See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1gboh
Geographic Anatomical Relationship
The Relationship Between the Geography of the Earth and the Human Form. The shape of the continents of the earth as the model for the human physique.
NASA Considers Tractor Beams for Future Rovers
Amplify’d from www.wired.com
NASA Considers Tractor Beams for Future Rovers
By Adam Mann
NASA is exploring ways to use tractor beams in future robotic probe missions. The agency has recently awarded a team of engineers $100,000 to study three experimental techniques for trapping small particles with lasers.
Spacecraft flying by comets and asteroids or rovers landing on Mars could use the methods to continuously sample their target.
While such technology has been used in biological and surgical applications for years, there has been little work on using it for remote sensing in space, said Paul Stysley, a NASA engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who leads the group studying the techniques.
The idea of using tractor beams on space missions caught the attention of members of NASA’s Mars rover project.
“At first they thought we were a little crazy, but luckily that group is supportive of crazy ideas,” said Stysley.
Current rover missions use drills, which can take a long time to get a sample. But a future probe could quickly zap rocks with a laser and then use a tractor beam to collect some of the resulting vapor. A beam pointed at the atmosphere could also monitor how gases change in response to day-night cycles on Mars.
Though the three technologies will require further investigation and may take up to a decade to develop for space-based missions, much of the work is already being done here on Earth.
The first technique, optical tweezers, is already common in biology laboratories. This method uses a pair of lasers with beams that travel in opposite directions. Changing the intensity of one beam heats air around trapped particles and can cause them to travel toward a probe, essentially creating an optical conveyor belt. But this technology can only be used when an atmosphere is present, so while it could work on some planets, it won’t work in the vacuum of space.
Alternatively, the team is investigating a Bessel beam, which creates a ring of light around small molecules to generate electric and magnetic fields to move samples. This method, which as yet only exists on paper, would work in space but would be more limited to close-in observations.
The final technique uses optical solenoid beams, where the laser’s intensity forms a corkscrew shape that can be used to nudge samples into a trap. Theoretically, this technology can be used in a vacuum and also has the advantage of being able to draw in material from far away, which would be useful for satellites orbiting high above a comet or asteroid.
Image: Paul Stysley
Video: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Conceptual Image Lab
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1gapa
Catholic Church helped Nazis escape thru "Ratlines" [Knights of Malta & Operation Bernhard] Pt 1-3
For more information on the crimes committed by the Catholic Church worldwide and its long track record of using its false appearance of "holiness" to deceive the masses and commit crimes, visit: http://www.vaticancrimes.us
We will soon see the destruction of this corrupt and evil religious system as the Vatican and its tentacles has used the Lord's name to commit crimes against humanity since its inception.
Visit the Protect Your Children Foundation at http://www.protegeatushijos.org or http://www.vaticancrimes.us to learn more.
We will soon see the destruction of this corrupt and evil religious system as the Vatican and its tentacles has used the Lord's name to commit crimes against humanity since its inception.
Visit the Protect Your Children Foundation at http://www.protegeatushijos.org or http://www.vaticancrimes.us to learn more.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g9ur
Banks Extract Fees On Unemployment Benefits
Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com
Banks Extract Fees On Unemployment Benefits
Out of work and living on a $189-a-week unemployment check, Rob Linville needs to watch every penny. Lately, he has been watching too many pennies disappear into the coffers of the bank that administers his unemployment check via a prepaid debit card.
The state of Oregon, where Linville lives, deposits his weekly benefits on a U.S. Bank prepaid debit card. The bank allows him to make four withdrawals per month free of charge. After that, he must pay $1.50 for each visit to the ATM and $3 to see a teller. Managing his basic expenses, including rent, bus fare and groceries, typically requires more than four withdrawals, he says. Unexpected needs -- Linville recently bought a sport coat for $20 to prepare for a job interview -- entail more. He's afraid to withdraw his full benefits in one shot, knowing that the bank could sock him with a $17.50 overdraft fee if he exceeds his balance. So he pulls out small amounts of cash as he needs it, incurring about $15 in fees in the last two months he says.
"I'm so broke," Linville said, his voice expressing resignation that this is simply how the world works. "But I don't really have any other options."
Across the nation, people receiving a range of state-furnished benefits -- from unemployment insurance and food stamps to cash assistance for poor families -- are facing similar options and reaching the same conclusion. In 41 states major banks and financial firms have secured contracts to provide access to public benefits via prepaid debit cards. And banks are increasingly extracting hefty cuts of these funds through an assortment of small fees. U.S. Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other institutions hold contracts to distribute these benefits on prepaid debit cards.
When Bank of America announced plans to charge regular banking customers a $5 monthly fee to use their debit card it created a wave of public criticism. But the lesser-known fees attached to prepaid debit cards are already extracting money from the most vulnerable Americans -- those unable to pay their bills and feed their families without public help -- in the midst of stubbornly high unemployment and soaring rates of poverty.
"The big banks have actually figured out a way to make unemployed workers a profit center, one that only grows as things get worse," said Angela Martin, executive director of Economic Fairness Oregon, a nonprofit advocacy group for low income and poor families.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Bancorp, the parent company of U.S. Bank, said unemployment recipients are clearly informed about the fees that pertain to their debit cards. She added that the cards provide a convenient and economical service, because they allow holders to use them to buy goods at stores and withdraw cash back without incurring a fee.
Prepaid debit cards often look a lot like the debit cards which many Americans are already familiar with. But the cards can carry a range of fees for basic banking activities such as visiting an ATM, making a purchase, checking one's balance or paying a bill online.
Six years ago, states distributed $55 billion in public benefits via prepaid debit cards, according to an estimate from Mercator Advisory Group, which monitors the consumer payment industry. By last year, that figure had ballooned to $133 billion. Mercator does not track how much of that money was handled by banks.
There are some hints of how much money is flowing from America's poorest families to banks. In 2008, California's welfare families paid $8 million in surcharges to access their cash welfare benefits, according to a Western Center on Law and Poverty analysis, which advocates for the poor. Surcharges paid by welfare recipients will exceed $16 million this year, the Center projects.
The revenue generated from providing access to public benefits on prepaid debit cards has become particularly important to banks this year, said Lauren Saunders, a managing attorney at the National Consumer Law Center in Washington, D.C. A 2010 federal law capped the swipe fees banks can collect from merchants when consumers use ordinary debit cards. But those caps do not apply to the prepaid debit cards used to withdraw unemployment benefits and other forms of cash assistance.
In several states, the public benefits debit card business involves a largely captive audience that must exert itself to find an alternative means of securing its money. A half dozen states force the unemployed to receive their benefits on prepaid debit cards, according to a May study released by the National Consumer Law Center.
In Oregon, jobless people who apply for unemployment benefits are automatically given their weekly benefits via a U.S. Bank ReliaCard unless they expressly opt out and furnish information about a personal bank account to establish a direct deposit.
Six Oregon residents interviewed by The Huffington Post said that when they applied for unemployment benefits online, the state's website did offer them the opportunity to set up a direct deposit instead of relying upon a prepaid debit card furnished by U.S. Bank. But the page on which they were offered the options did not clearly lay out the fees that can be incurred with the debit card option, they said. Another section of the Web site does list the fees, The Huffington Post found, but locating that information requires looking on a separate page.
Between July and September, U.S. Bancorp secured $357 million in revenue through the division that includes its prepaid cards, according to its most recent earnings statement. That was more than one-fourth of its total revenues. The bank refused to say how much of this revenue was comprised of fees from its handling of state unemployment benefits.
The fees are the sole source of revenue the bank derives by handling unemployment benefits and court-ordered child support payments in Oregon. The state does not pay the bank for issuing debit cards or administering the payments. Oregon's treasurer will begin negotiating a new contract in November. A request for proposals from other banks has not been issued.
For the state, the cards minimize the need to mail checks or manage transfers to myriad banks. Since 2007, Oregon has saved at least $11 million on printing, mailing and other costs associated with the unemployment program alone, said James Sinks, a spokesman for Oregon State Treasurer Ted Wheeler's office. State staff estimate that over the course of the contracts, about 40 percent of people in both programs have used ReliaCards, Sinks said. The remainder receive funds via direct deposit.
Sinks described the notion that fees are unfair, abusive or out of touch with consumer spending habits as "specious" and "laughable." People can always obtain cash without paying fees by making a purchase at a store where customers can request cash back.
"The card was negotiated the way that it was to make people's money available to them at the lowest cost," said Sinks. "Are there fees, yes. But there are ways for people to access their money for free and there are robust ways to do that. I don't believe that most people are paying fees."
But several unemployment benefit recipients in Oregon said it was quite difficult to switch to direct deposit after they learned of the fees on their prepaid debit cards. Many recipients complain that their unemployment benefits are so limited that even an unwanted pack of gum purchased to access their benefits without fees amounts to a consequential expense.
A woman in the southern Oregon town of Grants Pass who enrolled in the state's unemployment program in 2007 said she did not receive a notice of fees until several months after she incurred some $220 in surcharges. A Portland man who enrolled in August and receives $507 in benefits each week said he cannot find a U.S. Bank ATM or retail store where he can remove more than $200 at a time, forcing him to pay fees to get all of his funds.
Linville, who lost his job as a data entry clerk in August, said he was not aware of the fees when he signed up for the U.S. Bank card on Oregon's unemployment web site but later received a schedule of fees in the mail. He has a bank account but thought the U.S.Bank card would give him a way to pay bills immediately when his unemployment benefits arrived. Often, Linville is so short on cash that he pulls money off the card to pay bills on the same day they are due, he said. If he can, he pays the bill with the debit card, a retail purchase that does not carry a fee. But, that is not always an option.
"I try to use it the best way I can really," said Linville, 39. "But it's not that easy to plan a way around those fees. You just pay them and you move on to the next problem."
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g9tu
Big Sis To Monitor Social Networks For Signs Of Social Unrest
Federal agency concerned about riots breaking out in United States
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
“Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner said the use of such technology in uprisings that started in December in Tunisia shocked some officials into attention and prompted questions of whether the U.S. needs to do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity,” reports the Associated Press.
Although it’s somewhat naive to think that Homeland Security wasn’t already scanning the likes of Facebook and Twitter for social trends and signs of civil unrest, the fact that its now being announced publicly illustrates the increasing concern that riots which have hit the Middle East and Europe over the last 18 months will soon manifest themselves inside the United States.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The wave of uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East that have overturned three governments in the past year have prompted the U.S. government to begin developing guidelines for culling intelligence from social media networks, a top Homeland Security official said Monday.
Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner said the use of such technology in uprisings that started in December in Tunisia shocked some officials into attention and prompted questions of whether the U.S. needs to do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity.
"We're still trying to figure out how you use things like Twitter as a source," she said. "How do you establish trends and how do you then capture that in an intelligence product?"
Wagner said the department is establishing guidelines on gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes. Wagner says those protocols are being developed under strict laws meant to prevent spying on U.S. citizens and protect privacy, including rules dictating the length of time the information can be stored and differences between domestic and international surveillance.
Wagner said the Homeland Security department, established after the 9/11 attacks, is not actively monitoring any social networks. But when the department receives information about a potential threat, contractors are then asked to look for certain references within "open source" information, which is available to anyone on the Internet.
The challenge, she said, is to develop guidelines for collecting and analyzing information so that it provides law enforcement officials with meaningful intelligence.
"I can post anything on Facebook, is that valid? If 20 people are tweeting the same thing, then maybe that is valid," she said. "There are just a lot of questions that we are sort of struggling with because it's a newly emerging (issue)."
Wagner was in Colorado Springs to deliver a speech at the National Symposium on Homeland Security and Defense, a conference that included defense contractors and the military.
Aside from discussing the use of technology in unrest that has led to regime changes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, she delivered a speech that addressed the way the department operates, saying that its crucial elements include a nationwide network of 72 fusion centers that gather and analyze reports of suspicious activity, a new National Terrorism Advisory System that replaces the color coded alert system with one that provides more information about a threat, and a "See Something, Say Something" campaign that encourages citizens to report suspicious activity.
She also said another key program involves training hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers across the country in filling out suspicious activity reports.
By Beecher Tuttle, TMCnet Contributor
Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner acknowledged on Monday that revolts in countries like Tunisia and Egypt have forced the U.S. government to change the way that it views social media tools like Facebook (News - Alert) and Twitter, which were highly credited with setting the stage for a number of political and social uprisings this year.
Wagner told the Associated Press that revolts in the Middle East and Northern Africa have driven the U.S. government to consider new guidelines for gathering intelligence from social media tools.
"We're still trying to figure out how you use things like Twitter (News - Alert) as a source," she told the AP. "How do you establish trends and how do you then capture that in an intelligence product?"
The difficulties in collecting and analyzing information from social networking sites are obvious. First off, how do you determine what information is viable and what is merely hearsay or Web chatter? Secondly, how do you implement an intelligence initiative while also protecting personal privacy?
Wagner said that specific protocols will be introduced to guard against lapses in judgment. These protocols include establishing the differences between domestic and international surveillance and developing rules on how long information can be stored, according to the AP.
In addition, the Department of Homeland Security will not actively monitor social networks. Rather, they will look for "open source" information only after receiving viable tips on a possible threat. Wagner admits that establishing a new social media policy won't be easy.
"There are just a lot of questions that we are sort of struggling with because it's a newly emerging (issue)," she told the news source.
The U.S. is far from the first country to look at social media tools as an intelligence channel. The U.K.'s National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) announced late last year that it has begun incorporating social network monitoring into its training program.
The unit embraced the initiative after finding that U.K. authorities have used social network monitoring to solve several high-profile murder cases in the last two years.
Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Rich Steeves
By Amanda Winkler | Christian Post Reporter
"How do you establish trends and how do you then capture that in an intelligence product?"
The undersecretary went on to explain that the use of social media in uprisings, which began in December in Tunisia, prompted U.S. officials to do a more efficient job of monitoring domestic social networking activity.
Wagner also said that the DHS would create new guidelines to focus on “gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes.” However, she went on to mention, that the guidelines would be implemented under strict laws “meant to prevent spying on Americans.”
Still, many social media users express concern that the government would track what they do on social sites.
“I agree with the motive behind the government's proposed choice, but still view it as an invasion of privacy against its citizens,” Mark Smiley, a 25-year-old research analyst, told The Christian Post.
“It is unlikely that Intel would be used in a way that is going to bring harm or inconvenience an innocent citizen, but it makes me uncomfortable because it is possible. I see this as no different than tapping our phone lines.”
Smiley went on to say that if the government were to track social media sites it would be problematic considering the flippant and sarcastic nature of messages posted on sites like Twitter and Facebook.
“Sarcastic statements can be easily misinterpreted.”
Wagner admitted that using social media for Intel could be difficult in that it is hard to determine the validity of claims made online.
"I can post anything on Facebook, is that valid? If 20 people are tweeting the same thing, then maybe that is valid," she said to AP.
"There are just a lot of questions that we are sort of struggling with because it's a newly emerging [issue]."
While the DHS still has kinks to work out in their method of online monitoring, it is definitely not a new phenomenon nor is it native to just the DHS. This week, Fast Company revealed that the New York Federal Bank is the most recent organization to try its hand at social media monitoring. This is due, in part, to the Occupy Wall Street protests as the Fed wants to know “how they are perceived.” The Fed is now “evaluating bids for a social media analysis system that will mine data from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and web forums – beginning in December.”
The Atlantic Journal explains how leery citizens like Smiley should perhaps be more concerned with how the government can monitor more traditional online channels, like email. While there is reason to be concerned about the monitoring of social media, participants post things on social media sites knowing that it will be in the public venue. Emails, however, are often meant to remain private.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the government "obtained a controversial type of secret court order to force Google Inc. and small Internet provider Sonic.net Inc. to turn over information from the email accounts of WikiLeaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum" and mentions that this type of secret request happens often. According to The Atlantic Wire, “In the second half of 2010 alone, the government sent 4,601 such requests to Google, who complied 94 percent of the time.”
The law, however, does little to protect citizens’ private data.
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was passed in 1986 and therefore is older than the Internet which was created in 1989. The law, as it stands, allows law enforcement to obtain emails, cell-phone location, and other digitized documents without a search warrant. The government must just show “reasonable grounds” that the records would be “relevant and material” to an investigation.
Currently, big name technical companies like Google and Microsoft are lobbying Congress to update the privacy laws to include a mandatory search warrant in digital investigations.
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The wave of civil unrest that has swept the globe over the past year has prompted the Department of Homeland Security to step up its monitoring of Twitter and other social networks in a bid to pre-empt any sign of social dislocation within the United States.
“Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner said the use of such technology in uprisings that started in December in Tunisia shocked some officials into attention and prompted questions of whether the U.S. needs to do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity,” reports the Associated Press.Wagner announced that the federal agency would implement new guidelines that would focus on “gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes.”
Under the new framework, when the department receives information about a “potential threat,” it will then ask its contractors to look for relevant search references using “open source” information.
Although it’s somewhat naive to think that Homeland Security wasn’t already scanning the likes of Facebook and Twitter for social trends and signs of civil unrest, the fact that its now being announced publicly illustrates the increasing concern that riots which have hit the Middle East and Europe over the last 18 months will soon manifest themselves inside the United States.
Indeed, US law enforcement bodies are already scanning Twitter and Facebook for signs of unrest.
Having launched a specialized unit to focus on gleaning clues from social media websites, the NYPD Disorder Control Unit recently brought together police from all five of the city’s boroughs to rehearse what the response would be “should out-of-control riots break out here”.
Social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter came in for harsh condemnation following the UK riots, with Prime Minister David Cameron advocating authorities have the power to shut down access during times of public disorder, mimicking the Communist Chinese system of Internet censorship, which is used to curtail political protests.
Although the Occupy Wall Street movement has been the only real expression of civil unrest in the United States thus far, a worsening economic climate almost guarantees the prospect of an increase in social disorder across the globe.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO), a prominent UN agency, warned yesterday that the world faces an imminent “dramatic downturn” in employment, and a new recession which in turn would lead to greater social unrest, particularly in European countries.
In preparation for potential riots inside the United States, the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Institute issued a report in November 2008 entitled Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development.
The report lays out the strategy for how authorities would respond to “purposeful domestic resistance,” wherein U.S. troops would be deployed domestically to counter civil unrest.
The report was issued weeks after the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, and included a potential “economic collapse” as one of the scenarios under which troops would be used inside the U.S. to restore order.
By P. SOLOMON BANDA, Associated Press
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The wave of uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East that have overturned three governments in the past year have prompted the U.S. government to begin developing guidelines for culling intelligence from social media networks, a top Homeland Security official said Monday.
Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner said the use of such technology in uprisings that started in December in Tunisia shocked some officials into attention and prompted questions of whether the U.S. needs to do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity.
"We're still trying to figure out how you use things like Twitter as a source," she said. "How do you establish trends and how do you then capture that in an intelligence product?"
Wagner said the department is establishing guidelines on gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes. Wagner says those protocols are being developed under strict laws meant to prevent spying on U.S. citizens and protect privacy, including rules dictating the length of time the information can be stored and differences between domestic and international surveillance.
Wagner said the Homeland Security department, established after the 9/11 attacks, is not actively monitoring any social networks. But when the department receives information about a potential threat, contractors are then asked to look for certain references within "open source" information, which is available to anyone on the Internet.
The challenge, she said, is to develop guidelines for collecting and analyzing information so that it provides law enforcement officials with meaningful intelligence.
"I can post anything on Facebook, is that valid? If 20 people are tweeting the same thing, then maybe that is valid," she said. "There are just a lot of questions that we are sort of struggling with because it's a newly emerging (issue)."
Wagner was in Colorado Springs to deliver a speech at the National Symposium on Homeland Security and Defense, a conference that included defense contractors and the military.
Aside from discussing the use of technology in unrest that has led to regime changes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, she delivered a speech that addressed the way the department operates, saying that its crucial elements include a nationwide network of 72 fusion centers that gather and analyze reports of suspicious activity, a new National Terrorism Advisory System that replaces the color coded alert system with one that provides more information about a threat, and a "See Something, Say Something" campaign that encourages citizens to report suspicious activity.
She also said another key program involves training hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers across the country in filling out suspicious activity reports.
By Beecher Tuttle, TMCnet Contributor
Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner acknowledged on Monday that revolts in countries like Tunisia and Egypt have forced the U.S. government to change the way that it views social media tools like Facebook (News - Alert) and Twitter, which were highly credited with setting the stage for a number of political and social uprisings this year.
Wagner told the Associated Press that revolts in the Middle East and Northern Africa have driven the U.S. government to consider new guidelines for gathering intelligence from social media tools.
"We're still trying to figure out how you use things like Twitter (News - Alert) as a source," she told the AP. "How do you establish trends and how do you then capture that in an intelligence product?"
The difficulties in collecting and analyzing information from social networking sites are obvious. First off, how do you determine what information is viable and what is merely hearsay or Web chatter? Secondly, how do you implement an intelligence initiative while also protecting personal privacy?
Wagner said that specific protocols will be introduced to guard against lapses in judgment. These protocols include establishing the differences between domestic and international surveillance and developing rules on how long information can be stored, according to the AP.
In addition, the Department of Homeland Security will not actively monitor social networks. Rather, they will look for "open source" information only after receiving viable tips on a possible threat. Wagner admits that establishing a new social media policy won't be easy.
"There are just a lot of questions that we are sort of struggling with because it's a newly emerging (issue)," she told the news source.
The U.S. is far from the first country to look at social media tools as an intelligence channel. The U.K.'s National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) announced late last year that it has begun incorporating social network monitoring into its training program.
The unit embraced the initiative after finding that U.K. authorities have used social network monitoring to solve several high-profile murder cases in the last two years.
Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Rich Steeves
By Amanda Winkler | Christian Post Reporter
The world has seen a wave of civil unrest sweep across nations this year and as a result the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is taking measures to prevent any sign of social disturbance from happening within America. One of the measures include monitoring social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, for clues on growing civil disobedience.
(Photo: AP / Damian Dovarganes)
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, right, and Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., speak on their way to a news conference after touring the Los Angeles port complex at the Port of Los Angeles Coast Guard Station on Monday, April 13, 2009, in Los Angeles.
“We're still trying to figure out how you use things like Twitter as a source," said DHS Undersecretary Caryn Wagner, according to The Associated Press.
"How do you establish trends and how do you then capture that in an intelligence product?"
The undersecretary went on to explain that the use of social media in uprisings, which began in December in Tunisia, prompted U.S. officials to do a more efficient job of monitoring domestic social networking activity.
Wagner also said that the DHS would create new guidelines to focus on “gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes.” However, she went on to mention, that the guidelines would be implemented under strict laws “meant to prevent spying on Americans.”
Still, many social media users express concern that the government would track what they do on social sites.
Like us on Facebook
“I agree with the motive behind the government's proposed choice, but still view it as an invasion of privacy against its citizens,” Mark Smiley, a 25-year-old research analyst, told The Christian Post.
“It is unlikely that Intel would be used in a way that is going to bring harm or inconvenience an innocent citizen, but it makes me uncomfortable because it is possible. I see this as no different than tapping our phone lines.”
Smiley went on to say that if the government were to track social media sites it would be problematic considering the flippant and sarcastic nature of messages posted on sites like Twitter and Facebook.
“Sarcastic statements can be easily misinterpreted.”
Wagner admitted that using social media for Intel could be difficult in that it is hard to determine the validity of claims made online.
"I can post anything on Facebook, is that valid? If 20 people are tweeting the same thing, then maybe that is valid," she said to AP.
"There are just a lot of questions that we are sort of struggling with because it's a newly emerging [issue]."
While the DHS still has kinks to work out in their method of online monitoring, it is definitely not a new phenomenon nor is it native to just the DHS. This week, Fast Company revealed that the New York Federal Bank is the most recent organization to try its hand at social media monitoring. This is due, in part, to the Occupy Wall Street protests as the Fed wants to know “how they are perceived.” The Fed is now “evaluating bids for a social media analysis system that will mine data from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and web forums – beginning in December.”
The Atlantic Journal explains how leery citizens like Smiley should perhaps be more concerned with how the government can monitor more traditional online channels, like email. While there is reason to be concerned about the monitoring of social media, participants post things on social media sites knowing that it will be in the public venue. Emails, however, are often meant to remain private.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the government "obtained a controversial type of secret court order to force Google Inc. and small Internet provider Sonic.net Inc. to turn over information from the email accounts of WikiLeaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum" and mentions that this type of secret request happens often. According to The Atlantic Wire, “In the second half of 2010 alone, the government sent 4,601 such requests to Google, who complied 94 percent of the time.”
The law, however, does little to protect citizens’ private data.
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was passed in 1986 and therefore is older than the Internet which was created in 1989. The law, as it stands, allows law enforcement to obtain emails, cell-phone location, and other digitized documents without a search warrant. The government must just show “reasonable grounds” that the records would be “relevant and material” to an investigation.
Currently, big name technical companies like Google and Microsoft are lobbying Congress to update the privacy laws to include a mandatory search warrant in digital investigations.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g9pm
NWO: Occupy Wall Street Group seeks global currency to replace each nation's financial system
A group working with Occupy Wall Street is proposing a global alternative currency system to replace the currencies of individual nations.
Amplify’d from www.wnd.com
Next target of protesters: U.S. dollar?
Group seeks global currency to replace each nation's financial system
NEW YORK – A group working with Occupy Wall Street is proposing a global alternative currency system to replace the currencies of individual nations.
An online group calling itself "OWS Currency" is working to devise an "alternative currency system for participants at Occupy Wall Street," according to the group's charter.
"Occupy Wall Street and subsequent occupations prove that the people are eager for a new system," states OWS Currency. "Let's help them build it."
The online working group is being coordinated by the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives, or P2P Foundation, which writes its mission is to "produce free/opensource technologies that help people create their own alternatives to the Federal Reserve Note and the system upon which it derives it's strength.""Achieving this ... simply requires us to construct an alternative system that does a superior job meeting people's needs," adds the foundation.
The currency project seeks to utilize several conceptual organizations already in existence that are attempting to create an alternative currency, including something called BitCoin, an experimental "digital currency ... that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world."
Also under consideration is PermaBank, which was created for the anti-Wall Street movement and seeks to develop and deploy a "set of technologies that align 'financial services' with the principles of permaculture."
Among those public intellectuals is Lawrence Lessig, creator of Creative Commons.
Lessig was a technology adviser to President Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Lessig has been mentioned as a future candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC. He is an activist for reduced legal restrictions on copyright material.
WND previously reported Lessig works closely with Robert W. McChesney, an avowed Marxist who favors the dismantling of capitalism.
McChesney founded Free Press, a George Soros-funded organization with close ties to the White House that petitions for more government control of the news media.
Lessig has penned numerous op-ed pieces with McChesney, and the duo have worked together on numerous media projects.
WND previously reported Free Press published a study advocating the development of a "world class" government-run media system in the U.S.
In May, WND reported Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott was named a policy adviser for innovation at the State Department.
McChesney is a professor at the University of Illinois and former editor of the Marxist journal Monthly Review.
"In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick-by-brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles," wrote McChesney in a column.
The board of Free Press, meanwhile, has included a slew of radicals, such as Obama's former "green jobs" czar Van Jones, who resigned after his founding of a communist organization was exposed.
Obama's "Internet czar," Susan P. Crawford, spoke at a Free Press May 14, 2009, "Changing Media" summit in Washington, D.C., revealed the book "The Manchurian President".
Crawford's pet project, OneWebNow, lists as "participating organizations" Free Press and the controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
Crawford and Kevin Werbach, who co-directed the Obama transition's Federal Communications Commission review team, are advisory board members at Public Knowledge, a Soros-funded public-interest group.
A Public Knowledge advisory board member is Timothy Wu, who is also chairman of the board for Free Press.
Like Public Knowledge, Free Press also has received funds from Soros' Open Society Institute.
With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott
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Sheriff Joe's posse delivers promised Obama surprise
Arizona's maverick Sheriff Joe Arpaio promised surprises in his jurisdiction's investigation of Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidential ballot and his Cold Case Posse is delivering - raising questions that touch on the authenticity of the long-form birth certificate issued last April and the possibility Obama is using a fraudulent Social Security Number.
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Sheriff Joe's posse delivers promised Obama surprise
Panel probing eligibility for 2012 ballot wants to see original birth certificate
Arizona's maverick Sheriff Joe Arpaio promised surprises in his jurisdiction's investigation of Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidential ballot and his Cold Case Posse is delivering – raising questions that touch on the authenticity of the long-form birth certificate issued last April and the possibility Obama is using a fraudulent Social Security Number.
Sources close to the investigation say the posse has decided it needs to see original birth records before it can conclude whether Obama should be eligible for the presidential ballot in 2012, not an electronic file or scanned copies.
The sources say the panel needs to examine the microfilm documenting Obama's birth, as well as the ink-and-paper original 1961 birth records the Hawaii Department of Health is holding in its vault.
The PDF file and various scanned copies of the birth certificate that the White House released April 27 are simply not good enough, the posse has determined.
Earlier this month, WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi spent 18 hours over a two-day period in Arizona briefing the Cold Case Posse on a wide range of evidence regarding Obama's eligibility.
"The posse wants to see the entire microfilm roll containing Obama's birth certificate, not just a microfilm copy of Obama's long-form birth certificate in isolation," Corsi explained. "An individual microfilm copy could be forged, but forging the entire microfilm reel on which Obama's birth certificate is in sequence would be almost impossible."
Also, Corsi said, the posse wants the ink-and-paper original 1961 Obama birth records still held in vault by the Hawaii Department of Health to be released publicly and subjected to independent court-authorized forensic examination.
Corsi affirmed that the posse's conclusion it needs to see the Obama birth certificate microfilm is part of the "shock" that Arpaio warned would be forthcoming, when he spoke last week to the Surprise Tea Party group meeting in Surprise, Ariz.
The focus on the microfilm records of Obama's birth arose after Arpaio's investigators realized the birth certificates of twins born the day after Obama, the Nordykes, had been released as white-on-black copies of microfilm to the family by the Hawaii Department of Health in 1966.
WND reported in July 2009 that Mrs. Eleanor Nordyke made public the copies in an article by the Honolulu Advertiser.
WND also has reported that the Obama birth certificate's number appears to be out of sequence with the birth certificates of the Nordyke twins.
The Nordyke twins were born Aug. 5, 1961, one day after Obama, and their birth certificates were registered Aug. 11, 1961, three days later than Obama. Yet their birth certificates have lower numbers.
Susan Nordyke, the twin born first, has certificate number 10637, and her sister Gretchen has certificate number 10638. Obama, born Aug. 4, 1961, and registered Aug. 8, 1961, has certificate number 10641.
"In 1961, Barack Obama was not a celebrity," Corsi commented. "If the Nordyke twins birth certificates were reduced to microfilm or microfiche by 1966, the date Mrs. Nordyke got the copies she made public, then Obama's birth certificate should have been reduced to microfilm or microfiche at the same time."
Corsi also indicated that the Arizona posse has interviewed court-certified forensic examiners who have advised that they can only issue an expert opinion on whether Obama's birth certificate is a forgery if they can examine the original ink-and-paper records.
Corsi told WND the Arpaio investigation is far-reaching in scope.
In addition to examining whether or not the long-form birth certificate is a forgery, the Cold Case Posse is examining evidence that Obama may have a fraudulent Social Security Number. The posse also is looking at records pertaining to Obama's birth narrative that suggest Barack Obama Sr. may not be the biological father.
"In total, the Cold Case Posse has assembled some 2,000 pages of evidence in the case," Corsi explained, "and is now preparing to conduct interviews to examine a wide range of questions, including that Obama may not be qualified to be president under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution because he was a dual citizen at birth, given that his father was listed as a citizen of Kenya when the future president was born."
Corsi said the Cold Case Posse is currently in the process of briefing various Arizona state officials about the progress of the investigation.
"Sheriff Arpaio said this would be a thorough and diligent investigation," Corsi said, "and that is exactly what the investigation has become. Sheriff Arpaio once again has proven to be a man of his word."
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ASTEROID YU-55 TO HIT THE MOON on NOV 9th!
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MAJOR NEWS from Richard C. Hoagland - ASTEROID YU-55 TO HIT THE MOON on NOV 9th!
HERE IT IS: Edited version of the 2nd hour of Revolution Radio Friday nights at 8 pm Eastern. Richard C. Hoagland calls on Francis to 'head up' the amateur astronomers around the world to film the MOST SPECTACULAR EVENT in our time! Asteroid YU-55 Smashing into the MOON!
Breaking news on asteroid YU-55 and other astronomy news.
Francis youtube channel
http://wwww.youtube.com/user/theperfectminds
Richard C. Hoagland Website and Research site
http://www.enterprisemission.com/
you don't know who Richard C. Hoagland no problem check here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Hoagland
Collision Course is a Radio show conducted by Francis Walsh
every Friday from 8pm to 10pm EST on Revolution Radio
http://www.freedomslips.com/revolutionradio/
Original full length show Uploaded by DrakenI78 Thanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOtZZWjEhY8
my website
http://thedailytrumpet.blogspot.com/
my YouTube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/gvloanguy?feature=mhee
See more at www.youtube.com
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Bank of America Cancels $5 Fee
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Bank of America Cancels $5 Fee
Bank of America Cancels $5 Fee (ABC News)
After Bank of America, based in Charlotte, N.C., announced the planned fee, customers expressed outrage, including a petition signed by 300,000 customers across the country threatening to leave the bank if the fee were implemented.
The company said Friday it was planning to offer more choices for customers to avoid the fee, although it was still planning to charge it next year. A person familiar with the matter had said customers could avoid the fee if they maintain minimum balances, deposit paychecks directly or use Bank of America credit cards.
"We're continuing to refine the program," a source told ABC News' Matt Gutman Friday.
Early in October, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told Gutman the fee "is meant to provide great service" and that customers with a balance greater than $5,000 will be exempt.
Smaller community banks and credit unions tried to recruit irate customers who were planning to leave the big banks.
But large national banks have stated they will not charge customers for debit card fees, although many in the banking industry had warned financial institutions would begin to charge higher fees as a result of federal banking regulation.
JPMorgan Chase decided last week it will not charge customers who use their debit cards for purchases, joining a growing list of banks that had no plans to follow the lead of financial giant Bank of America.
JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, U.S. Bank, PNC Financial, and Key Bank have confirmed they are not planning to charge customers debit card fees when they make purchases.
JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the country by total assets, began testing a $3 fee in parts of Wisconsin and Georgia in February. But the bank decided it won't roll out the fee to the rest of the country, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
A person familiar with Chase confirmed with ABC News that it is not planning to charge debit card fees due to customer preferences.
Many in the banking industry had warned that higher fees to consumers would follow the Dodd-Frank's Durbin Amendment, which went into effect on Oct. 1. The amendment capped debit card interchange fees for merchants at 21 cents per transaction earlier this year. Before the amendment, debit card companies charged merchants an average interchange fee of 44 cents per transaction.
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