Kidnappers Attempt to Snatch 2 Girls Near Shelton, WA School

Shelton, WA police are investigating two attempted kidnappings of young girls Tuesday afternoon in the same area.

In the first instance, a 12-year-old girl was walking home from school just before 3 p.m. when she was approached by a man in a car in the 1500 block of Jefferson Street near Olympic Middle School and Mountain View Elementary School, according to Shelton Police Chief Darrin Moody. The man told the girl to get into the car or he would "hurt" her.

The man in that incident was described as driving a light brown SUV similar to a Chevy Tahoe. He was described as Caucasian, about 30 years old with a skinny build and wearing an orange cap.

Then about an hour later, an 8-year-old girl was walking along "K" Street near Jefferson Street after exiting a school bus and said a man in a car approached her and told her to come to him.

It's not known yet if the same suspect is involved in both incidents, says Capt. Mike Fiola with Shelton Police. He says the suspect descriptions are somewhat different, but have some similarities.

In the second event, the suspect was driving a light blue, Jeep-type car and was described as white or Hispanic, with long sleeve white/blue plaid short with brown hair and was wearing glasses.
(KOMO 4 News, September 18, 2018)
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The probability of there being two separate, random, child abduction attempts in the same immediate geographic area within an hour is highly unlikely.

If the statements of the girls are true (i.e. they are not making up stories about kidnappers) then the two events almost have to be related. Either a single individual is attempting to abduct a young girl, or a group of two or more are working together to commit this crime.

According to the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Missing Person File, there are 88,089 active missing person records, of which juveniles under the age of 18 account for 32,121 (36.5%) of the records (as of December 31, 2017).

Kids Live Safe has a free on-line e-book that contains Steps to Protecting Your Children from Abduction and Kidnapping.

One recommendation that I like is the use of personal alarms. These alarms are much louder that a child's cry's for help. Any child can use these alarms to help protect themselves from abduction, as well as call for help when facing other potential dangers.

China's Digital Dictatorship

China is building a digital dictatorship to exert control over its 1.4 billion citizens. For some, “social credit” will bring privileges — for others, punishment.

What may sound like a dystopian vision of the future is already happening in China. And it’s making and breaking lives.

The Communist Party calls it “social credit” and says it will be fully operational by 2020.
Within years, an official Party outline claims, it will “allow the trustworthy to roam freely under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step”.

The system will be enforced by the latest in high-tech surveillance systems as China pushes to become the world leader in artificial intelligence.

Surveillance cameras will be equipped with facial recognition, body scanning and geo-tracking to cast a constant gaze over every citizen.

Smartphone apps will also be used to collect data and monitor online behavior on a day-to-day basis.

Then, big data from more traditional sources like government records, including educational and medical, state security assessments and financial records, will be fed into individual scores.

If successful, it will be the world’s first digital dictatorship.  (ABC Australia, September 9, 2018)
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I previously discussed Life Inside China's Total Surveillance State in July 2018.

While China may be an extreme example of the surveillance state, many other governments seek this type of control over their populations. It is essential to personal freedom that we oppose all types of mass surveillance.

Crimson Hexagon - Facebook Surveillance

Crimson Hexagon, a Boston data analytics company, raised some eyebrows when it announced that its access to the firehose of user data from Facebook and Instagram had been reinstated—after being suspended and investigated by the social media giant for alleged misuse of data for surveillance purposes.

Crimson boasts of having gathered the largest public repository of social media data... Initially pitched as an antiterrorism tool, software like Crimson’s has spread quickly across all levels of law enforcement, from immigration agencies to police departments. In a March 2017 lawsuit against the Memphis Police Department, the ACLU of Tennessee alleged that the police were using “social media collator” software to spy on local Black Lives Matter protesters in violation of a consent decree.

The ACLU said in a July filing that in addition to tools like Geofeedia and NC4, police officers used a fake Facebook profile to spy on Black activists and “chatter” around protest activities. The police surveillance encompassed “any of the organizations that arose out of Ferguson” around the country, and was shared with police, school officials, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Dept. of Defense, utility companies and FedEx and Autozone.  (Fast Company, August 22, 2018)
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Police Target Random People Who Signed Anti-Trump Petition

According to an article on Raw Story (August 30, 2018) police pulled fake ‘Antifa’ lists from a neo-Nazi web-site and used it to target random people who’d signed an anti-Trump petition.

Harvard Law School Lecturer Thomas Frampton is suing the Louisiana State Police (LSP) on behalf of a civil rights lawyer who discovered a list titled “full list of antifa.docx” that bore a striking resemblance to a hoax roster circulated on the neo-Nazi Stormfront website.

In May, New Orleans-based attorney William Most filed a request for public records on all LSP emails “containing hate speech and racist catchphrases,” the report noted, including the “white genocide” conspiracy theory.

The LSP delayed for months, issued an initial denial of the request and then finally released a cache of 64 emails — one of which contained a file named “full list of antifa” as an attachment. According to the suit, the document was circulated among high-ranking officials in the state police and was also given to local law enforcement groups.

Most requested a copy of the email — but was told by the LSP that “releasing the document could ‘compromise’ an ongoing criminal investigation in which LSP anticipates arrests, and reveal the identity of its ‘Confidential Informant,'” the report noted.

Frampton alleges in the lawsuit that the document originated on the conspiracy theory-oriented 8chan message board before being spread on Stormfront and other white supremacist sites.

Rather than containing an actual list of anti-fascist organizers, the lawsuit alleges that the roster “contains the names of thousands of ordinary, law-abiding citizens who signed an online petition against President Trump.”
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This type of thing happens all too frequently. Many police departments and other government agencies conduct open source intelligence (OSINT), collecting and distributing information obtained from public / semi-public web-sites.

A person conducting OSINT sees something on-line and distributes it to a mailing list as part of a daily / weekly bulletin. Often the distributed information does not have a working link to the original source of the information. Those that receive the information (like a fake Antifa list) now re-distribute it and credit the source as the police department / government agency from which they received it - thereby giving credibility to completely inaccurate and fake information.

In the absolute worst cases departments and agencies will send out information "posted and reported as found" with no sourcing or analysis whatsoever.

If you receive information that you intend to rely on for official purposes, ensure that you know the original source of that information.

It’s not just what you know, but how you know it.

Check your sources and validate your data.

By its very nature intelligence is imperfect (i.e., everything cannot be known, analysis is vulnerable to deception, and information is open to alternative interpretations). Credible sources and validated data create accurate intelligence. Poor premises and accepting information as found results in inaccurate conclusions.

From Democracy to Freedom

From Democracy to Freedom
The Difference Between Government and Self-Determination

Democracy is the most universal political ideal of our day. George Bush invoked it to justify invading Iraq; Obama congratulated the rebels of Tahrir Square for bringing it to Egypt; Occupy Wall Street claimed to have distilled its pure form. From the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea to the autonomous region of Rojava, practically every government and popular movement calls itself democratic.

But what is democracy, precisely? Is there a common thread that links all these different variants? And can any of them deliver on their promises?

In this critical appraisal, we trace democracy from its classical origins to its current ascendancy around the globe. Reviewing how democratic discourse has served recent social movements in the United States, Spain, Greece, Bosnia, Slovenia, and elsewhere around the world, we conclude by asking what it would mean to seek freedom directly rather than through democratic rule.

Available as a free PDF, or in print for $10.
This book is also available in Portuguese and in German.
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U.S. Coast Guard Member Appears to Flash "White Power" Signal on TV.

According to Circa (September 15, 2018) an MSNBC interview with the U.S. Coast Guard appears to show a background member flashing a white power hand sign.

In the video, the support staff member in the bottom left is seen using a hand gesture associated with white supremacy.

MSNBC was interviewing Captain John Reed, the head of the response efforts for Hurricane Florence in Charleston, South Carolina. Following the interview, the U.S. Coast Guard released a response on Twitter that the man shown making the gesture has been removed from the Florence response efforts.
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I discussed this hand sign and its meaning as a "white power" symbol in July 2018. Simply put, this hand gesture is NOT a white power sysbol, rather its association with white power was stared as a hoax on 4Chan. The 4Chan hoax was to show that the masses can be tricked into believing and repeating almost anything. - Well the hoax seems to be gaining ground.

According the ADL: "The “OK” hand gesture originated as one of these hoaxes in February 2017 when an anonymous 4channer announced “Operation O-KKK,” telling other members that “we must flood Twitter and other social media websites…claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy.” The user even provided a helpful graphic showing how the letters WP (for “white power”) could be traced within an “OK” gesture. The originator and others also suggested useful hashtags to help spread the hoax, such as #PowerHandPrivilege and #NotOkay. “Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy,” wrote the poster, “We must force [them] to dig more, until the rest of society ain’t going anywhere near that s***."

 

Cutting Bicycle Cable Locks is EASY!

On his YouTube channel "LockPickingLawyer" demonstrated just how easy it is to cut through the cable of a bicycle lock.

Of course, bicycle cable locks are used to secure bicycles, but they are also used to secure other more valuable property and sometimes used to secure gates to restricted areas. As can be seen in the short (2:45 min) video, these cables provide only the most minimal protection, being easily and quietly cut.

It is important to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of any items that we use for security.