Mexico to track migrations with electronic chip

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico is going high tech to better track the movements of Central Americans who regularly cross the southern border to work or visit.

Starting in March, the National Immigration Institute will distribute cards containing electronic chips.

Those items will record every arrival and departure of so-called temporary workers and visitors, mostly from Guatemala.

The cards will replace a non-electronic pass formerly given to area residents.

Officials say the purpose is to guarantee security for workers and visitors.

Statistics from the institute show that more than 182,000 undocumented migrants were detained in Mexico in 2006. Most were Central Americans from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador en route to the U.S.

KGBT 4 - TV Harlingen, TX: Mexico to track migrations with electronic chip

New super-cameras mean no hiding for drivers who smoke, eat or use a phone

Digital speed cameras which capture drivers smoking or eating at the wheel are being introduced nationwide in a new move to hammer motorists.

Drivers will also face fines, bans and even jail for infringements such as driving without a seatbelt, using a hand-held mobile phone or overtaking across double white lines.

The hi-tech DVD cameras, which have instant playback, will also be used to provide photographic evidence against those eating sandwiches or rolling-up cigarettes at the wheel....raed more

In Lies We Trust: The CIA, Hollywood and Bioterrorism

Dr. Horowitz generously donated this life-saving DVD for widespread free public distribution without copyright restrictions. Every American ... all » should watch this film to prepare for forced injections, mass quarantines, and official predictions of disasters.

This full version was built by The Kick Them All Out Project: http://www.KickThemAllOut.com from the 16 pieces posted on YouTube so you can watch the entire film in one piece. After watching this film, please join the revolution at the Kick Them All Out Project and help put an end to this insanity once and for all by taking control of our government away from these megalomaniacs!

FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

"Bigger. Faster. Better. That's the bottom line," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which operates the database from its headquarters in the Appalachian foothills.

The increasing use of biometrics for identification is raising questions about the ability of Americans to avoid unwanted scrutiny. It is drawing criticism from those who worry that people's bodies will become de facto national identification cards. Critics say that such government initiatives should not proceed without proof that the technology really can pick a criminal out of a crowd.

The use of biometric data is increasing throughout the government. For the past two years, the Defense Department has been storing in a database images of fingerprints, irises and faces of more than 1.5 million Iraqi and Afghan detainees, Iraqi citizens and foreigners who need access to U.S. military bases. The Pentagon also collects DNA samples from some Iraqi detainees, which are stored separately.

The Department of Homeland Security has been using iris scans at some airports to verify the identity of travelers who have passed background checks and who want to move through lines quickly. The department is also looking to apply iris- and face-recognition techniques to other programs. The DHS already has a database of millions of sets of fingerprints, which includes records collected from U.S. and foreign travelers stopped at borders for criminal violations, from U.S. citizens adopting children overseas, and from visa applicants abroad. There could be multiple records of one person's prints.

"It's going to be an essential component of tracking," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's enabling the Always On Surveillance Society."

If successful, the system planned by the FBI, called Next Generation Identification, will collect a wide variety of biometric information in one place for identification and forensic purposes.

In an underground facility the size of two football fields, a request reaches an FBI server every second from somewhere in the United States or Canada, comparing a set of digital fingerprints against the FBI's database of 55 million sets of electronic fingerprints. A possible match is made -- or ruled out--as many as 100,000 times a day.

Soon, the server at CJIS headquarters will also compare palm prints and, eventually, iris images and face-shape data such as the shape of an earlobe. If all goes as planned, a police officer making a traffic stop or a border agent at an airport could run a 10-fingerprint check on a suspect and within seconds know if the person is on a database of the most wanted criminals and terrorists. An analyst could take palm prints lifted from a crime scene and run them against the expanded database. Intelligence agents could exchange biometric information worldwide.

More than 55 percent of the search requests now are made for background checks on civilians in sensitive positions in the federal government, and jobs that involve children and the elderly, Bush said. Currently those prints are destroyed or returned when the checks are completed. But the FBI is planning a "rap-back" service, under which employers could ask the FBI to keep employees' fingerprints in the database, subject to state privacy laws, so that if that employees are ever arrested or charged with a crime, the employers would be notified.

Advocates say bringing together information from a wide variety of sources and making it available to multiple agencies increases the chances to catch criminals. The Pentagon has already matched several Iraqi suspects against the FBI's criminal fingerprint database. The FBI intends to make both criminal and civilian data available to authorized users, officials said. There are 900,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers who can query the fingerprint database today, they said.

The FBI's biometric database, which includes criminal history records, communicates with the Terrorist Screening Center's database of suspects and the National Crime Information Center database, which is the FBI's master criminal database of felons, fugitives and terrorism suspects.

The FBI is building its system according to standards shared by Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

At the West Virginia University Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR), 45 minutes north of the FBI's biometric facility in Clarksburg, researchers are working on capturing images of people's irises at distances of up to 15 feet, and of faces from as far away as 200 yards. Soon, those researchers will do biometric research for the FBI.

Covert iris- and face-image capture is several years away, but it is of great interest to government agencies.

Think of a Navy ship approaching a foreign vessel, said Bojan Cukic, CITeR's co-director. "It would help to know before you go on board whether the people on that ship that you can image from a distance, whether they are foreign warfighters, and run them against a database of known or suspected terrorists," he said.

Skeptics say that such projects are proceeding before there is evidence that they reliably match suspects against a huge database.

In the world's first large-scale, scientific study on how well face recognition works in a crowd, the German government this year found that the technology, while promising, was not yet effective enough to allow its use by police. The study was conducted from October 2006 through January at a train station in Mainz, Germany, which draws 23,000 passengers daily. The study found that the technology was able to match travelers' faces against a database of volunteers more than 60 percent of the time during the day, when the lighting was best. But the rate fell to 10 to 20 percent at night.

To achieve those rates, the German police agency said it would tolerate a false positive rate of 0.1 percent, or the erroneous identification of 23 people a day. In real life, those 23 people would be subjected to further screening measures, the report said.

Accuracy improves as techniques are combined, said Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's biometric services section chief. The Next Generation database is intended to "fuse" fingerprint, face, iris and palm matching capabilities by 2013, she said.

To safeguard privacy, audit trails are kept on everyone who has access to a record in the fingerprint database, Del Greco said. People may request copies of their records, and the FBI audits all agencies that have access to the database every three years, she said.

"We have very stringent laws that control who can go in there and to secure the data," Bush said.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the ability to share data across systems is problematic. "You're giving the federal government access to an extraordinary amount of information linked to biometric identifiers that is becoming increasingly inaccurate," he said.

In 2004, the Electronic Privacy Information Center objected to the FBI's exemption of the National Crime Information Center database from the Privacy Act requirement that records be accurate. The group noted that the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2001 found that information in the system was "not fully reliable" and that files "may be incomplete or inaccurate." FBI officials justified that exemption by claiming that in law enforcement data collection, "it is impossible to determine in advance what information is accurate, relevant, timely and complete."

Privacy advocates worry about the ability of people to correct false information. "Unlike say, a credit card number, biometric data is forever," said Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley technology forecaster. He said he feared that the FBI, whose computer technology record has been marred by expensive failures, could not guarantee the data's security. "If someone steals and spoofs your iris image, you can't just get a new eyeball," Saffo said.

In the future, said CITeR director Lawrence A. Hornak, devices will be able to "recognize us and adapt to us."

"The long-term goal," Hornak said, is "ubiquitous use" of biometrics. A traveler may walk down an airport corridor and allow his face and iris images to be captured without ever stepping up to a kiosk and looking into a camera, he said.

"That's the key," he said. "You've chosen it. You have chosen to say, 'Yeah, I want this place to recognize me.' "FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics

AT&T Offers Schools RFID Tracking For People And Assets -- Radio-Frequency Identification

The product helps schools keep track of equipment, as well as students, visitors, and staff, using radio ID tags combined with GPS-based resource management services.

By Elena Malykhina
InformationWeek
December 12, 2007 04:50 PM

AT&T (NYSE: T) on Wednesday began providing radio-frequency identification and GPS-based products and services that schools can use to track students, assets, visitors, and their staff.

AT&T's RFID application is designed to work in conjunction with GPS-based mobile resource management services, as well as the carrier's wireless data network and hosted applications.

With AT&T's offering, schools can track people or assets by placing Wi-Fi-based RFID tags on ID badges attached to equipment, bracelets, shirt pockets, or book bags. The mobile resource management system would then relay the location of the tagged person or asset over AT&T's wireless data network to a secure Web site portal. The data would be accessible by authorized personnel that have access to a Web browser.

Through the use of active RFID, meaning tags that send out a signal to broadcast their location, schools can potentially minimize theft of high-value equipment and assets like computers and lab equipment. It would also make it easier to locate mobile equipment in a large building, such as a school, said AT&T.

Supplying students with RFID badges would help with daily attendance in schools and help the staff identify students who are absent by importing information in the student-information databases. The same could be applied to school visitors, especially to prevent them from entering unauthorized areas.

AT&T also said its system could aid in emergency situations, helping locate school staff to make sure that nobody is left in the building if evacuation were necessary.

One other application is the tracking of school buses to ensure student safety and help school districts route buses more efficiently. In this case, RFID readers and tracking devices would be placed on the buses to get location data.

AT&T would design, deploy, and manage the mobile devices and applications, the network, and data centers, in addition to the infrastructure that includes RFID readers, tags, data-collection servers, LANs, wireless LANs, firewalls, and routers.

AT&T Offers Schools RFID Tracking For People And Assets -- Radio-Frequency Identification

All school pupils to get a behaviour mentor |

The government will today promise every pupil a dedicated tutor to support them through their secondary schooling and act as a personal contact point for parents who are worried about their child's progress.

Pupils will be assigned one member of the school staff to act as behaviour mentor and to meet their parents, to allow swift action should their grades begin to slide.

Parent-run school councils and a national parent panel to advise ministers on policy will be established under plans that ministers said should redraw the boundaries between home and school for the 21st century....read more

Baby tax needed to save planet, claims expert

A WEST Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus "baby levy" at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.

Writing in today's Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and "greenhouse-friendly" services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

And he implied the Federal Government should ditch the $4133 baby bonus and consider population controls like those in China and India.

Professor Walters said the average annual carbon dioxide emission by an Australian individual was about 17 metric tons, including energy use.

"Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society," he wrote.

"Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour, a 'baby levy' in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the 'polluter pays' principle."

Australian Family Association spokeswoman Angela Conway said it was ridiculous to blame babies for global warming.

"I think self-important professors with silly ideas should have to pay carbon tax for all the hot air they create," she said. "There's masses of evidence to say that child-rich families have much lower resource consumption per head than other styles of households.

But the plan won praise from high-profile doctor Garry Egger. "One must wonder why population control is spoken of today only in whispers," he wrote in an MJA response article
Baby tax needed to save planet, claims expert | NEWS.com.au

Elderly set free, but children shackled

Here's an eye-catching initiative for you: the Government wants to nationalise the child-rearing business. Not for nothing was the old ministry for education renamed the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Clearly, its scope is going to extend far outside the classroom. Its Secretary of State, the chief Brownite Ed Balls, having lost confidence in the private sector distribution of discipline, psychological stability and social behaviour, is to bring the free market in domestic responsibility under centralised supervision.

According to the advance leaks, tomorrow's announcement of the Brave New Childhood will be what they call far-reaching: it will reach right into the living rooms of every household that the ministry believes to be failing the nation.

It isn't just schools that will have targets now: the performance of parents will be monitored and assessed on detailed goals for their children's achievement set by Whitehall.

Children from "disadvantaged" (euphemism for delinquent) homes may be whipped away to state nurseries as young as two, presumably in order to remove them forcibly from the influence of their useless families.

And parents who do not demonstrate sufficient "engagement" with their child's academic performance will be... well, we haven't heard all the details yet.

Bizarrely, this Orwellian package of state-monopoly child production is being announced at the same time as a quite antithetical new approach to the way elderly people are to be treated by the Government.

From next April, it seems that old people are to be given quite unprecedented freedom to spend the care allowances which are provided for them as they see fit, rather than as social workers believe is best for them.

If this plan turns out to be as radical as it is cracked up to be - always an open question with this Government - it will be a genuine step away from the most pernicious aspects of welfare dependency: passivity and the loss of self-determination.

According to advance reports, old people are to be given the money, the actual money, to which they are entitled, and permitted to use it to purchase more or less food or nursing or cleaning help if and when they want.

They will be free to choose their home helps and carers and to decide the priorities of their domestic lives. Imagine that. Grown-ups being able to decide for themselves who is to help them and how much care they require.

Of course, they may occasionally make eccentric or unwise choices, as adults - especially elderly ones - sometimes do. They may even be prey to grasping relatives if they are in possession of cash rather than simply on the receiving end of administrative judgments.

But that is a risk that needs to be taken, says the Blairite Health Secretary Alan Johnson, if older people who wish to live independently, but need some assistance to do it, are to be given the control over their own lives which they have a right to expect.

Sounding for all the world like a Tory think-tank report or, dare I say it, a commentator on this newspaper, Mr Johnson hails this move as a "radical transfer of power from the state to the public".

Everyone, he says, has the right to "self-determination and maximum control over their own lives".

Except parents, apparently - since Mr Johnson's colleague over at the Department for Interfering in Family Life is busily laying out his blueprint for 24/7 surveillance of parenting techniques and a kind of Maoist re-education programme for families who do not subscribe to the official view of what is good for them and for society. Some contradiction here, surely?

No coincidence, of course, that these two distinct and contradictory philosophical tendencies are emanating respectively from the most high-profile Brownite and Blairite exponents in the Cabinet.

While Mr Balls is constructing more Brownian mechanisms of central control over his area of social policy, Mr Johnson is beavering away at dismantling overweening state controls in his.

I think we have a right to ask where this Government thinks it is going. Are we still in the (Blairite) business of reforming public services and welfare programmes to give more power to people over their individual conditions?

Or are we heading for a galvanised (Brownite) commitment to the belief that the state can and should intervene in every aspect of national life which is thought to be unsatisfactory?

Does Mr Balls (as we might be inclined to think) bear the true imprimatur of his Prime Minister which Mr Johnson is mischievously subverting in the name of the ancien régime? Or is Mr Brown simply trying to have it all ways up by having one of his ministers enunciate Tory rhetoric while the other plays to the Labour centralising lobby?

Now let me do the Government official spokesman's job here for a moment and try to put a credible rationale on this apparently schizophrenic pair of announcements. A plausible account of this difference in approach might go something like this: children are different from grown-ups (even elderly and infirm ones).

Adults have a right to be responsible for their own fate - even if they are inclined to make mistakes and take risks - but the responsibility for children must be taken by others. If parents are incapable or unwilling to carry out that responsibility conscientiously, then the society as a whole - in the person of the mandated government - must step in.

The consequences of not doing so in terms of criminality, anti-social behaviour and waste of human potential are too great, and children themselves too vulnerable, for us to ignore.

Yes, that sounds persuasive - until we try to agree on the detail. Is it a failure of parenting not to put pressure on a child to complete academic exams, or aim for higher education? If so, a lot of working-class parents in the post-war period would have been penalised.

Is it criminally negligent to allow adolescents to bunk off school and roam free at night? Possibly - but there used to be far greater police vigilance to support parents in the difficult business of supervising the young.

Arguably, if the state - in the form of its schooling and criminal justice systems - had not fallen down in its traditional duties to uphold standards of social behaviour, there would not be so many parents left hopelessly adrift.

And if the state did not respond to this vacuum which its own "progressive" attitudes have created by taking on more responsibilities that should belong to self-respecting grown-ups and communities, it might not find itself facing in two directions at once.

Elderly set free, but children shackled - Telegraph

RFID technology to precisely identify objects carrying a small tag from as far as 600 feet away

Can't find your wallet or keychain, your dog decided to disappear just when you need to go out? The British company Loc8tor thinks it has just the right solution for you – a small gadget which uses RFID technology to precisely identify objects carrying a small tag from as far as 183 meters (600 feet) away.

The Loc8tor is a small 11.0cm (4.3”) high x 5.3cm (2.1”) wide x 1.6cm (0.6”) deep handheld device which can locate up to 24 (and soon up to 6000) tags with a claimed precision of 2.5cm (1”). The device uses RFID 2.45GHz ISM frequency band and can locate objects behind walls and other obstacles (with reduced range). The Loc8tor can specifically identify each tag which can be given a name (for instance "wallet" or "Snoopy"). The tags are minute and operate via active RFID and so require LR54 batteries (used primarily in watches). The Loc8tor itself uses 2XAAA batteries and has an indicator for showing when batteries on each tag or the device itself should need to be replaced. The Loc8tor displays the general direction of where a specific tag is located accompanied by a high pitch sound (up to 90dB) which gets stronger as you get closer and closer to the tag. The Loc8tor can also tell if the tag is located higher or lower than your current position which can be very helpful when you are looking for an object in an apartment with several levels. The Loc8tor has two types of tags: homing and panic. The homing tag use audio beep and flashing LED to help guide you to their location and have two modes alert which let you know when the tag and the Loc8tor have over a certain distance between them and a locate mode which is silent until you decide to look for the object. The panic tag has all the features of the homing tag plus a small bottom in the center which lets the person holding the tag (a small child for instance) alert the Loc8tor holder of a problem. The Loc8tor developers apparently also though of the possibility that the Loc8tor itself will get lost and suggested using the panic bottom to locate it. However if you loose both the panic bottom and the Loc8tor then we guess you just got it coming. The Loc8tor starts at about 100$ and each set of two tags will cost you additional 50$. More information on the Loc8tor can be found (without the Loc8tor) on the company website.

RFID Loc8tor - TFOT

Hitachi Develops World's Smallest RFID Chip - TFOT

Nicknamed "Powder" or "Dust", these chips consist of 128-bit ROM (Read Only Memory) that can store a 38-digit number. Hitachi says the distance between each circuit element was reduced using the Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) process, where an insulation layer and a monocrystalline silicon layer are formed upon the silicon base substrate, and the transistor is then formed on this SOI substrate. When compared to the conventional process where a transistor is formed directly upon the silicon substrate, this technology significantly reduces parasitic capacitance and current leakage, improving the transistor's performance. The SOI process also prevents the interference between neighboring devices, which often causes product malfunctions. Thanks to an insulator surrounding each device, Hitachi experts say that even when the devices are in close proximity, higher integration is achieved on an even smaller area.

The surface area of the new chips was reduced to a quarter of the original 0.3 x 0.3 mm, 60µm-thick chip developed by Hitachi in 2003. The company says that developments in thin chip fabrication technology enabled the significant decrease in width – to one-eighth of that of the previous model. With more chips that can be fabricated on a single wafer, productivity was increased by over four times, and Hitachi expects this will open the way to new applications for wireless RFID chips.

The µ-Chip uses an external antenna to receive radio waves, which can be transformed and wirelessly transmitted as a unique ID number. The data is written during the fabrication process, using ROM, and is therefore non-rewritable, providing a high level of authenticity. "By taking advantage of the merits of compactness, high authenticity and wireless communication, and combining it with Internet technology, the µ-Chip may be utilized in a broad range of applications such as security, transportation, amusement, traceability and logistics" – said Hitachi engineers who worked on the project.

Hitachi is continuing to develop technologies that increase communication's distance range and decrease antenna size, whilst preserving high reliability and aiming for improved productivity. The company said that the enhanced compactness and thinness of the new chip has further broadened the range of possible applications, including gift certificates that can be authenticated. The new RFID "powder" can also be incorporated into thin paper, such as currency, creating so-called "bugged" money.

Miniature RFID chips may also have advanced military applications such as smartdust. Smartdust is the concept of wireless MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) sensors that can detect anything from light and temperature to vibrations. Using a large amount of sensors is not a new concept - the U.S. military experimented with this idea already during the Vietnam War (Operation Igloo White). While the older sensors were relatively large and only somewhat effective, Professor Christopher Pister from UC Berkeley suggested in 2001 to create a new type of micro sensor that could theoretically be as small as a grain of sand. Research into this idea is ongoing and is being funded by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). What was only a theoretical concept in 2001 has now become a reality with the latest development by Hitachi, and could find its way to intelligence agencies across the world.

RFID chips are also a source for increasing controversy surrounding issues of privacy. An RFID chip can be used to track the location of unsuspecting individuals who have bought products that include RFID tags in their package. Having miniature cheap RFID chips, such as those developed by Hitachi, implanted inside anything we buy might make many people feel very uncomfortable. However, big businesses believe that consumers' fears are dwarfed by the benefits of RFID chips, which include reduced theft, digital real time inventory, and better information on consumer shopping habits.

TFOT looked at several RFID related technologies including HP's Memory Spot Chip, which is some what similar to RFID technology (although there are also some important differences), The RFID Loc8tor that can identify special RFID tags from a distance of up to 183 meters (600 feet), and a new Nanobattery technology developed at the Tel Aviv University, which could power semi-active RFID chips in the future.

Hitachi is constantly developing new and advanced chips. After publishing the information regarding the 0.15 x 0.15 millimeter RFID chip back in 2006, the company apparently completed working on the improved RFID chip in early 2007. According to the Nikkei website, Hitachi is now planning on developing an even smaller RFID chip using 65-nanometer lithographic technology.
Hitachi Develops World's Smallest RFID Chip - TFOT

Big Brother U.S. Government Subpoenaed Amazon.com to Obtain Book Purchasing Records of Customers

Newly unsealed court records have revealed that the U.S. government issued a subpoena to Amazon.com seeking to obtain the identities of customers purchasing books through the Amazon marketplace. The snooping attempt was blocked by U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker who wrote in a recently-unsealed ruling, "Well-founded or not, rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon's customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases."

Is the U.S. government trying to profile the psychology of its citizens by secretly data mining their book purchasing habits? Since 9/11 and the passage of the ill-designed Patriot Act (which, if anything, is traitorous, not patriotic), it seems that the U.S. government is aggressively expanding its powers to search records, tap phones and surveil electronic messages, all in an effort to conduct Gestapo-like profiling operations on its own citizens. It is now a well-known fact, for example, that domestic phone calls and e-mails are now tracked and recorded by the U.S. government, then mined for "dangerous" words which are linked back to those callers.

"The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their knowledge or permission," Judge Crocker wrote in his ruling. "It is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else."...read more

IBM, Verichip, and the Fouth Reich

Is There an ID Chip in Your Future? - U.S. - CBN News

" There's a growing movement to forcibly tag or chip your animals with radio frequency identification devices. Many privacy advocates believe this could lead to a scarier level: implanting you and me. Now, there is an effort to stem the tide."...read more

Messages of the Brave New World

"Messages of the Brave New World" gives a glimpse into the not to distant future by showing that the "New World Order' and "cashless society" are right around the bend. It is a work in progress and will be updated soon. If you have any suggestions, comments or criticisms please let me know. Thanks and God bless

Why do the nations conspire . and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. "Let us break their chains," they say, "and throw off their fetters." Psalm 3:1-3

Human-animal hybrid embryos should be legal says Catholic Church -Times Online

The Roman Catholic Church has called for women to be allowed to give birth to human-animal hybrids created in the laboratory.

Embryos injected with animal cells, or chimeras, should be treated as human beings where they have a preponderance of human genes, the bishops say in a sumbission to a Government committee.

And there should be no ban on implanting such hybrid embryos in the womb of the woman who supplied the original egg, they say in their submission on the Draft Tissue and Embryos Bill.

“Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so,” the bishops say.

The Bill proposes overhauling the regulation for embryo research and fertility treatment.

At present it is illegal in Britain to create embryos using a mix of human and animal genetic material, but the government is proposing to allow scientists to create human-animal embryos for research as long as they are destroyed within two weeks.

In their submission, the bishops say that most of the procedures covered by the bill should not be licensed under any circumstances. They argue that this is because they violate human rights.

Under the proposed legislation, scientists would be allowed in principle to produce “cytoplasmic” hybrid embryos that are 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent animal.

It would also give permission for human embryos to be altered by the introduction of animal DNA and would allow human-animal “chimeras” - human embryos that have been physically mixed with one or more animal cells.

In all cases it would be illegal for embryos to grow for more than 14 days - beyond the size of a pinhead - or be implanted into a womb.

The Bill would ban the creation of “true hybrids” by fusing the egg and sperm of humans and animals.

In a letter sent in with the submission, the Most Rev Peter Smith, the Archbishop of Cardiff, says the Catholic Church was opposed in principle to “destructive experimentation” on human embryos.

The government initially proposed to ban the creation of chimeras but changed its mind earlier this year under pressure from the scientific community.

The Pope today backed the use of adult stem cell research distinguishing it from the manipulation of stem cells from human embryos, which the Roman Catholic Church condemns.

Speaking at the end of his weekly general audience, the Roman Catholic leader referred to the use of adult stem cells to treat heart problems, being discussed at a global conference in Rome. “On this matter the position of the Church, supported by reason and by science, is clear,” he said, “Scientific research must be encouraged and promoted, so long as it does not harm other human beings, whose dignity is inviolable from the very first stages of existence.”

Human-animal hybrid embryos should be legal says Catholic Church -Times Online

Children must give prints for passports

By JASON LEWIS - More by this author » Last updated at 22:31pm on 24th November 2007

Comments

Children over the age of six will have their fingerprints taken when applying for a passport to comply with new EU regulations.

The European Commission says youngsters must be fingerprinted for all new EU passports and national ID cards – even those issued in the UK.

Until now, the Government has insisted that only children over the age of 11 applying for biometric passports – which are due to be introduced in 2009 – have to be fingerprinted.

• Revealed: The sinister truth about what they do with our children's fingerprints

But under the proposals, revealed in a report by the Commission, children as young as six could be forced to attend special identity centres.

Once there, their hands would be electronically scanned and their personal details entered on an identity database.

The Commission, which is responsible for the general day-to-day running of the European Union, says the move is essential to prevent child trafficking.

But Tony Bunyan, of civil rights group Statewatch, said: 'The taking of fingerprints from all children from age six upwards is highly questionable. It is a moral and political question, not a technical one.
Children must give prints for passports | the Daily Mail

Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly | the Daily Mail

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.

But the very thought makes her shudder with horror....read more

Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request

Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 23, 2007; A01

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied.

The issue is taking on greater relevance as wireless carriers are racing to offer sleek services that allow cellphone users to know with the touch of a button where their friends or families are. The companies are hoping to recoup investments they have made to meet a federal mandate to provide enhanced 911 (E911) location tracking. Sprint Nextel, for instance, boasts that its "loopt" service even sends an alert when a friend is near, "putting an end to missed connections in the mall, at the movies or around town."

With Verizon's Chaperone service, parents can set up a "geofence" around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.

"Most people don't realize it, but they're carrying a tracking device in their pocket," said Kevin Bankston of the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Cellphones can reveal very precise information about your location, and yet legal protections are very much up in the air."

In a stinging opinion this month, a federal judge in Texas denied a request by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent for data that would identify a drug trafficker's phone location by using the carrier's E911 tracking capability. E911 tracking systems read signals sent to satellites from a phone's Global Positioning System (GPS) chip or triangulated radio signals sent from phones to cell towers. Magistrate Judge Brian L. Owsley, of the Corpus Christi division of the Southern District of Texas, said the agent's affidavit failed to focus on "specifics necessary to establish probable cause, such as relevant dates, names and places."

Owsley decided to publish his opinion, which explained that the agent failed to provide "sufficient specific information to support the assertion" that the phone was being used in "criminal" activity. Instead, Owsley wrote, the agent simply alleged that the subject trafficked in narcotics and used the phone to do so. The agent stated that the DEA had " 'identified' or 'determined' certain matters," Owsley wrote, but "these identifications, determinations or revelations are not facts, but simply conclusions by the agency."

Instead of seeking warrants based on probable cause, some federal prosecutors are applying for orders based on a standard lower than probable cause derived from two statutes: the Stored Communications Act and the Pen Register Statute, according to judges and industry lawyers. The orders are typically issued by magistrate judges in U.S. district courts, who often handle applications for search warrants.

In one case last month in a southwestern state, an FBI agent obtained precise location data with a court order based on the lower standard, citing "specific and articulable facts" showing reasonable grounds to believe the data are "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation," said Al Gidari, a partner at Perkins Coie in Seattle, who reviews data requests for carriers.

Another magistrate judge, who has denied about a dozen such requests in the past six months, said some agents attach affidavits to their applications that merely assert that the evidence offered is "consistent with the probable cause standard" of Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The judge spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"Law enforcement routinely now requests carriers to continuously 'ping' wireless devices of suspects to locate them when a call is not being made . . . so law enforcement can triangulate the precise location of a device and [seek] the location of all associates communicating with a target," wrote Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA -- the Wireless Association, in a July comment to the Federal Communications Commission. He said the "lack of a consistent legal standard for tracking a user's location has made it difficult for carriers to comply" with law enforcement agencies' demands.

Gidari, who also represents CTIA, said he has never seen such a request that was based on probable cause.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said field attorneys should follow the department's policy. "We strongly recommend that prosecutors in the field obtain a warrant based on probable cause" to get location data "in a private area not accessible to the public," he said. "When we become aware of situations where this has not occurred, we contact the field office and discuss the matter."

The phone data can home in on a target to within about 30 feet, experts said.

Federal agents used exact real-time data in October 2006 to track a serial killer in Florida who was linked to at least six murders in four states, including that of a University of Virginia graduate student, whose body was found along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The killer died in a police shooting in Florida as he was attempting to flee.

"Law enforcement has absolutely no interest in tracking the locations of law-abiding citizens. None whatsoever," Boyd said. "What we're doing is going through the courts to lawfully obtain data that will help us locate criminal targets, sometimes in cases where lives are literally hanging in the balance, such as a child abduction or serial murderer on the loose."

In many cases, orders are being issued for cell-tower site data, which are less precise than the data derived from E911 signals. While the E911 technology could possibly tell officers what building a suspect was in, cell-tower site data give an area that could range from about three to 300 square miles.

Since 2005, federal magistrate judges in at least 17 cases have denied federal requests for the less-precise cellphone tracking data absent a demonstration of probable cause that a crime is being committed. Some went out of their way to issue published opinions in these otherwise sealed cases.

"Permitting surreptitious conversion of a cellphone into a tracking device without probable cause raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns especially when the phone is in a house or other place where privacy is reasonably expected," said Judge Stephen William Smith of the Southern District of Texas, whose 2005 opinion on the matter was among the first published.

But judges in a majority of districts have ruled otherwise on this issue, Boyd said. Shortly after Smith issued his decision, a magistrate judge in the same district approved a federal request for cell-tower data without requiring probable cause. And in December 2005, Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the Southern District of New York, approving a request for cell-site data, wrote that because the government did not install the "tracking device" and the user chose to carry the phone and permit transmission of its information to a carrier, no warrant was needed.

These judges are issuing orders based on the lower standard, requiring a showing of "specific and articulable facts" showing reasonable grounds to believe the data will be "relevant and material" to a criminal investigation.

Boyd said the government believes this standard is sufficient for cell-site data. "This type of location information, which even in the best case only narrows a suspect's location to an area of several city blocks, is routinely generated, used and retained by wireless carriers in the normal course of business," he said.

The trend's secrecy is troubling, privacy advocates said. No government body tracks the number of cellphone location orders sought or obtained. Congressional oversight in this area is lacking, they said. And precise location data will be easier to get if the Federal Communication Commission adopts a Justice Department proposal to make the most detailed GPS data available automatically.

Often, Gidari said, federal agents tell a carrier they need real-time tracking data in an emergency but fail to follow up with the required court approval. Justice Department officials said to the best of their knowledge, agents are obtaining court approval unless the carriersprovide the data voluntarily.

To guard against abuse, Congress should require comprehensive reporting to the court and to Congress about how and how often the emergency authority is used, said John Morris, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.

Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request

The Picture Of Conformity

Don't look now. Somebody's watching.

But you knew that, didn't you? How could you not? It's been apparent for years that we're being watched and monitored as we traverse airports and train stations, as we drive, train, fly, surf the Web, e-mail, talk on the phone, get the morning coffee, visit the doctor, go to the bank, go to work, shop for groceries, shop for shoes, buy a TV, walk down the street. Cameras, electronic card readers and transponders are ubiquitous. And in that parallel virtual universe, data miners are busily and constantly culling our cyber selves.

Is anywhere safe from the watchers, the trackers? Is it impossible to just be let alone?

There, in that quintessentially public space, the Mall, came Michael Thrasher, 43, an ordinary guy, just strolling on a lovely recent day. We found him near an entrance to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, where a tower-high surveillance camera loomed overhead.

Thrasher didn't immediately see it. But when asked his feelings about privacy and surveillance, he said, "You just feel like there's always someone looking at you."

He's a baggage handler at Reagan National Airport, so he knows that he's watched at the workplace. Since Sept. 11, 2001, transit hubs have been laden with layer upon layer of surveillance: cameras, biometrics, sensors, even a new thing called the "behavior detection officer."

And it's good, Thrasher says, that someone's watching out for the bad guys. "Look what kind of world we're in now."

But Thrasher doesn't like the way his private space is shrinking. Like surfing the Web and knowing his data trail can easily be mined: "If I'm not doing anything illegal, why is it any of their business?"

Like being on the telephone and believing it could be tapped: "In the back of my mind, I'm thinking anybody could be listening to whatever I say."
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And just going about one's daily business, walking down the street, going to the market?

"It just feels like there's no privacy now at all when you're doing public stuff."

Suddenly, he sees the camera, his exclamation point, and throws his hands in the air.
...read more

Japan starts biometric data collection - UPI.com

TOKYO, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Japanese immigration officials began collecting biometric data Tuesday from visitors arriving at airports and seaports as part of anti-terror legislation.

Under the new system, non-citizens at the 27 international airports and 126 coastal ports must show their passports, be photographed and have their fingerprints taken, the Kyodo news agency reported.

The Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law was enacted last year in May in a bid to block entry of people designated by the Justice Department as terrorists.

Monday, a group of 67 rights groups released a statement condemning the screening, saying it was a highly political decision taken after almost no public discussion or policy reviews, the report said.

Japanese Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said the government's key concern was national security as well as respect for data security.

"We want people to bear with it for the great aim of preventing terrorism," Hatoyama said. "We will provide thorough protection of personal information."

Japan is the second country after the United States to collect biometric data from incoming non-citizens.Japan starts biometric data collection - UPI.com

Biometric ID cards planned

Standard ID card for non-EU residents is planned for all member states
Kim Thomas, IT Week, 19 Nov 2007

Biometric ID cards could be adopted throughout the European Union (EU) by 2010 if a proposed regulation goes ahead.

The regulation, scheduled for adoption before the end of this year, will introduce a standard version of the resident permit that all 27 member states issue to nationals from outside the EU. The aim is to make it easier to verify that someone is entitled to residence.

The new permit will be in the form of a smart card that stores, in encrypted form, two biometric identifiers: a facial image and two fingerprints. The technical specification is due to be published by 2008, and the new European resident permit will be rolled out within two years after that.

Known as the European Citizen Card (ECC), the cards could also be used by cardholders as a way of authenticating their identity in ecommerce transactions.

An estimated 20 million people within the EU require such a permit.
Biometric ID cards planned - 19 Nov 2007 - IT Week

First-grader suspended over drawing

EAGLE POINT — A first-grader was suspended Tuesday for drawing a stick figure shooting another in the head with a gun and allegedly threatening students.

Little Butte School officials sent 6-year-old Ryan Weathers home after receiving complaints from parents saying he threatened their children, said Douglas Weathers, the boy's father.

"He's not a violent kid," Weathers said. "He did not mean any harm."

School district officials declined to comment. State law bars them from discussing disciplinary actions against specific students.

The disciplinary report given to Weathers stated the reason for the suspension was the boy "threatened to shoot two girls in the head."

The drawing was inspired by an episode of "The Simpsons," Weathers said. In the television cartoon, a character displays a drawing of a student being shot by a gun.

Weathers said he understands the concerns other parents may have, but felt the school went too far in suspending his son for one day.

"You can't blame the parents," he said. "I told the principal that I agreed that he shouldn't have done the drawing, but suspending him seems like a policy with no intelligence behind it.

"They didn't seem to care that he's only in the first grade."

Tina Mondale, the district's school improvement director, said the issue is between the school and the parents involved.

"We can't give these details out," she said. "We deal with every discipline issue in a case-by-case basis. Our main concern is the safety of all the children in our schools."

Weathers plans to hold Ryan out of school until early next week. He wants a chance to talk to school officials before he lets his son attend class.

"I don't like him being out of school," Weathers said. "I'm not sure how this is going to affect how my kid is perceived. They may view him as a violent kid or a terrorist, or whatever."

The biggest issue Weathers had with the incident was that his son tried to blame the drawing on another kid.

"Lying is a big problem for me," Weathers said. "No matter what happens I tell him to tell the truth. I told him he was wrong for trying to lie."

Weathers said he owns a handgun, but he keeps it in a safe in a storage facility.

"I do own a .357, but my son's never even seen it," he said.

Weathers said he is looking forward to discussing the matter with Ryan's teacher during a conference Friday.

Until then, the boy's future at Little Butte School is up in the air.

"I don't know if I'm going to bring him back to that school," Weathers said.

Reach reporter Chris Conrad at 776-4471, or e-mail cconrad@mailtribune.com.MailTribune.com: First-grader suspended over drawing

Chipping People

Technology has advanced to the point where it is technologically feasible to implant advanced microchips in humans, explains analyst Matthew Sollenberger in a recently released brief—part of a series on “wildcard” events by the futurist research and consulting firm Social Technologies.

“GPS, medical implant technology, and radio frequency identification (RFID) chips could be used for a variety of functions, from surveillance to identification,” Sollenberger says. “Chipping people would be simple, and could assist with child and elder safety, debit and credit payment, and personal medical records. But consumer opinion is sharply divided on the merits of human microchip implants.”

Drivers
• Cheap implantable devices and quick, low-cost implantation have made chipping easy and affordable. It takes about 20 minutes, and doesn’t require stitches.
• Chip tracking and scanning is reliable, thanks to wireless, GPS, and RFID scanning networks.
• Parents are increasingly looking to technology to provide child safety solutions. In fact, 75% of parents in the UK say they would buy a child tracking device.
Obstacles
• The idea of implanting a chip with tracking functions in the body tends to evoke strong feelings—especially considering that RFID implants are considered highly vulnerable to hacking, and the long-term health effects are unknown.
• Privacy advocates warn that human chipping would let “Big Brother” run rampant.
• Consumer and legislative moves to restrict the use of human RFID implants are already in motion, and several states already have laws prohibiting implantation of chips.

Business implications

“Ubiquitous RFID implants could reshape many aspects of consumer society, for instance by enabling new ways to personalize advertising and shopping,” Sollenberger suggests. “Kids could have implants that inform vendors of parentally approved purchases, and personalized health implants could help consumers choose what foods to eat.”

It’s quite possible that a culture of constant monitoring could actually increase demand for new security products, he offers.

“As consumers become accustomed to continuous tracking and expect to be able to monitor their valuables—from cars to children—they may begin to insist that everything be trackable.”

Additionally, the spread of human chipping and support networks could provide the groundwork for a major expansion of location-based services (LBS), such as marketing for new location-based games, targeting reward programs to a consumer’s location, or optimizing the flow of fast-moving consumer goods based on aggregate consumer-implant data.

What’s the probability of human chipping coming to fruition?

“The necessary technology is essentially in place—the outcome will hinge on what users want. There is at least a low probability of chipping becoming widespread within 10 years,” Sollenberger concludes.

Hope Katz Gibbs (hope.gibbs@socialtechnologies.com)
Leader, Corporate Communications
Social Technologies
1776 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. #815
Washington, DC 20036-1907
Phone : 202-223-2801 ext. 210
Fax : 202-223-2802
Chipping People

Sign Of Times: NJ School Cameras Fed Live To Cops

Surveillance cameras rolling inside our local schools is nothing new, but what's taking place inside Demarest's public schools is truly cutting edge: a live feed from more than two dozen cameras with a direct connection to the police.

It's an expensive, but effective tool that could be a sign of the times with an increase in school shootings over the years.

The system, which cost about $28,000, can even track movement in a crowded room.

"When they arrive, they can pull up the school's live feed and do a sweep instantly," Demarest Police Chief James Powderley tells CBS 2.... wcbstv.com - Sign Of Times: NJ School Cameras Fed Live To Cops

We are sleepwalking as our freedoms are eroded

We have become a nation of sleepwalkers and our rulers are the soundest sleepers of all.

The latest and greatest danger to the freedoms for which the English fought - from Magna Carta in 1215, through the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the libertarian reforms of the 1960s that permitted people their sexual privacy - is the DNA database that, every hour, adds to a police computer file around 150 genetic fingerprints of the guilty, the suspected and mostly the innocent.

No other country in the world has such a large DNA database on its people and among the 4.5million already recorded are 150,000 under-16s.

The question is, do we care? During ten years of Labour government our liberties have been stamped on repeatedly, and yet there is little public outcry. We are sleepwalking as our freedoms are eroded | the Daily Mail

Credit card kiosk boosts giving

Tithing just entered the 21st century.

"You use your debit card at the gas station, you use your debit card at the grocery store," Noel said. "Why are we afraid to use the technology in church?

"Biblically speaking, they used to bring grains and fruits and animals as offering. Then they brought coins."

The desktop kiosk, which looks a lot like the cash register at any random Subway franchise — complete with card swipe — is merely the next step in tithing evolution.

Seems to make sense, too.

For many young people, carrying cash is about as practical as tithing every 10th head of oxen.

"I believe our society is moving to a cashless society," Noel said.

The Fascist Blueprint

Talk by Naomi Wolf - The End of America


Also, read her article Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

PC World - Business Center: IBM Uses RFID to Track Conference Attendees

t its Information on Demand conference in Las Vegas, IBM is deploying RFID technology on name tags worn by attendees that automatically tracks their session and meal attendance.

This is the first time that IBM has used RFID technology at this conference and the company is not making a secret of it. There are signs at the registration desk offering attendees the option of getting a name tag without the chip.

Of the 6,500 people here, approximately 2 percent didn't want a name tag with an RFID chip in it, said Mary Ann Alberry, IBM's conference manager.

From a simple unique identifier on the chip, begins what could be a long tail of data analysis.

The chip's 24-character identifier includes the name, title and company of the person wearing it. There is no other personal information on the chip. As a person walks through the door leading into a conference session, an RFID receiver logs the chip's data. The system, by AllianceTech in Austin, Texas, is networked and the data is received in real-time by its on-site systems at the conference. The data is organized in a DB2 database. ... IBM Uses RFID to Track Conference Attendees

School puts a chip on pupils

SECONDARY school pupils are having their "every step traced" under a new monitoring system which sees a microchip embedded in their school uniform.

Currently ten pupils at Hungerhill School in Edenthorpe are having their movements monitored by radio technology, but its Doncaster makers hope the system could soon be attached to every school uniform in the country, if the pilot scheme proves successful.

Under the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) surveillance system the Hungerhill pupils have a memory microchip discreetly embedded onto their school badge which produces a radio signal. It means the pupils can be identified the moment that they step into a classroom. Its inventor, Trevor Darnborough, says the technology has many advantages including; offering accurate and speedy registration of pupils, ensuring child security, providing visual confirmation of attendance to help cover teachers and easy data input for the school's behavioural and reporting system. ... School puts a chip on pupils - Doncaster Today