VENEZUELA CONSIDERS BANNING BABY BOTTLE FEEDING
SOCIALISM TAX DOLLARS AT WORK…
The Venezuela congress is to discuss legislation next week that would prohibit bottle feeding of infants in an attempt to encourage breast feeding and reduce the use of baby formula.
Odalis Monzon, from Venezuela’s ruling Socialist party, said the proposal would “prohibit all types of baby bottles” as a way to improve children’s health.
“We want to increase the love (between mother and child) because this has been lost as a result of these transnational companies selling formula,” Ms Monzon said.
She said the Law for the Promotion and Support for Breast-Feeding, passed in 2007, did not establish any sanctions for using formula. However, she did not say what the sanctions might be if the proposed change to prohibit bottle feeding is passed by Congress, where the Socialist Party has a majority.
She said, however, that exceptions would be allowed, such as in the case of the death of a mother, or for women with limited breast milk production, as determined by the health ministry.
Such legislation would likely raise the ire of opposition sympathisers who say the government of the late President Hugo Chavez excessively extended the reach of the state into the lives of private citizens.
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SYRIAN PRESIDENT HAS USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS, CROSSING ‘RED LINE,’ US SAYS
BAIT AND SWITCH- White House under pressure because of spying on it’s own people…
Damage Control, Release the well known facts that Syria has used gas against it’s own people…
And we forget that the White House is spying on it’s own people.. like Syria… like China…
The White House announced Thursday that the Obama administration has conclusive evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime has used chemical weapons against his opposition, killing up to 150 people in the last year and crossing what President Obama has called a “red line” that would lead to greater American involvement in the crisis.
It was not immediately clear what the next U.S. move would be, but a statement by Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said that the use of chemical weapons by Syria has changed the President’s “calculus.”
HUMAN LIFE VALUED AT FIVE CENTS…
The following report is only the tip of the iceberg and the premise of information for identity theft… read and enjoy…
Corporate competition to accumulate information about consumers is intensifying even as concerns about government surveillance grow, pushing down the market price for intimate personal details to fractions of a cent.
Over recent years, the surveillance of consumers has developed into a multibillion-dollar industry conducted by largely unregulated companies that obtain information by scouring web searches, social networks, purchase histories and public records, among other sources.
The resulting dossiers include thousands of details about individuals, including personal ailments, credit scores and even due dates for pregnant women. Companies feed the details into algorithms to determine how to predict and influence consumer behaviour.
Basic age, gender and location information sells for as little as $0.0005 per person, or $0.50 per thousand people, according to price details seen by the Financial Times. Information about people believed to be “influential” within their social networks sells for $0.00075, or $0.75 per thousand people. Slightly more valuable are income details and shopping histories, which both sell for $0.001.
According to industry sources, most people’s profile information sells for less than a dollar in total. “You’re not worth much,” said Dave Morgan, founder of one of the first companies to use web surfing data to target online ads.
As basic information on consumers becomes ubiquitous, data brokers are tracking down even more details. For $0.26 per person, LeadsPlease.com sells the names and mailing addresses of people suffering from ailments such as cancer, diabetes and clinical depression. The information includes specific medications including cancer treatment drug Methotrexate and Paxil, the antidepressant, according to price details viewed by the FT.
LeadsPlease offers a discount for bulk buyers. The price of a record drops to $0.14 if a buyer purchases 50,001 to 100,000 names.
Another company, ALC Data, sells a list of consumers with specific ailments sorted by credit score. “In the current economy, targeting prospects who have good credit, bad credit or a lack of credit can dramatically affect results,” the company states in its marketing materials.
Buyers of ALC’s “MH2 Credit Ailment Masterfile” in the past 12 months include Blue Cross Blue Shield, the insurance group, mobile operator Sprint Nextel and TXU Energy, the Texas energy utility, according to usage details on ALC’s website.
ALC also tracks more than 80 per cent of all US births and competes fiercely against other data brokers in the baby sector. The company recently unveiled a new “Newborn Network” database containing information about prenatal and postnatal mothers, as well as their aunts, grandmothers, close friends and neighbours. “It is a saturated market,” says Lori Magill-Cook, an executive vice-president at ALC.
The US Federal Trade Commission and a congressional committee are investigating the data broker industry to understand what these companies know and how the information is used. Few laws exist in the US that protect the privacy of an individual’s data.
The industry operates under self-regulatory guidelines, which bar the collection of information about children, specific health and financial data. Under the guidelines, the tracking and selling of information derived from medical records and prescriptions are allowed if patients’ names and other identifying data have been deleted. LeadsPlease and ALC state that the patient-specific ailment information they sell is not sourced from such records, but has instead been revealed by the patients themselves.
EDWARD SNOWDEN: US GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN HACKING HONG KONG AND CHINA FOR YEARS
Former CIA operative makes more explosive claims and says Washington is ‘bullying’ Hong Kong to extradite him
The former Central Intelligence Agency analyst also made explosive claims that the US government had been hacking into computers in Hong Kong and on the mainland for years.
A week since revelations that the US has been secretly collecting phone and online data of its citizens, he said he will stay in the city “until I am asked to leave”, adding: “I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the US government in the courts, because I have faith in HK’s rule of law.”
US National Security Agency’s controversial Prism programme extends to people and institutions in Hong Kong and mainland China;
Snowden said that according to unverified documents seen by the Post, the NSA had been hacking computers in Hong Kong and on the mainland since 2009.
One of the targets in the SAR, according to Snowden, was Chinese University and public officials, businesses and students in the city. The documents also point to hacking activity by the NSA against mainland targets.
Snowden believed there had been more than 61,000 NSA hacking operations globally, with hundreds of targets in Hong Kong and on the mainland.
“We hack network backbones – like huge internet routers, basically – that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one,” he said.
“Last week the American government happily operated in the shadows with no respect for the consent of the governed, but no longer. Every level of society is demanding accountability and oversight.”
Snowden said he was releasing the information to demonstrate “the hypocrisy of the US government when it claims that it does not target civilian infrastructure, unlike its adversaries”.
“Not only does it do so, but it is so afraid of this being known that it is willing to use any means, such as diplomatic intimidation, to prevent this information from becoming public.”
Since the shocking revelations a week ago, Snowden has been vilified as a defector but also hailed by supporters such as WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange.
The interview comes on the same day NSA chief General Keith Alexander appeared before Congress to defend his agency over the leaks.
Snowden’s revelations threaten to test new attempts to build US-Sino bridges after a weekend summit in California between the nations’ presidents, Barack Obama and Xi Jinping.
If true, Snowden’s allegations lend credence to China’s longstanding position that it is as much a victim of hacking as a perpetrator, after Obama pressed Xi to rein in cyber-espionage by the Chinese military.
1 OF 2 MEN DIE IN SHOOTING NEAR SANTA MONICA COLLEGE
Two people were shot Tuesday morning near the campus of Santa Monica College. Tuesday, Jun 11, 2013.
View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.
One of two men shot near Santa Monica College died. The incident happened four days after a gunman went on a shooting rampage that killed five before he was shot by police. Patrick Healy reports for the NBC4 News at Noon on Tuesday, June 11, 2013.
One of two men shot Tuesday less than a mile from Santa Monica College has died, police said.
The shooting shocked residents already reeling from a shooting rampage in the area that left six people dead four days earlier, police said.
The shooting was reported at 8:15 a.m. in the 1500 block of Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica police said.
ANTI-G8 PROTESTS ERUPT IN LONDON
Anti-capitalist groups converged on London today to protest ahead of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland next week.
Riot police were deployed as protests turned violent and protestors damaged buildings in central London. The StopG8 group had called for disruption on the streets on London for the week running up to the G8 meeting, asking that anti-capitalist groups create a “Carnival Against Capitalism”. Police made 57 arrests during the demonstrations which centred on the Oxford Street and Regent Street areas of the city.
The G8 meeting of the world’s wealthiest leaders begins next week at the Lough Erne resort in Co Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.
Read More: BBC News
POLICE ORDERED TO BRING AN END TO THE PROTESTS IN TURKEY
Ten days since protestors took to the street of Istanbul, the President has ordered that the protests stop now. Police have been told to continue operations on the streets of the city, night and day, until the protests end.
The crack down centred on Taksim Square, and saw police fire tear gas at the crowd and use water cannons to break up the protests. The protestors retaliated by using fireworks and petrol bombs.
NSA IS COLLECTING EVERYONE’S DATA, EMAIL, PHONE CONVERSATIONS, BANKING INFORMATION, WEB SEARCHES, GPS POSITIONS ETC.
Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations
The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA’s history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows.
The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them.
Though that may sound like paranoia to some, Snowden has good reason for such fears. He worked in the US intelligence world for almost a decade. He knows that the biggest and most secretive surveillance organisation in America, the NSA, along with the most powerful government on the planet, is looking for him.
Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA’s surveillance activities were, claiming “they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them”.
But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. “I don’t see myself as a hero,” he said, “because what I’m doing is self-interested: I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”
Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA’s surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. “What they’re doing” poses “an existential threat to democracy”, he said.
“The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to,” he said.
He lay, propped up against pillows, watching CNN’s Wolf Blitzer ask a discussion panel about government intrusion if they had any idea who the leaker was. From 8,000 miles away, the leaker looked on impassively, not even indulging in a wry smile.
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCIES DATA MINING FROM INTERNET COMPANIES AS WELL AS PHONE DATA
It has now emerged the government has been mining data from the internet as well as phone data from Verizon. Leaked documents appear to show that a government spying program, called Prism, has been in place for years. Prism has allegedly allowed access to the the US and UK security services to the servers of the biggest internet companies: Google, Apple, Skype, Microsoft, YouTube, and Facebook.
However the internet companies in question have denied the claims. Google has issued a statement, “We have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government – or any other government – direct access to our servers.
“Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centres. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.
“Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.
“We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process.
“Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period.”
Facebook and Apple have also denied knowledge of the Prism program.
Read More: The Telegraph
A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
SANTA MONICA SHOOTINGS AS OBAMA ATTENDS FUNDRAISER IN THE CITY
Santa Monica, California, has been the scene of a shooting rampage by an unknown gunman, outside College Campus today. In a nearby incident, two people died in a house fire, thought to be connected to the shooting incident. Reports are still coming in, but Sky News is reporting 6 dead and 5 injured, some critically.
The sources said the gunman allegedly set the home on fire, opened fire on several cars and appeared to try to carjack two vehicles. One of the carjackings occurred near the campus library and college police station.
Nearby, President Barack Obama attended two Democratic National Committee fundraisers at the Santa Monica home of media mogul Peter Chernin. As the fundraiser was underway, there were reports of the incident at nearby Santa Monica College.
Obama lunched with about 100 people, then attended a private reception with 35 attendees. Among the Hollywood heavyweights present were Disney’s Bob Iger, J.J. Abrams, Haim Saban, Jim Gianopulos, HBO’s Mike Lombardo and Sonny Ward.
The shooting incident forced the President to depart the fundraiser by car, rather than by helicopter as originally planned, and reports are still coming in on those injured.
Timeline of deadliest-shooting-rampages in USA published in LA Times.
VERIZON TURNS OVER BILLIONS OF US PHONE CALL DATA TO OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
The UK Guardian Newspaper published a story yesterday disclosing that US telephone communications giant VERIZON received a top secret court order dated 25th April, to collect the ‘metadata’ of its customers. The court order demands that “an electronic copy of the following tangible things” be made and handed over to the FBI.
The Court Order demanded that Verizon submit “All call detail records” or “telephony metadata” (i) Between the United States and abroad; or (ii) Wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls”.
Metadata is classified as basically everything about the call except the contents of the call itself, including phone numbers of both parties involved, their location and call duration etc.
The Court Order is made under the Patriot Act, 50 USC section 1861 which refers to “business records” and states that the records should be obtained “on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration the order” which lasts for three months from April and will finish on 19th July, 2013.
The Order is deemed to be Top Secret and states: “It is further ordered that no person shall disclose to any other person that the FBI or NSA has sought or obtained tangible things under this order.”
Two US Senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have warned the American people ‘about the scope of the Obama administration’s surveillance activities,’ saying that the public would be ‘stunned’ by the methods of domestic spying. Their letter to Attorney General Eric Holder said “there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows.”
Julia Sanchez who is a surveillance expert with the Cato Institute said “vacuuming all metadata up indiscriminately would be an extraordinary repudiation of any pretense of constraint or particularized suspicion,” and yet this is exactly what the order is demanding.
CAN I HAVE A LITTLE HOPE WITH ALL THIS CHANGE?
