Arizona Gov. Hobbs Vetoes Legislation Protecting 2nd Amendment Rights

Which is worse? Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico or Governor Katie Hobbs of Arizona?

As far as I am concerned, they are both Democrat birds of a radical leftist feather.

Hobbs recently vetoed a bill to protect the privacy of gun buyers from credit card companies. This has a history.

The Biden Administration "encouraged the credit card companies to create a new merchant category code to encourage a reduction in the purchase of firearms and ammunition." The bill in Arizona would have prevented this practice.

According to KAWC:

PHOENIX -- Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed legislation that supporters said would protect the Second Amendment rights of Arizonans by limiting the kind of information that credit card companies can collect, saying it would impair legitimate police work.

The proposal by Sen. Wendy Rogers addresses the fact that companies that process credit and debit card transactions uses "merchant codes'' to show the kind of retailer who made the sale. That's the process that allows credit card users when they get their bills to identify that a sale was made at a department store, a supermarket, a fast food restaurant or at a health care provider.

Where the Flagstaff Republican said that can lead to problems is when these companies create and use a special code to identify transactions made at a firearms retailer versus, say, listed as they can be now as sales occurring at a sporting goods store.

"If you purchase a firearm, they can track you,'' Rogers told colleagues. "So this bill seeks to avert that.''

To read more, go here. 

NSSF Hails Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act

The National Shooting Sports Association (NSSF) hails the introduction of H.R. 1181 that protects the privacy of firearms purchases.

The NSSF posted:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, hails the introduction of H.R. 1181, the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act, introduced by U.S. Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.V.), which would ban the use of a firearm retailer-specific Merchant Category Code (MCC). The legislation would protect the Second Amendment privacy of firearm and ammunition purchasers from financial service and payment card providers compiling purchase history that has already proven to be exploited by the federal government for political purposes.

Rep. Moore is joined by Congressmen Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), Andy Barr (R-Ky.) and 23 additional co-sponsors.

To read more, go here. 

Protecting Privacy In Purchases Act Introduced

Protecting Privacy In Purchases Act has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York, Richard Hudson of North Carolina and Andy Barr of Kentucky. 

This act, if passed into law, will prevent credit card companies and banks from tracking gun and ammunition purchases.

My last two gun purchases were by cash. It's nobody's damn business what I buy.

The Highland County Press reported:

Restricting use of a merchant category code to track transactions for firearms and ammunition sales has been proposed by Republican U.S. Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York, Richard Hudson of North Carolina and Andy Barr of Kentucky.

The implementation of the MCC, as it is commonly known, happened in September 2022 by the International Organization for Standardization. Visa, Mastercard and American Express paused the implementation, and Hudson said he’s questioned it from the outset.

A release from Hudson says the proposal would “preempt California’s newest attempt to single out and surveil law-abiding firearm and ammunition owners.” News broke last week that American Express, Visa and Mastercard would go forward and track gun store purchases in the state.

In a release, Lawrence G. Keane, National Shooting Sports Federation senior vice president and general counsel for the Firearm Industry Trade Association, said, “The Biden administration has already proven they cannot be trusted to respect the private firearm transactions of law-abiding citizens. Without a warrant, federal agencies collected financial information on private firearm and ammunition transactions to create an illegal government watchlist of gun owners. Representative Elise Stefanik’s legislation would rein in federal overreach to use the private financial transactions of law-abiding citizens against them for political means.”

Stefanik said such tracking is a violation of constitutional rights.

To read more, go here. 

Your WiFi Weaponized Against YOU

Your WiFi Weaponized Against YOU - How Feds Plan To Turn Everyday Places Into Surveillance Hubs

House Panel Passes Bill To Thwart CBDC

Some good news has come out of the House of Representatives. It is a first step in thwarting the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), but it is an important step nonetheless.

From Banking Dive:

The House Financial Services Committee last week passed a bill that would stop the Federal Reserve from working on a central bank digital currency, giving the full House a chance to consider the legislation.

The bill would amend the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit Federal Reserve-supervised banks from issuing “a central bank digital currency, or any digital asset that is substantially similar under any other name or label, directly to an individual,” according to the text of that proposed bill, H.R. 5403. 

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-MN, who is also the House Majority Whip, proposed the bill, which he refers to as the “CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act.” It was passed by the committee Wednesday to the House floor. 

To read more, go here. 

Visa, Mastercard Pause Decision To Track Gun Shop Purchases

 

A victory for the Second Amendment came after Visa and MasterCard announced their "pause" in implementing the decision to categorize gun shop purchases.

While this is good news, this doesn't go far enough. They need to definitely end this categorization permanently.

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — Visa and Mastercard paused their decision to start categorizing purchases at gun shops, a significant win for conservative groups and Second Amendment advocates who felt that tracking gun shop purchases would inadvertently discriminate against legal firearms purchases.

The decision is, at the same time, also a defeat for gun control groups. There had been hope that categorizing credit and debit card purchases would allow authorities to potentially see red flags — like significant ammunition purchases — before a mass shooting could happen.

After Visa and Mastercard announced their plans to implement a separate merchant category code for gun shop purchases, the payment networks got significant pushback from the gun lobby as well as conservative politicians. A group of 24 GOP state attorneys general wrote a letter to the payment networks threatening legal action against Visa and Mastercard if they moved forward with their plan.

To read more, go here. 

Lindsey Graham's Terrible Anti-Privacy 'EARN IT' Act Is Back

Above, Lindsey Graham by Pulitzer Prize Winning Political Cartoonist Paul Szep. 

Once a RINO (Republican In Name Only), always a RINO.

That best describes Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has co-sponsored a re-introduced bill to allow the federal government to have access to your private messages.

The Gateway Pundit reported:

 The Electronic Frontier Foundation reported, via Citizen Free Press.

People don’t want outsiders reading their private messages —not their physical mail, not their texts, not their DMs, nothing. It’s a clear and obvious point, but one place it doesn’t seem to have reached is the U.S. Senate.

A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have re-introduced the EARN IT Act, an incredibly unpopular bill from 2020 that was dropped in the face of overwhelming opposition. Let’s be clear: the new EARN IT Act would pave the way for a massive new surveillance system, run by private companies, that would roll back some of the most important privacy and security features in technology used by people around the globe. It’s a framework for private actors to scan every message sent online and report violations to law enforcement. And it might not stop there. The EARN IT Act could ensure that anything hosted online—backups, websites, cloud photos, and more—is scanned.

What people write in their private messages is none of their damned business, but RINO Graham wants to make it their business.

To read more, go here.

Secret Google Map Tracks Your Movements All The Time

Above, this is what the Google Location History looks like.

A few years ago, a vindictive ex accused me of stalking her. She even filed a restraining order against me. In a way, it was amusing because I was actually avoiding her. If anyone was stalking, it was her and her "flying monkeys".

Since I was a California resident at the time and the state has a red flag law, I had to turn in my firearms according to the restraining order. 

Fortunately, I had evidence that her claims were totally bogus and was able to successfully defend myself in court and get my firearms back. One of the most helpful pieces of evidence in my favor was the Google Location History feature of my cell phone.

With that, I was able to prove that I was nowhere near her on the dates and times she stated in her restraining order petition. 

This was one case where the Google Location History came in quite handy. Prior to this, I had no idea my phone had this feature. 

But, there are some who feel that having one's movements being secretly tracked is unnerving (to say the least). If so, it can be turned off.

According to The Hill:

A hidden Google feature has tracked your location for years.

Google’s Location History feature, an account-wide service which logs your movements through your smartphone, has stored the real-world comings and goings of millions of users since it was introduced in 2009.

While the knowledge that your movements are being monitored by one of the world’s largest tech companies may be unsettling, it’s not likely that it's being done to further some nefarious agenda, and Location History was designed to be helpful.

Google says it can provide a better service if it knows where you’ve been, giving you more detailed commute advice, recommendations based on places you’ve visited, and more relevant advertisements.  

Still, if this news makes you want to rush to turn Google Location History off, you’re not alone, and there are some major privacy risks to having your location data stored online. That’s why Google has said its Location History feature is switched off by default and can only be activated with a user’s permission.

 To read more, go here.

Biden Wants The IRS To Have Access To Our Bank Accounts

Well, here's another reason why stupid people shouldn't be allowed to vote and voter fraud must be eliminated.

From Fox Business:

The Biden administration is aiming to bolster the Internal Revenue Service by adding bank account reporting requirements to Democrats' massive tax and spending bill, prompting a swift backlash from Republicans who have warned it infringes on customers' privacy.

Under the proposal, banks and other financial institutions would be required to annually report customers' account inflows and outflows of $600 or more to the IRS. The White House has estimated the policy, which would apply to bank, loan and investment accounts, could generate about $463 billion in additional revenue over the next decade.

In a memo to congressional Democrats, the administration defended the plan, saying it requires banks and financial institutions to provide a "little bit of high-level information" to the IRS on account flows in order to give the agency more information about wealthy Americans' earnings from investments and business activity. 

Talk about an invasion of privacy! It is none of their damn business what we have in our bank accounts.

To read more, go here.

NM Courts Rule Hunters' Information "Public Record"

New Mexico court, in two decisions, are essentially sanctioning harassment of hunters and their privacy by ruling their information is "public record".

The Lincoln Journal Star reported:

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Game and Fish Department has been ordered to release information about hunters to individuals who sought the records as part of separate court cases. 

A state district judge is ordering the agency to turn over the names and addresses of those who won big game draws between 2015 and 2019 to a Los Alamos County resident who had petitioned the court for the information. 

In the second case, the state Court of Appeals said the email addresses of individuals who applied for hunting licenses between 2015 and 2016 must be turned over to former Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn. 

The agency said Thursday that both courts concluded that information collected from the public in connection with the administration of the agency's public duties fall within the definition of public records and are subject to disclosure.

By allowing disclosure of information of private citizen hunters to people with political agendas, it will subject hunters to possible harassment and threats. Frankly, it is nobody's business (especially the government's) who owns a gun and hunts with it.

To read more, go here.