New Scientist
Published on Sep 27, 2016
A five-month-old boy is the first baby to be born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from three parents, New Scientist reveals. Full story: http://ow.ly/lhWZ304C5zu
Showing posts with label DNA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DNA. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Exclusive: World’s first baby born with new “3 parent” technique
New Scientist
Published on Sep 27, 2016
A five-month-old boy is the first baby to be born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from three parents, New Scientist reveals. Full story: http://ow.ly/lhWZ304C5zu
Monday, June 03, 2013
Supreme Court rules police can take DNA samples from arrestees
By Jesse J. Holland / Associated Press /
WASHINGTON (AP) — A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday said police can routinely take DNA from people they arrest, equating a DNA cheek swab to other common jailhouse procedures like fingerprinting.
‘‘Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,’’ Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s five-justice majority.
But the four dissenting justices said that the court was allowing a major change in police powers.
‘‘Make no mistake about it: because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,’’ conservative Justice Antonin Scalia said in a sharp dissent which he read aloud in the courtroom. ‘‘This will solve some extra crimes, to be sure. But so would taking your DNA when you fly on an airplane — surely the TSA must know the ‘identity’ of the flying public. For that matter, so would taking your children’s DNA when they start public school.’’
Twenty-eight states and the federal government now take DNA swabs after arrests. But a Maryland court was one of the first to say that it was illegal for that state to take Alonzo King’s DNA without approval from a judge, saying King had ‘‘a sufficiently weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches’’ under the Fourth Amendment.
But the high court’s decision reverses that ruling and reinstates King’s rape conviction, which came after police took his DNA during an unrelated arrest. Kennedy wrote the decision, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. Scalia was joined in his dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Maryland’s DNA collection law only allows police to take DNA from those arrested for serious crimes like murder, rape, assault, burglary and other crimes of violence. In his ruling, Kennedy did not say whether the court’s decision limits DNA only to those crimes, but he did note that other states’ DNA collection laws differ from Maryland's.
Scalia saw that as a flaw. ‘‘If you believe that a DNA search will identify someone arrested for bank robbery, you must believe that it will identify someone arrested for running a red light,’’ he said.
Getting DNA swabs from criminals is common. All 50 states and the federal government take cheek swabs from convicted criminals to check against federal and state databanks, with the court’s blessing. The fight at the Supreme Court was over whether that DNA collection could come before conviction and without a judge issuing a warrant.
According to court documents, the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System or CODIS — a coordinated system of federal, state and local databases of DNA profiles — already contains more than 10 million criminal profiles and 1.1 million profiles of those arrested.
Kennedy called collecting DNA useful for police in identifying individuals.
‘‘The use of DNA for identification is no different than matching an arrestee’s face to a wanted poster of a previously unidentified suspect; or matching tattoos to known gang symbols to reveal a criminal affiliation; or matching the arrestee’s fingerprints to those recovered from a crime scene,’’ Kennedy said. ‘‘DNA is another metric of identification used to connect the arrestee with his or her public persona, as reflected in records of his or her actions that are available to police.’’
In the case before the court, a 53-year-old woman was raped and robbed but no one was arrested. Almost six years later, Alonzo King was arrested and charged with felony second-degree assault. Taking advantage of the Maryland law that allowed warrantless DNA tests following some felony arrests, police took a cheek swab of King’s DNA, which matched a sample from the 2003 Salisbury rape. King was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison.
King eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of misdemeanor assault from his arrest, a crime for which Maryland cannot take warrantless DNA samples. The state courts said it violated King’s rights for the state to take his DNA based on an arrest alone. The state Court of Appeals said King had ‘‘a sufficiently weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches.’’ But the high court’s decision reinstates King’s conviction.
Maryland stopped collecting DNA after that decision, but Roberts allowed police to keep collecting DNA samples pending the high court’s review.
The case is Maryland v. King, 12-207.
Source: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/2013/06/03/supreme-court-rules-police-can-take-dna-samples-from-arrestees/g4ZnVgNF7Y8LJgraj4NuTM/story.html
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Monday, March 15, 2010
Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest
By David Kravets March 10, 2010 6:40 pm
Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.
When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.
Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.
Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.
When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.
The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.
A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.
The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.
Do you wonder whether DNA sampling is legal?
The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons, based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant.
A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.
The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.
Do you wonder whether DNA sampling is legal?
The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons, based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant.
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Illustration: hibiotech/Flickr
Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/obama-supports-dna-sampling-upon-arrest
Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/obama-supports-dna-sampling-upon-arrest
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Saturday, October 31, 2009
Are Populations Being Primed For Nano-Microchips Inside Vaccines?
Thursday, 29. October 2009, 19:30:39
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4CjZ-OkGDs&feature=player_embeddedhttp://
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIX7wCKDuZE&feature=player_embeddedhttp://
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVWNlvI-eB4&feature=player_embeddedhttp://
It's almost surreal, like something out of a sci-fi flick, but nano-microchips invisible to the naked eye are a reality that are already being hosted in wide-range of applications. The question is, how long will it take governments and big pharma to immerse nano-microchips inside of vaccines to tag and surveil global populations?
Nanotechnology deals with structures smaller than one micrometer (less than 1/30th the width of a human hair), and involves developing materials or devices within that size. To put the size of a nanometer in perspective, it is 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
More than ten years ago, simple low-cost techniques improved the design and manufacture of nano-microchips. That unlocked a multitude of methodologies for their manufacture in a wide-range of applications including optical, biological, and electronic devices.
The joint use of nanoelectronics, photolithography, and new biomaterials, have enabled the required manufacturing technology towards nanorobots for common medical applications, such as surgical instrumentation, diagnosis and drug delivery.
Japan's Hitachi says it has developed the world's smallest and thinnest microchip, that can be embedded in paper to track down parcels or prove the authenticity of a document. The integrated circuit (IC) chip is as minute as a speck of dust.
Nanoelectrodes implanted in the brain are increasingly being used to manage neurological disorders. Mohammad Reza Abidian, a post-doctoral researcher at the U-M Department of Biomedical Engineering said that polymers in nanotubes "are biocompatible and have both electronic and ionic conductivity." He further stated "therefore, these materials are good candidates for biomedical applications such as neural interfaces, biosensors and drug delivery systems."
Depending on the objectives of such studies, research could theoretically pave the way for smart recording electrodes that can deliver drugs to positively or negatively affect the immune response.
Through nanotechnology, researchers have also been able to create artificial pores able to transmit nanoscale materials through membranes.
A UC biomedical engineering study appearing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, Sept. 27, 2009, successfully inserted the modified core of a nanomotor, a microscopic biological machine, into a lipid membrane. The resulting channel enabled them to move both single- and double-stranded DNA through the membrane.
Professor Peixuan Guo who led the study said past work with biological channels has been focused on channels large enough to move only single-stranded genetic material.
"Since the genomic DNA of human, animals, plants, fungus and bacteria are double stranded, the development of single pore system that can sequence double-stranded DNA is very important," he says.
Such engineered channels could have applications in nano-sensing, DNA sequencing, drug loading, including innovative techniques to implement DNA packaging mechanisms of viral nanomotors and vaccine delivery.
"The idea that a DNA molecule travels through the nanopore, advancing nucleotide by nucleotide, could lead to the development of a single pore DNA sequencing apparatus, an area of strong national interest," Guo said.
Scientists working at Queen Mary, University of London, have developed micrometer-sized capsules to safely deliver drugs inside living cells. These "micro shuttles" could hypothetically be loaded with a specific microchip controlling the dose of medication to be opened remotely, releasing their contents. Besides monitoring the dosage, the same microchip could be used to surveil the patient in conjunction with various tracking systems.
Scientists in the United Kingdom have recently reported advances towards overcoming key challenges in nanotechnology. They demonstrated how nanoparticles could move quickly in a desired direction without help from outside forces. Their achievement has broad implications, the scientists say, raising the possibility of coaxing cells to move and grow in specific directions.
Doug Dorst, a microbiologist and vaccine critic in South Wales, says these advances have an immense appeal to vaccine makers. "Biotech companies and their researchers have quickly moved most funding initiatives towards nanotechnology to increase the potency of their vaccines," he said. If microorganisms inside of vaccines can be coaxed into targeting or invading specific cells, they could achieve their goal at an accelerated rate over conventional vaccines. "Depending on which side of the vaccine debate you're on, whether pro or con, nanobots inside vaccine preparations could advance their effectiveness exponentially by either dramatically improving or destroying immunity depending on their design," he added.
Dorst claims that present day nanobot technology could just as easily be used to advance biological weapons as they can to advance human health. "For every fear that biotech propaganda proliferates about deadly diseases and how vaccines prevent them, it is one more lie to incrementally convince the masses that vaccines are effective."
The worry for Dorst is that one day vaccines "will do what they've always been intended for...control of the global populace."
Nanoemulsion platforms are already capable of developing vaccines from very diverse materials. Mixtures of soybean oil, alcohol, water and detergents can be emulsified into ultra-small particles smaller than 400 nanometers wide (about 1/200th the width of a human hair). These could be combined with any number of nano-microchips with all or part of disease-causing microbes to trigger the body's immune system.
In 2007 researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) announced in an article in the journal, Nature Biotechnology, that they had developed a “nanoparticle that can deliver vaccines more effectively, with fewer side effects, and at a fraction of the cost of current vaccine technologies.” The article went on to describe the effects of their breakthrough: “At a mere 25 nanometers, these particles are so tiny that once injected, they flow through the skin’s extracellular matrix, making a beeline to the lymph nodes. Within minutes, they’ve reached a concentration of DCs thousands of times greater than in the skin."
Russia has recently announced a new manufacturing plant that will strictly produce nano-vaccines. Project plans include development of two vaccines for human flu and bird flu and three biopharmaceuticals for boosting the immune system and increasing the efficiency of antibacterial and antiviral drugs, among other initiatives.
The human body is very resistant to nanoparticles that attempt to invade human cells. Scientists are intensely investigating methods to disrupt human enzymes that may degrade nanoparticles. Experts at the University of Liverpool found a way around this obstacle that could mean more efficient, topical drugs in the future, which could act a whole lot faster than the ones currently in use.
All these nanotechnological advances raise many issues and concerns about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials, and their potential effects on medicine, global economics, as well as speculation about government surveillance. These concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on whether special regulation of nanotechnology is warranted.
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a news release last week saying that it had “today outlined a new research strategy to better understand how manufactured nanomaterials may harm human health and the environment.” Interesting as that strategy document is, it was hardly hot off the presses.
Indeed, many companies advertise their use of such billionth-of-a-meter-scale constituents as a measure of a product's state-of-the-art status, implying that ultra-small ingredients are an inherently good thing. They aren’t. Nor does size necessarily make these materials worse than others. At this point it's just maddeningly unpredictable what nano things will do.
Proponents of nanotechnology are very critical of regulatory measures that may impeed its progression. Many of these critics have staunchly dismissed concerns as being fear-hyped conspiracy theories based on science fiction.
In the popular video game series Metal Gear Solid, many characters and soldiers in general, have "nanomachines" in their bloodstream, and are used to block pain, allow members of fire teams/patrols to share sensory information, heal bodily damage, as well as manipulating viruses central to video game's plot line.
Through the use of special effects and computer-generated imagery, several blockbusters starring Keanu Reeves including The Matrix Trilogy and The Day the Earth Stood Still, have dramatized how nanobots could effectively take control of their organic and inorganic targets.
Star Trek episodes and their theatrical releases such as Star Trek: First Contact have also depicted how nanoprobes (nanites) could infect an individual's bloodstream through a pair of tubules.
Regardless of the recurring themes of nanobots in video games, sci-fi shows and movies, nanotechnology is a reality, and nano-microchips are well on their way to being utilized in ways which may be detrimental to human health and freedom on a global scale.
The development of nano-microchips are a major thrust of governments and pharmaceutical industries who want the ultimate power and leverage over global populations for more profit and more control.
In December 2000, Former Chief Medical Officer of Finland, Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde, MD stated that it is technically possible for every newborn to be injected with a microchip, which could then function to identify the person for the rest of his or her life. Such plans are secretly being discussed in the U.S. without any public airing of the privacy issues involved.
Today's microchips operate by means of low-frequency radio waves that target them. With the help of satellites, the implanted person can be tracked anywhere on the globe. Such a technique was among a number tested in the Iraq war, according to Dr. Carl Sanders, who invented the intelligence-manned interface (IMI) biotic, which is injected into people. (Earlier during the Vietnam War, soldiers were injected with the Rambo chip, designed to increase adrenaline flow into the bloodstream.) The 20-billion-bit/second supercomputers at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) could now "see and hear" what soldiers experience in the battlefield with a remote monitoring system (RMS).
When a 5-micromillimeter microchip (the diameter of a strand of hair is 50 micromillimeters) is placed into optical nerve of the eye, it draws neuroimpulses from the brain that embody the experiences, smells, sights, and voice of the implanted person. Once transferred and stored in a computer, these neuroimpulses can be projected back to the person’s brain via the microchip to be reexperienced. Using a RMS, a land-based computer operator can send electromagnetic messages (encoded as signals) to the nervous system, affecting the target's performance. With RMS, healthy persons can be induced to see hallucinations and to hear voices in their heads.
Every thought, reaction, hearing, and visual observation causes a certain neurological potential, spikes, and patterns in the brain and its electromagnetic fields, which can now be decoded into thoughts, pictures, and voices. Electromagnetic stimulation can therefore change a person's brainwaves and affect muscular activity, causing painful muscular cramps experienced as torture.
The NSA's electronic surveillance system can simultaneously follow and handle millions of people. Each of us has a unique bioelectrical resonance frequency in the brain, just as we have unique fingerprints. With electromagnetic frequency (EMF) brain stimulation fully coded, pulsating electromagnetic signals can be sent to the brain, causing the desired voice and visual effects to be experienced by the target. This is a form of electronic warfare. U.S. astronauts were implanted before they were sent into space so their thoughts could be followed and all their emotions could be registered 24 hours a day.
The mass media has not reported that an implanted person's privacy vanishes for the rest of his or her life. S/he can be manipulated in many ways. Using different frequencies, the secret controller of this equipment can even change a person's emotional life. S/he can be made aggressive or lethargic. Sexuality can be artificially influenced. Thought signals and subconscious thinking can be read, dreams affected and even induced, all without the knowledge or consent of the implanted person.
This secret technology has been used by military forces in certain NATO countries since the 1980s without civilian and academic populations having heard anything about it. Thus, little information about such invasive mind-control systems is available in professional and academic journals.
The NSA's Signals Intelligence group can remotely monitor information from human brains by decoding the evoked potentials (3.50HZ, 5 milliwatt) emitted by the brain. Prisoner experimentees in both Gothenburg, Sweden and Vienna, Austria have been found to have evident brain lesions. Diminished blood circulation and lack of oxygen in the right temporal frontal lobes result where brain implants are usually operative. A Finnish experimentee experienced brain atrophy and intermittent attacks of unconsciousness due to lack of oxygen.
Targeting people’s brain functions with electromagnetic fields and beams (from helicopters and airplanes, satellites, from parked vans, neighboring houses, telephone poles, electrical appliances, mobile phones, TV, radio, etc.) is part of the radiation problem that should be addressed by democratically elected governments. However, there is currently no interest by any national government to seriously address this issue.
The timeline for integrating nano-microchips inside of vaccines is speculative. It could be just a few years, months or perhaps it is here and we already unaware of their integration within pharmaceuticals. Regardless, due to the many military and political advantages, their implementation is inevitable.
However fraudulent, it was an imperative for world powers and pharmaceutical cartels to promote the effectiveness of vaccinations and enact national pandemic preparedness policies which mandate vaccinations.
In 2005 the World Health Organization (WHO) developed international health regulations that would bind all 194 member countries to pandemic emergency guidelines which could enforce such a mandate. Without these procedures of public health (and propagandized vaccine campaigns) in place, there would be little or no voluntary cooperation from the public to roll up their sleeves and accept the inoculations. Public participation is an essential tool that will soon allow big pharma to inject the most effective surveillence tool ever designed into billions of people.
Although nanotechnology manufacturing is currently available on a global scale, before biotech companies are able to initiate mass production and testing of nano-microchips inside of vaccines, they will likely sell the idea to the public. Through various "health enhancement scenarios" they will encourage participation and publicly announce regulatory approval from the same policies and regulatory agencies they helped create.
By mid-summer of 2009, the WHO and the Center of Disease Control (CDC) effectively hyped a false flu pandemic and convinced the world to submit to H1N1 vaccines. Additional doses of propaganda and possibly a biological event, may equally convince populations to knowingly accept microchips inside of vaccines under the guise of a "greater good" for humanity.
When our brain functions are already connected to supercomputers by means of radio implants and microchips, it will be too late for protest. This threat can be defeated only by educating the public, using available literature on biotelemetry, nanorobotics and information exchanged at international congresses.
The time to act is now!
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Source:http://my.opera.com/SavedNotFried/blog/show.dml/4468547
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4CjZ-OkGDs&feature=player_embeddedhttp://
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIX7wCKDuZE&feature=player_embeddedhttp://
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVWNlvI-eB4&feature=player_embeddedhttp://
It's almost surreal, like something out of a sci-fi flick, but nano-microchips invisible to the naked eye are a reality that are already being hosted in wide-range of applications. The question is, how long will it take governments and big pharma to immerse nano-microchips inside of vaccines to tag and surveil global populations?
Nanotechnology deals with structures smaller than one micrometer (less than 1/30th the width of a human hair), and involves developing materials or devices within that size. To put the size of a nanometer in perspective, it is 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
More than ten years ago, simple low-cost techniques improved the design and manufacture of nano-microchips. That unlocked a multitude of methodologies for their manufacture in a wide-range of applications including optical, biological, and electronic devices.
The joint use of nanoelectronics, photolithography, and new biomaterials, have enabled the required manufacturing technology towards nanorobots for common medical applications, such as surgical instrumentation, diagnosis and drug delivery.
Japan's Hitachi says it has developed the world's smallest and thinnest microchip, that can be embedded in paper to track down parcels or prove the authenticity of a document. The integrated circuit (IC) chip is as minute as a speck of dust.
Nanoelectrodes implanted in the brain are increasingly being used to manage neurological disorders. Mohammad Reza Abidian, a post-doctoral researcher at the U-M Department of Biomedical Engineering said that polymers in nanotubes "are biocompatible and have both electronic and ionic conductivity." He further stated "therefore, these materials are good candidates for biomedical applications such as neural interfaces, biosensors and drug delivery systems."
Depending on the objectives of such studies, research could theoretically pave the way for smart recording electrodes that can deliver drugs to positively or negatively affect the immune response.
Through nanotechnology, researchers have also been able to create artificial pores able to transmit nanoscale materials through membranes.
A UC biomedical engineering study appearing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, Sept. 27, 2009, successfully inserted the modified core of a nanomotor, a microscopic biological machine, into a lipid membrane. The resulting channel enabled them to move both single- and double-stranded DNA through the membrane.
Professor Peixuan Guo who led the study said past work with biological channels has been focused on channels large enough to move only single-stranded genetic material.
"Since the genomic DNA of human, animals, plants, fungus and bacteria are double stranded, the development of single pore system that can sequence double-stranded DNA is very important," he says.
Such engineered channels could have applications in nano-sensing, DNA sequencing, drug loading, including innovative techniques to implement DNA packaging mechanisms of viral nanomotors and vaccine delivery.
"The idea that a DNA molecule travels through the nanopore, advancing nucleotide by nucleotide, could lead to the development of a single pore DNA sequencing apparatus, an area of strong national interest," Guo said.
Scientists working at Queen Mary, University of London, have developed micrometer-sized capsules to safely deliver drugs inside living cells. These "micro shuttles" could hypothetically be loaded with a specific microchip controlling the dose of medication to be opened remotely, releasing their contents. Besides monitoring the dosage, the same microchip could be used to surveil the patient in conjunction with various tracking systems.
Scientists in the United Kingdom have recently reported advances towards overcoming key challenges in nanotechnology. They demonstrated how nanoparticles could move quickly in a desired direction without help from outside forces. Their achievement has broad implications, the scientists say, raising the possibility of coaxing cells to move and grow in specific directions.
Doug Dorst, a microbiologist and vaccine critic in South Wales, says these advances have an immense appeal to vaccine makers. "Biotech companies and their researchers have quickly moved most funding initiatives towards nanotechnology to increase the potency of their vaccines," he said. If microorganisms inside of vaccines can be coaxed into targeting or invading specific cells, they could achieve their goal at an accelerated rate over conventional vaccines. "Depending on which side of the vaccine debate you're on, whether pro or con, nanobots inside vaccine preparations could advance their effectiveness exponentially by either dramatically improving or destroying immunity depending on their design," he added.
Dorst claims that present day nanobot technology could just as easily be used to advance biological weapons as they can to advance human health. "For every fear that biotech propaganda proliferates about deadly diseases and how vaccines prevent them, it is one more lie to incrementally convince the masses that vaccines are effective."
The worry for Dorst is that one day vaccines "will do what they've always been intended for...control of the global populace."
Nanoemulsion platforms are already capable of developing vaccines from very diverse materials. Mixtures of soybean oil, alcohol, water and detergents can be emulsified into ultra-small particles smaller than 400 nanometers wide (about 1/200th the width of a human hair). These could be combined with any number of nano-microchips with all or part of disease-causing microbes to trigger the body's immune system.
In 2007 researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) announced in an article in the journal, Nature Biotechnology, that they had developed a “nanoparticle that can deliver vaccines more effectively, with fewer side effects, and at a fraction of the cost of current vaccine technologies.” The article went on to describe the effects of their breakthrough: “At a mere 25 nanometers, these particles are so tiny that once injected, they flow through the skin’s extracellular matrix, making a beeline to the lymph nodes. Within minutes, they’ve reached a concentration of DCs thousands of times greater than in the skin."
Russia has recently announced a new manufacturing plant that will strictly produce nano-vaccines. Project plans include development of two vaccines for human flu and bird flu and three biopharmaceuticals for boosting the immune system and increasing the efficiency of antibacterial and antiviral drugs, among other initiatives.
The human body is very resistant to nanoparticles that attempt to invade human cells. Scientists are intensely investigating methods to disrupt human enzymes that may degrade nanoparticles. Experts at the University of Liverpool found a way around this obstacle that could mean more efficient, topical drugs in the future, which could act a whole lot faster than the ones currently in use.
All these nanotechnological advances raise many issues and concerns about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials, and their potential effects on medicine, global economics, as well as speculation about government surveillance. These concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on whether special regulation of nanotechnology is warranted.
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a news release last week saying that it had “today outlined a new research strategy to better understand how manufactured nanomaterials may harm human health and the environment.” Interesting as that strategy document is, it was hardly hot off the presses.
Indeed, many companies advertise their use of such billionth-of-a-meter-scale constituents as a measure of a product's state-of-the-art status, implying that ultra-small ingredients are an inherently good thing. They aren’t. Nor does size necessarily make these materials worse than others. At this point it's just maddeningly unpredictable what nano things will do.
Proponents of nanotechnology are very critical of regulatory measures that may impeed its progression. Many of these critics have staunchly dismissed concerns as being fear-hyped conspiracy theories based on science fiction.
In the popular video game series Metal Gear Solid, many characters and soldiers in general, have "nanomachines" in their bloodstream, and are used to block pain, allow members of fire teams/patrols to share sensory information, heal bodily damage, as well as manipulating viruses central to video game's plot line.
Through the use of special effects and computer-generated imagery, several blockbusters starring Keanu Reeves including The Matrix Trilogy and The Day the Earth Stood Still, have dramatized how nanobots could effectively take control of their organic and inorganic targets.
Star Trek episodes and their theatrical releases such as Star Trek: First Contact have also depicted how nanoprobes (nanites) could infect an individual's bloodstream through a pair of tubules.
Regardless of the recurring themes of nanobots in video games, sci-fi shows and movies, nanotechnology is a reality, and nano-microchips are well on their way to being utilized in ways which may be detrimental to human health and freedom on a global scale.
The development of nano-microchips are a major thrust of governments and pharmaceutical industries who want the ultimate power and leverage over global populations for more profit and more control.
In December 2000, Former Chief Medical Officer of Finland, Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde, MD stated that it is technically possible for every newborn to be injected with a microchip, which could then function to identify the person for the rest of his or her life. Such plans are secretly being discussed in the U.S. without any public airing of the privacy issues involved.
Today's microchips operate by means of low-frequency radio waves that target them. With the help of satellites, the implanted person can be tracked anywhere on the globe. Such a technique was among a number tested in the Iraq war, according to Dr. Carl Sanders, who invented the intelligence-manned interface (IMI) biotic, which is injected into people. (Earlier during the Vietnam War, soldiers were injected with the Rambo chip, designed to increase adrenaline flow into the bloodstream.) The 20-billion-bit/second supercomputers at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) could now "see and hear" what soldiers experience in the battlefield with a remote monitoring system (RMS).
When a 5-micromillimeter microchip (the diameter of a strand of hair is 50 micromillimeters) is placed into optical nerve of the eye, it draws neuroimpulses from the brain that embody the experiences, smells, sights, and voice of the implanted person. Once transferred and stored in a computer, these neuroimpulses can be projected back to the person’s brain via the microchip to be reexperienced. Using a RMS, a land-based computer operator can send electromagnetic messages (encoded as signals) to the nervous system, affecting the target's performance. With RMS, healthy persons can be induced to see hallucinations and to hear voices in their heads.
Every thought, reaction, hearing, and visual observation causes a certain neurological potential, spikes, and patterns in the brain and its electromagnetic fields, which can now be decoded into thoughts, pictures, and voices. Electromagnetic stimulation can therefore change a person's brainwaves and affect muscular activity, causing painful muscular cramps experienced as torture.
The NSA's electronic surveillance system can simultaneously follow and handle millions of people. Each of us has a unique bioelectrical resonance frequency in the brain, just as we have unique fingerprints. With electromagnetic frequency (EMF) brain stimulation fully coded, pulsating electromagnetic signals can be sent to the brain, causing the desired voice and visual effects to be experienced by the target. This is a form of electronic warfare. U.S. astronauts were implanted before they were sent into space so their thoughts could be followed and all their emotions could be registered 24 hours a day.
The mass media has not reported that an implanted person's privacy vanishes for the rest of his or her life. S/he can be manipulated in many ways. Using different frequencies, the secret controller of this equipment can even change a person's emotional life. S/he can be made aggressive or lethargic. Sexuality can be artificially influenced. Thought signals and subconscious thinking can be read, dreams affected and even induced, all without the knowledge or consent of the implanted person.
This secret technology has been used by military forces in certain NATO countries since the 1980s without civilian and academic populations having heard anything about it. Thus, little information about such invasive mind-control systems is available in professional and academic journals.
The NSA's Signals Intelligence group can remotely monitor information from human brains by decoding the evoked potentials (3.50HZ, 5 milliwatt) emitted by the brain. Prisoner experimentees in both Gothenburg, Sweden and Vienna, Austria have been found to have evident brain lesions. Diminished blood circulation and lack of oxygen in the right temporal frontal lobes result where brain implants are usually operative. A Finnish experimentee experienced brain atrophy and intermittent attacks of unconsciousness due to lack of oxygen.
Targeting people’s brain functions with electromagnetic fields and beams (from helicopters and airplanes, satellites, from parked vans, neighboring houses, telephone poles, electrical appliances, mobile phones, TV, radio, etc.) is part of the radiation problem that should be addressed by democratically elected governments. However, there is currently no interest by any national government to seriously address this issue.
The timeline for integrating nano-microchips inside of vaccines is speculative. It could be just a few years, months or perhaps it is here and we already unaware of their integration within pharmaceuticals. Regardless, due to the many military and political advantages, their implementation is inevitable.
However fraudulent, it was an imperative for world powers and pharmaceutical cartels to promote the effectiveness of vaccinations and enact national pandemic preparedness policies which mandate vaccinations.
In 2005 the World Health Organization (WHO) developed international health regulations that would bind all 194 member countries to pandemic emergency guidelines which could enforce such a mandate. Without these procedures of public health (and propagandized vaccine campaigns) in place, there would be little or no voluntary cooperation from the public to roll up their sleeves and accept the inoculations. Public participation is an essential tool that will soon allow big pharma to inject the most effective surveillence tool ever designed into billions of people.
Although nanotechnology manufacturing is currently available on a global scale, before biotech companies are able to initiate mass production and testing of nano-microchips inside of vaccines, they will likely sell the idea to the public. Through various "health enhancement scenarios" they will encourage participation and publicly announce regulatory approval from the same policies and regulatory agencies they helped create.
By mid-summer of 2009, the WHO and the Center of Disease Control (CDC) effectively hyped a false flu pandemic and convinced the world to submit to H1N1 vaccines. Additional doses of propaganda and possibly a biological event, may equally convince populations to knowingly accept microchips inside of vaccines under the guise of a "greater good" for humanity.
When our brain functions are already connected to supercomputers by means of radio implants and microchips, it will be too late for protest. This threat can be defeated only by educating the public, using available literature on biotelemetry, nanorobotics and information exchanged at international congresses.
The time to act is now!
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Source:http://my.opera.com/SavedNotFried/blog/show.dml/4468547
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Monday, August 31, 2009
The eye in the sky
August 30, 2009
THE all-seeing eye was once seen as a divine force, surrounded by dazzling rays of light from on high. Its eyelid heavy but gaze unwavering, the eye was the protective stare of a supreme being watching over us from above.
Now, though, it simply watches, often from the shadows. Peering down from security cameras as we walk the city streets, buy bread at the corner store, fill the car with petrol, or catch a taxi or tram. Tracking us through our mobile phone or when driving through a tollway to Melbourne Airport, which last year trialled "virtual strip search" security scanners. Someone's watching while we're surfing online, sending an email, or updating our Facebook profile to paranoid. Melbourne once held pretensions of being the city that never sleeps. Now, at least, it is the city that never shuts its eyes.
A locked, windowless room within the Town Hall has become the city's high priestess of surveillance. Endless CCTV footage screens along the wall, fed from cameras looking over Melbourne's streets, laneways and dark corners. The latest tilt-and-zoom cameras rotate 360 degrees, so few crannies escape unseen. They can pick out a face in the crowd from a kilometre away.
Lord Mayor Robert Doyle this month announced the city had installed a further 31 "Safe City cameras" in the CBD - bringing the total to 54 - to combat rising street violence. Specially trained security contractors monitor the cameras without respite from the small control room, the exact location of which is secret and off-bounds to media. One sanctioned visitor told The Sunday Age it was like stepping into a reality TV control booth, where you're the producer deciding who should be seen on the big screen.
"There will be groups that say this is Big Brother. I say, 'Bad luck, city safety comes first'," Doyle declared. "The message is now clear to those who wish to commit a crime in our streets: the likelihood is that now you will be seen."
But then, so will everyone else. Former UK information commissioner Richard Thomas, whose term ended in June, once warned Britain was sleepwalking into a "surveillance society". Two years later, in 2006, they woke up "to a surveillance society that is already all around us". The UK is the most-watched patch on Earth, boasting an estimated four million CCTV cameras, and leads the world in building a national DNA database, with more than 7 per cent of the population already logged.
Australia has been more restrained. But the pressure to deploy new and more affordable surveillance technologies is constant. This month, La Trobe University academics proposed installing tracking devices in cars, similar to those used in truck fleets, to charge drivers more for using busier roads during peak hours. In Sydney tomorrow, the city council will debate proposals giving police more access to its CCTV network for general ''intelligence gathering'', and releasing footage to the media to discourage antisocial behaviour.
Access to the City of Melbourne's CCTV system is restricted to police and lawyers for alleged offenders and victims, and unused footage is destroyed after 30 days. An external audit committee monitors compliance of the program with various protocols. But still there are concerns over the all-seeing eye. We can no longer assume activities performed in public places will pass unobserved and unrecorded, the Victorian Law Reform Commission says. Ours is a surveillance society, too.
''It really is no longer possible to be anonymous in most public places. We are very quickly losing the capacity to blend in as part of the crowd,'' says the commission's chairman, Professor Neil Rees. ''Any time you have been into the city of Melbourne your image will have been captured on one of these systems and stored.
''We all have a shared interest in blending in, in having a private conversation in a quiet corner. Now, with all the surveillance equipment out there, that is really not possible to do with confidence.''
The commission will advise the Attorney-General early next year on whether regulation of surveillance technologies is needed to protect people's privacy. Early suggestions include appointing an independent regulator to monitor surveillance of public places.
In a consultation paper released in March, the commission said such surveillance was likely to become more widespread as devices became more affordable and invisible. ''The Surveillance Devices Act in Victoria is 10 years old and the technology has exploded over the last 10 years,'' Rees says. ''It is a profound issue for us as a community. As the equipment gets more and more sophisticated, more and more people will retreat behind high walls. Others are going to have to live with the fact that their every moment is capable of being monitored by somebody.
''We need to strike a balance between getting the best out of technology and not being made to feel we are being intruded on, perhaps overzealously, in public places. That balance is not going to be easy to achieve.''
The commission also highlighted an increase in the use of tracking devices such as GPS, radio frequency identification, automatic number plate recognition, mobile phone surveillance and biometrics. Behavioural modelling by online companies such as Google is another growing concern. The popular online search engine is testing ''interest-based advertising'' in the US that will pitch ads at individual consumers based on ''de-identified'' surveillance of their internet use.
The new technology, which could be in Australia by next year, is part of what The New York Times last month called a sea change in the way consumers encounter the web. People will start seeing customised ads, different versions of websites, even different discounts to other users when shopping, based on what retailers know about their tastes and budget. ''On the old internet, nobody knew you were a dog,'' the article's author wrote. ''On the new targeted internet, they now know what kind of dog you are, your favourite leash colour, the last time you had fleas and the date you were neutered.''
MAGNUM sniffs me as I walk inside Victorian Detective Services, on a violent day in Carnegie. He's a Weimaraner - a gundog - named after the 1980s TV crime series Magnum P.I. Going on 11, his hunting days past, he now acts as a genial mascot of sorts for this party of private investigators.
Over a cup of white tea in his corner office, beneath framed photographs of James Bond and a Scarface montage, general manager Mark Grover talks the surveillance game. ''There is always a reason why someone is under surveillance,'' he says. ''It could be a salesman that is playing the back nine every second day instead of working. It could be an airline pilot who has put in that they are sick or ill but might be flying a cargo plane now in Nigeria, while receiving benefits here. Maybe it's a truck driver knocking off a couple of dozen bottles of red on his delivery … All employers typically are curious about what some of their staff who are no good are up to.''
Grover, a former president of the World Investigators Network, has been in the game for 22 years. Back in the day, his car was his office and a long-lens camera his friend. ''It's tiring, boring, you put on weight after a long time - 14, 15-hour days sitting in the car, standing in the cold. Nobody loves you. No TV. Just watching.''
Technology has since changed the way he watches. He might track targets through their telephone or email, lift revealing photographs from social networking websites or log into CCTV camera footage in Paris or Amsterdam. Surveillance is now in the hands of anyone with a mobile phone camera, he says.
On a table in his office are other tools of his trade: a spy-pen camera small enough to film from your top pocket; a wristwatch camera and a teeny black-box listening device with a SIM card that can be used to eavesdrop on conversations undetected.
''Everything is possible, it's just a matter of asking how it's done,'' he says. ''And staying within the law as well,'' he adds, after a pause.
Surveillance technology has grown so pervasive and inexpensive, anyone might fancy themselves an amateur snoop. Retailers such as OzSpy sell high-resolution spy pens, which record video and audio, from $129, and spy watches with colour video and audio for $199. Spy cameras are hidden inside smoke detectors ($359), desktop clocks ($219), power points ($299) and motorcycle helmets ($189). CCTV cameras sell for as little as $159.
The extent to which they may be lawfully used in Victoria differs according to the type of device and activity undertaken, the Law Reform Commission says. Under the Surveillance Devices Act it is illegal to use a listening device to monitor a ''private conversation'' anywhere. But there is no prohibition on using optical surveillance devices outdoors or within a shopping centre; audio surveillance in busy outdoor and indoor areas; using tracking devices such as mobile phones or just good old-fashioned surveillance without the latest gadgets. Data surveillance devices, such as spyware, can be used to communicate and publish information, regardless of whether consent is sought.
Helen Versey, Victoria's second Privacy Commissioner, questions whether the law has kept pace with such technologies. ''Anyone's mobile phone is a tracking device, also there's automatic number plate recognition. All sorts of technologies are improving all the time that can be used to track people and their movements,'' she says. ''Of course, they have benefits such as law enforcement. But it's a matter of being aware of them and keeping the balance right. While recognising they have great uses and benefits, they are also potentially very invasive.''
Keeping an eye on the public sector with a small staff of 14, she can't say for sure whether that balance has been struck in Victoria. Who watches the watchers? In addition to surveillance legislation, Commonwealth and Victorian laws regulate the handling of personal information, but Versey says there are ''significant gaps'' in such regulations, which do not apply to private individuals and businesses with an annual turnover of less than $3 million. She supports calls for the appointment of a specific regulator to oversee all forms of surveillance.
Privacy Victoria also points to the inherent risks of data matching, where an individual's various personal records are aggregated and shared between organisations for public interest purposes, such as law enforcement, research or protecting public revenue. In guidelines released last month, the privacy group said safeguards were needed to stop data being disclosed by an organisation without the specific consent of the individual.
Versey also cautions people more generally about disclosing personal information online, ''because of the difficulty of being able to control it once it is out there in the public domain'', with organisations mining the web for information.
Lloyd Borrett, marketing manager at internet security software provider AVG, says companies are already compiling complete profiles of users. Of greater concern, though, are cyber criminals spying on our personal information or stealing our identities. ''All of the stuff that happens online - the viruses, worms, trojans - all of that is happening now, not because hackers are wanting to have fun like it once was, it's serious cyber criminals trying to get bits of your identity,'' he says. ''That can be your name, birth date, trying to get your credit card numbers or bank account details.''
Data mining by larger online retailers or search engines is relatively harmless, he says. ''In theory, they could gather enough information on you to build up almost an online DNA profile of your buying and thinking trends. Online they're building up a dossier about your likes and dislikes, and … I don't think it's too much of an issue unless people are trading in that information.''
But, he adds, privacy is reliant to some extent on the integrity of companies and regulation, ''and recent examples tell us the integrity of companies and regulation is not something we can rely on that readily''.
ROGER Clarke refuses to contact me via my personal email account on a Google server. Gmail, he says, gathers into its archive all its email traffic and retains it indefinitely: ''All the things I do, all the opinions I've got.''
Clarke, chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation, witheringly describes Google's offering of an ''opt-out'' from services such as interest-based advertising as a ''very American solution''.
''It's not consent. Consent is where the individual makes a positive decision at the beginning to opt in,'' he says. ''I use a number of Google services. I still use them as my primary search engine, I use Google Maps because they're effective. But the vast majority of people simply swan in there and don't realise what they are making available and what they are getting into, and I think that's a serious problem.
''The network of information they have of individuals is vast. For them to say they are obtaining categorised, general information is nonsense; it's sleight of hand.''
The foundation is calling for nominations for its ''Australian Big Brother Awards'' under two categories: ''the Orwells'' (awarded to the worst corporate invaders) and ''the Smiths'' (in honour of writer George Orwell's doomed hero in 1984).
But there are signs Orwell's totalitarian dystopia may yet remain fiction. Switzerland's data protection watchdog last week demanded Google withdraw its ''street view'' facility, for allegedly not respecting conditions set to respect personal privacy - such as not covering or blurring faces or car licence plates.
In the UK, where former home secretary Jacqui Smith was criticised recently for proposing a ''super-database'' tracking everyone's emails, calls, texts and internet use, the Government has had to resile from introducing compulsory national identification cards after a public outcry.
A House of Lords report, in February, called for the deletion of all DNA profiles on the national database except for those of convicted criminals, and the introduction of binding codes of practice for use of CCTV by both the public and private sectors. The report questioned whether local authorities, rather than police, should mount surveillance operations, after evidence some councils used CCTV to detect illegal rubbish dumping and dog fouling.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle's claim that the city's new CCTV regime will help reduce criminal activity is also open to question. Despite an increase in cameras since 1997, both the numbers of incidents recorded and those reported to police have dropped, audit figures show.
Surveillance is a gradual and incessant creep, the House of Lords warns. Unchecked, we march towards a mark where every detail about an individual is recorded and pored over by both the state and private sectors.
By then, though, it will be no use asking who is watching us - because everyone will be.
Now, though, it simply watches, often from the shadows. Peering down from security cameras as we walk the city streets, buy bread at the corner store, fill the car with petrol, or catch a taxi or tram. Tracking us through our mobile phone or when driving through a tollway to Melbourne Airport, which last year trialled "virtual strip search" security scanners. Someone's watching while we're surfing online, sending an email, or updating our Facebook profile to paranoid. Melbourne once held pretensions of being the city that never sleeps. Now, at least, it is the city that never shuts its eyes.
A locked, windowless room within the Town Hall has become the city's high priestess of surveillance. Endless CCTV footage screens along the wall, fed from cameras looking over Melbourne's streets, laneways and dark corners. The latest tilt-and-zoom cameras rotate 360 degrees, so few crannies escape unseen. They can pick out a face in the crowd from a kilometre away.
Lord Mayor Robert Doyle this month announced the city had installed a further 31 "Safe City cameras" in the CBD - bringing the total to 54 - to combat rising street violence. Specially trained security contractors monitor the cameras without respite from the small control room, the exact location of which is secret and off-bounds to media. One sanctioned visitor told The Sunday Age it was like stepping into a reality TV control booth, where you're the producer deciding who should be seen on the big screen.
"There will be groups that say this is Big Brother. I say, 'Bad luck, city safety comes first'," Doyle declared. "The message is now clear to those who wish to commit a crime in our streets: the likelihood is that now you will be seen."
But then, so will everyone else. Former UK information commissioner Richard Thomas, whose term ended in June, once warned Britain was sleepwalking into a "surveillance society". Two years later, in 2006, they woke up "to a surveillance society that is already all around us". The UK is the most-watched patch on Earth, boasting an estimated four million CCTV cameras, and leads the world in building a national DNA database, with more than 7 per cent of the population already logged.
Australia has been more restrained. But the pressure to deploy new and more affordable surveillance technologies is constant. This month, La Trobe University academics proposed installing tracking devices in cars, similar to those used in truck fleets, to charge drivers more for using busier roads during peak hours. In Sydney tomorrow, the city council will debate proposals giving police more access to its CCTV network for general ''intelligence gathering'', and releasing footage to the media to discourage antisocial behaviour.
Access to the City of Melbourne's CCTV system is restricted to police and lawyers for alleged offenders and victims, and unused footage is destroyed after 30 days. An external audit committee monitors compliance of the program with various protocols. But still there are concerns over the all-seeing eye. We can no longer assume activities performed in public places will pass unobserved and unrecorded, the Victorian Law Reform Commission says. Ours is a surveillance society, too.
''It really is no longer possible to be anonymous in most public places. We are very quickly losing the capacity to blend in as part of the crowd,'' says the commission's chairman, Professor Neil Rees. ''Any time you have been into the city of Melbourne your image will have been captured on one of these systems and stored.
''We all have a shared interest in blending in, in having a private conversation in a quiet corner. Now, with all the surveillance equipment out there, that is really not possible to do with confidence.''
The commission will advise the Attorney-General early next year on whether regulation of surveillance technologies is needed to protect people's privacy. Early suggestions include appointing an independent regulator to monitor surveillance of public places.
In a consultation paper released in March, the commission said such surveillance was likely to become more widespread as devices became more affordable and invisible. ''The Surveillance Devices Act in Victoria is 10 years old and the technology has exploded over the last 10 years,'' Rees says. ''It is a profound issue for us as a community. As the equipment gets more and more sophisticated, more and more people will retreat behind high walls. Others are going to have to live with the fact that their every moment is capable of being monitored by somebody.
''We need to strike a balance between getting the best out of technology and not being made to feel we are being intruded on, perhaps overzealously, in public places. That balance is not going to be easy to achieve.''
The commission also highlighted an increase in the use of tracking devices such as GPS, radio frequency identification, automatic number plate recognition, mobile phone surveillance and biometrics. Behavioural modelling by online companies such as Google is another growing concern. The popular online search engine is testing ''interest-based advertising'' in the US that will pitch ads at individual consumers based on ''de-identified'' surveillance of their internet use.
The new technology, which could be in Australia by next year, is part of what The New York Times last month called a sea change in the way consumers encounter the web. People will start seeing customised ads, different versions of websites, even different discounts to other users when shopping, based on what retailers know about their tastes and budget. ''On the old internet, nobody knew you were a dog,'' the article's author wrote. ''On the new targeted internet, they now know what kind of dog you are, your favourite leash colour, the last time you had fleas and the date you were neutered.''
MAGNUM sniffs me as I walk inside Victorian Detective Services, on a violent day in Carnegie. He's a Weimaraner - a gundog - named after the 1980s TV crime series Magnum P.I. Going on 11, his hunting days past, he now acts as a genial mascot of sorts for this party of private investigators.
Over a cup of white tea in his corner office, beneath framed photographs of James Bond and a Scarface montage, general manager Mark Grover talks the surveillance game. ''There is always a reason why someone is under surveillance,'' he says. ''It could be a salesman that is playing the back nine every second day instead of working. It could be an airline pilot who has put in that they are sick or ill but might be flying a cargo plane now in Nigeria, while receiving benefits here. Maybe it's a truck driver knocking off a couple of dozen bottles of red on his delivery … All employers typically are curious about what some of their staff who are no good are up to.''
Grover, a former president of the World Investigators Network, has been in the game for 22 years. Back in the day, his car was his office and a long-lens camera his friend. ''It's tiring, boring, you put on weight after a long time - 14, 15-hour days sitting in the car, standing in the cold. Nobody loves you. No TV. Just watching.''
Technology has since changed the way he watches. He might track targets through their telephone or email, lift revealing photographs from social networking websites or log into CCTV camera footage in Paris or Amsterdam. Surveillance is now in the hands of anyone with a mobile phone camera, he says.
On a table in his office are other tools of his trade: a spy-pen camera small enough to film from your top pocket; a wristwatch camera and a teeny black-box listening device with a SIM card that can be used to eavesdrop on conversations undetected.
''Everything is possible, it's just a matter of asking how it's done,'' he says. ''And staying within the law as well,'' he adds, after a pause.
Surveillance technology has grown so pervasive and inexpensive, anyone might fancy themselves an amateur snoop. Retailers such as OzSpy sell high-resolution spy pens, which record video and audio, from $129, and spy watches with colour video and audio for $199. Spy cameras are hidden inside smoke detectors ($359), desktop clocks ($219), power points ($299) and motorcycle helmets ($189). CCTV cameras sell for as little as $159.
The extent to which they may be lawfully used in Victoria differs according to the type of device and activity undertaken, the Law Reform Commission says. Under the Surveillance Devices Act it is illegal to use a listening device to monitor a ''private conversation'' anywhere. But there is no prohibition on using optical surveillance devices outdoors or within a shopping centre; audio surveillance in busy outdoor and indoor areas; using tracking devices such as mobile phones or just good old-fashioned surveillance without the latest gadgets. Data surveillance devices, such as spyware, can be used to communicate and publish information, regardless of whether consent is sought.
Helen Versey, Victoria's second Privacy Commissioner, questions whether the law has kept pace with such technologies. ''Anyone's mobile phone is a tracking device, also there's automatic number plate recognition. All sorts of technologies are improving all the time that can be used to track people and their movements,'' she says. ''Of course, they have benefits such as law enforcement. But it's a matter of being aware of them and keeping the balance right. While recognising they have great uses and benefits, they are also potentially very invasive.''
Keeping an eye on the public sector with a small staff of 14, she can't say for sure whether that balance has been struck in Victoria. Who watches the watchers? In addition to surveillance legislation, Commonwealth and Victorian laws regulate the handling of personal information, but Versey says there are ''significant gaps'' in such regulations, which do not apply to private individuals and businesses with an annual turnover of less than $3 million. She supports calls for the appointment of a specific regulator to oversee all forms of surveillance.
Privacy Victoria also points to the inherent risks of data matching, where an individual's various personal records are aggregated and shared between organisations for public interest purposes, such as law enforcement, research or protecting public revenue. In guidelines released last month, the privacy group said safeguards were needed to stop data being disclosed by an organisation without the specific consent of the individual.
Versey also cautions people more generally about disclosing personal information online, ''because of the difficulty of being able to control it once it is out there in the public domain'', with organisations mining the web for information.
Lloyd Borrett, marketing manager at internet security software provider AVG, says companies are already compiling complete profiles of users. Of greater concern, though, are cyber criminals spying on our personal information or stealing our identities. ''All of the stuff that happens online - the viruses, worms, trojans - all of that is happening now, not because hackers are wanting to have fun like it once was, it's serious cyber criminals trying to get bits of your identity,'' he says. ''That can be your name, birth date, trying to get your credit card numbers or bank account details.''
Data mining by larger online retailers or search engines is relatively harmless, he says. ''In theory, they could gather enough information on you to build up almost an online DNA profile of your buying and thinking trends. Online they're building up a dossier about your likes and dislikes, and … I don't think it's too much of an issue unless people are trading in that information.''
But, he adds, privacy is reliant to some extent on the integrity of companies and regulation, ''and recent examples tell us the integrity of companies and regulation is not something we can rely on that readily''.
ROGER Clarke refuses to contact me via my personal email account on a Google server. Gmail, he says, gathers into its archive all its email traffic and retains it indefinitely: ''All the things I do, all the opinions I've got.''
Clarke, chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation, witheringly describes Google's offering of an ''opt-out'' from services such as interest-based advertising as a ''very American solution''.
''It's not consent. Consent is where the individual makes a positive decision at the beginning to opt in,'' he says. ''I use a number of Google services. I still use them as my primary search engine, I use Google Maps because they're effective. But the vast majority of people simply swan in there and don't realise what they are making available and what they are getting into, and I think that's a serious problem.
''The network of information they have of individuals is vast. For them to say they are obtaining categorised, general information is nonsense; it's sleight of hand.''
The foundation is calling for nominations for its ''Australian Big Brother Awards'' under two categories: ''the Orwells'' (awarded to the worst corporate invaders) and ''the Smiths'' (in honour of writer George Orwell's doomed hero in 1984).
But there are signs Orwell's totalitarian dystopia may yet remain fiction. Switzerland's data protection watchdog last week demanded Google withdraw its ''street view'' facility, for allegedly not respecting conditions set to respect personal privacy - such as not covering or blurring faces or car licence plates.
In the UK, where former home secretary Jacqui Smith was criticised recently for proposing a ''super-database'' tracking everyone's emails, calls, texts and internet use, the Government has had to resile from introducing compulsory national identification cards after a public outcry.
A House of Lords report, in February, called for the deletion of all DNA profiles on the national database except for those of convicted criminals, and the introduction of binding codes of practice for use of CCTV by both the public and private sectors. The report questioned whether local authorities, rather than police, should mount surveillance operations, after evidence some councils used CCTV to detect illegal rubbish dumping and dog fouling.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle's claim that the city's new CCTV regime will help reduce criminal activity is also open to question. Despite an increase in cameras since 1997, both the numbers of incidents recorded and those reported to police have dropped, audit figures show.
Surveillance is a gradual and incessant creep, the House of Lords warns. Unchecked, we march towards a mark where every detail about an individual is recorded and pored over by both the state and private sectors.
By then, though, it will be no use asking who is watching us - because everyone will be.
.
.
.
.
.
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