile - ten days for slander and ten years for revealing State Secrets.
Maybe I gave away my edits right there ...
And so the Leonid Brezhnev Memorial Award for Totalitarianism goes to Brit PM Keir Starmer, for fascism above and beyond the call of duty. Well done you dirty commie bastard.
So some self-important English Plod said he was going to criminally charge and extradite US citizens for exercising their first amendment rights on US soil. Interesting.
Quite frankly, this seems like a golden opportunity for political candidates here to get a "gimmie" issue. Sticking up for the first amendment seems like a layup. And if as I suspect the Democrats are institutionally incapable of sticking up for free speech, then this is a gold plated opportunity to paint them as the party of censorship - not to mention being weak on foreign policy.
Like I said, this issue looks like it's 100% upside.
New Jersey cops must apply for a wiretap order — not just a warrant — for near-continual snooping on suspects' Facebook accounts, according to a unanimous ruling by that US state's Supreme Court.
Thursday's decision overturned alower court's rulingthat said a search warrant was sufficient to compel Meta's social network to turn over access to a user's future posts and messages every 15 minutes for a period of 30 days. That's effectively a real-time tapping system, it was argued.
"The state argues that because of the brief 15-minute delay involved, it is obtaining 'stored communications' rather than intercepting live ones, so fewer safeguards apply. We do not agree," the Garden State's Supremes said [PDF], noting that this would make New Jersey the only state in America to permit this practice.
In my view, the idea of making people rely on electric vehicles (EVs) and then curbing how much power they have, is a design feature, not a bug. Those of a Big Government cast of mind (most politicians) might rather like the idea of fitting “kill switches” into EVs so that a bureaucrat can disable them. By making cars costly and annoying, it also forces people to use public transport.
To dismiss the California ban on internal combustion cars as mere incompetence misses the depth of the fascist evil on display. They want to own everybody in California, and make them submit to their will. They simply hate freedom, and that's what cars mean. It's what California used to mean.
Oh, and the cartoon at that last link? The one with two Gulag prisoners working in the snow and with the caption that said I won the Nobel Prize in Literature. What was your crime? You know, the cartoon that won a Pulitzer Prize?
Yeah, the WaPo would never publish it today. Scratch a journalist, find a commie.
And so, here's a (err) toast to Mikhail Gorbachev, from back in the day when truth could still be spoken.
I like the cut of this fellow's jib. If you do too, then forward this on in whatever social media platform you like - let's make some actual patriotism go viral.
====== BEGIN ======
Today I was asked why I am running for President, and why should people vote for me? Below is my answer.
Thank you for the question.
Why am I running for President? The short answer is because the U.S Constitution says I can and my conscience says I must.
Why should people vote for me? I do not believe the Office of President should be reserved for insiders, professional politicians or power hungry Americans. The President is granted the power and authority to lead by the American People. Therefore, I believe the President must engage in effective and efficient efforts to serve the American people.
The President should not beholden to follow strict party rules. The President must act on conscience and make decisions that are in the best interests of All Americans.
I hurt to see so much division in this nation I so dearly love. I am outraged by the erosion of our Constitutional freedoms and Liberties. I believe too many American Citizens have stopped believing in "The American Dream". There is apathy among Americans to engage in the political process.
The talking heads host "Opinion Editorial Programs" on most of our news channels. The American People fail to recognize the difference between journalism and unbiased facts versus their favorite news talk show. The Free Press must be preserved. This right comes with the responsibility to report truth and facts.
I do not believe in "Alternative Facts". There is only one "Truth". While I understand some Presidents rightfully feel the media is biased against them, the idea of presenting "Alternative Facts" is absurd. In my opinion we could call that propaganda.
I will serve in the best interests of All Americans. I will not cater to any one person, organization, political party, or P.A.C. The only thing the President should be obligated to is the Constitution and the American Citizens.
We have a mass propaganda system in place which has been cleverly designed to divide our nation. If the "Powers that Be" can manipulate the majority of Americans then they are able to do harm unto our Republic. If we are blind and ignorant we fall for these propaganda agendas.
If the politicians can get us to oppose one another then we take our eyes off of them. When we broadly categorize every Democrat as a socialist and every Republican as a fascist who benefits? Not the American People.
When any politician or political party actively engages in efforts to subvert the American Government or the Constitution they are dead wrong. Freedom of Speech must be protected but it should be used in a responsible manner. Elected officials must be held to a higher standard. In my opinion, if anyone or any party takes action to undermine our Democratic Constitutional Republic they must be held accountable.
Today we have a far left and a far right. Do either really serve the best interests of Americans? No. If someone attempts to create a socialist government or a fascist dictatorship both are wrong and should be deemed as an "Enemy of the State".
We must unify and unite our nation. Today our youth spends less time learning about American History, The Constitution, Civics and Social Studies than at any time in our past. In fact some schools make American History and Social Studies an elective class.
If we don't understand the Founding principles of our Republic how can we recognize the erosion of our nation. If we do not engage in Social Studies how can we learn to accept cultural diversity and perspectives. If we allow the population to operate in fear of one another due to ignorance, how do we create an all inclusive nation which promotes "Assimilation"?
We need real change. One person cannot do it alone. The President cannot implement change without the support and confidence of the American People.
I hope this helps answer the questions and again, thank you.
Respectfully, Mickey G. Rose for President Of The United States 2024
So the Canadian Police have sent actual Mounties to break up the trucker's protest. People have been trampled, including a disabled old woman. The Mounties' "heroism" in this has been noted all over the world. We'll see if these horses can drag the truckers away.
Wild Horses (Songwriters: Bill Shore, David Wills)
From a phone booth in Cheyenne I made a promise to Diane No more rodeos I'd gone my last go 'round
The same promise that I made In San Antone and Santa Fe But tonight I saddled up And let her down
Wild horses keep draggin' me away And I'll lose more than I'm gonna win someday Wild horses just stay wild And her heart is all I break Wild horses keep draggin' me away
She'll watch me drive around her block Gettin' courage up to stop To make her one more promise That I can't keep
The way I love the rodeo I guess I should let her go Before I hurt her more Than she loves me
Wild horses keep draggin' me away And I'll lose more than I'm gonna win someday Wild horses just stay wild And her heart is all I break Wild horses keep draggin' me away
Both of these are about the virus, and neither is being reported here on these shores.
Item the first: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is done - stick a fork in him:
Nigel Farage has slammed Boris Johnson over the Prime Minister's attempts to defend a series of parties in Downing Street while the rest of the UK was under Coronavirus lockdown. The former Brexit Party leader has suggested Mr Johnson would have been best owning up to the parties.
...
"When you are clearly lying to the nation that I'm afraid is what's done for him," he added.
"I can't tell you whether he's going to last a week, a month or four months.
"But I can tell you, Boris is toast."
Farage is the man most responsible for BREXIT, and is former head of the BREXIT political party in the UK. Rumors have it that Johnson may get dumped by the UK Tory Party as early as Friday, but we will have to see. Whether that happens or not, this story represents the rage of the common voter against an arrogant, out of touch elite that is smothering them with COVID restrictions that they exempt themselves from.
Item the Second: Canadian truckers aim to shut down Parliament on Friday:
The number of truckers involved is huge. As in “that’s gonna leave a mark” huge. Now just figure that to the extent a Truck and Trucker are in this event, they are not delivering the goods on time to somewhere else. This will be felt fairly fast. There is one guy in one video who says he’s not vaccinated, but is delivering “medical supplies”, and appreciates the irony of it ;-) So some of the trucks may just be “slow rolling” their delivery elsewhere along the route.
Just how much support are Canadian citizens giving them? The truckers set up a Gofundme campaign to raise money for fuel (they're driving from the Pacific coast to Ottawa). Right now the campaign has raised $5M (CAD). That's a lot of gas. And just what do those normal Canadian citizens feel about the Canadian.Gov?
“Everyone is Essential”. “It’s time for the Lions to start eating those Hyenas”.
Friday is shaping up to be an interesting day, despite the complete lack of coverage here in the US. The "elites" are trapped in a Twitter bubble, spending their time only talking to themselves - while the 80% of the country that counts is moving on without them. Smartest kids in the class, right there.
Holy crap! This is breaking news from Donald Trump:
For years, the same feeling has swept you along, oppressed you, shamed you: a strange and penetrating feeling of dispossession. You walk down the streets in your towns, and you don’t recognize them. You look at your computer screens and they speak to you in a language that is strange, and in the end foreign. You turn your eyes and ears to advertisements, TV series, football games, films, live performances, songs, and the schoolbooks of your children.
You take the subways and trains. You go to train stations and airports. You wait for your sons and your daughters outside their school. You take your mother to the emergency room. You stand in line at the post office or the employment agency. You wait at a police station or a courthouse.
And you have the impression that you are no longer in a country that you know. You remember the country of your childhood. You remember the country that your parents told you about. You remember the country found in films and books.
This country— at the same time light-hearted and industrious. This country— at the same time literary and scientific. This country— intelligent and one-of-a-kind. The country of the moon landing and nuclear power. The country that created cinema and the automobile.This country— that you search for everywhere with dismay. No, your children are homesick, without even having known this country that you cherish. It is disappearing.
You haven’t left, and yet you have the feeling of no longer being at home. You have not left your country. Your country left you.
You feel like foreigners in your own country. You are internal exiles. For a long time, you believed you were the only one to see, to hear, to think, to doubt. You were afraid to say it. You were ashamed of your feelings. For a long time, you dared not say what you are seeing, and above all you dared not see what you were seeing.
And then you said it to your wife. To your husband. To your children. To your father. To your mother. To your friends. To your coworkers. To your neighbors. And then to strangers. And you understood that your feeling of dispossession was shared by everyone.
France is no longer France, and everyone sees it.
OK, I admit it - this wasn't Donald Trump. This is a speech by Eric Zemmour who is running for President in France. I took out a couple lines and changed a couple more to hide the fact that M. Zemmour is speaking not in french, and not to the French, but to all of us. Here's the rest of his outstanding speech, unedited and in full:
The disappearance of our civilization is not the only question that harasses us, although it towers over everything. Immigration is not the cause of all our problems, although it aggravates everything. The third-worlding of our country and our people impoverishes as much as it disintegrates, ruins as much as it torments.
It’s why you often have a hard time making ends meet. It’s why we must re-industrialize France. It’s why we must equalize the balance of trade. It’s why we must reduce our growing debt, bring back to France our companies that left, give jobs to our unemployed.
It’s why we must protect our technological marvels and stop selling them to foreigners. It’s why we must allow our small businesses to live, and to grow, and to pass from generation to generation.It’s why we must preserve our architectural, cultural, and natural heritage. It’s why we must restore our republican education, its excellence and its belief in merit, and stop surrendering our children to the experiments of egalitarians and pedagogists and the Doctor Strangeloves of gender theory and Islamo-leftism.
It’s why we must take back our sovereignty, abandoned to European technocrats and judges, who rob the French people of the ability to control their destiny in the name of a fantasy – a Europe that will never be a nation. Yes, we must give power to the people, take it back from the minority that unceasingly tyrannizes the majority and from judges who substitute their judicial rulings for government of the people, for the people, by the people.
For decades, our elected officials of the right and the left have led us down this dire path of decline and decadence. Right and left have lied and concealed the gravity of our diminishment. They have hidden from you the reality of our replacement.
You have known me for many years. You know what I say, what I diagnose, what I proclaim. I have long been content with the role of journalist, writer, Cassandra, whistleblower. Back then, I believed that a politician would take up the flame that I had lit. I said to myself, to each his own job, to each his own role, to each his own fight.
I have lost this illusion. Like you, I have lost confidence. Like you, I have decided to take our destiny in hand.
I saw that no politician had the courage to save our country from the tragic fate that awaits it. I saw that all these supposed professionals were, above all, impotent.That President Macron, who had presented himself as an outsider, was in fact the synthesis of his two predecessors, or worse. That all the parties were contenting themselves with reforms, while time passes them by.
There is no more time to reform France – but there is time to save her. That is why I have decided to run for President.
I have decided to ask your votes to become your President of the Republic, so that our children and grandchildren do not know barbarism. So that our daughters are not veiled and our sons are not forced to submit. So that we can bequeath to them the France we have known and that we received from our ancestors. So that we can still preserve our way of life, our traditions, our language, our conversations, our debates about history and fashion, our taste for literature and food.
So that the French remain French, proud of their past and confident in their future. So that the French once again feel at home. So that the newest arrivals assimilate their culture, adapt their history, and are remade as French in France – not foreigners in an unknown land.
We, the French, are a great nation. A great people. Our glorious past pleads for our future. Our soldiers have conquered Europe and the world. Our writers and artists have aroused universal admiration. Our scientific discoveries and industrial production have stamped their epochs. The charm of our art de vivre excites longing and joy in all who taste it.
We have known great victories, and we have overcome cruel defeats. For a thousand years, we have been one of the powers who have written the history of the world. We are worthy of our ancestors. We will not allow ourselves to be mastered, vassalized, conquered, colonized. We will not allow ourselves to be replaced.
In front of us, a cold and determined monster rises up, who seeks to dishonor us. They will say that you are racist. They will say that you are motivated by contemptible passions, when in fact it is the most lovely passion that animates you – passion for France.
They will say the worst about me. But I will keep going amidst the jeers, and I don’t care if they spit on me. I will never bend the head. For we have a mission to accomplish.
The French people have been intimidated, crippled, indoctrinated, blamed— but they lift up their heads, they drop the masks, they clear the air of lies, they hunt down these evil perjuries.
We are going to carry France on. We are going to pursue the beautiful and noble French adventure. We are going to pass the flame to the coming generations. Join with me. Rise up. We, the French, have always triumphed over all.
Long live the Republic, and above all, long live France!
But yannow, La Belle France has come back from worse (as have we). I have proof (with apologies to a Frau Merkel that thought she had ultimately won World War II, and who are no doubt shocked - shocked - to find that they are perhaps being closed down for gambling after they thought they had won it all ...):
Eighty years later, art still has its say. And just to show that the Cool Kids didn't all live in the 1940s, here's another that says the same thing:
Yeah, yeah, I know - don't play in the street. But know that you are not alone.
