http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/bigbrother/ en-us Sun, 3 Jan 2010 01:41:39 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2419777/posts As you start to read all this, you'll laugh at how incestuous it all gets. Let's start with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which as I've noted in the past is tied in with the Soros foundation. Together, the two worked on something called The Project on Death in America.(PDIA) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2341083/posts And speaking of Mr Soros, he himself(his foundations) have given directly to NPR. Compared to some of the other numbers I'm seeing, it's a small amount of $250,000. But it doesn't matter. Soros money is soros money in my book. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2396058/posts Additional information about RWJF can be found here.... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2419777/posts#comment Sun, 3 Jan 2010 01:41:39 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2417970/posts Imagine walking down the street to the corner store for a newspaper and being stopped by policeman. He demands to see an official government-issued photo ID. You don't have it with you. The policeman tells you you're subject to a fine, and takes you into custody until authorities can ascertain your identity. Is this a totalitarian nightmare of East Germany or the Soviet Union? No, this is everyday life in dozens of countries that have issued citizens national ID cards that must be carried at all times. Failing to present the card upon demand is an offense in many of... Asset Protection http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2417970/posts#comment Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:20:04 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2416403/posts Scientists have discovered how to “read” minds by scanning brain activity and reproducing images of what people are seeing — or even remembering. Researchers have been able to convert into crude video footage the brain activity stimulated by what a person is watching or recalling. The breakthrough raises the prospect of significant benefits, such as allowing people who are unable to move or speak to communicate via visualisation of their thoughts; recording people’s dreams; or allowing police to identify criminals by recalling the memories of a witness. However, it could also herald a new Big Brother era, similar to that... timesonline http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2416403/posts#comment Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:29:31 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413326/posts The state will destroy blood samples legally collected from newborns, but kept without parental consent under a federal lawsuit settlement announced today. There were between 4 million and 4.5 million specimens stored between 2002 and this year at Texas A&M University by the Texas Department of Health, said lawyer Jim Harrington of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which sued over the practice on behalf of parents in federal district court in San Antonio. The number of newborns involved was unclear, because there could be multiple samples from each... “There's no financial gain for any of the plaintiffs,” Beleno said. “Basically,... Houston Chronicle http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413326/posts#comment Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:26:10 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407254/posts The Government Is Monitoring Facebook And Twitter By Noel Sheppard Created 2009-12-14 11:59 "The government is increasingly monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for tax delinquents, copyright infringers and political protesters." So ominously began an editorial [1] in Sunday's New York Times. Those with accounts at such websites should pay attention, for according to the Times, and other sources, Big Brother is watching you: The Wall Street Journal reported this summer that state revenue agents have been searching for tax scofflaws by mining information on MySpace and Facebook. In October, the F.B.I. searched the New York home of... Newsbusters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407254/posts#comment Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:15:40 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2406189/posts Tired of waiting for Congress to pass the “Cap-and-Trade” bill, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will initiate its own measures to control carbon dioxide emissions. The thrust of the EPA’s approach will be to determine a carbon emissions “budget” for every individual household and assess fines and penalties for those whose emissions exceed an allowable amount. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson acknowledged that this approach would be more costly than a cap and trade system, but defended it as “leverage to induce Congress to take action. Carbon dioxide is the most dangerous pollutant because there are so many... A Semi-News/Semi-Satire from AzConservative http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2406189/posts#comment Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:47:39 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2403654/posts Cheating scenario, 1989: There were errant signs. Like the times you phoned the office and it rang and rang ("I was in the conference room," he said), like the matchbooks from places with names like the Candlelight Inn, where you'd never been. There were always plausible explanations. Work lunches! Work trips! Work lipstick! You wondered if you were crazy. There was so much wondering. Months, maybe years of uncertainty. Cheating scenario, 2009: I found your text messages, Jerk boy. Pack your bags. There are so many questions about Tiger Woods's reported affairs. (A cocktail waitress? Really? Have you seen his... Washington Post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2403654/posts#comment Wed, 9 Dec 2009 14:07:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2402499/posts Justification and Options for Creating U.S. Capabilities Establishing security is the sine qua non of stability operations, since it is a prerequisite for reconstruction and development. Security requires a mix of military and police forces to deal with a range of threats from insurgents to criminal organizations. This research examines the creation of a high-end police force, which the authors call a Stability Police Force (SPF). The study considers what size force is necessary, how responsive it needs to be, where in the government it might be located, what capabilities it should have, how it could be staffed, and its... Rand Corporation http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2402499/posts#comment Tue, 8 Dec 2009 01:22:42 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401230/posts There are 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain watching our every move. In London, there are more CCTV cameras than any other city in the world with one camera for every eight Londoners. But as victims of crime have found to their cost, catching criminals on camera is dependent on the equipment being both monitored and maintained. BBC Inside Out's investigation has found that all too often Big Brother either is not watching, had a broken camera, lost the footage or could not be bothered to go through the tapes. Even within the Metropolitan Police itself, there are differences of... BBC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401230/posts#comment Sat, 5 Dec 2009 23:42:44 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2400348/posts Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) yesterday introduced a new measure, ostensibly designed to assist law enforcement in tracking gun purchases by suspected terrorists. Critics, however, suggest that it is yet another measure aimed at the eventual total disarmament of all law-abiding Americans. In a press release issued yesterday, Senator Lautenberg's office described the act that he calls the PROTECT Act. This is by no means the first Act of Congress named by that acronym. The current measure's full title is "Preserving Records Of TErrorist and Criminal Transactions." However, the only transactions that the measure is designed to preserve are gun... Examiner.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2400348/posts#comment Fri, 4 Dec 2009 18:07:16 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393125/posts Police are routinely arresting people simply to record their DNA profiles on the national database, according to a report published today. It also states that three quarters of young black men are on the database. The finding risks stigmatising a whole section of society, the equality watchdog has warned. The revelations will fuel the debate about the DNA database, the world’s largest. They are included in a report by the Human Genetics Commission, an independent government advisory body. It criticises the piecemeal development of the database and questions how effective it is in helping the police to investigate and solve... The Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393125/posts#comment Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:42:25 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2392064/posts FACEBOOK can be a double-edged sword, a Canadian woman learned when an insurance company cut her health benefits, claiming she was healthy after seeing pictures of her smiling in bikini at the beach. Nathalie Blanchard, 29, took long-term sick leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, more than a year ago for severe depression. She was receiving monthly benefits from her insurance company, Manulife. When Ms Blanchard called Manulife to ask why the payments dried up, the insurance company said that "I'm available to work, because of Facebook," she told CBC television. She said that Manulife cited several... news http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2392064/posts#comment Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:54:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2391004/posts People who unlawfully download copyrighted material could be disconnected from their internet accounts as part of the Digital Economy Bill, a major overhaul to the UK's technology legislation. The bill, unveiled on Friday, will oblige ISPs to send notifications to customers who are suspected of infringing copyright. ISPs will also be forced to record the number of notifications a user has received and send this data to rights holders, such as record companies, so they can apply for a court order for the user's name and address. The rights holder can then launch civil proceedings against the infringer. The minister... ZDnet http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2391004/posts#comment Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:43:07 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2389964/posts Does President Obama "uses" the military for photo-ops? President Obama will tell us his comments fit the mood of the crowd, but when I first heard Obama’s comments in South Korea stating hundreds of troops in uniform was a good photo op, my eyes rolled. Our American forces are not a political tool to be used by politicians in constant campaign mode as a photo op. Couldn’t he just thank the troops and say he was humbled by their work effort and thank them for coming out to greet him? Nope. From today’s Washington Times… http://www.radioviceonline.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2389964/posts#comment Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:47:44 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2384862/posts How "Photo Tagger" lets anybody recognize you Facebook likes to talk about privacy, but the truth is the site is all about revealing yourself. A new app, however, may take Facebook's hey-look-at-me culture one step too far. It's called "Photo Tagger," from a company called Face.com. It uses amazing photo recognition technology to take your uploaded photos, go out to the Web, and identify them through "tags." That in itself doesn't sound all that bad, but when we tried this in the newsroom, it scared the crap out of just about everybody with a Facebook account. Here's why: While it's... NBC Bay Area http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2384862/posts#comment Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:32:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2384792/posts The phrase “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” sounds innocent enough. Who could be against such an agreement? But in fact it appears to be a pretext for a massive invasion of privacy, motivated in part by the entertainment industry seeking to maintain copyrights. But once unleashed, such an assault on freedom will know no bounds. What if Big Brother finds on your laptop that you think ID supports certain traditional moral views, and what if any articulation of such views comes to be regarded as a hate crime? (Click excerpt link for MUST SEE VIDEO!) Uncommon Descent http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2384792/posts#comment Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:22:11 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2383153/posts In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day. The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization. Kristina Clair, a 34-year old Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked to receive the... CBS News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2383153/posts#comment Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:35:52 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2379226/posts In Utah, the National Security Agency is building a $2 billion storage facility that will house and analyze all forms of electronic communication...a potential yottabyte of everyone's (formerly) personal data. So how big is a yottabyte? CrunchGear puts it well: There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte, a thousand terabytes in a petabyte, a thousand petabytes in an exabyte, a thousand exabytes in a zettabyte, and a thousand zettabytes in a yottabyte. In other words, a yottabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000GB. In terms of data on current human scales, a yottabyte is nearly infinite (though I'm sure the NSA will manage... Gizmondo http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2379226/posts#comment Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:47:30 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2376245/posts There’s an interesting article in the current New York Review of books (predictably, a book review) detailing the history of the National Security Agency, that shadowy power-behind-the-power to which we surrender much of our privacy. That in itself is interesting, but I found the introduction a bit shocking: the NSA is constructing a datacenter in the Utah desert that they project will be storing yottabytes of surveillance data. And what is a yottabyte? I’m glad you asked. There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte, a thousand terabytes in a petabyte, a thousand petabytes in an exabyte, a thousand exabytes... Crunchgear http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2376245/posts#comment Mon, 2 Nov 2009 03:06:31 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2376229/posts Not long ago, Americans feared and ridiculed the police states cursing too many parts of the world. We worried that they might one day conquer us despite their poverty and general misery even as we mocked their totalitarian tactics — especially their “Papers, please” mentality.  Indeed, being forced to prove one’s identity to a bureaucrat on demand, having to carry and produce documents with personal information for his approval — or condemnation — seemed especially horrifying. One of our classic films, Casablanca, revolved around the deadly hassles of obtaining or forging such papers under the Nazis; episodes of Mission Impossible... tna http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2376229/posts#comment Mon, 2 Nov 2009 02:47:32 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2374359/posts Feeling guilty about not doing enough exercise? Well, guilt might soon be the least of your problems. Thanks to a new Big Brother-style gadget being adopted by American companies — and coming to Britain early next year — bosses can measure exactly how many calories you are burning in a day and compare the data with “performance benchmarks”. In other words: staying in shape might soon become as important as getting to the office on time. The gadget, from the Dutch electronics company Philips, is slightly larger than a postage stamp and must be carried around at all times, either... The Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2374359/posts#comment Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:44:53 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2372857/posts I’ve written previously on HUMAN EVENTS about the state of Big Brother Britain, and things are only getting worse. News broke this week that the police have a series of databases recording the personal details of thousands of people who attend protests or rallies, which are searchable by a number of officers and come complete with color photographs assembled and printed onto “spotter cards” which are then distributed to enable agencies to monitor attendees at events. Cost of this part of the surveillance state alone? Over nine million pounds. Moreover, we have the most CCTV of any country, we have... Human Events http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2372857/posts#comment Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:01:32 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2371997/posts You dirty rat. Chicago and Cook County residents aren’t the only ones about to get shocking tax news; the city is debuting a “tax whistle-blower” plan that could turn neighbor against neighbor in Chicago’s business community. The folks at city hall will pay cash bounties to informants who turn in business tax cheats around the city. The reward would amount to some sort of percentage of the tax money that the city recovers. "It's just another way of bringing people into compliance," Revenue Department spokesman Ed Walsh told the Sun-Times. "It would probably be ... a business knowing that a... NBC5 Chicago http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2371997/posts#comment Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:35:15 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2371063/posts Personal details about thousands of people – said to include those only suspected of minor public order offences such as peaceful direct action and civil disobedience – are being compiled on a database run by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). The data includes pictures of people taken demonstrations and other observations made by police on the scene, such as vehicle registration numbers. These enable cars to be tracked using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras. The Guardian reported that a man with no criminal record was stopped more than 25 times in less than three years after he... The Telegraph http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2371063/posts#comment Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:45:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2370132/posts POOLE, England — It has become commonplace to call Britain a “surveillance society,” a place where security cameras lurk at every corner, giant databases keep track of intimate personal details and the government has extraordinary powers to intrude into citizens’ lives. A report in 2007 by the lobbying group Privacy International placed Britain in the bottom five countries for its record on privacy and surveillance, on a par with Singapore. But the intrusions visited on Jenny Paton, a 40-year-old mother of three, were startling just the same. Suspecting Ms. Paton of falsifying her address to get her daughter into the... New York Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2370132/posts#comment Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:58:00 GMT