Juarez, Mexico– The US Central Intelligence Agency and other international security forces “don’t fight drug traffickers”, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state government in northern Mexico has told Al Jazeera, instead “they try to manage the drug trade”.Allegations about official complicity in the drug business are nothing new when they come from activists, professors, campaigners or even former officials. However, an official spokesman for the authorities in one of Mexico’s most violent states – one which directly borders Texas – going on the record with such accusations is unique.
“It’s like pest control companies, they only control,” Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva, the Chihuahua spokesman, told Al Jazeera last month at his office in Juarez. “If you finish off the pests, you are out of a job. If they finish the drug business, they finish their jobs.”
A spokesman for the CIA in Washington wouldn’t comment on the accusations directly, instead he referred Al Jazeera to an official website.
Accusations are ‘baloney’
Villanueva is not a high ranking official and his views do not represent Mexico’s foreign policy establishment. Other more senior officials in Chihuahua State, including the mayor of Juarez, dismissed the claims as “baloney”.
“I think the CIA and DEA [US Drug Enforcement Agency] are on the same side as us in fighting drug gangs,” Hector Murguia, the mayor of Juarez, told Al Jazeera during an interview inside his SUV. “We have excellent collaboration with the US.”
Under the Merida Initiative, the US Congress has approved more than $1.4bn in drug war aid for Mexico, providing attack helicopters, weapons and training for police and judges.
More than 55,000 people have died in drug related violence in Mexico since December 2006. Privately, residents and officials across Mexico’s political spectrum often blame the lethal cocktail of US drug consumption and the flow of high-powered weapons smuggled south of the border for causing much of the carnage.
Drug war ‘illusions’
“The war on drugs is an illusion,” Hugo Almada Mireles, professor at the Autonomous University of Juarez and author of several books, told Al Jazeera. “It’s a reason to intervene in Latin America.”
“The CIA wants to control the population; they don’t want to stop arms trafficking to Mexico, look at [Operation] Fast and Furious,” he said, referencing a botched US exercise where automatic weapons were sold to criminals in the hope that security forces could trace where the guns ended up.
The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms lost track of 1,700 guns as part of the operation, including an AK-47 used in 2010 the murder of Brian Terry, a Customs and Border Protection Agent.
Blaming the gringos for Mexico’s problems has been a popular sport south of the Rio Grande ever since the Mexican-American war of the 1840s, when the US conquered most of present day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico from its southern neighbour. But operations such as Fast and Furious show that reality can be stranger than fiction when it comes to the drug war and relations between the US and Mexico. If the case hadn’t been proven, the idea that US agents were actively putting weapons into the hands of Mexican gangsters would sound absurd to many.
‘Conspiracy theories’
“I think it’s easy to become cynical about American and other countries’ involvement in Latin America around drugs,” Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser to the White House on drug control policy, told Al Jazeera. “Statements [accusing the CIA of managing the drug trade] should be backed up with evidence… I don’t put much stake in it.”
Villanueva’s accusations “might be a way to get some attention to his region, which is understandable but not productive or grounded in reality”, Sabet said. “We have sort of ‘been there done that’ with CIA conspiracy theories.”
In 1996, the San Jose Mercury News published Dark Alliance, a series of investigative reports linking CIA missions in Nicaragua with the explosion of crack cocaine consumption in America’s ghettos.
In order to fund Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua’s socialist government, the CIA partnered with Colombian cartels to move drugs into Los Angeles, sending profits back to Central America, the series alleged.
“There is no question in my mind that people affiliated with, or on the payroll of, the CIA were involved in drug trafficking,” US Senator John Kerry said at the time, in response to the series.
Other newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, slammed Dark Alliance, and the editor of the Mercury News eventually wrote that the paper had over-stated some elements in the story and made mistakes in the journalistic process, but that he stood by many of the key conclusions.
Widespread rumours
US government has neglected border corruption
“It’s true, they want to control it,” a mid-level official with the Secretariat Gobernacion in Juarez, Mexico’s equivalent to the US Department of Homeland Security, told Al Jazeera of the CIA and DEA’s policing of the drug trade. The officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he knew the allegations to be correct, based on discussions he had with US officials working in Juarez.
Acceptance of these claims within some elements of Mexico’s government and security services shows the difficulty in pursuing effective international action against the drug trade.
Jesús Zambada Niebla, a leading trafficker from the Sinaloa cartel currently awaiting trial in Chicago, has said he was working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency during his days as a trafficker, and was promised immunity from prosecution.
“Under that agreement, the Sinaloa Cartel under the leadership of [Jesus Zambada’s] father, Ismael Zambada and ‘Chapo’ Guzmán were given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tonnes of illicit drugs… into… the United States, and were protected by the United States government from arrest and prosecution in return for providing information against rival cartels,” Zambada’s lawyers wrote as part of his defence. “Indeed, the Unites States government agents aided the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.”
The Sinaloa cartel is Mexico’s oldest and most powerful trafficking organisation, and some analysts believe security forces in the US and Mexico favour the group over its rivals.
Joaquin “El Chapo”, the cartel’s billionaire leader and one of the world’s most wanted men, escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001 by sneaking into a laundry truck – likely with collaboration from guards – further stoking rumours that leading traffickers have complicit friends in high places.
“It would be easy for the Mexican army to capture El Chapo,” Mireles said. “But this is not the objective.” He thinks the authorities on both sides of the border are happy to have El Chapo on the loose, as his cartel is easier to manage and his drug money is recycled back into the broader economy. Other analysts consider this viewpoint a conspiracy theory and blame ineptitude and low level corruption for El Chapo’s escape, rather than a broader plan from government agencies.
After an election hit by reported irregularities, Enrique Pena Nieto from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is set to be sworn in as Mexico’s president on December 1.
He wants to open a high-level dialogue with the US about the drug war, but has said legalisation of some drugs is not an option. Some hardliners in the US worry that Nieto will make a deal with some cartels, in order to reduce violence.
“I am hopeful that he will not return to the PRI party of the past which was corrupt and had a history of turning a blind eye to the drug cartels,” said Michael McCaul, a Republican Congressman from Texas.
Regardless of what position a new administration takes in order to calm the violence and restore order, it is likely many Mexicans – including government officials such as Chihuahua spokesman Guillermo Villanueva – will believe outside forces want the drug trade to continue.
The widespread view linking the CIA to the drug trade – whether or not the allegations are true – speaks volumes about officials’ mutual mistrust amid ongoing killings and the destruction of civic life in Mexico.
“We have good soldiers and policemen,” Villanueva said. “But you won’t resolve this problem with bullets. We need education and jobs.”
News Highlights, Batman Shooter Incident, USA ready to kill 2nd Amendment (gun rights), through United Nations, Consciousness & The Holographic Nature of Reality
One of the most shocking realization emerging from the James Holmes Batman movie shooting rampage in Aurora, Colorado is the fact that nobody apparently tried to stop the shooter. This is absolutely baffling. Out of at least 70 moviegoers (and maybe more, as numbers remain sketchy at the moment), it appears that nobody tried to tackle him to the ground, shoot back with their own gun, or even fight back in any way whatsoever. The accounts of witnesses are those of people fleeing, ducking and screaming… but not fighting for their lives.
This story is in no way intended to blame those present at the theater for what was obviously a horrifying, shocking and probably very confusing event, but at the same time we must ask the question: Why did no one fight back?
See my previous story, by the way, which asks other questions about this shooting, such as where did Holmes get the training and the funds to build a complex maze of flammable booby-traps? That story is available at: http://www.naturalnews.com/036536_James_Holmes_shooting_false_flag.ht…
“There were bullet [casings] just falling on my head. They were burning my forehead,” Jennifer Seeger told reporters in an LA Times article (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/07/colorado-shooting-suspe…). “Every few seconds it was just: Boom, boom, boom,” she said. “He would reload and shoot and anyone who would try to leave would just get killed.”
A baby was shot at point blank range, the family were gathered around screaming.
Huh?
If the baby was shot at point blank range, that means the shooter was right there beside them. Instead of gathering around and screaming, why didn’t the family tackle the shooter?
This is not any sort of insensitive attempt at satire or blaming anyone, by the way. This is purely an effort to ask a deeply disturbing question that has been bothering me ever since this whole thing went down:
How can a lone gunman fire off at least 100 rounds in a crowded theater full of people and have NOBODY fight back, shoot back or attempt to tackle him?
The guy literally walked in, tossed a couple of smoke bombs, started shooting everybody in sight, and for some reason that remains entire unexplained, they let him do it. When he finished, he walked out the door and calmly surrendered to police, mission accomplished. He was never shot at, stabbed, kicked, punched, tripped or attacked in any way whatsoever, apparently.
It would have taken at least two full minutes to carry out the attack
Importantly, this shooting had to have taken several minutes to carry out. To fire 100+ rounds of ammunition from any weapon requires multiple reloads, each of which takes several seconds to carry out. There would have been long pauses in the shooting. There has even been a report that the AR-15 rifle used by the shooter jammed, which would have created an even longer pause.
These pauses are opportunities to bum rush the guy, or shoot back, or throw something at him, or just punch him right in the jaw with everything you’ve got. Holding a gun does not make you invincible. If anything, it makes you very, very vulnerable to all sorts of attacks. As I learned in my own defensive training, often alongside peace officers:
• Nobody has eyes in the back of their head. Attacks from behind are very, very effective.
• A gun only points in one direction at a time. It cannot shoot backwards, behind the person holding it.
• A gas mask SEVERELY limits angle of perception of vision. Someone wearing a gas mask, as is reported in this incident, is ridiculously vulnerable to attacks from behind, from above, from the sides and from below.
• No man can ignore a deliberate knee to the groin (from the front), or a “kickball” kick to the groin from behind. Such moves are taught in martial arts such as Krav Maga, and they are very, very effective at bringing any man to his knees, either screaming or even vomiting in pain.
• At close range, guns are LESS dangerous than knives. A knife can cut along an entire geometric plane, but a gun can only fire at a single point in space. Guns jam, guns run out of ammo, guns need to be reloaded. A knife, on the other hand, has none of these limitations. Disarming someone with a gun is MUCH easier than disarming someone with a knife.
Something doesn’t add up
It is bewildering that during the several minutes it would have taken for Holmes to fire 100+ rounds into the crowd, nobody fought back.
Again, I’m not blaming the people there, I’m just bewildered that nobody fought back. It doesn’t make sense. Unless, of course, the very fabric of American culture is now so passive and afraid that people have forgotten how to take action in the face of fear.
I think I speak for a great many concealed carry permit holders when I say that if I had been in that theater, I would have been emptying magazines in the direction of the threat (i.e. putting sights on target and repeatedly pulling the trigger). Like many concealed carry weapon holders, I would have turned that scene into what we sometimes jokingly call a “two-way range.”
Like all other concealed carry holders, I am reluctant to ever draw a weapon on anyone, but I’m absolutely willing to do so in order to try to stop a massacre from taking place.
What I can’t understand is how apparently NOBODY in the entire theater had the training or the presence of mind to fight back. This is truly astonishing at every level. In America today, do people just lay down to die when there’s a gunman in the room? I’m not asking this to be insulting in any way, I’m simply bewildered by the lack of action. This is an honest question: WHY did no one act?
Shattering myths: Guys with guns can be physically assaulted, even if you’re unarmed
Here’s a news flash for those who have never trained in these scenarios: Guys wielding guns are very, very easy to disarm during reloads — far easier than trying to disarm someone with a knife, as mentioned earlier. “Weapon takeaways” are routinely taught in Krav Maga, for example, and they are fast and effect, usually breaking the bad guy’s trigger finger in the process.
Taking away a weapon from a gunman is surprisingly easy. Forcing him to the ground takes almost no effort at all. This shooter could have been easily disarmed and pummeled to the ground by a single person, not to mention two or three working together.
Instead, the only reports we get from this incident are those of people screaming and hiding, or sometimes fleeing. To my knowledge, there are no eyewitness accounts of anyone rushing the gunman, shooting back, or trying to even trip him to fall on the floor. And yet empty shell casings were literally falling right onto people within arms’ reach of the guy.
Twenty-five-year-old Jennifer Seeger, of Aurora, says she was in the second row, about four feet from the gunman. She says she ‘was just a deer in headlights’ and ducked to the ground.
Tactically speaking, there is absolutely no way that one person can shoot 70 people unless those 70 people just lay there and let it happen. To shoot 70 people, the guy must have pulled the trigger at least 100 times, probably a lot more, as accuracy in these situations is usually quite poor. Most likely we’re going to find up to 200 rounds expended, once a final forensic count is completed.
News reports say he used as 90-round ammo “drum” for the AR-15. These drums are notoriously bad at feeding ammo, making them useless on the battlefield, which is why soldiers never use them on their personal AR-15s (they use 30-round mags). According to reports, Holmes’ AR-15 drum jammed during the shooting (no surprise) and he had to abandon that weapon and start using something else. All this would have taken time for him to sort out, during which the shooter is completely vulnerable to all sorts of grappling attacks, punches, kicks to the groin, eye gouges, weapon takeaways, etc.
Yet, strangely, nobody rushed the guy. Nobody shot back. Nobody tried to punch him. I honestly don’t understand this.
A culture of passive victims
It occurs to me that maybe I’m different from most Americans today in the fact that I am willing to fight back. For some reason, that seems to be a rarity these days. Too many people have bought into learned helplessness, where they depend on the government to take care of them, keep them safe and solve all their problems.
Once you outsource your personal security to the government — usually by having no defense skills and hoping 911 will respond quickly — you make yourself an easy victim for violent criminals.
The true path to personal safety and security is to learn how to protect yourself and your loved ones. There are many ways to do that, from basic hand-to-hand combat and martial arts skills to learning proficiency in the “American martial art” of hand-gunning. I’ve personally trained with numerous instructors who could have taken Holmes out from 20 – 30 meters away with a single shot to the head, with about 90% accuracy even under pressure. There are lots of proficient firearms owners across America, and a great many of them are carrying those weapons into movie theaters, shopping malls, retail stores and even at the airport. Why was no one carrying a concealed weapon at the Batman movie theater in Aurora? I have no idea.
Again, it’s difficult to second guess what really went down there with all the confusion, the screaming, the smoke and so on. Maybe there were concealed carry weapon holders in the room but they couldn’t get a clear shot. One thing concealed carry holders are always taught is to never shoot at a bad guy if there are innocent civilians behind him. (You’re always trained to know what’s BEHIND your target.) This might have made target acquisition difficult, but given the reality of what was unfolding, it would seem logical to pull the trigger anyway, as allowing the shooter to stand would clearly result in a great number of additional deaths.
Also, there is the distinct possibility that perhaps someone did pull a gun on Holmes, but they got shot by him first. We don’t know the real story on this until more information is released by investigators. So perhaps there was someone who had the courage to fight back and we just haven’t learned about them yet.
What we do know, so far at least, is that no stories of attempted heroism have emerged. Not a single account that I’m aware of, and I’ve been scanning the stories. This is very, very strange. Something doesn’t add up yet again.
Is American culture now one of total surrender?
What I’m starting to think really happened is that the American culture is becoming one of total surrender to criminals. Why do people line up at the airports and allow the TSA go grope their genitals? Because they’re passive and they’ve surrendered instead of fighting back. Why do stay silent when runaway criminality is happening all around them in the form of armed raids on raw milk farmers (http://www.naturalnews.com/033220_Rawesome_Foods_armed_raids.html) and government hit squads trying to kill farmers’ ranch pigs in Michigan? (http://www.naturalnews.com/035585_Michigan_farms_raids.html) Because people are scared into silence.
Americans, it turns out, are easy to terrorize. They’re easy to freeze into a state of fear-based non-action. That fear can and will be used against them, again and again. Look at the post 9/11 effort to crush freedom and destroy the Bill of Rights. It succeeded because Americans were terrorized and willing to give up all their liberties for the false promise of a little security.
The police cannot protect you
This is concerning for lots of reasons beyond the Batman shooting. It means the population is just cannon fodder for armed gangs of looters when the next collapse comes, and the debt spending of the U.S. government absolutely guarantees a financial collapse is just around the corner. (It’s only a matter of time.)
It’s beginning to look more and more like only those of us who have the natural instinct to fight back — and who are willing to acquire fundamental skills of personal defense — will be left standing in the long run. Even those of us who have such skills will need to be both well practiced and, to some extent, lucky. But luck has a way of bending your way when you’re prepared, I’ve noticed.
I hope YOU, the readers, are among those of us who are survivors. We need more good people to survive and help lead our nation into a future of liberty, abundance and lasting health. We need more good people to survive social unrest, the aftermath of natural disasters, the coming economic collapse, food shortages, roving bands of armed gangs and so on. If anything, right now is a time for more people to go out and get trained on personal defense, whether that’s with martial arts, rape prevention classes, or even quality firearms training.
It should hopefully be obvious at this point that the police cannot protect you. Calling 911 is about as useless as crossing your fingers and hoping you won’t die. And that’s even if 911 answers, because 911 services are easily taken offline even by wind storms (as we saw recently in Washington D.C.). If you cannot protect yourself and your family, you’re not ready for what’s coming, I believe. Get prepared. Get some skills. Practice to the point of proficiency. Decide to survive rather than surrendering to violence.
Much of this, after all, is simply a mental decision. I have no idea why that mental decision did not take place inside the Batman movie theater, but I know that you and I can make that decision right now — the decision to SURVIVE — and we can move forward in life with the strength and power of sticking with that decision.
“If you’re concerned about it, maybe there’s a reason we should be flying over you, right?” said Douglas McDonald, the company’s director of special operations and president of a local chapter of the unmanned vehicle trade group.
LAKOTA, N.D. – The use of unmanned aerial drones, whose deadly accuracy helped revolutionize modern warfare high above the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, is now spreading intrigue and worry across the plains of North Dakota.
Amid 3,000 acres of corn and soybeans and miles from the closest town, a Predator drone led to the arrests of farmer Rodney Brossart and five members of his family last year after a dispute over a neighbor’s six lost cows on his property escalated into a 16-hour standoff with police.
It is one of the first reported cases in the nation where an unmanned drone was used to assist in the arrest of a U.S. citizen on his own property; and a controversial sign of how drones, in all shapes, sizes and missions, are beginning to hover over American skies.
Far from just the menacing aircraft bearing Hellfire Missiles and infrared cameras from combat, Unmanned Aerial Systems, the preferred term in the industry, now include products so small they fit in the palm of your hand and can look as innocent as remote-controlled hobby airplanes.
They can quickly scout rural areas for lost children, identify hot spots in forest fires before they get out of control, monitor field crops before they wither or allow paparazzi new ways to target celebrities. The government has predicted that as many as 30,000 drones will be flying over U.S. skies by the end of the decade.
But can drones fly in domestic airspace without crashing into an airplane? Can they be used in a way that doesn’t invade privacy? Who’s watching the drone operators — and how closely?
“All the pieces appear to be lining up for the eventual introduction of routine aerial surveillance in American life — a development that would profoundly change the character of public life in the United States,” the American Civil Liberties Union warned in a policy paper on drones last year titled, “Protecting Privacy From Aerial Surveillance.”
In the North Dakota case, fearing that the Brossarts had armed themselves, local law enforcement asked for the assist from the Predator — unarmed but otherwise identical to the ones used in combat — that’s stationed at Grand Forks Air Force Base as a SWAT team converged on the property.
It put Rodney Brossart front and center in the debate over the burgeoning use of domestic drones, and the threat they may represent when authorities are given the ability to watch everything from above.
“I’m not going to sit back and do nothing,” Brossart said recently, sitting in the shade outside his small house where farm equipment, trailers and the top half of a school bus sit in the yard in various states of disrepair. As drone use expands nationwide, he’s worried. “I don’t know what to expect because of what we’ve seen.”
Groups from the Electronic Privacy Information Center to the American Library Association have joined to raise concerns with the Federal Aviation Administration about the implications of opening up U.S. air space to drones, as have Reps. Edward Markey and Joe Barton, co-chairs of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus.
But the federal government already has been quietly expanding their use in U.S. air space. Even as the wars abroad wind to an end, the military has been pleading for funding for more pilots. Drones cannot be flown now in the United States without FAA approval. But with little public scrutiny, the FAA already has issued at least 266 active testing permits for domestic drone operations, amid safety concerns. Statistics show unmanned aircraft have an accident rate seven times higher than general aviation and 353 times higher than commercial aviation.
Under political and commercial pressure, the Obama administration has ordered the FAA to develop new rules for expanding the use of small drones domestically. By 2015, drones will have access to U.S. airspace currently reserved for piloted aircraft.
“Think about it; they are inscrutable, flying, intelligent,” said Ryan Calo, the director of privacy and robotics for the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. “They are really very difficult for the human mind to cleanly characterize.”
While drone use in the rest of the country has been largely theoretical, here in eastern North Dakota it is becoming a way of life.
Drivers on Hwy. 2 near the Grand Forks base say they often see the U.S. Customs Predator B (the B indicates it is unarmed) practicing “touch and go” landings in the morning. A local sheriff’s deputy talked of looking up from writing reports in his patrol car one night to see a drone quietly hovering over him. Don “Bama” Nance, who spent 20 years in the Air Force before retiring to Emerado, now cuts the grass on the base golf course.
“They’re always overhead on the third hole,” he said.
The Grand Forks base has been flying drones sine 2005, when it switched missions from flying tankers to unmanned aerial systems. So, too, have the storied Happy Hooligans of the North Dakota Air National Guard, which has flown drone missions in Iraq and Afghanistan from its base in Fargo.
And use is growing. Predators operated by Customs and Border Patrol completed more than 30 hours of flight in 2009 and more than 55 hours in 2010, mapping the flooded Red River Valley areas of North Dakota and Minnesota. In 2011, the Predator B flew close to 250 hours in disaster relief support along the northern border.
The Grand Forks base, which now has two Predators flying, expects to have as many as 15 Northrop Grumman Global Hawks and six to eight General Atomics Predators/Reapers. That will add an additional 907 Air Force personnel to the base.
For this wide swath of eastern North Dakota, that is part of the appeal: jobs. The University of North Dakota has eagerly partnered with the military and defense contractors, and often operating behind locked doors and secrecy, university officials are working to make the area a hub of unmanned aircraft activity. The state has invested an estimated $12.5 million to make it happen. The local Economic Development Corporation has added a drone coordinator in charge of recruiting more companies to join the 16 drone-related ones that have already set up shop.
“Where aviation was in 1925, that’s where we are today with unmanned aerial vehicles,” said Al Palmer, director of UND’s Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research, Education and Training. “The possibilities are endless.”
A new major
The University of North Dakota operates a fleet of seven different types of unmanned aircraft. In 2009, it became the first college in the country to offer a four-year degree in unmanned aircraft piloting. It now has 23 graduates and 84 students majoring in the program, which is open only to U.S. citizens.
It works with Northland Community College in Thief River Falls, Minn., which developed the first drone maintenance training center in the country and proudly shows off its own full-size Global Hawk.
The university also serves as an incubator for companies that might want to expand the industry. In five days, Unmanned Applications Institute International, which provides training in operating drones, can teach a cop how to use a drone the size of a bathtub toy.
“If you’re concerned about it, maybe there’s a reason we should be flying over you, right?” said Douglas McDonald, the company’s director of special operations and president of a local chapter of the unmanned vehicle trade group. “But as soon as you lose your kid, get your car stolen or have marijuana growing out at your lake place that’s not yours, you’d probably want one of those flying overhead.”
Earlier this year, the Grand Forks Sheriff’s Department was provided its own drone by the university for $1 as part of a project to develop policies and procedures for law enforcement.
“We are not out there to abuse people’s rights, but at the same time we’re out there to protect public safety,” said Grand Forks Sheriff Robert Rost. “The public perception is that Big Brother is going to be snooping on them and that is not the case at all. It will not be misused.”
Still, not everyone is enthusiastic about drones. The Air Force has proposed expanding seven additional nautical miles of restricted air space near Devils Lake to conduct laser training with drones. Of the 43 public comments on the proposal, 42 opposed it, largely out of safety concerns and fears that it would interfere with commercial and general aviation. Nevertheless, the FAA approved the airspace expansion late last month.
Between the base and Grand Forks, Arnie Sevigny flies his own silent drone protest: a raggedy kite shaped like a jet fighter whipping in the wind 100 feet in the air and tied down with a stake on his property a few miles from the base. “No camera. No invasion of privacy,” Sevigny joked. “What do you need a drone for anyhow? They use the satellites they already have to see the head of a dime in your hand.”
And for all the assurances, there is much that isn’t said or revealed. Some of the equipment used by the university can’t be seen by the public because of federal privacy rules. Although legal, anyone photographing outside the base can find themselves being questioned by county, state and Air Force law enforcement. When asked how many times U.S. Border Protection has dispatched drones at the request of local police, a spokeswoman for the agency said it does not keep those figures.
Even Brossart doesn’t know what the drone that led to his family’s arrests saw. Despite demands made in court, the Predator’s footage has not been produced to his attorneys. “They don’t want to show what happened,” he said, “because it will show exactly what they did.”
A judge is expected to rule within days on whether the charges against Brossart, who has had a number of run-ins with authorities over the years, should be dismissed, in part, because the warrantless use of the “spy plane” was part of a pattern of outrageous government conduct that violated Brossart’s Fourth Amendment rights.
With case law murky on the domestic use of drones, Brossart’s attorney, Bruce Quick, said the courts, Congress and state legislatures will likely have to address the issue. “It’s not just criminal defense attorneys. It’s just people concerned about civil liberties in general,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of us like the idea of our privacy being given away.”
Here we go again. There’s going to be a lot of speculation regarding this Batman movie shooting. It fits too perfectly into their gun control agenda build up of late for it not to be staged but we’ll have to see. But already we’re seeing the same pattern of foreshadowing and predictive programming.
If you want a real hint, this report just showed up in the Washington Times of all things. They’re of course insinuating it was possibly the inspiration for the shooter. We’ll be learning more about him quickly but from his disturbed profile he sure seems to fit the usual mind control pattern.
What is strange is how prevalent this comic-type illustration predictive propaganda is with these false flag events.
Here’s the newspaper story:
The horrific shooting at the screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado late last night bears eerie similarities to a scene in the 1986 comic Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In the comic, a crazed, gun-toting loner walks into a movie theater and begins shooting it up, killing three in the process. The passage concludes with the media blaming Batman for inspiring the shooting, though he is not involved in the incident at all.
The 1986 comic, written and drawn by Frank Miller, was a key inspiration for the Chris Nolan Batman films. It helped to reimagine the character away from his Saturday morning cartoon image and into a dark, grim avenger. The point of this particular scene in the comic was to show just how far Gotham has fallen since Batman had retired. Source
Predictive Programming
The Illuminati card game was invented way before any of the above depicted events. A strange phenomenon indeed. We don’t know what is behind these incredibly prescient depictions but it isn’t the only instance of these kinds of illustrations, apparently done or or inspired by insiders. (This is just a sampling, there are many more cards, a very interesting study.)
In 1990 an Illuminati Card Game was invented by Steven Jackson. The ’game’ he had created ruffled quite a few feathers as he was promptly visited by the Secret Service who tried to shut him down and prevent the cards from being released. You can read Jacksons own account of the raid Here.
Apparently Jackson must have either had some type of insider knowledge or the foresight of Nostrodumus because the game he created has turned out to be very close to the real thing. Several of the cards depict events in modern history that either have, or soon will occur, including the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Source
According to news reports, this sudden violent rampage was completely out of character for James Holmes, who was described as “shy.”
The New York Times is now reporting: Billy Kromka, a pre-med student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, worked with Mr. Holmes for three months last summer as a research assistant in a lab of at the Anschutz Medical Campus. Mr. Kromka said he was surprised to learn Mr. Holmes was the shooting suspect. “It was just shocking, because there was no way I thought he could have the capacity to do commit an atrocity like this,” he said. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/colorado-mall-shooting.html?page…)
“He spent much of his time immersed in the computer, often participating in role-playing online games…”
There is already conjecture that James Holmes may have been involved in mind-altering neuroscience research and ended up becoming involved at a depth he never anticipated. His actions clearly show a strange detachment from reality, indicating he was not in his right mind. That can only typically be accomplished through drugs, hypnosis or trauma (and sometimes all three).
His behavior doesn’t add up
His behavior already reveals stark inconsistencies that question the mainstream explanation of events. For example, he opened fire on innocent people but then calmly surrendered to police without resistance. This is not consistent with the idea of “killing everyone.”
Furthermore, he then admitted to police that his apartment was booby-trapped with explosives. If you were really an evil-minded Joker trying to kill people (including cops), why would you warn them about the booby trap in advance? It doesn’t add up.
“After his arrest, Holmes told police about ‘possible explosives in his residence,’ Oates said. When police searched his apartment, they discovered it was booby-trapped and evacuated surrounding buildings, police said. Oates said bomb technicians are determining how to disarm flammable or explosive material in the third-floor apartment. He said police could be there some time.”
None of this checks out. If you’re a killer bent on causing mayhem, why tell the police about your surprise bomb waiting for them back at your apartment?
Holmes was clearly provided with exotic gear
Continuing from CBS:
“He said pictures from inside the apartment are fairly disturbing and the devices look to be sophisticated, adding the booby-traps were ‘something I’ve never seen.’ One rifle, two handguns, a knife, a bullet proof vest, a ballistic helmet, a gas device, a gas mask, military SWAT clothing and unidentified explosives were also found in Holmes’ car, a law enforcement source told CBS News. Oates said Holmes wore a gas mask, a ballistic helmet and vest as well as leg, groin and throat protectors during the shooting.”
In other words, this guy was equipped with exotic gear by someone with connections to military equipment. SWAT clothing, explosives, complex booby-traps… c’mon, this isn’t a “lone gunman.” This is somebody who was selected for a mission, given equipment to carry it out, then somehow brainwashed into getting it done.
UPDATE: (This section added to the story Saturday at 2:30 pm central, July 21, 2012). It is now being reported that exotic, advanced booby-traps have been disarmed at the apartment of James Holmes. The Denver affiliate of CBS News is now reporting: (http://denver.cbslocal.com/2012/07/21/officials-expect-explosions-as-…)
Officials say they have removed all major threats at the booby-trapped apartment of the Aurora movie theater shooting suspect on Saturday. They have used a robot to go inside James Holmes’ apartment. …They were able to disable a trip wire that was set to go off when the apartment door was opened. “This is some serious stuff that our team is dealing with…”
Shortly before noon crews were successful performing a controlled detonation… More controlled detonations were possible.
…there were multiple trip wires throughout the apartment. Investigators have also seen what appear to be mortars planted in the apartment — sort of the kind of mortars that might be seen in a commercial fireworks show. Up to a half dozen of them are scattered around.
…they have seen a number of inflated balloons in the apartment… with many appearing to be filled with a powder. Also linked together are bottles of liquid. …a strong smell of gasoline emanating from the apartment.
…several boxes on top of the refrigerator and there are lights flashing on the boxes.
…30 aerial shells (fireworks) commercially legally available for purchase. …the suspect may have filled them with smokeless powder. …entering the apartment would have caused a trip wire to trigger one liquid container to pour/mix with another. When the two mix together, they set off the main charge of the device which may be additional flammable liquids.
…an enormously dangerous mission. About 100 personnel are on scene.
Technicians made a first attempt on Friday to disarm the traps, believed to include explosives, but withdrew when it became clear the property was too dangerous to enter. Sgt Carlson said the device was set up to detonate when the first person entered the flat. “We’ve defeated first threat. It was set up to kill, and that could have been police officers or anything,” she said.
FBI has a track record of staging similar assaults, then stopping them at the last minute
This is not your run-of-the-mill crime of passion. It was a carefully planned, heavily funded and technically advanced attack. Who might be behind all this? The FBI, of course, which has a long history of setting up and staging similar attacks, then stopping them right before they happen. See four documented stories on these facts:
As you soak all this in, remember that the FBI had admitted to setting up terror plots, providing the weapons and gear, staging the location of the bombings and even driving the vehicles to pull it off! This is not a conspiracy theory, it’s been admitted by the FBI right out in the open. Even the New York Times openly reports all this in stories like this one:
THE United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed. A would-be suicide bomber was intercepted on his way to the Capitol; a scheme to bomb synagogues and shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft was developed by men in Newburgh, N.Y.; and a fanciful idea to fly explosive-laden model planes into the Pentagon and the Capitol was hatched in Massachusetts. But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. …the F.B.I. provided a van loaded with six 55-gallon drums of “inert material,” harmless blasting caps, a detonator cord and a gallon of diesel fuel to make the van smell flammable. An undercover F.B.I. agent even did the driving…
Mystery man Holmes has no background
On top of all this, Holmes apparently has no background. “He’s not on anybody’s radar screen — nothing,” said a peace officer in a NYT article. “This guy is somewhat of an enigma. Nobody knows anything about him.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/colorado-mall-shooting.html)
Mr. Holmes’s only criminal history is a traffic summons, the authorities said. He earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in neuroscience in 2010 from the University of California, Riverside, and was a graduate student in neurosciences at the University of Colorado at Denver’s Anschutz Medical Campus… He was currently collecting unemployment…
Question: How does an unemployed medical student afford $20,000 in weapons gear?
If you start to look at the really big picture here, the obvious question arises: How does an unemployed medical student afford all the complex weapons gear, bomb-making gear, “flammable” booby trap devices, ammunition, multiple magazines, bullet-proof vest, groin protection, ballistic helmet, SWAT uniform and all the rest of it?
A decent AR-15 rifle costs $1,000 or more all by itself. The shotgun and handgun might run another $800 total. Spare mags, sights, slings, and so on will run you at least another $1,000 across three firearms. The bullet-proof vest is easily another $800, and the cost of the bomb-making gear is anybody’s guess. With all the specialty body gear, ammunition, booby-trap devices and more, I’m guessing this is at least $20,000 in weapons and tactical gear, much of which is very difficult for civilians to get in the first place.
The mere manufacture of an explosive booby-trap device is, all by itself, a felony crime by the way. And remember: “Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said Holmes’ apartment is booby-trapped with a ‘sophisticated’ maze of flammable devices. It could take hours or days for authorities to disarm it,” reported Yahoo News (http://sg.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/suspect-neuroscience-phd-stu…).
Question: Where does an unemployed, introverted medical school student get the training to deploy sophisticated booby traps, tactical body armor, weapons systems and more? Certainly not in graduate school!
All this leads to an obvious third party influence over all this. Someone else taught this guy these skills and funded the acquisition of the equipment.
Note: Some readers have questioned the $20,000 figure estimated here, saying this gear could have been acquired for only $10,000 or so. I doubt that, as all the extras that you need to effectively run these guns cost a lot of money: training courses, spare magazines, etc. Just a decent AR-15 battle sight (a holographic red dot sight) can run $1,000 – $2,000. Search “ACOG” if you don’t believe me. It is also reported that Holmes bought 6,000 rounds of ammo, which definitely isn’t cheap either. It’s clear this guy was spending big bucks. Whether it’s $10k or $20k isn’t really that much of a point.
Staged just in time for a vote on the UN small arms treaty?
More and more, this shooting is looking like a deliberate plot staged by the government itself much like Operation Fast and Furious pulled off by the ATF (http://www.naturalnews.com/032934_ATF_illegal_firearms.html) which helped smuggle tens of thousands of guns into Mexico for the purpose of causing “gun violence” in the USA, then blaming the Second Amendment for it.
All this looks like James Holmes completed a “mission” and then calmly ended that mission by surrendering to police and admitting everything. The mission, as we are now learning, was to cause as much terror and mayhem as possible, then to have that multiplied by the national media at exactly the right time leading up the UN vote next week on a global small arms treaty that could result in gun confiscation across America. (http://lewrockwell.com/eddlem/eddlem61.1.html)
Even Forbes.com wrote about this quite extensively, warning readers about the coming gun confiscation effort related to the UN treaty. The story was authored by Larry Bell (http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2011/06/07/u-n-agreement-should…) and says the UN treaty could “override our national sovereignty, and in the process, provide license for the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment in addition to our Second Amendment rights.”
In other words, this has all the signs of Fast & Furious, Episode II. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover someone in Washington was behind it all. After all, there’s no quicker way to disarm a nation and take total control over the population than to stage violence, blame it on firearms, then call for leaders to “do something!” Such calls inevitably end up resulting in gun confiscation, and it’s never too long after that before government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants.
Governments routinely murder millions
Here’s a short list of government mass murder carried out throughout history, almost always immediately following the disarmament of the public (and usually involving staged false flag events to justify the disarmament):
50+ million dead: Mao Ze-Dong (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50)
12+ million dead: Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1939-1945) – concentration camps, civilian deaths and dead Russian POWs
8+ million dead: Leopold II of Belgium (Congo, 1886-1908)
6+ million dead: Jozef Stalin (USSR, 1932-39)
5+ million dead: Hideki Tojo (Japan, 1941-44)
2+ million dead: Ismail Enver (Turkey, 1915-22)
1.7 million dead: Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79)
1.6 million dead: Kim Il Sung (North Korea, 1948-94)
1.5 million dead: Menghistu (Ethiopia, 1975-78)
1 million dead: Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970)
900,000 dead: Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982)
800,000 dead: Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994)
See more at: http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html
A “monopoly of force” in government is far more dangerous than a crazed lone shooter
So yes, James Holmes and other crazed shooters kill a number of people each year in random acts of violence. It’s horrifying and wrong, but it’s nothing compared to the millions of lives that governments tend to destroy when they gain total power over the populace.
The most dangerous thing in the world, it turns out, is not a crazy person with a rifle; it’s a government with a “monopoly of force” over the entire population. And that’s exactly what the UN spells out as its goal for the world: Stripping all power from individual citizens and handing “monopolies of force” to the governments of the world, shoring up their positions as the only “legitimate” power on the planet.
As this document reveals, a table entitled “Governance solutions for reasserting the state monopoly on the use of force” lists the options available to governments to re-establish “monopolies of force” against their own people:
• (Re-)establish state monopoly
– Ownership of WMDs
– Safety Inspectorates
• Prohibit business activity
– Justice and Execution
– Deadly Force?
• Regulate/limit activities
– Private defense/security services
– Control of financial transfers
– Export controls
– Transport and infrastructure safety
– Environmental impact
Interestingly, that document also describes “terrorism” in a way that perfectly matches the Aurora, Colorado “Batman” movie theater shooter:
Terrorists aim to spread panic and fear in societies in order to achieve political goals, be they based on left- or right-wing, social-revolutionary, nationalistic or religious ideologies. They are organized in a clandestine way, most often in small groups and cells… Typical tactical means include kidnapping, hostage-taking, sabotage, murder, suicide attacks, vehicle bombs and improvised explosive devices.
A global monopoly of force
This document is a goldmine of information about the globalist agenda to disarm and enslave the population. Check out page 28, which reads:
The legitimate monopoly of force should not be limited to the nation-state but should be based on the local, national, regional and the global levels.
Global Security Governance and the Monopoly of Force
At the global level no monopoly of violence exists. The UN Security Council already has a monopoly power to authorize the use of force at the global level, although the UN was never given the necessary means to exercise this authority, such as the capacity to implement sanctions, a police force and armed forces…
This deficiency in global governance acts as a bottleneck and a barrier to the creation of the democratically legitimized monopoly of violence that is globally required.
This story gets deep, doesn’t it? Watch for more analysis here at NaturalNews.com, where we still fight for liberty and justice in a world that’s increasingly becoming enslaved.
UPDATE: Follow-up story now posted that asks the question: Why did not one fight back?
Dick’s stories typically focus on the fragile nature of what is “real” and the construction of personal identity. His stories often become surreal fantasies as the main characters slowly discover that their everyday world is actually an illusion constructed by powerful external entities (such as in Ubik[32]), vast political conspiracies, or simply from the vicissitudes of an unreliable narrator. “All of his work starts with the basic assumption that there cannot be one, single, objective reality”, writes science fiction author Charles Platt. “Everything is a matter of perception. The ground is liable to shift under your feet. A protagonist may find himself living out another person’s dream, or he may enter a drug-induced state that actually makes better sense than the real world, or he may cross into a different universe completely.”[29]
Alternate universes and simulacra were common plot devices, with fictional worlds inhabited by common, working people, rather than galactic elites. “There are no heroes in Dick’s books”, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “but there are heroics. One is reminded of Dickens: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people.”[32] Dick made no secret that much of his thinking and work was heavily influenced by the writings of Carl Jung.[26][33] The Jungian constructs and models that most concerned Dick seem to be the archetypes of the collective unconscious, group projection/hallucination, synchronicities, and personality theory.[26] Many of Dick’s protagonists overtly analyze reality and their perceptions in Jungian terms (see Lies Inc.), while other times, the themes are so obviously in reference to Jung their usage needs no explanation.[citation needed] Dick’s self-named Exegesis also contained many notes on Jung in relation to theology and mysticism.[citation needed]
“Phil Dick’s third major theme is his fascination with war and his fear and hatred of it. One hardly sees critical mention of it, yet it is as integral to his body of work as oxygen is to water.” – Steven Owen Godersky[34]
Dick frequently focused on the question, “What is human?” In works such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? beings can appear totally human in every respect while lacking soul or compassion, while completely alien beings such as Glimmung in Galactic Pot-Healer may be more humane and complex than Dick’s human characters.
Mental illness was a constant interest of Dick’s, and themes of mental illness permeate his work. The character Jack Bohlen in the 1964 novel Martian Time-Slip is an “ex-schizophrenic”. The novel Clans of the Alphane Moon centers on an entire society made up of descendants of lunatic asylum inmates. In 1965 he wrote the essay titled Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes.[35]
Drug use (including religious, recreational, and abuse) was also a theme in many of Dick’s works, such as A Scanner Darkly and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Dick was a drug user for much of his life. According to a 1975 interview in Rolling Stone,[36] Dick wrote all of his books published before 1970 while on amphetamines. “A Scanner Darkly (1977) was the first complete novel I had written without speed”, said Dick in the interview. He also experimented briefly with psychedelics, but wrote The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, which Rolling Stone dubs “the classic LSD novel of all time”, before he had ever tried them. Despite his heavy amphetamine use, however, Dick later said that doctors had told him that the amphetamines never actually affected him, that his liver had processed them before they reached his brain.[36]
Summing up all these themes in Understanding Philip K. Dick, Eric Carl Link discussed eight themes or ‘ideas and motifs’[37]: Epistemology and the Nature of Reality, Know Thyself, The Android and the Human, Entropy and Pot Healing, The Theodicy Problem, Warfare and Power Politics, The Evolved Human, and ‘Technology, Media, Drugs and Madness’.[38]
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) utilizes an array of science fiction concepts and features several layers of reality and unreality. It is also one of Dick’s first works to explore religious themes. The novel takes place in the 21st century, when, under UN authority, mankind has colonized the Solar System‘s every habitableplanet and moon. Life is physically daunting and psychologically monotonous for most colonists, so the UN must draft people to go to the colonies. Most entertain themselves using “Perky Pat” dolls and accessories manufactured by Earth-based “P.P. Layouts”. The company also secretly creates “Can-D”, an illegal but widely available hallucinogenic drug allowing the user to “translate” into Perky Pat (if the drug user is a woman) or Pat’s boyfriend, Walt (if the drug user is a man). This recreational use of Can-D allows colonists to experience a few minutes of an idealized life on Earth by participating in a collective hallucination.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) is the story of a bounty hunter policing the local android population. It occurs on a dying, poisoned Earth de-populated of all “successful” humans; the only remaining inhabitants of the planet are people with no prospects off-world. The 1968 story is the literary source of the film Blade Runner (1982).[40] It is both a conflation and an intensification of the pivotally Dickian question, What is real, what is fake? What crucial factor defines humanity as distinctly ‘alive’, versus those merely alive only in their outward appearance?
Ubik (1969) uses extensive networks of psychics and a suspended state after death in creating a state of eroding reality. A group of psychics is sent to investigate a group of rival psychics, but several of them are apparently killed by a saboteur’s bomb. Much of the novel flicks between a number of equally plausible realities; the “real” reality, a state of half-life and psychically manipulated realities. In 2005, Time magazine listed it among the “All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels” published since 1923.[13]
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) concerns Jason Taverner, a television star living in a dystopian near-future police state. After being attacked by an angry ex-girlfriend, Taverner awakens in a dingy Los Angeles hotel room. He still has his money in his wallet, but his identification cards are missing. This is no minor inconvenience, as security checkpoints (manned by “pols” and “nats”, the police and National Guard) are set up throughout the city to stop and arrest anyone without valid ID. Jason at first thinks that he was robbed, but soon discovers that his entire identity has been erased. There is no record of him in any official database, and even his closest associates do not recognize or remember him. For the first time in many years, Jason has no fame or reputation to rely on. He has only his innate charisma to help him as he tries to find out what happened to his past and avoid the attention of the pols. The novel was Dick’s first published novel after years of silence, during which time his critical reputation had grown, and this novel was awarded the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.[8] It is the only Philip K. Dick novel nominated for both a Hugo and for a Nebula Award.
In an essay written two years before dying, Dick described how he learned from his Episcopalian priest that an important scene in Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said – involving its other main character, Police General Felix Buckman, the policeman of the title – was very similar to a scene in the Acts of the Apostles.[30] Film director Richard Linklater discusses this novel in his film Waking Life, which begins with a scene reminiscent of another Dick novel, Time Out of Joint.
A Scanner Darkly (1977) is a bleak mixture of science fiction and police procedural novels; in its story, an undercover narcotics police detective begins to lose touch with reality after falling victim to the same permanently mind altering drug, Substance D, he was enlisted to help fight. Substance D is instantly addictive, beginning with a pleasant euphoria which is quickly replaced with increasing confusion, hallucinations and eventually total psychosis. In this novel, as with all Dick novels, there is an underlying thread of paranoia and dissociation with multiple realities perceived simultaneously. It was adapted to film by Richard Linklater.
VALIS (1980) is perhaps Dick’s most postmodern and autobiographical novel, examining his own unexplained experiences. It may also be his most academically studied work, and was adapted as an opera by Tod Machover.[41] Later works like the VALIS trilogy were heavily autobiographical, many with “two-three-seventy-four” (2-3-74) references and influences. The word VALIS is the acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System. Later, PKD theorized that VALIS was both a “reality generator” and a means of extraterrestrial communication. A fourth VALIS manuscript, Radio Free Albemuth, although composed in 1976, was posthumously published in 1985. This work is described by the publisher (Arbor House) as “an introduction and key to his magnificent VALIS trilogy.”
Regardless of the feeling that he was somehow experiencing a divine communication, Dick was never fully able to rationalize the events. For the rest of his life, he struggled to comprehend what was occurring, questioning his own sanity and perception of reality. He transcribed what thoughts he could into an eight-thousand-page, one-million-word journal dubbed the Exegesis. From 1974 until his death in 1982, Dick spent many nights writing in this journal. A recurring theme in Exegesis is PKD’s hypothesis that history had been stopped in the 1st century AD., and that “the Empire never ended”. He saw Rome as the pinnacle of materialism and despotism, which, after forcing the Gnostics underground, had kept the population of Earth enslaved to worldly possessions. Dick believed that VALIS had communicated with him, and anonymous others, to induce the impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon, whom Dick believed to be the current Emperor of Rome incarnate.
A number of Dick’s stories have been made into films. Dick himself wrote a screenplay for an intended film adaptation of Ubik in 1974, but the film was never made. Many film adaptations have not used Dick’s original titles. When asked why this was, Dick’s ex-wife Tessa said, “Actually, the books rarely carry Phil’s original titles, as the editors usually wrote new titles after reading his manuscripts. Phil often commented that he couldn’t write good titles. If he could, he would have been an advertising writer instead of a novelist.”[44] Films based on Dick’s writing have accumulated a total revenue of over US $1 billion as of 2009.[45]
Blade Runner (1982), based on Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford. A screenplay had been in the works for years before Scott took the helm, with Dick being extremely critical of all versions. Dick was still apprehensive about how his story would be adapted for the film when the project was finally put into motion. Among other things, he refused to do a novelization of the film. But contrary to his initial reactions, when he was given an opportunity to see some of the special effects sequences of Los Angeles 2019, Dick was amazed that the environment was “exactly as how I’d imagined it!”, though Ridley Scott has mentioned he had never even read the source material.[46] Following the screening, Dick and Scott had a frank but cordial discussion of Blade Runner’s themes and characters, and although they had wildly differing views, Dick fully backed the film from then on, stating that his “life and creative work are justified and completed by Blade Runner.”[47] Dick died from a stroke less than four months before the release of the film.
Total Recall (1990), based on the short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale“, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film includes such Dickian elements as the confusion of fantasy and reality, the progression towards more fantastic elements as the story progresses, machines talking back to humans, and the protagonist’s doubts about his own identity.
Confessions d’un Barjo (1992), titled Barjo in its English-language release, a French film based on Dick’s non-science-fiction novel Confessions of a Crap Artist. Reflecting Dick’s popularity and critical respect in France, Barjo faithfully conveys a strong sense of Dick’s aesthetic sensibility, unseen in the better-known film adaptations. A brief science fiction homage is slipped into the film in the form of a TV show.
Minority Report (2002), based on Dick’s short story of “The Minority Report“, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise. The film translates many of Dick’s themes, but changes major plot points and adds an action-adventure framework.
Future films based on Dick’s writing include the animated adaptation King of the Elves from the Walt Disney Animation Studios, set to be released in the winter of 2012; Radio Free Albemuth, based on Dick’s novel of the same name, which has been completed and is currently awaiting distribution; and a film adaptation of Ubik which, according to Dick’s daughter, Isa Dick Hackett, is in advanced negotiation.[48] Ubik is set to be made into a film by Michel Gondry.[49]
Highlights: Foreign troops drafted in; drug deals in training classroom; ineffective screening processes and detection technology; photographs of sensitive mock-up screening areas taken by un-screened trainees; 200k ‘casket linings’ delivered; uniforms being stolen; plan for an evacuation of London; drones on-line (incl. armed); poor standard of security recruits — cant speak English.
Exclusive interview with investigative journalist Lee Hazledean who is training undercover as a security guard for the London olympics with private security firm G4S. Lee is a filmmaker and investigative TV journalist. He has also been involved in major stories on the IRA and how British Army infiltrated the organisation and carried out false flag operations. He has managed to get undercover as part of the security team at the 2012 Olympics with G4S. He has found there is a media black out on all major news outlets to do with the Olympics unless the story is broken in a news paper or foreign news agency it’s unlikely to see the light of day. Security training and officers are so appaling that the safety and security of the London 2012 Olympics are in jeopardy.
A few example’s: During an exercise he was asked to pose as a would-be terrorist and managed to get knives, guns and IED’s through security screening on every occasion and every exercise. The X-Ray operators have only two days of training, they aren’t trained properly and miss the most obvious prohibited items gun’s, knives, IED’s, ammunition etc. Bag and physical searchers again are missing dangerous weapons, trainees can’t use vital security equipment like the HHMD (Hand Held Metal detectors) they can’t even communicate properly with the public on a basic level. Worryingly the ‘Rapiscan’ walk through metal detectors don’t work properly and aren’t sensitive enough to pick up large knives, ammunition and other metallic threats. He was told that they would be set to go off only after 50 people have walked through to limit queuing time and to get spectators into the venue. So a Terrorist if they basically queued up would probably get through wearing a suicide vest. In classes there are drug deals going down, people can’t speak any English. People who haven’t even completed their SIA licenses yet are being picked to be Team Leaders over highly trained security officers, ex soldiers and ex police. Lee is concerned that weapons or worse will be getting into the games. However, what’s more disturbing is that uniforms are already going missing or being stolen. The training facility is an accurate mock-up of the actual security measures at the Olympic venues. Lee has witnessed several people taking photos on their mobile phones in the training facility and whilst they have been a few people caught by trainers most aren’t noticed. We know that terrorists take surveillance photos to gain intelligence. Contemporary International claim that they have mobile phone ‘jammers’ in the facility, however trainers admitted to Lee that there were no ‘jammers’ at all, it was a verbal deterrent.
Also there are plans for the evacuation of London, G4S are going to be at the forefront, as well as 100,000 troops coming in via Woolwich barracks made up of regular British Forces, American regular army and European troops. Lee was not told why there would be any need for an evacuation of the whole of London, they just said it was to be a “defining moment in the history of London”. This could just be a precaution but the public should be made aware of the foreign invasion which is taking place right now. The troops are being held across London in various barracks once they’ve been through Woolwich. Lee also had this information confirmed by an army doctor who was shocked at all the foreign troops coming into London. There is also a shipment of what are being described as casket linings, each casket can hold four or five people and 200,000 casket linings have been delivered we believe from America. Also we were shown videos of drones attacking targets in Afghanistan and were told that drones will be patrolling the sky’s over London during the Olympics carrying out surveillance and search and destroy missions if necessary.
Beekeepers on the south coast have lost up to a thousand hives in a series of poison attacks.
South coast beekeepers are reeling from the senseless destruction of hundreds of hives across the region yesterday.
A toxic poison was sprayed into over 740 honey producing hives in the Batemans Bay area, decimating the local industry.
Police say the attacks on the region’s biggest producers caused an estimated $150,000 damage, but local producers say the poison will continue to destroy hives over coming weeks.
Beekeepers on the NSW south coast lost about 750 hives after bees were poisoned. Owner of Australian Rainforest Honey, Steve Roberts, lost about 230 hives, south of Pebbly Beach. Photo: Graham Tidy
One of the hardest hit was south coast producer Australian Rainforest Honey.
The company had 240 hives poisoned at its two sites on the south coast, causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage.
One of the company’s directors, Stephen Roberts, was at his site just south of Pebbly Beach today, sifting through piles of dead bees and attempting to save those that hadn’t been lost.
Owner of Australian Rainforest Honey, Steve Roberts, at left, with employee, Adlei Baldo, south of Pebbly Beach.
Mr Roberts says the poisoning was a senseless, inexplicable act, and is working with rural police and the NSW Department of Primary Industries to catch those responsible.
Mr Roberts bees are also used to pollinate almonds, and the attacks may have a secondary impact on that industry.
The attacks appear targeted, with the offenders poisoning a series of hidden, remote bushland sites, some up to 40km apart.
“It’s not right, it’s just not right,” Mr Roberts said.
“We’ll have to start up the hives from scratch again, and it’ll be well over $100,000,” he said.
Investigators from the Department of Primary Industries were at the hives today taking samples of the poison, but a spokeswoman said it would take a number of days to determine an exact cause of death.
The beekeeping business is highly competitive and has been described as cutthroat, but there is no indication that any rival honey producer was responsible.
But while authorities try and track down the culprits, there’s little left for Australian Rainforest Honey to do but mop up and start all over again.
“We’re just lucky that we’ve got a few more loads of bees than others have,” Mr Roberts said.
“We’ll feel it, we’ll definitely feel it, but what can you do?”
Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Read more: CanberraTimes.com
See Also:
Vanishing of the Bees – Beekeeper Leaks EPA Document
A Spanish researcher demos new satellite-hijacking tricks with cybercriminal potential.
Satellites can bring a digital signal to places where the Internet seems like a miracle: off-the-grid desert solar farms, the Arctic or an aircraft carrier at sea. But in beaming data to and from the world’s most remote places, satellite Internet may also offer its signal to a less benign recipient: any digital miscreant within thousands of miles.
In a presentation at the Black Hat security conference in Arlington, Va., Tuesday, Spanish cybersecurity researcher Leonardo Nve presented a variety of tricks for gaining access to and exploiting satellite Internet connections. Using less than $75 in tools, Nve, a researcher with security firm S21Sec, says that he can intercept Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) signals to get free high-speed Internet. And while that’s not a particularly new trick–hackers have long been able to intercept satellite TV or other sky-borne signals–Nve also went a step further, describing how he was able to use satellite signals to anonymize his Internet connection, gain access to private networks and even intercept satellite Internet users’ requests for Web pages and replace them with spoofed sites.
“What’s interesting about this is that it’s very, very easy,” says Nve. “Anyone can do it: phishers or Chinese hackers … it’s like a very big Wi-Fi network that’s easy to access.”
In a penetration test on a client’s network, Nve used a Skystar 2 PCI satellite receiver card, a piece of hardware that can be bought on eBay ( EBAY – news – people ) for $30 or less, along with open source Linux DVB software applications and the network data analysis or “sniffing” tool Wireshark.
Exploiting that signal, Nve says he was able to impersonate any user connecting to the Internet via satellite, effectively creating a high-speed, untraceable anonymous Internet connection that that can be used for nefarious online activities.
Nve also reversed the trick, impersonating Web sites that a satellite user is attempting to visit by intercepting a Domain Name System (DNS) request–a request for an Internet service provider (ISP) to convert a spelled out Web site name into the numerical IP address where it’s stored–and sending back an answer faster than the ISP. That allows him to replace a Web site that a user navigates to directly with a site of his choosing, creating the potential for undetectable cybercrime sites that steal passwords or installs malicious software.
In his tests on the client’s network, Nve says he was also able to hijack signals using GRE or TCP protocols that enterprises use to communicate between PCs and servers or between offices, using the connections to gain access to a corporation or government agency’s local area network.
The Barcelona-based researcher tested his methods on geosynchronous satellites aimed at Europe, Africa and South America. But he says there’s little doubt that the same tricks would work on satellites facing North America or anywhere else.
What makes his attacks possible, Nve says, is that DVB signals are usually left unencrypted. That lack of simple security, he says, stems from the logistical and legal complications of scrambling the signal, which might make it harder to share data among companies or agencies and–given that a satellite signal covers many countries–could run into red tape surrounding international use of cryptography. “Each [country] can have its own law for crypto,” says Nve. “It’s easier not to have encryption at the DVB layer.”
Nve isn’t the first to show the vulnerability of supposedly secure satellite connections. John Walker, a British satellite enthusiast, told the BBC in 2002 that he could watch unencrypted NATO video feeds from surveillance sorties in the Balkans. And the same lack of encryption allowed insurgents to hack into the video feed of unmanned U.S. drone planes scouting Afghanistan, the Wall Street Journal reported in December.
In fact, the techniques that Nve demonstrated are probably known to other satellite hackers but never publicized, says Jim Geovedi, a satellite security researcher and consultant with the firm Bellua in Indonesia. He compares satellite hacking to early phone hacking or “phreaking,” a practice that’s not well protected against but performed by only a small number of people worldwide. “This satellite hacking thing is still considered blackbox knowledge,” he wrote in an e-mail to Forbes. “I believe there are many people out there who conduct similar research. They may have some cool tricks but have kept them secret for ages.”
At last year’s Black Hat D.C. conference, British cybersecurity researcher Adam Laurie demonstrated how he intercepts satellite signals with techniques similar to Nve, using a DreamBox satellite receiver and Wireshark. But Nve argues that his method is far cheaper–Laurie’s DreamBox setup cost around $750–and that he’s the first to demonstrate satellite signal hijacking rather than mere interception.
“I’m not just talking about watching TV,” says Nve. “I’m talking about doing some very scary things.”
Satellite hacking for fun isn’t cheap! One of the sessions I was really looking forward to ahead of the Black Hat DC event this year was Adam Laurie’s session titled – Satellite Hacking for Fun and Profit.
It’s a session that didn’t disappoint, Laurie is always entertaining, but it also revealed how much effort is actually required to try and get at satellite signals.
First off, Laurie prefaced his talk by noting that he wasn’t going to talk about hacking the actual satellite in space itself.
“I’m playing it safe and just looking at what is coming down,” Laurie told the Black Hat audience.
Instead what Laurie focused his talk on was something he called ‘Feed Hunting’ – that is looking for satellite feeds that are not supposed to be found. Laurie claimed that he has been doing satellite feed hunting for years – at least as far back as the untimely demise of the late Princess Diana in 1997. Laurie claimed that he was able to find a non-public feed from a TV broadcaster that had left their transponder on in a Paris hotel room.
Fast forward a dozen years and Laurie commented that the technology to identify satellite feeds has progressed dramatically. Among the reasons why he satellite feed hunting has gotten easier is an open source based satellite received called the dreambox.
Laurie explained that the dreambox has a web interface that makes it easier to find streams and provides information on what the stream includes. Another open source technology also helps to feed hunt satellite content.
A project called dvbsnoop is a DVB (dIgital video broadcasting) and MPEG stream analyzer that lets the user access raw data from DVB card. By sifting through the raw data, Laurie demonstrated that interesting satellite feeds that weren’t intended to be public could be found.
Going a step further, Laurie claimed that he had created his own python based script called dreaMMap that could create a 3d model of satellite frequency transmissions. With the 3D model the user just does a point and click to steer dish to a particular satellite frequency. One memory of the Black Hat audience asked Laurie if what he was doing was legal. Laurie shrugged and commented:
“I’m in the US giving a talk where I’m tunneled to my server in the UK and looking at a satellite in space that is over Africa – so who would get me?”
All told there is a financial cost to Laurie’s satellite feed hunting techniques – and that cost is approximately $785 for the Dreambox hardware, the actual satellite dish and then the motor and the mount for the dish. Well I guess if you’ve got the money to burn…
Information technology, among all that it does, brings together two things which are wonderful when apart, and frightening when combined: children, and sex. For the past couple decades, this has, understandably, freaked us all out. We need to calm down and have a talk about it.
In his defense of freedom of “icky speech”, Neil Gaiman observed, “The Law is a blunt instrument. It’s not a scalpel. It’s a club.” This exemplifies how much of the world has reacted to the intersection of technology, sex, and children: by wildly flailing around with a gigantic legal club, more often smashing itself in the head than solving any problems. Let’s explore how:
Kids Looking At Pornography
The Internet is really, really great for porn. Porn is so easy to find online that even a child could do it. The problem, so it would seem, is that this is exactly what children end up doing. And as they approach and go through puberty, boy oh boy do they find porn.
Such porn-finding is unstoppable. Nobody ever clicks “No, I am not 18 years of age or older” when visiting a porn site. No web filtering software can stand up to the resourcefulness of a curious and hormonal teenager. No law will convince a maturing human being not to seek out sexually explicit material. The underage psyche interprets barriers to pornography as damage, and routes around it.
For some reason, this is seen as a bad thing. Exposure to graphic depictions of sex are considered somehow harmful to children, teenagers, and anyone below the arbitrary age of 18, 21, or whatever. But as generations of kids raised on surreptitiously-accessed Internet porn grow older, little evidence of harm shows itself. Rampant porn-viewing hasn’t been shown to increase rates of sexual assault or sexual violence; in fact increasing availability of porn has correlated with a decline in rape. On that note, what pornography may also do is aid in young people’s exploration and discovery of their own sexualities as they mature — a hypothesis which, if true, isn’t particularly malignant.
Yet, we insist on criminalizing this perfectly normal behavior by sexually developing human beings. In many cases, this illegality concerns the willful distribution of pornography to a minor — giving the pornographer, not the minor, the blame. But here’s the thing: nobody has to distribute or market pornography to a minor. They’ll find it all by themselves.
Kids Willfully Creating “Pornography”
It starts to get a bit more problematic when that exploration goes beyond passive viewing; apparently, kids these days are into something called “sexting”. At its most innocuous, a child or teenager snaps a nude or sexually explicit photo of themselves, and sends it (often via MMS) to a friend, crush, or significant other. All of a sudden, through their own free will, the kid’s become a child pornographer.
Of course, this behavior is far from unique to minors. Information technology has enabled consenting adults from all walks of life to share sexually explicit imagery of themselves with one another. MMSes and emails between friends aren’t even the half of it. Webcams and video chat software weren’t on the scene for five minutes before somebody realized that they could be used to transmit their genitalia. There are sexually explicit social networks and YouTube-clones where people can expose themselves to millions of anonymous viewers. There’s even a fusion of these two in live video broadcasting websites which permit people to stream real-time images of themselves doing scandalous things without very much clothing on. As with all sexually-charged things that consenting adults do, sometimes minors decide to give it a try themselves.
Child pornography laws are meant to prevent the abuse of minors. When minors decide, by their own volition, to take nude or sexually explicit images of themselves and share them with loved ones, friends, or even anonymous acquaintances, it’s hard to describe how that could possibly constitute abuse. Sadly, because of the law, all parties involved end up liable for the heinous crime of child pornography: both the recipient, regardless of age, and the exhibiting minor.
Laws intended to protect children from sexual abuse now have the effect of criminalizing behavior that — in the context of our contemporary world — is perfectly reasonable for a pubescent minor to engage in. It’s not really that weird, strange, or appalling that sexually-developing young people might want to show off their bodies to their fellow sexually-developing young people; the only weird part is this new medium of exhibition they’re using. Before the Internet and cellphones, kids just took off their clothes for each other in person.
Much like with physical, flesh-and-blood sexual intimacy, educating children about why they shouldn’t make themselves into porn stars isn’t going to work; they’ll still desire to, and they’ll still do it. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. The sanest course of action is to educate them about responsibility: “use a condom” is to real sex as “don’t send pictures of your boyfriend’s dick to all of your other friends” is to explicit image sharing. But the reason for that advice should be basic common sense and human decency, not because doing so will force you to register as a sex offender at age 14.
Actual Child Pornography and Pedophilia
What about the actual abuse from which children need to be protected? The sexual abuse of children — or anyone, for that matter — is rightfully illegal, and absolutely reprehensible. But in our zeal to destroy reprehensible things, most societies have gone further, and made it illegal to access or possess images of this abhorrent abuse. Unfortunately, the uncomfortable truth is that banning the possession of child pornography doesn’t do any good.
First of all, child pornography is a wonderful scapegoat. Copyright lobbyists regularly use child porn to incite moral panic, and make their proposals to censor the Internet more palatable. And much like these “piracy-stopping” censorship schemes, child pornography bans don’t stop the sexual abuse of children involved.
Before the Internet, child pornography was distributed secretly among close-knit networks of pedophiles. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the recipient of child porn might be no more than two or three degrees of separation from its creator — the actual person who had committed the sexual abuse. Today, a single child rapist can anonymously distribute their “work” to thousands of people with a single click of a mouse. The downloaders often have absolutely no idea who the perpetrator was; their arrests solve nothing.
Furthermore, there is no conclusive evidence that viewers of child pornography are more likely to act on their fetishes and commit sexual abuse of a child. In fact, based on the aforementioned “porn lowers rape rates” study, one could reasonably hypothesize that the exact opposite is true.
The criminalization of viewing or possessing child pornography only serves to get “revenge” on people who are interested in it. It does not lead to the imprisonment of child rapists, it does not give justice to the victims, and it does not stop potential pedophiles from acting on their urges.
What would, in fact, stop potential pedophiles from acting on their urges is mental health treatment. If at all possible, societies should not view sexual diversity or fetishism as a mental illness; it’s not a particularly harmful thing if somebody is sexually aroused by, oh, let’s say, being hit in the face with a pie. Sexual attraction to children, on the other hand, isn’t something that can be reasonably accommodated — hence, a mental health problem.
But much as the criminalization (and resulting stigmatization) of drug use makes addicts afraid to seek treatment, people suffering with pedophilia fear the consequences of getting help. In researching this article, I got an anonymous source to put it in his own words for me:
When I was 17 I looked at a lot of porn, just like anyone my age. I was curious about it all. I didn’t even know I was gay until I got curious about gay porn. So I looked at all the varieties, twinks, jocks, black guys, Asian guys, groups, all of it. Weirder stuff too like bondage, BDSM, some of it I liked for a while, some of it I never went back to. Then I started looking at kids. I was curious, and a horny teenager, so it wasn’t like it was that creepy. But every time after, I felt horrible. I could see how scared those kids were in the pics but I didn’t stop. I told myself, it’s just because I’m young, I’ll grow out of it, but I’m 20 now and still can’t stop myself sometimes. I wouldn’t ever go and do it for real, I know that. I like guys my own age and older, so it’s not like I can only get off to kids. But I still hate myself for it. But if I go out and tell someone I need help, the feds might come and knock down my door. So I don’t know what to do.
This is the sort of person who needs a therapist’s couch, not a prison cell. But our irrational rage at all things pedophilic deny this man his health, his sanity, and his right to be a productive member of society. He’s not alone, he’s just the one brave enough to break the silence.
Conclusion
The intersection of sexuality and children is understandably frightening. It’s a very primal instinct to want to protect children, and sex — as something that many full-grown adults still haven’t fully come to terms with — seems threatening with its emotional complexity, and its potential for abuse. The Internet and other information technology make it easier for everyone to encounter all types of information, and consequently, for children to encounter sex. But there are two things we must remember:
Sex is perfectly fine, and something that children need education of, not protection from.
Sexual abuse is not perfectly fine, and is its own distinct concern.
If we truly care about protecting children from sexual abuse, then it behooves us to do it effectively. Knee-jerk reactions, moral panics, and emotion-based policymaking do not protect our children. Ineffective laws only serve to make politicians and civil servants look like they’re doing something, in a ploy to win public support. And that is almost as disgusting as abusing a child.
More than $4 trillion in near zero-interest Federal Reserve loans and other financial assistance went to the banks and businesses of at least 18 current and former Federal Reserve regional bank directors in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse, according to Government Accountability Office records made public for the first time today by Sen. Bernie Sanders.
On the eve of Senate testimony by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Sanders (I-Vt.) released the detailed findings on Dimon and other Fed board members whose banks and businesses benefited from Fed actions.
A Sanders provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act required the Government Accountability Office to investigate potential conflicts of interest. The Oct. 19, 2011 report by the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress laid out the findings, but did not name names. Sanders today released the names.
“This report reveals the inherent conflicts of interest that exist at the Federal Reserve. At a time when small businesses could not get affordable loans to create jobs, the Fed was providing trillions in secret loans to some of the largest banks and corporations in America that were well represented on the boards of the Federal Reserve Banks. These conflicts must end,” Sanders said.
The GAO study found that allowing members of the banking industry to both elect and serve on the Federal Reserve’s board of directors creates “an appearance of a conflict of interest” and poses “reputational risks” to the Federal Reserve System.
In Dimon’s case, JPMorgan received some $391 billion of the $4 trillion in emergency Fed funds at the same time his bank was used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for emergency lending programs. In March of 2008, the Fed provided JPMorgan with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns. Dimon also got the Fed to provide JPMorgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. And he convinced the Fed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired the troubled investment bank.
Another high-profile conflict involved Stephen Friedman, the former chairman of the New York Fed’s board of directors. Late in 2008, the New York Fed approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap loans from the Federal Reserve. During that period, Friedman sat on the Goldman Sachs board. He also owned Goldman stock, something that was prohibited by Federal Reserve conflict of interest regulations. Although it was not publicly disclosed at the time, Friedman received a waiver from the Fed’s conflict of interest rules in late 2008. Unbeknownst to the Fed, Friedman continued to purchase shares in Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009, according to the GAO.
In another case, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt was a New York Fed board member at the same time GE helped create a Commercial Paper Funding Facility during the financial crisis. The Fed later provided $16 billion in financing to GE under this emergency lending program.
Sanders on May 22 introduced legislation to prohibit banking industry and business executives from serving as directors of the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks.
To read a report summarizing the new GAO information, click here.
Jamie Dimon Is Not Alone
During the financial crisis, at least 18 former and current directors from Federal Reserve Banks worked in banks and corporations that collectively received over $4 trillion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve.
US Senator Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.)
Washington, DC
June 12, 2012
Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, has served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2007. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $391 billion in total financial assistance. JP Morgan Chase was also used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for the Fed’s emergency lending programs.In March of 2008, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. The Fed also agreed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired this troubled investment bank.
Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, served on the New York Fed’s Board of Directors from 2006-2011. General Electric received $16 billion in low-interest financing from the Federal Reserve’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility during this time period.
Stephen Friedman. In 2008, the New York Fed approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap Fed loans. During the same period, Friedman, who was chairman of the New York Fed at the time, sat on the Goldman Sachs board of directors and owned Goldman stock, something the Fed’s rules prohibited. He received a waiver in late 2008 that was not made public. After Friedman received the waiver, he continued to purchase stock in Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009 unbeknownst to the Fed, according to the GAO. During the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs received $814 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.
Sanford Weill, the former CEO of Citigroup, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in New York in 2006. During the financial crisis, Citigroup received over $2.5 trillion in total financial assistance from the Fed.
Richard Fuld, Jr, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in New York from 2006 to 2008. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided $183 billion in total financial assistance to Lehman before it collapsed.
James M. Wells, the Chairman and CEO of SunTrust Banks, has served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta since 2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received $7.5 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.
Richard Carrion, the head of Popular Inc. in Puerto Rico, has served on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2008. Popular received $1.2 billion in total financing from the Fed’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.
James Smith, the Chairman and CEO of Webster Bank, served on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Directors in Boston from 2008-2010. Webster Bank received $550 million in total financing from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.
Ted Cecala, the former Chairman and CEO of Wilmington Trust, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in Philadelphia from 2008-2010. Wilmington Trust received $3.2 billion in total financial assistance from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.
Robert Jones, the President and CEO of Old National Bancorp, has served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in St. Louis since 2008. Old National Bancorp received a total of $550 million in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.
James Rohr, the Chairman and CEO of PNC Financial Services Group, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in Cleveland from 2008-2010. PNC received $6.5 billion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.
George Fisk, the CEO of LegacyTexas Group, was a director at the Dallas Federal Reserve in 2009. During the financial crisis, his firm received a $5 million low-interest loan from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility.
Dennis Kuester, the former CEO of Marshall & Ilsley, served as a board director on the Chicago Federal Reserve from 2007-2008. During the financial crisis, his bank received over $21 billion in low-interest loans from the Fed.
George Jones, Jr., the CEO of Texas Capital Bank, has served as a board director at the Dallas Federal Reserve since 2009. During the financial crisis, his bank received $2.3 billion in total financing from the Fed’s Term Auction Facility.
Douglas Morrison, was the Chief Financial Officer at CitiBank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, while he served as a board director at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank in 2006. During the financial crisis, CitiBank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota received over $21 billion in total financing from the Federal Reserve.
L. Phillip Humann, the former CEO of SunTrust Banks, served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta from 2006-2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received $7.5 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.
Henry Meyer, III, the former CEO of KeyCorp, served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland from 2006-2007. During the financial crisis, KeyBank (owned by KeyCorp) received over $40 billion in total financing from the Federal Reserve.
Ronald Logue, the former CEO of State Street Corporation, served as a board member of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank from 2006-2007. During the financial crisis, State Street Corporation received a total of $42 billion in financing from the Federal Reserve.
The end of all Hopi ceremonialism will come when a “Kachina” removes his mask during a dance in the plaza before uninitiated children [the general public]. For a while there will be no more ceremonies, no more faith. Then Oraibi will be rejuvenated with its faith and ceremonies, marking the start of a new cycle of Hopi life.
World War III will be started by those peoples who first revealed the light (the divine wisdom or intelligence) in the other old countries (India, China, Islamic Nations, Africa.)
The United States will be destroyed, land and people, by atomic bombs and radioactivity. Only the Hopis and their homeland will be preserved as an oasis to which refugees will flee. Bomb shelters are a fallacy. “It is only materialistic people who seek to make shelters. Those who are at peace in their hearts already are in the great shelter of life. There is no shelter for evil. Those who take no part in the making of world division by ideology are ready to resume life in another world, be they Black, White, Red, or Yellow race. They are all one, brothers.”
The war will be “a spiritual conflict with material matters. Material matters will be destroyed by spiritual beings who will remain to create one world and one nation under one power, that of the Creator.”
That time is not far off. It will come when the Saquasohuh (Blue Star) Kachina dances in the plaza and removes his mask. He represents a blue star, far off and yet invisible, which will make its appearance soon. The time is foretold by a song sung during the Wuwuchim ceremony. It was sung in 1914 just before World War I, and again in 1940 before World War II, describing the disunity, corruption, and hatred contaminating Hopi rituals, which were followed by the same evils spreading over the world. This same song was sung in 1961 during the Wuwuchim ceremony.
The Emergence to the future Fifth World has begun. It is being made by the humble people of little nations, tribes, and racial minorities. “You can read this in the earth itself. Plant forms from previous worlds are beginning to spring up as seeds [as described in SW-II, Effects and Coming Events # 1]. This could start a new study of botany if people were wise enough to read them. The same kinds of seeds are being planted in the sky as stars. The same kinds of seeds are being planted in our hearts. All these are the same, depending how you look at them. That is what makes the Emergence to the next, Fifth World.
“These comprise the nine most important prophecies of the Hopis, connected with the creation of the nine worlds: the three previous worlds on which we lived, the present Fourth World, the three future worlds we have yet to experience, and the world of Taiowa, the Creator, and his nephew, Sotuknang.”
The Hopi and others who were saved from the Great Flood made a sacred covenant with the Great Spirit never to turn away from him. He made a set of sacred stone tablets, called Tiponi, into which he breathed his teachings, prophecies, and warnings. Before the Great Spirit hid himself again, he placed before the leaders of the four different racial groups four different colors and sizes of corn; each was to choose which would be their food in this world. The Hopi waited until last and picked the smallest ear of corn. At this, the Great Spirit said:
“It is well done. You have obtained the real corn, for all the others are imitations in which are hidden seeds of different plants. You have shown me your intelligence; for this reason I will place in your hands these sacred stone tablets, Tiponi, symbol of power and authority over all land and life to guard, protect, and hold in trust for me until I shall return to you in a later day, for I am the First and I am the Last.”
The Great Chieftain of the Bow Clan led the faithful ones to this new land, but he fell into evil ways. His two sons scolded him for his mistake, and after he died they assumed the responsibilities of leadership. Each brother was given a set of Tiponi, and both were instructed to carry them to a place to which the Great Spirit directed them. The elder brother [of the shining light] was told to go immediately to the east, toward the rising sun, and upon reaching his destination to start back immediately to look for his younger brother, who remained on Turtle Island [the Continental United States of America]. His mission was to help his younger brother to bring about the Purification Day, at which time all evildoers would be punished or destroyed, after which real peace, brotherhood, and everlasting life would be established. The elder brother would restore all land to his younger brother, from whom the Evil one among the white men had taken it. The elder brother [of the shining light] also would come to look for the Tiponi tablets and fulfill the mission given him by the Great Spirit.
The younger brother was instructed to travel throughout the land and mark his footsteps as he went about. Both brothers were told that a great white star would appear in the sky; when that happened, all people would know that the elder brother had reached his destination. Thereupon all people were to settle wherever they happened to be at that time, there to remain until the elder brother returned.
The Hopi settled in the area now known as Four Corners, where the state lines of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet. They lived in humble simplicity and the land produced abundant crops. This area is the “heart” of Turtle Island [the U.S.] and of Mother Earth, and it is the microcosmic image of the macrocosm of the entire planet. Each Hopi clan perpetuates a unique ceremony, and the ceremonies together maintain the balance of natural forces of sunlight, rain and winds, and reaffirm the Hopi respect for all life and trust in the Great Spirit.
The Hopi were told that after a time White Men would come and take their land and try to lead the Hopi into evil ways. But in spite of all the pressures against them, the Hopi were told they must hold to their ancient religion and their land, though always without violence. If they succeeded, they were promised that their people and their land would be a center from which the True Spirit would be reawakened.
It is said that after many years the elder brother might change the color of his skin, but his hair will remain black. He will have the ability to write, and he will be the only person able to read the Tiponi. When he returns to find his younger brother, the Tiponi will be placed side by side to show all the world that they are true brothers. Then great judgment will take place, for the elder will help the younger brother to obtain real justice for all Indian brothers who have been cruelly mistreated by the white man since he came to Turtle Island.
The transformed elder brother, the True White Brother, will wear a red cloak or a red cap, similar to the pattern on the back of a horned toad. He will bring no religion but his own, and will bring with him the Tiponi tablets. He will be all-powerful; none will be able to stand against him. He will come swiftly, and in one day gain control of this entire continent. It is said, “If he comes from the East, the destruction will not be so bad. But if he comes from the West, do not get up on your housetops to see because he will have no mercy.”
The True White Brother will bring with him two great, intelligent and powerful helpers, one of whom will have a sign of a swastika (a masculine symbol of purity), and the sign of the sun. The second great helper will have the sign of a celtic cross with red lines (representing female life blood) between the arms of the cross.
When the Great Purification is near, these helpers will shake the earth first for a short time in preparation. After they shake the earth two times more, they will be joined by the True White Brother, who will become one with them and bring the Purification Day to the world. All three will help the “younger brother” (the Hopi and other pure-hearted people) to make a better world. In the prophecies, the two helpers are designated by the Hopi word for “population,” as if they were large groups of people.
The Hopi were warned that if these three great beings failed, terrible evil would befall the world and great numbers of people would be killed. However, it was said that they would succeed if enough Hopi remained true to the ancient spirit of their people. The True White Brother and his helpers will show the people of earth a great new life plan that will lead to everlasting life. The earth will become new and beautiful again, with an abundance of life and food. Those who are saved will share everything equally. All races will intermarry and speak one tongue and be a family.
Hopi prophecy states that World War III will be started by the people who first received the Light — China, Palestine, India and Africa. When the war comes, the United States will be destroyed by “gourds of ashes” which will fall to the ground, boiling the rivers and burning the earth, where no grass will grow for many years, and causing a disease that no medicine can cure. This can only mean nuclear or atomic bombs; no other weapon causes such effects. Bomb shelters will be useless, for “Those who are at peace in their hearts already are in the Great Shelter of Life. There is no shelter for evil. When the Saquahuh (blue Star) Kachina dances in the plaza and removes his mask, the time of the great trial will be here.” The Hopi believe that only they will be saved.
The Hopi also have prophesied that “Turtle Island could turn over two or three times and the oceans could join hands and meet the sky.” This seems to be a prophecy of a “pole shift” — a flipping, of the planet on its axis. The Hopi call this imminent condition — and that of society today — “Koyaanisqatsi”, which means “world out of balance…a state of life that calls for another way. ”
The following extraordinary Hopi prophecy was first published in a mimeographed manuscript that circulated among several Methodist and Presbyterian churches in 1959. Some of the prophecies were published in 1963 by Frank Waters in The Book of the Hopi. The account begins by describing how, while driving along a desert highway one hot day in the summer of 1958, a minister named David Young stopped to offer a ride to an Indian elder, who accepted with a nod. After riding in silence for several minutes, the Indian said:
“I am White Feather, a Hopi of the ancient Bear Clan. In my long life I have traveled through this land, seeking out my brothers, and learning from them many things full of wisdom. I have followed the sacred paths of my people, who inhabit the forests and many lakes in the east, the land of ice and long nights in the north, and the places of holy altars of stone built many years ago by my brothers’ fathers in the south. From all these I have heard the stories of the past, and the prophecies of the future. Today, many of the prophecies have turned to stories, and few are left — the past grows longer, and the future grows shorter.
“And now White Feather is dying. His sons have all joined his ancestors, and soon he too shall be with them. But there is no one left, no one to recite and pass on the ancient wisdom. My people have tired of the old ways — the great ceremonies that tell of our origins, of our emergence into the Fourth World, are almost all abandoned, forgotten, yet even this has been foretold. The time grows short.
“My people await Pahana, the lost White Brother, [from the stars] as do all our brothers in the land. He will not be like the white men we know now, who are cruel and greedy. we were told of their coming long ago. But still we await Pahana.
“He will bring with him the symbols, and the missing piece of that sacred tablet now kept by the elders, given to him when he left, that shall identify him as our True White Brother.
“The Fourth World shall end soon, and the Fifth World will begin. This the elders everywhere know. The Signs over many years have been fulfilled, and so few are left.
“This is the First Sign: We are told of the coming of the white-skinned men, like Pahana, but not living like Pahana men who took the land that was not theirs. And men who struck their enemies with thunder.
“This is the Second Sign: Our lands will see the coming of spinning wheels filled with voices. In his youth, my father saw this prophecy come true with his eyes — the white men bringing their families in wagons across the prairies.”
“This is the Third Sign: A strange beast like a buffalo but with great long horns, will overrun the land in large numbers. These White Feather saw with his eyes — the coming of the white men’s cattle.”
“This is the Fourth Sign: The land will be crossed by snakes of iron.”
“This is the Fifth Sign: The land shall be criss-crossed by a giant spider’s web.”
“This is the Sixth sign: The land shall be criss-crossed with rivers of stone that make pictures in the sun.”
“This is the Seventh Sign: You will hear of the sea turning black, and many living things dying because of it.”
“This is the Eight Sign: You will see many youth, who wear their hair long like my people, come and join the tribal nations, to learn their ways and wisdom.
“And this is the Ninth and Last Sign: You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star. Very soon after this, the ceremonies of my people will cease.
“These are the Signs that great destruction is coming. The world shall rock to and fro. The white man will battle against other people in other lands — with those who possessed the first light of wisdom. There will be many columns of smoke and fire such as White Feather has seen the white man make in the deserts not far from here. Only those which come will cause disease and a great dying. Many of my people, understanding the prophecies, shall be safe. Those who stay and live in the places of my people also shall be safe. Then there will be much to rebuild. And soon — very soon afterward — Pahana will return. He shall bring with him the dawn of the Fifth World. He shall plant the seeds of his wisdom in their hearts. Even now the seeds are being planted. These shall smooth the way to the Emergence into the Fifth World.
“But White Feather shall not see it. I am old and dying. You — perhaps will see it. In time, in time…”
The old Indian fell silent. They had arrived at his destination, and Reverend David Young stopped to let him out of the car. They never met again. Reverend Young died in 1976, so he did not live to see the further fulfillment of this remarkable prophecy.
The signs are interpreted as follows: The First Sign is of guns. The Second Sign is of the pioneers’ covered wagons. The Third Sign is of longhorn cattle. The Fourth Sign describes the railroad tracks. The Fifth Sign is a clear image of our electric power and telephone lines. The Sixth Sign describes concrete highways and their mirage-producing effects. The Seventh Sign foretells of oil spills in the ocean. The Eighth Sign clearly indicates the “Hippy Movement” of the 1960s. The Ninth Sign was the U.S. Space Station Skylab, which fell to Earth in 1979. According to Australian eye-witnesses, it appeared to be burning blue.
Another Hopi prophecy warns that nothing should be brought back from the Moon — obviously anticipating the Apollo 11 mission that returned with samples of lunar basalt. It this was done, the Hopi warned, the balance of natural and universal laws and forces would be disturbed, resulting in earthquakes, severe changes in weather patterns, and social unrest. All these things are happening today, though of course not necessarily because of Moon rocks.
The Hopi also predicted that when the “heart” of the Hopi land trust is dug up, great disturbances will develop in the balance of nature, for the Hopi holy land is the microcosmic image of the entire planet; any violations of nature in the Four Corners region will be reflected and amplified all over the Earth.
In 1959, a six-man delegation of traditional Hopi leaders led by the late spiritual leader, Dan Katchongva, traveled to the United Nations Building in New York to fulfill a sacred mission in accordance with ancient Hopi instructions. Because of their prophetic knowledge, the Hopi leaders felt it was time to go east to the edge of their motherland, where “a house of mica” [The United Nations building] would stand at this time, where Great Leaders from many lands would be gathered to help any people who are in trouble.”
They were to go when the motherland of the Hopi and other Indian brothers were about to be taken away from them and their way of life was in danger of being completely destroyed by evil ones among the White Men and by some other Indian brothers who were influenced by the White Race. This is a clear and present danger: the betrayal of Indian-U.S.A. treaties, land sales, and coal and uranium mining are destroying the Hopi land and its people — and all other peoples and lands, in eventual effect…
According to prophecy, at least one, two or three leaders or nations would hear and understand the Hopi warnings, as “It is told that they too should know these ancient instructions”. Upon hearing the message of the Hopi, they would act immediately to correct many wrongs being done to the chosen race — the Red Man who was granted permission to hold in trust all land and life for the Great Spirit. This prophecy would seem to have failed. Hopi prophecy also declares that the doors of the “Glass House” would be closed to them. This was the case at first, though they have delivered their message to the United Nations Assembly since then:
“When the Great Leaders in the Glass House refuse to open the door to you when you stand before it that day, [Repeated, again in 1993] do not be discouraged or turn about on the path you walk, but take courage, determination, and be of great rejoicing in your hearts, for on that day the White Race who are on your land with you have cut themselves from you and thereon lead themselves to the Greatest Punishment at the Day of Purification. Many shall be destroyed for their sins and evil ways. The Great Spirit has decreed it and no one can stop it, change it, or add anything to it. It shall be fulfilled!”
On August 7, 1970, a spectacular UFO sighting was witnessed by dozens of people and photographed by Chuck Roberts of the Prescott (Arizona)”Courier”. This sighting occurred after a “UFO calling” by Paul Solem and several Hopi Indians. This sighting was interpreted by some Hopis as being a partial fulfillment of a certain Hopi prophecy given by the Great Spirit Maasau and inscribed on Second Mesa, warning of the coming of Purification Day, when the true Hopi will be flown to other planets in “ships without wings.”
Hopi prophecy also tells us that there will be a mass migration of Indians northward from Mexico and Central and South America. The migration will be led by a 130-year old Indian named Etchata Etchana. The movement will come after the huge fire and explosion that will herald the advent of the True White Brother.
According to Hopi belief, the survivors of the Great Deluge thousands of years ago split up into four groups that moved north, south, east and west. Only one group completed their journey — to the North Pole and back — under the guidance of a brilliant “star” in which the Great Spirit Maasau traveled. When he landed, he drew a petroglyph on Second Mesa, showing a maiden (with the traditional “butterfly” hair arrangement) riding in a wingless, dome-shaped craft. The petroglyph signified the coming Day of Purification when the true Hopi will fly to other planets in “ships without wings.”
The prophecy also warns that there will be three divisions among the Hopi The first division was in 1906 between the Traditionalists and the Modernists. The Traditionalists were forced to leave Oraibi and move to Hotevilla. The second division took place in the wake of the spectacular appearance of UFOs in August, 1970.
PROPHECY ROCK
Near Oraibi, Arizona, there is a petroglyph known as Prophecy Rock which symbolizes many Hopi prophecies. Its interpretation is:
The large human figure on the left is the Great Spirit. The bow in his left hand represents his instructions to the Hopi to lay down their weapons. The vertical line to the right of the Great Spirit is a time scale in thousands of years. The point at which the great Spirit touches the line is the time of his return.
The “life path” established by the Great Spirit divides into the lower, narrow path of continuous Life in harmony with nature and the wide upper road of white man’s scientific achievements. The bar between the paths, above the cross, is the coming of white men; the Cross is that of Christianity. The circle below the cross represents the continuous Path of Life.
The four small human figures on the upper road represent, on one level, the past three worlds and the present; on another level, the figures indicate that some of the Hopi will travel the white man’s path, having been seduced by its glamour.
The two circles on the lower Path of Life are the “great shaking of the earth” (World Wars One and Two). The swastika in the sun and the Celtic cross represent the two helpers of Pahana, the True White Brother.
The short line that returns to the straight Path of Life is the last chance for people to turn back to nature before the upper road disintegrates and dissipates. The small circle above the Path of Life, after the last chance, is the Great Purification, after which corn will grow in abundance again when the Great Spirit returns. And the Path of Life continues forever…
The Hopi shield in the lower right corner symbolizes the Earth and the Four-Corners area where the Hopi have been reserved. The arms of the cross also represent the four directions in which they migrated according to the instructions of the Great Spirit.
The dots represent the four colors of Hopi corn, and the four racial colors of humanity.
Most of us don’t think much about it, but the truth is that people are being watched, tracked and monitored more today than at any other time in human history. The explosive growth of technology in recent years has given governments, spy agencies and big corporations monitoring tools that the despots and dictators of the past could only dream of.
Previous generations never had to deal with “pre-crime” surveillance cameras that use body language to spot criminals or unmanned drones watching them from far above. Previous generations would have never even dreamed that street lights and refrigerators might be spying on them. Many of the incredibly creepy surveillance technologies that you are about to read about are likely to absolutely astound you. We are rapidly heading toward a world where there will be no such thing as privacy anymore. Big Brother is becoming all-pervasive, and thousands of new technologies are currently being developed that will make it even easier to spy on you. The world is changing at a breathtaking pace, and a lot of the changes are definitely not for the better.
The following are 14 incredibly creepy surveillance technologies that Big Brother will be using to watch you….
#1 “Pre-Crime” Surveillance Cameras
A company known as BRS Labs has developed “pre-crime” surveillance cameras that can supposedly determine if you are a terrorist or a criminal even before you commit a crime.
Does that sound insane?
Well, authorities are taking this technology quite seriously. In fact, dozens of these cameras are being installed at major transportation hubs in San Francisco….
In its latest project BRS Labs is to install its devices on the transport system in San Francisco, which includes buses, trams and subways.
The company says will put them in 12 stations with up to 22 cameras in each, bringing the total number to 288.
The cameras will be able to track up to 150 people at a time in real time and will gradually build up a ‘memory’ of suspicious behaviour to work out what is suspicious.
#2 Capturing Fingerprints From 20 Feet Away
Can you imagine someone reading your fingerprints from 20 feet away without you ever knowing it?
Gaining access to your gym or office building could soon be as simple as waving a hand at the front door. A Hunsville, Ala.-based company called IDair is developing a system that can scan and identify a fingerprint from nearly 20 feet away. Coupled with other biometrics, it could soon allow security systems to grant or deny access from a distance, without requiring users to stop and scan a fingerprint, swipe an ID card, or otherwise lose a moment dealing with technology.
Currently IDair’s primary customer is the military, but the startup wants to open up commercially to any business or enterprise that wants to put a layer of security between its facilities and the larger world. A gym chain is already beta testing the system (no more using your roommate’s gym ID to get in a free workout), and IDair’s founder says that at some point his technology could enable purchases to be made biometrically, using fingerprints and irises as unique identifiers rather than credit card numbers and data embedded in magnetic strips or RFID chips.
#3 Mobile Backscatter Vans
Police all over America will soon be driving around in unmarked vans looking inside your cars and even under your clothes using the same “pornoscanner” technology currently being utilized by the TSA at U.S. airports….
American cops are set to join the US military in deploying American Science & Engineering’s Z Backscatter Vans, or mobile backscatter radiation x-rays. These are what TSA officials call “the amazing radioactive genital viewer,” now seen in airports around America, ionizing the private parts of children, the elderly, and you (yes you).
These pornoscannerwagons will look like regular anonymous vans, and will cruise America’s streets, indiscriminately peering through the cars (and clothes) of anyone in range of its mighty isotope-cannon. But don’t worry, it’s not a violation of privacy. As AS&E’s vice president of marketing Joe Reiss sez, “From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be.”
You can see a YouTube video presentation about this new technology right here.
#4 Hijacking Your Mind
The U.S. military literally wants to be able to hijack your mind. The theory is that this would enable U.S. forces to non-violently convince terrorists not to be terrorists anymore. But obviously the potential for abuse with this kind of technology is extraordinary. The following is from a recent article by Dick Pelletier….
The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to understand the science behind what makes people violent, and then find ways to hijack their minds by implanting false, but believable stories in their brains, with hopes of evoking peaceful thoughts: We’re friends, not enemies.
Critics say this raises ethical issues such as those addressed in the 1971 sci-fi movie, A Clockwork Orange, which attempted to change people’s minds so that they didn’t want to kill anymore.
Advocates, however, believe that placing new plausible narratives directly into the minds of radicals, insurgents, and terrorists, could transform enemies into kinder, gentler citizens, craving friendship.
Scientists have known for some time that narratives; an account of a sequence of events that are usually in chronological order; hold powerful sway over the human mind, shaping a person’s notion of groups and identities; even inspiring them to commit violence. See DARPA proposal request HERE.
#5 Unmanned Drones In U.S. Airspace
Law enforcement agencies all over the United States are starting to use unmanned drones to spy on us, and the Department of Homeland Security is aggressively seeking to expand the use of such drones by local authorities….
The Department of Homeland Security has launched a program to “facilitate and accelerate the adoption” of small, unmanned drones by police and other public safety agencies, an effort that an agency official admitted faces “a very big hurdle having to do with privacy.”
The $4 million Air-based Technologies Program, which will test and evaluate small, unmanned aircraft systems, is designed to be a “middleman” between drone manufacturers and first-responder agencies “before they jump into the pool,” said John Appleby, a manager in the DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s division of borders and maritime security.
The fact that very few Americans seem concerned about this development says a lot about where we are as a nation. The EPA is already using drones to spy on cattle ranchers in Nebraska and Iowa. Will we eventually get to a point where we all just consider it to be “normal” to have surveillance drones flying above our heads constantly?
#6 Law Enforcement Using Your Own Cell Phone To Spy On You
Although this is not new technology, law enforcement authorities are using our own cell phones to spy on us more extensively than ever before as a recent Wired article described….
Mobile carriers responded to a staggering 1.3 million law enforcement requests last year for subscriber information, including text messages and phone location data, according to data provided to Congress.
A single “request” can involve information about hundreds of customers. So ultimately the number of Americans affected by this could reach into “the tens of millions” each year….
The number of Americans affected each year by the growing use of mobile phone data by law enforcement could reach into the tens of millions, as a single request could ensnare dozens or even hundreds of people. Law enforcement has been asking for so-called “cell tower dumps” in which carriers disclose all phone numbers that connected to a given tower during a certain period of time.
So, for instance, if police wanted to try to find a person who broke a store window at an Occupy protest, it could get the phone numbers and identifying data of all protestors with mobile phones in the vicinity at the time — and use that data for other purposes.
Perhaps you should not be using your cell phone so much anyway. After all, there are more than 500 studies that show that cell phone radiation is harmful to humans.
#7 Biometric Databases
All over the globe, governments are developing massive biometric databases of their citizens. Just check out what is going on in India….
In the last two years, over 200 million Indian nationals have had their fingerprints and photographs taken and irises scanned, and given a unique 12-digit number that should identify them everywhere and to everyone.
This is only the beginning, and the goal is to do the same with the entire population (1.2 billion), so that poorer Indians can finally prove their existence and identity when needed for getting documents, getting help from the government, and opening bank and other accounts.
This immense task needs a database that can contain over 12 billion fingerprints, 1.2 billion photographs, and 2.4 billion iris scans, can be queried from diverse devices connected to the Internet, and can return accurate results in an extremely short time.
#8 RFID Microchips
In a previous article, I detailed how the U.S. military is seeking to develop technology that would enable it to monitor the health of our soldiers and improve their performance in battle using RFID microchips.
Most Americans don’t realize this, but RFID microchips are steadily becoming part of the very fabric of our lives. Many of your credit cards and debit cards contain them. Many Americans use security cards that contain RFID microchips at work. In some parts of the country it is now mandatory to inject an RFID microchip into your pet.
Northside Independent School District plans to track students next year on two of its campuses using technology implanted in their student identification cards in a trial that could eventually include all 112 of its schools and all of its nearly 100,000 students.
District officials said the Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) tags would improve safety by allowing them to locate students — and count them more accurately at the beginning of the school day to help offset cuts in state funding, which is partly based on attendance.
#9 Automated License Plate Readers
In a previous article, I quoted a Washington Post piece that talked about how automated license plate readers are being used to track the movements of a vehicle from the time that it enters Washington D.C. to the time that it leaves….
More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.
#10 Face Reading Software
Can computers tell what you are thinking just by looking at your face?
Don’t laugh.
Such technology is actually being actively developed. The following is from a recent NewScientist article….
IF THE computers we stare at all day could read our faces, they would probably know us better than anyone.
That vision may not be so far off. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab are developing software that can read the feelings behind facial expressions. In some cases, the computers outperform people. The software could lead to empathetic devices and is being used to evaluate and develop better adverts.
#11 Data Mining
The government is not the only one that is spying on you. The truth is that a whole host of very large corporations are gathering every shred of information about you that they possibly can and selling that information for profit. It is called “data mining“, and it is an industry that has absolutely exploded in recent years.
One very large corporation known as Acxiom actually compiles information on more than 190 million people in the U.S. alone….
The company fits into a category called database marketing. It started in 1969 as an outfit called Demographics Inc., using phone books and other notably low-tech tools, as well as one computer, to amass information on voters and consumers for direct marketing. Almost 40 years later, Acxiom has detailed entries for more than 190 million people and 126 million households in the U.S., and about 500 million active consumers worldwide. More than 23,000 servers in Conway, just north of Little Rock, collect and analyze more than 50 trillion data ‘transactions’ a year.
#12 Street Lights Spying On Us?
Did you ever consider that street lights could be spying on you?
Well, it is actually happening. New high tech street lights that can actually watch what you do and listen to what you are saying are being installed in some major U.S. cities. The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson for Infowars.com….
Federally-funded high-tech street lights now being installed in American cities are not only set to aid the DHS in making “security announcements” and acting as talking surveillance cameras, they are also capable of “recording conversations,” bringing the potential privacy threat posed by ‘Intellistreets’ to a whole new level.
#13 Automated ISP Monitoring Of Your Internet Activity
If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.
Specifically, they’re coming for you on Thursday, July 12.
That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.
Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration.
Spying On Us Through Our Appliances
Could the government one day use your refrigerator to spy on you?
Don’t laugh.
That is exactly what CIA Director David Petraeus says is coming….
Petraeus says that web-connected gadgets will ‘transform’ the art of spying – allowing spies to monitor people automatically without planting bugs, breaking and entering or even donning a tuxedo to infiltrate a dinner party.
‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,’ said Petraeus.
‘Particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft. Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters – all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing.’
Petraeus was speaking to a venture capital firm about new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously ‘dumb’ home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.
For many more ways that Big Brother is spying on you, please see these articles….
In the 1920s, the US government found that animals fed a diet of white flour developed serious neurological diseases and died. Instead of banning this deadly product like they should have, the FDA declared that most white flour products must be “enriched” with iron and a few vitamins to “correct” the problem. Unfortunately, this decision has helped create an even more insidious situation that results in diabetes, heart disease and cancer for millions of people.
Gluten sensitivity
Gluten sensitivity is becoming a raging epidemic today. Gluten sensitivity is not a disease and therefore has no cure. Gluten sensitivity is triggered by eating products containing gluten. The only way to avoid its complications is to stay away from food products containing gluten.
There are 35 diseases that can be caused by eating gluten listed in a review in the New England Journal of Medicine. Some of these symptoms are: arthritis, ADHD, depression, anxiety, IBS, lupus, frequent headaches, fatigue, eczema, loss of muscle coordination, osteoporosis, a weakened immune system, fungal overgrowth, organ inflammation, weight loss/weight gain, and malnutrition.
Gluten sensitivity increases your risk for type 1 diabetes, obesity, gastrointestinal cancers, brain disorders, autism and thyroid disease.
Gluten evils and woes
Gluten is purposefully put in some products because it increases hunger signals to make you eat more of a product by increasing the ghrelin in the digestive tract to enhance feelings of hunger – leaving you hungry for more of that product. Gluten also interferes with leptin which tells your brain you’re full and signals fat to break down. Leptin also normalizes pain sensations in the spinal cord.
• Gluten sensitivity causes inflammation that harms the body tissues by causing an autoimmune response where the immune system ends up attacking the body
• C-reactive proteins rise in response to inflammation; causing cholesterol levels to shoot up and calcium deposits to harden the arteries and blood pressure rise
• Sugar cannot fuel cancer cells by itself. Gluten and the amino acid glutamine have been studied and found to play a critical role in the cancer process.
• Gluten is an excitotoxin; which agitates and kills neuronal cells which like glutamate (think MSG), accelerates, activates, irritates and damages brain cells. A 2006 study took 131 children with ADHD and removed gluten from their diets and all 131 children were reported to have significant improvements.
• Gluten can be broken down into strange proteins that are a lot like psychedelic drugs. These are opium-like proteins are called gluteomorophins (think Autism and Manic Depressive Disorder).
• With gluten, the N Methyl D Aspartate receptors cause spinal cord neurons to become hyper to touch. Leptin in the spinal cord normalizes pain perception and gluten interferes with that process (think fibromyalgia).
• University of California put people on a “Paleolithic” diet, their blood pressure dropped along with blood insulin levels. Good cholesterol went up and bad cholesterol went down – in just 10 days!
• Gluten sensitivity causes you to miss out on your fat soluble vitamins like vitamin D and K
• Eating gluten has now been related to bone density problems (think osteoporosis)
Solution: STOP EATING GLUTEN!
Gluten affects everyone negatively, some effects are very evident now but most of them are sub-clinical and will not show up for years. When disease does finally manifest, the connection to gluten will be overlooked or denied. Gluten-free is a lifestyle choice for health of body and mind. If we choose a gluten-free lifestyle for obvious health reasons, we are intentionally avoiding trouble both now and in the future.
It’s the FBI’s special “anti-piracy” warning. For the past few years, under a special “pilot” program, the FBI has allowed the RIAA, MPAA, BSA, ESA and SIIA (basically, the big record labels, movie studios, video game makers and software companies) to make use of the logo to warn all of their customers that they just might be felons and the FBI might show up at any moment. It’s pure FUD. It also makes no difference. Is there seriously anyone anywhere in the world who sees this logo and suddenly changes their behavior?
However, this program is about to expand in a big, big way. The FBI is about to release new rules (pdf and embedded below) that expand the program so that any copyright holder will be allowed to slap this logo on their product. Expect to start seeing it everywhere… and to feel that much more like the content creator you’re legitimately buying from thinks you’re a crook subject to federal law enforcement action. Way to “connect” with fans, huh?
The document from the FBI discussing this repeats a few times that the FBI really feels like this program is effective and important. Could they be any more out of touch?
First, the FBI believes that the APW Seal and accompanying warnings convey important messages to the public and are a significant component of its efforts to deter and to investigate federal crimes involving the piracy of intellectual property. Allowing use by copyright holders who are not members of industry associations will enhance those efforts. Second, although broader access may make unauthorized use more likely, this concern is overshadowed by the value of increasing public awareness of these prohibitions and the FBI’s role in investigating related criminal activity.
There are all sorts of issues with this. The first is that this whole campaign is ignoring a key point: nearly all copyright infringement is a civil infraction, not a criminal one. Most ordinary users don’t understand the difference between civil and criminal infringement — and the FBI and its silly seal do nothing to explain that difference. It’s pretty clear that the purpose is to falsely imply that sharing with a friend music you legally purchased might somehow lead you to being targeted in an FBI sting operation. It’s FUD, plain and simple. Second, the idea that spreading this logo further will deter actual criminal infringement? Are they serious? Remember, one of the requirements for criminal copyright infringement is that the action is willful. That means that the person knows they’re breaking the law. So educating them on the fact that they’re breaking the law… er… shouldn’t make much of a difference.
Finally, notice that nowhere does the FBI provide any data on how effective this program has been. Because there isn’t any. The MPAA shows this logo before movies, and it’s not like there has been any less infringement. In fact, the FBI and ICE recently decided to double up and extend the warnings on DVDs , and it’s not like that made a difference either. No, instead, all it’s done is piss off tons of legitimate customers, who paid good money for the content, only to be interrupted by a giant FBI logo warning them that they may be criminals facing federal charges. The FBI even admits: “it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of the APW Seal program at preventing piracy,” but apparently that won’t stop it from expanding it. Who in their right mind thinks this is a sensible strategy?
Either way, it’s interesting to read through the comments and feedback on this program — including someone who suggested that the FBI should make sure the warning is skippable at the beginning of movies (the FBI notes that’s up to the film producers) or another one that says this seal should be mandatory on copyright-protected works (the FBI rightly points out it has no such authority). Repeatedly, when people raise issues of more widespread use of the seal (dilution, confusion, belief that works without the seal aren’t protected, etc.) the FBI insists that the supposed benefits of blanketing the universe with this logo far outweigh any downsides.
There were also concerns raised that the logo will have serious chilling effects on fair use — which is definitely a major possibility. And the FBI’s response is ridiculous.
Five comments also expressed a concern that the broader accessibility of the APW Seal may have a “chilling effect” on fair use, as some copyright holders may attempt to use the APW Seal to discourage uses of their copyrighted work that would otherwise be permissible under the fair use doctrine. The FBI fully recognizes that fair use, which is authorized under Title 17, United States Code, Section 107, does not constitute infringement, much less a federal crime. The warning language does not suggest otherwise. The FBI intends to address this matter on its public website.
Because we all know that everyone who sees the logo will go to the FBI’s website and read the fine print at the bottom of the page.
Of course, what’s really crazy in all of this is that the FBI is famous for having an itchy trigger finger when anyone uses its normal logo. Remember, this is the same FBI that, just two years ago, sent a threat letter to Wikipedia, because the Wikipedia page on the FBI shows the FBI logo (leading to an awesome reply from Wikimedia General Counsel, Mike Godwin).
Honestly, the whole thing is silly, but because of this kind of cluelessness, expect to see those pointless FBI warning logos on all sorts of content in the future, so that every time you legitimately purchase content, you’ll be reminded that the copyright holder thinks you’re a lousy stinking thief who deserves a federal investigation. I’m still trying to figure out how that could possibly be good for business, but I guess I just don’t understand copyright…
A new book reveals that a department known as Kidon within the Mossad has dispatched assassins into Iran in order to murder the nuclear scientists, thereby stunting the country’s nuclear energy program.
Authors Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman in their book Spies against Armageddon: Inside Israel’s Secret Wars state that the notorious spy agency has killed at least four Iranian nuclear scientists, including targeting them with operatives on motorcycles, an assassination technique used by the elite killers at Kidon.
The Kidon killers “excel at accurate shooting at any speed and staying steady to shoot and to place exquisitely shaped sticky bombs” and consider it their hallmark.
Kidon, known to be one of the world’s most efficient killing machines, is technically described as a little Mossad within Mossad.
Tasked with carrying out covert ops across the world, Kidon has embarked on a number of black ops and assassinations in different countries.
Those who kill for Kidon are selected either from within the Mossad spy agency or from among the natives of the countries where they plan to carry out assassinations.
For instance, in case of the nuclear assassinations conducted in Iran by Kidon, they basically hired people with Iranian or dual nationalities. One of the Mossad assassins was Majid Jamali Fashi who confessed he had cooperated with Mossad for financial reasons only.
Majid Jamali Fashi assassinated Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, a professor at Tehran University in January 2011 by blowing an explosive-laden motorbike via a remote-controlled device. He reportedly received training from Mossad inside Israel as well as $120,000 to assassinate the Iranian scientist. According to his confession, Jamali Fashi received forged documents in Azerbaijan’s Heydar Aliyev Airport to travel to Tel Aviv.
He confessed, “I woke up early in the morning and as we were trained I went to the warehouse. I had to prepare the box which contained the bomb. I took the motorbike out of the house and reached a location that I had to contact them. I went to the alley [where the professor resided]. It was vacant. No one was there. I brought the bike to the sidewalk and parked it in front of the house. They told me that the mission had been accomplished and that I had to discard my stuff.”
Jamali Fashi was executed under the Iranian judicial system on 15 May, 2012. Parenthetically, Azerbaijan has in recent years become an apparent haven for Mossad spies and assassins.
Another Mossad operative of Iranian nationality has been identified as Ja’far Khoshzaban, alias Javidan, who has been working under the auspices of Azeri security forces and who has been involved in nuclear assassinations. Iranian intelligence ministry has demanded the extradition of Mossad’s Iranian spy from Azerbaijan. Iran has reportedly obtained documents, suggesting that Azeri officials have aided and abetted Mossad and CIA agents in their targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists, namely Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan. As a matter of fact, CIA is constantly mentioned along with Mossad as the main elements in the nuclear assassinations.
Ahmadi Roshan was assassinated on January 11, 2012 when an unknown motorcyclist attached a magnetic bomb to his car near a college building of Allameh Tabatabaei University in northern Tehran.
Using the same ‘sticking bomb technique’, the Kidon assassins attached bombs to the vehicles of Iranian university professors Majid Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi and detonated the explosives on November 29, 2010. Professor Shahriari was killed immediately, but Dr. Abbasi and his wife only sustained minor injuries.
As a rule, the Kidon kill team is comprised of four highly seasoned men: 1. Tracer 2. Transporter 3. Helper 4. Killer. The tracer spots the target. The transporter guides the assassination team to the target. The helper basically serves as the motorcycle driver who helps the killer and the killer is tasked with shooting the target or attaching magnetic bomb to the car of the victim.
According to the book Spies against Armageddon, the Kidon agents are well-trained in shooting and placing “exquisitely shaped sticky bombs” and consider it their hallmark.
These facts aside, it rather seems sort of naïve to disregard the role of the CIA-backed MKO terrorists in the nuclear assassinations and give all the credit to the Kidon agents. There is solid evidence which evinces the MKO role in the assassination of the Iranian scientists.
American commentator Richard Silverstein believes that the primary source of income for the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) comes from the assassinations the group conducts within the Iranian soil at the behest of the Mossad. He argues that “If you’re a terrorist on behalf of Israel, as MKO is, then you’re kosher as far as (US-based Israeli publicist) Dershowitz is concerned. And your money is golden. Where does the money come from? Possibly from the Iran assassinations the MKO performs on Mossad’s behalf, which undoubtedly pay well. Then there’s the possibility that the USD 400-million Bush allocated for destabilizing Iran in 2007 has found its way either to the MKO or Mossad (or both)”
More to the point, the CIA works in the same satanic league with the Mossad and MKO. Time and again, the officials in Washington have encouraged and even confessed to the killings of the Iranian nuclear scientists.
Former US senator Rick Santorum callously described the assassination of Iranian scientists as “wonderful,” threatening that those who work for Iran’s nuclear program “are not safe.”
“On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that’s a wonderful thing, candidly.”
He also said, “I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, North Korea, or from Iran and you are going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe.”
Also, former Bush administration ambassador to the UN John Bolton said on Fox News that the killing of an Iranian scientist and sanctions against Iran constitute only “half-measures in the quest to stunt Iran’s nuclear ambitions”.
Former White House Speaker Newt Gingrich has called for covert action, including “taking out their scientists” and cyberwarfare.
Quotations of this nature are legion and all these facts reinforce the idea that Washington has been making clandestine efforts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear energy program in cahoots with Tel Aviv and their lackey, i.e the MKO.
Ismail Salami is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Ismail Salami
There was some surprise in the comments of yesterday’s post over the fact that the United Kingdom has effectively outlawed encryption: the UK will send its citizens to jail for up to five years if they cannot produce the key to an encrypted data set.
First of all, references – the law is here. You will be sent to jail for refusing to give up encryption keys, regardless of whether you have them or not. Five years of jail if it’s a terrorism investigation (or child porn, apparently), two years otherwise. It’s fascinating – there are four excuses that keep coming back for every single dismantling of democracy. It’s terrorism, child porn, file sharing, and organized crime. You cannot fight these by dismantling civil liberties – they’re just used as convenient excuses.
We knew that this was the next step in the cat-and-mouse game over privacy, right? It starts with the government believing they have a right to interfere into any one of your seven privacies if they want to and find it practical. The next step, of course, is that the citizens protect themselves from snooping – at which point some bureaucrat will confuse the government’s ability to snoop on citizen’s lives for a right to snoop on citizen’s lives at any time, and create harsh punishments for any citizens who try to keep a shred of their privacy. This is not a remotely dystopic scenario; as we see, it has already happened in the UK.
But it’s worse than that. Much worse. You’re not going to be sent to jail for refusal to give up encryption keys. You’re going to be sent to jail for an inability to unlock something that the police think is encrypted. Yes, this is where the hairs rise on our arms: if you have a recorded file with radio noise from the local telescope that you use for generation of random numbers, and the police asks you to produce the decryption key to show them the three documents inside the encrypted container that your radio noise looks like, you will be sent to jail for up to five years for your inability to produce the imagined documents.
But wait – it gets worse still.
The next step in the cat-and-mouse game over privacy is to use steganographic methods to hide the fact that something is encrypted at all. You can easily hide long messages in high-resolution photos today, just to take one example: they will not appear to contain an encrypted message in the first place, but will just look like a regular photo until decoded and decrypted with the proper key. But of course, the government and police are aware of steganographic methods, and know that pretty much any innocent-looking dataset can be used as a container for encrypted data.
So imagine your reaction when the police confiscate your entire collection of vacation photos, claim that your vacation photos contain hidden encrypted messages (which they don’t), and sends you off to jail for five years for being unable to supply the decryption key?
This is not some dystopic pipe dream: this law already exists in the United Kingdom.
Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you.
And without you knowing it.
The technology is so incredibly effective that, in November 2011, its inventors were subcontracted by In-Q-Tel to work with the US Department of Homeland Security. In-Q-Tel is a company founded “in February 1999 by a group of private citizens at the request of the Director of the CIA and with the support of the U.S. Congress.” According to In-Q-Tel, they are the bridge between the Agency and new technology companies.
Their plan is to install this molecular-level scanning in airports and border crossings all across the United States. The official, stated goal of this arrangement is to be able to quickly identify explosives, dangerous chemicals, or bioweapons at a distance.
The machine is ten million times faster—and one million times more sensitive—than any currently available system. That means that it can be used systematically on everyone passing through airport security, not just suspect or randomly sampled people.
Analyzing everything in real time
But the machine can sniff out a lot more than just explosives, chemicals and bioweapons. The company that invented it, Genia Photonics, says that its laser scanner technology is able to “penetrate clothing and many other organic materials and offers spectroscopic information, especially for materials that impact safety such as explosives and pharmacological substances.” [PDF]
Formed in Montreal in 2009 by PhDs with specialties in lasers and fiber optics, Genia Photonics has 30 patents on this technology, claiming incredible biomedical and industrial applications—from identifying individual cancer cells in a real-time scan of a patient, to detecting trace amounts of harmful chemicals in sensitive manufacturing processes.
Above: The Genia Photonics’ Picosecond Programmable Laser scanner is capable of detecting every tiny trace of any substance on your body, from specks of gunpowder to your adrenaline levels to a sugar-sized grain of cannabis to what you had for breakfast.
Meanwhile, In-Q-Tel states that “an important benefit of Genia Photonics’ implementation as compared to existing solutions is that the entire synchronized laser system is comprised in a single, robust and alignment-free unit that may be easily transported for use in many environments… This compact and robust laser has the ability to rapidly sweep wavelengths in any pattern and sequence.” [PDF]
So not only can they scan everyone. They would be able to do it everywhere: the subway, a traffic light, sports events… everywhere.
How does it work?
The machine is a mobile, rack-mountable system. It fires a laser to provide molecular-level feedback at distances of up to 50 meters in just picoseconds. For all intents and purposes, that means instantly.
The small, inconspicuous machine is attached to a computer running a program that will show the information in real time, from trace amounts of cocaine on your dollar bills to gunpowder residue on your shoes. Forget trying to sneak a bottle of water past security—they will be able to tell what you had for breakfast in an instant while you’re walking down the hallway.
The technology is not new, it’s just millions times faster and more convenient than ever before. Back in 2008, a team at George Washington University developed a similar laser spectrometer using a different process. It could sense drug metabolites in urine in less than a second, trace amounts of explosive residue on a dollar bill, and even certain chemical changes happening in a plant leaf.
And the Russians also have a similar technology: announced last April, their “laser sensor can pick up on a single molecule in a million from up to 50 meters away.”
So if Genia Photonics’ claims pan out, this will be an incredible leap forward in terms of speed, portability, and convenience. One with staggering implications.
Observation without limits
There has so far been no discussion about the personal rights and privacy issues involved. Which “molecular tags” will they be scanning for? Who determines them? What are the threshold levels of this scanning? If you unknowingly stepped on the butt of someone’s joint and are carrying a sugar-sized grain of cannabis like that unfortunate traveler currently in jail in Dubai, will you be arrested?
And, since it’s extremely portable, will this technology extend beyone the airport or border crossings and into police cars, with officers looking for people on the street with increased levels of adrenaline in their system to detain in order to prevent potential violent outbursts? And will your car be scanned at stoplights for any trace amounts of suspicious substances? Would all this information be recorded anywhere?
Above: A page from a Genia Photonics paper describing its ability to even penetrate through clothing.
There are a lot of questions with no answer yet, but it’s obvious that the potential level of personal invasion of this technology goes far beyond that of body scans, wiretaps, and GPS tracking.
In other words, these portable, incredibly precise molecular-level scanning devices will be cascading lasers across your body as you walk from the bathroom to the soda machine at the airport and instantly reporting and storing a detailed breakdown of your person, in search of certain “molecular tags”.
Going well beyond eavesdropping, it seems quite possible that U.S. government plans on recording molecular data on travelers without their consent, or even knowledge that it’s possible—a scary thought. While the medical uses could revolutionize the way doctors diagnose illness, and any technology that could replace an aggressive pat-down is tempting, there’s a potential dark side to this implementation, and we need to shine some light on it before it’s implemented.
The author of this story is currently completing his PhD in renewable energy solutions, focusing on converting waste to energy in the urban environment. Even while most of this information is publicly available, he wanted to remain anonymous.
John Arquilla calls for the US to stop prosecuting hackers and give them jobs, but the risk is they’d be employed to spy on us
The issue of cybersecurity makes difficult demands on those of us who wish to understand it. It is not only complex, but growing quickly – more so as the “internetization” of mankind proceeds apace – and as new opportunities for conflict, crime, oppression, and revolution are conceived and executed by states and individuals acting on motivations that are themselves similarly complex, and occasionally even justifiable. Complexity aside, it is an issue that still eludes popular understanding, in part because certain parties do not wish it to be understood.
John Arquilla, the US Naval Postgraduate School professor who coined the term “cyberwarfare” and who recently spoke to the Guardian, is not among them, having long sought to educate the public and influence policy-makers. In this week’s interview, he described the unusual vigor with which the US has prosecuted hackers to be “ridiculous”, citing missed opportunities and a “poisoning” of the relationship between the state and the hacker community, which might represent missed opportunities. Going further, he proposes that the US government relax any restrictions that might prevent masterful hackers with criminal histories from being recruited by the military and intelligence communities.
Such a question is certainly worth pondering. Under other circumstances, my answer would be “yes”: redirecting talents used wrongly and shifting them to good purposes is a fine idea, one that has been pursued with some success throughout history. That my answer must be somewhat different than “yes” has a great deal to do with those certain parties who would prefer that the issue of cybersecurity continue not merely to be complex, but to be misunderstood. Those parties are one and the same as those in charge of both cybersecurity and cyberwarfare policy as practiced by the US.
One such is former USAF Lt Col George A Crawford, who wrote the following in 2001:
“Personnel skilled at conducting strategic information operations – to include psychological operations, public information, deception, media and computer network operations, and related activities – are important for victory. Despite robust DoD [department of defense] and intelligence community capabilities in this area, efforts to establish organizations that focus information operations have not been viewed as a positive development by the public or the media, who perceive government-sponsored information efforts with suspicion. Consequently, these efforts must take place away from public eyes.”
Crawford now serves on the board of Archimedes Global – one of countless intelligence contracting firms that provide a range of little-known “information operations” services to the intelligence community. That his opinion is representative of those men whose views actually make policy becomes clear when we consider such things as the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, along with other unprecedented assaults on the US constitution, which were intended to “take place away from public eyes”.
Of course, some large portion of what we refer to as “cybersecurity” consists of legitimate defense of state and commercial assets in the face of actual threats. In such cases, sound policy could certainly include the utilization of former criminal hackers who bring needed skill and insight to a necessary pursuit. But some other large portion is, instead, geared towards the surveillance of the American public – something that we know only because of the efforts of whistleblowers. What we will never know is how much of US cybersecurity consists of the former category and how much consists of the latter. We may only be certain that the latter will continue to expand, always under the direction of men who hold the public’s liberties and right to privacy in contempt. There is too much power and money at stake for it to be otherwise – and, as yet, too little interest from the citizenry for the trend to be reversed.
In such a context, it becomes more difficult to advocate the introduction of formerly criminal talents into the mix of things – not necessarily because of any threat the criminal may represent to the enterprise, but because of the threat that the enterprise now represents to the public.
VPNs and SSH tunnels can both securely “tunnel” network traffic over an encrypted connection. They’re similar in some ways, but different in others – if you’re trying to decide which to use, it helps to understand how each works.
An SSH tunnel is often referred to as a “poor man’s VPN” because it can provide some of the same features as a VPN without the more complicated server setup process – however, it has some limitations.
How a VPN Works
VPN stands for “virtual private network,” – as its name indicates, it’s used for connecting to private networks over public networks, such as the Internet. In a common VPN use case, a business may have a private network with file shares, networked printers, and other important things on it. Some of the business’s employees may travel and frequently need to access these resources from the road. However, the business doesn’t want to expose their important resources to the public Internet. Instead, the business can set up a VPN server and employees on the road can connect to the company’s VPN. Once an employee is connected, their computer appears to be part of the business’s private network – they can access file shares and other network resources as if they were actually on the physical network.
The VPN client communicates over the public Internet and sends the computer’s network traffic through the encrypted connection to the VPN server. The encryption provides a secure connection, which means the business’s competitors can’t snoop on the connection and see sensitive business information. Depending on the VPN, all the computer’s network traffic may be sent over the VPN – or only some of it may (generally, however, all network traffic goes through the VPN). If all web browsing traffic is sent over the VPN, people between the VPN client and server can’t snoop on the web browsing traffic. This provides protection when using public Wi-Fi networks and allows users to access geographically-restricted services – for example, the employee could bypass Internet censorship if they’re working from a country that censors the web. To the websites the employee accesses through the VPN, the web browsing traffic would appear to be coming from the VPN server.
Crucially, a VPN works more at the operating system level than the application level. In other words, when you’ve set up a VPN connection, your operating system can route all network traffic through it from all applications (although this can vary from VPN to VPN, depending on how the VPN is configured). You don’t have to configure each individual application.
SSH, which stands for “secure shell,” isn’t designed solely for forwarding network traffic. Generally, SSH is used to securely acquire and use a remote terminal session – but SSH has other uses. SSH also uses strong encryption, and you can set your SSH client to act as a SOCKS proxy. Once you have, you can configure applications on your computer – such as your web browser – to use the SOCKS proxy. The traffic enters the SOCKS proxy running on your local system and the SSH client forwards it through the SSH connection – this is known as SSH tunneling. This works similarly to browsing the web over a VPN – from the web server’s perspective, your traffic appears to be coming from the SSH server. The traffic between your computer and the SSH server is encrypted, so you can browse over an encrypted connection as you could with a VPN.
However, an SSH tunnel doesn’t offer all the benefits of a VPN. Unlike with a VPN, you must configure each application to use the SSH tunnel’s proxy. With a VPN, you’re assured that all traffic will be sent through the VPN – but you don’t have this assurance with an SSH tunnel. With a VPN, your operating system will behave as though you’re on the remote network – which means connecting to Windows networked file shares would be easy. It’s considerably more difficult with an SSH tunnel.
If you’re worried about which is more secure for business use, the answer is clearly a VPN — you can force all network traffic on the system through it. However, if you just want an encrypted connection to browse the web with from public Wi-Fi networks in coffee shops and airports, a VPN and SSH server both have strong encryption that will serve you well.
There are other considerations, too. Novice users can easily connect to a VPN, but setting up a VPN server is a more complex process. SSH tunnels are more daunting to novice users, but setting up an SSH server is simpler – in fact, many people will already have an SSH server that they access remotely. If you already have access to an SSH server, it’s much easier to use it as an SSH tunnel than it is to set up a VPN server. For this reason, SSH tunnels have been dubbed a “poor man’s VPN.”
Businesses looking for more robust networking will want to invest in a VPN. On the other hand, if you’re a geek with access to an SSH server, an SSH tunnel is an easy way to encrypt and tunnel network traffic – and the encryption is just as good as a VPN’s encryption.
On 28 November 1953, at 2 am, a man crashed through a closed window and fell to his death from the 10th floor of the Statler Hotel in New York City. He was identified as Frank Olson, a bacteriologist with the US Army Research Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. He had fallen from a room he shared with another scientist, Robert Lashbrook. It was ruled a suicide.
Twenty-two years later, in 1975, William Colby, then CIA director, declassified documents that changed the complexion of the case. It was revealed that Olson had actually been an undercover CIA operative at Fort Detrick, and that one week prior to his death, he had been drinking Cointreau at a high-level meeting with scientists at Deep Creek Lodge in rural Maryland. The Cointreau was laced with a large dose of LSD administered by his CIA boss, Sidney Gottlieb. He was then sent to New York with Lashbrook, also with the CIA, to see a psychiatrist because the LSD had induced a psychosis.
It was also revealed that Olson had been part of the top secret CIA program that was known as Project MK-ULTRA, exploring the use of chemicals and drugs for purposes of mind control, and bacteriological agents for covert assassination. Olson had been working on ways to deliver anthrax in aerosol form, for use as a weapon. New evidence that came to light, through the persistent efforts of Olson’s son Eric, made the suicide ruling highly suspect.
It turned out that Olson had been labelled a security risk by British intelligence after getting upset witnessing human experimentation on a trip to Frankfurt, Germany the previous summer. Eric Olson now believes that his father was drugged and then murdered to make sure that he didn’t reveal the secrets of the MK-ULTRA project. Following the 1975 revelations, the government must have felt more than a little guilt about the affair because Olson’s family was given a 17 minute audience with US President Ford, who apologised to them, and they were awarded damages in the amount of $750,000.
Controlling Human Behaviour
The MK-ULTRA program was instituted on 13 April 1953 by CIA Director Allen Dulles, ostensibly to counter the brainwashing techniques of American prisoners being held by the North Koreans during the Korean War, and to duplicate those techniques on enemy prisoners, i.e. the creation of “Manchurian Candidates.” This was the claim used to obtain funding for the project. However, the Prisoner of War brainwashing program was just the tip of the iceberg, and the CIA-sponsored experiments ventured far and wide into areas of Mind Control under the aegis of MK-ULTRA that had little or nothing to do with methods of interrogation.
The Colby revelations were part of a sweeping investigation of the CIA in January 1975 by the “Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States,” chaired by Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller. The subsequent June 1975 Report to the President said: “The drug program was part of a much larger CIA program to study possible means for controlling human behaviour. Other studies explored the effects of radiation, electric-shock, psychology, psychiatry, sociology and harassment substances.
Even though the program got off to a rocky start with the Olson affair, it recovered quickly and became an umbrella project with 149 sub-projects. The overall guiding principal was succinctly stated in an internal CIA memo dated January 1952: “Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature such as self-preservation?”
The drug program came under the aegis of the Chemical Division of the Technical Services Staff headed up by Sidney Gottlieb from 1951 to 1956. Gottlieb was a highly intelligent eccentric who drank goat’s milk, enjoyed folk-dancing, and raised Christmas trees on his farm outside Washington.
The Agency funded LSD research programs at major medical centres and universities including Boston Psychopathic, Mt. Sinai Hospital at Columbia University, University of Illinois Medical School, University of Oklahoma and others. The funding was carried out secretly through the Josiah Macy Foundation, and the Geschickter Fund for Medical Research in Washington, D.C. The CIA claimed the secrecy was necessary to keep it from the Russians, but we have already seen that it was part of much larger project to learn how to control human behaviour in general, so this is not credible.
Gottlieb told Dr. Harold Abramson at Mt. Sinai (who just happened to be the psychiatrist that Olson was supposed to see!) that he wanted “operationally pertinent materials [about]: a. Disturbance of Memory; b. Discrediting by Aberrant Behaviour; c. Alteration of Sex Patterns; d. Eliciting of Information; e. Suggestibility; f. Creation of Dependence.” That sounds like pretty deep stuff for the spy game. They were really afraid of public reaction and congressional condemnation, especially since the CIA charter did not allow domestic operations, and certainly prohibited experimentation on US citizens.
The callousness of the research is best exemplified by the CIA-funded work of Dr. Harris Isbell, the Director of the Addiction Research Center in Lexington, Kentucky. The drug addict hospital inmates, who were mostly black, were encouraged to volunteer for LSD research in return for hard drugs of their choice or time off their sentences. In most cases, they were given pure morphine or heroin. At one point Isbell kept seven men on LSD for 77 straight days. Many others were on it for up to 42 days.
Concerning extended LSD usage, John Marks in his landmark book The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control says about writer Hunter S. Thompson (recently deceased) that he “frightened his readers with accounts of drug (LSD) binges lasting a few days, during which Thompson felt his brain boiling away in the sun, his nerves wrapping around enormous barbed wire forts, and his remaining faculties reduced to their reptilian antecedents.” The recent movie The Rum Diary, starring Johnny Depp, based on the autobiographical book by Hunter S. Thompson, presents an imaginative re-enactment of his LSD adventures.
The CIA Turns On the Counter-Culture
Not satisfied with university research, Gottlieb recruited New York narcotics agent George White to distribute LSD surreptitiously to the “borderline underworld.” Operating through safe houses in Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury and Marin County, White gave doses to prostitutes, pimps, drug addicts and other “marginal people” and then observed the results and reported to Gottlieb.
John Marks says they were people “who would be powerless to seek any sort of revenge if they ever found out what the CIA had done to them. In addition to their being unlikely whistle-blowers, such people lived in a world where an unwitting dose of some drug… was an occupational hazard anyway.”
Eventually, White started using it randomly all over New York and San Francisco. Regarding the results, Marks says, “The MKULTRA scientists reaped little but disaster, mischief, and disappointment from their efforts to use LSD as a miracle weapon against the minds of their opponents.” Yet, they continued this program for 10 years until 1963.
Ironically, since the CIA had pretty much cornered the market on LSD internationally, buying up all the product of Sandoz and Eli Lilly, the spread of the drug to the counter-culture was through the Agency. Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsburg and Tom Wolfe were first “turned on” thanks to the CIA, and that’s how the “flower children” became psychedelic.
But, the LSD experiments may have been more successful than Marks realised. They were carefully noting the precise effects on brain chemistry, and in the six areas that Gottlieb was concerned with: memory disturbance, aberrant behaviour, altered sexual patterns, eliciting information, suggestibility and creation of dependence. This became evident when they started using LSD as an adjunct in hypnotic and electronic experiments.
Re-Patterning the Brain
Perhaps the most notorious and nefarious MK-ULTRA sub-project was carried out at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal, Canada under the directorship of Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron, an American from Albany, New York. Cameron had trained at the Royal Mental Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, under eugenicist Sir David Henderson, and founded the Canadian branch of the World Federation for Mental Health. At various times, he was elected president of the Canadian, American, and World psychiatric associations. In other words, Cameron was no renegade but had the full faith and endorsement of the world psychiatric establishment.
The CIA wanted Cameron to “depattern” the contents of the brain to make it receptive to new patterning. David Remnick in a Washington Post article on 28 July 1985 said, “The…. heart of the laboratory was the Grid Room…. The subject was strapped into a chair involuntarily, by force, his head bristling with electrodes and transducers. Any resistance was met with a paralysing dose of curare. The subject’s brainwaves were beamed to a nearby reception room crammed with voice analysers, a wire recorder and radio receivers cobbled together… The systematic annihilation or ‘depatterning’ of a subject’s mind and memory was accomplished with overdoses of LSD, barbiturate sleep for 65 days at a stretch and ECT shocks at 75 times the recommended dosage. Psychic driving, the repetition of a recorded message for 16 hours a day, programmed the empty mind. Fragile patients referred to Allan Memorial for help were thus turned into carbuncular jellyfish.”
Anton Chaitkin in his essay, ‘British Psychiatry: From Eugenics to Assassination’, says: “Patients lost all or part of their memories, and some lost the ability to control their bodily functions and to speak. At least one patient was reduced almost to a vegetable; then Cameron had the cognitive centres of her brain surgically cut apart, while keeping her alive. Some subjects were deposited permanently in institutions for the hopelessly insane.”
The CIA funded these horrors through a front called “The Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology.” Other supporters of the Allan Institute were the Rockefeller Foundation, the Geschickter Foundation, and the Canadian government.
About Cameron’s work, Wikipedia says: “Naomi Klein states, in her book The Shock Doctrine, that Cameron’s research and his contribution to the MKUltra project was actually not about mind control and brainwashing, but ‘to design a scientifically based system for extracting information from “resistant sources.” In other words, torture’. And citing a book from Alfred W. McCoy it further says that ‘Stripped of its bizarre excesses, Cameron’s experiments, building upon Donald O. Hebb’s earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA’s two-stage psychological torture method’.” This method was codified in the infamous “KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual” published by the CIA in July 1963, and in the Human Resources Exploitation Training Manual – 1983 that was used in CIA training courses in Latin American countries up until 1987. These manuals describe methods of psychological torture, far more potent than physical torture, to elicit information from “resistant sources.”
An Orwellian Nightmare
As one would expect, the technologies now available to the mind-controllers have zoomed off the chart to the point where George Orwell’s world of omni-surveillance now seems almost quaint. Of course, it is true that 1984 was 28 years ago. But even as far back as 1970, US congressman James Scheur was able to say, “As a result of spinoffs from medical, military aerospace and industrial research, we are now in the process of developing devices and products capable of controlling violent mobs without injury. We can tranquillise, impede, immobilise, harass, shock, upset, stupefy, nauseate, chill, temporarily blind, deafen or just plain scare the wits out of anyone the police have a proper need to control and restrain.”
A brief survey of some of the scariest products known to be in the arsenal of the secretive alphabet agencies arrayed against John Q. Public are such devices as the Neurophone, patented by Dr. Patrick Flanagan in 1968. It converts sound to electrical impulses which can be delivered from satellites. When aimed at individuals, the impulses travel directly to the brain where the sounds are re-assembled and appear to be voices inside the head, which can be perceived as coming from God, or telepathic aliens, or whatever. Or the sounds can come out of a turned-off TV or radio. Through software, the device can mimic anyone’s voice and translate into any language.
It is believed that the CIA, DIA, NSA et al use the Neurophone to deliver threats and propaganda to selected targets, or just to torment someone they don’t like. One can imagine the possibilities. Could this explain some of the killings by “psychopaths” who say they were instructed by God, such as Mark David Chapman, David Berkowitz, or Sirhan Sirhan? If they had been previously evaluated through sophisticated personality assessments and groomed by LSD or hypnosis, such voices could easily tip the balance and convince them to kill.
We’ve all heard about the “Thought Police” and laughed because it seemed so implausible. Well, the joke is on us. Brain scanning technology is now well-advanced. In 1974, Lawrence Pinneo, a neurophysiologist and electronic engineer with the Stanford Research Institute succeeded in correlating brain wave patterns from EEGs with specific words. In 1994, the brain wave patterns of 40 subjects were officially correlated with both spoken words and silent thought at the University of Missouri. It is believed that US intelligence agencies now have a brain wave vocabulary of over 60,000 words in most common languages.
Brain waves constitute a magnetic field around the head (the aura), each person having a unique, identifiable electromagnetic signature which becomes visible through Kirlian photography, and these fields can be monitored by satellites. The translated results are then fed back to ground-side super computers at speeds of up to 20 gigabytes/second. Neurophone messages can then be beamed to selected individuals based on their thoughts. It is believed that about one million people around the globe are now monitored on a regular basis. As these numbers increase, as they certainly will, to include most educated and important people in the world, the New World Order will definitely have arrived.
As Australian writer Paul Baird has observed, “no-one will ever be able to even think about expressing an opinion contrary to those forced on us by the New World Order. There will literally be no intellectual property that cannot be stolen, no writing that cannot be censored, no thought that cannot be suppressed (by the most oppressive/invasive means).” Baird also claims that ex-military/intelligence whistle-blowers have reported that experiments in controlling voters with these techniques have been tried in several foreign countries. So much for democracy.
Other technologies, such as microwave bombardment to confuse and disorient field personnel, microchip implantation, silently delivered acoustical subliminal messages, widespread population control through psychiatric drugs, and extreme close-up satellite-based viewing able to read documents indoors, are all well-developed and in use by military and intelligence agencies. This doesn’t even address the monitoring of overt spoken and written material. Under Project ECHELON, the NSA monitors every call, fax, e-mail and computer data message in and out of the US, Canada and several other countries. Their computers then search for key words and phrases. Anything or anyone of interest draws the attention of agency operatives, who can then commence surveillance operations by the NSA or other intelligence agencies.
Novel Capabilities
We conclude with a chilling vision of the future from the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. It is from New World Vistas of Air and Space Power for the 21st Century.
“Prior to the mid-21st century, there will be a virtual explosion of knowledge in the field of neuroscience. We will have achieved a clear understanding of how the human brain works, how it really controls the various functions of the body, and how it can be manipulated (both positively and negatively). One can envision the development of electromagnetic energy sources, the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, that can couple with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent voluntary muscular movements, control emotions (and thus actions), produce sleep, transmit suggestions, interfere with both short-term and long-term memory, produce an experience set, and delete an experience set. This will open the door for the development of some novel capabilities that can be used in armed conflict, in terrorist/hostage situations, and in training…”
And based on the past clandestine abuses of MK-ULTRA reviewed above, one can predict with relative certainty that these capabilities will be used on civilians, with or without their knowledge or acquiescence.
The Dali Lama, when asked about what suprised him the most about Humanity, he replied..
Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future, that he does not enjoy the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and the dies having never really lived.
Beekeepers on the NSW south coast lost about 750 hives after bees were poisoned. Owner of Australian Rainforest Honey, Steve Roberts, lost about 230 hives, south of Pebbly Beach. Photo: Graham Tidy
Owner of Australian Rainforest Honey, Steve Roberts, at left, with employee, Adlei Baldo, south of Pebbly Beach.
satellite_hacker said…
The issue of cybersecurity makes difficult demands on those of us who wish to understand it. It is not only complex, but growing quickly – more so as the “internetization” of mankind proceeds apace – and as new opportunities for conflict, crime, oppression, and revolution are conceived and executed by states and individuals acting on motivations that are themselves similarly complex, and occasionally even justifiable. Complexity aside, it is an issue that still eludes popular understanding, in part because certain parties do not wish it to be understood.
