“Cloud Democracy”: Could Russia’s opposition movement radically change how democracy works?
The Nordic country announced Tuesday that two-thirds of voters are backing a draft constitution based on comments from social media.
Iceland is creating a new, crowdsourced constitution in the wake of the country’s banking crisis and citizen protests, and government officials garnered feedback from users on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr to shape it.
The document, which went up for a non-binding vote on Saturday, was created by a panel of 25 citizens who compiled 3,600 comments and 370 suggestions from social media over the past year. Six questions appeared on the referendum, and the first two asked whether Icelanders want to adopt the user-generated constitution.
Nearly half of Iceland’s 235,000 eligible voters took part in the referendum, with 66 percent of those voting in favor. GigaOM said it makes sense that the Internet-backed option would have the most support.
“Give the people a chance to feed into the drafting, taking advantage of the internet’s convenience and low barriers, and they’ll stand behind the result,” wrote GigaOM’s David Meyer in a detailed analysis of the results.
Although the parliament is ultimately responsible for ratifying a new constitution, supporters hope the two thirds-backed constitution will be hard to ignore.
“This is a very clear conclusion for parliament,” said Thorolfur Matthiasson, an economist at the University of Iceland, to Reuters. “The majority of voters want changes in all the topics asked about in the vote.”
One of the major topics up for discussion was giving the government greater control of natural resources, including fish and geothermal energy, which are currently controlled by a handful of the island’s wealthy “sea baron” families.
It’s estimated that 320,000 Icelanders—two-thirds of Iceland’s population—are on Facebook, which was used to broadcast the 25-member panel’s weekly meetings. The gatherings aired live on Facebook so interested citizens could offer suggestions and debate along with the panel.
Parliament now has to decide if they want to turn the crowdsourced constitution into a reality. Whether they settle on this document, or a different one, something must be finalized prior to next spring’s elections.
WikiLeaks to Release Over 100 Secret Documents on Detention Policies
Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets
PlayStation ‘master key’ leaked online, Tiny Drones Work Together!
Jester Update: th3j35t3r ‘patriot hacker’ Promotes the Military Industrial Complex & Al-CIA-duh. FYI, it’s a group account, one of them exposed himself to be Tom Ryan, of Provide Security. (‘Terrorist Hackers’ are good for InfoSec biz)
Hacktivists Advocate: Meet The Lawyer Who Defends Anonymous
We’re as harmless or dangerous as anyone else. Chances are that we’re less dangerous because we don’t want to screw you all over. #Anonymous
Study found war against violent Islamists has become increasingly deadly
Researchers blame common tactic now being used – the ‘double-tap’ strike
Drone strikes condemned for their ineffectiveness in targeting militants
Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today.The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’.
And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene.
The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that people often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack. Investigators also discovered that communities living in fear of the drones were suffering severe stress and related illnesses. Many parents had taken their children out of school because they were so afraid of a missile-strike.
Today campaigners savaged the use of drones, claiming that they were destroying a way of life.
Clive Stafford Smith, director of the charity Reprieve which helped interview people for the report, said: ‘This shows that drone strikes go much further than simply killing innocent civilians. An entire region is being terrorised by the constant threat of death from the skies. ‘
There have been at least 345 strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan in the past eight years.
‘These strikes are becoming much more common,’ Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who represents victims of drone strikes, told The Independent.
‘In the past it used to be a one-off, every now and then. Now almost every other attack is a double tap. There is no justification for it.’
The study is the product of nine months’ research and more than 130 interviews, it is one of the most exhaustive attempts by academics to understand – and evaluate – Washington’s drone wars.
Despite assurances the attacks are ‘surgical’, researchers found barely two per cent of their victims are known militants and that the idea that the strikes make the world a safer place for the U.S. is ‘ambiguous at best’.
Researchers added that traumatic effects of the strikes go far beyond fatalities, psychologically battering a population which lives under the daily threat of annihilation from the air, and ruining the local economy.
They conclude by calling on Washington completely to reassess its drone-strike programme or risk alienating the very people they hope to win over.
They also observe that the strikes set worrying precedents for extra-judicial killings at a time when many nations are building up their unmanned weapon arsenals.
The Obama administration is unlikely to heed their demands given the zeal with which America has expanded its drone programme over the past two years.
Washington says the drone program is vital to combating militants that threaten the U.S. and who use Pakistan’s tribal regions as a safe haven.
The number of attacks have fallen since a Nato strike in 2011 killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and strained U.S.-Pakistan relations.
Pakistan wants the drone strikes stopped – or it wants to control the drones directly – something the U.S. refuses.
Reapers and Predators are now active over the skies of Somalia and Yemen as well as Pakistan and – less covertly – Afghanistan.
But campaigners like Mr Akbar hope the Stanford/New York University research may start to make an impact on the American public.
‘It’s an important piece of work,’ he told The Independent. ‘No one in the U.S. wants to listen to a Pakistani lawyer saying these strikes are wrong. But they might listen to American academics.’
Today, Pakistani intelligence officials revealed a pair of missiles fired from an unmanned American spy aircraft slammed into a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan last night.
The two officials said missiles from the drone aircraft hit the village of Dawar Musaki in the North Waziristan region, which borders Afghanistan to the west.
Some of the dead were believed to be foreign fighters but the officials did not know how many or where they were from.
The Monday strike was the second in three days. On Saturday a U.S. drone fired two missiles at a vehicle in northwest Pakistan, killing four suspected militants.
That attack took place in the village of Mohammed Khel, also in North Waziristan.
North Waziristan is the last tribal region in which the Pakistan military has not launched an operation against militants, although the U.S. has been continually pushing for such a move.
The Pakistanis contend that their military is already overstretched fighting operations in other areas but many in the U.S. believe they are reluctant to carry out an operation because of their longstanding ties to some of the militants operating there such as the Haqqani network.
United Nations report calls for Internet surveillance, saying lack of “internationally agreed framework for retention of data” is a problem, as are open Wi-Fi networks in airports, cafes, and libraries.
The United Nations is calling for more surveillance of Internet users, saying it would help to investigate and prosecute terrorists.
A 148-page report (PDF) released today titled “The Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes” warns that terrorists are using social networks and other sharing sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Dropbox, to spread “propaganda.”
“Potential terrorists use advanced communications technology often involving the Internet to reach a worldwide audience with relative anonymity and at a low cost,” said Yury Fedotov, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The report, released at a conference in Vienna convened by UNODC, concludes that “one of the major problems confronting all law enforcement agencies is the lack of an internationally agreed framework for retention of data held by ISPs.” Europe, but not the U.S. or most other nations, has enacted a mandatory data-retention law.
That echoes the U.S. Department of Justice’s lobbying efforts aimed at convincing Congress to require Internet service providers to keep track of their customers — in case police want to review those logs in the future. Privacy groups mounted a campaign earlier this year against the legislation, which has already been approved by a House committee.
The report, however, indicates it would be desirable for certain Web sites — such as instant-messaging services and VoIP providers like Skype — to keep records of “communication over the Internet such as chat room postings.” That goes beyond what the proposed U.S. legislation, which targets only broadband and wireless providers, would cover.
Other excerpts from the UN report address:
Open Wi-Fi networks: “Requiring registration for the use of Wi-Fi networks or cybercafes could provide an important data source for criminal investigations… There is some doubt about the utility of targeting such measures at Internet cafes only when other forms of public Internet access (e.g. airports, libraries and public Wi-Fi hotspots) offer criminals (including terrorists) the same access opportunities and are unregulated.”
Cell phone tracking: “Location data is also important when used by law enforcement to exclude suspects from crime scenes and to verify alibis.”
Terror video games: “Video footage of violent acts of terrorism or video games developed by terrorist organizations that simulate acts of terrorism and encourage the user to engage in role-play, by acting the part of a virtual terrorist.”
Paying companies for surveillance: “It is therefore desirable that Governments provide a clear legal basis for the obligations placed on private sector parties, including… how the cost of providing such capabilities is to be met.”
Today’s U.N. report was produced in collaboration with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force, which counts the World Bank, Interpol, the World Health Organization, and the International Monetary Fund as members.
Representatives of the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and Justice parties have held a presidential debate in Chicago.
Four third-party candidates, who were not invited to the presidential debates between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, have faced eachother in Chicago.
Tuesday’s debate was hosted by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, a group promoting a more open electoral process, and moderated by talk show host Larry King.
“It’s a two-party system, but not a two-party system by law,” King said. Obama and Romney were also invited, but declined to attend.
The participants included former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson, former Virginia congressman Virgil Goode, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who ran against Romney in Massachusetts in 2002.
When asked about the Pentagon’s budget, during the debate, all four candidates agreed that military spending should be cut. Goode was perhaps the most circumspect; the other candidates called for big cuts.
For instance, Johnson said military spending should be cut by 43 per cent.
Goode, who voted to authorise the war in Iraq in 2003, said: “If I’m elected president … part of the cuts have to be in the Deparmtent of Defence. We cannot do as Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan suggest. I support a strong defence but we need to retrench rather than being the policeman of the world.”
In response, Johnson said: “The biggest threat to our national security is the fact that we’re bankrupt.” He supports a 43 per cent reduction in military spending – 2003 spending levels, he pointed out.
Stein, the Green Party nominee, said: “A foreign policy based on militarism … is making us less secure, not more secure. We need to cut the budget and bring the troops home.”
Since 1988, candidates have only been invited by the Commission on Presidential Debates to participate if polls find they have more than 15 per cent support.
So far, only one candidate has met that criterion, the billionaire Ross Perot, who debated Bill Clinton and George H W Bush in 1992.
Alternative presidential debates for third-party candidates have been held since 1996, but George Farah, author of No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates, says he “[doesn’t] remember one getting this much attention, having Larry King moderate it.”
A second third-party match-up will be held on October 30.
High threshold
Farah describes the 15 per cent threshold as “just substantially too high”.
He notes that in order to receive federal matching funds, parties only have to have received five per cent of the vote in the previous election. “It doesn’t make any sense. It’s an arbitrary figure,” he told Al Jazeera.
Farah says third-party or independent candidates face “Herculean structural barriers”, arguing they face a fundraising disadvantage compared to Republican and Democratic candidates, and have to collect huge numbers of signatures in some states to get their names printed on the ballot.
Another hurdle is the structure of the US winner-take-all electoral system. Research shows third-party candidates perform better in countries that have proportional representation or instant runoff voting systems.
Although most public opinion polls of the presidential race do not ask whether voters support third-party candidates, one Gallup survey released in September found that three per cent nationally say they will vote for either Stein, Johnson, or Goode.
In many states, citizens will not be able to vote for third-party candidates even if they want to.
“It’s a two-party system, but not a two-party system by law.“
– Larry King
The US has a highly complex patchwork of ballot access laws, and all 50 states have somewhat different requirements for candidates’ names to be printed on the ballot.
Candidates not affiliated with either major party must collect a certain number of signatures from voters in order for their names to be automatically printed on ballots.
If they fail to meet this threshold, some states allow third-party candidates’ names to be manually written in by voters instead.
Certain states, like North Carolina and Oklahoma, are notoriously difficult for third-party candidates to gain access; others, like Louisiana, are much easier.
Only Obama and Romney are on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington, although Johnson is close, with 48 state ballots listing his name.
Records broken
Richard Winger, who runs the website Ballot Access News, thinks third-party candidates are likely to receive a higher share of the vote this year than in 2008.
He attributes this partly to the high enthusiasm for Barack Obama in 2008.
“There was so much optimism and happiness” about Obama and about electing the country’s first black president, he told Al Jazeera. As a result, less than 1.5 per cent of the vote went to minor parties.
Winger said the state which will deliver the highest share of its vote to third-party candidates “may very well be Alaska”.
Because it is four time zones behind the East Coast, many voters already know who will win, explains Winger.
He notes that Ralph Nader, who ran in every presidential election from 1992 to 2008, received a greater share of the vote there in 2004 than in any other state.
Farah also predicts a higher share of voters in New Mexico than in other states will choose third-party candidates as Johnson used to govern the state and “remains quite popular” there.
Third-party candidates have already broken one record this year: Winger says that there are 27 individuals this year whose names are on the ballot in at least one state. The previous record was 23, set in the 1992 election.
The debate was broadcast by Al Jazeera and Russia Today but on no major US cable news networks
A gathering of experts on artificial intelligence becomes a search for deeper meaning
Hundreds of the world’s brightest minds — engineers from Google and IBM, hedge funds quants, and Defense Department contractors building artificial intelligence — were gathered in rapt attention inside the auditorium of the San Francisco Masonic Temple atop Nob Hill. It was the first day of the seventh annual Singularity Summit, and Julia Galef, the President of the Center for Applied Rationality, was speaking onstage. On the screen behind her, Galef projected a giant image from the film Blade Runner: the replicant Roy, naked, his face stained with blood, cradling a white dove in his arms.
At this point in the movie, Roy is reaching the end of his short, pre-programmed life, “The poignancy of his death scene comes from the contrast between that bitter truth and the fact that he still feels his life has meaning, and for lack of a better word, he has a soul,” said Galef. “To me this is the situation we as humans have found ourselves in over the last century. Turns out we are survival machines created by ancient replicators, DNA, to produce as many copies of them as possible. This is the bitter pill that science has offered us in response to our questions about where we came from and what it all means.”
The Singularity Summit bills itself as the world’s premier event on robotics, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies. The attendees, who shelled out $795 for a two-day pass, are people whose careers depend on data, on empirical proof. Peter Norvig, Google’s Director of Research, discussed advances in probabilistic first-order logic. The Nobel prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman lectured on the finer points of heuristics and biases in human psychology. The Power Point presentations were full of math equations and complex charts. Yet time and again the conversation drifted towards the existential: the larger, unanswerable questions of life.
Rapture of the nerds
Inside the Masonic Temple the morning light shone through a glorious set of stained glass windows. The work, completed in 1957 by Emile Norman, charts the progress of industry, from covered wagons to high speed trains, from sailing ships to cruise liners. It’s a celebration of civilization, interwoven with the beauty of the natural world, and above it, the all seeing eye of God.
That same year Norman completed his masterpiece, the mathematician John von Neumann passed away. It was von Neumann who first spoke of a technological singularity. He imagined the pace of scientific progress would grow faster and faster, until it becomes impossible for humans to keep up with the change. By singularity, von Neumann was referring to a spacial anomaly, like a black hole, where the traditional rules of physics do not apply.
While there are numerous versions of what the future will become in the wake of the Singularity, the unifying principle is that, beyond this moment, the universe as we know it will be dramatically altered. And so the Summit is a sort of nirvana for hyper-intelligent dreamers: sci-fi fans with PhDs, big bank accounts, and boring day jobs, who love to debate radical visions of the future. Making a religion of rationality, it turns out, can lead some very smart people to embrace some insane-sounding ideas.
Laura Deming, who began attending MIT at the precocious age of 14, was one of four Thiel Fellows to speak onstage. Peter Thiel, the billionaire hedge fund manager, tech investor and founder of PayPal, is one of the biggest donors to the Singularity Institute. His fellowship offers the world’s brightest minds $100,000 each to drop out of school and pursue their bold ideas. Deming, who at 18 has already finished college, electrified the crowd with her short talk.
“There is one fact that never fails to infuriate me. Every day 150,000 die of a disease that we ignore. I remember when I was eight, I decided that I wanted to work on curing aging,” Deming began. “It was watching my grandma try to play with my brother and I when arthritic joints made just walking painful.” Deming’s voice grew husky, and her eyes watered with tears. “I remember clearly the death of three grandparents, three amazing people, from this awful, inexorable process that we have somehow come to view as something normal, natural, and beautiful… to be celebrated.” She paused to collect herself. “At least outside this room, that seems to be the consensus.”
“Just think how far we’ve come in a century,” said Deming, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “Only a century ago, the nature of genetic code was still a mystery. Now we’re creating pocket-sized DNA calculators and swapping biological circuitry like it’s Lego blocks.” Like many at the conference, her faith in a brighter future was grounded in the continuing acceleration of scientific progress. “If we succeed, we will have turned the most awful paradigm that we know on its head. The inevitability of death.”
The crowd burst into rapturous applause.
I wondered if The Singularity might serve as a sort of substitute for faith among the Silicon Valley set who felt uncomfortable with some of religion’s mystical beliefs. “The Singularity resolves a lot of the problems that religion irons out for humans,” said R.U. Sirius, a longtime attendee I chatted with. “The contradictions, the pains and suffering of living: these are deeply troubling for people who pride themselves on their rational minds. Here you can find a vision of absolute transcendence, but one that uses as its foundation long-term projections that are at least somewhat grounded in science.”
Making a religion of rationality, it turns out, can lead some very smart people to embrace some insane-sounding ideas
Laura Deming
The prophet of progress
When the conference broke for lunch, I wandered outside to California Avenue. The area was clean, bright, and quiet. Across the street the high steeple of Grace Cathedral caught the afternoon light. At the corner, the road descended at a frightening angle, sloping off like the inverse of one of the many charts projected on the screen that morning to display the astounding rate of our technological gains.
The audience at the conference was a pleasant polyglot: unassuming geeks in t-shirts adorned with coding jokes, bankers in Oxford shirts, freaks with gelled mohawks, crossdressers in leather boots, and one man in Victorian breeches and top hat. Grabbing a seat at an outdoor table, I caught the tail end of a discussion between several programmers and a pair of quants from a hedge fund. They were talking about the amount of trading in today’s stock markets that is governed entirely by computer algorithms, moving at light speed, with little or no human involvement. “You want to see a world where computer intelligence is leaving humans in the dust,” the hedgie boasted. “It’s already here.”
While the concept of the Singularity has been around since the 1950s, it failed to catch on with the mainstream until 2005, when the prolific inventor and polymath Ray Kurzweil published The Singularity is Near. It was an update to his 1999 work, The Age of Spiritual Machines, which became a bestseller in Amazon’s science section. But The Singularity is Near broke through to become a New York Times bestseller, largely by mixing Kurzweil’s earlier notions of sentient machines with new predictions about the possibilities for eliminating diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s and, eventually, overcoming death itself.
Kurzweil is the Singularity’s optimistic prophet. As a young inventor, he set out to help the blind to see and the mute to speak. Incredibly, he accomplished these lofty goals, creating technologies that touched many lives, and making himself a millionaire many times over the process. So perhaps it’s not surprising that he truly believes he can solve the vexing problem of mortality, and even, as he explains in the documentary Transcendent Man, bring his dead father back to boot. In Kurzweil’s vision of the future, we can merge our brains with computers, giving us a near godlike intelligence and the ability to back up our memories and thus live forever. This new species of man-machine will spread out across the universe, a super race on an infinite quest for knowledge.
This new species of man-machine will spread out across the universe, a super race on an infinite quest for knowledgeThe excitement in the crowd was palpable when Kurzweil stepped onstage, the last speaker on the first day. Despite the advances made in computer processing, brain imaging, and even artificial intelligence, it’s not clear to Kurzweil, or anyone else, exactly when this change will occur. “The Singularity’s not here, but it’s near,” Kurzweil said, by way of an opening line. He currently swallows over 200 pills each day in the hopes of lasting till that momentous event. His talk pointed out the promising signs: IBM’s Watson outsmarting humans at Jeopardy and improvements in brain scans allow computers to recreate more and more of how our minds work.
Kurzweil’s most important and controversial belief is that sciences like biology and medicine are increasingly becoming “information technologies.” This would mean the same principles of accelerating returns which have played out in the world of computers would now hold true for you and me: Moore’s law will apply equally mitochondria and microchips. As soon as Kurzweil finished, a hand shot up in the front row. John Linnemeier, a frail man with thinning white hair, grasping a ski pole for a cane, called for the microphone.
“I just want to ask, you and I are both pretty old, what if we don’t make it to the Singularity? Do you have any plans for that?”
Kurzweil gets this question a lot. While his three health books have been a “wake up call” for baby boomers, he explains, the generation won’t necessarily make it. “But before 2030 we will be adding more than a year every year to our life expectancy. Of course you could be hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow, but we are doing something about that too, with Google’s work on self-driving cars.” He didn’t mention it onstage, but Kurzweil also sells his own line of supplements. “You don’t want to be the first person in line not to make it into the theater,” he joked, to laughter and cheers from the crowd.
After Kurzweil’s talk the conference broke up, and we made our way downhill to The Cellar for a Saturday evening after-party. Descending from Nob Hill into downtown San Francisco, the city grew dirtier, louder, and more crowded. A cluster of tourists had gathered around a game of Three-card Monte. The smell of weed drifted out of a window.
Inside the bar the mood was festive. A “conscious” mixologist specializing in “essential oil wizardry” poured pungent elixirs. Downstairs in a basement club, someone had stacked a large pile of cardboard cubes. Attendees donned special virtual reality glasses that turned the blocks into a real life game of Tetris.
Kurzweil made his way through the bar, mobbed by fans eager to chat him up or take a photo with their idol. “When he came on stage, it was definitely a Jesus moment,” said Tom Rausch, a first time attendee, sipping a beer, noting the way people hung on Kurzweil’s every word.
The bar was too small for the growing crowd of Singularitarians. They spilled out onto the street. I chatted for a while with Ioven Fables, a philosophy major from Boston College who now works as an executive assistant at the Singularity Institute. “Our big problem is, we can attract all these smart people to come together, to chat and to network. But how do we get the world’s best mathematicians and programmers to actually work for us? If you are serious about the Singularity, like I am, then it’s not about the money.” He took a deep swallow from his drink. “We’re not all as optimistic as Ray about how things are going to turn out.”
continues below
Through a glass, darkly
“Fasten your seatbelts, because this could be very bad.”
Jann Tallinn
Like most of the dominant modern religions, the Singularity presents a dramatic duality in its visions for what will follow — a heaven and hell. In Kurzweil’s vision, mankind escapes death and gains godlike intelligence. But for many in attendance, including the senior staff of the Singularity Institute, something far more cataclysmic seemed the likely outcome, a superhuman form of artificial intelligence that gives rise to a race of sentient machines which wipe humanity from the face of the Earth.
Jaan Tallinn, an Estonian programmer known for his work helping to create the peer-to-peer architecture behind Kazaa and Skype, has become one of the most vocal advocates and biggest financial donors to the Singularity Institute. “It will be the biggest change the universe has seen,” he explained to me during a Q&A session in the sweaty press room underneath the stage. “Fasten your seatbelts, because this could be very bad.”
Tallinn has wispy hair, slightly ridiculous bangs, and the first flecks of grey creeping in. His talk was a playful affair, touching on topics like the multiverse and time travel with comic, hand drawn illustrations. But in private, his passion was alarming. “People always ask me after my talks, ‘What can we do?’ One thing is just spread the idea that, although this sounds like science fiction, it is deadly serious. We definitely need way more resources to work on the safety aspects of developing artificial intelligence and possibly superhuman intelligence. Right now we are spending vastly more on lipstick research than planning for changes of galactic scale.”
I didn’t come away from this weekend thinking the Singularity Institute was some kind of apocalyptic cult. As charming as the comparison seemed at first, Singularitarians are not to the tech world what Scientologist are for Hollywood. Rational thought and healthy skepticism are core values in this community. Many of the folks I met were more interested in networking with their industry peers than discussing the implications of a neural network. Melanie Mitchell, a Professor of Computer Science at Portland State, directly contradicted Kurzweil during her talk. IBM’s Watson, she pointed out, had beaten the best human players at Jeopardy. And yet the program had no chance of explaining, as a precocious ten year old could, why the audience laughed every time Watson’s robot voice intoned, “I’ll take ‘Chicks Dig Me’ for $400, Alex.”
Google’s Peter Norvig, a venerable figure in the world of Artificial Intelligence, was similarly dismissive. Despite the prodigious minds and mountainous resources at his disposal, the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough of this year wouldn’t exactly pass the Turing test. 1000 computers using 10 million YouTube stills learned how to identify a cat… 15.8 percent of the time. “I think our progress is best summed up by a cartoon from Abstruse Goose,” Norvig said, projecting the strip onto the auditorium screen.
Throughout the Summit, the Singularity Institute’s staff implored the audience for donations of time and money. The world’s best minds, they insisted, were needed to work on planning for the disastrous possibilities of the Singularity, and that kind of brain power doesn’t come cheap. “The Singularity Institute actually knows some brilliant mathematicians who can work on these problems and want to work on them, and we can’t afford to hire them, that is the state of funding for the world’s most important problem,” warned Luke Muehlhauser, the Institute’s Executive Director. While intellectual curiosity was the dominant trait among attendees, fear was the emotion the Institute leveraged in trying to solicit support. “If superhuman AIs are steering the future, they might take it somewhere we don’t want to go,” Muehlhauser emphasized.
As reporters filed out of the press room for the next talk, a small group gathered around Tallinn to ask some follow-up questions. In a confidential tone, he made it clear that creating a sense of urgency around the Singularity was his current mission in life. “How valuable are the mistakes, that can be warnings?” Tallinn asked. “The only dramatic thing I have found, which wasn’t good enough… a decade ago an aircraft cannon in South Africa went berserk and started killing people.” I ask him about the computer algorithms that caused flash crashes in the stock market. “I don’t think that’s dramatic enough,” he said, shaking his head. Speaking in a near whisper, he looked me square in the face. “From a long term perspective, it might be good to have a major AI disaster. A real wake-up call.”
Former CIA agent John Kiriakou pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to crimes related to blowing the whistle on the US government’s torture of suspected terrorists and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Kiriakou, 48, agreed to admit to one count of disclosing information identifying a covert agent early Tuesday, just hours after his attorney entered a change of plea in an Alexandria, Virginia courtroom outside of Washington, DC.
Kiriakou was originally charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 after he went public with the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of waterboarding on captured insurgents in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. On Monday morning, though, legal counsel for the accused former CIA agent informed the court that Kiriakou was willing to plead guilty to a lesser crime.
Initially, Kiriakou pleaded not guilty to the charge that he had outted two intelligence agents directly tied to the drowning-simulation method by going to the press with their identities.
As RT reported last week, defense attorneys had hoped that the government would be tasked with having to prove that Kiriakou had intent to harm America when he went to the media. Instead, however, prosecutors were told they’d only need to prove that the former government employee was aware that his consequences had the potential to put the country in danger.
Had Kiriakou been convicted under the initial charges filed in court, he could have been sentenced to upwards of five decades behind bars.
“Let’s be clear, there is one reason, and one reason only, that John Kiriakou is taking this plea: for the certainty that he’ll be out of jail in 2 1/2 years to see his five children grow up,” Jesselyn Raddack, a former Justice Department official who blew the whistle on Bush administration’s mishandling in the case of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, wrote Tuesday.
Kiriakou, Raddack wrote, was all but certain to enter the Alexandria courthouse on Tuesday and plead guilty to the lesser charge of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), explaining, “there are no reported cases interpreting it because it’s nearly impossible to prove–for “outing” a torturer.”
“’Outing’ is in quotes because the charge is not that Kiriakou’s actions resulted in a public disclosure of the name, but that through a Kevin Bacon-style chain of causation, GITMO torture victims learned the name of one of their possible torturers,” Raddack wrote. “Regardless, how does outing a torturer hurt the national security of the U.S.? It’s like arguing that outing a Nazi guarding a concentration camp would hurt the national security of Germany.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former government official told Firedoglake recently that the CIA was “totally ticked at Kiriakou for acknowledging the use of torture as state policy” and allegedly outing the identity of a covert CIA official “responsible for ensuring the execution” of the water-boarding program.
Kiriakou “outted” to the reporters the identities of the CIA’s “prime torturer” under its Bush-era interrogations, Firedoglake wrote. “For that, the CIA is counting on the Justice Department to, at minimum, convict Kiriakou on the charge of leaking an agent’s identity to not only send a message to other agents but also to continue to protect one of their own.”
Former National Security Agency staffer Thomas Drake suffered a similar fate in recent years after the government went after him for blowing the whistle on the NSA’s poorly handled collection of public intelligence. A grand jury indicted Drake on five counts tied to 1917’s Espionage Act as well as other crimes, but prosecutors eventually agreed to let him off with a misdemeanor computer violation that warranted zero jail time.
Together, Drake and Kirakou are two of six persons charged under the Espionage Act during the administration of US President Barack Obama. The current White House has indicted more people under the antiquated World War 1-era legislation than all previous presidents combined.
You’ve probably seen the news all over the ‘net: If Romney wins the election on November 6, many Obama supporters plan to riot in the streets. A surprising number have announced their plans to “kill Romney.” Simultaneously, FEMA has announced it is preparing for an event involving “mass casualties.”
Regardless of who you support in the coming election, the possibility of post-election riots is a reality. Here are 12 things you need to realize right now if you hope to stay safe should such an outcome unfold.
#1) The riots will likely occur in the inner cities. If at all possible, get out of the inner cities. In fact, you might want to think about moving out of the city altogether. Middle-class and upper-class suburbs will be safe, by the way. It’s mostly the inner cities that are likely to riot.
#2) The police will be almost instantly overwhelmed. Local peace officers are ridiculously short-staffed in cities all across the country, largely due to budget cuts. They have very little capacity to deal with any real outbreak of riots, so don’t expect calling 911 to have any impact at all.
#3) One of the greatest risks from riots is FIRES. Rioters love to set things on fire, as if burning down your own neighborhood is somehow an act of defiance against “The Man.” Even worse, rioters tend to shoot firearms at firemen who are trying to put out the fires. This causes firemen to evacuate the scene, after which fires burn out of control and do a lot more damage than they would have otherwise caused. The risk of fires spreading out of control in the inner city is surprisingly high.
#4) Innocent bystanders may be targeted with violence. Don’t be a “bystander” and you won’t be targeted (because you’re not around). The primary strategy is to simply not be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
#5) Don’t join in the riots. Even if you’re angry at the election outcome, taking part in any sort of violent protest or riot is only asking for trouble. Even if you don’t bring weapons to the riot, somebody from the other side very well might. You could easily find yourself arrested, beaten, pepper sprayed or even shot. STAY HOME and find other outlets for expressing your frustration (such as tweeting all your friends to say how much the winner “sucks bad!” which is always a sign of astounding intelligence).
#6) Think long and hard about the possible ramifications of having an Obama sign (or a Romney sign) in your yard or on your property. If your candidate wins, the haters on the other side of the aisle may take revenge on you and your property. You may wish to pull the signs on election day, before the results are publicized, in order to avoid being vandalized. Everybody has already made up their mind by that time anyway. Only a tiny percentage of the U.S. population is undecided even right now.
#7) Stock up on at least a 72-hour supply of extra necessities such as water, food, medicine and so on. Because if there are riots, there may be fires. And if there are fires, there may be infrastructure damage which could cause a 3-day outage of power, water, food supplies and so on. Election day in the inner city is not the time to be running out of food in the pantry and needing to head to the grocery store.
#8) If you’re in an at-risk area, stock up on pepper spray and bear spray. Pepper spray devices are not my favorite self defense item, but they can be surprisingly effective in crowd control. In fact, you can even buy “pepper spray grenades” online, which are really just canisters of pepper spray that you activate and then lob into, say, your apartment’s entryway if it’s under attack from a crowd of rioters. It will clear out the crazies in just a few seconds, giving you time to call 911.
Oh wait, 911 will be flooded with calls and police won’t be responding, so you’d better have a revolver or some other self defense weapon at the ready just in case you’re threatened with violence. This is the moment you’ll wish you had something more powerful than pepper spray…
#9) On election day, stay tuned in to not just the mainstream media but also the alternative media like Natural News and Info Wars. While the mainstream media may censor stories for political reasons, alternative news websites will be providing uncensored reporting throughout the day.
#10) Don’t be stupid enough to actually make threats against anybody on your Twitter feed or your Facebook page. The act of threatening a Presidential candidate is, of course, a felony crime, and those who make such threats on their own accounts should expect a visit from the U.S. Secret Service. Making such threats online only makes you look like a complete moron, providing yet more evidence to the other side that “supporters of candidate X are all complete morons” and thus furthering the divide.
As you may have noticed, neither Obama nor Romney has a monopoly on moronic supporters, although from what I can see so far, Obama supporters seem to be making a lot more violent threats online so far.
For the record, I’m not voting for either one. What you wish to do on election day is up to you, but I’ve decided to stop participating in the two-party fraud which operates much like a gang. Neither the DemoCRIPS nor the ReBLOODlicans gets my vote.
Additional predictions
If OBAMA wins:
• Expect gun sales to immediately surge to all-time highs.
• Watch for a revolt by small business owners who are fed up with healthcare mandates that are putting them out of business.
• Watch for a surge in gold prices and a sharp drop in the stock market.
• Get ready for mass arrests of government whistleblowers, journalists and critics who will be rounded up under the NDAA and sent to secret military prisons.
• Watch out for a massive increase in the signing of executive orders, where Obama will bypass Congress on everything from gun control to immigration.
If ROMNEY wins:
• Expect to see inner city riots in cities like L.A., Detroit and possibly even Houston.
• Watch for a joint U.S.-Israeli military attack on Iran to happen before February.
• Watch for a temporary DROP in gold prices to occur as the business sector experiences a (short-lived) surge in confidence.
• Expect a temporary stock market surge, reflecting optimism in business and finance sectors.
No matter who wins…
… expect MORE banker bailouts, MORE expansion of big government, MORE prosecutions against farmers and home gardeners, MORE fiat currency creation by the Fed, MORE welfare handouts to the masses, MORE TSA roadside checkpoints, MORE abuses of civil liberties by the government and MORE erosion of the Bill of Rights, which is already largely ignored by the government.
“The restructuring of media in the United States is creating forms of censorship that are as potentially damaging as overt censorship.”
“Media corporations have been undergoing a massive merging process that is realigning our sources of information in America,”
The 11 largest or most influential media corporations in the United States – General Electric Company (NBC), Viacom Inc. (cable), The Walt Disney Company (ABC), Time Warner Inc.(CNN), Westinghouse Electric Corporation (CBS), The News Corporation Ltd. (Fox), Gannett Co. Inc., Knight-Ridder Inc., New York Times Co., Washington Post Co. and the Times Mirror Co. – represent the interests of corporate America, and that the media elite are the watchdogs of acceptable ideological messages, the parameters of news and information content and the general use of media resources. Your Mainstream Media is manipulating the news you are allowed to see.
Project Censored has been documenting inadequate media coverage of crucial stories since it began in 1967 at Sonoma State University.
Each year, the group considers hundreds of news stories submitted by readers, evaluating their merits. Students search Lexis Nexis and other databases to see if the stories were underreported, and if so, the stories are fact-checked by professors and experts in relevant fields.
.” Project Censored Director Mickey Huff told us the idea was to show how various undercovered stories fit together into an alternative narrative, not to say that one story was more censored than another.
Here’s Project Censored’s Top 10 list for 2013:
1. Signs of an emerging police state
President George W. Bush is remembered largely for his role in curbing civil liberties in the name of his “war on terror.” But it’s President Obama who signed the 2012 NDAA, including its clause allowing for indefinite detention without trial for terrorism suspects.
Obama promised that “my administration will interpret them to avoid the constitutional conflict” — leaving us adrift if and when the next administration chooses to interpret them otherwise.
Another law of concern is the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order that Obama issued in March 2012. That order authorizes the president, “in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States, to take actions necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements.”
The president is to be advised on this course of action by “the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council, in conjunction with the National Economic Council.” Journalist Chris Hedges, along with co-plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, won a case challenging the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause on Sept. 1, when a federal judge blocked its enforcement, but her ruling was overturned on Oct. 3, so the clause is back.
People who get their information exclusively from Mainstream Media sources may be surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the left for President Barack Obama in this crucial election.
But that’s probably because they weren’t exposed to the full online furor sparked by Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s (George Bush)overreaching approach to national security, such as Obama signing the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the indefinite detention of those accused of supporting terrorism, even U.S. citizens.
2. Oceans in peril
Big banks aren’t the only entities that our country has deemed “too big to fail.” But our oceans won’t be getting a bailout anytime soon, and their collapse could compromise life itself. In a haunting article highlighted by Project Censored, Mother Jones reporter Julia Whitty paints a tenuous seascape — overfished, acidified, warming — and describes how the destruction of the ocean’s complex ecosystems jeopardizes the entire planet, not just the 70 percent that is water.
Whitty compares ocean acidification, caused by global warming, to acidification that was one of the causes of the “Great Dying,” a mass extinction 252 million years ago.
Life on Earth took 30 million years to recover. In a more hopeful story, a study of 14 protected and 18 non-protected ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea showed dangerous levels of biomass depletion.
But it also showed that the marine reserves were well-enforced, with five to 10 times larger fish populations than in unprotected areas. This encourages establishment and maintenance of more reserves.
3. U.S. deaths from Fukushima
A plume of toxic fallout floated to the U.S. after Japan’s tragic Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found radiation levels in air, water and milk that were hundreds of times higher than normal across the United States.
One month later, the EPA announced that radiation levels had declined, and they would cease testing. But after making a Freedom of Information Act request, journalist Lucas Hixson published emails revealing that on March 24, 2011, the task of collecting nuclear data had been handed off from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry lobbying group.
And in one study that got little attention, scientists Joseph Mangano and Jeanette Sherman found that in the period following the Fukushima meltdowns, 14,000 more deaths than average were reported in the U.S., mostly among infants. Later, Mangono and Sherman updated the number to 22,000.
4. FBI agents responsible for terrorist plots
We know that FBI agents go into communities such as mosques, both undercover and in the guise of building relationships, quietly gathering information about individuals.
This is part of an approach to finding what the FBI now considers the most likely kind of terrorists, “lone wolves.” Its strategy: “seeking to identify those disgruntled few who might participate in a plot given the means and the opportunity. And then, in case after case, the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity,” writes Mother Jones journalist Trevor Aaronsen.
The publication, along with the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkeley, examined the results of this strategy, 508 cases classified as terrorism-related that have come before the U.S. Department of Justice since the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. In 243 of these cases, an informant was involved; in 49 cases, an informant actually led the plot.
And “with three exceptions, all of the high-profile domestic terror plots of the last decade were actually FBI stings.” facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested.
5. Federal Reserve loaned trillions to major banks
The Federal Reserve, the U.S.’s quasi-private central bank, was audited for the first time in its history this year. The audit report states, “From late 2007 through mid-2010, Reserve Banks provided more than a trillion dollars … in emergency loans to the financial sector to address strains in credit markets and to avert failures of individual institutions believed to be a threat to the stability of the financial system.” These loans had significantly less interest and fewer conditions than the high-profile TARP bailouts, and were rife with conflicts of interest. Some examples: the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served as a board member of the New York Federal Reserve at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. William Dudley, who is now the New York Federal Reserve president, was granted a conflict of interest waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric at the same time the companies were given bailout funds. The audit was restricted to Federal Reserve lending during the financial crisis. On July 25, 2012, a bill to audit the Fed again, with fewer limitations, authored by Rep. Ron Paul, passed the House of Representatives. H.R. 459 was expected to die in the Senate, but the movement behind Paul and his calls to hold the Fed accountable, or abolish it altogether, seem to be growing.
6. Small network of corporations run the global economy
Reporting on a study by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich didn’t make the rounds nearly enough, according to Censored 2013. They found that, of 43,060 transnational companies, 147 control 40 percent of total global wealth. The researchers also built a model visually demonstrating how the connections between companies — what it calls the “super entity” — works. Some have criticized the study, saying control of assets doesn’t equate to ownership. True, but as we clearly saw in the 2008 financial collapse, corporations are capable of mismanaging assets in their control to the detriment of their actual owners. And a largely unregulated super entity like this is vulnerable to global collapse.
7. The International Year of Cooperative
Can something really be censored when it’s straight from the United Nations? According to Project Censored evaluators, the corporate media underreported the U.N. declaring 2012 to be the International Year of the Cooperative, based on the co-op business model’s stunning growth. The U.N. found that, in 2012, 1 billion people worldwide are co-op member-owners, or one in five adults over age 15. The largest is Spain’s Mondragon Corporation, with more than 80,000 member-owners. The U.N. predicts that by 2025, worker-owned co-ops will be the world’s fastest growing business model. Worker-owned cooperatives provide for equitable distribution of wealth, genuine connection to the workplace, and, just maybe, a brighter future for our planet.
8. NATO war crimes in Libya
In January 2012, the BBC “revealed” how British Special Forces agents joined and “blended in” with rebels in Libya to help topple dictator Muammar Gadaffi, a story that alternative media sources had reported a year earlier. NATO admits to bombing a pipe factory in the Libyan city of Brega that was key to the water supply system that brought tap water to 70 percent of Libyans, saying that Gadaffi was storing weapons in the factory. In Censored 2013, writer James F. Tracy makes the point that historical relations between the U.S. and Libya were left out of mainstream news coverage of the NATO campaign; “background knowledge and historical context confirming Al-Qaeda and Western involvement in the destabilization of the Gadaffi regime are also essential for making sense of corporate news narratives depicting the Libyan operation as a popular ‘uprising.’”
9. Prison slavery in the U.S.
On its website, the UNICOR manufacturing corporation proudly proclaims that its products are “made in America.” That’s true, but they’re made in places in the U.S. where labor laws don’t apply, with workers often paid just 23 cents an hour to be exposed to toxic materials with no legal recourse. These places are U.S. prisons. Slavery conditions in prisons aren’t exactly news.
It’s literally written into the Constitution; the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, outlaws “slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” But the articles highlighted by Project Censored this year reveal the current state of prison slavery industries, and its ties to war.
The majority of products manufactured by inmates are contracted to the Department of Defense. Inmates make complex parts for missile systems, battleship anti-aircraft guns and landmine sweepers, as well as night-vision goggles, body army and camouflage uniforms.
Of course, this is happening in the context of record high imprisonment in the U.S., where grossly disproportionate numbers of African Americans and Latinos are imprisoned, and can’t vote even after they’re freed. As psychologist Elliot D. Cohen puts it in this year’s book: “This system of slavery, like that which existed in this country before the Civil War, is also racist, as more than 60 percent of U.S. prisoners are people of color.”
10. H.R. 347 criminalizes protest
H.R. 347, sometimes called the “criminalizing protest” or “anti-Occupy” bill, made some headlines. But concerned lawyers and other citizens worry that it could have disastrous effects for the First Amendment right to protest. Officially called the Federal Restricted Grounds Improvement Act, the law makes it a felony to “knowingly” enter a zone restricted under the law, or engage in “disorderly or disruptive” conduct in or near the zones.
The restricted zones include anywhere the Secret Service may be — places such as the White House, areas hosting events deemed “National Special Security Events,” or anywhere visited by the president, vice president and their immediate families; former presidents, vice presidents and certain family members; certain foreign dignitaries; major presidential and vice presidential candidates (within 120 days of an election); and other individuals as designated by a presidential executive order.
These people could be anywhere, and NSSEs have notoriously included the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Super Bowls and the Academy Awards. So far, it seems the only time H.R. 347 has kicked in is with George Clooney’s high-profile arrest outside the Sudanese embassy.
Clooney ultimately was not detained without trial — information that would be almost impossible to censor — but what about the rest of us who exist outside of the mainstream media’s spotlight?
A BBC documentary film crew has been held at gunpoint for over three hours while trying to sneak into the world’s most famous secret base – Area 51, otherwise known as Groom Lake / Dreamland.
The BBC film crew just before they were arrested
The Groom Lake facility has no perimeter fence to keep out intruders, but instead uses a network of hidden sensors and cameras that can detect when anyone crosses onto the base. Private security guards also patrol in unmarked jeeps.
Documentary maker Darren Perks and his film crew were arrested at gunpoint while filming ”UFO: Conspiracy Road Trip’ documentary, which airs next Monday; the footage will show the incident where they are arrested at gunpoint.
They were forced to lie on the ground for three hours as guards surrounded them armed with M16 assault rifles.
‘At this point I managed to talk to the guards a bit and one told me how they could ‘make you disappear and your body will never be found’. – Darren Perks
Some of the buildings at the Area 51 gate that the team managed to film before their arrest.
UFO enthusiast and documentary film maker Darren perks said: ‘At this point I managed to talk to the guards a bit and one told me how they could ‘make you disappear and your body will never be found’.
Apache Helicopter
‘He also pointed out that an Apache attack helicopter had been scrambled and had been monitoring us from two miles away and that over 20 military guards had driven up from the actual base to deal with the incident. There were quite a few of them there with guns!
UFO enthusiast: Darren Perks
“One guard I quizzed let slip that there are sensors in the ground that can detect approaching vehicles and walkers up in the nearby mountains, so they know if people are getting too close as they cannot put fences up because the area is so big.”
“Then at about 11:30pm we were allowed to leave on the bus and we went back to our hotel at the nearby town of Alamo Nevada.”
Fined
The crew were all facing a potential 6 month jail sentence for crossing onto the restricted area, but after a series of phone calls between Washington and London and the payment of an equivalent £375 fine each they were allowed to go free.
Followed
It didn’t end there for the crew as they had obvioulsy attracted a lot of rather unwanted attention. Perks went on – ‘Because the film equipment had been taken by the FBI we had to wait to get new kit from Vegas so we had a day of rest but we were followed everywhere by unmarked Government vehicles.”
‘They stuck out like a sore thumb to me. It was myself that pointed this out to the others otherwise they would not have been aware of being followed.”
A Bloomberg investigation shows that the federal government is paying a military contractor facing allegations of torture to manage some public records work.
The Freedom of Information Act allows ordinary people to learn about behind the scenes functions of our government. There are a number of limited, discrete exemptions to the law, which allow agencies to redact or withhold documents in whole or in part. But generally speaking, the law grants us broad access into the workings of our government — and it is therefore one of the key mechanisms whereby we learn of illegal or inappropriate government activities. FOIA is a necessary transparency mechanism in our democracy.
That’s why it’s shocking to learn, as Bloomberg news reports today, that increasingly the process of managing and responding to our FOIA requests is being handled by private corporations. The investigation shows that at least 25 federal agencies are farming out their FOIA work to private companies, at a cost both to taxpayers and to the integrity of the open records system. As director of the Sunlight Foundation John Wonderlich told Bloomberg:
If I was in charge of an agency and wanted to create an unaccountable FOIA process, the first thing I would do is put an outside contractor in charge of it because fewer of our accountability laws apply to them…It would just be another layer between me and the public.
It gets worse. Not only does the contracting out of FOIA work shield the government from precisely the transparency the law is meant to institute. There could be very serious conflicts of interest involved when private companies are tasked with managing the processes whereby sensitive (and likely embarrassing or damning) government secrets are disclosed to the public.
Case in point is CACI International, a military and intelligence contractor that is facing a lawsuit alleging its employees participated in the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. CACI is one of the companies the federal government has outsourced FOIA work to over the past ten years.
Should a company accused of serious human rights violations in a war zone have any involvement with open government processes designed to disclose precisely such abuses?
Did you know that Aspartame has been proven to cause brain damage by leaving traces of Methanol in the blood? It makes you wonder why Aspartame has been approved as “safe” and is found in thousands of food products. Currently more than 90 countries have given the artificial sweetener the “OK” to be used in foods.
“Multiple Sclerosis is often misdiagnosed, and that it could be aspartame poisoning” – Montel Williams
Given that Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar, manufacturers are able to produce their sweet foods and market them as “low calorie” so they can market and appeal to millions of people on “diets.” There is no doubt that the less sugar you have in your diet, the better. But replacing sugar with aspartame is not the solution, and in fact is likely to be even worse for your health.
In my personal experience, Aspartame has always made my head feel very odd when I consumed it. Headaches, light headedness and overall nausea, are all symptoms I personally feel from consuming Aspartame. But that isn’t even the bad part when you look at what all of the research is suggesting. So I question, and everyone should be asking the same: With all of the research about Aspartame and its dangerous effects, even in small quantities, why is it still approved by the FDA and other health agencies as being safe for human consumption?
Let’s take a look at some research.
What is this lovely substance (Aspartame) made of?
An Aspartame molecule is essentially made up of 3 different substances. 90% of it is made of two natural amino acids, 1 being aspartic acid and the other being phenylalanine. The other 10% of the molecule is made up of a methyl ester bond (includes Methanol). The methanol is released from the aspartame within hours of consumption and begins traveling through the body via the blood. Once the methyl ester bond is broken, is separtes into methyl alcohol and methanol (wood alcohol). The big problem with methanol is that it easily passes into your blood-brain barrier and once there, is converted into formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is what is causing the brain damage. While animals are able to detoxify methanol in the body, humans do not have this capability. It doesn’t really take a rocket scientist to realize that accumulating formaldehyde in the brain is not a good thing.
What’s the deal with Methanol?
As mentioned above, Methanol is the key issue here as it is what converts into formaldehyde. While it is often believed that formic acid is the issue with Aspartame, it is actually formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a serious neurotoxin and carcinogen. According to the EPA, Methanol is considered a cumulative poison which means is accumulates in the body and very little is excreted each time it is consumed.
Methanol is a toxin that destroys the myelin tissue in your body, which is the insulating material around your nerves that allows nerve signals to travel properly. Once injured, one can have what are called demyelinating symptoms that are commonly seen in diseases like MS and also migraines that can include bizarre and inconsistent visual field disruptions.
But it must be safe in small doses!
While having NO methanol in the body makes most sense, the EPA has accepted that a limit of consumption of 7.8 mg/day is still OK. Why we accept even small amounts of toxic stuff in our body is beyond me, but some feel we can still consume this stuff in small doses. According to Woodrow Monte, Ph.D, R.D., director of the Food Science and Nutrition Laboratory at Arizona State University:
“When diet sodas and soft drinks, sweetened with aspartame, are used to replace fluid loss during exercise and physical exertion in hot climates, the intake of methanol can exceed 250 mg/day or 32 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended limit of consumption for this cumulative toxin.”
Further, he states that due to the lack of a couple of key enzymes, humans are many times more sensitive to the toxic effects of methanol than animals. Therefore, tests of aspartame or methanol on animals do not accurately reflect the danger for humans.
“There are no human or mammalian studies to evaluate the possible mutagenic, teratogenic, or carcinogenic effects of chronic administration of methyl alcohol,” he said.
How can you know you are getting too much Methanol? You may experience headaches, ear buzzing, dizziness, nausea, gastrointestinal disturbances, weakness, vertigo, chills, memory lapses, numbness and shooting pains in the extremities, behavioral disturbances, and neuritis. Another very well known sign of methanol poisoning is vision problems.
Adding to the problem, one of the amino acids in aspartame, aspartic acid is capable of crossing your blood-brain barrier. There it attacks your brain cells, creating a form of cellular overstimulation called excitotoxicity, which can lead to cell death.
Your blood-brain barrier, which normally protects your brain from excess aspartate, as well as toxins, is not able to adequately protect you against the effects of aspartame consumption because it:
Is not fully developed during childhood
Does not fully protect all areas of the brain
Is damaged by numerous chronic and acute conditions
Allows seepage of excess aspartate into the brain even when intact
That excess aspartate slowly begins to destroy neurons, and the large majority (75 percent or more) of neural cells in a particular area of the brain are killed before any clinical symptoms of a chronic illness are noticed. Then, when they do occur, they may or may not be associated with aspartame consumption, even though examples of chronic illnesses that are made worse by long-term exposure to excitatory amino acid damage include: Multiple sclerosis (MS), ALS, hormonal problems, memory loss, epilepsy, hearing loss, Alzheimers, dementia, brain lesions, and Neuroendocrine disorders.
It can be easy for us to make the argument that this stuff is OK in small doses, and it hasn’t killed us yet so it can’t be that bad. But it almost seems there is something more to it why we use this reasoning. Are we just addicted to these substances? Afraid to admit we have been poisoning ourselves? Unable to accept that the FDA and health agencies have lied to us? Like to brush these truths off as conspiracies? No matter what the reason is, there comes a point where we must see what is staring us in the face and start looking at how we can begin making new choices. Returning to something that is healthier and more in line with our bodies. We are really damaging ourselves here and becoming quite numb to life. It is susbstances like Aspartame and Fluoridethat are causing these issues and the difference it makes to avoid these substances is monumental for our quality of life and consciousness.
Update: One thing I really wanted to add to this article is geared towards really looking at ourselves when it comes to not just aspartame but food, beverage, cosmetics, etc. We all at some point consumed or used products that are not all that great for our bodies. Most of the everyday products we use contain very toxic chemicals, it’s just that we spend a lot of time seeing ad’s about them, using them and looking at the nice labels that look all happy so we don’t realize how bad this stuff really is for us. You may want to check THIS ARTICLE out for more info. The question I want to raise here is, why is it that when information is presented about chemicals and toxic products do we get in a rage about the information and want to justify the continuation of its use in our bodies, on our bodies and on the planet? Even if something like Aspartame was only half as bad as it really is, why would we even want that? Why is the connection we have to our bodies so lost that we want to subject it to toxins, carcinogens, chemicals and other products that 1. are not remotely natural and 2. are not something that should be near our bodies to begin with. It just seems as though the bigger issue here is that we have become very disconnected from not only our bodies but the planet as well. It has become about convenience, money, temporary happiness, filling emotional voids and staying stagnant. When this info is presented all of those buttons get pushed at once and next thing we know we are defending the use of something that should have never been brought into existence in the first place. To look at it further, even the amount of sugar and type of sugar we use in the products we use aspartame in as an alternative, is terrible as well. Any product that currently contains aspartame shouldn’t be consumed by humans to begin with. What is wrong with fruit? Vegetables? Nuts? Seeds? Why do we always need these artificially flavored and chemically enhanced products that are terrible for our health? Aspartame or no aspartame, the real thing to observe here is our disconnection from our bodies, life and the planet.
This week, PBS’s “Frontline” published the transcript from a June 27, 2012 interview with Kristen Caldwell, a woman who grew up with President Barack Obama and attended the Punahou School with him in Honolulu, Hawaii. Among other claims, she told PBS that, as a young child, Obama told his classmates that he was Kenyan royalty or an Indonesian prince — fascinating claims that she discussed in great detail.
The former classmate, who referred to Obama as “Barry” throughout the interview (the name she claims his classmates called him), said that she believes Obama was at the prestigious school on scholarship. Like other kids who were attending on reduced admission, he likely worked at the tennis courts on campus — a location where the two frequently hung out.
“I can picture him as this slightly — “chubby” is too strong, but rounded, short little guy, Barry Obama,” Caldwell said. “And he told us that his father was an Indonesian king and that he was a prince, and after he finished school he was going to go back, and he would be a ruler in Indonesia.”
Obama must have been charismatic even then, as his former classmate said the following about his wild claims: “I absolutely believed him.” Caldwell also said she heard that Obama once told his fifth-grade class that he was Kenyan royalty. While she didn’t hear this directly — and it was years later that the story made its way to her — Obama’s claim to be a prince was something she experienced directly.
“My sister and I remember very clearly that he was an Indonesian prince and that he would be going back there,” she continued. “So there was some reference to where he had come from, and the understanding was his family was there.”
Caldwell and Obama were purportedly close, seeing as her father allegedly drove him home from the tennis courts on rainy days. Additionally, she claims that they spent a great deal of time hanging out together both during the school year and throughout the summer each year – however, she didn’t seem to know intimate details about his background.
As far as the embellished stories about his father and stature, PBS asked Caldwell why she believes Obama told such tall tales.
The former classmate said that she believes insecurity was the central underpinning of his stories about being royalty and one-day returning to Indonesia to assume the throne. After living in Hawaii until he was six, moving in Indonesia from six until age 10 and then arriving back in the state, once again, she said she could understand why he felt the need to compensate.
“I would think he would have felt very, very fish-out-of-water, very uncomfortable, and like anybody, he’d have to have a little bit of bravado to mask the insecurities,” Caldwell continued.
In a subsequent question, PBS asked if Caldwell noticed anything special about Obama during the time she spent with him. Considering that he grew up to become the leader of the free world, the outlet was curious to know if he exuded confidence and other such sentiment that pointed to a bright future ahead. While highlighting the fact that Punahou was filled with brilliant and talented children — and that getting into the school required that one fit these categories — she said, “to me he was a normal kid.”
“He didn’t seem outstanding academically or athletically or any other way. To me he seemed normal,” she continued.
While these claims are certainly odd, children often role-play and use their imaginations. It’s entirely possible this is what was at play. Either way, these are some intriguing claims to say the least. Read the transcript from “Frontline’s” entire interview with Kristen Caldwell here.
A school district in Texas came under fire earlier this year when it announced that it would require students to wear microchip-embedded ID cards at all times. Now students who refuse to be monitored say they are feeling the repercussions.
Since October 1, students at John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School in San Antonia, Texas have been asked to attend class clasping onto photo ID cards equipped with radio-frequency identification chips to keep track of each and every pupil’s personal location. Educators insist that the endeavor is being rolled out in Texas to relax the rampant truancy rates devastating the state’s school and the subsequent funding they are failing to receive as a result, and pending the program’s success the RFID chips could soon come to 112 schools in all and affect nearly 100,000 students.
Some pupils say they are already seeing the impact, though, and it’s not one they are very anxious to experience. Students who refuse to walk the schoolhouse halls with a location-sensitive sensor in their pocket or around their neck are being tormented by instructors and being barred from participating in certain school-wide functions, with some saying they are even being turned away from common areas like cafeterias and libraries.
Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore at John Jay, says educators have ignored her pleas to have her privacy respected and have told her she can’t participate in school elections if she doesn’t submit to the tracking program.
To Salon, Hernandez says subjecting herself to constant monitoring by way of wearing a RFID chip is comparable to clothing herself in the “mark of the beast.” When she reached out to WND.com to reveal the school’s response, though, she told them that she was threatened with exclusion from picking a homecoming king and queen for not adhering to the rules.
“I had a teacher tell me I would not be allowed to vote because I did not have the proper voter ID,” Hernandez told WND. “I had my old student ID card which they originally told us would be good for the entire four years we were in school. He said I needed the new ID with the chip in order to vote.”
Even after Hernandez politely refused to wear an RFID chip, Deputy Superintendent Ray Galindo offered a statement that suggests that both the student’s religious and civil liberty-anchored arguments will only allow her some leeway for so long.
“We are simply asking your daughter to wear an ID badge as every other student and adult on the Jay campus is asked to do,” Galindo wrote to the girl’s parents, WND reports. If she is allowed to forego the tracking now, he continued, it could only be a matter of time before the school signs off on making location-monitoring mandatory and the repercussions will be more than just revoking voting rights for homecoming contests.
“I urge you to accept this solution so that your child’s instructional program will not be affected. As we discussed, there will be consequences for refusal to wear an ID card as we begin to move forward with full implementation,” Galindo continued.
The girl’s father, Steve Hernandez, tells WND that the school has been somewhat willing to work with the daughter’s demands, but insists that her family “would have to agree to stop criticizing the program” and start publically supporting it.
“I told him that was unacceptable because it would imply an endorsement of the district’s policy and my daughter and I should not have to give up our constitutional rights to speak out against a program that we feel is wrong,” Mr. Hernandez responded.
By reversing the poor attendance figures, the Northside Independent School District is expected to collect upwards of $2 million in state funding, with the program itself costing around one-quarter of that to roll out and another $136,005 annually to keep it up and running. The savings the school stands to make in the long run won’t necessarily negate the other damages that could arise: Heather Fazio, of Texans for Accountable Government tells WND that for $30 she filed a Freedom of Information Act request and received the names and addresses of every student in the school district.
“Using this information along with an RFID reader means a predator could use this information to determine if the student is at home and then track them wherever they go. These chips are always broadcasting so anyone with a reader can track them anywhere,” she says.
Kirsten Bokenkamp of the ACLU told the San Antonio Express-News earlier this year that her organization was expecting to challenge the board’s decision this to roll out the tracking system, but the school has since gone ahead anyway. Steve Hernandez tells WND that he approached the ACLU for possible representation in his daughter’s case, but Rebecca Robertson of a local branch of the organization said, “the ACLU of Texas will not be able to represent you or your daughter in this matter,” saying his daughter’s case in particular fails to meet the criteria they use to pick and choose civil liberties cases to take on.
The Supreme Court refused to hear a case on Tuesday that holds telecom companies accountable for letting the National Security Agency spy on unknowing Americans without a warrant. Dating back to 2006 when the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation first filed the class-action lawsuit, the case accuses AT&T of providing the NSA with customers’ personal information — phone calls, emails and web browsing history — without seeking a court order. Verizon and Sprint are also mentioned. The plaintiff, former AT&T technician Mark Klein, even provided internal documentation that showed evidence of the NSA surveilling Americans’ Internet traffic from a secret room in San Francisco. That case, Hepting v. AT&T, has now been thrown out, and the Supreme Court didn’t even comment on why.
This sound very important! After all, doesn’t the Constitution protect American citizens from being spied on by their government without their knowledge or consent? Well, yes and no. Warrantless wiretapping sounds invasive and terrible, sure, but it’s actually technically legal under a 2008 law that retroactively granted immunity to all of the telecom companies that were spying on Americans at the government’s behest. Unsurprisingly, the practice can be traced back to President George W. Bush’s anti-terrorism program following the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Once things calmed down and people actually started suing the government for eavesdropping on everyday Americans, Congress passed the FISA Amendements Act. (FISA stands for the original law, the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act.) That law is currently up for renewal in Congress.
As Wired points out, neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration has confirmed or denied allegations of warrantless wiretapping. They’ve both argued that the surveillance program is a state secret and any sort of disclosure would endanger national security. The EFF doesn’t buy this argument. “The government still claims that this massive program of surveillance of Americans is a state secret, but after eleven years and multiple Congressional reports, public admissions and media coverage, the only place that this program hasn’t been seriously considered is in the courts — to determine whether it’s legal or constitutional,” said Cindy Cohn, the EFF’s legal director. “We look forward to rectifying that.”
Indeed, Heptig v. AT&T is not the civil liberties advocates’ last hope at gaining some clarity on the warrantless wiretapping issue. In a separate case, the EFF sued the government directly, rather than going after the telecom companies. The case was tossed out by a district court judge only to be picked up by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where Judge Margaret McKeown ruled that the EFF’s arguments “are not abstract, generalized grievances and instead meet the constitutional standing requirement of concrete injury.”
That case will be heard in December. Until then, be careful what you say on the phone. You know who is listening.
UFO enthusiast: Darren Perks
