Libertarian Party of Travis County

Liberty-loving individuals who believe in personal freedom, economic freedom, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. Affiliate of @LPTexas

[Ted Brown @TedBrownLiberty]

It looks like Sen. John Cornyn shared my X post from yesterday that linked the Houston Public Media article about my campaign. He received a lot of negative feedback about it. I welcome support from all Texas voters, including Cornyn voters. https://t.co/DnnJDPwsuc

[Ted Brown @TedBrownLiberty]

@statesman The city should definitely pay when their employees damage someone's property. I don't see how this is even controversial.

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

The United States of America is a sovereign nation.

Section 224 of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act must be removed.

Our military should not be integrated in any capacity with a foreign country’s military.

Nor should we be funding it.

[Ted Brown @TedBrownLiberty]

@infolibnews The sanctions against Francesca Albanese and the judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) must be ended immediately. They are just doing their jobs, whether Trump likes it or not, and should not be punished by having their lives ruined financially.

[Ted Brown @TedBrownLiberty]

You are known by the company you keep. Ken Paxton likes to hang with a guy who has bombed 10 countries and killed innocent kids. I prefer former Rep. Ron Paul, a titan of liberty who opposes foreign wars.

[Glenn Meder @GlennMeder]

1/ This is the most important issue facing humanity right now.

The digital control grid is coming for every right you have.

Online child safety laws. Central Bank Digital Currencies. Digital ID systems.

They will not stop at convenience. They will not stop at security.

They will reach into every part of your life and decide what you are allowed to do.

Here is how each right is already under attack.

[Ted Brown @TedBrownLiberty]

@JD_Tuccille @Maggie_McNeill @reason The military draft is slavery. Abolish the Selective Service System and destroy its records.

[Chase Oliver @ChaseForLiberty]

He is objectively the best choice for Texas.

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

Israel has used American-supplied munitions to kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians.

America is morally obligated to end support of Israel’s devastation of Gaza and its people. I’m cosponsoring the Block the Bombs Act to limit the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel.

[Ted Brown @TedBrownLiberty]

@elpasotimes @evan7257 There is also a third choice on the ballot in November: @TedBrownLiberty

[Ted Brown @TedBrownLiberty]

@AMartinelliWA I would definitely sponsor this bill in the Senate. Libertarians have held this position for over 50 years. No one should ever have been arrested, fined, or gone to jail for a plant.

[Anthony Martinelli @AMartinelliWA]

Federal legislation to end cannabis prohibition (deschedule) gained another sponsor yesterday, bringing the total to 73. https://t.co/KYOEZVzCUu

[Ted Brown @TedBrownLiberty]

@AaronTorres_ @DanPatrick @bofrench Luckily, voters can choose Libertarian candidate Arthur DiBianca for Railroad Commissioner in November.

[Mullvad.net @mullvadnet]

So-called age verification for social media is spreading across the world, framed as an effort to create a safer internet for children. In reality, age verification lays the foundation for a fully controlled internet.

The age verification rush must be slowed down, and politicians need to recognize the consequences of different types of legislation and systems.

Age verification is the wrong approach to fix “the social media problem”
The big tech social media companies are bad. Their business model is bad; it is based on mass surveillance and manipulation, and they cooperate with governments in mapping entire populations. But age verification is fundamentally the wrong approach to preventing children from using big tech social media platforms. Introducing age verification is based on coercion; the state forces social media companies to verify their users’ identities. But the big tech social media platforms already know which of their users are children. Their business model depends on knowing this. They know how old users are, and they know exactly what type of person they are. As age verification is based on coercion, politicians could instead force platforms to stop doing the things politicians consider harmful to children, or force them to block children (again, they know who they are) from using their services. But instead, politicians seek to massively invade everyone’s privacy and undermine democratic rights on a global scale. In other words, the latter is the real objective – they do not want to protect children; they want to impose control.

Slippery slope of age verification
It is undeniable that age verification threatens freedom of expression, risks increasing mass surveillance, and is likely to lead to censorship. It will not only shrink the online world and reduce young people’s right to privacy (for example, if VPN services were to be restricted); but also risks becoming a significant step toward a controlled internet for everyone.

Most age verification is identity verification
Most countries are now considering introducing age verification systems, meaning that everyone would have to identify themselves either to the service/website they want to use or to a third party capable of linking them to their activity on that service or website. This is not age verification but identity verification, and the consequence is therefore that freedom of information is restricted (you can no longer visit regulated websites anonymously) and that you can no longer post anonymously on social media. This is a major problem in countries like the UK and Germany where the police conduct raids on people’s homes for posting content on social media that the authorities dislike. Or in the United States, where authorities are trying to pressure tech companies into revealing the identities behind accounts protesting ICE. Social media identity verification removes important tools for activists in countries where criticizing those in power is dangerous.

Restrictions on app store or operating system level
Some countries are looking to impose identity verification at the app store level or even within the operating system itself. This is an exciting experiment, since this is possible to circumvent using open-source operating systems. Some countries are already looking to include open-source systems. Since open-source systems cannot be controlled, politicians would ultimately need to ban devices that are not controlled by the state. The end point: telescreens like those in Orwell’s 1984, devices that both monitor you and broadcast only the information approved by the state.

The Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) alternative and the EU
The EU has presented its own age verification app as “completely anonymous”. The idea is to use Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) cryptography to break the link between the age credential issuer (EU governments) and the regulated services/sites. Currently, the EU app does not have ZKP functionality, contrasting Ursula von der Leyen’s claim that the app ”is technically ready to be used”. But more importantly, the app is currently designed to always function without ZKP technology; if ZKP is unavailable, the app falls back to a non-ZKP model. Even if fully developed ZKP technology could be implemented in the future, it would remain an optional extra feature that countries may choose to disable and that the EU could remove at any time.

Read more on our site.
https://t.co/wTVKHMS1zg

[imPapaB @MBursheim]

“I think there’s a lot of actual fiscal conservatives out there that are looking for a candidate that really wants to cut the size of the federal government."
~Ted Brown

[Libertarian Party of Travis County @LPTravisTX]

If there's a protest in Austin, we will be there!

[DeFlock @therealDeFlock]

The National Week of Action Against ALPRs is coming August 16–22.

If you care about privacy, surveillance, and the right to move through your community without being tracked, now is the time to get involved.

Sign up and help organize in your area:

https://t.co/hF7EIgkFzC

[DeFlock @therealDeFlock]

The National Week of Action Against ALPRs is coming August 16–22.

If you care about privacy, surveillance, and the right to move through your community without being tracked, now is the time to get involved.

Sign up and help organize in your area:

https://t.co/hF7EIgkFzC

[Libertarian Party @LPNational]

Power corrupts. Limit government control and special interests lose their influence.

#VoteLibertarian🗽

[Aaron Parnas @AaronParnas]

NEW: The following billboard followed Ken Paxton today while he was on his way to the White House to meet President Trump.

This played on repeat showing Paxton’s misdeeds on the way to and outside of the White House on a mobile billboard.

[Libertarian Party of Texas @LPTexas]

🏳️‍🌈 Happy Pride Month, Texas.

Pride is in June for a reason. In the early hours of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York, the same kind of raid that had humiliated and arrested LGBTQ people for decades. Simply being gay was a crime in most of the country back then. But this time the people inside refused to scatter, and they held their ground for nights. One year later they marched, and that first march became what we now call Pride.

Strip away the politics and that fight was about one simple idea: what consenting adults do in their own lives is none of the government's business. That happens to be an idea Libertarians have championed from the very beginning. We were making the case for marriage equality back when it was politically radioactive, while both major parties stayed opposed for years; as recently as the 2008 election, the major-party presidential tickets still wouldn't back it. And we hold that standard consistently: the same logic that protects your church, your guns, and your business also protects your right to live and love as you choose. Freedom isn't freedom if it only applies to the people the government happens to approve of.

We don't believe your rights come from a government, a politician, or a permission slip. They're yours. All of them. So this month we celebrate the people who stood up to a government that wouldn't leave them alone, and we keep standing for the same principle today.

Live free, Texas. 🤠