Anarcho-Tyranny in the UK

Paging George Orwell:

A journalist with the London Telegraph has been visited unannounced at her home by police in the UK who told her they are investigating a “non-crime hate incident” over a tweet she posted a year ago.

...

Allison Pearson relates what happened on Sunday in an article, noting that police will not tell her which post is the subject of the investigation, nor will they tell her who her accuser is or what they feel offended about.

Well okay, then.  But the UK Plods seems to have forgotten the old saying to not mess with someone who buys ink by the barrel:

Way to shine a spotlight on your policy, dumbasses.  Streisand Effect much?

I've just caught up with this by @AllisonPearson. Fortunately, she is a member of the Free @SpeechUnion, but I hope the @Telegraph will also be vigorously defending her freedom of expression. The ‘non-crime hate incident’ industry is a malignancy.https://t.co/iLsuNX4MgQ pic.twitter.com/yf0Cr2f0Vr

— Adrian Hilton (@Adrian_Hilton) November 12, 2024

Police increasingly use facial recognition technology

It seems that they often withhold that information from Courts and defense attorneys:

Police around the United States are routinely using facial recognition technology to help identify suspects, but those departments rarely disclose they've done so - even to suspects and their lawyers.

Documents concerning the use and disclosure, of facial recognition technology were provided to the Washington Post as part of its ongoing investigation into use of the technology in the US, but only from around 40 departments in 15 states out of the "more than 100" departments who were asked. Most, WaPo noted, declined to answer anything.

Police records reportedly indicate that, aside from not disclosing that facial recognition technology, police also frequently obscured use of the technology by saying they identified suspects "through investigative means," while others have outright policy documents that tell officers to "not document this investigative lead."

In multiple cases documented in police reports and court filings, WaPo found those charged with crimes based on facial recognition often weren't aware that it had been used to identify them until after they were already in jail – several times incorrectly.

Emphasis added by me.

It seems that the Police sometimes don't even tell the DA's office about this.  While I Am Not A Lawyer, this seems like a great argument to abolish Qualified Immunity.  The secrecy itself is the best evidence that the process is being abused.  I mean, if you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to worry about, right?

So what I'd like to know is ...

How did the would-be assassin know where and when to find Donald Trump?  Was he just lucky like Gavrilo Princip?  Or was he "lucky" like Thomas Matthew Crooks?

Now this seems like an interesting opportunity

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.

Rubicon

The Democratic Party has crossed the Rubicon.  What's strange is that they're in a fairly weak position, which implies that we will see a ratcheting up of more of their actions to protect "our Democracy".  I don't see any possibility that they will ratchet any of this down; on the contrary, Trump's chances of being Epsteined in jail are getting a lot of discussion these days.

But Rubicon isn't quite the proper analogy.  I posted what I thought was the right analogy back on January 6, 2020.  It's sad to see that it reads every bit as true today as it did then, including an ancient Roman Epsteining.

Dura lex, sed lex.

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood."

- Enoch Powell MP, quoting Virgil in "The Rivers of Blood" speech

Enoch Powell was one of the first politicians to be de-platformed.  As with most of these sorts of innovations, this happened in the Old World in the 1960s.  I posted about this seven years ago, although Google can no longer find this; DuckDuckGo can, though (and that tells you everything you need to know about search engines):

45 years ago last month, British MP Enoch Powell gave a stunning speech.  In it, he looked on the immigration of foreign peoples into the Kingdom and the way that this was changing the UK's culture.  It was widely criticized by all Right Thinking People® but at the same time was wildly popular with working class Britons.  Indeed, a thousand dockworkers marched on Parliament in protest when Powell was sacked from his positions of leadership.

Dockworkers marching in support of a Tory politician.

The most famous line in his speech is where he quoted Virgil:

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'.

He was roundly damned for his "inflammatory" and "racist" remarks.  And so the British Political Class went back to sleep - indeed, the last Labour government intentionally accelerated immigration to make the UK "less British".

Today we saw the occupation of the Capitol building by people "annoyed" by what they (and many others) see as the theft of a Presidential election.  The protesters chased off first the Capitol Hill police and then the Congress itself.  It looks like one women lost her life, shot by a cop.  We'll have to see - early news is notoriously unreliable.

But looking at this, I thought of Virgil.  He of course, did not make up the Aeneid out of whole cloth; Virgil wrote propaganda for the first Roman Emperor, Augustus.  The Aeneid was propaganda, but what propaganda.  It made Caesar Augustus' family history into legend.  Because it was propaganda, it was exaggeration, but it was useful exaggeration to Augustus who while not related to the Great Leaders of the previous century was able to deftly exploit those leaders' exploits to his own advantage.

The most important leader at the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus,  He was the guy who noticed that while the Roman Republic had swept all foreign enemies before it, the working class had suffered despite the great riches of empire.  Tiberius Gracchus decided to run for public office despite his great family wealth, and to put forth his formidable political skills to benefit the Roman Working Joe.  He failed, because the Roman political establishment buried their traditional political differences in the face of Gracchus' challenge, and in fact had him killed.    

In short, the Roman Deep State closed ranks to block needed reform.  It was the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic as long cherished political norms (Mos Maiorum) were cast aside.  And so two generations of the Roman political elite were exterminated in a civil war so profound that what was left of the exhausted Republican Elite welcomed the first Imperator with open arms because he ended the civil wars.

Throughout this whole period in Roman History, the Law was supreme.  Of course, the Law bent to the prevailing political winds.  As the Roman said, "The Law is harsh, but it is the Law".  Dura Lex, sed Lex.

Donald Trump is the Tiberius Gracchus of our day.  He is the guy who noticed that while the American Republic had swept all foreign enemies before it, the working class had suffered despite the great riches of empire.  Donald Trump decided to run for public office despite his great family wealth, and to put forth his formidable political skills to benefit the American Working Joe.  He failed, because the American political establishment buried their traditional political differences in the face of Trump's challenge, and in fact had him [well, we'll have to see if they let him live free, or jail him, or kill him].

But Tiberius Gracchus had many supporters, who didn't let the Roman political elite rest easy.  Likewise with Donald Trump, as we saw today:

Some of Gracchus' supporters were killed, as we saw today.  Looking forward, I am filled with foreboding.  Like the Roman, I seem to see the river Potomac foaming with much blood.  We're already started, it seems.  The only questions really remaining is who is to play the part of Augustus Caesar, and how many of the elite families (and, it must be said, other families) must die before a grateful Republic reaches for their savior Emperor?

But the Founding Fathers knew about the failings of the Roman Republic.  They strived to avoid them in their Republic.  As a student of history I must say that they avoided the Roman pitfalls for 200 years.  Not bad at all.

Never mind that the Romans avoided these for almost 500 years.  God Save this Honorable Republic.

Remember the FISA renewal vote?

You know, the one today?  Guess what?

It's actually got new stuff in it - and you are now required to spy for Uncle Sam.

Yes, you. But fear not, Citizen: NSA no doubt will be responsible in how they use this.

Big Pharmacy chains turn over medical into to police without warants

Hey, you can trust the Government, right?

All of the big pharmacy chains in the US hand over sensitive medical records to law enforcement without a warrant—and some will do so without even running the requests by a legal professional, according to a congressional investigation.

...

They include the seven largest pharmacy chains in the country: CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Cigna, Optum Rx, Walmart Stores, Inc., The Kroger Company, and Rite Aid Corporation. The lawmakers also spoke with Amazon Pharmacy.

All eight of the pharmacies said they do not require law enforcement to have a warrant prior to sharing private and sensitive medical records, which can include the prescription drugs a person used or uses and their medical conditions. Instead, all the pharmacies hand over such information with nothing more than a subpoena, which can be issued by government agencies and does not require review or approval by a judge.

This sure seems like a violation of HIPAA, not to mention that pesky Fourth Amendment.

(via)

TETRA Police Radios have a cryptographic backdoor

Hmmmmm:

Most interestingly is the researchers’ findings of what they describe as the backdoor in TEA1. Ordinarily, radios using TEA1 used a key of 80-bits. But Wetzels said the team found a “secret reduction step” which dramatically lowers the amount of entropy the initial key offered. An attacker who followed this step would then be able to decrypt intercepted traffic with consumer-level hardware and a cheap software defined radio dongle.

Looks like the encryption algorithm was intentionally weakened by intelligence agencies to facilitate easy eavesdropping.

There's an old saying that while there may be friendly foreign governments, there are no friendly foreign Intelligence Agencies.  Or domestic ones either, seemingly.

Even if you're a LEO.  Note that this makes secure police communications problematic.  Not cool.

New Jersey Supremes to cops: get a wiretap order

Interesting Independence Day news:

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 a lower court's ruling that 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.

Well, yeah.

 

Be careful with Ring doorbell video cameras

Police warrant orders man to surrender video from camera inside his home:

Last year, around the Thanksgiving holiday, Ohio businessman Michael Larkin received a request for video from his Amazon Ring security system from Hamilton city police.

He complied, providing video from his doorbell camera that was stored on Ring's servers. After balking at further demands, he subsequently learned that authorities had bypassed the need to get his consent by presenting Ring with a search warrant for video from several of his Ring cameras, including one that covered an indoor area of his home.

According to Politico, Larkin received a notice from Ring that the tech biz had received a warrant and was required to turn over video from numerous cameras, without giving the owner with any say in the matter.

I expect that this won't just happen with Ring video devices.  If you have these sorts of cameras, you might want to make sure they're only recording video of outdoors. 

Cheap guns!

The Miami PoPo are doing a gun buy-back "to benefit Ukraine". [rolls eyes]

They're offering peanuts, in the form of gift cards. Smartest kids in class, right there.  [rolls eyes again]

If you're in that area and looking to score guns cheap, show up at Miami City Hall on Saturday at 10:00 AM.  If you offer twice as much in cash, I expect you'll get first pick.  Looking at the price they're offering, that'd be $300 for an AR.

Justified use of force

Brother Dwight emails to point out this example of how there's one set of rules for us, and a different one for those in Police uniform:

Two Buffalo police officers who shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground during a protest in 2020 have been cleared by an arbitrator, who said the use of force was “absolutely legitimate” because the man, who was hospitalized with a head injury, was “not an innocent bystander.”

Non-paywalled article here.

So it's an example of a justified use of force, at least for the police.  My reply to him was overly snarky, that if it had been at a Black Lives Matter protest the city would have burned to the ground.  I should have read the article first.  It was at a BLM protest, and the city didn't burn.

Now a few points:

1. This was a Police Department administrative hearing.  The cops got off in the same way that cops who shoot homeowner's dogs, or do no-knock raids on the wrong house, or throw flash-bang grenades into baby cribs get off.  The Blue Wall of Silence, and all that.

2. The man is going to sue the police department, and the city will almost certainly settle out of court.  The taxpayers will lose but the cops will be fine.

3. If you or I roughed up a 75 year old man, we'd be looking at multiple felony charges.  Know your place, peasant.

4. I'd be a lot more supportive of the police if they cleaned up the bad cops.  Everyone knows who those are, but the Blue Wall of Silence tars the good cops with the bad.  This is probably the biggest tragedy of the whole situation.

5. The Queen Of The World disagrees with me on this, and thinks that the cops are being railroaded by a biased media.  She thinks the guy was screaming into their faces and they pushed him back rather than cuffing him, and he tripped when he fell back.  I'm less certain here, and would be more sympathetic to them if there were not a different set of rules for us (#3 above) and covering for bad cops (#4 above).

Oh, and you do read Dwight every day, don't you?  He's your go-to guy for obituaries and which coach just got fired.  

UPDATE 12 April 2022 19:37:  Dwight is going to post Gilbert Gottfried's obit tomorrow.

The Ghosts of Waco look down and smile

White House to withdraw Chipman nomination to lead ATF. 

The downfall of Czar Nicholas and the American Deep State

Big Country has a must-read post up.  Go read it now, then come back for my thoughts.  In it he lays out evidence that there is a three way power struggle going on between the Intelligence Community, the Pentagon, and the White House.  Peter adds some thoughts as well.

It reminds me of the last few years of Tsarist Russia: a war that was going poorly, indecisive leadership at the top that had no real idea what the citizens of the realm actually thought, and a fabulously corrupt and incompetent set of ministers who were more interested in looting the treasury than, you know, running their ministry.

And as to that last item, take a look at Joe Biden's cabinet (courtesy of J.Kb at Miguel's place).  It's deja vu all over again.  The last thing on any of these folk's mind is good governance.

And so, to BCE's post at the top.  The Biden Administration sure as shootin' ain't where the smart money is going to bet.  And so, on to the second of the three he calls out, the Dot Mil.  There are huge problems in our military, the biggest I've seen since the Vietnam days.  In a very disturbing way, the pathology is very similar: the senior officers give commands to a sullen and hostile enlisted force.  Back in the dark days of the '70s we had flag officers like Zumwalt (Navy) and Creech (TAC) who were able to reinstil discipline.  It sure doesn't look like the Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon are up to Zumwalt's (or Creech's) level.

And so I don't think that the smart money will bet on the Dot Mil, either.

So the Last Org Standing likely will be the Intel Community.  Heck, they already successfully overthrew a previous President, and guaranteed they have dirt on most of the players in Washington (Generals Petraeus and Flynn could not be reached for comment).

There really are only two questions.  First, how long will this take to play out?  The longer it goes on, the more damage the Republic takes (both externally and internally).  I can't say I'm optimistic that this will get sorted out soon.

Second, the Intel Community will want to rule from the shadows.  They are not Front Men - the acronym of one of the Three Letter Agencies was said to be "Never Say Anything".  Quite frankly, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the perfect empty suits for the Intel Community to stand up as "leaders" of the Republic - as they did last November.  The folks at Langley must be steaming mad that Biden isn't staying in his lane.  How this will play out is unknown, but unlikely to be pleasant for Joe, "Doctor" Jill, or Kamala.

Czar Nicholas came to a bad end in a basement in Yekaterinburg, along with his entire family.  Will our Checkists go this route to let the rest of Washington know they need to stay in their lanes, or will there still be more subtlety?  The nation wonders.

The most Florida April Fool's joke ever

Hahahahahaha!

Don't mess with the Polk County Sheriff's Office.  I mean, just don't. 

Quote of the Day: Tyranny Edition

He who would establish a tyranny, first establishes a bodyguard.

- Aristotle, Politics

 

I wouldn't want to be at the FBI right now

Tucker Carlson's team had some documents that they were going to use in a story.  The documents went missing in transit - the package was opened and emptied.

Of course, Carlson's team has copies.

From a news perspective, this has been a big win for Carlson.  The original story was about Hunter Biden and the corruption in the Biden family.  That specific story would have died down in a day or two - after all (as the old saying goes) it's called a "Newspaper", not an "Oldspaper".

Now the story has longer legs.  It's now about the Deep State covering for one of its own.  It's about how the Fed.Gov has much deeper tentacles into American society than people thought.  It's about how the Patriot Act has been weaponized by the intelligence agencies against their domestic political opposition.  That's a big story, that will last at least a couple days.

And tomorrow when this enhanced story starts to die down we can expect the original documents to drop.  Now they will have extra credibility - I mean, somebody who is somebody tried to suppress them.  Now the story shifts back to Biden family corruption, with evidence that is stronger than it would have been without the document interception.  PLUS, the weaponization of the PATRIOT act will still be there.

The Sunday morning Talking Head shows will be LIT, or the story will be that the news media simply won't give their viewers any news.  There is no truth in Pravda, and no news in Isvestia.

And the election will follow two days later.  Interesting times.  When Trump wins re-election, I expect people will go to jail over this.  As they should.

The election is over

Donald Trump just closed the deal with the American electorate.

Turn out the lights, the party's over

The only thing that the Democrats had going for them was the lockdown.  The breathless hyping of the 'rona was intended to fan the flames of fear which would justify further lockdown and economic devastation.  They then blamed Trump for all this, while the media shamelessly covered for them.  That's all gone now.

They say that, 'All good things must end'

But stop and think about what they're selling.  Fear.  Who wants to buy that?  Who would  choose to live their lives in fear?  People will only do that if there isn't a better alternative.  Donald Trump just gave the American Public a better alternative.  It's this: Sure, you might catch the virus.  It's not that bad.  I know, because I caught it.  Now it's time to get on with things.

Miguel compares it to FDR's first inauguration address: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  Miguel points out that Trump is not an orator like FDR was which is true, but actions speak louder than words sometimes, and Trump checking out of the hospital speaks really, really loudly.

What's even funnier is that the media simply can not not cover this.  It will be front page news for the whole week.  They won't be able to stop themselves, because this is something that people will want to hear about, because they really don't want to live in fear forever.  It will drive ratings, which drive profits.

The end of this week is 24 days from the election.

There's been a cynical joke that the 'rona lockdowns will end on November 4.  The handwriting is on the wall now for the lockdowns - people will start to look for justifications, because there is finally an alternative to the fear.  The justifications are (as I have been posting for months and months) really thin tissues of exaggerations.

And Trump is ready to play his the next card: call out the overreaction by government officials.  Name incidents, describe how innocent citizens were arrested.  Name the officials responsible.  Remember the guy out paddle boarding all by himself?  Remember how he got arrested?  Do you think that Trump can't shine the light of attention on that?  Do you think he doesn't have dozens of other examples, like playgrounds being closed?  Do you think that the electorate won't pay attention to him when he talks about that?

The Press will want to defend the Democrats against this attack but there's really nothing they can do.  I mean, when you see a video of a Mom arrested because she let her kids play outside, who are you going to believe: CNN or your lying eyes?  That's next week gone, too.  Then there are only 17 days until the election.  Does anyone think that Joe Biden will be able to turn things around in two weeks, especially when he's selling fear and Trump is selling hope?

He doesn't even need to talk about the lives and businesses destroyed by the lockdowns.  That's there, and everyone knows all about it.  Trump is going to paint the Democratic Party as the party of tyranny and fear and the Republican Party as the party of freedom and normalcy.  As the song goes, he'll use the 8x10 color glossies with circles and arrows to make his case.  Heck, he'll point out that the (Democratic) Governor is Michigan is ignoring her State's Supreme Court ruling to keep her thump on the public.  There's your tyranny, writ large.  And a whole bunch more, too.

I've said for a while now that Trump will easily cruise to a win next month.  Now it's looking like the down race Democrats are going to get slaughtered, because they'll be selling fear and tyranny against hope.  Good luck with that.

Remember last election with all the Republicans celebrating and the Democrats crying?  Second verse, same as the first.

What a crazy, crazy party
Never seen so many people
Laughin', dancin'
Look at you, you're havin' fun

But look at me I'm almost cryin'
That don't keep her love from dyin'
Misery, 'cause for me the party's over

 

Coronavirus data, and some cautious conclusions - and an apology to Aesop

Ignore the hype.  The data are not hype, and the hype is not data.  This is the most important thing to know about the Coronavirus:

This is the weekly US COVID deaths as reported by the CDC.  Even with the shift from "dying from COVID" to "dying with COVID" to "dying in the same Zip code as COVID" (like the Florida buy killed in a motorcycle accident whose fatality is included in the graph here), we see that deaths are way, way down and dropping further.  The data are clear on this.

This is the second most important thing to know about the Coronavirus:

This is the US All Cause Deaths.  You can see the annual spikes during the winter Flu season.  This year is definitely not "just a bad flu season" - deaths are significantly up from two years ago (which was a bad flu season).  The dashed line is all cause deaths minus Coronavirus deaths but again you see the deaths dropping.  The last three dots are most recent reports which are incomplete and which will be adjusted upwards in the future as it can take 8 weeks for all deaths to be reported.

Data are from here, which is worth a read in full.

And this is where I was wrong and Aesop was right - this was not just a bad flu.  The data are crystal clear on that.

However, the data did not justify shutting down the economy.  The data did not justify preventing you from saying goodbye to Grandma on her deathbed.  The data did not justify prohibiting public gatherings at funerals.  The data did not justify shutting down Sunday church.  The data did not justify shutting down the schools.  The data don't justify mandatory mask wearing.  The data don't justify the hype.

The data do justify intelligent measures to protect vulnerable populations.  The data do justify additional health care resources to make sure the hospitals - and their employees - do not get overloaded.  There are probably a couple others that could go here, but I'd be pretty surprised if it's more than a couple others.

But we are not governed by Philosopher Kings, which means that we get the worst of both worlds - we get forced infection of vulnerable populations, we have great stress in the health care system, and we have Autocratic tyranny that would have had the Russian Tsars scribbling notes.

In a younger and more vigorous age of this Republic, the politicians who imposed all this useless misery on the population would have been horsewhipped through the public square.  The data don't say that, but we can figure that out all on our own.

Toe Jah

I toe jah so.  Here's the New York Times (the loonie lefty's "Newspaper Of Record"):

Alarming calls online for a race war. The arrest of three suspected neo-Nazis. Memories of the explosive clashes in Charlottesville, Va., three years ago. 

A sense of crisis enveloped the capital of Virginia on Thursday, with the police on heightened alert and Richmond bracing for possible violence ahead of a gun rally next week that is expected to draw white supremacists and other anti-government extremists. 

Members of numerous armed militias and white power proponents vowed to converge on the city despite the state of emergencydeclared by Gov. Ralph Northam, who temporarily banned weapons from the grounds of the State Capitol. The potential for an armed confrontation prompted fears of a rerun of the 2017 far-right rally that left one person dead and some two dozen injured in Charlottesville, about an hour’s drive from Monday’s rally.

Nice job, blowhards.  How long is it going to take the rest of us to dig ourselves out of this hole?  I can't wait to see your next genius move.

I got an interesting comment to one of yesterday's posts:

damn I thought you were one of us. 

Well, just which "us" are you talking about?  I see a bunch of different groups descending on Richmond next week:

Antifa.  As if.

White Supremacists.  Oh, hell no.

The "It's Boogaloo Time" types.  I posted about this ten years ago, and have had no reason to change my mind since.  As I said, I will not walk that road with you.  It doesn't lead to salvation and redemption, but to the abyss.

BUT MUH SECOND AMENDMENT types.  I'm actually sympathetic to this group, except they're being so damn stupid.  It's not your passion for your freedom I object to, it's your judgement.  Your despair at the situation is letting the Powers That Be play you like a fiddle.  If you're in this group you should read the link immediately above, particularly the part about despair.  Not only is despair a sin, but it makes you stupid.

What's funny is that Castle Borepatch is only a couple hours from Richmond.  I could go to this.  Not going to happen.  This has had Charlie Foxtrot written all over it for weeks but folks seem determined to push start the damn thing down the hill even though the steering and brakes are wonky.  I'm taking Remus' advice and staying away from crowds.

Because when the dust settles, the fight will go on.  We'll all be in a worse position because the New York Times will gleefully be painting us as Nazis and violent nuts, so thanks for that.  But the fight will go on.  Next time, hopefully we'll be smarter.  That sure as shootin' can't be very hard.

Remember, the first rule of Internet Security applies here, too: sometimes it's easier not to be stupid than it is to be smart.

Note: this isn't a post-mortem, it's a pre-mortem.  But next Monday's outcome is as scripted as a Kabuki play.