Jump to content
The Corroboree

CLICKHEREx

Members2
  • Content count

    550
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

About CLICKHEREx

  • Rank
    Senior Psychonaut

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male

Previous Fields

  • Climate or location
    Adelaide

Recent Profile Visitors

10,979 profile views
  1. As stated previously, increasing ill health is taking its toll, and will soon prevent me from posting in the forums, so today will be my last day of regular posts, although I may still make an appearance occasionally, when I'm able to. So it'll be up to you to go on, and if anyone wants to use them, here is a list of my main sources: bluelight.org drugs-forum.com stopthedrugwar.org mapinc.org/drugnews/index.htm tripme.co.nz/forums naturalnews.com Google Alerts: (enter "Google Alerts" as a search term): synthetic cannabis; legal highs; illicit drugs, Australia
  2. CLICKHEREx

    Flotation

    http://www.tripme.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?12218-Floatation&p=82958#post82958 07-08-2014, 12:01 PM #1 Drael Highly Valued TripMe Senior Contributor Join Date Sep 2007 Posts 1,658 Thanks 465 Thanked 1,037 Times in 457 Posts Floatation Theres a place in auckland, mt eden, that is opening up this month. Has anyone experienced floatation, and did it evoke images, sounds or anything of the like? "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" - Franklin Drugs and alcohol are a sometimes food. Reply Reply With Quote Thanks 09-08-2014, 09:54 PM #2 Drael Highly Valued TripMe Senior Contributor Join Date Sep 2007 Posts 1,658 Thanks 465 Thanked 1,037 Times in 457 Posts Float culture opened up this weekend in auckland. Expensive, costs $120. But listening to joe rogan, I am super curious. Please sound out, if your tried floatation. Or if you are going to float culture and giving it a go. "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" - Franklin Drugs and alcohol are a sometimes food. Reply Reply With Quote Thanks Today, 12:37 PM #3 Drael Highly Valued TripMe Senior Contributor Join Date Sep 2007 Posts 1,658 Thanks 465 Thanked 1,037 Times in 457 Posts Maybe I should start a float Drael and his friend fund, and take collections. I want drug free ego loss! "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" - Franklin Drugs and alcohol are a sometimes food. Reply Reply With Quote Thanks Today, 07:02 PM #4 CLICKHEREx Senior Member Join Date Aug 2012 Posts 103 Thanks 89 Thanked 62 Times in 34 Posts Some time ago I read John C Lilly, a psychonaut like Shulgin, (but not so heavily into drugs) on sensory deprivation, via the flotation tank. Check out http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...71.HldpYoPvN5Q It uses a concentrated solution of magnesium sulphate (Epsom salts) which needs to be maintained by an accurate thermostat between an extremely narrow temperature range, around 96 degrees Fahrenheit, or the user feels as though they are freezing, or boiling. Pitch blackness, and as quiet and vibration free as possible. Hallucinations occur after a while of floating without any physical sensations, quite possibly because the mind is creating input to replace that which is lacking from the environment, like dreaming while still awake and aware. Apparently a proportion of users lose voluntary control of bladder and bowel functions temporarily, after some hours inside, so some commercial operators require special suits to be worn. A friend tried to talk me into going halves in one, but the cost was prohibitive then, although if you could access bulk MgSO4 cheapish ... Others have tried salt, (like floating in the Dead Sea) with varying degrees of success; any tiny cuts or sores sting, though.
  3. http://www.naturalnews.com/046414_Ebola_vaccine_safety_testing_drug_company_profits.html Ebola vaccine to be manufactured by criminal drug company with felony record; rushed to market with near-zero safety testing Monday, August 11, 2014 by Mike Adams (NaturalNews) While the world of conventional medicine lines up to profit from the Ebola panic, there is no mention anywhere in the mainstream media of the criminal corporation behind the Ebola vaccine. GlaxoSmithKline, now being celebrated by the pro-pharma press, is the same company that also has a proven criminal record of bribing physicians and knowingly distributing misleading information about the safety of their drug products. Just two years ago, GSK plead guilty to felony crimes in the United States and was forced to pay an historical $3 billion fine for committing those crimes. After paying the fine, GSK was then exempted from normal rules regarding criminal enterprise, allowing it to continue conducting business with the federal government. "Global health care giant GlaxoSmithKline LLC (GSK) agreed to plead guilty and to pay $3 billion to resolve its criminal and civil liability arising from the company's unlawful promotion of certain prescription drugs, its failure to report certain safety data, and its civil liability for alleged false price reporting practices, the Justice Department announced today," says a U.S. Department of Justice press release. It goes on to explain, "GSK agreed to plead guilty to a three-count criminal information, including two counts of introducing misbranded drugs, Paxil and Wellbutrin, into interstate commerce and one count of failing to report safety data about the drug Avandia to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)." As Natural News reported in 2012: A roughly nine-year federal investigation has exposed GSK's rampant abuse of the law by illegally marketing drugs, forging drug safety data, bribing doctors to promote dangerous and expensive drugs, ripping off Medicare and Medicaid, and lying about the effectiveness and safety of drugs. And all this deception has generated tens of billions of dollars in profits for GSK over the years, while thousands of patients who used the drug products involved have suffered horrific side effects and even death. Criminal drug company to spearhead Ebola vaccine with U.S. scientists Now this same company that admitted committing multiple felony crimes is going to lead the development of the Ebola vaccine. As CNBC reports: (1) "A clinical trial of an experimental vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus is set to start shortly, according to British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, which is co-developing the product with U.S. scientists." Vaccine to be "rushed through" with very little safety testing We also know that the vaccine will not be tested for anything other than short-term side effects. This is all part of the "rush to market" for Big Pharma to profit from Ebola as quickly as possible. As CNBC says: A company spokeswoman said on Sunday that the trial should get underway "later this year", while GSK's partner the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said in a statement on its website it would start "as early as fall 2014", implying a potential September launch of testing. A headline in the Daily Mail declares "World Health Organisation says vaccine could be 'rushed through' for 2015." (2) That same story goes on to report, "the WHO said a potential vaccine for the Ebola virus is being tested on humans and could be ready for widespread use by early 2015." Doing the math here, if the Ebola vaccine clinical trials start in September of 2014 and the vaccine is manufactured and distributed to the public by "early 2015," this leaves virtually zero time for observing vaccine side effects. Manufacturing the vaccine in large quantities, after all, takes many months. If this vaccine is to be available to the public in early 2015, they will have to start manufacturing it as early as October 2014, roughly just one month after the vaccine trials begin. Zero liability; total immunity for faulty products Keep in mind that in the United States, vaccine manufacturers have zero liability for the damage and death caused by their products. Due to a literal Act of Congress, all vaccine manufacturers are able to abandon all safety testing and knowingly sell faulty, deadly products with zero risk of liability. This was all set up by design to make sure vaccine manufacturers could enjoy record profits while having zero liability for producing faulty products that harm children and adults. This is the reason why mercury is still used in flu vaccines which are injected into children -- a fact which I have scientifically proven in the Natural News Forensic Food Labs using ICP-MS instrumentation. This total immunity means there is no incentive for adequate safety testing of an Ebola vaccine. The company has the same liability (zero) whether they test the vaccine or not. Their goal is to SELL the vaccine, not to make sure it's safe and effective. Time spent on conducting rigorous clinical trials with long-term observations simply isn't part of the "Sell! Sell! Sell!" business plan of today's vaccine manufacturers. Their current business slogan? "Every pandemic is an opportunity for profit." And with blanket immunity from all product liability, who needs safety testing? Vaccine manufacturers routinely rely on scientific fraud Here's additional information you need to know about vaccine fraud, originally published in this article on Natural News: According to two Merck scientists who filed a False Claims Act complaint in 2010 -- a complaint which has just now been unsealed -- vaccine manufacturer Merck knowingly falsified its mumps vaccine test data, spiked blood samples with animal antibodies, sold a vaccine that actually promoted mumps and measles outbreaks, and ripped off governments and consumers who bought the vaccine thinking it was "95% effective." See that False Claims Act document at: http://www.naturalnews.com/gallery/documents... According to Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, both former Merck virologists, the Merck company engaged in all the following behavior: • Merck knowingly falsified its mumps vaccine test results to fabricate a "95% efficacy rate." • In order to do this, Merck spiked the blood test with animal antibodies in order to artificially inflate the appearance of immune system antibodies. As reported in CourthouseNews.com: Merck also added animal antibodies to blood samples to achieve more favorable test results, though it knew that the human immune system would never produce such antibodies, and that the antibodies created a laboratory testing scenario that "did not in any way correspond to, correlate with, or represent real life ... virus neutralization in vaccinated people," according to the complaint. • Merck then used the falsified trial results to swindle the U.S. government out of "hundreds of millions of dollars for a vaccine that does not provide adequate immunization." • Merck's vaccine fraud has actually contributed to the continuation of mumps across America, causing more children to become infected with mumps. • Merck used its false claims of "95 percent effectiveness" to monopolize the vaccine market and eliminate possible competitors. • The Merck vaccine fraud has been going on since the late 1990's, say the Merck virologists. • Testing of Merck's vaccine was never done against "real-world" mumps viruses in the wild. Instead, test results were simply falsified to achieve the desired outcome. • This entire fraud took place "with the knowledge, authority and approval of Merck's senior management." • Merck scientists "witnessed firsthand the improper testing and data falsification in which Merck engaged to artificially inflate the vaccine's efficacy findings," according to court documents. Sources for this article include: (1) http://www.cnbc.com/id/101909486 (2) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2721... (3) http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/July/12-c...
  4. http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/731821-Rasmussen-Poll-America-Losing-War-on-Drugs neversickanymore View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact Senior Moderator Recovery Support Science & Technology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Join Date Jan 2013 Location babysitting the argument in my head Posts 10,769 Today 02:35 Rasmussen Poll: America Losing War on Drugs 10 Aug 2014 By Greg Richter A vast majority of Americans believe the nation is losing the war on drugs, according to a new Rasmussen Poll. According to the survey released Sunday, 84 percent believe the war on drugs is being lost. Only 3 percent believe it is being won, while 13 percent are undecided. In 2012, 7 percent believed America was winning the war on drugs. Just under a third believe America is spending too much to fight illegal drugs, while a similar number, 29 percent think not enough is being spent. About 17 percent believe the number is just about right, and 22 percent are undecided. The survey also found that Americans are split evenly on whether recreational marijuana should be legalized in their state. Forty-three percent favor, and 43 percent oppose it. Still, Rasmussen reports, opposition has dropped from the first of the year when it was at 50 percent. Demographically, 40 percent of men think too much is being spent on the drug war, compared to 24 percent of women. Senior citizens most feel that not enough is being spent on the war on drugs. Republican voters are more likely than Democrats and independents to believe that not enough money is being spent on the drug war, but even they are unlikely to advocate for more spending. Just under half blame Mexican drug producers for violence in that country associated with the drug trade, while 32 percent think drug users in the United States deserve most blame. Just more than half agree with Attorney General Eric Holder's plan to cut back on stiff minimum sentencing guidelines for low-level non-violent drug offenders. Forty-four percent think too many Americans are in prison, and 46 percent don't think there should be mandatory sentences for certain crimes. Forty-six percent believe the justice system is unfair to black and Hispanic defendants, and 33 percent think it is unfair to the poor. The nationwide survey talked to 1,000 adults on August 3-4. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence, Rasmussen said. Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/US/rasmussen-...#ixzz3A6VfNcqr RECOVERY FORUMS ~~~ADDICTION GUIDE~~~ CONTACT ME -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #2 ro4eva View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact Send Email Bluelighter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Join Date Nov 2004 Location Woolloomooloo, NSW Posts 2,852 Blog Entries8 Today 03:26 Thank God that, as each day passes by, more and more men and women appear to be realizing what a colossal flop this war on drugs has been.
  5. http://www.smh.com.au/national/high-price-of-alcohol-drives-demand-for-illegal-drugs-20140810-102eo6.html#ixzz3A9ajOBDr [view bar graph onsite] August 11, 2014 Inga Ting Data journalist The expense of alcohol is driving Australia's high rates of illicit drug use, health experts say, as new figures show Australia's combination of high levels of use and expensive illicit substances buck international trends. Australia is one of the most expensive countries in which to buy illicit substances. It ranks second for amphetamine, fourth for cocaine, fifth for methamphetamine and eighth for both ecstasy and cannabis, according to price data in the 2014 UN World Drug Report and a 2014 National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre report on drug use trends. However, high prices have not dampened demand for these drugs. Australia has some of the world's highest rates of illicit drug use per capita, ranking first for ecstasy, second for opioids, third for amphetamines, fourth for cocaine and seventh for cannabis, according to the UN report. "Oceania [Australian and New Zealand] is something of an exception among the major consumer markets," the UN report states. Generally, cheaper drugs partner higher levels of use and vice versa. But Australia is also one of the most expensive countries in which to buy alcohol, making substances such as ecstasy and cannabis a "sensible" economic choice for someone looking for a night on the town, leading Australian researchers say. "Substitution between substances, whether they're legal or illegal, is very common," NDARC drug policy modelling program director Alison Ritter said. "That's just sensible consumer behaviour at one level … It's no different to the choices one makes when shopping in a supermarket." Cameron Duff of Monash University's School of Psychology and Psychiatry says young people frequently talk about the price of alcohol when explaining illicit drug use. "The thing that comes through again and again is that party drugs, particularly ecstasy, are cheaper relative to alcohol," said Dr Duff, who has been researching cultural aspects of drug use for more than a decade. "Young people are … thinking the average night out at a bar can be $100 without even trying, whereas a couple of tablets of ecstasy is $40 or $50." Greater awareness of the harms associated with alcohol and tobacco was also pushing some people towards ecstasy and cannabis, Dr Duff said. And with a wealth of online resources such as global discussion forum Bluelight available, those who wanted to try illicit drugs could more easily find information about the risks. "This is one of the other myths that is offensive to young people: that young people get drunk, take risks, don’t think about it," Dr Duff said. "Nothing could be further from the truth. "They compare [alcohol's] risks and harms with those perceived to be associated with ecstasy, and they say: 'Ecstasy seems to me to be a safer drug'." Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Alex Wodak says there is "no doubt alcohol is far more damaging". "[Ecstasy] is not harmless by any means ... But if people migrated from alcohol to cannabis or ecstasy, they would be migrating from high risk to low risk," Dr Wodak said. Alcohol consumption cost society an estimated $14.4 billion in 2010, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology. However, Jo Baxter, executive director of advocacy group Drug Free Australia, rejected the link with alcohol prices. She said organised crime was aware Australians had high disposable incomes and were prepared to pay high prices for illicit drugs. "People are choosing to do it because of risk-taking behaviour," she said. "We need more education about what ecstasy and other amphetamine-type stimulants can do to the brain." Professor Ritter said Australians were "surprisingly conservative" when it came to illicit substances. Most Australians were against the legalisation of cannabis or ecstasy, and the latest alcohol figures showed "a much greater rate of abstinence among young people than there’s ever been". Illicit drug use cost the Australian society an estimated $8.2 billion in 2004-05, according to the latest available statistics.
  6. http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/731679-War-on-drugs-not-working-New-Voices neversickanymore View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact Senior Moderator Recovery Support Science & Technology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Join Date Jan 2013 Location babysitting the argument in my head Posts 10,739 Yesterday 10:36 War on drugs not working: New Voices By Casey Given August 9, 2014| On May 12, 1996, Miami police raided the home of Richard Brown on a false tip that the 73-year-old retiree with no criminal record was selling drugs. After busting the door open, police claim that Richards began firing a gun, prompting officers to pump 123 rounds into his body. However, a later investigation revealed that the gun police allege Brown had used had no traces of his fingerprints on them. Brown's 14-year-old great-granddaughter, Janeka, reported he was not holding a gun when he instructed her to take shelter in a bathroom moments before he was killed. Sadly, Brown is just one of countless victims of the war on drugs, a federal policy push that has squandered billions of dollars overcrowding America's prisons, militarizing state and local police, and making no measurable impact reducing drug abuse. It's time for Americans to stand up against this failed policy as taxpayers and, more important, human beings. Since 2001, the Department of Homeland Security alone has spent $34 billion in federal grants for state and local police departments to purchase paramilitarylike equipment, including tanks and assault rifles. While the circumstances surrounding Brown's raid may seem unique, mistakes are commonly made in SWAT operations. By the Cato Institute's count, there have been 14 raids on innocent suspects in Florida over the past three decades, three of which have ended in death. This problem is particularly pronounced in Florida because of the state's harsh mandatory-minimum sentencing requirements. Under state law, individuals can be convicted for prescription-drug trafficking by simply possessing more than four grams (seven pills) of opiate-based painkillers. As a result of these draconian punishment laws, Florida prisons are notoriously overcrowded, with more than 100,000 inmates in state custody at a cost of more than $2 billion per year. Many residents convicted of these harsh state laws are not violent offenders; they just got caught up in unfortunate circumstances. One such example is Scott Earle, a Florida man who occasionally used Vicodin to treat the residual pain from numerous car accidents throughout his life. A few months after being prescribed the drug in September 1995 for a diverticulitis attack, Scott was introduced to a woman at a local bar who began romantically pursuing him. As their relationship began to blossom, the woman began asking him for Vicodin to treat her back pain. Three months after meeting her, Scott was arrested for felony drug trafficking and conspiracy. She was an undercover cop. Sadly, such ridiculous sentencing is not a problem exclusive to Florida, but one that persists on the federal level as well. About half of the close to 200,000 inmates in U.S. custody are serving time for drug offenses; many of them were locked up for crimes as simple as marijuana possession. In fact, cannabis is responsible for the largest chunk of drug convictions at 27.6 percent more than harder narcotics like methamphetamine, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. In total, there are more than 2.2 million Americans in state, local or federal custody. The U.S. has spent roughly $1 trillion on drug prohibition since 1971. But despite these massive costs in dollars and human lives, marijuana and prescription-drug abuse has risen, defeating the very purpose for which the war on drugs was launched. As taxpayers and human beings, it's high time to stand up against the war on drugs' incredible waste and demand more humane approaches like treatment and decriminalization. Especially in Florida, lawmakers can follow the lead of other states like Texas and Louisiana that have successfully enacted drug-sentencing reform. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/...-drug-offenses
  7. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-heroin-addicts-to-be-given-free-foil-to-help-them-kick-their-habit-9655225.html New law a ‘positive step’ in reducing number of lives ruined by drugs Nigel Morris Deputy Political Editor Thursday 07 August 2014 Heroin addicts are to be given free foil - to heat up the drug - in an effort to help them kick the habit and cut the risk of contracting disease, the Government will announce tomorrow. They will be offered the foil to encourage them to inhale, rather than inject, class A substances, as part of programmes to tackle their addiction. Addicts use aluminium foil to warm heroin and breathe in its fumes in a practice nicknamed “chasing the dragon”. Substances such as crystal meth and cocaine can be inhaled in the same way. Critics will raise questions over any move that enables drug users to maintain their habit, but the independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) concluded last year that offering foil can help an addict’s eventual recovery. Providing aluminium foil is safer than addicts buying tin foil used in cooking as that contains vegetable oil which can be toxic when breathed in. Health experts also argue that smoking heroin stops users contracting blood-borne viruses like HIV and hepatitis B through shared needles, cuts damage to veins and soft tissue and reduces the risk of overdose. Video: Clegg argues an attitude to drug prevention is neededAn order will be laid in Parliament on Friday to sweep away the ban on health professionals issuing free foil on the condition that it is provided within programmes to tackle addiction. The change in the law, which currently prohibits the supply of “articles to be used for the preparation or consumption of illicit drugs”, will come into force next month. It will apply both to the National Health Service and privately run treatment centres. Norman Baker, the Crime Prevention Minister, said the available evidence shows that providing foil did not encourage drug use, but spurred addicts to get help. “By allowing foil to be legally provided by healthcare professionals we are taking another positive step in reducing the number of individuals, families and communities whose lives are destroyed by drugs,” the Lib Dem minister told The Independent. “The decision was made on the condition that it is part of structured efforts to get individuals off drugs and will minimise the risk of spreading viruses like HIV, while encouraging more addicts to engage with support services. “It is also part of a range of work the coalition government is doing to reduce and prevent illegal drug use – helping dependent individuals through treatment, educating young people about the risks and supporting law enforcement in tackling the illicit trade.” The move comes amid signs that use of the most addictive substances is falling, particularly in younger age groups, among whom heroin use has fallen out of fashion as they switch to party drugs. However, recent figures suggest almost 300,000 people in England still use heroin and crack cocaine, with 529 deaths in England and 46 in Wales in 2012 linked to heroin. Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst at Transform, the drugs policy charity, said: “It is much safer to be smoking heroin than injecting it. This is a sensible harm reduction intervention when you are trying to get people to transition from a more dangerous way of using heroin to a less dangerous way.” The ACMD had been examining the case for providing foil for since 2009. Twelve months ago it called for the move to take place, a recommendation that was accepted by the Home Secretary Theresa May. She approved its conclusions as long as foil is “only offered by drug treatment providers as part as part of structured efforts to get individuals into treatment, on the road to recovery and off of drugs”. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't understand the apparent double standard that exists, with harm reduction advice to users of synthetics (to keep well hydrated) withdrawn by police in Scotland, (Just say NO to synthetics) yet England and Wales are giving out free foil to heroin addicts, or is this part of Scottish home rule?
  8. http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/731554-Tennessee-Drug-Tests-Welfare-Applicants-Discovers-Less-Than-One-Percent-Use-Drugs neversickanymore View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact Senior Moderator Recovery Support Science & Technology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Join Date Jan 2013 Location babysitting the argument in my head Posts 10,736 09-08-2014 06:03 Tennessee Drug Tests Welfare Applicants, Discovers Less Than One Percent Use Drugs BRYCE COVERT AUGUST 7, 2014 In July, Tennessee began a drug testing program for applicants to the state’s welfare program. Since then, just one person has tested positive out of more than 800. Applicants have to answer three questions about drug use to get benefits, and if they answer yes to any of them, they get referred to urine testing. If the result is positive, they have to complete a treatment plan and then take another test. If the second comes back positive, they get cut off from benefits for six months. Those who refuse to take a drug test in the first place can’t get benefits. In the month since it began, six people submitted to a drug test and just one tested positive out of the 812 people who applied. Four were turned down for benefits because they refused to participate in drug screening. That means a positive rate of 0.12 percent for those who took part in the screening. That compares to the 8 percent of state residents generally who use illegal drugs. Despite stereotypes that the poor people who need welfare assistance use drugs at a high rate, other states have had similar results. In Utah, just 12 people tested positive in a year of drug testing applicants. In Florida, 2 percent of applicants failed the tests in 2011 but the state has an 8 percent rate of illegal drug use. And when Maine’s governor set out to prove that welfare recipients in his state were using their benefits to buy drinks and cigarettes at bars and strip clubs, he turned up next to nothing. Many other stereotypes about how welfare recipients use their money turn out to be untrue when data is examined. Those who get public assistance spend less than half of what families who aren’t enrolled spend and still put a larger share of those small budgets toward basics like food, housing, and transportation. At the same time, they spend less on luxuries like eating out and entertainment. Welfare recipients may be spending so much less in part because the benefits have become so meager. Virtually all of them are worth less now than in 1996. And many families who should be eligible aren’t even getting them. In the mid-90s, a little over a quarter of poor families with children didn’t get benefits. In 2012 that number had soared to three-quarters. Yet a chunk of the program money is being used now to administer these costly drug testing regimes. Utah spent more than $30,000 in the year that turned up just 12 drug users. The purported savings in Florida’s program will be negligible after administrative costs and reimbursements for the drug tests are taken into account. The $1.5 million price tag with just $229,000 in savings for a proposed program in Virginia prompted lawmakers to reject it. Still, the move has been popular in other states. Eleven of them have enacted drug screening or testing for welfare applicants. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...test-positive/
  9. http://www.naturalnews.com/046378_CDC_Ebola_pandemic_survival_tips.html Friday, August 08, 2014 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger (NaturalNews) The spread of Ebola to the USA is "inevitable," said the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday. Tom Frieden made the statement in a House Subcommittee hearing, adding that he does not think there will be a "large Ebola outbreak" in the U.S. Does he think there will be small ones? Ken Isaacs, vice president of program and government relations at the Christian aid group Samaritan's Purse warned "the world is woefully ill-equipped to handle the spread of Ebola," reports Yahoo News. (1) "It is clear that the disease is uncontained and it is out of control in West Africa," he told the hearing. "The international response to the disease has been a failure." "If you read the Ministry of Health status reports coming out every day from Liberia, I don't mean to be dramatic, but it has an atmosphere of 'Apocalypse Now' in it," said Isaacs, as reported by Breitbart.com. (5) The spread of Ebola to the U.S. will likely happen due to international air travel, CDC head Frieden warned. Today's Ebola outbreak is the largest ever recorded in history. Is the CDC perhaps preparing America for an announcement that Ebola is now being found in U.S. patients? "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued its highest alert activation over the Ebola outbreak," reports CBS News. (4) "CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden announced on Twitter Wednesday that their operations center has moved to a Level 1 response." America is nowhere near prepared for an Ebola outbreak Mac Slavo from SHTFplan.com just posted a really important story that I recommend you read. It's entitled What You Need to Do to Survive Ebola BEFORE the Panic Starts. As Slavo rightly points out, if there is even a single case of Ebola appearing on the streets of America, the masses will outright panic. Michael Snyder from The Economic Collapse Blog (7) also makes a powerful point in this recommended article, where he says: Yes, we may be able to provide "state of the art care" for a handful of people, but if thousands (or millions) of Americans get the virus you can forget about it. Our health industry is already stretched incredibly thin, and we simply do not have the resources to handle a tsunami of high risk Ebola patients. And of course conventional medicine does not have a cure for Ebola anyway. Outbreak will immediately turn to panic In truth, almost nobody is America is prepared for an Ebola outbreak -- not the people, not the hospitals, not the grocery stores and certainly not the government. Even a small, local Ebola outbreak would result in a mandatory lock down of people in their own homes. The government's phrase for this is "shelter in place," and it was invoked at gunpoint during the Boston Marathon bombings. The problem with all this is that the very minute the public gets word of Ebola spreading in America, people will launch into panic buying of everything you can imagine: gasoline and fuel, water, storable foods, chemical sanitizers, ammunition, firearms and so on. Think "zombie apocalypse" and you'll get the idea. Case in point: The announcement that the water supply in Toledo, Ohio was poisoned due to chemical agricultural runoff caused an immediate and total wipeout of water supplies from store shelves. Hawaii just experienced the same thing, reports Intellihub: (2) Due to the recent weather warnings, local stores have been mostly cleared out of bottled water and other essential supplies, such as batteries, in anticipation of the coming storms. "Residents of Hawaii are cleaning out stores of supplies in anticipation of power outages and major flooding," says USA Today. (3) Even worse, some residents are finding they are completely on their own, with other residents utterly unwilling to help them. As Mike Tsukamoto says in this USA Today video (3): "There was a woman there [at the Costco store] who had a crutch, and she was asking people if they could help her, and no one would help and she was pretty upset. She told me that nobody cares to help anyone in times like this, and all they care about is getting stuff for themselves and clearing out." Storms pass quickly; but pandemics keep spreading Hurricanes quickly pass, but an Ebola outbreak might keep spreading and lingering for a very long time. What will the average unprepared American do after 3 days of lockdown? Five days? A month? Most people could not survive more than a week or two without needing emergency supplies from the grocery store. It's not difficult to imagine 911 call centers being flooded with desperate cries for food after just 3-5 days of lockdown. An Ebola outbreak lockdown would also grind the local economy to a halt. No one showing up for work means no economic activity. It also makes you wonder who's supposed to run the power plants, water treatment facilities, emergency services and law enforcement. Anyone who thinks under-paid cops are going to run around the streets trying to keep the peace when there's an Ebola outbreak on the loose is living in a fantasy dreamland. Ebola has the potential to cause widespread economic destruction beyond its medical casualties. That's why it has been selected and preserved by numerous governments as a bioweapon. Some people are convinced, in fact, that the current pandemic in West Africa is a "trial run" for a larger release somewhere else, but I have to caution that's mere conjecture and no evidence has yet surfaced to support the accusation. Solutions for Americans and Canadians So what you do to prepare for the Ebola spread into America that the CDC now calls "inevitable?" First, you should substantially increase your personal preparedness in terms of supplies of food, water, emergency medicine, sanitizing liquids (like plain bleach), batteries for flashlights and so on. An Ebola outbreak may come to your neighborhood without warning, and the government may announce a mandatory quarantine without notice. You could suddenly find yourself stuck in your own home with no access to a grocery store for weeks. Secondly, it's probably a wise idea to stock up on natural anti-virals that might be beneficial against Ebola. Although I must caution you that there are no clinical trials of anything treating Ebola -- not medications, not herbs, not anything -- there are many natural substances with well-documented antiviral effects that have near-zero risk of any downside. Those include vitamin C powders, anti-viral herbs like elderberry, Traditional Chinese Medicine formulas and immune-boosting minerals like zinc and selenium. Many people are right now saying colloidal silver might combat Ebola, although I personally haven't investigated this issue and therefore can't say whether silver might be effective as an internal defense against Ebola. Don't count on the government to test this, of course: they're only interested in high-profit drugs, not affordable natural solutions. Avoiding immune-suppressing substances is a key strategy for strengthening your immune response to most viral infections. This means now is probably a good idea to stop smoking, stop using chemical fragrance laundry detergents, stop using cheap personal care products, stop taking medications that suppress immunity, and stop eating foods that contain immune-suppressing chemicals, additives and preservatives. The stronger your immune system, the better your chance of survival if an Ebola outbreak happens near you. This is wisdom the CDC will never publicly encourage. The entire medical system is wholly opposed to the idea of people strengthening their own immune systems and therefore not needing "miracle" drugs or vaccines. So if you want to be safe from Ebola, it's entirely up to you. No government official or public health department is going to tell you the truth you need to hear: If you want to survive a serious outbreak, you'd better have weeks worth of water in your home, and months worth of food. You'd also better have some cash, sanitizers, flashlights, radios and the whole gamut of survival preparedness items that you can read about on other sites like The Organic Prepper. Don't wait until the government announces the coming pandemic. By then, it's too late. If you ever find yourself in a crowd of people, lining up to get food, water or medicine, you're already way behind the curve. Sources for this article include: (1) http://news.yahoo.com/ebolas-spread-us-inevi... (2) http://www.intellihub.com/hawaii-bottled-wat... (3) http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/0... (4) http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/08/07/cdc-i... (5) http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014... (6) http://www.naturalnews.com/046314_toledo_wat... (7) http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.naturalnews.com/046331_Ebola_government_propaganda_medical_questions.html Tuesday, August 05, 2014 (NaturalNews) Something's fishy about the official stories we're being told on Ebola. Things don't add up, which is why I'm posing these twenty-one important questions we should all be considering: #1) How can U.S. health authorities claim there is zero risk from Ebola patients being treated in U.S. hospitals when those same hospitals can't control superbug infections? "Many hospitals are poorly prepared to contain any pathogen. That’s why at least 75,000 people a year die from hospital infections. If hospitals can’t stop common infections like MRSA, C. diff and VRE, they can’t handle Ebola." - Fox News (1) #2) Why should we trust the CDC's handling of Ebola when the agency can't even keep track of its anthrax, avian flu and smallpox samples? #3) Why were Ebola victims transported to cities in the USA when they could be given state-of-the-art medical care overseas? "Now, they are bringing in highly infectious patients into this nation that is Ebola-free. In doing so, they are violating the primary rule of contagion: isolation." - Radio host Michael Savage (2) #4) Why is the company working on Ebola vaccines -- Tekmira -- receiving money from Monsanto and considers Monsanto to be one of its important business partners? (3) #5) If Ebola is "not a threat" to U.S. citizens as government authorities keep claiming, then why did the U.S. Department of Defense spend $140 million on an Ebola-related contract with the Tekmira company? #6) If Ebola is not a threat to the U.S., then why did the Department of Defense deploy Ebola detection equipment to all 50 states? (4) #7) Why did President Obama just sign a new executive order authorizing the government arrest and quarantine of Americans who show symptoms of respiratory infections? (5) The language of his new executive order states that government officials may forcibly detain and quarantine people with: ...diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness, are capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled. #8) How can we trust a government to tell us the truth about Ebola when that same government repeatedly lies about Swine Flu, influenza, Fukushima radiation, weather control technology, the security of the border and seemingly everything else? #9) If U.S. doctors claim to be so incredibly careful around Ebola that the virus could not possibly escape from the containment rooms at Emory University, then how did the American doctors being treated there contract Ebola in the first place? Weren't they also being careful? #10) How are U.S. doctors and health workers supposed to even identify people with Ebola when they appear "fit and healthy" right until the very end? "What's shocking is how healthy the patients look before they die and how quickly they decline. A number of the Ebola patients I've seen look quite fit and healthy and can be walking around until shortly before their deaths." - Dr. Oliver Johnson (6) #11) If Ebola is not spread through the air as some claim, then why do doctors who treat Ebola patients always wear masks? #12) If hospitals are good at infection control, then why did so many SARS victims contract the infection while sitting in waiting rooms at hospitals? "A government report later concluded that for the hospital overcome by SARS, 'infection control was not a high priority.' Eventually, 77% of the people who contracted SARS there got it while working, visiting or being treated in a hospital." - Fox News (7) #13) If Ebola escapes from patients at Emory University and begins to infect the public, do you think we would ever be told the truth about it? Or instead, would the official story claim that "Ebola terrorists" let it loose? #14) WHO BENEFITS FROM AN EBOLA OUTBREAK in the USA? This is a key question to ask, and the answers are obvious: the CDC, vaccine manufacturers and pharma companies, and anyone in government who wants to declare a police state and start rounding people up for quarantine in a medical emergency. #15) We already know there are powerful people who openly promote population reduction (Bill Gates, Ted Turner, etc.) Is a staged Ebola outbreak possibly a deliberate population reduction plan by some group that doesn't value human life and wants to rapidly reduce the population? #16) Why are U.S. health authorities intentionally concealing from the public the true number of possible Ebola victims in U.S. hospitals who are being tested for Ebola right now? "In an apparent attempt to avoid hysteria, U.S. health authorities are withholding details about a number of suspected Ebola victims from the public." - Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars (8) #17) If Ebola infections are so easy to control (as is claimed by U.S. health authorities), then why are Ebola victim bodies being openly dumped in the streets in West Africa? "Relatives of Ebola victims in Liberia defied government quarantine orders and dumped infected bodies in the streets as West African governments struggled to enforce tough measures to curb an outbreak..." - Reuters (9) #18) Why do many locals in Sierra Leone truly believe the recent Ebola outbreak was deliberately caused by government officials? "Ebola is a new disease in Sierra Leone and when the first cases emerged, many people thought it might be a government conspiracy to undermine certain tribal groups, steal organs or get money from international donors..." - The Daily Mail (6) #19) Given that the U.S. government has already funded outrageous medical experiments on Americans and foreigners (see the NIH-funded Guatemalan medical experiments), why should we not believe the government is capable of deploying Ebola in bioweapons experiments in West Africa? #20) Given that many vaccines accidentally cause the disease they claim to prevent (due to weakened viruses still remaining active in a small number of vaccine vials), isn't it likely that Ebola vaccines might actually cause Ebola infections in some percentage of those receiving them? How can we trust any vaccines when vaccine manufacturers have been granted absolute legal immunity from faulty products or failures in quality control? #21) How can we trust a medical system that continues to put mercury in flu shots, refuses to recommend vitamin D to cancer patients and has been criminally corrupted to the point where drug companies are routinely charged with felony crimes for bribery and price fixing? Sources for this article include: (1) http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/08/04/ma... (2) http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/ebola-madness-is-... (3) http://www.naturalnews.com/046290_ebola_pate... (4) http://www.naturalnews.com/046259_ebola_outb... (5) http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/executive... (6) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-27... (7) http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/08/04/ma... (8) http://www.infowars.com/u-s-health-authoriti... (9) http://news.yahoo.com/bodies-dumped-streets-...
  10. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/smugglers-cove-check-out-bizarre-4023606 Aug 08, 2014 12:15 By John Kelly Anti-smuggling bosses say officers have seen "every trick in the book" but the scams are getting more and more sophisticated VIEW GALLERY These pictures show the desperate depths smugglers will sink to in an attempt to get illegal goods into the country. From iguanas in socks to Class A drugs in sweets and chocolate bars, the smugglers stop at nothing in their determination to make money out of misery. Most of the scams involve drugs where huge profits are to be made. Smuggler Thottapuram Thomas was jailed for four and a half years after he had the cheek to use a portrait of former South African President Nelson Mandela to hide 4lbs (1.85kg) of cocaine -worth £380,000 - behind the picture. Severely disabled Daniel Roque Hall was jailed for three and a half years in 2012 after being found with £370,000 worth of cocaine hidden inside the padded seat of his wheelchair. Border Force officials have also released photographs showing how smugglers tried to conceal illegal drugs inside Snickers chocolate bars, lollipops, carpets and even a chapatti oven! Flickr/UK Home Office Cheeky monkeys: These two statues were filled with opium! Sir Charles Montgomery, director general of the agency tasked with protecting Britain’s border, said officers had seen “virtually every trick in the book" but were facing increasingly sophisticated smuggling techniques. He said: “As these pictures show, smugglers are trying increasingly sophisticated methods and we need to stay one step ahead. “Fortunately our officers have seen virtually every trick in the book. “Border Force is the first line of defence in protecting the UK from serious and organised crime. “The skill and experience of our officers helps keep drugs and other illegal goods out of the country and off our streets.” Flickr/UK Home Office Illegal: Endangered iguana from Bahamas found in a sock Other recent cases include 4.5lbs (2kg) of opium worth £20,000 discovered inside two monkey statues in a parcel at the Coventry International Postal Hub while Iranian Amir Rahnama got six years after 22lbs (10kg) of opium was found in pots of hair product. Meanwhile a consignment of children’s lollipops was intercepted by Border Force officers working in Ghana in September 2012. The sweets concealed 9lbs (4kg) of cocaine with a street value of £200,000. Earlier that year, Ivan Sacido, from Madrid, was jailed for five years after sniffer dogs at Gatwick Airport discover 4.5lbs (2kg) of high-purity cocaine worth £550,000 inside Snickers chocolate bars. But it is not just drugs that attract smugglers. In February this year two women flying from the Bahamas were stopped at Heathrow airport with 13 endangered San Salvador rock iguanas stuffed into socks in their luggage. One of the reptiles died in transit. The two Romanian women were jailed for a year. Another case of wildlife smuggling saw nine grey Francolin birds hidden inside a suitcase - their skeletons showing up on X-ray images. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/smugglers-cove-check-out-bizarre-4023606#ixzz39y9O7xVx
  11. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nick-clegg-says-lib-dems-4022692#.U-cI5aMf6Hs Aug 07, 2014 23:52By Piers Eady The Deputy Prime Minister's proposal would see prison sentences abolished in England and Wales even for possession of Class A drugs such as heroin and cocaine Getty Promise: Clegg says it's "senseless" putting people who need treatment behind bars Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said his party will abolish jail sentences for drug possession if he wins the next election. Mr Clegg’s proposal would see prison sentences abolished in England and Wales even for possession of Class A drugs such as heroin and cocaine. The Lib Dems believe that people who use drugs should be treated for addiction rather than caged behind bars. The party says 1,000 people a year are jailed for the possession of drugs for their own personal use at a cost to the taxpayer of £5m. Half of those serving time are in jail for using the Class B drug cannabis. Mr Clegg told the Sun: “At the moment, we are doing an utterly senseless thing - chucking the people who need treatment behind bars so they simply become even more vulnerable to the criminal gangs who exploited them in the first place.” The Lib Dems’ plan is a manifesto commitment for the party rather than being a change in the Tory-led Coalition’s policy. Clegg said in December 2012 that Britain was losing the war on drugs ‘on an industrial scale’ and called on PM David Cameron to consider decriminalisation. But his call set him at odds with Cameron, who denied the government’s drugs policy was failing. Mr Cameron said: “The government, I think, has got a good record on these things and there is some evidence that drug use and abuse is falling.” The Home Office is currently undertaking a review into Britain’s drug policy, considering how the law on drugs works in different countries. Should jail sentences for drugs possession be abolished? YES NO Home Secretary Theresa May has previously said there was no need for a rethink on Britain’s approach to drugs. But the review has examined drugs policies such as Denmark’s ‘fixing rooms’ where addicts can inject without fear of prosecution. It has also looked at countries such as Portugal, which has decriminalised personal possession. Mr Clegg added: “We should be treating these people, we should be dealing with them. “We shouldn’t be putting them back into the hands of the dealers. The people who should be behind bars are the criminal gangs, the Mr Bigs.” http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nick-clegg-says-lib-dems-4022692#ixzz39xyxZ2YH
  12. http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/16457/20140805/short-intervention-treatments-for-drug-abuse-prove-ineffective-study-says.htm Kathleen Lees [email protected] First Posted: Aug 05, 2014 09:37 PM EDT Seventeen percent of the study participates said they also regularly used opioids. (Photo : Stephen Cummings) The use of illicit drugs is inked to many preventable deaths each year. Statistics show that illegal drug use or abuse of prescription drugs were to blame for a 118 percent increase of deaths since 1992 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Recent findings published in JAMA examine treatment methods used to prevent abuse of various drugs. Results revealed that short interventions were unlikely to help dissuade regular users from taking their use to the limit. Lead study author Richard Saitz, M.D., of the Boston University School of Public Health, recruited 528 adult patients with a history of unhealthy drug use, for the study. He was randomly assigned those in the experiment to one of three groups. The first group consisted of a brief negotiated interview (BNI) that lasted 10 to 15 minutes, while the second group involved motivational interviewing (MOTIC) for 30 to 45 minutes. The last group did not receive any kind of intervention and everyone was given a list of substance use disorder treatment options and resources to use. Sixty-three percent of the participants reported marijuana use as their main drug at the study's start. However, 19 percent also said they used cocaine and 17 percent said they used opioids. Unfortunately, researchers found that throughout the first 30 days of an intervention treatment, there were no significant differences in drug use among the three groups. "Prescription drug misuse is particularly complex, with diagnostic confusion between misuse for symptoms (e.g., pain, anxiety), euphoria-seeking, and drug diversion. Brief counseling may simply be inadequate to address these complexities, even as an initial strategy," the authors concluded, in a news release. "These results do not support widespread implementation of illicit drug use and prescription drug misuse screening and brief intervention." However, researchers added that finding the right treatment options early for those in need was critical to prevention and recovery.
  13. http://fox17.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/teen-dies-after-one-hit-fatal-synthetic-marijuana-22783.shtml Friday, August 8 2014, 10:10 PM CDT Connor Eckhardt, 19, had smoked a readily available product known as ‘spice’ before falling into a coma. He passed away on July 16, just ten days later after taking ‘one hit’, his family said. The product is considered by users as an alternative to cannabis and is made from plants treated with chemicals that bind to the brain’s cannabinoid receptors, much like the drug. While illegal in California, it is often marketed as incense and is reportedly sold under code names by retailers. Mr Eckhardt’s parents issued an emotional plea on a Facebook page dedicated to her son’s memory. “Our son is gone forever from one hit of SPICE!!! Which is legal. How can that be?” the post read. “So many people have messaged me that their loved ones died too. My son is gone forever. “Something has to be done!!! Please share our story.” Another Facebook tribute, by family friend Sarah Sailer, has been shared over 445,000 times on the site. “This 19 yr old (sic) is dead because of taking ONE HIT of a substance that is readily available in many smoke shops, even convenience stores around the country,” Mrs Sailer said. “If you know anyone who has tried or uses SYNTHETIC MARIJUANA (aka SPICE, K2, POTPOURRI) - please tell them it may kill them.” Doctors warn that synthetic marijuana substitutes can be many times more powerful than the drug itself, potentially leading to kidney failure, psychosis, heart attack and overwhelming brain circuitry. (SOURCE MSN)
  14. http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.co...ater-1-3500466 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #2 edgarshade View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact Bluelighter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Join Date Aug 2010 Location UK Posts 2,411 07-08-2014 03:25 Didn't comply with the new "harm escalation" programme...
  15. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-07/green-remember-there-is-no-privacy-in-team-australia/5654014 By ABC's Jonathan Green Updated Thu at 9:06amThu 7 Aug 2014, 9:06am REMEMBER, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, AND YOU, AND ESPECIALLY YOU!!! Photo: The Government wants your metadata, and you'll just have to trust that it's for a good reason. (Reuters) We might feel happier about the privacy shakedown if the Government could make even a bit of sense. Instead we get obfuscation and urges to toe the line as dutiful members of Team Australia, writes Jonathan Green. As they say: "There's no jihad in team". Team Australia that is. Or is that Operation Team Australia? Whichever, we're all in this together now, armed only with sprigs of wattle and the nation's internet browsing history against "unhealthy immigrant values" and the chilling possibility of mass-casualty homeland terror. On the first point we have columnist Andrew Bolt's word for it, that "Australia is being asked to assimilate to immigrant values, and not necessarily the healthiest ones". "But wait ..." Yes Andrew? "Don't we need a frank debate - more frank than it's been so far - into how the Islamic culture, the Muslim culture, people from certain Muslim countries in the Middle East, how they integrate here? That is a very difficult and dangerous discussion." Well, you know, on the evidence, probably not; let's not treat the deplorable exception as the common condition, or, worse, the product of the fevered and fearful imagination as the reality. And yet there are exceptions. And here our Prime Minister is clear, and we must take his word on this, that the threat posed by returning jihadis is real, hotheads who have taken up the cause of jihad and the caliphate in foreign parts. As the Australian newspaper reported: The Prime Minister also warned of a big rise in the number of suspects who could attempt a "mass casualty" attack on home soil given there are now five times as many Australians fighting with terror groups in Syria and Iraq as there were in Afghanistan in the past. Of about 30 Australians who fought with terrorists in Afghanistan, 25 returned home and two thirds of that group were later involved in domestic terrorism, the government said. "If we see anything like the same ratios in respect of people coming back from Syria and Iraq, the potential for terrorism in this country has substantially increased," Mr Abbott warned. Some key numbers there, like "30" and "25". Smallish numbers you might say. By some accounts as many as 150 Australians may now be serving other interests than our national interest in war zones overseas. Which is not a big proportion of the broader Australian population, nor even a big share of our Muslim head count of 480,000 or so. But perhaps 150 misguided jihadis pose a sufficient risk to merit turning a nation's notion of privacy on its head, enough of a threat to expose every Australian's life on the phone and online, to reverse the onus of legal proof and all the rest of it. Perhaps. Acts of random and bloody terror are not, after all, labor intensive. It takes no more than one malevolent sociopath to bear all this out, to make good the Government's worst fear, to deliver on its promise. It's all a bit woolly, but then this is national security, an area of public life in which we extend our Government a considerable benefit of the doubt. We take it on trust that their anxieties, more often alluded to than made plain (because you know, national security), are the real deal. We presume that when they say they are in receipt of credible evidence that they are in fact in receipt of credible evidence, despite the occasional episodes that provide credible evidence to the contrary. And there have been times, not so far past, when claims have flown ahead of substance but still been believed, with appalling and deadly consequence. As prime minister John Howard once put it: Iraq has a usable chemical and biological weapons capability which has included recent production of chemical and biological agents; Iraq continues to work on developing nuclear weapons. All key aspects - research and development, production and weaponisation - of Iraq's offensive biological weapons program are active and most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War in 1991. Several tens of thousands died proving that hypothesis wrong, a toll with which makes the current threat of data retention and a beefed up surveillance state look meek by comparison. The Government's call is the same one though: to be concerned if not slightly alarmed at the menace within, and to take them at their word; this time with the catchy embellishment that we ought toe the line and surrender our metadata as dutiful members of Team Australia. We might feel happier about the privacy shakedown if the ministers in charge - who presumably have thought this through, or at least compared notes between radio interviews - could make something even approaching sense. Instead we are left with the likes of this from the Attorney-General as he attempted just yesterday to calm our nerves on Government access to our internet use: "We're not tracking the websites you visit, only the web addresses," he told Sky News. Students of addled obfuscation as a refined form of political discourse would be well advised to watch the entire interview linked above. It is a masterwork. The full policy detail, Senator Brandis explained, is a work in progress. Social media: Well that's under discussion. Phone calls? No more information than is collected now for the purposes of billing. By some suppliers. I think. We shall see. We should also forgive the PM a certain haziness on these issues bordering as they do on the technical; this was never his strong suit. As Mr Abbott told Kerry O'Brien back in 2010 when discussing his misgivings over the mooted NBN, "I'm no Bill Gates here and I don't claim to be any kind of tech head in all of this." And so it was that through yesterday he assured us that: Liberty vs security The crux of the privacy concerns over mandatory data retention is this: knowing that someone might be watching makes us act as if someone is watching, writes Matthew Beard. "It is not what you're doing on the internet, it's the sites you're visiting." Alternatively: "It's not the content, it's just where you have been, so to speak." Which is to say: "We are not seeking content, we are seeking metadata." Or to put that another way: "Metadata is the material on the front of the envelope, and the contents of the letter will remain private." And with that metaphor the PM may have delivered inspiration to thousands who, confronted by the rather grim promise of unprecedented state intrusion into their phone calls, their physical location, their email and browsing history, may soon opt to buy typewriters. Or pens. And stamps for the ensuing envelopes, thus denying any civil servant without access to a kettle everything but the obvious metadata. But remember, Team Australia: there is no privacy in team. Jonathan Green hosts Sunday Extra on Radio National and is the former editor of The Drum. View his full profile here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If I was a major crime figure, paedophile, or terrorist, or even aspiring to be, (which, fortunately for me, I'm not, or I wouldn't be writing this) I'd be extremely wary of using the internet, or mobile phones, even landlines, except for perfectly innocuous, everyday type communications.. I suppose I could use it more safely and anonymously at the airport, (not an internet cafe) on a notebook, tablet, or laptop, but I'd probably put it on an encrypted data stick as a file, to send the bulk of it, and receive most replies that way. I'm not too sure about Virtual Private Networks, and how safe (or not) they are, nor of the benefits of using proxies, but I'm informed that the computers we buy here have inbuilt security deficiencies in their software that an expert could drive a truck through. Would skyping at an airport be more secure than mobile phones? And they say ignorance is bliss; I don't think so. Am I being too paranoid? Maybe not, in light of recent events.
×