Europe under total surveillance

By Pantelis Boukalas

Neither European Parliament President Josep Borrell Fontelles nor European Commission VP Franco Frattini have explained why a new law permitting total, ongoing surveillance and recording of our communications is a “triumph” for Europeans.

Both men, apparently enthused by the margin of approval for the bill, simply lauded the decision, which elevates the EU from a humble pupil of the US to its teacher when it comes to civil rights violations and theft of private data. Now a huge legalized electronic bug has been added to all the countless illegal or semi-legal “spies.” So turning everyone into a suspect on the pretext of pre-empting terrorism or busting gangs that distribute porn on the Net is a “triumph” for Europeans. The deprival of personal liberty is a “triumph” of democracy. Entangling citizens in a paralyzing sense of fear that their slightest movement (a phone call, a text message, logging on to the Internet) might blot their record and enlist them in the ranks of the potential troublemakers) is a “triumph” for a supposedly open and liberal Europe.

Is it any consolation then that our conversations and messages so far are not evaluated? On the contrary, since it has been authoritatively stated that we are “just at the beginning,” sooner or later the content of our interactions will be captured and interpreted. And if that is not happening already, it is not due to the democratic sensibilities of the Euro-authorities and the limits they might impose, but technology’s inability at this stage to fully serve the plans of those who have decided that Big Brother cannot remain a purely literary device forever.

Dissenting to the bill, Euro MP Yiannis Varvitsiotis recalled the statement attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” But if Franklin has no sway in his own country, why should he be listened to here?

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Business As Usual

December 27, 2005
posted by lenin

New Orleans Police Shoot, Kill Man:

The city's embattled police department will have another internal investigation to face after a swarm of converging officers gunned down a man brandishing a knife.

A police spokesman said the officers who fired on the man Monday will be reassigned pending the outcome of the probe, but he defended their response, saying at least one officer's life was in danger just prior to the barrage of gunfire.

"You have a subject who's lunging at them with a knife... swinging wildly at them and they're fearing for their life," said Officer David Adams, a police spokesman. "They had no other choice but to resort to lethal force."

Officers repeatedly asked the man to drop the knife and used pepper spray to try to subdue him, but he used a cloth to cover his face and was still able to walk toward an officer and threaten him, authorities said.

"Evidently the pepper spray had no effect," Adams said.


How long before we are told that the guy had no knife, was issued no warnings and was actually affected in the normal fashion by the pepper spray before receiving at least half a dozen bullets?
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Researchers seek brain wave access to bank accounts and homes

December 14, 2005

OTTAWA (AFP) - Canadian researchers hope to soon be able to use brain waves to unlock doors and get access to bank accounts.

Some companies are already offering iris recognition systems that many countries want to put into biometric passports.

But Julie Thorpe, a researcher at Carleton University in Ottawa wants to take the idea much much further.

She says it is possible to do away with key cards, pin numbers and a litany of other security tools that allow people to retrieve bank money, access computer data or enter restricted buildings.

"A user would simply think their password," said Thorpe, who hopes to develop the first biometric security device to read your mind to authenticate users.
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Creating first synthetic life form

By Carolyn Abraham
December 19, 2005



Work on the world's first human-made species is well under way at a research complex in Rockville, Md., and scientists in Canada have been quietly conducting experiments to help bring such a creature to life.

Robert Holt, head of sequencing for the Genome Science Centre at the University of British Columbia, is leading efforts at his Vancouver lab to play a key role in the production of the first synthetic life form -- a microbe made from scratch.

The project is being spearheaded by U.S. scientist Craig Venter, who gained fame in his former job as head of Celera Genomics, which completed a privately-owned map of the human genome in 2000.
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Russia to take Syria's side if conflict with U.S. arises - Russian MPs

December 20 2005

MOSCOW, December 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will take Syria's side if charges against Syrian officials with involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri cause a conflict between the United States and Syria, two Russian parliamentary members said Tuesday.

"If Russia is to choose between its two strategic allies, it will undoubtedly take Syria's side," said Shamil Sultanov, a coordinator of an inter-faction association, Russia and the Islamic World: A Strategic Dialogue.

Nikolai Leonov, a member of parliament's security committee, who had recently visited Syria along with Sultanov and other MPs, said it was primarily beneficial for the U.S. to accuse Syria of murdering Hariri. "Indeed, Syria is an excellent oil corridor with access to deep-water Mediterranean ports. Besides, this is a good pretext to distract the world community's attention from the events in Iraq," the MP said.

Leonov said earlier that he was concerned that Syria could face the Iraqi scenario.

In October, an international commission chaired by Detlev Mehlis delivered a report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and members of the Security Council suggesting that high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese officials had been involved in the February 14 killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria said the report was politically motivated and inaccurate.

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Surveillance UK: why this revolution is only the start

By Steve Connor
22 December 2005

The new national surveillance network for tracking car journeys, which has taken more than 25 years to develop, is only the beginning of plans to monitor the movements of all British citizens. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch in Hertfordshire is already working on ways of automatically recognising human faces by computer, which many people would see as truly introducing the prospect of Orwellian street surveillance, where our every move is recorded and stored by machines.

Although the problems of facial recognition by computer are far more formidable than for car number plates, experts believe it is only a matter of time before machines can reliably pull a face out of a crowd of moving people.

If the police and security services can show that a national surveillance operation based on recording car movements can protect the public against criminals and terrorists, there will be a strong political will to do the same with street cameras designed to monitor the flow of human traffic.
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Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place

December 19, 2005

CLEVELAND -- A bill on Gov. Bob Taft's desk right now is drawing a lot of criticism, NewsChannel5 reported.
One state representative said it resembles Gestapo-style tactics of government, and there could be changes coming on the streets of Ohio's small towns and big cities.

The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.

WEWS reported it would also pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID.

"It brings us frighteningly close to a show me your papers society," said Carrie Davis of the ACLU, which opposes the Ohio Patriot Act.

There are many others who oppose the bill as well.

"The variety of people who opposed to this is not just a group of the usual suspects. We have people far right to the left opposing the bill who think it is a bad idea," said Al McGinty, NewsChannel5’s terrorism expert.

McGinty said he isn't sure the law would do what it's intended to do.

"I think anything we do to enhance security and give power to protect the public to police officers is a good idea," he said. "It is a good law in the wrong direction."

Gov. Bob Taft will make the ultimate decision on whether to sign the bill.

WEWS was told that Taft is expected to sign the bill into law, but legal experts expect that it will be challenged in courts.

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Pentagon Forced To Ship Ray Gun to Iraq

December 23, 2005

December 23, 2005: After over a decade of development and testing, and several false starts, the U.S. Department of Defense has finally agreed to ship it’s microwave Active Defense System (ADS) to Iraq. In the past few months, another $7 million was spent on more testing, to make sure this “non-lethal” device lives up to its name. In testing to date, the ADS has been fired over 2,300 times. The defense bureaucrats are deathly afraid that this non-lethal weapon will kill or maim someone. They know well that the blowback from that would be lethal to the careers of those who signed off on ADS being non-lethal. The current problem is that commanders overseas are making noise about how much they want ADS. Apparently some of that noise has gotten to Congress, and parts of the Pentagon.


The microwave ADS looks like a radar dish. When pointed at people and turned on, it creates a burning sensation on the skin of its victims, causing them to want to leave the area, or at least greatly distracts them. The microwave weapon has a range of about 500 meters. ADS is carried on a hummer or Stryker, along with a machine-gun and other non-lethal weapons. The proposed ROE (Rules of Engagement) for ADS are that anyone who keeps coming after getting hit with microwave is assumed to have evil intent, and will be killed. The microwave is believed to be particularly useful for terrorists who hide in crowds of women and children, using the human shields to get close enough to make an attack. This has been encountered in Somalia and Iraq.
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Healthy Living: Microchips For People

Dec 26, 2005

You’ve heard of implantable chips to track your pets, but now people are getting them for medical purposes. In this Healthy Living report learn why some believe they could save lives.

It sounds like science fiction, but Nick Minicucci is getting a microchip implanted in his arm.

“When you pulled it out, that's the only time I actually felt it leaving,” said Nick.

The chip is smaller than a thumbnail, but allows doctors access to his entire medical records with only the swipe of a scan.
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Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior

By Aaron Nicodemus

NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
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Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey

By Steve Connor
22 December 2005

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.
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From corporations to campuses, dual interface cards provide an all-in-one solution in 2006

By Robert Stuart
December 20 2005

Dual-interface smart card chips and related products are developing much greater interest as we close 2005. With various specifications and programs coming to fruition, both government and private-sector organizations are leveraging products and standards that have been in development for a couple of years. Hybrid card technologies still meet some requirements; however cost and implementation issues are being looked at with regards to upgrades as we move forward into 2006.

Some deployment programs are now looking at dual-interface solutions in order to consolidate to a single topology to meet all of their requirements for physical access, logical access and other multi-use applications. Ideas that were simply theoretical a few years back are now more easily realized with products available in the market. To go along with the newer smart card technologies, fixed infrastructure products such as updated readers are becoming available to support newer physical and logical access requirements, as well as the software to make it all work.

Dual-interface smart card chips provide a single-chip solution, lowering card manufacturing costs as well as potentially simplifying the middleware infrastructure. All necessary security features incorporating cryptographic capability and authentication mechanisms are inherently part of these solutions. Large memory cards with more than 400 kb user memory enable a combination of what were previously discrete ID products into a single solution.
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Bioscrypt, HID and OMNIKEY team to develop a door-to-desktop card solution

December 29 2005

TORONTO-- Bioscrypt Inc., a leading provider of identity verification technology, HID Corporation, the premier manufacturer of access control cards and readers, and OMNIKEY, one of the world's leading manufacturers of innovative smart card readers, announced today that VeriSoft Access Manager will be the authentication software application that allows cards to be used for access control to facilities and computers.

With the introduction of VeriSoft Access Manager, Bioscrypt has delivered a software application to market that promotes multi-factor authentication, supporting fingerprint biometrics, contact and contactless smart cards, proximity cards, common passwords, USB tokens, virtual tokens and Trusted Platform Modules (TPM).

The inherent flexibility of the VeriSoft Access Manager application permits organizations to unify user identities across the enterprise with the authentication standard of their choice. In collaborating with OMNIKEY and HID, an integrated solution has been developed that provides off-the-shelf support for HID iCLASS contactless smart cards and Prox cards for identity verification on computers.(...)

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Hackers Rebel Against Spy Cams

By Ann Harrison
29 December, 2005

BERLIN -- When the Austrian government passed a law this year allowing police to install closed-circuit surveillance cameras in public spaces without a court order, the Austrian civil liberties group Quintessenz vowed to watch the watchers.

Members of the organization worked out a way to intercept the camera images with an inexpensive, 1-GHz satellite receiver. The signal could then be descrambled using hardware designed to enhance copy-protected video as it's transferred from DVD to VHS tape.

The Quintessenz activists then began figuring out how to blind the cameras with balloons, lasers and infrared devices.

And, just for fun, the group created an anonymous surveillance system that uses face-recognition software to place a black stripe over the eyes of people whose images are recorded.
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Paris metro may install radar to tackle suicides

Jon Henley
December 30, 2005
The Paris metro is considering digging anti-suicide trenches or fitting warning radar in its 380 stations in an effort to reduce the number of people who try to kill themselves on the network.

In a confidential study leaked to the French press, the capital's transport authority RATP estimated an average 61 suicide attempts a year cost it in the region of €9m (£6.2m) in emergency interventions and network disruption, plus the severe but often unquantifiable trauma suffered by staff who witness an attempt.
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Slaves' mass grave is grim reminder of Brazil's racist legacy

Tom Phillips
December 30, 2005

When the bones started to appear at the back of his crumbling house in central Rio de Janeiro, Petrucio Guimaraes' first reaction was to call the police, not the archaeologists.
"After the first centimetre of concrete we started seeing all these bones," said Mr Guimaraes, 58, who had been underpinning his 19th-century home. "I thought it must have been some kind of massacre."

Mr Guimaraes and his wife, Ana de la Merced, had unearthed what is thought to be one of the world's largest slave burial grounds, a mass grave where thousands of corpses were abandoned by Brazil's slave traders in the 18th and 19th centuries.

When the archaeologists arrived at the Cemitério dos Pretos Novos (Cemetery of the New Blacks) in Gamboa they uncovered 5,563 bone fragments and teeth. Experts say as many as 20,000 bodies may have been buried in the area, most of them African men aged 18-25 who had died during the three-month sea journey to Brazil or soon after arriving.

"In truth it was a ditch into which they threw the bodies," said Antonio Carlos Rodrigues, the former president of Rio's black rights council. "When they dug it up you could see skulls on top of other skulls, bodies piled up on each other." Between 1550 and 1888, when slavery was officially abolished, at least 3 million African slaves were shipped to Brazil by the Portuguese. The port district of Gamboa found itself at the centre of this trade. The area was also home to so-called casas de engordo (fattening houses) where slaves were fed before being sent to work in the plantations.
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US intelligence service bugged website visitors despite ban

Suzanne Goldenberg
December 30, 2005

The intelligence service at the centre of the row over eavesdropping tracked visitors to its website, despite US government regulations. Monitoring files, known as "cookies", were discovered by a privacy activist at a time when the White House is on the defensive about its use of the National Security Agency to monitor the communications of US citizens.

Although the cookies were dismantled this week and the NSA issued an apology on Wednesday, the episode will add to pressure on the White House to engage in a national debate about its use of the agency, and its interpretation of the constitutional limits on George Bush's presidential powers.
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Robot Demonstrates Self Awareness

By Tracy Staedter
Dec. 21, 2005

A new robot can recognize the difference between a mirror image of itself and another robot that looks just like it.

This so-called mirror image cognition is based on artificial nerve cell groups built into the robot's computer brain that give it the ability to recognize itself and acknowledge others.

The ground-breaking technology could eventually lead to robots able to express emotions.
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The end of anonymity on the Internet?

By Michael Rogers
Dec. 13, 2005

As the joke goes, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But although anonymity has been part of Internet culture since the first browser, it’s also a major obstacle to making the Web a safe place to conduct business: Internet fraud and identity theft cost consumers and merchants several billion dollars last year. And many of the other more troubling aspects of the Internet, from spam emails to sexual predators, also have their roots in the ease of masking one’s identity in the online world.

Change, however, is on the way. Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, although it is as yet rarely activated. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are.
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Floyd plan would put cameras in the classroom

By Meg Kinnard
Dec. 12, 2005

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Education Superintendent candidate Karen Floyd said Monday she wants to expand video surveillance in South Carolina's schools as part of her plan to address school violence.

She said she is not proposing putting cameras in every classroom, but targeting areas most at-risk. Floyd, who said teachers have told her cameras may be the only way to keep unruly children in check, said she does not have an estimate of the cost.

"The cost of one of these teachers that comes for half a year and leaves your school (because of security issues) is so much higher than the cost of having video surveillance," Floyd, a Republican, said.

Some school districts said they are already using video surveillance, but the equipment is in common areas and on buses, not individual classrooms.
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Group warns bill contains national ID

By Jon Dougherty
December 10, 2005

An umbrella organization of dozens of groups that monitor legislation affecting civil liberties says a new immigration-reform measure contains a provision that could lead to de facto establishment of a national identification scheme.

Officials with Liberty Coalition say the bill, called the "Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act," ominously "creates a dangerous new national identity database system and firmly establishes the predicate for a new national ID card system."

In particular, said the organization, Title VII of the bill contains a requirement that employers compare current and prospective workers' Social Security numbers with a Department of Homeland Security database to ensure they are legally able to work in the United States. If the DHS database doesn't clear the employee, the employer can be fined.
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Fingerprint, iris scans for airport employees

By Kevin Mcgran
Dec. 7, 2005

Canada to use first biometric system in world National system to boost security in wake of 9/11

Canada's airports will be more secure by April, when a $10-million program to fingerprint and scan the irises of the country's 120,000 airport workers is finally in place.

It's the first biometric-based national airport security system in the world, says Mark Duncan, executive vice-president of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, the Crown corporation set up following the 2001 terror attacks in the U.S.
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EU approves data retention rules

The European Parliament has approved rules forcing telephone companies to retain call and internet records for use in anti-terror investigations.
Records will be kept for up to two years under the new measures.

Police will have access to information about calls, text messages and internet data, but not exact call content.

The UK, which pressed European member states to back the rules, said that data was the "golden thread" in terrorist investigations.

The parliament voted by 378 to 197 to approve the bill, which had already been agreed by the assembly's two largest groups, the European People's Party and the Socialists.

Compromises

The measures were proposed by Britain after the bomb attacks in London in July.
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Secure ID in concert with RFID, combining technologies to revolutionize transport

By Gordon Hannah
December 14 2005

Secure personal identification combined with the tracking capabilities of RFID will soon transform secure shipping and cargo transport. Through the use of secure and speedy authentication, organizations can add extra layers of security that add end-user authentication to RFID-enabled asset tracking implementations.

Coupling cargo tracked with RFID and the capabilities of a secure biometric credential will mean that all cargo and all personnel are accounted for and linked together in real time. Administrators will know the last authorized handler of each piece of cargo, where the cargo is in real time, detect deviations en route, and be assured that only those people who are authorized can access sensitive freight, tracking people’s actions and cargo location together.
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E.U. Parliament votes to force "data retention" on telecom, Net firms

From Ralf Bendrath
14 Dec 2005

The European Parliament this morning voted in favour of a backroom deal
that had been made between the two big parties in Brussels and the Council
of Ministers, currently chaired by the UK. The deal completely ignored the
amendmends proposed by the Parliament's Rapporteur and by the Justice and
Civil Liberties Committee that was (well - officialy) in charge of the
process. After a hot debate and a number of signs of cracks in the party
blocks, a majority of 378 parliamentarians voted in favour of mandatory
retention of telecommunications data, 197 against, 30 abstained.

This is in short what we will get now:

- retention of telephone and internet connection data (including email
addresses) and location data for mobile phone calls
- no harmonisation of the retention period (6 to 24 months but longer is
allowed: Poland wants 15 years)
- no harmonisation of cost reimbursement for the needed investments on the
providers' side
- no limitation to certain types of crimes for which access is allowed
- retention of unsuccessful call attempts
- no independent evaluation
- no extra privacy safeguards
- follow-up committee without representation from civil rights organisations
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Earth First! Activists Defend Mountain Lions in Court

by Arizona Indymedia
December 05, 2005

A trial begins this week for two Arizona Earth First! activists for their involvement in the 2004 mountain lion hunt sabotage. They face two felonies and one misdemeanor.



Arizona Earth First! activists Rod Coronado and Matt Crozier each face two felony charges this week as the trial begins for their involvement in the Sabino Canyon mountain lion hunt sabotage in March 2004.

In March and April 2004, Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) carried out a mountain lion hunt in Sabino Canyon, claiming that lions in the area were displaying “aggressive, abnormal, and fearless behavior” towards hikers.

Earth First!, the Center for Biological Diversity, and other local environmental and animal rights’ groups publicly argued against the mountain lion hunt, claiming that AGFD did not have proof that humans, or domestic animals were in danger. The groups blamed the increased interaction between humans and mountain lions on loss of habitat from the Aspen fire and the uncontrolled urban sprawl into the foothills of the Santa Catalina mountains.
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Mice created with human brain cells

By Paul Elias
Dec. 13, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO - Add another creation to the strange scientific menagerie where animal species are being mixed together in ever more exotic combinations. Scientists announced Monday that they had created mice with small amounts of human brain cells in an effort to make realistic models of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease.

Led by Fred Gage of the Salk Institute in San Diego, the researchers created the mice by injecting about 100,000 human embryonic stem cells per mouse into the brains of 14-day-old rodent embryos.
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Internet Censorship

By Wayne Madsen
12-9-5

Internet censorship. It did not happen overnight but slowly came to America's shores from testing grounds in China and the Middle East.

Progressive and investigative journalist web site administrators are beginning to talk to each other about it, e-mail users are beginning to understand why their e-mail is being disrupted by it, major search engines appear to be complying with it, and the low to equal signal-to-noise ratio of legitimate e-mail and spam appears to be perpetuated by it.

In this case, "it," is what privacy and computer experts have long warned about: massive censorship of the web on a nationwide and global scale. For many years, the web has been heavily censored in countries around the world. That censorship continues at this very moment. Now it is happening right here in America.

The agreement by the Congress to extend an enhanced Patriot Act for another four years will permit the political enforcers of the Bush administration, who use law enforcement as their proxies, to further clamp censorship controls on the web.
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VeriMed expands into 68th medical facility

VeriChip Corporation (a subsidiary of Applied Digital) has now agreed to implement its VeriMed patient ID system in three new hospitals (one research centre, one specialised care centre, and one nursing home), bringing the total number of medical facilities adopting the system to 68. The FDA-cleared, human-implantable active RFID tag is based on the company's existing tags that are in use in over 4,000 healthcare, security, industrial, and government applications.
This article is copyright 2005 UsingRFID.com.

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Bloated Patriot Act a political Christmas tree?

By Declan McCullagh
December 12, 2005

What do mandatory drug testing, cigarette taxes and methamphetamine restrictions have to do with protecting America from terrorists? As far as I can tell, the answer is "nothing." But they nevertheless appear in a 219-page proposed law to renew the Patriot Act that Republicans have scheduled for a vote this week.

A fraction--a mere 16 sections--of the Patriot Act's awesome surveillance powers expire Dec. 31. They expanded secret methods the FBI can use to obtain business records; authorized more information sharing between Internet providers and police; and listed computer hacking as an offense permitting increased eavesdropping.
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Big Brother is getting bigger

By Lady Liberty
December 12, 2005

In George Orwell's classic 1984, Big Brother was the personification of Big Government. He was always there to protect citizens and to steer them in the "right" direction "for their own good." To maintain the status quo (i.e. government as the ultimate authority), Orwell's Big Brother did everything from rewriting history and redefining language to engaging in constant prophylactic surveillance of citizens on the streets and in their homes.

In the world of 1984, thorough records were kept on each and every citizen, and paranoia and fear alone ensured that Big Brother's control was absolute even when his technological eyes might randomly be turned elsewhere. Those few who dared rail against such things were re-educated using tools ranging from mere propaganda to outright torture.

Is it any wonder, then, that more and more people are talking about Big Brother these days?

If redefining words or rewriting history is "Big Brotherish," we must take note of recent developments.
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Dark history of mind control Profiles show culture of behaviorists

by Michael O'Donnell
December 11, 2005

In perhaps the most famous psychological experiment of modern times, Stanley Milgram proved that most of us are no better than Nazis. In 1961 the Yale psychologist divided pairs of paid volunteers into test-takers and shock therapists; each wrong answer from the former earned an electric shock by the latter, who could hear but could not see his partner in an adjoining room.
The test-takers were never actually shocked, but were directed to scream and plead as the shock therapists -- ordered to proceed by an authoritative psychologist -- thought they were administering near-lethal zaps. Two-thirds of participants dumbly obeyed the white coat even though they thought they were practically killing an innocent stranger.

The American Psychological Association, appalled at the experiment's effects on participants, stripped Milgram of his membership, but he nonetheless earned a place in history: He later analyzed the My Lai massacre and his name has surfaced repeatedly in discussions of torture at Abu Ghraib.
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New Patriot Act Changes Aim to Further Restrict Protests

By Dan Eggen
December 13, 2005

The American Civil Liberties Union raised objections yesterday to a little-noticed provision of the latest version of the USA Patriot Act bill, arguing that it would give the Secret Service wider latitude to charge protesters accused of disrupting major events including political conventions and the Olympics.

But Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who sponsored the provisions, and his aides said the concerns are misguided. The changes are meant to clear up legal confusion about the Secret Service's role at major events and to ensure that venues are fully secure before the president or other top officials arrive, they said.
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Biometrics is here to stay

By Catherine J. Tilton
December 12 2005

Is it, could it be, the year for biometrics? That has been the hope for many years now, but instead of the "hockey stick" growth that has been hoped for, I believe 2006 will be another year of slow but steady growth.
In addition to the rate of growth, the question of relative growth between the commercial and public sectors is another topic of debate. Prior to 9/11, the analysts predicted that commercial use of biometrics would soon outstrip that in the public sector. Although eventually I believe that will happen due to the larger market and wider array of potential applications of the technology, the focus on security in the public sector has delayed this cross-over point. This is despite the failure to live up to the post-9/11 hype surrounding the technology.
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Australia hit by 'race riots'

Racial tensions erupted into running battles between police and thousands of white youths, many chanting racial slurs against ethnic Middle Easterners, at a beachside suburb in southern Sydney, Australia.

At least 12 people were arrested for assault and other offences and several were injured in alcohol-fuelled fights at Cronulla beach.

"People of Middle Eastern backgrounds that have been seen in the Cronulla area - a swarm of the crowd has approached these people with vile abuse," said Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin.

In TV broadcasts, the rioters were overwhelmingly young white men.

Many carried beer bottles, waved Australian flags and chanted anti-Middle Eastern slogans in response to reports that youths of Lebanese ancestry were responsible for a recent attack on two of the beach's lifeguards.
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Eyewitnesses refute official story in fatal shooting of passenger at Miami airport

By Kate Randall
10 December 2005

In the days since Rigoberto Alpizar was shot and killed while fleeing an American Airlines flight in Miami, no credible evidence has materialized to back the claim by government authorities that the 44-year-old Costa Rican immigrant said he was carrying a bomb in the moments before federal marshals opened fire.

Alpizar was shot dead on Wednesday by air marshals in the jetway of AA Flight 757 after exiting the aircraft. Law enforcement agents blew up Alpizar’s luggage on the tarmac, confirming he was carrying no explosives or other weapons. (See: “Miami airplane shooting: Washington’s ‘war on terrorism’ comes home”).

The official version of events, promoted by the Bush administration and the media in the immediate aftermath, is that this state killing of an innocent man was justified by the “war on terror.” The central assertion to back up this claim is that Alpizar said he had a bomb, and that this posed a terrorist threat. Dave Adams, a spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service, explicitly told the press that Alpizar had “run up and down the aisle yelling, ‘I have a bomb in my bag.’ ”

However, no witnesses—including from among the more than 100 passengers and crew members on board the flight—have come forward publicly to back up this allegation. Instead, numerous passengers have directly contradicted it, even after hours of interrogation and prodding by police authorities in the wake of the shooting.
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80,000 Potential Terrorists Can't Be Right

December 09, 2005

This is just ridiculous:

A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources.

The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.
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Protesters Against High-Speed Train Brutalised by Police

09 Dec 2005



A hundred people protesting in Venaus, Val di Susa Italy, against the high speed railways (Tav) whose construction is scheduled for the next years, were attacked and beaten by 900 policeman on the night of December 5.
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Land occupations labelled as terrorist acts in Brasil

09 Dec 2005

On the 29th of November 2005, the National Congress of Brasil approved a report by Abelardo Lupion(PFL-PR) that labelled land occupations as "terrorist acts", amongst other absurdities. This report (produced by the commision of enquiry into rural violence) was supported by politicians representing the interests of rural landlords. A previous report by João Alfredo (PSOL-CE) was rejected by 13 votes to 8.
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French anti-terror plans to hit cybercafes

September 27, 2005

France is set to approve a series of new anti-terrorism measures including increased use of video-surveillance and improved police access to Internet and mobile telephone records, the interior ministry said Monday.

The draft law, which was drawn up following the July bombings in London, is to be brought before the cabinet on October 19 before starting its passage though parliament, officials said.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was to appear on television Monday evening to explain the proposals, which also include longer prison terms for convicts in terrorist cases.
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Law requires Italian Internet cafes to record ID

ROME, Italy (AP) -- In a heavily immigrant neighborhood near the main railway station, Ahmed Sohel points dejectedly to the empty computer terminals at the modest storefront where he sells Internet and telephone service.

"Before, I was full of Internet clients, now I have no one left," said Sohel, a gentle, middle-aged immigrant from Bangladesh.

A new Italian law requires businesses that offer Internet access to the public, like Sohel's, to ask clients for identification and log the owner's name and the document type.

Internet cafes also must make and keep a photocopy of the ID and be registered with their local police station, dictates the law, part of an anti-terror package approved after the July terrorist bombings in London.
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Centralised ANPR database to retain innocent motorists vehicle movements for 2 years ?

If the Sunday Times is to be believed , a newspaper which has proven itself to be entirely capable of misinterpreting any new technology, the latest NuLabour Police "total surveillance" fantasy involves even more spy cameras on our road network than the thousands of them which are already in place. The article (which like many of their dubvious technoligy feature articles is illustrated by an artist's impression) includes this alarming claim::

"Details of any vehicle passing a camera will be stored in a database for at least two years — even if the owner has not committed an offence"

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Abu Baker Mansha arrested and charged too soon ?

The BBC now reports on the trial of Abu Baker Mansha.

Why is he being tried on terrorism charges at all ?

Threatening to kill or harm a single British soldier is obviously illegal, but it is not an act of terrorism which could influence or terrorise the British public or Government.

From the press reports so far, it seems that there is no evidence of a viable threat to anyone - no weapons, no up to date intelligence about a target, no other co-conspirators etc.

Why have the old investigative principles of Means, Opportunity and Motive been forgotten ?
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Why should the Home Secretary have the power to revoke your British Citizenship without the involvement of a Court ?

The Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill currently in the House of Lords, is typical of a Home Office Bill these days, hugely complicated and containing some evil clauses which try to grab even more unchecked power for the Home Secretary.

For instance:

53 Deprivation of citizenship
(1) For section 40(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981 (c. 61) (deprivation of citizenship: prejudicing UK interests) substitute—

“(2) The Secretary of State may by order deprive a person of a citizenship status if the Secretary of State is satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good.”
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Children Act 2004 centralised databases to cost £244 million to set up ?

The Department for Education and Science has announced how much money it is budgetting for to create the controversial centralised databse on all 12 million or so Children in England and Wales (and on all their parents or guardians as well), under section 12 of the Children Act 2004.

1. Section 12 of the Children Act 2004 gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations to require the establishment and operation of IS Index. Regulations and guidance will set out the detail of how the index will operate.
There are widespread fears about this massive Centralised Database, which, amonst other things will destroy the confidentiality of professional medical, social worker or legal advisors to Children:
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Last week of 5 year struggle against data retention?

7 December, 2005

After 5 years of fighting against plans for mandatary data retention, EDRI is astonished to see a majority in the European Parliament ready to adopt a law decreeing very broad and long retention of telephony and internet traffic data, with access granted for all sorts of undefined crimes. Please visit the special Campaign WIKI for all last-minute updates and relevant documents.
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Clarkson University Engineer Outwits High-Tech Fingerprint Fraud

By: Clarkson University
Dec 10, 2005

Eyeballs, a severed hand, or fingers carried in ziplock bags. Back alley eye replacement surgery. These are scenarios used in recent blockbuster movies like Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" and "Tomorrow Never Dies" to illustrate how unsavory characters in high-tech worlds beat sophisticated security and identification systems.

Sound fantastic? Maybe not. Biometrics is the science of using biological properties, such as fingerprints, an iris scan, or voice recognition, to identify individuals. And in a world of growing terrorism concerns and increasing security measures, the field of biometrics is rapidly expanding.
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Worker Privacy: You Have None

By Joanna Glasner
Dec. 09, 2005

If you have internet access at work, there's a very good chance your employer has a system in place to monitor your online activities.

So, if you're concerned about privacy, take heed. Under current U.S. law, there's little you can do to protect the confidentiality of your internet use on the job. Here's a rundown of the rights you don't have at work.
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Activist convicted under demo law

7 December 2005

A peace campaigner has been convicted under a new law banning unauthorised protests from taking place within half a mile of Westminster.

Maya Anne Evans, 25, a vegan cook from Hastings, was found guilty of breaching Section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.

She was arrested in October after reading out names of soldiers killed in Iraq at central London's Cenotaph.
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German State Spying on Journalists

By Howard Hudson
November 15, 2005

A new row over press freedom is causing major waves in Germany. Head of the federal intelligence agency (Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND), August Hanning, last week admitted that several journalists, scientists and public figures had been spied on by the German secret services between 1993 and 1998. And more recently, Cicero magazine and German daily Der Speigel have complained about surveillance and harassment.
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Total Surveillance

Interview: New consumer-tracking technology threatens to make personal privacy a thing of the past.

Katherine Albrecht
By Michael Beckel
December 6, 2005

Imagine a future in which your every belonging is marked with a unique number identifiable with the swipe of a scanner; where your refrigerator keeps track of its contents; where the location of your car is always pinpoint-able; and where signal-emitting microchips storing personal information are implanted beneath your skin or embedded in your inner organs.

This is the future of radio frequency identification (RFID), a technology whose application has so far been limited largely to supply-chain management (enabling companies, for example, to keep track of the quantity of a given product they have in stock). RFID is set to be applied in a whole range of consumer settings. Already being tested in products as innocuous as shampoo, lip balm, razor blades, and cream cheese, RFID-enabled items are promoted by retailers and marketers as the next revolution in customer convenience. Consumer advocates say this is paving the way for a nightmarish future where personal privacy is a quaint throwback.
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Let's See Some I.D.

By Maria Luisa Tucker
December 9, 2005.

We humans are generally compliant creatures. We follow the path of least resistance, even if it's not to our advantage. We halt at stop signs even when there are no other cars around for miles. We unquestioningly accept the small "service fee" tacked on to our bills without knowing exactly what they are for. We are sheep who follow the herd -- most of us, most of the time.

This is the story of one rogue sheep.

Deborah Davis, a 50-year-old mother of four, is by all accounts an ordinary woman who worries about ordinary things like her mortgage and the safety of her middle son, who is a soldier in Iraq. To save money, she rides the bus to work in Denver, Colorado. That is, she used to ride the bus to work, until one morning in September when she dared to do what my favorite bumper sticker urges people to do: Question Authority.
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Deportation is Freedom!

By Jenny Bourne
7 December 2005

A new book castigates immigration controls for their Orwellian connotations.

On 18 October 2005, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that deportations to Zimbabwe put failed asylum seekers at risk and should cease. The end of the matter, you would think. And yet, last week, the case of RA was being heard at York House in Feltham, West London. This middle-aged Zimbabwean woman and her young daughter had both been raped by ZANU PF troops. Mrs RA fled to the UK, where she learnt that she was HIV positive. Back in Zimbabwe, her daughter tested positive too. Just days before the hearing, RA heard that her daughter was dying. She was absolutely distraught. The lawyer explained this to the immigration judge. The response was: 'Yes I know the circumstances of your client, but why isn't she here today?'
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Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam: History out of Media Bounds

By Norman Solomon
Thursday 08 December 2005

Christmas came 11 days early for Donald Rumsfeld two years ago, when the news broke that American forces had pulled Saddam Hussein from a spidery hole. During interviews about the capture, on CBS and ABC, the Pentagon's top man was upbeat. And he didn't have to deal with a question that Lesley Stahl or Peter Jennings could have logically chosen to ask: "Secretary Rumsfeld, you met with Saddam almost exactly 20 years ago and shook his hand. What kind of guy was he?"
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Debt: What Is It?

by "Jesuit"
LibertyForum.org

There's two types of debt.

Secured and Unsecured.

Secured debt has collateral. Most credit cards are unsecured, meaning no collateral, other than the borrower's promise. So if a borrower cannot repay unsecured debt, the CC company writes it off as uncollectable and probably sells the note to a debt collection agency or has some other arrangement with a debt collection agency to get back as much of the loan as they can. The thing you have to understand, in this situation, is called "orginination", that is, who actually created the money to facilitate the loan. To your suprise, it is not the bank, but you. You create the note, the bank gives you notes (Federal Reserve Notes) or items from purchases denominated in Federal Reserve Notes. Federal Reserve Notes are created out of nothing.
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European governments make their peace with Washington on abductions, torture

By Chris Marsden
9 December 2005

European ministers have signalled an end to any pretence of opposing America’s practice of rendition, which involves shipping detainees abroad to be tortured—using European airports and even CIA bases located in eastern Europe.

Following a formal dinner in Brussels on December 7, in advance of the next day’s meeting of NATO foreign ministers, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium all proclaimed themselves satisfied with reassurances by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the US abides by the Geneva Convention in its treatment of prisoners.
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E-Pasports are coming, but standards acceptance may take longer

By Gil Bernabeu
December 8 2005

A panel of ID industry experts provided predictions for 2006. One of these glimpses into the future will appear here each day during December.

Next year (2006) will see the first deployment and pilots of e-passport schemes based upon the International Civil Aviation Authorities (ICAO) specifications. Designed to enhance both global border control and homeland security, the new standards will tighten border security, reduce card counterfeiting and provide officials with detailed information on a rapidly changing and migrating population.

As the industry has now formally adopted ICAO specifications as the standard for the integration of contactless smart card chips and biometric information into passports, efforts have focused on creating a standardized infrastructure to support worldwide access across borders.
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Indala Produces 22,000 smart cards for use by Microsoft employees worldwide

Thursday, December 8 2005

Indala Corp. has begun phase two (of four) to supply Microsoft employees worldwide smart cards allowing them to gain access to their offices or computers. The new cards, with more memory, will also allow employees to use the cards in vending machines and in the company cafeterias.
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Viisage wins competitive contract to help the United Kingdom test biometric identity solutions for Its driver's license

Thursday, December 8 2005

The United Kingdom may start using facial recognition technology for its citizens' driver's licenses, if a pilot program offered to Viisage is successful. Purpose of the UK trial is to determine if its Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency's extensive database of facial images from driver license applications can be used for machine-assisted face recognition.
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Lifestyles may lead to loss of treatment

Sam Jones
Friday December 9, 2005
The Guardian

Patients who smoke, drink too much or are obese could be denied medical help if their lifestyle is likely to undermine their treatment, the government's health treatment watchdog said yesterday.

A report published by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) said: "If the self-inflicted cause of the condition will influence the likely outcome of a particular treatment, then it may be appropriate to take this into account in some circumstances."
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The future (if you want it to be)

Traveling Sheep

by Robert Higgs
December 5 2005

The Transportation Security Administration has changed the rules of its airport-security system just in time to create extra hassle for the millions of busy holiday travelers. More travelers will be subjected to random pat-downs. Screeners will routinely grope the thighs of attractive women. Security officers, now trained in "behavior recognition," will identify travelers who seem nervous (imagine that, somebody running the airport-security gauntlet and appearing nervous) and pull them aside for bonus hassling.
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Europe plans to track all emails and phone calls

December 4, 2005

EUROPEAN ministers have agreed on plans that will force telecommunications companies to retain phone and email logs for at least six months, to help investigations into terrorism and other serious crimes.

"It is an essential tool for law enforcement," said British Home Secretary Charles Clarke, who chaired the ministers' meeting.
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Google search and seizure

By Robert Kuttner
December 3, 2005

THE NEW York Times recently reported that in a North Carolina strangulation-murder trial, prosecutors introduced as evidence the fact that the defendant's Google searches had included the words ''neck" and ''snap." The Times noted that the evidence had come from the defendant's home computer, but could just as easily have come from Google.

Google's whole business-model includes keeping track of users' searches by putting ''cookies" (tracking devices) on users' own computers, and then using the results to customize ad offerings that pop up when we use their ingenious free search service.
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Will that be cash, credit — or finger?

By Kathy Chu
12/1/2005

In need of toothpaste and ice, Laura Wadsworth dashed into a supermarket Monday in Mount Pleasant, S.C. She didn't bring her wallet. Wadsworth paid by touching her index finger to a scanner. Ten seconds later, she was out the door.
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Judge OKs bag searches on NYC subway

By Jonathan Stempel
Dec 2, 2005

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge ruled on Friday that police had a constitutional right to randomly search passengers' bags on the New York City subway to deter terrorist attacks.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman ruled the searches were an effective and appropriate means to fight terrorism, and constituted only a "minimal intrusion" of privacy.
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Secret ID Law to Get Hearing

By Ryan Singel
Dec. 07, 2005

Although John Gilmore lives just five blocks from San Francisco's Department of Motor Vehicles, his driver's license is expired. On purpose.

The outspoken, techno-hippie, wealthy civil libertarian doesn't want to give his Social Security number to the DMV.

Neither will he show his driver's license at airports, or submit to routine security searches. This refusal to obey the rules led him to file suit against the Bush administration (Gilmore v. Gonzales) after being rebuffed at two different airports on July 4, 2002, when he tried to fly without showing identification. One airline offered to let Gilmore fly without showing ID, but only if he underwent more intensive security screening, which he declined.
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Face It: Privacy Is Endangered

By Jennifer Granick
Dec. 07 2005

In the 1997 flick Face/Off, John Travolta wears Nicolas Cage's face in order to infiltrate Cage's criminal gang. Last week, movie fantasy became medical reality when a team of French doctors successfully performed the first partial face transplant on a woman who had been mauled by a dog.

It's a timely development, because new facial-recognition technology is moving us toward surveillance that is unnoticeable, distributed, persistent, searchable and cheap. And as the technology's effectiveness improves, a new face may be the only way to preserve some semblance of privacy.

A great example of the state of the art comes from a new company called Riya, which recently launched a beta facial-recognition service for the masses.
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ID systems for Macedonia

December 6 2005

Giesecke & Devrient has been awaded an 11-year, 23.5 million euro contract to supply 500,000 driver's licenses, 1.8 million personal ID cards, and 1.5 million electronic passports to Macedonia. The republic is one of the first Eastern European countries to introduce a passport containing a chip (e-passport).
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Neil Bush Meets the Messiah

By John Gorenfeld
December 5, 2005.

Those who stray from the heavenly way," the owner of the flagship Republican newspaper the Washington Times admonished an audience in Taipei on Friday, "will be punished."

This "heavenly way," the Rev. Sun Myung Moon explained, demands a 51-mile underwater highway spanning Alaska and Russia. Sitting in the front row: Neil Bush, the brother of the president of the United States.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the South Korean giant of the religious right who owns the Washington Times, is on a 100-city speaking tour to promote his $200 billion "Peace King Tunnel" dream. As he describes it, the tunnel would be both a monument to his magnificence, and a totem to his prophecy of a unified Planet Earth. In this vision, the United Nations would be reinvented as an instrument of God's plan, and democracy and sexual freedom would crumble in the face of this faith-based glory.
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Rat Brains Fly Planes

By Philip Sherwell
Washington
December 7, 2004

It sounds like science fiction: a brain nurtured in a Petri dish learns to pilot a fighter plane as scientists develop a new breed of "living" computer. But in groundbreaking experiments in a Florida laboratory that is exactly what is happening.
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Perspective: E-tracking, coming to a DMV near you

By Declan McCullagh
December 5, 2005

Trust federal bureaucrats to take a good idea and transform it into a frightening proposal to track Americans wherever they drive.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has been handing millions of dollars to state governments for GPS-tracking pilot projects designed to track vehicles wherever they go. So far, Washington state and Oregon have received fat federal checks to figure out how to levy these "mileage-based road user fees."

Now electronic tracking and taxing may be coming to a DMV near you. The Office of Transportation Policy Studies, part of the Federal Highway Administration, is about to announce another round of grants totaling some $11 million. A spokeswoman on Friday said the office is "shooting for the end of the year" for the announcement, and more money is expected for GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking efforts.
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Museum Exhibit Supresses Darwin's Real Views on Eugenics, Race, and Capitalism

While the newsmedia lavish praise on the new Darwin exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, no one seems to have noticed that the museum is presenting a thoroughly sanitized portrait of Charles Darwin, completely suppressing Darwin's real views on such troubling issues as eugenics and race.

According to the online version of the exhibit, far from being a "Social Darwinist," Mr. Darwin is supposed to have been a passionate egalitarian who would have been horrified by any application of his theory to social and political issues. The exhibit proclaims:

"Darwin passionately opposed social injustice and oppression. He would have been dismayed to see the events of generations to come: his name attached to opposing ideologies from Marxism to unbridled capitalism, and to policies from ethnic cleansing to forced sterilization. Whether used to rationalize social inequality, racism or eugenics, so-called Social Darwinist theories are a gross misreading of the ideas first described in the Origin of Species Species and applied in modern biology. [emphasis added]"

In reality, Charles Darwin was an early booster of both eugenics and the application of his biological theory to issues of race and economics. Darwin's book The Descent of Man has an entire section devoted to the application of natural selection to civilized societies. Darwin's discussion opens with the following remarkable complaint, which was echoed again and again by later eugenists:
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Gulf of Tonkin Lie No Longer a 'Conspiracy Theory'

BY Calvin Woodward
December 2, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A spy-agency analysis released Thursday contends a second attack on U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin never happened, casting further doubt on the leading rationale for escalation of the Vietnam War.

The mishandling of intercepted communications 41 years earlier is blamed in the National Security Agency paper for giving President Johnson carte blanche in the conflict.

The agency put out more than 140 long-secret documents in response to requests from researchers trying to get to the bottom of an episode that unfolded in the South China Sea on Aug. 4, 1964, and has been disputed since.(...)

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I Am Become Battle, How White Be My Tears

by Dark Wraith
03/12/05

A generation and several of my lifetimes ago, becoming a soldier was for me supposed to be the turning point into manhood. I would be able to stand proudly before relatives who thought me weak, I would be able to crush those who had hurt me when I was a boy. Never again would I be a child: the military would make me a giant.

The wait at the disembarkation center went on for hours and hours, but the training would soon start. A bus would take us all to the place where good, strong men would show us all how to be good, strong men. They would teach us. They would be stern, but they would help us learn the ways of bravery, honor, and manliness. Those sergeants would be good to us, and their lessons would be good for us. The recruiter told me I'd do fine.

The bus driver talked with a corporal as we went down the road from the center to the base. Every now and then, that corporal would make some oblique comment back to us about how we were about to "get it," or something like that. He and the bus driver would start laughing almost hysterically.

After we went through the base gates, the bus driver pulled up to a group of uniformed men wearing big, Smokey-the-Bear type of hats. As soon as the bus stopped, the world changed. All at once, the door opened, the corporal stood up and started screaming at us, and what seemed like every one of those men who had been waiting for us suddenly boarded the bus yelling and cursing.

"Get your fuckin' gear and get off this bus NOW!"
"What th' fuck are you waiting for, little girl?!"
"Move yer ass, you fairy!"
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France: Anti-terrorism legislation tramples on civil liberties

By Antoine Lerougetel
5 December 2005

The French National Assembly voted on November 29 to back Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy’s new anti-terror bill.

The bill vastly increases the state’s powers of electronic surveillance of its citizens through the use of closed-circuit cameras in public places, the recording and monitoring of Internet activity, and the retention of data that must be made available to the state.

It was passed by 373 votes in favour (by the ruling UMP [Union for a Popular Movement] and the centre-right UDF [Union for French Democracy]). The Socialist Party abstained. The 27 votes cast against the bill were those of the Communist Party, three Greens and just three Socialist Party deputies.(...)

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EU ministers approve biometric ID, fingerprint data sharing

By John Lettice
Published Thursday 1st December 2005

The European biometric ID card takes another step forward this week, with the European Justice and Home Affairs Council set to approve "minimum security standards" for national ID cards. Alongside this the Council will be roadmapping the rollout of Europe's biometric visa system, which will contain the fingerprints of 70 million people within the next few years, and hearing European Commission proposals for greater sharing of fingerprint data.(...)

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Bush’s Fascist Valhalla

By Mike Whitney

The strategy to militarize the country is moving forward as planned despite apparent setbacks in Iraq. As the Washington Post reported on Nov. 27 the Dept of Defense is expanding its domestic surveillance activity to allow Pentagon spies to track down and “investigate crimes within the United States”.

An alarmed Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore) said, “We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without a congressional hearing”.

Is this the first time that the naïve Wyden realized that the war on terror is actually directed at the American people?

The expanded powers of the Pentagon were presented in a proposal by a presidential commission headed by Lawrence Silberman and former Senator Charles Robb, two members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the 9-11 “whitewash” commission. The CFR, a 4,000 member amalgam of elites from the military, industry and media, was the driving force behind the Iraq war, as well as, enthusiastic advocates of the national security state. Their recommendations will allow the military to assume the traditional role of law enforcement and by giving it the authority to “carry out domestic criminal investigations and clandestine operations against potential threats inside the United States”.

Oh, yeah; and the Pentagon will be involved in the “apprehension, or detention of individuals suspected” of criminal offenses.(...)

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New spyware gives drivers a brake

By JEFF GRAY
Monday, November 28, 2005

GPS-linked boxes hold cars to speed limit

It's the last thing many motorists would want -- a permanent, electronic back-seat driver, forcefully reminding them not to speed.

But Transport Canada is road-testing cutting-edge devices that use global positioning satellite technology and a digital speed-limit map to know when a driver is speeding, and to try to make them stop.

When a driver hits a certain percentage above the posted speed limit, the device kicks in and makes it difficult to press the accelerator.

While the idea appeals to some road-safety experts, even the researcher in charge of the project admits many drivers -- some of whom have shown fierce resistance to photo-radar and red-light cameras -- may balk at the science-fiction scenario of a machine forcing them to apply the brakes.(...)

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