May 22

Here is what I said Sep 7, 2010:

- Labor’s Julia Gillard To Form Minority Freemason Government In Australia:

Oh, what a ‘surprise’!

- Australia: Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan, Bob Katter And The Masonic Handshake

Now expect the internet to be censored in Australia.

The dark side rules. Wake up Australia!


- Australia’s unannounced ‘totalitarian’ web filter causes alarm (Wired, May 17, 2013):

Australia’s government is under fire after it appears to have introduced web censorship without warning, expanding already-controversial powers to block access to child pornography into a wider web filtering system.

The reluctance of the government to release information about who has requested sites be blocked, and lists of those sites, has also alarmed many Australians. Two convenors from Melbourne Free University (MFU), whose site was blocked without warning or explanation on 4 April, have described it as a “glimpse [of] the everyday reality of living under a totalitarian government”.

For a country that perhaps has a reputation for taking it easy, Australia’s governments have been particularly keen on web censorship. In 2008, a web filter was proposed that would have potentially blocked as many as 10,000 sites by placing them on a blacklist, but years of criticism from industry, political and public groups — including Anonymous ” declaring war” on it, and Wikileaks publishing the confidential blacklist to show it included some sites that were only, contrary to government assurances, subjectively offensive — led to the idea being dropped in November 2012. Continue reading »

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May 19

- What Did Obama Know About The IRS (And When)? (ZeroHedge, May 18, 2013):

Amid the sound and fury of yesterday’s IRS hearing were a few small tidbits which raise significant questions about who knew what and when within the Obama administration. While getting the answer (the real honest truth) is highly unlikely, as the Wall Street Journal notes, the IRS’s watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012(when Republican lawmakers were complaining publicly about alleged IRS targeting of tea-party groups) he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups, for the first time indicating that Obama administration officials were aware of the explosive matter in the midst of the president’s re-election campaign. The revelation nonetheless raised a fresh set of questions about who was aware of the problem within the Obama administration. However, the hearing left numerous other fundamental questions unanswered, including who ordered the targeting and why it continued so long, pointing to a protracted investigation ahead as Rep. Paul Ryan exclaimed, “how can we not conclude that you misled this committee?As Doug Ross’ full timeline below suggests, this is fascism on the part of the IRS and White House… Continue reading »

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May 11

- Government can now snoop on your SMSs, online chats (The Times Of India, May 7, 2013):

BANGALORE/DELHI: The government last month quietly began rolling out a project that gives it access to everything that happens over India’s telecommunications network—online activities, phone calls, text messages and even social media conversations. Called the Central Monitoring System, it will be the single window from where government arms such as the National Investigation Agency or the tax authorities will be able to monitor every byte of communication.

But privacy and internet freedom advocates are worried that in the name of security, the government could end up snooping on people, possibly abusing a system that does not have enough safeguards to protect ordinary citizens.

“In the absence of a strong privacy law that promotes transparency about surveillance and thus allows us to judge the utility of the surveillance, this kind of development is very worrisome,” warned Pranesh Prakash, director of policy at the Centre for Internet and Society. “Further, this has been done with neither public nor parliamentary dialogue, making the government unaccountable to its citizens.”

Continue reading »

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May 10

- Guess What’s Hidden in the Immigration Bill? A National Biometric Database for Citizens (Liberty  Blitzkrieg, May 10, 2013):

Oh just another eight hundred page “bipartisan” bill that nobody will read,  mainstream media will refuse to cover, and that will merely further destroy any remnants of freedom left in these United States.  Never forget the George Carlin quote on bipartisanship:

“Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.”

From Wired:

The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”

Continue reading »

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May 06

- Former FBI Agent: All Phone Conversations are Recorded and Stored (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 5, 2013):

So it seems the surveillance state just had its coming out party on CNN.  In this interview with Erin Burnett, former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente admits that the feds have access to pretty much everyone’s telephone conversations.  Also pay attention to the smirk on his face as he admits this disturbing reality.

Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian wrote an excellent piece yesterday o this exact topic.  Some of my favorite excerpts: Continue reading »

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Apr 11

- IRS: We can read emails without warrant (The Hill, April 10, 2013):

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has claimed that agents do not need warrants to read people’s emails, text messages and other private electronic communications, according to internal agency documents.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, released the information on Wednesday.

In a 2009 handbook, the IRS said the Fourth Amendment does not protect emails because Internet users “do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.” A 2010 presentation by the IRS Office of General Counsel reiterated the policy. Continue reading »

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Mar 28

- FBI Pursuing Real-Time Gmail Spying Powers as “Top Priority” for 2013 (Slate, March 26, 2013):

Despite the pervasiveness of law enforcement surveillance of digital communication, the FBI still has a difficult time monitoring Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox in real time. But that may change soon, because the bureau says it has made gaining more powers to wiretap all forms of Internet conversation and cloud storage a “top priority” this year.

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Mar 28

- US plan calls for more scanning of private Web traffic, email (Reuters, March 22, 2103):

The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country’s private, civilian-run infrastructure.

As a result, more private sector employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key transportation companies, will have their emails and Web surfing scanned as a precaution against cyber attacks.

Under last month’s White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the top threat to the country.

The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cyber security providers that have employees holding security clearances, government and industry officials said. Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program.

DHS as the middleman

By using DHS as the middleman, the Obama administration hopes to bring the formidable overseas intelligence-gathering of the NSA closer to ordinary U.S. residents without triggering an outcry from privacy advocates who have long been leery of the spy agency’s eavesdropping.

Continue reading »

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Mar 28

Watch the video here:

- CIA’s Gus Hunt On Big Data: We ‘Try To Collect Everything And Hang On To It Forever’ (Huffington Post, March 20, 2013):

NEW YORK — The CIA’s chief technology officer outlined the agency’s endless appetite for data in a far-ranging speech on Wednesday.

Speaking before a crowd of tech geeks at GigaOM’s Structure:Data conference in New York City, CTO Ira “Gus” Hunt said that the world is increasingly awash in information from text messages, tweets, and videos — and that the agency wants all of it.

Continue reading »

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Mar 26

- Mayor Bloomberg On Drones: “Oh It’s Big Brother, Get Used To It” (Liberty Blitzkrieg, March23, 2013):

While hosting his weekly radio show this past Friday, Your Royal Highness Mayor Michael Bloomberg explained to the serfs of NYC that privacy is dead and that you just “can’t keep the tide” of the surveillance state from coming in.  His quotes perfectly demonstrate the attitude he takes toward his subjects and are quite revealing.  For instance:

“Everybody wants their privacy, but I don’t know how you’re going to maintain it.  It’s just we’re going into a different world, uncharted, and, like it or not, what people can do, what governments can do, is different. And you can to some extent control, but you can’t keep the tides from coming in.”

“The argument against using automation, it’s this craziness– oh, it’s Big Brother. Get used to it.”

As if that isn’t bad enough, it also become 100% crystal clear that this guy wants to fill the skies of NYC with “freedom birds.”  He sees absolutely no problem with it at all.  In his own words:

“But what’s the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building? I mean intellectually I have trouble making a distinction. And you know you’re gonna have face recognition software.  People are working on that.”

“We’re going to have more visibility and less privacy. I don’t see how you stop that. And it’s not a question of whether I think it’s good or bad. I just don’t see how you could stop that because we’re going to have them.”

Here’s how you stop it.  It’s called The Constitution of the United States of America, a document I’m not convinced you have ever bothered to read.

This whole thing comes across as a gigantic Jedi mind trick to me.  ”It’s inevitable you will lose your freedoms.  Resistance is futile.  Just accept it.”  Sadly, unlike the proud citizens of Seattle, New Yorkers are still too traumatized from 9/11 to get off their knees.

Finally, we discover who and what Bloomberg is really trying to protect with all the cameras: Continue reading »

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