Police State Redux

Riddlewire

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This doesn't exactly fall under "Police State", but there's no thread about the "Surveillance State".

FCC asked to monitor "hate speech", "misinformation" online

I would've clipped out some choice quotes, but no one sentence seemed more ominous than any other. The whole thing is pretty infuriating.
I have little doubt, though, that this website will be one of the first to be shut down and all of us investigated if the FCC takes up this battle.

Our cause is in great danger.
 

StarWars

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Riddlewire said:
This doesn't exactly fall under "Police State", but there's no thread about the "Surveillance State".

FCC asked to monitor "hate speech", "misinformation" online

I would've clipped out some choice quotes, but no one sentence seemed more ominous than any other. The whole thing is pretty infuriating.
I have little doubt, though, that this website will be one of the first to be shut down and all of us investigated if the FCC takes up this battle.

Our cause is in great danger.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
 

FootballDad

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StarWars said:
Riddlewire said:
This doesn't exactly fall under "Police State", but there's no thread about the "Surveillance State".

FCC asked to monitor "hate speech", "misinformation" online

I would've clipped out some choice quotes, but no one sentence seemed more ominous than any other. The whole thing is pretty infuriating.
I have little doubt, though, that this website will be one of the first to be shut down and all of us investigated if the FCC takes up this battle.

Our cause is in great danger.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.



Isn't that from some old obscure document that is obsolete in the minds of most of the PTB?? Just like the "Fairness Doctrine", they'll find a way to make the "necessary actions" okay.
 

Paleocon

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FootballDad said:
StarWars said:
Riddlewire said:
This doesn't exactly fall under "Police State", but there's no thread about the "Surveillance State".

FCC asked to monitor "hate speech", "misinformation" online

I would've clipped out some choice quotes, but no one sentence seemed more ominous than any other. The whole thing is pretty infuriating.
I have little doubt, though, that this website will be one of the first to be shut down and all of us investigated if the FCC takes up this battle.

Our cause is in great danger.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div>Isn't that from some old obscure document that is obsolete in the minds of most of the PTB?? Just like the "Fairness Doctrine", they'll find a way to make the "necessary actions" okay.</div>


The Constitution will be easily trumped. Some over-emotional Cultural Marxist will declare that "Hate is not a Right" and the sheeple will all nod in assent (not that it matters if they nod or not as the suppression will occur anyway).
Edited by: Paleocon
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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Colorado rafting guide arrested for saving girl from drowning.
smiley5.gif
an excerpt of the story is below.

"To jump into water and navigate a river in a swiftwater rescue is common. You get into the river and swim. You have to do it," Bradford said. "The fact these guys don't understand that is disturbing.
<DIV id=article =article>


"Making contact immediately with your victim is essential. It's not about who is in charge. It's about the safety of a 13-year-old girl. You are going to do everything in your power to ensure the safety of your guest, and if that means in Idaho Springs you get arrested, well, I guess we'll just get arrested."
when a real man is doing something important, mayhap the government idiots should get out of the way and let him work. nah, we couldn't have that, because "our" gov't is only here to help.
smiley2.gif
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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14-year old boy arrested for helping a 3-year old girl who couldn't find her mother. initially the boy was charged with kidnapping, but the cops settled for false imprisonment.
smiley5.gif


wow. just wow.

the link also contains video.

Mike Thomas
COMMENTARY
June 15, 2010


I know that in this paranoid world, you never approach a small child who is by herself, take her by the hand and walk out of a store with her in search of mommy.

But I am not 14 years old.

I am not Edwin.

Last week, Edwin went to the Burlington Coat Factory store on West Colonial Drive with his mother.

He saw a 3-year-old girl without a parent. If he had it to do all over again, if he could see the cops, the handcuffs, the TV cameras and the jail cell all awaiting him, I imagine the last thing he would have done was try to help her.

But he did.

I pieced together what happened from the investigative report, a 911 call, surveillance video, news reports and interviews with the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

Edwin approached the girl and told her he would find her mother. Edwin's mother said she saw the two together, asked Edwin what was going on, and then said she would help.

Then Edwin made his big mistake. He thought the girl's mother might be among a group of women that he saw leaving the store. So off he went.

The video shows him leaving the store, with the girl following behind. Once outside, he took her by the hand.

Edwin's mother then appeared, following after him and the girl.

It turned out the girl's lost mother was in the store. She told investigators that she was returning an item to the shelf when she lost track of her daughter. She naturally became alarmed. Another shopper told her that the girl left the store with a man. Edwin is big enough to pass for a defensive lineman, which probably is part of the problem here.

The video shows the girl's mother rushing out the door.

By that time, Edwin had discovered the girl didn't belong to any of the women he had seen leaving the store. He said he was turning back to return to the store.

There was a convergence of Edwin, his mother, the little girl and her mother. The girl was returned to her mother.

The video then shows mother and daughter going back into the store, followed shortly thereafter by Edwin and his mother.

A store employee then called 911 at the behest of the girl's mother. After the employee tells the dispatcher about the abduction, the dispatcher asks where the perpetrator is.

"He's over in shoes,'' the employee said.

Edwin is quite the kidnapper. He brings his mom along. He hangs out in front of the store until the victim's mother shows up. And then he returns to the store and starts shopping for shoes.

That's one cool customer.

Detectives arrived and investigated. They then slapped the cuffs on Edwin and paraded him out in front of television cameras by now waiting outside.

"We tried to be sensitive to the fact he was 14,'' said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jeff Williamson. "We made an effort to keep direct questions out of his face.''

Hardly. Two reporters shoved microphones in Edwin's face without any objection from the detectives escorting him. One of the investigators probably could have bitten one of the reporters on the arm.

"Can you tell us why you're in handcuffs?'' a reporter shouted out. "Did you try to kidnap someone?''

Despite his young age, one television station identified Edwin and put the video of his arrest on its website.

Another station reported that deputies were able to arrest him before he was able to get away with the girl.

The Sentinel underplayed the story inside the local section: "A small child is safe and a teenager is in custody after an attempted abduction.''

In the public eye, Edwin was busted and convicted. And don't think his friends, neighbors and classmates don't know.

But look at the evidence.

We have the little girl's mother losing track of her daughter.

We have Edwin's mother not taking the girl from Edwin and turning her over to a store employee.

And we have Edwin in handcuffs.

I'm not sure the problem here is with the 14-year-old.

Interestingly enough, the girl's mother never did press charges. But the Sheriff's Office decided it would, ultimately settling on a charge of false imprisonment.

"He was in custody of the child and had no authority to be so,'' said Capt. Angelo Nieves. "The thing is to make clear we have not charged him with an offense that did not occur.''

Congratulations.
 

Thrashen

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The "Long Arm of the Law"Â￾ loves nothing more than humiliating whites (especially those who are innocent) on TV. This ingenious tactic not only ruins the lives of the whites they are arresting, but it also portrays an effective atmosphere of "Police State Mentality"Â￾ for the whites viewing the arrests on the Video Entertainment Screen.

I imagine the "investigators"Â￾ were quite pleased after successfully arresting a helpful, kind, and rather thoughtful 8th grader"¦.whilst non-whites of all ages are committing disgusting atrocities in every corner of this "Melting Pot"Â￾ (of Boiling Feces). Nice "bust,"Â￾ fellas!
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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Pentagon revives Rumsfeld-era domestic spying unit.

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


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


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


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


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

DixieDestroyer

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‘Don't Taze My Granny!'

Posted by William Grigg on June 25, 2010 08:03 AM

Lonnie Tinsley of El Reno, Oklahoma made a nearly fatal mistake last December 22 when he went to check on his grandma, Lona Vernon.

Concerned that Lona hadn't taken her medications, Lonnie called 911 in the expectation that an emergency medical technician would be dispatched to the apartment to evaluate the bedridden 86-year-old woman.

Instead, that call for help was answered by nearly a dozen armed tax-feeders employed by the El Reno Police Department.

Understandably alarmed â€" and probably more than a little disgusted â€" by the presence of uninvited armed strangers in her home, Lona ordered them to leave. This directive, issued by a fragile female octogenarian confined to a hospital-style bed and tethered to an oxygen tank, was interpreted as "aggressive" behavior by Officer Thomas Duran, who ordered one of his associates : "Taser her!"Â

"Don't taze my granny!"Â exclaimed Tinsley. According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Tinsley's "obstructive"Â behavior prompted the police to threaten him with their tasers. He was then was assaulted, removed from the room, thrown to the floor, handcuffed, and detained in a police car. At this point, the heroes in blue turned their attention to Lona.

The tactical situation was daunting; at this point, the police had only a 10-1 advantage over a subject who â€" according to Duran's official report â€" had taken an "aggressive posture" in her hospital bed. The sacred imperative of "officer safety" dictated that the subject be thoroughly softened up in order to minimize resistance.

Accordingly, one of the officers approached Lona and "stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation,"Â narrates the complaint, based on Lona's account. One of the officers then shot her with a taser, but the connection wasn't solid. A second fired his taser, "striking her to the left of the midline of her upper chest, and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain,"Â and unconsciousness. Lona was then handcuffed with sufficient ruthlessness to tear the soft flesh of her forearms, causing her to bleed.

After her wounds were treated at a local hospital, Lona was confined for six days in the psychiatric ward at the insistence of her deranged assailants from the El Reno Police Department.

It has long been established that the worst thing to do in an emergency is to call the police. In this case, Lonnie Tinsley didn't call the police, yet they barged in anyway and quite nearly "helped"Â his grandma to death.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/60261.html

Edited by: DixieDestroyer
 

DixieDestroyer

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Jimmy Chitwood

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Jimmy Chitwood

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"our" government's top priority? apparently folks growing stuff on the family farm.
smiley5.gif


Raids are increasing on farms and private food-supply clubs.


an excerpt:

When the 20 agents arrived bearing a search warrant at her Ventura County farmhouse door at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday a couple weeks back, Sharon Palmer didn't know what to say. This was the third time she was being raided in 18 months, and she had thought she was on her way to resolving the problem over labeling of her goat cheese that prompted the other two raids. (In addition to producing goat's milk, she raises cattle, pigs, and chickens, and makes the meat available via a CSA.)

But her 12-year-old daughter, Jasmine, wasn't the least bit tongue-tied. "She started back-talking to them," recalls Palmer. "She said, 'If you take my computer again, I can't do my homework.' This would be the third computer we will have lost. I still haven't gotten the computers back that they took in the previous two raids."

As part of a five-hour-plus search of her barn and home, the agents -- from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, Los Angeles County Sheriff, Ventura County Sheriff, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture -- took the replacement computer, along with milk she feeds her chickens and pigs.

While no one will say officially what the purpose of this latest raid was, aside from being part of an investigation in progress, what is very clear is that government raids of producers, distributors, and even consumers of nutritionally dense foods appear to be happening ever more frequently. Sometimes they are meant to counter raw dairy production, other times to challenge private food organizations over whether they should be licensed as food retailers.

the article mentions several other raids, as well. i mean, WTF?!?!?!
smiley7.gif
 

Thrashen

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Jimmy Chitwood said:
<div>the article mentions several other raids, as well. i mean, WTF?!?!?!
smiley7.gif
</div>



Right, because the supposed mislabeling of home-grown food products is clearly the most pressing issue in the Los Angeles area. That woman, who likely works tirelessly to obtain a meager profit (such is the life of any white American farmer), is obviously pure evil when compared to members of LA street gangs, prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, crooked politicians, child molesters, rapists, murderers, etc.

The top priority of the American government has always been rather unambiguous"¦hustling whites to fund non-whites.
 

Paleocon

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I would not be surprised if this targeting of "off the grid" lifestyles has something to do with the looming collapse ahead. If people are able to feed themselves and care for themselves while all the Establishment ponzi schemes crumble they won't be so desperate to accept the tyrannical new order. If the people can be kept dependent on the state then it doesn't matter how despicable the state becomes.
 

white lightning

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They talk about this subject in the doc. "Food Inc". We are in very sad times guys. Monsanto has a monopoply on everything and they bully anyone who tries to cut into their profits.
 

DixieDestroyer

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Paleocon said:
I would not be surprised if this targeting of "off the grid" lifestyles has something to do with the looming collapse ahead.  If people are able to feed themselves and care for themselves while all the Establishment ponzi schemes crumble they won't be so desperate to accept the tyrannical new order.  If the people can be kept dependent on the state then it doesn't matter how despicable the state becomes. 

Exactly! Once the SHTF (probably post false-flag, martial law declaration), the PTB wants the FEMA camp collection to be as easy & quick as possible for their DHS & assorted fedgov goon squads. The PTB doesn't like or want any "Jim Bridger" types out there who won't be dependent on fedgov once the economy totally implodes. We'll be getting "bonus" cache of (toxic) vaccinations in the fedgov "frankenfood" lines.
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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Report: Parts of Louisiana Militarized; Road Blocks, ID Requirements

A report from the Dallas Examiner suggests that the National Guard is now moving to secure parts of the oil-leak affected areas:
<BLOCKQUOTE>


A rapid military build-up and an unconfirmed road-block maneuver is being conducted, along with a visible exodus of residents in the Barataria Bay area of Jefferson Parish in South Louisiana. This news from Intel Hub coincides with the new military rule, gently broken to the public.


Reporters ad photographers are now required to obtain from the military and carry papers in the region, starting with reporters and photographers, a psyop squarely focusing on "public victory"Â rather than covert military take-over in the Gulf and martial law in the region.


South Louisiana residents who have seen hurricane emergency operations for decades say they have never seen anything like this type of emergency preparedness according to the report.


"¦


At midnight, the military moved into the Baratarria Bay area and immediately began setting up the road blocks.


Sunday evening after a call to his radio listeners for ‘intel soldiers' to phone in information, Intel Hub Radio host Shepard Ambellas received calls from military personnel reporting they have seen a massive build up of combat troops, heavy combat equipment and weaponry including Active Denial Systems.
</BLOCKQUOTE>


This is not your run of the mill evacuation planning. Normally, this is left to local emergency responders. Considering the magnitude of the spill and potential for catastrophe it makes sense that the National Guard has been deployed. However, officials have yet to announce publicly that the National Guard has enacted a state of martial law or that evacuations are about to take place.


Other than a massive military exercise or media blackout controls, it is hard not to think that the Guard is planning for something serious, significant and large scale:
<BLOCKQUOTE>


"Of course they'll give some ‘Simple Simon' excuses for the military and the road-blocks.


"Either we are going to see masses of people getting sick or a mass evacuation.


Smith says, "These people reporting this have lived here all of their lives and say this is is very out-of-the ordinary.


"One woman said it looks like Afghanistan down there."Â
</BLOCKQUOTE>


Something is up.


Though we're not seeing any troop movements in the Houston, TX area, from the looks of things, parts of Louisiana are now under military control.
 

DixieDestroyer

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JC, that activity in LA is probably an early deployment (or beta test) for coming martial law (post false-flag "terrorist" attack or total financial meltdown).
 

DixieDestroyer

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The military-industrial complex prepares the control grid via the distribution of "spy chips"...

Wal-Mart Radio Tags to Track Clothing

by Miguel Bustillo
Friday, July 23, 2010

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT - News) plans to roll out sophisticated electronic ID tags to track individual pairs of jeans and underwear, the first step in a system that advocates say better controls inventory but some critics say raises privacy concerns.

Starting next month, the retailer will place removable "smart tags" on individual garments that can be read by a hand-held scanner. Wal-Mart workers will be able to quickly learn, for instance, which size of Wrangler jeans is missing, with the aim of ensuring shelves are optimally stocked and inventory tightly watched. If successful, the radio-frequency ID tags will be rolled out on other products at Wal-Mart's more than 3,750 U.S. stores.
"This ability to wave the wand and have a sense of all the products that are on the floor or in the back room in seconds is something that we feel can really transform our business," said Raul Vazquez, the executive in charge of Wal-Mart stores in the western U.S.

Before now, retailers including Wal-Mart have primarily used RFID tags, which store unique numerical identification codes that can be scanned from a distance, to track pallets of merchandise traveling through their supply chains.

Wal-Mart's broad adoption would be the largest in the world, and proponents predict it would lead other retailers to start using the electronic product codes, which remain costly. Wal-Mart has climbed to the top of the retailing world by continuously squeezing costs out of its operations and then passing on the savings to shoppers at the checkout counter. Its methods are widely adopted by its suppliers and in turn become standard practice at other retail chains.

But the company's latest attempt to use its influenceâ€"executives call it the start of a "next-generation Wal-Mart"â€"has privacy advocates raising questions.

While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages, they can't be turned off, and they are trackable. Some privacy advocates hypothesize that unscrupulous marketers or criminals will be able to drive by consumers' homes and scan their garbage to discover what they have recently bought.

They also worry that retailers will be able to scan customers who carry new types of personal ID cards as they walk through a store, without their knowledge. Several states, including Washington and New York, have begun issuing enhanced driver's licenses that contain radio- frequency tags with unique ID numbers, to make border crossings easier for frequent travelers. Some privacy advocates contend that retailers could theoretically scan people with such licenses as they make purchases, combine the info with their credit card data, and then know the person's identity the next time they stepped into the store.

"There are two things you really don't want to tag, clothing and identity documents, and ironically that's where we are seeing adoption," said Katherine Albrecht, founder of a group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering and author of a book called "Spychips" that argues against RFID technology. "The inventory guys may be in the dark about this, but there are a lot of corporate marketers who are interested in tracking people as they walk sales floors."

Smart-tag experts dismiss Big Brother concerns as breathless conjecture, but activists have pressured companies. Ms. Albrecht and others launched a boycott of Benetton Group SpA last decade after an RFID maker announced it was planning to supply the company with 15 million RFID chips.

Benetton later clarified that it was just evaluating the technology and never embedded a single sensor in clothing.

Wal-Mart is demanding that suppliers add the tags to removable labels or packaging instead of embedding them in clothes, to minimize fears that they could be used to track people's movements. It also is posting signs informing customers about the tags.

"Concerns about privacy are valid, but in this instance, the benefits far outweigh any concerns," says Sanjay Sarma, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The tags don't have any personal information. They are essentially barcodes with serial numbers attached. And you can easily remove them."

In Europe some retailers put the smart labels on hang tags, which are then removed at checkout. That still provides the inventory-control benefit of RFID, but it takes away other important potential uses that retailers and suppliers like, such as being able to track the item all the way back to the point of manufacture in case of a recall, or making sure it isn't counterfeit.

Wal-Mart won't say how much it expects to benefit from the endeavor. But a similar pilot program at American Apparel Inc. in 2007 found that stores with the technology saw sales rise 14.3% compared to stores without the technology, according to Avery Dennison Corp., a maker of RFID equipment.

And while the tags wouldn't replace bulkier shoplifting sensors, Wal-Mart expects they'll cut down on employee theft because it will be easier to see if something's gone missing from the back room.

Several other U.S. retailers, including J.C. Penney and Bloomingdale's, have begun experimenting with smart ID tags on clothing to better ensure shelves remain stocked with sizes and colors customers want, and numerous European retailers, notably Germany's Metro AG, have already embraced the technology.

Robert Carpenter, chief executive of GS1 U.S., a nonprofit group that helped develop universal product-code standards four decades ago and is now doing the same for electronic product codes, said the sensors have dropped to as little as seven to 10 cents from 50 cents just a few years ago. He predicts that Wal-Mart's "tipping point" will drive prices lower.

"There are definitely costs. Some labels had to be modified," said Mark Gatehouse, director of replenishment for Wrangler jeans maker VF Corp., adding that while Wal-Mart is subsidizing the costs of the actual sensors, suppliers have had to invest in new equipment. "But we view this as an investment in where things are going. Everyone is watching closely because no one wants to be at a competitive disadvantage, and this could really lift sales."

Wal-Mart won't disclose what it's spending on the effort, but it confirms that it is subsidizing some of the costs for suppliers.

Proponents, meanwhile, have high hopes for expanded use in the future. Beyond more-efficient recalls and loss prevention, RFID tags could get rid of checkout lines.

"We are going to see contactless checkouts with mobile phones or kiosks, and we will see new ways to interact, such as being able to find out whether other sizes and colors are available while trying something on in a dressing room," said Bill Hardgrave, head of the RFID Research Center at the University of Arkansas, which is funded in part by Wal-Mart. "That is where the magic is going to happen. But that's all years away."

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/110152/wal-mart-radio-tags-to-track-clothing

Edited by: DixieDestroyer
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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Collecting rainwater now illegal in many states as Big Government claims ownership over our water

some excerpts:

Many of the freedoms we enjoy here in the U.S. are quickly eroding as the nation transforms from the land of the free into the land of the enslaved, but what I'm about to share with you takes the assault on our freedoms to a whole new level. You may not be aware of this, but many Western states, including Utah, Washington and Colorado, have long outlawed individuals from collecting rainwater on their own properties because, according to officials, that rain belongs to someone else.

...

Check out this YouTube video of a news report out of Salt Lake City, Utah, about the issue. It's illegal in Utah to divert rainwater without a valid water right ...

Because if we can't even freely collect the rain that falls all around us, then what, exactly, can we freely do? The rainwater issue highlights a serious overall problem in America today: diminishing freedom and increased government control ...

As long as people believe their rights stem from the government (and not the other way around), they will always be enslaved. And whatever rights and freedoms we think we still have will be quickly eroded by a system of bureaucratic power that seeks only to expand its control.

Because the same argument that's now being used to restrict rainwater collection could, of course, be used to declare that you have no right to the air you breathe, either. After all, governments could declare that air to be somebody else's air, and then they could charge you an "air tax" or an "air royalty" and demand you pay money for every breath that keeps you alive.

Think it couldn't happen? Just give it time. The government already claims it owns your land and house, effectively. If you really think you own your home, just stop paying property taxes and see how long you still "own" it.

the entire piece is a good read.
 

DixieDestroyer

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Globalist corp IBM rolls out their latest contribution to "Oceania 2010"...

CRUSH Software Helps Memphis Cops Predict Crime

by Caleb Johnson â€" Jul 26th 2010 at 5:06PM
Real Time Crime Center

Facing rising crime rates, the Memphis Police Department turned to a predictive crime analytics program developed by IBM back in 2006, thus making the threat of 'Minority Report' one step closer to reality. According to GovTech, the CRUSH (Criminal Reduction Utilizing Statistical History) software, which puts crime data on a digital map of the city, has helped the MPD reduce crime by 31-percent in the past four years.

Police officers know the precise time and place crime is most likely to occur. "We could see the base, the time of day, day of the week and the types of crimes, and we were able to deploy resources at the exact time the crimes were occurring," John F. Williams, a crime analysis unit manager, told GovTech. "It blew our minds how accurate things were." Before using this software, it took a lot of manpower to create complex spreadsheets to analyze crime patterns. Now, the MPD can base its strategy on the instant analysis of data from the previous 24 hours, 48 hours and 28 days. In January 2010, it led to more than 50 drug arrests and a 36.8-percent reduction in crime in one neighborhood alone. Besides being the music capital of the South, Memphis might be leading the way in refining crime technology, too (and delicious ribs, of course).

http://www.switched.com/2010/07/26/crush-software-helps-memphis-cops-predict-crime/

Edited by: DixieDestroyer
 

DixieDestroyer

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Exclusive: Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future' of Web Monitoring

* By Noah Shachtman Email Author
* July 28, 2010 |

The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time â€" and says it uses that information to predict the future.

The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents â€" both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine "goes beyond search" by "looking at the ‘invisible links' between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events."Â

The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online "momentum"Â for any given event.

"The cool thing is, you can actually predict the curve, in many cases,"Â says company CEO Christopher Ahlberg, a former Swedish Army Ranger with a PhD in computer science.

Which naturally makes the 16-person Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm attractive to Google Ventures, the search giant's investment division, and to In-Q-Tel, which handles similar duties for the CIA and the wider intelligence community.

It's not the very first time Google has done business with America's spy agencies. Long before it reportedly enlisted the help of the National Security Agency to secure its networks, Google sold equipment to the secret signals-intelligence group. In-Q-Tel backed the mapping firm Keyhole, which was bought by Google in 2004 â€" and then became the backbone for Google Earth.

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

America's spy services have become increasingly interested in mining "open source intelligence" Ã¢â‚¬" information that's publicly available, but often hidden in the daily avalanche of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports.

"Secret information isn't always the brass ring in our profession,"Â then CIA-director General Michael Hayden told a conference in 2008. "In fact, there's a real satisfaction in solving a problem or answering a tough question with information that someone was dumb enough to leave out in the open."Â

U.S. spy agencies, through In-Q-Tel, have invested in a number of firms to help them better find that information. Visible Technologies crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. Attensity applies the rules of grammar to the so-called "unstructured text"Â of the web to make it more easily digestible by government databases. Keyhole (now Google Earth) is a staple of the targeting cells in military-intelligence units.

Recorded Future strips from web pages the people, places and activities they mention. The company examines when and where these events happened ("spatial and temporal analysis"Â) and the tone of the document ("sentiment analysis"Â). Then it applies some artificial-intelligence algorithms to tease out connections between the players. Recorded Future maintains an index with more than 100 million events, hosted on Amazon.com servers. The analysis, however, is on the living web.

"We're right there as it happens,"Â Ahlberg told Danger Room as he clicked through a demonstration. "We can assemble actual real-time dossiers on people."Â

Recorded Future certainly has the potential to spot events and trends early. Take the case of Hezbollah's long-range missiles. On March 21, Israeli President Shimon Peres leveled the allegation that the terror group had Scud-like weapons. Scouring Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's past statements, Recorded Future found corroborating evidence from a month prior that appeared to back up Peres' accusations.

That's one of several hypothetical cases Recorded Future runs in its blog devoted to intelligence analysis. But it's safe to assume that the company already has at least one spy agency's attention. In-Q-Tel doesn't make investments in firms without an "end customer"Â ready to test out that company's products.

Both Google Ventures and In-Q-Tel made their investments in 2009, shortly after the company was founded. The exact amounts weren't disclosed, but were under $10 million each. Google's investment came to light earlier this year online. In-Q-Tel, which often announces its new holdings in press releases, quietly uploaded a brief mention of its investment a few weeks ago.

Both In-Q-Tel and Google Ventures have seats on Recorded Future's board. Ahlberg says those board members have been "very helpful,"Â providing business and technology advice, as well as introducing him to potential customers. Both organizations, it's safe to say, will profit handsomely if Recorded Future is ever sold or taken public. Ahlberg's last company, the corporate intelligence firm Spotfire, was acquired in 2007 for $195 million in cash.

Google Ventures did not return requests to comment for this article. In-Q-Tel Chief of Staff Lisbeth Poulos e-mailed a one-line statement: "We are pleased that Recorded Future is now part of IQT's portfolio of innovative startup companies who support the mission of the U.S. Intelligence Community."Â

Just because Google and In-Q-Tel have both invested in Recorded Future doesn't mean Google is suddenly in bed with the government. Of course, to Google's critics â€" including conservative legal groups, and Republican congressmen â€" the Obama Administration and the Mountain View, California, company slipped between the sheets a long time ago.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt hosted a town hall at company headquarters in the early days of Obama's presidential campaign. Senior White House officials like economic chief Larry Summers give speeches at the New America Foundation, the left-of-center think tank chaired by Schmidt. Former Google public policy chief Andrew McLaughlin is now the White House's deputy CTO, and was publicly (if mildly) reprimanded by the administration for continuing to hash out issues with his former colleagues.

In some corners, the scrutiny of the company's political ties have dovetailed with concerns about how Google collects and uses its enormous storehouse of search data, e-mail, maps and online documents. Google, as we all know, keeps a titanic amount of information about every aspect of our online lives. Customers largely have trusted the company so far, because of the quality of their products, and because of Google's pledges not to misuse the information still ring true to many.

But unease has been growing. Thirty seven state Attorneys General are demanding answers from the company after Google hoovered up 600 gigabytes of data from open Wi-Fi networks as it snapped pictures for its Street View project. (The company swears the incident was an accident.)

"Assurances from the likes of Google that the company can be trusted to respect consumers' privacy because its corporate motto is ‘don't be evil' have been shown by recent events such as the ‘Wi-Spy' debacle to be unwarranted," long-time corporate gadfly John M. Simpson told a Congressional hearing in a prepared statement. Any business dealings with the CIA's investment arm are unlikely to make critics like him more comfortable.

But Steven Aftergood, a critical observer of the intelligence community from his perch at the Federation of American Scientists, isn't worried about the Recorded Future deal. Yet.

"To me, whether this is troublesome or not depends on the degree of transparency involved. If everything is aboveboard â€" from contracts to deliverables â€" I don't see a problem with it," he told Danger Room by e-mail. "But if there are blank spots in the record, then they will be filled with public skepticism or worse, both here and abroad, and not without reason."Â

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/exclusive-google-cia/

Edited by: DixieDestroyer
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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