The SFPD "Real-Time Investigation Center" is the surveillance nightmare funded by a $9.4 million "donation" from billionaire Chris Larsen and another $3 million "donation" from Salesforce and Trump quisling Marc Benioff.
"We're going to be covering the entire city with drones," said RTIC representative Captain Thomas MacGuire.
Because there's nothing fascists like more than keeping the populace under constant surveillance.
(Funny story about this Chris Larsen guy, he calls himself a "privacy activist". How does a "privacy activist" end up buying cameras for cops? Oh that's easy; when he says "privacy" he means "financial privacy" which means "tax evasion" and "cryptocurrencies".)
Well. Besides partnering with enthusiastic ICE accomplices Flock, they have now begun "reaching out" to local businesses to really build out that Public-Private Panopticon Partnership. From a recent couple of emails we received from some private company who apparently got an SFPD contract to recruit for this grift:
Vale is building a direct link between SOMA and SFPD's Real-Time Investigation Center, the same unit that's already helped with over 500 arrests. We'd love your feedback on what to build to make SOMA safer and help businesses flourish. [...]
By tying businesses directly into the RTIC, SFPD can respond faster with evidence that actually leads to an arrest. We're reaching out to businesses to build a list of the first 100 businesses to roll out Vale's product with.
Let me know if you'd like your business included in Vale's Pilot with the City or just want to learn more about what we're doing to clean up SOMA.
My best guess as to how to translate that: "We want real-time access to your security cameras, and/or to install our own cameras on your property. And if you happen to have facial recognition at the door, well Hello Sailor!"
It sounds like Vale is a Nextdoor clone (that's the Weaponized Karens snitchware app whose main function is reporting people for Walking While Black.)
And it looks like the founder and CEO (Jon Goldsmith and Andrew Munday) also run a "ghost kitchens" company (that means "ratfucking independent restaurants".) Their third partner? Disgraced former SFPD Chief Greg Suhr.
Did I respond to those emails? I did.
The "Real-Time Investigation Center" is the most dystopian shit I've ever heard of. we want nothing to do with the surveillance nightmare you and your billionaire fascist buddies are trying to purchase for yourselves. Unsubscribe.
Among the statements at the center of the lawsuit were claims that Patel "attempted to overthrow the government," "planned January 6," was "guilty of sedition" and was a "Kremlin asset," as well as an allegation that Patel and his foundation paid people to "lie to Congress," according to the court filing. [...]
The order also referenced a post Stewartson made after the default judgment was entered, in which he called Patel a "Googly-eyed Kremlin bitch" and said Patel would have to return to Nevada for a trial where Stewartson would explain why he was "dead serious" when he called the FBI director a "chud." [...]
"✍️ PSA: Now that my case is settled, you are free to refer to @FBIDirectorKash as a 'chud,' a 'googly-eyed Kremlin bitch,' and a 'traitor' without fear of legal repercussions!" Stewartson wrote. "You're welcome! 😁👍🏼."
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
On July 8, Amnesty International UK released a report titled "A Growing Threat: The Anti-Rights Movement in the UK." The report mapped 117 organizations working to restrict the rights of, among others, transgender and queer people in the United Kingdom, and documented the financial infrastructure behind them, including far-right Christian nationalist organizations, U.S.-based legal powerhouses like Alliance Defending Freedom, and conversion therapy promoters. [...]
For three weeks, the question was whether Amnesty would stand behind its own research or capitulate entirely. This morning, we got the answer: a full, groveling apology from the organization that has weathered the Soviet Union, Putin's Russia, and the Bush administration's defense of Guantánamo Bay -- but could not weather J.K. Rowling. [...]
The apology identified no factual errors in the report. It did not retract any specific finding. It did not name a single inaccuracy. It simply surrendered the entire document. [...]
This is not the first time Rowling has used the threat of litigation to silence critics in the United Kingdom. In 2022, she threatened legal action against a social media user who called her a Nazi, forcing a public apology. In 2024, her lawyers compelled journalist Rivkah Brown -- whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors -- to publicly retract a tweet calling Rowling a Holocaust denier after Rowling dismissed the Nazis' well-documented targeting of transgender people; her lawyers even required Brown to edit the apology's phrasing.
I guess they've redirected that drone budget into feeding books into the plagiarism woodchipper.
US citizens: call on ABC & NBC to stand strong against the fascist's bullying.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on the House of Representatives to end Big Oil's taxpayer-funded war profiteering.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to impeach Secretary of Defense Hegseth.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on your senators to keep the corrupter's name off our coins and paper money.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: Protect Medicaid by submitting a public comment by July 31.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
I'd rather be an AI than an LLM.
Juries want fairness in court and don't just obey the government. That's why ministers are attacking them.
So then I ordered the cheapest fisheye camera lens I could find (49mm wide angle macro, $30) whose smaller lens was just slightly larger than the output lens of the projector. Success! It worked the first time.
(Someone who knew what they were doing might have looked at the focal length and done math to determine what kind of lens was needed. I very much did not do that. But I got lucky!)
I enlarged the various holes to make the new lens fit inside the dome, and got an 82mm to 95mm step-up adapter ring to screw onto the front of the fisheye, to have something I could drill into to hold it in place inside the dome. Then I cut the old electronics housing in half and dremeled out all of the interior greeblies to have a sleeve to slip over the new projector. The rest is duct tape.
I had to open up the new projector to extend the IR receiver into the dome, since, like the old eyeball, it doesn't remember its settings and you have to manually select HDMI on a remote after a power failure.
The image is 16:9 and doesn't fill the whole dome, and it's a little fuzzy on the edges, but for eyeball purposes, it's close enough. Once I get an ethernet cable in there, I'm going to see what tweaks I can make on the image in software to make it fill the frame a little better.
Right-wing Israel extremists seized the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
The concept of "sacred" presupposes some sort of superhuman entity that can impose "sacredness" on places or things. There is no evidence for such entities exist — no evidence that anything is "sacred" except in the thoughts of humans. That kind of Psychosocial "sacredness" clearly does exist; we can observe it. But it doesn't pre-empt the rights or wishes of anyone else.
In general, when some people want to consider a certain object or place as "sacred" and treat it in a special way, I treat it like doing the same actions in the same place for any other reason. I wouldn't object unless there is some specific problem or issue that affects society, or mistreats people other than them, and mostly there isn't one.
"Sacred" places in and near Jerusalem are a very unusual case. Various groups claim various "sacred" spots, for understandable historical reasons, and those claims conflict. A settlement was made decades ago, perhaps by some colonial power such as Turkey or Britain, and all parties have since followed that settlement for the sake of peace, including Israel. However, in the past few decades violent right-wing extremists began using them as opportunities to agitate and radicalize, until they got power over the Israeli government.
There are many reasons to reproach those extremists, and to put them on trial. This assault is one more. In moral terms, they regularly do worse things, such as stealing Palestinians' land,
olive trees, sheep, and houses, jailing and torturing them,and killing them.
But this could trigger a bigger disaster — it seems calculated to stir up war with Muslims who are otherwise inclined towards peace, and to perpetuate and increase the war with Iran.
*[British] Lobbying giant filmed offering reporter payment for flattering client coverage in national press.*
*The real aim of [the bully]'s New York Times leak investigation is to punish reporters.*
Meta Platforms initially suspended its Instagram account after the bar said bad actors flagged old posts with false charges of "human trafficking," striking down a crucial marketing stream ahead of Sunday's Dore Alley street fair. [...]
"We relied on the page because it combined marketing, ticketing, and communications with clients and performers," Ryan said. "To have that taken away with just a moment's notice ... I can't even describe it."
Nowhere in this article does anyone even consider: "Perhaps we should rely less on Nazi Bars for our critical business functions somewhat".
"The account has been restored," said Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold in an email late Saturday. He did not say why the account was initially suspended.
Another co-owner of the Stud is Honey Mahogany, an activist, drag performer and the director of San Francisco's Office of Transgender Initiatives. In a Friday personal video posted to Instagram, Mahogany called on Meta to reverse the decision. [...]
"[blah blah blah]," said state Sen. Scott Wiener in a post on X on Saturday. "Meta should reverse this ban immediately."
District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey also took to X to tell Meta to restore the bar's page. "I'm glad it's back up," said Dorsey upon hearing of Meta's reversal.
"Dorsey took to X to tell Meta." Uh huh. "Wiener post on X." Uh huh. "Mahogany posted on Instagram." Uh huh.
Nowhere in this article does anyone even consider: "Perhaps local politicians should rely less on Nazi Bars for our critical government communications somewhat".
(Yes, my business also uses Facebook and Instagram somewhat. "Curious!")
How is Jared Leto not in this? It has that Leto Stink on it.
We could have had a second season of The Peripheral instead of this.
The interrogation, including the questions about child sexual abuse images, was "a pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr Tunick's connections" to the movement against Cop City, according to the motion.
Tunick asked four times during the interrogation to speak with a lawyer, but was rebuffed each time, according to courtroom testimony. Additionally, the agents produced no warrant and did not read Tunick his rights. [...]
Agent Findley and several others repeatedly asked Tunick to open his phone during the interrogation, telling him they would seize it if he did not. When he finally provided a passcode, "the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart", according to the motion.
Planet Debian upstream is hosted by Branchable.