Is there a line to cross anymore? Is there a technology or bit of legislation to come down the pipeline where Americans will say "enough is enough" and decide they don't want to live in a totalitarian police state? I doubt it. Not only is the public entirely apathetic to government surveillance of their every move, but in so many instances, the sheeple embrace it more whole-heartedly than the tenets of the Constitution. The old, if you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide rhetoric being a complete brainwash of the average idiot drone.
In May, Utah lawmakers were surprised to learn that the US Drug
Enforcement Agency had worked out a plan with local sheriffs to pack the
state's main interstate highway, I-15, with Automated License Plate
Readers (ALPRs) that could track any vehicle passing through. At a
hearing of the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee,
the ACLU of Utah and committee members aired their concerns, asking such
questions as: Why store the travel histories of law-abiding Utah
residents in a federal database in Virginia? What about residents who
don't want anyone to know they drive to Nevada to gamble? Wouldn't drug
traffickers catch on and just start taking a different highway? (That's
the case, according to local reports.) The plan ended up getting shelved, but that did not present a huge
problem for the DEA because as it turns out, large stretches of highway
in Texas and California already use the readers. So do towns all over America. Last week Ars Technica reported that
the tiny town of Tiburon in Northern California is using tag reader
cameras to monitor the comings and goings of everyone that visits.
Despite the Utah legislature's stand against the DEA, local law
enforcement uses them all over the place anyway, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune . Big
cities, like Washington, DC and New York, are riddled with ALPRs.
According to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, ALPRs have become
so pervasive in America that they constitute a "covert national
surveillance grid." The civil liberties group has mapped the spread of
ALPRs, and contends on its Web site that, "Silently, but constantly, the
government is now watching, recording your everyday travels and storing
years of your activities in massive data warehouses that can be quickly
'mined' to find out when and where you have been, whom you’ve visited,
meetings you’ve attended, and activities you’ve taken part in." The group not only tracks the spread of the cameras but gives people
the tools to contest their installation, or at least bring it up with
their representatives. They're also pushing Congress to initiate
hearings "to determine just how vast and intrusive the network has
become." (The ACLU has also sent requests to local law enforcement
throughout the country to determine just how many places use the
technology and how.) AlterNet spoke with Carl Messineo, legal director of the Partnership
for Civil Justice Fund, about the spread of ALPRs, why the technology is
becoming increasingly centralized, and what you can do to have a say in
their proliferation. Tana Ganeva: What exactly are ALPRs and what do they look like? Carl Messineo: Tag readers are cameras that can be stationary,
mounted on poles or traffic signals. Also they can be put on cruisers
and vehicles. They can also be hidden. Their function is to take images
of passing vehicles, and they have an extraordinary capacity
technologically to be able to do so, and to use optical character
recognition to identify the license plate number. The images may include
optionally images of the occupants, the driver and passengers, as well.
It takes that data, along with the GPS location of the vehicle, the
date, the time, etc., and then stores it, matches up the data, and can
send it to a centralized data warehousing center where they can log,
historically, the movement of your own vehicle as it has passed through
and silently triggered any one of the many thousands of tag readers that
over the past few years have been put in place without very much public
discussion or debate.
In an age of technology run rampant, it's hard to keep up with what's actually going on, and the dangers that are out there. Everything from how Facebook quantifies everything you say and post through algorithms, to Disney manipulating how your children play video games.
Well, here is some food for thought, a nice shot of espresso for the sleepy sheeple...
As hard as it is to believe, what many might think is the last
bastion of total privacy, namely, the human mind, is quickly becoming just as vulnerable as the rest of our lives with the invention of mind-reading helmets and other ways to “hack” the mind. Now security researchers from the University of California,
Berkeley, the University of Oxford and the University of Geneva, have
created a custom program to interface with brain-computer interface
(BCI) devices and steal personal information from unsuspecting victims. The researchers targeted consumer-grade BCI devices due to the fact
that they are quickly gaining popularity in a wide variety of
applications including hands-free computer interfacing, video games and
biometric feedback programs. Furthermore, there are now application marketplaces – similar to the
ones popularized by Apple and the Android platform – which rely on an
API to collect data from the BCI device. Unfortunately with all new technology comes new risks and until now, “The security risks involved in using consumer-grade BCI devices have never been studied and the impact of malicious software with access to the device is unexplored,” according toa press release. Full article at link: http://endthelie.com/2012/08/17/hacking-the-human-brain-researchers-demonstrate-extraction-of-sensitive-data-via-brain-computer-interface/#axzz23unHt3hQ
A blue moon is the appearance of the third full moon in a season with four full moons. The term has also been used to refer to the second full moon in a month.[1] Most years have twelve full moons that occur approximately monthly. In addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains roughly eleven days more than the lunar year of 12 lunations. The extra days accumulate, so every two or three years (7 times in the 19-year Metonic cycle), there is an extra full moon. Lunisolar calendars have rules about when to insert such an intercalary or embolismic ("leap") month, and what name it is given; e.g. in the Hebrew calendar the month Adar is duplicated. The term "blue moon" comes from folklore. Different traditions and conventions place the extra "blue" full moon at different times in the year. In the Hindu calendar, this extra month is called 'Adhik(extra) masa (month)'. It is also known as purushottam maas, so as to give it a devotional name. -SOURCE
The myth of the "shrunken-head" has now been proved to be real through DNA.
Through the years, many skeptics have thought of the myth of the shrunken head as a circus stunt and carnival attraction. Many people never really believed that it was possible, or that anyone actually did shrink the decapitated heads of their enemies. Instead, skeptics chose to believe that these artifacts were merely a macabre "snake-oil" of sorts, made to stir the imagination and charm the coin from the pockets of the unwitting.
Although head-hunting has been a common practice in many parts of the world through the centuries, head-shrinking is only known to have been practiced in the northwestern region of the Amazon rainforest. The process is fairly well documented, but the idea of an actual shrunken-head has been thought to be fraudulent by many. While most have proven to be forgeries, as many as 20% of those traded are thought to be genuine. Trade for goods such has guns and even cash have fueled shrunken-head trade since the 1800's. Import to the U.S. was mad illegal in the 1940's.
While many people have accepted that there is at least some truth to the head-hunting mythology of the Amazon, others remained skeptical. Today, we have genetic proof that the "shrunken-head" is a legitimate phenomenon, making mythology more literal than imaginary.
A remarkably well-preserved shrunken head has just been authenticated by DNA analysis, which provides strong evidence that anecdotal accounts of violent head-hunting in South America were true.
The study, published in the latest issue of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, marks the first successful effort to unveil the genetic make-up of a shrunken head.
"The shrunken heads were made from enemies' heads cut on the battlefield," co-author Gila Kahila Bar-Gal told Discovery News. "Then, during spiritual ceremonies, enemies' heads were carefully reduced through boiling and heating, in the attempt to lock the enemy's spirit and protect the killers from spiritual revenge."
Approximately one-in-ten Americans are out of work right now, through no fault of their own. Many, many millions more are doing their best to get by on an impractical minimum wage, while taxpayers subsidize the labor costs of major corporations such as Wal-Mart. Why are there so many people out of work, why are so many people underpaid? It seems clear from examples like the following, that the American worker is destined to work for mere pennies a day, if they are to remain competitive.
Prison Industry Stealing U.S. Jobs
As if American businesses don’t have enough trouble competing with free traders, who exploit cheap labor in third world countries to make sizable profits, they are also fighting government-run corporations that pay prisoners pennies on the dollar to manufacture cheap goods and undercut private industry.
Is it any wonder that the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the industrialized world? According to a recent report on cable news, the U.S. government is using federal prison inmates to steal business away from civilian manufacturers by producing comparable merchandise for pennies on the dollar.
At the very heart of this scheme is Federal Prison Industries, or Unicor, a U.S. government-owned corporation that employs 13K prisoners at slave wages to produce everything from windbreakers to solar panels. Although the agency is currently restricted to selling their products exclusively to the federal government, they still cut into a major slice of several industrial markets.
Michael Mansh, owner-operator of Ashland Sales and Service, a Pennsylvania apparel manufacturer that does contract work for the U.S. Air Force (USAF), recently spoke with this AMERICAN FREE PRESS reporter about the impact Unicor has on many small businesses.
“I make certain products, and [Unicor] makes the identical product,” said Mansh. “They get paid higher prices than commercial manufacturers even though their labor rates range somewhere between 23¢ and $1.15 per hour. They don’t pay workers compensation,they don’t pay taxes and they don’t have to pay any of the benefits private enterprise has to pay—yet they get paid a higher price by Department of Defense than I do.”
This picture was posted by the California Department of Corrections to wish everyone a happy Independence Day, as these workers sewed flags for ten-cents an hour:
These inmates have a job, and you don't. These prisoners build Patriot missiles.
How totally and completely absurd. Don't even bother sending your kids to school folks. If they are this flippin' stupid, what could these educators possibly teach your children?
This situation certainly could have gone a lot worse. But while many people are commending the officer for his calm demeanor here, and touting this video as a "textbook" example of how an interaction of this nature should be conducted, the truth is that the police officer did in fact violate the rights of this citizen. Let's have a look at the video, and then I will discuss it further, point by point.
As the officer steps out of the car, the citizen announces that he is recording the encounter. This may seem confrontational, but if you are recording, you better damn well make that perfectly clear, lest you wind up like this news reporter.
And in this day and age, it is certainly a good idea to record every encounter with police. Just have a look at the Police-State section here to see hundreds of instances where police have done horrible things to people without cause. But this thread is not about bashing the police for the sake of bashing the police. Instead, it needs to be pointed out that even when it looks like the police are doing their job well, they are actually violating liberty and the law. That is what we have come to in America, that general society doesn't even recognize it anymore, when the government and their agents tread on our liberty.
The citizen is a bit of a wiseass, telling the cop where he should park. I don't think I would have bothered to tell the cop how to do his job in that instance, but at the same time, the kid does have a point. Police officers tend to have the mentality that they own the raod and don't have to follow any of the rules of the road. We have all seen it, the cop who speeds all over town and runs red lights while not on a call, or who parks in the fire lane in front of the coffee shop, etc. hardly crime of the century sort of stuff, but if you were to do it, you would pay a hefty fine. We see the same here. Granted, the officer was indeed conducting an investigation at that point and not just running into a store for a bagel, but there was no real reason for him to block that lane, especially not without some caution lights flashing. He doesn't even have his 4-ways blinking to caution traffic moving on the street, while forcing motorists to corss the yellow line, in an intersection, to move around him. Clearly he has created a road hazard and didn't have the courtesy to warn motorists of that hazard with the array of blinky-lights at his disposal. I suppose this is nitpicking though, so let's continue on.
The officer declares his intent to inspect the citizen's weapon, which is being carried over the shoulder and not concealed. It is perfectly legal to carry a weapon in this manner in most parts of the country, without any sort of permit, which is apparently the case in this jurisdiction as well. The officer bases his intent on a phone call from a concerned citizen, and the fact that the weapon outwardly appears to be similar to a fully-automatic weapon, which falls under a different legal code for carrying. What the officer fails to do however, is establish actual "probable cause" or a legitimate "reasonable suspicion" that the weapon is a machine gun being carried in violation of the law. For the officer to proceed, he must establish that the person has either committed a crime, or is in the process of committing a crime. The police can't simply place you under a state of arrest and search you because you "might" be a criminal. Now this really is the crux of the whole matter here, that the officer does not establish legal grounds to conduct this search and seizure.
Just because the weapon outwardly appears that it "might" be a fully automatic machine gun is not probable cause. Just because the weapon looks the same or similar to a model used by the officer's comrades in the SWAT unit, does not give him reasonable suspicion that it is in fact a fully automatic rifle. It is just as likely that the weapon is semi-automatic, an air-soft, or possibly even a non-operable replica. A person might "look" Mexican, but that doesn't mean that they are an illegal immigrant or give the police the right to stop and search them. A person might be wearing a t-shirt that says "I love marijuana" while purchasing a Phillie Blunt at a gas station, but that is not probable cause for an officer to conduct a stop and search. This is the same standard of evidence we are dealing with here, in this instance. It makes no difference that "guns are dangerous" or that there have been a string of nationally reported shootings that have put citizens on edge. The fact remains that the officer failed to establish probable cause.
A call from a concerned citizen is not probable cause in or of itself, unless they are reporting an actual crime. The officer's observation that the object "might" be an automatic weapon, is not reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred or that there is a crime in progress.
If the call from the concerned citizen was combined with some specific and credible information of a crime, that would be a different story. If, for example, the caller made a sworn statement that they were told by the subject that the weapon was fully automatic, and that the person was not authorized to carry such a weapon, that would establish probable cause. If a caller reported automatic weapons-fire in the area, that would be enough for probable cause on suspicion of an illegal discharge. But for the officer to order the subject to surrender his weapon for inspection simply based on his observation that it "looks like" it "might" be an automatic weapon is a violation of that citizen's right, and in essence, a violation of all of our rights as citizens, to carry a firearm. After all, any semi-automatic weapon can be made into a fully automatic weapon, and can thereby "look like" a machine-gun. Moreover, the officer had no way of knowing, even if it was an automatic weapon, that the subject was not legally allowed to carry such a firearm.
Now we will take it as granted in that jurisdiction a person with an automatic weapon must produce identification and/or related paperwork on demand, but the onus is still on the officer to show that the weapon is indeed an automatic before he conducts his search or renders his demand to invoke the permit obligations. Remember too, that we have a right to not self-incriminate. In other words, if that had turned out to be an automatic weapon being carried illegally, the suspect could not be charged with the crime, as the officer did not have a reasonable suspicion and the subject did not consent to the search. So not only is this a violation of our rights as citizens, it is a display of poor police-work in that the criminal would have gone free on a "technicality."
Here is a better example of a police stop and search of an open-carry advocate:
Notice how the officer in that video is proactive in expressing his authority and imposing his will, using his demeanor and speech as a sort of "Jedi mind control" skill. There is a key difference there though in this stop, as opposed to the one above. Did you notice it? It was subtle, but it makes all the difference in the world.
"I'm gonna check it for my safety before we go any further,okay?
That officer has achieved consent, or at least implied consent as the subject in that video does not refuse. In the top video however, the subject explicitly refuses to consent.
In one breath the officer is telling the subject he is going to issue a "lawful order" but when the subject refuses to consent to the search and seizure, the officer gives a time-out hand signal and states "stop with the rules."
Those rules happen to be the very rules he is sworn to uphold, as an officer.
When the subject asks if he is being detained, the officer replies "yeah." Which means that the subject is now under arrest, without reasonable suspicion of any crime. As was stated above, even if the weapon were fully automatic, that is not necessarily a crime. Which means that this officer has now conducted an unlawful arrest. (Keep in mind here folks, that being under arrest has nothing to do with being read your rights or having the cuffs slapped on like on TV. When you are not free to go, you are under arrest. Even in a minor traffic stop, for something as petty as a dirty license plate, you are technically under arrest for the duration of that traffic stop.)
The officer then goes on to state, "I'm not seizing anything," just as he is in fact seizing that young man's firearm without reasonable cause. Granted, the weapon is eventually returned, but the fact remains that the weapon was seized by a government agent, without reasonable suspicion of a crime. Just as the subject was placed under a state of arrest and released, so too was his weapon seized, or also "arrested" so to speak, before it was returned. What that boils down to is this. The officer, without reasonable suspicion of a crime, did forcefully disarm a peaceful citizen.
After an unlawful arrest and then an unlawful seizure, the officer conducts his unlawful search of the weapon itself, and then finally declares that based upon his own training and experience he "no longer has any reasonable suspicion to detain" the subject. But as we have already established, there was never any reasonable suspicion to begin with. The officer had no right to detain the subject, seize the weapon, or conduct the inspection.
The officer had every right to stop and talk to the subject. The officer had every right to inspect the weapon with consent. The officer had every right to demand proper paperwork if the weapon was in fact an automatic falling under those specific regulations for said weapon. But short of that, the officer had no right to place the subject under arrest and order a weapon-check any more than a police officer has the right to pull you over and search your car because it looks fast.
In summary here we see that the officer:
1) Made an unlawful arrest
2) Unlawfully seized private property
3) Disarmed a peaceful citizen by force (as the officer did not disarm himself)
4) Conducted an unlawful search
and
5) Would have set a genuine criminal free on a technicality due to his lack of professionalism, if there were a crime
Once the citizen's rights have been raped, and the police are ready to be on their way having stuck their junk all up in his personal business, they ask if the subject has any questions or concerns. This is much like the same dynamic we see from sexual "rapist guilt" after they have concluded their business. Often times, a sexual attacker will try to normalize relations after an attack, and try to befriend their victim in order to convince themselves, and the victim alike, that what just happened was not really a violation at all. That dynamic plays out here as well.
Once gain the subject asks how the officer knew it was a fully-automatic firearm, and he replies that it was based on his experience, when clearly his experience is flawed and inaccurate in making such an arbitrary determination. He knows this, and immediately shifts gears in order to flatter and befriend his victim now, by offering gifts and friendship. He tries to humanize himself to his victim, just like many sexual rapists do.
While the officer espouses his adherence to the virtues of the Second Amendment, he has utterly destroyed this young man's Fourth Amendment rights.
He then goes on to try to recruit the young man into the "league of rapists" with promises of training, and that they will even issue the young man a full-auto machine gun.
Now, finally, having said all of that, I want to toss this whole article on it's head in a way. In the interests of peace and public safety, I do expect our police officers to note unusual activity and to investigate possible dangers. I also commend that primary officer and his backup for not making up some sort of bullshit charge to legally harass the subjects. (Heh, I know, commending officer for not beating up a citizen and making false charges.) And while I do believe that his post-rape friendliness was self-serving on the one hand, it may still have been genui9ne enough that he would go out to the range with these guys and squeeze off some rounds.
But finally, at the end of the day, there is a right way to do things, and a wrong way. While I would not call for this officer to be criminally charged, or fired for his conduct necessarily, I do believe that this video is an example of what NOT to do as a police officer.
I don't even know where to begin with this. It would be scary enough to know that the government was developing this sort of technology, but to learn that a private company is doing this is downright scary. And not just any company, but Disney. The happy go-lucky good-times-for-everyone company is now at the leading edge of technology that could make the most devout skeptic of conspiracy shake in their boots.
To start, Disney is now developing technology that will manipulate the way children play video games, based on their gander and physical appearance.
In an age where Kinect and PlayStation Eye/Move are encouraging less
traditional interaction with video game consoles and cameras are a
mainstay in virtual everything, let alone most mobile devices, one man
at Disney Interactive sees video game systems moving even further from
the path of the familiar and letting the console games make their own
decisions based on — you guessed it — physical appearance.
Both
‘System and method for number of players determined using facial
recognition’ (US Patent Application 20120214585) and ‘Gender and age
based gameplay through face perception’ (US Patent Application
20120214584) list Phillippe Paquet as the sole inventor and offer to leverage existing technology in interesting ways.
As if it weren't creepy enough that Disney is planning to manipulate the way your children play video games, or even watch television, the technolgy being developed gets a whole lot more creepy. It's not just for kids folks. In this instance, we see that the technology is not just in development, but has already been deployed, in order to steal your credit card number, and who knows what else.
A software
engineer in my Facebook community wrote recently about his outrage that
when he visited Disneyland, and went on a ride, the theme park offered
him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit
card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never
entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or
indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to
who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional
experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He
had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared
that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently
shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.
Yes, I know: it sounds like a paranoid rant. Except that it turned out to be true. News21, supported by the Carnegie and Knight foundations,
reports that Disney sites are indeed controlled by face-recognition
technology, that the military is interested in the technology, and that
the face-recognition contractor, Identix, has contracts with the US
government – for technology that identifies individuals in a crowd. Full story here
Okay, way creepy. How much worse could it get? Some company stealing your credit card info. Aside from the far more nefarious aspects if this, just imagine for a moment that some kid manning that ride and bucking for a promotion decided to bill your credit card for a few pics that you had said "NO!" to. Good luck arguing that with your bank or even in court a month later when you get home from vacation. You will get charged the fee by this "trusted" company and that will be that.
Oh, but it does get worse my friend, much worse. What if they could not only charge your credit card, but suddenly actually BECOME YOU? Not only to rack up your credit card, but perhaps, let's say, to go out and become a gun-wielding madman? Wow, now that's totally far-fetched and unbelievable, right? Well guess again my friends. Yes they absolutely can, become you...
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (CBS Tampa) – Scientists
employed by the Walt Disney Company have developed technology that
allows them to replicate, with near perfect accuracy, the very versatile
human face.
Documents posted on the official Disney Research website details plans for what they refer to as physical face cloning. Click here for more
Of course, they are talking about using this technology to be applied to animatronics, which might make sense for Disney given their movie and character development. However, there is NOTHING that says this can't and won't be used by a live subject, and not just animatornic figures. Essentially, this technology makes it completely possible for one person to completely and realistically become another person. Especially when it comes to that person being recognized by surveillance cameras. Are you following me here?
Disney now has the technology to put a plastic face on a human being, that is completely life-like in every way. So lifelike, that surveillance cameras and even eyewitnesses would describe YOU as the culprit or character in any activity such as a bombing, mass-shooting, Manchurian Candidate election, or any number of nefarious ends.
This technology that we thought only existed in the imagination, in movies, is very very real. They can, at their will, take your credit card number, make a purchase to verify that you were there, and walk into a movie theater with YOUR FACE and shoot up a few dozen people. And of course, blame you for it. This is not fantasy, this is reality...
Now if all that is not enough to creep you out, I suggest you have a good look at the REAL face of this company called Disney...
China slams ‘war-addicted’ US
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[image: Preview] The Chinese defense ministry has accused the Pentagon of
fabricating false narratives in its latest report on Beijing’s military
threat
R...
Is OpenAI’s o3 Model AGI?
-
I doubt it’s actually AGI, but it looks impressive. If it’s any
consolation, they let it use a very nontrivial amount of compute to pull
this off. If/when ...
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The Hemp Industry / Staying Positive
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Air Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2020
Doug Fine discussed the many amazing properties of hemp. Followed by Eldon
Taylor on staying positive in the COVID-19 era.
The Alzheimer’s Drug that Might Unlock Your Dreams
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As excited as I get about the potentiality of psychedelic drugs, I get far
more amped about pushing the boundaries of dreams as I’m not sure there are
an...
DOJ Stumbles at Hearing on Detaining Immigrants
-
Criticizing an attorney for the government for arguing issues he never
raised in briefing, the First Circuit seemed likely at a hearing Wednesday
to u...
Mom Has Stacked Dinner Party Roster
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GOLDEN, CO—Their eyes widening in amazement as the 43-year-old rattled off
the names of heavy hitter after heavy hitter, impressed members of the
Dreesh...
