Cash will be obsolete by 2017

Purses, wallets and cash will become redundant within three years, according to the electronic payment firm PayPal.
It says it will be possible to pay for everyday purchases via mobile phone apps and cards with the result people will no longer need to carry real money.
The claims came as the firm, which is owned by eBay, unveiled a new roll-out of its mobile phone-based smart payment system.

Old-fashioned: Shoppers will soon be able to leave their purses and wallets at home, according to PayPal

Shoppers can download a PayPal app to their smartphone which can be pared with the payment system of participating retailers, from cafes and bakers to market stalls.
This means shoppers can authorise payments on their phone, with the money immediately transferred to the trader, just as they currently do with internet purchases.

 

The retailer gets a ‘payment confirmed’ message on their own smartphone or tablet which includes a picture of the customer by way of a security guarantee.
PayPal research suggests that most consumers do not carry more than £20 in cash on them.
Already, many people rarely use cash on a day to day basis, relying on debit and credit cards for all their purchases, whether it is petrol, a train ticket, a newspaper or a sandwich for lunch.
The new PayPal smartphone app adds another alternative to folding money and coins. 

No more cash. PayPayl comes to Covent Garden market

Futuristic: The new PayPal Here app will be launched today at London's Covent Garden market, pictured

The internet giant PayPal wants shoppers to pay for items electronically while standing in a shop

It also means retailers who have not taken card payments in the past, such as market traders, now have a new relatively cheap and new way to allow customers to pay.
The adoption of automated payment systems rather than face-to-face transactions involving cash is gathering pace.
Boris Johnson recently announced that hundreds of London Underground ticket offices will close next year. People are being encouraged to use Oyster cards and new generation of contactless debit and credit cards that can be swiped across ticket barrier terminals.

On the high street, retailers from coffee shops to newsagents now accept the contactless cards, which do not require users to put in a four digit PIN, for small value purchases.
Retailers are also slimming down the number of traditional purses, which can carry cash and coins, on their shelves in favour of slimline card holders.
The new PayPal Here app and smartphone system, which can authorise a payment either with or without using a debit card, is being launched today at London’s Covent Garden market.
The firm claims that the system can help small businesses, which may be missing out on up to £800 million worth of sales every year by not taking card payments.

Futuristic: The latest move could end the days of fumbling for cash, already a rare sight on the high street

Narik Patel, PayPal’s director of mobile merchant services, said: ‘We know from our research that shoppers don’t usually carry more than £20 these days, so it’s great to see that these traders will never miss a sale again because a customer has to dash off to get cash.
‘This is another step on the journey towards a wallet-less high street, where customers will be able to leave their wallet or purse at home and pay using their phone or tablet. We predict that by 2016 this will become a reality.’
The firm’s PR director, Rob Skinner, added: ‘We believe that is because using a mobile to pay for things will be so commonplace that people will not feel the need to carry cash.
‘We are not saying that no-one will use money or plastic cards, only that it will be possible to live day to day without them.’
Artist Adam Regester, who sells his work at Covent Garden, has been using the system on a trial basis for a few weeks.

Rare: Customers often carry less than £20, leaving few options for traders who don't accept credit cards

He said: ‘For as long as I can remember, we’ve always relied on customers paying with cash or perhaps the odd cheque. But now I’ve lost count of how many times people ask to pay by card or say they’ll just pop to the cash point but never come back.
‘Giving our customers more options to pay and taking cards solves the problem, which is especially crucial in the run-up to Christmas. Even within these first few weeks, I’ve seen an increase in sales.’
The system has already been operating with a number of small traders in Richmond, south west London, since August. Participants include a hotel and a number of coffee shops, cafes and restaurants.

More DHS-funded Police Surveillance Cameras; No Drop in Crime

Saturday, 11 January 2014 16:40

More DHS-funded Police Surveillance Cameras; No Drop in Crime

Written by  Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

Thousands of surveillance cameras are showing up in cities across the country without a corresponding reduction in crime. Citizens are taking notice of this fact of the federal takeover of local police, and they are speaking out.
On January 8, for example, the Texas Civil Rights Project-Houston issued a statement on its Facebook page criticizing their city’s participation in the construction of the surveillance state.
“As a community, we need to start a serious dialogue about the level of governmental intrusion in our daily lives that government foists upon us without our consent,” declared Amin Alehashem, the group’s regional director. “Government has no need to know with whom we associate, walk on the streets, attend meetings, worship, or go to dinner.”
Local leaders in Houston, like those in so many other cities across the country, have approved the installation of new surveillance cameras. These 180 new cameras bring to nearly 1,000 the number of known surveillance cameras in the country’s fourth largest city.
The eye of the government will reportedly cover the city’s “public areas around downtown, stadiums and the theater district.”
Local CBS affiliate KHOU reports on its website that Houston police chief Charles McClelland believes the city needs the nearly 1,000 cameras to “provide necessary police coverage.”
And just where did Houston get the money to buy these new cameras? There’s no provision for the expense in the mayor’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget, so the city’s not paying for these “critical” services so necessary for the “safety” of its citizens. Department of Homeland Security to the rescue!
In the article announcing the deployment of the new devices, KHOU reports, “The city has spent more than $18 million in federal money to build its camera system and has another $5 million in reserve.”
Perhaps citizens should overlook their elected leaders’ acceptance of such federal largesse, given that the 900 or so surveillance cameras already in place have had such a favorable effect on crime rates in the city.
Not so much.
Again, from KHOU: “Officials say data is not kept to determine if the cameras are driving down crime.”
If the cameras aren’t being used to reduce crime, just what are they being used for?
“We also know from experience and from recent events that the government will inevitably abuse its use of personal information attained by spying on us. Houston needs to re-think and reject this proposal,” Alehasem said in his press release.
Precisely. These cameras — thousands upon thousands attached to poles and buildings from coast to coast — are not about crime reduction, but about liberty reduction.
Residents of Evanston, Illinois, seem to see the surveillance that way, too.
Over 100 citizens of this Chicago suburb have signed petitions requesting that the city council publicize all the information regarding a proposal to add “3.7 miles of surveillance cameras” along city streets.
Evanston’s plan to expand its surveillance capabilities has a couple of things in common with the Houston program.
First, there is the lack of evidence that the cameras make residents safer. Consider this report published Wednesday in a local news blog:

Evanston resident Bobby Burns, who is collecting signatures online and in person in the neighborhood around the high school, told Patch he believes the city council does not have enough research to back up the surveillance camera proposal. 

“If these cameras are really about student safety, there should be credible data that clearly supports the need,” he wrote in an e-mail. “If this is about youth homicides, protecting senior citizens, or keeping an eye on police [officers], let’s respect the importance of those issues and discuss them individually with care and consideration.” 

So, just like the cameras in Houston, the cameras in Evanston (population 75,430) don’t seem to reduce crime or make anyone safer.
Another similarity between the two cases is found by following the money. The news blog Patch reports: “The cameras would be funded in part by a Homeland Security grant.”
There seems to be a pattern.
Cities aren’t buying just surveillance cameras with their Homeland Security grants, however. 
In Bennington, Vermont, police were given an $83,000 DHS grant to upgrade the department’s communication equipment.
Crime must be under control in Bennington, though, as the Bennington Banner reports that “a great deal of an officer's time has been taken up by paperwork which is needed to secure grants.”
That’s an interesting addition to the story. Not only are the cameras not bringing down crime, but the police — whose job it is to fight crime — are too busy filling out federal grant forms to be out protecting and serving.
When they are patrolling the streets of their cities, however, cops these days look more like soldiers than police, thanks again to the buckets of cash dumped into coffers by Homeland Security.
In Frankfort, Kentucky, for example, 11 local law enforcement agencies are sharing almost $60,000 in grant money — money they’re spending on body armor and weapons.
Other federal agencies are helping accelerate the arming of local police with military-grade materiel.
Police in Fort Pierce, Florida are now responding to calls in a “tank on wheels,” thanks to a new vehicle bought for next to nothing from the Pentagon. 
Officer Keith Holmes applied for the vehicle grant and according to WPEC-TV in West Palm Beach, he believes this military tactical vehicle is necessary “due to the violence in the city we have here.”
Crime is so bad in Fort Pierce that the police need armored vehicles? Even Officer Holmes admits that’s a stretch.
"I agree to a certain extent it's overkill but for the cost, for $2000, yes it's what we need." said Officer Holmes, as quoted on the WPEC website.
There’s little doubt that if a police department has military weapons and vehicles, they’ll find a way to use them, likely at the cost of citizens’ civil liberties.
One story of local police being bought and turned into an outpost of the Department of Homeland Security reveals another disturbing element of the mass militarization of local law enforcement.
The Ruidoso (New Mexico) News reports that officers in the Ruidoso Downs Police Department will be “driving in style with a new fleet of 2014 Dodge Chargers.”
By now, readers likely suspect the money to buy the cars came from DHS. It didn’t, but there’s still a tie to Homeland Security and the desire for DHS cash.
Ruidoso Downs Police Chief Chris Rupp believes his department will soon be able to join the list of DHS-funded forces because of the new cars. How so?
“Rupp said the new black and white colors on the vehicles will allow the department to be eligible for federal grants because the vehicles are Homeland Security Department compliant,” the Ruidoso News reports.
Homeland Security compliant? That implies that local police are rewarded with more DHS money the more obedient they are to the federal agency’s mandates. Yet another example of states willingly submitting to the federal government’s decades-long program to obliterate state sovereignty and turn states into nothing more than administrative units of an all-powerful, all-seeing central authority.
Equally unsettling, however, is that for all the added surveillance and added firepower, crime is not going down.
The DHS grant program and the heavily subsidized Defense Department equipment/weapon sale may be designed to open a back door to the piecemeal mustering of a nationwide federal police force, composed of formerly local law enforcement officers.

Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA, the Second Amendment, and the surveillance state.  He is the co-founder of Liberty Rising, an educational endeavor aimed at promoting and preserving the Constitution. Follow him on Twitter @TNAJoeWolverton and he can be reached at jwolverton@thenewamerican.com.

Millions at Fatal Risk as Fukushima Radiation Poisons Pacific

Nuclear regulators on Friday called on Japan’s plant operator TEPCO to address rising radiation levels near the crippled Fukushima reactors that have jumped to 7.8 millisieverts, causing a great deal of panic across the Pacific. TEPCO has attributed this rise to radiation emitted from tanks storing contaminated water, which is generated in the process of cooling the damaged reactors. The Voice of Russia has talked to Professor Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk and a member of the UK Department of Health Committee Examining Radiation Risk for Internal Emitters (CERRIE), who says he doesn’t believe this explanation. In his opinion, such high amounts of radiation can only come from materials that are already outside the tanks.

How dangerous is the current radiation level of 7.8 millisieverts for humans?

If it were caused by the explanation that TEPCO have given then it would not, in my opinion, represent a very great hazard. But I don’t believe their explanation. I’ve done calculations myself, which show that it’s almost impossible for this kind of dose to occur within a reasonable distance of about 10 meters from the radioactive tanks on the basis of the fact that strontium-90 is inside the tanks. So what I think the 7.8 mSv represent is it represents measurements that are of beta-radiation and gamma-radiation that are coming from materials that are already outside the tanks, and that is basically in the ground. And this is very, very dangerous because it actually represents a contamination of the ground of about 250 becquerelsper square meter. That’s 250,000 disintegrations per second per square meter. And that comes from material that can be inhaled due to resuspension, where it can get into people in various other ways. That represents a very serious hazard.

According to the operator’s report the radiation level at the Fukushima plant was 8 higher than norm back in August. Isn’t it strange that the Japanese authorities have urged the company to take measures only now?

This whole procedure has been dogged by arguments between various people in the government and various people in nuclear industry and so on. So I imagine this is just a consequence of a lot of arguments between various sides of the issue and the nuclear industry people and the government people. Eventually, it was the government people who have won. That’s why it has taken them so long for some remark like this to be made. I mean I would guess it’s entirely political, it has nothing to do with reality.

But do you think that TEPCO’s clean-up activities are effective enough? Are they doing enough right now?

I don’t think there’s much more they can do, to be honest. I think the thing is out of control, and I can’t see what they can do. Basically, what we have here, in my opinion and others too, is that the core material from the reactors is outside of the containment and in the ground, so the ground water is picking up this radioactivity and bringing it onto the surface. Of course, they are taking as much ground water as they can – this contaminated water – and pumping it into tanks to store it. But until they actually address the basic problem of this stuff being outside the containment then there’s not much they can do. They can attempt to clean up the stuff that is in the tanks – and it itself will be a quite complicated business – but as for the stuff that is outside the tanks in the ground, I’m not sure I see any way in which they can do it.

Rather than being in the ground, I think that the Japanese have admitted to releasing 400 metric tons of water into the Pacific Ocean I think on a daily basis since the tsunami and the whole situation occurred. That’s three years and 400 metric tons. Does it coincide with figures that you have?

Yes, and also, of course, there’s the amount of material that blew out to sea and ended up in the Pacific right at the beginning, and so this is an ongoing problem. So you have enormous amounts of radioactivity in the Pacific from the beginning and then an ongoing very large quantity – probably about the same amount eventually – being pumped out into the Pacific all the time. And this is in fact affecting the Pacific biotope. I mean there’s lots of evidence now that there’s a complete crush in the life forms. We are seeing lots and lots of evidence for this. And this is really quite terrifying. This is having an effect on Pacific life. And, of course, Pacific life is the source of food for a very large number of people inside East Asia and elsewhere.

Can we talk about the risks? Who exactly is at risk? Where does the risk come from? I mean starting from Japan and going out to the Pacific Ocean, people who consume the fish that is in the sea. How many people are really at risk?

Most of the risk, in my opinion, is confined to Japan. The concentrations of radionuclides, which are going to the Pacific or have been injected to the Pacific, by the time they get to the US, and to China and to South East Korea and so on will not be enormously high. I’m not saying that it is great, I mean there will be some risk to these people, and particularly the risk is from ingestion of radionuclide particles and not so much from the dilute stuff, the stuff that is in solution. But the main risk will be to the people of Japan, and it’ll be people who live along the coastline of Eastern Japan who will be greatly at risk. It’s within one kilometer from the sea. I did some calculations which suggest that just in terms of cancer there’ll probably be about 400-800 extra cancers in Japan in the next fifty years as the consequence of this. It will be absolutely measurable. The nuclear industry says it cannot be measured over the background rate, but it will be certainly measurable. We’ve already seen some effects in infant mortality and thyroid cancer in Japan. So I think this is just going to get worse. I think we are going to see a major effect on the general health of the Japanese population in Northern Japan. It’s going to be quite measurable. There’s going to be a decrease in the birth rate and an increase in the death rate.

You don’t feel there’s a risk to people who are dependent on food from the Pacific, if we talk about food chain and the way that the contamination becomes more concentrated as the smaller fish is eaten by a larger fish that lives for quite some time and you end up with the tuna that is not only full of mercury but is also radioactive? I mean should we be concerned as consumers about buying fish from those places?

I think people will generally stop buying fish from the Pacific. I actually don’t think the risk is as much as people have thought in terms of fish, because we have studied people who eat fish from the Irish Sea and from the Baltic Sea, which is very contaminated following Chernobyl. We roughly know what is going on there. The point about these radionuclides is when you ingest them they go to the gut, and a large proportion of the really serious ones – plutonium and uranium – don’t get across the gut. The main source of danger is inhalation of sea spray and inhalation of resuspended sediment, because once they get into the lungs, they don’t have this barrier that they had in the gut, so they go straight into the lymphatic system and can get anywhere.

War From Above: Domestic Drones Patrolling the Skies of America

Drone aircraft, which we first heard of as weapons of war used by the United States in foreign lands, are now poised for a full-scale invasion of the skies above the US itself. On December 30, 2013 the US Federal Aviation Administration announced its choices for drone testing in six states around the country — Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia.
These six states may in turn do their testing in more than one location, For example, according to the Anchorage Daily News, drone testing centered in Alaska at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks will be called “the ‘Pan-Pacific Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Range Complex.’ It includes six flight ranges in Alaska, four in Hawaii and three in Oregon.” According to the Honolulu Star Advertiser “the Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island, the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai and even the island of Niihau have been included in discussions of places where the testing could occur.”

According to the East Oregonian, drone testing is likely to involve a former military base in Pendleton, Port of Tillamook, and Warm Springs. Likewise, the New York operation will be run from the former Griffiss Air Force base in Rome, NY and, according to the Cape Cod Times, will also include the former Otis Air Base on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Times reports that  “the Cape site had the support of the state’s congressional delegation, a statewide military asset commission and business leaders” and that “among the institutions involved in the bid are Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Rochester Institute of Technology.”
What this story reveals is the creation of a huge web of DoD-connected Universities, businesses, corporations, defense contractors, and former and current Pentagon facilities spread all over the country. Included in this web are the many and various chambers of commerce, their boosters in the press, and numerous comprador “officials” anxious to bring federal money into their districts, at the expense of all the other people who live in them. Almost no news coverage has appeared that would imply the FAA decision was anything but a boon for the economy and the advent of a wonderful and inevitable new technology.
There is little news about the down side to hosting drones in all these areas of the country, each with a populace that has simply not been consulted. Drones first came to our attention at the beginning of “the war on terror.” We learned of them first as weapons for highly illegal, cowardly, and indiscriminate “targeted killings” in foreign lands? These weapons have murdered countless innocent people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia pursuant to “kill lists” drawn up every week by the CIA and Pentagon, and approved by the White House.
These weapons fulfill the US Air Force’s fantasy of  “death from above,” carried out by pilots working in the security and comfort of US bases who, acting as judge, jury, and executioner, destroy supposed enemies from computer consoles as if it were a video game.  The cowardliness of wars of aggression being conducted against innocent people in dirt-poor lands by unseen “UAV pilots” in air-conditioned offices thousands of miles away cannot be over-emphasized. This is what unmanned aircraft have brought so far to the reputation of the United States – a new low in the entire universe of human ethics. Murder abroad is but the advance of capitalism at home. Wedding parties in Afghanistan have been decimated so that Amazon can deliver cds and smart phones to our door by drone.
Nor is there news about the introduction of drones domestically as yet another assault on privacy and the human right to be free from surveillance. Domestic law enforcement agencies are just as anxious to spy on the US population and target people they call criminals as the Pentagon and CIA have been to spy on the rest of the world and kill people they call terrorists. It isn’t enough that our phones and computers have been turned by the NSA into astounding instruments of surveillance, that everything we say and do on these instruments is being harvested and stored, and that surveillance cameras are mounted at almost every business and public space. Now the national security state wants to have remote-controlled cameras videotaping us full-time from the sky. The police hope to have drones able to fire “non-lethal weapons” at people they deem to be involved in criminal activity so that they too can play God. Without question, non-lethal weapons will soon become lethal weapons and the US will be trying and executing citizens at home as it has done elsewhere without even a hint of due process.
The domestic military bases which are being revived by this brave new technology originally went out of business because there was nothing for them to do in the fulfillment of their original purpose – defending the country. Otis Air Base, now called “Joint Base Cape Cod”, is a case in point. It used to patrol the skies for Russian aircraft along the northeast coast and ended up being a disaster for the community in which it was situated because it polluted the local groundwater and sole-source drinking water aquifer with millions of gallons of dumped jet fuel and cleaning solvents.
It sent fighter jets to intercept the two planes hijacked to New York on September 11, 2001, but ended up being part of a ploy to let those planes actually reach the twin towers before they got there. This base and many others have been parasites on the communities around them. They will continue in that role in their new incarnation as hosts to drone spying and drone warfare. The war has come home. The people orchestrating this war – the global elite — have no particular allegiance to the United States. From their point of view, its land and its people must be brought under control, just like everywhere else. How sad it is to see the scramble to welcome them.

High-Tech Tyranny in the Gulf: Biometric Technology Mandatory for All Citizens in the United Arab Emirates

As war continues to ravage many parts of the Middle East, Orwellian technology continues to make its presence more apparent. Israel uses biometric technology and now the Gulf States is following in the same direction. It was just announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will mandate its citizenry to participate in “biometric tests” to obtain visas if they were to visit Saudi Arabia or any other country.
In a report by www.emirates247.com called ‘Saudi visa fee to rise as UAE residents set to undergo biometric tests soon’ we learn that “All UAE residents going to Saudi Arabia for Hajj, Umrah or any other visit are expected to undergo biometrics tests very soon, an official said on Monday. Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has designated Dubai-based VFS TasHeel International to launch biometrics pilot project for visa purposes in the UAE and other countries.”  The project is officially set to launch within a 3 to 6 month time period.
Raghu Athimoolam who is the Chief Operating Officer of VFS TasHeel International based in the UAE said that “We’re meeting with the MoFA officials every week and it’s progressing very well. 80% of the work is done. Once it’s officially launched in the UAE, it’ll be mandatory for all residents – both Emiratis and expatriates – to have biometrics before travelling to Saudi Arabia for Hajj, Umrah, business or any other purpose,” the report said.
As tyrannical as both Saudi Arabia and the UAE governments are towards their citizenry, this development is certainly troubling. VFS TasHeel has partnered with VFS Global which is based in London. “VFS TasHeel is a joint venture between global visa processing firm VFS Global and TasHeel of Saudi Arabia. It currently has three offices in UAE – Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah – where 127 employees cater around 700 applicants on average every day.” The report also stated that “VFS TasHeel International has been mandated by Saudi to offer visas for business and commercial visits, education, escort, family, government meetings, medical purpose, merchandise delivery, personal visit and transit.” It only means that for whatever reason you decide to visit Saudi Arabia you must be registered with the biometric system to enter the country. It was reported back on February 11th, 2013 that the UAE had the world’s largest biometric database. The report was conducted by gulfnews.com as it stated what the UAE has accomplished as an Orwellian state:

The UAE has built its national population register which is the world’s largest civil biometric database, a senior official said on Monday. “The UAE population register system, the world’s largest civil biometric database, was completed by the end of last year,” Dr Ali Al Khoury, director general of the Emirates Identity Authority, told the sixth ID World Abu Dhabi being held at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research.

The two-day summit tackles the ICT challenges in modern society, bringing together high-level international government representatives and leading players in security, mobility and traceability.

Dr Al Khoury said on the sidelines of the World ID Summit that the UAE’s biometric database had a total of around 140 million fingerprints, palm and hand prints, facial prints and digital signatures which belonged to citizens and residents from more than 206 nationalities, but declined to disclose the population census figure or whether any other official assessment of the country’s population was accurate.

The detailed report by Gulf news describes what the UAE’s purpose of the biometric system will be intended for:

Dr Al Khoury said it was anticipated that the database of inhabitants’ biometrics will contribute and support projects related to the UAE’s national vision 2021. “This is aimed at enhancing security and supporting e-government projects through authenticating personal identity in e-transactions conducted over the internet,” he said.

The Emirates Identity Authority, Dr Al Khoury added, was founded in September 2004 and has completed this sophisticated population register system to provide unique identification and secured verification for every citizen or resident in UAE by giving them unique personal numbers linked to his/her biometric characteristics such as fingerprints.

“Having completed its digital infrastructure, the Emirates ID and 15 government authorities in six sectors, mainly education, health, labour, interior and justice have agreed on infrastructure necessary for e-linking. We plan to complete linking to the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Justice during this year. It is also planned that the ID card replaces the e-signature card held by Public Relation Officers dealing with the Labour Ministry this year,” Dr Al Khoury said.

He added the ID card was widely accepted by up to 200 authorities nowadays.

Dr Al Khoury said the newly used technology in the Population Register System helps use the latest methods of protecting data and information in addition to providing a safer environment to identify and verify the identity of the individual, achieve linkage and integration with the various government and semi- government authorities, provide statistical information in support of planning and decision-making, provide a solid infrastructure for the e-government project, upgrade and ease of the governmental services level and eliminate forgery.

The trend in biometric technology should be no surprise as the Monarchies of the Gulf States (who are also allies of Western governments including the US, UK and France) rule their populations with an iron fist becomes more difficult to maintain as the world witnessed in Bahrain, when the people protested against government oppression. The UAE has been accused of numerous human rights violations against migrant workers in the past and has restricted the freedom of speech among its citizens. RT News reported in 2012 the UAE imposed internet restrictions on its citizens fearing an Arab uprising in their own backyard. According to RT News:

The Arab uprisings that swept the Middle East largely bypassed the Persian Gulf’s authoritarian regimes; the UAE in particular has not seen any street protests since the social unrest began over a year ago. But the crackdowns on internet freedoms in several countries in the Gulf betray concern that their regimes may go through a similar social upheaval.

Under the guise of a probe into foreign-linked groups planning “crimes against the security of the state,” the UAE’s authorities have detained around 60 Islamist dissidents since the beginning of the year.

Back in August the UAE’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash slammed criticism against the measures, condemning them as attempts to slander UAE “with very little reference to our many achievements.”

The UAE along with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain remain virtually untouched by Western government criticism of their authoritarian regimes and measures restricting freedom of expression. Social networking sites and forums have become a new platform for citizens in these countries to voice opinions on their rulers.

The UAE also tortures prisoners according to Reprieve; a human rights charity organization based in the UK who reported that 75% of prisoners in the UAE are systematically tortured by the police. Although Women in the UAE have access to education and health services, foreign female domestic workers are often trafficked and abused. Women are also at risk of being imprisoned for adultery when reporting sexual violence to local authorities.
Saudi Arabia is also known as a human rights violator as its leadership rules as an “Absolute Monarchy”. Saudi Arabia is one of the worst human rights violators in the world where it uses torture to obtain admissions of guilt from suspected criminals or those who criticize the Monarchy. Saudi Arabia also uses “corporal punishment” where local courts order “floggings” that consists of hundreds of lashes, sometimes even thousands that is inflicted upon those who are convicted. Women may be “flogged” as well. It has been reported in the past that hundreds of these flogging sentences are imposed every week without any publicity. Women are constantly discriminated under the religious and political program called the “Guardianship System”. The basis of the “Guardianship System” is that women may not be involved in politics and certain professions. Women cannot travel without a male and certain “medical procedures” cannot be done unless a male is present and “authorizes” it. Violence against women is prevalent since domestic violence laws are not enforced.
Biometric technology gives the ruling monarchies an advantage to spy on its citizens and those who are just visiting the country for business or are just vacationing with their families. It opens the door for other countries with human rights violations in the Middle East to follow in the same footsteps as in the case of the UAE. The biometric technology is already expanding into Egypt as Raghu Athimoolam, of VFS TasHeel International reportedly said to Emirates 247 “He said the company is planning to open offices in Egypt this year. VFS TasHeel has been mandated by Saudi Arabia’s MoFA to process visa applications in 33 countries.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says that biometrics causes numerous concerns regarding privacy and how governments such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia can use the technology to monitor and control their populations:

Biometrics’ biggest risk to privacy comes from the government’s ability to use it for surveillance. As face recognition technologies become more effective and cameras are capable of recording greater and greater detail, surreptitious identification and tracking could become the norm.

The problems are multiplied when biometrics databases are “multimodal,” allowing the collection and storage of several different biometrics in one database and combining them with traditional data points like name, address, social security number, gender, race, and date of birth. Further, geolocation tracking technologies built on top of large biometrics collections could enable constant surveillance. And if the government gets its way, all of this data could be obtained without a warrant and without notice or warning.

Biometric technology will be used to locate dissidents and migrant workers (who protest against harsh working conditions) who oppose the ruling dictatorship. It is what George Orwell warned us about more than 50 years ago. Biometric technology would be imposed on the people through corrupt governments like those in the Gulf States. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are perfect examples of what new technologies can be used for. It’s a very scary world indeed.

California "Peace Officers" Beat Homeless Mentally Ill Man To Death

URL:


http://www.commondreams.org/further/2014/01/13-4


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01.13.14 - 10:46 PM

All Of Us Need To Be Very Afraid Now: "Peace Officers" Who Beat Homeless Mentally Ill Man To Death Somehow Found Not Guilty

by Abby Zimet

Kelly Thomas
Astonishingly, infuriatingly, two former Fullerton, California cops have been acquitted on all charges after savagely beating to death Kelly Thomas, 37, a mentally ill homeless man who died five days after being set upon by Manuel Ramos, Jay Cicinelli and four other officers. The attack, caught on surveillance video, led to days of protests, the recall of three City Council members and the resignation of a police chief whose department has a long history of violent abuse. Thomas' father Ron, a former deputy sheriff, said the defense "lied continuously" during the trial and the family will likely pursue civil charges in the death of his son, who a year after his death was cleared of the stupid bogus charges - trying to get into locked cars in a bus parking lot - police came up with in a pathetic attempt to justify their cold-blooded, fist-punching murder. Since the verdict, people have held vigils and protests at a makeshift memorial where Thomas died; one sign carries Thomas' picture before the beating and proclaims, "No one can hurt u now." Also, the FBI has said it will review the evidence for federal civil rights violations. There is both raw and shorter, edited video of the attack: It captures Ramos snapping on rubber gloves, smacking his fists together and sneering to Thomas, "See these fists? They're gonna fuck you up," followed, many vicious punches later, by Thomas writihing on the ground repeatedly crying out for help and his father. Warning: stomach-churningly graphic and heart-poundingly disturbing, all of it.

"These peace officers were doing their jobs. They were operating as they were trained and they had no malice in their hearts." - defense attorney

Kelly Thomas after beating

The sadistic thugs who did that

Axe NPR (National Pentagon/Propaganda Radio) ads......

Jan 14, 2014

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Commentary:

I urge ALL print media in Santa Cruz County to REMOVE their NPR (National Pentagon/Propaganda Radio) ads from their publications.

 

NPR is nothing but corporate state LIES, DISINFORMATION and PROPAGANDA.

 

NPR does NOT belong in Santa Cruz County at all.  Listeners of KAZU and KUSP (who religiously aire NPR) need to inform their stations to either REMOVE their pro-NPR programming or relocate their stations to Texas, and to take their right wing corporate propaganda and LIES with them.

This is the radical Left Coast, NOT radical right wing America.

 

Santa Cruz County needs programming, news and information such as can be found

at Free Radio Santa Cruz and KPFA, which broadcasts daily from Berkeley.

 

KSCO, a little extreme right wing AM station broadcasting somewhere out of the Capitola swamp area, needs to pull out its Rush Limbaugh roots and relocate to right wing Texas as well.

 

Other examples of the right wing diseased infestation in Santa Cruz County include the so-called THRIVE "meet-up" community.  The THRIVE Movement does NOT recognize or acknowledge the threat of global climate change and actively works to censor all voices who try to challenge their corporate LIES and DISINFORMATION on this issue via their "meet-up" site.

 

Whole Foods, similarly DOES NOT believe in the Global Warming threat.  This store, headquartered in right wing Texas, DOES NOT hire local people, supports the GMO (genetically modified Monsanto/Frankenfood) agenda, and is a heavy meat pusher.  BOYCOTT this store at all costs.  This right wing corporate FILTH, similiarly, DOES NOT belong in Santa Cruz County-or anywhere in the state of California, for that matter.

 

I urge everyone to tune into KPFA broadcasting coming out of Berkeley (9.420 FM) for some

REAL news and information.  Help Free Radio Santa Cruz (freakradio.org- 101.3 FM) financially so that they can help get the TRUTH out

to our local community as well.  Let's route the right wing corporate news and information mafia empire out of our community for good!

 

The reason we have this right wing corporate takeover of our local community here in Santa Cruz (and elsewhere) is because we have

a psychopathic military/homeland security prison-police state OUT OF CONTROL and in power, sucking up BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars and

feverishly working to keep the public misinformed, dumbed down and brainwashed about local and world events.  They also need patriotic subservience to their

manufactured "terrorist" threat so that you'll fight and die for them in the battlefield for them- as many of you have been doing for them for decades.

 

NPR's prime directive is to keep the public brainwashed, controlled, and purposely mis and dis-informed.  Their mission is to infiltrate

left wing, progressive communities across the USA so as to turn the mass media consciousness to their right wing corporate agenda.

 

NPR is just another tentacle in the 5 corporate media conglomerates who own the world's media today.  But it is the Jewish Rothschild Banking Cartel,

headquartered in the CITY of London, UK (the synagogue of satan) who owns, authorizes, produces and directs propaganda outlets such as NPR.

 

Ultimately, though, it is the good people of Santa Cruz County (and elsewhere) who determine and discern what is TRUTH and what is LIE.

With a 6% congressional approval rating among the American people, I'd say the fascist corporate media empire is in full retreat!  Let's make sure they get a good hanging here in Santa Cruz!

 

Judge Dread

Santa Cruz, California