Category: Law and Order

Private & Personal

Corporate Fuckery, Numbers & Statistics, Surveillance Society

I’ve never been that interested in my origins to have done the 23andMe thing, so I’m personally not affected by this activity.  Nevertheless:

Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia have sued the genetic-testing company 23andMe to oppose the sale of DNA data from its customers without their direct consent.

The suit, filed on Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Missouri, argues that 23andMe needs to have permission from each and every customer before their data is potentially sold. The company had entered an agreement to sell itself and its assets in bankruptcy court.

The information for sale “comprises an unprecedented compilation of highly sensitive and immutable personal data of consumers,” according to the lawsuit.

The genetic data at stake is especially sensitive and should be protected, because if it is stolen or compromised, it cannot be replaced. The data can be used to track not only the individuals who sent the kits, but also people related to customers, including yet unborn generations.

Why, and who is the prospective purchaser of all this “highly sensitive and immutable personal data”, you ask?

[23andMe] is poised to be acquired by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for $256 million, according to the lawsuit.  Regeneron is a biotechnology company that uses genetic data to develop new drugs.

So there’s no chance that the data will be abused in any way, then. [eyecross]

I think that my position on this kind of thing should be fairly obvious by now.

Your personal data — all of it — belongs to you, and to nobody else.  Only you can authorize its use or dissemination, for whatever reason.

So if some asshole organization — let’s just call them Regeneron, for brevity’s sake — wants to use personal (i.e. unaggregated) data, they should have to ask you personally for your permission, each and every time.  (Once data is aggregated, of course, your anonymity is no longer an issue.)

By the way, the same should apply to US Census data, but that particular bullet has gone through the church countless times already, and it’s a terrible precedent.  (Which is why I always urge people not to fill out the “long form” census questionnaire every time this bit of government snoopery comes around.)

More Troubles

Anarchist thugs, Illegal immigrants, Law and Order

Earlier, I referred to this account of the mostly-peaceful reindeer games taking place in L.A. et al., there’s an additional twist to the tale:

Some of the most horrifying images to emerge from the carnage on Sunday came from Downtown LA, where at least five Waymo self-driving cars were set alight and vandalized, prompting an indefinite shutdown of Los Angeles St north of Arcadia, and south of Alameda amid safety concerns about the lithium batteries. 

Oops.

I also liked pics of this mostly-peaceful activity:

Good question, sweetie.

Mr. President?

That “86” Thing

Asshole Cops, Rights, Two-Minute Hate

A whole lot has been said about former FBI Chief Thug James Comey’s X-post featuring this picture, and his coy little observation:

Needless to say, this silliness found immediate favor with the Perpetually Indignant (Rightwing Division, even John Kass), who claimed that the “86” is code for “kill” or “assassinate”.

No it isn’t.

“86” means to dump or throw in the trash — in restaurant terms, it also means “not to mention (to customers)”, and back in my executive days, we used to use “86” to mean “forget about it” — e.g. “86 that idea, dummy”.

In other words, it’s a completely innocent term.  It does not mean anything sinister.

I don’t care that the .dotmil uses “86” to mean “kill”, either.  The military (and government, for that matter) has a long and storied history of using the English language to cover a whole panoply of ugly shit (e.g. “Terminate With Extreme Prejudice”), and I don’t care about any of that either.

Now far be it for me to come to the defense of that treacherous lizard Comey, but seriously?

Current FBI Director Kash Patel announced that his department is in communication with the Secret Service over Comey’s social media post “directed at President Trump” on X Thursday evening.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem added in her own X post that the DHS is investigating Comey’s post as well.

Noem appeared on Fox News Thursday night, saying she believes Comey “should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”

“The rule of law says people like him, who issue direct threats against the president of the United States, essentially issuing a call to assassinate him, must be held accountable under the law,” she said.

FFS, grow up, you assholes.  Your reaction to this is actually in the dictionary, under the word “Overreaction”.  Get a clue, and stop being so hyper-sensitive.

This is just as bad as those foul pricks on the Left complaining about Sarah Palin’s “crosshairs” comment.  It was bullshit then, it’s bullshit now.

Yeah, I know Trump has already survived two actual assassination attempts and everyone’s hyper-sensitive about anything that might hint at another.  But wait… we’re talking about jailing someone for a fucking Twatter post?

And yet we (quite justifiably) mock the BritGov when they send the rozzers over to threaten people over Fecesbook ramblings that run afoul of the dreaded “hate speech” rules?

Fuck off, all of you — and yeah, I’m including Superhero Kash and St. Kristi here — because this is absolute bullshit.

Look, the whole “86” thing may be in poor taste;  but the last time I looked, “bad taste” is kinda protected by the First fucking Amendment.

I know, the Bill of Rights can be a somewhat inconvenient at times — the Second as much as the First, ask any gun-confiscator — but that’s the exact purpose of the Bill of Rights:  it protects us from government.

And as much as I hate to say it, that shitbird Comey gets the same protections as the rest of us, even if he himself is a prime candidate for “eighty-sixing” — i.e. should be dumped in the trash heap of history and forgotten.

Fach.

Same Here

Government Thugs, Rights, Surveillance Society

Tom Knighton has written an article which resonates with me, for obvious reasons:

By now, we’re all well aware of the Biden-era “Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” which has some very troubling language in it.

As Just the News reported earlier on Tuesday, the criteria included buying guns, being a veteran, and what was termed as “‘xenophobic’ disinformation.”

I’m a veteran and gun owner, and I was pretty critical of China during the whole pandemic, at least on social media. Now, I’m curious as to whether my own government was monitoring my lawful activity simply because I wasn’t a raging leftist loon willing to toe the progressive party line on these issues.

Was I considered a threat to become a domestic terrorist?

Anyone see any parallels between Knighton and me?  The only difference between us is that I’m a veteran of another country’s army — but I’m still a veteran.  (As for the criticism of the foul ChiComs, and buying guns:  ipse dixit.)

I have no idea what is/was meant by “xenophobic disinformation”, but if it means saying that I heartily dislike furriners who creep illegally over our borders to take jobs away from U.S. citizens, commit other crimes, engage in espionage or otherwise try to undermine our country, then I’d have to plead nolo contendere*.

Knighton goes on:

I’m sure I could file a FOIA request and find out, and part of me is considering doing just that, but another part of me would rather not know.

I do have one hint that I may be on such a list if “undesirables”:  back in 2017 (that would have been under the Obama administration), I had the dreaded “SSSS” designation appear on one of my air tickets, but it was for one flight only (among several others in that year and the year following), and Obama had only been  in  out of power for a few months at that point.

I’m fairly sure  that I was “noted” by some government apparatchik during the latter years of his presidency, and if not then, I have absolutely no doubt that I was flagged during the Biden era.

This website is my only “online presence” (no Twatter, no Fecesbook, no Instagram and certainly no ChiCom-based Tik Tok either), but over the years several of my posts have engendered (shall we say) some notoriety, and it wouldn’t take much for those to have got me noted and monitored by some DHS/FBI drone.

Anyway, my interest in such surveillance by the .gov is minimal, although I am a kindred spirit of Tom Knighton’s in that:

Finding out that I was monitored because of my views and lawful behavior might just be too much for me to tolerate, and I’m seeing too much that I’m incapable of tolerating as it is.

Amen, Brother Tom.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range.  My AK-47 is feeling all neglected and stuff.

*Whole lotta Latin in this post… sorry.

Be Still, My Beating Heart

Anarchist thugs, Good Stuff, Law and Order

From the Trump Administration:

Attorney General Pam Bondi warned against committing acts of vandalism or terrorism against Tesla products or other Elon Musk-owned properties.

Bondi said those committing those acts would face the full brunt of federal law enforcement without the possibility of plea agreements.

That thumping noise you hear is that of my heart, having burst right out of my ribcage, doing a

around the house.

Surveillance

Asshole Cops, Government Thugs, Surveillance Society

Seems as though you can’t do anything these days without being spied on by the fucking Government:

Recent revelations confirm that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has been aggressively expanding its use of facial recognition technology, raising significant concerns about mass surveillance and unconstitutional tracking of law-abiding gun owners.

For years, gun rights advocates have warned that the ATF’s use of facial recognition would lead to mass surveillance of American citizens—particularly those who exercise their Second Amendment rights. Despite repeated claims that the ATF doesn’t engage in biometric tracking, a 2021 Government Accountability Office report revealed that between October 2019 and March 2022, the ATF conducted at least 549 facial recognition searches.

Of course, it’s not actually the ATF doing this (a.k.a. plausible deniability):

The technology was largely powered by third-party vendors, including Clearview AI and Vigilant Solutions, both of which have amassed vast databases of billions of images scraped from social media, DMV records, and security footage. This means the ATF has been leveraging private sector databases to track and identify gun owners without their consent.

The full scale of this surveillance remains unclear, but newly surfaced documents indicate that the ATF has been working with FBI fusion centers, state and local law enforcement, and even foreign intelligence agencies to develop more comprehensive tracking capabilities.

Here’s the thing:  I don’t want to be spied on by anyone, let alone these government thugs.

I don’t care that it helps “security” or any other such panacea.  Take your snooping devices and go fuck yourselves.

That said:

Oh, and new-FBI Director / ATF Acting-Director Patel?  Take a long, hard look at those “FBI fusion centers” and make them less malevolent — lest you too be labeled as just another government thug.

Information, we’re always being told, is power.  And I want the government to have a lot less of both.