Portland Passes Groundbreaking Ban on Facial Recognition in Stores, Banks, Restaurants and More (medium.com) 264
Amid sometimes violent protests and counter-protests around racial justice, this week Portland, Oregon legislators unanimously passed groundbreaking new legislation to ban the use of facial recognition technology, which some see as a victory for civil rights and digital justice. The ban covers use of the technology in both privately owned places as well as by city agencies. From a report: "I believe what we're passing is model legislation that the rest of the country will be emulating as soon as we have completed our work here," said Portland City Council Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty during today's city council session. "This is really about making sure that we are prioritizing our most vulnerable community members and community members of color." Hardesty has been a vocal advocate for a facial recognition ban in the city for over a year. Established as two pieces of companion legislation, one ordinance makes Portland the first U.S. city to prohibit use of facial recognition technologies inside privately owned places accessible to the public, such as stores, banks, Airbnb rentals, restaurants, entertainment venues, public transit stations, homeless shelters, senior centers, law and doctors' offices, and a variety of other businesses. Further reading: Amazon Spent $24,000 To Kill Portland's Facial Recognition Ban.
You lost me after the first 4 words (Score:4, Insightful)
Amid sometimes violent protests
Amid sometimes violent protests? When, in the past 3 months have there not been violent protests in Portland?
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Ah, the "they're only rioting for bread" bullshit that AOC tried. She's a laughingstock too. Well done!
So, burn down 7% of your stuff? (Score:2)
If someone wanted to kick you in the balls 100 times, would you settle for letting them do it 7 times? Or maybe you wouldn't mind if we burned down only 7% of your house to support a good cause?
Also, no, these people wouldn't have so much political cover from the state if they were just random unemployed people. Tell me again why the state government is at their beck and call to ensure that they can continue peaceful riots? And if you're going to try to tell me that "white supremacists" are responsible,
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First off, 93% peaceful is a terrible statistic. Imagine if your breakfast was "93% food" and only "7% poison." Still want to eat it?
In general USAians are 95% peaceful and 5% likely to end up in prison. [bjs.gov] I guess the whole of US history has been just one huge riot this whole time?
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Ehh, what about cellphones/laptops? (Score:2)
Am I no longer allowed to use my face to login to my cellphone or laptop?
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My lying eyes (Score:2)
I guess if I go into any of these places in Portland I have to close my eyes so I don't recognize anybody. That would make life too difficult for the criminal, which we cannot have, can we? They are just good people trying to make a dishonest buck, right?
{+,+}
Manual Facial Recognition (Score:2)
Are we still allowed to employ manual facial recognition in Portland, or will that be slowly phased out as well?
Are people deliberately trying to commit treason? (Score:4, Insightful)
Federal agents standing by to help, they won't allow it
The only evidence we have of these crimes are surveilance cameras, those will now be banned
It seems to me as if party politics is more important than lives, safety, decency.
Very little violence actually (Score:3, Informative)
Local authorities aren't stopping the violence because the cops are actively encouraging it. They ignore the violent protestors and arrest the peaceful ones. It's a classic authoritarian tactic. The Nazis used it extensively.
As for the Feds, unless you're a fascist you do not want their help [fark.com]. Bill Barr is actively trying to use them to get us used to a Federal Police. You know, like a Gestapo.
You're straw manning. Surveillance cameras are not b
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You know that there's a pretty wide difference between surveillance cameras and (flawed) facial recognition technology, right?
Of course you do. You're just going for the reducto ad absurdum argument.
Works both ways (Score:3)
Removing (or using) surveillance cuts both ways. You could have protesters, criminals, Antifa, Proud Boys, martians appearing on-camera.
The technology does not care.
I don't think it helps to tie tech to politics. We should evaluate situations for greatest good, if possible.
But I would love to see a martian. :)
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I like this. Banning facial recognition is actually an Area 51 conspiracy; aliens have escaped into Portland and all surveillance must be stopped to suppress the evidence!
Ha ha ha ha. Come up with an alien theory so everyone can laugh and dismiss it as crazy...
Now you and I are safer from the humans if we can get them to believe we are just another crazy notion. We must remain vigilant or we will be discovered! [nudge, nudge, wink, wink]
Lame - ban eyewitnesses instead (Score:2)
It's been shown time and time again that eyewitness accounts are biased and inaccurate. Why not ban what's known to be bad?
it's an idiotic law (Score:5, Insightful)
from the /. summary:
one ordinance makes Portland the first U.S. city to prohibit use of facial recognition technologies inside privately owned places accessible to the public
So if you run the facial recognition software on the video feed in the cloud instead of on servers at the place of business you are good? What if you transfer the video feed to someone outside the legal jurisdiction of Portland and they run facial recognition? Would the Portland police travel to Arkansas to arrest someone for running facial recognition software on a security camera feed from Portland? What if you open the video feed and post it publicly, is that a crime because anyone can run face recognition software on it? Will the Portland police arrest everyone in Portland with a live camera feed because facial recognition software could be run on the feed?
Any law outlawing a particular type of data processing is idiotic.
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The very last people who will attempt to enforce this law will be the Portland police. A unenforced law is moot, but it does make great press for the City Council, doesn't it?
I have LPR (license plate recognition) cameras installed at my home, in a city where the Metro Council has banned their use. But the council can't stop me from sending license plate photos to
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" It's weird how many comments in support of mass automated surveillance are being modded up +5."
That's what happens when you Communists so completely overplay your hand the way you have these past few months. The pendulum goes so out of balance it has to swing pretty far the other direction before reaching equilibrium.
If you're shocked now then you're in for a real doozy come election day.
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The pendulum goes so out of balance it has to swing pretty far the other direction before reaching equilibrium.
What "pendulum"? What nonsensical physical analogy is that?
Define "technology" (Score:3)
Illegal on it's face (Score:2)
So the State can tell me what to do and not to do with data legally acquired. Bullshit.
Pretty sure they can't do that (Score:2)
The government can ban surveillance activities of whichever sort on public property I'm sure. But, on private property? I doubt that's Constitutional.
Finally some bi-partisan sanity. (Score:5, Informative)
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"Bi-partisan"? Um, no. Read it again. "...today Portland, Oregon legislators unanimously passed ..." Only one party is represented by Portland's elected officials.
As an Oregonian living in Portland... (Score:2)
...Whoo! Yes, some good news!
And look at all you snowflakes crying hypocritical tears. Remember when our culture was about freedom? Anti-corporatism? Avoiding dystopia? You're all so blind to progress when it actually happens.
This is a necessary component of avoiding living in a nuclear-age science-fiction story. We know that, at scale, people cannot track other people without technological tooling. By denying the use of that tooling, we are deliberately crafting a less shitty society.
Oh, my, LOOK at who got arrested... (Score:4, Interesting)
Kristina Narayan, a staffer for Democrat Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek, has been arrested [dailymail.co.uk] at the riots on the weekend after the police apparently got fed up with all the molotov cocktails being thrown at them.
Apparently, the Democrats running that state now do not want their rioters and looters so easily identified (anti-rioters have had quite a crowd-sourced effort underway for quite a while using security cam videos and facial recog software to ID rioters and then pass the info to the police, and they've ID'd a bunch of them accurately). If you have a business in Portland, you need to consider getting out - it's becoming quite clear that you are having all your normal civil protections removed plank-by-plank.
Note: I'm personally all for privacy and do not like things like these cams and traffic cams, etc. I'm one of the apparently ever-reducing population that took Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale rather than an inspirational one. But the thing that's interesting is that the hard left, who used to at least position themselves as opposed to big brotherism, are fully on-board with every soul-stealing big-government data grab in sight from mandated electronic health records to government deep dives into financials, and online government vehicle and property records, electronic records of travel (for taxation, of course) and they're certainly comfortable with all the soul-sucking data grabs by the tech giants, including all the video chatting (what's big tech doing with all the video and images flowing through their pipes?) but then there's this ONE big brother thing that repels them like a vampire is repelled by the sun: facial recognition cams, particularly where left wing rioters are active. Makes you say "hmmmmmmmmmm"....
Burn down your own house first (Score:4, Insightful)
> I take it you've never been to a protest. "Interfering with an officer" means "officer was trying to break up a legal, peaceful protest and needed an excuse to arrest people". This is what people call the good kind of trouble [google.com]
Refusing to disperse so they can deal with the people murdering others and burning down the city is not peaceful. Thanks for pointing out how the "peaceful" protests are working in concert with the molotov crowd.
Operation Legend is the feds coming in to arrest the violent rioters that the politicians are providing cover for and the state DAs are not charging despite the fact that they were caught, e.g. burning down police precincts. If you think these are "secret police" then I hope you get vanned. Everyone involved, despite some agitprop to the contrary, has shown up in court. There is no federal bail, though, so the local politicans playing catch and release with arsonists, like that one arrested for the forth time recently, will help make the case to the judge that there are no conditions under which their release is warranted.
You're just afraid that they'll find the organization behind the people paying and bussing ex-cons around like that pedophile, wife-beater and thief who tried to murder a kid.
So if you want to support this, please burn down your own house.
This will all be moot ... (Score:2)
A left wing wet dream, if anyone needs reminding.
So Portland will have any (Score:2)
Almost certainly there will be hidden stuff (Score:2)
Where the political buildings will all have cctv and facial recognition up the wazoo, because they are a special case.
Re:Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Federal law supercedes any state or city ordinances. Besides, these idiots post their own pictures on the internet and livestream their crime sprees. The facial recognition on that isn't even happening in the state (but the Federal arrests are).
Local businesses can "peacefully protest" these local laws by just posting their footage online as well. Let 4chan have a go at it.
Re:Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Restrictions on government use of mass facial recognition are reasonable.
Telling private citizens what software they are allowed to use on their own property is not.
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Restrictions on government use of mass facial recognition are reasonable.
Depends on the motivation for the restrictions. Restrictions should be justified. If they result in too high a number of false positives for example, then that's a bad thing. But if the motivation is "they guys are going in and tearing up private property but we don't think its fair that they are charged with a crime", then nah, that's not a valid justification.
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"If they result in too high a number of false positives for example, then that's a bad thing."
What if they are 99.99% accurate but save their results forever? Would that be acceptable?
Re:Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:4, Interesting)
Nothing in this summary suggests this legislation bans saving the underlying images forever - just not doing facial recognition on them at this time.
Therefore local authorities or private businesses can run them through facial recognition software at a later date when this law has been repealed. Or, private businesses could possibly simply send the images to another city where the facial recognition is done (which is likely what is already happening anyway). Or, the images could be subpoenaed by those in other cities or states or at the federal level and facial recognition run outside of Portland city limits.
Of course, once facial recognition gets better and there's more data available, many people will probably be walking around with their phone recording everything and using facial recognition on those images as they walk around in public and private places. From the linked article, I can't tell if this would make every individual who happens to forget to turn off this feature when they cross Portland city limits in violation of the law. The law does allow facial recognition in places not accessible to the public like private clubs, residences, factories/office buildings (except for areas accessible by the public such as lobbies). What is not clear is if the law restricts an ordinary citizen, unrelated to any business or organization, using facial recognition in public spaces like sidewalks (perhaps to avoid known criminals, perhaps to warn the person that the officer that is now talking to them has a history of abuse, perhaps to identify someone violating a protective order the individual has gotten, perhaps as an aid for those suffering from some form of prosopagnosia [wikipedia.org] or dementia).
I foresee that one may have to join the private "7-Eleven Club" to enter the door of a 7-Eleven in Portland in the near future. Membership is free, requires minimal information, and if you forget your "7-Eleven Club" card or app, you can just reapply (of course, that application will include a facial scan). Once you've entered the sally port you are, of course, now inside of a private club and facial recognition may be used to help decide if you will be allowed access through the second door. CostCo, being a club store, of course won't have to bother with all this nonsense (except since their prescription pharmacy, at least in my state - perhaps due to some law, is open to the general public so they would have to figure out how to serve non-members through an external walk up window or something.
Actually, I foresee a large private club, perhaps named "Portland Consumers' Club" (PCC), being established. This club would include many facilities in Portland. Some of these facilities would have names like Walmart, Cheatem and Associates Law Firm, 7-Eleven, Shell, Exxon, and CVS Pharmacy. All of these private club facilities would only be open to members of the PCC. Membership in the PCC would cost nothing, require little if any PII, take seconds to establish, and could be established online.
Re:Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:4, Insightful)
False positives in facial recognition is not a problem if investigators and others using the recognition "hits" do their job.
First, look at the image in question and then look at image it matched to - if it's obviously a different person, ignore the match as if it never happened (except to record it for statistical purposes and perhaps to help developers improve the facial recognition software).
Second, use this match, now verified by human eyes, as a starting point just as one would when an eyewitness matches an image in a mugshot lineup to a crime.
Eyewitnesses, like facial recognition, have a lot of false positives and the rest of the system must account for that. Is Portland going to ban eyewitnesses from reporting what/who they saw next?
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Re:Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:4, Insightful)
The facial recognition on that isn't even happening in the state (but the Federal arrests are). Local businesses can "peacefully protest" these local laws by just posting their footage online as well. Let 4chan have a go at it.
A common sentiment I've heard from Portland citizens is that they feel that their own police force is poor: that its members are predominantly from outside the community, and that the police force show bias against the citizens of Portland in favor of instigators from outside. I read this legislation as a way for the officials to clip the wings of the police force.
(From your comment about federal arrests, did you think this legislation was aimed at for instance the federal border police who were brought into Portland? I believe the councilors who drafted this legislation were aware they had no power over them).
I don't understand the point of your idea about 4chan. The legislation prohibits automated and semi-automated use of facial recognition technologies by banks and similar private institutions. I imagined that was about cases where the bank took photos of people, ran then through a system, and denied them service or similar - i.e. cases where it's useful to be automated. What would you post to 4chan? Every single customer? Or only ones after the fact who had been involved in some sort of criminal conduct? If the latter, why would a bank do that via 4chan rather than leaving it to the police?
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Re:The problem isn't the criminals (Score:4, Interesting)
The local businesses have, by and large, be good with the protests. Trump tried to do a photo op with a camera business that got wrecked and had to fake it with the previous owner from 8 years ago because the current owner told Trump to sod off.
That shows that he doesn't like Trump, not that he's just fine with his business being destroyed.
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Re: Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of course — his coffee mug is white!
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Yes, that must be the reason. It definitely couldn't be something else.
Given recent events, his explanation requires the fewest assumptions.
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Of course, it is. What are the chances, that the city, which cut police funding [kgw.com] because the rioting scum demanded it [uniteoregon.org], would further obstruct law enforcement for any other reason?
And what might that "something else" even be? Why deprive police of a labor-saving tool? Is prohibition of e-mails next — because, sometimes, a bogus accusation can be transmitted over it?
Re:Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Why deprive police of a labor-saving tool?
Because it's been proven over and over again that it doesn't really work?
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I'm unaware of any such proof. But, if it really is as ineffective as you allege, police would not be using it on their own — whether it is allowed or not.
They could arrest you on bogus grounds, but they still need to convince the jury of you being the criminal — or else it is all for naught.
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Re:Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:4, Insightful)
And what might that "something else" even be?
Well, let's see...general privacy issues and avoiding potential for abuse?
Is prohibition of e-mails next — because, sometimes, a bogus accusation can be transmitted over it?
You couldn't possibly have said that with a straight face.
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There is no privacy in public. Whatever can be legally seen can also be legally recorded — and studied.
That entirely depends on any local legislation in effect. In my case the above is definitely not true.
That'd apply to e-mail too
That makes zero sense. It doesn't apply in any but the most trivial and thus meaningless sense.
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Where is it, that you are legally prevented from recording, what you see?
Europe. For example France, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Spain, Switzerland require consent before photographing individuals in public, so "whatever can be legally seen can also be legally recorded" is trivially not true in these countries.
Certainly, e-mail can be used to falsely accuse someone of a crime.
If you wanted to ban anything that could ever possibly be abused, you'd have to live in vacuum. Of course that doesn't mean that there aren't different potentials for abuse for different things [mirror.co.uk].
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"Where is it, that you are legally prevented from recording, what you see?"
Most every court room in America.
Most every public restroom in America.
Most every changing room in America.
Most every movie theater in America.
Many hospitals in America.
I'm sure there are other places in the list as well.
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>No matter the political stance. Protests get ugly fast
Only if antifa show up.
>Perhaps you are Afraid of ANTIFA because they wear military type clothing. And yell at people who are actually carrying guns.
Right... all they are doing is yelling. That explains the number of dead, injured, and costs to rebuild.
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Citation needed. When this is happening [npr.org]
Also this [businessinsider.com] perhaps you are grouping differnt groups together.
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https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo [twitter.com]
Andy has been documenting the violence of antifa for quite some time. Years in fact. He is also facing many death threats from antifa.
Oh yeah, he seems about as fair and balanced as Fox News:
Ngo has labelled several journalists, including Shane Burley and Alexander Reid Ross, as "antifa ideologues".[34] According to Vox's Zack Beauchamp, Ngo has doxed at least one political activist by publishing her full name.[35] He has also been accused of using selectively edited videos to paint antifa activists as violent, and to underplay the violence of the far-right.[36][37][11][38][39][40]
Ngo has investigated what he calls "illiberal reactions", which he says threaten college freedoms.[23] In February 2018, Ngo and his student group Freethinkers of PSU invited former Google engineer James Damore, the author of a Google diversity memo, to speak on the campus. According to Ngo, his group was threatened with violence and were intimidated by antifa protesters, but this claim has been disputed.[6] He later stated that antifa protesters did not disrupt the event.[6][41] During the event, a portion of the audience walked out in protest against Damore. Ngo filmed the disruption, but said "it [had not been] a plan to get national attention for [himself]."[42][43][23][20]
In November 2018, Ngo live-streamed the #HimToo Rally organized by a Patriot Prayer member in downtown Portland, and was sprayed with silly string by antifascist protesters.[44][45] Ngo said the Democratic politicians are in a difficult position as they have a constituency that "share similar goals and sympathies [as antifa]". Ngo called for "more clarity in their [Democratic] leadership, and to come out against violence, against this type of anarchy, and not view it through a partisan lens as they are currently".[44]
In May 2019, Ngo was pepper-sprayed by an antifascist activist while recording a fight in Portland. This occurred amid clashes between antifascists and the far-right group Patriot Prayer.[46] Later that year, a video of Ngo surfaced where he is seen laughing, while standing next to the members of the far-right group planning the attack on anti-fascist patrons at the bar.[31][47][48][6] He later followed the group to the bar where they allegedly attacked the patrons. The video is part of the court documents in the ongoing lawsuit against Patriot Prayer members for allegedly causing the riot. One of the victims of the attack was knocked unconscious with a baton and suffered a broken vertebrae—Ngo later posted a video of her being attacked and identified her online.[49] Portland Mercury quoted an undercover antifascist embedded in Patriot Prayer saying that Andy Ngo has an "understanding" with the far-right group, that the group "protects him and he protects them".[50]
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Except while you may be peacefully protesting, while the guy next to you decides to light a building on fire.
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So, the anti-fascists are "attacking American freedoms"? Does that mean that the fascists are "protecting American freedoms"?
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: ANTIFA are violent anarchists that only pretend to be against fascism while calling everyone that opposes their radical agenda fascist to try to claim moral high ground and justify their violence. Both "fascists" and "anti-fascist" labels in this context are misused as neither ANTIFA nor their opposition fits these labels.
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antifa are violent thugs. Yes, violent thugs attack the freedoms of Americans.
Seems the government itself is more concerned about another group attacking American freedoms:
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
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Antifa don't murder people. The people they're fighting do.
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Wasn't it just last week the "I'm 100% Antifa!" guy walked up to someone on the street and murdered them, unprovoked in any way, on camera?
Seriously, do you work for the Trump campaign? You must.
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That's funny. The 100% antifa murderer who shot a guy in cold blood had been arrested for violence before but was released no charges.
So basically, right wingers that are violent are arrested but antifa need a boogy man to excuse their violence.
I get it. After months of violent rioting, when regular people get sick and tired of it those people turn into nazi's because only a fascist nazi would disagree with violent rioting thugs named "anti fascists".
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acting like brownshirts is being antifascist?
Everyone who doesn't toe their line to them is a nazi.
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a violent thug dehumanizes their targets. Who would have guessed the antifa thugs are more nazi-like then the 'nazis' they pretend to fight.
Congrats on supporting terrorism and violent thugs because they have the right name for you.
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Re:Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:4, Insightful)
No one likes white supremacists and they are routinely called out. But antifa have the media and democrat politicians protecting them.
You keep telling yourself that.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09... [cnn.com]
The complaint also alleges that Wolf and Cuccinelli, both Trump appointees, directed officials to change intelligence assessments to ensure they matched up with misleading public comments from Trump about Antifa and "anarchist" groups, according to a complaint filed with the DHS inspector general. Separately, both Wolf and Cuccinelli also tried to alter a report to downplay the threat posed by White supremacists and instead emphasize the role of leftist groups due to concerns about how the initial language would reflect on the President, according to a source familiar with the claims raised by the whistleblower.
Murphy says that he refused to modify intelligence assessments so that they more closely aligned with Trump's rhetoric about Antifa and other groups, telling Wolf and Cuccinelli that he would only report accurate information as collected by DHS, according to the complaint.
He also refused to alter the draft versions of the report warning of the threat posed by White supremacists, prompting Wolf and Cuccinelli to halt work on the document, the complaint states.
Murphy first argued with Cuccinelli then Wolf, pushing back against changes to the draft version of the report that would have watered-down language pertaining to White supremacists and added additional information about leftist groups like those the Trump administration has portrayed as a top threat to the US ahead of the November presidential election, according to the complaint.
When Murphy refused to implement the changes as directed, Cuccinelli and Wolf stopped the report from being finished, the source said.
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Idiots don't even realize that Nazism and Communism are both competing factions of Socialism.
No, they aren't. They are both competing factions of authoritarianism, and utilize some of the same mechanisms and tactics which makes people think they are the same, but they are fundamentally different.
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They most certainly are.
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They most certainly are.
No, they most certainly are not.
From Wikipedia:
Most long-standing spectra include the left–right dimension which originally referred to seating arrangements in the French parliament after the Revolution (1789–1799), with radicals on the left and aristocrats on the right.[1][6] While communism and socialism are usually regarded internationally as being on the left, conservatism and fascism are regarded internationally as being on the right.[1] Liberalism can mean different things in different contexts, being sometimes on the left (social liberalism) and other times on the right (conservative liberalism). Those with an intermediate outlook are sometimes classified as centrists. Politics that rejects the conventional left–right spectrum is often known as syncretic politics,[7][8] although the label tends to mischaracterize positions that have a logical location on a two-axis spectrum because they seem randomly brought together on a one-axis left–right spectrum.
If you prefer pictures:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
From another Wikipedia article:
Stalinism, and communist ideology in general, is universal in its appeal and addresses itself to all the "workers of the world." Nazism, on the other hand, and fascist ideology in general, can only address itself to one particular race or nation – the "master race" that is destined to dominate all others. Therefore, "in communism social justice appears to be the ultimate value, unless it be the classless society that is its essential condition; in fascism, the highest value is dominion, eventually world dominion, and the strong and pure nation-race is its essential condition, as seen by its ideology."[54] This means that fascist or Nazi movements from different countries will be natural enemies, rather than natural allies, as they each seek to extend the dominion of their own nation at the expense of others.
And another:
Generally, the left-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism".[16] Political scientists and other analysts regard the left as including anarchists,[17] communists, socialists, democratic socialists, social democrats,[18] left-libertarians, progressives and social liberals.[19][20] Movements for racial equality[21] and trade unionism have also been associated with the left.[22]
Political scientists and other analysts regard the right as including conservatives, right-libertarians,[23] neoconservatives, imperialists, monarchists,[24] fascists,[25] reactionaries and traditionalists
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"Internationally" being your key word. Anything to the right of Mao is considered "far right".
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Communism is an economic model and is orthogonal to governance. There are plenty of anarcho-communists out there just as there are plenty of capitalist authoritarians. Stalinist or Maoist Communism is certainly authoritarian, but a centrally planned economy with a dictatorial government isn't the only way to do communism any more than a bannanna republic is to only way to do capitalism.
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Ohmygosh! 100 people at a "Unite the Right" rally! They must all be NAZIS! and there's ONE HUNDRED OF THEM!!!!
Fool.
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Ohmygosh! 100 people at a "Unite the Right" rally! They must all be NAZIS! and there's ONE HUNDRED OF THEM!!!!
Fool.
So....marching around with torches and shouting Nazi slogans such as "Blood and Soil" and "Jews will not replace us" doesn't qualify as being a Nazi?
Re:Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. Just recently, an Antifa member executed someone on the street [nypost.com].
Why? Because the victim was spotted wearing a hat associated with a conservative group..
He was pepper spraying people. And look at the picture in that post. You don't roll up to a protest in body armor, leg holsters, pepper spray, paintball guns, real guns, if you're going to peacefully protest. They went there looking for confrontations, and he found one. And let's not forget the 17 year old right wing wannabe cop in Wisconsin (who came in from outside the state) who ended up getting into a fight and killing people as well.
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Funny that you don't mention that the Antifa "member" was killed within 3 days of that by cops attempting to arrest him. Or that he was not local to Portland. But by all means, keep your Fox News talking points and distortions by omission going. We all appreciate what the loonies are saying.
Re: Whatever helps ANTIFA (Score:2)
Clearly you have never been to Portland.
Note also, that a lot of the statistics used for declaring a place safe or safer than somewhere else depends on how local authorities record and report crime.
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First, tell me why it matters.
I'll wait.
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It doesn't matter beyond a place that's 80% white burning their city down because "Black Lives Matter".
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"the defunding and other restrictions on police make it harder for them to investigate crimes"
The Constitution makes it purposely harder for police to investigate crimes, and for a good reason. Over the last few thousand years police and the various governments that have directed them have been known to abuse powers granted to them. The whole premise of our legal system is based on the belief that its better to let 100 criminals go free than to convict an innocent person. When govt and police powers aren't
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Communists don't believe in private property, comrade.
Oh Please! (Score:2)
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Well there's the Communist Party of the USA with about 30,000 members. It's a real thing. Most members of the other Communist orgs in the US think they aren't Communist enough, however. Estimates have the number at something like 250k US citizens who openly identify as Communist.
Then there's the American Nazi Party. All 500 of them.
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From the link:
Replacing an easily identifiable political ‘class’ like the proletariat that unites easily behind the “worker’s movement” created challenges for the new vanguard of the revolution, according to Laclau and Mouffe. With such a broad and diverse set of interests seeking demands for their respective groups (based on gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.) there is a risk of each separate group becoming autonomous and merely articulating their specific demands.
Yeah, that's exactly what happened.
...their apologists will quite happily say that this is all a deranged invention of the "far right" as they usually do...
Given that Laclau and Mouffe published that in 1981 and prescribed exactly how their attempt would fail, yeah, clinging to this notion that the current situation is about "advancing socialism" is ridiculous. That was forty years ago and they have gained no traction at all. None of the current proponents of Third Wave Feminism or Black Lives Matter give a rat's ass about the fantasies of an old white man and an old white woman writing in the late '70s. The
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You live in a place where contracts etc. can override laws?
No, I live in a place where the technology that I choose to use in or on my private property is protected by the constitution. Whether or not you want to enter my property, is then up to you.
But then again, Portland has already shown it's true face over the summer. 16 year olds get killed in "autonomous police free" zones, and nobody bats an eye.
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No, I live in a place where the technology that I choose to use in or on my private property is protected by the constitution.
More weasel phrases? How many people *don't* live in such places, as I already pointed out above? North Koreans, perhaps?
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Please point out where your right to use facial recognition exists in the Constitution.
Hint: the Constitution and it's amendments only enumerate and restrict the rights of the Federal government, and in fact states explicitly that anything not mentioned falls to the States or the People.
Portland's representative government just acted on something left to it by the US Constitution. If you have a problem with that, and reside in the City of Portland, feel free to take it up with the city council.
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Please point out where your right to use facial recognition exists in the Constitution.
Hint: the Constitution and it's amendments only enumerate and restrict the rights of the Federal government, and in fact states explicitly that anything not mentioned falls to the States or the People.
You need to re-read the 9th Amendment. And the 10th as well. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" does not give the States free rein to infringe on rights not enumerated in the Constitution, which are retained by the people. States cannot violate the US Constitution, and that includes that pesky 9th Amendment.
That's... not how "laws" work (Score:4, Insightful)
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He's suggesting the "community members of color" are incapable of following basic rules and the law. Leftists are the real white supremacists.
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"This is really about making sure that we are prioritizing our most vulnerable community members and community members of color."
I really don't see how these two things are related.
Facial recognition tends to get very inaccurate when it comes to black people, to the point where things like this [nytimes.com] happen.
Almost what they're saying, which really pisses (Score:5, Informative)
> then soon enough the concept of photo ID for driver's licenses and the like will also be racist.
They're already saying that the idea of HAVING ID to vote (so people can only vote once) is racist because due to her being black, they think my wife is too stupid to go over to the DMV every few years and get an ID. It's really fucking insulting.
Pretty much every time an elected Democrat opens their mouth about race in the last few years, my family's reaction is "what the actual fuck?! They've 100% gone from treating us as farm animals, then calling us monkeys, to now treating us like pets, like we're totally incapable of basic shit."
The Dem push to get the black vote after they failed to stop the Civil Rights Act worked very well for a few decades, but it seems more and more now people are getting sick of their condescending form of racism.
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> then soon enough the concept of photo ID for driver's licenses and the like will also be racist.
They're already saying that the idea of HAVING ID to vote (so people can only vote once) is racist because due to her being black, they think my wife is too stupid to go over to the DMV every few years and get an ID. It's really fucking insulting.
No, they realize that a lot of minorities work low paying, hourly wage jobs (sometimes multiple ones), with limited ability to get off of work during DMV hours, making it difficult for them to get IDs. There's also the coincidence that the Republican governments that push for voter ID laws often try to limit the hours or outright close the DMVs in minority districts, making it even harder for them to get IDs.
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No, they realize that a lot of minorities work low paying, hourly wage jobs (sometimes multiple ones), with limited ability to get off of work during DMV hours, making it difficult for them to get IDs.
You understand there are more whites working low-paying jobs than minorities by virtue of the simple fact there are simply many more poor white folks than there are minorities in the population.
Whites make up about 69% of Americans, and if we assume everyone that is not white is a minority, that means they represent 31% of the population. (12% african-american, 14% hispanic)
Source: https://assets.blog.norml.org/... [norml.org]
The poverty breakdown is that 9% of whites are "poor", 22% of blacks are "poor", and 19% of hi
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> Finally, registering to vote is when you can check if a person is qualified to vote.
That's when you can find out that Terry Smith, age 82, is eligible to vote.
At voting time, anyone can show up and give the name Jane Smith. That's an issue, if you think black people are too stupid to get an ID, so you insist on not using ID.