Micro-Drones Combined With DNA Hacking Could Create A Very Scary Future

by Robert Johnson, BusinessInsider:

 

Sightings of insect-sized micro drones have been occurring for years, but combined with the direction of genome sequencing outlined in this Atlantic piece — the pair make for a futuristic and potentially deadly mix.

 

Even back in 2007, when Vanessa Alarcon was a college student attending an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. she heard someone shout, “Oh my God, look at those.”

“I look up and I’m like, ‘What the hell is that?’” she told The Washington Post. “They looked like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects,” she continued.

A lawyer there at the time confirmed they looked like dragonflies, but that they “definitely weren’t insects”.

Read More @ BusinessInsider.com

DHS Cellphone Alert System ‘Follows You Around’

Presidential messages to have their own distinctive ring tone

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, June 25, 2012

Not only does the Department of Homeland Security’s new emergency alert system force cellphone users to receive text messages directly from President Obama, it also “follows” the user wherever they go, according to newly released details of the program.

As we reported last week, Apple’s eagerly awaited iOS 6 update for iPhones and iPads will feature the alerts, along with updates of other operating systems. All new cell phones will be required to comply with the PLAN program (Personal Localized Alerting Network), which will broadcast emergency alert messages directly to Americans’ cell phones, either through chips directly embedded in new phones or with software upgrades for older models.

According to Todd Krause, the weather-warning coordinator at the National Weather Service’s Chanhassen office, the WEA alert system tracks cellphone users wherever they go in order to deliver region-specific warnings.

“What the system does is actually follow you around wherever you are going,” based on users’ proximity to cellular towers,” Krause told TwinCities.com.

The fact that the system will empower Big Sis to “follow” cellphone users around the country has been kept under wraps until now, and is sure to prompt a firestorm of criticism from privacy advocates on both the left and right.

Since almost everyone who is active in public life now has a cellphone and carries it at all times, such a tracking system is barely much different from having an implanted microchip that constantly beams out your location. Indeed,newer microchips for cellphones can now pinpoint a user’s location down to just a few centimeters.

While users can opt out of receiving extreme weather alerts and Amber alerts, messages sent from the president will be mandatory, and will even have their own distinctive ring tone.

“The new 90-character-or-less alerts resemble regular texts but are a different form of messaging that includes a distinctive ring tone and also makes a device vibrate,” states the report, adding that the messages will be able to circumvent potential cellular disruption that would prevent ordinary messages from getting through.

“If the United States faces a nationwide crisis of some sort, the president can transmit a mobile alert that pops up automatically on phones across the country,” adds the article, noting that cellphone users will not have to fiddle around with apps to receive the alerts.

Confirming earlier reports, the story notes that users, “can’t block presidential alerts.”

As we have previously highlighted, early tests of the emergency alert system in New Jersey caused panic after Verizon customers received text messages warning them that a “civil emergency” was in progress and to “take shelter,” prompting alarmed citizens to flood 911 lines with anxious calls.

Verizon Wireless later apologized to its customers for causing alarm, admitting that the confusion was caused by a “test” of the PLAN emergency alert system.

As we have documented, the PLAN program is part of the wider move on behalf of Homeland Security to create a public environment dominated by a pervasive sense of fear and paranoia, a context in which the safe exercise of constitutional freedoms doesn’t normally thrive.

Concerns have also been raised at the potential for the federal government or the Obama presidential campaign to use the messages to create unwarranted fear for political purposes.

The emergency alerts are eventually designed to be incorporated into the Intellistreets system which turns all street lights into surveillance hubs that can record conversations and broadcast messages.

Air Force Document: Drones Can Be Used To Spy On Americans

“Incidental” surveillance data can be held for 90 days

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
May 11, 2012

A newly discovered Air Force intelligence brief states that should fleets of unmanned drones accidentally capture surveillance footage of Americans, the data can be stored and analyzed by the Pentagon for up to 90 days.

The instruction, dated April 23, admits that the Air Force cannot legally conduct “nonconsensual surveillance” on Americans, but also states that should the drones”incidentally” capture data while conducting other missions, military intelligence has the right to study it to determine whether the subjects are legitimate targets of domestic surveillance.

“Collected imagery may incidentally include US persons or private property without consent,” the instruction states.

The Air Force can take advantage of “a period not to exceed 90 days” to use the data to assess “whether that information may be collected under the provisions of Procedure 2, DoD 5240.1-R and permanently retained under the provisions of Procedure 3, DoD 5240.1-R.” it continues.

The Pentagon directives cited authorize limited domestic spying in certain scenarios such as natural disasters, environmental cases, and monitoring activity around military bases.

Should the drones capture data on Americans, the Air Force says that it should determine whether they are, among other things, “persons or organizations reasonably believed to be engaged or about to engage, in international terrorist or international narcotics activities.”

The instruction also states that the Pentagon can disseminate the data to other intelligence and government agencies, should it see fit.

“Even though information may not be collectible, it may be retained for the length of time necessary to transfer it to another DoD entity or government agency to whose function it pertains.” the document reads.

The document was discovered by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists.

As we reported in February, Over 30 prominent watchdog groups have banded together to petition the FAA on the proposed increase in the use of drones in US airspace.

The groups, including The American Civil Liberties Union, The Electronic Privacy Information Center and The Bill of Rights Defense Committee, are demanding that the FAA hold a rulemaking session to consider the privacy and safety threats.

Congress recently passed legislation paving the way for what the FAA predicts will be somewhere in the region of 30,000 drones in operation in US skies by 2020.

The ACLU noted that the FAA’s legislation “would push the nation willy-nilly toward an era of aerial surveillance without any steps to protect the traditional privacy that Americans have always enjoyed and expected.”

In addition to privacy concerns, the groups warned that the ability to link facial recognition technology to surveillance drones and patch the information through to active government databases would “increase the First Amendment risks for would be political dissidents.”

Students To Be Spied On, Censored With School Issued Laptops

Software has ability to monitor, censor web activity even in students’ homes

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
May 3, 2012

Students in Portland, Maine are to be issued laptops that will track their activity and actively block certain websites including social media sites.

Internet filtering software will be downloaded automatically onto the computers when students boot them up at school, reports the Kennebec Journal. However, the restraints will stay in place even when the students are working from home or other non-school premises, including outside of normal school hours.

Sites such as Facebook, Hulu, and YouTube, as well as forums, news groups, games, dating sites, gambling sites, and chat rooms will all be blocked.

According to Peter Eglinton, chief operating officer for the district, the changes are a legal requirement. However, this is not the case, as noted by Doug Levin, executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association, based in Maryland:

“While federal law requires school districts to take measures like creating an Internet safety policy and blocking sexually explicit content, there is no requirement that social media sites be blocked,” Levin said.

Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Education recently issued guidelines explaining that it is acceptable to allow social networking sites and video streaming, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom.

The article also notes that no other school district in the country has blocked access to social media sites from school computers that are used at home.

The privacy concerns raised by the move will also draw comparisons with a previous incident reported in 2010 when a school district in Philadelphia was reportedly discovered to have used school issued laptops to actively spy on students in their homes.

School district officials in Lower Merion were accused of remotely accessing laptops and taking thousands of images via the in built cameras, including photographs of students in their homes, screen shots of web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats.

It seems other schools across the country have been actively using the same or similar technology to monitor students for some time.

The following clip is from PBS FRONTLINE: Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, broadcast in early 2010. The clip is from segment 4 of the show titled Teaching with Technology.

The Assistant Principal of the featured high school demonstrates how he effectively spies on students by remotely accessing cameras in their laptops. He monitors their activity and even takes pictures of them, much to his own amusement:

 

Leaked U.S. Army Document Outlines Plan For Re-Education Camps In America

Leaked U.S. Army Document Outlines Plan For Re-Education Camps In America

Political activists would be pacified to sympathize with the government

Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Thursday, May 3, 2012

A leaked U.S. Army document prepared for the Department of Defense contains shocking plans for “political activists” to be pacified by “PSYOP officers” into developing an “appreciation of U.S. policies” while detained in prison camps inside the United States.

The document, entitled FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations (PDF) was originally released on a restricted basis to the DoD in February 2010, but has now been leaked online.

The manual outlines policies for processing detainees into internment camps both globally and inside the United States. International agencies like the UN and the Red Cross are named as partners in addition to domestic federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA.

The document makes it clear that the policies apply “within U.S. territory” and involve, “DOD support to U.S. civil authorities for domestic emergencies, and for designated law enforcement and other activities,” including “man-made disasters, accidents, terrorist attacks and incidents in the U.S. and its territories.”

The manual states, “These operations may be performed as domestic civil support operations,” and adds that “The authority to approve resettlement such operations within U.S. territories,” would require a “special exception” to The Posse Comitatus Act, which can be obtained via “the President invoking his executive authority.” The document also makes reference to identifying detainees using their “social security number.”

Aside from enemy combatants and other classifications of detainees, the manual includes the designation of “civilian internees,” in other words citizens who are detained for, “security reasons, for protection, or because he or she committed an offense against the detaining power.”

Once the detainees have been processed into the internment camp, the manual explains how they will be “indoctrinated,” with a particular focus on targeting political dissidents, into expressing support for U.S. policies.

The re-education process is the responsibility of the “Psychological Operations Officer,” whose job it is to design “PSYOP products that are designed to pacify and acclimate detainees or DCs to accept U.S. I/R facility authority and regulations,” according to the document.

The manual lists the following roles that are designated to the “PSYOP team”.

– Identifies malcontents, trained agitators, and political leaders within the facility who may try to organize resistance or create disturbances.

– Develops and executes indoctrination programs to reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes.

– Identifies political activists.

– Provides loudspeaker support (such as administrative announcements and facility instructions when necessary).

– Helps the military police commander control detainee and DC populations during emergencies.

– Plans and executes a PSYOP program that produces an understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions.

Remember, this is not restricted to insurgents in Iraq who are detained in prison camps – the manual makes it clear that the policies also apply “within U.S. territory” under the auspices of the DHS and FEMA. The document adds that, “Resettlement operations may require large groups of civilians to be quartered temporarily (less than 6 months) or semipermanently (more than 6 months).”

The historical significance of states using internment camps to re-educate detainees centers around the fact that it is almost exclusively practiced by repressive and dictatorial regimes like the former Soviet Union and Stalinist regimes like modern day North Korea.

We have exhaustively documented preparations for the mass internment of citizens inside America, but this is the first time that language concerning the re-education of detainees, in particular political activists, has cropped up in our research.

In 2009, the National Guard posted a number of job opportunities looking for “Internment/Resettlement Specialists” to work in “civilian internee camps” within the United States.

In December last year it was also revealed that Halliburton subsidiary KBR is seeking sub-contractors to staff and outfit “emergency environment” camps located in five regions of the United States.

In 2006, KBR was contracted by Homeland Security to build detention centers designed to deal with “an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S,” or the rapid development of unspecified “new programs” that would require large numbers of people to be interned.

Rex 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984, was established under the pretext of a “mass exodus” of illegal aliens crossing the Mexican/US border, the same pretense used in the language of the KBR request for services.

During the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, however, it was revealed that the program was a secretive “scenario and drill” developed by the federal government to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, assign military commanders to take over state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens determined by the government to be “national security threats.”

Under the indefinite detention provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed by Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve, American citizens can be kidnapped and detained indefinitely without trial.

Read a portion of the Internment and Resettlement Operations manual below.

The following portions of the document make it clear that the policies apply “within U.S. territory” (as well as abroad in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan) and that domestic federal agencies are involved.

Re-education camps?

 

Link t PDF file: http://publicintelligence.net/restricted-u-s-army-internment-and-resettlement-operations-manual/

Occupy Bilderberg 2012

Infowars.com

J.G. Vibes

Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance April 29, 2012

Well, it looks like the most cunning and deceptive people on the planet may not be so bright after all.  The infamous and elusive Bilderberg club has decided to bring their annual meeting back to the United States after setting last year’s event at a hotel buried deep in the mountains of Switzerland.  This year, May 31st through June 3rd they are returning to Chantilly, Virginia where they had their conference back in 2008.   Even then a record number of people traveled from all over the world to protest this secretive meeting of aristocrats.  Even members of the EU parliament were there to protest the meeting, one of which was actually assaulted by security.  Now with the conference back in the states and occupy wall street charging up for springtime action the elite have given those of us that are paying attention a grand opportunity to show the world who is really calling the shots.

The oil cartels, banking interests, heads of state and even a majority of the major corporations who are on board with CISPA will be represented at this meeting.  If there was ever a chance to point out every head on the hydra in one protest, this is it.  It doesn’t matter if you think that wall street is to blame for our current crisis, or if you think that the government is to blame, either way this organization is in control of both of those institutions so this should be a mission that we can all agree on.

Better yet, this mission is a guaranteed win for the people, because no demands are necessary and no political goals are relevant to this situation.  Our only mission is to expose this group to the world and show people the reality of what is taking place around them, so then we can move forward with workable solutions where no middle man is needed.  If we show up peacefully in very large numbers we can turn the political dialogue in this country away from the meaningless politicians and towards the true puppet masters.

I may have not been on board with all of the political goals to rise from the diverse Occupy Wall Street group, because I see politics as a tool which is used against the people regardless of what the legislation is called or what the politicians tell us about it.  As I discussed in the past, even the horrible “corporate personhood” clause that we are still fighting against today, was once intended to give rights to freed slaves, but was instead used as a loophole for the further consolidation of corporate control in America.

With that being the case I am very weary of any tax plans or political measures that can eventually be turned against the common people, as I have also discussed in the past.  However, occupy has made many accomplishments since this past September, and has radically changed the political dialogue in the country, to the point where no one can deny that something is wrong.  They have exposed the American police state, the corrupt media and they have pushed social activism back into the mainstream.

There is no doubt that this movement was a threat, because over the winter while OWS was regrouping, the establishment silently put even more tyrannical measures into place in an attempt to scare people away from social activism.  This season it may be more difficult to camp out in city squares for weeks on end, but that only means that efforts can be strategically set up, such as the May 1stgeneral strike, or the Bilderberg occupation that I am suggesting today.

This is it, the political and corporate elite of the planet are meeting in of the most heavily populated areas in the country, where multiple protests have been taking place for months just hours away from the planned Bilderberg meeting site.  I’m sure that I’m not the first person to consider this, since the resistance to this meeting has grown exponentially every year, but I feel that it is absolutely essential that OWS get behind this, beings that this is the very essence of what most of the people involved are fighting against.

Coincidentally, I am sharing a small snippet from my book relating to the Bilderberg group and their influence on politics, which you can check out here.  If you are unfamiliar with the Bilderberg group, a simple Google search will bring up plenty of information that will show you just how necessary this protest is.

J.G. Vibes is an author, and artist — with an established record label. In addition to featuring a wide variety of activist information, his company Good Vibes Promotions hosts politically charged electronic dance music events. You can keep up with him and his new book Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance, at his website www.aotmr.com.

NSA Whistleblower: Agency Has Copies of Email of Most Americans

democracynow.org
April 22, 2012

National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney reveals he believes domestic surveillance has become more expansive under President Obama than President George W. Bush. He estimates the NSA has assembled 20 trillion “transactions” — phone calls, emails and other forms of data — from Americans. This likely includes copies of almost all of the emails sent and received from most people living in the United States. Binney talks about Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and challenges NSA Director Keith Alexander’s assertion that the NSA is not intercepting information about U.S. citizens.

Read more

100% Certainty of Total Catastrophic Failure of Entire Power Infrastructure Within 3 Years

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
April 21, 2012

As smart grid metering systems expand across the developed world, many are starting to ask whether the threats posed by the new devices, which officials promise will save energy and reduce end user utility costs, outweigh their benefits. In addition to documented health concerns resulting from radiation emissions and no cost savings being apparent, opponents of the technology argue that smart meters are violative of basic privacy rights and give the government yet another digital node of unfettered access to monitor and control personal electricity consumption.

Now, an alarming new documentary suggests that security problems with the inter-connected and seemingly convenient smart grid may be so serious that they could lead to a catastrophic failure of our nation’s entire power infrastructure.

In an interview for the upcoming documentary titled Take Back Your Power, Cyber defense expert David Chalk warns that our nation is in crisis. Not only are our smart power grids susceptible to hacking, but they may very well already be infected with Trojan viruses and back doors that will ultimately lead to disastrous consequences:

(Video interview follows excerpts)

The front door is open, and there is no lock to be had.

There is not a power meter or device on the grid that is protected from hacking, if not already infected with some sort of Trojan horse than can cause it to be shut down, damaged or completely annihilated.

We can’t take a massive outage all at once.

When we say ‘it goes down,’ we’re talking about generators burning out. We’re talking about coal plants being damaged. We’re talking about destruction of equipment. This isn’t just a matter of electrons going around and shutting off the moving data.

Physical equipment can be damaged… watch some of the videos of cyber attacks on generators and other devices. You’ll see they’re actually damaged. Multi million dollar machines are hacked into.

We look at corporations. We look at the very companies like Symantec that are there to protect us having been hacked, and their code is in the public domain.

…

Bring forward a technology and I will show you that it’s penetrable. I’ll do it on national TV, I’ll do it anywhere… I can guarantee you 100% that there is nothing out there today – nothing – that can’t be penetrated.

We need safety and security, and today that does not exist in the smart grid.

—

Via Business Wire

“Unless we wake up and realize what we’re doing, there is 100% certainty of total catastrophic failure of the entire power infrastructure within 3 years,” said Chalk.

“This could actually be worse than a nuclear war, because it would happen everywhere. How governments and utilities are blindly merging the power grid with the Internet, and effectively without any protection, is insanity at its finest.”

Preview Take Back Your Power:

As Mr. Chalk points out, even the top security firms in the country have been hacked, and the head of US Cyber Security confirms that military systems are under constant attack and have been broken by hackers who have gained access to sensitive military and space agency systems (including active Jet Propulsion Labs spacecraft). Our entire drone fleet, yet another node in the ever expanding control grid, was recently compromised by a virus that was able to log access commands and passwords for high security military systems. The vulnerabilities of these systems became starkly clear when Iran’s military broke global positioning encryption and took control of aU.S. military drone over their airspace.

This is no longer about a single computer going down or file directories being accessed. Cyber conflict is moving into an entirely new realm, where rogue hackers or state-sponsored cyber operations are capable of targeting physical grid infrastructure like power, water,  and oil refineries, commerce and transportation systems. According to one expert, such an attack has the potential bring down life as we know it in America in a matter of just 900 seconds.

Some would argue that we need more governance over the grid system, or stricter penalties for those who compromise it, or further yet, more monitoring and tracking so attacks can be prevented.

The other option, however, is that we take individual Americans off the traditional grid altogether by empowering them through tax credits and de-regulation, so that every one of us can have their own personal smart grid in their home, independent of intervention from government or traditional energy industry players.

Only this limited government, personal responsibility solution is capable of providing a truly impenetrable level of power grid safety and security for each and every person in the United States.

However, like all things government, the narrative seems to be to first create the problem, then move to fix it by more centralization, control and dependence. It’s a trend we see not just in our energy sector, but every aspect of our lives.

Hat tip Satori

Forbes Writer Scoffs at Infowars “Freak Out” On Mandatory Black Boxes

So-called privacy expert lauds bill brimming with anti-privacy measures as being “good for privacy”

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Friday, April 20, 2012

Forbes writer Kashmir Hill responds to our report about black box data recorders becoming mandatory in all new cars under a bill set to be passed by the House by accusing Infowars of engaging in a “freak out” and claiming the legislation is “good for privacy” when in reality it destroys privacy.

“The big news in automotive privacy this week is that Congress is on the verge of passing a transportation bill that will make “big brother” black boxes mandatory in all new cars. InfoWars is encouraging drivers to freak out about the horrific invasion of privacy represented by the government’s insisting that all Americans have event data recorders that reveal exactly what happened before and after a crash. But the truth of the matter is that most Americans already have black boxes in their cars. They’ve been around since 1996, are found in at least 60 million vehicles, and are a feature in 85% of new cars every year,” writes Hill in a piece entitled Hate To Break It To You, But Your Car Likely Has A Black Box ‘Spying’ On You Already.

Hill’s attitude seems to stem from the mind set that the state has already eviscerated our privacy, so why should we bother fighting back to salvage what’s left of it? She brazenly dismisses fourth amendment rights as “roadkill” simply because having a black box in your vehicle might help the authorities work out who was responsible for an accident.

The most chilling aspect of this approach is that Hill bills herself as a privacy expert yet she has no idea about the ‘slippery slope’ principle and has seemingly failed to read the ‘Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act’ (MAP-21), on which her article is based.

The point of our original story was not that the black boxes will merely be in all new cars from 2015 onwards if this bill passes, it’s that it will be mandatory to activate them and anyone who attempts to deactivate them will be hit with civil penalties under section 31406 of the bill. This is about creating the groundwork for a future tax by the mile system which has been aggressively promoted by the Obama administration.

Sinking further into the depths of idiocy, Hill claims that both the mandatory black boxes and the entire bill itself are “actually good for privacy in a few ways,” because the legislation establishes “that the data in the recorder belongs to the owner (or lessee) of a vehicle.

Just like every other piece of data was originally owned by us – web history, phone calls, library records, until the government demanded ISPs, cell phone companies and libraries turn them over in the name of security.

In addition, the empty-headed notion that the bill is “good for privacy” completely ignores the other sections of it which Hill has obviously failed to read.

Section 53006 of the bill – the “Vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications systems deployment,” creates the framework for all vehicles to be connected wirelessly to other vehicles and infrastructure (such as the new street lights which are being installed with “Homeland Security applications” and can listen in on conversations), greasing the skids for constant real-time tracking, eavesdropping and surveillance.

Presumably, Hill thinks that all vehicles being connected to the ‘Internet of things’ – a transformation which CIA chief David Petraeus recently hailed as making it much easier for the government to spy on you – is also “good for privacy”?

The legislation also includes a provision that allows the federal government to revoke passports of Americans accused of owing back taxes, a measure slammed by legal experts as anathema to the constitution.

Presumably Hill thinks the IRS sharing information about your financial situation with the TSA and US Immigration authorities is also “good for privacy” too?

Is it any wonder that people are turing away from the mainstream media in droves when columnists like Hill, who grandstand as privacy experts, praise legislation like MAP-21, a bill that is brimming with horrendous measures that will destroy privacy, as being “good for privacy”?

Microchips Track Within Centimeters of your Location

Uploaded by TheAlexJonesChannel

 

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The development of a new microchip for cell phones that knows the user’s location to within a few centimeters confirms the fact that contrary to biblical fears about mandatory implantable microchips, people have willingly exchanged their privacy for convenience and that the cell phone itself is the de facto “mark of the beast”.

“Broadcom has just rolled out a chip for smart phones that promises to indicate location ultra-precisely, possibly within a few centimeters, vertically and horizontally, indoors and out,” reports MIT Technology Review.

“In theory, the new chip can even determine what floor of a building you’re on, thanks to its ability to integrate information from the atmospheric pressure sensor on many models of Android phones. The company calls abilities like this “ubiquitous navigation,” and the idea is that it will enable a new kind of e-commerce predicated on the fact that shopkeepers will know the moment you walk by their front door, or when you are looking at a particular product, and can offer you coupons at that instant.”

Over 82% of Americans own cell phones, with around half of these being smart phones. In the near future, the majority of Americans will own smart phones that will have the ability to track their location down to a few centimeters.

With the effort to legally establish surveillance drones as a legitimate tool in domestic law enforcement, authorities could save a lot of time and money by simply requesting cell phone companies provide real-time tracking of suspects via their smart phones.

Indeed, Apple, Google and Microsoft have all been caught secretly tracking the physical locations of their users and saving that information to a file. How long is it before such data is instantly available to law enforcement bodies on demand, just as governments are legislating that ISPs and cell phone companies divulge our web browsing histories, email, texts and call information?
http://wrc559.com/2012/04/11/new-microchip-knows-your-location-to-within-centimeters/

New Microchip Knows Your Location To Within Centimeters

Forget a chip in your forehead – the ‘mark of the beast’ is the cell phone

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The development of a new microchip for cell phones that knows the user’s location to within a few centimeters confirms the fact that contrary to biblical fears about mandatory implantable microchips, people have willingly exchanged their privacy for convenience and that the cell phone itself is the de facto “mark of the beast”.

“Broadcom has just rolled out a chip for smart phones that promises to indicate location ultra-precisely, possibly within a few centimeters, vertically and horizontally, indoors and out,” reports MIT Technology Review.

“In theory, the new chip can even determine what floor of a building you’re on, thanks to its ability to integrate information from the atmospheric pressure sensor on many models of Android phones. The company calls abilities like this “ubiquitous navigation,” and the idea is that it will enable a new kind of e-commerce predicated on the fact that shopkeepers will know the moment you walk by their front door, or when you are looking at a particular product, and can offer you coupons at that instant.”

Over 82% of Americans own cell phones, with around half of these being smart phones. In the near future, the majority of Americans will own smart phones that will have the ability to track their location down to a few centimeters.

With the effort to legally establish surveillance drones as a legitimate tool in domestic law enforcement, authorities could save a lot of time and money by simply requesting cell phone companies provide real-time tracking of suspects via their smart phones.

Indeed, Apple, Google and Microsoft have all been caught secretly tracking the physical locations of their users and saving that information to a file. How long is it before such data is instantly available to law enforcement bodies on demand, just as governments are legislating that ISPs and cell phone companies divulge our web browsing histories, email, texts and call information?

Biblical fears about the ‘mark of the beast’ being an implantable microchip forcibly injected into our foreheads have proven to be off base. Coercion was not necessary because people have been enticed into willingly giving up their privacy for convenience.

Indeed, paranoia about not being able to buy or sell without the ‘mark’ is now coming full circle with the increasing use of cell phones as payment gateways linked to credit cards.

Peer pressure and cultural brainwashing has also played a role – someone who doesn’t own a cell phone will find it almost impossible to operate in the modern world unless they live like a recluse or make a living by running a farm in the middle of nowhere.

The ‘Internet of things’ – where every appliance is connected to the world wide web – has been hailed by spooks as a green light for ubiquitous panopticon-style surveillance of the individual.

Broadcom’s new microchip will also make it easier for industry to accelerate plans to use Minority Report-style targeted advertising against consumers.

“The use case [for Bluetooth beacons] might be malls,” says Scott Pomerantz, vice president of the GPS division at Broadcom,. “It would be a good investment for a mall to put up a deployment—perhaps put them up every 100 yards, and then unlock the ability for people walking around mall to get very precise couponing information.”

The only way that technology can advance without destroying basic human rights in the process is if strong new legislation is passed increasing the penalties against both industry and government for using such technology to spy on users. However, the opposite is happening, with each new technological leap being dovetailed by aggressive efforts on behalf of the state to eviscerate what little privacy rights we have left.

Your Cell Phone Makes You A Prisoner Of A Digital World Where Virtually Anyone Can Hack You

…And Track You

The American Dream
Friday, April 6, 2012

If you own a cell phone, you might as well kiss your privacy goodbye.  Cell phone companies know more about us than most of us would ever dare to imagine.  Your cell phone company is tracking everywhere that you go and it is making a record of everything that you do with your phone.

Much worse, there is a good chance that your cell phone company has been selling this information to anyone that is willing to pay the price – including local law enforcement.  In addition, it is an open secret that the federal government monitors and records all cell phone calls.  The “private conversation” that you are having with a friend today will be kept in federal government databanks for many years to come.  The truth is that by using a cell phone, you willingly make yourself a prisoner of a digital world where every move that you make and every conversation that you have is permanently recorded.  But it is not just cell phone companies and government agencies that you have to worry about.  As you will see at the end of this article, it is incredibly easy for any would-be stalker to hack you and track your every movement using your cell phone.  In fact, many spyware programs allow hackers to listen to you through your cell phone even when your cell phone is turned off.  Sadly, most cell phone users have absolutely no idea about any of this stuff.

The next time that you get a notice from your cell phone company about “changes” to the privacy policy, you might want to play close attention.  Your cell phone company might be about to sell off your most personal information to anyone that is willing to write a big enough check.  The following is from a recent CNN article….

Your phone company knows where you live, what websites you visit, what apps you download, what videos you like to watch, and even where you are. Now, some have begun selling that valuable information to the highest bidder.

In mid-October, Verizon Wireless changed its privacy policy to allow the company to record customers’ location data and Web browsing history, combine it with other personal information like age and gender, aggregate it with millions of other customers’ data, and sell it on an anonymous basis.

So who is buying this information?

We just don’t know.

But we do know that local law enforcement agencies all over the country are increasingly using cell phone data to nail suspects, and often it is the cell phone companies that are the ones selling them the cell phone data that they need.

According to a recent New York Times article, many local police departments are doing this without getting a warrant first….

“Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight.”

That same article says that cell phone companies have standard prices that they charge to local law enforcement officials for information that they request….

“Cell carriers, staffed with special law enforcement liaison teams, charge police departments from a few hundred dollars for locating a phone to more than $2,200 for a full-scale wiretap of a suspect.”

So if you are breaking the law, your cell phone may be used to gather evidence and to track you down.  In the United States, cell phone companies are required by law to be able to pinpoint the locations of their customers to within 100 meters.  So if you are a criminal, your cell phone could be leading the police right to you even as you are reading this article.

Sometimes the police don’t even use the cell phone companies.  Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran an article that discussed the capabilities of the “stingray devices” that many local law enforcement agencies are using now.

A “stingray device” acts like a cell phone tower and it can gather any information that a normal cell phone tower can.  The following is how a recent Wired article described these “stingrays”….

You make a call on your cellphone thinking the only thing standing between you and the recipient of your call is your carrier’s cellphone tower. In fact, that tower your phone is connecting to just might be a boobytrap set up by law enforcement to ensnare your phone signals and maybe even the content of your calls.

So-called stingrays are one of the new high-tech tools that authorities are using to track and identify you. The devices, about the size of a suitcase, spoof a legitimate cellphone tower in order to trick nearby cellphones and other wireless communication devices into connecting to the tower, as they would to a real cellphone tower.

The government maintains that the stingrays don’t violate Fourth Amendment rights, since Americans don’t have a legitimate expectation of privacy for data sent from their mobile phones and other wireless devices to a cell tower.

Isn’t that just great?

The attitude that law enforcement agencies seem to have is that once we use a cell phone we are essentially willingly throwing our Fourth Amendment rights out the window.

In some areas of the United States, police are physically extracting data from cell phones any time they want as well.  According to the ACLU, state police in Michigan have been using “extraction devices” to download data from the cell phones of motorists that they pull over.  This is taking place even if the motorists that are pulled over are not accused of doing anything wrong.  The following is how an article posted on CNET News describes the capabilities of these “extraction devices”….

The devices, sold by a company called Cellebrite, can download text messages, photos, video, and even GPS data from most brands of cell phones. The handheld machines have various interfaces to work with different models and can even bypass security passwords and access some information.

Fortunately these “extraction devices” are being challenged in court.  Let us hope that they will be banned.

But what local law enforcement officials are doing pales in comparison to what federal agencies are doing.

For example, the FBI claims that it can demand to see your cell phone data whenever it would like to.

Not only that, the FBI has also been remotely activating the microphones on the cell phones of suspects that they want to listen to.  This can be done even when the cell phone is turned off….

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone’s microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a “roving bug,” and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Could the FBI be listening to you right now?

If there is a cell phone in the room they could be.

But some other federal agencies listen to a lot more cell phone calls than the FBI does.

It has been an open secret for a long time that the federal government monitors and records all cell phone calls that are made for national security reasons.

In fact, the federal government is even trying to collect records for calls that have been made in the distant past.  Accordingto USA Today, the goal is “to create a database of every call ever made”….

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

In addition, the federal government has been constructing the largest data center in the history of the world out in the Utah desert.  This data center will be used to house an almost unimaginable amount of digital data (including your cell phone calls).  The following is how a recent Wired article described this new facility….

Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.”

But isn’t it illegal for the federal government to intercept our phone calls?

Well, the cold, hard reality of the matter is that they use all kinds of loopholes and legal technicalities to get around that.

For example, if a call is “intercepted” outside of the United States and then routed to a government building inside the United States that is considered to be okay.

Of course that is a bunch of nonsense, but that is how they think.

And it is very frightening thing for governments around the world to be able to monitor and track us like this.

Increasingly, governments around the world are using cell phones to hunt down people that they do not like and haul them off to prison.  For example, a recent Bloomberg article detailed how the Iranian government is aggressively using cell phones to crack down on dissidents….

The Iranian officers who knocked out Saeid Pourheydar’s four front teeth also enlightened the opposition journalist. Held in Evin Prison for weeks following his arrest early last year for protesting, he says, he learned that he was not only fighting the regime, but also companies that armed Tehran with technology to monitor dissidents like him.

Pourheydar, 30, says the power of this enemy became clear as intelligence officers brandished transcripts of his mobile phone calls, e-mails and text messages during his detention. About half the political prisoners he met in jail told him police had tracked their communications and movements through their cell phones, he says.

Christians in Iran have learned that they must take the batteries entirely out of their cell phones before they gather for home church meetings.  If they don’t take the batteries out of their cell phones, there is a good chance that the secret police will show up and drag them off to prison.

Most Americans don’t need to worry about getting hauled off to prison for political or religious reasons at this point, but there is another aspect of cell phone security that could potentially affect all of us.

Most Americans are completely unaware of what stalkers can potentially do if they are able to hack into a cell phone.  For example, did you know that spyware can make it possible for a stalker to monitor where you are 24 hours a day and listen to everything that you say even when your cell phone is turned off?  The following is from an article posted by WTHR….

Spyware marketers claim you can tap into someone’s calls, read their text messages and track their movements “anywhere, anytime.” They say you can “catch a cheating spouse”, protect your children from an evil babysitter and “hear what your boss is saying about you.” And while you’re spying on others, the Spyware companies say “no one will ever know” because it’s supposed to be “completely invisible” with “absolutely no trace.”

Security experts say it’s no internet hoax.

“It’s real, and it is pretty creepy,” said Rick Mislan, a former military intelligence officer who now teaches cyber forensics at Purdue University’s Department of Computer and Information Technology.

Mislan has examined thousands of cell phones inside Purdue’s Cyber Forensics Lab, and he says spy software can now make even the most high-tech cell phone vulnerable.

For much more from WTHR about what stalkers can do to your cell phone, just check out this amazing video.  It is one of the best news reports that I have ever seen.

Are you starting to see how your cell phone makes you a prisoner of a digital world?

The police can listen to you and track you any time that they want to.

The federal government can listen to you and track you any time that they want to.

Big corporations can buy all of the personal information that cell phones gather any time that they want to from certain cell phone companies.

Stalkers can listen to you and track you 24 hours a day if they are able to hack in to your cell phone somehow.

If you own a cell phone and you still want to have some privacy, then you need to take the battery completely out of the cell phone when you are not using it.

Our world is becoming a much less private place, and we all need to be mindful of the changes that are happening.

Unfortunately, as our world becomes even more interconnected and even more dependent on technology, the amount of privacy we all have is likely to continue to decrease.  A digital Big Brother control grid is being constructed all around us, and in the future that control grid could potentially be used for very malevolent purposes.

So let us be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves.  Our world is changing, and not for the better.

It’s a STASI World

from Dollar Vigilante:

 

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you” 

― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

The surveillance state seems to have kicked into high gear in the last few months. Governments the world over are realizing that they’ve lost control of “the conversation”. Even just a few years ago, a video like “Kony 2012”, expertly planted by the global elites to turn the tide in favor of a criminal attack on Uganda would have worked. After all, it only took a few grainy aerial photos of some trucks to garner support for an eight year occupation of Iraq killing up to one million Iraqi men, women and children in the “old days”.

Today, despite Congress rushing literally days after the video went viral to pass the “Kony 2012 Resolutions (H.Res. 583/S.Res. 402)” to garner public support for invasion of Uganda, it had already been defeated by the global public to the point of ridicule. With the CIA brainwashing wearing off in the face of the truth, Invisible Children co-founder and director of the “Kony 2012” viral video Jason Russell was seen naked, masturbating and disrupting traffic in San Diego’s Pacific Beach neighborhood soon after.

The “alternative media” (read: truthful media) was on this story within seconds and it was a dead issue within hours. It was the fastest anti-propaganda reaction in human history.

Read More @ DollarVigilante.com

Google’s ‘Augmented Reality’ Glasses: Not Creepy At All

YouTube
Thursday, April 5, 2012

Is this an ad for Google or is it The Walking Dead?

Microsoft’s Kinect Spy System‎ with Jason Bermas

Infowars.com
Thursday, April 5, 2012

Microsoft X-Box Kinect games device has a video camera and a microphone that records speech. Microsoft has stated that users “should not expect any level of privacy concerning your use of the live communication features,” and the company “may access or disclose information about you, including the content of your communications.”

Your POLICE STATE: Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip-Searches for Any Arrest

by Adam Liptak, New York Times:

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court’s conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs, but also public health and information about gang affiliations.

“Every detainee who will be admitted to the general population may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed,” Justice Kennedy wrote, adding that about 13 million people are admitted each year to the nation’s jails.

Read More @ NYTimes.com

BIG BROTHER UK: Internet Activity ‘To Be Monitored’ Under New Laws

Ministers are preparing a major expansion of the Government’s powers to monitor the email exchanges and website visits of every person in the UK, it was reported today.

from Telegraph.co.uk:

Under legislation expected in next month’s Queen’s Speech, internet companies will be instructed to install hardware enabling GCHQ – the Government’s electronic “listening” agency – to examine “on demand” any phone call made, text message and email sent, and website accessed in “real time”, The Sunday Times reported.

A previous attempt to introduce a similar law was abandoned by the former Labour government in 2006 in the face of fierce opposition.

However ministers believe it is essential that the police and security services have access to such communications data in order to tackle terrorism and protect the public.

Read More @ Telegraph.co.uk

Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool

ERIC LICHTBLAU
NY Times
April 1, 2012

WASHINGTON — Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight, documents show.

The practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too, with a handful of carriers marketing a catalog of “surveillance fees” to police departments to determine a suspect’s location, trace phone calls and texts or provide other services. Some departments log dozens of traces a month for both emergencies and routine investigations.

With cellphones ubiquitous, the police call phone tracing a valuable weapon in emergencies like child abductions and suicide calls and investigations in drug cases and murders. One police training manual describes cellphones as “the virtual biographer of our daily activities,” providing a hunting ground for learning contacts and travels.

But civil liberties advocates say the wider use of cell tracking raises legal and constitutional questions, particularly when the police act without judicial orders. While many departments require warrants to use phone tracking in nonemergencies, others claim broad discretion to get the records on their own, according to 5,500 pages of internal records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union from 205 police departments nationwide.

Full article here

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Australia open to U.S. spy flights from Indian Ocean island

CANBERRA | Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:09pm EDT

Pressforactivism.com

(Reuters) – Australia could one day allow U.S. spy flights to operate from a remote Indian Ocean island, Defense Minister Stephen Smith confirmed on Wednesday, supporting the U.S. pivot to Asia but likely upsetting Australia’s biggest trading partner, China.

Smith said the possible use of Australia’s remote Cocos Islands territory had been raised with the United States, but the proposal was not under active consideration and was not among current plans for Canberra to strengthen military ties with Washington.

“We view Cocos as being potentially a long term strategic location. But that is down the track,” Smith told reporters on Wednesday.

The Washington Post said the Pentagon was interested in using Cocos Islands, a series of atolls about 3,000 km (1,800 miles) west of Australia and south of Indonesia, as a new base for surveillance aircraft and allowing spy flights over the South China Sea.

China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Taiwan all claim territory in the South China Sea.

Cocos Islands could be an alternative to a U.S. base on the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which faces an uncertain future beyond its current lease which expires in 2016, the Washington Post said.

Australia is a firm U.S. ally but counts China as its biggest trading partner and is careful not to antagonize it.

In November, U.S. President Barack Obama outlined his pivot to Asia and agreement with Canberra for a de-facto base for 2,500 marines near the northern city of Darwin.

Australia and the U.S. also agreed to allow greater U.S. air force access to northern Australian bases, and to give the U.S. navy greater access to the Indian Ocean naval base in Perth.

Smith said Australia had been open with China about its plans, and its posture review which is likely to recommend more military assets move to the country’s north to protect resource projects.

“A BIT WORRYING”

The Washington Post, quoting U.S. and Australian officials, said the Cocos Islands, within flying range of both Southeast Asia and South Asia, could be ideal for not only manned U.S. surveillance aircraft but for Global Hawks, an unarmed, high-altitude surveillance drone.

The U.S. Navy is developing a newer version of the Global Hawk, known as the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance drone, or BAMS, that is scheduled to become operational in 2015.

Smith played down chances of a U.S. base on Cocos Islands, and said while Australia hosted joint facilities and visiting U.S. forces, it had never allow the United States to operate an independent base in Australia.

He said Cocos Island was not one of the government’s priorities with its stronger military cooperation with the United States.

“We regard an enhanced presence by the U.S. in the Asia Pacific region as a force for peace, as a force for stability and a force for prosperity,” he said.

Strategic analyst Hugh White, head of defense and strategic studies at the Australian National University, said Australia risked being caught up in a dispute between its strongest military ally and its biggest trading partner.

“All of this relates to the U.S. pivot to Asia. The U.S. pivot to Asia is all about the rise of China,” White told Australian radio, adding it would be a mistake if Australia joined any U.S. push to try to contain China.

“It means that Australia is for the first time really since the end of the Vietnam war, starting to be seen by the United States as a strategic asset in its strategic competition with China.

“That is, of course, a bit worrying for Australia, because China is our biggest trading partner. Our future is going to be one where we are increasingly pulled between our old ally and in the United States and our economic future in Asia.”