The Morning Roar: State Wants to Kidnap Child Over Pencil Twirl, L.A. Mayor Dubs Drones "Creepy," and How to Stop the Feds From Bugging Your Phone (even when turned off!)
Welcome to your Thursday edition of The Morning Roar!New Jersey Threatens To Take 13 Year Old Over Pencil Twirling in School Stories of the State ripping children away from their parents for disturbing and frightening reasons have become more and more common in recent years. And we can add "bizarre," "paranoid" and "stupid" to the list of adjectives after hearing about a 13 year old in New Jersey whose father is embroiled in a fight the State to keep his child over twirling a pencil in class.I've covered the idiocy that is now prevalent among the thick-browed and heavy-foreheaded administrations in school systems across the country in the past. Children are reported (aka turned in by their classmates, as is encouraged in our Big Brother society) for a ridiculous variety of offenses, including using bubble guns, pretending their finger is a gun or, most recently, for twirling a pencil in a manner that some parent's stupid, coddled child took offense at. Yes, Ethan Chaplin was ordered to have a psychiatric evaluation because he was reportedly "twirling his pencil like a gun" as witnessed by another student.The good news is that the school itself found nothing wrong with this behavior (spurred to reason by media coverage and vast outrage). However...
Letters to Ethan’s father, Michael, show the school found his son did nothing wrong at all, and that there would be no disciplinary action. The superintendent was even confident the issue would be behind all of them.And that’s exactly what happened, until Ethan’s father received startling communication from New Jersey’s Department of Child Protection and Permanency and Department of Children and Families.“I received a letter from them saying they had found an incident of abuse or neglect regarding Ethan because I refused to take him for psychological evaluation,” Michael said.
His father relented, took him in, and his son was cleared. However, now the State is ignoring that result and demanding further tests. Should Ethan's father not comply they are threatening to remove his parental "rights." Story from PIX11 below.We need politicians to address this issue NOW. The State should not be able to wield such unilateral power, ripping apart families that have no recourse but to engage in expensive lawsuits and operate within its creaking, labyrinthian architecture to regain their children. Protecting children from abuse is one thing. Abusing that power is something else altogether.Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti Calls Drones "Creepy"This is one time that I really hope that I can take a politician at his word. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti was on my local CBS news radio affiliate, KNX 1070, doing a Q&A with callers (novel - I like it) when he was asked about the two surveillance drones lent to the LAPD by Seattle's Gestapo police force. His answer is part troubling but also part uplifting (labeled as such by yours truly).
Two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) acquired by the LAPD will remain grounded until lawmakers can establish specific policies governing their use, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday. (Uplifting!)During Wednesday’s “Ask The Mayor” call-in segment on KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO, Garcetti said that UAVs – or drones – could be used in hostage standoffs and other similar law enforcement situations, but that their operation should be strictly limited. (Troubling.)“I’ve asked them to be grounded until we have a policy, until we have community input,” Garcetti said. “I don’t want these things up in the air until we know for sure they’re not going to be used against innocent folks.” (Uplifting!)“I don’t want to have UAVs flying over the city looking at the general population, trying to find crime,” he said. “That’s creepy, that’s not the place for these things.” (Uplifting!)
That's a 3-1 "Uplifting" to "Troubling" count! Not bad.Without a doubt Garcetti is being pushed hard by the LAPD to use UAV's for anything and everything, but if the floor will be open on this topic, the massive public outcry will be deafening in opposition. In limited use (e.g. hostage situations), the drones would simply be less intrustive and expensive than helicopter surveillance over singular structures. I could view this as an acceptable use of the technology. Citywide? Not so much. And Garcetti seems to share that sentiment.Garcetti also touched on the Uber debate, and it seems he is leaning towards trying to keep the services running.Full story here.
How the NSA Could Bug Your Powered-Off iPhone, and How to Stop Them
Oh, Edward Snowden, you're so dreamy! Or Nightmarey, as it were, as every reveal of what the State is capable of is more upsetting than the last. Wired has a full breakdown on just how the NSA can get into your phone, powered off or not.
Edward Snowden’s latest revelation about the NSA’s snooping inspired an extra dose of shock and disbelief when he said the agency’s hackers can use a mobile phone as a bug even after it’s been turned off. The whistleblower made that eye-opening claim when Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News, holding his iPhone aloft during last Wednesday’s interview, asked, “What can the NSA do with this device if they want to get into my life? Can anyone turn it on remotely if it’s off? Can they turn on apps?“They can absolutely turn them on with the power turned off to the device,” Snowden replied.
They also tell you how to stop them.
But paranoid users seeking temporary privacy from NSA uber-hackers needn’t resort to Snowden’s famous precaution of putting phones in the fridge. Instead, McDonald suggests users turn off their iPhones by putting them into device firmware upgrade (DFU) mode, a kind of “panic” state designed to let the phone reinstall its firmware or recover from repeated operating system crashes. In DFU mode, says McDonald, all elements of the phone are entirely shut down except its USB port, which is designed to wait for a signal from iTunes to install new firmware. “It’s like an innocent little kid in kindergarten,” says McDonald. “It doesn’t know how to turn on the lights or the sound, it only knows how to turn on the USB port.”
Wired details exactly how to do this in the full article, linked here. DFU it up, people!Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
