Beast System: Laying The Foundation Of The Beast

[oneofmany]

Microsoft working with Germans on electronic ID card

Microsoft working with Germans on electronic ID card​

SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft released its new identity management software at the RSA conference on Tuesday and is testing it out as part of a national ID card system in Germany that is designed to give consumers control over the amount of personal data they share with specific organizations.

German citizens will be using new electronic cards starting in November and Microsoft technology is being used in the system, Scott Charney, corporate vice president of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft, said in his keynote.

Microsoft is working with the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems in Berlin on an interoperability prototype project integrating Microsoft's U-Prove technology and Active Directory services with the German government's future electronic identity card system, he said.

The system will allow German citizens to, for instance, use one card to provide only data needed to verify enrollment status at a university and then provide only residency status to a separate organization, such as for voting purposes.

The move to cloud services makes it easier for authorities to go to one place to get data on individuals, but giving consumers the ability to control access to the different types of their data will help prevent governments and advertisers from getting access to data they shouldn't have, according to Charney.

"As we migrate to the cloud, there will be more of this; everything will go to the cloud," he said. "Governments and litigants can go to the cloud and get that data without ever coming to the citizen. The question is, is that the right place to be?" Identity management solutions can put some power back into the hands of consumers, he said.

"You can limit the amount of information you disclose so you can execute a transaction without revealing too much about yourself," Charney said. "The cloud has the ability to alter the balance of power between the individual and the state."

Meanwhile, Microsoft is releasing its Forefront Identity Manager 2010, a system corporations can use to manage employees and others within an organization. The company also is providing core portions of its U-Prove Cryptography specification under the Open Specification Promise, as well as releasing open-source software development kits in C# and Java editions.

 

[oneofmany]

Disturbing story of Fallujah's birth defects

Disturbing story of Fallujah's birth defects​

Six years after the intense fighting began in the Iraqi town of Fallujah between US forces and Sunni insurgents, there is a disturbingly large number of cases of birth defects in the town.

Fallujah is less than 40 miles (65km) from Baghdad, but it can still be dangerous to get to.

As a result, there has been no authoritative medical investigation, certainly by any Western team, into the allegations that the weapons used by the Americans are still causing serious problems.

The Iraqi government line is that there are only one or two extra cases of birth defects per year in Fallujah, compared with the national average.

'Daily cases'

But in the impressive new Fallujah General Hospital, built with American aid, we found a paediatric specialist, Dr Samira al-Ani, who told us that she saw two or three new cases every day.

Most of them, she said, exhibited cardiac problems.

When asked what the cause was, she said: "I am a doctor. I have to be scientific in my talk. I have nothing documented. But I can tell you that year by year, the number [is] increasing."

The specialist, like other medical staff at the hospital, seemed nervous about talking too openly about the problem.

They were well aware that what they said went against the government version, and we were told privately that the Iraqi authorities are anxious not to embarrass the Americans over the issue.

There are no official figures for the incidence of birth defects in Fallujah.

The US military authorities are absolutely correct when they say they are not aware of any official reports indicating an increase in birth defects in Fallujah - no official reports exist.

Mothers warned

But it is impossible, as a visitor, not to be struck by the terrible number of cases of birth defects there.

We heard many times that officials in Fallujah had warned women that they should not have children.

We went to a clinic for the disabled, and were given details of dozens upon dozens of cases of children with serious birth defects.

One photograph I saw showed a newborn baby with three heads.

While we were at the clinic, people kept arriving with children who were suffering major problems - a little girl with only one arm, several children who were paralysed, and another girl with a spinal condition so bad I asked my cameraman not to film her.

At the clinic we were told that the worst problems were to be found in the neighbourhood of al-Julan, near the river.

River water

We went to a house where three children, all under six, were suffering from birth defects.

Two boys were partially paralysed, and their sister clearly had serious brain damage.

Like all the other parents we spoke to, their mother had no doubt that the American attacks were responsible.

Outside, a man who had heard we were there had brought his four-year-old daughter to show us. She had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot.

She was also suffering from a number of other serious health problems. The father told us that the house where they still lived had been hit by an American shell during the fighting in 2004.

There may well be a link with drinking-water, especially in al-Julan.

After the fighting was over, the rubble from the town was bulldozed into the river bank, and most people in this area get their water from the river.

The true causes of the problem, and the question of the effects of the weapons the Americans used, can be resolved only by a proper independent inquiry by medical experts.

And until the security situation in and around Fallujah improves, it will be difficult to carry that out..

 

[oneofmany]

Body scanners are headed to 11 major airports

Body scanners are headed to 11 major airports​

WASHINGTON — Eleven major airports will begin using body scanners to screen passengers as the Transportation Security Administration launches a plan to buy 1,000 of the machines over the next two years.

The scanners can look under passengers' clothing in order to detect weapons and explosives.

Boston Logan International Airport received one new scanner this week and will get two more next week. All will go into the same terminal. Among the other airports getting the scanners are Los Angeles International, Chicago O'Hare and Charlotte Douglas International.

The Transportation Security Administration bought 150 scanners in September using $25 million from the federal stimulus package. It plans to buy 300 more this year and 500 next year. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ordered the installation accelerated after the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of an airliner over Detroit.

The scanners, made by California-based Rapiscan, are 9 feet long and 6½ feet wide, much larger than metal detectors. Airport screeners view images from the machines in a nearby closed room.

Some airport officials have expressed worry because the scanners are larger and slower than metal detectors. "That's a big concern," Ed Freni, aviation director at Logan airport, said of the slower speed. "We have to monitor it very closely because if it slows things, we're going to have to adjust."

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport operations director Mike Nonnemacher said he learned Tuesday from the TSA that the airport would be getting an unspecified number of the scanners. "We'll do what we have to to make the space available for these machines," Nonnemacher said.

About half of nearly 40 airports that answered a survey last month by the Airports Council International said their security checkpoints are too small to handle the machines, according to Christopher Bidwell, the council's security chief.

The new scanners will bring the total number of airports with the machines to 29. That includes 17 of the nation's 30 largest airports.

Airports with scanners will continue to use metal detectors, both as an alternative for passengers who want to avoid the machines and in checkpoints without the scanners. Passengers who opt to skip a scanner will go through a metal detector and be hand-searched by a screener.

Officials at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport are not worried about the TSA plan, airport spokeswoman Barb Schempf said. The airport recently finished a new checkpoint. "It was constructed in anticipation of this type of equipment being installed," Schempf said. "We're probably in a better position than most."

 

[oneofmany]

Papal aide linked to Vatican gay prostitution ring

Papal aide linked to Vatican gay prostitution ring​

“AT WHAT time does he have to be back in the seminary?” The question might seem innocent enough, were it not for the fact that the man asking it is a Papal Gentleman, Angelo Balducci, and the man of whom he is asking it is his pimp, Vatican chorister and Nigerian, Chinediu Thiomas Ehiem.

If Italian media sources are to be believed, then the compromising shadow of a highly active gay prostitution ring currently hangs over both the Holy See and unnamed Rome seminary colleges.

The first casualty of this potentially explosive scandal was Thiomas Ehiem, who yesterday was dismissed from the choir of the Cappella Giulia, the choir used in St Peter’s for ceremonies which do not involve the pope.

The Cappella Giulia comes under the auspices of Cardinal Angelo Comastri, arch-priest of St Peter’s.

Vatican sources pointed out that Mr Ehiem was neither a priest nor a seminary student, but a lay member of the choir.

The revelations came to light during investigations into Angelo Balducci, former head of the Italian office of public works, who was arrested last month on suspicion of corruption. This related to the awarding of a series of public contracts for major events such as last year’s G8 Summit in La Maddalena, Sardinia (later moved to L’Aquila), the 2009 World Swimming Championships, and next year’s 150th anniversary celebrations of the Unity of Italy.

Phone taps of the last two years reveal that Mr Balducci regularly contacted two men, Mr Ehiem and Lorenzo Renzi, to ask them to set up “appointments” for him, “appointments” for which he would pay up to €2,000.

Mr Balducci would ask for a description of his “escort”, and would be furnished with details of the man’s height, weight, skin colour, age and sexual availability.

Transcripts of Mr Balducci’s conversations suggest that his “escorts” came from many different backgrounds, with some being illegal immigrants who badly needed money.

Others were seminary students in Rome.

Mr Balducci, who has been a Papal Gentleman since 1995, has long worked closely with the Holy See on behalf of the Italian state, overseeing the logistical and infrastructural requirements of events such as the Holy Year in 2000, the canonisations of Padre Pio and Opus Dei founder José Maria Escriva in 2002, and the beatification of Mother Teresa in 2003.

In the context of the investigation into the office of public works, investigators believe that Mr Balducci systematically abused his position, exacting favours that ranged from a job for his son to the construction of a swimming pool by builders who had been awarded public contracts.

Investigators believe that private sector contracts for last year’s G8 Summit were inflated from an initial €290 million to €600 million.

Papal Gentlemen are those lay attendants of the pope who serve in the papal household, in the Apostolic Palace and in St Peter’s on ceremonial occasions.

 

[Lamarr]

Source

POWAY CA: Skateboarders Will Have To Register To Use City Park

POWAY CA-- Skateboarders in Poway will have to register their names and thumbprints to get into the city's skatepark by late summer following a City Council decision Tuesday night to increase security at the facility.

No skateboarders appeared at the meeting to speak against the proposal, which was approved unanimously.

June Dudas, the city's assistant director of Community Services, said skateboarders by summer should expect to find people taking names and thumbprints at the Poway Skate Park, 13090 Civic Center Drive.

Once new equipment is in place, a locked turnstile at the park will open only after a scanning device recognizes the thumbprint of a skateboarder who has registered with the city.

While nobody spoke against the system Tuesday, Dudas said she did hear from several people in the past few days who asked why the city decided on a thumbprint scanner rather than hiring supervisors to keep an eye on the park.

"A lot of it came down to the cost," she said. While everyone agreed that a supervisor would be ideal at the park, the position would have cost the city $70,000 to $80,000 (a year), she said.

The new turnstile, along with improved security cameras, will cost about $50,000, she said.

"The community invested $1 million to build the skatepark, so it seemed prudent to spend $50,000 to protect it," she said.

The money will come from the city's capital expenses and will not take funds away from other programs, she noted.

Dudas said the city soon will take bids on the project and begin registering people who want to use the park.

"It will be a little labor-intensive, but we'll be as efficient as possible for the skaters," she said.

Dudas said somebody from the city will be stationed at the park sometime in the future to take thumbprints and names so the change doesn't take skateboarders by surprise. Registration also will be done at the Community Swim Center next to the skatepark and at the Poway Civic Center, 13094 Civic Center Drive.

Although people will have to register to use the skatepark, Dudas said it will remain open and free to everyone.

"We're not making this an exclusive club," she said. "We just want a better idea of who's in the skatepark."

The park is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

 

[oneofmany]

Parents Angry Over CCTV In School Toilets

Parents Angry Over CCTV In School Toilets​

Outraged parents have hit out at a school in Birmingham after pupils discovered CCTV cameras in the school's toilets.

Youngsters at Grace Academy in Chelmsley Wood claim they returned from half-term to find staff had installed the cameras without notifying them or their parents.

Some parents are furious at what they say is a "total invasion of privacy" and claim some pupils are so anxious about being watched they are refusing to use the facilities.

One mother whose teenage daughter attends the school is concerned the footage could fall into the wrong hands.

She told the Sunday Mercury: "She came home from school and told me security cameras had been installed in the girl's toilets but we didn't know anything about it.

"You would expect the school to have consulted parents first yet we received no information and no letters have been sent home explaining this decision."

Grace Academy claims the cameras only cover the sink areas and have not yet been activated.

School principal Terry Wales told Sky News: "It's to safeguard our youngsters, many schools are using cameras now.

"We had a parents' forum last night, we explained the arrangements and the parents were satisfied.

"We've found that when it comes to health and safety, children want to feel secure."

But privacy campaigners warned about the psychological effects of the feeling of being watched, even if cameras are not switched on.

Dylan Sharpe from Big Brother Watch told Sky News: "Children are entitled to privacy like anyone else.

"We're raising a generation of children accustomed to being constantly watched and monitored, whether cameras are switched on or not."

Grace Academy already has 26 CCTV cameras watching other parts of the school.

The incident is the latest row to erupt between schools and parents who are concerned about safeguarding their children's privacy.

Last year police were called to a school in Salford after parents were horrified to discover children had been filmed changing into their PE kit.

Although the footage was not misused, police seized the film after negotiating with the school.

In 2007 it was revealed schools had fingerprinted thousands of primary school children without their parent's consent.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families later ruled that if schools want to obtain and store biometric data from children, consent is not required from parents.

 

[oneofmany]

Senators push plan to require all U.S. citizens to carry worker ID cards

Senators push plan to require all U.S. citizens to carry worker ID cards​

WASHINGTON, D.C. - There's more talk on Capitol Hill about requiring all U.S. citizens to carry a worker ID card before getting a job. It's part of a major overhaul of immigration policy, and the plan could go before President Obama as soon as this week.

All U.S. citizens would be required to carry an ID cards according to this plan. It's meant to keep companies from hiring illegal immigrants. No matter where you apply for a job, under the plan, you would have to have a card carrying bio-metric information on a microchip. It's like your fingerpints, or a scan of the veins in your hands.

The ID cards would basically prove you are who you say you are, and that you are a legal citizen of the United States. The program is being pushed in the U.S. Senate by Democrat Chuck Schumer (D- New York), and Republican Lindsay Graham (R- South Carolina).

Unlike the optional E-verify system that some companies use, this would be mandatory for all companies to use.

It's drawing some criticism from privacy advocates, who say this moving toward a national ID card, giving the government too much power to track you. Sen. Graham says it's simply a way to keep companies and employees honest.

"What I want to make sure is when an employer is presented with a social security card, you can easily verify that it is real and genuine and the person presenting the card is who they say they are. If we will do that one thing, it will make it very hard to hire illegals," said Sen. Graham.

"We're talking about fingerprinting every single american worker, and that card, in turn, will probably be used not only to work but also to travel, to vote, perhaps even to own a gun," responded Chris Calabrese with the ACLU.

Critics also point to the expanding role of the social security number, which was originally only supposed to track your social security account, but now identifies a person for a variety of reasons.

Sen. Graham was quick to point out, this program would not expand like that.

 

[Panameno718]

"FAST" Coming to an Airport near YOU! - Future Attribute Screening Technology: The Ma

 

[oneofmany]

Child rape charge rocks TSA

Child rape charge rocks TSA​

A Transportation Security Agency worker who pats down members of the flying public was charged with multiple child sex crimes targeting an underage girl yesterday.

The bust outraged privacy and passenger advocates who say it justifies their fears about Logan International Airport’s full-body scanner.

“It’s a huge, huge issue,” said Kate Hinni of FlyersrRights.org. “The TSA needs a complete overhaul . . . If you have a pedophile looking at those naked pictures, they’ve got all your information, it’s a gross violation of their authority. . . . They should make sure none of them is corrupted in any deviant sexual manner.”

Sean Shanahan, 44, of Winthrop was held on $50,000 bail after he was charged with two counts of statutory rape, two counts of enticing a minor and one count of indecent assault and battery. He was arrested yesterday at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he had checked himself in after a suicide threat, prosecutors said.

TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said Shanahan had passed two background checks, neither of which picked up any record that would prevent him from getting a job.

Davis said Shanahan was hired in 2006, and there are no passenger complaints on record against him. He has not worked since his arrest.

Boston ACLU spokesman Chris Ott said while full body scanner backers tout the devices’ privacy blocks that obscure a passenger’s face, he said the process is a virtual strip search, rife for abuse.

“Whatever safeguards that are built into the machines are only as good as the people operating the technology,” he said.

Shanahan kept his back to the court and hid behind his court-appointed lawyer in court as Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Okeeffe rolled out a disturbing story that started in early February.

The 14-year-old victim watched a movie at his house, Okeeffe said. She said during the film, he massaged the victim’s thigh and touched her under a blanket, then during the February school vacation the girl stayed at his house with his daughter.

Okeeffe said Shanahan nicknamed the victim “Kitten,” and that she was seen going into his bedroom. Shanahan’s daughter also told investigators her father asked her how she would feel if he dated a girl her age, prosecutors said. When his daughter confronted the victim about what was happening as she left her father’s room, the victim told her “You’ll have to deal with it,” Okeeffe said.

Shanahan fled the state last week, prosecutors said, sending his ex wife a text asking her to get rid of his computer, adding “I (expletive) up bad.”

 

[oneofmany]

.S. history textbooks could soon be flavored heavily with Texas conservatism

U.S. history textbooks could soon be flavored heavily with Texas conservatism​

The nation’s public school curriculum may be in for a Texas-sized overhaul, if the Lone Star state’s influential recommendations for changes to social studies, economics and history textbooks are fully ratified later this spring. Last Friday, in a 10-to-5 vote split right down party lines, the Texas State Board of Education approved some controversial right-leaning alterations to what most students in the state—and by extension, in much of the rest of the country—will be studying as received historical and social-scientific wisdom. After a public comment period, the board will vote on final recommendations in May.
Don McElroy, who leads the board’s powerful seven-member social conservative bloc, explained that the measure is a way of "adding balance" in the classroom, since "academia is skewed too far to the left." And the board's critics have labeled the move an attempt by political "extremists" to "promote their ideology."

The revised standards have far-reaching implications because Texas is a huge market leader in the school-textbook industry. The enormous print run for Texas textbooks leaves most districts in other states adopting the same course materials, so that the Texas School Board effectively spells out requirements for 80 percent of the nation’s textbook market. That means, for instance, that schools in left-leaning states like Oregon and Vermont could soon be teaching from textbooks that are short on references to Ted Kennedy but long on references to conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Here are some of the other signal shifts that the Texas Board endorsed last Friday:

- A greater emphasis on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” This means not only increased favorable mentions of Schlafly, the founder of the antifeminist Eagle Forum, but also more discussion of the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association and Newt Gingrich's Contract With America.

- A reduced scope for Latino history and culture. A proposal to expand such material in recognition of Texas’ rapidly growing Hispanic population was defeated in last week’s meetings—provoking one board member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out in protest. "They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist," she said of her conservative colleagues on the board. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."

- Changes in specific terminology. Terms that the board’s conservative majority felt were ideologically loaded are being retired. Hence, “imperialism” as a characterization of America’s modern rise to world power is giving way to “expansionism,” and “capitalism” is being dropped in economic material, in favor of the more positive expression “free market.” (The new recommendations stress the need for favorable depictions of America’s economic superiority across the board.)

- A more positive portrayal of Cold War anticommunism. Disgraced anticommunist crusader Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator censured by the Senate for his aggressive targeting of individual citizens and their civil liberties on the basis of their purported ties to the Communist Party, comes in for partial rehabilitation. The board recommends that textbooks refer to documents published since McCarthy’s death and the fall of the Soviet bloc that appear to show expansive Soviet designs to undermine the U.S. government.

- Language that qualifies the legacy of 1960s liberalism. Great Society programs such as Title IX—which provides for equal gender access to educational resources—and affirmative action, intended to remedy historic workplace discrimination against African-Americans, are said to have created adverse “unintended consequences” in the curriculum’s preferred language.

- Thomas Jefferson no longer included among writers influencing the nation’s intellectual origins. Jefferson, a deist who helped pioneer the legal theory of the separation of church and state, is not a model founder in the board’s judgment. Among the intellectual forerunners to be highlighted in Jefferson’s place: medieval Catholic philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, Puritan theologian John Calvin and conservative British law scholar William Blackstone. Heavy emphasis is also to be placed on the founding fathers having been guided by strict Christian beliefs.

- Excision of recent third-party presidential candidates Ralph Nader (from the left) and Ross Perot (from the centrist Reform Party). Meanwhile, the recommendations include an entry listing Confederate General Stonewall Jackson as a role model for effective leadership, and a statement from Confederate President Jefferson Davis accompanying a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

- A recommendation to include country and western music among the nation’s important cultural movements. The popular black genre of hip-hop is being dropped from the same list.

None of these proposals has met with final ratification from the board—that vote will come in May, after a prolonged period of public comment on the recommendations. Still, the conservatives clearly feel like the bulk of their work is done; after the 120-page draft was finalized last Friday, Republican board member Terri Leo declared that it was "world class" and "exceptional."

 

[Panameno718]

Microchiping included in Healthcare Bill ?

"Buried deep within the over 1,000 pages of the massive US Health Care Bill (PDF) in a “non-discussed” section titled: Subtitle C-11 Sec. 2521— National Medical Device Registry, and which states its purpose as:

“The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that—‘‘(A) is or has been used in or on a patient; and ‘‘(B) is a class III device; or ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable.”

In “real world speak”, according to this report, this new law, when fully implemented, provides the framework for making the United States the first Nation in the World to require each and every one of its citizens to have implanted in them a radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip for the purpose of controlling who is, or isn’t, allowed medical care in their country.

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/AAHCA09001xml.pdf

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/105079

 

[oneofmany]

Body scans eventually mandatory, TSA official says

Body scans eventually mandatory, TSA official says​

CHICAGO — All airline passengers in the U.S. will eventually be required to undergo a full-body scan before boarding planes, just as metal detectors became a standard and accepted part of the screening process at airports decades ago, the federal transportation security chief in Chicago said Monday.

As a body-scanning machine was used to screen passengers for the first time on Monday at O’Hare International Airport, federal and city officials said they expect the airport will receive more body-imaging technology later this year to help address one of the biggest terrorism threats to commercial aviation, suicide bombers on planes.

The Transportation Security Administration plans to send hundreds of the scanners, which cost between $130,000 and $170,000 each, to all major U.S. airports. The scanners use low-dose X-ray to go underneath clothing and display weapons, explosives and other objects that might be hidden on the body, above the skin.

So far, 21 airports are equipped with the units and nine more are slated to receive the scanners soon, officials said. The security agency plans to deploy 450 body scanners to an undetermined number of airports this year.

Kathleen Petrowsky, the TSA director at O’Hare, said she anticipates the body scans — now optional for passengers — will become mandatory in the future to guard against improvised explosive devices being smuggled onto airliners.

Currently, passengers have the option to submit to a physical pat-down and wanding by a TSA officer using a metal detector.

At 19 airports that received the scanners more than a year ago, the devices are now used as a primary means of screening, whereas before they were utilized only to clear up discrepancies when a passenger set off a metal detector or failed a pat-down.

“We expect at some point all passengers will receive a body scan,” Petrowsky said.

Chicago Aviation Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino said she thinks future versions of the 2,200-pound body-scanning machine will be smaller.

As the screening technology is refined, passengers will pass through the body-screening process as they walk through the checkpoint, Andolino said, similar to the way that vehicles equipped with toll-collection transponders travel at highway speed through open-road tolling locations.

 

[oneofmany]

US Forest Service admits putting surveillance cameras on public lands

US Forest Service admits putting surveillance cameras on public lands​

Last month, Herman Jacob took his daughter and her friend camping in the Francis Marion National Forest. While poking around for some firewood, Jacob noticed a wire. He pulled on it and followed it to a video camera and antenna.

The camera didn't have any markings identifying its owner, so Jacob took it home and called law enforcement agencies to find out if it was theirs, all the while wondering why someone would station a video camera in an isolated clearing in the woods.

He eventually received a call from Mark Heitzman of the U.S. Forest Service.

In a stiff voice, Heitzman ordered Jacob to turn it back over to his agency, explaining that it had been set up to monitor "illicit activities." Jacob returned the camera but felt uneasy.

Why, he wondered, would the Forest Service have secret cameras in a relatively remote camping area? What do they do with photos of bystanders?

How many hidden cameras are they using, and for what purposes? Is this surveillance in the forest an effective law enforcement tool? And what are our expectations of privacy when we camp on public land?

Officials with the Forest Service were hardly forthcoming with answers to these and other questions about their surveillance cameras. When contacted about the incident, Heitzman said "no comment," and referred other questions to Forest Service's public affairs, who he said, "won't know anything about it."

Heather Frebe, public affairs officer with the Forest Service in Atlanta, said the camera was part of a law enforcement investigation, but she declined to provide details.

Asked how cameras are used in general, how many are routinely deployed throughout the Forest and about the agency's policies, Frebe also declined to discuss specifics. She said that surveillance cameras have been used for "numerous years" to "provide for public safety and to protect the natural resources of the forest. Without elaborating, she said images of people who are not targets of an investigation are "not kept."

In addition, when asked whether surveillance cameras had led to any arrests, she did not provide an example, saying in an e-mail statement: "Our officers use a variety of techniques to apprehend individuals who break laws on the national forest."

Video surveillance is nothing new, and the courts have addressed the issue numerous times in recent decades. The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, and over time the courts have created a body of law that defines what's reasonable, though this has become more challenging as surveillance cameras became smaller and more advanced.

In general, the courts have held that people typically have no reasonable level of privacy in public places, such as banks, streets, open fields in plain view and on public lands, such as National Parks and National Forests. In various cases, judges ruled that a video camera is effectively an extension of a law enforcement officer's eyes and ears. In other words, if an officer can eyeball a campground in person, it's OK to station a video camera in his or her place.

Jacob said he understands that law enforcement officials have a job to do but questioned whether stationing hidden cameras outweighed his and his children's privacy rights. He said the camp site they went to -- off a section of the Palmetto Trail on U.S. 52 north of Moncks Corner -- was primitive and marked only by a metal rod and a small wooden stand for brochures. He didn't recall seeing any signs saying that the area was under surveillance.

After he found the camera, he plugged the model number, PV-700, into his Blackberry, and his first hit on Google was a Web site offering a "law enforcement grade" motion-activated video camera for about $500. He called law enforcement agencies in the area, looking for its owner, and later got a call from Heitzman, an agent with the National Forest Service.

 

[oneofmany]

A little secret about Obama's transparency

A little secret about Obama's transparency​

The Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his predecessor, George W. Bush, as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did.

Transparency and openness were so important to the new president that on his first full day in office, he dispatched a much-publicized memo saying: "All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA."

One of the exemptions allowed to deny Freedom of Information requests has been used by the Obama administration 70,779 times in its first year; the same exemption was used 47,395 times in Bush's final budget year.

An Associated Press examination of 17 major agencies' handling of FOIA requests found denials 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2008 fiscal year under Bush.

As Ed Morrissey notes on the blog Hot Air, during a time of war and terrorist threats, any government can justify not releasing some sensitive information. And true, Obama had previously been a legislator, not an executive.

But why make such a big campaign deal over a previous administration's secrecy when you're going to end up being even more secretive?

On March 16 to mark annual Sunshine Week, designed to promote openness in government, Obama applauded himself by issuing a statement:

"As Sunshine Week begins, I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever."

However, a new study out March 15 by George Washington University's National Security Archive finds less than one-third of the 90 federal agencies that process such FOIA requests have made significant changes in their procedures since Obama's 2009 memo.

So, a day later, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent out yet another memo. Since the agencies ignored the memo from the president, they'll all snap to when the staffer's note arrives, don't you think?

 

[Lick]

Okay... So what's next??? What ya going to do???? What are you doing now if anything????

 

[Lick]

 

[Panameno718]

The best thing we can do is speard this info out to as many people as we can!!!!

Okay... So what's next??? What ya going to do???? What are you doing now if anything????

 

[oneofmany]

Pope's apology: 'You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry'

Pope's apology: 'You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry'​

Pope Benedict XVI has issued a dramatic apology to the victims of decades of sex abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland, expressing his "shame and remorse" for the "sinful and criminal acts".

In an unprecedented papal decree on the issue of clerical paedophilia, he admitted that years of crimes committed by clergy and lay Catholics in schools and orphanages had shattered faith in the Church.

Addressing the victims and their families directly in an eight-page pastoral letter, he said: "You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry.

"I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity violated."

He was highly critical of the way that the Irish Church had handled the cases of abuse and announced that some dioceses will be investigated by the Vatican under an Apostolic Visitation.

The Pope issued the pastoral letter to Irish Catholics following a series of damning revelations alleging senior bishops in Ireland had been involved in covering up the crimes.

However, it failed to mention the cases of abuse that have emerged in other countries that have rocked the Catholic Church in recent weeks.

Priests in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Mexico and in the Pope's former diocese in Germany have been accused of mistreating children.

Victims' groups said that they were disappointed that the letter only referred to Ireland and did not admit that the abuse was systematically covered-up.

Furthermore, the Pope did not, as victims' abuse groups in Ireland have called for, make it clear that priests or bishops who learn of sex abuse cases should report them to police.

"We feel the letter falls far short of addressing the concerns of the victims," said Maeve Lewis, executive director of victims group One in Four.

"Clerical sex abuse is not just an Irish phenomenon or indeed an Anglophone phenomenon as the Vatican has tried to assert.

"Events in the past weeks show that this is so."

The closest the Pope came to acknowledging there had been cover-ups of paedophile priests was in a reference to "misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal".

Instead, he concentrated on addressing the pain felt by the victims of abuse in Ireland and making clear that he was deeply upset at the crimes committed by Catholic clergy.

"You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry," he said in the letter, which was to be read out across Ireland on Sunday.

"I know some of you find it difficult even to enter the doors of a church after all that has occurred."

Pope Benedict, whose former archdiocese in Munich has also been caught up in the scandal, said he shared in the "dismay and sense of betrayal" of many Catholics.

He said "serious sins committed against defenceless children" had opened up a "grievous wound".

The Pope called for decisive action to restore people's respect and goodwill towards the Church in Ireland and urged clergy to keep co-operating with civil authorities in tackling child abuse.

The Irish bishops had failed "at times grievously" in dealing with child abuse, the Pope said, adding that "grave errors of judgement were made and failures of leadership occurred".

The Pope would have hoped the letter would represent a start in restoring the Roman Catholic Church's battered image around the world, but it appears as though the crisis will deepen.

A victim of sexual abuse is poised to publicly accuse Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, the head of the German Catholic Church of having protected a paedophile priest by failing to notify prosecutors.

In a report to be broadcast on German television on Monday, a priest named as Franz B is alleged to have abused at least 17 children in the Bavarian parish of Oberhamersbach between 1968 and 1991.

It will claim that he "was sent into retirement in 1991 with the support of Robert Zollitsch", and that prosecutors only learned of the suspicions against the priest four years later.

A spokesman for the Freiburg diocese, Robert Eberle, said church officials had "acted in a consistent manner and very rapidly," forcing the priest into retirement even before the accusations against him were proven.

The accusation follows a series of new claims in Germany, where more than 300 people have come forward since the start of the year with claims including the abuse of more than 170 children at Jesuit schools.

The scandal has personally drawn in Pope Benedict, whose brother, the Rev Georg Ratzinger, ran a Regensburg choir for 30 years which has been linked to cases of abuse.

Archbishop Zollitsch said that the Pope's apology was not just a criticism of Irish bishops, but also of those in Germany.

"The scandal of sexual abuse is not just an Irish problem," he said.

"It's a church scandal in many places and it is a church scandal in Germany.

"That's why I understand the Pope's admonition to the bishops in Ireland as an admonition to us at the same time."

Pope Benedict was drawn directly into the scandal after it was claimed that a paedophile cleric was able to continue offending after the pontiff, then Archbishop of Munich, decided to send him for therapy.

Monsignor Charles Sciculana, the promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a key Vatican department, said that it was "false and slanderous" to accuse the Pope of being involved in a cover-up, but the German Church has been badly hit by the crisis.

Figures show that the diocese of Munich lost 472 Catholic worshippers in March, nearly four times the number for the last three months, and 300 people have left in Passau, Bavaria since the beginning of the year.

Wolfgang Duschl, a diocesan spokesman said: "There has been a significant and rapid increase in the number of people who have been leaving the Church, even in the last few days."

Elsewhere in Europe, other Catholic Churches are launching investigations into claims of sexual abuse. In the Netherlands, a spokesman for the Dutch church said that more than 1,100 allegations of paedophilia committed by clergy since 1950 have emerged this month.

The Swiss Catholic Church is examining at least nine “serious” cases of suspected sexual abuse or harassment during the past six years. They are among 60 reported cases of sexual impropriety by Swiss priests or lay Catholics over the past 15 years.

The Rev Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University and the author of Inside the Vatican warned that the sex abuse scandal will only worsen, with thousands more cases likely to emerge across Europe.

“Based on our experience in the United States, the Catholic Church will have to be ready for victims of abuse to be coming forward in growing numbers over roughly the next three years,” he said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by priests in Austria are considering taking legal action against the Catholic Church.

Werner Schostal, a Viennese lawyer, said that the victims have created an association "Victims against Church Violence" and are preparing to claim for compensation of up to £80,000 each.

Similar claims in the Canada and America proved successful, costing the Churches millions of pounds following the admission that abuse had been carried out by priests for decades.

John L. Allen, the author of two books on Benedict, said the Pope deserved credit for taking the issue of paedophile priests seriously, even if the letter had not been tough enough to satisfy victims or critics of the Catholic hierarchy.

"For people who know the history of the Church's painfully slow and inadequate response to this crisis, this pope is one of the good guys," he said.

"He was the first pope to meet with the victims of sex abuse and he has really broken the wall of silence around the whole issue. By historical standards, he is a pioneer and this letter is another chapter reflecting that."

 

[oneofmany]

Just do the best you can

Okay... So what's next??? What ya going to do???? What are you doing now if anything????

Just do the best I can and bravely face whatever the gods have to offer. Talk to people, give some of my time to others and always be prepared.

 

[LennyNero1972]

Re: Just do the best you can

Just do the best I can and bravely face whatever the gods have to offer. Talk to people, give some of my time to others and always be prepared.

 

[oneofmany]

Gates admits concerns on US assassins in S. Asia

Gates admits concerns on US assassins in S. Asia​

The US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says he is concerned "in principle" about the existence of an alleged private network of assassins in Afghanistan and Pakistan run by the Pentagon.

An earlier report by The New York Times suggested that Michael Furlong, a Defense Department official, set up a network of assassins that tracked and killed suspected militants in the region under the guise of collecting intelligence.

"Quite frankly, in principle, I would have concerns about that but I don't know enough to know whether... it took place and if so, whether there was value added," Gates said Monday in a joint press conference with his Canadian counterpart, Peter MacKay, AFP reported.

Gates said investigations are underway to find out real facts about such a spy network.

"We do have reviews and investigations going on to find out what the story is here, to find out what the facts are," he said. "And if it's necessary to make some changes I'll do that."

Gates added that the Pentagon is deeply involved with about 85 percent of the country's intelligence budget devoted to Defense Department agencies.

 

[oneofmany]

Waiting for the end of the world: Georgia's 30-year stone mystery

Waiting for the end of the world: Georgia's 30-year stone mystery​

Elberton, Georgia (CNN) -- In the beginning, there was the stone.

The blue-gray vein of granite that courses through northeastern Georgia spawned jobs in the quarries and finishing sheds of Elberton, where generations of stonecutters have turned slabs of rock the size of refrigerators into statues, tombstones and tile.

And one day, it brought a visitor who gifted the town with a landmark that leaves visitors scratching their heads decades later.

The nearly 20-foot high series of granite slabs known as the Georgia Guidestones are inscribed with a series of admonitions for a future "Age of Reason." Billed as "America's Stonehenge," it's an astronomically complex, 120-ton relic of Cold War fears, built to instruct survivors of an Armageddon that the mystery man feared was all too near.

The identity of the man who called himself "R.C. Christian" is a secret that Wyatt Martin, the banker who acted as his agent in Elberton, vows to take to his grave.

"He told me, 'If you were to tell who put the money up for this, it wouldn't be a mystery any more, and no one would come and read it.' That had to be part of the attraction, to get people to come and read his 10 rules that he came up with," Martin said.

People in Elberton, about 100 miles east of Atlanta, are proud of their eccentric landmark. But 30 years after its dedication, it has drawn the attention of a new generation of conspiracy theorists with very different fears.

"There are a lot of people who don't feel about it the same way we do," said Phyllis Brooks, president of the Elbert County Chamber of Commerce.

The four vertical slabs that dominate the Guidestones are inscribed back and front with Christian's 10 principles, each side in a different modern language. The capstone is inscribed in the alphabets of early human civilizations -- Egyptian hieroglyphics, Babylonian cuneiform, Sanskrit and classical Greek.

The center column has a slot through which the transit of the sun throughout the seasons can be observed, while a hole higher up focuses on Polaris, the north star. Another hole in the capstone focuses a beam of sunlight onto the central pillar at noon. Those features would allow the survivors of Christian's feared apocalypse to reproduce three of the basic tools of civilization: the calendar, clock and compass.

Loris Magnani, an astronomy professor at the University of Georgia, questions how useful the Guidestones would be to survivors of civilization-ending cataclysm. The devices incorporated into the stones are "relatively easy stuff" that most human societies have developed early in their histories, he said.

"Don't get me wrong. As a monument, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with doing that," Magnani told CNN. But he added, "Every decent civilization going back to a couple of millennia before Christ has figured this out. How to make gasoline? Now that would be useful."

But it's the written messages of the Guidestones that have drawn the most criticism.

Most are innocuous, calling on readers to rule their passions with "tempered reason," avoid "petty laws and useless officials" and "prize truth, beauty, love ... seeking harmony with the infinite." They end with the advice, "Be not a cancer on the Earth -- leave room for nature."

But the first two -- which call for limiting human population to half a billion, less than 10 percent of today's numbers, and guiding reproduction "wisely" -- have led some to call the Guidestones a call to genocide and the "Ten Commandments of the Antichrist."

In recent years, the monument has been hit by vandals who see in it the creed of a shadowy "New World Order" bent on subjugating humanity. It has been tagged at least three times since 2008, leaving scrawls of "God is stronger than the NWO," vague threats of destruction and various crudities across the granite.

"The worst was they put a two-part epoxy over two faces," said Mart Clamp, whose father helped carve the stones. "You just can't pressure-wash it off, you have to get in there with a hammer-type tool and beat it off."

Christian left behind a 1986 book, "Common Sense Renewed," that is still for sale at the Elberton Granite Museum. Many of the concerns he lists in it wouldn't be out of place at a modern Republican gathering: growing entitlement spending, stifling regulation, the breakdown of the traditional family.

But he also warned that the world's problems were symptoms of overpopulation, turning civilization as we knew into an "atomic tinderbox," and requiring some limited form of world government to save mankind from annihilation, he concluded.

It is that kind of talk that disturbs people like Van Smith, who has written extensively about the Guidestones on his Web site. Contacted at his home in Arkansas, said the future that Christian describes in his book "is totalitarian."

"It's Platonic in many ways, but it's extremely oppressive," Smith said.

And he says encoded within the dimensions of the stones is the height in feet of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, now the world's tallest building. To him, that suggests the builders knew of plans to build a new Tower of Babel, ushering in "the dawning of a new era in which man can become God."

"I'm not a conspiracy lunatic who spends all my time researching Freemasonry and things like that," said Smith, a computer industry analyst. But he told CNN, "This evidence is extremely real, and it's disturbing."

The locals don't buy it.

"I know the men who put this up, and they were all good men," said Clamp, who is working to clean up the stones ahead of their anniversary. "My father was one of those men. If this had been anything satanic or demonic, they never would have had anything to do with it."

Brooks said that most in Elberton view the stones as "a work of art" that draws tourists, and "we don't get wrapped up so much in what they say."

"But they do still have a draw to" -- she pauses -- "to a different sector of people."

And the chatter from that sector has made Elberton leery of celebrating their landmark's 30th birthday.

"With the damage that had been done to the Guidestones and a lot of things that were out there on YouTube, it was just decided that maybe we might wait for another year to do it," Brooks said.

The mystery man is dead now. Martin knows this because the man's son got in touch with him recently. Only two people in Elberton met him face-to-face -- Martin and Joe Fendley, the contractor who built the monument.

Fendley, who went on to become the town's mayor, is dead now, too. But Martin, now 79 and living a few towns down the road, said he remains bound by his pledge to keep the secret.

"That was a gentleman's agreement between us, and he lived with it and I've lived with it," he said. "When I'm dead and gone, nobody will ever know who put it there."

 

[oneofmany]

'I Love Those Gigantic Tits'

'I Love Those Gigantic Tits'​

A HEATHROW security man was quizzed by police after ogling a girl colleague "naked" in a new anti-terror body scanner.

Jo Margetson, 29, reported John Laker, 25, after he took her picture with the X-ray gadget and made a lewd comment.

The pervy guard leered and told her: "I love those gigantic tits."

She had entered the X-ray machine by mistake - and was horrified when Laker pressed a button to take a revealing photo.

Laker, who faces the sack, was the first airport worker to be caught abusing the controversial new devices.

They were brought in by the Government after the Christmas Day underpants bomber tried to blow up a flight to Detroit.

They produce full-body "nude" images of passengers to locate hidden weapons or explosives. This includes clear outlines of genitalia.

Opponents of the scanners, including anti-paedophile groups, have furiously condemned their use.

After Laker sneaked a look at her body and made the remark, horrified Jo told her bosses and police at the West London airport.

Both work for airport operator BAA. Last night Jo told The Sun at her home in Stanwell, Middlesex: "I can't bear to think about the body scanner thing.

"I'm totally traumatised. I've spoken to the police about it. I'm in too much of a state to go to work."

Laker was questioned by cops and on Monday was given a formal warning for harassment, which is one level below a caution.

Critics of the body scanners had warned of just such an abuse.

Barrister Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, said: "When privacy-invading machines are installed at our airports, abuses like this are inevitable.

"We are disturbed to hear of this case, which will lead to greater calls for these scanners to be banned.

"For every official caught ogling like this, there are plenty more eyeing up law-abiding travellers. These expensive machines are totally disproportionate."

Civil rights group Action On Rights For Children claimed the scanners could breach laws against indecent images of children.

And the Equality and Human Rights Commission has claimed they may breach privacy rights.

Heathrow and Manchester airports were first to get the scanners.Birmingham and Gatwick will have them later this year.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis defended their use. He said: "A pat-down search is intrusive but people accept that.

"A body scanner is in the same category. Images are deleted and staff are properly trained and supervised."

A BAA spokesman said: "We are aware an allegation has been made against a member of staff and we are currently investigating.

"We treat any allegations of inappropriate behaviour or misuse of security equipment very seriously."

 

[Lamarr]

Required RFID implanted chip? Help Me Out Here, Please ! ! !

BOTH HOUSE AND SENATE HEALTH BILLS REQUIRE THE MICRO CHIPPING OF AMERICANS – 3/18/10
Required RFID implanted chip
Sec. 2521, Pg. 1000 – The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. What does a National Medical Device Registry mean?

National Medical Device Registry from H.R. 3200 [Healthcare Bill], pages 1001-1008:

(g)(1) The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that— ‘‘(A) is or has been used in or on a patient; ‘‘(B)and is— ‘‘(i) a class III device; or ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable, life-supporting, or life-sustaining.”

Then on page 1004 it describes what the term “data” means in paragraph 1,

section B:
‘‘(B) In this paragraph, the term ‘data’ refers to information respecting a device described in paragraph (1), including claims data, patient survey data, standardized analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of data from disparate data environments, electronic health records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the Secretary”

What exactly is a class II device that is implantable? Approved by the FDA, a class II implantable device is an “implantable radio frequency transponder system for patient identification and health information.” The purpose of a class II device is to collect data in medical patients such as “claims data, patient survey data, standardized analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of data from disparate data environments, electronic health records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the Secretary.”

See it for yourself: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Medica...onandGuidance/GuidanceDocuments/ucm072191.pdf

This new law – when fully implemented – provides the framework for making the United States the first nation in the world to require each and every one of its citizens to have implanted in them a radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip for the purpose of controlling who is, or isn’t, allowed medical care in their country.

Don’t believe it? Look it up yourself. Healthcare Bill H.R. 3200: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/AAHCA09001xml.pdf

Pages 1001-1008 “National Medical Device Registry” section.
Page 1006 “to be enacted within 36 months upon passage”
Page 503 “… medical device surveillance”

Why would the government use the word “surveillance” when referring to citizens? The definition of “surveillance” is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people and often in a secret manner. The root of the word [French] means to “watch over.”

In theory, the intent to streamline healthcare and to eliminate fraud via “health chips” seems right. But, to have the world’s lone superpower (America, for now) mandate (page 1006) a device to be IMPLANTED is scary!

 

[oneofmany]

Australia Aboriginal youths 28 times more likely to end up in jail

Australia Aboriginal youths 28 times more likely to end up in jail​

Sydney – The death of several Australian Aborigines who have died in prison or police custody around the country recently has underscored the disproportionately high percentage of Aborigines among the country’s incarcerated – a result in part of overcrowded housing and low education rates that go hand in hand with violence and petty crime. But discrimination is also to blame, say critics.

The picture is especially bleak for young indigenous people, who are 28 times more likely to end up in juvenile detention according to the latest official figures. In one notorious case last November, police charged a 12-year-old boy in Western Australia with receiving a chocolate frog allegedly stolen from a supermarket.

Aboriginal adults are six times more likely to be arrested than other Australians and 13 times more likely to be jailed. In the Northern Territory, they make up 80 percent of the prison population although only one-third of the territory’s residents are indigenous.

Arrested for drunkenness, Doomadgee dies in jail. A young man named Mulrunji Doomadgee, of Palm Island off Queensland’s coast, was one such Australian Aborigine who was caught up in the criminal justice system. Arrested for drunkenness and swearing, he was found dead in a cell after a struggle with the policeman who had brought him in, Chris Hurley.

Critics say Doomadgee’s offense is precisely the type that does not warrant automatic arrest and imprisonment.

“The initial apprehension and locking up of Mulrunji Doomadgee were as much an issue as what happened afterwards,” says Chris Cunneen, a law professor at the University of New South Wales. “They showed how police are far too ready to arrest and take aboriginal people into custody in situations where there would be alternatives available.”

In a 2005 inquest into Doomadgee's death, Mr. Hurley – the first officer ever charged in relation to the death of an Aborigine in custody – was found responsible for the prisoner's fatal injuries. But he was acquitted of manslaughter and continues to serve in the Queensland force. A second inquest was launched earlier this month, at the same time that relatives and supporters of another prisoner who died in state custody, Stephen Currie, were protesting at the state parliament building in Brisbane.

Meanwhile, a number of Palm Islanders, who in 2004 protested Doomadgee’s death, are serving jail sentences.

Alfred Lacey, the island’s mayor, says that while the protesters were quickly jailed, he and his fellow Aborigines are still waiting for justice to be served in Doomadgee’s case.

“The law was very quick to move on the blackfellas [Aborigines] after the rioting and make sure they got locked up,” argues Mr. Lacey. “But we’re still waiting for justice on the other side of the fence. That’s the reason why aboriginal people in this country will never have faith in the system: It doesn’t treat us equally."

Royal commission's recommendations not implementedTwo decades ago, a royal commission studying indigenous deaths in custody found that aboriginal people were much more likely to be incarcerated than their white counterparts. Among its key recommendations were that arrests should be made only if absolutely necessary and suspects should be imprisoned only as a last resort.

Social justice campaigners say there is little sign of that advice being heeded today.

Criminologists say there are numerous reasons why indigenous Australians are detained and locked up in much higher numbers than everyone else. Overpolicing is one, they say. But social and economic disadvantage also plays a major part. Aboriginal populations have elevated rates of poverty and unemployment. They live in overcrowded housing, have poorer health, and are relatively uneducated. All these factors contribute to violence and petty crime.

'Justice reinvestment' approachThe Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), an independent statutory body, wants the government to try to reduce the number of aboriginal people in custody by diverting some public funds that would be spent on imprisonment into problem communities. The “justice reinvestment” approach is aimed at preventing young people, in particular, from offending by providing community services and programs that address the causes of crime.

In parts of the United States, this approach has been implemented with apparently strong results. According to the AHRC, there was a 72 percent drop in juvenile incarceration in Oregon after funds were reinvested in restorative justice and community service programs.

The AHRC’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda, says: “One of the biggest problems we have in this country is denial of racism. I keep saying to people: Come and live in my world for a while and you might change your opinion.”

 

[oneofmany]

From 1 to 1.2B, India counting and ID'ing citizens

From 1 to 1.2B, India counting and ID'ing citizens​

NEW DELHI – India began a yearlong census of its billion-plus population in which it plans to photograph and fingerprint every citizen over the age of 15 to create a national database and then issue its first national identity cards.

About 2.5 million census-takers began traveling across more than 630,000 villages and 5,000 cities Thursday in an effort to visit every structure serving as a home, from tin shanties to skyscrapers, in what the government calls the world's largest administrative exercise.

For the first time, they will note the availability of toilets, drinking water and electricity, and the type of building materials to create a comprehensive picture of housing in India. They will also take fingerprints and photographs of each person and collect information on Internet, mobile phone and bank account usage.

The census-takers — mostly local government officials or schoolteachers — also plan to include millions of homeless people who sleep on railway platforms, under bridges and in parks.

So far, India has not had a system of national identity cards. The collection of fingerprints and photographs will be linked with another massive exercise launched last year to assign every Indian an identity number.

"It is for the first time in human history that an attempt is being made to identify, count, enumerate and record and eventually issue an identity card to 1.2 billion people," Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said.

The total cost will reach 57 billion rupees ($1.2 billion), the government said.

Most Indians welcome the ID cards, saying they will reduce the need for multiple identification papers and make it easier to receive government benefits and services.

Wealthy Indians can flash a combination of passports, driver's licenses and credit cards to establish who they are. But the poor — who often don't possess birth certificates — are forced to rely on electricity bills, ration cards, voting cards or letters from local officials, none of which is foolproof and often come at the cost of hefty bribes.

"It's a very good move," Raviranjan Sinha, a retiree in the eastern city of Patna, said of the plan for national identity cards and numbers. "It will bring some uniformity to the jumble of paperwork we are faced with."

"If this is true, there can be nothing better," said Kanhai Lal Gupta, a vegetable vendor in the northern city of Lucknow who makes less than $2 a day. "I hope we won't have to pay bribes to get this card."

A separate law making primary education compulsory came into effect Thursday, opening the door for impoverished children who have been denied school admission because of a lack of documents such as birth certificates.

At New Delhi's imposing pink sandstone presidential palace, President Pratibha Patil's household became the first to be registered Thursday in the first phase of the census, known as "house-listing."

While China, the world's most populous country, also counts its population, its census is carried out by various agencies, including Communist Party units, commune leaders and factory heads, unlike the single Registrar and Census Commission that carries out India's count.

India's population of nearly 1.2 billion is growing at more than 1.4 percent a year, while China, with about 1.3 billion people, is growing at a much lower 0.65 percent, according to the CIA World Fact Book.

India's census will face a special challenge from left-wing extremists active in 20 of the country's 28 states who have stepped up a campaign of violent attacks on government officials.

The census-takers plan to finish their work by February 2011. The information will be used for government policymaking, planning and budget allocations.

This will be India's 15th census held without interruption at the start of every decade. Census operations in India were begun in 1872 by British colonial rulers.

 

[LennyNero1972]

Required RFID implanted chip? Help Me Out Here, Please ! ! !

BOTH HOUSE AND SENATE HEALTH BILLS REQUIRE THE MICRO CHIPPING OF AMERICANS – 3/18/10
Required RFID implanted chip
Sec. 2521, Pg. 1000 – The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. What does a National Medical Device Registry mean?

National Medical Device Registry from H.R. 3200 [Healthcare Bill], pages 1001-1008:

(g)(1) The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that— ‘‘(A) is or has been used in or on a patient; ‘‘(B)and is— ‘‘(i) a class III device; or ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable, life-supporting, or life-sustaining.”

Then on page 1004 it describes what the term “data” means in paragraph 1,

section B:
‘‘(B) In this paragraph, the term ‘data’ refers to information respecting a device described in paragraph (1), including claims data, patient survey data, standardized analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of data from disparate data environments, electronic health records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the Secretary”

What exactly is a class II device that is implantable? Approved by the FDA, a class II implantable device is an “implantable radio frequency transponder system for patient identification and health information.” The purpose of a class II device is to collect data in medical patients such as “claims data, patient survey data, standardized analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of data from disparate data environments, electronic health records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the Secretary.”

See it for yourself: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Medica...onandGuidance/GuidanceDocuments/ucm072191.pdf

This new law – when fully implemented – provides the framework for making the United States the first nation in the world to require each and every one of its citizens to have implanted in them a radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip for the purpose of controlling who is, or isn’t, allowed medical care in their country.

Don’t believe it? Look it up yourself. Healthcare Bill H.R. 3200: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/AAHCA09001xml.pdf

Pages 1001-1008 “National Medical Device Registry” section.
Page 1006 “to be enacted within 36 months upon passage”
Page 503 “… medical device surveillance”

Why would the government use the word “surveillance” when referring to citizens? The definition of “surveillance” is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people and often in a secret manner. The root of the word [French] means to “watch over.”

In theory, the intent to streamline healthcare and to eliminate fraud via “health chips” seems right. But, to have the world’s lone superpower (America, for now) mandate (page 1006) a device to be IMPLANTED is scary!

This is what everybody asked for. Think the movie Repo Men.

 

[Panameno718]

All the sheeple who worship the system itself(big government) dont know that they are getting ready to accept the mark of the beast voluntary.

Microchiping included in Healthcare Bill ?

Required RFID implanted chip? Help Me Out Here, Please ! ! !

BOTH HOUSE AND SENATE HEALTH BILLS REQUIRE THE MICRO CHIPPING OF AMERICANS – 3/18/10
Required RFID implanted chip
Sec. 2521, Pg. 1000 – The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. What does a National Medical Device Registry mean?

National Medical Device Registry from H.R. 3200 [Healthcare Bill], pages 1001-1008:

(g)(1) The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that— ‘‘(A) is or has been used in or on a patient; ‘‘(B)and is— ‘‘(i) a class III device; or ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable, life-supporting, or life-sustaining.”

Then on page 1004 it describes what the term “data” means in paragraph 1,

section B:
‘‘(B) In this paragraph, the term ‘data’ refers to information respecting a device described in paragraph (1), including claims data, patient survey data, standardized analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of data from disparate data environments, electronic health records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the Secretary”

What exactly is a class II device that is implantable? Approved by the FDA, a class II implantable device is an “implantable radio frequency transponder system for patient identification and health information.” The purpose of a class II device is to collect data in medical patients such as “claims data, patient survey data, standardized analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of data from disparate data environments, electronic health records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the Secretary.”

See it for yourself: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Medica...onandGuidance/GuidanceDocuments/ucm072191.pdf

This new law – when fully implemented – provides the framework for making the United States the first nation in the world to require each and every one of its citizens to have implanted in them a radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip for the purpose of controlling who is, or isn’t, allowed medical care in their country.

Don’t believe it? Look it up yourself. Healthcare Bill H.R. 3200: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/AAHCA09001xml.pdf

Pages 1001-1008 “National Medical Device Registry” section.
Page 1006 “to be enacted within 36 months upon passage”
Page 503 “… medical device surveillance”

Why would the government use the word “surveillance” when referring to citizens? The definition of “surveillance” is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people and often in a secret manner. The root of the word [French] means to “watch over.”

In theory, the intent to streamline healthcare and to eliminate fraud via “health chips” seems right. But, to have the world’s lone superpower (America, for now) mandate (page 1006) a device to be IMPLANTED is scary!

This is what everybody asked for. Think the movie Repo Men.

 

[Panameno718]

The Cashless Society – Alex Jones on Economics 101

 

[oneofmany]

Australia to appoint population minister; develop strategy

Australia to appoint population minister; develop strategy​

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia is to create a new government post of minister for population tasked of developing an official population strategy, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Saturday.

Tony Burke, currently minister for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, will add the new job to his current portfolio, Rudd said. The new strategy is expected to take 12 months to develop.

Recent estimates have suggested Australia's population could grow by more than 50 percent to around 35 million in the coming decades, from its current level of around 22 million, fuelled largely by immigration.

This has prompted concerns about whether such an increase is sustainable in the world's driest continent.

Rudd said the objective was to look at the challenges and opportunities population growth would bring, examine its likely trajectory, minimise the risks and consider what infrastructure would be needed.

"The strategy will also seek to address the challenges associated with population growth, including the impact on the environment, water, and urban congestion," Rudd said.

An election is due later this year, but Rudd said he hoped development of a population strategy would continue whether the Labour government or conservative opposition won it.

 

[oneofmany]

Wikileaks leaked video of Civilians killed in Baghdad - Full video

Wikileaks leaked video of Civilians killed in Baghdad - Full video

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/is9sxRfU-ik&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/is9sxRfU-ik&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

 

[Cruise]

I periodically go through this thead to remind myself how f***ed the world is.

People just sit back and tolerate it. I guess we're too busy being entertained and distracted to really notice.

I wonder, how is the United States any better than a Dictatorship?

 

[oneofmany]

Net neutrality faces serious setbacks

Net neutrality faces serious setbacks​

First, a primer for the uninitiated on "net neutrality."

Net (as in network) neutrality is the idea that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally and — more to the point — should come at the same price. Right now, for instance, you don't have to pay more to watch a YouTube video than you do to check your email, even though the YouTube video eats up more bandwidth and, in theory, costs your ISP more for you to watch.

Websites and most consumers love the idea of net neutrality.

ISPs, on the other hand, are not fans. In fact, the net neutrality movement arose as a response to major ISPs' plans to attempt to charge websites and service providers more for "better" service on their networks. Fail to pay up and that YouTube video might take twice as long to download ... or it may not download at all.

ISPs call this the cost of doing business and a necessary reality in an era where bandwidth isn't growing but the amount of data being pushed through the available pipes is.

Net neutrality proponents call this extortion.
No matter who is right, things were looking up for net neutrality fans after the FCC and the Obama administration came out with specific and strongly worded recommendations and plans that they would push for net neutrality as the Obama broadband program (100Mbps to everyone!) moved forward.

But the showdown had already begun prior to the Obama era, way back in 2007, when Comcast, the country's largest cable company, began throttling BitTorrent downloads, effectively putting a speed limit on how fast they could go. The FCC put the kibosh on the practice, and ISPs, led by the mammoth Comcast, sued. Then the FCC announced even more sweeping rules that it planned to enact in the future.

This week, a major legal ruling was handed down in the Comcast case, and the tide has now turned in favor of the ISPs. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals said that the FCC had overstepped its authority in mandating net neutrality and that ISPs should be free to manage traffic however they see fit, noting that under current law, the FCC does not have "untrammeled freedom" to regulate broadband services. (In other words, Congress would have to specifically grant such powers.) The ruling was unanimous among the three judges on the panel.

Now net neutrality fans find themselves facing a serious uphill climb. Not only does the ruling open up the way — for now — for ISPs to ask websites and service providers for money; it might also allow them to restrict certain services from running on their networks entirely. Comcast, for example, may not want you to watch Hulu on its service, since then you'd have less of a reason to pay $60 a month for cable TV. It may also be able to ban VOIP services like Skype, so you'll pony up another $20 for wired telephone service. The dominoes are already lining up.

What happens now? The FCC has more tricks up its sleeve. As the MSNBC story above notes, broadband service could be reclassified to fall under the other heavily regulated telecommunications services that the FCC oversees, but that would likely result in additional legal wrangling and longer delays for the broadband plan to go into effect, a so-called nuclear option that would turn the world of broadband into a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare.

If it doesn't take this route, the FCC will instead have to ask Congress for the power to implement net neutrality rules as it sees fit, but that's a political game in a time when Washington seems awfully low on political capital. Don't rule out an appeal to the Supreme Court, either.

Stay tuned — for as long as your Internet service holds out, anyway.

 

[mk23666]

I periodically go through this thead to remind myself how f***ed the world is.

People just sit back and tolerate it. I guess we're too busy being entertained and distracted to really notice.

I wonder, how is the United States any better than a Dictatorship?

Better PR?

 

[oneofmany]

George W. Bush 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent'

George W. Bush 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent'​

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.

General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration.

Colonel Wilkerson, a long-time critic of the Bush Administration’s approach to counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq, claimed that the majority of detainees — children as young as 12 and men as old as 93, he said — never saw a US soldier when they were captured. He said that many were turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for up to $5,000. Little or no evidence was produced as to why they had been taken.

He also claimed that one reason Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld did not want the innocent detainees released was because “the detention efforts would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were”. This was “not acceptable to the Administration and would have been severely detrimental to the leadership at DoD [Mr Rumsfeld at the Defence Department]”.

Referring to Mr Cheney, Colonel Wilkerson, who served 31 years in the US Army, asserted: “He had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent ... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it.”

He alleged that for Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld “innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader War on Terror and the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks”.

He added: “I discussed the issue of the Guantánamo detainees with Secretary Powell. I learnt that it was his view that it was not just Vice-President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld, but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making.”

Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld, Colonel Wilkerson said, deemed the incarceration of innocent men acceptable if some genuine militants were captured, leading to a better intelligence picture of Iraq at a time when the Bush Administration was desperate to find a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, “thus justifying the Administration’s plans for war with that country”.

He signed the declaration in support of Adel Hassan Hamad, a Sudanese man who was held at Guantánamo Bay from March 2003 until December 2007. Mr Hamad claims that he was tortured by US agents while in custody and yesterday filed a damages action against a list of American officials.

Defenders of Guantánamo said that detainees began to be released as early as September 2002, nine months after the first prisoners were sent to the jail at the US naval base in Cuba. By the time Mr Bush left office more than 530 detainees had been freed.

A spokesman for Mr Bush said of Colonel Wilkerson’s allegations: “We are not going to have any comment on that.” A former associate to Mr Rumsfeld said that Mr Wilkerson's assertions were completely untrue.

The associate said the former Defence Secretary had worked harder than anyone to get detainees released and worked assiduously to keep the prison population as small as possible. Mr Cheney’s office did not respond.

There are currently about 180 detainees left in the facility.