RT
June 28, 2013
Soon the FBI will be done building a database containing the photographs,
fingerprints and other biometric data for millions of Americans, but the agency
has been far from forthcoming with the details. A new lawsuit filed this week
aims to change that.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group based
out of California, sued the United States Department of Justice this week for
failing to comply with multiple Freedom of Information Act requests filed last
year by the EFF.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation received no fewer than three FOIA
requests from the EFF last year for details about its state-of-the-art Next
Generation Identification program, or NGI, a system that will store
personally-identifiable data for millions of Americans and foreign nationals to
act as what the FBI has called a “bigger, faster and better” version of what law
enforcement already uses. But while the bureau has indeed already been using
fingerprint information to track down potential terrorists and troublemakers for
years, the EFF’s main concern revolves around what sort of space-age face
recognition abilities NGI will be able to employ.
The FBI previously acknowledged that NGI will “house multimodal biometrics
records like palm prints and iris scans” in one master system, as well as facial
imaging information and intelligence about scars, marks and tattoos. Eventually,
the agency said, it hopes to incorporate technology to track down people using
only their voice. For now, though, the EFF is interested in what the facial
recognition infrastructure will be able to do, and is demanding the FBI fesses
up.
“NGI will change almost everything about how the FBI treats photograph
submissions,” the complaint filed this week reads. Citing government documents,
the EFF says that the system will allow “the increased capacity to retain
photographic images, additional opportunities for agencies to submit
photographic images and additional search capabilities, including automated
searches.”
“The proposed new system would also allow law enforcement ‘to collect and
retain other images (such as those obtained from crime scene security cameras’
and from family and friends) and would allow submission of ‘civil photographs
along with civil fingerprint submissions that were collected for noncriminal
purposes,’” the EFF continues.
When all is said and done, the FBI will be able to use NGI to scan millions
of entries in a single database to find someone based off of a single
photograph, and the EFF fears that could send things down a slippery slope.
“Governmental use of face recognition — and the potential for misuse — raises
many privacy concerns,” the EFF says in the lawsuit.
Using statements already made by the FBI about the program, the EFF presents
an argument about why they should be worried that’s hard to counter.
“The FBI has also stated in a public presentation given at a national
biometrics conference that it wants to use its facial recognition system to
‘identify unknown persons of interest from images’ and ‘identify subjects in
public datasets,’” the complaint continues. “In the same presentation, the FBI
included a graphic image that implied the Bureau wanted to use facial
recognition to be able to track people from one political rally to another.”
Another digital watchdog group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, previously alleged that NGI system could be integrated with
other surveillance technology in order to enable “real-time image-matching of
live feeds from CCTV surveillance cameras.”
Obtaining information about how the FBI will manage and operate this
information has been a priority for the EFF for over a year now, and the failure
to comply with those FOIA requests has finally prompted the organization to ask
a court to intervene.
“NGI will result in a massive expansion of government data collection for
both criminal and noncriminal purposes,” EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch said
in a statement this week. “Biometrics programs present critical threats to civil
liberties and privacy. Face-recognition technology is among the most alarming
new developments, because Americans cannot easily take precautions against the
covert, remote and mass capture of their images.”
The EFF is asking the court to enforce the FOIA requests sent last June and
July, which could compel the FBI to disclose information about the
face-recognition program and any plans to merge civilian and criminal records in
a single database. They are also asking for the total number of face-recognition
capable records currently in the database and an assessment of what number the
agency expects to have when it rolls out the program in 2014.
“Before the federal government decides to expand its surveillance powers,
there needs to be a public debate,” Lynch said. “But there can be no public
debate until the details of the program are presented to the public.”
In a July 18, 2012 assessment, the FBI reported that the program was “on
scope, on schedule, on cost and 60 percent deployed.” The program is being put
together by contractors Lockheed Martin, who are expected to rake in $1 billion
from the government by the time the NGI system is finally up and running.
The FBI previously admitted that they found 7,380 records that were
“potentially responsive” to one of the EFF’s request, but has yet to deliver
actual information pursuant to any of the three FOIA submissions filed,
prompting the nonprofit to allege the FBI is “dragging its feet.”
“FBI has not explained to the public how NGI or IAFIS’s system design would
ensure that civil submissions are not ‘tainted’ by criminal submissions or
explained why it is necessary to combine the two types of data,” the EFF wrote
in the complaint.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Fast Food Burgers Oozing With Parasites and Ammonia
Anthony Gucciardi
Natural Society
June 27, 2013
The world of meat-eaters got a rude awakening earlier this year when it was found that meat passed off as beef in the U.K. was actually horse meat. But, if you thought meat in the U.S. was safe from secret ingredients, the bliss of your ignorance may soon be shattered. A recent analysis into several different fast food hamburgers found relatively little meat, and a whole host of other “stuff”.
According to GreenMedInfo, the study was to determine what exactly Americans are eating when they consume their 5 billion hamburgers annually. The burgers, from 8 different fast food establishments, were analyzed by weight and then microscopically for tissue types.
Their analysis found that water constituted about half of the weight of the burgers, with water content ranging from 37.7% to 62.4%, with an average of 49%. Meat, what you’d expect to make up the majority of the burgers, was found to be as low as 2.1% in some cases, to the maximum of 14.8% in others.
Read More
Natural Society
June 27, 2013
The world of meat-eaters got a rude awakening earlier this year when it was found that meat passed off as beef in the U.K. was actually horse meat. But, if you thought meat in the U.S. was safe from secret ingredients, the bliss of your ignorance may soon be shattered. A recent analysis into several different fast food hamburgers found relatively little meat, and a whole host of other “stuff”.
According to GreenMedInfo, the study was to determine what exactly Americans are eating when they consume their 5 billion hamburgers annually. The burgers, from 8 different fast food establishments, were analyzed by weight and then microscopically for tissue types.
Their analysis found that water constituted about half of the weight of the burgers, with water content ranging from 37.7% to 62.4%, with an average of 49%. Meat, what you’d expect to make up the majority of the burgers, was found to be as low as 2.1% in some cases, to the maximum of 14.8% in others.
Read More
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Michael Hastings’ Wife Vows to “Take Down Whoever Did This”
Friend of journalist reveals colleagues were “too scared” to release panicked email
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 26, 2013
The wife of Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings, who was
killed in what many people believe was a suspicious car crash last week, has
vowed to “take down whoever did this,” according to the man who released an
email in which Hastings told friends he was being harassed by the
government.
Staff Sergeant Joseph Biggs, who yesterday told Fox News that Hastings was working on “the
biggest story yet” about the CIA before his untimely death, was responsible for
releasing an email Hastings wrote 15 hours before his car crash in which the
journalist stated he was “onto a big story” and needed “to go off the rada[r]
for a bit.”
Biggs tweeted that the reason he released the email was because
Hastings’ other friends and colleagues who received it were “too scared” to do
so.
After the email was released, Hastings’ wife Elise Jordan thanked
Biggs and vowed to “take down whoever did this,” according to Biggs.
Biggs, who met Hastings when he was an embedded journalist in
Afghanistan in 2008, added, “I won’t let a man die in vein [sic] because I’m too
scared of what will happen to me. If I sent that email to Mike he wouldn’t rest,
he would fight.”
In his interview with Fox News yesterday, Biggs also said that
Hastings “drove like a grandma” and that it was totally out of character for him
to be speeding in the early hours of the morning.
Earlier this week, former counter-terror czar under two different
presidents Richard Clarke told the Huffington Post that the fatal crash
of Hastings’ Mercedes C250 Coupe was “consistent with a car cyber attack.”
Hastings had made numerous powerful enemies as a result of his
exposure of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal in 2010, receiving several death threats
in the process.
According to Hastings’ colleague Cenk Uygur, the writer was,
“incredibly tense and very worried, and was concerned that the government was
looking in on his material,” and also a “nervous wreck” in response to the
surveillance of journalists revealed by the AP phone tapping scandal and the NSA
PRISM scandal.
BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith added that Hastings had told friends and
family “he was concerned that he was under investigation.”
Another close friend who wishes to remain anonymous said that
Hastings was “very paranoid that he was being watched by the FBI.”
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Concentration Camps Revisited: National Emergency Centers Establishment Act 2013
Infowars.com
June 25, 2013
On Tuesday, a caller to the Alex Jones Show
brought up H.R.390, the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act, introduced in
the House of Representatives on January 23 of this year by Florida Democrat Alcee L. Hastings. The bill – submitted to the Subcommittee
on Intelligence, Emerging Threats & Capabilities – is a reformulation of an
earlier bill going by the same name, H.R. 645, introduced in 2009. That bill was referred to committee and subsequently died there.
If it had made it out of committee, the earlier
legislation would direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to do the
following:
(1) to provide temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster;
(2) to provide centralized locations for the purposes of training and ensuring the coordination of Federal, State, and local first responders;
(3) to provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations; and
(4) to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
H.R. 390 proposes to accomplish the same objectives. It will “designate closed military installations as sites whenever possible and to designate portions of existing military installations as centers otherwise.”
Responding to the earlier bill, then Congressman Ron Paul said the legislation would be used to incarcerate Americans following the establishment of martial law. “Yeah, that’s their goal, they’re setting up the stage for violence in this country, no doubt about it,” Paul responded to a question about the House bill. “They’re putting their back up against the wall and saying, if need be we’re going to have martial law,” Paul added.
In December 2008, the Washington Post reported on plans to station 20,000 more U.S. troops inside America for purposes of “domestic security” from September 2011 onwards, an expansion of Northcom’s militarization of the country in preparation for potential civil unrest following a total economic collapse or a terror attack.
H.R. 645 followed up on a number of significant events, including the stationing of active duty military personnel inside the U.S. under Northcom, in part for the purpose of “crowd control.”
Prior to the introduction of the bill, U.S. troops returning from Iraq were assigned to conduct “homeland patrols” and part of that assignment was to deal with “civil unrest and crowd control.”
In the years leading up to FEMA concentration camp
legislation, the government prepared for the eventuality of civil and political
unrest. Rex 84, Operation Garden Plot, Operation Cable Splicer, and a flurry of
executive orders issued over the years have established the framework for
concentration camps.
Add to this the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, provided by Army Regulation
210-35, that establishes labor programs and prison camps on Army installations.
It was issued in 2005, well before the current legislation of its predecessor.
Signaling that the effort was not sidelined or mothballed, in January 2006,
Kellogg, Brown and Root reported that they had received a contract from the
Department of Homeland Security to expand these internment camps.
The government is determined to keep information about its FEMA concentration camps as secret as possible. This was demonstrated in December, 2010, when TruTV inexplicably pulled an episode of Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory dealing with FEMA camps and fusion centers.
It is not certain H.R.390 will make it out of
committee and become law. But its reintroduction earlier this year reveals a
sincere desire on the part of the establishment to put a martial law detention
infrastructure in place, especially now as the economy continues its danse
macabre and the prospect of revolution grows within the United States.
Friend: Michael Hastings Was Working on “Biggest Story Yet” About CIA
Sgt. Joe Biggs says journalist would never have driven at high speed
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 25, 2013
A friend of Michael Hastings told Fox News today that the Rolling Stone journalist was working on the “the biggest story yet” about the CIA before his suspicious death and that Hastings drove “like a grandma,” making it extremely out of character for him to be speeding in the early hours of the morning.
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 25, 2013
A friend of Michael Hastings told Fox News today that the Rolling Stone journalist was working on the “the biggest story yet” about the CIA before his suspicious death and that Hastings drove “like a grandma,” making it extremely out of character for him to be speeding in the early hours of the morning.
Sgt. Joe Biggs told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that “something didn’t
feel right” after Hastings sent a panicked email saying the authorities were on
his tail, adding that the story of him driving at high speed in the early hours
of the morning was completely out of character.
“His friends and family that know him, everyone says he drives
like a grandma, so that right there doesn’t seem like something he’d be doing,
there’s no way that he’d be acting erratic like that and driving out of
control,” said Biggs, adding that “things don’t add up, there’s a lot of
questions that need to be answered.”
Biggs said he had contacted Mercedes asking them if it was normal
for their cars to “blow up to that extent” and for the engine to fly out 100
feet from the site of the crash.
Biggs also confirmed that Hastings was working on a story about
the CIA and that it was “going to be the biggest story yet.”
As we reported yesterday, questions surrounding the death of
Hastings are not only the domain of conspiracy theorists. Former counter-terror
czar under two different presidents Richard Clarke told the Huffington Post that
the fatal crash of Hastings’ Mercedes C250 Coupe was “consistent with a car
cyber attack.”
“So if there were a cyber attack on the car — and I’m not saying
there was,” he said, adding “I think whoever did it would probably get away with
it,” and that “intelligence agencies for major powers” have such
capabilities.
Clarke’s speculation that Hastings’ vehicle could have been
remotely hijacked is echoed by Salon.com’s Andrew Leonard, who cites two studies
by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California,
San Diego, “Experimental Security Analysis of a Modern Vehicle,” and
“Comprehensive Experimental Analyses of Automotive Attack Surfaces.”
The studies detail how “it is a relatively trivial exercise to
access the computer systems of a modern car and take control away from the
driver.”
Questions about the circumstances behind Hastings’ death have
persisted because he made a number of enemies in positions of power.
After Wikileaks reported that Hastings had contacted them in the
hours before his death complaining about being under investigation by the FBI,
the federal agency denied the claim.
According to Hastings’ colleague Cenk Uygur, the writer was,
“incredibly tense and very worried, and was concerned that the government was
looking in on his material,” and also a “nervous wreck” in response to the
surveillance of journalists revealed by the AP phone tapping scandal and the NSA
PRISM scandal.
BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith added that Hastings had told friends and
family “he was concerned that he was under investigation.”
Another close friend who wishes to remain anonymous said that
Hastings was “very paranoid that he was being watched by the FBI.”
It subsequently emerged that Hastings had written a panicked email shortly before his death
telling his friends and colleagues that he was going into hiding to escape the
attention of the authorities.
“Hey — the feds are interviewing my “close friends and
associates,” the message said. “Also: I’m onto a big story, and need to go off
the [radar] for a bit.”
Monday, June 24, 2013
Illegal immigrants who commit crimes face lesser punishment than U.S. citizens
Gabriella Morrongiell
Washington Examiner
June 24, 2013
According to Sen. John McCain, a member of the Senate’s Gang of Eight, criminals will not be legalized under the proposed bipartisan immigration bill.
“Anyone who has committed crimes in this country is going to be deported,” the Arizona Republican declared on the Senate floor last week.
However, as Washington Examiner columnist Byron York recently reported, “the bottom line is an immigrant could have more than three misdemeanor convictions in his background check and still qualify for legalization.”
Read More
Washington Examiner
June 24, 2013
According to Sen. John McCain, a member of the Senate’s Gang of Eight, criminals will not be legalized under the proposed bipartisan immigration bill.
“Anyone who has committed crimes in this country is going to be deported,” the Arizona Republican declared on the Senate floor last week.
However, as Washington Examiner columnist Byron York recently reported, “the bottom line is an immigrant could have more than three misdemeanor convictions in his background check and still qualify for legalization.”
Read More
Iraq Vet Kills Himself After Being Ordered to Commit “War Crimes”
“These things go far beyond what most are even aware of”
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 24, 2013
Iraq war veteran Daniel Somers committed suicide following an
arduous battle with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that was caused by his
role in committing “crimes against humanity,” according to the soldier’s suicide
note.
Somers was assigned to a Tactical Human-Intelligence Team (THT) in
Baghdad which saw him involved in more than 400 combat missions as a machine
gunner in the turret of a Humvee, in addition to his role in conducting
interrogations.
Somers’ suicide note is a powerful indictment of the invasion of
Iraq and how it ruined the lives of both countless millions of Iraqis as well as
innumerable US troops sent in to do the dirty work of the military-industrial
complex.
“The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made
to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes,
crimes against humanity,” wrote Somers. “Though I did not participate willingly,
and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some
things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that,
actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the
mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even
aware of.”
Somers also complains about how he was forced to “participate in
the ensuing coverup” of such crimes.
Somers’ death serves to refocus attention on the fact that
military veterans are committing suicide in droves after being afflicted with
PTSD as a direct result of committing atrocities while in combat.
As Somers highlights in his note, 22 military veterans commit
suicide every single day. Amongst active-duty soldiers, more than one a
day commit suicide, a figure that surpassed the number of US troops killed in
combat in Afghanistan.
“And according to some experts, the military may be undercounting
the problem because of the way it calculates its suicide rate,” reports the New York Times, adding that experts cannot
understand “the root causes of why military suicide is rising so fast.”
However, the root causes are laid bare in Somers’ suicide note. US
troops are being ordered to commit atrocities so vile that the only way many of
them can cope with the horror of what they have done is by killing
themselves.
Examples of atrocities aided directly or indirectly by US troops
in Iraq include;
- Orders to slaughter “all military age men” during some operations;
- Torturing detainees – many of whom had never engaged in
combat and were totally innocent - at grisly prison camps across
the country;
- Raping and torturing children at the infamous Abu Ghraib
detention facility while they shrieked in terror. Women forced to watch later
begged to be killed.
- Sodomizing detainees with chemical lights and broom
sticks;
- Indiscriminately firing upon
and killing journalists and children from the air;
- Massacring entire groups of unarmed Iraqis, including
children and the elderly in Hadith.
“This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide,
but a mercy killing,” wrote Somers, adding that him living “any kind of ordinary
life is an insult to those who died at my hand.”
Read Somers’ full suicide note below, obtained by Gawker and published with his family’s permission.
———————————————————–
I am sorry that it has come to this.
The fact is, for as long as I can remember my motivation for
getting up every day has been so that you would not have to bury me. As things
have continued to get worse, it has become clear that this alone is not a
sufficient reason to carry on. The fact is, I am not getting better, I am not
going to get better, and I will most certainly deteriorate further as time goes
on. From a logical standpoint, it is better to simply end things quickly and let
any repercussions from that play out in the short term than to drag things out
into the long term.
You will perhaps be sad for a time, but over time you will forget
and begin to carry on. Far better that than to inflict my growing misery upon
you for years and decades to come, dragging you down with me. It is because I
love you that I can not do this to you. You will come to see that it is a far
better thing as one day after another passes during which you do not have to
worry about me or even give me a second thought. You will find that your world
is better without me in it.
I really have been trying to hang on, for more than a decade now.
Each day has been a testament to the extent to which I cared, suffering
unspeakable horror as quietly as possible so that you could feel as though I was
still here for you. In truth, I was nothing more than a prop, filling space so
that my absence would not be noted. In truth, I have already been absent for a
long, long time.
My body has become nothing but a cage, a source of pain and
constant problems. The illness I have has caused me pain that not even the
strongest medicines could dull, and there is no cure. All day, every day a
screaming agony in every nerve ending in my body. It is nothing short of
torture. My mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible horror,
unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications
the doctors dare give. Simple things that everyone else takes for granted are
nearly impossible for me. I can not laugh or cry. I can barely leave the house.
I derive no pleasure from any activity. Everything simply comes down to passing
time until I can sleep again. Now, to sleep forever seems to be the most
merciful thing.
You must not blame yourself. The simple truth is this: During my
first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is
hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity. Though I did not
participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these
events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I
take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of
such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far
beyond what most are even aware of.
To force me to do these things and then participate in the ensuing
coverup is more than any government has the right to demand. Then, the same
government has turned around and abandoned me. They offer no help, and actively
block the pursuit of gaining outside help via their corrupt agents at the DEA.
Any blame rests with them.
Beyond that, there are the host of physical illnesses that have
struck me down again and again, for which they also offer no help. There might
be some progress by now if they had not spent nearly twenty years denying the
illness that I and so many others were exposed to. Further complicating matters
is the repeated and severe brain injuries to which I was subjected, which they
also seem to be expending no effort into understanding. What is known is that
each of these should have been cause enough for immediate medical attention,
which was not rendered.
Lastly, the DEA enters the picture again as they have now managed
to create such a culture of fear in the medical community that doctors are too
scared to even take the necessary steps to control the symptoms. All under the
guise of a completely manufactured “overprescribing epidemic,” which stands in
stark relief to all of the legitimate research, which shows the opposite to be
true. Perhaps, with the right medication at the right doses, I could have bought
a couple of decent years, but even that is too much to ask from a regime built
upon the idea that suffering is noble and relief is just for the weak.
However, when the challenges facing a person are already so great
that all but the weakest would give up, these extra factors are enough to push a
person over the edge.
Is it any wonder then that the latest figures show 22 veterans
killing themselves each day? That is more veterans than children killed at Sandy
Hook, every single day. Where are the huge policy initiatives? Why isn’t the
president standing with those families at the state of the union? Perhaps
because we were not killed by a single lunatic, but rather by his own system of
dehumanization, neglect, and indifference.
It leaves us to where all we have to look forward to is constant
pain, misery, poverty, and dishonor. I assure you that, when the numbers do
finally drop, it will merely be because those who were pushed the farthest are
all already dead.
And for what? Bush’s religious lunacy? Cheney’s ever growing
fortune and that of his corporate friends? Is this what we destroy lives for
Since then, I have tried everything to fill the void. I tried to
move into a position of greater power and influence to try and right some of the
wrongs. I deployed again, where I put a huge emphasis on saving lives. The fact
of the matter, though, is that any new lives saved do not replace those who were
murdered. It is an exercise in futility.
Then, I pursued replacing destruction with creation. For a time
this provided a distraction, but it could not last. The fact is that any kind of
ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand. How can I possibly go
around like everyone else while the widows and orphans I created continue to
struggle? If they could see me sitting here in suburbia, in my comfortable home
working on some music project they would be outraged, and rightfully so.
I thought perhaps I could make some headway with this film
project, maybe even directly appealing to those I had wronged and exposing a
greater truth, but that is also now being taken away from me. I fear that, just
as with everything else that requires the involvement of people who can not
understand by virtue of never having been there, it is going to fall apart as
careers get in the way.
The last thought that has occurred to me is one of some kind of
final mission. It is true that I have found that I am capable of finding some
kind of reprieve by doing things that are worthwhile on the scale of life and
death. While it is a nice thought to consider doing some good with my skills,
experience, and killer instinct, the truth is that it isn’t realistic. First,
there are the logistics of financing and equipping my own operation, then there
is the near certainty of a grisly death, international incidents, and being
branded a terrorist in the media that would follow. What is really stopping me,
though, is that I simply am too sick to be effective in the field anymore. That,
too, has been taken from me.
Thus, I am left with basically nothing. Too trapped in a war to be
at peace, too damaged to be at war. Abandoned by those who would take the easy
route, and a liability to those who stick it out—and thus deserve better. So you
see, not only am I better off dead, but the world is better without me in it
This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide,
but a mercy killing. I know how to kill, and I know how to do it so that there
is no pain whatsoever. It was quick, and I did not suffer. And above all, now I
am free. I feel no more pain. I have no more nightmares or flashbacks or
hallucinations. I am no longer constantly depressed or afraid or worried
I am free.
I ask that you be happy for me for that. It is perhaps the best
break I could have hoped for. Please accept this and be glad for me.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Trail of Benghazi security lapses leads to State Department senior leadership, records show
Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Fox News
June 23, 2013
The decision to keep U.S. personnel in Benghazi with substandard security was made at the highest levels of the State Department by officials who have so far escaped blame over the Sept. 11 attack, according to a review of recent congressional testimony and internal State Department memos by Fox News.
Nine months before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, State Department Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy signed off on an internal memo that green-lighted the Benghazi operation.
The December 2011 memo from Jeffrey Feltman — then-Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) — pledged “to rapidly implement a series of corrective security measures.” However, no substantial improvements were made, according to congressional testimony to the House oversight committee from Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom.
Full article here
Fox News
June 23, 2013
The decision to keep U.S. personnel in Benghazi with substandard security was made at the highest levels of the State Department by officials who have so far escaped blame over the Sept. 11 attack, according to a review of recent congressional testimony and internal State Department memos by Fox News.
Nine months before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, State Department Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy signed off on an internal memo that green-lighted the Benghazi operation.
The December 2011 memo from Jeffrey Feltman — then-Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) — pledged “to rapidly implement a series of corrective security measures.” However, no substantial improvements were made, according to congressional testimony to the House oversight committee from Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom.
Full article here
LA Times Reports Hastings Was Going Into Hiding Before His Death
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
June 22, 2013
At 2:32 into this video, Michael Hastings says the Obama administration is at war with the press.
Infowars.com
June 22, 2013
Despite FBI assertions to the contrary, journalist
Michael Hastings was under investigation by the agency. In an email sent out hours before his death,
Hastings said his “close friends and associates” were being harassed by the FBI
and he was going to “go off the radar for a bit,” in other words into hiding.
The Los Angeles Times reported on the email on
Friday.
At 2:32 into this video, Michael Hastings says the Obama administration is at war with the press.
“Perhaps if the authorities arrive” at the news
website Buzzfeed, they “may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before
any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related
journalism issues,” he wrote.
Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith added that Hastings had
told friends and family “he was concerned that he was under investigation” for
his journalism.
Wikileaks also confirmed that Hastings was under
investigation by the FBI.
The establishment media is attempting to portray
theories about the journalist’s death as unfounded and irresponsible
conspiracies. “Since Hastings’ death early Tuesday, wild conspiracy theories
have bloomed on the Internet, implying that he was murdered by powerful forces
wanting to silence him,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Thursday,
insinuating that Wikileaks is attempting to exploit the journalist’s death.
During a Reddit interview last year, Hastings said the
military had repeatedly investigated him. “The Pentagon has launched three
investigations into stories I’ve done over the past 18 months under the pretense
of finding the wrongdoing we were exposing. But the investigations were really
about creating a Pentagon approved official document to criticize journalism
they don’t like,” he said.
Hastings also talked about government attempts to
control the internet. “On the one hand, we’re already bombarded with so much
government propaganda, it might be hard to notice,” he wrote. “But I think we’d
definitely see a more direct targeting of certain communities within the U.S.
with propaganda that was produced overseas. I think what we’d also see is all
sorts of disturbing online and internet initiatives produced by the government.
The Pentagon is already trying to do this.”
Prior to his death, Hastings was working on a
story about Jill Kelly, the military socialite who received email messages from
Paula Broadwell, the biographer who had an affair with former general and CIA
director David Petraeus. Kelly believes the FBI leaked her name to the media to
discredit her.
Earlier this month, Buzzfeed posted a final
article by Hastings, “Why Do Democrats Love to Spy On
Americans.”
As we noted on Thursday, Hastings was renowned
for being “only interested in writing stories someone didn’t want him to write —
often his subjects,” according to Buzzflash editor Ben Smith. “He knew that
there are certain truths that nobody has an interest in speaking, ones that will
make you both your subjects and their enemies uncomfortable. They’re stories
that don’t get told because nobody in power has much of an interest in telling
them.”
Handful of Congress Members Move to Rein In Surveillance State
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
June 23, 2013
It’s no mistake the Limiting Internet and Blanket Electronic Review of Telecommunications and Email Act (LIBERT-E Act) received zero coverage by the establishment media. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), Chairman of the House Liberty Caucus, and Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), the Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Committee, will be allowed to die a quiet and unobtrusive death.
Ben Swann on the NSA’s criminality.
The bill strikes at the heart of the PATRIOT Act, the unconstitutional monstrosity passed by Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. LIBERT-E Act would also restrict the government’s ability to conduct surveillance not connected to an ongoing investigation. It calls for the illegal and unconstitutional FISA Court to make its secret opinions available to Congress and the American people.
The LIBERT-E Act, however, falls far short of correcting the problem. The PATRIOT Act should be repealed immediately and the FISA Court dismantled. Unfortunately, neither of these things will happen due to more than a decade of propaganda to brainwash the American people into falsely believing they face a terrorist threat and therefore must surrender their birthright enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
LIBERT-E is a noble if half-hearted effort sponsored by 32 members of Congress. They released the following statement on the legislation:
“The recent NSA leaks indicate that the federal government collects phone records and intercepts electronic communications on a scale previously unknown to most Americans.
“The LIBERT-E Act imposes reasonable limits on the federal government’s surveillance. The bill puts some teeth into the FISA court’s determination of whether records the government wants are actually relevant to an investigation. It also makes sure that innocent Americans’ information isn’t needlessly swept up into a government database. LIBERT-E prohibits the type of government dragnet that the leaked Verizon order revealed.
“We accept that free countries must engage in secret operations from time to time to protect their citizens. Free countries must not, however, operate under secret laws. Secret court opinions obscure the law. They prevent public debate on critical policy issues and they stop Congress from fulfilling its duty to enact sound laws and fix broken ones.
“LIBERT-E lets every congressman have access to FISA court opinions so that Congress can have a more informed debate about security and privacy. And the bill requires that unclassified summaries of the opinions be available to the public so that Americans can judge for themselves the merit of their government’s actions.
“We are proud to lead a broad, bipartisan coalition that’s working to protect privacy. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. Defending the Constitution and protecting Americans’ rights should be an effort we all can support.”
Putting “reasonable limits on the federal government’s surveillance” will permit the government to continue its surveillance. Instead of half measures, Congress needs to call for the dismantlement of the NSA – and the CIA and FBI – and all legislation that violates the Fourth Amendment needs to be immediately repealed.
Finally, all the criminals who have conspired against the Constitution need to be arrested immediately – including standing and ex-presidents – and put on trial for treason.
Anything short of a strenuous effort will result in failure. Half measures and statements released by a handful of Congress members will be ignored as the fascist juggernaut rolls forward. The ruling elite are now a hair’s breadth away from finishing the installation of their high-tech surveillance and police state. If they successfully fend off attempts to preserve the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in the not too distant future all opposition to their fascist rule will be impossible.
Infowars.com
June 23, 2013
It’s no mistake the Limiting Internet and Blanket Electronic Review of Telecommunications and Email Act (LIBERT-E Act) received zero coverage by the establishment media. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), Chairman of the House Liberty Caucus, and Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), the Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Committee, will be allowed to die a quiet and unobtrusive death.
Ben Swann on the NSA’s criminality.
The bill strikes at the heart of the PATRIOT Act, the unconstitutional monstrosity passed by Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. LIBERT-E Act would also restrict the government’s ability to conduct surveillance not connected to an ongoing investigation. It calls for the illegal and unconstitutional FISA Court to make its secret opinions available to Congress and the American people.
The LIBERT-E Act, however, falls far short of correcting the problem. The PATRIOT Act should be repealed immediately and the FISA Court dismantled. Unfortunately, neither of these things will happen due to more than a decade of propaganda to brainwash the American people into falsely believing they face a terrorist threat and therefore must surrender their birthright enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
LIBERT-E is a noble if half-hearted effort sponsored by 32 members of Congress. They released the following statement on the legislation:
“The recent NSA leaks indicate that the federal government collects phone records and intercepts electronic communications on a scale previously unknown to most Americans.
“The LIBERT-E Act imposes reasonable limits on the federal government’s surveillance. The bill puts some teeth into the FISA court’s determination of whether records the government wants are actually relevant to an investigation. It also makes sure that innocent Americans’ information isn’t needlessly swept up into a government database. LIBERT-E prohibits the type of government dragnet that the leaked Verizon order revealed.
“We accept that free countries must engage in secret operations from time to time to protect their citizens. Free countries must not, however, operate under secret laws. Secret court opinions obscure the law. They prevent public debate on critical policy issues and they stop Congress from fulfilling its duty to enact sound laws and fix broken ones.
“LIBERT-E lets every congressman have access to FISA court opinions so that Congress can have a more informed debate about security and privacy. And the bill requires that unclassified summaries of the opinions be available to the public so that Americans can judge for themselves the merit of their government’s actions.
“We are proud to lead a broad, bipartisan coalition that’s working to protect privacy. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. Defending the Constitution and protecting Americans’ rights should be an effort we all can support.”
Putting “reasonable limits on the federal government’s surveillance” will permit the government to continue its surveillance. Instead of half measures, Congress needs to call for the dismantlement of the NSA – and the CIA and FBI – and all legislation that violates the Fourth Amendment needs to be immediately repealed.
Finally, all the criminals who have conspired against the Constitution need to be arrested immediately – including standing and ex-presidents – and put on trial for treason.
Anything short of a strenuous effort will result in failure. Half measures and statements released by a handful of Congress members will be ignored as the fascist juggernaut rolls forward. The ruling elite are now a hair’s breadth away from finishing the installation of their high-tech surveillance and police state. If they successfully fend off attempts to preserve the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in the not too distant future all opposition to their fascist rule will be impossible.
Snowden Becomes Eighth Person to Be Charged with Violating the Espionage Act Under Obama
Kevin Gosztola
firedoglake.com
June 23, 2013
(update below)
A criminal complaint indicates former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden has been charged with three felonies. Two of the felonies are charges under the Espionage Act.
The complaint, filed on June 14, shows he was charged with “unauthorized communication of national defense information”—an Espionage Act violation—and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person,” a violation of United States Code 798 prohibiting the disclosure of classified information and an offense under the Espionage Act.
Each charge carries a ten-year maximum sentence if convicted.
The Washington Post further reports that the complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia. Not only is this jurisdiction where Snowden’s former employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, happens to be headquartered, but it is also where key prosecutions for espionage have been filed under President Barack Obama.
Snowden is the eighth person to be charged under the Espionage Act under Obama. This is more than all previous presidential administrations combined.
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake was charged under the law in April 2010 for retaining classified information on secret surveillance programs. The government claimed it was for the purpose of disclosure.
For disclosing classified information on FBI wiretaps to a blogger, FBI translator named Shamai Leibowitz was charged under the Espionage Act.
Pfc. Bradley Manning was charged with multiple violations of the Espionage Act in July 2010 after disclosing US government information to WikiLeaks.
Stephen Kim, a former State Department contractor, was charged in August 2010 for revealing classified information on North Korea to Fox News reporter James Rosen. (Rosen was labeled an “aider, abettor and co-conspirator” in the leak.)
In December 2010, a former CIA officer, Jeffrey Sterling, was charged under the Espionage Act after he communicated with New York Times reporter James Risen about Iran’s nuclear program in the 1990s. (The Obama Justice Department has fought in the courts to have a judge require Risen to testify against Sterling.)
John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer, was charged under the Espionage Act in January 2012 after he shared information related to a rendition operation with reporter Matthew Cole.
A much lesser-known individual, James Hitselberger, a former Navy linguist, was charged with violating the Espionage Act for providing classified documents to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
The Espionage Act charges were dropped in the cases of Drake, Kiriakou and Leibowitz. Manning has pled guilty to lesser offenses but not the espionage charges. Hitselberger, Kim and Sterling’s cases are all still pending. [Kiriakou's serving a 30-month sentence in a prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania, after pleading guilty to violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.]
Kiriakou’s case went through the Eastern District of Virginia. Sterling’s case is pending in the same jurisdiction.
“The Eastern District of Virginia is the most conservative court in the country,” according to Jesselyn Radack, a director of the Government Accountability Project’s national security and human rights division who has defended national security whistleblowers. “My experience with espionage cases there is that, even if you get assigned a progressive judge, the deck is still stacked against you.”
This jurisdiction is also where a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks has been empaneled. The investigation has been broad and, as Sam Knight reported for The Nation, it has used “subpoena powers rarely wielded against bloggers and journalists.”
The Espionage Act is a law from 1917 that was intended to criminalize individuals who engaged in spying, not leakers or whistleblowers. It was not initially used to prosecute government employees who passed on information to a reporter or a media organization. But, under Obama, the Justice Department has exercised wide discretion and interpreted the law as one that can be used to criminalize government employees who blow the whistle on corruption or share information on operations, policies or programs with the press. They have used to prosecute them as if they are “insiders,” “informers,” or “spies.”
President Barack Obama came into office committed to “protecting” whistleblowers.
However, when Congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, the White House coordinated with Congress so that employees at national security or intelligence agencies would not be covered. That means, when Obama had the opportunity to make it easier for employees to go through proper channels when exposing corruption or wrongdoing, he did the exact opposite.
Radack and her colleague at GAP, Kathleen McClellan, have written:
The Justice Department does not have to identify or prove that any harm to national security has occurred. They only have to prove that a person had ”reason to believe” information could be used to the injury of the United States.”
The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer highlighted, when Drake was still charged with violating the Espionage Act:
That shows what these “leak” prosecutions can do to freedom of the press.
Now, the “theft of government property” charge falls under United States Code 641 or a code against the “embezzlement of government property.” This is also a code that Manning is accused of violating multiple times.
The defense in Manning’s case has argued that the prosecutors must prove that the information disclosed without authorization was a “thing of value” and Manning intended to deprive the government of the use or benefit of this “property” in order for him to be convicted of this offense.
Snowden is still in Hong Kong. He has reportedly considered seeking asylum and/or citizenship in Iceland. There have been reports about a businessman connected to WikiLeaks being willing to fly Snowden on a private jet to Iceland. However, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir has urged Snowden not to board any private jet to Iceland.
“I have worked with asylum seekers in Iceland. I would not recommend that path for #Snowden. Citizenship offers the only real protection,” she tweeted. She added that Iceland had a “terrible track record when it comes to turning back asylum seekers.” And, “There is much general support for Snowden among the general public in Iceland, thus it is still an option to seek citizenship.” But she hoped he would not take any risks with jets.
Going forward, the US has asked the Hong Kong detain Snowden but a very real problem the United States government may have is that Snowden has been charged with espionage.
The extradition treaty the United States has with Hong Kong happens to have an exception for political offenses. Espionage is considered a political offense. So, Hong Kong is more likely to push back on an extradition request because the charges are not limited to the charges of theft and conversion of government property.
Update
The three individuals charged under the Espionage Act prior to the eight under Obama were Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower charged under President Richard Nixon, Samuel T. Morison, a Navy civilian analyst who was charged under President Ronald Reagan and Lawrence Franklin, a Pentagon analyst charged under President George W. Bush.
Morison leaked photographs of Soviet ships to alert America to what he perceived as a new threat. Franklin leaked information on Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
These are not the only people charged under the Espionage Act under previous presidents. These are just the ones charged with leaking information.
firedoglake.com
June 23, 2013
(update below)
A criminal complaint indicates former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden has been charged with three felonies. Two of the felonies are charges under the Espionage Act.
The complaint, filed on June 14, shows he was charged with “unauthorized communication of national defense information”—an Espionage Act violation—and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person,” a violation of United States Code 798 prohibiting the disclosure of classified information and an offense under the Espionage Act.
Each charge carries a ten-year maximum sentence if convicted.
The Washington Post further reports that the complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia. Not only is this jurisdiction where Snowden’s former employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, happens to be headquartered, but it is also where key prosecutions for espionage have been filed under President Barack Obama.
Snowden is the eighth person to be charged under the Espionage Act under Obama. This is more than all previous presidential administrations combined.
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake was charged under the law in April 2010 for retaining classified information on secret surveillance programs. The government claimed it was for the purpose of disclosure.
For disclosing classified information on FBI wiretaps to a blogger, FBI translator named Shamai Leibowitz was charged under the Espionage Act.
Pfc. Bradley Manning was charged with multiple violations of the Espionage Act in July 2010 after disclosing US government information to WikiLeaks.
Stephen Kim, a former State Department contractor, was charged in August 2010 for revealing classified information on North Korea to Fox News reporter James Rosen. (Rosen was labeled an “aider, abettor and co-conspirator” in the leak.)
In December 2010, a former CIA officer, Jeffrey Sterling, was charged under the Espionage Act after he communicated with New York Times reporter James Risen about Iran’s nuclear program in the 1990s. (The Obama Justice Department has fought in the courts to have a judge require Risen to testify against Sterling.)
John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer, was charged under the Espionage Act in January 2012 after he shared information related to a rendition operation with reporter Matthew Cole.
A much lesser-known individual, James Hitselberger, a former Navy linguist, was charged with violating the Espionage Act for providing classified documents to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
The Espionage Act charges were dropped in the cases of Drake, Kiriakou and Leibowitz. Manning has pled guilty to lesser offenses but not the espionage charges. Hitselberger, Kim and Sterling’s cases are all still pending. [Kiriakou's serving a 30-month sentence in a prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania, after pleading guilty to violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.]
Kiriakou’s case went through the Eastern District of Virginia. Sterling’s case is pending in the same jurisdiction.
“The Eastern District of Virginia is the most conservative court in the country,” according to Jesselyn Radack, a director of the Government Accountability Project’s national security and human rights division who has defended national security whistleblowers. “My experience with espionage cases there is that, even if you get assigned a progressive judge, the deck is still stacked against you.”
This jurisdiction is also where a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks has been empaneled. The investigation has been broad and, as Sam Knight reported for The Nation, it has used “subpoena powers rarely wielded against bloggers and journalists.”
The Espionage Act is a law from 1917 that was intended to criminalize individuals who engaged in spying, not leakers or whistleblowers. It was not initially used to prosecute government employees who passed on information to a reporter or a media organization. But, under Obama, the Justice Department has exercised wide discretion and interpreted the law as one that can be used to criminalize government employees who blow the whistle on corruption or share information on operations, policies or programs with the press. They have used to prosecute them as if they are “insiders,” “informers,” or “spies.”
President Barack Obama came into office committed to “protecting” whistleblowers.
Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.
However, when Congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, the White House coordinated with Congress so that employees at national security or intelligence agencies would not be covered. That means, when Obama had the opportunity to make it easier for employees to go through proper channels when exposing corruption or wrongdoing, he did the exact opposite.
Radack and her colleague at GAP, Kathleen McClellan, have written:
These “leak” prosecutions send a chilling message to public servants, as they are contrary to President Barack Obama’s pledge of openness and transparency. The vast majority of American citizens do not take issue with the proposition that some things should be kept secret, such as sources and methods, nuclear designs, troop movements, and undercover identities. However, the campaign to flush out media sources smacks of retaliation and intimidation. The Obama administration is right to protect information that might legitimately undermine national security or put Americans at risk. However, it does not protect national security interests when it brings cases against whistleblowers who divulge information that communicates important information to the public; sparks meaningful dialogue; or exposes fraud, waste, abuse, illegality, or potential dangers to public health and safety. A free and open democratic government welcomes debate. Stifling information violates that democratic principle.
The Justice Department does not have to identify or prove that any harm to national security has occurred. They only have to prove that a person had ”reason to believe” information could be used to the injury of the United States.”
The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer highlighted, when Drake was still charged with violating the Espionage Act:
…Because reporters often retain unauthorized defense documents, Drake’s conviction would establish a legal precedent making it possible to prosecute journalists as spies. ‘It poses a grave threat to the mechanism by which we learn most of what the government does,’ [Mort] Halperin [of the Open Society Institute] says…
That shows what these “leak” prosecutions can do to freedom of the press.
Now, the “theft of government property” charge falls under United States Code 641 or a code against the “embezzlement of government property.” This is also a code that Manning is accused of violating multiple times.
The defense in Manning’s case has argued that the prosecutors must prove that the information disclosed without authorization was a “thing of value” and Manning intended to deprive the government of the use or benefit of this “property” in order for him to be convicted of this offense.
Snowden is still in Hong Kong. He has reportedly considered seeking asylum and/or citizenship in Iceland. There have been reports about a businessman connected to WikiLeaks being willing to fly Snowden on a private jet to Iceland. However, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir has urged Snowden not to board any private jet to Iceland.
“I have worked with asylum seekers in Iceland. I would not recommend that path for #Snowden. Citizenship offers the only real protection,” she tweeted. She added that Iceland had a “terrible track record when it comes to turning back asylum seekers.” And, “There is much general support for Snowden among the general public in Iceland, thus it is still an option to seek citizenship.” But she hoped he would not take any risks with jets.
Going forward, the US has asked the Hong Kong detain Snowden but a very real problem the United States government may have is that Snowden has been charged with espionage.
The extradition treaty the United States has with Hong Kong happens to have an exception for political offenses. Espionage is considered a political offense. So, Hong Kong is more likely to push back on an extradition request because the charges are not limited to the charges of theft and conversion of government property.
Update
The three individuals charged under the Espionage Act prior to the eight under Obama were Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower charged under President Richard Nixon, Samuel T. Morison, a Navy civilian analyst who was charged under President Ronald Reagan and Lawrence Franklin, a Pentagon analyst charged under President George W. Bush.
Morison leaked photographs of Soviet ships to alert America to what he perceived as a new threat. Franklin leaked information on Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
These are not the only people charged under the Espionage Act under previous presidents. These are just the ones charged with leaking information.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Stasi In The White House
Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
June 22, 2013
On June 19, 2013, US President Obama, hoping to raise himself above the developing National Security Agency (NSA) spy scandals, sought to associate himself with two iconic speeches made at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy pledged: “Ich bin ein Berliner”. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Obama’s speech was delivered to a relatively small, specially selected audience of invitees. Even so, Obama spoke from behind bullet proof glass.
Obama’s speech will go down in history as the most hypocritical of all time. Little wonder that the audience was there by invitation only. A real audience would have hooted Obama out of Berlin.
Perhaps the most hypocritical of all of Obama’s statements was his proposal that the US and Russia reduce their nuclear weapons by one-third. The entire world, and certainly the Russians, saw through this ploy. The US is currently surrounding Russia with anti-ballistic missiles on Russia’s borders and hopes to leverage this advantage by talking Russia into reducing its weapons, thereby making it easier for Washington to target them. Obama’s proposal is clearly intended to weaken Russia’s nuclear deterrent and ability to resist US hegemony.
Obama spoke lofty words of peace, while beating the drums of war in Syria and Iran. Witness Obama’s aggressive policies of surrounding Russia with missile bases and establishing new military bases in the Pacific Ocean with which to confront China.
This is the same Obama who promised to close the Guantanamo Torture Prison, but did not; the same Obama who promised to tell us the purpose for Washington’s decade-long war in Afghanistan, but did not; the same Obama who promised to end the wars, but started new ones; the same Obama who said he stood for the US Constitution, but shredded it; the same Obama who refused to hold the Bush regime accountable for its crimes against law and humanity; the same Obama who unleashed drones against civilian populations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen; the same Obama who claimed and exercised power to murder US citizens without due process and who continues the Bush regime’s unconstitutional practice of violating habeas corpus and detaining US citizens indefinitely; the same Obama who promised transparency but runs the most secretive government in US history.
The tyrant’s speech of spectacular hypocrisy elicited from the invited audience applause on 36 occasions. Like so many others, Germans proved themselves willing to be used for Washington’s propaganda purposes.
Here was Obama, who consistently lies, speaking of “eternal truth.”
Here was Obama, who enabled Wall Street to rob the American and European peoples and who destroyed Americans’ civil liberties and the lives of vast numbers of Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, Pakistanis, Syrians, and others, speaking of “the yearnings of justice.” Obama equates demands for justice with “terrorism.”
Here was Obama, who has constructed an international spy network and a domestic police state, speaking of “the yearnings for freedom.”
Here was Obama, president of a country that has initiated wars or military action against six countries since 2001 and has three more Muslim countries–Syria, Lebanon, and Iran–in its crosshairs and perhaps several more in Africa, speaking of “the yearnings of peace that burns in the human heart,” but clearly not in Obama’s heart.
Obama has turned America into a surveillance state that has far more in common with Stasi East Germany than with the America of the Kennedy and Reagan eras. Strange, isn’t it, that freedom was gained in East Germany and lost in America.
At the Brandenburg Gate, Obama invoked the pledge of nations to “a Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” but Obama continues to violate human rights both at home and abroad.
Obama has taken hypocrisy to new heights. He has destroyed US civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. In place of a government accountable to law, he has turned law into a weapon in the hands of the government. He has intimidated a free press and prosecutes whistleblowers who reveal his government’s crimes. He makes no objection when American police brutalize peacefully protesting citizens. His government intercepts and stores in National Security Agency computers every communication of every American and also the private communications of Europeans and Canadians, including the communications of the members of the governments, the better to blackmail those with secrets. Obama sends in drones or assassins to murder people in countries with which the US is not at war, and his victims on most occasions turn out to be women, children, farmers, and village elders. Obama kept Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for nearly a year assaulting his human dignity in an effort to break him and obtain a false confession. In defiance of the US Constitution, Obama denied Manning a trial for three years. On Obama’s instructions, London denies Julian Assange free passage to his political asylum in Ecuador. Assange has become a modern-day Cardinal Mindszenty. [Jozsef Mindszenty was the leader of the Hungarian Catholic Church who sought refuge from Soviet oppression in the US Embassy in Budapest. Denied free passage by the Soviets, the Cardinal lived in the US Embassy for 15 years as a symbol of Soviet oppression.]
This is the Obama who asked at the orchestrated event at the Brandenburg Gate: “Will we live free or in chains? Under governments that uphold our universal rights, or regimes that suppress them? In open societies that respect the sanctity of the individual and our free will, or in closed societies that suffocate the soul?”
When the Berlin Wall came down, the Stasi Spy State that suffocates the soul moved to Washington. The Stasi is alive and well in the Obama regime.
Obama’s speech at the Brandenburg Gate: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/19/remarks-president-obama-brandenburg-gate-berlin-germany
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously the editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating
Infowars.com
June 22, 2013
On June 19, 2013, US President Obama, hoping to raise himself above the developing National Security Agency (NSA) spy scandals, sought to associate himself with two iconic speeches made at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy pledged: “Ich bin ein Berliner”. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Obama’s speech was delivered to a relatively small, specially selected audience of invitees. Even so, Obama spoke from behind bullet proof glass.
Obama’s speech will go down in history as the most hypocritical of all time. Little wonder that the audience was there by invitation only. A real audience would have hooted Obama out of Berlin.
Perhaps the most hypocritical of all of Obama’s statements was his proposal that the US and Russia reduce their nuclear weapons by one-third. The entire world, and certainly the Russians, saw through this ploy. The US is currently surrounding Russia with anti-ballistic missiles on Russia’s borders and hopes to leverage this advantage by talking Russia into reducing its weapons, thereby making it easier for Washington to target them. Obama’s proposal is clearly intended to weaken Russia’s nuclear deterrent and ability to resist US hegemony.
Obama spoke lofty words of peace, while beating the drums of war in Syria and Iran. Witness Obama’s aggressive policies of surrounding Russia with missile bases and establishing new military bases in the Pacific Ocean with which to confront China.
This is the same Obama who promised to close the Guantanamo Torture Prison, but did not; the same Obama who promised to tell us the purpose for Washington’s decade-long war in Afghanistan, but did not; the same Obama who promised to end the wars, but started new ones; the same Obama who said he stood for the US Constitution, but shredded it; the same Obama who refused to hold the Bush regime accountable for its crimes against law and humanity; the same Obama who unleashed drones against civilian populations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen; the same Obama who claimed and exercised power to murder US citizens without due process and who continues the Bush regime’s unconstitutional practice of violating habeas corpus and detaining US citizens indefinitely; the same Obama who promised transparency but runs the most secretive government in US history.
The tyrant’s speech of spectacular hypocrisy elicited from the invited audience applause on 36 occasions. Like so many others, Germans proved themselves willing to be used for Washington’s propaganda purposes.
Here was Obama, who consistently lies, speaking of “eternal truth.”
Here was Obama, who enabled Wall Street to rob the American and European peoples and who destroyed Americans’ civil liberties and the lives of vast numbers of Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, Pakistanis, Syrians, and others, speaking of “the yearnings of justice.” Obama equates demands for justice with “terrorism.”
Here was Obama, who has constructed an international spy network and a domestic police state, speaking of “the yearnings for freedom.”
Here was Obama, president of a country that has initiated wars or military action against six countries since 2001 and has three more Muslim countries–Syria, Lebanon, and Iran–in its crosshairs and perhaps several more in Africa, speaking of “the yearnings of peace that burns in the human heart,” but clearly not in Obama’s heart.
Obama has turned America into a surveillance state that has far more in common with Stasi East Germany than with the America of the Kennedy and Reagan eras. Strange, isn’t it, that freedom was gained in East Germany and lost in America.
At the Brandenburg Gate, Obama invoked the pledge of nations to “a Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” but Obama continues to violate human rights both at home and abroad.
Obama has taken hypocrisy to new heights. He has destroyed US civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. In place of a government accountable to law, he has turned law into a weapon in the hands of the government. He has intimidated a free press and prosecutes whistleblowers who reveal his government’s crimes. He makes no objection when American police brutalize peacefully protesting citizens. His government intercepts and stores in National Security Agency computers every communication of every American and also the private communications of Europeans and Canadians, including the communications of the members of the governments, the better to blackmail those with secrets. Obama sends in drones or assassins to murder people in countries with which the US is not at war, and his victims on most occasions turn out to be women, children, farmers, and village elders. Obama kept Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for nearly a year assaulting his human dignity in an effort to break him and obtain a false confession. In defiance of the US Constitution, Obama denied Manning a trial for three years. On Obama’s instructions, London denies Julian Assange free passage to his political asylum in Ecuador. Assange has become a modern-day Cardinal Mindszenty. [Jozsef Mindszenty was the leader of the Hungarian Catholic Church who sought refuge from Soviet oppression in the US Embassy in Budapest. Denied free passage by the Soviets, the Cardinal lived in the US Embassy for 15 years as a symbol of Soviet oppression.]
This is the Obama who asked at the orchestrated event at the Brandenburg Gate: “Will we live free or in chains? Under governments that uphold our universal rights, or regimes that suppress them? In open societies that respect the sanctity of the individual and our free will, or in closed societies that suffocate the soul?”
When the Berlin Wall came down, the Stasi Spy State that suffocates the soul moved to Washington. The Stasi is alive and well in the Obama regime.
Obama’s speech at the Brandenburg Gate: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/19/remarks-president-obama-brandenburg-gate-berlin-germany
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously the editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating
Friday, June 21, 2013
FBI has received aviation clearance for at least four domestic drone operations
Craig Whitlock
The Washington Post
June 21, 2013
The FBI has received clearance from federal aviation officials to conduct drone surveillance operations in the United States on at least four occasions since 2010, according to public records and U.S. officials.
The FBI began seeking permission in 2009 from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones domestically and received authorization for its first operations a year later, according to documents released Thursday by the FAA.
The documents provide virtually no detail on where the FBI has operated drones in U.S. airspace, for what purpose or how long the missions lasted. But they shed some additional light on the origins and extent of the FBI’s secretive drone program, which FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III revealed Wednesday in Senate testimony.
Read More
The Washington Post
June 21, 2013
The FBI has received clearance from federal aviation officials to conduct drone surveillance operations in the United States on at least four occasions since 2010, according to public records and U.S. officials.
The FBI began seeking permission in 2009 from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones domestically and received authorization for its first operations a year later, according to documents released Thursday by the FAA.
The documents provide virtually no detail on where the FBI has operated drones in U.S. airspace, for what purpose or how long the missions lasted. But they shed some additional light on the origins and extent of the FBI’s secretive drone program, which FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III revealed Wednesday in Senate testimony.
Read More
Buzzkill: Huge bee die-off in Oregon parking lot blamed on insecticide spraying
John Upton
grist
June 21, 2013
National Pollinator Week began grimly Sunday when tens of thousands of dead bumblebees, honeybees, ladybugs, and other insects were discovered blanketing a shopping plaza’s parking lot just off Interstate 5 in Wilsonville, Ore.
Bumblebees were the species hardest hit, with an estimated 25,000 dead and 150 colonies lost outside a Target store. “They were literally falling out of the trees,” said Rich Hatfield, a conservation biologist with the nonprofit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. “To our knowledge this is one of the largest documented bumblebee deaths in the Western U.S. It was heartbreaking to watch.”
It turns out that landscapers had sprayed the lot’s 65 European linden trees on Saturday with the insecticide Safari. The insecticide is marketed by manufacturer Valent as “a super-systemic insecticide with quick uptake and knockdown.”
Read More
grist
June 21, 2013
National Pollinator Week began grimly Sunday when tens of thousands of dead bumblebees, honeybees, ladybugs, and other insects were discovered blanketing a shopping plaza’s parking lot just off Interstate 5 in Wilsonville, Ore.
Bumblebees were the species hardest hit, with an estimated 25,000 dead and 150 colonies lost outside a Target store. “They were literally falling out of the trees,” said Rich Hatfield, a conservation biologist with the nonprofit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. “To our knowledge this is one of the largest documented bumblebee deaths in the Western U.S. It was heartbreaking to watch.”
It turns out that landscapers had sprayed the lot’s 65 European linden trees on Saturday with the insecticide Safari. The insecticide is marketed by manufacturer Valent as “a super-systemic insecticide with quick uptake and knockdown.”
Read More
Poll: Americans approve of drafting women for combat
But expert’s warning? Females ‘do not have an equal opportunity to
survive’
Bob Unruh
WND
June 21, 2013
A new poll reveals that there is widespread support among Americans for women to be included if the U.S. military would resume a draft.
The poll done by CapitalSoup.com and Mason-Dixon Polling and Research said 59 percent of Americans “believe women should be included in a draft, compared to only 38 percent who think they should not.”
However, an expert on the U.S. military and the issues it is facing said there are concerns with such an idea, especially since the military just announced a strategy to “allow” women into combat.
Read More
Bob Unruh
WND
June 21, 2013
A new poll reveals that there is widespread support among Americans for women to be included if the U.S. military would resume a draft.
The poll done by CapitalSoup.com and Mason-Dixon Polling and Research said 59 percent of Americans “believe women should be included in a draft, compared to only 38 percent who think they should not.”
However, an expert on the U.S. military and the issues it is facing said there are concerns with such an idea, especially since the military just announced a strategy to “allow” women into combat.
Read More
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Evidence Indicates Michael Hastings Was Assassinated
Rolling Stone journalist made enemies in FBI, CIA
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 20, 2013
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 20, 2013
The revelation that Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings was
working on a story about the CIA before his death and had contacted a Wikileaks
lawyer about being under investigation by the FBI hours before his car exploded
into flames has bolstered increasingly valid claims that the 33-year-old was
assassinated.
Hastings died early Tuesday morning in Hollywood when his car
allegedly hit a tree at high speed. The Los Angeles Coroner’s office has not yet
been able to officially identify the body as Hastings because it is so badly
burned.
Skeptics of the official narrative have highlighted eyewitness
accounts which state that Hastings’ Mercedes “exploded”.
Images of the vehicle appear to show more damage to the rear,
around the area of the fuel tank, than the front, leading to speculation that a
car bomb which ignited the fuel could have been responsible for the
incident.
“No matter how you slice this particular pie, a Mercedes is not
just going to explode into flames without a little assistance,” writes
freelance journalist Jim Stone. “Car fires in new cars happen for three main
reasons — running the engine out of oil, or running the engine out of coolant,
or after an absolutely huge car mangling accident, having the hot side of the
battery short out against the frame before it reaches the fuse panel. And for
all 3 of those normal reasons, which account for virtually all car fires in
modern cars, the fire would have started in the engine compartment, progressed
slowly, and scorched the hell out of the paint before ever reaching the gas
tank. That clean paint is the be all tell all, Michael Hastings was murdered,
and the rest is detail.”
Stone also questions why a white sheet has been draped over the
vehicle in the image below.
The questions surrounding the precise nature of the “accident”
that killed Hastings are given more weight by the fact that the journalist had
made enemies within both the FBI and the CIA.
“Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson
just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him,” the
official Wikileaks Twitter account announced yesterday.
Hastings “had the Central Intelligence Agency in his sights” and
was set to release an article exposing the agency, according to L.A. Weekly.
The Obama administration and the Justice Department have openly
claimed the authority to assassinate American citizens anywhere in the world if
they are deemed a national security threat. A number of American citizens have
already been killed as a result of this policy. Is it really that crazy to
suggest that Michael Hastings was merely the latest victim of this doctrine?
The New York Daily News highlights the fact that Hastings had
received multiple death threats before his demise.
Following his role in bringing down Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal,
Hastings was told by a McChrystal staffer, “We’ll hunt you down and kill you if
we don’t like what you write.”
“Whenever I’d been reporting around groups of dudes whose job it
was to kill people, one of them would usually mention that they were going to
kill me,” said Hastings.
Hastings was renowned for being “only interested in writing
stories someone didn’t want him to write — often his subjects,” according to
Buzzflash editor Ben Smith, adding, “He knew that there are certain truths that
nobody has an interest in speaking, ones that will make you both your subjects
and their enemies uncomfortable. They’re stories that don’t get told because
nobody in power has much of an interest in telling them.”
The fact that Hastings had made a plethora of enemies as a result
of his hard-hitting investigative journalism has prompted a deluge of online
comment speculating that the writer’s “car crash” was no accident.
“Hastings’ wreck might make sense on the freeway, but I doubt he’d
be dumb enough to go 100 mph on Highland. He’s not some dumb college kid,” said
one commenter on a local news site.
“A warning to other journalists to not dig too deep,” another
Reddit user wrote. “Stick with the party line if you want a long, happy
life.”
If this was an isolated incident then there wouldn’t be so many
questions swirling about Hastings’ death. However, he’s certainly not the first
individual to go up against the military-industrial complex and wind up in a
coffin.
Other journalists who have proven to be a thorn in the side of the
establishment have met the same fate, from Andrew Breitbart who was about to release damaging
pre-election information about Barack Obama before he collapsed and died in
strange circumstances, to Gary Webb, the Pullitzer prize-winning author who exposed
the CIA’s involvement in the drug trade and subsequently committed “suicide”
after apparently shooting himself in the head – twice.
More recently, Ibragim Todashev, friend of accused Boston bomber
Tamerlan Tsarnev, was shot in the head six times by the FBI, who initially claimed
Todashev was armed but later had to admit this was a lie. Speculation has raged
that Todashev was assassinated because he had knowledge about the Boston
bombings which the feds didn’t want to see the light of public scrutiny.
Despite his actions, the murder of Christopher Dorner, who was
burned to death by LAPD officers while hiding inside a cabin, shows that
authorities will not hesitate to resort to such methods.
It’s virtually inevitable that the true cause of Michael Hastings
death will never be known and that the mainstream media will demonize anyone who
questions the official narrative as a conspiracy theorist. Meanwhile,
journalists and others who pose a threat to the military-industrial complex will
continue to die in bizarre “accidents” that stink of foul play.
Mental health gun bill goes to Scott’s desk
News4Jax.com
June 19, 2013
A bipartisan gun bill has made its way to the governor’s desk. If signed into law, it will prevent tens of thousands of Floridians from buying firearms, but mental health workers worry the bill will backfire.
”I would think it would be very difficult for the governor not to sign a bill that keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous people with mental illnesses,” said Marion Hammer, of the Nation Rifle Association.
The legislation requires people who volunteer for mental health treatment to give up their gun rights. Mental health professionals want Gov. Rick Scott to veto the legislation.
Read full article
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Stocks Slide as Bernanke Announces More QE Infinity
JeeYeon Park
cnbc.com
June 19, 2013
Stocks accelerated their selloff in the final hour of trading to end near session lows Wednesday, after the Federal Reserve said it will maintain its bond-buying program, though Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted that the FOMC plans to moderate purchases later this year.
“They don’t tie themselves officially into anything but it’s clearly what they’re going to do,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management. “I think he’s more clearly said today than at any other time that he’s going to taper before the end of the year, and there’s a possibility he could be done by the middle of next year.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 200 points, wiping out most of its gains from the last two sessions. The blue-chip index logged its seventh-straight triple-digit move.
Read more
cnbc.com
June 19, 2013
Stocks accelerated their selloff in the final hour of trading to end near session lows Wednesday, after the Federal Reserve said it will maintain its bond-buying program, though Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted that the FOMC plans to moderate purchases later this year.
“They don’t tie themselves officially into anything but it’s clearly what they’re going to do,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management. “I think he’s more clearly said today than at any other time that he’s going to taper before the end of the year, and there’s a possibility he could be done by the middle of next year.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 200 points, wiping out most of its gains from the last two sessions. The blue-chip index logged its seventh-straight triple-digit move.
Read more
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Google begins launching Internet-beaming balloons
Associated Press
June 18, 2013
Google is launching Internet-beaming antennas into the stratosphere aboard giant, jellyfish-shaped balloons with the lofty goal of getting the entire planet online.
Eighteen months in the works, the top-secret project was announced Saturday in New Zealand, where up to 50 volunteer households are already beginning to receive the Internet briefly on their home computers via translucent helium balloons that sail by on the wind 12 miles above Earth.
Read More
June 18, 2013
Google is launching Internet-beaming antennas into the stratosphere aboard giant, jellyfish-shaped balloons with the lofty goal of getting the entire planet online.
Eighteen months in the works, the top-secret project was announced Saturday in New Zealand, where up to 50 volunteer households are already beginning to receive the Internet briefly on their home computers via translucent helium balloons that sail by on the wind 12 miles above Earth.
Read More
Big Brother alert: Cameras in the cable box to monitor TV viewers
Cheryl K. Chumley
Washington Times
June 18, 2013
It hardly gets more Orwellian than this. New technology would allow cable companies to peer directly into television watchers’ homes and monitor viewing habits and reactions to product advertisements.
The technology would come via the cable box, and at least one lawmaker on Capitol Hill is standing in opposition.
Mass. Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano has introduced a bill, the We Are Watching You Act, to prohibit the technology on boxes and collection of information absent consumer permission. The bill would also require companies that do use the data to show “we are watching you” messages on the screen and to explain just what kinds of information is being captured and for what reasons, AdWeek reported.
Read full article
Washington Times
June 18, 2013
It hardly gets more Orwellian than this. New technology would allow cable companies to peer directly into television watchers’ homes and monitor viewing habits and reactions to product advertisements.
The technology would come via the cable box, and at least one lawmaker on Capitol Hill is standing in opposition.
Mass. Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano has introduced a bill, the We Are Watching You Act, to prohibit the technology on boxes and collection of information absent consumer permission. The bill would also require companies that do use the data to show “we are watching you” messages on the screen and to explain just what kinds of information is being captured and for what reasons, AdWeek reported.
Read full article
Monday, June 17, 2013
Russian Tycoon Predicts Immortality Within 25 Years
Human minds to be transferred into computers by 2035
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 17, 2013
Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov predicts that the human race will achieve immortality within 25 years as a result of minds being transferred into computers, and that robot bodies capable of housing human brains could even be available by 2025.
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 17, 2013
Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov predicts that the human race will achieve immortality within 25 years as a result of minds being transferred into computers, and that robot bodies capable of housing human brains could even be available by 2025.
A number of neuroscience experts gathered at Itskov’s Global
Future 2045 conference this past weekend in New York City to debate the
fundamental question being posed by futurists across the world – when will man
achieve technological singularity and be able to cheat death by merging with
machine?
According to Itskov, within the next 10 years humans will be able
to control robots using their brains. By 2025, dying bodies could be replaced by
robot vassals housing human brains. By 2035, human minds will be transferred
into computers, eliminating the need for a body altogether. By 2045, artificial
brains will control hologram entities.
Itskov is calling on governments and the United Nations to help
him realize the goal of immortality within 25 years, but experts like Archbishop
Lazar Puhalo of the Orthodox Church in America warn that just because technology
could allow such accomplishments to be achieved doesn’t necessarily mean they
should be pursued.
“I’m not too fond of the idea of immortality, because I think it
will be deathly boring,” he said, adding, “There’s a lot of stuff in them (human
bodies) that makes us human. I’m not sure they can be built into machines.”
“We are really at the time when technology can affect human
evolution,” Itskov responded. “I want us to shape the future, bring it up for
public discussion, and avoid any scenario that could damage humanity.”
In an interview with CNBC, Itskov expands on his vision of mass
producing “lifelike, low cost avatars that can be uploaded with the contents of
a human brain” to provide humanity with “eternal life”.
Itskov is working on producing an avatar of his own head similar
to but more advanced than Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro’s robot clone as part of the
“gradual” transition towards a new type of human being that will not be
susceptible to aging or disease.
Venture capitalists, hedge funds and banks are all interested in
funding the project, which Itskov predicts will form an industry that will be
“much bigger than the Internet”. ‘Avatar B’ – a beta version of the project –
will be ready within 10 years, according to Itskov.
Itskov’s predictions closely match those of inventor and futurist
Ray Kurzweil, who is renowned for accurately forecasting the invention of the
iPhone, the iPad, Google Glass, iTunes, You Tube and on demand services like
Netflix as well as the Kindle in his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual
Machines.
By 2029, Kurzweil predicts that the vast majority of humans will
have augmented their bodies with cybernetic implants and those who refuse or are
unable to do so will form a “human underclass” that is not productively engaged
in the economy. The wider trend of the elite seeing humans as completely
expendable as their roles are taken up by machines unfolds after 2029 when,
“There is almost no human employment in production, agriculture, and
transportation,” writes Kurzweil.
This future vision – a utopia to some, a dystopia to others – is
also supported by the likes of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who recently predicted that his company will be capable of
developing artificial intelligence for its programs that will be
indistinguishable from a human being within 5-10 years. Schmidt routinely speaks
of his desire to swallow nano-bots every morning that would regulate the
functioning of his body, as well as sending his robotic clone to social functions.
Those opposed to the vision of man merging with machine make the
point that such technology is only likely to be available to a wealthy elite and
that it will be deployed to the detriment of the rest of the population, who
will increasingly be demonized as worthless and parasitical.
One such opponent was Theodore Kaczynski – the Unabomber – who is
widely quoted by futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Bill Joy as succinctly outlining the dangers of the
technological singularity despite his murderous actions.
“Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control
over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses
will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless
they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane
they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to
reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the
world to the elite,” wrote Kaczynski in his manifesto.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Investigate Booz Allen Hamilton, not Edward Snowden
Pratap Chatterjee
Guardian.co.uk
June 16, 2013
Military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton of McLean, Virginia, has shot into the news recently over two of its former employees: Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who has just revealed the extent of US global spying on electronic data of ordinary citizens around the world, and James Clapper, US director of national intelligence.
Clapper has come out vocally to condemn Snowden as a traitor to the public interest and the country, yet a review of Booz Allen’s own history suggests that the government should be investigating his former employer, rather than the whistleblower.
Clapper worked as vice-president at Booz Allen from 1997 to 1998, while Snowden did a three-month stint at their offices in Hawaii in spring 2013 as a low-level contract employee. Both worked on intelligence contracts, which are estimated to make up almost a quarter of the company’s $5.86bn in annual income. This past weekend, Clapper condemned Snowden’s leak about US government surveillance, telling NBC News’s Andrea Mitchell:
Guardian.co.uk
June 16, 2013
Military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton of McLean, Virginia, has shot into the news recently over two of its former employees: Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who has just revealed the extent of US global spying on electronic data of ordinary citizens around the world, and James Clapper, US director of national intelligence.
Clapper has come out vocally to condemn Snowden as a traitor to the public interest and the country, yet a review of Booz Allen’s own history suggests that the government should be investigating his former employer, rather than the whistleblower.
Clapper worked as vice-president at Booz Allen from 1997 to 1998, while Snowden did a three-month stint at their offices in Hawaii in spring 2013 as a low-level contract employee. Both worked on intelligence contracts, which are estimated to make up almost a quarter of the company’s $5.86bn in annual income. This past weekend, Clapper condemned Snowden’s leak about US government surveillance, telling NBC News’s Andrea Mitchell:
“For me, it is literally – not figuratively – literally gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities. This is someone who, for whatever reason, has chosen to violate a sacred trust for this country. I think we all feel profoundly offended by that.”
Democrats who attacked Bush for spying on citizens now justify Obama doing far worse
J. D. Heyes
Natural News
June 16, 2013
I’ve never been much of a fan of the USA Patriot Act. I thought it was passed too hastily in the wake of the 9/11 attacks without much real debate or consideration among Congress and their voting constituents. I thought it created a bureaucracy (The Department of Homeland Security) that would become far too large and far too powerful (it has). I thought its provisions were onerous (they are) and extremely subjective and, therefore, lent themselves to abuse (as has happened). Worse, I knew once this massive new piece of legislation was signed into law the huge new security bureaucracy it created would forever haunt and torment Americans. That day, too, has come.
One person who agrees is Glenn Greenwald, the U.S. bureau chief for Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, which broke the NSA spy scandal story in early June after being contacted by agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Say what you will about his overall political bent – I’m not so much a fan of it – he at least has been consistent in his criticism of the Patriot Act and U.S. government spying in general. He didn’t much care for it when it was occurring during President George W. Bush’s tenure and he is just as upset about it now that it is occurring – albeit on a much larger scale – now, under Obama.
Looking the other way, in the name of rank partisanship
That’s more than you can say for most of the rest of the mainstream media, and their ideological soul mates in the Democrat Party, and that is something Greenwald is taking note of among his traditionally left-wing media pals, according to Breitbart News‘ John Nolte.
Per the Business Insider, which interviewed Greenwald after his NSA story broke:
Greenwald told Business Insider late Tuesday night that he thinks some left-leaning members of the media – such as Time magazine’s Joe Klein and The New Yorker‘s Jeffrey Toobin – have shifted stances on surveillance and civil liberties for “principle-free, hackish, and opportunistic” reasons.
“I’m not surprised,” Greenwald said in an email. “I’ve been amazed and disappointed for a long time at how the most slavishly partisan media Democrats who pretended to care so much about these issues when doing so helped undermine George Bush are now the loudest apologists and cheerleaders for these very same policies. …
“To call them principle-free, hackish, and opportunistic is to be overly generous.”
Ouch.
As Nolte points out, Greenwald is what you would call a traditional left-wing, pro-civil rights liberal, not someone who is wedded to partisanship and who would defend his or her party’s president if they were caught on camera robbing a bank at gunpoint.
“And while the media’s mercenary double standard is most apparent with these surveillance scandals, we see it in almost everything else-including Obama’s failed economy, the Benghazi scandal, and the media forgiving/ignoring/downplaying an administration guilty of lying to them on a regular basis,” writes Nolte. “Greenwald is wrong about almost everything, but unlike his colleagues, he is at least no lapdog.”
Bipartisan approval for NSA
By the same token, we see a very bipartisan coalition of lawmakers – Democrats and Republicans – who are defending NSA snooping in general as somehow legal and acceptable, despite the Constitution’s very plain, simple and easy-to-understand prohibitions against warrantless searching and seizing of Americans’ private data. It’s easy to understand why – since both Bush and Obama are guilty. But what lawmakers should be defending is the Constitution, not their own political power.
One lawmaker who is not happy about the NSA’s activities is Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
“The irony is that people voted for President Obama hoping for something different,” Paul has said. “That’s why a lot of people I think are disappointed in the president. They’re disappointed in him targeting reporters. There’s just a lot to be disappointed about.”
Paul has vowed to challenge the NSA’s domestic spying, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.breitbart.com
http://www.businessinsider.com
http://townhall.com
Natural News
June 16, 2013
I’ve never been much of a fan of the USA Patriot Act. I thought it was passed too hastily in the wake of the 9/11 attacks without much real debate or consideration among Congress and their voting constituents. I thought it created a bureaucracy (The Department of Homeland Security) that would become far too large and far too powerful (it has). I thought its provisions were onerous (they are) and extremely subjective and, therefore, lent themselves to abuse (as has happened). Worse, I knew once this massive new piece of legislation was signed into law the huge new security bureaucracy it created would forever haunt and torment Americans. That day, too, has come.
One person who agrees is Glenn Greenwald, the U.S. bureau chief for Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, which broke the NSA spy scandal story in early June after being contacted by agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Say what you will about his overall political bent – I’m not so much a fan of it – he at least has been consistent in his criticism of the Patriot Act and U.S. government spying in general. He didn’t much care for it when it was occurring during President George W. Bush’s tenure and he is just as upset about it now that it is occurring – albeit on a much larger scale – now, under Obama.
Looking the other way, in the name of rank partisanship
That’s more than you can say for most of the rest of the mainstream media, and their ideological soul mates in the Democrat Party, and that is something Greenwald is taking note of among his traditionally left-wing media pals, according to Breitbart News‘ John Nolte.
Per the Business Insider, which interviewed Greenwald after his NSA story broke:
Greenwald told Business Insider late Tuesday night that he thinks some left-leaning members of the media – such as Time magazine’s Joe Klein and The New Yorker‘s Jeffrey Toobin – have shifted stances on surveillance and civil liberties for “principle-free, hackish, and opportunistic” reasons.
“I’m not surprised,” Greenwald said in an email. “I’ve been amazed and disappointed for a long time at how the most slavishly partisan media Democrats who pretended to care so much about these issues when doing so helped undermine George Bush are now the loudest apologists and cheerleaders for these very same policies. …
“To call them principle-free, hackish, and opportunistic is to be overly generous.”
Ouch.
As Nolte points out, Greenwald is what you would call a traditional left-wing, pro-civil rights liberal, not someone who is wedded to partisanship and who would defend his or her party’s president if they were caught on camera robbing a bank at gunpoint.
“And while the media’s mercenary double standard is most apparent with these surveillance scandals, we see it in almost everything else-including Obama’s failed economy, the Benghazi scandal, and the media forgiving/ignoring/downplaying an administration guilty of lying to them on a regular basis,” writes Nolte. “Greenwald is wrong about almost everything, but unlike his colleagues, he is at least no lapdog.”
Bipartisan approval for NSA
By the same token, we see a very bipartisan coalition of lawmakers – Democrats and Republicans – who are defending NSA snooping in general as somehow legal and acceptable, despite the Constitution’s very plain, simple and easy-to-understand prohibitions against warrantless searching and seizing of Americans’ private data. It’s easy to understand why – since both Bush and Obama are guilty. But what lawmakers should be defending is the Constitution, not their own political power.
One lawmaker who is not happy about the NSA’s activities is Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
“The irony is that people voted for President Obama hoping for something different,” Paul has said. “That’s why a lot of people I think are disappointed in the president. They’re disappointed in him targeting reporters. There’s just a lot to be disappointed about.”
Paul has vowed to challenge the NSA’s domestic spying, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.breitbart.com
http://www.businessinsider.com
http://townhall.com
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Facebook and Microsoft get government OK to make broader surveillance revelations post-Edward Snowden leaks
NY Daily News
June 15, 2013
Facebook and Microsoft Corp. representatives said that after negotiations with national security officials their companies have been given permission to make new but still very limited revelations about government orders to turn over user data.
The announcements Friday night come at the end of a week when Facebook, Microsoft and Google, normally rivals, had jointly pressured the Obama administration to loosen their legal gag on national security orders.
Read full article
June 15, 2013
Facebook and Microsoft Corp. representatives said that after negotiations with national security officials their companies have been given permission to make new but still very limited revelations about government orders to turn over user data.
The announcements Friday night come at the end of a week when Facebook, Microsoft and Google, normally rivals, had jointly pressured the Obama administration to loosen their legal gag on national security orders.
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Admission: Special Forces were only hours from Benghazi
Aaron Klein
WND
June 15, 2013
In a bombshell admission that has until now gone unreported, Martin Dempsey, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded that highly trained Special Forces were stationed just a few hours away from Benghazi on the night of the attacks but were not told to deploy to Libya.
In comments that may warrant further investigation, Dempsey stated at a Senate hearing Wednesday that on the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, command of the Special Forces – known as C-110, or the EUCOM CIF – was transferred from the military’s European command to AFRICOM, or the United States Africa Command.
Dempsey did not state any reason for the strange transfer of command nor could he provide a timeline for the transfer the night of the attack.
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WND
June 15, 2013
In a bombshell admission that has until now gone unreported, Martin Dempsey, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded that highly trained Special Forces were stationed just a few hours away from Benghazi on the night of the attacks but were not told to deploy to Libya.
In comments that may warrant further investigation, Dempsey stated at a Senate hearing Wednesday that on the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, command of the Special Forces – known as C-110, or the EUCOM CIF – was transferred from the military’s European command to AFRICOM, or the United States Africa Command.
Dempsey did not state any reason for the strange transfer of command nor could he provide a timeline for the transfer the night of the attack.
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