Homeland Security to require digital features in driver's license

NEW YORK – Shades of Big Brother.

Just as you were wrapping your mind around the idea that under Obamacare and the accompanying changes in the health-care system, your medical records will be floating around in some online repository, available to far too many people, you’re being told you’ll soon have a National Identity Card and a Western Hemisphere-compliant travel document whether you want it or not, if you plan to drive in the United States.

The federal government says it soon will be enforcing its demands that state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards comply with Department of Homeland Security standards.

DHS announced just before Christmas a final schedule for the full enforcement of the REAL ID Act of 2005.

That was set for a phased implementation beginning in January 2014 and full-scale enforcement planned no later than May 2017, at which time the federal government will no longer accept state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards that do not meet the minimum security standards set by DHS.

For many Americans, the full implementation of the REAL ID act is certain to trigger unfortunate memories of World War II and the modus operandi of fascist, totalitarian states, where travelers and ordinary citizens on the street are stopped by authorities and demanded, “Your papers, please!”

In the U.S., the justification for the REAL ID Act of 2005 was the concern for enhanced travel security after the 9/11 Commission documented several of the 9/11 terrorists had valid state-issued driver’s licenses and were able to freely board airplanes even though they were terrorists who had entered the U.S. illegally.

Among the DHS requirements for a state-issued driver’s license to be DHS-compliant will be the presentation by the applicant of a valid birth certificate, verification of the applicant’s Social Security Number or documentation the person is not eligible for Social Security, and proof the applicant is either a U.S. citizen or lawfully admitted to the U.S. as a permanent or temporary resident.

Further, driver’s license and IDs issued by the states will have to meet stringent requirements as set by the federal government.

To qualify as DHS-compliant, state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards must have built-in security features to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, and duplication of the documents for a fraudulent purpose.

They also much have features that establish the individual’s identity, including but not limited to full facial digital photographs, plus machine readable coded information in the form of a bar code that captures the key printed information on the card, such as name of the applicant, address, gender, unique driver’s license or card-identification number, state of issuance, date of application, and date of expiration.

Such state-issued enhanced drivers licenses, or EDLs, must be issued in state facilities in which all employees undergo background checks, including federal and state criminal record searches, as well as with technology that permit the state-issued cards to comply fully with travel rules issued under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or WHTI, such that the EDLs meet valid passport minimums for travel within the United States, Canada, and Mexico, as well as with Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda.

With this announcement, DHS is putting state governments on notice that by May 2017, states not complying with REAL ID requirements will find that their state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards will not be considered valid by the federal government, such that individuals with non-compliant identification may be prohibited from passing through Transportation Security Administration security to travel on airlines on trains within the United States or internationally.

“States have made considerable progress in meeting the need identified by the 9/11 Commission to make driver’s licenses and other identification more secure,” said David Heyman, DHS assistant secretary for policy. “DHS will continue to support their efforts to enhance the security in an achievable way that will make all of our communities safer.”

In the agency’s Dec. 20 announcement, DHS commended the 21 states that already meet the act’s minimum standards for their leadership in improving security for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards: Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

DHS also announced extensions for 20 states and territories that have provided information demonstrating that they are on the pathway toward achieving full compliance, including Arkansas, California, District of Columbia, Guam, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Virginia.

DHS made clear 75 percent of all U.S. drivers currently hold licenses from state jurisdictions deemed to meet the REAL ID standards, or from states that have received extensions.

As of Dec. 20, 2013, DHS listed the following states/territories as not yet REAL ID compliant: Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Marianas, Oklahoma, and Washington State.

DHS said TSA will continue to accept driver’s licenses and state-issued identification cards from all jurisdictions until at least 2016, meaning that enforcement for boarding aircraft will not begin until then.


Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/national-id-headed-for-your-wallet-purse/#yTG0VmvgTiDkTJo2.99

Obama's Top 10 Constitutional Violations Of 2013

Brainlike Computers..they are Learning From Experience

Kwabena Boahen holding a biologically inspired processor attached to a robotic arm in a laboratory at Stanford University.
ERIN LUBIN / THE NEW YORK TIMESBy JOHN MARKOFF


PALO ALTO, Calif. — Computers have entered the age when they are able to learn from their own mistakes, a development that is about to turn the digital world on its head.

The first commercial version of the new kind of computer chip is scheduled to be released in 2014. Not only can it automate tasks that now require painstaking programming — for example, moving a robot’s arm smoothly and efficiently — but it can also sidestep and even tolerate errors, potentially making the term “computer crash” obsolete.

The new computing approach, already in use by some large technology companies, is based on the biological nervous system, specifically on how neurons react to stimuli and connect with other neurons to interpret information. It allows computers to absorb new information while carrying out a task, and adjust what they do based on the changing signals.

In coming years, the approach will make possible a new generation of artificial intelligence systems that will perform some functions that humans do with ease: see, speak, listen, navigate, manipulate and control. That can hold enormous consequences for tasks like facial and speech recognition, navigation and planning, which are still in elementary stages and rely heavily on human programming.

Designers say the computing style can clear the way for robots that can safely walk and drive in the physical world, though a thinking or conscious computer, a staple of science fiction, is still far off on the digital horizon.

“We’re moving from engineering computing systems to something that has many of the characteristics of biological computing,” said Larry Smarr, an astrophysicist who directs the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, one of many research centers devoted to developing these new kinds of computer circuits.

Conventional computers are limited by what they have been programmed to do. Computer vision systems, for example, only “recognize” objects that can be identified by the statistics-oriented algorithms programmed into them. An algorithm is like a recipe, a set of step-by-step instructions to perform a calculation.

But last year, Google researchers were able to get a machine-learning algorithm, known as a neural network, to perform an identification task without supervision. The network scanned a database of 10 million images, and in doing so trained itself to recognize cats.

In June, the company said it had used those neural network techniques to develop a new search service to help customers find specific photos more accurately.

The new approach, used in both hardware and software, is being driven by the explosion of scientific knowledge about the brain. Kwabena Boahen, a computer scientist who leads Stanford’s Brains in Silicon research program, said that is also its limitation, as scientists are far from fully understanding how brains function.

“We have no clue,” he said. “I’m an engineer, and I build things. There are these highfalutin theories, but give me one that will let me build something.”

Until now, the design of computers was dictated by ideas originated by the mathematician John von Neumann about 65 years ago. Microprocessors perform operations at lightning speed, following instructions programmed using long strings of 1s and 0s. They generally store that information separately in what is known, colloquially, as memory, either in the processor itself, in adjacent storage chips or in higher capacity magnetic disk drives.

The data — for instance, temperatures for a climate model or letters for word processing — are shuttled in and out of the processor’s short-term memory while the computer carries out the programmed action. The result is then moved to its main memory.

The new processors consist of electronic components that can be connected by wires that mimic biological synapses. Because they are based on large groups of neuron-like elements, they are known as neuromorphic processors, a term credited to the California Institute of Technology physicist Carver Mead, who pioneered the concept in the late 1980s.

They are not “programmed.” Rather the connections between the circuits are “weighted” according to correlations in data that the processor has already “learned.” Those weights are then altered as data flows in to the chip, causing them to change their values and to “spike.” That generates a signal that travels to other components and, in reaction, changes the neural network, in essence programming the next actions much the same way that information alters human thoughts and actions.

“Instead of bringing data to computation as we do today, we can now bring computation to data,” said Dharmendra Modha, an I.B.M. computer scientist who leads the company’s cognitive computing research effort. “Sensors become the computer, and it opens up a new way to use computer chips that can be everywhere.”

The new computers, which are still based on silicon chips, will not replace today’s computers, but will augment them, at least for now. Many computer designers see them as coprocessors, meaning they can work in tandem with other circuits that can be embedded in smartphones and in the giant centralized computers that make up the cloud. Modern computers already consist of a variety of coprocessors that perform specialized tasks, like producing graphics on your cellphone and converting visual, audio and other data for your laptop.

One great advantage of the new approach is its ability to tolerate glitches. Traditional computers are precise, but they cannot work around the failure of even a single transistor. With the biological designs, the algorithms are ever changing, allowing the system to continuously adapt and work around failures to complete tasks.

Traditional computers are also remarkably energy inefficient, especially when compared to actual brains, which the new neurons are built to mimic.

I.B.M. announced last year that it had built a supercomputer simulation of the brain that encompassed roughly 10 billion neurons — more than 10 percent of a human brain. It ran about 1,500 times more slowly than an actual brain. Further, it required several megawatts of power, compared with just 20 watts of power used by the biological brain.

Running the program, known as Compass, which attempts to simulate a brain, at the speed of a human brain would require a flow of electricity in a conventional computer that is equivalent to what is needed to power both San Francisco and New York, Dr. Modha said.

I.B.M. and Qualcomm, as well as the Stanford research team, have already designed neuromorphic processors, and Qualcomm has said that it is coming out in 2014 with a commercial version, which is expected to be used largely for further development. Moreover, many universities are now focused on this new style of computing. This fall the National Science Foundation financed the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, a new research center based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with Harvard and Cornell.

The largest class on campus this fall at Stanford was a graduate level machine-learning course covering both statistical and biological approaches, taught by the computer scientist Andrew Ng. More than 760 students enrolled. “That reflects the zeitgeist,” said Terry Sejnowski, a computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute, who pioneered early biologically inspired algorithms. “Everyone knows there is something big happening, and they’re trying find out what it is.”

Credit to The New York Times

Going Under: Over One Million Lose Unemployment Benefits and Will Hit Five Million By End of 2014

Earlier this year government benefits for nutritional assistance were reduced after the expiration of emergency legislation that was enacted following the 2008 financial collapse.


Image: US Dollars (Wikimedia Commons).

Nearly all of the 48 million people receiving food stamp distributions were affected. The move led to warnings from food pantries and recipients around the country who said that the $40 billion in cuts would leave many American families without the ability to put food on dinner tables across America. According to Feed America, the roughly $29 per family that would no longer appear on their EBT cards will amount to about 1.5 billion meals in 2014.

But that was just the beginning.

Because the government now claims that we are in a period of economic growth we will see more cuts to emergency assistance over the course of the next year.

And it starts today.

As of midnight Saturday some 1.3 million Americans who lost their jobs in the last two years and were left with no choice but to collect unemployment benefits due to the worst jobs market since the Great Depression have now seen their benefits expire.

Long-term unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans expired Saturday after Congress failed to pass an extension. Reinstating those benefits is expected to be one of the first priorities for congressional Democrats in the new year.

“Extending unemployment insurance is the right thing to do for millions of Americans who are trying to support their families,” Democratic National Committee chairwoman and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement Saturday. “What makes matters worse, the loss of benefits comes just a few days after the holidays.”

CNN

“This morning, the President placed separate telephone calls to Senator Jack Reed and Senator Dean Heller to offer his support for their proposal to extend emergency unemployment benefits for three months,” White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement.

“The President said his administration would, as it has for several weeks now, push Congress to act promptly and in bipartisan fashion to address thisurgent economic priority.”

Obama says the abrupt cut-off in cash assistance during the holidays will hurt economic growth and jobs.

Fox News

Here’s the kicker. By the end of 2014 the number of Americans who will lose access to long-term unemployment benefits will be five times higher:

By July, another 1.9 million people will get the boot from extended benefits. By the end of 2014, 1.6 million more will be kicked off, totaling about 5 million Americans.

Bloomberg

Five millions Americans will be losing access to what essentially amounts to their paycheck. And we’re not talking about a $29 cut to food stamps. We’re talking about a mortgage payment, a healthcare payment, and funds to pay for essential utilities.

All of it will be vaporized by the end of the year. This will affect not just those five million people, but their dependents as well, which amounts to at least an additional 5 – 10 million people.

Congress and the President propose to extend these benefits for another three months, and most would suggest that this will avert the emergency.

That notion is laughable.

What happens after we kick the can down the road for another three months? Will President Obama somehow magically create 1.3 million shovel-ready jobs?

The problem is that there are no meaningful jobs available. So you can extend these benefits for six months, or even two more years, and we’ll be right back where we started once they expire – perhaps even worse off as prices for everything from food to utilities to health care rise unabated.

When a DHS Insider warned recently of a crisis of unprecedented magnitude within the United States he noted that we are in the midst of a long-term economic collapse.

Given what is transpiring around us, can anyone honestly say that our economy is actually recovering?

President Obama claims that failing to extend the unemployment benefits for these 1.3 million people will hurt economic growth and jobs. He has just broadcast the severity of the situation we face.

It should be clear that without government intervention and backroom machinationsthe entire system will come unglued. Stocks would crash, millions would be starving in the streets, and the violence that the Department of Homeland Security and US military have been preparing for would take hold across the streets of America.

That may sound sensational, but consider that just one week ahead of the cut to food stamp benefits of $29 per family the Department of Homeland Security spent $80 million to beef up security in New York City with the expectation that those who lost their benefits would start rioting. They know that we are rapidly approaching a breaking point, otherwise why would they be preparing for it?

The government has no choice but to keep pumping out money and emergency assistance, whether that be to people who have lost their jobs or the banks that provide the lending. The second (literally) that they pull back on the monetary, financial and economic intervention we will see a catastrophe that few can imagine.

It’s coming.

If you’re paying attention you can’t go a day without seeing the signs.

The only question is: Are you prepared for when it happens?

Crdit to Infowars.com

US and Iran now are friends... Fighting al Qaeda in Iraq

Al Qaeda is a U.S. enemy depending where the sun hits….
The U.S. want it in Syria but not in Iraq, you better watch your new friends Iran, Israel can tell you about that!!!!




With the Geneva Nuclear Accord still far from implementation a month after it was signed in Geneva, the United States and Iran are moving into stage two of their rapprochement: They are now fighting together to crush Al Qaeda terror in Iraq,DEBKAfile’s exclusive military sources report.

Iraq is two weeks into a major offensive for cutting al Qaeda down - the first major military challenge the jihadists have faced in the past six years. Three armies are fighting alongside Iraq: the United States, Iran’s Al Qods Brigades officers and Syria.

Their mission is to foil Al Qaeda’s drive to spread its first independent state in the Middle East across the Iraqi-Syrian frontier. Its Iraqi and Syrian branches - ISIS and the Nusra Front - have declared a holy war to this end under their commanders Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and Abu Mohammed al-Golani.
The Anbar province of Western Iraq is the scene of he fiercest combat close to Iraq’s borders with Syria and Jordan.

To counter Al Qaeda’s superiority in speed and surprise, the US has sent the Iraqi army Hellfire surface-to-air missiles. They are already in use against al Qaeda camps on the Syrian border. Next, Washington is sending out small, long-endurance unmanned aerial ScanEagles. These drones are best suited to combat in Anbar’s deep wadis and the halophyte thickets lining the Euphrates River.

In this topsy-turvy scenario, Washington and Tehran share another surprising motive: to save the Assad regime in Damascus from Al Qaeda’s long arms.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted approvingly on Dec. 26: “Attitudes are changing in Western countries; they are becoming more realistic in their approach towards the Syrian crisis. The threat of terrorism in Syria, of jihadists coming to power, of creating a caliphate with extremist laws, these are the main problems.”

Since the Syrian chemical issue was addressed in September, Russian-Iranian-American collaboration is going strong. The joint US-Iranian war on al Qaeda is strengthening Tehran’s grip on Iraq as well Syria. It gives Russian President Vladimir Putin hope for keeping al Qaeda away from the Winter Olympics at Sochi – an ever-present menace as a female suicide bomber, a Dagestan national, demonstrated Sunday, Dec. 29, by blowing up the railway station at the southern Russian city of Volgograd, killing up to a score of people.

The other incentive for US President Barack Obama is the hope of transposing his collaboration with Tehran and Moscow to improve US chances of a reasonable accommodation in the Afghanistan arena.

Credit to DEBKAfile

DHS insider gives final warning

By Doug Hagmann 


Under the cover and amid the distraction of the Christmas bustle, I had my last “official” contact with a source inside the Department of Homeland Security known as “Rosebud” in my writings. My source is leaving his position, retiring along with numerous others choosing to leave this bureaucratic monstrosity.

For this contact, my source took unprecedented measures to be certain that our contact was far off the radar of prying government eyes and ears. I was stunned at the lengths he employed, and even found myself somewhat annoyed by the inconvenience that his cloak-and-dagger approach caused. It was necessary, according to my source, because all department heads under FEMA and DHS are under orders to identify anyone disclosing any information for termination and potential criminal prosecution.

“DHS is like a prison environment, complete with prison snitches,” he said, referring to the search for leaks and leakers. And the warden is obsessed. Ask anyone in DHS. No one trusts anyone else and whatever sources might be left are shutting up. The threats that have been made far exceed anything I’ve ever seen. Good people are afraid for their lives and the lives of their families. We’ve all been threatened. They see the writing on the wall and are leaving. It’s not a joke and not hype.”

The following is a narrative from my source, prefaced with the instructions to “take it or leave it,” and “disregard it at your own peril.” He added that it’s now up to each American to act on the information themselves or suffer the consequences. “I’ve resigned myself to the fact that most [Americans] will never be convinced of the reality that is taking place right in front of them.”


The plan explained
“According to every internal document I’ve seen and read, and from the few people I’ve spoken with who understand what’s going on, preparations have been finalized to respond to a crisis of unprecedented magnitude within the United States. The response will include the use of lethal force against U.S. citizens under the instructions of Barack Obama.” But why?

“‘It’s the economy, stupid,’” he began, paraphrasing a campaign slogan coined by James Carville for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. “Just as I disclosed in our first meeting, the crisis will be rooted in an economic collapse. I told you last year, at a time when gold and silver were setting record highs, one specific indicator that time is very short. It is the final ‘smack down’ of the metals, gold and silver, that will presage the orchestrated economic collapse that is being planned by the bankers of Wall Street. Everybody needs to understand that this is a deliberate collapse of the U.S. economy with the oversight of the White House and the full knowledge of the Justice Department. Everyone seems to be waiting for some big, history making event that will signal the start of the collapse. The fact is that the collapse has already started. It’s incremental, like a snowball rolling down a hill. It gets bigger and rolls faster. Well, this snowball is well on its way down the hill.”

“I don’t mean to sound repetitive, but I can’t stress this enough. Contrary to what you hear, we’re already in an economic collapse, except that most people haven’t a clue. The ‘big bang’ comes at the end, when people wake up one morning and can’t log in to their bank accounts, can’t use their ATM cards, and find out that their private pension funds and other assets have been confiscated,” he stated.

“I’ve seen documentation of multiple scenarios created outside of DHS. Different plans and back-up plans. Also, please understand that I deliberately used the word ‘created,’ as this is a completely manufactured event. In the end it won’t be presented that way, which is extremely important for everyone to understand. What is coming will be blamed on some unforeseen event out of everyone’s control, that few saw coming or thought would actually happen. Then, another event will take place concurrent with this event, or immediately after it, to confuse and compound an already explosive situation.” I asked for specifics.

“As I said, there are several scenarios and I don’t know them all. I know one calls for a cyber-attack by an external threat, which will then be compounded by something far removed from everyone’s own radar. But it’s all a ruse, or a pretext. The threat is from within,” he stated. “Before people can regain their footing, a second event will be triggered.” Again, I asked for specifics.

“I’ve seen one operational plan that refers to the federal government’s response to a significant terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Information at these levels is compartmentalized. I don’t have specifics, just plans for the response. The response will be controls and restrictions on travel, business, and every aspect of our lives, especially gun ownership and speech that incites people against the government. I guess some people would call it Martial Law, and they would not be incorrect. But understand that this will be a process deployed in stages. How quickly of a process remains to be seen.”

The mechanics explained
As I said, people continue to look for something big to happen first, followed by a militaristic response by the federal government against U.S. citizens. Based on what I’ve seen, I don’t believe it will happen this way, although there is one unthinkable exception. That exception would involve a ‘decapitation’ of our leadership, but I’ve seen nothing even remotely suggestive of that. But I’ve heard and even read articles where that is mentioned. Frankly, though, that’s always been a threat. I suppose that if the leadership is deemed useless, or becomes a liability to the larger agenda in some manner, it could happen. The precedent exists. Let’s pray that it’s not the case now.”

“I don’t think anyone except the initiated few know the precise series of events or the exact timing, just a general overview and an equally general time period. I think we’re in that period now, as DHS has their planned responses finalized. Also, the metals are important because it’s real money, not Ponzi fiat currency. The U.S. has no inventory of gold, so the prices are manipulated down to cause a sell-off of the physical assets. China is on a buying spree of gold, and other countries want their inventory back. The very people causing the prices to drop are the ones who are also buying the metals at fire sale prices. They will emerge extremely wealthy when the prices rise after the U.S. currency becomes wallpaper. A little research will identify who these people and organizations are.”

“I’d like to add a bit of perspective that might help explain the events as I described. Do you remember former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announcing that the Pentagon was unable to account for $2.3 trillion in the defense budget? That was on September 10, 2001, the day before the attacks of 9/11. Some suggest that 9/11 was orchestrated, in part to cover up the missing money, which is ludicrous. The result, however, was that suddenly the accounting issue took a back seat because of the attacks. The result will be the same. That’s a perfect example of the mechanics of what we are about to experience. It’s going to take years to sort out, and when it’s finally sorted out, the damage will have long been done.”

“Please note a few final things. The relationship that exists between DHS today and the executive branch is well beyond alarming. DHS and other organizations have become the private army of the Oval Office. The NSA, and I’ve got contacts there, is taking orders from the Oval Office. The IRS is under the virtual control of the Oval Office in a manner that would make Nixon cower. Even though all roads appear to lead to the Oval Office, they lead through the Oval Office. It’s not just Obama, but the men behind him, the people who put him there. The people who put him there are the ones who created him.” I asked who created him.

“First, ask yourself why there was such an all out effort to marginalize anyone talking about Obama’s eligibility in 2008. Even so-called conservatives pundits fell for the lie that such questions were nothing more than a diversion. They were following a specific drumbeat. That should tell every rational adult that he is a creation of the globalists who have no allegiance to any political party. He is the product of decades of planning, made for this very time in our history. He was selected to oversee the events I just disclosed. Who has that ability? He’s a product of our own intelligence agencies working with the globalists. He should be exhibit ‘A’ to illustrate the need to enforce the Logan Act. Need I say more?”

As often said by another of my sources, the U.S. is a captured operation. The lie is bigger than most people realize or are willing to confront. That is, until there is no other option. By then, it might be too late.

Credit to Doug Hagmann

Dave Hodges…. false flag, war