Original Article

Fifty-six percent of Americans say the government poses an immediate threat to individual rights and freedoms.

Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken – though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what’s broken can be fixed.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.

 Friday, 6 Nov 2009 – Damon Vickers, chief investment officer of Nine Points Capital Partners say’s:    “The dollar will get “utterly destroyed” and become “virtually worthless”, … “Due to the huge wage disparities between the United States and emerging markets like China, Vickers said that may resolve itself in some type of a global currency crisis.”

“If the global currency crisis unfolds, then inevitably you get an alignment of a global world government. A new global currency and a new world order, so we may be moving towards that,”.

Everyone in Britain should have an annual carbon ration and be penalised if they use too much fuel, the head of the Environment Agency will say.

It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to their carbon footprint, such as fuel Photo: GETTY

Lord Smith of Finsbury believes that implementing individual carbon allowances for every person will be the most effective way of meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to their carbon footprint, such as fuel, airline tickets and electricity.

Like with a bank account, a statement would be sent out each month to help people keep track of what they are using.

If their “carbon account” hits zero, they would have to pay to get more credits.

Those who are frugal with their carbon usage will be able to sell their unused credits and make a profit.

Lord Smith will call for the scheme to be part of a “Green New Deal” to be introduced within 20 years when he addresses the agency’s annual conference on Monday.

An Environment Agency spokesman said only those with “extravagant lifestyles” would be affected by the carbon allowances.

He said: “A lot of people who cycle will get money back. It will probably only be bankers and those with extravagant lifestyles who would lose out.”

However, some have criticised the move as “Orwellian” and say it will have a detrimental impact on business.

Ruth Lea, an economist from Arbuthnot Banking Group, told the Daily Mail: “This is all about control of the individual and you begin to wonder whether this is what the green agenda has always been about. It’s Orwellian. This will be an enormous tax on business.”

Under the Climate Change Act, Britain is obliged to cut its emissions by 80 per cent on 1990 levels by 2050. This means annual CO2 emissions per person will have to fall from about 9 tonnes to only 2 tonnes.

 

By Reid Wilson
Posted: 08/10/09 11:42 AM [ET]
A bipartisan pair of governors is opposing a new Defense Department proposal to handle natural and terrorism-related disasters, contending that a murky chain of command could lead to more problems than solutions.

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas (R), chairman of the National Governors Association, and Vice Chairman Gov. Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia penned a letter opposing the Pentagon proposal, which they said would hinder a state’s effort to respond to a disaster.
Current law gives governors control over National Guard forces in their own states as well as any Guard units and Defense Department personnel imported from other states.  The letter comes as the Pentagon proposes a legislative fix that would give the secretary of Defense the authority to assist in response to domestic disasters and, consequently, control over units stationed in an affected state.

 

“We are concerned that the legislative proposal you discuss in your letter would invite confusion on critical command and control issues, complicate interagency planning, establish stove-piped response efforts, and interfere with governors’ constitutional responsibilities to ensure the safety and security of their citizens,” Douglas and Manchin wrote to Paul Stockton, assistant secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and America’s Security Affairs.

“One of the key lessons learned from the response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 was the need for clear chains of command to avoid duplication of effort and to ensure the most effective use of response resources,” the governors wrote.

Though the Pentagon has said the legislative fix would increase the number of Defense Department personnel available to respond to disasters, Douglas and Manchin expressed skepticism, arguing that current law already allows the Pentagon to order personnel to key areas inside the U.S.

A similar fix was removed from the Defense Department appropriation measure in conference committee for fiscal 2009.

A Pentagon spokesman did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

 Political, economic fears drive increase

By Emily Bazar
USA TODAY 

Gun owners are packing heat in record numbers, fearful of stricter gun control under the Obama administration and higher crime in a sour economy.

Some states and counties report a surge in applications for concealed weapons permits since the November election. All states but Illinois and Wisconsin allow concealed weapons, but requirements differ.

Applications already have hit a record this year in Clay County, Mo., where the sheriff’s office received 888 through June, compared with 863 in all of last year, Sheriff Bob Boydston says.

In the past, applicants tended to be middle-aged men, he says, but now include “grandmothers, older folks, young women, young men.”

They tell him the bad economy will lead to more thefts and break-ins, he says, but his statistics show recession-related violent crime hasn’t gone up.

They also fear gun control, he says. Last week, an elderly couple seeking a permit told him they were sure the president was “on the verge of coming to our homes and taking our weapons,” he says.

Statewide, the Missouri State Highway Patrol has processed 18,878 background checks this year for the permits, the most since the agency began keeping statistics in 2005, Lt. John Hotz says.

In May, Obama signed a law that will allow guns in national parks. “The president respects and supports the Second Amendment and the tradition of gun ownership in this country,” White House spokesman Ben LaBolt says.

Interest groups on both sides agree that demand is up because of economic and political uncertainty.

People worry the administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress will try to “enact more gun control,” says Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, fears that violent confrontations will increase. “When someone’s carrying a gun around and they’re not fully trained, oftentimes they’ll use it just because it’s there,” he says.

Demand is also up in:

•Florida. The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services hired 61 temporary workers to tackle a backlog in applications, spokesman Terence McElroy says. It got 75,520 applications through June, on pace to beat last year’s record of 90,331.

•Caldwell County, N.C. Residents filed 358 applications in the first half of this year, compared with 135 for the same period last year, “a bigger increase than we’ve ever seen,” Sheriff’s Detective B.J. Fore says. “People are worried about desperate times.”

•Utah. June ranked as the top month ever for applications, with 11,292 received, says Lt. Doug Anderson of the state Bureau of Criminal Identification. The year also is on pace to be record-setting, he says, with 49,499 applications in through June.

Craig Ball, manager of Impact Guns in Ogden, has offered more training courses. “Last year, a typical class would be 15 to 20 people,” he says. “Right after the election, we had as many as 55.”

August 05, 2009 1:33 PM

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

A Republican senator is calling for the White House to suspend a new project that asks members of the public to flag “fishy” claims about President Obama’s health care plans, arguing that it raises privacy concerns and will serve to chill free speech.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is sending a letter to the White House today asking the president to “cease this program immediately” — or to explain how Americans’ privacy will be protected if e-mails are forwarded to the White House as requested.

“I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ‘fishy’ or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests,” Cornyn writes

“I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward emails critical of his policies to the White House. I suspect that you would have been leading the charge in condemning such a program — and I would have been at your side denouncing such heavy-handed government action.”

Yesterday, White House director of new media Macon Phillips wrote a blog posting urging readers to flag questionable claims about health care proposals.

“There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

Cornyn specifically asks whether those who quote the president’s past statements — such as his 2003 statement that he was a “proponent” of single-payer care — qualifies as “disinformation.” He also asks what actions the White House would take against those engaging in “fishy” speech.

Note the Hegelian key points in this article:

Thesis:

·         The first volunteer test subjects for a new, implantable computer device called VeriChip.

·         Could the airlines or government really require pilots to get chipped?

Antithesis:

·         “People have been worried about Big Brother for years,”

·         “Here [in the U.S.] we’re still dealing with FDA and privacy and civil-liberties issues,”

Synthesis:

·         In the early ’90s several states considered laws that would have required female child abusers and women on welfare to wear birth-control implants.

·         Applied Digital Solutions signed a deal to distribute VeriChips in Brazil, where kidnapping has become epidemic, especially among the rich and powerful.

·         Warwick will put a companion chip in his wife Irena and let the two implants communicate with each other. “If I move my finger, she’ll feel something,” he explains. “We’ll be closer than anybody’s been before–nervous system to nervous system.”

·        “But we’re not stopping. We’re going into South America right now!”

With his school uniform and his plump, pinchable cheeks, Derek Jacobs of Boca Raton, Fla., looks like an ordinary youngster. But looks can deceive. When he was 12, Microsoft certified Derek as a qualified systems engineer, one of the youngest ever. At 13 he was running his own computer-consulting company. Now he’s 14, and what’s Derek doing for an encore? He’s becoming a cyborg–part man-child, part machine.

Derek, his mom Leslie and his dad Jeffrey are the first volunteer test subjects for a new, implantable computer device called VeriChip. Later this spring, pending Food and Drug Administration approval, doctors will load a wide-bore needle with a microchip containing a few kilobytes of silicon memory and a tiny radio transmitter and inject it under the skin of their left arms, where it will serve as a medical identification device.  It sounds like science fiction. (Remember the Borg on Star Trek? Resistance is futile!) But VeriChip is quite real. The Jacobs family could be the first in a new generation of computer-enhanced human beings. 

In some respects Derek is a regular eighth-grader. He’s quiet and polite. He plays the drums. He used to be on the swim team before he quit to make time for his computer business. He remembers vividly when he first saw VeriChip on the Today show. “I thought it was great technology,” he says. “I wanted to be a part of it.” And when Derek sets his mind to a problem, he generally solves it. “Derek stood up and said to me, ‘Mom, I want to be the first kid implanted with the chip,’” remembers Leslie Jacobs, an advertising executive at Florida Design magazine. “He kept bugging me to call the company until I finally broke down.”

Leslie set up a lunch with Keith Bolton, vice president of Applied Digital Solutions, the company behind VeriChip. At first Bolton (who jokingly refers to the Jacobses as “the Chipsons”) was skeptical. Since the first wave of VeriChip publicity, he has heard from roughly 2,500 would-be cyborgs. But the Jacobs family is particularly well suited to test VeriChip for use in medicine. If a patient with VeriChip were injured, the theory goes, a harried ER doc could quickly access the victim’s medical background by scanning the chip with a device that looks like a Palm handheld computer.

In the case of the Jacobses, that could be a lifesaver. Derek has allergies to common antibiotics, and Jeffrey is weakened from years of treatment for Hodgkin’s disease. A few years ago, he was in a serious car accident; and when he got to the hospital, he was in no shape to explain his condition to the staff. “The advantage of the chip is that the information is available at the time of need,” Jeffrey explains. “It would speak for me, give me a voice when I don’t have one.”

The operation to insert the chip is simple. “It takes about seven seconds,” says Dr. Richard Seelig, the company’s medical-applications director, exaggerating only slightly. An antiseptic swab, a local anesthetic, an injection and a Band-Aid–that’s all it takes. Once the skin heals, Seelig says, the chip is completely invisible, and the Jacobses will hardly know it’s there. “The chip is fully biocompatible,” Bolton says. “No body fluids can get in, and nothing can be loosened or come out.”

Applied Digital Solutions–which is trademarking the phrase “Get Chipped!”–has big plans for its little device. In the next few years, it wants to add sensors that will read your vital signs–pulse, temperature, blood sugar and so on–and a satellite receiver that can track where you are. The company makes a pager-like gadget called Digital Angel that does both those things, and its engineers are doing their darnedest to cram Digital Angel’s functions into a package small enough to implant. Once they do, VeriChip will be very powerful indeed. That’s one of the reasons the Jacobses want to get involved. “There are endless possibilities,” says Derek. “For me it’s marvelous,” says Leslie. “Every day I worry about my husband. We definitely feel it will make us all feel more secure.”

Security is part of the VeriChip business plan. The company has already signed a deal with the California department of corrections to track the movements of parolees using Digital Angel. Seelig believes VeriChip could function as a theftproof, counterfeit-proof ID, like having a driver’s license embedded under your skin. He suggests that airline crews could wear one to ensure that terrorists don’t infiltrate the cockpit in disguise. “I travel quite a bit,” he says, “and I want to make sure the pilots in that plane belong there.”

Could the airlines or government really require pilots to get chipped? “I think we have a right to demand that,” says Seelig. “Our lives are in their hands.” It sounds extreme, but there are precedents. In the early ’90s several states considered laws that would have required female child abusers and women on welfare to wear birth-control implants. The proposals were not very popular. “There’s a feeling that technology has outpaced the policy process,” says Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists. “We aren’t in a position to apply these new devices with the wisdom and prudence that is needed.”

Prudent or not, implant technology is racing ahead with bionic speed. Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading in England, is working on the next step. In a few weeks, he will receive an implant that will wirelessly connect the nerves in his arm to a PC. The computer will record the activity of his nervous system and stimulate the nerves to produce small movements and sensations; such an implant could eventually help a person suffering from paralysis to move parts of the body the brain can’t reach. If all goes well, Warwick will put a companion chip in his wife Irena and let the two implants communicate with each other. “If I move my finger, she’ll feel something,” he explains. “We’ll be closer than anybody’s been before–nervous system to nervous system.”

There are plenty of skeptics, but Jeffrey Jacobs is not one of them. “People have been worried about Big Brother for years,” he says. “The three of us want to be part of not just this new technology but an evolution of humanity.”

The FDA is expected to approve the Jacobses’ implants within two months, and there are other ways to speed up the evolution. Two weeks ago, Applied Digital Solutions signed a deal to distribute VeriChips in Brazil, where kidnapping has become epidemic, especially among the rich and powerful. Government officials hope that VeriChips implanted in people considered at high risk could be used to track victims via satellite. “Here [in the U.S.] we’re still dealing with FDA and privacy and civil-liberties issues,” says Bolton. “But we’re not stopping. We’re going into South America right now!” Technology has a way of moving faster than legislation, and if it comes down to a race between cyborgs and Senators, guess who will win? Resistance is futile.

Find this article at:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,214099,00.html

Portable GPS

Wisconsin court upholds GPS tracking by police

MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin police can attach GPS to cars to secretly track anybody’s movements without obtaining search warrants, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

However, the District 4 Court of Appeals said it was “more than a little troubled” by that conclusion and asked Wisconsin lawmakers to regulate GPS use to protect against abuse by police and private individuals.

As the law currently stands, the court said police can mount GPS on cars to track people without violating their constitutional rights — even if the drivers aren’t suspects.

Officers do not need to get warrants beforehand because GPS tracking does not involve a search or a seizure, Judge Paul Lundsten wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel based in Madison.

That means “police are seemingly free to secretly track anyone’s public movements with a GPS device,” he wrote.

One privacy advocate said the decision opened the door for greater government surveillance of citizens. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials called the decision a victory for public safety because tracking devices are an increasingly important tool in investigating criminal behavior.

The ruling came in a 2003 case involving Michael Sveum, a Madison man who was under investigation for stalking. Police got a warrant to put a GPS on his car and secretly attached it while the vehicle was parked in Sveum’s driveway. The device recorded his car’s movements for five weeks before police retrieved it and downloaded the information.

The information suggested Sveum was stalking the woman, who had gone to police earlier with suspicions. Police got a second warrant to search his car and home, found more evidence and arrested him. He was convicted of stalking and sentenced to prison.

Sveum, 41, argued the tracking violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. He argued the device followed him into areas out of public view, such as his garage.

The court disagreed. The tracking did not violate constitutional protections because the device only gave police information that could have been obtained through visual surveillance, Lundsten wrote.

Even though the device followed Sveum’s car to private places, an officer tracking Sveum could have seen when his car entered or exited a garage, Lundsten reasoned. Attaching the device was not a violation, he wrote, because Sveum’s driveway is a public place.

“We discern no privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment that is invaded when police attach a device to the outside of a vehicle, as long as the information obtained is the same as could be gained by the use of other techniques that do not require a warrant,” he wrote.

Although police obtained a warrant in this case, it wasn’t needed, he added.

Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, said using GPS to track someone’s car goes beyond observing them in public and should require a warrant.

“The idea that you can go and attach anything you want to somebody else’s property without any court supervision, that’s wrong,” he said. “Without a warrant, they can do this on anybody they want.”

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s office, which argued in favor of the warrantless GPS tracking, praised the ruling but would not elaborate on its use in Wisconsin.

David Banaszynski, president of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association, said his department in the Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood does not use GPS. But other departments might use it to track drug dealers, burglars and stalkers, he said.

A state law already requires the Department of Corrections to track the state’s most dangerous sex offenders using GPS. The author of that law, Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, said the decision shows “GPS tracking is an effective means of protecting public safety.”

I bet you thought this was only for those under “house arrest’ huh? Well, think again!  Now this is one of those instances where RFID and human tracking is going to be used for good … relatively speaking.   But of course most of us don’t go to prison, so other application will have to come to light before we all will volunteer to have our every move tracked.  This system will work, but it’ll have short comings.  Tampering, for instance.  Once it’s shown how well this system works in such an extreme environment; it’ll be one more foot in the door to implanting all of us.  Here’s the deal: Become a prisoner, become a Lab rat! –K7S

May 17, 2005

By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News

The next fashion accessory for some inmates at the Los Angeles County jail will be a radio frequency identification bracelet.

The country’s largest jail system has launched a pilot project with Alanco Technologies to track inmates using the technology, also known as RFID.

The first phase will involve setting up an RFID system in the 1,800-inmate east facility of the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, Calif., by fall 2005. If it succeeds, and funding can be obtained, the county will spread the system throughout its prison facilities.

In prison networks with such technology, RFID readers are planted throughout a jail in such large numbers that bracelet-wearing inmates can be continually tracked. When an inmate comes within range of a sensor, it detects his or her presence and records the event in a database. Thus, if an assault occurs at night, prison officials can look at the RFID logs and identify who was at the scene at the time of the

incident. Tampering with the bracelet sends an alarm to the system. The system can also warn of gang gatherings.

Orwellian as tagging sounds, inmate violence has declined in prisons where similar RFID systems have been installed, according to Alanco. Guards also wear RFID tags in these facilities. 

“The primary concern of the sheriff’s department is the safety of both our staff and the inmates housed in our facilities,” said Marc Klugman, chief of the Sheriff’s Correctional Services Division.

In 2004, there were an estimated five inmate deaths, and injuries to 1,742 inmates and 88 jail staff in the seven facilities that make up the L.A. county jail system, according to the county.

Alanco estimates that the prison system alone could become a billion-dollar market, while jails could account for $500 million to $700 million in revenue.