Police State watch February 13 , 2014 -- Security Experts: TSA Scanners Wide Open To Hacking , Experts working at security firm Qualys, have discovered that both body and baggage scanners can be hacked in order to present false images that could fool TSA screeners into giving a person or baggage the all clear, when in fact weapons or explosives are present. ............ Homeland Security to Activate ‘National License Plate Recognition Database’ ........ It Doesn’t Take Much For People To Start Behaving Like Crazed Lunatics ..... Additional items you won't see on TV or read in your local newspaper !

http://www.infowars.com/security-experts-tsa-scanners-wide-open-to-hacking/

( Apart from allowing TSA agents to ogle naked 

  folks , they don't actual stop dedicated terrorists    

  with basic hacking skills ..... )  

Security Experts: TSA Scanners Wide Open To Hacking

While agents ogle naked bodies, “lame bugs” allow evildoers to easily bypass machines

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
February 13, 2014

New revelations from security researchers outline how much of the technology operated in airports by the TSA is fundamentally flawed and can be fairly easily bypassed by anyone with the intention of getting dangerous items through security lines.

Experts working at security firm Qualys, have discovered that both body and baggage scanners can be hacked in order to present false images that could fool TSA screeners into giving a person or baggage the all clear, when in fact weapons or explosives are present.

So while everyday Americans are being zapped with radiation and having their naked images recorded (yes the machines still produce naked images), it is entirely possible for terrorists with a little technical know-how to skip right through the TSA’s lines of defense.

Experts Billy Rios and Terry McCorkle note that the vulnerability exists in Rapiscan scanners, which have a Threat Image Projection (TIP) function, designed to train and test TSA screeners by superimposing fake images. They also found that passwords were not needed in order to access this function within the machines.

According to the two experts, the training software is also present in machines deployed in government buildings, embassies, courthouses, ports and border crossings.

“Someone could basically own this machine and modify the images that the operators see,” Rios, a director of threat intelligence, told Wired.

The report notes that “the supervisor’s password screen could be subverted through a simple SQL injection attack — a common hacker tactic that involves entering a special string of characters to trigger a system into doing something it shouldn’t do. In this case, the string would allow an attacker to bypass the login to gain access to a console screen that controls the TIP feature.”

“Just throw [these] characters into the login,” Rios said, and the system accepts it. “It tells you there’s an error, [but then] just logs you in.”

“It’s so outrageous that they didn’t [encrypt]. If anyone ever gets access to the [Rapiscan] file system, they will have access to all the user accounts and passwords in clear text,” he told Wired. “No need for keyloggers or malware, just read them out of the text files.”

“These bugs are actually embarrassing. It was embarrassing to report them to DHS — the ability to bypass the login screen. These are really lame bugs.” Rios added.

Critics will argue that this once again highlights how the TSA’s operations are pure security theater that actually does very little to ensure the safety of Americans, while guzzling billions in taxpayer funding.

Rapiscan has denied that the machines have any vulnerability, suggesting instead that Rios and McCorkle used “misconfigured equipment” during their research. The TSA also denied that the scanners were hackable.

“The Rapiscan version that is utilized by TSA is not available for sale commercially or to any other entity; the commercial version of the TIP software is not used by TSA,” TSA spokesman Ross Feinstein told Wired.

Then again, why should anyone in their right minds believe anything Rapiscan or the TSA claims. The two have been caught in lies and deliberate misinformation regarding the scanners on multiple occasions.

Last year, the TSA came under strict scrutiny from Congress over the mothballing of $14 million worth of body scanners. All in all, the 250 backscatter scanners the agency now has are worth a combined total of $40 million.

The real reason some of the machines were removed from airports is because of allegations that the manufacturer Rapiscan manipulated operational tests on the machines, and the company was never able to develop the “stick man” software that masks naked images produced by the scanners.

In addition, further documents obtained by EPIC show how the TSA “publicly mischaracterized” findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in stating that the agency had positively confirmed the safety of full body scanners in tests.

It has also been proven that the scanner can be fooled by sewing a metallic object into the side of one’s clothing, rendering the entire fleet of machines virtually useless.

A recently discovered Homeland Security report also noted that federal investigators have “identified vulnerabilities in the screening process” involving the scanners.

Multiple other security experts have gone on record saying that the scanners are ineffective, yet the TSA is now seeking a whole new generation of more powerful, and many would argue more intrusive, scanners seemingly based on the same technology.

Another security experts, Bruce Schneier, CTO of Co3 Systems. also chimed in on the latest revelations of security flaws:

“This reminded me a lot of voting machines. When you design these government systems under procurement rules, you end up using old stuff. No one is paying attention to updating it, so security is crap because no one is analyzing it.”

“Stuff done in secret gets really shoddy security … We know what gives us security is the constant interplay between the research community and vendors.” Schneier added.

http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-to-activate-national-license-plate-recognition-database/

( Welcome to Russia folks ..... ) 

Homeland Security to Activate ‘National License Plate Recognition Database’

UK version of spy system was used to target political activists

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 13, 2014

The Department of Homeland Security is set to activate a national license plate tracking system that will be shared with law enforcement, allowing DHS officers to take photos of any license plate using their smartphone and upload it to a database which will include a “hot list” of “target vehicles”.

Image: License Plate Scanning Camera (Wikimedia Commons).

The details are included in a PDF attachment uploaded yesterday to the Federal Business Opportunities website under a solicitation entitled “National License Plate Recognition Database.”

The system will “track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system from a variety of sources (access control systems, asset recovery specialists, etc.) and uploaded to share with law enforcement” in order to help locate “criminal aliens and absconders.”

In other countries that have activated license plate tracking networks, such as the United Kingdom, political activists have been targeted by having their vehicles added to a “hotlist” after attending protests. One example led to a man being questioned under anti-terror laws after he traveled to take part in an anti-war demonstration.

As the image above illustrates, the cameras are also used by local governments in Australia to keep records of people who violate parking restrictions. Critics of the system in Australia have condemned it as “a Pandora’s box for abuse of power, mistakes and illegal disclosure,” stressing that the technology allows authorities to record “your number plate at a certain time and location,” allowing police to “compile an extraordinary amount of data about you. This includes your name, address, contact details, driving history and licence status.”

“Innocent people are increasingly being treated with suspicion due to the tiny chance that some offence may be committed,” writes David Jancik.

The DHS’ database will allow authorities “to determine where and when the vehicle has traveled,” using data compiled “from a variety of sources nationwide,” including “metropolitan areas” within the United States, suggesting the system may be linked in with regular surveillance cameras as it is in the UK.

The system will also allow DHS officials to take a picture of any license plate via their smartphone, upload it to the database and immediately receive an alert if the plate is on the watchlist.

“The NLPR data service should provide details on clarity of photos provided. The Government would prefer a close-up of the plate and a zoomed out image of the vehicle,” states the solicitation.

The system must also have the capability to “flag license plates and conduct searches anonymously so that other law enforcement agencies may not have access.”

Given rampant concerns that the Department of Homeland Security, which is ostensibly introducing this system in the name of catching illegal aliens, is in fact an increasingly bloated federal bureaucracy designed to target the American people, the notion of the DHS enjoying access to a fully integrated nationwide license plate tracking grid is chilling, especially given the fact that the agency has funded reports which characterize “liberty lovers” as potential terrorists.

The DHS also recently awarded the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority $7 million dollars to outfit its buses with high tech 360 degree surveillance cameras. The federal agency is simultaneously supporting the rollout of ‘Intellistreets’ lighting systems that double as surveillance hubs which can record conversations.

“Do not kid yourself. This is tracking of an individual that can be accessed at a whim,” writes James Smith. “Yearly, officers are terminated for accessing the LEDS/NCIC database for looking into the histories of ex-lovers, future spouses, and potential sons/daughters-in-law. And with license plate tracking toy (not a tool), they will know where you are, as long as you have driven into the cross hairs of this new weapon for tyranny.”

http://www.infowars.com/it-doesnt-take-much-for-people-to-start-behaving-like-crazed-lunatics/

( Don't push me , I'm close to the edge ..... ) 

It Doesn’t Take Much For People To Start Behaving Like Crazed Lunatics

Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse
February 13, 2014

If an ice storm can cause this much panic in our major cities, what will a real crisis look like?  The biggest news story in the United States right now is the “historic ice storm” that is hammering the South. 

Image: Ice Storm (Wikimedia Commons).

Travel will be a nightmare, schools and businesses will be closed, and hundreds of thousands of people will lose power.  In fact, it is being projected that some people could be without power for up to a week.  But at the end of the day, the truth is that this ice storm is just an inconvenience.  Yes, the lives of millions of Americans will be disrupted for a few days, but soon the ice will melt and life will be back to normal.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much for people to start behaving like crazed lunatics.  As you will see below, the winter weather is causing average Americans to ransack grocery stores, fight over food items and even pull guns on one another.  If this is how people will behave during a temporary weather emergency, how will they behave when we are facing a real disaster?

This is a perfect example that shows why it is wise to always have emergency food supplies on hand.  According to CNN, all that is left on the shelves of some grocery stores in Atlanta is “corn and asparagus”…

As the skies turned heavy, Atlantans cleaned stores out of loaves of bread, gallons of milk, bundles of firewood and cans of beans and beer. In some stores, all that was left were the apparently less-popular corn and asparagus.

And according to an Infowars report, some people down in Atlanta were actually getting into fights over basic essentials such as milk and bread…

Atlanta residents ransacked neighborhood grocery stores in frantic preparation for their second major snowstorm of the year, waging fights over food items and leaving destruction and empty shelves in their wake, a stunning precursor to what will ensue once a major crisis impacts the U.S.

After three inches of snow shut the city down two weeks ago, causing major havoc and leaving miles of cars stranded on immobile roadways, the residents of Atlanta took heed and shopped early.

According to people who Tweeted photos of barren store shelves, residents went crazy over essentials like milk, bread, water and eggs, and in some cases “people were fighting. Yes fighting,” alleges one user.

The photo that I have shared below was posted to Twitter by Kris Muir.  It shows what the bread aisle at a Kroger in the Atlanta area looked like as the storm approached…

So what would happen if this was an extended crisis and you had not stored up any emergency supplies for your own family?

That is something to think about.

And just like during the last major winter storm in the South, there are reports of hundreds of vehicles being abandoned on the side of the road in major cities.  For example, just check out what has been happening in Raleigh, North Carolina…

“I live and work in downtown. I was able to get from my office back home. My wife works in Morrisville, about 25 minutes away. She left the office at 12 p.m. and is still on the road. I am coaching her home with Google Maps. It appears that, from WRAL TV, the ramp from Wade Avenue to 440 is blocked by abandoned cars. That is a HUGE ramp (downtown Raleigh to highway).”

We are also seeing quite a few reports of “snow rage” as this cold, snowy winter drags on.  In fact, on Sunday someone actually pulled out a shotgun and threatened to shoot a snow plow driver on Long Island…

As CBS 2’s Carolyn Gusoff reported Tuesday, people have found themselves fed up with the hassle of plowing, shoveling and salting. In fact, they have been pushed to the edge, to the point where they have been taking out their frustrations on plow drivers.

Eric Ramirez, a snow plow driver on Long Island, said an irate man went so far as to rack a shotgun Sunday and threaten to shoot him because he was piling snow in front of the man’s Manorhaven home.

And a similar incident involving a pistol was recently reported in Union Township…

The incident happened Monday afternoon along Underwood Street in Union Township.

Police say Eckert became angry when the self-employed driver, John Abraham, accidentally pushed some snow into his yard while cleaning a neighbor’s driveway.

“I went like this to put it in park and there was a gun right here in my face,” Abraham said.

Eckert is then accused of taking a .22-calibur pistolout of his coat, and pressing it against Abraham’s cheek, telling him to remove the snow.

As I write about so frequently, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear.  A whole host of surveys and opinion polls have shown that Americans are angrier and more frustrated than ever.  Our society has become a ticking time bomb, and it isn’t going to take much for it to explode.

When it does explode, most people are going to be depending on the government or someone else to take care of them.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article by Mac Slavo…

Despite warnings from FEMA, as well as the prevalence of popular preparedness TV shows, Americans still don’t seem to understand how susceptible we are to a complete destabilization of life as we know it. It boggles the mind that most people seem to think that when disasters strikes they’ll be able to depend on someone else to provide them with assistance.

Fortunately, at least a few people seem to be learning some lessons about the importance of being prepared from these winter storms…

“Last time I was totally unprepared, I was completely blindsided,” said Lisa Nadir, of Acworth, who sat in traffic for 13 hours and then spent the night in her car when the storm hit Jan. 28. “I’m going to be prepared from now on for the rest of my life.”

What about you?

Are you prepared?

We live at a time when our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and it doesn’t take much to imagine a bunch of scenarios in which this nation would be facing a major crisis for an extended period of time…

-A major eruption of Mt. Rainier or the Yellowstone supervolcano

-The “Big One” hits California

-A massive earthquake along the New Madrid fault line

-A highly infectious pandemic that kills tens of millions of Americans

-Hackers bring down the Internet or crash the banking system

-A massive tsunami hits either the east coast or the west coast destroying numerous major cities

-A major war erupts in the Middle East and the United States gets involved

-A crisis involving North Korea sparks a major war in Asia

-A terror attack that specifically targets our power grid

-A terror attack involving a weapon of mass destruction in one of our major cities

-A terror attack or a major natural disaster causes one or more nuclear facilities in the heart of the United States to experience a “Fukushima-like crisis”

-A massive EMP blast that fries our electrical grid and our communications systems

-Last but certainly not least, a massive economic collapse that fundamentally changes life in America on a permanent basis

So what do you think?

Are there additional scenarios that you would add to the list above?

And more........

Obamacare: IRS Demands Businesses Show “Bonafide Reasons” for Layoffs

Warren Mass
The New American
February 13, 2014

The IRS will require employers who terminate employees to show that they did so for “bona fide business reasons” in order to be eligible for delaying the Obamacare health insurance employer mandate.

Under new guidelines announced on February 10, the IRS will delay the mandate until 2016 for medium-sized businesses employing between 50 and 99 people. Businesses with 49 employees or fewer are not required to provide their employees with health insurance coverage under Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act is generally called.

The phasing-in of the employer mandate is designed to make “the compliance process simpler and easier to navigate,” said Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark Mazur.

Read more

Americans Killed By Cops Now Outnumber Americans Killed In Iraq War

filmingcops.com
February 12, 2014

Cops have killed well over 5,000 Americans since 9/11. Many of these killings have occurred during no-knock raids, which have risen by 4000% since the 1980s.

Image: Military Police (Wikimedia Commons).

Iraqi insurgents, by comparison, have killed around 3,500 Americans in Iraq since 9/11 in Operation Iraqi “Freedom.”

It is not just Iraq. The number of Americans killed by police also now exceeds the number of Americans killed by Afghan insurgents.

Afghan insurgents have killed around 2,000 Americans in Afghanistan since 9/11 in Operation Enduring “Freedom.”

The police are getting paid with our money to go on shooting sprees and they are killing more of us than the terrorists from whom they “protect” us.

Do not be too surprised.  This data is to be expected; it naturally fits with the fact that the State  uses “counter-terrorism” as a means to oppress and initiate violence against the population.  In fact, you are eight times more likely to be killed by a cop than by an actual “terrorist.”

Domestic violence is two-four times more common among police families than American families in general.

As of 2010 the compared data lifted from Cato’s NPMSRP shows that the reports of police committing sexual assault amounted to more than 2 times the reports in the entire general population.

If officer-involved killings were prosecuted as murder, the murder rate for law enforcement officers would exceed the general population murder rate by at least 472%. And these are only the reported incidents. The vast majority of police misconduct and abuse is unreported. Who knows what the actual total is.

Excerpt from compared data between Cato’s NPMSR and the DOJ’s UCR for police homicide and sexual assault.

While we’re at it, over a quarter of a billion human beings were killed by government last century alone, making government the leading cause of unnatural death in the 20th century.  This doesn’t include casualties from all the wars that governments started to “protect” us.

The number of Americans in prison now exceeds the number of high school teachers and engineers. There are at least 7.3 million Americans locked in captivity or under federal control as you read this, the majority of whom are non-violent (for example, they were caught ingesting a plant that the government claims is “illegal”).

One in 25 Americans were arrested as of 2011. The number may be even higher now.

Friends, don’t listen to anybody who tells you it’s “just a few bad apples.” The whole barrel is rotten.

Huge hack ‘ugly sign of future’ for internet threats

Dave Lee
BBC
February 12, 2014

A massive attack that exploited a key vulnerability in the infrastructure of the internet is the “start of ugly things to come”, it has been warned.

Online security specialists Cloudflare said it recorded the “biggest” attack of its kind on Monday.

Hackers used weaknesses in the Network Time Protocol (NTP), a system used to synchronise computer clocks, to flood servers with huge amounts of data.

Read more

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Secret_Military_Contractors_Will_Soon_Mine_Your_Tweets/32852/0/38/38/Y/M.html

SOURCE: DEFENSE ONE

The Army wants a contractor to conduct detailed social media data mining to “identify violent extremist influences” around the world that could affect the European Command, responsible for operations in Europe as well as Iceland, Israel, Greenland and Russia.

Though the project is classified Secret, an Army contract shop in Europe posted a wealth of information on the FedBizOps contract website Tuesday.

The data mining contract, which has the very long title of “Social Media Data-mining, Localized Research, Market Audience Analysis, and Narrowcast Engagement Requirements,” will support both the European Command and Special Operations Command Europe.

In its request for information, the Army said it wants a contractor to “provide detailed social media research and analysis, on-the-ground native research and analysis, and customized social media website development and execution.”  This will include open source information, “detailed social media data-mining, social media monitoring and analysis, target audience analysis, media kit development and social media platform operations.”

This is a global effort, according to the RFI. In addition the European Command and the Special Operations Command in Europe, “activities under this contract will support … strategic communications, operations to engage local populations, build interagency partnerships, and identify violent extremist influences” within EUCOM’s area of responsibility emanating from Africa Command, Central Command, Pacific Command, or Southern Command areas of responsibility.

Read More...

http://www.blacklistednews.com/If_Obama_Orders_the_CIA_to_Kill_a_US_Citizen%2C_Amazon_Will_Be_a_Partner_in_Assassination/32848/0/38/38/Y/M.html

NORMAN SOLOMON WRITES:

President Obama is now considering whether to order the Central Intelligence Agency to kill a U.S. citizen in Pakistan. That’s big news this week. But hidden in plain sight is the fact that Amazon would be an accessory to the assassination.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. (File)

Amazon has a $600 million contract with the CIA to provide the agency with “cloud” computing services. After final confirmation of the deal several months ago, Amazon declared: “We look forward to a successful relationship with the CIA.”

The relationship means that Amazon -- logoed with a smiley-face arrow from A to Z, selling products to millions of people every week -- is responsible for keeping the CIA’s secrets and aggregating data to help the agency do its work. Including drone strikes.

Drone attacks in Pakistan are “an entirely CIA operation,” New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti said Tuesday night in an interview on the PBS NewsHour. He added that “the Pakistani government will not allow the [U.S.] military to take over the mission because they want to still have the sort of veneer of secrecy that the CIA provides.”

The sinister implications of Amazon’s new CIA role have received scant public attention so far.

As the largest Web retailer in the world, Amazon has built its business model on the secure accumulation and analysis of massive personal data. The firm’s Amazon Web Services division gained the CIA contract amid fervent hopes that the collaboration will open up vast new vistas for the further melding of surveillance and warfare.

Notably, Amazon did not submit the low bid for the $600 million contract. The firm won the deal after persuading the CIA of its superior technical capacities in digital realms.

Amazon is now integral to the U.S. government’s foreign policy of threatening and killing.

Any presidential decision to take the life of an American citizen is a subset of a much larger grave problem. Whatever the nationality of those who hear the menacing buzz of a drone overhead, the hijacking of skies to threaten and kill those below is unconscionable. And, as presently implemented, unconstitutional.

On Feb. 11 the Times reported that the Obama administration “is debating whether to authorize a lethal strike against an American citizen living in Pakistan who some believe is actively plotting terrorist attacks.” In effect, at issue is whether the president should order a summary execution -- an assassination -- on his say-so.

The American way isn’t supposed to be that way. The “due process of law” required by the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution is not supposed to be whatever the president decides to do.

A free and independent press is crucial for confronting such dire trends. But structural factors of corporate power continue to undermine the potential of journalism. The Washington Post is a grim case in point.

Six months ago, Jeff Bezos -- the CEO and main stakeholder of Amazon -- bought the Post. But the newspaper’s ongoing CIA-related coverage does not inform readers that the CIA’s big contract with Amazon is adding to the personal wealth of the Post’s sole owner.

This refusal to make such conflict-of-interest disclosures is much more than journalistic evasion for the sake of appearances. It’s a marker for more consolidation of corporate mega-media power with government power. The leverage from such convergence is becoming ever-less acknowledged or conspicuous as it becomes ever-more routine and dominant.

After e-mail correspondence with me about the non-disclosure issue in early January, the executive editor of the Washington Post, Martin Baron, declined to answer questions from media outlets on the subject. On Jan. 15 -- when I delivered a RootsAction.org petition under the heading “Washington Post: Readers Deserve Full Disclosure in Coverage of CIA,” signed by 30,000 people, to the newspaper’s headquarters -- Baron declined to meet with me or designate any employee to receive the petition. Clearly the Post management wants this issue to go away.

But, as I wrote to Baron last month, it’s all too convenient -- and implausible -- for the Washington Post to claim that there would be “no direct relevance of the [Amazon-CIA] cloud services contract to coverage of such matters as CIA involvement in rendition of prisoners to regimes for torture; or in targeting for drone strikes; or in data aggregation for counterinsurgency.”

The surveillance state and the warfare state continue to converge. The Washington Post does not want us to insist on journalistic disclosure. Amazon does not want us to insist on moral accountability. President Obama does not want us to insist on basic constitutionality. It would be a shame to oblige any of them.