Dumbing Down

*** Unbelievable dumbing down

Brits happy to ditch civil liberties
- The Register

Three out of four Brits would happily hand over their civil
liberties in exchange for better security against terrorist attacks,
according figures from pollsters ICM.

It is interesting to note that this is the same general public that
rails against any attempts to make them drive more slowly, or with
more care. This is in spite of the fact that in 2004, 671
pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents, and a further 2,550
people died in other road accidents.

The ICM/Guardian-backed survey found that 73 per cent of Brits
overall support a trade-off between liberty and security. Tory
voters are even keener than average to do so, with 79 per cent of
respond ants backing the idea. Labour voters and Lib Dems came in
at 72 per cent and 70 per cent in favour, respectively.

Further, 62 per cent of respondents were in favour of deporting
foreign radical Islamists, even if that deportation was to a country
that used torture. Only 19 per cent directly opposed this idea.

Similarly only 19 per cent opposed calls for terror suspects to be
held for three months without charge, with 62 per cent welcoming the
proposal. Currently, the upper limit is 14 days.

However, the poll also revealed that a sizeable minority was still
in favour of having an independent judiciary.

Although 52 per cent of those polled said judges should not be able
to rule against government measures, 40 per cent said they agreed
that judges should "protect our civil liberty and continue to
overturn anti-terrorist measures if they feel it is right to do so".

A spokesman for Liberty told The Guardian that the results of the
poll were a cause for concern, but cautioned against knee jerk
legislation.

He added that people would realise that defending our basic values
would be a better way to protect our society, rather than passing
"counterproductive" and "superficially attractive" security
measures.

Shamrock's comment: The governments' efforts to scare the hell into
people because of terrorism is about about getting them to give up
their civil liberties is working, we are sad to report.

Dumbing Down Award of the month

Goes to the UK Metro Police

Hypocrisy knows no Bounds!

Shamrock's comment: The Terrocracts want CCTV's camera's to spy on
you everywhere. There are thousands of them around London and more
are being put in place every week to 'protect you'. Soon they'll be
in your home.

However when an innocent victim is brutally slaughtered with seven
gun shots to the head at close range by (UK) police on a public
underground (subway) station surprise, surprise, the CCTV cameras
just happen NOT to be working on that particular day and at that
particular underground stop! They said the same thing about the
cameras not working on the London bus and underground bombings of
July 7th.

Believe that lying B.S. from the police then I've got a bridge to
sell you!

*** Platform CCTV 'was working'

London - A newspaper on Monday alleged that three closed circuit
television cameras (CCTV) on a London subway platform, where an
innocent Brazilian was shot dead by police, were working despite
police claims to the contrary.

However, a spokesperson for Scotland Yard, dismissed the story as
speculation, noting that the police had never disclosed any comment
about the CCTV footage.

The latest report about the controversial shooting of Jean Charles
de Menezes came as two senior Brazilian officials arrived in Britain
to grill police officers and investigators about what happened.

Wagner Goncalves, from the attorney general's department, and Marcio
Pereira Pinto Garcia from the department of international judicial
co-operation at the ministry of justice, flew into London's Heathrow
airport earlier.

Fatal blunder

The London Evening Standard cited senior sources on the London
Underground challenging police claims that there was no footage of
the final movements of the 27-year-old electrician mistaken for a
suicide bomber at Stockwell station, in a fatal blunder on July 22.

The newspaper said a log book, which was kept to record events at
the station and any faults, had no reports of problems concerning
the CCTV cameras at the time of the shooting.

It quoted a senior transport union official as saying: "At least
three out of four of the cameras were working. There were no
reports of anything wrong with the cameras.

"Sometimes you may have trouble with one camera, but staff cannot
understand how none of the four recorded anything. It is most
unusual to say the least."

The newspaper said the sources spoke out after "police had returned
tapes taken from the cameras saying, 'These are no good to us. They
are blank'".

However, the BBC had reported that there was a shortage of CCTV
footage for the incident as discs for the cameras had been removed
the previous day by police officers investigating the failed 21 July
attacks on London transport and not replaced.

Cannon Fodder

Homeland Insecurity: Big Brother Is Watching You
- Charlotte Twight

Charlotte A. Twight, professor of economics at Boise State
University and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, is the author
of "Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control over the Lives of
Ordinary Americans" (Palgrave/St. Martin's Press, 2002).

Terrorism is a serious problem for America. But when our elected
representatives vote for telephone book-sized laws they have not
read, it also represents a serious problem.

That's just what happened when Congress passed the "Homeland
Security Act," a 484-page law most House members did not even read.
And that should make us all a little, shall we say, insecure in our
homeland.

The troubling details are now trickling out. Title II creates a
Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection
within the Department of Homeland Security. The directorate is
given open-ended power to "access, receive and analyze" information
from federal, state and local government agencies and the private
sector, to integrate this information, and to disseminate it to
government and private recipients.

The act's occasional lip service to privacy is a sham. As with
recent medical privacy regulations, here too federal officials
genuflect toward privacy while they strip it away.

The surveillance system outlined by the Homeland Security Act builds
on prior federal laws that mandated creation of many of the
databases that will be inputs to the proposed integrated system.
Few complained when, over the years, federal officials ordered our
banks, our schools, our doctors, our employers, and others to
collect detailed information about us. Nor did many complain about
the vast array of government databases gradually assembled by the
IRS, FBI, SSA, and the Departments of Labor, Education, HHS, and the
rest.

Piece by piece, the central government demanded creation of key
components, which, if integrated, could be used to create a virtual
surveillance state. That integration is now an explicit objective
of the Homeland Security Act.

Of course, there are also good provisions in the act, such as a
program to arm airline pilots. But that is the point. By combining
a variety of measures, good and bad, in a nearly indecipherable
484-page bill, and giving legislators less than 24 hours to examine
its contents, key officials facilitated passage of provisions that
otherwise might not have been accepted by Congress or the public.
Labeling the bill as the "Homeland Security Act" guaranteed that few
would dare to oppose it.

Unfortunately, this episode is not an isolated incident. In the
past few weeks, we have discovered the Pentagon's planned
consolidated database on nearly 300 million citizens. That's right,
on all of us. The traditional presumption of innocence is being
supplanted by a presumption of guilt. Defense officials now want to
know everything there is to know about you--your bank account, the
checks you write, your credit card transactions and other purchases,
your educational records, your e-mail, your travels, and more--all
without a search warrant.

This database proposal is a brainchild of the "Office of Information
Awareness," led by Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter and housed within
the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Its
stated goal is to consolidate central government access to
commercial as well as government databases. By centralizing
analysis of such information, the government is doing what some have
long feared, with predictable implications for privacy and liberty.

The office's emblem is an eye scanning the world, with the caption
'Scientia Est Potentia' (knowledge is power). That caption is
chillingly accurate: Government officials' unrestrained acquisition
of personal information about us will give them unprecedented power
over us.

What is new about the surveillance contemplated by the Homeland
Security Act and the Pentagon's "Total Information Awareness"
system? For openers, surveillance is being centralized at the
national level to an unprecedented degree. The government is
further destroying barriers between commercial and government
databases, seeking nearly unfettered access to private-sector
information, and using data-mining to scrutinize innocent citizens.
Ever more bureaucrats and business people are being granted access
to government-compiled information about us without our knowledge or
consent. While the pretense of court authorization sometimes
remains, in actuality safeguards preventing surveillance of
law-abiding citizens are being cast aside. The central government
is openly seeking to spy on all Americans.

Congressman Bob Barr, R-Ga., has condemned the creation of these
monster databases, but he tried to defend his colleagues in Congress
by saying they were not fully aware of what they were voting for.
Only in Washington, D.C., would such a "defense" be seriously
advanced. This is not the America that I grew up in, but this is
the America that will be handed to the next generation. We should
all tremble for the future of our nation.

*** Police and Tube firm at odds over CCTV footage of innocent
Brazilian's shooting - London Independent

Comment: Isn't it cute when the overwhelming benefits of CCTV is
rammed down our throats whenever they catch a bad guy but whenever
the police get caught covering up their own criminal activities the
fantastic cameras mysteriously malfunction! It's just one big
coincidence, just like all the cameras strangely malfunctioning
right as Diana's Mercedes entered a Pont D'alma tunnel crawling with
MI6 agents!

Police officers and station managers were at odds last night over
the existence of crucial CCTV-footage of the shooting of a Brazilian
man wrongly suspected of being a suicide bomber.

None of the cameras at the scene of the shooting of Jean Charles de
Menezes at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July were working, a police
document revealed.

Cameras on the platform and the train were not operational, officers
told the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). The
submission by the Metropolitan Police, obtained by ITV News, puts
officers at odds with a statement from Tube Lines, the company
operating the station.

The police document says: "Stockwell station and environs has been
surveyed and all existing CCTV has been seized.

"During the course of this it has been established that although
there was onboard CCTV in the train, due to previous incidents the
harddrive has been removed and not replaced.

"It has also been established that there has been a technical
problem with the CCTV equipment on the relevant platform and no
footage exists."

However in a statement to The Mail on Sunday, Tube Lines said: "We
are not aware of any faults on CCTV cameras at that station on that
day. Nothing of that nature has been reported to us." Yesterday
the company refused to elaborate.

While some sources denied police had deliberately wiped the tapes,
others remained convinced there was a cover-up.

One union official argued however that the on-board cameras may have
been empty.

Employees' representatives said Met officers emptied the cameras the
day before police killed Mr de Menezes as part of their
investigation into the failed bombings on 21 July.

According to a report he would have passed eight cameras, two in the
station entrance pointing at the barriers, another aimed at the
Northern Line escalator and another on the way down.

When Mr de Menezes reached the bottom of the escalator, another
camera would have captured him. And as he turned on to the platform
one above the track and three more at each end of the platform would
have caught him on film, the reports say.

This information should have been sent to a control room and passed
to video tape. Yet there is apparently no footage of him in and
around the platform.

The source, who is close to the investigation, said reports of a
cover-up were "absolute rubbish''. The source said reports that the
tapes had been handed back to London Underground staff were
"nonsense'' because such material would have been kept as evidence
in the ongoing inquiry.

A spokesman for the IPCC said: "We are not willing to comment about
every story that comes up.''

But confusion still surrounds the contents of surveillance tapes
taken from Stockwell station. Sources have suggested that the tapes
had been recovered from the station booking hall, which had shown
images of Mr de Menezes and that there was limited footage from
cameras inside the carriage where the shooting took place.

All Northern Line Tube trains are equipped with CCTV - at either end
of the carriages, but the only photograph published of the incident
seems to have been taken from a doorway.

The confusion deepened as two senior Brazilian officials flew into
London to examine the background to Mr de Menezes' death. The
officials will want to know if CCTV footage of the incident exists.
The Brazilian government has expressed "shock and bewilderment" over
the death and has said it wants answers to "a number of matters".

Wagner Goncalves, of the federal prosecutor's office, and Marcio
Pereira Pinto Garcia, of the ministry of justice, went from Heathrow
airport to Scotland Yard, where they met senior officers led by
deputy assistant commissioner John Yates. They are also due to meet
members of the IPCC tomorrow.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has faced
unrelenting pressure since it emerged last week that initial police
accounts of the killing were at variance with the facts.

Members of the Metropolitan Police Authority yesterday said Sir Ian
still had their full confidence, but admitted that a public inquiry
into the death appeared inevitable.

For the second time in two days, Downing Street issued a statement
declaring the Prime Minister's complete confidence in the
Commissioner.

A spokeswoman said Mr Blair, who is on holiday in Barbados, had been
kept fully up to speed with the matter. She added: "The Prime
Minister recognises that the Metropolitan Police, led by Sir Ian
Blair, do a very difficult job and they do it very well."

Clare Short, the former Cabinet Minister, said it was now clear that
the public had been misled over the death of Mr de Menezes. She
told ITV News: " We've been lied to. This should be bigger than
just calling for Sir Ian Blair to go. We need to find out exactly
what happened. Who was telling the lies?"

As relatives and supporters of Mr de Menezes began a vigil outside
Downing Street, his mother, Maria de Menezes, demanded justice for
her son.

She said of the officers who shot: "They took my son's life. I am
suffering because of that."

Speaking from Brazil, she told the BBC: "I want the policeman who
did that punished. They ended not only my son's life but mine as
well."

Mr de Menezes' cousin, Alessandro Pereira, handed a letter to
Downing Street demanding a public inquiry.

The unanswered questions

* If the CCTV cameras showed Mr de Menezes using his Oyster card to
open the ticket barrier, why did police sources suggest he vaulted
it?

* Were cameras trained on the platform in full working order?
Police and Tube sources contradict each other.

* How could all four cameras around the platform have failed at the
same time?

* If the cameras had failed, why did the station log book contain no
details of the fault?

* Why had CCTV onboard the train been removed?

*** Tech-savvy criminals 'to trump UK ID cards'
- Contractor UK

The Government's bid to arm every Briton with an identity card has
suffered a setback by new research claiming the biometric scheme
will fail to stop identity fraud, and potentially lead to an
increase in crime.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia say interviews with
criminals prove that rather resign from their lifestyle in the face
of new technology, fraudsters adopt new ways to use technologies to
their advantage.

Emily Finch, the University's criminologist, told the Association
for the Advancement of Science how a shift from human vigilance to a
reliance on new technology is failing to curb crime, and in some
cases, is fuelling it.

At the heart of her concerns, is the "worrying assumption" that
technical advances and new defences will provide the solution to
identity theft, despite the study finding it "may actually aggravate
the problem."

According to the Daily Telegraph, the underlying worry of Ms Finch
and her team is that the plan to use documents, such as birth
certificates and driving licences to prove card applicants are who
they say they are, is not up to scratch.

Her claims about the associated risks of advances in technology
cited the recent introduction of 'chip and pin,' designed by the
Government as a way to cut credit card fraud.

"Chip and pin has not stopped fraud or even reduced it," said Dr
Finch.

"It has altered the way people behave, and so fraudsters have just
changed their strategies."

According to the research, the focus for credit card fraudsters has
simply shifted to acquiring the pin, a process Finch believes, "is
very easy to do, if you look at the till."

She added that checkout assistants who turn away when customers
input their pin are less vigilante, and said she had been able to
swap details with a male colleague to use each others' cards to make
purchases.

Under current proposals, British citizens would have to disclose
details of bank accounts, proof of residency and address, birth
certificate, passport number, NI number and a credit reference
number to obtain an ID card.

The sheer amount of personal data required has angered the scheme's
most vocal critics, and prompted fresh criticism from anti-ID card
lobbyists after the Bill received its second reading to a Government
majority in June.

Over the weekend, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary stoked the
debate by claiming he was in charge of 'Big Brother.'

He reportedly told the Eastern Daily Press that Brits already live
in a "Big Brother society" and that it is his job to control it,
branding civil liberties concerns "ridiculous," and independent
costing of the scheme "absurd."

Phil Booth, national coordinator for anti-ID card lobbyists, NO2ID,
said that the Home Secretary is confusing the British public with
"doublespeak" and his arguments simply "don't stand up."

"This is an important admission," said Mr Booth, referring to Mr
Clarke's comments.

"His stated intent to 'control Big Brother society' shows the
Government's real agenda: to monitor law-abiding citizens throughout
their entire lives.

"There may indeed be a lot of databases containing our data, but
they are quite rightly kept separate and constrained by law. Giving
the Government control of all of them by creating a single index
would be both unprecedented and dangerous. It is nothing like any
other ID system in Europe."

NO2ID also pointed out that despite Mr Clarke's dismissal of
independent pricing estimates of the biometric scheme, a reference
to the LSE's controversial report, the Home Office response "has
been shown to contain fabricated figures."

"Mr Clarke says concerns are just about cost, and we fully expect
him to cap the price of the card itself," said Mr Booth, speaking on
behalf of 25,000 private members and 70 NGOs.

"But the money for the biggest IT project anywhere in the world
still has to come from somewhere. This too is a diversion," he
added.

"Government wants to control your life: of course that will cost you
money. But the ultimate cost of the scheme will be in freedom and
privacy. And everyone will pay."

*** As goes Amerika, so goes Canada

Big Brother might watch your laptop
- CanWest News Service

Police and security agencies would be able to surreptitiously track
unwitting Canadians via their cellphones, BlackBerrys and laptop
computers, even when the devices are turned off or their location
features are disabled, under a "creepy" measure contemplated as part
of the federal government's planned electronic surveillance bill.

The government made the proposal during consultations this year on a
legislative package expected to be unveiled in the fall.

The proposal would amend the Criminal Code to expand the types of
"tracking devices" available to police under a warrant.

The proposal was raised by justice officials with groups consulted
by the government.

The definition of a "tracking device" would be changed to include a
computer program, in addition to any other device that can be used
to help identify the location of any thing or person.

The new definition of tracking device would take in such ubiquitous
products as laptops with wireless Internet connections, cellphones
with global positioning systems, and wireless personal digital
assistants.

"What they are talking about clearly is devices which have an active
and a passive component in the sense that the active component could
be controllable by the user who could turn the machine on or off,
but the passive device will be built in and accessible to police,"
said Richard Rosenberg, a retired University of British Columbia
computer science professor and board member of the B.C. Civil
Liberties Association.

"I think the assumption is that we should be trackable whether we
want to or not," he said. "It's very creepy. We will be in a
society where we will have this incredible density of
interconnections which will make it almost impossible to ...
exercise what I think is one of our basic rights, which is anonymity
in a free and democratic society."

Rosenberg said it is possible to build devices that retain select
functions, even when they seem to be turned off. "There's no reason
it couldn't happen because it's not a big, complex thing to do," he
explained.

Police are able to obtain warrants for tracking devices much more
easily than for other types of electronic surveillance such as
wiretaps.

To get a warrant for a tracking device, police need only convince a
justice of the peace they have "reasonable suspicion" an offence has
been or will be committed and the tracking order will help their
investigation. By contrast, for other types of surveillance
authorities must at least demonstrate to a justice they have
"reasonable and probable grounds to believe" that an offence has
been or will be committed and information relevant to that offence
will become available via the surveillance.

Vancouver lawyer Greg DelBigio, vice-chairperson of the national
criminal law section of the Canadian Bar Association, said computers
and cellphones might reveal a lot more information than the types of
tracking devices currently contemplated by the Criminal Code. His
34,000-lawyer association does not accept that such a serious
erosion of privacy should be allowed simply on the basis of police
"suspicion" a crime might be in the offing.

"Technology is rapidly making it increasingly difficult to remain
anonymous within the world and retain privacy, despite positive
steps one might take to protect these interests," DelBigio said.
"We must ask:'Just because the technology exists, is it the case
that law enforcement should have access to the technology or
information available through that technology and, if so, in what
circumstances and with what control?'"

New Legislation Threatens Privacy for Canadians Once Again!
- Vive Le Canada

The Globe and Mail report by Bill Curry on Aug.19,2005 stated, "The
federal government will introduce legislation this fall that would
give police and national security agencies new powers to eavesdrop
on cellphone calls and monitor the Internet activities of Canadians,
Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said yesterday." The first question
should be why? Is there no longer a presumption of innocence in
this county? Have we all become possible criminals as we go about
our daily lives?

The article goes on "The bill would allow police to demand that
Internet service providers hand over a wide range of information on
the surfing habits of individuals, including on-line pseudonyms and
whether someone possesses a mischief-making computer virus,
according to a draft outline of the bill provided to the Privacy
Commissioner of Canada." The Privacy Commissioner should be
speaking out loudly against such invasions of Canadians privacy. We
ought to be able to go about life without looking over our shoulder
constantly. It would appear that Canada is becoming a police state,
where everything we do is suspect.

Canadian law enforcement needs the tools to fight crime, but that
should not include spying on law abiding citizens, just in case they
are thinking about doing something. There are already sufficient
laws in place that allow court orders to search property, including
computers, but there must be justifiable cause to do so. This new
law appears to give the state excessive powers to invade Canadians
privacy. It threatens freedom of speech and the ability for
citizens to discuss political or other matters in private. How far
are they willing to go?

Tie this into the already existing rules, such as, anti-Terrorist
legislation (Bill C 36) and Bill C7 which gained Royal Assent: 6 May
2004 and which gives dictatorial powers to a number of Ministers who
have the capacity to shut down the country and declare martial law
without any checks and balances, and without going to Parliament.
Add to that the new Smart Border plans being proposed and the
biometric identification cards on the horizon (proposed by the
Tri-lateral Task Force which includes the U.S. Council on Foreign
Relations, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Mexican
Council of Foreign Relations; the business elite of the three
countries).

Then you can see, we are losing our freedom all in the name of some
dark shadow that was, created by fear and hate, called, 'terrorism'.
This new world we live in has become 'might is right'!

Clearly the rise of terrorism has coincided with the pre-emptive
strike on Iraq, ironically in retaliation for an act by several
Saudi's! I believe it is noteworthy to consider that with all the
security, spy agencies and technology, the two men who were
'America's most wanted', are still alive, while thousands of
innocent people have been murdered. How many more people will be
arrested, detained, murdered or falsely imprisoned on the basis of
lies, or false intelligence information?

According to a Standing Committee Report by The 'Ligue des droits et
libertes' a non-profit, non-partisan group, these proposals come at
the request of the United States not because Canada deems them
necessary. I quote from their report, ' In the fall of 2002,
Minister Denis Coderre launched the idea of an identity card to
facilitate border crossing for Canadians at the U.S. border ..On
December 6,2002 John Manley and Tom Ridge, the director of Homeland
Security, agreed on a 30-point Smart Border Action Plan. The first
point concerns biometric identification. .The purpose of the plan
was to meet the requirements of the United States rather than any
need felt in Canada."

Really I ask you, who is being terrorized? After Sept 11, we were
inundated with slogans, 'they will not win' and 'situation normal'
and 'please go about your daily affairs, because if we live in fear
THEY will have won'. Today, 'they' are not imposing the fear. It
is coming from those who should be creating an environment of calm,
reassuring the public instead of creating mass hysteria. Today, we
are inundated with a different slogan 'The evil must be annihilated'
and 'We are fighting this war on terror', and reminding us to watch
our neighbours and be suspicious of people's activities. Quite
frankly, it sounds like the 'war on drugs', something which never
ends, because the root cause is never addressed.

All of this new security is being done without the consent or
request of the Canadian people. It would appear that our government
is now taking instructions from someone other than those who have
elected them. When the U.S. brought in the Patriot Act, we
followed with anti-terrorism laws, (Bill C36) .

When they started the 'no fly' list for airlines, Canada followed
with our own. Now they want more power to invade Canadians privacy.
Canada's Census, the collection of very private and national
security information, will be influenced by Lockheed Martin(a
Manufacturer of Weapons), which leaves us susceptible to the Patriot
Act's over reaching powers to access information from any company.
Why would Canada ever allow a foreign company to be involved in our
census at any level?

I ask you, what is the definition of democracy on today's stage and
what manner of freedom do we profess to embrace? With all the high
tech security we have in place today, and much of what was in place
prior to 911, certainly prior to the recent bombings in Britain, did
it prevent such attacks? Does spying on the law abiding citizen,
give them a sense of security? Civil rights are being eroded fast
and furious, and seemingly our Canadian government is succumbing to
the law of another nation.

We are inviting the DEA, FBI and other U.S. agencies into Canada on
the premise of assisting our law enforcement. Texas troopers are
detaining people on B.C. highways, with no legitimate explanation
for their boots on Canadian soil! This is the incident as reported,
'CBC News, Jan. 28, 2005 VANCOUVER - A Vancouver man has won an
out-of-court settlement from the RCMP after an incident in which he
says he was illegally searched. David Laing says police overstepped
the law when they stopped his car, decided he was driving under the
influence of marijuana, and searched his vehicle and two-year-old
son. Under Canadian law, that kind of search is illegal. What
upset Laing even more is that some the officers he tangled with were
actually American police officers."

Consultation with the people is a required element to validate a
democracy. Canada's very sovereignty is being threatened through
the glorification of a global ideology that promises peace, harmony
and security, but in reality offers nothing more than colonization.
When our government no longer acts independently to create laws,
control our monetary supply, health regulations, and security
measures suitable and appropriate to the people of Canada, we
abdicate our sovereignty. The very real threat to become nothing
more than a mere landmass, storage for natural resources, and
military bases, grouped within the boundaries of a North American
Fortress and under control of a global power is no longer the
substance of sci-fi novels.

Canada's ability to remain a nation, separate and distinct, with
unique and specific laws, customs and values is being eroded, at an
alarming rate. We are indebted to foreign investors and private
banks, our military is heavily influenced if not under the control
of a foreign power in many ways, we have laws on the books which
allow the U.S. to send troops into Canada without our consent.
This new legislation is another element added to the decline of our
rights as citizens in a sovereign country. The writing is no longer
just on the walls. It is on every bar of this symbolic cage we are
creating for ourselves in the name of freedom!

Just Plain Stupid
- Harry Goslin

These days, trying to figure out what Americans are thinking isn't
an easy task. Trying to figure out how Americans think is even
tougher. Judging by how many Americans "think," as measured by
polls, statistics, and reaction to the ruling class, maybe they
don't think at all. One thing is certain, though. Too many
Americans are prone to fickleness, short-sightedness and just plain
stupidity.

Among other things, the Clinton years should have taught that polls
should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. The Republicans
and their noted mouthpieces in the media used to howl whenever
apologists for Clinton and his extracurricular activities would
point to the polls as defense against impeachment. We were
constantly reminded that Clinton 's dalliances and linguistic skills
were no grounds for impeachment.

Now the roles are reversed. The Republican apologists for a
warmongering half-wit and his coterie of like-minded murderers and
thieves have thus far been patting themselves on the back that their
decision to stand by the Liar-in-Chief these last few years was the
"right" thing to do. That's what the polls showed in overwhelming
numbers. Looks like that's changing, now. If the numbers continue
to crash, so may the Republican majority in 2006. Live by the poll,
die by the poll.

What polls suggest is that Americans should turn off their
television sets and maybe just stare at the wall. Perhaps just
shutting down their brains from any outside stimuli for short
periods at a time will be an important first step in reviving the
ability to think critically. If proven to be successful, it would
certainly preempt the tendency for knee-jerk and follow-the-crowd
responses to loaded polling questions. Pollsters would be forced to
ask more direct questions or quit. Politicians and academics who
now refer to the polls to justify their actions will be necessarily
forced into oblivion.

Recently, Matt Taibbi ripped into that class of people that provided
the Bush administration and the war crowd with the confidence it
needed to kill over 1,800 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
They were given the chance, in a way, to make a contribution to the
national cause without bearing any responsibility or facing any
danger. Through polling, they made the numbers on public support
for going to war so high. Now, this same group has changed its
mind. As Taibbi said, many who supported the war "have since become
freaked out by the fact that, surprise, surprise, people are dying."
Had the pollsters asked the right questions two years ago, the rush
to war would not have been such a rush.

What would have been the right questions to ask then? Taibbi
suggested the following: "Would you yank your son out of college and
send him to die for this bullshit? Would you yourself be willing to
give your life for this cause? If yes, grab your shit; there's a
bus outside." Such direct questioning would have forced these
people right then and there to weigh just a few of the consequences
of saying "yes" from the comfort and safety of their homes.

Excuses can be made for why people who seem to be intelligent become
irrational, blood-thirsty, warmongering nationalists: caught up in
the moment, the need to be part of the crowd, patriotism, education,
up-bringing. But at some point in life, excuses cannot be made for
making bad decisions, especially when the consequences of those
decisions reach beyond the individual making them. When that
threshold is crossed, it should be safe to say that many people
become just plain stupid.

Getting back to the war, recent American casualties have pushed talk
of finding an exit strategy to the front of the things-to-do list
for the president and Congress. Republicans, looking at the polls
and down the road to the 2006 mid-term elections, are becoming
anxious to at least put out some exit plan for public consumption.

Stephen Cimbala, a Penn State University political scientist, said,
"If you look at it from a Republican point of view, by the 2006
congressional elections, you're going to want to have a timetable in
place for withdrawal of U.S. forces and their replacement by
Iraqis. And by the fall of 2008, you will want to have most U. S.
forces out of Iraq ."

It should be obvious that any proposals on complete or partial
withdrawal from Iraq are predicated on what is most likely to help
the Republicans first retain control of Congress, then the White
House. Over the next year, the Bush administration and its core of
hacks in Congress will attempt to create the illusion that troops
will come home, less Americans will be killed, we accomplished our
mission, and democracy and freedom were given to the people of Iraq.
All they have to do is convince enough Americans it's true until
after the elections. If they are successful, it will not be a
measure of their marketing skills so much as it will prove, once
again, that many Americans are just plain stupid.

One thing most people will avoid when faced with the prospect of
being proven to have committed a colossal act of stupidity is admit
that they were stupid. Instead, most people will rationalize their
own behavior and actions, or, the behavior and actions of others who
have committed colossal acts of stupidity in their name and with
their full support. No amount of logic, truth or facts will get
most of these types to see the error of their ways. They would
rather go over the cliff in flames with everyone else than jump off
the train. Some might call such irrational commitment stubbornness,
but it's just plain stupidity.

Matt Taibbi concluded his criticism of the fickle, short-sighted
crowd that first supported the call to war and then changed its
mind, with the following: "A nation that indulges in anonymous
casual cruelties like The Swan should not be consulted in the same
manner before war. In matters of life and death, stand up and be
counted--by name, swearing on the blood of your children. What kind
of country goes to war whispering 'yes' into a telephone?" What
kind of country? A country where too many people are just plain
stupid.

*** Unbelievable Dumbing Down

Remote-Controlled Humans
- Forbes

LOS ANGELES - Smiling nervously, the young woman walks forward in a
straight line. Suddenly, she veers to the right. She stumbles and
stops, attempting to regain her balance, and continues to walk
forward. And then she veers off to the left.

No, she's not intoxicated. The young lady's vestibular system,
which controls her sense of movement and balance, has been thrown
off-kilter by two weak electrical currents delivered just behind her
ears.

This sort of electrical stimulation is known as galvanic vestibular
stimulation, or GVS. When a weak DC current is delivered to the
mastoid behind your ear, your body responds by shifting your balance
toward the anode. The stronger the current, the more powerful its
pull. If it is strong enough, it not only throws you off balance
but alters the course of your movement.

GVS has been known about for at least a century, but it attracted
relatively little interest until the last 20 years. If researchers
at the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (nyse: NTT - news - people )
Communication Science Laboratories have their way, that interest may
soon accelerate--and even go commercial.

At the 2005 SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Los Angeles
this week, NTT researchers debuted a device designed to exploit the
effects of GVS. Known as "Shaking the World," the project is the
result of research carried out by NTT researcher Taro Maeda. Maeda
and his colleagues constructed a headphone-like apparatus to deliver
the electrical current and a small radio control to direct the
strength and direction of the signal. Whoever wears such headphones
can be steered by remote control.

Conference attendees lined up to try to maintain their balance as an
NTT spokesperson gently steered them left and right. Some attempted
to counteract the current's effects, while others almost ran into
the crowd of onlookers as they stumbled haplessly along. But nearly
everyone was curious.

Where might this research lead?

The most persuasive commercial applications of Maeda's GVS device
will most likely be in gaming; researchers put together a crude
virtual racing game to demonstrate how GVS heightened the perception
of centrifugal force as users watch the car wind its way around the
track on a video screen. Manabu Sakurai, NTT's marketing manager,
says the company is currently investigating whether or not gamers
would be interested in the device. Flight simulators are another
area of interest.

"Many people talk about that," Sakurai explained. "Because GVS
causes you to feel the same kinds of motion as a large-scale flight
simulator, it could be a much simpler and more cost-effective way to
train people."

NTT researchers also point, rather improbably, to GVS's potential
for collision avoidance. A demonstration video shows a young man
walking down the street nearly run over by a passing motorcycle,
steered to safety at the last minute by a guardian angel wielding a
remote control. But wouldn't that require that people wear electric
nodes behind their ears 24 hours a day?

Well, yes. And according to Maeda, the long-term effects of GVS are
unknown. But he plans to continue investigating ways to bring the
phenomenon to the public.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

*** Unbelievable Dumbing Down

Kids a danger to national security?
- Fairfield Daily Republic

Did you hear last week that babies have been prevented from boarding
planes because they had similar names to people on no-fly lists?
Recently, my girlfriend's 8-year-old granddaughter Lauryn flew out
to visit from North Carolina and was given extra scrutiny, including
being wanded. It got me thinking. Maybe airline security is onto
something.

Perhaps, borrowing the president's argument, North Carolina's
airport security is fighting Lauryn there so we don't have to fight
her over here in California.

Still, I went over the list of the 19 hijackers who terrorized
America on Sept. 11 and couldn't find a single third-grader. But
that doesn't prove anything. Why wouldn't al-Qaida recruit an
8-year-old? If you've ever seen what an 8-year-old's bedroom can
look like, they can cause quite a bit of destruction.

One of Lauryn's favorite places to go when she's out here on the
West Coast is San Francisco. In fact, earlier this month she
insisted I take a picture of her with the Golden Gate Bridge behind
her. Was I duped? Could she have been casing the bridge for
possible terrorist acts?

If the government would use the Patriot Act and go after Lauryn's
library records, they might find that she's read subversive books
like "Curious George," an obvious insult to the commander in chief.

Since my home office doubled as her bedroom, I had unique access to
her belongings. Once, when I was alone, I decided to look into her
bag. I opened it with much trepidation and beheld the contents: two
dollars and 65 cents, some candy and a one-legged Barbie Doll.

Either this is what a normal 8-year-old would have or she's some
kind of terrorist MacGyver who's planning on using those components
to fashion some kind of unknown weapon.

The only connection I could make between her and Arab Muslim
extremism was the fact that she slept on an air mattresses facing
Mecca, had a VHS copy of Aladdin in her possession and she loathed
watching coverage of the Iraq war on the news, preferring an
animated yellow undersea sponge.

When we played Disney's Extremely Goofy Skateboarding on my PC, I
noticed that Lauryn was only interested in the tricks that Goofy
could do while in the air with his skateboard and wasn't at all
interested in how to take off or land. This is definitely one of
those things that make you go. . . hmmm.

Once, when I took her to the store and offered to buy her candy, she
selected Pop Rocks. Now she could have chosen a positive,
life-affirming candy like Lifesavers, but no, she chose an exploding
candy. Another clue?

Comedian Bill Maher mused that the people who handle security in Las
Vegas should be in charge of airline security because in Vegas,
they're so good that they can detect people doing math in their
heads! But no, we have geniuses keeping babies off flights until
their identities can be proven.

To paraphrase Bobby Mercer, these security people couldn't find
boobs in a strip joint.

I understand that babies can "explode" in screams at any time and
have been known to sport "loaded" diapers, but are they really a
threat to national security? Couldn't there be a better use of our
tax dollars? Babies? Eight year olds? Are they a threat to bring
down a jetliner? Couldn't they focus on the elderly and disabled,
for instance? Peace.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Dumbing Down Award of the month

Goes to US President George W.

No one can say they didn't see it coming
- Salon.com

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one
of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush
administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent
to pay for the Iraq war.

Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has
left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and
hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken,
the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of
Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be
the result of an act of nature.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how
New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but
the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken.
After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the
Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps
of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations.

In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a
report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the
three most likely disasters in U.S., including a terrorist attack on
New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood
control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq
war.

In 2004, the Bush administration cut the Corps of Engineers' request
for holding back the waters of New Orleans' Lake Pontchartrain by
more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year
(for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced
the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding
funds for fixing New Orleans levees, but it was too late.
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*** Dumb criminal acts

The below is indeed criminal to allow this to happen to your
children.

Damaging children for the sake of profits
- Evelyn Pringle

TeenScreen is planting the seed of mental illness in the minds of
children. School kids are being conned into taking a survey full of
loaded questions and the results are being used to convince parents
their children are mentally ill and need dangerous brain-damaging
drugs.

All children at times feel depressed or different from others, or
not smart enough, or not good-looking enough. This is normal
adolescent thinking. The TeenScreen survey asks whether the child
has ever felt this way and phrases questions to solicit one answer,
yes. It takes advantage of impressionable kids when it raises
questions about normal feelings.

After taking a survey that suggests they are abnormal, the next
thing you know, Susie and Tommie will go running to the teacher
saying, "You know, now that you mention it, I do have these thoughts
and feelings, I must be mentally ill."

Mission accomplished. Two new customers. All the survey had to do
was plant the idea in Susie and Tommie's mind.

The Bush appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health issued a
report in July 2003 urging the screening of school children in all
50 states and chose TeenScreen as the model program to ensure that
all youth receive a mental health check-up before graduating.

The New Freedom Commission also recommended a drug treatment program
based on the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), which
requires doctors to prescribe specific psychiatric drugs, including
atypical anti-psychotics and antidepressants known as the Selective
Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors [SSRIs] that can lead children to
commit suicide or other violent acts.

The truth is the New Freedom Commission serves as the hub for a
grand profiteering scheme involving the Bush administration, federal
and local government officials, and drug companies to broaden the
market for the sale of expensive but lethal drugs. If all goes
according to plan, it will generate millions of new prescription
drug customers.

For example, pharma reaped great rewards in Colorado where over 350
youths were screened at a homeless shelter using the TeenScreen
survey. It determined that over 50 percent of the kids were at risk
of suicide and 71 percent screened positive for psychiatric
disorders.

Common sense would tell a person that kids at a homeless shelter
might be suffering due to logical reasons such as not eating or
sleeping properly. But you can bet that the TeenScreen squad
marched these homeless kids right over to the nearest Medicaid
office to line up funding to cover the cost of their newly
prescribed drugs. Never mind that they don't have a bed to sleep in
or a dinner table to eat at. Put them on magic pills and life will
be grand.

TeenScreen is being used to push drugs on a population of kids who,
in the eyes of many experts, are already overmedicated. An
estimated 10 million children in the US are now taking mind-altering
drugs that have documented side-effects of suicidal ideation, mania,
psychosis, and future drug dependence.

Carol Boyd, director of the Institute for Research on Women and
Gender at the University of Michigan, surveyed 1,017 middle and high
school students in a Detroit-area public school district and found
that almost half of the children had legitimate prescriptions for
Ritalin and other psychiatric medications.

More kids on drugs are showing up for college. The University of
Mary Washington reports that a record 24 percent of students using
the school's Psychological Services program are taking some sort
psychotropic medication that is capable of influencing a person's
mental functioning.

The demand for services for 2004 2005 has risen 150 percent over
last year, according to Psychological Services director Barb Wagar.
The medications students are usually on are SSRIs, such as Prozac,
Paxil, and Zoloft, for depression; Xanax for anxiety, and Ritalin or
Adderall for attention disorders, Wagar reports.

According Bernard Chirico, vice president for student affairs and
dean of students, this is also a national trend. "Nationally there
has been a 91 percent increase in students at college counseling
taking psychotropics between 1998 and 2003," he said.

On January 13, WebMD Medical News reported the findings of a
government study that showed more Americans than ever are being
treated for substance abuse, depression, and other mental health
disorders, but the treatment they are getting is increasingly
limited to prescription drugs alone.

The study assessed changing patterns in the treatment of mental
illnesses from the mid-1990s to 2001, and determined that mental
health drug costs rose 20 percent each year.

According to economist Samuel H Zuvekas, PhD, who conducted the
analysis, about 80 percent of the growth in expenditures can be
explained by the increase in the use of SSRIs and other
antidepressants, and high-priced schizophrenia drugs called
"atypical antipsychotics," like Risperdal, Zyprexa, and Geodon.

The atypicals, which are also now being used to treat bipolar and
anxiety disorders, cost roughly $8 a day, about 100 times more than
the older antipsychotic drug, Haldol, the study noted.

Front Groups as Funnels

TeenScreen's promotional materials and websites say it's not
supported or affiliated with any pharmaceutical companies. What a
joke.

Laurie Flynn is at the helm of TeenScreen. Prior to her current
job, her salary was paid by drug companies for 16 years while she
was the top dog of the most prominent industry-backed front group of
all time, the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI). A group
dedicated solely to promoting and selling as many pills as humanly
possible.

The pharmaceutical industry has long funneled money through front
groups like NAMI, which, in turn, provide funding for marketing
campaigns.

According to Dr Peter Breggin, psychiatrist and founder of the
International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology,
"These groups hold national meetings that bring together drug
advocates to talk directly to consumers. They also put out
newsletters and other information that praise medications.
Sometimes they actively suppress viewpoints that are critical of
drugs for example, by discouraging the media from airing opposing
viewpoints."

Flynn is also the author of an article, titled "Before Their Time:
Preventing Teen Suicide," in which she states: "The TeenScreen
Program developed 10 years ago by Columbia University and offered in
partnership with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill helps
communities across the nation identify teens with mental illness who
might be at risk for suicide."

It's kind of hard to dispute the charge that NAMI is a funnel for
drug money since its website lists "Corporate Partners, Grants, and
Foundations," as Abbott, AstraZoneca, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Eli
Lilly, Forest Lab, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Jannsen, McNeil, Pfizer, and
Wyeth.

So if TeenScreen is being "offered in partnership," with the NAMI,
it stands to reason that drug money is involved.

Laurie McGuire, second in command of the TeenScreen project, gave a
speech at the annual NAMI national convention, and explained the
need to con kids and their parents into taking the survey. She told
the audience that while only around 54 percent of parents would
consent to the screening, when children themselves were asked,
nearly 98 percent agreed to the idea of being screened.

"Getting the kids to buy in is such an essential thing because for
the most part, you're distributing the consent forms to the kids to
bring home to their parents and bring them back. So you have to get
their buy in, you have to get them interested in it," McGuire said.

TeenScreen also recommends bribing kids with movie passes or gift
certificates for pizza parlors.

Passive Consent is another trick TeenScreen uses to get around the
law which requires obtaining a valid parental consent. Passive
consent requires parents to return a form only if they do not want
their child to participate in the screening. In Oregon, one NAMI
member complained that consent forms were being returned with a
large "NO" scribbled across the paper.

The problem is, even with passive consent, parents still have to
agree to seek mental health treatment their children.

At the convention, NAMI members were told of the need to "loop" the
kids to a mental health provider. The importance of getting kids to
that first appointment was stressed. They were told that sometimes
that might entail calling insurance companies to get the information
on where to go and what is covered, and sometimes it would mean
picking kids up and driving them to the first appointment.

Before the meeting ended, McGuire passed a notebook around the
audience to solicit names of NAMI members who would be willing to be
respond if there were a parental uprising against TeenScreen in
their community. She explained that they might be asked to write a
letter to the editor or go to a school board meeting, things like
that.

TeenScreen has many supporting front groups listed in its
informational material. Another example of a funnel is the
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance which reports pharma
financial backing equal to 53 percent of all revenue. According to
its 2001 annual report, drug companies which donate between $150,000
and $499,999, include Abbot, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Eli Lilly,
Pfizer, Glaxo-Kline, and Janssen. In addition, nearly all of the
other major drug makers donate a lesser amount.

Another favorite mantra by TeenScreen officials is that the program
is free and it doesn't get any government money. Well, something
went haywire with the "free" mental health check-up business
because, according to a July 11 article in the Peoria Illinois
Journal Star, in Brimfield Illinois, "organizing the system and
employing a part-time counselor specifically for the program is
estimated to cost about $100 per student."

Overall, the "Brimfield High School program alone will cost around
$20,000 for the first semester," the Journal wrote.

Let me repeat that so taxpayers "get it," that is $20,000 tax
dollars per semester to run this marketing scheme for pharma.

In Florida, according to a June 5, 2003, Weekly Planet article, Gwen
Luney, assistant superintendent for supportive services for the
Hillsborough County Schools, said TeenScreen would cost the school
district roughly $200,000 a year.

Drugging Kids with Lethal Medications

On June 18, 2003, GlaxoSmithKline issued a warning to British
physicians against the use of Paxil in children, and acknowledged
its failure in clinical trials "to demonstrate efficacy in major
depressive disorders and doubling the rate of reported adverse
events including suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts compared to
placebo."

On December 18, 2003, Eli Lilly issued letters to British healthcare
professionals, indicating that Prozac is not recommended for
children for any use.

The results of a recent study conducted at the Ottawa Health
Research Institute were published in the February 2005 British
Medical Journal. The study reviewed over 700 clinical trials
involving 87,650 patients, and provided an all-inclusive look at the
suicide risk with SSRIs, because it counted suicide attempts by
subjects treated for a variety of conditions in addition to
depression, including panic disorder, bulimia, and sexual
dysfunction.

The study determined that patients taking SSRIs are more than twice
as likely to attempt suicide as patients given placebos. The fact
that there is an increased risk of suicide attempts for patients who
were not depressed and were being treated for other kinds of
disorders is highly significant.

Most of the drugs being pushed on kids are not approved for kids,
but even if they were, it wouldn't mean much. What most people
don't realize is that to gain FDA approval, a company is not
required to prove that a new drug is safer or more effective than an
older drug. All it has to do is show that a drug provided better
results than a placebo in short-term trials of often only 6 to 8
weeks, with a statistically significant group of patients, according
to Bob Whitaker, investigative journalist and author of Mad In
America.

We know these drugs are very dangerous. Nevertheless, there has
been a very large increase in the numbers of children placed on
SSRIs in the United States. Not only that, the fastest growing
segment of users are age 0 5, reported Dr John Breeding, PhD,
Director of Texans For Safer Education, and author of, The Necessity
of Unproductivity and Madness, and The Wildest Colts Make The Best
Horses, during testimony to the Texas House Select Committee, on
October 4, 2004.

He called for a ban on the use of SSRIs for children and warned,
"SSRIs are extremely harmful and addictive; and can cause or
exacerbate suicidal or homicidal tendencies; withdrawal is painful
and dangerous."

Psychiatrist Peter Breggin, a court-qualified medical expert, and
author of books, Talking Back to Prozac and The Anti-Depressant Fact
Book, The Ritalin Fact Book, warns about the life-long damage a
label of mentally illness can cause.

"There is nothing worse that you can do to a human being in America
today than give them a mental illness kind of label and tell them
they need drugs and these children are 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years-old
being treated in this manner," Breggin reports.

Besides causing suicide, enough evidence now exists to prove that
legally prescribed drugs have played a major role in the senseless
acts of violence by school-age children all around the country in
recent years. Little attention has been given to the FDA's
additional warning that certain behaviors are "known to be
associated with these drugs," including "anxiety, agitation, panic
attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia
(severe restlessness), hypomania, and mania," according to Breggin.

For more than a decade, he said, "I have documented in books and
scientific reports how this stimulation or activation profile can
lead to out-of-control behavior, including violence."

"From agitation and hostility to impulsivity and mania, the FDA's
litany of antidepressant-induced behaviors is identical to that of
PCP, methamphetamine and cocaine drugs known to cause aggression and
violence," he warns.

"One clinical trial showed a rate of 6 percent manic reactions for
depressed children on Prozac," he reported, "None developed mania on
a sugar pill."

Bob Whitaker explained what's happening to people who use these
powerful psychiatric drugs, during an interview in the August 2005
edition of Street Spirit. "All these drugs may curb a target
symptom slightly more effectively than a placebo does for a short
period of time, say six weeks," he said. However, "what you find
with every class of these psychiatric drugs is a worsening of the
target symptom of depression or psychosis or anxiety over the long
term."

And he added, "You see a fairly significant percentage of patients
where new and more severe psychiatric symptoms are triggered by the
drug itself."

So then, "instead of just dealing with depression, they're dealing
with mania or psychotic symptoms," he said.

"They're now said to be bipolar and they're given an antipsychotic
to go along with the antidepressant; and, at that point, they're
moving down the path to chronic disability," Bob told Street Spirit.

It's brilliant from the capitalist point of view, Whitaker pointed
out, "you take a kid, and you turn them into a customer, and
hopefully a lifelong customer."

"Unfortunately, the cost is dishonesty in our scientific literature,
the corruption of the FDA, and the absolute harm done to children in
this country drawn into this system, and an increase of 150,000
newly disabled people every year in the United States for the last
17 years, he said, "That's an incredible record of harm done."

In July 2004, the Journal of the American Medical Association
reported that during treatment with SSRIs, there was a
"significantly higher risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts" during
the first nine days of treatment and that children who were first
starting treatment were four times more likely to think about
suicide, and 38 times more likely to commit suicide. It also noted
that children as young as five have committed suicide while taking
these drugs.

Something apparently happened between then and now because the AMA
recently did an abrupt turn around. On June 21, a MedPage headline
read, "AMA Supports Use of SSRIs for Treating Teen Depression."

Experts in the field are outraged. Dr Ann Blake Tracy, executive
director of the International Coalition For Drug Awareness, and
author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? reacted strongly, "clearly
there is no logical or sane excuse whatsoever for a doctor who
professes to care about the well being of his patients to stand
behind a group of drugs known to increase suicide by double," she
said.

"It took us two decades to get the FDA to even issue what little bit
of warning they gave with the black box placement on
antidepressants," Dr Tracy explained, "and then because prescribing
is down by 10 percent when it should be down by at least 90 percent,
they are upset enough to make a move like this?"

"Of course," she reasoned, "this would be a necessary move to help
push Bush's TeenScreen Program through the school system, which is
the most likely reason for this seemingly insane move by the AMA.
That is a program that will really bring in the business for them."

Never-Ending Cycle of Profits

Before we focus screening efforts on the children, I think we should
screen all members of the Bush administration, and all officials at
the FDA and CDC, to find out what happened to their consciences.
Lets figure out how these people could allow pharma to push lethal
drugs on kids and inject poisonous vaccines into a generation of
children, without exhibiting any sign of guilt or remorse
whatsoever.

In February 2005, Canadian regulators ordered the drug Adderall,
used to treat attention deficit disorders, off the market after it
was linked to 20 sudden deaths and a dozen strokes, 14 of which were
children.

The dramatic growth in the number of children labeled as having
Attention Deficit Disorders is man-made. Recent studies have shown
that exposure to the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal,
contained in childhood vaccines until recently, not only causes
autism but can also result in a host of other neurological
disorders.

And government regulatory officials knew about the harm vaccines
were causing from a study they conducted in 1999.

According to a leaked transcript from a secret meeting of a CDC
(Centers for Disease Control) advisory committee in June 2000, upon
reviewing the study on the link between thimerosal-vaccines and the
rise in neurological disorders in children, Bill Weil, a
pediatrician, warned the committee, "There are just a host of
neurodevelopmental data that would suggest that we've got a serious
problem. . . . The number of kids getting help in special
education is growing nationally and state by state at a rate we have
not seen before."

Committee member Robert Brent, a pediatrician from Thomas Jefferson
University, stated: "The medical/legal findings in this study,
causal or not, are horrendous. . ."

"If an allegation was made that a child's neurobehavioral findings
were caused by thimerosal-containing vaccines, you could readily
find a junk scientist who would support the claim with 'a reasonable
degree of certainty.'" Brent said, "But you will not find a
scientist with any integrity who would say the reverse with the data
that is available. . . . So we are in a bad position from the
standpoint of defending any lawsuits if they were initiated, and I
am concerned."

The CDC knows its in trouble for its part in the cover-up. Excerpt
from pages 281 282 of the book, Evidence of Harm by David Kirby,
describes an October 2003 visit by Dr Mark Geier, David Geier and
Vale Krenik to the CDC Vaccine Safety Datalink in Georgia. The VSD
monitor probably gave them more information than her superiors
intended.

The monitor told the Geiers that she had been running VSD data on
thimerosal for quite some time and knew the numbers inside out. She
was assigned to look at the most recent data, checking to see what
the rates for autism were doing. She was asked to determine if the
numbers of diagnoses had begun to decline, especially in the younger
children. If so, this would implicate thimerosal, which began to be
phased out in 2000.

"'The autism numbers are going down,'" she said. "'We're watching
them drop.'"

An independent study conducted by Geiers, using the CDC's VSD data,
has determined that the risk of autism increased significantly with
each additional 25 micrograms of mercury exposure, and that children
who received three mercury-containing DTaP shots had an increased
risk of autism nearly 27 times that of kids who got three
mercury-free vaccines.
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