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September 30th - Beginning of the End for Free Speech on the Net?
Sep 5th, 2016
Daily NewsPNW STAFF
Categories: Warning

The first step toward the global suppression of free speech on the Internet will take place at midnight on September 30, when the Obama administration cedes control of the World Wide Web to foreign interests.
L. Gordon Crovitz of The Washington Post has penned two pieces outlining the collision course of American free speech. The first, "Stop Obama's Internet Giveaway" in March, 2016, and a recent follow-up piece called "An Internet Giveaway to the U.N." discuss the potential fallout of not preventing President Obama from allowing a government contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to expire.

Under Obama's direction, the Commerce Department was charged with ending American oversight and ensure that foreign entities could not make an internet power grab

Crovitz rightly disagrees with that outcome, stating that "because of the (Obama) administration's naiveté or arrogance, U.N. control is the likely result if the U.S. gives up internet stewardship..."

Without a U.S. agreement to operate with antitrust exemptions, ICANN would likely seek to be overseen by another agency, organization or foreign power. As a non-profit, the body's rules and regulations are determined by a board and the shift would be a tremendous opportunity for countries that routinely suppress free speech, such as Russia and China, to infiltrate, gain authority and impose their worldviews on a global scale. 

Likewise, the Obama administration has been no friend to free speech. Government employees in the administration have already been accused of suppressing opposing political views. 

In particular, the Internal Revenue Service came under scrutiny for targeting conservative political groups and impeding their ability to gain non-profit status before the last presidential election.

In a recent article, The Daily Wire charges that "The lobbying for the end of U.S. control of the Internet intensified due to Edward Snowden. After Snowden's leaks of the National Security Agency's government surveillance emerged, ICANN and other foreign governments used the U.S.'s use of surveillance in other countries as reason to end U.S. control of Internet governance."

Snowden, a whistleblower, leaked classified information which many viewed as war crimes by the U.S. military to the non-profit journalistic organization WikiLeaks. Snowden has been living as an exile in Russia and has been charged in absentia by the United States under the 1917 Espionage Act for absconding with classified documents. 

In recent months, WikiLeaks also made a splash by releasing Democratic National Committee communications that suggested the party skewed its dealing against presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Although shutting down an online organization such as WikiLeaks would run contrary to the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, countries like Russia and China, among others, may be more inclined to end the dissemination of such sensitive materials. Under a different set of standards, such information could be kept from the public going forward.  

The Daily Wire goes on to point out that once the U.S. surrenders control over ICANN, "it will likely fall under the (International Telecommunications Unit) ITU's control and risk being subject to censorship."

Journalists at both The Daily Wire and Wall Street Journal agree that handing over control could have dangerous ramifications.

"Even more chilling is the fact that ITU had passed a treaty that provided 'authority to governments to close off their citizens' access to the global Internet'" and creating 'a digital Iron Curtain.'

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Wisconsin Sen. Sean Duffy have introduced a bill to stop the shift in internet power and Investor's Business Daily noted as far back as three years ago Cruz was concerned about this day arriving.

"The likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Chinese President Xi Jinping should not dictate what can be read, written, distributed, bought and sold on the internet," the former presidential candidate wrote. "Countries that do not give their own people the right to speak freely deserve no say in what Americans can say and do on the internet." 

The Texas senator has also called for potential administrative regulations to prevent opening this Pandora's Box. And even before the clock strikes midnight on U.S. free speech protections, the seeds of China's influence are already being sown.

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé recently agreed to become a senior advisor to China's World Internet Conference, which is an organization Beijing has developed directly to compete with ICANN. According to The Washington Post, "Its goal is to replace the open Internet with full government control and global censorship."

When confronted by Sen. Cruz about China's internet censorship and relationship with ICANN, Chehade appeared to threaten that if the America retains oversight, it "would have grave repercussions on the U.S."

Recent studies show that 66 percent of Americans oppose relinquishing control of the internet and 69 percent say that it's either "somewhat" or "very likely" that a country like China, Russia or Iran would attempt to seize control.  

As University of Surrey Prof. Alan Woodward succinctly put it, this is "about who officially controls the foundations of the internet/web addresses and domain names, without which the network wouldn't function."

Let the Headlines Speak
Sep 5th, 2016
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines

Israeli PM Netanyahu considering Putin’s offer to host Palestine talks in Moscow - statement
Benjamin Netanyahu is considering Russia’s offer to host Israeli-Palestinian talks in Moscow, a statement from the Israeli PM’s press service said. The statement came after Netanyahu held talks with Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister and Special Envoy to the Middle East, Mikhail Bogdanov.  

“Shut it Down!”: Reuters Orders Cameraman to Kill Positive Trump Footage
A shock example of anti-Trump media censorship was caught on tape when Reuters ordered its cameraman to cut live footage of Trump receiving praise from African-American Bishop Wayne T. Jackson in Detroit. The incident occurred as Jackson presented Trump with a shawl, a bible, and offered his prayers as the black audience cheered and clapped.  

Syria conflict: Dozens killed in bombings in government-held areas
At least 40 people have been killed in four bombings in government-held areas of Syria and one in a city dominated by Kurdish forces, state media report. The attacks took place between 08:00 and 09:00 (05:00-06:00 GMT) around Damascus, Homs, Tartous and Hassakeh. It was not clear if they were linked.  

Brazil: Police use tear gas at pro-Dilma protest
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Brazil to demonstrate against the government. Organisers said 50,000 people - a record number - turned out in Sao Paulo alone for a seventh day of protests against the new President Michel Temer. Mr Temer took office after Dilma Rousseff was removed from the presidency in an impeachment trial.  

North Korea 'fires three ballistic missiles into sea'
North Korea has fired three ballistic missiles into the waters off its east coast, say South Korean officials. The missiles were launched from the Hwangju region, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on Monday, according to the Yonhap news agency. There was no information on the types of missile fired or how far they flew.  

Hong Kong election: Youth protest leaders win LegCo seats
A new generation of pro-democracy activists has won seats on Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo). The young leaders want greater autonomy and changes to the way Hong Kong is governed by China. Voter turnout reached a record high of 58%. Among those elected is Nathan Law, 23, who helped lead the "Umbrella Protests" in 2014 for self-determination.  

Khamenei: Muslims should reconsider letting Saudis run Mecca pilgrimage
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei renewed criticism of Saudi Arabia over how it runs the haj...and suggested Muslim countries think about ending Riyadh's control of the annual pilgrimage. "Because of these (Saudi) rulers' oppressive behavior towards God's guests (pilgrims), the world of Islam must fundamentally reconsider the management of the two holy places and the issue of haj," Khamenei said...  

Netanyahu mulling Russian offer to meet Abbas in Moscow
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering a Russian offer to meet in Moscow with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the premier's office said Monday. During a meeting in Jerusalem with Michael Bogdanov, Russia's special envoy to the Middle East, Netanyahu discussed Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer to host the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.  

'ISIS kilometers away from Israel's northern border'
The jihadi organizations that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terror group have allegedly launched joint operations recently mere kilometers from Israel's border on the southern Golan Heights. A new video...shows the ISIS-affiliated coalition advancing on the Yarmouk Valley region located in the triple border junction between Israel's Golan Heights, Jordan and Syria...  

Abe "Strongly Protests" After North Korean Ballistic Missile Launch Into Japan's Air Defense Zone
Just a month after Japan ordered its military to a "state of alert," and as world leaders gather in China for the G-20 summit, AP reports that North Korea fired three ballistic missiles off its east coast Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Abe "strongly condemned" the actions, as the missiles fell into Japan's air defense zone, declaring the launch a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions.  

US hopeful for deal with Russia on Syria
The United States is skeptical an agreement with Russia to decrease violence in Syria can work but will keep pursuing it nonetheless, President Barack Obama said Sunday as negotiators from both countries edged toward a deal.  

Clinton’s Christian faith, once a political weapon, all but absent from campaign
Hillary Clinton’s Christianity, which she wielded as a political weapon in her 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign, largely has been missing in this year’s election. She hasn’t hidden her Methodist upbringing, but scholars say it’s not front and center. And where in the past she used it as a window into her character, this year she’s deployed it as a debate tactic to push criminal justice reform and other policy goals.  

Floods, landslides wreak havoc on Mexico's Acapulco resort
Floods and landslides caused by a tropical depression have damaged or affected some 70 homes and schools and trapped around 200 people in the Mexican resort town of Acapulco, authorities said Sunday.  

VLADIMIR SHOOTIN' Russian president is gearing up for atomic war with the West by building top-secret nuclear shelters, security experts fear
VLADIMIR Putin is preparing for war with the West, security experts fear. The Russian president has invested heavily in decking out top-secret facilities around Moscow in the event of war.  

DHS election takeover? Agency itself was hacked
As the Department of Homeland Security contemplates taking possibly unconstitutional power over the U.S. election system due to the threat of hackers, citizens should consider the fact that the agency itself was the victim of a major cyber intrusion that stole sensitive personal information of thousands of its employees, contends a former DHS officer.  

Angela Merkel's CDU 'suffers Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania poll blow'
Angela Merkel's ruling CDU party has been beaten into third place by an anti-immigrant and anti-Islam party in elections in a north-eastern German state, TV exit polls suggest. The Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) party took 21.4% of the vote behind the centre-left SPD's 30.2%. The German chancellor's CDU was supported by only 19.8% of those who voted, according to the exit polls.  

World ISIS is losing territory on all fronts — here's what the group leaves behind
here's no question that ISIS forces are losing ground in territories in Syria and Iraq — after making so many enemies from several countries and across numerous ethnic lines, the group might have bit off more than it could chew.  

World Nigerian military: Some officers selling arms to Boko Haram
Nigeria's military says some officers are selling arms and ammunition to Boko Haram, indicating the corruption bedeviling the country's fight against the Islamic extremists continues despite government efforts to halt graft.  

5.9 quake rattles Philippines
A powerful 5.9 magnitude earthquake has struck the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, according to the US Geological Survey. Meanwhile the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) measured the quake at a preliminary magnitude of 5.7.  

Designer Babies and Human Enhancement: Ronald Bailey Lectures in Moscow
Also most babies will be created using skin cells and the bioethics of radical life extension. biologist Craig Venter, the leader of the group that raced the government to a tie in sequencing the human genome, and now founder of the life extension company Human Longevity, Inc. can sequence a fetal genome and give the mother "a picture of what her future child will look like at 18." Of course, I explained why leftwing and rightwing bioconservatives who want to stop the development of these biotechnologies are morally wrong. L  

Obama Receives Chilly Welcome for G20 in China
Obama arrived in China on Saturday for the G-20 Summit but something unexpected happened while he was trying to exit Air Force One. Obama received a very undiplomatic greeting.  

Genetic Manipulation - the New Weapon of Mass Destruction
Sep 5th, 2016
CommentaryPNW STAFF
Categories: Warning

Biological warfare is a frightening possibility that has recently become more accessible and, potentially, far more powerful due to recent advances in genetic manipulation called CRISPR. 
Early this year, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper cited genetic manipulation made possible by the new technique as a threat to national security, adding genetic manipulation to the list of threats of weapons of mass destruction. But just what is CRISPER and how much of a threat does this pose?

The technique's full name is Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat and it refers to a component of the immune systems of bacteria that seek to protect themselves against viruses. 

The short and palindromic DNA sequences in bacterial and microorganism cells precisely cut up and modify virus DNA to protect the cell. Researchers have now figured out how to harness this process for both industrial and research purposes.

This is a classic example of a dual-use technology that has powerfully beneficial civilian applications as well as devastating military potential. In an industrial context, the system can be used to create hardier antibiotics, yogurts and yeasts. The benefit to food production alone can be substantial. 

In research, there is enormous medical potential in the ability, very precisely, to alter the DNA of a specific cell or organism. Cures for disease and genetic disorders are much closer with such a powerful tool for precise genetic manipulation, but so are engineered bio-weapons.

Bio-weapons present a unique challenge to nation states. Officially, the development of biological weapons is prohibited by the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention of 1975, signed by 175 countries, including the US, China and Russia. 

But without continuing research into bio-warfare, a nation is left defenseless against an enemy that does have continued development. Several secret programs out of Russia, China and the US have already been discovered, highlighting the weakness of the treaty itself. 

But what was previously a resource-intensive endeavor only within the reach of powerful nations, the increased precision and efficiency of the CRISPR techniques have put far more powerful weapon development possibilities within reach of any regime or sophisticated criminal organization.

Biological warfare is not new. The US Army distributed smallpox infected blankets to American Indian populations in an act of biological warfare and even the early Mongols broke sieges by launching diseased bodies over the walls of castles. 

During World War II, the Japanese dropped bubonic plague infected fleas in ceramic jars onto Chinese cities, releasing plagues that killed untold thousands. 

The US military conducted tests of bio-weapons on an industrial scale during the Cold War and in September of 1950, purposely tested bacteria called Serratia marcescens on 800,000 residents of San Francisco, resulting in eleven illnesses and one death, in their attempt to increase its spread. 

The research into bacteria such as anthrax and far more deadly viruses was conducted in secret on a massive scale.

But CRISPR allows even greater capabilities to be had in the garages or low-cost laboratories of any bad actor. Now able to tailor viruses to specific populations and for very specific effect, it is theoretically possible to produce pathogens that could render certain populations sterile or cause genetic mutations in their victims. 

As is the case with bio-weapons, they may be easily loosed upon the world but are very difficult to contain or control.

Whereas the benefits of editing the human genome to remove inherited heart defects is a great leap forward for science, this technique brings with it the chance for easily-accessible and precisely-tailored viruses that are far more difficult to stop.

The double edged sword of genetic engineering that can produce hardier crops, improved food supplies and remove genetic defects also threatens to kill millions with man-made plagues. 

Imagine this system in the hands of a terrorist group or malicious nation-state that modifies the Ebola virus to have a longer incubation period and increase the transmission rate by a thousand fold, or build into Zika the ability severely to alter a victim's DNA and render 95% of its victims infertile. 

Spread by mosquitoes or person to person, these new diseases would speed across borders, breaching all conventional defenses.

After the incredible advances and proliferation of the use of the CRISPR technique in the past several years, experts believe we are now looking at a genetic arms race that is being conducted in research labs across the globe. 

Expect advances in medicine and food sciences, but don't be surprised if the next global pandemic is man-made and far worse than any we have seen before.

Big Brother's Eye in the Sky - Persistent Surveillance Systems
Sep 5th, 2016
CommentaryPNW STAFF
Categories: World Government

We may still have some expectation of privacy while we are in our homes, but when outside under a clear sky, there is no longer any assurance that we are not being watched, thanks to a new surveillance system being employed by the police in some cities.
First developed for the US military to monitor Iraqi cities and track those who were planting explosive devices, the technology has now been improved and applied to domestic law enforcement. 

Far removed from a circling police helicopter called out for a dangerous pursuit, this system mounts a specially designed 192 mega pixel wide-angle camera array together with digital recording. It has caused a quantum leap in urban surveillance that allows police to record up to ten hours of footage that covers nearly an entire city.

The company, Persistent Surveillance Systems, based in Dayton Ohio, was started by a man named Ross McNutt. The MIT graduate founded the Center for Rapid Product Development in the Air Force. Originally tasked with creating a battlefield observation platform to track down those responsible for planting IEDs, McNutt mounted a series of six cameras on a small plane in a system dubbed Angel Fire. 

With what McNutt describes as "Google Earth with TiVo capability," the system was able to record not just a specific area, but an entire city in real time. Military intelligence could watch a bomb explode then dial the time back until they watched the bomber plant it, then drive from his house.

The civilian version, now mounted in a Cessna and sporting significantly upgraded camera resolution, is being marketed to police departments around the United States and in Mexico. 

The mayor of Juarez contracted the Persistent Surveillance Systems to help bring to justice cartel hit squads that were operating with impunity by tracking them back to their safe houses, but the debate has just begun in the United States where Persistent Surveillance Systems has been monitoring Baltimore for months under a blanket of secrecy. 

Operating out of a nondescript office above a parking garage, McNutt and his team of pilots and analysts are under contract with the Baltimore Police Department to record the city from above. And the system works frighteningly well.

One recent Saturday, a small plane operated by an ex-Army pilot working for Persistent Surveillance Systems took to the skies with his camera system recording one image every second. He had been up for several hours when a call came through that a group of nuisance dirt bike riders, which had been terrorizing the city, had just hit and then assaulted an off duty police detective. 

The police had been unable to catch the bikers for months but with the technicians now watching the images in real time, they were able to track it through the city, past street level cameras and after nearly ninety minutes, identify and arrest the riders. 

In another case, a murderer left the police with little evidence until they watched hours-old footage of a figure walking away from the scene, crossing a park, entering a house and emerging to drive away in a vehicle. Both cases brought the police not only to the perpetrators but also their accomplices and linked other pieces of incriminating evidence to build strong cases.

The system works by snapping a series of incredibly high-resolution, wide-angle photos and digitally stitching them together. Up to 10 terabytes of data are stored per day and the "video" can be looked at later, zoomed in and played backwards to track the movements of suspects across the city for hours. 

Individual people appear as little more than specks a pixel or two wide in the current system, but it is enough to track anyone to any location. The City of Baltimore has remained tight lipped about the project and it is unknown how many other cities have considered contracting with Persistent Surveillance Systems, except for Los Angeles, California, that recently tried the system.

Ross McNutt approached the ACLU before the project had become public knowledge, though he didn't expect the fearful reaction that his system provoked. Whereas it may be true that there is no legal expectation of privacy while out in public, the thought that our every movement is watched and recorded, ready to be played back by the police or private surveillance contractors is more than a little creepy. 

Once again, a system designed in a military environment for use on a guerrilla enemy is being employed against American civilians as a tool of observation and control.

The French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote about a concept he called the panopticon in his work Discipline and Punish. The panopticon, an all-seeing presence, enforces compliance through constant observation and is the reason why prisons are now build around a central point of observation. 

The citizens, or subjects perhaps, of Baltimore are now living with street corner cameras and aerial video that has built a digital panopticon that watches and records their every move, all without public consent or transparency. So the next time you are out on a city street, just look up and smile to that eye in the sky because you too might be on camera.

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." (Ecclesiastes 12.13, 14)