thepeoplesrecord:

DHS drones equipped to eavesdrop on Americans
March 4, 2013

The US Department of Homeland Security already has an arsenal of drones to be deployed for whatever the agency deems fit, but the actual capabilities of those vehicles exceed what many Americans may expect.

The unmanned drones being used inside of the United States right now can’t shoot Hellfire missiles like their overseas counterparts. They can, however, conduct surveillance, intercept communications and even determine whether or not a person thousands of feet below the aircraft is armed.

The latest revelation comes courtesy of a DHS document that was recently obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, through a Freedom of Information Act request. After analyzing a partially-redacted drone “performance specification” file received through their FOIA plea, EPIC said that records indicate “the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection is operating drones in the United States capable of intercepting electronic communications.”

Of the ten Predator B drones currently maintained by the agency, EPIC adds that the document confirms that those aircraft “have the capacity to recognize and identify a person on the ground.”

“The records obtained by EPIC raise questions about the agency’s compliance with federal privacy laws and the scope of domestic surveillance,” the center writes on their website this week.

Speaking to CNet, EPIC’s Open Government Project director, Ginger McCall, says the discovery shows just how dangerous drones could be to the privacy of the millions of Americans who could have drones overhead right this moment.

“The documents clearly evidence that the Department of Homeland Security is developing drones with signals interception technology and the capability to identify people on the ground,” McCall says. “This allows for invasive surveillance, including potential communications surveillance, that could run afoul of federal privacy laws.”

Since EPIC published their FOID’d documents last week, Cnet has managed to scrounge up an unredacted copy that outlines what the DHS was looking for in drones when the report was written in 2010. Specifically, the performance specifications note that while the DHS is not implementing drones for eavesdropping on America right now, “Further tasks, such as communication relay and interception, although not yet evaluated in the field, are assessed to also be best performed” by the unmanned aerial vehicles.

Additionally, DHS drones must “be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not” and “be capable of marking a target into a retrievable database.” No information is given as to what database that refers to, but a Homeland Security official speaking on condition of anonymity tells DHS that the drones lack — for now, at least — the ability to read a subject’s face to find out who they are.

“The drones are able to identify whether movement on the ground comes from a human or an animal, but that they do not perform facial recognition,” Cnet reporter Declan McCullagh says the DHS source’s claims.

“Any potential deployment of such technology in the future would be implemented in full consideration of civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy interests and in a manner consistent with the law and long standing law enforcement practices,” the source adds.

The Homeland Security department’s drones are currently used to allow federal officials to monitor any criminal activity on America’s borders to the north and south. As RT reported recently, however, a 2012 Supreme Court ruling determined that the government can conduct border patrol operations within 100 miles of an international crossing. By that logic, the approximately 200 million Americans residing within that parameter are subject to Border Patrol searches and, perhaps soon enough, surveillance drones.

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thepeoplesrecord:

World’s 100 richest earned enough in 2012 to end global poverty 4 times over
January 20, 2013 

The world’s 100 richest people earned a stunning total of $240 billion in 2012 – enough money to end extreme poverty worldwide four times over, Oxfam has revealed, adding that the global economic crisis is further enriching the super-rich.

“The richest 1 percent has increased its income by 60 percent in the last 20 years with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process,” while the income of the top 0.01 percent has seen even greater growth, a new Oxfam report said.

For example, the luxury goods market has seen double-digit growth every year since the crisis hit, the report stated. And while the world’s 100 richest people earned $240 billion last year, people in “extreme poverty” lived on less than $1.25 a day.

Oxfam is a leading international philanthropy organization. Its new report, ‘The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt us All,’ argues that the extreme concentration of wealth actually hinders the world’s ability to reduce poverty.

The report was published before the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, and calls on world leaders to “end extreme wealth by 2025, and reverse the rapid increase in inequality seen in the majority of countries in the last 20 years.”

Oxfam’s report argues that extreme wealth is unethical, economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive.

The problem is a global one, Oxfam said: “In the UK inequality is rapidly returning to levels not seen since the time of Charles Dickens. In China the top 10 percent now take home nearly 60 percent of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South Africa, which is now the most unequal country on Earth and significantly more [inequality] than at the end of apartheid.”

In the US, the richest 1 percent’s share of income has doubled since 1980 from 10 to 20 percent, according to the report. For the top 0.01 percent, their share of national income quadrupled, reaching levels never seen before.

“We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many – too often the reverse is true,” Executive Director of Oxfam International Jeremy Hobbs said.

Hobbs explained that concentration of wealth in the hands of the top few minimizes economic activity, making it harder for others to participate: “From tax havens to weak employment laws, the richest benefit from a global economic system which is rigged in their favor.”

The report highlights that even politics has become controlled by the super-wealthy, which leads to policies “benefitting the richest few and not the poor majority, even in democracies.”

The report proposes a new global deal to world leaders to curb extreme poverty to 1990s levels by:

- closing tax havens, yielding $189bn in additional tax revenues

- reversing regressive forms of taxation

- introducing a global minimum corporation tax rate

- boosting wages proportional to capital returns

- increasing investment in free public services

“It is time our leaders reformed the system so that it works in the interests of the whole of humanity rather than a global elite,” the report said.

The four-day World Economic Forum will be held in Davos starting next Wednesday. World financial leaders will gather for an annual meeting that will focus on reviving the global economy, the eurozone crisis and the conflicts in Syria and Mali.

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thepeoplesrecord:

New Congress even wealthier with new millionaire freshman Congresspeople joining the United States legislative body
January 17, 2013 

The 113th Congress has become wealthier than the last, with incoming freshmen bringing in a median net worth of $1,066,515 each — about $1 million more than that of the average American.

While US citizens are getting poorer and increasingly applying for food stamps, the nation’s legislators are getting richer. Freshmen members of the 113th Congress have a median net worth that is about $100,000 higher than the net worth of all congressional members combined. All 535 members of Congress are worth an average $966,001 each, according to a new analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

A typical American household has a net worth of about $66,740 – a value that has been declining since the start of the most recent recession. Between 2007 and 2010, the median net worth of American households sank 47.1 percent. Food stamp enrollment increased by 15.5 million since 2009 and recent job creation figures show that low-paying jobs have largely replaced higher paying ones.

At a time when the majority is struggling financially, the nation’s leaders are accumulating more wealth.

“What’s [hard] to measure is whether these new legislators appreciate the financial pain people face and can effectively represent them despite the fact that they themselves are well off,” Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, told Open Secrets.

Almost 50 percent (last Congress was 47% millionaires and this group is even wealthier) of the lawmakers have a net worth of more than $1 million, the wealthiest of which, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), was worth more than $500 million in 2011 and could be worth more than that today.

“Often people focus on who’s up, who’s down and the number of millionaires in Congress. And of course we should monitor how representative our legislature is and whether someone is getting rich while in public office – and why,”Krumholz said, adding that many of these legislators invest in companies and could therefore also have conflicts of interests.

Adding the average net worth of each member of Congress comes out to about $4.5 billion. With many of its members being in the nation’s top “one percent”, the legislators’ rising incomes illustrate the increasing income gap during a time of economic struggles.

Americans living below the poverty line rose to 49.7 million last year – a record high which equates to 16 percent of the population. A recent study also shows that the US income gap is worse today than it was in 1774.

“The era when Washington economists and politicians could dismiss inequality as a second or third-tier issue may be ending,” wrote National Journal writer Jonathan Rauch. “And progressives, potentially, have a case against inequality that might put accusations of ‘class warfare’ and ‘politics of envy’ behind them.”

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thepeoplesrecord:

Activists stage ‘Block the Boat’ protest against ship with Walmart goods from Bangladesh
December 18, 2012

About sixty activists gathered early this morning outside the Port of Newark to protest the arrival of a ship they said carried Walmart goods from Bangladesh. Hoisting cardboard tombstones spelling out Walmart’s name, and garments emblazoned with the names of workers who died in the New York City Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the crowd declared the retail giant culpable for the deaths of 112 workers in a similar fire last month in Bangladesh. Chants included, “1, 2, 3, 4, Don’t let that boat come ashore! 5, 6, 7, 8, Don’t touch that shit, don’t move that freight!”

“The supply chain needs to change…” Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN) organizer Martiza Silva-Farrell told the crowd. “This is a start.”

Activists said they originally gathered closer to the dock in hopes of more directly confronting the incoming ship and convincing some dock workers to refuse to unload its goods, but agreed–after police threatened arrests–to move to a space along a nearby highway. While some had expected that the action, promoted as “Block the Boat,” would include civil disobedience, it ended around 9 AM without arrests.

Photos published by The Nation last month revealed the presence of Walmart-branded apparel at the Tazreen Factory where the deadly fire took place. Walmart has maintained that it had terminated its relationship with Tazreen prior to the fire, that its goods were being produced there due to a rogue supplier which disregarded the retailer’s instructions, and that it promotes fire safety. Reports by Bloomberg and theNew York Times this month revealed that multiple Walmart suppliers were active in the factory as recently as this year, and that Walmart rejected a 2011 proposal under which retailers would have contributed to covering the costs of safety improvements in Bangladesh factories. Walmart did not respond to a request for comment Monday night.

Some of this morning’s activists were locals, including Cynthia Mellon, who’s involved in efforts to keep a Walmart store out of Newark. “That kind of store has no place inside of an old city that’s trying to revitalize itself,” said Mellon, an organizer with the local Ironbound Community Corporation. Many came from New York City on buses sponsored by the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition. A handful drove up from Maryland, including Leon Swain, who said he made the trip because “you don’t want a boat to come here to bring such tragedy.”

“There are sweatshop issues in [Walmart’s] retail stores and its warehourses here in the US,” said Northeastern University junior Claire Lewis, “as well as quite clearly in its factories overseas.” Lewis is a member of the national coordinating committee of United Students Against Sweatshops.

Many workers at the Port of Newark are members of Local 1233 of the International Longshoremen Association, whose union contract expires in under a month. “We’re out here also to support them and get some solidarity,” said Strike Debt activist Sean McAlpin. “If they could block that ship, it might show the shipping owners also how much power they have.” While the activists said their efforts to convince ILA members to refuse to unload the cargo were aborted when the police forced them to relocate, one of the activists passed along a supportive message she said she’d received from an ILA member.

Reached by phone, ILA Local 1233 Secretary-Treasurer Buddy Smith told The Nation he was not aware of the demonstration. “This is the first I’m hearing about it,” said Smith. A representative of the ILA international union said that officials were in contract negotiations and would not be able to comment until later in the day.

At the close of the rally, activists gathered to read a series of statements of support from labor groups, including the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and the Retail Action Project. In an address to the crowd, Carol Gay, the president of the New Jersey Industrial Union Council, called Walmart “corrupt,” “rotten for workers,” and “not good neighbors.” A staffer from the labor federation Change to Win read a statement from Kalpona Akter and Babul Akhter, two leaders of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. “By acting in solidarity with our workers across the world,” the statement said, “you are not only demonstrating that we share a common struggle, but also helping to ensure that the nearly 120 Bangladeshi workers who were needlessly killed are not forgotten.”

Sundrop Carter, a member of the Occupy Wall Street working group 99 Pickets, said that the more workers’ strikes and Walmart’s scandals “are kept in the public light, the more change is going to happen. There’s just so much momentum.”

This morning’s action came the same day as the publication of a New York Times investigation sharing new details of Walmart’s international bribery scandal, and a new report from the International Labor Rights Federation calling for Walmart and other major apparel companies to act to avert future fires in South Asia by paying for safety improvements, sharing information about safety hazards, and respecting workers’ organizing rights. The ILRF report opens with an interview with Lovely, a former garment worker who suffered serious injuries in a 2006 factory fire in Bangladesh. “My family still work in the factory…” Lovely, who was 11 years old at the time of the fire, told ILRF. “For all those who are working in the factory, on behalf of them, I want to say, please keep the factory a safe place to work. I don’t want to see anyone else like me.”

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tranqualizer:

blackintellectunrefined:

howtobeterrell:

awklicious:

if i ever am on my own in a small apartment this will be my bed, its perfect for a tiny space

give me plz.

And heinous activity wont break it ! Yess I need it

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(Source: )