False Sense Of Security

Chicago Police Superintendent Says Cops Will Shoot Gun Carrying Citizens

"Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy is not happy about the new concealed carry laws in Illinois. And now he is predicting that police will shoot citizens who are lawfully carrying firearms. While every cop has a right to protect himself, this bold statement by McCarthy is obviously meant to intimidate gun owners who choose to exercise their rights. This threat that cops may mistakenly shoot a gun carrying citizen is just another attempt to fight the concealed carry laws that Illinois has long been deprived of. McCarthy would not say what specific training officers will undertake if any. However, he did admit that in the past his department has made mistakes in shooting unarmed civilians." Continue reading →

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The State, Not Manning, is the Criminal

"Manning is being punished for exposing government crimes, most famously U.S. troops shooting innocent civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in the Collateral Murder video. Manning’s disclosures also shed light on what McClatchy Newspapers called 'evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence.' The outrage caused by exposure of this brutal war crime helped end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The perpetrators should have been held accountable. They were not. Instead, the state engaged in a series of crimes against Private Manning." Continue reading →

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Mother, daughter sentenced for Internet scam targeting U.S. military supporters

"A Colorado mother and daughter were sentenced on Wednesday for their roles in a 'Nigerian internet romance scam.' Karen and Tracy Vasseur were convicted of stealing more than $1 million from 374 victims who thought they were sending money to aid members of the U.S. military. Unknown conspirators in Nigeria would establish online relationships with victims via e-mail or social media by sending them fake military documents and personal photographs. After the relationship was established, the purported military member would request large sums of money, ostensibly for satellite phones that would allow them to speak to the victims or travel funds that would allow them to visit." Continue reading →

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When Your Car Is Spying on You

"Traffic cameras in Britain as well in Los Angeles and other jurisdictions overwhelmingly ring up drivers for offenses that wouldn't trouble a cop. New Jersey is just the latest state scandalized by discovery that yellow lights are set below the state minimum in order to yield more red-light camera tickets. London uses its cameras to levy special fees on those who drive SUVs in the city's financial distract. In some future discrimination or hate-crime lawsuit, will vehicle records be called up to show you locked your doors in a minority neighborhood but not in a white neighborhood? Will the state decide to raise your ObamaCare copays because a face-recognition camera also recognized a cigarette?" Continue reading →

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Britain fights EU’s ‘Big Brother’ bid to fit every car with speed limiter

"Drivers face having their cars fitted with devices that slam on the brakes if they go over the speed limit, under draconian new road safety measures being drawn up by officials in Brussels. All new cars would have to include camera systems that ‘read’ the limits displayed on road signs and automatically apply the brakes. And vehicles already on the road could even be sent back to garages to be fitted with the ‘Big Brother’ technology, meaning that no car in the UK would be allowed to travel faster than 70mph – the speed limit on motorways. The EC’s Mobility and Transport Department aims to slash the death toll from traffic accidents by a third by 2020." Continue reading →

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Fifth of CIA applicants with suspect backgrounds have ‘significant terrorist’ connections

"Although the file did not describe the nature of the jobseekers’ extremist or hostile ties, it cited Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda and its affiliates most often. The fear of infiltration is such that the NSA planned last year to investigate at least 4,000 staff who obtained security clearances. The NSA detected potentially suspicious activity among staff members after trawling through trillions of employee keystrokes at work. The suspicious behavior included staffers accessing classified databases they do not usually use for their work or downloading several documents, two people familiar with the software used to monitor staff told the Post." Continue reading →

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Caller ID inventor struggles to collect royalties despite owning patent

"Fifteen years after he patented caller ID technology, Brazilian inventor Nelio Jose Nicolai is no millionaire. Quite the opposite: out of work since 1984, the co-inventor of the ubiquitous tool is still fighting to collect royalties. In 1996, the inventor received an award from the World Intellectual Property Organization and a year later — after a five-year wait — he finally secured a patent in his homeland. He then approached domestic mobile phone operators to claim his rights to royalties — and ran into a wall. Over the years, BIMA was modified and named caller ID. But, despite repeated efforts, Nicolai was unable to secure the rights to the new name, causing him to lose out on millions of dollars." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCaller ID inventor struggles to collect royalties despite owning patent

Do Korea “experts” know what they are talking about?

"There is convincing evidence that most Western 'experts' on the DPRK have little, if any, clue what they are talking about. B.R. Myers, one of the very few bona fide experts on Pyongyang and its weird regime, has written at length about just how misguided most of what you’re hearing and reading about North Korea now actually is. In the first place, many commentators apply outdated, Cold War thinking to the DPRK, where it doesn’t fit. Moreover, most 'experts' are stunningly ignorant of what North Korea actually is like or how it thinks, resulting in profound Western misreads on why Pyongyang does what it does. Which, given the awesomely high nuclear stakes right now, kinda matters." Continue reading →

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I Am Curious About Why Vital Information Was Not Publicized

"The government’s intelligence statement says that they had information three days before the gas event. I am curious. Did Obama privately warn the Syrian government not to make a gas attack? Did he reveal to them that he had intelligence of their activities so as to stop them? Why didn’t Obama make this intelligence fully public prior to the attack? Wouldn’t that publicity have made it very difficult for an attack to have been ordered? Even if the intelligence was not 100% able to nail down an impending attack, why was it not made public? How can we be sure that this intelligence is meaningful if, prior to the event, the U.S. government didn’t consider it reliable enough so as to issue a warning?" Continue reading →

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