Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

UK Parliament Plans ISP Blocking and Age Verification Powers

By Cam Wakefield | Reclaim The Net | March 10, 2026

If you wanted a case study in how modern democracies widen state oversight step by step, Britain has offered a clear example. On March 9, two major surveillance-related bills advanced through Parliament, each pointing toward broader government authority, reduced personal privacy, and tighter limits on protest activity.

These measures advanced through procedural votes and technical amendments that sounded administrative, yet carry consequences for how millions of people use the internet and exercise civic rights.

The main legislative action unfolded in the House of Commons during debate on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Members of Parliament actually rejected amendments from the House of Lords that would have required age verification for VPNs and certain user-to-user services.

But don’t get too excited. Replacement amendments approved by MPs would grant significant new authority to the state. The powers allow the government to require internet service providers to block or restrict children’s access to specific online platforms, impose time-of-day limits on when services can be used, and mandate age verification across nearly any platform that enables users to post or share content.

The replacement amendments allow the UK government to make regulations that require specified “information society services” (a definition that applies to most online services) to implement age verification to prevent children from using the service.

This is as bad as it gets. The practical challenges are considerable and the privacy issues are even worse. Internet service providers supply connections to households rather than individuals. Enforcing child-specific restrictions would require identifying which devices belong to minors through ID verification and applying controls selectively, a level of precision that home broadband systems were never designed to provide.

Enforcement may therefore produce household-wide restrictions or increased pressure on platforms to verify the age of all users.

The amendments now return to the House of Lords. Approval there would send the bill to Royal Assent.

March 10, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Comments Off on UK Parliament Plans ISP Blocking and Age Verification Powers

Openly Pro-Israel Tech Group Now Has Control over UK’s Most Sensitive National Security Data

By Alan Macleod | MintPress News | February 7, 2023

This is the story of how a multibillionaire who has dedicated his life to advancing the cause of the Israeli national security state is now in control of Great Britain’s most sensitive public and military data.

In 2020, software giant Oracle won a gigantic contract with the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide it with cloud infrastructure, digital assistance, data visualization software, mobile hub and development tools. The military is far from the only British institution entrusting its most sensitive data to the Texas-based firm, however. The Home Office, Office of National Statistics and National Health Service, among others, also rely on Oracle databases to function.

For years before signing the MoD agreement, Oracle founder Larry Ellison had been ingratiating himself with the British establishment, employing all manner of well-connected individuals at his foundation. Among these included media executive and father-in-law of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Matthew Symonds, who earned over $600,000 per year as the executive director of the Larry Ellison Foundation. Richard Meredith, a longtime director of the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was also snapped up at a similar salary to become deputy executive director.

Many other well-connected British government officials, including Vel Gnanendran, went straight from the Larry Ellison Foundation into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and worked there at the time that the body signed off on the lucrative Oracle contracts. For years, the Larry Ellison Foundation also bankrolled the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the former U.K. prime minister’s new political project.

Yet, just after as the partnership with the Ministry of Defence was secured, Ellison abruptly shut down his foundation, prompting speculation that it had fulfilled its purpose.

“Our mission to support Israel”

Why this should be of concern is that both Ellison and key Oracle figures have made clear that their business model is less about making money, and more focused on furthering the interests of the Israeli national security state.

Furthermore, few people realize how important Oracle is to the functioning of the modern world. It is the third-largest software company globally. Yet because it sells its products to businesses and governments rather than consumers, it is far less known than competitors such as Microsoft or Amazon. Nevertheless, it is as important to the modern hi-tech economy as its rivals, its software and databases powering the likes of Netflix, Zoom, financial corporations such as JPMorgan Chase, as well as a myriad of educational institutions.

While opening a new data center in Jerusalem in 2021, the company’s Israeli-American CEO, Safra Catz, laid out Oracle’s purpose, stating,

We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none. This is a free world and I love my employees, and if they don’t agree with our mission to support the State of Israel, then maybe we aren’t the right company for them. Larry [Ellison] and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country, and no one should be surprised by that.”

Catz made the comments in response to a question about Israel’s poor human rights record and the rebellion of Silicon Valley employees refusing to facilitate the country’s war crimes. In 2017, Catz was offered the position of U.S. Director of National Intelligence.

Safra Catz, Oracle’s CEO, poses with Alon Ben (left), CEO of Tel-Aviv-based Oracle data partner, Bynet

Ellison, if anything, is even more forthright in his support for the Israeli government and its agenda. The billionaire – currently the fourth-richest individual in the world – has bankrolled the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for years, giving tens of millions of dollars to the Friends of the IDF, including the largest single donation the organization has ever received. In 2017 alone, he pledged $16.6 million to build a new training facility for IDF soldiers defending, in his words, “our home”. As Ellison explained:

Through all of the perilous times since Israel’s founding, we have called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home. In my mind, there is no greater honor than supporting some of the bravest people in the world, and I thank Friends of the IDF for allowing us to celebrate and support these soldiers year after year. We should do all we can to show these heroic soldiers that they are not alone.”

This was far from his first donation to the organization. Three years previously, he gave $9 million at a star-studded gala – the largest donation on a record-breaking night for the FIDF.

The big tech mogul also has a direct hand in furthering the Israeli settlement project. In 2007, he met with then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to pledge half a million dollars in support to the Israeli border town of Sderot.

But if Ellison can count Livni as a friend, then Benjamin Netanyahu is virtually family. The pair have been close for many years; Ellison even flew Netanyahu out to his private Hawaiian island to vacation together. There, he offered the embattled prime minister a seat on Oracle’s board, replete with a salary of $450,000.

Netanyahu had previously gone to Ellison, encouraging him to buy out the struggling Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in an attempt to change the outlet from an adversary of his political project into a mouthpiece for his Likud Party.

Unsurprisingly, Oracle has signed numerous deals with the Israeli national security state.

“The Israelis think they control the Foreign Office. And they do!”

In recent years, Israel and pro-Israel groups have managed to amass considerable influence over U.K. government policy. A measure of this is the fact that, by 2021, one-third of the cabinet – including then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson – were directly funded by the Israeli government or pro-Israel organizations. Chief amongst these groups is the Conservative Friends of Israel, who have claimed that 80% of Tory members of parliament belong to their organization.

The Israel lobby has been able to shape government policy, to the point where they blocked Boris Johnson’s appointment of Alan Duncan to the post of Middle East Minister. Johnson, according to Duncan, was “indignant”. “They shouldn’t behave like this”, the prime minister reportedly said about the Israelis, but acquiesced to their demands. “The Israelis think they control the Foreign Office. And they do”, Duncan later wrote. Home Secretary Priti Patel (a longtime champion of the apartheid state) also secretly flew to Israel for “off the radar” talks with Netanyahu – a huge breach of ministerial codes, for which she later resigned.

The Israeli Embassy also played a key role in the coordinated smear campaign demonizing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, an operation that helped to ensure Johnson’s electoral victory in 2019.

In addition to this, there have also been national security questions raised about the extent to which Israeli businessmen have bought up key British industries. Last year, for example, Patrick Drahi’s attempt to purchase 18% of BT, the formerly state-owned telecoms giant that owns and controls much of the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, was put on hold due to concerns over national security.

That a company like Oracle that defines itself so explicitly as pro-Israel raises serious concerns over the nature of the work they do for the United Kingdom or any other nation. How can the Ministry of Defence or the Home Office’s data be considered uncompromised in these hands?

The CIA in all but name

“The Oracle database is used to keep track of basically everything,” Ellison once said, adding,

The information about your banks, your checking balance, your savings balance, is stored in an Oracle database. Your airline reservation is stored in an Oracle database. What books you bought on Amazon is stored in an Oracle database. Your profile on Yahoo! is stored in an Oracle database.”

This should be of concern to everyone, as Oracle itself started off as a project for the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, Ellison named his company after Project Oracle, a 1970s CIA operation he worked on.

“Our very first customer was the Central Intelligence Agency,” Ellison boasted, telling the story of how, in 1977, the CIA commissioned his firm to build them a database. From there, Ellison immediately began pitching to other wings of the national security state, and within months had secured contracts with Navy Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence and the NSA. The bottomless pit of money available for the military has helped turn Oracle from a tiny operation to a $46 billion dollar per year behemoth.

One of Oracle’s largest deals came in 2020, when it was part of a consortium that won a 15-year contract with the CIA and the other 16 U.S. intelligence agencies said to be with tens of billions of dollars.

Part of the reason the CIA trusts Oracle is that the company’s upper echelons are filled with ex-CIA executives. A case in point is former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was appointed to the company’s board in 2015. David Carney, who spent 32 years at the agency, rising to become its third-in-command, also joined Oracle, heading up its information assurance center.

Indeed, on its own website, Oracle aggressively recruits CIA agents, sharing stories of former spooks who have gone on to succeed in its ranks. One of those is Senior Technical Program Manager Andrew C. “As an Intelligence Officer in the US Navy, as well as in the CIA, Andrew has had to lead, build teams, and work on fast-breaking projects, all things Oracle requires on a regular basis,” Oracle writes, before actively encouraging other agents to apply,

Now that you’ve heard about Andrew’s experience, are you ready to join Oracle National Security Region team? If you hold a U.S. Government Top Secret SCI or higher clearance, click here to check out our latest opportunities. Once you’ve found an opening that fits your talent, passion, skills, and background, apply for us to consider you. Create the future with us.”

Oracle, a firm that stores reams of your sensitive data, openly boasts of its cozy ties to the CIA

The revolving door between Oracle and the CIA also swings the other way, with Oracle staff finding employment in Langley, VA.

The Silicon Valley giant also works closely with the U.S. military. “Oracle Cloud is advancing Department of Defense mission success”, it boasts on its website. Oracle notes that it is “delivering real-time intel to warfighters”, thereby “securing command and control at the tactical edge.” Thus, by the company’s own telling, it is a centerpiece of both the military-industrial-complex and the national security state. Big media outlets agree: “Larry Ellison is a billionaire today thanks to the CIA” concluded Business Insider.

Surveillance State

If Ellison had his way, however, Oracle would be an even more crucial part of a greatly expanded national security state. In the immediate wake of the September 11 attacks, he flew in for a series of meetings with top Bush-era officials, including NSA chief Michael Hayden and Attorney General John Ashcroft. There, he likely pitched an idea he had been promoting for some time: a single, comprehensive national security database that collected every piece of information possible to identify someone, from thumbprints and iris scans to medical history and social security details. “The single greatest step we Americans could take to make life tougher for terrorists would be to ensure that all the information in myriad government databases was copied into a single, comprehensive national security database,” he insisted.

In the end, even the Bush administration balked at such a sweeping project. Nevertheless, Oracle has deeply ingratiated itself into the world of policing and surveillance. In 2012, at the height of an anti-NATO demonstration, U.S. law enforcement used Oracle’s Endeca software to match protestors’ tweets with data about their criminal records, 911 calls and other information to pre-arrest demonstration leaders before the action took off.

Since then, Oracle has sold the same or similar software to authorities in Europe, South America, the Middle East and China. Job listings for developers at Guantánamo Bay also note that familiarity with Endeca and Oracle software is a desired trait.

Oracle is far from the only Silicon Valley giant with questionable ties to intelligence. Here at MintPress, we have exposed how Facebook’s top ranks are filled with former FBI and CIA agents, how ex-Israeli spies have found roles working for Microsoft and Google, and uncovered what we termed a “NATO to TikTok pipeline.”

Yet the openness with which Oracle and Ellison work with the Israeli state to further its interests should be highly concerning to those working in national security. Israel already has a long history of using its tech industry to surveil and eavesdrop on foreign governments.

Can it really be a wise idea for the United Kingdom to entrust its most sensitive government, health and defense data to a company with such close ties to the Israeli government?

So far, Great Britain has overlooked the potential grave national security threat this poses. Surely this cannot continue indefinitely.

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic, political campaigner, and a MintPress video and podcast host. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique, and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network, and The Peace and Justice Project founded by Jeremy Corbyn.

March 8, 2026 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Openly Pro-Israel Tech Group Now Has Control over UK’s Most Sensitive National Security Data

Iran Red Crescent says 6,668 civilian sites targeted in US-Israeli attacks

MEMO | March 7, 2026

The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that 6,668 civilian locations have been targeted in attacks carried out by the US and Israel, including thousands of homes and dozens of public service facilities, Anadolu reports.

In a statement, the Iranian aid organization said that the attacks by the US and Israel struck a wide range of civilian infrastructure across the country.

According to the statement, 5,535 residential buildings, 1,041 commercial units, 14 health centers, 65 schools, and 13 facilities affiliated with the Red Crescent were among the locations hit.

The organization also reported that numerous aid and rescue vehicles were damaged during the attacks, while several relief workers and Red Crescent staff members were injured.

The statement emphasized that the attacks by the US and Israel targeting civilians violate the Geneva Conventions.

“International institutions, humanitarian aid organizations, and human rights defenders are expected to take urgent and effective measures to protect civilian lives, ensure the safety of aid workers, and guarantee respect for the rules of international humanitarian law,” it added.

March 7, 2026 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Iran Red Crescent says 6,668 civilian sites targeted in US-Israeli attacks

Indian journalist reveals severe Israeli censorship after escape from occupied territories

Press TV – March 7, 2026

An Indian journalist who was trapped in the occupied territories from February 28 to March 6 has revealed severe Israeli censorship amid the regime’s war of aggression against Iran.

Braj Mohan Singh of India’s Sandha News said he witnessed people dying in 100‑foot‑deep bunkers while Israeli officials withheld details.

Missiles “don’t differentiate between Indian or Israeli,” he said.

He contrasted press freedom in India with the restrictions in Israel, noting journalists cannot film bodies, visit hospitals, or receive accurate casualty numbers. Local accounts often reveal far higher losses than official reports, he added.

“When an incident takes place, we are not given the details of the location. The next day, when we visit the site, we are told, ‘There was only one casualty,’ but a local told us, ‘There were four houses, and everyone died,” which shows there was a major incident,’” he added.

Despite Israel’s touted advanced warning systems, Singh reported missiles arriving without sirens or prior alerts, highlighting technology failures and the unpredictability of drone and missile attacks.

He also mentioned reports of Iranian targeting of US embassies across West Asia and possible attempts in Tel Aviv, underscoring the heightened danger in the region.

The regimes in Washington and Tel Aviv started their unprovoked military assault on February 28, assassinating Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and top Iranian military commanders.

Iran began to swiftly retaliate against the criminal aggression by launching barrages of missile and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories as well as on US bases in regional countries.

March 7, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Comments Off on Indian journalist reveals severe Israeli censorship after escape from occupied territories

Majority of Israelis Back War with Iran as Anti-War Minority Faces Stigmatization

teleSUR | March 7, 2026

Israelis who oppose the war with Iran face threats and stigmatization, according to testimonies collected by a Spanish news agency. However, they represent a small minority, as 93% of Jewish Israelis support the offensive, a new poll by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) shows.

“Opposing the war and war crimes in Israel is practically a punishable offense. Even leftists and pacifists consider this a ‘just war,’” Adam Eli, secretary of the Jewish-Arab leftist coalition Hadash in Tel Aviv said.

Among those few critics is 19-year-old activist Itamar Greenberg, known in Israel for refusing to serve in the military in 2024. That decision, he recounted, cost him six months in prison and ostracism at his university, where he still leads a student circle while studying law.

Nearly one year after walking out of prison, Greenberg found himself back in custody on Tuesday for attending an anti-war rally that barely mustered 20 people across a nation of 10 million.

“About 40 police officers charged at us, confiscated our signs, and beat us. I was arrested and stripped naked for a search,” Greenberg said. He is also the founder of Mesarvot, a network of Israeli youth refusing military service.

An anti-war demonstration scheduled for Saturday at Habima Square in Tel Aviv will test wartime restrictions that cap gatherings at 50 people.

Meanwhile, restrictions on the right to assembly have been applied loosely during recent Purim celebrations—a sort of Jewish carnival—while Israeli authorities continue to bar Palestinians from praying at Al Aqsa Mosque despite Ramadan, and have militarily sealed off much of the West Bank.

March 7, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , | Comments Off on Majority of Israelis Back War with Iran as Anti-War Minority Faces Stigmatization

Report- U.S. and Israel Are Targeting ‘Hospitals, Residential Buildings And Schools Across Tehran’

The U.S. and Israel Are Repeating The Gaza Strategy In Iran

The Dissident | March 4, 2026

Failing to achieve regime change, the U.S. and Israel are bombing civilian areas in Tehran, in an attempt to destroy Iran as a nation.

A report in the Telegraph, a mainstream British newspaper, wrote , “Tehran an ‘apocalypse’ of hospitals in flames and children buried beneath rubble”.

The report noted, “American and Israeli aircraft bombed hospitals, residential buildings and schools across Tehran on Tuesday in what residents described as ‘an apocalypse’” adding, “Millions of civilians are trapped under relentless bombardment as food and medical supplies dwindle and the death toll mounts.”

One resident of Tehran told the paper, “They have been bombing us without pause today, and the sound of explosions never stops. They don’t care where they are hitting. I have felt the shockwaves several times already”.

He added, “They are striking buildings where families live. After each explosion, people rush to help – and then another bomb hits the same area.”

The report added:

Families ration meals to make supplies last. Children go to bed hungry. Elderly residents with medical conditions cannot find their medications.

Diabetics run out of insulin. Parents water down milk to make it stretch further. Some families have not eaten in two days. Bakeries that remain open face long lines.

It went on to write:

Areas around Revolution Square in central Tehran were struck on Tuesday, causing extensive damage to residential homes in one of the capital’s most densely populated districts.

The Haft-e-Tir neighbourhood, also in central Tehran, was hit. Video footage showed destroyed apartment buildings and rescue workers digging through rubble.

A hospital in southern Bushehr was destroyed, with emergency workers frantically evacuating newborn babies as the building was struck.

Kamran ( Tehran resident) said: “Many people are trapped under the rubble. Hospitals are filled with injured patients, and staff are overwhelmed. They are even striking hospitals where the wounded are being treated.”

The scene echoed strikes on Gandhi Hospital in Tehran and multiple other medical facilities across the country.

The destruction of hospitals means the wounded have nowhere to go. Nurses carry premature infants through smoke-filled corridors as bombs fall on maternity wards.

Burn victims lie on floors because all beds are full. Surgeons operate by torchlight when electricity fails.

Medical staff work until they collapse from exhaustion, then wake and work again. Some doctors have not left their hospitals in three days, sleeping in supply closets between emergency procedures.

Millions remain trapped in Tehran, a city under sustained aerial assault.

The report added, “‘An apocalypse is unfolding here,’ said Ashkan, another Tehran resident. ‘Today has been the worst day. Those who had cars fled. Those of us without cars are left here under the bombs.’”

It went on to note:

The strikes have created a humanitarian crisis that casualty figures do not fully convey.

Food supplies have become scarce in several parts of the city as distribution networks break down and stores close.

‘I don’t know if any of my relatives are dead or alive,’ Ashkan said. ‘One kilo of potatoes is now 200,000 tomans. That was 30,000 tomans last week.’

The report also documented the repeated use of “double tap” strikes on rescue workers, writing:

The Red Crescent said more than 100,000 rescue and relief workers across the country are on full alert, but residents said help often arrives too late or cannot reach victims at all.

“By the time rescuers arrive, another bomb falls on the same place,” Kamran said, describing what appeared to be “double-tap” strikes where initial attacks are followed by secondary strikes targeting first responders – a tactic that violates international humanitarian law.

Middle East Eye reported that the U.S./Israeli slaughter 165 children at the school for girls in Minab was also the result of a “double tap” strike, writing, “The girls’ school in Iran, where 165 people were killed by an apparent US-Israeli attack, was hit with two strikes, with the second missile killing sheltering survivors, two first responders and the parent of a slain child have told Middle East Eye.”

One Red Crescent member told the outlet, “When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them. The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children. But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.”

The father of one victim told the outlet that, “his daughter survived the first strike and was moved to the prayer hall. The second strike hit before he could reach her.”

The outlet documented other instances of “double tap strikes” used in Iran wiring:

Since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on Saturday, some Iranians have reported attacks that resembled double-tap strikes.

A video circulating on social media shows one woman in central Tehran in distress saying: “They dropped one bomb, people went inside, then they bombed again. They killed people.”

Another shows two men on a motorcycle, with one of them describing a near-death experience.

“We went to drag out people from under the rubble, and then the jet returned twice and pounded the same location four more times. We would have been dead if we weren’t still under the rubble,” he says.

A resident of Tehran who left for Turkey told Reuters , “We saw a lot of buildings destroyed, especially on the way leaving the country. There were a bunch of buildings, a bunch of cars and streets ​were destroyed. People are panicking to leave the country. They don’t know what to do”.

According to the Western group “Human Rights Activists News Agency, “the total number of reported civilian deaths stands at 1,114, including 181 children”.

As academic Glenn Diesen noted, referring to this report , “The US and Israel are bombing hospitals, schools, residential buildings, and Mehrabad international airport in Tehran. Having failed to regime change Iran, the new objective appears to be terror-bombing Iran into submission”.

March 4, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Report- U.S. and Israel Are Targeting ‘Hospitals, Residential Buildings And Schools Across Tehran’

Security Researchers Warn Age Verification Laws Are Building a Global Surveillance System

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | March 3, 2026

Three hundred and seventy-one security and privacy academics from 29 countries signed an open letter this week calling on governments to halt age verification rollouts until the privacy and security implications are properly understood.

The letter arrives as lawmakers across the world race to ban children from social media, pushing platforms to implement age checks before anyone has settled on what those checks should actually look like.

The signatories are unambiguous. Deploying large-scale identity verification systems without a clear grasp of what they do to user security, autonomy, and freedom is, in their words, “dangerous and socially unacceptable.”

Among those signing: Ronald Rivest, Turing Award winner, and Bart Preneel, president of the International Association for Cryptologic Research. These voices represent the core of the global security research community.

What governments are building, the letter argues, is surveillance infrastructure masquerading as child protection. A real age verification system, the academics explain, would require “government-issued IDs with strong cryptographic protection for every single interaction with the service.”

That means every search query, every message to a friend, every news article read online would require identity confirmation. Nothing in offline life demands that. The parallel doesn’t exist.

Companies are already moving. OpenAI, Roblox, and Discord have all begun implementing age checks in anticipation of legal mandates.

The academics aren’t dismissing the underlying concern. “We share the concerns about the negative effects that exposure to harmful content online has on children,” the letter states. What they’re rejecting is the proposed solution, which turns every adult into a suspect who must prove their identity before accessing the open web.

The technical problems compound the political ones. Building and maintaining identity verification at a global scale is genuinely hard. Many service providers, faced with the friction and cost, would simply refuse to comply.

And the platforms that can deploy these systems at scale are a handful of large corporations, meaning age verification becomes another mechanism for centralizing internet infrastructure in the hands of the few companies already dominant enough to afford it.

There’s another risk the academics name directly: governments banning VPNs. Age checks are trivially circumvented with a VPN, and the predictable policy response is to ban them outright. VPNs are currently one of the few tools available to people living under authoritarian regimes trying to protect their communications and identities.

Banning VPNs to enforce age checks on teenagers would strip that protection from dissidents, journalists, and activists worldwide. The collateral damage would be severe and global.

The academics are asking for a pause until scientific consensus forms around “the benefits and harms that age-assurance technologies can bring, and on the technical feasibility.”

What’s unreasonable is building mass identity verification systems first and studying the consequences after.

March 4, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Comments Off on Security Researchers Warn Age Verification Laws Are Building a Global Surveillance System

UK Government Secretly Tracked 25 Million People as Potential EV Owners

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | March 2, 2026

The UK government spent two years tracking 25 million mobile devices to build a picture of who drives electric cars. Not suspects or criminals. Just ordinary people whose browsing history mentioned EVs often enough to flag them as worth following.

The Department for Transport paid telecoms company O2 £600,000 ($809,000) to run the operation. According to the Telegraph, O2 trawled through its customers’ web browsing histories and app records, flagging anyone who visited an EV-related site at least once a month across two or more months.

That pool extended beyond O2’s own customers to include people on Tesco Mobile, GiffGaff, and Virgin Mobile, networks that run on O2’s infrastructure and whose users had no idea their data was being packaged and sold to a government agency.

Once flagged as a “potential EV owner,” your physical movements were traced across the country. London, the North-West, and the East of England received particular attention.

The techniques are standard in serious organized crime investigations. The DfT applied them to people buying environmentally friendly cars.

Andy Palmer, former executive at Nissan and Aston Martin, put it plainly: “I’m told it’s anonymized and aggregated, and that may well satisfy legal thresholds. But legality and legitimacy are not the same thing.” He added: “If you erode public trust in how that data is gathered, you undermine the very transition you are trying to accelerate.”

The idea of “anonymized” data means very little.

The surveillance ran for two years before the DfT quietly admitted defeat in April 2024, conceding that “mobile data cannot directly be used to provide information around charging behaviour or travel time.”

The program ended not because anyone questioned whether mass tracking of innocent people was appropriate, but because the data turned out to be useless for its stated purpose.

Civil servants from the DfT and Treasury were simultaneously exploring new EV taxes to replace fuel duty revenue. The people being surveilled were doing exactly what government policy encouraged them to do.

Conservative MP Sir David Davis drew the obvious conclusion: “It’s an object lesson in why you can’t trust the state with unfettered access to people’s information, because they’ve obviously taken this information without people’s permission with the objective of disadvantaging them, either by tax or other policy matters. If they’ll do it on this, with people who are doing what the government wants in policy terms, namely, pursuing green policies, what on Earth will they do elsewhere?”

The EV surveillance program wasn’t a one-off. During the earlier days of the COVID saga, the government ran a parallel operation, this time tracking people who showed up to get vaccinated.

Researchers funded through the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviors used mobile phone location data covering one in ten British people, without their knowledge or consent, to analyze behavioral changes after vaccination.

From that pool, they selected over 4,200 vaccinated individuals and tracked their movements through call data records, analyzing how far they traveled on vaccination day and whether they went straight home afterward.

The government was monitoring where citizens went after receiving a government-administered medical intervention, and chose not to tell anyone.

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Comments Off on UK Government Secretly Tracked 25 Million People as Potential EV Owners

Female Iranian academic sentenced to 4 years in prison in France over protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza

Press TV – February 26, 2026

An Iranian academic woman in France has been sentenced to four years in prison after she protested Israel’s genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip, with a permanent ban on her entry into the European country.

A court in France on Thursday, sentenced Iranian citizen Mahdieh Esfandiari, who had been detained on alleged charges of “public defense of terrorism,” to four years in prison, France 24 reported.

According to the court ruling, Esfandiari, a linguist and French language graduate, received a four-year sentence, three years of which were suspended and one year to be served.

The 39-year-old Iranian citizen had previously spent eight months in pretrial detention before being released under conditional terms.

The court also permanently barred Esfandiari from entering French territory.

Esfandiari graduated from Lumière University, where she worked as a professor, translator, and interpreter. She has also been a prominent pro-Palestinian activist with a significant online presence.

Her arrest last year came amid a crackdown in the United States and other Western countries targeting scholars, students, and activists who opposed Israeli genocide and advocate for peace, both on campuses and in public spaces.

The Paris Prosecutor’s Office charged the Iranian academic with “apologie du terrorisme” over Telegram posts that allegedly supported the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel in October 2023.

February 26, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Comments Off on Female Iranian academic sentenced to 4 years in prison in France over protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza

US university cancels Palestine conference citing sanctions concerns

Al Mayadeen | February 26, 2026

The University of Southern Maine has withdrawn permission to use a campus venue for a conference centered on Palestine, just days before it was scheduled to begin, triggering a dispute over sanctions law and First Amendment protections.

The event, titled “Consequence of Palestine,” had drawn more than 300 registrants and was organized by the Maine Coalition for Palestine, Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights, and the university’s department of criminology and sociology. It was expected to feature virtual remarks by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, who has been under US sanctions since last year.

University officials said the decision was based on federal sanctions law. Samantha Warren, chief external and governmental affairs officer for the University of Maine system, told The Guardian in an email that “hosting a conference that is being actively promoted as including a speaker sanctioned by the US government would put our public university in violation of federal law”. She said organizers should have obtained authorization from the Treasury Department before proceeding.

Sanctions regulations prohibit US entities from providing “any goods or services” to individuals designated under sanctions regimes. Violations can carry severe penalties, including heavy fines and potential prison time. However, legal scholars argue that the scope of what constitutes a “service” remains ambiguous.

Campus rights clash

In December, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) clarified in correspondence with the Middle East Studies Association that “no authorization” was required to include Albanese in an academic event, provided that she did not receive payment, reimbursement, or “training or assistance”. That clarification emerged after concerns were raised about the impact of sanctions on academic exchange.

Xiangnong Wang, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute who had sought clarification from OFAC, said the cancellation reflects broader concerns about the chilling impact of sanctions on constitutionally protected speech. “It’s very concerning that sanctions continue to have such a broad deterrent effect on speech that is undoubtedly protected by the First Amendment,” he said.

Organizers said they were caught off guard by the abrupt cancellation. Abigail Fuller, a sociology professor involved in planning the conference, stressed the constitutional implications of the decision. “We’re a public university; the university system is subject to First Amendment laws,” she said. “We feel we have a very, very strong case that they are suppressing our free speech.”

According to organizers, they attempted to clarify that federal guidance did not require special permission to include Albanese. They even proposed removing her from the program in an effort to preserve the event. They were subsequently told there was insufficient time for administrators to evaluate the conference’s “risk”.

Speech under pressure

The dispute comes amid reports that Republican lawmakers had written to the system’s chancellor requesting “information on steps the university is taking to ensure the safety and well-being of its Jewish students”. Organizers believe such political pressure contributed to the reversal and said administrators had also expressed concern about possible federal funding consequences.

Albanese was sanctioned last July, with US authorities accusing her of “unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West”. She has previously rejected those allegations and criticized the move as politically motivated, describing the United States as “a country of contradictions, full of ideals and principles and still, plotting against democratic values”.

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the university’s interpretation of sanctions law.

Despite losing access to their campus venue, conference organizers say they are seeking an alternative location and are exploring possible legal action. Fateh Azzam, a member of the Maine Coalition for Palestine, said canceling the conference outright was not an option.

“That would mean that they have effectively silenced an open and public debate on the issues,” he said. “This controversy will probably bring in more people.”

February 26, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Comments Off on US university cancels Palestine conference citing sanctions concerns

Islamic Jihad: Trump’s peace board is a “theatrical stunt detached from reality”

Palestinian Information Center – February 25, 2026

BEIRUT – Mohamed al-Hindi, Islamic Jihad’s deputy secretary-general, has described the US-led Board of Peace as nothing more than a “theatrical stunt,” saying it is detached from the reality on the ground.

In an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher satellite channel on Wednesday, Hindi stressed that the board’s recent meeting “has not brought about any change in the course of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip or in the scale of Israel’s ongoing violations against Palestinians.”

Hindi affirmed that this peace council was founded on a “formula of absolute American dominance and full security for Israel, while denying the Palestinian people the right to shape their own future.”

“The Palestinian role in this framework is purely symbolic, confined to technocratic committees handling Gaza’s municipal affairs without any sovereignty or political power,” Hindi said.

“The proposed vision fully embraces Israel’s stance, linking Gaza’s reconstruction to resistance groups surrendering their weapons, without any serious discussion of an Israeli withdrawal or accountability for ceasefire violations,” the Islamic Jihad official added.

He underscored that his Movement never trusted the US administrations under president Donald Trump or his predecessor Joe Biden, citing America’s unwavering pro-Israel bias.

He said that the Palestinian acceptance of prior understandings over Gaza aimed solely to put an end to Israel’s relentless massacres against civilians.

February 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Comments Off on Islamic Jihad: Trump’s peace board is a “theatrical stunt detached from reality”

Project Artichoke: 70 Years Ago, CIA Discussed Hiding Mind-Control Drugs in Vaccines

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 24, 2026

In the 1950s, the CIA brainstormed ways to secretly perform mind control on humans — including concealing drugs in vaccines and widely consumed food products, a newly unearthed CIA document revealed. The Daily Mail first reported the story on Monday.

The seven-page document, “Special Research for Artichoke,” is dated April 23, 1952. It describes a series of ideas for how to develop chemicals designed to alter human behavior and thought.

The proposals contained in the document were part of the CIA’s top-secret Project Artichoke, which ran from 1951 to 1956, according to the Daily Mail.

The document, declassified in 1983, recently circulated on social media. However, it was not published in the CIA’s online reading room until last year.

“Some of the suggestions are controversial,” the document states. The proposals included administering drugs in secret as part of a “long-range approach to subjects.”

According to the document:

“This study should include chemicals or drugs that can effectively be concealed in common items such as food, water, coca cola, beer, liquor, cigarettes, etc.

“This type of drug should also be capable of use in standard medical treatments such as vaccinations, shots, etc.”

CIA experimented on humans as part of Project Artichoke

The document also included a special field of research for “bacteria, plant cultures, fungi, poisons of various types, etc.,” that are “capable of producing illnesses which in turn would produce high fevers, delirium, etc.”

This included “species of the mushroom” that “produce a certain type of intoxication and mental derangement.”

Also among the proposals was a suggestion to research “diet” or “dietary deficiencies” on prisoners and on people undergoing interrogation, including using “specially canned foods having elements removed.”

The document included proposals for both short-term and long-term use on humans. Drugs deemed most suitable for long-term use would be designed to produce an “agitating effect (producing anxiety, nervousness, tension, etc.) or a depressing effect (creating a feeling of despondency, hopelessness, lethargy, etc.).”

According to The Daily Mail, the CIA experimented on humans as part of Project Artichoke. The experiments often involved “vulnerable subjects, including prisoners, military personnel and psychiatric patients.” The experiments were usually performed “without informed consent.”

According to Ben Tapper, a Nebraska chiropractor who was included in the “Disinformation Dozen” list in 2021 for questioning vaccine safety, the document exposes “a disturbing reality that government agencies have historically explored ways to manipulate human behavior through chemical and biological means, including concepts involving food and medical interventions.”

“This is not speculation or conspiracy, and it should deeply concern every American who values bodily autonomy and informed consent,” Tapper said.

Precursor to the CIA’s MK-Ultra mind control experiments?

The Daily Mail cited CIA documents suggesting that U.S. intelligence agencies were concerned that enemy nations had developed their own mind and behavioral control techniques. This led the agency to prioritize the development of its own methods.

Project Artichoke “served as a precursor” to the MK-Ultra program, which the CIA launched in 1953. That program “broadened mind-altering experiments on a larger scale,” the Daily Mail reported.

Many of the documents related to this type of experimentation were destroyed in 1973, “leaving the full extent of the research and how far it progressed unknown.”

Naomi Wolf, Ph.D., CEO of Daily Clout and author of “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity,” told The Defender that the documents further confirm a long history of intelligence agency research targeting human thought and behavior.

“Sadly, it’s long been established that our intelligence agencies, and those of our enemies, have sought to alter human consciousness and behavior, often without the subjects’ consent. The existence of MK-Ultra, the clandestine project into which Project Artichoke evolved, is well documented,” Wolf said.

John Leake, vice president of the McCullough Foundation and author of the forthcoming book, “Mind Viruses: America’s Irrational Obsessions,” said, “Researchers have long suspected that the Church Committee’s revelation of the CIA’s notorious MK-Ultra mind control experiments, mostly using LSD, had the effect of obscuring the agency’s much larger Project Artichoke.”

Leake cited evidence suggesting that a 1951 mass poisoning in Pont-Saint-Esprit, France, in which 250 residents experienced severe hallucinations and seven people died, was a Project Artichoke experiment. The outbreak was officially attributed to contaminated bread from a local bakery.

Leake said the 1952 document is “consistent with the suspicion that the CIA was seeking to discover mind control methods for even large populations.”

In 2024, a Reuters investigation revealed that the CIA operated a secret propaganda campaign involving vaccines in the Philippines. The campaign attacked what the agency perceived as China’s “growing influence” in the country by targeting the Chinese-made Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine through the use of phony online accounts spreading “anti-vax” messaging.

Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda,” said the Project Artichoke revelations “make it clear that the CIA has posed an enormous threat to U.S. citizens, in addition to the horrors it unleashes on non-U.S. target governments and populations.”

Project Artichoke wanted to enlist help from Army’s Chemical Warfare Service

The 1952 Project Artichoke document also included a recommendation to involve the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service in the project’s efforts, citing its experience with “exhaustive studies along these lines.”

This proposal bears a resemblance to recent suggestions that COVID-19 — and the response to the pandemic — were coordinated at high levels of government, military and intelligence agencies.

Last year, former pharmaceutical research and development executive Sasha Latypova and retired science writer Debbie Lerman released the “Covid Dossier,” presenting evidence of the “military/intelligence coordination of the Covid biodefense response in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy.”

According to Latypova and Lerman, “Covid was not a public health event” but “a global operation, coordinated through public-private intelligence and military alliances and invoking laws designed for CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) weapons attacks.”

Leake said “it is far from clear” that the Church Committee hearings of 1975 “put a complete end to CIA covert programs.” He cited the possible laboratory development of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as an example.

“The laboratory creation of SARS-CoV-2 with gain-of-function techniques developed at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the U.S. military’s involvement in developing and distributing of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, should … be regarded as possible outgrowths or even continuations of Project Artichoke,” Leake said.

Experts question similarities between Project Artichoke, COVID vaccines

In a Substack post today, epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher drew a potential connection between Project Artichoke and the development of COVID-19 vaccines. Hulscher cited recent peer-reviewed studies that identified the vaccines’ adverse impact on neurological health and “surging rates of cognitive decline.”

Hulscher wrote:

“Disturbingly, since 2021, over 70% of humanity received a neurotoxic agent masquerading as a ‘vaccine.’ The same goals outlined in the CIA document (vaccines/drugs capable of covertly inducing anxiety, depression, and lethargy) are now being observed in COVID-19 vaccinated populations. …

“… If the CIA was secretly discussing covert methods to alter human behavior in the 1950s, it would be no surprise if similar classified projects emerged in the decades that followed.”

A 2024 paper published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry investigated psychiatric adverse events among over 2 million people in South Korea. The study found that “COVID-19 vaccination increased the risks of depression, anxiety, dissociative, stress-related, and somatoform disorders, and sleep disorders while reducing the risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”

A 2025 study published in the International Journal of Innovative Research in Medical Science found “alarming safety signals regarding neuropsychiatric conditions following COVID-19 vaccination, compared to the influenza vaccinations and to all other vaccinations combined.”

This included increases in schizophrenia, depression, cognitive decline, delusions, violent behavior, suicidal thoughts and homicidal ideation.

“The fact that mRNA vaccines were designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and inflame the brain — or at least, they were known to do so, during their manufacture and distribution — should give us pause in light of this news,” Wolf said.

Wolf said the latest revelations, “while shocking, provide all the more reason for us to be critical of opaque, coercive or untested vaccination programs, additives in food and water, and toxic or opaque geoengineering programs.”

Tapper said the revelations reinforce “the urgent need to protect individual liberty, medical freedom, and ethical boundaries in science and public health.”

“The lesson here is simple: vigilance is necessary when governments claim authority over the human body and mind,” Tapper said.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

February 24, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Project Artichoke: 70 Years Ago, CIA Discussed Hiding Mind-Control Drugs in Vaccines

« Previous Entries