TIME Magazine is peddling a death agenda propaganda piece with a new issue that features these words on the cover: "HOW TO DIE."
Inside, the magazine promotes a cost-saving death agenda that encourages readers to literally "pull the feeding tubes" from their dying elderly parents, causing them to dehydrate and die. This is explained as a new cost-saving measure that drastically reduces return hospital visits by the elderly... yeah, because dead people don't return to the hospital, of course.
Watch my full commentary on this special death panel issue of TIME Magazine at:
Kill Granny, get a cash bonus!
The article is part of the new soft-sell, hard-kill agenda of the mainstream media which also featured an article on Newsweek Magazine entitled, "The Case for Killing Granny." (http://lookintoit.org/Euthanasia-%28The-Case-For-Killing-Granny%29.ht...)
The cover of that magazine stated, "Curbing excessive end-of-life care is good for America."
Just as with TIME Magazine, Newsweek is pushing a death agenda that devalues the lives of elderly citizens and actually encourages citizens to have their own parents killed in order to reduce medical costs. In fact, as TIME Magazine says, organizations that embrace these "outcome-based" death panel systems actually receive cash bonuses when they save more money by pulling the plug on granny!
That's the answer to health care in America, you see. It's not about nutritional therapy, using trace minerals to prevent disease, avoiding GMOs and toxic chemicals. Nope, it's about pulling the plug and killing your elders and then convincing yourself that you are compassionate for making sure they die sooner rather than later.
It's trendy to kill your parents off, didn't you know? It's good for the economy! And it's good for society! Death to grandma! For God's sake don't give any water to your dying father, either, because it's better to just let him die from kidney failure. Yep, here's an actual quote from the TIME Magazine story: "Renal failure is a good way to go," the story says. Just dehydrate 'em to death and call it trendy.
When you get old, they'll kill you too
Be careful what you wish for, all you trendies, because sooner or later, you'll be old, too! And if you created a society in which pulling the plug is the socially-acceptable way to kill off all the "useless old people," then don't be surprised when they cut off your feeding tube, too, and you suffer a slow, painful death while your own children cheer about how socially responsible they are.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Forbidden Natural Cure For Cancer
If your child were diagnosed with a very serious, very rare form of brain cancer, what would you do?
Where would you turn?
This is the situation that Rick Schiff, a police sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department, and his family were faced with back in 1994.
His 4 year old daughter, an identical twin, had a brain tumor growing in the left ventricle of her brain which was causing sudden neurological side effects.
The prognosis of this particular tumor was that it would spread rapidly and kill her within weeks.
So they did what most people would consider the logical next step – they consulted with an oncologist and proceeded with the recommended treatment, which, as is often the case, included a toxic combination of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, not so much as a cure but rather to extend her life for as long as possible.
In the video interview above, Rick explains the rest of his heart-breaking story, which unfortunately has a tragic ending, and what might have been prevented if natural cancer treatments were more widely available and recognized in the United States.
First, Conventional Cancer Treatment Poisons Child
Like most well-meaning parents, Rick and his wife decided to follow through with the oncologists' recommended treatment protocol. First came surgery, which had an initial positive outcome but because of the severity of the cancer, its spread was imminent. As Rick said:
" … literally in a matter of weeks we would be right back to where we were. In the end, [doctors] convinced us that what we would do is an aggressive regimen of chemotherapy and radiation simultaneously … We progressed through their treatment. She started the treatment on her fourth birthday. After six months, we had finished all the chemo and radiation that you could possibly have given her."
She ended up living longer than the few weeks first expected, but the cancer came back within six months. Rick continued:
"Her hair was burnt so badly that it never grew back. She literally, for want of a better description, looked like Golum in The Hobbit. She was a fried wretched little child, emaciated, unable to process nutrients, had shingles, had suffered immeasurably. We had rubber gloves to change her diaper because her urine was so toxic from the chemotherapy. The problem is I get six months through this and then I stop and I said, "Okay, what do we do now?" They said, "She dies.""
It was at that point that Rick realized he had made "a terrible mistake."
"I was now exactly where I was six months ago, my daughter was suffering. She had now suffered immeasurably at the hands of not only the doctors but myself and for what?" he said.
Then, Rick came across another option he hadn't been aware of before. In a book given to him by friends months earlier, a chapter about Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, who employs novel gene-targeted therapies in the treatment of cancer, picqued his interest. He spoke to Dr. Burzynski directly, and then to several of his patients.
"Oddly enough, each of them said Dr. Burzynski was great. The treatment is working fantastically. This is in stark contrast to what our own oncologist had told us. They all told us not to go but we went anyway."
Cancer Disappears Using Dr. Burzynski's "Forbidden" Treatment
Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski is known for developing a gene-specific treatment using a combination of cancer-fighting peptides he developed called antineoplastons to target specific cancers, conventional cancer drugs, and natural complementary strategies, including customized diets and exercise.
I interviewed Dr. Burzynski about his cancer treatment and also reviewed his recently released documentary, Burzynski, The Movie. It's an absolute jaw-dropper, as not only did the U.S. federal government spend 14 years actively suppressing a cancer treatment that had a FAR greater success rate than any other treatment available, they also spent well over $60 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars trying to put Dr. Burzynski in jail in order to steal his patents and either suppress or cash in on his discovery.
The treatment has surpassed all other conventional cancer treatments on the market, but you can't just walk in and receive it. Due to regulatory red tape, you're only "allowed" to see Dr. Burzynski if you've already had chemotherapy and radiation and failed to recover. Even then it is often a struggle
In a similar case involving Thomas, the son of Jim Navarro, who was also diagnosed with a form of brain cancer (and ended up dying from respiratory failure due to chronic toxicity of chemotherapy), it took 18 months of legal wrangling with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to get Thomas approved for treatment by Dr. Burzynski. By then he had already received his second brain surgery, had already been forced to undergo chemotherapy, and had already suffered recurring tumors—likely induced by the chemotherapy itself. After all that, he finally fulfilled all the requirements to be allowed to try Dr. Burzynski's treatment, which resulted in a 33 percent reduction in tumors. As Navarro said:
"A father's hope is, had he not been polluted and poisoned with chemotherapy, had we not been stopped, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he would be alive today."
Unfortunately, the case involving Rick's daughter, Chrissie, had a similar outcome.
Chrissie Died, Cancer-Free, From the Effects of Chemotherapy and Radiation
Like Jim's son, Chrissie showed remarkable improvement following Dr. Burzynski's treatment:
"Within a number of months, the enhancement in the actual tumor had dissipated … My daughter got better and better and better … The tumor slowly drifted away. As it drifted away over the period of the next year though, her other side effects became more and more prominent. Those were from the chemo and radiation. Even the doctors admitted that she began to have vision problems, hearing problems. Again, was malnourished based on her inability to process food.
At the same time, as she progressed and got better, the neurosurgeons who followed the surgery and so forth, they seemed very curious and optimistic but the oncologist got further and more distant from us and more inexplicably just plain rude, just unpleasant. At one point, the oncologist refused to see us although there was no real explanation for that. The head of pediatrics had to send in a general physician to take over for their practice because the oncologists were unwilling to deal with us and again, inexplicably. You would think that my daughter's progression towards a cure was miracle."
Chrissie had gone nearly a year cancer-free, but her body was too weakened from the conventional cancer treatments to survive and she passed away.
" … we brought Chrissie back and they did an autopsy. The autopsy showed that she died absolutely cancer-free with no sign of cancer and both the oncologist and the radio oncologist were there. We were looking through optics, slides of my daughter's brain. They all confirmed that the damage that they saw was a result of the chemotherapy and radiation. So we know that she died cancer free. The only child of that diagnosis that's ever been cancer free and we know what killed her."
Do Oncologists Really Know How to Treat Cancer?
Most conventional cancer treatments tend to add insult to injury by doing more harm than good -- a fact that has been largely swept under the rug by the medical industry. The real culprits—the underlying causes—are completely ignored, and that is, I believe, the root of the problem. The cancer industry has become a massive for-profit business that is doing everything in its power to maintain the status quo. It is, quite simply, not interested in truly reducing cancer rates; it's interested in treating cancer.
From that perspective, the more cancer cases the better... Even many oncologists, whom most regard as the go-to specialist upon receiving a cancer diagnosis, may be better described as chemotherapy specialists than cancer specialists.
As Rick continues:
"One of the great fallacies of modern medicine is that an oncologist knows anything about cancer because that's not what they are. An oncologist is generally speaking a hematologist. But what an oncologist is is a toxic chemotherapist. They understand toxic chemotherapy. Do they understand cancer? … What do they understand about the causes of cancer?
I went to UCSF under the belief that I was going to talk to a cancer specialist and that's not what I got. What I got was a specialist in surgery who did a magnificent job at what he was supposed to do – a specialist in oncology who did only what they knew, not what was in the best interest of my child, and a radio oncologist who not only lied to us and did nothing to benefit my daughter but ultimately specifically killed my daughter.
He gave my daughter a lethal dosage of radiation. There was no child that was going to survive 6000 rads of whole brain radiation particularly in simultaneous conjunction with chemotherapy. From his perspective, the child was going to die and I would never know the long term effects.
So you're going to go look at this [alternative treatment] website and you're going to see this treatment and you're going to come back and you're going to talk to somebody who knows absolutely nothing about it but who has a financial vested interest in your receiving their treatments. I think the combination of those two really keeps the number of patients that go to Dr. Burzynski down or the number of patients that enroll in any clinical trial that aren't advocated for by these oncologists."
What Can You do to Help Protect Your Freedom of Choice in Health Treatments?
Dr. Burzynski is just one of the alternative cancer specialists out there. There are many others as well, such as the Gerson Therapy and Dr. Nick Gonzalez's nutritional approach – or even medical marijuana. Unfortunately, the system, as currently configured, is stacked against you receiving these potentially life-saving therapies (and others like them).
Rick states:
"I think what's most frustrating about being me is that my daughter died in 1996 at the age of 6-1/2 with an identical twin sister who will never be the same, who is traumatically affected; with brothers and sisters, mother and father who will never be the same, with people who worked very hard to try and save her, whose lives were affected and for what?
Using Dr. Burzynski again as an example, it's now … 2012 and what have I accomplished? There are still parents who have children who should be going to, as an example, Dr. Burzynski. That should be the very first modality, the non-toxic, most effective treatment. He has FDA clinical trials for brainstem glioma that are greater, have shown better results than all clinical studies for brainstem glioma put together anywhere in the world. And yet, a parent can't just pick up the phone or fly on an airplane to Houston and get the treatment.
They have to cross hurdles and as they cross those hurdles, they get more and more dissuaded from going forward and eventually as you pointed out in many cases, they just got simply told no. I'm sorry. The government won't allow you to have this curative agent."
Deaths like that of Rick's daughter are shocking in that they aren't necessary. If the FDA and the oncologists had simply given them the opportunity to exercise freedom of choice to seek whatever therapy they thought appropriate, she may still be alive.
So, what can you do to address this kind of medical injustice and stop it from happening to you or someone you love? First off, Rick suggests if you're looking to receive an unapproved treatment, contact your local politicians:
"First of, my experience started when I chose to go to Dr. Burzynski's there was no lawful method for which I could get the treatment for my daughter in the State of California. So I went to my congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and I went to my senator Dianne Feinstein and the two of them pulled together and got me what was called a compassionate IND (Investigational New Drug) use permit, which allowed me to be the only lawful person bringing this into the State of California at the time."
Knowledge is always one of the highest forms of power, so I also recommend you share this information with your friends and loved ones. The film, Cut Poison Burn, which documents the Navarro's story, is an easy and powerful way to do so, and is being sold on a 'value-priced' basis to help the Navarro's pay off Thomas' medical bills, meaning you can download a copy of the film for $1.99 and up, depending on how much you're willing to pay. You can also purchase a DVD copy for $9.99.
A percentage of the proceeds from the film will go to cancer organizations that donate 100 percent of their proceeds to families fighting cancer—not the American Cancer Society. I'm also making the DVD available on my site. Of these proceeds, 80 percent will go to the producers and Jim Navarro's family.
I'm giving the remaining 20 percent to the Grassroots Health's Breast Cancer Prevention Project. All monies donated to them from the sale of Cut Poison Burn will be used to enroll women 60 and over in a project aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of vitamin D in breast cancer prevention. More information about this project can be found at here.
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Saturday, June 9, 2012
Another Pregnant Woman Tasered
'The superintendent of the Chicago Police Department says that the reason one of his officers used a Taser stun gun on a woman days away from giving birth because “you can’t always tell whether somebody is pregnant.”
At eight-months pregnant, Tiffany Rent says she would think officers would have been aware of her condition before they assaulted and arrested her on Wednesday morning outside a South Side drug store.
“I was standing at the squad car close enough for him to see that I was pregnant,” Rent tells the Chicago Tribune.'
At eight-months pregnant, Tiffany Rent says she would think officers would have been aware of her condition before they assaulted and arrested her on Wednesday morning outside a South Side drug store.
“I was standing at the squad car close enough for him to see that I was pregnant,” Rent tells the Chicago Tribune.'
Thursday, June 7, 2012
More States, Cities & Counties Reject Agenda 21
The War on ICLEI and Agenda 21 – the One World Group of United Nations Globalists who want to decide everything you think, do and say is progressing well!
In the past 18 months, 138 Cities and Counties have seen the light and that number will likely grow by 19 more to 157 as laws in Tennessee, Arizona and Alabama go into effect outlawing Agenda 21 / ICLEI in those states.
Sadly, 63 new members have signed up for the stealth anti-property group that uses pretty words and phrases like “Smart Growth” and Sustainability to trick localities into giving up these rights and submitting to Agenda 21 and the will and law of the United Nations.
It seems that for every locality ICLEI tricks into joining, two more look behind the curtain and drop out. Which means we are winning the war to keep America free and her property tights intact!
The following list was compiled from a November 23, 2010 snapshot from the ICLEI website using the Internet’s “Way Back Machine” and a snapshot of their current member list.
In the below listing, the ones in RED are new members while the ones with the Strike-through font have left ICLEI. There were several that Virginia Right! has confirmed that have left ICLEI that are still listed on their website as members. These have been scratched on the below list, but there were only 3.
Keep up the pressure! Contact your local City Council or Board of Supervisors to kick these people out of your county. Start by finding out how much of your local tax dollars are going to this group that is fighting to take away your rights. And write in to your local paper and expose the truth.
In the past 18 months, 138 Cities and Counties have seen the light and that number will likely grow by 19 more to 157 as laws in Tennessee, Arizona and Alabama go into effect outlawing Agenda 21 / ICLEI in those states.
Sadly, 63 new members have signed up for the stealth anti-property group that uses pretty words and phrases like “Smart Growth” and Sustainability to trick localities into giving up these rights and submitting to Agenda 21 and the will and law of the United Nations.
It seems that for every locality ICLEI tricks into joining, two more look behind the curtain and drop out. Which means we are winning the war to keep America free and her property tights intact!
The following list was compiled from a November 23, 2010 snapshot from the ICLEI website using the Internet’s “Way Back Machine” and a snapshot of their current member list.
In the below listing, the ones in RED are new members while the ones with the Strike-through font have left ICLEI. There were several that Virginia Right! has confirmed that have left ICLEI that are still listed on their website as members. These have been scratched on the below list, but there were only 3.
Keep up the pressure! Contact your local City Council or Board of Supervisors to kick these people out of your county. Start by finding out how much of your local tax dollars are going to this group that is fighting to take away your rights. And write in to your local paper and expose the truth.
Radioactive Nighmare Continues For North America
Millions of Southern Californians and tourists seek the region’s famous beaches to cool off in the sea breeze and frolic in the surf. Those iconic breezes, however, may be delivering something hotter than the white sands along the Pacific.
Buckyballs.
According to a recent U.C. Davis study, uranium-filled nanospheres are created from the millions of tons of fresh and salt water used to try to cool down the three molten cores of the stricken reactors. The tiny and tough buckyballs are shaped like British Association Football soccer balls.
Water hitting the incredibly hot and radioactive, primarily uranium-oxide fuel turns it into peroxide. In this goo buckyballs are formed, loaded with uranium and able to move quickly through water without disintegrating.
High radiation readings in Santa Monica and Los Angeles air during a 42-day period from late December to late January strongly suggest that radiation is increasing in the region including along the coast in Ventura County.
The radiation, detected by this reporter and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, separate from each other and using different procedures, does not appear to be natural in origin. The EPA’s radiation station is high atop an undisclosed building in Los Angeles while this reporter’s detection location is near the West L.A. boundary.
Both stations registered over 5.3 times normal, though the methods of sampling and detection differed. The videotaped Santa Monica sampling and testing allowed for the detection of alpha and beta radiation while the sensitive EPA instrument detected beta only, according to the government website.
A windy Alaskan storm front sweeping down the coast the morning of March 31 slammed Southern California with huge breakers, a choppy sea with 30-foot waves and winds gusting to 50 mph. A low-hanging marine layer infused with sea spray made aloft from the chop and carried on the winds blew inland over the Los Angeles Basin for several miles bringing with it the highest radiation this reporter has detected in hot rain since the meltdowns began, over five times normal.
Scientific studies from the United Kingdom and Europe show that sea water infused with radiation of the sort spewing out of Fukushima can travel inland from the coast up to 300 kilometers. These mobile poisons include cesium-137 and plutonium-239, the latter with a half-life of 24,400 years.
Even with government, University of California and this reporter’s tests showing high radiation in the air, water, food and dairy products in this state, the state and federal governments cut off special testing for Fukushima radionuclides more than half a year ago.
Southern California is still getting hit by Fukushima radiation at alarmingly high levels that will inevitably increase as the main bulk of polluted Pacific Ocean water reaches North America over the next two years.
Luckily, the area is south of where the jet stream has brought hot rains from across the Pacific and Fukushima, more than 5,000 miles away, upwind and up-current of the West Coast. Those rains have brought extraordinary amounts of radiation to places like St. Louis, with multiple rain events detected and filmed, showing incredibly hot rains.
Unluckily, North America is directly downwind of Japan, where the government is having 560,000 tons of irradiated rubble incinerated with the ash dumped in Tokyo Bay. The burning began last October and continues through March 2014, enraging American activists for this unwitting double dose.
American media coverage of Fukushima’s continuing woes and of contamination spreading across Japan and threatening Tokyo’s 30 million residents, while not robust has been adequate. Coverage of contamination in America and Southern California has been practically non-existent.
That’s one of the reasons we started Radiation Station Santa Monica four days after the meltdowns began on March 11, 2011, transmitting live radiation readings for the Los Angeles Basin 24/7 ever since.
With nuclear radiation monitoring equipment, this investigation has performed more than 1,500 radiation tests in different media throughout four states and in and in jet airplane cabins where, even accounting for higher radiation at higher altitudes, readings were more than five times normal according to the manufacturer of our Inspector Alert nuclear radiation monitor.
Writer Michael Collins measuring the unfriendly skies in December 2011.
Those readings, along with the EPA’s, combined with the UC Davis study of buckyballs and a European study of sea spray radiation spread, strongly indicate that Southern California is being exposed to significant amounts of radiation. The closer to the coast, like much of populated Ventura County, the more pronounced the radiation in this scenario.
Other reports exist of what likely-Fukushima fallout in the Southland exist.
Researchers from Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University and the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, released a study May 28 that showed that all 15 samples of Pacific Bluefin tuna caught off of San Diego in August 2011 showed indisputable signs of radiation contamination emanating from Fukushima.
This suggests that the popular and expensive animal carved up usually for sushi is even more contaminated now nearly a year after it was first harvested and tested as at least 1,000 tons of highly radioactive water used to cool the melted cores and spent fuel ponds are being dumped daily into the ocean, according to recent revelations of the nuclear plants owners, Tokyo Electric Power Company.
The study also suggests that other highly migratory species, like turtles, sharks and marine birds, may also be contaminated with the radiation found in the tuna: cesium-134 and cesium-137.
The U.S. Geological Service (USGS) reported Feb. 21 that Los Angeles had more cesium-137 fallout than any other place in the nation during the opening days of the disaster from March 15 to April 5, 2011.
The amount of Cs-137 detected in precipitation at a monitoring station 20 miles east of downtown was 13 times the limit for the toxin in drinking water according to a report obtained by the VCReporter.
USGS released another astonishing study Feb. 22, from measurements taken at its Bennington National Atmospheric Deposition Program in Vermont, confirming a grim cesium-137 scenario for Southern California.
“Deposition actually decreased as the air mass traveled east to west,” Greg Wetherbee, a chemist with USGS, told the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper before imparting an additional bombshell.
“In the United States, cesium-134 and cesium-137 wet dispersion values were higher than for Chernobyl fallout, in part due to the U.S. being further downwind,” Wetherbee told the paper. “With Chernobyl, there was more opportunity for plume dispersion.”
This double whammy of cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years isn’t even in a uranium-60 buckyball. But they are in the unfathomable spread of goo throughout the Pacific on the second strongest current in the world headed right for us.
The three meltdowns have spewed trillions of becquerels of highly radioactive iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239 into the atmosphere and Pacific since March 11, 2011. The initial explosions and fires sent untold amounts of radiation high into the atmosphere.
A Feb. 28 report by the Meteorological Research Institute, just released at a scientific symposium in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, says that 40,000 trillion becquerels, double the amount previously thought, have escaped Unit 1 reactor alone.
This has resulted in fallout around the globe and especially impacting the Pacific and parts of America and Canada, two countries downwind of Japan on the jet stream. British Columbia, the Pacific Northwest, Midwest and Ontario have been hit especially hard by rain, sleet and snow, in some cases with dizzying amounts of high radiation.
A March 6 study Department of Biological Sciences study conducted at California State University, Long Beach, found that kelp along the coast of California was heavily impacted by radioactive Iodine-131 a month after the meltdowns began. The virulent and deadly isotope was detected at 250 times levels the researchers said were normal in the kelp before the disaster.
Radioactive fallout in St. Louis, Mo., rainfall, which has been monitored at Potrblog.com since the crisis began, has been repeatedly so hot that levels have been reached that make it unsafe for children and pregnant women. An Oct.17, 2011, St. Louis rainstorm was measured on video at 2.76 millirems per hour or more than 270 times background.
The U.S. EPA considers anything 3 times background to be significantly above background. The California Highway Patrol deems any material more than three times background as a potential hazardous materials situation. The St. Louis rain was 90 times CHP’s hazmat trigger.
The main wave of water-borne radiation from the meltdowns, including highly mobile uranium-60 buckyballs, is surging across the Pacific along the Kuroshio Current, second only to the Gulf Stream for power on the planet.
Millions of tons of seawater and fresh water have been used to cool the melted cores and spent fuel rods, generating millions of tons of irradiated water. The Kuroshio Current is transporting a significant amount of this escaping radiation from Fukushima Daiichi across the Pacific toward the West Coast.
The 70-mile-wide current joins the North Pacific Current, moving eastward until it splits and flows southward along the California Current, which flows along the coast to Ventura County and beyond.The American government has done nothing to monitor the Pacific Ocean for over half a year, even though a Texas-sized sea of Japanese earthquake debris is already washing up on outlying Alaskan islands and is suspected to have already hit the West Coast, including California.
“In terms of the radiation, EPA is in charge of the radiation network for airborne radiation; it’s called RadNet,” EPA Region 9 Administrator Jared Blumenfeld told the VCReporter on Feb. 9 during a news conference about new ship sewage regulations. “And we have a very significant and comprehensive array of RadNet monitors along the, actually along the coast, but on land. We don’t have jurisdiction for looking at marine radiation. Perhaps NOAA would be able to answer that question but we don’t have data or monitor it,” he said.
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, suspended testing the Pacific for Fukushima radiation last summer after concluding that there wasn’t any radiation to be detected.
“As far as questions about radiation, we are working with radiation experts within the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy,” NOAA media liaison Keeley Belva wrote in a Feb. 10 e-mail. “Here are some contacts information for those agencies at the headquarters level.”
In other words, no federal agency, department or administration is doing anything to sample and analyze water from the Pacific. Fish aren’t being tested for contamination, either.
“NOAA is not currently doing further research on seafood,” Belva said adding “NOAA is doing a study related to radiation that is focused on radiation plume modeling.”
The lack of testing disappoints Dan Hirsch, U.C. Santa Cruz nuclear policy lecturer and president of Committee to Bridge the Gap which exposed the Rocketdyne partial meltdowns above the western San Fernando Valley in 1979 and continues to lead the fight to clean up Rocketdyne today.
“EPA did some special monitoring for a few weeks after the accident began, then shut down the special monitoring” Hirsch told the VCReporter. “What monitoring was done was very troubled. Half of the stationary air monitors were broken at the time of the accident. Deployable monitors were ordered not deployed.”
Even when the government testing did work, increasingly high levels of radiation seem to have been ignored.
The VCReporter has learned that the California Department of Public Health halted monitoring of Fukushima fallout when its Radiologic Health Branch issued its last report on Oct. 10, 2011.
That report shows an alarming rise in cesium-137 in CalPoly San Luis Obispo dairy farm milk beginning June 14, 2011, when it tested 2.95 picocuries per liter (pCi/l) and steadily rising in four subsequent tests until it was 5.91 pCi/l. The hot milk was at twice the allowable amount of this radionuclide in drinking water, according to the EPA’s 3.0 pCi/l limit.
Then the testing stopped, for no other reason than the government concluded that nothing from Fukushima had sufficiently contaminated anything to be of concern. Even detections of radioactive sulphur-35 in San Diego and plutonium-239 in Riverside did nothing to pique the interest of regulators.
“The lesson to be learned is that both the U.S. and Japan suffer from very lax regulation, a too-cozy relationship between nuclear regulators and the industry they are to regulate,” Hirsch said. “This can lead to dangerous outcomesThis was not unanticipated. Yet the need for immediate information was undeniable.
Live-streaming radiation readings from Santa Monica began four days after the meltdowns. Since then, this reporter has conducted more than 1,500 tests in four states and miles above the Earth, where jet radiation registered more than five times normal, even accounting for altitude.
Special tests revealed elevated radiation in Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon rain. Southwest Michigan rain samples were hot.
Santa Monica and Los Angeles rain and mist were also high. Readings taken in Agoura, Oxnard and Ventura mostly mirrored these measurements. The Radiation Station Ventura California provides near-daily radiation readings that include local food measurements.
Japanese sake, beer, vegetable juice, seaweed, pastries and tea all registered significant ionization above background. Powdered milk, turkey hot dogs, and jet travel breathing masks were all part of the specific media tested, many of which were recorded in these videotaped radiation detections.
HEPA filters may also be effective in capturing buckyballs, which are geodesic dome-shaped structures that are spherical with multiple flat sides. Strong evidence suggests that these hardy radioactive Uranium-60 nanoparticles have crossed the Pacific quickly, with their concentrations rising.
That evidence includes our and the EPA’s high beta readings in Los Angeles. Our radiation station is a little more than a mile from the Pacific shoreline. Downtown Los Angeles is more than 13 miles away from the sea.
The Jan. 27, 2012, U.C. Davis report “Uranyl peroxide enhanced nuclear fuel corrosion in seawater,” is the first account to analyze what is happening to the gargantuan amount of seawater, as well as fresh water, that has been hosing down the melted reactor cores and flushing into the Pacific.
Alexandra Navrotsky, Ph.D., director of nanomaterials research at U.C. Davis (center) with colleagues.
The study spells out a horrific scenario in which compromised irradiated fuel turned huge amounts of ocean water into a series of uranium-related peroxide compounds containing as many as 60 “uranyl ions” in hardy nanoscale cage clusters that can “potentially transport uranium over long distances” and persist for “at least 294 days without detectable change.”
How hot these nano-cage clusters of cancer-causing radiation are depends on what kind and ratio of uranium isotopes make up the 60 in each one.
“A given isotope has the same radioactivity (half-life) regardless of what chemical state it is in,” Alexandra Navrotsky, Ph.D., director of nanomaterials research at U.C. Davis, told the VCReporter. “So the radioactivity for a constant number of U atoms depends on the proportion of different isotopes in the sample.”
There is a strong possibility that these uranium peroxide buckyballs are already sloshing around in the waters off Southern California as this reporter and the EPA’s radiation readings appear to indicate. But if it was the source of our high detections what was the mechanism that was transporting radiation inland.
Sea spray, perhaps. Radioactive sea spray has been shown to blow hundreds of kilometers inland in tests conducted in the United Kingdom by British and European researchers. As any one who has ever smelled the salty ocean air miles from the ocean might expect, salt in sea spray can travel a significant distance. The same holds true for radioactive particles floating in the sea, even if in addition to U60 buckyballs.
In the 2008 report “Sea to land transfer of radionuclides in Cumbria and North Wales,” the greatest average concentration of cesium-137 and plutonium-239 in soil at a depth of 0 to 15 centimeters was found 10 kilometers from the coast. The highest average amounts found at 15 to 30 centimeters deep were 5 kilometers away from the sea illustrating the unpredictability of radiation fallout.
A 62-page UK study released in December 2011 found that sea spray and marine aerosols created from bubbles forming and popping when the sea is choppy or waves break have increased concentrations of radioactive “actinides.”
Actinides are chemically alike radioactive metallic elements and include uranium and plutonium. One actinide infused the spray with an 812 times greater concentration of americium-241 than normal amounts of Am-241 in ambient seawater.
The report cited information that sea-spray-blown cesium 137 was found 200 kilometers from the discharge source in the New Hebrides islands in northern Scotland.
Another UK study found that the Irish Sea has a micro layer on top of it, perhaps only thousandths of a millimeter in thickness, that can become imbued with fine particulate material and its absorbed radiation.
These concentrations of plutonium and americium are four to five times their concentrations in ambient seawater. Plutonium concentrates by 26,000 times in floating algal blooms at sea, says the report.
These radionuclides and buckyballs make up the goo inexorably crossing the Pacific, which may just have begun to impact our shores. Yet not a nickel of state or federal money is spent monitoring it. We are on our own in this Fukushima nightmare.
Buckyballs.
According to a recent U.C. Davis study, uranium-filled nanospheres are created from the millions of tons of fresh and salt water used to try to cool down the three molten cores of the stricken reactors. The tiny and tough buckyballs are shaped like British Association Football soccer balls.
Water hitting the incredibly hot and radioactive, primarily uranium-oxide fuel turns it into peroxide. In this goo buckyballs are formed, loaded with uranium and able to move quickly through water without disintegrating.
High radiation readings in Santa Monica and Los Angeles air during a 42-day period from late December to late January strongly suggest that radiation is increasing in the region including along the coast in Ventura County.
The radiation, detected by this reporter and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, separate from each other and using different procedures, does not appear to be natural in origin. The EPA’s radiation station is high atop an undisclosed building in Los Angeles while this reporter’s detection location is near the West L.A. boundary.
Both stations registered over 5.3 times normal, though the methods of sampling and detection differed. The videotaped Santa Monica sampling and testing allowed for the detection of alpha and beta radiation while the sensitive EPA instrument detected beta only, according to the government website.
A windy Alaskan storm front sweeping down the coast the morning of March 31 slammed Southern California with huge breakers, a choppy sea with 30-foot waves and winds gusting to 50 mph. A low-hanging marine layer infused with sea spray made aloft from the chop and carried on the winds blew inland over the Los Angeles Basin for several miles bringing with it the highest radiation this reporter has detected in hot rain since the meltdowns began, over five times normal.
Scientific studies from the United Kingdom and Europe show that sea water infused with radiation of the sort spewing out of Fukushima can travel inland from the coast up to 300 kilometers. These mobile poisons include cesium-137 and plutonium-239, the latter with a half-life of 24,400 years.
Even with government, University of California and this reporter’s tests showing high radiation in the air, water, food and dairy products in this state, the state and federal governments cut off special testing for Fukushima radionuclides more than half a year ago.
Southern California is still getting hit by Fukushima radiation at alarmingly high levels that will inevitably increase as the main bulk of polluted Pacific Ocean water reaches North America over the next two years.
Luckily, the area is south of where the jet stream has brought hot rains from across the Pacific and Fukushima, more than 5,000 miles away, upwind and up-current of the West Coast. Those rains have brought extraordinary amounts of radiation to places like St. Louis, with multiple rain events detected and filmed, showing incredibly hot rains.
Unluckily, North America is directly downwind of Japan, where the government is having 560,000 tons of irradiated rubble incinerated with the ash dumped in Tokyo Bay. The burning began last October and continues through March 2014, enraging American activists for this unwitting double dose.
American media coverage of Fukushima’s continuing woes and of contamination spreading across Japan and threatening Tokyo’s 30 million residents, while not robust has been adequate. Coverage of contamination in America and Southern California has been practically non-existent.
That’s one of the reasons we started Radiation Station Santa Monica four days after the meltdowns began on March 11, 2011, transmitting live radiation readings for the Los Angeles Basin 24/7 ever since.
With nuclear radiation monitoring equipment, this investigation has performed more than 1,500 radiation tests in different media throughout four states and in and in jet airplane cabins where, even accounting for higher radiation at higher altitudes, readings were more than five times normal according to the manufacturer of our Inspector Alert nuclear radiation monitor.
Writer Michael Collins measuring the unfriendly skies in December 2011.
Those readings, along with the EPA’s, combined with the UC Davis study of buckyballs and a European study of sea spray radiation spread, strongly indicate that Southern California is being exposed to significant amounts of radiation. The closer to the coast, like much of populated Ventura County, the more pronounced the radiation in this scenario.
Other reports exist of what likely-Fukushima fallout in the Southland exist.
Researchers from Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University and the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, released a study May 28 that showed that all 15 samples of Pacific Bluefin tuna caught off of San Diego in August 2011 showed indisputable signs of radiation contamination emanating from Fukushima.
This suggests that the popular and expensive animal carved up usually for sushi is even more contaminated now nearly a year after it was first harvested and tested as at least 1,000 tons of highly radioactive water used to cool the melted cores and spent fuel ponds are being dumped daily into the ocean, according to recent revelations of the nuclear plants owners, Tokyo Electric Power Company.
The study also suggests that other highly migratory species, like turtles, sharks and marine birds, may also be contaminated with the radiation found in the tuna: cesium-134 and cesium-137.
The U.S. Geological Service (USGS) reported Feb. 21 that Los Angeles had more cesium-137 fallout than any other place in the nation during the opening days of the disaster from March 15 to April 5, 2011.
The amount of Cs-137 detected in precipitation at a monitoring station 20 miles east of downtown was 13 times the limit for the toxin in drinking water according to a report obtained by the VCReporter.
USGS released another astonishing study Feb. 22, from measurements taken at its Bennington National Atmospheric Deposition Program in Vermont, confirming a grim cesium-137 scenario for Southern California.
“Deposition actually decreased as the air mass traveled east to west,” Greg Wetherbee, a chemist with USGS, told the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper before imparting an additional bombshell.
“In the United States, cesium-134 and cesium-137 wet dispersion values were higher than for Chernobyl fallout, in part due to the U.S. being further downwind,” Wetherbee told the paper. “With Chernobyl, there was more opportunity for plume dispersion.”
This double whammy of cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years isn’t even in a uranium-60 buckyball. But they are in the unfathomable spread of goo throughout the Pacific on the second strongest current in the world headed right for us.
The three meltdowns have spewed trillions of becquerels of highly radioactive iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239 into the atmosphere and Pacific since March 11, 2011. The initial explosions and fires sent untold amounts of radiation high into the atmosphere.
A Feb. 28 report by the Meteorological Research Institute, just released at a scientific symposium in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, says that 40,000 trillion becquerels, double the amount previously thought, have escaped Unit 1 reactor alone.
This has resulted in fallout around the globe and especially impacting the Pacific and parts of America and Canada, two countries downwind of Japan on the jet stream. British Columbia, the Pacific Northwest, Midwest and Ontario have been hit especially hard by rain, sleet and snow, in some cases with dizzying amounts of high radiation.
A March 6 study Department of Biological Sciences study conducted at California State University, Long Beach, found that kelp along the coast of California was heavily impacted by radioactive Iodine-131 a month after the meltdowns began. The virulent and deadly isotope was detected at 250 times levels the researchers said were normal in the kelp before the disaster.
Radioactive fallout in St. Louis, Mo., rainfall, which has been monitored at Potrblog.com since the crisis began, has been repeatedly so hot that levels have been reached that make it unsafe for children and pregnant women. An Oct.17, 2011, St. Louis rainstorm was measured on video at 2.76 millirems per hour or more than 270 times background.
The U.S. EPA considers anything 3 times background to be significantly above background. The California Highway Patrol deems any material more than three times background as a potential hazardous materials situation. The St. Louis rain was 90 times CHP’s hazmat trigger.
The main wave of water-borne radiation from the meltdowns, including highly mobile uranium-60 buckyballs, is surging across the Pacific along the Kuroshio Current, second only to the Gulf Stream for power on the planet.
Millions of tons of seawater and fresh water have been used to cool the melted cores and spent fuel rods, generating millions of tons of irradiated water. The Kuroshio Current is transporting a significant amount of this escaping radiation from Fukushima Daiichi across the Pacific toward the West Coast.
The 70-mile-wide current joins the North Pacific Current, moving eastward until it splits and flows southward along the California Current, which flows along the coast to Ventura County and beyond.The American government has done nothing to monitor the Pacific Ocean for over half a year, even though a Texas-sized sea of Japanese earthquake debris is already washing up on outlying Alaskan islands and is suspected to have already hit the West Coast, including California.
“In terms of the radiation, EPA is in charge of the radiation network for airborne radiation; it’s called RadNet,” EPA Region 9 Administrator Jared Blumenfeld told the VCReporter on Feb. 9 during a news conference about new ship sewage regulations. “And we have a very significant and comprehensive array of RadNet monitors along the, actually along the coast, but on land. We don’t have jurisdiction for looking at marine radiation. Perhaps NOAA would be able to answer that question but we don’t have data or monitor it,” he said.
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, suspended testing the Pacific for Fukushima radiation last summer after concluding that there wasn’t any radiation to be detected.
“As far as questions about radiation, we are working with radiation experts within the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy,” NOAA media liaison Keeley Belva wrote in a Feb. 10 e-mail. “Here are some contacts information for those agencies at the headquarters level.”
In other words, no federal agency, department or administration is doing anything to sample and analyze water from the Pacific. Fish aren’t being tested for contamination, either.
“NOAA is not currently doing further research on seafood,” Belva said adding “NOAA is doing a study related to radiation that is focused on radiation plume modeling.”
The lack of testing disappoints Dan Hirsch, U.C. Santa Cruz nuclear policy lecturer and president of Committee to Bridge the Gap which exposed the Rocketdyne partial meltdowns above the western San Fernando Valley in 1979 and continues to lead the fight to clean up Rocketdyne today.
“EPA did some special monitoring for a few weeks after the accident began, then shut down the special monitoring” Hirsch told the VCReporter. “What monitoring was done was very troubled. Half of the stationary air monitors were broken at the time of the accident. Deployable monitors were ordered not deployed.”
Even when the government testing did work, increasingly high levels of radiation seem to have been ignored.
The VCReporter has learned that the California Department of Public Health halted monitoring of Fukushima fallout when its Radiologic Health Branch issued its last report on Oct. 10, 2011.
That report shows an alarming rise in cesium-137 in CalPoly San Luis Obispo dairy farm milk beginning June 14, 2011, when it tested 2.95 picocuries per liter (pCi/l) and steadily rising in four subsequent tests until it was 5.91 pCi/l. The hot milk was at twice the allowable amount of this radionuclide in drinking water, according to the EPA’s 3.0 pCi/l limit.
Then the testing stopped, for no other reason than the government concluded that nothing from Fukushima had sufficiently contaminated anything to be of concern. Even detections of radioactive sulphur-35 in San Diego and plutonium-239 in Riverside did nothing to pique the interest of regulators.
“The lesson to be learned is that both the U.S. and Japan suffer from very lax regulation, a too-cozy relationship between nuclear regulators and the industry they are to regulate,” Hirsch said. “This can lead to dangerous outcomesThis was not unanticipated. Yet the need for immediate information was undeniable.
Live-streaming radiation readings from Santa Monica began four days after the meltdowns. Since then, this reporter has conducted more than 1,500 tests in four states and miles above the Earth, where jet radiation registered more than five times normal, even accounting for altitude.
Special tests revealed elevated radiation in Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon rain. Southwest Michigan rain samples were hot.
Santa Monica and Los Angeles rain and mist were also high. Readings taken in Agoura, Oxnard and Ventura mostly mirrored these measurements. The Radiation Station Ventura California provides near-daily radiation readings that include local food measurements.
Japanese sake, beer, vegetable juice, seaweed, pastries and tea all registered significant ionization above background. Powdered milk, turkey hot dogs, and jet travel breathing masks were all part of the specific media tested, many of which were recorded in these videotaped radiation detections.
HEPA filters may also be effective in capturing buckyballs, which are geodesic dome-shaped structures that are spherical with multiple flat sides. Strong evidence suggests that these hardy radioactive Uranium-60 nanoparticles have crossed the Pacific quickly, with their concentrations rising.
That evidence includes our and the EPA’s high beta readings in Los Angeles. Our radiation station is a little more than a mile from the Pacific shoreline. Downtown Los Angeles is more than 13 miles away from the sea.
The Jan. 27, 2012, U.C. Davis report “Uranyl peroxide enhanced nuclear fuel corrosion in seawater,” is the first account to analyze what is happening to the gargantuan amount of seawater, as well as fresh water, that has been hosing down the melted reactor cores and flushing into the Pacific.
Alexandra Navrotsky, Ph.D., director of nanomaterials research at U.C. Davis (center) with colleagues.
The study spells out a horrific scenario in which compromised irradiated fuel turned huge amounts of ocean water into a series of uranium-related peroxide compounds containing as many as 60 “uranyl ions” in hardy nanoscale cage clusters that can “potentially transport uranium over long distances” and persist for “at least 294 days without detectable change.”
How hot these nano-cage clusters of cancer-causing radiation are depends on what kind and ratio of uranium isotopes make up the 60 in each one.
“A given isotope has the same radioactivity (half-life) regardless of what chemical state it is in,” Alexandra Navrotsky, Ph.D., director of nanomaterials research at U.C. Davis, told the VCReporter. “So the radioactivity for a constant number of U atoms depends on the proportion of different isotopes in the sample.”
There is a strong possibility that these uranium peroxide buckyballs are already sloshing around in the waters off Southern California as this reporter and the EPA’s radiation readings appear to indicate. But if it was the source of our high detections what was the mechanism that was transporting radiation inland.
Sea spray, perhaps. Radioactive sea spray has been shown to blow hundreds of kilometers inland in tests conducted in the United Kingdom by British and European researchers. As any one who has ever smelled the salty ocean air miles from the ocean might expect, salt in sea spray can travel a significant distance. The same holds true for radioactive particles floating in the sea, even if in addition to U60 buckyballs.
In the 2008 report “Sea to land transfer of radionuclides in Cumbria and North Wales,” the greatest average concentration of cesium-137 and plutonium-239 in soil at a depth of 0 to 15 centimeters was found 10 kilometers from the coast. The highest average amounts found at 15 to 30 centimeters deep were 5 kilometers away from the sea illustrating the unpredictability of radiation fallout.
A 62-page UK study released in December 2011 found that sea spray and marine aerosols created from bubbles forming and popping when the sea is choppy or waves break have increased concentrations of radioactive “actinides.”
Actinides are chemically alike radioactive metallic elements and include uranium and plutonium. One actinide infused the spray with an 812 times greater concentration of americium-241 than normal amounts of Am-241 in ambient seawater.
The report cited information that sea-spray-blown cesium 137 was found 200 kilometers from the discharge source in the New Hebrides islands in northern Scotland.
Another UK study found that the Irish Sea has a micro layer on top of it, perhaps only thousandths of a millimeter in thickness, that can become imbued with fine particulate material and its absorbed radiation.
These concentrations of plutonium and americium are four to five times their concentrations in ambient seawater. Plutonium concentrates by 26,000 times in floating algal blooms at sea, says the report.
These radionuclides and buckyballs make up the goo inexorably crossing the Pacific, which may just have begun to impact our shores. Yet not a nickel of state or federal money is spent monitoring it. We are on our own in this Fukushima nightmare.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Common Foods Contain Flame Retardants
hazardoussymbol 235x147 Common Food Items Found to Contain Flame Retardants and Other ToxinsPlanning on making your child a timeless, classic American peanut butter and jelly sandwich this afternoon? Maybe a deli meat sandwich instead? It may be in their best interest to refrain from the classics this week, as new research indicates there may be a big problem with the most heavily favored American foods. Foods like peanut butter, turkey, ham, fish, and a variety of beef and other products have each been tested and shown to have an above tolerable level of flame retardant chemicals, used mostly in the construction of buildings and homes across the country.
Dr. Arnold Schecter of the University Of Texas School Of Public Health published the report this past Thursday regarding the various meat products found commonly in supermarkets. His findings are somewhat scary; a whole plethora of chemicals were found amongst the products, primarily a widely used flame retardant found in between the walls of your own house.
“This is not good news. Here’s yet another toxic chemical that can be found in any of the foods we buy at our supermarkets. Food does not need flame retardants” said the professor. Hexabomocyclododecane (HBCD) is the chemical in question, found in many food products tested for excessive and unnecessary chemicals in the American diet. This is one of many synthesized chemicals that have been found in an alarmingly high number of popular food items, and researchers are continually finding more and more as time goes on. The main reason for the chemical’s presence has been found to be a combination of faulty plastic packaging, as well as being purposefully added into the more heavily processed products as part of the production methods.
Given the variety of chemical exposures that have been brought to light thanks to scientists like Dr. Schecter and his team, there is a much better chance of reducing the unnecessary additions put into the food supply, thus reducing the chances for a handful of different diseases and disabilities to develop. Chemicals such as DDT, PCBs, dioxins, and even heavy metals such as mercury have all been linked to a large quantity of diseases. The highest risk factor lies within pregnant women, as the blood toxicity associated with the release of these chemicals has a very high chance of damaging an unborn child.
Even with the studies provided by Dr. Schecter, lobbyists will not be halted from attempting to put a band aid on the situation – Bryan Goodman of the American Chemistry Council views the near constant chemical exposure as negligible, saying that “the real story is that HBCD was not detected in a majority of the samples and in those where it was, it was well below levels where one might see adverse health effects. These results should not pose a concern for human health.”
Though the study was not performed on each market-wide brand and mostly focused on the conventional non-organic brands, the chemicals have each been noted as a long term detriment to human health, and any chemical considered a flame retardant or anything else like it should not be branded as a ‘safe’ inedible in any circumstance.
Dr. Arnold Schecter of the University Of Texas School Of Public Health published the report this past Thursday regarding the various meat products found commonly in supermarkets. His findings are somewhat scary; a whole plethora of chemicals were found amongst the products, primarily a widely used flame retardant found in between the walls of your own house.
“This is not good news. Here’s yet another toxic chemical that can be found in any of the foods we buy at our supermarkets. Food does not need flame retardants” said the professor. Hexabomocyclododecane (HBCD) is the chemical in question, found in many food products tested for excessive and unnecessary chemicals in the American diet. This is one of many synthesized chemicals that have been found in an alarmingly high number of popular food items, and researchers are continually finding more and more as time goes on. The main reason for the chemical’s presence has been found to be a combination of faulty plastic packaging, as well as being purposefully added into the more heavily processed products as part of the production methods.
Given the variety of chemical exposures that have been brought to light thanks to scientists like Dr. Schecter and his team, there is a much better chance of reducing the unnecessary additions put into the food supply, thus reducing the chances for a handful of different diseases and disabilities to develop. Chemicals such as DDT, PCBs, dioxins, and even heavy metals such as mercury have all been linked to a large quantity of diseases. The highest risk factor lies within pregnant women, as the blood toxicity associated with the release of these chemicals has a very high chance of damaging an unborn child.
Even with the studies provided by Dr. Schecter, lobbyists will not be halted from attempting to put a band aid on the situation – Bryan Goodman of the American Chemistry Council views the near constant chemical exposure as negligible, saying that “the real story is that HBCD was not detected in a majority of the samples and in those where it was, it was well below levels where one might see adverse health effects. These results should not pose a concern for human health.”
Though the study was not performed on each market-wide brand and mostly focused on the conventional non-organic brands, the chemicals have each been noted as a long term detriment to human health, and any chemical considered a flame retardant or anything else like it should not be branded as a ‘safe’ inedible in any circumstance.
First American Arrested By Drones To Argue 4th Amendment Violations
It’s been about a year since a North Dakota man was arrested after a local SWAT team tracked him down using a Predator drone it borrowed from the Department of Homeland Security.
Although the story has not been widely reported, Rodney Brossart became one of the first American citizens (if not the first) arrested by local law enforcement with the use of a federally owned drone aerial surveillance vehicle after holding the police at bay for over 16 hours.
Brossart’s run-in with law enforcement began after six cows found their way onto his property (about 3,000 acres near Lakota, North Dakota) and he refused to turn them over to officers. In fact, according to several sources, Brossart and a few family members ran police off his farm at the point of a gun.
Naturally, police weren’t pleased with Brossart’s brand of hospitality, so they held returned with a warrant, with a SWAT team, and with a determination to apprehend Brossart and the cows.
A standoff ensued and the Grand Forks police SWAT team made a call to a local Air Force base where they knew a Predator drone was deployed by the DHS. About three years before the Brossart incident, the police department had signed an agreement with DHS for the use of the drone.
No sooner did the call come in than the drone was airborne and Brossart’s precise location was pinpointed with laser-guided accuracy. The machine-gun toting SWAT officers rushed in, tased then arrested Brossart on various charges including terrorizing a sheriff, and the rest is history. Literally.
As the matter proceeds through the legal system, Bruce Quick, the lawyer representing Brossart, is decrying the “guerilla-like police tactics” used to track and capture his client, as well as the alleged violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unwarranted searches and seizures.
While the police admittedly possessed an apparently valid search warrant, Quick asserts that no such judicial go-ahead was sought or obtained for the use of the Predator to track the suspect. Therein lies the constitutional rub.
In an interview with the press, Quick claims that the police exceeded their authority in several instances, especially when they decided to go around the Fourth Amendment and illegally search Brossart’s farm.
"The whole thing is full of constitutional violations," he says.
Quick goes so far as to call the police’s use of the taser "tortuous" and something only slightly below "water-boarding."
For its part, the legal team representing Grand Forks insists that such extraordinary measures were necessary in light of Brossart’s armed resistance of arrest and his family’s wielding of “high-powered rifles” in his defense.
Furthermore, the drone was deployed only as a last ditch effort to peacefully end the nearly daylong deadlock, the state avers.
"Unmanned surveillance aircraft were not in use prior to or at the time Rodney Brossart is alleged to have committed the crimes with which he is charged," wrote state prosecutor Douglas Manbeck, as quoted by U.S. News.
As for the SWAT team's handling of the high-powered remote control surveillance aircraft, a spokesman for the unit told U.S. News that his men have "received training on the basic capabilities of the Predator" and that they follow very clear-cut guidelines for "when [they] can or cannot use a drone."
Manbeck defends the deployment of the drone, writing that "The use of unmanned surveillance aircraft is a non-issue in this case because they were not used in any investigative manner to determine if a crime had been committed. There is, furthermore, no existing case law that bars their use in investigating crimes."
Maybe, maybe not. This and other issues will be laid before the court when Brossart’s trial begins later this month.
Is there a legal distinction to be made between the level of search conducted by the human eye (whether the searcher is on foot or in a helicopter) and that of a drone’s powerful never-blinking optics? Such an inarguable increase in police perception is not an insignificant decrease in the privacy expectation enjoyed by landowners and protected for centuries by timeless principles of Anglo-American law.
Given this encroachment into the formerly sacrosanct territory of individual liberty, Americans are right to resist the government’s apparent plan to fill the skies of our Republic with remote-controlled agents of the President and police.
In point of fact, a warrant becomes unnecessary when the search is being conducted using a drone. The target of the hunt will likely be unaware that he is being tracked and thus government (at any level) can keep a close eye on those considered threats to national (or local) security without having to permit the eye of the court to look over their shoulder.
Quick seems to appreciate the danger posed by the proliferation of drones. "We're starting to see drones used more and more, but were they intended to be used by civilian law enforcement?" he told an interviewer. "That smacks of big brother to me. I think we need to think long and hard before we proceed down this path."
Not surprisingly, there are those who claim that a sheriff’s use of a Predator is no different from his use of a helicopter, and that those who warn of an impending surveillance state are alarmists who should be paid no mind.
However, as discussed above, there are irrefutable differences in technology between the two vehicles, not to mention the devices used by each to perform their assigned tasks.
Beyond these distinctions there is another more sinister drone quality that sets it apart from its more traditional airborne ancestor. Glenn Greenwald accurately assessed the threat in a recent piece published by Salon:
For those dismissing concerns about drones by claiming (falsely) that they are the equivalent of police helicopters, won’t those same people dismiss concerns over weaponized drones by arguing: there’s no difference between allowing the police to Taser you or shoot you themselves and allowing them to do that by drone? This is always how creeping police state powers are entrenched: one step at a time.
Still doubt such devious intent on the part of law enforcement? Witness the story of the Houston Police Department’s glee over their recent purchase of a drone. The Houston Chronicle reports:
Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the sheriff's office said the $300,000 ShadowHawk drone — purchased from Vanguard Defense Industries with federal homeland security grant funds — will take to the air in the coming months to provide another tool in the law enforcement arsenal.
"It's an exciting piece of equipment for us," he said. "We envision a lot of its uses primarily in the realm of public safety — looking at recovery of lost individuals and being able to utilize it for fire issues."
In the future, the drone could be equipped to carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun, McDaniel said.
Taser and bean-bag guns today, Hellfire missiles and machine guns tomorrow.
Still don’t believe the warning? Read what one commentator wrote (with obvious pride) about a similar small drone — the Switchblade:
“…it is an ingenious, miniature unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is also a weapon.”
Do the research: Drones are cheaper than helicopters, they are more agile, they are more accurate, they are quieter, they are smaller — all of which makes them exponentially deadlier. Drones are indeed the quieter, quicker killer and they will be used to the best of those abilities.
Although the story has not been widely reported, Rodney Brossart became one of the first American citizens (if not the first) arrested by local law enforcement with the use of a federally owned drone aerial surveillance vehicle after holding the police at bay for over 16 hours.
Brossart’s run-in with law enforcement began after six cows found their way onto his property (about 3,000 acres near Lakota, North Dakota) and he refused to turn them over to officers. In fact, according to several sources, Brossart and a few family members ran police off his farm at the point of a gun.
Naturally, police weren’t pleased with Brossart’s brand of hospitality, so they held returned with a warrant, with a SWAT team, and with a determination to apprehend Brossart and the cows.
A standoff ensued and the Grand Forks police SWAT team made a call to a local Air Force base where they knew a Predator drone was deployed by the DHS. About three years before the Brossart incident, the police department had signed an agreement with DHS for the use of the drone.
No sooner did the call come in than the drone was airborne and Brossart’s precise location was pinpointed with laser-guided accuracy. The machine-gun toting SWAT officers rushed in, tased then arrested Brossart on various charges including terrorizing a sheriff, and the rest is history. Literally.
As the matter proceeds through the legal system, Bruce Quick, the lawyer representing Brossart, is decrying the “guerilla-like police tactics” used to track and capture his client, as well as the alleged violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unwarranted searches and seizures.
While the police admittedly possessed an apparently valid search warrant, Quick asserts that no such judicial go-ahead was sought or obtained for the use of the Predator to track the suspect. Therein lies the constitutional rub.
In an interview with the press, Quick claims that the police exceeded their authority in several instances, especially when they decided to go around the Fourth Amendment and illegally search Brossart’s farm.
"The whole thing is full of constitutional violations," he says.
Quick goes so far as to call the police’s use of the taser "tortuous" and something only slightly below "water-boarding."
For its part, the legal team representing Grand Forks insists that such extraordinary measures were necessary in light of Brossart’s armed resistance of arrest and his family’s wielding of “high-powered rifles” in his defense.
Furthermore, the drone was deployed only as a last ditch effort to peacefully end the nearly daylong deadlock, the state avers.
"Unmanned surveillance aircraft were not in use prior to or at the time Rodney Brossart is alleged to have committed the crimes with which he is charged," wrote state prosecutor Douglas Manbeck, as quoted by U.S. News.
As for the SWAT team's handling of the high-powered remote control surveillance aircraft, a spokesman for the unit told U.S. News that his men have "received training on the basic capabilities of the Predator" and that they follow very clear-cut guidelines for "when [they] can or cannot use a drone."
Manbeck defends the deployment of the drone, writing that "The use of unmanned surveillance aircraft is a non-issue in this case because they were not used in any investigative manner to determine if a crime had been committed. There is, furthermore, no existing case law that bars their use in investigating crimes."
Maybe, maybe not. This and other issues will be laid before the court when Brossart’s trial begins later this month.
Is there a legal distinction to be made between the level of search conducted by the human eye (whether the searcher is on foot or in a helicopter) and that of a drone’s powerful never-blinking optics? Such an inarguable increase in police perception is not an insignificant decrease in the privacy expectation enjoyed by landowners and protected for centuries by timeless principles of Anglo-American law.
Given this encroachment into the formerly sacrosanct territory of individual liberty, Americans are right to resist the government’s apparent plan to fill the skies of our Republic with remote-controlled agents of the President and police.
In point of fact, a warrant becomes unnecessary when the search is being conducted using a drone. The target of the hunt will likely be unaware that he is being tracked and thus government (at any level) can keep a close eye on those considered threats to national (or local) security without having to permit the eye of the court to look over their shoulder.
Quick seems to appreciate the danger posed by the proliferation of drones. "We're starting to see drones used more and more, but were they intended to be used by civilian law enforcement?" he told an interviewer. "That smacks of big brother to me. I think we need to think long and hard before we proceed down this path."
Not surprisingly, there are those who claim that a sheriff’s use of a Predator is no different from his use of a helicopter, and that those who warn of an impending surveillance state are alarmists who should be paid no mind.
However, as discussed above, there are irrefutable differences in technology between the two vehicles, not to mention the devices used by each to perform their assigned tasks.
Beyond these distinctions there is another more sinister drone quality that sets it apart from its more traditional airborne ancestor. Glenn Greenwald accurately assessed the threat in a recent piece published by Salon:
For those dismissing concerns about drones by claiming (falsely) that they are the equivalent of police helicopters, won’t those same people dismiss concerns over weaponized drones by arguing: there’s no difference between allowing the police to Taser you or shoot you themselves and allowing them to do that by drone? This is always how creeping police state powers are entrenched: one step at a time.
Still doubt such devious intent on the part of law enforcement? Witness the story of the Houston Police Department’s glee over their recent purchase of a drone. The Houston Chronicle reports:
Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the sheriff's office said the $300,000 ShadowHawk drone — purchased from Vanguard Defense Industries with federal homeland security grant funds — will take to the air in the coming months to provide another tool in the law enforcement arsenal.
"It's an exciting piece of equipment for us," he said. "We envision a lot of its uses primarily in the realm of public safety — looking at recovery of lost individuals and being able to utilize it for fire issues."
In the future, the drone could be equipped to carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun, McDaniel said.
Taser and bean-bag guns today, Hellfire missiles and machine guns tomorrow.
Still don’t believe the warning? Read what one commentator wrote (with obvious pride) about a similar small drone — the Switchblade:
“…it is an ingenious, miniature unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is also a weapon.”
Do the research: Drones are cheaper than helicopters, they are more agile, they are more accurate, they are quieter, they are smaller — all of which makes them exponentially deadlier. Drones are indeed the quieter, quicker killer and they will be used to the best of those abilities.
30,000 Surveillance Orders In US Anually
Even without CISPA on the books, the federal government can still use antiquated legislation to leer into the personal communications of Americans. One judge, in fact, says that thousands are approved each year.
It’s been more than a quarter of a century since the US Congress authorized the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986, but the incredibly outdated legislation is still used each and every day to let federal agents find out personal and private information by combing through emails, texts and any other form of online correspondence. Kade Crockford is a privacy rights coordinator with the American Civil Liberties Union and is fighting to make sure that ECPA is laid to rest.
Crockford says she was only three years old in 1986 and tells RT, “If you were my age at the time, cell phones didn’t really exist.” What was a reality, however, was ECPA. Unlike cell phones and the troves of technological updates that mobile devices have seen over the last few decades, though, ECPA remains more or less identical to its original incarnation.
When ECPA was first approved by Congress, critics couldn’t find all that much to worry about as “email” was still a subject impossible for most Americans to grasp. Down the road, however, Crockford says that advances with the Internet are creating all news reasons for computer users to be concerned.
“People didn’t use email in the way that we do now. Web chat didn’t exist. Storing our information in the digital cloud was completely unheard of. These are things that we all do now every day. We live most of our lives in the digital realm. Our banking information is all online. Increasingly out health records out online. We communicate very, very important information via email, via direct message on services like twitter, via web chat, via Skype,” says Crockford. “Congress needs to update ECPA.”
Crockford’s calls to end ECPA comes after US Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith examined the surveillance orders that have been authorized since the birth of the legislation and learned that unassuming eyes are allowed to access private information tens of thousands of times a year. In his report, "Gagged, Sealed and Delivered," Judge Smith adds that it's "reasonable to infer that far more law-abiding citizens than criminals have been tracked" under a certain subsection of ECPA.
“What the judge magistrate’s report shows is that the rules that ECPA put in place over 25 years ago are willfully inadequate, primarily because they don’t allow even Congress, let alone the general public, to know how many of these orders are being issued,” says Crockford, “because there are gag, sealed and blindfold provisions which prevent people from even knowing how many of these orders are out there.”
Essentially, says Crockford, the government can already be spying on Americans without unsuspecting citizens completely in the dark.
“A key piece that we need to realize here is that, my emails, the emails that I send to my friends…I don’t actually possess them,” she says, “If I use Google or Gmail to send emails, its Google or Gmail that possess my emails, so the government doesn’t even have to go to me. It can completely ignore me if it wants information about what I’m talking about or who I’m talking to and go to Google instead.”
Currently the US Congress is considered the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, which would allow the government to go into information collected by third-party companies without any repercussions. Under EPCA, however, federal agencies are often already allowed that. Under ECPA, all investigators need is an official request that Crockford calls somewhere between a subpoena and a warrant.
“A subpoena is simply a form that a prosecutor fills out and submits to a holder,” says Crockford, while, “…a warrant is a much stricter standard. There is probable clause.” The orders filed under ECPA, she says, “sits somewhere in the middle.”
Unlike CISPA, though, Crockford says that many of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are supporting a chance to ECPA. Although her work with the ACLU situated her alongside other civil liberties organization in the Digital Due Process Coalition — a group that is fighting for ECPA reform — she says she isn’t alone. “It’s also companies like Microsoft and AOL and apple, because these companies want people to trust the digital cloud,” she says. “They want people to trust that when they put information online, that when they store it with third part content holders like them, that it’s going to be safe from government interference.”
“There’s a huge range of corporations and government advocacy groups that are calling on Congress to reform ECPA, and this report is just a very timely reminder and should shock Congress into action to do this,” she says.
+7 (11 votes)
It’s been more than a quarter of a century since the US Congress authorized the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986, but the incredibly outdated legislation is still used each and every day to let federal agents find out personal and private information by combing through emails, texts and any other form of online correspondence. Kade Crockford is a privacy rights coordinator with the American Civil Liberties Union and is fighting to make sure that ECPA is laid to rest.
Crockford says she was only three years old in 1986 and tells RT, “If you were my age at the time, cell phones didn’t really exist.” What was a reality, however, was ECPA. Unlike cell phones and the troves of technological updates that mobile devices have seen over the last few decades, though, ECPA remains more or less identical to its original incarnation.
When ECPA was first approved by Congress, critics couldn’t find all that much to worry about as “email” was still a subject impossible for most Americans to grasp. Down the road, however, Crockford says that advances with the Internet are creating all news reasons for computer users to be concerned.
“People didn’t use email in the way that we do now. Web chat didn’t exist. Storing our information in the digital cloud was completely unheard of. These are things that we all do now every day. We live most of our lives in the digital realm. Our banking information is all online. Increasingly out health records out online. We communicate very, very important information via email, via direct message on services like twitter, via web chat, via Skype,” says Crockford. “Congress needs to update ECPA.”
Crockford’s calls to end ECPA comes after US Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith examined the surveillance orders that have been authorized since the birth of the legislation and learned that unassuming eyes are allowed to access private information tens of thousands of times a year. In his report, "Gagged, Sealed and Delivered," Judge Smith adds that it's "reasonable to infer that far more law-abiding citizens than criminals have been tracked" under a certain subsection of ECPA.
“What the judge magistrate’s report shows is that the rules that ECPA put in place over 25 years ago are willfully inadequate, primarily because they don’t allow even Congress, let alone the general public, to know how many of these orders are being issued,” says Crockford, “because there are gag, sealed and blindfold provisions which prevent people from even knowing how many of these orders are out there.”
Essentially, says Crockford, the government can already be spying on Americans without unsuspecting citizens completely in the dark.
“A key piece that we need to realize here is that, my emails, the emails that I send to my friends…I don’t actually possess them,” she says, “If I use Google or Gmail to send emails, its Google or Gmail that possess my emails, so the government doesn’t even have to go to me. It can completely ignore me if it wants information about what I’m talking about or who I’m talking to and go to Google instead.”
Currently the US Congress is considered the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, which would allow the government to go into information collected by third-party companies without any repercussions. Under EPCA, however, federal agencies are often already allowed that. Under ECPA, all investigators need is an official request that Crockford calls somewhere between a subpoena and a warrant.
“A subpoena is simply a form that a prosecutor fills out and submits to a holder,” says Crockford, while, “…a warrant is a much stricter standard. There is probable clause.” The orders filed under ECPA, she says, “sits somewhere in the middle.”
Unlike CISPA, though, Crockford says that many of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are supporting a chance to ECPA. Although her work with the ACLU situated her alongside other civil liberties organization in the Digital Due Process Coalition — a group that is fighting for ECPA reform — she says she isn’t alone. “It’s also companies like Microsoft and AOL and apple, because these companies want people to trust the digital cloud,” she says. “They want people to trust that when they put information online, that when they store it with third part content holders like them, that it’s going to be safe from government interference.”
“There’s a huge range of corporations and government advocacy groups that are calling on Congress to reform ECPA, and this report is just a very timely reminder and should shock Congress into action to do this,” she says.
+7 (11 votes)
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Congresswoman Reveals TSA Hires Pedophiles & Pornographers
Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn has released a report documenting how the TSA is hiring “pedophiles and child pornographers” to conduct pat downs.
“This report details highly disturbing cases where pedophiles and child pornographers wearing federal law enforcement uniforms are not only patting down unsuspecting travelers, but in many cases stealing valuables from their bags. Enough is enough. It’s time for Congress to step in and demand accountability from Administrator Pistole,” Blackburn told NewsChannel5.
The report (PDF) contains 50 examples of “the TSA’s most dangerous officers,” listing innumerable examples of TSA agents caught engaged in criminal behavior, from assault, to theft, to child pornography, to molesting children, in cases documented from 2005 onwards.
Blackburn says the report illustrates how the federal agency “needs to immediately remove themselves from the human resource business,” adding that the decision to give TSA agents uniforms that mimic law enforcement agencies despite officers having next to zero law enforcement training was a critical mistake.
“TSOs and BDOs have zero federal law enforcement training despite their federal law enforcement titles, uniforms and metal badges. In many cases, TSOs and BDOs have less training than security guards in most states. For example, in California, security guards may receive permits to carry firearms, tear gas and batons. Due to their lack of training and abuse of power, TSOs and BDOs should return to the previous title and uniforms that were in use prior to the TSA administrative reclassification in 2005,” states the report.
The report also emphasizes how the fact that TSA agents are so routinely caught engaged in criminal behavior is by no means an aberration but stems “from TSA’s hiring practices and insufficient use of background checks.”
This includes the TSA’s recruitment policy which, instead of representing an “intelligent risk-based organization,” actually fails to conduct criminal and credit background checks on many of its employees while advertising “for employment at the Washington Reagan National Airport on pizza boxes and on advertisements above pumps at discount gas stations in the D.C. area.”
As we have previously highlighted, the TSA displays little regard for the character of those who employ to work in airport security. Indeed, in one example a spoof caller phoned the federal agency and pretended to be interested in a TSA job so he could act out his sexual perversions. The caller was treated seriously by a TSA staffer on the other end of the line.
When the spoof caller asked the TSA staffer if he could fondle breasts, the staffer responded, “If that is what is required by your job position – yes.”
“This report details highly disturbing cases where pedophiles and child pornographers wearing federal law enforcement uniforms are not only patting down unsuspecting travelers, but in many cases stealing valuables from their bags. Enough is enough. It’s time for Congress to step in and demand accountability from Administrator Pistole,” Blackburn told NewsChannel5.
The report (PDF) contains 50 examples of “the TSA’s most dangerous officers,” listing innumerable examples of TSA agents caught engaged in criminal behavior, from assault, to theft, to child pornography, to molesting children, in cases documented from 2005 onwards.
Blackburn says the report illustrates how the federal agency “needs to immediately remove themselves from the human resource business,” adding that the decision to give TSA agents uniforms that mimic law enforcement agencies despite officers having next to zero law enforcement training was a critical mistake.
“TSOs and BDOs have zero federal law enforcement training despite their federal law enforcement titles, uniforms and metal badges. In many cases, TSOs and BDOs have less training than security guards in most states. For example, in California, security guards may receive permits to carry firearms, tear gas and batons. Due to their lack of training and abuse of power, TSOs and BDOs should return to the previous title and uniforms that were in use prior to the TSA administrative reclassification in 2005,” states the report.
The report also emphasizes how the fact that TSA agents are so routinely caught engaged in criminal behavior is by no means an aberration but stems “from TSA’s hiring practices and insufficient use of background checks.”
This includes the TSA’s recruitment policy which, instead of representing an “intelligent risk-based organization,” actually fails to conduct criminal and credit background checks on many of its employees while advertising “for employment at the Washington Reagan National Airport on pizza boxes and on advertisements above pumps at discount gas stations in the D.C. area.”
As we have previously highlighted, the TSA displays little regard for the character of those who employ to work in airport security. Indeed, in one example a spoof caller phoned the federal agency and pretended to be interested in a TSA job so he could act out his sexual perversions. The caller was treated seriously by a TSA staffer on the other end of the line.
When the spoof caller asked the TSA staffer if he could fondle breasts, the staffer responded, “If that is what is required by your job position – yes.”
EPA Drones Now Used To Spy On Farmers & Ranchers
Congress has launched an inquiry into the EPA’s use of drones to monitor the livestock activities of farmers in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.
In the latest escalation of the government’s all out assault on freedom and liberty in America farmers have become the latest target Uncle Sam’s multibillion dollar spy-machine.
The EPA is now using the same drones the military uses to track and assassinate people overseas to spy on the livestock activities of farmers throughout the Section 7 area of the midwest United States which includes Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is demanding answers about privacy and other concerns from EPA Director Lisa Jackson who defends the practice as cost-effective.
American citizens should not only be demanding answers but should also be demanding an immediate stop to the use of drones to spy on Americans far outside of the realm of protecting us us from terrorists which was the deception used to trick us into accepting their use in the first place.
Instead, we see the drones being armed with lethal and less than lethal weapons as the law-abiding U.S. citizens going about their daily activities becomes the drones new targets.
Farmers are now being spied on by EPA drones, but where does it stop?
In terms of cost effectiveness, you could eliminate 2/3rds of the police and other enforcement officers across the nation and use that money to assign a drone to every man, woman and child in America.
Will zoning enforcement officers now start using drones to monitor construction workers as they build houses? Will spy drones be used to send you a ticket for spilling a few drops of gas when fueling your car? Will spy drones soon track and follow every single person as they leave their house and drive to work? Will pedestrians being ticketed for J-Walking? Will we start getting tasered and ticketed because a piece of paper flies out of our window or falls out of our shopping bags? Will we start getting tickets for running stop signs every time we don’t come to a complete stop and wait a full three seconds before proceeding? Traffic tickets for accidentally go a couple of miles over the speed limit? Making a lane change when no one else is around before signalling for 100 feet in advance?
EPA Using Spy Drones to Fly Over Midwestern Farms
What is the EPA doing with spy planes? And why are they flying them over farmland in the midwest?
A bipartisan group of Capitol Hill lawmakers is pressing EPA Director Lisa Jackson to answer questions about privacy issues and other concerns after the agency used aerial surveillance to monitor livestock operations over their home state of Nebraska.
—
The letter asks nearly two-dozen questions including why the inspections are being conducted, how many flights have occurred and whether they have resulted in any enforcement activities.
“Nebraskans are rightfully skeptical of an agency which continues to unilaterally insert itself into the affairs of rural America,” Smith added.
The Environmental Protection Agency uses aerial surveillance across a swath of the Midwest know as Section 7 – which includes Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri — and has defended the practice as cost-efficient.
Cost isn’t the issue, as the EPA surely knows. What they’re doing using spy planes over the US, for what purpose, and what are they doing with the information they’re gathering — that’s the issue.
While I am an environment activist myself I will be the first one to stand up and say whoever authorized this needs to be flat-out tar and feathered because this is wrong for so reasons.
First of all, Uncle Sam is violating the trust of the American people who have consented in silence to the use of these spy drones in U.S. skies to keep them safe from terrorist attacks.
Clearly this is a blatant invasion of privacy and while US law allows the government to monitor individuals without warrant in public places the law needs to be clarified to stipulate at least having probable cause to do so.
We now live in a day an age where technology literally allows the government track everyone’ activities everywhere they go.
With the advent of silent miniaturized bug sized drones they can spy on you from outside your house through your windows, which is considered in public view and subject to monitoring without a warrant.
In regards to the farmer’s being spied on what enrages me most are the EPA’s ill motives behind such monitoring.
There are many corporations that continue to destroy our environment and poison the air, water, and food supply that the EPA should be monitoring but instead they choose to attack and monitor the livestock activities of small rural farmers.
Make no mistake, they are attacking these farmers to protect the interests behind America’s industrial food system that continues to manufacture junk foods loaded with poisons that 30 years ago wouldn’t even be recognized as food.
How many of these farmers are going to want to continue their professions knowing that they will have these government drones watching them for no reason at all?
Data collected from these drones will undoubtedly be feed to the Department of Homeland Security and fed to computer algorithms that will flag potential ‘terrorist’ activity.
Who would want to put themselves in such a situation when instead they can work a different job that doesn’t have such risks?
Is the EPA doing this to scare farmers out of the business?
Farming is a dying industry own its own.
Organic fresh foods are constantly being attacked by government regulators and even without that pressure the genetically modified crops from the likes of Monsanto grow faster with bigger yields further threatening the America farmer.
At the same time these industrialized crops that have been modified to produce their own pesticides which makes its way in to our bodies and our water supplies.
Even livestock is being replaced with cloned and genetically modified versions.
Even worse is the EPA is focusing their time and energy on these farmers while corporations pump and dump toxic chemicals in our water supplies, on our land and into our air.
We continually see major bodies of waters such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes becoming over polluted mercury and other toxins.
The list goes on and on while we see the EPA turning a blind eye to the widespread toxification of America by these industrial size mega-corporations and instead devote their time and energy to cracking down little guys like these farmers.
Our founding fathers warned repeatedly that only an overbearing government seeking to push totalitarian control would attempt to force the fallacy that people need to forfeit liberty in the name of security.
To prevent any such attempt the inalienable rights of all humankind were forever scribed into the U.S. constitution. forever be treated as nothing more than fabricated falsehood and to prevent our government from every making such attempts
In the wake of 9/11 we have seen this falsehood used time and time again to deceive the people into forfeiting their civil liberties as the concrete foundation of our constitution is slowly eroded into sand and our rights become nothing more than dust in the wind.
We have seen such forfeitures of our liberties turn into a vast array of programs under which the government has seized nearly unchecked power to perform search and seizure of persons and their property without warrants or judicial oversight in direct violation of the fourth amendment of the U.S constitution .
The list of such programs such nefarious programs include – but are not limited to warrantless wiretapping, widespread monitoring of Muslims, nationwide monitoring of the Occupy movement, the planting GPS trackers on the vehicles of environmental and anti-war activists.
Congress is currently pushing through cybersecurity legislation to track every person’s every digital communication.
The Department of homeland security monitors online activities on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and datamines the words people use to flag them as terrorist suspects.
This escalation of government invasion of citizens privacy is now being augmented with use of computer controlled airplanes equipped with high-tech spying equipment and weapons of both the lethal and less than lethal.
On the ground tens of thousands of sensors are being deployed nationwide which will feed live data of people’s movement on the ground to big brother’s surveillance dragnet.
Still, many have been convinced by the multitude of government stenographers in the corporate news media that these are all necessary means to protect us safe from those who are secretly planning to attack us.
In reality it is nothing more than a campaign of deception being used to morph American into massive micro-managed police state in which no citizens will be safe from government harassment.
NOTE: Don't comply with insecticides? Don't comply with RFID? Too many? Too much? Instant eradication now possible and without a search warrant!
In the latest escalation of the government’s all out assault on freedom and liberty in America farmers have become the latest target Uncle Sam’s multibillion dollar spy-machine.
The EPA is now using the same drones the military uses to track and assassinate people overseas to spy on the livestock activities of farmers throughout the Section 7 area of the midwest United States which includes Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is demanding answers about privacy and other concerns from EPA Director Lisa Jackson who defends the practice as cost-effective.
American citizens should not only be demanding answers but should also be demanding an immediate stop to the use of drones to spy on Americans far outside of the realm of protecting us us from terrorists which was the deception used to trick us into accepting their use in the first place.
Instead, we see the drones being armed with lethal and less than lethal weapons as the law-abiding U.S. citizens going about their daily activities becomes the drones new targets.
Farmers are now being spied on by EPA drones, but where does it stop?
In terms of cost effectiveness, you could eliminate 2/3rds of the police and other enforcement officers across the nation and use that money to assign a drone to every man, woman and child in America.
Will zoning enforcement officers now start using drones to monitor construction workers as they build houses? Will spy drones be used to send you a ticket for spilling a few drops of gas when fueling your car? Will spy drones soon track and follow every single person as they leave their house and drive to work? Will pedestrians being ticketed for J-Walking? Will we start getting tasered and ticketed because a piece of paper flies out of our window or falls out of our shopping bags? Will we start getting tickets for running stop signs every time we don’t come to a complete stop and wait a full three seconds before proceeding? Traffic tickets for accidentally go a couple of miles over the speed limit? Making a lane change when no one else is around before signalling for 100 feet in advance?
EPA Using Spy Drones to Fly Over Midwestern Farms
What is the EPA doing with spy planes? And why are they flying them over farmland in the midwest?
A bipartisan group of Capitol Hill lawmakers is pressing EPA Director Lisa Jackson to answer questions about privacy issues and other concerns after the agency used aerial surveillance to monitor livestock operations over their home state of Nebraska.
—
The letter asks nearly two-dozen questions including why the inspections are being conducted, how many flights have occurred and whether they have resulted in any enforcement activities.
“Nebraskans are rightfully skeptical of an agency which continues to unilaterally insert itself into the affairs of rural America,” Smith added.
The Environmental Protection Agency uses aerial surveillance across a swath of the Midwest know as Section 7 – which includes Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri — and has defended the practice as cost-efficient.
Cost isn’t the issue, as the EPA surely knows. What they’re doing using spy planes over the US, for what purpose, and what are they doing with the information they’re gathering — that’s the issue.
While I am an environment activist myself I will be the first one to stand up and say whoever authorized this needs to be flat-out tar and feathered because this is wrong for so reasons.
First of all, Uncle Sam is violating the trust of the American people who have consented in silence to the use of these spy drones in U.S. skies to keep them safe from terrorist attacks.
Clearly this is a blatant invasion of privacy and while US law allows the government to monitor individuals without warrant in public places the law needs to be clarified to stipulate at least having probable cause to do so.
We now live in a day an age where technology literally allows the government track everyone’ activities everywhere they go.
With the advent of silent miniaturized bug sized drones they can spy on you from outside your house through your windows, which is considered in public view and subject to monitoring without a warrant.
In regards to the farmer’s being spied on what enrages me most are the EPA’s ill motives behind such monitoring.
There are many corporations that continue to destroy our environment and poison the air, water, and food supply that the EPA should be monitoring but instead they choose to attack and monitor the livestock activities of small rural farmers.
Make no mistake, they are attacking these farmers to protect the interests behind America’s industrial food system that continues to manufacture junk foods loaded with poisons that 30 years ago wouldn’t even be recognized as food.
How many of these farmers are going to want to continue their professions knowing that they will have these government drones watching them for no reason at all?
Data collected from these drones will undoubtedly be feed to the Department of Homeland Security and fed to computer algorithms that will flag potential ‘terrorist’ activity.
Who would want to put themselves in such a situation when instead they can work a different job that doesn’t have such risks?
Is the EPA doing this to scare farmers out of the business?
Farming is a dying industry own its own.
Organic fresh foods are constantly being attacked by government regulators and even without that pressure the genetically modified crops from the likes of Monsanto grow faster with bigger yields further threatening the America farmer.
At the same time these industrialized crops that have been modified to produce their own pesticides which makes its way in to our bodies and our water supplies.
Even livestock is being replaced with cloned and genetically modified versions.
Even worse is the EPA is focusing their time and energy on these farmers while corporations pump and dump toxic chemicals in our water supplies, on our land and into our air.
We continually see major bodies of waters such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes becoming over polluted mercury and other toxins.
The list goes on and on while we see the EPA turning a blind eye to the widespread toxification of America by these industrial size mega-corporations and instead devote their time and energy to cracking down little guys like these farmers.
Our founding fathers warned repeatedly that only an overbearing government seeking to push totalitarian control would attempt to force the fallacy that people need to forfeit liberty in the name of security.
To prevent any such attempt the inalienable rights of all humankind were forever scribed into the U.S. constitution. forever be treated as nothing more than fabricated falsehood and to prevent our government from every making such attempts
In the wake of 9/11 we have seen this falsehood used time and time again to deceive the people into forfeiting their civil liberties as the concrete foundation of our constitution is slowly eroded into sand and our rights become nothing more than dust in the wind.
We have seen such forfeitures of our liberties turn into a vast array of programs under which the government has seized nearly unchecked power to perform search and seizure of persons and their property without warrants or judicial oversight in direct violation of the fourth amendment of the U.S constitution .
The list of such programs such nefarious programs include – but are not limited to warrantless wiretapping, widespread monitoring of Muslims, nationwide monitoring of the Occupy movement, the planting GPS trackers on the vehicles of environmental and anti-war activists.
Congress is currently pushing through cybersecurity legislation to track every person’s every digital communication.
The Department of homeland security monitors online activities on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and datamines the words people use to flag them as terrorist suspects.
This escalation of government invasion of citizens privacy is now being augmented with use of computer controlled airplanes equipped with high-tech spying equipment and weapons of both the lethal and less than lethal.
On the ground tens of thousands of sensors are being deployed nationwide which will feed live data of people’s movement on the ground to big brother’s surveillance dragnet.
Still, many have been convinced by the multitude of government stenographers in the corporate news media that these are all necessary means to protect us safe from those who are secretly planning to attack us.
In reality it is nothing more than a campaign of deception being used to morph American into massive micro-managed police state in which no citizens will be safe from government harassment.
NOTE: Don't comply with insecticides? Don't comply with RFID? Too many? Too much? Instant eradication now possible and without a search warrant!
Facebook Founder Calls Users "Dumb F**ks"
Loveable Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called his first few thousand users "dumb fucks" for trusting him with their data, published IM transcripts show. Facebook hasn't disputed the authenticity of the transcript.
Zuckerberg was chatting with an unnamed friend, apparently in early 2004. Business Insider, which has a series of quite juicy anecdotes about Facebook's early days, takes the credit for this one.
The exchange apparently ran like this:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
The founder was then 19, and he may have been joking. But humour tells you a lot. Some might say that this exchange shows Zuckerberg was not particularly aware of the trust issue in all its depth and complexity.
Facebook is currently in the spotlight for its relentlessly increasing exposure of data its users assumed was private. This is nicely illustrated in the interactive graphic you can find here or by clicking the piccie to the right.
In turn, its fall from grace has made backers of the 'social media' bubble quite nervous. Many new white collar nonjobs created since the mid-Noughties depend on the commercial value of your output, and persona;l information. (Both are invariably donated for free).
But there's a problem.
Much of the data created by Web2.0rrhea is turning out to be quite useless for advertisers - or anyone else. Marketeers are having a harder time justifying the expenditure in sifting through the Web 2.0 septic tank for the odd useful nugget of information.
Facebook's data stash is regarded as something quite special. It's authenticated against a real person, and the users tend to be over 35 and middle class - the ideal demographic for selling high value goods and services. In addition, users have so far been 'sticky' to Facebook, something quite exceptional since social networks fall out of fashion (Friends Reunited, Friendster) as quickly as they attract users.
Facebook also has something else going for it - ordinary users regard it as the natural upgrade to Hotmail. In fact, once the crap has been peeled away, there may not be much more to Facebook than the Yahoo! or Hotmail Address Book with knobs on: the contact book is nicely integrated, uploading photos to share easier, while everything else is gravy. Unlike tech-savvy users, many people remain loyal to these for years. ®
Zuckerberg was chatting with an unnamed friend, apparently in early 2004. Business Insider, which has a series of quite juicy anecdotes about Facebook's early days, takes the credit for this one.
The exchange apparently ran like this:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
The founder was then 19, and he may have been joking. But humour tells you a lot. Some might say that this exchange shows Zuckerberg was not particularly aware of the trust issue in all its depth and complexity.
Facebook is currently in the spotlight for its relentlessly increasing exposure of data its users assumed was private. This is nicely illustrated in the interactive graphic you can find here or by clicking the piccie to the right.
In turn, its fall from grace has made backers of the 'social media' bubble quite nervous. Many new white collar nonjobs created since the mid-Noughties depend on the commercial value of your output, and persona;l information. (Both are invariably donated for free).
But there's a problem.
Much of the data created by Web2.0rrhea is turning out to be quite useless for advertisers - or anyone else. Marketeers are having a harder time justifying the expenditure in sifting through the Web 2.0 septic tank for the odd useful nugget of information.
Facebook's data stash is regarded as something quite special. It's authenticated against a real person, and the users tend to be over 35 and middle class - the ideal demographic for selling high value goods and services. In addition, users have so far been 'sticky' to Facebook, something quite exceptional since social networks fall out of fashion (Friends Reunited, Friendster) as quickly as they attract users.
Facebook also has something else going for it - ordinary users regard it as the natural upgrade to Hotmail. In fact, once the crap has been peeled away, there may not be much more to Facebook than the Yahoo! or Hotmail Address Book with knobs on: the contact book is nicely integrated, uploading photos to share easier, while everything else is gravy. Unlike tech-savvy users, many people remain loyal to these for years. ®
Latin America May Legalize Drugs While North America Wants To Crack Down
Leaders throughout Latin America are increasingly hinting that they may defect from the United Nations-inspired and U.S. government-led “War on Drugs.” But the Obama administration, despite adding trillions in new debt in recent years, forcefully vowed to continue pursuing the controversial war while pledging more American taxpayer funds to foreign governments for the battle.
Last month, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina — a widely respected former military general with a long history of battling communism and tyranny — put the issue in the spotlight when he declared that the drug war needed to be reconsidered. The tough-on-crime leader suggested, among other measures, the legalization of the use and transportation of narcotics.
And he plans to seek support from other governments in the region ahead of an upcoming summit. "We're bringing the issue up for debate," he stated on February 13. "Today's meeting [with El Salvador President Mauricio Funes] is intended to strengthen our methods of fighting organized crime. But if drug consumption isn't reduced," he warned, "the problem will continue."
Guatemala has become one of the most dangerous nations in the world, with a soaring murder rate, overcrowded prisons, and vast swaths of territory largely controlled by criminals. Meanwhile, powerful international drug cartels continue to terrorize the populace, with well over half of all cocaine shipped to the United States transiting through Central America.
Despite more and more billions spent on the “war,” however, the problems keep getting worse. And Latin Americans are finally getting sick of it.
"Are we going to be responsible to put up a war against the cartels if we don't produce the drugs or consume the drugs? We're just a corridor of illegality," noted former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein, who led Perez Molina's transition team. "The issue of drugs in the U.S. is very marginalized, while for Guatemala and the rest of Central America it's very central."
In the United States, drug-warrior bureaucrats blasted the Guatemalan proposal to legalize drugs. But it received strong support among diverse groups — including from a prominent organization of law-enforcement officers and judges opposed to the drug war.
“President Molina’s initiative is unprecedented and marks the first time since the launching of the ‘war on drugs’ by Richard Nixon in 1971 that a foreign head of state has actively challenged the US-led policies of drug prohibition and tried to build a coalition against drug prohibition,” noted Major Neill Franklin (Ret.), Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).
“We all need to show our support to President Molina and his potential Latin American allies,” Franklin said in a statement, asking supporters to sign a petition in favor of the plan. “We also need to put pressure on the Obama administration to ensure that it doesn’t stall Molina’s proposal, and that it allows a truthful debate at the April 14-15 Summit of the Americas and beyond.”
In LEAP’s petition supporting the effort, the organization noted that despite enormous resources “wasted” on the drug war, it is a failure that has unleashed “destruction and chaos all over the world” — particularly in Central America. “Prohibition is the worst possible form of control as it leaves control in the hands of powerful criminal organizations,” the statement noted.
And it is not just the Guatemalan government and U.S.-based activists re-thinking the costly war. All across Latin America and beyond, the debate is raging and opposition to prohibition is growing.
In Mexico, as the U.S.-funded “War on Drugs” accelerated and got the military involved, the nation spiraled into chaos, with murder rates soaring to unheard of levels. In response to the spectacular failure of the crackdown, the nation legalized marijuana. And despite being among the largest recipients of U.S. drug war-related tax dollars, Mexican President Felipe Calderon even suggested that “market alternatives” be considered in the United States to deal with drugs.
Colombia has been ravaged by the drug war over a period spanning several decades — much of the world’s cocaine is produced there, and profits are used to finance guerilla war. But the nation is also increasingly leaning toward the idea of legalization. President Juan Manuel Santos even said he would support legalization if other governments would agree.
"It's a theme that must be addressed," Colombia's Foreign Minister Maria Holguin told reporters last month. "The war on drugs definitely hasn't been the success it should be and it's something the countries should discuss."
Other heads of state in the region, including Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla and President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador, have backed the calls for discussions about legalizing drugs, too. And countless former leaders from around the world — and particularly Latin America, with more than a few prominent ex-Presidents — have joined the growing chorus in support of ending the drug war.
As the debate in Latin America grew louder, however, the Obama administration promptly dispatched high-level functionaries to tone down the enthusiasm and quash any potential rebellion before it got out of hand. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in the region on March 4 to reiterate the U.S. government’s opposition, saying the benefits of legalizing drugs would be outweighed by new problems like the need for bureaucracy to regulate them and an increase in users.
“I think it warrants a discussion. It is totally legitimate,” Biden was quoted as saying. “And the reason it warrants a discussion is, on examination you realize there are more problems with legalization than with non-legalization.” He did not mention the experiences of other nations that have legalized drugs such as Portugal, which saw a dramatic decline in drug use, addiction, and crime — in fact, ten years after legalization, drug abuse dropped by half.
Before Obama upped the ante and sent Biden, U.S. “Homeland Security” boss Janet Napolitano went to Guatemala to deliver essentially the same message. "The United States does not view decriminalization as a viable way to deal with the narcotics problem," Napolitano, known among critics as “Big Sis,” reportedly told the Guatemalan President. She also promised more “assistance” and “more and more cooperation” for governments that fight drugs with sufficient vigor.
Critics of the Obama administration’s strategy lambasted the recent comments supporting the perpetuation of the U.S. government’s tax-funded bullying and perpetual war on various substances. But pressure is building at all levels across the region to end current policies.
“Latin American citizens and government leaders are openly protesting a model where their nations pay in blood and lives to fill U.S. defense contractors' pockets and spread the Pentagon's global reach — with few, if any, positive results," wrote Laura Carlsen, the director of the Mexico City-based Americas Program for the Center for International Policy. “A real discussion on effective strategies has to include the option of legalization.”
Despite the massive flow of U.S. tax dollars to Latin American governments, American influence in the region is on the decline as the federal government becomes increasingly belligerent and indebted while socialists continue to take over. And according to analysts, the Obama administration’s protests, arm-twisting and demands may soon begin to fall on deaf ears.
“The intransigence displayed by the Obama administration and Janet Napolitano might end up backfiring,” noted Jeffrey Dhywood, author of the recently released book World War D: The Case against prohibitionism, roadmap to controlled re-legalization. “The time is gone when the US could dictate its fiat to the region. Its strategy of string-attached aid, which often amounts to intimidation and bribery, eerily mirrors the ‘plomo o plata’ strategy of the drug cartels.” The cartel strategy translates to “lead/bullets or silver/money,” which essentially means take the bribe or pay dearly.
Of course, constitutional scholars have pointed out that the U.S. Constitution does not even give the federal government any authority to wage a war on drugs inside America, let alone around the world. But the federal government has nonetheless already spent over $1 trillion on its drug efforts in Latin America alone, even as the U.S. border remains wide open. Meanwhile, some 50,000 people in Mexico alone have paid for the war with their lives in recent years.
But inside the United States, the war on drugs is coming under increasing pressure, too. Over a dozen states have already nullified federal marijuana laws by legalizing the plant for medical use. And citizens in several states including Colorado and California are potentially on the verge of completely legalizing cannabis even for recreational purposes.
Last month, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina — a widely respected former military general with a long history of battling communism and tyranny — put the issue in the spotlight when he declared that the drug war needed to be reconsidered. The tough-on-crime leader suggested, among other measures, the legalization of the use and transportation of narcotics.
And he plans to seek support from other governments in the region ahead of an upcoming summit. "We're bringing the issue up for debate," he stated on February 13. "Today's meeting [with El Salvador President Mauricio Funes] is intended to strengthen our methods of fighting organized crime. But if drug consumption isn't reduced," he warned, "the problem will continue."
Guatemala has become one of the most dangerous nations in the world, with a soaring murder rate, overcrowded prisons, and vast swaths of territory largely controlled by criminals. Meanwhile, powerful international drug cartels continue to terrorize the populace, with well over half of all cocaine shipped to the United States transiting through Central America.
Despite more and more billions spent on the “war,” however, the problems keep getting worse. And Latin Americans are finally getting sick of it.
"Are we going to be responsible to put up a war against the cartels if we don't produce the drugs or consume the drugs? We're just a corridor of illegality," noted former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein, who led Perez Molina's transition team. "The issue of drugs in the U.S. is very marginalized, while for Guatemala and the rest of Central America it's very central."
In the United States, drug-warrior bureaucrats blasted the Guatemalan proposal to legalize drugs. But it received strong support among diverse groups — including from a prominent organization of law-enforcement officers and judges opposed to the drug war.
“President Molina’s initiative is unprecedented and marks the first time since the launching of the ‘war on drugs’ by Richard Nixon in 1971 that a foreign head of state has actively challenged the US-led policies of drug prohibition and tried to build a coalition against drug prohibition,” noted Major Neill Franklin (Ret.), Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).
“We all need to show our support to President Molina and his potential Latin American allies,” Franklin said in a statement, asking supporters to sign a petition in favor of the plan. “We also need to put pressure on the Obama administration to ensure that it doesn’t stall Molina’s proposal, and that it allows a truthful debate at the April 14-15 Summit of the Americas and beyond.”
In LEAP’s petition supporting the effort, the organization noted that despite enormous resources “wasted” on the drug war, it is a failure that has unleashed “destruction and chaos all over the world” — particularly in Central America. “Prohibition is the worst possible form of control as it leaves control in the hands of powerful criminal organizations,” the statement noted.
And it is not just the Guatemalan government and U.S.-based activists re-thinking the costly war. All across Latin America and beyond, the debate is raging and opposition to prohibition is growing.
In Mexico, as the U.S.-funded “War on Drugs” accelerated and got the military involved, the nation spiraled into chaos, with murder rates soaring to unheard of levels. In response to the spectacular failure of the crackdown, the nation legalized marijuana. And despite being among the largest recipients of U.S. drug war-related tax dollars, Mexican President Felipe Calderon even suggested that “market alternatives” be considered in the United States to deal with drugs.
Colombia has been ravaged by the drug war over a period spanning several decades — much of the world’s cocaine is produced there, and profits are used to finance guerilla war. But the nation is also increasingly leaning toward the idea of legalization. President Juan Manuel Santos even said he would support legalization if other governments would agree.
"It's a theme that must be addressed," Colombia's Foreign Minister Maria Holguin told reporters last month. "The war on drugs definitely hasn't been the success it should be and it's something the countries should discuss."
Other heads of state in the region, including Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla and President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador, have backed the calls for discussions about legalizing drugs, too. And countless former leaders from around the world — and particularly Latin America, with more than a few prominent ex-Presidents — have joined the growing chorus in support of ending the drug war.
As the debate in Latin America grew louder, however, the Obama administration promptly dispatched high-level functionaries to tone down the enthusiasm and quash any potential rebellion before it got out of hand. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in the region on March 4 to reiterate the U.S. government’s opposition, saying the benefits of legalizing drugs would be outweighed by new problems like the need for bureaucracy to regulate them and an increase in users.
“I think it warrants a discussion. It is totally legitimate,” Biden was quoted as saying. “And the reason it warrants a discussion is, on examination you realize there are more problems with legalization than with non-legalization.” He did not mention the experiences of other nations that have legalized drugs such as Portugal, which saw a dramatic decline in drug use, addiction, and crime — in fact, ten years after legalization, drug abuse dropped by half.
Before Obama upped the ante and sent Biden, U.S. “Homeland Security” boss Janet Napolitano went to Guatemala to deliver essentially the same message. "The United States does not view decriminalization as a viable way to deal with the narcotics problem," Napolitano, known among critics as “Big Sis,” reportedly told the Guatemalan President. She also promised more “assistance” and “more and more cooperation” for governments that fight drugs with sufficient vigor.
Critics of the Obama administration’s strategy lambasted the recent comments supporting the perpetuation of the U.S. government’s tax-funded bullying and perpetual war on various substances. But pressure is building at all levels across the region to end current policies.
“Latin American citizens and government leaders are openly protesting a model where their nations pay in blood and lives to fill U.S. defense contractors' pockets and spread the Pentagon's global reach — with few, if any, positive results," wrote Laura Carlsen, the director of the Mexico City-based Americas Program for the Center for International Policy. “A real discussion on effective strategies has to include the option of legalization.”
Despite the massive flow of U.S. tax dollars to Latin American governments, American influence in the region is on the decline as the federal government becomes increasingly belligerent and indebted while socialists continue to take over. And according to analysts, the Obama administration’s protests, arm-twisting and demands may soon begin to fall on deaf ears.
“The intransigence displayed by the Obama administration and Janet Napolitano might end up backfiring,” noted Jeffrey Dhywood, author of the recently released book World War D: The Case against prohibitionism, roadmap to controlled re-legalization. “The time is gone when the US could dictate its fiat to the region. Its strategy of string-attached aid, which often amounts to intimidation and bribery, eerily mirrors the ‘plomo o plata’ strategy of the drug cartels.” The cartel strategy translates to “lead/bullets or silver/money,” which essentially means take the bribe or pay dearly.
Of course, constitutional scholars have pointed out that the U.S. Constitution does not even give the federal government any authority to wage a war on drugs inside America, let alone around the world. But the federal government has nonetheless already spent over $1 trillion on its drug efforts in Latin America alone, even as the U.S. border remains wide open. Meanwhile, some 50,000 people in Mexico alone have paid for the war with their lives in recent years.
But inside the United States, the war on drugs is coming under increasing pressure, too. Over a dozen states have already nullified federal marijuana laws by legalizing the plant for medical use. And citizens in several states including Colorado and California are potentially on the verge of completely legalizing cannabis even for recreational purposes.
BRAVO Alabama! Adapts First Official State Ban On Agenda 21
Alabama became the first state to adopt a tough law protecting private property and due process by prohibiting any government involvement with or participation in a controversial United Nations scheme known as Agenda 21. Activists from across the political spectrum celebrated the measure’s approval as a significant victory against the UN “sustainability” plot, expressing hope that similar sovereignty-preserving measures would be adopted in other states as the nationwide battle heats up.
The Alabama Senate Bill (SB) 477 legislation, known unofficially among some supporters as the “Due Process for Property Rights” Act, was approved unanimously by both the state House and Senate. After hesitating for a few days, late last month Republican Governor Robert Bentley finally signed into law the wildly popular measure — but only after heavy pressure from activists forced his hand.
Virtually no mention of the law was made in the establishment press. But analysts said the measure was likely the strongest protection against the UN scheme passed anywhere in America so far. The law, aimed at protecting private property rights, specifically prevents all state agencies and local governments in Alabama from participating in the global scheme in any way.
"The State of Alabama and all political subdivisions may not adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in, or traceable to 'Agenda 21,' " the law states, adding a brief background on the UN plan hatched at the 1992 “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro.
The people of Alabama acting through their elected representatives — not UN bureaucrats — have the authority to develop the state’s environmental and development policies, the official synopsis of the law explains. Therefore, infringements on the property rights of citizens linked to “any other international law or ancillary plan of action that contravenes the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of Alabama” are also prohibited under the new measure.
Of course, as the law points out, the UN has enlisted a broad array of non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations in its effort to foist Agenda 21 on the world — most notably a Germany-based group called ICLEI, formerly known as the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives. But the new measure takes direct aim at that problem, too: “the State of Alabama and all political subdivisions may not enter into any agreement, expend any sum of money, or receive funds contracting services, or giving financial aid to or from” any such entities, as defined in Agenda 21 documents.
“This bill, that would bar the state from taking over private property without due process, is intended to shelter Alabamians from the United Nations Agenda 21, a sustainable development initiative that some conservatives see as a precursor for the creation of a world government,” explained Alabama GOP Executive Director T.J. Maloney when announcing that it had been signed into law. The Republican National Committee (RNC) adopted a resolution earlier this year blasting the global scheme and urging policy makers to oppose it, and state parties have followed suit.
Public support for the Alabama law was overwhelming and bipartisan as citizens who had been terrorized by Agenda 21-linked schemes targeting their private property spoke out. But according to analysts and state Republican Party officials cited in press reports, Gov. Bentley was originally hesitant to sign the bill — almost certainly due to concerns over the potential loss of some federal funding.
The U.S. Senate, of course, has never formally ratified Agenda 21. But the executive branch — in conjunction with accomplices at the international, state, and local levels — has for two decades been quietly attempting to impose the plan on Americans by stealth, mostly using deceptive terms like “Smart Growth” and “Green.” And proponents of the global scheme consistently threaten that states seeking to protect citizens from the UN plot could end up losing some federal funds.
“Every time you take a dollar of federal money, there’s strings attached,” explained Ken Freeman, chairman of the Alabama-based group Alliance for Citizens Rights (ACR), an organization that fought hard to ensure that the Governor signed the bill into law. “We were originally walking soft on this issue, to tell you the truth, because when things were going our way, why change anything?”
But when Gov. Bentley did not immediately approve the bill, Freeman told a reporter, ACR turned the activism up a notch, urging citizens to contact the Governor’s office and express their support for the measure. The grassroots pressure paid off: Alabama became the first state to be officially shielded by law from UN-linked anti-property rights scheming.
“It seems that Agenda 21 does actually bring people together in communities — just not in the way the U.N. had hoped for,” remarked Justice Gilpin-Green in a column for the conservative site Townhall, citing Freeman and other instrumental supporters of the effort. “Hopefully other states can mirror Alabama’s determined nature in passing their anti-Agenda 21 legislation. It was citizen awareness and direct action that finally brought about the needed changes last week and that same awareness and action will be needed for the future of every other state.”
Legislative analysts said the bill, sponsored by GOP state Sen. Gerald Dial, was extremely well crafted: protecting citizens and individual rights from UN decrees in a simple, straightforward manner that Agenda 21 advocates would have a hard time criticizing. Liberty-minded organizations and lawmakers are already examining the measure for potential use as a model in other states currently struggling to expel the global scheme and its myriad tentacles.
“Alabama House Bill 618 [SB 477] is a large step towards protecting Alabamians against UN meddling. It protects the due process rights of Alabamians. It keeps Constitutional Law above International Law,” noted Jason Baker, a Montgomery-based conservative pundit with the Examiner. “Now state after state awakens to the threat it poses to freedom and sovereignty.”
Across America, Tea Party groups, liberty-minded Democrats, libertarians, and a broad coalition of activists have been turning up the heat on Agenda 21. Tennessee, for example, adopted a bipartisan state resolution slamming the UN scheme as an “insidious” and “socialist” plot that is completely at odds with American traditions of limited government, individual freedom, private property, and self-governance under the Constitution. Numerous other states are pursuing similar measures.
A bill similar to Alabama’s seeking a complete ban on Agenda 21 and unconstitutional UN “sustainability” efforts in Arizona was approved overwhelmingly in the state Senate. The legislation died in the state House even after clearing several hurdles, however, when the legislative session ended before a final vote could be taken. New Hampshire is reportedly working on a bill to ban Agenda 21 that sailed through the state House last month.
Meanwhile, local governments across America — under intense pressure from citizens and activist groups — are slowly awakening to what critics call the “dangers” of the UN scheme. Dozens of cities and counties have withdrawn from ICLEI in recent years, and as awareness continues to grow, that trend is expected to accelerate.
The UN, however, is doubling down on its controversial plan. In June, governments from all over the world will be meeting in Rio de Janeiro for the so-called “Conference on Sustainable Development” — known as Rio+20 for short. According to official documents released by the global body, the summit, headed by Chinese Communist Sha Zukang, will be seeking to dramatically transform human civilization under the guise of environmentalism.
Production, education, consumption, individual rights, and even people’s thoughts will all be targeted under the global plan to create a so-called “green economy,” the UN admitted. But with the tidal wave of opposition in America growing stronger every single day, analysts expect fierce U.S. opposition — if not from the Obama administration, at least from the increasingly outraged citizenry.
The Alabama Senate Bill (SB) 477 legislation, known unofficially among some supporters as the “Due Process for Property Rights” Act, was approved unanimously by both the state House and Senate. After hesitating for a few days, late last month Republican Governor Robert Bentley finally signed into law the wildly popular measure — but only after heavy pressure from activists forced his hand.
Virtually no mention of the law was made in the establishment press. But analysts said the measure was likely the strongest protection against the UN scheme passed anywhere in America so far. The law, aimed at protecting private property rights, specifically prevents all state agencies and local governments in Alabama from participating in the global scheme in any way.
"The State of Alabama and all political subdivisions may not adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in, or traceable to 'Agenda 21,' " the law states, adding a brief background on the UN plan hatched at the 1992 “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro.
The people of Alabama acting through their elected representatives — not UN bureaucrats — have the authority to develop the state’s environmental and development policies, the official synopsis of the law explains. Therefore, infringements on the property rights of citizens linked to “any other international law or ancillary plan of action that contravenes the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of Alabama” are also prohibited under the new measure.
Of course, as the law points out, the UN has enlisted a broad array of non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations in its effort to foist Agenda 21 on the world — most notably a Germany-based group called ICLEI, formerly known as the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives. But the new measure takes direct aim at that problem, too: “the State of Alabama and all political subdivisions may not enter into any agreement, expend any sum of money, or receive funds contracting services, or giving financial aid to or from” any such entities, as defined in Agenda 21 documents.
“This bill, that would bar the state from taking over private property without due process, is intended to shelter Alabamians from the United Nations Agenda 21, a sustainable development initiative that some conservatives see as a precursor for the creation of a world government,” explained Alabama GOP Executive Director T.J. Maloney when announcing that it had been signed into law. The Republican National Committee (RNC) adopted a resolution earlier this year blasting the global scheme and urging policy makers to oppose it, and state parties have followed suit.
Public support for the Alabama law was overwhelming and bipartisan as citizens who had been terrorized by Agenda 21-linked schemes targeting their private property spoke out. But according to analysts and state Republican Party officials cited in press reports, Gov. Bentley was originally hesitant to sign the bill — almost certainly due to concerns over the potential loss of some federal funding.
The U.S. Senate, of course, has never formally ratified Agenda 21. But the executive branch — in conjunction with accomplices at the international, state, and local levels — has for two decades been quietly attempting to impose the plan on Americans by stealth, mostly using deceptive terms like “Smart Growth” and “Green.” And proponents of the global scheme consistently threaten that states seeking to protect citizens from the UN plot could end up losing some federal funds.
“Every time you take a dollar of federal money, there’s strings attached,” explained Ken Freeman, chairman of the Alabama-based group Alliance for Citizens Rights (ACR), an organization that fought hard to ensure that the Governor signed the bill into law. “We were originally walking soft on this issue, to tell you the truth, because when things were going our way, why change anything?”
But when Gov. Bentley did not immediately approve the bill, Freeman told a reporter, ACR turned the activism up a notch, urging citizens to contact the Governor’s office and express their support for the measure. The grassroots pressure paid off: Alabama became the first state to be officially shielded by law from UN-linked anti-property rights scheming.
“It seems that Agenda 21 does actually bring people together in communities — just not in the way the U.N. had hoped for,” remarked Justice Gilpin-Green in a column for the conservative site Townhall, citing Freeman and other instrumental supporters of the effort. “Hopefully other states can mirror Alabama’s determined nature in passing their anti-Agenda 21 legislation. It was citizen awareness and direct action that finally brought about the needed changes last week and that same awareness and action will be needed for the future of every other state.”
Legislative analysts said the bill, sponsored by GOP state Sen. Gerald Dial, was extremely well crafted: protecting citizens and individual rights from UN decrees in a simple, straightforward manner that Agenda 21 advocates would have a hard time criticizing. Liberty-minded organizations and lawmakers are already examining the measure for potential use as a model in other states currently struggling to expel the global scheme and its myriad tentacles.
“Alabama House Bill 618 [SB 477] is a large step towards protecting Alabamians against UN meddling. It protects the due process rights of Alabamians. It keeps Constitutional Law above International Law,” noted Jason Baker, a Montgomery-based conservative pundit with the Examiner. “Now state after state awakens to the threat it poses to freedom and sovereignty.”
Across America, Tea Party groups, liberty-minded Democrats, libertarians, and a broad coalition of activists have been turning up the heat on Agenda 21. Tennessee, for example, adopted a bipartisan state resolution slamming the UN scheme as an “insidious” and “socialist” plot that is completely at odds with American traditions of limited government, individual freedom, private property, and self-governance under the Constitution. Numerous other states are pursuing similar measures.
A bill similar to Alabama’s seeking a complete ban on Agenda 21 and unconstitutional UN “sustainability” efforts in Arizona was approved overwhelmingly in the state Senate. The legislation died in the state House even after clearing several hurdles, however, when the legislative session ended before a final vote could be taken. New Hampshire is reportedly working on a bill to ban Agenda 21 that sailed through the state House last month.
Meanwhile, local governments across America — under intense pressure from citizens and activist groups — are slowly awakening to what critics call the “dangers” of the UN scheme. Dozens of cities and counties have withdrawn from ICLEI in recent years, and as awareness continues to grow, that trend is expected to accelerate.
The UN, however, is doubling down on its controversial plan. In June, governments from all over the world will be meeting in Rio de Janeiro for the so-called “Conference on Sustainable Development” — known as Rio+20 for short. According to official documents released by the global body, the summit, headed by Chinese Communist Sha Zukang, will be seeking to dramatically transform human civilization under the guise of environmentalism.
Production, education, consumption, individual rights, and even people’s thoughts will all be targeted under the global plan to create a so-called “green economy,” the UN admitted. But with the tidal wave of opposition in America growing stronger every single day, analysts expect fierce U.S. opposition — if not from the Obama administration, at least from the increasingly outraged citizenry.
NOTHING Comes Between A Real Woman & Her Gun
A bra fitted with a gun holster is on sale thanks to an ingenious design by a law enforcement supplier from Oklahoma.
The Flashbang bra is attached with a thermoplastic shell that is able to store one of more than 20 hand gun styles already on the market.
Lisa Looper, owner of Looper Law Enforcement which is a company that produces 'concealed carry gear', came up with the design to give her the ability to defend herself 'at a moment's notice'.
She said: 'Women have this natural little overhang here and it's a great spot to tuck a gun.'
The garment's slogan reads: 'Nothing comes between a girl and her gun'.
She added: '[You] can't get to the phone and call 911 all the time, you know you need to be able to defend yourself.'
It is said that the average time it takes to draw the gun from the bra, which retails for $40 online, and fire the gun is 1.5seconds.
An eBay account that is selling the design comes with further details.
It offers a modern-day take on traditional female self-defense systems such as the garter belt holster made popular in American Old Western films of the early Forties.
Mrs Looper, a mother of two, told ABC: 'I really never intended to create a holster line, that was never something that I wanted to do. I just did this for myself but as I was talking to other women, they were like "oh my gosh, this is great, I have the same problem.'
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Talk about a pimped-up ride? The Porsche covered in crushed diamonds (but can it take you to the weekly shop at Waitrose?)
'It was kind of like, where can I put this thing so it won't show,' she continued.
She found that a woman's bra was the most logical place to place a gun, where women can simply yank at a handle on the holster to release the weapon.
It reads: 'Statistics show that most gunfights last about 2.5 seconds, there are multiple attackers over 80per cent of the time, and the fight will be in extreme close quarters, usually within touching distance.'
'You need the ability to draw and fire as soon as possible without alerting the suspect to your intentions until they receive your gun fire,' the spiel continues. 'Weapon retention is paramount, meaning purse carry is rarely a viable solution.'
For the fashion-conscious, the bra comes in a range of colours, including hot pink, nude and black, as well as sizes.
The Flashbang bra is attached with a thermoplastic shell that is able to store one of more than 20 hand gun styles already on the market.
Lisa Looper, owner of Looper Law Enforcement which is a company that produces 'concealed carry gear', came up with the design to give her the ability to defend herself 'at a moment's notice'.
She said: 'Women have this natural little overhang here and it's a great spot to tuck a gun.'
The garment's slogan reads: 'Nothing comes between a girl and her gun'.
She added: '[You] can't get to the phone and call 911 all the time, you know you need to be able to defend yourself.'
It is said that the average time it takes to draw the gun from the bra, which retails for $40 online, and fire the gun is 1.5seconds.
An eBay account that is selling the design comes with further details.
It offers a modern-day take on traditional female self-defense systems such as the garter belt holster made popular in American Old Western films of the early Forties.
Mrs Looper, a mother of two, told ABC: 'I really never intended to create a holster line, that was never something that I wanted to do. I just did this for myself but as I was talking to other women, they were like "oh my gosh, this is great, I have the same problem.'
Do breast implants make for better sex? Why love-making is more pleasurable for WOMEN after their enhancement
Talk about a pimped-up ride? The Porsche covered in crushed diamonds (but can it take you to the weekly shop at Waitrose?)
'It was kind of like, where can I put this thing so it won't show,' she continued.
She found that a woman's bra was the most logical place to place a gun, where women can simply yank at a handle on the holster to release the weapon.
It reads: 'Statistics show that most gunfights last about 2.5 seconds, there are multiple attackers over 80per cent of the time, and the fight will be in extreme close quarters, usually within touching distance.'
'You need the ability to draw and fire as soon as possible without alerting the suspect to your intentions until they receive your gun fire,' the spiel continues. 'Weapon retention is paramount, meaning purse carry is rarely a viable solution.'
For the fashion-conscious, the bra comes in a range of colours, including hot pink, nude and black, as well as sizes.
Oh Possibly Happy Day! Ca Initiative Would Require GMO Labeling All Foods & Force Rest Of States To Follow
In November, California voters will decide on a ballot initiative that would require labeling of all foods containing ingredients from genetically modified crops. The initiative made it to the ballot after almost 1 million Californians signed a petition in favor of it—nearly double the 504,760 signatures needed under the state's proposition rules. The campaign that organized the push to get the measure on the ballot focused on possible health effects of GMO foods.
This news will not likely be applauded by my friends over at Croplife America, the main trade group of the GM seed/agrichemical industry. The big GMO crops—corn, soy, sugar beets, and cotton—are processed into sweeteners, fats, and additives used widely by the food industry. Everything from high fructose corn syrup-sweetened Coke to soybean oil-containing Hellman's mayo would have to bear a label reading something like "Contains GMO ingredients."
That would send a shockwave through the food industry—one that could ultimately be felt on the industrial-scale US farms that have been devoting their land to GMO crops for years, and the companies that profit from selling them patented seeds and matching herbicides. The reason isn't just that California represents an imposing chunk of the US food market. It's also that a food-labeling law that starts in California is unlikely to stay in California.
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To see why, look at the case of another practice beloved of US agribusiness: that of stuffing egg-laying hens into cages so tight that they can't turn around.
Back in 2008, California voters mulled a ballot initiative to ban that production method by 2015. The egg industry fought the proposal bitterly—but Proposition Two (as it was known) won anyway, by a margin of nearly two-to-one. Two years later, the California legislature passed a law applying the new rules to all eggs sold in the state—foiling the industry's threat to close shop in California and send in eggs from hens caged in other states.
But the initiative was never really just about California. Its main champion, the Humane Society of the United States, was clear about that from the start. As HSUS's Paul Shapiro told Grist weeks before the 2008 vote, "Nobody can ignore the fact that California is the largest agricultural state in the country and it's often a trend-setting state. We envision national reforms coming from passage of Prop. 2.”
Shapiro's words proved prescient. In July 2011, less than three years after the California initiative's passage, executives from the egg industry's main trade group joined forces with their peers from HSUS to propose national legislation that would essentially make the California rules the law of the land. The legislation hasn't gone anywhere yet, but with the industry vowing to support and not crush it in Congress, the days of stuffing hens in tiny cages seem numbered.
Why did the egg industry crack? Did these hard-boiled execs experience a sudden pang of conscience over the plight of the millions of hens confined in their egg factories? More likely, they were acting in deference to a basic law of capitalism: differentiation costs money. Nearly 38 million people live in California—12 percent of the entire US population, and 17 percent of the US egg market, according to the USDA. It's costly and cumbersome to apply one set of production rules to eggs for California's vast horde of consumers, and another to everyone else.
So the egg industry wants a set of standards that applies nationwide.
Similarly, if massive food processors like Kraft and Unilever are forced to label essentially all of their products just for the California market, it likely won't be long before they're pushing for national labeling—or simply just labeling everything for the national market.
It's hard to say how consumers would react to national GMO labeling, but there's evidence that a substantial portion of them might reject GMOs and demand alternatives. A recent national poll by the Mellman Group found that 91 percent of respondents favored GMO labeling, a result that was roughly consistent among Democrats, Republicans, and independents. The fact that they want that information suggests that they may be willing to act on it.
If they do, they'll initially find that the only way to avoid GMOs is to buy certified-organic products, which by USDA code can't contain GMOs. As of last year, genetically modified seeds accounted for 94 percent of US soy and three-quarters of corn and cotton (which makes it into the food supply in the form of cottonseed oil, a popular fat for the food industry).
A move to labeling would likely create a robust market in non-GMO, conventional versions of those crops, giving large-scale farmers incentive to transition away from GMOs and cutting into the profits of giants like Monsanto, Syngenta, and DuPont. If a substantial percentage of them did, that would be a hard blow to the profit plans of the big agrichemical companies, whose business models are based on constant growth, not shrinkage.
As I've written before, herbicide-tolerant GMO technologies have pushed US farmers to apply ever greater doses of ever-more toxic herbicides. New-generation GM seeds from Monsanto and Dow promise to accelerate that trend. So far, regulatory agencies like USDA and EPA have proven utterly unable to check this slow-motion, GMO-generated gusher of agrichemicals onto our prime farmland and ultimately into the water of millions of people.
Where regulators have failed, California's voters might ultimately make a difference.
This news will not likely be applauded by my friends over at Croplife America, the main trade group of the GM seed/agrichemical industry. The big GMO crops—corn, soy, sugar beets, and cotton—are processed into sweeteners, fats, and additives used widely by the food industry. Everything from high fructose corn syrup-sweetened Coke to soybean oil-containing Hellman's mayo would have to bear a label reading something like "Contains GMO ingredients."
That would send a shockwave through the food industry—one that could ultimately be felt on the industrial-scale US farms that have been devoting their land to GMO crops for years, and the companies that profit from selling them patented seeds and matching herbicides. The reason isn't just that California represents an imposing chunk of the US food market. It's also that a food-labeling law that starts in California is unlikely to stay in California.
Advertise on MotherJones.com
To see why, look at the case of another practice beloved of US agribusiness: that of stuffing egg-laying hens into cages so tight that they can't turn around.
Back in 2008, California voters mulled a ballot initiative to ban that production method by 2015. The egg industry fought the proposal bitterly—but Proposition Two (as it was known) won anyway, by a margin of nearly two-to-one. Two years later, the California legislature passed a law applying the new rules to all eggs sold in the state—foiling the industry's threat to close shop in California and send in eggs from hens caged in other states.
But the initiative was never really just about California. Its main champion, the Humane Society of the United States, was clear about that from the start. As HSUS's Paul Shapiro told Grist weeks before the 2008 vote, "Nobody can ignore the fact that California is the largest agricultural state in the country and it's often a trend-setting state. We envision national reforms coming from passage of Prop. 2.”
Shapiro's words proved prescient. In July 2011, less than three years after the California initiative's passage, executives from the egg industry's main trade group joined forces with their peers from HSUS to propose national legislation that would essentially make the California rules the law of the land. The legislation hasn't gone anywhere yet, but with the industry vowing to support and not crush it in Congress, the days of stuffing hens in tiny cages seem numbered.
Why did the egg industry crack? Did these hard-boiled execs experience a sudden pang of conscience over the plight of the millions of hens confined in their egg factories? More likely, they were acting in deference to a basic law of capitalism: differentiation costs money. Nearly 38 million people live in California—12 percent of the entire US population, and 17 percent of the US egg market, according to the USDA. It's costly and cumbersome to apply one set of production rules to eggs for California's vast horde of consumers, and another to everyone else.
So the egg industry wants a set of standards that applies nationwide.
Similarly, if massive food processors like Kraft and Unilever are forced to label essentially all of their products just for the California market, it likely won't be long before they're pushing for national labeling—or simply just labeling everything for the national market.
It's hard to say how consumers would react to national GMO labeling, but there's evidence that a substantial portion of them might reject GMOs and demand alternatives. A recent national poll by the Mellman Group found that 91 percent of respondents favored GMO labeling, a result that was roughly consistent among Democrats, Republicans, and independents. The fact that they want that information suggests that they may be willing to act on it.
If they do, they'll initially find that the only way to avoid GMOs is to buy certified-organic products, which by USDA code can't contain GMOs. As of last year, genetically modified seeds accounted for 94 percent of US soy and three-quarters of corn and cotton (which makes it into the food supply in the form of cottonseed oil, a popular fat for the food industry).
A move to labeling would likely create a robust market in non-GMO, conventional versions of those crops, giving large-scale farmers incentive to transition away from GMOs and cutting into the profits of giants like Monsanto, Syngenta, and DuPont. If a substantial percentage of them did, that would be a hard blow to the profit plans of the big agrichemical companies, whose business models are based on constant growth, not shrinkage.
As I've written before, herbicide-tolerant GMO technologies have pushed US farmers to apply ever greater doses of ever-more toxic herbicides. New-generation GM seeds from Monsanto and Dow promise to accelerate that trend. So far, regulatory agencies like USDA and EPA have proven utterly unable to check this slow-motion, GMO-generated gusher of agrichemicals onto our prime farmland and ultimately into the water of millions of people.
Where regulators have failed, California's voters might ultimately make a difference.
OH HAPPY DAY! Five Million Brazillian Farmers Sue Monsanto
Five million Brazilian farmers are locked in a lawsuit with US-based biotech giant Monsanto, suing for as much as 6.2 billion euros. They say that the genetic-engineering company has been collecting royalties on crops it unfairly claims as its own.
The farmers claim that Monsanto unfairly collects exorbitant profits every year worldwide on royalties from “renewal” seed harvests. “Renewal” crops are those that have been planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest. While the practice of renewal farming is an ancient one, Monsanto disagrees, demanding royalties from any crop generation produced from its genetically-engineered seed. Because the engineered seed is patented, Monsanto not only charges an initial royalty on the sale of the crop produced, but a continuing 2 per cent royalty on every subsequent crop, even if the farmer is using a later generation of seed.
"Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production," Jane Berwanger, lawyer for the farmers told the Associated Press reports.
In the latest installment of the legal battle erupting in South America, the Brazilian court has ruled in favor of the Brazilian farmers, saying Monsanto owes them at least US$2 billion paid since 2004. Monsanto, however, has appealed the decision and the case is ongoing.
In essence, Monsanto argues that once a farmer buys their seed, they have to pay the global bio-tech giant a yearly fee in perpetuity – with no way out.
At stake is Brazil’s highly profitable and ever growing soybean production. Last year, Brazil was the world's second producer and exporter of soybean behind the United States, according to the AFP report. The crops can be used for anything from animal feed to bio fuel, and worldwide demand is growing.
Genetically engineered soy first appeared illegally in Brazil in the 1990’s, smuggled in from neighboring Argentina. The Brazilian farmers found the seed attractive despite the ban in place from the Brazilian authorities because Monsanto had specifically designed the seed to be resistant to its own immensely powerful and popular herbicide Roundup.
When used in tandem, the strong herbicide will kill the weeds while allowing the soy crops to grow unimpeded. After the ban was lifted, genetically modified seed flooded the Brazilian market, and now 85 per cent of the Brazilian soy crop is genetically-engineered. Soy has been extremely successful in Brazil, currently making up 26 per cent of the country’s farm exports last year and netting Brazil a total of $24.1 billion, according to AP. However, Brazil’s farmers were apparently unaware there would be a heavy price to pay.
To make a deal with Monsanto is to make a deal with a company that is one the most powerful and pervasive food giants in the world. It is the world’s number one seed developer, and its patented genes have been inserted into 95 per cent of all American soy, and 80 per cent of all American corn crops. Monsanto has repeatedly levied large damage suits against independent farmers that have unknowingly or unwittingly used their seed.
And Monsanto’s reach goes far beyond agriculture.
Monsanto is also the world’s largest manufacturer of synthetic bovine growth hormone, injected into cows in order to stimulate greater milk production. The widespread pressure by the company to use the chemical and the subsequent measures taken by Monsanto to suppress information regarding the potential health risks sparked uproar among American farmers.
When dairy producers that did not use Monsanto’s products began labeling their products as “Hormone Free” or “Organic”, Monsanto slapped them with a lawsuit as recently as 2008, claiming the labels amounted to negative advertising against hormone-produced milk.
Director of corporate communications for Monsanto, Phil Angell, summed up Monsanto’s take on the issue in a report by food author Michael Pollan for New York Times Magazine in 1998: "Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is FDA's job."
The farmers claim that Monsanto unfairly collects exorbitant profits every year worldwide on royalties from “renewal” seed harvests. “Renewal” crops are those that have been planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest. While the practice of renewal farming is an ancient one, Monsanto disagrees, demanding royalties from any crop generation produced from its genetically-engineered seed. Because the engineered seed is patented, Monsanto not only charges an initial royalty on the sale of the crop produced, but a continuing 2 per cent royalty on every subsequent crop, even if the farmer is using a later generation of seed.
"Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production," Jane Berwanger, lawyer for the farmers told the Associated Press reports.
In the latest installment of the legal battle erupting in South America, the Brazilian court has ruled in favor of the Brazilian farmers, saying Monsanto owes them at least US$2 billion paid since 2004. Monsanto, however, has appealed the decision and the case is ongoing.
In essence, Monsanto argues that once a farmer buys their seed, they have to pay the global bio-tech giant a yearly fee in perpetuity – with no way out.
At stake is Brazil’s highly profitable and ever growing soybean production. Last year, Brazil was the world's second producer and exporter of soybean behind the United States, according to the AFP report. The crops can be used for anything from animal feed to bio fuel, and worldwide demand is growing.
Genetically engineered soy first appeared illegally in Brazil in the 1990’s, smuggled in from neighboring Argentina. The Brazilian farmers found the seed attractive despite the ban in place from the Brazilian authorities because Monsanto had specifically designed the seed to be resistant to its own immensely powerful and popular herbicide Roundup.
When used in tandem, the strong herbicide will kill the weeds while allowing the soy crops to grow unimpeded. After the ban was lifted, genetically modified seed flooded the Brazilian market, and now 85 per cent of the Brazilian soy crop is genetically-engineered. Soy has been extremely successful in Brazil, currently making up 26 per cent of the country’s farm exports last year and netting Brazil a total of $24.1 billion, according to AP. However, Brazil’s farmers were apparently unaware there would be a heavy price to pay.
To make a deal with Monsanto is to make a deal with a company that is one the most powerful and pervasive food giants in the world. It is the world’s number one seed developer, and its patented genes have been inserted into 95 per cent of all American soy, and 80 per cent of all American corn crops. Monsanto has repeatedly levied large damage suits against independent farmers that have unknowingly or unwittingly used their seed.
And Monsanto’s reach goes far beyond agriculture.
Monsanto is also the world’s largest manufacturer of synthetic bovine growth hormone, injected into cows in order to stimulate greater milk production. The widespread pressure by the company to use the chemical and the subsequent measures taken by Monsanto to suppress information regarding the potential health risks sparked uproar among American farmers.
When dairy producers that did not use Monsanto’s products began labeling their products as “Hormone Free” or “Organic”, Monsanto slapped them with a lawsuit as recently as 2008, claiming the labels amounted to negative advertising against hormone-produced milk.
Director of corporate communications for Monsanto, Phil Angell, summed up Monsanto’s take on the issue in a report by food author Michael Pollan for New York Times Magazine in 1998: "Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is FDA's job."
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