Loudernet

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Monday, February 8, 2010

With influential proponents recently calling for a newly regulated world wide web, we got a preview of how that might look this past weekend after both Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com were completely blocked to many Internet users in New Zealand.

The block was only removed early this morning following a raft of complaints after both websites were unavailable on many ISP’s since Friday.

As the New Zealand based InfoNews website reported yesterday, both of Alex Jones’ flagship websites were blocked by ISPs using Asia Netcom for their international internet traffic.

It is important to stress that we receive emails on a weekly basis informing us that our websites have been blocked as “hate speech” or “offensive material” at Internet cafes, libraries, transport hubs, workplaces, and numerous other buildings not only in the United States but across the world. The censorship is being done at the ISP level, so whereas some people in a particular country will still have access, others will be blocked.

As we reported in 2008, London’s St. Pancras International, which millions of people traveling across mainland Europe pass through every year, completely blocks Prison Planet, Infowars and even more mainstream political websites as a matter of course.

In 2007, MySpace admitted their policy to censor and filter out posts containing links to the Prison Planet.com website, adding that the MySpace server automatically blocks such information. The social networking giant, as well as others such as Facebook, periodically block links to Alex Jones material and only revoke such filters when people complain.

In 2005, Time Warner subscribers from New York to California reported that their access to Infowars and Prison Planet had been blocked due to “hate speech,” before their access was restored.

UK ISP Tiscali also blocked the websites following the 7/7 London bombings in 2005.

Infowars’ social network was also blocked by libraries in the U.S. in 2008 using Safesquid and Google filtering software.

We receive numerous reports every single week of Alex Jones’ websites being blocked by ISPs and by filtering software in public buildings.

“An avid fan of Infowars.com and a 9/11 truth activist, Jeff Mitchell, reported on Saturday that he contacted his ISP, Orcon, to establish what was causing the block, and was advised by a computer technician who did a trace route, that the break in traffic to the two websites was found to be occurring at Asia Netcom’s router in Sydney,” stated the report.

The websites were blocked on every ISP that relied on Asia Netcom as its upstream provider, including Woosh, Telecom, Slingshot and Orcon.

According to Duncan Blair, Head of Brand and Communications at Orcon, access to content hosted on the Limelight content distribution network, including Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com, was blocked as a result of a “technical issue”.

“I’m the person who half-made this story possible by calling my ISP,” wrote Jeff Mitchell in a comment on Prison Planet. “Just want to report that infowars.com is now working for me, even though it was down all weekend! We complained to ISPs and they were “very concerned” about censorship; that, combined with this article on prisonplanet could very well have been the reason for us regaining access.”

Whether the problem was down to technical issues or deliberate censorship, the fact that ISP’s can selectively block certain websites at the flick of a switch gives us a frightening preview of what a Chinese-style government regulated Internet would look like, which is exactly what influential insiders are calling for.

The move to impose centralized government control and regulation of the free Internet has accelerated over the past 12 months.

Last week, Time Magazine enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon to back Microsoft executive Craig Mundie’s call for Internet licensing, as authorities push for a system even more stifling than in Communist China, where only people with government permission would be allowed to express free speech.

During a recent conference at the Davos Economic Forum, Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, told fellow globalists at the summit that the Internet needed to be policed by means of introducing licenses similar to drivers licenses – in other words government permission to use the web.

Internet censorship bills currently working their way into law in the UK, Australia and the U.S. legislate for government powers to restrict and filter any website that it deems to be undesirable for public consumption. In Italy, new rules to be imposed by government decree force anyone who wishes to upload a video to the web to get permission from the government’s Communications Ministry.

Power brokers in the White House have openly declared war on free speech and targeted Internet “conspiracy theorists” as the main threat to their agenda.

In a 2008 white paper, Obama’s Regulation Czar Cass Sunstein called for the government to tax or even ban outright political opinions of which it disapproved.

On page 14 of Sunstein’s January 2008 white paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” the man who is now Obama’s head of information technology in the White House proposed that each of the following measures “will have a place under imaginable conditions” according to the strategy detailed in the essay.

1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing.

2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.

The ominous spectacle of major free speech websites going dark in supposedly democratic countries is a shocking portend of what the establishment wants to impose on a widespread basis. Only by screaming bloody murder in defense of the last true outpost of free speech – the Internet – and threatening boycotts and aggressive public relations campaigns can we counter the insidious move to silence the only remaining open forum of lawful dissent.

Frightening Taste Of Internet Censorship As Major Free Speech Websites Blocked

By Grant Gross February 4, 2010 02:22 PM ET

IDG News Service – The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would authorize hundreds of millions of dollars in spending on cybersecurity research and education.

The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act would give $395 million to the U.S. National Science Foundation to fund several cybersecurity research projects between this year and 2014.

The NSF would also get $108.7 million over five years for a cybersecurity scholarship program, in which recipients would be required to serve as a cybersecurity professional in the U.S. government after graduating from college. Bachelor’s and master’s degree students could get up to two years of scholarship money, and doctoral students could get three years, but students would have to serve in the federal government for the same number of years they received scholarships.

The bill, which passed Thursday by a vote of 422 to 5, also requires U.S. agencies to work together to come up with a strategic research and development plan for cybersecurity needs, focused on “innovative, transformational technologies.” The bill also requires the White House Office of Science and Technology to convene a task force on how to collaborate with colleges and private business on cybersecurity research and development.

Rep. Daniel Lipinski, an Illinois Democrat and prime sponsor of the bill, said the bill is important because U.S. government Web sites are under constant attack. “Cybercrime is a problem for businesses large and small and for every single American,” he said on the House floor Wednesday.

U.S. House passes cybersecurity R&D bill

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone’s microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a “roving bug,” and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the “roving bug” was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect’s cell phone.

via FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool | Tech News on ZDNet.

Anyone with an e-mail account likely knows that police can peek inside it if they have a paper search warrant.

But cybercrime investigators are frustrated by the speed of traditional methods of faxing, mailing, or e-mailing companies these documents. They're pushing for the creation of a national Web interface linking police computers with those of Internet and e-mail providers so requests can be sent and received electronically.

CNET has reviewed a survey scheduled to be released at a federal task force meeting on Thursday, which says that law enforcement agencies are virtually unanimous in calling for such an interface to be created. Eighty-nine percent of police surveyed, it says, want to be able to “exchange legal process requests and responses to legal process” through an encrypted, police-only “nationwide computer network.” (See one excerpt and another.)

The survey, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, is part of a broader push from law enforcement agencies to alter the ground rules of online investigations. Other components include renewed calls for laws requiring Internet companies to store data about their users for up to five years and increased pressure on companies to respond to police inquiries in hours instead of days.

But the most controversial element is probably the private Web interface, which raises novel security and privacy concerns, especially in the wake of a recent inspector general’s report (PDF) from the Justice Department. The 289-page report detailed how the FBI obtained Americans’ telephone records by citing nonexistent emergencies and simply asking for the data or writing phone numbers on a sticky note rather than following procedures required by law.

via Police want backdoor to Web users’ private data | Politics and Law – CNET News.

By Ellen Nakashima Thursday, February 4, 2010; A01

The world’s largest Internet search company and the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The partnership strikes at the core of one of the most sensitive issues for the government and private industry in the evolving world of cybersecurity: how to balance privacy and national security interests. On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair called the Google attacks, which the company acknowledged in January, a “wake-up call.” Cyberspace cannot be protected, he said, without a “collaborative effort that incorporates both the U.S. private sector and our international partners.”

But achieving collaboration is not easy, in part because private companies do not trust the government to keep their secrets and in part because of concerns that collaboration can lead to continuous government monitoring of private communications. Privacy advocates, concerned about a repeat of the NSA’s warrantless interception of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, say information-sharing must be limited and closely overseen.

“The critical question is: At what level will the American public be comfortable with Google sharing information with NSA?“

said Ellen McCarthy, president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an organization of current and former intelligence and national security officials that seeks ways to foster greater sharing of information between government and industry.

Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks.

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via Acquiring Shotguns – Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities.

Now for the bad news: In an effort to show the world how inclusive, sharing, cooperative, and international America can be, the Obama administration set off on a plan to surrender control and key management of the Internet by the U.S. Department of Commerce and its agents.

The key to the control America has over the Internet is through the management of the Domain Name System (DNS) and the giant servers that service the Internet.

Domain names are managed through an entity named IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. The IANA, which operates on behalf of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is responsible for the global coordination of the DNS, IP addressing, and other Internet protocol resources.

In short, without an IP Address or other essential Internet protocols, a person or entity would not have access to the Internet.

For years, the international community has been pressuring the United States

to surrender its control and management of the Internet. They want an international body such as the United Nations or even the International Telecommunications Union, (an entity that coordinates international telephone communications), to manage all aspects of the Internet in behalf of all nations.

The argument advanced for those seeking international control of the Internet is that the Internet has become such a powerful, pervasive, and a dependent form of international communications, that it would be dangerous and inequitable for any one nation to control and manage it.

Just this past spring, within months of Obama’s taking office, his administration, through the Department of Commerce, agreed to relinquish some control over IANA and their governance. The Obama administration has agreed to give greater representation to foreign companies and countries on IANA.

This amounts to one small step for internationalism and one giant leap for surrendering America’s control over an invention we have every right and responsibility to control and manage.

It is in America’s economic and national security interests not to relinquish any control. We are responsible for the control, operation, and functionality of one of the modern world’s greatest inventions and most powerful communications network.

What better country to protect the Internet than the United States?

via Newsmax – Obama Surrendering Internet to Foreign Powers.

Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows: David Reilly

Commentary by David Reilly

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) — The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all.

Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.

We’re talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system — apart from the matter of AIG’s bailout — deserves further congressional scrutiny.

The New York Fed is in the hot seat for its decision in November 2008 to buy out, for about $30 billion, insurance contracts AIG sold on toxic debt securities to banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, among others. That decision, critics say, amounted to a back-door bailout for the banks, which received 100 cents on the dollar for contracts that would have been worth far less had AIG been allowed to fail.

That move came a few weeks after the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department propped up AIG in the wake of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s own mid-September bankruptcy filing.

via Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows: David Reilly – Bloomberg.com.

In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto’s GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.

According to the study, which was summarized by Rady Ananda at Food Freedom, “Three varieties of Monsanto’s GM corn – Mon 863, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 – were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities.”

Monsanto gathered its own crude statistical data after conducting a 90-day study, even though chronic problems can rarely be found after 90 days, and concluded that the corn was safe for consumption. The stamp of approval may have been premature, however.

In the conclusion of the IJBS study, researchers wrote:

“Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. As there normally exists sex differences in liver and kidney metabolism, the highly statistically significant disturbances in the function of these organs, seen between male and female rats, cannot be dismissed as biologically insignificant as has been proposed by others. We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity….These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown.”

Monsanto has immediately responded to the study, stating that the research is “based on faulty analytical methods and reasoning and do not call into question the safety findings for these products.”

Monsanto’s GMO Corn Linked To Organ Failure, Study Reveals.

Glenn Beck is being characterized by the establishment as the leader of the freedom movement and yet a closer analysis of his ideology reveals that Beck is nothing more than a fake revolutionary who has supported and is pushing policies that are diametrically opposed to those embraced by true constitutionalists.

Beck and Fox News have hijacked the patriot movement and are leading conservatives and libertarians down a meaningless partisan rabbit hole in a clear attempt to neutralize genuine opposition to the big government agenda of the Obama administration.

via Glenn Beck For Dummies.