JustGetThere

Two days after we warned that anti-government activists were about to be framed for violence, Californian man attacks police officers, media cites motivation as advocacy for 9/11 truth

Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet | Just two days after we warned of false flag domestic attacks that would be blamed on the federal government’s political adversaries were all but inevitable, a Californian man attacked the Pentagon last night in a shooting that wounded two police officers and has since been blamed on the John Patrick Bedell’s advocacy for 9/11 truth.

On Wednesday we explained how a Southern Poverty Law Center report which demonized We Are Change 9/11 truth organizations in the same breath as violent racist skinhead groups was part of a preparatory set-up for violent domestic acts that would be blamed on anti-government extremists.

We pointed out that since examples of Americans committing violence in pursuit of their political beliefs, FBI patsy Timothy McVeigh aside, were thin on the ground, organizations like the SPLC were begging for such incidents to occur in order to provide the federal government with the pretext to crack down on dissent and silence free speech on the Internet.

Low and behold, last night 36-year-old John Patrick Bedell calmly walked up to a subway station immediately adjacent to the Pentagon building, pulled out a gun and opened fire at point blank range.

“He walked up very cool. He had no real emotion on his face,” said Richard Keevill, chief of Pentagon police.

Two officers were injured before Bedell was gunned down and later confirmed dead in the early hours of the morning.

Authorities said they were investigating reports of a second man at the scene who was apparently aiding the shooter.

As is routine, people who knew Bedell expressed shock that he would attempt such an attack.

“He just seemed like a normal guy to me,” Ronald Domingues said. “I wouldn’t suspect he would be involved in anything like this.”

Under the headline, Pentagon Shooter Railed Against U.S. on Internet, the Associated Press reports that one of the primary motivations for the attack was Bedell’s “Resentment of the U.S. government and suspicions over the 9/11 attack.”

“Signs emerged that Bedell harbored ill feelings toward the government and the armed forces, and had questioned the circumstances behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,” according to the article.

Bedell was also “determined to see that justice is served,” according to another Internet posting, in response to the death of Marine Col. James Sabo, which was ruled a suicide but suspected by Bedell to be a cover-up.

“Officials said they’d found no immediate connection to terrorism but had not ruled it out,” states the report.

The proximity of the incident to the release of the SPLC report is seamless and the implication is clear – anyone who demands that ‘justice be served’ in response to government corruption or anyone who demands the truth behind 9/11 be made public is a dangerous extremist who is likely to go on a shooting rampage.

The media attempted to craft a similar scenario following the Richard Poplawski shooting, which killed three Pittsburgh police officers, despite the fact that the incident arose as a result of a domestic dispute between Poplawski and his mother, and not as a consequence of Poplawski’s political beliefs, as the media attempted to spin the events.

The debunkers and the establishment can now have a field day with the Pentagon shooting and use it to make the case that 9/11 truthers are violent and should be silenced, ignoring the fact that not a single 9/11 truther has committed an act of violence in pursuit of their beliefs, and despite efforts to frame 9/11 truther Gary Talis when he was falsely accused of attacking a girl in a wheelchair. Talis was acquitted by a New York jury despite New York police officers and one Secret Service agent lying in claiming Talis had assaulted the girl when in fact he was the one being assaulted by the girl’s father.

There can be little doubt that we will see more incidents like last night’s shooting and, whether genuine or staged, they will be exploited to the maximum by the establishment media and the government to portray anyone who questions 9/11 and anyone who expresses “resentment” about how they have been looted for trillions of dollars as violent extremists who need to be silenced.

Such incidents will dovetail perfectly with the rapid advancement of cybersecurity and Internet censorship laws that will force people to obtain licenses to exercise free speech on the web, while providing Homeland Security with the perfect pretext to increase surveillance of all Internet traffic and communications.

By MATT APUZZO and EILEEN SULLIVAN

AP | Internet postings linked to the suspected gunman in a Pentagon subway shooting suggest long-held frustration with the government's reach into the private life of Americans.

The suspect, John Patrick Bedell, died after exchanging gunfire with two police officers.

A blog connected to him via the social networking site LinkedIn outlines a growing distrust of the federal government. The blog suggests a criminal enterprise run out of the government could have staged the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

It's the latest batch of conspiracy-laden Internet postings to surface since Thursday night's shooting.

AP's earlier story is below.
________


WASHINGTON (AP) - There are emerging signs that the suspect in a Pentagon subway station shooting may have harbored resentment for the military and had doubts about the facts behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The suspect, John Patrick Bedell, died after exchanging gunfire with two police officers.

In an Internet posting, a user named JPatrickBedell wrote he was determined to see justice for the 1991 death of a Marine in California. The death was ruled a suicide but has long been the source of coverup theories. The writer said the case would be a step toward revealing the truth behind 9/11.

The user also railed against enforcement of marijuana laws.

The screen name can be linked to the suspect in Thursday's attack through documents about a marijuana arrest that were posted on the site, which match the date of birth of the shooter and official court records available online.

Washington’s Blog | Everyone knows about Operation Northwoods, where the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

The plans for Operation Northwoods were signed on March 13, 1962.

Seven months earlier, another false flag attack was apparently discussed in order to justify an invasion of the Dominican Republic.

Specifically, according to official State Department records, Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles wrote on June 3, 1961:

The Vice President [Lyndon Johnson], [Attorney General] Bob Kennedy, Secretary [of Defense Robert] McNamara, Dick Goodwin [who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs], [head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] General Lemnitzer, Wyn Coerr, and Ted Achilles were here. Bob McNamara and Lemnitzer stated that under the terms of the contingency paper, they were required to be prepared to move into the island on short order if required to do so, and this, in their opinion, called for substantially more troops that we had in the area. After some discussion we considered two more aircraft carriers, some destroyers, and 12,000 marines should be moved into a position some one hundred miles off the Dominican Republic shore…

The tone of the meeting was deeply disturbing. Bob Kennedy was clearly looking for an excuse to move in on the island. At one point he suggested, apparently seriously, that we might have to blow up the Consulate to provide the rationale.

His general approach, vigorously supported by Dick Goodwin, was that this was a bad government, that there was a strong chance that it might team up with Castro, and that it should be destroyed–with an excuse if possible, without one if necessary.

Rather to my surprise, Bob McNamara seemed to support this view …

The entire spirit of this meeting was profoundly distressing and worrisome, and I left at 8:00 p.m. with a feeling that this spirit which I had seen demonstrated on this occasion and others at the White House by those so close to the President constitutes a further danger of half-cocked action by people with almost no foreign policy experience, who are interested in action for action’s sake, and the devil take the highmost …

[At a subsequent meeting], Bob McNamara went along with their general view that our problem was not to prepare against an overt act by the Dominican Republic but rather to find an excuse for going into the country and upsetting it.

If there had not been a two thousand year old history of false flag terror, Kennedy, Lemnitzer McNamara and their ilk wouldn’t have so readily suggested it as an off-the-shelf solution to promote their solution to a political crisis. If there had not been such a frequently-used tactic of fake terror, Lemnitzer and the rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wouldn’t have suggested it seven months later to justify war against Cuba:

“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”
- Plato

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
- U.S. President James Madison

“Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death”.
- Adolph Hitler

“Why of course the people don’t want war … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship … Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
- Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

“The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened”.
- Josef Stalin

Ongoing celebrity fascination with freedom message confirms societal shift underway

Corbett Report | In a recent interview posted on iamrogue.com, Sex Pistols co-founder Steven Jones and Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan discuss everything from HAARP and weather weapons to GMO foods, the elite depopulation agenda and the possibility for a genuine freedom movement in the United States.

What starts out as a passing reference to HAARP—the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program that has been linked to weather control—quickly develops into a serious conversaton about the ways the population are being manipulated and enslaved for the promotion of an elite agenda. That agenda, as both Jones and Corgan point out, focuses on making people unhealthy and keeping them that way. It is enacted through manipulation of the food supply, the control and restriction of vital resources like drinking water, and the distraction of the public with media-created simulations of hope and change.

Watch a short excerpt from the conversation in the video player below or click here to watch the full interview.



At one point, the conversation turns to the question of who is behind this agenda. Jones asks if Corgan believes in an "Illuminati" who is puppeteering events from behind the scenes, adding "I believe that is kind of the concept." Corgan responds with a salient observation:"The common frustration of the common man is that things don't work, but then after a while you start thinking 'Well, maybe they don't work for a reason. Maybe they want things to break.'" He then gives the examples of the engineered end of national sovereignty and the engineered economic collapse.

These observations are all the more remarkable because they represent the fundamental shift that is taking place in the population's understanding of the current political paradigm. Just a year ago, Corgan seemed to buy in to the intense marketing campaign that held up the Obama administration as the harbinger of true hope and change for America; now he seems to acknowledge that Obama is part and parcel of the elite agenda, just another serviceable puppet to be used by the very Wall Street, military-industrial, Big Pharma and Big Agra interests that put him into power in the first place. Perhaps it was the swine flu hoax which recently started coming apart at the seams that prompted Corgan on this path.

Ultimately, Corgan and Jones are just celebrities and as such their pronouncements are no more or less important than any other citizen. But given that the media and the arts are supposed to be reflections of our society, what does it tell us about our society that television stars, movie stars and musicians are increasingly discovering the true political paradigm of freedom versus tyranny and eschewing the controlled left/right debate between the two arms of the same New World Order system? And given that the freedom movement's message is increasingly being represented by artists and then picked up and distributed by a genuine grassroots alternative media, what does that say about the future of the establishment media control grid and their quickly fading power to dismiss legitimate questioning about the power structures that govern society as mere 'conspiracy theorizing'?

The military commonly enlists science in its efforts. But when science is humanity, the relationship gets a little stickier

By Emily Badger

Global Research | Neuroscience and national security go together somewhat uneasily. Stick the two in a single sentence, and University of Pennsylvania historian Jonathan Moreno starts getting e-mails from all kinds of people who are sure they’ve been brainwashed by the CIA. (It might not help his inbox that he wrote a book called Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense.)

“It’s hard to talk about these issues in part because we have kind of a paranoid popular-culture background,” Moreno said. Maybe you’ve seen The Manchurian Candidate, or, more recently, The Men Who Stare at Goats.

Neuroscience and national security, though, sit at the forefront of the complex relationship between science and the military, bedfellows that have produced not just compelling fiction, but also real dilemmas for the researchers who bridge them.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science hosted a conference today of its year-old Science and Human Rights Coalition, a group whose joint concerns are embodied most starkly in the application of science to war.

“The human rights frame is almost completely missing from this discussion,” said Len Rubenstein, the former executive director of Physicians for Human Rights and now a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins. He spoke at the conference’s opening session. “The question of research for military purposes and scientific activity for military purposes is usually viewed either through the frame of professional ethics or scientific integrity. If human rights is introduced at all, it comes through the question of human subjects research with the Nuremberg Code.”

Scientists ought to consider, he argues, the broader question of human rights in work that ranges from weapons development to anthropology. As the science and potential military applications have grown more sophisticated, it follows that the ethics are now more complex, too.

Researchers, for instance, are already mulling whether beta-blockers could be used to reduce feelings of guilt in soldiers who do the unpleasant work of interrogation. Conversely, scientists wonder if oxytocin could induce trust in the interrogated. And what if neuro-imaging could help indicate what combatants are thinking? Or if brain monitoring could track how soldiers handle stress in training?

“We’re moving clearly more and more in the direction of being able to manage neural activity, manage behavior, attitudes and perception at a distance,” Moreno said.

Rubenstein, in response, pointed to the little-recognized Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It entitles a person to social security indispensable for both dignity and “the free development of his personality.”

“When we have weapons that are deliberately designed to change people’s personalities, to manipulate people’s personalities, we have a problem,” Rubenstein said. “Not only an ethical problem, not only a national security problem, we have a human rights problem.”

It’s not that human rights are opposed to national security, Rubenstein argues; this is why the Geneva Conventions attempt to regulate conduct in war, not oppose war all together. From there, the distinctions are important. Weapons incapable of discriminating between combatants and civilians — like land mines or cluster bombs — violate human rights, he said, suggesting scientists who contribute to developing them must bear this in mind.

The most public example of murky scientific involvement in warfare has come from the Pentagon’s Human Terrain System, a controversial program to embed anthropologists with soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Department of Defense billed the program, which was unveiled in 2007, as a path toward greater cultural understanding and, ultimately, less violence.

But the American Anthropological Association roundly denounced the program. The participating anthropologists typically wear military uniforms and sometimes carry firearms. The military has insisted the program isn’t designed to gather intelligence for combat, but the AAA questioned how the one can ever be separated from the other in the context of war.

The Human Terrain System, the AAA concluded, violates many of the association’s main ethical tenets, including the obligation to do no harm and to obtain “informed consent” from subjects — something it may be impossible to give when facing a scientist in uniform.

In the new worlds of asymmetrical warfare, counterterrorism and neuroscience, however, all of the ethical guidelines may not yet be written.

As the Defense Budget Soars, Billions of Dollars are Channelled Offshore to Avoid Paying Taxes

By Tom Burghardt

Global Research | The Obama administration is seeking to increase the obscenely bloated U.S. Defense Department budget to a whopping $708 billion for fiscal year 2011, 3.4% above 2010's record level, The Wall Street Journal reported.

While the overall budget deficit will balloon to a staggering $1.6 trillion in 2011, the result of massive tax cuts for the rich, declining revenues, a by-product of capitalism's economic meltdown, imperial adventures abroad and general corporate malfeasance (the old tax-dodge grift), the administration plans to cut $250 billion over three years from non-military "discretionary spending" on domestic social programs.

However, as the World Socialist Web Site points out: "President Barack Obama has done nothing to reverse decades of wage stagnation, mounting poverty, and attacks on the social welfare system. On the contrary, following George W. Bush, he has seized on the crisis to redistribute wealth to a tiny financial elite through the ongoing bailout of the finance industry."

It is no small irony that despite stark budget figures and an even bleaker future for the American working class, Washington Technology reported January 28 that the "29 largest publicly traded defense contractors increased their use of offshore subsidiaries by 26 percent from 2003 to 2008."

Citing reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), journalist Alice Lipowicz disclosed that the "subsidiaries helped the contractors reduce taxes, in part by avoiding Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes for U.S. workers hired at the foreign subsidiaries."

Considering that the Pentagon hands out some $396 billion annually to contractors, outsourcing everything from "in theatre" construction in places like Afghanistan and Iraq to pricey "intelligence analysts" at secret state agencies, cash not spent on payroll taxes by dodgy firms slices another hole into the already-shredded social safety net.

Amongst the largest firms cited in GAO's 2008 report, updated in January 2010, Oracle Corp., operates in 77 tax havens; Boeing Co., 38; Dell Inc., 29; BearingPoint Inc., 28; Computer Sciences Corp., 21; Fluor Corp., 34; General Dynamics, 5; Harris Corp., 13; Hewlett-Packard, 14; Honeywell International, 7; ITT Corp., 18; L-3 Communications, 15; Sprint Nextel, 7.

Many of the firms are heavily-leveraged in the lucrative "homeland security" market and provide technology and "cleared" intelligence analysts, many of whom jumped ship from government service for richer, if more dubious employment, to a host of secret state agencies including the CIA, DIA, NSA as well as ultra-secretive outfits engaged in global satellite surveillance such as the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

You would think these firms, flush with record profits since the U.S. embarked on its "War on Terror" in 2001, would do something as pedestrian as paying their fair share of taxes or providing benefits to workers, given severe budgetary pressures on domestic programs, dizzying housing foreclosure rates and skyrocketing unemployment.

You'd be wrong, however; dead wrong.

Read full article

Editor's Note: Any time you turn on the television these days, you'll find pundits sounding off on the policy debate du jour. Labeled something along the lines of "military experts" or "Democratic consultants," you have to wonder what they're hiding behind those vague-sounding titles. In an era when mainstream media turns to punditry to shape the American public's view of the most important policy issues, it's worth looking into who these so-called experts are and what effect they're having on our society. As Janine R. Wedel writes in her new book, Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market (excerpted below), the rise of a new breed of confidence men and women -- think-tank members, government advisers, business consultants and television pundits -- upend our democracy. Because they are technically individual actors, they claim to hold no allegiances; in fact, they usually hold too many.

Wedel argues in her new book that a group of corrupted elites are destroying the principles that define modern states, free markets and democracy itself.

By Janine Wedel

Alternet | We live in a world of flexibility. We have flex time, flex workers, flex spending, flex enrollment, flex cars, flex technology, flex perks, mind flex—even flex identities. “Flex" has become an integral part not only of how we live, but of how power and influence are wielded. While influencers flex their roles and representations, organizations, institutions, and states, too, must be flexible in ways they haven’t been before. The mover and shaker who serves at one and the same time as business consultant, think-tanker, TV pundit, and government adviser glides in and around the organizations that enlist his services. It is not just his time that is divided. His loyalties, too, are often flexible. Even the short-term consultant doing one project at a time cannot afford to owe too much allegiance to the company or government agency. Such individuals are in these organizations (some of the time anyway), but they are seldom of them.

Being in, but not of, an organization enables these players to pursue a “coincidence of interests,” that is, to interweave and perform overlapping roles that serve their own goals or those of their associates. Because these “nonstate” actors working for companies, quasi-governmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) frequently do work that officials once did, they have privileged access to official information—information that they can deploy to their own ends. And they have more opportunities to use this information for purposes that are neither in the public interest nor easily detected, all the while controlling the message to keep their game going.

Take, for instance, Barry R. McCaffrey, retired four-star army general, military analyst for the media, defense industry consultant, president of his own consulting firm, part-time professor, and expert, whose advice on the conduct of the post-9/11 U.S. wars was sought by the George W. Bush administration and Congress. Crucial to McCaffrey’s success in these roles was the special access afforded him by the Pentagon and associates still in the military. This included special trips to war zones arranged specifically for him, according to a November 2008 expose in the New York Times. McCaffrey gleaned information from these trips that proved useful in other roles—and not only his part-time professorship at the U.S. Military Academy, which the Pentagon claimed is the umbrella under which his outsider’s perspective was sought.

At a time when the administration was trying to convince the American people of the efficacy of U.S. intervention in Iraq, the general appeared frequently as a commentator on the television news—nearly a thousand times on NBC and its affiliates. He was variously introduced as a Gulf War hero, a professor, and a decorated veteran, but not as an unofficial spokesperson for the Pentagon and its positions. He also was oft-quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other leading newspapers.

Further, in June 2007, according to the Times, he signed a consulting contract with one of many defense companies he had relationships with, which sought his services to win a lucrative government contract. Four days later, McCaffrey did the firm’s bidding by personally recommending to General David Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, that the company supply Iraq with armored vehicles, never mentioning his relationship to it. Nor did he reveal these ties when he appeared on CNBC that same week, during which he praised Petraeus, nor to Congress, where he not only lobbied to have the company supply Iraq with armored vehicles but directly criticized the company’s competitor.

Using information and access to link institutions and to leverage influence is what General McCaffrey and other such players were expected to do by an administration seeking public support, media in need of high ratings, industry pursuing profits, and academia in search of superstars. But because only the individual player bridges all these institutions and venues—by, for instance, enlisting access and information available in one to open doors or enhance cachet in another—only he can connect all the dots. Such a game involves a complex, although subtle, system of incentives that must reinforce its players’ influential positions and access to knowledge and power. And the players must uphold their end of the bargain. When McCaffrey criticized the conduct of the war on the "Today Show," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld quickly cut off his invitations to Pentagon special briefings. Tellingly, McCaffrey went back on the air, reiterated the Pentagon’s line, and regained entry into those briefings.

McCaffrey owes some of his access to a Pentagon public relations campaign that enrolled retired, high-status military personnel as “message force multipliers” in the media, according to an earlier piece in the Times. McCaffrey was among the most high-profile members of the campaign, during which, from 2002 to 2008, the Pentagon provided the seventy-five analysts access to military campaigns and initiatives through private briefings, talking points, and escorted tours. Following the expose and congressional calls for an investigation, government auditors looked into whether the Pentagon effort “constituted an illegal campaign of propaganda directed at the American public,” as the Times put it. The Pentagon’s inspector general found that Pentagon funds were not used inappropriately and that the retired military officers didn’t profit unfairly from the arrangement. President Obama’s Pentagon later rescinded the inspector general’s report, but no new one was issued.

Even when they are not whitewashed, such government audits are not designed to capture the reality of today’s influencers and the environment in which they operate—a reality that poses potentially much greater harm to a democratic society than a mere drain on taxpayer dollars. While millions of viewers, Congress, and General Petraeus were led to believe that McCaffrey was offering his expert, unbiased opinions, McCaffrey’s interlocking roles created incentives for him (and others of his profile) to be a less-than-impartial expert. The Times understatedly remarked, “It can be difficult for policy makers and the public to fully understand their interests.”

Meanwhile, the official and private organizations in and out of which such movers and shakers glide either just go along to get along or are ill equipped to know what these actors are up to in the various venues in which they operate. In McCaffrey’s case, no institution, from the Pentagon to the defense contractor to NBC, had an incentive to be anything but complicit. Operators like the general have surpassed their hosts, speeding past the reach of effective monitoring by states, boards of directors, and shareholders, not to mention voters. And while the players sometimes cause raised eyebrows, they are highly effective in achieving their goals—and often benefit from wide acceptance. Much more than the influence peddlers of the past, these players forge a new system of power and influence—one that profoundly shapes governing and society.

This new breed of players is the product of an unprecedented confluence of four transformational developments that arose in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: the redesign of governing, spawned by the rising tide of government outsourcing and deregulation under a “neoliberal” regime, and the rise of executive power; the end of the Cold War—of relations dominated by two competing alliances—which intensified the first development and created new, sparsely governed, arenas; the advent of evermore complex technologies, especially information and communication technologies; and the embrace of “truthiness,” which allows people to play with how they present themselves to the world, regardless of fact or track record. While it may be jarring to mention such seemingly disparate developments in the same breath—and to name “truthiness” as one of them—the changes unleashed by these developments interact as never before.

The proliferation of roles, and the ability of players to construct coincidences of interest by those who perform them, are the natural outcome of these developments. So, for example, increased authority delegated to private players (facilitated by privatization, the close of the Cold War, and new, complex technologies) has enabled them to become guardians of information once resting in the hands of state and international authorities. While supposedly working on behalf of those authorities, such players (working, say, as consultants for states or as special envoys or intermediaries between them) can guard information and use it for their own purposes, all the while eluding monitoring designed for the past order of states and international bodies.

And they get away with it. Appearances of the moment have become all important in today’s truthiness society, as comic Jon Stewart expressed in his quip: “You cannot, in today’s world, judge a book by its contents." Today’s premier influencers deftly elude such judgment. Pursuing their coincidences of interest, they weave new institutional forms of power and influence, in which official and private power and influence are interdependent and even reinforce each other.

The phenomenon of these “flexians” is no less than a systemic change. A new system has been ushered in—one that undermines the principles that have long defined modern states, free markets, and democracy itself.

From Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market by Janine Wedel. Excerpted by arrangement with Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009.

Arms firm pays out £300m after long-running Guardian investigation

David Leigh and Rob Evans

Guardian | The arms giant BAE yesterday agreed to pay out almost £300m in penalties, as it finally admitted guilt over its worldwide conduct, in the face of long-running corruption investigations.

For 20 years, the firm refused to accept any wrongdoing, despite mounting evidence of alleged bribes and kickbacks, much of it uncovered by the Guardian.

But BAE yesterday said it would plead guilty to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements, in simultaneous settlement deals with the Serious Fraud Office in the UK and the department of justice in Washington.

The admissions in the US covered BAE's huge £43bn al-Yamamah fighter plane sales to Saudi Arabia and smaller deals in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in central Europe. In the UK, the admissions cover a highly controversial sale of a military radar to poverty-stricken Tanzania, which the development secretary Clare Short said at the time "stank" of corruption, but which the then prime minister, Tony Blair, forced through the cabinet.

The Serious Fraud Office said in its announcement yesterday that some of the £30m penalty BAE was to hand over in the UK would be "an ex gratia payment for the benefit of the people of Tanzania".

Another $400m (£257m) would be paid in penalties to the US authorities. BAE will not face international blacklisting from future contracts, because it has only admitted false accounting, not bribery.

MPs admitted to mixed feelings about BAE's admission and are still furious that the SFO's own extensive inquiry into the al-Yamamah deal was shut down in 2006, following pressure from the firm and from Saudi officials, who reportedly threatened to withdraw co-operation over security matters. The then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, cited national security when he announced the inquiry was being abandoned. Blair said he took full responsibility for the decision.

The Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, Vince Cable, said last night that BAE ­Systems had succeeded in ensuring that key details of its arms deals would remain hidden. "The one positive thing is we have now had an acknowledgement from BAE Systems that unacceptable practices were being conducted. But nobody has been brought to account." He added: "The British government was up to its neck in this whole business. Government ministers were almost certainly fully aware of what was happening."

The former Labour minister Peter ­Kilfoyle said: "I certainly think there is now an argument to be made for an ­independent judicial inquiry into the whole affair. This raises serious questions on what [Blair's] motivation was in intervening in the [al-Yamamah investigation in the UK] and what influences were brought to bear on him."

Richard Alderman, director of the SFO, called the pioneering deal "pragmatic". It later emerged that the only prosecution of an individual by the SFO – Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly – was being dropped. Alderman added: "This brings to an end the SFO's investigations into BAE's defence contracts."

In Washington, the deputy attorney general, Larry Grindler, was more pointed. "Any company conducting business with the US that profits through false statements will be held accountable," he said. "The alleged illegal conduct undermined US efforts to ensure that corruption has no place in international trade."

Britain had previously been subject to condemnation at the OECD after Blair intervened to halt the British investigation into allegations of Saudi corruption.

Yesterday's announcement in Washington focused on BAE's acceptance of guilt of the Saudi deals, and described secret shell offshore companies for making covert payments, and specific payments into a Saudi intermediary's Swiss account. It also identified £19m secretly paid to lubricate Czech and Hungarian weapons deals. BAE admitted writing an untrue letter to US authorities in 2000, denying it was paying any secret commissions.

Yesterday's statement said BAE was now free of threats of corporate prosecution. BAE said the deal "draws a line under the past", and it regretted what it called "the lack of rigor in the past".

A government spokesman said last night: "It's right that these historical allegations have been addressed."

But two anti-corruption campaigners – Sue Hawley of the Cornerhouse NGO, and the former South African ANC MP Andrew Feinstein – said they reacted to the deal, under which no trials will take place, with "dismay". They said it "betrays the people of Tanzania, South Africa, the Czech Republic and Romania, who have the right to know the truth about corruption in their countries perpetrated by British and other companies. It … sends the message that large enough corporations are able to pay their way out of trouble."

By Katie Drummond

Wired | The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”

Of course, Darpa’s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work — so they’ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create “tamper proof” cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, “similar to a serial number on a handgun.” And if that doesn’t work, don’t worry. In case Darpa’s plan somehow goes horribly awry, they’re also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch:

Develop strategies to create a synthetic organism “self-destruct” option to be implemented upon nefarious removal of organism.

The project comes as Darpa also plans to throw $20 million into a new synthetic biology program, and $7.5 million into “increasing by several decades the speed with which we sequence, analyze and functionally edit cellular genomes.”

Of course, Darpa’s up against some vexing, fundamental laws of nature — not to mention bioethics — as they embark on the lab beast program. First, they might want to rethink the idea of evolution as a random series of events, says NYU biology professor David Fitch. “Evolution by selection is nota random process at all, and is actually a hugely efficient design algorithm used extensively in computation and engineering,” he e-mails Danger Room.

Even if Darpa manages to overcome the inherent intelligence of evolutionary processes, overcoming inevitable death can be tricky. Just ask all the other research teams who’ve made stabs at it, trying everything from cell starvation to hormone treatments. Gene therapy, where artificial genes are inserted into an organism to boost cell life, are the latest and greatest in life-extension science, but they’ve only been proven to extend lifespan by 20 percent in rats.

But suppose gene therapy makes major strides, and Darpa does manage to get the evolutionary science right. They’ll also have a major ethical hurdle to jump. Synthetic biology researchers are already facing the same questions, as a 2009 summary from the Synthetic Biology Project reports:

The concern that humans might be overreaching when we create organisms that never before existed can be a safety concern, but it also returns us to disagreements about what is our proper role in the natural world (a debate largely about non-physical harms or harms to well-being).

Even expert molecular geneticists don’t know what to make of the project. Either that, or they’re scared Darpa might sic a bio-bot on them. “I would love to comment, but unfortunately Darpa has installed a kill switch in me,” one unnamed expert tells Danger Room.

Related: U.S. DISA and SOUTHCOM Ran Complex Disaster Drills for Haiti the Day Before Earthquake

Cynthia McKinney

Global Research | President Obama’s response to the tragedy in Haiti has been robust in military deployment and puny in what the Haitians need most: food; first responders and their specialized equipment; doctors and medical facilities and equipment; and engineers, heavy equipment, and heavy movers. Sadly, President Obama is dispatching Presidents Bush and Clinton, and thousands of Marines and U.S. soldiers. By contrast, Cuba has over 400 doctors on the ground and is sending in more; Cubans, Argentinians, Icelanders, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and many others are already on the ground working–saving lives and treating the injured. Senegal has offered land to Haitians willing to relocate to Africa.

The United States, on the day after the tragedy struck, confirmed that an entire Marine Expeditionary Force was being considered “to help restore order,” when the “disorder” had been caused by an earthquake striking Haiti; not since 1751, 1770, 1842, 1860, and 1887 had Haiti experienced an earthquake. But, I remember the bogus reports of chaos and violence the led to the deployment of military assets, including Blackwater, in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One Katrina survivor noted that the people needed food and shelter and the U.S. government sent men with guns. Much to my disquiet, it seems, here we go again. From the very beginning, U.S. assistance to Haiti has looked to me more like an invasion than a humanitarian relief operation.

On Day Two of the tragedy, a C-130 plane with a military assessment team landed in Haiti, with the rest of the team expected to land soon thereafter. The stated purpose of this team was to determine what military resources were needed.

An Air Force special operations team was also expected to land to provide air traffic control. Now, the reports are that the U.S. is not allowing assistance in, shades of Hurricane Katrina, all over again.

On President Obama’s orders military aircraft “flew over the island, mapping the destruction.” So, the first U.S. contribution to the humanitarian relief needed in Haiti were reconnaissance drones whose staffing are more accustomed to looking for hidden weapon sites and surface-to-air missile batteries than wrecked infrastructure. The scope of the U.S. response soon became clear: aircraft carrer, Marine transport ship, four C-140 airlifts, and evacuations to Guantanamo. By the end of Day Two, according to the Washington Post report, the United States had evacuated to Guantanamo Bay about eight [8] severely injured patients, in addition to U.S. Embassy staffers, who had been “designated as priorities by the U.S. Ambassador and his staff.”

On Day Three we learned that other U.S. ships, including destroyers, were moving toward Haiti. Interestingly, the Washington Post reported that the standing task force that coordinates the U.S. response to mass migration events from Cuba or Haiti was monitoring events, but had not yet ramped up its operations. That tidbit was interesting in and of itself, that those two countries are attended to by a standing task force, but the treatment of their nationals is vastly different, with Cubans being awarded immediate acceptance from the U.S. government, and by contrast, internment for Haitian nationals.

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson IV reassured Americans, “Our focus right now is to prevent that, and we are going to work with the Defense Department, the State Department, FEMA and all the agencies of the federal government to minimize the risk of Haitians who want to flee their country,” Watson said. “We want to provide them those releif supplies so they can live in Haiti.”

By the end of Day Four, the U.S. reportedly had evacuated over 800 U.S. nationals.

For those of us who have been following events in Haiti before the tragic earthquake, it is worth noting that several items have caused deep concern:

1. the continued exile of Haiti’s democratically-elected and well-loved, yet twice-removed former priest, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide;

2. the unexplained continued occupation of the country by United Nations troops who have killed innocent Haitians and are hardly there for “security” (I’ve personally seen them on the roads that only lead to Haiti’s sparsely-populated areas teeming with beautiful beaches);

3. U.S. construction of its fifth-largest embassy in the world in Port-au-Prince, Haiti;

4. mining and port licenses and contracts, including the privatization of Haiti’s deep water ports, because certain off-shore oil and transshipment arrangements would not be possible inside the U.S. for environmental and other considerations; and

5. Extensive foreign NGO presence in Haiti that could be rendered unnecessary if, instead, appropriate U.S. and other government policy allowed the Haitian people some modicum of political and economic self-determination.

Therefore, we note here the writings of Ms. Marguerite Laurent, whom I met in her capacity as attorney for ousted President of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ms. Laurent reminds us of Haiti’s offshore oil and other mineral riches and recent revivial of an old idea to use Haiti and an oil refinery to be built there as a transshipment terminal for U.S. supertankers. Ms. Laurent, also known as Ezili Danto of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), writes:

“There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up. This is detailed by Dr. Georges Michel in an article dated March 27, 2004 outlining the history of oil explorations and oil reserves in Haiti and in the research of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin.

“There is also good evidence that these very same big US oil companies and their inter-related monopolies of engineering and defense contractors made plans, decades ago, to use Haiti’s deep water ports either for oil refineries or to develop oil tank farm sites or depots where crude oil could be stored and later transferred to small tankers to serve U.S. and Caribbean ports. This is detailed in a paper about the Dunn Plantation at Fort Liberte in Haiti.

“Ezili’s HLLN underlines these two papers on Haiti’s oil resources and the works of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin in order to provide a view one will not find in the mainstream media nor anywhere else as to the economic and strategic reasons the US has constructed its fifth largest embassy in the world – fifth only besides the US embassy in China, Iraq, Iran and Germany – in tiny Haiti, post the 2004 Haiti Bush regime change.”

Unfortunately, before the tragedy struck, and despite pleading to the Administration by Haiti activists inside the United States, President Obama failed to stop the deportation of Haitians inside the United States and failed to grant TPS, temporary protected status, to Haitians inside the U.S. in peril of being deported due to visa expirations. That was corrected on Day Three of Haiti’s earthquake tragedy with the January 15, 2010 announcement that Haiti would join Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia, El Salvador, and Sudan as a country granted TPS by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

President Obama’s appointment of President Bush to the Haiti relief effort is a swift left jab to the face, in my opinion. After President Bush’s performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the fact that still today, Hurricane Katrina survivors who want to return still have not been provided a way back home, the appointment might augur well for fundraising activities, but I doubt that it bodes well for the Haitian people. Afterall, the coup against and the kidnapping of President Aristide occurred under the watch of a Bush Presidency.

Finally, those with an appreciation of French literature know that among France’s most beloved authors are Alexandre Dumas, son of a Haitian slave, and Victor Hugo who wrote: “Haiti est une lumiere.” [Haiti is a light.] Indeed, Haiti for millions is a light: light into the methodology and evil of slavery; light into a successful slave rebellion, light into nationhood and notions of liberty, the rights of man, and of human dignity. Haiti is a light. And an example that makes the enemies of black liberation tremble. It is precisely because of Haiti’s light into the evil genius of some individuals who wield power over others and man’s ability, through unity and purpose, to overcome that evil, that some segments of the world have been at war with Haiti ever since 1804, the year of Haiti’s creation as a Republic.

I’m not surprised at “Reverend” Pat Robertson’s racist vitriol. Robertson’s comments mirror, exactly, statements made by Napoleon’s Cabinet when the Haitians defeated them. But in 2010, Robertson’s statements reveal much more: Haitians are not the only ones who know their importance to the struggle against hatred, imperialism, and European domination.

This pesky, persistent, stubbornly non-Western, proudly African people of this piece of land that we call Haiti know their history and they know that they militarily defeated the ruling world empire of the day, Napoleon’s France, and the global elite at that time who supported him. They know that they defeated the armies of England and Spain.

Haitians know that they used their status as a free state to help liberate Latin Americans from Spain, by funding and fighting alongside Simon Bolivar; their example inspired their still-enslaved African brothers and sisters on the American mainland; and before Haitians were even free, they fought against the British inside the U.S. during its war of independence and won a decisive battle in Savannah, Georgia, where I have visited the statue commemorating that victory.

Haitians know that France imposed reparations on them for being free, and Haiti paid them in full, but that President Aristide called for France to give that money back ($21 billion in 2003 dollars).

Haitians know that their “brother,” then-Secretary of State Colin Powell lied to the world upon the kidnapping and second ouster of their President. (Sadly, it wouldn’t be the last time that Secretary of State Colin Powell would lie to the world.) Haitians know, all-too-well, that high-ranking blacks in the United States are capable of helping them and of betraying them.

Haitians know, too, that the United States has installed its political proxies and even its own soldiers onto Haitian soil when the U.S. felt it was necessary. All in an effort to control the indomitable Haitian spirit that directs much-needed light to the rest of the oppressed world.

While the tears of the people of Haiti swell in my own eyes, and I remember their tremendous capacity for love, my broken heart and wet eyes don’t dampen my ability to understand the grave danger that now faces my friends in Haiti.

I shudder to think that the “rollback” policies believed in by some foreign policy advisors to President Obama could use a prolonged U.S. military presence in Haiti as a springboard for rollback of areas in Latin America that have liberated themselves from U.S. neo-colonial domination. I would hate to think that this would even be attempted under the Presidency of Barack Obama. All of us must have our eyes wide open on Haiti and other parts of the world now dripping in blood as a result of the relentless onward march of the U.S. military machine.

So, on this remembrance of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I note that it was the U.S. government’s own illegal Operation Lantern Spike that snuffed out the promise and light of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Every plane of humanitarian assistance that is turned away by the U.S. military (so far from CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, Médecins Sans Frontieres, Brazil, France, Italy, and even the U.S. Red Cross)–as was done in the wake of Hurricane Katrina–and the expected arrival on this very day of up to 10,000 U.S. troops, are lasting reminders of the existential threat that now looms over the valiant, proud people and the Republic of Haiti.

The CIA was created at the behest of the bankers on Wall Street. OSS spook and Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner was recruited by Dean Acheson to work under Charles Saltzman, at the State Department’s Office of Occupied Territories in 1947. The CIA’s first director, Allen Dulles, was a Wall Street lawyer.

The CIA is Wall Street’s finely honed tool for the neoliberal agenda of the banksters. “A considerable proportion of the developed world’s prosperity rests on paying the lowest possible prices for the poor countries’ primary products and on exporting high-cost capital and finished goods to those countries. Continuation of this kind of prosperity requires continuation of the relative gap between developed and underdeveloped countries – it means keeping poor people poor,” former CIA agent Philip Agee wrote. “Increasingly, the impoverished masses are understanding that the prosperity of the developed countries and of the privileged minorities in their own countries is founded on their poverty.”

“Throughout its entire history, the CIA has set up an elaborate shell game of ‘proprietaries’ (front companies), money-laundering operations and off-the-books projects so complex that no outsider — and few insiders — could ever keep track of them. BCCI was neither the first nor the last of these,” writes Mark Zepezauer.

Excerpt from the Campaign for Liberty Regional Conference in Atlanta, GA.

As the crowd begins to cheer, Ron Paul states, “We need to take out the CIA”.

“They are a government unto themselves. Their in buisnesses, their in drug buisnesses… and… they take out dictators. We need to take out the CIA.”
___



From Raw Story:

US House Rep. Ron Paul says the CIA has has in effect carried out a “coup” against the US government, and the intelligence agency needs to be “taken out.”

Speaking to an audience of like-minded libertarians at a Campaign for Liberty regional conference in Atlanta this past weekend, the Texas Republican said:

There’s been a coup, have you heard? It’s the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They’re the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. … And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. … And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They’re in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators … We need to take out the CIA.

Paul’s comments, made last weekend, were met with a loud round of applause, but they didn’t gather attention until bloggers noticed a clip of the event at YouTube.

Paul appeared to be referring to news reports that the CIA is deeply involved in air strikes against Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A suicide bombing late last year against Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan took the lives of seven of CIA operatives, including two contracted from Blackwater. The event highlighted the CIA’s deep involvement in the war effort.

Paul’s reference to the CIA being “in the drug business” refers to long-running allegations that the CIA has funded some of its covert operations with proceeds from drug-running. That claim was most famously made in a 1996 investigative report from the San Jose Mercury-News, which alleged that cocaine from the Contra-Sandinista civil war in Nicaragua was making its way to the streets of L.A. via the CIA.

Pentagon Supplier for Rifle Sights Says It Has 'Always' Added New Testament References

By JOSEPH RHEE, TAHMAN BRADLEY and BRIAN ROSS

ABC News | Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the U.S. military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.



The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

Read full article

Editor: The picture used by this article and countless others was exposed as a fake. Read about it: DISINFORMATION: Inverted Body Scanner Image Shows Naked Body In Full Living Color

By James Ridgeway

Blacklisted News | Scan, baby, scan. That’s the mantra among politicians at all levels in the wake of the thwarted terrorist attack aboard a Detroit-bound passenger jet. According to conventional wisdom, the would-be “underwear bomber” could have been stopped by airport security if he’d been put through a full-body scanner, which would have revealed the cache of explosives attached to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s groin.

Within days or even hours of the bombing attempt, everyone was talking about so-called whole-body imaging as the magic bullet that could stop this type of attack. In announcing hearings by the Senate Homeland Security Commitee, Joe Lieberman approached the use of scanners as a foregone conclusion, saying one of the "big, urgent questions that we are holding this hearing to answer" was "Why isn’t whole-body-scanning technology that can detect explosives in wider use?"
Former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told the Washington Post, "You’ve got to find some way of detecting things in parts of the body that aren’t easy to get at. It’s either pat downs or imaging, or otherwise hoping that bad guys haven’t figured it out, and I guess bad guys have figured it out."

Since the alternative is being groped by airport screeners, the scanners might sound pretty good. The Transportation Security Administration has claimed that the images "are friendly enough to post in a preschool," though the pictures themselves tell another story, and numerous organizations have opposed them as a gross invasion of privacy. Beyond privacy issues, however, are questions about whether these machines really work—and about who stands to benefit most from their use. When it comes to high-tech screening methods, the TSA has a dismal record of enriching private corporations with failed technologies, and there are signs that the latest miracle device may just bring more of the same.

Known by their opponents as "digital strip search" machines, the full-body scanners use one of two technologies—millimeter wave sensors or backscatter x-rays—to see through clothing, producing ghostly images of naked passengers. Yet critics say that these, too, are highly fallible, and are incapable of revealing explosives hidden in body cavities—an age-old method for smuggling contraband. If that’s the case, a terrorist could hide the entire bomb works within his or her body, and breeze through the virtual strip search undetected. Yesterday, the London Independent reported on "authoritative claims that officials at the [UK] Department for Transport and the Home Office have already tested the scanners and were not persuaded that they would work comprehensively against terrorist threats to aviation." A British defense-research firm reportedly found the machines unreliable in detecting "low-density" materials like plastics, chemicals, and liquids—precisely what the underwear bomber had stuffed in his briefs.

Yet the rush toward full-body scans already seems unstoppable. They were mandated today as part of the "enhanced" screening for travelers from selected countries, and hundreds of the machines are already on order, at a cost of about $150,000 apiece. Within days of the bombing attempt, Reuters was reporting that the "greater U.S. government shift toward using the high-tech devices could create a boom for makers of security imaging products, and it has already created a speculative spike in share prices in some companies."

Which brings us to the money shot. The body scanner is sure to get a go-ahead because of the illustrious personages hawking them. Chief among them is former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, who now heads the Chertoff Group, which represents one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines, Rapiscan Systems. For days after the attack, Chertoff made the rounds on the media promoting the scanners, calling the bombing attempt "a very vivid lesson in the value of that machinery"—all without disclosing his relationship to Rapiscan. According to the Washington Post:

Chertoff’s advocacy for the technology dates back to his time in the Bush administration. In 2005, Homeland Security ordered the government’s first batch of the scanners—five from California-based Rapiscan Systems.

Today, 40 body scanners are in use at 19 U.S. airports. The number is expected to skyrocket at least in part because of the Christmas Day incident. The Transportation Security Administration this week said it will order 300 more machines.

In the summer, TSA purchased 150 machines from Rapiscan with $25 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds.

The Washington Examiner last week ran down an entire list of all the former Washington politicians and staff members who are now part of what it calls the "full-body scanner lobby":

One manufacturer, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is American Science & Engineering, Inc. AS&E has retained the K Street firm Wexler & Walker to lobby for "federal deployment of security technology by DHS and DOD." Individual lobbyists on this account include former TSA deputy administration Tom Blank, who also worked under House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Chad Wolf—former assistant administrator for policy at TSA, and a former aide to Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Tex., a top Senate appropriator and the ranking Republican on the transportation committee—is also lobbying on AS&E’s behalf.

Smiths Detection, another screening manufacturer, employs top transportation lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates, including Kevin Patrick Kelly, a former top staffer to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who sits on the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee. Smiths also retains former congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley, R-Md.

Former Sen. Al D’Amato, R-N.Y., represents L3 Systems, about which Bloomberg wrote today: "L-3 has ‘developed a more sophisticated system that could prevent smuggling of almost anything on the body,’ said Howard Rubel, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., who has a ‘hold’ rating on the stock."

In forecasting the fate of the full-body scanners, we can turn to recent history, which saw the rapid rise—and decline—of the previous "miracle" screening technology. In the years following 9/11, dozens of explosive trace portals (ETPs) were installed in airports across the country, at a cost of about $160,000 each. These "puffer" machines—so called because they blow air on passengers to dislodge explosive particles—were once celebrated as the "no-touch pat down." But in a Denver test by CBS in 2007, a network employee was sprayed with explosives and then walked through the airport’s three puffers without any trouble. The machines also set off false alarms, and they frequently broke down, leading to sky-high maintenance costs.

After spending more than $30 million on the puffer machines—most of them purchased from GE—the TSA announced earlier this year that it was suspending their use. Only about 25 percent of the machines were ever even deployed at US airports. A report last month from the Government Accountability Office found that the TSA had not adequately tested the puffers before buying them.

What will happen if the full-body scanner goes the way of the puffer? Well, there’s always the next generation of security equipment: the Body Orifice Security Scanner, or BOSS chair. This contraption, which has an uncomfortable resemblance to an electric chair, is used in prisons, mostly in the UK, for tracing cell phones, shivs, and other dangerous contraband that’s been swallowed or inserted into body cavities by inmates. So far, it only detects metal, but you never know.

Give me a friendly German Shepherd any day.

Apple Insider | With the help of NORAD, children can once again track Santa's current location via the Maps application on an Apple iPhone or iPod touch all day Thursday for Christmas Eve.

The coverage began at 2 a.m. Thursday and is integrated with Google Maps both on the Web and on mobile devices. iPhone and iPod touch users can launch the Maps application and simply search for "Santa" to see where he's located.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been holding the holiday event for more than 50 years. The tradition began in 1955, when an advertisement for children to call Santa accidentally printed the phone number for the commander in chief of NORAD's predecessor, CONAD.

In response, the director, Col. Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for where Santa was located. The children who called were given updates on his location, thus spawning the annual event. Shoup, a retired U.S. Air Force veteran, passed away this year at the age of 91.

Google and NORAD first partnered in 2007, bringing the holiday-themed service to Google Maps and the Google Earth program. Users can download the Google Earth plug-in at noradsanta.org. Google Earth is available for PC, Mac and Linux. In addition to a desktop application, Google Earth can also be accessed as a Safari plugin and a mobile iPhone application.

Additional tracking can be done through YouTube, where footage from NORAD's "Santa cams" is available, and real-time search on Google, which scans Twitter, Friendfeed, news, blogs and more. Twitter users can also get tweets from @noradsanta.

Binary Dissent

The Neurophone

US Patent # 3,393,279. July 16th, 1968
US Patent # 3,647,970. March 7th, 1972

The Neurophone was developed by Dr Patrick Flanagan in 1958. It’s a device that converts sound to electrical impulses. In its original form electrodes were placed on the skin but with defence department developments, the signals can be delivered via satellite. They then travel the nervous system directly to the brain (bypassing normal hearing mechanisms). Dr Flanagan’s “3D holographic sound system” can place sounds in any location as perceived by the targeted / tortured listener. This allows for a variety of deceptions for gullible victims.

Today, the CIA, DIA (etc) use satellites and ground – based equipment to deliver verbal threats, deafening noise and propaganda; using neurophone technology. Anything from TV’s/radio’s appearing to operate when switched off through to “Voices from God” and encounters with “telepathic” aliens are all cons using neurophone technologies to torment, deceive and (most importantly) discredit agency/criminal targets. Naturally, the system can mimic anyone’s voice and automatic computer translations (into any language) are incorporated.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that people like David Koresh, Martin Bryant and others could have been programmed then remotely triggered (or tricked) using harrassment technologies like the neurophone. (Although most of the targets are intelligent and law-abiding). For example, John Lennon’s killer, Mark Chapman, reportedly heard voices before and after silencing the agency-hounded peace advocate. “God” apparently told him to confess verbally.

To explain why others physically moving into the path of the laser (or whatever) do not pick up the signals, please note the following “possibilities”…

a) Kirlean photography may be an ancillary system so it’s attuned to the targets personal energy field (their unique EM waves).

b) The magnetite in our brains can act as a detectable fingerprint.

c)Equally each of us has a unique bioelectrical resonance frequency in our brains. EMF Brain stimulation may be encoded so that pulsating EM signals sent to the targets brain cause audio-visual effects which only the target experiences. This, to me, is the best explanation.

d) The individuals “vibrational pattern” could be used as a signal filter like a radio receiving only the sound modulating the frequency of the station it’s tuned to.

e) The monitors simply adjust the volume downwards when you’re in a position where the signal could hit someone else’s body. Even if they heard it (briefly) they’d attribute it to another voice in the crowd etc.

As with the final proof, the definitive answer lies in the actual blueprints; secreted in the bowels of the Pentagon or some similar facility. Nonetheless, there is no report of ANY intercepted neurophone signals. If it wasn’t so effective it would not have been used to facilitate silent communications between U.S. government agents/military personnel.

Psycho-Acoustic Projector

U.S. patent #3,566,347, February 23rd, 1971
A device/weapon which can actually deafen the target.

Methods and Systems of Altering Consciousness

US Patent # 5,123,844. June 23rd, 1992
US Patent # 5,289,438. February 22nd, 1994
These systems stimulate the brain with different frequencies and wave forms to alter the subject’s state of consciousness.

Electro Magnetic Field (EMF) monitoring/interference is one of the most insidious and secretive of all methods used by the agencies. N.B. Similarly, EEG cloning feeds back the results of EMF monitoring in an attempt to induce emotional responses (e.g. fear, anger, even sleep etc.). This could possibly work on certain members of a crowd or audience….again this could facilitate scams etc.

Dr Ross Adey concludes that all aspects of human behaviour can be affected, even controlled. He used 0.75 milliwatts per square centimetre of pulsed, modulated microwave at a frequency of 450 MHz.

Notably the Alaskan HAARP project (featuring the B.J.Eastland patented technology – U.S. patent #4,686,605, 11/4/87 – “Method and Apparatus for altering a region in the Earth’s atmosphere, ionosphere or magnetosphere”. AND others) also facilitates experiments in the disruption of human mental processes. It’s the largest, most versatile radio frequency radiation transmitter in the world also allowing experimentation in weather “modification”, wireless, electrical power beaming and communications “disruption”. Its systems like this which could one day see attempts made to brainwash/control entire populations. And that is just as feasible as a wholesale nuclear holocaust.

Microwave Weapons

Twenty years ago a scientist, Allan Frey, found that if a microwave carrier were to be sliced and carried audio modulation, that modulation could be heard by someone in the signals path. The thin pulses of radio carrier wave cause currents to flow through the nervous system – the result is a remote transmission; no wires or contact is needed.

“A hearing system” U.S. patent #4,877,027, 31/10/89. Wayne Brunker.
“A hearing device” U.S. patent #4,858,612, 22/8/89. Philip L.Stocklin.

Eg. The latter involves microwaves aimed at the auditory cortex. A mike turns the sounds to electrical signals which are treated so as to provide multi frequency microwaves which are applied to the brain area. Whatever sound the mike picks up (like a voice) is relayed to the target.

The first known experiment with microwaved voices was conducted by Sharp and Grove in the early 70’s. However, the Defence Intelligence Agency and ARPA (The Advanced Research Projects Agency) are principally to blame for the abuse of such technologies since. eg Project Pandora etc. The CIA’s Langley Research Centre as well as an army of “mad” scientists working in Energy/Defence department labs across the U.S. are also responsible.

As with the NASA Apollo program, many of those originally involved were ex Nazi or Russian Cold war scientists (even WWII Japanese) recruited, regardless of their earlier crimes, to commit more crimes, this time for the U.S.A.

It’s worth noting the reported experiments carried out in bygone days included The MKULTRA (mind control)/LSD experiments, germ and nuclear fallout testing (on military and civilian personnel), electro-shock treatment on institutional victims and so on. The U.S. Energy and Justice departments are now involved in such programs so the U.S. can escape violation of international defence/agency treaties. That’s also why the “D” for “defence” was dropped from DARPA.

In any event, once a technology is labelled “Top secret-classified” they can use it any way they like on anyone.

Brainwave Monitors & Analysers

Lawrence Pinneo, a neurophysiologist and electronic engineer working for Stanford Research Institute (a military contractor) is the first “known” pioneer in this field. In 1974 he developed a computer system which correlated brain waves on an electroencephalograph with specific commands. In the early 1990s, Dr Edward Taub reported that words could be communicated onto a screen using the thought-activated movements of a computer cursor.

(Currently under secrecy provisions; “Classified”)
In 1994, the brain wave patterns of 40 subjects were officially correlated with both spoken words and silent thought. This was achieved by a neurophysiologist, Dr Donald York, and a speech pathologist, Dr Thomas Jensen, from the University of Missouri. They clearly identified 27 words / syllables in specific brain wave patterns and produced a computer program with a brain wave vocabulary.

It does not take much thinking to realise that the US agencies have access to a perfected version of this technology. In fact the relevant computers have a vocabulary in excess of 60,000 words and cover most languages. In fact, the NSA’s signals intelligence monitor the brainwaves of their targets by satellite and decode the evoked potentials (3.50Hz 5 milliwatts) that the brain emits. So, using lasers / satellites and high-powered computers the agencies have now gained the ability to decipher human thoughts – and from a considerable distance (instantaneously).

How is it Done?

The magnetic field around the head, the brain waves of an individual can be monitored by satellite. The transmitter is therefore the brain itself just as body heat is used for “Iris” satellite tracking (infrared) or mobile phones or bugs can be tracked as “transmitters”. In the case of brain wave monitoring the results are then fed back to the relevant computers. Monitors then use the information to conduct a “conversation” where audible neurophone input is “applied” to the victim.

Human thought operates at 5,000 bits/sec but satellites and various forms of biotelemetry can deliver those thoughts to supercomputers in Maryland, U.S.A, Israel, etc which have a speed of 20 BILLION bits/sec each. These, even today, monitor millions of people simultaneously. Eventually they will monitor almost everyone…worse than any Orwellian “Big Brother” nightmare you could possibly imagine, only it will be a reality. Yet our world leaders, who know this, do nothing.

UPDATE (2005) – IBM’s Blue Gene computer can reportedly process 227 trillion flops per second. Even if each calculation involved only one ‘bit’ of information, one such computer could process more information than five times the earth’s total population… With supercomputers taking overt brain downloads within 40 years, total computer consciousness looms as an open threat for the future of mankind, just as, secretly, it already torments those victimised as covert targets of high tech brain monitoring technology. Usually the targets are aware their brain waves are being monitored because of the accompanying neurophone feedback. In other words, the computer repeats (echoes) your own thoughts and then the human monitors comment or respond verbally. Both are facilitated by the neurophone.

NB Whilst the live/human comments are individualistic and unrelated to the victims own thought processes oftentimes the artificial intelligence involved will parrot standard phrases. These are triggered by your thoughts while the human monitors remain silent or absent. To comprehend how terrible such a thorough invasion of privacy can be – imagine being quizzed on your past as you lie in bed. You eventually fall off to sleep, having personal or “induced” dreams, only to wake to the monitors commenting / ridiculing your subconscious thoughts (dreams).

If the ability to “brain scan” individuals expands from the million or so currently under scrutiny to include ALL inhabitants of the planet (as per the Echelon surveillance system which already monitors ALL private/commercial telecommunications) then no-one will ever be able to even think about expressing an opinion contrary to those forced on us by the New World Order. There will literally be no intellectual property that cannot be stolen, no writing that cannot be censored, no thought that cannot be suppressed (by the most oppressive/invasive means).

PATENTED TECHNOLOGIES

The Neurophone: U.S. Patent #3,393,279.

July 16th, 1968. Inventor – Dr Patrick Flanagan (Invented 1958).

Description: A device that converts sound to electrical impulses; allowing information to be transmitted to the brain by means of radio waves directed at any part of the body (skin). In other words, recorded or live messages, noise, music can be directed at an individual and, through the nerves, the signal will be carried (involuntarily) to the brain, bypassing the inner ear, the cochlea, and the 8th cranial nerve.

Purpose: Practically, the Neurophone could be used to communicate with the deaf but, more often, it is used to terrorise political/military targets. The tracked individuals hear recorded/live threats, propaganda etc, which those around them do not hear (delivered mainly via satellite laser). This harasses and discredits the targets; especially if the problem is communicated to those unaware of the relevant technologies.

Advanced Neurophone: U.S. Patent #3,647,970.

March 7th, 1972. Inventor – Dr Patrick Flanagan. (Invented 1967).

Description: This Neurophone incorporates an electronic circuit duplicating the encoding of the Cochlea and 8th cranial nerve themselves. The NSA placed a secrecy order on this development for over 5 years because of the military applications of the technology. Further Neurophone advances include the development of the time recognition processor, improved memory applications and the advances in satellites incorporating neurophone technologies.
Purpose: As Above

Psycho – Acoustic Projector; U.S. Patent #3,566,347.

February 23rd, 1971.

Description: A high directional beam, radiated from a number of transducers and modulated by a speech, code, or noise beat signal. It may take the form of a radiator mounted on a vehicle, aircraft or satellite.

Purpose: To produce aural/psychological disturbances and partial deafness.

Methods & Systems for Altering Consciousness:

1. U.S. Patent #5,123,899. June 23rd, 1992.

Description: A system for stimulating the brain to exhibit specific brain wave rhythms and thereby altering the subjects’ state of consciousness.

2. U.S. Patent #5,289,438. February 22nd, 1994.

Description: A system for the simultaneous application of multiple stimuli (usually aural) with different frequencies and waveforms.

Purpose: To disorientate/manipulate a target.

Silent Subliminal Messages: U.S. Patent #5,159,703.

October 27th, 1992. Inventor – Dr Oliver M. Lowry.

Description: A communication system in which non aural carriers (in the very low or high audio frequency range or the ultrasonic frequency spectrum) are amplified or frequency modulated with the desired “intelligence”, and propagated acoustically or vibrationally for inducement directly into the brain. This can be done “live” or recorded/stored on magnetic, mechanical or optical media for delayed/repeated transmission to the target. Sound can also be induced by radiating the head with microwaves (in the range 100 to 10,000 mhz) that are modulated with a waveform consisting of frequency modulated bursts.

Purpose: To instruct or pass messages; in theory. In reality it’s used to torment political/military targets. (One unpublicised application was the Gulf War)

For more Information on these Technologies visit the website http://www.surveillanceissues.com/