Google challenges U.S. gag order, citing First Amendment

The Washington Post 06.18.2013

Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government.

The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic.

Google, one of nine companies named in NSA documents as providing information to the top-secret PRISM program, has demanded that U.S. officials give it more leeway to describe the company's relationship with the government. Google and the other companies involved have sought to reassure users that their privacy is being protected from unwarranted intrusions.

In the petition, Google is seeking permission to publish the total numbers of requests the court makes of the company and the numbers of user accounts they affect. The company long has made regular reports with regard to other data demands from the U.S. government and from other governments worldwide.

find this story here

NASA picks 8 new astronauts, 4 of them women, to land on Asteroid

http://www.prophecyhour.com/2013/06/nasa-picks-8-new-astronauts-4-of-them.html

These Unresolved Ethical Questions Are About to Get Real

i09 06.17.2013

As our technologies take us from the theoretical to the practical, a number of thorny moral quandaries remain unanswered. Here are important unresolved ethical questions that are on the verge of becoming highly relevant.

Should people be allowed to clone themselves?

There’s currently a global moratorium on human cloning. But you just know that’s not going to last. Back in 2007, Korean researcher Hwang Woo-suk faked a human cloning breakthrough, and it’ll only be a matter of time before some renegade scientist actually does it. This year has already seen two major advancements in this area, including the use of cloning to create embryonic stem cells and a new technique where mammalian cloning lines can be extended and reproduced indefinitely.

Many people consider the act of human cloning to be an affront to our dignity and individuality. It’s also seen by some as an incredibly selfish and egotistical act. Others worry about the potential for clones to be exploited or abused. On the flip-side of the debate, supporters say there’s no harm done so long as the rights of clones are recognized.

A common argument in support is that clones are essentially delayed twins. And yet others say it’s a perfectly legitimate way to create biological offspring — that it’s a novel form of assisted human reproduction that could help same-sex or infertile couples reproduce.

Is it okay to introduce non-human DNA in our genome?

This branch of science is called transgenics — the intermingling of human and non-human genetic information. Scientists endow lab animals with bits of human DNA all the time, but the opposite most assuredly doesn’t happen. And in fact, it’s illegal virtually everywhere. Some worry about the creation of chimeras — creatures that are part-human and part-something-else. Supporters say that it could result in novel therapies.

 It’s possible, for example, that a non-human animal has a natural immunity to a disease. Wouldn’t we want to endow ourselves with this same immunity? More radically and speculatively, it’s also possible that more substantive animal characteristics could be introduced into humans (bird vision, dog hearing, dolphin fins, etc.). If so, what’s the harm? Would we diminish what it means to be human?

Should people be forced to die once indefinite lifespans are achieved?

The day will eventually come when the problem that is biological aging is finally solved. Needless to say, the advent of indefinite lifespans could result in some serious negative consequences, including overpopulation, the rise of a gerontocracy, widespread boredom and restlessness, and a de-valuing of life. And in fact, in consideration of these possibilities, political scientist Francis Fukuyama — back when he was serving on George W. Bush’s bioethics council — said that governments have the right to tell their citizens that they have to die. It would be a kind of Logan’s Run world.

Such a turn of events would be highly problematic, to say the least, and a complete affront to our civil rights (i.e. the right to medical treatment, the right to life, the right to self-determination etc.). So how are we going to deal with the prospect of indefinite lifespans once they start to emerge? And what about the right to end one’s life?

Should we have guaranteed universal income?

Within a few decades, the global economy could face a collapse the likes of which we've never seen. As robots replace manual workers, and as thought workers start to get replaced by artificial intelligence, unemployment rates could reach staggering levels. The concentration of wealth could become extremely atomized. It would be a disruption similar to the one caused by the Great Depression — an economic and social catastrophe that ushered in the modern welfare state.

Should this second Great Depression occur, there could be calls for a guaranteed universal income — a social policy that ensures everyone gets a steady paycheck to make sure basic needs are met. Of course, not everyone will be thrilled with this idea; a population dependant on the government — or more accurately, the forced distribution of wealth — certainly rubs conservative elements the wrong way.

 

full story here

Mega-Earthquake Forecasted To Hit British Columbia, Pacific Coast For First Time in 11,000 Years

ibtimes.com   06.13.2013

A historically large earthquake is scheduled to hit the Pacific Coast, according to a new study released this week. British Columbia is reportedly the area most at risk for what researchers are calling a “mega-earthquake,” also known as megathrust earthquake, a tremor that hasn’t hit the region in more than 11,000 years.

According to a study published Wednesday by the School of Environment and Sustainability at Royal Roads University in Victoria B.C., sea floor sediment samples removed off the coast of Vancouver Island confirmed claims that British Columbia is anticipated to experience a high-magnitude quake anytime within the next 700 years. The report, published by CBC News, stated findings that the last 9.0 magnitude mega-earthquake in the region occurred in 1700.

The author behind the study, University Assistant Professor Audrey Dallimore, said the last mega-earthquake occurred 313 years ago, calling the area overdue for another quake after sediment samples found the damaging phenomenons occur every 500 to 1,000 years. “[It] may happen within our lifetimes and will certainly happen at some point over the life of our communities and our infrastructures,” Dallimore said.

full story here

Another 1930s Dust Bowl Drought Possible This Century (Op-Ed)

Yahoo! News  06.17.2013

Drought has beset the Earth since before farming began. In developing nations, it brings suffering and death. In wealthier countries like the United States, it brings economic devastation when crops wither and die, and forests burn.

The United States continues to feel the aftereffects of the 2012 drought , the most severe and extensive in nearly half a century, during the hottest year on record. It affected about 80 percent of the nation's farmland, making it more widespread than any drought since the 1950s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The drought destroyed or damaged portions of major field crops in the Midwest — particularly, field corn and soybeans — causing hikes in farm prices and leading to other shortages in animal feed, including hay and grasses. Those price spikes, in turn, are prompting increases in the retail prices of beef, pork, poultry and dairy products.

More importantly, the threat posed by drought could become even greater as the planet heats up, especially in parts of the United States — and the world — that already are dry.

"Droughts are a normal part of the climate cycle that we should expect and plan for, but there will be more stress under increased temperatures,'' said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "The roller-coaster ride will just get rockier. Climate change will put some more double loops into that roller-coaster ride.''

Places with a wet season and a dry season generally will become wetter in the wet season and drier in the dry season, and areas that now tend to be dry most of the year likely will suffer more intense drought. This also will result in less water for drinking, less water for agriculture and less water for recreation.

Drought typically afflicts a third of the nation's counties each year, according to the USDA. In recent history, the United States has experienced a number of persistent droughts, including the notoriously famous Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The Southern Plains and the Southwest endured a serious drought in the 1950s, as did the entire West from 1998 until summer 2004. A merciless drought began in Texas in October 2010, continued throughout 2011 and still affects parts of the state.

To be sure, the 2012 drought was due, in part, to natural climate variability — in this case, the La Niña event that began in fall 2010. La Niña conditions change weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean and North America, steering storms north of where they usually occur, depriving the already-arid Southwest of much-needed rainfall. But the unrelenting hot temperatures made things worse.

"This drought wasn't unusually long, but it was unusually hot,'' said Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona. "That's what makes this a global-warming-style drought. It has much bigger impacts because it is a hot drought.''

Michael Wehner, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, conducted a study that used the Palmer Drought Severity Index to project future drought conditions in the United States. The Palmer index is one of several tools used to measure drought.

The findings indicated that "normal conditions in the United States by the end of the century would be the same as the 1930s Dust Bowl,'' Wehner said. "The risk of a Dust Bowl has increased, and will continue to increase, quite a bit over the course of the 21st century.''

full story here

Rand Paul: Your Taxes Fund Regimes That Kill Christians 'for Blasphemy Against Islam'

CNS News  06.17.2013

 

In a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference on Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he was angry over the fact that U.S. tax money is used to support foreign regimes where Christians are killed “for blasphemy against Islam,” and where “Muslims who convert to Christianity” are also put to death.

 

“It angers me to see my tax dollars supporting regimes that put Christians to death for blasphemy against Islam, countries that put to death Muslims who convert to Christianity, and countries who imprison anyone who marries outside their religion,” said Paul at the conference, held at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, D.C.

 

“There is a war on Christianity, not just from liberal elites here at home, but worldwide,” said Paul.  “And your government, or more correctly, you, the taxpayer, are funding it.

 

You are being taxed to send money to countries that are not only intolerant of Christians but openly hostile. Christians are imprisoned and threatened with death for their beliefs.”

Paul spent most of his speech talking about the persecution of Christians abroad and cited cases of gross injustice in Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt and Syria.

full story here

DARPA-Like IARPA Helps NSA Predict the Future Using Big Data

 The CIO Report - WSJ  06.17.213

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, a little-known U.S. government organization, is developing analytic programs for the National Security Agency that could make recent revelations about the NSA’s activities look antiquated by comparison. Rather than reviewing archival data, it may use current data to predict the future. 
IARPA is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which develops new technology for the military. “IARPA does for NSA what DARPA does for the military,” said James A. Lewis, director and senior fellow of the technology and public policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

 “A lot of their programs are black,” he told CIO Journal, meaning that they’re classified and funded from a classified budget. 

Certain of its programs are not classified. One such program is Open Source Indicators, which reviews a range of publicly available sources, such as Tweets, Web queries, oil prices and daily stock market activity, to gauge the likelihood of certain “significant societal events,” according to a program announcement posted on FedBizOpps.gov.

 The goal of the program is to develop continuously automated systems that use information from these sources to predict when and where a disease outbreak, riot, political crisis or mass violence might occur. Currently, the project is focusing on events in Latin America. IARPA did not respond to requests for comment. 

It may sound like a far-fetched idea, but already that project has correctly predicted events, days in advance. For example, researchers were able to accurately forecast sudden protests that occurred in Paraguay when the president was impeached, said Naren Ramakrishnan, the Thomas L. Phillips Professor of Engineering at Virginia Tech.  

The project was also able to accurately predict a Hantavirus outbreak in Argentina last year, said Mr. Ramakrishnan. The team is trying to find which pieces of data most accurately forecast an outbreak.

For example, project team members are looking at the numbers of cars parked in hospital parking lots from satellite images and trying to figure out if an increased number of cars in the parking lot can be an early indication of an increase in disease outbreak, he said.

Mr. Ramakrishnan says his researchers are trying to preserve individual privacy as they create their algorithms to mine this data. “In the case of civil unrest, we haven’t come to the point of modeling government opposition groups,” he said. His group is trying to predict when and where a protest might occur, but not the individuals who are participating in that protest. But Mr. Ramakrishnan acknowledges that somebody could potentially use this information in ways that are not intended. 
full story here

NASA picks 8 new astronauts, 4 of them women, to land on Asteroid

 New York News | NYC Breaking News  06.17.2013

 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has eight new astronauts — its first new batch in four years.

The space agency announced its newest astronaut class Monday. Among the lucky candidates: the first female fighter pilot to become an astronaut in nearly two decades. A female helicopter pilot also is in the group. In fact, four of the eight are women, the highest percentage of female astronaut candidates ever selected by NASA.

The eight were chosen from more than 6,000 applications, the second largest number ever received. They will report for duty in August at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says these new candidates will help lead the first human mission to an asteroid, and then Mars.

 

full story here

State photo-ID databases become troves for police

The Washington Post  06.17.2013

 

The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations.

The facial databases have grown rapidly in recent years and generally operate with few legal safeguards beyond the requirement that searches are conducted for “law enforcement purposes.” Amid rising concern about the National Security Agency’s high-tech surveillance aimed at foreigners, it is these state-level facial-recognition programs that more typically involve American citizens.

The most widely used systems were honed on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq as soldiers sought to identify insurgents. The increasingly widespread deployment of the technology in the United States has helped police find murderers, bank robbers and drug dealers, many of whom leave behind images on surveillance videos or social-media sites that can be compared against official photo databases.

But law enforcement use of such facial searches is blurring the traditional boundaries between criminal and non-criminal databases, putting images of people never arrested in what amount to perpetual digital lineups. The most advanced systems allow police to run searches from laptop computers in their patrol cars and offer access to the FBI and other federal authorities.

 

the full story here

Obamacare will share personal health info with federal, state agencies

WashingtonExaminer.com   06.17.2013

 

 A new 253-page Obamacare rule issued late Friday requires state, federal and local agencies as well as health insurers to swap the protected personal health information of anybody seeking to join the new health care program that will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service.

Protected health information, or PHI, is highly protected under federal law, but the latest ruling from the Department of Health and Human Services allows agencies to trade the information to verify that Obamacare applicants are getting the minimum amount of health insurance coverage they need from the health "exchanges."

The ruling, explained on pages 72-73 of the book-thick guidance, does not mention any requirement that applicants first OK the release of their PHI. HHS already allows some exchange of PHI without an individual's pre-approval, especially when for a "government program providing public benefits." Officials said the swapping of information is simply meant to help figure the best insurance coverge of Obamacare users.

The new ruling surprised some congressional critics. "This sounds as if HHS will have access to protected health info to me," said one top Hill aide worried about how well the administration will protect that information.

Conservative groups including Americans for Tax Reform have raised questions about the release of PHI in the aftermath of the IRS scandal.

PHI includes an individual's medical history, test and laboratory results, insurance information and other data.

full story here

Glenn Beck Discusses DHS Insider "It's About To Get Ugly!"

 The Hagmann And Hagmann Report  06.17.2013

 

Written by The Producer of The Hagmann and Hagmann Report.

On Monday of this week, June 10, 2013, Glenn Beck broke this story on his own syndicated radio show, "Its about to get ugly!" We have edited the clip down to only 4 minutes and 6 seconds so all of you can hear what he said on his show.

Doug Hagmann with the Canadian Free Press explained his encounter with a DHS insider:

"If anyone thinks that what's going on right now with all of this surveillance of American citizens is to fight some sort of foreign enemy, they're delusional. If people think that this 'scandal' can't get any worse, it will, hour by hour, day by day. This has the ability to bring down our national leadership, the administration and other senior elected officials working in collusion with this administration, both Republican and Democrats. People within the NSA, the Department of Justice, and others, they know who they are, need to come forth with the documentation of 'policy and practice' in their possession, disclose what they know, fight what's going on, and just do their job. I have never seen anything like this, ever. The present administration is going after leakers, media sources, anyone and everyone who is even suspected of 'betrayal.' That's what they call it, 'betrayal.' Can you believe the size of their cahones? This administration considers anyone telling the truth about Benghazi, the IRS, hell, you name the issue, 'betrayal,'" he said.

"We know all this already," I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I've never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. "You don't know jack," he said, "this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine. This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you're not working for MSNBC or CNN, you're probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you're on that list. It's a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list," he stated.

After reading this story, Glenn forwarded it on to TheBlaze news team to verify it and see how it matched up with the information they were getting from their sources. What he received in response from the team at TheBlaze was one of the most chilling things he has ever read.

"I found that and I sent that immediately to my global information desk in New York," Glenn said. "And this is the responsive: Glenn, I can't tell you about this source or this story, but I can tell you this: One, our sources have been increasingly afraid and have insisted in some cases on similar clandestine arrangements to deliver information."

"Two, they have avoided all e‑mails, cellphones from the get‑go and that is becoming even more the case of late," he continued, "They have reported increased security and scrutiny on their jobs, along with warnings of what happens 'to those that commit treason'."

"Three, they are uniformly panicked and they feel what info they have has got to get out to be broadcast to the broadest possible group as quickly as possible. They are growing very frustrated by the lack of response from the American people and are becoming increasingly bold. See the Guardian and WaPo leaks.They have a fear that they are about to be shut down."

"Four, many know far more than they have shared and they are trying to figure out ways, as are we, to insulate them so the information can be revealed."

Glenn asked for the prayers and support of the audience, warning that things were only going to get harder from here.

 

 

 

full story and more here

The government is watching you

McClatchy   06.13.2013

What you spend. Where you eat. Who you call. Where you travel. What you Google. What you give to charity.

Recent reports of government access to records from phone companies, Internet providers and credit card companies raise anew questions of just how much other people can know about you, especially in the age of the Internet and high technology.


They watch from the air, from cameras, from computers. And you help them, volunteering vast amounts of information about yourself in the magnetic stripe on the back of your credit card, the SIM card in your phone, the sites you visit on the Internet.

The government has access to some of it. And might have access to more from the vast corporations that compile it.

 

full story here

WAR? U.S.: Syria used chemical weapons, crossing "red line"

CBS News  06.13.2013

The Obama administration has concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad's government used chemical weapons against the rebels seeking to overthrow him and, in a major policy shift, President Obama has decided to supply military support to the rebels, the White House announced Thursday.

"The president has made a decision about providing more support to the opposition that will involve providing direct support to the [Supreme Military Council]. That includes military support," Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes told reporters.

President Obama has repeatedly said that the use of chemical weapons is a "red line" that, if crossed, would be a "game changer" for more U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war. 

"The President has been clear that the use of chemical weapons - or the transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups - is a red line for the United States," said Rhodes in a separate written statement. "The President has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has," he continued.

full story here

Obama Admin Considers Resettling Thousands of Syrian Refugees in U.S.

Breitbart.com    06.13.2013

The Obama administration is considering resettling thousands of refugees who left Syria during the country's ongoing civil war to multiple towns and cities across the United States, the L.A. Times reports.

A resettlement plan under discussion in Washington and other capitals is aimed at relieving pressure on Middle Eastern countries straining to support 1.6 million refugees, as well as assisting hard-hit Syrian families.

The State Department is "ready to consider the idea," an official from the department said, if the administration receives a formal request from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, which is the usual procedure.

The United States usually accepts about half the refugees that the U.N. agency proposes for resettlement. California has historically taken the largest share, but Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia are also popular destinations.

U.N. refugee officials, along with diplomats and non-governmental relief groups, are scheduled to meet in Geneva this week to discuss potential resettlement plans. Germany has already agreed to take 5,000 refugees. 

"It was probably inevitable that in this crisis, with these overwhelming numbers, governments would start moving in this direction," Lavinia Limon, chief executive officer of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a Virginia-based advocacy and service group, told the L.A. Times. Limon added, "But there will be resistance."

(MY QUESTION IS WILL IT BE THE CHRISTAINS HE BRINGS IN OR THE MOSLIMS? PD)

full story here

Report: Syrian rebels executed a 14-year-old boy for insulting Islam

The Washington Post  June 11, 2013

When a 14-year-old boy from the Syrian city of Aleppo named Mohammad Qatta was asked to bring one of his customers some coffee, he reportedly refused, saying, “Even if [Prophet] Mohammed comes back to life, I won’t.”

According to a story reported by two grassroots Syrian opposition groups, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Aleppo Media Center, Qatta’s words got him killed. A group of Islamist rebels, driving by in a black car, reportedly heard the exchange. They stopped the car, grabbed the boy and took him away.

Qatta, in refusing to serve a customer coffee – it’s not clear why – had used a phrase that the Islamist rebels took as an insult toward the Prophet Mohammed, the most important figure in Islam. That offhand comment, made by a boy, was apparently enough for these rebels to warrant a grisly execution and public warning.

The rebels, according to ABC News’ reconstruction of the Syrian groups’ reports, appear to have whipped Qatta. When they brought him back to where they’d taken him, his head was wrapped by a shirt.

The rebels waited for a crowd to gather; Qatta’s parents were among them. Speaking in classical Arabic, they announced that Qatta had committed blasphemy and that anyone else who dared insult the Prophet Mohammed would share his fate.

Then, the shirt still wrapped around the boy’s head, the rebels shot him in the mouth and neck.

full story here

Syrian rebels pledge loyalty to al-Qaeda

USA Today 06.13.2013

 

A Syrian rebel group's pledge of allegiance to al-Qaeda's replacement for Osama bin Laden suggests that the terrorist group's influence is not waning and that it may take a greater role in the Western-backed fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The pledge of allegiance by Syrian Jabhat al Nusra Front chief Abou Mohamad al-Joulani to al-Qaeda leader Sheik Ayman al-Zawahri was coupled with an announcement by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq, that it would work with al Nusra as well.

Lebanese Sheik Omar Bakri, a Salafist who says states must be governed by Muslim religious law, says al-Qaeda has assisted al Nusra for some time.

"They provided them early on with technical, military and financial support , especially when it came to setting up networks of foreign jihadis who were brought into Syria," Bakri says. "There will certainly be greater coordination between the two groups."

The United States, which supports the overthrow of Assad, designated al Nusra a terrorist entity in December. The Obama administration has said it wants to support only those insurgent groups that are not terrorist organizations.

 

full story here

End Time Radio - NSA GOING AFTER AMERICANS

http://branch.podomatic.com/entry/index/2013-06-13T18_55_19-07_00

NSA GOING AFTER AMERICANS

June 13, 2013 06:55 PM PDT

NSA GOING AFTER AMERICANS
Katie Deolloz
www.StartPage.com
Katie is a wife, homeschooling mom, and former roller derby skater! She has a passion for speaking Truth, promoting justice, and is unafraid to engage in discussions about the tough issues of our day.
Katie is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin and is currently planning her next trip to India.
She has worked with Dr. Katherine Albrecht on many projects such as
www.StartPage.com , www.KatherineAlbrecht.com , www.AntiChips.com ,
www.ChipMeNot.com www.ChipFreeSchools.com
Tonight we talked about NSA, Privacy, and StartPage.com a non tracking search engine that does not mine your records. I am currently now using startpage myself.
“Remember we do not 100% agree with everything our guests, say, do, or believe. It is up to you to pray and sort it out!”
Another do not Miss End-Time Radio program as
“We are Warning the World as it HAPPENS!”
Please visit
www.prophecyhour.com
also please visit
www.wichitahomeless.com

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The Real Natioanl Dept..Try $106 trillion, the medium estimate

National Review   06.13.2013

 

 At his March dinner at the Jefferson Hotel with a small group of Senate Republicans, President Obama made something of an admission.

“The problem you have reforming Medicare is that for every dollar Americans pay into the system, they’re going to get three dollars out in benefits. Americans don’t understand that,” Obama said, citing a study from the Urban Institute. 

“You’re right about Medicare. We’ve been quoting that exact same study,” Senator Ron Johnson responded, according to attendees. “We’re pretty small little voices compared to your platform. It would be enormously helpful if you use that bully pulpit and start telling the American people the truth.” 

Three months later, Johnson and his fellow Senate Republicans are working with top White House officials to define how big the entitlement problem really is. Their proposal is to agree on the size of the problem before tackling the reforms that would solve it. 

White House chief of staff Dennis McDonough, congressional liaison Rob Nabors, and other Obama officials came into the initial meetings on the Hill reiterating the president’s position that $4 trillion in deficit reduction would basically solve the problem for now.

But according to GOP deficit projections subsequently prepared by Johnson and obtained by National Review Online, the true size of the problem is staggering, and surprised even many of the seasoned budget negotiators involved.

$4 trillion? Try $106 trillion, the medium estimate. That’s $106,954,000,000,000. Even the lowest, extremely conservative estimate comes in at $72 trillion; the highest is over $120 trillion. 

The amounts are so large that some controversial reforms appear inconsequential in comparison. Take Obama’s “chained CPI” proposal: it would save an estimated $89 billion over ten years, or 1.3 percent of the total deficit over those same ten years.

 

 

full story here

PRISM targets worldwide communications

WND 013.2013

WASHINGTON — It is a top-secret data-mining program that “connects the dots” for terrorism detection and helps determine patterns for the U.S. intelligence community to access multiple digital data gateways – including data from other nations.

It is called PRISM, until now a clandestine national security electronic surveillance program operated by the National Security Agency, sometimes referred to as “No Such Agency.”

PRISM stands for “protect, respond, inform, secure and monitor.”

This highly secretive program offers the U.S. intelligence community a major information-gathering capability, since most of the world’s communications flow through the United States.

Based on leaked PRISM documents with the classification of top secret/SI/ORCON/NORFORN viewed by WND, the flow of most communications through the U.S. allows NSA to target phone calls, emails and text messages by the cheapest path and not physically the most direct route.

The documents reveal the bulk of the world’s communications move through companies based in the U.S., most of the electronic data flowing through bulk taps in switches at Verizon and AT&T.

As the documents state, “Your target’s communications could easily be flowing into and through the U.S.,” indicating foreign communications as well as domestic.

In addition to top secret, the other initialed designations are: ORCON – information controlled by originator; SI – meaning communications intelligence at the top secret Umbra level; and NORFORN – not for foreign disclosure.

Another highly classified PRISM document viewed by WND shows that the current providers from which NSA acquires data electronically are Microsoft (Hotmail, etc), Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype and Apple.

Separately, LinkedIn and Twitter also are included in this information gathering.

There supposedly is enough data to store a yottabyte of data – in other words, enough to store all the electronic communications of everyone for the next 100 years.

Classified PowerPoint slides on the PRISM program reveal what the intelligence collectors will obtain through electronic surveillance and stored communications. They include e-mails; chat – video and voice; videos; photos; stored data; voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP; file transfers; video conferencing; notifications of target activity such as logins, etc; online social networking details; and “special requests.”

It is a super-secret system that originally was designed to capture data on foreign nationals who use telephones, emails and other electronic means of communicating to determine patterns of a possible terrorist threat to the security of the United States.

But recent revelations have shown that PRISM is much more – it’s also acquiring data from telephone calls, emails and other electronic transactions on Americans – all Americans – without the benefit of a search warrant or even a basis to suspect that a U.S. citizen may be involved in potential terrorist activities.

 

full story here

'The Republic is at stake'

WND 06.13.2013

 

WASHINGTON — Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has two dire warnings for America in an exclusive interview with WND.
* Don’t count on the House to stop amnesty.
* And, if amnesty passes it will end our constitutional republic as we know it.

Bachmann says she doesn’t want to sound alarmist but when you boil it down, that is what is really at stake.
She says there is one solution — only a grassroots effort can stop President Obama’s plan to fundamentally transform America.

So, she is issuing a call to arms to all WND readers and all Americans, contact your representatives in Congress to stop amnesty before it is too late.
Bachmann explained, step by step, how a bill she believes conservatives should naturally oppose easily could be approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

“The Senate is going to pass a very bad bill. The House will pass what will sound like a pretty good bill. But I’m just here to tell you, it’s a Trojan horse.”

The lawmaker said the bill will say “We’re going to secure the borders,” so all the Republicans will vote for this bill. Then the bill will go to a conference committee where it will undergo a dramatic change.

“The good guts of the Trojan horse bill will be pulled out. The very bad amnesty provisions will be put in the bill. The bill will go to the House floor and it won’t be Republicans that pass it.

“It’ll be Nancy Pelosi leading all the House Democrats to vote for it, and just enough Republicans will vote for the bill and you’ll have amnesty,” predicted Bachmann.
She said that’s been the strategy behind the scenes all along.

“I think the master plan of the ruling class that runs Washington, D.C., is to ram this bill through before the American people know what has hit them, and before members of Congress even know what has hit them.” Bachamnn said there is only one person who can stop the master plan and that person is “you.”

 

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