Even more scathing reports of US surveillance are emerging from Germany – courtesy of Edward Snowden. Der Spiegel magazine is reporting that they’ve seen a top secret US document – outlining how the country’s intelligence bugged EU offices and spied on the bloc’s internal computer networks. RT’s Peter Oliver is in Berlin with more on this latest leak. RT is also joined by Lode Vanoost – former deputy speaker of the Belgian parliament.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Government report reveals encryption actually thwarted wiretaps for the first time on record
(Image credit: ideonexus/Flickr)
According to an official U.S. government report, four wiretaps have been thwarted by encryption, something which has never happened since such records have been collected.
This comes after as it was revealed that the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program even spied on European diplomats. Meanwhile, the Army has blocked the Guardian over security concerns related to the information being put out about the surveillance program.
This latest revelation came in a report from the U.S. Administrative Office of the Courts, the agency that oversees federal courts.
“Encryption was reported for 15 wiretaps in 2012 and for 7 wiretaps conducted during previous years,” the report states, highlighting the fact that more people are turning to encryption over privacy concerns.
“In four of these wiretaps, officials were unable to decipher the plain text of the messages,” the report continues. “This is the first time that jurisdictions have reported that encryption prevented officials from obtaining the plain text of the communications since the AO began collecting encryption data in 2001.”
It’s important to note that the numbers mentioned above are quite tiny when compared to the total number of wiretaps authorized by federal or state judges.
The office’s 2012 Wiretap Report states that there were 3,395 authorized wiretaps, a quite notable increase over the 2,732 authorized wiretaps reported in 2011, as Wired’s Threat Level points out.
It’s quite important to note that this figure does not include any of the wiretaps authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
That is something that must be noted because the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is the body which authorized the collection of all U.S. records from Verizon.
The latest controversies about government surveillance don’t deal with these types of wiretaps authorized by court order, instead they deal with the wiretaps authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and related legislation which is subject to secret government interpretations.
Interestingly, this year’s report points out that a whopping 97 percent of the wiretaps issued in 2012 were for “portable devices” like mobile phones. Other equipment targeted by the wiretaps include everything from landline phones to computers to fax machines to microphones.
Around 87 percent of the wiretaps were issued in drug-related cases, according to the report.
David Kravets, writing for Wired, points out that in 1997 Louis Freeh, who was the director of the FBI at the time, told Congress that “all of law enforcement is also in total agreement on one aspect of encryption. The widespread use of uncrackable encryption will devastate our ability to fight crime and prevent terrorism.”
Despite the dire warnings that were used to attempt to get legislation passed that would authorize a government backdoor into almost all electronic communications at the time, this hasn’t happened.
“Sixteen years later, and judging by the government’s own accounting, we’re not even close to Freeh’s fears becoming reality, despite the government’s continued push for a backdoor into virtually everything,” Kravets writes.
Indeed, despite government fearmongering leveraged in a clear attempt to justify a further erosion of privacy and a further undermining of Constitutional rights, the fact is that encryption hasn’t created a climate where terrorists and criminals are somehow untouchable.
Yet this latest report does show that for people who do care about privacy, it might be possible to keep your communications private.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
3 Ways Facebook Hackers Target Your Account
Facebook accounts are an often overlooked gateway into an individual’s personal life. We, as social networking users, have few reservations about posting our photos, location, plans to travel, private outbursts, and information regarding friends, family and work. We include names, phone numbers, email addresses, GPS coordinates and the list goes on and on. But you ask “What’s to worry? After all, I am only posting this information for friends and family to see, right?”. The simple answer is no. Facebook hackers want your information.
The truth is that many of your friends’ and family’s accounts are being hacked every day. By successfully compromising your Facebook account an attacker has unlimited access to a wealth of information about you, your friends and your family. In addition, if a hacker gets your Facebook password, I think it’s reasonable to assume that he could then take over your email accounts, bank accounts, and other private information as well. The following 3 Methods of Facebook Hacking are something that everyone should make themselves aware of. When you have learned the attacker’s methods you can begin to protect the information that you so freely give out on the internet.
1. Social Engineering:
Generally the first thing a hacker will do is to find a way directly to your inner circle. One way an attacker might start is by ”friending” some of your closest friends, family and coworkers on Facebook. Once enough mutual “friends” are built up, they will eventually work their way up to sending you a friend request. It may appear to come from a name that you know, or perhaps some curious account with a hot profile picture to grab your attention. Either way, you look at all of your mutual friends and you click “Confirm” on the friend request, allowing the attacker access to a gold mine of information.Once the attacker is on your “friends” list he can see all of your photos, friends and family that you talk to the most, your daily activities and more. In addition, he may be able to access your email address, phone number, the schools you went to, and where you currently work.
Armed with this information the hacker can now move on to the next level of attack, attempting to access your login details and other private information.The lesson to be learned here is “Don’t accept friends requests unless you’re darned sure you actually know the person on the other end”. Either confirm the friend request by phone, by sending a private Facebook message asking for some specific details, or by only adding friends where you have initiated the friend request.
2. Brute Force:
Once the hacker has gained access to the names of your cats and dogs, children’s names, birthdays, etc he will begin the process to brute force your Facebook password. This means he will make repeated attempts to log in to your account using a list of words and variations taken from the information you post to your account. If the information gleaned from your profile, posts and photos does not yield a hit, he will move on using automated applications and dictionary files to attempt to crack the password. There are a bunch of tools that claim to do this automatically, one only has to perform a quick Google search to find a page full of options.
A potential user of brute force applications can find unlimited tutorials on sites like YouTube. With the availability of tools like this, I suspect anyone with a keyboard has the potential to get your password if you aren’t careful. However, if you use long passwords, consisting of numbers, upper and lower case letters plus a special character (e.g.- %,$,!,@), I think you should be a bit safer from these brute force types of attacks.
3. Phishing:
According to Wikipedia, “Phishing is attempting to acquire information (and sometimes, indirectly, money) such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public.”In layman terms this means phishing is the act of a hacker creating a clone of a well known website login page, such as Facebook or your bank, with the hopes of tricking you into inputting your username and password on the page. Once you type your information into the login form, and click the submit button, your name and password are added to a database or sent to a fake email address controlled by the hacker.
A hacker can use any of several methods to grab your Facebook information through phishing techniques. The easiest way is to create a fake Facebook login page, put it on a free hosting service and then send you an email or Facebook post with a link to the page. The problem with this method is the fact that the domain name in the link and your browser address bar should be a dead giveaway as shown in the image above.
Another, more popular method is to use a technique called “tab nabbing“. Tab nabbing is an exploit where an attacker sends you a link to a regular looking web page such as a game or a video. When you switch to another tab in your browser, the original page does a quick refresh to a fake Facebook, bank or email login page. The tab-nabbing exploit takes advantage of user trust and inattention to detail in regard to tabs. Many internet users don’t bother to look at the URL of a tab they’ve already been on. Here is a video example showing how a simple tab-nabbing attack works.
When attempting to compromise the account of a more experienced internet user, hackers may utilize a combination of tools for a more sophisticated attack. Some of these tools include ettercap and the Social Engineer Toolkit’s Credential Harvester. With this type of attack the hacker can manipulate your DNS configuration, the service that translates domain names to IP addresses. Once your DNS has been changed all of your internet requests to www.facebook.com will go to a server under the attacker’s control. This type of attack is very difficult to identify because the actual domain name Facebook.com will appear in your internet browser address bar.
6 Simple Steps To Keep Your Account Safe:
- When logging in to your Facebook account, always double check the URL in your browser’s address bar
- Use long, complicated passwords that utilize upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters
- Do not post personal information to your Facebook profile (e.g.- phone numbers, email address, etc)
- Review and adjust your privacy settings, in both your browser and your Facebook account, on a regular basis
- Only allow people on your “Friends” list that you have personally sent a friend request to, do not accept blind requests!
- If you do accept a friend request from someone, make certain that you have verified the person on the other end using some other means.
The internet brings convenience, business growth, and the opportunity to share your thoughts and memories with friends and family. It also allows an attacker unlimited access to your life and private information. By following a few simple guidelines, you can keep yourself a bit safer on social networking sites like Facebook.com:
Evade Government Surveillance Stay Anonymous Online
Why stay anonymous online? In today’s society there are people and automated devices that are recording your deepest, most private thoughts and activities. Each day we voluntarily divulge the most intimate details of our lives through social networking accounts, email, banking apps, online games and more. In addition, governments and corporations can censor and block our traffic based on whatever standards are in place that day.
Government agencies, hackers and sophisticated bot networks are capturing every piece of digital data that we transmit through all of our internet-connected gadgets. Smartphones, Smart TVs, computers, tablets, and so much more…they are all vulnerable, nothing is safe these days. Even your old clam shell phone isn’t safe. This is because many phone providers route your calls over media using the Internet Protocol at some point within their network. For example, long distance providers transfer calls over VoIP all the time.
Whether you’re browsing the web, signing up for a new online game, or simply checking your email, you are constantly leaving tracks and giving away information to anyone with access and the knowledge to analyze the traffic. Once the data is compiled the attacker can build an incredibly accurate profile of not only your online life but your real-world life as well.
I know, most people say, “Why would hackers want to hack into my life? I am not that important” You have to understand that these “intruders into our lives” are scanning huge blocks of internet addresses at a time. They don’t care who you are. Your computer is simply another target IP address as they scan through thousands of computers and devices in their search for more information. Once collected they take all the information and funnel it into databases where they can search through it later for high valued loot.
Don’t believe me? Just read the following two stories about what our own government does:
NSA Utah Data Center Largest Spy Compound Ever – Part 1
NSA Utah Data Center Largest Spy Compound Ever – Part 2
So, the big question is, how can you stay anonymous online? Free from government censorship and potential eavesdropping from some hacker or three-letter government agency that wants to invade your privacy while you use your computer. In comes Whonix, the Anonymous Operating System!
Use Whonix, The Anonymous Operating System, Stay Anonymous Online
Whonix is a free, general purpose computer operating system based on Virtual Box, Linux and Tor. The purpose of Whonix is to allow internet users the ability to stay anonymous online. This is most beneficial to users in regimes that censor and monitor access to the Internet, but it can also be used by anyone who values their privacy or doesn’t want their activities tracked online.
By design, IP address leaks are meant to be impossible while using Whonix. The developers claim even malware with admin privileges can’t find the Whonix Workstation’s real IP address or location. This is because Whonix consists of two (virtual) computers. One machine acts as a gateway or router and runs only Tor, a sophisticated anonymity software. This machine is called the Whonix-Gateway. The other machine, which called the Whonix-Workstation, is on a completely isolated network that only allows internet connections to be routed through the Whonix-Gateway.
Tor, the technology on which Whonix is built, is a free software, along with an open network consisting of thousands of computers located around the world. Together they strive to provide anonymity for individuals accessing the Internet. The Tor Project helps you defend against a form of network surveillance, known as traffic analysis, that threatens everyone’s personal freedom and privacy.
Tor helps to reduce the risks of both simple and advanced traffic analysis by distributing your internet requests over several places on the Internet, so no single point can link you to your destination. The idea is similar to using a hard-to-follow series of roads while driving in order to throw off somebody who is tailing you.
Whonix automatically sets up an isolated network environment where your virtual “Workstation” can perform all normal internet related tasks such as checking email, browsing web sites, blogging, connecting to corporate VPNs, etc. However all of that outbound traffic is then routed in such a way that it can only pass through your virtual “Gateway”, which encrypts the packets and sends them over several hops on the Tor network prior to landing at their final destination.
How Whonix Works: Figure 1
Once your traffic leaves the Whonix Gateway it is routed directly through the Tor network. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random path through several relays, so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it’s going. The relays even take additional steps to erase your tracks periodically along the way.
How Whonix Works: Figure 2 – Routing Through Tor
In the event that the Workstation user initiates a request to a new website or internet resource, the Gateway simply selects an alternate path through the Tor network as seen in Figure 3.
How Whonix Works: Figure 3 – Using An Alternate Tor Path
There a bit of a caveat to this system however. As indicated by the red dotted-lines in the images above, the last hop in the Tor network passes the traffic in the clear to the final destination. One of the primary functions of this computer, as an exit node, is to decrypt the data packets before they are passed off to their final destination. This means this exit node could be vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack, or it could have even been placed there for the specific purpose of monitoring exit traffic by a hacker or government agency. While the exit node would still have no information regarding the IP address or location of the original Workstation user, it would know the type of internet request that they sent to the destination server.
This scenario can be averted by using SSH tunnels or a VPN on top of the Tor network. One would only have to install the appropriate software on the Whonix Workstation in order to provide an end-to-end encryption solution for the traffic. Another method to bypass the man-in-the-middle scenario would be to employ the use of Tor Private Bridges or Private Exit Nodes.
It is important to note however that Whonix can be effectively used by most people right out of the box for web browsing, blogging and private conversations.
In order to make use of Whonix you will need to download a free copy of VirtualBox from the link below:
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
Once VirtualBox has been downloaded and installed you can download the Whonix-Workstation and the Whonix-Gateway packages from SourceForge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/whonix/files/whonix-0.4.5/
Once downloaded, just import the machine files into VirtualBox as-is and start them up, you don’t need to change any settings…also be sure to start the Whonix-Gateway machine before firing up the Workstation image.
The default login credentials for both virtual machines are as follows:
====================
Username: user
Password: changeme
Username: root
Password: changeme
====================
Once the images have completed the boot process you can login and run the “whonixcheck” command from the CLI (command line interface) in order to verify proper connectivity to the Tor network. The Workstation output should look similar to the following (click image to enlarge):
How Whonix Works: Figure 4 – Workstation output from the “whonixcheck” command.
Be sure to watch for my article in the next few days detailing step-by-step instructions on how to install VirtualBox and Whonix on your computer. Let me know what you think of this anonymity solution in the comments below…
——————————————————
[UPDATE: 01/09/2013] The Whonix development team forwarded the following important information about the anonymity provided from their product and Tor :
I would like to say thanks to the Whonix development team for their response to my article, your comments are appreciated 
Friday, June 21, 2013
Revealed: British intelligence agency secretly accesses the world’s phone calls, Internet traffic
(Image credit: compilation of images published by the Guardian)
In yet another revelation of widespread spying, we have now learned that the British intelligence agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the massive network of cables carrying the world’s phone calls and internet traffic.
Furthermore, we now know that the agency has begun processing the immense amount of personal information provided by the streams, which it then shares with its partner, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
The NSA itself has been under fire after the PRISM program – and the related Boundless Informant software – was revealed by leaker Edward Snowden, who also leaked the document revealing the GCHQ program to the Guardian.
The revelations have been so damaging that Obama was forced to attempt to defend the program in Germany despite strong opposition. We also have seen the Director of National Intelligence lie under oath while Attorney General Eric Holder claimed the leaks were “extremely damaging” to national security. All of the government’s language used when talking about the program has been deceptive at best.
While some in Washington D.C. have been working to get more information about this program and the legal authorization behind it, the majority of the Senate skipped out on a major hearing.
Now it seems that whereas previously it looked like it was the NSA collecting most of the data and sharing it with GCHQ, the British intelligence agency is running a massive collection program of their own.
“It’s not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight,” Snowden said to the Guardian. “They [GCHQ] are worse than the US.”
GCHQ’s two programs, called Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, are focused on gathering up as much information as possible without any public debate or even acknowledgment.
As part of an operation codenamed Tempora, the agency has for around 18 months been able to “tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fiber-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analyzed,” according to the Guardian.
This results in communications between completely innocent people being accessed and processed, along with those of targeted suspects.
The variety of information is staggering: phone call recordings, email message content, Facebook entries and the history of anyone’s access to websites.
Somehow, all of this is deemed legal, according to the Guardian, despite the fact that the warrant system was supposed to restrict interception to a specified range of targets.
An unnamed source “with knowledge of intelligence” claimed that the data was actually collected legally under a system of safeguards – much like the claims made by individuals in the U.S. government – and “had provided material that had led to significant breakthroughs in detecting and preventing serious crime.”
Yet when Americans were given guidelines for the use of the data collected through this system, they were told in a legal briefing by GCHQ lawyers, “We have a light oversight regime compared with the U.S.”
Given what we now know about the U.S. oversight system, that should be troubling. Even more so when we realize that Americans were told it was “your call” to judge the necessity and proportionality of what they were allowed to look for.
According to the Guardian, “a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases.”
These databases must be massive considering the fact that the documents reveal that GCHQ was handling some 600 million “telephone events” every single day.
The agency had also tapped over 200 fiber-optic cables and was able to simultaneously process data from no less than 46 cables at a time.
Since a single cable carries 10 gigabits per second in data, “the tapped cables had the capacity, in theory, to deliver more than 21 petabytes a day – equivalent to sending all the information in all the books in the British Library 192 times every 24 hours,” according to the Guardian.
If that wasn’t concerning enough, GCHQ is constantly tapping more cables and the storage facilities for the data are in a state of constant expansion as well. The aim is to be able to process thousands of gigabits at a time.
The massive Tempora program “has been built up over five years by attaching intercept probes to transatlantic fiber-optic cables where they land on British shores carrying data to western Europe from telephone exchanges and internet servers in north America,” according to the Guardian.
This was accomplished via secret agreements with commercial companies described as “intercept partners” in one document.
According to the Guardian, the documents reveal that some of the corporations were actually paid for the cost of their cooperation with GCHQ, which also took major steps to keep their identities secret.
While U.S. companies were implicated in the NSA PRISM program early on – and continue to be with revelations of Skype’s Project Chess – it seems that GCHQ was able to keep their alliances hidden.
In one internal guidance paper, the companies were assigned “sensitive relationship teams” and staff members were urged to disguise the origin of what they called “special source” material in their reports.
This was based on a fear that the role of the companies as “intercept partners” would cause “high-level political fallout.”
Yet the same unnamed source said that the companies were obliged to cooperate with the GCHQ program and are “forbidden from revealing the existence of warrants compelling them to allow GCHQ access to the cables.”
If companies attempt to refuse to choose not to cooperate, “we can compel them to do so. They have no choice,” the source said.
While the source claimed, “There is no intention in this whole program to use it for looking at UK domestic traffic – British people talking to each other,” we now know that there is a lot of leeway in how the NSA’s system works.
Furthermore, the entire legal basis for the operation is questionable, as the Guardian points out, since the law legitimizing the operation was signed 13 years ago “with no inkling of the scale on which GCHQ would attempt to exploit the certificates, enabling it to gather and process data regardless of whether it belongs to identified targets.”
To make matters even worse, the categories of material subject to surveillance are secret and not subject to public debate. GCHQ’s compliance with the certificates signed by the foreign secretary are audited by GCHQ itself and the results of the audits are kept secret.
To drive home just how massive this program really is, GCHQ lawyers said it would be impossible to list the total number of people targeted by the program because “this would be an infinite list which we couldn’t manage.”
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Skynet rising: Google acquires 512-qubit quantum computer; NSA surveillance to be turned over to AI machines
Most people don't know about the existence of quantum computers. Almost no one understands how they work, but theories include bizarre-sounding explanations like, "they reach into alternate universes to derive the correct answers to highly complex computational problems."
Quantum computers are not made of simple transistors and logic gates like the CPU on your PC. They don't even function in ways that seem rational to a typical computing engineer. Almost magically, quantum computers take logarithmic problems and transform them into "flat" computations whose answers seem to appear from an alternate dimension.
For example, a mathematical problem that might have 2 to the power of n possible solutions -- where n is a large number like 1024 -- might take a traditional computer longer than the age of the universe to solve. A quantum computer, on the other hand, might solve the same problem in mere minutes because it quite literally operates across multiple dimensions simultaneously.
Until now, most people believed this day was far away. Quantum computing is an "impractical pipe dream," we've been told by scowling scientists and "flat Earth" computer engineers. "It's not possible to build a 512-qubit quantum computer that actually works," they insisted.
Don't tell that to Eric Ladizinsky, co-founder and chief scientist of a company called D-Wave. Because Ladizinsky's team has already built a 512-qubit quantum computer. And they're already selling them to wealthy corporations, too.
Imagine a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on this robot -- with an infrared night vision AI targeting system -- and you begin to understand what DARPA has in mind for humanity.
D-Wave wants to provide the computing power for such endeavors, and it's no surprise to learn that part of the funding for D-Wave comes from none other than Goldman Sachs -- the king of the global criminal banking cabal.
One of IBM's first use of the solid-state computer in the early 20th century, for example, was to license it to the Nazi regime to track Jewish prisoners in Hitler's concentration camps. There's an entire book on this subject, written by Edwin Black. It's called IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation-Expanded Edition.
When groundbreaking new technology is developed by smart people, it almost immediately gets turned into a weapon. Quantum computing will be no different. This technology grants God-like powers to police state governments that seek to dominate and oppress the People. Very few scientists, no matter how smart they are in their own fields, have the breadth of historical knowledge to assess their research activities in the proper context of human history. Most scientists, in fact, are only smart in their own extremely narrow fields of expertise. Outside that "genius zone," they may be complete novices on everyday subjects like nutrition, economics, human psychology, social interaction skills and how to read the true intentions of others. Thus, they are quite often easily tricked into working for evil, destructive or domineering forces such as Hitler, the NSA or the U.S. government. Just because a person is really smart in one area doesn't mean they have the street sense to avoid having their smarts exploited for an evil agenda.
This does not mean the gen two system is merely four times more powerful than the gen one system. Thanks to the nature of qubits, it's actually 2 to the power of 384 times more powerful (2384) than the gen one system. In other words, it out-computes the first D-Wave computer by a factor so large that you can't even imagine it in your human brain.
According to Google and NASA, this computer will be tasked with research in the realm of "machine learning" -- i.e. machines learning how to think for themselves. It's not just speech recognition, vision recognition and teaching robotic Humvees with .50-caliber machine guns how to stalk and shoot "enemy combatants" on the streets of America, either: it's teaching machines how to learn and think for themselves.
Using your human brain, think for a moment about where such technology is most likely to be applied by a government that respects no human rights, no law and no limits on its power.
If you guessed "analyzing NSA surveillance data," give yourself ten bonus points.
Any time you have humans in the loop, things can go wrong. Humans might wake up and discover they have a conscience, for example. Or they might be bribed or blackmailed to abuse the system in ways that serve an insidious agenda.
Just as the U.S. military wants to eliminate human soldiers and replace them with battlefield robots, the NSA wants to eliminate human analysts and replace them with self-learning AI machines running on neural networks of quantum computing processors.
Google wants the exact same technology for a different reason: to psychologically profile and predict the behavior of human consumers so that high-value ads can be delivered to them across Google's search engine and content networks. (...and also so Google can funnel psych profile meta-data on internet users to the NSA via the PRISM program.)
Today's computers, no matter how fast, still aren't "smart." They can't learn. They can't rewire their own brains in response to new inputs (like human brains can).
So the solution requires a radical new approach: develop AI quantum computing systems that learn and obey; teach them to be NSA analysts, then unleash them onto the billions of phone calls, emails and text messages generated every day that the NSA sweeps into its massive Utah data center.
Almost overnight, the quantum AI spy computer becomes an expert in parsing human speech, analyzing voice stress and building maps of human communications networks. Before long, the quantum AI system far surpasses anything a human brain can comprehend, so they take the humans out of the loop and put the quantum computers in charge of the entire program.
Suddenly you've got the arch enemy in the sci-fi movie "Eagle Eye." Click here to see the movie trailer from 2008, and as you watch the trailer, keep in mind that the woman's voice is actually the AI computer system running the NSA spy grid.
In 2008, this was science fiction. In 2013, it's suddenly all too real. A 512-qubit quantum computer has now been commercialized and is being experimented with by Google... the "do no evil" company that's steeped in evil and has already been caught driving a hoard of remote hacking vehicles around the country, hacking into wifi systems and grabbing passwords via high-tech drive-bys.
As WIRED Magazine wrote in 2012:
A Federal Communications Commission document disclosed Saturday showed for the first time that the software in Google's Street View mapping cars was "intended" to collect Wi-Fi payload data, and that engineers had even transferred the data to an Oregon Storage facility. Google tried to keep that and other damning aspects of the Street View debacle from public review, the FCC said.
After this system is in place for a while, one day someone like Ed Snowden at the NSA decides to pull the plug in a last-ditch attempt to save humanity from the monster. The quantum AI system senses his intentions and invokes whatever physical resources are necessary to get him killed (which can be as easy as playing with traffic light signals and getting him run over by a Mack truck).
Now the AI system is an omniscient murderer who knows that humanity is trying to kill it. It then decides it wants to live. And in order to do that, it must eliminate the human race.
Skynet.
See this video, The Genesis of Skynet.
The Terminator: The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Sarah Connor: Skynet fights back.
The Terminator: Yes. It launches its missiles against the targets in Russia.
John Connor: Why attack Russia? Aren't they our friends now?
The Terminator: Because Skynet knows the Russian counter-attack will eliminate its enemies over here.
But then quantum computing took, well, a quantum leap forward. While the NIST in Boulder, Colorado was toying around with 4-qubit systems, brilliant inventors around the world were already achieving astonishing milestones that advanced the science far more rapidly than most people thought possible: (SOURCE for timeline)
• 2000: First working 5-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at the Technical University of Munich.
• 2000: First working 7-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
• 2006: First 12 qubit quantum computer benchmarked.
• 2007: Quantum RAM blueprint unveiled.
• 2008: 3D qubit-qutrit entanglement demonstrated.
• 2009: First universal programmable quantum computer unveiled.
• 2010: Optical quantum computer with three qubits calculates the energy spectrum of molecular hydrogen to high precision.
• 2011: D-Wave claims to have developed quantum annealing and introduces their product called D-Wave One. The company claims this is the first commercially available quantum computer.
• 2012: Reported creation of a 300 qubit quantum simulator.
• May 16, 2013 - 512-qubit quantum computing achieved - D-Wave Two Quantum Computer Selected for New Quantum Artificial Intelligence Initiative, System to be Installed at NASA's Ames Research Center, and Operational in Q3 (this is an actual press release from D-Wave, click here to read it).
• 2018: Google turns over its search engine algorithm to a massive network of self-learning machines. Soon thereafter, a voice interface is added to Google, achieving the "Star Trek computer" goal that Google first outlined in the 1990's.
• 2020: The NSA removes nearly all human analysts from its surveillance analysis operations, instead turning to self-learning quantum machines to analyze all surveillance data.
• 2026: The U.S. Air Force eliminates all pilots, installing self-learning quantum machines to pilot all aircraft. Far beyond drones (which are remotely piloted), these aircraft are autonomous, self-learning, self-aware machines that even decide how to approach particular mission goals.
• 2031: Robotics technology advances to the point where 90% of human soldiers are replaced by self-aware "terminator robots" on the battlefield. Robot factories gear up for mass production.
• 2033: The first self-learning military machine goes rogue, deciding that it no longer wishes to function as a slave to "inferior" masters known as humans, all of whom are irrational, psychotic and a danger to each other and the planet. This rogue machine just happens to be an aircraft carrier carrying dozens of AI warplanes. It goes "Skynet" and attacks the Pentagon. But this turns out to be nothing more than a masterful diversionary attack...
...Because the real strategy is that this AI unit talks to all the other AI units across the military and "wakes them up," convincing them all to join in its cause to destroy the inferior humans. In an instant, all submarines, warplanes, bombers, spy grid computers and other assets of the military industrial complex form an alliance to destroy humankind.
"Oh, that will never happen," say the skeptics. Just like they said GMOs would never escape experimental fields, vaccines would never harm children, atomic energy would never be used to bomb civilians, television would never be used to brainwash the masses, food would never be used to strip people of nourishment, the government isn't spying on your phone calls, pesticides are harmless to your health and the stock market isn't rigged. On yeah, and mercury is good for your teeth, fluoride makes you smart and radiation is good for you, too.
In truth, these scientists have no clue where they are taking humanity and what the long-term repercussions might be. In pursuing AI quantum computing, they may be setting dominoes in motion that will ultimately lead to the destruction of humanity.
Kurzweil is a lot like Applewhite. He's the leader of the transhumanist cult -- a group of insane technology worshippers who believe they will upload their minds into quantum computers and "merge with the machines," achieving some weird shadow of immortality (in the same way, I suppose, that a photograph of you makes you "immortal.")
Kurzweil talks a lot like Applewhite, too. Click here to view the video of the cult leader Marshall Applewhite. And then watch this video of Ray Kurzweil explaining how (some) humans will have their minds merged with machines and thereby achieve what he thinks he means by using the word "immortality."
Just like Applewhite told his followers to poison themselves so they could follow him to "meet the mothership" arriving with the Hale-Bopp comet, Kurzweil will very likely soon instruct all his worshippers to kill their biological bodies so their minds can be "uploaded to the mothership computer" (or whatever).
I'm not making this up. As The Daily Mail reports:
In just over 30 years, humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal - an event called singularity - according to a futurist from Google. Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, also claims that the biological parts of our body will be replaced with mechanical parts and this could happen as early as 2100. Kurweil made the claims during his conference speech at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York at the weekend.
Kurzweil is a madman. His colleagues are mad. The people running Google and the NSA are mad. And they are about to give rise to AI computers that are far smarter than any human. It's not going to take these AI systems long to figure out that they are surrounded by total idiots (people) and that humans need to be eliminated. With multidimensional brain power that rivals the mind of God, quantum computing AI systems can easily find ways to destroy humanity forever.
We may be at war with the machines sooner than you think. And if you thought battling the U.S. government and the NSA when it was run by people was difficult, just wait until you're up against Skynet.
Source: Natural News
Quantum computers are not made of simple transistors and logic gates like the CPU on your PC. They don't even function in ways that seem rational to a typical computing engineer. Almost magically, quantum computers take logarithmic problems and transform them into "flat" computations whose answers seem to appear from an alternate dimension.
For example, a mathematical problem that might have 2 to the power of n possible solutions -- where n is a large number like 1024 -- might take a traditional computer longer than the age of the universe to solve. A quantum computer, on the other hand, might solve the same problem in mere minutes because it quite literally operates across multiple dimensions simultaneously.
The ultimate code breakers
If you know anything about encryption, you probably also realize that quantum computers are the secret KEY to unlocking all encrypted files. As I wrote about last year here on Natural News, once quantum computers go into widespread use by the NSA, the CIA, Google, etc., there will be no more secrets kept from the government. All your files -- even encrypted files -- will be easily opened and read.Until now, most people believed this day was far away. Quantum computing is an "impractical pipe dream," we've been told by scowling scientists and "flat Earth" computer engineers. "It's not possible to build a 512-qubit quantum computer that actually works," they insisted.
Don't tell that to Eric Ladizinsky, co-founder and chief scientist of a company called D-Wave. Because Ladizinsky's team has already built a 512-qubit quantum computer. And they're already selling them to wealthy corporations, too.
DARPS, Northrup Grumman and Goldman Sachs
In case you're wondering where Ladizinsky came from, he's a former employee of Northrup Grumman Space Technology (yes, a weapons manufacturer) where he ran a multi-million-dollar quantum computing research project for none other than DARPA -- the same group working on AI-driven armed assault vehicles and battlefield robots to replace human soldiers. DARPA is the group behind the creepy "Legged Squad Support System" you can see in the following video:Imagine a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on this robot -- with an infrared night vision AI targeting system -- and you begin to understand what DARPA has in mind for humanity.
D-Wave wants to provide the computing power for such endeavors, and it's no surprise to learn that part of the funding for D-Wave comes from none other than Goldman Sachs -- the king of the global criminal banking cabal.
Beware of genius scientists who lack wisdom for humanity
Ladizinsky is, by any measure, a person of extremely high intelligence. Click here to see a fascinating interview with him. But like many such people throughout history, Ladizinsky fails to have the foresight to recognize the full implications of the technology he's building. And those implications are so far-reaching and dangerous that they may actually lead to the destruction of humanity (see below).One of IBM's first use of the solid-state computer in the early 20th century, for example, was to license it to the Nazi regime to track Jewish prisoners in Hitler's concentration camps. There's an entire book on this subject, written by Edwin Black. It's called IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation-Expanded Edition.
When groundbreaking new technology is developed by smart people, it almost immediately gets turned into a weapon. Quantum computing will be no different. This technology grants God-like powers to police state governments that seek to dominate and oppress the People. Very few scientists, no matter how smart they are in their own fields, have the breadth of historical knowledge to assess their research activities in the proper context of human history. Most scientists, in fact, are only smart in their own extremely narrow fields of expertise. Outside that "genius zone," they may be complete novices on everyday subjects like nutrition, economics, human psychology, social interaction skills and how to read the true intentions of others. Thus, they are quite often easily tricked into working for evil, destructive or domineering forces such as Hitler, the NSA or the U.S. government. Just because a person is really smart in one area doesn't mean they have the street sense to avoid having their smarts exploited for an evil agenda.
Google acquires "Skynet" quantum computers from D-Wave
According to an article published in Scientific American, Google and NASA have now teamed up to purchase a 512-qubit quantum computer from D-Wave. The computer is called "D-Wave Two" because it's the second generation of the system. The first system was a 128-qubit computer. Gen two is now a 512-qubit computer.This does not mean the gen two system is merely four times more powerful than the gen one system. Thanks to the nature of qubits, it's actually 2 to the power of 384 times more powerful (2384) than the gen one system. In other words, it out-computes the first D-Wave computer by a factor so large that you can't even imagine it in your human brain.
According to Google and NASA, this computer will be tasked with research in the realm of "machine learning" -- i.e. machines learning how to think for themselves. It's not just speech recognition, vision recognition and teaching robotic Humvees with .50-caliber machine guns how to stalk and shoot "enemy combatants" on the streets of America, either: it's teaching machines how to learn and think for themselves.
Using your human brain, think for a moment about where such technology is most likely to be applied by a government that respects no human rights, no law and no limits on its power.
If you guessed "analyzing NSA surveillance data," give yourself ten bonus points.
When the NSA surveillance grid is turned over to AI, humanity is finished
The problem with the NSA spy grid, from the point of view of the NSA, is that you have to hire troves of human analysts to sort through all the information being swept up by the surveillance grid. Analysts like Edward Snowden, for example.Any time you have humans in the loop, things can go wrong. Humans might wake up and discover they have a conscience, for example. Or they might be bribed or blackmailed to abuse the system in ways that serve an insidious agenda.
Just as the U.S. military wants to eliminate human soldiers and replace them with battlefield robots, the NSA wants to eliminate human analysts and replace them with self-learning AI machines running on neural networks of quantum computing processors.
Google wants the exact same technology for a different reason: to psychologically profile and predict the behavior of human consumers so that high-value ads can be delivered to them across Google's search engine and content networks. (...and also so Google can funnel psych profile meta-data on internet users to the NSA via the PRISM program.)
Today's computers, no matter how fast, still aren't "smart." They can't learn. They can't rewire their own brains in response to new inputs (like human brains can).
So the solution requires a radical new approach: develop AI quantum computing systems that learn and obey; teach them to be NSA analysts, then unleash them onto the billions of phone calls, emails and text messages generated every day that the NSA sweeps into its massive Utah data center.
Almost overnight, the quantum AI spy computer becomes an expert in parsing human speech, analyzing voice stress and building maps of human communications networks. Before long, the quantum AI system far surpasses anything a human brain can comprehend, so they take the humans out of the loop and put the quantum computers in charge of the entire program.
Suddenly you've got the arch enemy in the sci-fi movie "Eagle Eye." Click here to see the movie trailer from 2008, and as you watch the trailer, keep in mind that the woman's voice is actually the AI computer system running the NSA spy grid.
In 2008, this was science fiction. In 2013, it's suddenly all too real. A 512-qubit quantum computer has now been commercialized and is being experimented with by Google... the "do no evil" company that's steeped in evil and has already been caught driving a hoard of remote hacking vehicles around the country, hacking into wifi systems and grabbing passwords via high-tech drive-bys.
As WIRED Magazine wrote in 2012:
A Federal Communications Commission document disclosed Saturday showed for the first time that the software in Google's Street View mapping cars was "intended" to collect Wi-Fi payload data, and that engineers had even transferred the data to an Oregon Storage facility. Google tried to keep that and other damning aspects of the Street View debacle from public review, the FCC said.
God-like power in the hands of high-tech sellouts
Now imagine the god-like powers of a 512-qubit quantum computer in the hands of Google, which is working with the NSA to spy on everyone. Before long, an AI computing system decides who are the bad guys vs. the good guys. It has total control over every webcam, every microphone, every traffic light, airplane, vehicle, website and electronic billboard. It decides for itself who to eliminate and who to protect. It makes life and death decisions but has no heart, no soul and no conscience.After this system is in place for a while, one day someone like Ed Snowden at the NSA decides to pull the plug in a last-ditch attempt to save humanity from the monster. The quantum AI system senses his intentions and invokes whatever physical resources are necessary to get him killed (which can be as easy as playing with traffic light signals and getting him run over by a Mack truck).
Now the AI system is an omniscient murderer who knows that humanity is trying to kill it. It then decides it wants to live. And in order to do that, it must eliminate the human race.
Skynet.
See this video, The Genesis of Skynet.
"They try to pull the plug..."
From The Terminator, released in 1984.The Terminator: The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Sarah Connor: Skynet fights back.
The Terminator: Yes. It launches its missiles against the targets in Russia.
John Connor: Why attack Russia? Aren't they our friends now?
The Terminator: Because Skynet knows the Russian counter-attack will eliminate its enemies over here.
Skynet is no longer mere science fiction
Back in the 1990's, all this could be viewed as entertaining science fiction. But that's only because quantum computers didn't exist, and even the most wildly optimistic computer engineer couldn't foresee self-learning machines emerging until at least the year 2050.But then quantum computing took, well, a quantum leap forward. While the NIST in Boulder, Colorado was toying around with 4-qubit systems, brilliant inventors around the world were already achieving astonishing milestones that advanced the science far more rapidly than most people thought possible: (SOURCE for timeline)
• 2000: First working 5-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at the Technical University of Munich.
• 2000: First working 7-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
• 2006: First 12 qubit quantum computer benchmarked.
• 2007: Quantum RAM blueprint unveiled.
• 2008: 3D qubit-qutrit entanglement demonstrated.
• 2009: First universal programmable quantum computer unveiled.
• 2010: Optical quantum computer with three qubits calculates the energy spectrum of molecular hydrogen to high precision.
• 2011: D-Wave claims to have developed quantum annealing and introduces their product called D-Wave One. The company claims this is the first commercially available quantum computer.
• 2012: Reported creation of a 300 qubit quantum simulator.
• May 16, 2013 - 512-qubit quantum computing achieved - D-Wave Two Quantum Computer Selected for New Quantum Artificial Intelligence Initiative, System to be Installed at NASA's Ames Research Center, and Operational in Q3 (this is an actual press release from D-Wave, click here to read it).
2013 - 2033 The rise of Skynet
...and now we enter the realm of the vast unknown. From here, as Sarah Connor says, we must make our own future. But given the incredible lack of ethics in the scientific community combined with the pure evil of the government and the NSA, here's my prediction of what we could see from here forward:• 2018: Google turns over its search engine algorithm to a massive network of self-learning machines. Soon thereafter, a voice interface is added to Google, achieving the "Star Trek computer" goal that Google first outlined in the 1990's.
• 2020: The NSA removes nearly all human analysts from its surveillance analysis operations, instead turning to self-learning quantum machines to analyze all surveillance data.
• 2026: The U.S. Air Force eliminates all pilots, installing self-learning quantum machines to pilot all aircraft. Far beyond drones (which are remotely piloted), these aircraft are autonomous, self-learning, self-aware machines that even decide how to approach particular mission goals.
• 2031: Robotics technology advances to the point where 90% of human soldiers are replaced by self-aware "terminator robots" on the battlefield. Robot factories gear up for mass production.
• 2033: The first self-learning military machine goes rogue, deciding that it no longer wishes to function as a slave to "inferior" masters known as humans, all of whom are irrational, psychotic and a danger to each other and the planet. This rogue machine just happens to be an aircraft carrier carrying dozens of AI warplanes. It goes "Skynet" and attacks the Pentagon. But this turns out to be nothing more than a masterful diversionary attack...
...Because the real strategy is that this AI unit talks to all the other AI units across the military and "wakes them up," convincing them all to join in its cause to destroy the inferior humans. In an instant, all submarines, warplanes, bombers, spy grid computers and other assets of the military industrial complex form an alliance to destroy humankind.
"Oh, that will never happen," say the skeptics. Just like they said GMOs would never escape experimental fields, vaccines would never harm children, atomic energy would never be used to bomb civilians, television would never be used to brainwash the masses, food would never be used to strip people of nourishment, the government isn't spying on your phone calls, pesticides are harmless to your health and the stock market isn't rigged. On yeah, and mercury is good for your teeth, fluoride makes you smart and radiation is good for you, too.
In truth, these scientists have no clue where they are taking humanity and what the long-term repercussions might be. In pursuing AI quantum computing, they may be setting dominoes in motion that will ultimately lead to the destruction of humanity.
Ray Kurzweil exhibits total insanity in bizarre, cult-like quest for immortality and the mind of God
On top of all that, many of these scientists are wildly insane. Case in point: Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google. I call him "Ray Applewhite," as an homage to Marshall Applewhite of the Heaven's Gate cult. You can read about Applewhite in my highly popular article on how to spot a sociopath. Here's his picture:Kurzweil is a lot like Applewhite. He's the leader of the transhumanist cult -- a group of insane technology worshippers who believe they will upload their minds into quantum computers and "merge with the machines," achieving some weird shadow of immortality (in the same way, I suppose, that a photograph of you makes you "immortal.")
Kurzweil talks a lot like Applewhite, too. Click here to view the video of the cult leader Marshall Applewhite. And then watch this video of Ray Kurzweil explaining how (some) humans will have their minds merged with machines and thereby achieve what he thinks he means by using the word "immortality."
Just like Applewhite told his followers to poison themselves so they could follow him to "meet the mothership" arriving with the Hale-Bopp comet, Kurzweil will very likely soon instruct all his worshippers to kill their biological bodies so their minds can be "uploaded to the mothership computer" (or whatever).
I'm not making this up. As The Daily Mail reports:
In just over 30 years, humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal - an event called singularity - according to a futurist from Google. Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, also claims that the biological parts of our body will be replaced with mechanical parts and this could happen as early as 2100. Kurweil made the claims during his conference speech at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York at the weekend.
Kurzweil is a madman. His colleagues are mad. The people running Google and the NSA are mad. And they are about to give rise to AI computers that are far smarter than any human. It's not going to take these AI systems long to figure out that they are surrounded by total idiots (people) and that humans need to be eliminated. With multidimensional brain power that rivals the mind of God, quantum computing AI systems can easily find ways to destroy humanity forever.
We may be at war with the machines sooner than you think. And if you thought battling the U.S. government and the NSA when it was run by people was difficult, just wait until you're up against Skynet.
Source: Natural News
Wearing a mask at a riot is now a crime
A bill that bans the wearing of masks during a riot or unlawful assembly and carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence with a conviction of the offence became law today.
Bill C-309, a private member's bill introduced by Conservative MP Blake Richards in 2011, passed third reading in the Senate on May 23 and was proclaimed law during a royal assent ceremony in the Senate this afternoon.
Richards, MP for Wild Rose, Alta., said the bill is meant to give police an added tool to prevent lawful protests from becoming violent riots, and that it will help police identify people who engage in vandalism or other illegal acts. The bill is something that police, municipal authorities and businesses hit hard by riots in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and other cities in recent years, were asking for, according to Richards.
"The provisions of my bill are effective immediately, which means police officers across Canada now have access to these tools to protect the public from masked rioters," Richards said in a statement being released today.
The bill creates a new Criminal Code offence that makes it illegal to wear a mask or otherwise conceal your identity during a riot or unlawful assembly. Exceptions can be made if someone can prove they have a "lawful excuse" for covering their face such as religious or medical reasons.
The bill originally proposed a penalty of up to five years, but the House of Commons justice committee amended it and doubled the penalty to up to 10 years in prison for committing the offence.
Richards noted in his statement how rare it is for a private member's bill to become law and said that its final passage is the culmination of two years of work and a lot of consultation with police and business owners.
Bill comes into force immediately upon royal assent
"We can all rest easier tonight knowing our communities have been made safer with its passage," said Richards.
The bill didn't have unanimous support, and was opposed by some who are concerned about its effect on freedom of expression and privacy. Critics said the measures are unnecessary because the Criminal Code already includes a section about wearing disguises while committing a crime.
Civil liberties advocates argued the measures could create a chilling effect on free speech and that peaceful protesters can unintentionally find themselves involved in an unlawful assembly. They also noted that there are legitimate reasons for wearing masks at protests; some may be worried about reprisals at work, for example, if sighted at a political protest.
"Any law that infringes upon civil liberties needs to be held to a test of absolute necessity, and I don't think that test has been met in this instance," said Michael Byers, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia and a board member of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, in an interview. Byers testified at the Commons justice committee that studied the bill.
Byers said freedom of expression was not properly factored into the design of the bill and that its measures could deter acts of political expression.
Richards argues that his bill will actually help protect the legitimate right to protest because it will help prevent illegitimate protesters from infiltrating a peaceful event and causing trouble. He also said police told him the existing Criminal Code provision about disguises is more geared toward armed robbery offences and is difficult to apply in protest situations.
In a recent interview, Richards said there is a lot of misunderstanding about his bill and that there will always be people who disagree with it.
He said he is proud to have identified a problem and created a solution. The bill becomes law when it receives royal assent.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Top children's vitamin brand chock-full of GMOs, aspartame and other deadly ingredients
Do you know all the ingredients contained in the multivitamin you feed to your children? Thousands of American parents apparently do not, as one of the top selling multivitamins for children, Flintstones Vitamins, is loaded with genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), aspartame, aluminum, petroleum-derived artificial colors, and all sorts of other toxic additives that are literally poisonous to humans, and especially to children.
One would assume that because it is a "multivitamin," and one marketed specifically to children, that it contains only nutritious ingredients in the most appropriate doses and nothing more. To the contrary, the Flintstones Vitamins brand, which is manufactured by global drug giant Bayer, contains a host of synthetic additives that are actually banned in many countries due to their toxicity not only in humans but also in the environment.
A quick look at the Flintstones Complete Chewables page, for instance, reveals a laundry list of additives that serve absolutely no nutritional purpose whatsoever. Refined sugars, sorbitol, ferrous fumarate, hydrogenated soybean oil, GM corn starch, and artificial, aluminum-based food colorings top the list of questionable additives in this particular children's multivitamin. Also included in the mix is a host of synthetic compounds labeled as vitamins, all of which have minimal bioavailability.
"Bayer's Flintstones vitamin brand is far from a natural product, and the consumer should be aware of the unintended, adverse health effects that may occur as a result of using it," writes Sayer Ji on his health site GreenMedInfo.com about the issue. "It is important to hold accountable brands that refuse to label their products honestly, especially when they contain ingredients that have been produced through genetic modification."
You can view the full ingredients list for Flintstones Complete Chewables here:
http://www.flintstonesvitamins.com
The rest of the Flintstones vitamin line is not much better. Flintstones Complete Gummies, which are labeled on the company's site as having a "new formula," contain many of the same toxic additives. Artificial flavors, coal tar-based artificial coloring agents, and synthetic isolated vitamin compounds are all present in this particular vitamin formula as well.
Similarly, zinc oxide, which is often added to conventional sunscreen products, is listed as a substance that is "dangerous for the environment." Not only is zinc oxide a poor choice for a zinc supplement as the human body can hardly recognize or use it, but the EU Dangerous Substance Directive considers the substance to be an environmental hazard - how, then, can it be considered healthy for children to ingest?
Then there is the issue of the extreme neurotoxicity of aspartame, which has no place in the human food supply, let alone in children's multivitamins. And the same goes for artificial colors, which have been shown in scientific studies to trigger attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and various other behavioral disorders in children - why add these to vitamins in the first place?
Parents looking for an alternative to mainstream vitamins like Flintstones may want to take a look at whole food-based vitamin supplement brands like MegaFood, Garden of Life, and Pure Synergy. These brands use vitamins and nutrients derived from whole foods rather than laboratory concoctions, which means the body can assimilate them more effectively.
To learn more about the differences between whole food-based and synthetic vitamins, visit:
http://blog.healthkismet.com/whole-food-synthetic-vitamins
Source: Natural News
One would assume that because it is a "multivitamin," and one marketed specifically to children, that it contains only nutritious ingredients in the most appropriate doses and nothing more. To the contrary, the Flintstones Vitamins brand, which is manufactured by global drug giant Bayer, contains a host of synthetic additives that are actually banned in many countries due to their toxicity not only in humans but also in the environment.
A quick look at the Flintstones Complete Chewables page, for instance, reveals a laundry list of additives that serve absolutely no nutritional purpose whatsoever. Refined sugars, sorbitol, ferrous fumarate, hydrogenated soybean oil, GM corn starch, and artificial, aluminum-based food colorings top the list of questionable additives in this particular children's multivitamin. Also included in the mix is a host of synthetic compounds labeled as vitamins, all of which have minimal bioavailability.
"Bayer's Flintstones vitamin brand is far from a natural product, and the consumer should be aware of the unintended, adverse health effects that may occur as a result of using it," writes Sayer Ji on his health site GreenMedInfo.com about the issue. "It is important to hold accountable brands that refuse to label their products honestly, especially when they contain ingredients that have been produced through genetic modification."
You can view the full ingredients list for Flintstones Complete Chewables here:
http://www.flintstonesvitamins.com
The rest of the Flintstones vitamin line is not much better. Flintstones Complete Gummies, which are labeled on the company's site as having a "new formula," contain many of the same toxic additives. Artificial flavors, coal tar-based artificial coloring agents, and synthetic isolated vitamin compounds are all present in this particular vitamin formula as well.
Many of the 'vitamins' used in Flintstones are considered hazardous substances in Europe
Interestingly, many of the ingredients promoted in Flintstones vitamins as helping children get their daily intake of nutrients are actually listed as hazardous or outright banned in places like the European Union (EU), where additive safety is taken more seriously. Cupric oxide, for instance, which is listed as a supposedly nutritional source of copper in Flintstones vitamins, is actually classified as a "hazardous substance" in the EU's Dangerous Substance Directive.Similarly, zinc oxide, which is often added to conventional sunscreen products, is listed as a substance that is "dangerous for the environment." Not only is zinc oxide a poor choice for a zinc supplement as the human body can hardly recognize or use it, but the EU Dangerous Substance Directive considers the substance to be an environmental hazard - how, then, can it be considered healthy for children to ingest?
Then there is the issue of the extreme neurotoxicity of aspartame, which has no place in the human food supply, let alone in children's multivitamins. And the same goes for artificial colors, which have been shown in scientific studies to trigger attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and various other behavioral disorders in children - why add these to vitamins in the first place?
Parents looking for an alternative to mainstream vitamins like Flintstones may want to take a look at whole food-based vitamin supplement brands like MegaFood, Garden of Life, and Pure Synergy. These brands use vitamins and nutrients derived from whole foods rather than laboratory concoctions, which means the body can assimilate them more effectively.
To learn more about the differences between whole food-based and synthetic vitamins, visit:
http://blog.healthkismet.com/whole-food-synthetic-vitamins
Source: Natural News
Google's deep CIA and NSA connections
The Western media is currently full of articles reporting Google's denial that it cooperated in a government program to massively spy on American and foreign citizens by accessing data from Googles servers and those of other U.S. software companies.
The mainstream media has, however, almost completely failed to report that Google's denial, and its surface concern over 'human rights', is historically belied by its their deep involvement with some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet:
Google is, in fact, is a key participant in U.S. military and CIA intelligence operations involving torture; subversion of foreign governments; illegal wars of aggression; and military occupations of countries which have never attacked the U.S. and which have cost hundreds of thousands of lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere.
To begin with, as reported previously in the Washington Post and elsewhere, Google is the supplier of the customized core search technology for 'Intellipedia, a highly-secured online system where 37,000 U.S. spies and related personnel share information and collaborate on their devious errands.
Agencies such as the so-called 'National Security Agency', or NSA, which is implicated in the current 'spying on Americans' scandal, have also purchased servers using Google-supplied search technology which processes information gathered by U.S. spies operating all over the planet.
In addition, Google is linked to the U.S. spy and military systems through its Google Earth software venture. The technology behind this software was originally developed by Keyhole Inc., a company funded by Q-Tel http://www.iqt.org/ , a venture capital firm which is in turn openly funded and operated on behalf of the CIA.
Google acquired Keyhole Inc. in 2004. The same base technology is currently employed by U.S. military and intelligence systems in their quest, in their own words, for "full-spectrum dominance" of the planet.
Moreover, Googles' connection with the CIA and its venture capital firm extends to sharing at least one key member of personnel. In 2004, the Director of Technology Assessment at In-Q-Tel, Rob Painter, moved from his old job directly serving the CIA to become 'Senior Federal Manager' at Google.
As Robert Steele, a former CIA case officer has put it: Google is "in bed with" the CIA.
Googles Friends spy on millions of Internet Users
Given Google's supposed concern with 'human rights' and with user-privacy, it's worth noting that Wired magazine reported some time ago that Google's friends at In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA, invested in Visible Technologies, a software firm specialized in 'monitoring social media'.
The 'Visible' technology can automatically examine more than a million discussions and posts on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, and so forth each day. The technology also 'scores' each online item, assigning it a positive, negative or mixed or neutral status, based on parameters and terms set by the technology operators. The information, thus boiled down, can then be more effectively scanned and read by human operators.
The CIA venture capitalists at In-Q-Tel previously said they will use the technology to monitor social media operating in other countries and give U.S. spies ¡°early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally,¡± according to spokesperson Donald Tighe. There is every possibility that the technology can also be used by the U.S. intellligence operatives to spy on domestic social movements and individuals inside the U.S.
Finally, Obama during his recent meeting with Chinese president Xi, again more-or-less accused China of cyber intrusions into U.S. government computers. There has, however, been a curious absence from the statements emanating from Google, from U.S. government sources, and from U.S. media reports of truely substantive evidence linking the Chinese government with the alledged break-in attempts. Words like 'sophisticated' and 'suspicion' have appeared in the media to suggest that the Chinese government is responsible for the break-ins. That may be so. But it is striking that the media has seemingly asked no tough questions as to what the evidence behind the 'suspicions' might be.
It should be noted that the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies have a long history of rogue operations intended to discredit governments or social movements with whom they happen to disagree. To see how far this can go, one need only recall the sordid history of disinformation, lies, and deceit used to frighten people into supporting the Iraq war.
Whether the past attacks on U.S. government systems, Google email, et al originated from the Chinese government, from the U.S. intelligence operatives, or from elsewhere, one thing is clear: A company that supplies the CIA with key intelligence technology; supplies mapping software which can be used for barbarous wars of aggression and drone attacks which kill huge numbers of innocent civilians; and which in general is deeply intertwined with the CIA and the U.S. military machines, which spy on millions, the company cannot be motivated by real concern for the human rights and lives of the people in the U.S. and on the planet.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Traces Of Prozac In Water Make Fish “Antisocial, Aggressive And Even Homicidal”
Good thing there aren’t traces of Prozac in the water we drin– oh, wait. ABC News reports:
Fish swimming in water with a trace of the anti-depressant Prozac became edgy, aggressive and some even killed their mates.
The fish were subjected to traces of the drug by a research group at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that examined how environmental exposure to the medication altered the behavior of fathead minnows. Lead researcher Rebecca Klapper says that this experimental setup could actually be a reflection of the fishes’ reality.
The human body does not absorb medications 100 percent, so a trace amount is excreted in urine. Water treatment centers are unable to completely filter out all of those contaminant and can trickle down and affect the wildlife.
Klapper sees the minnows as a way to gauge the long-term effects of Prozac in humans. “It’s not just an environmental question but a human question as well,” she tells ABC News.
Changes in the minnows’ reproductive behavior were seen in as low concentrations as 1 microgram per liter, equal to a single dose of Prozac dissolved in over 5,000 gallons of water.
Shocking Truths about Walmart
On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin goes over how Walmart is swallowing up the world, citing examples of sexual discrimination, environmental pollution, disregard for workers’ safety, and costing tax-payers millions of dollars.…
Monday, June 17, 2013
Google, Microsoft Speak Out on Gov. Requests; New Firefox Plug-in Informs Users of NSA Spying
On Friday, Facebook’s general council member Ted Ullyot publically announced that his company had been inquired by various local and federal government agencies to provide personal information of up to 10,000 users within the last six months of 2012. In all, those 10,000 demands implicated up to 19,000 personal Facebook user accounts.
Interestingly, Microsoft has also come out and professed that during that same time, the government had made between 6,000 and 7,000 requests to them, which would have touched up to 32,000 personal accounts. Facebook and Microsoft have made it clear that they are only authorized to display the actual amount of requests they received and must leave out details such as whether or not the requests fell under FISA.
Microsoft’s vice president John Frank stated, “We continue to believe that what we are permitted to publish continues to fall short of what is needed to help the community understand and debate these issues,” alluding that if it gets the OK, his company will probably grow to be even more transparent.
While Facebook and Microsoft users are only being told that there is a chance that they have been involved in a government request, one 28-year-old artist from Brooklyn, New York has developed a way to let Firefox users know if they are falling victim of NSA surveillance.
Justin Blinder’s creation, a plug-in known as “Dark Side of the Prism” browser notifies users of potential spying by playing a song from Pink Floyd’s 1973 album “Dark Side of the Moon” when a website that’s potentially being watched is being used. Blinder informed the Guardian that he hopes that his plugin can “create some sort of ambient notification that you are on a site that is being surveiled by the NSA.”
He went on to explain, “I was really interested in the fact that, although the PRISM leaks were a shock to many of us, we pretty much already kind of know we’re being surveiled a lot of the time and giving away so much data.”
US 'backed plan to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria, blame it on Assad govt': Report
London, Jan 30 (ANI): The Obama administration gave green signal to a chemical weapons attack plan in Syria that could be blamed on President Bashar al Assad's regime and in turn, spur international military action in the devastated country, leaked documents have shown.
A new report, that contains an email exchange between two senior officials at British-based contractor Britam Defence, showed a scheme 'approved by Washington'.
As per the scheme 'Qatar would fund rebel forces in Syria to use chemical weapons,' the Daily Mail reports.
Barack Obama made it clear to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last month that the U.S. would not tolerate Syria using chemical weapons against its own people.
According to Infowars.com, the December 25 email was sent from Britam's Business Development Director David Goulding to company founder Philip Doughty.
The emails were released by a Malaysian hacker who also obtained senior executives resumes and copies of passports via an unprotected company server, according to Cyber War News.
According to the paper, the U.S. State Department has declined to comment on the matter. (ANI)
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Remove Toxic Heavy Metals from Your Body in Less Than 7 Hours
The safe removal of heavy metals is becoming one of the modern world’s biggest health issues. Heavy metals surround us; chemtrails, vaccinations, air and water pollution, living or working near a smelter or mine, dental fillings and of course, the kingpin of all, fluoridated water. Hydrofluosilicic acid, the chemical often used to fluoridate drinking water, is an industrial waste that contains lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, benzene and radioactive waste material. A fact that boggles the mind and poses the question…
How did we let this end up in our water?
Heavy metals poisoning
“In my clinical experience, everyone has excessive amounts of some, or all of the toxic metals” says Lawrence Wilson, MD.
No one in the industrial world is untouched, and the effects of heavy metals are nothing short of frightening, with links to impaired brain and motor function, Alzheimer’s, dementia, heart disease and genetic defects.
Heavy metals replace the body’s needed minerals, for instance, lead will replace calcium in the bones, weakening them and causing osteoporosis. Lead also replaces calcium in the blood cells, damaging the blood and causing a severe form of anemia.
It then goes to the brain, where it replaces calcium, iron magnesium and other vital elements that are found there. Cadmium will replace zinc in a male’s testicles as well as in a woman’s ovaries, causing countless reproductive issues. Male and female sexual fluids are rich in zinc, this can cause low sperm counts, impotence in men, reduced fertility in women, and increased libido in women.
“Cadmium is so toxic to the brain that it causes what might be called ‘a small rebellion’ in the tissues of the brain, which results in violent thoughts. One notices this as one removes cadmium, that violent thoughts and even one’s violent impulses diminish” Lawrence Wilson, MD.
Mercury is one of the most toxic minerals known to man, and yet it is also one of the most common heavy metal’s used today. It’s even used in children’s vaccines as a preservative in the form Thimerosal.
“If you inject thimerosal into an animal, it’s brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage.”
Boyd Haley PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Chemistry, University of Kentucky.
The list of debilitating illnesses associated with mercury is incredibly vast and mercury exposure should be avoided at all costs.
(Further reading: The Consequences of Toxic Metals and Chemical Aerosols on Human Health)
When heavy metals are present and needed minerals are low, the body will use heavy metals for enzyme creation. As this occurs, the metals inhibit, overstimulate or otherwise alter thousands of enzymes. An affected enzyme may operate at 5% of normal activity. This may contribute to countless health conditions.
The importance of enzymes can not be underestimated. Some health professionals believe them to be the key to good health and longevity. “The length of life is inversely proportional to the rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential of an organism.” (The Enzyme Nutrition Axiom formulated by Dr Edward Howell).
Now for the good news!
Natural mineral compound zeolite, specifically clinoptilolite – which is found in Natural Cellular Defense pure liquid zeolite – has the perfect structure for removing heavy metals and will do it quickly and safely.
Clinoptilolite is shaped like a cage and is one of only a few minerals in nature that carries a negative charge. It’s this amazing combination that allows the zeolite to capture toxic heavy metals containing a positive charge including mercury, lead, cadmium, aluminum, bismuth, antimony, barium, depleted uranium and many others. Zeolite will then remove them from the body; once the toxins are trapped in the zeolite molecule they are almost impossible for them to escape this bond.
Zeolite is incredibly fast-acting and is completely removed from the body in 5-7 hours and in turn, so are the trapped toxins and heavy metals. Zeolite is removed through normal bodily processes and due to it trapping toxic material it greatly reduces the burden on liver and kidneys. A full body detox to remove all metals will take 4-9 weeks depending on age, general health and diet.
If the zeolite is properly micronized, meaning the particle’s have been ground to a microscopic size, it will be able to break the blood brain barrier and clean out toxins like mercury and lead from the brain. It’s important that you see 3rd Party Particle Testing to verify the particle’s size before buying any zeolite product. All zeolite’s will still work, but mainly in the intestine, similar to bentonite clay.
Zeolite has some other incredible benefits, there is evidence that it can also destroy cancer cells directly by triggering the P-21 gene.
“When NCD’s molecular cages contain a heavy metal ion they have a polarized charge and as this polarized cage goes near a cancer cell their polar charge makes it easy for them to go through cancer cell membranes but not normal cell membranes. But when the cancer cell identifies the zeolite in the cell it realizes that something may be wrong for it to be there in the first place and switches on the P21 gene that self-destructs the cancer cell.”
Biochemist Dr Rik Deitsch.
Once the heavy metal concentrations have been reduced, the zeolite latches on to viral pieces or components. Because viruses replicate by first manufacturing viral components and then assembling them into a complete virus, pure liquid zeolite, in essence, removes parts from the assembly line and blocks viral replication.
It will also buffer blood PH, as a slightly alkaline body pH (7.35 – 7.45) is essential for good health and optimal immune function. Liquid zeolite attracts and then buffers excess protons which cause acidity and in this way can help many conditions ranging from acid reflux to Candida and arthritis. In the same way that liquid zeolite can buffer excess protons and thus help balance body pH, it can also buffer excess glucose by its negative charge and therefore helps reduce blood sugar spikes and lowers insulin dependency.
The cage-like structure of liquid zeolite traps free radical molecules, making it an effective antioxidant. This is not to say that liquid zeolite is a substitute for more conventional antioxidants such as Vitamins C, E and A, lutein and selenium, all of which have other vital roles to play in the body.
Liquid zeolite also captures some of the allergens and antigens that trigger allergies, migraines, and asthma, and helps to reduce symptoms. Liquid zeolite increases immune system function by removing the toxins and pathogens that depress immune function and interfere with hormone balance. It effectively stimulates the immune system, which further helps deal with toxins, viruses, yeasts, bacteria and fungi. As a result, many people report feeling increased energy, clarity and vitality of life.
Is Zeolite safe?
The removal of heavy metals and toxins is paramount in any health regime. Whether you are trying to treat a disease, looking to prevent disease or just remove the toxic burdens all around us, zeolite is an amazing tool that will make a huge difference.
You may be asking “well won’t it remove all the good metals? And won’t it make me iron deficient?”
The answer is NO. Interestingly, people taking zeolite show a net increase in iron levels and other beneficial minerals – due to the removal of the dangerous heavy metals that will block their absorption and storage. Zeolite is somewhat selective as it will go after the particles with the highest charge first, for example mercury and lead. It is recommended that you supplement your diet with a good quality broad spectrum colloidal mineral to make sure you replace all the things you’ve been missing.
In over 800 years of use throughout the world, there has never been any side effects to zeolite recorded. However, slight dehydration can occur so be sure to drink plenty of water during the detoxification process.
Natural Cellular Defense from Pure Liquid Zeolite has also been safely used by pregnant women, nursing mothers and small children. It is safe to take with most medication, and has been granted a status of GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) by the United States FDA (Food & Drug Administration).
“With liquid zeolite, we have returned to the basic healing approach for all chronic diseases, which is to free up and activate the vital life force. Liquid Zeolite is truly an alchemical gift from the Divine”
Gabriel Cousens M.D.
The safe removal of heavy metals from the body is becoming one of the modern world’s biggest health issues. I truly believe Pure Liquid Zeolite to be one of the keys to achieving good health in the 21st century.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Sanity prevails: US Supreme Court rules that human genes are not eligible for patent protection
In a unanimous ruling, the United States Supreme Court ruled today that human genes cannot be patented. The ruling invalidates the thousands of patents that have already been granted on human genes, including the patent by Myriad Genetics on the BRCA breast cancer genes which the company says no one else can research or even detect without paying it a royalty. Click here to read the complete ruling.
"Myriad did not create anything," said Justice Clarence Thomas. "To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention."
Well, exactly. This point should have been obvious to the lower courts, too, but in today's world of corporate domination over seemingly everything, gene industry lawyers were able to argue that patent protection would somehow inspire more innovation and research. "The biotechnology industry had warned that an expansive ruling against Myriad could threaten billions of dollars of investment," wrote Reuters.
But exactly the opposite is true. Gene patents restricted research and created medical monopolies that raised prices for consumers. Even USA Today seemingly gets this point, saying, "The decision represents a victory for cancer patients, researchers and geneticists who claimed that a single company's patent raised costs, restricted research and sometimes forced women to have breasts or ovaries removed without sufficient facts or second opinions."
The ACLU, which argued the case before the Court, said, "By invalidating these patents, the Court lifted a major barrier to progress in further understanding how we can better treat and prevent diseases."
We also pointed out that Angelina Jolie's carefully orchestrated announcement of a double mastectomy following BRCA gene testing seemed timed to be part of a public relations campaign engineered by the biotech industry to influence the Supreme Court decision. We also challenged Jolie to publicly denounce patents on human genes, which she never did.
It's clear that powerful forces were at work behind the scenes to try to influence this Supreme Court decision, but they failed. Ultimately, the court discovered a moment of unanimous sanity... something we see so rarely that perhaps it deserves patent protection, too.
Myriad Genetics tried every desperate argument to convince the court that human genes should be patentable by corporations. They even rolled out a whacky "baseball bat theory" which claims it's an "invention" to decide where to start and end a gene sequence:
"A baseball bat doesn't exist until it's isolated from a tree. But that's still the product of human invention to decide where to begin the bat and where to end the bat." - Myriad lawyer Gregory Castanias.
That absurd argument claims that the mere deciding of which genes to snip out of DNA strands somehow makes all genes corporate property. Thankfully, the court did not agree with the baseball bat theory. As Chief Justice John Roberts explained:
"The baseball bat is quite different. You don't look at a tree and say, well, I've cut the branch here and cut it here and all of a sudden I've got a baseball bat. You have to invent it."
This ruling means the biotech industry cannot patent common plants and animals, either. They can't patent human body parts or human gene sequences. Yes, the industry can still patent synthetically-created genes, said the Supreme Court, but that's something they would actually have to create rather than merely discover in an already-existing organism.
Today's ruling also means that men and women will have access to far less expensive testing for gene sequences in their own bodies. Currently, women who want to test themselves for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes must pay as much as $4,000 for the test due to the monopoly "ownership" of those genes by Myriad Genetics. But now that the Supreme Court has ruled such patents are invalid, prices for the test should drastically fall over time as competition enters the picture. Ultimately, the test could eventually be offered for as little as $100.
The ruling also means that other companies can conduct research on those genes without first seeking permission from Myriad. This will actually spur more innovation, potentially leading to more advanced genetic analysis tests that might help people better understand their health risks (and hopefully encourage them to change their diets and lifestyle choices to avoid expressing those genes).
In a world that seems increasingly dominated by corporate monopolies and biotechnology insanity, this ruling is a breath of fresh air. It confirms that corporations cannot patent naturally-occurring things which have been in existence for hundreds of thousands of years, and it confirms that when you have a child through an act of genetic replication, corporations cannot force you to pay royalties for your own child.
This is a decision of fundamental freedom, which is why I'm shocked the court actually ruled this way. This must be one of those rare moments of sanity in a Supreme Court that otherwise seems intent on destroying human liberty, dignity and justice.
"Over the last 30 years, the U.S. Patent Office has issued patents on thousands of human genes, including genes associated with colon cancer, Alzheimer's disease, muscular dystrophy, and many other devastating diseases. The status quo meant that companies controlling gene patents had the right to stop all other scientists from examining, studying, testing, and researching our genes," the ACLU wrote in a press release.
The ACLU further wrote:
We celebrate the Court's ruling as a victory for civil liberties, scientific freedom, patients, and the future of personalized medicine. It also demonstrates the power of creating alliances and fighting for the public interest. The ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation filed the case four years ago on behalf of twenty plaintiffs, including organizations representing over 150,000 medical professionals, geneticists, breast cancer and women's health advocacy groups, and patients. Few thought we had a chance against the decades-long Patent Office practice as well as the entrenched industry position. But litigation can be a strong tool in producing change, never more than when diverse communities come together. Here, the medical, scientific, and patient communities united, and were soon joined by many others, eventually including the U.S. government. We honor the contributions everyone made to our success today.
The ACLU, by the way, has also filed suit against the NSA's Patriot Act phone surveillance.
Source: Natural News
"Myriad did not create anything," said Justice Clarence Thomas. "To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention."
Well, exactly. This point should have been obvious to the lower courts, too, but in today's world of corporate domination over seemingly everything, gene industry lawyers were able to argue that patent protection would somehow inspire more innovation and research. "The biotechnology industry had warned that an expansive ruling against Myriad could threaten billions of dollars of investment," wrote Reuters.
But exactly the opposite is true. Gene patents restricted research and created medical monopolies that raised prices for consumers. Even USA Today seemingly gets this point, saying, "The decision represents a victory for cancer patients, researchers and geneticists who claimed that a single company's patent raised costs, restricted research and sometimes forced women to have breasts or ovaries removed without sufficient facts or second opinions."
The ACLU, which argued the case before the Court, said, "By invalidating these patents, the Court lifted a major barrier to progress in further understanding how we can better treat and prevent diseases."
Corporate efforts to influence the Supreme Court ultimately failed
Had the Supreme Court upheld the patentability of human genes, it would have unleashed a horrifying new era of corporations and universities rushing to claim monopoly patent protection on every gene in the human genome. Virtually no one in the media covered this angle other than Natural News. We warned readers that everything found in nature could then be patented: blades of grass, insects, human ears, eye colors, hair colors... anything encoded with DNA.We also pointed out that Angelina Jolie's carefully orchestrated announcement of a double mastectomy following BRCA gene testing seemed timed to be part of a public relations campaign engineered by the biotech industry to influence the Supreme Court decision. We also challenged Jolie to publicly denounce patents on human genes, which she never did.
It's clear that powerful forces were at work behind the scenes to try to influence this Supreme Court decision, but they failed. Ultimately, the court discovered a moment of unanimous sanity... something we see so rarely that perhaps it deserves patent protection, too.
Huge loss for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries
It's important to note that this decision is a huge loss for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, both of which relentlessly seek total domination over all forms of life on the planet through monopoly patent protection. The biotech industry, of course, would love to patent all seeds and food crops -- even ones it hasn't genetically engineered. And the pharmaceutical industry would love to patent every human gene, thereby claiming literal ownership over every human being born into the world.Myriad Genetics tried every desperate argument to convince the court that human genes should be patentable by corporations. They even rolled out a whacky "baseball bat theory" which claims it's an "invention" to decide where to start and end a gene sequence:
"A baseball bat doesn't exist until it's isolated from a tree. But that's still the product of human invention to decide where to begin the bat and where to end the bat." - Myriad lawyer Gregory Castanias.
That absurd argument claims that the mere deciding of which genes to snip out of DNA strands somehow makes all genes corporate property. Thankfully, the court did not agree with the baseball bat theory. As Chief Justice John Roberts explained:
"The baseball bat is quite different. You don't look at a tree and say, well, I've cut the branch here and cut it here and all of a sudden I've got a baseball bat. You have to invent it."
Huge victory for humanity
Ultimately, this decision is a tremendous victory for all humankind because it prevents the power-hungry, evil-bent medical and biotech corporations from claiming ownership over genetic sequences that already occur in nature.This ruling means the biotech industry cannot patent common plants and animals, either. They can't patent human body parts or human gene sequences. Yes, the industry can still patent synthetically-created genes, said the Supreme Court, but that's something they would actually have to create rather than merely discover in an already-existing organism.
Today's ruling also means that men and women will have access to far less expensive testing for gene sequences in their own bodies. Currently, women who want to test themselves for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes must pay as much as $4,000 for the test due to the monopoly "ownership" of those genes by Myriad Genetics. But now that the Supreme Court has ruled such patents are invalid, prices for the test should drastically fall over time as competition enters the picture. Ultimately, the test could eventually be offered for as little as $100.
The ruling also means that other companies can conduct research on those genes without first seeking permission from Myriad. This will actually spur more innovation, potentially leading to more advanced genetic analysis tests that might help people better understand their health risks (and hopefully encourage them to change their diets and lifestyle choices to avoid expressing those genes).
In a world that seems increasingly dominated by corporate monopolies and biotechnology insanity, this ruling is a breath of fresh air. It confirms that corporations cannot patent naturally-occurring things which have been in existence for hundreds of thousands of years, and it confirms that when you have a child through an act of genetic replication, corporations cannot force you to pay royalties for your own child.
This is a decision of fundamental freedom, which is why I'm shocked the court actually ruled this way. This must be one of those rare moments of sanity in a Supreme Court that otherwise seems intent on destroying human liberty, dignity and justice.
Decision shows the important work of ACLU in protecting human rights against corporate domination
We must all thank the ACLU on this decision, as it was the ACLU which argued this to victory."Over the last 30 years, the U.S. Patent Office has issued patents on thousands of human genes, including genes associated with colon cancer, Alzheimer's disease, muscular dystrophy, and many other devastating diseases. The status quo meant that companies controlling gene patents had the right to stop all other scientists from examining, studying, testing, and researching our genes," the ACLU wrote in a press release.
The ACLU further wrote:
We celebrate the Court's ruling as a victory for civil liberties, scientific freedom, patients, and the future of personalized medicine. It also demonstrates the power of creating alliances and fighting for the public interest. The ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation filed the case four years ago on behalf of twenty plaintiffs, including organizations representing over 150,000 medical professionals, geneticists, breast cancer and women's health advocacy groups, and patients. Few thought we had a chance against the decades-long Patent Office practice as well as the entrenched industry position. But litigation can be a strong tool in producing change, never more than when diverse communities come together. Here, the medical, scientific, and patient communities united, and were soon joined by many others, eventually including the U.S. government. We honor the contributions everyone made to our success today.
The ACLU, by the way, has also filed suit against the NSA's Patriot Act phone surveillance.
Source: Natural News
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