Deadline Live With Jack Blood » Jack Blood

U.S. Withdraws Diplomats From Syria (Lighting the Fuse to WW3 ?)

Jack Blood — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:07:34 +0000

It seems to be a foregone conclusion – Syria will be attacked using the Libya (Iraq) regime’ change playbook. This will be Nobel Peace Prez’s 3rd war in 3 years. Lets hope that this doesn’t brew over into World War, and the final step to Global Govt. (the war to end all Nations)

The U.S. closed its embassy in Damascus on Monday, citing rising violence, a day before Moscow was due to dispatch high-level envoys to Syria for talks with one of the Kremlin’s last allies in the region, besieged President Bashar al-Assad.

But with the Syrian army renewing assaults on rebel positions on Monday, there seemed to be little chance that the Russian officials would be able to avert a deepening of the conflict, which the United Nations said had killed 5,400 even before bloodshed reached new levels in recent weeks.

Western leaders stepped up their criticism of the Kremlin, which was … Read More

Caucus Vote shows Obvious Election Theft in Nevada 2012

Jack Blood — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:41:54 +0000

Stopping Ron Paul getting 2nd place was the prime Directive!As in Iowa, open vote theft, and rigged elections rule the day… Right out in plain site!

Volunteers count caucus ballots for the second straight day at Clark County GOP headquarters in Las Vegas Sunday, Feb. 5.

Las Vegas Sun

The voting ended half a day ago. The networks have called the race. The GOP presidential candidates have delivered their speeches and left the state.

And, still, party officials in Nevada’s largest county continue to count the vote.

“We are going to get this right,” Clark County Chairman David Gibbs told the Las Vegas Sun today. “If it takes us a little bit of time to get it rights, we are going to take the time.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was declared the victor of the Nevada caucuses Saturday evening, based on results from the rest of the state and entrance polls conducted by major media organizations.

With 70 percent of the vote counted, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was in second place, with U.S. Rep. Ron Paul trailing in third by just shy of 1,000 votes.

After working until 4 a.m. Sunday, a handful of a volunteers resumed working through boxes of paper ballots this morning, verifying the vote count done at each precinct nearly 24 hours ago.

County party officials were unwilling to release the numbers from the precinct counts until each ballot was certified. And they are doing it all by hand.

“We want to make sure the count at the precinct was accurate,” Gibbs said.

With just half of the vote counted, officials have already discovered some discrepancies. In some precincts, the number of ballots did not match the number of voters who signed in to participate in the caucus.

Gibbs said the ballots in those precincts are being set aside so officials can decide how to deal with the problem. He declined to estimate how many votes were in question.

State party secretary Jim DeGraffenreid said they are still determining “the facts” and then will decide how to proceed, but acknowledged the ballots from those precincts may be dumped from the results.

“That is a possibility,” he said.

The mismatched prompted U.S. Rep. Ron Paul’s campaign to complain about a “lack of process and poorly run locations.”

A lawyer for Romney’s campaign is watching the count and observers from other campaigns have been invited.

Las Vegas Sun: Nevada State GOP Chair Resignation Effective 12:01am Today

Anjeanette Damon – @AnjeanetteDamon

To make things even better for the #nvgop, Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian’s resignation took effect at 12:01 a.m. Status of the chair up in air.

- Tweet

Story at the Las Vegas Sun: Vote count in GOP caucus continuing in Nevada’s largest county

8 Precinct Vote Totals Missing From Iowa Caucuses : NPR

Paul Campaign Tech, former Bush insider; Doug Wead “I didn’t want my Nephew dying over a Bush Family Blood Feud”

Jack Blood — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:24:30 +0000

This is a little weird. From a February 1, 2012 Doug Wead lecture at Western Michigan University Fetzer Center.

Nevada and Maine Vote this weekend – Paul Campaign’s Doug Wead comments (video)

Jack Blood — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:05:08 +0000

The News just completely lies about this entire election, Doug Wead sets the record straight with a smile. Looks like Nevada will be a big loss for Paul, and Maine should get him to # 2 behind M-Rom. Frustrating to say the least. We are still a very long way off.

Employment Report: Blatant And Outrageous Lies

Jack Blood — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:00:48 +0000

This article cuts through the BS the O’Bomba Admin is selling pre selection 2012. The OTHER points not made in this article are inconvenient to the Govt.

1) Whatever numbers and statistics come out, they are simply averaged in to a national flow. In some cities we have seen unemployment reach over 20%! It is below national averages in TX (but please dont move here, were good).

2) With millions actually dropping out of the job hunt, even the new Obama numbers show national unemployment at a net loss nearer to 11%. (Ron Paul pointed this out last night on Piers (JP) MORGAN’S show (CNN) – Piers was actually saying that we should support the ILLUSION of this good news or be seen as “partisan” players. (full video of that interview HERE)

3) Counting “jobs” is a creative task that can be skewed in any direction intended by the PTB. Is a part time fast food job a Manufacturing job? The Bush Admin tried to tell us that it is. And if your Mom has 3 tiny jobs to pay the mortgage it will count as 3 jobs, even though they are “occupied” by one worker, barely making ends meet.

Anyway you count it, you do not have to look too hard to see a nation out of work, working for slave wages, and hurting almost everywhere. In our opinion… Its NOTHING to brag about!

~ Jack Blood

MARKET-TICKER.ORG

There are times when one questions a report as possibly being wrong or in error, and then there are times when one has to raise a flag and say “This is an intentionally false picture being presented by a government agency.”

I’m in the latter camp with this one, and it is rare for me to brand something as not possibly wrong and in error, but intentionally fraudulent.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 243,000 in January, and the unemployment rate decreased to 8.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job growth was widespread in the private sector, with large employment gains in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing. Government employment changed little over the month.

This looks really good; here’s the chart that is on the front page:

I wish I could take this report, pick it apart at the household level, and find confirmation. Remember that last month the alleged 200,000 jobs that were gained were a phantom; when one looked inside the household data we found instead deterioration in both the employment participation rate and a decline in the absolute number of employed persons, while population rose. That is, the actual counts (as opposed to black-box statements) said that the labor picture deteriorated in December, contrary to the reported numbers.

This month it was worse. Far worse.

Let’s start with the “base picture” that is causing the cheering:

That nice red line looks good, right? Well……

“Not in labor force” numbers leaped upward on an annualized basis (seasonally adjusted the “right way”) and what’s worse on a raw basis 1.572 million people exited the labor force last month.

This is reflected in the percentage of those not in the labor force as a percentage of the working-age population, which hit an all-time high going back to the initiation of the data series I’ve tracked since 1999:

That’s 0.6% of the entire labor force that departed the working population in one month, three times the alleged drop in the unemployment rate. This means that internally, the numbers were even worse than they first appear!

Indeed, the total number of employed persons fell. A lot. To put a number on it, the total number of employed persons fell by 737,000 by actual count.

Now the cheerleaders will state that this is a common thing in January, and indeed it is. But the correct adjustment is to look at the population increase and subtract that back off as well. In other words, we take the loss of employment and add the population growth. When we do this we get a whopping 2.422 million in the wrong direction which was bested only by the -2.618 million in January of 2009 through the process of this downturn!

In fact other than January 2009 there has never been a single month in my table, which dates back to 1999, that put up a worse combined number. This “performance” rates a literal “second from utter despair and disaster”, and the employment rate shows it:

This is not a strong report folks, and in fact documents an actual and ongoing collapse in the US labor force, despite the crooning on the mainstream media disinformation channels!

“Occupy” Austin PD HQ Protest January 28th 2012

Jack Blood — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:44:16 +0000

JustLive.US

On Saturday January 28th, 2012, well over a hundred people from all walks of life, protested on the steps of the Austin Police Department for solidarity of the victims of police abuse on January 1, 2012. This was the second rally that was organized to protest police abuse in Austin, the first was Occupy Austin Courts on J19 at the criminal courthouse. I helped organize both of these events and was happy to see the support from Occupy Austin, anarchists, Ron Paul supporters and moms who were previously non-activists. The is a great example of how people in the community can come together and support each other for a noble cause. Activists took part in street actions stopping traffic with their signs and many speakers rallied the crowd with the use of a bullhorn. The support of the community was evident, with all the honks in support from all the vehicles passing by. We also had different local news media show up and shoot interviews, similar to the first protest. The police left us alone for the most part, although we did notice some on a roof observing, it was a peaceful rally without any trouble. It seemed as if everyone had a camera that day to capture this historically and for personal protection. We also had live coverage of the rally online that day with gonzo journalist, Kit O’Connell, live tweeting and I livestreamed video with my smartphone. The rally ended with a march through the streets of downtown around APD headquarters. It was an empowering experience exercising our rights and showing solidarity for the NYE 3.

Stay up to date with case on the Free the NYE 3 and Free Antonio Buehler Facebook pages.

Below is my interview on the Freezone with Freeman, talking about the events that happened on NYE and the Occupy APD protest. Also below is a great video compilation by Mike Hanson Archives and a photo slideshow from various attendees of the rally.

More Pictures / video HERE

Harold

Harold Gray is on a personal journey to share his knowledge with others. In 2008, he launched JustGetThere in order to dispense information about the draconian system.

After coming to the conclusion that the sheer amount of such information had begun to reach the point of repetition, Harold decided to turn his focus onto things he could control, and to pursue self-sufficiency through positive intentions — which lead to the launch of JustLive in 2010.

The (Police) State of US Surveillance

Jack Blood — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:38:31 +0000

Written by Doug Hornig
Date: 02-03-2012
Casey Research Articles

Via Freedoms Phoenix

Lovers of liberty have seemingly had a good bit to celebrate recently.

First, there was an unprecedented outpouring of negative public sentiment about the Congressional bills SOPA (House) and PIPA (Senate); they are legislation that would have thrown a large governmental monkey wrench into the relatively smooth-running cogs of the Internet. Millions of Americans signed online petitions against the bills after seeing websites’ various protests. Google shrouded its search page in black; Wikipedia and Reddit went dark entirely (although Wikipedia could be accessed if one read the information available via clicking the sole link on its protest page); Facebook and Twitter urged users to contact their representatives; and many other core Internet businesses also raised their voices in opposition.

Such was the outpouring of dissent that even Washington, D.C. had to listen. The bills, which a week earlier had seem assured of swift passage, suddenly turned to poison. Supporters, forced to concede that the public really was pissed off this time, fled. Leadership in both houses tabled the legislation, pending further review and revision.

But before we get too self-congratulatory, however, it’s wise to note that this victory dish is probably best enjoyed with a serving of caution. As Casey Extraordinary Technology editor Alex Daley summed up the situation for us here at Casey Research: “Be sure this will come back again, likely post-election, and snuck through as part of a bigger package. It arrests power from the judiciary, and the legislature likes nothing more than to thumb its nose at those ridiculous judges and all their due process this and Constitution that. It will eventually pass, just not like this.” We can’t now go to sleep on this one.

Second, the Supreme Court recently ruled 9-0 that police may not attach a GPS tracking device to a suspect’s car without a search warrant. This is a landmark decision to be sure, but one that was carefully circumscribed by the justices. The placing of the device constituted a physical intrusion on the suspect, they wrote, and thus was impermissible. Left unruled upon was the larger question of tracking someone’s movements when there was no physical violation, as would be the case when, say, police access signals from a GPS-enabled smartphone. Though it wasn’t directly addressed, the concurring opinions strongly suggest that the justices might be more sharply divided on that issue.

A lapse of vigilance in these matters would be a mistake.

This is probably a good time to review how individual freedom fared over the past year vis à vis the technology of surveillance in general.

But before I do, I need to make a couple of things clear.

Where We Stand

We are not technophobes at Casey Research. We don’t think that it would be a good thing to retreat to the woods and live out our days spearing game and cooking it over fires. Quite the contrary. We’re technophiles who appreciate what tech has done to improve human living conditions, and we believe that it holds the key to the solution of many, if not all, of our present problems. We like to err on the side of hope.

In addition, we understand that society has a powerful interest in maintaining a certain level of order. It’s intolerable that personal disputes should be settled by gun battles in the streets or that serious infringements on the rights of others – whether it be physical crimes such as robbery, rape, or murder, or non-physical ones like fraud – should be ignored. The most ardent libertarian would generally agree that a government ought to have the authority to prevent or punish the aggression of one individual upon another and to enforce contracts freely entered into. Thus tradeoffs with our basic right to do as we see fit must be made if man’s worst impulses are to be deterred.

That said, the tricky part is deciding where to draw the line between reasonable and overzealous laws and enforcements. Surveillance technology is at the center of this debate. It’s good and getting ever better. Even the most law-abiding of citizens have been subjected to steadily increasing levels of governmental – as well as private sector – watchfulness over their daily lives. That has occurred with no indication that the public is yet prepared to say, “Enough. This is where we draw that line in the sand.”

The past year was no exception. I won’t go into developments I’ve already written about, such as the growth of the TSA’s VIPR operations, last summer’s lemonade-stand busts, the ghastly E-Verify proposal , and the Fed’s Social Listening Program. But the sad truth is that there are plenty more from which to choose. Space considerations permit a close examination of only a few.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s…

… a drone.

Remote-controlled drone aircraft, like the famed Predator, have become a staple of the nightly news. We see them launching missiles against terrorists, conducting spy missions over Pakistan, patrolling the borders looking for drug smugglers and alien infiltrators. Now we’re going to have to get used to seeing them in the skies over, well, all of us.

Yes, those same Predator drones are being used increasingly by local law enforcement in the US.

That was unknown to most Americans before late last year, when the great North Dakota cattle-rustling incident hit the press. It seems that back in June, six neighbors’ cows had the misfortune to wander onto a 3,000-acre farm in eastern North Dakota owned by the Brossart family, whose members allegedly belong to the Sovereign Citizen Movement, an anti-government group that the FBI considers extremist and violent.

When the sheriff attempted to reclaim the cows, the family refused to give them up, ordering him off its property at gunpoint. A 16-hour standoff ensued, with the sheriff requesting the usual reinforcements: state highway patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, and deputy sheriffs from three other counties. But he also called nearby Grand Forks Air Force Base and asked for help from a $154 million MQ-9 Predator B drone, normally used to secure the Canadian border for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Long story short, the drone silently surveilled the farm from two miles up, relaying information from its sophisticated sensors as to what the Brossarts were doing. When the surveillance showed that the family members had put their weapons down (yes, it can see that well at that distance), the authorities moved in, neutralizing the Brossarts and making the first known, drone-assisted arrests of US citizens.

Law enforcement was pleased, perhaps rightly so. No blood was spilled. Another Ruby Ridge was avoided. The cows – street value $6,000, but now rather a bit more costly – were recovered.

But that was just the beginning. Local North Dakota police say they have used the Grand Forks Predators to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have also used Predators for domestic investigations, officials admit. And Michael Kostelnik, a retired Air Force general who heads the office that supervises the drones, says that Predators are flown “in many areas around the country, not only for federal operators, but also for state and local law enforcement and emergency responders in times of crisis.” [emphasis mine]

Who knew?

Apparently not Congress, for one. Spokespersons for Customs, which owns the drones, claim there is legal authorization for this usage because it was clearly indicated in the purchase request for the Predators that one purpose was “interior law enforcement support.” But those four words sailed right by Congresswoman Jane Harman – Chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee at the time the drone purchases were approved – who insists that “no one ever discussed using Predators to help local police.” So this expanded civilian use of military surveillance hardware came about with no new law, no public discussion, not even a written regulation… just a few words buried in a budget request that no one in charge of approving it noticed.

There will be mission creep here, as there always is. Expect drones to gather data on any large political demonstration, for example – only, to be fully accurate, you won’t be noticing them above you. They fly too high and are too silent for that.

Internet Surveillance

In addition to SOPA/PIPA, there is PCIP. SOPA/PIPA were about shutting down Internet sites that the federal government deems offensive. PCIP is about gathering information.

As is so often the case with “well-meaning” legislation, the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 (H.R. 1981, or PCIP) is allegedly aimed at something about which all agree. Nobody argues against shielding kids from pornographers.

Not that the problem addressed isn’t real. The Internet has proven to be a fertile stalking ground for sexual predators. As a society, we have already agreed to a certain level of cyber-entrapment, allowing police to run online sting operations against those who are actively targeting kids. If that catches some innocent people in the net, so be it. The public majority is willing to accept such collateral damage so long as the real bad guys are found and put away.

And yes, H.R. 1981 also contains some non-controversial provisions. Stricter punishment for interstate commerce transactions that promote child porn? Sure. Bolstering laws to protect child witnesses? No problem.

But, as always, the details are alive with devils. PCIP is also about pre-crimes – i.e., it entails gathering evidence before any crime is committed… perhaps even before said crime is contemplated. The goal is that, in the event of an arrest, supporting online records can quickly and easily be subpoenaed.

In order to accomplish that, everyone must be considered a potential criminal. Everyone.

What PCIP will mandate is that Internet providers keep detailed records about each one of us, including: name, address, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, all Internet activity for the previous 12 months (something sure to be extended after the first successful busts), and any IP addresses assigned to you – without a search warrant, court order, or even the slightest suspicion of criminal activity.

In other words, the government is proposing to expand the ranks of de facto private-sector cops, the same way that banks are now forced to report any “suspicious financial activity.” The legislation would enlist – nay, require – ISPs to compile detailed dossiers on every citizen, and to have them readily accessible for whatever “crime-fighting” or other purposes authorities want them. This thereby saves federal government officials the trouble and expense of doing it themselves. It’s breathtaking. You almost have to admire the elegance of their solution to the universal ‘Net surveillance problem that’s vexed them for some time.

No wonder the Electronic Frontier Foundation has scornfully tabbed this the “Data Retention Bill,” warning that the stored data “could become available to civil litigants in private lawsuits – whether it’s the RIAA trying to identify downloaders, a company trying to uncover and retaliate against an anonymous critic, or a divorce lawyer looking for dirty laundry.” And in a grotesque illustration of the law of unintended consequences, the EFF adds: “These databases would also be a new and valuable target for black hat hackers, be they criminals trying to steal identities or foreign governments trying to unmask anonymous dissidents.”

H.R. 1981 sailed through the House Judiciary Committee in late July of last year but is yet to be voted on (although it was slated for “expedited consideration” in mid-December). Will it provoke the kind of public outcry directed against SOPA? Don’t count on it. What politician in his or her right mind would dare oppose legislation that “protects kids from pornographers?”

Reverse Surveillance

Meaning: when we turn the cameras on the government.

In a sense, we are all now street journalists. Most famously, the name “Rodney King” would mean nothing to anyone today but for a bystander with a cell phone camera. As these devices have become all but ubiquitous, we ordinary citizens now have an unprecedented ability to record crimes in progress, regardless of what side of the law the perpetrators are on.

Or do we?

While police understandably have welcomed citizen recordings that help them with their cases, they are again understandably not so sanguine when they themselves are the potential lawbreakers. And they’re hitting back. People filming unfolding events are routinely ordered away from the scene by the police, even if they happen to be standing on their own private property – and threatened with arrest if they don’t put the camera away.

Considering the First Amendment to the Constitution, that’s been a bluff… at least until recently.

Now authorities are asserting their right to charge video- or audiographers of police events with crimes ranging from obstruction of justice to eavesdropping to illegal wiretapping.

So far, to their credit, the courts have been mostly unsympathetic. In August, a jury acquitted a Chicago woman who used her cell phone to secretly record a conversation with police investigators about a sexual harassment complaint she was filing against the department. Also in August, the US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled in favor of the defendant in a case involving a complaint filed by a Boston man who filmed the scene of an October 2007 arrest on his cell phone, only to be arrested himself and charged with a violation of Massachusetts wiretapping laws.

In Illinois in September, a judge threw out five eavesdropping indictments – which carried maximum penalties of 15 years in prison on each count – against a man who had recorded conversations with local police officers who he claimed were harassing him on his own property. In a stinging rebuke to the prosecution, the judge wrote, “A statute intended to prevent unwarranted intrusions into a citizen’s privacy cannot be used as a shield for public officials who cannot assert a comparable right of privacy in their public duties. Such action impedes the free flow of information concerning public officials and violates the First Amendment right to gather such information.”

So far, so good. Still, these kinds of busts are on the rise nationwide. Even if they’re all laughed out of court, the mere threat of arrest (and the potential concomitant bodily harm) is often enough to make most people think twice about the wisdom of challenging a police order.

And, truthfully, would you trust the current Supreme Court – a majority of which has consistently supported government rights over that of citizens – to rule correctly on this?

Target: Casey Research!

One of the most ominous developments for us personally crawled out from under its rock in November. Again without any public debate, DHS unleashed its National Operations Center’s Media Monitoring Initiative. Yep, it’s exactly what it sounds like: The NOC’s Office of Operations Coordination and Planning is going to collect information from news anchors, journalists, reporters, or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

Thus Washington, D.C. unilaterally grants itself the right to monitor what you say. Doesn’t matter if you’re the New York Times, Brian Williams, a basement blogger, an online whistleblower, or known government critics like ourselves. They’re gonna take note of your utterances and file them away for future use.

Journalists are not the only targets, by the way. Also included among those subject to this surveillance are government officials (domestic or not) who make public statements; private-sector employees who do the same; and “persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest,” however large that umbrella might be.

At Casey Research, we’re not about to engage in self-censorship just because some bureaucrat somewhere has nothing better to do than watch what we’re saying. They’re welcome to it, and we’ll save them the trouble of archiving it; most of it’s preserved on our website, anyway.

The larger speculation is: what’s the endgame here?

Data Storage Capacity

Back in 1997, I wrote an article entitled Here’s Looking at You, which examined the ways in which big government was encroaching upon our private lives. The piece was published in February 1998 in a very popular national men’s magazine. (In my defense, I hasten to add that these glossy periodicals were among the very few public outlets, before Casey Research was born, for journalists who wrote about such “fringe” topics.)

As I was writing this piece you are now reading, I couldn’t help but take a look back fourteen years. It seems almost like a prehistoric era… before 9/11, the PATRIOT Act, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drones, “free-speech zones” at political conventions, wall-penetrating radar, iPhones, and wholesale government monitoring of email and phone conversations, among a zillion other things. Heck, even the Internet was still more or less a novelty: I found that I had cautioned readers to be mindful of an insidious newfangled thing called “cookies.”

The tech of today is light-years more advanced. But even back then, I was concerned. And I predicted where I saw the trend heading. Naturally enough, not all of my predictions came to pass – I was certain for instance that by now we’d have a national ID card – but unfortunately, most of them did.

The reason I bring this up here is not to tout myself as particularly prescient. It’s to note something of actual importance. In 1998, I could still maintain that our saving grace was that data-storage capabilities were way insufficient for the total surveillance of hundreds of millions of Americans and probably would be for a long time to come.

How wrong I was.

It is already technologically feasible for governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders – every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner.

Before long, it’ll also be financially feasible to archive it, according to a sobering report published last December by the Brookings Center for Technology Innovation.

The report concludes that: “Plummeting digital storage costs will soon make it possible for authoritarian regimes to not only monitor known dissidents, but to also store the complete set of digital data associated with everyone within their borders. These enormous databases of captured information will create what amounts to a surveillance time machine, enabling state security services to retroactively eavesdrop on people in the months and years before they were designated as surveillance targets. This will fundamentally change the dynamics of dissent, insurgency and revolution.”

Emphasis mine. Consider the implications.

The key, according to the Brookings report: “Over the past three decades, [data] storage costs have declined by a factor of 10 approximately every 4 years, reducing the per-gigabyte cost from approximately $85,000 (in 2011 dollars) in mid-1984 to about five cents today.” Using GPS, mobile phone and WiFi inputs, “identifying the location of each of one million people to [a 15-foot] accuracy at 5-minute intervals, 24 hours a day for a full year could easily be stored in 1,000 gigabytes, which would cost slightly over $50 at today’s prices.” Fourteen cents a day to archive the collective movements of any selected million of us.

Phone calls? “The audio for all of the telephone calls made by a single person over the course of one year could be stored using roughly 3.3 gigabytes. On a per capita basis, the cost to store all phone calls will fall from about 17 cents per person per year today to under 2 cents in 2015.”

Video storage takes far more space, of course, and there are also major logistical problems involved in managing such a huge amount of data. But the point is made. Technological innovation will provide the tools. And as soon as government can do something, they invariably will do it.

Investing

These few examples, winnowed from hundreds of others I could cite, testify to a mushrooming new industry in the US, what some have called the cyber-industrial complex.

It’s big business. How big we don’t know, because much of it is shrouded in either government or corporate secrecy. The Washington Post‘s Dana Priest, twice a Pulitzer winner and one of the few true investigative journalists in America still working inside the mainstream media, published some groundbreaking work on the subject in the summer of 2010. If you haven’t read it already, you should. The website is dynamic, with regular updates posted on the subject and reader input invited.

Several other recent probes also have opened the shadowy surveillance world to a little more light. You can check out some of the latest techniques and which companies are implementing them at The Surveillance Catalog published by the Wall Street Journal and The State of Surveillance: The Data, published by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Perhaps in your browsing you’ll find some publicly traded companies that will attract your investment interest. For our part, at Casey Research we prefer to seek out companies that are engaged in changing our world for the better rather than the worse. Those are the ones you’ll find in our portfolio.

In the end, we must acknowledge that technological advancement, especially at the rate we’re experiencing it in the present era, is bound to spawn evil applications along with the good. But we’re optimists here. We believe humanity is in a long-term uptrend, with technology setting torches on the path to a better life.

But that all depends on keeping people free. That’s why we will continue to expose – and oppose – government efforts to stifle innovation, creativity, and personal liberty. I’m not holding my breath but perhaps eventually Washington, D.C. will get the point, and follow our lead.

[Technology wars are being waged in a variety of ways, but the one that may affect investors the most is the war for the best talent. You have to invest smart to be on the winning side of this battle; learn how to back the victors and reap outsized profits.]

Vermont inmates hide pig in official police car decal

Jack Blood — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:34:20 +0000

By Zach Howard

Thu Feb 2, 2012 9:45pm EST

(Reuters) – Inmates working at a Vermont correctional unit’s print shop managed to sneak a prank image of a pig into a state police crest that is emblazoned on police cars, and 30 cruisers sported the design for the last year, officials said on Thursday.

The official crest depicts a spotted cow against a background of snowy mountains, but the inmates’ version featured one of the cow’s spots shaped like a pig in an apparent reference to the pejorative word for police, state police spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro said.

“It dishonors the memory of those past and present members, especially for those who have lost their lives in the line of duty,” Dasaro said.

Vermont contracts with correctional facilities employing prisoners to make some print products, including the cruiser decals. Police said someone who works at the print shop changed the emblem from the officially sanctioned design.

A police employee noticed the prank on Wednesday and reported it. Police said the 60 16-inch door decals would be removed as soon as it was practical.

The “source and timing” of the change to the design is under investigation, Dasaro said.

“While some may find humor in the decal modifications, the joke unfortunately comes at the expense of the taxpayers,” Police Major Bill Sheets said in a statement.

Can Ron Paul Be Tamed? (No – but his campaign can)

Jack Blood — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:50:55 +0000

These men have NOTHING in Common - Why the alliance then? Read below...

by Justin Raimondo, February 03, 2012

AntiWar.com

You know you’ve hit the big time when the Establishment comes knocking on your door with an offer to sell out. It means you’re drawing blood: that your campaign, or whatever, is having an effect — and not one that pleases the Powers That Be. They want to defang you, if not shut you up, and they’re willing to offer you what Satan offered Jesus up there on that mountain:

“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.”

If Ron Paul isn’t exactly Jesus, many of his supporters treat him as if he is indeed the incarnation of Liberty in human flesh: the media routinely describes them as “fanatical” – or, more charitably, “devoted” – and I don’t blame them for their enthusiasm (indeed, I share it). Paul is undoubtedly a messianic figure, although he is the last one to give himself that kind of aura, and that’s because we are indeed living in a time of woe, from whence a great many people are seeking deliverance. Ron is their one hope, a bright spot in an ever-darkening and increasingly scary world – and our elites don’t like that one bit.

What they especially don’t like are his foreign policy views, which are routinely described in the lame-stream media as “isolationist” – as if minding our own damned business and not trying to dominate the world would be an isolating act. And of course none of these geniuses ever described, say, Eugene McCarthy, or George McGovern as an “isolationist” – they were “antiwar” candidates because they were on the left, and because no one on the right can ever be against wars of aggression for moral reasons. Yet the 76-year-old country doctor and presidential candidate defies those stereotypes – and, in the process, delegitimizes them as standards of the American political lexicon. He has succeeded in creating a movement that truly transcends the tired old categories of “left” and “right.”

This false left-right dichotomy, which does nothing to accurately map the landscape of 21st century American politics, is one of the main weapons in the War Party’s well-stocked arsenal. Because whatever liberals and conservatives disagree about, when it comes time to unleash the dogs of war both the “left” and the “right” have been equal in their bloodthirstiness. To keep up the illusion of conflict, these two wings of the War Party alternate their warmongering schedules: during the Vietnam war era, it was the right that wanted to obliterate the Soviets militarily and the “left” that took up the anti-interventionist banner – although liberal support for the war made the occupation of Vietnam possible, at least initially. In the1930s, their positions were reversed, with conservatives making the case for “isolationism” (i.e. opposition to empire-building): the warmongering was left to the liberals and the extreme left, notably the American Communist Party.

In both cases, the War Party was able to take advantage of the left-right split. In the Thirties, it was the Eastern seaboard Republicans, the Wendell Wilkie group, that absconded with the GOP presidential nomination and sold out the anti-interventionist cause on the campaign trail, never pushing the issue of FDR’s ill-disguised enthusiasm for getting us into the European war. After the election, Wilkie went over to the enemy completely, becoming one of FDR’s biggest supporters, and a tireless advocate of “internationalism,” i.e. an American empire on which the sun never sets. His book, One World, is a veritable manifesto of left-sounding globaloney. Behind Wilkie were the big investment banks, the Anglophile elite whose cultural loyalties – and investments in the bonds of European governments – naturally led them into the pro-war camp.

In the 1960s, pro-war Democrats played the key role in getting us into Vietnam and keeping us there long after that disaster had begun to unfold. Back then, we were all chanting “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?!” That was what antiwar protesters were shouting in the streets as they demanded the withdrawal of US troops from Southeast Asia. Pro-war liberals, known today as neoconservatives, were an ideological bulwark protecting a Democratic administration against a massive and growing antiwar movement – a role that earned them the well-deserved animus of the New Left. The little group around Senator Henry Jackson (D-Boeing) which organized the “Committee for the Free World,” provided most of the intellectual firepower behind this rearguard action. After the victory of the McGovernites, they threw up their hands and joined the Republicans: today, we know them as the neoconservatives.

The left-right mindset has another key advantage for the War Party: it keeps anti-interventionists out of the GOP. If the right is inherently warlike, and conservatives have a war gene, then anti-interventionists have no place else to go other than the Democratic party. Which means not only that they must buy into the party’s domestic agenda, but also be reduced to pleading when it comes to, say, reducing the “defense” budget, or refraining from intervening to plant the flag of “democracy” in some godforsaken wilderness. Opponents of our foreign policy of global intervention are entirely dependent on the Democratic leadership to implement their agenda, and keeping these people out of the GOP has been one of the key tasks of the neocons, a job they did with some efficiency until the Ron Paul movement came along.

Paul and his movement are onto the War Party’s games, and they are consciously fighting this left-right illusion — with amazing success. The time is right for it: the nation faces a crisis on a scale not seen since the 1930s. Once again we face the twin specters of an economy in collapse and a world at war. Paul cuts through the ideological fog and in doing so breaks with all the conventions, the worn and now useless political labels that have misled us for so long.

Smearing him hasn’t worked, mockery has just added to his fame, and ignoring him has seriously backfired on the mainstream media, which has made itself more hated by the Republican rank-and-file than it already is — no mean feat. Their last hope is to co-opt him – or, at least, co-opt his movement. And we are seeing the first signs of such an attempt in a front page story in the Washington Post, which posits the existence of a “strategic alliance” between Mitt Romney and Paul.

Let’s get this out of the way before we get to the really disturbing stuff: there is no such “alliance,” strategic or otherwise. Reporter Amy Gardner states categorically that “Mitt Romney and Ron Paul haven’t laid a hand on each other.” This is demonstrably and even brazenly untrue. How does Ms. Gardner explain this, and this, and this, and especially this? I could go on, but you see my point.

The piece goes on to note Romney and Paul “became friends in 2008,” and “so did their wives.” This confuses friendship with cordiality, and, again, proves nothing. Undeterred, Ms. Gardner presses ahead with the punch line:

“The Romney-Paul alliance is more than a curious connection. It is a strategic partnership: for Paul, an opportunity to gain a seat at the table if his long-shot bid for the presidency fails; for Romney, a chance to gain support from one of the most vibrant subgroups within the Republican Party.”

So what’s this “strategic partnership” based on? Certainly on nothing Paul has ever said or done – but the people around him are a different matter, and here’s where it gets interesting. After citing various anonymous “senior GOP aides” who advise against alienating either Paul or the Paulians, we are given the following inside information:

“Romney’s aides are ‘quietly in touch with Ron Paul,’ according to a Republican adviser who is in contact with the Romney campaign and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss its internal thinking. The two campaigns have coordinated on minor things, the adviser said — even small details, such as staggering the timing of each candidate’s appearance on television the night of the New Hampshire primary for maximum effect.”

Yes, well, so what? That’s hardly a “strategic partnership”: if anything, it’s a tactical convenience that has nothing to do with any policy or real political issues. On this front, Romney has little or nothing to offer Paul, but that doesn’t stop wily old Satan from taking Jesus up to the mountain, and offering him the following:

“’Ron Paul wants a presence at the convention,’ the [GOP] adviser said — and Romney, if he is the nominee, would grant it.

“What Paul and his supporters would demand, and what Romney would offer, are subjects of some speculation. One Paul adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk freely, said prime-time speaking slots for Paul and his son Rand, the junior senator from Kentucky, are obvious goals. On the policy front, Ron Paul’s priorities are reforming the Federal Reserve and reducing federal spending. So promises to audit the Fed and to tackle deficit reduction seriously could appease the congressman and his supporters, the adviser said.

“Less likely are concessions on foreign policy, where Paul’s non-interventionist stand is at odds with that of Romney and most other Republicans.”

So here is the bargain: give up this non-interventionist foreign policy stuff and we’ll let you speak at the convention, maybe let your son speak – all in exchange for an endorsement of Romney. We may even pay lip service to some of your economic views: maybe we’ll set up a Gold Commission, as was done some years ago under Reagan. Just shut up about foreign policy.

It isn’t going to happen: unless it’s a wide-open convention, Paul will not be given a speaking slot of any prominence, because he won’t endorse Romney. Period. But there are other ways to influence the candidate, who is after all conducting more of an educational and movement-building campaign within the GOP, as opposed to a conventional candidate-centered campaign. In the Paul camp, the focus is on the message, not the candidate – but there are ways to influence the manner in which that message reaches the general public.

Ron himself is incorruptible: indeed, he is far more radical on foreign policy than I ever expected him to be. When the subject is economics, he always brings it back to foreign policy, pointing out the indissoluble link between a free and growing economy and a peaceful foreign policy. He is constantly saying that if only we would get rid of the Empire, we could begin to reform our domestic entitlement programs and deal with all the problems we have right here at home.

They can’t influence Ron – but they can influence his organization. Gardner reports that after Ron’s son, Rand, won the Kentucky primary against an Establishment opponent, “Then, quite strangely, the establishment and the Pauls came together”:

“At [Sen. Mitch] McConnell’s request, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent an adviser to Kentucky to watch over Rand Paul’s general-election campaign — ‘to be the grown-up in the room,’ according to one Washington Republican who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly.

“The adviser, Trygve Olson, developed a friendship with Rand Paul, and the two realized that they could teach each other a lot — to the benefit of both candidate and party. Olson showed Paul and his campaign establishment tactics: working with the news media, fine-tuning its message. And Paul showed Olson — and by extension, McConnell — how many people were drawn to the GOP by his message of fiscal responsibility…. And at Rand Paul’s suggestion, Olson joined his father’s presidential campaign this year, basically to do what he did for Rand: help bring the Paul constituency into the Republican coalition without threatening the party. It’s probably no small coincidence that the partnership helps Rand’s burgeoning political career, too.”

Who is Trygve Olson? A former official of the International Republican Institute (IRI), a tax-funded “regime-change” operation under the rubric of the National Endowment for Democracy, Olson was involved in several of the “color revolutions” that swept Eastern Europe and the central Asian former Soviet republics during the Bush years. This New York Times article reports on his activities in Belarus meddling in their internal politics and plotting to overthrow its thuggish President, Alexander Lukashenko: he also played a part in stirring up similar trouble on Washington’s behalf in Serbia and Poland.

At a meeting of the New Atlantic Initiative, another semi-official interventionist outfit, in 2004, Olson appeared on the same podium as various government apparatchiks of the old Cold Warrior/Radio Free Europe type, who gave seminars on the ins-and-outs of successful “regime change.” While others gave talks on Lukashenko’s “links” to Saddam Hussein and Israel’s other enemies in the region, Olson gave a presentation on polling results in the country. A particular area of concern was the possibility of an economic or political union with Russia, which was seen by the participants as the main threat to “democracy” and Europeanization in Belarus. And while meddling in Eastern Europe appears to be his specialty – his wife, Erika Veberyte, served as chief foreign policy advisor to the Speaker of the Lithuanian parliament – this biography on the web site of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University says:

“Mr. Olson has helped advise political parties and candidates in numerous countries throughout the world including nearly all of Central and Eastern Europe, Indonesia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Serbia.”

The “color revolutions” of the Bush era were brazen attempts to overthrow regimes deemed unfriendly to the US, and absorb the scattered pieces of the former Soviet Union into the Western sphere of influence. Of course, these efforts all backfired: in Georgia, for one example, our chosen candidate set up a veritable dictatorship, jailed his opponents for “treason,” and launched a disastrous war against Russia. In Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, too, our sock puppets set themselves up for a backlash: both US-installed regimes have since been ousted, either by being unceremoniously voted out of office or by force. In Venezuela, the US government has long sought to overthrow the blustering caudillo, Hugo Chavez, and our meddling has only played into his hands, enabling him to muster nationalist resentment against the democratic opposition. The same is generally true elsewhere. These “strategic” deployments of “soft power” never work, and wind up hurting our interests rather than advancing them.

Another aspect of these “soft power” deployments is the inevitable involvement of the American intelligence community in some form or other, engaging in covert operations with no real congressional oversight and without the knowledge or consent of the American people. This can lead to all kinds of abuses that inevitably impact on our domestic politics – an area where the CIA is supposedly forbidden from entering, although that has never been the case.

In the New York Times piece on the Belarussian operation, the reporter describes a meeting attended by Olson and Belarussian dissidents as “a meeting of the freedom industry,” a telling description because that’s exactly what it is: an industry, one in which Olson is a player. It’s the “regime change” industry that has flourished in this country ever since the start of the cold war. The necons played a key role in staffing the organizations and semi-official front groups into which billions of our tax dollar flowed: Reagan gave the National Endowment for Democracy to them as a sort of playground, where they were out of the way and free to think they had some real influence on the administration. In the post-cold war world, the NED took on added importance – and more tax dollars – as the US tried to cash in on the Soviet collapse by sponsoring “color revolutions” throughout the former Soviet bloc. It didn’t matter that the very reason for launching these cold war institutions was no longer in existence: as one needn’t explain to a Ron Paul supporter, government programs have a life of their own, and killing them is akin to driving a stake through the heart of a vampire – a difficult and often impossible feat.

So we have a major player in the “regime change” industry as a “senior advisor” to the Paul campaign: and not only that but a pedagogical relationship between Olson and Rand Paul. The latter has presumably learned from the former why draconian sanctions on Iran – deemed an “act of war” by his father – are a good idea and ought to be supported. Paul recently joined ninety-nine other similarly clueless US Senators in voting “aye” on what is in effect an economic blockade against Iran.

The Establishment’s strategy is clear: get to the father through the son, whose political career can be imperiled by the GOP elders, like McConnell (although that didn’t stop Paul from getting elected over McConnel’s opposition). If the Paul campaign is “infiltrating” the GOP, as Gardner puts it, then the GOP Establishment is intent on infiltrating the Paul campaign at the highest levels.

So if you wondered why the official Paul for President campaign ads devote almost no time to foreign policy issues, then perhaps now you have your answer. Of course, that hasn’t stopped several independent political action committees from making strong anti-interventionist statements on Paul’s behalf: but still, that this end run is even necessary raises all sorts of questions, one of which is surely the exact nature of Olson’s role.

The libertarian movement has been through this sort of thing before. Back in 1980, the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate, Ed Clark, and his handlers at the Cato Institute, tried to pass off libertarianism as “low tax liberalism.” The scheme failed miserably: as Murray Rothbard put it at the time: “They sold their souls for a mess of pottage, and then didn’t even get the pottage!” A similar effort to sell libertarianism as a marginally less belligerent version of conservatism isn’t going to do much better – and certainly Paul himself would have nothing to do with such an effort. As we all know, however, Paul isn’t a hands-on manager: he tends to trust people to carry out his wishes. That hands-off tendency has gotten him in trouble before.

The GOP Establishment fears – and, yes, hates – Ron Paul, and they have good reason to feel that way. It is hardly beyond comprehension that they would attempt to influence – and, ultimately, derail – the campaign and the movement it represents in this covert manner. I don’t think they are stupid enough to believe they can somehow finagle Paul into endorsing Romney, or whoever the GOP candidate might be: what they rightly fear, however, is that the Paul campaign will not end in Tampa – that Paul will launch a third party bid.

That’s what this wheeling and dealing, these shadowy movements in the background, are all about. Whether they will succeed remains to be seen. The signs, however, are not good. Gardner cites Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign manager, as saying:

“You can dress in black and stand on the hill and smash the state and influence nobody, or you can realize the dynamics and the environment and get involved in the most pragmatic way to win minds and win votes and influence change. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

This is the classic argument for a sell out. The irony is that there is nothing pragmatic about it. The American people stand shoulder to shoulder with Ron when it comes to foreign policy, as every poll has shown. The question is whom do the Paulians want to “influence” – the American people, or the very Establishment they’ve been fighting all these years? The alternative to standing on a hill and making a fashion statement isn’t selling out libertarianism’s anti-imperialist heritage: it’s making that heritage understandable and attractive to the American majority, which is already with us in spirit.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

The plan, apparently, is to push Rand Paul for the Vice Presidential nomination. These people are deluding themselves – but, then again, that’s how the sell out starts.

T.A.G. Rep. Warns Austin City Council about Urban Warfare (Military, Police, Fema) training scheduled to run in Texas 2012

Jack Blood — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:57:01 +0000

"Urban Shield" - Coming to a City near you!!!

More info on this specific police state threat will be examined by Heather and Jack Blood on Channel 11 – 6:30 PM CT, February 4, 2012. (Austin Cable access / Time Warner) I will add a link to view this live, rebroadcast… Before the taping.

Here is Heather Fazio warning our City Council in Austin about Militarizing (and Federalizing) our local Police, and mentioning “Urban Shield”.

T.A.G. (Texans for Accountable Government) Facebook page HERE

More info via our story about recent Los Angeles drills which took place in January of 2012, HERE (includes actual video of air, land drills)

Info on Boston Urban Shield Operation 2011 HERE

http://www.urbanshield.org/ (details of the special Op drills, and vendors. Scheduled Urban Shield for Alameda County (Bay Area) California October 26-29, 2012

Also:

US Military, (and NORAD) had drills using jets as weapons before and DURING the 911 attacks.