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Remote ‘kill switch’ added to Intel’s newest processor
Jason Douglass
Infowars.com
December 14, 2010
We are giving up control of our computers and putting that control in another’s hands.
Lauded as a security feature, Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processor can be remotely disabled by a hardware/software combination known at Anti-Theft 3.0. Systems can be disabled over 3G networks, even while the OS is not running. Even when the hard drive is replaced, the critical systems will still be terminated.
At first this sounds great: if an owner loses a laptop it can be remotely disabled to ensure no sensitive data is compromised. But essentially we are giving up control of our computers and putting that control in another’s hands.
With the Patriot Act in place and and legislation like the ‘kill switch’ bill, many of the rights we took for granted are threatened. It is well within reason to fear this type of technology as it could be used as a means of control and censorship.
The CIA recently created a ‘honeypot’ on a hijacked mirror site associated with Wikileaks and used it to identify people who download the sensitive data.
University students have been warned not do download Wikileak’s documents under threat of being blacklisted from government jobs.
Homegrown terrorism is the new buzz being cultivated by DHS and various other government agencies. In publications like MIAC report, authorities identify patriots as dangers and label them probable terrorists.
Even Geraldo Rivera has begun to see through the thin veil of false flag terrorism, identifying patsies planted by the very agencies meant to protect us.
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We have lost control of our government and soon we will lose control over our own health. Constitutional rights are continually under attack and we are losing the war. With PR spins like Intel’s it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep things in perspective.
The budget bill cuts more than $26 billion from President
Barack Obama's 2011 requests. | AP Photo Close
By DAVID ROGERS | 12/14/10 4:03 PM EST Updated:
12/14/10 6:04 PM EST
Senate Democrats began rolling out Tuesday a year-end,
government-wide spending bill that cuts more than $26
billion from President Barack Obama’s 2011 requests,
even as it defies earmark bans –- or veto threats over
Joint Strike Fighter engines.
Filling more than 1,900 pages and costing $1.1 trillion,
the measure is sure to invite criticism as a last stand by
the Senate’s old bulls before the more conservative,
tea-party-oriented Congress takes hold in January. But
weeks of bipartisan work have gone into the effort to
meet spending targets previously embraced by the
Republican leadership and to salvage something from the failed budget process this year.
* Dems consider sweeter unemployment deal
* Top Pelosi aide leaves for PR job
* DeMint threatens to have omnibus bill read
* Scalia to address Bachmann's group
* McConnell chokes up at farewell
* Rahm takes on residency hearing
POLITICO 44
The Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security have the greatest stake in the appropriations that are permitted above 2010 levels, but the bill also contains new education and health spending in addition to billions for a shortfall in Pell Grants for low-income college students.
The first test — getting to 60 votes to limit debate — could come as early as Saturday. The $857 billion price tag for President Barack Obama’s tax-cut deal with Republicans makes the task harder. And if the Senate falls short of 60 votes, it will either have to embrace a version of a stripped-down, House-passed continuing resolution for 2011 or simply punt the fight into January when Republicans will have more power.
Even before the official release Tuesday afternoon, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, attacked Democrats for ignoring, he said, the “clear will expressed by voters this past election.” And New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a senior Republican on both the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committees, said a short-term continuing resolution would be preferable at this stage give the shortness of time before the holiday recess.
The fact that someone of Gregg’s standing is considering this option is a worry for the White House, whose top priority has been to avoid any such potential government-shutdown fight so early next year.
For this reason, the administration has given Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D—Hawaii) little public support in crafting his omnibus now and put its chips instead on the simpler, less costly House version.
As passed last week, the measure is salted with concessions won by Obama for his priorities—including expansive new authority for agency heads to move money around. But there is wide agreement that a year-long CR is an inefficient way to manage the government and Inouye is scornful of what he calls a “cop-out” by Congress and “chief executive’s bill.”
“The omnibus measure is not perfect,” Inouye said in a written statement accompanying his bill. “But it represents a far superior alternative to the continuing resolution.”
Caught in the middle is the Pentagon, which for the first time in decades may lose its annual authorization bill because of the continued stalemate over gays in the military. If enacted, the omnibus bill would fill this void, restoring about $8 billion cut by the House continuing resolution but also reasserting Congress’ authority—something not always welcomed by Secretary Robert Gates.
One obvious flashpoint is the inclusion of about $450 million for continuation of a second, alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Inouye has historically backed the General Electric Co. and Rolls Royce venture, and given GE’s presence in Ohio, it’s an issue important as well to Sen. George Voinovich (R—Ohio), who has one Republican a major manufacturer in Ohio.
But the Senate has also voted in the past to kill the program, and if such an amendment is allowed, the potential fight with the White House could be quickly defused.
Organisation's founder says he is reliant on public opinion to rein in 'superpower that does not appear to be following rule of law'
* Peter Walker
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 13.50 GMT
* Article history
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holds the Guardian
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holds up a copy of the
Guardian as he addreses media in the grounds of Ellingham
Hall in Norfolk. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images
WikiLeaks faces a "very aggressive" and secretive
investigation by US authorities stung by a perceived loss
of face following the release of thousands of secret American
diplomatic cables, the organisation's founder, Julian Assange,
said today.
Speaking to reporters outside Ellingham Hall, the Norfolk
house at which he is staying on bail following his release from
prison, Assange said WikiLeaks faced "what appears to be an
illegal investigation ... certain people who are alleged to be
affiliated to us have been detained, followed around, had their
computers seized and so on".
He said he believed it was "80% likely" that the US authorities
were seeking to prepare an attempt to have him extradited there to face charges of espionage.
He added that he was reliant on public opinion to rein in "a superpower that does not appear to be following the rule of law".
"I would say that there is a very aggressive investigation, that a lot of face has been lost by some people, and some people have careers to make by pursuing famous cases, but that is actually something that needs monitoring," he said.
He criticised the way Swedish authorities have sought to have him extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault – the reason he was held in jail for 10 days.
"That is something that actually needs monitoring, it needs scrutiny," he said. "We have seen this with the Swedish prosecutor in representations to the British government here, and the British courts say that it did not need to provide a shred of evidence – said this three times – and in fact has provided nothing, not a single shred of evidence in its extradition hearings, in the hearings that ended up putting me in solitary confinement for 10 days.
"Similarly, in the United States, what appears to be a secret grand jury investigation against me, or our organisation – not a single comment about what is actually going on."
The bulk of WikiLeaks' efforts were currently devoted to fending off various attacks, including technical assaults on its website, Assange said.
"Over 85% of our economic resources are spent dealing with attacks – dealing with technical attacks, dealing with political attacks, dealing with legal attacks, not doing journalism," he said. "And that, if you like, is attack upon investigative journalism."
Assange said he was worried about the prospect of being sent to the US, adding: "There have been many calls by senior political figures in the United States, including elected ones in the Senate, for my execution, the kidnapping of my staff, the execution of the young soldier Bradley Manning ... that's a very, very serious business.
"The United States has shown recently that its institutions seem to be failing to follow the rule of law. And dealing with a superpower that does not appear to be following the rule of law is a serious business."
US efforts to prosecute Assange appear to rely on connecting him to Manning, the presumed source of the leaked cables.
Assange, an Australian, was at pains today to stress his remove from Manning, referring to him as "a young man somehow embroiled in our publishing activities" and saying WikiLeaks did not know who its sources were.
Targeting him personally would not stop the work of WikiLeaks, Assange pledged. "People like to present WikiLeaks as me and my backpack. It is not true. We are a large organisation.
"It is resilient. It is designed to withstand decapitation attacks, and our publication rate actually increased during the time I was in solitary confinement."
Assange was held in jail because prosecutors argued that as a non-British national with no permanent ties to the country he was a potential absconder.
To satisfy the judge he had to post £200,000 in surety, provided by supporters, and agree to stay at Ellingham Hall, owned by his friend Vaughan Smith. He must wear a tag, observe a curfew and report to a police station daily.
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
June 20, 2010
In order to control the internet and do so without much notice, the FCC has rolled a
censorship plan into its Net Neutrality scheme. Under the fallacious rubric of “consume
r protection,” the FCC is calling for the regulation of television and internet broadband.
Kelly William Cobb, writing for Americans for Tax Reform, says “the FCC would begin
regulating Internet access for the first time under a completely new regulatory scheme
(even though they lack the authority to create it). Meanwhile, the FCC would push
regulations – cloaked in the heart-warming language of competition and innovation –
mandating that your cable box (known as a set-top box) become a ‘broadband gateway
device’ controlling access to your Internet, TV, and phone. The FCC has already started
looking at set-top box regulations in their National Broadband Plan.”
On top of this, it would open the door for the FCC to begin monitoring or censoring content on the Internet (in addition to your TV), something Free Press and other progressives, as well as the White House regulatory czar advocate. The Songwriters Guild of America has a great op-ed on why government censorship is entirely possible if the Internet becomes regulated. (Emphasis added.)
Under the FCC’s regulatory control consumers would be forced to buy an Internet/TV/Phone connectivity box that the government approves. “Everyone will pay rates for service that the government sets. And everything passing through your Internet, TV, or phone would become subject to the FCC’s consistent regulatory whim,” writes Cobb.
The FCC has controlled television content for decades. If you want to know what the heavy hand of government will do to internet content think of the absurd Janet Jackson nipple incident and the government’s response.
The government wants to make sure the flow of information is safe for consumption by the plebs. Broadcast and cable television do not offer an alternative to news and information provided by the corporate media. The FCC plan and government oversight of content would effectively kill off alternative news, information, and commentary.
If the FCC gets its way Obama will not need a “kill switch” installed in the Oval Office. The internet will ultimately become a pale reflection of corporate-dominated television where there are hundreds of channels and nothing on — that is nothing that challenges the government and offers an alternative to the corporate media.
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Remember when Barry Obama said he would close Gitmo because
it wasn’t right to hold people without formal charges and trials? He
made the pledge soon after assuming the ceremonial throne. He
said he would get it done within 12 months.
Obama Executive Order Targets Fourth Amendment ksm
KSM is the poster child for a war against the Fourth Amendment
and the Bill of Rights.
Barry didn’t really mean it.
Now comes word that Obama will sign an executive order that will
formalize indefinite detention without trial of detainees kidnapped
on the battlefields of undeclared and illegal wars.
The supposed plan to close Guantanamo is on hold, according to
the Washington Post. It could be crippled if Congress bans the
transfer of detainees to the United States for trial and sets up steep hurdles to the repatriation or resettlement in third countries of other detainees.
Obama’s cronies are working feverishly on the executive order. “If Congress blocks the administration’s ability to put detainees on trial or transfer them out of Guantanamo… the executive order could still be implemented,” the Post explains.
“I would argue that you still have to go ahead because you can’t simply have people confined to a life sentence without any review and then fight another day with Congress,” said a senior administration official.
Earlier this month, Congress passed on a 212-206 vote a bill that forbids Obama and crew from transferring any detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to the United States and giving them trials. The bill mentions by name the al-Qaeda scary man and poster child for the forever war against mercurial terror, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
KSM supposedly confessed to all aspects of the September 11, 2001, terror attack, including making NORAD stand down and defying the laws of physics.
“KSM’s confession was announced to the world by the very people who routinely torture prisoners, hold secret military trials behind closed doors, and bar all lawyers and reporters from being anywhere near the courtroom,” Nila Sagadevan wrote in 2007.
Millions of people bought into Obama’s change mantra. But some of us knew it would be merely a continuation of policies adopted during the Bush regime, policies built upon a foundation created by Bill Clinton who inherited the agenda from Reagan and George Dubya’s daddy.
Mitt and Sarah or Huck – whomever the elite decide will be the carnival barker next time – will continue and build upon the malodorous edifice constructed by Barry Obama, or rather constructed by the shadow government men behind Obama the teleprompter reader.
Next up – American citizens who are described as white al-Qaeda.
On Tuesday, we learned that Obama’s man at the Justice Department, Eric Holder, stays up at night worrying about miscreant Americans who may plot murder and mayhem in the name of the international jihad formulated by CIA operatives, patsies, and useful idiots.
“The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here to worrying about people in the United States,” Holder said. “American citizens raised here, born here. You didn’t worry about this even two years ago.”
“The threat is real,” he added. “The threat is different. The threat is constant.”
Holder was praised by incoming House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King of New York who is pleased that Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration have had an “awakening” about the threat of homegrown Islamist terrorism, according to The Daily Caller.
King plans to open a congressional inquiry into the radicalization of American Muslims once the Republicans take control of the House Homeland Security Committee in the next Congress.
Obama’s latest executive order will come in mighty handy if King’s witch hunt produces a fresh crop of victims.
The Fourth Amendment will not be allowed to stand in the way of the forever war against manufactured enemies who are not permitted to pull off an effective attack on the freedom lovers. Flaming underwear and dud barbeque gas grill canisters will have to suffice – for now.
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Holder said officialdom may have missed signals of the next attack. He cited the internet and the Pentagon diner Awlaki who is “able to utilize the web to reach out to an increasingly tech-savvy worldwide population, accessing potential converts around the world,” according to KKTV in Colorado.
Remote ‘kill switch’ added to Intel’s newest processor
Eric Blair
Activist Post
December 21, 2010
Remember the buzzword chatter? When our criminal government kept the sheeple on the razor’s edge of fear because they’d say that chatter levels coming from Al-Qaeda were increasing? Well, today, in this article, I’m going to openly fear monger to you, because the chatter by the real terrorists, the ruling elite, is getting louder and more urgent — prompting me to warn you that it seems like a terror attack is coming soon.
Be afraid, be very afraid, but not of the coming attack, rather for the establishment response to it.
All the signs are here. Clearly desperate for public approval and
budget justifications, the government has recently made several
bogus terror arrests of entrapped FBI patsies. Perhaps they
thought the public would give them some political props for
thwarting their own staged events. However, they’re beginning
to realize that the general public has a bad case of ”boy who
cried wolf” syndrome where these glorious victories in the
ongoing war on terror don’t carry much effect anymore with
people struggling to pay bills. Therefore, the regular folks must
be reminded that wolf can still bite.
Three recent stories seem to indicate a higher than normal level of urgency about an impending attack. The first was the report from Iraq that “intelligence” gathered from the recent round-up of militants revealed a threat of an attack inside the U.S. and Europe during the Christmas season. Reuters claimed in certain terms, but through a faceless spokesman:
Al Qaeda is planning attacks in the United States, Britain and Europe around Christmas, one year after a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound passenger plane, a senior Iraqi official said Thursday.
…’One of the (men) confessed that ISI will execute attacks inside the United States, Britain, and Europe,’ Hussein said. ‘They were making preparations for this goal.‘
Okay. Does anyone actually believe poor militants living in Iraq can prepare and execute a successful terror attack inside the United State? Regardless, DHS sent an alert to all local law enforcement, even though an official who claimed that, “While there was no specific or credible information about a possible attack, the bulletin was based on intelligence from abroad.” It is this kind of absurdity that reveals the agenda, because this is not a credible threat on any level except to those who need to float warnings before they strike.
Keeping in mind that the original press release had “no specific or credible information,” because right on cue an ABC News story a few days later describes not just the specific threats, but also the motivation. For the dumbed-down, non-reading public the article title says all you need to know: Holiday Terror Warning Cites Car Bombs and Small Arms Attack; with the sub-title, Authorities Worry About Christmas Attack For ‘Psychological Impact.’
This would seem to indicate that the real terrorists are seeking maximum ‘psychological impact’ with their next successful attack on U.S. soil. Perhaps they are getting ready to pull the trigger on something big. However, even a small arms attack would accomplish some of the establishment’s incremental goals like restricting the public’s ability to purchase semi-automatic rifles. It’s much like the recent article about potential terror attacks to poison food supply while the food safety bill S.510 bounces between houses.
Finally, the third and most telling story was a small bit by the Associated Press today regarding Attorney General, Eric Holder’s appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America where he feigns concern for “homegrown terror threats.” The AP reported:
Holder said the terrorism threat is real and constant. He says he’s concerned that the authorities may have missed a signal that an attack is coming.
He says Americans have to be prepared for “potentially bad news.”
Of course, the establishment always uses the example of “anti-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen believed to be hiding in Yemen” as a claim that “Americans” are indeed seeking to strike the United States. This terror ring-leader of patsies has been exposed as a Pentagon insider by Fox News, yet he’s still being used justify the surveillance-industrial complex, the snitch culture, and the clampdown on freedoms in the name of fighting “domestic terrorism by American citizens.”
So, we’ve gone from a threat with no credible or specific information, to being on alert for car bombs and small arms attacks with the purpose of inflicting maximum psychological impact, to our chief law enforcer saying we must prepare for potentially bad news.
Besides seeking a psychological reaction from sheep, the real terrorists also desperately need to muffle the truth movement before it grows too big to control. As the masses become more aware of the criminal actions by the government and its corporate cartel partners, the more they need a distraction. Even Geraldo Rivera has seen through the bogus terror plots, and said so on national TV.
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This all says to me that something is coming because time is running out on their lies. Be afraid, be very afraid, but not of the coming attack, rather for the establishment respons
Rick Rozoff
Stop NATO
December 25, 2010
On December 22 both houses of the U.S. Congress unanimously
passed a bill authorizing $725 billion for next year’s Defense
Department budget.
The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011,
was approved by all 100 senators as required and by a voice vote
in the House.
The House had approved the bill, now sent to President Barack
Obama to sign into law, five days earlier in a 341-48 roll call, but
needed to vote on it again after the Senate altered it in the interim.
The proposed figure for the Pentagon’s 2011 war chest includes,
in addition to the base budget, $158.7 billion for what are now
euphemistically referred to as overseas contingency operations:
The military occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
The $725 billion figure, although $17 billion more than the White
House had requested, is not the final word on the subject, however,
as supplements could be demanded as early as the beginning of
next year, especially in regard to the Afghan war that will then be
in its eleventh calendar year.
Even as it currently is, the amount is the highest in constant dollars (pegged at any given year’s dollar and adjusted for inflation) since 1945, the final year of the Second World War. With recent U.S. census figures at 308 million, next year the Pentagon will spend $2,354 for every citizen of the country at the $725 billion price tag alone.
Last year’s Pentagon budget, by way of comparison, was $680 billion, a base budget of $533.8 billion and the remainder for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In July of this year Congress approved the 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act which contained an additional $37 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Next year’s defense authorization of $725 billion compares to, according to the Center for Defense Information, a Pentagon budget of $444.6 billion in 1946; $460.4 billion in 1968, the highest yearly amount during the Vietnam War; and $443.4 billion in 1988, the highest during the eight years of the Ronald Reagan administration’s massive military buildup. (Numbers in 2004 constant dollars.) [1]
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates American military spending for 2009 to have accounted for 43 percent of the world total. Carl Conetta, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, earlier this year estimated the 2010 U.S. defense budget to constitute 47 percent of total worldwide military expenditures and to amount to 19 percent of all American federal spending.
In addition, Pentagon spending has increased by 100 percent since 1998 and “the Obama budget plans to spend more on the Pentagon over eight years than any administration has since World War II.” [2]
With 2.25 million full-time civilian and military personnel, excluding part-time National Guard and Reserve members, the Defense Department is the U.S.’s largest employer, outstripping Walmart with 1.4 million employees and the U.S Post Office with 599,000. [3]
“Add in what Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and the Energy departments spend on defense and total US military spending will reach $861 billion in fiscal 2011, exceeding that of all other nations combined,” according to Todd Harrison, senior fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. [4]
In April Robert Higgs of The Independent Institute advocated that the budgets – in part or in whole – of the departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Energy, State and Treasury and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) should be calculated in the real military budget, which would in 2009 would have increased it to $901.5 billion.
“Adding [the] interest component to the previous all-agency total, the grand total comes to $1,027.8 billion, which is 61.5 percent greater than the Pentagon’s outlays alone.”
His numbers are:
National Security Outlays in Fiscal Year 2009
(billions of dollars)
Department of Defense 636.5
Department of Energy (nuclear weapons and environmental cleanup) 16.7
Department of State (plus international assistance) 36.3
Department of Veterans Affairs 95.5
Department of Homeland Security 51.7
Department of the Treasury (for the Military Retirement Fund) 54.9
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1/2 of total) 9.6
Net interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays 126.3
Total 1,027.5 [5]
The above-cited Carl Conetta stated at the beginning of this year that the 2011 Pentagon budget will mark a milestone in that “the inflation-adjusted rise in spending since 1998 will probably exceed 100% in real terms by the end of the fiscal year.
“Taking the 2011 budget into account, the Defense Department has been given about $7.2 trillion since 1998, when the post-Cold War decline in defense spending ended. Approximately $2.5 trillion of this total is due to spending above the annual level set in 1998. This added amount constitutes the post-1998 spending surge.”
Based on constant 2010 dollars, Conetta further details that the Ronald Reagan administration spent $4.1 trillion on the Defense Department, the Georgia W. Bush administration spent $4.65 trillion and “Barack Obama plans to spend more than $5 trillion.”
He also compares the two previous largest post-World War Two surges in U.S. military spending to the current one:
From 1958-1968: 43 percent
From: 1975-1985 57 percent
In regards to which he said, “the 1998-2011 surge is as large as these two predecessors combined.”
His calculations also include a growth in Pentagon contract employees of 40 percent since 1989, thereby freeing up uniformed service members for more direct combat roles.
The U.S. share of global military spending grew from 28 percent during the Cold War to 41 percent by 2006 and that of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member states, including the U.S., from 49 percent to 70 percent in the same period.
Contrariwise, the “group of potential adversary and competitor states has gone from claiming a 42% share to just 16% in 2006.
“Had Ronald Reagan – who is generally regarded a hawkish president – wanted to achieve in the 1980s the ratio between US and adversary spending that existed in 2006, he would have had to quadruple his defense budgets.
“And, of course, since 2006, the US defense budget has not receded, but instead grown by another 20% in real terms.
“By 2011, the United States will probably account for more than half of all global military spending calculated in terms of ‘purchasing power parity’ (which corrects for differences between national economies).” [6]
The defense authorization bill passed on December 22, despite its monumental and unprecedented size, has been routinely described in the American press as stripped-down, scaled-down and pared-down because an arms manufacturer or two, their lobbyists and obedient congresspersons didn’t get every new defense contract and weapons project they desired three days before Christmas.
The December 22 vote in the House was, as Associated Press accurately described it, conducted without debate or discussion – and “without major restrictions on the conduct of operations” – particularly in regards to the $158.7 billion for the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, $75 million to train and equip the armed forces of Yemen for the counterinsurgency campaign in that country and $205 million more to fund Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield.
Regarding the first vote on December 17: “This year’s bill is mostly noteworthy for its broad bipartisan support during wartime….Unlike during the height of the Iraq War when anti-war Democrats tried to use the legislation to force troops home, the House passed the defense bill Friday with almost no debate on Afghanistan.” [7]
Aside from voting for the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as a stand-alone measure, excising an amendment to allow abortions to be performed on military bases, and refusing reparations to victims of the World War Two Japanese occupation of the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam (apparently $100 million for the purpose was considered excessive in the $725 billion authorization), there was no meaningful dissent in either house of Congress.
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Increasing the U.S. war budget to the highest level it’s been since the largest and deadliest war in history while no nation or group of nations poses a serious threat to the country, and to a degree where it effectively exceeds the defense spending of the rest of the world combined, is all in the proper order of things for the world’s sole military superpower.
Cory Doctorow at 3:40 AM Thursday, Dec 23, 2010
Many experts are skeptical that the TSA's new backscatter pornoscanner
machines are safe, but even the experts who endorse them are careful to
bracket their reassurances with certain caveats: the safety of the machines
depends heavily on their being properly maintained, regularly tested,
and expertly operated. Whether or not you're comfortable with the inten
ded radiation emissions from the scanners, no one in their right mind
would argue that a broken machine that lovingly lingers over your
reproductive organs and infuses them with 10,000 or 100,000 times t
he normal dosage is desirable.
But when Andrew Schneider, AOL's public health correspondent, contacted
the TSA to find out what maintenance and testing is in place to ensure the
safe operation of the scanners, he discovered that the TSA appears to
have no regime at all to ensure that they are functioning within normal
parameters. While the TSA claims that entities like the FDA, the US
Army and Johns Hopkins all regularly inspect their machines, none of
these groups agrees, and they all disavow any role in regularly maintaining
and testing the TSA's equipment (the Army has tested machines in three airports, but has not conducted any further testing). And Johns Hopkins denies that it has certified the machines as safe for operation in the first place -- let alone taking on any ongoing testing and certification program.
For example, the FDA says it doesn't do routine inspections of any nonmedical X-ray unit, including the ones operated by the TSA.
The FDA has not field-tested these scanners and hasn't inspected the manufacturer. It has no legal authority to require owners of these devices -- in this case, TSA -- to provide access for routine testing on these products once they have been sold, FDA press officer said Karen Riley said...
Two-person teams from the Army unit performed surveys of the Advance Image Technology X-ray scanners at just three airports -- in Boston, Los Angeles and Cincinnati, she said. And that was all that the TSA asked the Army to do this year...
"APL's role was to measure radiation coming off the body scanners to verify that it fell within [accepted] standards. We were testing equipment and in no way determined its safety to humans," Helen Worth, head of public affairs for the Johns Hopkins lab, told AOL News.
"Many news articles have said we declared the equipment to be safe, but that was not what we were tasked to do," she added.
Moreover, the study said APL scientists were unable to test a ready-for-TSA scanner at their lab because the manufacturer would not supply one. Instead, the tests were performed on a scanner cobbled together from spare parts in manufacturer Rapiscan Systems' California warehouse.
Jason Douglass
Infowars.com
December 27, 2010
Reviving an extremely unpopular bit of legislation, Medicare
is moving forward with what they deem ‘end-of-life planning’
even though it was struck from the final version of the
ObamaCare bill that was pushed through congress earlier
this year. Serious doubts arose after the public caught wind
of the ‘death panels’ and raised suspicions about the real
reasoning behind such an agenda.
The new provision calls for Medicare to pay for voluntary
counseling to help beneficiaries make some of the complex
decisions that arise when their loved one approaches death.
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The unpopular portion of the bill has been rebranded and made to sound like a benefit instead of the invasive and immoral bureaucratic loophole, meant to cut corners by cutting service to patients, that it is. Despite the resounding cries against such ‘death panels’, the concept is still being reworked and shoved down our throats.
In an attempt to give the bill some resistance, many states have filed suit against the Federal government over what they feel is an unconstitutional Bill.
The wording of the new counseling strategy is nebulous but it would seem that doctors are paid to advise on patients on ‘end-of-life’ care.
“This regulation could be modified or reversed” warned Earl Blumenauer author of the original end-of-life proposal and major supporter of such legislation, “We are not out of the woods yet”.
‘End-of-life planning’ goes into effect January 1.
