previous  ...91011121314  next  · entire list

A Shocker: Partisan Thought Is Unconscious
2006-01-24, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/science/24find.html

Using M.R.I. scanners, neuroscientists have now tracked what happens in the politically partisan brain when it tries to digest damning facts about favored candidates or criticisms of them. The process is almost entirely emotional and unconscious, the researchers report, and there are flares of activity in the brain's pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected. Researchers have long known that political decisions are strongly influenced by unconscious emotional reactions, a fact routinely exploited by campaign consultants and advertisers. But the new research suggests that for partisans, political thinking is often predominantly emotional. It is possible to override these biases, Dr. Westen said, "but you have to engage in ruthless self reflection, to say, 'All right, I know what I want to believe, but I have to be honest.' " He added, "It speaks to the character of the discourse that this quality is rarely talked about in politics."

NSA Whistleblower Alleges Illegal Spying
2006-01-10, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1491889

Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security Agency, is now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet. For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows. "I specialized in what's called special access programs," Tice said of his job. "We called them 'black world' programs and operations." Some of those secret "black world" operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated the law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows. Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every domestic and international phone call...and to search for key words or phrases that a terrorist might use. Tice...says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used. "For most Americans [who] placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum." He told ABC News that he was a source for the [New York] Times. But Tice maintains that his conscience is clear. "We need to clean up the intelligence community. We've had abuses, and they need to be addressed." The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on what it called psychological concerns and later dismissed him. Tice calls that bunk and says that's the way the NSA deals with troublemakers and whistleblowers.

Government report says 2.1 million behind bars in U.S.
2005-04-24, MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7622824/

Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation’s prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported Sunday. While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released. In 2004, one in every 138 U.S. residents was in prison or jail. 61 percent of prison and jail inmates were of racial or ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12.6 percent of all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6 percent of Hispanic men and 1.7 percent of white men in that age group, the report said.

Commandos Get Duty on U.S. Soil
2005-01-23, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/nationalspecial3/23code.html

Mr. Arkin, in the online supplement to his book (codenames.org/documents.html ), says the contingency plan, called JCS Conplan 0300-97, calls for "special-mission units in extra-legal missions to combat terrorism in the United States" based on top-secret orders that are managed by the military's Joint Staff. Mr. Arkin provided The New York Times with briefing slides prepared by the Northern Command, detailing the plan and outlining the military's preparations for the inauguration. Three senior Defense Department and Bush administration officials confirmed the existence of the plan and mission, but disputed Mr. Arkin's characterization of the mission as "extra-legal."

Toying With Terror Alerts?
2006-07-07, Time Magazine
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1211369,00.html

In these perilous days, we must be ready to think the unthinkable. I'm talking about...the quite reasonable suspicion that the Bush Administration orchestrates its terror alerts and arrests to goose the GOP's poll numbers. The 18 months prior to the 2004 presidential election witnessed a barrage of those ridiculous color-coded terror alerts, quashed-plot headlines and breathless press conferences from Administration officials. Warnings of terror attacks over the Christmas 2003 holidays, warnings over summer terror attacks at the 2004 political conventions, then a whole slew of warnings of terror attacks to disrupt the election itself. Even the timing of the alerts seemed to fall with odd regularity right on the heels of major political events. One of Department of Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge's terror warnings came two days after John Kerry picked John Edwards as his running mate; another came three days after the end of the Democratic convention. So it went right through the 2004 election. And then not long after the [elections], terror alerts seemed to go out of style. With the exception of one warning about mass-transit facilities in response to the London bombing on July 7, 2005, that was pretty much it until this summer. Can I prove any of this was politically motivated? Of course not. All the key facts are veiled in secrecy, as they must be. So it's impossible to know from the outside whether it's on the level or not. But with another election looming, it seems we're about to get a bunch of new chances to wonder.

Intelligence Czar Can Waive SEC Rules
2006-05-23, MSNBC/Business Week
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12952860

President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye. Unbeknownst to almost all of Washington and the financial world, Bush and every other President since Jimmy Carter have had the authority to exempt companies working on certain top-secret defense projects from portions of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. It couldn't be immediately determined whether any company has received a waiver under this provision. The timing of Bush's move is intriguing. On the same day the President signed the memo, Porter Goss resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Only six days later, on May 11, USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had obtained millions of calling records of ordinary citizens provided by three major U.S. phone companies. Negroponte oversees both the CIA and NSA in his role as the administration's top intelligence official. The White House wouldn't comment on whether Negroponte has granted such a waiver. William McLucas, the Securities & Exchange Commission's former enforcement chief...added: "It could be that you have a bunch of books and records out there that no one knows about."

Radio frequency identification keeps tabs on goods, services, pets - even people
2006-05-11, Sacramento Bee (the leading newspaper of California's capital city)
http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/story/14254188p-15069873c.html

Feel like you're being followed? Maybe it's a tracking tag on your jeans or one implanted in a credit card. The tags are called radio frequency identification or RFIDs, and every day they are becoming more and more a part of our lifestyle. These Orwellian microchips, as minute as a grain of sand, identify and track products and even lost children at theme parks. They're being implanted in humans to alert hospitals about medical conditions. The tags can be so tiny, you may never know they are there. Retailers claim RFIDs are essential: alerting them when they're low on lipstick, air filters, sodas and other inventory. Embedded tags aren't so obvious. Hitachi Europe recently developed the world's tiniest RFID integrated circuit, small enough to be placed in a piece of paper. Some RFID chips are made to be imbedded in livestock, in pets and most recently in humans for a variety of reasons. RFID prices have dropped, and tagging has become practical for businesses. In-Stat, a high-tech research firm, reports more than 1 billion RFID chips were made last year and predicts that by 2010 the number will increase to 33 billion. Slightly larger than a grain of rice, RFID chips from VeriChip of Florida are manufactured for implanting in humans. The Food and Drug Administration approved human implants two years ago.

Note: For lots more on microchip implants, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/microchipimplants

Blair laid bare: the article that may get you arrested
2006-06-29, Independent (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1129827.ece

In the guise of fighting terrorism and maintaining public order, Tony Blair's Government has quietly and systematically taken power from Parliament and the British people. The author charts a nine-year assault on civil liberties that reveals the danger of trading freedom for security. A new law...says that no one may demonstrate within a kilometre...of Parliament Square if they have not first acquired written permission. This effectively places the entire centre of British government...off-limits to the protesters. Blair...turns out to have an authoritarian streak. What is remarkable...is the harm his government has done to the unwritten British constitution in those nine years, without anyone really noticing, without the press objecting or the public mounting mass protests. Last year...I started to notice trends in Blair's legislation...to put in place all the necessary laws for total surveillance of society. The right not to be tried twice for the same offence...no longer exists. The presumption of innocence is compromised. The ID card [and] centralised database...will log and store details of every important action in a person's life. "You and I will carry them because we are upright citizens. But a terrorist ...will be carrying yours." Once a person is arrested he or she may be fingerprinted and photographed by the police and have a DNA sample removed with an oral swab - by force if necessary...before that person has been found guilty of any crime, whether it be dropping litter or shooting someone.

New Device Will Sense Through Concrete Walls
2006-01-04, Defense Link (Website of U.S. Department of Defense)
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jan2006/20060103_3822.html

Troops conducting urban operations soon will have the capabilities of superheroes, being able to sense through 12 inches of concrete to determine if someone is inside a building. The new "Radar Scope" will give warfighters searching a building the ability to tell within seconds if someone is in the next room. By simply holding the portable, handheld device up to a wall, users will be able to detect movements as small as breathing. The Radar Scope, developed by DARPA, is expected to be fielded to troops in Iraq as soon as this spring. Weighing just a pound and a half, the Radar Scope will be about the size of a telephone handset and cost just about $1,000, making it light enough for a soldier to carry and inexpensive enough to be fielded widely. The Radar Scope will be waterproof and rugged, and will run on AA batteries.

Two Strange Deaths Which Changed History
2004-10-19, PBS, CBS, Fox compilation
http://www.WantToKnow.info/wellstonecarnahan

Two strange deaths dramatically changed the balance of power in U.S. government for two recent years. Democratic Senate candidate Mel Carnahan died in a private plane crash on Oct. 16, 2000, just three weeks before the 2000 elections. Mr. Carnahan went on to win the race as a dead man against his rival John Ashcroft. Carnahan's wife was appointed to fill his position, but as she was appointed rather than elected, her Senate term was limited to two years rather than the normal six. She lost her 2002 race to her Republican opponent. On Oct. 24, 2002, just two weeks before the 2002 elections, Democratic Senate candidate Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash. His wife died with him. Wellstone had been projected to win the election. There are many suspicious circumstances surrounding Wellstone's death. Isn't it quite a coincidence that these two Democratic candidates both died in plane crashes only two years apart, both just weeks before the elections? It's even more of a coincidence that both were very progressive Democrats. Wellstone was often labeled the most progressive member of Senate.

Democrats Pray for a Senator's Health, as Senate Control Hangs in Balance
2006-12-14, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2727431

South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson remained in critical condition today after undergoing emergency surgery for bleeding in his brain — an illness that could have immense political implications. They say that he has a congenital arteriovenous malformation — an abnormally tangled network of arteries and veins in his brain that ruptured, causing the bleeding. He is a modest, quiet man in an institution full of egos and sharp elbows, and has a mostly liberal voting record and a moderate demeanor. Beyond praying for a friend, Democrats may also be praying to keep their narrow 51-49 Senate majority. If Johnson's Senate seat were to become vacant, South Dakota law would empower Republican Gov. Mike Rounds to appoint a replacement. He would likely pick a fellow Republican, creating a 50-50 Senate with Vice President Cheney as the tie-breaker, leaving the GOP again in control of the Senate.

Note: Yet another amazing coincidence which could give Republicans control of the Senate. Few are aware aware that the deaths of Governor Mel Carnahan and Senator Paul Wellstone just a few years ago gave the Republicans control of the Senate. For more on this and the suspicious circumstances surrounding their two plane crashes just weeks before their elections, click here. For information on "non-lethal weapons" using directed beam technology which can cause illness and even death from a distance, click here and here.

Who's afraid of the 'Israel Lobby'?
2006-03-26, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-goldberg26mar26,1,3015...

The idea of a powerful "Jewish lobby" that has its gnarled fingers in the machinery of the government is an old and repugnant canard. In the modern era, even to broach the idea of a "Jewish lobby" is unacceptable. It's just not done in polite society -- even in situations in which there's some truth to it. That's why it was a bit of a shock last week when a 12,000-word article by two eminent professors -- Stephen Walt, the academic dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago -- appeared in the London Review of Books under the title "The Israel Lobby." According to the two academics, the United States' "unwavering support" for Israel -- including the $3 billion a year we give in direct assistance -- is justified by neither strategic nor moral imperatives. Despite the common view, Israel is, in fact, the Goliath in the Middle East, not the David. It is...an avowedly Jewish state in which Arabs live as second-class citizens. "The bottom line is that AIPAC, a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress," Walt and Mearsheimer contend. Public reaction has varied. Harvard has reportedly distanced itself from the original report. It seems silly to deny that a powerful lobby on behalf of Israel exists. The real question is how pernicious it is. My advice is to judge for yourself. The full article is available at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

Note: For information on how Harvard distanced itself from this paper: http://www.nysun.com/article/29638. For the mixed reaction to this paper in Israel: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/dailyUpdate.html

Animal rights activists face trial under terror law
2005-06-04, ABC/Reuters
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=819353

New Jersey is using an anti-terrorism law for the first time to try six animal rights activists charged with harassing and vandalizing a company that made use of animals to test its drugs. Prosecutors say the activists, who will stand trial next week, used threats, intimidation and cyber attacks against employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a British company with operations in East Millstone, New Jersey, with the intention of driving it out of business. The six, members of a group called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), are charged under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, amended in 2002 to include "animal enterprise terrorism," which outlaws disrupting firms like Huntingdon. The list of potential defense witnesses includes actress Kim Basinger, who joined a protest outside a Huntingdon laboratory in Franklin, New Jersey to try to stop such companies using animals to test their pharmaceutical products.

Police spies chosen to lead war protest
2006-07-28, San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/28/SURVEILLANCE.TMP

Two Oakland police officers working undercover at an anti-war protest in May 2003 got themselves elected to leadership positions in an effort to influence [a] demonstration. The department assigned the officers to join activists protesting the U.S. war in Iraq...a police official said last year in a sworn deposition. [At the] demonstration, police fired nonlethal bullets and bean bags at demonstrators who blocked the Port of Oakland's entrance in a protest. Dozens of activists and longshoremen on their way to work suffered injuries ranging from welts to broken bones and have won nearly $2 million in legal settlements from the city. In a deposition related to a lawsuit filed by protesters, Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said activists had elected the undercover officers to "plan the route of the march and decide I guess where it would end up and some of the places that it would go." Oakland police had also monitored online postings by the longshoremen's union regarding its opposition to the war. The documents...were released Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union, as part of a report criticizing government surveillance of political activists since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Jordan...noted that "two of our officers were elected leaders within an hour on May 12." The idea was "to gather the information and maybe even direct them to do something that we want them to do." The ACLU said the Oakland case was one of several instances in which police agencies had spied on legitimate political activity since 2001.

Secretive, powerful Bilderberg group meets near Ottawa
2006-06-08, Globe and Mail (Canada's leading newspaper)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060608.wbilder0608/BNSto...

Ottawa. On the outskirts of the nation's capital, a tony high-rise hotel beside a golf course is hosting the annual meeting for one of the world's most secretive and powerful societies. They're called the Bilderberg group. Those who follow the Bilderberg group say it got Europe to adopt a common currency, got Bill Clinton elected after he agreed to support NAFTA, and is spending this week deciding what to do about high oil prices and that pesky fundamentalist president of Iran. The Bilderberg group is a half-century-old organization comprising about 130 of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people. They don't have a website. Bilderberg says the privacy of its meetings helps encourage freewheeling discussion. An unsigned press release...confirmed this year's meeting would deal with energy issues, Iran, the Middle East, terrorism, immigration, Russia, European-American relations and Asia. The 2006 group includes David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Queen Beatrix of Holland, New York Gov. George Pataki, the heads of Coca-Cola, Credit Suisse, the Royal Bank of Canada, cabinet ministers from Spain, Greece and a number of media moguls. The group also includes a pair of prominent figures involved in planning the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- Richard Perle and Ahmad Chalabi. Fellow White House power-players Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, now head of the World Bank, have spoken to the group in the past. The prime ministers of Britain and Canada -- Tony Blair and Stephen Harper -- have addressed the group before.

Note: For two excellent articles from BBC describing this incredibly powerful, highly secretive group of elites:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/051115secretsocietiesbilderberg

High court curbs free-speech rights of public workers on the job
2006-05-31, Chicago Tribune/Los Angeles Times
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0605310058may31,1,6639785....

The Supreme Court restricted the free-speech rights of the nation's 21 million public employees Tuesday, ruling that the 1st Amendment does not protect them from being punished for complaining to their managers about possible wrongdoing. Although government employees have the same rights as other citizens to speak out on controversies of the day, they do not have the right to speak freely inside their offices on matters related to "their official duties," the Supreme Court said in a 5-4 decision. Lawyers for government whistle-blowers denounced the ruling as a major setback. "In an era of excessive government secrecy, the court has made it easier to engage in a government cover-up by discouraging internal whistle-blowing," said Steven Shapiro, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union. The decision threw out most of a lawsuit filed by Deputy District Atty. Richard Ceballos, who said he was disciplined after he wrote memos alleging that a police officer may have lied to obtain a search warrant. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed he was entitled to a trial on his lawsuit because he had spoken on a "matter of public concern." But the Supreme Court reversed that ruling Tuesday. Because Tuesday's decision interprets the 1st Amendment, it applies to governments at all levels, including federal and states agencies, public hospitals and public schools and colleges.

Bush Has Declared Katrina-Related Emergencies in 40 States
2005-09-15, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1129802

The dire conditions created by Hurricane Katrina may be confined to the Gulf Coast, but on paper the emergency is all over the country. President Bush has declared that Katrina-related emergencies exist in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Some, such as California, Massachusetts and North Dakota, are far removed from Katrina's wrath. Apparently it does not take much to qualify as an emergency.

Note: These "emergencies" also give the president extraordinary powers to curtail civil liberties.

Bush Has Declared Katrina-Related Emergencies in 40 States
2005-09-15, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1129802

The dire conditions created by Hurricane Katrina may be confined to the Gulf Coast, but on paper the emergency is all over the country. President Bush has declared that Katrina-related emergencies exist in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Apparently it does not take much to qualify as an emergency.

Note: These "emergencies" also give the president extraordinary powers to curtail civil liberties.

Bush Order Expands Network Monitoring
2008-01-26, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/25/AR20080125032...

President Bush signed a directive this month that expands the intelligence community's role in monitoring Internet traffic to protect against a rising number of attacks on federal agencies' computer systems. The directive, whose content is classified, authorizes the intelligence agencies, in particular the National Security Agency, to monitor the computer networks of all federal agencies -- including ones they have not previously monitored. The NSA has particular expertise in monitoring a vast, complex array of communications systems -- traditionally overseas. The prospect of aiming that power at domestic networks is raising concerns, just as the NSA's role in the government's warrantless domestic-surveillance program has been controversial. "Agencies designed to gather intelligence on foreign entities should not be in charge of monitoring our computer systems here at home," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. The classified joint directive, signed Jan. 8 and called the National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23, has not been previously disclosed. Allowing a spy agency to monitor domestic networks is worrisome, said James X. Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. "We're concerned that the NSA is claiming such a large role over the security of unclassified systems," he said. "They are a spy agency as well as a communications security agency. They operate in total secrecy. That's not necessary and not the most effective way to protect unclassified systems."

Note: For revealing reports from major media sources on the increasing surveillance of all aspects of society by secret government programs, click here.

From Casinos to Counterterrorism
2007-10-22, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR20071021015...

[Las Vegas], famous for being America's playground, has also become its security lab. Like nowhere else in the United States, Las Vegas has embraced the twin trends of data mining and high-tech surveillance, with arguably more cameras per square foot than any airport or sports arena in the country. Even the city's cabs and monorail have cameras. Some privacy advocates view the city as a harbinger of things to come. In secret rooms in casinos across Las Vegas, surveillance specialists are busy analyzing information about players and employees. Relying on thousands of cameras in nearly every cranny of the casinos, they evaluate ... behavior. They ping names against databases that share information with other casinos, sometimes using facial-recognition software to validate a match. And in the marketing suites, casino staffers track players' every wager, every win or loss, the better to target high-rollers for special treatment and low- and middle-rollers for promotions. "You could almost look at Vegas as the incubator of a whole host of surveillance technologies," said James X. Dempsey, policy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology. Those technologies, he said, have spread to other commercial venues: malls, stadiums, amusement parks. After Sept. 11, 2001, several airports tested facial-recognition software, with little success. But the government is continuing to invest in biometric technologies. "We often hear of the surveillance technology du jour, but what we're seeing now in America is a collection of surveillance technologies that work together," said Barry Steinhardt, the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty project director. "It isn't just video surveillance or face recognition or license plate readers or RFID chips. It's that all these technologies are converging to create a surveillance society."

Note: For revealing major media reports of privacy risks and invasions, click here.

previous

...91011121314

next

· entire list