Author: The Freedom Watch Staff

This author has written 11091 articles

12-year-old French girl caught writing bad checks for candy

"A 12-year-old girl in the southern French city of Bordeaux has been caught by police after using stolen cheques to buy 2,600 euros ($3,440) worth of candies and pastries. Local police said Thursday that the girl had stolen a chequebook in March from a neighbour and used it over several months to buy the sweets from local bakeries. Her criminal sweet tooth was uncovered when a local bakery tried to deposit 23 of the cheques and they bounced. She was quickly apprehended, questioned by police and released after her parents agreed to pay the bakery back." Continue reading →

Continue Reading12-year-old French girl caught writing bad checks for candy

Prosecutors charge 6 in $300M credit card hacking scheme

"Russian Dmitriy Smilianets, 29, is accused of selling the stolen data and distributing the profits. Prosecutors said he charged $10 for U.S. cards, $15 for ones from Canada and $50 for European cards, which are more expensive because they have computer chips that make them more secure. The five concealed their efforts by disabling anti-virus software on victims computers and storing data on multiple hacking platforms, prosecutors said. They sold the payment card numbers to resellers, who then sold them on online forums or to 'cashers' who encode the numbers onto blank plastic cards." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingProsecutors charge 6 in $300M credit card hacking scheme

Paris suburbs erupt in violent protests over veil ban

"The violence kicked off Friday evening, when some 400 people protested near the Trappes police station, southwest of Paris. They set fire to bins, destroyed bus stops and hurled stones at police who responded with tear gas. A 14-year-old boy suffered a serious eye injury and several police officers were also hurt. The veil ban, introduced in 2011, has outraged many in France’s Muslim community, which at an estimated four million is western Europe’s largest Muslim minority. Officials say more than 700 women have been stopped since the ban was introduced. The growing visibility of French Muslims has also sparked a backlash from nationalists." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingParis suburbs erupt in violent protests over veil ban

France drops law that makes insulting the president a criminal offense

"Being rude to the French president is no longer an offence after parliament amended legislation dating back to 1881 in favour of freedom of speech. Previously any rude remark risked a fine and criminal conviction for 'offending the head of state'. But the change was pushed through after criticism from the European court of human rights. In March, the court ruled that France had violated the right to freedom of expression after giving a criminal conviction to a man holding a cardboard sign telling the then-president Nicolas Sarkozy to get lost, uttered by Sarkozy himself months earlier when a man refused to shake his hand at an agricultural fair." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFrance drops law that makes insulting the president a criminal offense

Malawi man charged with ‘breaching the peace’ for calling president ‘stupid’

"Police in Malawi said Tuesday they had arrested a 37-year-old man and charged him with breaching the peace, after he allegedly called President Joyce Banda 'stupid.' Japhet Chirwa is believed to have called the head of state 'stupid and a failure' after a failed bid to change the name in his passport, police spokesman Maurice Chapola told AFP. 'He got furious and started talking ill of the president,' said Chapola, speaking from the northern city of Mzuzu. Chirwa has been charged with conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace, which could carry a fine or a six-month custodial sentence." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMalawi man charged with ‘breaching the peace’ for calling president ‘stupid’

Japan: Fukushima clean-up will cost $58 billion

"The clean-up after the Fukushima nuclear disaster could cost five times more than estimated, far more than the 1 trillion yen the government has so far allocated, as Tokyo Electric Power said on Wednesday that steam had been seen again in a reactor building. Earlier this month, the utility had reported spiking levels of possibly cancer-causing materials in soil from underneath the plant, but maintained that toxic groundwater was likely contained. On Monday it admitted its own study, completed days earlier, revealed the groundwater was leaking into the ocean, prompting criticism over the delay." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJapan: Fukushima clean-up will cost $58 billion

Canadian officials deny that pooping geese could have spread GMO wheat seeds

"Canadian agricultural officials exchanged a series of emails in late August of 2012 outlining a crisis plan explaining how personnel at the country’s agricultural agency should deal with inquiries about whether experimental Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) wheat could be spread in the feces of Canadian geese. The Ottawa Citizen said Tuesday that it has received heavily redacted copies of the emails, which point toward a concerted effort to squelch the notion that GMO wheat could have escaped its growing area at Agriculture Canada’s Experimental Farm in Ottawa in the digestive tracts of Canadian geese." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCanadian officials deny that pooping geese could have spread GMO wheat seeds

Who Owns Congress? The NSA or the FED?

"What did it tell Congress? It did not have to tell Congress anything. Congress knows who has the phone data of every member of Congress. But what about 'We, the people?' Them, too. Then who owns Congress? The NSA spies on the FED. It can blackmail any FED official at any time -- just as it can blackmail any member of Congress. Yes, the FED can cut off the government's money. Maybe Congress will then cut off the NSA's funding. But it never has in the past. So, the Federal Reserve is not the owner of Congress. It merely holds a long-term sublease through a lease arrangement from the NSA." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWho Owns Congress? The NSA or the FED?

Unusual Cremation Not Limited to Michael Hastings

"Something of the same sort of cremation occurred in a mysterious shoot down of a helicopter in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 30 Americans, including Seal Team 6 members that took part in the raid on Osama Bin Laden's residence. The Pentagon told the families that all the bodies were cremated due to the fact that they were badly burned in the crash. However, pictures have emerged that show some deceased SEALs without bad burns. The Pentagon also claims that, despite recovering all the bodies of those killed, the helicopter’s black box was washed away in a flash flood." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUnusual Cremation Not Limited to Michael Hastings

Digital Carjackers Show Off New Attacks, Funded By $80,000 Pentagon Grant

"This fact, that a car is not a simple machine of glass and steel but a hackable network of computers, is what Miller and Valasek have spent the last year trying to demonstrate. Miller, a 40-year-old security engineer at Twitter, and Valasek, the 31-year-old director of security intelligence at the Seattle consultancy IOActive, received an $80,000-plus grant last fall from the mad-scientist research arm of the Pentagon known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to root out security vulnerabilities in automobiles." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDigital Carjackers Show Off New Attacks, Funded By $80,000 Pentagon Grant