4 FROM NEWS & VIEWS
Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness (NORA), which can sift through billions of records and match people with their home addresses, phone numbers, jobs, friends, and other connections.
The biggest threat and the biggest promise seem to lie not with official government databases but with the private companies that sell their information to all levels of government and to banks, airlines, credit-card companies, mortgage holders, car-rental agencies, and the like. You may not know much about ChoicePoint (CPS ), Acxiom (ACXM ), Equifax (EFX ), HNC Software, LexisNexus, or Seisint, but they have heard of you in more detail than you can imagine.
Many of these companies, such as info giants Acxiom Corp. and Equifax, began by keeping track of such things as bankruptcies for credit-card vendors. But many of them are now able to provide lists of people who take Prozac for depression, believe in the Bible, gamble online, or buy sex toys. Another outfit maintains a 700,000-name list called "the Gay America Megafile." And ChoicePoint, has more than 250 terabytes of data on 220 million people
The private sector has managed to put this snooping to good use as well. ChoicePoint solved a series of rapes in Philadelphia and Fort Collins, Colo., by mining data to get six likely suspects. Using a DNA database it owns, ChoicePoint helped identify bone fragments at the World Trade Center ruins. Seisint Inc., using a data-mining program called Matrix, assisted the investigation into Washington's 2002 Beltway Sniper shootings. The company directed police to a house in Tacoma, Wash. There, in a tree in the backyard, they found bullets matching those that had been used to shoot 16 people in and around the nation's capital. The two snipers are now in prison. Also, soon after September 11, Seisint compiled a list of the 1,200 people it deemed the biggest threats to the U.S. Five of the original hijackers turned up on the list.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012605_watching_you.shtml
Sensory consequences of electromagnetic pulses emitted by laser induced plasmas
The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometers away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.
"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research," says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. "Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown."
John Wood of University College London, UK, an expert in how the brain perceives pain, says the researchers involved in the project should face censure. "It could be used for torture," he says, "the [researchers] must be aware of this."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0303-08.htm
Is Bush planning to attack Iran?
In a speech given on February 18, former UN arms inspector and Marine officer Scott Ritter (who was totally on target before the Iraq War on that country's lack of weapons of mass destruction) claimed that the president has already "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June in order to destroy its alleged nuclear weapons program and eventually bring about "regime change."
A Special Forces platoon leader just back from Iraq matter-of-factly tells a close friend of mine, as happened last week, that he and his unit are now training their sights (literally) on Iran.
commentary by Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030205B.shtml
Bush's Faith-Based Agenda
Setting out a second-term blueprint for advancing his faith-based initiative, Bush highlighted legislation, heading to the House floor today, that would allow religious charities to hire and fire based on religious beliefs even while receiving federal funding. If Congress does not follow his lead, Bush warned that he would try to circumvent lawmakers by using executive powers.
Bush said. "There's more to do." Among other things, he wants to expand deductions for food donations, allow Americans to donate to charity money from Individual Retirement Accounts without penalty and encourage states to direct more money to religious groups that provide social services.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030205L.shtml
The biggest threat and the biggest promise seem to lie not with official government databases but with the private companies that sell their information to all levels of government and to banks, airlines, credit-card companies, mortgage holders, car-rental agencies, and the like. You may not know much about ChoicePoint (CPS ), Acxiom (ACXM ), Equifax (EFX ), HNC Software, LexisNexus, or Seisint, but they have heard of you in more detail than you can imagine.
Many of these companies, such as info giants Acxiom Corp. and Equifax, began by keeping track of such things as bankruptcies for credit-card vendors. But many of them are now able to provide lists of people who take Prozac for depression, believe in the Bible, gamble online, or buy sex toys. Another outfit maintains a 700,000-name list called "the Gay America Megafile." And ChoicePoint, has more than 250 terabytes of data on 220 million people
The private sector has managed to put this snooping to good use as well. ChoicePoint solved a series of rapes in Philadelphia and Fort Collins, Colo., by mining data to get six likely suspects. Using a DNA database it owns, ChoicePoint helped identify bone fragments at the World Trade Center ruins. Seisint Inc., using a data-mining program called Matrix, assisted the investigation into Washington's 2002 Beltway Sniper shootings. The company directed police to a house in Tacoma, Wash. There, in a tree in the backyard, they found bullets matching those that had been used to shoot 16 people in and around the nation's capital. The two snipers are now in prison. Also, soon after September 11, Seisint compiled a list of the 1,200 people it deemed the biggest threats to the U.S. Five of the original hijackers turned up on the list.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012605_watching_you.shtml
Sensory consequences of electromagnetic pulses emitted by laser induced plasmas
The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometers away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.
"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research," says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. "Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown."
John Wood of University College London, UK, an expert in how the brain perceives pain, says the researchers involved in the project should face censure. "It could be used for torture," he says, "the [researchers] must be aware of this."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0303-08.htm
Is Bush planning to attack Iran?
In a speech given on February 18, former UN arms inspector and Marine officer Scott Ritter (who was totally on target before the Iraq War on that country's lack of weapons of mass destruction) claimed that the president has already "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June in order to destroy its alleged nuclear weapons program and eventually bring about "regime change."
A Special Forces platoon leader just back from Iraq matter-of-factly tells a close friend of mine, as happened last week, that he and his unit are now training their sights (literally) on Iran.
commentary by Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030205B.shtml
Bush's Faith-Based Agenda
Setting out a second-term blueprint for advancing his faith-based initiative, Bush highlighted legislation, heading to the House floor today, that would allow religious charities to hire and fire based on religious beliefs even while receiving federal funding. If Congress does not follow his lead, Bush warned that he would try to circumvent lawmakers by using executive powers.
Bush said. "There's more to do." Among other things, he wants to expand deductions for food donations, allow Americans to donate to charity money from Individual Retirement Accounts without penalty and encourage states to direct more money to religious groups that provide social services.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030205L.shtml
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 7:12 AM
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