Transit authorities in cities across the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations, according to documents obtained by a news outlet.
The systems are being installed in San Francisco, Baltimore, and other cities with funding from the Department of Homeland Security in some cases, according to the Daily, which obtained copies of contracts, procurement requests, specs and other documents.
The use of the equipment raises serious questions about eavesdropping without a warrant, particularly since recordings of passengers could be obtained and used by law enforcement agencies.
It also raises questions about security, since the IP audio-video systems can be accessed remotely via a built-in web server (.pdf), and can be combined with GPS data to track the movement of buses and passengers throughout the city.
The RoadRecorder 7000 surveillance system being marketed for use on public buses consists of a high-definition IP camera and audio recording system that can be configured remotely via built-in web server.
According to the product pamphlet for the RoadRecorder 7000 system made by SafetyVision (.pdf), “Remote connectivity to the RoadRecorder 7000 NVR can be established via the Gigabit Ethernet port or the built-in 3G modem. A robust software ecosystem including LiveTrax vehicle tracking and video streaming service combined with SafetyNet central management system allows authorized users to check health status, create custom alerts, track vehicles, automate event downloads and much more.”
The systems use cables or WiFi to pair audio conversations with camera images in order to produce synchronous recordings. Audio and video can be monitored in real-time, but are also stored onboard in blackbox-like devices, generally for 30 days, for later retrieval. Four to six cameras with mics are generally installed throughout a bus, including one near the driver and one on the exterior of the bus.
Cities that have installed the systems or have taken steps to procure them include San Francisco, California; Eugene, Oregon; Traverse City, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore Maryland; Hartford, Connecticut; and Athens, Georgia.
San Francisco transit authorities recently approved a $5.9 million contract to install an audio surveillance system on 357 buses and vintage trolley cars, paid for in full with a grant from DHS. The contract includes the option to expand the equipment to an additional 600 vehicles.
Concord, New Hampshire also used part of a $1.2 million economic stimulus grant to install its new video/audio surveillance system on buses, according to the Daily.
Transit officials say the systems will help improve the safety of passengers and drivers and resolve complaints from riders. But privacy and security expert Ashkan Soltani told the Daily that the audio could easily be coupled with facial recognition systems or audio recognition technology to identify passengers caught on the recordings.
In Eugene, Oregon, the Daily found, transit officials requested microphones that would be capable of “distilling clear conversations from the background noise of other voices, wind, traffic, windshields wipers and engines” and also wanted at least five audio channels spread across each bus that would be “paired with one or more camera images and recorded synchronously with the video for simultaneous playback.”
In 2009, transit officials in Baltimore, Maryland, backed down briefly from plans to install microphones in buses in that city after civil liberties groups complained that the systems would violate wiretapping laws and constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure. Transit authorities then asked the state’s attorney general to weigh-in on whether the systems violated wiretapping laws. After the attorney general indicated that signs warning passengers of the surveillance would help combat any legal challenges, transit officials pressed forward with their plans last month and announced the installation of an audio recording system on 10 public buses. The city plans to roll out the system on at least 340 additional buses.
RT talks to William Binney, whistleblower and former NSA crypto-mathematician who served in the agency for decades. Virtual privacy in US, Petraeus affair and whistleblowers’ odds in fight against the authorities are among key topics of this exclusive interview
RT: In light of the Petraeus/Allen scandal while the public is so focused on the details of their family drama, one may argue that the real scandal in this whole story is the power, the reach of the surveillance state. I mean if we take General Allen – thousands of his personal e-mails have been sifted through private correspondence. It’s not like any of those men was planning an attack on America. Does the scandal prove the notion that there is no such thing as privacy in a surveillance state?
William Binney: Yes, that’s what I’ve been basically saying for quite some time, is that the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least.
RT: And it’s not just about those, who could be planning, who could be a threat to national security, but also those, who could be just…
WB: It’s everybody. The Naris device, if it takes in the entire line, so it takes in all the data. In fact they advertised they can process the lines at session rates, which means 10-gigabit lines. I forgot the name of the device (it’s not the Naris) – the other one does it at 10 gigabits. That’s why they’re building Bluffdale [database facility], because they have to have more storage, because they can’t figure out what’s important, so they are just storing everything there. So, emails are going to be stored there in the future, but right now stored in different places around the country. But it is being collected – and the FBI has access to it.
RT: You mean it’s being collected in bulk without even requesting providers?
WB: Yes.
RT: Then what about Google, you know, releasing this biannual transparency report and saying that the government’s demands for personal data is at an all-time high and for all of those requesting the US, Google says they complied with the government’s demands 90 percent of the time. But they are still saying that they are making the request, it’s not like it’s all being funneled into that storage. What do you say to that?
WB: I would assume that it’s just simply another source for the same data they are already collecting. My line is in declarations in a court about the 18-T facility in San Francisco, that documented the NSA room inside that AST&T facility, where they had Naris devices to collect data off the fiber optic lines inside the United States. So, that’s kind of a powerful device, that would collect everything it was being sent. It could collect on the order over of 100 billion 1,000-character emails a day. One device.
RT: You say they sift through billions of e-mails. I wonder how do they prioritize? How do they filter it?
WB: I don’t think they are filtering it. They are just storing it. I think it’s just a matter of selecting when they want it. So, if they want to target you, they would take your attributes, go into that database and pull out all your data.
RT: Were you on the target list?
WB: Oh, sure! I believe I’ve been on it for quite a few years. So I keep telling them everything I think of them in my email. So that when they want to read it they’ll understand what I think of them.
RT: Do you think we all should leave messages for the NSA mail box?
WB: Sure!
RT: You blew the whistle on the agency when George W. Bush was the president. With President Obama in office, in your opinion, has anything changed at the agency, in the surveillance program? In what direction is this administration moving?
WB: The change is it’s getting worse. They are doing more. He is supporting the building of the Bluffdale facility, which is over two billion dollars they are spending on storage room for data. That means that they are collecting a lot more now and need more storage for it. That facility by my calculations that I submitted to the court for the Electronic Frontiers Foundation against NSA would hold on the order of 5 zettabytes of data. Just that current storage capacity is being advertised on the web that you can buy. And that’s not talking about what they have in the near future.
RT: What are they going to do with all of that? Ok, they are storing something. Why should anybody be concerned?
WB: If you ever get on the enemies list, like Petraeus did or… for whatever reason, than you can be drained into that surveillance.
RT: Do you think they would… General Petraeus, who was idolized by the same administration? Or General Allen?
WB: There are certainly some questions, that have to be asked, like why would they target it to begin with? What law were they breaking?
RT: In case of General Petraeus one would argue that there could have been security breaches. Something like that. But with General Allen – I don’t quite understand, because when they were looking into his private emails to this woman.
WB: That’s the whole point. I am not sure what the internal politics is… That’s part of the program. This government doesn’t want things in the public. It’s not a transparent government. Whatever the reason or the motivation was, I don’t really know, but I certainly think that there was something going on in the background that made them target those fellows. Otherwise why would they be doing it? There is no crime there.
RT: It seems that the public is divided between those, who think that the government surveillance program violates their civil liberties, and those who say, ‘I’ve nothing to hide. So, why should I care?’ What do you say to those who think that it shouldnt concern them.
WB: The problem is if they think they are not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does, the central government defines what is right and wrong and whether or not they target you. So, it’s not up to the individuals. Even if they think they aren’t doing something wrong, if their position on something is against what the administration has, then they could easily become a target.
RT: Tell me about the most outrageous thing that you came across during your work at the NSA.
WB: The violations of the constitution and any number of laws that existed at the time. That was the part that I could not be associated with. That’s why I left. They were building social networks on who is communicating and with whom inside this country. So that the entire social network of everybody, of every US citizen was being compiled overtime. So, they are taking from one company alone roughly 320 million records a day. That’s probably accumulated probably close to 20 trillion over the years.
The original program that we put together to handle this to be able to identify terrorists anywhere in the world and alert anyone that they were in jeopardy. We would have been able to do that by encrypting everybody’s communications except those who were targets. So, in essence you would protect their identities and the information about them until you could develop probable cause, and once you showed your probable cause, then you could do a decrypt and target them. And we could do that and isolate those people all alone. It wasn’t a problem at all. There was no difficulty in that.
RT: It sounds very difficult and very complicated. Easier to take everything in and…
WB: No. It’s easier to use the graphing techniques, if you will, for the relationships for the world to filter out data, so that you don’t have to handle all that data. And it doesn’t burden you with a lot more information to look at, than you really need to solve the problem.
RT: Do you think that the agency doesn’t have the filters now?
WB: No.
RT: You have received the Callaway award for civic courage. Congratulations! On the website and in the press release it says: “It is awarded to those, who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.” Under the code of spy ethics – I don’t know if there is such a thing – your former colleagues, they probably look upon you as a traitor. How do you look back at them?
WB: That’s pretty easy. They are violating the foundation of this entire country. Why this entire government was formed? It’s founded with the Constitution and the rights were given to the people in the country under that Constitution. They are in violation of that. And under executive order 13526, section 1.7 – you can not classify information to just cover up a crime, which this is, and that was signed by President Obama. Also President Bush signed it earlier as an executive order, a very similar one. If any of this comes into Supreme Court and they rule it unconstitutional, then the entire house of cards of the government falls.
RT: What are the chances of that? What are the odds?
WB: The government is doing the best they can to try to keep it out of court. And, of course, we are trying to do the best we can to get into court. So, we decided it deserves a ruling from the Supreme Court. Ultimately the court is supposed to protect the Constitution. All these people in the government take an oath to defend the Constitution. And they are not living up to the oath of office.
The NDAA should scare the hell out of every American Citizen. This allows the government the authority to secretly arrest Americans, without due process, torture and even murder American citizens without so much as a trial. The National Defense Resources Preparedness allows the president, without going through the U.S. Congress, the ability to seize control of all corporate assets, manufacturing operations, and conscript American civilians into work brigades (i.e. slave labor), seize all food, impose restrictions and rations on all vital resources and to hand these resources to the Department of Homeland Security. Section 201 of this Executive Order allows the president to seize control of all corporate infrastructure, manufacturing operations, control of food, control of farm equipment, control of fuel, control electricity, control of water resources, and control of all civilian transportation.
It is also been documented, ad nauseam, that the existence and operational activation of FEMA camps is now a provable fact as reported by CBS News. Let’s not kid ourselves, FEMA camps are the future concentration camps.
There are many other examples of impending government tyranny that could easily be pointed out here. However, the abovementioned governmental policies are all the proof that America needs to come to the realization that we are all in a great deal of danger and that you, the American middle class, are going to be the targets of this tyrannical oppression.
If elements of your government were not planning to commit genocide against the American people, then why would these policies be enacted? Should we just think that the government doesn’t really mean it when they say they can secretly arrest and murder Americans without following the due process of law under the NDAA? Should we think is just a silly conspiracy theory when we state that Obama has given himself the authority to seize every meaningful asset in this country based solely on his own personal say-so? Is America so dumbed-down to not be able recognize the danger when it’s staring us in the face, The danger is in print, click on the hypertext links and read for yourself that the elite are telling you what they are planning to do to you.
I find it laughable how the country has been conditioned to laugh at any kind of the conspiracy theory, as if two evil man would never get together and conspire to do anything. The refusal of Americans to recognize these dangers, and dismiss them as merely wild-eyed conspiracy theories, speaks to how dumbed down our people have become due to a substandard education system and through the controlled corporate media in which only five corporations own over 95% of the entire media industrial complex.
The Trigger Event
Every act of civil disobedience, every act of revolution and every act of tyrannical genocide committed by government, requires a trigger event. For the Nazis, this trigger event included burning down the Reichstag building and blaming the Communists as an excuse to declare martial law. What will be the trigger event for the coming genocidal holocaust committed against American citizens? No one can say for sure. However, history has proven that government gun confiscation from private citizens are the chest pains prior to the heart attack. In the 20th century, there were 17 major genocides committed against civilian populations resulting in a death toll of around 60 millionpeople. Everyone of these genocides was preceded by gun confiscation which rendered the intended victims defenseless against the slaughter that awaited them.
It is widely known, that Obama is feverishly attempting to usher in the UN Gun Ban Treaty. If he is unable to ram it through Congress, as he is tried before, he is very likely codify gun control through executive order. When gun confiscation comes, it’s time for people like you and I to run for the hills because if you are caught and sent to a FEMA “re-education” camp, you are probably not coming out alive.
Control of communications is also a necessary prerequisite to carry out tyranny against a civilian population. We know that the globalists corporations control 95% of the establishment media. So, that goal has already been accomplished. However the one medium of communication exchange not under the control of the New World Order, is the Internet. In the same proximity of time that we will see gun control introduced into American society on a widespread basis, one can expect the Internet to be taken down and tightly censored as it is in China. The New American Magazine has reported that Obama has given the codes to the DNS servers, for the Internet, to the United Nations. If this is correct, we are not going to have to wait long for this insanity to unfold. And of course, should all else fail, I don’t doubt for a second that this administration will not hesitate to roll out a false flag attack as a prelude to the declaration of martial law and seize American guns under this pretext.
Are You Ready?
Are you ready for the coming tyrannical crackdown and the complete evisceration of our constitutional liberties? Have you taken the proper precautions that will ensure the safety of you and your family? It is not likely that very many of us have taken the any meaningful steps to maximize our chances for survival in what will prove to be humanity’s darkest days. Do you have what it takes to survive in a FEMA camp?
When the FEMA bus rolls into your neighborhood, are you prepared to deal with what lies ahead? Let’s assume for a second that martial law is declared and you were not able to find a safe sanctuary and that you are arrested by the powers that be. Your family will subsequently be separated by the authorities as a prelude to sending you to a FEMA camp, and that means that men will go to one facility, and women will go to another. Children will have their own facility awaiting them. In all likelihood, this will mark the last time you will ever see your family. How do I know this? Read the Rex 84 documents.
Imagine how a man who is deprived of everyone he has ever cared about, and at the same time this man has lost his house and all of his possessions, how will he survive? There are two primary dangers facing detainees. The first is bad luck. The second danger is the loss of hope. Victor Frankl, the renowned psychiatrist, who spent four years in Auschwitz, thought that the loss of hope was the number one factor associated with prisoner mortality in a concentration camp detention situation. How will you find meaning in your life when you’re separated from everything you’ve ever known and loved?
In the previous days as a history instructor, I used to have survivors of the Holocaust come and speak to my students. Subsequently, I asked all of these former death camp prisoners, what was the number one factor in their survival? Almost to a person, they stated the number one factor in their survival was luck. I was told that the Nazis would herd people to the showers which they knew was a death trap, and they were the next in line, but were turned away, because the quota had been met. It just wasn’t their day to die.
If you are sent to a FEMA camp, there are things you can do to exercise control over the things of which you have influence. The Jews were a very resilient people and were able to manufacture their own subculture. There were those, however, they did resist as they ran from the relocation trains, and/or attacked their captors. In almost every instance, resisting authorities at the time of arrest was almost 100% fatal.
For those who arrived at the death camps, a vibrant subculture appeared as the people played cards and actors, musicians, comics, singers, and dancers all entertained small groups who came together for a few hours to forget their daily terror and despair. Singers and poets also perform their craft as well. And of course, people continue to pray even though it was against the rules. People formed bonds with each other, developed a level of affection and respect. In short, they replaced the loss of primary family associations with people facing imminent death every day. The lesson is clear, if you’re ever forced into a FEMA camp, pray for good luck and foster relationships among your fellow detainees and find pleasure in the small things over which you will have some measure of control.
Organized Resistance Within the Camp
What about organizing a resistance in the FEMA camps, would that work? The history lesson which can be derived, from this question, is not promising.In Treblinka, seven hundred Jews were successful in blowing up the camp on August 2, 1943. All but 150 of the inmates perished in retaliation for their efforts. Only 12 Treblinka inmates survived the war. In Sobibor, Jewish and Russian inmates mounted an escape on October 14, 1943. One in ten successfully successfully escaped, about 60 out of 600. The prisoners involved in the escape survived to join the Soviet underground. In Auschwitz, on October 7, 1944, one of the four crematoria was blown up by Jewish workers, whose job it was to clear away the bodies of gas chamber victims. The workers were all caught and killed.
The lesson seems clear, if you allow yourself to be transported to a FEMA camp, you’re probably not coming out alive. Therefore, since resistance within the camp is futile, you have three options. One, do not get caught. Two, you can choose to acquiesce and hope your compliance and your search meaning is successful. Three, you can try to escape. To survive by going along to get along, requires a fair amount of luck to survive. From my perspective, I believe history teaches that mounting an organized escape effort may be the best chance for survival that an inmate has put coming out of the death camp experience, alive.
Will You and Your Community
Resist the Tyranny?
Despite the stereotype which betrays all Jews as willing and meekly going to their slaughter, is not totally accurate. There are plenty of examples where the Jews met force with force and refused to be subjugated. For example, on September 3, 1942, seven hundred Jewish families escaped from the Tuchin Ghetto, located in the Ukraine. However, the Nazis hunted them down, and only 15 survived.
By 1943, the ghetto residents, in the famous Warsaw Ghetto, had organized an army of about 1,000 men, mostly unarmed and without military equipment. In January 1943, German soldiers entered the ghetto to round up more Jews for shipment to the death camps. They were met by a volley of bombs, Molotov cocktails, and a few bullets from the sparse number of firearms which had been smuggled into the ghettos. Twenty German soldiers were killed. The action encouraged a few members of the Polish resistance to support the uprising, and a few machine guns, some hand grenades, and about a hundred rifles and revolvers were smuggled in.
The Germans returned with almost 3,000 crack German troops and eventually overcame the resistance and about 300 Germans were killed. Jewish losses were estimated at 15,000. Some Jews survived and some actually did escape, but not many.
Conclusion
According to the lessons of history, there can be no question that being sent to a concentration camp (i.e. FEMA camp) is an almost certain death sentence. We have seen that resistance at the point of arrest is futile. Armed and organized resistance which includes community involvement, produces long odds for survival, but some do survive. Resisting captors inside of the concentration camp, by an means necessary, is nearly fatal in every case. Acquiescing to authority, while one carves out a life under very dire circumstances, provides the best chance for survival. However, under these conditions, one’s survival is highly dependent on being lucky.
The best chance for survival if you are ever transported to a FEMA camp, is to avoid being caught in the first place. The next part in this series explores how one can best evade capture for both themselves and their family members.
There is evidence in the archeological record that yoga has been practiced by humans for at least 5,000 years. Whereas this would constitute sufficient evidence for most folks to consider it a practice with real health benefits, as its millions of practitioners widely claim, skeptics say otherwise. They require any activity deemed to be of therapeutic value run the gauntlet of randomized, controlled clinical trials before it is fully accepted within the conventional medical system.
This tendency towards scientism in medicine, or what some call medical monotheism, runs diametrically opposed to the standards of lived-experience – so called “subjectivity” – or anecdotal experience (learning from the experience of others) which is what the majority of the world uses to determine if something has value, or is worth doing or not.
Yoga, of course, is no longer exclusively practiced by a particular religious group. It is considered a form of low-impact exercise and stress-reduction, and is estimated to be practiced by 20 million people in the US alone. This burgeoning interest among Westerners happens to be why so much human clinical research has now been performed on yoga. The US National Library of Medicine’s bibliographic database shows that in 1968, seven studies were published on yoga. This year, there have been over 250. So much research, in fact, has accumulated that even systematic reviews of the literature have now been published.
Take a recently published systematic review in the Clinical Journal of Pain where an evaluation of ten randomized controlled trials found patients with chronic low back pain found “short-term effectiveness and moderate evidence for long-term effectiveness of yoga for chronic low back pain.”[i]gpub_46558_therapeutic_action_yoga
The meta-analysis sits comfortably on the top of the pyramid of truth of “evidence-based” medicine. Once confirmation has occurred at these heights, few can accuse such an intervention of “quackery” without indicting the very holy grail of modern medicine itself.
So, what other human clinical research now confirms the value of yoga in the prevention and treatment of disease? We have found evidence supporting the use of yoga in as many as 70 distinct disease categories, all of which can be viewed on our Yoga Health Benefits page, and with 7 listed below:
Type 2 Diabetes: Yoga has been found to reduce blood sugar and drug requirements in patients with type 2 diabetes.[ii][iii] Additional benefits for type 2 diabetics include the reduction of oxidative stress,[iv] improved cognitive brain function,[v] improving cardiovascular function,[vi] and reducing body mass index, improved well-being and reduced anxiety.[vii]
Asthma: There are now four clinical studies indicating that yoga practice improves the condition of those with bronchial asthma.[viii][ix][x][xi]
Elevated Cortisol (Stress): Yoga practice has been found to decrease serum cortisol levels which have been correlated with alpha wave activation.[xii] Yoga also compares favorably in this respect to African dance, the latter of which raises cortisol.[xiii] Women suffering from mental stress, including breast cancer outpatients undergoing adjuvant radiotherapy, have been found to respond to yoga intervention with lowered cortisol levels, as well as associated mental stress and anxiety reduction.[xiv][xv]
Fibromyalgia: There are three studies indicating that yoga improves the condition of patients suffering from fibromyalgia.[xvi][xvii][xviii]
High Blood Pressure: Yoga has been found to reduce blood pressure in patients with prehypertension to stage 1 hypertension.[xix] Yoga has also been found to reduce blood pressure in more severe conditions, such as HIV-infected adults with cardiovascular disease.[xx] Yogic breathing is one of the most effective forms of yoga for this health condition, with both fast and slow-breathing exercises having value.[xxi]
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Yoga has been found to be efficacious in improving obsessive-compulsive behavior.[xxii][xxiii]
Computer Eye Strain: Yoga practice reduced visual discomfort in professional computer users.[xxiv]
The examples above, of course, concern very specific health benefits. The experienced health benefits of yoga, on the other hand, are far more numerous and all-encompassing than the reductionist medical model seeking to grant it official recognition and credibility will ever be able to fully grasp.
Nonetheless, it is clear that yoga has come of age. Ancient wisdom is finding renewed confirmation by men and women in lab coats, who themselves could stand to loosen up and throw down a sun salutation or two. Considering the aforementioned “scientific research” available today, they might now be more inclined to do so.
This downloadable document (GMI PUB) is filled with medically researched knowledge, relevant information and pertinent data on Yoga. The GMI PUB contains 74 articles which consists of a Cumulative Knowledge * of 671. This GMI PUB document will greatly reduce your research time due to the Cumulative Knowledge feature, and contains a condensed form of the studies that we have accumulated on Yoga.
In order to promote awareness of the clinically-confirmed health benefits of yoga we are offering our Yoga GMI Doc PDF to be downloaded for free. Click the Icon above as a registered user to do so.
According to a report from the “Combatting Terrorism Center” at West Point, ‘Anti-Federalists’ who oppose a New World Order as well as members of several other far right wing activist groups are potential terrorist threats.
West Point is the U.S. Military Academy that trains, educates, and prepares Cadets for their service in the U.S. Army.
The CTC (Combatting Terrorism Center) at West Point was established following the events on September 11, 2001 because of the belief that strong initiative was needed to prepare Cadets for the new environments they would be headed into upon graduating in the post-9/11 era.
The CTC provides a unique terrorism-based education and since its creation, the program has received international recognition for its studies, reports, and teachings on terrorism and terrorist threats.
A new report from the CTC, however, suggests that far right wing political activists, not radical Islamic groups, are the new terrorist threat in America and even goes so far as to say that those who oppose a ‘New World Order’ are potentially violent terrorists.
One of the groups this report warns of is the modern ‘Anti-Federalist’ group, which the report says contains people who believe the American political system has been hijacked by external forces interested in promoting a ‘New World Order,’ an idea that has even been confirmed by David Rockefeller in his book “Memoirs” [1] and George H.W. Bush in various speeches.
The CTC report goes on to say that these ‘Anti-Federalists’ believe the federal government has become corrupt and tyrannical because of its intrusion on the civil constitutional rights of the American people and support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self-government.
According to the report, these people believe that the push for a tyrannical global government would result in disarming the American people and their violence, the report says, may be directed towards the federal government itself and its proxies in law enforcement.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have already released documents which suggest that anyone who has coffee grinders, coffee filters, goggles, and scientific equipment could be involved in creating CBR weapons and should be reported to local authorities.
They have also stated that photographers should be monitored for potential terrorism and they have released guidelinesfor suspicious activity reporting at hotels.
This newly released CTC report, which showcases the exploitation of people like Timothy McVeigh and the small wave of violence from right wing groups in the 1990s to suggest that all right-wingers are potentially violent and even loosely associates those who oppose a one world government with skinheads, Neo-Nazis, and the KKK, is only a small example of the growing paranoia over terrorism and the expanding surveillance state in America.
Why is this all important? Regardless of personal ties to these groups, we must be asking the following question:
Are you preparing for the collapse of society? If so, the truth is that you are definitely not alone. The number of preppers in the U.S. has absolutely exploded in recent years.
It has been estimated that there are now approximately 3 million preppers in the United States, and “Doomsday Preppers” is currently the highest rated show on the National Geographic channel.
In fact, you could be living next to a prepper and never even know it.
All over America, families are transforming spare rooms into long-term food storage pantries, planting survival gardens, unplugging from the grid, converting their homes over to alternative sources of energy, taking self-defense courses and stocking up on just about everything that you can imagine.
The re-election of Barack Obama and other recent events seem to have given the prepper movement even more momentum.
For example, in January the U.S. Mint broke all kinds of records and sold nearly half a billion dollars worth of gold and silver coins to the public. Not only that, Americans bought enough guns during the last two months of 2012 alone to supply the entire armies of China and India.
When it comes to prepping, nobody can match the passion that Americans put into it.
So what are all of these people prepping for?
Well, the truth is that no two preppers have the exact same motivation. There is a general consensus among preppers that our world is becoming increasingly unstable, but when you sit down and talk with them you find out that there are a whole host of different civilization-killing events that various preppers are concerned about. Some are preparing for the collapse of the economy.
Others are extremely concerned about the potential for crippling natural disasters and catastrophic earth changes.
Terrorism, killer pandemics, EMP attacks, World War III, martial law, solar megastorms, asteroid strikes and societal chaos are some of the other things that many preppers are worried about.
There are even some preppers that are not worried about any “threats” at all – they just want to get “back to the land” and want to become less dependent on the system.
Whatever the motivation, it is undeniable that the prepper movement has gotten very large and that it continues to grow.
In fact, there was a recent article in the New York Times about preppers that was actually written by a prepper entitled “The Preppers Next Door“…
To the unprepared, the very word “prepper” is likely to summon images of armed zealots hunkered down in bunkers awaiting the End of Days, but the reality, at least here in New York, is less dramatic. Local Preppers are doctors, doormen, charter school executives, subway conductors, advertising writers and happily married couples from the Bronx. They are no doubt people that you know — your acquaintances and neighbors. People, I’ll admit, like myself.
I was absolutely amazed that one of the key mouthpieces of the establishment, the New York Times, would publish an article that was mostly positive about preppers, because the truth is that prepping is essentially a huge expression of a lack of faith in the establishment. Even the article admitted as much…
PREPPING IS THE BIG SHORT: a bet not just against a city, or a country or a government, but against the whole idea of sustainable civilization. For that reason, it chafes against one of polite society’s last remaining taboos — that the way we live is not simply plagued by certain problems, but is itself insolubly problematic.
And that is exactly right. There are millions of us that are entirely convinced that the world around us is becoming increasingly unstable and that “the system” will not be there to take care of us when everything falls to pieces.
With each passing day, even more Americans lose faith in the system and begin prepping. If you are one of those new preppers, there are actually dozens of great websites out there on the Internet where you can get an education about prepping for free. The list of websites and blogs that I have compiled below contains more articles and resources than you could ever possibly need. Hopefully many of you will find this list to be extremely helpful.
The following are 50 of the best prepper websites and blogs on the Internet…
The sad truth is that our world is becoming increasingly unstable in a whole bunch of different ways and we all need to learn how to prepare for the difficult years ahead.
Unfortunately, most Americans simply are not prepared for much of anything.
For example, a large percentage of Americans do not even have enough savings to get them through a single financial emergency. According to one recent report, approximately 44 percent of all households in the United States are just one unexpected event away from financial disaster.
Most American families do not have much food stored up either. One recent survey discovered that 55 percent of all Americans have less than three days supply of food in their homes.
Could that possibly be accurate? Do people really keep that little food in their homes?
Another survey asked Americans how long they think they could survive if the entire electrical grid went down and there was no more power for an extended period of time. Incredibly, 21 percent of those who responded said that they would survive for less than a week, and an additional 28 percent of those who responded said that they would survive for less than two weeks. Close to 75 percent of those who responded said that they would be dead before the two month mark.
So who are the crazy ones?
Are the people trying to become more independent and self-sufficient crazy, or are the people who have complete and total faith that the system will take care of them no matter what happens actually the crazy ones?
I don’t know about you, but I would prefer for myself and my family to at least have a chance to survive if society melts down for some reason.
A common Rule of Thumb….when ever a bureaucrat asks you a question, a safe “answer” is toask them a question in return. Be polite, but be firm. They often want to extract information out of you without you being the wiser. There is no transparency in the manner of their interaction with you. A good example of this is in the article below….here is what I do. You do what you want.
Example: Did you know you were speeding back there ?
answer: Was I speeding ?
What is your name ?
Is there a problem officer ?
Where are you going ?
Is there a problem officer ?
Can I look in your trunk ?
Do you have a warrant ?
Why can’t I just answer the question and be safe? In law if you answer the question [ANY QUESTION], you have “joined the issue”, meaning that you have unwittingly become a part of the officer’s jurisdiction. To “join” means to become part of an alliance, or to enter into an alliance. You have constitutional protections to guard against such intrusions into your privacy. To be safe, just follow the simple Rule of Thumb. Disclaimer: This is not to be construed as legal advice. Do you own a gun ? Why do you need to know ? Keep it simple. Stop the intrusion into something they have no business asking.
The Patriot Act was passed by both Houses. Don’t help them reduce your freedom.
In the article below, use your best judgment….or you might find yourself where you don’t want to be.
Another way of finding out our “PRIVACY”
Never answer the question….
Do you have a gun in the house ? Why do you need to know ?
GOOD TO KNOW !
When I had my gangrene gallbladder taken out and spent 10 days in the hospital for what should have been an overnight stay the insurance company kicked me out. I had home nurse visits for two weeks and was asked if I had guns in the house. I respond that if I did I would not tell them. So the below has some merit.
FYI, I am passing this along… there are comments from two other people I have also been asked if we keep guns in the house. The nurse just kinda slipped it in along with all the other regular questions. I told her I refused to answer because it was against the law to ask.
Everyone, whether you have guns or not, should give a neutral answer so they have no idea who does and who doesn’t. My doctor asked me if I had guns in my house and also if any were loaded. I, of course, answered yes to both questions. Then he asked why I kept a loaded gun close to my bed. I answered that my son, who is a certified gun instructor and also works for Homeland Security, advised me that an unloaded, locked up gun is no protection against criminal attack.
The Government now requires these questions be asked of people on Medicare, and probably everyone else.
Just passing this along for your information: I had to visit a doctor other than my regular doctor when my doctor was on vacation.. One of the questions on the form I had to fill out was: Do you have any guns in your house?? My answer was None of your damn business!!
So it is out there ! It is either an insurance issue or government intervention. Either way, it is out there and the second the government gets into your medical records (as they want to under Obamacare) it will become a major issue and will ultimately result in lock and load !!
Please pass this on to all the other retired guys and gun owners… Thanks, from a Vietnam Vet and retired Police Officer: I had a doctor’s appointment at the local VA clinic yesterday and found out something very interesting that I would like to pass along. While going through triage before seeing the doctor, I was asked at the end of the exam, three questions: 1. Did I feel stressed ? 2. Did I feel threatened ? 3. Did I feel like doing harm to someone ?
The nurse then informed me that if I had answered yes to any of the questions I would have lost my concealed carry permit as it would have gone into my medical records and the VA would have reported it to Homeland Security.
Looks like they are going after the vets first. Other gun people like retired law enforcement will probably be next. Then when they go after the civilians, what argument will they have ? Be forewarned and be aware. The Obama administration has gone on record as considering veterans and gun owners potential terrorists. Whether you are a gun owner, veteran or not, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED !
If you know veterans and gun owners, please pass this on to them. Be very cautious about what you say and to whom.
An Interview with Police Militarization Expert Radley Balko:How Cops Became Soldiers
Non-Violent Marijuana Arrests surpass Violent Crime Arrests- Prison Industry Profits Running Wild! GMO’s making it into ‘Natural’ vitamins & supplements
Monsanto (the Fox) buys Beelogics (The Henhouse). Nature in jeopardy of getting Hi-jacked!
Dick Cheney finally admits he lied on 9/11… kind of.
US Expat Taxes: The IRS Gets You at Passport Renewal Time
WikiLeaks: US ‘to call bin Laden raid Navy Seal to testify against Bradley Manning’ UPDATE: Judge strikes down dismiss over trial delay says ‘reasonable’
The Al-Qaida Papers – Drones
The FBI is inside Anonymous: Hacker Sabu has sentencing delayed again for helping the feds
FBI employees, entrusted with stopping computer crimes, commit them too
Obama Admin Aims Keyboard Commandos at Gun Control
Net providers begin warning of illegal downloads
A Police State ‘Example’ being set, with Raw Milk drinkers…
