An activist that was paid by George Soros’ foundation to “challenge Los Angeles Police Department surveillance” has vowed to shut down the LAPD’s drone program before it gets off the ground. After the LAPD presented police commissioners with plans to move forward with an “unmanned aerial system” earlier this week, Hamid Khan ignited a disruption of shouts and chants that quickly turned the boardroom into an unlawful assembly, as declared by an officer on the scene. One protester warned, “civil war is coming.”

“The LA Police Commission rubber stamped building the program that will give LAPD much more firepower and surveillance capacity to brutalize and stalk our communities,” Khan said. “We have the power to stop it and we will.”

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Khan has been studying the LAPD’s surveillance, infiltration, and wiretapping techniques for at least six years. In 2011, he created the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition after receiving a paid fellowship from Soros’ Open Society Foundations to work on so-called “criminal justice reform” issues. Since then, it has become part of an interwoven conglomerate of anti-police activist groups that coalesce to dismantle law enforcement in Southern California. Allies include Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and several Soros-affiliated community-based organizations that are familiar faces to the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL), which represents rank-and-file LAPD officers.

“It’s time for the conspiracy theorists and professional protesters to stop obstructing every effort we make to keep Angelenos safe,” the union recently said in a statement.

Khan’s Stop LAPD Spying Coalition shares an address with the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN) — a non-profit with direct ties to Soros, operating on money that trickles down from his foundation. Dr. Melina Abdullah, the lead organizer for the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter, sits on LACAN’s board of directors.

“We must disrupt systems of oppression that continue to surveil and oppress communities of color,” said Pete White, LACAN’s executive director, who is also a member of Black Lives Matter-LA. “We say disrupt, divest, and abolish values that suggest public safety rests in the hands of police.”

Ironically, LACAN also receives funding from a foundation led by a current LAPD commissioner, which once honored Khan as an up-and-coming organizer — opening the door for his Soros fellowship.

Now Khan leads a resistance whose mission includes “the dismantling of government-sanctioned spying and intelligence gathering.” He insists there are “no circumstances” under which law enforcement should use drones.

As the Los Angeles Times reports:

The LAPD’s vision, if approved by the Police Commission, is to fly a small drone – measuring about a foot long and 7 ½ inches tall – during incidents such as standoffs with hostage-takers or barricaded suspects, bomb scares, or shootings where a gunman is still targeting people. The devices could help gather crucial information as such situations unfold, without putting officers at risk, Assistant Chief Beatrice Girmala said.

The LAPD would draw up strict criteria before flying drones, she said. Each use would require the approval of a high-ranking department official and would be documented in a written report to ensure that the rules were followed, she said.

The LAPD plans to hold public meetings and draft guidelines that must be approved by the Police Commission before the drones can be flown.

Khan’s coalition has been described as “working to build a grassroots movement.” However, drone opposition might not be as widespread as some media reports have conveyed. Stop LAPD Spying Coalition launched the “Drone-Free LAPD/No Drones LA!” campaign in 2014 to mobilize the community by “holding rallies, demonstrations, and press conferences,” but some outlets identify the coalition and campaign as two separate groups when, in fact, they are one in the same. The No Drones LA! Twitter account has not tweeted since 2014.

“We’re going to fight this; we’re going to fight it until the very end,” Jamie Garcia, a member of Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, cautioned police commissioners. “These drones will be destroyed, and they’ll be grounded. You won’t even purchase them. So just drop the idea. It’s not going to happen.”

Follow Jeffrey Cawood on Twitter @Near_Chaos.

On Thursday night, Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) called the National Rife Association (NRA), which represents over 5 million Americans, and organization spokeswoman Dana Loesch, “domestic security threats.”

The NRA and Dana Loesch “are quickly becoming domestic security threats under President Trump,” wrote Rep. Rice in a Twitter post. “We can’t ignore that.”

Loesch, not one to stay silent against slanderous attacks, asked the congresswoman for an explanation of her tweet. “Hi Congresswoman, can you explain why you say I and millions of members are “domestic security threats?” Thank you,” she wrote.

Rice has yet to respond to Loesch, or post anything for that matter.

“Rephrase: An elected gov’t official just labeled me and millions of others ‘domestic security threats.’Wow,” clarified the spokeswoman for the pro-Second Amendment group.

Loesch also quipped:

As you might suspect, calling 5 million-plus Americans a threat to their own country didn’t sit well with the public, either. NRA members and Second Amendment supporters were quick to slam the congresswoman for her irresponsible and outrageous claim.

Others pointed out Rep. Rice’s soft language on actual national security threats, like vicious and murderous gang MS-13.

Dana pointed out the same during an appearance on NRATV:

Loesch was recently targeted by left-wing journalists after they incorrectly claimed the spokeswoman threatened to “fist” The New York Times, when Loesch actually said “fisk.” At least one journalist, Yashar Ali, apologized for his mistake.

Before firing-off her inflammatory tweet, Rice accused the NRA of racism for staying “silent” on the death of Philando Castile, a black man who was fatally shot by a police officer last summer.

Last month, Loesch, speaking on behalf of the organization, said, in part:

I don’t agree with every single decision that comes out from courtrooms of America. There are a lot of variables in this particular case, and there were a lot of things that I wish would have been done differently. Do I believe that Philando Castile deserved to lose his life over his [traffic] stop? I absolutely do not. I also think that this is why we have things like NRA Carry Guard, not only to reach out to the citizens to go over what to do during stops like this, but also to work with law enforcement so that they understand what citizens are experiencing when they go through stops like this.

Rep. Rice is currently a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

Speaking at NABJ17 (The National Association of Black Journalists) in New Orleans on Friday, Omarosa Manigault, director of communications for the Office of Public Liason for the Trump Administration, watched as black members of the audience turned their backs to her while she conversed with Bounce TV’s Ed Gordon.

The hostility toward Manigault should not have been unexpected; after she was added to the panel, The New York Times’ Nikole Hannah-Jones, who was scheduled to moderate the panel on police brutality, which featured Valerie Castile, Sandra Sterling, and the New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb, pulled out, as did Cobb; Gordon replaced Hannah-Jones as the event’s moderator.

New York Times reporter Yamiche Alcindor chronicled what happened as Manigault and Gordon argued:

Wait, Manigault said, “Google me?” Isn’t the Left okay with someone telling them to Google something?

Other notes: