Iceland may ban MasterCard, Visa over WikiLeaks censorship

Credit card companies that prevented card-holders from donating money to the secrets outlet WikiLeaks could have their operating licenses taken away in Iceland, according to members of the Icelandic Parliamentary General Committee. Representatives from Mastercard and Visa were called before the committee Sunday to discuss their refusal to process donations to the website, reports Reykjavik [...]

InlandPolitics: San Bernardino County retaliates against blogger Sharon Gilbert

San Bernardino County executives have come down hard on one of their own employees who also operates a local political blog. A blog popular with readers, but not county leaders. Sharon Gilbert, an almost thirty-year county employee, has taken on county government with great success through her website www.iePolitics.com. A widely-read blog in Southern California’s [...]

Startups Backed By The CIA

The spy agency has a venture capital arm that is funding an array of companies developing bleeding-edge technologies. Tiny cameras. Hearing devices for the teeth. Wi-fi for refrigerators. These are some of the products made by companies that have caught the eye of In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Cuban Rum Steps Up in World Markets

Havana, Nov 26 (ACN-RHC) The worldwide prestige of Cuban rum is reaffirmed by the growing demand of Ron Legendario, whose sales show an annual 10 percent increase. The trademark’s deputy director of marketing, Carlos Sanchez, stated that Ron Legendario is currently available in more than 15 European countries. Ron Legendario is produced in six factories [...]

Ignoring You is Not a Cognitive Defect

So a bunch of high school teachers are upset that their students are bored with them. Well, that’s not how they say it. Instead, the New York Times has the backs of boring, stupid teachers everywhere: “Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction.” If kids didn’t have iPhones, they would pay attention in school. Really? What’s [...]

US contacts allies about WikiLeaks move

The United States has briefed its key allies, including Britain, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia ahead of the mass release of classified documents by WikiLeaks. Whistleblower website WikiLeaks plans to release around three million leaked documents, including cables sent to Washington from American embassies throughout the world. The website had previously posted online secret details [...]

VicPD Officer Ordered to Stay Quiet

Maryland Citizens Face Felony Charges for Recording Cops

In Maryland, it is a felony to record thuggish cops as they push around skateboarding teenagers, beat sports patrons, and pull guns on motorists for speeding. “Several Marylanders face felony charges for recording their arrests on camera, and others have been intimidated to shut their cameras off,” reports WJZ 23 in Baltimore. Maryland cops are [...]

Radley Balko on the Militarization of Police

Pirates take over small-town radio signal

Residents of San Mateo County, California are hearing an unusual sound on the 89.3 frequency of their FM radios these days. Commercial-free radio programmed by real, local people. San Francisco-based Pirate Cat Radio has put KPDO on the air full-time. The station’s new home, nestled among coastal farmlands, is about an hour south from the [...]

Senator Kerry recognizes resounding failure of Radio and TV Marti

Washington, May 4 (Cubadebate-RHC) Radio and TV Martí, financed media by the U.S. government for subversion in Cuba, “must undergo a huge reform to ensure its survival”, estimated a U.S. congressional report released Monday. The report of the Senate’s US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations identified numerous flaws on the “materials”, they’ve been broadcasting to [...]

Groups Call ‘Privacy’ Legislation Orwellian

Privacy groups gave an overwhelming thumbs down Tuesday to proposed legislation by Rep. Frederick Carlyle “Rick” Boucher (D-Virginia) that for the first time would mandate the length of time online consumer information could be kept. The proposal would require websites to discard data collected from their users after 18 months. Some suggested the retention limit for consumer [...]

Oklahoma Passes Bill Outlawing Militia Recruitment

Last week the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill that equates recruiting militia members to recruiting gang members. “Recruiting membership in an unauthorized militia or the Ku Klux Klan would be a crime if legislation approved Thursday by the House of Representatives becomes law. ‘This is making unauthorized militias illegal,’ said Rep. Mike Shelton, [...]

Bluebear: Exploring Privacy Threats in BitTorrent

BitTorrent is arguably the most efficient peer-to-peer protocol for content replication. However, BitTorrent has not been designed with privacy in mind and its popularity could threaten the privacy of millions of users. Surprisingly, privacy threats due to BitTorrent have been overlooked because BitTorrent popularity gives its users the illusion that finding them is like looking [...]

President Chávez launched its first tweet at midnight

Caracas, May 28. ABN.- Tal como lo había prometido, el presidente de la República, Hugo Chávez Frías, escribió cerca de la medianoche de este martes su primer mensaje en la popular red social Twitter. ABN .- As promised, the President of the Republic, Hugo Chávez Frías, wrote about midnight on Tuesday its first message on [...]

Argument transcript released in Ontario v. Quon U.S. Supreme Court case

A 70-page transcript of Monday’s argument in the U.S. Supreme Court case involving Ontario Police Department has been posted to the court’s website. Click here for background on the case. Court takes up Ontario employees’ privacy case By MARK SHERMAN (AP) WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appears likely to rule against public employees who claimed [...]

Researchers hijack Google’s personalized search suggestions to reconstruct users’ search histories.

See also: Private Information Disclosure from Web Searches Personalization is a key part of Internet search, providing more relevant results and gaining loyal customers in the process. But new research highlights the privacy risks that this kind of personalization can bring. A team of European researchers, working with a researcher from the University of California, [...]

Three More Domestic Spying Programs Revealed

The Department of Homeland Security is acknowledging the existence of three more government programs charged with spying on American citizens in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The programs — Pantheon, Pathfinder and Organizational Shared Space — used a variety of software tools to gather and analyze information about Americans, according to [...]

Google Reveals Number Of Goverment Censorship Requests Around The World

Google has done something pretty cool: it has released information on the number of government requests received to remove content, and the percentage of those requests Google complied with: Like other technology and communications companies, we regularly receive requests from government agencies around the world to remove content from our services, or provide information about [...]

CNN poll confirms: Most Americans believe their government is a threat to their welfare

A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll. Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and [...]

Google, NSA alliance posing security threats to users

A deal between internet giant Google and the US National Security Agency on cyber-attacks may pose serious threats to other countries’ national security and internet users. Analysts worry the collaboration would allow Google’s data to flow to the spy agency. Journalists and experts have announced their concern over the deal as the National Security Agency [...]

Report to Congress about the USA PATRIOT Act

The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, released a new report Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act. This report details “Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Patriot Act), Public Law 107-56, directs the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of [...]

Feds Can Search, Seize P2P Files Without Warrant

The authorities do not need court warrants to view and download files traded on peer-to-peer networks, a federal appeals court says. Wednesday’s 3-0 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concerned a Nevada man convicted of possessing child pornography as part of an FBI investigation. Defendant Charles Borowy claimed the [...]

FBI probes US school webcam ‘spy’ case

The FBI is investigating a Pennsylvania school district officials accused of secretly activating webcams inside students’ homes, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press. The Federal Bureau of Investigation will explore whether Lower Merion School District officials broke any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws, said the official, who spoke [...]

Justice Lawyers Try to Define Cyber War

Run for the hills! The Department of Justice‘s lawyers are trying to figure out just what would constitute an act of war during a cyber attack. OK, it may not be that bad, but the specter of a room full of government lawyers trying to decide what constitutes an act of war when it occurs [...]

Supervisors order surveillance sweeps for ‘bugs’

SAN BERNARDINO – County supervisors spent $22,500 last month to sweep their offices and other parts of the government center for secret recording devices and other hidden surveillance equipment. The first sweep of the fourth and fifth floors of the county building occurred Jan. 23, and the purchase order provides for four more sweeps at [...]

Censorship of Arab News Media

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill to censor some of the Arab news media, particularly satellite channels if Washington deemed, with Israeli backing, that these satellite channels are broadcasting content that is in conflict with American and Israeli interests in the region. It is strange that this U.S. legislative step, which was [...]

Announcing Venezuela’s first and only English Language Newspaper, THE CORREO DEL ORINOCO INTERNATIONAL

Caracas, 22 January 2010 – This Friday, Venezuela celebrates the launching of its first and only English language newspaper, the Correo del Orinoco International. While in the past other English-language publications have existed, none remain in circulation today, and no others have been created during the Bolivarian Revolution. Editor-in-Chief Eva Golinger explained, “This will be [...]

Pentagon Report Calls for Office of “Strategic Deception”

The Department of Defense needs to get better at lying and fooling people about its intentions. That’s the conclusion from an influential Pentagon panel, the Defense Science Board (DSB), which recommends that the military and intelligence communities join in a new agency devoted to “strategic surprise/deception.” Tricking battlefield opponents has been a part of war [...]

Most U.S. Union Members Are Working for the Government, New Data Shows

[ You allow your police to form labor unions, then think you can ever be free from crime?  Or free at all?  Stupid Merikins. ] For the first time in American history, a majority of union members are government workers rather than private-sector employees, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday. In its annual [...]

DOJ Finds FBI Violations Over Phone Conversation Requests

A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Use of Exigent Letters and Other Informal Requests for Telephone Records The U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General has just released a report which concludes that the Federal Bureau of Investigation violated U.S. laws by claiming terrorism emergencies which allowed it to collect more than 2,000 records [...]

Back Away from GPS: AF Chief

In the face of threats from jamming and attacks on satellites the United States must lessen its dependence on the Global Positioning System and develop alternatives to GPS, the top Air Force general said today. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, Air Force Chief of Staff, told a conference organized by Tufts University’s Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis [...]

Taser adds mobile phone monitoring tool to its arsenal

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Stun gun maker Taser International wants to help parents, not with jolts of electricity but with a tool which allows parents to effectively take over a child’s mobile phone and manage its use. “Basically we’re taking old fashioned parenting and bringing it into the mobile world,” Taser chairman and co-founder Tom [...]

Gerald Celente Interview – Words of wisdom

Gerald Celente in Wikipedia Trends Research Institute Trends Journal

iePolitics.com back on line

Sharon Gilbert’s iePolitics is back on line with a new address: http://www.iePolitics.com Welcome back!

THREADS Cell Phone Analysis

THREADS, the flagship product for Direct Hit Systems, combines patented techniques in cell phone forensics, phone analysis, text mining, and visualization to provide focused leads and actionable intelligence. Although THREADS software incorporates many powerful analytical tools, it’s straight-forward interface makes solving cases easier for all levels of investigators, from the trained tactical analyst down to [...]

Right-wing radio host, Hal Turner, was an FBI informant

The New Jersey Record reports that ultra-right-wing radio host/blogger Harold Charles “Hal” Turner worked for over five years for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Turner was tried last month for threatening three federal appellate judges in Chicago: Judges Richard Allen Posner, Frank Hoover Easterbrook, and William Joseph Bauer. Turner’s case ended in a mistrial and [...]

Federal Agencies Need Not Confirm or Deny Electronic Surveillance under FOIA

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed that the National Security Agency and the Department of Justice do not need to confirm or deny the existence of electronic surveillance records under the Freedom of Information Act. The appellate court found that federal agencies are allowed to file “Glomar” responses, which were [...]

Rival Gangs Doing Business Together in L.A.

LOS ANGELES — Some neighborhoods in Southern California are experiencing a kind of truce between rival gangs that used to fight each other. The decrease in gang violence in recent years has led some experts to theorize that gangs are now working together. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Los Angeles told La Opinión [...]

NYC Government Releases Guide To Heroin Use

The New York City Health Department and Mental Hygiene has released a 16-page pamphlet that, among other things, teaches the city’s citizens how to shoot heroin. Also useful for tourists who need to learn these things fast during their visit. From the New York Post: The city spent $32,000 on 70,000 fliers that tell you [...]

Group slams Chertoff on scanner promotion

Since the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, former Department of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports. What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, [...]

Ecuador launches state-run news agency

Ecuador has established its first state-run news agency amid efforts by the lawmakers in the Andean nation to create a government-controlled watchdog which regulates privately-owned news outlets. Quito has launched the Ecuadorian and South American News Agency (ANDES) to “strengthen the image” of the country, the office of President Rafael Correa said on Tuesday, AFP [...]

Iran bans contact with groups involved in soft war

Iran has banned Iranian citizens from cooperating with 60 international institutions and a number of media outlets due to their involvement in the post-election unrest. Iran’s deputy intelligence minister for foreign affairs announced on Monday that 60 European and US foundations and institutions played a role in inciting post-election violence in the Islamic Republic. Cooperating [...]

The Nevada gambler, al-Qaida, the CIA and the mother of all cons

The intelligence reports fitted the suspicions of the time: al-Qaida sleeper agents were scattered across the US awaiting orders that were broadcast in secret codes over the al-Jazeera television network. Flights from Britain and France were cancelled. Officials warned of a looming “spectacular attack” to rival 9/11. In 2003 President George W. Bush‘s homeland security [...]

Jeb Stipe / Ty McDowell Procured Rapist Case

Jebidiah James Stipe Ty Oliver McDowell CASPER — A man accused of violently raping a woman inside her Casper home about two weeks ago believed he was acting out a sexual fantasy the woman requested on an Internet site, according to his attorney. Ty Oliver McDowell, 26, has been charged with three counts of first-degree [...]

Ohio bill would prohibit broadcasting of 911 calls

Two Ohio state senators have proposed a bill that would prohibit the broadcasting of 911 telephone calls and levy a $10,000 fine for infractions. The Society of Professional Journalists wrote a letter to the bill co-sponsors urging them to reconsider the proposed measure, saying it would diminish the media’s ability to report on breaking events. [...]

Obama Curbs Secrecy of Classified Documents

WASHINGTON — President Obama declared on Tuesday that “no information may remain classified indefinitely” as part of a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch’s system for protecting classified national security information. In an executive order and an accompanying presidential memorandum to agency heads, Mr. Obama signaled that the government should try harder to make information [...]

CRS Report – Privacy: An Overview of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping

Privacy: An Overview of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping, December 3, 2009 “Depending on one’s perspective, wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping are either “dirty business,” essential law enforcement tools, or both. This is a very general overview of the federal statutes that proscribe wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping and of the procedures they establish for [...]

Cell Phone Application directs border-crossing immigrants to water

SAN DIEGO — A group of California artists wants Mexicans and Central Americans to have more than just a few cans of tuna and a jug of water for their illegal trek through the harsh desert into the U.S. Faculty at University of California, San Diego are developing a GPS-enabled cell phone that tells dehydrated [...]

Langley-Eustis merger on track for Jan. 31

+ HAMPTON, Va. — Two Virginia military bases will merge next month, but officials say little will change in the short term. Langley Air Force Base and Fort Eustis will become Joint Base Langley-Eustis starting Jan. 31. Military officials say the process of combining operations is expected to last through October. Col. Kevin Altman, commander [...]