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We're All Spies Now

Meg Mundell
The Age
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© iStockphoto
Surveillance is now a multibillion-dollar global industry, and an increasingly pervasive part of our daily lives.
In the late 1940s, George Orwell wrote his nightmarish novel 1984, depicting a future world where an all-seeing but unseen tyrant, Big Brother, ruled over his citizens by watching their every move. In this paranoid dystopia, surveillance was purely a ''top-down'' affair, a government tool for controlling the hapless masses: privacy was a crime, the Thought Police punished dissent and history was rewritten daily for political ends.

More than half a century later, it is worth considering how Orwell's fictional prediction weighs up against reality. If Big Brother's gaze dominated that imagined future, who's watching over us now?

In some respects, old George was spot on: surveillance is booming. It's now a multibillion-dollar global industry, and an increasingly pervasive part of our daily lives. But today's version has evolved beyond the Big Brother model - a monstrous oppressor peering down a giant microscope - into a more sophisticated, multi-directional and complex beast. Surveillance has spawned so many offshoots, and spread in such unforeseen directions, that we are struggling to keep up with its ethical and legal ramifications. What's more, in the digital age, we as individuals are not always its helpless victims. Unsettling? Perhaps. But rather than blindly condemning or embracing these shifts, it's better to keep a watchful eye on them.
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Nuke

US: Radiation In Massachusetts Rainwater Likely From Japan


Huffington Post
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 17:08 UTC
radiation rain
© GETTY

Boston -- Health officials said Sunday that one sample of Massachusetts rainwater has registered very low concentrations of radiation, most likely from the Japanese nuclear power plant damaged earlier this month by an earthquake and tsunami.

John Auerbach, the Massachusetts commissioner of public health, said that radioiodine-131 found in the sample - one of more than 100 that have been taken around the country - has a short life of only eight days. He said the drinking water supply in the state was unaffected and officials do not expect any health concerns.

Nevada and other Western states also have reported minuscule amounts of radiation, but scientists say those presented no health risks.
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Che Guevara

Germans protest against nuclear energy


Press TV
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:00 UTC
Tens of thousands of Germans have held anti-nuclear rallies, demanding the government disband atomic energy and increase safety standards.


The fresh protests took place in the cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne following the nuclear crisis in Japan triggered by the earthquake and tsunami, a Press TV correspondent in Berlin reported.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was quick to react to the catastrophe in Japan, announcing a three-month moratorium on extending the lifespan of Germany's nuclear power plants.

Still, demonstrators took to the streets in Germany in large numbers. Placards read slogans like "Fukushima is a warning." A minute's silence was also held to honor Japan's quake and tsunami victims.

"Today similar protests have been held in Munich, Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin. We expected tens of thousands, but the turnout has been higher than our expectations," Thorben Becker, a nuclear expert, told Press TV.
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Light Saber

Farmers Sue USDA Over Monsanto Alfalfa - Again

Mike Ludwig
Truthout
Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:02 UTC
flowering alfalfa
© Jean Forman Orth/ Flickr
Flowering alfalfa plant
A coalition of farmers and environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on March 18 to challenge the agency's recent decision to fully deregulate Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa.

This is the second time the USDA has been sued over its approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa, which is genetically engineered (GE) to tolerate glyphosate, a popular herbicide commonly sold under the Monsanto brand name Roundup. The latest lawsuit, filed by groups like the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the National Family Farm Coalition, opens a new chapter in the five-year battle over the GE alfalfa seed developed by Monsanto and Forage Genetics.

Industry watchdogs and farmers say that Roundup Ready alfalfa will increase reliance on already overused herbicides like Roundup, encourage the spread of herbicide-resistant "superweeds" and contaminate organic and conventional alfalfa with Monsanto transgenes through cross-pollination.
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Cult

Wisconsin Church Members Charged With Abusing Infants


Lisa Holewa
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:35 UTC
Caminiti
© Dane County Sheriff's Office
Philip Caminiti, left, the pastor of Aleitheia Bible Church in Black Earth, Wis., and his brother, John Caminiti, 45, have been charged with a dozen counts of child abuse for allegedly using wooden rods to punish children.

The pastor and seven members of a small church in central Wisconsin have been charged with using wooden rods to spank infants as young as 2 months old for "being emotional, grumpy or crying," the Dane County Sheriff's office said.

The Aleitheia Bible Church, in the town of Black Earth, was started in 2006 with a donation in the range of $500,000-$600,000 from Bob and Lori Wick of nearby Mazomanie, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.

Lori Wick is the author of almost three dozen historical Christian novels with more than five million books in print, according to her Amazon profile. Reached by AOL News today by telephone at their home, Bob Wick said they "have no comment" on the case.
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Black Cat

Japan: Huge Radiation Spike at Nuclear Plant Was a Mistake

Mari Yamaguchi and Yuri Kageyama
AOL News
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:25 UTC
Tokyo -- Emergency workers struggling to pump contaminated water from Japan's stricken nuclear complex fled from one of the troubled reactors Sunday after reporting a huge increase in radioactivity -- a spike that officials later apologetically said was inaccurate.


The apology came after employees fled the complex's Unit 2 reactor when a reading showed radiation levels had reached 10 million times higher than normal in the reactor's cooling system. Officials said they were so high that the worker taking the measurements had withdrawn before taking a second reading.

On Sunday night, though, plant operators said that while the water was contaminated with radiation, the extremely high reading was a mistake.
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Wolf

Coverup and Complicity: The Mysterious Death of David Kelly: Doctors Challenge Cameron Government


Global Research
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:14 UTC
david kelly
© Unknown

David Kelly inquest plea made to David Cameron

A group of doctors campaigning for a full inquest for Dr David Kelly have appealed to Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene on their behalf.

The doctors have questioned Lord Hutton's 2004 verdict of suicide on the government weapons inspector.
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Evil Rays

International Cargo Ships Avoid Japan Ports


Press TV
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 11:20 UTC
Fukushima plant
© n/a
Fukushima nuclear plant before Japan quake
International shipping companies say their cargo ships will not enter Japan ports for the fear of radioactive contamination from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Many of the companies on Saturday avoided Tokyo Bay, which is home to two major ports of Tokyo and Yokohama,The New York Times reported.

Chinese officials had detected radioactive contamination in their cargo ship having sailed at least 80 miles farther from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that was damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Although some cargo ships enter ports south of Tokyo, many others have totally cancelled any shipment to Japanese ports until further notice.
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Bizarro Earth

Japan Radiation Killing Sea Life, Warning for Oregon Coast Fishing Industry

Dave Masko
Huliq
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 11:00 UTC
bike rider @ Newport, Or
© Dave Masko
A bike rider reports 'swirls of greasy sea water is washing up' along this stretch of Oregon beach this morning in Newport.
Newport, Ore. - While the U.S. Department of Energy said in public statements that there are "no significant quantities of radiological material" deposited on West coast beaches, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said it was time to reassess the international atomic safety regime; meanwhile, there's growing fears here in Newport and other West coast fishing communities that Japan's radiation will spread from its coast to here.

Japan crisis spawns new concerns about fish safety along West coast

As Japan's nuclear reactors continue leaking radiation into the atmosphere and, in turn, have obliterated centuries-old fishing ports in the Tsunami-hit city Kamaishi, this news has prompted growing fears here in Newport and other coastal fishing towns that radiation could find its way here. For example, a hard wind blowing post-Tsunami wind came sliding down over the Newport beach Saturday morning greeting a lone bike rider on usually packed beaches that are now filled socked in waste from Japan. The woman biker said she's fears rabid dogs that are roaming the low sand dunes called "denes" where toxic water and dead sea life collect along sandy tracks. And, this against a backdrop of zero Spring Break tourists being seen on what's traditionally the busiest Saturday of the early spring season.
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Heart - Black

US: Billionaire charged with child sex assault


Associated Press
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 07:36 UTC
Image
© Associated Press
Billionaire Curt Johnson, right, listens to defense attorney Michael Hart discuss bond recommendations, as he is charged with repeated child sexual assault March 24, 2011 in Racine, Wisconsin.
Prosecutors in Wisconsin say executive tied to SC Johnson empire molested girl up to 20 times, beginning after sixth grade

Racine, Wisconsin - A billionaire executive whose family has run SC Johnson for five generations was charged Thursday with having sexual contact with a now 15-year-old girl over the course of several years.

Samuel Curtis Johnson III, who goes by Curt, faces a count of repeated sexual assault of a child. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Johnson, 55, is the former chairman of Sturtevant-based Diversey Inc., a cleaning-products company that was spun off from SC Johnson in the late 1990s. Privately held SC Johnson makes household products including Pledge, Glade, Windex and Ziploc.
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