Tag Archives: Technocracy

Glenn Greenwald: Domestic drones and their unique dangers

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“What possible reason could someone identify as to why these small, portable weaponized UAS products will not imminently be used by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the US? They’re designed to protect their users in dangerous situations and to enable a target to be more easily killed. Police agencies and the increasingly powerful drone industry will tout their utility in capturing and killing dangerous criminals and their ability to keep officers safe, and media reports will do the same. One has to be incredibly naïve to think that these ‘assassin bugs’ and other lethal drone products will not be widely used on US soil.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/29/domestic-drones-unique-dangers

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European Union delays carbon tax for one year

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“The EU will put its controversial carbon tax on intercontinental airline flights on hold for a year to give time for international talks to reach a compromise on the issue.  Almost all ICAO members have objected to the EU carbon tax on airline flights, which formally took effect in January 2012, saying it violated international law.  China even threatened reprisals against European aircraft maker Airbus. The US rejects the EU’s methodology which calculates the tax based on the entire flight, but could possibly accept basing it on the portion through European air space.  US airlines lost a complaint against the tax before the European Court of Justice.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/21/european-union-delays-carbon-tax-for-one-year/

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Europe’s new financial transaction tax missing projected revenues

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“Tough taxes on financial transactions across Europe have devastated market activity and failed to raise as much as politicians hoped, according to new figures out yesterday.  Hungary implemented a 0.1 per cent tax at the start of the year.  But it raised less than half the revenue the state had hoped for, bringing in 13bn Hungarian Forints (£36m) in January. France forged ahead on its own, introducing a 0.2 per cent tax on sales of shares of major firms. But that only raised €200m (£169.4m) from August to November, well below to €530m expected.  And Italy launched its FTT this month. Figures from TMF Group suggest it has cut trading volumes by 38 per cent already.”

http://www.cityam.com/article/transaction-tax-missing-its-targets

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Cyprus bank controls to last a month, minister says

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“Cyprus conceded on Thursday that tight capital controls would remain in force longer than expected as the island’s banks reopened for the first time after the government was forced to accept a tough EU rescue package to avoid bankruptcy.  The government initially said the controls would remain in place for a week, subject to review. Economists say they will prove hard to lift as long as the economy is in crisis.  To help the Cyprus banks weather the crisis, the European Central Bank flew in 5 billion euros ($6.4 billion) in cash overnight from Frankfurt, a German newspaper reported.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/28/us-cyprus-parliament-idUSBRE92G03I20130328

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Afghan villagers flee their homes as US drones terrorize them

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“Barely able to walk even with a cane, Ghulam Rasool says he padlocked his front door, handed over the keys and his three cows to a neighbor and fled his mountain home in the middle of the night to escape relentless airstrikes from U.S. drones targeting militants in this remote corner of Afghanistan.  Rasool and other Afghan villagers have their own name for Predator drones. They call them benghai, which in the Pashto language means the ‘buzzing of flies.’ When they explain the noise, they scrunch their faces and try to make a sound that resembles an army of flies.”

http://news.yahoo.com/afghan-villagers-flee-homes-blame-us-drones-061922800.html

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Amazon enters $600M deal to develop CIA cloud

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“Amazon Web Services has worked with companies such as Netflix, Instagram, and Pinterest. But the cloud computing service may sign with a different kind of client: the Central Intelligence Agency.  Federal Computer Weekly reports that Amazon has entered a 10-year, $600 million contract with the CIA. FCW says it learned from anonymous sources that Amazon will build a cloud-computing contract for the agency.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/0321/Amazon-enters-600M-deal-to-develop-CIA-cloud

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FBI Pursuing Real-Time Gmail Spying Powers as “Top Priority” for 2013

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“Despite the pervasiveness of law enforcement surveillance of digital communication, the FBI still has a difficult time monitoring Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox in real time. But that may change soon, because the bureau says it has made gaining more powers to wiretap all forms of Internet conversation and cloud storage a ‘top priority’ this year.  FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann said that the FBI wants the power to mandate real-time surveillance of everything from Dropbox and online games (‘the chat feature in Scrabble’) to Gmail and Google Voice. ‘Those communications are being used for criminal conversations,’ he said.”

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/03/26/andrew_weissmann_fbi_wants_real_time_gmail_dropbox_spying_power.html

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Homeland Security Using Video Games to Recruit Top Students as Cyber Warriors

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“Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is seeking up to 600 new student hackers to combat what they claim is the increasing danger of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure throughout the country.  Rather than the normal propaganda techniques used to lure young Americans into other branches of the government, Homeland Security is taking a different route which includes the use of sophisticated video games to essentially promote job opportunities within their agency to young impressionable high school students.”

http://www.activistpost.com/2013/03/dhs-video-games-recruit-cyber-warriors.html

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Creator of drone casualties visualization hopes data will ‘shock’ people

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“Wesley Grubbs of Pitch Interactive told HuffPost Live on Tuesday that he created an interactive graph of the U.S. drone campaign in Pakistan to highlight civilian causalities. ‘We want to shock people,’ he explained. ‘What we tried to do though with this was not just shock people with the number of casualties, but to shock people with the amount of information that we really don’t know.’  The data visualization illustrates the number of casualties from drone strikes in Pakistan between 2004 and 2013, categorizing the victims as either children, civilians, alleged combatants, or high-profile targets.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/26/creator-of-drone-causalities-visualization-hopes-data-will-shock-people/

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Another California scheme to fleece motorists and eviscerate their rights

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“AB666 would require that these tickets be prosecuted through an administrative hearing conducted by the jurisdiction running the camera program rather than through an independent traffic court.  …AB666 makes the vehicle owner responsible for violations committed by someone else unless you can prove who was driving the vehicle…And if you don’t, they will put a hold on your registration until you pay up. Not bad enough? The hold on your registration gets applied as soon as they mail you the ticket, not after you are found guilty.  It gets worse. The tickets are considered Prima Facie evidence against you. No other evidence has to be submitted against you.”

http://libertyfight.com/2013/CA_introduces_ab666_to_fleece_motorists_and_steal_their_liberty.html

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