ThE ViLlAgE VoICe'$ NYPD TaPE$ On ThI$ AmErICaN LiFe (Audio)

By Foster Kamer, Thanks goes out to the 'Senator' for this link :)

We may not have been noted by certain other New York media outlets for Graham Rayman's groundbreaking series, The NYPD Tapes, but there's one outlet that did manage to get the story of Graham's story correct: NPR and Chicago Public Radio's long-running, cult-following fueled This American Life, who did an entire segment on The NYPD Tapes this weekend.

This American Life, Episode 414, "Right to Remain Silent," is described on their site thusly:
Stories about people who have the right to remain silent... but choose not to exercise that right - including police officer Adrian Schoolcraft, who secretly recorded his supervisors telling officers to manipulate crime statistics and make illegal arrests. The Village Voice series that broke Schoolcraft's story is here. Schoolcraft's website looking for other cops to come forward is here.

And you can listen to the entire thing right here:

414: Right to Remain Silent [Right Click - Save As]

Congratulations to Graham Rayman on his series, which continues to break news, which you can find right here on Runnin' Scared.

[fkamer@villagevoice.com]

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

Secret Tape, NY Police Press Ticket Quotas



References: Second scandal in a week rocks New York cops 10.30.2011

Uniform Crime Reports

CrimeReport

Adrian Schoolcraft News

Adrian Schoolcraft: Are the Feds in the Wings?

NYPD Tapes 1: Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct

NYPD Tapes 2: Reduce Crime By Arresting Citizens For Nothing

NYPD Tapes 3: A Detective Comes Forward About Downgraded Sexual Assaults

NYPD Tapes 4: The WhistleBlower, Adrian Schoolcraft

NYPD Tapes 5: The Corroboration

NYT Pu$hE$ CoNFrOnTaTiOn WiTh IrAn - By Robert Parry

Apparently having learned no lessons from the Iraq WMD debacle, the New York Times is pushing for a heightened confrontation with Iran, slipping into the same kind of hysteria that it and other major U.S. news organizations displayed in 2002 and 2003.

In its latest neocon-styled editorial – commenting on a new critical report about Iran’s growing truculence toward nuclear inspectors – the Times concluded with this judgment:

“Tehran, predictably, insists it is not building a [nuclear] weapon. Its refusal to halt enrichment and cooperate with the I.A.E.A. [International Atomic Energy Agency] makes that ever more impossible to believe.”

Beyond the grammatical point that “impossible” like “unique” is an absolute adjective that can’t be modified, the Times misses the point that its previous over-the-top hostility toward Iran – evidenced in its news columns as well as its opinion pages – has helped create the dynamic that is driving the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program to a crisis point.

Amazingly, the Washington Post, usually an even more reliably neocon bastion than the Times, offered a more thoughtful assessment in its own Friday editorial on the same topic. The Post noted that the most promising area for negotiation with Iran was its past willingness to swap some of its low-enriched uranium for more highly enriched isotopes for medical purposes.

But the Post observed that delays in reaching an agreement over a proposed swap of 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium – combined with the steady increase in Iran’s stockpile – “has greatly complicated the prospects.”

The Post said that “when the deal was first proposed, Iran would have given up more than two-thirds of its stockpile and would have been left with less than the amount needed for one bomb. To achieve the same effect, Tehran would now have to be induced to nearly double the amount of low-enriched uranium it turned over.”

The Post noted that Iran currently has enough low-enriched uranium to build two nuclear bombs, if it chose to bring the refinement up to much higher levels and committed itself to design and construct a nuclear weapon.

However, what the Post – and the Times – don’t mention in their two lead editorials is that they and their neocon friends were instrumental in frustrating President Barack Obama’s initial efforts to reach an agreement on the fuel swap last year and that they then helped sabotage a parallel deal negotiated by the leaders of Brazil and Turkey earlier this year.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva persuaded Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to accept the swap agreement in May, completing the negotiations that the Obama administration had begun...continued. 

So, this is where the biased journalism of the Times and the Post -- especially regarding Iran’s 2009 election (click here or here for details) -- has led the world, to the brink of another Middle East conflict.

Having brushed aside the disaster in Iraq and the related bungled war in Afghanistan, the neocons and their allies appear to remain the chief arbiters and the leading architects of U.S. foreign policy.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

9/11 and America’s Secret Terror Campaign Part III

9/11 and America’s Secret Terror Campaign Part II - I

The use of third party advocates or front groups for the dissemination of US government propaganda is well documented: JSOU: Covert Blogs & Military Information Strategy

More U.S. B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.:The Secret Files 9/11 Investigators Missed LOL LOL LOL

ThE CoMiNg EcOnOmIc CoLlApSe By ToNy RoBbInS

Tony Robbins Is Warning That An Economic Collapse Is Coming

Are You Prepared For The Coming Economic Collapse And The Next Great Depression? Like almost everyone is warning of a coming economic collapse these days. Do you remember Tony Robbins? He is probably the world's best known "motivational speaker" and his infomercials dominated late night television during the 80s and 90s. He was always urging all of us to "unleash the power within" and to take charge of our lives.

Well guess what? Now Tony Robbins is warning that an economic collapse is coming. In fact, he has issued a special video warning about what he believes is about to happen. Considering the incredible connections that he has at the highest levels of the financial world, it makes a lot of sense to consider what he is trying to warn us about. Robbins says that a "major retracement" is coming to financial markets and that the coming collapse is going to be a "painful process" as we go through it. Those familiar with Tony Robbins know that he always goes out of his way to stress the positive, so if even he is openly warning the public about a coming economic nightmare than you know that things are starting to get really, really bad out there.

The video that Tony Robbins published where he gives his economic warning is posted in two parts below. This is unlike any Tony Robbins video that you have ever seen before and it is absolutely jaw dropping....

Part I



Part II



So is Tony Robbins right about what is coming?

Yup.......An economic collapse is coming......You need to get prepared.

For those not familiar with my previous articles, let's review just some of the reasons why America is headed towards an economic nightmare of unprecedented proportions....

The National Debt - The U.S. government has accumulated a national debt that is rapidly approaching the 14 trillion dollar mark. According to Democrat Erskine Bowles, one of the heads of Barack Obama's national debt commission, if we continue on the path we are on the U.S. government will be spending $2 trillion just for interest on the national debt by 2020.

State And Local Debt - Many of America's state and local governments may be in even worse financial shape than the federal government is. In fact, some state and local governments are in such a financial mess that they have starting cutting off even the most essential services.

Consumer Debt - The total amount of consumer debt that Americans have accumulated now stands at approximately 11.7 trillion dollars.

The Trade Deficit - The U.S. trade deficit has exploded to nightmarish proportions over the past two decades. Every single month tens of billions more dollars flows out of the country than flows into it. The rest of the world is literally bleeding us dry in slow motion.

No Jobs - Today it takes the average unemployed American over 8 months to find a job. The number of Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits has risen over 60 percent in just the past year.

The Credit Crunch - The U.S. is experiencing a credit crunch unlike anything it has seen since the Great Depression. Lending has really, really dried up, but without loans our economic system cannot function properly.

The Housing Crisis - Even with mortgage rates at historic lows, a shockingly low number of Americans are buying houses. There has been a total collapse in home sales since the home buyer tax credit expired. At the same time, mortgage defaults, foreclosures and home repossessions by banks continue to set new all-time records.

Rising Bankruptcies - Nationwide, bankruptcy filings rose 20 percent in the 12-month period ending June 30th.

Rising Poverty - One out of every eight Americans and one out of every four American children are now on food stamps. Approximately 50 million Americans couldn't even afford to buy enough food to stay healthy at some point last year.

The Coming Pension Crisis - America is facing a pension crisis that is so nightmarish that it is almost impossible to adequately describe it. State and local government pension plans are woefully underfunded, dozens of large corporate pension plans either have collapsed or are on the verge of collapsing, Social Security is a complete and total financial disaster and about half of all Americans essentially have nothing saved up for retirement.

The Derivatives Bubble - Our financial system has become a gigantic gambling parlor and we have allowed a horrific derivatives bubble to develop that could destroy the entire world economy if it ever bursts. Nobody knows exactly how big the derivatives bubble is, but low estimates place it at around 600 trillion dollars and high estimates put it at around 1.5 quadrillion dollars. Once that bubble pops there simply will not be enough money in the entire world to fix it.

The Federal Reserve - The Federal Reserve has devalued the U.S. dollar by over 95 percent since 1913 and it has been used to create the biggest mountain of government debt in the history of the world. There are many economists who would argue that the Federal Reserve is at the very core of our economic problems.

The truth is that these problems did not develop overnight, and they are not going to be solved overnight either. Perhaps our economic future is best summed up by this one statement that economist Paul Krugman recently made...."America is now on the unlit, unpaved road to nowhere."

It would be great if I could write about America's bright economic future and the unlimited prosperity that is ahead for all of us, but that would be a lie. We are headed for an economic collapse....It is going to be painful....It is time to get prepared.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

Banks’ Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis  Thanks to the 'Senator' for these links.

This Is Not a Recovery - Anything But!

The Erosion of America's Middle Class

11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is Bad

America’s Coming Pension Crisis

ThE SuRvEiLlAnCe StAtE - VaSt - SeCrEt - DaNGeRIoUS

By Glenn Greenwald....yo Glen, nice article, but, where in the hell have you been in the last 9 years?

It is unsurprising that the 9/11 attack fostered a massive expansion of America’s already sprawling Surveillance State. But what is surprising, or at least far less understandable, is that this growth shows no signs of abating even as we approach almost a full decade of emotional and temporal distance from that event.

The spate of knee-jerk legislative expansions in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 trauma — the USA-PATRIOT Act — has actually been exceeded by the expansions of the last several years — first secretly and lawlessly by the Bush administration, and then legislatively and out in the open once Democrats took over control of the Congress in 2006. Simply put, there is no surveillance power too intrusive or unaccountable for our political class provided the word “terrorism” is invoked to “justify” those powers.

The More-Surveillance-Is-Always-Better Mindset

Illustrating this More-Surveillance-is-Always-Better mindset is what happened after The New York Times revealed in December, 2005 that the Bush administration had ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens without the warrants required by law and without any external oversight at all. Despite the fact that the 30-year-old FISA law made every such act of warrantless eavesdropping a felony, “punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both,” and despite the fact that all three federal judges who ruled on the program’s legality concluded that it was illegal, there was no accountability of any kind.

The opposite is true: the telecom corporations which enabled and participated in this lawbreaking were immunized by a 2008 law supported by Barack Obama and enacted by the Democratic Congress. And that same Congress twice legalized the bulk of the warrantless eavesdropping powers which The New York Times had exposed: first with the 2007 Protect America Act, and then with the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which, for good measure, even added new warrantless surveillance authorities.

Not even revelations of systematic abuse can retard the growth of the Surveillance State or even bring about some modest accountability. In 2007, the Justice Department’s own Inspector General issued a report documenting continuous abuses by the FBI of a variety of new surveillance powers vested by the Patriot Act, particularly the ability to obtain private, invasive records about Americans without the need for any judicial supervision (via so-called “National Security Letters” (NSLs). The following year, FBI Director Robert Mueller confirmed ongoing abuses subsequent to the time period covered by the initial IG report.

Again, the reaction of the political class in the face of these revelations was not only to resist any accountability but to further expand the very powers being abused. When then-candidate Obama infuriated many of his supporters in mid-2008 by announcing his support for the warrantless–surveillance expanding FISA Amendments Act, he assured everyone that he did so “with the firm intention — once [he’s] sworn in as President — to have [his] Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.”

Not only has nothing like that occurred, but Congress has twice brushed aside the privacy and abuse concerns about the Patriot Act highlighted by the DOJ’s own report and long raised by Senator Russ Feingold. They did so when voting overwhelmingly to extend the provisions of that law unchanged: first in 2006 by a vote of 89-10, and again this year — with the overt support of the Obama administration — when it once again extended the Patriot Act without even a single added oversight protection.

Even after The New York Times in 2009 twice revealed substantial and serious abuses in the very warrantless eavesdropping powers which Obama voted to enact, the administration and the Congress show no interest whatsoever in imposing any added safeguards. The logic of the Surveillance State is that more is always better: not just more powers, but in increasingly unchecked form......continued

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

[What They Know About You] Oh My God!

[America's Biggest Jobs Program -- The U.S. Military] Seil Heil!

[Government Abuses Computer Crime Law to Boost Criminal Charges]

[Surveillance of Our Enemies During Wartime? I’m Shocked!]

The WaShInGtOn PoSt ReVeAlS 'ToP $eCrEt AmErIcA' Thank You WP (3)

By Max Fisher July 19, 2010 - The Washington Post

The Washington Post has unveiled its comprehensive, alarming, and much-anticipated report on "Top Secret America." The dedicated site details the billions of dollars in private, for-profit intelligence operations that have emerged since Sept. 11, 2001, which the Post calls our "fourth branch" of government. Led by reporters William Arkin and Pulitzer Prize-winner Dana Priest, the investigation was two years in the making and shook up the vast U.S. intelligence community even before it was released. The "Top Secret America" website includes articles, videos, interactive features, and maps all begging to be explored. But here's the executive summary.

* The Intelligence-Industrial Complex Priest and Arkin write, "This is not exactly President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 'military-industrial complex,' which emerged with the Cold War and centered on building nuclear weapons to deter the Soviet Union. This is a national security enterprise with a more amorphous mission: defeating transnational violent extremists. Much of the information about this mission is classified. That is the reason it is so difficult to gauge the success and identify the problems of Top Secret America, including whether money is being spent wisely. ... the Bush administration and Congress gave agencies more money than they were capable of responsibly spending. ... In all, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11. Each has required more people, and those people have required more administrative and logistic support. ... With so many more employees, units and organizations, the lines of responsibility began to blur."

* Our Fourth Branch The introductory video states, "In response to 9/11, a fourth branch has emerged. It is protected from public scrutiny by overwhelming secrecy. ... It has become so big, and the lines of responsibility so blurred, that even our nation's leaders don't have a handle on it. Where is it? It's being built from coast to coast, hidden within some of America's most familiar cities and neighborhoods. In Colorado, in Nebraska, in Texas, in Florida, in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Top Secret America includes hundreds of federal departments and agencies operating out of 1300 facilities around this country. They contract of nearly 2,000 companies. In all, more people than live in our nation's capital have top secret security
clearance." The screen flashes "850,000 Americans with top secret clearance."

* Why This Is Dangerous The Post's editors write in an introductory note, "When it comes to national security, all too often no expense is spared and few questions are asked - with the result an enterprise so massive that nobody in government has a full understanding of it. It is, as Dana Priest and William M. Arkin have found, ubiquitous, often inefficient and mostly invisible to the people it is meant to protect and who fund it. ... Within a responsible framework, our objective is to provide as much information as possible, so readers gain a real, granular understanding of the scale and breadth of the top-secret world we are describing."

* 5 Points on the Private Spy Industry's Huge Size Priest and Arkin write, "(1) Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. (2) An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances. (3) In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space. (4) Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks. (5) Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored."

* How This Size Makes National Security Impossible Priest and Arkin explain:

Underscoring the seriousness of these issues are the conclusions of retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who was asked last year to review the method for tracking the Defense Department's most sensitive programs. Vines, who once commanded 145,000 troops in Iraq and is familiar with complex problems, was stunned by what he discovered.

"I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities," he said in an interview. "The complexity of this system defies description."

The result, he added, is that it's impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. "Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste," Vines said. "We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe."

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

[What They Know About You] Oh My God!

Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control

Note From the Editors

The Ominous Parallels Report

ThReAt of 'CyBeRwAr' Ha$ BeEn HuGeLy HiyPeD

Saturday, July 10, 2010

By Bruce Schneier

Editor's note: Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.

It's about who is in charge of cyber security, and how much control the government will exert over civilian networks. And by beating the drums of war, the military is coming out on top.

"The United States is fighting a cyberwar today, and we are losing," said former NSA director -- and current cyberwar contractor -- Mike McConnell. "Cyber 9/11 has happened over the last ten years, but it happened slowly so we don't see it," said former National Cyber Security Division director Amit Yoran. Richard Clarke, whom Yoran replaced, wrote an entire book hyping the threat of cyberwar. 

General Keith Alexander, the current commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, hypes it every chance he gets. This isn't just rhetoric of a few over-eager government officials and headline writers; the entire national debate on cyberwar is plagued with exaggerations and hyperbole.

Googling those names and terms -- as well as "cyber Pearl Harbor," "cyber Katrina," and even "cyber Armageddon" -- gives some idea how pervasive these memes are. Prefix "cyber" to something scary, and you end up with something really scary.

Cyberspace has all sorts of threats, day in and day out. Cybercrime is by far the largest: fraud, through identity theft and other means, extortion, and so on. Cyber-espionage is another, both government- and corporate-sponsored. Traditional hacking, without a profit motive, is still a threat. So is cyber-activism: people, most often kids, playing politics by attacking government and corporate websites and networks.

These threats cover a wide variety of perpetrators, motivations, tactics, and goals. You can see this variety in what the media has mislabeled as "cyberwar." The attacks against Estonian websites in 2007 were simple hacking attacks by ethnic Russians angry at anti-Russian policies; these were denial-of-service attacks, a normal risk in cyberspace and hardly unprecedented. 

A real-world comparison might be if an army invaded a country, then all got in line in front of people at the DMV so they couldn't renew their licenses. If that's what war looks like in the 21st century, we have little to fear.

Similar attacks against Georgia, which accompanied an actual Russian invasion, were also probably the responsibility of citizen activists or organized crime. A series of power blackouts in Brazil was caused by criminal extortionists -- or was it sooty insulators? China is engaging in espionage, not war, in cyberspace. And so on.

One problem is that there's no clear definition of "cyberwar." What does it look like? How does it start? When is it over? Even cybersecurity experts don't know the answers to these questions, and it's dangerous to broadly apply the term "war" unless we know a war is going on.

Yet recent news articles have claimed that China declared cyberwar on Google, that Germany attacked China, and that a group of young hackers declared cyberwar on Australia. (Yes, cyberwar is so easy that even kids can do it.) Clearly we're not talking about real war here, but a rhetorical war: like the war on terror.

We have a variety of institutions that can defend us when attacked: the police, the military, the Department of Homeland Security, various commercial products and services, and our own personal or corporate lawyers. The legal framework for any particular attack depends on two things: the attacker and the motive. Those are precisely the two things you don't know when you're being attacked on the Internet. We saw this on July 4 last year, when U.S. and South Korean websites were attacked by unknown perpetrators from North Korea -- or perhaps England. Or was it Florida?

We surely need to improve our cybersecurity. But words have meaning, and metaphors matter. There's a power struggle going on for control of our nation's cybersecurity strategy, and the NSA and DoD are winning. If we frame the debate in terms of war, if we accept the military's expansive cyberspace definition of "war," we feed our fears.

We reinforce the notion that we're helpless -- what person or organization can defend itself in a war? -- and others need to protect us. We invite the military to take over security, and to ignore the limits on power that often get jettisoned during wartime.

If, on the other hand, we use the more measured language of cybercrime, we change the debate. Crime fighting requires both resolve and resources, but it's done within the context of normal life. We willingly give our police extraordinary powers of investigation and arrest, but we temper these powers with a judicial system and legal protections for citizens.

We need to be prepared for war, and a Cyber Command is just as vital as an Army or a Strategic Air Command. And because kid hackers and cyber-warriors use the same tactics, the defenses we build against crime and espionage will also protect us from more concerted attacks. But we're not fighting a cyberwar now, and the risks of a cyberwar are no greater than the risks of a ground invasion. We need peacetime cyber-security, administered within the myriad structure of public and private security institutions we already have.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth and The Truth Will Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA.....IT(s) OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

Related:

The use of third party advocates or front groups for the dissemination of US government propaganda is well documented: JSOU: Covert Blogs & Military Information Strategy

[Cyber War]

[$enators ramp up cyberwar rhetoric]

[$o-called Cyberattack Was Overblown]

[Chinese Cyberattacks: Myth or Menace?]

[‘Cyberwar’ and Estonia’s Panic Attack]

[No line between cyber crime and cyber war]

[Cyberwar: China Declares War On Western Search Sites]

[Georgia Cyberattacks Linked to Russian Organized Crime]

[Mike McConnell on how to win the cyber-war we're losing]

[Georgia Cyber Attacks From Russian Government? Not So Fast]

LOL [Cyberattacks an 'existential threat' to U.S., FBI says] LOL

[Top Officer Fears Cyberwar, Hearts Karzai, Tweets With Help]

[Brazilian Blackout Traced to Sooty Insulators, Not Hackers]

[Mike McConlol, the WashPost & the dangers of sleazy corporatism]

[Cyber Command: We Don’t Wanna Defend the Internet (We Just Might Have To)]

[NSA Must Examine All Internet Traffic to Prevent Cyber Nine-Eleven, Top Spy Says]  

[Pentagon Networks Targeted by ‘Hundreds of Thousands’ of Probes (Whatever That Means)]

[Fearing 'Cyber Katrina,' Obama Candidate for Cyber Czar Urges a ''FEMA for the Internet']

MiCrOsOfT AcCuSeS ApPle, GoOlEnSa of AtTeMpTeD PrIvAcY MuRdER

Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - Thanks to the 'Senator' for this link ;)

By Ms. Smith

A Microsoft identity guru bit Apple and smacked Google over mobile privacy policies. Once upon a time, before working for Microsoft, this same man took MS to task for breaking the Laws of Identity.

Kim Cameron, Microsoft's Chief Identity Architect in the Identity and Security Division, said of Apple, "If privacy isn’t dead, Apple is now amongst those trying to bury it alive." What prompted this was when Cameron visited the Apple App store to download a new iPhone application. When he discovered Apple had updated its privacy policy, he read all 45 pages on his iPhone. Page 37 lets Apple users know:

======> Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information 

[Google’s DNA ‘Bio-Piracy’ & Federal DNA Databanks]

We also collect non-personal information - data in a form that does not permit direct association with any specific individual. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose. The following are some examples of non-personal information that we collect and how we may use it:

We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.

======> Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information

The MS identity guru put the smack down not only on Apple, but also on Google, writing in his blog, "Maintaining that a personal device fingerprint has 'no direct association with any specific individual' is unbelievably specious in 2010 - and even more ludicrous than it used to be now that Google and others have collected the information to build giant centralized databases linking phone MAC addresses to house addresses. And - big surprise - my iPhone, at least, came bundled with Google’s location service."

MAC in this case refers to Media Access Control addresses associated with specific devices and one of the types that Google collected. Google admits to collecting MAC addresses of WiFi routers, but denies snagging MAC addresses of laptops or phones. Google is under mass investigation for its WiFi blunder.

Apple's new policy is also under fire from two Congressmen who gave Apple until July 12th to respond. Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) sent a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking for answers about Apple gathering location information on its customers.

As far as Cameron goes, Microsoft's Chief Identity Architect seems to call out anyone who violates privacy. That includes Microsoft. According to Wikipedia's article on Microsoft Passport:

======> Microsoft Passport

"A prominent critic was Kim Cameron, the author of the Laws of Identity, who questioned Microsoft Passport in its violations of those laws. He has since become Microsoft's Chief Identity Architect and helped address those violations in the design of the Windows Live ID identity meta-system. As a consequence, Windows Live ID is not positioned as the single sign-on service for all web commerce, but as one choice of many among identity systems."

======> Microsoft Passport

Cameron seems to believe location based identifiers and these changes of privacy policies may open the eyes of some people to the, "new world-wide databases linking device identifiers and home addresses."

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth and The Truth Will Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA.....IT(s) OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

[Countermeasures]

[Windows Live ID]

[The Laws of Identity]

[Apple Privacy Policy]

[Letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs]

[Microsoft's Chief Identity Architect]

[Update to iTunes comes with privacy fibs]

[The Consumerist says “Apple is Watching”]

[What Could Google Do With the Data It's Collected?]

PeNtACoN CoMPrOmIsEd - ReViVeS [SS] SpYiNg UnIt - TIs Heads Up!

Authors Note: In response to "Final Notice" threat!

Monday, June 21th

By Daniel Tencer

The Pentagon's spy unit has quietly begun to rebuild a database for tracking potential terrorist threats that was shut down after it emerged that it had been collecting information on American anti-war activists.

The Defense Intelligence Agency filed notice this week that it plans to create a new section called Foreign Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operation Records, whose purpose will be to "document intelligence, counterintelligence, counterterrorism and counternarcotic operations relating to the protection of national security."

But while the unit's name refers to "foreign intelligence," civil liberties advocates and the Pentagon's own description of the program suggest that Americans will likely be included in the new database.

FICOR replaces a program called Talon, which the DIA created in 2002 under then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as part of the counterterrorism efforts following the 9/11 attacks. It was disbanded in 2007 after it emerged that Talon had retained information on anti-war protesters, including Quakers, even after it was determined they posed no threat to national security.

DIA spokesman Donald Black told Newsweek that the new database would not include the more controversial elements of the old Talon program. But Jeff Stein at the Washington Post reports that the new program will evidently inherit the old Talon database.

"Why the new depository would want such records while its parent agency no longer has a law enforcement function could not be learned," Stein reports. "Nor could it be learned whether the repository will include intelligence reports on protest groups gathered by its predecessor."

The Pentagon's notice states that the database will collect "identifying information such as name, Social Security Number (SSN), address, citizenship documentation, biometric data, passport number, vehicle identification number and vehicle/vessel license data." As only US residents have Social Security Numbers, it appears the program is being designed at least partly to contain domestic information.

Newsweek cites two unnamed US officials as suggesting that the new program essentially echoes the old one. When CIFA, the DIA division running Talon, was disbanded in 2008, "many of its personnel and some of its functions were transferred" to the new DIA unit running the new database program. The new program will be housed "in the same office space that CIFA once occupied, in a complex near suburban Washington’s Reagan National Airport."

Mike German, a former FBI agent now working with the ACLU, says "Americans should be just as concerned" about the new database as the previous one under the Bush administration.

"It’s a little hard to tell what this is exactly, but we do know that DIA took over 'offensive counterintelligence' for the DoD once CIFA was abandoned," he told the Post's Stein. "It therefore makes sense that this new DIA database would be collecting the same types of information that CIFA collected improperly."

Reforms of the FBI and the CIA, even removal of the President from office, cannot remove the problem. American capitalism, based as it is on exploitation of the poor, with its fundamental motivation in personal greed, simply cannot survive without force - without a secret police force.

_Philip Agee

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth and The Truth Will Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA.....IT(s) OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

[Update: 06.26.10 How Many Americans Are Targeted For Assassination?] Surprised?

[TALON (database)]

[The Pentagon's Counterspies]

[Counterintelligence Field Activity]

[Interrogation Psychologists & the Allure of National Security Psychology]

[Interrogation Psychologists: The Making of a Professional Crisis]

[Federial Register FR Doc 2010-14254]

Federal Register: June 15, 2010 (Volume 75, Number 11(3)

DOCID: fr15jn10-59

FR Doc 2010-14254

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Defense Department

Docket ID: [Docket ID: DOD-2010-OS-0079]

NOTICE: NOTICES

DOCID: fr15jn10-59

ACTION: Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposals, Submissions, and Approvals:

DOCUMENT ACTION: Notice to add a system of records.

DiD ThE CiAhOlEs ExPeRiMenTiNG On PeOpLE? [DuH]

By Frank Donaghue on June 11, 2010

PHR’s new report, Experiments in Torture, has sent shock waves through the conscience of America this week. This report reveals evidence indicating that the Bush administration may have conducted illegal and unethical human experimentation and research on detainees in CIAholes custody.

This research, if proven to have occurred, could violate the Geneva Conventions, The Common Rule, the Nuremberg Code and other international and domestic prohibitions against illegal human subject research and experimentation. Not only are these alleged acts gross violations of human rights law, they are a grave affront to America’s core values.

Elected officials have failed in their duty to investigate potential CIAholes wrongdoing. It’s time to get the experts involved.

Join PHR as we file a complaint with the Office of Human Research Protection, demanding an investigation into these alleged abuses.

Physicians for Human Rights, together with Amnesty International, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Victims of Torture, Human Rights Watch, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility, has filed a complaint based on evidence of CIAholes experimentation with the Office of Human Research Protection (OHRP). The complaint demands that OHRP launch a full investigation into possible human experimentation by the CIAholes.

The OHRP, which is part of the US Department of Health & Human Services, is responsible for ensuring that federally funded research involving human subjects complies with scientific and human rights-based regulations. OHRP has a long history of sanctioning powerful institutions that violate US law protecting human subjects in research.

Take action now by joining the OHRP complaint. Anyone world-wide can officially join the complaint just by signing the petition. You will add your name to a list of thousands of people calling for justice. You will not be asked to come to court, nor will you need to take further action. By signing your name, you will have demanded an official investigation into deeply disturbing allegations of illegal CIAholes experimentation on detainees.

The integrity of America’s commitment to human rights and rule of law stands in the balance. Sign on to the OHRP complaint today.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth and The Truth Will Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA.....IT(s) OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

[Official Complaint Filed]

[Torture Experiments Report]

[Torture Happening In America]

[The Ominous Parallels Originial Posting] September 25, 2008

AmErIkA's [SS]eCrEt PoLiCe NeTwOrK - TIs HeAds Up

Sunday, May 23, 2010 - [Spy Files: Fusion Centers]

Authors Note: This is part of the 5th column/torture matrix infrastructure that The Ominous Parallels Report expanded on and is destroying American lives here within the U.S.and abroad. For experience TIs this is the heart of the torture matrix network that we endure every day that is lawless and answers to no one! It encompasses all federal agencies that work at the local, county, state, and federal levels through Fusion Centers that are developed, run, and maintained by SAIC.

Reforms of the FBI and the CIA, even removal of the President from office, cannot remove the problem. American capitalism, based as it is on exploitation of the poor, with its fundamental motivation in personal greed, simply cannot survive without force - without a secret police force.

_Philip Agee

First they ignore you, Then they laugh at you, Then they fight you, Then you win ;)

CENSORED IN 1978: [Suspicious Activity Reporting to go Nationwide] [Full Report Here]

J. Edgar Hoover thought that power lies between the manila covers of a personal dossier and he used that knowledge to build and maintain his empire for almost half a century. The FBI, the CIA and virtually every other agency given the authority to spy to defend us from foreign or domestic enemies, have sooner or later used their power to threaten our liberties.

In contrast to the CIA and FBI, the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU) is a little known organization; in fact, almost no one has ever heard of it. But its power is considerable and its potential threat to our freedom is enormous.

The LEIU links the intelligence squads of almost every major police force in the United States and Canada. Although its members are sworn police officers who work for state and city governments, it is a private club, not answerable to voters, taxpayers, or elected officials. It cuts across the vertical lines of authority of local government, for its members hold certain allegiances to the LEIU that cannot be countermanded by a mayor, county manager, or even a state governor.

Ex-members of the LEIU admit to illegal wiretapping, breaking and entering, and spying on people to gather information for their files.

Sources for this story included the San Francisco Chronicle, 11/25/78, and Penthouse Magazine, December 1976. It was the #6 censored story of 1978.

REPORTED IN 2010

WIRETAPPING PROGRAM TAKES HIT IN RULING

The Associated Press reported, on April 1, 2010, “In a repudiation of the BushFRAUDs Administration’s now defunct Terrorist Surveillance Program, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that government investigators illegally wiretapped the phone conversations of an Islamic charity and two American lawyers without a search warrant.
“U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker said the plaintiffs provided enough evidence to show ’they were subjected to warrant-less electronic surveillance’.”
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserver neither liberty nor safety. _Benjamin Franklin - 1775
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it!
(3) George Santayana

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth and The Truth Will Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA.....IT(s) OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don　　　
References: - The Pike Report [.pdf]
[Update: 07.10.10 ACLU: America is Riddled With Politically Motivated Surveillance] NOO SHIT!
[Update: 06.26.10 How Many Americans Are Targeted For Assassination?] Surprised?

[FBI Campaign Against Einstein Revealed] Yep...anyone smarter than themselves is considered a threat :O

[Turning the Police Into Intelligence Agents]
[RECAP: Virginia's Fusion Center Nation's Universities Are Terror Threat]
[ACLU: What's Wrong With Fusion Centers?]
****** [LEIU Resistance] ******
[The Hunt for Red Menace: Table of Contents]

[Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU)]

[Law enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU)]

The Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council (CICC) sponsored by U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global), and the Governors Homeland Security Advisors Council (GHSAC), sponsored by the National Governors Association, is currently seeking applications for the nominations of local, state, or tribal officials for new fellowship positions that will be assigned to the Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group (ITACG), housed within the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).
The ITACG includes representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), NCTC, U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), U.S. Department of State (DOS), and local and state organizations. The ITACG coordinates the production and timely issuance of interagency products intended for distribution to local, state, and tribal officials, as well as the private sector.
[Law enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) Publications]
[Law enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) Gaming]
[Law enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) FIAT]
[There's Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence]
Using over twelve thousand previously classified documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act, David Cunningham uncovers the riveting inside story of the FBI's attempts to neutralize political targets on both the Right and the Left during the 1960s. Examining the FBI's infamous counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) against suspected communists, civil rights and black power advocates, Klan adherents, and antiwar activists, he questions whether such actions were aberrations or are evidence of the bureau's ongoing mission to restrict citizens' right to engage in legal forms of political dissent. At a time of heightened concerns about domestic security, with the FBI's license to spy on U.S. citizens expanded to a historic degree, the question becomes an urgent one. This book supplies readers with insights and information vital to a meaningful assessment of the current situation.

There's Something Happening Here looks inside the FBI's COINTELPROs against white hate groups and the New Left to explore how agents dealt with the hundreds of individuals and organizations labeled as subversive threats. Rather than reducing these activities to a product of the idiosyncratic concerns of longtime director J. Edgar Hoover, Cunningham focuses on the complex organizational dynamics that generated literally thousands of COINTELPRO actions. His account shows how--and why--the inner workings of the programs led to outcomes that often seemed to lack any overriding logic; it also examines the impact the bureau's massive campaign of repression had on its targets. The lessons of this era have considerable relevance today, and Cunningham extends his analysis to the FBI's often controversial recent actions to map the influence of the COINTELPRO legacy on contemporary debates over national security and civil liberties.

ThE BaNaLiTy Of GoOd - ThE ViLe BeYoNd AlL ViLeNe$$

Monday, May 3, 2010 - Thanks goes out to the 'Senator' for this link ;)

By ROGER COHEN

NEW YORK — What was it like? I would ask myself, the years I lived in Berlin. What was it like in the leafy Grunewald neighborhood to watch your Jewish neighbors — lawyers, businessmen, dentists — trooping head bowed to the nearby train station for transport eastward to extinction?

With what measure of fear, denial, calculation, conscience and contempt did neighbors who had proved their Aryan stock to Hitler’s butchers make their accommodations with this Jewish exodus? How good did the schnapps taste and how effectively did it wash down the shame?

Now I know. Thanks to Hans Fallada’s extraordinary “Every Man Dies Alone,” just published in the United States more than 60 years after it first appeared in Germany, I know. What Irène Némirovsky’s “Suite Française” did for wartime France after six decades in obscurity, Fallada does for wartime Berlin. Like all great art, it transports, in this instance to a world where, “The Third Reich kept springing surprises on its antagonists: It was vile beyond all vileness.”

Fallada, born Rudolf Ditzen, wrote his novel in less than a month right after the war and just before his death in 1947 at the age of 53. The Nazi hell he evokes is not so much recalled as rendered, whole and alive. The prose is sinuous and gritty, like the city he describes. Dialogue often veers toward sadistic folly with a barbaric logic that takes the breath away.

“Every Man Dies Alone” recounts how a working-class Berlin couple, Otto and Anna Quangel, are stirred from acquiescence to anger by the death at the front of their only son. The action they take is minimalist — writing postcards denouncing Hitler and depositing them at random — but contains the immensity of defiance in a world where disobedience equals death.

Anna Quangel, grief-stricken but still in terror’s web, is hesitant at first. “Isn’t this thing that you’re wanting to do, isn’t it a bit small, Otto?” she asks. To which her husband responds, “Whether it’s big or small, Anna, if they get wind of it, it’ll cost us our lives.” That does it: “He might be right: whether this act was big or small, no one could risk more than his life. Each according to his strength and abilities, but the main thing was, you fought back.”

The book is based on the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel, whose postcard campaign — “Hitler’s war is the worker’s death!” — frustrated the Gestapo until the couple’s capture in October 1942 and subsequent beheading. Fallada, a sometime morphine addict who lived in and out of asylums, got hold of the Hampel police files through a friend in late 1945, wrote a journalistic account that year, and then, in a burst of creativity, the novel.

Fiction’s deeper truth, as compared to journalism’s first draft, was never more amply illustrated.

The book pulses with the street life of a terrorized city, full of sleaze, suspicion, drunkenness, desperation and murder. It proclaims the bestial sadism of which man is capable and the enormous moral stature of decency. It has something of the horror of Conrad, the madness of Dostoyevsky and the chilling menace of Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”

Quangel is a taciturn man, but a moment comes, at his grotesque trial, when he can no longer contain himself: “It was then that Quangel laughed for the first time since his arrest, the first time in a very long time. He laughed with wholehearted gusto. The preposterous comedy of this gang of criminals branding everyone else as war criminals was suddenly too much for him to take.”

Fallada catches the intersection of monstrous crime and “preposterous comedy” in power’s intoxication. The confrontation of Inspector Escherich and Quangel is unforgettable. Escherich, having got his prey, is contemptuous of this “gnat” fighting an “elephant:”: “What did you expect anyway, Quangel? You, an ordinary worker, taking on the Führer, who is backed by the Party, the Wehrmacht, the SS, the SA?”

Quangel tries to explain: “If one man sees he has no option but to fight, then he will fight, whether he has others on his side or not.”

Escherich, whose Gestapo boss likes to humiliate him, seems unmoved — until he sees the Obergruppenführer and other officers torturing Quangel by smashing their schnapps glasses on his head and something snaps. He puts a pistol to his head with the parting words: “I’m your only disciple, Otto Quangel.”

That may be literally so. The postcards were almost all handed in to the police by terrorized Berliners. But humanity is Quangel’s disciple. For the “preposterous comedy” continues here and there and terror still poses the existential dilemma: decency and its (mortal) dangers or conformity and its comforts?

As Hannah Arendt once observed: “Under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not. ... Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation.”

In the quiet Quangels, Fallada has created an immortal symbol of those who fight back against “the vile beyond all vileness” and so redeem us all.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth and The Truth Will Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA.....IT(s) OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

[Nazi Film Still Pains Relatives]

[Otto Lambsdorff Dies at 82; Shaped Nazi Victims Fund]

[Man Tied to Death Camp Goes on Trial in Germany]