Army Research Office’s bankrolling of ‘emotional contagion’ study scrubbed from Cornell press release
-BBC Reporter: Google Moving to “Suppress Legitimate Journalism”
-Impeach Obama Protester Charged for Flying Infowars, Gadsden Flag
-TSA Plans “Enhanced Security” for Fourth of July Travelers
July 2, 2014 by Paul Joseph Watson
Was there a cover-up surrounding the Pentagon’s direct funding of Facebook’s notorious mass psychological study in order to conceal the fact that the experiment’s true purpose was part of preparations to manipulate public opinion in times of civil unrest?
It now appears as though information indicating that the Department of Defense bankrolled the experiment was scrubbed from an online press release by Cornell University in order to hide the connection.
Here’s what we know for a fact to be true. Facebook’s mass psychological study, which proved that altering a user’s timeline feed was a successful method of causing emotional “contagion” to spread through the social network, was conducted in part by Cornell University’s Jeffrey T. Hancock, who was listed as one of the study’s authors.
Hancock is also involved with the Pentagon’s Minerva Initiative, which recently hit the headlines for its role in bankrolling a program which provides “funding to universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world.”
However, an even more creepy connection between the Facebook experiment and the Pentagon has emerged after it was revealed that the original press release from Cornell highlighting the study included a passage at the bottom which read, “The study was funded in part by the James S. McDonnell Foundation and the Army Research Office.”
According to the Army Research Office’s official website, “Basic research proposals from educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and private industry are competitively selected and funded,” as part of the Pentagon’s mission of “combating terrorism and new emerging threats.”
However, the text indicating the Facebook study was bankrolled by the Pentagon was later scrubbed from the website, with Cornell claiming it had made a mistake, an explanation that Jay Rosen, Journalism Professor at NYU, finds highly dubious.
“Why do I call this strange? Any time my work has been featured in an NYU press release, the PR officers involved show me drafts and coordinate closely with me, for the simple reason that they don’t want to mischaracterize scholarly work,” writes Rosen.
“So now we have to believe that Cornell’s Professor of Communication and Information Science, Jeffrey Hancock, wasn’t shown or didn’t read the press release in which he is quoted about the study’s results (weird) or he did read it but somehow failed to notice that it said his study was funded by the Army when it actually wasn’t (weirder).”
“I think I would notice if my university was falsely telling the world that my research was partially funded by the Pentagon… but, hey, maybe there’s an innocent and boring explanation that I am overlooking.”
The Pentagon’s involvement with a Facebook study which would have given the DoD a revealing insight into how to manipulate public dissatisfaction via social media during potential civil unrest would not be a surprising move given the Army’s obsession with anticipating domestic disorder.
As we previously highlighted, a 2008 study by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Institute warned that the United States may experience massive civil unrest in the wake of a series of crises which it has termed “strategic shock.” The recent Minerva Initiative project to predict disorder and its link to Facebook researcher Jeffrey T. Hancock is also a tantalizing connection.
“So it seems that Facebook and the U.S. military are likely working together to study civil unrest and work on ways to manipulate the masses into apathy or misguided feelings of contentment in the face of continued banker and oligarch theft. This is extremely disturbing, but this whole affair is highly troubling in spite of this,” writes Michael Krieger.
Related
http://www.infowars.com/army-%E2%80%98strategic-shock%E2%80%99-report-says-troops-may-be-needed-to-quell-us-civil-unrest/
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB890.pdf
http://www.infowars.com/cover-up-surrounding-pentagon-funding-of-facebooks-psychological-experiment/
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BBC Reporter: Google Moving to “Suppress Legitimate Journalism”
“Right to be forgotten” ruling threatens to “curb freedom of expression”
BBC Reporter: Google Moving to “Suppress Legitimate Journalism”
July 3, 2014 by Paul Joseph Watson
BBC economics editor Robert Peston warns that Google’s implementation of the controversial “right to be forgotten” ruling is working to “suppress legitimate journalism” after one of his articles about Merrill Lynch boss Stan O’Neal was scrubbed from the search engine.
A recent ruling in the European Court of Justice mandated that Google must delete “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” data when it receives a request to do so, which could open the floodgates for powerful individuals, corporations and institutions to hide past evidence of wrongdoing in a chilling throwback to George Orwell’s “memory hole.”
Peston complains about how Google notified the BBC that one of his 2007 articles about former Merrill Lynch boss Stan O’Neal’s role in the financial collapse had been deleted from search results for Google users in Europe.
Peston questioned how the article represented “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” information, stating, “There is an argument that in removing the blog, Google is confirming the fears of many in the industry that the “right to be forgotten” will be abused to curb freedom of expression and to suppress legitimate journalism that is in the public interest.”
Peston later updated his piece to note that it could have been an individual in the comments section who flagged the article for deletion by Google, a prospect that threatens even more widespread ‘disappearing’ of news articles.
Google has already received over 50,000 requests to remove articles from its European search results in the few days since the ruling was implemented and has hired “an army of para legals” to deal with the influx.
The London Guardian was also informed that six of their articles had vanished down the memory hole, with the newspaper’s special projects editor James Ball warning , “there will likely be many more as the rich and powerful look to scrub up their online images, doubtless with the help of a new wave of “reputation management” firms.”
Ball says that editorial decisions belong with publishers, not Google, and that news outlets need to fight back against what represents a challenge to press freedom.
As we have previously highlighted, Google and its subsidiary YouTube routinely acquiesce to requests from authorities to remove information, including on the basis of dubious justifications such as if material contains “government criticism.”
One such example was You Tube’s compliance with a request from the British government to censor footage of the British Constitution Group’s Lawful Rebellion protest, during which they attempted to conduct a civil arrest of Judge Michael Peake at Birkenhead county court.
Government orders to remove content from Google have spiked over the last 18 months, with requests surging by 26% in the final months of 2012.
http://www.infowars.com/bbc-reporter-google-moving-to-suppress-legitimate-journalism/
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Impeach Obama Protester Charged for Flying Infowars, Gadsden Flag
http://www.infowars.com/impeach-obama-protestor-charged-for-flying-infowars-gadsden-flag/
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TSA Plans “Enhanced Security” for Fourth of July Travelers
U.S. worried about terrorists it created in Syria coming home
July 3, 2014 by Kurt Nimmo
Saudi and CIA supported terrorists are determined to disrupt the Fourth of July holiday.
Jabhat al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) pose a threat to aviation with “stealth” bombs, according to Jeh Johnson and the Department of Homeland Security.
Stealth bombs are allegedly the work of Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, a Saudi with a dismal track record. He is supposedly responsible for the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 fizzle bomb caper carried out by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a witless patsy who was allowed to keep his U.S. entry visa as the result of a national security override. Hassan al-Asiri also allegedly made the bombs discovered on cargo planes in Dubai. Both bungled plots were attributed to AQAP and Anwar al-Awlaki, the former FBI operative who dined at the Pentagon just months after 9/11.
“DHS continually assesses the global threat environment and reevaluates the measures we take to promote aviation security,” Johnson said earlier this week. “As part of this ongoing process, I have directed TSA to implement enhanced security measures in the coming days at certain overseas airports with direct flights to the United States. We will work to ensure these necessary steps pose as few disruptions to travelers as possible.”
“Aviation security includes a number of measures, both seen and unseen, informed by an evolving environment. As always, we will continue to adjust security measures to promote aviation security without unnecessary disruptions to the traveling public,” Johnson added.
In the past, “enhanced security” at airports has resulted in “enhanced pat downs,” in other words the groping of private parts by TSA agents. In 2012, the agency was unable to sufficiently explain why it had switched to more intensive pat downs after thousands of complaints by travelers.
Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove expressed “great concern” about the potential of a terrorist attack from U.S.-trained and Gulf monarchy funded mercenaries operating in Syria.
“The flow from western Iraq and eastern Syria into Europe is a very distinct problem, and we are working to address that flow,” Breedlove said.
Breedlove, of course, did not mention that the United States and its partners in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey are directly responsible for the “flow” now supposedly threatening America.
“The United States government knowingly contributed to the territorial gains of radical Islamists allied to our gravest enemy in an effort to hijack the Syrian Revolution and install Sharia Law in a very rich and very powerful country,” The Washington Post admitted in December.
http://www.infowars.com/tsa-plans-enhanced-security-for-fourth-of-july-travelers/
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Visiting Websites About Privacy Gets You Put in an NSA Database of “Extremists”
Merely expressing an interest in anonymity makes you a target
July 3, 2014 by Paul Joseph Watson
Searching for online articles about privacy is enough to get someone put in an NSA database of “extremists,” according to new revelations published today.
In an article for German news outlet Tagesschau (translation here), Lena Kampf, Jacob Appelbaum and John Goetz reveal how the NSA’s “deep packet inspection” rules, which it uses to determine who to target for deep surveillance, include looking for web users who search for articles about Tor and Tails, an anonymous browser and a privacy-friendly operating system.
Those whose Internet traffic patterns suggest merely an interest in Tor or Tails are immediately put on a list of “extremists,” as is anyone who actually uses the Tor network.
“Tor and Tails have been part of the mainstream discussion of online security, surveillance and privacy for years. It’s nothing short of bizarre to place people under suspicion for searching for these terms,” writes Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow, adding that the NSA’s goal is, “to split the entire population of the Internet into “people who have the technical know-how to be private” and “people who don’t” and then capture all the communications from the first group.”
The revelation once again highlights the fact that the NSA’s data dragnet has little to do with catching terrorists and everything to do with targeting anyone who values their right to privacy. The mass collection of such information only serves to make it easier for actual bad guys to evade detection since the federal agency is building such vast and unwieldy databases.
Earlier this week, journalist Glenn Greenwald announced that he was set to release new information based on leaked documents obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden which would reveal which individuals and institutions were the targets of NSA spying.
However, at the last minute Greenwald said the story would be postponed as a result of the U.S. government, “suddenly began making new last-minute claims which we intend to investigate before publishing.”
http://www.infowars.com/visiting-websites-about-privacy-gets-you-put-in-an-nsa-database-of-extremists/
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Whistleblower Site: War in July if Snowden Docs Aren’t Released
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