Archive for June, 2012
SWAT Team Throws Flashbangs, Raids Wrong Home Due to Open WiFi Network
June 29th, 2012Via: Ars Technica: The long-standing, heavily documented militarization of even small-town American police forces was always going to create problems when it met anonymous Internet threats. And so it has, again—this time in Evansville, Indiana, where officers acted on some Topix postings threatening violence against local police. They then sent an entire SWAT unit to […]
Why is SOCOM Lying About Domestic Drone Activities?
June 28th, 2012Via: Public Intelligence: A spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has provided statements to publications in New Hampshire and Oregon indicating that information regarding domestic drone activities provided by Public Intelligence is inaccurate, despite confirmations from the offices of two U.S. Senators. Following our publication last week of a map of current and proposed […]
Google Was Secretly Planting Cookies on Millions of iPhone Browsers
June 28th, 2012Via: Pro Publica: Jonathan Mayer had a hunch. A gifted computer scientist, Mayer suspected that online advertisers might be getting around browser settings that are designed to block tracking devices known as cookies. If his instinct was right, advertisers were following people as they moved from one website to another even though their browsers were […]
Security Lapses Found at CDC Bioterror Lab in Atlanta
June 28th, 2012Via: USA Today: A federal bioterror laboratory already under investigation by Congress for safety issues has had repeated incidents of security doors left unlocked to an area where experiments occur with dangerous germs, according to internal agency e-mails obtained by USA TODAY. In one incident, an unauthorized employee was discovered inside a restricted area. … […]
Rotten to the Core: Barclays Paying $453 Million to Settle Libor Probe
June 28th, 2012Via: Reuters: U.K. bank Barclays will pay $453 million to U.S. and British authorities to settle allegations that it manipulated key interest rates, increasing pressure on other banks to cooperate in a probe that could cost the financial industry billions of dollars. The settlement raises fresh questions about the reliability of the London interbank offered […]
Mutated Pests Are Quickly Adapting to Biotech Crops
June 28th, 2012Via: io9: Genetically modified crops are often designed to repel hungry insects. By having toxins built into the plant itself, farmers can reduce their use of environmentally unfriendly insecticide sprays. But as any first-year evolutionary biology student can tell you, insects are like the Borg in Star Trek: they quickly adapt. And this is precisely […]
Top CIA Spy Accused of Being a Mafia Hitman
June 27th, 2012Via: Wired: Enrique “Ricky” Prado’s resume reads like the ultimate CIA officer: veteran of the Central American wars, running the CIA’s operations in Korea, a top spy in America’s espionage programs against China, and deputy to counter-terrorist chief Cofer Black — and then a stint at Blackwater. But he’s also alleged to have started out […]
Google Tries Something Retro: Made in the U.S.A.
June 27th, 2012I initially thought that this was just a PR stunt, and that the bulk of the components were manufactured in China and then shipped back to the U.S. for assembly. My maximally cynical guess turned out to be wrong. A lot of it is actually made in the U.S. Via: New York Times: Google’s Q […]
Longtime CIA Case Officer and Chief Propagandist in Hollywood Claims JFK Was Shot from the Front, and ‘That There Was a Craft from Beyond This World that Crashed at Roswell’
June 27th, 2012In this Coast to Coast interview, longtime CIA employee, Chase Brandon, establishes limited hangouts for conspiracies related to the JFK assassination and the Roswell incident. In case you don’t know what a limited hangout is, this definition is from Wikipedia: A limited hangout, or partial hangout, is a public relations or propaganda technique that involves […]
Pilger on ‘Insidious Propaganda’
June 27th, 2012Via: John Pilger: Arriving in a village in southern Vietnam, I caught sight of two children who bore witness to the longest war of the 20th century. Their terrible deformities were familiar. All along the Mekong river, where the forests were petrified and silent, small human mutations lived as best they could. Today, at the […]