Alt/Indie News

EU court rules that the UK’s mass surveillance powers are illegal

"DRIPA was passed in 2014 as 'emergency' legislation, with parliamentary debate restricted to just a single day of discussion. The law paved the way for 2016’s Investigatory Powers Act, which authorized even more intrusive powers, and which Edward Snowden dubbed 'the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy.' With DRIPA struck down as unlawful, it’s likely that the government will now have to scale back parts of the Investigatory Powers Act, otherwise known as the Snoopers’ Charter. The Act replaced DRIPA in 2016, and, among other measures, legalizes targeted hacking by the UK security services and requires that ISPs keep a record of all citizens’ web browsing habits for at least a year."

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We May Finally See the End of Compulsory Public-Sector Union Dues

"When they insist government employee wages would plummet in the absence of a union, they’re simply confirming the workers are already earning more than their labors are actually worth on the open market. These are the kinds of hard economic truths that will be exposed when Janus is finally heard next month and the injustices that will be righted if the court this summer votes to ban mandatory dues and fees in the public sector."

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Guess Why Hundreds of Bus Boys Just Lost Their Jobs

"Earning a small wage is better than earning nothing at all due to unemployment. It’s easy to vilify restaurants and other companies when they respond to higher costs with layoffs. But it’s important to place the blame where it belongs. In this case, it’s bad policy."

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California Considers $1,000 Fine for Waiters Offering Unsolicited Plastic Straws

"The Democratic majority leader in California's lower house has introduced a bill to stop sit-down restaurants from offering customers straws with their beverages unless they specifically request one. Under Calderon's law, a waiter who serves a drink with an unrequested straw in it would face up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000."

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‘Show Us the Tapes!’: Activists March to Demand Release of Paddock Video

"While there has been much speculation as to why no video has been released, a documentary which touches on the massacre provides an answer—the casino is playing a massive game of CYA (cover your ass), and the cops are in their pocket."

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Professor Maintains List of 400,000 “Far-Right Extremists” For Antifa, SPLC

"The anonymous left-wing activist, states Wired, posts the identities of the people whose information she gives him, along with their photographs, 'for the public to do with what it would.' Squire also shares her data with the far-left militia group, Redneck Revolt, where it reportedly 'gets used in somewhat less official ways.'"

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Despite Marijuana Reform, the War on Drugs Still Targets People of Color

"Over 50 people a day are still being arrested for it in New York City alone. Most of those arrests, predictably, are happening in communities of color. The new numbers for New York City’s 2017 marijuana arrests just came out and they hardly budged — arrests declined by about 1 percent, disappointing many advocates and attorneys who took the mayor’s word on this issue."

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Extortion, Police Raids and Secrecy: The Venezuelan Bitcoin Mining World

"Who would have ever thought that Bitcoin mining would be a cat and mouse game of trying to outwit and deceive government and police task forces? Then again who would’ve thought that Bitcoin mining would be so lucrative to where families are living off the Bitcoin ecosystem."

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ICE gains access to database that tracks license plates in realtime

"Using the database, ICE agents will be able to see where license plates have been located over the past five years, as well as find individual’s residences, according to The Verge. Officials can also be instantly alerted when new records of specific plates are located. Civil liberties groups slammed ICE’s access to the database."

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