11 Reasons Why The Threat From Al-Qaeda is Not Real

 The United States government has repeatedly stated that the treat from Al-Qaeda against America is very real, and that all action is being taken to eliminate that threat. Nobody in their right mind would question such a serious assessment about a sensitive national security matter from the world’s leading democracy. But the truth is that over the past fifty years America’s democratic institutions like the press have been weakened, and an elitist National Security State has risen, and taken control over all aspects of government.
Since World War II U.S. leaders have consistently lied to the American people about foreign threats in order to feed the military machine’s appetite for war. All of these wars are unjust and unwarranted but that does not stop the self-interested criminals who control U.S. foreign policy. A recent example of a lie they told was their assertion that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. That episode revealed to many people the true nature of the American government. Simply put, it does not care about the truth, or the American people, or the members of the military. U.S. leaders like former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, to name but a few, tell lies at will. Dishonesty means nothing to them. They deceive the American people, the American military, and the world about their motives and methods – and they lie to themselves about their own powers and abilities.
Next to the hundreds of thousands of innocent people who were slaughtered by the American war machine in its numerous criminal wars, U.S. soldiers have suffered the most – way more than the rest of the population in America. It can’t be said enough that the U.S. government’s treatment of its soldiers is scandalous and shameful. It is so out of whack that in America today dogs are treated better than military vets. Some dogs are even treated to luxurious spas while military vets are denied the proper health care that they deserve. Instead, they’re left to rot, and commit suicide. And for what? To defend America? To defeat Al-Qaeda? Or to keep the war machine and its benefactors rich and powerful? As you will see by the end of this post, it is the latter.
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How WikiLeaks altered the way we see the world in just a week

Shortly before 6.30pm on Sunday night, the first cracks appeared in the dam. The largest ever leak of US government classified documents streamed out online, revealing never publicly seen details about Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan and Russia.
Throughout the week the stream became a torrent of information about how US diplomats and foreign governments see the world. According to these classified cables, Saudi Arabia wanted Washington to bomb Iran, the UK harbours “deep concerns about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons”, and Russia is considered a “virtual mafia state” with its president, Vladimir Putin, accused of amassing “illicit proceeds” from his time in office.
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But perhaps most embarrassing for Hillary Clinton who, as US secretary of state, is ultimately responsible for the content of most of the cables released so far, was a cable that revealed Washington is running a spying campaign targeted at the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon and the rest of the UN leadership, as well as the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.
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70% in NBC New York poll ‘furious’ at arrival of airport body scanners

 NBC New York has reported the announcement that full body scanners will soon descend on JFK, Newark and LaGuardia airports, the major transportation hubs of the New York City metropolitan area.
However, an informal poll on NBC NY’s website shows that more than 70% of its local readers are “furious” at the announcement. Another 3% described their reaction as “sad.” Only 14% demonstrated any support for the measure. The overwhelming negative reaction is all the more telling in the context of NBC NY, an affiliate and very mainstream source that likely draws very typical readers. The response demonstrates a rejection of a technology that many critics say is an invasion of privacy, violates the 4th Amendment and may pose health risks.
After nine years of the so-called “War on Terror,” the TSA is fighting a public relations war to maintain support from increasingly frustrated passengers who must now cooperate with the additional measure of scanning.
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The poll is a continued indicator that widespread opposition to the use of ‘naked’ body scanners is on the rise. A series of reports show that the technology is insufficiently tested, is likely to prove ineffective, violates privacy, Constitutional rights & child porn laws, and may pose serious health risks, including cancer.
But the fear of harassment proves even more troubling than the dangers of the machine itself. The TSA has been caught lying about the fact that body scanners store a naked image of passengers’ bodies, despite previously claiming no image was stored. The “exposure” factor was also highlighted when a TSA employee attacked his co-worker after repeated jokes about his penis size prompted by daily displays of his genitals on the scanner’s monitor. Another TSA agent was arrested for substance abuse after declaring “I am God, I’m in charge.” Still another TSA agent was arrested after allegedly groping a 15-year old girl whom he’d asked to be his “sex slave.” Actress Christine Ebersole told Alex Jones in an April 2010 interview about a TSA encounter where she was partially strip-searched, touched and made to feel violated.
As for the dangers, scientists exposed the fact that airport body scanners are emitting 20x the radiation experts previously thought were occurring. Thus, they have warned that airport scanning increases the potential for cancer, particularly for certain types of skin cancer. Cumulative-radiation overdosing is also a potential risk for frequent flyers.
The New York Times recently exposed a growing problem of radiation-overdosing in medical and dental fields. CT scanners and other radiation-blasting scanning technologies have been shown to cause an increase in cancer and potential brain damage, despite the fact that that they are manned by high-trained medical staff– which is not the case with TSA employees who operate body scanners.
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Despite the PR push-from-the-top for body scanner implementation, many government and “official” bodies have objected to the technology and either spoken out or moved to block its widespread use in policy:
• Only a few weeks ago, USA Today reported on a “growing backlash” against the use of full body scanners in airports. Citing concerns over privacy and dangers from the high-frequency x-rays, the article also identified a European Commission report demanding testing for health risks, as well as a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report claiming that the machines were not sufficiently tested and that its potential to detect ‘threat items’ “remains unclear.” Moreover, the GAO stated:

On March 17, 2010, the GAO issued its own report on the scanners. In the report, the GAO states that the body scanners, also known as advanced imaging technology (AIT), might not have the capability to detect the type of explosive that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly had sewn in his underpants.

• Complimenting this failure in potential detection is the fact that TSA has scored “0″ catches in the War on Terror. In May, CBS News questioned whether TSA’s behavior detection program was a $200 million sham, as the program has to-date failed to identify or stop even one single “terrorist.”
• The European Parliament, for their part, voted down a measure to implement the scanners in 2008.
• Concern has been raised in the UK about the scanners’ potential to violate child indecency laws.
• The Islamic Human Rights Commission have also recently opposed the use of body scanners in the UK.
• In March, Idaho’s state legislation passed a house bill restricting use of full body imaging in its state’s airports. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, called the technology “an unreasonable search” and further questioned the medical risks:

“What if they harm our bodies? What if they’re not medically sound? What if they’re going to cause cancer sometime down the road?”

• Back in January, the ACLU and Congressmen like Rep. Jason Chaffetz voiced opposition to the “virtual strip searches” and attempted to limit the use of body scanners in a bill that ultimately failed. Chaffetz stated in January 2010:

“We don’t need to look at naked 8-year-olds and grandmothers to secure airplanes,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said last week. “I think it’s a false argument to say we have to give up all of our personal privacy in order to have security.”

Widespread opposition is a good sign that Americans have had enough of the nearly-decade long phony “War on Terror” and the violations of civil liberties that comes with it. Recent polls also show that Americans are tired of seemingly never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has spilled over into Pakistan and other regions, and now threatens to spark war in Iran.
Despite opposition and potential risks, NBC NY reports that the TSA will continue to roll-out machines across the country:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has spent more than $80 million for about 500 machines, including 133 now at airports. It plans to install about 1,000 by the end of next year.

Sadly, the technology is also expanding to checkpoints on subways, highways, in court rooms and other locations.
New York state recently announced the use of National Guard to search vehicles for drugs and guns using high-powered gamma radiation mobile scanning-units on highway checkpoints.

1,200 National Guard Troops Being Deployed to Border Will Not Be Used to Stop and Detain Illegal Aliens

 The 1,200 National Guard troops that are being deployed incrementally to the southwest border “will not be doing direct law enforcement,” said U.S. National Guard Bureau Director of Communications Jack Harrison when asked if the forces would be interdicting drugs and undocumented immigrants.

“The two mission sets are criminal analysts and enter-identification team,” Harrison told CNSNews.com. “I can tell you that guardsmen will not be doing direct law enforcement on the southwest border.”
In other words, the National Guardsmen will not be used to actually stop and detain illegal aliens trying to sneak across the border into the United States.
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Harrison made his comments on Friday during a “bloggers roundtable” sponsored by the Department of Defense (DOD).

When CNSNews.com asked if the National Guard assessed whether 1,200 troops were adequate to accomplish the mission assigned by the Department of Homeland Security and DOD, Harrison said, “DHS and DOD determined the number necessary for this request and I don’t have anything further on that part of your question.”
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Home Video Claims to Show AZ Police Enforcing Illegal-Immigration Law at Traffic Stop

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Stealthy Government Contractor Monitors U.S. Internet Providers, Worked With Wikileaks Informant

 A semi-secret government contractor that calls itself Project Vigilant surfaced at the Defcon security conference Sunday with a series of revelations: that it monitors the traffic of 12 regional Internet service providers, hands much of that information to federal agencies, and encouraged one of its “volunteers,” researcher Adrian Lamo, to inform the federal government about the alleged source of a controversial video of civilian deaths in Iraq leaked to whistle-blower site Wikileaks in April.
Chet Uber, the director of Fort Pierce, Fl.-based Project Vigilant, says that he personally asked Lamo to meet with federal authorities to out the source of a video published by Wikileaks showing a U.S. Apache helicopter killing several civilians and two journalists in a suburb of Baghdad, a clip that Wikileaks labeled “Collateral Murder.” Lamo, who Uber said worked as an “adversary characterization” analyst for Project Vigilant, had struck up an online friendship with Bradley Manning, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst who currently faces criminal charges for releasing the classified video.
In June, Uber said he learned from Lamo’s father that the young researcher had identified Manning as the video’s source, and pressured him to meet with federal agencies to name Manning as Wikileaks’ whistleblower. He then arranged a meeting with employees of “three letter” agencies and Lamo, who Uber said had mixed feelings about informing on Manning.
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Exclusive: Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring, Imagine what it can do for you!

This appears to be the first time, however, that the intelligence community and Google have funded the same startup, at the same time. No one is accusing Google of directly collaborating with the CIA. But the investments are bound to be fodder for critics of Google, who already see the search giant as overly cozy with the U.S. government, and worry that the company is starting to forget its “don’t be evil” mantra.

Once Again, Corporate Media Turns On Bloggers

In the video clip below, CNN talking heads Kyra Phillips and John Roberts discuss internet journalism and the Sherrod case. “Imagine what would have happened,” says Roberts, “if we hadn’t taken a look at what happened to Shirley Sherrod and plumbed the depths further and found what had been posted on the internet was not in fact reflective of what she said.”
Too bad this self-righteous attitude was nowhere to be found when it was discovered that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. It was obvious well before Bush and the neocons invaded Iraq that Saddam Hussein did not have nuclear and biological weapons. Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. It did not buy yellow cake in Niger.
In 1995 Gen. Hussein Kamel told U.N. inspectors and the CIA that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles (weapons, incidentally, sold to Hussein by the U.S. and European countries). Even one of then Secretary of State Colin Powell’s analysts, Greg Thielmann, said key evidence cited by the administration was misrepresented to the public.
Everyone knew Saddam did not have WMDs and that includes the corporate media. Tony Blair said Iraq did not have WMDs. Majority Whip at the time, Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, who was on the Senate intelligence committee, knew Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction.
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil, who was a member of the National Security Council, said he saw absolutely nothing he would have characterized as evidence of weapons of mass destruction. He also said the neocons planned to invade Iraq well before the attack of September 11, 2001.
In 2008, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan published a memoir. In his book McClellan said that the Iraq invasion and occupation was sold to the American people with a “political propaganda campaign” led by Bush and aimed at “manipulating sources of public opinion” and “downplaying the major reason for going to war.”
Following the publication of McClellan’s book more than a few corporate media types admitted acting as “complicit enablers” in the march to slaughter more than a million Iraqis and wreck the country (more than it was already wrecked by a decade of brutal sanctions). Even so, the corporate media generally avoided accepting blame. “There was almost no self-assessment, after five years of war. I observed then that this revealed a disturbing, and continuing, mode of denial or defensiveness,” wrote Greg Mitchell on June 2, 2008.
Tom Brokaw was especially weasel-like in his defense of mass murder. He defended the role of the corporate media as “complicit enabler” for warmongers and psychopaths.
“All wars are based on propaganda. John Kennedy launched the beginning of our war in Vietnam by talking about the domino theory and embracing the Green Berets. Lyndon Johnson kept it up and so did Richard Nixon. World War II–a lot of that was driven by propaganda, and suppressing things that people should have known at the time. So people should not be surprised by that,” he told Brain Williams. “In this business we often bump up against what I call the opaque world. The White House has an unbelievable ability to control the flow of information at any time but especially at a time when they are planning to go to war.”
Now a sanctimonious corporate media has the audacity to criticize bloggers for getting a bureaucrat fired. As painful as that experience was for Ms. Sherrod, at least she is alive. Her family was not killed by “smart bombs.” Her kids don’t have cancer from depleted uranium. She can flick a switch and there will be electricity in her home. Chances are very remote she will be killed by a suicide bomber when she shops for groceries.
Tom Brokaw and the corporate media are in large part responsible for mass murder and war crimes.
But you won’t hear Kyra Phillips and John Roberts talk about it. Instead, they will beat up on bloggers and for good reason — they alternative media is about to put the teleprompter reading class on the unemployment line.

Wal-Mart Radio Tags to Track Clothing

 Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to roll out sophisticated electronic ID tags to track individual pairs of jeans and underwear, the first step in a system that advocates say better controls inventory but some critics say raises privacy concerns.
 The Shrinking Middle Class: Why America is becoming a Two-Class Society
Starting next month, the retailer will place removable “smart tags” on individual garments that can be read by a hand-held scanner. Wal-Mart workers will be able to quickly learn, for instance, which size of Wrangler jeans is missing, with the aim of ensuring shelves are optimally stocked and inventory tightly watched. If successful, the radio-frequency ID tags will be rolled out on other products at Wal-Mart’s more than 3,750 U.S. stores.
“This ability to wave the wand and have a sense of all the products that are on the floor or in the back room in seconds is something that we feel can really transform our business,” said Raul Vazquez, the executive in charge of Wal-Mart stores in the western U.S.
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False Flag Cyber Attack Could Takedown The Internet

Billion dollar cybersecurity industry at the forefront of ‘Top Secret America’ complex

 An increasing clamour to restrict and control the internet on behalf of the government, the Pentagon, the intelligence community and their private corporate arms, could result in a staged cyber attack being used as justification. Over recent months we have seen a great increase in media coverage of inflated fears over a possible “electronic Pearl Harbor” event, with reports claiming that the U.S. could be “felled within 15 minutes”.
Vastly over-hyped (and in some cases completely asinine) claims that the power grids and other key infrastructure such as rail networks and water sources are wired up to the public internet have permeated such coverage.
Threats against computer networks in the United States are grossly exaggerated. Dire reports issued by the Defense Science Board and the Center for Strategic and International Studies “are usually richer in vivid metaphor — with fears of ‘digital Pearl Harbors’ and ‘cyber-Katrinas’ — than in factual foundation,” writes Evgeny Morozov, a respected researcher and blogger who writes on the political effects of the internet.
Morozov notes that much of the data on the supposed cyber threat “are gathered by ultra-secretive government agencies — which need to justify their own existence — and cyber-security companies — which derive commercial benefits from popular anxiety.”
When the Cybersecurity Act was introduced by Senator John Rockefeller last year, he made similar claims about the threat of cyber attacks, adding “Would it have been better if we’d have never invented the Internet?”.

Rockefeller’s legislation gives the president the ability to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president, according to a Mother Jones report.

Provisions in the bill would allow the federal government, via the DHS and the NSA, to tap into any digital aspect of every citizen’s information without a warrant. Banking, business and medical records would be wide open to inspection, as well as personal instant message and e mail communications – all in the name of heading off cyber attacks on the nation.

Enhancements of such provisions are contained in the more recent “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act”, which is being pushed hard by Senator Joe Lieberman. The bill would hand absolute power to the federal government to close down networks, and block incoming Internet traffic from certain countries under a declared national emergency.

An accompanying cybersecurity control grid would only create greater risk according to experts who note that it would essentially “establish a path for the bad guys to skip down.” Other countries, such as Australia and the UK are following suit.

The program dovetails with the Pentagon’s newly created Cyber Command, headed by Keith B Alexander, the acting head of the NSA and the man behind the massive program of illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications since at least 2001.

During the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, Alexander said the Pentagon’s Cyber Command would enjoy “significant synergy” with the NSA. “We have to show what we’re doing to ensure that we comport, comply with the laws,” said Alexander, perversely claiming the agency is respecting and protecting the privacy of the American people.

The Pentagon considers cyberspace a warfighting domain equal to land, sea, air and space. In 2003, the Pentagon classified the internet as an enemy “weapons system” requiring a “robust offensive suite of capabilities to include full-range electronic and computer network attack.” It has spent Billions of dollars building a super secret “National Cyber Range” in order to prepare for “Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement”, which translates as control over “any and all” computers. The program has been dubbed “The Electronic Manhattan Project”.

The enemy is never specifically named, it is merely whoever uses the net, because the enemy IS the net. The enemy is the freedom the net provides to billions around the globe and the threat to militaristic dominance of information and the ultimate power that affords.

These initiatives represent a continuation of the so called “Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative”, created via a secret presidential order in 2008 under the Bush administration. former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell announced that the NSA’s warrantless wiretaps would “be a walk in the park compared to this,”.

“This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill” McConnell said. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

As we have previously reported, large corporations such as Google, AT&T, Facebook and Yahoo to name but a few are intimately involved in the overarching program. Those corporations have specific government arms that are supplying the software, hardware and tech support to US intelligence agencies in the process of creating a vast closed source database for global spy networks to share information.
Clearly the implications of this program for the open and free internet, and for liberty in general are very worrying, this has been reflected in the resistance and criticism from groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In light of this, there is a real danger of a hyped or completely staged cyber attack being propagated in order to bring the issue to public attention and counter the critics who have exposed it as a part of the agenda to restrict the Internet.

In 2008 Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig detailed such ongoing government plans for overhaul and restriction.

Lessig told attendees of a high profile Tech conference that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event” which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.

Lessig said that he came to that conclusion following a conversation with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, who informed him that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act” if you will, and that the Justice Department is just waiting for a cyber terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.

Lessig is the founder of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. He is founding board member of Creative Commons and is a board member of the Software Freedom Law Center. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.

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These are clearly not the ravings of some paranoid cyber geek.

Though Richard Clarke advocates an enhancement of cyber security, even he has stated that it would be a terrible idea to allow the government to regulate and filter the internet.

We have also recently seen multiple mock attacks conducted by the government, via private outsourcing, on it’s own infrastructure systems. On such exercise, called “We Were Warned: Cyber Shockwave”, involved Former Department of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff and former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin taking the roles of government leaders. CNN broadcast the entire simulation on prime time television.

Homeland Security for Whom?

 The Washington Post has published a splashy exposé about the mammoth “homeland security” intelligence empire that now burdens the United States, financially and ideologically.
As usual, however, there is no real historical context. And that lack of context is part of the story – not just the current dimensions of the empire.
I wrote the following article for Penthouse in the summer of 2003. It was reprinted by CounterPunch later that summer.
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At the time I said: “This homeland security boondoggle is the biggest reorganization of the U.S. government in 50 years. It might even bankrupt the country and, perhaps intentionally, throw it into a Depression. That remains to be seen. What is certain is that at a cost of $50 billion in taxpayer’s money, the homeland security infrastructure will provide Bush with 170,000 political cadres, and the internal security he needs to assure the continuity of his political power indefinitely. Except for providing Bush with political internal security, there is no need for the Department of Homeland Security; it is a Trojan Horse through which Bush will unleash his ideological storm troopers and exploit his ill-gotten power to achieve permanent political dominance.”
I put the blame on “Bush” at the time (and the numbers have varied) but it’s really the national security state that’s to blame for the near Depression the homeland security state (financially and ideologically) has caused. And of course the Washington Post is part of the national security state – that secret group of people who control America through secret deals – the type of secret deals that enable Washington Post reporters’ access to anonymous CIA officers.
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Group Calls for Hearings Into Google’s Ties to CIA and NSA

 

More information has emerged about Google’s relationship with the government and spook agencies (see PR Newswire below). The revelations should come as no surprise.
In 2006, Robert David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer and a former clandestine services case officer with the CIA, told the Alex Jones Show that the CIA helped bankroll Google at its inception. “I think Google took money from the CIA when it was poor and it was starting up and unfortunately our system right now floods money into spying and other illegal and largely unethical activities, and it doesn’t fund what I call the open source world,” said Steele, citing “trusted individuals” as his sources.
Google is a key intelligence asset. It has supplied the core search technology for Intellipedia, a highly-secured online CIA system and has shared a close relationship with both the CIA, NSA, and government national security officials.
In February, it was reported that Google and the NSA have forged a partnership after Google purportedly suffered a cyberattack in December. “This is not the first time the NSA has been tapped to help a U.S. corporation with cyber security, but the purported partnership would certainly be unique since Google’s servers house such a vast collection of user data including search histories, email, and personal documents,” reports PC World.
“Google’s connection with the CIA and its venture capital firm extends to sharing at least one key member of personnel. In 2004, the Director of Technology Assessment at In-Q-Tel, Rob Painter, moved from his old job directly serving the CIA to become ‘Senior Federal Manager’ at Google.,” writes Eric Sommer.
In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the CIA, also had a hand in creating the wildly popular social network Facebook. “The second round of funding into Facebook ($US12.7 million) came from venture capital firm Accel Partners. Its manager James Breyer was formerly chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, and served on the board with Gilman Louie, CEO of In-Q-Tel,” writes Matt Greenop.
Thus it should not be shocking that Google executives are holding meetings with U.S. national security officials for undisclosed reasons, according to the Washington Post, itself a prized CIA asset under the venerable Operation Mockingbird media asset program.
Google insists its vacuuming up of WiFi network data as it gathered images for its Streetview program was a mistake, even though information “published Jan. 28 shows that the data collection program was a very deliberate effort to assemble as much information as possible about U.S. residential and business WiFi networks,” according to the press release below.
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SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Citing new information about Google’s classified government contracts and the Internet giant’s admitted Wi-Spying activity, Consumer Watchdog today said it is more imperative than ever for the Energy and Commerce Committee to conduct hearings into possible privacy violations by Google.
In a letter to Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Ranking Member Joe Barton, the nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group’s John M. Simpson wrote:

“Based on today’s Washington Post, it appears that Google holds classified U.S. government contracts to supply search and geospatial information to the U.S. government. In addition, White House records show that Google executives have been holding meetings with U.S. national security officials for undisclosed reasons. Finally, it also appears that Google’s widely criticized efforts to collect wireless network data on American citizens were not inadvertent, contrary to the company’s claims.”
“As history has repeatedly shown, alliances between the U.S. intelligence community and giant corporations that collect data on American citizens can be a toxic combination where the U.S. Constitution is concerned,”  the letter said.
In a June 9 letter to the Energy and Commerce Committee, Google director for public policy Pablo Chavez asserted that Google “mistakenly included code in our software that collected samples of ‘payload data’” from private WiFi networks. But review of a patent application from Google covering the gathering of WiFi data published Jan. 28 shows that the data collection program was a very deliberate effort to assemble as much information as possible about U.S. residential and business WiFi networks.
The letter continued:
“…what the patent does show is that Google’s recent claims about how the Street View program was designed are not accurate, and that the company always intended to collect and store the ‘packets’ of wireless data that contain so-called payload information.
“The patent makes repeated reference to ‘capturing’ packets, including paragraph [0055], which states that the system will enable geolocations so long as the equipment being used ‘is able to capture and properly decode a packet…’
“This raises serious questions about whether Google has engaged in a reckless effort to amass private data without giving any thought to the possible misuse of that information, and whether it can be trusted to safeguard the information it collects from the prying eyes of the U.S. government.”
Read the patent here: http://insidegoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/US20100020776.pdf
Read the letter here: http://insidegoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/LtrWaxman071910.pdf
In addition, White House visitor logs show that Alan Davidson, Google’s Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs, has had at least three meetings with officials of the National Security Council since the beginning of last year. One of the meetings was with White House senior director for Russian affairs Mike McFaul, while another was with Middle East advisor Daniel Shapiro.
It has also been widely reported that Google has been working in “partnership” with the National Security Agency, the very same government body that illegally intercepted the private communications of millions of Americans during the Bush administration.
Consumer Watchdog, formerly the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization with offices in Washington, DC and Santa Monica, Ca.  Consumer Watchdog’s website is www.consumerwatchdog.org. Visit our new Google Privacy and Accountability Project website: http://insidegoogle.com.

10 Ways You’re Being Fleeced by Banks

 Taxpayers are rightfully angrier than ever before about the state of the U.S. economy and the government’s handling of the financial crisis; perhaps even more so than the Colonists at the original Tea Party.  After all, it appears that the only group benefiting during this painful slide into recession are the very people who caused the crisis — The Banks.
On the verge of bankruptcy in 2008, the banks are now once again making record profits and paying record bonuses, while nearly every other industry struggles to keep their head above water.  The banks seem to have designed the system where all businesses and individuals are dependent on them for credit, and without new lending industry grinds to a halt. Given that banks can make risk-free profits by front running the stock market and selling $600 trillion of worthless derivatives for monster gains, there seems to be little motivation for them to lend money at today’s record-low interest rates.
Average Americans continue to be looted by this bank-controlled economic system through taxation and other more subtle ways:
1. Bailouts/TARP — The major banks warned in 2008 that their massively over-leveraged Ponzi scheme was about to take down the world financial system, and demanded a taxpayer bailout or else the sky would fall.  Well, they got their bailout which may be upwards of $23 trillion between direct cash infusions and accounting write-downs, which amounts to around $76,667 for every citizen.  The Federal Reserve also secretly bailed out foreign economies to at least the tune of $500 billion.
2. Predatory Lending — The banks have long practiced predatory lending to Third World countries, private businesses, and individuals.  This strategic over-lending creates a situation where banks anticipate and manufacture default to obtain real assets. Since banks lend money they don’t have by making accounting adjustments, private bankers and their cohorts could conceivably, over time, own everything “real” in the world from money they created out of thin air.
3. Credit Cards — From marketing to teenagers with “Happy Meal-style” gifts and toys at sign-up, to Mafia-style loansharking with usury interest rates, banks use credit cards to further enslave the public. According to the credit card repayment calculator, if you owe $6,000 on a credit card with a 20 percent interest rate and only pay the minimum payment each time, it will take you 54 years to pay off that credit card.  During those 54 years you will pay $26,168 in interest rate charges in addition to the $6,000 in principal that you are required to pay back. (Source)
4. Stock Market — The Goldman Sachs-dominated scheme called “front running” is where brokers use computer programs with intricate algorithms to buy or sell nanoseconds before large orders from the public. Originally designed to prevent this activity, these programs have been hijacked to “Beat the Street.”  It’s the ultimate in insider trading, likened to a poker player being able to see his opponent’s cards.  Is it any wonder why four of the largest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup) had zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010?
5. Pensions/401(k) — Although severely weakened by stock market manipulation and other fraudulent behavior, Pensions and 401(k) retirement savings plans still represent a large portion of the people’s remaining liquid wealth — and the banks want it.  Nearly $4 trillion worth of retirement savings was wiped out in the first weeks of 2008, where half of the losses were traditional pension plans, while another 46 million people were riding the stock market with 401(k).  It was estimated in 2009 that two-thirds of public sector pension plans were underfunded to the tune of $430 billion.  Long term, these public pensions are reportedly underfunded by $3.5 trillion due to banks using the contributions to prop up toxic junk.
6. Social Security — Social Security represents a $40 trillion unfunded liability.  It is estimated that taxes must be raised substantially and benefits must be slashed to cover this gap.  Through no fault of Social Security contributors and recipients, the government has completely mismanaged the program while other debts eat up any chance of actually making good on the entitlements promised to the working public. According to their “austerity” playbook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommends that the U.S. squeeze Social Security to cover their ever-growing debts to banks.
7. Inflation – The Federal Reserve’s shadowy printing presses have created an estimated $23.7 trillion in credits, grants, loans and guarantees, and that is just the paper backed by taxpayers. The fractional reserve banking system is one where banks can create loans (money) based on a fraction of their reserves, which inherently weakens the strength of the dollar.  Inflation ends up being a hidden tax on those who worked hard, played by the rules, and saved their pennies. You have been paying for this hidden tax ever since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, coincidentally the same year the income tax was passed.  To make matters worse, many experts now predict that America is headed toward hyperinflation.  For an in-depth education on how money creation creates a tax on every dollar printed please watch The Money Masters and Money as Debt.
8. Commodity Prices – Banks use the commodity casino to manipulate food prices as another way to line their pockets and starve the public. There is a direct correlation between food costs and oil prices, so when they drive up oil on speculation, food tends to follow suit. During oil’s record run up to $147 per barrel in 2008, the price of rice tripled in six months.  Between the ominous signs of food shortages and predictions of $200/bbl oil in the near future, you can expect to pay much more of your hard-earned crippled dollars to eat. Obviously, inflation — especially hyperinflation — also causes commodity prices to spike, since they trade in U.S. dollars.
9. Debt and Deficits – Banks make it easy for politicians to love credit as much as everyone else, only their shiny new toys are things like pork projects for their states, wars, and mandated private healthcare.  You can almost see the commercial:  ”You can have all this today, get re-elected tomorrow, and in a decade your successor can figure out how to pay for it.”  Recent reports show continued record deficits, while total debt and unfunded liabilities are figured to be $138 trillion — around ten times annual GDP.  Furthermore, the U.S. national debt has already surpassed the IMF default threshold of 90% GDP which will trigger austerity measures on the American public.
10. Wars – When the original reasons for wars don’t pan out, and the secondary reasons don’t add up, you can bet the real reason in the first place was money.  Indeed, wars are the biggest moneymakers for the banks and the fastest way for them to imprison countries with debt. Wars have historically been manipulated by the banks funding both sides, much like they fund both political parties. In fact, some historians suggest that the American Civil War was actually a battle between Lincoln’s Greenback vs. the “oligarchy of high finance.” Ultimately, Lincoln was killed along with his Greenback and the private banking cartel ruled America once more.
All of this is leading to a loss of financial independence – The masters of manipulation — the money changers — have rigged the system from every angle and continue to loot all of us.  We would be wise to learn about the history of money and banking in our economy, which is a compendium of booms and busts orchestrated by private banks. Wars, fiat currencies that lead to inflation, and obscure financial instruments are their tools of the trade to consolidate wealth at the top, while the foundation of the pyramid scheme — the hardworking taxpayers — are fleeced again and again.

The Serious Tracking of Americans Begins

 They have passed the health bill, they have passed the financial regulations bill and they have snuck stuff into the stimulus package bills. They are going to track your money and your body. Here’s the first few things they are doing. This is step one. It will only get worse from here.
According numismaster.com:

…the Health Care Bill mandates, according to Numismaster.com, Starting on January 1st in 2012, S federal law will require coin and bullion dealers to report to the Internal Revenue Service all gold and silver coin purchases and sales greater than $600.

No that is not an error, they tacked the gold coin tracking regulations into the health bill. They are just tacking stuff on wherever they can.
As for your body, you will be required to have an “electronic health record”, by 2014. They snuck this into one of the “stimulus” bills. The electronic record will include an obesity rating. The information will be required to be on a “national exchange” with only secure access (Hah!). Why the F does your obesity rating have to be on a national exchange? This is a tip off to how micro-managed they are going to attempt to run your life.
Keep in mind that the health bill and financial “reform” bill are thousands of pages, with much of the details left up to the new agencies to fill in. Obama is appointing major league interventionists to head these agencies. They are completely clueless as to how an economy works. Their regs will be over the top. It will stifle America in so many ways, it is difficult to imagine. I was in East Berlin the year before the Wall came down. I saw what constant monitoring and micro-management did to people. It is not pretty. The gray, the drab, the despair was everywhere. When you can only take orders and wait for approvals and are constantly watched, it saps the life out of you. America is going to be changing and the government is going to try and watch you and monitor your vitals, as if you were a lab rat, as it does the changing.
It is not going to be pretty.

Facebook Uses Face Detection Technology on Photos

 Facebook has begun testing face detection technology for Facebook Photos.
This is the first of what seems like a series of new features for its popular photo product.
The tests, which some users will see starting today [Friday], focus on decreasing the tediousness of “tagging” friends in Facebook photos. In the current Photos feature, users upload photos, click on each face in a photo, tag that photo with the friend pictured therein and continue the process until the album is tagged.
If you’ve got a large album or a lot of friends in a single photo, this process is inefficient and tedious. To solve this problem, Facebook has implemented face detection technology that will automatically find faces in photos and select them, eliminating one of the most tedious steps in tagging Facebook friends in photos. Your friends are already selected by the software — all you have to do is answer the Facebook prompt, “Whose face is this?”
Read entire article

The Lights Are Going Out For Free Speech On The Internet

 By Paul Joseph Watson
Type the keywords “Internet censorship” into Google News and you will immediately understand to what degree the world wide web is under assault from attempts by governments globally to regulate and stifle free speech. From Australia to Belarus, from Turkey to Vietnam, from Pakistan to Egypt, from Afghanistan to Iran, huge chunks of the Internet are going dark as the Chinese model of Internet regulation is adopted worldwide.
But why should Americans concern themselves with countries halfway across the globe adopting Chinese-style net censorship? Because under Senator Joe Lieberman’s 197-page Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, the United States would formally mimic China’s “great firewall” of web censorship.
When Lieberman himself attempted to debunk claims that the bill provides Obama, and any following President for that matter, with a figurative ‘kill switch’ to disable certain parts of the Internet, he explained that the government was merely seeking to emulate powers over the Internet already enjoyed by the Communist Chinese.
Firstly, despite Lieberman’s spin, the text of the bill clearly gives Obama the power to shut down the Internet for at least four months without Congressional oversight.
Secondly, and even more alarmingly, Lieberman’s acknowledgement that the United States is seeking to emulate China’s policies on Internet control confirm that the entire cybersecurity agenda is primarily concerned with silencing political opposition to the state, since this factor completely dominates the Chinese model which Lieberman openly invokes as the ultimate goal of cybersecurity.
China’s vice-like grip over its Internet systems has very little to do with “cybersecurity” and everything to do with silencing all dissent against the state.
Chinese Internet censorship is imposed via a centralized government blacklist of any websites that contain criticism of the state, porn, or any other content deemed unsuitable by the authorities. Every time you attempt to visit a website, you are re-routed through the government firewall, often making for long delays and crippling speeds.
China has exercised its power to shut down the Internet, something that Lieberman wants to introduce in the U.S., at politically sensitive times in order to stem the flow of information about government abuse and atrocities. During the anti-government riots which occurred in July 2009, the Chinese government completely shut down the Internet across the entire northwestern region of Xinjiang for days. In several regions, the authorities completely cut off the Internet for nearly a year, with many areas only now slowly starting to come back online. Major news and discussion portals used by the Muslim Uighurs in the area remain blocked. Similarly, Internet access in parts of Tibet is routinely restricted as part of government efforts to pre-empt and neutralize unrest.
Major websites like Twitter, Google and You Tube have also been shut down either temporarily or permanently by Chinese authorities.
News websites in China now require users to register their true identities in order to leave comments. This abolition of anonymity is used to chill free speech in that it prevents the user from engaging in criticism of the state for fear that they would be tracked down by authorities.
Chinese authorities are now going further than merely maintaining a “blacklist” of banned websites by instituting a “whitelist” of allowed websites, a move that “could potentially place much of the Internet off-limits to Chinese readers”. Websites not pre-registered with the government would be completely blocked to all Internet users, meaning “millions of completely innocuous sites” would be banned. This equates to requiring government approval to set up a website, which would obviously not be granted if the person or organization making the application has a history of or is likely to engage in dissent against the state.
President Obama himself has criticized Chinese Internet censorship as a hindrance to the free flow of information and allowing citizens to hold their governments accountable, and yet Lieberman wants to hand Obama similar powers.
The model Lieberman has identified as the goal of cybersecurity is centered around keeping people oppressed by eliminating any means of widespread dissent and preventing people from organizing politically. It has nothing to do with providing security against foreign hackers and terrorists and everything to do with strangling free speech critical of the state.
However, this is not merely a war on free speech, it’s a war on Internet anonymity. Even if the government shuts down portions of the web, new networks are guaranteed to pop up to take their place. Indeed, as people who have attempted to downplay concerns about the ‘kill switch’ have rightly pointed out, Obama could already attempt to shut down the Internet using the Communications Act, the PCNAA legislation merely codifies this power formally into law.
The real threat posed by the wider cybersecurity agenda is the implementation of an individual identity system for all Internet users. This is what was proposed by Obama’s cybersecurity co-ordinator Howard Schmidt in a paper compiled with the aid of the National Security Council.
The strategy revolves around, “The creation of a system for identity management that would allow citizens to use additional authentication techniques, such as physical tokens or modules on mobile phones, to verify who they are before buying things online or accessing such sensitive information as health or banking records,” reports the FInancial Times.
Only with this government-issued “token” will Internet users be allowed to “able to move from website to website,” a system not too far removed from what China proposed and rejected for being too authoritarian.
So in this sense, the cybersecurity agenda will ensure a world wide web even more draconian than the Chinese model, where the threat of the government identifying individuals, now that anonymity is removed, who engage in “hate speech” critical of the government and revoking their license to use the Internet, will inevitably chill free speech from the very outset.
To trust the federal government with the power to regulate free speech by means of a licensing system for the Internet and not expect the state to abuse such power is the height of stupidity. Cass Sunstein, Obama’s information czar, openly wrote in a 2008 paper of his desire to combat “conspiracy theories” (ie any information communicated primarily through the Internet which represents a threat to the image of the state) by empowering the government to tax or even ban outright opinions of which it disapproves. This is what cybersecurity is all about, eliminating the voices of the oppressed as big government seeks to quicken its takeover of America with the aid of silent obedience.
The cybersecurity assault on the Internet is also dovetailed with an attack from a slightly different angle. Numerous private networks, from transport hubs, to libraries, to universities, to federal government agencies have installed filters that censor political websites which engage in the “hate speech” of dissenting against the state. Since the entire Internet consists of a fusion of privately-owned networks controlled by corporations such as Verizon, AT&T and Qwest, how long before such filters are standardized?
Lieberman’s kill switch bill and the broader cybersecurity agenda has little to do with over hyped threats from foreign hackers and terrorists and everything to do with placing a muzzle on the last outpost of true free speech – the Internet. The state wants to turn the world wide web into a clone of cable television, a sterile medium controlled almost entirely by mega corporations and regulated by FCC bureaucracy and red tape. Your political blog, no matter how many millions of readers it has the potential to attract, has no place in this newly regulated Internet police state.
Tale action – call your Senator and demand that they vote against Lieberman’s Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or kiss your right to unrestricted, unregulated, and anonymous free speech on the Internet goodbye. The bill has already been approved by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and is now awaiting a vote by the full Senate.
Find your Senator from the list here or call the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Tell your Senator’s office that you will vote them out of office if he/she votes in favor of PCNAA.

Oakland Police Search Without Warrants

 On a gloomy recent morning in West Oakland, tenants at the David Gray Building — or, Off-Ramp Studios, as everyone who lives there calls it — stood in the hallways outside their lofts. They gathered around their doors in nervous clusters and spoke in hushed tones, wondering aloud whether they should head to work or stay and observe while two Oakland police officers, two building services code enforcers, a fire inspector, and three property management representatives entered all of their units one by one.
Traditionally the entire procedure would have required a search warrant. But on this day, the group of cops and city officials were operating under a little-known Oakland city program, called “SMART” — Specialized Multi-Agency Response Team — that some legal experts say may be unconstitutional. That’s because they enter people’s homes without consent or a warrant.
Read entire article

Apple now collecting, sharing precise location of iPhone users

 The world’s largest technology company by market capitalization may soon rival the National Security Agency in its ability to track Americans using their cell phones.
Apple Inc. is now tracking the “precise,” “real-time geographic location” of iPhones, iPads and Macintosh computers — and has unwittingly gotten its customers to sign off on their being tracked by making a little-noticed modification to the language in its apps store.
The company’s “partners and licensees” will now be able to collect and store data about your location.
Apple’s new privacy policy comes in the wake of a new “Find my iPhone” app the company approved which allows users to recover their lost phones using AT&T’s location services.
Tracking digital consumers by location is nothing new. Websites routinely receive information about their users’ locations in order to serve relevant advertising. For example, Raw Story’s ad providers use information provided by readers’ Internet service providers to serve ads appropriate to the region in which they’re being read — for example, you might get an ad for a political campaign in your area. You can opt-out here.)
But Apple’s new terms and conditions allow it to store information about users’ exact locations, a level of privacy intrusion not heretofore seen. Websites can tell users’ locations down to a zip code, generally speaking, but they neither store nor track exact locations — which Apple and AT&T can do using triangulation down to about ten feet.
(AT&T, if you remember, was a participant in the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, which allows the US government to track the phone numbers called by its citizens abroad. A whistleblower said that AT&T in fact had its own spy room in San Francisco for the government.)
Adds The Los Angeles Times:

The company says the data is anonymous and does not personally identify users. Analysts have shown, however, that large, specific data sets can be used to identify people based on behavior patterns.
An increasing number of iPhone apps ask users for their location, which is then used by the application or even uploaded to the app’s maker. Apps like the Twitter application Tweetie and Google Maps make frequent use of location data, either to help the user get oriented geographically or to associate the user’s action with a specific location (as when a tweet is geotagged).
Apple says in its privacy policy that it uses personal information to “improve our services, content, and advertising.”
On Monday, Apple also rolled out its new advertising platform, iAd, for the latest version of its iPhone operating system (iOS 4). The company may well be integrating the location information into its advertising system — for instance, to help local shops sell coupons to users in the neighborhood.

The new passage in Apple’s terms and conditions is:

To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.
Some location-based services offered by Apple, such as the MobileMe “Find My iPhone” feature, require your personal information for the feature to work.

Ironically, The Los Angeles Times‘ parent company released their own iPhone app just two hours after they did a writeup on Apple’s new privacy policy.
Mac OS Hints offers this tip to turn off “Location Services” in iPhone OS 4:

As iOS 4 is being released for upgrading today (you’ll need iTunes 9.2 to do so), a lot of new features will be introduced. Many are brand new, but some resemble features introduced with the iPad and iPhone OS 3.2, and are improved beyond that.
One of them is the Location Services Settings, especially with respect to privacy controls.
In iPad, a little NE pointing arrow appears in the top bar to alert you that the GPS is being accessed from an application, and that function is now in iOS 4 as well. [crarko adds: My mistake: it appears this wasn't in iPhone OS 3.2, and is new.]
What’s new is the ability to toggle on or off the ability of apps to use Location Services on a per app basis, much like Notifications. If you look in Settings » General » Location Services, all the apps that make use of the GPS are listed, along with the NE arrow icon if they have used Location Services in the past 24 hours. There is also a toggle switch for each app, to enable/disable the services.
Note you will no longer be presented with the dialog box asking for permission to use your current location in apps, but will instead be warned by an app that you’ve turned off that it can’t get current information. An app which is enabled will display the arrow icon.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange breaks cover but will avoid America

 The elusive founder of WikiLeaks, who is at the centre of a potential US national security sensation, has surfaced from almost a month in hiding to tell the Guardian he does not fear for his safety but is on permanent alert.
Julian Assange, a renowned Australian hacker who founded the electronic whistleblowers’ platform WikiLeaks, vanished when a young US intelligence analyst in Baghdad was arrested.
The analyst, Bradley Manning, had bragged he had sent 260,000 incendiary US state department cables on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks.
The prospect of the cache of classified intelligence on the US conduct of the two wars being put online is a nightmare for Washington. The sensitivity of the information has generated media reports that Assange is the target of a US manhunt.
Full article here

Lieberman Introduces Bill Targeting Internet Freedom

By: Kurt Nimmo
Senator Joe Lieberman wants to give Obama and all future installed teleprompter readers in the Oval Office the power to shut down the internet. In order to hype the supposed national security threat posed by a decentralized internet, the independent Lieberman — meaning both establishment parties don’t want him — has spoken in near-apocalyptic terms.
“For all of its ‘user-friendly’ allure, the Internet can also be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets,” said senator Joe. “Our economic security, national security and public safety are now all at risk from new kinds of enemies — cyber-warriors, cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and cyber-criminals.”
The “technoignoramus Liarman and his fellow kleptoplutocrats,” as Scott Evans describes them, are attempting to scare the plebs into accepting this First Amendment destroying legislation — not that it matters because, as Jim DeMint has revealed, these corporate and bankster commissars pass legislation in secret without the consent of the plebs they supposedly represent.
Cybersecurity is simply another stratagem contrived by the government to shut down the free flow of information. In a non-bizarro world where globalist control freaks would not be allowed to run roughshod over to Constitution and the Bill of Rights, network security would be the responsibility of the owners of those networks.
The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act was introduced by Lieberman, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE). It follows a similar bill introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) which would allow the federal government to unilaterally “order the disconnection” of targeted websites. Rockefeller opined at the time we would all be better off if the internet was never invented.
Senator Joe’s bill is nothing if not another example of totalitarian government on steroids. “The bill would give a newly-formed National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications the authority to monitor the ’security status’ of private websites, ISPs and other net-related business within the U.S. as well as critical internet components in other countries,” writes Andy Chalk. “Companies would be required to take part in ‘information sharing’ with the government and certify to the NCCC that they have implemented approved security measures. Furthermore, any company that ‘relies on’ the internet, telephone system or any other part of the U.S. ‘information infrastructure’ would also be ’subject to command’ by the NCCC under the proposed new law.”
Imagine if you can what sort of “security status” this website would merit.
“It is alarming that so many people have accepted the White House’s assertions about cyber-security as a key national security problem without demanding further evidence. Have we learned nothing from the WMD debacle? The administration’s claims could lead to policies with serious, long-term, troubling consequences for network openness and personal privacy,” writes Evgeny Morozov, a Belarus-born researcher and blogger who writes about the political effects of the internet.
Joe has called for government control and censorship of television, so we can assume his “cybersecurity” jihad will not stop with the government micromanaging network security. He has a keen interest in deciding what the plebs can watch and presumably read on the internet.
It is not just Joe. It is also the FCC. Under the guise of protecting consumers, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted 3-2 to open an inquiry into how the broadband industry is regulated. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed to place broadband services under the same regulatory framework as telephone service, which is more strictly regulated than broadband. In other words, more government control of the internet.
Finally, Lieberman’s bill would allow the government to force internet providers to “immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed by the Department of Homeland Security.”
The Department of Homeland Security?
We know who these folks consider a threat to national security — constitutionalists, gun owners, returning veterans, and militias.