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mes5464
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Germany: Return of the Stasi Police State?

Germany's new law requires social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to censor their users on behalf of the government. Social media companies are obliged to delete or block any online "criminal offenses" within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint -- regardless of whether the content is accurate or not.

Social media platforms now have the power to shape the form of current political and cultural discourse by deciding who will speak and what they will say.

Notice the ease with which the police chief mentioned that he had filed charges to silence a leading political opponent of the government. That is what authorities do in police states: Through censorship and criminal charges, they silence outspoken critics and political opponents of government policies, such as Beatrix von Storch, who has sharply criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel's migration policies.

While such policies would doubtless have earned the German authorities many points with the old Stasi regime of East Germany, they more than likely contravene the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to which Germany is a party, as well as the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

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ICE has struck a deal to track license plates across the US - The Verge

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has officially gained agency-wide access to a nationwide license plate recognition database, according to a contract finalized earlier this month. The system gives the agency access to billions of license plate records and new powers of real-time location tracking, raising significant concerns from civil libertarians.

The source of the data is not named in the contract, but an ICE representative said the data came from Vigilant Solutions, the leading network for license plate recognition data. “Like most other law enforcement agencies, ICE uses information obtained from license plate readers as one tool in support of its investigations,” spokesperson Dani Bennett said in a statement. “ICE is not seeking to build a license plate reader database, and will not collect nor contribute any data to a national public or private database through this contract.” (Vigilant did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

While it collects few photos itself, Vigilant Solutions has amassed a database of more than 2 billion license plate photos by ingesting data from partners like vehicle repossession agencies and other private groups. Vigilant also partners with local law enforcement agencies, often collecting even more data from camera-equipped police cars. The result is a massive vehicle-tracking network generating as many as 100 million sightings per month, each tagged with a date, time, and GPS coordinates of the sighting.

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Saudi Arabia Moves Elites to Prison, Threatens Trial - WSJ

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is stepping up pressure on detained members of the country’s elite resisting his demands for billions of dollars in payments—moving them from a luxury hotel to prison, according to people familiar with the move, and threatening them with prosecution.

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Israel, Poland in row over Holocaust bill | AFP.com

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Poland on Saturday of denying history with a bill outlawing any reference to the Nazi death camps in the country as being Polish.

"The law is baseless. I strongly oppose it. One cannot change history and the Holocaust cannot be denied," the premier said in a statement.

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Fight over Nunes memo could go to a vote next week | McClatchy Washington Bureau

That the exact contents of the almost-infamous Nunes memo — a four-page classified document apparently claiming the FBI engaged in “shocking” surveillance abuses —have remained secret even as the document has captured headlines for weeks and is available to all House members to view is remarkable in today’s Washington.

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Beverly Hills to install more than 600 TV cameras around city in effort to curb crime

Beverly Hills plans to add to the more than 600 closed-circuit television cameras in the city.

The expansion plans include placing cameras in residential neighborhoods in an attempt to "thwart crime, apprehend suspects and increase public safety," Beverly Hills Police Department Lt. Elisabeth Albanese said.

Signs promoting the increased use of closed-circuit cameras will installed, Albanese said.

"The City Council is in full support of this absolutely essential technology,'" Mayor Lili Bosse said. "We must send a clear message that the city of Beverly Hills is watching, and criminals will be caught and prosecuted.'"

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Interns at Kansas Capitol must sign confidentiality agreement | The Kansas City Star

TOPEKA
Interns in the Kansas Statehouse are required to sign a sweeping confidentiality agreement that employment law attorneys warn could have a chilling effect on their willingness to report harassment or illegal activity.

Anything that takes place or is said in a lawmaker’s office stays there, the document says, under threat of immediate termination.

Sneha Verma, 18, thought it seemed sketchy when she was asked to sign the three-paragraph agreement as part of her internship in the Kansas Legislature last year.

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Alaskans turn to government for food and health care amid recession, prompting worry about cost - Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU — Tens of thousands of people have turned to the government for health care and food amid Alaska's recession, prompting questions from state lawmakers about the sustainability of those safety-net programs.

Gov. Bill Walker's administration projects 240,000 people to be enrolled in the Medicaid health-care program next year, up from 163,000 in 2015. And 101,000 Alaskans were receiving food stamps in September, up from 72,000 a year earlier, according to preliminary federal data.

The federal government covers most of the cost of Alaska's food stamp program.

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Stockton Gets Ready to Experiment With Universal Basic Income | The California Report | KQED News

Tubbs is coordinating an effort to test a new way to sustain residents: universal basic income, or UBI. For one year, several dozen Stockton families will get $500 a month, no strings attached.

Dorian Warren co-chairs the Economic Security Project, which is contributing $1 million to the initiative. He said the goal is to gather data on the economic and social impacts of giving people a basic income.

In addition to tracking what residents do with the money, Warren said they will be monitoring how a basic income affects things like self-esteem and identity.

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Armed crooks posing as cops tie up, rob Brooklyn family - NY Daily News

A pair of crooks claiming to be cops tied up a terrified Brooklyn family at gunpoint after bursting into their apartment — only to get away with nothing more than a pair of sneakers, a camera and a jar of loose change, police said Sunday.

The brazen burglars — screaming “Police!” — forced open the back door of the home on Hale Ave. near Ridgewood Ave. in Cypress Hills at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

One of the men, sporting a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms vest, pointed a black gun at the frightened victims, three siblings and their 33-year-old aunt, cops said.

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Generations of Philadelphia families are incarcerated together

READERS NOTE: For decades, Philadelphia has grappled with the seemingly intractable scourge of violent crime in its poorest communities, but proposed solutions often have overlooked the root causes. In this story about the epidemic of families in prison together, Samantha Melamed highlights a striking pattern in violent crime — the way it is repeated through generations. That means telling the stories of men who have been responsible for vicious, often unforgivable acts. This article does not attempt to excuse them or to gloss over the pain of those whose lives were forever altered by their crimes. The aim, rather, is to illuminate a public-safety crisis — a cycle of innocent children growing up to be violent criminals.

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Mexico to send troops to stem violence after record 25,000 murders

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican officials said on Sunday the government was set to unleash a new wave of troops to crack down on criminal groups in regions where a surge in violence led to more than 25,000 murders last year. National Security Commissioner Renato Sales said federal police troops will work with local officials to round up known major criminals and bolster investigations. The aim was "to recover peace and calm for all Mexicans," he said. He did not provide details on the number of federal police to be deployed. More than 25,000 murders were recorded last year as rival drug gangs increasingly splintered into smaller, more blood-thirsty groups after more than a decade of a military-led campaign to battle the cartels.

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Prof uses American flag as doormat in college 'art display'

“People are stepping on the flag as they enter most of whom don’t realize its an American flag. The artist had a camera set up taking pictures of people stepping on it as part of her art work,” Karcher continued. “I find this extremely disrespectful and kick in the gut as a veteran. I have lost many friends whose caskets were draped with that same flag.”

Further, Karcher claimed that the exhibit was designed specifically to have visitors step on the flag unawares.

“When one of the professors tried to stop me from stepping on it, the artist said 'don’t say anything,'” Karcher told Campus Reform. “I did not realize it was a flag until after I left the show and a professor told me what it was. So when I went back down to check it out, [and] it was a flag.”

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The message of Christ and his holy prophets is reaching far beyond general conference. Listen all the way to the end and you will recognize several of the speakers.

https://acu.libsyn.com/show-andrew-klav ... ill-of-god

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Ford making AI robot POLICE CARS – RoboCops to catch speeding drivers | Daily Star

The US automotive firm revealed it plans to revolutionise how the roads are policed used state-of-the-art technology.

The automation cop car will be designed to snare drivers going too fast; will be used as a surveillance device and will even be able to issue tickets to people.

The AI police car will will be fitted with cameras, wireless communication sensors and is designed to go out an about on its own or with a human inside.

And it can even be linked to other police vehicles so it can call for back-up in an emergency situation.

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Robots could kill many Las Vegas jobs - Jan. 29, 2018

Elvis just started a new, somewhat boring job. When a guest at the Renaissance Hotel in Las Vegas needs a toothbrush or an extra towel, he brings it to their room.

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Gillibrand Softens Tone On Clinton Sex Scanda | The Daily Caller

Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand talked tough on sexual harassment on ABC’s “The View” Monday — until she was asked about her old friends Bill and Hillary Clinton.

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I interpret this as a threat to me and my beliefs.

Michael Moore: America Must be "Cleansed" of its "White Male Privilege" » Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

Far-left film maker Michael Moore called for America to be “cleansed” of its “white male privilege” during a speech in New York last night.

Moore was giving an address at the ‘People’s State of the Union’ event in Manhattan, which was derided by its critics as having nothing to do with “the people” and everything to do with mega-rich celebrities lecturing Americans about how to think and vote.

Asserting that the removal of Donald Trump and Mike Pence from office, “Still won’t be enough,” Moore said, “We must remove and replace the system and the culture that gave us Trump in the first place.”

“He did not just fall out of the sky and land in Queens,” Moore continued.” He is a result….of us never correcting the three original sins of America – a nation founded on genocide, built on the backs of slaves and maintained through the subjugation of women to second class citizenship and economic disempowerment.”

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Venezuelans 'loot to eat' amid economic tailspin

PUERTO CABELLO, Venezuela (AP) — The cab of Carlos Del Pino’s big rig gave him a nerve-rattling front-row seat to a surge in mob attacks on Venezuela’s neighborhood markets, cattle ranches and food delivery trucks like his.

Shortly after pulling away from the docks at Puerto Cabello, the country’s biggest port, he witnessed 20 people swarm a truck ahead of him and in a frenzy fill up their sacks with the corn it was carrying to a food-processing plant. The driver was held at gunpoint.

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Lab-bred mosquitoes to fly near Miami to help combat Zika

MIAMI (AP) — Thousands of bacteria-infected mosquitoes will be flying near Miami to test a new way to suppress insect populations that carry Zika and other viruses.

According to a statement from the Kentucky-based company MosquitoMate, the first mosquitoes will be released in the city of South Miami. The test is in collaboration with the Miami-Dade County Mosquito Control and Habitat Management Division.

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Catholic Church fearful priests and nuns will have to register as Vatican spies under new laws in Australia

The Catholic Church in Australia says new laws aimed at curbing interference by foreign states could force bishops, priests and nuns to publicly declare that they are agents of the Vatican. 

The laws, which followed concerns about China’s efforts to meddle in Australian politics and universities, require anyone acting for a foreign power to reveal their status or face criminal charges.

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Oklahoma man who pleaded guilty to raping 13-year-old at Falls Creek sentenced to 15 years probation | KFOR.com

OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma man who pleaded guilty to brutally raping a 13-year-old girl at a church camp was sentenced to 15 years probation.

In the summer of 2016, a 13-year-old girl said she was raped by Benjamin Lawrence Petty, 36, while she was at Falls Creek.

Petty was reportedly a cook at the church camp.

Court documents show that the victim says that Petty told her he was going to show her how to perform tricks on a device he brought to the camp when he suddenly pulled her into his cabin.

“Petty closed the door to his bedroom, tied [victim’s] hands behind her back, pulled down her jeans, pushed her face down on his bed, and violently raped and sodomized her,” the document states.

He was later arrested and charged with forcible sodomy, first-degree rape, and rape by instrumentation.

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Woman denied emotional support peacock on United flight | Fox News

Birds of a feather may flock together, but United Airlines recently shot down one traveler’s request to bring her emotional support peacock on a flight departing Newark Liberty International Airport.

Live and Let Fly reported earlier this week that even though the unidentified woman claimed that she had a second ticket for the peacock, the airline denied her request.

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