Gestapo USA

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/46826065

Remember this the next time you see someone post a link from CBS News.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/60114422

Texas is a shit state.

As statehouses ramp up for 2026, we’re seeing a familiar and concerning trend of lawmakers rushing to regulate the internet based on shockingly shaky science. From the California State Assembly to the Massachusetts and Minnesota legislatures, a wave of bills is crashing against the digital lives of young people, with proponents of these measures framing social media access as a "public health epidemic," or a "mental health crisis," even though we have yet to see any of the settled science that those labels usually invoke.

As a digital rights organization dedicated to the civil liberties of all users, EFF’s expertise lies in reminding lawmakers that young people enjoy largely the same free speech and privacy rights as adults. EFF is not a social science research shop, but we can read the emerging research. What that research shows is much more nuanced than what is claimed by those proposing to ban young people from social media, and it is clear that research and theories used to justify these sweeping bans is far from settled. The rush to ban access to digital platforms is being fueled by "pop psychology" narratives and a collection of statistically flawed studies that do not meet the rigorous standards required for such a massive infringement on youth autonomy and constitutional rights.

Hegseth’s own writings foreground anti-Muslim rhetoric and envisage a US military “taking sides” in a coming American civil war, as previously reported in the Guardian. His 2020 book American Crusade depicts Islam as a historic enemy of the west, calls for an “American crusade” against “domestic enemies” as well as the enemies of Israel, and idolises medieval crusaders. Hegseth has “deus vult”, the Latin slogan of Pope Urban II at the launch of the first crusade, tattooed on his arm.

Centrists don't tend to take this kind of fascistic rhetoric seriously for being an actual genuine desire and historically it has led to catastrophic consequences.

The comments made by a senior ICE official at a trade show highlight how Palantir is increasing the speed at which ICE operates. Most people detained by ICE have no criminal conviction.

Wang and Sun operated the news website U.S. News Center, aimed at the Chinese American community, and were instructed by Chinese government officials to post pro-PRC content on it.

In one instance in June 2021, a government official sent Wang a link to a letter to the editor published in the Los Angeles Times written by the the consul general of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles.

The piece refuted reports of the persecution, forced labor, and abuse of Uyghers in China’s Xinjiang province, stating, “There has never been genocide in Xinjiang or forced labor in the region’s cotton fields or any other sector.”

Within minutes, Wang shared the link on her news site.

The U.S. and several other countries have declared that Beijing’s policies against the Uyghurs amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity.

New crimethinc article just dropped

We failed to stop the Palestinian Genocide and now it is coming for us.

cross-posted from: https://europe.pub/post/12026950

To be gently rocked into a state of complacency around the existence of mass incarceration is an experience fundamental to being an American. All across our sprawling cities and small towns, we’ve managed to live alongside structures that carry the knowledge that we have an unparalleled number of people in prisons and jails, and a singular relationship to using solitary confinement as a means of punishment.

Infuriating, Israel is a genocidal rogue state and I am sick of this.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8364059

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/45611

Minneapolis, MN – On the evening of Saturday, April 25, 50 members of the Twin Cities community rallied downtown Minneapolis to demand the release of Salah Sarsour from ICE custody. Sarsour serves as president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and is a board member for American Muslims for Palestine. He has been an organizer for the Palestine movement in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for decades. Saturday’s protest was organized by the Twin Cities chapter of American Muslims for Palestine and the Minnesota Anti-War Committee.

On March 30, Sarsour outside his home near Milwaukee when he was pulled over, surrounded by ten ICE agents, and taken into custody without cause by ICE and DHS. He was initially held at a facility in Chicago, before being transferred to a detention center in Indiana where he remains in custody. Sarsour is a father, grandfather and husband, and has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States for 32 years.

At the rally, organizers led the crowd in chants of “Protesting is not a crime, free free Palestine” and “When immigrants are under attack what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” The crowd handed out fliers to passersby and to cars stopped at the busy downtown intersection of Washington and Hennepin Avenues to inform people about Sarsour’s abduction and the fight to free him from ICE.

Rani Hamza from American Muslims for Palestine articulated that Sarsour’s abduction is not some attempt at immigration enforcement but in fact an act of political repression against the Palestine movement by the Trump administration. Hamza said, “As they try to strip us of our dignity, we will fight harder to protect it. As they try to strip us of our humanity we will fight harder to preserve it. As they try to silence our voices, we will make them louder. And no matter how long it takes, and no matter what obstacles stand in our way, we will continue to fight for our dignity, our humanity, and our right to speak.”

Freedom Road Socialist Organization member Wyatt Miller laid out successful tactics of past battles against repression stating, “We do it by putting up a fight in court and by mobilizing the masses, by taking to the streets, by raising the banner of ‘Free them all’ without any qualifications and without fear.”

Insisting this is an opportunity to favorably shift the political terrain of the movement, Miller continued, “Fighting back against repression changes the political conditions and can help make what was impossible become possible.”

Alissa Washington of the Wrongfully Incarcerated and Over-sentenced Families Council and the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice spoke at the protest. Washington’s fiancé Cornelius Jackson has been wrongfully incarcerated and over-sentenced in Minnesota for the past 19 years. Connecting Jackson’s case to Sarsour’s she said, “His case is not unique. It is a reflection of a system that relies on informants, hides evidence, and then expects us to just accept it. At the same time, we are seeing that same system expand beyond prisons into our streets, into our neighborhoods, into our immigrant communities. Because today, we are also demanding: free Salah Sarsour from ICE detention.”

Representing the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), Alvin Sheng said, “All immigrants and their families have to band together to ensure that our constitutional rights are preserved for everyone in this country.” He called on supporters of the immigrant rights struggle in the Twin Cities to show up this Friday for MIRAC’s 20th annual International Workers Day march. “The biggest opportunity for us to exercise our collective power and unity with immigrant communities is coming up next Friday May 1. The International Workers Day march is starting at Lake Street and Chicago Avenue at 4:30 p.m. Come out to the most important march of the year for immigrant and labor rights!”

#MinneapolisMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #ImmigrantRights #MNAWC #AMP

From Fight Back! News via This RSS Feed.

Giving Trump all that glitters with a wide grin isn't a bargaining chip for a city under siege. And what, exactly, did LA walk out of this meeting with? Nothing. Except for a neat little preview of the Bass administration's posture as we head into our self-imposed megaevent purgatory.

This Tuesday, while America was obsessively watching the latest bizarre twists in Trump’s Iran debacle, Whiskey Pete’s Pentagon rolled out a $1.5 trillion budget request that contained a line item almost nobody’s talking about: a 24,000 percent increase, from $225 million last year to $54.6 billion this year, for an outfit called the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group.

That’s the largest year-over-year jump for any program in the entire defense budget, and it’s earmarked to build out AI-driven autonomous human-killing systems inside the Special Operations Command headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp is a man in charge of one of the most important and frightening companies in the world. Karp’s new book, cowritten with Nicholas Zamiska, is called "The Technological Republic". After claiming “because we get asked a lot,” Palantir posted a 22-point summary of the book that reads like a corporate manifesto. It evokes both weird reactionary shit and also trilby-wearing Reddit comments from the early 2010s.

Palantir’s summary of the book is ominous. But even the company’s name is unironically ominous. The "palantíri" are crystal balls in "The Lord of the Rings" that let Middle-earth’s worst tyrants spy on the heroes of the story. It’s a fun reference if you have no shame about your company’s mission.

We’ve attempted to translate these 22 points from Alex Karp’s alien words into something more reasonable, like human words from someone who might play him in the biopic. (Hello, Taika Waititi.) In so doing, we’ve become much more sympathetic to why Jürgen Habermas refused to supervise Karp’s research.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement again has expanded in California’s Central Valley, activating a new 700-bed detention facility operated by the for-profit prison company GEO Group.

Advocates say the agency began transferring immigrant detainees to the McFarland facility last week.

The facility, called Central Valley Annex, brings the total number of active detention centers in California to eight, up from six at the beginning of 2025. They are all operated by private companies and they have a total capacity of nearly 10,000 beds.

Asked whether they are being held as detainees or are free to leave, Cubillos described the situation as contradictory.

"They tell us we are completely free, that we shouldn't be afraid, that we are fully protected. But we want to leave and they don't let us," he said.

"We are prisoners, with the freedom to have a phone and technology, that's it," Rodelo said.