Dangerous Government Computer Applications Part XII

Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings’ body was cremated against his family’s wishes, destroying potential evidence that could have contradicted the explanation that he died as a result of an accident, according to San Diego 6 reporter Kimberly Dvorak.

Hastings was killed in the early hours of June 18 in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles when his Mercedes crashed into a tree at high speed and exploded into flames, sparking theories that the journalist, who was working on a major exposé of the CIA, could have been assassinated.

Stating that she had spoken with several close friends of the family, including Alex Jones Show guest Staff Sergeant Joe Biggs, Dvorak said, “A close family friend did confirm that Michael’s body was sent home in an urn, meaning he was cremated and it wasn’t the request of the family….in fact the family wanted Michael’s body to go home.”

Dvorak said the decision to cremate Hastings against his family’s wishes was “shocking” because it ensured that evidence of any substance (or indeed the absence of any substance) inside his body was lost. According to Hastings’ family, the journalist had not drunk alcohol for five years.

Dvorak added that Hastings had spoken with an attorney before his death who has all the details about the story Hastings was working on. Hastings refrained from telling his wife about the story “because he said he wanted to protect her from knowing anything so if anything were to happen to him nothing could happen to her,” said Dvorak.

Hastings wife has now hired a private investigator to look into the writer’s death, according to Dvorak.

Dvorak also revealed that she had personally been threatened as a result of her efforts to investigate Hastings’ death on behalf of San Diego 6. Aside from Infowars, the news channel is the only media organization asking questions about what happened.

“Despite the LAPD’s categorization of the Hasting fatal accident as a “no (evidence of) foul play,” LAPD continues to ignore FOIA (CPRA in Calif.) requests made by San Diego 6 News for the police report, 9/11 call, autopsy, bomb squad and toxicology reports, or make the Mercedes available for inspection which only fuels conjecture,” writes Dvorak.

As we reported earlier this month, Dvorak’s investigation also uncovered the fact that police and firefighters in the area have been given a gag order and told not to talk to the media about Hastings’ death.

Although the LAPD ruled out foul play days after the incident, automotive experts questioned why Hastings’ brand new Mercedes exploded into flames with such ferocity and why the engine was found 150 feet behind the vehicle.

Former counter-terror czar Richard Clarke reacted to the news by telling the Huffington Post that the fatal crash was “consistent with a car cyber attack.” Academic studies show that it is relatively easy to hack and remote control a modern day vehicle.

Hastings sent out an email to friends and colleagues 15 hours before his car crash stating he was “onto a big story” and needed “to go off the rada[r] for a bit.”

According to colleagues, Hastings was “incredibly tense and very worried, and was concerned that the government was looking in on his material,” and also a “nervous wreck” in response to the surveillance of journalists revealed by the AP phone tapping scandal and the NSA PRISM scandal.

After Wikileaks reported that Hastings had contacted them a few hours before his death complaining that he was under FBI investigation, other friends confirmed that the journalist was “very paranoid” about the feds watching him.

Hastings routinely received death threats as a result of his hard-hitting journalism, particularly in relation to his 2010 exposé of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.

Hastings’ close friend Staff Sergeant Joe Biggs, who told Fox News that the journalist “drove like a grandma” and was working on “the biggest story yet” about the CIA before his death, joined Alex Jones yesterday to discuss latest developments and his plans to personally investigate Hastings’ death on behalf of Infowars.

Ten items of enslavement

#1 Automated License Plate Scanners

All over the United States automated license plate scanners are being installed.  Sometimes they are mounted on police vehicles, and other times they are put on stationary locations like bridges and road signs.  These automated license plate scanners are collecting a staggering amount of information about the travel patterns of millions of innocent American citizens every single day…Police are recording and storing information on millions of license plates that aren’t related to suspected violation of the law or any known activity of interest to law enforcement, according to data collected by the American Civil Liberties Union through Freedom of Information requests in 38 states.

According to the Washington Post, automated license plate scanners recorded the locations of vehicle plates 85 million times in the state of Maryland in 2012.

And as more of these scanners get installed around the nation, the amount of information that the government collects about the movements of our vehicles will continue to increase.

#2 Government Workers Ordered To Spy On The “Lifestyles, Attitudes And Behaviors” Of Their Fellow Workers

Did you know that the Obama administration has ordered federal workers to spy on one another?…

Federal employees and contractors are asked to pay particular attention to the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors – like financial troubles, odd working hours or unexplained travel – of co-workers as a way to predict whether they might do “harm to the United States.” Managers of special insider threat offices will have “regular, timely, and, if possible, electronic, access” to employees’ personnel, payroll, disciplinary and “personal contact” files, as well as records of their use of classified and unclassified computer networks, polygraph results, travel reports and financial disclosure forms.

If you do not spy on your fellow workers and something goes wrong, you could lose your job or potentially even be prosecuted yourself.

#3 Eye Scanners In Schools

Iris scanners are already going into schools all over the country, and soon they will be used in banks, at airports and at ATM machines. In the next year, industry insiders say the technology will be available all over– from banks to airports. That means instead of entering your pin number, you can gain access to an ATM in a blink. Used in an airport, the system will analyze your iris as you pass through security, identifying and welcoming you by name.

Will we soon live in a world where we no longer use passwords and instead use our eyeballs?

“Imagine a world where you’re no longer reliant on user names and passwords,” Eyelock CMO Anthony Antolino said,  “If we’re going through a turnstile and you have authorization to go beyond that, it’ll open the turnstile for you, if you embed it into a tablet or PC, it will unlock your phone or your tablet or it will log you into your email account.”

#4 Biometric Chips In Our Passports

Did you know that all U.S. passports contain biometric identity chips? 

According to CNSNews.com, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 required foreigners participating in the Visa Waiver Program–which permits entry into the United States without a VISA for a limited period of time–to have these integrated circuits or chips on their passport.

“As a security measure, Congress has legislated that all countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program with the United States must issue passports with integrated circuits (chips), to permit storage of at least a digital image of the passport photograph for use with face recognition technology,” the website states.

The website also says that since 2007 the State Department has been issuing U.S. passports bearing the chips. The department did this on its own authority, and not in response to any statutory mandate enacted by Congress.

#5 All Your Financial Transactions Tracked By The Government?

Most Americans have never even heard of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but one U.S. Senator is warning that this agency wants to keep a record of all of your financial transactions. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is looking to create a “Google Earth” of every financial transaction of every American, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) warned today in a Senate speech opposing confirmation of Richard Cordray as CFPB director.

“This bill (creating the CFPB) was supposed to be about regulating Wall Street. Instead, it’s creating a Google Earth on every financial transaction. That’s right: the government will be able to see every detail of your finances. Your permission – not needed,” Sen. Enzi said.

#6 Complaining About The Tap Water Makes You A Terrorist?

Have you ever complained about the water?

If so, you might be a terrorist. The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article by Anthony Gucciardi…

Concerned about the high levels of arsenic in your water, or perhaps the known levels of radioactive contamination? Well you must be a terrorist, according to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) and Homeland Security, who consider issuing such complaints to be classified under terrorist activity.

It all started when Tennessee residents in Maury County recorded an exchange with the deputy director from the state’s environmental entity TDEC, who issued a warning that complaining about low quality tap water could put you in Guantanamo.

#7 DNA Databases

The United States already has a database that contains the DNA of approximately 11 million criminals. The biggest database is in the United States — the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which holds information on more than 11 million people suspected of or convicted of crimes.

It is set to grow following a May Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right of police forces to take DNA swabs without a warrant from people who are arrested, not just those who are convicted. (Policies on DNA collection vary by state; more than half of the states and the federal government currently take DNA swabs after arrests.)

But of course authorities will never be satisfied until they have all of our DNA.  And we are definitely moving in that direction.  A national DNA database is coming.  Barack Obama has already said that he wants one.  A major Supreme Court decision last month paved the way for one.  The DNA of those that commit “serious crimes” is already being routinely collected all over the nation.  Some states, such as New Jersey, are now passing laws that will require DNA collection from those charged with committing “low level crimes”.  And a law that was passed under George W. Bush allows the federal government to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the United States.  So how long will it be before we are all required to give DNA samples to the authorities?

#8 Copying Your Hard Drive At The Border

How would you feel if you went to cross the U.S. border and officials grabbed your computer and made a copy of the hard drive?

As incredible as that sounds, it is happening all the time.  As I wrote about recently, if they do take your computer, you might not get it back for an extended period of time…

Two years ago The Constitution Project issued a report on the issue, “Suspicionless Border Searches of Electronic Devices: Legal and Privacy Concerns with the Department of Homeland Security’s Policy.”

The group explained: Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement “officers may detain electronic devices for significant periods of time. For CBP, detentions can be extended well beyond the minimum five-day guideline with supervisory approval. If the device is detained by ICE, the detention can last for ‘a reasonable time,’ which according to its Directive can last 30 days or more.” Neither agency sets any firm time limit.

#9 NSA Snooping

Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know much more about NSA snooping.  Sadly, the NSA seems to want to collect every piece of data about everyone in the world that they possibly can.

And right now the NSA is building a place to store all of that data.  It is being constructed out in Utah, and it will be the largest data center in the history of the world.  It is going to have approximately a million square feet of storage space, it is going to cost nearly 2 billion dollars to build, and it is going to take about 40 million dollars a year just to pay for the energy needed to run it. 

#10 Obama Now Has The Power To Seize Control Of The Internet?

Why does Barack Obama keep releasing very important executive orders very late on Friday afternoons?

Is he trying to sneak things through that nobody will notice?

For example,  Obama signed an executive order that will allow him to seize control of the Internet during a national emergency. Another late-Friday afternoon release from the White House,  this one on how agencies should communicate with the public in emergencies, has Internet privacy advocates crying foul over a possible power grab.

The executive order — “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions” — was released last Friday in the late afternoon.

This executive order is apparently worded so vaguely that it would allow Obama to do just about anything he wanted to as far as the Internet is concerned.

Essentially, it says the government can take control of private telecommunications technology, presumably including those used for the Internet, for government communications in an emergency.

“Under the Executive Order the White House has granted the Department of Homeland Security the authority to seize private facilities when necessary, effectively shutting down or limiting civilian communications.” 

Congress has finally decided that massive, unprecedented and unwarranted surveillance of the American people conducted by the National Security Agency is against the law.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has broad jurisdiction over matters related to federal criminal law, arrived at the conclusion months after the American people reached a similar conclusion.

“We never, at any point in this debate, have approved the type of unchecked, sweeping surveillance of United States citizens employed by our government,” said House fixture John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, during a hearing on the NSA. “If the government cannot provide a clear, public explanation for how its program is consistent with the statute, it must stop collecting this information immediately.”

Other committee members have promised to amend the unconstitutional PATRIOT Act and force the NSA to stop its surveillance. Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and author of the original PATRIOT Act, said it is not likely Congress will reauthorize the business-records collection provision of the act when the law expires in 2015.

Fourth Amendment, What Fourth Amendment?

James Cole, deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice, insists the NSA’s vacuum cleaner approach to electronic surveillance does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

How so? Well, in 1979, Cole argues, the Supreme Court ruled that telephone records are not private information covered by the Fourth Amendment.

Besides, there is a special court for this sort of thing – the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It was approved by Congress, so bureaucrats believe it is legal.

Back in the day, Congress created the FISA and a secret court in response to embarrassing revelations uncovered by the Church Committee investigating intelligence abuses.

FISA’s special court is “almost a parallel Supreme Court,” according to David B. Wells and John Wilson Wells, authors of American National Security and Civil Liberties ion an Era of Terrorism.

Former President Jimmy Carter has come out against NSA surveillance. He characterized Edward Snowden’s leak as “beneficial” for the country.

“I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial,” Carter said.

“America has no functioning democracy at this moment,” the former president also said, according to Der Spiegel.

Indeed, the United States does not have a functioning democracy. There is plenty of evidence that national elections are rigged and the two-party system – actually a one party system lorded over by a cabal of globalist banksters and fascist corporatists – has a monopoly on political power. NSA surveillance is merely another tool designed to guarantee they stay in power.

But then the United States is not supposed to be a democracy. It was intended to be a constitutional republic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqiDO-cE6LE#at=487

Glenn Greenwald, a reporter working in the United States for British newspaper The Guardian, said the reports from the cache of information Snowden took about the National Security Agency cellphone and Internet surveillance programs would be “more explosive in Germany” than previous reports about cooperation between the NSA and German intelligence. 

During an interview with German public radio, Greenwald said Germany wasn’t working with the United States on the same level as Britain, Australia, Canada or New Zealand, but it was “sort of in the next tier where they exchange information all the time.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her stance on the U.S. spying affair, saying Washington needs more time to address the situation and that she can’t force the United States to change its laws.

Faced with growing criticism that puts her popularity at risk ahead of her re-election bid Sept. 22, Merkel said “German law needs to be respected on German soil.”

The United States “asked for more time to look at all the questions we sent them. In this case, I think it’s better to wait than to get a declaration which turns out to be void,” she said.

She also said she can only demand that the United States respect German law while on German soil.

“I cannot tell them to adapt their laws to the German ones,” she said. “We are finding it difficult even in the EU to agree on data protection standards.”

Since The Guardian broke the story, additional reporting on the documents by Der Spiegel revealed how U.S. intelligence agencies spied on the European Union and a half-billion communications connections in Germany each month. Der Spiegel said the reports led to a political debate over how much the German government knew about the surveillance and whether it was cooperating with the United States.

Greenwald said he is in regular contact with Snowden using encrypted chat technologies.

Snowden, facing charges in the United States, “knew that the choice he was making … would submit him to serious risks and would make him the most wanted man in the world,” the reporter said.

But he said the fugitive former NSA contractor, holed up in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport’s transit zone, was convinced “it was the right choice.”

Snowden is awaiting a decision on his application for temporary asylum in Russia.

Meanwhile, Spanish newspaper ABC said the United States has warned Venezuelan officials of dire consequences — including being barred from entering any NATO airspace — if it flies Snowden to the South American country.

The newspaper said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua that Washington would end all sales of gasoline and other refined-oil products to Venezuela if Snowden is given refuge in that country.

Kerry made the statements during a phone call a week ago when he told Jaua that Washington revoked U.S. visas of Venezuelan government officials and business leaders in retaliation for President Nicolas Maduro‘s asylum offer to Snowden last month, the Spanish report said, citing sources familiar with the conversation.

The State Department and the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the Spanish report.

Kerry’s threat to suspend gasoline shipments could cripple Venezuela’s daily activities, the newspaper said.

Venezuela, despite being the world’s No. 5 oil-exporting country, with the world’s largest heavy, crude oil reserve, does not have the capability to refine oil into gasoline and other fuels.

It sells crude at about $5 a barrel to U.S. companies that refine it and sell it back gasoline at the going rate of more than $100 a barrel.

Venezuela imports about 500,000 barrels of gasoline from the United States a month, along with 350,000 barrels of MTBE octane-boosting gasoline additives and other petroleum products, the Spanish newspaper said.