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Archive for August, 2013

FBI pressures Internet providers to install surveillance software

August 5, 2013 Comments off

cnet.com

CNET has learned the FBI has developed custom “port reader” software to intercept Internet metadata in real time. And, in some cases, it wants to force Internet providers to use the software.

FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C.FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C.

(Credit: Getty Images)

The U.S. government is quietly pressuring telecommunications providers to install eavesdropping technology deep inside companies’ internal networks to facilitate surveillance efforts.

FBI officials have been sparring with carriers, a process that has on occasion included threats of contempt of court, in a bid to deploy government-provided software capable of intercepting and analyzing entire communications streams. The FBI’s legal position during these discussions is that the software’s real-time interception of metadata is authorized under the Patriot Act.

Attempts by the FBI to install what it internally refers to as “port reader” software, which have not been previously disclosed, were Read more…

Categories: Privacy, United States Tags: , , , , , ,

10 Ways That The Iron Grip Of The Big Brother Prison Grid Is Tightening On All Of Our Lives

August 5, 2013 Comments off

endoftheamericandream.com

Trapped - Spider And WebDo you ever feel trapped in an invisible control grid that is slowly but surely closing in all around you?  Do you ever feel like virtually everything that you do is being watched, tracked, monitored and recorded?  If so, unfortunately it is not just your imagination.  Our society is rapidly being transformed into a Big Brother prison grid by a government that is seemingly obsessed with knowing everything that we do.  They want a record of all of our phone calls, all of our Internet activity and all of our financial transactions.  They even want our DNA.  They put chips in our passports, they are starting to scan the eyes of our children in our schools, and they have declared our border areas to be “Constitution-free zones” where they can do just about anything to us that they want.  The Bill of Rights has already been eroded so badly that many would argue that it is already dead.  The assault against our most basic freedoms and liberties never seems to end.  The following are 10 ways that Read more…

Categories: Privacy Tags: ,

94-year-old Billy Graham’s warning for America

August 5, 2013 Comments off

wnd.com

billy-graham

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a seven-part series by veteran journalist Troy Anderson about major evangelists who are turning their attention toward America to help ignite what Billy Graham describes as an end-times “great spiritual awakening.”

By Troy Anderson

“God’s prophet” – famed evangelist Billy Graham – is praying America will experience another “great spiritual awakening.”

International evangelist Reinhard Bonnke – whose ministry records 72 million people responding to the call of salvation in Africa and elsewhere – says God told him the time has come for “a mighty wave of salvation to sweep the USA.”

And Harvest Crusades President Greg Laurie – a Southern California megachurch pastor who became a believer during the legendary Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and 70s – believes America’s “only real hope” is national revival.

At a time when many believe the midnight hour on God’s prophetic clock is fast approaching, major evangelists – Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Bonnke, Laurie, Chuck Smith, Banning Liebscher and others – are turning their attention toward America in the hope of helping ignite an Read more…

Categories: bible, Bible Prophecy Tags: ,

A US Navy With Only 8 Carriers?

August 5, 2013 Comments off

defensenews.com

The aircraft carriers Dwight D. Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush, Enterprise, Harry S. Truman and Abraham Lincoln in Norfolk, Va., in December. Truman, along with the George Washington and John C. Stennis, are likely candidates for decommissioning if the most drastic of Pentagon cutting options is put into place. (US Navy)

WASHINGTON — At first, the statement is shocking. “Reduce the number of carrier strike groups from 11 to 8 or 9, draw down the Marine Corps from 182,000 to between 150,000 and 175,000.”

But those words July 31 from US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel brought into the open some of the behind-the-scenes discussions that have been going on at the Pentagon for months. Senior Defense Department officials continue to stress no decisions have been made out of the Strategic Choices and Management Review (SCMR), but the everything-is-on-the-table nature of the discussions is becoming clearer.

Or is it? Beyond top-line statements, hardly any real details were released, leaving those outside the inner circles to speculate on the immediate and Read more…

Categories: military Tags: , ,

The world water shortage looks unsolvable

August 5, 2013 Comments off

salon.com

The world water shortage looks unsolvable (Credit: Tanawat Pontchour/Shutter)
This article was originally published by Scientific American.

As we have been hearing, global water shortages are poised to exacerbate regional conflict and hobble economic growth. Yet the problem is growing worse, and is threatening to deal devastating blows to health, according to top water officials from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) who spoke before a House panel hearing today.

Ever-rising water demand, and climate change, are expected to boost water problems worldwide, especially in countries that are already experiencing shortages. Globally, the world is on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people unable to reach or afford safe drinking water by 2015, but it still must make strides to improve Read more…

Categories: water, World Events Tags: ,

Free energy breakthrough? Holy grail of water splitting technology now achieved with sunlight, mirrors and seawater

August 3, 2013 1 comment

naturalnews.com

hydrogen

(NaturalNews) A team of scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder, have achieved what appears to be the “holy grail” of water splitting technology for the production and storage of clean, abundant energy. Because sunlight is free, I’m calling this “free energy.”

To understand this breakthrough, it’s important to first understand why solar power has so many limitations. Solar is great when the sun is shining, but storing solar power require the deployment of a large array of heavy, expensive and toxic electrical storage devices known as “deep cycle batteries.” To put it in street terms, deep cycle battery technology sucks. The batteries suck, the chemicals suck, the weight sucks and the cost sucks. There is absolutely nothing to like about batteries unless you enjoy hulking around with heavy, useless objects.

So the “holy grail” of solar power has always been finding a Read more…

Categories: innovation, water Tags:

FBI can remotely activate microphones in Android smartphones, source says

August 3, 2013 Comments off

foxnews.com

The Wall Street Journal

FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

J. Edgar Hoover Building.jpgLaw-enforcement officials in the U.S. are expanding the use of tools routinely used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects, bringing the criminal wiretap into the cyber age.

Federal agencies have largely kept quiet about these capabilities, but court documents and interviews with people involved in the programs provide new details about the hacking tools, including spyware delivered to computers and phones through email or Web links—techniques more commonly associated with attacks by criminals.

‘[The FBI] hires people who have hacking skill, and they purchase tools that are capable of doing these things.’

– a former official in the agency’s cyber division

People familiar with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s programs say that the use of hacking tools under court orders has grown as agents seek to keep up with Read more…

Categories: Big Brother Tags: , , , ,

The Climate Is Set to Change ‘Orders of Magnitude’ Faster Than at Any Other Time in the Past 65 Million Years

August 3, 2013 Comments off

theatlantic.com

Some of the earliest clues scientists had that Earth’s climate has changed over time were mismatches between the fossil record and a current ecosystem. How could this palm tree have grown in Wyoming? Why have fossils of the tropical breadfruit tree been found as far north as Greenland? These cold places must have once been warm and wet. The world is not as it has always been.

And somehow, despite the tumult, species adapted, moving thousands of miles to habitats where they could survive. Won’t species today just do the same as temperatures rise in the years ahead?

It seems they may not have the chance. A new paper in the journal Science finds that Read more…

Categories: Climate Change, Coming Events Tags: ,

More than 1,000 fish killed by Alaska summer heat wave

August 3, 2013 1 comment
Rainbow Trouts [Wikipedia Commons]

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Alaska’s summer heat wave has been pleasant for humans but punitive for some of its fish.

Overheated water has been blamed for large die-offs of hatchery trout and salmon stocks in at least two parts of the state as hot, dry weather has set in, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Hundreds of grayling and rainbow trout died in June after being placed in a Fairbanks lake, the department reported. An unusually cold spring caused lake ice to linger much longer than normal, before the water quickly became too warm, department biologist April Behr said.

Surface temperatures in the lake rose to about 76 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius), she said. The precise number of dead fish was not yet known. “We picked up several hundred,” she said.

A similar incident occurred in Read more…

Categories: Alaska Tags: , , ,

NSA Whistleblowers: NSA Collects ‘Word for Word’ Every Domestic Communication

August 3, 2013 2 comments

washingtonsblog.com

Anyone Who Says the Government Only Spies On Metadata Is Sadly Mistaken

PBS interviewed NSA whistleblowers William Binney and Russell Tice this week.

Binney is the NSA’s former director of global digital data, and a 32-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency.  Tice helped the NSA spy with satellites.

Binney and Tice confirmed that the NSA is recording every word of every phone call made within the United States:

[PBS INTERVIEWER] JUDY WOODRUFF:   Both Binney and Tice suspect that today, the NSA is doing more than just collecting metadata on calls made in the U.S. They both point to this CNN interview by former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente days after the Boston Marathon bombing. Clemente was asked if the government had a way to get the Read more…

Categories: Big Brother, Privacy Tags: , , ,