Tag Archives: TicTok

Mar 10 2023

AI Surveillance Defiant Clothing


Armstrong Economics Blog/Police State Re-Posted Mar 10, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

https://youtube.com/watch?v=PW2YcrOOPUc%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Fashion trends change to reflect new societal norms and self-expression. Today’s societal norm is constant government spying and mass data collection under the premise that we are all criminals who may defy our failing governments. One may first think of China and its vast array of CCTV cameras that are analyzed by Artificial Intelligence software to compile individual behavioral data that can be used to control the population. “Whoever owns enough data and computing ability can predict problems, predict the future, and judge the future,” Alibaba’s Jack Ma was quoted as saying. As the desire for privacy becomes a cultural norm across the West, fashion designers are finding a way to produce clothing that fulfills this need.

They say fashion in Milan always makes its way to the Americas. An Italian startup company called  Cap_able has developed a clothing line to prevent AI technology from accurately identifying individuals. The company would like to “educate the population on the importance of privacy and human rights by addressing the problem of misuse of facial recognition technology.” There are similar clothing brands that celebrities notoriously use to prevent the paparazzi from taking their photograph. However, this new genre of clothing is designed to confuse sophisticated AI software. This is not an attempt to shield criminals, as AI spying software is intended to target the entire population. The ethical question arises of whether the state has the right to track its citizens. “The protection of one’s privacy or the community: what comes first? However, isn’t the protection of the community born from the necessity to protect the rights of the individual?” the company questioned.

Researchers at Harvard and MIT published an article in Brookings entitled “Exporting the surveillance state via trade in AI.” Once the government or companies collect this data, they can freely export it. The study found that China is currently the world leader in facial recognition technology and has exported over 201 deals to use its programs. The US is second behind China with 128 deals to export facial recognition technology. The published study noted that AI recognition software could “undermine democracies, enhance autocrats’ aims of social control, and empower “surveillance capitalists.”’

The government can recognize your daily whereabouts and behavioral patterns to predict what you may do or where you may go. Social scores, as seen in China, seem far-fetched in the West, but look what happened during the power grab that was COVID when countless countries imposed QR codes to restrict the freedom of movement. Credit scores were not developed in the US until 1958 and were intended to predict whether a borrower could repay their loan. The idea of a credit score would seem far-fetched to people living just a few years prior, and now that same score can vary due to simply purchasing a car or looking up your score.

So AI defiant clothing may serve a purpose in the not-so-distant future if it actually works. It would come to the surprise of none if governments outlawed this clothing or simply updated their software to bypass the designs. There’s a chance that this could simply be a gimmick, as advanced AI can learn to detect and counteract patterns. You cannot hide from Big Brother.

Feb 25 2023

Three Random Fires Happen at Three Separate Oil Refineries in Mexico on Same Day


Posted originally on the CTH on February 24, 2023 | Sundance 

Oh boy, FOR ME there isn’t enough tinfoil folks.   Then again, FOR US, we have previously been outlining the “watch Mexico in 2023” oil production and energy issue for several months now.

Three oil refinery fires at three different facilities on the same day… isn’t good.  Because it just seems to be too coincidental to be coincidental.

MEXICO CITY, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Three fires broke out on Thursday at different facilities in Mexico and the United States operated by state-owned Mexican oil company Pemex, leaving five missing and eight others injured as of Thursday evening. (read more)

Making tinfoil matters worse, I previously emphasized, “The U.S. and Canada are going to push every possible political pressure point in order to force Mexico to change energy policy.  The stakes are high. It is going to be remarkable to watch what happens as this battle takes place. Watch Mexico in 2023.” {LINK}  A few weeks later, with more data assembled, I added, “I’m not talking about little threats, or ordinary economic pressure points; watch closely how the U.S threats are established.  The ideologues around Joe Biden will seek to destroy AMLO if he does not go along with the energy change effort. {LINK}

The origin of the issue traces back to July of 2022, when Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador visited the White House {Go Deep}.  During a jaw dropping statement delivered publicly from the Oval Office, AMLO told Joe Biden he was not going to join the U.S. and Canada in shutting down oil use and refining capacity for low cost gasoline:

July 13, 2022 – […] AMLO: “Therefore, we decided that while we’re waiting for prices of gasoline to go down in the United States — and I hope that Congress approves or passes your proposal, Mr. President —

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  It has gone down for 30 days in a row.  (Laughs.)

PRESIDENT LÓPEZ OBRADOR:  (As interpreted.)  — of lowering — lowering prices, yes.  That’s it.

In the meantime, while we’re waiting for prices to go down, we have decided that it was necessary for us to allow Americans who live close to the borderline so that they could go and get their gasoline on the Mexican side at lower prices.

And right now, a lot of the drivers — a lot of the Americans — are going to Mexico, to the Mexican border, to get their gasoline.

However, we could increase our inventories immediately.  We are committed to guaranteeing twice as much supply of fuel.  That would be considerable support. 

Right now, a gallon of regular costs $4.78 average on this side of the border.  And in our territory, $3.12. 

Let me clarify something, and I also want to take advantage of this opportunity to thank you, Mr. President.  Most of this gasoline, we are producing it in the Pemex refinery that you allowed us to buy in Deer Park, Texas. (read more)

The nub of it is… Mexico was not going to permit gasoline prices to skyrocket as they have done in the U.S. due to the policies of Joe Biden.  This creates a problem.

The climate change and energy ideologues within the Biden administration are doing everything within their power to raise energy prices, specifically oil and gasoline.  This is part of the strategy to make the green new deal energy programs hold financial viability as an alternative.

Part of the policy is to drain the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve, then limit -by regulation- current oil exploration (deny leases), and further block expansion of oil refineries in the U.S (cancel permits).

Mexican President AMLO was not playing that game.  He could see what the Biden administration was doing.  AMLO read his prepared statement in the oval office to put a hard no on his participation.  He was going to continue oil production and increased oil refinery development in order to keep gasoline prices low.   Again, this put AMLO on the wrong side of Team Windmill.

We warned that the stakes in this energy showdown were so severe nothing would be off the table of potential.

July 2022 – AMLO takes a stand.

Nov 2022 – An epic battle is looming.

Dec 2022 – Mexico unveils North American Leadership Summit Agenda

Dec 2022 – Team Windmill calls AMLO an “energy nationalist,” then threatens peso.

Continuing to apply the pressure, during the North American Leadership Summit, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm tweeted:

There has been a full court press toward Mexico to change their energy policy specifically around oil development and gasoline manufacturing.

Suddenly, against this backdrop, and with our warnings as a guidepost… THIS HAPPENS:

MEXICO CITY, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Three fires broke out on Thursday at different facilities in Mexico and the United States operated by state-owned Mexican oil company Pemex, leaving five missing and eight others injured as of Thursday evening.

Five people were unaccounted for after a fire at a storage facility in the state of Veracruz that had sent three others to a hospital, the company said in a statement.

The cause of that fire, which had been put out, had not yet been determined, the company added.

Pemex confirmed in a later statement on Thursday evening that a separate fire at its Minatitlan refinery, also in Veracruz, was under control after injuring five people.

That fire had not interrupted the refinery’s operations, Pemex said, adding that “it is presumed that the possible cause of the fire was product runoff on a hot surface.”

A third fire was also reported Thursday by a community alert at a unit at Pemex’s Deer Park, Texas, oil refinery. It later updated with an all-clear notification. (more)

Now, who or what would hold the motive to see oil production and gasoline refining in Mexico targeted?

Feb 16 2023

JFK, Nixon & Trump


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy Re-Posted Feb 16, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Despite the hatred that many pour all over Trump, they really should stop and think for a moment, that they have been subjected to brainwashing. I have stated before that I was invited to a dinner in March of 2020 at Mara largo where I was actually impressed by then-President Trump. He said he wanted to bring the troops home from Afghanistan because he was sick and tired of having to write letters to the parents of solider’s killed over there. He bluntly stated that he had no idea why were there. They were fighting over borders for 1,000 years. “What difference will we make?”

There is a common thread between JFK, Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump – all three stood against the Deep State. The first was assassinated, the second was set up with CIA operatives getting “caught” breaking ton the Watergate building, and the third was probably removed from office by rigged elections and now desperately trying to accuse him of anything to prevent him from running against in 2024.

John Bolton was against withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Bolton has been a hardnosed Neocon and then lied to the people not disclosing that Trump had a whole team to figure out how to exit Afghanistan that Biden dismissed and then claimed the same end result would have happened under Donald Trump. I really do not know how these people can look at themselves in the mirror.

JFK and Trump were both against war. Both were conveniently removed from office. In the case of Kennedy, they put forth Oswald and linked him to Russia, but then conveniently had him assassinated to prevent any trial when today everyone knows that the CIA was behind it. The recent tapes have revealed that Richard Nixon bluntly said to the head of the CIA, I know who killed John. The CIA used Watergate to discredit Nixon and drive him from office also because he wanted to end the Vietnam War and understood the CIA’s role.

Then Trump wanted to exist in Afghanistan. But Iran shot down an unmanned drone and Bolton wanted Trump to launch an attack on Iran. Trump refused to retaliate for an unmanned drone. The CIA asked Trump to extend the deadline for their release of the Kenndy assassination files until after the election. He agreed, and they knew Trump would lose the election. Biden then granted them the right to withhold the most critical files that expose the real source – the CIA.

The Deep Stated wanted to kill Americans and blame Cuba to justify an invasion. Kennedy rejected that proposal. This, he had to go. How dare he think he can tell the Deep State what to do!

All three presidents posed a serious threat to the Deep State. Forget the hatred of Trump that they have drummed into the heads of so many. Open your eyes. This is biggest that Trump and your hatred blinds you to what is really going on.

Feb 16 2023

War & Capital Flows


Armstrong Economics Blog/Capital Flow Re-Posted Feb 16, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Marty, I attended your coming out WEC in Philadelphia in 2011. Just about everyone I spoke with said the same thing. They all showed up to make sure it was really you and not some government stooge pretending to be you.

I must say, when you put up the war cycle, I thought it was interesting and everyone respected your work so we listened. At the time it was perhaps a curiosity and would be something we would watch on TV instead of the Oscars. Here we are. In the middle of this mess. I can now see how they used that tactic to demonize Trump to get Biden elected if he was really elected.

Now every person who voted for Biden has voted for World War III. They bought the hatred of Trump to remove him when he was like JFK and would never have agreed to war as you said when you went to dinner at Mara Largo. The recent tapes show that Nixon confronted the CIA for killing JFK. The very people who did the Watergate break-in were operatives for the CIA to make sure Nixon would be removed.

Our leaders really want war. I would never have thought your war model would predict that we would be the aggressor. Our government lies about everything. Why? Do they hate humanity that much?

GP

REPLY: I appreciate what you are saying. The Deep State has always had its agenda and it was always just about them. Never in my wildest dreams looking at these forecasts a decade ago did I ever contemplate that we would be the aggressor. The Neocons just want to annihilate every Russian. That is all they think about. That is why John McCain handed Hillary’s fake dossier to James Comey at the FBI. They were two Neocons and always wanted war with Russia. It was Hillary that conditioned the Democrats to think that Russia was the enemy and they rigged the election for Trump.

You see both Democrats and Republicans cheering war now. There is no stopping the warmongering. All we can do is prepare, and understand how the capital will shift as the arrays will give us the timing. This will enable us to position ourselves to make it to the other side of 2032. Fortunately, Socrates was constructed using the raw data to provide a picture of global capital flows.

That was why I was called in by the Brady Commission back in 1987 for as you can see, the G5 was taking the dollar down for trade by 40% and then foreign investors sell US assets for they will lose on the FX exchange. Those morons every understood capital flows or currency.

When again they were trying to talk the dollar down in 1997 for trade purposes, I warned them they would unleash another crash making the same mistake as before. They at least listened and backed off.

Dec 29 2022

Assassin Who Killed Shinzo Abe Cleared to Stand Trial


Posted originally on the CTH on December 29, 2022 | Sundance 

One of the greatest losses of 2022 was the assassination of former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, a man beloved for his dedication to his country.  At the time of his murder Abe was leading a movement within government to reform the Japanese constitution and permit the assembly of a modern military as a bulwark against the rising influence of China.

During a rally to support reform candidates, Abe was assassinated by a young man named Yamagami Tetsuya.  Tetsuya was a former member of the maritime defense forces where he served for three years; he used a homemade black powder shotgun to kill Abe. After his capture Tetsuya was put through a psychological evaluation to determine his competency to stand trial.  After an evaluation investigators and prosecutors have determined Yamagami Tetsuya will face indictment for the murder of Shinzo Abe.

Japan – Investigative sources say Japanese prosecutors have decided to indict the suspect in the shooting death of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, based on the results of psychiatric evaluation.

Public prosecutors in Nara, western Japan, sent Yamagami Tetsuya to a detention house to determine whether he can be held criminally responsible, following his arrest in July.  The evaluation was conducted by interviewing the suspect about his family environment, his relationship with his mother and other matters.

Investigative sources say the prosecutors also determined that Yamagami is mentally fit to be tried, as he built handmade guns and carefully prepared for the attack by checking Abe’s campaign schedule.

The period of the suspect’s detention for mental evaluation will expire on January 10, and the prosecutors are expected to indict him by January 13, when his period of detention ends.

Yamagami fatally shot the former prime minister on July 8 during an election campaign speech in Nara.  The suspect reportedly told police that he was motivated by a grudge against the religious group widely known as the Unification Church. He says he shot Abe because he believed the former prime minister had close ties with the group. He also claimed his mother’s huge donations to the group left his family in financial ruin. (more)

Shinzo Abe’s leadership and influence in Japan is sorely missed.

1954 – 2022

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was a transformative figure in Japanese politics.  A devout nationalist with a humble demeanor, Abe shifted the national sentiment from post war apology toward an outlook of pride in Japanese culture, work ethic and traditional value.  He was beloved by conservatives and patriots in Japan and disliked by leftists and globalists.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Donald Trump were friends before Mr. Trump entered politics.  First lady Melania Trump and Mrs Akie Abe were also friends, and the two couples spent a great deal of time together before and during President Trump’s term in office.

Dec 28 2022

Interesting on Many Levels, Mom Blocked from Taking Daughter to Radio City Music Hall Event as Result of Facial Recognition and Blacklist


Posted originally on the CTH on December 27, 2022 | Sundance

Obviously, New York City contains one of the most widespread surveillance networks as a result of DHS funding and security ‘threats’.  However, the use of facial recognition software as a security feature is not as well known in the U.S. as it has been described in China.

A mom was taking her daughter to a show at Radio City Music Hall when she was pulled aside by security and told she would not be permitted admission.  The lady works for a law firm currently in litigation with the venue’s parent company, Madison Square Garden Entertainment.  All employees of the law firm are blacklisted.

Comrade citizens, what I find interesting about the story is the use of facial recognition to identify the woman and block her entry.  It doesn’t take a deep thinker to see where this type of targeting mechanism can be deployed along ideological lines.

NEW YORK – A recent incident at Radio City Music Hall involving the mother of a Girl Scout is shedding light on the growing controversy of facial recognition, as critics claim it is being used to target perceived enemies — by one of the most famous companies in the country.

Kelly Conlon and her daughter came to New York City the weekend after Thanksgiving as part of a Girl Scout field trip to Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular show. But while her daughter, other members of the Girl Scout troop and their mothers got to go enjoy the show, Conlon wasn’t allowed to do so.

That’s because to Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Conlon isn’t just any mom. They had identified and zeroed in on her, as security guards approached her right as he got into the lobby. (read more)

No soup for you!

Oh, but wait… It gets better.

WATCH:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wHFD5ivYhfM%3Ffeature%3Doembed

As with all things in our rapid technological era, you do not have to squint to see the horizon and accept that eventually this process will automate.

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1607216009152237571?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1607216009152237571%7Ctwgr%5E170c167e9cf479bb15dc9b8f3a7d66463322e8b4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconservativetreehouse.com%2Fblog%2F2022%2F12%2F27%2Finteresting-on-many-levels-mom-blocked-from-taking-daughter-to-radio-city-music-hall-event-as-result-of-facial-recognition-and-blacklist%2F

However, as this process is created, it is worth considering that you are being quietly changed from an individual person to a product. Some are starting to worry in the beta test:

[…] “you must become an object with attributes sitting in a database. Instead of roaming around anonymously making all sorts of transactions without the government’s knowledge, Australians find themselves passing through ‘gates’. …

All product-based systems have these gates to control the flow of stock and weed out errors. It is how computers see things. The more gates, the more clarity.

You are updating the government like a parcel pings Australia Post on its way to a customer. If a fault is found, automatic alerts are issued and you are stopped from proceeding. In New South Wales, this comes in the form of a big red ‘X’ on the myGov vaccine passport app (if you managed to link your Medicare account without smashing the phone to bits).

Gate-keeping systems have been adapted from retail and transformed into human-based crowd solutions to micromanage millions of lives with the same ruthless efficiency as barcodes tracking stock. There is no nuance or humanity in this soulless digital age. Barcodes are binary. Good – bad. Citizen or dissident.

Even if you have all the required government attributes to pass through the gates – two vaccines, six boosters, and a lifelong subscription to Microsoft – something could go wrong. If your data fails the scan, you’ll slip into digital purgatory and become an error message. (read more)

It could be problematic if your status fails to register correctly, or if the system identifies some form of non-compliance that will block you from entry. Then again, that’s what beta tests are for, working out all these techno bugs and stuff. Not to worry…. move along….

Perhaps you attempt to purchase dog food and get denied entry into Pet Smart because you didn’t renew the car registration.  Or perhaps you are blocked from entry because you forgot to change the oil on the leased vehicle you drive and Toyota has this weird agreement with some retail consortium.   You head to the oil change place that conveniently pops up in the citizen compliance App –it’s only two blocks away– they clear the alert after they do the oil and you are gateway compliant again.

Missed your booster shot? We’re sorry citizen, your bank account is frozen until your compliance is restored… please proceed to the nearest vaccination office as displayed conveniently on your cell phone screen to open access to all further gates (checkpoints)…. tap to continue…

Dec 27 2022

Twitter File Release #11 – The Government Censorship Campaign to Control COVID-19 Information


Posted originally on the CTH on December 26, 2022 | Sundance

Twitter File release #11 hits on the long-anticipated information surrounding how the platform was instructed by various government agencies to remove content adverse to the expressed opinion of CDC, HHS, and DHS officials. [Release #11 Here]

The first installment of the Twitter COVID-19 files comes from David Zweig, a writer for New York Mag, New York Times, The Atlantic and other publications.  Because the U.S. Government COVID-19 information control operation was so extensive, there will likely be several Twitter File releases related to the SARS-CoV2 pandemic issue.  However, in this first release Zweig starts to build the story of how the CDC and HHS set the foundation for the echo-chamber that ended with Twitter executives running amok.

[Twitter File #11 – Release Here]

As Zweig begins his review he noted, “The United States government pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to elevate certain content and suppress other content about Covid-19.”  While the Trump administration was worried about information that would create panic, like runs on grocery stores, the Biden administration was more focused on content control to push the overall narrative about fearing COVID and the vaccination demand.

“When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on “anti-vaxxer accounts.” Especially Alex Berenson,” Zweig writes as he then begins to give examples of various medical professionals that were targeted by the White House and the platform.

The outcome of the HHS and CDC push circled around politics, which, when combined with the ideological perspectives of the Twitter executives, inevitably ended up making COVID-19 a political issue on the platform.  Critics of COVID-19 policy were blocked, censored, removed and restricted.  Advocates of government policy were enhanced, amplified, promoted and enlarged.

The scale of the issue meant supportive algorithms based on key words needed to be created, and the scope of the information battle necessitated the hiring of contractors.  As Zweig notes, “contractors in places like the Philippines, also moderated content. They were given decision trees to aid in the process, but tasking non experts to adjudicate tweets on complex topics like myocarditis and mask efficacy data was destined for a significant error rate.”

The Biden administration wanted to use fear as a weapon to control public opinion of COVID-19.  The aligned ideological Twitter executives also wanted to assist using fear and fought to controversialize and target any voice who downplayed the fear of covid.  One of those pragmatic voices was President Trump.

President Trump sent out this Tweet in 2020 which was not well received by former FBI General Counsel, now Twitter General Counsel, Jim Baker:

Apparently, the phrase “don’t be afraid of Covid” was triggering for those who wanted fear and panic to be the prevalent perspective on the virus.

Twitter General Counsel Jim Baker asked the head of Twitter’s censorship group, Yoel Roth, why wasn’t this statement worthy of Donald Trump being removed for violating the Twitter Covid policy?

As you can see, Jim Baker wanted to censor the optimistic approach of President Trump in order to amplify the fearful and looming message.

The motive of Jim Baker, while undefined by Mr. Zweig, is transparent in hindsight.

The platform officials and the various officials in media, were promoting the fear and worry narrative as part of an election strategy to facilitate mail-in ballots.  COVID-19 was as much, perhaps even more of, an election manipulation tool as it was a virus.

In the rest of the outline Zweig focuses on the professionals who were targeted by the information control campaign. “Twitter made a decision, via the political leanings of senior staff, and govt pressure, that the public health authorities’ approach to the pandemic – prioritizing mitigation over other concerns – was “The Science” . . .
Information that challenged that view, such as showing harms of vaccines, or that could be perceived as downplaying the risks of Covid, especially to children, was subject to moderation, and even suppression. No matter whether such views were correct or adopted abroad.”

The government, media and social media campaign to control information about COVID-19 was never about science or even the virus itself.  The COVID-19 information control operation was always about control over the public.  That campaign became political because the Biden campaign/administration, Democrats, media and the voices in control over social media weaponized it around their political beliefs.

The COVID-19 narrative becomes a tool to achieve a variety of objectives: debate controls; the deployed ‘excuse‘ for a very visible lack of voter enthusiasm for the puppet (Biden); the use of fraudulent ‘mail-in ballots’; the keeping of socially distant physical auditors, etc.  Without COVID as a tool the manufactured process is more difficult. The ‘never let a crisis go to waste‘ strategy includes the creation of a crisis.

The COVID-19 narrative held four primary benefits.  Without COVID weaponized we would not see:

  • (1) Mail-in ballots.  The origination material of the 2020 fraud.
  • (2) Breaking down of alliance-minded gathering and assemblies.  COVID blocked group gatherings to discuss what was around us and stopped us from recognizing the scale of our assembly.  COVID also took down faith-based leadership and church assembly when it was needed most.
  • (3) Spending packages that were really blue state bailouts justified under the auspices of COVID relief.
  • (4) Government providing the crisis solution (and all the ramifications therein).

.

Lastly, we know in hindsight; the 2016 presidential transition team carried a then unknown motive.  Who was it that recommended: Dan Coats (ODNI), Michael Atkinson (ICIG), James Mattis (DoD), Dana Boente (DOJ-NSD then FBI counsel).  Who was the one steering these placements from inside the transition team?

Who was in charge of the transition team and also in charge of the Trump COVID-19 task force?

Dec 27 2022

Elon Musk Tinkering in The Background


Posted originally on the CTH on December 26, 2022 

The issues surrounding Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop are still very opaque and seemingly clouded; however, there does seem to be some clarity surfacing in the bigger picture operation of the social media platform.  Perhaps, just perhaps, we are starting to get a better understanding of how the public opinion control operation was being handled.

(Source Link)

Readers here are very familiar with our researched suspicions of how this interconnected technology system, this weird public-private partnership was being conducted. For quite it has been obvious the various systems to control discussion would need connectivity.

Perhaps Twitter 2.0 is starting to recognize the industrial operation was evolved into a weird system of interconnected networks, necessitated by the larger government need. Whatever the outcome, the basic elements all seem to be aligning in the direction we discussed long ago and, if accurate, the ramifications should soon surface.

With that in mind and accepting that I genuinely do not want to be correct in this because the solution is even more troubling, perhaps it’s worthwhile going back to the original metaphor and see if things continue to make sense.

April 2022 – The metaphorical Jack had a great idea, open a coffee shop where the beverages were free and use internal advertising as the income subsidy to operate the business.  Crowds came for the free coffee, comfy couches, fellowship, conversation and enjoyment.

It didn’t matter where Jack got the coffee, how he paid for it, or didn’t, or what product advertising the customers would be exposed to while there.  Few people thought about such things.  Curiously, it didn’t matter what size the crowd was; in the backroom of Jack’s Coffee Shop they were able to generate massive amounts of never-ending free coffee at extreme scales.

Over time, using the justification of parking lot capacity and township regulations, not everyone would be able to park and enter.  Guards were placed at the entrance to pre-screen customers. A debate began.

Alternative coffee shops opened around town.  It was entirely possible to duplicate Jacks Coffee Shop, yet no one could duplicate the business model for the free coffee.  Indeed, there was something very unique about Jack’s Coffee Shop.  Thus, some underlying suspicions were raised:

The only way Twitter, with 217 million users, could exist as a viable platform is if they had access to tech systems of incredible scale and performance, and those systems were essentially free or very cheap.  The only entity that could possibly provide that level of capacity and scale is the United States Government – combined with a bottomless bank account.  A public-private partnership.

If my hunch is correct, Elon Musk is poised to expose the well-kept secret that most social media platforms are operating on U.S. government tech infrastructure and indirect subsidy.  Let that sink in.

The U.S. technology system, the assembled massive system of connected databases and server networks, is the operating infrastructure that offsets the cost of Twitter to run their own servers and database.  The backbone of Twitter is the United States government.

FREE COFFEE:

♦ June 2013: […] “Cloud computing is one of the core components of the strategy to help the IC discover, access and share critical information in an era of seemingly infinite data.” … “A test scenario described by GAO in its June 2013 bid protest opinion suggests the CIA sought to compare how the solutions presented by IBM and Amazon Web Services (AWS) could crunch massive data sets, commonly referred to as big data.” … “Solutions had to provide a “hosting environment for applications which process vast amounts of information in parallel on large clusters (thousands of nodes) of commodity hardware” using a platform called MapReduce. Through MapReduce, clusters were provisioned for computation and segmentation. Test runs assumed clusters were large enough to process 100 terabytes of raw input data. AWS’ solution received superior marks from CIA procurement officials”… (MORE)

♦ November 2013: […] “Twitter closed its first day of trading on Nov. 7, 2013, at $44.90 a share. In the years since then, it briefly traded above $70, but more recently, it has struggled.”

Jack’s free coffee shop has been for sale, but there’s no viable business model in the private sector.  No one has wanted to purchase Twitter – it is simply unsustainable; the data processing costs exceed the capacity of the platform to generate revenue – until now….

And suddenly, the people who work in the backroom of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop don’t want Jack to sell.

Twitter is not making a decision to decline the generous offer by Elon Musk because of stewardship or fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.  The financials of Twitter as a non-viable business model highlight the issue of money being irrelevant.  Twitter does not and cannot make money.  Growing Twitter only means growing an expense. Growing Twitter does not grow revenue enough to offset the increase in expense.

There is only one way for Twitter to exist as a viable entity, people are now starting to realize this.

What matters to the people behind Twitter, the people who are subsidizing the ability of Twitter to exist, is control over the global conversation.

Control of the conversation is priceless to the people who provide the backbone for Twitter.

Once people realize who is subsidizing Twitter, everything changes.

That’s the fight. (more)

♦ 2021, Public-Private Partnership – The modern Fourth Branch of Government is only possible because of a Public-Private partnership with the intelligence apparatus. You do not have to take my word for it, the partnership is so brazen they have made public admissions.

The biggest names in Big Tech announced in June their partnership with the Five Eyes intelligence network, ultimately controlled by the NSA, to: (1) monitor all activity in their platforms; (2) identify extremist content; (3) look for expressions of Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE); and then, (4) put the content details into a database where the Five Eyes intelligence agencies (U.K., U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand) can access it.

Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft are all partnering with the intelligence apparatus. It might be difficult to fathom how openly they admit this, but they do. Look at this sentence in the press release (emphasis mine):

[…] “The Group will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.”

Think about that sentence structure very carefully. They are “adding to” the preexisting list…. admitting the group (aka Big Tech) already have access to the the intelligence-sharing database… and also admitting there is a preexisting list created by the Five Eyes consortium.

Obviously, who and what is defined as “extremist content” will be determined by the Big Tech insiders themselves. This provides a gateway, another plausible deniability aspect, to cover the Intelligence Branch from any oversight.

When the Intelligence Branch within government wants to conduct surveillance and monitor American citizens, they run up against problems due to the Constitution of the United States. They get around those legal limitations by sub-contracting the intelligence gathering, the actual data-mining, and allowing outside parties (contractors) to have access to the central database.

The government cannot conduct electronic searches (4th amendment issue) without a warrant; however, private individuals can search and report back as long as they have access. What is being admitted is exactly that preexisting partnership. The difference is that Big Tech will flag the content from within their platforms, and now a secondary database filled with the extracted information will be provided openly for the Intelligence Branch to exploit.

The volume of metadata captured by the NSA has always been a problem because of the filters needed to make the targeting useful. There is a lot of noise in collecting all data that makes the parts you really want to identify more difficult to capture. This new admission puts a new massive filtration system in the metadata that circumvents any privacy protections for individuals.

Previously, the Intelligence Branch worked around the constitutional and unlawful search issue by using resources that were not in the United States. A domestic U.S. agency, working on behalf of the U.S. government, cannot listen on your calls without a warrant. However, if the U.S. agency sub-contracts to say a Canadian group, or foreign ally, the privacy invasion is no longer legally restricted by U.S. law.

What was announced in June 2021 is an alarming admission of a prior relationship along with open intent to define their domestic political opposition as extremists.

July 26, 2021, (Reuters) – A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the biggest U.S. tech companies including Facebook (FB.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) is significantly expanding the types of extremist content shared between firms in a key database, aiming to crack down on material from white supremacists and far-right militias, the group told Reuters.

Until now, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s (GIFCT) database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a United Nations list and so has largely consisted of content from Islamist extremist organizations such as Islamic State, al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Over the next few months, the group will add attacker manifestos – often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence – and other publications and links flagged by U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism. It will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes, adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.

The firms, which include Twitter (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube, share “hashes,” unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services. Other platforms use these to identify the same content on their own sites in order to review or remove it. (read more)

The influence of the Intelligence Branch now reaches into our lives, our personal lives. In the decades before 9/11/01 the intelligence apparatus intersected with government, influenced government, and undoubtedly controlled many institutions with it. The legislative oversight function was weak and growing weaker, but it still existed and could have been used to keep the IC in check. However, after the events of 9/11/01, the short-sighted legislative reactions opened the door to allow the surveillance state to weaponize.

After the Patriot Act was triggered, not coincidentally only six weeks after 9/11, a slow and dangerous fuse was lit that ends with the intelligence apparatus being granted a massive amount of power. The problem with assembled power is always what happens when a Machiavellian network takes control over that power and begins the process to weaponize the tools for their own malicious benefit. That is exactly what the installation of Barack Obama was all about.

The Obama network took pre-assembled intelligence weapons we should never have allowed to be created and turned those weapons into tools for his radical and fundamental change. The target was the essential fabric of our nation. Ultimately, this corrupt political process gave power to create the Fourth Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. From that perspective the fundamental change was successful.

…It’s all Connected Folks, SEE HERE

[…] “The vision was first outlined in the Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise plan championed by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and IC Chief Information Officer Al Tarasiuk almost three years ago.” … “It is difficult to underestimate the cloud contract’s importance. In a recent public appearance, CIA Chief Information Officer Douglas Wolfe called it “one of the most important technology procurements in recent history,” with ramifications far outside the realm of technology.” (READ MORE)

One job…. “take the preexisting system and retool it so the weapons of government only targeted one side of the political continuum.”

Dec 12 2022

Sunday Talks, California Democrat Rep Ro Khanna Discusses Twitter-Govt Censorship, Future Hearings and TikTok


Posted originally on the CTH on December 11, 2022 | Sundance 

When various doctors and professionals in the healthcare industry were kicked off Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and social media platforms for holding a contrary view of the COVID-19 mitigation efforts, their voices found a way to alternate platforms including TikTok.  At the heart of the government argument about TikTock as a national security threat, you will find this dynamic.

The claims of data insecurity as a reason for government action against TikTok is a false justification.  The reason the U.S. govt is defining TikTok as a national security threat is not because a Chinese firm controls it, the threat is because the U.S. government does not control it.  Thus, DHS involvement in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Apple, Microsoft and more takes on a more accurate perspective.  TikTok is not under DHS control, therefore TikTok’s ability to transmit information without DHS filter controls is a threat.

Bread and circuses.  In this interview with California Congressman Ro Khanna, Maria Bartiromo notes he was one of the only Democrats in congress who wrote a warning to Twitter about the censorship issue.  However, even then, a key sentence in the letter from Khanna to Yoel Roth is ignored.  He’s no hero. WATCH:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=btCE1v0Igjc%3Ffeature%3Doembed

The DHS Portal – […] discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.

“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February. (link)

It’s not just the First amendment being compromised by this collaboration, it’s also the Fourth Amendment against unwarranted searches of private papers (communication).