Documents show Trapwire links to Cubic Corporation

But the surveillance is not limited to video surveillance. The United States is also adopting Russian-made software to recognize voices in seconds.

RUSSIA TODAY | SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

Just discovered documentation concerning the TrapWire secret surveillance system suggests that the San Diego-based Cubic Corporation did have a direct connection with the program, despite repeated attempts to dismiss allegations of their involvement.

Although Cubic has gone on the record on several occasions to refute claims that they have at one time or another been directly tied to the Abraxas Applications, the Northern Virginia company believed to have developed TrapWire, a post published this week on the PrivacySos.org blog discusses evidence that links the two firms to one another. Cubic has repeatedly insisted that it has no link to TrapWire, a widespread, international surveillance and intelligence system brought to light in emails distributed by WikiLeaks, but new revelations expose a relationship between the two that was documented on a federal website as recently as February of last year.

As RT unraveled the TrapWire saga earlier this year, investigations into both Cubic and Abraxas revealed a number of associations among the two. In an August 13, 2012 press release, Cubic came forth and admitted to acquiring Abraxas Corp in December of 2010, but insisted, “Abraxas Corporation then and now has no affiliation with Abraxas Applications now known as Trapwire, Inc.” The latest revelation directly discredits that claim.

PrivacySos reports that a website maintained by the US Homeland Security Department’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) includes TrapWire as a product for sale to law enforcement agencies and first responders. It’s there that the background and operational concept of the system are described in detail and direct curious customers to AbraxasCorp.com for more information. When a link to the URL is clicked, the banner at the top of the developer’s homepage described Abraxas as “A Cubic Company.” On the FEMA page, the product information is detailed as provided directly by Abraxas Applications

“The Products Section includes commercially available product information that has been uploaded directly and voluntarily by the manufacturer,” the FEMA page acknowledges.

If that is indeed the case, either the federal government is hosting falsified information about TrapWire to prospective customers, or else the program was overseen to a degree by Cubic as previously suspected. If it’s the latter, then the August 13 statement was a downright lie.

On the PrivacySos post, published Tuesday, its acknowledged that Cubic has previously been confirmed as operating fare systems for major mass transit programs and Anonymizer, an IP-masked tool described by its publicists as “the leader in consumer online anonymity solutions.”

“If the government’s facts are correct, the Abraxas Corporation was managing sales for the TrapWire system at least as recently as February 2011 – meaning Cubic had its hands on both highly sensitive private information on millions of ordinary people and a networked surveillance system sold to governments,” PrivacySOS notes.

In addition to the press release that attempted to distance Cubic from TrapWire, activist and Project PM founder Barrett Brown uploaded a phone call to YouTube he alleged to be between himself and Cubic Corp. Communication Director Tim Hall. In the clip, published August 21, Mr. Hall denied his company’s involvement with TrapWire and also insisted that Cubic has never been tied to Ntrepid, a separate corporation that was awarded $2.76 million worth of taxpayer dollars to create phony Internet “sock puppets” to propagate US support.

“There is no connection at all with Abraxas Applications and Trapwire and or Ntrepid,” the man perpetrated to be Hall explains in the clip. Research into the entities, however, led to the discovery of Abraxas Corporation’s tax filings from late 2011, and with it, a common bond: TrapWire Inc. was registered in 2009 to a Margaret A Lee from Virginia, who also served on the Ntrepid board of directors.

See the video below for a detailed explanation on how Trapwire works. (report begins at 31 minutes).

The voice surveillance system

How do you make matters worse for an elusive intelligence company that has been forced to scramble for explanations about their ownership of an intricate, widespread surveillance program? Just ask Cubic, whose troubles only begin with TrapWire.

Days after the international intelligence gathering surveillance system called TrapWire was unraveled by RT, an ongoing investigation into any and all entities with ties to the technology has unturned an ever-increasing toll of creepy truths. In only the latest installment of the quickly snowballing TrapWire saga, a company that shares several of the same board members as the secret spy system has been linked to a program called Tartan, which aims to track down alleged anarchists by specifically singling out Occupy Wall Street protesters and the publically funded media — all with the aid of federal agents.

Tartan, a product of the Ntrepid Corporation, “exposes and quantifies key influencers and hidden connections in social networks using mathematical algorithms for objective, un-biased output,” its website claims. “Our analysts, mathematicians and computer scientists are continually exploring new quantification, mining and visualization techniques in order to better analyze social networks.” In order to prove as such, their official website links to the executive summary of a case study dated this year that examines social network connections among so-called anarchists, supposedly locating hidden ties within an underground movement that was anchored on political activists and even the Public Broadcasting Station [.pdf].

“Tartan was used to reveal a hidden network of relationships among anarchist leaders of seemingly unrelated movements,” the website claims. “The study exposed the affiliations within this network that facilitate the viral spread of violent and illegal tactics to the broader protest movement in the United States.”

Tartan is advertised on their site as a must-have application for the national security sector, politicians and federal law enforcement, and makes a case by claiming that “an amorphous network of anarchist and protest groups,” made up of Occupy Oakland, PBS, Citizen Radio, Crimethinc and others, relies on “influential leaders,” “modern technology” and “illegal tactics” to spread a message of anarchy across America.“The organizers of Occupy Wall Street and Occupy DC have built Occupy networks through online communication with anarchists actively participating in the movements’ founding,” the executive summary reads. On the chart that accompanies their claim, the group lists several political activism groups and broadcast networks within a ring of alleged anarchy, which also includes an unnamed FBI informant.

Although emails uncovered in a hack last year waged at Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, suggested that Occupy groups had been under private surveillance, the latest discovery of publically available information implies that the extent to which the monitoring of political activists on American soil occurred may have extended what was previously imagined.

Things don’t end there, though. While the TrapWire tale is still only just beginning, the Ntrepid Corporation made headlines last year after it was discovered by the Guardian that the company was orchestrating an “online persona management” program, a clever propaganda mill that was touted as a means “to influence regional and international audiences to achieve U.S. Central Command strategic objectives,” according, at least, to the Inspector General of the US Defense Department [.pdf]. The investigation eventually revealed that the US Central Command awarded Ntrepid $2.76 million worth of taxpayer dollars to create phony Internet “sock puppets” to propagate US support.

Cannabidiol Stops Metastasis of Aggressive Cancers

By MARTIN A. LEE | THE DAILY BEAST | SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Cannabinoids in marijuana slow cancer growth, inhibit the feeding a tumor, and help manage pain, fatigue, nausea…

Cristina Sanchez, a young biologist at Complutense University in Madrid, was studying cell metabolism when she noticed something peculiar. She had been screening brain cancer cells because they grow faster than normal cell lines and thus are useful for research purposes. But the cancer cells died each time they were exposed to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive ingredient of marijuana.

Instead of gaining insight into how cells function, Sanchez had stumbled upon the anti-cancer properties of THC. In 1998, she reported in a European biochemistry journal that THC “induces apoptosis [cell death] in C6 glioma cells,” an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Subsequent peer-reviewed studies in several countries would show that THC and other marijuana-derived compounds, known as “cannabinoids,” are effective not only for cancer-symptom management (nausea, pain, loss of appetite, fatigue), they also confer a direct antitumoral effect.

A team of Spanish scientists led by Manuel Guzman conducted the first clinical trial assessing the antitumoral action of THC on human beings. Guzman administered pure THC via a catheter into the tumors of nine hospitalized patients with glioblastoma, who had failed to respond to standard brain-cancer therapies. The results were published in 2006 in the British Journal of Pharmacology: THC treatment was associated with significantly reduced tumor cell proliferation in every test subject.

Around the same time, Harvard University scientists reported that THC slows tumor growth in common lung cancer and “significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread.” What’s more, like a heat-seeking missile, THC selectively targets and destroys tumor cells while leaving healthy cells unscathed. Conventional chemotherapy drugs, by contrast, are highly toxic; they indiscriminately damage the brain and body.

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Russia kicks out USAID for “meddling in Russian politics”

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

USAID allegedly helps monitor elections in remote areas of Russia.

The Agency for International Development (USAID) will stop work in Russia as a result of a government ban on the American organization due to what the Russian government says it is the continuous meddling of USAID in its political scenario. The move will impact Russian Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) which depend on USAID’s funds to carry out their programs.

USAID has until Oct. 1 to close its offices in Russia, where it’s been working since 1992, spending some $ 2,600 million. Projects funded by USAID range, according to the organization, from combating tuberculosis and AIDS to educating children with disabilities as well as  monitoring and controlling of elections in a large geographical area.

“The nature of work of the agency representatives in Russia in many cases did not meet the stated goals of development and humanitarian bilateral cooperation”, said on Wednesday Russian foreign ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich. Lukashevich accused USAID of “attempting to influence by allocating grants in the political process, including elections at different levels and institutions of civil society.” The “activity” of the agency in “various Russian regions, especially in the North Caucasus, raised serious questions” about which “we warned repeatedly our American colleagues,” he said.

USAID works in numerous administrative units of the Russian Caucasus, from Chechnya to Ingushetia through Karachai-Cherkessia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Krasnodar and Stavropol. In these provinces there are projects related to electoral monitoring by Golos. The director of this NGO, Lilya Shibanova, called the decision a”bad sign” and a “heavy blow” to her organization. She said the immediate step to kick USAID out puts at risk the monitoring plan for the regional elections that will be held on October 14 in various Russian provinces.

Russia is now part of the countries that hold the “new donor” status, while rejecting the “recipient” label. This change turns the country away from receiving aid from all international organizations,” said Lukashevich. “The Russian civil society has grown and does not need” external aid, “said the spokesman for the foreign ministry, who spoke about the possibility of cooperating with the U.S. in third countries. With the expulsion of USAID, Russia makes it even clearer that the Kremlin leadership is aiming at restricting the activities of the opposition, which intensified with the return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency.

In November, a new law will become effective which will require that a person registers as a “foreign agent” when working for an NGO whose political activities receive international funding. However, the Russian Ministry of Justice has had to seek help from academic experts to develop criteria on political activities that require participants to identify themselves as “foreign agents”.

From the perspective of the Kremlin, the U.S. and the West are trying to destabilize Russia and encourage protests against their leaders. However, this is not the only reason why the Russian government kicked out USAID. Some media outlets are now reporting on this move as a sign of the problematic relations between the U.S. and Russia. The measure also may be linked to “pride” from the part of the Russian government. The move to cut ties with American, or in general foreign organizations is not new in Russia. The government sought to end this kind of relationships and to change the way the country cooperates with foreign organizations, especially those of Western origin.

Another NGO that will be affected given the Russian decision to send USAID home, is “Memorial”, an organization that occupies its time and funds to maintain the historical memory of Stalinism. “It’s unfortunate,” said Yelena Zhemkova, a member of Memorial’s board. “We may have to reduce some of our programs and find money elsewhere, but we will move forward,” she said. “Those who really suffer are the programs to combat tuberculosis or helping handicapped,” he said. Projects funded by USAID at “Memorial” are “a ramp to enable disabled persons to travel on our premises and access the library.

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U.S. will set up Second Missile Shield System in Japan

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta ended his visit to Asia with the announcement that a new agreement was reached with his Japanese counterpart, Satoshi Morimoto, to install a second missile defense system in addition to the one already on the island, which Panetta emphasized, is for the protection of the Japanese people. Panetta drew attention to the idea that Japan continuous to be threatened by possible attacks from North Korea; a Chinese ally.

Panetta traveled to Asia to meet with the Japanese Secretary of Defense, as well as to meet with the Chinese representative, with whom held conversations regarding the latest tensions between China and Japan over the territorial dispute that has caused the latest friction between the two Asian nations.

“Everyone should be involved so that Japan and China have good relations and find a way to avoid an escalation” in their current differences, Panetta said Monday in Japan before arriving in Beijing. The Defense Secretary called on both countries to remain “calm and restraint”, and to avoid initiating actions that could turn the dispute over the islands into a more difficult issue to resolve.

This dual action summarizes the complicated crossroads where the U.S. is on the continent: the obligation to protect its allies, while not drawing the ire of China. U.S. has signed a defense treaty with Japan and is responsible for decades of security in that country, while assuring China that the military build up is not a direct threat to the Chinese government. The United States escalated its move of troops and military equipment in Asia, which has raised the voice of alarm in China and Russia.

Both countries have been almost completely encircled by US military equipment, such as missile shield systems. In other cases where the US has not directly build weapons systems in Asia or Africa, it has sold or simply given military equipment to other allies, which is also seen as a threat in Beijing and Moscow.and the like that has with various countries of the region. China and Russia have stepped up their own build up of force in response to the massive US intervention in the continent, mainly through special operations or actions from allied countries such as Japan. For the Chinese and the Russian it is very difficult to believe that the American encirclement is for reasons other than to establish itself on the continent to challenge their power.

Two weeks ago, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, suffered some rudeness in Beijing and was heavily criticized by the press for the position she showed with respect to China’s territorial problems with some of its neighbors in the South Sea. Clinton expressed her wish that the sea in that region remained open as the vital and intense trade route it is today. Some Chinese media replied that the best guarantee for that to happen would be the the U.S. stayed out.

But the U.S. is not going to do that. On the contrary, is increasing its military presence. In January, the Pentagon announced that transit of the bulk of a fleet would sail all over the region for the next few years. The U.S. has opened a new Marine base in Australia and has reached an agreement to increase its transit through Philippine waters. The reason for this increase is, officially, the growing threat of North Korea and the vulnerability of some U.S. allies such as Japan or South Korea. China interpreted it, however, as interference in a region where the Chinese would otherwise be a dominant power.

During her visit, Clinton could not meet with the Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who was unavailable for public appearances. Meanwhile, Leo Panetta has scheduled an appointment with him, which may facilitate the dialogue since Mr. Xi was an advisor to the Ministry of Defense in China. He also happens to be an expert in military affairs.

The militarization of the rivalry between China and the U.S. has always been seen as a frightening possibility by the international community and as a risk that both countries have tried to avoid so far. Very dependent on each other for economic progress, both China and the U.S. have always understood how much they would lose if a conflict broke out. But at the same time, neither is willing to relinquish control of a strategic region that provides most of the world’s wealth.

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CSIRO GM Wheat Could Potentially change Human Genome

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

The proven threats that GMO organisms pose to the environment is endless, but chemical companies don’t seem to care, and instead continue to work with and put out food products that contain such genetically modified threats.

The most recent example is GMO wheat from CSIRO, which just happens not to be one of the large chemical conglomerates that operate worldwide today. CSIRO is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which Australia’s National Science Agency.

According to a recent report from the Safe Food Foundation, CSIRO’s GMO wheat has the potential — if consumed — to change the way  humans absorb carbohydrates.The foundation held a press conference on September 11 to request that CSIRO makes available all of its studies regarding how the genes contained in the wheat affect . “We were alerted about a safety issue by a researcher who identified DNA/RNA sequence matches in the GM wheat, and in human beings,” said Scott Kinnear, the director of the Safe Food Foundation.

Mr. Kinnear, who is also a professor at University of Canterbury, was joined by researchers Jack Heinemann Judy Carman to discuss the potential threats of CSIRO’s GMO wheat. “This safety issue was extensively studied by our two experts. What we are asking CSIRO to do, is to release all their safety studies on GM wheat, if they’ve done any at all,” added Kinnear.

He said CSIRO also needed to release the sequences of its science and technology, which according to him would enable the foundation’s experts to do a complete bio-informatic sequence matching. He emphasized that so far, the experts had found a significant amount of sequence matches between the GMO wheat and that of a human being, which made it even more urgent to keep on investigating to discover if the GMO wheat could negatively affect human health.

As explained by Professor Jack Heinemann, who is a molecular biologist at the University of Cantenbury, the way in which the wheat has been modified has never been validated. “The technology is too new,” Heinemmann said and that is why the foundation is requesting the information and materials from CSIRO to conduct extensive studies on whether the wheat is safe for human consumption. “What we found is that the molecules created in this wheat intended to silence wheat genes can match human genes.”

He went further to explain that through ingestion, the GMO molecules can enter human beings and potentially silence human genes the same way they do with those of the wheat. Researchers found 770 pages of potential matches between the two GMO genes in the wheat and the human genome.

“We found over a dozen matches that are extensive and identical,” he added. Heinemann said that his findings are conclusive in demonstrating that the matches do exist, but that the limits they’ve had given the lack of data does not prove that the GMO wheat may cause adverse effects on humans. For that he said, experts like himself need to conduct more research to confirm or discard their theory. “From this information, we know it is plausible that there would be an adverse effect, and that is why we are calling for a battery of experiments to be done before humans eat this wheat.”

“This gene is designed to silence a particular gene in wheat to change the carbohydrate content,” said Judy Carman, a biochemist and Director of the IHERS at Flinders University. She warned that if the GMO gene were to act the same way in humans, it would effectively silence human genes, the ones found to match those of the wheat. “That could have serious complications.”

“It will mean that there will be significant changes in the way we store our carbohydrates and glucose in the body.” She said that the human body needs to make a substance known as glycogen, which is essential in order to perform tasks such as waking up, moving, or having a burst of energy to complete everyday tasks. “Children who are born with this kind of genes silenced, tend to die by the age of five, while adults tend to get more sick and more tired,” added Carman. She also insisted that animal studies are necessary even before human studies are conducted.

See the complete press conference below:

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