Orwellian

Critics question IRS cash-reporting initiative targeting small businesses

"Small business owners across the country are receiving letters from the IRS questioning if they are reporting all of their cash income, in a new push by the agency some are saying could unnecessarily create fear in the small business community. The Wall Street Journal reports the initiative is an attempt to respond to what the agency feels is a widespread failure by small businesses to report all their cash sales. The agency says the letters are not the same as an audit, and it is simply seeking more tax information from the businesses. However, some lawmakers and business owners who received the letters say the initiative is alarming." Continue reading →

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The New, Improved 1984

"Have you noticed that every key metric of the economy is constantly being revised, rewriting history and installing a shiny new set of 'facts'? The 'headline number' is always positive, and its downward revision buried in an avalanche of new data. The revisions are so constant and so extreme that the recognition of this constant revision of history to suit the political needs of the current regime has been numbed; everyone knows the numbers are intended to paint a positive picture of a devolving, fragile economy and society, but we prefer this propaganda illusion to the harsh reality. Why? Because half of us are getting a direct check, benefit or payment from the state." Continue reading →

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State Of Mind: The Psychology of Control

"Are we controlled? To what extent and by whom? What does it mean for humanity's future? From cradle to grave our parents, peers, institutions and society inform our values and behaviors but this process has been hijacked. State Of Mind examines the science of control that has evolved over generations to keep us firmly in place so that dictators, power brokers and corporate puppeteers may profit from our ignorance and slavery. From the anvil of compulsory schooling to media and entertainment, we are kept in perpetual bondage to the ideas that shape our actions." Continue reading →

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Aging Chinese apologize for their roles in the Cultural Revolution

"As a teenager radicalised by China’s Cultural Revolution, Zhang Hongbing denounced his mother to the authorities. Two months later a firing squad shot her dead. Now after more than 40 years of mounting guilt, Zhang has ruffled the silence that cloaks China’s decade of turmoil with a public confession. 'Red Guard' youths abused their elders — officials, intellectuals, neighbours, relatives — dragging them into 'struggle sessions', ransacking their homes and driving some to suicide. Only a handful of public confessions have appeared, mostly in recent years as the Revolution’s once-heady teenagers enter their 60s." Continue reading →

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LAPD Detains Photographer For ‘Interfering’ With Police From 90 Feet Away

"Words like 'interference' or 'obstruction' seem to be thrown around quite frequently when law enforcement officers decide they'd rather not be filmed while on duty. How the passive act of filming can interfere with investigations or obstruct officials is left to the imagination. Fortunately (I guess...), law enforcement officials have very vivid imaginations. This allows them to arrest, detain, hassle or confiscate devices as needed, in order preserve the peace by chilling speech. The latest definition of 'interference' stretches the limits of credulity -- to nearly 100 feet." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLAPD Detains Photographer For ‘Interfering’ With Police From 90 Feet Away

‘Most members of Congress have not even seen the secret legal interpretations’ behind FISA

"President Obama’s stated desire for an 'open debate and democratic process' about the U.S. government’s surveillance activities met with open disbelief by a prominent former congressional staffer — Jennifer Hoelzer, who recently left service as deputy chief of staff to Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon). Hoelzer noted that she had been explicitly barred earlier this year from publicly discussing her senator’s reasons for opposing a bill that contained a loophole giving the NSA the apparent authority to run searches on Americans without any kind of warrant. Supporters of the legislation, however, were free to issue press releases touting its value to the public." Continue reading →

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Treating Surveillance as Damage and Routing Around It

"Even as the U.S. security state becomes more closed, centralized and brittle in the face of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks, civil society and the public are responding to the post-Snowden repression by becoming more dispersed and resilient. That’s how networks always respond to censorship and surveillance. Each new attempt at a file-sharing service, after Napster was shut down — Kazaa, Kazaa lite, eDonkey, eMule, The Pirate Bay — was less dependent on central servers and other vulnerable nodes than the one before it. Wikileaks responded the same way to U.S. government attempts to shut it down." Continue reading →

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New Nanotech Set to Track, Self-Destruct, and GPS Tag Guns Wirelessly

"The technological system utilizes tiny devices that are implanted in guns and other weapons. These devices are more than chips; they are actual mechanical processes created by precision engineering that can affect the weapon’s operations. The devices include miniature GPS systems designed to make guns easier to track and self-destruct systems that could cause them to explode if they receive a wireless signal. The technology coincides with the ‘smart gun’ technology Anthony Gucciardi has broken down in the past, which can be used to ‘turn off’ weapons when in gun free zones or whenever designated by government." Continue reading →

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Dotcom: Surveillance and Copyright Extremism Will Cost United States Dearly

"'The US government and the other Five Eyes partners (UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have an agreement to push for new spy legislation that will provide them with backdoors into all Internet infrastructure and services. The NZ government is currently aggressively looking to extend its powers with the GCSB and the TICS act, which will force service providers with encryption capabilities to give them secret decryption access,' Dotcom explains. 'The US is on a path of destroying its massive lead in the Internet economy. Mass surveillance and copyright extremism will cost the US economy more than any terrorist attack or piracy,' Dotcom says." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDotcom: Surveillance and Copyright Extremism Will Cost United States Dearly

Mega to run ‘cutting-edge’ encrypted email after Lavabit’s ‘privacy seppuku’

"Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz is working on a highly-secure email service to run on a non-US-based server. It comes as the US squeezes email providers that offer encryption and Mega’s CEO calls Lavabit’s shutdown an 'honorable act of Privacy Seppuku.' The concept he was referring to was developed by secure service providers such as Cryptocloud, which made a ‘corporate seppuku’ pledge to oppose the mass surveillance and shield the privacy of their users’ data. The name for the move apparently derives from a Japanese ritual suicide, which was originally practiced by samurai to preserve honor." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMega to run ‘cutting-edge’ encrypted email after Lavabit’s ‘privacy seppuku’