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7/2/2005

Rove Source of Plame Leak? :.

Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.



Japanese Robot Guards to Patrol Shops and Offices :.

Burglars beware, robot guards are here. In an idea straight out of science fiction, robots could soon begin patrolling Japanese offices, shopping malls and banks to keep them safe from intruders.

Equipped with a camera and sensors, the Guardrobo D1, developed by Japanese security firm Sohgo Security Services Co, is designed to patrol along pre-programmed paths and keep an eye out for signs of trouble.


7/1/2005

Nearly 9,000 U.S. Troops Dead? :.

According to the article: "...DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 [U.S. military] dead"; this far exceeds the "official" death count of 1,831. How can this be? It's largely because "U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted."

In other words, "death" has been redefined.


Update: Apparently This Story is Bullsh*t



Gonzales to Supreme Court?! :.

From Democracy Now:

You have to look, and the international law precedence and American law requires it, you look up the chain of command. What I discovered by accident was that -- this is not a concern that I have alone -- President Bush's White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, himself, who is now the Attorney General of the United States, wrote a memo in January 2002 to President Bush saying one of the reasons we need to opt out of the Geneva Conventions wasn't just because they didn't like the Geneva Conventions because they don't like treaties, but he said, we have to worry about prosecutions under the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996.

Congress decided that it wanted to adopt laws to take it into full compliance with its obligations under an international torture statute and an international torture treaty and the Geneva Conventions. And so, it passed two laws. One is a statute making it a U.S. crime to engage in torture. It was passed two years before the 1996 law, and then you have the War Crimes Act of 1996.

And basically, what it does, it makes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions a federal crime. Got it? Just like kidnapping or interstate burglary or child pornography, it is a federal crime. And the other thing, that's interesting is that it carries the death penalty. If death results from torture or inhuman treatment, then there is a death penalty, and that means there's no statute of limitations. That means that if any high level official violates the War Crimes Act, and somebody died, they can be prosecuted. They are subject to prosecution for the rest of their lives.


6/29/2005

Mystery Planes Continue to Circle Over Lodi :.

The white plane, with its baby blue striping, spends hours and days circling over Lodi. But the plane isn't from the city. It's not even from California.

The plane has traveled all the way from Delaware to move in slow circles over Lodi. It hasn't exactly blended in.

The city is small enough that when a medical helicopter makes one pass overhead, citizens look up. When gang problems flare and local police officers team up with the California Highway Patrol to make use of a helicopter, police dispatchers are besieged with calls from citizens.

So, when white planes began circling over Lodi about four weeks ago -- around the same time scores of FBI agents converged on the city to conduct a terrorism investigation -- people took notice.

One of the planes circling over Lodi is registered to a Delaware company. Northwest Aircraft Leasing Corp. is based in Newark, Del., according to Federal Aviation Authority records.


NOTE: Earlier today, I posted some faulty analysis based on an assumption that turned out to be WRONG about the tail number on the aircraft in the story. This story is weird enough without me cocking up the details. Tip o' the hat to the editor of Free Internet Press for sorting me out.

Similar: The Torture Express: CIA Cut Out Operation Busted



U.S. Blocked Release of CAFTA Reports :.

The Labor Department kept secret for more than a year government studies that supported Democratic opponents of the Bush administration's new Central American trade deal, internal documents show.

The studies, paid for by the department, concluded that several countries the administration wants to be granted free-trade status have poor working conditions and fail to protect workers' rights. The agency dismissed the conclusions as inaccurate and biased, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.



DVD Jon Slaps Google Around :.

Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen has cracked the lock on Google's new in-browser video player.

Johansen, also known as 'DVD Jon' for his work on decrypting DVD security codes, has created a patch for the Google Video Viewer—less than 24 hours after the search giant shipped the video playback plug-in, a tool based on the open-source VideoLAN media player.


6/28/2005

Cryptogon Reader Contributes $15

ML found value in Cryptogon and put his money where his browser is. Thanks for your support, ML!



Ex-Presidents Bush, Clinton Play Golf :.

Isn't that special?

Former Presidents Bush and Clinton teed off Tuesday for a round of golf on the second day of a get-together by the former political foes at Bush's summer home along the Maine coast.



Oil's Whipsaw of Death

NYMEX oil decapitates yesterday's longs. WOW! $2 gap back down into the $58 range.



Could a Hotel be Built on Justice David H. Souter's Land? :.

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.


6/27/2005

Wal-Mart Heir Dies in Plane Crash :.

Wal-Mart heir John Walton died Monday when his ultralight aircraft crashed after taking off from an airport in Jackson, Wyoming, the company announced.

Walton, 58, was the second son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and served on the board of directors of the world's largest retailer.

He was ranked No. 7 on the Forbes magazine list of the 400 wealthiest Americans in 2004, with a fortune estimated at $20 billion.



EXXON CEO: "GAS PRODUCTION HAS PEAKED IN NORTH AMERICA" :.

This actually means that food production has peaked in North America. Industrialized food production is based on fertilizer that is made out of natural gas.

Have a nice day:

"Gas production has peaked in North America," Chief Executive Lee Raymond told reporters at the Reuters Energy Summit.

Asked whether production would continue to decline even if two huge arctic gas pipeline projects were built, Raymond said, "I think that's a fair statement, unless there's some huge find that nobody has any idea where it would be."



Massachusetts Surveillance Cams Monitored by Federal Government :.

In conjunction with the US Department of Homeland Security, Chelsea, Mass., plans to install 27 hidden surveillance cameras, which will record 24 hours a day in various parts of town.



PESN: Full Feature on Naudin's MAHG Device :.

Experimenter claims to derive free energy cleanly and safely from the dissociation and association of hydrogen atoms. Data posted from several tests. Plans, schematics, methods all listed openly to encourage replication and improvement of results. Based on decades-old concepts set forth by Nobel laureate.



Scientists Create Zombie Dogs :.

After reading this story, I'm thinking about creating a new section called, "The Cryptogon Gallery of Horror."

As far as I can tell, this is a real story:

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.

Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.



CRYPTOGON READER ORDERS LIMU THREE PACK! :.

KC took bold action to improve is health and his wealth, while helping Cryptogon at the same time! Thanks KC! Please be sure to let me know if you have any questions.



OIL SMASHES THROUGH $60

AS HIGH AS $60.95 TONDAY ON NYMEX. CURRENTLY $60.75.


6/26/2005

Chicago Surveillance Cams ID Gunshots, Call Police :.

The bottom line is this: The enemy your infant children will HAVE to fight won't bleed. And parts of the system from which that enemy will emerge are being built with money seized from drug raids. You already know who runs the drugs.

How long will it be before robots are deployed to investigate shooting incidents?

From PENTAGON PREPARES TO BUILD $133 BILLION ROBOT ARMY:
Gordon Johnson, of the US joint forces research centre, told the New York Times: "The American military will have these kinds of robots. It's not a question of 'if', it's a question of 'when'."

The Swords robots come in several versions, carrying either a machine gun, grenade launcher or a light anti-tank weapon.

It is controlled by a soldier from a distance of up to 1,000 yards.

"We were sitting there firing single rounds and smacking bull's-eyes," said Staff Sergeant Santiago Tordillos, who helped to design and test the robot. "We were completely amazed."

That human involvement has proved critical in convincing military lawyers that machines can be used on the battlefield. More advanced machines which can decide whether to kill would also be legal, said Mr Johnson.

"The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life-or-death decisions," he said.
Now, here's the latest from Chicago. This article has it all: Terminator technology, corrupt, grant swindling professors, drug money being used to pay for the deployed system... This is so incredible that I'm posting the full text:

June 26, 2005 - The police are watching. And in Chicago, they're listening, too.

City officials are using new technology that recognizes the sound of a gunshot within a two-block radius, pinpoints the source, turns a surveillance camera toward the shooter and places a 911 call. Officials can then track the shooter and dispatch officers to the scene.

Welcome to crime-fighting in the 21st century.

"Instead of just having eyes, you have the advantage of both eyes and ears," said Bryan Baker, chief executive officer of Safety Dynamics in Oak Brook, which makes the systems.

After a successful pilot program, Chicago officials have installed 30 of the devices alongside video surveillance cameras in high-crime neighborhoods, with 12 more on the way, and dozens more to follow, Baker said.

The system's formal name is Smart Sensor Enabled Neural Threat Recognition and Identification -- or SENTRI. And the technology is not just gaining favor in Chicago.

In Los Angeles County, the sheriff's department plans to deploy 20 units in a pilot test, and officials in Tijuana, Mexico, recently bought 353 units, Baker said. Police in Philadelphia and San Francisco are close to launching test programs of their own, and New Orleans and Atlanta have also made inquiries.

Safety Dynamics also works with the U.S. Army and Navy, developing projects that could detect a range of sounds like diesel trucks slowing in an unexpected location or breaking glass, Baker said. On Tuesday, a military contractor in Iraq responsible for detecting explosive devices contacted the company about mounting systems on vehicles that carry U.S. military personnel.

"They want to put 20 of them on Humvees to be able to detect gunshots," Baker said. "The soldiers, they're getting shot at, but they don't know where the shots are coming from."

In Chicago, police hope the gunshot detection systems will add momentum to a technology-fueled crackdown on guns and gang violence. The city in 2004 reduced its homicide rate to its lowest level since 1965 and police seized 10,000 guns -- successes that were in large part credited to a network of "pods," or remote-controlled cameras that can rotate 360 degrees and feed video directly to squad-car laptops. The SENTRI systems are an addition to that network.

"They have been extremely successful," said Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the Chicago Office of Emergency Management. "We've been able to see the benefits that cameras and advanced technology bring to the community."

The American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois said it is somewhat concerned about privacy rights being violated because the city's camera system is so prevalent.

Spokesman Ed Yohnka said officers need to be properly trained in monitoring the cameras and only record activity in public spaces, such as sidewalks and streets.

"That it could someday gravitate toward the violation of individual rights, that applies no matter what system it is, including these," Yohnka said of the pods with the sound detection systems.

As long as the cameras and SENTRI system are set up in public spaces, they do not violate the law, said Northwestern University School of Law professor Robert W. Bennett.

"You don't have much in the way of privacy issues when you're in a public area," Bennett said.

And local officials said it's hard to argue with the results.

"The crime rates in Chicago are the lowest in 40 years. The price of keeping the community safe far outweighs civil liberty issues," Bond said.

Baker stresses that Chicago SENTRI are only programmed to recognize gunshots, not record conversations or "bug" private homes.

"The microphones can't be used for listening, there's no mechanism for other sounds like human voices," he said.

SENTRI is the brainchild of Safety Dynamics and Dr. Theodore Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Each SENTRI contains a library of acoustical patterns, or "sound signatures," which Berger developed over several years.

Four microphones in the system differentiate gunshots from other noises like traffic and construction by measuring the unique decibel level of a bullet being shot out of a gun, and comparing the sound to its library. That way, a gunshot would activate the system, but a siren or a car backfiring would not, Baker said.

"We take recordings of the target sound and you take as many different recordings as you can from as many different types of scenarios as you can," he said. "But it's a little bit like fingerprinting. The more precise the sound we get, the greater the possibility that we eliminate some potential gunshots."

Adding the SENTRI to an existing surveillance camera is not cheap. The system costs between $4,000 and $10,000 per unit, but in Chicago they and the accompanying cameras are paid for with forfeiture money.

Police Superintendent Phil Cline told an audience at a recent U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, "the drug dealers are actually paying to surveil themselves."



Iran Ramping Up to Full Circus Status :.

The only question is: Who strikes first, the U.S. or Israel? Wake me up when the missiles are in the air:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has criticized Iran's president-elect, who won a strong victory in run-off elections Friday. Meanwhile, in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to pursue moderation, not extremism.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Secretary Rumsfeld blasted the election in Iran.

"The fact that they had a mock election, and elected a hard-liner ought not come as a surprise to anybody, because all the other people were told they could not run - it is against the law," said Mr. Rumsfeld.

U.S. officials, including President Bush, had denounced the elections beforehand, pointing out that more than one-thousand potential candidates, many of them reformers and women, were excluded by the Guardian Council, an unelected body of clerics that vets political candidates.



Former IRS CID Special Agent Acquitted of Tax Fraud and Conspiracy :.

The matrix usually breaks all the rules when it is directly threatened like this. Joe Banister winning this case was an unthinkable outcome for .gov, but it happened anyway. This is an astonishing development:

On Thursday June 23, a jury found former IRS Criminal Investigative Division (CID) Special Agent and CPA Joseph Banister not guilty of all counts alleging federal criminal tax fraud and conspiracy related to actions he took on behalf of a California business owner who had openly defied the IRS by stopping withholding of all income and employment taxes from the paychecks of his workers.

During the trial the Department of Justice was unable to put forth any evidence that Banister had either engaged in a conspiracy or had acted unlawfully when he shared legal research with business owner Al Thompson concluding that he had no legal obligation to withhold taxes from his workers, or when he (Banister) prepared corrected tax returns for Thompson claiming his taxable income was, under U.S. law, zero.

During the trial, Banister's former supervisor at IRS's San Jose CID office, Robert Gorini (who testified via video recording) when pointedly asked, was unable to cite any U.S. law that explicitly required Banister to pay income taxes.



Bush Speaks on Iraq :.

"Our military strategy is clear, we will train Iraqi security forces so they can defend their freedom and protect their people, and then our troops will return home with the honour they have earned. The political track of our strategy is to continue helping Iraqis build the institutions of a stable democracy."

In other news...





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