Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, bilderberg, biometrics, cancer, cashless society, Control Grid, Dictatorship, Empire, Fascism, gps, Illuminati, implantable microchips, IOT, microchip, microchips, nanny state, Nazi, New World Order, NWO, orwell, Police State, PositiveID, Real ID, RFID, slavery, Spy, spychips, Surveillance, Verichip
Cartoon: Verichip/PositiveID Infomercial
RFID Chip Implants Cause Cancer in Lab-Rats
VeriChip’s Merger With Credit Monitoring Firm Worries Privacy Activists
Filed under: 1984, atlanta, biden, Big Brother, big pharma, biometrics, cancer, Congress, Control Grid, dangerous vaccinations, deadly vaccinations, deadly vaccines, Dictatorship, Empire, Eugenics, Fascism, flu shot, Genocide, georgia, government control, gps, health and environment, House, Human Experiments, human rights, implantable microchips, john roberts, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, mandatory microchips, mandatory vaccination, mandatory vaccinations, mandatory vaccine, medical Experiments, medical industrial complex, microchip, nanny state, Nazi, New World Order, NWO, orwell, parental rights, Police State, RFID, Senate, slavery, Spy, supreme court, Surveillance, Vaccine, Verichip, We Are Change | Tags: 2010 georgia legislative session, casey cagel, david ralston, don thomas, sharon cooper
Georgia: Mandatory Vaccination and Forced Microchipping
Hundreds of Public Workers Injured by Mandatory Vaccines
Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, bilderberg, biometrics, cashless society, Control Grid, Dictatorship, Empire, Fascism, gps, Holocaust, Illuminati, implantable microchips, internet of things, IOT, mandatory microchips, microchip, microchips, nanny state, Nazi, New World Order, NWO, orwell, Police State, Real ID, RFID, slavery, Spy, spychips, Surveillance, transponder chips, Verichip | Tags: digital television
Ex-IBM Employee: The Real Reason TV Went Digital is Because Analog Frequencies Interfere With RFID
AFP
January 21, 2010
According to a former 31-year IBM employee, the highly-publicized, mandatory switch from analog to digital television is mainly being done to free up analog frequencies and make room for scanners used to read implantable RFID microchips and track people and products throughout the world.
So while the American people, especially those in Texas and other busy border states, have been inundated lately with news reports advising them to hurry and get their expensive passports, “enhanced driver’s licenses,” passport cards and other “chipped” or otherwise trackable identification devices that they are being forced to own, this digital television/RFID connection has been hidden, according to Patrick Redmond.
Redmond, a Canadian, held a variety of jobs at IBM before retiring, including working in the company’s Toronto lab from 1992 to 2007, then in sales support. He has given talks, written a book and produced a DVD on the aggressive, growing use of passive, semi-passive and active RFID chips (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) implanted in new clothing, in items such as Gillette Fusion blades, and in countless other products that become one’s personal belongings. These RFID chips, many of which are as small, or smaller, than the tip of a sharp pencil, also are embedded in all new U.S. passports, some medical cards, a growing number of credit and debit cards and so on. More than two billion of them were sold in 2007.
Whether active, semi-passive or passive, these “transponder chips,” as they’re sometimes called, can be accessed or activated with “readers” that can pick up the unique signal given off by each chip and glean information from it on the identity and whereabouts of the product or person, depending on design and circumstances, as Redmond explained in a little-publicized lecture in Canada last year. AFP just obtained a DVD of his talk.
Noted “Spychips” expert, author and radio host Katherine Albrecht told AMERICAN FREE PRESS that while she’s not totally sure whether there is a rock-solid RFID-DTV link, “The purpose of the switch [to digital] was to free up bandwidth. It’s a pretty wide band, so freeing that up creates a huge swath of frequencies.”
As is generally known, the active chips have an internal power source and antenna; these particular chips emit a constant signal. “This allows the tag to send signals back to the reader, so if I have a RFID chip on me and it has a battery, I can just send a signal to a reader wherever it is,” Redmond stated in the recent lecture, given to the Catholic patriot group known as the Pilgrims of Saint Michael, which also is known for advocating social credit, a dramatic monetary reform plan to end the practice of national governments bringing money into existence by borrowing it, with interest, from private central banks. The group’s publication The Michael Journal advocates having national governments create their own money interest-free. It also covers the RFID issue.
“The increased use of RFID chips is going to require the increased use of the UBF [UHF] spectrum,” Redmond said, hitting on his essential point that TV is going digital for a much different reason than the average person assumes, “They are going to stop using the [UHF] and VHF frequencies in 2009. Everything is going to go digital (in the U.S.). Canada is going to do the same thing.”
Explaining the unsettling crux of the matter, he continued: “The reason they are doing this is that the [UHF-VHF] analog frequencies are being used for the chips. They do not want to overload the chips with television signals, so the chips’ signals are going to be taking those [analog] frequencies. They plan to sell the frequencies to private companies and other groups who will use them to monitor the chips.”
Albrecht responded to that quote only by saying that it sounds plausible, since she knows some chips will indeed operate in the UHF-VHF ranges.
“Well over a million pets have been chipped,” Redmond said, adding that all 31,000 police officers in London have in some manner been chipped as well, much to the consternation of some who want that morning donut without being tracked. London also can link a RFID chip in a public transportation pass with the customer’s name. “Where is John Smith? Oh, he is on subway car 32,” Redmond said.
He added that chips for following automobile drivers – while the concept is being fought by several states in the U.S. which do not want nationalized, trackable driver’s licenses (Real ID ) – is apparently a slam dunk in Canada, where license plates have quietly been chipped. Such identification tags can contain work history, education, religion, ethnicity, reproductive history and much more.
Farm animals are increasingly being chipped; furthermore, “Some 800 hospitals in the U.S. are now chipping their patients; you can turn it down, but it’s available,” he said, adding: “Four hospitals in Puerto Rico have put them in the arms of Alzheimer’s patients, and it only costs about $200 per person.”
VeriChip, a major chip maker (the devices sometimes also are called Spychips) describes its product on its website: “About twice the length of a grain of rice, the device is typically implanted above the triceps area of an individual’s right arm. Once scanned at the proper frequency, the VeriChip responds with a unique 16 digit number which could be then linked with information about the user held on a database for identity verification, medical records access and other uses. The insertion procedure is performed under local anesthetic in a physician’s office and once inserted, is invisible to the naked eye. As an implanted device used for identification by a third party, it has generated controversy and debate.”
The circles will keep widening, Redmond predicts. Chipping children “to be able to protect them,” Redmond said, “is being promoted in the media.” After that, he believes it will come to: chip the military, chip welfare cheats, chip criminals, chip workers who are goofing off, chip pensioners – and then chip everyone else under whatever rationale is cited by government and highly-protected corporations that stand to make billions of dollars from this technology. Meanwhile, the concept is marketed by a corporate media that, far from being a watchdog of the surveillance state, is part of it, much like the media give free publicity to human vaccination programs without critical analysis on possible dangers and side effects of the vaccines.
“That’s the first time I have heard of it,” a Federal Communications Commission official claimed, when AFP asked him about the RFID-DTV issue on June 2. Preferring anonymity, he added: “I am not at all aware of that being a cause (of going to DTV).”
“Nigel Gilbert of the Royal Academy of Engineering said that by 2011 you should be able to go on Google and find out where someone is at anytime from chips on clothing, in cars, in cellphones and inside many people themselves,” Redmond also said.
To read Redmond’s full lecture, go to this online link:
IBM and the Holocaust
Filed under: 1984, Air Force, artificial intelligence, assassin, Big Brother, future weapons, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nanny state, nanobots, orwell, Police State, robobugs, robot, robotics, Science and technology, Spy, super weapons, Surveillance, uav, urban warfare, War On Terror | Tags: project anubis
MAVs: The Future of Domestic Surveillance
Filed under: 1984, army, artificial intelligence, Big Brother, future weapons, insect robots, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nanny state, orwell, Police State, robobugs, robot, robotics, Science and technology, Spy, strange news, super weapons, Surveillance, taser, uav, urban warfare | Tags: university of maryland
Robots go to war: American insect Terminators
Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs
Filed under: 1984, Avocare, Big Brother, bilderberg, biometrics, cancer, cashless society, Control Grid, corporations, corporatism, credit card, Dictatorship, digital angel, Empire, endgame, Fascism, fda, gps, health and environment, health care, internet of things, IOT, mandatory microchips, microchip, microchips, nanny state, New World Order, NWO, orwell, Police State, PositiveID, RFID, slavery, Spy, Steel Vault, Surveillance | Tags: discover, master card, visa
VeriChip’s Merger With Credit Monitoring Firm Worries Privacy Activists
Wired
December 10, 2009
Remember VeriChip, the Florida company that once dreamed of injecting its human-implantable RFID microchips in everyone from immigrant guest workers to prison inmates?
We haven’t heard much from the company since a dipping stock price nearly got it delisted from the NASDAQ in March. But it’s still alive, and in November it pulled off a seemingly incongruous acquisition. Now called PositiveID, the new company is a merger between VeriChip and Steel Vault, the people behind NationalCreditReport.com.
With a human-implantable microchip maker now running a credit-scoring and identity-theft-protection website, privacy activists are worried again. “The attraction to investors is the potential for synergies,” says Mark Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. “You have to anticipate over time there will be an attempt to integrate the services.”
“Sci-fi wise, you could have a chip read by a scanner that determines your credit-worthiness,” says Evan Hendricks, editor of Privacy Times. “Or you could have a credit card implant.”
VeriChip and its former owner Applied Digital have been drawing fire since 2004, when the FDA approved the rice-sized injectable RFID for human use. While the company primarily pushed the chip as part of a system to index medical records — a kind of subcutaneous MedAlert bracelet — Richard Sullivan, then-CEO of Applied Digital, had a penchant for wantonly confirming every nightmare of cybernetic social control.
After 9/11, it was Sullivan who announced the VeriChip would be perfect as a universal ID to distinguish safe people from the dangerous ones. He dreamed of GPS-equipped chips being injected into foreigners entering the United States, prisoners, children, the elderly. He thought the VeriChip would be used as a built-in credit or ATM card.
Indeed, in 2004, one of VeriChip’s earliest deployments was at a Barcelona nightclub, where VIP patrons could pay 125 euro to get the chip installed in their arms as a debit card for drinks.
But today, Sullivan’s replacement says the company has no plans to market the VeriChip as a path to instant credit, despite the recent acquisition.
With his white-buttondown shirt open at the chest, PositiveID CEO Scott Silverman spoke about the merger in an interview at the company’s office suite in Delray Beach, Florida. “Using the chip to relate to the credit-reporting services of NationalCreditReport.com, or even using it for financial transactions … has not been a part of our business model for five years or more, since Sullivan’s been gone, and is not part of our business model moving forward,” he says.
Silverman also backed away from some of the Orwellian ideas floated by his cyberpunk predecessor. “I can tell you that … putting [the chips] into children and immigrants for identification purposes, or putting them into people, especially unwillingly, for financial transactions, has [not] been and never will be the intent of this company as long I’m the chairman and CEO,” he says.
Yet in 2004, Silverman told the Broward-Palm Beach New Times that the VeriChip could be used as a credit card in coming years. And in 2006, he went on Fox & Friends to promote the chipping of immigrant guest workers to track them and monitor their tax records.
And ahead of the recent merger, VeriChip gave a presentation to investors hinting there would be some cross-pollination between the two sides of the business. It plans to “cross-sell its NationalCreditReport.com customer base” (.pdf) the Health Link service and vice-versa. So, Americans with implanted VeriChips will be encouraged to divulge their finances to PositiveID, while credit-monitoring customers will be marketed the health-record microchip.
Critics of chipping are moved by a variety of concerns, ranging from the pragmatic to the religious — anti-RFID crusader Katherine Albrecht believes the technology is the Mark of the Beast predicted in the Book of Revelation, but also doubts its efficacy as a medical tag: VeriChip’s instruction manual warns that the chip may not function in ambulances and areas where there are MRI and X-ray scanners.
Security is another issue. RFIDs can generally be scanned from distances much greater than the official specs suggest. Nicole Ozer at the ACLU of Northern California notes that after Wired magazine writer Annalee Newitz experimentally cloned her VeriChip in 2006, the company continued calling it secure.
But human chipping has high-profile fans as well, including former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, who left his job as overseer of the FDA in 2005 — a year after VeriChip’s approval — to join the company’s board of directors. Thompson announced he would personally join the 700 to 900 Americans who have the chip installed in their bodies. (He later reportedly reneged.)
Whatever its plans for the future, PositiveID is focused on its original mission for now: implants tied to medical records. On December 1, the new company announced it’s collaborating with Avocare, a Florida health care business, in the hopes of bringing its “health care identification products” to 1 million patients.
Credit Card Companies Refuse Mythbusters to Test RFID
Filed under: 1984, 3rd reich, 4th reich, Big Brother, biometrics, brain manipulation, cameras, cancer, Concentration Camp, Control Grid, corporatism, data mining, death camps, Dictatorship, digital angel, Echelon, Empire, endgame, Eugenics, Fascism, final solution, Genocide, global takeover, Globalism, government control, government takeover, gps, health and environment, Hitler, hollerith, Holocaust, IBM, internet of things, IOT, mandatory microchipping, manipulation, microchip, microchips, nanny state, Nazi, nazi germany, New World Order, NWO, Oppression, orwell, Police State, Population Control, Raytheon, RFID, RFID bracelet, Science and technology, slavery, Spy, Surveillance, surveillance cameras, swine flu, swine flu vaccine, Total Information Awareness, traffic cameras, Verichip, WHO | Tags: internet regulation, Ubiquitous computing, Ubiquitous living, Ubiquitous positioning, utopia, verimed, Video and Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool
One Mainframe To Rule Them All
Filed under: 1984, AARP, ABC, abc news, abortion, bank bailout, Barack Obama, Big Brother, brainwashing, cap-and-trade, Carbon Tax, CBS, celebrity manipulation, China, Co2, Communism, Conditioning, Congress, cultism, Dictatorship, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, environmental taxation, Fascism, FOX, Fox News, gestapo, global tax, Global Warming, government control, government propaganda, government takeover, health care reform, Hitler, Hoax, informant, informant program, mandatory servitude, mandatory volunteerism, manipulation, Media, media deception, Media Fear, media fears, Media Manipulation, mediaopoly, MSNBC, nanny state, Nazi, NBC, Neolibs, New World Order, NWO, obama, obama cult, obama deception, obamacare, orwell, planned parenthood, Police State, psychological operations, psychological warfare, Psyops, rupert murdoch, socialism, Spy, spy force, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, War On Terror, White House, world tax | Tags: EIF, Entertainment Industry Foundation, iparticipate, iwatch, network tv propaganda, TV shows
Government Propaganda To Infest Network TV Shows
Obama to control your television; brainwashing (programming) will be “organically” woven into plots and story-lines all next week
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
October 15, 2009
An insidious brainwashing program set to be launched next week will “organically” weave the government’s political propaganda into prime time network television shows, with positive talking points about Obama’s environmental, bailout, health care and “servitude” agenda being seamlessly integrated into the content of dramas, reality shows and comedies.
Under the auspices of a program run by the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), network TV shows will be used to promote “service and volunteerism” on behalf of the public as part of a “week-long of television programming on all four leading broadcast networks – ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and all affiliated broadcast and cable properties as well, and other networks, beginning October 19.”
According to the EIF press release, “Network shows that will feature volunteerism in some way during the week of Oct 19th,” include the following.
ABC
All My Children, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Brothers and Sisters, Castle, Cougar Town, Dancing With The Stars, Desperate Housewives, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Flash Forward, General Hospital, Good Morning America, Grey’s Anatomy, Hank, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Modern Family, One Life To Live, Private Practice, The Forgotten, The Middle, The View, Ugly Betty
CBS
Cold Case, Criminal Minds, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Gary Unmarried, Ghost Whisperer, Numb3rs
FOX
America’s Most Wanted, Bones, Brothers, COPS, So You Think You Can Dance, Til Death
NBC
30 Rock, Access Hollywood, Community, Days of Our Lives, Heroes, Parks and Recreation, The Biggest Loser, The Office, Today Show
Despite the fact that this was announced back in September, a new investigation by John Nolte has revealed all kinds of surreptitious connections that give a solid indication of what we can expect to be promoted by the TV shows that will effectively be under government control from Monday onwards.
Not only will program makers prostrate themselves to push Obama’s lies about health care, banker bailouts, global warming and creepy public service programs that border on mandatory volunteerism, but they will also lead unsuspecting victims of their brainwashing into the arms of groups like Planned Parenthood.
“Doing the work the Kamikaze Media (many of whom are participating in this event rather than digging for the story) refuses, and with the help of Big Government’s Dana Loesch, Patrick and Stage Right have discovered that when it comes to this White House – whether it’s the NEA conference calls or EIF’s iParticipate programming — all roads funnel into one place: online volunteer portals, including Serve.gov, where if you plug in “health care” all kinds of Planned Parenthood openings pop up along with a video dispelling those ugly “myths” knocking ObamaCare,” writes Nolte.
As a subsequent Big Hollywood report points out, the websites being promoted by the “I Participate” campaign are little more than gateways to organizations like Planned Parenthood and their slice of Obama’s health care agenda, “reproductive freedom,” otherwise known as abortion, otherwise known as killing babies.
Since the websites that act as gateways for Planned Parenthood are being pushed on shows like So You Think You Can Dance, which is popular with teenage girls, the agenda is clear.
“As I said, my nine-year-old daughter loves ‘So You Think You Can Dance’. My wife and I are very careful. We watch the show first and record it via DVR. Then, the next day, if any of the dances are a bit risqué’ we skip through them,” writes Stage Right. “Of course we skip through the commercials because they are often too adult for her. I suppose the week of October 19th we’re going to have to skip most of the shows lest she be encouraged to go to a website promoting an abortion clinic.”
The website also leads to an instructional video about how to regurgitate Obama’s talking points on health care. Watch below.
“This nifty bit of propaganda encourages you to troll on blogs and leave comments, call in to talk radio shows and generally be annoying when people discuss ObamaCare by injecting Administration talking points found on AARP’s web page under the Orwellian header ”Myths vs. Facts,” reports Stage Right.
Another item that is just a quick search away from the website that will be pushed on network TV next week encourages people to become ‘Global Warming Ambassadors’ for the National Wildlife Fund, which is a firm supporter of Obama’s Cap and Trade agenda.
This isn’t the first time the corporate networks have prostituted their integrity and handed over control of their content to the Obama administration. Back in June, ABC News mimicked the likes of Communist China and North Korea by completely turning its news coverage over to the government and excluding any dissenting opinions to promote President Obama’s health care agenda.
Indeed, Rupert Murdoch’s Twentieth Century Fox corporation has admitted to planting political brainwashing within its globally popular TV shows and indeed boasts that it is proud of the fact. A corporate video shows Fox executives and stars of its universally recognized shows bragging about how they use the platform of hit shows that are broadcast worldwide to implant messages about the supposed threat of global warming. Watch below.
If all this wasn’t disturbing enough, one of the “I Paticipate” initiative’s main protagonists is none other than Ashton Kutcher, who along with Demi Moore produced one of the creepiest You Tube videos ever made, in which celebrities pledge their servitude to Barack Obama and encourage everyone to do the same as they repeat mantras with cult-like zeal.
Who remember’s this one?
The fact that corporate TV outlets are openly writing scripts and editing content to incorporate government propaganda, added to the fact that they act like this is some kind of wonderful service to the American people, is a damning indictment of just how deep the alphabet soup networks are in the pocket of the establishment.
It also underscores exactly why they are losing viewers to the Internet and alternative media at an alarming speed while hypocritically attacking the alternative media for being untrustworthy.
We’ll leave it to the reader to decide for themselves. Who’s the most trustworthy? The muckraking blogger or the legions of corporate media whores who brazenly hand over their editorial control to the government and then celebrate the fact as if it’s a major achievement?
MORE PROPAGANDA: iWATCH Stasi-Like Citizen Program Promotes Spying on Your Neighbours
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, ACLU, amnesty, AT&T, Barack Obama, Big Brother, bush = obama, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, DHS, domeestic terrorism, domestic terror, EFF, FBI, federal crimes, FOIA, George Bush, government bureaucrat, government control, government takeover, Homeland Security, immunity, left right paradigm, Military, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, orwell, Patriot Act, privacy rights, roving wiretaps, Russ Feingold, Senate, Sprint, Spy, Surveillance, telecoms, us constituion, US Constitution, verison, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap, White House
Dem-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee extends PATRIOT Act provisions
Capitol Hill Blue
October 9, 2009
Key US lawmakers passed legislation Thursday extending three key provisions of the PATRIOT Act, the sweeping intelligence bill enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Backing a White House request, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the measure 11 votes to 8 to extend until 2013 three clauses that would have expired by 31 December. The bill now heads to the full Senate for a vote.
The provisions include the “roving wiretap” clause, used to monitor mobile communications of individuals using multiple telephone lines, and the “lone-wolf” provision, which enables spying on individuals suspected of terrorist activity but with no obvious connection to extremist groups.
Lawmakers also extended the life of controversial section 215, known as the “library records provision” that allows government agencies to access individual’s library history.
The committee had earlier met in a closed-door meeting with members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the intelligence community on ensuring their actions would not impede investigations already underway.
The senators also debated freeing up law enforcement actions that have been hampered by legislation and court rulings since the first program was launched by former president George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11, which enabled collecting sensitive information for years without a court order.
Republicans senators have remained critical of placing restrictions on the intelligence community, saying they should more of a free hand in the early stages of investigations.
But their Democratic counterparts have decried the fact that the provisions still do not in their view adequately respect the privacy of ordinary Americans.
Democratic Senator Russ Feingold said he feared handing a “blank check” to law enforcement agencies and criticized the Democrat-controlled committee for not passing safeguards that even Republicans supported during the Bush administration.
“Among the most significant problems is the failure to include an improved standard for Section 215 orders, even though a Republican controlled Judiciary Committee unanimously supported including the same standard in 2005,” he said in a media advisory.
“But what was most upsetting was the apparent willingness of too many members to defer completely to behind the scenes complaints from the FBI and the Justice Department, even though the administration has yet to take a public position on any of the improvements that I and other senators have proposed. … [While] I am left scratching my head trying to understand how a committee controlled by a wide Democratic margin could support the bill it approved today, I will continue to work with my colleagues to try to make improvements to this bill.”
Michael Macleod-Ball, acting director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office said the rights group was “disappointed” that further moves were not made to protect civil liberties.
“This truly was a missed opportunity for the Senate Judiciary Committee to right the wrongs of the PATRIOT Act,” he said.
“We urge the Senate to adopt amendments on the floor that will bring this bill in line with the Constitution.”
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, amnesty, AT&T, Barack Obama, Big Brother, bush = obama, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, DHS, domeestic terrorism, domestic terror, EFF, federal crimes, FOIA, George Bush, government bureaucrat, government control, government takeover, Homeland Security, immunity, left right paradigm, Military, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, orwell, Patriot Act, privacy rights, roving wiretaps, Senate, Sprint, Spy, Surveillance, telecoms, us constituion, US Constitution, verison, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap
Telephone Companies Are An Arm Of Government Admits DOJ
Wired News
October 9, 2009
 AT&T was the first of many telcos sued for helping the NSA spy on Americans without warrants |
The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: the nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying.
Fortunately, a judge says that relationship isn’t enough to squash a rights group’s open records request for communications between the nation’s telecoms and the feds.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to see what role telecom lobbying of Justice Department played when the government began its year-long, and ultimately successful, push to win retroactive immunity for AT&T and others being sued for unlawfully spying on American citizens.
The feds argued that the documents showing consultation over the controversial telecom immunity proposal weren’t subject to the Freedom of Information Act since they were protected as “intra-agency” records:
“The communications between the agencies and telecommunications companies regarding the immunity provisions of the proposed legislation have been regarded as intra-agency because the government and the companies have a common interest in the defense of the pending litigation and the communications regarding the immunity provisions concerned that common interest.”
U.S. District Court Judge Jeffery White disagreed and ruled on September 24 that the feds had to release the names of the telecom employees that contacted the Justice Department and the White House to lobby for a get-out-of-court-free card.
“Here, the telecommunications companies communicated with the government to ensure that Congress would pass legislation to grant them immunity from legal liability for their participation in the surveillance,” White wrote. “Those documents are not protected from disclosure because the companies communicated with the government agencies “with their own … interests in mind,” rather than the agency’s interests.”
The feds were supposed to make the documents available Friday, but in a motion late Thursday, the Obama administration is asking for a 30-day emergency stay (.pdf) so it can file a further appeal.
Filed under: 1984, augmented earth, Big Brother, biometrics, cameras, cell phone, cell phones, CNN, Control Grid, Darpa, data mining, Dictatorship, Echelon, Empire, global elite, global government, Globalism, google, google earth, government control, government takeover, gps, internet, Internet 2, internet 3, internet of things, internet police, IOT, Media, microchip, microchips, Microsoft, nanny state, New World Order, NWO, Oppression, orwell, Pentagon, Police State, RFID, RFID bracelet, Science and technology, south korea, Spy, Surveillance, surveillance cameras, Total Information Awareness, traffic cameras, uav, Verichip | Tags: intel, internet regulation, korea, motorola, National Intelligence Council, new songdo city, NIC, seoul, u-city, Ubiquitous computing, Ubiquitous living, Ubiquitous positioning, utopia, Video and Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool
Editor’s Note: This could be the start of the New World Order MATRIX, where every ‘thing’ in the world can be located and tracked on the internet
Augmented Google-Earth Tracks Real-Time People, Cars, Weather
Cryptogon
September 30, 2009
The surveillance side of this is the chickenfeed. There’s something far more sinister than the simple surveillance… an angle we haven’t heard about yet.
Tice never did tell his story to Congress about this different aspect of the program.
Well, my guess is that it has something to do with providing surveillance data for this SEAS World Sim thing, and that individual Americans are being watched and potentially targeted with it. Tice’s background seems to involve a lot of traditional electronic warfare, radar and ELINT stuff. Maybe Tice’s deal involved the collection of the mobile phone GPS and/or triangulation data which would provide realtime spacial/geographic data to the SEAS system. In other words, SEAS sees you. They could bring up a map of a city and plot your path based on the information that your phone is exchanging with the mobile network.
—Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation
Via: Popular Science:
Researchers from Georgia Tech have devised methods to take real-time, real-world information and layer it onto Google Earth, adding dynamic information to the previously sterile Googlescape.
They use live video feeds (sometimes from many angles) to find the position and motion of various objects, which they then combine with behavioral simulations to produce real-time animations for Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth.
They use motion capture data to help their animated humans move realistically, and were able to extrapolate cars’ motion throughout an entire stretch of road from just a few spotty camera angles.
From their video of an augmented virtual Earth, you can see if the pickup soccer game in the park is short a player, how traffic is on the highway, and how fast the wind is blowing the clouds across the sky.
Up next, they say they want to add weather, birds, and motion in rivers.
Ubiquitous Computing: Big Brother’s All-Seeing Eye
Filed under: 1984, 4th amendment, Big Brother, Britain, car tax, Carbon Tax, Congress, Control Grid, Dictatorship, earl blumenauer, Echelon, Empire, Europe, european union, Fascism, global tax, gps, h.r. 3311, HR 3311, Income Tax, infrastructure, london, microchips, nanny state, Neolibs, Oppression, Oregon, orwell, Police State, portland, privacy rights, RFID, road tax, slavery, Spy, spy satellite, Surveillance, tax, Taxpayers, toll road, Toll Roads, Uncategorized, United Kingdom, US Constitution, US Treasury, Vehicle Miles Traveled tax
HR 3311: Vehicle Tracking Devices and Road Taxes
Noworldsystem.com
September 21, 2009
This is just one of many bills that is evidence that America is falling into an Orwellian police state, the eye of big government, tax slavery and despotism is becoming even more clear as the republic fades into the night.
Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer has introduced HR 3311, if passed the Senate would use $154 million of taxpayer money to fund the development of vehicle tracking devices and roadside RFID scanning devices that would record your everyday driving habits for the sake of creating a new taxation scheme and quite possibly help law enforcement penalize every mistake you make on the road. The money would also be used to research and study how to enforce this on a nationwide scale and how to present this scheme to the public as something necessary to fund failing infrastructures.
The bill will allow the US Treasury Department to establish this program which is called the “Road User Free Pilot Project” that was developed by Oregon legislators to impose a gas tax on Oregon motorists, the pilot program now studies the Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax instead, to better track and tax motorists. Within eighteen months of the HR 3311 passing the US Treasury would file an initial report outlining the best methods of adopting this new tax scheme on a nationwide scale.
Here’s what the bill’s sponsor, Congressman Blumenauer had to say about this insidious track and tax plan: “Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fee, and it is time to expand and test the VMT program across the country,”!
Just imagine all vehicles in the United States fitted with this federal tracking device, why don’t they just shackle us all and tax every footstep we make while they are at it!?! This is completely un-constitutional and threatens the 4th amendment of the United States constitution, I doubt that anyone would actually accept something this Orwellian to be used against them.. but of course I’m sure if this bill passes all new vehicles would be secretly fitted with these devices without anyone knowing about it.
Here is what we know the device is capable of recording:
1. The device can calculate miles driven based on GPS data
2. The device can store the number of miles driven
3. The device can determine when the vehicle has left certain states
4. The device can store the states the vehicle entered
5. The device can determine what time a vehicle was being driven
6. The device can store the times the vehicle was driven
7. The device can produce all data stored since its last reading
This device must be receiving precise positional data as an input from its GPS unit. It must also have a clock set to the real time and date as an input. This means that the device is getting data on the exact position of the vehicle at any moment, and that the control software is only storing certain data-points based on this. This is an adequate privacy safeguard, right? Probably not.
Considering this is a tax device, it will very likely need to be updated to reflect changes in the tax law. The need for this capability is clear. One year, the zone around Portland might incur a tax at any time of day, the next year only during rush hour. Oregon’s program might spread to other states, so now the control software in the device has to start recording miles driven in those states as well. If this is the case, then the control software could one day be updated in nearly any way, including complete tracking of movement and speed.
The other thing to consider is that the readers for these devices will be readily available, since every gas station in the state will need one. Even if the software stays the same, there’s nothing stopping a rogue police department from getting its hands on a reader and using it to gather info on people. More likely, though, if these devices became pervasive, law enforcement would push to have readers of their own.
Imagine this scenario: You’re driving a car with one of these GPS devices at the leisurely clip of 60 MPH on the highway leading into Klamath Falls. Like all highways in Oregon, the limit is still 55 MPH. A cop catches you going over the limit and pulls you over. You go through the normal rigmarole with him, except this time he checks your GPS devices and finds out that you’ve exceeded 55 MPH in the state of Oregon 22 times since the device was last read. You leave this encounter with 22 speeding tickets instead of one.
That scenario is possible with the hardware described in the device and minimal changes in the software. Only the good will of the Oregon state government is keeping it from being so. Should Oregonians really rely on that alone to protect their privacy? [Source]
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, amnesty, AT&T, Barack Obama, Big Brother, bush = obama, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Detainees, DHS, domeestic terrorism, domestic terror, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crimes, FISA, forced detention, George Bush, Habeas Corpus, Homeland Security, HR 6166, left right paradigm, mandatory detention, Military, military commissions act, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, orwell, Patriot Act, preventative detention, quantanamo, rendition, roving wiretaps, Senate, Sprint, Spy, Surveillance, telecoms, Torture, US Constitution, verison, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap | Tags: obama = bush
Obama Pushes For Renewal of Warrantless Spying
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
September 16, 2009
President Barack Obama has once again betrayed his promise to restore liberties eviscerated by the Bush regime by pushing Congress to renew Patriot Act provisions that allow for warrantless spying on American citizens, even in cases where there is no link to terrorism whatsoever.
According to a Wired News report, the “Obama administration has told Congress it supports renewing three provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire at year’s end, measures making it easier for the government to spy within the United States.”
Obama’s support for the provisions should come as little surprise because he first voted for warrantless wiretapping of Americans in 2008 when he was an Illinois Senator, while also lending support for immunizing the nation’s telecommunications companies from lawsuits charging them with being complicit in the Bush administration’s wiretapping program.
One of the provisions Obama is pushing to renew is the so-called “lone wolf” provision, enacted in 2004, which allows for the electronic monitoring of an individual without the government having to prove that the case has any relation whatsoever to terrorism or a foreign power. This is in effect a carte blanche for the government to use every method at their disposal to spy on any American citizen they choose.
The “lone wolf” provision is opposed by the ACLU, whose legislative counsel Michelle Richardson told Wired, “The justification for FISA and these lower standards and letting it operate in secret was all about terrorist groups and foreign governments, that they posed a unique threat other than the normal criminal element. This lone wolf provision undercuts that justification.”
Another Patriot Act provision Obama wants Congress to renew gives the government access to business, library and medical records, with the authorities generally having to prove that the investigation is terrorism related. However, since according to Homeland Security guidelines the new breed of terrorist is classified as someone who supports a third party, puts a political bumper sticker on their car, is part of the alternative media, or merely someone who disagrees with the authorities’ official version of events on any given issue, the scope for the government to use this power against their political adversaries is wide open.
The third provision Obama is pushing to renew allows a FISA court to grant “roving wiretaps” without the government having to even identify their target. This is another carte blanche power that gives the state the power to monitor telephone calls, e mails and any other form of electronic communication.
Barack Obama swept into office on a mandate of “change” and a commitment to restore liberties that were eviscerated under the Bush regime. Despite promising to do so, he has failed completely to overturn Bush signing statements and executive orders that, according to Obama, “trampled on liberties.” Indeed, despite promising to end the use of signing statements, he has continued to use them.
Obama has failed to close Guantanamo Bay or any other CIA torture “black site” as he promised to do.
Obama has failed in his promise to “reject the Military Commissions Act” and instead has supported the use of military commissions.
Obama has continued to allow the rendition and torture of detainees, while protecting Bush administration officials who ordered torture from prosecution and blocking the release of evidence related to torture.
Obama has gone even further than the Bush administration in introducing “preventative detention” of detainees, ensuring people will never get a trial.
In restating his support for warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, Obama has once again proven that his promise of “change” was nothing more than a hollow and deceptive political platitude to ensure his election. Since he took office, Obama has betrayed almost every promise he made and effectively become nothing more than the third term of the Bush administration.
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 2nd Amendment, americorps, anti gun, Big Brother, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Communism, Concentration Camps, Conditioning, Control Grid, Denver, DHS, Dictatorship, DOJ, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, Fascism, FBI, FEMA, firefighters, free speech, Germany, gestapo, Gun Control, Hitler, Homeland Security, intimidation, nanny state, Nazi, nazi germany, orwell, paramedics, Police State, securecorps, socialism, Spy, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, Total Information Awareness, US Constitution, utility workers, War On Terror, youth brigades | Tags: Operation Bright Eyes, Operation TIPS, Terrorism Liaison Officers, TLO, wetip
Nazi-Style Campaign Urges Americans to Report Each Other
WeTip program offers cash rewards for anonymous tips about guns, child abuse and suspicious behavior
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
August 6, 2009
A privately-run informant program operating nationwide encourages Americans to anonymously turn each other in to the authorities for cash rewards in a chilling echo of the Nazi “denunciations” of 1930’s Germany, where neighbors would grass their neighbors up to the local Gestapo officer over petty issues.
The WeTip organization takes anonymous tips online or via toll free phone lines and carries the creepy slogan “For A Safer America!”.
The group forwards tips given by the public to law enforcement authorities across the country, with no jurisdictional borders.
An Orwellian poster being plastered up across American towns and cities as part of a campaign run by the organization reads, “ILLEGAL ACTIVITY IS NOT TOLERATED” and advises citizens to “turn them in” and receive a reward of up to $1000. Things to “turn them in” for include drug dealing and theft, but more vague examples such as “threats and intimidation” as well as “weapons” and “gang activity” are listed, as is “child abuse”.
Is the presence of a “weapon” in and of itself evidence of a crime in a country where citizens have the legal right to own firearms? Will your neighbor be turning you in if he sees you loading your car with a rifle on your way to the shooting range? What about “child abuse”? Will your friendly local spy be informing the authorities when he sees you disciplining your child?
What else constitutes suspicious activity? According to law enforcement and Homeland Security guidelines, suspicious behavior includes owning guns, being politically active, and having bumper stickers on your car.
The WeTip organization also offers a training institute for schools, businesses and government employees, presumably providing skills courses on how to become an expert domestic spy, just like in Communist East Germany.
WeTip also claims in its promotional material that it has been endorsed by both Bush presidents, as well as Bill Clinton and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Deliciously ironic therefore it is that Arnie starred in the 1987 movie The Running Man, a futuristic portrayal of a wacky dictatorship where citizens are reminded by huge TV screens placed on street corners that they can “earn a double bonus for reporting on a family member!”
As America sinks into a military police state, it begins to parallel more and more aspects of Nazi Germany, especially in the context of citizens being turned against each other, which in turn creates a climate of fear and the constraining sense that one is always being watched.
One common misconception about Nazi Germany was that the police state was solely a creation of the authorities and that the citizens were merely victims. On the contrary, Gestapo files show that 80% of all Gestapo investigations were started in response to information provided by denunciations by “ordinary” Germans.
“There were relatively few secret police, and most were just processing the information coming in. I had found a shocking fact. It wasn’t the secret police who were doing this wide-scale surveillance and hiding on every street corner. It was the ordinary German people who were informing on their neighbors,” wrote Robert Gellately of Florida State University.
Gellately discovered that the people who informed on their neighbors were motivated primarily by banal factors – “greed, jealousy, and petty differences,” and not by a genuine concern about crime or insecurity.
Gellately “found cases of partners in business turning in associates to gain full ownership; jealous boyfriends informing on rival suitors; neighbors betraying entire families who chronically left shared bathrooms unclean or who occupied desirable apartments.”
“And then there were those who informed because for the first time in their lives someone in authority would listen to them and value what they said.”
Gellately emphasizes the fact that the Germans who sicked the authorities on their neighbors knew very well what the consequences for the victims would be – families torn apart, torture and internment in concentration camps, and ultimately in many cases death – but they still did it with few qualms because the rewards of financial bounties and mere convenience were deemed more important to them.
As we have covered before, the WeTip program is by no means the only initiative that is training Americans to become amateur domestic spies.
One of the largest cable TV companies in the United States, Bright House, is training its employees to look for suspicious behavior and report it to police under the guise of a neighborhood watch initiative called Operation Bright Eyes.
The legacy of training Americans to spy on each other in the name of “safety” has its origins in Operation TIPS, which was supposedly nixed by Congress, a DOJ, FBI, DHS and FEMA coordinated program that would have recruited one in twenty-four Americans as domestic informants, a higher percentage than was used by the Stasi in Communist East Germany.
Government funding was cut after an outcry but private funding continues and the same program was introduced under a number of sub-divisions including AmeriCorps, SecureCorps and the Highway Watch program.
In July last year we reported on how hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado, Arizona and California to watch for “suspicious activity” which is later fed into a secret government database.
Also last year, a New York Times feature article heartily celebrated the fact that an increasing number of Americans are becoming informants and turning in their neighbors and family members to the authorities in return for cash rewards. In a piece about a new program run by Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers, citing gas prices, foreclosure rates and runaway food price inflation, The Times lauds the fact that citizens are reporting on each other, ensuring “a substantial increase in Crime Stopper-related arrests and recovered property, as callers turn in neighbors, grandchildren or former boyfriends in exchange for a little cash.”
As the Recession Ready America blog points out in relation to the WeTip program and its offer of $1,000 for turning people in, in an environment of recession and unemployment, the temptation to inform on people for minor indiscretions would be too tempting for many to resist, creating a gargantuan backlog of petty offenses reported by people with no criminal detective skills whatsoever, leading to harassment of innocent people and ensuring that more real crimes go unsolved.
We invite our readers to use the WeTip “Submit a Tip” form to remind the crypto-Nazis behind this program that this is America, not Germany in the 1930’s. Building strong communities is all about establishing strong bonds and friendships with your neighbors, not grassing them up to the authorities for a quick buck.
Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, China, Conditioning, copyright, Dictatorship, EFF, Empire, FCC, internet, internet blackout, Internet Filtering, internet police, intimidation, IP, ISP, Minneapolis, nanny state, Oppression, orwell, Police State, privacy rights, RIAA, Spy, Surveillance
Chinese youth beaten to death at net addiction bootcamp
Joe Fay
The Register
August 4, 2009
China’s anti-internet addiction industry has claimed another victim, after supervisors at a rehabilitation camp allegedly beat a 16 year old inmate to death.
Deng Senshan had been sent to Guangxi Qihuang Survival Training Camp to “cure” him of his internet addiction, the AFP reports. His parents were paying $1000 for the treatment.
However, the youth ended up in solitary confinement shortly after arriving at the establishment, and was subsequently beaten to death by supervisors for “running too slowly”, according to the news agency.
Local police confirmed they were investigating the death of a high school student, allegedly at the hands of his supervisors.
China is in the grip of acute paranoia over the threat of internet addiction to its youth. Efforts to cure the young of their affliction range from the bizarre to the brutal, by way of out and out quackery.
Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, copyright, Dictatorship, EFF, Empire, FCC, internet, internet police, IP, ISP, Minneapolis, myspace, nanny state, orwell, Police State, privacy rights, RIAA, Spy, Surveillance | Tags: Joel Tenenbaum
Student Must Pay $675,000 in Downloading Case
AP
July 31, 2009
A federal jury on Friday ordered a Boston University graduate student who admitted illegally downloading and sharing music online to pay $675,000 to four record labels.
Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels.
Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful. The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum’s case was $4.5 million.
Jurors ordered Tenenbaum to pay $22,500 for each incident of copyright infringement, effectively finding that his actions were willful. The attorney for the 25-year-old student had asked the jury earlier Friday to “send a message” to the music industry by awarding only minimal damages.
Tenenbaum said he was thankful that the case wasn’t in the millions and contrasted the significance of his fine with the maximum.
“That to me sends a message of ‘We considered your side with some legitimacy,'” he said. “$4.5 million would have been, ‘We don’t buy it at all.'”
He added he will file for bankruptcy if the verdict stands.
Tenenbaum’s lawyer, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, said the jury’s verdict was not fair. He said he plans to appeal the decision because he was not allowed to argue a case based on fair use.
The case is only the nation’s second music downloading case against an individual to go to trial.
Last month, a federal jury in Minneapolis ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, must pay $1.92 million, or $80,000 on each of 24 songs, after concluding she willfully violated the copyrights on those tunes.
The jury began deliberating the case Friday afternoon.
After Tenenbaum admitted Thursday he is liable for damages for 30 songs at issue in the case, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that the jury must consider only whether his copyright infringement was willful and how much in damages to award four recording labels that sued him over the illegal file-sharing.
In his closing statement Friday, Nesson repeatedly referred to Tenenbaum as a “kid” and asked the jury to award only a small amount to the recording companies. At one point, Nesson suggested the damages should be as little as 99 cents per song, roughly the same amount Tenenbaum would have to pay if he legally purchased the music online.
But Tim Reynolds, a lawyer for the recording labels, recounted Tenenbaum’s history of file-sharing from 1999 to 2007, describing him as “a hardcore, habitual, long-term infringer who knew what he was doing was wrong.” Tenenbaum admitted on the witness stand that he had downloaded and shared more than 800 songs.
Tenenbaum said he downloaded and shared hundreds of songs by Nirvana, Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins and other artists. The recording industry focused on only 30 songs in the case.
The music industry has typically offered to settle such cases for about $5,000, though it has said that it stopped filing such lawsuits last August and is instead working with Internet service providers to fight the worst offenders. Cases already filed, however, are proceeding to trial.
Tenenbaum testified that he had lied in pretrial depositions when he said his two sisters, friends and others may have been responsible for downloading the songs to his computer.
Under questioning from his own lawyer, Tenenbaum said he now takes responsibility for the illegal swapping.
“I used the computer. I uploaded, I downloaded music … I did it,” Tenenbaum said.
Filed under: 1984, agriculture, Big Brother, biometrics, cargill, consolidation, Control Grid, department of agriculture, digital angel, Echelon, fda, food safety, global elite, global government, Globalism, gps, Mad Cow, mandatory microchipping, michigan, microchip, Monsanto, nanny state, New World Order, NWO, Oppression, organic, orwell, RFID, Science and technology, Spy, Surveillance, USDA, Verichip | Tags: internet of things, microchip implant cancer, National Animal Identification System, rfid cancer, Ubiquitous living, utopia
Amish farmers lose court battle against RFID
Beasts must still be numbered, says court
The Register
July 31, 2009
Michigan farmers have failed in their attempt to block the introduction of RFID tags for cattle, despite arguments about the cost and the risk of upsetting an otherwise benevolent deity.
The case was bought by the catchily-named Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defence Fund (FTCLDF), representing small farmers in Michigan as well as a group of six Amish farmers: the former concerned about the cost of the tags, while the latter were more worried about eternal damnation brought on by applying numbers to God’s own cattle.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) tried to get the case dismissed back in November last year, but only now has it managed to have the case thrown out on the basis that it is a Michigan ruling and thus subject to state laws, rather than part of any agenda being set by the USDA as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), against which the plaintiff’s case was based.
Even in Michigan the law is intended to be voluntary, but the plaintiffs clearly believe that the voluntary status is just a ruse under which a mandatory ruling can be later implemented, which would threaten their livelihoods, or eternal souls, as appropriate. It’s worth noting, as the Judge did, that even Amish cattle already have numbered metal ear studs, so the contention that numbering cattle is against God’s law was already in shaky ground.
As for the USDA agenda, RFID Journal covers the case in some detail including quotes from a Michigan representative explaining:
“We implemented this program nearly 10 years ago… This was done pre-NAIS. Michigan is the only state with a mandatory electronic animal-tracking program, but it is also the only state with documented bovine TB cases”
Electronic tracking, in this instance, doesn’t necessarily mean RFID tags. The same thing can be, and is, achieved using the existing metal studs, with the data gathered electronically whenever the cattle are moved. But such assurances aren’t going to dent a good conspiracy theory about federal control.
National Animal Identification System
Insane Food Bill 2749 Passes House On 2nd Try. HR 2749: Totalitarian Control Of Our Food Supply
Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, copyright, Dictatorship, EFF, Empire, FCC, internet, internet police, IP, ISP, myspace, nanny state, orwell, Police State, privacy rights, RIAA, Spy, Surveillance
Single-Mother Ordered To Pay $80,000 Per Illegally Downloaded Song
A woman in Minnesota has been ordered to pay $80,000 a song to record companies for illegally downloading tracks and violating copyright laws.
A federal jury ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded record companies $1.92 million.
The single mother of four from Minnesota was found liable for using the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing network to download the songs over the internet.
Thomas-Rasset, 32, had been convicted previously, in October 2007, and ordered to pay $220,000 in damages, but the judge who presided over that trial threw out the verdict and ordered a retrial after he misdirected the jury.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and big music labels have sued thousands of people for downloading and sharing music illegally, with most agreeing to settlements of between $3,000 and $5,000.
Thomas-Rasset was the first among those being sued to refuse a settlement and instead took the case to court, turning her into the highest-profile digital pirate in America.
She sat glumly, chin in hand, as she heard the jury’s finding of wilful infringement, which increased the potential penalty. She raised her eyebrows in surprise when the jury’s penalty of $80,000 (£49,000) per song was read out.
Outside the courtroom, she called the $1.92 million figure “kind of ridiculous” but expressed resignation over the decision.
“There’s no way they’re ever going to get that,” she said. “I’m a mom, limited means, so I’m not going to worry about it now.”
Her lawyer, Kiwi Camara, said that he and his client had not decided whether to appeal or pursue the RIAA’s settlement overtures.
Cara Duckworth, for the RIAA, said that the industry remained willing to settle. She refused to name a figure, but acknowledged that Thomas-Rasset had been given the chance to settle for $3,000 to $5,000 earlier in the case. “Since day one we have been willing to settle this case and we remain willing to do so,” Ms Duckworth said.
In December, the RIAA said that it would stop suing people who download music illegally to concentrate instead on getting internet service providers to take action. The move away from litigation represented an important shift in strategy for the music industry group, which had filed lawsuits in the US against some 35,000 people for online music piracy since 2003.
The focus on ISPs penalising illegal file-sharers is one of the main proposals in the new Digital Britain report published this week.
In testimony, Thomas-Rasset denied she shared any songs. The self-described “huge music fan” raised the possibility for the first time in the long-running case that her children or ex-husband might have done it. The defence did not provide any evidence that any of them had shared the files.
The recording companies accused Thomas-Rasset of offering 1,700 songs on Kazaa as of February 2005, before the company became a legal music subscription service after a settlement with entertainment companies. The music industry tried to prove only 24 exemplary infringements.
The court heard that Thomas-Rasset made the songs available on Kazaa under the screen name “tereastarr” – the same nickname that she acknowledged having used for years for her e-mail and several other computer accounts, including her MySpace page.
MediaSentry, the copyright security company, traced the files offered by “tereastarr” on Kazaa to Thomas-Rasset’s IP address and to her modem.
The recording industry has blamed online piracy for declines in music sales claiming it has lost billions of dollars through illegal file-sharing.
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 9/11 Truth, Airport Security, Alex Jones, alternative media, anti-abortion, Anti-War, Arizona, Big Brother, bill of rights, Black Bloc, blackops, Bloggers, bob barr, campaign for liberty, cashless society, chuck baldwin, civil disobedience, civil liberties, civil rights, Control Grid, DHS, Dictatorship, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Echelon, Empire, Fascism, free speech, George Bush, global elite, global government, hackers, hate crimes, Hate Crimes Bill, Homeland Security, House, Illegal Immigration, internet, internet regulation, kentucky, las vegas, lou dobbs, Louisiana, Media, MIAC report, michigan, microchips, Military, missouri, nanny state, Nazi, New World Order, North American Union, NWO, Oppression, orwell, patriot movement, Police State, precrime, Psyops, Ron Paul, Senate, Spy, Surveillance, Texas, thought crime, Troops, Truth Action, truth movement, UN, united nations, US Constitution, us military, veterans, virginia, War On Terror | Tags: Domestic Extremism Lexicon, h.r. 1913, h.r. 1966, Megan Meier Cyber-bullying Prevention Act, national strategy for combating terrorism, Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Law Enforcement Pamphlet, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Act of 2009
Homeland Security Calls Free Speech Terrorism
Noworldsystem.com
May 11, 2009
The American way of life is under attack by the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Government. There are 2 pending bills in the U.S. House of Representatives that may eventually pass the Senate and become law. These bills will make “hostile speech” and prejudice a felony, it is the first step in ensuring the destruction of the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The House already passed a bill titled “The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Act of 2009” (HR 1913) allowing the federal government to aid local/state and tribal governments to prosecute any crime motivated by prejudice (in terms of race, religion, personal sexual orientation, gender identity and disability). The whole point of the 1st amendment is to protect offensive speech, not polite speech. If this bill passes the Senate this will mean the official end of free speech in America as we know it.
This bill could lead to an age of “Pre-Crime”, if say the FBI suspects you of potentially committing a hate crime you can be prosecuted even if no crime was even committed. But still this remains to be seen.
The other bill that was introduced by the House recently is called the “Megan Meier Cyber-bullying Prevention Act” (HR 1966) if passed the Senate it will lead to fines and up to 2 years in prison if anyone uses popular online media outlets (such as blogs, myspace, facebook, twitter etc.) to cause “substantial emotional distress through severe repeated and hostile speech”. In other words, if you hurt someones feelings on the internet you could be put in prison or fined!
There was a somewhat similar Orwellian piece of legislation that never passed the Senate called the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007” (S.1959, otherwise known as the Thought Crimes Bill) which would have given Homeland Security the authority to fund Universities to study ways to stop “extremist belief systems” and “radical ideologies” of Americans. [Source]
Homeland Security released 3 new memos claiming civil disobedience, the alternative news media and dissent against the U.S. government are extremist activities.
The most recent memo titled the “Domestic Extremism Lexicon”, mixes peaceful activists in with prison gangs and criminals. Here is a small list of so-called extremists according to the DHS and I&A:
Alternative Media – Various information sources (online) that interpret events that are different from the mainstream media.
Rightwing Activists – Those who are anti-income tax, pro-sovereignty, anti-illegal immigration, support the U.S. Constitution and bill of rights, pro-militias, anti-new world order, anti-north american union, anti-abortion protesters.
Leftwing Activists – Those who support animal rights, environmentalism, anti-war activism, those who are communist/socialist or anti-capitalists and anarchists. (black bloc are agent provocateurs)
Civil Disobedience – The things Martin Luther King and Ghandi have done are now considered extremism according to Homeland Security! Protesting and the right to assemble in a peaceful manner is now considered an EXTREME act, amazing!
Leaderless Resistance – Individuals acting independently and anonymously outside formal organizational structures. This probably means groups like the Truth/Patriot Movement who fight against the New World Order and question things like the Federal Reserve and 9/11. We are totally non-violent and only seek to wage an information-war against One World Government. But like any leaderless group we are prone to violent infiltrators and Black-ops/Psy-Ops by the mainstream media to paint us as evil and dangerous terrorists.
Hackers – Script kiddies, website defacers, DOS’ers are now a potential extremist threat.
All of these non-violent groups are being lumped-up with prison gangs, criminals, racist groups like white supremacists, black power advocates, Mexican pro-atzlan separatists. They want to demonize 1st amendment activists, blurring the line between free speech and terrorism, blurring the line between crime and terrorism. Basically they are conditioning the public to believe that all crime is now terrorism!
Another new, yet very similar unclassified memo by Homeland Security called the “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” states the: “prolonged economic downturn” could lead to “fertile recruitment” of returning Iraq veterans by “rightwing extremists” to cause violence against the U.S. Government.
The memo says the increase of concern of loss of sovereignty, illegal immigration, emerging gun-control treaties will cause rightwing groups to turn to terrorism, the memo states: “they are highly critical of the U.S. government’s response to illegal immigration and oppose government programs that are designed to extend rights to illegal aliens, such as issuing driver’s licenses or national identification cards and providing in-state tuition, medical benefits or public education.”.
2 points id like to make; 1) There was never a case where a rightwing group has caused terrorism at the southern border, and 2) how else does the government expect Americans to react when our own government supports people who break the law?
The memo also outlandishly claims anti-New World Order “conspiracy theorists” are violent rightwing extremists and the memo claims the New World Order is only based on Communism and has nothing to do with the Anglo-American internationalist’s quest for a world system. They further claim that anti-New World Order theorists are violent and strongly anti-Jewish. They also claim the April 4th shooting of 3 police officers in Pittsburgh was carried out by a conspiracy theorist that was against “Jewish-controlled One World Government”. This is just some more demonization of people who are having an effect and speaking truth to power.
This memo is a lot similar to a 2006 document revealing the Bush Administration was targeting 9/11 “conspiracy theorists” claiming al-qaeda terrorism springs from: “subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation,” and that “terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda.” [Page 10]
The last new-memo I will summarize is the MIAC Strategic Report that was given to Missouri law enforcement officers indicated that presidential candidates; Chuck Baldwin, Ron Paul and Bob Barr are terrorists!
Infowars.com broke the story when radio talk-show host Alex Jones received a copy of the MIAC report from an anonymous source in the Missouri police department. Infowars.com writes: “The MIAC report specifically describes supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as ‘militia’ influenced terrorists and instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties,”. [Source]
State law enforcement across the nation already have “fusion centers” to crack down on the patriot/liberty movement. [Source]
These are stunning events in the history of America, more and more ordinary peaceful Americans are being hassled for having a belief that freedom is an individual’s inalienable constitutional right and should not be controlled by the bureaucracy of big government.
This month in Louisiana a driver was stopped, questioned and detained for having a “Don’t Tread On Me” bumper sticker on his car. The driver’s sister-in-law reported that the police officer told him “he had a subversive survivalist bumper sticker on his car.” and that the driver was suspect of “extremist” activities, she continued: “They proceeded to keep him there on the side of the road while they ran whatever they do to see if you have a record, keeping him standing by the side of the road for 30 minutes,”. [Source] Another bumper sticker stop happened in Las Vegas in 2008, a driver was pulled over and questioned. After, the driver headed to his car and the officer said “you know why we had to do this right?”, the officer repeated his comment and pointed at RON PAUL and INFOWARS.COM bumper stickers on the back of his vehicle. [Source]
Want more? A Michigan man stopped, handcuffed, assaulted and branded “unpatriotic” and was subjected to a search of his car, during the search drugs were allegedly planted, all for distributing DVD’s about 9/11 Truth. [Source] In 2004 a Kentucky carpenter distributed Ron Paul and Alex Jones videotapes to a state trooper. A week later he was pulled over, arrested and almost faced a year in jail. [Source] A bible college student in Texas was accused by Homeland Security and FBI agents of “committing acts of terror and espionage” after talking to Boy Scouts about the U.S. Constitution! [Source]
I hope many of you feel dejected enough by this information to take some action. But if not, there are a few other documents you should take a look at:
The “Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Law Enforcement Pamphlet” identifies citizens who buy baby formula, beer, wearing Levi’s Jeans, traveling with a drivers license and traveling with women and children to considered to be dangerous terrorists! A Virginia Training Manual used to help state employees help identify terrorists, it lists anti-government, property rights activists, people who use binoculars, video cameras and notepads. And last but not least, a Pheonix 9/11 Manual disseminated amongst federal employees revealed potential terrorist as “defenders of the U.S. Constitution against federal government and the United Nations,” and individuals who “make numerous references to the U.S. Constitution.”.
The U.S. Government has become so tyrannical, so corrupt, it has transformed from a “government of the people” into a bureaucratic big brother police state because we allowed ourselves to become distracted from what is of utmost importance; freedom and the preservation of liberty for future generations.
We are now entering the final phase of a New World Order, where internationalist elite control all government to be in favor of a One World Fascist Dictatorship, worse than what George Orwell ever wrote about. A modern era of totalitarianism maintained by a technology-driven control grid, where infra-red spy satellites used by law enforcement can see through your house, drones that can keep an eye on your vehicle, taxing you by the mile, ticketing you when you run a red light. Iris-scanners and bio-scanner cameras at airports measuring your body temperature, pulse and breathing to make sure you aren’t a terrorist. Microchips that control every aspect of your daily life.
George Orwell’s chilling warning of a regime out of control seeking to rule every waking moment of a persons life is not so far off from today and the future of the 21st century. The question is, will this be the picture of what is to come.
“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face –forever.” -George Orwell.
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 9/11, al-qaeda, Anti-War, Big Brother, Bloggers, Britain, Concentration Camp, Conditioning, Congress, Continuity of Government, Control Grid, death camps, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, enemy combatant, Europe, european union, facism, Fascism, fema camp, Fema Camps, Fox News, free speech, George Bush, glenn beck, H.R. 645, halliburton, Homegrown Terrorism, Homeland Security, house senate, HR 1955, HR 6166, hr1955, internet, KBR, Martial Law, maryland, Media, Military, Nazi, obama, operation endgame, orwell, Police State, Popular Mechanics, Propaganda, Protest, Psyops, Romans 13, Ron Paul, Senate, Spy, Surveillance, thought crime, Thought Crime Bill, thought crimes, thought criminal, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: Henry Waxman, Jane Harman, National Defense Authorization act, National Security Presidential Directive 51, NDAA, NSPD 51, Peter Dale Scott
Glenn Beck on Fema Concentration Camps
San Francisco Chronicle
February 4, 2008
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the
federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law,
arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and
detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of
“an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid
development of new programs.”
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of
single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and
Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the
United States. The government has also contracted with several
companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with
shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract
is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its
goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have
complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars
should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question
is: What kind of “new programs” require the construction and
refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the
union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA),
“Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,” gives the
executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more
than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in
response to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack
or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic
violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot
maintain public order.”
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just
before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite
imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on
a list of “terrorist” organizations, or who speaks out against the
government’s policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and
noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security
Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure “continuity of
government” in the event of what the document vaguely calls a
“catastrophic emergency.” Should the president determine that such an
emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he
deems necessary to ensure “continuity of government.” This could
include everything from canceling elections to suspending the
Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a
single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up
with a new way to expand the domestic “war on terror.” Her Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955),
which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a
commission to “examine and report upon the facts and causes” of
so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make
legislative recommendations on combatting it.
According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her
colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a
native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping
investigative power to combat it.
A clue as to where Harman’s commission might be aiming is the Animal
Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who “engage in
sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name
of animal rights” as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could
be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists,
environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights
supporters … the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf,
the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000
“terror suspects” with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make
contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own
citizens?
The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked
power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president
to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
http://noworldsystem.com/2009/02/0..horizes-fema-camps-in-us/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/art..2006/240506femaplan.htm
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 9/11 Truth, Airport Security, Anti-War, Australia, Big Brother, biometrics, Bloggers, Britain, California, cashless society, cell phones, Censorship, China, Cold War, Congress, Control Grid, copyright, Darpa, data mining, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, Echelon, Empire, Europe, european union, facebook, False Flag, free speech, George Bush, Germany, global elite, global government, Globalism, google, gps, Homeland Security, inside job, internet, Internet 2, internet blackout, internet censorship, Internet Filtering, internet of things, internet police, IOT, IP, ISP, John McCain, john roberts, korea, london, Media, michael chertoff, microchip, microchips, Microsoft, nanny state, New World Order, New York, Oppression, orwell, Pentagon, Police State, Propaganda, RFID, RIAA, Science and technology, south korea, Spy, Surveillance, Tony Blair, uav, United Kingdom, US Constitution, Verichip, War On Terror, White House | Tags: HP, incheon, intel, internet regulation, john reid, korea, motorola, National Intelligence Council, new songdo city, NIC, NWO, paul otellini, privacy, Recording Industry Association of America, seoul, u-city, Ubiquitous computing, Ubiquitous living, Ubiquitous positioning, utopia, Video and Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool, VIRAT
Australia To Enforce Mandatory Chinese-Style Internet Censorship
Government to block “controversial” websites with universal national filter
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
October 29, 2008
The Australian government is set to impose Chinese-style Internet censorship by enforcing a universal national filter that will block websites deemed “controversial,” as part of a wider agenda to regulate the Internet according to free speech advocates.
A provision whereby Internet users could opt out of the filter by contacting their ISP has been stripped from the legislation, meaning the filter will be universal and mandatory.
The System Administrators Guild of Australia and Electronic Frontiers Australia have attacked the proposal, saying it will restrict web access, raise prices and slow internet traffic speeds.
The plan was first created as a way to combat child pornography and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia,” reports the Australian Herald Sun.
Communications minister Stephen Conroy revealed the mandatory censorship to the Senate estimates committee as the Global Network Initiative, bringing together leading companies, human rights organisations, academics and investors, committed the technology firms to “protect the freedom of expression and privacy rights of their users”. (Complete black is white, up is down, double talk).
Human Rights Watch has condemned internet censorship, and argued to the US Senate “there is a real danger of a Virtual Curtain dividing the internet, much as the Iron Curtain did during the Cold War, because some governments fear the potential of the internet, (and) want to control it.”
Speaking from personal experience, not only are “controversial” websites blocked in China, meaning any website that is critical of the state, but every website the user attempts to visit first has to pass through the “great firewall,” causing the browser to hang and delay while it is checked against a government blacklist.
This causes excruciating delays, and the user experience is akin to being on a bad dial-up connection in the mid 1990’s. Even in the center of Shanghai with a fixed ethernet connection, the user experience is barely tolerable.
Not only are websites in China blocked, but e mails too are scanned for “controversial” words and blocked from being sent if they contain phrases related to politics or obscenities.
Googling for information on certain topics is also heavily restricted. While in China I tried to google “Bush Taiwan,” which resulted in Google.com ceasing to be accessible and my Internet connection was immediately terminated thereafter.
The Australian government will no doubt insist that their filter is in our best interests and is only designed to block child pornography, snuff films and other horrors, yet the system is completely pointless because it will not affect file sharing networks, which is the medium through which the vast majority of such material is distributed.
If we allow Australia to become the first “free” nation to impose Internet censorship, the snowball effect will only accelerate – the U.S. and the UK are next.
Indeed, Prime Minister Tony Blair called for Internet censorship last year.
In April 2007, Time magazine reported that researchers funded by the federal government want to shut down the internet and start over, citing the fact that at the moment there are loopholes in the system whereby users cannot be tracked and traced all the time. The projects echo moves we have previously reported on to clamp down on internet neutrality and even to designate a new form of the internet known as Internet 2.
Moves to regulate the web have increased over the last two years.
– In a display of bi-partisanship, there have been calls for all out mandatory ISP snooping on all US citizens by both Democrats and Republicans alike.
– In December 2006, Republican Senator John McCain tabled a proposal to introduce legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards. It is well known that McCain has a distaste for his blogosphere critics, causing a definite conflict of interest where any proposal to restrict blogs on his part is concerned.
– During an appearance with his wife Barbara on Fox News in November 2006, George Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an “adversarial and ugly climate.”
– The White House’s own de-classified strategy for “winning the war on terror” targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to “diminish” their influence.
– The Pentagon has also announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.
– In an October 2006 speech, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a “terror training camp,” through which “disaffected people living in the United States” are developing “radical ideologies and potentially violent skills.” His solution is “intelligence fusion centers,” staffed by Homeland Security personnel which will are already in operation.
– The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress. Criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year could be the punishment for non-compliance.
– A landmark November 2006 legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations sought to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web – and their argument was supported by the U.S. government.
– A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.
– The European Union, led by former Stalinist John Reid, has also vowed to shut down “terrorists” who use the Internet to spread propaganda.
– The EU data retention bill, passed after much controversy and implemented in 2007, obliges telephone operators and internet service providers to store information on who called who and who emailed who for at least six months. Under this law, investigators in any EU country, and most bizarrely even in the US, can access EU citizens’ data on phone calls, sms’, emails and instant messaging services.
– The EU also proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license.
– The US government is also funding research into social networking sites and how to gather and store personal data published on them, according to the New Scientist magazine. “At the same time, US lawmakers are attempting to force the social networking sites themselves to control the amount and kind of information that people, particularly children, can put on the sites.”
Governments are furious that their ceaseless lies are being exposed in real time on the World Wide Web and have resolved to stifle, regulate and control what truly is the last outpost of real free speech in the world. Internet censorship is perhaps the most pertinent issue that freedom advocates should rally to combat over the course of the next few years, lest we allow a cyber-gag to be placed over our mouths and say goodbye to our last medium of free and open communication.
DARPA building search engine for video surveillance footage
Ars Technica
October 21, 2008
The government agency that birthed the Internet is developing a sophisticated search engine for video, and when complete will allow intelligence analysts to sift through live footage from spy drones, as well as thousands of hours worth of archived recordings, in order to spot a variety of selected events or behaviors. In the past month, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced nearly $20 million in total contracts for private firms to begin developing the system, which is slated to take until at least 2011 to complete.
According to a prospectus written in March but released only this month, the Video and Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool (VIRAT) will enable intel analysts to “rapidly find video content of interest from archives and provide alerts to the analyst of events of interest during live operations,” taking both conventional video and footage from infrared scanners as input. The VIRAT project is an effort to cope with a growing data glut that has taxed intelligence resources because of the need to have trained human personnel perform time- and labor-intensive review of recorded video.
The DARPA overview emphasizes that VIRAT will not be designed with “face recognition, gait recognition, human identification, or any form of biometrics” in mind. Rather, the system will search for classes of activities or events. A suggested partial list in the prospectus includes digging, loitering, exploding, shooting, smoking, following, shaking hand, exchanging objects, crawling under a car, breaking a window, and evading a checkpoint. As new sample clips are fed into the system, it will need to recognize the signature features of new classes of search terms.
EU Set to Move ‘Internet of Things’ Closer to Reality
Daniel Taylor
Old-Thinker News
November 2, 2008
If the world-wide trend continues, ‘Web 3.0′ will be tightly monitored, and will become an unprecedented tool for surveillance. The “Internet of Things”, a digital representation of real world objects and people tagged with RFID chips, and increased censorship are two main themes for the future of the web.
The future of the internet, according to author and “web critic” Andrew Keen, will be monitored by “gatekeepers” to verify the accuracy of information posted on the web. The “Outlook 2009″ report from the November-December issue of The Futurist reports that,
“Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen believes that the anonymity of today’s internet 2.0 will give way to a more open internet 3.0 in which third party gatekeepers monitor the information posted on Web sites to verify its accuracy.”
Keen stated during his early 2008 interview withThe Futurist that the internet, in its current form, has undermined mainline media and empowered untrustworthy “amateurs”, two trends that he wants reversed. “Rather than the empowerment of the amateur, Web 3.0 will show the resurgence of the professional,” states Keen.
Australia has now joined China in implementing mandatory internet censorship, furthering the trend towards a locked down and monitored web.
The Internet of Things
Now, the European Union has announced that it will pursue the main component of Web 3.0, the Internet of Things (IoT).
According to Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media for the EU, “The Internet of the future will radically change our society.” Ultimately, the EU is aiming to “lead the way” in the transformation to Web 3.0.
Reporting on the European Union’s pursuit of the IoT, iBLS reports,
“New technology applications will need ubiquitous Internet coverage. The Internet of Things means that wireless interaction between machines, vehicles, appliances, sensors and many other devices will take place using the Internet. It already makes electronic travel cards possible, and will allow mobile devices to exchange information to pay for things or get information from billboards (or streetlights).”
The Internet of Things consists of objects that are ‘tagged’ with Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFID) that communicate their position, history, and other information to an RFID reader or wireless network. Most, if not all major computer companies and technology developers (HP, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, etc.) are putting large amounts of time and money into the Internet of Things.
Cisco and Sun Microsystems have founded an alliance to promote the Internet of Things and further its implementation.
South Korea is at the forefront in implementing ubiquitous technology and the Internet of Things. An entire city, New Songdo, is being built in South Korea that fully utilizes the technology. Ubiquitous computing proponents in the United States admit that while a large portion of the technology is being developed in the U.S., it is being tested in South Korea where there are less traditional, ethical and social blockades to prevent its acceptance and use. As the New York Times reports
“Much of this technology was developed in U.S. research labs, but there are fewer social and regulatory obstacles to implementing them in Korea,” said Mr. Townsend [a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California], who consulted on Seoul’s own U-city plan, known as Digital Media City. ‘There is an historical expectation of less privacy. Korea is willing to put off the hard questions to take the early lead and set standards.’”
An April 2008 report from the National Intelligence Council discussed the Internet of Things and its possible implications.
A timeline shown in the April 2008 NIC report
The report outlines uses for the technology:
“Sensor networks need not be connected to the Internet and indeed often reside in remote sites, vehicles, and buildings having no Internet connection. Smart dust is a term that some have used to express a vision of tiny, wireless-connected sensors; more recently, others use the term to describe any of several technologies that range from the size of a pack of gum to a pack of cigarettes, and that are widely available to system developers.
Ubiquitous positioning describes technologies for locating objects that may reside anywhere, including indoors and underground locations where satellite signals may be unavailable or otherwise inadequate.
Biometrics enables technology to recognize people and other living things, rather than inanimate objects. Connected everyday objects could recognize authorized users by means of fingerprint, voiceprint, iris scan, or other biometric technology.”
These trends towards internet censorship and the internet of things are undoubtedly going to continue, but restricting your free speech and violating your privacy will be harder with your outspoken resistance.
DARPA spies on analyst brains; hopes to offload image analysis to computers
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20..-image-analysis-to-computers.html
Security services want personal data from sites like Facebook
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/15/terrorism-security
UK.gov says: Regulate the internet
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/20/government_internet_regulation/
Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, Britain, Control Grid, Dictatorship, Empire, Europe, european union, Fascism, gps, nanny state, Nazi, Oppression, orwell, Police State, Science and technology, Spy, spy satellite, Surveillance, United Kingdom | Tags: cop satellite, department of transport, satellite, speeding
Speeding drivers could be stopped by satellite
Telegraph
September 15, 2008
Drivers could have their speed controlled by satellite to stop them from breaking the limit following a Government trial of new technology.
Cars fitted with the system would have their speed automatically monitored by satellites, which would also be programmed with the speed limits for different roads.
A motorist who tried to accelerate beyond the speed limit would find the system stopping the car from going any faster or issuing a warning instructing them to slow down.
The Department for Transport is set to back the system known as Intelligent Speed Adaptation. It follows lengthy trials conducted in Leeds in where cars have been fitted with the sophisticated satellite navigation system.
The Department for Transport said that the installation of the technology would be voluntary, but it is already in talks with the motor industry over how it could be made available for those who wanted to buy it.
Three types of the technology could be made available:
The first, known as “advisory”, would stop short of actually slowing the car down and would instead issue a voice alert reminding the motorist what the speed limit is.
A second version would either apply the brakes or cut the fuel supply to the engine, slowing it down to the speed limit, but a driver would be able to override the system – either by depressing the accelerator pedal firmly or pressing a button.
The third would take over complete control of the car and the driver would not be able to override the system at all.
Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, Britain, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Conditioning, Control Grid, Dictatorship, DNA Database, Empire, Europe, european union, Fascism, garbage police, gps, litter police, litter wardens, Media, nanny state, Oppression, orwell, pepperspray, police brutality, Police State, RNC, Sarkozy, Spy, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, Texas, TSA, United Kingdom, War On Terror | Tags: East Yorkshire, Eastrington, Home Office, Jacqui Smith, Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, RIPA
Council threatens families with a £1,000 fine… for parking on their own driveways
Daily Mail
September 10, 2008
Furious residents have been left stunned after a council threatened to fine them £1,000 – for parking on their own driveways.
Homeowners in a quiet village have been told they have the wrong type of kerbs, despite having driven over them for the 50 years since the properties were built.
Councillors are using a law passed 30 years ago to stop them from parking beside their own homes.
But residents each face a £1,200 bill if they install ‘dropped kerbs’ that allow easier access to their driveways.
The council threat came in a letter delivered to 12 houses on Pinfold Street, a quiet road with smart semi-detached houses worth around £200,000 in Eastrington, East Yorkshire.
The properties were built between 1949 and 1952. Some were built with driveways and others were added years later.
Two of the houses are council-owned, but they still received the letter – including baffled Ken Laverack, whose drive was built by the council 20 years ago after the 1980 Highways Act was introduced.
Retired Ken, 61, said: ‘I just couldn’t believe it when the letter arrived.
‘The council themselves put my drive in 20 years ago and now they’re saying I can’t use it. It’s absolutely ridiculous, my car is just on the road now.
Anti-terrorism laws used to spy on noisy children
Chris Hastings
London Telegraph
September 7, 2008
Councils are using anti-terrorism laws to spy on residents and tackle barking dogs and noisy children.
An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph found that three quarters of local authorities have used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 over the past year.
The Act gives councils the right to place residents and businesses under surveillance, trace telephone and email accounts and even send staff on undercover missions.
The findings alarmed civil liberties campaigners. Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: “Councils do a grave disservice to professional policing by using serious surveillance against litterbugs instead of terrorists.”
The RIPA was introduced to help fight terrorism and crime. But a series of extensions, first authorised by David Blunkett in 2003, mean that Britain’s 474 councils can use the law to tackle minor misdemeanours.
Councils are using the Act to tackle dog fouling, the unauthorised sale of pizzas and the abuse of the blue badge scheme for disabled drivers.
Among 115 councils that responded to a Freedom of Information request, 89 admitted that they had instigated investigations under the Act. The 82 councils that provided figures said that they authorised or carried out a total of 867 RIPA investigations during the year to August
UK: Civilians Given Power To Issue Fines
London Telegraph
August 28, 2008
Despite lacking formal police training, hundreds of civilians have been made part of the “extended police family” by the Home Office under little-known legislation.
They have not been asked to wear any special uniforms to identify themselves, but must wear only a badge that can be as small as 73mm x 80mm.
The disclosure that hundreds of civilians have been given enforcement powers drew accusations that the Government is encouraging the spread of unaccountable policing.
The Home Office revealed yesterday that more than 1,600 non-police officers have been given enforcement powers under its so-called Community Safety Accreditation Schemes.
The schemes, introduced in 2002 legislation, give chief constables the power to serve penalty notices for activities including disorder, truancy, cycling on pavements, littering and dog fouling. They can also be used for seizing alcohol from under-age drinkers and to demand people’s names and addresses.
The Home Office has carried out an audit of police use of the powers which showed that 23 police forces have Community Safety Accreditation Schemes in place.
A total of 1,406 staff from 95 “approved organizations” including local councils and private companies have been given enforcement powers.
Another 255 people have been given powers as Vehicle Operator Services Agency Inspectors, who are issued with the single power to stop vehicles for the purpose of testing.
In 2006, there were only 950 accredited workers for 71 organisations.
Dominic Grieve, the Conservative shadow home secretary, said the scheme was the latest example of the unjustified extension of surveillance powers under Labour.
He said: “The public will be angered that the Home Office is seeking to take serious powers that should be appropriately applied by the police and encouraging them to be given not just to local councils, but also to private firms.
“The public want to see real police on the streets discharging these responsibilities, not private firms who may use them inappropriately – including unnecessarily snooping on the lives of ordinary citizens.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Community Safety Accreditation Schemes enable Chief Constables to designate limited powers to employees of organisations who contribute towards community safety.
“CSAS supports Neighbourhood Policing by building links, improving communications and helping in the delivery of effective policing to neighbourhoods. Accredited Persons have a key role to play in the delivery of Neighbourhood Policing and are an important part of the extended police family.”
RNC protester yells “i love you” while assaulted, peppersprayed by police
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-..R2008090702340.html
Now it’s the citizen snoopers: Councils recruit unpaid volunteers to spy on their neighbours
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-..ecruit-unpaid-volunteers-spy-neighbours.html
Police Using G.P.S. Units as Evidence in Crimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/us/31gps.html
Jacqui Smith’s ‘Stasi’: Now even more council jobsworths can demand your details and issue fines
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1..e–parking-driveways.html
No Bike Helmet? Police To Steal Your Bike
http://www.boston.com/news/local/../no_bike_helmet_lose_your_wheels/
http://mparent7777-1.livejournal.com/1509622.html
UK: Fines For Placing Garbage In Wrong Bin
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew..utting-wrong-waste-in-green-bins.html
Texas state troopers direct policing in Canada
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-../08/28/bc-rcmp-texas-troopers.html
French revolt over Edvige: Nicolas Sarkozy’s Big Brother spy computer
http://jimbovard.com/blog/2008/08/27/tsa-federal-attitude-police/
TSA agents can slap fines on Americans based on “attitude”
http://jimbovard.com/blog/2008/08/27/tsa-federal-attitude-police/
Police plan ’supermarket cells’ to hold shoplifters and drunks
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopi..o-hold-shoplifters-and-drunks.html
Filed under: Al Gore, carbon dioxide, chemtrails, Co2, coal, eco-nazis, environmentalist, environmentalists, Europe, european union, global cooling, Global Warming, greenpeace, kenya, Spy, stasi, stasi tactics, United Kingdom, weather manipulation, weather modification, world wildlife fund | Tags: coal-fired plants, coal-fired station, coal-powered station, Criminal Damage Act 1971, geo-engineering, kent, Kingsnorth power station
Jury Clears Greenpeace For Damaging Coal-Fired Station
Michael McCarthy
London Independent
September 11, 2008
The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.
Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a “lawful excuse” to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of “lawful excuse” under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.
The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain’s green agenda and could encourage further direct action.
Kingsnorth was the centre for mass protests by climate camp activists last month. Last year, three protesters managed to paint Gordon Brown’s name on the plant’s chimney. Their handi-work cost £35,000 to remove.
The plan to build a successor to the power station is likely to be the first of a new generation of coal-fired plants. As coal produces more of the carbon emissions causing climate change than any other fuel, campaigners claim that a new station would be a disastrous setback in the battle against global warming, and send out a negative signal to the rest of the world about how serious Britain really is about tackling the climate threat.
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