$115M lawsuit launched against G20 police

Source: CNews

TORONTO – Two Torontonians are launching a $115-million class-action lawsuit against police on behalf of everyone detained during the G20 protests in July.

Miranda McQuade and Mike Barber, who were both arrested during the Summit, are suing on behalf of 1,150 people who were detained.

The statement of claim filed Thursday names the Toronto Police Services Board, the Attorney-General of Canada and the Regional Municipality of Peel Police Services Board as co-defendants.

QMI Agency’s requests for comment from the co-defendants were not immediately returned.

“The wholesale violation of civil liberties which occurred during the G20 must be addressed by the courts to preserve our democracy,” said lawyer David Midanik in a statement. “These violations will escalate unless and until people are willing to stand up for their rights in a court of law.”

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Nano-based RFID tag, you’re it

Source: Rice University

Long lines at store checkouts could be history if a new technology created in part at Rice University comes to pass.

Rice researchers, in collaboration with a team led by Gyou-jin Cho at Sunchon National University in Korea, have come up with an inexpensive, printable transmitter that can be invisibly embedded in packaging. It would allow a customer to walk a cart full of groceries or other goods past a scanner on the way to the car; the scanner would read all items in the cart at once, total them up and charge the customer’s account while adjusting the store’s inventory.

More advanced versions could collect all the information about the contents of a store in an instant, letting a retailer know where every package is at any time.

The technology reported in the March issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices is based on a carbon-nanotube-infused ink for ink-jet printers first developed in the Rice lab of James Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science. The ink is used to make thin-film transistors, a key element in radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that can be printed on paper or plastic.

“We are going to a society where RFID is a key player,” said Cho, a professor of printed electronics engineering at Sunchon, who expects the technology to mature in five years. Cho and his team are developing the electronics as well as the roll-to-roll printing process that, he said, will bring the cost of printing the tags down to a penny apiece and make them ubiquitous.

RFID tags are almost everywhere already. The tiny electronic transmitters are used to identify and track products and farm animals. They’re in passports, library books and devices that let drivers pass through tollbooths without digging for change.

The technology behind RFID goes back to the 1940s, when Léon Theremin, inventor of the self-named electronic music instrument heard in so many ’50s science fiction and horror movies, came up with a spy tool for the Soviet Union that drew power from and retransmitted radio waves.

RFID itself came into being in the 1970s and has been widely adopted by the Department of Defense and industry to track shipping containers as they make their way around the world, among many other uses.

But RFID tags to date are largely silicon-based. Paper or plastic tags printed as part of a package would cut costs dramatically. Cho expects his roll-to-roll technique, which uses a gravure process rather than ink-jet printers, to replace the bar codes now festooned on just about everything you can buy.

Cho, Tour and their teams reported in the journal a three-step process to print one-bit tags, including the antenna, electrodes and dielectric layers, on plastic foil. Cho’s lab is working on 16-bit tags that would hold a more practical amount of information and be printable on paper as well.

Cho came across Tour’s inks while spending a sabbatical at Rice in 2005. “Professor Tour first recommended we use single-walled carbon nanotubes for printing thin-film transistors,” Cho said.

Tour’s lab continues to support the project in an advisory role and occasionally hosts Cho’s students. Tour said Rice owns half of the patent, still pending, upon which all of the technology is based. “Gyou-jin has carried the brunt of this, and it’s his sole project,” Tour said. “We are advisers and we still send him the raw materials” — the single-walled carbon nanotubes produced at Rice.

Printable RFIDs are practical because they’re passive. The tags power up when hit by radio waves at the right frequency and return the information they contain. “If there’s no power source, there’s no lifetime limit. When they receive the RF signal, they emit,” Tour said.

There are several hurdles to commercialization. First, the device must be reduced to the size of a bar code, about a third the size of the one reported in the paper, Tour said. Second, its range must increase.

“Right now, the emitter has to be pretty close to the tags, but it’s getting farther all the time,” he said. “The practical distance to have it ring up all the items in your shopping cart is a meter. But the ultimate would be to signal and get immediate response back from every item in your store – what’s on the shelves, their dates, everything.

“At 300 meters, you’re set – you have real-time information on every item in a warehouse. If something falls behind a shelf, you know about it. If a product is about to expire, you know to move it to the front – or to the bargain bin.”

Tour allayed concerns about the fate of nanotubes in packaging. “The amount of nanotubes in an RFID tag is probably less than a picogram. That means you can produce one trillion of them from a gram of nanotubes – a miniscule amount. Our HiPco reactor produces a gram of nanotubes an hour, and that would be enough to handle every item in every Walmart.

“In fact, more nanotubes occur naturally in the environment, so it’s not even fair to say the risk is minimal. It’s infinitesimal.”

Hat Tip To No One Has To Die Today for the great find!

Obama confident of repeat Fed term for Bernanke

Embattled Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will garner enough votes to win US Senate confirmation for a second term despite opposition from key Democrats, President Barack Obama’s top adviser predicted Sunday.

“The president is very confident that the chairman will be confirmed,” said adviser David Axelrod, who praised Bernanke’s handling of the recent global economic meltdown.

“Chairman Bernanke offered very strong and steady leadership during this crisis, without which we… may have slipped into the abyss. And we are still in a fragile state, although the economy is growing,” Axelrod told CNN’s “State of the Union” television program.

Several US senators have vowed to filibuster the nomination which needs 60 votes for approval. Most of the Senate’s 40 Republicans are expected to vote against Bernanke, making it all the more important for Bernanke to sew up the support of Democrats.

But last week, two senior Senate Democrats, Barbara Boxer and Russell Feingold, announced that they would vote against Bernanke after his first term ends on January 31, criticizing him for being too closely allied with Wall Street.

Senators, particularly those facing re-election this year, also are concerned about voter anger about the role of the Fed in failing to prevent the deep recession and then in helping to engineer the bailouts of large financial companies.

The growing tide against Bernanke has imperiled the Fed chairman, but a top White House aide on Sunday voiced praise of Bernanke’s stewardship of US monetary policy and said he needs another term as the country’s banker to ensure that a nascent economic recovery continues on track.

“There is a great deal of concern relative to the financial sector. And understand that we need his leadership,” Axelrod said.

President Barack Obama’s administration has been scrambling to save his beleaguered Fed nominee — first installed by Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush in February 2006 — in the face of opposition from members of his own Democratic party.

Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican rival in the 2008 presidential race, said he was “leaning against” supporting Bernanke, claiming that “his policies were partially responsible for the meltdown that we experienced.”

“Chairman Bernanke was in charge when we hit the iceberg,” McCain told CBS program “Face the Nation.”

Another top Republican, Senator John Cornyn, said he was certain he would not vote to approve another term for the Fed chair.

“I think Ben Bernanke is a brilliant and an honorable man, but one who has presided over what is a crisis of confidence of the American people due to a lack of transparency and accountability with regard to the bailouts and other activities by the Federal Reserve,” he told the Fox News Sunday program.

“So, regretfully, I will vote ‘no’ on his confirmation — I think they need a fresh start,” the Texas Republican said.

Democrat Boxer — on the other end of the political spectrum from the pro-business, conservative McCain and Cornyn — said on Friday that she too objects to Bernanke’s return, but for quite different reasons.

“It is time for Main Street to have a champion at the Fed…. Our next Federal Reserve chairman must represent a clean break from the failed policies of the past.”

Ramped up Democratic opposition to a second term for Bernanke underscores a major populist shift in the political landscape since Republicans won a stunning upset last week in the Massachusetts election for a US Senate seat, ending the 60-seat Democratic supermajority in the chamber.

But analysts have warned that tossing out Bernanke could trigger renewed turmoil in financial markets, after speculation that his nomination could be rejected contributed to a sharp stock market drop last week.

Time magazine named Bernanke its 2009 “Person of the Year” in December, crediting him with helping guide the United States through financial turmoil.

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Man Videotaped Entire Christmas Terror Attempt On Flight 253

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
December 28, 2009

For ABC News and the corporate media, it is a foregone conclusion. The Christmas underwear bomber is al-Qaeda.

	“He sat up and videotaped the entire thing, very calmly. We do know that the FBI is looking for him intensely. Since then, we’ve heard nothing about it.”

“American officials have cause to worry there may be more al Qaeda-trained young men in Yemen planning to bring down American jets,” report Brian Ross and Richard Esposito. “Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, charged with the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253, told FBI agents there were more just like him in Yemen who would strike soon.”

And then there is the supposed tape released four days before the attempted underwear bombing. It shows what ABC describes as “the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen” who says he will kill Americans. “We are carrying a bomb to hit the enemies of God.”

“Yemen has become a principal al Qaeda training ground and the accused suicide bomber told the FBI he was trained for more than a month in Yemen, given 80 grams of a high explosive cleverly sewn into his underpants, undetected by standard security screening.”

On Sunday, the neocon Joe Lieberman said the U.S. needs to bomb Yemen and pronto. “Iraq was yesterday’s war, Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war,” the “hawkish” (neocon) senator from Connecticut told Fox News.

Lieberman, who helms the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Yemen is the new home of al-Qaeda. A script on Yemen and al-Qaeda is now being uniformly followed by the corporate media.

Meanwhile, more suspicious information about the underwear bombing has surfaced. An eye witness told the news talk radio station 620 WTMJ in Milwaukee that a man had videotaped the entire flight.

Patricia “Scotty” Keepman and her daughter witnessed the alleged botched bombing. Keepman’s “daughter said that ahead of them was a man who videotaped the entire flight, including the attempted detonation.”

“He sat up and videotaped the entire thing, very calmly,” said Patricia. “We do know that the FBI is looking for him intensely. Since then, we’ve heard nothing about it.”

On Saturday it was reported that a “sharp-dressed man” had escorted Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab when he boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in Amsterdam. Mutallab was allowed on the plane without a passport. It was later reported that Mutallab seemed to be in a trance.

The alleged videotaping of the underwear bomber and his fudged attack is another oddity that the corporate media should zoom in on. Unfortunately, we no longer have a functioning investigative media in this country.

Instead we will hear endless pabulum about a resurgent al-Qaeda and murderous idiocy from neocons like Joe Lieberman who are screaming for another small and defenseless country to be bombed and more innocents slaughtered as the U.S. chases a phantom terror group created by the CIA.

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Terror and Tyranny: the TNT Approach for 2010

Pyramids of Control
December 28, 2009

Tyranny 2010 wouldn’t be complete without what Gerald Celente cited as an upcoming trend:  Terror 2010.  T&T — perfect together.

	We can be pretty sure that this new technology will be implemented, pronto, with its full capability, and with no choice to opt-out: mission accomplished.

The holiday season has greeted us with “Terr’ists” who prefer their underwear to their shoes (and they need well-dressed escorts when they forget their passport).  It would all seem ridiculous if it hadn’t already caused a dramatic increase in airport security, as people are now being told to show up 4 hours in advance for international flights.   This is a rather large problem.  For those in the business of creating problems, though, this was a well-chosen stratagem for eliciting the all-important reaction; is there ever a more stressful time or event than Christmas travel?  So, as dot connectors, we need to look at what solutions are being offered for this problem.  Enter stage left (and right): Tyranny.

1.  The new 3D body scanning device that makes us all more naked than naked was met with faux consternation when it was first revealed.  It was, naturally, played down.  But we can be pretty sure that this new technology will be implemented, pronto, with its full capability, and with no choice to opt-out: mission accomplished.

2.  Prisoner training.  After the hassle of actually getting to, and getting on the plane, it will literally be prison-like conditions once aboard.  No electronic devices or hand-held items (books), and no bathroom breaks for the last hour of the flight.  As DHS Secretary Napolitano stated on the TSA website:

Passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same thing everywhere. Due to the busy holiday travel season, both domestic and international travelers should allot extra time for check-in.

3.  The Patriot Act:  As of December 16, the renewal of the Patriot Act in its present form was still being disputed, delayed, and debated.  Pretty sure it will be sailing through, with even more draconian measures attached:  mission accomplished.

4.  Expanding the war (s).  Yemen?  Who knew?  Well now the world knows that it is near Pakistan, Afghanistan . . . heck, it’s in the Middle East — TERRORISTS — BOMBS AWAY!  No Congress, no discussion needed:  mission accomplished.

5.  The African connection.  They have been working on Africom legitimacy for a while. Underwear bombers from Nigeria with connections to Yemen (and born in England?):  mission accomplished.

6.  (More) Military presence on American soil.  Let it not be said that there isn’t freedom somewhere in America — you just have to be part of NORTHCOM or INTERPOL.  Total freedom to investigate, abuse, arrest, and never to be questioned about it: mission accomplished.

7.  Keeping Americans at home, while discouraging inbound tourists.  In a November 14th article titled, “International Tourism Decline on the Upswing, if America Doesn’t Sabotage the Recovery,” we can read a call to action in this interesting choice of words — if you are standing at the top of the pyramid.  The last thing that people who are trying to consolidate power, and siphon as much money from bottom to top, would want is a recovery in the real economy.   Additionally, the fear of travel reinforces U.S. isolationism.   The ultimate effect?  Dependence on the government for both security and financial aid: mission accomplished.

8.  Overall security must be increased.  Although Janet Napolitano almost unforgivably forgot her script, she is back on track the day after and in lockstep with security apparatchiks everywhere — current security measures are never enough, more must be done:  mission accomplished.

So, if all it takes is Terror to create Tyranny, then the words of the Underpants Bomber seem to ring true for 2010:  There is more to come.

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Obama Seeks to Assure U.S. as “Qaeda Group” Stakes Claim to Christmas Terror Plot

HONOLULU — President Obama emerged from Hawaiian seclusion on Monday to try to quell gathering criticism of his administration’s handling of the thwarted Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner as a branch of Al Qaeda claimed responsibility.

“We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable,” Mr. Obama told reporters during a break in his 10-day holiday vacation. “This was a serious reminder of the dangers that we face and the nature of those who threaten our homeland.”

He added that he had ordered reviews of the air navigation screening system and the terrorist watch list system. “The American people should be assured that we are doing everything in our power to keep you and your family safe and secure during this busy holiday season,” he said.

The president spoke after the branch of Al Qaeda in Yemen and Saudi Arabia claimed responsibility for the attempted attack and said it was in retaliation for recent American-backed attacks on its members in Yemen, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks militant Islamist Web sites.

In a statement issued on jihadist forums, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula boasted the success of the “Nigerian brother” in breaking through security barriers and of its own explosives technology, SITE reported. Federal authorities say Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, tried to set off explosives aboard a trans-Atlantic Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit on Friday.

The Qaeda branch blamed a technical fault for the low-power detonation, according to SITE. The group has mounted attacks within Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and in 2004 it captured and beheaded a 49-year-old American engineer working in Riyadh, Paul M. Johnson Jr.

Government terror experts said the Qaeda claim was apparently legitimate.

“The statement is certainly credible,” one government official said, “and it reflects this group’s growing desire to strike beyond the Arabian peninsula.”

Mr. Abdulmutallab has told federal authorities that he received training and materials from a bomb expert in Yemen associated with Al Qaeda.

The government of Yemen said in a statement on Monday that Mr. Abdulmutallab had been in Yemen this year from early August to early December “after obtaining a visa to study Arabic at a language institute.”

The statement, issued by the Yemeni embassy in Washington, said Mr. Abdulmutallab had a valid United States visa and other foreign visas. “There was nothing suspicious about his intentions to visit Yemen, especially considering he had also visited the U.S. in the past,” the statement said.

Questions about how Mr. Abdulmutallab slipped through the aviation security system have been compounded by the Obama administration’s assertion over the weekend that “the system worked,” a judgment it reversed Monday.

Just hours before the president’s appearance — his first public remarks since arriving in Hawaii on Thursday — Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano recalibrated the assessment she and another top official had offered on Sunday. Speaking on NBC’s “Today” show, Ms. Napolitano said her remark had been taken out of context and that the thwarted bombing in fact represented a failure of the nation’s aviation security system.

“Our system did not work in this instance,” she said. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.”

Until now, Mr. Obama had tried to strike a balance between signaling that he is on top of the situation and not drawing more attention to it than it already was generating. Each day since Friday, his staff accompanying him here in his home state put out statements indicating that the president was holding conference calls and requesting action of government agencies. But he declined for three days to address it in public himself, cognizant perhaps of warnings by some terrorism experts against elevating such incidents and by extension their authors.

Yet the visual contrasts have been jarring. Pictures of passengers enduring tougher security screening at the airport were juxtaposed against images of the president soaking in the sun and surf of this tropical getaway. Appearing at a Marine base near the Kailua beachfront house he has rented, Mr. Obama on Monday praised the “quick and heroic actions of passengers and crew” but made no attempt to defend the security system that allowed the suspect onto the plane with explosives in the first place.

Beyond the reviews, he pledged unspecified action against any groups that were involved. “We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us, whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere they are plotting attacks against the U.S. homeland,” Mr. Obama said.

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Lieberman: Yemen is ‘tomorrow’s war’ if pre-emptive action not taken

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U.S. Widens Terror War to Yemen

ERIC SCHMITT and ROBERT F. WORTH
The New York Times
December 28, 2009

WASHINGTON — In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

A year ago, the Central Intelligence Agency sent several of its top field operatives with counterterrorism experience to the country, according a former top agency official. At the same time, some of the most secretive Special Operations commandos have begun training Yemeni security forces in counterterrorism tactics, senior military officers said.

The Pentagon is spending more than $70 million over the next 18 months, and using teams of Special Forces, to train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces, more than doubling previous military aid levels.

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Obama Appoints Former Bush Advisor as ‘Cyber Czar’

Nearly a year after taking office, US President Barack Obama named Howard Schmidt, a former Bush administration adviser and Microsoft executive, as his cybsersecurity coordinator on Tuesday.

“Howard will have the important responsibility of orchestrating the many important cybersecurity activities across the government,” said John Brennan, Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism.

Obama’s appointment of a White House “cyber czar” came 11 months after he was sworn in as president and seven months after he vowed to defend the United States against mounting espionage and hacker attacks to US government and private computer networks.

No single US agency is currently charged with ensuring government cybersecurity efforts and lawmakers had been calling for the creation of a powerful cybersecurity adviser reporting directly to the president.

Cybersecurity was subject to fierce turf battles under the previous administration between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the super-secret electronic surveillance National Security Agency (NSA).

Brennan said Schmidt “will have regular access to the president and serve as a key member of his National Security Staff.

“He will also work closely with his economic team to ensure that our cybersecurity efforts keep the nation secure and prosperous,” he added in a statement.

Schmidt, a cyber adviser to former president George W. Bush, currently heads the non-profit Information Security Forum.

In his new capacity, he will report to the National Security Council at the White House, coordinating the federal government’s cybsersecurity policy for both military and civilian agencies.

An Air Force and FBI veteran, Schmidt also previously served as chief security officer at software titan Microsoft and online retail giant eBay.

Citing his four decades of experience in government, business and law enforcement, Brennan called Schmidt “one of the world’s leading authorities on computer security.”

“Protecting the Internet is critical to our national security, public safety and our personal privacy and civil liberties,” he said.

The nomination comes as the Pentagon launches a new cyber command unit and the Department of Homeland Security seeks to boost the protection of civilian networks.

In October, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced her department had received the green light to hire up to 1,000 cybersecurity experts over the next three years.

In a video message on the White House blog, Schmidt said Obama had charged him with “developing a new comprehensive strategy to secure American networks” and “ensuring an organized unified response to future cyber incidents.”

In October, Obama declared the country’s digital infrastructure to be a “strategic national asset” and said “protecting this infrastructure is a national security priority.”

Schmidt’s appointment comes as gangs of cybercriminals, foreign intelligence services — reportedly including China and Russia — industrial spies and hackers increasingly prey on US networks, according to various studies.

A US congressional panel warned in November 2008 that China had developed a sophisticated cyber warfare program and stepped up its capacity to penetrate US computer networks to extract sensitive information.

Obama calls in to talk radio show as “Barry from D.C.”

Obama surprises outgoing Gov. Kaine on live radio

Outgoing Virginia Governor Tim Kaine got a bit of a surprise during his radio show today, after “Barry from D.C.” called to thank him for his years of service.

“Barry from D.C.” was, however, President Obama.

“Governor Kaine, this is actually the President of the United States calling,” Obama said.

“No,” a nearly incredulous Kaine began. “Oh my God.”

“I have a complaint about traffic in northern Virginia,” the president continued. “But, uh, rather than go there, I just wanted to say how proud we are of your service as governor of the commonwealth of Virginia and we wish you all the best this Christmas season after your terrific round of service for the people of Virginia.”

Kaine said he was flattered by the president’s call and said his warmest memory as Virginia’s governor was when President Obama was elected.

“I’m excited to continue to be in service, as they say,” he concluded.

Kaine, who leaves office in January, will be the next Democratic National Committee chairman.

This video is from WTOP’s As the Governor, broadcast Dec. 22, 2009.

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