In the wake of COINTELPRO and the Watergate scandal, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas sent a letter to a group of young lawyers at the Washington State Bar Association. "As nightfall does not come all at once," he wrote, "neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."[1]
The recent dramatic expansion of intelligence collection at the federal, state and local level raises profound civil liberties concerns regarding freedoms and protections we have long taken for granted. If people generally appear unaware of "change in the air," a large part of the reason is the unparalleled resort to secrecy used by the government to keep its actions from public scrutiny. According to the new American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report, "Drastic Measures Required," under President Obama (who had vowed to create "an unprecedented level of openness in Government" when he first took office), there were no fewer than 76,795,945 decisions made to classify information in 2010 - eight times the number made in 2001. A Nation of "Suspects" | Truthout
Thursday, September 29, 2011
'We didn't mean to track you' says Facebook as social network giant admits to 'bugs' in new privacy row Re
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Thousands of civilians granted power to issue fines
More than 2,200 workers including council wardens, security guards and countryside rangers are being given the powers, through which they can levy fines of up to £80. The so-called Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS) was derided by senior Tories when in opposition, but the number of people empowered by the scheme has swollen by a third in the past year.
Police and civil liberties campaigners have raised concerns over the accountability of civilians signed up to the scheme and the advance of Britain's surveillance state. link
The day the world went 'Phut'? Earth in crosshairs of gigantic solar storm that could blow circuits of ANYTHING from satellite TV to the electric power grid
A sunspot, 62,000 miles across - so big it would dwarf the Earth - is releasing gigantic solar flares that could in theory wreak havoc with electrical communications ranging from handheld electronics such as iPhones to sections of the power grid. Nasa has detected two X-class solar eruptions from 1302 – the most extreme possible – in the past week. One that occurred on September 24 produced an amazing light show over England last night – but it’s far from over, as the sunspot isn’t yet directly aligned with Earth.
NASA experts have said 'anything electrical' can be affected by such activity. link
Eyes wide open: Naomi Campbell building eco-mansion shaped like 'Eye of Horus'
Breakthrough Could Enable Others to Watch Your Dreams and Memories [Video]
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have reconstructed the internal “movie” that plays in a person’s head. To re-create dynamic visual experiences, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain activity of volunteers (the other members of the research team) as they watched short movie clips (left panel in the video below). A computational model crunched the fMRI data to reproduce the images, as shown in the right panel. link
WTF?!, No Seriously, WTF! - Bank Of America Holds Patent On 'Changing Your Emotions' During Customer Service Call
SYSTEMS FOR INDUCING CHANGE IN A HUMAN PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICPatent Abstract
Systems and methods for inducing a change in a human physiological characteristic. The physiological characteristic may correspond to an emotional state of a dialogue participant. The dialogue participant may be an individual participating in a conversation. The outcome of the conversation may be related to a business objective, such as providing high quality call center services. A sensor may monitor the physiologic characteristic. A processor may relate the physiologic characteristic to an emotional state. The processor may provide feedback to the individual based on the emotional state. The feedback may be formulated to change the individual's emotional state. link
Living In the Past, and Other Quirks of Perception
Neuroscientist Kathleen McDermott of Washington University began by quoting famous memory researcher Endel Tulving, who called our ability to remember the past and to anticipate the future “mental time travel.” You don’t use the phrase “time travel” lightly in front of a group of physicists for whom the concept is not a convenient metaphor but a very real possibility. But when you hear about how our minds glide through time—and how our memory provides a link not only to the past but also to the future—you see Tulving’s point. link
At Least 100 DHS Funded Chemical And Biological Response Unit Surrounding Occupy Wall Street Protesters
http://theintelhub.com/2011/09/25/dhs-funded-chemical-and-biological-response-unit-surrounding-occupy-wall-street-protesters/
Monday, September 26, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
#OccupyWallStreet Is More Than a Hashtag - It's Revolution in Formation | Truthout
A lot of what you've probably seen or read about the #occupywallstreet action is wrong, especially if you're getting it on the Internet. The action started as an idea posted online and word about it then spread and is still spreading, online. But what makes it really matter now is precisely that it is happening offline, in a physical, public space, live and in person. That's where the occupiers are assembling the rudiments of a movement. link
Fukushima: BBC Debunked - 福島：BBC暴か
Watch: Evacuate Fukushima (starts after intro 2min)
Sources cited:
The BBC Program
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014s49z
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vywZ84mixs
CNN Report Quoted
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-06/world/japan.nuclear.meltdown_1_nuclear-rea...
The Yomiuri Daily Table
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110607005367.htm
Atomic-Bombing Survivors Study
http://www.dmphp.org/cgi/reprint/5/Supplement_1/S122
In light of that study, it's worth noting that the Japanese government calculated that the Cesium-137 alone emitted from Fukushima as of late August was 168 times more radioactive than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8722400/Fukushima-caesiu..
IAEA Report Quoted
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/meetings/PDFplus/2011/cn200/documentation/cn200_...
NYAS Review Cited
http://iangoddard.com/NYAS_Chernobyl.pdf
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Swedish Daycare Centers Use GPS to Track Children
Some parents are worried day care centers will use the technology to replace staff. Others wonder whether getting children used to being under surveillance could affect their idea of privacy when they grow older.
Monica Blank-Hedqvist, the principal of a daycare center in the city of Borlange told The Associated Press Wednesday her staff have been using such devices during supervised walks in the forest: the kids wear vests with transmitters that staff can track on a screen. Link
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