A Boston-area teenager remains in custody on $1 million bond nearly one month after being arrested over what he said on the Internet.
Eighteen-year-old Cameron B. D’Ambrosio of Methuen, Massachusetts was arrested on May 1 after police were alerted to “disturbing verbiage” on his personal Facebook page discovered by a fellow student at Methuen High School. D’Ambrosio allegedly posted original rap lyrics that prompted authorities to charge him with terrorism, and now he faces a potential 20 years in prison.
“He posted a threat in the form of rap where he mentioned the White House, the Boston Marathon bombing and said, ‘everybody you will see what I am going to do, kill people,” Methuen Police Chief Joe Solomon told the Valley Patriot earlier this month.
Three weeks after being surprised by police at his Methuen home, D’Ambrosio remains locked up.
“A kid is in prison. Away from his family. All for something he posted on Facebook” reads a support page for the high school student established this week by the Center for Rights and Fight for the Future. In 48 hours, the website received more than 500,000 views, and on Thursday the administrators said 1.2 million people had visited the page by the time D’Ambrosio went before a judge that morning for a scheduled bail hearing. The justice differed deciding at this time if D’Ambrosio should be released from custody.
“Cam’s attorney made arguments that he should be released to his family and that all evidence (including testimony from the police) suggested that he was not a threat to anyone. He also noted that Cam was two weeks away from graduation, and Methuen High School had decided to grant him a diploma,” Fight for the Future wrote early Thursday. “We expect a decision within a few days and sincerely hope that Cam will be home safe with is family soon.”
Meanwhile, though, D’Ambrosio remains locked up if and until a judge decides he isn’t a hazard to the community.
At the time of his arrest, school officials and law enforcement alike applauded the speedy response and celebrate D’Ambrosio’s arrest as a victory against terrorism only a few days — and a few miles — from where two brothers allegedly detonated explosives at the Boston Marathon, killing three in the biggest act of terror in years on American soil. But nearly one month after being detained, authorities have not announced any proof that D’Ambrosio intended to act out the lyrics he left on his Facebook page.
“A search of Cam’s house found no explosives, weapons, or ANY evidence that he was planning anything other than becoming the next Eminem,” his supporters write.
Among the Facebook content that alerted authorities was a song that was considered a warning of things to come.
“So when u see me (expletive) go insane and make the news, the paper, and the (expletive) federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t (expletive) cry or be worried because all YOU people (expletive) caused this (expletive),” reads a redacted version of one post made available to the Boston Herald.
Fox News quoted another song, in which the amateur rapper wrote “(expletive) the Boston bombing, wait til you see what I do. I’m going to be famous.”
On his support page, it’s noted that a key word was dropped from the line when it was reported by Fox. In actuality, D’Ambrosio wrote, “I’ma be famous rapping.”
“Suddenly something that sounds like a threat of violence is clearly just bragging about how good Cammy Dee is going to be in the rap game. Last we checked, teenage dreams of grandeur were not a crime,” the website claims.
I recently sat down with Nick Bernabe, a director from the March Against Monsanto campaign, to talk about the upcoming event and the massive outcry we’ve seen across the United States from ordinary people who have just about had it with the pervasive existence of Monsanto’s genetically modified organisms within the food supply.
I’ve been vocal about my support towards the March Against Monsanto initiative and its focus, which is rooted in a grassroots operation that calls for worldwide assemblies around the world in protest of Monsanto on this upcoming May 25th. Overall what I like about the campaign is the fact that it is ‘open source’ in that anyone can become a campaign manager in their area and rally at the local court house. From Austin and San Diego to New York City, thousands are already reporting in as attendees for the rallies that we see brewing in these areas.
A new free app called ‘Buycott’ allows you to use your Android or iPhone to analyze products and determine if you’re supporting Monsanto’s GMOs, Big Food companies who are damaging your health, or simply low quality products.
Have you ever wished you could own a parrot that sat on your shoulder and said, “squak! don’t buy that’ as you ambled through a grocery store or retail shop, purchasing something like toilet paper or a box of macaroni shells that would add to the financial coffers of companies like Monsanto, or billionaire industrialist David Koch? While your local grocery store probably wouldn’t let you get much further than the pet food aisle, you can now download an App for your Android or iPhone that tells you exactly when you are about to purchase GMO corn or Dixie Cups, a product of one of the many subsidiary companies of Koch Industries, Georgia Pacific.
Think of the new App, championed by Darcy Burner, a former Microsoft programmer and congressional candidate, like an all-knowing friend who reminds you not to get that pair of yoga pants because Dupont Chemical (also a subsidiary of Koch) makes the lycra in them, or to choose that bag of carrots over this one, because there is no GMO in it. If you thought fair trade hang-tags were a way to keep a watchful eye on corporate greed and environmental negligence, then get a load of the app that just scans a barcode and tells you if its ‘safe’ or not.
Even better, you can scan your bag of chips and see if it was made by one of several dozen companies that gave millions of dollars to oppose mandatory labeling of GMO foods, and essentially, boycott them.
The app is similar to the many other initiatives currently mounting against Monsanto, as NaturalSociety Editor Anthony Gucciardi detailed a few days ago in his article ‘March Against Monsanto Is The Beginning of The End For Monsanto’.
Ivan Pardo, a 26-year old wiz kid is the freelance programmer who created the App. Thanks to inventions like Pardo’s, and the transparency his techno gadget offers, it will be harder for companies to hide behind their web of lies and convoluted oligarchy that allows just a few elite companies to rule the world with chemicals and illegal price-fixing schemes. If everything is rigged in favor of just a few billionaire industrialists, like Monsanto, then educating people about their purchases gives them the power to ‘vote’ with their dollar, and choose to purchase something else, instead. Such a simple way, to stick it to the companies who have been poisoning your food, dumping toxins in your air, water, and soil, and to support those who actually have the modicum of a moral compass when it comes to making a dollar (or several trillion) at the expense of millions of people’s health.
Let’s face it, remembering who the top 10 most unethical companies are when you are just trying to buy some dinner, or a new pair of pants shouldn’t mean you are inadvertently contributing to corporate greed and fraud. Fortunately, there’s an App for that, and it comes out in May, premiering on iTunes and the Google app store. Its free and its name is Buycott.
[Click HERE for other useful apps previously mentioned at Potent News.]
Downloading free music in the UK may soon be a thing of the past. British record labels have come up with a list of 25 services they’re willing to take to court to stop online bootlegging and save their shrinking profits. The leader of the UK’s Pirate Party, Loz Kaye, told RT the record industry’s using an outdated approach that could return to haunt it.
RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
Welcome back to http://NewWorldNextWeek.com – the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:
Story #1: Unprovoked Attack On Syria – Israel Commits Egregious International Crime http://ur1.ca/drsiw
19-Hour Internet Outage In Syria Ends http://ur1.ca/drsj3
Israel Granted Oil Rights in Syria to Murdoch and Rothschild Two Months Ago http://ur1.ca/drsj6
Stephen Hawking Joins Academic Boycott of Israel http://ur1.ca/dqp0e
“House Of Cards” Chapter 2 Features Israeli/Palestinian Conflict http://ur1.ca/drsjb
Story #2: Lauryn Hill Signs A Five-Song, $1 Million Deal With Sony To Avoid Prison http://ur1.ca/drsje
Lauryn Hill Gets Three Months In Prison For Failing To Pay Taxes http://ur1.ca/drsjh
Lauryn Hill Blames ‘Slavery’ as She’s Jailed for $500,000 Unpaid Tax Bill http://ur1.ca/drsjm
Flashback: Lauryn Hill’s Taxing Problem – “Manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex” http://ur1.ca/drsjq
Flashback Video: Why Dave Chapelle Quit http://ur1.ca/drsjv
Flashback: Geithner Didn’t Pay Taxes http://ur1.ca/drsjz
Story #3: CIA Requested ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Rewrites, Memo Reveals http://ur1.ca/dqup8
Flashback: Documents Show Admin Offered Access to Osama Filmmakers http://ur1.ca/drsk7
NWNW Flashback: Obama’s Oscar http://ur1.ca/drskb
Video: CNN Anchors Fake Satellite Interview In Same Parking Lot http://ur1.ca/drskk
One of the least discussed and least reported issues is the Obama administration’s effort to bring the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement to the forefront, an oppressive plurilateral US-led free trade agreement currently being negotiated with several Pacific Rim countries. Six hundred US corporate advisors have negotiated and had input into the TPP, and the proposed draft text has not been made available to the public, the press or policymakers. The level of secrecy surrounding the agreements is unparalleled – paramilitary teams scatter outside the premise of each round of discussions while helicopters loom overhead – media outlets impose a near-total blackout of reportage on the subject and US Senator Ron Wyden, the Chair of the Congressional Committee with jurisdiction over TPP, was denied access to the negotiation texts. “The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations — like Halliburton, Chevron, PhaRMA, Comcast and the Motion Picture Association of America — are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement,” said Wyden, in a floor statement to Congress.
In addition to the United States, the countries participating in the negotiations include Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Japan has expressed its desire to become a negotiating partner, but not yet joined negotiation, partly due to public pressure to steer-clear. The TPP would impose punishing regulations that give multinational corporations unprecedented rights to demand taxpayer compensation for policies they think will undermine their expected future profits straight from the treasuries of participating nations – it would push the agenda of Big PhaRMA in the developing world to impose longer monopoly controls on drugs, drastically limiting access to affordable generic medications that people depend on. The TPP would undermine food safety by limiting labeling and forcing countries like the United States to import food that fails to meet its national safety standards, in addition to banning Buy America or Buy Local preferences.
According to leaked draft texts, the TPP would also impose investor protections that incentivize offshoring jobs through special benefits for companies – the TPP stifles innovation by requiring internet service providers to police user-activity and treat small-scale individual downloads as large-scale for-profit violators. Most predictably, it would rollback regulation of finance capital predators on Wall Street by prohibiting bans on risky financial services and preventing signatory nations from exercising the ability to independently pursue monetary policy and issue capital controls – signatories must permit the free flow of derivatives, currency speculation and other manipulative financial instruments. The US-led partnership – which seeks to impose ‘Shock and Awe’ Globalization – aims to abolish the accountability of multinational corporations to the governments of countries with which they trade by making signatory governments accountable to corporations for costs imposed by national laws and regulations, including health, safety and environmental regulations.The proposed legislation on Intellectual Property will have enormous ramifications for TPP signatories, including Internet termination for households, businesses, and organizations as an accepted penalty for copyright infringement. Signatory nations would essentially submit themselves to oppressive IP restrictions designed by Hollywood’s copyright cartels, severely limiting their ability to digitally exchange information on sites like YouTube, where streaming videos are considered copyrightable. “Broader copyright and intellectual property rights demands by the US would lock up the Internet, stifle research and increase education costs, by extending existing generous copyright from 70 years to 120 years, and even making it a criminal offense to temporarily store files on a computer without authorization. The US, as a net exporter of digital information, would be the only party to benefit from this,” said Patricia Ranald, convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network.
In the private investor-state that the TPP is attempting to establish, foreign corporations can sue national governments, submitting signatory countries to the jurisdiction of investor arbitral tribunals, staffed by private sector attorneys. International tribunals could have authority to order governments to pay unlimited cash compensation out of national treasuries to foreign corporations and investors if new or existing government policy hinders investors’ expected future profits. The domestic taxpayer in each signatory country must shoulder any compensation paid to private investors and foreign corporations, in addition to large hourly fees for tribunals and legal costs. A good example of how this agreement neuters national sovereignty comes from Malaysia, which was able to recover from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis more quickly than its neighbors by introducing a series of capital control measures on the Malaysian ringgit to prevent external speculation – the TPP’s proposed measures would restrict signatory nations from exercising capital controls to prevent and mitigate financial crises and promote financial stability.
The TPP regime ensures that foreign investors and multinational corporations retain full rights to undermine the sovereignty of participatory nations by skirting domestic regulations and limiting the abilities of national governments to issue independent economic policy. There has never been such a sweeping corporate assault on sovereignty, and that includes US sovereignty. Leaked TPP documents detail how the Obama administration intends to surrender US sovereignty to international tribunals that operate under World Bank and UN rules to settle disputes arising under the TPP, specifically designed to leave Congress out in the cold while creating a judicial authority higher than the US Supreme Court. In theory, the TPP would give international judicial entities the authority to override US laws, allowing foreign companies doing business in the United States the privilege of operating in a legal environment that would give them significant economic advantages over American companies that remain tied to US laws, placing domestic companies who do not move offshore at a competitive disadvantage.Facing the emergence of strong developing economies like the BRICS group and other nations that seek greater access to industrial growth and development, the Obama administration realizes that it must offer Pacific nations – who would otherwise have greater incentives in deepening economic ties with China – an attractive stake in the US economy. As the Pentagon repositions its military muscle to the Asia-Pacific region, the TPP is clearly the economic arm of the ‘Asia Pivot’ policy, roping strategic economies into a legally binding corporate-governance regime, lured in by the promise of unfettered access to US markets. The Obama administration is essentially prostituting the American consumer to foreign corporations to usher in a deal that would impose one-size-fits all international rules that even limit the US government’s right to regulate foreign investment and the appropriation of natural resources, solidifying a long-discussed model of finance capital-backed global governance.
Of the 26 chapters of the proposed TPP draft text, it is reported that only two chapters cover trade issues, related to slashing tariffs and lifting quotas. The TPP would obligate the federal government to force US states to conform state laws to over a thousand pages of detailed stipulations and constraints unrelated to trade – from land use to intellectual property rights – authorizing the federal authorities to use all possible means to coax states to comply with TPP rules, even by imposing sanctions if they fail to do so. According to leaked documents, US standards for property rights protection would be swept away in favor of international property rights standards, as interpreted by TPP’s unelected international tribunals, giving investors principal control over public land and resources “that are not for the exclusive or predominant use and benefit of the government.”
Due to the unconstitutional nature of the TPP, members of Congress would likely object to many of its stipulations – naturally, the Obama administration is employing its executive muscle to restrict congressional authority by operating under “fast-track authority,” a trade provision that requires Congress to review an FTA under limited debate in an accelerated time frame subject to a yes-or-no vote so as to assure foreign partners that the FTA, once signed, will not be changed during the legislative process. No formal steps have been taken to consult Congress as the agreement continues to be negotiated, and Obama looks set to subtly ram the treaty into law. Such is the toxic nature of US policies that seek to bring in disaster-capitalism on a global scale, while keeping those whose lives will be most affected by deal completely in the dark. The message behind this unfettered corporate smash and grab is simple – bend over!Recent statistics claim that the combined economic output of Brazil, China and India will surpass that of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States by 2020. More than 80% of the world’s middle class will live in the South by 2030, and what a different world that would be. The United States is economically ailing, and the TPP – Wall Street’s wet dream and Washington’s answer to its own dwindling economic performance – is designed to allow US big business a greater stake in the emerging Pacific region by imposing an exploitative economic model on signatory nations that exempt multinationals and private investors from any form of public accountability. The TPP’s origins go back to the second Bush administration, and it still remains in the negotiating phases under Obama’s second administration. The overwhelming lack of transparency surrounding the talks lends credence to what is known already – that the contents of this trade agreement serve the interests of those on the top of the economic food chain while the rest of us stagnate on the menu.
In March, the Canadian government introduced a bill that would bring about sweeping changes to its copyright and trademark laws. This includes giving more power to customs and border protection agents without any judicial oversight. The move is intended to prevent counterfeit goods from entering the country, but has been criticized for being less about protecting Canadians and more about caving to American demands. With the U.S. dictating global intellectual property standards, the new legislation represents the return of ACTA and would pave the way for Canada to ratify the controversial international treaty.
Over the years, the U.S. has been critical of Canada’s efforts in addressing trade in counterfeit goods and has been pressing for intellectual property reform. In the 2009 United States Trade Representative (USTR) Special 301 Report, Canada was placed on a priority watch list of countries that do not provide adequate intellectual property enforcement. As part of its 2013 Trade Policy Agenda, the USTR is now pushing Canada to comply with the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA). The multinational treaty is designed to standardize intellectual property laws around the world. Although it has been signed by a number of countries, including Canada, so far only Japan has ratified ACTA. It was the result of public pressure associated with risks to internet privacy and online freedom of speech which lead to ACTA being rejected by the European Parliament in July of 2012. At the time, many assumed that ACTA was dead, but it still remains a top priority for the U.S. and they are attempting to revive the discredited agreement by trying to get the six necessary ratifications for it to come into force. In an effort to satisfy U.S concerns, Canada recently announced legislation which is aimed at bringing them in line with ACTA.
Last month, the Conservative government introduced Bill C-56, also known as the Combating Counterfeit Products Act. Academic researcher and law professor Michael Geist explained how the proposed legislation would, “ensure that Canada is positioned to ratify ACTA by addressing border measures provisions. The core elements of the bill include the increased criminalization of copyright and trademark law as well as the introduction of new powers for Canadian border guards to detain shipments and work actively with rights holders to seize and destroy goods without court oversight or involvement.” He emphasized that, “Customs officials are not copyright and trademark experts, yet they may now be forced to assess infringement cases including determining whether any copyright exceptions apply.” Mike Masnick of techdirt acknowledged that, “For many years, Canada has strongly resisted U.S.-style copyright laws, despite tremendous pressure to do so. Watching them cave on ACTA is certainly a disappointment.” He went on to say, “It shows a Canadian government who doesn’t seem to care about what the public wants, but rather feels the need to kowtow to U.S. entertainment and pharmaceutical lobbying interests.”
The Council of Canadians have questioned whether the anti-counterfeiting bill, “is one of the conditions the U.S. government put on Canada joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations.” The group is urging that intellectual property rights be taken out of the TPP and the Canada-European Union (EU) Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) talks. There have already been attempts to use CETA negotiations to sneak in parts of ACTA. Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians wondered since, “The Harper government seems to have just collapsed in front of U.S. demands for border enforcement of Hollywood’s intellectual property rights despite the global controversy with ACTA. Can we expect Harper to bend this easily to European demands in CETA and U.S. demands in the TPP that will increase the price of drugs and undermine access to affordable medicines?” ACTA also favours Big Pharma with patent protections that would limit generic competition and would lead to higher drug costs.
On March 20, the USTR officially notified Congress of its intention to enter into negotiations with the EU on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement. In the letter, they also outlined specific goals in different areas such as intellectual property rights. As part of the transatlantic talks, the USTR, “Seek to obtain, consistent with U.S. priorities and objectives, appropriate commitments that reflect the shared U.S.-EU objective of high-level IPR protection and enforcement, and to sustain and enhance joint leadership on IPR issues.” A Civil Society Declaration signed by European and U.S. groups is insisting that the upcoming negotiations, “exclude any provisions related to patents, copyright, trademarks, data protection, geographical indications, or other forms of so-called intellectual property. Such provisions could impede our rights to health, culture, and free expression and otherwise affect our daily lives.” Some have warned that the TTIP could be used as a way to implement ACTA through the backdoor.
ACTA is part of the international agenda of patent, trademark and copyright lobbies. The agreement favours big businesses over individual innovators and creators. It was designed to protect the interests of multinational corporations at the expense of fundamental civil rights. ACTA is being used by the U.S. to pressure other countries into adopting a new global standard for intellectual property enforcement. The supranational treaty would impose draconian laws which threaten the sovereignty of member nations.
Dana Gabriel is an activist and independent researcher. He writes about trade, globalization, sovereignty, security, as well as other issues. Contact: beyourownleader@hotmail.com Visit his blog at Be Your Own Leader
Can you believe it? A site dedicated to earth changes, weather, geoengineering, earthquakes, and space anomalies —- being called UNSAFE? Labelled a spam? REQUIRING PASSWORDS TO SHARE?????
The controversial cybersecurity bill known as the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives last week, will almost certainly be shelved by the Senate, according to a representative of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
The bill would have allowed the federal government to share classified “cyber threat” information with companies, but it also provided provisions that would have allowed companies to share information about specific users with the government. Privacy advocates also worried that the National Security Administration would have gotten involved.
“We’re not taking [CISPA] up,” the committee representative says. “Staff and senators are divvying up the issues and the key provisions everyone agrees would need to be handled if we’re going to strengthen cybersecurity. They’ll be drafting separate bills.”
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., chairman of the committee, said the passage of CISPA was “important,” but said the bill’s “privacy protections are insufficient.”
That, coupled with the fact that President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the bill, has even CISPA’s staunchest opponents, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, ready to bury CISPA and focus on future legislation.
(NaturalNews) One of the biggest obstacles holding people back from eating healthy is easy access to resourceful information, about chemicals in foods, or natural remedies and supplements, and about new choices to make right at the store. If only technology made something for your phone, so you could scan every product’s barcode and get a quick, reliable summary of what you’re really getting. For instance, is it GMO? Does it contain gluten? Am I allergic to the ingredients? Guess what? The smart phone app already exists, and has been around for a few years, but hardly anyone knows about it. That’s all about to change. (http://www.fooducate.com/).
Planet Earth is chock full of natural resources, foods that heal the body, herbs and mushrooms that build immunity, extracts and seed oils that cure diseases, and if no food scientists ever took any of it into a lab and cooked it with chemicals, there would be far less disease and disorder, far less obesity and cancer, and far less of a need need to put a HUGE filter on everything you consider purchasing. (http://store.naturalnews.com/Superfoods_c_4.html)
Not everyone has a smart phone, but millions now do. If you are not one of those fortunate owners of a smart phone, you may want to bring a friend or loved one along with you who has one, and bring them with you to every store where you buy food. You see, most people (besides NaturalNews enthusiasts) do not read articles every day about chemicals in foods and food “agents” that destroy your health. Most people do not do any research at all about what they ingest; they just ask a few questions here and there and maybe look it up on the dreaded WebMD or even worse, they watch The Doctors show or Doctor Oz on TV and believe everything they see and hear. But consider this: if a TV show, or an on-line allopathic reference, or some magazine runs pharmaceutical advertising for their revenue, then they will lie to you about food and nutrition, or they face consequences of losing all their “sponsors” and their “big bucks” from advertising toxic medications. (http://www.naturalnews.com)
You see, those “resources” can only dabble in actual “good health advice” because they want you to believe everything else they print or cover is the truth, but it is not. It’s just the opposite. (http://www.seedsofdeception.com/)
Remember the old saying, “Let your fingers do the walking?” In other words, let your fingers do the research, if you don’t have the time or energy. The smart phone app will uncover the lies, the food toxins, the food criminals, and expose them, right on the spot! If you read labels at all, you can read the Fooducate app even easier. Now you don’t have to try to figure out what all those long crazy words or ingredients mean that you can’t even pronounce, and you will know whether they include GMOs, pesticide, insecticide, herbicide, or toxic food coloring, aluminum (heavy metals), gluten, MSG, Aspartame, or other cancer-causing, heart attack-breeding junk that’s put in our “natural” food. Even organic foods can be checked for a rating, so you can make a fast judgment call as to whether or not you want the ingredients of a particular product to get past your “body guards” and enter the temple of your soul.
Scan the bar codes of everything you consider buying and eating!
• Find out what is GMO or is Non-GMO in seconds!
• Find out if something is vegan, vegetarian and organic – instantly!
• Filter out wheat, gluten, food colorings and food allergens!
• Get a quick calorie count and fat content (the good and bad fats)!
Just go to the “play store” on your smart phone under applications and search for Fooducate or click on the link in this article. No more excuses. It’s time to heal your body and launch yourself into the natural and organic world of energy, vitality and longevity. Educate yourself. “Fooducate” yourself right now! Realize that because of huge corporations, the United States sells the most toxic food in the world. You can put guards at your gates by getting the FREE smart phone food app. Don’t waste time wondering what you’re eating ever again, just scan the bar code, read a short description and look at the rating it gets. Fooducate grades (rates) foods and beverages on a scale from A to D. There are 10 distinct grades: A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+ and D. These grades are based on nutrition, ingredients, and processing (if any). Fooducate also accepts feedback if you disagree with their rating.
It’s “kill or be killed” when it comes to GMO
Take the “die” out of your diet right now! Get the bug killer and weed killer out of your food. Do not buy PESTICIDE FOOD. You can “kill” disease before it starts killing you. Never let it into your system in the first place. Protect your cells so they won’t mutate. Basically, if you filter out GMO from every shopping experience, you will be filtering the chemicals Big Food is putting in vegetable seeds and on weeds, all which cause cancer in humans. The long-term research is in, so it is reliable and scary. Pay attention. Get the app and scan the bar codes. It’s that simple. You can search for bleach, ammonia, MSG, Aspartame, and lots of other major food criminals! Fooducate is getting 5 star reviews! (http://www.seedsofdeception.com/)
The best part of the Fooducate app is that it gives concise explanations along with a grading system developed by scientists, dietitians and concerned parents. I believe that if everyone started scanning bar codes with the Fooducate app and used the GMO/non-GMO indicator, there could be a wave of millions of people who avoid GMO entirely in the near future, and maybe, just maybe, we could put an end to GMO altogether (http://www.fooducate.com/).
Last Wednesday, a story was posted on a Facebook group created anonymously by a Canadian student at Humber College in Toronto. Facebook groups pop up all the time, no big deal right? Wrong. The group titled “Humber College Epic Hookup Fails” has attracted national media attention after two students reported a post highlighting the alleged assault of an intoxicated student.
Caution: Written below are direct quotes from the Facebook post, the story was posted anonymously and is graphic. Read at your own discretion.
Today, Internet freedom advocates everywhere turned their eyes to the U.S. House of Representatives as that legislative body considered the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.
For the second year in a row, the House voted to approve CISPA, a bill that would allow companies to bypass all existing privacy laws to spy on communications and pass sensitive user data to the government.
“CISPA is a poorly drafted bill that would provide a gaping exception to bedrock privacy law,” EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl said. “While we all agree that our nation needs to address pressing Internet security issues, this bill sacrifices online privacy while failing to take common-sense steps to improve security.”
The legislation passed 288-127, despite a veto threat from Pres. Barack Obama, who expressed serious concerns about the danger CISPA poses to civil liberties.
“This bill undermines the privacy of millions of Internet users,” said Rainey Reitman, EFF Activism Director. “Hundreds of thousands of Internet users opposed this bill, joining the White House and Internet security experts in voicing concerns about the civil liberties ramifications of CISPA. We’re committed to taking this fight to the Senate and fighting to ensure no law which would be so detrimental to online privacy is passed on our watch.”
EFF extends its deep gratitude to the many organizations that have worked with us on this campaign and the tens of thousands of EFF members who helped us by contacting Congress to oppose CISPA. We look forward to continuing to fight by your side in defense of civil liberties as CISPA moves to the Senate.
A new CNN article predicts that within 25 years people will have embedded microchips within their brain that will allow their behavior to be controlled by a third party.
The story, entitled Smartphone of the future will be in your brain, offers a semi-satirical look at transhumanism and the idea of humans becoming part cyborg by having communications devices implanted in their body.
Predicting first the widespread popularity of wearable smartphones, already in production by Google, the article goes on to forecast how humans will communicate by the end of the century.
“Technology takes a huge leap in 25 years. Microchip can be installed directly in the user’s brain. Apple, along with a handful of companies, makes these chips. Thoughts connect instantly when people dial to “call” each other. But there’s one downside: “Advertisements” can occasionally control the user’s behavior because of an impossible-to-resolve glitch. If a user encounters this glitch — a 1 in a billion probability — every piece of data that his brain delivers is uploaded to companies’ servers so that they may “serve customers better.”
The tone of the CNN piece is somewhat sophomoric, but the notion that humans will eventually merge with machines as the realization of the technological singularity arrives is one shared by virtually all top futurists.
Indeed, people like inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil don’t think we’ll have to wait 25 years to see smartphones implanted in the brain. He sees this coming to pass within just 20 years.
In his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil successfully predicted the arrival of the iPad, Kindle, iTunes, You Tube and on demand services like Netflix.
By 2019, Kurzweil forecasts that wearable smartphones will be all the rage and that by 2029, computers and cellphones will now be implanted in people’s eyes and ears, creating a “human underclass” that is viewed as backwards and unproductive because it refuses to acquiesce to the singularity.
Although the CNN piece doesn’t even foresee implantable brain chips until the end of the century, Kurzweil’s predictions are far beyond this. According to him, by 2099, the entire planet is run by artificially intelligent computer systems which are smarter than the entire human race combined – similar to the Skynet system fictionalized in the Terminator franchise.
Humans who have resisted altering themselves by becoming part-cyborg will be ostracized from society.
“Even among those human intelligences still using carbon-based neurons, there is ubiquitous use of neural implant technology, which provides enormous augmentation of human perceptual and cognitive abilities. Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to meaningfully participate in dialogues with those who do,” writes Kurzweil.
Kurzweil’s forecasts are echoed by Sun Microsystems’ Bill Joy, who in a 2000 Wired Magazine article entitled Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us, predicted that technological advancements in robotics would render most humans obsolete.
As a result the elite, “may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity,” wrote Joy.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
There is a Skype trojan going around that is turning PCs into Bitcoin miners. So far, victims are mostly located in countries like Italy, Russia, Poland, Costa Rica, Spain, Germany, and a few others. Bitcoin Mining is a another way for users to acquire Bitcoin’s currency by “making computer hardware do mathematical calculations for the Bitcoin network to confirm transactions and increase security.”
The trojan is going around via a Skype instant message. The translated message says, “This is my favorite picture of you”, and provides a shortened link. The trojan is spreading quickly, with an average 2000 clicks per hour. Kaspersky has identified the trojan as “Trojan.Win32.Jorik.IRCbot.xkt”, and the process it runs as bitcoin-miner.exe. The malware connects to a C2 server located in Germany with the IP address: 213.165.68.138:9000.
The malware immediately takes control of your computer and increases the victim’s CPU usage drastically. While the trojan’s primary use is for Bitcoin mining, it’s not its only capability. Bitcoin mining isn’t lucrative with just one PC, however, if there are many PCs infected and aimed towards a specific Bitcoin mining pool, it can be worthwhile.
This new trojan is speculated to have surfaced due to the meteoric rise in Bitcoin value. Late last month, it was reported that the value of a Bitcoin was $92, a number that has now reached about $140. The constant rise in value of Bitcoin is more than enough to drive many devious hackers to get creative. So in order to protect yourself from being infected, make sure to get an anti-virussoftware, and keep it up-to-date. Also be wary of suspicious Skype messages and shortened URLs. We’ll keep you updated if there are any resolutions to this issue.
During his first term, President Barack Obama declared October 2009 to be “National Information Literacy Awareness Month,” emphasizing that, for students, learning to navigate the online world is as important a skill as reading, writing and arithmetic. It was a move that echoed his predecessor’s strong support of global literacy—such as reading newspapers—most notably through First Lady Laura Bush’s advocacy.
Yet, disturbingly, the Departments of Justice (DOJ) of both the Bush and Obama administrations have embraced an expansive interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) that would literally make it a crime for many kids to read the news online. And it’s the main reason why the law must be reformed.
As we’ve explained previously, in multiple cases the DOJ has taken the position that a violation of a website’s Terms of Service or an employer’s Terms of Use policy can be treated as a criminal act.
And the House Judiciary Committee has floated a proposal that makes the DOJ’s position law, making it a crime to access a website for any “impermissible purpose.” For a number of reasons, including the requirements of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, many news sites have terms of service that prohibit minors from using their interactive services and sometimes even visiting their websites.
Take, for example, the Hearst Corporation’s family of publications. If you read the terms of use for the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, or Popular Mechanics websites, you’ll find this language, screamed in all-caps:
YOU MAY NOT ACCESS OR USE THE COVERED SITES OR ACCEPT THE AGREEMENT IF YOU ARE NOT AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD.
In the DOJ’s world, this means anyone under 18 who reads a Hearst newspaper online could hypothetically face jail time. But Hearst’s publications aren’t the only ones with overly restrictive usage terms. U-T San Diego and the Miami Herald have similar policies. Even NPR is guilty, saying teenagers can’t access their “services” (including the site, NPR podcasts and the media player) without a permission slip:
If you are between the ages of 13 and 18, you may browse the NPR Services or register for email newsletters or other features of the NPR Services (excluding the NPR Community) with the consent of your parent(s) or guardian(s), so long as you do not submit any User Materials.
Some sites must have recognized the problem and crafted their policies to only forbid users under the age of 13. These include the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Arizona Republic. NBCNews.com uses this wording:
By using or attempting to use the Site or Services, you certify that you are at least 13 years of age or other required greater age for certain features and meet any other eligibility and residency requirements of the Site.
This means that inquisitive 12-year-olds who visit NBCNews.com to learn about current events would be, by default, misrepresenting their ages. That’s criminal by DOJ standards and would be explicitly illegal under the House Judiciary Committee’s proposal.
We’d like to say that we’re being facetious, but, unfortunately, the Justice Department has already demonstrated its willingness to pursue CFAA to absurdextremes. Luckily, the Ninth Circuit rejected the government’s arguments, concluding that, under such an ruling, millions of unsuspecting citizens would suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
As Judge Alex Kozinski so aptly wrote: “Under the government’s proposed interpretation of the CFAA…describing yourself as ‘tall, dark and handsome,’ when you’re actually short and homely, will earn you a handsome orange jumpsuit.”
And it’s no excuse to say that the vast majority of these cases will never be prosecuted. As the Ninth Circuit explained, “Ubiquitous, seldom-prosecuted crimes invite arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Instead of pursuing only suspects of actual crimes, it opens the door for prosecutors to go after people because the government doesn’t like them.
Unfortunately, there’s no sign the Justice Department has given up on this interpretation outside the Ninth and Fourth Circuits, which is why the Professor Tim Wu in the New Yorkerrecently called the CFAA “the most outrageous criminal law you’ve never heard of.”
The potential criminalization of terms of service is a prime reason that Congress needs to overhaul CFAA and it’s certainly why the House Judiciary Committee should abandon the seemingly DOJ-drafted bill it floated recently and instead sit down with Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Darrell Issa, and others to negotiate real reform.
Apparently not satisfied with the ability to read everyone’s emails and demand private bank and telephone records without a warrant, the FBI will not be content until it can legally listen in on citizens’ live conversations on email and social networks like Gmail, Skype, Dropbox and Cloud.
Calling court approval for government surveillance “obsolete,” FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann last month stated that getting the power to wiretap all forms of Internet conversation and cloud storage will be a “top priority” this year.
Specifically, law enforcement wants Congress to amend a 1994 surveillance law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). At present, CALEA allows the government to force Internet providers and phone companies to have surveillance equipment on their networks, but the law does not cover email, cloud services, or online chat providers like Skype. Although the FBI can use a “Title III Order” under the Wiretap Act to ask such providers to conduct surveillance, the FBI wants to be able to force them to do it—without a warrant signed by a judge.
Speaking to a luncheon organized by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security on March 20, Weissmann admitted that the FBI wants the power to mandate real-time snooping on all online communications, even including chat associated with online games like Scrabble because, he claims, “Those communications are being used for criminal conversations.” By that logic, law enforcement should have the power to listen in on all telephone conversations and to open and read all mail, since both are undoubtedly used for “criminal conversations” as well.
Further illustrating the Orwellian nature of his project, Weissmann—whose overzealous prosecution of one-time accounting giant Arthur Andersen was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court in 2005—admitted that “it’s something that there should be a public debate about” even as he refused to reveal the FBI’s specific proposals because “it’s a very hard thing to talk about publicly.”
Because the requirement that law enforcement get a neutral judge to sign a search warrant based on probable cause is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment, if the FBI believes that search warrants are obsolete, it believes the Fourth Amendment is obsolete as well, and ought to have the honesty and integrity to say so publicly.
The U.S. Senate voted yesterday to approve the concept of an Internet sales tax by an overwhelming 75-to-24 margin.
The vote was largely symbolic and non-binding, but its support has some wanting to bypass the committee process for the easy passage of the Marketplace Fairness Act, according to The Verge.
The law, which opponents more accurately call the ”National Internet Tax Mandate”, would allow states to demand sales taxes from online retailers.
More exactly, “the Marketplace Fairness Act grants states the authority to compel online and catalog retailers (“remote sellers”), no matter where they are located, to collect sales tax at the time of a transaction,” according to a lobbyist website supporting the idea.
In its current form, Internet retailers with less than $1 million in sales would be exempt, which at first glance seems palatable. But consider that if a retailer only makes a 10 percent profit margin, then they only take home $100K net profit before expenses. That’s hardly a large company with the resources to learn a new system or hire someone to handle the extra bookkeeping.
Even foreign retailers (no matter where they are located) will have to charge, account for, and remit sales taxes for customers who may reside in a participating U.S. state. It doesn’t matter that the retailer has no attachment to the customer’s state or country for that matter. Can anyone see how this may hinder commerce freedom for U.S. customers?
“Collecting sales tax is—or rather should be—simply part of selling online, just as it’s part of selling on Main Street,” argue the lobbyists, adding “Collecting sales tax? That’s just part of doing business.”
Furthermore, the customer must now pay sales tax on every single item they buy while residing in a certain state regardless of where they bought it from. The lobbyists say you should be okay with that because “As a consumer, the sales tax you pay funds projects and services in your community.”
Large e-tailers like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Target have lobbied for the tax. Of course, they also have brick-and-mortar storefronts, but their online sales have jumped in recent years.
This new regulation tax is precisely how small businesses are regulated out of the brick-and-mortar marketplace. They start with small, seemingly reasonable requests which are sometimes quasi-voluntary like this proposal, then bit by bit the regulations become mandatory and they keep squeezing for more.
The lobbyists for this bill argue it will be good for all businesses. “Thousands of businesses are forced to do business at a competitive disadvantage because they have to collect taxes and online sellers do not, which in some states can mean a 5 to 10% price advantage,” they claim.
However, clearly they weren’t talking about small online retailers which employs untold millions of workers.
It’s dangerous to even open the door to this type of intrusion into the Internet free market. Internet entrepreneurs everywhere should be protesting this law.
Scientists are building systems they claim will allow humans to upload their brains into a computer so we can become Gods in a cyberspace virtual reality world.
Check out The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction in paperback on Amazon.com, or e-book on Kindle, iBooks, Nook, or Google Play. http://www.amazon.com/Illuminati-Fact…
Mark Dice is a media analyst, political activist, and author who, in an entertaining and educational way, gets people to question our celebrity obsessed culture, and the role the mainstream media and elite secret societies play in shaping our lives. Check out Mark’s books in paperback on Amazon.com or e-book on Kindle, iBooks, Nook, or Google Play.
Mark frequently stirs up controversy from his commentaries, protests, and boycotts, and has repeatedly been featured in major media outlets around the world.
Several of Mark’s YouTube videos have gone viral, earning him a mention on ABC’s The View, Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor, CNN, Drudge Report, TMZ.com, and other mainstream media outlets. Mark has also been featured in (or attacked in) the New York Post’s Page Six, Rolling Stone Magazine, USA Today, The New York Daily News, and in major papers in Pakistan and Iran.
Mark Dice appears in several documentary films including Invisible Empire, The 9/11 Chronicles, and has been featured on the History Channel’s Decoded, Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, the Sundance Channel’s Love/Lust: Secret Societies and more. He enjoys enlightening zombies, as he calls them, (ignorant people) about the mass media’s effect on our culture, pointing out Big Brother’s prying eyes, and exposing elite secret societies along with scumbag politicians and their corrupt political agendas. You can support Mark’s work by sending a PayPal donation to Donate@MarkDice.com or by using the Donate link on MarkDice.com.
He has called into several top-rated talk shows dozens of times, including the Sean Hannity Show, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage, and verbally battles with the hosts on various issues since he has never been asked to be a guest on them as of yet. Audio of some of these calls are then posted online.
The term “fighting the New World Order” is used by Mark to describe some of his activities, and refers to his and others’ resistance and opposition (The Resistance) to the overall system of political corruption, illegal wars, elite secret societies, mainstream media, Big Brother and privacy issues; as well as various economic and social issues.
Dice and his supporters sometimes refer to being “awake” or “enlightened” and see their knowledge of these topics as part of their own personal Resistance to the corrupt New World Order. This Resistance involves self-improvement, self-sufficiency, personal responsibility and spiritual growth.
Mark Dice is the author of several books on current events, secret societies and conspiracies, including his newest book, Big Brother: The Orwellian Nightmare Come True which is available on Amazon.com, Kindle and Nook. While much of Mark’s work confirms the existence and continued operation of the Illuminati today, he is also dedicated to debunking conspiracy theories and hoaxes and separating the facts from the fiction; hence the “Facts & Fiction” subtitle for several of his books. He has a bachelor’s degree in communication from California State University.
If you have an iPad or Android tablet, then you can download the Kindle app and then download any of Mark’s books from the Kindle store for only $6.99 or $7.99. Some of them are also available in e-book on Google Play. Or you can get paperback copies from Amazon.com too if you prefer a physical book. They are not available in stores. A lot of work and research went into them and they’ll save you countless hours of web surfing or YouTube watching in your search for pieces of the puzzle. Your support also funds more of Mark’s videos and other operations. Equipment, software, travel, and the props all cost money, so by purchasing his paperback books and e-books, you are helping The Resistance continue and your help is greatly appreciated. Be sure to subscribe to Mark’s YouTube channel, and look him up on Facebook, and Twitter. http://www.YouTube.com/MarkDicehttp://www.Facebook.com/MarkDicehttp://www.Twitter.com/MarkDicehttp://www.MarkDice.com
Facebook’s ‘like’ button can reveal more than you realize, a new study has showed. By liking posts and links, you may be revealing personal secrets, like your sexuality or religious and political views. The findings have raised privacy concerns.
A study by the National Academy of Sciences examined 58,000 Facebook users in the US, who volunteered their likes, demographic profiles and psychometric test results. Researchers managed to draw “surprisingly accurate” findings about a given user’s race, IQ, sexuality, substance use, personality and political views by analyzing the topics and items they ‘liked,’ even if they set strong privacy settings for their page.
The study’s authors developed an algorithm that uses Facebook ‘likes’ to create personality profiles, potentially revealing a user’s personality. Anyone with training in data analysis could be able to derive such information, even if users had not explicitly shared it, they explained.
As a result, researchers were able to predict whether men were homosexual with 88 percent accuracy by their ‘like’ clicks on sites related to gay marriage or same-sex relations. Preferences of music and TV shows, for example, were also more revealing than users may have imagined: Men who liked the musical TV show ‘Glee’ were more likely to be gay, the study showed.
In 82 percent of cases, Christians and Muslims were correctly identified among the volunteer profiles. And the study was not only predictive of sexuality or religion, but also a user’s IQ.
Those with higher IQs tended to more frequently like ‘The Colbert Report’ TV show, for example, or films like ‘The Godfather’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Those with lower IQs liked Harley Davidsons and Bret Michaels of the rock band Poison.
Similarly accurate predictions were also made about users’ political views, and could even predict potential voting patterns during elections, mapped to users’ relationship status, their number of Facebook friends and a half-dozen other personality traits.
“The important point is that, on one hand, it is good that people’s behavior is predictable because it means Facebook can suggest very good stories on your news feed,” South China Morning Post quoted Michal Kosinsky, one of the academics behind the study as saying.
While the study could be seen as a new step towards creating more personalized content, it also highlighted the potential threats to privacy posed by Facebook. “What is shocking is that you can use the same data to predict your political views or your sexual orientation. This is something most people don’t realize you can do,” Kosinsky warned.
Similar profiles could be created using other digital data, including Web searches, emails and mobile phone activity, according to a co-author of the study: “Your likes may be saying more about you than you realize,” David Sitwell, a Cambridge University researcher said, according to AFP. “But you don’t realize that years later all those likes are building up against you.”
On Friday March 1st 2013, Bill C-56 was introduced in the house of commons by Conservative MP Christian Paradis. The bill strongly resembles ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), Which Canada has signed on to, but has not ratified.
Read the full test of Bill C-56 HERE
The United States has been pushing for Canada to comply with ACTA regulations very recently.
In the 2013 Trade Policy Agenda and 2012 Trade Policy Report, the Office of the United States Trade Representative has encouraged Canada to “meet its Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA) obligations by providing its customs officials with ex officio authority to stop the transit of counterfeit and pirated products through its territory.” Source
Bill C-56 will:
- Give border officers the authority to detain suspected commercial shipments and contact the rights holders;allow Canadian businesses to file a request for assistance, with the CBSA, in turn, enabling border officers to share information with rights holders regarding suspect shipments.
- Provide new criminal offences for the commercial possession, manufacture or trafficking of counterfeit trademark goods.
- Provide rights owners with new tools to protect their rights and take civil action against infringers.
- Create new offences for trademark counterfeiting, and
- Provide better tools to investigate commercial counterfeiting. Source
Bill C-56 seems to fall right in line with the Americans suggestion to implement ACTA. Which should be sounding alarm bells in the Canadian public.
Despite being rejected by the European Parliament, 31 nations have signed on to ACTA and the agreement only requires that 6 of them ratify the agreement for it to come into force. We as Canadians must ensure that Canada does not become one of those 6 nations, regardless of external pressures.
If you are not aware of ACTA here is a brief video explaining what it involves.
In the 7 years since its inception, Twitter has become an integral part of twenty first century life. Reflecting everything, from people’s routine habits, to revolutionary political messages. And for the last 2 years, every single tweet sent in the U.S. has been stored in a massive archive at the Library of Congress – raising concerns over privacy. The official reason is for research purposes – but so far the data has been kept behind closed doors.
RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
http://trutube.tv go ahead be offended all you got to do is not watch something if it is bad. But the Web desperately needs a place that allows long political videos no time limits and no topics that are too taboo. This is however a Political site so no video about kittens or epic fails, aka mindless social garbage.
image: Cameron B. D’Ambrosio
Dutchsinse
by S.D. Wells
Activist Post
Slash Gear – by Brian Sin 
Dave Maass and Trevor Timm
by Terry Wilson
