Nine Industries That Watch Your Every Move
September 24, 2010
Daily Finance
By: Douglas McIntyre
Don’t kid yourself. Real privacy no longer exists in this country.
We’ve long had government organizations collecting data that paints a pretty clear picture of what we do with our time. The Internal Revenue Service knows everything about what you earn and any major transactions you make. It can access every bit of information it needs to determine how much money you should be sending on April 15.
The most important gatherer of personal information in the country is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It keeps a database of over 90 million fingerprints, which can be accessed by other law enforcement agencies. It also has an extensive database of DNA, the most specific marker of personal identity. The bureau’s ability to collect information expanded following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It now tracks a large portion of mail, cell phone traffic and Internet activity of people it deems suspicious.
Thanks to advances in technology, however, there are also now numerous private enterprises that track and record your every move. Although they don’t usually give out this information, there are often worrisome leaks and security breaches where they inadvertently release sensitive information about their customers. Taken together, these industries have data on where you are, who you are communicating with, how you are earning your money, how you are spending that money, as well as the hobbies and interests you are pursuing.
We examined a large number of organizations to find the most intrusive firms and industries. Here they are, ranked by the number of people they track:
1) Credit Rating Agencies
With each firm having files on over 200 million people, the three credit bureaus — Equifax (EFX), Experian (EXPGY), and TransUnion — know not only your credit history, but also have the data to project your credit future. The companies collect a history of all credit use by an individual, including payment of bills, mortgages, and credit cards. The agencies also track the frequency with which a person applies for credit. That information is used to determine a person’s credit risk through a credit score. These scores are produced using secret algorithms, ensuring that the bureaus know much more about you than you know about them.
2) Cell Phone Service Providers
As cell phone popularity has increased and technology has evolved, cell phone companies have come to possess a wealth of information about their customers. Covering over 90% of the American population, cell phone providers can tell who you call, when you call, how often you call certain people and what you say in your text messages. With GPS, they also now know where you are whenever you have your phone. As smartphones become the equivalent of miniature computers, cellular companies can also track personal behavior, such as use of multimedia and wireless e-commerce transactions.
3) Social Media Companies
In its ascent to Internet superpower, social enterprise Facebook has amassed an enormous amount of user information. Who your friends are, what you like, and what photos you are in are all information that the company has access to. That, however, is not the full extent of it. Facebook also tracks which profiles you view, who you communicate with most often, companies and causes you support, your personal calendar, and a great deal of personal information about your friends and family. Perhaps most surprising, Facebook can access much of the information you may have deleted, including photos and status updates, from their servers.
4) Credit Card Companies
There are currently 610 million credit cards owned by U.S. consumers. In an economy dominated by credit, the amount of power held by credit card companies, such as Visa (V), MasterCard (MA) and American Express (AE), should not be surprising. They know their customers’ credit scores, credit histories, what they buy, when they buy, and when they are likely to default on their payments. The interest rates charged for credit fluctuates based on their analysis of individuals’ ability to pay back the debts they incur. Some of the information kept by credit card companies can help consumers, however. Algorithms that study buying patterns, for instance, are used to detect fraud.
5) Search Engines
Every search you perform on Google (GOOG) goes into the Internet giant’s database, which it uses to keep a profile of your habits and interests. The search engine also keeps track of which links you click on during your search and which advertisers you visit. Google uses your interest profile and search history to place targeted ads in your browser. Perhaps most disturbingly, Google uses its Gmail service to monitor the content of your email in order to place targeted advertising in your email account. Google also keeps records of account and credit card information for everyone who uses their “Checkout” service, tracks which videos people watch on YouTube, where people are planning to visit, and what they plan to do there. Google’s location-based map systems also allow the search company to know where people are in real time through the use of smartphones and other GPS-enabled devices.
6) Retail Chains
Walmart (WMT) uses data-mining services to collect and store information for all its customers in a central location. This allows it to determine the purchasing behavior of people who shop in its stores or on its website. It also optimizes inventory distribution by determining which products people are most likely to buy in the future. In August, Walmart began installing Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) in their underwear and jeans, which lets them track items and customers around the store. This means they are able to determine how much time someone who buys a specific pair of pants spends in each aisle. Walmart plans to use this data to reorganize displays and further control inventory. The retail giant also sell this information to thousands of other businesses, who use consumer profiles for advertising and demographic research.
7) Casinos
Casinos like the Wynn Resorts (WYNN) are increasingly using “loyalty cards” to monitor the behavior of their patrons. The Wynn “red” cards are used in place of tokens, and allow the casino to keep track of which machines and tables each gambler visits on a regular basis, the path they take during their visits (using RFID chips), and even how often and how much they are willing to lose before giving up. When a slot machine in Wynn detects a gambler is close to his breaking point, it will issue a small payout in order to keep him spending money.
Banks
Large banks, such as Bank of America (BAC), Chase (JPM) and Citibank (C), have access to customer account information, which includes savings, employer payroll deposits, and the time and date of ATM and teller visits. They track transfers made by account holders to third parties. A bank also knows your income, your salary, and your balance, moment-by-moment. Perhaps among the most confidential data a bank keeps is how often people move money in and out of accounts. Banks know how much you save each month, and often exactly how those savings are invested. Banks use this information to assess the risk of giving you a mortgage or loan, and they are legally allowed to use data-mining companies to check your website activity.
9) Life Insurance Companies
About 140 million households currently have life insurance. In order to apply for life insurance, applicants generally must disclose their health history. This includes incidence of heart disease, height, weight, smoking habits, and often includes full records from your doctors. Perhaps more invasive, life insurers seek disclosure of hospitalization for mental illness, use of illegal drugs, and whether or not you have had to file for bankruptcy. Insurance companies use a national prescription database to determine whether or not you have ever been prescribed medication. And certain high-risk professions and hobbies usually have to be disclosed.
Click here to read the full report from the Daily Finance
World Gripped by “International Currency War”
September 28, 2010
The Guardian
By: Tim Webb
The world is in the midst of an “international currency war” according to Brazil’s finance minister as governments force down the value of their currencies to boost their struggling economies.
The comments are the first public admission made by a senior policymaker about a practice which has become increasingly widespread since the global economic downturn.
Many countries, notably China, have been deliberately weakening their currencies by selling them on foreign exchanges or keeping interest rates artificially low to make their exports cheaper.
Economists fear that such moves are resulting in increasing currency volatility and instability. Increasing competition among individual countries to devalue also makes it harder to mount a co-ordinated policy response to the economic downturn, particularly amid fears of a renewed slowdown.
The issue is likely to be high on the agenda at the upcoming G20 meeting in November in South Korea. China has resisted pressure from the US to allow the value of its currency, the yuan, to rise. Many countries in Asia, including the host, are reluctant to raise the issue for fear of antagonising China, a major trading partner. Switzerland also began selling Swiss francs on foreign exchanges last year to weaken its currency.
Brazilian finance minister Guido Mantega made his comments in a speech in Sao Paulo last night to Brazilian industrial leaders ahead of presidential elections on Sunday.
“We’re in the midst of an international currency war, a general weakening of currency. This threatens us because it takes away our competitiveness,” he said.
Brazil’s economy is booming following economic reform and on the back of rising oil production. Foreign investors have flocked to the country because of high interest rates and new investment opportunities such as the $67bn (£42bn) share offering by state-controlled oil company Petrobras last week. According to investment bank Goldman Sachs, its currency, the real, is the most overvalued major currency in the world.
Click here to read the full report from The Guardian
Feds Force Trucks Into “Counter-Terror” Checkpoint
September 29, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
September 29, 2010
Infowars.com
By: Kurt Nimmo
Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and the Transportation Security Administration are forcing trucks into a “counter-terror” checkpoint outside of Atlanta.
“A team of federal agents stopped tractor-trailers on Interstate 20 just west of Atlanta, inspecting each truck as it passed through a weigh station,” WSBTV in Atlanta reports this morning. The operation is part of a “training exercise,” according to authorities, and includes the participation of a Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPER) team, according to the news station.
In 2005, the feds created VIPER to search bus and train stations, ferries, and mass transit facilities across the country to “counter potential criminal terrorist activity in all modes of transportation.” Each VIPER team consists two air marshals, one TSA bomb-sniffing-canine team, one or two transportation security inspectors, one local law enforcement officer, and one other TSA employee. “TSA is going to extend its outreach into other modes of transportation,” said David Adams, spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service, told the Washington Post on December 14, 2005.
VIPER teams patrol Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and Los Angeles rail lines, ferries in Washington state, bus stations in Houston, and mass transit systems in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore.
“The VIPER teams have nothing to do with preventing terrorism, they are there to get people to cower and accept they are under control,” wrote Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson on December 23, 2005. Jones and Watson cited David Adams, who admitted that there was no new intelligence indicating that terrorists were interested in targeting transportation modes.
This is not the first time VIPER teams have been used against motorists. In October, 2009, the TSA, Coast Guard, NCIS, FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Norfolk Police and Virginia Beach Police set-up a checkpoint at both ends of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
Around the same time, the TSA conducted a Gestapo-like operation at a Greyhound bus terminal near downtown Orlando. Nearly 700 bus passengers were forced to surrender their Fourth Amendment and endure searches by the TSA. “There was no specific threat to the bus station on John Young Parkway south of Colonial Drive,” the Orlando Sentinel reported on October 24, 2009.
In February of this year, ABC News ran a feel-good piece about another TSA operation conducted in Tampa, Florida.
As we noted earlier this year, the government is keen to convert the TSA into a military operation. Robert Harding, Obama’s pick to head the agency, told members of the Senate Commerce Committee in March that he would like to see U.S. airport security to more closely resemble security at Israeli airports. The Israelis are notorious for political persecution of Palestinian activists.
In addition to responding to government-created terrorist groups, the TSA is known for its political interrogation. In 2009, Steve Bierfeldt, director of development for Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, was interrogated and harassed by TSA goons in St. Louis. The MIAC report, leaked to Alex Jones in early 2009, specifically denotes Ron Paul supporters as domestic terrorists. The Department of Homeland Security report leaked shortly after also characterizes members of “right-wing extremist” political groups as potential terrorists.
The TSA told WSBTV that the truck checkpoint set-up in Georgia yesterday is not in response to a specific threat. Instead, it appears they are exploiting recent warnings about a possible false flag terror attack.
On Tuesday, U.S. and European officials said they detected a plot to carry out a major, coordinated series of commando-style terror attacks in Britain, France, Germany and possibly the United States, according to ABC News. “US law enforcement officials say they have been told the terrorists were planning a series of ‘Mumbai-style’ commando raids on what were termed ‘economic or soft’ targets in the countries. Pakistani militants killed 173 people with guns and grenades during the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India.”
Earlier this year Indian’s home secretary, G. K. Pillai, said that the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks in which 166 people died were “clients and creations” of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of the Pakistan army.” The ISI worked closely with the CIA to create the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s and the Taliban in the 1990s. Elements of the Afghan Mujahideen would later become al-Qaeda.
In November of 2009, it was revealed that American intelligence had an agent inside Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group allegedly responsible for the deadly attack. David Coleman Headley, aka Daood Gilani, a convicted drug smuggler, worked with Lashkar-e-Taiba and frequently introduced himself as a CIA agent. The Pakistani terror organization was organized by the ISI, presumably at the behest of the CIA and western intelligence.
Click here to read the full report from Infowars.com
1 in 6 Doctors Addicted to Drugs or Alcohol
September 29, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
According to surveys of British hospitals, one in six doctors will be addicted to alcohol or illegal drugs at some point during their medical career. A full third of junior male doctors and one in five junior female doctors admit to having used cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy or hallucinogenic drugs.
“The problems will become more acute in future, as drug and alcohol dependency is becoming more common in the population as a whole,” reads “Invisible Crisis,” a government-funded report into the problem.
“It may be easy to spot a health professional who is obviously under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but persistent and long-term substance misuse can be harder to pick up and the consequences for quality and safety of care harder to predict,” the report reads. “Working while under the influence of drugs or alcohol increases the chances that healthcare workers will make mistakes and communicate poorly with colleagues and patients.”
Interviews conducted by the Daily Mail back up assertions that a culture of drinking prevails among health professionals, with some doctors confessing to hooking themselves up to saline drips or writing themselves prescriptions to ease the effects of binge drinking. One survey found that the average medical school student knows less about safe drinking levels than the average grade school student.
The problem is exacerbated by a patchwork of weak guidelines and regulations. Unlike bus or train drivers, doctors in the United Kingdom are never made to submit to random drug or alcohol testing, and there are no national regulations barring them from drinking on duty. Rules at individual hospitals also vary widely.
General practitioner Michael Wilks, a former alcoholic and now the deputy chairman of the Sick Doctors Trust, says his profession is in denial about the scale of the crisis.
“Doctors are taught to be decisive and they are treated with respect,” he said. “So to ask for help, you have to climb down off your pedestal and admit you have a problem.”
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Vitamin K Helps to Prevent Diabetes
September 29, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
People with a higher dietary intake of vitamin K are significantly less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, according to a study conducted by researchers from University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands and published in the journal Diabetes Care.
Vitamin K, known to play a critical role in blood coagulation, comes in two forms: K1 and K2. Vitamin K1 is found primarily in green leafy vegetables, as well as certain fruits such as kiwifruit and avocado. Vitamin K2 is found in meat, eggs and dairy products, and is also synthesized by the human body. Because the vitamin can be produced by the body and is needed only in small quantities, deficiencies are rare except in those with underlying medical conditions.
In the new study, researchers followed more than 38,000 Dutch adults for more than 10 years, tracking their diet and lifestyle habits and overall health data. At the end of 10 years, they found that participants with the highest vitamin K1 intake were 19 percent less likely to have developed Type 2 diabetes than those with the lowest intake. Likewise, those with the highest vitamin K2 intake were 20 percent less likely to develop the disease than those with the lowest intake.
The U.S. government recommends a daily vitamin K intake (all forms combined) of 12 micrograms for men and 90 micrograms for women. Study participants with the highest intake were consuming between 250 and 360 micrograms per day.
Vitamin K1 appeared to be associated with decreased diabetes risk only at very high doses. In contrast, every 10 microgram increase in vitamin K2 intake led to a decrease in diabetes risk.
The researchers noted that since the study was correlational, they could not show whether vitamin K plays an active role in diabetes prevention or not. They did separate the effects seen from those of age, body weight, exercise and intake of fat, fiber, vitamin C and vitamin E, however.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
The Fight Against GMO
September 29, 2010
Natural News
By: Jonathan Benson
The fight against genetic modification (GM) seems like a never-ending, uphill battle. But Lord Melchett, former director of Greenpeace and current policy director at the Soil Association, says that, despite what the biotechnology giants would have you believe, most nations of the world are rejecting GMs and thus preventing their takeover of the planet.
“[M]any people in Europe may be unaware of the extent of the resistance to GM in places like India and China, because they swallow the GM industry line that it is supported all across the world,” he was cited as saying in The Independent. “I have to say that where we are now with GM leaves me feeling very optimistic.”
A quick visit to the website of GM-giant Monsanto, for instance, indicates that what Melchett says is true. Fancy, deceptive marketing and design tactics would have you believe that the world is lovingly embracing the alleged wonders of GM crops, but this is hardly the case. In fact, the only reason GMs even have any foothold at all is because, in some countries, they have been deceitfully approved beneath the radar of the general public.
But as the general public has begun to learn more about GMs — and the fact that they are dishonestly hidden and unlabeled in the U.S. food supply — things are beginning to change. In recent years, several new GM crops have been defeated due to public opposition.
“America is where we’re told GM is a huge success…but it’s simply not true,” said Melchett at the recent Sustainable Planet forum in Lyon, France. “If anybody tells you this, ask them, where is GM wheat? Monsanto had it ready to go but it was stopped by American farmers. Ask them, where is the GM version of alfalfa, the fourth most commonly grown crop in the world? American farmers went to court to stop it being commercialized.”
Continued efforts are needed to stop GM crops from gaining any further ground, and with enough dedication, the outspoken public may even help reverse the tide.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Genetically Modified Salmon Highly Allergenic
September 29, 2010
Natural News
By: Jonathan Benson
The debate continues over whether or not genetically-modified (GM) salmon is safe for human consumption and fit for approval by the FDA, even though virtually all the evidence indicates that the tampered fish is a threat to human health and to the environment. Tests conducted by AquaBounty Technologies Inc., the company responsible for creating the “Frankenfish”, show that the GM salmon is highly allergenic, and in some cases completely capable of breeding with wild salmon.
According to a recent report in Mother Jones, AquaBounty’s own studies show that GM salmon is at least 19 percent more allergenic than natural salmon, and up to 40 percent more allergenic if the modified fish develops into a “triploid” female rather than the intended “diploid” female. And certain genes that are not normally allergenic in their natural state become allergenic when artificially inserted into other applications, which is of increased concern.
AquaBounty says it is primarily interested in creating triploid females because they are sterile and only demonstrate the 19 percent increase in allergenicity, which the company considers to be “statistically insignificant”. But according to reports, up to five percent of the GM salmon may end up unintentionally becoming diploids instead, which are fertile and highly likely to breed with wild salmon if they escape into the wild.
Consumers Union, an independent, non-profit information organization serving consumers, has said that Aqua Bounty’s tests are not even remotely adequate enough to prove the fish’s safety. Only six triploid fish were used as part of the study, which is hardly enough to get a proper understanding of their effects on the environment. And the study was not double blind, which means that researchers knew which fish were GM and which were not.
But none of this seems to matter to AquaBounty or to the FDA, which both seem to be fine with poorly-designed, biased testing methods that actually prove the fish to be unsafe rather than safe. The public can only hope that the FDA will express some conscience in the matter and ultimately reject AquaBounty’s petition to unleash its mutant fish upon the public.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
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Military Pilot Claims Aliens Have Deactivated Our Nukes
September 27, 2010
The Telegraph
By: Andy Bloxhom
The beings have repeated their efforts in the US and have been active since 1948, the men said, and accused the respective governments of trying to keep the information secret.
The unlikely claims were compiled by six former US airmen and another member of the military who interviewed or researched the evidence of 120 ex-military personnel.
The information they have collected suggests that aliens could have landed on Earth as recently as seven years ago.
The men’s aim is to press the two governments to recognise the long-standing extra-terrestrial visits as fact.
They are to be presented on Monday 27 September at a meeting in Washington.
One of the men, Capt Robert Salas, said: “The US Air Force is lying about the national security implications of unidentified aerial objects at nuclear bases and we can prove it.”
He said said he witnessed such an event first-hand on March 16, 1967, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana which housed Minuteman nuclear missiles.
Capt Salas continued: “I was on duty when an object came over and hovered directly over the site.
“The missiles shut down – 10 Minuteman missiles. And the same thing happened at another site a week later. There’s a strong interest in our missiles by these objects, wherever they come from. I personally think they’re not from planet Earth.”
Others claim to have seen similar activity in the UK.
Col Charles Halt said he saw a UFO at the former military base RAF Bentwaters, near Ipswich, 30 years ago, during which he saw beams of light fired into the base then heard on the military radio that aliens had landed inside the nuclear storage area.
He said: “I believe that the security services of both the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted – both then and now – to subvert the significance of what occurred at RAF Bentwaters by the use of well-practised methods of disinformation.”
The site was then the base of the US 81st Tactical Fighter Wing.
Capt Bruce Fenstermacher, a former US Air Force officer, also claims he saw a cigar-shaped UFO hovering above a nuclear base in Wyoming in 1976.
Click here for the full report from The Telegraph
DC Uses GPS to Monitor Young Criminals
September 24, 2010
The Washington Examiner
By: Freeman Klopott
The District’s juvenile justice agency is piloting a program that puts global positioning system devices on the ankles of the young criminals it releases into the community.
The program was started under Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services interim Director Robert Hildum, and seeks to keep better track of the agency’s wards. This pressure has been on DYRS this year after nearly a dozen of its wards have been charged with murder and more than six have been slain. Hildum was appointed to the job in July by Mayor Adrian Fenty.
“Electronic monitoring is a ‘tool’ in the ‘toolbox’ for case managers,” DYRS spokesman Reggie Sanders wrote in an e-mail. “It is not a panacea, but can be helpful to improve the oversight of young people in the community.”
Sanders said the agency has contracted with Satellite Tracking of People LLC, the same company used by District’s adult probation agency. DYRS, he said, is applying for grants that would help supply the funding needed to cover the costs that could range as high as $12 per day for each device. He wouldn’t say how many monitoring bracelets have been slapped on the ankles of DYRS wards, but sources said the program is running and about 200 bracelets have been purchased.
The monitoring system allows case managers to make sure their wards are attending school and treatment programs. It can also be used to enforce house arrest. If a ward deviates from a prescribed schedule, or steps out of his home, the case manager is alerted via e-mail. It’s not the first time the District has employed electronic monitoring, youth advocates said, but this program appears to be more advanced than previous iterations.
Over the past five years, DYRS has increasingly focused on putting its wards in residential rehabilitation programs, where officials have hoped proximity to family can help ease treatment.
Youth advocates like D.C. Lawyers for Youth’s executive director, Daniel Okonkwo, support residential programs as a method of getting youth out of what they say is a toxic environment inside juvenile detention centers. Okonkwo said the electronic monitoring system could be beneficial if it’s used to keep more kids out of the detention centers.
But “if they’re taking kids who are already in the community and putting them a monitoring program, they’ll further stigmatize them,” he said.
Critics of the residential program model say it’s too lax, and has led to the killings in which DYRS wards have been implicated.
Among them is police union chief Kris Baumann, who said, “If you think someone is violent enough that they need to be monitored, you just shouldn’t let them out in public.”
He added, “They’re still not taking violent crime seriously.”
Click here for the full report from the Washington Examiner
