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Revealing News For a Better World

Government Corruption News Stories
Excerpts of Key Government Corruption News Stories in Major Media


Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.


Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


GOP Congressman Stands By Accusation Some Fellow Members Have Been Compromised
2024-01-13, Huffington Post
Posted: 2024-02-12 19:38:57
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tim-burchett-stands-by-allegation-members-blac...

One of the more colorful conservative members of the U.S. House ... stands by recent remarks in which he said some of his fellow members were likely victims of blackmail. But Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who made the comments on a Dec. 21 podcast ... declined to elaborate on who he was talking about or give any other details. "You as a member of the media understand confidentiality, and I appreciate that, and I am going to keep that confidential unless those people tell me otherwise," Burchett [said]. Asked if he was standing by his comments, Burchett said, "Sure. I'm not going to back up." And when asked if he believed there were House members who had decided how to vote based on compromising material about them held by foreign powers, Burchett said, "Absolutely. And other powers. It doesn't have to be foreign powers." He said members may be on a trip or at a bar, meet someone and buy them a drink. "Next thing you know, you're in a hotel room with them, naked. Next thing you know, you're about to make a key vote, and what happens? Some well-dressed person comes up and whispers into your ear, ‘Hey, man, there's tapes out on you. Were you in a motel room on whatever with whoever?' And then you're, like, ‘Uh-oh.' And they say, ‘You really ought not be voting for this thing.'" Burchett's remarks were the most lurid accusations since former Rep. Madison Cawthorn [alleged that he] had been invited by colleagues to orgies in Washington.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Sexual violence is an ancient and often unseen war crime. Is it inevitable?
2024-02-08, NPR
Posted: 2024-02-12 19:36:50
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2024/02/08/1229815241/sexual-violen...

Despite its long history as part of conflicts, sexual violence is often not reported because of the trauma and shame it brings to survivors, their families and their wider communities. There has also been reticence among various authorities to speak out. Only in modern times, in the 1990s when wars broke out in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, did the United Nations begin to recognize sexual violence as ... a category of war crime. The specific term "conflict-related sexual violence," or CRSV, was first introduced in 2000 when the United Nations Security Council issued a resolution that launched the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. The U.N. defined the term as "rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict." [CRSV] is widespread and is used as a tactic of war to assert dominance and power. "It can be just as traumatizing to see your daughter, your sister or your parents being raped in front of you," says [Dr. Ranit] Mishori. "Or you're forced to strip naked in front of soldiers or in the city square. People often carry this trauma without knowing it's an international crime and minimize what happened to them." For conflict resolution and peace building to be successful, survivors need to be included in the process. For some countries this method has already started to work. [In Colombia], they have built women into the peace process. It's not perfect – no peace is perfect – but it is progressive and it is intentional, and that is important. Intentional peace building must be inclusive of survivors of this form of violence.

Note: The public receives censored and sanitized versions of war from the government and the media. Yet in reality, unethical violations of domestic and international human rights law are common and often kept hidden during wartime. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.


Bodycam Maker Axon Is on a Mission to Surveil America with AI
2024-02-01, Vice
Posted: 2024-02-12 19:35:15
https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bwp4/axon-acquires-fusus-ai-surveillance-re...

Axon, maker of Tasers and police body cameras, has acquired a surveillance company that allows police to tap into camera networks in schools, retail stores, and other locations in cities and towns across America and apply AI technology to the footage. Axon acquired Fusus for an undisclosed sum. Fusus operates what it calls "real time crime centers (RTCC)" which allow police and other public agencies to analyze a wide array of video sources at a single point and apply AI that detects objects and people. These centers are reminiscent of the Department of Homeland Security's Fusion Centers–where intelligence from a diverse number of sources is collected and shared among agencies–and have already expanded to over 250 cities and counties. Last week, Axon announced a new line of cameras called Axon Body Workforce designed to be worn by workers in retail and in healthcare. Despite pushing the cameras as deterrents, data shows no evidence that they've been effective in reducing police violence or increasing transparency. The rise of Fusus is concerning to rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has raised alarm over the expansion of law enforcement's ability to easily surveil Americans. Notably, the concept behind Fusus' solution is similar to technology that has been deployed in South Africa for years, and which experts have said exacerbates inequality in the country.

Note: Axon has ties to paid experts who are used to exonerate police after deaths in custody. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


TSA sparks privacy concerns amid plans to install facial recognition systems at 400 US airports
2024-02-01, New York Post
Posted: 2024-02-12 19:32:58
https://nypost.com/2024/02/01/lifestyle/tsa-sparks-privacy-concerns-amid-plan...

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) sparked privacy concerns after unveiling plans to roll out controversial facial recognition tech in over 400 US airports soon. "TSA is in the early stages of deploying its facial recognition capability to airport security checkpoints," a spokesperson [said] regarding the ambitious program. They explained that the cutting-edge tech serves to both enhance and expedite the screening process for passengers. Dubbed CAT-2 machines, these automated identification systems accomplish this by incorporating facial recognition tech to snap real-time pictures of travelers. They then compare this biometric data against the flyer's photo ID to verify that it's the real person. These CAT-scans enable "traveler use of mobile driver's licenses," thereby improving the security experience, per the spokesperson. The TSA currently has 600 CAT-2 units deployed at about 50 airports nationwide and plans to expand them to 400 federalized airports in the future. Following the implementation of these synthetic security accelerators at US airports last winter, lawmakers expressed concerns that the machines present a major privacy issue. "The TSA program is a precursor to a full-blown national surveillance state," said Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley. "Nothing could be more damaging to our national values of privacy and freedom. No government should be trusted with this power."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


‘A privacy nightmare': the $400m surveillance package inside the US immigration bill
2024-02-06, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-02-12 19:31:26
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/06/us-immigration-bill-mexico-bo...

The $118bn bipartisan immigration bill that the US Senate introduced on Sunday is already facing steep opposition. The 370-page measure, which also would provide additional aid to Israel and Ukraine, has drawn the ire of both Democrats and Republicans over its proposed asylum and border laws. But privacy, immigration and digital liberties experts are also concerned over another aspect of the bill: more than $400m in funding for additional border surveillance and data-gathering tools. The lion's share of that funding will go to two main tools: $170m for additional autonomous surveillance towers and $204m for "expenses related to the analysis of DNA samples", which includes those collected from migrants detained by border patrol. The bill describes autonomous surveillance towers as ones that "utilize sensors, onboard computing, and artificial intelligence to identify items of interest that would otherwise be manually identified by personnel". The rest of the funding for border surveillance ... includes $47.5m for mobile video surveillance systems and drones and $25m for "familial DNA testing". The bill also includes $25m in funding for "subterranean detection capabilities" and $10m to acquire data from unmanned surface vehicles or autonomous boats. As of early January, CBP had deployed 396 surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Note: Read more about the secret history of facial recognition technology and undeniable evidence indicating these tools do much more harm than good. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Internal Prison Files Suggest Epstein ‘Suicide' Coverup
2024-02-04, ScheerPost
Posted: 2024-02-12 19:25:06
https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/04/internal-prison-files-suggest-epstein-suici...

Internal US Bureau of Prison (BOP) documents obtained by The Grayzone under Freedom of Information laws raise extremely serious questions about whether Jeffrey Epstein's alleged first suicide attempt on July 23, 2019 in fact happened, and suggest the Bureau distorted evidence to attribute his death to suicide before his autopsy had even been completed. Officially, Epstein was found to have died in his cell at New York City's Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 10, 2019, with a medical examiner ruling at the time that he had taken his own life by hanging. The ruling was aggressively contested by Epstein's associates and widely disbelieved. Epstein's legal team publicly declared available evidence on his death was "far more consistent" with murder. On August 9 ... regular checks on [Epstein] ceased. Three CCTV cameras nearby apparently malfunctioned. Two on-duty guards fabricated records to hide how they allegedly flouted their legal duties to surf the internet. And the next day, the prison's most infamous inmate was dead. In the immediate wake of Epstein's death ... BOP suicide prevention coordinator Robert Nagle visited the Metropolitan Correctional Center to initiate a "psychological reconstruction" of Epstein's last moments. His resultant report recorded that a video of the "significant incident" was confiscated by the FBI before his review began. He was also prohibited from conducting formal interviews with prison staff.

Note: Read about the new evidence suggesting Epstein ran a sex blackmail operation for intelligence agencies. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.


Pentagon Report Predicts New Age of COVID Bioweapons and Brain Chip Warfare
2024-01-25, Lee Fang on Substack
Posted: 2024-02-12 19:19:43
https://www.leefang.com/p/pentagon-report-predicts-new-age

Military strategists believe that a "coronavirus bioweapon" may lurk on the horizon. This possibility is one of several outlined in a new report sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The report "Plagues, Cyborgs, and Supersoldiers: The Human Domain of War Research" delves into how CRISPR gene-editing technology, mRNA vaccines, brain networking, and other technological advancements could unleash new forms of military conflict. "We see a complex, high-threat landscape emerging where future wars are fought with humans controlling hyper-sophisticated machines with their thoughts" and "synthetically generated, genomically targeted plagues" that cripple the American military-industrial base," the report warns. At the same time, authoritarian states might ... brutally suppress "anti-vaccine populists" and enforce compliance. The report claims this could hinder the U.S. due to its more relaxed regulatory environment that values individual liberties, where such crackdowns and forced vaccinations are more difficult to deploy. The report takes aim at Congress, criticizing the recent repeal of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members. It urges lawmakers to resist "anti-vaccine populism" to ensure military readiness. Simultaneously, the report urges the Pentagon to consider using genetic screening to find qualified military recruits and develop clear plans for integrating bioweapon warfare capabilities.

Note: Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and microchip implants from reliable major media sources .


The Pentagon Tried to Hide That It Bought Americans' Data Without a Warrant
2024-01-26, Wired
Posted: 2024-02-04 21:29:44
https://www.wired.com/story/pentagon-data-purchases-wyden-letter/

United States officials fought to conceal details of arrangements between US spy agencies and private companies tracking the whereabouts of Americans. Obtaining location data from US phones normally requires a warrant, but police and intelligence agencies routinely pay companies instead for the data, effectively circumventing the courts. Ron Wyden, the US senator from Oregon, informed the nation's intelligence chief, Avril Haines, on Thursday that the Pentagon only agreed to release details about the data purchases, which had always been unclassified, after Wyden hindered the Senate's efforts to appoint a new director of the National Security Agency. "The secrecy around data purchases was amplified," Wyden wrote, "because intelligence agencies have sought to keep the American people in the dark." Pentagon offices known to have purchased location data from these companies include the Defense Intelligence Agency and the NSA, among others. Wyden's letter ... indicates that the NSA is also "buying Americans' domestic internet metadata." Wyden's disclosure comes amid a fight in the US House of Representatives over efforts to outlaw the purchases. Members of the House Judiciary Committee attached legislation doing so ... to a bill reauthorizing a contentious surveillance program known as Section 702. Biden administration officials and members of the intelligence committee staged a campaign against the privacy-enhancing measures.

Note: Learn more about mission creep in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands
2024-01-29, Yahoo News/Associated Press
Posted: 2024-02-04 21:26:17
https://news.yahoo.com/prisoners-us-part-hidden-workforce-125458768.html

Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work, for pennies an hour or sometimes nothing at all. They are among America's most vulnerable laborers. If they refuse to work, some can jeopardize their chances of parole or face punishment like being sent to solitary confinement. The goods ... prisoners produce wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products found in most American kitchens, from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour, Coca-Cola and Riceland rice. They are on the shelves of virtually every supermarket in the country, including Kroger, Target, Aldi and Whole Foods. It's completely legal. Enshrined in the Constitution by the 13th Amendment, slavery and involuntary servitude are banned – except as punishment for a crime. With about 2 million people locked up, U.S. prison labor from all sectors has morphed into a multibillion-dollar empire. Almost all of the country's state and federal adult prisons have some sort of work program, employing around 800,000 people. Altogether, labor tied specifically to goods and services produced through state prison industries brought in more than $2 billion in 2021. "Slavery has not been abolished," said Curtis Davis, who spent more than 25 years at [Louisiana's Angola] penitentiary. "It is still operating in present tense," he said. "Nothing has changed."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in prisons and in the food system from reliable major media sources.


New York has paid record $322m to people wrongly incarcerated since 1989
2024-01-17, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-02-04 21:24:13
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/17/new-york-payouts-wrongul-inca...

New York has paid out the most of any state in the US to people wrongly incarcerated, according to a new study. High Rise Financial ... analyzed data from the National Registry of Exonerations, a database on exonerated people in each state. New York state has paid out a total of $322m to those wrongfully incarcerated. The state has awarded 237 claims for wrongful imprisonment out of 326 exonerated people. Such payouts cost New York taxpayers $15.97 per person, also the largest per-capita payment out of any state, the study found. Texas, Connecticut, Maryland and Michigan were the other states in the top five that paid out the most to exonerated people. Texas paid out the second highest amount, awarding a total of $155m to 128 people out of 450 people exonerated. The most recent study comes as the amount of exoneration has steadily increased in recent years, according to Maurice Chammah, a journalist with the Marshall Project. Chammah added that getting compensation for a wrong conviction can be tough in some states. In Texas, where lawmakers have paid out large sums to exonerees, legislators have also placed "really harsh limits on accessing that money". "You sometimes need to be declared actually innocent by a court in a way that is like a very high and difficult barrier to meet," Chammah said. Overall, Chammah noted that such figures could prompt legislators to pass bills that could limit wrongful incarceration in the first place.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in the courts and in the prison system from reliable major media sources.


Boom, bang! Tales from a cell below the ‘crazy unit' of a US prison
2023-12-20, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-02-04 21:22:33
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/20/inside-new-jersey-state-priso...

I was moved on to unit 1EE on the south compound inside New Jersey State Prison a year ago. On the floor just above me is 2EE, which is known as "the crazy unit". This unit is where incarcerated men throughout the state are sent when they experience mental health difficulties. Men are stripped down and given "turtle suits", thin vests that barely keep them covered. There are no pillows, blankets or sheets. In the United States, roughly 40% of people in state prisons and local jails have a history of mental illness, but less than half of those folks receive treatment. Individuals with signs of mental health issues can face additional risks and discipline while inside, including prison misconduct charges, longer solitary confinement periods and barriers to accessing medication. As a juvenile, a kid might try to get out of being locked up by saying they were going to kill themselves, so they could get sent to a psych unit where they might be treated better. They don't realize that it will put them on the special needs list forever. As an adult, at least in New Jersey State Prison, a person can get labeled special needs for complaining that they can't sleep. A special needs designation means that you'll be at the mercy of the mental health department. It can land you in a bad spot. The side-effects of medication they might give you could be crippling. Some guys get hooked on the drugs and never wake up again.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.


Pentagon Suggests There're No U.S. Troops In Yemen – But Last Month The White House Said There Are
2024-01-26, The Intercept
Posted: 2024-02-04 21:20:53
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/26/us-troops-yemen-pentagon-white-house/

Amid a raft of U.S. strikes targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Pentagon has boots on the ground in the country – a fact the Defense Department has recently refused to acknowledge. "A small number of United States military personnel are deployed to Yemen to conduct operations against al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS," the White House told Congress ... on December 7. This month, the U.S. began its military campaign against the Houthis for attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea. As the U.S. began to attack, defense officials suddenly became more reticent about the American military presence in Yemen. In a press briefing on January 17, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder was asked if he could give assurances that the U.S. had no troops on the ground in Yemen. "It's possible that U.S. forces are spread so widely around the globe that not even the professional tasked with knowing that can keep track of it all," said Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, who worked on Yemen as a Capitol Hill staffer. "But it's also possible that, given the dramatic expansion in US presence in the region in recent months, he is trying to skirt the question to avoid greater scrutiny." The U.S. has conducted eight rounds of strikes on Houthi targets in the past month alone. On December 18, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the creation of a U.S.-led coalition to defend ships against Houthi attacks.

Note: Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Behind the Curtain: Finding Counternarratives About Death Row
2024-01-21, ScheerPost
Posted: 2024-02-04 21:16:30
https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/21/behind-the-curtain-finding-counternarrative...

After poking and prodding [Doyle] Hamm with needles for almost 3 hours, prison officials gave up as Mr. Hamm lay strapped to a gurney in a pool of blood. They called off the execution because they were unsuccessful in gaining IV access to administer the lethal injection. This was a risk Mr. Hamm's attorney had predicted given Hamm's advanced cancer and long history of IV drug use. At the time, ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn did not provide details to reporters about what happened. "I wouldn't characterize what we had tonight as a problem," Dunn said. Hamm's attorney later released photos and examination notes showing that prison employees had punctured Hamm's bladder and an artery causing him to urinate blood. The state ... privately agreed to never try to execute Doyle Hamm again. Counternarratives about death row can be found in the 2023 book titled Ghosts Over the Boiler: Voices from Alabama's Death Row. The book is a collection of writings previously published by Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, or PHADP, the nation's only nonprofit formed on and operated from death row. The organization ... has a goal to educate the public about capital punishment and the features of inequality that define it, while advocating for an end to the death penalty. All of the featured writers have been convicted of murder, although based on the rate of death row exonerations, some are likely wrongly convicted.

Note: The current system often puts innocent people to death. Over half of all wrongful convictions are the result of government misconduct. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.


DOCUMENTS: Chinese Researcher Who Mapped COVID Virus Two Weeks Before China Released Sequence Was on Anthony Fauci's Payroll
2024-01-19, The DisInformation Chronicle on Substack
Posted: 2024-02-04 21:14:59
https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/documents-chinese-researcher-who

A Chinese researcher who first submitted the genetic sequence for the SARS-CoV-2 virus in late December 2019, around two weeks before China disclosed the deadly virus to outside scientists, was on the payroll of Anthony Fauci's institute at the time, according to a grant awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit operated by Peter Daszak. The disclosures call into further question what officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) knew about research they were funding in China where the pandemic began. "The grant doesn't work on SARS-CoV-2," Daszak [said], when the NIH was forced to review the grant in the summer of 2020. "Our organization has not actually published any data on SARS-CoV-2. We work on bat coronaviruses that are out there in the wild and trying to predict what the next one is." NIH officials refused to respond to multiple requests to explain how much salary they provided to Dr. Lili Ren, a scientist at the Beijing-based Institute of Pathogen Biology, who wrote a letter in support of Daszak's grant application to Fauci's NIH institute. Ren first uploaded the COVID virus sequence to the NIH's GenBank on December 28, 2019–two weeks before scientists celebrated China's release of the genetic sequence on January 11, 2020. Fauci's NIH grant also paid for Ren's expenses, including travel to the United States to meet with Daszak as well as her collaborator Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina.

Note: The author of Disinformation Chronicle on Substack is Paul Thacker, an American investigative journalist who served as an investigator in the US Senate, focusing on financial ties between doctors and pharmaceutical companies. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID-19 from reliable major media sources.


Louis Armstrong and the spy: how the CIA used him as a ‘trojan horse' in Congo
2021-09-12, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-02-04 21:11:52
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/12/louis-armstrong-and-the-spy-how...

Louis Armstrong, his wife and a diplomat from the US embassy were out for dinner in a restaurant in what was still Léopoldville, capital of the newly independent Congo. The [musician] was in the middle of a tour of Africa ... organised and sponsored by the State Department. What Armstrong did not know was that his host that night in November 1960 was not the political attaché as described, but the head of the CIA in Congo. "Armstrong was basically a Trojan horse for the CIA," said Susan Williams ... author of White Malice, a new book which exposes the astonishing extent of the CIA's activities across central and west Africa. Armstrong's host, CIA station chief Larry Devlin, and other US intelligence officers posted to Congo used the cover of the musicians's visit to get access to the strategically important and very wealthy province of Katanga, which had recently seceded. There was much of interest to the CIA in Katanga, ranging from senior officials with whom they could not otherwise meet to crucial mining infrastructure, with 1,500 tons of uranium and vast potential to procure more. The CIA in the Congo, led by Devlin, was trying to kill the Congo's first democratically elected prime minister, 35-year-old Patrice Lumumba, fearful that he would lead the country into the Soviet camp. A mile or so from where Armstrong and Devlin had dined, the charismatic Lumumba was being held prisoner ... by soldiers loyal to Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, the young military chief with a close working relationship with the CIA, who had effectively seized power some weeks earlier. Within two months of Armstrong's tour, Lumumba was murdered in Katanga. Devlin later claimed that the CIA was responsible, telling a US Congressional investigation "that the coup of Mobutu … was arranged and supported, and indeed, managed, by the CIA".

Note: Read how the CIA used modern art and other cultural figures as weapons during the Cold War in our Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.


OpenAI Quietly Deletes Ban On Using ChatGPT For "Military And Warfare"
2024-01-12, The Intercept
Posted: 2024-01-29 14:20:03
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/

OpenAI this week quietly deleted language expressly prohibiting the use of its technology for military purposes. Up until January 10, OpenAI's "usage policies" page included a ban on "activity that has high risk of physical harm, including," specifically, "weapons development" and "military and warfare." That plainly worded prohibition against military applications would seemingly rule out any official, and extremely lucrative, use by the Department of Defense or any other state military. The new policy retains an injunction not to "use our service to harm yourself or others" and gives "develop or use weapons" as an example, but the blanket ban on "military and warfare" use has vanished. OpenAI spokesperson Niko ... Felix [said] that OpenAI wanted to pursue certain "national security use cases that align with our mission," citing a plan to create "cybersecurity tools" with DARPA, and that "the goal with our policy update is to provide clarity and the ability to have these discussions." The real-world consequences of the policy are unclear. Last year, The Intercept reported that OpenAI was unwilling to say whether it would enforce its own clear "military and warfare" ban in the face of increasing interest from the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence community. "Given the use of AI systems in the targeting of civilians in Gaza, it's a notable moment to make the decision to remove the words ‘military and warfare' from OpenAI's permissible use policy," said [former AI policy analyst] Sarah Myers West.

Note: Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


‘Different rules': special policies keep US supplying weapons to Israel despite alleged abuses
2024-01-18, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-01-29 14:12:04
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/18/us-supply-weapons-israel-allege...

Top US officials quietly reviewed more than a dozen incidents of alleged gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces since 2020, but have gone to great lengths to preserve continued access to US weapons for the units responsible for the alleged violations, contributing ... to the sense of impunity with which Israel has approached its war in Gaza. An estimated 24,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces since Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel. Special mechanisms have been used over the last few years to shield Israel from US human rights laws, even as other allies' military units who receive US support – including, sources say, Ukraine – have privately been sanctioned and faced consequences for committing human rights violations. Under the Leahy law ... a foreign military unit is granted US military assistance or training after it is vetted by the state department for any reported human rights violations. The law prohibits the Department of State and the Department of Defense from providing funds, assistance or training to foreign security force units where there is "credible information" that the forces have committed a gross violation of human rights. In the case of at least three countries – Israel, Ukraine and Egypt – the scale of foreign assistance is so great that US military assistance can be difficult to track, and the US often has no knowledge of where specific weapons end up or how they are used.

Note: Learn more about the dysfunctional nature of the US war machine in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Open the Congo files and face up to what the CIA did
2023-10-24, Washington Post
Posted: 2024-01-29 14:10:04
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/24/congo-lumumba-cia-amends/

Never in its 63 years of independence has Congo experienced a peaceful and democratic transfer of power. On June 30, 1960, after 75 years of Belgian rule, Congo became an independent country. At the helm as prime minister was Patrice Lumumba. On Aug. 18, 1960, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first U.S. president known to order the assassination of a sitting foreign leader. During a National Security Council meeting, an official note taker ... recalled, President Eisenhower said "something – I can no longer remember his words– that came across to me as an order for the assassination of Lumumba." The CIA's top chemist procured a poison to kill Lumumba, flew it to Congo, and instructed the CIA station chief there, Larry Devlin, to put it in the prime minister's food or toothpaste. But by that time, Lumumba had been removed from office and put under house arrest, so the plot fizzled. Lumumba was flown to the breakaway province of Katanga and shot dead ... by Congolese soldiers commanded by Belgian officers and answering to the separatist government. The CIA ... had blood on its hands for the death of Lumumba. It played a role in every event leading to his downfall. As part of what came to be known as "Project Wizard," the CIA subsidized at least two opposition senators, and the agency received White House authorization to pay the president as well. CIA cash also paid for anti-Lumumba radio propaganda and street protests.

Note: Learn more about the rise of the CIA in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.


The Military-Industrial Complex Is the Winner (Not You)
2024-01-17, ScheerPost
Posted: 2024-01-29 14:05:32
https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/17/the-military-industrial-complex-is-the-winn...

2023 was a year marked by devastating conflicts from Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine to Hamas's horrific terror attacks on Israel, from that country's indiscriminate mass slaughter in Gaza to a devastating civil war in Sudan. And there's a distinct risk of even worse to come this year. Still, there was one clear winner in this avalanche of violence, suffering, and war: the U.S. military-industrial complex. In December, President Biden signed a record authorization of $886 billion in "national defense" spending for 2024, including funds for the Pentagon proper and work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy. Add to that tens of billions of dollars more in likely emergency military aid for Ukraine and Israel, and such spending could well top $900 billion for the first time. Annual spending on the costly, dysfunctional F-35 combat aircraft alone is greater than the entire budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2020, Lockheed Martin's contracts with the Pentagon were worth more than the budgets of the State Department and the Agency for International Development combined, and its arms-related revenues continue to rival the government's entire investment in diplomacy. One $13 billion aircraft carrier costs more than the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. Before investing ever more tax dollars ... the military strategy of the United States in the current global environment should be seriously debated.

Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Face Recognition Technology Follows a Long Analog History of Surveillance and Control Based on Identifying Physical Features
2024-01-22, ScheerPost
Posted: 2024-01-29 14:02:37
https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/22/face-recognition-technology-follows-a-long-...

American Amara Majeed was accused of terrorism by the Sri Lankan police in 2019. Robert Williams was arrested outside his house in Detroit and detained in jail for 18 hours for allegedly stealing watches in 2020. Randal Reid spent six days in jail in 2022 for supposedly using stolen credit cards in a state he'd never even visited. In all three cases, the authorities had the wrong people. In all three, it was face recognition technology that told them they were right. Law enforcement officers in many U.S. states are not required to reveal that they used face recognition technology to identify suspects. Surveillance is predicated on the idea that people need to be tracked and their movements limited and controlled in a trade-off between privacy and security. The assumption that less privacy leads to more security is built in. That may be the case for some, but not for the people disproportionately targeted by face recognition technology. As of 2019, face recognition technology misidentified Black and Asian people at up to 100 times the rate of white people. In 2018 ... 28 members of the U.S. Congress ... were falsely matched with mug shots on file using Amazon's Rekognition tool. Much early research into face recognition software was funded by the CIA for the purposes of border surveillance. More recently, private companies have adopted data harvesting techniques, including face recognition, as part of a long practice of leveraging personal data for profit.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


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