Category: Surveillance


Permission = Freedom?

Eric Blair

Activist Post

“The secret in propaganda is that when you demonize, you dehumanize,” says James Forsher, a film historian. “When you dehumanize, it allows you to kill your enemy and no longer feel guilty about it.”

Apparently illegal immigrants have been sufficiently dehumanized to force them into biometric tracking. There’s no way the government would use biometrics to track the superior law-abiding natives, right?  More on this later.

Illegal immigration is a hot-button issue that genuinely affects many communities and the motivation to do something about it is understandable.  However, anti-immigration supporters may be playing right into Big Brother’s hands by being tricked into supporting the hi-tech enslavement of themselves.

Some have referred to the sweeping immigration reform bill in Congress as a “Trojan Horse for Biometrics.”  These systems are a clear indication that illegal immigration is being used to put the final touches on the full-spectrum surveillance grid in America.

And, shockingly, politicians are making the immigration reform bill more stringent instead of less, apparently fueled by anti-immigration zealots.

According to NBC News, the senate hopes to finalize a bill for a vote by the end of the week. The Senate Judiciary Committee has been debating many biometric identification mandates and have now approved a more stringent biometric “test system” for U.S. airports.
Carrie Dann of NBC News writes:

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Republican considered to be a swing vote on the 18 member committee. That amendment, a less stringent version of a biometric proposal that failed last week, would require the Department of Homeland Security to establish a fingerprinting system at the 10 U.S. airports with the highest international traffic within two years. After six years, that system would have to be in place at the nation’s 30 biggest airports.

One of the key authors of the legislation, Marco Rubio (R-FL), said ”The amendment adopted today is a good start and I will continue to fight to make the tracking of entries and exits include biometrics.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called it “a start” as well.

 

Read Full Article Here

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AP, DOJ clash over seriousness of leak that prompted phone records seizure

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls on a reporter during a news conference at the Justice Department on Tuesday.

By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

Justice Department and Associated Press officials clashed Tuesday over leaked classified information that led the government to seize AP phone records, with Attorney General Eric Holder saying it “put the American people at risk” and the news organization’s chief executive insisting it delayed publishing its story until it was assured “national security concerns had passed.”

The day of back-and-forth public sallies came as new details emerged about negotiations between the AP and U.S. officials over the unauthorized release of classified information on a foiled bomb plot in Yemen, information that apparently triggered the investigation.

“This was a very, very serious leak,” Holder said at a news conference. “I’ve been a prosecutor since 1976 – and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, in the top two or three most serious leaks that I’ve ever seen. It put the American people at risk – and that is not hyperbole.”

Holder defended the secret subpoena for about two months of AP phone records on 20 separate telephone lines without prior notice as a necessary step, saying that trying to find the source of the leak “required very aggressive action.”

Holder’s comments and a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole defending the seizure of the AP records – without notifying the news organization until last week –  drew a stern response from AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt. He  blasted the action as “overbroad under the law,” saying  that “more than 100 journalists work in the locations served by those telephones.”

“Rather than talk to us in advance, they seized these phone records in secret, saying that notifying us would compromise their investigation,” Pruitt said in a statement late Tuesday. “They offer no explanation of this, however.

 

Read Full Article Here

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DOJ’s secret subpoena of AP phone records broader than initially revealed

Information has emerged  in the Justice Department seizure of Associated Press phone records as well as the news that reporter for Fox News is now a target of a leak investigation concerning North Korea.  NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports.

The Justice Department’s secret subpoena for AP phone records included the seizure of records for five reporters’ cellphones and three home phones as well as two fax lines, a lawyer for the news organization tells NBC News.

David Schulz, the chief lawyer for the AP, said the subpoenas also covered the records for 21 phone lines in five AP office lines — including one for a dead phone line at  office in Washington that had been shut down six years ago. The phone lines at four other offices – where  100 reporters worked — were also covered by the subpoenas, Schulz said.

Although AP had given general information about the subpoenas last week, it provided new details Monday about the number of cell and home phone records as it considers possible legal action against the Justice Department.

 

Read Full Article Here

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Funny Obamas

Dave Hodges
Activist Post

Mark Twain once talked about history not necessarily repeating, but he noted that history sure does rhyme.

Richard Nixon was unable to survive one direct hit upon his administration, namely, the Watergate scandal. Conversely, Obama is facing five scandals which dwarf Watergate in terms of criminality, abuse of power, malfeasance of office and outright treason.

The damage inflicted upon the American people by the criminal syndicate occupying the White House is unparalleled in American history. Yet, Obama is going to survive and this article will describe how Obama is this century’s version of the famous escape artist, Houdini.

The Alternative Media Is Doing Its Job

In Part One of this series, I detailed how various researchers have determined that it only takes 10% of the population to passionately hold to an ideal for the ideal to reach critical mass and go viral. I also described how the knowledge that this country is being run by a criminal syndicate is taking hold and we have likely passed the 10% threshold as evidenced by the fact that America is outraged by (1) Benghazi-Gate; (2) IRS-Gate; (3) AP Spy-Gate; (4) Whistleblower-Gate; and even (5) Fast and Furious is beginning to make a second pass. The alternative media is being so effective that it is forcing the MSM to jump off Obama’s ship and claim they do not support him any longer (e.g. MSNBC Chris Mathews).

The Calm Before the Storm

Even the great fence-sitter, Glenn Beck, is beginning to throw words around like “impeachment” in reference to Obama. And this is coming from a man who cannot decide if he is in the MSM or the alternative media. Remember, according to Beck, 9/11 is exactly as the Bush administration claims it was, an al-Qaeda venture. This is the same al-Qaeda that we are allegedly fighting in Afghanistan while supporting in Syria in our effort to oust Assad.
Regardless of the pedigree of many reporters who are now hinting at the fact that we are witnessing the last days of the Obama administration, the President himself seems unbelievably calm.

Obama is calm because he knows that he is going to survive the largest onslaught of simultaneous scandal exposures in our country’s history. There has never been a time in our history in which a sitting president has been besieged with this much exposed fodder aimed at his removal. If Watergate forced Nixon to resign, Obama should have been crushed by the comparative weight of his scandals and he should have already exited the White House. Why hasn’t this happened?

Sacrificial Lambs Buy Time

It is not likely that the Mafioso inhabitant presently residing in the White House will ever leave office prematurely. In fact, I think it is likely that Obama may not leave the Oval Office in 2016 as well.

If this were 1974, I would be advising Obama to pack his bags and I would also be advising him that he should be begging Joe Biden to grant him a pardon for his criminal acts including the facilitation of the murder of Ambassador Stevens. Make no mistake about it, Obama will survive these crises. However, Holder and possibly even DHS director, Janet Napolitano, may not.

Undoubtedly, Obama will offer up the head of Eric Holder as a sacrificial lamb and he will be gone by Labor day, if not much sooner, and this will buy Obama time to enact his endgame strategies which will negate the five Watergate wolves trying to break through his door.

Holder’s departure will bring celebrations in the alternative media and their followers will be dancing in the streets. We will also smell blood and want more removals. But the head of the president will never be touched despite the fact that all of us will soon be screaming for Obama’s scalp. It will just never happen.

What Will Save This President?

There is one game-changing event which will suddenly and irreversibly negate the momentum that the alternative media has achieved in terms of exposing and removing this criminal administration from power.

In the last eight months, I have repeated the mantra that most of what drives this government today is the preservation of the Petrodollar on behalf of the Federal Reserve. I have also detailed how Iran is selling its oil to Russia, China and India for gold, thus threatening the preeminence of the Petrodollar in which the other countries of the world must first purchase dollars from the Federal Reserve for the “privilege” of purchasing oil. This process provides the only backing that our dollar possesses.

Iran, China, Russia and India are destabilizing the dominance of our currency. Before you cheer the fact that the Federal Reserve is about ready to take a much-deserved bloodbath, please realize that you have a job to go to every Monday morning because of this one-sided arrangement and it is all about to end unless Iran can be toppled.

Why Syria?

Have you yet figured out why Obama will survive these crushing scandals and assume power in this country in a manner only reserved for such despots as Stalin? The road to Obama’s immediate survival runs through Damascus.

On the surface, Syria seems so very insignificant on the global chessboard. However, the key to invading Iran and seizing their oil fields is to first control Syria, because the occupation of Syria is an insurmountable checkmate against Russian ground troops’ intervention.

If the US takes over the Syrian revolution that we started through our al-Qaeda proxy forces, the US will gain a huge tactical advantage in the Middle East. The installation of short- and medium-range missile batteries in Syria will serve as a deterrent and a blocking mechanism for Russian ground troops’ ability to intervene in Iran.

If Russia allows the US to control Syria, Russia will lose any chance of preventing a US/NATO takeover of Iran. Russia and China have heavily vested themselves in gold. If Iran is stopped from selling its oil for gold, China, Russia and India will have wasted an enormous amount of the respective GNP’s in acquiring gold. And the acquisition of gold will be for naught if the US is about to re-establish the dominance of the Petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency through a successful invasion of Iran.

For awhile, it appeared as if Russia did not have the stomach for WWIII and they were going to let us topple Assad without so much as a whimper. I have been shocked as I have watched Russia apparently acquiesce to an impending takeover of Syria by US-led forces. However, recent Russian events make it clear that WWIII is on the horizon.

Read Full Article Here

Amid Economic Collapse, South Carolina Approves Another $1M for Police State

Anthony Freda Art

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

A little over a week ago, on May 7, 2013 and in the midst of a worldwide economic depression, Columbia, South Carolina City Council members met to discuss the funding of a million dollar project even as the State government continued its regularly scheduled hysteria over budgets, spending, and deficits.

So what was the project so vital to the people of Columbia to be pushed through by a 4-2 vote of the council during the midst of such trying economic times? Was it regarding the road systems? Was it the dismal state of Columbia schools? Was it tax relief for residents? Was it economic development? Water? Power? Sewage? Waste disposal?
Actually, it was the purchase and installation of 800 new surveillance cameras all across the city of Columbia that prompted the Council to spend $1.22 million, much of which is scheduled to come from an “emergency reserve fund” that is actually part of next year’s budget. As The State reports, “That previous $1 million fund will be reduced to $250,000. A capital projects fund that was to be $1.7 million next year will be down by $200,000.”
Once again, Columbia City Council members have come to the decision that maintaining and expanding the police state should always be paramount to any concerns facing elected officials at any time. In other words – Surveillance at all costs! Survival is secondary.
Even as the city’s meal taxes will be used to fund the camera installation to the tune of $100,000, budget cuts will also take place regarding the amount of money spent to house inmates in the Richland County Jail. This simply means that, if you are arrested (which will likely happen in the New United Police States of America) for one of the innumerable mundane and victimless activities that can result in temporary (or indefinite) imprisonment, the conditions in which you are held are likely to be even more abominable than they currently are.
Another $100,000 infusion of cash will come from “eliminating the city’s planned reserves in the event that fuel or utility bills jump.”
Who cares if the city can’t pay its utility bills? After all, it’s only ordinary citizens that would suffer as a result. Besides, you can always raise their taxes yet again to meet the payment requirements.
Oh, and police will be receiving raises in January. All other City workers, however, will be forced to continue to do their jobs as normal, receive the same amount of pay, and constantly be told how “government workers” make six figure salaries and do nothing as a justification for new cuts in the budget.
Another interesting aspect is that the Columbia City Council has decided to contract out to Statewide Security Systems (SSS), the company that already provides most of the cameras being used by the City. It is no surprise, then, that SSS received the City contract despite being the more expensive of the two options.

 

 

Cloak, dagger and a blond wig? FSB says CIA agent nabbed in Moscow

 

Published time: May 14, 2013 10:41
Edited time: May 14, 2013 17:04

 

Promises of millions, a new face and detailed instructions on a double-agent conspiracy in Moscow. Bearing the hallmarks of a Cold War spy thriller, Russia’s counterintelligence agency says it caught a CIA officer trying to flip a Russian operative.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) Public Relations Center announced that detained individual was Ryan Christopher Fogle, a career diplomat working as the third secretary of the Political Section of the American embassy in Moscow.

The agency stressed that Christopher had “special technical equipment” in his possession, including an additional wig, a microphone, multiple pairs of dark sunglasses and a lot of cash in euro – along with a Moscow atlas, a compass, two knives, and an American Bic lighter.

The detainee, who was sporting a blond wig at the time of his interception, was delivered to the FSB receiving office for questioning. Following all of the necessary procedures, he was handed over to representatives of the US embassy in Moscow.

Ryan C Fogle, 3d secretary of US embassy, was detained in Moscow by the Russian counterintelligence agency (FSB)

Ryan C Fogle, 3d secretary of US embassy, was detained in Moscow by the Russian counterintelligence agency (FSB)
Disguise allegedly used by Ryan Fogle (FSB)

Ryan Fogle inside FSB office (FSB)

Ryan Fogle inside FSB office (FSB)

The one-page letter to “a dear friend” found in Christopher’s possession was to be clandestinely delivered to the would-be recruit.

The correspondence proposed a US$100,000 payment for an interview with the prospective double agent, as well as $1 million per annum if the candidate chose to accept the mission and supply the American side with information.

Proving its technological prowess in the digital era, the alleged spy further offered step-by-step instructions on how to create a new Gmail account to be used for future contacts.

Ever-so-savvy, the document stressed the importance of not divulging any real contact information like phone numbers, email or home addresses when creating an email account for the purposes of spying on one’s own country.

It further discouraged the use of personal handheld mobile devices and laptops when registering the account, proposing a more anonymous setting like an internet café would be more judicious. If that didn’t pan out, the prospective recruit was told to buy a new mobile device or computer with the express purpose to be used for the express purpose of establishing contact. The new device was to be paid for in cash, and all expenses would be reimbursed.

Read Full Article Here

 

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May 14, 2013 09:02
       

Money, knife, and passport. iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

Money, knife, and passport. iStockphoto/Thinkstock.
 

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) – Russian counterintelligence officials briefly detained a US diplomat suspected of being an undercover CIA officer and trying to recruit a Russian agent, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said Tuesday.

A US Embassy press officer in Moscow said by telephone that she could not comment on the report.

According to an FSB statement, the diplomat, identified as Ryan Christopher Fogle, a third secretary in the political department, was detained the night of May 13 as he attempted to recruit an officer from one of Russia’s special services.

The diplomat was found to be in possession of “special technical devices, written instructions for the Russian citizen being recruited, a large sum of cash and means of changing his appearance,” the statement said.

He was taken to the FSB and, after “necessary procedures” were completed, handed over to US Embassy officials, the FSB said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has summoned US Ambassador Michael McFaul to come in Wednesday to discuss the incident.

News of the detention broke just as McFaul started a live Q&A session on Twitter. He declined to comment on the incident, but the timing of the FSB statement led some bloggers to speculate that its release had deliberately been timed to coincide with the session.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have been strained during McFaul’s tenure as ambassador, with bones of contention including US criticism of Russia’s human rights record and disagreement over the international response to the bloodshed in Syria.

The FSB concluded its statement on the latest incident by saying it had recently registered multiple attempts by US intelligence to recruit agents from among Russian law enforcement and special services.

The FSB released photographs of the detention, including pictures of the man identified as Fogle, his IDs, two floppy wigs, three pairs of glasses, a map of Moscow and a folding knife.

 

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Thursday, May 9, 2013

Obama Supports Expansion of Wiretap Laws

 

Activist Post

Spying without a warrant in America is a crime, a violation of privacy rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. Yet, the government is asking technology companies to commit this crime or be fined for insubordination.

The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration is “on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people.”

According to the New York Times:

The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.

Read Full Article Here

Obedience Script photo obediencescript_zpsc9ec5663.jpg
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By Paul Rosenberg, FreemansPerspective.com

We Americans like our movie heroes: Tough, free thinking, adaptive, willing to defy authority to save the people. The problem is, no one ever acts like that in real life. Cheering Arnie or Chuck or Sly is a long, long way from doing something heroic yourself – and the current batch of Americans are not so big on that. (Nor are Europeans, or most others.)

One of the great Roman writers called the Romans a “royal, rebellious race.” Likewise Americans – especially in the West, had a real tradition of unflinching individualism. But, as in Rome, American virtue has been lost, while stories of the virtue remain.

21st Century Westerners obey. They do as they are told. They feel free to complain, but they never stop obeying.

You know the script that people try to follow: Do well in school, rebel a little, wear the new shoes/jeans/accessories, with the popular logos, get a university degree (take student loans to do so), get a job at a big firm with great benefits, buy a house, vote, send your kids to daycare, watch TV, and so on.

The problem is that the “Obedience Script” isn’t working out very well. Please consider these recent reports:

There are many more statistics I could add, including some pretty horrifying stats on obesity, huge percentages of people living on government checks (on both sides of the Atlantic), and astronomical government debts being laid upon generations yet unborn.

The script isn’t working out very well, no matter how much it is shown on TV. You have to wonder how much pain it will take before people will decide to give it up.

(A big hat tip to Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog for a great set of links.)

[Editor's Note: Paul Rosenberg is the author of FreemansPerspective.com, a collection of insights on topics ranging from Internet privacy to economic freedom, the purpose of life to alternative currencies. Join our free e-letter list to receive other articles like this one... and immediately get a report that explains in a unique way how the US Government got into the mess it's in, the dangers that creates for us, and how to protect ourselves from it.]

RutherfordInstitute

Published on May 7, 2013

In conjunction with the upcoming release of his new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, John W. Whitehead sits down to discuss several “pressure points” that are threatening the Bill of Rights and undermining our essential freedoms. In part one of this special series, Whitehead examines the increased presence of militarized police.

 

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Commentary


Invasion of the Body Searchers: The Loss of Bodily Integrity in an Emerging Police State [SHORT]

By John W. Whitehead
January 14, 2013

If you want a recipe for disaster, take police officers hyped up on their own authority and the power of the badge, throw in a few court rulings suggesting that security takes precedence over individual rights, set it against a backdrop of endless wars and militarized law enforcement, and then add to the mix a populace distracted by entertainment, out of touch with the workings of their government, and more inclined to let a few sorry souls suffer injustice than to challenge the status quo.

The resulting concoction, I can promise you, will be a messy, noxious stew unfit for consumption, miserable to digest and with after-effects that will leave you reeling and clutching your stomach in dismay. Such is the nature of life in the emerging police state that is America today, where roadside police stops have devolved into government-sanctioned exercises in humiliation and degradation with a complete disregard for privacy and human dignity.

Consider, for example, what happened to 38-year-old Angel Dobbs and her 24-year-old niece, Ashley, who were pulled over by a Texas state trooper on July 13, 2012, allegedly for flicking cigarette butts out of the car window. First, the trooper berated the women for littering on the highway. Then, insisting that he smelled marijuana, he proceeded to interrogate them and search the car. Despite the fact that both women denied smoking or possessing any marijuana, the police officer then called in a female trooper, who carried out a roadside cavity search, sticking her fingers into the older woman’s anus and vagina, then performing the same procedure on the younger woman, wearing the same pair of gloves. No marijuana was found.

Leila Tarantino was allegedly subjected to two roadside strip searches in plain view of passing traffic during a routine traffic stop, while her two children—ages 1 and 4—waited inside her car. During the second strip search, presumably in an effort to ferret out drugs, a female officer “forcibly removed” a tampon from Tarantino’s body. No contraband or anything illegal was found.

Meanwhile, four Milwaukee police officers have been charged with carrying out rectal searches of suspects on the street and in police district stations over the course of several years. One of the officers is accused of conducting searches of men’s anal and scrotal areas, often inserting his fingers into their rectums and leaving some of his victims with bleeding rectums. Half-way across the country, the city of Oakland, California, has agreed to pay $4.6 million to 39 men who had their pants pulled down by police on city streets between 2002 and 2009.

And then there’s the increasingly popular practice of doing blood draws at DUI checkpoints, where drivers who refuse a breathalyzer test find themselves subjected to forcible blood extractions to test for alcohol levels. Police in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, actually had a registered nurse and an assistant district attorney on hand “to help streamline the ‘blood draw’ warrants and collect blood samples from suspected impaired drivers” at one exercise in holiday drunk driving enforcement. A similar case, Missouri v. McNeely, which deals with a driver who failed a sobriety test, then refused a breathalyzer test and was subjected to a warrantless blood draw, is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

Read Full Article Here

Ric Bradshaw
Sheriff Ric L. Bradshaw
Palm Beach County
Sheriff’s Office
CJC member since 1997

Palm Beach County sheriff gets $1 million for violence prevention unit amid questions about civil liberties, care for mentally ill

By Dara Kam and Stacey Singer – Palm Beach Post Staff Writers

Florida House and Senate budget leaders have awarded Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw $1 million for a new violence prevention unit aimed at preventing tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., from occurring on his turf.

Bradshaw plans to use the extra $1 million to launch “prevention intervention” units featuring specially trained deputies, mental health professionals and caseworkers. The teams will respond to citizen phone calls to a 24-hour hotline with a knock on the door and a referral to services, if needed.

The goal will be avoiding crime — and making sure law enforcement knows about potential powder kegs before tragedies occur, Bradshaw said. But the earmark, which is a one-time-only funding provision, provoked a debate Monday among mental health advocates and providers about the balance between civil liberties, privacy and protecting the public.

Bradshaw said his proposal is a first-of-its-kind in the nation, and he hopes it will become a model for the rest of the state like his gang prevention and pill-mill units.

“Every single incident, whether it’s Newtown, that movie theater, or the guy who spouts off at work and then goes home and kills his wife and two kids — in every single case, there were people who said they knew ahead of time that there was a problem,” Bradshaw said. “If the neighbor of the mom in Newtown had called somebody, this might have saved 25 kids’ lives.”

Bradshaw is readying a hotline and is planning public service announcements to encourage local citizens to report their neighbors, friends or family members if they fear they could harm themselves or others.

The goal won’t be to arrest troubled people but to get them help before there’s violence, Bradshaw said. As a side benefit, law enforcement will have needed information to keep a close eye on things.

“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he’s gonna shoot him,” Bradshaw said. “What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?’ ”

That’s enough for Senate budget chief Joe Negron, R-Stuart, who helped push through the funding last weekend.

He said he met with Bradshaw about the program and “got assurances from the sheriff that this is going to be done in a way that respects people’s autonomy and privacy, and that he makes sure to protect against people making false claims.”

Mental health advocates, however, worry about a potential new source of stigma, and the potential for erosion of the civil rights of people with mental illnesses.

“How are they possibly going to watch everybody who makes a comment like that? It’s subjective,” said Liz Downey, executive director of the Palm Beach County branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “We don’t want to take away people’s civil liberties just because people aren’t behaving the way we think they should be.”

Bradshaw acknowledged the risk that anyone in a messy divorce or in a dispute with a neighbor could abuse the hotline. But, he said, he’s confident that his trained professionals will know how to sort out fact from fiction.

“We know how to sift through frivolous complaints,” he said.

The proposal still needs the blessing of Gov. Rick Scott, who has line-item veto authority.

 

Read Full Article Here

Ok, I  know there  are   many  people out  there  thinking ,this is  way  cool.  Yes   technology is very  cool.   I  for one think   they  should be  

1) working just  as  hard  at   finding  out  exactly what  is   killing the bees we  already  have  and  nature  provides very efficiently on  it’s  own  without  help  from  robotics. 

2)  Stop the  corporation from making  the  chemicals that  are  hurting the  bees  in the  first place.  Putting eco  responsibility and the  health of  the  planet   before   profits.

3)  Consider that  if   the bees  are  in  danger  then   the  rest of the  pollinators may  be as well.  Coming to  the  conclusion that the   link in the  eco  cycle will be  broken  and the  ramifications could be  devastating,  if left  unchecked.

4) I would like to point out something that  should be  very  obvious,but would not occur to many people.  While this  new  technology  is cool.  What  is to  stop the bad  guys  from   getting their hands on  said  technology  and using it to their benefit?

It is  obvious   from the  2nd video  that they  do  indeed have   military  and  law enforcement  applications.   It  would be  naive to believe  that  their  use  will only  be for lawful and  beneficial purposes. 

Just  imagine the  Boston Bombing with  this kind of technological capability behind it?   

Yes  I  am sure you  see  where  I  am going  with  this……

 

~Desert Rose~

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Robotic insects make first controlled flight

Harvard Harvard

Published on May 2, 2013

The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, the robot was inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second. To read more about this work, visit: http://hvrd.me/150Pq0y.

 

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Friday, May 3, 2013

Robobee Officially Takes Flight: Robotic Pollinators to Replace Dying Bees

Heather Callaghan

Activist Post

This is an update to the original post on April 17. 

No, this is not a tabloid – it’s real. According to the latest video, which has now been posted below, robotic insects have made their first controlled flight. According to the creators of Robobee:

The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work . . . Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, the robot was inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second.

In addition to the recent suggestion from insecticide producers that we should “plant more flowers” to aid the declining bee population, Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has been working with staff from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Northeastern University’s Department of Biology to develop robotic bees. These insectoid automatons would be capable of a multitude of tasks.

Autonomous pollination, search and rescue, hazardous exploration, military surveillance, climate mapping, and traffic monitoring – to name a few.

Harvard claims their “Micro Air Vehicles Project” was inspired by the biology of a bee and the insect’s hive behaviors. While the researchers focused on the development of individual autonomous robots, they also plan to study coordinating large numbers of the robots to accomplish tasks faster and more efficiently.

The robots are created through an incredible micro-engineering process specifically designed for mass production. Each “Bee” is designed with its own electronic nervous system and power source, and able to target tasks with a microscopic Ultra Violet targeting sensor.

These micro-engineering advances are increasingly similar to the military’s development of miniature drones. Shared knowledge and research in these technologies is resulting in a massive increase of processing power and flight time, as well as the potential for fully autonomous drone swarms.

Read Full Article and  Watch Videos Here
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Air Force Bugbot Nano Drone Technology

YIRMASTER YIRMASTER

Published on Apr 11, 2013

Air Force Bugbots Nano Drone video gives a peak inside what nano-drone technology the Federal Government is currently implementing within the united states more than a scary thought or sci-fi movie, they have arrived.

The deadly, insect-sized drones of the future – Unobtrusive, Invasive, and Lethal are here as depicted in this old video

The Air Force is reportedly developing winged drones that can sneak up on a suspected enemy as stealthily as a mosquito

This is the video missing from this article:
http://theweek.com/article/index/2402…

A law signed by President Barack Obama in February 2012 directs the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to throw American airspace wide open to drones by September 30, 2015.

Nano sized Drones Combined With DNA Hacking Could Create A Very Scary Future for the United States in light of a law president Obama signed last year implementing a fleet of at least 30,000 spy drones to spy on small town USA no later than 2015 to spy on Americans.

Unfortunately this is a true story and as long as we continue to let politicians like President Barack Obama and other democrats pick apart and fundamentally change our constitution instead of protecting it, we move closer to an extreme communist state in our country.

In case you didn’t know it – and you probably didn’t – Congress, with little fanfare, passed an FAA re-authorization bill that President Obama signed into law that will put 30,000 flying drones spying on Americans across U.S. cities by government.

People are already nervous about the prospect of being watched by law enforcement (and possibly the military or DHS), but our leaders employ these tools nevertheless and “we the people” are letting them.

Even the liberal news huffington post has a video news story about this although they try to legitimize the reasons for needing this to save lives.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09…

The president has ordered 30,000 spy drones to be used within the United States to spy on Americans to be implemented by 2015
We are already seeing evidence of spy drones being used within the United States and NOT for border patrol

Government Spy Drone Crashes in Maryland but what about preserving our constitutional rights and freedoms?
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/06…

MORE SOURCES AND RELATED STORIES:
The Future of Drone Surveillance: Swarms of Cyborg Insect Drones -
http://www.networkworld.com/community…

Tiny robot mosquito drones being researched by the US government -
http://2tfu.com/2012/06/16/tiny-robot…

National Geographic Story:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/201…

Government Working On Mosquito-Sized Drones – http://www.ijreview.com/2012/06/8545-…

Micro-Drones Combined With DNA Hacking Could Create A Very Scary Future – Business Insider – http://www.businessinsider.com/govern…

USA Today Story: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/w…

Studying butterfly flight to help build bug-size flying robots -
http://phys.org/news/2012-02-butterfl…

US military developing insect surveillance drones – http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/…

Video of squadron of nano quad rotor aerial drones -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02…
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/…

British Army Using Tiny Drones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5TdbM…

Drones In U.S.: More Unmanned Aircraft Will Be Flying In Domestic Airspace By 2015 (VIDEO) – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09…

Washington Times Story over Domesticly Used Drones: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2…

Snopes reports nano drones true but then brushes it off – http://www.snopes.com/photos/technolo…

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