Like countless resurrections of Freddy Krueger, it appears that John Poindexter’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) program has found a new, more accommodating home for its “mission” of “keeping America safe”–from the Constitution–at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA).

According to McClatchy investigative journalist Warren Strobel,

IARPA … is the U.S. intelligence community’s counterpart to DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has been in business for more than 35 years and is meant to be a small, flexible R&D agency that funds high-risk, but potentially high-payoff technologies. (”What’s IARPA?”, McClatchy Washington Bureau, June 30, 2008)

IARPA has been organized under the auspices of Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Mike McConnell, a former executive vice-president with spooky mega-contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. As Tim Shorrock reported in March,

As Booz Allen’s chief intelligence liaison to the Pentagon, McConnell was at the center of action, both before and after the September 11 attacks. During the first six years of the Bush administration, Booz Allen’s contracts with the U.S. government rose dramatically, from $626,000 in 2000 to $1.6 billion in 2006. McConnell and his staff at Booz Allen were deeply involved in some of the Bush administration’s most controversial counterterrorism programs. They included the Pentagon’s infamous Total Information Awareness data-mining scheme run by former Navy Admiral John Poindexter, which was an attempt to collect information on potential terrorists in America from phone records, credit card receipts and other databases. (Congress cancelled the program over civil liberties concerns, but much of the work was transferred to the NSA, where Booz Allen continued to receive the contracts.) (”Carlyle Group May Buy Major CIA Contractor: Booz Allen Hamilton, CorpWatch, March 8, 2008)

According to the agency’s website, IARPA’s brief is centered on three program areas:Smart Collection, “The goal of the programs in this office is to dramatically improve the value of collected data from all sources.”

Incisive Analysis, “The goal of the programs in this office is to maximize insight from the information we collect, in a timely fashion.”

Safe & Secure Operations, “The goal of the programs in this office is to be able to counter new capabilities implemented by our adversaries that would threaten our ability to operate freely and effectively in a networked world.”

There’s no argument that preventing sociopaths–state-sponsored or otherwise–using malware to cause the meltdown of a nuclear power plant’s uranium core or the sudden release of methyl isocyanate into the atmosphere should be a priority of any sane government. Certainly such laudatory goals would be optimized by writing better programs rather than through intrusive data-mining ops carried out by the state’s outsourced and well-paid private “partners.”

Unfortunately, we aren’t dealing with a sane government here in the United States. According to Virtual Worlds News, one IARPA program seeks to “mine” information from virtual worlds and online gaming sites for its potential to “model” terrorist activity.

Reynard, a data-mining project from Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), is an exploratory effort to monitor activity in virtual worlds and online games and then model what terrorist activity in those worlds would look like. The Director of National Intelligence recently released a Congressionally mandated report on various data-mining projects of which Reynard is just one. While it’s just an early effort right now, “If it shows early promise, this small seedling effort may increase its scope to a full project.”

Data-mining is defined as “a program involving pattern-based queries, searches or other analyses of 1 or more electronic databases” in order to “discover or locate a predictive pattern of anomaly indicative of terrorist or criminal activity….” and will now be ongoing “in a public virtual world environment. The research will use publicly available data and begin with observational studies to establish baseline behaviors.”

No word on what world that will be in, but we already know that the CIA has a presence in Second Life and that IARPA has investigated Linden Lab’s world as well. (”U.S. Project Reynard Mines Data Looking for Virtual Spies,” Virtual Worlds News, February 25, 2008)

One can only wonder what IARPA will do once “baseline behaviors” are mapped! But apparently there’s no need to fret since “the government understands that ‘applications of results from these research projects may ultimately have implications for privacy and civil liberties,’ so ‘IARPA is also investing in projects that develop privacy protecting technologies,’” Secrecy News reports.

We bet they are! But as Strobel points out, “IARPA’s ancestry is a wee bit interesting”:

In the beginning, there was Total Information Awareness, a DARPA information-gathering program run by noneother than former Iran-Contra figure and Reagan national security adviser John Poindexter. Critics saw the program as a major, post-9/11 intrusion on American’s privacy and civil liberties, and Congress killed funding for it in 2003. But there were persistent reports–confirmed by yours truly in conversations with former U.S. intelligence officials–that portions of the Total Information Awareness research had simply been shunted off to other agencies.

As readers undoubtedly recall, Total Information Awareness (TIA) was “terminated” by Congress when it learned that Poindexter was setting up a program that would sift through “public databases storing credit card purchases, rental agreements, medical histories, e-mails, airline reservations, and phone calls for electronic ‘footprints’ that might indicate a terrorist plot in the making,” according to Shorrock’s excellent read, Spies for Hire.

And to whom did DARPA turn to manage TIA? Why none other than Booz Allen Hamilton, of course! Joining SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), Booz Allen “won” some $63 million in contracts to run Poindexter’s pet project. While the program–and contracts–were allegedly cancelled, portions of TIA had simply been spun-off to other agencies including the FBI and NSA.

Where else did TIA migrate? It turns out, many of its data-mining projects, including the Scalable Social Network Analysis (SSNA) operation, which seeks to model networks of connections like social interactions, financial transactions, telephone calls, and organizational memberships into a coherent analytical tool, were “assimilated” by the Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), managed by NSA.

Strobel reports that “ARDA was later renamed, given the ominous-sounding moniker, Disruptive Technology Office.” And now ARDA and DTO along with a “new and improved” TIA, have apparently been folded into IAPRA.

Which just goes to show, you can’t kill off that which the state decrees is necessary for “your protection.” As Wired’s Ryan Singel advises online gaming enthusiasts, you’d better “be careful who you frag”!

1. SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL

1.1 The Times: Brussels to sign away your private details to US; The Mail: US to get access to your personal files - bank details, visited websites, salaries…

Summary: An internal report leaked to The New York Times yesterday said the EU was on the verge of agreeing to give US law enforcement and security agencies information about all EU citizens. Negotiators are trying to agree on minimum standards to protect privacy rights. This would include limiting access to information to “authorised individuals with an identified purpose” for their search. The internal report said negotiators had largely agreed on an “international binding agreement”. The pact would make it clear that it was lawful for European governments and companies such as internet and credit card firms to transfer private information to the United States and vice versa.

One source at the department said that as a result of the deal, the U.S. was likely to ask for full details on everyone visiting from Europe. This will include all visitors’ financial details - their bank statements, salaries, who they write cheques to and receive money from and what they buy with credit cards - and what internet sites they visit on their home computers. The information involved is already available on the massive computerised databases kept by private companies that closely monitor each individual’s credit rating for the financial industry and by the major computer search engines that are used to browse the Internet.

This will result in a flood of information crossing the Atlantic but the American intelligence agencies can handle it with super-computers that are programmed to pick out only those reports that contain what the U.S. considers to be suspicious activity.

1.2 via Rinf.com: UK government fined for violation of right to privacy

It’s interesting that the EU could simultaneously sign away our personal information to the States and bother to find the UK guilty of something that surely will be openly available to the DHS after this agreement is signed. I guess the EU is a mass of this kind of contradictions.

THE EUROPEAN Court of Human Rights has ordered the British government to pay €7,500 in costs and expenses to the UK human rights organisation Liberty for violating its right to privacy by intercepting its telecommunications.

Liberty took the case along with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and British-Irish Rights Watch over the interception of telephone, fax, e-mail and data between these organisations over a seven-year period, from 1991 to 1997.

The UK government, while refusing to disclose specifics, acknowledged these communications were likely to have been intercepted and stored en masse by an electronic test facility operated by the British ministry of defence.

It defended the interception on the grounds that, while the surveillance did violate the applicants’ right to privacy, this was necessary in the interests of national security, for the prevention of serious crime and to safeguard the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom. It argued that there was a system of safeguards in place to ensure that people’s communications were not unnecessarily intercepted, and that appropriate procedures were followed.
Liberty argued that the “safeguards” that surrounded the interception were not accessible and not known to the public, so that people could not foresee the extent to which their privacy was being violated.

1.3 via Rinf.com: Groups Sue U.S. for Data On Tracking By Cellphone

An article in The Washington Post last fall revealed that federal officials were routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data on individuals and that courts sometimes have ordered the data released without first requiring a showing of probable cause.

Now the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the government in federal court in Washington under the Freedom of Information Act. Last November, the ACLU had filed a FOIA request with the Justice Department for documents, memos and guides regarding the policies for tracking people through the use of their cellphones.

The groups also want to know how many times the government sought location information without first establishing probable cause that a crime was taking place.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment on the suit. But with respect to cell-tracking data in general, he said, “It is important to remember that the courts determine whether or not cell-site data or more precise cell location data can be turned over to law enforcement in a particular case.”

2. WAR

2.1 via SpinWatch: The Privileged Prisoner of Black Beach

This article has some information on mercenary Simon Mann, who has admitted to being involved in a 2004 plot to overthrow the Equatorial Guinea government along with Margaret Thatcher’s son, Mark Thatcher. In the early nineties he set up Executive Outcomes, that made millions protecting oil installations from rebels in Angola. He then set up another company, Sandline International, which shipped arms to Sierra Leone in flagrant contravention of a UN embargo. The plotters actually set up a trading company after the Equatorial Guinea coup, called the Bight of Benin Company (BBC).The company would have controlled the country’s economy, its oil reserves, army and police, as a “private fiefdom”, modeled on the British colonial company the East India Company.

2.2 via DeepJournal: Casus Belli: The Ultimate Spin

In an article released last weekend by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker Magazine, we learned the White House has met, considered and is probably working to fabricate a situation that could be used by the United States as a pretext for attacking Iran. In this piece Sam Gardiner suggests that Special Operations teams now in Iran could act as provocateurs, attacking a target high-profile enough to obtain a response that could be used as a cause for war. He also suggests another ‘threatening maneuver’ by Iranian speedboats in the Gulf could do the trick.

2.3 via Cryptogon via IHT: China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo

… the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base atGuantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

3. ECONOMY

3.1 via Calculated Risk: What we can do in this dangerous moment

Lawrence Summers writes in the Financial Times that we are now at the most dangerous moment since the American financial crisis began last August. His remedies seem singularly unlikely to work, or happen.

3.2 via Reuters: Factories hit worldwide as commodity prices soar

3.3 via Ben Seymour: In The Middle Of A Whirlwind

Long piece on the Food / Energy / Work crisis.

Via Homeland Stupidity, the US is using organisations responsible for issuing driving licenses to create the massively expensive, cross-state, “Real ID” card.

2.1 Staged Terror Attacks In Iraq

According to Andrew Marshall, the allied forces’ Task Force Black has been caught a few times detonating vehicles while posing as Iraqis. This is part of a continuing divide-and-rule strategy. Particularly interesting is that they appear to be shipping the cars in from the States, where they’ve been stolen. According to the Sydney Morning Herald:

“The FBI’s counterterrorism unit has launched a broad investigation of US-based theft rings after discovering some vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq, including attacks that killed US troops and Iraqi civilians, were probably stolen in the United States, according to senior US Government officials.” Further, “The inquiry began after coalition troops raided a Falluja bomb factory last November and found a Texas-registered four-wheel-drive being prepared for a bombing mission. Investigators said there were several other cases where vehicles evidently stolen in the US wound up in Syria or other Middle Eastern countries and ultimately in the hands of Iraqi insurgent groups, including al-Qaeda in Iraq.”

2.2. Staged ‘violent protests’ in the UK

[this piece comes via InfoWars. It does seem to be reliable, with multiple corroborations from various sources. Added to this, it’s been known for a long time that the State deploys provocateurs at protest events. The question if provocateurs were used in Genova was a VERY hot potato as I recall.]

‘Anti-war MP George Galloway has accused London Metropolitan Police of engaging in “a deliberate conspiracy to bring about scenes of violent disorder” during President George W. Bush’s visit to the UK last week. Galloway has written a letter to the Home Secretary in which he names a senior police officer thought to have been operating as an undercover “agent provocateur”…

I can now confirm that this man was Chris Dreyfus, an inspector in the police.

This man, to my direct knowledge, committed four criminal offences during the 30 minutes or so he stood next to me. First, he repeatedly chanted the arcane, antiquated Americana, “Kill the pigs!” This is a clear incitement to violence, indeed murder. If a Muslim demonstrator had been chanting it, say, outside the Danish Embassy, he would likely now be in prison. Secondly, he repeatedly (crushing me in the process) attempted to charge the crush barriers and the police line behind them. Thirdly, he repeatedly exhorted others so to do. Fourthly, he instructed a young demonstrator on the correct way to uncouple a crush barrier, which was successfully achieved and was subsequently thrown at the police, and was presumably one of the justifications for the deployment of a riot squad which eventually waded in to the protesters.

Home Secretary, there can hardly a more grave indictment of the conduct of the police force in a democratic country than this. People in the labour movement have often mythologised the state’s use of agents provocateurs throughout my 40 years experience and no doubt long before. But, to my recollection, we have never caught one red-handed before.’

3.1 Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve’s credibility crumbles

This article comes with an Ambrose warning.

“Barclays Capital has advised clients to batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm, warning that the US Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle and let its credibility fall “below zero”.

“We’re in a nasty environment,” said Tim Bond, the bank’s chief equity strategist. “There is an inflation shock underway. This is going to be very negative for financial assets. We are going into tortoise mood and are retreating into our shell. Investors will do well if they can preserve their wealth.”

Mr Bond said the emerging world is now on the cusp of a serious crisis. “Inflation is out of control in Asia. Vietnam has already blown up. The policy response is to shoot the messenger, like the developed central banks in the late 1960s and 1970s,” he said.

“They will have to slam on the brakes. There is going to be a deep global recession over the next three years as policy-makers try to get inflation back in the box.”"

3.2 Echoes of Great Depression as Dow takes another dive

[in The Times.]

“The Dow Jones dived a further 350 points yesterday, giving America’s key economic benchmark its worst June performance since the Great Depression, as oil hit a record and analysts said that the fallout from the credit crunch was far from over.”

4. U.K. to Begin Microchipping Prisoners

I need to investigate at what stage this plan is, in fact. This article from Natural News is obviously inconsistent, beginning with a title suggesting this is imminent, to a paragraph suggesting it’s being ‘explored’. Either way, worth reading.

“The British government is developing a plan to track current and former prisoners by means of microchips implanted under the skin, drawing intense criticism from probation officers and civil rights groups.

The Ministry of Justice is exploring the possibility of injecting prisoners in the back of the arm with a radio frequency identification ( RFID) chip that contains information about their name, address and criminal record. Such chips, which contain a built-in antenna, could be scanned by special readers. The implantation of RFID chips in luggage, pets and livestock has become increasingly popular in recent years.

In addition to monitoring incarcerated prisoners, the ministry hopes to use the chips on those who are on probation or other conditional release. By including a satellite uplink system in the chip, police would be able to use global positioning system (GPS) technology to track subjects’ exact locations at all times.”

5. Allotments thefts rise as credit crisis causes vegetable crimewave

[UK]

‘Allan Rees, chairman of the National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardening, is concerned the problem could get worse as the economic outlook worsens.

“Families are getting poorer and this is one way of putting food on the table,” he said. “I believe they are being sold on. Thieves stole potatoes from my own plot and put the stalks back in place so it was two or three days before I noticed.”‘

1. Monbiot on Prison Population

[’Mind Forged Manacles’, in The Guardian, via Rinf.com]

On Friday, the government released new figures for the prison population(2). It broke all records, yet again. It has risen by 38% since Labour came to power(3), and now stands at 83,181. What does the government intend to do about it? Lock more people up. It is building enough new cells to jail 96,000 people by 2014(4). At the beginning of this month it laid out its plans for Titan prisons: vast broiler units, which will each house 2,500 people(5). But they’ll be only just big enough: the government expects the number of cons to rise to 95,600 in six years(6).

As ever, Britain appears to be chasing the United States. In both absolute and relative terms, the USA’s prison population is the highest on earth: one percent of its adult population is behind bars(7). This is five times our preposterous rate and six times Turkey’s(8). It is over twice the rate of the nearest contender, South Africa(9). If you count the people under community supervision or on probation, the total rises to over 7 million, or 3.1% of the adult population(10). Black men who failed to complete high school in the US have a 60% chance of ending up in jail(11). I feel I need to say that again: 60% of unqualified black men go to prison. It’s beginning to look as if the state has stopped imprisoning individuals and started locking up a social class. Is this what we aspire to?

2. Free Markets Can No Longer Be Trusted

(Ambrose Evans Pritchard, EU-wide ’super regulator’ poses threat to City of London, in The Telegraph.)

The last time we heard this kind of language was in the Great Depression, or Nazi Germany. Take your pick: markets have run out of control and there will be political consquences that will be no more pleasant, and probably less so, for most of us.

“A top cast of European statesmen has issued a blistering denunciation of financial markets and called for a creation of a pan-EU body to protect the citizens against the “social risk” posed by modern capitalism.

“The financial world has accumulated a massive amount of fictitious capital, with very little improvement for humanity,” said the group in an open letter to the European Commission and the EU presidency.

Free markets cannot ignore social morals. Decent capitalism needs effective public policy. But when everything is for sale, social cohesion melts and the system breaks down,” it said.”

3. ‘I’ve got bad intentions’

[ on Global Research.]

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to have 500 “behavior detection officers” (BDOs) in airports by the end of this year. The job of the BDOs will be that of examining passengers for “body language and facial cues … for signs of bad intentions.’ They look for what the experts call “micro-expressions.’ Fear and disgust are the key ones, he said, because they’re associated with deception. That would make me a prime candidate for scrutiny and possibly trouble because if I ever had to go through airport security procedures, I would have those “micro-expressions” of disgust and fear of arrest.

McClatchy Newspapers reported in an article, “New airport agents check for danger in fliers’ facial expressions,’ (August 2007) that Jay Cohen, undersecretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology, “wants to automate passenger screening by using videocams and computers to measure and analyze heart rate, respiration, body temperature and verbal responses as well as facial micro-expressions.’

4.1 ‘Intelligent’ CCTV cameras

(via The Scotsman)

In fact there already cameras that “listen” in West London, but the article doesn’t mention that. Perhaps they didn’t know.

‘”INTELLIGENT” CCTV cameras are being developed in the UK which will be able not only to see trouble but to hear it.
The technology allows the sounds of breaking glass, shouting, or the noise of a crowd gathering to be “learned” by software in the cameras.

The three-year project by the University of Portsmouth aims to adapt artificial-intelligence software already being developed to identify visual patterns. ”

4.2 ‘ New intelligent CCTV cameras can see and hear‘

This article from The Telegraph has more detail. You have to love the paragaph: ‘Although the new system will inevitably raise concerns about the unstoppable march of the “surveillance state”, with one CCTV camera for every 14 people in the UK, Dr Brown said there were no plans for the system to record conversations.’

A team at the University of Portsmouth has already developed software which enables cameras to spot visual clues to anything from violent crime to vandalism, by looking for tell-tale signs such as someone raising their arm suddenly or even a snapped car aerial.

Now the artificial intelligence software is being taught to recognise sounds which are associated with crimes, including breaking glass, shouted obscenities and car alarms going off. Cameras which ‘hear’ the sounds will automatically swivel to the direction they have come from, and will alert the person monitoring the system to a possible crime in progress.”

5. Online ID has big backing

…. but a shambolic website. Here it is. [Via the NYT.]

” Microsoft, Google and PayPal, a unit of eBay, are among the founders of an industry organization that hopes to solve the problem of password overload among computer users.

The Information Card Foundation is an effort to create a single industrywide approach to managing identity online that promises to reduce drastically the use of passwords and create a system that is less vulnerable to fraud.

The idea is to bring the concept of an identity card, like a driver’s license, to the online world. Rather than logging on to sites with user IDs and passwords, people will gain access to sites using a secure digital identity that is overseen by a third party.”

6. Hacked Oysters

Via Wired, a pleasant reminder that whatever systems are designed by those in the business of managing population information, they will eventually be hacked. Perhaps the speed with which this particularly insidious tracking technology has been fallen will chill innovation in the area. Or perhaps Oyster will be, in a decade, as much a relic of our surveillance State as the Stasi’s millions of unread documents.

“Dutch security researchers rode the London Underground free for a day after easily using an ordinary laptop to clone the “smartcards” commuters use to pay fares, a hack that highlights a serious security flaw because similar cards provide access to thousands of government offices, hospitals and schools.”

1. Next Stop, Crash

[in The Guardian, UK]

“The fact is we are no longer in a downturn, we are hurtling into a crash…

Yesterday, Savills warned that prices in London might fall 25% in the next 18 months; and that would reverberate across the country.

No one in their right mind would buy a house now, unless they are forced to. Why pay £100,000 for a home when it will be £10,000, or maybe £20,000 less within the year? If the Bank of England raises interest rates again to contain inflation, it might be worth even less.

New build construction is down 60%, the lowest since the war, and housebuilders are mothballing half-built homes. Mortgages are fast becoming like truffles - hard to find and very expensive.

Savills reckons the market has moved from a credit squeeze, to a credit crunch, and is now a credit crisis.”

2. Mortgagees Destroying Their Homes [YouTube]

[ via Calculated Risk]

People in the States are ruining homes that have been foreclosed on. I’ve observed before that discipline and property go hand in hand. Once something’s not “theirs” — though it never was in fact — destruction is an open option.

3. UK Households face 40% fuel bill rise 

This is going to hurt, because bills are already excruciatingly high in the UK. If we get a cold winter this year, people are going to die because of this.

“Dr Paul Golby, the chief executive of E.ON UK, told the Commons business and enterprise committee: “We are facing a seismic shift in commodity prices. Oil, gas and coal prices had risen by 60% over the last four months. It is not difficult to see the pressure is upwards.”

The average dual fuel bill, covering gas and electricity, has risen to almost £1,050, according to consumer watchdog Energy Watch, up 15% already this year. However, there has been speculation that bills might have to rise by another 40% to cover increases in wholesale prices since the last price rises.”

Compare this to Germany, where my rental contract comes “warm”, that is with heating included.

4. Iraqis “owe” the US 100 year contracts on their oil

Last week, the New York Times reported that four Western oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, and BP — are in the final stages of negotiating no-bid oil contracts “to service Iraq’s largest fields.” These contracts would run for one to two years, and give the oil companies a “foothold” in bidding on future contracts.

5. Greenspan: Economy on brink of recession

Is that the sound of the fat lady singing?

“There are still very considerable structural problems remaining in the financial system. They will remain for a while. It’s going to be very difficult. There are a lot of unexpected adverse events out in front of us,” Greenspan said.

“The problem that you have here is that … significant pressures are coming from oil and food, but they are none the less real,” he said. “The price increases are real and unless the central bank leans against them … you will get a highly unstable inflation environment.”

 6. Jack Bauer, You Have So Much To Answer For 

A new poll of citizens’ attitudes about torture in 19 nations finds Americans among the most accepting of the practice. Although a slight majority say torture should be universally prohibited, 44 percent think torture of terrorist suspects should be allowed, and more than one in 10 think torture should generally be allowed. Anyone who thinks this is NOT to do with Fox’s “24″ show can go to the back of the class.

Please read back to LTG #5 for more on food and how close to a crisis we are, one that will touch ordinary people. Then read this and realise that it’s already happening.

“About 3,000 people turned out for the assistance beginning at 3 a.m. Monday, creating a line that stretched several blocks around the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center at 1220 W. Vliet St. At least one woman said she was trampled when a crowd rushed the doors as they opened around 7:30 a.m., and dozens of Milwaukee police officers and sheriff’s deputies were called to quell the scene.

“The food crisis in Milwaukee and throughout the United States is worse than many of us have realized,” said Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines, who with other elected officials called on the community to support local food pantries.” ”

2. Your Cellphone As Mobile Bug

‘Back in the day’ us No Globals used to take our batteries out of phones at meetings to prevent this kind of snooping. But to be honest I always thought the premise was a bit thin. This journalist is rather well thought of though.

“The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone’s microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a “roving bug,” and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.”

3. The TV that stares back

The same place I found the link above also had this (rather thinner, but worth considering) piece on ComCast’s surveillance aspirations.

“Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room. ”

4. Mortgages Are Not The Only Loans

“We are not finished with the mortgage problem, but you are starting to see increased delinquencies in other forms of consumer debt,” said Paul Kasriel, an economist at Northern Trust Securities. “We are in the eye of the hurricane. We had the first wave of the credit crisis, and it was quite damaging. But there’s another wave coming, and it’s likely to be as destructive.”

6. US Government Requires eBay, Amazon, Google, and All Credit Card Companies to Report Transactions to the Government

“Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd’s 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America’s small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill’s managers without debate this week, would require the nation’s payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.”

In a statement released Tuesday, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, wrote:

…how did it come about that American military personnel stripped detainees naked, put them in stress positions, used dogs to scare them, put leashes around their necks to humiliate them, hooded them, deprived them of sleep, and blasted music at them. Were these actions the result of “a few bad apples” acting on their own? It would be a lot easier to accept if it were. But that’s not the case. The truth is that senior officials in the United States government sought information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. (”The Origins of Aggressive Interrogation Techniques,” Carl Levin, United States Senator, June 17, 2008)

As I wrote in April, those who committed these unspeakable atrocities “were acting out scenes from a CIA ‘masterwork’ composed decades earlier: KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation.”

The July 1963 CIA torture manual describes a fear-cloaked shadow world of hooding, isolation, sensory deprivation, drugging, sexual humiliation and other unseemly interrogation techniques, many of which were “perfected” by “outsourced” psychiatrists on their patients during the 1950s and 1960s during the Agency’s criminal MKULTRA “mind-control” experiments.

Fast-forward 50 years, and the fruit of these Nazi-like experiments in psychological torment are all-too-discernible in the hollowed-out eyes and shattered minds of America’s “war on terror” prisoners. As former Pentagon lawyer Richard Shiffrin told The New York Times, the Rumsfeld’s Defense Department turned to SERE out of “great frustration” at the nature of the intelligence obtained from prisoners through lawful means.

As Salon investigative journalist Mark Benjamin, a reporter who broke many stories on the reverse-engineering of SERE tactics as a torture tool, writes,

But as more and more documents from inside the Bush government come to light, it is increasingly clear that the administration sought from early on to implement interrogation techniques whose basis was torture. Soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon and the CIA began an orchestrated effort to tap expertise from the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape school, for use in the interrogation of terrorist suspects. …

SERE training has nothing to do with effective interrogation, according to military experts. Trained interrogators don’t work in the program. Skilled, experienced interrogators, in fact, say that only a fool would think that the training could somehow be reverse-engineered into effective interrogation techniques.

But that’s exactly what the Bush government sought to do. As the plan rolled forward, military and law enforcement officials consistently sent up red flags that the SERE-based interrogation program wasn’t just wrongheaded, it was probably illegal. (”A Timeline to Bush Government Torture,” Salon, June 18, 2008)

What were the results obtained by Shiffrin and others into the efficacy of reverse-engineered SERE tactics? “It was real ‘Manchurian Candidate’ stuff,” Shiffrin told the Times.

Introduction

Billions of people are struggling to afford food because of the huge disparities and inequalities that have been exacerbated by the current economic system — neo-liberal globalization. Over the last 30 years, almost all states across the world have adopted neo-liberal economic policies.

These policies have favored giant corporations’ interests over those of people and have enabled a handful of companies to gain a virtual monopoly over the human food chain. The poor, however, have suffered the consequences of neo-liberal policies: if people can’t afford the prices these monopolistic companies charge, they don’t get food.

The World Has Not Always Been This Way

Prior to the advent of neo-liberalism in the late 1970s, most governments assisted small-scale farmers within their borders, providing them with various forms of subsidies. For example, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, various state-run entities were created to offer small-scale farmers assistance in the
forms of research, cheap credit, marketing services, transport, and processing services.Many states even subsidized the seeds, compost and equipment that small-scale farmers needed.Third World states also applied high import tariffs on staple foods such as maize, potatoes, rice, beans, grain, and poultry,
to protect small- and medium-sized farmers from dumping and cheap imports. A number of states also played an active role during this period in helping small-scale farmers establish cooperatives. The result was that between 1950 and 1980, small- and medium-sized farmers met most of the food needs of their own countries. To help consumers, most governments also regulated the prices of agricultural goods and subsidized certain food products so that the poor would be able to afford them. With the advent of
neo-liberal capitalism and free trade, however, this situation was turned on its head.

Hello Neo-liberalism; Goodbye Food Sovereignty

In the early 1980s, the US, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank (WB) used the debt stranglehold that they had over many Third World countries to force them to adopt neo-liberal economic policies through Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). This period saw most Third World governments being forced to sell off their public assets to multinational companies; allow foreign companies to move money in and out of their borders; end food subsidies; create export-processing zones; smash workers’
rights; dismantle environmental laws; and implement wage freezes. Under SAPs, almost all governments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were also forced to reduce their import tariffs on agricultural goods, thereby creating new export markets for multinational companies. Linked to this, Third World states were required to dramatically reduce the subsidies that they offered to small-scale farmers, who were producing for domestic needs. Of course, the US and European countries continued to subsidize their own farmers, mostly agribusiness corporations, and also maintained high tariffs
on selected agricultural products — those that their farmers were producing. The result was that by the mid-1980s small-scale farmers in the South were being forced to compete with subsidized agricultural products flooding into their countries from the US and Europe.

Although the IMF, the US, and the World Bank demanded that the Third World states end any form of assistance to small-scale farmers, they encouraged these same states to continue assisting agricultural corporations and large-scale farmers that were exporters. Third World states were pushed to grow export crops that were needed or desired in Europe and the US. For instance, Kenya was instructed to focus on growing flowers for export to Europe while Brazil was told to focus on soy beans for
export to the US. Thus these states — along with the IMF, the WB, and agricultural multinationals — prioritized such export crops over food for domestic consumption.

As if the SAPs were not bad enough, almost all the states in the South became members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) when it was formed in 1995. In order to become members of the WTO, countries were required to become of full signatories to the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA).
The AoA was written by an ex-employee of one of the largest agricultural multinationals in the world, Cargill, and is highly beneficial to the US and the EU and their corporations. Specifically, the AoA stipulates that WTO members cannot impose quotas on agricultural imports, states that agricultural
imports can be only controlled by tariffs, and requires all member states to reduce their import tariffs on agricultural goods. The idea behind this was to create more export opportunities for multinational companies, such as Cargill.

The Dire Consequences of Neo-liberalism

Up until a few years ago, free trade had led to low food prices internationally. More recently, subsidized agricultural products from the US and EU have flooded into the countries of the South. Farmers involved in producing staple foods in the South, such as maize, beans, and grains, were especially hard hit. For example, maize farmers in the US have traditionally received massive subsidies, often to the tune
of $10 billion a year, which allowed them to export their produce to countries in the South at exceptionally low prices.

Most small-scale farmers in the South, who no longer received subsidies under the SAPs, could not compete with the price of this imported maize. The outcome was that millions of small-scale maize farmers around the world have gone bankrupt. In Mexico alone, it has been estimated that as many as 5 million small-scale farmers and farm workers have been forced to leave their farms and move to the urban areas due to cheap imports flooding in from the US. As a result, millions upon millions of
hectares of farm land has been abandoned in the South. The result has been that most countries in the South are no longer able to meet their own food needs; they have to import food from the US and
the EU — which of course benefits multinational companies.

The advent of neo-liberalism and free trade has helped a small number of multinational companies gain a virtual monopoly over global food production, distribution, and sales. 6 corporations control
85% of the world trade in grain; 3 companies account for 83% of the trade in cocoa, and 3 corporations control 80% of the global trade in bananas. Through this monopolization, multinationals are now able to control the prices of food products. This system has seen companies in the agricultural and food industries making massive profits. The performance of a number of corporations in 2007 highlights this point: last year Nestle posted a profit of $9.7billion; Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) recorded a profit of $3.1 billion; while Cargill raked in $2.3 billion in profits. This all took place in a world where 850 million people are suffering from chronic malnutrition because they can’t afford food.

These two companies also used Uruguay and South Africa as bases to export regionally into Mercosur and SADC. In doing so, they gained complete dominance over these markets.

The biggest multinational companies have also been buying massive tracts of land in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia as small-scale farmers leave their land due to neo-liberalism. These countries have been at the heart of the massive, and ever expanding, soy industry. In Brazil alone, soy plantations — mostly owned by multinationals — expanded from only 705 hectares in 1940 to 18 million
hectares in 2003. Most of the soy from these plantations does not go towards meeting the food needs of the people in these countries; it is rather exported to the US and the EU as animal feed for cattle. Indeed, the reality is that there is not a shortage of food. Rather, food is literally being taken away
from the poor to feed cattle and wealthier consumers.

Another factor that has been driving up food prices has been the emergence of the biofuel industry, which neo-liberal policies and policy makers have promoted. Recently, huge maize, soy, and palm oil plantations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have shifted away from producing these products for
animal feed to producing them for biofuel for the US and the EU. Even in the US it has been estimated that as much as 25% of maize produced in 2007 was being used to produce biofuels. Many of the maize, palm oil, and soy biofuel plantations in the South are on land that used to be owned by small-scale
farmers who were producing food for local needs. Added to this, vast forest areas have
been cleared in countries such as Brazil and Paraguay to raise new plantations. Essentially, the environment in the South is being destroyed and millions of people are going hungry because of the demand for biofuels in the US and the EU.

With the advent of neo-liberalism, the global food market has been completely deregulated. Before the 1980s, countries around the world controlled the price of food to ensure that it was more or less stable. To do so, countries built up massive food reserves. When prices were high, countries sold off some of their food reserves to bring prices down. When prices were low, countries bought food for their reserves in order to stabilize prices. Since the 1980s, this system has been dismantled. Countries have
run down their reserves and have let the price of food products float according to supply and demand in the global market. Internationally, the food commodity prices are determined by companies and speculators through trade. Recently, due to the sub-prime crisis, speculators and investors
have shifted their money into these commodity exchange markets, seeing a chance to make massive profits out of speculating on food commodities. Sensing this, and knowing that countries’ food reserves were depleted, large corporate traders started withholding supply over the last few months
in the hopes of higher prices in the future, whilst playing off currency differentials. In response, investors started buying grain futures in the hope of making profits, which drove prices even higher. The consequence has been that the price of maize tripled in the last two years. Of course, corporations and speculators are profiteering from the higher prices, while people around the world stare starvation in the
face.

The Elite’s Solution

The WTO, the IMF, the WB, the US, and the EU have proposed several solutions to the current food crisis. The main solution that they have offered is further trade liberalization. Thus, they have proposed that the remaining protective barriers that countries have, in the form of tariffs, be completely dismantled. This, we are told, will drive down food prices. Such a drive for further liberalization reveals the callousness of the neo-liberal ideologues in charge of the US, the EU, and the international institutions they control. Seeking to tout further trade liberalization as a cure to the current crisis is simply malicious considering that free trade is actually the cause of the problem.

The growth of the GM sector will simply increase the already substantial power of multinational corporations at the expense of the peoples of the world.

The People’s Solution

In Latin America, a number of states with progressive governments, such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, have tried to address the food crisis through breaking with the dictates of neo-liberalism. These countries, along with Cuba, have attempted to establish a viable regional alternative to
free trade in the form of the Bolivarian Alternatives for the America’s (ALBA). Through
ALBA, these states have created 5 major agricultural projects that are producing soy beans, rice, poultry, and dairy products. The goal of these projects is to guarantee food security in the ALBA member states. In fact, Venezuela has used these projects to provide free or subsidized food to millions of people. It has also redistributed 2 million hectares of land to small-scale farmers. Linked to this, the Venezuelan state has increased its spending on agricultural production by 728% over the last three years. More
recently, the ALBA states launched a $100-million fund for staple foods such as maize and rice to ease the impact of the recent food price hikes on the poor in these countries. To avoid private speculators, these states agreed to establish a public food distribution network and to regulate the price of food. Unfortunately, the vast majority of other states in the South, which do not have progressive govern-
ments, have largely failed to take similar steps for the benefit of their populations. In these countries, it seems that people themselves are going have to take action on a massive scale if they are going to avoid chronic food shortages and malnutrition.

The recent protests that have erupted across the world are a sign that people have indeed started to take action to change their own lives and gain access to food. The poor of the world, as consumers, are rising up and demanding their right to food and the dignity that accompanies it. This struggle, however, is not new. Movements for the right to food have existed for decades. The latest bout of protests, how-
ever, point towards the fact that the struggle for food may become more widespread and intense.

The aforementioned movements’ struggles have also been a fight to create alternative economies, outside of capitalism. Indeed, these struggles have clearly articulated that the right to food for everyone cannot be achieved through capitalism. Such an understanding has seen movements such as the
Zapatistas and MST21 invading the land in the Chiapas and areas of Brazil. On this land, these movements have established cooperatives and collectives to meet people’s food needs. Through this, they have created their own economies based on democracy, solidarity, and equality. They have also established alternative trade networks to improve the lives of the people. In the urban areas of Argentina, movements such as the Piqueteros have also invaded land and established urban farms. Along with this, they have created their own neighborhood kitchens to ensure that all the people in these areas are fed. The idea behind these actions has been to prioritize local production to meet needs locally outside of theglobal, corporate controlled economy.

If hundreds of millions of people are to avoid starvation in the coming months, it seems that the actions of these movements will need to be adopted and adapted by people across the world. The power of corporations to control the food chain needs to be broken, and only the people can do that. Indeed, only
the people through their own actions can create a world of freedom, democracy, dignity, and equality — a world where people don’t starve if they don’t have money.

The endnotes for this publication are available online at:
www.southcentre.org

In response to the global food crisis, world leaders around the globe are making pledges for rapid action. New commitments are embodied in the recent Declaration of the High-level conference on World Food Security convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in Rome from June 3 to 5, 2008. Governments are rightly focusing on implrmenting short-term measures to muffle the immediate effects of the dramatic upward surge in commodity prices, particularly on the mostvulnerable populations. However, addressing the root causes of the crisis requires a thorough appraisal of the global industrial agri-food system and concerted, long-term commitment to reforms aimed at ensuring global food security. This should include a critical examination of the growing use of
intellectual property rights in the agri-food sector and its impact on local markets and farmers in developing countries.

The Current Food Crisis

The world is experiencing an unprecedented food crisis. Dramatic hikes in global prices for food are inflating domestic prices of basic staples, such as bread, maize and rice. According to the World Bank, overall global food prices have increased by 83% in the 36 months leading up to February 2008. This in
turn is aggravating poverty and malnutrition in developing countries. Food comprises a larger part of the consumption basket of low-income households in developing countries, and thus the poor are more vulnerable to rising food prices. The effect is greater on the poor in countries that depend on food imports from foreign markets, where there is no domestic supply to meet the local demand. Safety nets and social protection is weak or non-existent in countries where they are needed the most. Food
exporting countries that would generally benefit from higher international prices are also hit by the sudden upsurge and are responding with a mix of measures, such as introducing import restrictions, setting domestic price ceilings and keeping food stocks in the fear of local food shortages.

An underlying question is how did we get to this point? Why were we not prepared? Analysts point to numerous factors as causes of the aggravating food crisis, including growing global demand, biofuel production, speculation on food markets and rising oil prices. However, if governments are serious about
finding solutions for the long term they need to seriously reflect on the structural underpinnings of the crisis rather than turn a blind eye. This is ever more important in light of the strong link-
ages between food security, climate change and bioenergy. The blame game amongst governments can only go so far.

The State of the Global Food System

So what is the current state of our global food system? Agri-food markets have turned global. All the different activities in the agro-business value chain- from the supply of inputs, to production, processing and delivery- can be undertaken separately around the globe. One of the problems arising from the
current system is the growing concentration of few dominating companies at all stages of agri-food value chains. Concentration means less market power for smaller suppliers, buyers and retailers. The increasing scope and complexity of food standards, particularly those to related food safety, further
complicate entry to global food markets. At the same time, many developing countries have made export growth the priority of their agricultural sector and opened up their domestic food markets to global competition. The benefits of commodity export-led growth have been mixed; some countries have been able to diversify export production and increase participation in higher value-added activities in the agri-food value-chain but others are worse off. Some countries are meeting domestic demand for food despite import surges and growing participation of transnational companies in the local agri-food market. Others that previously were food sufficient are now net importing countries.

Expanding Monopoly Rights

The intellectual property system today has become central to the functioning of the agri-food sector. This was not the case only a century ago. Intellectual property rights are legal rights granted by the State that allow a right owner to exclude for a certain period of time (in most cases) anyone from making a use of his/her invention or creation. The scope of intellectual property rights has expanded in time and today
they take many forms, including patents, copyright, plant breeders rights (PBRs), trademarks, trade secrets, geographical indications, etc. It is assumed that in the absence of these rewards, overall innovative and creative activity would be diminished.

Innovation in agriculture has changed dramatically. While in the past agricultural biodiversity and crop improvement lay in the hands of farmers and indigenous peoples on their own land, today the industrial farming model has taken over (Dutfield 2008). Historically, farmers produced, selected and improved plant varieties through traditional methods. As commercial interests in agriculture and food grew, the private sector displaced public sector as lead investor in agricultural research. Private enterprises seeking to reap market benefits of applying new technology, such as genetic engineering to agriculture, pressed for the extension of intellectual property rights, particularly patents and PBRs, to agriculture.

Though many countries have withstood pressure to grant patents related to plants and animals, patents on genes on plants are nonetheless proliferating. Risks associated with such patent activity include loss of agricultural biodiversity, environmental, and health safety risks. Yet the most direct, devastating ef-
fects are on small-scale farmers. Patents, and to a lesser extent PBRs, increase the cost of seeds and fertilizers and restrict the ability of farmers to save, reuse and sell seeds.

International Rules

The historical role and contribution of farmers in relation to innovation and conservation of plant genetic resources, and their right to save, exchange and sell seeds is not rightfully recognized in the current international regulatory framework. Treaties, such as the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 1991) do not effectively promote or guarantee farmers’ rights. The TRIPS Agreement allows countries to exclude plants and animals from patentability, but
requires countries to protect new plant varieties by either patents, or an effective sui
generis system or by a combination of the two. TRIPS makes no mention of farmers’
rights. The UPOV, built around PBRs, is the prevailing sui generis model of plant variety protection. UPOV seeks to ensure that patent holders do not block access to plant genetic resources so that breeders can freely access these resources for the purpose of propagating new plant varieties through a ‘breeders exemption’. In UPOV 1991 it is up to governments to decide whether they wish to uphold farmers’ rights at the national level, which is limited only to the use of saved seed on the same farm, not the exchange or sale of the seed. Most developing countries have not adopted national legislation providing for farmers’ rights, yet they have implemented UPOV 1978 or the more restrictive version 1991. One notable exception is India, which enacted the Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers’ Rights Act in 2001.

A different approach to the TRIPS and UPOV model for agrifood innovation was adopted in the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITGRFA) that came into force in 2001. The treaty seeks to establish a plant genetic resource commons in light of the interdependence of countries on certain genetic resources essential for food and agriculture. Access to the poll is free, if anyone develops a product using material from the poll, they cannot claim intellectual property rights over it and must share in the benefits of its sales. Farmers’ rights are explicitly recognized and
measures to realize these are promoted, yet their implementation is again left to national governments.
Unfortunately, members of the ITGRFA have yet to make the necessary financial contributions to ensure the proper functioning of the system.

Concentration in Agri-food Supply Chains

The alarming level of concentration of private commercial enterprises in the input supply side of the agri-food system is related to intellectual property rights. The seed and agro-chemical fertilizer sector is now dominated by a handful of multinational companies whose profits in the present food crisis have risen exponentially. For example, revenues for Cargill, one of the largest players in the agri-food business, increased over 36% in the 2006-2007 period (GRAIN 2008). By merging and acquiring smaller players in the seed sector, dominant companies are able to further increase their dominant position
and acquire greater control over intellectual property protected seeds and fertilizers. An added problem is lax requirements for obtaining a patent for plant materials in countries that allow them, such as the United States (US). An example of the complexities is the case of the Enola bean. A patent was errone-
ously granted for 20 years to a US national over a yellow bean common in Latin America who claimed to have developed a new field bean variety. It took a regional research centre eight years to defeat the case, and the patent owner can still appeal the case through the US federal court system.

If not managed appropriately, the linkage between climate change and intellectual property rights threatens to devastate the food system further. Troubling signs of what is to come ahead is the current moves by seed and agrochemical companies to file a number of patents on what are called “climate-ready” genes (ETC 2008).

Thinking Long-Term

There is a real need for new technology and investment in innovation to increase agricultural production in developing countries and to ensure that farmers have access to basic agricultural inputs, particularly seeds. However, caution must be observed in the policies that are implemented towards achieving these goals. Sustainable agriculture for domestic food security, meeting the needs of local markets and supporting local farmers must be prioritized. The limits of the industry-led agri-food market must
be recognized and more than short-term buffers for the poor must be put in place. Seed aid and provision of fertilizer is rightly being advocated as an immediate answer to the current food crisis but in the medium-long term it is not a solution for seed security and may create more problems than it solves,
such as distorting farmers local seed systems (Sperling et al 2008).

GRAIN, Making a Killing From Hunger, April 2008
Tansey & Rajottee Eds., The Future Control of Food, Earthscan
UNIDO, Global Value Chains in the Agrifood Sector, Working Papers, 2006
ETC, Patenting the “Climate Genes” and Capturing the Climate Agenda, May/June 2008
Dutfield, “The UPOV Convention”, in Tansey & Rajotte Eds. (2008) The Future Control of
Food, Earthscan, 27-47
Sperling, Cooper & Remington (2008), Moving Towards More Effective Seed Aid, Jour-
nal of Development Studies, 44(4):573–600, April.

1. Big Brother In Sweden

‘Orwellian law must be stopped’, in thelocal.se

Despite mass protest from the citizenry and a consequent postponement to address civil liberties concerns, FRA (Försvarets Radioanstalt - Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment) will be able to conduct mass surveillance of law-abiding citizens’ communications without need for a court order. It will be able to read people’s emails and text messages, listen to their conversations, see which websites they are visiting, create “sociograms” that map out the friends people have.

2. Big Brother In America

‘ Agreement Could Pave Way For Surveillance Overhaul‘, by Tim Starks, via Global Research

No warrants will be required in the US when the administration and their outsourced private “partners” order surveillance on “targets” under “exigent,” or urgent circumstances. (Such “exigent” circumstances are determined by executive branch “intelligence officials,” of whom fully 70% are private mercenaries.)

According to Congressional Quarterly, telecommunication corporations and their “customers,” the NSA, FBI and other members of the “intelligence community” will get the retroactive immunity they’ve sought over the access to citizens’ private communications, as well as and billions of dollars in continued taxpayer subsidies for intelligence “outsourcing.”

Courts will be forced to issue virtual get-out-of-jail-free cards to corporate executives and their shareholders, thus freeing them from any and all liability, should companies claim they had “received assurances” from the state that its spying program was “legal.”

There is a piece by the same writer detailing the corporate lobbies for increased surveillance here.

3. Worst Floods In 15 Years Hit Midwest Corn Belt

Midwest floods may add to gasoline misery, via Cryptogon.

U.S. gasoline prices, which have already jumped to a nationwide average over $4 per gallon, may get an extra nudge from soaring costs for gasoline-additive ethanol as the worst floods in 15 years hit the Midwest Corn Belt.

As the Financial Times reported, this will also produce sharp increases on global food prices, pushing up corn and soyabeans in an enviromnent already protesting massive price hikes. Corn futures and soybean barrels are at record highs. The price of live cattle is at the highest for 22 years.

”

Agriculture traders described the problem graphically, saying that corn plants in Iowa or Illinois should now be reaching almost waist height, but due to the impact of the heavy rains and low temperatures were below knee-height.

They added that expensive nitrogen fertiliser – critical for the plants’ development – has now been washed out from the fields by the rains. For that reason, some farmers are likely to leave their land fallow and, instead, cash in their crop insurance policies, further reducing supply.”

This is particularly scary if you consider the next article, below.

4. Without Record Crops This Year,Famines May Occur

from Bloomberg, via Cryptogon.

See also in this connection, How Far is the US From Food Shortages and Food Riots?

As Americans complain over high gasoline and food prices, many third world countries are experiencing food riots over price and scarcity of food. In some parts of the word rice is so expensive that it is transported in heavily guarded convoys and farmers guard their fields from thieves.

Food riots are becoming more common, as more land and crops are being diverted from the food chain by the world biofuels industry. According to an investment magazine, the crisis shows no signs of weakening. Food, the bread of life, is fast becoming the “gold” of the Twenty-first century.

Fatal food riots in Haiti. Violent food-price protests in Egypt and Ivory Coast. Rice so valuable it is transported in armoured convoys. Soldiers guarding fields and warehouses. Export bans to keep local populations from starving. (Globalinvestor.com)

The face of food security is rapidly changing around the world and there are no quick fixes experts say. What worries many is that food stockpiles are at historic lows. In the United States alone,
stockpiles of wheat hit a 60-year low in the United States as prices soared. Almost all other commodities, from rice and soybeans to sugar and corn, have posted triple-digit price increases in the past year or two.

Grain farmers will need to harvest record crops every year to meet increasing global food demand and avoid famine, Potash Corp. ( the world’s largest maker of crop nutrients) Chief Executive Officer William Doyle said. People and livestock are consuming more grain than ever, draining world inventories and increasing the likelihood of shortages.

“If you had any major upset where you didn’t have a crop in a major growing agricultural region this year, I believe you’d see famine,” Doyle, 57, said in New York.

Of course we’re already seeing famine. What he means is famine in the global North.

5. Arctic sea ice melt ‘even faster‘

I know certain circles in which publishing an article like this would have you denounced as a Malthusian Nazi. Whether manmade or not, change is happening and I doubt that we have the capacity to prevent it now. What I do agree on is that certain policies now being mooted (e.g., personal carbon allowances in the UK) show how the global warming issue will be used to increase corporate-state power. Assuming everyone hasn’t starved to death by then.

“A few years ago, scientists were predicting ice-free Arctic summers by about 2080. Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050. Then came the 2007 summer that saw Arctic sea ice shrink to the smallest extent ever recorded, down to 4.2 million sq km from 7.8 million sq km in 1980. By the end of last year, one research group was forecasting ice-free summers by 2013.”

Bizarrely, the response of States according to the piece is to look at how they can exploit the melt for financial gain, suggest they don’t take very seriously negative externalities like the above, flooding, crop failure and famine. Not to mention underwater London, Amsterdam, etc…

The Club of Rome’s 1991 publication, The First Global Revolution, written by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider states:

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”

6. Plan ‘protocol for dealing with systemically significant investment bank failure’ says Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Presumably this means a protocol other than writing blank cheques on citizens’ bank accounts to bail out bankers — a grimly paradoxical situation if ever I heard it. No one wants a protocol because no one wants to admit it might be necessary, which is again rather appropriately like something out of Catch 22.

7. Hedge Fund Chief Warns Of Worse To Come

(Ben White and Francesco Guerrera in The Financial Times)

There is a ‘growing debate about whether financial institutions have taken big enough markdowns on mortgage-related holdings or could still face billions more in losses.’ A hedge fund manager who made some of the biggest profits from the global credit crisis says there is worse to come. Evidence mounta that banks are ’struggling’ to regain their earnings power and properly value their assets.

John Paulson, president of Paulson & Co, who made billions for himself and his investors by anticipating the subprime meltdown, now says mortgage-related losses for troubled financials could be $1,300bn, compared with writedowns so far of $380bn.

8. Scahill on Blackwater

(from AlterNet)

Blackwater is a Private Military Corporation (PMI) or Private Mercenary Army, and it was involved in — in some circles seen as responsible for — the worst massacre of Iraqi civilians to date in the Iraq war involving a private company. Their contract gets renewed in April 2008 and the Democrats continue to fund their operations — and with the exception of [congressman] Henry Waxman [D-Calif.], almost no one in the Congress has done anything to effectively take on these individuals or this company.

The GAO estimated approximately 70,000 people working for private security firms in Iraq. In 2006, the estimate was about 48,000. But it’s incalculable because of the labyrinth contracting system. It took Congressman Waxman three years just to find out who the Blackwater contractors were working for when they were attacked in Falluja.

Blackwater has a private intelligence company called Total Intelligence Solutions that offers what they describe as “CIA-type services” to Fortune 1000 corporations when they go into hostile areas. The U.N. Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries said recently about Latin America that, and I quote, “an emerging trend in Latin America and also in other regions of the world indicates situations of private security companies protecting transnational extractive corporations whose employees are often involved in suppressing legitimate social protest of communities and human rights and environmental organizations of the areas where these corporations operate.”

9. Uncounted (.torrent link)

A new documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 - and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election. Examines in factual, logical, and yet startling terms how easy it is to change election outcomes and undermine election integrity across the U.S. Noted computer programmers, statisticians, journalists, and experienced election officials provide the irrefutable proof.