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November 17, 2011

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HOLLYWOOD, SILICON VALLEY SPAR OVER ONLINE PIRACY BILL

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Hollywood sparred with Silicon Valley in the US Congress on Wednesday at a hearing on a controversial bill intended to crack down on online piracy.

Internet search giant Google, an opponent of the legislation, was pitted alone against five supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) at the three-and-a-half hour hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

The bill has received the backing of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America, the Business Software Alliance, the US Chamber of Commerce and others.

But it has come under fire from digital rights groups and Internet heavyweights such as Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo!, as well as Google, who say it raises censorship concerns and threatens the very architecture of the Web.

The bill would give the US authorities more tools to crack down on foreign “rogue” websites accused of piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.

It would require Internet Service Providers (ISPs), search engines, payment providers and advertising networks served with court orders to block access or sever ties with websites accused of copyright or trademark infringement.

Opening the hearing, Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who chairs the Judiciary Committee and is a co-sponsor of SOPA, said “the problem of rogue websites is real, immediate and widespread.

“Since the United States produces the most intellectual property, our country has the most to lose if we fail to address the problem of these rogue websites,” said Smith, who lashed out at Google from the outset accusing it of seeking to “obstruct” the bill.

“Perhaps this should come as no surprise given that Google just settled a federal criminal investigation into the company’s active promotion of rogue websites that pushed illegal prescription and counterfeit drugs on American consumers,” he said.

One of the witnesses backing the legislation, Michael O’Leary, senior executive vice president of the MPAA, said Google should be doing more to combat piracy.

“There are legitimate services out there now,” O’Leary said, providing legal downloads or streams of movies and television shows.

“The problem is that when you go to Google and you punch in the name of a movie those legitimate sites are buried on page eight of the search results,” he said.

“There is a better-than-average chance that Pirate Bay is going to end up ahead of Netflix,” O’Leary said. “That’s a fundamental problem no matter how many legitimate sites are out there that we can’t overcome.

“If we could get Google to reindex those sites in a way that favored legitimacy… then consumers would be getting to those first,” O’Leary said. “That’s a practical problem that could be addressed today.”

Reminding the panel at one point that Google does “not control the World Wide Web,” the company’s copyright counsel Katherine Oyama backed a “follow the money” approach to dealing with copyright and trademark infringers, choking them off from payment providers and from advertisers.

“If you can cut off their financial ties they won’t have a reason to be in business anymore,” Oyama said. “If you look at WikiLeaks that is how they’ve been taken out, by cutting off the money.”

As for the bill in its current form, “there is a tremendous concern in the technology community about some of the remedies being proposed and some of the unintended consequences they would have,” she said.

“Casting the net too broadly threatens collateral damage to legitimate businesses and activities online, while letting the rogues wriggle free,” Oyama said.

Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California whose congressional district includes San Jose, home to many leading high-tech companies, expressed displeasure with the composition of the panel and the bill.

“We’ve got six witnesses here,” Lofgren said. “Five are in favor and only one against and that troubles me.

“The point is that search engines are not capable of censoring the entire World Wide Web. We need to go after the people who are committing crimes in a way that would work. This bill would not do that.”

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/hollywood-silicon-valley-spar-over.html

Filed Under: America, Banks, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Downloads, Economy, Education, Education, Fascism, Internet, Lobbying, Medical Industry, Money, New World Order, Police, Politicians, Politics, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Surveillance, Telecommunication

ASIA-PACIFIC: US RAMPS UP GLOBAL WAR AGENDA

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Like a schoolyard bully, President Barack Obama is flexing American military muscle as he currently sweeps through the Asia-Pacific region. The nominal impetus for the tour was the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Hawaii last week. But rather than discussing “economics” (the E in APEC), the salient focus for Obama and his entourage appears to be “war” – and in particular laying down battle lines to China.

Testy relations with China is nothing new for Washington given recent months of US haranguing over trade and finance, but what Obama’s bombast signals is a sinister ramping up of the militarist agenda towards Beijing.

As if bouncing underlings and lackeys into his gang, the American president has moved on from Honolulu with stopovers in Australia, Indonesia and elsewhere. Given the primary economic power of China in the hemisphere, it might be thought appropriate for Obama to make a cordial visit to Beijing to discuss partnerships and policies to revive the global economy. But no. The omission of China on this major US tour seems to be a deliberate snub to Beijing and a message to the region: that China is to be isolated and ringfenced. This is the stuff of warmongering writ large.

The blatant aggression is naturally smoothed over and made palatable by the Western mainstream media. Reporting on Obama’s unilateral belligerence at the APEC, the Washington Post bemoans: “Try as he might to focus Asian and Pacific leaders on forging new economic partnerships during a regional summit here, President Obama has spent much of his time in private meetings with his counterparts discussing another pressing concern: national security [that is, US military power].”

The Financial Times reports breathlessly: “Barack Obama will not set foot in China during his swing through the Asia-Pacific region… yet the country’s rapid economic ascent and military advances will provide the backdrop for almost everything he does on the trip.”

Note the assertion that it is China’s “military advances” that are prompting US concerns, not the more reasonable and realistic observation that Washington is the one beating the war drums.

The FT goes on to say: “The Pentagon is quietly working on a new strategy dubbed the AirSea Battle concept, which is designed to find ways to counter Chinese military plans to deny access to US forces in the seas surrounding China.”

In “seas surrounding China” it may be thought by some as entirely acceptable for Beijing to “deny access to US forces”. But not, it seems, for the scribes at the FT and other Western mainstream media, who transform US offence/Chinese defence into Chinese offence/US defence. One can only imagine how that same media would report it if China announced that it was intending to patrol nuclear warships off California.

As previously noted by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research, the South China Sea’s untapped reserves of oil and other minerals are a major driver in US maneouvring. China stands to have natural territorial rights to these deposits and has much more valid claim to the wealth than the US, whose counter-claims on the matter seem at best arrogant and at worst provocative. Again, one can imagine the US and mainstream media reaction if China was eyeing oil and gas fields off Alaska.

But there is a bigger geopolitical agenda here, as Global Research has consistently analysed. The increasing US militarism in Asia-Pacific is apiece with the globalization of war by the US/NATO and its allies. The shift in policy is, as the Washington Post lamely tells us, “the US reasserting itself as a leader in the Asia-Pacific after years of focusing on [illegal] wars in the Middle East.”

However, this is not a dynamic that should be viewed as somehow normal and acceptable. This is, as we have stated, an escalation of global aggression by powers that are “addicted to war” as a matter of policy.

Top of the US hit list is China. Washington’s criminal wars in Iraq and Libya have in particular been aimed at cutting China out of legitimate energy investments in the Middle and East and North Africa (and Africa generally). That in itself must be seen by Beijing as a flagrant assault on its overseas’ assets. Not content, it seems, with achieving that dispossession of vital Chinese energy interests, Washington is now pushing its insatiable appetite all the way into China’s domain. But such unprecedented aggression is made to appear by the US government and the dutiful mainstream media as a natural entitlement where refusal by the other party is perversely presented as “military plans to deny access”.

Obama’s visit to Australia this week is undoubtedly aimed at further twisting the threat to China. In Darwin, the US president is overseeing the opening of a base that will see for the first time US Marines being able to conduct war games on Australian soil. Thousands of kilometers from China, this development may at first seem inconsequential. But then we are told that the move is designed to station US military “out of the reach of Chinese ballistic missiles”. The insinuation is unmistakable and menacing: China is an imminent threat. Somehow, without issuing any such aggressive moves, Beijing is suddenly made to look as if it is prepared to launch ballistic missiles at US installations.

It is tempting to call this US-led dynamic of global war “dysfunctional”. But, disturbingly, it is not merely dysfunctional. The global war dynamic is a function of the collapse of capitalism and democracy in the US and Europe (the brutal police crackdown on Occupy protesters across the US is evidence of the latter). War on the world is the logical outcome of this failed system, as history has already shown us with the horrors of World War One and Two.

Karl Marx once noted: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce”.

To avert another “farce” in which the horrors of history are repeated, we need to once and for all challenge the root cause: capitalism.

Source: https://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27709

Filed Under: America, Asia-Pacific, China, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, Imperialism, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politicians, Politics, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Surveillance, The Hidden Empire, War, Wealthy Elite, Weaponry

IRAN WILL DEFEND SYRIA AGAINST ANY POSSIBLE MILITARY ATTACKS

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Earlier this year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad underlined that Tehran would maintain and reinvigorate its alliance with Syria under any kind of condition and would defend Damascus against any possible military aggression by the West.

A senior Iranian lawmaker cautioned the US to take Tehran’s tough warnings against a military intervention in Syria seriously, stressing that the Syrian people will not tolerate foreign interference in their country’s affairs.

“Iran’s warning against intervention in Syria’s affairs is serious and it is in the interest of the Americans to avoid meddling in Islamic states’ affairs,” Vice-Chairman of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Hossein Ebrahimi told FNA on Wednesday.

He added that Muslim states will not allow Washington to turn Syria into another Iraq for the sake of Israel’s interests.

The lawmaker also pointed to the Syrian people’s sensitivity about foreign meddling, and reiterated, “Americans do not know that the Syrian people will not tolerate Americans’ intervention even in the worst conditions.”

He further dismissed some recent claims about an upcoming regime collapse in Syria, stressing that Damascus is fully able to thwart US plots.

On Sunday, the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission reiterated Tehran’s continued and full support for Syria as a main pillar of resistance against the US and Zionist regime’s policies in the region.

Rapporteur of the Commission Kazzem Jalali said that members of his commission discussed the latest developments in connection to Syria, including the Arab League’s decision to suspend Syria from the bloc, during their meeting on Sunday.

Iran and Syria have always enjoyed a strong and strategic alliance ever since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Earlier this year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad underlined that Tehran would maintain and reinvigorate its alliance with Syria under any kind of condition and would defend Damascus against any possible military aggression by the West.

According to the Lebanese daily Al-Diyar, Ahmadinejad’s decisive remarks were made during a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, in Tehran late in August.

The report said that Sheikh Hamad was conveying a message from the US to President Ahmadinejad calling on Iran to abandon support for Bashar al-Assad’s government.

The daily said that the meeting by the Qatari Emir has failed to yield his desirable result since President Ahmadinejad strongly emphasized that “any Western aggression against Syria would make every Muslim to stand beside Syria”.

“That would be the action Iran will take,” the daily quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

 

Source: https://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27700

Filed Under: America, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Economy, Imperialism, Islam, Law, Lobbying, Middle East, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Nuclear, Politicians, Politics, Propaganda, Protests, Radiation, Rights, Syria, The Hidden Empire, War, Wealthy Elite, Weaponry

FOUR WAYS THE POOR GET SCREWED THAT EVERYONE TAKES FOR GRANTED

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Even if we’re not in the 1%, lots of us still benefit every day from policies that burden the less financially fortunate.

I’m not in the 1%. At the lower end of what I think of as the upper middle class, I nevertheless take daily advantage of a raft of systems intended to ensure that people who have less money than I do pay more than I do. Since my economic advantages result from public policy, it’s fair to call them taxes, levied on people least able to afford them and applied upward for the benefit of people like me. Since the glory days of feudalism are long over, and we don’t like to revel in high position, matters are arranged to keep me and people like me from noticing the systemic nature of our economic advantage.

Here, therefore, are four quotidian things we deal with half-consciously every day that move money upward and keep it there:

1. ATM’s. Some readers have reason to think the lowest amount that can be withdrawn from an ATM is a twenty-dollar bill. Others have reason to know that in less privileged parts of town, ATM companies set the machines to dispense ten-dollar bills, with ads calling attention to the fact. The reason is fairly obvious: many people’s balances and obligations don’t permit them to withdraw $20 at one time, and ATM companies and storeowners don’t want to miss out on collecting fees in such a large — and these days, and in those neighborhoods, such a growing — population.

The up-front fee for withdrawing $10 is the same as the up-front fee for withdrawing other amounts. That gives me a distinct, recurring financial advantage over less well-off neighbors. This morning, for example, on my way to the subway, I withdrew $120 at a local ATM, paying $1.75 on the transaction — around 1.5%, a reasonable fee for the convenience. I usually take out as much cash as I can when using an ATM not at my bank. It saves money. And if I keep a certain balance in my account, I pay no transaction fee to my own bank for using the ATM.

An up-against-it neighbor, by contrast, made a ten-dollar withdrawal, paying the $1.75 fee too. Where my cost was less than 2%, his was 17.5%. If his bank account is less “preferred” than mine, he’s paying his bank a fee on the transaction too, a fee not announced at the ATM. The act of taking out cash costs him proportionally more than ten times what it costs me, and possibly far more. Because I can afford it, my money is cheap to get. Because he can’t, his is expensive.

Changing that situation would require a law changing how ATM fees work. That law’s nonexistence is an act of financial-regulation policy. I’m not in the 1%, but that famous — or infamous — banking-government connection is operating to my financial benefit.

2. Subway Cards. My pockets full of cheaply accessed folding money, I proceeded this morning to the subway station to buy a MetroCard, which is how we pay for public-transportation in New York City. When you put more than $10 on a MetroCard, you receive a 7% bonus. I put $80 on the card, the maximum. That way I get what I think of as two free rides, plus part of another one.

The fantasy that I’m getting nearly three free rides, on top of 35.5 rides that I think I purchased for $80, is predicated on the false premise, advertised by the Metropolitan Transit Association, that subway fare is $2.25 per ride. In reality, the fare is capped at $2.25 per ride for a round trip — but it isn’t set there. Nothing’s free: the fare per ride varies, of course, depending on how much you put on the card.

Fares go down for those who can afford more, up for those who can afford less. If you can afford only a round-trip card, your fare will indeed be $2.25 each way. If you put a large amount on the card — and, a key consideration, if you can tolerate the concomitant risk of losing that card — you can get your subway fare down to about $2.00 per ride.

In other words, after some hasty scribbling, I find that a 7% bonus for those with the most to spend equates with a 12.5% extra charge for those with the least. The rationale for this policy, I think, is that the bonus “incentivizes” me to use public transportation (though not being in the 1%, I have no helicopter), to keep living in the city, to support the tax base, etc. Various choices I’m described as enjoying make me eligible, as a matter of public policy, for programmatic benefits not granted those with fewer choices.

I know there are reduced-fare subway programs, which, along with other relief programs like food stamps, give people with fewer resources ways of getting easier terms on essential goods and services. You have to apply for such government programs, and at first glance that seems natural enough. Yet the program I’m in, every bit as much a government program as the relief one — the program that charges poorer people to benefit me — requires no application.

3. American Express. When I was buying that MetroCard this morning, I decided not to use the cash I was lucky enough to withdraw from my ATM at such a comparatively low discount. I used my American Express card instead.

Many of us who are not in the 1% have American Express cards. They cost money to own, since the financial advantages of owning them are tangible. My neighbor — the same one who withdrew money from the ATM at more than ten times my cost, and then spent 12.5% more per subway ride than I did — had to take the money to pay for his MetroCard out of his pocket, or out of his bank account via debit, right there at the point of purchase.

But no money came out of my pocket or account when I bought my MetroCard. That money won’t leave my virtual coffers until I get the AmEX bill and get around to paying it, and until my check then clears. So if my money is in a money market, for example, it’s actually making me yet more money while my AmEx bill waits to be paid. The “float” on my single MetroCard purchase may be negligible — but the more times and ways I postpone payment this way, the more money I keep, in the short term, to grow for the long term.

Plus I am “awarded” “points” by American Express for every dollar I’ve thus postponed spending. That makes it cheaper for me than for those who can’t afford the card to fly in a plane, to rent a car, etc. Membership has its privileges: nonmembers paying more.

And AmEx is a service I pay for, not a line of high-interest credit I access. Should that neighbor of mine, when buying his MetroCard, decide he needs to hold onto his expensive cash withdrawal, and not further lower his precarious balance via debit, and should he therefore use a credit card for his subway ride, he will pay up to another 20% more on the subway fare than I do.

4. Sales and Sin Taxes. As the MetroCard bonus is framed not as a tax on those who can’t afford it but as a benefit for those who can, sales taxes and sin taxes go the other way: they admit to being taxes, but they don’t admit to being overwhelmingly for the benefit of the better-off.

Sales tax is a “flat” tax, like the ATM fee, notoriously regressive. Government’s dunning the buyer of a $60 pair of jeans with a 5% sales tax, say, regardless of whether the buyer makes $20,000 or $2,000,0000 per year, places a disproportionately greater responsibility on the poorer buyer for contributing to the public revenue. In New York, therefore, the state doesn’t tax the purchase of essential items like clothing priced under $55. And the same percentage is charged for a $60 or a $600 pair of jeans — so the person who can afford a more expensive pair does therefore pay more. You have to be buying something like a yacht to see the rate itself go up, and not being in the 1%, I’m not buying one of those. Sales taxes thus benefit me in ways not immediately obvious when paying them.

The tobacco excise, too – a “sin” tax — should be seen as a regressive tax that masquerades as something else. The tobacco excise comes cloaked in concern for the health and welfare of smokers: the tax is rationalized as a disincentive, in this case, from doing something bad for health.

But in New York City, the price of a pack of cigarettes can exceed $15.00, and New York State collected $10 billion in tobacco taxes over the last six years. It’s no secret that at this point long-term smokers come in large numbers from the disadvantaged; it’s no secret that they’re not indulging a luxurious habit out of some perverse choice but feeding a flat-out addiction. If they buy cartons, they can save, but buying cartons, like putting $80 on a MetroCard or beating down the ATM discount, takes cash flow.

They could quit, of course, and it’s easy enough to say they should — but can anyone seriously believe that if smoking hadn’t become, partly through public policy efforts, overwhelmingly a behavior of people with lower incomes, and if the upper middle class were still chain-smoking like it’s 1962, that taxes on cigarettes would be anywhere near where they are now? The regressive taxation involved in tobacco has made the hard core of low-income smokers’ quitting economically undesirable for everyone else.

That situation works out well for me financially. Because I don’t smoke, I rely on a large group of underclass addicts with little real choice in the matter to pay a significant portion of the revenue that funds civil services I use. If people who are now shelling out the cigarette tax were to stop smoking — or if we banned the sale of this product we claim to find so destructive — I’d be paying more.

That’s not likely to happen. Once again, those with less money are paying more of theirs so that I can keep and grow more of mine.

I don’t own that helicopter or that yacht.

And I’ve seen the graphs.

I’ve seen that line representing possession and growth turn vertiginously upward when it gets above my level and enters the 1%.

I can only imagine what goes on up there, so far over my head.

Here in the upper parts of the 99%, government and the financial industry work together to keep me only dimly aware of the persistent economic edge they give me every day.

 

Source: https://www.alternet.org/economy/153043/4_Ways_the_Poor_Get_Screwed_That_Everyone_Takes_for_Granted/?page=entire

 

Filed Under: America, Banks, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Education, Employment, Health, Income Inequality, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Taxes, War, Wealthy Elite, Welfare Benefits

CORPORATOCRACY, CORPORATISM, FASCISM

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” - Benito Mussolini

This is indeed a fascinatingly and disgusting story - premised on absolute control over all people. Back when people were actually almost “free” (immediately after WWII), when public education was not just another empty promise - and the trend in life was toward a better tomorrow for everyone - at that time “control” was in retreat, and progress was the theme of every hour. Now what we have is control of every idiotic facet of everyday existence - rules for every waking act, every thought that is not controlled is seen as the enemy of the state (the corporatocracy).

Our entire way of life has been stolen and shall never return to the lazy and hopeful days of living and loving, of joy and promise, with the possibility for doing real and meaningful things with one’s own life - not to mention being able to envision a better world for more and more people - whose lives were so far below the levels we enjoyed. Instead of that promise, instead of that possibility - what we have now is the outright worship of Mistrust, of Fear, and of Paranoia - along with obscene profits for those who have purchased all the politicians, and who control every facet of this once nearly free society.

If American life were a sporting event - today’s game would be one in which all the officials and the referees had all been pre-purchased by what would obviously be the winning team. Now companies “police” their own activities, deciding for themselves when they’ve gone too far - or stolen too much. The original point behind government providing a watchdog over industry - was to keep the playing fields equal - between players and owners. Now the games continue but only the owners win anything - the players are degenerating from just being slaves to becoming everyday targets for anyone who hates their owners: Hence the Iraq’s of this world will focus the herd’s mind on what it really means to be an American today (a blood-stained thug, whether in a uniform or with a contract and a pen) - we are attempting to steal all that’s still sacred - in what has become a profane and truth-less world.

Like Humpty-Dumpty we will never be able to put the world back together again - not here anyhow. Too much has been lost in too many generations that have passed through this new agenda of “me first, me only.” In that process all guidelines have been destroyed, and there is no longer any “out-of-bounds” - everything is now fair game: and now the world KNOWS this for what it actually means, which is a rather subdued type of anarchy that favors only the very rich.

Whether nationally or internationally, what we have consecrated by our actions is the outlaw behavior of the corporatocracy - world wide. It is therefore not surprising that Bush would want to claim the mantle of ‘Dictator for All the Known World,’ even though he is nothing but the token puppet in the front row.

He can do this because the bought and paid for US Congress will not really give him any trouble (if they did they’d all be charged with aiding and abetting all the crimes committed so far) - and the courts have already made clear their preferences: so the only thing left in opposition is the besieged and downtrodden public. Those same people who must pay for all this criminality in dollars and in blood.

However - the public listens to the mouthpiece that has become the outlaws wholly owned whore. Completely owned and operated by those same interests that are behind the corruption - what they tell the world has little to do with actual truth, or the facts of anything that happens in the world today. If the public is to understand anything at all - then they will have to rely on their own gut instincts and what they can find on the net to corroborate or dispute what they suspect.

This is why the games we play today are so fraught with corruption, deception and duplicity on nearly every side - but - humanity has survived before when threatened by empirical demands, so perhaps there may yet be an opportunity to reverse this insanity that has become a cancer on the world. . .

If not then we’ll all be returned to the Dark Ages once again (but this time on a planet that’s been nearly destroyed by our lapsed custodianship) - because we are obviously unfit to manage for ourselves, never mind for others - in the real life of this world.

 

Source: https://www.rense.com/general62/corporatocracy.htm

 

Filed Under: America, Banks, Censorship, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, Education, European Union, Fascism, Imperialism, Law, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Nuclear Power Stations, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, The Hidden Empire, War, Wealthy Elite, Weaponry

WALL STREET FIRMS SPY ON PROTESTERS IN TAX-FUNDED CENTER

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Wall Street’s audacity to corrupt knows no bounds and the cooptation of government by the 1% knows no limits. How else to explain $150 million of taxpayer money going to equip a government facility in lower Manhattan where Wall Street firms, serially charged with corruption, get to sit alongside the New York Police Department and spy on law abiding citizens.

According to newly unearthed documents, the planning for this high tech facility on lower Broadway dates back six years. In correspondence from 2005 that rests quietly in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s archives, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly promised Edward Forst, a Goldman Sachs’ Executive Vice President at the time, that the NYPD “is committed to the development and implementation of a comprehensive security plan for Lower Manhattan…One component of the plan will be a centralized coordination center that will provide space for full-time, on site representation from Goldman Sachs and other stakeholders.”

At the time, Goldman Sachs was in the process of extracting concessions from New York City just short of the Mayor’s first born in exchange for constructing its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, adjacent to the World Financial Center and in the general area of where the new World Trade Center complex would be built. According to the 2005 documents, Goldman’s deal included $1.65 billion in Liberty Bonds, up to $160 million in sales tax abatements for construction materials and tenant furnishings, and the deal-breaker requirement that a security plan that gave it a seat at the NYPD’s Coordination Center would be in place by no later than December 31, 2009.

The surveillance plan became known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and the facility was eventually dubbed the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. It operates round-the-clock. Under the imprimatur of the largest police department in the United States, 2,000 private spy cameras owned by Wall Street firms, together with approximately 1,000 more owned by the NYPD, are relaying live video feeds of people on the streets in lower Manhattan to the center. Once at the center, they can be integrated for analysis. At least 700 cameras scour the midtown area and also relay their live feeds into the downtown center where low-wage NYPD, MTA and Port Authority crime stoppers sit alongside high-wage personnel from Wall Street firms that are currently under at least 51 Federal and state corruption probes for mortgage securitization fraud and other matters.

In addition to video analytics which can, for example, track a person based on the color of their hat or jacket, insiders say the NYPD either has or is working on face recognition software which could track individuals based on facial features. The center is also equipped with live feeds from license plate readers.

According to one person who has toured the center, there are three rows of computer workstations, with approximately two-thirds operated by non-NYPD personnel. The Chief-Leader, the weekly civil service newspaper, identified some of the outside entities that share the space: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange. Others say most of the major Wall Street firms have an on-site representative. Two calls and an email to Paul Browne, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, seeking the names of the other Wall Street firms at the center were not returned. An email seeking the same information to City Council Member, Peter Vallone, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, was not returned.

In a press release dated October 4, 2009 announcing the expansion of the surveillance territory, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly had this to say:

“The Midtown Manhattan Security Initiative will add additional cameras and license plate readers installed at key locations between 30th and 60th Streets from river to river. It will also identify additional private organizations who will work alongside NYPD personnel in the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, where corporate and other security representatives from Lower Manhattan have been co-located with police since June 2009. The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center is the central hub for both initiatives, where all the collected data are analyzed.” [Italic emphasis added.]

The project has been funded by New York City taxpayers as well as all U.S. taxpayers through grants from the Federal Department of Homeland Security. On March 26, 2009, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) wrote a letter to Commissioner Kelly, noting that even though the system involves “massive expenditures of public money, there have been no public hearings about any aspect of the system…we reject the Department’s assertion of ‘plenary power’ over all matters touching on public safety…the Department is of course subject to the laws and Constitution of the United States and of the State of New York as well as to regulation by the New York City Council.”

The NYCLU also noted in its letter that it rejected the privacy guidelines for the surveillance operation that the NYPD had posted on its web site for public comment, since there had been no public hearings to formulate these guidelines. It noted further that “the guidelines do not limit police surveillance and databases to suspicious activity…there is no independent oversight or monitoring of compliance with the guidelines.”

According to Commissioner Kelly in public remarks, the privacy guidelines were written by Jessica Tisch, the Director of Counterterrorism Policy and Planning for the NYPD who has played a significant role in developing the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. In 2006, Tisch was 25 years old and still working on her law degree and MBA at Harvard, according to a wedding announcement in the New York Times. Tisch is a friend to the Mayor’s daughter, Emma; her mother, Meryl, is a family friend to the Mayor.

Tisch is the granddaughter and one of the heirs to the now-deceased billionaire Laurence Tisch who built the Loews Corporation. Her father, James Tisch, is now the CEO of the Loews Corporation and was elected by Wall Street banks to sit on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York until 2013 representing the public’s interest. (Clearly, the 1 per cent think they know what’s best for the 99 per cent.)

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the entity which doled out the bulk of the $16 trillion in bailout loans to the U.S. and foreign financial community. Members of Tisch’s family work for Wall Street firms or hedge funds which have prime broker relationships with them. A division of Loews Corporation has a banking relationship with Citigroup.

The Tisch family stands to directly benefit from the surveillance program. In June of this year, Continental Casualty Company, the primary unit of the giant CNA Financial which is owned by Loew’s Corp., signed a 19-year lease for 81,296 square feet at 125 Broad Street – an area under surveillance by the downtown surveillance center.

Loews Corporation also owns the Loew’s Regency Hotel on Park Avenue in midtown, an area which is also now under round-the-clock surveillance on the taxpayer’s dime.

Wall Street is infamous for perverting everything it touches: from the Nasdaq stock market, to stock research issued to the public, to auction rate securities, mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, credit default swaps with AIG, and mortgage securitizations. Had a public hearing been held on this massive surveillance sweep of Manhattan by potential felons, hopefully someone might have pondered what was to prevent Wall Street from tracking its employee whistleblowers heading off to the FBI offices or meeting with a reporter.

One puzzle has at least been solved.

Wall Street’s criminals have not been indicted or sent to jail because they have effectively become the police.

 

Source: https://truthsquad.tv/?p=1008

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Economy, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, Taxes, The Hidden Empire, Wealthy Elite

WAR WORLDWIDE… HAD ENOUGH YET?

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In reviewing the news stories of these past few weeks, it becomes clear that the Western world’s addiction to war truly knows no bounds. Libya is reeling from NATO’s “humanitarian” intervention which has crippled a once prosperous nation, destroyed its infrastructure, robbed it of its ample resources and devastated its population. But for Western military powers, this is not enough. Iran, Syria, Yemen… The hit list is growing exponentially, and so are the stakes.

There is no end to greed until we stand up and say “enough is enough”. In fact, it’s too much. The drums of war are beating and it’s up to us to choose whether we march along, or we rewrite the score.

In an era of media disinformation, our focus at Global Research has essentially been to center on the “unspoken truth”. Since its inception in 2001 we have established an extensive archive of news articles, in-depth reports and analysis on issues which are barely covered by the mainstream media. From modest beginnings, with virtually no resources, the Centre for Research on Globalization has evolved into a dynamic research and alternative media group.

What motivates us? The same thing that motivates you to visit our website and read the articles, watch the videos and share them with your networks: we want the truth. We NEED the truth. Our lives and the lives of future generations depend on it.

It’s true that you will NEVER have to pay to access the information you need to understand what is happening in the world around you. Some things you can’t put a price on. However, maintaining our operations and supporting our contributors does present a financial challenge, and since we will always insist on remaining independent, we need the support of our readers to help us continue our battle against disinformation.

If you are in a position to support us by making a donation (and truly, EVERY amount helps), then please visit our Donation page and find out how you can process your payment online instantly, or else by mail or fax. And know that your contribution is as much appreciated as it is needed.

Recognizing that many of our readers may not be able to include a donation or membership in their budgets, we ask that you nonetheless continue to spread our articles and videos far and wide. Join our free newsletter mailing list. Join the discussion on Facebook. Let’s use our strength in numbers to fight the well-funded corporate media and break through their lies.

We all have a role to play in the peace process, and every effort makes a difference.

Source: https://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27685

Filed Under: America, Banks, Censorship, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Economy, Law, Lobbying, Media, Mental Illness, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Radiation, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, The Hidden Empire, Torture, War, War Veterans, Wealthy Elite, Weaponry

CHICAGO SCHOOLS FAIL TO CLOSE ACHIEVEMENT GAP

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Joel Hood of the Chicago Tribune is reporting that despite reforms targeting low-income families in Chicago Public Schools, the achievement gap between black and white students has actually increased.

Hood writes:

Across the city, and spanning three eras of CPS leadership, black elementary school students have lost ground to their white, Latino and Asian classmates in testing proficiency in math and reading, according to a recent analysis by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. Even for schools so often weighed down by violence, poverty and dysfunction in their neighborhoods, news of this growing deficit was surprising to researchers considering the strides African-American students had made nationally over the same period.

Since the early 1990s, black fourth-graders and eighth-graders in the U.S. have improved their reading and math scores at a greater rate than whites on the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. This progress has escaped CPS, where almost half of the student population is black.

Hood reports:

“It’s not the students’ fault. It’s our fault as adults,” CPS’ new chief, Jean-Claude Brizard, said recently in a speech to the Chicago Urban League. “In order to turn things around, we must make sure that the students and their achievement always comes first. Not adults. Not politics. Not administrators. Not contracts.”

We’re glad to see that the new chief understands that ultimately adults are responsible for the success or failure of students. Yes, students have some culpability in the situation, but parents, teachers and administrators are the adults in the equation. They should be able to work together to help improve student performance.

If adults can’t inspire children to want to do better for themselves, then that’s a problem that CPS and other troubled school systems will need to solve. Other school systems are figuring it out — CPS must figure it out as well.

 

Source: https://www.theroot.com/buzz/cps-fails-close-achievement-gap-reforms?wpisrc=root_more_news

Filed Under: America, Campaigning, Civil Liberties, Democracy, Education, Lobbying, Money, Politics, Rights

LESSONS FROM ICELAND: THE PEOPLE CAN HAVE THE POWER

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As early progress in Iceland shows since the banking collapse, the 21st century will be the century of the common people. Of us.

The Guardian

The Dutch minister of internal affairs said at a speech during free press day this year: “Law-making is like a sausage, no one really wants to know what is put in it.” He was referring to how expensive the Freedom of Information Act is, and was suggesting that journalists shouldn’t really be asking for so much governmental information. His words exposed one of the core problems in our democracies: too many people don’t care what goes into the sausage, not even the so-called law-makers, the parliamentarians.

If the 99% want to reclaim our power, our societies, we have to start somewhere. An important first step is to sever the ties between the corporations and the state by making the process of lawmaking more transparent and accessible for everyone who cares to know or contribute. We have to know what is in that law sausage; the monopoly of the corporate lobbyist has to end – especially when it comes to laws regulating banking and the internet.

The Icelandic nation only consists 311,000 souls, so we have a relatively small bureaucratic body and can move quicker then in most countries. Many have seen Iceland as the ideal country for experimentation for new solutions in an era of transformation. I agree.

We had the first revolution after the financial troubles in 2008. Due to a lack of transparency, corruption and nepotism, Iceland had the third largest financial meltdown in human history, and it shook us profoundly. The Icelandic people realised that everything we had put our trust in had failed us. One of the demands during the protests that followed – and that resulted in getting rid of the government, the central bank manager and the head of the financial authority – was that we would get to rewrite our constitution. “We” meaning the 99%, not the politicians who had failed us. Another demand was that we should have real democratic tools, such as being able to call directly for a national referendum and dissolve parliament.

As an activist, web developer and poet, I never dreamt of being a politician and nor have I ever wanted to be a part of a political party. That was bound to change during these exceptional times. I helped create a political movement from the various grassroots movements in the wake of the crisis. We were officially created eight weeks prior to the election, and based our structure on horizontalism and consensus. We had no leaders, but rotating spokespeople; we did not define ourselves as left or right but around an agenda based on democratic reform, transparency and bailing out the people, not the banks. We vowed that no one should remain in parliament longer then eight years and our movement would dissolve if our goals had not been achieved within eight years. We had no money, no experts; we were just ordinary people who’d had enough and who needed to have power both within the system and outside it. We got 7% of the vote and four of us entered the belly of the beast.

Many great things have occurred in Iceland since our days of shock in 2008. Our constitution has been rewritten by the people for the people. A constitution is such an important measure of what sort of society people want to live in. It is the social agreement. Once it is passed, our new constitutionwill bring more power to the people and give us proper tools to restrain those in power. The foundation for the constitution was created by 1,000 people randomly selected from the national registry. We elected 25 people to put that vision into words. The new constitution is now in the parliament. It will be up to the 99% to call for a national vote on it so that we inside the parliament know exactly what the nation wants and will have to follow suit. If the constitution passes, we will have almost achieved everything we set out to do. Our agenda was written on various open platforms; direct democracy is the high north of our political compass in everything we do.

Having the tools for direct democracy is not enough though. We have to find ways to inspire the public to participate in co-creating the reality they want to live in. This can only be done by making direct democracy more local. Then people will feel the direct impact of their input. We don’t need bigger systems, we need to downsize them so they can truly serve us and so we can truly shape them.

The capital city of Reykjavík has launched a direct democracy platform, where everyone can put in a suggestion in a community forum about things they want to be done in the city. The city council has to take the top five suggestions and process them every month. Next step is to have a similar system for the parliament, and the logical step after that is to have the same system for the ministries.

From conversations I have had with people from Occupy London it is obvious we are all thinking along the same lines. All systems are down: banking, education, health, social, political – the most logical thing would be to start a fresh system based on values other than consumerism, which maximises profit and self-destruction. We are strong, the power is ours: we are many, they are few. We are living in times of crisis. Let’s embrace this time for it is the only time real changes are possible by the masses.

 

Source: https://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=29907

Filed Under: An Alternative World, Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Economy, Education, Human Rights, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Media, Money, Politicians, Politics, Protests, Rights

FINANCIAL TIES BIND MEDICAL SOCIETIES TO DRUG AND DEVICE MAKERS

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

SAN FRANCISCO — From the time they arrived to the moment they laid their heads on hotel pillows, the thousands of cardiologists attending this week’s Heart Rhythm Society conference have been bombarded with pitches for drugs and medical devices.

St. Jude Medical adorns every hotel key card. Medtronic ads are splashed on buses, banners and the stairs underfoot. Logos splay across shuttle bus headrests, carpets and cellphone-charging stations.

At night, a drug firm gets the last word: A promo for the heart drug Multaq stood on each doctor’s nightstand Wednesday.

Who arranged this commercial barrage? The society itself, which sold access to its members and their purchasing power.

Last year’s four-day event brought in more than $5 million, including money for exhibit booths the size of mansions and company-sponsored events. This year, there are even more “promotional opportunities,” as the society describes them.

Concerns about the influence of industry money have prompted universities such as Stanford and the University of Colorado-Denver to ban drug sales representatives from the halls of their hospitals and bar doctors from paid promotional speaking.

Yet, one area of medicine still welcomes the largesse: societies that represent specialists. It’s a relationship largely hidden from public view, said David Rothman, who studies conflicts of interest in medicine as director of the Center on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University.

Professional groups such as the Heart Rhythm Society are a logical target for the makers of drugs and medical devices. They set national guidelines for patient treatments, lobby Congress about Medicare reimbursement issues, research funding and disease awareness, and are important sources of treatment information for the public.

Dozens of such groups nationwide encompass every medical specialty from orthopedics to hypertension.

“What you’re exploring here is the subtle ways in which the companies and professional societies become partners and — wittingly or unwittingly — physicians become agents on behalf of the interests of the sponsoring company,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.

“It has a not very subtle effect on medicine,” said Nissen, an expert on the impact of industry money.

‘This is our business’

Nearly half the $16 million the heart society collected in 2010 came from makers of drugs, catheters and defibrillators used to control abnormal heart rhythms, the group’s website disclosed.

Officials of the Heart Rhythm Society say industry money does not buy influence and is essential to developing new treatments. Still, on Thursday the group unveiled a formal policy that, among other things, requires more detailed disclosure of board members’ industry ties.

“This is our business,” said Dr. Bruce Wilkoff, the incoming society president. “We either get out of the business or we manage these relationships. That’s what we’ve chosen to do.”

The society is one of a handful of groups that make public details about their finances. Most don’t. As non-profits, they must disclose their tax returns but not their specific sources of funding.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, requested the information from the Heart Rhythm Society and 32 other professional associations and groups that promote disease awareness and research.

Their responses and reporting by ProPublica showed wide disparities in money the groups accept from medical companies, what they disclose and how they manage potential conflicts of interest.

With billions of dollars at stake, companies can court entire specialties by helping to bankroll doctors’ groups. The Heart Rhythm Society’s 5,100 members represent a particularly lucrative market.

One implantable cardioverter defibrillator — a device that jolts the heart back to a normal beat — can cost more than $30,000. A single electrophysiologist, a physician specializing in heart-rhythm disorders, can implant dozens a year. World sales of the devices totaled $6.7 billion last year, according to JPMorgan.

All the defibrillator manufacturers are at this week’s conference, including market leaders Medtronic, Boston Scientific and St. Jude Medical, which together gave the society $4 million last year.

These companies and others not only provided financial support to Heart Rhythm but paid many of its board members: Twelve of 18 directors are paid speakers or consultants for the companies, one holds stock, and the outgoing president disclosed research ties, according to the society’s website, which does not specify how much they receive.

Board members at other medical societies have similar arrangements. The American Society of Hypertension does not post disclosures on its website, but records provided to Grassley show that 12 of its 14 board members had financial ties to medical companies.

Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said these groups commonly say the money doesn’t affect what they do, but he has doubts. “I don’t think it’s believable,” he said. “There are a lot of incestuous relationships that really bother me.”

Big Booths Boost Devices

As competition among cardiac-device makers has intensified, so have questions about whether their products are being used and marketed appropriately.

In January, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that more than one in five patients who received cardiac defibrillators did not meet science-based criteria for getting them.

Weeks later, the Heart Rhythm Society disclosed it was assisting a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the issue.

Two of the society’s biggest funders — Boston Scientific and St. Jude Medical — have paid millions since 2009 to settle federal allegations that they improperly paid kickbacks to unidentified physicians to use their cardiac devices. Neither company admitted wrongdoing.

Top sponsor Medtronic also has disclosed to shareholders that the Department of Justice is investigating the advice it gave purchasers on how to bill Medicare for defibrillators and payments it made to buyers of the devices.

In a statement, Medtronic said societies play an important role in educating physicians about their devices. Boston Scientific declined to comment, and St. Jude did not respond to questions.

At this week’s conference, Medtronic is front and center with a 12,000-square-foot booth to demonstrate its products and allow physicians to examine them.

Medtronic spent $543,000 at last year’s meeting on a similar exhibit, part of $1.6 million it paid to prominently display its name around the conference and fund educational grants. The Minnesota device maker also paid unspecified speaking or consulting fees to eight of the society’s 18 board members.

Your (sponsor) Name Here

These slides show “promotional opportunities” – and their asking price – that the Heart Rhythm Society offered to medical industry sponsors at its 2011 conference. Not everything was sold.

The spending befits the company’s dominance of the world market for implantable defibrillators. It sold more than $3 billion worth last year.

Next booth down is the 8,100-square-foot spread of rival Boston Scientific, with $1.6 billion in defibrillator sales last year. The company spent $1.5 million on the society in 2010 and paid speaking or consulting fees to seven board members.

Physicians must traverse these and other booths to reach “Poster Town,” where the latest research findings, a big draw of the gathering, are displayed. “It’s very hard to get through there without being accosted,” said Dr. Paul D. Varosy, director of cardiac electrophysiology at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Eastern Colorado Health Care System.

‘Tag and Release’

Through the years, groups such as the Heart Rhythm Society have expanded the range of sponsorships they offer to drug and device makers. Companies can now fund Wii game rooms or put their names on conference massage stations and on the shirts of the masseuses.

Some deals give companies more than name exposure. Last month, the American College of Cardiology attached tracking devices to doctors’ conference ID badges. Many physicians were unaware that exhibitors had paid to receive real-time data about who visited their booths, including names, job titles and how much time they spent.

Dr. Westby Fisher, an Evanston, Ill., electrophysiologist, called the practice “Tag and release.” College officials say they’ll do a better job of notifying doctors next year.

Attendees at the Rhythm Society conference also have tracking badges. Society officials say exhibitors are not getting doctors’ personal information.

Two years ago, the American Society of Hypertension teamed with its biggest donor, Daiichi Sankyo, to create a training program for drug company sales reps. The society says about 1,200 Daiichi reps have graduated — at a cost of $1,990 each — allowing them to put the “ASH Accreditation symbol” on business cards.

In fiscal 2009, Daiichi gave the society more than $3.3 million — more than 70% of its total industry funding — according to financial records it provided Grassley. Daiichi makes four hypertension drugs.

“I think it’s an obscenity,” said former ASH president Michael Alderman, professor emeritus at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. “I can see how it would play out in the doctor’s office: ‘I’m a Daiichi sales rep. But let me tell you something: The American Society of Hypertension is backing me.’”

Alderman and some other prominent members of the group quit after a dispute in 2006 about industry influence.

Current ASH President George Bakris said the training program is science-based and doesn’t focus on specific drugs. The reps “ought to know what they are talking about,” he said.

The 1,900-member group has revised its policies since 2006, he said. Financial conflicts disclosed by board members, however, are available only to members, who must request them in writing and explain why they want them, according to the group’s conflict of interest policy.

A Question of Influence

Bakris and leaders of several other professional groups say industry funding is essential for much of what they do. It reduces conference registration fees, subsidizes the cost of continuing medical education courses and provides money for disease awareness.

Dr. Jack Lewin, chief executive of the American College of Cardiology, said the money is helping build registries of cardiac procedures that track side effects and flag whether physicians are using devices in the right patients.

The “circus element” of the exhibit booths doesn’t unduly influence attendees, Lewin said. “I don’t buy a soft drink just because of the advertising… I buy it because I like it.”

Researchers say companies are not spending millions solely for altruistic reasons. “If it weren’t influencing the doctors, they wouldn’t be doing it,” said Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a health policy expert at McMaster University in Ontario.

There are fledgling efforts to push medical societies toward stricter limits on industry funding: 34 groups have signed a voluntary code of conduct calling for public disclosure of funding and limits on how many people on guideline-writing panels have industry ties.

“The general feeling is that the societies need to be independent of the influence of companies,” said Dr. Norman B. Kahn Jr., chief executive of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, which helped draft the code.

Grassley, too, is continuing his efforts to make the groups publicly accountable. In initial responses to his December 2009 request for information, some said they planned to post financial information on their websites. This week, the senator followed up with letters to some groups, asking why they hadn’t done so.

He hopes the political pressure succeeds: “You might conclude that maybe they don’t want to give the information out because it might be embarrassing.”

 

Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/medical-societies-and-financial-ties-to-drug-and-device-makers-industry

Filed Under: Big Pharma, Biotechnology, Campaigning, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Drugs, Health, Lobbying, Medical Industry, Money, Politics, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Science, Surveillance
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