statism watch

Paul Watson, Infowars.net
August 29, 2008

De Telegraaf front page says sources inside AVID helped CIA map air attack  

The biggest Newspaper in the Netherlands today devotes its front page to news that the Dutch intelligence agency has helped the CIA prepare for an air attack on Iran which it now believes is imminent.

AVID, Holland’s military intelligence service, has pulled back from operations it was carrying out inside Iran as it believes an American led attack will go ahead within weeks according to De Telegraaf’s sources.

The headline reads:

“AIVD is calling back spy because of US plans ATTACK ON IRAN IMMINENT”

De Telegraaf reports that the decision has already been made by the U.S. to attack Iran using unmanned aircraft. Potential targets are said to be nuclear facilities and military installations. The latter have been mapped by the CIA with the help of the Dutch secret service.

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Mitch Stacy, Associated Press
August 29, 2008

Like millions of motorists, Eric Hanson used a GPS unit in his Chevrolet TrailBlazer to find his way around. He probably didn’t expect that prosecutors would eventually use it too – to help convict him of killing four family members.

Prosecutors in suburban Chicago analyzed data from the Garmin GPS device to pinpoint where Hanson had been on the morning after his parents were fatally shot and his sister and brother-in-law bludgeoned to death in 2005. He was convicted of the killings earlier this year and sentenced to death.

Hanson’s trial was among recent criminal cases around the country in which authorities used GPS navigation devices to help establish a defendant’s whereabouts. Experts say such evidence will almost certainly become more common in court as GPS systems become more affordable and show up in more vehicles.

“There’s no real doubt,” said Alan Brill, a Minnesota-based computer forensics expert who has worked with the FBI and Secret Service. “This follows every other technology that turns out to have information of forensic value. I think what we’re seeing is evolutionary.”

Using technology to track a person’s location is nothing new. For years, police have been able to trace cell phone signals and use other dashboard devices such as automatic toll-collection systems to confirm a driver’s whereabouts.

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Josh Wingrove, Globe and Mail
August 29, 2008

Armed Toronto police officers will be stationed in two dozen public high schools and a pair of Catholic high schools this fall, the Toronto District School Board chair says.

Board chair John Campbell told CTV last night the officers will be stationed beginning in October, and that “we all stand to benefit” from their presence.

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[Ed. Note: Sources online, among them the World Health Organization, indicate that food irradiation is mandated by the UN facilitated global legislation known as 'Codex Alimentarius', which is being adopted incrementally in Canada and across the West. it begs the question - do Canadians want food policy to be set in Ottawa or in Rome?]

Megan Ogilvie and Joanna Smith, Toronto Star
August 29, 2008

But critics say it could excuse producers from safety protocols and scare away consumers

Food safety experts are baffled why Ottawa has not yet allowed food producers to zap meat and produce with enough radiation to kill deadly bacteria that cause outbreaks of food-borne disease.

Health Canada said Wednesday it is considering approving meat irradiation by early 2009. But experts say the announcement, made in the wake of a nationwide listeriosis outbreak linked to ready-to-eat meats, is too late in coming.

“It’s become obvious that a catastrophe has to happen before the technology can move forward,” said Dennis Olson, a professor of animal science at Iowa State University and an international expert on irradiation. The technology involves exposing food to radiation, disrupting the DNA of bacteria, including listeria, which either kills them or renders them unable to reproduce.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved meat irradiation in 2000, after a 1993 outbreak of E. coli 0157, linked to fast food hamburgers, sickened 200 people and killed four children, Olson said.

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[Ed. Note - So is this 'new world order' an internationalist concept, or a reference to American hegemony? The usage is all over the map. See linked articles, below.]

Suemas Milne, The Guardian
August 28, 2008

If there were any doubt that the rules of the international game have changed for good, the events of the past few days should have dispelled it. On Monday, President Bush demanded that Russia’s leaders reject their parliament’s appeal to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Within 24 hours, Bush had his response: President Medvedev announced Russia’s recognition of the two contested Georgian enclaves.

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Andrew E Kramer, New York Times
August 28, 2008

MOSCOW—Russian commanders said yesterday they were growing alarmed at the number of NATO warships sailing into the Black Sea, conceding NATO vessels now outnumbered their fleet’s ships anchored off Georgia’s western coast.

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[Ed. note - Helene Desmarais, wife of Paul Desmarais Jr., chairs the Montreal Economic Institute. Paul Desmarais Jr. was an attendee at this year's Bilderberg meeting in Virginia and heads up Power Corporation of Canada. Simon Reisman, head negotiator of NAFTA and uncle of Heather Reisman, also a Bilderberg alumnus, was director of GRANDCo, which has previously advanced ideas for large scale water export. It's a small world at the top, it seems, and these ideas have been floating around for quite some time. No wonder the Council of Canadians is so concerned.]

Lisa Wright, Toronto Star
August 27, 2008

A Montreal think tank says it’s “urgent” for Canada to dip its toe in the water exporting business for financial gain – but some folks aren’t too sure about watching our water go down the drain.

“Large-scale exports of fresh water would be a wealth-creating idea for Quebec and for Canada as a whole,” says the Montreal Economic Institute’s chief economist Marcel Boyer, author of a research paper released today.

“The development and marketing of this expertise requires a strategic plan to enable Quebec to become a leader in water management,” says Boyer, vice president of the Institute, an independent, non-profit organization that takes part in public policy debate in Quebec and across Canada.

The report proposes that the provincial and federal government set out a regulatory framework for the trade in water to make owners or concession-holders more fully aware of the benefits and costs associated with the various uses of the water under their control.

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Allan Woods, Toronto Star
August 27, 2008

OTTAWA—Canadian soldiers could get training from a U.S. company closely linked to Blackwater USA, a private security firm implicated in the killings of hundreds of Iraqi civilians, if the Department of National Defence has its way.

The military gave notice this week of its intention to award an $850,000 contract for advanced counterinsurgency training to the Terrorism Research Center, a Virginia-based firm that specializes in terrorism training for military and law enforcement officials. The contract is for one year with the option for a two-year extension.

The counterinsurgency school, which boasts close links to the U.S. government, is listed as a branch of Total Intelligence Solutions, a company that is run by former director of CIA counterterrorism Cofer Black and Erik Prince, a former U.S. Navy Seal.

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The Daily Mail
August 27, 2008

Lovers of liberty will instinctively recoil from the Government’s drive to arm private security guards, council officials and car park attendants with sweeping police powers over ordinary citizens.

Why should free-born Britons be obliged to give their names and addresses to this rag-tag army of snoopers and busybodies, with their licence to impose fixed penalty notices, stop cars and seize alcohol?

No wonder members of the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme  -  with their badges mostly bought for under £100  -  have already been dubbed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s ‘Stasi’, after the dreaded East German secret police.

In a disturbing document, the Home Office makes clear it is deliberately using CSAS members to do jobs deemed too petty-minded for properly trained police. Could anything be better guaranteed to breed ill-feeling against the new force?

As Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve says: ‘The public want to see real police on the streets discharging these responsibilities, not private firms who may use them inappropriately  -  including unnecessarily snooping on the lives of ordinary citizens.’

But then it often seems this controlfreak Government, with its batteries of databases and CCTV cameras, won’t rest until it has set the entire population spying on each other and feeding information to Whitehall (which civil servants promptly lose).

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[ed. note - Aren't police civilians?]

James Kirkup, The Telegraph
August 26, 2008

Despite lacking formal police training, hundreds of civilians have been made part of the “extended police family” by the Home Office under little-known legislation.

They have not been asked to wear any special uniforms to identify themselves, but must wear only a badge that can be as small as 73mm x 80mm.

The disclosure that hundreds of civilians have been given enforcement powers drew accusations that the Government is encouraging the spread of unaccountable policing.

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