Optional Inoculation
The need for this government to provide the opportunity for people to
protect themselves, should there be a smallpox attack," Bush told
Walters in an exclusive interview airing this Friday on 20/20.
"In other words, I don’t think people ought to be compelled to make the decision which they think is best for their family….
First responders and military personnel will be vaccinated first,
beginning next year. There will likely be an extensive public
information campaign to help Americans "digest" (as the president said)
the plan and their options.
Source: ABC News (online), Dec. 11 [2002]
Medical ‘Privacy’ Regulations Destroy Privacy
Federal privacy regulations issued by the Clinton administration on
Dec. 28, 2000, and adopted by the Bush administration on April 14, 2001,
perpetrate a fraud on the American people, proclaiming privacy as their
goal when ever-wider access to individual medical records is their
actual and intended effect.
Source: NewsMax, Aug. 5, 2002
Medical ‘Privacy’ Rules Advance a National ID
Why should ordinary people bother to read the medical privacy rules
anyway? Media and government sources continue to assert the benign
nature of the new regulations, which are said to promise cost savings
through database standardization along with protection of people’s
medical privacy. Why be concerned?
One reason for concern is that recent HHS regulations have created an
architecture for the standardization of our medical records that
facilitates their integration into comprehensive medical portraits of
individuals. Carrying out its HIPAA mandate, HHS in August 2000
published a final rule titled "Standards for Electronic Transactions”
(hereafter, the $quot;transactions rule”), a regulatory package that
specifies uniform nationwide formats and codes for electronic medical
records (U.S. Dept. of HHS HCFA 2000).
Source: NewsMax, Aug. 6, 2002
Homeland Security Department wins House blessing
The House voted Friday to create a $38 billion Department of Homeland
Security, agreeing to shift 170,000 employees from 22 agencies into a
single massive department in what would be the biggest government
reorganization in a half-century.
"I believe they have answered the call of the nation in responding to
the terrorist threat," Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said after the
295-132 vote.
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 26, 2002
Foundations are in place for martial law in the US
Recent pronouncements from the Bush Administration and national
security initiatives put in place in the Reagan era could see internment
camps and martial law in the United States.
Sydney Morning Herald, July 27, 2002
Justice Dept. forges ahead with TIPS, despite Armey ban
The Justice Department is forging ahead with establishing a network
of domestic tipsters_despite being dealt what may be a deathly blow to
the plan: House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, inserted last week a
ban on the program in the bill to form a new Homeland Security
Department.
"The administration is continuing to pursue Operation TIPS. We’re
continuing with that course of action," Barbara Comstock, spokeswoman
for Attorney General John Ashcroft, said in an interview Friday. That
was the same day Armey’s committee approved the bill. "We believe the
program represents an important resource and that it’s been
misrepresented to date."
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (online), July 23, 2002
Bush seeks broad new powers to protect U.S.
President Bush on Tuesday asked for broad new powers and more tools
to protect the country against terrorism, calling his strategy for
defending the United States "our most urgent national priority."
His homeland-defense plan, which includes the controversial idea of
standardizing drivers licenses, is the first such proposal in U.S.
history and yet another signal that the attacks of Sept. 11 require
permanent changes.
Source: Orlando Sentinel (online), July 18, 2002
New Rules May Require Banks Verify ID
Banks, credit unions and other financial institutions will be
required to verify the identities of all people wanting to open new
accounts under new regulations proposed Wednesday by the Treasury
Department (news – web sites).
People opening new accounts also will be checked against a government-issued list of known or suspected terrorists.
Source: Yahoo News/AP, July
17, 2002
ACLU: Operation TIPS Breeds Peeping Toms
The government is organizing a program to encourage millions of
Americans — including utility workers and letter carriers — to be on the
lookout for suspicious activity and to report anything unusual.
Operation TIPS
— Terrorism Information and Prevention System — is being developed by
the Justice Department, according to a notice on the department’s
website.
Source: The Kansas City Channel, July 16, 2002
Planned volunteer-informant corps elicits ’1984′ fears
As part of the country’s war against terrorism, the Bush
administration by next month wants to recruit a million letter carriers,
utility workers and others whose jobs allow them access to private
homes into a contingent of organized government informants.
The Terrorism Information and Prevention System (Operation TIPS), a
national reporting pilot program, is scheduled to start next month in 10
cities, with 1 million informants — or nearly 4 percent of Americans —
initially participating in the program.
Source: Washington Times Online, July 16, 2002
Postal Service Won’t Join TIPS Program
The Postal Service has decided not to take part in a government
program touted as a tip service for authorities concerned with
terrorism, but which is being assailed as a scheme to cast ordinary
Americans as "peeping Toms."
"The Postal Service had been approached by homeland security
regarding Operation TIPS; however, it was decided that the Postal
Service and its letter carriers would not be participating in the
program at this time," the agency said in a statement issued Wednesday.
Source: Yahoo News/AP Jul 17, 2002
Administration mum on snooping program
The Bush administration says information published this week
regarding a new government informant program was "premature" and that
officials are nowhere near ready to implement it.
A Justice Department spokesman, however, did confirm the program’s existence today, directing WorldNetDaily to a website located at www.citizenscorp.gov.
He said the site contained all the information "Operation TIPS," a new
anti-terrorism informant program described as the "Terrorism Information
and Prevention System."
Source: WorldNetDaily, July 17, 2002
Landowners fight for rights to seashore
Landowners and activists committed to upholding the property rights
of a free society are in a quandary, perceiving the current
administration they once relied upon for relief from park and monument
declarations as now stepping over to the side of the environmentalists.
But congressional and Bush administration spokespeople refute that
characterization, arguing that some ongoing National Park Service
activities have been continued solely because of congressional mandates
handed down prior to the 2000 presidential election.
Source: WorldNetDaily, June 22, 2002
Smallpox Proposal Raises Ethical Issues
The decision by a government advisory panel to recommend smallpox
vaccination for about 15,000 health care and law enforcement workers
raises logistical and ethical issues involving not just the people who
will get the vaccine but also those who will come in contact with them.
New York Times (online), June 22, 2002
Proposal Sets National Rules For State IDs
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) outlined legislation yesterday that
would set national standards for state-issued driver’s licenses,
permitting rapid data-sharing among certain government agencies.
The measure marks Congress’s first attempt at a comprehensive
overhaul of state identification systems since last year’s terrorist
attacks. It would set federal rules for granting licenses, build in
high-tech anti-counterfeiting measures and provide funding for states to
make changes within three to five years.
Source: Washington Post (Online), April 17, 2002
Medical privacy under assault
Leading health experts and researchers say the nation’s medical
privacy is slowly being sacrificed by Congress and government
bureaucrats to big business interests even though most Americans prefer
to keep their medical records concealed.
Last month the Bush administration called for the public’s input on a
"final" medical privacy rule that the Department of Health and Human
Services – which is accepting comments until April 26 – says will keep medical records safe "while improving access to care."
Source: WorldNetDaily, April 15, 2002
No problem with agencies sharing data?
A General Accounting Office report
has claimed that privacy experts "have no problems" with the collection
and use of Social Security numbers by state motor vehicle agencies,
though experts who spoke with WorldNetDaily disagreed with the agency’s
assertion.
The GAO, Congress’ watchdog agency, made the claim in a report
released in February entitled, "Child Support Enforcement: Most States
Collect SSNs and Use Them To Enforce Child Support."
Source: WorldNetDaily, March 28, 2002
Emergency-powers bill gaining momentum
The vast majority of states currently are considering a piece of
model legislation that critics charge could turn out to be a major
threat to civil liberties.
According to the American Legislative Exchange Council,
a Washington, D.C.-based small-government advocacy group, 34 states
have begun considering the "Model State Emergency Health Powers Act," a
bill that critics contend gives state governors unprecedented authority
in the event of a terrorist attack or other threat to the public health.
Source: WorldNetDaily, March 20, 2002
7 years of hell at hands of IRS
Seven years after its unannounced raid on his home, the Internal Revenue Service is still demanding that an Alabama inventor fork over $2 million it says he owes in back taxes.
The problem: Robert C. MacElvain,
a retired engineer as well as inventor, hasn’t got $2 million and,
according to Vicki Osborn, a forensic accountant in Colorado Springs,
Colo., who is helping him with his case, he doesn’t owe it anyway.
Source: WorldNetDaily, March 15, 2000
Banking Industry Wants to Quash Privacy Rules in the Name of Security
Bank lobbyists are pushing for federal aid to overturn consumer
privacy laws on the grounds that they impede attempts at trapping
terrorists.
The industry is appealing to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and
legislators for federal money to block state privacy protection laws
that prohibit banks from sharing information without permission. Bankers
say such regulations could prevent them from
alerting authorities of suspicious activity.
Source: Fox News (online), February 19, 2002
Wandering in the wilderness
Our governments – federal, state and local – have bought into a
concept of land-use management that violates the principles of freedom
enshrined in our Constitution.
This land-use management concept is referred to as "Ecosystem
Management." It arises from a pseudoscience called conservation biology,
which claims that biological diversity must be restored to, and managed
to maintain, the conditions that existed before Columbus sailed the
ocean blue.
Source: WorldNetDaily, February 16, 2002
Have Cell Phone, Will Shoot
There’s a taxi driver in Stockholm known by the Web alias of Taxi31
who spends all his time between passengers shooting people. In
Copenhagen, ferocious street battles flare daily between dozens of young
men.
The carnage occurs with cellular phones, not guns — courtesy of new
technologies that allow cell phone users to locate each other to within
several hundred meters.
The games rely on a cell phone technology that allows mobile
operators to pinpoint users’ positions within "cells" formed by their
phones’ locations relative to nearby transmitters. In the United States,
that capability is now required for all mobile operators to ensure that
rescue workers can locate mobile users who are in trouble.
Source: Wired, February 8, 2002
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