Public servants are meant to be transparent. Private citizens are meant to be… private. Flip that, and you don’t have a democracy anymore — you have surveillance.
#Privacy #DigitalRights #AntiSurveillance #CivilLiberties #Accountability #Transparency #FediPrivacy
"If we don’t stop this monstrous expansion of power now — if we allow centralized data-hoarding under the guise of “election integrity” — we hand over our privacy, our democracy and, ultimately, our freedoms."
Saturday Report 11/29/25 — Is a cornered party as dangerous as a cornered rat?
https://hartmannreport.com/p/saturday-report-112925-is-a-cornered
#surveillance #bigbrother #elections #votingrights #immigration #civilliberties #bigdata
I’ll state the obvious, but in this so‑called free and democratic West, I find myself tiptoeing round more topics by the day, as if plain speech were some reckless indulgence rather than a basic right I’m meant to exercise without apology. #FreeSpeech #PressFreedom #CivilLiberties #HumanRights
"The war serves a nationalist purpose, and the revolution threatens it."
"Allegiance and protection are reciprocal; withdrawing that protection dissolves allegiance."
"The transformation happens in minds before it happens on battlefields."
#KenBurns #AmericanRevolution #History #HumanRights #CivlRights #CivilLiberties #Politics #Democracy #Justice #HalfHeartedFanatic
A number of Democratic lawmakers are questioning the legality of a #BorderPatrol predictive intelligence program that singles out & detains drivers for suspicious travel inside the country.
Sen #EdMarkey (D-MA) sent a letter to #CBP’s parent agency calling the license plate reader program an “invasive #surveillance network” that “poses a serious threat to individuals’ #privacy & #CivilLiberties” & said it may run afoul of the #US #Constitution.
#law #Trump
https://apnews.com/article/border-patrol-surveillance-license-plate-readers-immigration-5daca3741b28c55374912d8eebeec8db
"Through an analysis of 10 months of nationwide searches on Flock Safety's servers, we discovered that more than 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches through Flock's national network of surveillance data in connection with protest activity. In some cases, law enforcement specifically targeted known activist groups, demonstrating how mass surveillance technology increasingly threatens our freedom to demonstrate.
Flock Safety provides ALPR technology to thousands of law enforcement agencies. The company installs cameras throughout their jurisdictions, and these cameras photograph every car that passes, documenting the license plate, color, make, model and other distinguishing characteristics. This data is paired with time and location, and uploaded to a massive searchable database. Flock Safety encourages agencies to share the data they collect broadly with other agencies across the country. It is common for an agency to search thousands of networks nationwide even when they don't have reason to believe a targeted vehicle left the region.
Via public records requests, EFF obtained datasets representing more than 12 million searches logged by more than 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025. The data shows that agencies logged hundreds of searches related to the 50501 protests in February, the Hands Off protests in April, the No Kings protests in June and October, and other protests in between."
#USA #Trump #Flock #PoliceState #Surveillance #CivilLiberties #ALPR
A Home Office insider warns the Palestine Action ban—based on secret evidence—is already sweeping innocent people into jail.
According to The Guardian, a member of the Home Office’s own homeland security group has warned that proscribing the direct-action network is already generating confusion, wrongful referrals and the risk of innocent people being criminalised simply for engaging in Palestine advocacy.
#PalestineAction #Prevent #UKPolitics #CivilLiberties
https://thewhipline.substack.com/p/are-innocent-people-paying-the-price
#CivilLiberties Defense Center on Trump’s Push to Designate Domestic Groups and Ideologies as #Terrorism
September 25, 2025
"Report from the Civil Liberties Defense Center (#CLDC) on moves by the Trump administration to attack #LeftWing groups and ideologies as domestic terrorism.
"Yesterday the Trump regime signed yet another executive order that plainly states what many of us have known for a while now—that the #cabal currently in power are unabashed #fascists. Donald Trump declared that those opposed to #fascism, those who are #AntiFascist in this county — a country that has fought wars against fascism — are now labeled as '#DomesticTerrorists' by this current government — in essence, enemies of the state. Trump and his minions do not have the constitutional or statutory authority to create a terrorist designation pertaining to an amorphous political belief. Period.
"The #FirstAmendment continues to protect #FreedomOfSpeech and association, and would thus prevent any Congressional attempt to enact a law that would allow the US government to designate US groups as terrorist organizations based simply upon their political activities. But, as we know with this regime, there is the law as it has existed for over 100 years, and then there is their attack on the law.
"This EO targets '#Antifa' which is obviously short for 'antifascist.' Antifascists are opposed to fascists. Fascism rejects democracy. Fascists sign executive orders (no democratic process involved) that seek to malign or punish their political opponents, because that is the only way they can take more control from the people in a democratic country. Fascists attempt to undermine democratic elections, erase actual history, and manipulate words to falsely justify their propaganda. This EO is another example of Trump’s war of words — an attempt to recreate reality in order to solidify a fascist #dictatorship."
#ItsGoingDown #AntiFascism #AntiCapitalism #AntiAuthoritarianism
#FreePalestine #Resistance #USPol #WorldPol #TrumpIsAFascist
https://unharnessed.substack.com/p/the-dirt-under-the-fingernails-of
#freedom #humanrights #socialjustice #freedomofspeech
#Democracy
#HumanRights
#FreeSpeechCrisis
#Censorship2025
#CivilLiberties
#FreedomOfExpression
#writingcommunity
I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.
-- Kurt Vonnegut (A Man Without a Country)
⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #KurtVonnegut #Bullies #CivilLiberties #FreeThought #Libraries
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Sunset #Kayaks #Everglades #Florida
This Week's #RichDick : Senator #LindseyGraham is a spy #hawk who’s suddenly 'outraged' by spying
#WarrantlessSurveillance #Republicans #USpol #January6 #J6 #CivilLiberties #Snowden
https://means.tv/programs/mmn-daily_112125?category_id=34135
This is the problem - making determinations that have no immediate constraints, on forthcoming maybe this will happen - #Federal #judge granted an #injunction in #DC #lawsuit against #Trump #NationalGuard #deployment, but it won’t take effect for 21 days so the #government can #appeal. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/11/20/trump-dc-national-guard-ruling/ #ruleoflaw #justice #military #troops #maga #deportation #immigrants #lawenforcement #migrants #ICE #DHS #borders #civilliberties #useofforce
AI surveillance failures, exemplified by wrongful arrests and systemic bias, threaten community trust and civil liberties. Challenges include transparency, accountability, and addressing inequality. Public safety must balance with human rights. Discover more at https://smarterarticles.co.uk/ai-surveillance-fails-innocent-people-pay-the-price?pk_campaign=rss-feed
#HumanInTheLoop #AIinLawEnforcement #CivilLiberties #AlgorithmicBias
Great news, Pakistan. Democracy has finally been upgraded. Courts trimmed, power packed, one man extended till 2030. Truly a masterclass in ‘reform’. Read how the 27th Amendment rewrites the rules for the powerful few. #Pakistan #27thAmendment #JudicialIndependence #RuleOfLaw #CivilLiberties #DemocracyUnderThreat #ConstitutionalCrisis #PakistanPolitics #StatePower #MilitaryInfluence #SaveTheConstitution
https://open.substack.com/pub/salmanmehdi/p/a-state-betrayed
Jennifer Granick: Surveillance and Cybersecurity
On this episode of the Plutopia News Network, Jon, Scoop and Wendy talk with Jennifer Granick, Surveillance and Cybersecurity Counsel at the ACLU, about the expanding machinery of government and corporate surveillance and its threat to civil liberties and democracy. Jennifer explains how long-standing rules limiting government use and combination of personal data have eroded, enabling massive dossiers on citizens and immigrants built from government records, data brokers, apps, and new technologies like ubiquitous location tracking, spyware, and facial recognition. She highlights how border zones and immigration enforcement operate as Fourth Amendment “gray areas,” how ICE and other agencies exploit data broker loopholes, and how surveillance harms vulnerable people, from abortion seekers to benefit recipients wrongly flagged as frauds. The conversation also covers the politics and dangers of spyware, the importance and limits of tools like Signal, the role of hackers and security researchers in exposing abuses, and the way popular media normalizes surveillance as necessary for safety. Jennifer closes by stressing practical self-defense steps, the need to understand one’s “threat model,” and the importance of legal and political resistance, reminding listeners that although the situation is alarming, organized pushback can still win real protections.
https://media.blubrry.com/plutopia_news_network/plutopia.io/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Jennifer-Granick.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Jennifer Granick:
I think one of the biggest new things is that the rules that we had have kind of been thrown away. There were just these expectations that data I gave to the government in order to get Medicare or in order to get food stamps or something of that nature was going to stay used for those purposes. And there are rules about how the government is permitted to combine databases of information and when it’s allowed to do that. And what we’ve seen is a complete ignoring of those rules and this amalgamation of different databases of information into a dossier of people in the country, not just people who are immigrants, but also people who have been born here and were citizens as well. And you put together all these disparate pieces of information and it tells you a lot, maybe almost everything about somebody.
On November 14, two #Montreal #police officers assaulted Dimitri Lascaris when he attempted to enter the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where #Canadian #PrimeMinister #MarkCarney was giving a speech.
This is by no means that first time that he's been assaulted by the #cops in Montreal. These experiences have become a regular occurrence whenever he tries to attend speeches by Ministers in the #CanadianGovernment.
This time, however, he managed to capture the assault on video.
As he explains in his report from outside the hotel, it is now obvious that Lascaris has been placed on a government #blacklist. Although he's a #lawyer in good standing and a card-carrying member of the press - facts about which Canada's government is undoubtedly aware - it’s clear that the Liberal government has instructed Montreal police and the #RCMP to prevent Lascaris from entering any building where a Minister of the Canadian government is speaking - and to use force, if necessary, to exclude him.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fgIP-GjsEt0
#CDNpoli #Quebec #QCpoli #MontrealPD #PoliceViolence #CopCrimes #RemoveQualifiedImmunity #ACAB #DefundPolice #CivilLiberties #AntiFascist #Censorship #PressFreedom #Journalists #CanadianMedia #journalism #Media #Neoliberalism
The Age of Obedience
How We Became the Audience for Our Own Extinction
https://unharnessed.substack.com/p/the-age-of-obedience
#freedom #humanrights #socialjustice #freedomofspeech
#Democracy
#HumanRights
#FreeSpeechCrisis
#Censorship2025
#CivilLiberties
#FreedomOfExpression
