-PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail.

house.gov:

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail.  The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

In response to the JCT letter, Camp said:  “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail.  It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.”

Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

- – - – - – - – - -

“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]

- – - – - – - – - -

“Criminal penalties

Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses.  Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties.  The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.

“The Senate Finance Committee had the good sense to eliminate the extreme penalty of incarceration.  Speaker Pelosi’s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates.  Fortunately, Republicans have an alternative that will lower health insurance costs without raising taxes or cutting Medicare,” said Camp.

According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.

-F.B.I. Operations Manual peers into post-911 doctrine like never before.

Dark Government:

The disclosure of the manual has opened the widest window yet onto how agents have been given greater power in the post-Sept. 11 era.

The F.B.I.’s interpretation of those rules was recently made public when it released, in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit, its “Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide.” The disclosure of the manual has opened the widest window yet onto how agents have been given greater power in the post-Sept. 11 era.

In seeking the revised rules, the bureau said it needed greater flexibility to hunt for would-be terrorists inside the United States. But the manual’s details have alarmed privacy advocates.

One section lays out a low threshold to start investigating a person or group as a potential security threat. Another allows agents to use ethnicity or religion as a factor — as long as it is not the only one — when selecting subjects for scrutiny.

“It raises fundamental questions about whether a domestic intelligence agency can protect civil liberties if they feel they have a right to collect broad personal information about people they don’t even suspect of wrongdoing,” said Mike German, a former F.B.I. agent who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union.

READ IT!

-Brain scans reveal what you’ve seen.

CNN / Wired:

Having modeled how images are represented in the brain, the researchers translated recorded patterns of neural activity into pictures of what test subjects had seen.

Though practical applications are decades away, the research could someday lead to dream-readers and thought-controlled computers.

“It’s what you would actually use if you were going to build a functional brain-reading device,” said Jack Gallant, a University of California, Berkeley neuroscientist.

Read On

-Air Force Looks for ‘Core Algorithms’ of Human Thought.

Air Force Looks for ‘Core Algorithms’ of Human Thought

The Defense Department is continuing its push to reduce human thought and human action to a few lines of code. The latest effort comes from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, which is looking to build “mathematical or computational models of human attention, memory, categorization, reasoning, problem solving, learning and motivation, and decision making.” The ultimate goal, according to a recent request for research proposals, is to “elucidate core computational algorithms of the mind and brain.”

-Body Odor might just get you on a terrorist list.

Sweat = Threat? Army Looks at ‘Abnormal Perspiration’ as Sign of ‘Harmful Intent’

If you walk weird, make funny faces, or sweat a little too much — watch out, when you walk into an airport. The U.S. military wants to use those irregularities as “indicators” of “possibly suspicious and harmful intent.”

The Army recently asked for proposals for a new suite of biometric sensors that will hunt for bad-minded people by examining their “expressions, gait, and pose” from afar. The “Image Analysis for Personnel Intent” project is also supposed to spot would-be evil-doers through their “abnormal perspiration and changes in body temperature.” (Note to would-be Osamas: Don’t send the sweaty guy to hijack the plane.)

-Lawuit Seeks Records on Planned NYC Surveillance Network.

NYTimes:

Seeking information about a planned surveillance network in downtown Manhattan, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit [pdf] on Tuesday against the United States Department of Homeland Security for failing to disclose records about the project.

The civil liberties group, concerned about potential invasion of privacy, filed a similar lawsuit last year against the New York Police Department. That case is pending in state court.

Aimed at preventing terrorist attacks, the $92 million Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, introduced in 2005, intends to establish a sweeping surveillance network of closed-circuit video cameras, license plate readers and explosive trace detection systems in the area between Canal Street and Battery Park, a project similar to the “ring of steel” in downtown London. In April, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly proposed building a similar surveillance system in Midtown Manhattan.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the civil liberties group, said that neither the city nor the federal government has been forthcoming with information about the project, with two Freedom of Information Act requests generating only eight heavily redacted pages from the Homeland Security department. In February the city briefly posted proposed privacy guidelines for public comment.

“We’re just trying to understand what this project is about and what its impact will be on New Yorkers who are not suspected of any wrongdoing,” Ms. Lieberman said. “It’s a terrible idea for the government to engage in a massive surveillance project without any public comment about it.”

-Air Force on the Hunt for ‘Subversive’ Behavior Online.

Danger Room:

The Air Force’s geek squad wants the technology to monitor government employees’ deviant online behavior. And they want you to build it.

Today, the Air Force issued a call for proposals from small businesses, with this objective: “Define, develop, and demonstrate innovative approaches for determining ‘good’ (approved) versus ‘bad’ (disallowed/subversive) activities, including insiders and/or malware.”

-Pentagon fears brain augmented enemies, while trying to build US cyborgs.

Its ok, DARPA is already years into doing the same to US troops (turning them into cyborgs). Link at the bottom.

Secrecy News:

The Pentagon should “monitor enemy activities in sleep research” says a newly disclosed report (pdf) from the elite defense science advisory panel known as JASON.

The JASONs were investigating the potential for U.S. adversaries “to exploit advances in Human Performance Modification, and thus create a threat to national security.”

Their report examined “the present state of the art in pharmaceutical intervention in cognition and in brain-computer interfaces, and considered how possible future developments might proceed and be used by adversaries.”

Among their findings was the underappreciated significance of sleep and the possibility of a “sleep gap” (a term not used in the report).

“The most immediate human performance factor in military effectiveness is degradation of performance under stressful conditions, particularly sleep deprivation.”

“If an opposing force had a significant sleep advantage, this would pose a serious threat.”

Fortunately, “the technical likelihood of such a development is small at present.” Just to be safe, however, the scientists recommended that the Pentagon “Monitor enemy activities in sleep research, and maintain close understanding of open source sleep research.”

In general, the JASONs went on to observe, “the publicity and scientific literature regarding human performance enhancement can easily be misinterpreted, yielding incorrect conclusions about potential military applications.”

See “Human Performance,” JASON, March 2008. Selected other reports from JASON are available here.

MORE

Total Recall: Pentagon Looks to ‘Optimize’ Troops’ Minds

-New Army Camera Promises Super-Wide Surveillance.

Danger Room:

The ability to provide real-time surveillance of large areas may be getting closer, as the Army launches a quest for a 2.3 gigapixel camera that could be packaged aboard a drone or a manned aircraft. The new device would be smaller and lighter than previous systems – and it would work in the infrared range too.

 

-Marines Seek Crowd-Blasting ‘Venom’ Launcher.

Danger Room:

The Marine Corps has issued an urgent request for a powerful non-lethal weapon that can fires volleys of 40mm grenades. And in parallel, the service is launching a push for a more futuristic version of the same weapon.

The Venom Non-Lethal Tube Launched Munition System (NL/TMS), made by Combined Systems Inc., is a modular system that can be loaded with three cassettes, each one with loaded with ten non-lethal grenades.

-Chemical Neurowarfare for protest crowd control.

True / Slant:

However, a future is not too far away when much more sophisticated agents could be ready for deployment. As the opinion piece reports:

[A] research group from Pennsylvania State University in University Park has identified several drug classes as potential non-lethal agents or ‘calmatives’, including benzodiazepines and alpha2-adrenoreceptor agonists, as well as individual drugs such as diazepam and dexmedetomidine.

Similarly, at the 4th European Symposium on Non-Lethal Weapons in 2007, researchers from the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Charles University in Prague described the effects on macaque monkeys of combinations of drugs that produce a rapid loss of aggressive behaviour. They argued that the drugs could be “used to pacify aggressive people during … terrorist attacks”. The same researchers have also investigated methods of aerosol delivery to human volunteers.

-U.S. is World’s Top Arms Seller.

For “keeping peace”:

LINK

-Cops used LRAD sound cannon at G20 protest in Pittsburgh

See also:

Future Protests = Futile Protests. Audio Cannons, Pain Beam’s and Laser Stun Rifles

Puke Rays

Tricking out your Carbine with a Laser ‘Pain Beam’

Sonic Blaster Deployed to Political Events, Beach Competition

-Google’s Android Allows Soldiers to Put Drones on Buddy List.

Popsci:

Google’s Android operating system for cell phones could allow soldiers to track fellow squad members and even unmanned drones in real time on a map — as long as the humans and robots are on their buddy list.

That’s just one use of an Android-based application developed by defense giant Raytheon. The Raytheon Android Tactical System (RATS) costs just a few hundred dollars per user, as opposed to thousands for other systems, and allows anyone familiar with a smart phone to immediately start using it.

-Brother of Afghan Leader Said to Be Paid by C.I.A.

NYTimes:

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

…

The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the C.I.A. is wide ranging, several American officials said. He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists. On at least one occasion, the strike force has been accused of mounting an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan government, the officials said.

Mr. Karzai is also paid for allowing the C.I.A. and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city — the former home of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s founder. The same compound is also the base of the Kandahar Strike Force. “He’s our landlord,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

75% of Potential Recruits Too Fat, Too Sickly, Too Dumb to Serve.

Danger Room:

More than three-quarters of the nation’s 17- to 24-year-olds couldn’t serve in the military, even if they wanted to. They’re too fat, too sickly, too dumb, have too many kids, or have copped to using illegal drugs.

VIDEO: Media Coverage Glorifies And Encourages Mass Shootings.

It’s quite simple. Many of these people, such as the example child cited in the piece, do their mass shooting for attention. Many serial killers are the same way. In LA (‘Hollywood’), its well understood that the virtually daily high speed police chase is often motivated for the 15 minutes of ‘fame’. Get on TV and a great story on your way to jail and you’ll be the celebrity.

The film Natural Born Killers, as originally written by Quentin Tarantino, was specifically about the effect of media sensationalist reporting in motivating mass murder. While Oliver Stone changed it considerably, enough that Quentin disbanded his name from the film, much of this concept remains in the film.

The expert in the following video even warns “Every time we have intense saturation coverage of a mass murder, we expect to see one or two more within a week.” And as pointed out by the host of the show, more mass shootings is good news for the Media, as their obsession is in reporting more bad news.

(at about 6 minutes)

*”NEOVISION”: DARPA’s new machine vision program.

I found this scrubbing through the FBO.gov tracker. The soliciation didn’t say much, but a quick websearch brought up the DARPA.mil page behind it. Was actually quite surprised, as I expected this to be under the IPTO office with all the other AI type stuff. Nope, its under the DSO. Discovery.com has a detailed piece that mentions NEOVISION.

-Obama Justice Dept helps hide Bush White House emails.

So currently I’, going thru everything I’ve missed this year, scanning backwards thru all of my favorite sites. At The Memory Hole I noticed a link to the AP with the title of my post here:

“The article requested is no longer available.”

Pasted the AP link into Archive.org, no dice. So I googled the link and came up with the group apparently behind the lawsuit to have Obama handle the matter. Their report is here.

-“Army Surveillance of Civilians” (1972 congressional document).

Memory Hole:

“Army Surveillance of Civilians: A Documentary Analysis” by the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate (1972). Posted online by The Memory Hole. (Thanks to Susan Maret, coeditor of Government Secrecy: Classic and Contemporary Readings.)

Click here to download the report [PDF | 9 meg | 104 pp]

Background info from the report’s preface:

“The following report by the Subcommittee staff analyzes certain computer print-outs and publications generated in the course of the Army’s domestic intelligence program.”

“The overwhelming majority of the reports pertain to the peaceful activites of nonviolent citizens lawfully exercising their constitutional rights of speech, press, religion, association, and petition.”

“These files confirm what we learned first from former intelligence agents – that Army intelligence, in the name of preparedness and security, had developed a massive system for monitoring virtually all political protest in the United States. In doing so, it was not content with observing at arms length; Army agents repeatedly infiltrated civilian groups. Moreover, the information they reported was not confined to acts or plans for violence, but included much private information about peoples’ finances, psychiatric records, and sex lives.”

“The size of these and other data banks confirms that the Army’s domestic intelligence operations did not begin with the Newark and Detroit riots of 1967. The events of that summer only expanded activities which had been going on, in varying degrees of intensity, since 1940, and which has its roots as far back as World War I.”