The Senate approved its annual defense policy bill Thursday, ending weeks of gridlock over the massive $879 billion package and marking a rare move in approving major legislation during a government shutdown. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes $879 billion in funding for the U.S. military and directs national defense strategy, passed in […]

In the rare occurrence that police actually looked into the case of a woman who had her phone stolen in London, it turned into the crumbs on a bread crumb trail which led to a huge organized crime effort. The sirens quiet now, and the London Met. Area Police report that approximately 40% of all […] The post Police Actually Follow up on iPhone Theft Reports and Bust Global Smuggling Ring appeared first on Good News Network.

If hypocrisy were a crime, half the Senate Judiciary Committee would be behind bars after Tuesday’s hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi.  The proceeding was billed as an oversight hearing, but what played out was a partisan ambush—Democrats flailing to paint President Donald Trump’s Justice Department as a tool of corruption and favoritism. Their problem? Every accusation they lobbed could just as easily have been directed back at themselves.  Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut led the charge, pressing Bondi on supposed lobbying connections related to a series of antitrust mergers—including the Paramount-Skydance merger (which Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, quickly noted is under the Federal Communications Commission’s jurisdiction, not the Department of Justice’s), Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s merger with Juniper Networks, and others. Bondi had heard enough.  “I cannot believe that you would accuse me of impropriety when you lied about your military service. You lied, you admitted you lied to be elected a U.S. senator,” she fired back. “Don’t you ever challenge my integrity.”  It’s always great when a career prosecutor reminds a career politician that character matters. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, wasn’t far behind in absurdity. She also accused Bondi’s DOJ of caving to lobbyists in the HPE-Juniper case. Never mind that U.S. intelligence literally asked that DOJ to approve the merger for national security reasons—to counter Huawei, a company controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and considered a national security threat by both parties. This merger will give the U.S. a fair shake at competing with the world’s largest telecommunications equipment company, protecting the world from the Chinese company’s dangerous, backdoor-ridden technology. Never mind that no court would allow this merger to be blocked. HPE-Juniper will not even be the largest U.S. company in the industry when merged and won’t even reach 30% industry market share. That’s hardly a monopoly. Yet, Hirono and Blumenthal and the Democratic machine are still calling approving the deal crony capitalism. This wasn’t an oversight hearing. It was political theater. While Democrats grandstanded, Bondi calmly outlined the Trump DOJ’s actual mission: restoring fairness and ending the weaponization of justice. “We are returning to our core mission of fighting real crime,” she said. “In eight short months, we’ve made tremendous progress.”  She’s right. Under Bondi’s leadership, the DOJ is tackling real issues, from cracking down on fentanyl traffickers and child exploitation networks to prosecuting corruption inside federal contracting programs. Gone are the days when the DOJ was used to prosecute political opponents, target parents at school board meetings, and blame American companies for the inflation that it caused. Remember, this was the same DOJ that sued Visa on antitrust grounds, claiming that charging 44 cents to process a $60 debit card transaction somehow “raised the cost of nearly everything.” As if the work of processing such transactions doesn’t cost anything and should be done for charity. It was an absurd attempt to turn a basic service fee in a monopoly-free payment industry that features dozens of competitors into a national crisis.  Instead of pointing fingers at everyone else for its own problems, Donald Trump’s Justice Department is doing its job. Painting it as a corporate stooge for Big Business is laughable. Yes, the Trump DOJ is not interested in prosecuting benign cases of private enterprise. But, as previously mentioned, the Trump Justice Department has taken plenty of actions against truly bad actors, from Google to Big Pharma to Ticketmaster.  Anyone who heard Antitrust Chief Gail Slater’s America First Competition speech knows she’s no friend of corporate excess. She’s a corporate skeptic who believes in free markets, not favoritism, and her record this year has proven it.  The irony is hard to miss. When Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed this week that special counsel Jack Smith secretly subpoenaed the personal cellphone records of eight Republican senators during President Joe Biden’s term, Democrats didn’t seem to care. But when Trump’s DOJ blinks, suddenly it’s “corruption.”  The pattern is unmistakable. They call it “weaponization” when Trump enforces the law and “justice” when they weaponize it themselves.  For years, Democrats operated under one standard for themselves and another for everyone else. They smeared their opponents as criminals, then shielded their own from accountability. They let the Bidens cash in overseas while accusing others of influence-peddling. They spent four years screaming about “threats to democracy” while trying to remove their political opponent from the ballot.  Now that the tables have turned and justice is being restored, they can’t stand it.  In responding to these bogus allegations, Bondi was confident, unapologetic, and grounded in facts. She knows full well that she’s not politicizing justice, she’s depoliticizing it. And that’s exactly what the Washington establishment fears most.  The Trump administration is rebuilding a Justice Department that serves the law, not the partisan whims of any one political group. And if that makes Washington’s professional political class uncomfortable, then so be it.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Democrats Call Trump’s DOJ ‘Corrupt’ While Standing Knee-Deep in Their Own appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A California court has issued a tentative ruling siding with privacy advocates in a case alleging that the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) unlawfully handed over thousands of customer records to law enforcement, potentially violating a key state privacy law. The lawsuit, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the law firm Vallejo, Antolin, Agarwal, Kanter LLP, represents the Asian American Liberation Network and two local residents. Among the plaintiffs is a man who was wrongly accused of cannabis cultivation based on the utility data shared without consent. More: When Smart Meters Turn Into Spy Tools The respite comes from California Public Utilities Code Section 8381, which bars publicly owned utilities from disclosing electrical usage data to third parties without the customer’s consent, except under specific legal circumstances. The plaintiffs contend that SMUD, which serves all of Sacramento County and parts of Placer County and ranks among the ten largest public utilities in the country, routinely bypassed this protection. For over a decade, SMUD responded to requests from the City of Sacramento’s cannabis enforcement unit by monitoring and supplying lists of homes that surpassed monthly energy use thresholds. These lists, covering more than 33,000 households, were filtered by usage patterns presumed to match indoor cannabis growing operations, such as 12- or 18-hour lighting cycles. However, SMUD employees acknowledged during proceedings that such usage levels could be linked to legitimate, non-criminal reasons, including the use of air conditioning or a larger home size. The court’s tentative ruling, released in advance of the October 10 oral arguments, affirms that SMUD violated Section 8381. It found the utility improperly shared consumer data without obtaining customer approval or confirming that the law enforcement requests were connected to a legitimate ongoing investigation, as required by state law. Though the City argued its cannabis unit was engaged in “proactive investigations,” the court rejected this rationale, stating that continuous, citywide data mining does not meet the legal standard for an “ongoing investigation.” According to the court, “the City is not investigating a suspected violation of criminal law” when it makes these data grabs. It further noted that SMUD was well aware of the systematic nature of the requests and still chose to cooperate. The ruling grants a writ of mandate against SMUD and its CEO, Paul Lau, directing the utility to stop disclosing customer energy data under these circumstances. The petition against the City of Sacramento and its police chief, however, was denied on the basis that requesting information alone, without executing the disclosure, does not constitute a breach of a legal duty. While this ruling remains tentative until finalized following the hearing, it marks a significant moment in the fight for consumer privacy and protections against data profiling. The court did not rule on constitutional grounds, having already found sufficient grounds in statutory violations. However, the implications for digital rights and government surveillance through utility infrastructure are clear. EFF and its co-counsel sought the court’s intervention precisely because consumers had no practical way to avoid being swept into these dragnet surveillance efforts, short of paying extra fees to opt out of smart meter usage. For many, even that option was out of reach. The plaintiffs’ legal team has argued this creates a coercive situation that allows mass surveillance without meaningful consent or accountability. The case reflects growing concerns about the misuse of so-called “smart” infrastructure, especially when used to generate suspicion rather than evidence. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post California Court Rules SMUD Illegally Shared Customer Utility Data With Police appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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