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Homeland Security spends millions for 'biosurveillance' of social networks

Homeland Security, DHS
© Reuters/Hyungwon KangU.S. Department of Homeland Security analysts work at the National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) located just outside Washington in Arlington, Virginia
The US Department of Homeland Security has signed a multi-million dollar contract with a global management consulting firm to boost the country's attempt to master biosurveillance using social networks.

Virginia-based Accenture Federal Services will receive $3 million in federal funds to spend during the next year as they assist with efforts from the DHS and the Office of Health Affairs (OHA) to improve the United States' ability to track health trends and potential pandemics by means of monitoring social media accounts and other online activity.

According to a statement from the company, Accenture will be working hand-in-hand with the OHA in order to test out a pilot program that hopes to manage, link and analyze crucial data submitted by individuals about diseases and perhaps even a biological attack by pulling feeds from social networks.

"Biosurveillance is the monitoring of public health trends and unusual occurrences, relying on pre-existing, real-time health data - data that is publicly available and easily obtained," says Joanne Veto, Accenture's director of media and analyst relations. "Because of the vast amount of data and information available and readily shared through social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs) and the rapid pace information is shared, collecting and understanding information from these channels is critical."

Star of David

Deadly "mistake": IDF wipes out Palestinian family due to "technical error"

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© Agence France-Presse/Marco LongariPalestinian men gather around a crater caused by an Israeli air strike on the al-Dallu family's home in Gaza City on November 18, 2012.
The Israeli Defense Force has confirmed that while targeting Hamas' rocket chief it mistakenly bombed the home of the Al-Dalou family, killing at least 11 civilians, four of them children and toddlers.

"Israel has killed a family of eleven people this evening, and many, many more. If Israel wants to stop its aggression, then we can talk. But before then, how could we consider any deal?" Salama Maroof, a senior Hamas spokesman told the Daily Telegraph.

IDF said the source of the error was either a failure to laser-paint the correct target or that one of the munitions in the strike misfired, Haaretz newspaper reported. The Israeli military is investigating the incident.

The Israeli military targeted Hamas' rocket-launching unit led by Yehiya Rabiah, but apparently hit the house of a neighbor, the newspaper noted. Rabiah seems to have survived the attack despite earlier claims that he was killed.

Attention

Like Father, Like Son: Quotes from Ariel Sharon's son as Israel invades Gaza

Gilad and Sharon
© Heebonics
Gilad Sharon, son of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, wrote a piece for the Jerusalem Post this Sunday that gives new weight to phrase "like father, like son". It's genocidal talk, really. Here are some quotes. Emphasis and comments are mine.
"This must not be allowed to end as did Operation Cast Lead: We bomb them, they fire missiles at us, and then a cease-fire, followed by "showers" - namely sporadic missile fire and isolated incidents along the fence. Life under such a rain of death is no life at all, and we cannot allow ourselves to become resigned to it."
Operation Cast Lead wasn't good enough for Gilad. The deaths of over 1,400 Palestinians, including 330 children, in 22 days didn't have as much of an effect as he'd hoped. The "rain of death" isn't acceptable for Israelis but it's perfectly reasonable for Palestinians. We'll see why in the following quotes.
"To accomplish this, you need to achieve what the other side can't bear, can't live with, and our initial bombing campaign isn't it."
Since Wednesday, at least 79 Palestinians have been confirmed dead, including dozens of children. One of the more recent air strikes left twelve members of the Al-Dalou family dead. Their home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City was leveled, taking with it five women, four children, and a grandfather. Israel also admitted to targeting and hitting Gaza's news media tower, injuring eight journalists and, in the process, violating Protocol 1, Article 47 of the Geneva Convention. Gilad wants Israel to up the ante.

Star of David

We are forbidden to say this: Gaza is a Concentration Camp

concentration camp gaza
© Unknown
The most striking and significant quality of our national conversation "is one of overwhelming, oppressive and suffocating unreality.

It is as if everyone knows, but will never acknowledge, that we may speak only in code, and that we may only utilize the safe, empty phrases that we have agreed are 'acceptable' -- phrases and language that are safe precisely because they have been drained of all correspondence to facts.

It is as if everyone realizes, but will never state, that we are engaged in an elaborate charade, a pageant of gesture and indication, where substance and specific meaning have been banned. ... [T]he truth is not merely unpleasant, an uninvited guest who makes conversation difficult and awkward. Truth is the enemy; truth is to be destroyed."

Gaza is a concentration camp. It is not like a concentration camp. It is not a metaphorical or figurative concentration camp. It is a concentration camp. Our culture, our political leaders, and the cacophony of voices in the media have all agreed that this truth must never be spoken.

War Whore

Israeli air strike kills 11 civilians in Gaza: Hamas

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© Reuters/Suhaib SalemPalestinians gather around a destroyed house as members of the civil defence search for victims under the rubble after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City November 18, 2012.
An Israeli missile killed at least 11 Palestinian civilians including four children in Gaza on Sunday, medical officials said, apparently an attack on a top militant that brought a three-storey home crashing down.

International pressure for a ceasefire seemed certain to mount in response to the deadliest single incident in five days of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Egypt has taken the lead in trying to broker a ceasefire and Israeli media said a delegation from Israel had been to Cairo for talks on ending the fighting, although a government spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi met Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad's head Ramadan Shallah as part of the mediation efforts, but a presidency statement did not say if they were conclusive.

Izzat Risheq, a close aide to Meshaal, wrote in a Facebook message that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire only after Israel "stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza".

Listing Israel's terms for ceasing fire, Moshe Yaalon, a deputy to the prime minister, wrote on Twitter: "If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

Comment: Israel has no reason whatsoever for "self-defense". For the facts, read:
Israel Encourages Palestinian Rocket Attacks
An Israeli speaks out against the crimes of her government
Israel and the U.S. CREATED Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda
Israel's Shortsighted Assassination: Hamas' Al-Jabari was working to PREVENT rocket attacks


Heart - Black

Israeli airstrike hits Gaza family's home, murdering 12, including 4 children

gaza family murder
© Mahmud Hams / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images / November 18, 2012Palestinians search the debris of the Dalu family home following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Sunday that killed at least 12 people, 10 of them members of the family.
An Israeli airstrike here on Sunday killed 10 members of one family, mostly women and children, marking the deadliest single attack and worst civilian tragedy since the current fighting in the Gaza Strip began last week.

"This is a massacre,'' shouted Nasser Dalu, a cousin and neighbor as he watched in anguish as his relatives were pulled from debris. "What did these children do?"

Two male next-door-neighbors were also killed, bringing the total death count to 12, with more than 20 people wounded.

The 2:30 p.m. attack took place in the Naser district, a crowded residential neighborhood of Gaza City.

Star of David

Israel's Shortsighted Assassination: Hamas' Al-Jabari was working to PREVENT rocket attacks

al-jabari
Ahmed al-Jabari, Hamas negotiator working on a cease-fire to stop rocket attacks on Israel -- assassinated by Israel.
Jerusalem - Ahmed Al-Jabari - the strongman of Hamas, the head of its military wing, the man responsible for the abduction of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit - was assassinated on Wednesday by Israeli missiles.

Why? Israel's government has declared that the aim of the current strikes against Gaza is to rebuild deterrence so that no rockets will be fired on Israel. Israel's targeted killings of Hamas leaders in the past sent the Hamas leadership underground and prevented rocket attacks on Israel temporarily. According to Israeli leaders, deterrence will be achieved once again by targeting and killing military and political leaders in Gaza and hitting hard at Hamas's military infrastructure. But this policy has never been effective in the long term, even when the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, was killed by Israel. Hamas didn't lay down its guns then, and it won't stop firing rockets at Israel now without a cease-fire agreement.

Comment: In other words, Jabari was against the Saudi and CIA-connected groups who oppose Hamas, the ones largely behind the rocket attacks on Israel. Conveniently for Israel, he's now dead, provoking the very type of retaliation he would have worked to control, giving Israel the tired excuse that it is only 'responding' to attacks from Gaza, and not the opposite.


Yoda

SOTT Focus: An Israeli speaks out against the crimes of her government

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© Unknown
I am ashamed to be an Israeli. There, I said it. And yes, I know better than most that there are many good and kind people in Israel. But what is happening right now in Gaza in the name of those good people CANNOT be tolerated, because it goes against everything humane and decent.

Yes, there are deaths on the Israeli side as well, but despite the heartbreak and tragedy experienced by the families of the victims, it's important to understand that the amount of pain and suffering experienced by the Palestinians is infinitely greater, and it's the responsibility of all of us to speak out against it!

We forgot the lessons of the past, and because of that, because of our lack of responsibility, ignorance and inaction, we allowed psychopathic leaders and their twisted ideologies to take hold of our own perception of reality. But if we could just stop for a moment and think, we would clearly see that this situation is not about "who fired first" and "how many rockets" (although, research shows that Israel was the aggressor in most past cases, including this one), but about the basics, like human decency, conscience, and not having blood on one's hands after our government ("oops, again") is murdering children and calling it 'self-defense'.

And that's the bottom line, that I, as an Israeli, even if I didn't pull the trigger, will still have blood on my hands if I see what is happening and stay silent.

Star of David

The History of Israeli Spying: The Mother of all Scandals

Once again, Israel has been caught with spies at the highest levels of the US Government.

At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington. The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.

CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy." This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome." [CBS News]

Once again Israel denies wrongdoing, or faced with incontrovertible evidence (in this case one of the spies has reportedly cooperated with the FBI) dismisses the spying with the claim that such spying is harmless, because Israel and the United States are such good friends.

Well, let us take a closer look at that idea of "harmless espionage" by recalling Israel's most famous failed spy, Jonathan Pollard.

Jonathan Pollard is an American of Jewish descent, born in Galveston Texas, who established a career as an intelligence analyst for the US Navy. There have been many theories offered as to why Pollard decided to betray his country of birth to the Jewish state, but that Pollard did betray his country of birth to Israel is beyond all doubt. Pollard's defense was that he did not spy so much against the United States, only that he spied for Israel, sending them documents that in his opinion the US should have shared with Israel anyway.

That it was never Pollards job to decide what documents Israel should have was apparently irrelevant. Pollard arrogated that authority to himself. From his position of trust within the US Navy, Pollard delivered over 1000 classified documents to Israel for which he was well paid. Included in those documents were the names of over 150 US agents in the Mideast, who were eventually "turned" into agents for Israel.

But by far the most egregious damage done by Pollard was to steal classified documents relating to the US Nuclear Deterrent relative to the USSR and send them to Israel. According to sources in the US State Department, Israel then turned around and traded those stolen nuclear secrets to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas from the USSR to Israel. Other information that found its way from the US to Israel to the USSR resulted in the loss of American agents operating inside the USSR. Casper Weinberger, in his affidavit opposing a reduced sentence for Pollard, described the damage done to the United States thus, "[It is] difficult to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by... Pollard's treasonous behavior."

This should end the suggestion that Israel's spies are harmless. They are not. The United States' nuclear deterrent cost an estimated five trillion taxpayer dollars during the 50s and 60s to build and maintain, and less than $100,000 for Pollard to undermine. Israel waited 13 years to admit Pollard had been spying for them, and now lobbies for his release, having granted him Israeli citizenship.

Bomb

Gaza families huddle together hoping for safety from israeli assault

Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza city
© Ashraf Amra / APA imagesThe Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City has been especially hard-hit by Israel’s relentless bombing.
More than 15 members of the Dalloul family now sleep in one room of their home in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood, a densely-populated area in the southeast of Gaza City.

"All the children and elder members of our family squeeze onto these mattresses when night falls," Naeema Dalloul, mother of seven, told The Electronic Intifada on Saturday afternoon as deafening bomb explosions could be heard in the background.

Dalloul and her children normally live in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood to the west, but when Israel began its intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, she moved to her parents' home in al-Zaytoun.

"When the air strikes began on Wednesday I was on the phone with my husband, who is now traveling. I was concerned about my seven children, so I moved here to stay with them," Dalloul said. "But as you see the attacks are widespread and no one seems safe."

In fact, the al-Zaytoun neighborhood has been one of the most heavily bombed areas.

Medical sources and human rights organizations said the death toll in the current Israeli assault had reached approximately 40 by Saturday afternoon, with at least seven children among the dead. Hundreds more are reported injured.

On Saturday, at least one person was killed and seven injured in attacks on al-Zaytoun.