Mark Judge letter to Grassley regarding Swetnick allegation
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-09-28%20Mark%20Judge%20to%20Grassley,%20Feinstein%20-%20Swetnick%20Allegations.pdf
As the march toward a cashless (and privacy-less) society accelerates forward, a new high watermark has been reached.
India first introduced its concept for a nationwide biometric ID database more than 7 years ago, which they touted as a necessary “social welfare” program to assist the millions of India’s unbanked, streamline welfare distribution and reduce corruption. At the time, Brandon Turbeville reported on the plan for Activist Post.
Yet, although the justification for the billion person database is the increased ability to accurately disperse social welfare benefits, it will not be just the Indian government’s social welfare programs that have access to and utilize the UIDAI. Indeed, even before the program has been completed, major banks, state/local governments, and other institutions are planning to use the UIDAI for identification verification purposes and, of course, payment and accessibility.
As Aaron Saenz of the Singularity Hub writes:
Yet the UID is going to be used for much more than social welfare programs. The UIDAI is in discussion with many institutions (banks, local/state governments, etc.) to allow them to use the UID as a means of identity verification. These institutions will pay the UIDAI some fee to cover costs and generate revenue. There seems to be little doubt that once it is established, the UID will become a preferred method (if not the preferred method) of identification in India.
Saenz also sees the eventuality of the UIDAI program becoming a means of payment and accessibility. He continues:
Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if the UID, with its biometric data, could be used as a means of payment (when linked to a bank account), or as an access key to homes and cars. Purchase a meal with your fingerprint and unlock your door with the twinkle in your eye. Similar results could be expected in other nations that adopted biometric identification systems.
This appears to be exactly the path the country is on now that more than 1 billion people are signed up. According to a new article in The Wall Street Journal, India’s top court addressed the constitutionality of the program as well as deeper concerns about ongoing privacy violations.
The country’s controversial Aadhaar program uses photos, finger and eye scans and has already signed up more than 1 billion people. It has sparked an intense global debate over how far a democracy should be able to go in collecting the personal data of its citizens and how that data can be used, shared and protected.
Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling was a response to multiple challenges to the system.
A five-judge panel ruled in a 4-1 decision that the program is constitutional and helps the poor by streamlining disbursement of welfare benefits. Being in the database, however, shouldn’t be required for using mobile phones, opening bank accounts or for school admissions, according to the 1,448-page document outlining the court’s decision. It had been unclear for some time whether such organizations could compel people to supply Aadhaar numbers.
“It’s a historic judgment,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. “Everyone must realize, including critics of Aadhaar, that you can’t defy technology or ignore it.” (N.W. emphasis added)
More here:
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/3535-historic-judgment-as-indias-nationwide-biometric-id-database-ruled-constitutional
Goes along with this too
China’s social credit system, a big-data system for monitoring and shaping business and citizens’ behaviour, is reaching beyond China’s borders to impact foreign companies, according to new research.
The system, which has been compared to an Orwellian tool of mass surveillance, is an ambitious work in progress: a series of big data and AI-enabled processes that effectively grant subjects a social credit score based on their social, political and economic behaviour.
People with low scores can be banned or blacklisted from accessing services including flights and train travel; while those with high scores can access privileges. The Chinese government aims to have all 1.35 billion of its citizens subject to the system by 2020.
But a new report by US China scholar Samantha Hoffman for the ASPI International Cyber Policy Institute in Canberra claims the system’s impact beyond China’s borders has not been well understood, and is in fact already shaping the behaviour of foreign businesses in line with Chinese Communist party preferences. It has the “potential to interfere directly in the sovereignty of other nations”, she said.
She said recent incidents where Chinese authorities pressured international airlines in the US and Australia to use Beijing’s preferred terminology to refer to Taiwan and Hong Kong were high-profile examples of this new extension of the social credit system rules to foreign companies.
“The civil aviation industry credit management measures that the airlines are accused of violating were written to implement two key policy guidelines on establishing China’s social credit system,” she explains. “Social credit was used specifically in these cases to compel international airlines to acknowledge and adopt the CCP’s version of the truth, and so repress alternative perspectives on Taiwan.”
As of 1 January 2018, all companies with a Chinese business licence – a necessity for operating in the country – were brought into the social credit system through the new licence requirement to have an 18-digit “unified social credit code”. Through this business ID number, the Chinese government keeps track of all businesses, reporting transgressions on its National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, Hoffman said. The system extends to non-profits, NGOs, trade unions and social organisations after 30 June.
“Companies don’t have a choice but to comply if they want to continue doing business in China,” Hoffman told the Guardian Australia.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/28/chinas-social-credit-system-could-interfere-in-other-nations-sovereignty
Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has ordered the country’s armed forces to be on the highest combat readiness, local media reported. All police units have also been placed on high alert.
Vucic’s order was handed over to the chief of the Serbian army general staff, Serbian agency Tanjug reported citing the president’s office on Saturday.
The decision follows an incident in the southwestern part of the country, where Kosovo forces reportedly entered. Some 60 troops took positions near the dam on Gazivoda Lake, which hosts hydroelectric power station, according to local media.
Self-proclaimed Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008. The recognition of the region is matter of a major international dispute, as it has been recognized by the US and a number of its allies. Yet, a number of countries, including Spain, China and Russia opposed the controversial move. In fact, over half of the UN states did not support Kosovo’s independence.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated on Friday, saying that “Kosovo is not a state” for the international organization.
https://www.rt.com/news/439920-serbia-troops-high-alert/