A.D. Paige: Your Guide for the Apocalypse!

The NYPD is not in the business of serving the public, preserving justice, or protecting the innocent. Please read this article to get a bit of perspective on the corrupt and skewed tactics that the NYPD uses to save face and project the image of dispensing justice.

Full disclosure: This article involves a personal friend of mine, whose character I vouch for entirely.

Researchers believe that new “thinking caps”, could help provide super-human strength, highly enhanced concentration or thought-controlled weaponry.
A British ethics group is investigating the ethical dilemmas posed by inventions that interfere with the brain’s inner workings.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCB) has launched a consultation on the risks posed by such new technologies, the global market for which it says is worth $8bn (£5bn) and “growing fast.
With the prospect of future conflicts between armies controlling weapons with their minds, the Council, an independent body, is wanting to identify what issues that come with blurring the lines between humans and machines.
Applications range from medicine to warfare and even human enhancement while some techniques such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) are already used by thousands of patients.

The consultation will look at whether having decisions affected by a computer chip in the brain could lead to a sense of diminished responsibility amongst users.
“Intervening in the brain has always raised both hopes and fears in equal measure,” said Prof Thomas Baldwin, from York University, who is leading the study.
“Hopes of curing terrible diseases, and fears about the consequences of trying to enhance human capability beyond what is normally possible.
“These challenge us to think carefully about fundamental questions to do with the brain: What makes us human? What makes us an individual? And how and why do we think and behave in the way we do?”
He added: “It is not just science fiction… I don’t think it is unrealistic if you have the unlimited funds of the Pentagon to project ourselves towards some kind of Star Wars future.
“Setting pharmaceuticals aside, the value of the market for the devices and technologies we are dealing with is something in the region of $8 billion, and growing fast.”
The NCB, which investigates ethical issues raised by new developments in biology and medicine, wants to focus on three main areas of neurotechnologies that change the brain.
These include brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), neurostimulation techniques such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and neural stem cell therapy.
These technologies are already at various stages of development for use in the treatment of medical conditions including Parkinson’s disease, depression and stroke.
Experts believe they could bring significant benefits, especially for patients with severe brain disease or damage.
Alena Buyx, of the Nuffield Council, said: “A trial in the UK showed it improved performance in maths and there have been calls for it to be introduced for children in education. We know of children prescribed ritalin [a drug for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] to boost their school performance. Should we try to create individuals with superhuman abilities?”
In the military, BCIs are being used to develop weapons or vehicles controlled remotely by brain signals. Experts say there is there is big commercial scope in the gaming industry with the development of computer games controlled by people’s thoughts.
Kevin Warwick, a professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading and a supporter of more neurotechnology research, said some experimental brain technologies had great potential in medicine.
“From the brain signals, a brain computer interface could translate a person’s desire to move … and then use those signals to operate a wheelchair or other piece of technology,” he said.
“For someone who has locked-in syndrome, for example, and cannot communicate, a BCI could be life-changing.”
But the pair stressed there are concerns about safety of some experimental techniques that involve implants in the brain, and about the ethics of using such technology in other medicine and other fields.
Prof Baldwin said: “If brain-computer interfaces are used to control military aircraft or weapons from far away, who takes ultimate responsibility for the actions? Could this be blurring the line between man and machine?” .

[UPDATE 2/22/2012] It is important to note that disabling Web History in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes. More information at the end of this post.

On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google’s other products. This protection was especially important because search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more. If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with…

The Obama administration is urging the Supreme Court to halt a legal challenge weighing the constitutionality of a once-secret warrantless surveillance program targeting Americans’ communications that Congress eventually legalized in 2008.

The FISA Amendments Act (.pdf), the subject of the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.”

The administration is asking the Supreme Court to review an appellate decision that said the nearly 4-year-old lawsuit could move forward. The government said the ACLU and a host of other groups don’t have the legal standing to bring the case because they have no evidence they or their overseas clients are being targeted.

The case arrives at the high court’s inbox after having two different outcomes in the lower courts. It marks the first time the Supreme Court has been asked to review the eavesdropping program that was secretly employed in the wake of 9/11 by the George W. Bush administration, and eventually largely codified into law four years ago.

A lower court had ruled the ACLU, Amnesty International, Global Fund for Women, Global Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association, The Nation magazine, PEN American Center, Service Employees International Union and other plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case, because they could not demonstrate that they were subject to the eavesdropping.

The groups appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that they often work with overseas dissidents who might be targets of the National Security Agency program. Instead of speaking with those people on the phone or through e-mails, the groups asserted that they have had to make expensive overseas trips in a bid to maintain attorney-client confidentiality.

The plaintiffs, some of them journalists, also claim the 2008 legislation chills their speech, and violates their Fourth Amendment privacy rights.

Without ruling on the merits of the case, the appeals court agreed in March with the plaintiffs that they have ample reason to fear the surveillance program, and thus have legal standing to pursue their claim.

The government disagreed.

“Respondents’ inability to show an imminent interception of their communications cannot be cured by the asserted chilling effect resulting from their fear of such surveillance,” the government wrote (.pdf) the Supreme Court.

But even if the Supreme Court rejects the petition by Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., that does not necessarily mean the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act will be litigated.

The lawsuit would return to the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koeltl in New York, where, if past is prologue, the Obama administration likely would play its trump card: an assertion of the powerful state secrets privilege that lets the executive branch effectively kill lawsuits by claiming they threaten to expose national security secrets.

The courts tend to defer to such claims. But in a rare exception in 2008, a San Francisco federal judge refused to throw out a wiretapping lawsuit against AT&T under the state secrets privilege. The AT&T lawsuit was later killed anyway, because the same FISA Amendments Act also granted the phone companies retroactive legal immunity for their participation in the NSA program.

The FISA Amendments Act — which passed with the support of then-senator Barack Obama of Illinois — generally requires the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court to rubber-stamp terror-related electronic surveillance requests. The government does not have to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application.

The Obama administration is urging the Supreme Court to halt a legal challenge weighing the constitutionality of a once-secret warrantless surveillance program targeting Americans’ communications that Congress eventually legalized in 2008.

The FISA Amendments Act (.pdf), the subject of the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.”

The administration is asking the Supreme Court to review an appellate decision that said the nearly 4-year-old lawsuit could move forward. The government said the ACLU and a host of other groups don’t have the legal standing to bring the case because they have no evidence they or their overseas clients are being targeted.

The case arrives at the high court’s inbox after having two different outcomes in the lower courts. It marks the first time the Supreme Court has been asked to review the eavesdropping program that was secretly employed in the wake of 9/11 by the George W. Bush administration, and eventually largely codified into law four years ago.

A lower court had ruled the ACLU, Amnesty International, Global Fund for Women, Global Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association, The Nation magazine, PEN American Center, Service Employees International Union and other plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case, because they could not demonstrate that they were subject to the eavesdropping.

The groups appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that they often work with overseas dissidents who might be targets of the National Security Agency program. Instead of speaking with those people on the phone or through e-mails, the groups asserted that they have had to make expensive overseas trips in a bid to maintain attorney-client confidentiality.

The plaintiffs, some of them journalists, also claim the 2008 legislation chills their speech, and violates their Fourth Amendment privacy rights.

Without ruling on the merits of the case, the appeals court agreed in March with the plaintiffs that they have ample reason to fear the surveillance program, and thus have legal standing to pursue their claim.

The government disagreed.

“Respondents’ inability to show an imminent interception of their communications cannot be cured by the asserted chilling effect resulting from their fear of such surveillance,” the government wrote (.pdf) the Supreme Court.

But even if the Supreme Court rejects the petition by Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., that does not necessarily mean the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act will be litigated.

The lawsuit would return to the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koeltl in New York, where, if past is prologue, the Obama administration likely would play its trump card: an assertion of the powerful state secrets privilege that lets the executive branch effectively kill lawsuits by claiming they threaten to expose national security secrets.

The courts tend to defer to such claims. But in a rare exception in 2008, a San Francisco federal judge refused to throw out a wiretapping lawsuit against AT&T under the state secrets privilege. The AT&T lawsuit was later killed anyway, because the same FISA Amendments Act also granted the phone companies retroactive legal immunity for their participation in the NSA program.

The FISA Amendments Act — which passed with the support of then-senator Barack Obama of Illinois — generally requires the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court to rubber-stamp terror-related electronic surveillance requests. The government does not have to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application.