Oil Tankers Hit by ‘Sabotage Attacks’ as Gulf Tensions Soar
May 13th, 2019Via: AFP:
Four ships, including two Saudi oil tankers, were damaged in mysterious “sabotage attacks” that further inflamed Gulf tensions on Monday amid a standoff between the United States and Iran.
In the face of growing international concern, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scrapped a planned visit to Moscow to head to Brussels instead for talks with European officials on Iran.
Tehran called for an investigation into Sunday’s “alarming” attacks off the Emirati coast and warned of “adventurism” by foreign players to disrupt maritime security.
Britain warned of the danger of conflict erupting “by accident” in the Gulf.
The US has already strengthened its military presence in the region, including deploying a number of strategic B-52 bombers in response to alleged Iranian threats.
Saudi Arabia, the Islamic republic’s regional arch-rival, condemned “the acts of sabotage which targeted commercial and civilian vessels near the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates”, a foreign ministry source said.
“This criminal act constitutes a serious threat to the security and safety of maritime navigation and adversely impacts regional and international peace and security,” the source added.
Drug Cartel: Lawsuit by 44 States Accuses Pharma Giants of ‘Multi-Year Conspiracy’ to Hike Drug Prices by Over 1,000%
May 13th, 2019Make sure to get shot up with vaccines being peddled by the perpetrators of, “One of the most egregious and damaging price-fixing conspiracies in the history of the United States.”
Oh sure!
You’d have to be out of your mind, and possibly a terrorist, or worse, if you don’t trust their statements about vaccine safety and effectiveness.
Via: Common Dreams:
A far-reaching lawsuit filed Friday by the attorneys general of more than 40 states accused some of the nation’s largest generic drug manufacturers of conspiring to inflate prices, in some cases by over 1,000 percent.
“We have hard evidence that shows the generic drug industry perpetrated a multi-billion dollar fraud on the American people,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, whose state led the probe into the companies’ practices, said in a statement.
“We have emails, text messages, telephone records, and former company insiders that we believe will prove a multi-year conspiracy to fix prices and divide market share for huge numbers of generic drugs,” said Tong.
The suit names 20 major drug manufacturers—including Pfizer, Teva, Novartis, and Mylan—as well as more than a dozen senior executives, who the complaint accuses of deleting evidence after the states began their investigation in 2014.
Restrictions on Foreign Currency Checks
May 13th, 2019I can’t deposit foreign currency checks that are valued at under NZ$500 anymore with my bank (Kiwibank). I had been depositing foreign currency checks with smaller amounts with Kiwibank since I moved to NZ in 2006. They just recently changed the policy.
So, yeah… The screws are tightening a bit more.
Thanks very much to the literal handful of you out there who continue to support Cryptogon.
Swarms of Drones, Piloted by Artificial Intelligence, May Soon Patrol Europe’s Borders
May 12th, 2019Step 1: Facilitate and encourage illegal immigration to the point of collapsing European society.
Step 2: Deploy swarms of surveillance drones to interrogate/track/identify individuals at random. You know, since we created the problem in the first place, we’ll come up with a “solution.”
Step 3: ….. (Fill in the blank)
Hmm. I know. How about: Arrest anyone who expresses concern about illegal immigration and invasive surveillance?
Via: The Intercept:
Imagine you’re hiking through the woods near a border. Suddenly, you hear a mechanical buzzing, like a gigantic bee. Two quadcopters have spotted you and swoop in for a closer look. Antennae on both drones and on a nearby autonomous ground vehicle pick up the radio frequencies coming from the cell phone in your pocket. They send the signals to a central server, which triangulates your exact location and feeds it back to the drones. The robots close in.
Cameras and other sensors on the machines recognize you as human and try to ascertain your intentions. Are you a threat? Are you illegally crossing a border? Do you have a gun? Are you engaging in acts of terrorism or organized crime? The machines send video feeds to their human operator, a border guard in an office miles away, who checks the videos and decides that you are not a risk. The border guard pushes a button, and the robots disengage and continue on their patrol.
Privacy Experts, Senators Demand Investigation of Amazon’s Child Data Collection Practices
May 12th, 2019Via: The Intercept:
Last year, a coalition of privacy advocates and child psychologists warned against putting an Amazon Alexa speaker anywhere near your child on the fairly reasonable grounds that developing minds shouldn’t befriend always-on surveillance devices, no matter how cute the packaging. Now, a group of privacy researchers, attorneys, and U.S. senators are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Amazon’s alleged violations of COPPA, a law protecting the littlest users of all.
COPPA, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, regulates how companies can collect and use data on users who might have trouble spelling “privacy,” let alone understand it enough to consent to relinquishing it. COPPA is the reason why so many sites, like Facebook, simply don’t allow children under 13 to sign up. Amazon, on the other hand, decided to court children for its data collection business, releasing the Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition, an always-listening “smart speaker” that retains all of the functions of its adult counterpart, but tucks them inside a candy-colored shell. The kiddo speaker also adds child-specific features, like the ability to have Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa read your child a story in her disembodied robo-voice, or play child-geared content from sources like Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.
A new complaint drafted by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, the consumer privacy group Center for Digital Democracy, and Georgetown University’s Institute for Public Representation says that Amazon is committing a litany of COPPA violations through the Echo Dot Kids Edition, and calls on the FTC to investigate.
Amazon’s COPPA violations, according to the complaint, include failure to provide parental notice and obtain parental consent for online services related to the kids’ Echo Dot, failure to tell parents that they have a right to review personal information submitted by their child, and failure to provide parents a way to delete such information or opt out of its collection.
Bitcoin’s First $1,000 Weekend Since 2017 Marks Nine-Month High
May 12th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
Bitcoin surged more than $1,000 this weekend to the highest level since August, as cryptocurrencies extended their rebound from a slump last month amid the New York attorney general’s investigation of a key part of the market.
Bitcoin rose as much as 6.9% to $7,445, before trading at $7,323.86 as of 2:15 p.m. Hong Kong time on Sunday, according to Bitstamp. That compares with $6,290.24 at Friday’s close.
Mexico Wants to Decriminalize All Drugs and Negotiate With the U.S. to Do the Same
May 11th, 2019And wreck the CIA’s illicit drug running business? I don’t think so.
Imagine the whinging you’d hear from the militarized cop industrial complex.
Also, what would become of the private prison industry?
Oh no no no, Mexico, let’s not go there.
Via: Newsweek:
Mexico’s president released a new plan last week that called for radical reform to the nation’s drug laws and negotiating with the United States to take similar steps.
The plan put forward by the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, often referred to by his initials as AMLO, calls for decriminalizing illegal drugs and transferring funding for combating the illicit substances to pay for treatment programs instead. It points to the failure of the decades-long international war on drugs, and calls for negotiating with the international community, and specifically the U.S., to ensure the new strategy’s success.
“The ‘war on drugs’ has escalated the public health problem posed by currently banned substances to a public safety crisis,” the policy proposal, which came as part of AMLO’s National Development Plan for 2019-2024, read. Mexico’s current “prohibitionist strategy is unsustainable,” it argued.
Dentists in Oregon Are Vaccinators Now
May 9th, 2019Via: The Vaccine Reaction:
Governor Kate Brown of Oregon signed a bill on May 6, 2019 that will allow dentists in that state to administer vaccinations. House Bill 2220, which passed Oregon’s House of Representatives on Mar. 28, 2019 and Senate on Apr. 25, will make it possible for dentists to give vaccines, including MMR, HPV and annual flu shots, to their patients during dental checkups.
Jeff Bezos Planning Blue Origin Moon Missions
May 9th, 2019Via: Reuters:
Billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, the founder of rocket company Blue Origin, will unveil plans on Thursday for missions to the moon tailored to the U.S. government’s renewed push to establish a lunar outpost in just five years, people familiar with the matter said.
1,000 Guns Found in Bel-Air Mansion Linked to Getty Family
May 9th, 2019Very, very strange.
Read this for background: The curious case of Cynthia Beck’s abandoned Malibu and Bel Air mansions
And now…
Via: Los Angeles Times:
A 57-year-old man identified in court records as the longtime companion of Los Angeles real estate mogul Cynthia Beck was arrested Wednesday after authorities seized more than 1,000 guns from a home in Holmby Hills.
Girard Saenz was taken into custody on suspicion of unlawful transportation and of giving, lending or selling an assault weapon. He is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail, according to the Los Angeles Police Department and court records.
Authorities discovered the cache of weapons while serving a search warrant at the home in the 100 block of North Beverly Glen Boulevard at 4 a.m. Wednesday as part of a joint LAPD and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigation, said Officer Mike Lopez, an LAPD spokesman.
Police launched the probe after they received an anonymous tip about a person manufacturing and selling guns at the home, Lopez said.
The ATF said in a statement that its agents searched the home after discovering an individual was illegally selling firearms outside the scope of the federal license the person possesses.
The Bel-Air mansion was described as a hoarder’s paradise. Court records show the property is owned by Cynthia Beck, who has three daughters with J. Paul Getty’s son Gordon Getty. Beck bought the property in January 2001, but it remains unclear what, if any, connection she has to Wednesday’s events. Beck could not be reached for comment.
Public records show Beck and Saenz together own several pieces of property in Los Angeles and an office building in San Francisco.
