Puppet MastersS


Red Flag

Obama vows to use his executive authority for "year of action": Isn't that a Dictatorship?

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© Polyskeptic.com
President Obama vowed to use his executive authority to usher in a "year of action" even if Congress remains gridlocked, he said in his weekly address.

"Where Congress isn't acting, I'll act on my own to put opportunity within reach for anyone who's willing to work for it," the president said.

Obama pointed to a recent trip to North Carolina to announce the formation of a new public-private manufacturing institute as evidence of how he could act alone to spur economic activity.

"It's a partnership between companies, colleges, and the federal government focused on making sure American businesses and American workers win the race for high-tech manufacturing and the jobs that come with it - jobs that can help people and communities willing to work hard punch their ticket into the middle class," Obama said.

In recent weeks, the White House has stressed that Obama would use a mixture of executive action and the bully pulpit - a "pen and phone strategy" - to rally the nation around his economic agenda.

On Thursday, Obama held a conference at the White House with university presidents and nonprofit groups designed to improve college access for low-income students.

Dollar

UK government continues privatization of NHS: Patient data to be sold to Big Pharma and medical insurance firms

NHS
© Dominic Lipinski/PAIf an application is approved then firms will have to pay to extract NHS patient information, which will be scrubbed of some personal identifiers.

Drug and insurance companies will from later this year be able to buy information on patients - including mental health conditions and diseases such as cancer, as well as smoking and drinking habits - once a single English database of medical data has been created.

Harvested from GP and hospital records, medical data covering the entire population will be uploaded to the repository controlled by a new arms-length NHS information centre, starting in March. Never before has the entire medical history of the nation been digitised and stored in one place.

Advocates say that sharing data will make medical advances easier and ultimately save lives because it will allow researchers to investigate drug side effects or the performance of hospital surgical units by tracking the impact on patients.

But privacy experts warn there will be no way for the public to work out who has their medical records or to what use their data will be put. The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender.

Once live, organisations such as university research departments - but also insurers and drug companies - will be able apply to the new Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) to gain access to the database, called care.data.

If an application is approved then firms will have to pay to extract this information, which will be scrubbed of some personal identifiers but not enough to make the information completely anonymous - a process known as "pseudonymisation".

However, Mark Davies, the centre's public assurance director, told the Guardian there was a "small risk" certain patients could be "re-identified" because insurers, pharmaceutical groups and other health sector companies had their own medical data that could be matched against the "pseudonymised" records. "You may be able to identify people if you had a lot of data. It depends on how people will use the data once they have it. But I think it is a small, theoretical risk," he said.

TV

Clueless Bill Maher set straight by Glenn Greenwald over 'totally batsh*t' Edward Snowden

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© Rumorfix
Bill Maher acknowledged his respect for former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden during Real Time's return episode on Friday, while comparing him to former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) during an interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald.

"I agree with what he says, I nod along," Maher said. "And then he says something totally batsh*t."

Maher then quoted from Snowden's "open letter to the people of Brazil" last month, in which Snowden said programs like the NSA's surveillance efforts "were never about terrorism" but were instead about "social control, and diplomatic manipulation."

"That's crazy," Maher told Greenwald. "They were about stopping terrorism. They may have gone too far. But everybody in the government isn't out to get you."

After reading Snowden's allegation that the government can "go back in time" to chart a person's online history, Maher asked Greenwald, "This is nuts, right?"

"No, Bill, what's nuts is the fact that you think that's nuts," said Greenwald, who published several articles based on knowledge seized by Snowden. "A lot of the stories we reported had nothing to do with terrorism. They're spying on economic summits in Latin America, oil companies in Brazil, democratically-elected leaders of our closest allies who have nothing to do with terrorism."

Greenwald further argued that the reporting enabled by Snowden's information showed that the NSA had the ability to "slow down the internet" by storing data long enough to search through a person's search history and correspondence.

USA

Child-tracking wristbands edge us closer to a dystopian future

KMS Wristband phones
© Steve Marcus/ReutersKMS Wristband phones for young children and older people. The phone can also send an alert if the wearer has left a prescribed area.
For those who think the NSA the worst invader of privacy, I invite you to share an afternoon with Aiden and Foster, two 11-year-old boys, as they wrap up a Friday at school. Aiden invites his friend home to hang out and they text their parents, who agree to the plan.

As they ride on the bus Foster's phone and a sensor on a wristband alert the school and his parents of a deviation from his normal route. The school has been notified that he is heading to Aiden's house so the police are not called.

As they enter the house, the integrated home network recognises Aiden and pings an advisory to his parents, both out at work, who receive the messages on phones and tablets.

The system also sends Foster's data - physical description, address, relatives, health indicators, social media profile - to Aiden's parents, who note he has a laptop. Might the boys visit unsuitable sites? No, because Foster's parental rating access, according to his profile, is limited to PG13, as is Aiden's.

Foster spots a cookie jar and reaches in. Beep beep! His wristband vibrates to warn him the cookies contain gluten, and he is allergic.

Aiden's mother notes this and consults a menu of her fridge and pantry, all connected to the network, for non-gluten ingredients. There aren't enough so she orders a gluten-free pizza.

The boys turn on the TV. Rather, it turns itself on as Aiden approaches and it lists his favourite channels. The TV notes the boys have a basketball, which has a sensor, and so suggests an NBA game. As they watch, tailored advertising invites Aiden to put a Miami Heat shirt on a personal wishlist connected to a chain store. He does so and a ping is sent to his mother, who simultaneously receives a reminder of the date of his birthday.

Star of David

Rise of the far-right extremists: French Jewish vigilante group comes out of shadows

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French Jewish Defense League (LDJ) graffiti in Paris
In face of soaring anti-Semitism, France's Jewish Defense League showcases its activities, putting itself on collision course with country's Jewish establishment.

With scooter helmets in hand, a man called Yohan and six buddies stroll around Paris' 20th arrondissement. The seven look much like a typical group of French students - until they locate a group of Arab men they suspect of perpetrating an anti-Semitic attack the previous day.

Using their helmets as bludgeons, members of France's Jewish Defense League, or LDJ, set upon the Arabs and beat them. Several of the Arabs attempt to escape in a blue sedan, but the LDJ members pursue the vehicle, causing it to crash into a stone wall.

The attack last August, filmed by a television crew shooting a documentary on LDJ, was one of at least 115 violent incidents that critics attribute to the group since its registration in France in 2001 - a year after the eruption of the second intifada in Israel and the sevenfold increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the 12 years that followed.

"Now they know the price of Jewish blood," said Yohan, the nom de guerre of Joseph Ayache, one of LDJ's young bosses.

An offshoot of the American Jewish Defense League, which was founded in New York by the ultra-nationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1968 and which the FBI considers a domestic terrorist group, LDJ stages violent reprisals to anti-Semitic attacks.

Comment: To date the only English-language articles about this criminal organization are from Israel...


Cult

British celebrity icon Jimmy Savile sexually abused up to a thousand children on BBC premises

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Birds of a feather...
The BBC will be plunged into a major crisis with the publication of a damning review, expected next month, that will reveal its staff turned a blind eye to the rape and sexual assault of up to 1,000 girls and boys by Jimmy Savile in the corporation's changing rooms and studios.

Dame Janet Smith, a former court of appeal judge, who previously led the inquiry into the murders by Dr Harold Shipman, will say in her report that the true number of victims of Savile's sexual proclivities may never be known but that his behaviour had been recognised by BBC executives who took no action.

Smith's investigations, which followed the Pollard inquiry into why the BBC shelved a Newsnight programme about Savile, will send shockwaves through the corporation.

A source close to the inquiry told the Observer: "The numbers are shocking. Many hundreds and potentially up to 1,000 people were victims of Savile when he was representing the corporation. The report will overshadow Pollard. It will go right to the heart of how Savile was able to get away with the most heinous of crimes under the very noses of BBC staff for more than 40 years."

Comment: Then there are all the hospitals, schools, orphanages, and sports facilities Savile was granted free access to around the UK...

The final toll could run into many thousands.


Eye 1

Liar, liar: 4 questionable claims Obama has made on NSA surveillance

Obama
© Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty ImagesIn preparation for President Obama's speech on surveillance policy today, here are some of the misleading statements he has made about the NSA
Today President Obama plans to announce some reportedly limited reforms to National Security Agency surveillance programs.

Since the first disclosures based on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Obama has offered his own defenses of the programs. But not all of the president's claims have stood up to scrutiny. Here are some of the misleading assertions he has made.

1. There have been no abuses.
And I think it's important to note that in all the reviews of this program [Section 215] that have been done, in fact, there have not been actual instances where it's been alleged that the NSA in some ways acted inappropriately in the use of this data ... There had not been evidence and there continues not to be evidence that the particular program had been abused in how it was used. -- Dec. 20, 2013
At press conferences in June, August and December, Obama made assurances that two types of bulk surveillance had not been misused. In fact, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has reprimanded the NSA for abuses both in warrantless surveillance targeting people abroad, and in bulk domestic phone records collection.

In 2011, the FISA Court found that for three years, the NSA had been collecting tens of thousands of domestic emails and other communications in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The court ordered the NSA to do more to filter out those communications. In a footnote, Judge John D. Bates also chastised the NSA for repeatedly misleading the court about the extent of its surveillance. In 2009 - weeks after Obama took office - the court concluded the procedures designed to protect the privacy of American phone records had been "so frequently and systemically violated that it can fairly be said that this critical element of the overall ... regime has never functioned effectively."

Stormtrooper

Panicked lawmakers mull firing squad executions as drug shortage worsens

Execution chamber
© Reuters / Trent Nelson-Salt Lake TribuneThe execution chamber at the Utah State Prison is seen after Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by a firing squad in Draper June 18, 2010.
Politicians in at least two US states where authorities have been unable to obtain lethal injection drugs have admitted they would be open to executing prisoners via firing squad, resurrecting a method that has disappeared in much of the world.

European manufacturers that have traditionally supplied the drugs used to painlessly execute prisoners have stonewalled, boycotting sales of the drug on a moral basis. Officials in the states where capital punishment is employed have turned to pharmacies to concoct untested mixes of existing drugs in an attempt to make a cocktail that will end a convict's life.

The method of using a sedative and painkiller combination is now coming under scrutiny, however, after it caused a convicted rapist and murderer in Ohio to gasp for air and convulse violently during his final moments. It was the first time in the a two-drug method has been used in the US and it instantly became a rallying cry for death penalty opponents who say the inmate suffered from cruel and unusual punishment.

Proposed legislation in Missouri seeks to correct this problem by carrying out the death penalty with a firing squad.

Flashlight

New analysis from Massachusetts Institute of Technology of rocket used in Syria chemical attack undercuts U.S. claims

Syrian chemical attack analysis
© MCT
A series of revelations about the rocket believed to have delivered poison sarin gas to a Damascus suburb last summer are challenging American intelligence assumptions about that attack and suggest that the case U.S. officials initially made for retaliatory military action was flawed.

A team of security and arms experts, meeting this week in Washington to discuss the matter, has concluded that the range of the rocket that delivered sarin in the largest attack that night was too short for the device to have been fired from the Syrian government positions where the Obama administration insists they originated.

Separately, international weapons experts are puzzling over why the rocket in question - an improvised 330mm to 350mm rocket equipped with a large receptacle on its nose to hold chemicals - reportedly did not appear in the Syrian government's declaration of its arsenal to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and apparently was not uncovered by OPCW inspectors who believe they've destroyed Syria's ability to deliver a chemical attack.

Comment: So the war hawks just blame Assad for the fact that the type of rocket used in the attack was not on the list of items in Syrian government possession. The most likely answer is that he doesn't have that type of rocket and that is was fired by rebels from rebel held areas, as the evidence appears to point to. This is also what the Russians said all along.


War Whore

U.S. public sez: We don't want AIPAC's 'Path to War'

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© Bill Hughes
A congressional drive for new sanctions on Iran, backed by the lobbying muscle of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is meeting growing push-back from a public that does not want another war.

We have an opportunity to stand up and say we're not going to support legislation that will only move us towards war," said Greg Broseus, Chicago-based member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, in an interview with Common Dreams. "The goal now is to stop another war before it even starts."