Mexico will on Monday become the first country to start using iris scans for identity cards, according to the government.
Iris recognition is increasingly used in airports, controlling access to restricted areas, and prisoner booking and release Photo: GETTY
The documents, which will include the eye’s image as well as fingerprints, a photo and signature, will be 99 per cent reliable, according to Felipe Zamora, who is responsible for legal affairs at the Mexican interior ministry.
“The legal, technical and financial conditions are ready to start the process of issuing this identity document,” Felipe Zamora, responsible for legal affairs at the Mexican Interior Ministry, told journalists Thursday.
Critics, including the National Human Rights Commission, have criticised the system, expressing concern that compiling personal data could violate individual rights.
The move will be introduced gradually, with some 28 million minors taking part in a first two-year stage, due to cost $25 million (£15.6 million).
“This entire scheme rests on the ability to link Internet presence/roles with real-world identities. So even if no physical card ever exists, the system as currently understood would very much equate to a national ID card for accessing the Internet.”
It’s been called the “Trusted Internet ID” scheme by some observers. It won’t matter what we choose to call the government’s proposed Internet licensing system because in the end we probably won’t have a say in it.
Earlier in the week we reported that the US Department of Commerce was preparing to create an Internet ID for all Americans. White House Cyber security Coordinator Howard Schmidt said that the Department of Commerce is “the absolute perfect spot in the US government” to build an online “identity ecosystem.”
Right off the bat I can tell you that attempting to force people to identify themselves on a national level doesn’t have much to do with the Department of Commerce’s official mission. We should all be feeling skeptical about this ID scheme.
Birgitta Jonsdottir, an MP for the Movement in Iceland, said last night on Twitter that the “USA government wants to know about all my tweets and more since november 1st 2009. Do they realize I am a member of parliament in Iceland?”
She said she was starting a legal fight to stop the US getting hold of her messages, after being told by Twitter that a subpoena had been issued. She wrote: “department of justice are requesting twitter to provide the info – I got 10 days to stop it via legal process before twitter hands it over.”
One of the worst things that is bound to happen in the next few years is the inevitable Big Government clampdown on the world’s last stronghold of free speech: the internet.
Reykjavik calls for explanation of Justice Department’s move to access account of politician caught up in WikiLeaks inquiry
Birgitta Jonsdottir – Iceland MP and former WikiLeaks collaborator. The US Justice Department is seeking access to her Twitter account as it tries to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks Photograph: Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images
The American ambassador to Iceland has been summoned to explain why US officials are trying to access the Twitter account of an Icelandic MP and former WikiLeaks collaborator.
Birgitta Jónsdóttir, an MP for the Movement in Iceland, revealed last week that the US justice department had asked Twitter to hand over her information. The US authorities are trying to build a criminal case against the website after its huge leaks of classified US information.
“[It is] very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official,” the interior minister, Ogmundur Jonasson, told Icelandic broadcaster RUV. “This is even more serious when put [in] perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people’s freedom in general,” he added.
Iceland’s foreign ministry has demanded a meeting with Luis Arreaga, the US ambassador to Reykjavík. No one at the US embassy in Reykjavík was available for comment.
The goal is to enhance online security and privacy through “trusted digital identities.”
The Obama Administration announced plans to develop an internet identity ecosystem that officials claim will reduce fraud and identity theft while streamlining online transactions.
The Obama Administration is committed to reducing Internet fraud by developing a comprehensive, national online identity strategy, United State Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said on Jan. 7. Cyber-security” and digital identity was a “national top priority” issue, said Locke.
Locke was joined by Howard Schmidt, the White House Cybersecurity coordinator, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University, where they outlined the framework for an “identity ecosystem” which will allow people to complete online transactions with confidence that their personal information was safe
Measure ‘happiness,’ look for ‘despondence and grumpiness,’ memo from administration official urges
(NBC News) —The Obama administration is telling federal agencies to take aggressive new steps to prevent more WikiLeaks embarrassments, including instituting “insider threat” programs to ferret out disgruntled employees who might be inclined to leak classified documents, NBC News has learned.
As part of these programs, agency officials are being asked to figure out ways to “detect behavioral changes” among employees who might have access to classified documents.
A highly detailed 11-page memo prepared by U.S. intelligence officials and distributed by Jacob J. Lew, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, suggests that agencies use psychiatrists and sociologists to measure the “relative happiness” of workers or their “despondence and grumpiness” as a way to assess their trustworthiness. The memo was sent this week to senior officials at all agencies that use classified material.
The memo also suggests that agencies take new steps to identify any contacts between federal workers and members of the news media. “Are all employees required to report their contacts with the media?” the memo asks senior officials about the policies at their agencies.
The memo is the latest step in a high-priority administration initiative begun in the wake of the WikiLeaks debacle. It has taken on potentially even more significance in recent days with the disclosure this week that Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, plans to investigate what policies the White House is implementing to prevent future leaks.
But in its efforts to root out the next Bradley Manning (the Army private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks), the administration may be misfiring, according to one national security expert.
“This is paranoia, not security,” said Steven Aftergood, a national security specialist for the Federation of American Scientists, who obtained a copy of the memo.
What the administration is doing, he added, is taking programs commonly used at the CIA and other intelligence agencies to root out potential spies and expanding them to numerous other agencies — such as the State Department, the Energy Department, NASA, Homeland Security and Justice — where they are unlikely to work.
The humiliations of the patdown policy, which Janet Napolitano wants to expand, are an Orwellian assault on American freedom
A TSA officer signals an airline passenger forward at a security checkpoint at Seattle-Tacoma international airport, Washington State. Photograph: Elaine Thompson/AP
The holiday brought bittersweet news: unless the Transportation Security Authority disbands, I’ll never see a certain friend of mine again. His long-term unemployment finally ended, and next month, he starts a great new job. But it’s in Texas, too far to drive; from my place in Connecticut to his new home in San Antonio is 2,000 miles – 500 more than separates London from Moscow.
As an American – that is, someone considered lucky to get seven consecutive days off work – the only way I could possibly travel such distance is to fly. But flying includes the legal obligation I submit to having my genitalia groped by some TSA thug wearing the same latex gloves already shoved down nine dozen other strangers’ underwear. There’s only two ways an American flyer can reliably avoid this: be rich enough to buy your own plane, or a high-ranking congressman or other VIP exempt from the indignities they inflict upon ordinary citizens.
The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts. She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone … I was touched in the pubic region in between my labia … She then moved her hand across my pubic region and down the inner part of my upper thigh to the floor. She repeated this procedure on the other side. I was shocked and broke into tears.
A woman named Chris said:
“In the four times she explored the area where my inner thigh met my crotch, she touched my labia each time, and one pass made contact with my clitoris, through two layers of clothing. I told her I felt humiliated, assaulted and abused … In my work as a nurse, if I did what the TSA did against a patient’s will it would be considered assault and battery, and I did not see how the TSA should have different rules.”
Recipients of such treatment aren’t allowed to show distress. Melissa from Massachusetts did anyway:
“I was shaking and crying the entire time. I was begging them to hurry up but they kept stopping and telling me to calm down. It is impossible to gain composure when a stranger has her hands in your underwear.”
I couldn’t. I know my limits: can’t sprout wings and fly, spin straw into gold, or ooze obedience toward anyone who’d treat me as the TSA treats Melissa, Mary, Chris and countless others. And once I said something rude – even an obscenity-free comment like “Have fun on your knees, sniffing my crotch like the dog that you are” [see top photo] – I’d be arrested on terrorism charges and the media would run sympathetic stories about poor TSA agents disliked for merely following orders. Self-described patriots would say “Disrespecting authority is unAmerican” and recommend harsh punishment for me.
Metropolitan Police face legal action for kettling children during tuition fees protest
Police hold protesters back during the demonstration over tuition fees and university funding on 24 November in London. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Scotland Yard is facing legal action over claims that officers “falsely imprisoned” and assaulted schoolchildren during a tuition fees protest in London last month.
In what is believed to be the first lawsuit taken against police in connection with the violence, lawyers from human rights group Liberty have notified the Metropolitan Police of legal action involving minors who suffered “inhuman and degrading treatment” during a protest on 24 November.
The organisation claims the treatment of children amounted to a breach of their human rights after they were “kettled” by officers during the demonstrations for up to nine hours in cold conditions, without food, and were denied medical help despite some of them suffering injuries, including at least two fractures.
The claim is on behalf of three young protesters, one of whom is a 15-year-old whose foot was broken after allegedly being struck by an officer when trying to leave a police kettle and who claims she was subsequently refused medical help. Another is a 17-year-old London student who became so distressed inside the “kettle” that her father said she came away suffering from shock. The third is Rory Evans, 19, whose ankle was broken during a crowd surge among protesters contained between police lines.
Lawyers believe the Met breached the European convention on human rights on at least four counts. The case is believed to be the first of what many observers believe could be a number against police over the protests.
The 15-year-old claimant, a GCSE pupil who was wearing her school uniform, describes how she became anxious while “kettled” and decided to go home. The teenager was climbing a gate to leave when an officer pulled her down and struck her.
A letter to Scotland Yard’s legal team states: “The police officer continued to pull her down, causing her to fall on to the floor. She picked herself back up and the police officer then hit her hard on her foot with a baton. She was then alone in the ‘kettled’ area and barely able to walk unassisted.” “She was extremely cold and frightened and in a great deal of pain,” the letter adds.
The 17-year-old, an A-level student, joined the protest and was kettled within 15 minutes of arriving in Whitehall. For six hours she unsuccessfully asked officers to allow her to leave because she was desperate to go to the toilet. At 6pm, portable toilets were delivered outside the “kettle”, but after the teenager was allowed to use them she was escorted back inside the crowd. She has described seeing a woman pleading to be released because she felt nauseous. Later she was escorted from the kettle, vomited by the side of the road and was taken back into the kettle without receiving any medical attention.
After seven hours police said she could leave when her father turned up.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Americans are now officially doomed, because I am sure that President Obama will sign the Food Safety Modernization Act into law.
Your government has taken away YOUR right to grow YOUR own food on YOUR own land, to save YOUR own seeds and to exchange YOUR produce with YOUR friends and neighbors!
Soon you will be treated like marijuana growers, if you grow tomatoes or salad on your own land.
Dr. Rima Laibow:
“This bill is the triumph of agri-bills”
“It is the industrialization tool for the entire US food supply”
“It brings all of Codex standards and guidelines into implementation”
“This bill means that no farmer can safe seed”
“If it does pass, you and I, our children, our loved ones will suffer and we will die”
Is there a solution?
1. Every American should start RIGHT NOW to plant an organic garden…
2. … and practice civil disobedience the way Gandhi did.
3. If the government raids your property, then you should be prepared for that by forming groups, that will sue the government for violating your constitutional rights.
4. If all legal options fail, then we need to remind the US government of the second amendment.
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” – Thomas Jefferson
Former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura:
5. If the US government will refuse to give us our constitutional rights back, turning itself into a fascist dictatorship, then we the people have the right to shoot the bastards.
(And you and I know that I’ve never used such strong words.)
“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion…. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms…. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
– Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William S. Smith (1787)
“All those who voted for S.510 — which includes the entire U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike — are traitors to the freedoms upon which America was founded.”
– Mike Adams
More information at the end of this important article…
(NaturalNews) The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2751 yesterday with a 216 to 144 vote (yes, many members of the House did not even vote). The so-called Food Safety Modernization Act now heads to the President to be signed into law.
When witnessing such a moment in history when the federal government greatly expands its power over an entire industry, it’s important to understand the Law of Unintended Consequences. Virtually everything bad that happens after a bill gets passed is due to this Law of Unintended Consequences.
On the surface, the intention behind the food safety bill seems innocent enough: Let’s all protect the food supply and prevent people from getting sick due to e.coli and salmonella exposure. But the reality of the result that emerges from the law is quite different.
Get ready for more dangerous, pesticide-ridden food from south of the border
Because the S.510 / HR 2751 food safety bill places an enormous new burden on U.S. farmers — yes, even small farms that are supposedly “exempt” — it’s going to drive many farmers out of business.
It will also erect new barriers to farmers entering the food production business, and this is especially true for the small local farmers who grow food for local co-ops, farmers’ markets and CSA organizations (Community Supported Agriculture). What we’re going to see from all this, then, is the following:
• A reduction in the available SUPPLY of fresh local produce.
• A loss of local farming know-how and food sustainability.
• The financial failure of CSAs, food co-ops and small local markets.
• The loss of countless jobs that were related to local food production.
• An INCREASE in the price of local food, especially organic food.
Food safety bill does nothing to address food imports
At the same time these huge regulatory burdens are thrust upon U.S. farmers, there are no new regulations required for food grown outside the United States.
This means that food coming into the USA from Mexico, Chile, Peru or anywhere else does not have to meet S.510 food safety regulations at all. The FDA, after all, doesn’t inspect greenhouses in Mexico or grape farms in Chile which export their products to the United States.
Furthermore, many dangerous chemical pesticides that have been banned in the USA are legal to use elsewhere, and foods treated with those pesticides are perfectly legal to import into the United States. So instead of buying food grown in the United States on small, organic farms, more U.S. consumers are going to be buying food grown elsewhere that’s treated with extremely toxic pesticides.
Here are some of the unintended consequences of all this:
• An INCREASE in the importation of fresh produce from other countries.
• A worsening of the agricultural trade imbalance between the U.S. and other nations.
• An INCREASE in the pesticide contamination of fresh produce sold at U.S. grocery stores.
• An INCREASE in agriculture jobs in Mexico, Chile, Peru and elsewhere, even while agriculture jobs are lost in the USA.
• A DECREASE in the overall safety of the food supply because now the proportion of foods imported from foreign countries with little or no regulatory oversight will greatly expand compared to U.S. grown foods.
In effect, then, what Congress has done is impaired the competitiveness of U.S. farms, shifted farming jobs out of the country, increased the pesticide residues in fresh produce sold in U.S. grocery stores and harmed local food security and sustainability by driving small, local farmers out of business.
Such is the nature of the Law of Unintended Consequences. And such is the nature of just about everything that Big Government tries to do when it threatens to “solve problems” by expanding its regulatory control over almost any industry.
We need food security in America
What Congress fails to understand is that we need food security far more than we need more FDA regulations. The knowledge base of local farmers who know how to grow, harvest and distribute food is far more valuable to the security of our nation than preventing a relatively small number of people from getting sick from e.coli each year (even if such a trade-off were a simplistic equation, which it isn’t). Because if we lose food security, then we become slaves to the big corporate food producers who are attempting to centralize food production and place food, seeds and crops under their absolute control.
A cynic might even suggest that was the whole purpose of the food safety bill in the first place: To destroy small farmers and centralize food production power in the hands of a few wealthy corporations. Whether that was the intent or not, it is certainly going to be the effect.
What Congress has done with this food safety bill, in effect, is to cripple America’s food production know-how and poison the population with far more dangerous pesticide-ridden produce that will now be imported from other countries instead. This bill should have been called the “Mexico Farming Jobs Act” because it’s going to shift countless jobs south of the border as farms in the USA realize they simply can’t operate under the immense burden of FDA regulatory tyranny.
What’s the definition of insanity?
It all makes you wonder what the members of Congress are really thinking. Don’t they ever step back and attempt to consider the real-world ramifications of their actions?
Time and time again, the U.S. government seems to do the opposite of what would reasonably be required to solve problems. Think about it: When the U.S. government wanted to stop Wall Street bankers and investment firms from wasting money, it simply handed them a few trillion dollars in new money so they could waste more.
When the government wanted to end debt spending, it spent more debt money out of the foolish belief that you can somehow end your debt by going deeper into it.
When the government claimed it would reduce your health care costs and cover everyone with health insurance, it passed a sick-care law that has only seen health care costs spiraling out of control while insurers cancel policies and end coverage for many children.
And now, the government claims to be making your food safer even though the real impact of the new law will be to make your food far more dangerous while destroying U.S. farming jobs.
This is why those who really know government also know that they who govern best govern the least. Instead of trying to “fix” all the nation’s problems by meddling with the actions of hard-working people trying to make a living (such as organic farmers), the government needs to simply get out of the way and let farmers produce their food without the heavy regulatory burden of the FDA — an agency that we know is frequently engaged in actions that can only be called criminal in nature (http://www.naturalnews.com/030461_S…).
Get ready for skyrocketing food prices in 2011 – 2013
With the passage of this food safety bill, I am now publicly predicting skyrocketing food prices over the next two years. We will see fresh, local produce become increasingly more expensive and more difficult to acquire. Many local farmers will shutter their businesses, and farming know-how will be lost for perhaps a generation. The damage that will be done to America’s food security and agricultural base is incalculable.
Such is the price we shall all pay for allowing our representatives in Washington to once again violate our Natural Right to grow food and exchange it for goods or cash with our neighbors. The reason this Natural Right was never even mentioned in the US Constitution, by the way, is because the right to grow your own food without government interference is such an obvious “Natural Right” (a God-given right, or a right that is self-evident) that our forefathers never imagined such a right would be infringed by the federal government.
Or if a right were ever infringed by the federal government, our forefathers were certain that the citizens of the United States of America would exercise their other Constitutional rights to nullify the attempted overreaching authority of the federal government and thereby restore their freedoms. Sadly, such a solution does not work when the majority of the population is lulled into a false sense of freedom by a government that deliberately lies to them on a daily basis. Freedom does not exist with the vast majority of the population has no interest in defending it.
Vegetable gardeners can learn something from marijuana growers
Better buy yourself some heirloom seeds while you have the chance. Plant your stealth garden and cover it with camouflage so the government can’t see it and order you to destroy it. Soon, backyard vegetable gardeners will need to operate like marijuana growers and start hiding their food from government’s prying eyes.
No doubt the U.S. federal government will start using spy satellites to identify “unregistered gardens” that will be targeted for termination. Soon, small farmers may even be raided by armed FDA agents who terrorize their operations and seize cabbages. Seriously.
It sounds crazy today, I know. But a decade ago, no one thought the government would ever outlaw raw cow’s milk and arrest ranchers for selling milk to their neighbors, and that’s now happening on a regular basis.
In five years, FDA farm raids may be routine. That is, if there’s anything left of the federal government (as we know it) in five years.(Actually the only good news is that the US will collapse as planned by the elite before those traitors can take away your own food. – Infinite) I’m not sure how long they can keep up the financial house of cards, frankly. Always remember this enlightening fact: The entire federal government is just one paycheck away from collapse. I wonder how long FDA inspectors will keep harassing farmers if their paychecks stop? Remember, FDA employees have no loyalty to anything other than their paychecks. Once the money from Washington stops, the army of FDA mercenaries collapses virtually overnight.
And the resilient farmers of America will win in the end, I have no doubt. If I had to choose to live on a deserted island with either ten North Carolina farmers or ten FDA bureaucrats, the choice would be a no-brainer. Farmers can keep you alive. FDA bureaucrats will only stab you in the back, steal your coconuts, and refuse to do any actual work on their own.
They are, after all, parasites who feed on taxpayer dollars and lend nothing of value to society. If the FDA actually did anything useful at all, it would have banned mercury fillings to protect the public from mercury toxicity (http://www.naturalnews.com/030741_m…).
Unfortunately, the majority of Urbanites have been fooled into believing environmental propaganda.
Urbanites comprise a large voting block
Most Americans don’t understand the Constitution
Most Americans are unaware of the limited powers of the federal government, so a monumental power grab has resulted
SOLUTIONS:
We all want a healthy planet with plenty of vegetation and animals. When these organisms become threatened or endangered, and it is a result of human interaction, then it is caused by society, not one landowner. Therefore, it is society’s responsibility to make amends, the liability does not fall on the shoulders of independent landowners. If an area is needed to rehabilitate a species, the landowner should be justly compensated. This solution also benefits society, in that the protection of the species is more secure.
Property ownership is important, not only for landowners, but because property ownership extends to all of your possessions, your intellectual property and all the way to your very body. If private property ownership is abolished, imagine the eventual impact on property rights.
Watch Dr. Michael Coffman’s ‘Taking Libberty’ in its entirety here. This is an excellent explanation of how the the government plans to tke over private property; Dr. Coffman also discusses how it is happening in your region.
RALEIGH — Next month, 13 law enforcement agencies in the region will begin using a new handheld device that lets an officer scan a person’s fingerprints and seek a match in an electronic database – all without going anywhere.
Police say taking fingerprints in the field will allow them to work more efficiently and safely. But the ACLU North Carolina in Raleigh worries that the device may allow officers to violate privacy rights.
The ACLU is concerned about what will become of fingerprint scans that are sent to other databases, such as the National Crime Information Center.
Carolina Hurricanes vs Washington Capitals 12/26
“Part of the danger is the idea of the government creating a database on its citizens,” said Sarah Preston, policy director for ACLU North Carolina. “Citizens should be allowed some degree of privacy.”
But those concerns are unwarranted, said Sam Pennica, director of the City-County Bureau of Identification, the agency that processes fingerprints in Wake County and is providing the devices to local agencies. The software for the device, known as Rapid Identification COPS Technology, would not store fingerprints of any individuals, even those charged with a crime, Pennica said.
“It will not retain the fingerprints of any individuals under any circumstances,” he said, adding that fingerprints would only be compared to those in the Wake County database. “They will not be submitted to any state or federal agency.” (Sure! Watch former Governor Jesse Ventura and let’s see if you still believe this.)
California is giving the green light to allowing video cameras to be mounted onto vehicle windshields in an attempt to improve road safety.
WASHINGTON – Rearview cameras could become more common in future cars and trucks under rules proposed by the government Friday to address concerns about drivers unintentionally backing over children.
The new requirements from the Transportation Department are intended to improve rear visibility in cars by the 2014 model year. Most carmakers would comply by installing rear-mounted video cameras and in-vehicle displays. The government estimated that video systems would add about $200 to the cost of each new vehicle.
Congress in 2008 set in motion the safety upgrades in response to dozens of accidents in which children were backed over. At issue in particular were blind zones in large sport utility vehicles and pickups.
“There is no more tragic accident than for a parent or caregiver to back out of a garage or driveway and kill or injure an undetected child playing behind the vehicle,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. He said the changes would “help drivers see into those blind zones directly behind vehicles to make sure it is safe to back up.”
Nearly 300 people are killed and 18,000 injured each year because of backovers, according to data kept by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Many happen in driveways and parking lots. Nearly half the deaths involve children under age 5, and the crashes also affect the elderly.
The agency estimated that the requirements annually could save 95 to 112 lives and prevent more than 7,000 injuries. (Sure!)
BANNED EPISODE 43 MINS Complete Full Length. Great Quality, Share!
It only aired once then taken down ..
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, “The Police State” Conspiracy”
Season 2, Episode 4
S02E04
It’s been said the government has a plan to declare martial law and round up millions of United State citizens into concentration camps. Jesse may have found a conspiracy in plain sight as he investigates the proliferation of law enforcement Fusion Centers around the country. And they may be connected to hundreds of detention centers ready to accept prisoners at the stroke of a Presidential pen. TV-PG-L
Why is “free trade at any expense” reserved only for multi-national corporations? Why is every other sector of the economy supposed to be allowed to engage in a free-for-all at the entire countries expense, but when it comes to family and independent agriculture there are literally hundreds of thousands of regulations, limitations, rules, and requirements, licensing, and forfeiture of rights, spanning multiple agencies who spend the bulk of their funding on “enforcement” of what usually amounts to nothing less than an interference in trade, profit and viability and which many times constitute an open assault on Constitutionally protected property and individual rights.
I can only imagine the salivating occurring behind the scenes in the District of Criminals, as the corporations and interested parties including the World Trade Organization, Codex Committees and other vested stakeholders anticipate the passage of S.510, the fake food safety bill. Should this bill pass, we as a country will be officially divested not only of our sovereignty but of our independence. No country in the history of the world has survived for long without a strong and independent agricultural sector. Take that away, and the fall of the country soon follows. No nation that cannot, or will not, feed its own people, ever survives. Independent agriculture is and always has been the backbone and the underlying support for economic stability and security. It is this support and security that S.510 seeks to destroy.
S.510 is not about food safety; it is however the last lynchpin in the seizure of food production and supply that was begun under Bush the Lesser. Control the food; control the people.
This same model envisioned in S.510 was used in recent years in Poland. An estimated 60% of Polish farms are now gone. In India, more than 8 million farmers have left their farms as a result of similar systems implemented by the World Trade Organization on behalf of bio-pirates of all kinds. Here in the US an estimated 1/3 of all farms that existed in 2000, have now vanished. We are, according to farmaid.org , losing 3-500 farms and ranches every week as the industrialized corporate machine being driven by congress and its agencies rolls across our land. Food safety never was the issue. Food as a Weapon is another story.
S.510 is set up to increase and subsidize exporting of our food production. With a food crisis building around the world and economists and geo-political prognosticators of all stripes predicting a massive food shortage, why in the world would our congress be contemplating passing a bill that expands and increases exports of our food products? Wouldn’t the rational and logical strategy be:
to reduce exports,
stockpile as much grain in strategic reserve as possible, (USDA sold our strategic reserve in 2008)
strategic reserves of dairy commodities especially in the Western States where USDA claims there is a glut of dairy
reinforcement of local producers who can keep their surrounding communities supplied with fresh produce and meats
Subsidies for farmers markets which would not only encourage the entry into produce production but would also help to boost the economies of the communities
Re-establish the strategic reserves of grains and other commodities and make this irrevocable
Make export possible only if and when adequate supplies are built up to back up the US
Once surplus levels are established, allow export only at levels beyond this.
Limit imports to only those products we cannot produce here, such as various tropical fruits.
(NaturalNews) If there’s one thing to give thanks for this year, it’s the fact that the Senate floor vote on the so-called “Food Safety Modernization Act” has been delayed until after the Senate’s Thanksgiving recess. This gives all of us — the commonsense opponents of S.510 who don’t want the FDA having authority over raw milk, seeds and backyard gardens — another week to flood the offices of U.S. Senators with calls, faxes and emails that express opposition to the bill.
The jury is still out on the Tester-Hagan Amendment which would exempt small farmers from some of the more tyrannical requirements under the law. If this amendment were adopted, it would substantially improve the bill, but even with this amendment, the bill is just another overreaching expansion of Big Government into yet another area of incompetence. (If the government can’t run health care worth a darn, how are they supposed to manage the entire food supply?)
The 1099 paperwork amendment
As part of this debate over the safety of the food supply, Sen Mike Johanns is making a courageous attempt to kill the new, idiotic 1099 reporting requirement that would require every person running a small business in America to get 1099 forms from Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Costco, Amazon.com or any other retailer where they’ve spent over $600 in the previous year.
This absolute nightmare of 1099 paperwork was passed as part of the Obamacare health care reform legislation earlier this year (http://www.naturalnews.com/028854_1…). It will turn America’s small business owners into paperwork pack rats and criminalize anyone who doesn’t spent several hundred hours a year chasing 1099 forms from corporations that are almost certain to refuse to give them to you. This is the government’s way of penalizing small business owners in America and killing off yet more jobs as a way to destroy the economy.
This 1099 recall is the only real positive thing being considered in the Food Safety and Modernization Act. And as you’ve probably noticed, it has nothing to do with food.
US airport security is facing growing anger from the public at new anti-terrorism screening procedures considered invasive and harmful.
A software engineer has gained national notoriety after posting an internet blog item saying he had been ejected and threatened with a fine for refusing a groin check after turning down a full-body scan at San Diego airport.
The passenger, John Tyner, said he told a Transportation Security Administration agent: “If you touch my junk, I’m going to have you arrested.”
Tyner’s individual protest quickly became an internet sensation, but questions also came from travel business groups, civil liberties activists and pilots, raising concerns both about the procedures themselves and about the possibility of delays caused by passengers reluctant to accept the new procedures.
Thanksgiving Day, a harvest festival, is the fourth Thursday in November in the United States, and marks one of the busiest travel weeks of the year.
Across the country passengers are simmering over being forced to choose scans by full-body image detectors or probing pat-downs. Top federal security officials said that the procedures were safe and necessary sacrifices to ward off terror attacks.
“It’s all about security,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. “It’s all about everybody recognising their role.”
This is unconstitutional and violates your basic human right to grow your own food!
This is treason!
“The greatest danger to American freedom is a government that ignores the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson
“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion…. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms…. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Your help is needed to halt the tyrannical new “S.510” U.S. Senate bill that could criminalize saving seeds and outlaw backyard garden food production. It is being called “the most dangerous bill in the history of the United States of America.”
(NaturalNews) Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, has been called “the most dangerous bill in the history of the United States of America.” It would grant the U.S. government new authority over the public’s right to grow, trade and transport any foods. This would give Big brother the power to regulate the tomato plants in your backyard. It would grant them the power to arrest and imprison people selling cucumbers at farmer’s markets. It would criminalize the transporting of organic produce if you don’t comply with the authoritarian rules of the federal government.
“It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” – Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower (http://shivchopra.com/?page_id=2)
This tyrannical law puts all food production (yes, even food produced in your own garden) under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security. Yep — the very same people running the TSA and its naked body scanner / passenger groping programs.
This law would also give the U.S. government the power to arrest any backyard food producer as a felon (a “smuggler”) for merely growing lettuce and selling it at a local farmer’s market.
It also sells out U.S. sovereignty over our own food supply by ceding to the authority of both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Codex Alimentarius.
It would criminalize seed saving (http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/20…), turning backyard gardeners who save heirloom seeds into common criminals. This is obviously designed to give corporations like Monsanto a monopoly over seeds.
It would create an unreasonable paperwork burden that would put small food producers out of business, resulting in more power over the food supply shifting to large multinational corporations.
I encourage you to read more about this dangerous bill at the Food Freedom blog on WordPress: http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/20…
S.510 in more detail:
In addition, the Cornucopia Institute recently sent out an urgent call-to-action email containing the following information: (http://www.cornucopia.org/2010/11/a…)
1) Go to Congress.org and type in your zip code in the box in the upper right hand corner.
2) Click on your Senator’s name, and then on the contact tab for their phone number. You can also call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121.
3) Once connected ask to speak to the legislative staff person responsible for agriculture. If they are unavailable leave a voice mail message. Be sure to include your name and phone number.
Give them this message in support of the “Tester Amendment” which would exempt small farms from S.510:
“I am a constituent of Senator___________. I ask that he/she support the Tester Amendment to the food safety bill. The Tester Amendment will exempt the safest, small, owner-operator farms and food facilities and farmers who direct market their products to consumers, stores or restaurants. Food safety legislation should not create inappropriate and costly regulatory barriers to family farms and the growing healthy food movement in the drive to crack down on corporate bad actors. Please support the Tester Amendment and market opportunities for small and mid-sized family farms, and small food processing facilities.”
You may also wish to explain that you oppose the Food Safety Modernization Act in its entirety, and it is a destructive, freedom-crushing law that will destroy the future of food in America.
Remember, America has already lost control over its money supply to the Federal Reserve (nearly a hundred years ago). America has lost its health due to the medical industry and its profit-from-sickness agenda. Now we may lose our right to grow our own food and save our own seeds if Senate Bill 510 passes.
This is a dangerous, tyrannical law that would thrust the American people into an age of darkness and malnutrition. It would criminalize many of the very people growing our food and turn food production into yet another corporate monopoly.
Please take the time right now to contact your U.S. Senator and voice your strong opposition to this bill.
Law enforcement agencies are digging deep into the social media accounts of applicants, requesting that candidates sign waivers allowing investigators access to their Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter and other personal spaces.
Some agencies are demanding that applicants provide private passwords, Internet pseudonyms, text messages and e-mail logs as part of an expanding vetting process for public safety jobs.
More than a third of police agencies review applicants’ social media activity during background checks, according to the first report on agencies’ social media use by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the largest group of police executives. The report out last month surveyed 728 agencies.
“As more and more people join these networks, their activities on these sites become an intrinsic part of any background check we do,” said Laurel, Md., Police Chief David Crawford.
Privacy advocates say some background investigations, including requests for text message and e-mail logs, may go too far.
“I’m very uneasy about this,” says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Where does it all stop?”
Emails and mobile phone text messages would be stored for six months by internet service providers (ISPs), according to a bill presented by the Swedish government on Thursday to bring the country in line with EU dataretention rules.
Critics have come down hard on the proposal, which would compel telephone and broadband providers to retain electronic data for six months, the shortest possible time in accordance with EU directives.
Justice Minister Beatrice Ask explained that the bill is concerned about privacy when she presented the legislative proposal on Thursday.
“The proposal means that the information can only be disclosed for crime-fighting purposes,” Ask said a news conference.
The government has proposed that the law come into force on July 1st, 2011. It is part of the introduction of the disputed EU Data Retention Directive.
The directive would force member states to legislate the storage of telephone calls, text messages, email and other internet traffic. The aim is to prevent and solve crimes.
The Data Retention Directive has been severely criticised by those who believe that such rules restrict privacy protection and create a surveillance society.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announces legislation, designed to help law enforcement and national security agencies tackle internet crime, in Ottawa on Monday. (CBC)
The federal Conservatives have reintroduced legislation that would allow police and intelligence officials to intercept online communications and get personal information from internet service providers (ISPs) about their subscribers without first obtaining a warrant.
“New and evolving technologies provide new ways of committing crimes, making them harder to investigate,” said Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, while announcing the legislation in Ottawa. “Criminals continue to find new ways to evade the law. Our Criminal Code and other federal legislation must be updated.”
Together, the two bills will help target child sexual predators, distributors of pornography and identity thieves, added Dave MacKenzie, parliamentary secretary to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. The bills would also aim to disrupt those who would use the internet to plan terrorism.
The Investigative Power for the 21st Century Act would:
Allow police to identify all network nodes and jurisdictions involved in data transmission and trace the communications back to a suspect.
Force ISPs to keep data temporarily so that it isn’t lost or deleted before law enforcement agencies return with a search warrant or production order to obtain it.
Make it illegal to possess a computer virus for the purpose of committing a criminal offence.
Enhance international co-operation to help Canadian authorities investigate alleged crime that goes beyond its borders.
Its partner, the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act, would:
Force ISPs to install interception systems in their networks, making it easier for law enforcement or national security agencies to intercept information.
Provide police with “timely access” to personal information about subscribers, including names, address and internet addresses, without the need for a warrant.
Concerns about civil liberty
The bills have the “strong and united support” of police chiefs across Canada, said Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who was also present at the announcement.
While “the overwhelming majority” of internet providers co-operate already with police, “at the current time they don’t have legislative authority to co-operate with us,” he said.
When asked to provide an example in which the legislation could be helpful, Blair pointed to cases of child pornography.
Often, those distributing such pornography shield their identities by sharing information through a variety of networks, Blair said, adding that the new legislation could help law enforcement agencies pierce through those shields more easily.
“The mandated disclosure of personal information” by ISPs is a major concern, said Michael Geist, a law professor who holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa.
“That type of approach is open to abuse, and I don’t think it strikes the right balance,” Geist told CBC News. “There is a significant price to be paid, and sadly, scant evidence that a) we’ve got a problem, and b) that this is going to do very much about it.”
“If you were serious about dealing with cyber crime … it’s not new legislation that’s needed. It‘s the resources for law enforcement that’s needed.”
Daniel Petit, Nicholson’s parliamentary secretary, said the legislation “addresses Canadians’ privacy concerns by including strict privacy safeguards.” In the case of the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, that includes stricter requirements for obtaining judicial authorization to obtain data relating to suspect’s location, he said.
Numerous attempts
This is the fourth time this type of legislation has been introduced.
Nicholson introduced the same legislation on June 18, 2009. It died after Prime Minister Stephen Harper suspended Parliament in on Dec. 30, 2009 in advance of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Similar bills were also launched previously by the Harper government, as well as by the Liberal Party under then prime minister Paul Martin. The legislation stalled on both occasions.
Nicholson acknowledged “it has been difficult” to get the legislation passed, but said he is buoyed by the new composition of the Senate, where Conservatives hold 52 of 105 seats.
“I’m confident we can move forward and get this bill passed,” he said.
Last Updated: Monday, November 1, 2010 | 6:24 PM ET
As an antiterror measure, the US government has deployed mobile X-ray technology to randomly scan cars and trucks. But the measure is riling privacy proponents.
Using the Z Backscatter Van, officials detected drugs hidden in the body of this pickup truck. Business Wire/File
For many living in a terror-spooked country, it might seem like a great government innovation: Use vans equipped with mobile X-ray units to scan vehicles at major sporting events, or even randomly, for bombs or contraband.
But news that the US is buying custom-made vans packed with something called backscatter X-ray capacity has riled privacy advocates and sparked internet worries about “feds radiating Americans.”
“This really trips up the creep factor because it’s one of those things that you sort of intrinsically think the government shouldn’t be doing,” says Vermont-based privacy expert Frederick Lane, author of “American Privacy.” “But, legally, the issue is the boundary between the government’s legitimate security interest and privacy expectations we enjoy in our cars.”
American Science & Engineering, a Billerica, Mass.-company, tells Forbes it’s sold more than 500 ZBVs, or Z Backscatter Vans, to US and foreign governments. The Department of Defense has bought the most for war zone use, but US law enforcement has also deployed the vans to search for bombs inside the US, according to Joe Reiss, a company spokesman, as quoted by Forbes.
On Tuesday, a counterterror operation snarled truck traffic on I-20 near Atlanta, where Department of Homeland Security teams used mobile X-ray technology to check the contents of truck trailers. Authorities said the inspections weren’t prompted by any specific threat.
The mobile X-ray technology works by bouncing narrow X-ray streams off an object like a car and then analyzing the scatter rate of the returning rays. Operators can then locate less-dense objects that could be bodies or bombs.
Backscatter X-ray is already part of an ongoing national debate about its use in so-called full body scanners being deployed in many US airports.
In that case, US officials have said they will not store or share the images and will use masking technology to avoid revealing details of the human body.
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