statism watch

Flashback: Regulator will force cellphone companies to adopt GPS tracking system | Mobile phones to track carbon footprint using GPS | Global ‘Intelligent Transport’ initiative comes to your cellphone: Location data used to track traffic flow | Mobile Phone Users Secretly Tracked for Behaviorist Study

Kevin Bankston, Electronic Frontier Foundation
December 1, 2009

This October, Chris Soghoian – computer security researcher, oft-times journalist, and current technical consultant for the FTC’s privacy protection office – attended a closed-door conference called “ISS World”. ISS World – the “ISS” is for “Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception, Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Gathering” – is where law enforcement and intelligence agencies consult with telco representatives and surveillance equipment manufacturers about the state of electronic surveillance technology and practice. Armed with a tape recorder, Soghoian went to the conference looking for information about the scope of the government’s surveillance practices in the US. What Soghoian uncovered, as he reported on his blog this morning, is more shocking and frightening than anyone could have ever expected

At the ISS conference, Soghoian taped astonishing comments by Paul Taylor, Sprint/Nextel’s Manager of Electronic Surveillance. In complaining about the volume of requests that Sprint receives from law enforcement, Taylor noted a shocking number of requests that Sprint had received in the past year for precise GPS (Global Positioning System) location data revealing the location and movements of Sprint’s customers. That number?

EIGHT MILLION.

Sprint received over 8 million requests for its customers’ information in the past 13 months. That doesn’t count requests for basic identification and billing information, or wiretapping requests, or requests to monitor who is calling who, or even requests for less-precise location data based on which cell phone towers a cell phone was in contact with. That’s just GPS. And, that’s not including legal requests from civil litigants, or from foreign intelligence investigators. That’s just law enforcement. And, that’s not counting the few other major cell phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. That’s just Sprint.

(more…)

The incredible revelations keep coming, with Copenhagen mere days away. It’s a testament to the power of the mainstream media to minimize inconvenient truths by placing them on the back pages, spinning the narrative or outright advocating for the establishment story that the public isn’t outraged about what’s happening. Then there’s misdirection that crowds real news from the public eye: (But, wait! Look over here! Shiny! A scandale about Tiger Woods! Socialite gatecrashers at the Obama ball!) And all the while, a global taxation structure to place control of national funds into the UN’s hands is being erected around us by instituting new carbon taxes, bank taxes, surveillance networks, and restrictions on the flow of information. Just don’t tell anyone, okay? We wouldn’t want anyone actually  to get angry that their national sovereignty, standard of living, and liberties are all being corroded by a soviet-style system of unelected councils that are draining the decision-making powers of your national parliaments away.

Flashback: Climategate: Global Warming scientists placed under investigation | Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0 | IPCC case for global warming melts on multiple fronts | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
December 1, 2009

Shocking newly uncovered UN strategy documents reveal how elitists are recruiting members of academia from all over the globe in an effort to hide the “end-run” around national sovereignty that their agenda represents, emphasizing how the climategate crooks who were recently caught manipulating scientific data in order to “hide the decline” in global warming are working with the United Nations in the pursuit of a world government justified by the global warming fraud that they are helping to perpetrate.

One of the planning papers, entitled “The UNEP That We Want,” was produced by a specially selected group of influential environmental bureaucrats and delivered to the UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the regulatory body that established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the politicized organization that has attempted to slam the lid shut on global warming skepticism by claiming it is the supreme authority, despite the fact that scientists used by the IPCC were caught manipulating data and conspiring to hide evidence of global cooling during the climategate scandal.

The IPCC has attempted to deny the gravitas of climategate by claiming that it has no bearing on their conclusions about global warming, despite the fact that scientists at the University of East Anglia used intimidation and academic witch hunts to ensure that data they didn’t agree with politically was blocked from appearing in the IPCC’s fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007.

Participants who contributed to the first UNEP document included Janos Pasztor, currently head of the team pushing U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s unprecedented Seal the Deal lobbying campaign to pressure U.N. member governments into signing a new environmental agreement at Copenhagen, Dominic Waughray, currently head of environmental initiatives at the World Economic Forum; and Maria Ivanova, and Bulgarian academic Maria Ivanova, director of the Global Economic Governance Project at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

(more…)

Obama is going to war so that they can withdraw. That’s some top-drawer doublespeak. Look at the text of the speech. Notice how many times the word Pakistan is used. Now, where do you think those troops are going?

Flashback: Nato will send 5,000 more troops to Afghanistan, says Brown | British PM says 5,000 more NATO troops may be deployed in Afghanistan | Nobel Peace Laureate Obama Will Send 40K More Troops To War | Forces begin planning for Afghan withdrawal | No way to escape Afghan combat post-2011, Hillier says | Troops get non-combat role in Afghanistan after 2011 | Conservatives claim ‘no decision’ made on leaving some troops in Afghanistan past 2011 | Top US commander signals troop increase in Afghanistan | Obama rules out Afghanistan troop cuts | Obama’s effort in Afghanistan ‘just beginning’: U.S. defence secretary | U.S. military seeks ’second surge’ for Afghan mission | UK PM Gordon Brown plans troop surge in Afghanistan | Taliban flee new U.S. drive in Afghanistan | Obama adds another brigade to Afghanistan troop surge | Dismay at Obama plan to leave 50,000 US troops in Iraq after 2010 | Cost of Afghan mission jumps to $11.3-billion | New Canadian commander in Afghanistan welcomes U.S. troop influx | Obama eyes 3 more brigades for Afghanistan | Top U.S. general boosts troop pledge to Afghanistan | Afghan war boosts recruiting | Obama’s planned troop surge in Afghanistan could lead to more violence: ISAF | ‘Some’ Troops to stay in Afghanistan past 2011: McKay | Canadian military acquiring new helicopters, drones | Obama promises 10,000 more troops for Afghanistan

CBC News
December 1, 2009

But U.S. withdrawal to start in 18 months

President Barack Obama has ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops to be deployed in Afghanistan – but he also pledged Tuesday to begin withdrawing American forces in about 18 months, beginning in July 2011.

In a televised prime-time speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., the president said “our security is at stake” and his new policy is designed to “bring this war to a successful conclusion.”

The troop buildup, which will cost $30 billion US for the first year alone, will begin almost immediately with the first marines in place by Christmas.

“We must deny al-Qaeda a safe haven,” Obama said “We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum. … And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government.”

The additional forces will be sent at “the fastest pace possible so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centres,” [and their destination would be] “the epicentre of the violent extremism practised by al-Qaeda,” Obama said.

“It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak.”

It marks the second time in his presidency that Obama has added to the American force in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has recently made significant advances. When he became president last January, there were roughly 34,000 troops on the ground. There now are 71,000.

(more…)

The scale of the deception revealed by the emails and computer code, the prominence of the scientists involved, and the urgency with which global taxation is benig pushed as the solution to climate change demands front page coverage and a massive criminal investigation, not some quiet internal investigation conducted within academia.

Flashback: Latest Climategate revelation: Climate change data dumped | Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0 | IPCC case for global warming melts on multiple fronts | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

CBC News
December 1, 2009

The U.K.’s University of East Anglia says the director of its Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations stemming from the recent publication of his and other climate scientists’ private emails.

Phil Jones, the director of the global research centre on climate change, announced that he would stand aside until an independent review determined whether he overstated the case for man-made climate change.

The university said Peter Liss will become acting director of the climate research unit.

Hundreds of private emails of British and U.S. scientists were posted online after hackers broke into one of the Climatic Research Unit’s servers about a week and a half ago. The emails appear to show some of the scientists have overstated the threat of man-made global warming.

Jones’s announcement came days after Pennsylvania State University announced that it would be looking into the work of one of its scientists, Michael Mann, whose correspondence was also among the emails hackers released. Mann is the director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center.

(more…)

Mr. Ignatieff must really not want that party to get elected. If he did, he would bring on the election, and bring down this government! If not on this issue (since it’s not a confidence matter), then on the next available confidence issue. The issue of expanding the GST to everything else covered by provincial sales taxes is worthy of a public debate! Canadians destroyed Mulroney for introducing the HST, does Ignatieff not think they’d appreciate his blocking GST2? Write your MP.

Flashback: Tory HST protest halts Ontario question period | Federal HST tax bill to be introduced, plays politics with law | Ontario Tories walk out to protest lack of hearings on HST | Contentious HST bill introduced in Ontario | Food under $4 to be HST-free, Ontario says | McGuinty says HST doubters exist in Liberal ranks | If passed, HST locked in through 2012 | New HST tax is fair, McGuinty says | Thousands rally against coming HST tax in BC | Flaherty offers taxpayer-funded bribe to adopt HST tax, holdout provinces demur | BC, like Ontario, moves to harmonize taxes | Ontario Liberals pressing to hide new ‘harmonized’ tax in prices | Ontario to merge GST, PST in ‘harmonized’ tax hike | EU approves free-trade talks with Canada | Canada expects EU free-trade talks soon: Stockwell Day | Harper, Sarkozy vow to work toward Canada-EU deal | CD Howe Institute backs Canada-EU deal, deep integration | Towards a new world order: Canada-EU trade proposal rivals scope of NAFTA

CBC News
December 1, 2009

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said on Tuesday that his party will support a Conservative bill that would allow provinces to harmonize the provincial sales tax and federal GST on products and services.

“Our party for 15 years has supported sales tax harmonization. This is a request from the provinces because they believe it will improve the competitiveness of their economy and create jobs,” Ignatieff told reporters.

“We will support this legislation in Parliament.”

Ignatieff added that it would not be a free vote.

The Liberals had been quiet on whether they would back the proposed legislation, which has put the party in the position of either supporting a measure unpopular with consumers or opposing the wishes of the B.C. and Ontario governments.

Both provinces have moved ahead with plans to merge the taxes.

While the NDP opposes the HST bill, the Bloc Québécois has said it would support the proposed legislation, which is not being put to a confidence vote.

Ignatieff had previously said that if the Liberals formed a government, they would not cancel HST agreements signed with the provinces. But it had been unclear whether they would support this proposed federal bill.

(more…)

Flashback: Federal HST tax bill to be introduced, plays politics with law | Ontario Tories walk out to protest lack of hearings on HST | Contentious HST bill introduced in Ontario | Food under $4 to be HST-free, Ontario says | McGuinty says HST doubters exist in Liberal ranks | If passed, HST locked in through 2012 | New HST tax is fair, McGuinty says | Thousands rally against coming HST tax in BC | Flaherty offers taxpayer-funded bribe to adopt HST tax, holdout provinces demur | BC, like Ontario, moves to harmonize taxes | Ontario Liberals pressing to hide new ‘harmonized’ tax in prices | Ontario to merge GST, PST in ‘harmonized’ tax hike | EU approves free-trade talks with Canada | Canada expects EU free-trade talks soon: Stockwell Day | Harper, Sarkozy vow to work toward Canada-EU deal | CD Howe Institute backs Canada-EU deal, deep integration | Towards a new world order: Canada-EU trade proposal rivals scope of NAFTA

CBC News
December 1, 2009

An unusual protest over tax harmonization prompted the Speaker of the house to forgo daily question period at the Ontario legislature on Tuesday.

Progressive Conservatives Randy Hillier and Bill Murdoch staged an overnight sit-in over the government’s refusal to hold provincewide public consultations on merging the provincial sales tax with the federal goods and services tax (HST).

Their sit-in followed an order by Speaker Steve Peters, who suspended both MPPs from the house for the rest of the legislative session for using unparliamentary language and disrupting debate on Monday.

Conservative caucus colleagues joined Hillier and Murdoch on Tuesday morning and continued to shout and pound their desks. Following a brief meeting to try to resolve the impasse, the Speaker began question period by again asking Hillier and Murdoch to leave.

But the two – clad in the same clothes they wore on Monday – again defied Peters’s order, prompting the Speaker to suspend question period for the day.

“I am not prepared to continue with question period while these two members are occupying these front benches,” Peters said.

(more…)

Public Service Announcement: Please, do yourself a favour and do not sell your earrings to any of the cRAzY CasH f0R GOLD! retailers that have sprung up. There’s a reason they’re buying, you know. Multiple mainstream economists have predicted pricing levels up to 2,500$/oz and beyond. Keep your physical gold as a hedge against inflation and as a reserve currency should things really go south.

Flashback: We’re running out of gold: miners | RCMP: Big error behind missing gold at Royal Canadian Mint | Gold rallies to record above $1,100 | Gold prices surge as India buys IMF reserves | Plentiful paper currency buffing gold’s shine | Gold continues record-breaking run | Gold price rises to all-time high | Fisk: Nations to hasten demise of dollar in new world order | IMF approves $13bn gold sale to boost lending fund | Gold regains $1,000 | Gold toys with $1000/oz | Industrial demand for silver sharpens bullish view | Global demand for gold investment soars 38% in past year | The search for the mint’s missing gold | Royal Canadian Mint’s ‘lost’ gold worth a mint | Bullion and Bandits: The Improbable Rise and Fall of E-Gold | Has the Mint’s gold vanished? | Bank crisis spawns new kind of gold rush | Gold Tops $1,000, First Time Since March as Recession Deepens | Manipulation Of Gold And Silver Prices Further Exposed | Analysts Predict Hyper-Inflation To Push Gold To $2000, Oil to $300 | Ottawa warns on gold-backed Web trades

Reuters
December 1, 2009

Gold (GC-FT1,210.3010.100.84%) hit record highs above $1,200 (U.S.) an ounce Tuesday as investors bought the precious metal as an alternative investment amid U.S. dollar weakness and economic uncertainty after the Dubai credit woes.

Strength in gold lifted other precious metals, with silver (SI-FT19.230.010.08%) and palladium (PA-FT389.455.501.43%) rallying to their strongest level since July, 2008, and platinum (PL-FT1,508.0021.401.44%) hitting its highest since August last year.

Bullion has risen 15 per cent since the start of November. So far this year it has gained 36 per cent on a combination of worries about paper currency depreciation, inflation and doubts about a nascent economic recovery.

“It is like a perfect storm for gold, with the currency situation, and with Dubai rekindled the concerns about economic crisis,” said Bill O’Neill, partner of Logic Advisors.

Spot gold hit a record of $1,201.40 an ounce, and was at $1,195.50 an ounce at 3:38 p.m. ET, against $1,179.10 late in New York on Monday.

(more…)

This isn’t the first all-party motion or resolution in the house that’s been ignored. Previous motions the tyrant has ignored have included the motion to repatriate Omar Khadr, and the two motions to allow war resisters to stay in Canada rather than be deported to the US to face court martial for desertion (sometimes, after multiple forced redeployments to the Middle East that they never signed on for). Obviously also ‘National Security’ matters of tantamount importance.

Flashback: Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

Bruce Cheadle, Canadian Press
December 1, 2009

This journal noticed on the CTV newsfeed last night that Arlene King is promoting a new Ontario marketing campaign for the 17-24 set: ‘Join the Resistance’ against H1N1. Seriously. This attempt by our public health system to appropriate the language of ‘resistance’ for their youth campaign is sad, and indicates a hint of desperation. Which ad agency are they working with? A quick Google search reveals the answer – Allard Johnson Communications. What are this agency’s other contracts? Merck-Frosst, Novartis, Purdue Pharma, Health Canada, among other governmental and food industry clients. That means they were also on the Gardasil campaign, and are the go-to agency for state-pharma marketing. Anyways, this marketing push on your dime will cost $650,000 and ads will be placed in bars and restaurants and emailed to student associations. Since Dr. Schabas seems convinced that current data indicates the crest of the ‘pandemic’ has passed, why is taxpayer money continuing to be spent to flog this product? Couldn’t have anything to do with the connections between drug companies and public health, could it?

Flashback: UK: Millions more than thought have already had swine flu, Government scientists say | Dr. Richard Schabas – How they larded H1N1 facts with fear | Push is on to inoculate everyone against H1N1, Ontarians stay away in droves | UK Doctors say most Britons reject swine flu vaccine | Elderly Quebec man dies after H1N1 shot | French Woman Gets Crippling Illness After H1N1 Vaccine | Swine flu cases drop in England | Teen Diagnosed With Guillain-Barre Syndrome After Swine Flu Shot | H1N1 overplayed by media, public health: MDs | Ask military to help with H1N1: Ottawa councillor | Special H1N1 vaccine for pregnant women now here | Elite Council Recording Suggests Creating False Scarcity To Drive Up Demand For H1N1 Vaccine | WHO pandemic definition too broad, doctor contends | Vaccine scarcity claims don’t add up | ‘No reason’ to delay seasonal flu shots, global health panel says | Flu Season Has Already Peaked in US, Little Benefit to H1N1 Jab: Study

Caroline Alphonso, Globe and Mail
December 1, 2009

Better to saturate population with vaccine than virus, chief Ontario health officer says

The worst of the H1N1 pandemic outbreak appears to have passed as fewer Canadians are being admitted to hospitals or diagnosed with the virus.

So if you’ve managed to escape getting sick thus far, do you still need to get the shot?

The voices of public health officials chant “yes” in unison. The numbers of those seriously ill may be falling, but the disease is widespread and a vaccine would protect you from a fate similar to that suffered by thousands admitted to hospitals and intensive-care units, many of them young and healthy, and the more than 300 who have died.

One doctor stands apart from the crowd. Richard Schabas, Ontario’s former chief medical officer of health, said authorities have exaggerated the risk of being infected with H1N1, and he sees no reason why a healthy person needs the vaccine at this point.

“The risk of disease this year to a healthy person is so small that I don’t think it justifies that,” said Dr. Schabas, who is medical officer of health for Ontario’s Hastings and Prince Edward Counties Health Unit. “I still think that people with diabetes, with heart disease, those sorts of people should probably still get immunized. But for healthy people, the risks are really tiny.”

Such comments fly in the face of the country’s largest immunization campaign. Public health authorities have spent millions of dollars to rush the H1N1 vaccine into people’s arms in the hopes of stopping the spread of the virus and preventing a potential third wave.

But Dr. Schabas said the surveillance data shows that the virus peaked in the last week of October in much of the country. During the height of the pandemic, roughly half of the swabs tested positive in the lab for H1N1. Now, in places like Ontario and British Columbia, it’s roughly 30 per cent of cases testing positive for the virus.

He added that in news conferences, provincial and federal health officials consistently use data that are a week or two old, resulting in inaccurate information being disseminated to the public on the state of the pandemic.

(more…)