TEDxRainier - Dimitri Christakis - Media and Children

via youtube.com

Master-Map of Bilderberg Interlocks

"The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-onlyconference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence.[1] About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from finance, industry, labour, education and communications. Meetings are closed to the public..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group

interlock
verb |ˌintərˈläk| [ intrans. ]
(of two or more things) engage with each other by overlapping or by the fitting together of projections and recesses : their fingers interlocked.
noun |ˈintərˌläk|
1 a device or mechanism for connecting or coordinating the function of different components.
2 (also interlock fabric) a fabric knitted with closely interlocking stitches that allow it to stretch, typically used in underwear.

bilderberg_map_interlocks12.pdf Download this file

US steps outside the law as the war on terror drones on

At a meeting held in Waziristan, organised by the UK legal charity Reprieve, locals were encouraged to accumulate photographic evidence of the damage these strikes cause. Tariq Aziz, a 16-year-old boy, offered to collect this information if it would help protect his family. Within 72 hours the car he was travelling in was blown up by a drone.

American officials have reportedly praised the precision of the drone attacks. According to The Guardian, ''the CIA does not comment on drones, but privately claims civilian casualties are rare''. Was Tariq Aziz a militant? Was his 12-year-old cousin - also killed - a militant? Was he involved in plotting attacks that may have jeopardised American lives? Here is the problem: amid official secrecy and in the absence of an allegation tried, tested and proven or disproven in an independent and transparent court, we can only guess. If Guantanamo and the NDAA represent an assault on the right to due process, drones dispense with the principle entirely.

via smh.com.au

Pics of the Day: X-47B From Above

via defensetech.org

U.S. Defense Department can't account for billions for Iraq, audit finds

(CNN) -- The U.S. Defense Department cannot account for about $2 billion it was given to cover Iraq-related expenses and is not providing Iraq with a complete list of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects, according to two new government audits.

The reports come from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

The Iraqi government in 2004 gave the Department of Defense access to about $3 billion to pay bills for certain contracts, and the department can only show what happened to about a third of that, the inspector general says in an audit published Friday.

via cnn.com

Soviet Experiments In The Revival of Organs

via vimeo.com

Families of Soldiers Call for Investigation into Deaths After Military Hazing

via youtube.com

Infographic: Why the movie industry is so wrong about SOPA

via matadornetwork.com

Chilling Effects Clearinghouse

A joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington School of Law, and Santa Clara University School of Law clinics.

Do you know your online rights? Have you received a letter asking you to remove information from a Web site or to stop engaging in an activity? Are you concerned about liability for information that someone else posted to your online forum? If so, this site is for you.

Chilling Effects aims to help you understand the protections that the First Amendment and intellectual property laws give to your online activities. We are excited about the new opportunities the Internet offers individuals to express their views, parody politicians, celebrate their favorite movie stars, or criticize businesses. But we've noticed that not everyone feels the same way. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some individuals and corporations are using intellectual property and other laws to silence other online users. Chilling Effects encourages respect for intellectual property law, while frowning on its misuse to "chill" legitimate activity.

The website offers background material and explanations of the law for people whose websites deal with topics such as Fan Fiction, Copyright, Domain Names and Trademarks, Anonymous Speech, and Defamation.

via chillingeffects.org

IT IS CONCLUSIVE - 9/11 AIRCRAFT AIRBORNE WELL AFTER CRASH

More information has surfaced which conclusively demonstrates the aircraft reportedly used on 9/11, were airborne well after their alleged crashes. This article supplements our last, "ACARS CONFIRMED - 9/11 AIRCRAFT AIRBORNE LONG AFTER CRASH" in which the ACARS system is explained as well as how to determine if a message were received by the aircraft, along with how ground stations are selected through Flight Tracking Protocol based on messages routed to United 175, N612UA. We now have further evidence which places United 93, N591UA, in the vicinity of Champaign, IL, 500+ miles away from the alleged crash site in Shanksville, PA. This information is further corroborated by a (now former) United Airlines Manager of Flight Dispatch Michael J. Winter.

On January 28, 2002, Mr. Winter gave an interview to the FBI at United Headquarters near Chicago, IL(1). During this interview, Mr. Winter reviewed a list of ACARS messages explaining the contents and which messages were received or rejected. The messages provided below are the most significant and fatal to what we have been told by the 9/11 Commission. Two messages were routed through the Fort Wayne, Indiana remote ground stations (FWA), followed by two more messages which were routed through Champaign, IL (CMI).

via pilotsfor911truth.org

NYPD and Pentagon to place mobile scanners on the streets on NYC

New York City’s war on freedom could be adding a new weapon to its arsenal, especially if NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has his say.

The head of the New York Police Department is working with the Pentagon to secure body scanners to be used throughout the Big Apple.

If Kelly gets his wish, the city will be receiving a whole slew of Terahertz Imagining Detection scanners, a high-tech radiation detector that measures the energy that is emitted from a persons’ body. As CBS News reports, “It measures the energy radiating from a body up to 16 feet away, and can detect anything blocking it, like a gun.”

What it can also do, however, is allow the NYPD to conduct illegal searches by means of scanning anyone walking the streets of New York. Any object on your person could be privy to the eyes of the detector, and any suspicious screens can prompt police officers to search someone on suspicion of having a gun, or anything else under their clothes.

via rt.com

Prisoners of their own device: Trojan attacks on device-independent quantum cryptography

Device-independent cryptographic schemes aim to guarantee security to users based only on the output statistics of any components used, and without the need to verify their internal functionality. Since this would protect users against untrustworthy or incompetent manufacturers, sabotage or device degradation, this idea has excited much interest, and many device-independent schemes have been proposed. We point out here a critical weakness of device-independent quantum cryptography for tasks, such as key distribution, that rely on public communication between secure laboratories. Untrusted devices may record their inputs and outputs and reveal encoded information about them in their outputs during later runs. Reusing devices thus compromises the security of a protocol and risks leaking secret data. Possible solutions include securely destroying used devices or isolating them until previously generated data need no longer be kept secret. However, such solutions are costly and impose severe constraints on the practicality of many device-independent quantum cryptographic schemes.

via arxiv.org

1969: The ARPA Network

4...nodes...

A Violation of Trust

A Violation Of Trust begins filming in the new year, so it will be available for its Worldwide TV Premiere on the night of 9/11/12 – potentially reaching hundreds of millions of people all on the same night!!!

Talk about a "Weapon of Mass Instruction."

We are presently negotiating a distribution contract as I write this. Together with the distributor, we plan to attend and begin selling "Violation" to TV networks across our world at the May 16th CANNES Marche du Film.

via actorsandartistsfor911truth.com

U.S. fights to keep $6.6 million in al-Qaeda assets from 9/11 victims

In a ferocious legal battle pitting government lawyers against victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the Justice Department is fighting to block thousands of individuals and businesses from taking $6.6 million in frozen al-Qaeda assets seized from an alleged terrorism financier.

Frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2007, the money is sought by the attorneys for 6,000 individual victims and insurers who suffered billions in losses from the attacks on the World Trade Center.

The money, in a Chicago brokerage account controlled by senior al-Qaeda operative Abu al-Tayyeb until his arrest in Saudi Arabia in 2006, drew little public notice until lawyers for 9/11 victims moved in June to collect on a 2007 default judgment.

via articles.philly.com

CIA whistleblower charged for leaking torture secrets

A former CIA official who publicly confirmed the waterboarding of top Al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was charged Monday with leaking classified information to journalists, including the identities of two CIA officers.

John Kiriakou, who served with the CIA between 1990 and 2004, was charged with violating a law that makes it illegal to disclose the identity of a covert officer, leaking classified information and lying to a CIA publications review board, the department said.

He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

via rawstory.com

Were Explosives the Source of the Seismic Signals Emitted from New York on September 11, 2001?

NTRODUCTION

When major shocks occur at the Earth's surface or at depth, waves of different types, magnitudes and speeds may move out from the source location. Such waves can be detected by seismometers located at recording stations, and the data from the recordings can be analyzed to learn many details of the source events. Seismic signals were recorded at stations in New York and four neighboring states on September 11, 2001 during the period when the North and South Towers (WTC1 and WTC2, respectively) were struck by airliners and collapsed, as well as during the collapse of Building 7 of the WTC, which had not been hit by a plane.

Data from the Palisades, NY recording station, located 34 km north-north-east of Manhattan, published by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (LDEO), provide the most detailed seismic waveforms for analysis, particularly for the determination of the locations (aerial, surface, or subsurface) and timing of the events that created the seismic waves.

Seismologists have been puzzled in their analysis of signals recorded for the events at the World Trade Center, as the contradictions are significant. They are particularly intrigued by the presence of seismic "peaks" before the collapses. This text focuses on the study of the seismic signals from Palisades. The new interpretation presented here renders the assertions of the seismic analysis of the events at the WTC, presented by the government, null and void.

STUDY OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE DIFFERENT WAVEFORMS

Five waveforms will be analyzed below. They are attributed by the LDEO team to specific causes, as follows:

1. the signals that, according to LDEO, match the moment when the planes hit WTC1 and WTC2, respectively, shown in figures 1a and 1b;
2. the signals that match the collapses of WTC1 and WTC2, respectively, shown in figures 2a and 2b; and
3. the signal that shows the collapse of WTC7, shown in Figure 2c.

The analysis presented here will question LDEO's identifications of the causes of the waveforms.

via 911truth.org

India Fingerprinting, Iris Scanning Over One Billion People

via youtube.com

US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA12-024A -- Anonymous DDoS Activity

From: US-CERT Technical Alerts
Subject: US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA12-024A -- "Anonymous" DDoS Activity
Date: January 24, 2012 7:03:18 PM PST
To: technical-alerts@us-cert.gov

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

National Cyber Alert System

Technical Cyber Security Alert TA12-024A

"Anonymous" DDoS Activity

Original release date: January 24, 2012
Last revised: --
Source: US-CERT

Overview

US-CERT has received information from multiple sources about
coordinated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks with
targets that included U.S. government agency and entertainment
industry websites. The loosely affiliated collective "Anonymous"
allegedly promoted the attacks in response to the shutdown of the
file hosting site MegaUpload and in protest of proposed U.S.
legislation concerning online trafficking in copyrighted
intellectual property and counterfeit goods (Stop Online Piracy
Act, or SOPA, and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic
Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA).

I. Description

US-CERT has evidence of two types of DDoS attacks: One using HTTP
GET requests and another using a simple UDP flood.

The Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) is a denial-of-service attack tool
associated with previous Anonymous activity. US-CERT has reviewed
at least two implementations of LOIC. One variant is written in
JavaScript and is designed to be used from a web browser. An
attacker can access this variant of LOIC on a website and select
targets, specify an optional message, throttle attack traffic, and
monitor attack progress. A binary variant of LOIC includes the
ability to join a botnet to allow nodes to be controlled via IRC or
RSS command channels (the "HiveMind" feature).

The following is a sample of LOIC traffic recorded in a web server
log:

"GET /?id=1327014400570&msg=We%20Are%20Legion! HTTP/1.1" 200
99406 "hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blafp1ly1.html" "Mozilla/5.0
(Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:9.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/9.0.1"

The following sites have been identified in HTTP referrer headers
of suspected LOIC traffic. This list may not be complete. Please do
not visit any of the links as they may still host functioning LOIC
or other malicious code.

"hxxp://3g.bamatea.com/loic.html"
"hxxp://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/"
"hxxp://chatimpacto.org/Loic/"
"hxxp://cybercrime.hostzi.com/Ym90bmV0/loic/"
"hxxp://event.seeho.co.kr/loic.html"
"hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/bl3weewxq.html"
"hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/bl7qhhp5c.html"
"hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blafp1ly1.html"
"hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blakyjwbi.html"
"hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blal5t64j.html"
"hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blaoyp0qs.html"
"hxxp://www.lcnongjipeijian.com/loic.html"
"hxxp://www.rotterproxy.info/browse.php/704521df/ccc21Oi8/
vY3liZXJ/jcmltZS5/ob3N0emk/uY29tL1l/tOTBibVY/wL2xvaWM/v/b5/
fnorefer"
"hxxp://www.tandycollection.co.kr/loic.html"
"hxxp://www.zgon.cn/loic.html"
"hxxp://zgon.cn/loic.html"
"hxxp://www.turbytoy.com.ar/admin/archivos/hive.html"

...

http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA12-024A.html

Alpha, Beta and Gamma - which objects can they travel through?

via youtube.com

Military Indistrial Complex Gov Staff

Military Indistrial Complex Gov Staff

CONTRIBUTED MAP  AUTHOR: Anonymous  CREATED: 19-Jan-2012  CATEGORY: Government, Military

Members of US Government who are connected with the top 5 companies of the Military Industrial Complex

via mapper.nndb.com

Anonymous downs government, music industry sites in largest attack ever

Hacktivists with the collective Anonymous are waging an attack on the website for the White House after successfully breaking the sites for the FBI, Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.

In response to today’s federal raid on the file sharing service Megaupload, hackers with the online collective Anonymous have broken the websites for the FBI, Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA, Motion Picture Association of America and Warner Music Group.

“It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org,” Anonymous operative Barrett Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon.

Only hours before the DoJ and Universal sites went down, news broke that Megaupload, a massive file sharing site with a reported 50 million daily users, was taken down by federal agents. Four people linked to Megaupload were arrested in New Zealand and an international crackdown led agents to serving at least 20 search warrants across the globe.

via rt.com

Strauss-Kahn & Geithner

via 2.bp.blogspot.com

"You will be mine tonight."

"Oh you're so randy. Everyone's watching!"

RENDITION: Thousands of "Suspects" have "Disappeared": Shedding Light on North Carolina's "Rendition" Connection

The 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was a searing reminder of the pain felt by those who lost loved ones on that day and in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New York City opened a stunning memorial, which allowed all of us to remember and grieve.

A very different panorama greets the families who last week marked a related anniversary - the opening of the Guantánamo Detention Camp on Jan. 11, 2002, and the beginning of the Bush administration's embrace of what Vice President Dick Cheney termed "the dark side."

In 10 years, thousands of suspects have been detained or even "disappeared," secretly taken on American orders to be interrogated and sometimes tortured all over the world. Some were no doubt guilty. But many were not. All were treated without regard for due process, making a mockery of our commitment to human rights. On this 10th anniversary, the victims of "extraordinary rendition" and torture and their families are largely alone and forgotten.

North Carolina played a crucial role in this abuse. Aero Contractors, the CIA-affiliated aviation company headquartered at the Johnston County Airport in Smithfield, transported dozens of men to overseas jails. In places like Uzbekistan, Romania and Egypt, North Carolina-based pilots and crews delivered prisoners to jails where they were held incommunicado and savagely tortured. Sometimes, the torturers were U.S. officials; other times, Americans had others do the dirty work.

Much of the information obtained was questionable at best and often wrong, making America less - not more - safe.

Extraordinary rendition is a clear violation of international law and U.S. treaty obligations. Many of its victims have since been released, with no charges filed and no

via globalresearch.ca

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet

via vimeo.com

TSA Air Marshal Arrested in Mugging of Boston Occupier

What was a TSA air marshal doing at an Occupy camp at 3:40 on a Saturday morning, just an hour before protestors were evicted by Boston police?

via wired.com

TSCM Audio Countermeasures: Demo

Good Evening Folks,

Here is a little sample of some of my TSCM Audio Countermeasures projects.

http://www.tscm.com/Babbler1.wav

It is only 50 minutes long and is 1 GB is length, so it is pretty small.

Put it on your iPad or iPad and plug in some powered speakers and you will destroy the ability of anybody to eavesdrop on you, and you will bring even the most sophisticated eavesdropping system right down to their knees. Then set the track for an endless loop, and either have your confidential meeting or start running your sweep.

via blog.cyberwar.nl

False Flag - By Mark Perry

A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran.

BY MARK PERRY | JANUARY 13, 2012

Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives -- what is commonly referred to as a "false flag" operation.

via foreignpolicy.com

STOP SOPA!

This site has gone dark today in protest of the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA). The U.S. Congress is about to censor the Internet, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill these bills to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity. Learn more at AmericanCensorship.org

via zachstronaut.com

Mitt Romney meets medical marijuana patient.

<div class="yt-alert yt-alert-error yt-alert-player yt-rounded "><span class="yt-alert-icon"><img src="//s.ytimg.com/yt/img/pixel-vfl3z5WfW.gif" class="icon master-sprite" alt="Alert icon"></span><div class="yt-alert-content"> You need Adobe Flash Player to watch this video. <br> Download it from Adobe. </div></div>

via youtube.com

What a tard.

Indefinite detention: Instrument of tyranny

When President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve, he codified policies of arbitrary and indefinite detention for terror suspects including possibly U.S. citizens. Alexander Hamilton referred to such policies as the "favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." Based on our experience in evaluating and caring for victims of torture and human rights abuses from all over the world, Hamilton was right.

Regardless of the law's applicability to U.S. citizens, indefinite detention in a military facility without charge can be tantamount to torture, causing profound health consequences.

Omoyele Sowore, a Nigerian-born journalist and pro-democracy activist, is a former client of our program. When Mr. Sowore recently spoke at an event marking the 50th anniversary of Amnesty International, he poignantly noted that when a nation chooses national security over basic freedoms, it becomes a great danger to its own people. He was originally describing African dictatorial regimes.

via mcclatchydc.com

Guantanamo Bay Prison - C-SPAN Video Library

via c-spanvideo.org

World Map of All Wars and Conflicts Happening In 2012

via gizmodo.com

Spanish judge resumes Guantanamo investigation

MADRID (AP) — A Spanish judge says he is proceeding with a probe into human rights abuses at the U.S. prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, after Washington failed to respond to requests for information.

The probe stems from torture complaints filed by four Muslims who are either citizens or residents of Spain and were once held at the prison.

The probe had been on hold while Judge Pablo Ruz awaited a response from the United States. Ruz said Friday he had received no answer from the U.S. and had thus decided to continue the case.

The judge asked prosecutors to report back to him with the names of U.S. officials who should be targeted in the probe.

A separate Spanish probe of U.S. lawyers accused of creating the legal framework for torture at Guantanamo was shelved last year.

via news.findlaw.com

Defense Against the Psychopath (Full length Version)

via youtube.com

Why Neutrinos go faster than light.

One of the most pleasant surprises coming from the LHC was the finding of faster than light neutrinos, one of the proofs adduced in my books on the fractal Universe, which I considered would show the fractal, scalar nature of reality.

Neutrinos go faster than light and yet this doesn’t prove Einstein’s Relativity wrong as the press has said.  It only shows the limits of the 3rd paradigm of physics, which uses since Descartes a ‘continuous’ single space-time to describe the Universe. Within that continuous space-time made of electromagnetic space, c-speed is the limit. And Maxwell’s equations and Einstein’s Special relativity describe them.

Beyond that Universe, the larger membrane of gravitation and dark energy goes faster than light. C-speed thus acts as a non-euclidean barrier between both worlds. And certain ‘doors’ allow to cross that barrier. Black holes, which are accelerated vortices of gravitation, are one of those doors, since any vortex responds to the generic formula VoRo=K, thus the shorter the radius the faster the vortex, being the event horizon at c-speed the limit of our universe.

The catch is that we live inside the light-space membrane and so we cannot see beyond the c-barrier; hence faster than light, expansive gravitation – dark energy – is invisible to us; so are the inside world of black holes and neutrinos, particles that transfer momentum between both membranes through the weak force…

via cerntruth.wordpress.com

Why Neutrinos go faster than light.

One of the most pleasant surprises coming from the LHC was the finding of faster than light neutrinos, one of the proofs adduced in my books on the fractal Universe, which I considered would show the fractal, scalar nature of reality.

Neutrinos go faster than light and yet this doesn’t prove Einstein’s Relativity wrong as the press has said.  It only shows the limits of the 3rd paradigm of physics, which uses since Descartes a ‘continuous’ single space-time to describe the Universe. Within that continuous space-time made of electromagnetic space, c-speed is the limit. And Maxwell’s equations and Einstein’s Special relativity describe them.

Beyond that Universe, the larger membrane of gravitation and dark energy goes faster than light. C-speed thus acts as a non-euclidean barrier between both worlds. And certain ‘doors’ allow to cross that barrier. Black holes, which are accelerated vortices of gravitation, are one of those doors, since any vortex responds to the generic formula VoRo=K, thus the shorter the radius the faster the vortex, being the event horizon at c-speed the limit of our universe.

The catch is that we live inside the light-space membrane and so we cannot see beyond the c-barrier; hence faster than light, expansive gravitation – dark energy – is invisible to us; so are the inside world of black holes and neutrinos, particles that transfer momentum between both membranes through the weak force…

via cerntruth.wordpress.com

Air Force Bugbots

via youtube.com

Why Did Def. Sec. Panetta Say Iran Not Building Nukes?

via youtube.com

DEMOLITION OF THE WTC TOWERS - WHAT WAS USED (2012)

via youtube.com

Military Networks 'Not Defensible,' Says General Who Defends Them

The Defense Department’s networks, as currently configured, are “not defensible,” according to the general in charge of protecting those networks. And if there’s a major electronic attack on this country, there may not be much he and his men can legally do to stop it in advance.

Gen. Keith Alexander, head of both the secretive National Security Agency and the military’s new U.S. Cyber Command, has tens of thousands of hackers, cryptologists, and system administrators serving under him. But at the moment, their ability to protect the Defense Department’s information infrastructure — let alone the broader civilian internet — is limited. The Pentagon’s patchwork quilt of 15,000 different networks is too haphazard to safeguard.

Take last year’s infection of drone cockpits at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Air Force network operators only learned about the virus weeks afterward — by reading about it on this website.

via wired.com

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

Assassination of U.S. citizens

via washingtonpost.com

Draft cyber bill gives DHS controversial authorities

The draft version of the comprehensive cybersecurity bill could give the Homeland Security Department the ability to take "any lawful action" against contractors if their systems are under attack.

Bob Dix, a former staff director for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and now vice president government affairs and critical infrastructure protection for Juniper Networks, said that could mean taking over a vendor's system that contains federal data.

"There's some concern about what would be the criteria about that and how it would be the government has the ability under a provision of lawful action to take over a system used by an agency even if it's owned by a contractor," Dix said. "I am worried about the notion that suggests the government would have the authority under law to be able to take over systems of contractors if they view them as having vulnerabilities even if only a small percentage of that is government utilization."

via federalnewsradio.com

Rick Santorum: "On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing."

via youtube.com

Rick Santorum: "On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing."

Rick Santorum: "On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing."

via youtube.com

Rick Santorum: "On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing."

Woman with apparent mental disability assaulted by police

via youtube.com

SOPA Is a Symbol of the Movie Industry's Failure to Innovate

This year the movie industry made $30 billion (1/3 in the U.S.) from box-office revenue. But the total movie industry revenue was $87 billion. Where did the other $57 billion come from? From sources that the studios at one time claimed would put them out of business: Pay-per view TV, cable and satellite channels, video rentals, DVD sales, online subscriptions and digital downloads.

The music and movie business has been consistently wrong in its claims that new platforms and channels would be the end of its businesses. In each case, the new technology produced a new market far larger than the impact it had on the existing market.

• 1920's - the record business complained about radio. The argument was because radio is free, you can't compete with free. No one was ever going to buy music again.
• 1940's - movie studios had to divest their distribution channel - they owned over 50% of the movie theaters in the U.S. "It's all over," complained the studios. In fact, the number of screens went from 17,000 in 1948 to 38,000 today.
• 1950's - broadcast television was free; the threat was cable television. Studios argued that their free TV content couldn't compete with paid.
• 1970's - Video Cassette Recorders (VCR's) were going to be the end of the movie business. The movie businesses and its lobbying arm MPAA fought it with "end of the world" hyperbole. The reality? After the VCR was introduced, studio revenues took off like a rocket.  With a new channel of distribution, home movie rentals surpassed movie theater tickets.
• 1998 - the MPAA got congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), making it illegal for you to make a digital copy of a DVD that you actually purchased.
• 2000 - Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumer to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. DVR's reignite interest in TV.
• 2006 - broadcasters sued Cablevision (and lost) to prevent the launch of a cloud-based DVR to its customers.
• Today it's the Internet that's going to put the studios out of business. Sound familiar?

Why was the movie industry consistently wrong? And why do they continue to fight new technology?

via theatlantic.com

Alastair Smith on political tyranny: How to be a dictator

ALASTAIR SMITH is professor of politics at New York University. The recipient of three grants from the National Science Foundation and author of three books, he was chosen as the 2005 Karl Deutsch Award winner, given biennially to the best international-relations scholar under the age of 40. He is co-author of “The Dictator’s Handbook: How Bad Behaviour is Almost Always Good Politics” (2011).

 To whom do your guidelines apply?

 Everyone. It doesn’t matter whether you are a dictator, a democratic leader, head of a charity or a sports organisation, the same things go on. Firstly, you don’t rule by yourself—you need supporters to keep you there, and what determines how you best survive is how many supporters you have and how big a pool you can draw these supporters from. 

via economist.com

CONTRIBUTION OF THE RAPPORTEUR: RESEARCH ON THE PLANES USED BY THE CIA

CIA Planes.pdf Download this file

Obama Called a Moron at Phone Security

Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:19:17 -0500
From: "James M. Atkinson" <jmatk[at]tscm.com>
To: tscm-l2006[at]googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [TSCM-L] {5989} POTUS telephones

Actually yes.

He knows that he can not use a cellphone within X feet of a STU, STE, or security communications media because he can read the white papers on the matter, and has been briefed by the technical advisors until they were blue in the face, but he does not care, he likes his cell phones (because it makes him a more effective leader)

If a customer hires me to tell them about the problem, and I tell them about it, write numerous white papers on the subject for them, demonstrate the risk for them by recovering classified information, and even the CIK form a STU using only a nearby cell phone, and they still refuse to use proper communications security, and abide by stand-off distances (the space between the secure phone and the cell phone), then I will have no problems explain that they are a moron to their face (usually in private, but still).

You need only to watch the video of my testimony before Congress on related matters to see that I tend not to couch my words when it comes to national security matters like this.

The President of the United States is a fucking moron, but given the last pool of candidates he is less of a moron, then the other morons we had running at the time. But still, he is a moron, and an arrogant one at that.

via cryptome.org

U.S. expels Venezuelan diplomat in Miami

Last month, a group of American lawmakers said they had "grave concerns" about Acosta and called for an investigation after the Spanish-language TV channel Univision aired a documentary alleging that she was among a group of Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats who expressed interest in an offer from a group of Mexican hackers to infiltrate the websites of the White House, the FBI, the Pentagon and U.S. nuclear plants.

The evidence that the plot was real, according to Univision, are secret recordings with diplomats who ask questions about what the hackers can do and promise to send information to their governments.

via cnn.com

Anon's wear that silly mask to cover up their ZITS.

C'mon faggitZ! HACK THIS PAGE!

via anonymousrlamerz.clanteam.com

BlackBerry, Nokia and Apple have provided the Indian Military with backdoor access to cellular surveillance

On January 6th reports of Symantec (makers of Norton Anitvirus) being hacked surfaced. The group of hackers behind the attack behind the attack were from India. In a statement issued by a member from the Lords of Dharamraja group (badass name!), the guys said:

As of now we start sharing with all our brothers and followers information from the Indian Militaty (sic) Intelligence servers, so far we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme (sic) source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme (sic) and CBI

Ignoring the typing error, gaining access to Indian Military’s Intelligence servers is pretty damning for the agency. The hack got covered since the hackers claimed to have acces to Norton’s source code. Earlier today I came across scans of a set of documents that are internal communications between the Indian Military. The documents claim the existence of a system known as RINOA SUR. While I did not find what SUR stands for but RINOA is RIM, NOkia and Apple. And this is where things start to get very interesting, according to the set of documents, the RINOA SUR platform was used to spy on the USCC—the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Let’s take a moment for that to digest. Here’s an image from the documents underlining the relevant part:

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9/11 Flight 77 Did Not Crash Into The Pentagon

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The Joker

Lord spare us once again from 60 Minutes whoopie cushion news of things to come, deadeningly promised and threatened for as long as I’ve been in cyberspace:

Panetta: The reality is that there is the cyber capability to basically bring down our power grid to create … to paralyze our financial system in this country to virtually paralyze our country. And I think we have to be prepared not only to defend against that kind of attack but if necessary we are going to have to be prepared to be able to be aggressive when it comes to cyber efforts as well. We’ve got to develop the technology, the capability, we’ve got to be able to defend this country.

60 Minutes has also been the go-to place if you want to make an unchallenged claim on cyberwar.

via dickdestiny.com

How SOPA Can Kill Reddit and Many Other US Sites

Supporters of SOPA and PIPA, two bills that aim to deter piracy, claim that they will only affect foreign sites and businesses. However, this view is not shared by a wide range of opponents, including the people behind the popular Reddit community. But how exactly can SOPA and PIPA threaten sites like Reddit? Leading First Amendment lawyer and Internet policy expert Marvin Ammori explains.

In recent weeks, protests against the pending SOPA and PIPA bills have dominated the tech press. Most opponents are not that worried about losing access to their favorite file-sharing sites, but they fear that the broader implications of the bills will seriously hurt the livelihoods of both existing and future Internet-based ventures.

One of the most prominent sites that has rallied against the bills is the largest online community Reddit. The site’s users have organized various successful protests, which led domain registrar GoDaddy to drop its support for the bill. But the site itself also actively encouraged its users to speak out against SOPA and PIPA on several occasions.

via torrentfreak.com

Whistle Blower Threatened with 35 Years in Prison, Warns of Developing Tyranny

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"Thomas Drake blew the whistle on a massive domestic information gathering scheme and was called "an enemy of the state" (speech at Sam Adams Awards)"

Create, Manipulate and Manage Video Images and Complex Graphics

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SUPERTALL SCRUTINY

In presenting the changes that have occurred in the design of skyscrapers since September 11, 2001, in “Castles in the Air,” Mark Lamster notes three threats: aircraft impact, earthquakes and wind. He correctly claims that structural engineers are now able to effectively design against them.

Unfortunately, the Twin Towers collapsed primarily because of fire, and nowhere in the article is fire explicitly mentioned as a structural threat. On 9/11 we clearly saw that fire can cause entire modern high-rise buildings to collapse. (Indeed, 7 World Trade Center, a steel-framed high-rise, was not struck by an aircraft but collapsed because of fire ignited by debris from the Twin Towers.) To ensure safety in ever taller buildings, the potential impacts of uncontrolled fire need to be explicitly considered during the structural design process with the same care as earthquakes and wind. While changes in escape-stair width, firefighter communications systems and the addition of sky bridges (all noted by Lamster) can only improve life safety in tall buildings, they do not prevent structural collapse resulting from fire.

Preventing another 9/11 requires that the structural engineering and architecture communities own up to the reality of what uncontrolled fire can do to tall buildings and take the necessary actions.
Luke Bisby
Senior Research Fellow in Structures and Fire
University of Edinburgh

via scientificamerican.com

How Congress is Signing its own Arrest Warrants in the NDAA Citizen Arrest bill

I never thought I would have to write this: but—incredibly—Congress has now passed the National Defense Appropriations Act, with Amendment 1031, which allows for the military detention of American citizens. The amendment is so loosely worded that any American citizen could be held without due process. The language of this bill can be read to assure Americans that they can challenge their detention — but most people do not realize what this means: at Guantanamo and in other military prisons, one’s lawyer’s calls are monitored, witnesses for one’s defense are not allowed to testify, and one can be forced into nudity and isolation. Incredibly, ninety-three Senators voted to support this bill and now most of Congress: a roster of names that will live in infamy in the history of our nation, and never be expunged from the dark column of the history books.

They may have supported this bill because—although it’s hard to believe—they think the military will only arrest active members of Al Qaida; or maybe, less naively, they believe that ‘at most’, low-level dissenting figures, activists, or troublesome protesters might be subjected to military arrest. But they are forgetting something critical: history shows that those who signed this bill will soon be subject to arrest themselves.

Our leaders appear to be supporting this bill thinking that they will always be what they are now, in the fading light of a once-great democracy — those civilian leaders who safely and securely sit in freedom and DIRECT the military. In inhabiting this bubble, which their own actions are about to destroy, they are cocooned by an arrogance of power, placing their own security in jeopardy by their own hands, and ignoring history and its inevitable laws. The moment this bill becomes law, though Congress is accustomed, in a weak democracy, to being the ones who direct and control the military, the power roles will reverse: Congress will no longer be directing and in charge of the military: rather, the military will be directing and in charge of individual Congressional leaders, as well as in charge of everyone else — as any Parliamentarian in any society who handed this power over to the military can attest.

Perhaps Congress assumes that it will always only be ‘they’ who are targeted for arrest and military detention: but sadly, Parliamentary leaders are the first to face pressure, threats, arrest and even violence when the military obtains to power to make civilian arrests and hold civilians in military facilities without due process. There is no exception to this rule. Just as I traveled the country four years ago warning against the introduction of torture and secret prisons – and confidently offering a hundred thousand dollar reward to anyone who could name a nation that allowed torture of the ‘other’ that did not eventually turn this abuse on its own citizens — (confident because I knew there was no such place) — so today I warn that one cannot name a nation that gave the military the power to make civilian arrests and hold citizens in military detention, that did not almost at once turn that power almost against members of that nation’s own political ruling class. This makes sense — the obverse sense of a democracy, in which power protects you; political power endangers you in a militarized police state: the more powerful a political leader is, the more can be gained in a militarized police state by pressuring, threatening or even arresting him or her.

via naomiwolf.org

CV Dazzle: Open-Source Camouflage From Computer Vision by Adam Harvey

via cvdazzle.com

"CV Dazzle™ is camouflage from computer vision (CV). It is a form of expressive interference that combines makeup and hair styling (or other modifications) with face-detection thwarting designs. The name is derived from a type of camouflage used during WWI, called Dazzle, which was used to break apart the gestalt-image of warships, making it hard to discern their directionality, size, and orientation. Likewise, the goal of CV Dazzle is to break apart the gestalt of a face, or object, and make it undetectable to computer vision algorithms, in particular face detection."

Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War

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Operation Rat Line

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Operation Hollywood - Full

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Ron Paul Had Accurate Conspiracy Theory: CIA Was Tied To Drug Traffickers

WASHINGTON -- According to a former aide, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has long been drawn toward conspiracy theories. Eric Dondero, who served Paul off and on from 1987 to 2003, wrote recently that the Texas Republican suspected that George W. Bush may have had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and that Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance about Pearl Harbor. Paul's writings and speeches spotlight a host of other plots, including the "war on Christmas."

But just because not all of Paul's theories are backed by good evidence doesn't mean none of them are.

In 1988, while running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, he highlighted yet another conspiracy theory, and this one doesn't collapse under investigation: The CIA, Paul told a gathering of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, was involved in trafficking drugs as part of the Iran-Contra debacle.

Drug trafficking is "a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they can't get legitimately. It is very clear that the CIA has been very much involved with drug dealings," Paul said. "The CIA was very much involved in the Iran-Contra scandals. I'm not making up the stories; we saw it on television. They were hauling down weapons and drugs back. And the CIA and government officials were closing their eyes, fighting a war that was technically illegal."

via huffingtonpost.com

Graphic Charts of Crony Capitalism Being Alive and Well in Fascist America

Here are Venn diagrams of the big government/big business partnership that is ruining running the United States. They were created by Stephanie Herman. I will of course lead off with the granddaddy of all big government/big business partnerships, General Electric.

via lewrockwell.com