An illusion it will be, so large, so vast it will escape their perception.

Those who will see it will be thought of as insane.

We will create separate fronts to prevent them from seeing the connection between us.

We will behave as if we are not connected to keep the illusion alive. Our goal will be accomplished one drop at a time so as to never bring suspicion upon ourselves. This will also prevent them from seeing the changes as they occur.

We will always stand above the relative field of their experience for we know the secrets of the absolute.

We will work together always and will remain bound by blood and secrecy. Death will come to he who speaks.

We will keep their lifespan short and their minds weak while pretending to do the opposite.

We will use our knowledge of science and technology in subtle ways so they will never see what is happening.

We will use soft metals, aging accelerators and sedatives in food and water, also in the air.

They will be blanketed by poisons everywhere they turn.

The soft metals will cause them to lose their minds. We will promise to find a cure from our many fronts, yet we will feed them more poison.

The poisons will be absorbed trough their skin and mouths, they will destroy their minds and reproductive systems.

From all this, their children will be born dead, and we will conceal this information.

The poisons will be hidden in everything that surrounds them, in what they drink, eat, breathe and wear.

We must be ingenious in dispensing the poisons for they can see far.

We will teach them that the poisons are good, with fun images and musical tones.

Those they look up to will help. We will enlist them to push our poisons.

They will see our products being used in film and will grow accustomed to them and will never know their true effect.

When they give birth we will inject poisons into the blood of their children and convince them its for their help.

We will start early on, when their minds are young, we will target their children with what children love most, sweet things.

When their teeth decay we will fill them with metals that will kill their mind and steal their future.

When their ability to learn has been affected, we will create medicine that will make them sicker and cause other diseases for which we will create yet more medicine.

We will render them docile and weak before us by our power.

They will grow depressed, slow and obese, and when they come to us for help, we will give them more poison.

We will focus their attention toward money and material goods so they many never connect with their inner self. We will distract them with fornication, external pleasures and games so they may
never be one with the oneness of it all.

Their minds will belong to us and they will do as we say. If they refuse we shall find ways to implement mind-altering technology into their lives.

We will use fear as our weapon.

We will establish their governments and establish opposites within. We will own both sides.

We will always hide our objective but carry out our plan.

They will perform the labor for us and we shall prosper from their toil.

Our families will never mix with theirs. Our blood must be pure always, for it is the way.

We will make them kill each other when it suits us.

We will keep them separated from the oneness by dogma and religion.

We will control all aspects of their lives and tell them what to think and how.

We will guide them kindly and gently letting them think they are guiding themselves.

We will foment animosity between them through our factions.

When a light shall shine among them, we shall extinguish it by ridicule, or death, whichever suits us best.

We will make them rip each other’s hearts apart and kill their own children.

We will accomplish this by using hate as our ally, anger as our friend.

The hate will blind them totally, and never shall they see that from their conflicts we emerge as their rulers. They will be busy killing each other.

They will bathe in their own blood and kill their neighbors for as long as we see fit.

We will benefit greatly from this, for they will not see us, for they cannot see us.

We will continue to prosper from their wars and their deaths.

We shall repeat this over and over until our ultimate goal is accomplished.

We will continue to make them live in fear and anger though images and sounds.

We will use all the tools we have to accomplish this.

The tools will be provided by their labor.

We will make them hate themselves and their neighbors.

We will always hide the divine truth from them, that we are all one. This they must never know!

They must never know that color is an illusion, they must always think they are not equal.

Drop by drop, drop by drop we will advance our goal.

We will take over their land, resources and wealth to exercise total control over them.

We will deceive them into accepting laws that will steal the little freedom they will have.

We will establish a money system that will imprison them forever, keeping them and their children in debt.

When they shall ban together, we shall accuse them of crimes and present a different story to the world for we shall own all the media.

We will use our media to control the flow of information and their sentiment in our favor.

When they shall rise up against us we will crush them like insects, for they are less than that.

They will be helpless to do anything for they will have no weapons.

We will recruit some of their own to carry out our plans, we will promise them eternal life, but eternal life they will never have for they are not of us.

The recruits will be called “initiates” and will be indoctrinated to believe false rites of passage to higher realms. Members of these groups will think they are one with us never knowing the truth.
They must never learn this truth for they will turn against us.

For their work they will be rewarded with earthly things and great titles, but never will they become immortal and join us, never will they receive the light and travel the stars.

They will never reach the higher realms, for the killing of their own kind will prevent passage to the realm of enlightenment. This they will never know.

The truth will be hidden in their face, so close they will not be able to focus on it until its too late.

Oh yes, so grand the illusion of freedom will be, that they will never know they are our slaves.

When all is in place, the reality we will have created for them will own them. This reality will be their prison. They will live in self-delusion.

When our goal is accomplished a new era of domination will begin.

Their minds will be bound by their beliefs, the beliefs we have established from time immemorial.

But if they ever find out they are our equal, we shall perish then. THIS THEY MUST NEVER KNOW.

If they ever find out that together they can vanquish us, they will take action.

They must never, ever find out what we have done, for if they do, we shall have no place to run, for it will be easy to see who we are once the veil has fallen. Our actions will have revealed who we are and they will hunt us down and no person shall give us shelter.

This is the secret covenant by which we shall live the rest of our present and future lives, for this reality will transcend many generations and life spans.

This covenant is sealed by blood, our blood. We, the ones who from heaven to earth came.

This covenant must NEVER, EVER be known to exist. It must NEVER, EVER be written or spoken of for if it is, the consciousness it will spawn will release the fury of the PRIME CREATOR upon us and we shall be cast to the depths from whence we came and remain there until the end time of infinity itself.

A nice example of “predictive programming”

The pyramid and the all-seeing eye. An ancient occult symbol that shows up in religion, churches, Egypt, alchemy, on money, artwork, logos, crop circles, business models, architecture, food, pharma, government and fraternal organizations. Why? This symbol has been a great catalyst for philosophical, religious and political debate. Watch as we trace the pyramid and eye throughout history from Ancient Egypt and Sumer, leading up to the Masons and pop-culture of today. Then, we ask movie goers at the 33rd Gothenburg International Film Festival why this symbol is showing up in Hollywood movies again and again. With all the big film budgets and creative teams available, why the constant use of the pyramid and eye? Let’s explore the origins, possible meaning and purpose behind the pyramid and the eye symbolism, for some of us, a symbol we see everyday.

The Colgate Clock is a giant octagonal clock facing the Hudson River, south of the Goldman Sachs Tower, the largest skyscraper in the state of New Jersey. As a part of the relocation agreement Goldman Sachs now maintains the clock. Glenn explains how these architectural elements geographically align with the WTC itself and serve as resonators of the sacrificial ritual.

Is it just more ramping up of our collective unconscious fear ? Why do the PTB keep shock-testing us with weird movies, feigned pandemics and set-up scandals and outrages of the moment ?
Pay very close attention to TV, they ALWAYS warn in plain sight in advance.

Black president
Airline terrorism
Mysterious disappearances
Impending doom

Think of it like this, the Illuminati are like Vampires, they have to trick their way into your homes. They cant just kick in your door its against their code.
When you see these types of movies (especially on TV), something similar is soon to happen. Be on guard this is predictive programming at its peak.
If you doubt me, when this series airs…pay even closer attention to the symbols in each scene.

So you say you’re tired of the Luciferic, Illuminati controlled, commercial mainstream, ‘crap rap’ that has infiltrated the hip hop genre and is poisoning a second generation of our youth ?

Well score a decisive blow for ‘Truth Rap’, via christian rapper ‘Bizzle”. This masterpiece is urban, hard hitting, clean, and enlightening in its assualt on the Satanic inspired music and lies of Jay Z, Kanye and Rick Ross to the point I found myself listening to this song 3 times in a row due to his edgy lyrics, smooth delivery and perfect cadence.

Having grew up in South Central L.A, (right down the street from the real Freeway Rick Ross) this song came as an assuring blast from the trumpet of truth since many people don’t realize the real Freeway Rick cant stand this fake rapping Rick Ross who basically was a prison guard turned gangster rapper.

I deal with a lot of truth rappers being the founder of the 5th SHIFT PROJECT on MySpace, and this kid…hands down has just made his way into upper echelon of whom I consider to be the very best at what they do.

X

BIO

Born with a God given talent for music in general, the Los Angeles raised M.C. Bizzle (born Mark J. Felder) wrote his first rap verse at no older than 8 years old and also started writing R&B around that same time. He, now at 26 years old, has 18 years under his belt as a writer and the experience shows in his sound and versatility.

Between the years 2004-2008 Bizzle released L.A.V. Mixtapes Vol. 1-5 in Southern California. He then released Dirty West Mixtapes 1 and 2 with 360 Records in Houston TX, and went back to CA to release his biggest yet, “Certified Mixtape”. In 2005 he was offered a deal by 360 Records out of Houston and declined. Two years later he was offered a deal by Barry Hankerson to sign with Blackground/Universal, but he also declined that offer. He’s also put on many successful shows as the headliner and opened up for artists like Lil Wayne, Juelz Santana, Lil Boosie, and more. He’s also worked with platinum producer Chink Santana, Darock Ramos, Stack Bundles, Lil Eazy E, Roccett from CTE, Dirty Birdy,Pretty Willie aka P-Dub, Mouthpi3ce, Chino XL, Twank Star from Nappy Boy, and many more including a compilation project feat. Ne-Yo, The Game, Nelly, David Banner, T.I., Akon, and many more.Bizzle spent 3 years preparing his debut album “Grind Pays”. With multiple singles gaining momentum, his myspace plays quickly reached over 500,000.With his street buzz in the Los Angeles and I.E. areas and his success on myspace, the expectations for the album were big, but God had bigger plans for Bizzle. In 2008 Bizzle started attending church more frequently and his realtionship with God grew even stronger. As a result of this he felt he needed to take his music in a new direction. In January 2010 he released the track “You Got Some Explaining to Do”, a song directed towards Jay-Z, calling him out on his negative references towards Jesus in his raps; which caused a lot of contraversy. The buzz was bigger that he could have ever imagined. After continuesly being called the “Christian Rapper” that dissed Jay Z, Bizzle deceided that he wanted to continue his movement to bring Glory to Christ through his music. He realeased his first Christian Mixtape entitiled “The Messenger” in March of 2010. “The Messenger” was a huge success, receiveing over 50,000 downloads and creating an even bigger buzz on the internet, with his views on Worldstarhiphop.com, Allhiphop.com, Mediatakeout.com, Bossip.com, youtube.com, etc…totaling well over 1 million. He currently resides in Houston Texas where he is preparing for the release of “The Messenger 2? mixtape due out in June, as well as working with producers Beanz N Kornbread (Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, Slim Thug, and more) and Cameron Wallace (Beyonce’s “Upgrade You” Feat. Jay-Z) on his untitled debut album. Bizzle has done countless interviews on websites and radio shows such as Kingdomswag.com, Dasouth.com, Holla-Fest radio, itmlive radio, G1 Magazine, NFormD TV just to name a few. He was also invited to perform at one of the largest music festivals in the United States, the South by Southwest 2010 Music Festival and Conference in Austin, TX., but he has bigger plans for 2010.

Tonite I decided to watch the movie release “THE EXPERIMENT” which is based on the actual events of a 1971 Stanford university prison experiment. Keeping in mind as in most movies, dramatic liberties were scripted in to the film but for the most part it still hammered out the message.

Also something I noted were the producers of this film. Natural Selection Productions which show various wild animals engaging in fierce predatory behavior in the films opening scenes. Its a very ominous tone that sets underscores the rest of the movie.

You can watch it by clicking the poster image below.

While this version (as previously mentioned) lacks many of the actual events that unfolded, the similarities of Abu Ghraib are hard not to notice.

THE TRUE 1971 STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues set out to create an experiment that looked at the impact of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. Zimbardo, a former classmate of Stanley Milgram (who is best-known for his famous obedience experiment, was interested in expanding upon Milgram’s research. He wanted to further investigate the the impact of situational variables on human behavior.

The question the researchers asked was how would the participants react when placed in a simulated prison environment. “Suppose you had only kids who were normally healthy, psychologically and physically, and they knew they would be going into a prison-like environment and that some of their civil rights would be sacrificed. Would those good people, put in that bad, evil place—would their goodness triumph?” Zimbardo explained in one interview.

The Participants

The researchers set up a mock prison in the basement of Standford University’s psychology building, and then selected 24 undergraduate students to play the roles of both prisoners and guards. The participants were selected from a larger group of 70 volunteers because they had no criminal background, lacked psychological issues and had no major medical conditions. The volunteers agreed to participate for a one- to two-week period in exchange for $15 a day.

The Setting and Procedures

The simulated prison included three six by nine foot prison cells. Each cell held three prisoners and included three cots. Other rooms across from the cells were utilized for the prison guards and warden. One very small space was designated as the solitary confinement room, and yet another small room served as the prison yard.

The 24 volunteers were then randomly assigned to either the prisoner group or the guard group. Prisoners were to remain in the mock prison 24-hours a day for the duration of the study. Guards, on the other hand, were assigned to work in three-man teams for eight-hour shifts. After each shift, guards were allowed to return to their homes until their next shift. Researchers were able to observe the behavior of the prisoners and guards using hidden cameras and microphones.
Results of the Stanford Prison Experiment

While the Stanford Prison Experiment was originally slated to last 14 days, it had to be stopped after just six days due to what was happening to the student participants. The guards became abusive and the prisoners began to show signs of extreme stress and anxiety.

While the prisoners and guards were allowed to interact in any way they wanted, the interactions were generally hostile or even dehumanizing. The guards began to behave in ways that were aggressive and abusive toward the prisoners, while the prisoners became passive and depressed. Five of the prisoners began to experience such severe negative emotions, including crying and acute anxiety, that they had to be released from the study early.

Even the researchers themselves began to lose sight of the reality of the situation. Zimbardo, who acted as the prison warden, overlooked the abusive behavior of the prison guards until graduate student Christina Maslach voiced objections to the conditions in the simulated prison and the morality of continuing the experiment.

“Only a few people were able to resist the situational temptations to yield to power and dominance while maintaining some semblance of morality and decency; obviously I was not among that noble class,” Zimbardo later wrote in his book The Lucifer Effect.
What Do the Results of the Stanford Prison Experiment Mean?

According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrates the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior. Because the guards were placed in a position of power, they began to behave in ways they would not normally act in their everyday lives or in other situations. The prisoners, placed in a situation where they had no real control, became passive and depressed.

Criticisms of the Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment is frequently cited as an example of unethical research. The experiment could not be replicated by researchers today because it fails to meet the standards established by numerous ethical codes, including the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association. Zimbardo acknowledges the ethical problems with the study, suggesting that “although we ended the study a week earlier than planned, we did not end it soon enough.”

Other critics suggest that the study lacks generalizability due to a variety of factors. The unrepresentative sample of participants (mostly white and middle class males) makes it difficult to apply the results to a wider population.

The study is also criticized for its lack of ecological validity. While the researchers did their best to recreate a prison setting, it is simply not possible to perfectly mimic all of the environmental and situational variables of prison life.

Despite some of the criticism, the Stanford Prison Experiment remains an important study in our understanding of how the situation can influence human behavior. The study recently garnered attention after reports of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses in Iraq became known. Many people, including Zimbardo himself, suggest that the abuses at Abu Ghraib might be real-world examples of the same results observed in Zimbardo’s experiment.

THIS IS THE REAL STORY

Although many of you will object to this, those with keen eyes know that the symbolism of the All Seeing Eye is literally everywhere. This is no question. The real question is why ? Is it just a cruel joke by unassociated individuals to mess with the heads of conspiracy theorists? The way I see it is that these symbols are used today as marks of ownership as well as to mark things that contain symbolic significance containing a message. The elite are not so careless as to mark their innermost texts with these symbols. However, some things, such as logos, are marked with these symbols. The focus of this writing will be on the All Seeing Eye. First I will explain some of the meaning behind the All Seeing Eye.

The All Seeing Eye is a symbol comprised of an eye within a triangle. Often light is shining down from the eye. It is called in Freemasonry the Eye of the Great Architect. There are two explanations to the symbol of the eye. The first is that some believe the eye to be the Eye of Ra, an ancient Egyptian sun deity who is also a manifestation of the god Amen [Amun], known as The Hidden One. The other explanation for the eye is that it is the Eye of Horus, which I find a bit more interesting.

Horus, also originally a Sun Deity, later became attributed with being a sky/duality deity, representing both the Sun and the Moon, with his right eye representing the Sun, again called the Eye of Ra, and the left eye representing the Moon, called the Eye of Tehuti. Interestingly, Tehuti is also known as Thoth, who in occult circles is known as Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, or the Thrice Greatest. He is also known as Hermes to the Greek. Thoth Hermes Trismegistus is a knowledge bringer [Luciferian/Promethean] deity accredited with divulging the divine sciences of Alchemy, Astrology, and Theurgy to humanity. Some also credit him with mathematics, language, among other things. In the esoteric view, Thoth Hermes Trismegistus is believed to have been at one time an actual person who was eventually deified…

The All Seeing Eye usually features a LEFT EYE.

But first of all, DO these symbols actually appear on things tied to the elite ? The answer is yes.. but is it all just coincidence ?
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS COINCIDENCE !

1) The Information Awareness Office logo:

Funded by DARPA, the Information Awareness Office’s stated goal was to collect as much information on everyone and everything as possible. This drew much flack to them and the IAO was discontinued. However, its core projects still continue under different names. The logo depicts the Illuminati pyramid with All Seeing Eye shining its light over a globe.

2) The MI5 Logo. Military Intelligence Section 5.

3) Fidelity Investments Logo:

4) AOL logo:

However, what is more interesting is that these symbols are all over popular media since as early as the 60s and 70s in very hidden and yet deliberate places. So either all these different artists/people are purposefully putting in these symbols just to mess with conspiracy theorists, or there is some greater power at work:

4) For example, here is Madonna bearing the symbol on her back. The name Madonna also has obvious esoteric significance:

5) All Seeing Eye flashed in Nickelodeon logo, along with CBS logo type eyes. If they are just putting it in to mess with the minds of conspiracy theorists, why would they put it here ? How many conspiracy theorists watch Nickelodeon, and why was it flashed quickly as if it were a subliminal ? [note this is back in the 90s]:

6) Michael Jackson’s Dangerous album cover contains the All Seeing Eye as well as the Skull and Crossbones. It is a goldmine of occult symbolism.

Some people believe that Michael Jackson was actually killed by the Illuminati and had been subjected to character assassination in the years prior. This is due to a recent comment by Michael Jackson about a year ago speaking out about the Illuminati, hinting that he was going to utilize his then upcoming “come back” world tour to spread his message and awareness, particularly with a song called “They don’t care about us.” The music video for the song depicts a rural third world country where Michael is dancing with the people, while UN Peacekeeper looking people stand by monotonously giving a fascist presence. In one scene, Michael is seen dancing next to an all-seeing eye that is painted on the wall.

7) Here is recent pop sensation Lady Gaga. Her backup dancers bear the All Seeing Eye symbol on their backs:

Now Lady Gaga is an interesting character. As we all know, music, television, etc.. all influence people in large and yet subtle ways. Lady Gaga’s musical message is one of emptying thoughts and acting as one feels, exemplified by her song Just Dance. It is basically Orwell’s concept of Bellyfeel from 1984. She is often shown speaking in a robotic manner, or acting as if she were mind controlled. Whether or not this is just her public persona it is definitely interesting. She is also often seen with butterfly symbolism, which is a direct reference to MONARCH Programming.. but there’s more.

The word “gaga” roughly means a sort of astonished stupor, for example “he was gaga over that girl.” It is also a direct reference to the Queen song, Radio Gaga. In the music video for Radio Gaga, many scenes from the 1927 movie Metropolis was used. The movie Metropolis is about a woman who is chosen by a futuristic scientist to be “sacrificed” in a black magic/scientific ritual in order to give life to a robot. The experiment is a success and the now alive robot also proved to be very popular among the people. Then the scientist in the movie utilized the public adoration of the robot with the aim of manipulating the public into doing his bidding. His goal was to cause the public to destroy themselves [they end up unwittingly killing their own children and destroying their city].

Lady Gaga’s symbol is that of a headless mannequin with a lightning bolt through it. This of course symbolizes a body which is charged with some sort of outside force that moves it. Mind control themes are often referenced in her songs, which also contain many other occult symbols such as that of associating her with Baphomet, a hermaphroditic goat-headed and winged deity representing the dualistic principles “as above so below” and “order out of chaos.” She is also rumored to be a hermaphrodite herself.

Another thing of interest is that she had an entire photo-shoot in a Masonic Temple, in which she had eyes painted onto her eyelids and took the series of photos with her eyes closed. The esoteric significance of this symbolism is obvious.

Credit Vigilant Citizen for much of the Lady Gaga info, you can check it out HERE

In mainstream rap/hip-hop:

90s rapper Tupac was very vocal about speaking out against the Illuminati. He once said in one of his songs called They Don’t Give A # About Us [Michael Jackson's They Don't Care About Us comes to mind], “some say they expect Illuminati take my body to sleep”

Another line used is “Illuminati want my mind soul and my body.” [Also used by Prodigy]

Another rapper, called Prodigy, of the 90s group Mobb Deep, wrote letters from prison condemning popular mainstream rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West, among others, for selling out to the Illuminati and knowingly selling their message. Originally, rap was a means for the black community to speak out against the wrongs in society. Now, rap has turned into a commercial venture selling the message of get money, get drugs and get bitches, often dropping direct product placement.

Prodigy’s letters also speak out against the banking system among other things. Here is one of such letters:

9) Rapper Jay-Z
As mentioned before, owns a record company called Roc-A-Fella records, a direct reference to Rockefeller. He is considered the one who benefited the most from the deaths of Tupac and Biggie in 96 and 97 respectively. Jay-Z came onto the scene and out of obscurity in 95-96 and was drastically less talented than either Tupac or Biggie, who rapped about the ills of society. With their deaths, he was propelled directly to the top with the help of the invisible hand of MTV.

One symbol that Jay-Z uses to represent himself and his company is called the Roc. It consists of two hands forming a triangular shape and then being placed in front of the left eye:

Jay-Z is also known to be a Freemason, and has been pictured giving rapper Kanye West, also signed under Roc-A-Fella Records and also a Freemason, a Freemason handshake.

And here is Jay-Z giving the same handshake to another Freemason:

Jay-Z’s songs are also riddled with Freemasonic symbolism hidden in the lyrics. For example, in his most recent single called Run This Town, he says:

“back to runnin’ circles around niggas, now we squared up.”

This is a direct reference to the masonic concept of Squaring the Circle, as the symbol of Freemasonry is the Square and Compass. This is just one such example. Jay-Z also has a song entitled Lucifer, in which the chorus goes something like:

“Lucifer Lucifer, dawn of the morning!”

This is a direct reference to the esoteric version of Lucifer as a “Light [Intellect] Bringer.” Remember he is not just some obscure rapper, he is world famous and is still mainstream today.

Jay-Z also has his own clothing line, called RocaWear, where masonic symbols are often depicted. The following shirt features the All Seeing Eye giving light down, and on the bottom it says “Masters of the Craft.” This design is bordered by an Urobouros type serpent.

These are just some examples of this phenomenon. I feel that based upon evidence like this that it is more than just to mess with the minds of conspiracy theorists. It shows a much more uniform effort. For example, Jay-Z was made, rather than rose to prominence. He was given everything he has. Same with Lady Gaga, or any other mainstream rap star for that matter. They were made famous through marketing rather than becoming famous by gaining fans from from underground music scenes. Or why Nickelodeon would display such symbols? Basically there are a lot of questions to be asked about this subject.

Even if it were to just mess with the heads of conspiracy theorists, it shows that there is at least some force that is powerful enough to influence all these different pop “artists” from across all genres as well as television just to do so.

ARTICLE SOURCE: ATS.com

Facebook launched Facebook Places yesterday.
Anyone can find out where you are when you are logged in. It gives the actual address & map location of where you are as you use Facebook.

Make sure this goes viral so that every Facebook user knows they can literally be monitored and tracked at any time.

TO UNDO: Go to”Account“,”Account Settings“, “Notifications“, then scroll down to “Places” and uncheck both of the two boxes. Make sure to SAVE changes and re-post this !

Facebook Places: Be your friends’ ‘Big Brother?’

I hope you have nothing but good, trustworthy friends. If you don’t, they might tell the world you are in some pretty crazy, or even disturbing, places, thanks to Facebook’s new “Places” tool.

An angry “friend”, for example, can broadcast to everyone (including your boss) that you are in a coffee shop, museum or airport — even if you are sitting in your cubicle working. Even if you haven’t agreed to use Facebook’s location service. And even if you aren’t logged in to Facebook.

The new Places tool, which is integrated into the standard Facebook mobile application, was released last week with much fanfare and some hand-wringing about its privacy implications. For the most part, however, Places offers users lot of control over when they tell others where they are. Users must actively check-in — as opposed to being automatically checked in — as they move around.

But there’s an exception: By default, friends can “check you in” whenever they want, and wherever they happen to be. While checked-in friends don’t appear in the Places tool without their approval, the check-ins are announced to the world on the friend’s wall through status updates. Further, those updates are controlled by your friend’s privacy policies, not yours.

In other words, Facebook’s tool makes violating your friends’ privacy easy.

“I think it’s quite Orwellian. We have literally become each others’ Big Brothers,” said Alessandro Acquisti, a privacy expert at Carnegie Mellon University.

There is a way to turn this feature off (instructions below). And checked-in friends receive notice that they’ve been “tagged” as present in a place, and have the opportunity to remove the tag. By then, however, the damage could be done.

Last year, a Web site named “PleaseRobMe.com” created a stir when it poked fun at location-disclosure Web sites like Foursquare.com as creating opportunities for would-be home burglars by making it easy to determine when users were not home. But at least Foursquare users decide for themselves when they will reveal where they are.

Now, if you are my friend, Facebook lets me tell my friends — and with some tweaks, everyone — that you are with me, wherever I am.

Facebook has so far responded to this complaint by saying there is no problem. Friends who are checked in don’t appear in Places until they consent. And publishing location information in status updates is no big deal, according to the social networking site.

“People have always been able to tell others where they’ve seen friends,” said Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt. For example, I can update my status by saying, “Reader Jane Doe is with me at this Seattle coffee shop,” even if that were a lie. But that’s a false analogy, warns Acquisti.

“People usually don’t broadcast to hundreds of friends, as well as strangers, at the same time your current, or presumed, location,” he said.

Also, Facebook Places creates a level of validation that a mere status update would not. Users have to be near the place they check in — location-based services in a mobile device verify that — so when a Places user tells the world, “I’m at the Bellevue movie theater with LeBron,” it’s far more believable.

Finally, users who are spooked by a Places status update, but who log in infrequently, won’t receive notice for days, or even weeks.

Debate about the friends’ check-in issue has been raging at an information ethics blog run by Michael Zimmer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Facebook’s Schnitt has even jumped into the conversation there, arguing that new Places tools actually provide users even greater control over personal information than they’ve had before.

But Zimmer isn’t buying it.

“While I understand that users could always mention someone else in status updates, there’s a meaningful difference with regard to Places,” Zimmer told me. “Facebook has provided an official and automated means of sharing someone’s location, where users can now be systematically linked to a specific set of coordinates. These new check-ins could be potentially logged into a database, archived, mined… This is a significant change from just mentioning someone. The concern here is that locational data needs to be treated differently than just an average status update. This is why Facebook has tried to design the system so that, in their terms, no one can be checked in to a location ‘without their explicit permission’. Unfortunately, they fell short.”

Facebook’s business plan
Why would Facebook stubbornly keep this spooky feature in its new tool, and enable it by default, over the wide-eyed objections of privacy advocates?

There are two ways to create a fast-growing new business:

1. Create a new product that’s so useful, millions of people rush to use it.

2. Have an existing business that millions of people use, and force them to use your new product.

Here, Facebook has picked technique No. 2. Its Places feature must play catch-up to a host of existing location services like Foursquare. There’s no better way to catch up to a first-mover than tying your new feature into your existing product. And one way to make consumers use that product is to compel them to do so. Facebook is counting on its amazing network effects and help from early adopters, who will drag otherwise indifferent users into its location tool, like this: “What? Someone’s telling everyone else where I am? I’d better check out this new ‘Places,’ thing.”

My colleague Wilson Rothman offered a compelling argument last week that Facebook is the new Google. People use Facebook to find things more than ever. But if I were Facebook, I’d be worried about the Justice Department seeing Facebook as the new Microsoft, attacking small competitors with its dominant market position, forcing users to adopt a product that subsumes another start-up — and doing it with an aloof, take-no-prisoners attitude that will someday wrinkle the nose of the wrong U.S. Senator.

Places, like so many Facebook tools, is clever, well-designed, integrated nicely with the rest of the service, and can be fun to use. It’s hard to imagine a better way to find friends when you arrive in a city for a convention or family wedding. You can simply ask your mobile phone, “Who’s nearby?” or “Who’s in my favorite Irish bar down the corner?” Used deftly, it might even help you avoid an awkward meeting with an old girlfriend.

But the way it’s been designed for maximum network effect, Places is just as likely to help an old boyfriend’s stalking efforts. All it takes is a random friend attempting to check in the former girlfriend.

Consumers have long had a tortured relationship with privacy — most say it’s important to them, but few actually behave that way. That’s because it’s often hard to predict the future consequences of a privacy-related transaction, Acquisti says.

“Giving someone your privacy is like giving someone a blank check,” he says. “You never know what amount might be filled in when it comes back to you.”

Dealing with location information should create an extra level of caution, Zimmer says.

“Not to be paranoid, but there are serious concerns about this,” he said. “People don’t think about (location information) much, but it can reveal quite a bit about you. When you start piecing information together, you can start figuring out what kind of person someone is — say if they are in a particular church, or they are at a location near a women’s health clinic. It might reveal something about you, or assumptions might be made about you that are not really true.”

Red Tape Wrestling Tips
While there are several privacy layers available for use with the Places tool, the simplest way to avoid Places headaches is to opt out of automatic placement by friends. It’s relatively simple, though I wish it were simpler. Visit Facebook.com, click on account, and then “privacy settings.” Then, at the bottom of that page, click on the word “customize settings.” Under the category, “Things others share,” find “Friends can check me in to Places,” and select “Disabled.” While you are there, review your other settings and make sure you are comfortable with them.

To fine-tune your Places settings even more, look under “Things I share,” and select who can see the places you check in to, and decide if you want others to see you in the “People Here Now” area. But remember, even if you limit the number of people who can see you after you check yourself in, you haven’t controlled who can know if you’ve been checked in by a friend — that’s controlled by your friend’s privacy settings, not yours. In this scenario, even if you have opted out of broadcasting your places setting, while you won’t appear in the “People Here Now” area, your presence will be disclosed on your Friend’s wall post unless you’ve disabled “Friends can check me in.”

Finally, as with all privacy issues, it’s often true that information which seems meaningless today might be valuable, and used against you, tomorrow. Divorce lawyers, for example, regularly subpoena supermarket loyalty cards while fighting child custody cases (“Look at all this junk food he buys, your honor!”). It makes sense to limit your use of any tool that helps build a database of location-based information while we all learn what the long-term implications might be.

David Rosenberg, market guru, has officially declared that the US economy is in a state of depression, and he sees the economic superpowers woes worsening.

On the heels of that bleak forecast, the statistics for existing home sales for July were released and the numbers were ugly. The weak housing market collapsed. Reflecting the worst slump in American history, existing housing sales had plummeted a stunning 27 percent and there’s no sign on the horizon that sales will stabilize any time soon.

The bottom line, argues Rosenberg and others: the US economy has collapsed into another Great Depression.

Citing the period from 1929 to 1932 and the eerie similarities, Rosenberg said, “We may well be reliving history here. If you’re keeping score, we have recorded four quarterly advances in real GDP, and the average is only 3 percent.” The same happened during the early 1930s stock market rebound of 50 percent after the 1929 crash.

The Great Depression followed the brief economic upswing.

As long as two years ago, one of Britain’s top economists predicted a decade-long depression, $45 trillion in debt defaults and unemployment in the US and UK approaching 25% or higher.

During October 2008, economist Fred Harrison told the Foreign Press Association in London,”"The massive contraction in demand caused by this ‘wealth effect’ will condemn the western economy to a decade-long depression.”

Like some economists who alerted the Clinton and Bush administrations about the approaching economic crisis, Harrison warned future Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the looming financial danger when Brown was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1997. Brown, like Presidents Clinton and Bush, ignored the warning.

“Brown blames America for the global crisis. But every country in the world permitted property speculation, which is at the heart of boom/busts. Brown now defends himself by claiming that he tried to get global agreement on a stabilization plan. But he failed to tell the other governments about the tax reforms that could have prevented the crisis,” Harrison explained in his speech in London.

Two years later, more economists agree with Harrison. Such luminaries as Arthur Laffer and Paul Krugman are two. Although at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, both see dire times ahead for the United States: higher unemployment, a worsening of the credit crisis and housing slump, more loan defaults, more business failures and more foreclosures. Add to this economic witch’s brew the possibility of simultaneous currency deflation and inflation and you have every ingredient necessary for another extended Great Depression.

In fact some economists have begun using the term, Great Depression II.

Harrison concurs and believes that the situation has become so serious that whole nations could fail and something unseen in the West for hundreds of years could appear again: wholesale starvation of peoples in some Western countries.

Back in 2008, Spectator Business reported that “Harrison’s predictions earned him the epithet ‘Prophet of Doom’ until his forecasts proved correct. He is now described as ‘the canary in the housing mine…(his) prediction is chilling: Nostradamus…could scarcely have been more accurate.”

On the other side of the pond, in the US, sits Arthur Laffer. The author of several important books on economic theory including his latest, “Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status,” Laffer was also an adviser to the Reagan Administration during the 1980s and a member of the Economic Policy Advisory Board.

His economic models have been proven to work and withstood the test of time. Now Laffer has declared that the US economy is heading for a very big fall early in 2011.

The economist, best known for his economic model called the ‘Laffer Curve,” came to national prominence when his model was adopted by Ronald Reagan in an effort to turn the economy around after the disastrous economic policies of Jimmy Carter.

Back in the late 1970s the media kept track of ‘the misery index’ an informal gauge of inflation, stagnation and taxation that put a damper on the economy for years. Laffer’s recommendation—to cut federal taxes significantly and roll back the rate of government spending—was employed in 1981 after Carter’s bid for a second term was roundly routed by an angry American electorate.

Laffer’s ‘prescription’ created an economic boom that carried into the Clinton presidency. It also surprised many critics of the model when it achieved what Laffer had predicted: higher revenues to the treasury despite the deep tax rate cuts.

Now Arther Laffer has analyzed the direction of the federal government over the past two years and hears alarm bells going off. The savvy economist has studied the potential impact of the historic debt, an economy hovering just above a depression, and the building pressure to raise interest rates when inflation rises in the future, and compares the ship of state to the Titanic.

“Today’s corporate profits reflect an income shift into 2010. These profits will tumble next year, preceded most likely by the stock market,” writes Laffer in the Wall Street Journal article, Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse.

Laffer calls attention to the one thing that has kept the economy partially afloat, as poor as the economy has been: the Bush tax cuts. When they expire (on January 1, 2011), “federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply.” Dividend tax will skyrocket from 15 percent to a whopping 39.6 percent, the capital gains tax will increase 25% and the estate tax will jump from zero to 55 percent.

These taxes—a triple whammy to the economy—will serve to further depress business growth and hiring, depress real estate further and add an even greater burden on the ability of the consumer to spend discretionary income, which will sink like a rock. To all that must be added the re-introduction of the infamous “marriage penalty” that could lead to more home foreclosures.

If all that is not bad enough, tax rates will be raised further on income earned outside the US, payroll taxes will rise in 2013 squeezing the middle-class wage earner more, the alternative minimum tax will affect people at lower income levels and taxes are scheduled to be imposed on so-called “Cadillac health care plans.”

Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman, a liberal economist, concurs, but for different reasons. He believes the federal government has not spent enough fast enough. Much of the so-called “stimulus money” authorized by Congress is languishing, unspent. Some hundred billion went to dubious projects and grants designed to stimulate nothing.

Krugman is furious. Writing in a New York Times OpEd piece recently, he condemned the current administration’s economic policies and predicted a Second Great Depression. He also raised a rather bellicose alarm against Treasury and other responsible for US monetary policy—including the Fed. Krugman is convinced that tens of millions will never find work again and the economy will worsen in 2011 and 2012.

All economic indicators echo 1929 – 1933

Finally, Robin Griffiths [http://www.financial-gurus.co m/gurus/9511/Robin-Griffiths/] devines the future economy from a technical market approach. Griffiths is a strategist at Cazenove Capital who recently shared with viewers of CNBC that “the world has entered significant financial depression.”

According to Griffiths “Equities are for losers and bond markets for winners. Equities are simply for people who like losing money,” Griffiths said.

“A double-dip is inevitable and imminent, as Keynesian stimulus measures have never worked anywhere. We are in the equivalent of a Great Depression following 3 years of credit crisis,” he added.

Griffith has taken a seat at the economic banquet of scarcity, austerity and gloom. The entrees at that table offer very slim pickings indeed: charts depicting a 20-year economic downturn; zero growth; possible additional contraction; massive unemployment, and the imminent collapse of governments globally.

If all that’s not enough, Griffiths points out that the United States’ shrinking M3 money supply now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933.

Despite the gloom and doom, it’s best to remember that things could always be worse.

How? Well, an asteroid could hit Earth tomorrow…

ARTICLE SOURCE: Helium.com

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.
It is a dangerous decision — one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.

This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle’s underside.

After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA’s actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)

In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno’s privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the “curtilage,” a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government’s intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.

The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno’s driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month’s decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people’s. The court’s ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.

Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. “There’s been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there’s one kind of diversity that doesn’t exist,” he wrote. “No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter.” The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of “cultural elitism.”

The court went on to make a second terrible decision about privacy: that once a GPS device has been planted, the government is free to use it to track people without getting a warrant. There is a major battle under way in the federal and state courts over this issue, and the stakes are high. After all, if government agents can track people with secretly planted GPS devices virtually anytime they want, without having to go to a court for a warrant, we are one step closer to a classic police state — with technology taking on the role of the KGB or the East German Stasi.

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit’s — including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant. The issue is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

In these highly partisan times, GPS monitoring is a subject that has both conservatives and liberals worried. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s pro-privacy ruling was unanimous — decided by judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. “1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it’s here at last,” he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: “Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we’re living in Oceania.”

ARTICLE SOURCE: White Owl Conspiracy.com

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, has declared war on our privacy. The giant retailer has announced it will begin placing item-level RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) tracking tags on clothing sold in its stores.

THIS IS HUGE NEWS. It is the first step to the planned roll-out of the Internet of Things, where global corporations like IBM, Procter & Gamble, and Wal-Mart’s technology partner NCR plan to equip every product with a tracking device and use a network of RFID readers to monitor and observe YOU everywhere you go. It is the frightening world detailed in our book “Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID,” and it has finally come to pass.

As you know, RFID is a powerful tracking technology that raises unprecedented privacy concerns. Wal-Mart’s plan does more than just threaten our privacy — it is poised to become a direct threat to our freedom and civil liberties.

Jon Stewart continued his coverage of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ debate last night, focusing on Fox News’ incongruities harder than he ever has. In a segment called “The Parent Company Trap,” Stewart shared with his viewers how Fox News’ plan to “follow the money” from mosque builder Imam Rauf to terrorists will be a tricky one because it leads right back to Fox News.

Stewart showed clips from his show last week, in which he mocked Fox News for playing a dangerous game of association based on speculation, and wherein Fox continued to mention a nameless man with ties to Imam Rauf through the “Kingdom Foundation.” It turns out the man they are referring to but never name is Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, one of the biggest shareholders of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Showing a photo of the prince shaking hands with Rupet Murdoch, Stewart exclaimed, “That’s right, the guy they’re painting as a sinister money force OWNS Fox News.” Stewart then used Fox’s own logic to explain how the “terror mosque” is funded by Prince Alwaleed, despite being a co-owner of Fox News, and therefore funding terrorism. So, using their logic, Stewart said, “If we want to cut off funding to the terror mosque, we must, together as a nation, stop watching Fox.”

But with this new information, one thing is now uncertain. Did Fox actually not know the name of the Kingdom Foundation leader or that he is a News Corp investor? Or did they, as Stewart said, “purposefully cover it up because it didn’t help their fear-driven narrative?”

Stewart turned to John Oliver and Wyatt Cynac to figure out whether Fox is, in fact, evil or stupid?

ARTICLE SOURCE: Huffington Post.com