Google execs convicted in Italy for Down syndrome video
MILAN (Reuters) – A Milan court convicted three Google Inc executives on Wednesday for violating the privacy of an Italian boy with Down's syndrome by letting a video of him being bullied be posted on the site in 2006.
Phi Beta Iota: The Italians made a mistake. Instead of using the video to aggressively convict the bullies of the Down's syndrome boy, they are shooting the messenger. This is just as ignorant and ill-advised as the police trying to criminalize Twitter texts and cell phone video of police brutality. The right of the people to bear witness cannot be undermined by the courts, IOHO.
(1) I've seen some of the surveillance video on CNN; here is a link to more. (2) Regardless of who ran the operation, sounds like the Hamas guy needed to go;
(3) in addition to surveillance and biometrics, proliferation of commercially-available databases such ChoicePoint creates additional operational challenges.)
Full Story Online
How spy technologies foil old-school political killings
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Finn
Saturday, February 20, 2010; A13
The practice of secretly assassinating purported enemies of the state — an age-old tool of foreign policy — has run up against steadily improving international police collaboration and the global proliferation of surveillance technologies that make it harder for anyone anywhere to surreptitiously conduct a high-profile killing on foreign soil.
In Doha, London and now Dubai, political killers have been caught on film and tracked, provoking unexpected attention and controversy for the organizers. Because of new biometric technologies, the proliferation of cheap video, and sophisticated monitoring of customs points and airports, the skills of those who specialize in the creation of fictional identities have been tested, and sometimes defeated.
The apparent political killing of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh has ricocheted around the world in recent days after his alleged attackers were spotted by a camera above an elevator at the Dubai Al-Bustan Rotana hotel, in the United Arab Emirates. Four suspects, all obvious weight-lifters, were filmed exiting in pairs and heading for Mabhouh's room.
Shortly after the killing, they were again filmed, this time more nervously boarding the same elevator, wearing the same baseball caps. Then they were filmed again, leaving the airport on flights to Europe, Africa and Asia. On Thursday, Interpol issued warrants for 11 suspects after the Dubai police conducted a careful study of their videotaped movements at nearly a dozen locales. Their mug shots had already been flashed on television screens around the world.ed to this report.
Very cool question. We don't have the answers, but here are a few thoughts.
Who benefits? There is only one beneficiary of Al Qaeda as a virtual actor: the US Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Congressional Complex whose outrageously wasteful funding and excessive (70%) obligations to contractors are bankrupting the US economy, but who cares as long as the corporate gravy train keeps rolling along. The indigenous peoples seeking self-determination, including the long-repressed people of Saudi Arabia and the long-repressed peoples of Palestine, do not benefit from a model that Mahatma Gandhi clearly understood was self-destructive. Non-violence is the only sustainable path to self-determination.
Calculating value. With the above firmly in mind, Al Qaeda's “value” to the sole beneficiary, the MIICC, is a combination of three sums:
1. The sums Al Qaeda and related groups receive from governments, corporations, and individuals interested in sustaining radical Islamic violence against both Muslims and the West.
2. The sums the US and others spend on false flag operations attributed to Al Qaeda (the underpants bomber is probably an Israeli false-flag operation with US consent and colalboration)
3. The sums the MIICC receives from a corrupt Congress that has not done a serious national security baseline evaluation of need since Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) retired from his post as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
What is Al Gaeda Worth? Our wild-ass but informed guess is $1 trillion a year. That one trillion a year is both positive value (for those that benefit) and negative value (for all the others). With one trillion a year we could have brought the USA into the 21st Century, funded free cell phones for the five billion poor so they could create infinite stabilizing and self-sustaining wealth, and created a prosperous world at peace.
Because of his expenses and lack of income, Mr. Stack wrote, he didn't file a tax return, prompting an IRS audit that cost him $10,000. He wrote that he had other problems involving “Sheryl's unreported income.”
“I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are,” the author wrote.
Phi Beta Iota: See the small selection below for a sense of the growing rage across America. The Wall Street bail-out has been in our view, “the last straw” for most Americans who wonder why the IRS or any other federal agency is spending time harassing them at the same time that the US Government is doing so many very expensive and highly questionable things including allowing US taxpayer funds to pay multi-million dollar bonuses to individuals who knowingly cheated multiple governments and millions of shareholders. This is called Cognitive Dissonance. The last reference below is to a Chapter 20: 21st Century Counterintelligence: Evaluating the Health of the Nation. We predict a wave of death threats against serving Members of Congress (more of whom will announce their retirement); a wave of threats–many false but intended to distrub–against federal buildings; and a growing wave of civil disobedience reflective of the public's deep anger at the bi-partisan betrayal of the public trust these past forty years. There are 65 political parties in America–63 of them have been locked out of what must be seen as a fraudulent democracy that does not meet minimalist international standards.
We now learn – from Der Spiegel last week and today’s NYT – that Goldman Sachs has not only helped or encouraged some European governments to hide a large part of their debts, but it also endeavored to do so for Greece as recently as last November. These actions are fundamentally destabilizing to the global financial system, as they undermine: the eurozone area; all attempts to bring greater transparency to government accounting; and the most basic principles that underlie well-functioning markets. When the data are all lies, the outcomes are all bad – see the subprime mortgage crisis for further detail.
A single rogue trader can bring down a bank – remember the case of Barings. But a single rogue bank can bring down the world’s financial system.
Goldman will dismiss this as “business as usual” and, to be sure, a few phone calls around Washington will help ensure that Goldman’s primary supervisor – now the Fed – looks the other way.
But the affair is now out of Ben Bernanke’s hands, and quite far from people who are easily swayed by the White House. It goes immediately to the European Commission, which has jurisdiction over eurozone budget issues. Faced with enormous pressure from those eurozone countries now on the hook for saving Greece, the Commission will surely launch a special audit of Goldman and all its European clients.
Phi Beta Iota: The balance of the above article is a “must read.”
As a way of dealing with cross-town crime and drug use, Scituate police have banded together with other local departments to pursue cases beyond individual town borders.
Marshfield Police Capt. Phil Tavares founded the coalition, formally known as the Old Colony Police Anti-Crime Task Force, or OcPac.
“The most logical approach to combating fiscal hardships and a surge in crime is to make available and consolidate our tangible and intangible resources, as well as real-time intelligence sharing,” said Tavares.
MR. KENNEDY: We — as I mentioned in my statement, Mr. Chairman, if we unilaterally revoked a visa — and there was a case recently up — we have a request from a law enforcement agency to not revoke the visa.
We came across information; we said this is a dangerous person. We were ready to revoke the visa. We then went to the community and said, should we revoke this visa?
And one of the members — and we'd be glad to give you that out of — in private — said, please do not revoke this visa. We have eyes on this person. We are following this person who has the visa for the purpose of trying roll up an entire network, not just stop one person.
Phi Beta Iota: Emphasis added. Source: 27 Jan 2010 Hearing. DNI was probably NOT consulted, but he is the responsible authority for the rat's next. Not only does the public need to know who over-rode visa cancellation, but we still have not seen the public appearance of the man who took the video of the incident and we still believe there is a strong Israeli false-flag element that has not been properly investigated. “Heads will roll,” Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas to all.
