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L'Autre Monde 18 novembre 2010: La déshumanisation et la venue de l'ère de l'éthique
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L'Autre Monde 18 novembre 2010: La déshumanisation et la venue de l'ère de l'éthique
Pour écouter, ou pour télécharger, simplement cliquer sur le lien ici:
L'Autre Monde 18 novembre 2010
90 min / Radio de l'UQAM, CHOQ FM
 | Diffusion en direct : Jeudi à 11:00h
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Au programme cette semaine, 18 novembre 2010:
- Les porno-scanners corporels et la révolte qui se fait sentir de partout,
- Harper prolonge la présence militaire en Afghanistan jusqu'en 2014,
- Économie, manipulations massives du marché des métaux précieux et les banquiers privés
- Actualité mondiale.
Soyez de la partie les jeudis dès 11h sur les ondes de CHOQ FM, la radio officielle de l'UQÀM, l'alternative à Montréal et dans le monde!
***Hyperliens vers les sources des informations discutées sur l'émission d'aujourd'hui:
Actualité:
L'internet est une révolution.
Mais qu'arriverait-t-il si un jour quelqu'un en autorité décide de le désactiver ou d'en prendre le contrôle absolu?
Le fait est que les citoyens ne sont pas propriétaires des infrastructures du réseau et disposent donc de peu d'arguments pour se faire entendre. Certains parlent de l'urgence de créer des infrastructures de réseautique citoyennes, bref un réseau internet parallèle. En voici un exemple, le projet Dead Drop, extrêmement primitif, mais un premier pas pointant vers la direction à prendre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3pKF6gREFw
Dead Drops: When US Cyber Command Pulls the Net:
http://redactednews.blogspot.com/2010/11/dead-drops-when-us-cyber-command-pulls.html
Mille raisons de ne pas faire confiance aux « autorités »
Harper pense à demeurer en Afghanistan jusqu’en 2014
Pourquoi sommes-nous en Afghanistan? Est-ce qu’on s’en rappelle? Cela fait si longtemps que nous y sommes qu’on en vient qu’à se demander ce qu’on fait encore là, quelle est notre « mission », quel est le but de tout cela. Pendant qu’on se pose ces questions, le secteur de l’armement et militaire privé fait des tonnes de profits, car disons-le clairement, ces guerres en Irak et en Afghanistan sont semi-privées. Il y a autant, sinon plus, de personnel provenant de compagnies privées qu’il y a de soldats réguliers et de personnel militaire reliés à l’armée. Lorsque des guerres rapportent autant au secteur privé, il va sans dire qu’ils ont tout intérêt à ce que ces guerres s’éternisent le plus longtemps possible. Ils sont sur la bonne voie: la guerre en Afghanistan a déjà duré plus longtemps que la Deuxième guerre mondiale et la guerre du Vietnam; un fait qui est loin d’être anodin.
Le Canada a commencé sa participation à cette guerre et occupation militaire à la fin de 2001. Depuis, il a été bien établi que cette guerre est simplement illégale et immorale. Le gouvernement canadien nous avait vendu le concept en se drapant des couleurs fades de la défense de la démocratie, de vouloir aider les femmes opprimées et de défaire les Talibans maléfiques que les États-Unis avaient auparavant laissé prendre le pouvoir, ces Talibans qu’ils accusaient alors de cacher le vilain Ossama Bin Laden, ou Tim Osman, l’homme de la CIA.
Depuis, le Canada nous avait promis de se retirer rapidement un coup la mission accomplie. Résultat, les femmes sont en pire situation qu’avant 2001, les Talibans contrôlent presque tout le territoire et les troupes de l’OTAN subissent des pertes de vie grandissante, avec 2009 et 2010 étant les pires années depuis le début de cette mésaventure colonialiste et impériale. La majorité des Canadiens et surtout des Québécois étant contre la participation infâme de nos troupes à occupation de l’Afghanistan, le gouvernement canadien nous propose des échéanciers pour se retirer, mais chaque fois que la date butoir arrive, il décide, contre notre gré, de poursuivre et de demeurer en Afghanistan quelques années de plus.
La dernière fois, le Premier ministre Stephen Harper avait promis de retirer les troupes canadiennes en 2011, mais voilà qu’encore une fois, les autorités songent à garder sur place des centaines de soldats jusqu’en 2014. La mission doit se poursuivre. Cette fois, les soldats auraient un rôle hors-combat, d’entrainement des forces afghanes en coopération avec l’OTAN. La décision pourrait être prise rapidement pour régler la question en vue du sommet des dirigeants de l’OTAN à Lisbonne, Portugal, le 18 novembre prochain.
Le chat sort du sac : les troupes canadiennes resteront en Afghanistan
Montréal, 11 novembre 2010. Venant du gouvernement canadien dont la politique étrangère est la plus calquée sur celle des États-Unis depuis des décennies, le Collectif Échec à la guerre n’a jamais trouvé crédibles les déclarations conservatrices des derniers mois annonçant le retrait total des troupes canadiennes de l’Afghanistan à partir de juillet 2011. Le chat est enfin sorti du sac, à quelques jours du prochain Sommet de l’OTAN à Lisbonne.
Mais l’argument, maintenant repris en chœur, d’un changement de cap du gouvernement Harper en raison des « pressions de l’OTAN » n’est pas plus crédible. Bien sûr, de telles pressions sont exercées sur le Canada depuis plusieurs mois. Mais elles sont essentiellement le fait de deux pays – les États-Unis et le Royaume-Uni – dont le gouvernement Harper partage par ailleurs entièrement la vision concernant la poursuite de l’intervention de l’OTAN en Afghanistan et ailleurs dans le monde. Dans les faits, les « pressions de l’OTAN » sont tour à tour invoquées par tous les gouvernements occidentaux, pour se donner une fausse légitimité dans la poursuite d’une guerre que toutes leurs opinions publiques rejettent par ailleurs, sondage après sondage.
Ce n’est pas d’un mini-débat théâtral à la Chambre des Communes dont nous avons besoin, mais d’une vaste consultation publique sur la politique étrangère que souhaite la population canadienne et sur la place que devraient ou non y occuper les interventions de l’armée canadienne. C’est pour tendre vers cet objectif que se tiendra, à Montréal, un Sommet populaire contre la guerre et le militarisme du 19 au 21 novembre prochains.
Ottawa police stripped innocent woman and left her in cell
OTTAWA-A judge has condemned a handful of Ottawa police officers for subjecting a female prisoner to “an indignity” in a strip search of the young woman, who had her shirt and bra cut off by a male officer, only to be left partially clad in soiled pants in a jail cell for three hours.
Moments before Stacy Bonds, a 27-year-old theatrical make-up artist with no criminal record, was stripped of her clothes by Sgt. Steve Desjourdy, she was also the victim of “two extremely violent knee hits in the back by Special Constable (Melanie) Morris, and (had) her hair pulled back and her face shoved forward,” Justice Richard Lajoie said.
A police station videotape had captured the events of Sept. 26, 2008.
PLUS DE 100 000 QUÉBÉCOIS DEMANDENT LA DÉMISSION DE JEAN CHAREST!
Tout le monde le sait, le nombre de signataires de la pétition demandant à Jean Charest, Premier ministre du Québec, de démissionner, a dépassé hier le cap des 175 000 signataires.
Certains diront, «Mais qu’est-ce que ça vaut 175 000 signataires sur quelques millions de Québécois?»…., et je leur réponds d’emblée que ça vaut toujours mieux que ces sondages bidons Léger& Léger, dont les répondants ne dépassent jamais les «1000 et 1», avec de soit disant marges d’erreur de 1% à 3%…
Et malgré cet aveu populaire majeur, le PM Jean Charest balai tout cela du revers de la main, perpétuant son refus de tenir une enquête publique indépendante, ajoutant plutôt 15 enquêteurs à l’escouade «Marteau», qui elle-même, demande cette enquête publique indépendante pour faire avancer ses travaux, via les autres corps policiers.
Mais qu’importe, puisque de toute évidence, l’enquête publique indépendante semble déjà entamée, du moins, on note que les délateurs se succèdent aux micros des médias, sentant peu à peu une sécurisation médiatique, que ne veut pas leur concéder l’État sous l’emprise libérale.
Et qu’importe si le «parrain de la famille libérale», pour paraphraser le populiste Deltell, impose la loi du silence à ses sujets, même ces derniers se commettent devant les médias, sentant de leur part plus de soutien que de la part de leur propre chef, celui du Parti Libéral du Québec.
Pétition : Demande de démission du premier ministre du Québec
https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/exprimez-votre-opinion/petition/Petition-1123/index.html
Pour signer cette pétition, vous devez compléter 3 étapes :
- Étape 1 : remplissez le formulaire sous le texte de la pétition et envoyez-le (vous devez accepter les conditions à respecter pour pouvoir signer la pétition avant d’envoyer le formulaire).
- Étape 2 : consultez votre boîte de courriels et ouvrez le message envoyé par l’Assemblée.
- Étape 3 : dans ce message, cliquez sur le lien vous permettant d’enregistrer votre signature.
Vous ne pouvez signer la même pétition qu’une seule fois.
Texte de la pétition
CONSIDÉRANT QUE le premier ministre du Québec, député de Sherbrooke, et le gouvernement libéral refusent d’accéder à la demande populaire et des différents partis de l'opposition concernant la mise sur pied d'une commission d'enquête publique sur les liens étroits entre le financement des partis politiques et l'octroi des contrats gouvernementaux;
CONSIDÉRANT QUE le premier ministre du Québec, député de Sherbrooke, et le gouvernement libéral refusent d’accéder à la demande populaire et des différents partis de l'opposition concernant la mise sur pied d'un moratoire sur les gaz de schiste;
CONSIDÉRANT QUE le premier ministre du Québec, député de Sherbrooke, et le gouvernement libéral refusent de négocier, malgré l'opposition d'une forte majorité de la population québécoise, quant aux orientations du gouvernement et aux mesures prévues dans le budget deux mille dix;
Les signataires de cette pétition demandent la démission du député de Sherbrooke en tant que chef du gouvernement et premier ministre du Québec.
Date limite pour signer 15 février 2011
Harper extends Canadian Afghan mission with 'reluctance'
By The Canadian Press
SEOUL, South Korea - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he decided with some "reluctance" to reconsider his decision to pull Canadian troops out of Afghanistan next year.
Speaking on the sidelines of meetings of the G20 leaders, Harper said he told his NATO allies in no uncertain terms that Canada's combat role is coming to an end.
But he said he sees merit in the argument that Afghan troops aren't ready to stand on their own, and Canada could help in their training.
"I do this with some reluctance but I think this is the best decision, when one looks at the options," he said.
"Look, I'm not going to kid you. Down deep my preference would be, would have been to see a complete end to the military mission."
Until now, Harper has insisted that Canadians will withdraw by July 2011. But NATO countries have been lobbying for months to persuade Harper to change his mind.
Harper said Thursday he did not succumb to pressure, but decided to reconsider based on the fact that the Afghans aren't ready for Canada to leave.
"I don't want to risk the gains that Canadian soldiers have fought for and have sacrificed in such significant numbers by pulling out too early, if we can avoid that."
Harper acknowledged he has been under pressure by NATO allies to continue in a combat role, but a training role was the most he could agree to.
Sources have told The Canadian Press the government is considering sending 600 to 1,000 soldiers to Kabul until 2014 to bolster NATO training efforts.
"I think if we can continue a smaller mission that involves just training, I think frankly that presents minimal risks to Canada, but it helps us to ensure the gains that we've made," Harper said.
Harper says Afghan extension doesn't require vote
By The Canadian Press
SEOUL, South Korea - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he sees no need to put the extension of the Afghanistan mission before Parliament.
Speaking in Seoul, South Korea during the G20 summit, he said any combat mission should seek the support of Parliament, for the sake of legitimacy.
But for a technical mission such as the one he is contemplating for Canadian troops between 2011 and 2014, Harper says a decision made by the prime minister should suffice.
"If you're going to put troops into combat, into a war situation, I do think for the sake of legitimacy, I do think the government does require the support of Parliament. But when we're talking simply about technical or training missions, I do think that's something the executive can do on its own," Harper said.
Harper added however that he wouldn't stand in the way of attempts by the opposition to discuss the extension.
Harper noted that the Liberals have been in favour of extending the mission, so Canadian troops can help train Afghan forces.
"If they have any specific ideas they want to share, I'm not resistant to having debates on that matter in the House of Commons," Harper said. "But I do think that when it comes to decisions such as this, the government has to be able to be free to act."
White House To Start Publicly Moving Away From Afghan Withdrawal Date
The Obama administration has decided to begin publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to de-emphasize President Barack Obama's pledge that he'd begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011, administration and military officials have told McClatchy.
The new policy will be on display next week during a conference of NATO countries in Lisbon, Portugal, where the administration hopes to introduce a timeline that calls for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan by 2014, the year when Afghan President Hamid Karzai once said Afghan troops could provide their own security, three senior officials told McClatchy, along with others speaking anonymously as a matter of policy.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Were I a betting human being, I would not bet on the security situation in Afghanistan being any substantially better in 2014 than it is today.
What the Obama administration is doing here is making Afghanistan the next US president's mess to fix, and in so doing, sprinting away from his promise to the American people to begin a drawdown of troops in July of 2011.
Whatever elements of the political spectrum you embrace, please remember that in November of 2010.
Its over: US NATO formally announcing ‘transition’ to Afghan withdrawal
The Obama administration and its NATO allies will declare late this week that the war in Afghanistan has made sufficient progress to begin turning security control over to its government by spring, months before the administration’s July deadline to start withdrawing U.S. troops, according to U.S. and European officials.
Even as it announces the “transition” process, which will not immediately include troop withdrawals, NATO will also state its intention to keep combat troops in Afghanistan until 2014, a date originally set by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Webmaster's Commentary:
IF true, this report indicates that the "withdrawal" will be just as cosmetic as was the alleged "withdrawal" in Iraq, where Americans are still getting killed and maimed for life.
If this happens, it will simply be a gimmick to trick the American people into thinking that the war is really going to be substantially concluded by the next presidential election, which it will not be.
Hillary Clinton confirms, US trained Osama Bin Laden
Mrs. Hillary Clinton has officially admitted that the US trained Osama Bin Laden. In the ABC show she was saying that Pakistan supported the Taliban, and had changed its mind since 2001.
“That is changing… Now, I cannot sit here and tell you that it has changed, but that is changing,” she told ABC News in an interview, the transcripts of which was released by the State Department.
Ms. Clinton accepted that the U.S. had created certain radical outfits and supported terrorists like Osama bin Laden to fight against the erstwhile Soviet Union, but that backing has boomeranged. “Part of what we are fighting against right now, the United States created. We created the Mujahidin force against the Soviet Union (in Afghanistan). We trained them, we equipped them, we funded them, including somebody named Osama bin Laden. And it didn’t work out so well for us,” she said.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Really, I thought Osama did an excellent job of scaring Americans into supporting invasion and conquest! Except for that part about dying in 2001 he would have been very useful indeed! :P
Noam Chomsky: No Evidence that Al-Qaeda Carried Out the 9/11 Attacks
Finally he changes his story on 9-11.
Chomsky Admits No Evidence Fake al-Qaeda Carried Out 9/11
Renowned Jewish-American scholar Noam Chomsky says US invasion of Afghanistan was illegal since to date there is no evidence that al-Qaeda has carried out the 9/11 attacks.
Amérique du Sud:
Cholera In Haiti Capital Confirmed
A cholera epidemic has spread into Haiti's capital, imperiling nearly 3 million people living in Port-au-Prince, nearly half of them in unsanitary tent camps for the homeless from the Jan. 12 earthquake.
Health authorities told The Associated Press on Monday that tests confirmed a 3-year-old boy who hadn't been out of the city had caught the disease. More than 100 other suspected cholera cases among city residents also were being tested.
The outbreak has already killed at least 544 people in Haiti, Health Ministry Executive Director Gabriel Timothee told the AP.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Oddly, there seems to be no real will on the part of the international community or the US to send the level of assistance the Haitian people so desperately need to but the brakes on this epidemic.
Haiti cholera cases detected in Port-au-Prince
Five cases of cholera have been detected in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, the UN says, amid an outbreak that has killed more than 200 people.
More than a million survivors of Haiti's devastating January earthquake are crowded into tent cities around Port-au-Prince with poor sanitary conditions and little access to clean drinking water
Webmaster's Commentary:
Given the poor quality of sanitation in Port-Au-Prince, this infection may well spread like wildfire.
Haiti cholera toll tops 250, but some slowing seen
Porno-Scanners corporels
Michael Chertoff's Company Manufactures TSA Naked Scanners
Since the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports.
What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. Chertoff disclosed the relationship on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.
Chertoff ordered the full-body scanners when he was Homeland Security head BEFORE THE CROTCH BOMBER INCIDENT - Now he profits from them
On a plus de chance de mourir frappé par la foudre que par terrorisme, mais mainteant il faudrait se taper des scanners porno cancérigènes, mutagènes, une humiliation et brèche grossière dans nos droits pour ça?
GOP Rep.: "Body Scanners Are A Violation Of The Fourth Amendment"
Guess who ordered nude body scanners
A constitutional attorney preparing to legally challenge the Transportation Security Administration's enhanced screening procedures – which reveal a virtually nude image of passengers – says airline passengers have Barack Obama to thank for the process.
A constitutional attorney preparing to legally challenge the Transportation Security Administration's enhanced screening procedures – which reveal a virtually nude image of passengers – says airline passengers have Barack Obama to thank for the process.
"Legislation has been proposed to mandate full-body scanners and make them the primary screening method in all U.S. airports by 2013, but Congress has yet to act on it," John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, wrote in a new commentary.
"So we can thank President Obama for this frontal assault on our Fourth Amendment rights. Mind you, this is the same man who insisted that 'we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans,'" Whitehead said.
Sign onto the petition demanding the suspension of the privacy-invading scans and pat-downs.
"Yet in the wake of the bumbling underwear bomber's botched Christmas Day attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound plane, Obama directed the Homeland Security Department 'to acquire $1 billion in advanced-technology equipment, including body scanners, for screening passengers,'" he continued.
He cited the Washington insider link for the purchase of the machines, many of which are made by Rapiscan Systems, a corporation represented by the Chertoff Group, headed by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Chertoff has lobbied publicly for the need for the machines to be installed in airports.
A commentary at Boston.com noted Chertoff was taking advantage of the position he had held with the government "to push full body scanners into American airports."
Jeffrey Goldberg described in The Atlantic his encounter with the TSA:
I told the officer who directed me to the back-scatter that I preferred a pat-down. I did this in order to see how effective the manual search would be. When I made this request, a number of TSA officers, to my surprise, began laughing. I asked why. One of them – the one who would eventually conduct my pat-down – said that the rules were changing shortly, and that I would soon understand why the back-scatter was preferable to the manual search. ...
"Starting tomorrow, we're going to start searching your crotchal area" – this is the word he used, "crotchal" – and you're not going to like it."
"What am I not going to like?" I asked.
"We have to search up your thighs and between your legs until we meet resistance," he explained.
"Resistance?" I asked.
"Your testicles," he explained.
"The bottom line is this: forcing Americans to undergo a virtual strip search as a matter of course in reporting to work or boarding an airplane when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing is a gross violation of our civil liberties. Indeed, putting yourself through the full-body scanner is the same as subjecting yourself to a strip search. It completely undermines one's right to privacy and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents," he continued.
"The Constitution does not allow blanket strip searches or full-body pat downs of American citizens unless there's some reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. If we allow the government to reverse the burden of proof so that we have to prove our innocence, then we might as well give up on the Constitution altogether. At that point, we are all suspects in the surveillance state," he said.
WND has documented a number of first-hand reports of passenger's experiences with the TSA:
The Indignity About the Full Body Scanners
In the 9 years since 9-11 there have been exactly 0 incidents of hijackings or terror attacks by individuals boarding domestic aircraft in this country (not an international flight originating from another country). When coupled with the facts that there are over 30,000 commercial departures per day with an average passenger load per flight easily exceeding 25, then this most recent mathematical history teaches us:
That the odds of being subject to a terrorist attack on a domestic (US) commercial airliner today are greater than 22 BILLION, 173 MILLION, 750 THOUSAND to 1 (22,173,750,000)! Woefully lower than getting hit by lightening, attacked by a shark and a refund from the IRS; all at the same time!
Body scanners have 'mutagenic effects'
A Californian university professor of biochemistry said the Obama administration's claim that full-body scanners pose no health risks to air travellers is in "error".
Webmaster's Commentary:
"So who cares if the scanners we forced them to pay for cause cancer! We'll sell them a cancer cure! Or at least something they think is a cancer cure! This stuff is great! Money is just pouring out of the sky on us! Serves them all right for not believing our lies about global warming!" -- Official White Horse Souse
Naked body scanners may be dangerous: scientists
US scientists warned Friday that the full-body, graphic-image X-ray scanners that are being used to screen passengers and airline crews at airports around the country may be unsafe.
"They say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays," Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at Johns Hopkins University school of medicine, told AFP.
Webmaster's Commentary:
The tale of these back-scatter xray devices becomes more and more curious.
As reported on 5 January 2010 at:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/05/technology/full_body_scanner/
"The U.S. government is using $25 million in stimulus money to buy and install full body scanners in airports this year, in an effort to ramp up security and create jobs."
The Transportation Security Administration is using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to purchase 150 of the full body scanners, according to TSA spokeswoman Sarah Horowitz."
"These "backscatter" scanners, which use X-rays to provide detailed images of hidden objects in or under a person's clothing, are manufactured by Rapiscan, a subsidiary of Hawthorne, Calif.-based OSI (OSIS). The scanners cost from $150,000 to $180,000 apiece, according to the company."
One has to wonder, with OSI's track record (this company has been around for over 30 years) why such a potentially lethal device would have been cleared for sale, with the real possibility that frequent flyers may sue due to cancer from the radiation coming out of these machines, unless the Federal Government had indemnified them from any and all potential lawsuits.
Webmaster's Commentary:
We were told these machines were safe!
Then shoe salesmen started dying of cancer, which is why you don't see these in shoe stores any more.
Do we have to wait for all the TSA workers to start dying before we get rid of these naked scanners?
Full-body scanners are waste of money, Israeli expert says
Leading Israeli airport security expert says the Canadian government has wasted millions of dollars to install "useless" imaging machines at airports across the country.
"I don't know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747," Rafi Sela told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada.
"That's why we haven't put them in our airport," Sela said, referring to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world.
Sela, former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority and a 30-year veteran in airport security and defence technology, helped design the security at Ben Gurion.
He told MPs on the House of Commons transport committee via video conference from Kfar Vradim, Israel, that he wouldn't reveal how to get past the virtual strip-search scanners, but said he can provide briefings to officials with security clearance.
Canada this year bought 44 body scanners for major Canadian airports -- three of them for Vancouver International. Each machine cost $250,000 and is being use for secondary screening to detect non-metallic threats, unless the passenger prefers a physical pat-down.
CATSA, the Canadian agency in charge of screening airline passengers, declined to provide comment on Sela's analysis.
Junior Transport Minister Rob Merrifield, who is responsible for the agency, defended the $11-million investment in the machines.
"Full-body scanners are used by dozens of countries around the world and are considered one of the most effective methods of screening," Merrifield said in a statement.
Passengers complain about 'invasive' U.S. airport pat-downs
WASHINGTON - The head of the Transportation Security Administration is acknowledging that the new pat-downs are more invasive than what airline travellers were used to in the past.
TSA administrator John Pistole says he has received the new pat-down, as has his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Some travellers complain that the new inspections target sensitive body areas. Pistole says he understands those privacy concerns, but says the government must provide the best possible security for air travellers.
Pistole was testifying before a Senate committee about his department's policies and procedures. The hearing was scheduled before the recent outrage about airport security pat-downs.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/11/17/5481656-obama-agenda-81-favor-body-scanners
OBAMA AGENDA: 81% favor body scanners.
With all the controversy in the media over the security full-body scanners and pat downs at airports, a CBS poll finds four-in-five people (81%) are in favor of the full-boxy scanners, while just 15% say they’re opposed.
Would we lie to you?
Webmaster's Commentary:
"YOU WILL LOVE THE NAKED BODY SCANNERS OR YOU WILL BE SHOT! TWICE! WHERE IT HURTS REALLY BAD!!!!!!" -- Official White Horse Souse
Did Gizmodo publish fake scanner images to trick the public?
Webmaster's Commentary:
Given that these images are really too blurry to be of any use, and certainly we have already seen other scanner images showing much more clarity, one has to wonder if these images are fakes intended to calm the angry American pubic. If so, they don't; they are in fact insulting to our collective intelligence and just piss me off even more. But on the off chance that these are real from a cheaper scanner, note that in the above example, the TSA worker is also visible in the background of the scan! So the TSA worker is getting scanned with radiation every single time a passenger goes through the scanner, hour after hour after hour, all day, every day, slowly cooking their DNA into amino acid soup. Personally, after the way these arrogant asses treat innocent travelers, I have no sympathy for their coming cancers!
DHS Porn: TSA Trading Sanitary Napkin Images of Naked Body Scans Like Baseball Cards
And we know they have been caught saving untold hundreds of thousands of the images, as with the court house in Florida, trading them around like baseball cards after lying about not being able to store images... "Do the imagers, for example, detect sanitary napkins?" women wanted to know. "Yes," wrote Sharkey. "And what about tampons?" "They look kind of like sticks of dynamite. Are they going to ask us to pull them out and show them just to be sure?"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38561251/ns/technology_and_science-security/
Despite claims by the TSA that electronic body scan images "cannot be stored or recorded," some federal police agencies are in fact saving tens of thousands of images, according to a report by CNET News.
The body scanners, increasingly found in airports, courthouses and other places where security is high, use an assortment of technologies. These include millimeter wave scanners (shown below) — in which the subject is harmlessly pelted with extremely high frequency radio waves which reflect a picture back to the device — and backscatter X-ray (shown above) — which measures low-powered reflective X-rays to produce clearer body shots, shots that can reveal alarmingly precise anatomical detail.
According to CNET, the U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had saved thousands of images that had been recorded from a security checkpoint in a Florida courthouse.
The reason? Because the devices were "designed and deployed in a way that allows the images to be routinely stored and recorded," EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg told CNET, adding that this "is exactly what the Marshals Service is doing."
The TSA maintains that body scanning is "constitutional" and the CNET report notes that while the machines are built to "allow exporting of image data in real time" and provide networked "high-speed transfer of image data," the system are built with filters to "protect the identity, modesty, and privacy of the passenger."
TSA Tyranny Continues, Hands In Your Pants and So Much More
The TSA has taken their tyranny to new levels, openly breaking the law in order to push their police state security. American Citizens are being subjected to the groping of their genitals by low IQ TSA agents.
A report by Fox News has indicated that there will be NO religious exemptions when it comes to invasive TSA procedures.
The Transportation Security Administration says airline passengers won’t get out of body imaging screening or pat-downs based on their religious beliefs.
TSA chief John Pistole told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday that passengers who refuse to go through a full-body scanner machine and reject a pat-down won’t be allowed to board, even if they turned down the in-depth screening for religious reasons.
Napolitano May Exempt Muslims From Airport Pat-Downs
As the U.S. government retaliates against an American for refusing to allow airport security to grope his genitals, the nation’s Homeland Security secretary considers waving the intrusive “pat-downs” for Muslim women who consider them offensive.
Webmaster's Commentary:
What about the rest of us who think they are offensive?
TSA Chief Faces Lawmakers On Pat-Downs, Body Scans
The alternative news has made it IMPOSSIBLE for the corporate media to ignore the intrusive naked body scanners. This story has gone ultra viral, with thousands of American citizens demanding that their genitals not be fondled by low IQ TSA Mongrels.
The head of the Transportation Security Administration Wednesday defended his agency’s security procedures, telling lawmakers it is “using technology and protocols to stay ahead of the [terrorist] threat and keep you safe.”
John Pistole’s testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation follows a controversy that broke out over the past week about the agency’s full body scans and pat-downs.
TSA Revolt: Naked screening lobby pushes for profit, not privacy?
Pilots and passengers rail at new airport patdowns
With the busiest holiday travel season nearing, fliers face long security lines and new rigorous patdown checks begun in recent weeks aimed at discovering hidden explosives. As a result, some travelers are questioning whether to fly at all.
"We have received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from travelers vowing to stop flying," said Geoff Freeman, an executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association, which set up the meeting with the Obama administration officials.
Webmaster's Commentary:
GOOD! These demeaning, invasive searches are truly doing nothing to make flying more safe; it is simply about cowing the American people to to submit to any tyrannical procedure the to which Federal government wants them to submit.
Pilots Association urges airline pilots to opt out of TSA naked body scanners
In yet another significant blow to the TSA’s naked body scanners, the president of the Allied Pilots Association (APA) issued a letter urging all pilots to opt out of the naked body scanners, also known as Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT).
“Backscatter AIT devices now being deployed produce ionizing radiation, which could be harmful to your health,” wrote Allied Pilots Association president Dave Bates. He then went on to add:
Stewardesses Send Message to TSA
Stewardesses Send Message to TSA
Posted by Lew Rockwell on November 10, 2010 03:26 PM
This is excellent news. Stewardesses say to TSA: Keep your hands off my private parts. Pilots are saying the same, and so are many passengers. The State has, I think and hope, finally gone too far with its genital gropes and nuclear naked-photos. Even the MSM are starting to cover this police-state scandal, though not truthfully. Airports are today microcosms of what the State wants all of society to be. That is, they see taxpayers as cattle, and expect us to shut up and obey their thugs in blue costume. Well, maybe there’s a stampede coming.
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/lifestyle/travel/flight-attendants-union-upse...
Pilot to TSA: 'No Groping Me and No Naked Photos'
At this point he and another agent explained the TSA’s latest decree, saying I would not be permitted to pass without showing them my naked body, and how my refusal to do so had now given them cause to put their hands on me as I evidently posed a threat to air transportation security (this, of course, is my nutshell synopsis of the exchange). I asked whether they did in fact suspect I was concealing something after I had passed through the metal detector, or whether they believed that I had made any threats or given other indications of malicious designs to warrant treating me, a law-abiding fellow citizen, so rudely. None of that was relevant, I was told. They were just doing their job.
World Battles The Invasion Of The Naked Body Scanners
People from all walks of life are rejecting the mass implementation of radiation spewing airport body imaging machines and fighting back against the molestation and groping that women and children are being subjected to at the hands of TSA officials.
As we have detailed throughout the week, multiple pilot’s unions are advising their members to avoid the scanners, while simultaneously denouncing the enhanced pat downs as humiliating and on a par with sexual harassment.
Nude Protest: Airport Body Scanners in Germany
Webmaster's Commentary:
The Germans remember what it is like to live in a dictatorship and have the courage to oppose it now.
Airborne rebellion: Group urges ‘national opt-out day’ for airport body scanners
TSA employee reportedly admitted pat-down involving touching of genitals meant to intimidate people into using body scanners
As public anger grows over the TSA's body scanners and intrusive new airport pat-down procedure, a Web site is urging travelers to "opt out" from the body scanners and instead choose to have a pat-down in public view, so that everyone can "see for themselves how the government treats law-abiding citizens."
OptOutDay.com declares November 24 to be the day when air travelers should refuse to submit to a full body scan and choose the enhanced pat-down -- an option many travelers have described as little short of a molestation.
"My First Cavity Search" Spoof makes it onto TSA screen
This is a photo of the TSA booth by the security check-in point at Indianapolis International Airport. Take a close look at the wallpaper on the computer in that booth. Nervous yet?
Webmaster's Commentary:
These perverts think this is all one big joke!
Paying To Be Raped, By Sibel Edmonds
Every single day. Millions of us, Americans. Being violated. Being degraded. You know exactly what I am talking about. I am taking about me, you, your mother, her brother, his brother’s wife and toddler son, their grandmothers. I am talking about the systematic degradation of our people. I am talking about being raped of our dignity, privacy, and decency. I am talking about a daily systematic rape we actually pay to be subjected to. I am talking about severe violations we elect people to bring upon us. Yes, I am talking about traveling, TSA police, and being reduced to naked and helpless subjects of government police practices.
It's time to dismantle the TSA
Clearly, the TSA and the US government are completely out of control.
Months ago, we told you the full body "backscatter" X-ray screening machines being installed in airports were far more dangerous than the lying scum that sells and installs them in airports claimed.
Apparently, at least one airline union agrees and have advised their members to refuse to go through them.
The catch is that if you don't agree to be irradiated, you must submit to a full body search including the groping of your genitals and this applies to women, children and infants.
There have already been numerous claims of molestation made against TSA employees.
The government and TSA's official response to complaints received: "Fuck you. We're going to do whatever we want to do."
There's a simple solution to this:
Stop flying and tell the chicken shit morons who run the airlines that you're stopping and why.
Maybe when they see their revenues go down the drain they'll stand up for their customers.
By the way, that piece of human garbage Michael Chertoff who ran Homeland Security under Bush (he managed "relief efforts" for New Orleans after Katrina) is the guy who orchestrated the imposition of these scanners into airports WORLDWIDE and personally profits from it.
Webmaster's Commentary:
The government can't keep the roads paved, can't keep the schools working, can't keep the bridges from collapsing, can't keep the Mississippi from flooding, can't return to the Moon, can't keep Wall Street from screwing the American people, can't keep the oil wells from exploding, can't replace the shuttle, can't revive manufacturing, can't win in Iraq, can't win in Afghanistan, can't hold an honest election, can't decide if the world is warming or headed into a new ice age, but by golly they will justify an aggregate tax rate above 50% by groping our crotches at the airports!
New Jersey moves to ban TSA scanners and sexually invasive frisks
"Is that a Pistole in your pocket, Nappy, or are you just happy to see us?"
Rady Ananda -- COTO Report
In response to public and pilot outrage at sexual assault by transportation security authorities and to the carcinogenic x-ray machines used to scan flyers, New Jersey lawmakers announced on Monday the introduction of several resolutions banning such practices. Additionally, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security is holding a Transportation Security Administration Oversight Hearing today (10 AM Wednesday).
New Jersey Legislators Take on the TSA
Senator Michael J. Doherty (R- Hunterdon, Warren) and Senator James Beach (D- Camden) announced they will present resolutions to the Senate and Assembly calling on the U.S. Congress to end TSA screening procedures requiring full body scans and pat downs at U.S. airports Their action comes in response to widespread concerns over privacy and radiation, as well as reports of inappropriate conduct by TSA agents during the screening process.
The TSA is out of control
Police State: TSA Launches Investigation Into Man Who Refused Groping, Naked Body Scan
Everyone's written about this "don't touch my junk" story, but this new development is so sadly in line with my thesis about these things that it's almost a cliche. When i wrote about it over the week-end, I pointed out that this was the latest in a series of steps to a police state --- the building of a police bureaucracy, the intimidation and the incoherence of security theatre designed to confuse citizens and indoctrinate them to the idea that they should unquestioningly submit to absurd directives from authorities. It's how you control a populace.
Anyway, here's the latest on the the "junk" story:
The Transportation Security Administration has opened an investigation targeting John Tyner, the Oceanside man who left Lindbergh Field under duress on Saturday morning after refusing to undertake a full body scan.
Tyner recorded the half-hour long encounter on his cell phone and later posted it to his personal blog, along with an extensive account of the incident. The blog went viral, attracting hundreds of thousands of readers and thousands of comments.
Michael J. Aguilar, chief of the TSA office in San Diego, called a news conference at the airport Monday afternoon to announce the probe. He said the investigation could lead to prosecution and civil penalties of up to $11,000.
TSA agents had told Tyner on Saturday that he could be fined up to $10,000.
“That’s the old fine,” Aguilar said. “It has been increased.”
[...]
According to Aguilar, Tyner is under investigation for leaving the security area without permission. That’s prohibited, among other reasons, to prevent potential terrorists from entering security, gaining information, and leaving.
The incoherence and absurdity part is that the TSA authorities, including several "supervisors," told him he had to leave the security area
and escorted him out
. This is pure Kafka (or perhaps more aptly, Joseph Heller.) It's how you train a citizenry to follow orders that make no sense.
Body-Searching Children: No for the US Army, Yes for the TSA
Please read the note below. A US Army staff sergeant, now serving in Afghanistan, writes about the new enhanced pat-down procedure from the TSA. Summary of his very powerful message: to avoid giving gross offense to the Afghan public, and to prevent the appearance of an uncontrolled security state, the US military forbids use on Afghan civilians of the very practices the TSA is now making routine for civilian travelers at US airports. Here is what he says:
Webmaster's Commentary:
Unflipping believable.
TSA Worker Molested 12-Year-Old
A federal Transportation Security Administration employee has been arrested in connection with the molestation of a girl, Orange County sheriff's deputies said.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Took out a girl's nipple rings
Force a 16 year old girl to take off her pants
removed a 71 year old's prosthetic knee after de-pantsing him in public.
TSA Screener Accosts 3 Year Old Child at Security Checkpoint
Gotta love the new Soviet Union Of America
This is good training for the little girl to submit when the pedophiles show up at her nursery school. Yikes. I'd be proud that my daughter protected herself like that. TSA, stop that!!!
We need to make it a game for children. Why, so they can have fun learning how to be slaves. For all of you who dont have a problem with this kind of degradation of its people. You are absolutely clueless.
Video: Mom upset about daughter's full body security scan experience
"It's an image of a nude child that they're seeing. This is child pornography whether people want to believe this or not. How is this any different," said Nemphos. "
TSA agents gone wild: fondling little children, planting cocaine in passenger bags and more
TSA agents stand accused today of fondling the genitals of women and little children as part of their "enhanced pat-down" procedures being rolled out at airport security checkpoints. Today, Michelle, an employee working at the Alex Jones' InfoWars studios, has gone public with accusations that a male TSA agent felt up her crotch and fondled her breasts at a security checkpoint in Denver. A male agent attempted to feel up the crotch of her little girl, too.
TSA screener terrorizes 3-year-old girl
The girl's father, Steve Simon, works as a reporter for CW-39 from Houston, Texas, and managed to capture the encounter on his cell phone camera.
In the video, the girl is clearly traumatized as the TSA screener attempts to search her.
But the question remains - what is the TSA doing screening toddlers like this? Do they honestly think the little girl is concealing a bomb in her stuffed toy?
Webmaster's Commentary:
We can see where this "terrorist" hysteria is headed. There is big money in hunting terrorism, just was there was big money in hunting witches a few hundred years ago. And as we learned to our horror in that previous atrocity, when one is paid to see things that are not there, one will gladly claim to see things that are not there whether it is a witch high in the sky on her broom or bombs in a child's teddy bear. And, as the need to demonstrate the "reality" of the mass hallucination becomes more dire,. the methods employed to "prove" the existence of witches or terrorists become more extreme. Torture is a method used by both the witch hunters and the terror hunters to extract convenient confessions. And while at present the TSA searches stop at our most intimate skin, based on the historical precedent, they will eventually demand to go further!
Because one never actually found a witch riding a broom or even wearing a pointed cap, there was a need to find a way to identify witches before a crowd of doubters, and so the practice of "Pricking" was devised. In this practice, suspected witches (and eventually people selected at random) would be pricked with special tools devised for the task.
The propaganda told to the public was that if the suspect was pricked but did not bleed, they were a witch, wherupon their property was confiscated and the suspect sent to the torture dungeons for further suffering.
Waterboarding, in the time of the Inquisition!
Because a steady flow of "real" witches was needed, the pricks were often fakes, in which the prick would slide back into the handle. But the public believed that pricking was a reliable tool, just as we are taught biometrics are a reliable tool, and the practice is even mentioned in Shakespeare's Macbeth! "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes!" -- Second Witch, Act IV scene 1.
Of course, the prickers themselves came with instruction manuals.
Witch hunters, like the TSA, were clearly obsessed with breasts. I am sure Freud would have something to say about that, but it is beyond the scope of this commentary.
Suffice it to say that the groping of our genitals and the viewing of us naked has a long pedigree.
Naked body scanning, in the time of the Inquisition!
The trend is clear. Unless We The People stand up and oppose the inquisitors, more innocent victims will suffer in the name of a steady profit to the hands of the inquisitors such as the Chertoff group. Not satisfied with simply seeing us naked and molesting us sexually, count on the witch/terror hunters to try to scare us with lurid tales of Osama bin Voldemort and a few rather shabby hoaxes to force us into accepting complete penetration of our bodies in the name of saving us all from ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties and things that go bump in the night!
You have been warned.
This "right to molest" will soon be extended to trains, buses, boats, and even travel on public roadways. The TSA - in its twisted institutional mind - thinks it controls EVERY mode of transportation. From there, it's a straight line to government buildings, courthouses and while we're at it why not schools, day care and hospitals too?
And what's a traffic stop on a deserted road without a quick feel of the female driver and her kids to make sure "everyone's safe?"
These abusive TSA practices are paving the way for this and don't think the social engineers who cooked them up don't know it.
For the most part the media applauds...
Webmaster's Commentary:
"That's just fine; we need all those passenger jets for troop transports when we send your kids to invade Iran China!" -- Official White Horse Souse
Are new security screenings affecting your decision to fly?
http://blogs.reuters.com/ask/2010/11/12/are-new-security-screenings-affecting-your-decision-to-fly/
Are you less likely to fly because of stepped-up security procedures such as full-body scans and patdowns?
Stepped-up security screening at airports in the wake of foiled terrorism plots has provoked an outcry from airline pilots and travelers, including parents of children who say they are too intrusive.
With the busiest holiday travel season nearing, fliers face long security lines and new rigorous patdown checks aimed at discovering hidden explosives. As a result, some travelers are questioning whether to fly at all.
Are you less likely to fly because of stepped-up security procedures such as full-body scans and patdowns?
- Yes - I will make alternate travel plans to avoid intrusive security scans and patdowns (97%, 18,096 Votes)
- No - It is a necessary procedure to ensure terror plots are thwarted (2%, 403 Votes)
- Undecided (1%, 209 Votes)
Webmaster's Commentary:
As of this moment, 94% of the respondents said they would find alternative means of travel to avoid those airport perverts.
L.A. food stylist pulled from flight for 'Atom Bomb' tattoo
Pearson was temporarily asked to step off the plane and learned that another passenger had reported him for suspicious behavior, and noted that he had the words "Atom Bomb" tattooed across his fingers. Questioned by the captain and the flight attendant, Pearson explained that the tattoos referred to a childhood nickname. After answering a few more questions, Pearson -- who is a frequent Delta passenger and has flown over 142,000 miles with the airline this year alone -- was allowed to return to his seat.
Webmaster's Commentary:
This is getting just plain silly!
Cook County to pay $55.3 million to settle jail strip search case
The Cook County Board today approved a $55.3 million settlement in a class-action civil lawsuit alleging that thousands of inmates at the county jail were improperly strip searched.
Taxpayers must cover most of a $55.3 million settlement approved Tuesday by Cook County to compensate as many as 250,000 people who were strip searched at the county jail, often in mass lineups and even if they were detained for charges as minor as traffic violations.
Some of the degrading practices – included strip searches of dozens of men at a time--continued until 2009, years after the county paid out $6.8 million for a similar case filed by women, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.
“It was insanity for people . . . to assume that you could do one thing to females and get sued, but you could do the same thing to males and not get sued,” said Commissioner Earlean Collins, D-Chicago.
Webmaster's Commentary:
So, TSA is treating travelers WORSE than prisoners get treated in the jails??????????
Airports cash in on terror checks: £5 charge to jump queues 'they keep long'
Airports are cashing in on the queues at their security gates by charging passengers to use fast-track priority lanes.
At least eight have introduced the system and are charging travellers up to £5 to beat the queues.
A whistleblower security guard at Luton Airport, which adopted the system last year, claimed there is a deliberate policy to let the queues grow to encourage people to pay for the express lane.
TSA Employee Arrested as Stealing More than 100 Items Out of Luggage and Trying to Sell Them on EBay
As a screener at Newark Liberty International Airport, Pythias Brown let nothing get past him — literally. He is accused of stealing over 100 valuable items like 66 cameras while working for the Transportation Security Administration. They really should have seen at least the missing cameras coming. The original Pythias (shown on the left) sat on a tripod, spoke in gibberish, and derived her name from pythein (??????, “to rot”).
Webmaster's Commentary:
In the years since 9-011, there has not been a single act of terror on any US domestic flight. The newsworthy "terror" attempts always involve someone being walked past security by unnamed officials at a foreign airport, to be put on a flight, fail their bomb attempt, in order for the media to scream the need for greater (and more costly) security. But the reality is that you are more likely to get hit by lightning, at the exact same time you win the lottery, than you are to meet a real terrorist on a US domestic flight (I eliminate, of course, the fake terrorists being waved around to sell us another of Israel's wars).
In contrast, the odds that you will be sexually assaulted by a TSA worker, have your naked body made fun of, have your luggage looted, be beaten nearly to death, or pick up a raging case of crabs from TSA workers is high and getting higher.
So what is the real threat to travelers?
American Air Security Is A Farce
I was in the Atlanta Hartsfield airport one day headed to Europe and a TSA goon was groping the breasts of a 14 year old Belgian girl that was traveling alone. She was understandably both offended and horrified. She spoke Flemish and French, very little English. I told him to take his filthy hands off the girl's breast before I sent him on an emergency room run to the hospital.
He stepped back and drew his gun on me, at which time I told him to go for it. He glanced around and hundreds of people were glaring at him just like I was. He had to take an "emergency break" he forgot to take earlier in the day.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Looks like people are starting to fight back, and of course ABCNNBBCBSFOX will not tell you about it!
TSA workers pulled drug prank twice with air passengers
A Transportation Security Administration worker who pretended to find drugs in a passenger's bag at Philadelphia International Airport in January had played the prank more than once and told one of his victims that "she would have to admit it was funny," according to TSA documents.
Charles Henry Bennett, TSA Worker, Arrested For Attempting To Make Girl His 'Sex Slave'
A federal Transportation Security Administration employee has been arrested in connection with the molestation of a girl, Orange County sheriff's deputies said. The man told investigators he planned to make her his "sex slave," according to the arrest report uncovered by Local 6.
A TSA agent was arrested on January 3rd in Terminal One at LAX, a source told NBCLA. He had just gotten off duty and was behaving erratically, saying, "I am god, I’m in charge."
Meanwhile, a TSA Internal Affairs investigation turned up evidence of LAX TSA agents using drugs at an after-hours party.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Sex, drugs, and looted luggage: What a job!
Latest airport money-maker; keep lines long, then charge extra to use the shorter line.
Airports are cashing in on the queues at their security gates by charging passengers to use fast-track priority lanes.
At least eight have introduced the system and are charging travellers up to £5 to beat the queues.
A whistleblower security guard at Luton Airport, which adopted the system last year, claimed there is a deliberate policy to let the queues grow to encourage people to pay for the express lane.
Feds Radiating Americans At Internal Checkpoints
Federal authorities do not concern themselves about the flood of illegal immigrants and drugs crossing the border every day, they’re more worried about radiating American truck drivers at internal checkpoints with mobile scanners that shoot dangerous x-rays through both vehicles and passengers.
As we reported last month, the federal government has acquired hundreds of backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that they are now using to randomly scan vehicles, passengers and homes in complete violation of the 4th amendment and with wanton disregard for any health consequences.
Feds Using Mobile X-Ray Vans On U.S. Streets
Inmate-frying microwave pain blaster turret installed in US jail
A microwave "pain ray" energy weapon, deemed too controversial for US military use in Iraq, has nonetheless gone into service. A trial installation is in use at a prison in Los Angeles for the purpose of quelling fights among the inmates.
"We hope that this type of technology will either cause an inmate to stop an assault or lessen the severity of an assault by them being distracted by the pain as a result of the beam," Commander Bob Osborne of the LA County Sheriff's Department told the Los Angeles Daily News.
"I equate it to opening an oven door and feeling that blast of hot air... you begin to feel this warming feeling, and then you go 'Yow, I need to get out of the way.'"
In its current incarnation the device is known as the Assault Intervention Device and it is reportedly a ceiling-mounted installation remotely controlled by prison staff using CCTV and a joystick.
Despite the new name and job, however, the Device is none other than the latest iteration of what was formerly known as the Active Denial System, a riot-busting fry-ray mounted on a Humvee or a truck for military use in crowd control overseas. Despite many requests for it from US commanders in Iraq, the ADS never saw frontline service there - doubtless due to well-founded concern over the headlines that might have ensued. The "pain ray" would surely have resulted in more negative coverage than any number of shootings and bombings.
The deployment in the Los Angeles jail is a trial by the National Institute of Justice, the R&D arm of the US Justice Department - and home, among other things, of the handheld microwave heat-ray "rifle".
If deemed successful, the inmate-roasting ceiling raygun turrets may be rolled out to other US jails.
The Daily News report is here.
NYPD Commences Use Of Iris Scans Of Suspects
NEW YORK (AP)
Editor's Note: This is yet another application that started with military use and is now being used on Americans. First at checkpoints in Iraq, now in NY.
Department Spending $24,000 Per Unit; Will Have 21 Around City
CBS New York
NEW YORK (AP) – Along with fingerprints and mug shots, the New York City Police Department is now taking photographs of the irises of crime suspects.
Orwellian Scenario: The "Total Control Society" Is Here: Iris Scanners
"In the future, whether it's entering your home, opening your car, entering your workspace, getting a pharmacy prescription refilled, or having your medical records pulled up, everything will come off that unique key that is your iris. Every person, place, and thing on this planet will be connected [to the iris system] within the next 10 years."-- Jeff Carter, CDO of Global Rainmakers
Économie:
Massive manipulation du prix des métaux précieux
Gld ETF Warning, Tungsten Filled Fake Gold Bars
Roughly 15 years ago – during the Clinton Administration [think Robert Rubin, Sir Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers] – between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were allegedly manufactured by a very high-end, sophisticated refiner in the USA [more than 16 Thousand metric tonnes]. Subsequently, 640,000 of these tungsten blanks received their gold plating and WERE shipped to Ft. Knox and remain there to this day. I know folks who have copies of the original shipping docs with dates and exact weights of “tungsten” bars shipped to Ft. Knox.
Silver May Hit $50/oz Because Of Short Positions Which Must Be Bought Back
Ananthan Thangavel of Lakshmi Capital is long silver futures and call options for his clients– and will add to his silver positions on any pullback. He knows there are huge short positions in silver; CFTC records show that 44.1% of the gross short position in silver is held by the 4 largest traders. And he reports in a comment on the silver market on Lakshmi’s website (“A Twist on the Silver Market”) that “Some traders I have spoken with are targeting the 40-50 level within 4 months.” A chart of silver prices shows that silver in recent weeks has outshone the rise in gold prices by jumping 50% from around $18 to nearly $30 and then backed off to $27.16 today. This extraordinary increase in the price of silver suggests that short covering might explain part of the gain.
Max Keiser tells the world to Crash JP Morgan, buy silver
It is now reaching the general consciousness that it is those with the money that control our destinies. Where once many believed that our betters who order our lives reside in Westminster, the realisation that those with the power are more likely to inhabit the City’s Gherkin building is dawning on us.
On the 27th October two traders, Brian Beatty and Peter Laskaris, filed lawsuits against both JP Morgan and HSBC accusing them of manipulating the price of silver by “amassing enormous short positions”. The lawsuits being brought at the US district Court, Southern District of New York, which are also seeking to gain a class action status, allege that “… between in or about March 2008 and continuing through the present, Defendants have combined, conspired and agreed to restrain trade in, fix, and manipulate prices of silver futures and options contracts traded in this District on the COMEX division of the NYMEX. Defendants thereby have violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C ¶1. Also during the Class Period, individual Defendants have intentionally acted to manipulate prices of COMEX silver futures and options contracts. Such conduct violates Section 9(a) of the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 U.S.C. ¶13b.”
The following day the National Inflation Association (NIA) assessed that JP Morgan are so short on silver and that the silver market is so tight that “…. silver prices could literally rise to $50 per ounce overnight. NIA estimates that $50 per ounce silver would mean approximately $4 billion in losses to JP Morgan” (…. more).
Bart Chilton, a US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) commissioner said “I believe that there have been repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver markets. There have been fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control that price. Based on what I have been told by members of the public, and reviewed in publicly available documents, I believe violations to the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) have taken place in silver markets and that any such violation of the law in this regard should be prosecuted.”
Max Keiser, (TV presenter, radio host, entrepreneur, broadcaster and journalist) who dubs JP Morgan as “the biggest financial terrorist on Wall St” and wants to give it a bloody nose, is calling on people to crash JP Morgan by buying silver so making its price go up leaving JP Morgan with a huge short position to cover.
Also stepping up to the mark (or maybe penalty spot) for a bit of bank bashing is the footballer Eric Cantona. He points out that it is a waste of time to wave placards, if you want to bash the banks just have a co-ordinated withdrawal of depositors money (well the first 5% that the bank actually has anyway). Then ” … they will listen to us in a different way” as the run forces them to the wall. There is a push in France to do just this on the 7th December (see video below).
Now, how about the double whammy? Take money out of the bank and buy silver! But just remember if you do, to buy physical silver and take delivery. The bits of paper that say you own silver are just that, bits of paper.
Crash JP Morgan ... Buy Silver (Show the Too Big To Fails Who Is Boss)
One of the too big to fails - JP Morgan - manipulates the silver market. See this, this, this, this and this.
According to the National Inflation Association, JP Morgan is “short 30,000 silver contracts representing 150 million ounces of silver. This is one of the largest concentrated short positions in the history of all commodities, representing 31% of all open COMEX silver contracts.” This could leave JP Morgan exposed if people go out and buy physical silver in large numbers.
Mike Krieger and Max Keiser have an idea for attacking the weak underbelly of the seemingly invincible too big to fail banks and market manipulators ... all at the same time.
Specifically, they say that if everyone buys just 1 ounce of silver, it will force JP Morgan - a giant manipulator of the silver market - to cover its short positions, and drive it out of business.
Watch these short videos for an explanation:
Kill JP Morgan With A Silver Bullet - Crash JP Morgan - Max Keiser
The Max Keiser takedown of JP Morgan
Silver is way down today, so it is a perfect time to buy.
Disclaimer: I'm not an investment adviser and this should not be considered investment advice.
Crash JPMorgan, Buy Silver Now – A Report
“We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it.
The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.”
James Paul Warburg
(1896-1969) son of Paul Moritz Warburg, nephew of Felix Warburg and of Jacob Schiff, both of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. which poured millions into the Russian Revolution through James’ brother Max, banker to the German government, Chairman of the CFR
Basically, the Art of Deception is nothing new, especially in financial markets. Deception is fundamentally at the very heart of the American Financial System given that the Federal Reserve is not a federal institution but rather a syndicate of Global Banks – also known as the World Central Banks. Some would argue – the New World Order.
THE WORLDWIDE REVOLUTION IN ON
The following Videos are representative of the Worldwide Effort Underway NOW to Crash JPMorgan by taking PHYSICAL DELIVERY of ALL METALS. Silver which is traded via ETF (electronic traded funds), where reportedly, JPMorgan and others have been MASSIVELY Overselling Silver at a rate of 100 to 1. By demanding delivery, people are legally demanding their Silver to be delivered into their possession.
There IS the possibility that as people worldwide demand delivery, the Banks will divert huge sums of cash into the ETF to bring the Spot price up to historical levels, possibly $100.00, in an effort to keep traders in the market in yet another attempt at the deception. Investors will believe the ETF are actually a tremendous investment, when in fact, it is part of a STRATEGY to escalate the SPOT price, thereby slowing the FLOW of Physical purchases. We will have to see if this is what takes place – this is my personal prediction. People with ETF should beware of this strategy which will inevitably lead to a Bull Market and the hesitation to DEMAND DELIVERY.
Of course, one should also keep in mind the foot-dragging on the part of the CFTC in investigating the scheme discovered and testified to before the CFTC Board recently by GATA Chairman Paul Murphy. GATA Chairman Paul MurphyTestifies to CFTC 1 & CFTC 2
Credit should be awarded to MAX KEISER who courageously stated on Alex Jones that there would be a possibility of CRASHING JBMORGAN by BUY SILVER as a campaign that has a dual purpose. One, and more importantly, is to create a worldwide awareness to this issue, and two, a massive discrediting of the FIAT Monetary System as a whole and the transfer of Individual Wealth into Physical Commodities – like Silver, Gold, Copper, Platinum and Palladium.
5 ALARM FIRE AT COMEX: SILVER WILL SOAR ONCE AGAIN
Production of United States Mint American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coins continues to be temporarily suspended because of unprecedented demand for American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins.
American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coin 
Production of United States Mint American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coins continues to be temporarily suspended because of unprecedented demand for American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins. Until recently, all available silver bullion blanks were being allocated to the American Eagle Silver Bullion Coin Program, as the United States Mint is required by Public Law 99-61 to produce these coins “in quantities sufficient to meet public demand . . . .”
Although the demand for precious metal coins remains high, the increase in supply of planchets—coupled with a lower demand for bullion orders in August and September—allowed the United States Mint to meet public demand and shift some capacity to produce numismatic versions of the American Eagle One Ounce Silver Proof Coin.
However, because of the continued demand for American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins, 2010-dated American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coins will not be produced.
The United States Mint will resume production of American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coins once sufficient inventories of silver bullion blanks can be acquired to meet market demand for all three American Eagle Silver Coin products.
In France they are withdrawing all monies on the 7th December!!
In France they are not wasting time.They are organising themselves to withdraw their money from the banks on the 7th of December!!
Webmaster's Commentary:
Gotta love those French!
China encourages Silver Bullion for investment
Suddenly, gold is money again - at ICE Clear Europe anyway which will 'accept gold bullion as collateral from Nov 22 this year'. On margin and one oz at a time
LONDON -- ICE Clear Europe has said it will accept gold bullion as collateral from Nov. 22 this year, as volatility picks up across the financial markets.
The company clears energy cash and futures transactions as well as European credit default swaps and is owned by exchange operator InterContinental Exchange.
"Acceptable collateral for ICE Clear Europe currently includes cash and government securities. Gold bullion will be permitted for initial margin only and will be accepted by the clearing house by electronic transfer in increments of 1 troy ounce, and will be priced daily using the London gold fixing price in U.S. dollars," InterContinental Exchange said in a statement dated Nov. 8.
Bernanke Confirms That The Key Goal Of The Fed, And QE2, Is To Boost Stock Prices
So much for the Fed's two mythical mandates of promoting "maximum employment" and maintaining "price stability." First, we had Bernanke's predecessor Greenspan confirming in late July on Meet the Press what everyone knows: namely that the primary goal of the Fed is merely to encourage higher stock prices: "if the stock market continues higher it will do more to stimulate the economy than any other measure we have discussed here." And now, courtesy of an Op-Ed by the current chairman, we get confirmation, again, just three months later, from the current chairman, that the Fed cares mostly about stimulating high stock prices, solely to create the completely artificial illusion of "wealth" for the few, the proud, the shareholders, and the banking oligarchy.
Webmaster's Commentary:
It's more fundamental than that. After decades of "plunge protection" the Federal Reserve holds large blocks of stock on their balance sheet. If the stock market is allowed to drop, the Fed would immediately be insolvent past the point that any printing press could ever overcome. So Bernanke has to keep the stock market puffed up to keep the balance sheets looking like they are in the black.
Even Greenspan Admits that Moral Hazard and Fraud are the Main Problems
Even Alan Greenspan is confirming what William Black, James Galbraith, Joseph Stiglitz, George Akerlof and many other economists and financial experts have been saying for a long time: the economy cannot recover if fraud is not prosecuted and if the big banks know that government will bail them out every time they get in trouble.
Alan Greenspan admits "it's all a scam" 11-9-2010
From the FED celebration at Jekyll Island over the weekend. Bernanke looks uncomfortable as Greenspan admits the truth. Runs 50 seconds.
Federal Reserve celebrates 100 years of dominating America
The Real Reason For Obama's Trip To India: The Sixth Biggest Arms Deal In U.S. History
President Obama is traveling to India this weekend to make a $5 billion sale for 10 of Boeing's C-17 cargo planes. If India signs the contract, this would be the sixth biggest arms deal in U.S. history.
Barack Obama India trip: jobs hope for US from $10 billion trade deal, says President
As he flew into Mumbai, India's financial hub, on the first leg of a 10-day Asian tour, he announced $10 billion in business deals which he said would generate 50,000 jobs in the US.
"The United States sees Asia, especially India, as the market of the future," Mr Obama told a meeting of key US and Indian business leaders who between them represented all the top tier of the country's companies. "There still exists a caricature of India as a land of call centres and back-offices that cost American jobs. But these old stereotypes, these old concerns, ignore today's realities."
US welcomes India for permanent seat at UNSC: Obama at Parliament
Declaring ‘bahut dhanyavaad’ to the people of India for their warm reception, US President Barack Obama told the Indian Parliament that partnership between India and the US will define the 21st Century and that India was already a global power.
Obama declared that like India was a prominent member of various international bodies like the G20, the US would welcome India as it prepared to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
Obama: 'Hard-won consensus' at G-20
U.S. President Barack Obama touted a "hard-won consensus" on steps to monitor world trade and economic recovery, aimed at balancing growth globally.
"Uncoordinated policy actions will only lead to worse outcomes for all," the leaders said in a joint declaration.
At the summit, they agreed to steps that include moving toward more market-determined exchange rate systems and refraining from the competitive devaluation of currencies.
Webmaster's Commentary:
"Basically, they pissed down my back and convinced me it was rain!" -- Official White Horse Souse
US asks China to raise yuan by January
The United States has called on China to hasten its efforts toward reforming its currency exchange rate against the dollar by January of next year.
US President Barack Obama, who has repeatedly said the yuan's undervalued currency has hurt the US economy, urged Chinese officials to let the yuan rise against the dollar by the time Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Washington in January, Reuters reported on Saturday.
"President Hu Jintao's visit in January would be an important time to look at exactly what the quantum of progress has been on this," said United States' National Security Advisor Tom Donilan
Webmaster's Commentary:
What part of "No, Hell no!" on the part of the Chinese government does the Obama administration have difficulty in comprehending?
This is simply a pathetic attempt at face-saving, created by Obama and this administration purely for US domestic consumption, and it is absolutely not working.
Has the Dollar ALREADY Lost Its Status As World Reserve Currency?
These are headlines from the past 2 days:
* Is China's Renminbi Already The New Reserve Currency?
* World Bank chief calls for new gold standard
* China Downgrades US Again, From AA To A+, Outlook Negative, Sees "Long-Term Recession", Blasts QE2, Expects Creditor Retaliation
* Citi: Central Banks Are Going To Start Dumping Dollars In The Coming Weeks
* ICE Starts Accepting Gold As Initial Margin Collateral For All Energy And CDS Trades
Webmaster's Commentary:
China leads attack on US at G20 summit
THE world's 20 biggest rich and emerging economies intensified a war of words yesterday as they headed into a summit devoted to correcting huge distortions in the global economy.
Having long chafed at US criticism of its currency policy, China has turned the tables with its own denunciations after the US Federal Reserve instituted a $US600 billion attempt to reflate the US economy.
Backed by Germany, Brazil and other G20 powers, China accuses the US of forcing the dollar down to trade its way back to prosperity, and says this could trigger a 1930s-style trade war if other countries respond in kind.
G20 summit in chaos over currency war
The G20 summit of leaders of the world's leading economies in South Korea has been shrouded in great pessimism as leaders seem deeply divided over currency and trade policies.
Webmaster's Commentary:
What concerns me deeply about this turn of events are three aspects of the G20:
1. Currency wars can ultimately lead to actual shooting wars.
2. The US has traditionally gotten itself out of depressions by going to war.
3. Suddenly, because the US didn't get what it wanted from China in terms of China revaluing its currency, I am seeing a great deal of China-bashing in various forums today, and that is a very bad (and perhaps, telling) sign.
President Obama's Rock Star Status at G20 Faded?
President Obama's status inside the United States may no longer be "rock star" and some say his reputation overseas seems to be suffering since he went to London for his first G20 meeting in April 2009, but Obama says he has strong relationships with world leaders and a "level of understanding and working together" that was not present during his first trip.
Obama made some comments about globalism during his speech in Mumbai, India that were very eye-opening. As he was discussing the new realities of world trade in 2010, Obama warned against "those who see globalization as a threat" and he spoke of the "integrated world" in which we all now live. But is merging the entire globe into a one world economy, a one world financial system and a one world labor market really the best thing for the American people?
The American people are not being told the truth. The following are 20 reasons why Barack Obama is wrong, wrong, wrong about globalization….
#1 American workers are being merged into a global labor pool where they must directly compete for jobs with workers on the other side of the globe that make less than ten percent of what an average American worker makes. In such an environment, it is inevitable that jobs are going to flow away from areas where labor is expensive and to areas where labor is cheaper.
#2 Globalization has caused the U.S. trade deficit to absolutely explode. In 1985, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 6 million dollars for the entire year. In the month of August alone, the U.S. trade deficit with China was over 28 billion dollars.
#3 Today, the United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that China spends on goods from the United States. This represents a massive transfer of wealth from the American people to China.
#4 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.
#5 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001.
#6 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#7 Even high technology industries are leaving America. Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.
#8 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented only 11.5 percent.
#9 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#10 With so much manufacturing leaving the United States, is it any wonder why people can’t find jobs? The “official” unemployment rate in the United States has been at nine and a half percent or above for 14 consecutive months.
#11 Today, there are at least 1.5 million “99ers” – those Americans that have completely exhausted all 99 weeks of unemployment benefits and that still do not have jobs.
#12 Our dependence on foreign oil also represents an absolutely shocking transfer of wealth from the American people to the oil exporters of the Middle East. Back in 1980, the United States imported approximately 37 percent of the oil that we use. Now we import nearly 60 percent of the oil that we use.
#13 Energy imports account for about approximately one-fourth of the U.S. trade deficit.
#14 In states such as Mississippi, people spend approximately 6.35 percent of their incomes just on gasoline, according to a recent report by the National Resources Defense Council.
#15 Americans end up paying to support American workers one way or another. Either they buy American-made products and services that provide jobs for American workers, or they pay to support unemployed American workers on welfare. Today, over 42 million Americans are on food stamps. A record number of Americans are receiving long-term unemployment benefits. One way or another, Americans are going to pay to take care of American workers.
#16 The U.S. trade deficit is running about 40 or 50 billion dollars a month in 2010. The United States spends 40 to 50 billion more on goods and services from the rest of the world each month than they spend on goods and services from us. That means that by the end of the year, approximately half a trillion dollars (or more) of our wealth will have left the United States for good.
#17 All of this wealth leaving the United States is having a huge impact on the standard of living of average Americans. Ten years ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult. In 2010, the United States has fallen to seventh.
#18 It is now just a matter of time until India is going to pass us as an economic power. In fact, the economy of India is projected to become larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2050.
#19 It is now being projected that China will soon dwarf us as an economic power. One prominent economist now says that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040. According to one recent study, China could become the global leader in patent filings by next year.
#20 China has been accumulating a gigantic mountain of dollars from all of the wealth we have been sending them each month, and they have been lending massive amounts of money back to us. Over the past few decades, the communist Chinese have been able to accumulate approximately $2.5 trillion in foreign currency reserves, and the U.S. government now owes them close to 900 billion dollars. We constantly have to send top government officials over there to beg them to continue to lend us money. This is a direct threat not only to our financial system, but also to our national security.
'G-20 Solidarity Is Crumbling'
Webmaster's Commentary:
Translation: The rest of the world won't do what Obama tells them to!
G-20 refuses to back US push on China's currency
Leaders of 20 major economies on Friday refused to back a U.S. push to make China boost its currency's value.
Webmaster's Commentary:
"Chinese missile subs! Alien UFOs! Stranded cruise ships! Lindsey Lohan! Michael Jackson (Yes, I know he's dead; dig him up anyway)! Osama bin Laden! Osama bin Laden's replacement! Osama bin Laden's nephew! His dog! Something! Anything! I need a distraction!" -- Official White Horse Souse
Video: Runs 2 minutes - National Debt Truth
Great clip. All quotes transcribed.
“If you run the numbers, on all those numbers that you just talked about, which I think are accurate, very accurate, in 20 or 25 years, the United States goes bankrupt,” said Allison. “It’s a mathematical certainty.
U.S. National Debt Infographic -- Which Countries Own Us -- LITERALLY!
Detailed breakdown of U.S. federal debt ownership by country, courtesy of mint.com.
Quick and simple..easy to understand...
- Visualizing Uncle Sam’s Debt (different infographic from mint)
- The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It (from Treasury)
CBO Releases Official Numbers On Obama's Spending Record: In Two Years, An Increase of 21%
The 21.4% federal spending increase in two years ought to put to rest any debate about the nature of America's fiscal problem. The Pelosi Congress has used the recession as an excuse to send spending to record heights, and its economic policies have contributed to a lousy recovery. The solution is to stop the spending and change the policies. Polls open on November 2.
Guess what was the biggest percentage-gain revenue winner for the taxpayer in 2010. Answer is inside. Background reading:
The federal debt is now growing by $5 billion each and every day.
Don't let the headline fool you. Both parties are to blame. Republicans have proven equally adept at stealing your children's future.
The National Debt has so far increased $2.4 trillion on Obama's watch. The Debt stood at $10.626 trillion on the day he took office. It increased $4.9 trillion during Pres. Bush's 8-years in office.
The US$200-Trillion Debt Which Cannot Be Named Thursday, October 28, 2010 – by Staff Report
The scary real U.S. government debt ... Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff says U.S. government debt is not $13.5-trillion (U.S.), which is 60 percent of current gross domestic product, as global investors and American taxpayers think, but rather 14-fold higher: $200-trillion – 840 per cent of current GDP. "Let's get real," Prof. Kotlikoff says. "The U.S. is bankrupt."
The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) is a very little known, yet detailed presentation of a US governmental entity's financial condition. The CAFR is also one of government's best kept financial secrets, as these reports show that almost all governments have far more money than people would ever suspect. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars are available to governments in investment accounts that are never mentioned to the public, as verified in these publicly available government reports. Read the powerful essay below to find out how we may be in much less fiscal difficulty than you ever imagined.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team
Former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton
P.S. The article's author, Harvard-trained Carl Herman, is a personal friend and educator whose work I admire.
CAFR: US agencies have billions, trillions in investments while crying budget deficits
By Carl Herman (edited for brevity and clarity, full essay available here)
Gerald Klatt and Walter Burien are unrecognized heroes. These individuals are pioneering national leaders who have revealed how government agencies quietly conceal American taxpayers’ money in surplus accounts that collectively total literally trillions of taxpayers' dollars. The data is found and can be verified in publicly available documents for each governmental entity called Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs).
What CAFRs reveal is a little-known, yet devious policy whereby taxpayers collectively surrender enormous assets to the government, which then invests the trillions that swell in these accounts. As this money is secreted away, taxpayers are warned of debilitating budget deficits to either squeeze more taxes from them and/or cut public services. To add insult to injury, the state commits a gross lie of omission by never informing citizens of their withheld trillions as they eliminate jobs, reduce education, and attack the quality of our lives.
The American Constitution is a contract of limited government whereby the public informs and is informed by our representatives. CAFRs are damning public documents that expose political leadership from both left and right as exactly what leading economic voices have said: a thoroughly corrupt and self-serving oligarchy.
Let’s look at the economic data revealed in CAFRs for 2009.
Take California, for example, which has a budget deficit of about $20 billion. The combined investments reported in CAFRs for the state of California, Los Angeles County, and the City of Los Angeles is over $450 billion! That's over 22 times the amount of the budget shortfall!!! Click on the links for verification.
These governments claim they need this money mainly for public employee retirement benefits. Let’s check that story. The CAFR data shows current member contributions pay for all retiree benefits except for $1.8 billion (net cost). If just these three state agencies paid off their budget deficits, paid the $1.8 billion in retirement benefits, and surrendered the remaining withheld money back to the public, each taxpayer in California (population 36 million, taxpayers less than 2/3 of this number) would receive well over $15,000.
Why has political leadership and corporate media not informed American taxpayers of this intriguing option? And why isn't this data publicly submitted for professional and independent economist cost-benefit analysis to consider other options which benefit both government and the people? As we all know, money talks and power corrupts.
So far, we’ve only considered three CAFRs in the state of California. The comprehensive reality is far more dramatic. Looking at all of California’s roughly 10,000 cities, counties, towns, and other government agencies, the combined total assets reported in CAFR's, according to Walter Burien’s sampling analysis, is $8 trillion. Let’s say Walter is way off. For argument’s sake, let’s say the total is less than half of Burien's estimate; only $3 trillion. If that amount was returned to the public, even after paying off all debts and pension expenses, each Californian taxpayer would receive well over $100,000!
Obviously, we need independent auditing and economic cost-benefit analyses of all state and local CAFRs around the US in order to make clear choices on how the public benefit might best be served. In California, oppressed under a $20 billion dollar budget deficit that cuts education, child welfare, and other essential public services, continued "investing” of these vast sums of money is likely among the worst of choices imaginable.
To put this into an analogy:
This is like a teenager claiming to everyone that he needs money badly because the front pockets of his pants are empty, which he dutifully shows (budget debt). What he's not telling you is that his back pockets are stuffed with over 100 times the money he says he "needs" (shown in various places of the CAFRs). Whenever someone by chance sees the wads of money stuffed in his back pockets and asks him about it, he says, "Oh, that money is being saved for when I need it much later. I can't touch that."
So far, the silence of major media and political leadership from left and right is deafening. Of course, the politicians' claim of "I can't touch that" is a lie of omission, because it can be touched the moment policy changes. So the real issue is the heart of economics: what are the costs and benefits of different choices?
Here’s the specific data and documentation:
- Using the example of the California CAFR, state pension and “other” trusts investments total $367 billion. Net pension benefits payable from that $367 billion in 2009 was $1.8 billion (retiree payouts minus current member contributions). Subtracting other liabilities ($48 billion in securities lending obligations - page 212), the state of California is holding onto over $300 billion of the public’s money that could be used for other purposes (pages 48, 49 of the report).
- The misleading information on pages 154-155 of the California report suggests retirement funds are not fully funded. However, the fact is that over $300 billion is being held in investments for $1.8 billion paid out in net benefits. How many votes do you think our present policy would receive from the California public given the alternative of receiving say $15,000 each.
- $143 billion of the California CAFR surplus is invested in “equity securities” (stocks) and $92 billion in debt securities (page 83-84). $72 billion is dependent upon foreign markets (page 88). This means that the government quietly “invests” public moneys in Wall Street, big banks, government debts (which may not even be necessary given the existence of CAFR funds), and foreign corporations. Consider that these monies may also be used to curry influence among politicians and the corporate elite.
- The UC system, California's top network of universities, had a 2009-10 budget deficit of $0.65 billion. The policy response was to deny 2,300 students enrollment, lay off 2,000 faculty and staff, cut salaries 10%, and raise tuition 32%. For less than 1/3 of one percent of the investment total of California CAFR funds, UC could have been fully funded and those reductions eliminated.
- California’s 20,000 laid-off teachers could be rehired at $70,000/year for $3.4 billion; less than 1% of these three CAFR “investments” total.
- One cost of this deception: Governor Schwarzenegger announced a 41% cut for the 2010 budget in "general government" services including elimination of CALWORKS (welfare to work and child-care program affecting 1.4 million people, two thirds of them children), and sharp decreases in health and welfare programs for single mothers, low-income children, foster youth, disabled, and senior citizens.
Los Angeles County has $52 billion in investments (pages 61-63), the City of Los Angeles has $36 billion (page 80). Both have drastically cut programs. Both have pension plans fully funded by payments from current members and less than 2% of the CAFR investment totals.
More US households short of food
Almost 15% of US households experienced a food shortage at some point in 2009, a government report has found.
Webmaster's Commentary:
"Look, you all need to lose weight anyway. Really, it's for your own good, and I need the money to pay for the next round of F-35s for Israel so they can kill Americans in international waters for efficiently!
It should be obvious, but the government goons and their friends on Wall Street can't bear to let the cat out of the bag. The US real estate market which drove the world economy is not only a weak it's on the verge of a truly massive collapse.
Why?
The numbers don't lie
Thanks to ever-increasing foreclosures - and the numbers are about to get even worse - there is a glut of supply on the market. Meanwhile, it's been many decades since the American consumer has been in such bad shape.
How bad are things out there?
The most recent issue of Barron's magazine (October 11, 2010) puts the real, uncooked US unemployment figure's at a sobering 22.5%. That is NOT a typo. You can read this stat in Randall W. Forsyth's article “Debasement Blues.”
The latest clip from Max and Stacy. You'll hear all the best jokes in the first 2 minutes.
Video: Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert look at hard assets versus high assets, Hu Jintao bonds, political witches and more bank bailouts. Max also talks to Eric Janszen about his new book, the Post Catastrophe Economy.
Max Keiser: "Goldman Sachs Are Scum That's The Bottom Line" (Best Emotional Revenge Clip Of The Year)
Keiser Report 85: Markets! Finance! Scandal!
This time Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, look at rich people buying gold and the rest of the world decoupling from the United States. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Barry Ritholtz about foreclosure-gate, corporations versus the people and his panoramic view of the bailed out banks of New York.
World Bank Chief Calls For Return To Gold Standard
New editorial from Robert Zoellick, plus the awesome 1-minute video - Goldfinger!
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