Critical Observer

OBAMA ORDERS BEHAVIORAL EXPERIMENTS ON AMERICAN PUBLIC

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President Obama announced a new executive order on Tuesday which authorizes federal agencies to conduct behavioral experiments on U.S. citizens in order to advance government initiatives.<br />
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“A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights — research findings from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology about how people make decisions and act on them — can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people,” reads the executive order, released on Tuesday.<br />
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The new program is the end result of a policy proposal the White House floated in 2013 entitled “Strengthening Federal Capacity for Behavioral Insights.”<br />
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According to a document released by the White House at that time, the program was modeled on one implemented in the U.K. in 2010. That initiative created a Behavioral Insights Teams, which used “iterative experimentation” to test “interventions that will further advance priorities of the British government.”<br />
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by Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller

OBAMA ORDERS BEHAVIORAL EXPERIMENTS ON AMERICAN PUBLIC

President Obama announced a new executive order on Tuesday which authorizes federal agencies to conduct behavioral experiments on U.S. ci...

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BANK SECRECY ACT MAKES BANKS SPY ON YOU

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<span style="line-height: 1.1;">Do you distrust the banking system? Prefer to do business in cash? Complain about the encroachment of Big Brother into every facet of your life?</span></h5>
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If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’d better watch out. You’re a “person of interest” – and a growing number of businesses must report your “suspicious activities” to the feds. If they don’t, they can be fined and the responsible parties even imprisoned.</div>
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These requirements originated in a law called the “Bank Secrecy Act” (BSA). Of course, this Orwellian law has nothing at all to do with protecting bank secrecy. Indeed, the BSA has all but eliminated confidentiality.</div>
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Regulations issued under the BSA require financial institutions to notify the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a Treasury Department bureau, of any unusual transactions in which their customers engage. Reporting is mandatory for transactions that exceed $10,000 and are not the sort in which the particular customer would normally be expected to engage. For money transmitter businesses, a $2,000 threshold applies.</div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.2px;">The businesses covered by these requirements must file “suspicious activities reports” (SARs) secretly, without your knowledge or consent. FinCEN makes the reports available electronically to every US Attorney’s office and to dozens of law enforcement agencies. No court order, warrant, subpoena, or even written request is needed to access a report.</span></div>
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What exactly is suspicious? According to official Treasury guidance, suspicious behavior includes:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Paying off a loan;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Objecting to completing Currency Transaction Reports (required for transactions over $10,000);</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Changing currency from small to large denominations;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Buying cashier’s checks, money orders, or travelers’ checks for less than the reporting limit $10,000 for a cash transaction);</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Making deposits in cash, then having the money wired somewhere else; and</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Withdrawing cash without counting the cash first.</li>
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Now, FinCEN has issued preliminary regulations that could extend these rules to investment managers. All SEC-registered investment advisers would be required to design and implement an anti-money-laundering program. They would also need to file SARs with FinCEN.</div>
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Once these rules come into effect, investment advisors would no longer be accountable to you, their client. Their highest duty, reinforced by civil and criminal sanctions, would be to act as unpaid undercover agents for the US Treasury.</div>
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But FinCEN’s suspicious transaction reporting rules are just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, official guidance from the FBI and other government agencies indicate that all of the following actions make you a terror suspect:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Making an inter-library loan request for “The Little Red Book” by former Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-Tung;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Owning a suspicious cat;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Wearing a politically provocative shirt;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Searching online for apressure cooker and backpack;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Putting a “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-color: initial; border-width: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">Do not disturb</span>” sign on the door to your hotel room;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Making politically inflammatory remarks when getting a<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-color: initial; border-width: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">tattoo</span>;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Attempting to<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-color: initial; border-width: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">shield your computer screen</span>from the viewing of others;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Expressing frustration with<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-color: initial; border-width: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">“mainstream ideologies”</span>; and</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Storing more than<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-color: initial; border-width: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">seven days of food</span>in your home.</li>
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Then there’s the “drug courier profile” developed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The following profiles are all court-approved reasons to search you and your property:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Having a pale or dark complexion;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Having a Hispanic appearance;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Being between the ages of 25 and 35;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Acting too nervous or too calm;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Carrying $100, $50, $20, $10, or $5 bills;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Wearing casual clothing;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Wearing perfume;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Having window coverings on your personal residence;</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Buying a one-way or round-trip airline ticket; and</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Being among the first, last, or middle group of passengers off of an airplane.</li>
</ul>
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As Richard Miller expressed in his landmark book, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Drug Warriors and Their Prey</em>,</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">Being a citizen is sufficient cause to suspect a person of criminal conduct, thereby constricting civil liberties protections for that person. That situation is hard to distinguish from the legal status of citizens of Nazi Germany.</b></em></div>
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In a world that views virtually everything you do as suspicious, there aren’t a lot of options to protect yourself. Indeed, simply by expressing your interest in privacy, asset protection, precious metals, or any of the other topics I cover routinely, you’re likely on one government watch list or another already.</div>
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However, you can take steps to avoid having a bank or other financial institution – including an investment manager – file an SAR on you. If you’re considering doing anything out of the ordinary in your account, talk to an officer at the bank, brokerage, or other financial institution first. For instance, you might want to let someone know before you pay off a loan or make or receive a large transfer.</div>
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If you have a reasonable explanation for the transaction, it’s much less likely to set off an alarm. And in a country in which all citizens are considered criminal suspects, that’s definitely something you want to avoid.</div>

BANK SECRECY ACT MAKES BANKS SPY ON YOU

Do you distrust the banking system? Prefer to do business in cash? Complain about the encroachment of Big Brother into every facet of you...

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NSA DATA COLLECTION AIDED BY AT&T, VERIZON AND SPRINT

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The EFF provided evidence in two of its cases that it was not just AT&T that helped the NSA collect phone records for millions of Americans, but also Verizon Wireless and Sprint. This information was not previously given by the government, which claimed that it was a state secret.<br />
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Despite all the revelations in the media from Snowden’s documents and other sources that the U.S. government is collecting citizens’ information, the administration is still claiming that either individuals or organizations such as the EFF have “no standing” to sue because they can’t prove that they were spied upon.<br />
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Of course, this kind of argument quickly turns into circular logic, because such evidence is often secret and can’t be easily given away via FOIA requests either (the released documents are often heavily redacted to the point of being useless). Therefore, you can’t prove you were spied upon because that information is typically classified.<br />
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Still, this time the EFF managed to get some evidence that AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint were involved in helping NSA with the mass collection of phone records, from filings made to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that were recently made public.<br />
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The EFF also got a letter sent from the DoJ to the FISC that was released in a FOIA lawsuit started by the New York Times, where the names “AT&T,” “Verizon,” “Verizon Wireless,” and “Sprint” are mentioned in regards to phone records collection. From a previously-released document by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the EFF learned that the letter is indeed about the mass collection of phone records.<br />
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The U.S. government’s tactics to either convince the judges to reject mass spying cases or at least delay them have worked rather well so far, but the EFF hopes this new evidence will put the focus back on the government’s violations of the First Amendment’s right of association and the Fourth Amendment’s protection against both unreasonable searches and seizures.<br />
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The EFF is now using this evidence in two of its cases: Smith vs. Obama, where both the EFF and ACLU are providing the legal aid to Anna Smith, who is suing the U.S. government over its bulk collection of telephone records, and First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA where 22 organizations are suing the NSA for their First Amendment right of association.<br />
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by LUCIAN ARMASU | TOM'S HARDWARE

NSA DATA COLLECTION AIDED BY AT&T, VERIZON AND SPRINT

The EFF provided evidence in two of its cases that it was not just AT&T that helped the NSA collect phone records for millions of Ame...

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Pentagon, Apple and Boeing partnership to develop wearable tech

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter awarded $75 million on Friday to help a consortium of high-tech firms and researchers develop electronic systems packed with sensors flexible enough to be worn by soldiers or molded onto the skin of a plane.<br />
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Carter said funding for the Obama administration's newest manufacturing institute would go to the FlexTech Alliance, a consortium of 162 companies, universities and other groups, from Boeing , Apple and Harvard, to Advantest Akron Polymer Systems and Kalamazoo Valley Community College.<br />
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The group will work to advance the development and manufacture of so-called flexible hybrid electronics, which can be embedded with sensors and stretched, twisted and bent to fit aircraft or other platform where they will be used.<br />
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"This is an emerging technology that takes advanced flexible materials for circuits, communications, sensors and power and combines them with thinned silicon chips to ultimately produce the next generation of electronic products," Carter said.<br />
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He was speaking at NASA's Ames Research Center in the heart of Silicon Valley.<br />
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The consortium, which will be managed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, will add $90 million to the federal money. Local governments will chip in more, boosting the group's total five-year funding level to $171 million.<br />
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Defense officials say the rapid development of new technologies around the globe is forcing the Pentagon to seek partnerships with the private sector rather than developing most of its technology itself, as it once did.<br />
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"I've been pushing the Pentagon to think outside our five-sided box and invest in innovation here in Silicon Valley and in tech communities across the country," Carter said.<br />
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The Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Hub, which will be based in San Jose, is the seventh of nine such institutes planned by the Obama administration in an effort to revitalize the U.S. manufacturing base.<br />
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The Pentagon established its first institute in 2012 to help advance the development of 3-D printing.<br />
The institute funded on Friday aims to use high-end printing technology to create specialized, stretchable electronics that could be embedded with sensors and worn by soldiers.<br />
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The technology also could ultimately be used to integrate sensors directly onto the surfaces of ships or warplanes, allowing real-time monitoring of their structural integrity.<br />
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Carter also met on Friday with the Defense Science Board for a briefing on its latest study on how autonomous military drones and robots should be in the future.<br />
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The department has become increasingly dependent upon drones and other robots of varying degrees of autonomy, using them for everything from surveillance and reconnaissance to delivery of supplies and carrying loads for ground troops.<br />
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By David Alexander | Reuters<br />
(Editing by David Storey and Sandra Maler)

Pentagon, Apple and Boeing partnership to develop wearable tech

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter awarded $75 million on Friday to help a consortium of high-tech firms and resea...

Read Article »