A couple of months ago the Austrian law student Max Schrems asked facebook to send him all their data stored about him.
All Europeans have a right to do this. Because facebook is based in Dublin, Ireland, it took a while before Facebook sent Max a CD with 1222 PDF files.
Read more at: https://www.taz.de/facebook-en
By Steve Watson
Thank goodness this sort of thing doesn’t happen in the land of the free… oh wait…
A video has emerged of Russian pro Democracy protesters being watched by hovering surveillance drones overhead.
25,000 people gathered in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow Saturday, were stunned to witness the strange hovering object directly above them. Some climbed trees to take pictures and get a closer look at the “UFO”.
The craft is clearly some kind of small quadricopter drone similar to the one pictured below:
These drones can be controlled via a touch screen interface and the video can be transmitted in real time via wireless modem or Wi-Fi to 3 km by iPhone, iPad connected to the network, laptop or a similar device.
They also have automatic tracking and some can even electrify and incapacitate protesters or “suspects”, “insurgents”, whatever you want to call people expressing their rights.
London Telegraph reporter Matthew Wrigley was at the demonstration Saturday and tweeted “Quadrocopter drone hovering above, filming protesters. Very 1984 tho the @wired subscriber in me likes the tech.”
The protest was part of on going demonstrations in Russia in which tens of thousands have turned out to protest against recent elections, which they claimed were fixed in order to secure victory for Vladimir Putin and his party.
But of course, this is Russia, hovering crowd control surveillance drones would never be deployed at protests in the US. Right?
I’m most likely just being a paranoid kook for even suggesting these things exist.
Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/russian-protesters-encounter.html
By David S. Cloud and Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times
The Defense secretary says he doesn’t expect Tehran to comply. Iran says it is planning to clone and mass produce the bat-winged craft for use against its enemies. 
Reporting from Washington— The Obama administration has sent a formal diplomatic request asking Iran to return the radar-evading drone aircraft that crashed on a CIA spying mission this month, but U.S. officials say they don’t expect Iran will comply.
“We have asked for it back,” Obama said Monday at a news conference in Washington with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. “We’ll see how the Iranians respond.”
His comments marked the first public confirmation that the RQ-170 Sentinel drone now in Iranian hands is a U.S. aircraft, though U.S. officials privately acknowledged that in recent days. Iran has claimed it downed the stealthy surveillance drone, but U.S. officials say it malfunctioned.
Capture of the futuristic-looking unmanned spy plane has provided Tehran with a propaganda windfall. The government announced that it planned to clone and mass produce the bat-winged craft for use against its enemies.
The embarrassing loss of the CIA drone has focused attention on the use of an air base in western Afghanistan over the last several years to launch aerial surveillance missions against suspected nuclear facilities and other targets in neighboring Iran.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called the U.S. request for return of the drone “appropriate,” but he acknowledged that Iran’s government, which last week lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations about the U.S. spy plane violating its airspace, was unlikely to send it back.
“I don’t expect that will happen, but I think it’s important to make that request,” Panetta told reporters traveling with him aboard a U.S. military aircraft.
Officials declined to say how the U.S. filed the formal request. Washington doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Tehran, and normally communicates through the Swiss government. Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, refused to discuss the issue, saying he would not comment on intelligence matters.
Iranian state media reported Monday that Iranian experts were recovering valuable data from the drone, which appeared relatively intact in photographs released by Iran, and were trying to reverse-engineer its unique capabilities.
Parviz Sarvari, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said that Iran is “in the final steps of breaking into the aircraft’s secret code.”
“The findings will be used to support our accusations against the U.S.,” Sarvari said in comments reported by the state-run Al Alam news channel.
Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who commands the Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace Forces, told the semiofficial Fars News Agency that the aircraft “was downed in Iran with minimum damage,” according to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.
U.S. officials said they don’t believe Iran’s scientists can reverse-engineer the craft’s stealth design and skin coating, which help it evade detection on radar. But they expressed concern that Iran may figure out the drone’s flight path, and thus learn the CIA’s surveillance targets inside Iran.
U.S. officials also are concerned that Iran could offer the drone to China or other U.S. rivals or adversaries that are building their own stealth aircraft, including drones.
Panetta said it was unclear how much Iran could glean from the recovered spy plane, or what condition it was in.
Iran said it downed the drone about 140 miles inside Iran through electronic warfare, suggesting hacking or signal jamming. U.S. officials say the aircraft malfunctioned and went down on its own.
Source: https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-obama-drone-20111213,0,6677845.story
17-year-old Andrew Barrows invokes the spirit of the Founding Fathers to question America’s current direction.
I want to start with some quotes from past presidents of the United States Of America, as well as important activists who discussed freedom and oppression. 
Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves. - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free. - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. - George Washington (1732-1799)
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
I think to myself, all these people — historical leaders who will be talked about for as long as American history exists, had such wonderful views on freedom, and great ideas about how the country should be run. In fact, they are so wonderful we still talk about them hundreds of years later.
Now I think to myself, all these people — historical leaders who will be talked about for as long as American history exists, had such wonderful views on freedom, and great ideas about how the country should be run. In fact, they are so wonderful we still talk about them hundreds of years later.
I think about the American Revolution, and how many people have fought and died to make America, and what the American Revolution was all about. I constantly ponder the thought of, “I really wonder how past presidents would react to the way America is now.” I can imagine Abraham Lincoln or George Washington being brought back to life to experience modern America for just a day. But I can’t begin to imagine his facial expression when I would tell him:
Yeah, since all of your wonderful truth speaking, caring about the people, and doing what is right and fair to give people extraordinary documents dedicated to freedom…America has really gone down hill…and I mean…really down hill.
Being a president today actually means who’s the best liar on the stage. It is like a highschool talent show. Each person goes on stage and tries to convince the audience to like them, and whoever lies the most wins. They are just puppets who can’t really do anything. Congressional approval is 8% and WE the people don’t actually get a say in what happens. The mega rich call the shots and huge companies actually control what the government does while the middle class and poor get robbed blind.
After I would study his confusion…I would continue…
(After explaining what a phone and the Internet is). Gives the government the power to read my emails, my text messages, track my phone, follow me, tap my phone calls, install a tracking device under my car to know my exact location. In short…violate my privacy completely.
Then I would discuss the SOPA/PROTECT IP ACT.
A bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the Net, in the name of protecting “creativity”. The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites — they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”
Next of course, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The bill grants power to the military to arrest U.S. citizens on American soil and detain them in military prisons forever without offering them the right to legal counsel or even a trial. This isn’t a totally new thing: “dirty bomb” plotter Jose Padilla spent three-and-a-half years as an “enemy combatant” until he was finally charged. But Padilla’s detention was unusual and sparked a huge outcry; the new provisions would standardize his treatment and enable us all to become Jose Padillas.
Than I would probably make him watch this video on YouTube: “A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945″ by Isao Hashimoto
Than I would explain having a gun, missing fingers, or 7 days of food at your house = YOU ARE A TERRORIST
You know, at this point he would probably be on his knees with a huge headache.
I’m sure eventually he would say something like “Why are the people allowing this to happen? And what happened to people fighting for what is right?”
Than I would explain the Anonymous Internet group and the Occupy movement and protests. I think he would be pretty happy and would get up off his knees.
BUT than I would show him videos of what is happening when people are trying to protest and spread truth. I would start probably with this video:
or this video:
It’s really hard to choose which video of police attacking innocent protesters expressing their Constitutional rights I would show because, honestly, YouTube is filled with them. So I would probably just let him browse around for a while.
Now at this point I would imagine he would pretty much scream or yell that everything that past Americans had fought for to create has been literally bashed by the people who are supposed to enforce it, and has been turned around and used against the people instead of protecting them.
Than I would get Paul Revere out of my time machine/life regeneration thing and Paul Revere would jump on his horse and ride through the city streets of Boston yelling “The British aren’t coming; they are already here!
“Would our Founding Fathers be disgraced at what America has become? Is everything they fought for now becoming useless?
Would they call for a revolution?
Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/spirit-of-revolution.html#more
“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.”
Thomas Jefferson
If you and your family store up lots of food, will you be identified as “potential terrorists” by law enforcement authorities? That sounds like an insane question, but sadly it has gotten to the point where “preparing for the worst” has become a “suspicious activity“.
Today, there are millions of preppers all across the United States, and the vast majority of them just want to be left alone and do not want the government to interfere in their lives. Storing up food is a completely peaceful activity, and preppers are generally some of the most patriotic and law-abiding people that you could ever hope to meet. Unfortunately, prepping has become associated with “extremism” by many in the government, and lately we have seen some very disturbing signs that authorities are actively seeking to gather information on preppers. So are preppers now considered to be potential terrorists? 
Well, read the evidence posted in the rest of this article and decide for yourself.
The other day, U.S. Senator Rand Paul gave a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate during which he suggested that having “more than seven days of food” in your house could potentially get you branded as a “potential terrorist” by the federal government.
The following is an excerpt from that speech:
Know good and well that some day there could be a government in power that is shipping its citizens off for disagreements. There are laws on the books now that characterize who might be a terrorist.
Someone missing fingers on their hands is a suspect according to the Department of Justice. Someone who has guns, someone who has ammunition that is weatherproofed, someone who has more than seven days of food in their house can be considered a potential terrorist.
If you are suspected by these activities do you want the government to have the ability to send you to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention?
It is incredibly chilling to hear a defender of liberty such as Rand Paul warn of such things.
But just because a politician says something that does not always mean that it is true.
So is there any evidence that Americans that are storing up food are being watched by the federal government?
Unfortunately, there is. In fact, Oath Keepers has posted a report about one incident in which federal agents actually visited a food production facility and demanded the names of anyone that has been “purchasing bulk food”. The following come from an article about this incident that was recently written by Rand Cardwell, the president of the Tennessee chapter of the Oath Keepers….
A fellow veteran contacted me concerning a new and disturbing development. He had been utilizing a Mormon cannery near his home to purchase bulk food supplies. The man that manages the facility related to him that federal agents had visited the facility and demanded a list of individuals that had been purchasing bulk food. The manager informed the agents that the facility kept no such records and that all transactions were conducted on a cash-and-carry basis. The agents pressed for any record of personal checks, credit card transactions, etc., but the manager could provide no such record. The agents appeared to become very agitated and after several minutes of questioning finally left with no information. I contacted the manager and personally confirmed this information.
Why in the world would federal agents be so interested in Americans that are “purchasing bulk food”?
Don’t they have anything better to do?
As I have written about previously, authorities are also now using a tool developed by the CDC to conduct “door to door disaster preparedness assessments” in some areas of the United States.
The following comes from a local news report in Tennessee….
The Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health will be using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are.
The door to door assessment will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. It will be in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anyone coming to my door to “assess” how “prepared” I am.
This is all very, very disturbing.
Lately, the federal government seems absolutely obsessed with the distribution of food.
As author Brandon Turbeville noted recently, “the U.S. government has publicly raided organic food shops, raw milk distributors, and the Amish with guns drawn” in recent years.
Aren’t there bigger threats to national security than the Amish?
Unfortunately, we now live in a “Big Brother” police state where just about anything can be considered a “suspicious activity”.
In fact, according to the FBI a bulk purchase of “meals ready to eat” is now considered to be “suspicious activity” that should be reported to them.
When the “war on terror” started a decade ago, we were told that we needed to fight the terrorists “over there” so that they would not come over here.
Well, now we are being told that the United States itself is part of the “battleground” and that the “terrorists” might just be our neighbors.
We are being told that if we “see something” that we should “say something” to the government.
In essence, the federal government wants us all to “inform” on one another.
Now that most of the big name terrorists have been removed from the picture, the Obama administration and the mainstream media are really hyping the idea that “homegrown terrorism” is a grave danger.
Just check out these headlines from the past few days….
ABC News: “White House Unveils New Strategy to Fight Homegrown Terrorism”
USA Today: “White House unveils new strategy to combat homegrown terror”
CNN: “Measuring the homegrown terrorist threat to U.S. military”
The entire focus of the “war on terror” has shifted. According to FBI Director Robert Mueller, “homegrown terrorists” represent as big a threat to American national security as al-Qaeda does at this point.
America is rapidly changing, and not for the better. All of this paranoia is going to rip this country apart.
In addition, have you noticed how they have taken the word “Islamic” out of their description of the terrorists and have replaced it with words like “extremist” and “extremism”?
Well, the truth is that just about anyone can be considered an “extremist” in one sense or another.
In fact, a recent Salon article asked this question: “Are Evangelicals A National Security Threat?”
These days, if you support an “alternative” political candidate there is a good chance that you will be labeled as an extremist.
During the 2008 election, one law enforcement report identified supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as potential terrorists.
Today, if you have a religious or political ideology that differs from the “orthodoxy” of the federal government then you are probably considered to be an “extremist”.
Beliefs that were once considered normal are now considered to be “dangerous” and “radical”.
For example, one unclassified Department of Homeland Security report published a couple of years ago entitled “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment“ claimed that a belief in Bible prophecy “could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition and weapons.”
During a Congressional hearing earlier this year, U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee warned that “Christian militants” might try to “bring down the country” and that such groups need to be investigated.
Back on February 20, 2009, the State of Missouri issued a report entitled “MIAC Strategic Report: The Modern Militia Movement“. That report warned that the following types of people may be potential terrorists….
*anti-abortion activists
*those that are against illegal immigration
*those that consider “the New World Order” to be a threat
*those that have a negative view of the United Nations
As I have written about previously, a very revealing document obtained by Oath Keepers shows that the FBI is actually instructing store owners to report many new forms of “suspicious activity” to them.
So what does the FBI consider “suspicious activity” to include? According to the document, the FBI now considers “suspicious activity” to include the following….
*paying with cash
*missing a hand or fingers
*”strange odors”
*making “extreme religious statements”
*”radical theology”
*purchasing weatherproofed ammunition or match containers
*purchasing meals ready to eat
*purchasing night vision devices, night flashlights or gas masks
All of this is completely and totally ridiculous.
Law enforcement authorities should quit worrying about preppers. The vast majority of us that are preparing for the hard times that are coming truly love this country, are completely and totally non-violent, and just want to be left alone.
There are real threats to national security out there, but the federal government refuses to address them. For example, our border with Mexico is wide open and it has been documented that terror groups are working in northern Mexico and have been coming across the border on a regular basis.
But instead of securing the border, the Obama administration is granting “backdoor amnesty” to illegal aliens instead.
In addition, law enforcement authorities should look into the massive breach of national security that the “Fast and Furious” scandal represents. With the full knowledge of the Department of Justice, ATF agents facilitated the sale of thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels and dropped all surveillance on those weapons once they crossed the border. Those guns will be used to kill people (including Americans) for many years to come.
In fact, there is so much corruption and so many “potential terrorists” in Washington D.C. that it should be more than enough to keep law enforcement officials busy for a very long time.
So leave preppers alone.
Preppers are not a threat. They are not going to hurt anyone. They just want to store up food and prepare for the difficult times that are coming.
So what do all of you think about preppers?
Source: https://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/preppers-are-now-considered-to-be-potential-terrorists
In this video I talk about the situation we are facing with the Department of Homeland Security.
Trust me when I say that I don’t like making this video.
I don’t like admitting when I am cornered by a force that I cannot defend myself against.
I am posting this so that you will realize what is developing in this country.
In the global race to see which industrialized nation will lead the way in the implementation of the most oppressive police state the world has ever known, Australia has been making silent but steady gains for years. With those aware of the march toward totalitarianism usually preoccupied with the developments in the United States and the UK, Australia can often go overlooked. Yet, not to be outdone, the land down under has managed to enact carbon taxes, militarize police, end gun ownership, and rival even England in terms of forced political correctness. Although Australia might not be the leader of the pack, it refuses to be left out.
Every now and then, there are signs that Australia is attempting to take a brief lead over both of its fascist national comrades. For instance, in an article published in the Sunday Telegraph on December 4, 2011, Rosie Squires describes how many Australian employers are introducing a fingerprinting program in order to monitor employees and “save costs.” 
The new fingerprint scanners will be taking the place of time clocks, trust, responsible hiring, and, apparently, competent supervisors. No longer will the employees of companies such as Qantas, Dan Murphy’s, Breville, and Unomedical be able to clock in and out of work in the traditional manner. In order to prevent employees from “arriving late or slacking off,” the workers will now be forced to render some of their most private information to their employer via the new scanners.
The new technology, PeopleKey, will be used not only to clock employees on their way in and out, but also to monitor their progress over the course of the workday, as well as other potential incidents of “slacking off” like using the bathroom or daring to engage a fellow employee in conversation.
A spokesman for Dan Murphy’s, a chain of liquor stores, stated, “Like many major retailers, Dan Murphy’s has found electronic clocking in and out to be a reliable method of recording staff hours, as well as enabling store managers to know which team members are on site for health and safety purposes.”
He continues, saying, “Staff who are significantly late may have the time deducted from their pay or, at the manager’s discretion, can choose to make up the time.”
RailCorp, another company who is implementing PeopleKey, has actually achieved an agreement with employees (more likely “representatives” of the employees) for the use of the new program in exchange for a pay raise.
In the case of RailCorp, another spokesman stated,
When it is in place, staff will verify their attendance by way of a swipe card and finger scan. The scans themselves are stored as mathematical algorithms rather than images.
This initiative will streamline and simplify our time and attendance processes, eventually eliminating the need for staff to manually record their time at work on paper timesheets or in attendance books.
This will result in reduced administration requirements and more accurate payments to staff.
Frank Bruce, the CEO of PeopleKey, is quoted by Rosie Squires as saying that many of his clients have purchased the finger scanning system as a way to crack down on “buddy punching,” a situation where workers clock in for their fellow employees.
Bruce said, “In some instances employees are not honest and some businesses have problems monitoring attendance.” He also indicated that PeopleKey has “about 1500 installations in Australia” although he did not disclose any of the locations or clients.
Of course, the employees shouldn’t worry. After all, private companies would never share, sell, or otherwise use private information that could be worth vast amounts of money. They never have in the past, right?
Not only that, but, if the employees have nothing to hide, why should they be concerned about the scanners? They shouldn’t be slacking off or coming in late to begin with, right?
There’s nothing wrong or illegal about private companies forcing their employees to give this information over to them on condition of employment — if they don’t want to give it up, they can always work for someone else. They can let the free market handle the issue, right?
Unfortunately, this is the attitude that is held by a great many Australians, British, and Americans who are being constantly reminded through their media and their government that they, too, will soon be scanning their fingerprints in order to access basic services or necessities . . . like food.
The ability to rationalize oppression using the arguments about having nothing to hide, free markets, and corporate morality should never be underestimated.
I have written numerous articles dealing with the technocratic society being ushered in gradually with each passing day. I have recently written about the introduction of vein scanners already popular in Japan and awaiting introduction to the United States, as well as the Google Wallet smartphone app being used by New Jersey Transit.
Indeed, the technologically enhanced police state has been covered at length not just by my own work, but that of many others. What hasn’t been covered, however, is the resistance to such a society.
Unfortunately, although it is growing, the resistance to the technocratic control system is still terribly small when compared to the vast amount of people who are willing to accept it.
Regardless, the resistance must begin to take shape quickly. Dissenting voices need to speak up and they need to do it now. These voices need to be heard, and in order for that to happen they are going to have to speak loudly and forcefully. If they don’t, there might not be much hope left. Time is running out and the scientific dictatorship is gaining steam with every day that we remain silent.
Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/australia-embraces-technocracy-with.html#more
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House on Thursday laid out a plan to implement a government strategy to combat homegrown domestic terrorism and any attempts by Al-Qaeda to seek to radicalize American Muslims.
The initiative commits the federal government to work closely with local authorities and communities that may be targeted by extremist groups, particularly Al-Qaeda as it reels from a US onslaught abroad. 
“Protecting our nation’s communities from violent extremist recruitment and radicalization is a top national security priority,” said the document, known as the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP).
“It is an effort that requires creativity, diligence, and commitment to our fundamental rights and principles.
“Although the SIP will be applied to prevent all forms of violent extremism, we will prioritize preventing violent extremism and terrorism that is inspired by al-Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents.”
The strategy was released a day after US officials warned that the US military was under threat as homegrown Islamic extremists, including “radicalized troops,” pose a risk to military installations.
The only deadly terror strikes on US soil since those of September 11, 2001 have been against the military, with three separate attacks that left 17 people dead, most of them soldiers, according to a report released Wednesday at the first joint House-Senate hearing on homegrown terrorism.
The SIP plan commits a task force of senior officials from a wide range of departments to ensuring the federal government engages closely with local communities. It will report to the president annually.
The plan is a spin-off of a new National Counterterrorism Strategy released in June which warned the government must be vigilant for new efforts by Al-Qaeda to infiltrate US communities and inspire homegrown terrorism.
Senior officials said Thursday that as Washington had been successful in degrading Al-Qaeda overseas, the group and its adherents were becoming increasingly interested in recruiting followers already in the United States.
The document also calls for new efforts to analyze the impact of the Internet and social networks on radicalizing Americans from outside the country.
“This direct communication allows violent extremists to bypass parents and community leaders,” the plan said.
“Because of the importance of the digital environment, we will develop a separate, more comprehensive strategy for countering and preventing violent extremist online radicalization.”
Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/white-house-targets-domestic-extremism.html
We can avert this fate of humanity by the renewal of the Glass-Steagall Act. The passage of Glass-Steagall is as a pivotal turning point in moving America in a new direction towards the development of all nation states globally. If we don’t renew the Glass-Steagall Act then we (humanity) will meet the catastrophic event of WWIII head on … how would you like that instead?
Wake-Up-America !!
So far in my videos discussing the economic collapse of the U.S. I have left out one important element:
World War Three.
WWIII is not going to be an accident. It will not be caused by an unfortunate chain events that the U.S. struggles to avoid. It is a goal, a specific objective that must be reached in order to force a cultural shift that the population would otherwise never accept.
It is only from this context that the events unfolding in the world right now make any sense. - StormCloudsGathering
sending...
