Free Republic

Who Is the Mystery Food Monitor?No agency has said it employed the person checking preschoolers' lunch bags By Rick Henderson Feb. 16th, 2012 RALEIGH — Three days after a Carolina Journal report on the plight of a 4-year-old preschooler and her lunch made national headlines, the identity of the person who determined that the youngster's homemade lunch was not nutritious remains unknown. Of the several government agencies who have been named in the controversy — the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Division of Child Development and Early Education at the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, Hoke County schools,...

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that emerged from the Department of Homeland Security in November, Washington has written permission to collect and retain personal information from journalists, news anchors, reporters or anyone who uses “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.” According to DHS, the definition of personal identifiable information can consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.”

How are we monitord in this country? What do we see that is changed? Where have our freedoms diminished? Bureracratic oversight is a big problem and different legislatures certainly suuport it. Our cell phones monitor our every move. Off the bat I think of banking oversight that reports to authorities all transactions.In our state smart meters utitities are required to report unusual usage patterens, Our pharmacies are not permitted to sell cough syrup in more than two bottle sales per three days. The IRS... I dont even begin to understand the ins and outs there on how they control our...

The smart grid has been one of the most talked-about issues in energy policy. Experts — and manufacturers of equipment and software — have promoted the idea that “smart meters” could enable utilities to flip household appliances on and off to ease the load of summertime electricity demand and that the devices would help homeowners manage their refrigerators, lights and air conditioning, even controlling them remotely with cellphones, laptops or tablets.

A new change in Verizon's privacy policy grants it the right to track user browsing habits, app usage and physical location.Like the Eye of Sauron watching over the lands of Middle-earth, Wednesday Verizon Wireless announced that it is now tracking the location of subscriber devices, recording search terms and websites they visit via the wireless network, and recording their app and device feature usage. This information will supposedly be used to make mobile ads more relevant to subscribers, and to be used for "certain business and marketing reports." In a statement announcing its privacy policy changes, Verizon said that it...

While Rebel and Union soldiers still fought it out with bayonets and cannons, a Confederate designer had the foresight to imagine flying machines attacking Northern armies. He couldn't implement his vision during the war, and the plans disappeared into history, until resurfacing at a rare book dealer's shop 150 years later. Now those rediscovered designs have found their way to the auction block, providing a glimpse at how Victorian-era technology could have beat the Wright Brothers to the punch. The papers of R. Finley Hunt, a dentist with a passion for flight, describe scenarios where flying machines bombed Federal troops...

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Military secrecy was a bit lax during the Civil War, by today’s standards, but contractor deadlines were a lot tighter.The technology that revolutionized naval warfare began with a five-sentence message delivered to The New York Times 150 years ago, on Aug. 9, 1861, and the information was not exactly classified. It was an advertisement placed by the Union Navy, to appear the following six days, under the heading “Iron-Clad Steam Vessels.”

Podcast at link.

A spokesman for the Secret Service said it’s not out of the ordinary for agents to “monitor” Fox News — or any other news organization. An employee of the Secret Service on Wednesday accidentally Tweeted on the agency’s Twitter account a complaint about having to “monitor Fox for a story” and not being able to deal with the network’s “blathering.” The Tweet was promptly removed and the Secret Service offered an apology, blaming it on someone who thought he or she was posting to a personal account. But why was the law enforcement agency that provides protection to the president...

(Source: York Daily Record) By Teresa Ann Boeckel, York Daily Record, Pa. March 25--YORK, Pa -- Dwight Rhine recently spotted additions to the utility poles in his Manchester Township neighborhood and wondered what was up. A metal arm sticks out from the pole, and the object attached to it is partially blue. It turns out that they are controllers for Met-Ed's energy saving program.

Roughly 150 various advocates — lobbyists for gays and lesbians, legislators, White House officials, at least one cabinet secretary and the first lady — gathered around President’s Obama’s bully pulpit in the White House Thursday to cheer for increased government monitoring and intervention in Facebook conversations, in playgrounds and in schoolrooms around the country. No officials at the televised East Room roll-out of the White House’s anti-bullying initiative suggested any limits to government intervention against juvenile physical violence, social exclusion or unwanted speech. None mentioned the usefulness to children of unsupervised play. None suggested there were any risks created by...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that both organizations--along with a few others--want to take the file-monitoring process a huge step further by infiltrating consumer PCs and deleting the infringing content off their hard drives. How? Through "anti-infringement" spyware developed and enforced by the government.

Sorry for the Saturday morning vanity - but I know someone out there in Freeperland can help me. I have a Sony Viao laptop hooked up to a docking station to which is attached my Dell Monitor. I have a wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse. For some unknown reason, my monitor stays in "sleep mode" all the time! I cannot get it to be "on" and viewable! Black screen at all times. There are 4 buttons on the lower right corner of the monitor and I have tried pushing in each of these buttons and the yellow light that is...

Members of the parliament overwhelmingly voted down the provisionally operating Swift agreement, which had allowed U.S. authorities to comb through millions of personal banking files to track terror financing. In a 378-196 decision, lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, voted to sack the deal, citing data protection and legal shortcomings. "The agreement has supplied vital leads against those terrorists responsible for planning or committing attacks against EU citizens," a representative of the British government said Thursday. "The safety and security of our citizens will be put at risk by the European Parliament's decision today," an unidentified EU diplomat told British newspaper The...

I have a Dell flat screen monitor which is probably five years old. Within the last month, I've noticed the screen is slightly blurry. It's not readily obvious unless you sit and look at it. However, it's causing me eye strain and blurry vision which lasts for some time after looking at it. I can't look at the screen for more than a couple of minutes without eye strain. I never had this before. I'm prepared for the fact that I may need to buy a new monitor but I'd like to rule everything else out first. Changing the refresh...

The Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., forever changed after the events of April 16, 2007. A student, Seung-Hui Cho, gunned down 27 students and five faculty members before killing himself. Vice President of Student Affairs Lee Bird said shortly after the Virginia Tech incident, OSU expanded its Threat Assessment Team and renamed it the Behavioral Consultation Team. The team is a specially trained group of professional staff members from several university departments with mental health, student development, law enforcement, academic, administrative and legal expertise, according to its Web site. The team investigates and evaluates threats and other concerning behavior...

Here's the problem. I defragmented, as usual, and restarted my computer. For some reason, my widescreen monitor went back to it's original "stretched" form. I cannot remember how I fixed this problem when I first installed the monitor, just remember it was an SOB to fix and a fluke that I got it right. Please, any advise or fix would be greatly appreciated.

Think about how much time you spend switching from one application to another, searching for windows that are hidden behind other windows, or opening and re-opening applications. It adds up. And depending upon the type of work you do, it can add up to a lot - a lot of frustration and a lot of lost productivity. The solution may be to add a second monitor. With today's PCs, adding another monitor to your setup is fairly easy, and the advantages are manifold. Not only will you be able to give an entire application - such as your e-mail program...

CORNWALLIS, Canada (AFP) – US defense secretary Robert Gates said the United States wants to send reinforcements to Afghanistan before elections next year, adding the ballot is "maybe the most important objective for us in 2009."

The U.S. Attorney's Office will monitor the general election in Chicago and surrounding suburbs next Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced Tuesday. As part of the monitoring effort, the office will operate a hotline for candidates or the public to call to report any complaints relating to voting. In addition, Assistant U.S. Attorneys will be available to respond to complaints as needed, according to a release Tuesday from Fitzgerald's office. The hotline number, staffed on Election Day only, is (312) 469-6157. "This office has a long tradition of monitoring the polls on Election Day." Fitzgerald said. "No one who...