judge allows tracking of entire neighborhoods through fake phone towers

the judge rules that, by plugging into to the internet, you voluntarily give up any expectation of privacy. they have all your data anyway…

Privacy, schmivacy

Court re-iterates that, by and large, we have no expectation of digital privacy.

Among other reasons for denial, Judge David Campbell said that Rigmaiden had no “reasonable expectation of privacy” when using a mobile Internet hotspot (“aircard”) from Verizon. And ultimately, that’s how law enforcement agents tracked him down and arrested him.

Virtually everything about Defendant’s actions related to the apartment was fraudulent. Defendant rented the apartment using the name of a deceased individual, provided a forged California driver’s license to support the false identity, used the driver’s license number from another person in support of the forged license, and provided a forged tax return to support his purported ability to pay rent. Defendant used the laptop he had procured through fraud in the apartment, and connected to the Internet with the aircard purchased with a false identity while using the account with Verizon that he maintained using a false identity. Even the electricity that lighted the apartment and powered the computer and aircard was purchased in a false name. What is more, while living in the apartment under false pretenses, Defendant had $70,000 in cash, a false passport, and a copy of his laptop computer in a storage unit (also rented under false pretenses) ready for a quick escape.

One who so thoroughly immerses himself in layers of false identities should not later be heard to argue that society must recognize as legitimate his expectation of privacy in the location and implements of his fraud. The Court concludes that Defendant’s presence in apartment 1122 was akin to the “burglar plying his trade in a summer cabin during the off season.”

Campbell, in his 52-page decision, also cited the 1976 case, United States v. Miller. That decision later helped influence the third-party doctrine:

The reasoning of Miller applies to the historical records obtained by the United States. They are not the customer’s private papers. Once a customer makes a call, communicates over the Internet, leases an apartment, or uses the services of an alarm company, he has no control over the business record made by the business of that transaction. Instead, the record created is a business record of the provider. The choice to create and store the record is made by the provider, and the provider controls the format, content, and duration of the records it chooses to create and retain. . . . Moreover, these records pertain to transactions to which the companies were a participant. The assignment of a particular cell tower to process a call is made by the cell phone company to facilitate the functioning of its network; the ISP uses the IP address to route Internet communications it transmits; the rental company maintains a rental file for each occupant; and an alarm service independently maintains records of the equipment it installs and maintains. Thus, under Miller, the business records obtained by the government are not protected by the Fourth Amendment.

The judge concluded:

Contrary to Defendant’s arguments, federal courts consistently rely on Smith and Miller to hold that defendants have no reasonable expectation of privacy in historical cell-site data because the defendants voluntarily convey their location information to the cell phone company when they initiate a call and transmit their signal to a nearby cell tower, and because the companies maintain that information in the ordinary course of business.

- from ars technica, Federal judge denies motion to throw out evidence gathered via fake cell tower

Court Ruling Gives FBI Too Much Leeway on Surveillance Technology

In today’s decision denying the motion to suppress, the judge held that information about how the stingray operates – such as the fact that it scoops up third party data – was merely a “detail of execution which need not be specified.” We respectfully but strongly disagree.

If the government has probable cause to believe a suspect lives at a particular address and wants a search warrant, it obviously needs to tell the court if the address is a 100-unit apartment building and that the government intends to search all 100 units until it finds the suspect. Omitting such information would never be considered a “detail of execution.” Law enforcement should be held to the same standard when they conduct electronic surveillance.

The judge dismissed the significance of the stingray’s impact on third parties because the government deleted and did not review the third-party data after it located Mr. Rigmaiden. But the Fourth Amendment does not include a “no harm, no foul” rule. The violation arises from the fact that the government searched people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. This is a violation even if the government doesn’t later use the information against those third parties. – from the aclu northern california website

THIS IS WIRED.com’s COVERAGE:

A legal fight over the government’s use of a secret surveillance tool has provided new insight into how the controversial tool works and the extent to which Verizon Wireless aided federal agents in using it to track a suspect.

Court documents in a case involving accused identity thief Daniel David Rigmaiden describe how the wireless provider reached out remotely to reprogram an air card the suspect was using in order to make it communicate with the government’s surveillance tool so that he could be located. - Secrets of FBI Smartphone Surveillance Tool Revealed in Court Fight

Over the course of a three-hour hearing in the U.S. District Court in Arizona, Rigmaiden, 31, asserted that the warrant the government obtained only authorized Verizon Wireless to provide agents with data about the air card but did not authorize agents to use the invasive stingray device. He also asserted that Verizon Wireless “reprogrammed” his air card to make it interact with the FBI’s stingray, something that he says was outside the bounds of the judge’s order.

Rigmaiden and civil liberties groups who have filed amicus briefs in the case also maintain that the government failed its duty to disclose to the judge who issued the warrant that the device they planned to use not only collected data from the target of an investigation but from anyone else in the vicinity who was using an air card or other wireless communication device. - Government Fights for Use of Spy Tool That Spoofs Cell Towers

In order to use the stingray with Rigmaiden’s air card, the defendant asserts in court documents that Verizon reprogrammed his air card so that when an incoming voice call arrived, the card would disconnect from any legitimate cell tower to which it was already connected, and send real-time cell-site location data to Verizon, which forwarded the data to the FBI. This allowed the FBI to position its stingray in the neighborhood where Rigmaiden resided. The stingray then “broadcast a very strong signal” to force the air card into connecting to it, instead of reconnecting to a legitimate cell tower, so that agents could then triangulate signals coming from the air card and zoom-in on Rigmaiden’s location.

To make sure the air card connected to the FBI’s simulator, Rigmaiden says that Verizon altered his air card’s Preferred Roaming List so that it would accept the FBI’s stingray as a legitimate cell site and not a rogue site, and also changed a data table on the air card designating the priority of cell sites so that the FBI’s fake site was at the top of the list. – Judge Allows Evidence Gathered From FBI’s Spoofed Cell Tower

Syria’s Army Doesn’t Need Chemical Weapons to Win

Death stalks the Syrian regime just as it does the rebels. But on the front line of the war, the regime’s army is in no mood to surrender – and claims it doesn’t need chemical weapons – by Robert Frisk

It is always an eerie experience to sit among Bashar al-Assad’s soldiers. These are the “bad guys” of the regime, according to the rest of the world – although in truth the country’s secret police deserve that title – and I’m well aware that these men have been told that a Western journalist is coming to their dug-outs and basement headquarters. They ask me to use only their first names for fear that their families may be killed; they allow me to take any photographs I wish, but not to picture their faces – a rule that the rebels sometimes ask of journalists for the same reason – but every soldier and officer to whom I spoke, including a Brigadier General, gave their full names and IDs to me.

Such access to the Syrian army was almost unimaginable just a few months ago and there are good reasons why. The army believe they are at last winning back ground from the Free Syrian Army and the al-Nusra Islamist fighters and the various al-Qa’ida satellites that now rule much of the Syrian countryside. From Point 45 they are scarcely a mile and a half from the Turkish frontier and intend to take the ground in between. Outside Damascus they have battled their way bloodily into two rebel-held suburbs. While I was prowling through the mountaintop positions, the rebels were in danger of losing the town of Qusayr outside Homs amid opposition accusations of the widespread killing of civilians. The main road from Damascus to Latakia on the Mediterranean coast has been reopened by the army. And the line troops I met at Point 45 were a different breed of men from those soldiers who became corrupted after 29 years of semi-occupation in Lebanon, who fell back to Syria without a war to fight in 2005, the discipline of the soldiers around Damascus a joke rather than a threat to anyone. Bashar’s Special Forces now appear confident, ruthless, politically motivated, a danger to their enemies, their uniforms smart, their weapons clean. Syrians have long grown used to the claims by Israel – inevitably followed by the Washington echo machine – that chemical weapons have been used by Bashar’s forces; as an intelligence officer remarked caustically in Damascus: “Why should we use chemical weapons when our Mig aircraft and their bombs cause infinitely more destruction?” The soldiers up at Point 45 admitted the defections to the Free Syrian Army, the huge losses of their own men – inevitably referred to as “martyrs” – and made no secret of their own body counts for battles lost and won.

Their last “martyr” at Point 45 was shot by a rebel sniper two weeks ago, 22 year-old Special Forces Private Kamal Aboud from Homs. He at least died as a soldier. Colonel Mohamed spoke ruefully of the troopers on family leave who, he said, were executed with knives when they entered enemy territory. I remind myself that the UN is bringing war crimes charges against this army and I remind Colonel Mohamed – who has four bullet wounds in his arms to show that he leads his soldiers from the front, not from a bunker – that his soldiers were surely meant to be liberating the Golan Heights from Israel. Israel is to the south, I say, and here he is fighting his way north towards Turkey. Why?

“I know, but we are fighting Israel. I joined the army to fight Israel. And now I am fighting Israel’s tools. And the tools of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, so in this way we are fighting for Golan. This is a conspiracy and the West is helping the foreign terrorists who arrived in Syria, the same terrorists you are trying to kill in Mali.” I have heard this before, of course. The “moamarer”, the conspiracy, sits beside me at all interviews in Syria. But the colonel admits that the two Syrian T-55s which fire shells at Point 45 every morning – the very same vintage war-carts as his own tanks – are sets of twins, that his enemies have taken their artillery from the government army and that his opponents include men from Bashar al-Assad’s original army.

On the road to Qastel Maaf, a general tells me that on the highway to the Turkish border, the army have just killed 10 Saudis, two Egyptians and a Tunisian – I am shown no papers to prove this – but the soldiers at Point 45 produce for me three handset radios they have captured from their enemies. One is marked “HXT Commercial Terminal”, the other two are made by Hongda and the instructions are in Turkish. I ask them if they listen to the rebel communications. “Yes, but we don’t understand them,” a major says. “They are speaking in Turkish and we don’t understand Turkish.” So are they Turks or Turkmen Syrians from the villages to the east? The soldiers shrug. They say they have also heard Arabic voices speaking with Libyan and Yemeni accents. And given that the great and the good of Nato are now obsessed with “foreign jihadis” in Syria, I suspect these Syrian soldiers may well be telling the truth.

The laneways of this beautiful northern countryside conceal the viciousness of the fighting. Clusters of red and white roses smother the walls of abandoned homes. A few men tend the mass of orange orchards that glow around us, a woman combs her long hair on a roof. The lake of Balloran glistens in the spring sunshine between mountains still topped with a powder of snow. It reminds me, chillingly, of Bosnia. For several miles the villages are still occupied, a Christian Greek Orthodox township of 10 families with a church dedicated to the appearance of the Virgin to a woman called Salma; a Muslim Alawite village, then a Muslim Sunni village close to the front lines but still co-existing; a ghost of the old secular, non-sectarian Syria which both sides promise – with ever decreasing credibility – will return once the war is over.

Then I am in a smashed village called Beit Fares where hundreds of Syrian soldiers can be seen patrolling the surrounding forests, and another general fishes into his pocket and produces an army mobile phone video of dead fighters. “All are foreign,” he says. I watch closely as the camera lingers over bearded faces, some contorted in fear, others in the dreamless sleep of death. They have been heaped together. And, most sinister of all, I observe a military boot which descends twice on the heads of the dead men. On the wall of the dugout, someone has written: “We are soldiers of Assad – to hell with you dogs of the armed groups of Jabel al-Aswad and Beit Shrouk.”

These are the names of a string of tiny villages still in rebel hands – you can see the roofs of their houses from Point 45 – and Col Mohamed, a 45-year-old veteran of the Lebanese war between 1993 and 1995, lists the others: Khadra, Jebel Saouda, Zahiyeh, al-Kabir, Rabia… Their fate awaits them. When I ask the soldiers how many prisoners they took in their battles, they say “None” with a loud voice. What, I ask, even when they claim to have killed 700 “terrorists” in one engagement? “None,” they reply again.

Opposite a bullet-riddled school building is a pulverised house. “A local terrorist leader died there with all his men,” the colonel states. “They did not surrender.”

- from the Independent, They may be fighting for Syria, not Assad. They may also be winning: Robert Fisk reports from inside Syria

see also; West’s WMD Lies Fray as Syrian Army Overruns Terrorist Proxies

Absurd “chemical weapons” claims begin to fall apart amidst NATO’s desperate bid to save its collapsing terror front in Syria.

The Terrorists Have Been Identified

The specter of terror is once again being raised to haunt the collective consciousness of the American psyche. But as the terror meme rears its ugly head, we see an understanding of false flag terrorism creeping into the mainstream discourse. Join us this week on The Corbett Report as we explore the real terror paradigm and examine who really hates you for your freedoms.

HERE’S ANOTHER CURIOUS GROUP:

Over the weekend, the pro-Assad hacker group the Syrian Electronic Army hacked into numerous Twitter accounts run by the Guardian. The collective aim to “punish” Western media outlets for writing negatively about Bashar al-Assad’s regime, while also spreading their own version of the truth—that the Free Syrian Army isn’t a popular uprising at all, and that the war against the incumbent regime is a coup attempt orchestrated by al Qaeda.

Last week, the Associated Press’s Twitter account was hacked by the SEA. They published a spurious tweet claiming that President Obama had been injured in a bomb blast at the White House. This sent the stock market into a panic, and, as the markets reacted to the news, the DOW Jones was sent plummeting by a staggering $136 billion. Once everyone realized the tweet was bogus, the markets quickly recovered, but the potential damage cyberattacks can cause was there for the whole world to see.

I spoke to Mikko Hypponen, a security expert at F-Secure, to find out why the tweet affected the stock market so severely. “High-frequency trading bots are monitoring real-time news sources like press feeds and stock-exchange notices,” he explained. “They try to analyze whether the news is positive or negative. Then they will automatically buy and sell stock accordingly. While this is awfully unscientific, on average they make more profits than losses.

“When SEA hacked AP and posted the single fake tweet, trading bots saw crucial keywords from a highly authoritative source: ‘Explosion’, ‘White House’, ‘Obama’ and ‘Injured’, which was a strong sell. It took some minutes until human operators interceded and stopped the madness.”

- from west coast native news, Crashing the Dow Jones with one Tweet

time is short…do you see what i see?

message from anonymous:

I see a cry for reckoning, and unification. Brothers and sisters time is short we must show how much we are on the same page. no matter color or differences, all should respect the lands that created them and keep true to themselves and being the children of our world make a better future for the next generation. We are anonymous, We do not forgive, We do not forget, EXPECT US!!!

shock treatment: the u.s. under attack by american intelligence agencies in order to justify world war 3

EITHER Tamerlan Tsarnaev WAS THE GREATEST TERRORIST OF ALL TIME, OR HE WAS AN ACTIVE AGENT OF AN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY IN THE U.S.

despite constant surveillance by the FBI, warnings by russian intelligence, his name appearing on numerous american intelligence agencies’ “watchlists,” and attending college at a public AMERICAN university, RIGHT UNDER THE NOSES of HUNDREDS of police and law enforcement personnel – with their face recognition technology, wireless surveillance, and bomb-sniffing dogs – this ONE KID was able to outsmart the entire, multi-billion dollar american security complex and bomb the boston marathon. Single-handedly. and this is the story they WANT us to believe.

while most news outlets are treating the story of last week’s bombing of the boston marathon as…well…last week’s news, the official story continues to come unravelled.

it seems as if the goal is to justify starting a war against syria and then iran. and, until we get with the program, we can expect more attacks like sandy hook and boston.

it also seems clear that the u.s. government cannot achieve the desired results from their domestic terror incidents while the internet here is unfiltered. it must be locked down BEFORE they can impose some official bullshit story upon the american public. so, they have…

The Shock Doctrine (trailer)

At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts…. New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters — to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets. – see more about the book and film Shock Doctrine, by naomi klein. there are also several good youtube videos of her speaking about this topic.

Engineering Consent For Attack On Syria

From Independent’s “Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all: Defector tells how US officials ‘sexed up’ his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion.” In retrospect, the corporate-media has no problem admitting the insidious lies that were told to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq – the lead up to the war was another story. A verbatim repeat of these admitted lies are being directed at Syria amidst the West’s failure to overthrow the government with terrorist proxies.

The last two weeks have seen a series of victories for the Syrian Army across Syria. It appears that 2 full companies of so-called “Free Syrian Army” fighters have been annihilated near Damascus, while government forces have restored order in parts of Homs and along the previously porous Lebanese-Syrian border.

Time has run out for the West, and it appears that they are desperately seeking any excuse to rescue their failing proxy war. When urgent, but otherwise unjustified military intervention is needed, a “humanitarian” pretext is usually invented – as it was in Libya. Failing that, as the West has already clearly done in Syria, an even more tenuous narrative has been resurrected from its well-earned grave. CNN has reported in their article, “Hagel: Evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria,” that:

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Thursday that the United States has evidence that chemical weapons have been used in Syria.

This comes a couple of days after an Israeli intelligence official said Damascus was using weapons banned under international law against its own people in the country’s civil war. Syria has said rebels have used chemical weapons. 

U.S. President Barack Obama has said the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons against its own people in the country would be a “game changer.”

Astonishingly, the West is attempting to repeat tales of “WMD’s” in Syria, just as it infamously did in Iraq. In the Washington Post’s “U.S. intelligence agencies: Assad used chemical weapons ‘on a small scale’,” the nature of this “evidence” is elaborated on (emphasis added):

Hagel said the intelligence agencies’ assessment was reached with “varying degrees of confidence,” meaning that they lacked proof or overwhelming evidence. He said the conclusion was “reached within the last 24 hours” and that the White House delivered a letter outlining the findings to Congress Thursday morning.

- from information clearinghouse, As NATO terror front collapses in Syria, US attempts to justify intervention by drumming up familiar WMD lies.

more on syria:

Syrian army seizes strategic town near capital: “The disaster has struck, the army entered Otaiba. The regime has managed to turn off the weapons tap,” a fighter from the town told Reuters via Skype. “The price of a bullet will go from 50 Syrian pounds to 1,000 Syrian pounds (6.5 pounds) now, but we must pay and retake it. It’s the main if not the only route.”

Hundreds of Europeans fighting in Syria, says EU expert: Intelligence agencies are concerned some could join groups linked to al-Qaeda and later return to Europe to launch terrorist attacks. The UK, Ireland and France are among the EU countries estimated to have the highest numbers of fighters in Syria.

Hague warns of new Syrian terror threat: William Hague said there was now “uncontested space” in Syria where Islamist groups were free to establish training camps that would equip and train foreign fighters, including British extremists.

Syria says backing rebels risks new attacks on America: – U.S. support for Syrian rebels may lead to more attacks on American soil like those of September 11, said a senior Syrian official who warned that Islamist fighters would spread “the fire of terrorism” around the world.

‘Confusion and inconsistencies’: How US plans to distract public from real truth about Boston

The initial questions about the Boston bombing are behind us, but former FBI employee Sibel Edmonds believes the pursuit of truth will eventually lead to a far more secret agenda by the US, which she reveals to RT.

RT: We’ve learned in the last hour that Russia warned the FBI about the older Tsarnaev brother and his potential links with radical Islamists, but the FBI found nothing suspicious. How is that possible?

Sibel Edmonds: Actually, we predicted that the unnamed foreign country [Western media didn’t name the source immediately] was in fact Russia, two days ago. We have too little facts, too much false information and speculations. But just look at the period they are talking about. When you listen to the suspect’s mother, she’s talking about a period of three to five years. According to FBI officials, they received this information, this warning, in 2011. So we have that inconsistency right there. The other important inconsistency that we should pay attention to is the mother’s description of FBI mannerisms and conversation with the suspects and the family when they were visiting them for the last three to five years. That fits exactly the recruitment style of the intelligence community. When you go to the suspects, and one moment you’re saying “We know you’re decent, we know you’re doing nothing wrong, we know you’re good”, and the next minute they’re saying “You can be dangerous”, right after receiving that information from the Russian government, to threaten them with that information for what purpose – to recruit them as informants or for other agendas. – see more, including video interview with sibel edmonds, from russia today

Members of a SWAT team search for 19-year-old bombing suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev on April 19, 2013 in Watertown, Massachusetts. (AFP Photo / Mario Tama)

The Shadow Government Of Vice President Dick Cheney Is Only Now Becoming Clear

On Sept. 12, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that ”what we are seeing is the definition of a new battlefield in the world, a twenty-first century battlefield.”

On Sept. 16, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said that America would have to “spend time in the shadows” and work on the “dark side.”

Since then the U.S. has been engaged in a global war on terror, but Americans haven’t known how exactly it is being fought.

That changed on Tuesday (4/23/13) with the publication of “Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield” by investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Scahill.

Based on years of on-the-ground research and countless interviews, “Dirty Wars” details how Rumsfeld and Cheney began covertly deploying lethal tactics including black ops, secret prisons, snatch operations, and political assassinations at an unprecedented level.

From “Dirty Wars”:

As The World Trade Center towers crumbled to the ground, so too did the system of oversight and review of lethal covert ops that had been carefully constructed over the course of the previous decade.

In place of that system, Scahill writes, a “War Council” led by Cheney advisor and fellow neoconservative David Addington developed legal justifications for capturing, torturing, and/or killing any al Qaeda suspect anywhere in the world.

The system became known as the “Cheney Program.” – see more, from business insider, The Full Power Of Vice President Dick Cheney Is Only Now Becoming Clear

see previous post: when you play the game of drones, they win and you die

Tamerlan Tsarnaev: experts puzzled as hunt for terror links gleans little

Lack of connections to terrorist groups means experts are increasingly seeing the elder Tsarnaev as a self-radicalised lone wolf – underlining the daunting task of piecing together a motive.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev has become the focal point of a global FBI investigation into whether any organised group or wider conspiracy lay behind last week’s Boston Marathon bombings. The 26-year-old, who has been identified through fingerprinting as the man killed in the shootout with police in the Watertown suburb of Boston, is widely assumed to have been the mastermind of the marathon outrage, with his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly playing the role of junior partner.

Yet so far the hunt for clues as to the motivation of the Tsarnaev brothers has failed to throw up concrete evidence that they were inspired to militancy by any particular extremist cleric or politician. Nor is there any known link to any nationalist or Islamist group in the Caucasus region that they regarded as their homeland, a link which would suggest they were recruited as foot soldiers and given operational instructions to strike the Boston Marathon.

Federal investigators and counter-terrorism experts are increasingly of the view that the brothers were acting alone. They surmise is that the elder Tsarnaev largely provided his own motivation and training, through the internet. – from the guardian, u.k.

related links:

CONFIRMED: Both FBI and CIA Watched Boston Bombing Suspects for Years

Body pulled from Providence Harbor is missing Brown student Sunil Tripathi

Putin says Boston shows need for security ties with U.S

Retailer Pulls Pressure Cookers in the Wake of Boston Bombing, Then Puts Them Back After Public Outcry

Google reports record spike in government requests to remove content

Report: Obama Officials Authorized New ‘Cybersecurity’ Warrantless Surveillance Program, Fresh Immunity Given to ISPs

CISPA: The House passed it a week ago, but most don’t know what it is

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, more commonly called, CISPA, is a proposed law that would allow the sharing of Internet traffic information between the U.S. government and technology and manufacturing companies. The Bill, known as H.R. 624, was first introduced in 2012; and then reintroduced to Congress in its current form by US Representative Mike Rogers, on February 13, 2013. It was passed by the House of Representatives on April 18^th.

Proponents of CISPA say that it is a needed amendment to the National Security Act of 1947, which does not cover cybercrime, and a powerful weapon that the government can use against the growing threat of cyber-terrorism from countries such as China and Iran. The bill’s purpose, they claim, is to allow federal security agencies to notify tech and manufacturing companies of any detected cyber-attack that may do them harm, and in turn, allow those companies to inform those agencies in kind.

Critics of CISPA, however, don’t buy it. They say that CISPA is an affront to American civil liberties, and the privacy of its citizens. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an international non-profit digital rights group based in the U.S., “the bill grants broad new powers, allowing companies to identify and obtain “threat information” by looking at your private information.”

EFF also says that “it (the bill) is written so broadly that it allows companies to hand over large swaths of personal information to the government with no judicial oversight—effectively creating a “cybersecurity” loophole in all existing privacy laws.” – from the washington times

WikiLeaks wins case against Visa

Iceland’s Supreme Court has ruled that Valitor (formerly Visa Iceland) must pay WikiLeaks $204,900 per month or $2,494,604 per year in fines if it continues to blockade the whistle-blowing site.

The court upheld the decision that Valitor had unlawfully terminated its contract with WikiLeaks’ donation processor, DataCell. The Icelandic Supreme Court is the highest court in Iceland. There is no route of appeal for Valitor.

“Today’s decision marked the most important victory to date against the unlawful and arbitrary economic blockade erected by US companies against WikiLeaks,” the organization’s press release stated. – from russia today, WikiLeaks wins case against Visa contractor ordered to pay ‘$204k per month if blockade not lifted’

to help fund open-source journalism, see:

Free Expression Advocates and Journalists Launch Campaign to Support The National Security Archive, The UpTake, MuckRock, and WikiLeaks

The Foundation is designed to crowd-fund a variety of journalism institutions—both start-ups and established organizations—who are dedicated to aggressive, uncompromising journalism in the vein of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. The organization’s Board of Directors is comprised of journalists and free expression advocates, including John Perry Barlow, Daniel Ellsberg, Xeni Jardin, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Josh Stearns, and John Cusack.

Freedom of the Press Foundation

WikiLeaks said Wednesday it has secured a victory in Iceland’s Supreme Court against the financial blockade imposed by Visa and MasterCard on donations for the secret-spilling site.

bradley manning is one of many sources who have enabled anyone with internet access to discover what our governments have been doing in secret for the past few decades.

Visa and MasterCard were among half a dozen major U.S. financial firms to pull the plug on WikiLeaks following its decision to begin publishing about 250,000 U.S. State Department cables in late 2010.

WikiLeaks has claimed that the financial blockade led to a 95 percent fall in revenue.

It said Wednesday that Iceland’s Supreme Court had upheld a district court’s decision that MasterCard’s local partner, Valitor, had illegally terminated its contract with WikiLeaks’ payment processer, DataCell.

The court warned Valitor it would be fined 800,000 Icelandic krona ($6,824) per day if the gateway to WikiLeaks donations is not reopened within 15 days, WikiLeaks said. It added that the court’s decision will bolster similar legal actions it is taking elsewhere, such as in Denmark against a Danish subcontractor for Visa.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — who remains holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he is seeking asylum — called the decision a victory for free speech.

“We thank the Icelandic people for showing that they will not be bullied by powerful Washington-backed financial services companies like Visa,” he said in a statement. “And we send out a warning to the other companies involved in this blockade: you’re next.” - from huffington post – WikiLeaks Claims Victory In Iceland Court Case

click on image to see it full sized

cyber warfare is slowing down the internet

Global internet slows after ‘biggest attack in history’

By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind in history.

A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks affecting the wider internet.

It is having an impact on popular services like Netflix – and experts worry it could escalate to affect banking and email systems.

Five national cyber-police-forces are investigating the attacks.

Spamhaus, a group based in both London and Geneva, is a non-profit organisation that aims to help email providers filter out spam and other unwanted content.

To do this, the group maintains a number of blocklists – a database of servers known to be being used for malicious purposes.

Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host that states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material.

Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claims to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and should not be allowed to decide “what goes and does not go on the internet”.

Spamhaus has alleged that Cyberbunker, in cooperation with “criminal gangs” from Eastern Europe and Russia, is behind the attack.

Cyberbunker has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• Huge spam botnet is taken down
• Microsoft aids spammer shutdown
• Global spam levels suddenly fall

from the BBC News Technology

Yeah, We Broke the Internet

What is becoming clear is that the attack is an outgrowth of a little-known, but highly explosive war between two factions: on one side are the Internet service providers (ISPs) and Web hosts that don’t ask their clients too many questions about whether they are hosting spam and other kinds of malicious code; on the other are groups that try to name and shame the spammers, and stop them from infiltrating your inbox—or worse, your bank’s servers. This side is engaged in a massive game of virtual whack-a-mole, only one with no end in sight.

In this latest retaliatory attack, the spammers got the better of their opponents, shutting down servers and slowing down the entire Internet. One man so far has come forward, claiming to be the spokesman for the attackers—a man named Sven Olaf Kamphuis. A so-called Internet activist, Kamphuis disdains government regulation of the Internet and, at least according to his Facebook page, gays and Jews. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Kamphuis said he owns an ISP that was put on a blacklist by the Geneva-based anti-spam company Spamhaus. Companies on the blacklist are blocked by email providers and other Internet service companies, which means they’re essentially kicked off the Internet.

So Kamphuis and others on the blacklist formed an opposition group, Stophaus, and earlier this month, they launched the most powerful “distributed denial of service” (DDoS) attack in the history of the Internet. DDoS attacks flood a server with data—in this case, 300 billion bits of data per second—at a rate it can’t possibly handle, thereby shutting it down. Stophaus’s onslaught overwhelmed not just Spamhaus’s servers, but the rest of the Internet, too. Thus, Netflix users around the world were suddenly wondering why they couldn’t stream You’ve Got Mail.

“There are a lot of people who are really pissed off about this,” Kamphuis said of Spamhaus. “And we are the first to show some balls and do something about it.”

Kamphuis said he himself had nothing to do with DDoS attacks. “I am a spokesman for Stophaus,” he said. “But being in the Internet industry I cannot have anything to do with these attacks.” Kamphuis said his group decided to stop the attacks on Tuesday, but said there are other hackers, and possibly even governments, who would like to continue the assault.

On his Facebook page, Kamphuis is adamant about his hatred of Spamhaus, posting on Wednesday that the company “took down members of the stophaus.com group—first—and without any court verdict, just by blackmail of suppliers and jew lies.” He went on to call for an end to SMTP, the Internet protocol for sending and receiving emails, saying it gives “fags an excuse to nag.”

see more about this anti-semitic fascist who is destroying the internet, from the Daily Beast, Eli Lake on the Web’s weirdest war.

from RT

A squabble between a group fighting spam and a Dutch company that hosts websites said to be sending spam has escalated into one of the largest computer attacks on the internet, causing widespread congestion and jamming crucial infrastructure around the world.

The dispute started when the spam-fighting group, called Spamhaus, added the Dutch company Cyberbunker to its blacklist, which is used by email providers to weed out spam.

Cyberbunker, named for its headquarters, a five-storey former NATO bunker, offers hosting services to any website ”except child porn and anything related to terrorism,” according to its website.

A spokesman for Spamhaus, which is based in Europe, said the attacks began on March 19 but had not stopped the group from distributing its blacklist.

Patrick Gilmore, chief architect at Akamai Networks, a digital content provider, said Spamhaus’ role was to generate a list of internet spammers. Of Cyberbunker, he added: ”These guys are just mad. To be frank, they got caught. They think they should be allowed to spam.”

much more, from RT – see the video above to read more of the original article, WORLD wide web WAR: WORST cyber ATTACK in HISTORY shakes the whole INTERNET

Cyberattack on anti-spam group SpamHaus slows down the internet

One of the largest ever cyber-attacks is slowing global internet services and the disruption could get worse, experts said on Wednesday, after an organisation blocking “spam” content became a target.

Spamhaus, a London and Geneva-based non-profit group which helps weed out unsolicited “spam” messages for email providers, said it had been subjected to “distributed denial of service” (DDoS) attacks on an unprecedented scale for more than a week.

“Based on the reported scale of the attack, which was evaluated at 300 Gigabits per second, we can confirm that this is one of the largest DDoS operations to date,” online security firm Kaspersky Lab said in a statement.

“There may be further disruptions on a larger scale as the attack escalates.”

Spamhaus publishes blacklists used by internet service providers (ISPs) to weed out spam in email traffic.

The group is directly or indirectly responsible for filtering as much as 80 percent of daily spam messages, according to Cloudflare, a company that said it was helping Spamhaus mitigate the attack.

“We’ve been under this cyber-attack for well over a week,” Steve Linford, chief executive of Spamhaus, told the BBC. “They are targeting every part of the internet infrastructure that they feel can be brought down.”

Perpetrators of DDoS attacks typically target websites by flooding servers with messages from multiple systems so they cannot identify and respond to legitimate traffic.

Paul Vlissidis, group technical director at internet security firm NCC, said the volumes of traffic involved in the attack were having a knock-on effect on the rest of the internet.

Because many computers were involved in the attack, it was difficult to defend against.

“If you have a few computers sending large amounts of traffic you can filter them out easily. When literally thousands and thousands are involved it makes it much, much harder,” he told Reuters.

- from businessSpectator

this is why we do not know how dangerous nuclear power is

excellent article by

Richard Wilcox

Activist Post

Even one atom of uranium undergoing alpha decay has the potential for creating a fatal cancer. – Paul Zimmerman, A Primer in the Art of Deception
(1; p. 53)

When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous, and its speaker a raving lunatic. – Dresden James (2)

It ain’t what we don’t know that causes all the trouble, it’s what we do know that ain’t so. – a saying from Jim in Texas (Ibid.)

The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging. – Molly Ivins (3)

The Trouble We Are In

Large-scale nuclear disasters like Chernobyl or Fukushima are comparable with other deadly man-made phenomena. The number of annual global automobile deaths is 1.3 million (4). Terrible though it is, an automobile accident kills just once; radiation breaks down the Earth’s DNA of life. GMOs (genetically modified organisms) threaten to replace that fabric of life with an artificial and diseased template (5). Secret geoengineering programs of atmospheric aerosol spraying (chemtrails) may be causing irreparable harm to the very life cycles of the Earth (6). Deforestation and habitat loss destroy and displace the Earth’s biological and cultural diversity.

The Road To Fukushima Starts In Chernobyl

Much of this article relies on the readings of and quotations from Paul Zimmerman and his book, A Primer In The Art Of Deception (Op. cit.).

Zimmerman states that:

The entire cover-up of the effects of radiation hinges on Chernobyl. This was the most substantial release of radiation into the environment before Fukushima. Verified health effects will accurately depict the true hazard of man-made radiation released amidst populations. This is why Chernobyl effects have to be covered up by [the nuclear establishment by] any and every means (personal communication, February, 2013).

Zimmerman chronicles the wide range of congenital malformations, diseases and types of deaths to children exposed to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster radiation which occurred both in the womb and after being born (from the European Committee on Radiation Risk report, entitled: “Chernobyl: 20 years on”). Most of the data is from the late 1980s up to mid 1990s, indicating the time frame we should be watching for at Fukushima (“A Primer,” pp. 559 – 563).

The nuclear establishment ignores these effects using outdated and phony methods for calculation. Yablokov and colleagues estimated nearly a million deaths due to Chernobyl (7), in contrast to the small handful of deaths the WHO claims occurred or will occur. The World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the United Nations are in cahoots:

A total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded. As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004 (8).

How is it that estimates could vary so wildly?

The main reason for this massive conspiracy being foisted on the public is what is referred to as the Chernobyl Forum, which is a coalition of United Nations related agencies (9).

Janette D. Sherman who edited the landmark study carried out by Russian scientists blows the lid off the fraudulent methodology of the Chernobyl Forum. Can something be called “science” if it intentionally ignores relevant empirical data in spades?

Sherman’s findings are worth quoting at length:

On the 20th Anniversary of Chernobyl WHO and the IAEA published the Chernobyl Forum Report, mentioning only 350 sources, mainly from the English literature while in reality there are more than 30,000 publications and up to 170,000 sources that address the consequences of Chernobyl. After waiting two decades for the findings of Chernobyl to be recognized by the United Nations, three scientists, Alexey Yablokov from Russia, and Vasily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko from Belarus undertook the task to collect, abstract and translate some 5000 articles reported by multiple scientists, who observed first-hand the effects from the fallout….

The greatest amount of radioactivity fell outside of Belarus, Ukraine and European Russia, extending across the northern hemisphere as far away as Asia, North Africa, and North America, while the greatest concentrations continue to affect the 13 million living in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia….

Thus data from multiple scientists estimate the overall mortality from the Chernobyl catastrophe, for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004, to be 985,000, a hundred times more than the WHO/IAEA estimate….

The human and economic costs are enormous: in the first 25 years the direct economic damage to Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia has exceeded $500 billion. Belarus spends about 20% of its national annual budget, Ukraine up to 6%, and Russia up to 1% to partially mitigate some of the consequences (10).

Zimmerman notes that:

There is an underlying prejudice being played upon here: “our science is good and Russian science is bad.” The conclusions of the Chernobyl Forum are reached by ignoring a huge body of research conducted in Eastern Europe that just happens not to be published in English. Certainly, if the UN was genuinely interested in Chernobyl rather than fabricating results, they could have paid for translations of relevant articles. Basically, it is just propaganda and worthless from a scientific perspective (pers. comm.).

However worthless the Chernobyl Forum studies are, they have become the mainstream scientific consensus and de facto reality, and a deadly lie which now contaminates public consciousness.

graphic from the DAILY MAIL

Japan Mass Media Banned From Reporting Radiation Dangers

How many people will die from Fukushima nuclear meltdown radiation? Two years have passed since Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster. Every day we learn of more evidence of the dangers of low-level radiation from a variety of natural and man-made causes, including medical x-rays and scans (11; 12). Our health, and particularly the health of people in Fukushima, is under increasing distress.

We now see evidence of children with thyroid cancer from the Fukushima area (13). It has also been revealed that the mass media in Japan is unofficially BANNED from discussing radiation issues. Journalists who write about radiation dangers will be fired, whereas they are permitted to debate whether Japan should use nuclear energy or not (14).

The latter debate is permissible because it is long term and changeable depending on the whims of government policy and manipulation of public sentiment. Serious discussion of radiation danger strikes fear in the heart of the public, and may also lead to costly liability payments, and is therefore taboo. Undoubtedly, the ban on discussing the danger of radiation in the media translates into public ignorance about radiation. It is astonishing to me that most of the people I talk to in Tokyo are only dimly aware that radiation is entering their bodies on a daily basis: from public water supply, food, drinks, ongoing air pollution emissions from the FNPP, and the burning of radioactive debris in public incinerators. People think that it is only a small risk.

Radiation biologist, Dr. Ian Fairlie writes that there are many studies which have “good statistical power” showing the increase in danger of cancer from low-level radiation from background radiation and radon; medical CT scans; living in proximity to nuclear plants, etc.

It is dispiriting to read many articles – on both sides of the Atlantic – by media pundits and poorly-informed scientists about low-level radiation risks. These articles commonly assert, with little or no evidence, that there is nothing to worry about radiation and that nuclear projects are encumbered by overly strict safety limits. In particular, they usually state that no risks are seen below 100 mSv [millisieverts]; that the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model is wrong; and that there were only about 50 deaths at Chernobyl with no more expected (15).

Lower End Estimates: Fukushima Related Mortality

As for the defendants of the official position and estimates that minimize nuclear dangers and deaths, we have Stanford University scientists weighing in at 130 cancer deaths (16). Beyea puts the number higher at 1,000 deaths due to gamma radiation ground shine, but Beyea’s calculation appears not to include internal radiation in the model (17). These are the kinds of estimates generally touted in the mainstream science journals which focus on various aspects of exposure but tend to ignore the full extent of constant exposure.

Fairlie is a moderate within the debate and puts the number of deaths “at least a few thousand fatal cancers [that] will occur among those exposed to Fukushima’s radioactive fallout” but does not mention exposure to internal radiation through consumption of food and water. He correctly points out that Japan was lucky that most of the radiation blew out to sea, sparing the land and inhabitants from the greatest portion of radiation exposure:

Fukushima is clearly a serious disaster but it is not as serious as Chernobyl. Radioactive air emissions are much more important than radioactive sea discharges in terms of their radiation doses to people, and the dispersed radioactivity to air from Fukushima has been estimated to be about 10% to 40% of the amount dispersed from Chernobyl. About a thousand square km near the Fukushima were contaminated, but at Chernobyl the area affected was much larger: over 200,000 square km throughout Europe were seriously contaminated by fallout, according to the European Commission (18).

In contrast to official Japanese government policy which allows 20 millisieverts of annual background radiation, a joint French and Japanese NGO project found that “external radiation” continues to cause “unacceptable health risks for hundreds of thousands of citizens” and that government estimates ignore internal consumption of radionuclides through food, water and air.

Dose beyond which the risk of cancer in the long term is considered “unacceptable” by ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection) is 1 [millisievert] per year, which corresponds to 17 cancers per 100,000 people exposed (19).

The first large-scale survey of contaminated food done by Japanese scientists found that:

Radiocesium was detected in 25 of 26 samples from Fukushima. The median dietary intake of radiocesium was 4.0 Bq/day. The estimated annual dose from radiocesium was calculated assuming that the daily intake of radiocesium was constant throughout the year. The median estimated dose level was 23 [microsieverts/year]. The estimated dose level of radiocesium was significantly higher in Fukushima than in the Kanto region and western Japan…. The preliminary estimated dietary dose levels among Fukushima residents were much lower than the maximum permissible dose 1 [millisievert/year], based on new Japanese standard limits for radiocesium in foods (100 Bq/kg for general foods) (20).

The problem with many of these surveys and estimates is that they are very rough guesses that average the dose, but how was it calculated and can the methods and data even be trusted? Some people will be getting less than 4 becquerels (bq) per day but others higher. For how many days, weeks, months and years will this rate continue? Over ten years that’s 14,600 bq.

photo from the DAILY MAIL

A More Critical View Of Mortality Rates

Dr. Chris Busby, one of the most outspoken critics of the nuclear status quo, who also specifically studies the affects of radiation on health, offered a more dire scenario in 2011:

[W]ithin 100 km of Fukushima Daiichi, approximately 200,000 excess cancers will occur within the next 50 years with about half of them diagnosed in the next 10 years, if the 3.3 million people in the area remain there for one year. [Busby] estimates over 220,000 excess cancers in the 7.9 million people from 100 to 200 km in the next 50 years, also with about half of them to be diagnosed in the next 10 years (21).

That equates to roughly 420,000 exposed people, not including most of the Tokyo area, or other radiological-associated, non-fatal diseases that could harm and maim.

Retired nuclear engineer and activist Arnie Gundersen bases his estimate on the epidemiological data from the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents, and compared radiation amounts and dispersion with population density in Japan. He estimates a million deaths could occur due to the accident (22).

Shimatsu has pointed out anomalous data that indicates mortality rates have risen in the elder population of Fukushima area residents. This could be related to the weakening of their immune systems due to radiation exposure (23).

Finagling The Fallout

This radiation contamination map of the Fukushima nuclear disaster made by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is startling in its depiction of deposition across the Pacific ocean and throughout North America (24).

Here again is the blandly presented propaganda from the US government that minimizes danger to health. They do not take into account the many variables or hotspots or that not everyone receives an “average” dose. In a sense this is worse than propaganda, and is a huge lie. While revealing the extent of the radiation, the international public is told that the amount is nothing to worry about, as if low-level radiation is safe.

While the USGS does not assess human health risks from exposure to radioactive fallout, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s RadNet confirms that radiation levels in the United States were far below the level of concern for human health impact.

Other mainstream scientists found that the wide dispersal of radiation into the air was due to “at least 80% of the core inventory” having “been released into the atmosphere and indicates a broad meltdown of reactor cores. The radioactivity emitted into the atmosphere could represent 10% of the Chernobyl accident releases for I-131 and Cs-137” (25).

However, this estimate contrasts with an earlier study that found radioactive fallout (not including radiation released into the water) at 50 percent of Chernobyl releases for cesium (26). If radiation released into water is included the total amount released — because no radiation was released into water by the landlocked Chernobyl reactor — could be as high as 90 percent of Chernobyl by some estimates (27). Chernobyl was mainly a one-time event but Fukushima is ongoing, steadily releasing substantial quantities of radiation into the air and water (28).

Anyone not privy to the most technically relevant data must trust the experts. As Arnie Gundersen once said, “it’s a numbers game” when it comes to figuring out how much radiation escaped given the same criminals in charge of the accident, Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company), are in charge of disclosing the data as they see fit. There is now zero public trust in government agencies and what they are reporting when it comes to public safety. Without becoming paranoid the public should always be aware of pat bromides handed out by the nuclear-friendly agents.

As we know, Tepco spokespersons are proven liars and their credibility is less than zero (29; 30).

How Radiation Affects Life

The nuclear establishment would prefer the general public believe that nuclear radiation is essentially nothing to be concerned with. However, their own science and words belie the rhetoric. The Cult of Nuclearists have billions of dollars to devote to propaganda whereas the Nuclear Truth Tellers (NTTers) are marginalized by a whole host of economic and political tricks.

One of the trump cards that the Nuclearists hold is that understanding the science of radiation effects when presented in an intentionally confusing way to mislead is beyond the capabilities of the average person to grasp, and that they have no other choice than to trust the experts. Fortunately there is a large body of literature that debunks the nuclear industry’s powerful lies.

Busby has two important and rigorously researched books on radiation science that are among the most important (31; 32). I also recommend a perusal through longtime activist Russell Hoffman’s incredible library of nuclear related books (33). Hoffman’s Code Killers is an easily understood, exhaustively researched and colorfully presented educational primer on the dangers of nuclear energy. It can be downloaded for free and is an ideal educational tool (34).

Insights Into The Science Of Radiation Biology

Paul Zimmerman’s 778 page book, A Primer In The Art Of Deception: The Cult Of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons And Fraudulent Science (2009) is the equivalent of taking a college-level course — if not an entire curriculum — from the self described “self-educated student of the subject matter” (Op. cit.). For an introduction to his work here is an outstanding audio interview (35).

Since 1938 when the uranium atom was first split, the US has accumulated some “700,000 metric tons” of depleted uranium as a byproduct of weapons manufacture and nuclear power waste. Why is nuclear waste and emissions a problem?

To quote Zimmerman:

All atoms of uranium are radioactive. At some point in their lifetime, they spontaneously undergo radioactive decay and emit subatomic particles and energy from their nuclei. When this process occurs in the crust of the Earth, it is of no consequence to life. Decay while the atom is entrapped within the body of a living organism, however, is altogether different. When radiation from a radioactive atom is released into a biological medium, it creates damage to the molecular structures that make up that living system (p. ii).

There is not a single life-enhancing benefit to be derived from releasing ionizing radiation into the environment…. Ionizing radiation breaks chemical bonds, destroying in living systems biologically significant micromolecules, and as a result, altering biological function. On a planet teeming with life–impossible without the exquisitely precise interplay of biochemical choreography–ionizing radiation, concentrated by humans and then released, is a force of disorder, chaos and death (p. 8).

Another basic point of understanding blurred in the public mind by the nuclear establishment is gauging the effect that natural uranium has on the human body versus uranium that has been concentrated for nuclear technology. The nuclear establishment claims that the effects of eating a banana which may be relatively high in uranium content, is equivalent to an insoluble microparticle of uranium which may become lodged in the lung after a depleted uranium (DU) munition explodes on the battlefield, or when a nuclear accident such as Fukushima releases large amounts of hot particles into the air where they can be swept by the wind and then inhaled.

Another quote from Zimmerman:

The solubility/insolubility of particles released by nuclear weapons or radiation accidents would depend on the chemistry of the the nuclides involved. There is not a blanket answer for all radionuclides and whatever other atoms they might be bound to. Hot particles are particles composed of hundreds/thousands/millions of molecules which contain some quantity of radioactive atoms. How that particle behaves in the human body has a lot to do with how easily is dissolves in body fluid.

Both soluble and insoluble particles of uranium, plutonium, radium, and the other alpha emitters release alpha particles into surrounding tissue. The significance of INSOLUBLE particles is that they can have a much longer residency inside the body, perhaps a person’s entire life. This gives them increased opportunity to successfully target biologically significant macromolecules such as DNA in their vicinity (pers. comm.).

Uranium found in nature is present in the food and water chain, is soluble, consists of about 2 millionths of a gram of daily intake. Since it is widespread throughout many organ systems and is then eliminated through bodily processes, no cluster of cells receives a concentrated dose of radiation. Therefore, Zimmerman notes that uranium from nature “presents an infinitely small hazard to the health of the organism as a whole” (p. 46).

But there is a tricky linguistic distinction to be understood. The nuclear industry calls uranium that has been thoroughly processed into a purified form of uranium as “natural uranium.”

While it is true that originally this uranium was found in nature, it is in fact a man-made uranium product with nothing really natural about it. Just like some food products on the shelves of grocery stores that say “all natural” or “natural flavors” on the label even though there are dozens of artificial food additives in the product.

Natural uranium — uranium that has been concentrated by human beings — represents an enhanced radiological hazard over the uranium found in nature. Since the 1940s, humankind has unearthed millions of tons of uranium-bearing ore, extracted the uranium and concentrated it. this man-made product is a new radiological pollutant that never before existed on the Earth’s surface (p. 46).

The difference between uranium-bearing ore and uranium products that have been refined vary drastically in radioactive concentration. Weapons-grade uranium is the most potent by far, but even yellow cake uranium that has undergone rudimentary refinement, and is used for nuclear reactors, is 300,000 times more radioactive than uranium found in nature when equal volumes are compared.

A main problem for human health are the alpha particles that are released in the process called “ionization.”

Zimmerman notes that:

Ionization is the breakup of an electrically neutral molecule into positive and negative ions. To break the chemical bonds holding together each of the molecules in our body requires the impact of approximately 34 electron-volts (pers. comm.).

Given this possibility:

One alpha particle has the potential of creating–123,000 ionizations. In a cascading effect, the charged particles created in these ionizing events go on to initiate millions more ionizations. An alpha particle is a bull in the proverbial china shop. It massively disrupts the chemical integrity of the molecules that constitute a living system (p. 51).

Although alpha particles do not penetrate great distance, they are “not weak.” Due to the small distance they travel in tissue, they are extremely destructive to the cells through which they traverse. The alpha particle’s ionizing behavior results in “massive assault on the chemical integrity of a small population of cells…” (p. 52).

In the article “Radiation Roulette” by Ron Edwards, reference is made to a study of the effect of alpha radiation on the stem cells of mice. One of the authors of the study, Eric Wright, had this to say in a letter to the journal Nature:

“relative biological effectiveness” — a measure of how damaging low-level radiation can be in the body — for isotopes that emit alpha particles is “effectively infinite” (36).

Particles from uranium munitions contain uranium in vastly greater concentrations than uranium found in nature in uranium ore. When they are released as hot particles into the air from exploding DU munitions which burn, they can be inhaled by populations downwind. Similarly, hot particles which contain a great variety of radionuclides that are released after a nuclear disaster can also be inhaled by humans downwind of the accident.

the radioactive wasteland that was once iraq

this piece originally ran in AWOL magazine.

Two military campaigns of dubious merit, initiated by the former President Bush and his son’s ruling junta, have scattered tons of radioactive material over Iraq. Along with Afghanistan and the nations which once formed Yugoslavia, Iraq has been used as a laboratory to test the long-term effects of depleted uranium munitions on people and the environment. The Bush junta is also using this opportunity to check out how much misinformation it can successfully spew in order to carry out its objectives.

The U.S. military admitted to using 320 tons of DU-enhanced ammunition during the Gulf War. Despite massive evidence about the lethal effects of prolonged exposure to DU residue in Iraq, the Bush junta and its military propagandists still claim DU presents no clear health risks, at any level of exposure. Unless, of course, one is targeted by weapons firing DU projectiles.

There are still no reliable estimates of how much DU was used during the conquest of Iraq. The lower estimates have been 500 tons, while some guesses range as high as 2,000 tons. No doubt, the expanded us of DU in missiles and bombs – much of it carried out in secret – makes it difficult to accurately come up with a reliable figure. There is, however, substantial evidence regarding the effects of DU exposure, as the land and people of Iraq have been so exposed for over 12 years. In the southern city of Basra, for example, radiation levels were 84 times greater than what is considered safe, before the latest war of conquest. Cancer and other ailments associated with exposure to radiation are epidemic throughout southern Iraq, Kuwait and across their borders into Saudi Arabia and Iran. Eight years after the Gulf war, Canadian soldiers who participated in the conflict were still passing uranium 238 in their urine.

- much more on depleted uranium munitions, from we are not afraid of ruins -

Zimmerman confirms that “a comparison can be made between DU and hot particles released from nuclear accidents resulting from fire and/or explosions. It is the burning of DU that turns it into microparticles which produces the internal hazard. The same would be true for hot particles produced in nuclear weapons explosions and accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima. DU is a single radionuclide, uranium, with a tremendously long half-life. A nuclear reactor contains numerous biologically significant radionuclides with variable half-lives. The kinetics/biochemistry of uranium once inside the body is quite different from that of a host of radionuclides targeting different organ systems simultaneously with variable rates of disintegration due to the different rates of decay. The fact that DU is both chemically and radiologically hazardous, which nearly all radiobiologists deny, damns any other more active types of radiation gaining entrance into the interior of the body” (pers. comm.).

In other words, the hot particles that were emitted after the nuclear meltdowns and explosions at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant (FNPP) were every bit as dangerous, if not more so, than what soldiers in Iraq and other illegal war theaters experienced when DU munitions were used. This would especially be true for people living within close vicinity of the FNPP however researchers picked up significant numbers of hot particles in car engine filters as far away as Tokyo (37).

Some industry scams for dealing with nuclear pollution:

• Dilute it to “safe” levels before discharging it into the environment. But the same quantity of nuclear pollution is ultimately discharged.
• Mask the dangers of low dose radiation as if “low” quantity also means “low” risk.
• Averaging of internal doses over an entire organ even though the radioactive particle and alpha radiation may be attacking a very specific spot, a group of cells. Statistical averaging is a way of diluting the danger even though the hot particle is causing pinpoint damage (p. 198 – 203). This is like saying that if someone in a football stadium shoots a gun and kills a handful of people, it is really not that bad given there were 100,000 people in attendance.

Conclusion

Clearly the international public cannot trust the news that comes out of government, the nuclear industry or mainstream media when it comes to protecting public health. The public cannot continue to simply defer to those in positions of authority but must in the future investigate the facts for ourselves to determine our own health and safety, and more importantly to assure the health of generations to follow.

Richard Wilcox has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from a social science, holistic perspective. He teaches at a number of universities in the Tokyo, Japan area. His articles on environmental topics including the Fukushima nuclear disaster are archived at http://wilcoxrb99.wordpress.com/ and are regularly published at Activist Post and Rense.com. His interviews with Jeff Rense are available at the website http://www.rense.com.

this article originally appeared on activist post – Powerful Lies: The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster And The Radioactive Effects On Human Health

some of the images above were taken from an article from the Daily Mail, archived here:

America on radiation alert: Japan faces world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl as experts warn fallout may reach U.S.

By David Derbyshire, Richard Shears and Daily Mail Reporters

References:

1. Paul Zimmerman, A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science (778 pgs., 2009).

2. Dresden James Quote
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Dresden.James.Quote.8B45

3. Molly Ivins Quotes
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/molly_ivins.htm

4. Annual Global Road Crash Statistics
http://www.asirt.org/KnowBeforeYouGo/RoadSafetyFacts/RoadCrashStatistics/tabid/213/Default.aspx

5. A Silent Forest. The Growing Threat, Genetically Engineered Trees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w437uQf_A7c&feature=youtu.be

6. Geoengineering Watch
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/

7. Yablokov, V.B. Nesterenko, A. V. Nesterenko (2009). Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. New York Academy of Sciences, 327 pgs.

8. Chernobyl: the true scale of the accident
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/index.html

9. The Chernobyl Forum
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf

10. Chernobyl, 25 Years Later
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/04/chernobyl-25-years-later/

11. Recent evidence on the risks of very low-level radiation
http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/recent-evidence-on-the-risks-of-very-low-level-radiation/

12. Many people unaware of radiation risk from CT scans
http://news.yahoo.com/many-people-unaware-radiation-risk-ct-scans-213236978.html

13. More Thyroid Cancers Found In Fukushima Children
http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=9699

14. Issues of Radioactive Exposure are Considered Taboo on Japanese Media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHtbi1Q4aZ8

15. Recent evidence on the risks of very low-level radiation
http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/recent-evidence-on-the-risks-of-very-low-level-radiation/

16. Stanford researchers calculate global health impacts of the Fukushima nuclear disaster
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/july/fukushima-health-impacts-071712.html

17. Reassessing the health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/01/reassessing-health-effects-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-accident

18. Fallout from Fukushima: One Year After
http://www.ianfairlie.org/uncategorized/fallout-from-fukushima-one-year-after/

19. Press and CRMS CRIIRAD
http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&ei=0eT3UI6dGKbF0QWzlIH4BA&hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcriirad%26hl%3Den%26tbo%3Dd%26rlz%3D1C1GGGE_en-gbGB440GB445&rurl=translate.google.co.uk&sl=fr&twu=1&u=http://www.criirad.org/actualites/dossier2012/fukushima/12-11-05CRIIRADF.pdf

20. Dietary Intake of Radiocesium in Adult Residents in Fukushima Prefecture and Neighboring Regions after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es304128t

21. Fukushima is Worse than Chernobyl – on Global Contamination
http://japanfocus.org/-Chris-Busby/3563

22. Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen: Fukushima Meltdown Could Result in 1 Million Cases of Cancer
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/12/nuclear_engineer_arnie_gundersen_fukushima_meltdown

23. Is Fukushima A Factor In Japan’s Record Deaths In 2011-12?
http://rense.com/general95/isfuku.html

24. Measurement of Radioactive Fallout from the March 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Incident
http://nadp.sws.uiuc.edu/fukushima/

25. Analysis of Radionuclide Releases from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident Part II
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00024-012-0578-1

26. Fallout forensics hike radiation toll
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111025/full/478435a.html

27. Tepco’s Cheapskate Tactics Put World at Risk
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/04/tepcos-cheapskate-tactics-put-world-at-risk/

28. Fukushima’s Damnably Unstable Atoms Contaminate Pacific Ocean
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/11/fukushimas-damnably-unstable-atoms.html

29. What Else Is TEPCO Not Telling
http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=9746

30. Never Ending Load of Gobshite from the Lying Bastards of Tokyo Electric Power Company
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/06/never-ending-load-of-gobshite-from-the-lying-bastards-of-tokyo-electric-power-company/

31. Wings of Death: Nuclear Pollution and Human Health
http://www.amazon.com/Wings-Death-Nuclear-Pollution-Health/dp/1897761031/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1/175-1419479-8993005

32. Wolves of Water: A Study Constructed from Atomic Radiation, Morality, Epidemiology, Science, Bias, Philosophy and Death http://www.amazon.com/Wolves-Water-Constructed-Epidemiology-Philosophy/dp/1897761260/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3

33. Nuclear-related books in my collection -Russell Hoffman, Concerned Citizen
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/mybooks.htm

34. The Code Killers:Why DNA and ionizing radiation are a dangerous mix
http://www.acehoffman.org/
Download here:
http://www.acehoffman.org/books/The%20Code%20Killers%20low%20resolution%20for%20web%20viewing.pdf

35. Rense & Paul Zimmerman – No ‘Safe’ Dose Of ANY Radiation Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIfUkYMyCjI

36. Radiation Roulette
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~peterson/HCarticle106.html

37. Hot Particles and Measurement of Radioactivity
http://vimeo.com/41657649

british military claims hundreds of drones have crashed around the world, or are missing in action

Ministry of Defence releases figures for crashes, breakdowns and missing vehicles, including loss of half of Hermes 450 fleet

• Nick Hopkins
• The Guardian, Tuesday 12 February 2013

“According to our analysis, there have been more than 100 crashes of the larger class of military unmanned aerial vehicles in over 20 countries since 2007. However, it is likely that it is the smaller class of drones – less than 150kg – that will be used most often in civil airspace and the revelation that over 400 British drones of this type have crashed in Afghanistan is startling.”

Almost 450 drones operated by the British military have crashed, broken down or been lost in action during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last five years, figures reveal.

The Ministry of Defence has disclosed for the first time the five Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems used in the conflicts and the number that have perished due to pilot error, technical faults or the undesirability of retrieving them from hostile areas.

The figures highlight the military’s increasing reliance on technologies that are regarded as a way of minimising risks to frontline troops. Officials say the UAVs have operated for thousands of hours on sensitive operations.

But the disclosure has also raised concerns among campaigners about their reliability. They say that some of the smaller drones, which are more prone to crashes, are similar to those already being flown in UK airspace.

“The drone industry constantly talks up the supposed economic benefits of unmanned drones, but it is the civil liberties and safety implications that need real attention,” said Chris Cole, who set up watchdog website Drone Wars UK.

“Without a significant improvement in reliability and safety, legislators should remain extremely sceptical about plans to open UK airspace to drones.”

Georgian UAV shot down.
According to abchazian, south ossetin and russian statements they’ve shot down nearly a dozen of those Hermes 450 birds recently.

The MoD released details of the UAV incidents under the Freedom of Information Act, conceding that their operations were “viewed by some as contentious and there is therefore strong public interest in being as open and transparent as possible” about their use.

The figures show the military has lost one Reaper drone since 2007 – it is the only UAV that carries Hellfire missiles as well as surveillance and intelligence-gathering equipment. The drone, which has not been replaced, cost £10m.

There have been nine losses of another large UAV, the Hermes 450. Eight of the £1m aircraft were lost in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. The surveillance fleet has halved in size because of the incidents.

Faced with a mounting bill for the crashes, and fewer UAVs to use, the MoD has admitted that it is trying “to increase airmanship standards in a number of areas” by updating training courses. But officials also insist the drones are being worked hard in difficult conditions, and breakdowns are to be expected.

The Hermes fleet has been in the air for 75,000 hours, and the Desert Hawks have undertaken more than 30,000 missions, the MoD said. Despite the high loss rate, the military believes the Desert Hawk still provides “indispensable and flexible” intelligence to UK ground forces – and value for money.

“Every crash is investigated so we can try to learn the lessons,” a spokesman said. “The UK operates a number of UAVs in Afghanistan which provide our frontline troops with vital intelligence and help to save lives. Reaper is the only armed UAV used by British forces and the rest are unarmed surveillance and reconnaissance assets. No deaths or injuries have resulted from the loss of any UAV and a thorough investigation is carried out into any incident that results in a UAV not being recovered or irreparably damaged.

see the full article, from the guardian - Nearly 450 British military drones lost in Iraq and Afghanistan

Domestic-Drone Industry Prepares for Big Battle With Regulators

• By Spencer Ackerman
• 02.13.13

There’s been a lot of hype around unmanned drones becoming a fixture over U.S. airspace, both for law enforcement use and for operations by businesses as varied as farmers and filmmakers. All have big implications for traditional conceptions of privacy, as unmanned planes can loiter over people’s backyards and snap pictures for far longer than piloted aircraft. The government is anticipating that drone makers could generate a windfall of cash as drones move from a military to a civilian role: Jim Williams of the Federal Aviation Administration told the Wednesday conclave of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) that the potential market for government and commercial drones could generate “nearly $90 billion in economic activity” over the next decade. $90 billion.

But there’s an obstacle: the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA has been reluctant to grant licenses to drone makers, out of the fear that the drones — which maneuver poorly, have alarming crash rates, are spoofable, and don’t have the sensing capacity to spot approaching aircraft — will complicate and endanger U.S. airspace. (Nor has it been transparent about the licenses it grants: The Electronic Frontier Foundation had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to learn who’s operating drones in America.) A push last year by Congress and the Obama administration directing the FAA to fully integrate unmanned aircraft into American skies hasn’t been nearly enough for the drone makers: The FAA is months late in designating six test sites for drones around the country.

from wired, Domestic-Drone Industry Prepares for Big Battle With Regulators

Aerial Drones Are Watching You

Published on Dec 5, 2012

From military weapons expos in Jordan to idyllic SoCal beaches, we caught up with some of those who are building and selling unmanned aerial vehicles all over the world, and even convinced a few companies to let us take their flying spy robots for a spin.

Originally aired on Motherboard.vice.com

 

military judge rules that bradley manning was treated illegally, orders reduced sentence

By Andrew Khouri This post has been updated. See this link for details.

January 8, 2013, 4:17 p.m.

Pfc. Bradley Manning suffered illegal pretrial punishment while in a Marine Corps brig, a military judge ruled Tuesday as she reduced a potential sentence for the former Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking hordes of classified documents.

Bradley Manning. Military prosecutors are seeking to preclude any discussion of Manning’s motives from the trial itself Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Col. Denise Lind ruled that Manning, 25, if convicted, would have his prison sentence reduced by 112 days, the Associated Press reported.

The ruling came during a pretrial hearing at Ft. Meade, Md., outside Washington.

Manning’s attorney David E. Coombs had asked Lind to dismiss the charges against Manning, arguing that the private’s nine-month solitary confinement in a Marine brig in Quantico, Va., was illegal punishment.

Manning, facing 22 criminal charges, allegedly leaked hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and classified reports regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the website WikiLeaks. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

Through his attorney, Manning has indicated he would be willing to plead guilty to a narrower set of charges in order to face fewer years behind bars.

from l.a. times: WikiLeaks case: Judge cuts possible sentence for Bradley Manning

WikiLeaker Bradley Manning Awarded 112-Day Prison Credit for Military’s Abuse

• By Kim Zetter

A military judge overseeing pretrial hearings in the Bradley Manning case refused to dismiss the charges against the former Army intelligence analyst Tuesday, according to reports, but ordered that the accused WikiLeaker will be granted a 112-day sentencing credit for mistreatment he received by Marine guards while imprisoned in 2009 and 2010.

In pretrial hearings held in November and December, Manning’s attorney, David E. Coombs, argued that the government subjected his client to unlawful pretrial punishment during his incarceration at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia, and asked the court to dismiss the charges against his client based on the treatment, or at a minimum give Manning extra credit for time served at Quantico.

Army Col. Denise Lind, the military judge in the case, chose the latter option, shaving 16 weeks off any sentence Manning eventually faces for allegedly leaking more than a million U.S. military and diplomatic documents to the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks. The government had argued that Manning is only entitled to have seven days cut from his ultimate sentence.

Manning, who turned 25 years old last month, faces 22 charges, the most serious accusing him of aiding the enemy. That’s based on the government’s theory that providing documents to WikiLeaks and having them published on the internet aided al-Qaida, which has access to the internet. The charge carries a possible life sentence or death penalty. Prosecutors have said they will not seek the death penalty, which leaves Manning facing a maximum possible life sentence — a judgement that would obviously make the 112-day credit moot.

Coombs reportedly countered this week that his client didn’t just dump documents to WikiLeaks, but carefully chose only the documents that wouldn’t harm the U.S. or aid the enemy.

from, wired

Bradley Manning ensured leaks would not harm US, lawyer insists

David Coombs tells military hearing that Manning had ‘no evil intent’ to help enemy and selected harmless material to publish

• Ed Pilkington in Fort Meade, Maryland 

Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of instigating the largest leak of state secrets in US history, consciously selected the information he passed to WikiLeaks to ensure that it would be of no harm to the US and would not aid any foreign enemy, his lawyer argued on Tuesday.

David Coombs, Manning’s civilian lawyer, revealed at a hearing at Fort Meade military base in Maryland what is likely to be a central pillar of the defence case at the soldier’s court martial. A full trial is scheduled to start on 6 March.

Coombs said that the defence would be calling as a witness Adrian Lamo, the hacker who alerted military authorities to Manning’s WikiLeaks activities, to give evidence about the web chat he had with Manning shortly before the soldier’s arrest in Iraq in March 2010. The content of the web chat, Coombs suggested, would be used by the defence to show that Manning selected information to leak that “could not be used to harm the US or advantage any foreign nation”.

The issue of Manning’s motive in allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables and war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq to WikiLeaks goes to the heart of the case against the soldier, Coombs argued. The most serious charge against him, “aiding the enemy”, that carries a maximum sentence – in this case of life in military custody with no chance of parole – rests on the US government proving that Manning knew, or reasonably should have known, that the leak would be exploited by anti-US forces.

The prosecution has previously stated its case that by placing confidential documents on the internet, Manning in effect handed the intelligence to al-Qaida as the information was then freely available to anyone with a computer.

But Coombs insisted that the content of the Lamo web chats, backed up by evidence of other unnamed witnesses who would be called at trial, would show that Manning had no “evil intent” to help the enemy. Quite the contrary: he actively selected the material he passed on for its harmless impact on the US. He also believed that “information that is out in public can’t do any harm”, and thus having it “out there” would negate any of its potential for damaging national interests, Coombs said.

The disclosure of such an important line of defence – that goes to the core of Manning’s thinking as he embarked on the massive WikiLeaks trove of state secrets – came amid legal argument relating to a prosecution motion relating to the issue of motivation. The military prosecutors are seeking to preclude any discussion of Manning’s motives from the trial itself, arguing that they are irrelevant to determining whether or not he committed the offences for which he is charged.

from the guardian.co.uk,

big props for the bradley manning support network for spreading the word!;

Breaking: Military judge rules Bradley Manning illegally treated ~ Bradley Manning Support Network

 

 

Guardian person of the year: Bradley Manning

 being brave and standing up for what you think is right is not a competitive sport, but tell that to people running polls to recognize ONE person as THE “person of the year.”

The Guardian’s 2012 person of the year vote has concluded and the winner, after some rather fishy voting patterns that belied earlier reader comments on the poll, is Bradley Manning, the US whistleblower on trial for leaking state secrets.

US whistleblower Bradley Manning. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

It was very much a game of two halves. The overwhelming majority of early votes in the three-day poll went to Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for defending girls’ right to education. Malala, who is still recovering from injuries sustained in October, had 70 percent of votes at the halfway stage with many readers predicting a foregone conclusion. “What that kid did really focussed the world on the evil that these men can do – and what evil all people can do when they feel inclined. But it also showed the courage to pull through and the will of others to not succumb to evil,” wrote jamieTWC1.

But in the latter stages, following a series of tweets from the @Wikileaks twitter handle telling followers to vote Manning, thousands of voters flocked to his cause. Manning secured 70 percent of the vote, the vast majority of them coming after a series of @Wikileaks tweets. Project editor Mark Rice-Oxley said: “It was an interesting exercise that told us a lot about our readers, our heroes and the reasons that people vote.”

The Guardian Admits Bradley Manning is Person of the Year in Grotesque Sulking Fit

It seems The Guardian was shocked by this outcome, as evidenced by approximately 36 hours of silence, before a pathetic attempt at announcing Manning as the winner.

The article is only a small blurb in the middle of their homepage, which talks about “fishy voting patterns,” their favourite Malala, and making it sound like a few tweets from @WikiLeaks is what won it for Manning. It mentions nothing of Manning’s courage to do the right thing, revealing war crimes, or his treatment amounting to torture since being detained.

To The Guardian: It wasn’t just a tweet, it wasn’t just WikiLeaks supporters that made Bradley Manning your 2012 Person of the Year, it was the awakened masses that value free speech, truth, peace, government transparency and accountability.

from leaksource

Malala Yousafzai officially nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

The teenage Woman’s Rights activist in Pakistan who was shot by the Taliban is officially being nominated for the next Nobel Peace Prize.

More than 150 French lawmakers have formally asked the Nobel Committee to award the next Nobel Peace Prize to the Pakistani campaigner for girls’ education Malala Yousafzai.

Malala Yousufzai

For five years now, Malala has been active as a blogger. In October, she was seriously injured in an assassination attack by the Pakistani Taliban.

Many people are calling for her to be the TIME Person of the Year after this year’s Nobel Peace Prize went to the European Union.

She truly has been an inspiration to many, including Hollywood star Angelina Jolie.

“I felt compelled to share Malala’s story with my children. It was difficult for them to comprehend a world where men would try to kill a child whose only “crime” was the desire that she and others like her be allowed to go to school,” Jolie wrote back in October.

Yousafzai may be among odd company vying for the TIME Person of the Year: Joe Biden, Bashir al-Assad (the Syrian dictator) or Chris Christie.

“Malala is proof that it only takes the voice of one brave person to inspire countless men, women, and children. In classrooms and at kitchen tables around the world, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters are praying for Malala’s swift recovery and committing themselves to carry her torch. As the Nobel Committee meets to determine the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, I imagine brave Malala will be given serious consideration.”

from the global dispatch – Malala Yousafzai officially nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

 

 

telecoms shut off syria’s internet: u.k., france pledge arms to terrorists in syria, lebanon

have the NATO nations already begun forming the coalition government to fight against the terrorists they are arming to topple the Assad regime?

activists manage work-arounds to blackout

the syrian government’s websites are hosted on servers in the u.s., and they are down. why? the government – the u.s. government – demanded it. this an unashamedly obvious tactic to silence criticism of the nato-supplied terrorists (fighters from iran and iraq, weapons from lybia). allowing them to run amok with bloody violence. we should never forget that most of the “rebel” fighters are foreigners, and have no blood relatives to worry about in this massacre.

just the day before the internet blackout, there had been car bombings in the syrian capitol and the u.k. vowed to provide more cars to the rebels, joining france in the growing coalition to loot, pillage and rape the shit out of syria, which israel seems to want in on.

the “bad guys” in this are so stereotypical – weird cult terrorists leaders, international intrique, international intelligence agency-run drug rings, evil corporations, shadowy government agencies – as to be laughable. it’s not so funny in syria, though.

interesting side note:

Al Jazeera Journalist Resigns over Syria and Bahrain Coverage

Ali Hashem: Al Jazeera has become a “media war machine” and is “committing journalistic suicide”.

Despite the communication restrictions Phil Sands for the UAE based newspaper The National, managed to file a story from Damascus.

Activists say Syrian rebels and government troops are clashing south of the capital as Internet and telephones lines remain cut for a second day nationwide, AP reports.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were intense clashes after midnight in villages and towns near the country’s airport but it was quiet Friday morning. It said rebels were able to destroy several army vehicles near the airport.

The group, which has a network of activists around Syria, reported fighting in southern neighborhoods of Damascus including Qaboun and Hajar Aswad.

Mataz Suheil, a spokesman for the Observatory told the Guardian, that the group had managed to talks to contacts in Syria using satellite phones and some landlines.

But his account from the Syria capital still cited reports from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Here’s an extract:

Throughout the day there was heavy fighting in the south of the capital between loyalist army units and rebels trying to topple the president, Bashar Al Assad, and a fourth consecutive day of air strikes by military jets on Daraya, about five kilometres from the centre of Damascus.

Sustained artillery barrages were also fired into the area, with tanks and troops facing stubborn residence from the Free Syrian Army.

Government sources had earlier predicted the military offensive in Daraya, where the regime says it faces al-Qaeda terrorists, would be wrapped up by today …

The heaviest clashes erupted between troops and rebels in the towns of Babila and Hujaira south-east of the capital, and in Harran Al Awamid, just east of the airport.

Army reinforcements had been sent to the area, according to media reports. The army also went on the offensive across the eastern outer belt of the capital, notably in the towns of Harasta and Douma, and in Eastern Ghuta, the Observatory said.

very thorough coverage can be found at the guardian, uk – Syria conflict: internet blackout continues – Friday 30 November 2012

Several US technology companies have stopped hosting Syrian government websites after they were warned they were breaking sanctions against the Assad government, the New York Times reports.

Several host companies said they were taking down those sites. They and similar companies had been identified in reports published by Citizen Lab, a research laboratory that monitors North American Web service providers that host Syrian Web sites.

For example, the Web site of SANA, the Syrian state news agency, is hosted by a Dallas company, SoftLayer Technologies. It is one of a handful of Internet providers based in the United States that sell their services, often unknowingly, to Web sites operated by the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

HostDime.com in Orlando, Fla., hosts the Web site of Syria’s Ministry of Religious Affairs. Jumpline.com hosts the site of the country’s General Authority for Development. The government of Hama, a city that has seen heavy clashes between rebels and government troops, operated its Web site through WeHostWebSites.com in Denver.

An executive order by President Obama prohibits American companies from providing Web hosting and other services to Syria without obtaining a license from the Treasury Department.

On Thursday, State Department officials confirmed that providing the services was a violation of the United States sanctions. “Our policies are designed to assist ordinary citizens who are exercising their fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly and association,” a spokesman, Mark C. Toner, said.

A SoftLayer spokesman, Andre Fuochi, would not comment about the SANA Web site, but in a statement he said the company “rigorously” enforces “prevailing laws and regulations and acts swiftly and vigorously if we find our users to be in violation.”

Dennis Henry, the vice president of operations at HostDime.com, said he had been unaware of the Syrian government Web site, but that it was hosted by a customer’s server housed in HostDime.com’s data center.

“We have contacted our direct client whose server is housing the Web site to express our concerns,” Mr. Henry said.

see full story, from the new york times: Official Syrian Web Sites Hosted in U.S.

See How Syria’s Internet Disappeared

Dashiell Bennett 1,030 Views 7:43 AM ET

It’s been almost a full day now and the nation of Syria remains completely cut off from the rest of the Internet (and by extension, the outside world.) Internet analysts who watched the collapse in real-time think they’ve figured out how it was done.

The Syrian government claims that “terrorists”—their standard euphemism for the rebels—cut the major cables supplying internet connections to the country. That’s an unlikely scenario for a couple of reasons. For starters, the Internet is the rebels’ most important communication tool, used to talk to each other and to spread word of the conflict around the world. There’d be no advantage for them to disable their most effective propaganda tool. (Although, the Syrian state media website is also down.)

Furthermore, there are four actual physical cables that deliver connections from the global Internet to Syria. (Image via Renesys.com) Three of them are underwater, in the Mediterranean Sea. The other comes across the Turkish border. To completely stop the Internet in the manner observed, all four would have to be severed simultaneously, an unlikely logistical challenge for the rebels, and one that still wouldn’t fully explain the systematic shutdown observed by technology companies elsewhere.

Syria only has one Internet provider, which is naturally controlled by the state. All four of the cables would feed into a handful of edge routers (the starting point for an ISP network), that would then distribute all the incoming and outgoing traffic to the rest of the country. Since all the routers are controlled by one company, they could simply reconfigure the routers and then, boom. No more internet. (Network computing company CloudFlare explains it in more technical detail on their blog.)

so, there you go…this from the atlantic wire: See How Syria’s Internet Disappeared

France, U.S. stand behind new opposition alliance

Read a version of this story in Arabic.

(CNN) — France and the United States put their support behind a new coalition of Syrian dissidents Tuesday, but Damascus slammed the group, saying any effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad will be futile.

French President Francois Hollande said his nation “recognizes the Syrian national coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and therefore as the provisional government of the future democratic Syria, making it possible to bring Bashar al-Assad’s regime to an end.”

In Washington, a deputy spokesman for the State Department said the U.S. believes the decision to unite opposition groups marks the start of a democratic future for the Syrian people. The U.S. has yet to formally recognize the group, though, as a representative government.

see CNN video report – Syrian opposition forms new coalition

Syria: Two car bombs kill at least 34

uk vows to provide more cars to terrorists: Syria rebels win support from Britain

Syrian citizens stand near a burning truck that was destroyed by two cars bombs. (AP/SANA)

see related posts from end times news:

• israeli racism, hasidic technofear, regime change and war against israel’s “enemies”

• how israel took over the republican party

• american-backed terrorists car-bomb christian neighborhood in damascus, lebanon

• benghazi attack reveals split in gun-running factions

• american media rushes to cover-up patraeus’ cocaine operation in chile

• Russian Anti-Terror Troops Arrive in Syria

• Stratfor leaks: NATO commandos in illegal special ops in Syria

• Syria’s al-Qaeda Rebels Are Puppet Terrorists

• syrian rebels massacred government supporters in houla – not syrian government

Apple plans to disable iPhone recordings of specific places and events

In this electronic day and age, just about all of us are aware that cellphone-generated video is easy to take and easy to upload to an audience of millions within moments. Most of us have seen the cellphone video of a fight or a confrontation or another impactful incident involving civilians and authorities. It’s a powerful medium that very often offers a point of view not available to the mainstream media – but carried by them, nonetheless.

That may all be about to change.

Freedom is not a given

Theoretically, according to U.S. Patent No. 8,254,902, published recently, “apparatus and methods of enforcement of policies upon a wireless device” could be implemented with the flick of an electronic switch.

According to the patent:

Apparatus and methods for changing one or more functional or operational aspects of a wireless device, such as upon the occurrence of a certain event. In one embodiment, the event comprises detecting that the wireless device is within range of one or more other devices. In another variant, the event comprises the wireless device associating with a certain access point. In this manner, various aspects of device functionality may be enabled or restricted (device “policies”). This policy enforcement capability is useful for a variety of reasons, including for example to disable noise and/or light emanating from wireless devices (such as at a movie theater), for preventing wireless devices from communicating with other wireless devices (such as in academic settings), and for forcing certain electronic devices to enter “sleep mode” when entering a sensitive area.

What that means is, an encoded signal could possibly be transmitted to all wireless devices entering “a sensitive area” (and who defines what that is?) which would command them to disable all recording functions.

Feeling safer now?

The fear, obviously, is that this capability can and will be used by authorities at given times to control what you can and cannot document on your personal device, based on their whims and needs.

Not a good development for those who love freedom.

reposted from natural news

Obama officials admit u.s. developed “unstoppable malware,” now out of its control

Given the unofficial confirmation Friday that the United States was behind Stuxnet—the malware designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program—political and technical experts suggest that this may effectively put the United States in a more dangerous foreign policy position.

“This is the end of plausible deniability on Stuxnet,” said Chris Bronk, a former State Department official, who is now a research fellow at Rice University. “Cyber is a dangerous place to play. This makes me very nervous that we don’t understand the entire set of consequences of releasing malware into the wild.”

In other words, he told Ars, it sets a potentially dangerous precedent for other countries looking to develop or expand their own clandestine operations.

“Countries realize that cyber espionage is a heck of a lot easier than anything else,” he said. “Now the question is: to what degree [will we have] malware that is designed to impact the physical world? When is that going to become a more widely utilized capability?”

via Stuxnet admission likely to have foreign policy consequences | Ars Technica.

more:

Undercutting “Internet Freedom”

Indeed, things could not be more contentious with Iran right now than they already are—both countries, along with other major world powers are set to meet in Moscow later this month for the third round of the “P5+1″ negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.

“[This revelation won’t] help the atmosphere,” said Nader Entessar, a professor of political science and Iran expert at the University of South Alabama. “These are contentious negotiations to begin with. What is missing in this whole process is confidence-building measures. These things do not add to the positive side of the ledger.”

Another problem with admitting to being behind Stuxnet is that experts say it may damage the oft-touted “21st Century Statecraft” and “Internet Freedom” agenda that the United States Department of State has been promoting in recent years.

“I think this undercuts the Internet Freedom agenda in a big way,” Bronk, the former State Department official, added. “[It shows that the US] is willing to use the digital agora as a weapon whenever we need to. I think that’s playing both sides of the fence.”

Finally, some even wondered if the Stuxnet situation will be used as an excuse to keep a closer eye on Iran’s domestic Internet use.

“[Iran is] going to use this as a justification for further clampdowns, that ‘we’re not trying to deny average citizens access, but all we’re trying to do is [ensure that the] Internet is not used as a means of warfare against Iran,’” Entessar told Ars. “It [becomes] a national security issue, as opposed to freedom of information issue.”

Report: Obama Ordered Stuxnet to Continue After Bug Caused It to Spread Wildly

Despite an error in the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which caused the malware to spread wildly out of control and infect computers outside of Iran in 2010, President Barack Obama ordered U.S. officials who were behind the attack to continue the operation.

That was despite the fact that Stuxnet was spreading to machines in the United States and elsewhere and could have contained other unknown errors that might affect U.S. machines.

The information comes in a new report from The New York Times, which asserts that an error in the code led it to spread to an engineer’s computer after it was hooked up to systems controlling the centrifuges at Iran’s uranium enrichment plant near Natanz. When the engineer left the Natanz facility, he spread it to other machines, writesTimes reporter David Sanger, based on a book he has written that will be released next week.

Sources told Sanger that they believed the Israelis introduced the error in the code.

“We think there was a modification done by the Israelis,” an unidentified U.S. source reportedly told the president, “and we don’t know if we were part of that activity.”

also from wired: Report: Obama Ordered Stuxnet to Continue After Bug Caused It to Spread Wildly

Mexican drug cartels hate internet chatters, fast food franchise, government corruption?

Mexico’s hyperviolent Zetas drug cartel appears to be launching what may be one of the first campaigns by an organized crime group to silence commentary on the Internet.

The cartel has already attacked rivals, journalists and other perceived enemies. Now, the target is an online chat room, Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, that allows users to comment on the activities of the Zetas and others in the city on the border with Texas.

Already, three apparent site users have been slain, and a fourth victim may have been discovered Wednesday, when a man’s decapitated body was found with what residents said was a banner suggesting he was killed for posting on the site. Chat room users said they could not immediately confirm the victim’s identity, because people all post under aliases.

Despite such precautions, users are highly vulnerable, and the Zetas could be tracking them from clues they leave online, experts said Thursday.

A female chat room user was found decapitated in September with a similar message as the one found Wednesday and at the exact same spot, with a message signed with the letter “Z,” which refers to the Zetas. Residents couldn’t fully read the latest message, because the dead man’s body was laid on top of it, in what appeared to be a more hurried execution.

“I don’t know of anything like this having happened anywhere else in the world,” said Jorge Chabat, an expert in safety and drug trafficking at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico. “It is certainly new and worrisome … it is a frontal confrontation against the public; it is not just a confrontation with the government anymore.”

Drug cartels in Mexico have frequently attacked traditional print newspapers, by tossing explosives at their offices or killing, kidnapping or threatening reporters. Violence against journalists in Tamaulipas state, where Nuevo Laredo is located, has led local media to censor themselves, leaving residents on their own to separate fact from pervasive rumors spread on social networks.

Juan Carlos Romero, who helps lead the press freedom group Article 19, said local newspapers have often stopped publishing crime reports out of fear, leading residents to turn more to the Internet for information like that posted Thursday on Nuevo Laredo en Vivo: where gunshots have been heard, where vehicles suspected of carrying cartel lookouts have been seen, which streets are safe to travel.

“What are people doing in the face of the lack of information, the kind of information you need to make decisions: Where can I drive? Can I leave the house?” said Romero. “People are forging new channels of communication on the Internet, social networks, Twitter, blogs, Facebook.”

Drug cartels appear to have learned that such Internet sites reach far more readers than northeastern Mexico’s small regional newspapers and have adjusted their attacks accordingly.

via Mexican drug cartel tries to silence Internet

Tortured, disemboweled and hung from a bridge for tweeting: Couple killed by Mexican drug cartel as gruesome warning to bloggers who ‘snitch’ online

Online blogging about violence in Mexico is currently one of the loudest ways it is reported, after some traditional media outlets have been silenced by cartel threats.

Bloggers who release information about trafficking have faced threats in the past, but this might be the first warning to social network users, CNN reported.

This sign was left on the bridge, translated from Spanish: ‘This is going to happen to all those posting funny things on the internet’

Investigator Ricardo Mancillas Castillo told CNN that this form of torture, including disembowelment, has been seen before in drug-related violence but he has not encountered it before with internet threats.

The investigator said the victims will be almost impossible to identify because of the severe mutilation and there were no witnesses.

read more, from the daily mail

Mexico cartel drops aerial leaflets against gov’t

Drug traffickers took the unusual step of using an airplane to drop thousands of leaflets on the northern city of Culiacan accusing the governor of Sinaloa state of taking orders from drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, authorities said Wednesday.

Drug cartels in Mexico have long posted videos and hung banners from bridges to get their messages out, and they have recently taken to dumping truckloads of bodies on roadways to intimidate rivals or publicize threatening messages.

But the incident in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan on Tuesday is the first time in recent memory that traffickers have resorted to aerial leafleting. It may mark a further escalation in what has become a nationwide, military-scale battle between the Sinaloa cartel and the hyper-violent Zetas gang.

“I think they dumped them very early in the morning from an airplane. They surely know that it would be very difficult to do by land,” Sinaloa Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez said.

While drug cartels have occasionally left small amounts of crude, photocopied letters in some towns in the past, security expert Raul Benitez at the National Autonomous University of Mexico said it was the first time he knew of such mass leafleting, much less from an aircraft.

“I can’t remember any cartel having used an airplane to do this, nor of them having distributed propaganda in public places,” said Benitez.

The single-page, computer-printed leaflets were unsigned, but expressed anger at the in-custody killing of a suspect who was recently arrested and sent to a prison allegedly dominated by the Sinaloa cartel.

The suspect, who had been identified as a member of the Beltran Leyva gang, whose remnants have allied with the Zetas, was killed by another inmate three days ago.

The leaflet read in part, “The governor, on orders from Chapo Guzman, told the federal prosecutor’s representative to send Javier Avilez Araujo to be tortured and murdered in the state penitentiary.”

“Act like men, don’t kill people who are tied up like El Chapo Guzman does,” it continued. “Without the help of Malova, we would have finished your people off already!” the note added, using the governor’s nickname.

The governor denied he hasany links to Guzman. “This is a person I don’t even know, whom I have never had contact with and from whom I have never received an order,” Lopez Valdez said.

The wording of the letter suggests it may have been written by the Zetas, who have launched tit-for-tat attacks on Sinaloa strongholds after Sinaloa cartel gunmen and their allies moved into Zetas turf in the Gulf coast states of Veracruz and Tamaulipas.

Read more, from the miami herald

Mexico drug gang accuses Pepsico unit of spying

Banners signed by a cult-like Mexican drug gang say that cartel members launched firebombing attacks on a PepsiCo subsidiary because they believe the snack company let law enforcement agents use its trucks for surveillanc

Five Sabritas warehouses and vehicle lots were attacked Friday and Saturday in the Mexican states of Michoacan and Guanajuato. Officials say four alleged members of the Knights Templar cartel have been detained in the case, which they link to extortion. At least 10 banners hung around the city of Apatzingan on Thursday accuse Sabritas of ferrying government agents.

The company denies that allegation, which was also circulated in emails before the attacks. Mexican drug cartels frequently earn money by demanding protection payments from small businesses. They previously had never systematically targeted a transnational firm with such attacks.

from usa today

UK Court to decide on Extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

Rallies on the 31st May: Details on Wikileaks Central

The judgment in WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange’s final appeal against extradition to Sweden will be published by the UK Supreme Court on Wednesday 30 May.

If Assange loses he will be sent to Sweden by force within 10 days. From Sweden, he could be sent immediately to the US where he faces prosecution for publishing information just like any other journalist. Even if he wins the appeal, the US will likely seek to extradite him from the UK or Australia.

Assange has been under house arrest in the UK for over 530 days, a situation which Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, has admitted is “extraordinary”. And Foreign Minister Carr has called aspects of the Swedish justice system “an outrage by Australian standards”. But they have done nothing to assist Assange.

Instead, our Prime Minister Julia Gillard labelled Assange a criminal and her government has been quietly passing legislation which will potentially make it easier for Assange to be extradited to the US, should he ever return to Australia. They have denied all knowledge of the sealed indictment against Assange and continue to block FOI requests for information relating to documents relating to potential US extradition, reportedly at the behest of the US government.

National Rallies occuring on the 31st May (Australia)

Cables reveal Australia, US focus on Assange

WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange remains the target of a US government criminal investigation and the subject of US-Australian intelligence exchanges, Australian diplomatic cables obtained by the Herald reveal.

Australian diplomats have closely monitored the US Department of Justice investigation into WikiLeaks over the past 18 months. The embassy in Washington reported ”a broad range of possible charges are under consideration, including espionage and conspiracy”.

The diplomats dismiss Mr Assange’s claims that the US investigation is politically motivated retribution for WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked US military and diplomatic reports. They instead highlight US prosecutors’ claims that the alleged leaker, Bradley Manning, dealt directly with Mr Assange and ”data-mined” secret US databases ”guided by WikiLeaks’ list of ‘most wanted’ leaks”.

Mr Assange will learn on Wednesday the British Supreme Court’s decision on his appeal against extradition to Sweden to be questioned about sexual assault allegations. Mr Assange, who has not been charged with any offence, fears extradition to Stockholm will facilitate his ultimate extradition to the US.

Despite extensive redactions, the Australian diplomatic cables released under freedom of information show the US and Australian governments continued high-level exchanges on WikiLeaks last year.

The Australian embassy in Washington provided Canberra with regular updates, including reporting on Justice Department efforts aimed at ”casting the net beyond Assange to see if any intermediaries had been involved in communications between Assange and Manning”.

An embassy representative attended all seven days of Private Manning’s pre-court martial hearing for last December. Much of the embassy’s reporting has been redacted on grounds that its release would damage Australia’s diplomatic relations.

There have been continuing US-Australian intelligence exchanges on WikiLeaks. Two embassy cables were withheld from release as ”intelligence agency documents” that are exempt from FOI legislation. The chairman of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, Labor MP Anthony Byrne, also held discussions with senior US intelligence in January last year, covering a range of topics that included ”cyber security, particularly in light of the recent breaches of diplomatic cables from the US (WikiLeaks) and dissemination of sensitive information by the international media”.

from the sydney morning herlad - Cables reveal Australia, US focus on Assange

Good.is and Column Five have put together a very detailed and creative infographic that reports the quest to plug WikiLeaks. Click the image to enlarge.

see previous posts:

Julian Assange’s lawyer needed “official approval” to return to australia

the Obama administration’s war against truth, julian assange

No Links Between Manning, Assange, US Admits

Is obama setting up “rendition” kidnapping of assange?

julian assange fears torture, death in American dentention facilities

related to wikileaks:

stratfor info dump revealed international spying, insider trading, and paranoia

WikiLeaks denounces UNESCO for banning WikiLeaks from conference about WikiLeaks

Australian group gives wikileaks founder Julian Assange peace prize

Julian Assange tells students that the web is the greatest spying machine ever

related to bradley manning

Manning challenges U.S. to prove he ‘aided the enemy’

Bradley Manning’s treatment was cruel and inhuman, UN torture chief rules

Bradley Manning formally charged with aiding the united state’s enemies – the american public

Icelandic Parliamentarians Nominate Bradley Manning for Nobel Peace Prize

excellent bio of Bradley Manning, from Wikipedia

Google Is Destroying Your Privacy

On March 1, Google introduced a new program that collects user data from its 60 services. Google stores “cookies” (i.e., code that compiles a record of an individual’s web browsing history) on a growing number of communications devices, whether a home PC, tablet, smartphone and a growing number of TV sets. These cookies track every Web site a person visits or function s/he uses.

Every time you enter a term into Google’s search engine, check out a video on YouTube, send or receive an email through Gmail (including key words in the message) or even make a call or download information on an Android-based phone, even using a third party’s phone from AT&T or Verizon, your input will be captured, stored and processed by Google. Google users can’t opt out of its data harvesting procedure; the company reports that the new procedure does not apply to Google Wallet, the Chrome browser and Google Books.

Google has been accused of hacking both Apple’s and Microsoft’s operating systems to further its data-capture practice. Jonathan Mayer, a Stanford researcher, discovered that Google could track a person’s usage of Apple’s Safari browser on an iPhone and an iPad, undercutting privacy settings. In addition, Microsoft engineers report finding that Google could bypass the privacy settings on its Internet Explorer browser. Google denies both accusations.

Google insists its data gathering practice is done for the ostensible purpose of better serving its users. It claims that by more precisely tracking a user’s inputs it can more efficiently target-market its advertising offerings. Its sophisticated artificial intelligence software enables it to “predict” individual user’s usage patterns. This is, in all likelihood, partially true as Google is estimated to control close to half of worldwide ad placements of the web.

However, Google’s long-term intentions seem more sinister. In 2010 it was revealed that Google partnered with the CIA in a venture called “Recorded Future.” Google’s vast data archive can be harnessed to meet “security” needs. This is especially troubling in light of a controversial bill being pushed through Congress, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The act would allow sharing of data between companies like Google and the National Security Agency (NSA) to combat alleged cyber-security threats.

This gets scarier in light of a recent DC Court of Appeals ruling upholding a lower court’s decision blocking a Freedom of Information request from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. EPIC sought to determine the nature of the collaboration between the NSA and Google over Chinese hacking of the company’s site. The claims of national security are increasingly trumping a citizen’s right to know and his/her notion of privacy.

Google is not alone in data harvesting of personal – and once assumed private – information. Other high-tech companies, especially social networking sites like Facebook (with Microsoft’s Bing search engine) and Twitter, are redefining, shrinking, the country’s traditional notions of private communications. Once, not long ago, letters and phone calls were private. Today, once a user inputs a keystroke on their device of choice that is connected to the Internet, whether it be a PC, smartphone, tablet or, increasingly, TV set and accessed either through a wireline or wireless network, that data becomes a “public” commodity, owned by the private corporation that facilitates the communications.

In Europe, the issue of data harvesting of “personal” information is compounded by a growing number of cases involving anti-competitive practices. As of 2012, investigations have gone forward in at least 12 countries and at least nine countries have found Google guilty of violating various anti-trust and anti-privacy laws.

A user surrenders her/his personal or private information when s/he uses a Google-enabled or other communications device. To use these services, people are required to surrender their privacy rights to the new corporate lords of the information economy. In this process, they – we! – are becoming digital serfs.

via Google Is Destroying Your Privacy.