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Surveillance Society / Police State
Part 1: Click here
Key Denies Claims Of NSA Secret Spy Box On Southern Cross Cable Network
August 6 2014 | From: Stuff
Prime Minister John Key is flatly denying suggestions New Zealand installed controversial spyware to collect data from the Southern Cross cable.
Source: SouthernCrossCables
A $271 expenses document filed with America's National Security Agency appeared to point to talks about installing such a programme.
Documents obtained by Fairfax and the Green Party showed an engineer for the NSA spent two nights in Blenheim in 2013 to talk about setting up a "special operations site [SSO]."
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said this referred to a cable access programme which would significantly expand the ability of the GCSB to intercept emails, internet communications and phone calls coming in and out of New Zealand over the Southern Cross cable.
But Key's office today issued a strongly worded denial that any such programme had been installed.
"We can categorically state that there is no such programme operating in New Zealand, and any claims that there is are utterly wrong. In answer to your second question of whether we are contemplating one, we are not and we have no intention of introducing one."
There was no mass surveillance of New Zealanders "and we do not use our partners to circumvent the law", Key said through a spokeswoman.
The trip was disclosed in a general expense disclosure relating to any NSA travel costs not funded by US taxpayer.
It declared a $271 payment for "transportation, lodging and meals."
Blenheim is where the Waihopai spy station operated by the Government Communications Security Bureau is located.
The NSA document does not show whether the special operations site went ahead.
A GCSB spokesman said the agency would not comment on visits or specific subjects under discussion.
"From time to time we discuss contemporary technology with partners, including where it may or may not be useful.
The recent summary of the Performance Improvement Framework review of the NZIC noted that it is positive that New Zealand's partnerships give it 'much greater and more valuable support, skill, technology and intelligence than would otherwise be available to it'."
The spokesman added: "As has been previously stated, the GCSB don't do mass surveillance and we don't use partners to circumvent the law".
Feds Doled Out Millions Towards Tor Online Anonymity Tools
July 30 2014 | From: RT
The National Security Agency may be working to crack the anonymous Tor browser, but the US government actually donated close to $2 million to the project in 2013.
In fact, the large majority of the money gifted to the Tor Project has its origins in the State Department and the Department of Defense.
According to the Guardian, the US government delivered a little more than $1.8 million to Tor last year – an increase over the $1.2 million given in 2012. Some of that money was direct – the State Department issued $256,900 while the National Science Foundation donated $100,325 – but most of it was delivered through third parties and non-profit organizations.
"The two largest single grantors of federal money were SRI international, a non-profit research and development centre that aims to bridge the gap between abstract research and industry, and Internews Network, an international non-profit that funds programmes supporting democracy and human rights," wrote Alex Hern at the Guardian.
"The latter gave $555,413 in funding originally from the US Department of State, while the former gave $830,269 in funding ultimately stemming from the US Department of Defense."
Also known as "The Onion Router," Tor is a free internet browser that allows users to bypass online censorship as well as avoid surveillance. Although the browser was initially released back in 2002, it has gained notoriety ever since revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the US intelligence agency to be collecting large amounts of data on individuals. Snowden himself has recommended Tor to users looking to keep the government at bay.
Last year, a separate Guardian report revealed that the NSA and the United Kingdom's GCHQ have made multiple attempts to break through Tor's privacy settings, with limited success. As RT reported recently, Russia is also attempting the same, with its Interior Ministry offering $111,000 to anyone who can help the government crack the network.
Meanwhile, a report by PandoDaily in July showed that most of those involved with developing Tor – itself a project built in coordination with the Navy – were funded by and still used by the US government.
The website raised concern over the possibility that a conflict of interests could exist, since so much money for the project comes from the state. According to the project's tax documents, Tor aided the Defense Department in areas related to "communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance."
As effective as Tor can be, it isn't perfect. In May, Microsoft security expert Andy Malone said that while the network itself is still effective, there are weak points that can be taken advantage of by data collectors.
"At the moment the Tor network's security has never been broken, but there are flaws around it that can be exploited," Malone said at the time.
"Tor leaks do occur through third-party apps and add-ons, like Flash. If I was doing forensics on you and thought you were on Tor I wouldn't attack the network I'd attack the weak areas around it."
600 Million Apple Devices Contain Secret Backdoors, Researcher Claims
A security researcher considered to be among the foremost experts in his field says that more than a half-billion mobile devices running Apple's latest iOS operating system contain secret backdoors.
Jonathan Zdziarski, also known by his online alias "NerveGas," told the audience attending his Friday morning presentation at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York City that around 600 million Apple devices, including iPhones and tablets, contain hidden features that allow data to be surreptitiously slurped from those devices.
During Zdziarski's HOPE presentation, "Identifying Backdoors, Attack Points and Surveillance Mechanisms in iOS Devices," the researcher revealed that several undocumented forensic services are installed on every new iPhone and iPad, making it easier that ever for a third-party to pull data from those devices in order to compromise a target and take hold of their personal information, including pictures, text messages, voice recordings and more.
"Most services are not referenced by any known Apple software," one slide says in part, and "the raw format of the data makes it impossible to put data back onto the phone, making useless for Genius Bar or carrier tech purposes."
"The personal nature of the data makes it very unlikely as a debugging mechanism," he added.
"Why is there a packet sniffer running on 600 million personal iOS devices instead of moved to the developer mount?" he asked in one slide.
"Why are there undocumented services that bypass user backup encryption that dump mass amounts of personal data from the phone? Why is most of my user data still not encrypted with the PIN or passphrase, enabling the invasion of my personal privacy by YOU?"
Read the full story at: RT
Whistleblower: Ultimate Aim Of The NSA Is Total Population Control
NSA Stores 80% Of All Phone Calls, Not Just Metadata - Full Audio
At least 80 percent of all audio calls are gathered and stored by the NSA, whistleblower William Binney has revealed. The former code-breaker says the spy agency's ultimate aim is no less than total population control.
The National Security Agency lies about what it stores, said William Binney, one of the highest profile whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA, at a conference in London organized by the Center for Investigative Journalism on July 5. Binney left the agency shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center because he was disgusted at the organizations move towards public surveillance.
"At least 80 percent of fiber-optic cables globally go via the US," Binney said. "This is no accident and allows the US to view all communication coming in. At least 80 percent of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA lies about what it stores."
Binney has no evidence to substantiate his claims as he did not take any documents with him when he left the NSA. However, he insists the organization is untruthful about its intelligence gathering practices and their ultimate aim. He says that recent Supreme Court decisions have led him to believe the NSA won't stop until it has complete control over the population.
"The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control," Binney said, "but I'm a little optimistic with some recent Supreme Court decisions, such as law enforcement mostly now needing a warrant before searching a smartphone."
During his speech at the conference, Binney praised spy-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden for disseminating the classified documents that revealed the NSA's global spy programs. The latest revelations showed that contrary to the NSA's claims, the majority of information the agency gathers is from ordinary citizens with no connection to terrorism.
NSA gathered 'startlingly intimate' data on ordinary citizens, Snowden data reveals
Washington has defended its spy programs, claiming that the NSA targets individuals with connections to known terrorist groups to thwart attacks. Binney said this was a lie and the NSA had stopped "zero attacks" with its intelligence gathering programs.
One of the main factors that has allowed the NSA to increase its spy programs is the lack of oversight in the US, argues Binney. In particular, he took issue with the Foreign Surveillance Court (FISA), which oversees the issue of search warrants against people suspected of terrorism. Binney believes the court is meaningless and always sides with the US government.
"The Fisa court has only the government's point of view," he said. "There are no other views for the judges to consider. There have been at least 15-20 trillion constitutional violations for US domestic audiences and you can double that globally."
Revelations about US global spy programs have sparked mass indignation, with one American judge saying the surveillance was almost Orwellian in nature. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also compared US intelligence policy to the antics of the Stasi secret police in the former East Germany.
Federal judge says NSA's phone surveillance program is likely unconstitutional
Germany Expels CIA Berlin Chief Over NSA Spying
Germany is expelling the CIA chief in Berlin in retaliation for the latest espionage scandals 'in addition to existing issues'. Two suspected US agents have been exposed in the past week, prompting criticism from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The expulsion comes shortly after the alleged US agents were unmasked, suspected of acting as double agents within the state security apparatus, and passing secrets to US intelligence contacts.
The move was "a reaction to persistent failure to work together in efforts towards clarification," according to the chief of the Parliamentary Control Panel.
The two new cases, which came in quick succession of one another, increase the strain on already tense relations after the revelations made about the extent of global NSA espionage in June, 2013.
Merkel criticized the spy's presence in Germany, stating that when common sense is switched on, "spying is ultimately a waste of force," reported Der Spiegle.
She added that in 21st century intelligence work, there should be a strong focus on the essentials rather than that which is just technically possible – to the point that "one can't see the wood because of all the trees," Merkel said.
"The order arose against the backdrop of the ongoing investigation by the General Prosecutor's Office, in addition to existing issues in recent months surrounding the actions of US intelligence agencies in Germany," said the document.
The US stated on Thursday that it was imperative that the two nations continued to cooperate on intelligence and security matters.
"We have seen these reports and have no comment on a purported intelligence matter. However, our security and intelligence relationship with Germany is a very important one and it keeps Germans and Americans safe," White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told Reuters.
"It is essential that cooperation continue in all areas and we will continue to be in touch with the German government in appropriate channels," she added.
At the same time, the US government's representatives refused to comment on the news from Germany.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said he would not comment on Germany's decision because "any sort of comment on any reported intelligence acts would put at risk US assets, US personnel and the United States national security."
"I don't want you to come away from this exchange thinking we take this matter lightly," he said, adding that the US and Germany continue to have a strong partnership.
The State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, also declined to comment on the development.
"Our relationship with Germany is extremely important," she said. "We'll continue our dialogue through senior officials in the days and weeks ahead."
A 31-year-old intelligence officer was arrested last week, and further reports on Wednesday indicated that a German soldier was also being investigated.
According to German newspaper Die Welt, the soldier was said to have made "intensive contacts" with alleged US intelligence officials, and had been under surveillance by Military Intelligence (MAD) for some time.
The US has not yet denied allegations that the German intelligence official was passing classified information to the NSA.
In a report published on Monday, two unidentified government officials told Reuters of the CIA's involvement in the operation, which led to the recruitment of the 31-year-old suspected spy, who is now in the custody of German officials.
The man was alleged to have passed the Americans 218 secret documents in exchange for € 25,000 ($34,100), and having been a double agent for them for two years through meetings with his contact in Austria and passing on secret documents on a USB stick.
Last October, Merkel was enraged to learn she was allegedly on the NSA's tapping list since 2002. The Chancellor called the alleged spying, which became known thanks to Edward Snowden's leaks, "unacceptable."
A German parliamentary committee has since been holding hearings on the NSA's spying activities in Germany.
"It's very embarrassing for the political leaders in Germany to have Americans spying on the Chancellor, or Americans spying on the Defense Ministry, or Americans spying on the German Intelligence service, or on the parliamentary investigations – it's a big embarrassment for the German political elite," German investigative journalist John Goetz told RT.
"Germany is under a lot of pressure...not to do something. From German standards, they did quite a lot..." he said.
"The German and American security systems are so interwoven you can't even separate them – they're basically the same infrastructure, the same architecture of security. So, if Germany was to say they don't want to, it's very hard for them not to because there are so many institutions that are interwoven."
Merkel's Mad: German Leader Indignant Over 'Serious' US Spying Allegations
July 7 2014 | From: RT
Interesting developments off the back of observations that Germany too, now is not listening to the lies of the well-bankrupt Zionist / Nazi driven United States regime.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said allegations of a German working as a double agent for the US intelligence are "serious" and if proven correct contradict the spirit of bilateral cooperation.
Germany arrests suspected 'double agent' for working for US - report
Merkel on Monday joined in a chorus of German politicians voicing their concern over the arrest of a German intelligence employee for allegedly spying for the US.
"If the reports are correct it would be a serious case," Reuters cited Merkel as saying. "If the allegations are true, it would be for me a clear contradiction as to what I consider to be trusting cooperation between agencies and partners."
Berlin is now waiting for explanations from the White House. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Sunday that giving prompt clarification of the details in the case was in the "US's own interest." Earlier, US Ambassador to Germany John B. Emerson was summoned to the German Foreign Office.
Washington has not yet commented on the matter, however.
Despite the uproar the double agent scandal has caused among German politicians, the government in Berlin has been quick to assure Washington that the issue will not affect ongoing talks on a free trade deal between the European Union and United States.
"The Americans are important partners for Germany including of course in economic terms, so the TTIP (Translatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) talks ... are not in question or in doubt," government spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz said, Reuters reported.
A 31-year-old German foreign intelligence agency (BND) employee has reportedly confessed to having spied for the US for two years. He was allegedly arrested when he tried to also sell some of the information he possessed to Russian intelligence.
US-German relations already suffered a significant blow last October, when NSA's large-scale surveillance on Germany was revealed due to documents leaked by Edward Snowden. That was when Chancellor Merkel found out she was not immune to snooping by the US.
The case has been investigated by a German parliamentary committee. Some of the classified materials from the hearings reportedly were part of the documents stolen by the suspected double agent. This fact enraged German MPs.
"If the suspicion of espionage is confirmed, that would be an outrageous attack on our parliamentary freedom," said Thomas Oppermann, the parliamentary leader of the SPD party, a coalition partner of Merkel's Christian Democrats.
Germany is particularly sensitive to surveillance issues because of abuses by the Nazis and by the East German Stasi. After Snowden's revelations activists in Berlin staged multiple protests against US mass spying. They've also accused Angela Merkel of too weak a response to the spying scandal.
Germany offered the United States to sign a bilateral no-spy agreement, but so far the White House has refused.
Make Them Forget: How 'Irrelevant' News Disappears From Google Searches
The fallout of the EU's 'Right to be Forgotten' ruling has impacted a number of European news publications who suddenly found some of their "inadequate" and "irrelevant" pieces disappear from the web search engine results pages.
The search engine now stands accused of heavy-handedness by several media outlets, links to which have disappeared due to Google's fear of potential legal issues.
The Guardian, the BBC, and Sky News were among those who received an ominous email in the past 48 hours saying that certain articles could no longer be linked to – articles which arguably could be deemed both relevant and in the public interest.
"We regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google," read the email from the search engine.
"The ruling has created a stopwatch on free expression – our journalism can be found only until someone asks for it to be hidden," the Guardian responded after learning that six of its articles had been obliterated from Google.
Google has now restored the links to the Guardian's website, but has not reactivated a link to a BBC article.
New Zealand 'Reintegrated' Into Five Eyes Global Spy Network After 2-Decade Absence
June 22 2014 | From: RT
Comment: This stated position is rather laughable, given so much of the information that has been leaked which directly involves New Zealand in the FVEY Network over the last decade, in the least.
It is well known that the key countries in the ECHELON/ FVEY network collaboraion (US / UK / Canada / Australia / New Zealand) all watch the communication data from each others' states - by way of the NSA hub that drives the system.
What this means is that each government can obfuscate their spook maneouvers or 'get around' their local legislation - if it still exists - that was ostensibly put in place to prevent them from spying on their own citizens.
It is very simple - when you have such an information sharing network; then if another county in the network is providing surveillance data regarding your own citizens - in 'legal' terms the local spooks get away scott free.
So if GCHQ (UK) is providing surveillance intel to the US (NSA) then, in legal terms the NSA has not spied on it's own people, legally. You can figure the other combinations out yourself.
The GCSB knows right now that you are reading this article, courtesy of the NSA. Have a great day!
The GCHQ "eye" facility of the British Ministry of Defence
New Zealand was welcomed back to the Five Eyes network after a two-decade absence in 2009, it has been revealed. The spy organization has been criticized for intercepting massive amounts of data about ordinary people and keeping tabs on governments.
Read more: New Zealand has direct access to US surveillance.
The office of the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) confirmed that New Zealand had been absent from the spy alliance for two decades, although it refrained from explaining the reason for its break from the Five Eyes.
During New Zealander Prime Minister John Key's visit to New York, DNI spokesman Brian Hale told Fairfax news agency that the "reintegration" happened in 2009 as it was believed it was "in the best interest of their nation and their group.
A wing of the New Zealand Defence House Headquarters, Wellington
The Five Eyes network was formed during WWII and includes the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
As part of the alliance, the Five Eyes shared intelligence gathered by their spy agencies to monitor the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc.
However, leaked documents by spy-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the alliance's mass indiscriminate monitoring of civilian communications across the globe. Snowden described the Five Eyes as an artifact of the post-WW2 era that has turned into "a supranational intelligence organization that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries."
When asked by press about New Zealand's reintegration into the Five Eyes in 2009, Key said he was unaware of any such changes.
"I don't think that's right, but I remember there were some vague things," he told Fairfax. "My understanding of it is that even through the challenging times of the relationship post the anti-nuclear legislation, New Zealand continued to be an active member of Five Eyes."
Snowden's spy revelations triggered widespread skepticism of the New Zealand government's collaboration with the US.
A recent poll carried out by Stuff.co.nz showed that over 70 percent of New Zealanders believe the United States was gathering information on them. In addition, over 60 percent of people asked do not believe the US should have the right to do so.
Read more: Kim Dotcom's new IP address…Internet Party, that is.
Key has dismissed the survey's findings, arguing that "if a New Zealander was training with a terrorist group in a foreign environment" then most New Zealanders would support surveillance. Last year parliament expanded the powers of New Zealander spy agency the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), allowing it to support the New Zealand police, Defense Force and the Security Intelligence Service.
The move proved very unpopular among New Zealanders, with elements of the opposition calling it a "death knell" for privacy rights. Key attributed the public alarm to "conspiracy" and "misinformation" orchestrated by the opposition and insisted the amendment was necessary to protect the country from multiple cyber-threats.
Facebook Will Provide Advertisers With Data On Your Visits To External Websites
Comment: It has been known for years now that Facebook uses cookies to watch where their users come from and go to completely outside of their activities on Bookface itself. Now, they are turing this into a monetised product.
Facebook is to start providing advertisers with more user data, drawing from browsing habits and external websites visited, in addition to their current 'likes.' This will be the first time that Facebook has used information from outside the network.
The company announced the change early on Thursday, saying the move is aimed at targeting individual users more efficiently.
"If you live in the US, you'll be able to use ad preferences in the next few weeks, and we are working hard to expand globally in the coming months," Facebook stated in a blog post on Thursday.
However, the move has sparked concern among privacy advocates and will likely ignite further criticism about its respect – or lack thereof – of users' personal data.
"Facebook is continuing on a campaign to push the data envelope, raising troubling privacy and consumer-protection concerns," Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, told The Wall Street Journal.
But Facebook portrayed the changes in a more positive light.
"This is a type of interest-based advertising, and many companies already do this," the company stated.
Facebook already has a great deal of access to its users' personal data, with third party 'plug-ins' also gathering a great deal of information.
To dilute concerns, Facebook will for the first time be giving people the ability to edit all 'interests' on their personal record.
"If you don't want us to use the websites and apps you use to show you more relevant ads, we won't. You can opt out of this type of ad targeting in your web browser using the industry-standard Digital Advertising Alliance opt out, and on your mobile devices using the controls that iOS and Android provide," the company stated.
Joseph Turow, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, told WSJ that although allowing users to see why they are being targeted is a positive step, Facebook's ever-changing privacy policy could quell awareness over the erosion of privacy protections.
Facebook "dribble[s] out what they do so that any kind of anger is dissipated," Turow said. "I think it is a strategy, to be honest."
Vodafone Dances Around GCHQ In 40,000-Word Spying Confession - Inspires Deutsche Telekom To Come Out Also
June 9 2014 | From: RT
Includes Specific Information on New Zealand and the 28 other countries
Government intelligence agencies have direct access to telecommunication companies' infrastructure which allows them to spy and record phone calls leaving no paper trail, the UK's largest mobile phone company Vodafone has revealed.
Note: Vodafone recently acquired Verizon in the US. Although the US is not on this list, they are nicely covered by the NSA, the American equivalent of GCHQ. Vodafone Group is second only in size to China Mobile.
The world's second-largest mobile phone company has broken its silence over its cooperation with government agencies and their efforts to eavesdrop on unsuspecting customers, but what it fails to mention speaks the loudest.
Vodafone's 88-page 'Law Enforcement Disclosure Report' reveals how 29 governments around the world use an open back door to eavesdrop on its customers' private communications.
"In every country in which we operate, we have to abide by the laws of those countries which require us to disclose information about our customers to law enforcement agencies or other government authorities, or to block or restrict access to certain services," the Vodafone reports says. "Those laws are designed to protect national security and public safety or to prevent or investigate crime and terrorism, and the agencies and authorities that invoke those laws insist that the information demanded from communications operators such as Vodafone is essential to their work."
However, Vodafone's corporate candidness stopped short of describing its alleged collaboration with GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of the US National Security Agency.
Snowden's whistleblowing revealed that GCHQ has tapped into transatlantic fiber optic cables in a secret program, codenamed Tempora, which reportedly allows the British spy agency access to telephone communications and Internet data on millions of people. GCHQ, documents showed, teamed up with seven telecom companies, including Vodafone.
The report provided a rather chilling assessment as to the power of the intelligence agencies when it makes the decision to spy on a private citizen.
How To Stop Facebook From Using Your Browsing History
June 9 2014 | From: Gizmodo
It's widely known now that facebook is a CIA data collection front. Some of the original funding for facebook has been traced to another CIA owned company. As this article explains, at least there are some steps that can be taken...
Earlier this week, Facebook announced that it was going to start using all of that ever-so-illuminating app and website data it collects to serve us with more targeted ads. In other words, Facebook is getting ready to use your browsing history to benefit advertisers. Here's how to stop them.
Of course, just because you're getting some new (and highly necessary) controls over how Facebook shares your data doesn't mean it's going to stop collecting the data in the first place. So while we can at least somewhat limit how all of our salacious internet habits are being used, it doesn't mean the cache of data itself is going away.
What's more, the new feature is opt-out, so in order to keep your browsing history away from prying third-party eyes. You'll need to actively head over to the Digital Advertising Alliance here and let them know you're not willing to share.
Read the full story at: Gizmodo
Vodafone Reveals Intelligence Agencies Have Direct Access To Telecoms Infrastructure
In what by now has become (what may be viewed as) an almost redundant / unsurprisingly predictable statement;
The British operator said wires have been attached to its phone networks in some of the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe, as well as around the world [ read: New Zealand ], the Guardian reported. Governments similarly connect to other telecom groups, reportedly allowing them to listen to or record live conversations. In some cases, the surveillance agencies can also track the whereabouts of a customer.
But now Vodafone is pushing back against government surveillance through direct access to the pipes. On Friday, it will publish its first Law Enforcement Disclosure Report about how governments spy on people through the company's infrastructure.
Agencies do not have to identify the targeted customers to the telecom companies in any way, and the direct-access systems do not require warrants.
On 9/11, Kiwi's Being Droned, GCSB And Facial Recognition In Auckland
May 20 2014 | From: AotearoaAWiderPerspective et al
When several weeks ago the news appeared that at least one Kiwi had been a victim of a US drone attack our Government thought that the guy deserved what he got. He shouldn't have been were he was. No judge, no jury needed. Meta data tells you everything you need to know!
What is more it now appears that GCSB was actively involved in supplying the US intelligence community with information about the man killed in the raid according to Journalist Jeremy Scahill in an interview with Patrick Gower.
This morning an article appeared in the NZ Herald. "They" are rolling out a soon to be Nation wide surveillance system in Auckland which "may" (no "may" about it. We docile Kiwi's think we need it anyway) include facial recognition.
Snowden Docs: GCSB Links To US Spying Programmes
May 15 2014 | From: NewZealandHerald
New documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden show New Zealand's GCSB closely enmeshed with some of the most controversial parts of the United States' spying apparatus.
The documents were released with journalist Glenn Greenwald's new book No Place To Hide, which tells the story of Snowden's National Security Agency disclosures and what they mean.
Among the documents are a cluster relating to New Zealand which show:
Our GCSB spies were shown instructional slides on how to operate the X-Keyscore surveillance program which trawls mass harvested email addresses, phone numbers, online chat, web-based email and attachments sent;
They were privy to diplomatic espionage by other Five Eyes partners, including spying which was Canadian spies capturing the emails, text messages and phone calls between the Brazilian president and her aides;
They were briefed on the NSA's efforts to deliberately put backdoors into private companies' computer networks;
And the were given access to a program called "Homing Pigeon" which allowed in-air communications on passenger jets to be monitored.
One NSA document tells New Zealand and its other "Five Eyes" intelligence partners the ambition is to "know it all", "collect it all", "exploit it all" and "partner it all".
Read the full story at: NewZealandHerald
NSA Embedded Surveillance Tools Within Exported US Computer Hardware
May 13 2014 | From: RT
While the United States has warned against buying Chinese routers due to surveillance concerns, a new book about the Edward Snowden revelations states America has been intercepting and tinkering with routers intended for foreign customers.
According to Glenn Greenwald – one of the journalists entrusted with Snowden's leaked documents – the National Security Agency has been implanting devices into routers headed overseas since at least 2010.
"In an extract from Greenwald's new book, titled "No Place to Hide," the journalist states the NSA "routinely receives – or intercepts – routers, servers, and other computer network devices being exported from the US before they are delivered to the international customers."
Once the agency gets its hands on these products, it embeds devices that are linked to the NSA's own system, giving officials access to foreign networks and information from all the users connected to that network.
Anti-Surveillance Movement Calls 'Reset The Net' Day Of Action
May 7 2014 | From: RT
Updated June 7 - See below
More than 30 civil liberties groups and tech companies have formed a coalition against internet surveillance and NSA spying, with a 'Reset the Net' day of action planned for June 5 to mark a year since Edward Snowden's leaks.
Screenshot from youtube.com/user/fightforthefutu
"Don't ask for your privacy. Take it back," the website urges.
The site offers the opportunity for its visitors to sign a pledge: "On June 5, I will take strong steps to protect my freedom from government mass surveillance. I expect the services I use to do the same."
The coalition has been organized by "Fight for the Future." Among its members are Reddit, Imgur, DuckDuckGo, CREDO Mobile, and the Free Software Foundation, who are enforced by the civil liberties groups and others, as Boing Boing and Greenpeace.
The collective is calling on software developers to assimilate anti-NSA features into their products, such as mobile apps, or perhaps adding security features such as SSL (Secure Socket Layer), HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security), and Perfect Forward Secrecy which are data encoding features intended to prevent the government being a go-between for communication interceptions.
"The call is simple – find some territory of the internet you can protect from prying eyes," the 'Reset the Net' video states.
"Government spies have a weakness: they can hack anybody, but they can't hack everybody," the organizers behind the Reset the Net movement say in a video released. "Folks like the NSA depend on collecting insecure data from tapped fiber. They depend on our mistakes; mistakes we can fix."
June 5 marks the day that Edward Snowden first broke news of en-masse surveillance programs implemented by the NSA and PRISM became a household word. The groups are dispersing a privacy package for participants to use which contain free software tools for encrypting chat logs, email, phone calls and text messaging.
CREDO Mobile is thought to be the anonymous telecom which is currently engaged in a constitutional battle regarding governmental utilization of National Security Letters to obtain user data.
"A year after Snowden's shocking revelations, the NSA is still spying on innocent Americans without a warrant," Michael Kieschnick, CEO of CREDO Mobile, told Wired magazine on Tuesday.
"CREDO will continue to demand Congress and the president take action to stop unconstitutional mass warrantless surveillance, and until we win real reform, we will encourage users to adopt encryption tools to protect their personal communications from government abuse of the 1st and 4th amendment," he added.
The mass action is reminiscent of a similar online mass action in 2012 against two federal anti-piracy bills – the Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Thousands of websites, with the support of massive firms such as Google and Twitter - went into blackout or partial blackout in order to put a stop to the legislation.
"We can't stop targeted attacks, but we 'can' stop mass surveillance by building proven security into the everyday Internet," the collective states.
Update: June 7
Yesterday was unbelievable. Together, we as everyday Internet users harnessed the power of the largest websites on earth and launched the biggest effort in human history to shut down mass surveillance on the web.
So how did we do it? Check out this infographic . We promise you will end up reading the whole thing and then feeling awesome.
Click here to see how we Reset the Net.
There's so much more to tell. We're still tallying up the numbers and collecting all the amazing stories of how the Internet came together to defend itself.
And, we're making the biggest announcement of all. Reset the Net was not just a single day of action. We're going to continue this campaign as a longterm, concerted effort to directly block dragnet government surveillance from as much of the Internet as we can.
Each month we'll be announcing a new wave of participants who are helping Reset the Net, and escalating our demands on the largest tech companies to ensure that they're taking the most meaningful and concrete steps they possibly can to protect our privacy.
Defiant Apple, Facebook And Other Tech Companies Will Inform Public Of NSA / Government Surveillance Requests
The same technology companies that the US intelligence community has relied upon to disclose email records are now refusing to keep surveillance requests secret and informing customers when they are the subject of such requests.
In the nearly ten months since former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed extensive surveillance efforts on everyday Americans' online activity, the companies that were forced to facilitate that surveillance have come under harsh public scrutiny.
The embarrassment ignited a series of comments from executives at Google and Facebook, among others, calling on the NSA and other agencies to either stop forcing them to provide the communications that customers trust them with, or allow them to be more transparent.
Now, according to a Thursday report in the Washington Post, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google have updated their policies to routinely notify customers when law enforcement has requested information about them.
Yahoo enacted such a change in July, with the Post reporting Thursday that companies "have found that investigators often drop data demands to avoid having suspects learn of inquiries."
With such influential companies announcing that they will essentially ignore the warning attached to subpoenas asking them to keep knowledge of the requests to themselves, experts say other companies that spend less time in the public eye will be more willing to do so.
"It serves to chill the unbridled, cost-free collection," Albert Gidari Jr., a partner at the firm Perkins Cole who represents multiple technology companies, told the Post. "And I think that's a good thing."
Not all requests will be made public. Orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has denied only one NSA request in five years, will still be kept classified, as will National Security Letters from the FBI.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the US Department of Justice, warned that the companies' divergence from the norm constitutes a massive security flaw. He told the Post there is at least one recent example in which an early disclosure put a cooperative witness in danger, though he refused to provide any further detail.
"These risks of endangering life, risking destruction of evidence, or allowing suspects to flee or intimidate witnesses are not merely hypothetical, but unfortunately routine," Carr said.
Law enforcement's job is also complicated by the growing number of magistrate judges who are skeptical of the government's requests. The judicial ideology has quietly spread to courts through the country, frustrating prosecutors as much as it has excited civil libertarians.
Perhaps the most outspoken opinion, though, came from Washington DC Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola, who ruled against government requests to access the Facebook page of Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis and a request to search the iPhone of a Georgetown University student accused of making ricin.
Facciola has consistently sought narrower, more specific requests from investigators, as evidenced by an April ruling in a case unrelated to the two aforementioned investigations.
"For the sixth time," he wrote, as quoted by the Post, "this court must be clear: if the government seizes data it knows is outside the scope of the warrant, it must either destroy the data or return it. It cannot simply keep it."
Interactive Graphic: The NSA Spying Machine
April 8 2014 | From: Bloomberg
With every new leak from Edward Snowden's bottomless trove of pilfered documents, it gets harder to keep track of all the bizarre ways the National Security Agency has cooked up to spy on people and governments. This may help.
Data in Motion
NSA's spies divide targets into two broad categories: data in motion and data at rest. Information moving to and from mobile phones, computers, data centers, and satellites is often easier to grab, and the agency sucks up vast amounts worldwide. Yet common data such as e-mail is often protected with encryption once it leaves a device, making it harder—but not impossible—to crack.
Data at Rest
Retrieving information from hard drives, overseas data centers, or cell phones is more difficult, but it's often more valuable because stored data is less likely to be encrypted, and spies can zero in on exactly what they want. NSA lawyers can compel U.S. companies to hand over some of it; agency hackers target the most coveted and fortified secrets inside computers of foreign governments.
Where the Data Goes
Much of the data the NSA compiles from all these efforts will be stored in its million-square-foot data center near Bluffdale, Utah. It can hold an estimated 12 exabytes of data. An exabyte is the equivalent of 1 billion gigabytes.
See the interactive graphic at: Bloomberg
Snowden Leak: NSA [ FVEY: NSA / ASD / CSEC / GCHQ / GCHB ] Plans To Infect 'Millions' Of Computers
March 14 2014 | From: RT
Yet more previously secret surveillance operations waged by the United States National Security Agency were made public Wednesday morning thanks to leaked documents supplied by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The Threat Operations Center inside the National Security Agency (NSA) (AFP Photo)
The files — published first by The Intercept this week and dissected over the course of a 3,000-word article attributed to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher — bring to light a number of previously unreported programs undertaken by the secretive US spy agency, including operations that have given the NSA the potential to infect millions of computers around the world by relying on malicious software that's sent to targets through surreptitious means.
In recent years, however, the NSA has reportedly made adjustments to these operations that enable them to by carried out automatically without the direct aid of human spies — a decision that experts say is undermining the internet as it is known today,
"Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process," the journalists wrote.
That automated system named "TURBINE," they said later, is designed to "allow the current implant network to scale to large size (millions of implants) by creating a system that does automated control implants by groups instead of individually."
For the full story and some truly ugly government diagrams visit: RT
Full Disclosure: The Internet Dark Age - Five Eyes Sources And Methods Uncovered For Disabling The FVEY ECHELON / GCHQ / NSA / CSEC / ASD / GCHB Systems
February 27 2014 | From: JimStoneFreelance
Removing Governmental on-line stranglehold | Disabling major capabilities (BULLRUN / EDGEHILL) | Restoring on-line privacy - immediately
Uncovered – //NONSA//NOGCHQ//NOGOV - CC BY-ND
On September 5th 2013, Bruce Schneier, wrote in The Guardian:
"The NSA also attacks network devices directly: routers, switches, firewalls, etc. Most of these devices have surveillance capabilities already built in; the trick is to surreptitiously turn them on. This is an especially fruitful avenue of attack; routers are updated less frequently, tend not to have security software installed on them, and are generally ignored as a vulnerability".
"The NSA also devotes considerable resources to attacking endpoint computers. This kind of thing is done by its TAO – Tailored Access Operations – group. TAO has a menu of exploits it can serve up against your computer – whether you're running Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, or something else – and a variety of tricks to get them on to your computer.
Your anti-virus software won't detect them, and you'd have trouble finding them even if you knew where to look. These are hacker tools designed by hackers with an essentially unlimited budget. What I took away from reading the Snowden documents was that if the NSA wants in to your computer, it's in. Period".
The evidence provided by this Full-Disclosure is the first independent technical verifiable proof that Bruce Schneier's statements are indeed correct.
This update includes 10 pages of additional evidence, courtesy of the U.S. Government. Dedicated to the Whistle - Blower Mr Edward J. Snowden.
We explain how the NSA/GCHQ core systems:
Are Internet wiretapping you
Break into your home network
Perform 'Tailored Access Operations' (TAO) in your home
Steal your encryption keys
Can secretly plant anything they like on your computer
Can secretly steal anything they like from your computer
How to STOP this Computer Network Exploitation
We expose NSA/GCHQ's most Secret Weapon - Control and how you can defeat it!
Government Spies Are Forcing Privacy Email Services To Shut Down Because They Can't Spy On Emails
December 12 2013 | From InfoWars
GCHQ, the British counterpart and facilitator to the NSA, has forced a privacy focused email service to shut down because it could not effectively spy on the encrypted emails people were sending.
As the blog IT Security Guru reports, a beta version of the PrivateSky service from London-based web security firm CertiVox was shut down early in 2013 following a government order.
The secure email encryption service, which worked with both web based email and Outlook, had "tens of thousands of heavily active users" before it was targeted by government spooks, according to the developers.
Brian Spector, CEO of CertiVox, tells reporters "Towards the end of 2012, we heard from the National Technical Assistance Centre (NTAC), a division of GCHQ and a liaison with the Home Office, [that] they wanted the keys to decrypt the customer data."
"So they had persons of interest they wanted to track and came with a RIPA warrant signed by the home secretary. You have to comply with a RIPA warrant or you go to jail." Spector adds.
"It is the same in the USA with FISMA, and it is essentially a national security warrant." Spector further notes.
Read the full story on: InfoWars
Write Wongs! Over 500 World-Famous Authors Sign Anti-Surveillance Petition
December 10 2013 | From RT
More than 500 renowned authors ncluding five Nobel laureates - from across the globe have signed a petition demanding an end to 'mass surveillance'. It follows the revelations over the last few months of the US and other countries spying.
Their open appeal is called A Stand for Democracy in the Digital;. Among the signatories are Nobel laureates Orhan Pamuk, JM Coetzee, Elfriede Jelinek, Günter Grass and Tomas Tranströmer.
Others who signed the letter include Bjork, Umberto Eco, Yann Martel, Ian McEwan and many others.
WE DEMAND THE RIGHT for all people, as democratic citizens, to determine to what extent their personal data may be collected, stored and processed, and by whom; to obtain information on where their data is stored and how it is being used; to obtain the deletion of their data if it has been illegally collected and stored. WE CALL ON ALL STATES AND CORPORATIONS to respect these rights," the open appeal read.
It adds that a person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.
To maintain any validity, our democratic rights must apply in virtual as in real space.
Read the full story on: RT
Senior NSA Whistleblower: December 2013 Presentation @ University of Toronto
Streamed Live on December 5 2013 | From iSchoolUofT
Thomas Drake, former senior NSA official turned whistleblower, visited Toronto December 5 and 6 to meet with surveillance researchers and civil libertarians, and gave a public lecture in the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto.
His talk was called "Secret NSA / CSEC Surveillance versus Democracy: What's at Stake for the US & Canada?"
It is absolutely riveting. A must-watch.
From iSchoolUofT
The NSA Files: 'Decoded' - Edward Snowden's Revelations Explained
November 1 2013 | From TheGuardian
The Snowden files reveal a number of mass-surveillance programs undertaken by the NSA and GCHQ [and the GCSB].
The agencies are able to access information stored by major US technology companies, often without individual warrants, as well as mass-intercepting data from the fibre-optic cables which make up the backbone of global phone and internet networks.
The agencies have also worked to undermine the security standards upon which the internet, commerce and banking rely.
See the full story at: TheGuardian
Finding Snowden
November 2013 | From: Motherboard.vice
"There were times when I thought it would never happen," Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent, said about her recent trip to Moscow. "I'm still amazed."
I too was amazed when I received an encrypted email at 2am one recent October morning, with a photo of her and three other whistleblowers standing shoulder to shoulder with one of the most wanted men on the planet.
When Edward Snowden abandoned his Hawaii home, a long-term relationship, and a six-figure salary as a government contractor in order to lift the veil on the US's transnational surveillance system, he also left behind any sense of safety or security.
The US Justice Department has charged the 30-year-old former "infrastructure analyst" with theft of government property, and two serious charges under the Espionage Act.
The former director of the NSA, Michael Hayden, even recently "joked" during a cybersecurity panel that Snowden should be put on America's kill list. (Rep. Mike Rogers R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, responded, "I can help you with that.")
For four high-profile former spooks, each with their own histories of whistleblowing and government persecution, arranging a secret meeting with the world's most wanted whistleblower was no simple thing.
Read the story at: Motherboard.vice
Was The GCSB Financed By The NSA?
September 30 2013 | From AotearoaAWiderPerspective
John Key said he could neither confirm nor deny whether the GCSB was financed by the NSA. We do know that the English equivalent most certainly was.
I wonder how much of this $ 52.6 billion black budget published in the Washington post found its way to the pockets of those in charge of organizing the Stats Sicherheits Polizei GCSB to be able to spy on all of us?
Take Back Your Power - Stopping the Smart Grid Agenda
October 27 2012 | From TakeBackYourPower.net
Take Back Your Power is a historic community-funded film which exposes the technocratic "smart meter" agenda, by which corporations are currently attempting to quietly assert the basis for further control in the lives and homes of the world's citizens. The film will also focus on specific solutions -- which are presently available -- for humanity to leapfrog outdated ideas of control, and co-create a better future.
Visit our website to learn how you can refuse a smart meter, subscribe, and support us in completing the film.
The smart grid is an interlocking web that will monitor and control all of the electrical appliances in your home at all times. Based on wireless technology, the privacy ramifications, health effects, and opportunities for outright government control inherent in the smart grid agenda are staggering.
Tonight we talk to Josh Del Sol, the filmmaker behind the forthcoming feature documentary "Take Back Your Power," about this agenda and what you can do to stop it.
Opposition Parties Say New Zealand Has Been Turned into a "Police State"
March 25 2012 | From Stuff
Opposition parties say New Zealand has been turned into a "police state" after Parliament last night narrowly passed the Government's controversial Search and Surveillance Bill.
Parliament last night passed by the Bill by 61 votes to 57.
It was opposed by all Opposition parties and the Government's support partner the Maori Party.
Greens MP Stefan Browning said the legislation put the powers exercised by police in its heavily criticised 2007 so-called "terror raids" in Ruatoki in the hands of many government agencies.
Those raids led to the trial of the Urewera Four, who a jury this week failed to reach a verdict on the police's case they were part of an organised criminal group.
Browning told Parliament the law went too far.
"The evils of the Bill go to looking at people's texts, their voice mails, bugs in cars, chat room videos."
Thousands of innocent people could have their communications caught up in electronic monitoring, Browning said.
Mana Party leader Hone Harawira said 70 different government agencies could obtain surveillance warrants based on suspicion a crime could be committed.
"This Bill goes way beyond what they have in Europe, in Canada and even in the US."
Read the full story at Stuff
SOPA's Evil Twin Sister – CISPA
From InfoWars
In the hopes of creating awareness of what CISPA actually is and how it could effect the lives of every day people, we created this infographic. Feel free to share the graphic on your site. You can find quotes from Fortune 500 CEO's who are endorsing the bill here . You can also write a letter to your local representative to protest CISPA here .
SOPA changes name to CISPA
From TheContrail
Fascism Comes to the Internet: Introducing CISPA
Joe Wright 4/4/12 Activist Post
After nearly unprecedented pushback against bills SOPA and PIPA, their apparent defeat cannot yet be claimed. Most skeptics presumed that the defeat of the aforementioned would only serve to offer a compromised "SOPA light" at some point to circumvent criticism over government censorship. Well, it didn't take long. In addition to OPEN and ACTA to combat supposed piracy issues in the U.S. and Europe respectively, we now have been presented with a full-on fascist template for Internet control where government and private corporations will work hand in hand under the very broad definition of cybersecurity.
The CISPA acronym is probably the most honest of those proposed thus far, and certainly is self-explanatory: the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. Cybersecurity initiatives themselves are framed in such a way as to declare the free and open Internet to be subsumed into national security infrastructure, thus giving it over to the Pentagon, NSA, and other agents for use in surveillance and even offensive war. However, CISPA goes one step further to suggest that all information transmitted on this national security infrastructure is fair game for the prying eyes of the State. Most likely the private sector must bow to any and all demands made, or face being labeled as supporters of terrorism.
Both House and Senate are due to address CISPA (H.R. 3523) in the last weeks of April -- we had better make noise ten times louder than what was made against previous attempts to hijack the Internet. Once the Internet is co-opted openly by the military-industrial-surveillance complex, there will be very little chance for regaining what will be lost.
Snowden: 'Training Guide' for GCHQ, NSA Agents Infiltrating and Disrupting Alternative Media Online
February 26 2014 | From: 21stCenturyWire
Ed Snowden's latest leaked documents open the lid on what is perhaps the most vindictive and disgusting aspect of the government-corporate joint surveillance state seen yet…
[ TOP SECRET//COMINT//REL TO USA, AUS, CAN, GBR, NZL ]
This is Britain's GCHQ guide to Online Covert Action, which is shared with US agencies like the NSA.
According to these latest documents, there are paid government agent/contractor persons on social media posing as someone they are not, whilst on the payroll of the government.
Their job is to befriend members of the alternative media, embed themselves in the ebb and flow of day-to-day communications, and then to engage in elaborate subterfuge – by any means necessary.
The training exercise below uses terms like "befriend", "infiltrate", "mask/mimic", "ruse", "set-up", "disrupt", "create cognitive stress", "use deception", "ruin business relationships", and "post negative information on appropriate forums" – all of which is not only illegal and morally bankrupt, but also runs completely contrary to the very fundamental 'values' and indeed founding principles, of a modern free democratic society or constitutional republic.
Government targets in this malicious operation appear to be bloggers, activists, journalists, social event organisers and anyone else deemed to be a 'emerging leader' or voice in the public sphere, or alternative media online.
This obviously extends way beyond the practice of employing paid 'trolls' to pollute comment sections and redirect forum threads – which still exists under both government and corporate umbrellas.
Thanks to Ed Snowden (photo, left), the public – as well as moral individuals within government and the judiciary, might fully realise just how these sort of underhanded, and unlawful operations have sunk to the lowest possible levels.
It's not enough that the governments of both the UK and US are blanket spying on each other's populations and then swapping data, but now we see how they are aggressively targeting individuals in secret, undermining them and eventually setting out to destroy them – and all the while employing organised deception (with the full backing of the state security apparatus) to achieve a series of said 'outcomes'.
That's conspiracy to defraud, and it's against the law in any modern civilised society.
One has to pose the question: is this type of government sanctioned gang-stalking and conspiracy to defraud civilised? Most people would answer 'no' of course, but unfortunately most people are not making the decisions regarding these new malicious soviet-style programs in Britain and the US.
It's so comforting to know that the governments of Great Britain and the United States have allocated public money not only to spy on their own innocent citizens, but also that ample public money is also being spent to actively undermine free speech, derail small businesses, to entrap and intentionally defraud and defame unsuspecting citizens that are deemed targets by some secret committee – all carried out in an extrajudicial (outside of the law) way.
Sounds very much like those horrific East German Stasi tales we all point to as history's archetypal low-point of modern society.
Those who know their history, know that this type of aggressive state attack against its own citizens has nothing to do with 'national security' or 'terrorism', but is merely a case of the state using its muscle against those who are shining a spotlight on its shortcoming and internal government corruption and criminal behaviour.
By (almost) anyone's metric, it's a shameful chapter in history.
Read the full story and see documentation at: 21stCenturyWire
Mainstream Media Admits Smart Meters Are Spying Devices
February 24 2014 | From: IntelliHub
Mainstream media finally recognizes the smart meter dangers that "conspiracy theorists" have warned of for years
For years researchers and activists have been warning about the health and privacy dangers involved with smart meters. As usual, the mainstream media ridiculed these warnings and insisted that smart meters were harmless. However, now it is becoming common knowledge that these smart meters can be used to spy on innocent people, and even the mainstream media is starting to catching on.
Shockingly, news organizations like NBC are even picking this story up, in a recent article for NBC News, Matt Liebowitz writes:
Researchers examining the privacy implications of smart-meter technology found that one German provider's devices contained vulnerabilities that allowed them to snoop on unencrypted data to determine whether or not the homeowners were home.
After signing up with the German smart-meter firm Discovergy, the researchers detected that the company's devices transmitted unencrypted data from the home devices back to the company's servers over an insecure link. The researchers, Dario Carluccio and Stephan Brinkhaus, intercepted the supposedly confidential and sensitive information, and, based on the fingerprint of power usage, were able to tell not only whether or not the homeowners were home, away or even sleeping, but also what movie they were watching on TV.
Smart meters are just one piece of the national surveillance puzzle that has been growing in recent decades.
"Over the last several years, traffic-centric surveillance applications were the most prolific," said Eric Ackermann, sales manager for enterprise solutions and services at Siemens Industry in California's Orange County. "In the last two years, a vast majority of the demand has come from city water/utility, parks/recreation, police and public works."
Just last week we reported that many researchers who were labeled as "conspiracy theorists" were vindicated by the mainstream media in regards to weather control, when a mainstream scientist discussed the deep history of government weather modification on nationwide television. As the truth of our reality becomes more undeniable, the mainstream will continue to admit things that they once ridiculed.
NSA's Mass Surveillance Of New Zealanders Online
February 17 2014 | From: NBR
Part of my TEDx Queenstown talk next week is about mass surveillance online. How governments are building the modern Panopticon.
I was therefore quite surprised yesterday when Prime Minister John Key said he has no reason to believe the NSA has undertaken mass surveillance on New Zealanders. To help the prime minister, let's look at what we know about it and whether an objective person should come to the same conclusion.
At the same time, let's not overlook the FBI's (NarusInsight) and GCHQ's (Tempora) sterling efforts in collecting and making the data available to the NSA. In fact, the GCHQ collects even more metadata off international cables than the NSA.
I'll cover both the direct and indirect ways known to be used (thanks Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers). By way of context, note that it is entirely legal for the NSA to undertake mass (and targeted) surveillance of New Zealanders. There are virtually no limits on the NSA's surveillance of non-Americans in the US "national interest."
And, no, being part of the Five Eyes does not buy us immunity from being spied on by the NSA and GCHQ.
Read the full story at: NBR
Nationalised Online ID - Here Now
February 14 2014 | From: Aaron Livingston
[ This article can also be downloaded from here in PDF format. Click here for 2mb Low Res Version or click here for High Res 11mb version. Please share far and wide. ]
Well ladies and gentlemen it's here thanks to the New World Order and its radical laws under Agenda 21; set to control a wide range of resources. This includes a worldwide identification system, in different countries like USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and India. The globalist ID concept that has incarnated itself in New Zealand as "RealMe" will affect everyone rich and poor; including you!
RealMe is a fully operational Online ID for everyone, and of course Work and Income[1] have gladly been the first ones to implement this ID from its inception, forcing everyone who wants an online account to sign up.
It seems to me that WINZ clients are always at the receiving end of some new implementation, restricting freedom. Also information from a reliable source told me they were forced to sign up to RealMe if they wanted to do an online tertiary course, and apply for a student loan online.
According to a pamphlet[2] I collected at my local Post Shop it states the following: "If you want to do anything important online, like getting a new bank account or a copy of your birth certificate, you need to head down to your local branch with identity documents. Not ideal when you're busy...
Below is a screen shot of the RealMe ID application landing page on the New Zealand post website at: nzpost.co.nz
...The New Zealand government and New Zealand Post have created the RealMe service to help solve this problem. RealMe is the easy and secure way to prove who you are online. It will soon make applying for things on the internet simpler, faster, and easier with participating organisations".
Below is a screen shot of the RealMe home page at: realme.govt.nz
To an un-aware mind, this all sounds great! Who wouldn't love a much simpler way for proving who you are online nationwide? All perks aside, warning bells should be ringing in your ears.
This sounds like the same thing that Nazi Germany was doing back in the 40's, yet this ID is very similar to the American biometrics system that will identify who I am, to many organisations, institutions, banks and more, according to the official organisation list[3] on the RealMe website.
Below is a screen shot of the key content from the "About RealMe" page on the RealMe website:
Where on earth did RealMe come from?
Our government has made this 'thing' appear without any official warning or transparency, however stated by a RealMe article[4] this is all in aid of the new 'Anti-Laundering' bill that has been passed.
This ID system has only just begun, yet by the end of the year (2014) we will see it being more fully implemented and it could even be used as ID for offline measures. Importantly, in light of the latest NSA Whistleblower reports, it is safe to say that this type of ID cannot be proven to be 100% secure.
Given the wider context and implications of the implementation of a "National Identification" system such as this (and the general awareness level of the public at large) it is apparent that not a lot of people in New Zealand will 'get' the concept enough to question it, let aloe be aware enough to figure out how evil this thing really is.
Will you take the Red or Blue Pill?
1 http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/about-work-and-income/news/2013/new-login-and-more-features-in-my-account.html
2 Pamphlet photos: www.truth4israelnz.wordpress.com/warning-nationalised-online-id-ahead
3 https://www.realme.govt.nz/faqs/organisations-that-use-realme-services/
4 https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/notice-of-approval-of-anti-money-laundering-and-countering-financing-of-terrorism-identity-verification-code-of-practice-amendment-2013/
REALME:
https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/bnz-first-of-the-big-banks-to-go-live-with-realme/
https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/bnz-goes-live-with-realme-service/
https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/tsb-bank-first-bank-to-use-the-realme-service/
https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/online-voting-to-be-trialled-at-2016-elections/
https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/notice-of-approval-of-anti-money-laundering-and-countering-financing-of-terrorism-identity-verification-code-of-practice-amendment-2013/
https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/tsb-bank-kiwibank-to-use-realme/
https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/new-anti-money-laundering-code-sets-standard-for-customer-id-checks/
https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/government-backs-new-id-plan/
https://www.realme.govt.nz/news/government-backed-online-identity-verification-system-realme-ready-to-go/
https://www.realme.govt.nz/faqs/organisations-that-use-realme-services/
NZPOST:
http://www.nzpost.co.nz/about-us/media-centre/media-release/government-backed-online-identity-verification-system-realme-ready-to-go
ZDNET:
http://www.zdnet.com/tsb-bank-rolls-out-governments-realme-online-id-7000023006/
http://www.zdnet.com/bnz-follows-tsb-using-realme-id-7000026122/
BEEHIVE:
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/realme-makes-it-easy-get-services-online
SCOOP:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1307/S00016/govt-backed-online-identity-system-realme-ready-to-go.htm
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8830343/Government-backs-new-ID-plan
WORK AND INCOME:
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/about-work-and-income/news/2013/new-login-and-more-features-in-my-account.html
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/about-work-and-income/news/2013/changes-to-my-account.html
STUDYLINK:
http://www.studylink.govt.nz/about-studylink/media-releases/2013/new-look-for-igovt-logon-coming-soon.html
http://www.studylink.govt.nz/about-studylink/media-releases/2013/mystudylink-new-look-and-new-service.html
http://www.studylink.govt.nz/about-studylink/media-releases/2013/igovt-logon-is-now-a-realme-login1.html
www.realme.co.nz
www.workandincome.govt.nz
www.truth4israelnz.wordpress.com/warning-nationalised-online-id-ahead
One Million Deadly "Smart" Electricity Meters Now Installed In New Zealand
January 22 2014 | From: Scoop
The rollout of smart electricity meters has reached a milestone with one million of the electronic meters now installed in New Zealand homes and businesses.
New Zealand's smart meter rollout has largely been driven by three of the large electricity retailers who have used it as an opportunity to gain a competitive edge in the market. In most other countries where smart meters have been implemented the rollout has been mandated.
The non-ionising radiation from a smart meter is equicalent to having a cell tower in your home.
Carl Hansen, Chief Executive of the Electricity Authority says New Zealand's approach is paying off for consumers. "Strong competition between retailers has meant the meters are being installed free of charge to consumers. In other countries, consumers have been charged up to $900 to have a smart meter installed.
"Customers are now also seeing the benefits of more innovative pricing and services, for example many retailers are now marketing special packages for those with smart meters, particularly to encourage and reward off-peak electricity usage."
Smart meters also mean consumers are able to monitor their electricity usage more closely which can assist with reducing electricity consumption.
Genesis Energy has installed the most smart meters with 395,754 connection points (including those installed for its Energy Online brand).
By April 2015 it is estimated there will be more than 1.2 million smart meters in New Zealand, with just over 800,000 of the traditional meters remaining.
Note: All data as at 31 December 2013. On this date 1,001,475 of the 2,066,827 connection points in New Zealand were recorded as having smart meters installed.
The Dangerous and Deadly Truth About "Smart" Meters
There are thousands of disasterous 'Smart' Meter horror stories from all around the world. 'Smart Meters' are dangerous (causing ill health and fires) and inaccurate - and that's just for a start. In some places they have even been banned by legislation.
The 'Smart' Meter issue is a severe one which will affect everyone if not addressed. This becomes clear once you understnad how these devices work.
See the trailer for Take Your Power Back Below. For more on this see our article here.
We also have a number of related stories and videos on Wakeupkiwi - the most relevant to this are the following:
Brian Thiesen: Technical Facts and Political Adgenda of SmartMeters
The Truth About "Smart Meters"
Hidden Dangers of WiFi: EMF Pollution and the Human Impacts
To find out how you can protect yourself and your family from this menace - visit stopsmartmeters.org.nz
NSA TEMPEST: Remotely Viewing Computer / Cell Phone Screens Via Radio Waves
January 18 2014 | From: ClimateViewer
This is a public service announcement. Using an antenna and some gadgets from your local electronics store, you can spy on your neighbors TV. If you think that's scary, the National Security Agency [and most likely the NSA's localised counterparts in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK] can view your cellphone screen from over a kilometer away, listen to signals from your monitor cable, and use your computer's power supply to snoop on you.
You can dowwnload the history of Tempest from the NSA website by clicking on the image above.
This security flaw inherent in all digital devices is the greatest threat to our privacy and has massive implications for the future of the entire digital world.
This article will give some examples of how this technology works, why it matters, and provide you with a plethora of research links to get educated about this rarely discussed topic. I encourage you to read the links, protect your sensitive material as best you can, and demand the same electromagnetic protection for consumer products that the military expects.
Though the NSA is not likely to be using this technique on average citizens, you can rest assured that multi-billion dollar corporations are using TEMPEST attacks to keep tabs on activists, Congressmen, and bankers alike.
See the full story with video and further links at: ClimateViewer
Wanted Dead By US Officials, Snowden Tells German TV
January 13 2014 | From: DWTV
Fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has claimed that US government officials "want to kill me" in an exclusive interview which German television says it conducted in Moscow.
[In this interview Edward Snowden describes "The Five Eyes", and clarifies that New Zealand in one of them].
German NDR television issued a further snippet ahead of a broadcast late Sunday in Europe of an exclusive interview with Snowden in which the intelligence whistleblower claims that US officials wanted him killed.
"These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket, and then watch as I die in the shower," he told NDR interviewer Hubert Seipel, who said the interview took place last Thursday.
Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum in Russia in August, referred in the interview to a report by US website BuzzFeed of explicit threats against him from unnamed Pentagon and National Security Agency (NSA) officials.
The former NSA contractor is wanted by US authorities on treason charges for disclosing details of a vast intelligence operation that monitored millions of phone calls and emails across the world.
The interview was aired on German ARD television, of which NDR is a member, with a German-language voice-over late on Sunday, European time.
In the ARD talkshow Günter Jauch run prior to the interview's broadcast, former US ambassador to Berlin John Kornblum was asked where Snowden would be in 10 years time.
Kornblum said he expected Snowden would return to the United States under a deal. "I believe there will be an arrangment," Kornblum said.
Industrial espionage too?
In an earlier snippet released online late on Saturday by the public broadcaster NDR, Snowden claimed that the NSA was involved in industrial espionage and did not limit its espionage to issues of US national security.
"If there is information at [German electronics and engineering giant] Siemens that they think would be beneficial to the national interests, not the national security, of the United States, they will go after that information and they'll take it," Snowden said.
NDR's interviewer Seipel, in a pre-broadcast interview in German also published online by NDR, said Snowden's sole "life insurance" was that he had entrusted journalists of the New York Times, Washington Post and Britain's Guardian with the material.
At regular intervals, Seipel said, these media outlets triggered a series of "small thematic bombs."
'Very carefully' selected documents
"The NSA is still trying to guess, how much material it involves. At the start there was talk of 200,000, then of 600,000 and now there are around 1.7 million documents," Seipel said.
Snowden had "very carefully" selected documents that rather than focusing on individual persons, focused on the structure of the US secret services and alleged "violations," Seipel said.
"He has shown what happens within this apparatus, also in connection with other services."
"The accusation that he has endangered the lives of thousands of soldiers or secret service employees is in my view feeble-minded," Seipel said, adding that Snowden had a "very strong" sense of justice.
"That [President Barack] Obama said he was not a patriot is for him, I think, quite difficult enough."
Interview arranged via 'safeguards'
The interviewer said Snowden was "very precise in what he says, but naturally was also very cautious" to avoid breaching the terms of his asylum in Russia.
Seipel said the NDR team conducted the exclusive interview using three cameras and a microphone after organizing the meeting using encrypted phone calls and several other "safeguard measures."
On Thursday, in a question-and-answer session on the "Free Snowden" website, the fugitive ruled out returning to the United States, where he said there was no chance of a free trial.
ipj/msh (dpa, Reuters, AFP)
See Source Soty and Links at: DWTV
GCSB: They Do Listen
January 4 2014 | From: TheStandard
This year the biggest burst of political knowledge for me last year has been the role that the GCSB has in NZ (and security services elsewhere) and how pathetic the political and legal oversight of their role currently is.
In NZ it is a self-supporting club of the heads of the security services, a pliant Prime Minister, and a Inspector-General who appears to not prepared to do much of the oversight that their role is meant to perform.
In view of the revelations about the depth of surveillance by the US and its allies (like us) over citizens coming out of the whistle-blowers overseas, you'd have to wonder how far our own paranoid individuals in the security organisations have been extending themselves into the local polity.
While I've been travelling over Xmas, I've been using various political quips as an informal way of identifying political topics that have penetrated into the political conciousness of voters.
This one has been the obvious winner.
'The GCSB – the only government department that really listens.'
To date, I've been getting a 100% response rate from everyone. Left, right, green, and apolitical. Moreover, virtually no-one seems to comfortable about what they've been hearing.
With the ever increasing information coming from Snowden and other whistleblowers from the surveillance community, I'd say that this political hot potato has a whole lot further to run over the current year. It would not surprise me if it becomes a major election topic.
NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Warns Of The Dangers Posed By Loss Of Privacy In Channel 4's 'Alternative Christmas Message'
December 25 2013 | From: DailyMail
In two-minute video, Snowden spoke of future concerns over surveillance
Message has been broadcast since 1993 to mimic Queen's annual speech
Snowden became a wanted man seven months ago for leaking
Former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed details of electronic surveillance by American and British spy services, warned of the dangers posed by a loss of privacy in a Channel 4's 'Alternative Christmas Message'.
In a two-minute video recorded in Moscow, where Snowden has been granted temporary asylum, he spoke of concerns over surveillance in an age of huge technological advancement.
'We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go. Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person,' he said.
A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all,' said Snowden.
'They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalysed thought. And that's a problem because privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.'
The 'Alternative Christmas Message', broadcast annually on Channel 4 television since 1993, mimics the format of the yearly address to the nation by Queen Elizabeth.
Read the full story and view the video at: DailyMail
The NSA Is Out Of Control And Must Be Stopped
End The Nightmare Of Mass Surveillance Now
December 12 2013 | From TheVerge
The National Security Agency [read: NSA, GCSB, GCHQ, Echelon et al] is breaking trust in democracy by breaking trust in the internet. Every day, the NSA records the lives of millions of Americans and countless foreigners, collecting staggering amounts of information about who they know, where they've been, and what they've done.
Its surveillance programs have been kept secret from the public they allegedly serve and protect.
The agency operates the most sophisticated, effective, and secretive surveillance apparatus in history.
Recent disclosures about the intelligence gathering activities of the NSA, and the ensuing federal response, have demonstrated that the agency is a rogue state — unaccountable and out of control.
Intelligence community leaders have openly lied to elected officials and the public about the nature and extent of the agency's data collection efforts.
And despite their respective responsibility in carefully overseeing intelligence agencies, President Obama and Congress have shown no credibility as custodians of the NSA. So far, Congress has shown far less tolerance for baseball players allegedly lying about personal steroid use than military leaders lying about surveillance programs that undermine the bill of rights.
Read the full story at: TheVerge
We Are Electromagnetic Radiation Guinea Pigs
From Disclosure.co.nz
A global "Smart Grid" program is being implemented which is blasting homes and businesses with more electromagnetic radiation than human beings have ever been subject to in human history. It is utterly preposterous to assume this will not lead to major human epidemics.
We must now face the very serious problem that the institutions, government, corporations and foundations, that are supposed to be serving our interests are deliberately violating, exploiting, endangering and assaulting us.
This video exposes electromagnetic radiation (EMR) as a major danger and violation to all current and future generations.
New Zealand Search & Surveillance Bill: Media Freedom & Independence Under Threat
March 10 2012 | From TheNationalBusinessReview
OPINION: Media freedoms are absolutely essential to the long-term health of any democracy. New Zealand is no exception.
The production order used by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) against the National Business Review demanded that NBR give up their records, including sources, of the NBR inquiry into the South Canterbury collapse.
That collapse caused hundreds of millions of dollars of cost to tax payers. The huge losses led to allegations of improper behaviour by South Canterbury Finance.
Serious questions were also raised about incompetence of the Government and its Ministry (the Treasury).
They allowed the size of that risk to grow by hundreds of millions after the Crown guarantee was granted, and rejected alternative ways of solving the problem which may have saved tens if not hundreds of millions.
Read the full story at TheNationalBusinessReview
CONFRIMED: Homeland Security Watches Alternative Media Websites, Twitter, Facebook and Social Media in General
February 18 2012 | From: InfoWars.com
In response to the InfoWars.com story detailed below we offer some indicative evidence. We are not a United States based website - this site is hosted in New Zealand - and we can confirm that we have had (what may only be an automated search robot) hits on this site from the United States Department of Homeland Security (Washington) which runs in concorance with the referenced story at InfoWars.com
This does say something about the corporate and government collectivist media, in terms of the nature of the content that alternative media news websites provide - and the interest of the aforementioned controlling establishment parties in watching their ever increasing competition.
It is little wonder that their machinations of intended control in the forms of SOPA, PIPA and ACTA prevail in terms of censoring and / or shutting down of the internet in whole or part as per the fascist Chinese model.
You can download our Google Analytics report which shows Department of Homeland Security hits on www.wakeupkiwi.com from the United States Government 'department' which is the subject of this piece.
Now, we may only be a relatively small factual media website located (fortunately) outside of the continental United States, but this does assist in illustrating a point.
"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document.
A "privacy compliance review" issued by DHS last November says that since at least June 2010, its national operations center has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" which involves regular monitoring of "publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards."
The purpose of the monitoring, says the government document, is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture."
Read the full story for reference here.
ACTA = Global Internet Censorship
– Now Even Foreign Governments Will Be Able To Have Your Website Shut Down
January 31st 2012 | From: EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Global Internet censorship is here. SOPA and PIPA have been stopped (at least for now) in the United States, but a treaty known as ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is far worse than either of them.
ACTA was quietly signed by Barack Obama back on October 1st, 2011 and most Americans have never even heard of it.
But it could mean the end of the Internet as we know it. This new treaty gives foreign governments and copyright owners incredibly broad powers. If you are alleged to have violated a copyright, your website can be shut down without a trial and police may even show up at your door to take you to prison.
It doesn't even have to be someone in the United States that is accusing you. It could just be a foreign government or a copyright owner halfway across the world that alleges that you have violated a copyright. It doesn't matter. So far, the U.S., the EU and seven other nations have signed on to ACTA, and the number of participants is expected to continue to grow.
The "powers that be" are obsessed with getting Internet censorship one way or another. The open and free Internet that you and I have been enjoying for all these years is about to change, and not for the better.
Read the full story at: EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Obama Signs NDAA Martial Law: While Americans Shopped, The Constitution Was Shredded
Obama is set to officially codify martial law. This is of course an elaboration on legistlation put into place both before and after the Patriot Act - which is itself identical to the Nazi Constitution.
From InfoWars.com
U.S. Says Americans Are MILITARY Targets in the War on Terror … And Says that Only the White House – and Not the Courts – Gets to Decide Who Is a Legitimate Target
American Citizens on U.S. Soil May be Indefinitely Detained, Sent to Guantanamo or Assassinated.
The debate also has left many Americans scratching their heads as to whether Congress is actually attempting to authorize the indefinite detention of Americans by the military without charges.
But that's not all.
The government can also kill American citizens. For more than a year and a half, the Obama administration has said it could target American citizens for assassination without any trial or due process.
Given that the same post-9/11 policies implemented in America have also been implemented in most other western countries, inclusing New Zealand and Australia, we will likely be subjected to these same laws unless we stand up for ourselves.
Read the full story at WashingtonsBlog.com
The 'Post-Democratic Society' Unolding by the Hour
From the David Icke Newsletter - 4th December 2011
We are witnesses to a bankers' coup on country after country in the biggest transfer of wealth and political power from people to a tiny elite in known human history. It began with the Illuminati-engineered collapse of the banking system in September 2008. This banking crisis became a government crisis when Illuminati-controlled governments bailed out the banks and became swamped in catastrophic levels of debt.
In came the Illuminati created-and-controlled IMF and European Central Bank to 'bail out' governments which included the insistence on austerity programmes for the population, selling off state assets to Illuminati corporations at knock-down prices and now increasingly appointing bankers to become unelected political leaders of allegedly 'democratic' countries.
'Coup' is the only word to describe it - 'a sudden appropriation of leadership or power; a takeover'.
The criminal that is Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, oversaw the collapse of European economies and now says that the only way to 'fight' the crisis is for a massive centralised superstate - exactly what the 'European project' was designed to be from the very start. Jean Monnet, the Rothschild frontman and 'Founding Father' of what has become the EU, wrote in a letter to a friend on 30th April, 1952 :
'Europe's nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation.'
That is precisely what has happened and is still happening.
Facebook IPO: United States Intelligence Operation?
From: TheDailyBell.com
Dominant Social Theme: This Facebook IPO is very exciting and shows that young people can create incredible value in a short period of time. Mark Zuckerberg is a genius.
Free-Market Analysis: No, we don't believe the hype. It's directed history, perhaps, not reality. Zuckerberg is in his later twenties. Did you ever meet anyone who'd built a US$100 billion company in a single decade, much less at a time when most young men and women are still deciding on career choices?
Facebook, from what we can tell, is a kind of false flag intended to gather huge numbers of users in an environment that will be – at least gently – pro-globalist. Or at least useful to the globalist agenda.
Why do we believe that Facebook is a kind of false flag? The biggest tip-off in our view is Facebook's astonishing popularity. It's simply another social networking site but it's one that's attracted nearly a billion users. Is it really so much better than other such facilities?
No ... the barriers-to-entry seem fairly modest to us. What probably differentiates Facebook from other such facilities is not its technology or brilliance but its backers.
When a company gets this big this fast it seems to us that there are always the powers-that-be lurking close by. In this case, Zuckerberg seems to us to have the requisite pedigree for someone that would be subject to elite cultivation.
We note a "big" movie has been made about his life. This, too, is a kind of red flag. When the elites are involved in a sizable promotion, one tool seems to be a Hollywood movie. Supposedly, Julian Assange – who also may function as a kind of false flag, in our view – is also getting a movie. He already has a book.
What's even less debatable than the evident hype surrounding Zuckerberg and Facebook is the reality of the facility's initial funding. There is almost no doubt – so far as we can tell, anyway – that the initial funding Facebook received was in part organized by US Intel.
Read the full story: TheDailyBell.com
If You Crack 9/11 You Can Stop The Wars, The Banksters, The Whole Lot
From AotearoaAWiderPerspective.com
10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free
From WashingtonPost.com
Addendum: Before you ask why this story is relevant to New Zealand, it is important to acknowledge that many of the freedom-infringing laws that have been passed in western countries around the world since the engineered events of 9/11 - have originated from United States legislation in a response to staged terror events.
Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.
Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?
While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don't operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of "free," but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.
Read more at WashingtonPost.com
The Great Internet Wars Have Begun
In the video below, we note that the massive protest this week against SOPA and PIPA should not merely be about government and corporate curtailment of freedom of expression on the internet.
It also crucial that it be about resistance against an all-out effort by the elite and their technocrats to turn the internet into an all-encompassing panopticon surveillance and control grid. Contrary to common belief, the internet was not built to be a networked computer system designed to withstand a nuclear war, but as a surveillance and control grid. It was not happenstance that the platform found its way into public use.
Read more at InfoWars.com
NDAA Is Washington's Totalitarian Response To Political Dissence & Economic Collapse
The NDAA, as with the Patriot Act - is legislation that is intended to be rolled out worldwide as part of the global police state control grid. Do not make the mistake of assuming such atrocities are intended only for the people of America.
"In 1789, France entered a period of revolutionary change which was to see the complete restructuring of the state, the collapse of the monarchy, and its replacement by a republic.
By 1793, France was riven by civil war and factional struggles and had also opened hostilities upon several neighbouring states. At home, political dissent and economic collapse were repressed by the use of political terror.
For many contemporaries, as for later historians, the connection between these events and the Enlightenment was highly problematic. How could an era which had seen so much struggle for the rational reform of society, government and the individual have ended with such turmoil and violence?"
– Dorinda Outram. The Enlightenment. 1995. Cambridge University Press. Pg. 126.
"All we have to do is remember who we are. We are not Germans. We're not peasants in China. We're not peasants in Russia.
We have a legacy and a history of fighting for liberty. Americans have always fought for liberty.
And we will fight again. So we will not be the Fourth Reich. We will not let that happen. Not without a fight."
- Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, speaking on the Alex Jones show on January 12, 2012.
"I spent many years in countries where the military had the power to arrest and detain citizens without charge. I have been in some of these jails. I have friends and colleagues who have "disappeared" into military gulags.
I know the consequences of granting sweeping and unrestricted policing power to the armed forces of any nation.
And while my battle may be quixotic, it is one that has to be fought if we are to have any hope of pulling this country
back from corporate fascism."
– Chris Hedges, "Why I'm Suing Barack Obama,"Truthdig, January 16, 2012.
National Defense Authorisation Act Is A Hoax: You Can't Legalize Tyranny
President Obama quietly waited weeks to sign the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) legislation on New Year's Eve after publicly threatening to veto the bill that, among other things, authorizes the indefinite detention of American citizens.
Obama's signing statement tries to reassure observers that he wouldn't use the "law" to detain citizens, but that is an illusion; his signing statement is meaningless, and the establishment occupying Washington have pulled a hoax on The People in violation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to enslave them.
Cell Phones Are Tracking Devices That Governments, Police, Big Corporations And Stalkers Can Use To Easily Track Your Movements
If you regularly carry a cell phone around with you, you might as well say goodbye to your privacy. The truth is that any cell phone you buy is going to track you wherever you go 24 hours a day.
Just as you leave "footprints" wherever you go on the Internet, so also your cell phone is constantly recording wherever you go in the physical world. Most people do not realize this, but the reality is that cell phones are tracking devices that governments, law enforcement authorities, big corporations and even stalkers can use to easily track your movements.
If you do not know about this yet, then you are going to be absolutely amazed by what you are about to read. See the full story at EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Senator Rand Paul Defends American Citizens Against Indefinite Detainment
From SenatorRandPaul