Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 26, 2021 | Sundance | 146 Comments

According to a news release this morning, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has joined with PayPal on a research partnership to monitor how extremists use financial platforms to fund criminal activity.

According to the release, the partnership will focus on “uncovering and disrupting the financial pipelines that support extremist and hate movements” by targeting “actors and networks spreading and profiting from all forms of hate and bigotry.” Their findings will be “shared broadly across the financial industry and with policymakers and law enforcement.” (read full press release here)

Earlier today it was announced that Big Tech will monitor the internet, create a database of extremists, and report content they do not approve to the United State Intelligence Community for further action (DEPLATFORMING).  This latest notification from ADL would be a step in using the lists created by Big Tech to notify financial institutions of who needs to be blocked from banking services (DEMONETIZING).

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 26, 2021 | Sundance | 131 Comments

This is a rather bold public admission.  They are saying the quiet part out loud and absolutely confirming what we have been writing about in our Fourth Branch of Government series.   Remember, the Fourth Branch is only possible because of a Public-Private partnership with the intelligence apparatus.

Today, the biggest names in Big Tech announce they have partnered with the Five Eyes intelligence network, ultimately controlled by the NSA, to: (1) monitor all activity in their platforms; (2) identify extremist content; (3) look for expressions of Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE); and then, (4) put the content details into a database where the Five Eyes intelligence agencies (U.K., U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand) can access it.

Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft are all partnering with the intelligence apparatus.  I can’t believe they admit this sentence in the release (emphasis mine):

[…] “The Group will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.”

Think about that sentence structure very carefully.  They are “adding to” the pre-existing list…. admitting the group (aka Big Tech) already have access to the the intelligence-sharing database… and also admitting there is a pre-existing list created by the Five Eyes consortium.

Obviously, who and what is defined as “extremist content” will be determined by the Big Tech insiders themselves.  This provides a gateway, another plausible deniability aspect, to cover the Intelligence Branch from any oversight.

When the Intelligence Branch within government wants to conduct surveillance and monitor American citizens, they run up against problems due to the Constitution of the United States.   They get around those legal limitations by sub-contracting the intelligence gathering, the actual data-mining, and allowing outside parties (contractors) to have access to the central database.

The government cannot conduct electronic searches (4th amendment issue) without a warrent; however, private individuals can search and report back as long as they have access.  What is being admitted today is exactly that pre-existing partnership.  The difference today is that Big Tech will flag the content from within their platforms, and now a secondary database filled with the extracted information will be provided openly for the Intelligence Branch to exploit.

The volume of metadata captured by the NSA has always been a problem because of the filters needed to make the targeting useful.  There is a lot of noise in collecting all data that makes the parts you really want to identify more difficult to capture.  This new admission puts a new massive filtration system in the metadata that circumvents any privacy protections for individuals.

Previously, the Intelligence Branch worked around the constitutional and unlawful search issue by using resources that were not in the United States.  A domestic U.S. agency, working on behalf of the U.S. government, cannot listen on your calls without a warrant.  However, if the U.S. agency sub-contracts to say a Canadian group, or foreign ally, the privacy invasion is no longer legally restricted by U.S. law.

What is being announced today is an alarming admission of a prior relationship along with open intent to define their domestic political opposition as extremists.

July 26 (Reuters) – A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the biggest U.S. tech companies including Facebook (FB.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) is significantly expanding the types of extremist content shared between firms in a key database, aiming to crack down on material from white supremacists and far-right militias, the group told Reuters.

Until now, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s (GIFCT) database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a United Nations list and so has largely consisted of content from Islamist extremist organizations such as Islamic State, al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Over the next few months, the group will add attacker manifestos – often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence – and other publications and links flagged by U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism. It will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes, adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.

The firms, which include Twitter (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube, share “hashes,” unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services. Other platforms use these to identify the same content on their own sites in order to review or remove it. (read more)

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All is not lost.  There is a way to stop the Intelligence Branch, but it requires some outside-the-box thinking and reliance on the Constitution as a tool to radically change one element within government.  We will be covering this in the near future.

In the interim, we must remain focused on the three tiers that we need for success.

♦ Tier One is “tactical civics” at a local level.  Engaged and active citizen participation at the community, city, town and hamlet level of society.  This is what might be described as grassroots level.  School Board level; City Council level; County Commissioner level.

♦ Tier Two is “extreme federalism” at a state level.  Engaged and active citizen participation through your State House and State Senate representative.  This is state level assembly and action demands upon the House, Senate and State Governor.

♦ Tier Three the challenge of “federal offices” on a national level.  This is where CTH will present an action that can be taken way upstream that allows the first two tiers to take control over federal offices.   This is where we throw the One Ring into the fire of Mordor.

I am confident that ultimately We The People will win. Details will come soon; in the interim, tactical civics and extreme federalism are doable right now, in this next election cycle.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 26, 2021 | Sundance | 347 Comments

And so it begins….  New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio has announced the forced vaccination of all 340,000 municipal employees effective September 13, 2021.  Mandatory vaccinations for a virus with over a 99% survival rate?  This is not about a virus, this is about control.

New York – […] “This is about our recovery. This is about what we need to do to bring back New York City. This is about keeping people safe,” de Blasio said during a press conference. He added, “September is the pivot point of the recovery.”

The vaccine mandate will begin sooner for other city workers. The mayor previously announced a similar requirement, with an August 2 deadline, for medical workers employed by city health clinics or public hospitals.

Additionally, 45,000 government employees that work in residential and congregate settings, such as nursing homes, will have until August 16 to comply. August 2 also marks the reinforcement of a mask mandate for unvaccinated city government employees.

“If you are unvaccinated and you are a city employee, beginning on Monday you must either wear a mask indoors at your worksite at all times or, if you would prefer not to, you have to immediately go get vaccinated,” de Blasio said.

An analysis completed by The City shows that the vaccination rates for many city agencies are lagging behind New York City’s general adult population. Reportedly, only 43 percent of the members of the NYPD are vaccinated and 51 percent of FDNY firefighters. The Department of Corrections, at 42 percent, has a lower rate than both of those departments.

Last week, de Blasio made his support for vaccine mandates clear and urged private employers to implement them for their own employees, saying the rule will “get more people vaccinated.”

“We have reached the limits of a purely voluntary system. It’s time for more mandates, different kinds, different places, different approaches,” de Blasio said in an interview with WNYC Friday.

The mayor reiterated that tone during today’s press conference, telling private employers to “go as far as you can go right now.”

“Each private sector employer needs to do what they believe is right. But I would strongly urge a vaccination mandate whenever possible or as close to it as possible. At minimum, requiring all of your employees to get vaccinated or to do weekly testing,” he said. (read more)