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Saturday, June 08, 2019
'1984,' George Orwell's classic dystopian nightmare was published 70 years ago. Here are 5 eerie predictions that came true.
Bill Bostock
6m
In 1949 George Orwell penned his dystopian fiction classic "1984."
It depicted a dark future where technology exists in the public realm only as a tool for the elite to control society.
Sound familiar? In the 70 years since, much of what Orwell imagined has come to fruition, including facial recognition, auto-transcription, and music made by AI.
Here's all 5 inventions that have come true.
In 1949, British author and essayist George Orwell wrote of a future where a global despotic power controlled the people of Oceania with surveillance and propaganda. This was "1984."
It depicted a dark future where technology exists in the public realm only as a tool for the elite to control society.
But while the book is a work of dystopian fiction, some of the technological innovations that it predicted have come true in the 70 years since it was published.
Here's a look at some of the things that "1984" got right.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Sunday, August 13, 2017
It's 1984 at Google
David Limbaugh
|
Posted: Aug 11, 2017 12:01 AM
Google's firing of software engineer James Damore for daring to express politically incorrect ideas in an internal memo is the latest example of the political left's tyrannical propensity to suppress speech, thought and dissent.
Almost as troubling as the left's policing is its apparent obliviousness toward its own hypocrisy and the danger it poses to the liberal exchange of ideas. While constitutional issues may not be involved in the Google case because no state action is involved, moral shaming has become a chilling cudgel in the hands of leftist-dominated institutions.
In his memo, Damore notes that Google's political bias silences dissenting opinion supposedly to shield employees from offensive ideas and protect their psychological safety. "But shaming into silence," writes Damore, "is the antithesis of psychological safety. This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed."
Damore concedes that all people have biases but that open and honest discussion can highlight these biases and help us grow. He says he wrote the memo to encourage such a discussion about Google's biases, a discussion that is being silenced by "the dominant ideology."
Damore opines that both the political left and right have moral biases. "Only facts and reason can shed light on these biases," he says, "but when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google's left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence. This silence removes any checks against encroaching extremist and authoritarian policies."
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
The New, Improved 1984
(August 12, 2013)
The new, improved version of 1984 is based on complicity.
George Orwell's prescient book 1984 envisioned a technologically enabled authoritarian state of ubiquitous surveillance, propaganda and fear that constantly rewrote history to suit the needs of the present regime. Published in 1949, 1984 took the totalitarian templates of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and extended them into a future where the state employed technology to perfect not only control of the populace via police state repression but control of their minds via propaganda extolling the state and revising "facts" to support the current party line.
Welcome to the new, improved 1984, America 2013.
Ubiquitous surveillance: check.
Ubiquitous propaganda extolling the state and central bank: check
Perpetual fear-mongering: check
Perpetual war against an unseen enemy who can never be defeated: check
Police state with essentially unlimited powers to suppress "enemies of the state": check
Continual revision of history to support the current party line: check.
Have you noticed that every key metric of the economy is constantly being revised, rewriting history and installing a shiny new set of "facts"? In a recent podcast I recorded with Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity, Chris pointed out that downward revisions in economic data are made only when the data point is safely over the horizon of history; that the U.S. GDP dipped into negative numbers in 2011 was masked at the time with the usual ginned-up positive numbers, and revised down to an approximation of reality years later when the reality has zero impact on the public perception of the state-managed "recovery."
The "headline number" is always positive, and its downward revision buried in an avalanche of new data. The revisions are so constant and so extreme that the recognition of this constant revision of history to suit the political needs of the current regime has been numbed; everyone knows the numbers are intended to paint a positive picture of a devolving, fragile economy and society, but we prefer this propaganda illusion to the harsh reality.
Why? Because half of us are getting a direct check, benefit or payment from the state. Over 61 million people get a check from Social Security, over 50 million draw Medicare benefits, another 50 million get Medicaid benefits, 47 million receive SNAP food stamp benefits, 22 million people work directly for the state on all levels, millions more work for government contractors that are effectively proxies of the state, millions more receive Federally funded extended unemployment, retirement checks, Section 8 housing benefits, and so on.
Orwell underestimated the power of complicity. Once a citizen receives a direct payment from the state, the state has purchased their complicity, for no matter how much that citizen may complain privately about the state, he or she will never risk the payment/benefit by resisting the state in a politically meaningful way.
Once you get a check from the state, you begin loving your servitude. The collusion of the state and its central bank is truly a thing of authoritarian beauty: the central bank (the Federal Reserve) creates money out of thin air and buys government bonds with the new money. The state can thus borrow unlimited sums at low rates of interest, and continue to send tens of millions of individual payments out to buy the passivity and complicity of its citizens.
The state is great when it sends you money, never mind where or how it gets the money or the incalculable costs of subservience and complicity.
We don't hate Big Brother; we don't care about Big Brother or the fear-mongering or the rewriting of history or any of the rest of it, as long as the state's money flows to our individual account. Our complaints are as hollow as the state's financial "facts."
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
JESUIT CHIEF DEFENDS LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM
By KENNETH A. BRIGGS (The New York Times); Foreign Desk
October 28, 1984, Sunday
Late City Final Edition, Section 1, Page 1, Column 4, 882 words
[ DISPLAYING ABSTRACT ]
The head of the Jesuit order says he strongly supports Latin American theologians and church workers who seek to promote social justice. And he says the teachings known as the theology of liberation must be ''recognized as possible and necessary.'' The Vatican recently criticized some elements of liberation theology as relying too heavily on Marxist analysis, but it affirmed the church's fight against oppression in Central and South America. The Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, chosen as Superior General of the Jesuits a year ago, said in an interview in New York last week that the order would continue to aid efforts for social justice in Latin America.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Facebook in Privacy Breach
OCTOBER 18, 2010.
Top-Ranked Applications Transmit Personal IDs, a Journal Investigation Finds.
Kim White Bloomberg
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the F8 developer conference this spring.
Many of the most popular applications, or "apps," on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.
The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook's strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook's rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users' activities secure.
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Read more
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Next Big Privacy Concern: RFID “Spychips”
By Ms. Smith on Tue, 07/27/10 - 9:11am.
Radio-frequency I.D. (RFID) tags are a convenient way to track items and cut costs for companies. But this technology is increasingly being used to track other things, like security badges — or even people — giving it the potential to cause a horrific erosion of privacy. Tracking people with smart tags, their shopping preferences, their activities, and their personal belongings sounds like something from a sci-fi thriller. But If you got your panties in a twist over Walmart's decision to track your undies via RFID smart tags, then you'll be doublely concerned at how close we are to cradle-to-grave surveillance.
RFID tags reached a tipping point with Walmart's announcement that, starting next month, the retailer will place removable "smart tags" on consumer goods. The RFID tags can be read by hand-held scanners to track inventory levels and keep a better eye on loss prevention. Recent drops in the cost per RFID tags have encouraged adoption of this technology. With Wal-Mart publicly embracing RFID, you'll see other retailers quickly fall in line.
If your trash is filled with RFID tags, your trash could be exploited by cybercriminals (driving by with a RFID reader). Perhaps consumers should be advised to trash the offending tag before they leave Walmart parking lot? I’m honestly less concerned that cybercriminals will be cataloging an individual’s purchases via their trash than I am about RFID becoming "spychips" — using the RFID technology to track the whereabouts of citizens who have no idea they are being tracked. RFID chips are already embedded into passports and other everyday items. These potential-privacy-decimating spychips can be the size of a dust speck.
I’m not railing against all creative uses for RFID tracking. There are uses for it that aren’t intended to be violations of your privacy (though in the wrong hands, who knows?) A project called "RememberMe" was started earlier this year as a way of recording memories by tracking clothes and other objects by tagging them with an RFID tag and Quick Response (QR) codes. When the owners of the objects donate them to the shop, a research assistant would record brief stories about the donated objects into a microphone: where they acquired it, the memories attached and any associated stories. Everyone that participates volunteers to do so — so no one’s privacy is violated in this case.
Food is tracked with RFID for freshness and any possible contamination. A company came out with the world's smartest coffee mug that was embedded with RFID to store the owner's account information, purchase habits, and preferences. Perhaps your business has utilized RFID tracking with products such as Microsoft's BizTalk RFID Mobile? Many companies now use RFID tracking, be it in employee badges or for product tracing.
When it comes to using RFID to track humans and our whereabouts, that's when my hackles get raised. Not that this is new either. In 2007, after newspapers reported on a controversial program designed to compile massive dossiers of data on most every American, the website for Total Information Awareness was taken down. People naturally freaked out at the privacy invasion.
But the idea is far from dead. How about if governments started using RFID to issue automated ticket violations? As part of a project called ASSET-Road, VTT Technical Research Center in Finland, has developed RFID license plate tracking. The project began in 2008 and will wrap in June, 2011. VTT attempts to detect traffic congestion but it also achieved the goal of “traffic violations detected in a flash.” And then Arizona-based camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) expanded upon that RFID technology by developing automated tailgating tickets as a feature that can soon be added to existing speed camera programs. Now add in this bit of info: There are also drivers licenses that "come equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that can be read right through a wallet, pocket or purse from as far away as 30 feet."
Along similar lines is a company using RFID to track employees. An Indian company, Unity Infraprojects, uses RFID employee tags to keep track of so-called "ghost workers." The only way an employee gets paid is by a combination of RFID evidence and physical presence to collect daily payment.
And there are those taking this idea of tracking people a step further. RFID transponders can be embedded as a subdermal implant, similar to a microchip. Microchips for tracking our beloved pets are now common. Microsoft has HealthVault and Google has Google Health for e-health record management services and both are pushing for RFID medical bracelets. Between 2007 and 2009, RFID in the guise of VeriChip implants were given to hundreds of Alzheimer’s patients to help identify them and notify caregivers in case of an emergency. Since 2008, RFID infant protection systems have been placed on some infants at birth to prevent them from being abducted from the hospital or from being given to the wrong mother. A new RFID product, "guarantees that RFID will follow you straight to your grave." The palm-size stone tablet has an RFID tag that talks with mobile phones to direct users to an Internet memorial archive. And such uses for RFID are only the tip of the iceberg. Thing Magic, a company that builds embedded RFID readers, recently launched 100 Uses of RFID.
In themselves, most of these are "valid uses" of RFID technology. Indeed RFID chips are often an embraced technology due to the good they could do for loss prevention. Then again, RFID technology can be the cause of security vulnerabilities. For instance, security badges with RFID chips can broadcast to the criminals where those badges are located. In an article about Fort Gordon stolen military IDs, embedded with RFID, Pentagon’s Counterintelligence Field Activity released a report stating, “The mere possession of a stolen card could, in fact, pose a security risk.”
Former NSA employee James Atkinson, still immersed in the world of intelligence and counterintelligence, said his business and government clients, "often fail to recognize security holes that to him seem big enough to steer a tank through." In regards to the missing RFID enabled military badges, Atkinson stated, “If a spy can get within 300 feet of where classified material is handled, he owns it. I mean, he owns it big time.”
At this year's HOPE hacker conference, the hackers showed both the good and the bad that comes when a person is attached to an RFID badge. “This badge knows what talks you go to. It knows who you talk to. It knows what places in the conference you go. It knows when you were there,” says Rob Zinkov, of the HOPE badge team. If you use that data to enhance your own conference experience, RFID is good. If someone else uses that data, unbeknownst to you, not good.
Extreme-range RFID tracking (hundreds of meters) will be explored and exploited during DEFCON. Also this year's DEFCON Badge was described as "a full-fledged, active electronic system. Pushing fabrication techniques to the limit and using some components that are so new they barely exist, the design of this year's badge took some serious risks." At last year's DEFCON, some hackers were able to temporarily steal other hackers' and a fed's identity. According to ThreatLevel, when a RFID "reader caught an RFID chip in its sights — embedded in a company or government agency access card, for example — it grabbed data from the card, and the camera snapped the card holder’s picture."
Location-aware apps are scary enough, based on GPS with the broad range they offer. But for the most part you still have to sign up for those. RFID is being implemented all around you. It has slowly been moving to mainstream. It can track infants to senior citizens with Alzheimer’s. In between it can track your clothes, your purchases, your car — even you. RFID is on the verge of tracking us all, cradle to the grave.
Source: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/64181.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
DHS
A computer screens displays input from Homeland Security's FAST body scanner during a demonstration.
Baggage
searches are SOOOOOO early-21st century. Homeland Security is now testing the next generation of security screening — a body scanner that can read your mind.Most preventive screening looks for explosives or metals that pose a threat. But a new system called MALINTENT turns the old school approach on its head. This Orwellian-sounding machine detects the person — not the device — set to wreak havoc and terror.
MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security's directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers.
It has a series of sensors and imagers that read your body temperature, heart rate and respiration for unconscious tells invisible to the naked eye — signals terrorists and criminals may display in advance of an attack.
But this is no polygraph test. Subjects do not get hooked up or strapped down for a careful reading; those sensors do all the work without any actual physical contact. It's like an X-ray for bad intentions.
Currently, all the sensors and equipment are packaged inside a mobile screening laboratory about the size of a trailer or large truck bed, and just last week, Homeland Security put it to a field test in Maryland, scanning 144 mostly unwitting human subjects.
While I'd love to give you the full scoop on the unusual experiment, testing is ongoing and full disclosure would compromise future tests.
• Click here for an exclusive look at MALINTENT in action.
But what I can tell you is that the test subjects were average Joes living in the D.C. area who thought they were attending something like a technology expo; in order for the experiment to work effectively and to get the testing subjects to buy in, the cover story had to be convincing.
While the 144 test subjects thought they were merely passing through an entrance way, they actually passed through a series of sensors that screened them for bad intentions.
Homeland Security also selected a group of 23 attendees to be civilian "accomplices" in their test. They were each given a "disruptive device" to carry through the portal — and, unlike the other attendees, were conscious that they were on a mission.
In order to conduct these tests on human subjects, DHS had to meet rigorous safety standards to ensure the screening would not cause any physical or emotional harm.
So here's how it works. When the sensors identify that something is off, they transmit warning data to analysts, who decide whether to flag passengers for further questioning. The next step involves micro-facial scanning, which involves measuring minute muscle movements in the face for clues to mood and intention.
Homeland Security has developed a system to recognize, define and measure seven primary emotions and emotional cues that are reflected in contractions of facial muscles. MALINTENT identifies these emotions and relays the information back to a security screener almost in real-time.
This whole security array — the scanners and screeners who make up the mobile lab — is called "Future Attribute Screening Technology" — or FAST — because it is designed to get passengers through security in two to four minutes, and often faster.
If you're rushed or stressed, you may send out signals of anxiety, but FAST isn't fooled. It's already good enough to tell the difference between a harried traveler and a terrorist. Even if you sweat heavily by nature, FAST won't mistake you for a baddie.
"If you focus on looking at the person, you don't have to worry about detecting the device itself," said Bob Burns, MALINTENT's project leader. And while there are devices out there that look at individual cues, a comprehensive screening device like this has never before been put together.
While FAST's batting average is classified, Undersecretary for Science and Technology Adm. Jay Cohen declared the experiment a "home run."
As cold and inhuman as the electric eye may be, DHS says scanners are unbiased and nonjudgmental. "It does not predict who you are and make a judgment, it only provides an assessment in situations," said Burns. "It analyzes you against baseline stats when you walk in the door, it measures reactions and variations when you approach and go through the portal."
But the testing — and the device itself — are not without their problems. This invasive scanner, which catalogues your vital signs for non-medical reasons, seems like an uninvited doctor's exam and raises many privacy issues.
But DHS says this is not Big Brother. Once you are through the FAST portal, your scrutiny is over and records aren't kept. "Your data is dumped," said Burns. "The information is not maintained — it doesn't track who you are."
DHS is now planning an even wider array of screening technology, including an eye scanner next year and pheromone-reading technology by 2010.
The team will also be adding equipment that reads body movements, called "illustrative and emblem cues." According to Burns, this is achievable because people "move in reaction to what they are thinking, more or less based on the context of the situation."
FAST may also incorporate biological, radiological and explosive detection, but for now the primary focus is on identifying and isolating potential human threats.
And because FAST is a mobile screening laboratory, it could be set up at entrances to stadiums, malls and in airports, making it ever more difficult for terrorists to live and work among us.
Burns noted his team's goal is to "restore a sense of freedom." Once MALINTENT is rolled out in airports, it could give us a future where we can once again wander onto planes with super-sized cosmetics and all the bottles of water we can carry — and most importantly without that sense of foreboding that has haunted Americans since Sept. 11.
Allison Barrie, a security and terrorism consultant with the Commission for National Security in the 21st Century, is FOX News' security columnist.
Friday, March 21, 2008
'COMCAST' TO START WATCHING YOU?
Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You?
If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.
The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.
Kunkel said the system wouldn’t be based on facial recognition, so there wouldn’t be a picture of you on file (we hope). Instead, it would distinguish between different members of your household by recognizing body forms. He stressed that the system is still in the experimental phase, that there hasn’t been consumer testing, and that any rollout “must add value” to the viewing experience beyond serving ads.
Perhaps I’ve seen Enemy of the State too many times, or perhaps I’m just naive about the depths to which Comcast currently tracks my every move. I can’t trust Comcast with BitTorrent, so why should I trust them with my must-be-kept-secret, DVR-clogging addiction to Keeping Up with the Kardashians?
Kunkel also spoke on camera with me about fixing bad Comcast user experiences, the ongoing BitTorrent battle and VOD. But he mostly towed the corporate line on these issues (the monitoring your living room came up after my camera was put away).
Source: http://newteevee.com/2008/03/18/comcast-cameras-to-start-watching-you/
Thursday, February 21, 2008
CREDIT CHECK CREATE UPROAR FOR CMS
Posted on Wed, Feb. 20, 2008
Credit checks create
uproar for CMS
Don't agree? Face termination
ANN DOSS HELMS
ahelms@charlotteobserver.com
Peter Gorman
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools created an uproar among its 18,000-plus employees Tuesday by abruptly requiring them to sign forms authorizing credit checks and research into their "character, general reputation, personal characteristics and mode of living."
Those who don't sign by Friday face termination, according to memos signed by Chief Human Resources Officer Maurice Ambler.
Ambler said Tuesday that CMS plans to check only criminal records, despite the more extensive authorization required by the forms.
"That material was all written by attorneys, not by me," he said, adding that criminal checks fall under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Superintendent Dr. Peter Gorman, during an interview this morning on WBT-Radio's "Morning News" program, defended the criminal checks but said the school system probably did not give employees enough advance notice.
"I take responsibility for that," Gorman said in the WBT interview.
He also said that he and other school officials will look closer at the three-day deadline, adding that it might not be enough time for employees.
CMS leaders have talked for months about updating criminal checks on employees, prompted partly by the discovery that a teacher caught shooting heroin in an elementary school classroom last June had faced previous drug charges that CMS didn't know about. The criminal checks will cost $46,000 to launch and about $3,000 a month for ongoing reports, Ambler said.
Six CMS employees who spoke to the Observer Tuesday said they support checking employees' criminal records. But they -- along with three school board members -- said they were ambushed by the request for personal information that seems irrelevant to student safety.
"I don't know where CMS is pulling this from and I don't understand why. It's like they're intimidating people," said Mary McCray, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Association of Educators. She said she's advising teachers not to sign the forms while she seeks advice from the National Association of Educators, a teachers union.
McCray said one teacher called to ask, "Is the fact that I'm living with a man and we're not married grounds for dismissal?"
Others who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal voiced similar concerns.
"You look at people's different lifestyles -- who's going to make that determination?" said a building services employee.
"There's a lot of people they don't pay a living wage to, so yeah, they're behind (financially)," a teacher said. "I know teachers whose homes are in foreclosure."
Tuesday evening, district leaders who have pledged clear communications with employees and the public were scrambling to quell the furor. Communications staff were working on a Q&A to explain the legalese in plain English, Ambler said.
Two memos about the background checks, signed by Ambler and human resources official Janet Hamilton, are dated Feb. 11. One teacher said she got hers Friday. Five other employees in various locations said supervisors presented them Tuesday. None said they got an explanation of the demand that they authorize credit checks and other personal research. Some said they were told to sign immediately, though supervisors backed down when employees balked.
"If we sign that piece of paper, we have no legal rights whatsoever," a teacher said. "If we don't, we're going to lose our job."
School board Chair Joe White and members Vilma Leake and George Dunlap said Tuesday they'd heard nothing about such requests. White said he'd be surprised if top administrators made such a move without clueing in the board.
Dunlap said he wants an explanation, even if CMS doesn't plan to do the more extensive checks.
"You don't ask people for stuff that you don't intend to use," he said. "I don't like using scare tactics. ... At some point, the right to privacy still exists."
Observer staff writer Steve Lyttle contributed.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
EAVESDROPPING LAW IS LIKELY TO LAPSE
Eavesdropping Law Is Likely to Lapse
WASHINGTON — Broad spying powers temporarily approved by Congress in August appear likely to lapse this week after a daylong game of chicken on Wednesday between the White House and House Democrats produced no clear resolution.
At a morning appearance in the Oval Office, President Bush pressed the House to adopt quickly a plan that the Senate approved on Tuesday to broaden the government’s spying powers and give legal immunity to telephone companies.
The plan is essential, Mr. Bush said, because terrorists are planning attacks on American soil “that will make Sept. 11 pale in comparison.”
House Democratic leaders tried to obtain a 21-day reprieve to allow more time to negotiate before the temporary measure expires on Friday night. But the proposal was defeated in the face of opposition from liberals who are against the surveillance plan and conservatives who favor it.
House Democrats now say they may simply let the deadline pass without acting on the Senate plan.
Mr. Bush maintained on Wednesday that letting the broadened surveillance powers lapse “would jeopardize the security of our citizens.”
Democrats insisted that a lapse would have no real effect.
The expiration of the powers “doesn’t mean we are somehow vulnerable again,” said Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
The lapsing of the deadline would have little practical effect on intelligence gathering. Intelligence officials would be able to intercept communications from Qaeda members or other identified terrorist groups for a year after the initial eavesdropping authorization for that particular group.
If a new terrorist group is identified after Saturday, intelligence officials would not be able to use the broadened eavesdropping authority. They would be able to seek a warrant under the more restrictive standards in place for three decades through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The White House-backed plan that the Senate approved would broaden the spying powers for six years and provide legal immunity to the utilities that helped in the eavesdropping without warrants that Mr. Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
AT&T and other major carriers face about 40 multibillion-dollar suits from customers who say the utilities’ participation broke the law.
The passage of the Senate measure, a major victory for Mr. Bush on a crucial national security question, inflamed the oratory on Wednesday. Mr. Bush accused the Democratic-led House of needlessly prolonging the debate at the expense of the country’s safety.
“At this moment,” he said, “somewhere in the world terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is to bring destruction to our shores that will make Sept. 11 pale by comparison.”
To stop an attack, he urged, Congress must act immediately to strengthen the eavesdropping.
In the House, which passed a more restrictive surveillance plan in November that intentionally left out protection for the utilities, Democratic leaders were not swayed.
“The president’s presentation this morning was, I think, basically dishonest,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader.
Intelligence officials could continue intercepting suspect communications even if the deadline passes, Mr. Hoyer said. In pushing so hard for immunity for the utilities, he added, the Bush administration is “very nervous about what might be disclosed” if the lawsuits against the companies are allowed to continue.
“To some degree, therefore, I think it is a cover-up,” Mr. Hoyer said.
Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential hopeful, weighed in on the debate. When Mr. McCain learned that the House had voted down a 21-day extension and that the powers were likely to lapse at midnight Friday, he said: “That’s too bad. That’s very unfortunate. It’s symptomatic of the gridlock of partisanship here in the Congress.”
To break the gridlock, Mr. McCain said, “people that are patriotic Americans need to sit down together and work this out.”
“It’s clearly an absolute necessity to protect this nation,” he said. “Unfortunately, we can’t seem to do that.”
Monday, February 11, 2008
TOLEDO OHIO: MAYOR KICKS MARINES OUT
Mayor kicks Marines out of Toledo
1-24th Marines were scheduled for weekend urban warfare training in downtown Toledo, when Carty gave them the boot
 |
By Darsha Philips
Posted: Saturday, February 09, 2008 at 2:05 p.m.
TOLEDO, OH -- Mayor Carty Finkbeiner on Friday ordered some 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines from Grand Rapids, Michigan, out of Toledo just before the unit was supposed to start a weekend of urban warfare training downtown.
The mayor’s spokesperson, Brian Schwartz said, “The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people. He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area."
Toledo police said they knew about the training and had approved the unit’s use of the Madison Building and the Promenade Park area. The training was scheduled to start Friday afternoon and last until Sunday. Police said the unit’s presence would have a minimal impact on the city. Police issued a press release earlier in the week saying the Marines would be wearing green camouflage uniforms, operate military vehicles, carry rifles, perform foot patrols, and fire blank ammunition during the exercise.
Schwartz said there was a breakdown in communication between police and the Finkbeiner administration that led to the mayor’s action.
“The Marines drilled here three times during the Ford administration and once under the Finkbeiner administration. After the last visit, the mayor told then police Chief Jack Smith, that he did not want the marines back. Smith failed to inform the current police administration of the mayor’s feelings,” Schwartz said.
NBC24 spoke to Jack Smith who recalled that after the Marines last visit, he and the mayor had a heated exchange about the training.
“He told me he did not want them, as he put it, 'playing war in Toledo,'" Smith recalled. "I told him, as a former Marine, that if one young Marine’s life is saved because of training he or she received in Toledo, Ohio, then it was worth the inconvenience.”
Smith said if the mayor objected, then he should have been the one to convey those feelings to police. Smith took his run-in with the mayor as an objection to that last visit and not future training in Toledo. As a result, the Toledo police went ahead, granting approval to the 1-24th Marines to conduct the routine exercise. The police notified members of the Finkbeiner administration who were not aware that the mayor objected to units training in Toledo.
When the mayor found out, he sent a member of his staff to tell Marines they could not conduct urban operations in Toledo. The unit was notified about 3:30 p.m. after an advance team arrived in Toledo. Five buses carrying some 200 Marines traveled four hours from Grand Rapids, only to find out the training had been shot down.
The unit briefly stopped at a 1-24th Marine base in Perrysburg Township, then returned to Grand Rapids where training was expected to be held this weekend. A spokesperson for the Marines said they were disappointed by the mayor’s decision especially after the city had been so helpful in the past.
Finkbeiner held a news conference Saturday night to address the growing controversy. Finkbeiner says bad planning and communication breakdowns led to his decision to bar a Marine Corps unit from training in downtown Toledo. Finkbeiner spent much of the twenty minute news conference explaining what he didn't know, and when he didn't know it.
“I don't know when we were first asked,” he says, “were we asked Tuesday or Wednesday of this week?”
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Tuesday, February 05, 2008
THE NEW WORLD ORDER BY GEORGE ORWELL
George Orwell Quotes
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Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. (George Orwell) In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, "just to keep the people frightened." -- George Orwell, 1984 We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men: George Orwell He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him. ---George Orwell "All propaganda is a lie even when its telling the truth."--G Orwell "The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life ... A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors... Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.": George Orwell, 1984 "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."--George Orwell (O'Brien in 1984) [For a good example of controlling the past, see Vaccine "Lymph"] "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell "Political language ....is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."--George Orwell "Newspeak was the official language ... The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits ... but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought should be literally unthinkable." Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell. (Taken from Martin Walker article) Double think means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them. The party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered, therefore he knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of DOUBLE THINK, he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated." Orwell George Orwell once pointed out that the first job of a leader is to create an enemy that could strike fear into the hearts of the electorate All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. --George Orwell There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them. George Orwell Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. On the whole human beings want to be good, but not to good and not quite all the time. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. While the Pobble was in the water some unidentified creatures came and ate his toes off, and when he got home his aunt remarked: It's a fact the whole world knows, That Pobbles are happier without their toes, which is funny because it has a meaning, and one might even say a political significance. For the whole theory of authoritarian government is summed up in the statement that Pobbles are happier without their toes. Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy. Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection. "In George Orwell's 1984 one of EngSoc's three "truths" was "Ignorance Is Strength." Have you ever noticed how ignorant people have a great deal of strength in their convictions? Not being able to think is, at least subconsciously, terrifying. Unable to arrive at ideas and understandings on one's own, every idea must be held onto like a life preserver in the sea beside a sinking ship. Every idea is as important as every other idea because there is no mechanism to judge between them. "Authority" (the Church-School-State Establishment) is strengthened by ignorance as well. The ignorant must rely on Authority for opinions. This keeps Authority on top. The "conspiracy" has a vested interest in maintaining this druggie-like dependence on Authority. It is a very short "hokey-pokey" little step from authoritarianism to totalitarianism."----Jerry E. Smith |
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