statism watch

Oh, it’s for the children. It’s to keep you safe. Here, let’s just put cameras right in your homes to keep you safe, wouldn’t that be a great idea? Just when it seemed that there was at least one aspect of the surveillance control grid that people had safely beaten down – it’s back, like some ludicrous game of whack-a-mole. There should be an entirely new category of irony for the fact that school administrators in the UK can film kids in the can, but parents can’t kiss their kids or play with them in a public playground unless they’ve got a very special license. Is there nothing people won’t capitulate too after they’ve been softened up with a little propaganda? Is there nothing to which we won’t stoop in the rush to insert ourselves into some dystopian nightmare? The staff should be charged for this crime.

Flashback: More Details Emerging About School Laptop Spying, And It Doesn’t Look Good | School Spycams Case Explodes As Feds Initiate Probe | Pennsylvania schools spying on students using laptop Webcams, claims lawsuit | Texas Schoolkids Tagged With GPS Tracking Devices | 50 Toronto high schools to have armed police presence | UK schoolkids trained to inform on ‘extremist’ classmates by police DVD | UK Schoolkids Protest CCTV, Hidden Microphones in Class | Lunchtime lockdown to promote healthier eating: T.O. school plan | Schools seek more police as crime drops | Police presence in high schools makes the grade | Has your child been CAFed? How the Government plans to record intimate information on every child in Britain | Safety report author Falconer on armed police in schools: “Facile” | Parents, children to be fingerprinted at initial 250+ nursery schools in UK | Frequent school lockdowns raise questions | 27 Toronto schools to get armed police presence | Two trustees stand opposed to armed police in schools | Armed police officers heading to high schools | Texas truant students to be tracked by GPS anklets | CCTV cameras spying on hundreds of classrooms | Armed Police to Roam Toronto High Schools | $4 Million Earmarked for Cameras, “Respect” at Toronto Schools | School removes CCTV cameras from children’s toilets after furious protest from parents

Sky News
March 9, 2010

Outraged parents have hit out at a school in Birmingham after pupils discovered CCTV cameras in the school’s toilets.

Youngsters at Grace Academy in Chelmsley Wood claim they returned from half-term to find staff had installed the cameras without notifying them or their parents.

Some parents are furious at what they say is a “total invasion of privacy” and claim some pupils are so anxious about being watched they are refusing to use the facilities.

One mother whose teenage daughter attends the school is concerned the footage could fall into the wrong hands.

She told the Sunday Mercury: “She came home from school and told me security cameras had been installed in the girl’s toilets but we didn’t know anything about it.

“You would expect the school to have consulted parents first yet we received no information and no letters have been sent home explaining this decision.”

Grace Academy claims the cameras only cover the sink areas and have not yet been activated.

School principal Terry Wales told Sky News: “It’s to safeguard our youngsters, many schools are using cameras now.

(more…)

Teach your children well – while you’re still allowed to, that is.

Flashback: UK: Parents need license to play with children in public | UK: Now Big Brother targets helpful parents – 1 in 4 Britons vetted for giant new child protection database | Has your child been CAFed? How the Government plans to record intimate information on every child in Britain | Do Swiss parents need a childrearing licence? | UK Parents Need Government Permission to Kiss Children

Ryan Kisiel, Steve Doughty, The Daily Mail
March 4, 2010

Heads will be forced to list children as young as five on school ‘hate registers’ over everyday playground insults.

Even minor incidents must be recorded as examples of serious bullying and details kept on a database until the pupil leaves secondary school.

Teachers are to be told that even if a primary school child uses homophobic or racist words without knowing their meaning, simply teaching them such words are hurtful and inappropriate is not enough.

Instead the incident has to be recorded and his or her behaviour monitored for future signs of ‘hate’ bullying.

The accusations will also be recorded in databases held by councils and made available to Whitehall and ministers to help them devise future anti-bullying campaigns.

The scale of the effort to stop children using homophobic or racist language was revealed after the parents of a ten-year-old primary school pupil in Somerset, Peter Drury, were told that his name would be put on a register and his behaviour monitored while he remained at school.

The boy was reported after he called a friend ‘gay boy’. His parents fear the record of homophobic bullying will count against him throughout his school career and even into adulthood.

In another incident last year a six-year-old girl, Sharona Gower, was reported for ‘racist bullying’ at her school near Tunbridge Wells in Kent.

Sharona was chased by two 11-year-old girls, one of whom taunted her that she had chocolate on her face.

The six-year-old responded to one of the girls, who was black: ‘Well, you’ve got chocolate on yours.’

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It’s interesting how quickly the plight of children occurs to the state when the outcome is to remove rights and accrue centralized power – and how slow any recognition of children’s suffering is when the necessary outcome must be to detach, decentralize, and withdraw. Witness Canada’s residential schools, the eagerness of Children’s Protective Services in the US to fulfill their quotas by snatching kids from families with a dirty dish in the sink nevermind the continuing rampant abuse in state custody, the Thalidomide apology – only fifty years late, the use of children as a pretext to treat everyone online as some potential paedophile by implementing filters and restricting anonymity, etc., etc. Of course, none of that matters if you’re putting a child through a naked body scanner, which breaks UK law. Children are treated as our pawns, empty vessels onto which we project all the grotesque evil of our adult world. They cannot help but reflect this back to us psychologically – and in some cases physically. It is,literally, heartbreaking.

The Daily Mail
March 4, 2010

Fatima Ahmed, born after the assault in Fallujah, has deformities that include two heads.

A high number of children are being born with birth defects in an Iraqi city where U.S. forces may have used chemical weapons during a fierce battle in 2004.

Children in Fallujah are being born with limb, head, heart and nervous system defects. There is even a claim that a baby was born with three heads.

The number of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than the rate in Europe.

The city, 40 miles west of Baghdad, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the Iraq war in late 2004. U.S. Marines led Operation Phantom Fury to recapture it from insurgents.

British troops were involved in manning checkpoints on the outskirts of the city as the Americans went in. The U.S. has admitted that it used white phosphorus in the attack, but only as an illumination device.

Under international law it is illegal if used as an offensive weapon. America has never given a clear response to claims it also used depleted uranium weapons against the insurgents, such as ‘bunkerbuster’ bombs. Both types of weapons can contaminate crops and water supplies.

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Disappeared. Lost. Sometimes, raped and murdered by the lecherous creatures running the religious schools. There are so many little crosses, so many children fallen prey to the state’s need for ethnic and cultural hegemony. This was Canada’s genocide.

Flashback: For many aboriginals, the truth of residential schools is irreconcilable: commissioner | The future of the residential school commission – An interview with Judge Murray Sinclair | GG relaunches Truth and Reconciliation Commission | New members tapped for residential school commission: report | Chair to have final say as residential schools commission jobs rewritten | Remaining 2 members resign from residential schools commission | Commission to Probe Graves at Native ‘Residential School’ Sites | Government to hold talks over future of residential-schools commission | Chairman quits troubled residential-school commission | Truth commission tied too closely to government: aboriginal groups | Canada hears of native abuse pain | Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed for the First Time; Independent Tribunal Established

CBC News
March 2, 2010

Historian John Milloy wants to investigate the number of residential school students who are buried at cemeteries like this one in Fort Resolution, N.W.T. (CBC)

Investigations into cases of students who died or went missing while attending Canada’s residential schools are a priority for the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, says the group’s new research director.

Trent University history professor John Milloy was appointed last month as director of research for the federal commission, which is charged with creating a historical account of the residential school system, helping people heal and encouraging reconciliation.

The Missing Children Research Project was launched in 2008 with the aim of documenting how many children died, went missing or were buried in unmarked graves at residential schools across the country from the late 1800s through much of the 1900s.

However, work on the project was delayed for a year when infighting at the $60-million truth and reconciliation commission led to the resignation of its three commissioners.

Though the restructured commission has yet to come up with a firm budget for the missing children project, Milloy’s appointment in January raises hopes that the project has regained momentum.

(more…)

Just help yourself, government. Don’t bother asking, it’s not as though we (or our children) have rights anymore. You can thank Bush II for this… he signed a bill in 2008 which critics have described as the first step towards a national US DNA database. It explicitly legitimizes the use of genomic data for genetic research without the knowledge or consent of citizens. This is what happens when you don’t pay attention to what your government is doing. Oh, and this is already in place in Canada. This site leaves it to you to work through the spin and think of the future consequences of unrestricted government access to your DNA.

Flashback: The government has your baby’s DNA | UK Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims | UK: Police ‘must purge innocent DNA’ | Newborn’s Blood Samples Raise Questions of Privacy | Study finds genetic discrimination by insurance firms | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | Australians refused insurance because of poor genes

Mary Ann Roser, Austin American Statesman
February 22, 2010

An Austin lawyer threatened to pursue a new federal lawsuit Monday after learning that some newborn blood samples in Texas went to the U.S. military for potential use in a database for law enforcement purposes.

The Department of State Health Services never mentioned the database to Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, who settled a lawsuit in December with the state over the indefinite storage of newborn blood without parental consent, or to the American-Statesman, which first reported on the little-known blood storage practice last spring. Harrington said he thought another suit was likely unless the health department destroys the information obtained from the blood samples or obtains consent.

“This is the worst case of bad faith I have dealt with as a lawyer,” he said Monday.

Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas attorney general’s office, which represented the health department, fired back. “During this litigation, Harrington was provided accurate answers to the questions he asked,” he said.

“Once Harrington negotiated $26,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs for himself, accepted a settlement agreement and got his desired headlines, he was satisfied and dropped his lawsuit against DSHS. It appears recent media reports caused Harrington to backtrack in an effort to obscure how he chose to handle this case,” he said.

An article Monday by the Texas Tribune, a news Web site, said the state health department sent 800 anonymous samples to the military to help create a national mitochondrial DNA database. The samples were sent in 2003 and 2007, according to the department’s Web site.

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The blog post Techdirt refers us to will make your hair stand on end. The question that must now be asked it – was this a policy restricted to this schoolboard, or some sort of Federal pilot project?

Flashback: School Spycams Case Explodes As Feds Initiate Probe | Pennsylvania schools spying on students using laptop Webcams, claims lawsuit | Texas Schoolkids Tagged With GPS Tracking Devices | 50 Toronto high schools to have armed police presence | UK schoolkids trained to inform on ‘extremist’ classmates by police DVD | UK Schoolkids Protest CCTV, Hidden Microphones in Class | Lunchtime lockdown to promote healthier eating: T.O. school plan | Schools seek more police as crime drops | Police presence in high schools makes the grade | Has your child been CAFed? How the Government plans to record intimate information on every child in Britain | Safety report author Falconer on armed police in schools: “Facile” | Parents, children to be fingerprinted at initial 250+ nursery schools in UK | Frequent school lockdowns raise questions | 27 Toronto schools to get armed police presence | Two trustees stand opposed to armed police in schools | Armed police officers heading to high schools | Texas truant students to be tracked by GPS anklets | CCTV cameras spying on hundreds of classrooms | Armed Police to Roam Toronto High Schools | $4 Million Earmarked for Cameras, “Respect” at Toronto Schools | School removes CCTV cameras from children’s toilets after furious protest from parents

Mike Masnick, Techdirt.com
February 22, 2010

Following up on this morning’s post, new details are emerging about the school spying scandal in which a student was punished for apparently chowing down on Mike&Ike candy (which the school thought were drugs). In our comments, someone named Paul pointsdigs much deeper into the story us to a blog post from a security consultant, who — focusing on one of the techies who worked at the school and apparently had a noticeable internet presence, having said a few things that could come back to haunt him. Note, that the school itself has said that only two techies on staff had the power to initiate the use of the remote spying tool.

Apparently, in various forums, blog posts and videos, one of the school’s techies talked about the technology they were using and how to set it up so that the user would not realize they were being spied on. He also discussed how to prevent a laptop using this software from being “jailbroken,” so users couldn’t discover that their computers were being used in this manner. Other forum posts from students at the school show that they were told they could not use other computers, could not disable the cameras and could not jailbreak their laptops on the risk of expulsion.

(more…)

Flashback: Pennsylvania schools spying on students using laptop Webcams, claims lawsuit | Texas Schoolkids Tagged With GPS Tracking Devices | 50 Toronto high schools to have armed police presence | UK schoolkids trained to inform on ‘extremist’ classmates by police DVD | UK Schoolkids Protest CCTV, Hidden Microphones in Class | Lunchtime lockdown to promote healthier eating: T.O. school plan | Schools seek more police as crime drops | Police presence in high schools makes the grade | Has your child been CAFed? How the Government plans to record intimate information on every child in Britain | Safety report author Falconer on armed police in schools: “Facile” | Parents, children to be fingerprinted at initial 250+ nursery schools in UK | Frequent school lockdowns raise questions | 27 Toronto schools to get armed police presence | Two trustees stand opposed to armed police in schools | Armed police officers heading to high schools | Texas truant students to be tracked by GPS anklets | CCTV cameras spying on hundreds of classrooms | Armed Police to Roam Toronto High Schools | $4 Million Earmarked for Cameras, “Respect” at Toronto Schools | School removes CCTV cameras from children’s toilets after furious protest from parents

Steve Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
February 22, 2010

PBS show highlights ease of using big brother technology

The case of the Lower Merion school district in Philadelphia spying on students in their homes via school issued laptops has gone viral, with the FBI announcing that it has opened an investigation into the matter.

As we reported Friday, the district faces a class action lawsuit after it allegedly issued laptop computers to 1,800 students across two high schools and then used concealed cameras within the machines to covertly monitor the behaviour of students and their parents.

In addition to charges of invasion of privacy, theft of private information, and unlawful interception, the school district has now become the focus of an FBI probe, as well as an investigation by Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.

An FBI spokesman, speaking anonymously, told CNN it was investigating to see if wiretap or computer intrusion laws had been broken.

Students from the school described the schools alleged actions as “disgusting” and “a little scary”.

“How do I trust this school district when they have done something like this?” one parent asked.

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Your school is rapidly becoming a prison camp. And now you can take the prison home with you! (No doubt this will save you from ‘the terror’ somehow.) This is meant to condition your children to living in a police state. Tell them now. Teach them the meaning of liberty.

Flashback: Texas Schoolkids Tagged With GPS Tracking Devices | 50 Toronto high schools to have armed police presence | UK schoolkids trained to inform on ‘extremist’ classmates by police DVD | UK Schoolkids Protest CCTV, Hidden Microphones in Class | Lunchtime lockdown to promote healthier eating: T.O. school plan | Schools seek more police as crime drops | Police presence in high schools makes the grade | Has your child been CAFed? How the Government plans to record intimate information on every child in Britain | Safety report author Falconer on armed police in schools: “Facile” | Parents, children to be fingerprinted at initial 250+ nursery schools in UK | Frequent school lockdowns raise questions | 27 Toronto schools to get armed police presence | Two trustees stand opposed to armed police in schools | Armed police officers heading to high schools | Texas truant students to be tracked by GPS anklets | CCTV cameras spying on hundreds of classrooms | Armed Police to Roam Toronto High Schools | $4 Million Earmarked for Cameras, “Respect” at Toronto Schools | School removes CCTV cameras from children’s toilets after furious protest from parents

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
February 18, 2010

Class-action suit alleges schools remotely activate Webcams on school-issued notebooks

A suburban Philadelphia school district remotely activates the cameras in school-provided laptops to spy on students in their homes, a lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday alleged.

According to the lawsuit filed by a high school student and his parents, the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa. has spied on students and families by “indiscriminate use of and ability to remotely activate the Webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the School District.”

Approximately 1,800 students at the district’s two high schools have been given laptops as part of a state- and federally-funded “one-to-one” student-to-laptop initiative.

Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Pa., said they first found out about the alleged spying last November after their son Blake was accused by a Harriton High School official of “improper behavior in his home” and shown a photograph taken by his laptop.

(more…)

This is going on in Canada as well. The government and the insurance companies love you. Nothing to see here.

Flashback: UK Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims | UK: Police ‘must purge innocent DNA’ | Newborn’s Blood Samples Raise Questions of Privacy | Study finds genetic discrimination by insurance firms | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | Australians refused insurance because of poor genes

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN.com
February 4, 2010

When Annie Brown’s daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis.

While grateful to have the information — Isabel received further testing and she doesn’t have the disease — the Mankato, Minnesota, couple wondered how the doctor knew about Isabel’s genes in the first place. After all, they’d never consented to genetic testing.

It’s simple, the pediatrician answered: Newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it’s often done without the parents’ consent, according to Brad Therrell, director of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center.

In many states, such as Florida, where Isabel was born, babies’ DNA is stored indefinitely, according to the resource center.

Many parents don’t realize their baby’s DNA is being stored in a government lab, but sometimes when they find out, as the Browns did, they take action. Parents in Texas, and Minnesota have filed lawsuits, and these parents’ concerns are sparking a new debate about whether it’s appropriate for a baby’s genetic blueprint to be in the government’s possession.

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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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