statism watch

The militarization of schools has infested Canada, as well. Note the armed police in Toronto schools as well as the armed drill conducted at the Bickford Centre, also in Toronto. Have news of similar police state activity in your community? Post it in our forum!

Flashback: Only $350 to join GPS bandwagon and jettison privacy: track kids, auto, social network | UK: Children to be tracked by sat nav to stop bad behaviour | Do you snoop on your teen? | GPS wristwatch helps parents track children | Texas truant students to be tracked by GPS anklets

Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
January 22, 2010

Latest evidence that schools are now youth internment centers training kids to accept the prison planet

A judge has ordered 22 students at Bryan Highschool in Texas to carry GPS tracking devices in the name of preventing truancy, another example of how schools are now youth internment centers — preparatory camps for brainwashing kids to accept the prison planet.

“Bryan High students who skip school will soon be tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” reports KBTX.

“It’s called the Attendance Improvement Management Program or AIM, and it has been used across Texas and the United States.”

Students who skip class are now forced to attend “truancy court” and be lectured by a judge before being mandated to carry a GPS tracking device.

“Students on the program are tracked with a hand-held GPS device between the time they leave for school in the morning and the time they check in for curfew at night.”

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Flashback: FBI ‘fabricated terror emergencies to get phone records’ | China Google Hack Exploited Security Gaps Introduced By State Surveillance Provisions | UK: Telecom firms’ fury at plan for ‘Stasi’ checks on every phone call and email | Surveillance Shocker: Sprint Received 8 MILLION Law Enforcement Requests for GPS Location Data in the Past Year | Authority to Spy on Americans Unclear as Patriot Act Expires | U.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets | Obama Stands Behind Use of ‘State Secrets’ in Warrantless Surveillance Lawsuit | Report: Massive FBI database set to quadruple in size | EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” | US Police to get access to classified military intelligence | Obama Backs Extending Patriot Act Spy Provisions | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | US Federal Judge Tosses Telecom Spy Suits | Showdown in NSA Wiretap Case: Judge Threatens Sanctions Against Justice Department | NSA Surveillance Exploding, Americans Wiretapped Beyond Congressional Limits | Put NSA in Charge of Cyber Security, Or the Power Grid Gets It | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | Obama tries to kill lawsuit challenging wiretapping program, fails | New law to give police access to online exchanges | Whistleblower: NSA even collected credit card records | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Big brother to track all emails, internet history and telephone calls under UK plan | US military targets social nets | ‘Einstein’ replaces ‘Big Brother’ in Internet surveillance | UK Security services want personal data from sites like Facebook | Secret EU security draft risks uproar with call to pool policing and give US personal data | Vision 2015: Consolidation of U.S. Intelligence Into Global Intel Network | Bush approves surveillance bill | Sweden approves wiretapping law | Secretive Canadian spy agency to get $62-million HQ | Whistle-Blower: Feds Have a Backdoor Into Wireless Carrier – Congress Reacts | Canada working with FBI on ’server in the sky’ | Listening in on the enemy: Canada’s master eavesdroppers

Chris Williams, The Register
January 22, 2010

Because it took in a nation of millions

A Federal judge has dismissed a complaint against the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Bush-era warrantless wiretapping programme, prompting suggestions the US government is now able to mount mass surveillance operations unhindered by the courts or constitution.

Five AT&T customers sued the NSA after it emerged it had persuaded the telco to provide a wiretap in a major internet traffic exchange in San Francisco. The five claimed the programme, revealed by an AT&T whistleblower, had violated privacy laws.

Late on Thursday, Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that because the internet traffic of millions of Americans had been caught up in the dragnet, the harm alleged in the complaint was not specific to the plaintiffs, so the case should not proceed.

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Flashback: Food summit offers thin pledges to hungry | Food prices set to rise? | Will recession spark global food crisis? | American thinktanks sowed seeds of food crisis | Agribusiness positions GM crops as panacea to predicted global food shortage | Billions needed annually to raise food production: UN chief | Monsanto Plans to Save World with its Biotech Crops | High-level UN task force to tackle global food crisis | Head of IMF says if food prices remain high, consequences are dire

John Vidal, The Guardian
January 22, 2010

New analysis of 2009 US Department of Agriculture figures suggests biofuel revolution is impacting on world food supplies

One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies.

The 2009 figures from the US Department of Agriculture shows ethanol production rising to record levels driven by farm subsidies and laws which require vehicles to use increasing amounts of biofuels.

“The grain grown to produce fuel in the US [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels,” said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington thinktank ithat conducted the analysis.

Last year 107m tonnes of grain, mostly corn, was grown by US farmers to be blended with petrol. This was nearly twice as much as in 2007, when Bush challenged farmers to increase production by 500% by 2017 to save cut oil imports and reduce carbon emissions.

More than 80 new ethanol plants have been built since then, with more expected by 2015, by which time the US will need to produce a further 5bn gallons of ethanol if it is to meet its renewable fuel standard.

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We used to have this thing called ‘CANDU‘ – it’s only one of the safest nuclear technologies in the world. It takes up lot less real estate and crop land than wind farms. Sound familiar, anyone? It too, was largely a state-subsidized boondoggle but the technology made a lot more sense than this handout. That’s it – this journal challenges the Canadian government to open-source CANDU as a gift to the world, since clearly they’re not using the technology.

Flashback: Ontario Premiere McGuinty heralds Samsung ‘green energy’ deal | ‘Green jobs’ are key to U.S., Canadian recovery: US Ambassador | Jim Prentice: Implement A ‘North American Climate Change Regime’ | Climate Cops To Fine “Wasteful” Homeowners & Businesses | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill | Ontario unveils cap-and-trade legislation | NRTEE Carbon Market Panel is ‘Round Table on Socialist Planning’ | Climate panel presses for federal cap-and-trade system | U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy | U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax | US Congress passes mandatory national service bill | Time to emulate Roosevelt’s New Deal and create green jobs | Terence Corcoran: Ontario’s green energy plan sneaks in feed-in taxes | New World Order Crony Gary Hart Calls for “Civic Duty” | US Democrats Introduce Public National Service Bills | Justin Trudeau introduces National Voluntary Service motion | Ontario joins continental WCI cap-and-trade scheme | B.C. carbon tax kicks in on Canada Day | They call it cap and trade, but it’s just another fuel tax | Quebec, Ontario sign historic climate pact | Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry ‘carbon ration cards’, say MPs | CEOs call for ‘aggressive’ action on climate change

Terence Corcoran, National Post
January 22, 2010

When government and industry talk about green energy, what they mean by green is the green stuff that will be going into the pockets of special corporate and government interests.

In a dramatic move yesterday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty struck a green electricity deal — allegedly the biggest of its kind in the world — that will transmit a subsidy worth as much as $10-billion into the hands of a Korean state enterprise and corporate giant Samsung.

Green economics is a wonderful thing, except for consumers.

The subsidy means that over the next 25 years Ontario electricity users will pay 50% more for the wind and solar electricity produced under the Samsung deal than they would buying the same power from conventional sources. In return for the subsidy, the only thing the average consumer will receive is a warm and fuzzy feeling for having saved the planet from global warming.

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Oh noes. Save us, take away our rights! Really, after a certain point, the propaganda just becomes so ridiculous that ne is at a loss for words. It’s as though we’ve been dropped into the middle of Terry Gilliam’s film ‘Brazil’ or 1984 or … take your pick of dystopia and comment below or, better yet, post in our forum. “Security officials have no knowledge of a direct plot threat. The senior source said: “It is not based on a single piece of evidence or event. There is no knowledge of a new plot or an old plot moving on.” Officials do not believe there will be a need to make arrests in the next 24 hours.”

Flashback: Indian airports on alert after report of hijacking plot | More troops on the streets: U.S. terror alert expands to transit and stadiums | Media hypes terror plot, despite the fact no one is charged with terror | Military readies reservists for threats to ‘domestic front’ | Ex-CSIS Agent, ‘Security Expert’, Paints Pipeline Explosion as “Terror” | Truth or Terrorism? The Real Story Behind Five Years of High Alerts | Former British Ambassador Says Liquid Bomb Terror Alert Is “Propaganda”

Jenny Percival, Vikram Dodd, The Guardian
January 22, 2009

Threat raised from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’, home secretary says no attack is imminent

The threat of international terrorism to the UK was raised from substantial to the second highest level of severe last night, meaning an attack is “highly likely”.

Alan Johnson, the home secretary, said there was no intelligence to suggest an attack was imminent.

The escalation reversed a decision in July to downgrade the likelihood of a terror attack from “severe” to “substantial”.

Johnson said the change was not ­specifically linked to the increased threat from international terrorism following the failed Detroit plane bombing on Christmas Day or to any other incident.

He said the Joint Terrorism ­Analysis Centre (Jtac), a unit within MI5, had taken the ­decision based on a broad range of ­factors, ­including the intent and ­capabilities of international terrorist groups in the UK and overseas.

Johnson said: “We still face a real and serious threat to the UK from ­international terrorism, so I would urge the public to remain vigilant and carry on ­reporting ­suspicious events to the appropriate authorities, and to support the police and security services in their ­continuing efforts to discover, track and disrupt ­terrorist activity.”

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Hillary visits Pakistan, bombs go off and we learn two weeks later Blackwater’s operating covertly in the country. Robert Gates (who ran the CIA under Bush I) visits India and on cue ‘interrogations’ reveal a deadly terror plot that may have happened somewhere at some point. Uh huh. What do you think the odds of India placing an order with his buddy Chertoff’s client Rapiscan shortly might be? GlobalResearch.ca points out in an exhaustively footnoted essay entitled “Political Destabilization in South and Central Asia: The Role of the CIA-ISI Terror Network” that the groups fingered in these operations are creations of the ISI-CIA compact and the purpose of all this is a deliberate destabilization of the region. A veiled chess game is being played out in Central Asia, delicate balancing acts of power against power are manipulated, and from the sidelines we’re treated only to fleeting glimpses of the plays moving up and down the field. Are these the machinations of free republics, or the intrigues of Empire? We get the government you deserve, so unless we educate ourselves and speak out, this is the road we’ll have chosen for future generations.

Flashback: Mumbai terror attack suspect withdraws confession | Mumbai suspect is US double agent, India claims | Mumbai police ignored security alerts, says report | Mumbai highlights security on attack anniversary | Pakistan charges 7 in Mumbai attacks | Mumbai attack suspect shocks court and own defence lawyer by pleading guilty | Mumbai attacks suspect alleges torture, retracts confession | Pakistani officers helped plan Mumbai attacks, says India | Indian Mumbai dossier details gunmen’s calls with handlers | India signs new anti-terror laws in wake of Mumbai attack | India to create national spy agency in wake of Mumbai attacks | Former ISI Chief: Mumbai And 9/11 Both “Inside Jobs” | Indian Intelligence Provided SIM Cards to Mumbai Gunmen | CIA Foreknowledge of the Mumbai Attacks | “Fair-skinned, blonde” assailants began attack in Mumbai | Terror strikes Mumbai

The Associated Press
January 22, 2010

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates answers a question during a press conference in New Delhi, India, on Wednesday. (Kevin Frayer/Associated Press)

Airline passengers travelling in India have been subjected to tighter security measures amid reports that al-Qaeda-linked militants plan to hijack an Air India or Indian Airlines plane.

The government put the country’s airports on high alert Thursday, instituting more intense security screenings and deploying sky marshals on some flights, after it received warnings about a possible attack, aviation spokeswoman Moushumi Chakravarty said.

A report in The Indian Express newspaper, which Chakravarty confirmed, said intelligence officials had uncovered a plot by militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba to hijack an Air India or Indian Airlines flight destined for an unspecified South Asian country.

The Indian government was asking neighbouring countries to step up security on India-bound flights as well, the home ministry said in a statement.

The alert was expected to continue over the weekend.

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