Chinese Government Demands 250 MillionInternet Users Provide Real Identities

Chinese Government Demands 250 Million Internet Users Provide Real Identities Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Thursday, February 9, 2012 New web censorship assault stokes fears of Communist repression The Communist Chinese government has demanded some 250 million users of the Twitter-style micro-blogging platform Weibo provide their real names, addresses and identity numbers, marking a new era of Internet censorship and one that the likes of Joe Lieberman want to see enforced in the United States.

From March 16, Weibo account holders will be forced to provide their real names, addresses, and passport or ID card numbers if they are to continue to use the service.

“This rule could mean more frequent real-world consequences for posters of messages disapproved of by Party authorities,” reports NDT Television, noting how “Sina and other microblog companies are also to soon have Chinese Communist Party monitoring units established in their corporate structures.”

Fear that authorities could use the information to target those who make anti-Communist statements or criticize government officials has led to a massive drop in people signing up for the service. New sign-ups are down from 20 million to 2.5 million a month, a drop of 85 percent.

Weibo currently has around 250 million account holders.

Some 8 million foreign users of the service have expressed confusion about how they will be affected by the demand for identification information, with Weibo representatives none the wiser.

Weibo’s popularity has been aided by the fact that both Twitter and Facebook are banned in China.

The ruling Communist Party routinely censors keywords and scrubs entire conversations from Weibo over politically sensitive issues such as the wave of uprisings and demonstrations that have swept the country in recent years. The recent controversy over a Chinese police chief who tried to defect was hastily censored by Weibo by order of the state.

Indeed, the primary purpose behind China’s system of Internet censorship is to mute criticism of

the state and silence those who have been violently oppressed. The government shut down web access in the south-western province of Sichuan last month after two Tibetans were shot dead by Chinese troops during riots and unrest.

This makes Senator Joe Lieberman’s call for the U.S. government to be handed similar ‘kill switch’ powers all the more chilling. “Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too,” Lieberman, who has been at the forefront of the “cybersecurity” agenda, told CNN in 2010.

However, China’s vice-like grip over its Internet systems has very little to do with “war” and everything to do with silencing all dissent against the state.

China has exercised its power to shut down the Internet, something that Lieberman wants to introduce in the U.S., at politically sensitive times in order to stem the flow of information about government abuse and atrocities. During the anti-government riots which occurred in July 2009, the Chinese government completely shut down the Internet across the entire northwestern region of Xinjiang for days.

The push to end Internet anonymity once and for all and force web users to obtain a de facto permission slip from the government to post content is the ultimate endgame of the Internet censorship offensive that has gripped the United States in numerous different guises over the past few years.

The so-called “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace,” created by NIST under the auspices of the U.S. Commerce Department and enthusiastically promoted by the Obama administration, purports to offer an “identity ecosystem” under which Americans will be able to protect their information not with passwords but with a “single credential” stored on a smart card, a cell phone, a keychain fob or some other kind of gadget. This will then be used to access a myriad of data, including tax returns, health information, bank accounts and more, amounting to a passport for your entire life.

Satire: Anonymous Hacks DHS Video Infowars.com February 9, 2012 The mysterious hacktivist group Anonymous has captured the following clip from a Department of Homeland Security video feed. It shows King Dung Beetle Napolitano and her minions during a DHS feeding frenzy, eating their favorite dish.

African Dung Beetle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1RHmSm36aE Of course, the above is obviously satire, but you get the point.

Everything Is Terrorism: Mike Adams on Infowars Nightly News 1. Prison Planet.com Thursday, February 9, 2012 FBI: Using Cash for Coffee Now A Terrorist Activity - Infowars Nightly News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnLlNoztI10

Mike Adams lists the innumerable different behaviors the FBI has characterized as indicators of terrorism.

Group Forces Congressional Hearing On Big Sis’ Twitter, Drudge Spying Steve Watson 1. Prisonplanet.com February 9, 2012 Homeland Security is monitoring the web for anti-government sentiment and signs of social unrest A privacy advocacy group has swayed Congress to hold a hearing next week into the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of monitoring social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as media reports and organizations, including The Drudge Report.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) recently obtained close to 300 pages of documents, as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, detailing the federal agency’s “intelligence gathering” practices on the web.

Among the documents were guidelines from DHS instructing outside contractors to monitor the web for media reports and comments that “reflect adversely” on the agency or the federal government.

As Reuters reported last month, in early 2010 contractors were asked to spend 24 hours monitoring news media coverage on popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks, as well as news sites including the Huffington Post and The Drudge Report.

The contractors were required to provide the DHS with feedback on any potential “threats and hazards”, as well as “any media reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government and the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) ability to prevent, protect and respond, to recovery efforts or activities related to any crisis or events which impact National Planning Scenarios.”

The documents also state that the program should highlight “both positive and negative reports on FEMA, C.I.A., C.B.P., ICE, etc., as well as organizations outside of D.H.S.” The documents obtained by EPIC indicate that following the exercise, a procurement official awarded an $11.3 million contract to General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in order to carry out the monitoring on a “24/7/365 basis”.

EPIC director Ginger McCall notes that monitoring what people are saying about government policies goes too far and has a chilling effect on free speech.

“The Department of Homeland Security’s monitoring of political dissent has no legal basis and is contrary to core First Amendment principles,” she said.

“The language in the documents makes it quite clear that they are looking for media reports that are critical of the agency and the U.S. government more broadly,” said McCall. “This is entirely outside of the bounds of the agency’s statutory duties.”

DHS officials have admitted that monitoring of social networks for negative opinion was undertaken by the agency, but claim that the operation was a one off test and was quickly dropped as it did not meet “operational requirements or privacy standards,” which “expressly prohibit reporting on individuals’ First Amendment activities.”

EPIC argues otherwise and has presented evidence that suggests the practice is being held up by the DHS an an example that should be emulated.

“They are completely out of bounds here,” McCall said. “The idea that the government is constantly peering over your shoulder and listening to what

you are saying creates a very chilling effect to legitimate dissent.

The Congressional hearing, DHS Monitoring of Social Networking and Media: Enhancing Intelligence Gathering and Ensuring Privacy, will be held Thursday February 16th.

However, it is already apparent where the House subcommittee for intelligence and counter-terrorism stands on the matter. As reported by Reuters, the top two members of the subcommittee, Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), wrote to DHS Intelligence Chief Caryn Wagner last month, pressing her to more carefully monitor users’ posts on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, in order to help detect “current or emerging threats.”

As we have also previously reported, The DHS has openly announced that it is actively monitoring social media for signs of “social unrest”, in a bid to pre-empt any sign of social dislocation within the United States.

DHS To Launch Insurgent-Tracking Drones Inside America Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Thursday, February 9, 2012 Technology used to hunt enemy combatants in Afghanistan will be used for “nonemergency incidents” within the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security plans to spend up to $50 million dollars on a spy system that has been used to hunt insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan for the purposes of “emergency and non-emergency incidents” within the United States.

The DHS is seeking four contractors to provide “aerial remote sensing” services, using LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology fitted to drones or manned aircraft that will provide surveillance capability for “homeland security missions,” as well as “management of emergency incidents by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regional offices, joint field offices and by state and local government.”

“DHS believes these airborne images are essential for homeland defense missions, such as planning for National Special Security Events (Super Bowls or a national political conventions come to mind); enhancing border, port and airport security; as well as performing critical infrastructure inventories and assessments,” reports Government Security News, adding that the technology will be used for “emergency and nonemergency incidents nationwide.”

The DHS expects successful contractors to “ensure imagery can be acquired, processed and delivered in 48 hours or less and the ability to support simultaneous missions in multiple geographic locations.”

LIDAR spy technology, which uses ultraviolet, visible, or near infrared light to track objects or people from the sky, has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan to track insurgents. The US military has praised the technology for its proficiency in providing “battlefield surveillance” and being able to easily locate enemy combatants due to it being “especially useful at seeing through foliage.” LIDAR can be deployed using both manned and unmanned aircraft.

The U.S. Air Force “has already deployed an unknown number of LIDAR aircraft to map all of Afghanistan,” reports MSNBC, with the 3-D laser mapping technology also being adapted to work aboard U.S. Special Forces helicopters such as the Blackhawk or Chinook to help hunt insurgents.

According to Raytheon, one of the companies that develops LIDAR, the technology is adept at tracking “people in crowded environments for safety and security,” because unlike traditional surveillance methods, LIDAR is honed to measure characteristics of individuals and keep them tracked within a “grid cell” so they cannot evade detection.

Under the terms of the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, the whole of America has been defined as a battlefield, with the government reserving the power to have “belligerents,” including American citizens, arrested and detained indefinitely without trial.

US law enforcement bodies are already

using drone technology to spy on Americans.

In December, a Predator B drone was called in to 1. conduct surveillance over a family farm in North Dakota as part of a SWAT raid on the Brossart family, who were suspects in the egregious crime of stealing six missing cows. Local police in this one area have already used the drone on two dozen occasions since June last year.

Last summer, the Department of Homeland Security gave the green light for police departments in the United States to deploy the ShadowHawk mini drone drone helicopter that has the ability to taze suspects from above as well as carrying 12-gauge shotguns and grenade launchers. The drone, also used against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, is already being used by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s office in Texas.

The DHS has also provided drone surveillance for foreign countries, aiding Jamaican authorities in a botched drug raid that led to the massacre of 73 civilians last year.

A bill passed in by Congress this week paves the way for the use of surveillance drones in US skies on a widespread basis. The FAA predicts that by 2020 there could be up to 30,000 drones in operation nationwide.

Americans Apparently Approve of Murder Based on Political Party 1. Washington’s Blog Thursday, February 9, 2012 By leading anti-war activist David Swanson, author of Day Break and War Is A Lie, who runs the websites DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org (formerly AfterDowningStreet.org) A poll published on Wednesday at the Washington Post finds that a majority of even “liberal Democrats” approves of Obama killing US citizens. Of course, this would almost certainly be different if Obama were a Republican.

What if an organization with money but no partisanship (are there some?) were to commission a poll from a pollster willing to face a firestorm of attacks from the political parties (are there any such pollsters?), a poll that would ask people all their demographic info, including politics and party identification if any, and ask some of them: If President Obama had to kill a US citizen to protect the nation, based purely on the word of the President, would you approve?

If President Obama had to imprison a US citizen with no trial to protect the nation, based purely on the word of the President, would you approve?

If President Obama had to launch a war without congressional authorization in order to protect the nation, based purely on the word of the President, would you approve?

If President Obama determined it to be necessary to deploy a nuclear bomb and did so, would you approve?

The poll would ask those questions of a large enough sample to be well represented in each demographic category. Then a similar sample would be asked the same questions with Romney substituted for Obama. Then others would be asked the questions about a President Santorum, and others with Gingrich.

The results would almost certainly show that many in the United States do indeed place loyalty to political parties or elected officials above matters of life and death — at least the lives and deaths of others.

This would, of course, be shameful, and if it made it into the corporate news it would make all types of partisanship look bad. It might, very likely, however, make one brand of partisanship look worst. I would predict that Republicans would each be highly approving of these abuses by at least one Republican candidate, and that their approval would diminish for the others, and especially for Obama. Democrats, I expect, would be less approving, but still strongly approving in the

case of Obama, but that there would be a particularly significant drop off in approval by Democrats of such crimes if committed by any of the Republicans.

What pollster would be willing to test these assumptions?

Of course, in reality there is such a thing as being too late. Opposing abuses when Bush is president, but limiting the opposition at the behest of the Democratic Party, was followed by support for Obama’s protection of and continuation and expansion of the crimes. Now shady Bush policies have become open “legal” practice. It is too late to take them back from the next Republican president, or any president, without fundamental change to our government. If we continue down the current path, eventually the partisanship will retreat on this issue and supporters of presidential murder will tend to support it by any president and to imagine that no alternative to that exists.

Outrageous: Agent Orange Maker Monsanto Seeks Return to Vietnam for GMO Crops Mike Barrett Prisonplanet.com Thursday, February 9, 2012 Vietnam here we come! At least that is what biotech giant Monsanto is saying.

The multinational agricultural corporation most known for creating the hazardous chemical Agent Orange, which led to thousands of deaths and birth defects due to its widespread use within the country, is now attempting to begin providing Vietnam with their genetically modified foods.

During the Vietnam War, Monsanto’s Agent Orange was used as a part of the United States’ ‘herbicidal warfare program’. Having killed an estimated 400,000, deforming 500,00, and sickening 2 million, even 30 years after the war people are still suffering from the health effects induced by the chemical. Agent Orange has been shown to cause cancer, birth defects, live damage, and other major health problems. Although the damage is great, US courts have protected both Monsanto and Dow Chemical from liability and criminal prosecution. The

US government has shielded Monsanto and Dow from the massive cost of medical treatment for victims and environmental remediation cleanup costs that would spell out bankruptcy for the corporations.

Despite enormous opposition, now Monsanto is making further attempts to profit from Vietnam by selling their genetically modified creations. It would be completely outrageous to see Vietnam accept Monsanto’s GMO’s, as they have already ruined hundreds of thousands of lives with their toxic Agent Orange. Given the well-known human and environmental destruction behind GMOs, Vietnam would only be inviting back tragic health complications.

The Thanh Nienn News in Ho Chi Minh City reports: No biotech company has yet got the official green light for selling genetically modified organisms (GMOs), but it does not assuage the fears that Vietnam could end up with another tragic legacy from a company that once caused many deaths in the country, environmental activists say.

The alleged purpose of using Agent Orange was to deny the enemy cover in forested areas through defoliation. However, the US Army did contract studies in 1943 of the effects of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (the other ingredient of Agent Orange) on cereal grains, including rice, and developed the concept of using aerial herbicide spraying to destroy enemy crops to disrupt the food supply.

It seems that poisoning the enemy, farmland and civilians was a chemical warfare strategy.

The Global Post reports: Monsanto is, of course, highly aware of Agent Orange’s reputation and has fought numerous lawsuits filed by chemical’s victims both Vietnamese and American. The chemical, commissioned by the U.S. military, was dumped over jungles to kill vegetation and rout communist forces. In Monsanto’s own primer on the Agent Orange era, it casts the chemical as patriotic — it was meant “to save the lives of U.S. and allied soldiers,” Monsanto says — and contends that the matter “should be resolved by the governments that were involved.”

We will see if Vietnam allows for Monsanto or any other biotech corporation to provide them with genetically modified foods, but the decision not to allow such measures seems clear as crystal to many. This article first appeared at Natural Society The World According to Monsanto VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH6wqCC5wQo