Beast System: Laying The Foundation Of The Beast

[oneofmany]

State Lawmaker Fights National ID Card

State Lawmaker Fights National ID Card​

Troubled by the gradual erosion of civil liberties and privacy rights in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, a Pennsylvania state lawmaker has introduced legislation that would exempt Pennsylvania from a federal mandate, imposed by the REAL ID Act, requiring a national identification card.

"In the post-9/11 era, there is the sense by some that we should strip away privacy rights, if that's perceived as what's necessary to stave off terrorism," said state Sen. Mike Folmer (R-Lebanon). "A national ID system will redefine privacy as we know it, create a mountain of new bureaucracy and increase fees and taxes - without making us any safer."

Mr. Folmer's legislation signifies a growing opposition among state lawmakers to the mandates, which are largely unfunded, imposed by the REAL ID Act. Passed in 2005 as a response to the report issued by the 9/11 Commission, the act seeks to transform state driver's licenses into an identification card used by the federal government. Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina have already enacted statutes similar to Mr. Folmer's plan to resist the ID card.

"We are optimistic that once we educate people on the impact REAL ID will have on their wallets and privacy, as well as headaches from the motor vehicles, the citizens of Pennsylvania will rally behind the bill," stated Joe Sterns, spokesman for Mr. Folmer.

Under the REAL ID Act, state driver's licenses must satisfy certain federal criteria. State driver's licenses must contain standard information, such as name, address, birth date, photograph, but they also must contain a "machine readable zone" that makes the information easy to capture. If the state driver's license does not meet the criteria, it will not be accepted for federal purpose, such as boarding aircraft and residents would have to rely on other forms of identification, such as a passport.

The REAL ID Act also mandates that the states establish a database of information on individuals that easily accessible by other states, and it also requires states to retain digital scans of key identification documents, such as birth certificates and Social Security cards, for at least 10 years.

Such requirements have caused many groups to speculate on the costs of the REAL ID Act. The National Conference of States Legislatures has estimated the act's mandates will cost $11 billion over a five-year period, a figure 100 times more than the $100 million cost estimated by Congress.

"Even with a reliable list of terrorists, the authorities will miss anyone who is not previously known to be a threat," Mr. Folmer said. "The terrorists are patient. They'll do whatever it takes to legally maneuver around whatever roadblocks we put up."

 

[oneofmany]

Diabetic in coma shot with Taser out of fear he was suicide bomber

Diabetic in coma shot with Taser out of fear he was suicide bomber​

A man who slipped into a diabetic coma on a bus was shot twice with a Taser gun because police mistook him for an Arab suicide bomber.

Nicholas Gaubert, 34, had left work and was on his way to meet friends when he suffered a hypoglycaemic attack on the top deck of a bus in Leeds. When he was found slumped in his seat at the end of the journey, clutching a black rucksack, the bus driver became suspicious and an armed police unit was called into action.

Firearms officers boarded the empty vehicle, which had arrived at a bus depot, and, when the helpless man was unable to respond to their instructions, they shot him twice with the electric stun gun. When he later came round, handcuffed, in the back of a police van, Mr Gaubert, a call-centre worker, thought initially that he had been kidnapped. He was told that he had been arrested as a suspected terrorist. Only when Mr Gaubert explained that he had diabetes and needed urgent medical attention did the police take him to hospital, where they insisted that he should remain in handcuffs during his treatment. He says that when West Yorkshire Police finally realised they had detained an innocent man, he was offered only a half-hearted apology and told that officers had thought he “looked Egyptian”.

Mr Gaubert, 34, had the misfortune to suffer his fit on July 13, 2005, six days after three Tube trains and a London bus were bombed by Islamist terrorists. A day before his bus trip, Leeds had been placed on high alert after the discovery that three of the four 7/7 bombers came from the city.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) conducted a lengthy inquiry into the incident and referred its findings to the Crown Prosecution Service. Mr Gaubert learnt recently, however, that neither the West Yorkshire force nor any of its officers was to be charged with any offences in relation to the shooting. The two officers on the bus have also not yet faced any internal disciplinary action. The IPCC is said to have rejected proposed sanctions against the pair as inadequate. Mr Gaubert is now preparing to take legal action against the police. He said yesterday that he could not escape the parallels between his case and that of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian man mistakenly shot dead by police in London nine days later. He said: “I broke down when the de Menezes case was reported. I just kept thinking it could have been me.” After the incident, a West Yorkshire Police spokesman justified the shooting by explaining: “Officers made repeated requests for the man to get off the bus or acknowledge them, but he did not respond.”

Ifti Manzoor, of Irwin Mitchell, the law firm that is representing Mr Gaubert, said that he had been instructed “to take legal action against the police for unlawful arrest as well as the unlawful use of excessive force”.

 

[oneofmany]

Now passengers need ID to travel within Britain

Surveillance: Ferries crossing the Irish Sea will be checked​

Now passengers need ID to travel within Britain​

Passengers on domestic flights and ferries between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland will be required to carry identity papers for the first time from next year.

The move will effectively establish a highly controversial internal border within the UK and could pave the way for identity checks on all domestic flights and ferries in Britain.

Once operational, the system will allow the police to build up a complete picture of passenger movements between Ulster and the mainland.

And it will enable them to carry out background checks to identify suspected criminals and potential terrorists.

The move comes as police and security services are pushing for wider access to information on passenger movements within Britain, whether by air, sea or national rail and coach networks.

Last night, Unionists said the proposals were tantamount to treating people from the Province as "second-class citizens".

Under the new system, personal information given by a passenger when purchasing a ticket will be checked on police computers looking for possible suspects.

Travellers will also be required to produce a valid passport or driving licence to buy a ticket.

The system is similar to that already in place to check those travelling to and from Britain on international flights and allows intelligence services to "profile" suspects, looking for patterns of criminal behaviour.

The Home Office last night confirmed the measures would be introduced next year using a so-called "statutory instrument" signed off by Home Secretary-Jacqui Smith, without the need for a full debate in the Commons.

The Government said the move will enforce powers included in the Police and Justice Act 2006 which allows officers to monitor all "flights and voyages" starting in the UK.

An "impact assessment" document on the plans said discussions were taking place with travel companies about the possibility of delays being caused as the information is collected.

The Home Office publication, written last year, also said the "rationale" behind the system is to provide the police with "essential intelligence".

It stated: "It is often the case that domestic travel forms part of a journey beginning or ending overseas.

"For example, having arrived in the Republic or Northern Ireland from overseas, terrorist targets may then use domestic air and sea routes for travel to...the UK mainland."

"The lack of data on the domestic leg of such journeys creates a critical gap in the intelligence picture."

MP Jeffrey Donaldson, of the Democratic Unionist Party, said the proposals were an "outrage".

He said: "It treats the people of Northern Ireland as second-class citizens and if it goes ahead it will be challenged in the courts.

"We are as concerned about our security as anyone else in the United Kingdom but these measures should be put in place on the land border with the Irish Republic."

Tony Bunyan, of civil liberties organisation Statewatch, said: "The Government is using the fear of terrorism to build up an apparatus of far-ranging social control that allows them to build up a complete picture of our lives."

Former Europe Minister Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs select committee, which is carrying out an inquiry into the "Surveillance Society", last night said he would raise the issue with Ministers next week.

He said: "This is a civil liberties issue. It needs to be debated fully by Parliament."

 

[oneofmany]

The Facebook betrayal - users revolt over advertising sell-out

The Facebook betrayal - users revolt over advertising sell-out​

It used to be a great way to swap student party drinking stories. Office workers embraced it as a chance for a quick escape from the daily drudgery – until their bosses banned it. And 50-something parents marvelled at a virtual window on what their children were up to. That is the appeal of Facebook, which in little more than a year has exploded from an elite student-only club into a global social networking phenomenon with more than 54 million users.

But with Facebook's latest attempt to turn those users into dollars, the site that was started in 2004 as a way for one Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg, to stay in touch with his classmates has grown up faster than a child who has just found out the truth about Father Christmas. Like that kid on Christmas Eve, the innocence of Facebook's users, including almost 11 million in the UK, has been shattered by the site's decision to fall into the clutches of the corporate world.

First Facebook, which is run by the 23-year-old Mr Zuckerberg, sold Microsoft a 1.6 per cent stake for $240m (valuing the site at a staggering $15bn) and then it announced plans to plaster users' mugshots on advertisements for products that they like. Its new strategy, dubbed "social advertising", is a twist on word-of-mouth marketing and will turn its users into cyber ambassadors for commercial brands, often unwittingly. Unwittingly, because all most Facebook users know about the site's plans came via a brief blog posting when they logged on 11 days ago.

The new technology will also allow businesses to build custom-designed "pages" on the social networking site. Users can become "fans" of a company's page, which means any interaction with that brand will be broadcast to their Facebook friends.

Privacy campaigners are up in arms about Facebook's move, lambasting the company for selling out its users to the highest bidders – companies such as Coca-Cola, Sony, Verizon and Blockbuster.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the Centre for Digital Democracy in Washington, warned yesterday that Facebook has mounted a "massive invasion of user privacy". He added: "The authorities need to crack down on Facebook and MySpace to stop data collection and make sure people's privacy is respected." He wants regulators, including the European Commission's Privacy Authority, to investigate.

Deborah Pierce, who heads the lobby group Privacy Activism, said: "Users should be concerned. They have no idea who has access to information about them from the site."

In the US, legal experts, such as the University of Minnesota law professor William McGeveran, have queried whether Facebook's ad strategy is even legal. He believes that under a 100-year-old New York privacy law users may be able to sue for damages if their photos are used for advertising purposes without their consent. (Facebook's privacy officer, Chris Kelly, begged to differ.)

Mr Zuckerberg, who dropped out of Harvard to expand the site, has few doubts. "The next 100 years are going to be different for advertisers, starting from today. For the past 100 years, media has been pushed to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation," he said.

It is early days, but so far Facebook's online community is not impressed at being sold out. Discussion groups have sprung up attacking the new ad strategy. One, "My photos are MINE! NOT Facebook's! Change the Terms and Conditions", has almost 35,000 members, while around 12,000 people have signed up to "Facebook: Do not sell my private pictures! Change your terms of use, NOW!"

Contrast that with the feeble 600 so-called "fans" that Coke has on its Facebook page. And Blockbuster, that US movie lending giant, has a whopping two "fans".

Web 2.0 observers warn that the Great Facebook Betrayal could backfire. Nichols Carr, a prominent technology author, wrote on his blog: "In breaking the illusion [that people's activities are not being monitored] Facebook is taking a big risk. It may set off a rebellion among its users, who up until now have felt comfortable cavorting behind Facebook's walls."

Facebook is not alone in battling to make money out of virtual communities. Rupert Murdoch's MySpace is among 30-plus social networks to back a Google-led alliance working on its own ad strategy.

Even a Facebook spokesman admits that users will have to opt out of being used as cyber ambassadors for companies "on a per-site basis". And just one-quarter of Facebook's users takes advantage of its privacy features.

Arguably most of them neither know nor care that they are being exploited. An entire generation, which thinks nothing of posting personal information online, is sleepwalking its way into a Big Brother state where ID card debates will be yesterday's news.

For those who do mind, however, the changes afoot in the world's top cyber communities – the blatant commercialism, the selling out and the cosying up to big brands – could prove to be the straw that broke the camel's back. New research out from Henley Centre Highlight Vision, one of WPP's strategic consultancies, shows a backlash against the likes of Facebook is already under way in favour of what's being called "Analogue Living". Could it be bye-bye Facebook and hello face-to-face socialising?

 

[GreedySmurf]

END GAME: Official Movie Eugenics

Synopsis: For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.

Pt. 1
[flash]http://www.youtube.com/v/veHhcxQjZ2w&rel=1[/flash]

Pt. 2
[flash]http://www.youtube.com/v/3ukluBe216k&rel=1[/flash]

Pt. 3
[flash]http://www.youtube.com/v/gfieXKN_Vbg&rel=1[/flash]

Pt. 4 - This is where they bring it to todays headlines; it gets very eye opening here
[flash]http://www.youtube.com/v/93iiHewRTFs&rel=1[/flash]

Pt. 5
[flash]http://www.youtube.com/v/uyMU0YhxsB0&rel=1[/flash]

Pt. 6
[flash]http://www.youtube.com/v/WBausDfswMA&rel=1[/flash]

 

[oneofmany]

Thousands protest US torture training

Thousands protest US torture training​

Thousands of Americans have demonstrated to demand closure of a US Defense Department training school which promotes torture and murder.

On Sunday, thousands of young North Americans demonstrated on the 18th annual protest to bring the message of hatred to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation located at Fort Benning in Columbus in the state of Georgia.

Protesters say the school teaches security personnel from Latin American countries to use repressive tactics and that graduates have overthrown legitimate governments. The school has even published how-to-do manuals for the torturers.

"Over the course of several decades people trained here have murdered and tortured hundreds if not thousands of people," said protester Bob Goodman of the Georgia Coalition for Peace and Justice.

Goodman said 20,000 people attended the two-day protest during which eleven people were arrested and charged with criminal trespass.

This institute is an entity of the US army, originally known as the School of the Americas and was set up after WWII in Panama for the purpose of providing training to officers and enlisted men from the various military services in Latin America.

 

[GreedySmurf]

[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Why the future doesn't need us.
[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]By Bill Joy[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Ray and I were both speakers at George Gilder's Telecosm conference, and I encountered him by chance in the bar of the hotel after both our sessions were over. I was sitting with John Searle, a Berkeley philosopher who studies consciousness. While we were talking, Ray approached and a conversation began, the subject of which haunts me to this day.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I had missed Ray's talk and the subsequent panel that Ray and John had been on, and they now picked right up where they'd left off, with Ray saying that the rate of improvement of technology was going to accelerate and that we were going to become robots or fuse with robots or something like that, and John countering that this couldn't happen, because the robots couldn't be conscious.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]While I had heard such talk before, I had always felt sentient robots were in the realm of science fiction. But now, from someone I respected, I was hearing a strong argument that they were a near-term possibility. I was taken aback, especially given Ray's proven ability to imagine and create the future. I already knew that new technologies like genetic engineering and nanotechnology were giving us the power to remake the world, but a realistic and imminent scenario for intelligent robots surprised me.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]It's easy to get jaded about such breakthroughs. We hear in the news almost every day of some kind of technological or scientific advance. Yet this was no ordinary prediction. In the hotel bar, Ray gave me a partial preprint of his then-forthcoming bookThe Age of Spiritual Machines, which outlined a utopia he foresaw - one in which humans gained near immortality by becoming one with robotic technology. On reading it, my sense of unease only intensified; I felt sure he had to be understating the dangers, understating the probability of a bad outcome along this path.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I found myself most troubled by a passage detailing adystopian scenario:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif] THE NEW LUDDITE CHALLENGE[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines' decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite - just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.1[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif] [/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]In the book, you don't discover until you turn the page that the author of this passage is Theodore Kaczynski - the Unabomber. I am no apologist for Kaczynski. His bombs killed three people during a 17-year terror campaign and wounded many others. One of his bombs gravely injured my friend David Gelernter, one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists of our time. Like many of my colleagues, I felt that I could easily have been the Unabomber's next target.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Kaczynski's actions were murderous and, in my view, criminally insane. He is clearly a Luddite, but simply saying this does not dismiss his argument; as difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, I saw some merit in the reasoning in this single passage. I felt compelled to confront it.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Kaczynski's dystopian vision describes unintended consequences, a well-known problem with the design and use of technology, and one that is clearly related to Murphy's law - "Anything that can go wrong, will." (Actually, this is Finagle's law, which in itself shows that Finagle was right.) Our overuse of antibiotics has led to what may be the biggest such problem so far: the emergence of antibiotic-resistant and much more dangerous bacteria. Similar things happened when attempts to eliminate malarial mosquitoes using DDT caused them to acquire DDT resistance; malarial parasites likewise acquired multi-drug-resistant genes.2[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The cause of many such surprises seems clear: The systems involved are complex, involving interaction among and feedback between many parts. Any changes to such a system will cascade in ways that are difficult to predict; this is especially true when human actions are involved.[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I started showing friends the Kaczynski quote fromThe Age of Spiritual Machines; I would hand them Kurzweil's book, let them read the quote, and then watch their reaction as they discovered who had written it. At around the same time, I found Hans Moravec's bookRobot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. Moravec is one of the leaders in robotics research, and was a founder of the world's largest robotics research program, at Carnegie Mellon University.Robot gave me more material to try out on my friends - material surprisingly supportive of Kaczynski's argument. For example:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif]The Short Run (Early 2000s) [/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Biological species almost never survive encounters with superior competitors. Ten million years ago, South and North America were separated by a sunken Panama isthmus. South America, like Australia today, was populated by marsupial mammals, including pouched equivalents of rats, deers, and tigers. When the isthmus connecting North and South America rose, it took only a few thousand years for the northern placental species, with slightly more effective metabolisms and reproductive and nervous systems, to displace and eliminate almost all the southern marsupials.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]In a completely free marketplace, superior robots would surely affect humans as North American placentals affected South American marsupials (and as humans have affected countless species). Robotic industries would compete vigorously among themselves for matter, energy, and space, incidentally driving their price beyond human reach. Unable to afford the necessities of life, biological humans would be squeezed out of existence. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]There is probably some breathing room, because we do not live in a completely free marketplace. Government coerces nonmarket behavior, especially by collecting taxes. Judiciously applied, governmental coercion could support human populations in high style on the fruits of robot labor, perhaps for a long while.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]A textbook dystopia - and Moravec is just getting wound up. He goes on to discuss how our main job in the 21st century will be "ensuring continued cooperation from the robot industries" by passing laws decreeing that they be "nice,"3 and to describe how seriously dangerous a human can be "once transformed into an unbounded superintelligent robot." Moravec's view is that the robots will eventually succeed us - that humans clearly face extinction.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I decided it was time to talk to my friend Danny Hillis. Danny became famous as the cofounder of Thinking Machines Corporation, which built a very powerful parallel supercomputer. Despite my current job title of Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems, I am more a computer architect than a scientist, and I respect Danny's knowledge of the information and physical sciences more than that of any other single person I know. Danny is also a highly regarded futurist who thinks long-term - four years ago he started the Long Now Foundation, which is building a clock designed to last 10,000 years, in an attempt to draw attention to the pitifully short attention span of our society. (See "Test of Time,"Wired 8.03, page 78.)[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]So I flew to Los Angeles for the express purpose of having dinner with Danny and his wife, Pati. I went through my now-familiar routine, trotting out the ideas and passages that I found so disturbing. Danny's answer - directed specifically at Kurzweil's scenario of humans merging with robots - came swiftly, and quite surprised me. He said, simply, that the changes would come gradually, and that we would get used to them.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]But I guess I wasn't totally surprised. I had seen a quote from Danny in Kurzweil's book in which he said, "I'm as fond of my body as anyone, but if I can be 200 with a body of silicon, I'll take it." It seemed that he was at peace with this process and its attendant risks, while I was not.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]While talking and thinking about Kurzweil, Kaczynski, and Moravec, I suddenly remembered a novel I had read almost 20 years ago -The White Plague, by Frank Herbert - in which a molecular biologist is driven insane by the senseless murder of his family. To seek revenge he constructs and disseminates a new and highly contagious plague that kills widely but selectively. (We're lucky Kaczynski was a mathematician, not a molecular biologist.) I was also reminded of the Borg ofStar Trek, a hive of partly biological, partly robotic creatures with a strong destructive streak. Borg-like disasters are a staple of science fiction, so why hadn't I been more concerned about such robotic dystopias earlier? Why weren't other people more concerned about these nightmarish scenarios?[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Part of the answer certainly lies in our attitude toward the new - in our bias toward instant familiarity and unquestioning acceptance. Accustomed to living with almost routine scientific breakthroughs, we have yet to come to terms with the fact that the most compelling 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology - pose a different threat than the technologies that have come before. Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once - but one bot can become many, and quickly get out of control.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Much of my work over the past 25 years has been on computer networking, where the sending and receiving of messages creates the opportunity for out-of-control replication. But while replication in a computer or a computer network can be a nuisance, at worst it disables a machine or takes down a network or network service. Uncontrolled self-replication in these newer technologies runs a much greater risk: a risk of substantial damage in the physical world.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Each of these technologies also offers untold promise: The vision of near immortality that Kurzweil sees in his robot dreams drives us forward; genetic engineering may soon provide treatments, if not outright cures, for most diseases; and nanotechnology and nanomedicine can address yet more ills. Together they could significantly extend our average life span and improve the quality of our lives. Yet, with each of these technologies, a sequence of small, individually sensible advances leads to an accumulation of great power and, concomitantly, great danger.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]What was different in the 20th century? Certainly, the technologies underlying the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) - were powerful, and the weapons an enormous threat. But building nuclear weapons required, at least for a time, access to both rare - indeed, effectively unavailable - raw materials and highly protected information; biological and chemical weapons programs also tended to require large-scale activities.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The 21st-century technologies - genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) - are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Thus we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Nothing about the way I got involved with computers suggested to me that I was going to be facing these kinds of issues.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]My life has been driven by a deep need to ask questions and find answers. When I was 3, I was already reading, so my father took me to the elementary school, where I sat on the principal's lap and read him a story. I started school early, later skipped a grade, and escaped into books - I was incredibly motivated to learn. I asked lots of questions, often driving adults to distraction.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]As a teenager I was very interested in science and technology. I wanted to be a ham radio operator but didn't have the money to buy the equipment. Ham radio was the Internet of its time: very addictive, and quite solitary. Money issues aside, my mother put her foot down - I was not to be a ham; I was antisocial enough already.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I may not have had many close friends, but I was awash in ideas. By high school, I had discovered the great science fiction writers. I remember especially Heinlein'sHave Spacesuit Will Travel and Asimov's I, Robot, with its Three Laws of Robotics. I was enchanted by the descriptions of space travel, and wanted to have a telescope to look at the stars; since I had no money to buy or make one, I checked books on telescope-making out of the library and read about making them instead. I soared in my imagination.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Thursday nights my parents went bowling, and we kids stayed home alone. It was the night of Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek, and the program made a big impression on me. I came to accept its notion that humans had a future in space, Western-style, with big heroes and adventures.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif] Roddenberry's vision of the centuries to come was one with strong moral values, embodied in codes like the Prime Directive: to not interfere in the development of less technologically advanced civilizations. This had an incredible appeal to me; ethical humans, not robots, dominated this future, and I took Roddenberry's dream as part of my own.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I excelled in mathematics in high school, and when I went to the University of Michigan as an undergraduate engineering student I took the advanced curriculum of the mathematics majors. Solving math problems was an exciting challenge, but when I discovered computers I found something much more interesting: a machine into which you could put a program that attempted to solve a problem, after which the machine quickly checked the solution. The computer had a clear notion of correct and incorrect, true and false. Were my ideas correct? The machine could tell me. This was very seductive.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I was lucky enough to get a job programming early supercomputers and discovered the amazing power of large machines to numerically simulate advanced designs. When I went to graduate school at UC Berkeley in the mid-1970s, I started staying up late, often all night, inventing new worlds inside the machines. Solving problems. Writing the code that argued so strongly to be written.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]InThe Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone's biographical novel of Michelangelo, Stone described vividly how Michelangelo released the statues from the stone, "breaking the marble spell," carving from the images in his mind.4 In my most ecstatic moments, the software in the computer emerged in the same way. Once I had imagined it in my mind I felt that it was already there in the machine, waiting to be released. Staying up all night seemed a small price to pay to free it - to give the ideas concrete form.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]After a few years at Berkeley I started to send out some of the software I had written - an instructional Pascal system, Unix utilities, and a text editor called vi (which is still, to my surprise, widely used more than 20 years later) - to others who had similar small PDP-11 and VAX minicomputers. These adventures in software eventually turned into the Berkeley version of the Unix operating system, which became a personal "success disaster" - so many people wanted it that I never finished my PhD. Instead I got a job working for Darpa putting Berkeley Unix on the Internet and fixing it to be reliable and to run large research applications well. This was all great fun and very rewarding. And, frankly, I saw no robots here, or anywhere near.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Still, by the early 1980s, I was drowning. The Unix releases were very successful, and my little project of one soon had money and some staff, but the problem at Berkeley was always office space rather than money - there wasn't room for the help the project needed, so when the other founders of Sun Microsystems showed up I jumped at the chance to join them. At Sun, the long hours continued into the early days of workstations and personal computers, and I have enjoyed participating in the creation of advanced microprocessor technologies and Internet technologies such as Java and Jini.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]From all this, I trust it is clear that I am not a Luddite. I have always, rather, had a strong belief in the value of the scientific search for truth and in the ability of great engineering to bring material progress. The Industrial Revolution has immeasurably improved everyone's life over the last couple hundred years, and I always expected my career to involve the building of worthwhile solutions to real problems, one problem at a time.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I have not been disappointed. My work has had more impact than I had ever hoped for and has been more widely used than I could have reasonably expected. I have spent the last 20 years still trying to figure out how to make computers as reliable as I want them to be (they are not nearly there yet) and how to make them simple to use (a goal that has met with even less relative success). Despite some progress, the problems that remain seem even more daunting.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]But while I was aware of the moral dilemmas surrounding technology's consequences in fields like weapons research, I did not expect that I would confront such issues in my own field, or at least not so soon.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Perhaps it is always hard to see the bigger impact while you are in the vortex of a change. Failing to understand the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists; we have long been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of science's quest, not stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I have long realized that the big advances in information technology come not from the work of computer scientists, computer architects, or electrical engineers, but from that of physical scientists. The physicists Stephen Wolfram and Brosl Hasslacher introduced me, in the early 1980s, to chaos theory and nonlinear systems. In the 1990s, I learned about complex systems from conversations with Danny Hillis, the biologist Stuart Kauffman, the Nobel-laureate physicist Murray Gell-Mann, and others. Most recently, Hasslacher and the electrical engineer and device physicist Mark Reed have been giving me insight into the incredible possibilities of molecular electronics.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]In my own work, as codesigner of three microprocessor architectures - SPARC, picoJava, and MAJC - and as the designer of several implementations thereof, I've been afforded a deep and firsthand acquaintance with Moore's law. For decades, Moore's law has correctly predicted the exponential rate of improvement of semiconductor technology. Until last year I believed that the rate of advances predicted by Moore's law might continue only until roughly 2010, when some physical limits would begin to be reached. It was not obvious to me that a new technology would arrive in time to keep performance advancing smoothly.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]But because of the recent rapid and radical progress in molecular electronics - where individual atoms and molecules replace lithographically drawn transistors - and related nanoscale technologies, we should be able to meet or exceed the Moore's law rate of progress for another 30 years. By 2030, we are likely to be able to build machines, in quantity, a million times as powerful as the personal computers of today - sufficient to implement the dreams of Kurzweil and Moravec.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]As this enormous computing power is combined with the manipulative advances of the physical sciences and the new, deep understandings in genetics, enormous transformative power is being unleashed. These combinations open up the opportunity to completely redesign the world, for better or worse: The replicating and evolving processes that have been confined to the natural world are about to become realms of human endeavor.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]In designing software and microprocessors, I have never had the feeling that I was designing an intelligent machine. The software and hardware is so fragile and the capabilities of the machine to "think" so clearly absent that, even as a possibility, this has always seemed very far in the future.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]But now, with the prospect of human-level computing power in about 30 years, a new idea suggests itself: that I may be working to create tools which will enable the construction of the technology that may replace our species. How do I feel about this? Very uncomfortable. Having struggled my entire career to build reliable software systems, it seems to me more than likely that this future will not work out as well as some people may imagine. My personal experience suggests we tend to overestimate our design abilities.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Given the incredible power of these new technologies, shouldn't we be asking how we can best coexist with them? And if our own extinction is a likely, or even possible, outcome of our technological development, shouldn't we proceed with great caution?[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The dream of robotics is, first, that intelligent machines can do our work for us, allowing us lives of leisure, restoring us to Eden. Yet in his history of such ideas,Darwin Among the Machines, George Dyson warns: "In the game of life and evolution there are three players at the table: human beings, nature, and machines. I am firmly on the side of nature. But nature, I suspect, is on the side of the machines." As we have seen, Moravec agrees, believing we may well not survive the encounter with the superior robot species.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]How soon could such an intelligent robot be built? The coming advances in computing power seem to make it possible by 2030. And once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small step to a robot species - to an intelligent robot that can make evolved copies of itself.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]A second dream of robotics is that we will gradually replace ourselves with our robotic technology, achieving near immortality by downloading our consciousnesses; it is this process that Danny Hillis thinks we will gradually get used to and that Ray Kurzweil elegantly details inThe Age of Spiritual Machines. (We are beginning to see intimations of this in the implantation of computer devices into the human body, as illustrated on thecover ofWired 8.02.)[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]But if we are downloaded into our technology, what are the chances that we will thereafter be ourselves or even human? It seems to me far more likely that a robotic existence would not be like a human one in any sense that we understand, that the robots would in no sense be our children, that on this path our humanity may well be lost.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Genetic engineering promises to revolutionize agriculture by increasing crop yields while reducing the use of pesticides; to create tens of thousands of novel species of bacteria, plants, viruses, and animals; to replace reproduction, or supplement it, with cloning; to create cures for many diseases, increasing our life span and our quality of life; and much, much more. We now know with certainty that these profound changes in the biological sciences are imminent and will challenge all our notions of what life is.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Technologies such as human cloning have in particular raised our awareness of the profound ethical and moral issues we face. If, for example, we were to reengineer ourselves into several separate and unequal species using the power of genetic engineering, then we would threaten the notion of equality that is the very cornerstone of our democracy.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Given the incredible power of genetic engineering, it's no surprise that there are significant safety issues in its use. My friend Amory Lovins recently cowrote, along with Hunter Lovins, an editorial that provides an ecological view of some of these dangers. Among their concerns: that "the new botany aligns the development of plants with their economic, not evolutionary, success." (See "A Tale of Two Botanies," page 247.) Amory's long career has been focused on energy and resource efficiency by taking a whole-system view of human-made systems; such a whole-system view often finds simple, smart solutions to otherwise seemingly difficult problems, and is usefully applied here as well.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]After reading the Lovins' editorial, I saw an op-ed by Gregg Easterbrook inThe New York Times (November 19, 1999) about genetically engineered crops, under the headline: "Food for the Future: Someday, rice will have built-in vitamin A. Unless the Luddites win."[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Are Amory and Hunter Lovins Luddites? Certainly not. I believe we all would agree that golden rice, with its built-in vitamin A, is probably a good thing, if developed with proper care and respect for the likely dangers in moving genes across species boundaries.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Awareness of the dangers inherent in genetic engineering is beginning to grow, as reflected in the Lovins' editorial. The general public is aware of, and uneasy about, genetically modified foods, and seems to be rejecting the notion that such foods should be permitted to be unlabeled.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]But genetic engineering technology is already very far along. As the Lovins note, the USDA has already approved about 50 genetically engineered crops for unlimited release; more than half of the world's soybeans and a third of its corn now contain genes spliced in from other forms of life.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]While there are many important issues here, my own major concern with genetic engineering is narrower: that it gives the power - whether militarily, accidentally, or in a deliberate terrorist act - to create a White Plague.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The many wonders of nanotechnology were first imagined by the Nobel-laureate physicist Richard Feynman in a speech he gave in 1959, subsequently published under the title "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom." The book that made a big impression on me, in the mid-'80s, was Eric Drexler'sEngines of Creation, in which he described beautifully how manipulation of matter at the atomic level could create a utopian future of abundance, where just about everything could be made cheaply, and almost any imaginable disease or physical problem could be solved using nanotechnology and artificial intelligences.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]A subsequent book,Unbounding the Future: The Nanotechnology Revolution, which Drexler cowrote, imagines some of the changes that might take place in a world where we had molecular-level "assemblers." Assemblers could make possible incredibly low-cost solar power, cures for cancer and the common cold by augmentation of the human immune system, essentially complete cleanup of the environment, incredibly inexpensive pocket supercomputers - in fact, any product would be manufacturable by assemblers at a cost no greater than that of wood - spaceflight more accessible than transoceanic travel today, and restoration of extinct species.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I remember feeling good about nanotechnology after readingEngines of Creation. As a technologist, it gave me a sense of calm - that is, nanotechnology showed us that incredible progress was possible, and indeed perhaps inevitable. If nanotechnology was our future, then I didn't feel pressed to solve so many problems in the present. I would get to Drexler's utopian future in due time; I might as well enjoy life more in the here and now. It didn't make sense, given his vision, to stay up all night, all the time.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Drexler's vision also led to a lot of good fun. I would occasionally get to describe the wonders of nanotechnology to others who had not heard of it. After teasing them with all the things Drexler described I would give a homework assignment of my own: "Use nanotechnology to create a vampire; for extra credit create an antidote."[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]With these wonders came clear dangers, of which I was acutely aware. As I said at a nanotechnology conference in 1989, "We can't simply do our science and not worry about these ethical issues."5 But my subsequent conversations with physicists convinced me that nanotechnology might not even work - or, at least, it wouldn't work anytime soon. Shortly thereafter I moved to Colorado, to a skunk works I had set up, and the focus of my work shifted to software for the Internet, specifically on ideas that became Java and Jini.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Then, last summer, Brosl Hasslacher told me that nanoscale molecular electronics was now practical. This wasnew news, at least to me, and I think to many people - and it radically changed my opinion about nanotechnology. It sent me back toEngines of Creation. Rereading Drexler's work after more than 10 years, I was dismayed to realize how little I had remembered of its lengthy section called "Dangers and Hopes," including a discussion of how nanotechnologies can become "engines of destruction." Indeed, in my rereading of this cautionary material today, I am struck by how naive some of Drexler's safeguard proposals seem, and how much greater I judge the dangers to be now than even he seemed to then. (Having anticipated and described many technical and political problems with nanotechnology, Drexler started the Foresight Institute in the late 1980s "to help prepare society for anticipated advanced technologies" - most important, nanotechnology.)[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The enabling breakthrough to assemblers seems quite likely within the next 20 years. Molecular electronics - the new subfield of nanotechnology where individual molecules are circuit elements - should mature quickly and become enormously lucrative within this decade, causing a large incremental investment in all nanotechnologies.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Unfortunately, as with nuclear technology, it is far easier to create destructive uses for nanotechnology than constructive ones. Nanotechnology has clear military and terrorist uses, and you need not be suicidal to release a massively destructive nanotechnological device - such devices can be built to be selectively destructive, affecting, for example, only a certain geographical area or a group of people who are genetically distinct.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]An immediate consequence of the Faustian bargain in obtaining the great power of nanotechnology is that we run a grave risk - the risk that we might destroy the biosphere on which all life depends.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][/FONT][FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]As Drexler explained:[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]"Plants" with "leaves" no more efficient than today's solar cells could out-compete real plants, crowding the biosphere with an inedible foliage. Tough omnivorous "bacteria" could out-compete real bacteria: They could spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days. Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stop - at least if we make no preparation. We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Among the cognoscenti of nanotechnology, this threat has become known as the "gray goo problem." Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be gray or gooey, the term "gray goo" emphasizes that replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be superior in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make them valuable.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The gray goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: We cannot afford certain kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Gray goo would surely be a depressing ending to our human adventure on Earth, far worse than mere fire or ice, and one that could stem from a simple laboratory accident.6 Oops.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause. Self-replication is the modus operandi of genetic engineering, which uses the machinery of the cell to replicate its designs, and the prime danger underlying gray goo in nanotechnology. Stories of run-amok robots like the Borg, replicating or mutating to escape from the ethical constraints imposed on them by their creators, are well established in our science fiction books and movies. It is even possible that self-replication may be more fundamental than we thought, and hence harder - or even impossible - to control. A recent article by Stuart Kauffman inNature titled "Self-Replication: Even Peptides Do It" discusses the discovery that a 32-amino-acid peptide can "autocatalyse its own synthesis." We don't know how widespread this ability is, but Kauffman notes that it may hint at "a route to self-reproducing molecular systems on a basis far wider than Watson-Crick base-pairing."7[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]In truth, we have had in hand for years clear warnings of the dangers inherent in widespread knowledge of GNR technologies - of the possibility of knowledge alone enabling mass destruction. But these warnings haven't been widely publicized; the public discussions have been clearly inadequate. There is no profit in publicizing the dangers.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) technologies used in 20th-century weapons of mass destruction were and are largely military, developed in government laboratories. In sharp contrast, the 21st-century GNR technologies have clear commercial uses and are being developed almost exclusively by corporate enterprises. In this age of triumphant commercialism, technology - with science as its handmaiden - is delivering a series of almost magical inventions that are the most phenomenally lucrative ever seen. We are aggressively pursuing the promises of these new technologies within the now-unchallenged system of global capitalism and its manifold financial incentives and competitive pressures.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][/FONT][FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif] This is the first moment in the history of our planet when any species, by its own voluntary actions, has become a danger to itself - as well as to vast numbers of others.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]It might be a familiar progression, transpiring on many worlds - a planet, newly formed, placidly revolves around its star; life slowly forms; a kaleidoscopic procession of creatures evolves; intelligence emerges which, at least up to a point, confers enormous survival value; and then technology is invented. It dawns on them that there are such things as laws of Nature, that these laws can be revealed by experiment, and that knowledge of these laws can be made both to save and to take lives, both on unprecedented scales. Science, they recognize, grants immense powers. In a flash, they create world-altering contrivances. Some planetary civilizations see their way through, place limits on what may and what must not be done, and safely pass through the time of perils. Others, not so lucky or so prudent, perish.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]That is Carl Sagan, writing in 1994, inPale Blue Dot, a book describing his vision of the human future in space. I am only now realizing how deep his insight was, and how sorely I miss, and will miss, his voice. For all its eloquence, Sagan's contribution was not least that of simple common sense - an attribute that, along with humility, many of the leading advocates of the 21st-century technologies seem to lack.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I remember from my childhood that my grandmother was strongly against the overuse of antibiotics. She had worked since before the first World War as a nurse and had a commonsense attitude that taking antibiotics, unless they were absolutely necessary, was bad for you.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]It is not that she was an enemy of progress. She saw much progress in an almost 70-year nursing career; my grandfather, a diabetic, benefited greatly from the improved treatments that became available in his lifetime. But she, like many levelheaded people, would probably think it greatly arrogant for us, now, to be designing a robotic "replacement species," when we obviously have so much trouble making relatively simple things work, and so much trouble managing - or even understanding - ourselves.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I realize now that she had an awareness of the nature of the order of life, and of the necessity of living with and respecting that order. With this respect comes a necessary humility that we, with our early-21st-century chutzpah, lack at our peril. The commonsense view, grounded in this respect, is often right, in advance of the scientific evidence. The clear fragility and inefficiencies of the human-made systems we have built should give us all pause; the fragility of the systems I have worked on certainly humbles me.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]We should have learned a lesson from the making of the first atomic bomb and the resulting arms race. We didn't do well then, and the parallels to our current situation are troubling.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The effort to build the first atomic bomb was led by the brilliant physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was not naturally interested in politics but became painfully aware of what he perceived as the grave threat to Western civilization from the Third Reich, a threat surely grave because of the possibility that Hitler might obtain nuclear weapons. Energized by this concern, he brought his strong intellect, passion for physics, and charismatic leadership skills to Los Alamos and led a rapid and successful effort by an incredible collection of great minds to quickly invent the bomb.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]What is striking is how this effort continued so naturally after the initial impetus was removed. In a meeting shortly after V-E Day with some physicists who felt that perhaps the effort should stop, Oppenheimer argued to continue. His stated reason seems a bit strange: not because of the fear of large casualties from an invasion of Japan, but because the United Nations, which was soon to be formed, should have foreknowledge of atomic weapons. A more likely reason the project continued is the momentum that had built up - the first atomic test, Trinity, was nearly at hand.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]We know that in preparing this first atomic test the physicists proceeded despite a large number of possible dangers. They were initially worried, based on a calculation by Edward Teller, that an atomic explosion might set fire to the atmosphere. A revised calculation reduced the danger of destroying the world to a three-in-a-million chance. (Teller says he was later able to dismiss the prospect of atmospheric ignition entirely.) Oppenheimer, though, was sufficiently concerned about the result of Trinity that he arranged for a possible evacuation of the southwest part of the state of New Mexico. And, of course, there was the clear danger of starting a nuclear arms race.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Within a month of that first, successful test, two atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some scientists had suggested that the bomb simply be demonstrated, rather than dropped on Japanese cities - saying that this would greatly improve the chances for arms control after the war - but to no avail. With the tragedy of Pearl Harbor still fresh in Americans' minds, it would have been very difficult for President Truman to order a demonstration of the weapons rather than use them as he did - the desire to quickly end the war and save the lives that would have been lost in any invasion of Japan was very strong. Yet the overriding truth was probably very simple: As the physicist Freeman Dyson later said, "The reason that it was dropped was just that nobody had the courage or the foresight to say no."[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]It's important to realize how shocked the physicists were in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945. They describe a series of waves of emotion: first, a sense of fulfillment that the bomb worked, then horror at all the people that had been killed, and then a convincing feeling that on no account should another bomb be dropped. Yet of course another bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki, only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]In November 1945, three months after the atomic bombings, Oppenheimer stood firmly behind the scientific attitude, saying, "It is not possible to be a scientist unless you believe that the knowledge of the world, and the power which this gives, is a thing which is of intrinsic value to humanity, and that you are using it to help in the spread of knowledge and are willing to take the consequences."[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Oppenheimer went on to work, with others, on the Acheson-Lilienthal report, which, as Richard Rhodes says in his recent bookVisions of Technology, "found a way to prevent a clandestine nuclear arms race without resorting to armed world government"; their suggestion was a form of relinquishment of nuclear weapons work by nation-states to an international agency.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]This proposal led to the Baruch Plan, which was submitted to the United Nations in June 1946 but never adopted (perhaps because, as Rhodes suggests, Bernard Baruch had "insisted on burdening the plan with conventional sanctions," thereby inevitably dooming it, even though it would "almost certainly have been rejected by Stalinist Russia anyway"). Other efforts to promote sensible steps toward internationalizing nuclear power to prevent an arms race ran afoul either of US politics and internal distrust, or distrust by the Soviets. The opportunity to avoid the arms race was lost, and very quickly.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Two years later, in 1948, Oppenheimer seemed to have reached another stage in his thinking, saying, "In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge they cannot lose."[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]In 1949, the Soviets exploded an atom bomb. By 1955, both the US and the Soviet Union had tested hydrogen bombs suitable for delivery by aircraft. And so the nuclear arms race began.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Nearly 20 years ago, in the documentaryThe Day After Trinity, Freeman Dyson summarized the scientific attitudes that brought us to the nuclear precipice:[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]"I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it's there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles - this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds."8[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Now, as then, we are creators of new technologies and stars of the imagined future, driven - this time by great financial rewards and global competition - despite the clear dangers, hardly evaluating what it may be like to try to live in a world that is the realistic outcome of what we are creating and imagining.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]In 1947,The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists began putting a Doomsday Clock on its cover. For more than 50 years, it has shown an estimate of the relative nuclear danger we have faced, reflecting the changing international conditions. The hands on the clock have moved 15 times and today, standing at nine minutes to midnight, reflect continuing and real danger from nuclear weapons. The recent addition of India and Pakistan to the list of nuclear powers has increased the threat of failure of the nonproliferation goal, and this danger was reflected by moving the hands closer to midnight in 1998.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]In our time, how much danger do we face, not just from nuclear weapons, but from all of these technologies? How high are the extinction risks?[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The philosopher John Leslie has studied this question and concluded that the risk of human extinction is at least 30 percent,9 while Ray Kurzweil believes we have "a better than even chance of making it through," with the caveat that he has "always been accused of being an optimist." Not only are these estimates not encouraging, but they do not include the probability of many horrid outcomes that lie short of extinction.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Faced with such assessments, some serious people are already suggesting that we simply move beyond Earth as quickly as possible. We would colonize the galaxy using von Neumann probes, which hop from star system to star system, replicating as they go. This step will almost certainly be necessary 5 billion years from now (or sooner if our solar system is disastrously impacted by the impending collision of our galaxy with the Andromeda galaxy within the next 3 billion years), but if we take Kurzweil and Moravec at their word it might be necessary by the middle of this century.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]What are the moral implications here? If we must move beyond Earth this quickly in order for the species to survive, who accepts the responsibility for the fate of those (most of us, after all) who are left behind? And even if we scatter to the stars, isn't it likely that we may take our problems with us or find, later, that they have followed us? The fate of our species on Earth and our fate in the galaxy seem inextricably linked.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Another idea is to erect a series of shields to defend against each of the dangerous technologies. The Strategic Defense Initiative, proposed by the Reagan administration, was an attempt to design such a shield against the threat of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. But as Arthur C. Clarke, who was privy to discussions about the project, observed: "Though it might be possible, at vast expense, to construct local defense systems that would 'only' let through a few percent of ballistic missiles, the much touted idea of a national umbrella was nonsense. Luis Alvarez, perhaps the greatest experimental physicist of this century, remarked to me that the advocates of such schemes were 'very bright guys with no common sense.'"[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Clarke continued: "Looking into my often cloudy crystal ball, I suspect that a total defense might indeed be possible in a century or so. But the technology involved would produce, as a by-product, weapons so terrible that no one would bother with anything as primitive as ballistic missiles." 10[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]InEngines of Creation, Eric Drexler proposed that we build an active nanotechnological shield - a form of immune system for the biosphere - to defend against dangerous replicators of all kinds that might escape from laboratories or otherwise be maliciously created. But the shield he proposed would itself be extremely dangerous - nothing could prevent it from developing autoimmune problems and attacking the biosphere itself. 11[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Similar difficulties apply to the construction of shields against robotics and genetic engineering. These technologies are too powerful to be shielded against in the time frame of interest; even if it were possible to implement defensive shields, the side effects of their development would be at least as dangerous as the technologies we are trying to protect against.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]These possibilities are all thus either undesirable or unachievable or both. The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Yes, I know, knowledge is good, as is the search for new truths. We have been seeking knowledge since ancient times. Aristotle opened his Metaphysics with the simple statement: "All men by nature desire to know." We have, as a bedrock value in our society, long agreed on the value of open access to information, and recognize the problems that arise with attempts to restrict access to and development of knowledge. In recent times, we have come to revere scientific knowledge.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]But despite the strong historical precedents, if open access to and unlimited development of knowledge henceforth puts us all in clear danger of extinction, then common sense demands that we reexamine even these basic, long-held beliefs.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]It was Nietzsche who warned us, at the end of the 19th century, not only that God is dead but that "faith in science, which after all exists undeniably, cannot owe its origin to a calculus of utility; it must have originated in spite of the fact that the disutility and dangerousness of the 'will to truth,' of 'truth at any price' is proved to it constantly." It is this further danger that we now fully face - the consequences of our truth-seeking. The truth that science seeks can certainly be considered a dangerous substitute for God if it is likely to lead to our extinction.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]If we could agree, as a species, what we wanted, where we were headed, and why, then we would make our future much less dangerous - then we might understand what we can and should relinquish. Otherwise, we can easily imagine an arms race developing over GNR technologies, as it did with the NBC technologies in the 20th century. This is perhaps the greatest risk, for once such a race begins, it's very hard to end it. This time - unlike during the Manhattan Project - we aren't in a war, facing an implacable enemy that is threatening our civilization; we are driven, instead, by our habits, our desires, our economic system, and our competitive need to know.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I believe that we all wish our course could be determined by our collective values, ethics, and morals. If we had gained more collective wisdom over the past few thousand years, then a dialogue to this end would be more practical, and the incredible powers we are about to unleash would not be nearly so troubling.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]One would think we might be driven to such a dialogue by our instinct for self-preservation. Individuals clearly have this desire, yet as a species our behavior seems to be not in our favor. In dealing with the nuclear threat, we often spoke dishonestly to ourselves and to each other, thereby greatly increasing the risks. Whether this was politically motivated, or because we chose not to think ahead, or because when faced with such grave threats we acted irrationally out of fear, I do not know, but it does not bode well.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The new Pandora's boxes of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are almost open, yet we seem hardly to have noticed. Ideas can't be put back in a box; unlike uranium or plutonium, they don't need to be mined and refined, and they can be freely copied. Once they are out, they are out. Churchill remarked, in a famous left-handed compliment, that the American people and their leaders "invariably do the right thing, after they have examined every other alternative." In this case, however, we must act more presciently, as to do the right thing only at last may be to lose the chance to do it at all.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]As Thoreau said, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us"; and this is what we must fight, in our time. The question is, indeed, Which is to be master? Will we survive our technologies?[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes. Have we already gone too far down the path to alter course? I don't believe so, but we aren't trying yet, and the last chance to assert control - the fail-safe point - is rapidly approaching. We have our first pet robots, as well as commercially available genetic engineering techniques, and our nanoscale techniques are advancing rapidly. While the development of these technologies proceeds through a number of steps, it isn't necessarily the case - as happened in the Manhattan Project and the Trinity test - that the last step in proving a technology is large and hard. The breakthrough to wild self-replication in robotics, genetic engineering, or nanotechnology could come suddenly, reprising the surprise we felt when we learned of the cloning of a mammal.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]And yet I believe we do have a strong and solid basis for hope. Our attempts to deal with weapons of mass destruction in the last century provide a shining example of relinquishment for us to consider: the unilateral US abandonment, without preconditions, of the development of biological weapons. This relinquishment stemmed from the realization that while it would take an enormous effort to create these terrible weapons, they could from then on easily be duplicated and fall into the hands of rogue nations or terrorist groups.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The clear conclusion was that we would create additional threats to ourselves by pursuing these weapons, and that we would be more secure if we did not pursue them. We have embodied our relinquishment of biological and chemical weapons in the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).12[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]As for the continuing sizable threat from nuclear weapons, which we have lived with now for more than 50 years, the US Senate's recent rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty makes it clear relinquishing nuclear weapons will not be politically easy. But we have a unique opportunity, with the end of the Cold War, to avert a multipolar arms race. Building on the BWC and CWC relinquishments, successful abolition of nuclear weapons could help us build toward a habit of relinquishing dangerous technologies. (Actually, by getting rid of all but 100 nuclear weapons worldwide - roughly the total destructive power of World War II and a considerably easier task - we could eliminate this extinction threat. 13)[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Verifying relinquishment will be a difficult problem, but not an unsolvable one. We are fortunate to have already done a lot of relevant work in the context of the BWC and other treaties. Our major task will be to apply this to technologies that are naturally much more commercial than military. The substantial need here is for transparency, as difficulty of verification is directly proportional to the difficulty of distinguishing relinquished from legitimate activities.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I frankly believe that the situation in 1945 was simpler than the one we now face: The nuclear technologies were reasonably separable into commercial and military uses, and monitoring was aided by the nature of atomic tests and the ease with which radioactivity could be measured. Research on military applications could be performed at national laboratories such as Los Alamos, with the results kept secret as long as possible.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The GNR technologies do not divide clearly into commercial and military uses; given their potential in the market, it's hard to imagine pursuing them only in national laboratories. With their widespread commercial pursuit, enforcing relinquishment will require a verification regime similar to that for biological weapons, but on an unprecedented scale. This, inevitably, will raise tensions between our individual privacy and desire for proprietary information, and the need for verification to protect us all. We will undoubtedly encounter strong resistance to this loss of privacy and freedom of action.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Verifying the relinquishment of certain GNR technologies will have to occur in cyberspace as well as at physical facilities. The critical issue will be to make the necessary transparency acceptable in a world of proprietary information, presumably by providing new forms of protection for intellectual property.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Verifying compliance will also require that scientists and engineers adopt a strong code of ethical conduct, resembling the Hippocratic oath, and that they have the courage to whistleblow as necessary, even at high personal cost. This would answer the call - 50 years after Hiroshima - by the Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, one of the most senior of the surviving members of the Manhattan Project, that all scientists "cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving, and manufacturing nuclear weapons and other weapons of potential mass destruction."14 In the 21st century, this requires vigilance and personal responsibility by those who would work on both NBC and GNR technologies to avoid implementing weapons of mass destruction and knowledge-enabled mass destruction.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Thoreau also said that we will be "rich in proportion to the number of things which we can afford to let alone." We each seek to be happy, but it would seem worthwhile to question whether we need to take such a high risk of total destruction to gain yet more knowledge and yet more things; common sense says that there is a limit to our material needs - and that certain knowledge is too dangerous and is best forgone.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Neither should we pursue near immortality without considering the costs, without considering the commensurate increase in the risk of extinction. Immortality, while perhaps the original, is certainly not the only possible utopian dream.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I recently had the good fortune to meet the distinguished author and scholar Jacques Attali, whose bookLignes d'horizons (Millennium, in the English translation) helped inspire the Java and Jini approach to the coming age of pervasive computing, as previously described in this magazine. In his new bookFraternités, Attali describes how our dreams of utopia have changed over time:[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]"At the dawn of societies, men saw their passage on Earth as nothing more than a labyrinth of pain, at the end of which stood a door leading, via their death, to the company of gods and toEternity. With the Hebrews and then the Greeks, some men dared free themselves from theological demands and dream of an ideal City whereLiberty would flourish. Others, noting the evolution of the market society, understood that the liberty of some would entail the alienation of others, and they soughtEquality."[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Jacques helped me understand how these three different utopian goals exist in tension in our society today. He goes on to describe a fourth utopia,Fraternity, whose foundation is altruism. Fraternity alone associates individual happiness with the happiness of others, affording the promise of self-sustainment.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]This crystallized for me my problem with Kurzweil's dream. A technological approach to Eternity - near immortality through robotics - may not be the most desirable utopia, and its pursuit brings clear dangers. Maybe we should rethink our utopian choices.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Where can we look for a new ethical basis to set our course? I have found the ideas in the book Ethics for the New Millennium, by the Dalai Lama, to be very helpful. As is perhaps well known but little heeded, the Dalai Lama argues that the most important thing is for us to conduct our lives with love and compassion for others, and that our societies need to develop a stronger notion of universal responsibility and of our interdependency; he proposes a standard of positive ethical conduct for individuals and societies that seems consonant with Attali's Fraternity utopia.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The Dalai Lama further argues that we must understand what it is that makes people happy, and acknowledge the strong evidence that neither material progress nor the pursuit of the power of knowledge is the key - that there are limits to what science and the scientific pursuit alone can do.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Our Western notion of happiness seems to come from the Greeks, who defined it as "the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope." 15[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Clearly, we need to find meaningful challenges and sufficient scope in our lives if we are to be happy in whatever is to come. But I believe we must find alternative outlets for our creative forces, beyond the culture of perpetual economic growth; this growth has largely been a blessing for several hundred years, but it has not brought us unalloyed happiness, and we must now choose between the pursuit of unrestricted and undirected growth through science and technology and the clear accompanying dangers.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]It is now more than a year since my first encounter with Ray Kurzweil and John Searle. I see around me cause for hope in the voices for caution and relinquishment and in those people I have discovered who are as concerned as I am about our current predicament. I feel, too, a deepened sense of personal responsibility - not for the work I have already done, but for the work that I might yet do, at the confluence of the sciences.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]But many other people who know about the dangers still seem strangely silent. When pressed, they trot out the "this is nothing new" riposte - as if awareness of what could happen is response enough. They tell me, There are universities filled with bioethicists who study this stuff all day long. They say, All this has been written about before, and by experts. They complain, Your worries and your arguments are already old hat.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I don't know where these people hide their fear. As an architect of complex systems I enter this arena as a generalist. But should this diminish my concerns? I am aware of how much has been written about, talked about, and lectured about so authoritatively. But does this mean it has reached people? Does this mean we can discount the dangers before us?[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Knowing is not a rationale for not acting. Can we doubt that knowledge has become a weapon we wield against ourselves?[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]My continuing professional work is on improving the reliability of software. Software is a tool, and as a toolbuilder I must struggle with the uses to which the tools I make are put. I have always believed that making software more reliable, given its many uses, will make the world a safer and better place; if I were to come to believe the opposite, then I would be morally obligated to stop this work. I can now imagine such a day may come.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]This all leaves me not angry but at least a bit melancholic. Henceforth, for me, progress will be somewhat bittersweet.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Do you remember the beautiful penultimate scene in Manhattan where Woody Allen is lying on his couch and talking into a tape recorder? He is writing a short story about people who are creating unnecessary, neurotic problems for themselves, because it keeps them from dealing with more unsolvable, terrifying problems about the universe.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]He leads himself to the question, "Why is life worth living?" and to consider what makes it worthwhile for him: Groucho Marx, Willie Mays, the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, Louis Armstrong's recording of "Potato Head Blues," Swedish movies, Flaubert's Sentimental Education, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, the apples and pears by Cézanne, the crabs at Sam Wo's, and, finally, the showstopper: his love Tracy's face.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Each of us has our precious things, and as we care for them we locate the essence of our humanity. In the end, it is because of our great capacity for caring that I remain optimistic we will confront the dangerous issues now before us.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]My immediate hope is to participate in a much larger discussion of the issues raised here, with people from many different backgrounds, in settings not predisposed to fear or favor technology for its own sake.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]As a start, I have twice raised many of these issues at events sponsored by the Aspen Institute and have separately proposed that the American Academy of Arts and Sciences take them up as an extension of its work with the Pugwash Conferences. (These have been held since 1957 to discuss arms control, especially of nuclear weapons, and to formulate workable policies.)[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]It's unfortunate that the Pugwash meetings started only well after the nuclear genie was out of the bottle - roughly 15 years too late. We are also getting a belated start on seriously addressing the issues around 21st-century technologies - the prevention of knowledge-enabled mass destruction - and further delay seems unacceptable.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]So I'm still searching; there are many more things to learn. Whether we are to succeed or fail, to survive or fall victim to these technologies, is not yet decided. I'm up late again - it's almost 6 am. I'm trying to imagine some better answers, to break the spell and free them from the stone.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]1 The passage Kurzweil quotes is from Kaczynski's Unabomber Manifesto, which was published jointly, under duress, byThe New York Times and The Washington Post to attempt to bring his campaign of terror to an end. I agree with David Gelernter, who said about their decision:
"It was a tough call for the newspapers. To say yes would be giving in to terrorism, and for all they knew he was lying anyway. On the other hand, to say yes might stop the killing. There was also a chance that someone would read the tract and get a hunch about the author; and that is exactly what happened. The suspect's brother read it, and it rang a bell.
"I would have told them not to publish. I'm glad they didn't ask me. I guess."
(Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber. Free Press, 1997: 120.)
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]2 Garrett, Laurie.The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. Penguin, 1994: 47-52, 414, 419, 452.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]3 Isaac Asimov described what became the most famous view of ethical rules for robot behavior in his bookI, Robot in 1950, in his Three Laws of Robotics: 1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]4 Michelangelo wrote a sonnet that begins:
Non ha l' ottimo artista alcun concetto
Ch' un marmo solo in sè non circonscriva
Col suo soverchio; e solo a quello arriva
La man che ubbidisce all' intelleto.
Stone translates this as:
The best of artists hath no thought to show
which the rough stone in its superfluous shell
doth not include; to break the marble spell
is all the hand that serves the brain can do.
Stone describes the process: "He was not working from his drawings or clay models; they had all been put away. He was carving from the images in his mind. His eyes and hands knew where every line, curve, mass must emerge, and at what depth in the heart of the stone to create the low relief."
(The Agony and the Ecstasy. Doubleday, 1961: 6, 144.)
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]5 First Foresight Conference on Nanotechnology in October 1989, a talk titled "The Future of Computation." Published in Crandall, B. C. and James Lewis, editors.Nanotechnology: Research and Perspectives. MIT Press, 1992: 269. See alsowww.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT01/Nano1.html.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]6 In his 1963 novelCat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut imagined a gray-goo-like accident where a form of ice called ice-nine, which becomes solid at a much higher temperature, freezes the oceans.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]7 Kauffman, Stuart. "Self-replication: Even Peptides Do It." Nature, 382, August 8, 1996: 496. Seewww.santafe.edu/sfi/People/kauffman/sak-peptides.html.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]8 Else, Jon.The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and The Atomic Bomb (available at www.pyramiddirect.com).
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]9 This estimate is in Leslie's bookThe End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction, where he notes that the probability of extinction is substantially higher if we accept Brandon Carter's Doomsday Argument, which is, briefly, that "we ought to have some reluctance to believe that we are very exceptionally early, for instance in the earliest 0.001 percent, among all humans who will ever have lived. This would be some reason for thinking that humankind will not survive for many more centuries, let alone colonize the galaxy. Carter's doomsday argument doesn't generate any risk estimates just by itself. It is an argument forrevising the estimates which we generate when we consider various possible dangers." (Routledge, 1996: 1, 3, 145.)
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]10 Clarke, Arthur C. "Presidents, Experts, and Asteroids."Science, June 5, 1998. Reprinted as "Science and Society" inGreetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! Collected Essays, 1934-1998. St. Martin's Press, 1999: 526.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]11 And, as David Forrest suggests in his paper "Regulating Nanotechnology Development," available atwww.foresight.org/NanoRev/Forrest1989.html, "If we used strict liability as an alternative to regulation it would be impossible for any developer to internalize the cost of the risk (destruction of the biosphere), so theoretically the activity of developing nanotechnology should never be undertaken." Forrest's analysis leaves us with only government regulation to protect us - not a comforting thought.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]12 Meselson, Matthew. "The Problem of Biological Weapons." Presentation to the 1,818th Stated Meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, January 13, 1999. (minerva.amacad.org/archive/bulletin4.htm)
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]13 Doty, Paul. "The Forgotten Menace: Nuclear Weapons Stockpiles Still Represent the Biggest Threat to Civilization."Nature, 402, December 9, 1999: 583.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]14 See also Hans Bethe's 1997 letter to President Clinton, at www.fas.org/bethecr.htm.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]15 Hamilton, Edith.The Greek Way. W. W. Norton & Co., 1942: 35.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times,serif][FONT=verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Bill Joy, cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, was cochair of the presidential commission on the future of IT research, and is coauthor ofThe Java Language Specification. His work on theJini pervasive computing technology was featured inWired 6.08.[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[teeski53]

Re: The Microchip

[FLASH]http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=4347054309430076251&hl[/FLASH]

 

[oneofmany]

San Francisco to give illegal aliens ID cards

San Francisco to give illegal aliens ID cards​

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco will give resident identification cards to illegal immigrants under a plan approved on Tuesday amid a fierce nationwide debate on granting privileges to undocumented aliens.

In a 10-1 vote, the city's board of supervisors -- the equivalent of a city council -- approved giving identification cards to all residents, including illegal immigrants. The move makes San Francisco the largest U.S. city to back such a plan.

Residents will be able to obtain the resident cards by presenting photo identification and proof they live in the city, such as a utility bill. It was unclear if the new cards, which will be accepted at libraries and health clinics, will carry photos.

Such a move had been expected from San Francisco, which is famously liberal. Earlier this year, Mayor Gavin Newsom said he would not allow city officials and employees to assist immigration raids by federal authorities seeking up people who had committed crimes or disregarded deportation orders.

San Francisco, which declared itself a "sanctuary city" in 1989, also this year launched a program to provide medical care to uninsured residents regardless of their immigration status.

At the state level, California's Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed bills that would allow undocumented aliens to obtain state identification cards, including driver's licenses.

By contrast, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, proposed giving illegal immigrants drivers licences. But he was forced to drop the plan last week due to overwhelming opposition, even from presidential candidates from his own party like Hillary Clinton.

 

[oneofmany]

Mayor Claims He Was Abducted By Satanists

Mayor Claims He Was Abducted By Satanists​

CENTERTON, Ark. -- The mayor of an Arkansas town resigned on Wednesday, claiming he was abducted and brainwashed by Satan worshippers nearly three decades ago.

Centerton Mayor Ken Williams said he has been living under an assumed name for nearly 30 years. He had been mayor since 2001.

Williams told authorities he was born Don LaRose and that in the mid-1970s, he was a preacher in Indiana. He said he was abducted and brainwashed into forgetting all about his life as Don LaRose.

It was a double life he had never acknowledged, Williams said, because he didn't even realize it existed until he had recently taken a truth-serum injection.

As Williams regained his memory, he said, he realized that he had a wife and two kids but that he had decided to leave and take on a new identity to protect them.

"I had no choice. The choice was to watch my family killed before my eyes or go with these people, and I chose instead to run," Williams said.

He wouldn't explain from who he was running, saying only that he had been brainwashed.

"I had multiple shock treatments," Williams said. "It took five years to get my memory back."

Williams said he took his current identity in 1980 when he moved to Centerton. His full name -- Bruce Kent Williams -- was taken from a man who died in a car crash back in 1958, he said.

"What happened in 1980 -- whether it was right or wrong -- I did it under the threat of my family and for my own survival," he said.

The information went public, Williams said, because he runs a Web site about Don LaRose and his disappearance. LaRose's former family found the Web site and started inquiring about its author. They found the site registered to a Ken Williams and went from there.

Williams said his current wife is standing by him and the two of them want to continue living in Centerton. He said he plans to continue living as Ken Williams.

Also, his resignation was signed with two names, he said.

According to police, Williams is under no investigation for any wrongdoing.

 

[oneofmany]

Tasers a form of torture, says UN

Tasers a form of torture, says UN​

TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill, a UN committee has declared after several recent deaths in North America.

"The use of these weapons causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture,'' the UN's Committee against Torture said.

"In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events,'' the committee of 10 experts said.

Three men, all in their early 20s, were reported to have died in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being Tasered by Canadian police.

The man, Robert Dziekanski, 40, fell to the ground and died after the police officers piled on top of him.

There have been three deaths in Canada after the use of Tasers over the past five weeks.

The company that makes the weapons has said that similar deaths have been shown by "medical science and forensic analysis'' to be "attributable to other factors and not the low-energy electrical discharge of the Taser".

The UN committee made its comments in recommendations to Portugal, which has bought the newest Taser X26 stun gun for use by police.

Portugal "should consider giving up the use of the Taser X26,'' as its use can have a grave physical and mental impact on those targeted, which violates the UN's Convention against Torture, the experts said.

 

[oneofmany]

Russian police round up anti-Putin protesters

Russian police round up anti-Putin protesters​

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russian riot police beat opposition activists on Sunday and detained nearly 200 people at protest rallies against President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg, Russia's second city.

Riot police also detained Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh, leaders of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) party who are both running in a December 2 parliamentary election. They were later released.

This correspondent saw riot police beating activists with batons and their fists before forcing them into police buses.

Dozens more were detained outside the Winter Palace, the residence of the Tsars, and at another rally in central St Petersburg, Putin's home town.

"They have forbidden us from discussing Putin," Nemtsov told the crowd. "But we have come here today to ask Mr Putin and the authorities why is there so much corruption in the country?"

He was promptly detained by five riot policemen as the crowd chanted "Russia without Putin".

Nemtsov told Reuters his detention was a breach of Russian law which forbids police from detaining candidates.

"Putin has total disregard for the country's constitution and laws," Nemtsov said. "He is afraid the people will find out the truth and so he hides behind the riot police."

About 500 activists made it to the marches but were vastly outnumbered by riot police. Most of those detained were later released, organisers said.

The city authorities had not given permission for the march and streets in the city centre were blocked by riot police and snow-clearing trucks.

The "march of the discontented" brings together Putin's opponents into one movement which includes Other Russia, free-market parties such as SPS and Yabloko as well as anarchists and radical socialists.

Police on Saturday detained Other Russia leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov when they broke up a march of about 3,000 in Moscow. Activists said 60 people were detained at that march.

OPPONENTS OF PUTIN

Putin's opponents accuse the Kremlin chief of cracking down on the freedoms won after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and of creating what they say is an unstable political system dependent on Putin alone.

"They have started a war with the people," Tamara, 72, who took part in the march.

"Putin is very bad -- look at the poverty in the country. Pensioners are forced to rummage in the dustbins."

Kremlin officials say the opposition marches are aimed at attracting attention in the West and that the activists are a mixed bag of marginal politicians with little public support.

Putin, ranked by opinion polls as the most popular politician in Russia, is credited by supporters for cementing political stability and presiding over the longest economic boom for a generation.

The former KGB spy has vowed to step down as president next year after his second consecutive four-year term in office.

But he has said he will use the pro-Kremlin United Russia party to preserve influence after he steps down. He is running as the party's top candidate in the December election.

"We are ruled by the United Russia gang. They have taken away the elections," said Lyubov Chilipenko at the march.

 

[African Herbsman]

Re: Russian police round up anti-Putin protesters

Taser Drones Coming Soon


Taser man stunned ... 50 times

2 days ago

PARIS (AFP) — Antoine di Zazzo says he has been 'tasered' more than 50 times and never felt the worse for the ordeal.

One of the biggest Taser representatives outside the US base, Di Zazzo also gave a surprise blast of the stun gun to French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen and offered a test dose to Nicolas Sarkozy before he became France's president.

Sarkozy diplomatically declined, according to di Zazzo, but the president's no-nonsense law and order tactics are one reason why the engineer businessman is confident of huge demand for the gun, despite controversy over its use in North America and being declared a form of torture by a UN committee.

The French leader vowed before his election in May to buy a Taser -- which paralyses targets -- for every policeman and gendarme in France which could provide a market for at least 300,000 guns alone.

The Taser France chief said he has endured more than 50 Taser shots during tests and demonstrations of the gun.

"You cannot call it real pain," said di Zazzo. "I just found that time was infinitely long." In reality, a shot from the gun, which packs a 50,000 volt punch immobilises suspects for a few seconds.

National Front leader Le Pen, who was 79 at the time, went to inspect the gun last year because of the headlines it made when Sarkozy made his pledge as interior minister. "He did not want to try it but I took him a bit by surprise," said di Zazzo.

"He has special protection because he is a leading politician but I got round them and fired into his shoulder. He fell over but got up again and then went around telling people: 'You are shaking the hand of the man who has tried Sarkozy's toy'."

There are already about 250,000 of the stun guns in use, mainly in North America, but about 70 other countries are buying or trying Tasers -- including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand, said di Zazzo.

All countries are watching the debate in the United States and Canada over the use of the gun which fires two probes at targets at speeds of more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour.

The electric jolt in the probes causes what the US company calls the "immediate loss of the person's neuromuscular control". The suspect is temporarily paralysed.

There has been much debate in Canada after a 40-year-old Polish man died last month after he was 'tasered' by police. Another 36-year-old man died Saturday five days after an altercation with police who used a Taser to subdue him.

There have been at least three other deaths this week in the United States after police use of the Taser.

Amnesty International has said there have been about 300 deaths around the world after Taser use and has called for it to be suspended while a full investigation into the impact is conducted.

On Friday, the UN Committee said the stun gun "causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture".

Taser International says that no death has been attributed to the use of the gun and that the controversy is caused by misunderstanding of new technology. It has won more than 50 legal cases in the United States alleging the gun was linked to a death.

"If electricity was to kill it would do so straight away," said di Zazzo. "In most of these cases people have carried on fighting or struggling after they were hit by the Taser and had recovered. In a lot of these cases there is a drug overdose or cerebral delirium involved."

"In Canada, the man carried on struggling afterwards and was hit by batons and the police knelt on him. You can also die from being hit with a baton or knelt on," he added.

Taser says its device "saves lives" because it is an effective alternative to a real gun. Each stun round is videod by a camera on the gun for future evidence.

Di Zazzo's French company is also developing a mini-flying saucer like drone which could also fire Taser stun rounds on criminal suspects or rioting crowds. He expects it to be launched next year and to be sold internationally by Taser.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i_qln4UXVmKbqgq42Tcis4BRjxuw

 

[MASTERBAKER]

[FLASH]http://media.pbs.org/asxgen/general/windows/media4/frontline/2512/windows/ch3_xl.wmv.asx[/FLASH]

 

[oneofmany]

High-Tech Drones Joining Miami Police Force

High-Tech Drones Joining Miami Police Force​

MIAMI -- The Miami-Dade police department will begin experimenting with high-tech drones as law enforcement tools beginning next year.

Although the military has been using unmanned aircraft systems for years, this will be the first time they are used in law enforcement.

"We are aware it is a great responsibility. The FAA is looking at us to see if we can professionally manage this program," said Lt. Cliff Nelson of the police department's aviation unit.

The flying camera is called a Micro Air Vehicle made by Honeywell. The MAV is remote controlled, unarmed and unmanned and can soar over 10,000 feet. (See the Micro Air Vehicle here.)

Miami-Dade police said only licensed pilots with the aviation unit will operate the devices because the airspace in the county is so busy.

Only the Miami-Dade police department and the Houston police department were given permission by the FAA to experiment with the drones.

"The capability of the unit is phenomenal," said Miami-Dade Detective Juan Villalba.

The unmanned aircraft will be used during SWAT team and tactical operations, especially when officers need video of a heavily armed suspect.

The Miami-Dade police department has not yet taken possession on its drone, but the Houston police department has and is already conducting tests.

Miami-Dade hopes to use grant money to pay for the MAV. Officials said the units are pricey. Depending on the complexity of the system, they can cost several thousand dollars to more than a million.

 

[oneofmany]

Grandfather who called Welsh woman an 'English bitch' is convicted

Grandfather who called Welsh woman an 'English bitch' is convicted of racial harassment​

A grandfather has been given a suspended prison sentence after a court decided calling a woman an "English bitch" was racial harassment.
Mick Forsythe found himself in the dock after an argument over a scratched car in Wales degenerated into a slanging match.

After refusing to pay to repair the damage to the car, which belonged to Lorna Steele - who, ironically is Welsh - he accused her of being an "English bitch" and stormed off.

But he now has a criminal record and is branded a racist after the confrontation in the quiet, mid-Wales market town of Newtown ended up before magistrates.

The 55-year-old ex-lorry driver was given a ten-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months after being convicted of racially aggravated disorderly behaviour.

Yesterday he attacked the "politically correct" prosecution as a waste of time and money, while even his "victim" agreed the matter shouldn't have ended up in court.

"I find it unbelievable that I've been prosecuted for this," he said.

"I'm originally from Northern Ireland, I'm an adoptive Welshman, I've travelled all over Europe as a lorry driver and never had any problems with anybody, and now they're officially calling me a racist.

"It's political correctness gone mad.

"The joke is that the woman I had the row with isn't even English, she's Welsh. I am absolutely gobsmacked, to be frank."

The row has taken nine months to get to court, stemming from an argument on a snowy day last February when Mr Forsythe claims his mind was on the recent arrival of his granddaughter.

His bric-a-brac shop is alongside the tattoo parlour run by 32-year-old Mrs Steele and her husband Gavin, and as he parked, his car slipped and struck their Kia, scratching it.

He claims he went to offer to pay for the damage, but his trial was told he became abusive and threw insults at the couple - including calling Mrs Steele an "English bitch".

"Mick was a bit distracted because our granddaughter Rhian had just been born," explained his wife Val, 50, yesterday.

"He went in and did the decent thing and owned up to it. Then the next thing is they are asking for £500 for the damage.

"My husband has a temper and he was a lorry driver for years so his language is a bit colourful sometimes.

"The Steeles started the row and Mick got angry and he admits he swore at them. But he only muttered under his breath."

Mrs Steele has subsequently put up a sign in her shop which reads "Some People Call Me a Bitch", but she insisted the row was no joke.

"I'm Welsh, I was born in Welshpool. But we couldn't let him get away with what he said."

Her husband, a 40-year-old Englishman originally from Hull, added: "He is a racist. He doesn't like the English.

"He's from Ireland originally and he's lived in Wales for years and some of them don't like English people.

"The point is that he shouldn't have said those things to Lorna. He swore at her and called her an 'English bitch' and apparently the best thing to get him on was the racially aggravated bit.

"All we wanted from him was an apology but he wouldn't give us that. So we've had to go all the way through the courts to get it.

"I admit it was a genuine accident, it was snowing and he didn't mean to run into the car.

"It was only a scratch but it was new car and I wasn't happy about it.

"There's no way this should have ended up in court, it's the sort of thing you should be able to sort out without that.

"But he said what he said and I think he deserved to be found guilty."

Forsythe, of Newtown, was also ordered to pay £200 in costs when he appeared at Welshpool Magistrates Court, but the prosecution will have cost thousands.

His wife said: "My husband has worked all his life and he's a decent honest man. "He can be blunt, but he doesn't lie and he is not a criminal.

"This is a small town and in a community like this it is a terrible stigma to end up in court and have a criminal record."

 

[oneofmany]

Facebook Retreats on Online Tracking

Facebook Retreats on Online Tracking​

Faced with its second mass protest by members in its short life span, Facebook, the enormously popular social networking Web site, is reining in some aspects of a controversial new advertising program.

Within the last 10 days, more than 50,000 Facebook members have signed a petition objecting to the new program, which sends messages to users’ friends about what they are buying on Web sites like Travelocity.com, TheKnot.com and Fandango. The members want to be able to opt out of the program completely with one click, but Facebook won’t let them.

Late yesterday the company made an important change, saying that it would not send messages about users’ Internet activities without getting explicit approval each time.

MoveOn.org Civic Action, the political group that set up the online petition, said the move was a positive one.

“Before, if you ignored their warning, they assumed they had your permission” to share information, said Adam Green, a spokesman for the group. “If Facebook were to implement a policy whereby no private purchases on other Web sites were displayed publicly on Facebook without a user’s explicit permission, that would be a step in the right direction.”

Facebook, which is run by Mark Zuckerberg, 23, who created it while an undergraduate at Harvard, has built a highly successful service that is free to its more than 50 million active members. But now the company is trying to figure out how to translate this popularity into profit. Like so many Internet ventures, it is counting heavily on advertising revenue.

The system Facebook introduced this month, called Beacon, is viewed as an important test of online tracking, a popular advertising tactic that usually takes place behind the scenes, where consumers do not notice it. Companies like Google, AOL and Microsoft routinely track where people are going online and send them ads based on the sites they have visited and the searches they have conducted.

But Facebook is taking a far more transparent and personal approach, sending news alerts to users’ friends about the goods and services they buy and view online.

Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research, said she was surprised to find that her purchase of a table on Overstock.com was added to her News Feed, a Facebook feature that broadcasts users’ activities to their friends on the site. She says she did not see an opt-out box.

“Beacon crosses the line to being Big Brother,” she said, “It’s a very, very thin line.”

Facebook executives say the people who are complaining are a marginal minority. With time, Facebook says, users will accept Beacon, which Facebook views as an extension of the type of book and movie recommendations that members routinely volunteer on their profile pages. The Beacon notices are “based on getting into the conversations that are already happening between people,” Mr. Zuckerberg said when he introduced Beacon in New York on Nov. 6.

“Whenever we innovate and create great new experiences and new features, if they are not well understood at the outset, one thing we need to do is give people an opportunity to interact with them,” said Chamath Palihapitiya, a vice president at Facebook. “After a while, they fall in love with them.”

Mr. Palihapitiya was referring to Facebook’s controversial introduction of the News Feed feature last year. More than 700,000 people protested that feature, and Mr. Zuckerberg publicly apologized for aspects of it. However, Facebook did not remove the feature, and eventually users came to like it, Mr. Palihapitiya said. He said Facebook would not add a universal opt-out to Beacon, as many members have requested.

MoveOn.org started the anti-Beacon petition on Nov. 20, and as of last night more than 50,000 Facebook users had signed it. Other groups fighting Beacon have about 10,000 members in total. Facebook, they say, should not be following them around the Web, especially without their permission.

The complaints may seem paradoxical, given that the so-called Facebook generation is known for its willingness to divulge personal details on the Internet. But even some high school and college-age users of the site, who freely write about their love lives and drunken escapades, are protesting.

“We know we don’t have a right to privacy, but there still should be a certain morality here, a certain level of what is private in our lives,” said Tricia Bushnell, a 25-year-old in Los Angeles, who has used Facebook since her college days at Bucknell. “Just because I belong to Facebook, do I now have to be careful about everything else I do on the Internet?”

Two privacy groups said this week that they were preparing to file privacy complaints about the system with the Federal Trade Commission. Among online merchants, Overstock.com has decided to stop running Facebook’s Beacon program on its site until it becomes an opt-in program. And as the MoveOn.org campaign has grown over the past week, some ad executives have poked fun at Facebook users.

“Isn’t this community getting a little hypocritical?” said Chad Stoller, director of emerging platforms at Organic, a digital advertising agency. “Now, all of a sudden, they don’t want to share something?”

Facebook users each get a home page where they can volunteer information like their age, hometown, college and religion. People can post photos and write messages on their pages and on their friends’ pages.

Under Beacon, when Facebook members purchase movie tickets on Fandango.com, for example, Facebook sends a notice about what movie they are seeing in the News Feed on all of their friends’ pages. If a user saves a recipe on Epicurious.com or rates travel venues on NYTimes.com, friends are also notified. There is an opt-out box that appears for a few seconds, but users complain that it is hard to find. Mr. Palihapitiya said Facebook is making the boxes larger and holding them on the Web pages longer.

Mr. Green of MoveOn.org said that his group would be tracking the effects of the latest changes before deciding if it would still push for a universal opt-out.

The whole purpose of Beacon is to allow advertisers to run ads next to these purchase messages. A message about someone’s purchase on Travelocity might run alongside an airline or hotel ad, for example. Mr. Zuckerberg has heralded the new ads as being like a “recommendation from a trusted friend.”

But Facebook users say they do not want to endorse products.

“Just because I use a Web site, doesn’t mean I want to tell my friends about it,” said Annie Kadala, a 23-year old student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Maybe I used that Web site because it was cheaper.”

Ms. Kadala found out about Beacon on Thanksgiving day when her News Feed told her that her sister had purchased the Harry Potter “Scene It?” game.

“I said, ‘Susan, did you buy me this game for Christmas?’” Ms. Kadala recalled. “I don’t want to know what people are getting me for Christmas.”

 

[oneofmany]

US says it has right to kidnap British citizens

US says it has right to kidnap British citizens​

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America.

Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.

The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.

Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.

The US government’s view emerged during a hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher, and his wife Beatrice.

The Tollmans, who control the Red Carnation hotel group and are resident in London, are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion. They have been fighting extradition through the British courts.

During a hearing last month Lord Justice Moses, one of the Court of Appeal judges, asked Alun Jones QC, representing the US government, about its treatment of Gavin, Tollman’s nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005.

Jones replied that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America. “The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared,” he said.

He said that if a person was kidnapped by the US authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no US court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him: “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.”

Mr Justice Ouseley, a second judge, challenged Jones to be “honest about [his] position”.

Jones replied: “That is United States law.”

He cited the case of Humberto Alvarez Machain, a suspect who was abducted by the US government at his medical office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990. He was flown by Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Texas for criminal prosecution.

Although there was an extradition treaty in place between America and Mexico at the time — as there currently is between the United States and Britain — the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that the Mexican had no legal remedy because of his abduction.

In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities.

An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded Canadian officials to detain him. He wanted the Canadians to drive Tollman to the border to be handed over. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days.

A Canadian judge ordered his release, ruling that the US Justice Department had set a “sinister trap” and wrongly bypassed extradition rules. Tollman returned to Britain.

Legal sources said that under traditional American justice, rendition meant capturing wanted people abroad and bringing them to the United States. The term “extraordinary rendition” was coined in the 1990s for the kidnapping of terror suspects from one foreign country to another for interrogation.

There was concern this weekend from Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP, who said: “The very idea of kidnapping is repugnant to us and we must handle these cases with extreme caution and a thorough understanding of the implications in American law.”

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: “This law may date back to bounty hunting days, but they should sort it out if they claim to be a civilised nation.”

The US Justice Department declined to comment.

 

[oneofmany]

Mugabe toughens grip using torture

Mugabe toughens grip using torture​

THE Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, has stepped up the use of torture against political opponents, civil rights protesters and students in a bid to clamp down on dissent in the run-up to next year's elections.

Torture methods that were once used only by the feared Central Intelligence Organisation, Zimbabwe's internal security agency, are now routinely employed by uniformed police officers. Victims report that electric shock torture is being used to spread indiscriminate terror.

They have given vivid testimony of life behind the barbed-wire fences of Fairbridge camp, a sprawling police detention centre outside Zimbabwe's second biggest city, Bulawayo.

The testimony backs up claims by Zimbabwe's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), that the Government has stepped up its campaign of intimidation despite the continuing talks between the two sides mediated by the South African President, Thabo Mbeki.

The revelations from former camp inmates also raise further concerns about the decision by Portugal, which holds the presidency of the European Union, to invite the Zimbabwean leader to next weekend's EU Africa summit in Lisbon. The invitation has prompted the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to boycott the event, saying he will not share a table with a man guilty of "oppression and repression".

Fairbridge, which houses a feared police unit known as the "Black Boots", acts as a regional interrogation centre for southern Zimbabwe. Its bloodstained cells have been full in recent months as the Mugabe regime seeks to quell protests over the country's 8000 per cent inflation rate and chronic food and fuel shortages.

One victim, 33-year-old Mandla Nyathi, a Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions activist, told how he and five other union members were taken to Fairbridge after being arrested during a demonstration. "The police demanded to know the whereabouts of our leadership, and when we did not say the torture began."

Police officers took out whips and started lashing him. "When that failed they electrocuted me through the genitals. As I passed out I could hear my colleagues screaming in pain."

Some of the worst alleged abuses by police have been carried out upon members of the civil protest group Woman of Zimbabwe Arise, most of whom are ordinary mothers.

One activist, Angela Nkomo, revealed how she was taken to Fairbridge after taking part in a demonstration in Bulawayo early this year.

"We were forced to strip naked and lie on our stomachs before dozens of Black Boots beat us with baton sticks and leather belts," she said. "After that we were interviewed individually in a room full of male policemen while we were naked."

Another member, Clarah Makoni, 19, recalled how "the torture continued for hours".

 

[oneofmany]

National Debt In The U.S. Growing By $1 Million A Minute

National Debt In The U.S. Growing By $1 Million A Minute​

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The national debt is growing by more than $1 million a minute, according to the National Debt Clock, which bases it's figures on U.S. Department of the Treasury data.

On Friday, the "total public outstanding" debt, which tallies the accumulation of money used to bridge budget gaps, reached almost $9.15 trillion. With the current U.S. population toppling 303 million, that's $30,114.14 owed by every man, woman and child.

According to the Associated Press, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Aghanistan, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost $2.4 trillion by 2017, and compounding interest rates are only exacerbating the problem, which could trigger a nationwide economic disaster in the very near future.

The national deficit stood at $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001, and, at current rates, it could reach $10 trillion before his current term expires in January 2009.

 

[oneofmany]

HMRC coughs to more data losses

HMRC coughs to more data losses​

David Hartnett, director general of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), admitted yesterday that the loss of the child benefit database was just the latest, and largest, giveaway of supposedly private data by the department.

Hartnett told the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee that HMRC was aware of seven other data breaches since Revenue and Customs merged in 2005.

Hartnett accepted that the repeated failures pointed to a systemic failure at the dysfunctional department. One of the seven cases involved what should have been confidential waste falling off the back of a lorry.

HMRC lost a disc containing banking details in 2006 and subsequently changed its "security" procedures.

Hartnett told the committee: "We introduced at that stage more stringent rules. We set out in 2006 to learn lessons in relation to security and to tighten things up."

Hartnett replaced Paul Gray, who resigned as a result of the failures. Gray is now working for the Cabinet Office.

 

[oneofmany]

$1B In Military Equipment Missing In Iraq

$1B In Military Equipment Missing In Iraq​

Tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, crates of machine guns and rocket propelled grenades are just a sampling of more than $1 billion in unaccounted for military equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces, according to a new report issued today by the Pentagon Inspector General and obtained exclusively by the CBS News investigative unit. Auditors for the Inspector General reviewed equipment contracts totaling $643 million but could only find an audit trail for $83 million.

The report details a massive failure in government procurement revealing little accountability for the billions of dollars spent purchasing military hardware for the Iraqi security forces. For example, according to the report, the military could not account for 12,712 out of 13,508 weapons, including pistols, assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers and machine guns.

The report comes on the same day that Army procurement officials will face tough questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding their procurement policies. One official, Claude Bolton, assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology has already announced his resignation on the heels of sharp criticism of army contracting. Bolton’s resignation is effective Jan. 2, 2008. The Army has significantly expanded its fraud investigations in recent months.

The report is scheduled for official release Thursday afternoon. Check back with CBSNews.com for more on this developing story.

 

[Fuckallyall]

Re: Mugabe toughens grip using torture

Mugabe toughens grip using torture​

It's all white peoples fault.

 

[oneofmany]

Man Held by C.I.A. Says He Was Tortured

Man Held by C.I.A. Says He Was Tortured​

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — The first of the so-called high-value Guantánamo detainees to have seen a lawyer claims he was subjected to “state-sanctioned torture” while in secret C.I.A. prisons, and he has asked for a court order barring the government from destroying evidence of his treatment.

The request, in a filing by his lawyers, was made on Nov. 29, before officials from the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged that the agency had destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda that current and former officials said included the use of harsh techniques.

Lawyers for the detainee, Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident, released documents in his case on Friday. They claim he “was subjected to an aggressive C.I.A. detention and interrogation program notable for its elaborate planning and ruthless application of torture” to numerous detainees.

The documents also suggest that Mr. Khan, 27, and other high-value detainees are now being held in a previously undisclosed area of the Guantánamo prison in Cuba he called Camp 7.

Those detainees include 14 men, some suspected of being former Qaeda officials, who President Bush acknowledged were held in a secret C.I.A. program. They were transferred to military custody at Guantánamo last year.

Asked about Mr. Khan’s assertions, Mark Mansfield, a C.I.A. spokesman, said, “the United States does not conduct or condone torture.” He said a small number of “hardened terrorists” had required what he called “special methods of questioning” in what he called a lawful and carefully run program.

The documents were heavily redacted by government security officials, and none of Mr. Khan’s specific assertions of torture could be read. One entire page was blacked out.

In addition to the court filing, Mr. Khan’s lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York released recently declassified notes of their first meetings with Mr. Khan, in October. The notes asserted that he had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder because of his treatment, including memory problems and “frantic expression.” They said he was “painfully thin and pale.”

A Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon, declined to respond to the assertions about Mr. Khan’s condition, saying that most detainees at Guantánamo gain weight.

Pentagon officials have said they believe that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, selected Mr. Khan, who grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, to study the feasibility of blowing up gasoline stations and poisoning reservoirs in the United States. But he has not been charged with any offenses.

His lawyers said Mr. Khan, while living in Pakistan, was “forcibly disappeared” and that he had “admitted anything his interrogators demanded of him, regardless of the truth.”

Lawyers who represent Guantánamo detainees agree to stringent restrictions that bar them from disclosing information from their clients until it is cleared by government security officials.

The notes that were declassified from Mr. Khan’s lawyers, Gitanjali S. Gutierrez and J. Wells Dixon, say he “lives in Camp 7” and imply that he has contact with at least one other high-value detainee, Abu Zubaydah.

Officials at Guantánamo have not discussed the existence of a Camp 7. They often say publicly that the most recent center constructed there is Camp 6, a modern maximum-security building.

Commander Gordon, citing security concerns, declined to comment on the indication that there may be a secret detention unit, and added that “we do not disclose the exact location of detainees within Guantánamo.”

The request for an order barring the government from destroying any evidence of torture was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is considering a challenge by Mr. Khan to his detention.

Mr. Khan’s lawyers claim that “there is a substantial risk that the torture evidence will disappear.” They did not specify what evidence they believe may exist.

An intelligence official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the C.I.A.’s interrogations of Mr. Khan were not videotaped.

Mr. Dixon, one of Mr. Khan’s lawyers, said Saturday that the admission that officials had destroyed videotapes of interrogations showed why such an order was needed.

“They are no longer entitled to a presumption that the government has acted lawfully or in good faith,” Mr. Dixon said.

 

[oneofmany]

Tax babies 'to save planet'

Tax babies 'to save planet'​

COUPLES who have more than two children should be charged a lifelong tax to offset their extra offspring's carbon dioxide emissions, a medical expert says.

The report in an Australian medical journal called for parents to be charged $5000 a head for every child after their second, and an annual tax of up to $800.

And couples who were sterilised would be eligible for carbon credits under the controversial proposal.

Perth specialist Professor Barry Walters was heavily critical of the $4000 baby bonus, saying that paying new parents extra for every baby fuelled more children, more emissions and "greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour".

Instead, it should be replaced with a "baby levy" in the form of a carbon tax in line with the "polluter pays" principle, he wrote in the latest Medical Journal of Australia.

"Every family choosing to have more than a defined number of children should be charged a carbon tax that would fund the planting of enough trees to offset the carbon cost generated by a new human being," said Prof Walters, an obstetrician at King Edward Memorial Hospital.

Sustainable Population Australia suggested a maximum of two, he said.

By the same reasoning, contraceptives like diaphragms and condoms, as well as sterilisation procedures, should attract carbon credits, the specialist said.

"As doctors, I believe we need to think this way," he wrote in a letter to the journal.

"As Australians I believe we need to be less arrogant.

"As citizens of the world, I believe we deserve no more population concessions than those in India or China."

Garry Eggers, director of the NSW Centre for Health Promotion and Research, agreed with the call, saying former treasurer Peter Costello's request for three children per family - "one for mum, one for dad and one for the country" - was too single-minded.

"Population remains crucial to all environmental considerations," wrote Professor Eggers, a leading advocate of the personal carbon trading debate.

"The debate (around population control) needs to be reopened as part of a second ecological revolution."

Family groups rejected the calls, saying larger families used less energy than smaller ones and should not be penalised.

 

[oneofmany]

Egypt 'fabricated terror group'

Egypt 'fabricated terror group'​

A US-based human rights group has accused the Egyptian government of using torture and false confessions in a high-profile anti-terrorism case.

Twenty-two alleged members of an unknown Islamist group, the Victorious Sect, were charged for planning attacks on tourism sites and gas pipelines.

US-based Human Rights Watch says its investigation found the security forces may have fabricated the group's name.

It also reports claims the arrests were to justify renewing emergency laws.

Although the state prosecutor dismissed the charges against the suspects, 10 of them are still believed to be in detention.

The BBC's Ian Pannell in Cairo says this is just the latest in a run of accusations by human rights organisations against Egypt's police and state security.

The Egyptian government has consistently denied that torture is used routinely and rejected what it sees as foreign interference in its own affairs.

'Pattern of abuse'

The authorities' claims made headlines in April 2006 when they said they had smashed a previously unheard-of terrorist group plotting a series of attacks against soft targets including tourists and Coptic Christian clerics.

"Beyond coerced confessions, there appears to be no compelling evidence to support the government's dramatic claims," HRW says.

"Indeed, it appears that SSI (state security investigations) may have fabricated the allegations made against at least some and possibly all of the them," its report says.

Detainees quoted by HRW said they had been beaten and kicked by their interrogators, and some were given electric shocks on their bodies, including their genitals.

Most of the testimonies in the report come via third parties, as the detainees themselves were unwilling to talk directly to investigators, for fear of retribution, HRW says.

A spokesperson for the organisation said the case was not unusual, but was part of a pattern of detention and torture by the Egyptian security services in order to obtain false confessions.

The "Victorious Sect" arrests came to light shortly before Egypt renewed its enduring and controversial emergency laws, which give sweeping powers of detention to the security forces.

"State security needs to show that it's working, that it's useful, and cases like these are useful politically, around the renewal of the emergency law," lawyer Muhammad Hashim is quoted saying in the HRW report.

The group says the Egyptian authorities ignored requests for information about the case and there was no immediate response to publication of the report.

Earlier this year, another human rights group released a highly critical report on Egypt's record on torture and illegal detention.

 

[Textiles]

I haven't watched any of these yet but I wanted to share this.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mMs733gFg-I

 

[oneofmany]

Police hold on to DNA records of youngsters

Police hold on to DNA records of youngsters​

THE DNA profiles of 2,805 children under the age of 16 are being stored on a police database.

West Worcestershire's Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Richard Burt said he is outraged that the details of so many youngsters in West Mercia - which includes Worcestershire and Hereford-shire are being held.

Mr Burt said if youngsters are not charged with an offence, their details should be removed.

He said: "It's an infringement of anybody's civil liberties to have their DNA captured by the police and kept when they have never been guilty of an offence, and particularly so for children. I think we are moving towards a Big Brother society where the organs of the state collect more and more personal information about citizens in order to control their lives.

"Clearly there is a value for using DNA to solve crimes, but what the Government and police need to do is find a more logical way of handling the data that preserves individual freedom."

The figures, which were released following a recent Parliamentary Questions session, show the breakdown profiles held on the national database for police forces.

West Mercia's include 6,156 16 to 18-year-olds, 5,049 19 to 20-year-olds, 24,641 21 to 30-year-olds, 16,201 31 to 40-year-olds, 10,581 41 to 50-year-olds, 4,988 51 to 60-year-olds and 2,485 over the age of 60.

In 2001 new laws enabled police to retain profiles, even if someone is not charged.

Before this, samples had to destroyed if the person concerned was acquitted or charges were dropped.

Worcester MP Mike Foster said: "It's a cheap soundbite from the Liberal Democrats, who clearly still have no concern for the fears of the victims of crime across the county of Worcestershire.

"A quarter of all those arrested are actually aged under 18 and that can include some very serious offences.

"It's not a criminal record, but does enable investigators to access records to solve crimes and I would have thought Richard Burt would applaud that if he was serious about law and order."

DNA details can be taken from anyone arrested for a recordable offence and detained in a police station.

The database is managed by the Forensic Science Service, Birmingham.

A West Mercia spokesperson said: "Under 18s make up 23 per cent of all arrests, and so a comparative proportion of profiles is to be expected. There are no legal powers to take a DNA sample from anyone under 10 without the consent of a parent or legal guardian."

 

[oneofmany]

Gordon Brown will sign EU treaty in private

Gordon Brown will sign EU treaty in private​

Gordon Brown has announced that he will travel to Portugal to sign the controversial European Union Reform Treaty.

Doubt had been thrown on Mr Brown's attendance at the signing ceremony in Lisbon on Thursday because of his commitment to give evidence to a high-ranking House of Commons committee that morning.

Reports of his possible absence sparked criticism that the Prime Minister was trying to disassociate himself from the EU plan.

On a policy level it would also have meant he missed negotiations between heads of state taking place on the sidelines of the ceremony.

But 10 Downing Street said this morning that arrangements have been made for Mr Brown to leave London immediately after the hearing of the Commons Liaison Committee.

He will miss the official signing ceremony in the morning, but will join fellow EU heads of government at lunch and will sign the treaty then, his spokesman said.

The low-profile signing has attracted criticism from anti-constitution campaigners.

Neil O'Brien, of the I Want A Referendum campaign, said: "This is a ludicrous attempt to avoid being seen signing up to the treaty. The idea that this is just an accidental diary clash is just not credible. It's not clever politics by Brown either, because it will allow his opponents to accuse him of cowardice again.

"Downing Street seems to wish the treaty would just go away. They hope that if no-one sees Brown signing up to it they won't notice it is happening. They are just burying their heads in the sand.

"The Lisbon treaty gives the EU new powers over everything from our public services to crime and immigration. Unless the Government is prepared to take it head-on and give people their say in a referendum, then it will only reinforce the perception that Europe is grabbing more and more powers in an undemocratic way."

The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has announced that the Lisbon Treaty does not involve any loss of Danish sovereignty and therefore his Government would not be calling a referendum on the issue.

"When sovereignty is relinquished, a referendum is needed; when no sovereignty is relinquished, Parliament will ratify the text," he said.

So far only Ireland has said it will hold a referendum on the treaty. Its constitution demands that all EU treaties are put to a national vote.

 

[oneofmany]

US secret court rejects call to release wiretap documents

US secret court rejects call to release wiretap documents​

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The top secret US court overseeing electronic surveillance programs rejected Tuesday a petition to release documents on the legal status of the government's "war-on-terror" wiretap operations.

In only the third time the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has publicly released a ruling, it turned back a request to reveal documents that would shed light on the government's program to spy on the communications of terror suspects without first obtaining warrants.

FISC's ruling argued that its role as a unique court dealing with national security issues necessarily meant its case documents and decisions would be classified, and that US constitutional provisions did not require it to release case materials.

It also said that even first deleting sensitive material from the papers sought by the American Civil Liberties Union -- secret documents related to the legality of the surveillance programs -- risked accidentally damaging the country's security.

"That possibility itself may be a price too high to pay," the court said in rejecting the ACLU request.

Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, called the decision disappointing.

"A federal court's interpretation of federal law should not be kept secret from the American public," Jaffer said.

"The Bush administration is seeking expanded surveillance powers from Congress because of the rulings issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court earlier this year. Under this decision, those rulings may remain secret forever."

In August the ACLU sought access to FISC rulings and orders made earlier this year that were cited in a new law, the Protect America Act, which expanded the government's powers to spy on the international communications of US citizens without first seeking a warrant.

The civil liberties advocates argued that the public had a right to know the content of those rulings and orders as they were used by the government to widen the parameters of its surveillance powers.

In the decision signed by FISC judge John Bates, the court said that, even if the court first removed justifiably secret materials to oblige the ACLU request, it still "might err by releasing information that in fact should remain classified (and) damage to national security would result."

 

[oneofmany]

Ban on imitation Samurai swords

Imitation Samurai swords: Cheap on the internet​

Ban on imitation Samurai swords​

Imitation Samurai swords are to be banned after a spate of attacks in the UK, say ministers.

The Home Office has confirmed plans to outlaw the weapons in England and Wales after putting forward the idea earlier this year.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said there was a clear danger to the public posed by easily-available swords.

The proposal is expected to stop short of banning genuine Japanese swords held by collectors or genuine enthusiasts.

In March 2007 the Home Office proposed banning imitation Samurai swords after representations from both MPs and the public. Ministers in Scotland had proposed a similar move in 2006.

Calls for a ban came after a number of high-profile incidents in which cheap Samurai-style swords had been used as a weapon.

The Home Office estimates there have been some 80 attacks in recent years involving Samurai-style blades, leading to at least five deaths.

While genuine Samurai swords are part of Japanese history and change hands for large sums of money, there is a trade in imitation blades which can be bought over the internet for as little as £35.

Jail threat

Under the proposals, the government will ban the import, sale and hire of Samurai swords from April 2008.

Anyone breaching the ban will face six months in jail and a £5,000 fine.

However, ministers say they have recognised there is a special case for exemptions for genuine collectors of the original weapons and acknowledge there is a legitimate role for the blades in some forms of martial arts.

Vernon Coaker said: "In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons - there have been a number of high profile, serious incidents involving samurai swords in England and Wales in recent years.

"It is therefore crucial that we take this action to tackle the menace of violent crime.

"We recognise it is the cheap, easily available samurai swords which are being used in crime and not the genuine, more expensive samurai swords which are of interest to collectors and martial arts enthusiasts."

In 2000 Andrew Pennington - an aide to former Liberal Democrat MP Nigel Jones - was murdered when Robert Ashman attacked both men at a constituency surgery in Cheltenham.

And at the beginning of December this year a Lincoln man was jailed after using a Samurai-style sword to murder a passer-by whom he thought had attempted to rape his wife.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has backed the Home office move saying that while the weapon is relatively uncommon, there is justification for a ban.

While genuine collectors such as museums will still be able to trade in the weapons, it remains unclear what measures will be put in place to prevent people from buying cheap blades via the internet, already considered a major marketplace for the swords.

 

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Ten of millions will be tracked by mobile phone within years

Ten of millions will be tracked by mobile phone within years​

PROFITS from wireless snooping are expected to go through the roof in Western Europe, as personal privacy is sacrificed at the altar of the big bogus phantom named Security.

Research outfit Juniper reckons snooping revenue will reach nearly €3.3billion by 2012, as employers track people, people track their kids and their pets and official snoops track everyone with a beard.

The process will begin with companies tracking their staff, Juniper reckons. Once folk get used to that, other agencies are likely to join in and soon everyone will be keeping tabs on everyone else.

Companies will introduce the idea as a service to "vulnerable staff" and it will all seem fine and dandy in the beginning.

By 2012, Juniper Research estimates around 21 million phones and 15 million vehicles will be being tracked on a regular basis.

 

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Brown signs EU Treaty as experts warn UK will surrender control of immigration

'From this old continent, a new Europe is born': European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso speaks at the signing​

Brown signs EU Treaty as experts warn UK will surrender control of immigration​

Gordon Brown finally signed the Lisbon treaty this afternoon - nearly three hours after every other EU leader.

With charges of "gutlessness" ringing in his ears before he set off, the Prime Minister suffered more indignity when a TV link crashed just as he was about to put his name on the document.

In the end his signature had to be squeezed alongside that of David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who earlier acted as stand-in for the Premier for a glitzy signing ceremony, joined by leaders of the other 26 EU member states.

Wearing a dark suit and pale tie, Mr Brown signed up at around 3.15pm, watched by EC president Jose Manuel Barroso and the Portuguese premier Jose Socrates.

The Prime Minister signed despite new evidence which shows the controversial document will surrender almost all control of Britain's immigration

Due to the delayed arrival of Mr Brown, Foreign Secretary David Miliband was the only foreign minister to attend the televised ceremony alone, amid a stream of prime ministers and presidents from the other 26 EU states.

Buried in the Treaty's small print is a ruling that gives new rights to EU leaders to overturn decisions made by Britain's Immigration and Asylum Tribunal.

Thousands of failed asylum seekers will now be able to take their cases to the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg where the final say will be handed to unselected bureaucrats in Brussels.
European Union leaders began signing the treaty at noon today in Lisbon - with Gordon Brown, who is flying in later today, expected to sign at about 3pm.

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said the treaty would create a more modern, more efficient and more modern union.

"The world needs a stronger Europe," he said.

In a speech before the signing, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called on European leaders to use the treaty to make freedom, prosperity and solidarity an everyday reality for all European citizens.

"From this old continent, a new Europe is born," he said.

Neil O'Brien, who heads the I Want A Referendum campaign, claimed last night: "By signing us up to the rejected Constitution, Gordon Brown is giving EU courts the right to hear asylum cases.

"This could mean that decisions made by UK courts to deport failed asylum seekers will be overturned by Brussels."

Almost 170,000 deportation cases are already brought before the Immigration Tribunal every year, with each case usually lasting around two years.

Giving failed asylum seekers powers to take their cases to Europe will cost the taxpayer millions of extra pounds as each case now already costs an average of £18,000.

The move drew a furious reaction from Tory leader David Cameron who has accused the Prime Minister of "betraying" the British public after ditching plans to hold a referendum.

"Today Gordon Brown will betray every good thing he claimed to stand for when he became Prime Minister," Cameron told the Sun.

"He said he would trust the British people and consult them more. He doesn't even have the guts to put it to the British people."

The news emerged after Brown was accused of political cowardice after it was confirmed that he will miss today's lavish signing ceremony for the new European treaty.

He will arrive in Lisbon too late and will have to add his name some time after the other EU leaders.

Tories seized on the announcement as evidence that Mr Brown is trying to duck responsibility for a treaty that he personally supports.

He has repeatedly stated that the delay is due to a diary conflict - but as he appeared before a House parliamentary committee today he opened with a joking reference to his plan to miss the signing ceremony and the EU heads of state family photo, so that he could appear before the committee.

"I think you can see the priority I attach to attending this committee," he said.

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "Some people say Gordon Brown's problems are that he isn't decisive and he lacks political courage.

"If he's ashamed of signing this treaty then why doesn't he honour his election promise and let the British people have their say?"

However, the Prime Minister dismissed the row over his decision not to attend the ceremony saying he had a prior engagement appearing before MPs at the Commons Liaison committee in Westminster.

Downing Street said that despite his late arrival in Lisbon, cameras will still be present when he finally adds his signature to the treaty more than an hour after EU leaders. He will then carry out talks with EU president Jose Socrates.

The Reform Treaty, negotiated earlier this year by Tony Blair and endorsed by Mr Brown, replaces the planned constitution that was rejected by voters in France and Holland in 2005.

Labour's 2005 manifesto pledged to give British voters a referendum on the constitution, but Mr Brown insists the treaty is substantially different.

But a string of other EU leaders have admitted it is almost identical to the proposed 2005 constitution, on which Labour promised a referendum before it was rejected by voters in France and Holland.

Yesterday, furious British Euro MPs led a noisy protest at a signing ceremony for a new EU rights charter. Around 100 heckling Eurosceptics from Britain, France, Poland and Italy wrecked what was supposed to be a solemn event at the Strasbourg Parliament.

hey waved placards and banners, stamped, booed and chanted "referendum". Opponents called them "hooligans" who shamed Britain.

The ceremony at the parliament was held to mark the signing of the charter by the EU's three institutions - the European Parliament, European Commission and the European Council, which represents the member states.

"Referendum, we want a referendum. The people of Europe deserve to decide for themselves," Nigel Farage, leader of Britain's UK Independence Party, shouted from his seat.

Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs in marginal seats face fierce attacks at the next election over their refusal to back a referendum on the revised EU constitution.

Millions of leaflets will be sent to voters in the constituencies of 101 Labour and 30 LibDem MPs with majorities under 5,000.

They will accuse the MPs of treating the public like "fools".

Organisers of the ReferendumList.com campaign say even a small backlash could unseat many of the anti-referendum MPs.

 

[oneofmany]

Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt

Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt​

Evangelical pastors are helping to create a terrible new campaign of violence against young Nigerians. Children and babies branded as evil are being abused, abandoned and even murdered while the preachers make money out of the fear of their parents and their communities.

The rainy season is over and the Niger Delta is lush and humid. This southern edge of West Africa, where Nigeria's wealth pumps out of oil and gas fields to bypass millions of its poorest people, is a restless place. In the small delta state of Akwa Ibom, the tension and the poverty has delivered an opportunity for a new and terrible phenomenon that is leading to the abuse and the murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children. And it is being done in the name of Christianity.

Almost everyone goes to church here. Driving through the town of Esit Eket, the rust-streaked signs, tarpaulins hung between trees and posters on boulders, advertise a church for every third or fourth house along the road. Such names as New Testament Assembly, Church of God Mission, Mount Zion Gospel, Glory of God, Brotherhood of the Cross, Redeemed, Apostalistic. Behind the smartly painted doors pastors make a living by 'deliverances' - exorcisms - for people beset by witchcraft, something seen to cause anything from divorce, disease, accidents or job losses. With so many churches it's a competitive market, but by local standards a lucrative one.

But an exploitative situation has now grown into something much more sinister as preachers are turning their attentions to children - naming them as witches. In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush.

Some parents scrape together sums needed to pay for a deliverance - sometimes as much as three or four months' salary for the average working man - although the pastor will explain that the witch might return and a second deliverance will be needed. Even if the parent wants to keep the child, their neighbours may attack it in the street.

This is not just a few cases. This is becoming commonplace. In Esit Eket, up a nameless, puddled-and-potholed path is a concrete shack stuffed to its fetid rafters with roughly made bunk beds. Here, three to a bed like battery chickens, sleep victims of the besuited Christian pastors and their hours-long, late-night services. Ostracised and abandoned, these are the children a whole community believes fervently are witches.

Sam Ikpe-Itauma is one of the few people in this area who does not believe what the evangelical 'prophets' are preaching. He opened his house to a few homeless waifs he came across, and now he tries his best to look after 131.

'The neighbours were not happy with me and tell me "you are supporting witches". This project was an accident, I saw children being abandoned and it was very worrying. I started with three children, then every day it increased up to 15, so we had to open this new place,' he says. 'For every maybe five children we see on the streets, we believe one has been killed, although it could be more as neighbours turn a blind eye when a witch child disappears.

'It is good we have this shelter, but it is under constant attack.' As he speaks two villagers walk past, at the end of the yard, pulling scarfs across their eyes to hide the 'witches' from their sight.

Ikpe-Itauma's wife, Elizabeth, acts as nurse to the injured children and they have called this place the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network, a big name for a small refuge. It has found support from a charity running a school in the area, Stepping Stones Nigeria, which is trying to help with money to feed the children, but the numbers turning up here are a huge challenge.

Mary Sudnad, 10, grimaces as her hair is pulled into corn rows by Agnes, 11, but the scalp just above her forehead is bald and blistered. Mary tells her story fast, in staccato, staring fixedly at the ground.

'My youngest brother died. The pastor told my mother it was because I was a witch. Three men came to my house. I didn't know these men. My mother left the house. Left these men. They beat me.' She pushes her fists under her chin to show how her father lay, stretched out on his stomach on the floor of their hut, watching. After the beating there was a trip to the church for 'a deliverance'.

A day later there was a walk in the bush with her mother. They picked poisonous 'asiri' berries that were made into a draught and forced down Mary's throat. If that didn't kill her, her mother warned her, then it would be a barbed-wire hanging. Finally her mother threw boiling water and caustic soda over her head and body, and her father dumped his screaming daughter in a field. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she stayed near the house for a long time before finally slinking off into the bush. Mary was seven. She says she still doesn't feel safe. She says: 'My mother doesn't love me.' And, finally, a tear streaks down her beautiful face.

Gerry was picked out by a 'prophetess' at a prayer night and named as a witch. His mother cursed him, his father siphoned petrol from his motorbike tank and spat it over his eight-year-old face. Gerry's facial blistering is as visible as the trauma in his dull eyes. He asks every adult he sees if they will take him home to his parents: 'It's not them, it's the prophetess, I am scared of her.'

Nwaeka is about 16. She sits by herself in the mud, her eyes rolling, scratching at her stick-thin arms. The other children are surprisingly patient with her. The wound on her head where a nail was driven in looks to be healing well. Nine- year-old Etido had nails, too, five of them across the crown of his downy head. Its hard to tell what damage has been done. Udo, now 12, was beaten and abandoned by his mother. He nearly lost his arm after villagers, finding him foraging for food by the roadside, saw him as a witch and hacked at him with machetes.

Magrose is seven. Her mother dug a pit in the wood and tried to bury her alive. Michael was found by a farmer clearing a ditch, starving and unable to stand on legs that had been flogged raw.

Ekemini Abia has the look of someone in a deep state of shock. Both ankles are circled with gruesome wounds and she moves at a painful hobble. Named as a witch, her father and elders from the church tied her to a tree, the rope cutting her to the bone, and left the 13-year-old there alone for more than a week.

There are sibling groups such as Prince, four, and Rita, nine. Rita told her mum she had dreamt of a lovely party where there was lots to eat and to drink. The belief is that a witch flies away to the coven at night while the body sleeps, so Rita's sweet dream was proof enough: she was a witch and because she had shared food with her sibling - the way witchcraft is spread - both were abandoned. Victoria, cheeky and funny, aged four, and her seven-year-old sister Helen, a serene little girl. Left by their parents in the shell of an old shack, the girls didn't dare move from where they had been abandoned and ate leaves and grass.

The youngest here is a baby. The older girls take it in turn to sling her on their skinny hips and Ikpe-Itauma has named her Amelia, after his grandmother. He estimates around 5,000 children have been abandoned in this area since 1998 and says many bodies have turned up in the rivers or in the forest. Many more are never found. 'The more children the pastor declares witches, the more famous he gets and the more money he can make,' he says. 'The parents are asked for so much money that they will pay in instalments or perhaps sell their property. This is not what churches should be doing.'

Although old tribal beliefs in witch doctors are not so deeply buried in people's memories, and although there had been indigenous Christians in Nigeria since the 19th century, it is American and Scottish Pentecostal and evangelical missionaries of the past 50 years who have shaped these fanatical beliefs. Evil spirits, satanic possessions and miracles can be found aplenty in the Bible, references to killing witches turn up in Exodus, Deuteronomy and Galatians, and literal interpretation of scriptures is a popular crowd-pleaser.

Pastor Joe Ita is the preacher at Liberty Gospel Church in nearby Eket. 'We base our faith on the Bible, we are led by the holy spirit and we have a programme of exposing false religion and sorcery.' Soft of voice and in his smart suit and tie, his church is being painted and he apologises for having to sit outside near his shiny new Audi to talk. There are nearly 60 branches of Liberty Gospel across the Niger Delta. It was started by a local woman, mother-of-two Helen Ukpabio, whose luxurious house and expensive white Humvee are much admired in the city of Calabar where she now lives. Many people in this area credit the popular evangelical DVDs she produces and stars in with helping to spread the child witch belief.

Ita denies charging for exorcisms but acknowledges his congregation is poor and has to work hard to scrape up the donations the church expects. 'To give more than you can afford is blessed. We are the only ones who really know the secrets of witches. Parents don't come here with the intention of abandoning their children, but when a child is a witch then you have to say "what is that there? Not your child." The parents come to us when they see manifestations. But the secret is that, even if you abandon your child, the curse is still upon you, even if you kill your child the curse stays. So you have to come here to be delivered afterwards as well,' he explains patiently.

'We know how they operate. A witch will put a spell on its mother's bra and the mother will get breast cancer. But we cannot attribute all things to witches, they work on inclinations too, so they don't create HIV, but if you are promiscuous then the witch will give you HIV.'

As the light fades, he presents a pile of Ukpabio's DVDs. Mistakenly thinking they are a gift, I am firmly put right.

Later that night, in another part of town, the hands of the clock edge towards midnight. The humidity of the day is sealed into the windowless church and drums pound along with the screeching of the sweat-drenched preacher. 'No witches, oh Lord,' he screams into the microphone. 'As this hour approaches, save us, oh Lord!'

His congregation is dancing, palms aloft, women writhe and yell in tongues. A group moves forward shepherding five children, one a baby, and kneel on the concrete floor and the pastor comes among them, pressing his hands down on each child's head in turn, as they try to hide in the skirts of the woman. This is deliverance night at the Church of the True Redeemer, and while the service will carry on for some hours, the main event - for which the parents will have paid cash - is over.

Walking out into the night, the drums and singing from other churches ring out as such scenes are being repeated across the village.

It is hard to find people to speak out against the brutality. Chief Victor Ikot is one. He not only speaks out against the 'tinpot' churches, but has also done the unthinkable and taken in a witch to his own home. The chief's niece, Mbet, was declared a witch when she was eight. Her mother, Ekaete, made her drink olive oil, then poison berries, then invited local men to beat her with sticks. The pastor padlocked her to a tree but unlocked her when her mother could not find the money for a deliverance. Mbet fled. Mbet, now 11, says she has not seen the woman since, adding: 'My mother is a wicked mother.'

The Observer tracked down Mbet's mother to her roadside clothing stall where she nervously fiddled with her mobile phone and told us how her daughter had given her what sounded very much like all the symptoms of malaria. 'I had internal heat,' she says, indicating her stomach. 'It was my daughter who had caused this, she drew all the water from my body. I could do nothing. She was stubborn, very stubborn.' And if her daughter had died in the bush? She shrugged: 'That is God's will. It is in God's hands.'

Chief Victor has no time for his sister-in-law. 'Nowadays when a child becomes stubborn, then everyone calls them witches. But it is usually from the age of 10 down, I have never seen anyone try to throw a macho adult into the street. This child becomes a nuisance, so they give a dog a bad name and they can hang it.

'It is alarming because no household is untouched. But it is the greed of the pastors, driving around in Mercedes, that makes them choose the vulnerable.'

In a nearby village The Observer came across five-year-old twins, Itohowo and Kufre. They are still hanging around close to their mother's shack, but are obviously malnourished and in filthy rags. Approaching the boys brings a crowd of villagers who stand around and shout: 'Take them away from us, they are witches.' 'Take them away before they kill us all.' 'Witches'.

The woman who gave birth to these sorry scraps of humanity stands slightly apart from the crowd, arms crossed. Iambong Etim Otoyo has no intention of taking any responsibility for her sons. 'They are witches,' she says firmly and walks away.

And by nightfall there are 133 children in the chicken coop concrete house at Esit Eket.

 

[oneofmany]

Mobile Labs to Target Iraqis for Death

Mobile Labs to Target Iraqis for Death​

U.S. forces in Iraq soon will be equipped with high-tech equipment that will let them process an Iraqi’s biometric data in minutes and help American soldiers decide whether they should execute the person or not, according to its inventor.

"A war fighter needs to know one of three things: Do I let him go? Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot?” Pentagon weapons designer Anh Duong told the Washington Post for a feature on how this 47-year-old former Vietnamese refugee and mother of four rose to become a top U.S. bomb-maker.

Though Duong is best known for designing high-explosives used to destroy hardened targets, she also supervised the Joint Expeditionary Forensics Facilities project, known as a “lab in a box” for analyzing biometric data, such as iris scans and fingerprints, that have been collected on more than one million Iraqis.

The labs – collapsible, 20-by-20-foot units each with a generator and a satellite link to a biometric data base in West Virginia – will let U.S. forces cross-check data in the field against information collected previously that can be used to identify insurgents. These labs are expected to be deployed across Iraq in early 2008.

Duong said the next step will be to shrink the lab to the size of a “backpack” so soldiers who encounter a suspect “could find out within minutes” if he’s on a terrorist watch list and should be killed.

Duong justified this biometric-data program as a humanitarian way of singling out “bad guys” for elimination while sparing innocent civilians.

"I don't want My Lai in Iraq," Duong said. "The biggest difficulty in the global war on terror – just like in Vietnam – is to know who the bad guys are. How do we make sure we don't kill innocents?"

In Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military units already are operating under loose rules of engagement that allow them to kill individuals who are identified as suspected terrorists or who show the slightest evidence of being insurgents. American forces also have rounded up tens of thousands of Iraqi military-age males, or MAMs, for detention.

During a summer 2007 trip to Iraq, Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was briefed on U.S. plans to expand the number of Iraqis in American detention by the end of 2008.

“The detainees have risen to over 18,000 and are projected to hit 30,000 (by the U.S. command) by the end of the year and 50,000 by the end of 2008,” Cordesman wrote in his trip report.

The sweeps have enabled the U.S. military to collect biometric data for future use if and when the Iraqis are released back into the general population.

Test Tube

In effect, the Bush administration is transforming Iraq into a test tube for modern techniques of repression, which already include use of night-vision optics on drone aircraft, heat resonance imaging, and firepower that is both deadly and precise.

The new techniques represent a modernization of tactics used in other counterinsurgencies, such as in Vietnam in the 1960s and in Central America in the 1980s.

In Vietnam, U.S. forces planted sensors along infiltration routes for targeting bombing runs against North Vietnamese troops. In Guatemala, security forces were equipped with early laptop computers for use in identifying suspected subversives who would be dragged off buses and summarily executed.

Now, modern technologies are updating these strategies for the 21st century’s “war on terror.”

The U.S. news media mostly has reacted to these developments with gee-whiz enthusiasm, like the Post story about Duong, which breezily depicts her complicated life as a devoted mom whose personal history as a Vietnamese refugee led her to a career developing sophisticated weapons for the U.S. government.

The Post feature article expressed no alarm and no criticism of Duong’s comment about shooting Iraqi suspects “on the spot.” [Washington Post, Dec. 1, 2007]

Similarly, U.S. newspapers have consigned stories about U.S. troops engaging in extrajudicial killings of suspects mostly to pages deep inside the newspapers or have covered the news sympathetically. While some harsh criticism has fallen on trigger-happy Blackwater “security contractors,” U.S. troops have been given largely a free pass.

For instance, no furor arose this fall when the U.S. military, in effect, endorsed claims by members of elite Army sniper units that they have been granted broad discretion in killing any Iraqi who crosses the path of their rifle scopes.

On Nov. 8, a U.S. military jury at Camp Liberty in Iraq acquitted the leader of an Army sniper team in the killings of three Iraqi men south of Baghdad during the early days of the troop “surge” this year.

Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley was found not guilty of murder, though he was convicted of lesser charges that he had planted an AK-47 rifle on one of the dead men and had shown disrespect to a superior officer.

In an e-mail interview with the New York Times, Hensley complained that he should not have even faced a court martial because he was following guidance from two superior officers who wanted him to boost the unit’s kill count.

“Every last man we killed was a confirmed terrorist,” Hensley wrote. “We were praised when bad guys died. We were upbraided when bad guys did not die.” [NYT, Nov. 9, 2007]

Asymmetric Warfare

The case of Army sniper Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., who served under Hensley, also revealed a classified program in which the Pentagon’s Asymmetric Warfare Group encouraged U.S. military snipers in Iraq to drop “bait” – such as electrical cords and ammunition – and then shoot Iraqis who pick up the items, according to evidence in the Sandoval case. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2007]

(Like Hensley, Sandoval was acquitted of murder but convicted of a lesser charge, the planting of copper wire on one of the slain Iraqis to make it look as if the dead man were involved in making explosive devices.)

Another case of a targeted killing of a suspected insurgent surfaced at a military court hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in mid-September. Two U.S. Special Forces soldiers took part in the execution of an Afghani who was suspected of heading an insurgent group.

As described at the hearing, Staffel and Anderson were leading a team of Afghan soldiers when an informant told them where a suspected insurgent leader was hiding. The U.S.-led contingent found a man believed to be Nawab Buntangyar walking outside his compound near the village of Hasan Kheyl.

While the Americans kept their distance out of fear the suspect might be wearing a suicide vest, the man was questioned about his name and the Americans checked his description against a list from the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan, known as “the kill-or-capture list.”

Concluding that the man was insurgent leader Nawab Buntangyar, Staffel gave the order to shoot, and Anderson – from a distance of about 100 yards away – fired a bullet through the man’s head, killing him instantly.

The soldiers viewed the killing as “a textbook example of a classified mission completed in accordance with the American rules of engagement,” the International Herald Tribune reported. “The men said such rules allowed them to kill Buntangyar, whom the American military had designated a terrorist cell leader, once they positively identified him.” [IHT, Sept. 17, 2007]

According to evidence at the Fort Bragg proceedings, an earlier Army investigation had cleared the two soldiers because they had been operating under “rules of engagement” that empowered them to kill individuals who have been designated “enemy combatants,” even if the targets were unarmed and presented no visible threat.

In effect, Duong’s mobile labs would streamline the process for identifying suspected insurgents like Buntangyar.

Rather than relying on physical descriptions, U.S. forces could scan a suspect’s eyes or check his fingerprints -- and instantaneously cross-check it with data stored in West Virginia -- before deciding, in Duong’s words, "Do I let him go? Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot?”