Chicago, Houston, consider cameras in private homes

"George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984 opens with a surveillance helicopter chopping its blades menacingly through London, peeking inside apartment buildings. The protagonist, a conscience-stricken state worker with no way to blow the whistle, goes home to a "telescreen" watching and reporting his every word, move and even mood."

"The totalitarian state apparatus of Orwell's bleak vision was patterned after the world's Communist parties. But many of today's 21st-century Democrat and Republican politicians see no problem with the kind of permanent police dragnet envisioned in the novel."

"While Orwell's homeland of the United Kingdom is still the most-surveilled on Earth, recent actions by two big-city mayors will help the United States in the race to capture this dubious honor."

UK - Terrorism Act comes into force

"The government's controversial Terrorism Act comes into force today, outlawing the glorification of terrorism and paving the way for the detention of terror suspects for 28 days without charge."

"The bill, introduced in response to the July 7 bombings, was opposed by both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, and saw Tony Blair's first Commons defeat since coming to power, when Labour rebels overturned a government clause allowing 90 days detention."

"The act creates new offences of undertaking terrorism training, preparation of or planning a terrorist act and disseminating terrorist publications."

ISP snooping gaining support

"The explosive idea of forcing Internet providers to record their customers' online activities for future police access is gaining ground in state capitols and in Washington, D.C."

"Top Bush administration officials have endorsed the concept, and some members of the U.S. Congress have said federal legislation is needed to aid law enforcement investigations into child pornography. A bill is already pending in the Colorado State Senate."

"Mandatory data retention requirements worry privacy advocates because they permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity that normally would have been discarded after a few months. And some proposals would require providers to retain data that ordinarily never would have been kept at all."

America's war on the web

"While the US remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers and even through mobile phones. Investigations editor Neil Mackay reports."


"Imagine a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer, phone, radio or TV at will.

"In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The Information Operations Roadmap (pdf), commissioned and approved by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald."

(alternative link)

Free Talk Live radio

"Free Talk Live is talk radio unlike any other. In an industry where shows are either pro-republican or pro-democrat, Free Talk Live is unabashedly pro-FREEDOM."

"Another hallmark of typical talk radio is heavy call screening. Certain hosts are afraid of certain issues. Free Talk Live is not. We call the show Free Talk Live because listeners are Free to call in and Talk about anything from the political to the personal. We're also Live 6 days per week."

"Free Talk Live is an open forum. If you don't like the topics or would like to hear others, it's on YOU to call."

"Check out some of the archives on the FTL Main Page to get an idea of what this all means."

Shows available through dialup and broadband streams, local U.S. radio stations, and podcast downloads.

The Rise of Fascism in America

"Since the 1970’s, American businesses have grown larger and more monopolistic, helped along by deregulation, the repeal of anti-trust laws, and a steady transformation from manufacturing to capital management (dare I say, "capital manipulation"?). As Paul Bigioni puts it in his excellent essay entitled "The Real Threat of Fascism": "If we are to protect ourselves from the growing political influence of Big Business, then our antitrust laws must be reconceived in a way which recognizes the political danger of monopolistic conditions."

"Bigioni continues by emphasizing that “Antitrust laws do not just protect the marketplace, they protect democracy.” It is well to remember that conditions like these led to fascism in both Germany and Italy in the 1930’s, and Bigioni points out that the transformation toward fascism occurred in both countries while they were still liberal democracies. In America, since at least 1971, the rich have gotten much, much richer and the poor have become poorer and far more numerous, largely because our government now sees its primary function as serving the interests of Big Business and its Big Money."

The Century of the Self

Part 1 (rv)

Happiness Machines

"Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?"

"Freud provided useful tools for understanding the secret desires of the masses. Unwittingly, his work served as the precursor to a world full of political spin doctors, marketing moguls, and society's belief that the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness is man's ultimate goal."

Part 2 (wmv)

The Engineering of Consent

"Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise - that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had led to the barbarism of Nazi Germany."

"Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna, and his nephew, Edward Bernays, provided the centrepiece philosophy. The US government, big business, and the CIA used their ideas to develop techniques to manage and control the minds of the American people."

Part 3 (wmv)

The Me Generation

"American corporations realised that self was not a threat but their greatest opportunity. It was in their interest to encourage people to feel they were unique individuals and then sell them ways to express that individuality. To do this they turned to techniques developed by Freudian psychoanalysts to read the inner desires of the new self."

Part 4 (wmv)

Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

"This episode explains how politicians on the left, in both Britain and America, turned to the techniques developed by business to read and fulfil the inner desires of the self."

"Both New Labour, under Tony Blair, and the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group, which had been invented by psychoanalysts, in order to regain power. They set out to mould their policies to people's inner desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learnt to do with products."

"The politicians believed they were creating a new and better form of democracy, one that truly responded to the inner feelings of individual. But what they didn't realise was that the aim of those who had originally created these techniques had not been to liberate the people but to develop a new way of controlling them."

AT&T asks judge to order documents alleging wiretaps returned

"Attorneys for AT&T have asked a federal judge to order a San Francisco civil liberties group to return ``highly confidential'' documents that allegedly show that the telecommunications giant provided detailed records of millions of its customers to a government intelligence agency."

"In documents filed on Monday, AT&T's attorneys also asked Judge Vaughn Walker to order the Electronic Frontier Foundation to refrain from referencing the documents in its lawsuit."

"The EFF filed a lawsuit against AT&T in January alleging that AT&T had collaborated with the National Security Agency in a ``massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.''"

"Last week, the group filed additional documents to the federal court in San Francisco totaling more than 140 pages. The documents purportedly provide evidence of the technology that AT&T had used to conduct surveillance for the NSA."

"The documents, which included a sworn declaration from retired AT&T technician Mark Klein and confidential company documents, were voluntarily placed under seal by the group pending a decision by the judge to make them public."

The Al Qaeda Myth

"We now know that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with the London bombings in July 2005. This is the conclusion of the British government's official inquiry report leaked to the British press on April 9."

"We now also know that the U.S. military is deliberately misleading Iraqis, Americans and the rest of the world about the extent of Al Qaeda's involvement in the Iraqi insurgency. This was reported in The Washington Post on April 10, on the basis of internal military documents seen by that newspaper."

"What do these revelations tell us about the arguments of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Blair that in Al Qaeda the "Free World" faces a threat comparable to that of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, a world-wide terrorist network which seeks to build a radical Islamist empire over half the world?"

"That they are threadbare, to say the least. But also that they are cynical, misleading and self serving."

"The London bombings, it turns out, were the work of four alienated British Muslims, with no links to "international terrorist networks", who had learned how to make bombs by trawling the Internet. They had been radicalized and motivated, according to the report, by British foreign policies in the Muslim world—a view Tony Blair has consistently sought to undermine and discredit."

"The role of the alleged "Al Qaeda mastermind in Iraq," Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, we are now told, was cynically misrepresented and exaggerated by the U.S. military's propaganda units in an effort to discredit and divide the Iraqi insurgency and to provide a retrospective justification for the Iraq war by suggesting a link between Iraq and 9/11."

The revolt against Donald Rumsfeld

"It's an odd thought, but a military coup in this country right now would probably have a moderating influence. Not that an actual coup is pending; still less is one desirable. But we are witnessing the rumblings of an officers' revolt, and things could get ugly if it were to take hold and roar."

"The revolt is a reluctant one, aimed specifically at the personage of Donald Rumsfeld and the way he is conducting the war in Iraq."

"It is startling to hear, in private conversations, how widely and deeply the U.S. officer corps despises this secretary of defense. The joke in some Pentagon circles is that if Rumsfeld were meeting with the service chiefs and commanders and a group of terrorists barged into the room and kidnapped him, not a single general would lift a finger to help him."

CNN is Committing Treason

"It is no exaggeration to describe George Bush as America's enemy. He and his cohorts stand foursquare against every principle America is proud of, from 'open, honest government' to 'freedom of speech', from 'innocent until proven guilty' to 'liberty and justice for all'. American troops are at war in two nations without any sane reason, and the Bush-Cheney administration is leading the nation toward a third war..."

"And the news is nowhere to be found at CNN. It is obvious that CNN and other American news media have betrayed any trust Americans' once had for journalism."

"If you have the time and internet savvy to seek out alternative and foreign news sources, then you know that America is in grave peril. We have a President who has never told Americans the truth about anything, who has exercised abysmal judgment about remarkably important matters, who breaks the law with impunity and announces it plainly and often. The Bush-Cheney administration has committed dozens of impeachable offenses, but it's impeach-proof, because Bush's Republican Party controls Congress, and allows no oversight of the White House."

"But if you don't have the time or don't know where to look beyond bland American mainstream news, chances are you don't know much of the above."

A Culture of Corruption - by Bill Moyers

"Money is choking our democracy to death. Our elections are bought out from under us and our public officials are doing the bidding of mercenaries. So powerful is the hold of wealth on politics that we cannot say America is working for all Americans. The majority may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government "of, by, and for the people" to deliver on those aspirations."

"Our system of privately financed campaigns has shut regular people out of any meaningful participation in democracy. Less than one-half of one percent of all Americans made a political contribution of $200 or more to a federal candidate in 2004. When the average cost of winning a seat in the House of Representatives has topped $1 million, we can no longer refer to that chamber as "The People's House." Congress belongs to the highest bidder."

"At the same time that the cost of getting elected is exploding beyond the reach of ordinary people, the business of influencing our elected representatives has become a growth industry. Since President Bush was elected the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled. That's 16,342 lobbyists in 2000 and 34,785 last year: 65 lobbyists for every member of Congress. The total spent per month by special interests wining, dining, and seducing federal officials is now nearly $200 million. Per month."

AT&T forwards all Internet traffic into NSA

"The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston.

"More than just threatening individuals' privacy, AT&T's apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans' Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now," said Bankston.

Hey! Anyone still out there?

Sorry folks, I've had some medical problems that have kept me from posting all this time. I'm still too weak to make my normal kinds of posts, but I'm getting stronger and should be back to normal soon. In the mean time, I'll post stories that are of interest to me, just without my comments.

I probably would've tried to post this message earlier, but an interesting thing took place just prior to my disappearance. Begining with my encounter with militarys' propaganda machine, damn near every single reader I'd built up, ran away. Why, I don't know. I guess many didn't want to be associated with a "determined dissenter". Whatever.

Anyway, just wanted to let anyone who still checks in, to know I haven't been "renditioned" to Algeria or some place, for re-education. I can't wait to get back to my old self. I've missed out on a lot, since a lot's happened. I've saved a few stories that aren't time-sensitive, so I'll post some of those first (unfortunately, without comment).

Be back soon!