Biowarfare alert: Is a mass bio-terror pandemic planned for 2012?

Biowarfare alert: Is a mass bio-terror pandemic planned for 2012?.

NaturalNews

Monday, June 04, 2012 by: J. D. Heyes

 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), despite America’s dubious history of using the population as a test tube for all sorts of crazy things, plans to release what it claims is a harmless bacteria in the Boston subway system this year as a way to test biological sensors, and at least some folks think it may be the start of a bio-terror pandemic with sinister implications.

In an early May report, CBS News/Boston said federal officials “test the subway sensors by releasing dead bacteria called B-subtilis. They say it is used in food supplements, has been rigorously tested and has no adverse health effects for low exposure in healthy people.”

The unknown variable here, then, is what sort of an effect will this bacteria have on unhealthy people – will they be able to handle it? Will it make them sicker?

According to the CBS News report, the test will be conducted in Cambridge and Somerville during off peak hours sometime this summer; DHS held a public hearing on May 16 at the Cambridge YMCA in Central Square, to allow the public to ask questions and voice concerns over the test.

Later in the month, Boston mass transit police hailed the test as forward-thinking and said it was a proactive, rather than reactive, measure.

“So often in the security field we take action retroactively,” said Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) Police Chief Paul MacMillian, who referenced the banning of liquids aboard commercial flights. “These things are done after the fact. We have not had a bio attack but there’s all this chatter that we hear about it.”

English: The Bacterium Bacillus subtilis taken with a Tecnai T-12 TEM. Taken by Allon Weiner, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

DHS itself said in a 28-page summary of the test published in January and titled Environmental Assessment for Bacillus subtilis Particles to Challenge Bio-Detection Sensors in Subway Stations that it is vital to help examine equipment aimed at thwarting, or at least mitigating, a bioweapons attack.

“DHS (Science and Technology Directorate) has been developing technologies and sensors needed to rapidly detect a potential biological attack on the Nation’s transportation infrastructure in order to minimize public exposure and strengthen security,” says an executive summary of the document. “To validate the performance of the technologies, it is necessary to perform field tests in a real-world environment.”

The summary went on to say subway systems were being chosen for the test because they “provide one of the most challenging and harsh indoor settings that sensors of this nature would be exposed to in real-world deployment, due to the temperature and humidity extremes that often characterize these types of indoor environments.”

“In order to understand the true detection capabilities of the biological sensor networks, challenge tests with a material must be performed,” the summary said.

The government has a history of these kinds of tests. In 1977 during a Senate hearing, information was divulged of numerous secret germ “attacks” the Pentagon had launched on U.S. cities – all without the public’s knowledge – in an effort to test threats posed by biological agents (sound familiar?).

Leonard A. Cole, writing in Washington Monthly in 1985, cited that Senate hearing, saying the tests “may have caused outbreaks of disease which occurred in some of the test areas.”

Such “attacks” included testing by the U.S. Army in the mid-1960s, as the Vietnam war was beginning, in which travelers at Washington’s National Airport were sprayed with a bacteria mist without their knowledge.

Other tests included placing Bacillus globigii in light bulbs that were dropped in the subway systems of New York City and Chicago by government scientists. When people began to get ill, the effects of the tests were discarded because Uncle Sam did not keep track of the health effects caused by the substance.

But some see a more disturbing link to the current round of tests. Citing an increase in bio-terror drills since President Obama took office in 2008 – as well as an uptick in bio-terror plots – some believe the government is conditioning citizens and first responders alike for a major attack, one that they believe is coming from the government itself.

“The overall goal of bio-terror propaganda is to convince America and the world that it is on the precipice of a bio-terror induced pandemic,” writes one blogger on a site called TrutherNews. “Bio-terror propaganda is currently at an all-time high and confirms that an upcoming bio-terror attack is in the cards and may be played in a last ditch effort to regain political, economic and military control of society.

While that may be a little paranoid, there’s no question the government has conducted tests of bio-weapons for decades, and is intending to continue them, based on what DHS has planned for the subways of Boston.

“Since the 1940′s, the military and the CIA have conducted numerous ‘tests’ on the American people, including the release of dengue fever carrying mosquitoes in Georgia and Florida, biological warfare tests on the civilian population in Puerto Rico, the release of bacillus globigii from a submarine on the port of Oahu, Hawaii, and dozens of other incidents, most of them classified,” writes Paul Joseph Watson at InfoWars.com.

Whether there is some disturbing globalist plot to kill tens of millions of Americans later this year is a matter for discussion. But the history of the government to use its own population as a test bed for its own devices is a matter of public record. A growing public record. And one day, probably by accident, it’s entirely possible the government could overplay its hand, fulfilling the predictions of the doomsday crowd.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036061_DHS_biowarfare_pandemic.html#ixzz1x1Ro9vbC

Sources for this article include:

http://www.pakalertpress.com

http://www.pakalertpress.com

http://www.infowars.com

http://boston.cbslocal.com

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/st/st_dea_detect_to_protect.pdf

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036061_DHS_biowarfare_pandemic.html#ixzz1x1RcvcYV

USA: The Mindboggling Sum We Actually Spend on National Security

The Mindboggling Sum We Actually Spend on National Security | World | AlterNet.

TomDispatch.com / By Chris Hellman and Mattea Kramer

If you’ve heard a number for how much the U.S. spends on the military, it’s probably in the neighborhood of $530 billion. But that’s merely the beginning of it.

May 22, 2012  |  

 

Photo Credit: Andrzej Fryda via Shutterstock.com

Recent months have seen a flurry of headlines about cuts (often called “threats”) to the U.S. defense budget. Last week, lawmakers in the House of Representatives even passed a bill that was meant to spare national security spending from future cuts by reducing school-lunch funding and other social programs.  

Here, then, is a simple question that, for some curious reason, no one bothers to ask, no less answer: How much are we spending on national security these days? With major wars winding down, has Washington already cut such spending so close to the bone that further reductions would be perilous to our safety?

In fact, with projected cuts added in, the national security budget in fiscal 2013 will be nearly $1 trillion — a staggering enough sum that it’s worth taking a walk through the maze of the national security budget to see just where that money’s lodged.

If you’ve heard a number for how much the U.S. spends on the military, it’s probably in the neighborhood of $530 billion. That’s the Pentagon’s base budget for fiscal 2013, and represents a 2.5% cut from 2012. But that $530 billion is merely the beginning of what the U.S. spends on national security. Let’s dig a little deeper.

The Pentagon’s base budget doesn’t include war funding, which in recent years has been well over $100 billion. With U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq and troop levels falling in Afghanistan, you might think that war funding would be plummeting as well.  In fact, it will drop to a mere $88 billion in fiscal 2013. By way of comparison, the federal government will spend around $64 billion on education that same year.

Add in war funding, and our national security total jumps to $618 billion. And we’re still just getting started.

The U.S. military maintains an arsenal of nuclear weapons. You might assume that we’ve already accounted for nukes in the Pentagon’s $530 billion base budget.  But you’d be wrong. Funding for nuclear weapons falls under the Department of Energy (DOE), so it’s a number you rarely hear. In fiscal 2013, we’ll be spending $11.5 billion on weapons and related programs at the DOE. And disposal of nuclear waste is expensive, so add another $6.4 billion for weapons cleanup.

Now, we’re at $636 billion and counting.

How about homeland security? We’ve got to figure that in, too. There’s the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which will run taxpayers $35.5 billion for its national security activities in fiscal 2013. But there’s funding for homeland security squirreled away in just about every other federal agency as well.  Think, for example, about programs to secure the food supply, funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. So add another $13.5 billion for homeland security at federal agencies other than DHS.

That brings our total to $685 billion.

Then there’s the international affairs budget, another obscure corner of the federal budget that just happens to be jammed with national security funds. For fiscal 2013, $8 billion in additional war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan is hidden away there. There’s also $14 billion for what’s called “international security assistance” — that’s part of the weapons and training Washington offers foreign militaries around the world. Plus there’s $2 billion for “peacekeeping operations,” money U.S. taxpayers send overseas to help fund military operations handled by international organizations and our allies.

CONTINUE WITH STORY—>>>

The Mindboggling Sum We Actually Spend on National Security | World | AlterNet.

Seal of the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Obama Proposes Harsh New Copyright Laws for Internet

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

On Tuesday, the White House’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, provided Congress with a White Paper (available for download here), outlining a series of the Obama Administration‘s recommended legislative changes to combat online piracy and counterfeiting.  Significantly, the recommendations include making it a felony offense to stream infringing content and giving Federal agencies wiretapping authority to obtain evidence of criminal copyright and trademark offenses.

The White Paper is the product of the IP Czar’s review of “existing laws to ensure that they were effective and to identify deficiencies that could hinder enforcement.”  The review was conducted in conjunction with a group of federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the State Department.

These new proposals, as well as the Obama Administration’s recent questionable domain seizures and previous controversial proposed laws, such as COICA, have raised questions about what Obama‘s legacy will end up being with regard to internet issues.
In the White Paper, Espinel attempts to camouflage some of the potentially controversial recommendations behind lofty goals like health risks, national security, counterfeit drugs and combating criminal gangs.  However, many of the key measures, such as the new wiretapping powers and increased sentencing for repeat offenders, appear to be potentially applicable to any website operator and not limited to any one group or purpose.

Several points of the White Paper also still need to be investigated and clarified.  For example, it requests that Congress change the law to clarify that “infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony.”  However, there is no attempt to clarify what activities fall into the category of “other similar new technology.”  Does this only refer to technology that has not been invented yet?  Are search engines that list streaming sites the type of “other similar new technology” that will be subject to felony charges?

Around the web, the initial reaction to the White Paper is mixed.  CNET hints that we should question the motives behind the Obama Administration’s crackdown on copyright infringement by pointing out that “No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, which is broadly consistent with the trend for the last two decades, according to OpenSecrets.org.”

Techdirt is more direct with its criticism, pointing out:

The thing is, every time the government ratchets up IP laws in ways that don’t match with the way most people view the world, the less respected those laws become. Rather than actually increasing enforcement, these moves decrease respect for those laws.

On the other hand, Ars Technica applauds the fact that “The list largely avoids big controversies—Web censorship, ‘three strikes’ rules—in favor of a focus on health, safety, and serious criminal activity.”

While I agree that these proposals could be worse, I believe the White Paper’s potential to arm the United States government with another powerful new set of weapons aimed at websites demands more analysis than I can do in a single article.  Therefore, this will be the introductory post of a multi-part analysis that I will roll out over the course of the next few days that will provide a more detailed review of the recommendations in the White Paper, as well as what these recommendations tell us about the Obama Administration’s intellectual property philosophy and agenda.

Activist Post: Obama Proposes Harsh New Copyright Laws for Internet.

Related Articles

• Make streaming a felony: Obama (go.theregister.com)
• Obama “IP czar” wants felony charges for illegal Web streaming (arstechnica.com)