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Drones for “urban warfare”

24 Apr

Writing in Salon, Jefferson Morley reports that ” the business of marketing drones to law enforcement is booming. Now that Congress has ordered the Federal Aviation Administration to open up U.S. airspace to unmanned vehicles, the aerial surveillance technology first developed in the battle space of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is fueling a burgeoning market in North America.” Some 50 companies are pushing 150 different systems at a law enforcement agency near you. And the drones won’t just be snooping. Some will be “weaponized” too.

Has anyone thought about how these drones might/will impinge on our liberties?

While industry spokesmen say existing laws will adequately protect civil liberties and privacy, Congress held no hearings on the implications of domestic drones, and a wide range of opponents insist the drones pose a threat to privacy.

In Washington, activist groups Code Pink, Reprieve and the Center for Constitutional Rights are holding a “drone summit” this week, declaring it is “time to organize to end current abuses and to prevent the potentially widespread misuse both overseas and here at home.”

The FAA “has the opportunity and the responsibility to ensure that the privacy of individuals is protected and that the public is fully informed about who is using drones in public airspace and why,” said U.S. Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas, in a letter to the FAA last week.

“How will the public be notified about when and where drones are used, who will operate the drones, what data will be collected, how the data will be used, how the data will be retained and who will have access to the date?” they asked.

The companies who sell this stuff say there’s no problem. Do you believe them?

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Blamed for Bee Collapse, Monsanto Buys Bee Research Firm : Natural Society

23 Apr

Monsanto, the massive biotechnology company being blamed for contributing to the dwindling bee population, has bought up one of the leading bee collapse research organizations. Recently banned from Poland with one of the primary reasons being that the company’s genetically modified corn may be devastating the dying bee population, it is evident that Monsanto is under serious fire for their role in the downfall of the vital insects. It is therefore quite apparent why Monsanto bought one of the largest bee research firms on the planet.

It can be found in public company reports hosted on mainstream media that Monsanto scooped up the Beeologics firm back in September 2011. During this time the correlation between Monsanto’s GM crops and the bee decline was not explored in the mainstream, and in fact it was hardly touched upon until Polish officials addressed the serious concern amid the monumental ban. Owning a major organization that focuses heavily on the bee collapse and is recognized by the USDA for their mission statement of “restoring bee health and protecting the future of insect pollination” could be very advantageous for Monsanto.

via Blamed for Bee Collapse, Monsanto Buys Bee Research Firm : Natural Society.

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A Stain That Won’t Wash Away – NYTimes.com

20 Apr

The problem then (and perhaps now) is that it is the slow pileup of factors that causes an industrial disaster. Poor decisions are usually made incrementally by a range of people with differing levels of responsibility, and almost always behind a shield of plausible deniability. It makes it almost impossible to pin one clear-cut bad call on a single manager, which is partly why no BP official has ever been held criminally accountable.

Instead, the corporation is held accountable. It isn’t clear that charging the company repeatedly with misdemeanors and felonies has accomplished anything.

At more than $30 billion and climbing, the amount BP has paid out so far for reparations, lawsuits and cleanup dwarfs the roughly $8 billion that Exxon had to pay after its 1989 spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska. And BP will very likely still pay billions more before this is finished.

And yet it is not enough. Two years after analysts questioned whether the extraordinary cost and loss of confidence might drive BP out of business, it has come roaring back. It collected more than $375 billion in 2011, pocketing $26 billion in profits.

What the gulf spill has taught us is that no matter how bad the disaster (and the environmental impact), the potential consequences have never been large enough to dissuade BP from placing profits ahead of prudence. That might change if a real person was forced to take responsibility — or if the government brought down one of the biggest hammers in its arsenal and banned the company from future federal oil leases and permits altogether. Fines just don’t matter.

via A Stain That Won’t Wash Away – NYTimes.com.

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Investigation: Two Years After the BP Spill, A Hidden Health Crisis Festers | The Nation

19 Apr

This article is a horror story of health problems following the Gulf oil spill. Many/most of the afflicted people will probably never be compensated.

It will take years to determine the actual number of affected people. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), with financial support from BP, is conducting several multiyear health impact studies, which are only just getting under way. I spoke with all but one of the studies’ national and Gulf Coast directors. “People were getting misdiagnosed for sure,” says Dr. Edward Trapido, director of two NIEHS studies on women’s and children’s health and associate dean for research at the Louisiana State University School of Public Health. “Most doctors simply didn’t know what questions to ask or what to look for.” There are only two board-certified occupational physicians in Louisiana, according to Trapido, and only one also board-certified as a toxicologist: Dr. James Diaz, director of the Environmental and Occupa-tional Health Sciences Program at Louisiana State University.

Diaz calls the BP spill a toxic “gumbo of chemicals” to which the people, places and wildlife of the Gulf continue to be exposed.

via Investigation: Two Years After the BP Spill, A Hidden Health Crisis Festers | The Nation.

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EPA Passes New Fracking Rules – National – The Atlantic Wire

18 Apr

In what some, like Fuel Fix’s Jennifer A Dlouhy, consider another case of the government caving in to the wishes of the well-funded energy lobby, the rules won’t take effect until 2015.

The new regulations are designed to cut down on the polluting by-products of fracking, which involves drilling through rock and injecting a water-based chemical mixture to force out natural gas. However, after protest from the lobbyists, the EPA will allow the gas industry to hold on to the status quo until 2015, as long as they burn off some of the carcinogenic gases with a process called “flaring.”

Does “EPA” stand for “Enhanced Pollution Agency”?

via EPA Passes New Fracking Rules – National – The Atlantic Wire.

Eyeless Shrimp and the BP Oil Spill – National – The Atlantic Wire

18 Apr

It happened almost exactly two years ago, and as much good news as you read about the return of tourism and the spending of BP’s money to help the recovery efforts, some major problems remain.

We’re most concerned about the eyeless shrimp…. In other parts of the Gulf, fisherman are finding fish covered in black lesions and even dead dolphins floating in the water. Eyeless shrimp or killifish covered in oil-colored spots serve as cringeworthy reminders of how even a small amount of leftover contaminant can do huge amounts of damage to local lifeforms.

But you don’t even have to eat mutant fish to be affected by the spill. A new report by the non-BP-funded Surfrider Foundation shows that humans swimming in the Gulf are soaking up the chemical that BP used to disperse the oil right after the spill.

via Eyeless Shrimp and the BP Oil Spill – National – The Atlantic Wire.

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ALEC Disbands Task Force Responsible for Voter ID, ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws | The Nation

17 Apr

Ah, the CorpState blinked. That’s not much change, but it is change in the right direction.

Pressured by watchdog groups, civil rights organizations and a growing national movement for accountable lawmaking, the American Legislative Exchange Council announced Tuesday that it was disbanding the task force that has been responsible for advancing controversial Voter ID and “Stand Your Ground” laws.

ALEC, the shadowy corporate-funded proponent of so-called “model legislation” for passage by pliant state legislatures, announced that it would disband its “Public Safety and Elections” task force. …

The decision to disband the task force appears to get ALEC out of the business of promoting Voter ID and “Stand Your Ground” laws. That’s a dramatic turn of events, with significant implications for state-based struggles over voting rights an elections, as well as criminal justice policy. But it does not mean that ALEC will stop promoting one-size-fits-all “model legislation” at the state level.

via ALEC Disbands Task Force Responsible for Voter ID, ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws | The Nation.

Five Ways to Support Re-Occupation | The Nation

17 Apr

Empowered by a federal court ruling that allows protesters to legally sleep on public sidewalks, as long as they don’t block building entrances or take up more than half of the available space, #SleepfulProtest is proving to be an effective new tactic helping speed Occupy Wall Street’s re-emergence into the streets and public spaces of the US. (My colleague Allison Kilkenny recently explained and explored this new strategy.)

It’s been so effective, in fact, that this morning at 6:00 am the NYPD, in direct defiance of the 2000 decision Metropolitan Council Inc. v. Safir, which held “public sleeping as a means of symbolic expression” to be constitutionally protected speech, raided the corner across from the New York Stock Exchange where Occupiers have been sleeping. A motion for an emergency injunction against NYPD disruption of the sidewalk protests was filed this morning.

In the meantime, here are five ways you can help support the Re-Occupation of America:

1. Go to Wall Street to join the Occupiers if you can….

2. Spread the word.  …

3. Donate to Occupy Wall Street through its website. …

4. Get ready for the May 1 actions. This is expected to be a major day of resistance on many fronts and of many forms. Do something!

5. Help save Chicago’s Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic.

via Five Ways to Support Re-Occupation | The Nation.

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Don’t trust corporate charity – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

13 Apr

On the surface the increased attention big business seems to be paying to general social welfare would appear to be a positive development. Major corporations go out of the way to ease the burdens of normal citizens, in the process dulling some of the harsher aspects of modern capitalism and earning for themselves PR boost. However it bears asking the question, as many good and well intentioned individuals there are sitting in the C-Suites of major companies, what would cause them to expend huge amounts of resources on pursuits which seem to have nothing to do with what their organizations are legally created to do? …

The answer lies in the reality that whatever these organizations put back into the communities in which they operate, communities which are often struggling under the weight of collapsing infrastructure, they expend far greater effort to ensure that they avoid paying their share of tax into public coffers. By avoiding taxes these companies ultimately help eliminate social services, a simulacrum of which they then provide in the form of charitable donations and other public outreach. The company keeps the funds it would’ve otherwise lost to tax and earns PR credibility for its supposed altruism, while the public loses out on the tax revenue which rightfully belongs to it

via Don’t trust corporate charity – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

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Occupy’s Plans to Take Down Bank of America | The Nation

10 Apr

Alternet’s Sarah Jaffe today posted an article about Occupy’s future plans to protest the bank, ranging from direct actions to Move Your Money efforts, all of which will focus on the need to break up Bank of America.

April 13 will be the “move your money relay,” entailing escorting people from Bank of America branches, where they’ll close their accounts, to community banks and local credit unions.

OWS activist Nelini Stamp told Alternet, “We want to make sure that people feel like that is a direct action unto itself. It’s not just ‘I’m just moving my money from here,’ but actually people are feeling empowered and knowledgeable about the choices that they’re making when they’re making their banking decisions.”

The week of April 16 will feature Occupy activists attempting to disrupt home foreclosure auctions.

via Occupy’s Plans to Take Down Bank of America | The Nation.

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