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Coronavirus mass surveillance could be here to stay, experts say

Oliver Holmes, Justin McCurry, and Michael Safi
The Guardian
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 07:16 UTC
scanning drivers
© Lai Li/AP
A police officer operates a drone carrying a QR code for drivers to register their vehicles online when entering Shenzhen, China.
Extensive surveillance measures introduced around the world during the coronavirus outbreak have widened and become entrenched, digital rights experts have said, three months after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic.

The measures have often been billed as temporary necessities rushed into place to help track infections, but governments have been accused of denting civil rights with the widespread use of techniques such as phone monitoring, contact tracing apps, and physical surveillance such as CCTV with facial recognition.

Top10VPN, a pro-digital privacy website that reviews secure internet connection software, has maintained a database since March of digital and physical surveillance measures implemented to fight the virus.

As of Wednesday, it showed digital tracking was in use in 35 countries, with contact tracing apps in at least 28 countries, half of which use GPS location data. Meanwhile, more than half of the apps do not disclose how long users' data is stored.

Comment: See also:

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Eye 1

Epstein case: Documentaries won't touch tales of intel ties

Elizabeth Vos
Consortium News
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 05:50 UTC
jeffrey esptein


Investigation Discovery premiered a three-hour special, "Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein?" on May 31, the first segment in a three-part series, that focused on Epstein's August 2019 death in federal custody. The series addresses Epstein's alleged co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, his links with billionaire Leslie Wexner, founder of the Victoria's Secret clothing line, and others, as well as the non-prosecution deal he was given.

The special followed on the heels of Netflix's release of "Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich," a mini-series that draws on a book of the same name by James Patterson.

Promotional material for "Who Killed Jeffery Epstein?" promises that: "... exclusive interviews and in-depth investigations reveal new clues about his seedy underworld, privileged life and controversial death. The three-hour special looks to answer the questions surrounding the death of this enigmatic figure." Netflix billed its series this way: "Stories from survivors fuel this docuseries examining how convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein used his wealth and power to carry out his abuses."

Neither documentary however deals at all with Epstein's suspected ties to the world of intelligence.

Comment: See also: Long Before Epstein: The Unsavory History of Intelligence Agencies Providing Protection to Child Sex-Trafficking Rings

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Palette

Experts call for regulation after latest botched art restoration in Spain

Sam Jones
The Guardian
Mon, 22 Jun 2020 19:30 UTC
Murillo
© Cedida por Coleccionista/Europa Press 2020
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's original work (left) and two attempts at restoring it.
Conservation experts in Spain have called for a tightening of the laws covering restoration work after a copy of a famous painting by the baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo became the latest in a long line of artworks to suffer a damaging and disfiguring repair.

A private art collector in Valencia was reportedly charged €1,200 by a furniture restorer to have the picture of the Immaculate Conception cleaned. However, the job did not go as planned and the face of the Virgin Mary was left unrecognisable despite two attempts to restore it to its original state.

The case has inevitably resulted in comparisons with the infamous "Monkey Christ" incident eight years ago, when a devout parishioner's attempt to restore a painting of the scourged Christ on the wall of a church on the outskirts of the north-eastern Spanish town of Borja made headlines around the world.
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Red Flag

US soldier charged with 'providing military intel to White Supremacist Jihadi Satanic Cult' for purpose of ambushing his own unit overseas

Kyle Rempfer
Army Times
Tue, 23 Jun 2020 19:29 UTC

Comment: Yeah, that's what we thought too...


Occult plot US soldier

Stabbing knife, check. Scary mask, check. Nazi-like insignia, check. Occult manual, check... An actual photo the DoJ says U.S. Army Pvt. Ethan Melzer uploaded somewhere in the expectation his superiors and military intelligence would never notice...
A U.S. soldier assigned to an installation in Europe has been charged with trying to plan a deadly ambush on members of his own unit during an upcoming deployment with the help of an "occult-based neo-Nazi" group known as the "Order of the Nine Angles," according to an indictment unsealed Monday.

Pvt. Ethan P. Melzer, 22, confessed to plotting what he intended to be a mass casualty attack during an interview with U.S. agents on May 30, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Melzer was arrested on June 10 by the FBI. During the interview, Melzer called himself a traitor against the United States and admitted that he intended to cause as many deaths among his fellow service members as possible, according to the indictment.

Melzer enlisted as an infantryman through the Army's delayed entry program in December 2018 and started his active duty service in June 2019, said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Emanuel Ortizcruz.

Melzer was stationed in Vicenza, Italy, and was slotted to deploy to Turkey. The staff judge advocate from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, also based in Vicenza, helped investigate Melzer, and a picture included in his now unsealed criminal complaint indicates he was a paratrooper in the same brigade.

Comment: A White Supremacist plot... using jihadi Muzzies?

That makes no sense, on the face of it.

There is indeed (or there was at least) a movement/group called 'Order of Nine Angles', but it's a British group from the 1960s, probably an offshoot of Aleister Crowley's Order of the Golden Dawn, and appears to be defunct today. There's even a rather large Wikipedia entry on it.

The army undoubtedly attracts low-intelligence people, but you're borderline retarded if, in this day and age, you're speaking 'anonymously' to what you've been duped into believing are mysterious 'wizards' and 'world-changers', divulging sensitive military intel to them in the apparent expectation that your communications won't be noticed.

This sounds like a sting operation. Which would mean the Private was set up to believe he was talking to 'Neo-Nazi White Supremacist Islamic Jihadis' plotting the 'overthrow of the system', and 'race war'.

Speaking of which, the media angle on this is, of course, emphasizing 'white supremacist terrorists in our midst'...

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Arrow Up

Sweden's COVID statistics update

Tony Heller
Real Climate Science
Sun, 21 Jun 2020 20:08 UTC
COVID 19 deaths in Sweden continue their downwards trend towards zero, and are about 95% lower than model forecasts.

Covid Deaths Sweden
© Real Climate Science
Reported Covid-19 deaths in Sweden | Swedish Covid-19 statistics
The same people who over predicted deaths in Sweden by 2000% now claim they have "the highest death rate in the world." But death rates in Sweden are lower than San Marino, Belgium, Andorra, UK, Spain, Italy, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Washington DC, Louisiana, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
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Bizarro Earth

'Distinguished' Oxford professor and former pastor sentenced to parole in France over child abuse images


The Guardian
Mon, 22 Jun 2020 19:09 UTC
Oxford
© Tracy Packer/Moment Editorial/Getty ImagesArchie Bland and Jon Henley
Christ Church college in Oxford. Joosten, 61, holds the regius professorship of Hebrew at the University of Oxford and is attached to the college.
An Oxford University theology professor and former pastor who downloaded 28,000 child abuse images and videos has been sentenced to a year in prison and placed on the sex offender register in France.

Jan Joosten, 61, who holds the prestigious regius professorship of Hebrew at Oxford, was suspended by the university's Faculty of Oriental Studies and Christ Church college on Monday night. He is considered one of the most distinguished biblical scholars of his generation.

The academic, who lives in the Bas-Rhin region of France, was sentenced by a court in the city of Saverne last week over possession of about 27,000 images and 1,000 videos after he admitted the facts of the case, Agence France-Presse reported.

Comment: See also: 'Truth, Lies and Sex Offenders': Anna Salter's documentary on sexual predators

Also check out SOTT radio's:

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USA

America: Your black future

Linh Dinh
The Unz Review
Sun, 14 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC
Starhat guy with book
© Unknown
Mao's shock troops, Philadelphia 2011
A guy with who once pointed a gun at the belly of a woman during an armed robbery was actually "a gentle giant," according to ABC News. It quotes one of his buddies, "Anybody who knows him will tell you he's not confrontational." At George Floyd's funeral, the mayor of Minneapolis, Richard Frey, knelt by the coffin and sobbed for a full minute, his body shaking.

For over two weeks, riots have erupted across America, and it doesn't look like they will stop soon. Protesters and cops have been killed. A black man has just been shot by police in Atlanta, triggering another riot.

Reading about all this turmoil, I think back to my one visit to the Twin Cities, in 2014. Arriving in Saint Paul on a train from Williston, North Dakota, I checked into a motel, and was on the streets by dawn. It was July 4th!

Wandering around haphazardly, I ended up at Langford Park, where there was a large picnic. Old people relaxed on lawn chairs, kids ran around and the Pig's Eye JassBand was swinging to Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band." Having been to many cities in at least 35 states, I had never encountered such a wholesome and tranquilly joyous gathering. It was as if I had stumbled into a vast Norman Rockwell painting, or time traveled to an America of half a century ago.
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Star of David

Israeli news anchor suspended: Claimed Netanyahu would get Likud votes even if he were a rapist


Sputnik
Sun, 21 Jun 2020 14:49 UTC
Matsliah/Netanyahu
© Wikidata/Unknown/KJN
News anchor Rina Matsliah • Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has a history of clashing with Channel 12 news coverage, with his supporters often accusing it of being biased against the prime minister and his Likud party. This time, they say, the channel's anchor went too far in her criticism.

Israeli Channel 12 has suspended its Meet the Press anchor Rina Matsliah for a week, following her comments on Saturday about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud voters, the Times of Israel reports.

Marsliah came under fire after attributing a claim to one of Netanyahu's supporters in which he or she allegedly said: "even if he raped my daughter I would still vote for him".

The comment caused a stir among Likud politicians, with the prime minister arguing on Twitter that the journalist's "hatred of Likud voters" and him in particular "has reached new lows", while calling Matsliah a "disgrace".
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Camcorder

Ex-cop charged in George Floyd's death accosted while in city supermarket

Aaron Feis
New York Post
Sun, 21 Jun 2020 18:24 UTC
J. Alexander Keung george floyd
© Twitter
J. Alexander Keung
One of the four former Minneapolis cops charged in the murder of George Floyd was accosted by a fellow shopper during a recent supermarket trip, viral video of the run-in shows.

J. Alexander Keung, freed Friday evening on $750,000 bail, was stocking up at a Cub Foods in the Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth when another shopper started recording on her phone and moved in.

"What's your name?" asked the woman as she approached Keung, 26, in the tense video posted by a user who identified the shopper as their sister.

"Oh, yeah, that's me," replied the bearded Keung, appearing bewildered by the encounter, but calm.

Comment: Thus does the media continues to stoke the emotions around George Floyd's unfortunate death. Keung seems to have done his best to remain calm while being harassed by a random person who probably has no connection to the case. What does she hope to gain, except to make a bad situation worse? What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Unfortunately, often this is how the justice system works in the US with regard to police, and if she has a problem with that, her beef isn't really with Keung. It's basically the twitter-mob mentality bleeding into the real world. As far as she's concerned, he's already been tried and convicted.

Twitterati have come down on both sides of the issue.







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Dominoes

Second German region REIMPOSES Covid-19 lockdown after slaughterhouse outbreak


RT
Tue, 23 Jun 2020 19:04 UTC
germany lockdown
© INA FASSBENDER / AFP
A second German district is reimposing lockdown measures following an outbreak of Covid-19 at the Toennies meat factory in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which saw 1,500 employees testing positive for the virus.

Officials said on Tuesday that the Warendorf district in the northern and most populous state would be placed under lockdown again, just hours after the neighboring district of Guetersloh made the same decision.

The Toennies slaughterhouse was forced to cease operations and around 7,000 workers placed into quarantine to avoid further spread of the infection. The two regions in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia will have to close its daycare centers, schools, museums, bars and other public places.
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