Black Krishna Brand Philosophy - Public Domain and Open Source Philosophy - Please Share, Use and/or Adapt Whatever You Want However You Want To Achieve Today and Tomorrow
Friday, November 30, 2007
Heroes, Values, Men and Women vs. Party on Friday Dec 07th @ FLY
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We're getting played for fools, By new rules, Acting like tools of death, Of old schools, When we knew right from wrong, How to be strong, And get along a long long time, Now it's a crime, To just play along, Gotta get set, The set up get us upset, The vet understand, We ain't done yet, We ain't fun yet, Getting stressed is a test, Getting paid is played, When getting some is a mess, Getting laid is played, When we're sold as slaves, Respect the intellect, That intellect made...
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Here's 17 mins of what's up with men and women if your interested, the full interview can be found below... http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com/radio/Rude_Awakening_Black_Krishna_CKLN_FM.html
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Party on Friday Dec 07th @ FLY
CHANGE IN ENTRANCE POLICY: NO ENTRY FOR MEN, UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY WOMEN
Due to complaints from many of our female patrons about aggressive sexual harassment by groups of men at Besharam, as well as complaints of homophobic harassment by our gay/lesbian patrons, we will no longer be allowing entry to men unless they are accompanied by women. This new policy does not apply to those men whom we know personally.
[Ed note: This is what happens when guys are socialized to be dicks and women are socialized to be ho's, with guys just taught "Act Tough and Shoot Stuff!" and women just taught "Make Your Hair Shiny and Make Your Ass Tiny!" and nothing else. Check the music, magazines, tv and videogames and learn the truth from the interview clips and other sources to stop the porno-gestapo nightmare our paranoid psychopath leaders are setting up.]
We hope that this new policy will help to make Besharam a safe and fun space again for all who attend, especially women and gay men. We regret that we have had to resort to such a drastic measure but we have tried several other strategies, including increased security, police presence, and ongoing anti-harassment education initiatives including announcements, flyers, posters, web promotions etc., yet the problem of harassment inside the club is still with us.
Since the beginning we have promoted Besharam as a South Asian event with a unique philosophy, namely, Besharam is an event for open-minded people of diverse cultures, genders, and sexual orientations to enjoy South Asian music in an atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect.
We reserve the right to refuse entry to those who do not respect and adhere to the philosophy of our events. We encourage anyone who experiences harassment at Besharam to please report it to the security staff so that the perpetrator(s) will be escorted out and banned from attending Besharam.
Lastly, we encourage all of our past patrons who have stopped attending due to the troublesome behaviour to please come party with us again and help us reclaim Besharam as an inclusive and safe space to enjoy South Asian music.
Dress Code: Stylish / Smart Casual. Absolutely no ball-caps/bandanas, no baggy t-shirts or baggy/ripped jeans, no athletic gear, and no runners. Those who do not meet our dress code will not be allowed entry.
Besharam / Shameless - First Friday of Every Month at FLY Nightclub, 8 Gloucester St. Email: besharam@hotmail.com Web: www.besharam.ca
Doors open at 9: 30 pm, party till 3 am.
Cover Charge: $10 for the first 100 patrons, $15 for the rest.
Line Bypass is only in operation from 11 pm until 12:30 am, and it will be limited to a maximum of 100 people.
PLEASE ARRIVE EARLY TO AVOID THE LINE-UPS.
Age: 19 +. Photo ID (Driver's License, Citizenship Card, Passport) is required for entry. Health Cards and
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Peace, (NOW!!!) BK
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Black Krishna Brand
Philosophy - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/
Music - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/blackkrishna.htm
INTERPRET AND SHARE THIS ARTICLE WIDELY NOW: Domestic Spying, Inc.
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Big Brother (NSA) is Copying Everything on the Internet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDk6jxcSDlQ
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Shots of the world going crazy / Make us all lazy / World at home gets hazy / Waste days just chasin' daisies / Grave danger / Slave strangers / Praise for the praise any way we / Get it / Got it / Done / May as well run / Away from reality / Until it's no fun / Can't pray for reality / Hope information / Weigh a ton / On ya mind 'til ya find / Word is blind / Got a tongue / See who's sprung / From the PrisonPlanet / Slippin' nipple / Like Janet / For the world to see / Speak free / So you manage / To damage the illusion / Institution collusion / Tracked / Searched / Drugged / Chipped / Paranoid solution / Going for ablution / Revolution / Like Belly / Bling ain't bring spring break / Like on the telly / Like Shelley / Wrote about Frankenstein / Down the line / Brain chip trip / Head-scratchin' on ya mind / Train wrecks flip / They catchin' us in lyin' / Thanks to spyin' / Can't have a day of feelin' fine / With thoughts searched / Like a book of rhymes / Like high school lockers / Robocops / Of clockers / Technocrats / Listen to see how to shock us / Prod / Poke / No joke / Can't afford no smoke / Better burn rubber band cuffs / While they can still be broke / Better know the stuff / While we ain't all broke / Sub-prime crime wave / House full of gun smoke / Mouse or man gonna choke / On the cheddar / Be for vendetta / Once you get the leather / Face the weather / Whether or not we agree / It's all good to see / Aim up at the spycam / That's trappin' you and me...
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Domestic Spying, Inc.
by Tim Shorrock Special to CorpWatch
November 27th, 2007
Cartoon by Khalil Bendib
A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first time. Under a proposal being reviewed by Congress, a National Applications Office (NAO) will be established to coordinate how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and domestic law enforcement and rescue agencies use imagery and communications intelligence picked up by U.S. spy satellites. If the plan goes forward, the NAO will create the legal mechanism for an unprecedented degree of domestic intelligence gathering that would make the U.S. one of the world's most closely monitored nations. Until now, domestic use of electronic intelligence from spy satellites was limited to scientific agencies with no responsibility for national security or law enforcement.
The intelligence-sharing system to be managed by the NAO will rely heavily on private contractors including Boeing, BAE Systems, L-3 Communications and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). These companies already provide technology and personnel to U.S. agencies involved in foreign intelligence, and the NAO greatly expands their markets. Indeed, at an intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, last month, the titans of the industry were actively lobbying intelligence officials to buy products specifically designed for domestic surveillance.
The NAO was created under a plan tentatively approved in May 2007 by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell. Specifically, the NAO will oversee how classified information collected by the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and other key agencies is used within the U.S. during natural disasters, terrorist attacks and other events affecting national security. The most critical intelligence will be supplied by the NSA and the NGA, which are often referred to by U.S. officials as the “eyes” and “ears” of the intelligence community.
The NSA, through a global network of listening posts, surveillance planes, and satellites, captures signals from phone calls, e-mail and Internet traffic, and translates and analyzes them for U.S. military and national intelligence officials.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which was formally inaugurated in 2003, provides overhead imagery and mapping tools that allow intelligence and military analysts to monitor events from the skies and space. The NSA and the NGA have a close relationship with the super-secret National Reconnaissance Agency (NRO), which builds and maintains the U.S. fleet of spy satellites and operates the ground stations where the NSA’s signals and the NGA’s imagery are processed and analyzed. By law, their collection efforts are supposed to be confined to foreign countries and battlefields.
The National Applications Office was conceived in 2005 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which Congress created in 2004 to oversee the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community. The ODNI, concerned that the legal framework for U.S. intelligence operations had not been updated for the global “war on terror,” turned to Booz Allen Hamilton of McLean, Virginia -- one of the largest contractors in the spy business. The company was tasked with studying how intelligence from spy satellites and photoreconnaissance planes could be better used domestically to track potential threats to security within the U.S.. The Booz Allen study was completed in May of that year, and has since become the basis for the NAO oversight plan. In May 2007, McConnell, the former executive vice president of Booz Allen, signed off on the creation of the NAO as the principal body to oversee the merging of foreign and domestic intelligence collection operations.
The NAO is "an idea whose time has arrived," Charles Allen, a top U.S. intelligence official, told the Wall Street Journal in August 2007 after it broke the news of the creation of the NAO. Allen, the DHS's chief intelligence officer, will head the new program. The announcement came just days after President George W. Bush signed a new law approved by Congress to expand the ability of the NSA to eavesdrop, without warrants, on telephone calls, e-mail and faxes passing through telecommunications hubs in the U.S. when the government suspects agents of a foreign power may be involved. "These [intelligence] systems are already used to help us respond to crises," Allen later told the Washington Post. "We anticipate that we can also use them to protect Americans by preventing the entry of dangerous people and goods into the country, and by helping us examine critical infrastructure for vulnerabilities."
Donald Kerr, a former NRO director who is now the number two at ODNI, recently explained to reporters that the intelligence community was no longer discussing whether or not to spy on U.S. citizens: “Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety,'' Kerr said. ''I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but [also] what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn't empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere.''
What Will The NAO Do?
The plan for the NAO builds on a domestic security infrastructure that has been in place for at least seven years. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the NSA was granted new powers to monitor domestic communications without obtaining warrants from a secret foreign intelligence court established by Congress in 1978 (that warrant-less program ended in January 2007 but was allowed to continue, with some changes, under legislation passed by Congress in August 2007).
Moreover, intelligence and reconnaissance agencies that were historically confined to spying on foreign countries have been used extensively on the home front since 2001. In the hours after the September 11th, 2001 attacks in New York, for example, the Bush administration called on the NGA to capture imagery from lower Manhattan and the Pentagon to help in the rescue and recovery efforts. In 2002, when two deranged snipers terrified the citizens of Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs with a string of fatal shootings, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) asked the NGA to provide detailed images of freeway interchanges and other locations to help spot the pair.
The NGA was also used extensively during Hurricane Katrina , when the agency provided overhead imagery -- some of it supplied by U-2 photoreconnaissance aircraft -- to federal and state rescue operations. The data, which included mapping of flooded areas in Louisiana and Mississippi, allowed residents of the stricken areas to see the extent of damage to their homes and helped first-responders locate contaminated areas as well as schools, churches and hospitals that might be used in the rescue. More recently, during the October 2007 California wildfires, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) asked the NGA to analyze overhead imagery of the fire zones and determine the areas of maximum intensity and damage. In every situation that the NGA is used domestically, it must receive a formal request from a lead domestic agency, according to agency spokesperson David Burpee. That agency is usually FEMA, which is a unit of DHS.
At first blush, the idea of a U.S. intelligence agency serving the public by providing imagery to aid in disaster recovery sounds like a positive development, especially when compared to the Bush administration’s misuse of the NSA and the Pentagon’s Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA) to spy on American citizens. But the notion of using spy satellites and aircraft for domestic purposes becomes problematic from a civil liberties standpoint when the full capabilities of agencies like the NGA and the NSA are considered.
Imagine, for example, that U.S. intelligence officials have determined, through NSA telephone intercepts, that a group of worshippers at a mosque in Oakland, California, has communicated with an Islamic charity in Saudi Arabia. This is the same group that the FBI and the U.S. Department of the Treasury believe is linked to an organization unfriendly to the United States.
Imagine further that the FBI, as a lead agency, asks and receives permission to monitor that mosque and the people inside using high-resolution imagery obtained from the NGA. Using other technologies, such as overhead traffic cameras in place in many cities, that mosque could be placed under surveillance for months, and -- through cell phone intercepts and overhead imagery -- its suspected worshipers carefully tracked in real-time as they moved almost anywhere in the country.
The NAO, under the plan approved by ODNI’s McConnell, would determine the rules that will guide the DHS and other lead federal agencies when they want to use imagery and signals intelligence in situations like this, as well as during natural disasters. If the organization is established as planned, U.S. domestic agencies will have a vast array of technology at their disposal. In addition to the powerful mapping and signals tools provided by the NGA and the NSA, domestic agencies will also have access to measures and signatures intelligence (MASINT) managed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the principal spying agency used by the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
(MASINT is a highly classified form of intelligence that uses infrared sensors and other technologies to “sniff” the atmosphere for certain chemicals and electro-magnetic activity and “see” beneath bridges and forest canopies. Using its tools, analysts can detect signs that a nuclear power plant is producing plutonium, determine from truck exhaust what types of vehicles are in a convoy, and detect people and weapons hidden from the view of satellites or photoreconnaissance aircraft.)
Created By Contractors
The study group that established policies for the NAO was jointly funded by the ODNI and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), one of only two domestic U.S. agencies that is currently allowed, under rules set in the 1970s, to use classified intelligence from spy satellites. (The other is NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.) The group was chaired by Keith Hall, a Booz Allen vice president who manages his firm’s extensive contracts with the NGA and previously served as the director of the NRO.
Other members of the group included seven other former intelligence officers working for Booz Allen, as well as retired Army Lieutenant General Patrick M. Hughes, the former director of the DIA and vice president of homeland security for L-3 Communications, a key NSA contractor; and Thomas W. Conroy, the vice president of national security programs for Northrop Grumman, which has extensive contracts with the NSA and the NGA and throughout the intelligence community.
From the start, the study group was heavily weighted toward companies with a stake in both foreign and domestic intelligence. Not surprisingly, its contractor-advisers called for a major expansion in the domestic use of the spy satellites that they sell to the government. Since the end of the Cold War and particularly since the September 11, 2001 attacks, they said, the “threats to the nation have changed and there is a growing interest in making available the special capabilities of the intelligence community to all parts of the government, to include homeland security and law enforcement entities and on a higher priority basis.”
Contractors are not new to the U.S. spy world. Since the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the modern intelligence system in 1947, the private sector has been tapped to design and build the technology that facilitates electronic surveillance. Lockheed, for example, built the U-2, the famous surveillance plane that flew scores of spy missions over the Soviet Union and Cuba. During the 1960s, Lockheed was a prime contractor for the Corona system of spy satellites that greatly expanded the CIA’s abilities to photograph secret military installations from space. IBM, Cray Computers and other companies built the super-computers that allowed the NSA to sift through data from millions of telephone calls, and analyze them for intelligence that was passed on to national leaders.
Spending on contracts has increased exponentially in recent years along with intelligence budgets, and the NSA, the NGA and other agencies have turned to the private sector for the latest computer and communications technologies and for intelligence analysts. For example, today about half of staff at the NSA and NGA are private contractors. At the DIA, 35 percent of the workers are contractors. But the most privatized agency of all is the NRO, where a whopping 90 percent of the workforce receive paychecks from corporations. All told the U.S. intelligence agencies spend some 70 percent of their estimated $60 billion annual budget on contracts with private companies, according to documents this reporter obtained in June 2007 from the ODNI.
The plans to increase domestic spying are estimated to be worth billions of dollars in new business for the intelligence contractors. The market potential was on display in October at GEOINT 2007, the annual conference sponsored by the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), a non-profit organization funded by the largest contractors for the NGA. During the conference, which took place in October at the spacious Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio, many companies were displaying spying and surveillance tools that had been used in Afghanistan and Iraq and were now being re-branded for potential domestic use.
BAE Systems Inc.
On the first day of the conference, three employees of BAE Systems Inc. who had just returned from a three-week tour of Iraq and Afghanistan with the NGA demonstrated a new software package called SOCET GXP. (BAE Systems Inc. is the U.S. subsidiary of the UK-based BAE, the third-largest military contractor in the world.)
GXP uses Google Earth software as a basis for creating three-dimensional maps that U.S. commanders and soldiers use to conduct intelligence and reconnaissance missions. Eric Bruce, one of the BAE employees back from the Middle East, said his team trained U.S. forces to use the GXP software “to study routes for known terrorist sites” as well as to locate opium fields. “Terrorists use opium to fund their war,” he said. Bruce also said his team received help from Iraqi citizens in locating targets. “Many of the locals can’t read maps, so they tell the analysts, ‘there is a mosque next to a hill,’” he explained.
Bruce said BAE’s new package is designed for defense forces and intelligence agencies, but can also be used for homeland security and by highway departments and airports. Earlier versions of the software were sold to the U.S. Army’s Topographic Engineering Center, where it has been used to collect data on more than 12,000 square kilometers of Iraq, primarily in urban centers and over supply routes.
Another new BAE tool displayed in San Antonio was a program called GOSHAWK, which stands for “Geospatial Operations for a Secure Homeland – Awareness, Workflow, Knowledge.” It was pitched by BAE as a tool to help law enforcement and state and local emergency agencies prepare for, and respond to, “natural disasters and terrorist and criminal incidents.” Under the GOSHAWK program, BAE supplies “agencies and corporations” with data providers and information technology specialists “capable of turning geospatial information into the knowledge needed for quick decisions.” A typical operation might involve acquiring data from satellites, aircraft and sensors in ground vehicles, and integrating those data to support an emergency or security operations center. One of the program’s special attributes, the company says, is its ability to “differentiate levels of classification,” meaning that it can deduce when data are classified and meant only for use by analysts with security clearances.
These two products were just a sampling of what BAE, a major player in the U.S. intelligence market, had to offer. BAE’s services to U.S. intelligence -- including the CIA and the National Counter-Terrorism Center -- are provided through a special unit called the Global Analysis Business Unit. It is located in McLean, Virginia, a stone’s throw from the CIA. The unit is headed by John Gannon, a 25-year veteran of the CIA who reached the agency’s highest analytical ranks as deputy director of intelligence and chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Today, as a private sector contractor for the intelligence community, Gannon manages a staff of more than 800 analysts with security clearances.
A brochure for the Global Analysis unit distributed at GEOINT 2007 explains BAE’s role and, in the process, underscores the degree of outsourcing in U.S. intelligence. “The demand for experienced, skilled, and cleared analysts – and for the best systems to manage them – has never been greater across the Intelligence and Defense Communities, in the field and among federal, state, and local agencies responsible for national and homeland security,” BAE says. The mission of the Global Analysis unit, it says, “is to provide policymakers, warfighters, and law enforcement officials with analysts to help them understand the complex intelligence threats they face, and work force management programs to improve the skills and expertise of analysts.”
At the bottom of the brochure is a series of photographs illustrating BAE’s broad reach: a group of analysts monitoring a bank of computers; three employees studying a map of Europe, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa; the outlines of two related social networks that have been mapped out to show how their members are linked; a bearded man, apparently from the Middle East and presumably a terrorist; the fiery image of a car bomb after it exploded in Iraq; and four white radar domes (known as radomes) of the type used by the NSA to monitor global communications from dozens of bases and facilities around the world.
The brochure may look and sound like typical corporate public relations. But amid BAE’s spy talk were two phrases strategically placed by the company to alert intelligence officials that BAE has an active presence inside the U.S.. The tip-off words were “federal, state and local agencies,” “law enforcement officials” and “homeland security.” By including them, BAE was broadcasting that it is not simply a contractor for agencies involved in foreign intelligence, but has an active presence as a supplier to domestic security agencies, a category that includes the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FBI as well as local and state police forces stretching from Maine to Hawaii.
ManTech, Boeing, Harris and L-3
ManTech International, an important NSA contractor based in Fairfax, Virginia, has perfected the art of creating multi-agency software programs for both foreign and domestic intelligence. After the September 11th, 2001 attacks, it developed a classified program for the Defense Intelligence Agency called the Joint Regional Information Exchange System. DIA used it to combine classified and unclassified intelligence on terrorist threats on a single desktop. ManTech then tweaked that software for the Department of Homeland Security and sold it to DHS for its Homeland Security Information Network. According to literature ManTech distributed at GEOINT, that software will “significantly strengthen the exchange of real-time threat information used to combat terrorism.” ManTech, the brochure added, “also provides extensive, advanced information technology support to the National Security Agency” and other agencies.
In a nearby booth, Chicago, Illinois-based Boeing, the world’s second largest defense contractor, was displaying its “information sharing environment” software, which is designed to meet the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s new requirements on agencies to stop buying “stovepiped” systems that can’t talk to each other. The ODNI wants to focus on products that will allow the NGA and other agencies to easily share their classified imagery with the CIA and other sectors of the community. “To ensure freedom in the world, the United States continues to address the challenges introduced by terrorism,” a Boeing handout said. Its new software, the company said, will allow information to be “shared efficiently and uninterrupted across intelligence agencies, first responders, military and world allies.” Boeing has a reason for publishing boastful material like this: In 2005, it lost a major contract with the NRO to build a new generation of imaging satellites after ringing up billions of dollars in cost-overruns. The New York Times recently called the Boeing project “the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects.”
Boeing’s geospatial intelligence offerings are provided through its Space and Intelligence Systems unit, which also holds contracts with the NSA. It allows agencies and military units to map global shorelines and create detailed maps of cities and battlefields, complete with digital elevation data that allow users to construct three-dimensional maps. (In an intriguing aside, one Boeing intelligence brochure lists among its “specialized organizations” Jeppesen Government and Military Services. According to a 2006 account by New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer, Jeppesen provided logistical and navigational assistance, including flight plans and clearance to fly over other countries, to the CIA for its “extraordinary rendition” program.)
Although less known as an intelligence contractor than BAE and Boeing, the Harris Corporation has become a major force in providing contracted electronic, satellite and information technology services to the intelligence community, including the NSA and the NRO. In 2007, according to its most recent annual report, the $4.2 billion company, based in Melbourne, Florida, won several new classified contracts. NSA awarded one of them for software to be used by NSA analysts in the agency’s “Rapidly Deployable Integrated Command and Control System,” which is used by the NSA to transmit “actionable intelligence” to soldiers and commanders in the field. Harris also supplies geospatial and imagery products to the NGA. At GEOINT, Harris displayed a new product that allows agencies to analyze live video and audio data imported from UAVs. It was developed, said Fred Poole, a Harris market development manager, “with input from intelligence analysts who were looking for a video and audio analysis tool that would allow them to perform ‘intelligence fusion’” -- combining information from several agencies into a single picture of an ongoing operation.
For many of the contractors at GEOINT, the highlight of the symposium was an “interoperability demonstration” that allowed vendors to show how their products would work in a domestic crisis.
One scenario involved Cuba as a rogue nation supplying spent nuclear fuel to terrorists bent on creating havoc in the U.S.. Implausible as it was, the plot, which involved maritime transportation and ports, allowed the companies to display software that was likely already in use by the Department of Homeland Security and Naval Intelligence. The “plot” involved the discovery by U.S. intelligence of a Cuban ship carrying spent nuclear fuel heading for the U.S. Gulf Coast; an analysis of the social networks of Cuban officials involved with the illicit cargo; and the tracking and interception of the cargo as it departed from Cuba and moved across the Caribbean to Corpus Christi, Texas, a major port on the Gulf Coast. The agencies involved included the NGA, the NSA, Naval Intelligence and the Marines, and some of the key contractors working for those agencies. It illustrated how sophisticated the U.S. domestic surveillance system has become in the six years since the 9/11 attacks.
L-3 Communications, which is based in New York city, was a natural for the exercise: As mentioned earlier, retired Army Lt. General Patrick M. Hughes, its vice president of homeland security, was a member of the Booz Allen Hamilton study group that advised the Bush administration to expand the domestic use of military spy satellites. At GEOINT, L-3 displayed a new program called “multi-INT visualization environment” that combines imagery and signals intelligence data that can be laid over photographs and maps. One example shown during the interoperability demonstration showed how such data would be incorporated into a map of Florida and the waters surrounding Cuba. With L-3 a major player at the NSA, this demonstration software is likely seeing much use as the NSA and the NGA expand their information-sharing relationship.
Over the past two years, for example, the NGA has deployed dozens of employees and contractors to Iraq to support the “surge” of U.S. troops. The NGA teams provide imagery and full-motion video -- much of it beamed to the ground from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) -- that help U.S. commanders and soldiers track and destroy insurgents fighting the U.S. occupation. And since 2004, under a memorandum of understanding with the NSA, the NGA has begun to incorporate signals intelligence into its imagery products. The blending technique allows U.S. military units to track and find targets by picking up signals from their cell phones, follow the suspects in real-time using overhead video, and direct fighter planes and artillery units to the exact location of the targets -- and blow them to smithereens.
That’s exactly how U.S. Special Forces tracked and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the alleged leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the NGA’s director, Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, said in 2006. Later, Murrett told reporters during GEOINT 2007, the NSA and the NGA have cooperated in similar fashion in several other fronts of the “war on terror,” including in the Horn of Africa, where the U.S. military has attacked Al Qaeda units in Somalia, and in the Philippines, where U.S. forces are helping the government put down the Muslim insurgent group Abu Sayyaf. “When the NGA and the NSA work together, one plus one equals five,” said Murrett.
Civil Liberty Worries
For U.S. citizens, however, the combination of NGA imagery and NSA signals intelligence in a domestic situation could threaten important constitutional safeguards against unwarranted searches and seizures. Kate Martin, the director of the Center for National Security Studies, a nonprofit advocacy organization, has likened the NAO plan to “Big Brother in the Sky.” The Bush administration, she told the Washington Post, is “laying the bricks one at a time for a police state.”
Some Congress members, too, are concerned. “The enormity of the NAO’s capabilities and the intended use of the imagery received through these satellites for domestic homeland security purposes, and the unintended consequences that may arise, have heightened concerns among the general public, including reputable civil rights and civil liberties organizations,” Bennie G. Thompson, a Democratic member of Congress from Mississippi and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote in a September letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. Thompson and other lawmakers reacted with anger after reports of the NAO and the domestic spying plan were first revealed by the Wall Street Journal in August. “There was no briefing, no hearing, and no phone call from anyone on your staff to any member of this committee of why, how, or when satellite imagery would be shared with police and sheriffs’ officers nationwide,” Thompson complained to Chertoff.
At a hastily organized hearing in September, Thompson and others demanded that the opening of the NAO be delayed until further studies were conducted on its legal basis and questions about civil liberties were answered. They also demanded biweekly updates from Chertoff on the activities and progress of the new organization. Others pointed out the potential danger of allowing U.S. military satellites to be used domestically. “It will terrify you if you really understand the capabilities of satellites,” warned Jane Harman, a Democratic member of Congress from California, who represents a coastal area of Los Angeles where many of the nation’s satellites are built. As Harman well knows, military spy satellites are far more flexible, offer greater resolution, and have considerably more power to observe human activity than commercial satellites. “Even if this program is well-designed and executed, someone somewhere else could hijack it,” Harman said during the hearing.
The NAO was supposed to open for business on October 1, 2007. But the Congressional complaints have led the ODNI and DHS to delay their plans. The NAO "has no intention to begin operations until we address your questions," Charles Allen of DHS explained in a letter to Thompson. In an address at the GEOINT conference in San Antonio, Allen said that the ODNI is working with DHS and the Departments of Justice and Interior to draft the charter for the new organization, which he said will face “layers of review” once it is established.
Yet, given the Bush administration’s record of using U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on U.S. citizens, it is difficult to take such promises at face value. Moreover, the extensive corporate role in foreign and domestic intelligence means that the private sector has a great deal to gain in the new plan for intelligence-sharing. Because most private contracts with intelligence agencies are classified, however, the public will have little knowledge of this role. Before Congress signs off on the NAO, it should create a better oversight system that would allow the House of Representatives and the Senate to monitor the new organization and to examine how BAE, Boeing, Harris and its fellow corporations stand to profit from this unprecedented expansion of America’s domestic intelligence system.
Tim Shorrock has been writing about U.S. foreign policy and national security for nearly 30 years. His book, Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence, will be published in May 2008 by Simon & Schuster. He can be reached at timshorrock@gmail.com.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14821
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Peace, (NOW!!!) BK
_______________________
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Black Krishna Brand
Philosophy - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/
Music - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/blackkrishna.htm
WASHINGTON - Local intelligence-sharing centers set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have had their anti-terrorism mission diluted by a focus on run-of-the-mill street crime and hazards such as hurricanes, a government report concludes.
Of the 43 "fusion centers" already established, only two focus exclusively on preventing terrorism, the Government Accountability Office found in a national survey obtained by The Associated Press. Center directors complain they were hampered by lack of guidance from Washington and were flooded by often redundant information from multiple computer systems.
Administration officials defended the centers and said encompassing all sorts of crimes in the intelligence dragnet is the best way to catch terrorists.
The original idea was to coordinate resources, expertise and information of intelligence agencies so the country could detect and prevent terrorist acts. The concept has been widely embraced, particularly by the Sept. 11 commission, and the federal government has provided $130 million to help get them off the ground. But until recently, there were no guidelines for setting up the centers and as a result, the information shared and how it is used vary.
Centers in Kansas and Rhode Island are the only two focused solely on counterterrorism. Other centers concentrate on all crimes, including drugs and gangs, according to Congress' investigative and auditing arm. Washington state's center, for instance, has an all-hazards mission so it can focus on natural disasters and public health epidemics in addition to terrorism.
"States are at different levels because there wasn't the preconceived game-plan on how to do this," said George Foresman, a former undersecretary at the Homeland Security Department who oversaw the awarding of startup money for many of the centers.
The GAO findings backed up results from a congressional report this year.
"Although many of the centers initially had purely counterterrorism goals, for numerous reasons they have increasingly gravitated toward an all-crimes and even broader all-hazards approach," according to a Congressional Research Service report from June.
To Jack Tomarchio, a senior intelligence official at the Homeland Security Department, that is not a bad thing. "In many cases, there's also a nexus between criminality and terrorism," Tomarchio said. "Terrorists, like anybody else, need money to do their deeds." Often, he said, that means terrorists will be involved in narcotics trafficking and similar crimes.
Most centers are run by state police or other law enforcement agencies. Many also have representatives from a range of other agencies, including fire and public works departments and state gambling regulators. This has raised concerns about privacy as those agencies become linked to a broader intelligence-sharing network. Most of the centers also include federal officials such as analysts from the FBI and Homeland Security.
Some centers are even housed with federal agencies, which can be a benefit. Minnesota's center is in the same building as the FBI, which makes it easier for local officials to access the FBI's networks.
The centers potentially can tap into five separate federal databases containing case files on investigations, reports on suspicious incidents and research material on terrorist weapons and tactics. But not all the facilities are in buildings that have adequate security to access those databases, GAO found. Each center is independent and not controlled by the federal government. It was only last month that the Bush administration offered guidelines for the centers' missions and operations. The White House published a strategy paper advising centers to share information about all criminal activity, saying that could help uncovered potential terrorist plots.
The federal government, however, still needs to do a better job of explaining what information it can share and how much money it will provide, according to the congressional investigators.
At the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center, watch commander Lori Norris said more federal money and guidelines could solve many of the center's frustrations. Arizona's center has representatives from the state's public safety, motor vehicles and liquor control departments, as well as its National Guard and city and county fire departments and federal agencies.
The Arizona center cannot access some of the federal information systems because its building does not meet security requirements. "We would be able to, but again, we don't have the funding for that," Norris said.
In addition, Norris said she would like the government to pick one or two systems for sharing information — not the three or four currently used. "I have to log on with four different passwords into these systems every single day and look at all this stuff," Norris said.
Many centers do not know what information to expect from Washington or how quickly they can expect to receive it.
"There's got to be a clearer definition as to when that information goes out and who it goes out to," Norris said. It's not uncommon, she said, for law enforcement officers to learn of important developments first from the news media.
But when information is sent to the states, it often comes more than once, said Richard Kelly, who heads New Jersey's fusion center.
"If DHS and FBI put out a joint bulletin, we get it twice," Kelly said. "If we ever did get to one standard policy in how to communicate down to the states and locals, that would be a good thing."
The GAO also found that some fusion centers have had a hard time hiring and training analysts, and many say they need federal guidance on what skills the analysts should have. Fusion centers have found it hard to get security clearances for their personnel, and find that even with appropriate clearances, information continues to be withheld. Nineteen centers told GAO that federal agencies, most often the FBI and the Homeland Security Department, wouldn't accept each others' clearances even though the law says they're supposed to.
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On the Net:
White House background: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/infosharing/sectionVIII.html
* Email Story * IM Story * Printable View
RECOMMEND THIS STORY http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071129/ap_on_go_co/intelligence_centers
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the war on terror, a noun last forever, a frown last forever, a crown last forever, the queen dream, tavistock scene, better know, who's runnin' teams, before vaccscreams, and mad-tax schemes, of global criminals, with hidden subliminals, wrap us in rage, turn the page, wage-minimal, supervision, superstition, decentralize the vision, like chrismas wishin', of terminally ill, grown children, just fishin' for cash, make a mad-dash to the bank, just fishin' for hash, got the same bank to thank, got the opium trade, canadiafghan man, tappin' veins and brains, like mobile-murder vans, mobile phones and tumours, we ignore the rumours, soft-kill thrills, chill us out a lot sooner, willin' to kill, but rather live for a nooner, willin' to chill, but rather win a lot sooner, rather live and die, young and old, fly like we're sold, try like we're bold, going for gold we owed, sowed the seeds of need, greed got us all shakin', greed need to feed, feedin' intel ops, they always been fakin', seedin' intel ops, and false flag wavin', takin' back our minds, for the grown and the youth, still six years on, it's 9/11 truth...
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Black Krishna Brand
Philosophy - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/
Music - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/blackkrishna.htm
WALLER COUNTY , Texas -- Houston police started testing unmanned aircraft and the event was shrouded in secrecy, but it was captured on tape by Local 2 Investigates.
Neighbors in rural Waller County said they thought a top-secret military venture was under way among the farmland and ranches, some 70 miles northwest of Houston. KPRC Local 2 Investigates had four hidden cameras aimed at a row of mysterious black trucks. Satellite dishes and a swirling radar added to the neighbors' suspense.
Then, cameras were rolling as an unmanned aircraft was launched into the sky and operated by remote control.
privacy or drone planes? world never goin' sane? as long as they get our brain, not long 'til we can't complain, explain away the pain and pleasure, measure all our thoughts and treasure, findin' ways to program, slow jams, so they control our leisure, how to sever the ties that bind? the blind to the grind and find? ways to beat the data-mine? takin' everything we eyein'? lyin' liars grabbin', back-stabbin' labbin', programming, ramming thoughts, 'til we porno-robots, and soldier gobots, got a tip like T.I., to avoid the chips that we buy, if we don't see why they lie, we won't see why we die...
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_________________
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Black Krishna Brand
Philosophy - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/
Music - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/blackkrishna.htm
NOV 30th: VETERAN RON PAULITICS vs. THOUGHTCRIME BILL 404 - 6 vs. LEADBRAIN LIPSTICKS: Think About It! :-)
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The Shock Doctrine by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc
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NOV 30th: VETERAN RON PAULITICS vs. THOUGHTCRIME BILL 404 - 6 vs. LEADBRAIN LIPSTICKS: Think About It! :-)
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Military and Veterans for Ron Paul 2008
Who is Ron Paul?
Ron Paul is the only military veteran frontrunner running for President - Democrat or Republican - besides John McCain. He didn't obtain draft deferments like many others did at the time. He proudly served his country in the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard.
Dr. Paul's medical training was interrupted when he was drafted during the Cuban Missile Crisis into the United States Air Force. He served as a flight surgeon out of Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, from 1963 to 1965, attending to the ear, nose and throat problems of pilots. He remained in the military during the early years of the Vietnam War. Paul's active duty service took him to countries such as South Korea, Iran, Ethiopia and Turkey. He then served in the Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968 while completing his medical residency in Pittsburgh. He achieved rank of captain during his service in the Air Force.
http://www.militaryforpaul.com/
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Paul leads in donations from military voters
BENNETT ROTH, RICHARD S. DUNHAM and CHASE DAVIS Houston Chronicle Thursday October 18, 2007
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, the congressman from the Houston area who opposes the Iraq war, has gotten more contributions than any other White House contender from donors identified as affiliated with the military.
If you think it's not possible, find out that it is.
If you think they can't win then we can't win, it's the same thing.
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"I am absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government and minding our own business overseas."
President Ron Paul: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
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Stop accepting Hitlery, O'Bomber, Ghouliani or other stiffs.
If you think they'll save us, you should have some evidence first.
If you think they'll stop the wars or protect our rights, don't just guess.
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The Ron Paul FREEDOM PRINCIPLES
* Rights belong to individuals, not groups. * Property should be owned by people, not government. * All voluntary associations should be permissible -- economic and social. * The government's monetary role is to maintain the integrity of the monetary unit, not participate in fraud. * Government exists to protect liberty, not to redistribute wealth or to grant special privileges. * The lives and actions of people are their own responsibility, not the government's.
http://www.house.gov/paul/bio.shtml
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Why President Ron Paul Needs Our Donations NOW!
Plea for Immediate Funds Sparks New Donation Drive
By November 30th date to precede December 16th Tea Party as campaign staff focus on winning the primaries.
* 404 - 6: Thought-crimes bill HR 1955 clears the House with virtually no opposition (and few think about it)
DONATE TO CONNIE FOGAL - http://www.canadianactionparty.ca/donate.html
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"There is absolutely no moral or constitutional reason to go to war with Iraq at this time. To go to war to enforce the dictates of the United Nations, or to play the part of 'policemen of the world,' opposes the sensibilities of all who seek to follow the Constitution. I refuse to participate in action which would possibly expose even one soldier to risk when there is absolutely no immediate threat to the US."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: February 16, 1998
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst98/tst021698.htm
President Ron Paul: http://www.RonPaul2008.com
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THIS IS AN URGENT ACTION ALERT:
S 1959 "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" must be stopped at all costs.
Pick up your phone today and contact your US Senator's office to instruct them to vote "NO" on S.1959.
Click here for your Senators contact info: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Full PDF text if the bill: http://tinyurl.com/3a3y2z
If this bill is passed, and becomes law, your words and actions could be considered terrorism.
S 1959 EVISCERATES FREE SPEECH, and empowers the govt. to declare ANYTHING they deem an "extremist belief system", instantly make you a terrorist, resulting in stripping of US citizenship, torture, and/or execution, with no habeas corpus rights, no ability to challenge even in the US Supreme Court.
Contact your Senator and let them know they will be looking for another job if they vote yes on this bill, which is now introduced into the Senate as S.1959
READ THE BILL MANY TIMES AND VERY CAREFULLY--YOU ARE THE TERRORIST
WHICH MEANS THEY CAN STRIP YOU OF CITIZENSHIP AND HAVE YOU TORTURED AND EXECUTED
Senate is back in session today, do not hesitate, call, fax, email your Senator ASAP.
Click here for your Senators contact info: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Yours in Freedom and Liberty,
Gary Franchi
RTR National Director, www.RestoreTheRepublic.com Managing Editor, www.RepublicMagazines.com Founder, Lone Lantern Society of America, www.LoneLantern.org Host, Lone Lantern Radio, www.WTPRN.com
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"I have heard all the arguments on why we must immediately invade and occupy Iraq and have observed that there are only a few hardy souls left in the Congress who are trying to stop this needless, senseless, and dangerous war."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: September 18, 2002
1. Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future (The Guardian, "NY Times" of Europe)
2. Extensive Cell Phone Use Linked To Brain Tumors, Swedish Study (Medical News Today)
3. Cellphone Tracking Powers, Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause (Washington Post)
4. RFID Chip Implants Linked to Animal Tumors and Cancer (Washington Post)
5. School to track pupils with RFID chips sewn into their uniforms (UK Daily Mail)
6. FDA staff urge warnings for two flu drugs due to deaths (Yahoo! Main Page)
7. Internet Soon to be “Full,” Government Solution: More Taxes (Truthnews from Washington Post)
8. Boston Police Go Door To Door To Search For Guns (Fox News)
9. CNN: What is Houston planning to do with drone planes? (Raw Story)
10. Fake News Photos Alter Real Memories (Yahoo! Main Page from LiveScience)
11. No right to remain silent, Supreme Court gives cops power to ignore your right (NOW Magazine)
12. Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly (UK Daily Mail)
13. Is Your Lipstick Full of Lead? (Wired Magazine)
14. Military training program for teens expands in US (Yahoo! News)
15. 9/11 LAWSUITS IN LEGAL LIMBO, GRAVELY ILL LEFT HANGING (New York Post)
16. 'BLAME U.S. FOR 9/11' IDIOTS IN MAJORITY (New York Post)
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"Make me King, as we move toward a, New World Order..."
- Eminem, "Lose Yourself" (2003)
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Please keep in mind it's often not "what" the news is saying but "why" that's important. Most ideas introduced are "predictive programming" to prepare us to accept the changes we hate while making them seem inevitable. The dates are often faked to convince us changes are happening later instead of now, which is not true.
Please keep in mind the news is so bad we think it's the truth, except what they refuse to report is worse, like HR 1955 "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" passing Congress 404 - 6 allowing the government to declare anyone a terrorist. If S 1959 isn't killed in the Senate, dissent will be killed.
Please keep in mind the biggest attacks are on our brains, so use a headset with cellphones to avoid the basketball-sized radiation field, avoid lipsticks made with lead, avoid television and videogame "programming" as much as you can, avoid paying more for everything healthy or friendly without asking why and learn to save your mind.
Please keep in mind the best solution is waking up everyone with the truth, including business owners and staff to lead communities when the recession hits. Print out and email and pass out tons of information, have links to photocopies people can make on their own, burn DVD's and start discussing what's important now while we still can.
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"The real issue we need to address is whether or not the federal government has the authority to do the things it does. Under our Constitution - the law of the land - it is very clearly stated what the federal government can and cannot do. So on these appropriation measures the question really isn't one of supporting or not supporting the multitude of ostensibly "good things" they entail. The issue is whether or not we are going to follow the law, the Constitution."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: September 1, 1997
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst97/tst090197.htm
President Ron Paul: http://www.RonPaul2008.com
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ENDGAME on DVD or Google Video
Catch up on the last 150 years in 2 hours as well as you can and share it with everyone.
"The majority is assumed to be in charge today and can do whatever it pleases. If the majority has not yet sanctioned some desired egregious action demanded by special interests, the propaganda machine goes into operation, and the pollsters relay the results back to the politicians who are seeking legitimacy in their endeavors. The rule of law and the Constitution have become irrelevant, and we live by constant polls."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: Jan 29, 2003
The fact is de-centralized power and honest money are all we need to save the world.
The fact is the North American Union since March 2005 is doing just the opposite.
The fact is martial law is happening now while our mass media distracts us.
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"Globalists and one-world promoters never seem to tire of coming up with ways to undermine the sovereignty of the United States. The most recent attempt comes in the form of the misnamed "Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America (SPP)." In reality, this new "partnership" will likely make us far less secure and certainly less prosperous."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: August 28, 2006
Official North American Union Website - http://www.spp.gov/
Following the March 23, 2005, launch of the SPP, each nation established Security and Prosperity working groups to fulfill the vision of the North American Heads of State.
The working groups will consult with stakeholders; set specific, measurable, and achievable goals and implementation dates; and identify concrete steps the governments can take to achieve these goals. An initial report is due to Heads of Government on June 23 with semi-annual progress reports thereafter.
The Prosperity working groups established cover a wide range of issue areas:
* Manufactured Goods & Sectoral and Regional Competitiveness * Movement of Goods * Energy * Environment * E-Commerce & Information Communications Technologies * Financial Services * Business Facilitation * Food and Agriculture * Transportation * Health
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"Since the change of the political party in charge has not made a difference, who’s really in charge? If the particular party in power makes little difference, whose policy is it that permits expanded government programs, increased spending, huge deficits, nation building and the pervasive invasion of our privacy, with fewer Fourth Amendment protections than ever before?"
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: July 10, 2003
The fact is Thought-Crime Bill HR 1955 quietly passed Congress 404 - 6.
The fact is if the Senate passes it too anyone can be labeled a threat.
The fact is so much is going on that we need to get answers fast.
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"It has turned into a case of government agencies against everyone else.
More than 14,000 people -- average American consumers, bankers, and civil-liberties advocates -- have written federal agencies in opposition to the gross violation of privacy known by the Orwellian title "Know Your Customer." This response is even more remarkable when one realizes that the usual number generated by these agencies' rules is less than a hundred.
Almost three months ago I first reported on the proposed regulations brought forward by the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and other regulatory agencies. These regs would turn bank tellers from reluctant information-gathers to unwilling investigators for the federal government's ongoing War-on-Everything -- which obviously includes the privacy of ordinary Americans."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: February 2, 1999
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst99/tst020199.htm
President Ron Paul: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
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The fact is central bankers print money from nothing to buy and bribe the world.
The fact is central intelligence agencies secretly work to control our culture.
The fact is central psychological programming is executed by the media.
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"Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce legislation to restore financial stability to America's economy by abolishing the Federal Reserve."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: Sep 10, 2002
The fact is the Hegelian dialectic of "Problem + Reaction = Solution" is their tactic.
The fact is the bankers create our problems and reactions and their solutions.
The fact is the people who want to live in peace will do what they're sold.
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"Such "privatization" of Social Security would not really be private at all. Private companies would become a "partner" of sorts with the government. Individuals still would not truly own their invested Social Security funds. Payroll taxes likely would be raised to make up for dollars taken out of the Social Security trust fund. Political favoritism, rather than market efficiency, would determine what investments were made. Worst of all, our nation's seniors would be threatened with the loss of the benefits they already paid for."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: October 2, 2000
The fact is politics is a puppet-show telling us to be good and pay attention every few years.
The fact is politics is meant to fool us into thinking most people there will represent us.
The fact is politics is never allowed to alter the big agendas of the central banks.
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"Imagine that you have taken a position contrary to the official dictates of the government in your nation. Instead of simply facing criticism from opposing political sides, you find your life turned upside-down; every aspect of your life is closely scrutinized. Without warning, your life savings are seized, your personal, private records divulged far and wide. Suddenly, how willing are you to continue holding your views?
It sounds almost like a slice of life from the dictatorships of the world's past or in the modern third world.
Or is it?
For many years the fearful power of the Internal Revenue Service has been used in just that fashion against Americans.
It's unfortunate enough that IRS employees - unfairly perhaps the most hated individuals in the nation - by the virtue of their jobs have to enforce tax policies which run contrary to our nation's notion of freedom, but what is worse is that these individuals have many times been used to carry out far less appropriate agendas for elected officials and federal bureaucrats.
This tactic has been used by Republicans and Democrats alike; neither are without the sin."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: April 20, 1997
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst97/tst042097.htm
President Ron Paul: http://www.ronpaul2008.com
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The fact is television "programming" is the greatest tool ever invented to control people.
The fact is television "programming" is used in countries worldwide for this reason.
The fact is television "programming" is meant to hypnotize us while we're robbed.
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"Ultimately, Mr. Speaker, this bill is about freedom. Parental control of child rearing, especially education, is one of the bulwarks of liberty. No nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than the family."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: January 31, 2001
The fact is videogames were developed by the Pentagon in the 1970's to train kids how to kill better.
The fact is videogames were developed because kids wouldn't shoot people as easily in Vietnam.
The fact is videogames were developed because kids now shoot over 90% of the time in Iraq.
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"I'm fearful that an unlimited worldwide war against all terrorism will distract from the serious consideration that must be given to our policy of foreign interventionism, driven by the powerful commercial interests and a desire to promote world government. This is done while ignoring our principle responsibility of protecting national security and liberty here at home."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: Jan 24, 2002
The fact is the War on Terror is meant to last 100 years and change the world.
The fact is the War on Terror can't be won since "terror" is a noun.
The fact is the War on Terror is really a War on Freedom.
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"We have been told on numerous occasions to expect a long and protracted war. This is not necessary if one can identify the target- the enemy- and then stay focused on that target. It's impossible to keep one's eye on a target and hit it if one does not precisely understand it and identify it. In pursuing any military undertaking, it's the responsibility of Congress to know exactly why it appropriates the funding. Today, unlike any time in our history, the enemy and its location remain vague and pervasive."
Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. House of Representatives: November 29, 2001
Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future
The Guardian Richard Norton-Taylor Monday April 9 2007
Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.
This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".
The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed.
The Shock Doctrine by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc
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Yahoo! News
Military training program for teens expands in US
AFP, November 25, 2007
Chicago - Dozens of teens dressed in uniforms provided by the US Marines stand at attention in the gym of a Chicago public high school as a drill sergeant goes through a list of the day’s do’s and don’ts.
Bring your books to class. Come for extra help if you need it. And wear your uniform with pride.
“Young men, you think you can get a haircut and say I’m done for two or three weeks. WRONG,” Sgt. Major Thomas Smith Jr. intones.
“Young ladies. There’s been no problem with your uniforms but there is a problem with your ties. Again, I will go through it again. Wear your ties when you come to my class.”
One in 10 public high school students in Chicago wears a military uniform to school and takes classes — including how to shoot a gun properly — from retired veterans.
That number is expected to rise as junior military reserve programs expand across the country now that a congressional cap of 3,500 units has been lifted from the nearly century-old scheme.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNzcJImX4Ew
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CNN: What is Houston planning to do with drone planes?
Katie Baker Raw Story Monday November 26, 2007
When neighbors noticed black trucks, satellite dishes, swirling radars, and "a portable launch pad, with something covered up" on a Waller County Ranch, they had no idea what to think. CNN's Houston affiliate KPRC has partially solved the mystery: Houston police plan to start using unmanned drone aircraft. But, a question still remains: what, exactly, will the drones be used for?
The mood surrounding Waller County Ranch was highly secretive. At the entrance to the test site stood a Houston police road block, making sure only those invited were let through. HPD lieutenants refused to answer any questions from KPRC reporters, but KPRC still managed to gain footage of the "test [we] were not supposed to see."
"[The] drone was able to use a high-powered camera to track us," says Stephen Dean, who tracked the drone for KPRC. "Those cameras can actually look into people's homes or even follow them in moving cars."
9/11 SUITS IN LEGAL LIMBO, GRAVELY ILL LEFT HANGING
By SUSAN EDELMAN
November 25, 2007 -- The judge overseeing the lawsuits of thousands of sick 9/11 rescue workers says he won't speed up trials for several responders described as being "on death's door."
Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein refused a request to set early trials for three World Trade Center workers who suffer severe lung disease.
"I'm not going to do that," Hellerstein said in court Nov. 16. He later heard details in his chambers about retired NYPD detective Michael Valentin, 43, retired NYPD officer Frank Maisano, 41, and Ground Zero morgue volunteer Mary Bishop, 45.
"All three of them are on death's door," lawyer Paul Napoli said.
While sympathetic, Hellerstein said there are too many legal issues to start individual cases, according to lawyers in the conference.
November 24, 2007 -- Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found.
And that's not the only conspiracy theory with a huge number of true believers in the United States.
The poll found that more than one out of three Americans believe Washington is concealing the truth about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination - and most everyone is sure the rise in gas prices is one vast oil-industry conspiracy.
Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Only 30 percent said the 9/11 theory was "not likely," according to the Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.
The findings followed a 2006 poll by the same researchers, who found that 36 percent of Americans believe federal government officials "either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action" because they wanted "to go to war in the Middle East."
Top Police Officer Warns That Nuclear Attack Is Inevitable
Rob Edwards Sunday Herald Sunday November 25, 2007
A NUCLEAR attack by terrorists causing widespread panic, chaos and death is inevitable and will happen soon, a senior Scottish police officer has warned.
Ian Dickinson, who leads the police response to chemical, biological and nuclear threats in Scotland, has painted the bleakest picture yet of the dangers the world now faces.
Efforts to prevent terrorist groups from obtaining materials that could be made into radioactive dirty bombs - or even crude nuclear explosives - are bound to fail, he said. And the result will be horror on an unprecedented scale.
"These materials are undoubtedly out there, and undoubtedly will end up in terrorists' hands, and undoubtedly will be used by terrorists some time soon," he declared. "We must plan for failure and prepare for absolute terror."
Andrea Thompson LiveScience Staff Writer Nov 26, 2007 2 hours, 33 minutes ago
In 2003, Los Angeles Times photographer Brian Walski caused an uproar when it was discovered that his picture of a British soldier yelling at fleeing residents in Iraq, published prominently by many U.S. newspapers, had been altered.
Walski had combined two snapshots taken moments apart of the British solider urging residents to take cover as Iraqi forces opened fire. This digital alteration is one of several in recent years to cast doubt on the old saying that the camera doesn't lie.
Some researchers are worried that digitally altered photos could alter our perceptions and memories of public events.
To test what effect doctored photos might have, researchers from the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Padua in Italy showed 299 people aged 19 to 84 either an actual photo or an altered photo of two historical events, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing and the 2003 anti-war protest in Rome.
The original Tiananmen Square image was altered to show a crowd watching at the sidelines as a lone man stands in front of a row of tanks. The Rome anti-war protest photograph was altered to show riot police and a menacing, masked protester among the crowd of demonstrators.
When answering questions about the events, the participants had differing recollections of what happened. Those who viewed the altered images of the Rome protest recalled the demonstration as violent and negative and recollected more physical confrontation and property damage than actually occurred.
Participants who viewed the doctored photos also said they were less inclined to take part in future protests, according to the study, detailed in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.
"It’s potentially a form of human engineering that could be applied to us against our knowledge and against our wishes, and we ought to be vigilant about it," said UC Irvine psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, who designed the study. "With the addition of a few little upsetting and arousing elements in the Rome protest photo, people remembered this peaceful protest as being more violent than it was, and as a society we have to figure how we can regulate this."
Americans working in Iraq for Halliburton spin-off KBR have been outraged by the massive fraud they saw there. Dozens are suing the giant military contractor, on the taxpayers' behalf. Whose side is the Justice Department on?
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer November 23, 2007, 1 hour, 41 minutes ago
KUWAIT CITY - The flashy Laila Tower office building in this wealthy oil capital is a world away from the mean streets of Baghdad. But the U.S. government says they are linked by a web of fraud and bribery that stole millions of dollars provided by American taxpayers to support U.S. combat troops in Iraq.
The U.S. military and prosecutors have launched 83 criminal investigations into alleged contract fraud, including a total of $15 million in bribes.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq shortly after the fall of Baghdad, said this week he supports Democratic legislation that calls for most troops to come home within a year.
His comments come as welcomed ammunition for the Democratic-controlled Congress in its standoff with the White House on war spending. This month, the House passed a $50 billion bill that would pay for combat operations but sets the goal that combat end by Dec. 15, 2008. The White House threatened to veto the measure, and Senate Republicans blocked it from passing...
...In October, the three-star general told a group of reporters that the U.S. mission in Iraq was a "nightmare with no end in sight." He also called Bush's decision to deploy 30,000 extra forces to Iraq earlier this year a "desperate attempt" to make up for years of misguided policies in Iraq.
By Philip Sherwell in Quantico, Virginia and Jacqui Goddard London Telegraph, 21/11/2007
American commanders in Iraq are urging Pentagon chiefs to authorise the deployment of newly-developed heat wave guns to disperse angry crowds or violent rioters.
# In pictures: How I was zapped by a heat wave gun # US plans new space weapons against China # Scientists develop material that bounces bullets
But the plea for what senior army officers believe could prove a valuable alternative to traditional firepower in dangerous trouble-spots has so far gone unanswered.
The Active Denial System (ADS) can target crowds from 750 metres away
Washington fears a barrage of adverse publicity in the suspicious Muslim world and is concerned that critics will claim the invisible beam weapons were being used for torture.
Now the US military directorate charged with developing non-lethal weapons, which has invested more than a decade developing the Active Denial System (ADS), has launched a concerted effort to convince both the public and its own bosses at the defence department of the device's merits.
"With brand new technology like this, perception is everything," said Col Kirk Hymes, a former Marine artillery officer who heads the directorate.
Gun-Grabbers Crank Up Anti-Second Amendment Propaganda
Kurt Nimmo TruthNews November 26, 2007
Now that the Supremes have agreed to rule on the Second Amendment, the corporate media has launched a full-court press to convince America it does not have a right to bear firearms.
“Activists on both sides of the steaming debate over guns ought to be able to agree, at the very least, on two things. The first is that the language of the Second Amendment is, grammatically speaking, incomprehensible. The second is that the time has come for clarity from the Supreme Court about whether the “right to bear arms” is an individual or collective one,” writes Andrew Cohen for CBS News.
In fact, the Second Amendment is quite explicit: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Cohen and other gun-grabbers concentrate on “the three, jarring, comma-spliced clauses of the amendment,” that is to say they attack the grammar of the amendment and would have us believe our forefathers were indecisive and “were no more willing or capable of making tough decisions about contentious issues (like gun rights) than are their modern-day counterparts,” that is to say a gaggle of appointed statists determined to dismantle the Constitution.
Cohen is a postmodern apologist for state power over the individual. The Supremes, he declares, “should chart a course that does to the Second Amendment what we long ago did to the First Amendment; identify a strong individual right but allow for that right to be trumped from time to time by certain kinds of regulations.” In other words, the state should agree in principle that the individual has a right to bear firearms but that principle should be “trumped,” that is to say denied, by the exigencies of state power. Put another way, you may have a right to bear arms, at least on paper, but in practice the state will “regulate” (deny) that right.
“So we would then get a Second Amendment that both recognizes our right to own and possess guns and recognizes the government’s ability to restrain that right in certain, yet-to-be-determined ways.”
Nonsense. The founders realized that the individual had a natural, indivisible right to possess firearms precisely because of the nature of state power. It has nothing to do with “certain, yet-to-be-determined” exigencies of the state.
In regard to grammar and the trickery Andrew Cohen has in mind, founder George Mason, who co-authored the Second Amendment, wrote during Virginia’s Convention to Ratify the Constitution in 1788: “I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”
That should resolve Cohen’s grammatical problem, but it will not, of course.
In Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic, Richard Henry Lee wrote: “A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves.”
Zachariah Johnson, arguing in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, wrote: “The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.”
“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms,” declared Samuel Adams in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, August 20, 1789.
George Washington understood well what Cohen and the gun-grabbers do not: “Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
Thomas Paine knew that “horrid mischief” would ensue if the people were denied their right to arms. “The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside.”
Thomas Jefferson: “Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who do not.”
http://www.truthnews.us/?p=983
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Yahoo! News
Student group wants more guns on campus
By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 21, 4:59 AM ET
SAN MARCOS, Texas - Mike Guzman and thousands of other students say the best way to prevent campus bloodshed is more guns.
Guzman, an economics major at Texas State University-San Marcos, is among 8,000 students nationwide who have joined the nonpartisan Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, arguing that students and faculty already licensed to carry concealed weapons should be allowed to pack heat along with their textbooks.
"It's the basic right of self defense," said Guzman, a 23-year-old former Marine. "Here on campus, we don't have that right, that right of self defense."
Every state but Illinois and Wisconsin allows residents some form of concealed handgun carrying rights, with 36 states issuing permits to most everyone who meets licensing criteria. The precise standards vary from state to state, but most require an applicant to be at least 21 and to complete formal instruction on use of force.
Many states forbid license-holders from carrying weapons on school campuses, while in states where the decision is left to the universities, schools almost always prohibit it. Utah is the only state that expressly allows students to carry concealed weapons on campus.
College campuses are different from other public places where concealed weapons are allowed. Thousands of young adults are living in close quarters, facing heavy academic and social pressure - including experimenting with drugs and alcohol - in their first years away from home.
W. Gerald Massengill, the chairman of the independent panel that investigated the Virginia Tech shootings, said those concerns outweigh the argument that gun-carrying students could have reduced the number of fatalities inflicted by someone like Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho.
Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly
NATASHA COURTENAY-SMITH and MORAG TURNER UK Daily Mail Friday November 23, 2007
Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.
But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.
Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.
Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible "mistake" of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time.
He refused, but Toni - who works for an environmental charity - "relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery".
By Brandon Keim EmailOctober 16, 2007 | 2:31:52 PM Categories: Government, Health
Lips Tests performed by a consumer safety group found that nearly two-thirds of 33 brand-name lipsticks contained lead, often in excess of the FDA's maximums for lead in candy.
The FDA currently sets no limits on lead in lipstick, and while they told the Associated Press that they'll look into the findings, produced by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, they also told the Baltimore Sun that action is unlikely.
Given the recent outcry about lead in toys, it seems strange that the FDA is so nonchalant about this. No, company-run tests on animals haven't found problems -- but were they looking for it? And might it make sense for companies to take some precautions and remove the lead anyways, even if there isn't clear evidence of harm? After all, lead is a dangerous heavy metal, one which poses extra dangers to pregnant women and their babies, and once in your body it doesn't go away.
A Poison Kiss: The Problem of Lead in Lipstick [Campaign for Safe Cosmetics]
Lead detected in U.S.-made lipstick [Baltimore Sun]
FDA to examine claim that lipstick lead levels unsafe [Associated Press]
By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles London Telegraph 20/08/2007
It is a sleek, innocuous-looking gadget a bit like a women's razor that comes in pleasing pink, electric blue, black or silver and can slip easily into a handbag or pocket.
The controversial Taser is used by several police forces worldwide
But the dainty device packs a powerful punch: it can floor a man from 15 feet, overriding brain signals to halt sensory and motor functions with a 50,000-volt jolt - quite the riposte to a cancelled dinner date.
Makers of the "Lady Taser", however, are marketing the new C2 stun gun for self-defence use only for emergencies such as a potential rape or robbery.
That has not calmed the fears of some US law enforcement agencies, who fear it could be open to widespread abuse.
As Torontonians get used to the idea of paying the new land transfer tax and vehicle registration fee voted in by city council, there's word of a possible new levy: on bottled water.
According to a published report Mayor David Miller is supportive of a proposal by Parkdale-High Park Councillor Bill Saundercook to add a five cent price hike to water bottled in Ontario and a 10 cent boost to water bottled elsewhere...
...Some North American cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Salt Lake City, have asked municipal employees to stop buying bottled water, and in Ontario the town of Blue Mountains near Collingwood brought in a ban on the items in city buildings for environmental reasons...
...Toronto homeowners will already be paying more for tap water next year as rates are set to rise nine per cent.
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=5109
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NOW Magazine
No right to remain silent
Supreme Court gives cops the power to ignore your right to keep your mouth shut
By ALAN YOUNG
From watching decades of American television, everyone can intone the standard Miranda warning heard upon arrest: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you.... Blah, blah, blah.”
But those American cop shows have skewed our perspective on the interrogation process in Canada.
If you ever have the misfortune to be interrogated while in police custody, I would strongly advise you to start speaking in tongues or an obscure foreign language. The police will not listen when you tell them in plain English that you do not wish to speak to them.
And now the Supreme Court has effectively given the police the authority to simply ignore your wish to remain silent.
Two weeks ago (November 1), it upheld the murder conviction of Jagrup Singh, ruling that there was nothing wrong with police peppering him with questions after he clearly told the cops 18 times that he wished to remain silent. Singh provided a few incriminating admissions as a result.
The American Miranda rules prevent an interrogation from proceeding if the suspect has asked that a lawyer be present.
In Canada, once the police provide the right-to-counsel warning, they need only suspend the interrogation until the suspect has been given a "reasonable opportunity" to consult a lawyer. A conversation over the phone suffices.
But if the suspect cannot reach his or her lawyer after a number of attempts, the police will expect the suspect to make use of the 1-800 free duty counsel service.
Regardless of whether you speak to private counsel or a phone centre lawyer, the advice you receive will be simple and blunt: "Keep your mouth shut." Unlike the Miranda rules, there is no constitutional obligation on the part of the police in Canada to advise you of your right to remain silent.
Groundbreaking Law Spotlights Opposition to VeriChip
Civil libertarians cheered yesterday upon news that Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed a law making it a crime to require an individual to be implanted with a microchip. Activists and authors Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre joined the celebration, predicting this move will spell trouble for the VeriChip Corporation, maker of the VeriChip human microchip implant.
The VeriChip is a glass encapsulated Radio Frequency Identification tag that is injected into the flesh to uniquely number and identify people. The tag can be read silently and invisibly by radio waves from up to a foot or more away, right through clothing. The highly controversial device is also being marketed as a way to access secure areas, link to medical records, and serve as a payment device when associated with a credit card.
"We're not even aware of anyone attempting to forcibly implant microchips into people," says Albrecht. "That lawmakers felt this legislation was necessary indicates a growing concern that the company's product could pose a serious threat to the public down the road."
By TODD LEWAN The Associated Press Saturday, September 8, 2007; 2:04 PM
-- When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly. The FDA found "reasonable assurance" the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top "innovative technologies."
But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.
"The transponders were the cause of the tumors," said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.
Stock plummets as RFID chips linked to cancer reports
Bert Hill , The Ottawa Citizen Published: Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Shares of VeriChip Corp. plunged as much as 14 per cent yesterday following a published report linking the implanted microchips it makes to cancer in lab mice and rats.
The Florida company, which develops and makes products in Ottawa, saw the stock experience the biggest decline since it went public early this year.
School to track pupils with radio chips sewn into their uniforms
UK Daily Mail Saturday November 24, 2007
Children are to be tracked in school via radio chips sewn into their uniforms.
The manufacturer is marketing the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) surveillance system nationwide, following a trial with 19 pupils at Hungerhill School in Doncaster this year.
The chip is embroidered into school uniforms using conductive 'smart threads'. A teacher can then scan these to view the pupil's identity, photo, whether they misbehaved in lessons and their school attendence record.
Hungerhill headteacher Graham Wakeling said the pilot was "not intrusive to the pupil in the slightest" because tracking would not go beyond the school's gates.
Internet Soon to be “Full,” Government Solution: More Taxes
Kurt Nimmo TruthNews Monday November 26, 2007
“Consumer and corporate use of the Internet could overload the current capacity and lead to brown-outs in two years unless backbone providers invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure, according to a study released last week,” reports the Washington Post. “A flood of new video and other Web content could overwhelm the Internet by 2010 unless backbone providers invest up to $137 billion in new capacity, more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the study, by Nemertes Research Group, an independent analysis firm. In North America alone, backbone investments of $42 billion to $55 billion will be needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand, Nemertes said.”
But since most telecoms are monopolies or strive to practice monopolistic business practices, they are not inclined to make the investment required. Instead, as usual, the telecoms will rely on socialism, that is to say corporate socialism - they will expect the government to solve the problem and since the government is a one trick pony and basically an incorrigible thief with a gun, the solution will arise in the form of new taxes.
Extensive Cell Phone Use Linked To Brain Tumors, Swedish Study
Main Category: Public Health News Article Date: 01 Apr 2006 - 14:00 PDT
According to a Swedish study, if you spend many years using your cell phone for at least an hour a day your risk of developing a brain tumor is 240% higher than a person who never uses one. The results of this study go against another recent one carried out in the UK and published in January, 2006, which indicated that cell phone use is safe for humans.
The researchers found that even the location of the tumor, for extensive cell phone users over many years, tends to be on the side of the head where the phone is used.
You can read about this study in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health.
The scientists examined cell phone use among 905 people who had a malignant brain tumor and compared them to a control group of 905 healthy people. All the volunteers were aged 20-80.
85 of the 905 people who had a malignant tumor were high users of cell phones (mobile phones) - they started using mobile phones a long time ago, and have used them a great deal, on average for about an hour a day.
According to Kjell Mild, study leader, in an interview with the Reuters news agency, the best way to reduce the risk is to use hands-free.
The team's definition of a extensive use means over 2,000 hours of cell phone use, spread over many years.
By Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 23, 2007; Page A01
Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.
In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Food and Drug Administration staffers are recommending new warnings about psychiatric events observed in some patients taking Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Relenza, according to documents released on Friday.
An FDA advisory panel will review the recommendations for the anti-viral influenza drugs at a meeting next week.
The FDA held a similar meeting two years ago in response to reports of a dozen deaths of children in Japan who had been taking Tamiflu.
Experts then found no evidence of a direct connection between the drug and the deaths, although the FDA did ultimately update Tamiflu's label to add a caution urging close monitoring of patients for abnormal behavior such as delirium or self-injury.
In documents prepared for the meeting next week and posted on the FDA's Web site, agency staff recommended that Tamiflu's label be strengthened to note: "In some cases, these behaviors resulted in serious injuries, including death, in adult and pediatric patients."
The FDA staff also reviewed Relenza, a drug in the same class as Tamiflu, recommending its label be changed to note "reports of hallucinations, delirium and abnormal behavior" observed in some patients taking the drug.
Half Ontario parents refuse HPV vaccine: health official
Charlie Fidelman, The Montreal Gazette Published: Thursday, November 22, 2007
The Ontario vaccine program that started this fall is floundering, a leading health official said yesterday.
"There are lessons to be learned from the Ontario experience. You don't want to undermine the program before you start," said Dr. Ian Gemmill, the medical officer of health for Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health.
Parents are refusing Gardasil, a newly-developed vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually-transmitted infection that is identified as the major cause of cervical cancer.
"It's not something that typically we've seen with any other vaccine program we've had," said Dr. Gemmill, who has served on national and provincial committees on communicable diseases and immunization.
Fewer than 50 per cent of parents -- in some Ontario areas it's 28 per cent -- have agreed to vaccinate their girls, Dr. Gemmill told a conference on public health held in Montreal.
Did RAND Corporation Pen the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act?
Kurt Nimmo TruthNews November 22, 2007
According to Jessica Lee of Indypendent and Kamau Karl Franklin of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was penned with plenty of help from the RAND Corporation.
“Rep. Jane Harman, Democrat from California, has had a lengthy relationship with the Rand Corporation,” Lee tells Democracy Now, although she was unable to determine if RAND wrote the bill. On the 12th anniversary of the OKC bombing, Rep. Harman, as chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, introduced the bill in the House of Representatives.
“The ‘Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007' seeks to address the roots causes of radicalization, and would establish a grant program to provide funds to States to foster badly needed vertical information sharing from the Intelligence Community to the local level and from local sources to state and federal agencies,” explains Harman’s website. “It also creates a Center of Excellence for the Prevention of Radicalization and Home Grown Terrorism to examine the social, criminal, political, psychological and economic roots of domestic terrorism and to propose solutions, and promotes international collaboration on strategies to combat radicalization.”
http://www.truthnews.us/?p=941
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House Passes Thought Crime Prevention Bill
10-25-2007 Lee Rogers www.roguegovernment.com
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism.
If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism.
Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.
First let’s take a look at the definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as defined in Section 899A of the bill.
The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting any belief system that the government considers to be an extremist agenda. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government.
Considering how much the government has done to destroy the Constitution they could even define Ron Paul supporters as promoting an extremist belief system. Literally, the government according to this definition can define whatever they want as an extremist belief system. Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.
`(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
The definition of homegrown terrorism uses equally vague language to further define thought crime. The bill includes the planned use of force or violence as homegrown terrorism which could be interpreted as thinking about using force or violence. Not only that but the definition is so vaguely defined, that petty crimes could even fall into the category of homegrown terrorism. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.
`(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
Section 899B of the bill goes over the findings of Congress as it pertains to homegrown terrorism. Particularly alarming is that the bill mentions the Internet as a main source for terrorist propaganda. The bill even mentions streams in obvious reference to many of the patriot and pro-constitution Internet radio networks that have been formed.
It also mentions that homegrown terrorists span all ages and races indicating that the Congress is stating that everyone is a potential terrorist. Even worse is that Congress states in their findings that they should look at draconian police states like Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom as models to defeat homegrown terrorists. Literally, these findings of Congress fall right in line with the growing patriot community.
The biggest joke of all is that this section also says that any measure to prevent violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism should not violate the constitutional rights of citizens. However, the definition of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as they are defined in section 899A are themselves unconstitutional. The Constitution does not allow the government to arrest people for thought crimes, so any promises not to violate the constitutional rights of citizens are already broken by their own definitions.
`SEC. 899B. FINDINGS.
`The Congress finds the following:
`(1) The development and implementation of methods and processes that can be utilized to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States is critical to combating domestic terrorism.
`(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.
`(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.
`(4) While the United States must continue its vigilant efforts to combat international terrorism, it must also strengthen efforts to combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists based and operating within the United States.
`(5) Understanding the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence is a vital step toward eradicating these threats in the United States.
`(6) The potential rise of self radicalized, unaffiliated terrorists domestically cannot be easily prevented through traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts, and requires the incorporation of State and local solutions.
`(7) Individuals prone to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence span all races, ethnicities, and religious beliefs, and individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity, or religion.
`(8) Any measure taken to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism in the United States should not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.
`(9) Certain governments, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have significant experience with homegrown terrorism and the United States can benefit from lessons learned by those nations.
Section 899C calls for a commission on the prevention of violent radicalization and ideologically based violence. The commission will consist of ten members appointed by various individuals that hold different positions in government. Essentially, this is a commission that will examine and report on how they are going to deal with violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.
So basically, the commission is being formed specifically on how to deal with thought criminals in the United States. The bill requires that the commission submit their final report 18 months following the commission’s first meeting as well as submit interim reports every 6 months leading up to the final report. Below is the bill’s defined purpose of the commission. Amazingly they even define one of the purposes of the commission to determine the causes of lone wolf violent radicalization.
(b) Purpose- The purposes of the Commission are the following:
`(1) Examine and report upon the facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States, including United States connections to non-United States persons and networks, violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in prison, individual or `lone wolf' violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence, and other faces of the phenomena of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence that the Commission considers important.
`(2) Build upon and bring together the work of other entities and avoid unnecessary duplication, by reviewing the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of--
`(A) the Center of Excellence established or designated under section 899D, and other academic work, as appropriate;
`(B) Federal, State, local, or tribal studies of, reviews of, and experiences with violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence; and
`(C) foreign government studies of, reviews of, and experiences with violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence.
Section 899D of the bill establishes a Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States. Essentially, this will be a Department of Homeland Security affiliated institution that will study and determine how to defeat thought criminals.
Section 899E of the bill discusses how the government is going to defeat violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism through international cooperation. As stated in the findings section earlier in the legislation, they will unquestionably seek the advice of countries with draconian police states like the United Kingdom to determine how to deal with this growing threat of thought crime.
Possibly the most ridiculous section of the bill is Section 899F which states how they plan on protecting civil rights and civil liberties while preventing ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism. Here is what the section says.
`SEC. 899F. PROTECTING CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES WHILE PREVENTING IDEOLOGICALLY-BASED VIOLENCE AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.
`(a) In General- The Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.
`(b) Commitment to Racial Neutrality- The Secretary shall ensure that the activities and operations of the entities created by this subtitle are in compliance with the Department of Homeland Security's commitment to racial neutrality.
`(c) Auditing Mechanism- The Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer of the Department of Homeland Security will develop and implement an auditing mechanism to ensure that compliance with this subtitle does not result in a disproportionate impact, without a rational basis, on any particular race, ethnicity, or religion and include the results of its audit in its annual report to Congress required under section 705.'.
(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of contents in section 1(b) of such Act is amended by inserting at the end of the items relating to title VIII the following:
It states in the first subsection that in general the efforts to defeat thought crime shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of the United States citizens and lawful permanent residents. How does this protect constitutional rights if they use vague language such as in general that prefaces the statement? This means that the Department of Homeland Security does not have to abide by the Constitution in their attempts to prevent so called homegrown terrorism.
This bill is completely insane. It literally allows the government to define any and all crimes including thought crime as violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism. Obviously, this legislation is unconstitutional on a number of levels and it is clear that all 404 representatives who voted in favor of this bill are traitors and should be removed from office immediately.
The treason spans both political parties and it shows us all that there is no difference between them. The bill will go on to the Senate and will likely be passed and signed into the law by George W. Bush. Considering that draconian legislation like the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act have already been passed, there seems little question that this one will get passed as well. This is more proof that our country has been completely sold out by a group of traitors at all levels of government.
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=4682
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Peace, (NOW!!!) BK
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Black Krishna Brand
Philosophy - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/
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