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Former Ontario privacy chief says never trust the government with coronavirus cell phone tracking

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | December 31, 2021

Ontario’s former privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian has warned that the government cannot be trusted with cellphone tracking amid the pandemic. The warning came after it was revealed last week that a federal agency has been using cellphone data to track the movements of Canadians since the beginning of the pandemic.

“It concerns me enormously that this would enable the government to collect more and more information,” Ann Cavoukian told The Epoch Times.

“I do not want to [see] a trend where the government is consistently doing this and starting now. You can’t trust the government.”

Last week, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) confirmed it has been using cellphone data to analyze movements for the purposes of pandemic policies. The agency plans to continue with the data analysis until 2026, expanding it to other health issues.

“In March 2020, [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau said that tracking cell phone users was not being considered. Well, they did it, PHAC’s been doing it, and they want to do it even more,” Cavoukian said.

“[Officials] say ‘as soon as the emergency is over, we’re going to return to privacy.’ They don’t. The privacy invasive measures that are introduced during emergencies, pandemics, etc., often continue well after the emergency is over,” she added.

According to the former privacy commissioner, who served from 1997 to 2014, PHAC kept the data collection a secret because “they know people do not want their mobile devices tracked.”

Cavoukian was particularly concerned with the PHAC partnering with other unknown data providers, like the Communications Research Center (CRC).

“In partnership with CRC, PHAC has been producing report summaries to look at how movement trends of the Canadian population have changed over the course of the pandemic, including identifying new patterns to help direct public health messaging, planning and policy development,” PHAC said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

The agency insisted that it did not “receive or collect any individual mobility data” and that it has not stored or acquired individual level data.

On December 16, the PHAC posted a Research for Proposal for a contractor that could “provide it with a steady flow de-identified cell phone data,” reported The Epoch Times.

In a statement, the agency said it “requires access to cell-tower/operator location data that is secure, processed, and timely in addition to being adequately vetted for security, legal, privacy and transparency considerations to assist in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

According to Cavoukian the language in the RFP “reflects an intention to collect this data and retain it.”

She is concerned that the de-identification of data could be done so poorly that it could easily be re-identified.

“At the very least, the Privacy Commissioner’s Office should be all over this, and saying we need to examine exactly what measures you introduced to do this and how you’re going to protect privacy and de-identify data such that it cannot be re-identified,” she said.

“Examine this from end to end. Look under the hood.”

January 1, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Twitter Suspends mRNA Inventor Dr. Robert Malone

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | December 29, 2021

After months of providing valuable Covid-19 information that runs counter to the official narrative, Twitter has finally banned Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of mRNA technology.

Malone, who will appear on the Joe Rogan show Thursday according to associate Ed Dowd (one of four contributors to the Malone doctrine), had more than 520,000 followers. He has been an outspoken critic of both mRNA vaccines, as well as the abysmal failures of policymakers worldwide in responding to the pandemic.

He was not warned or provided an opportunity to delete any offending tweets – instead he was “just suspended,” Dowd continued.

Here’s Malone’s last tweet – sharing an article which claims that the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine does ‘more harm than good.’

Malone can still be followed via his substack page.

December 29, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

New York Democrat introduces new social media censorship bill

The bill aims to curb people’s speech by targeting platforms

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 27, 2021

If a state senator got his way, the state of New York could soon get a new law aimed at regulating what content can appear on social media. The bill is designed to circumvent existing federal-level solutions in some instances and is reportedly inspired by internal documents leaked by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen.

But many legal experts believe that the bill, if passed, would eventually be overturned as unconstitutional for preventing dissemination of protected content.

The bill sponsored by state Senator Brad Hoylman wants to tackle what’s referred to as unlawful online content such as “misinformation” (particularly around Covid/vaccines), and posts that might allegedly lead users to develop eating disorders or engage in self-harm.

Envisaged in the bill is an amendment to New York’s penal code that lets citizens, the state attorney general and city corporation councils sue tech companies behind social media networks, or individuals, if they are suspected of “contributing” to spread of misinformation in a manner that’s “knowing or reckless.”

And while the bill is worded in a way that states content seen as endangering people’s safety or health should be clamped down on if it is “promoted” – including (but not exclusively) by means of algorithms and other methods of recommendation, experts say the distinction between that and any post created by users is not clear enough to stand up to legal scrutiny.

“The distinction between ‘hosting’ and ‘amplifying’ content is incoherent,” Santa Clara University School of Law professor Eric Goldman has told the New York Post, adding that Hoylman has taken that “incoherent” idea – “and embraced its most censorial option.”

According to Goldman, content that Hoylman’s bill takes aim at, such as, but not limited to, what’s considered false or harmful information that concerns Covid or political issues is in fact protected free speech under the First Amendment.

And for that reason, this expert believes, the draft legislation is unconstitutionally overbroad.

Commenting on the bill, David Greene of the Electronic Frontier Foundation concurred that the law would face First Amendment hurdles, and noted that because of the rapidly changing official guidance regarding the pandemic, it is very hard to even define what qualifies for Covid misinformation (when so much “expert” information has turned out to be false.)

“It’s really very difficult to impose liability in an environment where the truth can be hard to grasp at any point in time,” this attorney remarked.

December 27, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Dr. Tess Lawrie Interview | Oracle Films

Oracle Films | August 15, 2021

⁣⁣If you like what Oracle Films does, you can support us here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/oraclefilms

Dr. Tess Lawrie is a world-class researcher and consultant to the World Health Organisation. Her biggest clients happen to be those who are involved in the suppression of repurposed drugs. She has decided to speak out in protest against the current medical establishment at considerable personal risk. She co-founded the BiRD Group; an international consortium of experts dedicated to the transparent and accurate scientific research of Ivermectin, with particular emphasis on the treatment and prevention of Covid-19.

Follow us on Telegram: t.me/OracleFilms

December 27, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Health agency spied on millions during Covid lockdowns

RT | December 26, 2021

Canada’s Public Health Agency has admitted to secretly tracking location data from at least 33 million mobile devices to analyze people’s movements during Covid-19 lockdowns.

The agency earlier this year collected data, including geolocation information from cell-towers, “due to the urgency of the pandemic,” a PHAC spokesperson told the National Post, essentially confirming a report by Blacklock’s Reporter. The tracking data was allegedly only used to evaluate the effectiveness of lockdown measures and identify possible links between the movement of people and the spread of Covid-19.

PHAC obtained the information, which was “de-identified and aggregated,” through an outside contractor, Canadian telecommunications giant Telus. The contract ran from last March to October, and PHAC said it no longer had access to the data after the deal expired.

However, the agency plans to similarly track the movements of citizens over the next five years toward such ends as preventing the spread of other infectious diseases and improving mental health. PHAC last week posted a notice to prospective contractors seeking anonymous mobile data dating as far back as January 2019 and running through at least May 2023.

Critics argued that government tracking of citizens is likely more extensive than has been revealed and may become more troublesome in the years ahead.

“I think that the Canadian public will find out about many other such unauthorized surveillance initiatives before the pandemic is over—and afterwards,” privacy advocate David Lyon told the Post. He noted, too, that “de-identified” data can easily be “re-identified.”

Author Julius Reuchel said the tracking initiative smacks of a surveillance state spying on citizens “for your safety.” Another author, Paul Alves, said that with its new contract, PHAC will have direct access to all mobile location data, and expressed fear that “contact tracing will no longer require permission or a warrant.”

December 26, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Leaked files expose Syria psyops veteran astroturfing BreadTube star to counter Covid restriction critics

BY KIT KLARENBERG AND MAX BLUMENTHAL · THE GRAYZONE · DECEMBER 24, 2021

By covertly recruiting popular YouTube influencer Abigail Thorn to counter growing opposition to UK gov’t Covid restrictions, psy-ops pros are bringing home the tactics they honed in the Syrian dirty war.

Leaked documents have revealed a state-sponsored influence operation designed to undermine critics of the British government’s coronavirus policies by astroturfing a prominent founder of the BreadTube clique of “anti-fascist” YouTube influencers.

The project aims to conduct psychological profiling on British citizens dissenting against policies such as mandatory vaccination and lockdowns, then leverage the data to establish a YouTube channel that portrays these critics as dangerous “superspreaders” of “disinformation.”

Designed “to curb the influence of pseudoscience material online, with specific emphasis on Coronavirus-related ‘anti-vaxxing’ sentiment,” the operation is run by the UK’s Royal Institution, and dubbed “Challenging Pseudoscience.”

Its top patron is Charles, the Prince of Wales, next in line to the British throne, who recently hit out at supposed “conspiracy theories” surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. The organization received a substantial cash injection in 2020 from the UK government’s Culture Recovery Fund earmarked for video production.

Leaked files obtained by The Grayzone indicate that the Royal Institution has enlisted the services of Valent Projects, a “social change” communications firm founded by a public relations operative previously involved in the UK Foreign Office’s campaign for violent regime change in Syria. Valent has also been sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a US intelligence cut-out, for a project aimed at “investigating disinformation.”

Valent’s central role in the operation highlights the trend of information warfare specialists bringing the techniques they honed against targets like the Syrian government back home to the West, where increasingly unpopular governments confront masses of citizens ever-bristling at coronavirus restrictions.

As in Syria, where communications firms like Valent created, trained and instrumentalized media organizations to further regime change objectives, they have covertly recruited a famed British YouTube influencer to lend their carefully calculated messaging campaign an authentic flavor.

According to internal documents, Valent plans to design a “mass appeal social media campaign fronted and owned by prominent social media figure Abigail Thorn,” the founder of Philosophy Tube. Valent’s research on British citizens who reject official policy on COVID-19 “will be used to devise a campaign that utilises YouTuber Abigail Thorn’s existing platform to achieve a measurable cognitive shift in the target audience,” the files state.

Boasting over one million subscribers to her YouTube channel and more than 7000 Patreon supporters, Thorn has established a potent vehicle for any communications campaign. She is also a core member of BreadTube, an assortment of left-branded social media influencers that has attracted intense establishment interest for its purported ability “to pop YouTube’s political bubbles to create space for deradicalisation.”

While top BreadTubers are best known for employing memes and theatrical ploys to counter right-wing narratives, they have also dedicated intense energy to attacking the anti-imperialist left as “tankies” engaged in a secret “red-brown alliance” with right-wing extremists.

In his book, “BreadTube Serves Imperialism: Examining the New Brand of Internet Pseudo-Socialism,” socialist organizer Caleb Maupin likened BreadTube to the “counter-gangs” deployed by British and US intelligence to infiltrate and dismantle insurgent forces from Kenya to Southeast Asia.

BreadTube “speaks in the name of left-wing sounding ideals. In reality, it is likely serving one section of the American ruling elite and the intelligence agencies,” Maupin wrote.

The covert relationship between BreadTube’s Abigail Thorn, Valent Projects, and the Royal Institute appears to validate Maupin’s thesis.

“It does not surprise me at all to find out there is documented evidence that the British Royal Family and an intelligence contractor is bankrolling the work of Abigail Thorn,” Maupin told The Grayzone. “It lines up with everything I have observed about her and the BreadTube trend overall.”

Maupin continued, “BreadTube’s ‘socialism’ is not really socialism, it is mobilizing young liberals to keep dissident elements in line. It’s securing the rule of British and American corporations over the planet by trying to silence those who get in its way.”

The national security establishment’s favorite socialists

Since launching Philosophy Tube in 2013, Abigail Thorn’s YouTube channel boasts over 7000 paying Patreon fans and well over one million YouTube subscribers. By probing complex philosophical and political issues in a highly accessible, engaging manner and deploying elaborate, artisanal audio and visual effects, she has emerged as a social media celebrity. A lengthy profile video produced by the BBC refers to her as “one of the most high-profile transgender figures in the UK.”

Thorn is among the most prominent figures within the loosely knit collective of YouTube influencers known as BreadTube. Inspired by the title of anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s tract, The Conquest of Bread, BreadTube advances a hyper-identitarian, imperialism-friendly interpretation of socialist politics that has earned its creators enthusiastic promotion from establishment interests.

The New York Times, for example, published a lengthy 2019 profile of a young man named Caleb Cain who supposedly “fell down the alt-right rabbit hole” on YouTube. Cain claimed he was de-radicalized through exposure to videos by Thorn and other popular BreadTubers like Natalie Wynn of Contrapoints. During the Trump era, as the Google-owned YouTube implemented a raft of stringent speech codes, it began amplifying BreadTube influencers through its algorithm.

Other popular BreadTube figures include Vaush, a video gamer from Beverly Hills, California named Ian Koshinski. Known for his superficial understanding of Marxism, crude invective against Trump supporters (“they disappear, or we all do”), female high school athletes who complain about being forced to compete against biological males (“sorry you fucking suck, dumb bitch”), and imprisoned journalist Julian Assange (“I want Assange to die in a CIA black site just because it would trigger all the worst people on Twitter”), the self-described “libertarian socialist” has earned the moniker “Vaush Limbaugh” from his critics.

Then there is Shaun, a British BreadTuber whose recent attack on left-wing political comedian Jimmy Dore’s criticisms of government Covid restrictions contained echoes of the “Challenging Pseudoscience” project prepared for Thorn by intelligence-related outfits. Shaun’s arguments relied heavily on statements by official experts and US government bodies like the FDA and CDC. While Dore has been limited by YouTube’s sweeping speech codes, Shaun’s viral video appears to have benefited from an algorithmic boost.

“All the key signs of infiltration are there,” Caleb Maupin said of BreadTube. “Since when does US mainstream media highlight the work of Marxist revolutionaries? Why are people who seem so unfamiliar with basic elements of socialist ideology suddenly elevated to the position of respected experts by the algorithms? Why do their foreign policy views seem to line up so closely with the US State Department? I have had no doubt they were being covertly supported by powerful entities with goals other than overthrowing capitalism.”

Unlike some fellow BreadTubers, Thorn comes across as amiable and trustworthy, fostering a personal bond with her viewers and regularly publishing thank you notes to patrons, listing them each by name. These qualities have attracted support for Philosophy Tube by both public and private backers.

Thorn’s April 2021 dismantling of the politics of right-wing culture warrior Jordan Peterson has racked up almost two million views and was sponsored by Curiosity Stream, a US media streaming service. The video opens with a black screen disclosing the support provided by the company and claiming Thorn would donate her fee to the feminist campaign group, Sisters Uncut. The video is also emblazoned with YouTube’s “paid promotion” logo.

Yet no such disclaimer referring to support from the Royal Institution can be found on any of her other uploads. And that may be because the Covid campaign was intended to be covert.

Astroturf campaign seeks to achieve ‘measurable cognitive shift’

The “Challenging Pseudoscience” operation designed for Thorn was launched in February 2021 by liberal science journalist Angela Saini. The author of several popular titles and a forthcoming book on “the origins of patriarchy,” she is also part of The Lancet Covid-19 Commission’s Task Force on Global Health Diplomacy.

The commission’s chief, Peter Daszak, a zoologist who serves as president of the US-based NGO known as EcoHealth Alliance, was forced to resign in June over conflict of interest issues.

In the years leading up to the outbreak of Covid-19, Daszak worked extensively on bat coronaviruses and gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. His organization received tens of millions in funding from the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a division “[countering] weapons of mass destruction and improvised threat networks.” In December 2019, Daszak warned that coronaviruses can “get into human cells,” one can “manipulate them in the lab pretty easily,” and “you can’t vaccinate against them.”

The host of Saini’s project, the Royal Institute, was founded in 1799 by British scientists of the day “with the aim of introducing new technologies and teaching science to the general public.” Landed gentry and royalty have always occupied the Institution’s highest levels. Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin, Field Marshal Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, has served as president since 1976.

The files indicate that the Royal Institution enlisted the services of Valent Projects, a communications firm “[working] with clients in the UK and all over the world to counter disinformation and strengthen the bonds between people.”

Valent was founded by Amil Khan, a former Reuters and BBC reporter who officially left journalism “to help good causes navigate the new information landscape.”

From February, Valent Projects proposed a “two-phase” project to “develop an understanding of the psychological drivers behind the generation and spread of anti-vaxxer narratives.” It planned to exploit this data “to develop and test public messaging responses.”

The findings would “inform other programming by Challenging Pseudoscience… as well as other stakeholders including the science community and concerned governments and public health bodies.”

In the campaign’s first phase, extensive online interviews were to be conducted, along with “ethnographic research” to secure “comprehensive understanding of the key online audiences driving anti-vaxxing mis/disinformation around the Coronavirus pandemic.”

Valent Projects then planned to “draw together insights” from these findings, developing “comprehensive audience profiles” – including “demographic information” – to design a “mass appeal social media campaign fronted and owned by prominent social media figure Abigail Thorn,” who runs online channel Philosophy Tube.

Valent indicated its intent to exploit Philosophy Tube’s sizable platform to “achieve a measurable cognitive shift [emphasis added] in the target audience.”

Reaching the intended viewers was forecast to be a significant task in itself, however. Valent noted most Philosophy Tube viewers are within the 18 to 35 age range, but “existing research” suggested the “most prolific consumers of pseudoscience material” were over the age of 45.

The firm felt the “best topic to address this issue is probably along the lines of ‘the thing about expertise’ [sic].” Fittingly, in August 2020 Thorn uploaded a video, “Who’s afraid of the experts?” Featuring comedian Adam Conover of the popular show, “Adam Ruins Everything,” the 45 minute-long defense of the scientific consensus on the HIV/AIDS debate is the first result in any search for the term “vaccine” on Philosophy Tube’s channel.

The leaked documents thus expose what had long been suspected by critics of BreadTube: the popular social media collective has been instrumentalized by powerful interests with connections to Western intelligence agencies.

An astroturfed information warfare campaign hiding in plain sight

Multiple requests for comment from The Grayzone to Abigail Thorn’s agent and Angela Saini have gone unanswered.

When quizzed about the leaked files on Twitter, Valent Projects CEO Amil Khan flew into a rage, angrily asserting they were “obtained through hacking and then doctored,” in the manner of “classic doxing,” and threatened legal action against this journalist for publicizing them.

Khan later pumped out a series of tweets aimed at controlling the damage of his imminent exposure. In one, he falsely claimed that a co-author of this piece would publish their reporting in “Russian state affiliated media.”

Yet when challenged about his claim of doctoring, Khan did not respond.

Subsequent requests for clarity on which elements of the documents were maliciously altered and how that might have taken place have also gone unanswered. But evidence of the secret project’s existence was hiding in plain sight.

For example, Valent Projects lists the Royal Institution on its website as a client. An accompanying writeup notes it “developed and implemented a data-led behaviour change campaign [emphasis added] aimed at understanding and working with the psychological drivers behind anti-vaxer sentiment in the UK” for the organization.

Similarly, a post on the company’s official LinkedIn page refers to an “analysis of tens of thousands of UK-based social media users “posting/sharing anti-vax content online” it conducted for Countering Pseudoscience, which would “be used to inform ethnographic research designed to understand ‘why’ people hold these views.” In other words, a specific programming strand outlined in the documents.

From Valent Projects’ LinkedIn page

Moreover, none other than Abigail Thorn was guest-of-honor at Challenging Pseudoscience’s launch event in February, “Vaccines: Warriors and Worriers,” which featured a debate on “how vaccines work, why people are skeptical despite the evidence, and how disinformation about vaccines spreads online.”

Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube participating in the Royal Institution’s “Vaccines: Warriors and Worriers” event

Also on the event’s panel were an immunologist named Zania Stamataki and Marianna Spring, the BBC’s first “specialist disinformation reporter.” She has repeatedly perpetuated falsehoods about the size of anti-lockdown protests in 2020 and nature of their participants. In a bizarre experiment, she furthermore personally set up numerous “fake troll” accounts on assorted online platforms that “engaged” with “misogynistic” content, allegedly for academic purposes.

In May, Thorn published a characteristically ornate video, “Ignorance & Censorship,” which touched on the topic of “disinformation” and vaccines. The next month, Challenging Pseudoscience convened a similarly named panel discussion, “Misinformation or Censorship.”

Then, the newly-launched Challenging Pseudoscience podcast shared two prior Royal Institution debates – the aforementioned Vaccines: Warriors and worriers, and “Disinformation and how to counter it,” which featured none other than Amil Khan as a speaker. It would be entirely unsurprising if this deluge was a coordinated effort.

A wide-ranging, long-running, cross-platform propaganda campaign involving multiple actors requires substantial resources. Until 2020, however, the Royal Institution struggled financially despite its royal patronage and elite trustees.

The organization has been forced to rent out its grand central London headquarters for conferences, corporate bashes and weddings. To plug a multimillion pound budget deficit in late 2015, the Royal Institution auctioned off treasured first editions of works by Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton and other eminent scientists. The fire sale prompted the BBC to ask whether the organization was on the verge of collapse.

Miraculously though, in October 2020, the Institution received hundreds of thousands of pounds from the UK government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund “to help face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and ensure it has a sustainable future.”

An accompanying press release noted the Royal Institution had over the course of the pandemic “[developed] a successful programme of weekly science talks online” broadcast via its “well-established” YouTube channel, which today boasts 1.11 million subscribers. The cash injection would “increase the number of livestreamed science talks” hosted by the organization, and help it develop “new digital content.”

Valent Projects staffer Hamish Falconer has disclosed that the “exciting” Challenging Pseudoscience campaign has also received “generous support” from the Open Society Foundations of CIA-adjacent billionaire George Soros.

As the Washington Post’s David Ignatius reported in 1991, Soros was at the heart of a network of “overt operators” helping US intelligence carry out “spyless coups” against former Soviet satellite states.

In July 2021, Soros teamed up with fellow billionaire Bill Gates to purchase a UK-based Covid-19 test developer for $41 million.

Three months later, as Alex Rubinstein documented for The Grayzone, Soros partnered with tech oligarch Reid Hoffmann to found Good Information Inc, a social media censorship operation marketed under the aegis of “countering disinformation.”

Hamish is the son of Charlie Falconer, a longtime friend and former roommate of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Following Blair’s May 1997 election victory, Falconer senior was elevated to the unelected House of Lords, and served in a series of high-ranking government posts throughout his pal’s tenure.

Along the way, he applied “huge pressure” to Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to change his view that invading Iraq would be illegal. His intervention may have played a decisive role in greenlighting the war of aggression.

Valent founder “embedded into terrorist organizations,” ran Syria psy-ops for armed extremists

Hamish Falconer’s hiring at Valent Projects in March 2021 highlights the firm’s deep ties to the UK’s intelligence apparatus. At the time, he was ostensibly on leave from the UK Foreign Office.

Khan trumpeted Falconer’s hire on LinkedIn, declaring that “he brings the action end to our work – experimenting and innovating with digital influence for good.” Having met in Pakistan “over a decade ago,” the pair “have not stopped talking and comparing notes since.”

Falconer’s spartan online résumé sheds little light on his professional history, noting only a spell at the UK government’s Department for International Development, followed by a seven-month gap, before he joined the Foreign Office as a ‘Diplomat’ until August 2020.

No detail is offered either on where Falconer has been posted, or what his role entailed at any point. He is a graduate of Yale University’s Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program, named for the AIG founder who nearly became CIA director. The Greenberg fellows program identifies and grooms prospective future influencers, including no shortage of US-backed would-be coup leaders. Among the most famous alumni of the program is jailed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny.

The Greenberg program’s profile of Falconer states, “he has led the Foreign Office’s Terrorism Response Team, UK efforts to start a peace process in Afghanistan and served in Pakistan and South Sudan,” and served a stint at the National Crime Agency – London’s equivalent of the FBI.

Counter-terror is not a stated Foreign Office purview, but just one of “three core areas of focus” for the UK foreign intelligence service MI6. It may just be a coincidence the agency’s spies typically pose as ‘diplomats’ overseas.

By contrast, Khan’s activities between December 2008, when he left his position as ‘hostile environments reporter’ for the BBC, and October 2017, when he joined elite UK national security think tank Chatham House as an ‘associate fellow’ – the next entry on his public CV – can be pieced together with much greater certitude, but still only approximately.

Valent Projects founder Amil Khan

A leaked document indicates that he first crossed paths with Falconer while managing a ‘countering violent extremism’ propaganda campaign for the UK government in Islamabad. The file relates to a Foreign Office funded effort to train “articulate Syrian armed and civilian grassroots opposition entities,” and promote them to “Syrian and international audiences” as a credible alternative to the government of Bashar al-Assad.

The project was delivered by ARK, a shadowy intelligence contractor founded by the likely MI6 operative, Alistair Harris, which has raked in innumerable lucrative contracts from waging covert information warfare operations on behalf of the UK government.

Khan was heavily involved in ARK’s Syrian efforts. Another leaked file, outlining some of the company’s work inside Syria shows that it oversaw a “rebranding” of the CIA-armed Free Syrian Army to portray it as a moderate, secular force unconnected to the hardcore jihadist factions that dominated the armed opposition. Khan is named as one of three operatives managing the media office of the parallel Syrian National Coalition government controlled by London through intelligence cutouts like ARK.

This work placed Khan in extremely close quarters with members of violent ‘rebel’ factions implicated in hideous crimes against humanity. That he “[provided] political and media support to opposition political and military groups” in Syria has been openly confirmed. A scathing internal Whitehall review of the Foreign Office’s information warfare operations in the country concluded they were “poorly planned, probably illegal, and cost lives.”

It wasn’t the first time Khan been in such murderous company. At some point after leaving ARK in August 2014, he joined InCoStrat, another contractor that conducted destabilizing psy-ops on the UK government’s behalf throughout the Syrian crisis. InCoStrat delivered “strategic communications support” to a variety of armed groups on-the-ground, including the notoriously brutal, Saudi-backed militia known as Jaysh al-Islam.

Khan also played a central role in this dubious initiative. In a document discussing its ability to “[develop] contacts in Arabic-speaking conflict affected states,” InCoStrat bragged how, “in his previous career as a journalist,” Khan “established relationships with, and embedded himself into terrorist organizations in the UK and the Middle East,” gaining “unique insight into their narratives, communication methods, recruitment processes and management of networks” as a result.

InCoStrat was founded by ex-Foreign Office political officer Emma Winberg and UK military intelligence journeyman Paul Tilley, a former director of Strategic Communications for the UK Ministry of Defence in the Middle East and North Africa. Winberg left to join Mayday Rescue, parent ‘charity’ of the fraudulent humanitarian group known as the White Helmets. She later married its founder, James Le Mesurier, who died in mysterious circumstances in 2019 after damaging revelations of financial corruption came to light.

A broad landscape of state-backed Covid propaganda ops

It’s probable the “Countering Pseudoscience” project is just one part of a wider landscape of online astroturf initiatives designed to restore cratering public trust in authorities around Covid policy.

Valent Projects has also conducted work for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a neoconservative think tank, researching “violent actors using the ‘dark web’ to mobilise recruits and threaten public figures in Europe.” This initiative was likely also aimed at countering lockdown opposition.

Back in April 2020, Khan appeared on a panel discussion convened by the organization, “Countering Disinformation in a Time of COVID19.”

At the start of December, the Institute released a brief report, “Between conspiracy and extremism: A long COVID threat?”, which attempted to frame the “radicalization” of anti-lockdown protesters as a terrorist threat. What input Khan may have had in this publication was unclear.

Valent Projects is just one of an array of companies that have brought psy-ops techniques honed in Syria and other theaters of Western information warfare back home with them, like soldiers returning from battlefields marketing their deadly skills to private security and intelligence firms. And Abigail Thorn is just one YouTuber, at a time when the British state is known to be maliciously recruiting digital personalities to further its interests across the globe.

For example, Foreign Office contractor Zinc Network maintains a clandestine nexus of Russian-speaking social media influencers throughout the former Soviet Union, to promote “media integrity, democratic values [and] complex social issues,” a campaign so intensive its relationship with these individuals necessitates “daily management.” This squadron of undercover psy-ops warriors are supported by an expert “in-house team of Russian speaking producers, researchers and digital growth strategists” in London, helping them create, edit and promote their output.

Coincidentally, Zinc has been engaged in efforts since the onset of the pandemic to concoct a link between extremist activities and anti-lockdown, vaccine hesitant views. It has also published research on how to best market a test-and-trace app to UK citizens, “as part of a broader research project on public understanding of and support for Artificial Intelligence.”

It is simply inconceivable that similar operations have not been enacted elsewhere in the world, or that this phenomenon is exclusive to the UK. Further, it is impossible to know if the next slick viral video countering grassroots dissent of an official narrative is state or quasi-state propaganda, cleverly crafted to induce a “cognitive shift” in viewers, in which the star of the online show is effectively an intelligence asset rattling off a script drawn up by full-time spooks.

December 26, 2021 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Delicensing Doctors for ‘Harmful Misinformation’

By Jane M. Orient, M.D. | Assosiation of American Physicians and Surgeons | December 17, 2021

In addition to being subjected to various forms of censorship, for the first time in living memory American doctors are getting threat letters from licensure boards warning them against distributing “harmful misinformation.” Medical boards in 12 states have disciplined doctors because of this allegation. While it is claimed that there’s an epidemic of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the warnings don’t spell out what that means.

We don’t have an epidemic of patients dying because doctors told them to refuse treatment or to drink Clorox or aquarium cleaner.

In fact, no patients need to have suffered any harm at all for the medical board to investigate a doctor’s no-longer-free speech. All it takes is an anonymous complaint.

Pharmacists who were converted into the overseers of physicians’ prescribing practices will complain that a doctor had prescribed ivermectin for COVID-19.

Or an employer might complain that a doctor supported a worker’s request for a medical exemption that wasn’t on the CDC’s list of acceptable reasons.

Or the doctor might have spoken at a political meeting at which mask mandates were being challenged.

Or a patient might complain that a doctor wasn’t wearing a mask in his private consulting room, even when no COVID-19 patients were anywhere near and the doctor had demonstrated immunity.

Or a pathologist might have stated publicly that his busy lab was seeing a higher percentage of cancers in vaccinated patients.

“Harmful misinformation” appears to mean anything that contradicts or asks questions or raises doubt about the dogma that “vaccines are safe and effective,” or suggests a treatment not endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and their corporate sponsors.

One source of the allegedly “harmful misinformation” is a database created and maintained by the CDC, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Anybody can enter a suspected vaccine adverse reaction, and the public can access it. So, “it can be abused by people trying to sow fear,” write Shayla Love and Anna Merlan in VICE News. One person filed a fraudulent report, promptly removed, claiming that an influenza vaccination had turned him into the “Incredible Hulk.”

Flawed as it is, VAERS is the best CDC has to offer for looking for “danger signals.” Of course, correlation doesn’t prove causality. As Lindy McGee from Texas Children’s Hospital correctly pointed out, “I can report if I get hit by a truck after I’ve gotten a vaccine and that would be reported as associated with a vaccine. It does not make any implication of causality.” However, there is a double standard. If you get hit by a truck, but test positive for COVID-19, the hospital will get paid for counting you as a COVID death.

Adverse reports to VAERS are many times higher for COVID-19 vaccines than for all other vaccines combined since the database was established in 1988. The website vaers.hhs.gov clearly states: “Knowingly filing a false VAERS report is a violation of Federal law (18 U.S. Code § 1001) punishable by fine and imprisonment.” So, presumably most of the approximately 20,000 reports of death concern people who really did die soon after getting the jab, most within a few days. It could be 20,000 coincidences, but the count is not “misinformation.”

Love and Merlan call the compilers of VAERS information at openvaers.com/covid-data “dumpster divers.” Matt Motta of Oklahoma State University and Dominik Stecuła of Colorado State University refer to that January article favorably in their Aug 25 essay that says VAERS is only good for researching “vaccine hesitancy.” They don’t mention that the featured VAERS death count of 329 from Jan 22, 2021, has steadily increased.

Also viewed as “misinformation” is the opinion of physicians and researchers that hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and other “repurposed” drugs are beneficial in COVID-19, as shown in more than 1,000 studies. Reports of dying patients who recovered when hospitals were legally forced to step aside and allow off-protocol treatment are ignored.

The safe option for doctors is to promote the jab or keep silent, and not to suggest anything different from what Anthony Fauci approves. By silencing doctors who are ethical professionals, one opens the gates for the reckless charlatans.

Recall that in Orwell’s Newspeak, the meaning of words is inverted. The Ministry of Love is in charge of torture; the Ministry of Plenty, of starvation; and the Ministry of Truth, of propaganda.

Is the Minitrue defining “misinformation” today?

December 23, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Australia’s new Online Safety Act will fine platforms that don’t remove content when ordered

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | December 22, 2021

Australia has passed a new law that will force Google and other search engines to remove content or risk huge fines.

The Online Safety Act will come into effect on January 23. Sites will have only 24 hours to remove harmful content. The penalty for non-compliance is $110,000 for individuals and $550,000 for companies.

The act also applies for apps on both Android and iOS devices.

The eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant also has the authority to name and shame platforms that do not comply with content takedown requests.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Inman Grant Said: “There aren’t powers like these anywhere in the world. We will use them judiciously. But we feel emboldened to tackle the worst of the worst content.”

Enforcement will apply to both local and international sites.

The Commissioner said that the focus of the act is content with the potential to cause “serious psychological or physical harm.”
Insulting someone might not meet the threshold, unless it is something that will “do more than hurt a person’s feelings.”

Before eSafety can get involved, someone has to make a complaint to the platform hosting the content.

In 2020, eSafety received about 21,000 complaints, a 90% increase from 2019.

“With these new powers, we will now be able to take real action to disrupt the trade in this distressing material and if online service providers fail to comply with our removal notices, they will face very real and significant consequences,” Inman Grant said.

December 22, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Complaint to Ofcom

Source: BIT
By Laura Dodsworth | 21st December 2021

Dear Melanie Dawes,

We are writing to alert you to a broadcast license complaint we have made about Sky UK. Our complaint concerns a partnership between Sky and Behavioural Insights U.K., Known as the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), a limited company partly owned by the Government. We believe this partnership – and, in particular, Sky’s adoption of BIT’s recommendations about how to help the Conservative Government successfully implement one of its most political contentious policy, namely, Net Zero – contravenes the Broadcasting Code.

The partnership we’re referring to resulted in the publication of ‘The Power of TV: Nudging Viewers to Decarbonise their Lifestyles’ and the launch of Sky’s ‘Sky Zero’ campaign, which recommended that broadcasters make use of “behavioural science principles”, including subliminal messaging (“nudging” in the parlance of BIT, which is colloquially known as the Nudge Unit), to encourage viewers to endorse and comply with Conservative Government policy. Alarmingly, the report recommends broadcasters utilize sophisticated psychological techniques to change the behaviour of children “because of the important influence they have on the attitude and behaviours of their parents”.

Summary

We are concerned that this partnership and Sky’s adoption of BIT’s recommendations:

  • Will affect the political impartiality of news and wider programming on Sky’s channels;
  • Reveals an inappropriate relationship between a company which, when the report was published, was part owned by the U.K. Government, and a licensed U.K. broadcaster. Sky referred to BIT as “independent” in its video to promote this partnership, yet Sky will be aware that BIT was at the time part owned by the U.K. Cabinet Office. Until the Cabinet Office’s share was bought by NESTA earlier this month, the company was commonly referred to as “the Government’s Nudge Unit” and advised the Government on how to influence the public using sophisticated psychological techniques, particularly when it comes to getting people to comply with Government policies;
  • Is an attempt to affect viewers’ attitudes and behaviour, including those of children, through the use of indirect, subliminal messaging (“nudging”) with a view to securing their support and compliance with one of the most politically contentious policy of the Conservative Government, namely, Net Zero.
  • Reveals a historic relationship between behavioural scientists employed by the U.K. Government and broadcasters to promote Government policies: “behaviour change via broadcasting and traditional media has historically been aimed at improving public health, boosting gender equality, and reducing violence. Imagine the potential for emissions reductions if the same methods were used to encourage sustainable behaviours!” This historic relationship warrants further investigation since it may include historic breaches of the Broadcasting Code by Sky and other broadcasters.

The Complaint

Below are the specific contraventions of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code that we are concerned about:

2.11 Broadcasters must not use techniques which exploit the possibility of conveying a message to viewers or listeners, or of otherwise influencing their minds without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has occurred. [Section two: Harm and Offence, The Broadcasting Code.]

The jointly-published report by BIT and Sky reveals their intention to subtly influence viewers’ attitudes and behaviour in indirect, subliminal ways by using sophisticated psychological techniques based on behavioural science. The aim is to change viewers minds, including the minds of children, about a politically contentious issue by using these techniques so viewers aren’t fully aware that an attempt is being made to change their minds. The underlying assumption is that this subtle, indirect messaging is a more effective way of changing people’s attitudes and behaviour than more overt messaging since the messages will be absorbed semi-consciously – catching viewers off guard, as it were, and bypassing their critical faculties. The use of this “nudging” would be less objectionable if these techniques were being recommended to promote an apolitical, uncontentious agenda. But the recommendation of the joint report is that these sophisticated psychological techniques be used to persuade viewers to endorse one of the Conservative Government most politically contentious policies, namely, Net Zero.

The foreword to the report, authored by David Halpern, the CEO of BIT, says:

Societal-level behaviour change is needed to tackle climate change… From changing what we buy and what we eat, to changing the technologies we use to heat our homes and travel, reaching Net Zero is conditional on large numbers of people taking up green behaviours and products.

Broadcast organisations and content creators therefore have a unique opportunity to make a difference for the planet. Through the programs that they produce, the characters that they create, the plot-lines that they develop, and the adverts that they broadcast, content creators have the potential to have a far-reaching impact on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of citizens, and to spark conversations in boardrooms and political arenas alike. They are also pivotally placed to help people sift through the maze of choices and claims, to adopt behaviours – and products – that can get us to a greener future.

The BIT report goes on to recommend a variety of subtle psychological techniques that broadcasters can use to promote this agenda, including using celebrities, on-screen presenters and dramatic characters as “role models”, e.g. advocates for the Net Zero policy, plot-lines, product placement, and editorially endorsing the Net Zero policy in news and current affairs programmes, as well as in drama programmes, travel programmes, DIY programmes and cookery programmes. Indeed, no area of Sky’s output across its various channels is to be left unaffected by this agenda.

Dana Strong, Group Chief Executive, Sky, agrees with this aim. She says in her foreword:

As Europe’s largest media and entertainment organisation, we also want to accelerate our industry’s efforts to drive global progress towards net zero.

However, it is now widely accepted that we must shift the behaviour of millions of people to deliver on our collective net zero goals

We know that what we broadcast has the power to change how we as consumers feel and act. What we see on our screens can shock us, inspire us, educate us, and entertain us. [Our emphasis.]

5.1: News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality. [Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy, The Broadcasting Code.]

The report suggests that, “Audiences’ knowledge on what to do and how can be improved by documentaries; DIY, travel, and cookery shows; and news coverage.”

This is an explicit call for broadcasters to encourage viewers to comply (“what to do and how”) with a controversial Conservative Government policy in news programmes, which is a breach of the Broadcasting Code’s “due impartiality” requirement.

In addition, the Climate Content Pledge (undertaken by 12 major U.K. media companies, including Sky) promises:

We will incorporate climate change considerations into all our editorial processes, informed by science and behavioural insight.

It is a breach of the “due impartiality” requirement for “climate change considerations”, e.g. promotion of the Government’s Net Zero policy, to be woven into all editorial processes, which include those in news and current affairs.

5.5: Due impartiality on matters of political or industrial controversy and matters relating to current public policy must be preserved on the part of any person providing a service (listed above). This may be achieved within a programme or over a series of programmes taken as a whole. [Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy, The Broadcasting Code.]

As well as news and current affairs, other programming – such as DIY, travel and cookery programmes – must maintain “due impartiality on matters of political and industrial controversy and matters relating to current policy”. Yet the joint report by BIT and Sky encourages broadcasters to persuade viewers to comply with a controversial political (and industrial) policy, namely, Net Zero, which is a breach of this requirement. No balance of views and opinions or debate about this controversial Government policy is proposed, only suggestions as to how best to get viewers to change their attitudes and “behaviours” to align with the policy.

5.12: In dealing with matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in each programme or in clearly linked and timely programmes. Views and facts must not be misrepresented. [Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy, The Broadcasting Code.]

A commitment to promoting the Conservative Government’s goal of Net Zero will necessitate the exclusion of a wide range of alternative views, including those of numerous members of Parliament, other elected representatives, as well as distinguished climate scientists, experts on energy policy and environment correspondents. Excluding or marginalizing people who dissent from the Net Zero policy is surely a breach of this requirement. Broadcasters have an obligation to ensure viewers are exposed to a wide range of different viewpoints about this politically contentious policy.

9.1: Broadcasters must maintain independent editorial control over programming. [Section nine: Commercial references on TV, The Broadcasting Code.]

The report’s suggestion – that U.K. broadcasters incorporate the recommendations of a company partly owned by the U.K. Government, as it was at the time – implicitly undermines independent editorial integrity.

Product placement

The report recommends product placement to encourage people to support the Net Zero policy. Below are two examples:

Product placement directly impacts behaviour, it can influence key outcomes such as brand attention, knowledge, interest, recall, recognition, and purchase intent, which is encouraging for the potential impact that background green content could have on viewers. This can be explained by the “mere exposure effect”, where people often develop preferences for things simply because they are familiar with them.

Use green product placement and model green actions in the background to improve familiarity, create positive attitudes and norms.

This contravenes Ofcom’s rules which state that “product placement must not impair broadcasters’ editorial independence and must always be editorially justified. This means that programmes cannot be created or distorted so that they become vehicles for the purposes of featuring product placement.”

Conclusion

We find the collaboration between a major U.K. broadcaster and a company that was part-owned by the Cabinet Office until earlier this month to promote one of the most politically contentious policies of the current Conservative Government deeply alarming. The report jointly published by BIT and Sky seems to be unaware of the obligations imposed on broadcasters by the Broadcasting Code to maintain “due impartiality” across all their output, particularly news and current affairs, and the need to expose viewers to a wide range of views when it comes to “matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy”. On the contrary, Sky recommends that all U.K. broadcasters adopt a hard editorial bias when it comes to the promotion of the Government’s controversial Net Zero policy, and proudly boasts that it is adopting these recommendations itself.

We are particularly concerned about Sky’s enthusiastic embrace of subtle and sophisticated psychological techniques, rooted in behavioural science, to promote endorsement of and compliance with the Net Zero policy, as well as its evangelism in trying to get other broadcasters to use these techniques. To take just one example, the use of product placement to try and influence viewers’ attitudes and behaviour towards this controversial policy is a flagrant breach of Section Two of the Broadcasting Code, which explicitly prohibits the use of “techniques which exploit the possibility of conveying a message to viewers or listeners, or of otherwise influencing their minds without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has occurred”. Far from being concerned that the use of product placement may persuade viewers to endorse a politically controversial policy without their being fully aware of it, BIT and Sky appear to be recommending its use for precisely that reason. The recommendation in the report that such techniques are deployed to change the behaviour of children – and the implication that Sky is currently doing precisely that across all its channels – is unconscionable.

We hope you will investigate our complaint with the urgency we believe it merits.

Yours sincerely,

Laura Dodsworth

Toby Young

CC: The RT Hon Nadine Dorries MP, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport; Lucy Powell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

December 21, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

British Medical Journal slams Facebook’s ‘inaccurate & incompetent’ fact check

RT | December 21, 2021

The British Medical Journal and Lead Stories, a fact checker in the employ of Facebook, are engaged in a war of words over a report on a Pfizer whistleblower that was deemed by the social network to have “missing context.”

On November 2, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), one of the world’s most prestigious medical periodicals, published a whistleblowing report that called into question the integrity of data and highlighted issues with regulatory oversight of phase-three trials of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine.

The report was based on testimony by the former regional director of the Ventavia Research Group, a contractor that had assisted in the trials. Brook Jackson claimed several trial sites in Texas had experienced major issues, and alleged that Pfizer had falsified data, broken fundamental trial rules, and been “slow” to report adverse reactions.

The BMJ said the report had been published only after being subjected to both a legal review and an external peer review, and had met the periodical’s exacting editorial standards.

However, from November 10, readers reported that they were having trouble sharing the report on Facebook. Those attempting to share it saw their post flagged with the message “Missing context … Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people.” Others were informed that users who repeatedly shared “false information” would see their posts sent to the bottom of Facebook’s feed.

The BMJ has since raised the issue with Lead Stories, which fact checked and labeled the story. In an open letter, the journal asserted that the “fact check” performed had been “inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible.”

The letter noted a number of flaws in the fact check, including that it did not qualify in what manner the BMJ’s article was inaccurate. It said the fact check report had been given a “nonsensical title” and took issue with Lead Stories having described the BMJ as a “news blog.” The medical publication, one of the world’s oldest and most respected, also took offense at the story having been published on Lead Stories’ own website under a URL that contained the phrase “hoax-alert.”

In its response to the BMJ, Lead Stories said, “The piece carries a scare headline that oversells the whistleblower and overstates the jeopardy.” It said the whistleblower’s claims had concerned just three of the 153 sites at which the vaccine had been tested on 44,000 participants, adding that a less misleading headline would have been more appropriate.

It also questioned the credibility of the whistleblower. “By her own account, Brook Jackson holds a 30-hour certification in auditing techniques focused on proper electronic medical records and data capture as well as lab procedures,” it noted.

Lead Stories said the article has been shared by many anti-vaxxers as proof that the entire Pfizer clinical trial was fraudulent and the vaccine unsafe. It also noted that publication of the story had inadvertently coincided with fake-news reports that Pfizer’s CEO had been arrested for fraud.

Despite this, it said, the piece had only been labeled “Missing Context” – the lightest measure Facebook can apply of several – and that no user traffic to the article had been restricted.

December 21, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Orwell was Right: Control the Language, Control the World

By Bill Rice, Jr. | American Thinker | December 18, 2021

Of all the elements of today’s “New Normal,” the most ominous is the “reform” that effectively changed the meanings of previously accepted words or terms. The following glossary illustrates how changes to our vocabulary played a central role in making the world a more dangerous and frightening place.

New Normal – “Normal” is something that has long been the norm and is accepted as the norm. The key point is that the “old” normal no longer applies. This change in thinking provided authority figures the license to enact reforms that would not have been widely accepted in the past.

In the old normal, a citizen might not have complied with authoritarian mandates, but in the New Normal, most will… that is, if one accepts the premise that we now have a New Normal, a premise most people now accept.

Vaccine — Previously a vaccine was an injection that provided “immunity” or prevented diseases, as well as the spread of diseases. Today, at least as it involves the COVID “vaccines,” vaccines simply (and allegedly) reduce the probability someone will develop a severe case of this disease or die from this disease.

Safe — An activity that is not dangerous or does not cause harm.

According to public health officials and almost all doctors, COVID vaccines are “safe and effective.” According to VAERS, approximately one million Americans believe they have suffered adverse medical reactions to COVID vaccines, with approximately 20,000 deaths possibly caused by the vaccines. Several studies have concluded that VAERS captures only a small fraction of such adverse events.

Effective — Certainly today “effective” does not mean COVID vaccines prevent infection or virus spread. In many heavily vaccinated countries, the vaccinated comprise a greater percentage of new COVID cases than the unvaccinated.

Harm — Something that injures, perhaps even kills, or causes someone pain or discomfort. The key change here is that “harm” can now be caused by speech. The nexus that would definitively trace any alleged harm to any piece of speech is nebulous and impossible to prove.

Still, a person who composes words determined to include “misinformation” or “disinformation” is held guilty of causing potential harm to people who might read these words. Such a person can be censored, maligned, lose their jobs, or even be prosecuted. In our Old Normal, this rarely happened. In our New Normal, it happens daily.

Misinformation or Disinformation — In its simplest terms, this would be information that is provably false.

In our “New Normal,” misinformation or disinformation is simply any information that challenges the veracity of pronouncements made by authorized experts or authorities. That is, Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s leading public health authority, cannot be charged with producing “disinformation,” but skeptic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. can and should be.

Also, in today’s New Normal, many people censor their own thoughts as they know “free speech” can result in personal or professional harm. By now, the censors don’t even have to censor everyone.  People do it themselves.

Science and “The science” — A theory largely accepted by the scientific community and public.

“Science” used to be the process of testing a hypothesis and was almost never “settled.” In the past, a skeptic who examined or challenged the conclusions of peers was himself engaging in science. Today, “The Science” is what the authorized scientists and officials at public health bureaucracies say it is, and cannot or should not be challenged by other “scientists…” who perhaps should not even be called scientists and should now be labeled as “science deniers.” Or as…

Anti-vaxxer — Technically, this would be a person who opposes all vaccines. In Newspeak, it means anyone who is against mandatory COVID vaccines. In practice, this term is used as a slur to denigrate anyone who questions the pronouncements of authorities.  If you oppose mandatory COVID vaccines for whatever reason, you are a “science denier” or “anti-science…” and, as such can and should be punished or censored because you could be causing “harm” to the public.

Free or freedom — In “the land of the free” the definition of freedom has also been radically changed.

Today, some Americans are “free” to keep their jobs or go to a restaurant or see a play if they can prove they have received at least two injections of an experimental vaccine (a vaccine where the vaccinated waive their right to sue if they later suffer harm). Americans may be allowed to engage in “free speech” on social media… if they say the right things.

It’s not just “COVID” topics that are now being regulated by speech monitors. If you publish “extremist” speech or politically incorrect speech that can be labeled as “harmful” or “dangerous,” you also can lose your job or speech privileges.

With the precedent established that speech can cause “harm” and that the primary role of government is to protect people from harm, the harm of being “offended” by speech is now a sanctionable offense.

Patriotism or patriot — In the past, a “patriot” was one who stood up to tyrannical governments and/or displayed a great love for their country. Today, for many Americans, a patriot is one who complies with the edicts of their government and helps attack or embarrasses those who challenge governmental authority.

Just this week, President Biden proclaimed that Americans who get vaccinated are doing their patriotic duty. This statement builds on the “us-against-them” theme, the good American vs. bad American narrative.

Public health — This term once meant the state of overall health in hundreds of millions of people who comprise “the public.” In the last two years, it’s come to mean the “health” of people who may or may not have COVID-19.

Today, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, mental health, obesity – all the conditions that kill and harm people — are afterthoughts when compared to “COVID health.”

All of the above was made possible by changes in accepted language. George Orwell was right. If you want to control people, first control the language.

COVID, a virus that poses no significant health risk to 98 percent of the population, has given us a “New Normal” where “vaccines” are not vaccines, where “freedom” is now a privilege granted to those who obey, and where unelected public health officials have made billions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies.

Bill Rice, Jr. is a freelance writer in Troy, Alabama. He can be reached by email at wrjicejunior@gmail.com.

December 20, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Piers Corbyn arrested for ‘inciting violence’

RT | December 19, 2021

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s brother Piers has been arrested for allegedly calling for the offices of pro-lockdown MPs to be burnt down during a protest against vaccination mandates in Westminster.

Corbyn was arrested in Southwark, London on Sunday at 1.45am local time, according to The Guardian, which cited Metropolitan police sources. Police had previously mentioned they were investigating a video in which the anti-lockdown protest leader appeared to be advocating arson.

The brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn can be seen on the video, shot at Saturday’s protest outside Downing Street, calling on supporters to “hammer to death those scum who have decided to go ahead with introducing new fascism.” Informing his audience that there are websites with lists of MPs who fit that description, he recommended their constituents “go to their offices and — well, I would recommend burning them down, but I can’t say that on air.”

Audience members laugh in response, suggesting the remark was not made in seriousness, but Corbyn appears to realize he’s gone too far, repeating, “I hope we’re not on air.”

Corbyn also calls for anti-mandate protesters to “get a bit more physical,” urging demonstrators to “take down these lying vaccinators and we’ve got to take down these lying MPs.” Protesters, he said, should “support and welcome” those who have rebelled against PM Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 control measures in either party. Legislation to introduce vaccination certificates passed on Tuesday despite 99 Conservative MPs breaking with the party line to vote against it.

The protest attracted thousands of demonstrators who subsequently marched through the capital. Doctors have characterized the Omicron variant as comparatively mild, but that has not prevented governments from undergoing the now-routine process of locking down, renewing calls for vaccination and/or boosters, denouncing the unvaccinated, and unleashing the police on protesters.

Home Secretary Priti Patel demanded that police investigate the “sickening” video, urging them to “take the strongest possible action” against Corbyn. The 74-year-old was arrested on “suspicion of encouragement to commit arson.” A fixture at anti-lockdown protests since London began implementing Covid-19 restrictions, Corbyn has been arrested several times for breaching government pandemic orders.

December 19, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment