Posts Tagged ‘big brother’
“The media created myth that the town hall protests raging across the country are artificially manufactured is starting to crack, as the public takes the press to task for parroting the erroneous talking point that the demonstrations are the work of lobbyists and Republican organizations, and that they are fostered by underlying racism.
A caller to C-Span’s Washington Journal show perfectly clarified the issues we have been highlighting all along, that the protesters are not just Republican ‘right-wingers,’ they aren’t being prodded into action by lobbyists, and the anger is not just directed against Obamacare, but against the entire agenda, and especially against Congress passing legislation thousands of pages long without even reading it.
As we highlighted last week, ABC News reported that there was no evidence of lobbyists at the protests. Shortly after this, Obamanoids simply switched their talking point and started to claim that the demonstrations were all being organized by Republican organizations.
The C-Span caller who labeled herself an Independent stated that she only started going to protests as recently as July 4th and before that she wasn’t even political. The caller points out that the protests are growing because, ‘All these massive bills, thousands of pages long that are passed with almost no debate, no time for us to see what’s in it,’ and in complete contrast to promised of transparency on behalf of the new administration…”
source: infowars.com
“Congress plans to spend $550 million to buy eight jets, a substantial upgrade to the fleet used by federal officials at a time when lawmakers have criticized the use of corporate jets by companies receiving taxpayer funds…
…The congressional shopping list goes beyond what the Air Force had initially requested as part of its annual appropriations. The Pentagon sought to buy one Gulfstream V and one business-class equivalent of a Boeing 737 to replace aging planes. The Defense Department also asked to buy two additional 737s that were being leased.
Lawmakers in the House last week added funds to buy those planes, and plus funds to buy an additional two 737s and two Gulfstream V planes. The purchases must still be approved by the Senate. The Air Force version of the Gulfstream V each costs $66 million, according to the Department of Defense, and the 737s cost about $70 million.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said the Department of Defense didn’t request the additional planes and doesn’t need them. ‘We ask for what we need and only what we need,’ he told reporters Wednesday. ‘We’ve always frowned upon earmarks and additives that are above and beyond what we ask for.’”
source: wsj.com
“he Venezuelan government has ordered the closure of 34 radio stations, the head of the national telecommunications regulator, Conatel, has said. Diosdado Cabello, who is also minister of public works in the government of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, said the closures were due to the stations’ inability to meet legal operating requirements, and warned that more closures may follow.
‘They will have to cease transmission once they have received the order’, Cabello said on Friday. ‘This is about legitimate authority of the government to manage the radio spectrum… We are only implementing what the law says…’”
source: aljazeera.net
“THOUSANDS of the worst families in England are to be put in “sin bins” in a bid to change their bad behaviour, Ed Balls announced yesterday. The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes. They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.
Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction. Around 2,000 families have gone through these Family Intervention Projects so far. But ministers want to target 20,000 more in the next two years, with each costing between £5,000 and £20,000 – a potential total bill of £400million. Ministers hope the move will reduce the number of youngsters who get drawn into crime because of their chaotic family lives, as portrayed in Channel 4 comedy drama Shameless. Sin bin projects operate in half of council areas already but Mr Balls wants every local authority to fund them…”
source: express.co.uk
“Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano traveled to New York to deliver a speech to the boss today. She told the Council on Foreign Relations there will be no departure from the Bush administration in regard to homeland security. It will be the same agenda with a few minor changes — for instance, the color-coded threat advisory will be chucked.
‘Napolitano sang the praises of counter-terrorism intelligence being shared between federal, state and local agencies through arrangements known as fusion centers,’ writes Frank James for NPR. Napolitano said she plans ‘to make them a top priority for this department to support them, build them, improve them and work with them.’
Translation: the feds will continue the full-steam ahead effort to federalize state and local law enforcement, an effort that began in earnest under Bill Clinton and picked up critical momentum during the reign of George W. Bush. ‘Napolitano sounded just like her predecessors Ridge and Michael Chertoff,’ James continues. ‘And she talked about educating the populace about how to be the eyes and ears of counter-terrorism and also how to respond to the aftermath of man-made or natural disasters,’ or for that matter government contrived false flag operations. Napolitano told the internationalist cabal in New York that the American people suffer from ‘complacency’ and this is a ‘threat in the United States.’ In order to combat complacency, the government has to do more to ‘educate’ the public on the threat posed by terrorists and other miscreants. In other words, Napolitano admitted the incessant warnings of impending doom — from dirty bombs in major cities to bad guys taking out nuclear plants — have not worked…”
source: infowars.com
“…The Internet remains one of the most powerful means ever created to give voice to repressed people around the world. Unfortunately, new technologies have also given authoritarian regimes new means to identify and retaliate against those who speak out despite censorship and surveillance. Below are six basic ideas for those attempting to speak without falling
victim to authoritarian surveillance and censorship, and four ideas for the rest of us who want to help support them…
1. Understand Risk Assessment
2. Beware of Malware
3. Choose the Least-Risky Communications Channels
4. Use Encryption to Prevent Surveillance and Censorship of your Web Usage
5. Be Careful of What and Where You Publish
6. Should I use a Tor Bridge…”
source: eff.org
“The city of Miami and several commercial partners plan to rollout a “smart grid” citywide electrical infrastructure by the year 2011. This rollout was
announced on the heels of news that foreign agents have infiltrated our existing electrical infrastructure and that recent penetration tests have uncovered numerous vulnerabilities in the proposed technologies. Simultaneously, the National Institute for Standards in Technology (“NIST”) has recently released a roadmap for producing smart grid standards. In this whitepaper, I will discuss the flaws with the current guidelines and map them to the criticisms of similar regulatory mandates, including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (“PCI DSS”), that rely heavily on organizations policing themselves…
As of the writing of this white paper, NIST has released a draft framework for review that includes some of the proposed standards. While there are several security standards listed in the framework, NIST appears to be making the same mistakes of previous regulatory mandate governing bodies. For example, the PCI DSS standards have been criticized for not requiring a high-level of security in environments that process cardholder data. Specifically, one of the major criticisms is the “self policing” aspect of these standards. The credit card companies (American Express, Discover
Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa Inc.) are responsible for ensuring that relevant companies are compliant with the standards. If a company is deemed non-compliant, then the credit card companies issue what they consider to be the appropriate punishment…”
source: blackhat.com
“Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke appeared incredibly nervous during an interview aired last night on PBS’ NewsHour, particularly during a question on the ongoing effort to pass legislation that would see the Fed’s books being opened up to a general audit. In a display that will greatly encourage those who continue for push for greater transparency of the privately run Fed’s actions, Bernanke stammered and stuttered his way through the interview, his voice shaking as he attempted to rail against calls to audit the Fed, reciting now familiar and standard lines of propaganda.
‘There’s an effort in Congress, and in the House in particular, to audit what the Federal Reserve does, particularly in monetary policy. How do you feel about that?’ asked PBS’ Jim Lehrer. ‘So that bill, people don’t fully understand what that bill is about. It sounds like, audit the Fed, it sounds like ‘Let’s look at the books.’ That’s what it sounds like.’ Bernanke spluttered…”
source: infowars.com
“The Department of Homeland Security relied on a rushed, flawed study to justify its decision to locate a $700 million research facility for highly infectious pathogens in a tornado-prone section of Kansas, according to a government report.
The department’s analysis was not “scientifically defensible” in concluding that it could safely handle dangerous animal diseases in Kansas — or any other location on the U.S. mainland, according to a Government Accountability Office draft report obtained by The Washington Post. The GAO said DHS greatly underestimated the chance of accidental release and major contamination from such research, which has been conducted only on a remote island off the United States.
DHS staff members tried quietly last week to fend off a public airing of the facility’s risks, agency correspondence shows. Department officials met privately with staff members of a congressional oversight subcommittee to try to convince them that the GAO report was unfair, and to urge them to forgo or postpone a hearing. But the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), decided otherwise. It plans to hold a hearing Thursday on the risk analysis, according to two sources briefed on the plans. “
source: washingtonpost.com
“A city council said Saturday it was considering using underground burial chambers, currently a tourist attraction, to store the corpses of swine flu victims if the pandemic worsens.
Exeter City Council said the empty 19th-century catacombs could become an emergency mortuary.
A council spokesman said the plan could be put into operation if the cemeteries and the crematorium could not keep up with funeral demands.
He said: ‘We have some empty catacombs in an old cemetery in the city. These are 19th century underground burial chambers which are normally a tourist attraction,’ he said.
‘They can, however, be safely used for their original purpose and allow us to temporarily store bodies in the remote possibility that the need should arise…’”
source: AFP
“Israel is a democracy, we are told. We have freedom of speech to prove it. Aside from a few pesky details of a permanent state of emergency which allows the government and security forces to impose censorship of the media, we really are free to speak our minds – to an extent.
The legal limits on personal expression are draconian, but not very often invoked. It is the unspoken limits of freedom of speech which are more binding. Even as I write I hear the clinking of the chains in my mind: how much do I dare expose? What might be the repercussions of this word, or that sentence?
I, like most young Israeli Jews, went to the army at the age of 18. At the time I barely even questioned this. Going to the army here is a fact of life, merely another step in the standard ‘natural’ order: six years of grade school, six of high school, three in the army and so forth. In the army I was exposed to matters of varying levels of secrecy. Divulging them is, of course, illegal. But even that is not what I feel constrains me and so many others. What security clearance deems secret is not, as a general rule, an interesting subject for conversation other than in very specific circumstances, almost never occurring outside the army.”
source: guardian.co.uk
“On June 27, 2009, Will Bratton posted the videos below on the Vimeo website. It shows a flatbed trailer ferrying a couple black SUV Suburbans with Defense logos on them (described as Fifth Army, HHC CSRD). The video was shot on I-35 between San Marcos and Austin, Texas. ‘I did a tour in Iraq, 05-06, and I don’t remember any civilian models this heavily equipped being there,’ writes Bratton.
The transport of these heavily equipped vehicles occurred a month before NLE 09, the FEMA exercise that kicks off this week. Is it possible these vehicles are related to the exercise aimed at confronting “domestic terrorists,” defined by the DHS as ‘rightwing extremists’?”
US Army North, Fifth Army, HHC TMP in San Marcos, TX from Will Bratton on Vimeo.
US Army North, Fifth Army, HHC CSRD in San Marcos, TX from Will Bratton on Vimeo.