In Reaction To Swedish Riots and Privacy Concerns, Instagram Makes Advertising U-turn

21st Century Wire says… In a direct reaction to the mayhem caused by Facebook and Instagram’s data free-for-all, pressure is being applied to the digital moguls to claw back previous plans to use children and adult pictures for commercial marketing and advertising applications. Ronan Shields Dec 21, 2012 Instagram has reverted to its original advertising terms and conditions in a move to quell unrest prompted by an earlier update to its advertising policies. The U-turn was prompted by mass unrest following an update to its terms and conditions, announced Monday (17 December), which led users of the photo-sharing site to believe that their images would be included in third-party advertising on the service. Social media channels were flooded with angry comments, with many people deleting their accounts in protest to the development. The backlash prompted Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom to claim there had been a “misunderstanding” and that it would further modify its usage terms to clarify the matter. In a blog post published yesterday (20 December), Systrom said: “Because of the feedback we have heard from you, we are reverting this advertising section to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010.” Systrom goes on to say that Instagram would take time to complete its plans regarding advertising rather than “obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed” in the post. It continues: “Finally, there was also confusion about how widely shared and distributed your photos are through our service. The distribution of your content and photos is governed by our privacy policy, and always has been. We have made a small change to our terms to make that as clear as possible.” Source: Marketing Weekfacebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest

LEGAL UPDATE: British Prosecutors Clarify Offensive Online Posts Law

BBC Dec 19, 2012

New guidelines could see fewer people being charged in England and Wales for offensive messages on social networks.

The Director of Public Prosecutions said people should face a trial only if their comments on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere go beyond being offensive. He said the guidance combats threats and internet trolls without having a “chilling effect” on free speech. The guidance means some people could avoid trial if they are sorry for criminal comments posted while drunk. The guidance comes after a string of controversial cases, including the prosecution of a man who tweeted a joke threatening to blow up an airport. Case law Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had now dealt with more than 50 cases relating to potentially criminal comments posted online – but there was so far very little case law set by senior judges to guide which trials should go ahead.
“These interim guidelines are intended to strike the right balance between freedom of expression and the need to uphold the criminal law” Keir StarmerDirector of Public Prosecutions

He said the interim guidelines, which come into force immediately, clarified which kinds of cases should be prosecuted and which would go ahead only after a rigorous assessment whether it was in the public interest to prosecute.

“The scale of the problem that we are trying to confront should not be underestimated. There are millions of messages sent by social media every day and if only a small percentage of those millions are deemed to be offensive then there is the potential for very many cases coming before our courts,” Mr Starmer told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme. The guidance says that if someone posts a message online that clearly amounts to a credible threat of violence, specifically targets an individual or individuals, or breaches a court order designed to protect someone, then the person behind the message should face prosecution. People who receive malicious messages and pass them on, such as by retweeting, could also fall foul of the law. However, online posts that are merely “grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false” would face a much tougher test before the individual could be charged under laws designed to prevent malicious communications. Mr Starmer said that many suspects in this last category would be unlikely to be prosecuted because it would not be in the public interest to take them to court. This could include posts made by drunk people who, on sobering up, take swift action to delete the communication because they are genuinely sorry for the offence or harm they caused. Individuals who post messages as part of a separate crime, such as a plan to import drugs, would face prosecution for that offence, as is currently the case… Read more facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest

Facebook and Instagram’s New Ad Policy Change ‘Could Compromise Privacy for Teens’

21st Century Wire says… this story appeared only yesterday in the Washington Post, and it’s uncanny how neatly this ties into the Instagram riots in Sweden on the same day. It would be uncanny – unless you believe that’s it’s part of a larger step by step plan. Hegelian dialectic: Problem+Reaction=Solution… their solution, of course. This latest artificial crisis was created by the corporations behind closed doors, who have now created digital cartels between many of these platforms online. The solution will be some form of global governance-administered restriction of privacy or anonymity online. There would be no crisis if the corporations were not so hell-bent on using people’s photographs and data as free content for generating ads no one needs… Washington Post Brian Womack (Bloomberg) – Facebook Inc.’s Instagram policy changes, announced yesterday, may let advertisers use teenagers’ photos for marketing, raising privacy and security concerns, said Jeffrey Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy. The new policies, which now apply to users as young as 13, enable Instagram, a photo-sharing service that Facebook bought in August, to use members’ names, text, photos and other content with marketing messages, the company said on its site. The new terms of use, set to take effect next month, could be exploitative, Chester said. Facebook, operator of the world’s largest social network with more than 1 billion users, is changing policies for its Instagram unit as it looks for ways to increase revenue across its services. Instagram, popular with teens and young adults, reached more than 100 million users, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in September. Facebook “sees teens as a digital goldmine,” said Chester, whose group is focused on privacy issues. “We will be pressing the Federal Trade Commission to issue policies to protect teen privacy.” If users are younger than 18, then they “represent” that at least one parent or guardian has also agreed to content being used in marketing, according to the updated usage terms. The changes are aimed at protecting members while preventing abuse, Instagram said in a blog. In the updated policy document, Instagram also said it may not always identify paid services or sponsored content. The company said it doesn’t claim ownership of any content on the service, though some businesses may pay to display users’ names, likeness or photos in connection with sponsored content. “Our updated privacy policy helps Instagram function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups,” the company said. “This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used.” Read morefacebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest

Man behind ‘sex for tuition fees’ website named – students offered £15,000 a year to cover cost of university

Student tells how she was encouraged to dress as a schoolgirl before being pressured into sex

By Lewis Smith The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8364925.ece/ALTERNATES/w460/v2-undercover02v23.jpg

Sleezeball of the year – caught in a sting.

Earlier this week, The Independent revealed how young women were lured to meetings with the man through the SponsorAScholar.co.uk website. An undercover reporter recorded a meeting with the man who told her that sponsorship was dependent on a “high level of sexual intimacy” with men in two-hour sessions in hotel rooms up to four times a term. The man filmed by The Independent was said last night to go under the name Mark Lancaster, but when contacted by a television programme refused to speak about the Sponsor a Scholar scheme. He had previously claimed to have arranged for 1,400 young women to win sponsorship. When he met the undercover Independent reporter, he told her that to qualify for the scheme she would have to undertake a “practical assessment” with him to prove she would offer “the level of intimacy” that would be demanded by sponsors. There were concerns last night that the scheme may have been a front to allow him to take advantage of young women. A student, whose identity was kept secret, told Channel 4 News that when she went to a rented flat with the man for an interview, she had been encouraged to dress up in a schoolgirl outfit before being pressured to have sex. After he told her, “It’s time now for the practical,” she froze and felt unable to fight off his advances: “Then he just kissed me before I really had time to think about it or ask any questions … and I just froze because I really didn’t know what to do. Then he started undressing me. “I was in a different city, and he’d picked me up from outside the place and walked me in so in my mind I was, like ‘I can’t leave right now because I don’t know where I am and if I do leave and he chases me, I don’t know what to do’. So I just froze and went along with what he was doing.” Despite having had sex with the man, she was sent an email telling her that she had failed to secure sponsorship but that she could reapply in a couple of months. The student said she had contacted the Sponsor a Scholar scheme because she was struggling to pay her tuition fees. Since being exposed by The Independent the SponsorAScholar website has been taken down. It had claimed to offer students up to £15,000 a year for meetings with wealthy businessmen in search of “discreet adventures”. See Sting Video Here
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European Regulator Forces Facebook to Change Its Data Policy

By Laura O’Reilly The privacy watchdog responsible for regulating Facebook in Europe is understood to have forced the social network to change one of its latest proposed policies that would see it blend user data with that of ‘Instagram’. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), which presides over the social network’s European headquarters in Dublin, says it expects Facebook’s proposed data use policy to be modified to allow users a greater level of consent over the way their actions and content on the site can be used by the company. A spokeswoman at the Irish DPC told technology blog The Register: “We have sought and received clarifications on a number of aspects and have outlined our position in relation to what consent will be required for aspects of the policy.” It is not yet clear the exact aspects of the policy Facebook has agreed to change, but it is thought to relate to the Instagram data share proposals. Facebook was hoping that by combining data from its platform and the photo sharing app it acquired earlier this year would be able to help the company offer brands more targeted advertising opportunities. The social network said in a statement last week when it first emerged the Irish DPC had contacted the company: “We are in regular contact with our regulators to ensure that we maintain high standards of transparency in respect of our policies and practices. We expect to maintain a continuous dialogue with the Irish DPC as our service evolves.” Facebook’s proposals to combine its user data with that of Instagram have also been opposed by two privacy campaign groups – The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) – which wrote a joint letter requesting the company reconsiders the amends to its policy. They also object to Facebook’s plans to stop users’ ability to vote on changes to its privacy policy, which it has allowed since 2009 for any change that attracts at least 7,000 comments. It is also looking to change users’ inbox default settings, which could lead to members receiving more unwanted messages from other users or spam from companies. The letter says: “Because these proposed changes raise privacy risks for users, maybe contrary to law, and violate your previous commitments to users about site governance, we urge you to withdraw the proposed changes.” In the UK, the Open Rights Group is writing to the Information Commissioner’s Office to ask it to examine the changes in Facebook’s privacy policy and act on them in a similar way to other data protection authorities elsewhere. In April Facebook reached a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission over claims it had deceived users into sharing more information than they realised. Under the settlement, Facebook must obtain user consent for significant changes to its privacy settings and must commit to 20 years of independent audits.facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest

PRESS TV BANNED BY THE EU – AND NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT…

Go to Facebook and show your support… http://www.facebook.com/SavePressTvInEurope It’s an outrage, and if you let this go by without a fight, and media can be shut down for made-up reasons. Are we in Nazi Europe now?facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest

Unmasking Violentacrez – Internet Pond Life and ‘The Biggest Troll on the Web’

By Adran Chen Last Wednesday afternoon I called Michael Brutsch. He was at the office of the Texas financial services company where he works as a programmer and he was having a bad day. I had just told him, on Gchat, that I had uncovered his identity as the notorious internet troll Violentacrez (pronounced Violent-Acres). “It’s amazing how much you can sweat in a 60 degree office,” he said with a nervous laugh. Judging from his internet footprint, Brutsch, 49, has a lot to sweat over. If you are capable of being offended, Brutsch has almost certainly done something that would offend you, then did his best to rub your face in it. His speciality is distributing images of scantily-clad underage girls, but as ‘Violentacrez’ he also issued an unending fountain of racism, porn, gore, misogyny, incest, and exotic abominations yet unnamed, all on the sprawling online community Reddit. At the time I called Brutsch, his latest project was moderating a new section of Reddit where users posted covert photos they had taken of women in public, usually close-ups of their asses or breasts, for a voyeuristic sexual thrill. It was called “Creepshots.” Now Brutsch was the one feeling exposed and it didn’t suit him very well. But Michael Brutsch is more than a monster. Online, Violentacrez has been one of Reddit’s most reviled characters but also one of its most beloved users. The self-described “creepy uncle of Reddit” has played a little-known but crucial role in Reddit’s development into the online juggernaut it is today. In real life, Brutsch is a military father and cat-lover. He lives with his wife in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. There are many sides to Violentacrez, and now that I had Michael Brutsch on the phone I hoped to find out where the troll ended and the real person began. I first became aware of Violentacrez last year, when controversy erupted over a section, called “Jailbait,” that Violentacrez had created on Reddit dedicated to sexualized images of underaged girls. (Brutsch adapted the name from “Violent Acres,” a popular anonymous blogger he was fond of in the mid-2000s.) Reddit, for the uninitiated, is essentially a social news site; with a free username, anyone can submit and vote on content and can do so anonymously. And anyone can start a forum on Reddit dedicated to their interests, known as a subreddit. Today, there are about 10,000 active subreddits out of nearly 100,000 total, spanning a dizzying array of topics from funny pictures, to Power Rangers, to pooping. If a post gets enough “upvotes,” as they’re called, it can be propelled to the front page of Reddit and a massive audience. The breadth of topics and dedication of users has made Reddit, which calls itself the “front page of the internet,” the single dominant force in internet culture today, boasting over 3.4 billion pageviews this August. It reached a new level of legitimacy last month, when President Obama held a Q & A on Reddit. These days, Reddit is mentioned in the same breath as Twitter and Facebook by pundits expounding on the power of social media. But Reddit’s laissez-faire attitude towards offensive speech has led to a vast underbelly that rivals anything on the notorious cesspool 4chan. And with Jailbait, Violentacrez decided to create a safe space for people sexually attracted to underage girls to share their photo stashes. I would call these people pedophiles; the Jailbait subreddit called them “ephebophiles.” Jailbait was the online equivalent of systematized street harassment. Users posted snapshots of tween and teenage girls, often in bikinis and skirts. Many of these were lifted from their Facebook accounts and thrown in front of Jailbait’s 20,000 horny subscribers. Violentacrez and his fellow moderators worked hard to make sure every girl on jailbait was underage, diligently deleting any photos whose subjects seemed older than 16 or 17. Violentacrez himself posted hundreds of photos. Jailbait became one of Reddit’s most popular subreddits, generating millions of pageviews a month. “Jailbait” was for a time the second biggest search term bringing traffic to Reddit, after “Reddit.” Eventually, Jailbait landed on CNN, where Anderson Cooper called out Reddit for hosting it, and Violentacrez for creating it. The ensuing outcry led Reddit administrators to reluctantly ban Jailbait, and all sexually suggestive content featuring minors. On the phone, Michael Brutsch insisted he is not a pedophile but was unapologetic about Jailbait. He compared the photos of underage girls he posted to Britney Spears’ sultry “Hit Me Baby One More Time” video. She was 16 at the time, he said—how was that different than what he was doing? Brutsch said he only reposted photos that he’d found elsewhere, mostly on 4chan, and that he promptly removed any outright child porn that was posted. Read more on Violentacrez here at Gawkerfacebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest

WIKI-FALSE FLAG: FED GRAND JURY NOW USING WIKILEAKS TO SHUT DOWN THE FREE INTERNET

By Patrick Henningsen 21st Century Wire August 26, 2011 Whether or not you believe that Wikileaks and Julian Assange are functionaries of Washington’s sophisticated intelligence web, what is clearly undeniable is that the existence of the document dumping site is being used by the State to end internet privacy, and place restrictions on free speech, availability of public domain information, and to legally prosecute users of certain websites. Presently, the United States is conducting its own secret Grand Jury investigation into Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. At the centre of Washington’s effort is the targeting of WikiLeaks’ DNS host, Dynadot, based in California. With this case, the US Government is hoping to rewrite the current rulebook regarding freedom on internet. The government’s ability to shut down any website’s DNS means that it will be able to effectively lock the users’ gateway into any website deemed to be in violation by invoking the dubious and wholly unconstitutional USA Patriot Acts I & II. With the majority of the world’s DNS houses residing within the US, a precedent like this could give the US Federal Government carte blanche to seize and liquidate any number of websites that might fall into the state’s new and elastic definition of ‘espionage’, or are deemed to be a ‘threat to national security’. With the backing of a Federal Court order, Washington soon hopes to gain the right to ‘legally’ sequester confidential user information including subscriber names, user names, screen names, mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, temporary IP addresses and credit card payment and billing details. Few will doubt that this act of Constitutional aggression on the part of the State could have far reaching consequences for any online publisher.

WIKILEAKS: A useful tool of the establishment to move a police state further forward.

The legal and academic basis for this case revolves around the state’s attempt to redefine the term espionage in relation to the content uploaded on to Wikileaks site. Washington’s redefinition of this particular word is catered to suit to the every-increasing appetite of the encroaching new police state. According to Websters dictionary, es·pi·o·nage is defined as follows: 1. the act or practice of spying. 2. the use of spies by a government to discover the military and political secrets of other nations. 3. the use of spies by a corporation or the like to acquire the plans, technical knowledge, etc., of a competitor: industrial espionage. Attempting to prosecute any website who might be displaying so-called ’leaked’ material online under the umbrella term espionage may seem like a legal and intellectual stretch, but for a US Federal Government that has hung its hat for the last 10 years on Stasi-style laws like the Patriot Acts I & II, stretching the definition of a single word is merely a routine legal exercise.   Above all this, remains the fact that under the cloak of official state secrets, employees of the US government, have, and probably still are, using Wikileaks as a dumping ground for disinformation, fake material, counterintelligence, and as an intelligence back-channel- all to suit any disinformation program or psychological operation that they may be running at any particular time. From a legal standpoint, judges and scholars in the US should pay attention to this important point when deciding on what moral and legal grounds the state is actually standing on. More to the point, Washington’s attack on Wikileaks and its frontman Julian Assange appears to be no more than a trojan horse errected by the state to compromise user rights to privacy and freedom of speech. Experts have shown already that Wikileaks has been working directly with the US Department of Defense , in one intance at least, in order to avert attention from a massive black market in sensitive information, partially highlighted by the Washington Post’s infamous expose entitled Top Secret America.   Governments using Wikileaks to spread disinformation? RT Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pqk_j8-WQw Based on this revelation, one can see now that Washington is not actually after Wikileaks, rather, it is actually targeting any remaining rights to privacy, anonymity and data protection currently enjoyed by free users in the United States and abroad. Yesterday, Rabble.ca reports:

U.S. espionage investigation against WikiLeaks: Patriot Act order unsealed

Further proof has emerged of the United States secret Grand Jury investigation into Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Further information has been demanded on the organization and its founder for the US courts, this time under the PATRIOT Act. The Grand Jury has been meeting in Alexandria, Washington DC, trying to work up an espionage case against the organization’s founder Julian Assange. The latest information demanded is anything held by WikiLeaks DNS host, Dynadot in California, regarding wikileaks.org, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. WikiLeaks have just received a copy of the recently unsealed court Order from the United States, signed by a US magistrate judge on the 4th of January 2011. Using the terms of the PATRIOT Act the Order was issued to Dynadot, the domain registrars for wikileaks.org, for all information they hold on WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and wikileaks.org. The Order demands Dynadot handover the following information for the time period November 1st 2009 to present, within three days of the date of the Order: 1. Subscriber names, user names, screen names, or other identities; 2. mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses, e-mail addresses, and other contact information; 3. connection records, or record of session times and durations; 4. length of service (including start date) and typos of service utilized; 5. telephone or instrument number or other subscriber number or identity; including any temporarily assigned network address; and 6. means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number) and billing records. Also: 1. records of user activity for any connections made to or from the Account 2. non-content information associated with the contents of any communication or file stored by or for the account(s), such as the source and destination email addresses and IP addresses. 3. Correspondence and notes of records related to the account. WikiLeaks do not know what, if any, information Dynodot provided the US courts with. This demand follows a subpoena earlier this year to Twitter for the information it holds on WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and some of his associates. For further information please read the full Dynadot court Order here. -facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest

GLADIO 2.0 : WHY THE WEST CAN’T RESIST THIS NORWAY MASSACRE AND PSY-OP

By Stone Pinkerton 21st Century Wire July 26, 2011 How do you define bizarre in today’s every increasingly wacky world of terrorism? Ever since the Cold War was won and history ended, we have been inundated with a seemingly never ending succession of spectacularly staged terror attacks and carefully crafted psy-ops. This recent Norway Massacre is the latest in a series of high profile terrorist attacks which have succeeded only in inching societies worldwide further towards the final goal-line of an ever expanding global police state.  So is this OPERATION G.L.A.D.I.O. 2.0? Whether you believe that, or not, a new Stasi super state is rapidly unfolding before our eyes and it will use this event as a catalyst. Recently joining the fold of public enemy number one stars, is a Scandinavian pin-up named Anders Breivik AKA “Andrew Berwick”. In case you missed it, he went on an epic rampage this past weekend.  As terrorists go, his media profile is about as slick as they come, even more refined than Osama bin Laden, scripted to the last detail and with plenty of collateral material. If he survives custody, his protracted trial will almost certainly be something along the lines of OJ Simpson meets Slobo Milosevich. So who is he? Which is he, Anders, or Andrew?  We are told that he wired up and popped a car bomb in town hitting a government target, and later was the lone gunman who dressed up as a policeman and opened fire on a crowd of Protestant Young Labour supporters at a summer camp on the island of Utoya in Norway on Saturday. The death toll from both attacks stands at 90 plus. It’s very important for people to consider that this shooting was no random attack. The students victims on the island were chosen for political affiliation- even the wounded were snuffed out in cold blood by the gunman, which makes this a cold and targeted, mass political assassination. Horrific is an understatement. So did we witness yet another ‘lone gunman’ incident, or rather, spectacularly staged ’Psychological Operation’, or Psy-op in Norway? Well, it all depends on what you are willing to buy into.

WHAT WE LOVE MOST: Psy-ops offer the public a chance to experience Hollywood-style violence, and feel cinematic-like induced emotional states (COMMONS IMAGE: Gonzo Town)

PSY-OPS: A WESTERN LOVE AFFAIR But we do love our 21st century psy-ops in America and in Europe. They supply us with the sort of collective nightmares that only an institution as bloated, corrupt, insidious and morally and fiscally bankrupt as our governments can supply. As recent history goes, they supply the nightmare, and in turn, we somehow end up demanding more security, less privacy and endless state surveillance. Authorities conveniently unearthed a typically mad, but thorough 1,500 page, all singing and dancing right-wing Zionist bible manifesto (here is link to the whole thing) credited to the alleged gunman. One thing is now for certain- Anders Breivik AKA Andrew Berwick, is the new pin-up euro boy for the New World Order’s Global Domestic Terrorist 2012 Calendar.

MAN FOR ALL SEASONS: Andrew Berwick has both the MSM and the Indy media doing cartwheels at the moment.

The results of a successful Psy-op are always apparent after the event, and we will go into detail about what these are later in this article. You can be sure that already across TV, radio and mainstream print, the conversation is being shaped and mostly dominated by a fear-based platform whereby pundit after pundit are reinforcing the mantra that “He could have been anybody”, and that by hook or crook, ”We need much better surveillance and domestic security in order to prevent such a terrible tragedy from happening again.” Our marching orders are more or less clear: There’s your talking points people, now get out there, in every office, cafe, school- get out there and parrot them. BREIVIK:  ZIONIST-ANTIMARXIST-RACIST? He’s also an admitted Right-wing Zionist which puts Israel in the frame, and apparently hates multiculturalism. All this is sure to stir both confusion and hours of directionless debate from the media experts. 21st Century Wire’s  Andrew McKillop adds here: “Written under the name of Andrew Berwick (this is where the story gets extremely bizarre) – which lays out a buffet of extreme Islamophobia, far-right Zionism, as well as attacks on Marxism and multiculturalism, for good measure… “He has since been charged with “terrorism” by the Norwegian authorities. No talk yet of actual murder charges. Amazingly, this rogue paramilitary domestic terrorist has not topped himself and will have a chance to take the world stage, no doubt invigorating a lively new debate on topics like free market economics, the need for more state surveillance, security measures, multiculturalism and applied Marxism in the 21st century.” That pretty much covers it then. We are now all potential domestic terrorists, and should be regarded with some degree of suspicion by our government and state authorities- for our own safety, naturally. THE LONE GUNMAN NARRATIVE The back story to this crime is slowly coming out, but mind you, it is merely the official narrative. Intelligent media consumers will still need to keep their brains active in order to read between the lines and identify discrepancies and outlandish assumptions present in the consensus reality or Wikipedia version of events. This black op in Norway looks likely to have been executed by not one, but a minimum team of two to three persons. Readers with a certain military experience might point out here how complicated it would be to execute such an entire operation single-handedly. Regardless, thus far, the consensus reality version of events in Norway revolves around the classic ‘Lone Gunman’ template. There have been multiple reports by victims and witnesses of other shooters on the scene, but so far none have been absorbed as a solid part of the official narrative. Authorities have only confirmed that “active cells are still at large”, and this point alone will naturally dovetail with experts calls for tighter control on security and surveillance throughout society. In effect, Goldstein is still at large and may be in your area, so keep all doors and windows locked. Report any suspicious activity to Big Brother. You get the picture. What we think we know: For several months Breivik managed to purchase several tons of ANFO (ammonium nitrate/fuel oil), planted a 200 pound car bomb outside the Energy Ministry in Oslo. Soon after, he turns up on an island of young political elite on their summer retreat, where he managed to gun down single-handedly, some 100 teens. By some miracle, the Norwegian SWAT team invisibly landed on the island, snuck up behind gunman Breivik, and arrested him without any fire being exchanged between him and the authorities. Now that’s a guy any clandestine alphabet soup outfit would hire instantly on the spot. Clean operation. Certainly, this goes down in history as one of the cleanest, slickest, by-the-book black ops that ever went down. To believe that he managed to do this on his own and not as a two or three man crew seems to be a real stretch when one considers the logistics and detail present in this terror operation. But the public can be made to believe it was a lone gunman event if the official story dictates as much. If you buy into the outlandish official explanations like both the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks and don’t take into account the public’s ability to swallow and digest them on the first spoonful, then the Norway should appear to be just another lone gunman job. The most fascinating anomaly here is that he was actually arrested, and did not top himself or go down shooting. This may have been an error on Breivik’s part, or it was planned as part of a theatrical performance that will unfold during the months leading up to his trial in court. Note that every other mass shooting spree in the history of the world has ended with the gunman killing himself or being shot dead by police. In nearly every instance. There are a number of past staged terror events we can revisit in order to define and understand exactly what we are looking at here in Norway. A few recent events include… MUMBAI. The Mumbai ‘terrorist attack’ bore all the hallmarks of a classic False Flag Operation. Eventually, it came out that Mumbai terror suspect David Headley was ‘rogue US secret agent’. US citizen Headley, who was arrested in connection with 2009′s Mumbai terrorist attacks, is likely to have been a double agent for the CIA. There goes the Muslim extremist angle we were forced to swallow by the media in its early stage. Mumbai was a false flag, with terror operative David Headley outed as a US secret agent. HOMELAND SECURITY. Just as former Homeland Security chief  Tom Ridge admitted that DHS would issue fake terror alerts shortly before elections in a bid to influence the outcome during the Bush era, the Obama administration also admitted to mimicking the very same tactic later on. In 2009 and 2010 we witnessed an explosion in terror alerts, with many revolving around an alleged plot to launch Mumbai-style massacres within the US, as well as in European cities during those years. So the majority of US DHS terror alerts have been staged, for maximum political effect. This, by definition, is a pure Psy-op. FORT HOOD. It is now documented that the Fort Hood shooter was not only a military operative, but also was under the supervision of a psychological military doctor. The shooter was quickly shot and taken into custody. After the media established its lone gunman story, we discover that this massacre was not carried out by Hasan alone. By definition, this was a false-flag/black-ops covert operation carried out under the supervision of what we call a “handler” — a senior operative of the US Military/Intelligence. BELSAN. The murky events of the North Ossetian school siege in which hundreds of children were killed raised disturbing questions as to which entities were actually behind the co-ordination of the attack. Many indicators point to this event being a staged psy-op. A number of reports pointed to Belsan being an agency-led black-op. “The men had their conversations not within Russia but with other countries… It’s clear as daylight that those people are coming up as puppeteers and are financing terror,” as was reported to the Russia television company, national Channel Two.” Which agency it was, we can never know, but we can be certain is wasn’t just Chechen freedom fighters who ran this op. ANTHRAX ATTACKS. This staged op came directly in the wake of 9/11 and was initially promoted by the US government and the US media as the work of Muslim, or Al Qaeda terrorists. We later discover that the weapons grade anthrax which was used in these attacks originated from a classified, very secure, US military bio weapons facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The US attempted to frame a series of lone gunman for this attack, eventually settling on a model citizen, and decorated US scientist, Bruce Edwards Ivins, who conveniently, and mysteriously, killed himself whilst in custody before he could defend himself in court.  Of course, false flag news hounds will want us to point out the Virginia Tech Shooter, Dunblane Massacre, Columbine, DC Sniper, the Unibomber, McDonald’s Rampage in San Ysidro, Reagan’s attempted assassination, The Kennedy assassination and the mother of all shady domestic terror events- the Oklahoma City Bombing, alleged run by lone gunman Timothy McVeigh (he also had a handler too). Aside from their dodgy official narratives and the obvious military/government backgrounds of most participants, understand that each of these past false flag and staged public black-op/psy-op events make up marker points on our collective emotional calendar, and all of these events are used to their maximum by governments and media pundits in order to create a matrix of fear in society, taking us further down the road of the hyper-security state. Few can argue that this is exactly where we are right now, miles away from the more free societies that we all remember and enjoyed way back when. NORWAY’S 9/11: WHY NOW? As a result of the political response and societal knee-jerk reaction, those children who survived in Norway have been left in a society where death by violent crime, rape and assault is unfortunately greater than ever, as is always the case when populations are disarmed, allowing the criminal element to blossom, and where former peace-keeping, civil police are now armed to the teeth in a way that society has never seen before.  One point which cannot be ignored in all of the commotion and massive peace concerts which have sprung up around Norway, is the convenient timing of this whole attack.  We’ve already established that was not a random attack, as the students were targeted, making it a clear targeted political assassination. Now consider this… The Young Protestant Labour Party(the kids who were gunned down at the camp) just days before publically condemned Israel’s apartheid system and have since recognized Palestine as a State… and suddenly there is a bombing and a violent massacre? Critical minds should also take into account the fact that this exact camp was shot-up, after just having held a pro-Palestinian rally the day before. Politically, many in Norway were calling for a complete withdraw of any and all support of Israel. If that doesn’t raise an eyebrow or two…

TERROR BEEFCAKE: Breivik crafted an incredibly professional modeling portfolio. Did he have a handler?

Until now, few in the mainstream sphere have yet to find it strange that Anders had a series of professionally posed, studio quality “publicity” photos taken. There is one of him wearing Masonic regalia, one in a military uniform, a HAZMAT suit and gas mask, a Navy SEAL wetsuit with bayonet rifle, as well as a couple of “glamour” shots that look way too good for posting on Match.com. Besides the fact that to stage all of these photos and publish what looks like a comprehensive manifesto, it must have cost a small fortune, it is as if he was head-hunted by a talent agency who were preparing to launch his career in media. More than likely however, all these were in preparation for some media psy-op, and if you need any proof, just check out your TV program or newspaper. Interestingly, Breivik’s Facebook page looked fake by anyone’s account, as do his other online submissions and profiles, many of which were loaded up in the weeks before the terror operation. To the trained eye, blatantly fake online pages like these often give off the smell of a CIA/Mossad operational mock-up. It’s very difficult to argue that the are really authentic, nonetheless, highly paid mainstream media journalists will use them to build up a ‘profile’ of the killer after the fact, presenting their findings as consensus reality- in short, a reality we can all agree on. This should really raise alarm bells to anyone who is pursuing the truth behind the event. Although we can only speculate at this point, this attack would have certainly been within the capability of rogue elements within Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad. Breivik is allegedly a self-professed Right-wing supporter the Zionist State and is no fan of Arabs. In his own words: “So let us fight together with Israel, with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists, against all cultural Marxists/multiculturalists.” We can attempt to triangulate where Breivik is coming from now. In the current context, Israel is currently suffering a massive shift in terms of who its traditional Zionist supporters are in the West, and many mainstream elements are beginning to question more and more its policy of maintaining an apartheid police state to house the region’s indigenous populations of Arabs Muslims, Arab Christians, Bedouins and Druze.  Let’s speculate then… in the US, groups like the ADL and the SPLC are losing their grip on the media, and in Europe, a knee-jerk defense of all things Israeli is no longer the certainty it once was. If this were the case, then this is not the  Israel of old who at least tried to gain a certain amount of friends in the world, rather, it would be the new Israel, unashamed, having already bled the US dry of military aid dollars and goodwill- a rogue nation who is standing alone, using primal mafia hits against its political detractors in Europe. Many would argue this is a probable, albeit illogical shift for Israel considering the current political climate for its somewhat antiquated, out-of-date right-wing Zionist land-grabbing aspirations. What is also interesting is the timing of this spectacular event, coming just in time to rescue Rupert Murdoch and PM David Cameron from receiving an endless public lashing in British Press and an angry and disenchanted public. News International’s stock worldwide has been in a near free-fall. Suddenly it’s all silence on the matter and all news space can contain only details of this killing operation and its aftermath. Very convenient for those who were under the cosh only days before.
Operation Breivik may not be exclusively linked to Israel, it could also be targeting European democracies, Norway being one. Lessons from Operation Gladio have taught us that NATO and CIA terror cells have been operational in Europe, the recent tryst over Libya and other projects could very well be influencing recent events. We can note here that investigative journalist Webster G. Tarpley reported in his article “Norway Terror Attacks a False Flag,” that Norway was getting ready to call off its support for missions in Libya, and stop its involvement in that ongoing illegal war there as early as this August.
In addition, elsewhere in Europe we were witnessing the near disintegration of the Eurozone, with the collapse of EU economies Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. Riots are breaking out in the streets and anarchists are now back in fashion. Couple this with NATO’s complete pie-in-the-face over Libya- their illegal war becoming more difficult to manage and justify by the day. The political fallout from both these events is potentially massive, unless you can orchestrate a massive diversion that will last until September. MAINSTREAM MASONIC TALK Another anomaly in this latest public killing spree event is the mainstream injection of the normally obscure, cloak (or in this case apron) and dagger Freemason subject. So the story now goes that the biggest individual mass murderer in Europe since WWII – was a Freemason and a Knight de Templar and immensely proud of it.  His 1,500 odd paged manifesto prominently carries the image of the cross of the Knights Templar. He is apparently said to be a member of John Lodge St. Olaus TD Three pillars of the Norwegian Masonic Order and has the status of the 3rd degree, where the highest order is the 10th degree. All this makes for a seemingly endless supply of fodder for the millions of internet surfers whose most guilty of pleasures is reading and posting about Freemasonary conspiracies. As Berwick styles himself Justiciar Knight Commander, Knights Templar Europe, Knights Templar Norway, it can only up the ante in what will certainly become a media circus for the ages. Only this time, it’s not confined to alternative media or the internet forums. The Masonic news lines appear to be pre-packaged and are now running through the mainstream media too. It’s juicy Dan Brown stuff. Not the typical psy-op we have seen before. FINAL THOUGHTS ON PSY-OPS Any successful psy-op can achieve real results in terms of political and media distraction, and at its best, it can gain previously difficult to obtain political ground. Doing all that can be relatively easy after an event, compared to before it. Like 9/11 showed us, this dreadful occurrence has already demonstrated its way of disabling people’s ability to think critically and ask the necessary questions to determine who was indeed- behind the deed. Who benefits? What synchronicity do we see with other geopolitical and economic event currently in play? One obvious result of such a massacre is the ramping up in security and a further license for all law enforcement to take a more aggressive approach in the pre-crime apprehension of virtually anyone. Certainly now, the Norwegian police will arrest anybody suspected of carrying a gun or knife, or anyone deemed to be suspicious-looking. The ripple effects of such an event are rapid. Only two days later, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron announces that Britain is taking “extremely seriously” claims by the man believed responsible for killing more than 70 people in Norway that he had links with far-right groups in England, namely newly touted right-wing demon, and now notorious English Defense League. The mish-mash overlap of European groups looks like a throwback to the days of the dreaded Red Brigades, the P2 Lodge, Gladio and dare I say, Carlos the Jackal – yes, those wild days when disaffected East German students would risk life and limb to fight for the PLFP (People’s Liberation Front of Palestine) in Europe and the Middle East, whilst carrying freelance hit jobs to destabilise OPEC for the pleasure of a country like Iraq, who were actually being encouraged by the CIA to start a war with Iran. Those were the days… The Norway talking points are already being circulated as we speak. Experts are saying the following: We need more security. Gun ownership is dangerous. Right wing thinkers could be dangerous. Multiculturalism in Europe may have back fired. This of course will mean a full reclassification of  all political activists and causes. The social re-evaluation may not stop there- it just might include anyone who holds an opinion on virtually anything. We also learned from agent Breivik that now the far-right are being anti-this, and anti-that. This will no doubt be seen by the authorities as an exciting  new developement in the profiling of far-right mass killers. If you are anti-gay you are bad, or don’t like no prayer in schools you are bad etc. This can be extended to include anything, like the lack of support for the supposed war on terror. In this brave new world, it seems wrong to have an opinion that differs from being ultra liberal. Think outside “the box” ? Well, you are bad, very bad. Because the perp in this case, Anders Breivik, is a white skinned, blonde haired pin-up model, and appearing to be 100% politically motivated by reports in the media, the mob will tend towards an apologist or sympathetic tone- and they clearly are doing this. A side note here: Anders is certain to receive thousands of love letters and marriage proposals from disaffected lonely western women- particularly from females residing in the UK, US and Canada. But let’s not kid ourselves here: if he had been a Muslim, then the experts and political operators would have already firmly denounced his agenda and be steadfast in defending “western values” (anyone’s guess what those are). We will even defend vice, depravity and slandering other faiths in the face of any terrorist that possesses a markedly Eastern or Islamic bent. Ditto if he was a white, gun-toting militia from Indiana- in the new politically correct glossary, this is equal to a Muslim in the eyes of any mainstream politician or news pundit who thinks they can gain some political kudos for denouncing anyone who demonstrates a right to carry arms or does not worship at the altar of the state. Either way, they are simply ‘terrorists’, and as Ronald Reagan taught us some 30 years ago, “We don’t negotiate with terrorists”, regardless of what their political agenda might happen to be. But Anders… well, he’s different. He’s not a Muslim. Hence, Anders Breivik has not been classified as a pure terrorist by the media mob, rather he has already been officially labeled as a “political extremist”. This is an important detail when we consider the talking points that will be rolled out over the next few weeks. These talking points will form the thrust of social conditioning which the public will undergo as a result of the Norway massacre event. Here is the other point of a psy-op like this one. It’s easy to be Anders Breivik. Very easy, so we are told. It is not hard to buy fertilizer. It is not hard to buy 55 gallon drums. It is not hard to pour fertilizer into those drums and add diesel to them. It is not hard to load them into a van. It is not hard to drive a van. It is not hard to park a van. It is not hard to initiate an M60 fuse igniter. It is not hard to walk to a car you parked nearby yesterday or the day before. It is not hard to drive to an island. It is not hard to slaughter a crowd of unarmed young people on that island. Anyone can apparently do it, and so can you. That makes you a potential terrorist. Indeed, here in lies the functionality of the psy-op. All eyes are on you now. By all accounts, this is a false flag psy-op with some real legs on it, and may run for years. This one should be interesting to say the least. Author Stone Pinkerton is Editor of Gonzo Town. -facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest

This Spanish Spring is the Real Thing

By Giles Dexter European Correspondent 21st Century Wire May 26, 2011 It was perhaps inevitable given its long associations with, and geographical proximity to the Maghreb, that Spain should be the first European country to be swept up by the wave known as the “Arab Spring”. Protests have been raging across the country since May 15th, and like previous rumblings in Greece, this Spanish Spring will likely send a new shockwave through the EU. Indeed, a wave of discontent has arrived this month in Spain. People tend to forget that Spain had its own oppressive dictator, the 30′s Fascist survivor who steered clear of Hitler’s madness and instead ground down and impoverished his people with years of economic stagnation until the late 1970′s – El Caudillo himself, the Generalissimo Franco. When Franco’s “democracy” finally came to Spain, it was a third world country in all but name; largely agrarian, with poor infrastructure and little manufacturing. Visiting in the early 1980′s, one was struck by the high levels of subsistence and unproductive employment – there were rows of men waiting to shine shoes, the disabled stood on street corners with lottery tickets pinned to their lapels, while street vendors peddled second-hand toys.       THE REAL DEAL: This ‘Spanish Spring’ is no minor affair. Helped by generous EU grants and loans, Spain modernised rapidly and the sheer process of liberalisation opened doors. Media, creativity and the arts flourished in the 80′s and 90′s and Spain felt good about itself –politically and sexually liberated from the past at last. But still, their manufacturing sector never produced anything significant enough to prove a balance of trade. The explosion of tourism meant that shops and bars were busy, but barring booze, provisions and tourist paraphernalia, little of any scale or substance purchased bore the mark “Made in Spain.” ECONOMIC MOUSE TRAP An entirely false sense of prosperity engendered by their own infamous construction bubble is at the root of Spain’s subsequent economic collapse, with the by-product that the Spanish coastline has been completely and permanently ruined by the plethora of “Urbanisations” and “Apartamentos” that litter the once scenic Corniche. While thousands were temporarily employed as builders, surveyors, plumbers, estate agents and the like, their prosperity was only intermittent. But it had to end sooner or later. The market became completely saturated with identical apartments, few with any sense of place or purpose, bar enabling northern Europeans to soak up sun and sangria. Now the buyers have all gone away, thousands of flats and villas lie empty, unfinished building projects litter the edges of town centres and what have they got? Very little. Franco’s failure to build a technological base in the mid 20th century, exacerbated by his democratic successors squandering of the opportunities afforded by EU membership, mean that Spain has very little to fall back on. Unemployment among the young now stands at a staggering 45% – that’s millions of people with little or no chance of finding serious work. Needless to say, even basic social security for that many people is expensive, the few with employment subsidizing the masses without. The property speculation bubble has also meant that chronic inflation has also set in over the last decade, challenging the affordability of many basic goods and services. It’s a recipe for political and social and unrest, with the added catalyst that dozens of Spain’s elected officials are being indicted for charges of corruption. THE FLASH MOB MOVES NORTH Thousands are now camped out in central Madrid along with 60 other sites nationwide, creating temporary cities of the dispossessed. The mainstream media in Britain and the West have chosen to largely ignore this phenomenon, perhaps because they fear that “it could happen here”.

UNEXPECTED: With all eyes on North Africa and the Middle East, no one expected an Iberian revolt.

This century, Spaniards have moved to the forefront of alternative culture, the shackles of convention and Catholicism that governed their parents and grandparents lives permanently binned. They seem to realise more than any other western nation that the dog and pony show of replacing the “left” party with the ‘right” endlessly is little more than a hypnotic charade. They have taken the “Arab Spring” a step further by rejecting the periodic plebiscites that the West clings to as its claim to democracy, instead starting to demand real change – to economic structures, to political representation and even to the way we treat each other. At the camp in the “Puerta del Sol” in Madrid, free food is handed out. What’s being demanded is a new society, not just papering over the cracks of the old one. The movement itself has no single leader or figurehead; all decisions are made by consensus at general assemblies, held twice daily. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, attend the meetings, with no decision taken until every single person is in agreement. This is real synarchy in action, the genus of genuine political change and it should be applauded. It represents a major challenge to the old order of “representative democracy” focused on personality and privilege and is arguably the most significant grass-roots political development since Paris in 1968. There is a sense of optimism, and let’s hope it lasts.  SHOCKING: Barcelona protests descend into a carnival of police violence. Remember, Spain was at the forefront of western thought in the early 20th century and it nearly transformed, albeit temporarily, into anarchist state, before Franco turned it backwards into a textbook fascist state. At one point last week, an electoral committee assembled by the government declared the protest camp “illegal”. But even though there were strong rumours of an impending police “clean-up” operation, and seven riot vans gathered at one side of the square, protesters have remained at all times in a defiant spirit. “If they take us from the square tomorrow, the only thing that they will get is that they will make us stronger and we will come back stronger,” says 22-year-old Juan Martín. “We want a new society. This one doesn’t work anymore.” Watch this space. -facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest