Archive for the 'Police State' Category
MI5 Agents Can Commit Crime in UK, Government Reveals
March 3rd, 2018Shocker. Via: Guardian: MI5 agents are allowed to carry out criminal activity in the UK, the government has acknowledged for the first time. The prime minister was on Thursday forced to publish the text of a direction to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, the spying watchdog, on governing “security service participation in criminality”. It instructs […]
Palantir Has Secretly Been Using New Orleans to Test Its Predictive Policing Technology
February 28th, 2018Via: The Verge: The program began in 2012 as a partnership between New Orleans Police and Palantir Technologies, a data-mining firm founded with seed money from the CIA’s venture capital firm. According to interviews and documents obtained by The Verge, the initiative was essentially a predictive policing program, similar to the “heat list” in Chicago […]
Kids Use Tech So Much They Can’t Hold A Pencil Anymore, Doctors Say
February 26th, 2018Swipetarded parents. Swipetarded children. This should be a boon for the public school to private prison gravy train. Via: Guardian: Children are increasingly finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because of an excessive use of technology, senior paediatric doctors have warned. An overuse of touchscreen phones and tablets is preventing children’s finger muscles […]
Apple Moves to Store iCloud Keys in China, Raising Human Rights Fears
February 24th, 2018Via: Reuters: When Apple Inc begins hosting Chinese users’ iCloud accounts in a new Chinese data center at the end of this month to comply with new laws there, Chinese authorities will have far easier access to text messages, email and other data stored in the cloud. That’s because of a change to how the […]
Brazil Military Takes Control of Rio de Janeiro’s Security
February 16th, 2018Via: Bloomberg: Brazil’s military will take control of public security in the state of Rio de Janeiro as a wave of violence rattles the population and dominates media coverage ahead of this year’s presidential election. President Michel Temer will issue a decree on Friday putting the military in charge of Rio’s security forces, his press […]
Artificial Intelligence Is Going to Supercharge Surveillance
January 29th, 2018Via: The Verge: Artificial intelligence is giving surveillance cameras digital brains to match their eyes, letting them analyze live video with no humans necessary. This could be good news for public safety, helping police and first responders more easily spot crimes and accidents and have a range of scientific and industrial applications. But it also […]
Why Some African Americans Are Moving to Africa
January 19th, 2018Via: Al Jazeera: You might not have electricity, but you won’t get killed by the police either. … “I think more will come when they begin to see it as a viable alternative. But it’s not easy and it’s not cheap. I can’t say what’s happening in America today is any worse than what’s been […]
SOUTH KOREA PREPARING TO BAN ALL CRYPTOCURRENCY TRADING IN THE COUNTRY
January 10th, 2018Disclosure: I hold cryptocurrencies. — Via: CNBC: South Korea’s justice minister said on Thursday that a bill is being prepared to ban all cryptocurrency trading in the country. That news is a major development for the cryptocurrency space, as South Korea is one of the biggest markets for major coins like bitcoin and ethereum. According […]
China: Mass Disappearances
December 17th, 2017Via: USA Today: Nobody knows what happened to the Uighur student after he returned to China from Egypt and was taken away by police. Not his village neighbors in China’s far west, who haven’t seen him in months. Not his former classmates, who fear Chinese authorities beat him to death. Not his mother, who lives […]
One-Third of All Americans Killed by Strangers Are Killed by Police
December 9th, 2017Via: Granta: Americans are afraid of many threats to their lives – serial killers, crazed gunmen, gang bangers, and above all terrorists – but these threats are surprisingly unlikely. Approximately three-quarters of all homicide victims in America are killed by someone they know. And the real threat from strangers is quite different from what most […]
