Saturday 23 April 2011

Libya and Western Hypocrisy-The West has been lying, cheating, and deceiving people…I PHONE IS WATCHING YOU!!

 

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April 21 2011

Libya and Western Hypocrisy

The West has been lying, cheating, and deceiving people…

by Devon DB

Just last week President Barack Obama, President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Prime Minister David Cameron wrote an op-ed in which the three imperial powers jointly defend their ‘intervention’ in Libya. While it may seem like a legitimate argument, what the op-ed shows is Western hypocrisy and lies.

They first state the reasons that for the ‘intervention’ into Libya, saying:

“We must never forget the reasons why the international community was obliged to act in the first place. As Libya descended into chaos with Colonel Gaddafi attacking his own people, the Arab League called for action. The Libyan opposition called for help. And the people of Libya looked to the world in their hour of need.”

For some reason, the irony of that statement goes unnoted. They argue that the “international community” went into Libya because “Gaddafi [was] attacking his own people” and “the people of Libya looked to the world in their hour of need.”

However, aren’t the citizens of Bahrain, Yemen, and Djibouti also being attacked by their respective governments?

Aren’t they just as deserving of help as the Libyan opposition? The three leaders expose their own hypocrisy, yet don’t even realize it!

Their second argument is that they had UN backing and that “the United Nations Security Council authorized all necessary measures to protect the people of Libya from the attacks upon them.” What is conviently ignored, however, is that the airstrikes have also been killing civilians and rebels. These events have been highly publicized and the fact that they refuse to acknowledge them only serves to show their arrogance and refusal to admit any wrongdoing. The trio states that “Tens of thousands of lives have been protected. But the people of Libya are suffering terrible horrors at Gaddafi’s hands each and every day.” Yet they refuse to acknowledge the “terrible horrors” that the Libyan people are suffering at their hands.

Most interestingly in the op-ed, the trio openly admits that they are seeking regime change in Libya. Last month UK Prime Minister David Cameron stated that there would be “no regime change [in Libya], no occupying force.” Yet he and his cohorts state:

“Our duty and our mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that. It is not to remove Gaddafi by force. But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power” (emphasis added)

After all the rhetoric from the US, the UK, and France about there being no plan to overthrow Gaddafi, they finally admit their imperial goals. They plan to overthrow the Gaddafi government in order to form “a genuine transition from dictatorship to an inclusive constitutional process.” One must wonder how much change will actually occur when the head of the rebel Libyan government was an ex-minister in the Gaddafi regime.

In that same paragraph, the trio states that it would be an “an unconscionable betrayal” of the “brave citizens” of Libya if they were to stop bombing their country. However, wasn’t it also “an unconscionable betrayal” of the people Egypt when the US backed Mubarak, who constantly oppressed his citizens? Isn’t it “an unconscionable betrayal” of Palestinians when the Israel kills civilians and the US and its allies do nothing?

The West has been lying, cheating, and deceiving people for much too long.

The people of Libya need to reject both the Gaddafi regime and the Western-controlled opposition government and find a new way to govern their country where neither madmen nor puppets dictate their lives, only then will the Libyan people find freedom.

Devon DB is 19 years old and studying political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Devon DB is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Devon DB

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24434

WHY DOES AMERICA GO TO WAR?

To understand the complex web of deceit aimed at luring the American people and the rest of the world into accepting a military solution which threatens the future of humanity, get your copy of Michel Chossudovsky’s international bestseller, America’s “War on Terrorism”

In this expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”. Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

Read a full-length review here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6014

Chossudovsky peels back layers of rhetoric to reveal a complex web of deceit aimed at luring the American people and the rest of the world into accepting a military solution which threatens the future of humanity.

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“Millions of people have been misled regarding the causes and consequences of September 11.

When people across the US and around the World find out that Al Qaeda is not an outside enemy but a creation of US foreign policy and the CIA, the legitimacy of the bipartisan war agenda will tumble like a deck of cards.

Across the land, the image of an “outside enemy” is instilled in the consciousness of Americans. Al Qaeda is threatening America and the world. The repeal of democracy under the Patriot legislation is portrayed as a means to providing “domestic security” and upholding civil liberties.

The 9/11 Commission Report destroys the historical record of US covert support to international terrorism, while creating the illusion that America and “Western Civilization” are threatened. In turn, the various terrorist warnings and code orange alerts have created, across America, an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.”

-Michel Chossudovsky, America’s “War on Terrorism”, Global Research


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Michel Chossudovsky is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Michel Chossudovsky

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24400

I PHONE KEEPS A RECORD OF EVERYWHERE YOU GO!

Apple’s iPhone saves every detail of your movements to a file on the device. Security researchers have discovered that Apple’s iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner’s computer when the two are synchronised.

The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone’s recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner’s movements using a simple program.

For some phones, there could be almost a year’s worth of data stored, as the recording of data seems to have started with Apple’s iOS 4 update to the phone’s operating system, released in June 2010.

“Apple has made it possible for almost anybody – a jealous spouse, a private detective – with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you’ve been,” said Pete Warden, one of the researchers.

Only the iPhone records the user’s location in this way, say Warden and Alasdair Allan, the data scientists who discovered the file and are presenting their findings at the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. “Alasdair has looked for similar tracking code in [Google's] Android phones and couldn’t find any,” said Warden. “We haven’t come across any instances of other phone manufacturers doing this.”

Simon Davies, director of the pressure group Privacy International, said: “This is a worrying discovery. Location is one of the most sensitive elements in anyone’s life – just think where people go in the evening. The existence of that data creates a real threat to privacy. The absence of notice to users or any control option can only stem from an ignorance about privacy at the design stage.”

Warden and Allan point out that the file is moved onto new devices when an old one is replaced: “Apple might have new features in mind that require a history of your location, but that’s our specualtion. The fact that [the file] is transferred across [to a new iPhone or iPad] when you migrate is evidence that the data-gathering isn’t accidental.” But they said it does not seem to be transmitted to Apple itself.

Map shows location data collected from an iPhone that had been used in the southwest of England Although mobile networks already record phones’ locations, it is only available to the police and other recognised organisations following a court order under the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act. Standard phones do not record location data.

MPs in 2009 criticised the search engine giant Google for its “Latitude” system, which allowed people to enable their mobile to give out details of their location to trusted contacts. At the time MPs said that Latitude “could substantially endanger user privacy”, but Google pointed out that users had to specifically choose to make their data available.

The iPhone system, by contrast, appears to record the data whether or not the user agrees. Apple declined to comment on why the file is created or whether it can be disabled.

Warden and Allan have set up a web page which answers questions about the file, and created a simple downloadable application to let Apple users check for themselves what location data the phone is retaining. The Guardian has confirmed that 3G-enabled devices including the iPad also retain the data and copy it to the owner’s computer.

If someone were to steal an iPhone and “jailbreak” it, giving them direct access to the files it contains, they could extract the location database directly. Alternatively, anyone with direct access to a user’s computer could run the application and see a visualisation of their movements. Encrypting data on the computer is one way to protect against it, though that still leaves the file on the phone.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at the security company Sophos, said: “If the data isn’t required for anything, then it shouldn’t store the location. And it doesn’t need to keep an archive on your machine of where you’ve been.” He suggested that Apple might be hoping that it would yield data for future mobile advertising targeted by location, although he added: “I tend to subscribe to cockup rather than conspiracy on things like this – I don’t think Apple is really trying to monitor where users are.”

The data inside the file containing the location and time information. This is used to plot the map above The location file came to light when Warden and Allan were looking for a source of mobile data. “We’d been discussing doing a visualisation of mobile data, and while Alasdair was researching into what was available, he discovered this file. At first we weren’t sure how much data was there, but after we dug further and visualised the extracted data, it became clear that there was a scary amount of detail on our movements,” Warden said.

They have blogged about their discovery at O’Reilly’s Radar site, noting that “why this data is stored and how Apple intends to use it — or not — are important questions that need to be explored.”

The pair of data scientists have collaborated on a number of data visualisations, including a map of radiation levels in Japan for The Guardian. They are developing a Data Science Toolkit for dealing with location data.

Davies said that the discovery of the file indicated that Apple had failed to take users’ privacy seriously.

Apple can legitimately claim that it has permission to collect the data: near the end of the 15,200-word terms and conditions for its iTunes program, used to synchronise with iPhones, iPods and iPads, is an 86-word paragraph about “location-based services”.

It says that “Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.”

Privacy invasions via technology April 2011: iPhone location

British researchers on Wednesday revealed that iPhones (and 3G-enabled iPads) keep track of where you go, including timestamps, on a file that is backed up on your computer and shifted onto any new iPhone or iPad you get. Apple hasn’t said why the file is created or whether the tracking can be prevented.

October 2010: US Transportation Security Agency’s X-ray scanners

The “porno scanners” (as they quickly became known) offered a clothes-free vision of people passing through the backscatter machines (whose level of X-ray exposure was also questioned). People who objected to going through those were obliged to go through remarkably intimate examinations – none of which endeared the TSA to air travellers.

April 2010: Google captures Wi-Fi data

In a series of increasingly embarrassed blogposts over the course of April, May and June, Google admitted that while its cars were driving around to capture its (already slightly controversial) Street View pictures of locations around the world, it had also captured Wi-Fi network names – and data from the open ones, potentially including passwords and usernames. The dispute over whether Google should delete the data, and whether it had broken the law in various countries, rumbled on for months.

December 2009: Eric Schmidt

In a speech, Google’s then-chief executive Eric Schmidt suggested that: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines – including Google – do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

His words provoked an outcry from privacy rights campaigners, who pointed out that privacy is a right, and that it protects every citizen from abuses by those in power.

Global Research Articles by Charles Arthur

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24432

http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/libya-and-western-hypocrisy-the-west-has-been-lying-cheating-and-deceiving-people-i-phone-is-watching-you/

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