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‘Murder, torture, sexual assault’ – MI5 & informants authorized to commit crimes in UK, court hears

RT | October 5, 2018

MI5 informants have been granted legal cover to commit crimes within the UK that may include murder, a tribunal into British security services’ alleged criminality has heard.

The policy, allegedly in place since the early 1990s, would potentially allow the Security Service to authorize participation in “murder, torture, sexual assault or other grave criminality” if they believed it was in the public interest, claimed Ben Jaffey QC, representing an alliance of human rights groups.

Speaking to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), Thursday, Jaffey, argued that the practice has enabled British security services to conceal widespread illegal activity from both agents and informants within the UK.

Known within intelligence circles as ‘the third direction,’ the policy was acknowledged for the first time in a British court when Jaffrey’s clients, including Privacy International and Reprieve, claimed that the practice was unlawful on human rights grounds.

It had earlier been revealed that British intelligence agents, namely MI6, were allowed to commit crime overseas. Thursday’s hearing was the first time authorized criminality from the security services within Britain had been claimed.

MI5’s policy would be illegal if it breaches human rights, such as the ban on the use of torture, Jaffey told the secretive IPT tribunal.

“This is a case where the agencies are able to self-grant themselves a practical immunity from the criminal law,” Jaffrey argued.

The policy would have been in place when MI5 agents were active in Northern Ireland, which in the early 90s was still witnessing The Troubles, a low-level sectarian war.

The UK government’s official guidelines state that there is no immunity from prosecution for agents who participate in criminality. Despite this, Jaffrey said that police and prosecutors were unaware of the details of the crime due to the secrecy of the policy.

The revelation is the latest embarrassment for the government during the IPT tribunal, a similar policy – the so-called ‘James Bond clause’ – was exposed earlier in the proceedings.

Following the hearing, Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, said: “We want to know if it’s government policy to let MI5 agents get away with serious crimes such as torture and murder.” She urged the government, if this is their policy, to “inform MPs and the public, and open the policy to legal and parliamentary scrutiny.”

October 6, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s ”Antisemitism” Cyber Monitoring System

If Americans Knew | October 5, 2018

Naftali Bennett, Israeli Minister of Education & Minister of Diaspora Affairs, announces social media “command center” which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze every single post on Facebook and Twitter, says it currently detects roughly 10,000 ‘antisemitic’ posts a day.

However, because Israel has distorted the meaning of ‘antisemitism’ (see http://bit.ly/2Pbmpcb) many, possibly most, of these posts may concern Israel’s violations of human rights rather than bigotry toward Jews.

More info:

The International Campaign to Criminalize Criticism of Israel (PDF) – https://ifamericaknew.org/download/an…

Video: Israel’s Internet Censorship War – https://youtu.be/Vqhi16iikxk

Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign – http://bit.ly/2DXb5PK

Israel Palestine Timeline – https://israelpalestinetimeline.org

Israel Launches Internet “Command Center” to Monitor Social Media – https://iakn.us/2IFs2gk

[Video compiled from various sources. Hebrew portions removed for brevity.]

October 5, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Creating a Suspect Society: The Scary Side of the Technological Police State

By John W. Whitehead | Rutherford Institute | October 2, 2018

It’s a given that Big Brother is always watching us.

Unfortunately, thanks to the government’s ongoing efforts to build massive databases using emerging surveillance, DNA and biometrics technologies, Big Brother (and his corporate partners in crime) is getting even creepier and more invasive, intrusive and stalker-like.

Indeed, every dystopian sci-fi film (and horror film, for that matter) we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science and technology, Big Business, and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful—but not without help from the citizenry.

On a daily basis, Americans are relinquishing (in many cases, voluntarily) the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world.

Consider all the ways we continue to be tracked, hunted, hounded, and stalked by the government and its dubious agents:

By tapping into your phone lines and cell phone communications, the government knows what you say.

By uploading all of your emails, opening your mail, and reading your Facebook posts and text messages, the government knows what you write.

By monitoring your movements with the use of license plate readers, surveillance cameras and other tracking devices, the government knows where you go.

By churning through all of the detritus of your life—what you read, where you go, what you say—the government can predict what you will do.

By mapping the synapses in your brain, scientists—and in turn, the government—will soon know what you remember.

By mapping your biometrics—your “face-print”—and storing the information in a massive, shared government database available to bureaucratic agencies, police and the military, the government’s goal is to use facial recognition software to identify you (and every other person in the country) and track your movements, wherever you go.

And by accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc.

Of course, none of these technologies are foolproof.

Nor are they immune from tampering, hacking or user bias.

Nevertheless, they have become a convenient tool in the hands of government agents to render null and void the Constitution’s requirements of privacy and its prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Consequently, no longer are we “innocent until proven guilty” in the face of DNA evidence that places us at the scene of a crime, behavior sensing technology that interprets our body temperature and facial tics as suspicious, and government surveillance devices that cross-check our biometrics, license plates and DNA against a growing database of unsolved crimes and potential criminals.

For a long time, the government was required to at least observe some basic restrictions on when, where and how it could access someone’s biometrics and DNA and use it against them.

That is no longer the case.

The information is being amassed through a variety of routine procedures, with the police leading the way as prime collectors of biometrics for something as non-threatening as a simple moving violation. The nation’s courts are also doing their part to “build” the database, requiring biometric information as a precursor to more lenient sentences. And of course Corporate America has made it so easy to use one’s biometrics to access everything from bank accounts to cell phones.

This doesn’t even touch on the many ways in which the government is using our DNA against us, the Constitution be damned.

DNA technology, what police like to refer to as a “modern fingerprint,” reveals everything about “who we are, where we come from, and who we will be.”

With such a powerful tool at their disposal, it was inevitable that the government’s collection of DNA would become a slippery slope toward government intrusion.

Now, Americans are vulnerable to the government accessing, analyzing and storing their DNA without their knowledge or permission.

Even hospitals have gotten in on the game by taking and storing newborn babies’ DNA, often without their parents’ knowledge or consent. It’s part of the government’s mandatory genetic screening of newborns. However, in many states, the DNA is stored indefinitely.

What this means for those being born today is inclusion in a government database that contains intimate information about who they are, their ancestry, and what awaits them in the future, including their inclinations to be followers, leaders or troublemakers.

For the rest of us, it’s just a matter of time before the government gets hold of our DNA, either through mandatory programs carried out in connection with law enforcement and corporate America.

If you haven’t yet connected the dots, let me point the way.

Having already used surveillance technology to render the entire American populace potential suspects, DNA technology in the hands of government will complete our transition to a suspect society in which we are all merely waiting to be matched up with a crime.

No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty.

Now we are all suspects in a DNA lineup until circumstances and science say otherwise.

It’s not just yourself you have to worry about, either.

It’s also anyone related to you who can be connected by DNA.

Unfortunately, we now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed, convicted and controlled by our technology, which answers not to us but to our government and corporate rulers.

This is the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction lesson that is being pounded into us on a daily basis.

While the Fourth Amendment was created to prevent government officials from searching an individual’s person or property without a warrant and probable cause—evidence that some kind of criminal activity was afoot—the founders could scarcely have imagined a world in which we needed protection against widespread government breaches of our privacy on a cellular level.

Yet that’s exactly what we are lacking.

Once again, technology has outdistanced both our understanding of it and our ability to adequately manage the consequences of unleashing it on an unsuspecting populace.

In the end, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, what all of this amounts to is a carefully crafted campaign designed to give the government access to and control over what it really wants: you.

October 2, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

France Raids Anti-Zionist Islamic Center in North

Al-Manar | October 2, 2018

A so-called “counter-terror” operation, involving around 200 policemen, is underway on Tuesday in France, with the police forces raiding the headquarters of Islamic organization Centre Zahra France in the country’s north, France Info radio station reported, citing the prefecture of the department.

Centre Zahra France is a Shiite organization, known for its anti-Zionist rhetoric, namely, in social media.

Eleven people were detained in the raid in the commune of Grande-Synthe, a suburb of the port city of Dunkirk, local media reported on Tuesday.

“This morning, starting from 6 a.m. [local time, 04:00 GMT], the national police has been carrying out an operation in the Grande-Synthe commune, Nord department. The operation is being conducted within counter-terrorism efforts… Centre Zahra France’s activity has been followed up closely due to the fact that its leaders grant support to a number of terror organizations,” France Info radio station reported, citing the Nord prefecture’s statement.

The police have also raided 12 homes of the Centre Zahra France’s major leaders.

October 2, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Israeli snipers continue to target unarmed Palestinians

Ma’an – October 1, 2018

BETHLEHEM – The Israeli army continues killing unarmed Palestinian civilian protesters with snipers and live ammunition in the besieged Gaza Strip, with the approval of Israel’s Supreme Court, according to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

More than 18 years since October 2000, when the Israeli police killed 13 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Israel and since the findings of the Or Commission of Inquiry, that was nominated by the Israeli government to investigate the events, concluded that “It should be unequivocally clear that live fire, including by snipers, is not a means for the police to disperse crowds.”

Adalah said that this past Friday, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians, including two children aged 12 and 14, and injured at least 257 others in Gaza, of whom 163 were shot with Israeli live ammunition.

Adalah released a statement demanding Israel to immediately halt the shooting of civilian protesters with live ammunition and to allow Palestinians to exercise their right to protest and to freedom of political expression.

In October 2000, Israeli police and special sniper units killed 13 unarmed Palestinians, including 12 citizens of Israel and one Gaza resident, and wounded hundreds more when Palestinian citizens of Israel participated in mass demonstrations throughout the country to protest Israel’s oppressive policies against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) at the beginning of the Second Intifada.

However, 18 years later not a single Israeli police officer, commander or politician responsible for the October 2000 killings has been held responsible for their actions.

Adalah along with the families of the 13 killed civilians continue to demand that those responsible for the crimes of October 2000 be prosecuted.

Adalah said “Eighteen years have passed and despite the clear recommendations of the Or Commission, the Israeli armed forces have not changed their practices but continue to use excessive force and fire live ammunition at unarmed Palestinians in contradiction of both Israeli and international law, this time at protesters in Gaza.”

Since the start of “The Great March of Return” protests in Gaza on 30 March, “Israeli troops have killed 151 people – including 30 children, one woman, two journalists, three paramedics, and three persons with disabilities, according to figures from Al Mezan Center for Human Rights. Israeli troops also wounded 10,234 persons, including 5,814 – among them 939 children and 114 women – with live fire.”

Additionally, in April, Adalah and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to order the Israeli military to immediately halt its use of snipers and other live weapons against unarmed protesters.

The petition emphasized the absolute ban on opening fire on demonstrators with live ammunition and noted that the norms applicable to confronting civilian demonstrations are based in international law governing “law enforcement and order.” These same norms have also been adopted into Israeli law, including via Or Commission report.

“These universal norms apply equally and without discrimination to citizens and non-citizens alike, regardless of the content of the protest, their slogans, their location, their organizational affiliation, and the ethnic and national affiliation of the participants.”

The Israeli Supreme Court rejected the petition by Adalah and Al Mezan, who responded by saying “This ruling, which justifies the shooting of protesters, contradicts the conclusions and preliminary results of international human rights organizations and United Nations bodies documenting and evaluating the events in Gaza. The Supreme Court’s ruling gives full legitimacy to the illegal actions of the Israeli military, which has led to the killing of more than 100 people and the wounding of thousands of protesters, including women, children, journalists, and paramedics. Of those killed, 94 percent were shot by Israeli troops in the upper body.”

The casualties figures mentioned above were from May 25th 2018.

Adalah added “Israeli armed forces backed up by the Supreme Court’s ruling, continue to target unarmed Palestinian demonstrators with snipers and live ammunition today in Gaza just as they killed Palestinian citizens of Israel protesting in October 2000.”

The statement added that the center “will continue to defend Palestinians’ right to protest, to support the struggle against racism and occupation, and to demand accountability for the victims of these gross human rights violations.”

Adalah also urged the international community to take strong measures to ensure respect for international law, to provide protection for demonstrators and all civilians in Gaza, and to support the work of the independent UN Commission of Inquiry into the 2018 Protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

October 1, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

First They Came for Our Democracy, Then They Came for Our S’Mores: Russophobia Has Jumped the Shark

By Helen Buyniski | Aletho News | October 1, 2018

It’s almost election time, and lest you forget, American democracy has never been in greater peril. Not from inaccurate, insecure voting machines a schoolchild can hack; nor from bought-off candidates who leave voters cold; but from Russian agents probing the fabric of our society, looking for weaknesses. It is up to us, as patriotic Americans, to defend our beloved institutions against the Red Menace.

So writes Susan Landau, a “cybersecurity expert” (professional fearmonger) with funding links to Big Tech and the military-industrial complex, at least. Landau warns that the same Russians whose interference in the 2016 presidential election was never conclusively proven are burrowing further into American society, emboldened by the absence of a decisive response to their prior meddling.

Perhaps realizing that Americans are running low on fear – twenty years fighting a losing War on Terror have inured us to the threat of jihad, and it was only through appeals to Cold War-era pop culture that our Russophobia was so easily resuscitated – Landau plays dirty with the one card left in her propagandist’s deck. The Russians aren’t just targeting our “civil society” organizations; they want our boy scouts.

Such allegations are calculated for maximum emotional impact. Even the most avowedly liberal American parents feel a twinge of discomfort at the rapid pace of social change over the last decade, and the scouts – no longer boy scouts in our brave new world – have been ground zero for much of this change. America has morphed from a society that guardedly accepts sexual variation into a neurotically permissive society terrified of offending members of genders not yet invented. Facebook offers the user over 70 gender options, an all-you-can-be buffet of identity politics. To question this paradigm is considered intolerant.

By linking the gender-neutral Scouts with the Red Menace, Landau is offering progressive parents a “get out of bigotry free” card. It’s OK to be uncomfortable with the queering of the Boy Scouts, as long as the Russians are behind it!

Almost exactly a year ago, she wrote a piece for Foreign Policy warning that the Russians were plotting an assault on our cherished civil institutions and that should they succeed in infiltrating them, they might…cause us to lose trust in our government! That threat clearly didn’t galvanize the Resistance, because this year, she’s kicking things up a notch: it’s now “extremely likely” that Russians are targeting civil society groups, which are the only thing standing between us and abject barbarism.

Landau has no proof that Russians have captured our institutions, as gay scoutmasters or otherwise, but she won’t let that stand in the way of a good story. Lacking Russian examples, she claims Facebook turned a German town into refugee-attacking hatemongers and points to a spoofed text sent to undocumented supporters of Texas senate candidate Beto O’Rourke as something Russia “could” do. In an effort to bridge these logical chasms, she links to a Brookings Institute report that depicts Russian use of US social media platforms in terms normally used to describe thermonuclear war (“An attack on western critical infrastructure seems inevitable”).

Like the January 2017 “Intelligence Community Assessment” from which she derives her certainty that Russians are infiltrating civil society organizations, Landau’s article treats Russian interference in the 2018 election as a foregone conclusion despite the lack of evidence, pointing to Microsoft’s claim that Russia “hacked” two conservative think tanks and two Democratic senate campaigns as proof that Putin has “our democracy” by the throat yet again.

Coverage of Microsoft’s “discovery” reads like a press release for its new AccountGuard initiative, seemingly designed to profit off candidates’ fears of Russian meddling while offering no proof of actual Russian involvement. The company also called for greater cooperation between corporations and the government, though as the first eager collaborator with the NSA’s Orwellian PRISM program way back in 2007, Microsoft could hardly cooperate any more than it already has.

The most disturbing outgrowth of the entire Russian bot narrative is the adoption of “sowing discord” as a new social sin, a crime worthy of de-platforming citizens from social media – or worse. The phrase is relatively new to the American lexicon, but one finds it in authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia or Kazakhstan, where it is used as a catch-all charge to imprison journalists and activists whose work inconveniences the regime.

With McCarthyite organizations like PropOrNot collaborating with the mainstream media to smear independent journalists as useful idiots and traitors, the US doesn’t need Russians to sow discord. Years of dishonest divide-and-conquer media narratives have completely alienated us from our fellow man. Nothing – not even the threat of Boris and Natasha filling our children’s heads with gender theory around the campfire – can rescue our national solidarity. 2016’s status-quo candidate, Hillary Clinton, said as much when she denounced half the electorate as a “basket of deplorables” – and conservatives took that ball and ran with it, denouncing the Left as mentally ill “snowflakes” and violent Antifa goons.

As if Big Tech’s censorship wasn’t onerous enough, Landau implores Americans to censor themselves online so as not to contribute to the Russian discord-sowing operation. It’s the same line we were fed when the bogeyman was Islamic terrorism: They hate us for our freedom! So we’re going to take away your freedom in the hope they’ll go away! Or, in her words, “It’s time for Americans to change their behavior.” We’re supposed to keep our politics to ourselves, lest it get back to Putin that American civilization has its discontents.

Landau is right about one thing. It reflects poorly on American society that all that is needed to bring the whole house of cards down is for a few well-placed “wrongthink” social media posts to go viral. But this is less the fault of Russia than of America’s homegrown oligarchs, who have exploited the people so thoroughly that even the robust psychological defense mechanisms we’re taught as children to combat cognitive dissonance can only keep reality at bay for so long. Everyone has their breaking point, and America’s is fast approaching. Blame-the-Russians propaganda is the last gasp of an empire in decline, and even propagandists like Landau don’t believe it anymore. A propagandist with no audience is just a liar.

Helen Buyniski blogs at Helen of desTroy.

October 1, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Study Buried For Four Years Shows Crime Lab DNA Testing Is Severely Flawed

By Tim Cushing – TechDirt – September 27, 2018

DNA is supposed to be the gold standard of evidence. Supposedly so distinct it would be impossible to convict the wrong person, yet DNA evidence has been given far more credit than it’s earned.

Part of the problem is that it’s indecipherable to laypeople. That has allowed crime lab technicians to testify to a level of certainty that’s not backed by the data. Another, much larger problem is the testing itself. It searches for DNA matches in samples covered with unrelated DNA. Contamination is all but assured. In one stunning example of DNA testing’s flaws, European law enforcement spent years chasing a nonexistent serial killer whose DNA was scattered across several crime scenes before coming to the realization the DNA officers kept finding belonged to the person packaging the testing swabs used by investigators.

The reputation of DNA testing remains mostly untainted, rose-tinted by the mental imagery of white-coated techs working in spotless labs to deliver justice, surrounded by all sorts of science stuff and high-powered computers. In reality, testing methods vary greatly from crime lab to crime lab, as do the standards for declaring a match. People lose their freedom thanks to inexact science and careless handling of samples. And it happens far more frequently than anyone involved in crime lab testing would like you to believe.

An op-ed about the failures of crime lab DNA testing at the New York Times — written by Boise State Professor of Biology Greg Hampikian — discusses this ongoing problem using some science of his own: a recently-released NIST study. (h/t Grits for Breakfast)

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology gave the same DNA mixture to about 105 American crime laboratories and three Canadian labs and asked them to compare it with DNA from three suspects from a mock bank robbery.

The first two suspects’ DNA was part of the mixture, and most labs correctly matched their DNA to the evidence. However, 74 labs wrongly said the sample included DNA evidence from the third suspect, an “innocent person” who should have been cleared of the hypothetical felony.

This is already a problem. People’s lives are literally on the line and crime lab testing is more likely to make the wrong call on evidence than the correct one. What’s truly disturbing is this study was completed in 2014, but the report was apparently buried by the scientists it implicated. As Dr. Hampikian states in his op-ed, the study’s results may still be unpublished if it weren’t for forensic scientists publicly complaining about the burial.

Four years have passed since the study’s completion and it appears no improvements have been made. The study notes testing protocols vary widely and very little effort is being made to improve error-prone procedures. In addition, the study [PDF] comes with a disclaimer meant to dissuade litigants from challenging DNA evidence by quoting the study’s findings.

The results described in this article provide only a brief snapshot of DNA mixture interpretation as practiced by participating laboratories in 2005 and 2013. Any overall performance assessment is limited to participating laboratories addressing specific questions with provided data based on their knowledge at the time. Given the adversarial nature of the legal system, and the possibility that some might attempt to misuse this article in legal arguments, we wish to emphasize that variation observed in DNA mixture interpretation cannot support any broad claims about “poor performance” across all laboratories involving all DNA mixtures examined in the past.

This certainly doesn’t raise the reader’s confidence in crime lab DNA testing. Instead, it gives the impression the four-year delay between completion and public release was for wagon-circling purposes as crime lab forensic scientists looked for ways to mute the impact of the study’s findings.

But there are also problems with the study itself. The authors of the study appear far too willing to cut crime labs slack for their failures. Rather than point out the problems originating from a lack of standardized processes, the study uses them to excuse the failures, as if unintentionally nailing the wrong person for the crime was somehow worthy of gold stars for effort. Here’s Hampikian’s take:

It is uncomfortable to read the study’s authors praising labs for their careful work when they get things right, but offering sophomoric excuses for them when they get things wrong. Scientists in crime labs need clear feedback to change entrenched, error-prone methods, and they should be strongly encouraged to re-examine old cases where such methods were used.

The study confirms much of what has been exposed earlier: DNA evidence may be based on hard science, but any small variable — including the inevitable tainting of DNA samples — has the ability to throw things off. And when it’s used as evidence in criminal trials, it has the potential to destroy lives. This study shows — at least indirectly — the labs handling DNA evidence aren’t taking it nearly as seriously as they should.

September 29, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

72nd FARC Member Murdered in Colombia Since Peace Agreement

Colombians protest against the murder of social leaders in Bogota.

Colombians protest against the murder of social leaders in Bogota. | Photo: EFE
teleSUR | September 27, 2018

The systematic targeting of social leaders and former FARC guerrilla fighters has become one of the main obstacles to peace in Colombia.

In Colombia, two former combatants of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were attacked in the Cauca department. One of them, John Faber Gomez, who was also a member of the National Protection Unit, died as a result of the wounds he sustained.

The armed attack took place after the Colombian government authorized the new Temporary Hamlet Zone for Normalization in the municipality of Patia, to replace the abandoned hamlet zone in Policarpa, Nariño.

The Common Alternative Revolutionary Force (FARC) party condemned the attack and demanded security guarantees from the government.

“Peace is in mourning. In the Cauca department, a member of the National Protection Unit and our party @FARC_EPueblo was murdered, 72 former combatants have already been murdered. #WeDemandTheRighttoLife #ThatPeaceDoesNotCostUsOurLives #WeWorkForPeace #TheyAreKillingUs,” Pablo Catatumbo tweeted Monday.

The systematic targeting of social leaders, human rights defenders, and former FARC guerrilla fighters has become one of the main obstacles to peace, especially because the state has failed to guarantee control over the territories left by the demobilized FARC.

In the framework of the United Nations General Assembly, the U.N. Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, met with Colombian President Ivan Duque to ratify his commitment to the Colombian peace process and stress the urgency of providing security and development to conflict zones.

Cauca, Nariño, and Antioquia are the departments that record the highest number of murders. Human rights organizations have denounced the country’s General Attorney’s Office for lacking an investigation strategy that takes into account the existence of paramilitary groups, and the systematic nature of the murders against former combatants and social leaders.

RELATED: 

Colombia’s Peace Crumbles as Social Leaders Killed With Impunity

September 28, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

UK’s Snoopers’ Charter Ruled Unlawful: What Does Privacy Mean to You?

By Julian Vigo | Dissident Voice | September 27, 2018

Two weeks ago the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) gave a landmark ruling against the UK government’s mass surveillance program, stating that it violated human rights and offered “no real safeguards” to the public. This surveillance programme, according to the Strasbourg court, allowed the British intelligence agencies’ to violate the right to a private and family life with “insufficient oversight” over which communications were chosen for examination. Of equal importance the ECHR found that the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), also known as the Snoopers’ Charter, did not give enough protection to journalistic sources which would violate the rights to freedom of expression guaranteed in UK and EU laws and would discourage whistle-blowing. In its judgment of the case, Big Brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom (applications nos. 58170/13, 62322/14 and 24960/15), the court concluded that police and security services had breached citizens’ right to privacy by intercepting communications data in bulk, with little oversight of when these powers could be used, just as NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had revealed.

In its judgment, the ECHR expressed concern that “intelligence services can search and examine ‘related communications data’ apparently without restriction’ – data that identifies senders and recipients of communications, their location, email headers, web browsing information, IP addresses, and more.” This means that Internet service providers must store details of everything we do online for twelve months and render it accessible to dozens of public bodies to include everything from browsing records to data on private citizens, search engine activity, to every phone call to text message and geographical location we have held in any of our electronic devices. The IPA also requires that tech companies hand over the data that they possess to intelligence agencies.

Yet, what does this mean for those of us who just use our computers for work and our mobiles for texting friends to meet up for drinks? Surely, this does not affect us, right? Wrong.

The catch is that we are all implicated, to include the simple text message to confirm dinner plans. Do you use a social media account? Do you have photos on your mobile and laptop that you have or have not posted online? Did you rate a restaurant on Google? All this information to include your list of Facebook friends are being mined by the government along with all the tracking information that your many apps provide, your bank, credit card and financial details, biographical information, your resume, your medical records, and all the information in the world that you store on these devices which you might even deem harmless. In this day and age there is no such thing as harmless information. At that, there is no such thing as privacy when the government believes it has already rewritten the IPA in measure with the previous court’s instruction.

As many are concerned with the interception of personal data and parents are reading online privacy and safety guide for kids, the government’s secret interception, processing and storing data of millions of people’s private communications, should alarm each and every one of us. The current form of the IPA means that any information that you have in the UK can be shared with secret intelligence agencies like the CIA, and well beyond. With which other countries does the US also share information under similar secret legal frameworks? Also important to consider here are the impediments to tech development that are under threat such as when then Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to ban Snapchat, WhatsApp, and any other encrypted messaging services unless these companies provided the government with backdoor access to user data. Such measures actually deter technology since most tech companies are aware that the minute they undermine their users’ privacy, their company will not last.

In short, by stripping away our privacy, the government is undermining everything that keeps us free: our expression, our right to protest and to fair trials, our legal and patient confidentiality, our free press. And one can argue our individuality is at stake whereby everything we do, consume, record, and say is potentially up for monitoring and scrutiny, as are those with whom we interact. As Edward Snowden stated, “Because privacy isn’t about something to hide. Privacy is about something to protect. That’s who you are.”

We need to prize our privacy and human right not to be spied upon in this day and age where governments are pulling out the “terrorism” card in order to goad its citizens into surrendering one of the qualities which makes us most human.

Julian Vigo is a scholar, film-maker and human rights consultant. Her latest book is Earthquake in Haiti: The Pornography of Poverty and the Politics of Development (2015). She can be reached at: julian.vigo@gmail.com.

September 27, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Meet James Corbett, Political Extremist!!! #PropagandaWatch

corbettreport | September 25, 2018

Imagine you’re a high school student doing a homework assignment on the Federal Reserve. You go to YouTube and type in “Federal Reserve” in the search bar and find “Century of Enslavement: The History of the Federal Reserve.”

The horror!

Luckily, you don’t have to worry about that, because now that MSNBC and Mother Jones have ganged up, it’s being scrubbed from the search results! Welcome to the world of soft censorship, folks!

SHOW NOTES: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=28238

September 25, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Empire of Lies: Are ‘We the People’ Useful Idiots in the Digital Age?

By John W. Whitehead | Rutherford Foundation | September 25, 2018

“Who needs direct repression,” asked philosopher Slavoj Zizek, “when one can convince the chicken to walk freely into the slaughterhouse?”

In an Orwellian age where war equals peace, surveillance equals safety, and tolerance equals intolerance of uncomfortable truths and politically incorrect ideas, “we the people” have gotten very good at walking freely into the slaughterhouse, all the while convincing ourselves that the prison walls enclosing us within the American police state are there for our protection.

After all, the alternative—taking a stand, raising a ruckus, demanding change, refusing to cooperate, engaging in civil disobedience—is not only a lot of work but can be downright dangerous.

What we fail to realize, however, is that by tacitly allowing these violations to continue, we not only empower the tyrant but we feed the monster.

In this way, what starts off as small, occasional encroachments on our rights, justified in the name of greater safety, becomes routine, wide-ranging abuses so entrenched as to make reform all but impossible: the government lures us in with a scheme to make our lives better, our families safer, and our communities more secure, and then once we buy into it, they slam the trap closed.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about red light cameras, DNA databases, surveillance cameras, or zero tolerance policies: they all result in “we the people” being turned into Enemy Number One.

In this way, the government campaign to spy on our phone calls, letters and emails was sold to the American people as a necessary tool in the war on terror.

Instead of targeting terrorists, however, the government has turned us into potential terrorists, so that if we dare say the wrong thing in a phone call, letter, email or on the internet, especially social media, we end up investigated, charged and possibly jailed.

If you happen to be one of the 1.31 billion individuals who use Facebook or one of the 255 million who tweet their personal and political views on Twitter, you might want to pay close attention.

This criminalization of free speech, which is exactly what the government’s prosecution of those who say the “wrong” thing using an electronic medium amounts to, was at the heart of Elonis v. United States, a Supreme Court case that wrestled with where the government can draw the line when it comes to expressive speech that is protected and permissible versus speech that could be interpreted as connoting a criminal intent. The Court ruled in favor of Elonis.

The common thread running through Elonis’ case and others like it is the use of social media to voice frustration, grievances, and anger, sometimes using language that is overtly violent.

Despite the Court’s ruling in Elonis, Corporate America has now taken the lead in policing expressive activity online, with social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube using their formidable dominance in the field to censor, penalize and regulate speech and behavior online by suspending and/or banning users whose content violated the companies’ so-called community standards for obscenity, violence, hate speech, discrimination, etc.

Make no mistake: this is fascism with a smile.

The subtle appeal of this particular brand of fascism is its self-righteous claim to fighting the evils of our day (intolerance, hatred, violence) using the weapons of Corporate America.

Be warned, however: it is only a matter of time before these weapons are used more broadly, taking aim at anything that stands in its quest for greater profit, control and power.

This is what fascism looks like in a modern context, with corporations flexing their muscles to censor and silence expressive activity under the pretext that it is taking place within a private environment subject to corporate rules as opposed to activity that takes place within a public or government forum that might be subject to the First Amendment’s protection of “controversial” and/or politically incorrect speech.

Alex Jones was just the beginning.

Jones, the majordomo of conspiracy theorists who spawned an empire built on alternative news, was banned from Facebook for posting content that violates the social media site’s “Community Standards,” which prohibit posts that can be construed as bullying or hateful.

According to The Washington Post, Twitter suspended over 70 million accounts over the course of two months to “reduce the flow of misinformation on the platform.”

Curiously enough, you know who has yet to be suspended? President Trump.

Twitter’s rationale for not suspending world leaders such as Trump is because “Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets, would hide important information people should be able to see and debate.”

Frankly, all individuals, whether or not they are world leaders, should be entitled to have their thoughts and ideas aired openly, pitted against those who might disagree with them, and debated widely, especially in a forum like the internet.

Why does this matter?

The internet and social media have taken the place of the historic public square, which has slowly been crowded out by shopping malls and parking lots.

As such, these cyber “public squares” may be the only forum left for citizens to freely speak their minds and exercise their First Amendment rights, especially in the wake of legislation that limits access to our elected representatives.

Unfortunately, the internet has become a tool for the government—and its corporate partners—to monitor, control and punish the populace for behavior and speech that may be controversial but far from criminal.

Yet we would do well to tread cautiously in how much authority we give the Corporate Police State to criminalize free speech activities and chill a vital free speech forum.

Not only are social media and the Internet critical forums for individuals to freely share information and express ideas, but they also serve as release valves to those who may be angry, seething, alienated or otherwise discontented.

Without an outlet for their pent-up anger and frustration, thoughts and emotions fester in secret, which is where most violent acts are born.

In the same way, free speech in the public square—whether it’s the internet, the plaza in front of the U.S. Supreme Court or a college campus—brings people together to express their grievances and challenge oppressive government regimes.

Without it, democracy becomes stagnant and atrophied.

Likewise, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if free speech is not vigilantly protected, democracy is more likely to drift toward fear, repression, and violence. In such a scenario, we will find ourselves threatened with an even more pernicious injury than violence itself: the loss of liberty.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at http://www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

September 25, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

September 25th is “National Panic Day” a day where Americans are encouraged to spy on each other

massprivatei | September 25, 2018

Today, September 25th. is Homeland Security’s “National Panic Day.”

What is “National Panic Day”?

Officially, today is known as “National Awareness Day” not “National Panic Day.” For the reasons stated below,  I am calling it “National Panic Day” which coincides with DHS reissuing their National Terrorism Bulletins this month.

DHS and law enforcement have created a national day that glorifies spying on your family, neighbors, coworkers, classmates and much more.

“Across the country, in our communities, we share everyday moments with our neighbors, family, coworkers, and friends.  We go to work or school, the grocery store, or the gas station.  It’s easy to overlook these routine moments, but as you’re going about your day if you see something that doesn’t seem quite right, say something.  By being alert and reporting suspicious activity to your local law enforcement you can protect your family, neighbors, and community.”

Because DHS and law enforcement don’t do enough spying, they have created a National Awareness Day that encourages domestic spying.

(DHS Suspicious Activity Infographic)

If you think “recognizing the signs of terrorism-related suspicious activity” ended with just an infographic you would be mistaken.

DHS has also created an entire page of suspicious young Americans doing things like bicycle jumping, eating from food trucks and sitting in a school hallway. Besides trying to appeal to X Games fans, what purpose do these videos serve?

I’ll give you a hint, DHS and law enforcement want young people to be afraid of everything.

Besides being blatantly hyperbolic, these videos play on young people’s fear of terror and encourages them to report “harmless activities.” This is what happens when you indoctrinate an entire generation of millennial’s who have grown up living in fear.

DHS’s “National Awareness Day” is a carbon copy of McCarthyism which turned America’s fears of Communism into a national panic that lasted for decades.

My god, what Senator Joseph McCarthy would have given to be alive today.

What better way to justify their existence [DHS] than by appealing to the younger generation and encouraging them to report harmless activities, family, friends, neighbors etc.

Let’s call National Awareness Day what it really is: a day that law enforcement fans the flames of fear, hence “National Panic Day.”

September 25, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

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