Biometric ID and Immigration Reform

Flashback: No Real Debate for Real ID

Originally Published on May 10, 2005

Wired - Hundreds of civil liberties groups, immigrant support groups and government associations oppose the Real ID Act, a piece of legislation that critics say would produce a defacto national ID card, cost states millions of dollars, and punish undocumented immigrants.

Yet despite widespread opposition to the bill, it passed through the House last week and is expected to easily pass through the Senate on Tuesday.

The legislation is raising questions not only about privacy and costs but about the ways in which critical legislation gets passed in Congress.

That's because lawmakers slipped the bill into a larger piece of legislation -- an $82 billion spending bill -- that authorizes funds for the Iraq war and tsunami relief, among other things, and is considered a must-pass piece of legislation.

It's not the first time Congress has slipped contentious bills into larger legislation that is almost guaranteed to pass. In 2003, Congress augmented Patriot Act surveillance powers with wording slipped into the Intelligence Authorization Act, a bill that authorized funding for intelligence agencies.

Critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, say lawmakers slipped the Real ID Act into the relatively uncontroversial spending bill in order to avoid a congressional debate over the ID measure.

"The legislation was created in the backrooms of Congress without hearings and without any real understanding or thought about what was being created," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program...

Among other things, the legislation would force states to produce standardized, tamper-resistant driver's licenses that would include machine-readable, encoded data. States theoretically could choose not to comply with the standards, but residents of those states would not be able to use their license as identification to obtain federal benefits -- such as veteran's benefits or Social Security -- or to travel on airplanes.

The legislation doesn't specify what data states must encode in the driver's license. The secretary of transportation and Department of Homeland Security secretary have authority to designate the data.

The National Governors Association, the Council of State Governments, and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators are among those who say the law creates unnecessary bureaucracy for drivers and imposes hardship and undue cost on state offices.

The legislation would require all drivers, including current license holders, to provide multiple documents to verify their identity before they could obtain a license or renew one. Drivers would have to provide four types of documentation, such as a photo ID, a birth certificate, proof that their Social Security number is legitimate, and something that verifies the applicant's full home address, such as a utility bill. The law would then compel Department of Motor Vehicle employees to verify the documents against federal databases and store the documents and a digital photo of the card holder in a database...

Civil liberties groups are concerned about the privacy implications of the bill. Although the bill states that licenses must be machine-readable, it does not state the kind of technology to be used.

Steinhardt said that officials would likely require states to embed a contactless RFID chip in licenses at some point, even if they didn't require this in the initial rollout of licenses. RFID chips can hold more data than magnetic stripes, but they can also allow someone with an RFID reader to collect information stored on a license from a distance without the license holder's knowledge.

The machine-readable part of the license will contain most of the information printed on the license front -- such as the holder's name, birth date, gender and digital photograph. But the Department of Homeland Security could add more data, such as digital fingerprints.

Proponents of the bill such as the nonprofit group NumbersUSA, could not be reached for comment. But the group's members have said in the past that the bill successfully balances security and privacy interests.

Among other things, the group argues that the bill does not create a national ID card because it allows individual states to issue the documents and does not force states to comply unless they want the documents to be accepted by federal agencies as proof of identity. In fact, they argue that the Real ID bill will make it unnecessary for the federal government to issue a national ID card.

Steinhardt disagrees.

"This is a national ID, there's no question about that," Steinhardt said. "It may be issued by the 50 states, but it's going to be the same documents, which will be backed up by a huge database."

Steinhardt says a standardized license would allow the government and businesses to track people and would essentially create a single national database, since states would be required to open their driver's license databases to other states. He expressed concern that businesses would also want to read and collect the data on driver's licenses.

"Everyone from 7-Eleven to the owner of your apartment building to a retailer and a bank are going to demand to see this document," Steinhardt said. "And they're going to be able to read all of the private data off of the machine-readable strip."

Currently, some business such as bars and restaurants scan the magnetic strip on driver's licenses to collect data on patrons for marketing purposes. But the practice is not widespread.

Steinhardt said that making the content and format of the data uniform would encourage retailers and others to harvest the information and create their own parallel database and sell the information to data brokers like ChoicePoint.

Talk about a standardized driver's license arose last year after the 9/11 Commission Report revealed the ease with which the World Trade Center terrorists obtained legitimate driver's licenses and moved around the country unthwarted.

This year Sensenbrenner introduced the legislation as a stand-alone bill, which passed in the House in February. In March lawmakers, anticipating trouble passing it through the Senate, slipped the act into the larger, must-pass spending bill. It's this bill that the Senate is expected to pass on Tuesday.

"The deal's been cut," Steinhardt said. "I would be stunned beyond belief if it didn't pass at this point."

Move to National ID Cards Delayed

December 14, 2009

Wired - The United States’ quest for a national identification database associated with driver’s licenses won’t be finished by year’s end.

The deadline was Dec. 31 for the states to create what would be the largest identification database of its kind under the auspices of the Real ID program. The law also mandates uniform anti-counterfeiting standards for state driver’s licenses.

Map: ACLU

None of the states are in full compliance with the law, first adopted in 2005, requiring state motor vehicle bureaus to obtain and internally scan and store personal information like Social Security cards and birth certificates for a national database, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. About half the states oppose the mandate, or have said they would never comply.

Beginning Jan.1, the law was supposed to have blocked anybody from boarding a plane using their driver’s license as ID if their resident state did not comport with the Real ID program. But the Department of Homeland Security is set to extend, for at least a year, the deadline of the Real ID program that has raised the ire of privacy advocates.

Homeland Security officials point to the 9/11 hijackers’ ability to get driver’s licenses in Virginia using false information as justification for the proposed $24 billion program.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation suggest the plan is misguided, and might pave the way for requiring such IDs to vote or purchase prescription drugs.

“Our biggest concern is that it is a national ID card. It changes the relationship between the citizen and the state,” Chris Calabrese, the ACLU’s legislative counsel, said in a telephone interview. “We see it as a potential mission creep, and an individual’s rights can be curtailed because of this.”

Richard Esguerra, the EFF’s residence activist, said in a telephone interview Monday and in a recent blog post that the giant database, if it ever comes to fruition, “threatens citizens’ personal privacy without actually justifying its impact or improving security.”

VeriChip’s Merger with Credit Monitoring Firm Worries Privacy Activists

December 9, 2009

Wired - Remember VeriChip, the Florida company that once dreamed of injecting its human-implantable RFID microchips in everyone from immigrant guest workers to prison inmates?

We haven’t heard much from the company since a dipping stock price nearly got it delisted from the NASDAQ in March. But it’s still alive, and in November it pulled off a seemingly incongruous acquisition. Now called PositiveID, the new company is a merger between VeriChip and Steel Vault, the people behind NationalCreditReport.com.

With a human-implantable microchip maker now running a credit-scoring and identity-theft-protection website, privacy activists are worried again.

“The attraction to investors is the potential for synergies,” says Mark Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. “You have to anticipate over time there will be an attempt to integrate the services.”

“Sci-fi wise, you could have a chip read by a scanner that determines your credit-worthiness,” says Evan Hendricks, editor of Privacy Times. “Or you could have a credit card implant.”

VeriChip and its former owner Applied Digital have been drawing fire since 2004, when the FDA approved the rice-sized injectable RFID for human use. While the company primarily pushed the chip as part of a system to index medical records — a kind of subcutaneous MedAlert bracelet — Richard Sullivan, then-CEO of Applied Digital, had a penchant for wantonly confirming every nightmare of cybernetic social control.

After 9/11, it was Sullivan who announced the VeriChip would be perfect as a universal ID to distinguish safe people from the dangerous ones. He dreamed of GPS-equipped chips being injected into foreigners entering the United States, prisoners, children, the elderly. He thought the VeriChip would be used as a built-in credit or ATM card.

Indeed, in 2004, one of VeriChip’s earliest deployments was at a Barcelona nightclub, where VIP patrons could pay 125 euro to get the chip installed in their arms as a debit card for drinks.

But today, Sullivan’s replacement says the company has no plans to market the VeriChip as a path to instant credit, despite the recent acquisition.

With his white-buttondown shirt open at the chest, PositiveID CEO Scott Silverman spoke about the merger in an interview at the company’s office suite in Delray Beach, Florida.

“Using the chip to relate to the credit-reporting services of NationalCreditReport.com, or even using it for financial transactions … has not been a part of our business model for five years or more, since Sullivan’s been gone, and is not part of our business model moving forward,” he says.

Silverman also backed away from some of the Orwellian ideas floated by his cyberpunk predecessor.

“I can tell you that … putting [the chips] into children and immigrants for identification purposes, or putting them into people, especially unwillingly, for financial transactions, has [not] been and never will be the intent of this company as long I’m the chairman and CEO,” he says.

Yet in 2004, Silverman told the Broward-Palm Beach New Times that the VeriChip could be used as a credit card in coming years. And in 2006, he went on Fox & Friends to promote the chipping of immigrant guest workers to track them and monitor their tax records.

And ahead of the recent merger, VeriChip gave a presentation to investors hinting there would be some cross-pollination between the two sides of the business. It plans to “cross-sell its NationalCreditReport.com customer base” (.pdf) the Health Link service and vice-versa. So, Americans with implanted VeriChips will be encouraged to divulge their finances to PositiveID, while credit-monitoring customers will be marketed the health-record microchip.

Critics of chipping are moved by a variety of concerns, ranging from the pragmatic to the religious — anti-RFID crusader Katherine Albrecht believes the technology is the Mark of the Beast predicted in the Book of Revelation, but also doubts its efficacy as a medical tag: VeriChip’s instruction manual warns that the chip may not function in ambulances and areas where there are MRI and X-ray scanners.

Security is another issue. RFIDs can generally be scanned from distances much greater than the official specs suggest. Nicole Ozer at the ACLU of Northern California notes that after Wired magazine writer Annalee Newitz experimentally cloned her VeriChip in 2006, the company continued calling it secure.

But human chipping has high-profile fans as well, including former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, who left his job as overseer of the FDA in 2005 — a year after VeriChip’s approval — to join the company’s board of directors. Thompson announced he would personally join the 700 to 900 Americans who have the chip installed in their bodies. (He later reportedly reneged.)

Whatever its plans for the future, PositiveID is focused on its original mission for now: implants tied to medical records. On December 1, the new company announced it’s collaborating with Avocare, a Florida health care business, in the hopes of bringing its “health care identification products” to 1 million patients.

Banking Crisis: Money-Spinning Operation for the Financial Giants

Obama Applies Pressure of Shame to Wall Street Banks

December 13, 2009

TIME - ... Expect a healthy dose of political posturing before, during and after the President's meeting with top bankers Monday. "It's a p.r. stunt," says an executive at one of the banks that will be getting a dressing-down at the White House meeting. Executives from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are expected to be among those in attendance.

(See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

Even Administration officials privately admit that politics played a role in calling the meeting, and President Obama's harsh words for bankers on Sunday's 60 Minutes program reinforced the notion. During an interview on the CBS show the President said he didn't run for office "to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," adding that "people on Wall Street still don't get it."

But Obama's bank-bashing is about more than politics. The President has real problems only the banks can help him solve. On jobs, housing and the strength of the economy, he needs bankers to change their behavior, and there's only so much he can do to force them. So when he sits down with the financial industry élite on Monday, he may talk tough, but he'll also be asking for their help.

For many in the Administration the biggest economic concern is the country's stubbornly high unemployment. The best way to attack that problem is to stimulate small-business growth, but that won't happen as long as banks sharply limit lending to smaller companies. For their part, bankers feel they are responding prudently to a tough economy by tightening loan standards across the board. And while some of the biggest banks are healthy enough to pay back the government's emergency loans made from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, many smaller banks remain in crisis. So far this year the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has shut down 133 banks that succumbed to a tidal wave of loan defaults.

"Given the state of the markets there's only so much we can do," to increase lending while limiting risk says one industry official.

(See the top 10 crooked CEOs.)

So Obama will alternately threaten and plead with banks to open their purse strings.

"One of the main messages from this meeting is that the financial industry received extraordinary help from the government — and ultimately the taxpayer — and now the industry has an obligation to help the small-business owners," says White House spokesperson Jen Psaki.

The housing crisis, too, is a political sore point. Last week Treasury announced the initial results of its program to rewrite troubled residential loans. So far, of the more than 3 million past due loans at banks participating in the government's $75 billion loan-modification program, just slightly more than 30,000 have been permanently adjusted so the mortgage holders can make lower, government-subsidized payments. That means millions of troubled homeowners and millions of potential bad loans still on banks' books, perpetuating the uncertainties and fears that can undermine any economic recovery. Obama wants the banks to move faster to rewrite the loans.

Obama will also criticize the banks for trying to derail financial-regulation reform, which passed the House last week but faces multiple battles after Christmas in the Senate. And he'll scold them for continuing to distribute high bonuses, especially when they reward excessive risk-taking. The senior bank executive at one of the banks meeting with the President Monday describes the process as a "public spanking" and says other than the public humiliation the Administration has little leverage...

Major makeover of Wall Street rules passes House
FACTBOX: Keys to House financial regulation reform bill
Lending Declines as Bank Jitters Persist
U.S. extends bailout fund, sees economic challenges
Geithner Extends $700 Billion Bank-Bailout Program
Bank of America to repay $45 billion in bailout funds
Citigroup plans to repay $20 billion in bailout money
Wells Fargo to repay $25 billion to U.S.
5,000 British bankers earn more than £1m
The Biggest Rip-off of All Time
The billionaire bailout society
The Constitutional Bankruptcy of our Republic

Copenhagen Climate Treaty & Climategate

About that AP Piece Claiming Climate Scientists Didn't Fake Data

December 13, 2009

Hyscience - In a nutshell, it's BS. The author is Seth Borenstein (and friends), better known as the Baghdad Bob of global warming. As others have noted, the article itself represents everything that is wrong with our supposedly objective media.

Climate warming-friendly and AGW-supporting reporter Seth Borenstein and friends wrote the piece on Dec. 12 titled, "Climate scientists didn't fake," and they make the outlandishly absurd statement that after "an exhaustive review by the Associated Press" they have found that "the e-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data -- but the messages do not support claims that the science of global warming was faked."

However, it turns out that Mr. Bornstein is far too cozy with those very same climate scientists he's covering to have any credibility whatsoever, and is even included in the email threads.

As a commenter wrote about Borenstein in the Tacoma News-Tribune:

Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein has a terrible reputation as a runaway alarmist. Even global warming enthusiasts and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are embarrassed by his over-the-top prognostications of doom and selective use of data to support his fading dream that mankind can actually control climate. Given Borenstein's long, sad, history of woeful global warming reporting, his numerous conflicts of interest and clear bias, there's little, if any, reports by Borenstein that can be taken with anything more than a grain of salt. This is especially true in light of the far more credible special investigation by the Daily Mail that addresses the emails and devastates the warmists.

Recommended reading: IPCC and the "Trick"
Related: AP scoop: Statisticians decide - Alarmists right; Deniers wrong

Lord Monckton Warns Obama Will Attempt Use of Executive Authority to Commit US to Copenhagen Agreement

December 9, 2009

LifeSiteNews.com - In a brief video released on the Internet, Lord Christopher Monkton is seen giving a speech today in Copenhagen warning that President Obama will try to use his Executive Authority to sign an agreement, rather than a treaty, to commit the United States to undertake measures against climate change that will seriously damage the freedoms and prosperity of America.

Monkton states: "President Obama is going to come here (Copenhagen) and sign the Copenhagen Agreement." He says it's no longer being called a treaty specifically because US Senators "know they can't get a treaty through the US Senate." Monkton continues explaining: "So, President Obama is going to sign this agreement by his executive authority and he will then put it through both houses of Congress by a vote of simple majority."

Monkton states that this Executive Agreement will stand "with almost the same force as a treaty" under the US Constitution. The one large difference, Monkton however notes, is that an Executive Agreement can be repealed by a following president, but a treaty cannot be repealed. Therefore, the British Lord and science adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher noted: "One power that President Obama does not have is to commit the United States unilaterally to measures of a scale and horror envisaged in this treaty or agreement..."

The recent "climategate" revelations provided the basis for especially condemning closing comments from the internationally famous climate sceptic and campaigner against climate hysteria.

Monkton emphasized: "There is no longer any basis whatsoever for saying that any action is required over the climate. We have seen now in the climategate scandal that a couple of dozen bad and extremely malevolent and unpleasant scientists -- this clique, this cabal, this conspiracy, because that is what it is -- have tried to bend, fiddle and fudge the data, year after year; and they've now been caught and exposed by the activities of one gallant whistleblower at this very moment when we now know that the climate fraud is the fraud that we all expected it to be."

Monckton concluded with a warning that the president, "either unaware or aware and uncaring, wishes to sign" American "freedom and prosperity away."

See Lord Monkton's detailed, one hour, fascinating expose of climate change

Also see Lord Monkton interview on Michael Coren television program

Globalist Carbon Tax Scheme: Redemption for Sale

December 12, 2009

Infowars.com - The global warming/climate change mythology is the greatest hoax the private International Monetary/Banking Cartel has ever tried to pull off.

With the passage of the Copenhagen Climate Treaty provisions, world governance and unlimited taxes will fall into the hands of private, monopoly capitalists, while many socialists, communists, and environmentalists ignorantly support this international takeover, falsely thinking that the treaty’s many laws, regulations, and directives are socialistic, and will thus help improve our badly deteriorating environment.

Advocates of ever bigger government have constantly mistaken fascism with all forms of socialism and communism. Is it not ironic – but sad – that our misguide socialists always end up supporting their avowed enemies – the controlling oligarchs of our world?

The carbon trading schemes of the Cap-and-Trade bills, and the provisions of the Copenhagen Climate Treaty, are analogous to the “indulgences” the Catholic church sold in the Middle Ages: “Just give me the gold you have on deposit with goldsmith Goldstein, and your mortal sins of murdering your wife and children will be absolved,” said the fat, bald, dissipated, little Bishop to the richest psychopath in his diocese.

The “Redemption for sale” provisions of all carbon emission’s regulations, directives, and laws will channel hundreds of billions – if not trillions – of American dollars, European Euros, and scores of other currencies to our “friends” in the International Banking Cartel, by way of their so-called World Bank, with little to none being spent on the crying needs of our dying environment.

Please take notice: America has already become a post-industrial society, with most of our former industries shipped to China, or India, or to other off-shore venues. And yet, even that is inadequate for the global warming alarmists. Americans are constantly being told, by politicians, bureaucrats, and media pundits, that we consume too much and produce too little; while our government steadily drives up inflation, ensuring we consume less, and prevents new jobs from materializing with Cap and trade legislation and new taxes.

“What about ‘Green’ jobs?” you ask. For every “green” job created – at least – five productive jobs will be eliminated. Those who gain employment with government “green” jobs will produce nothing we can consume; their jobs will be to prohibit the creation of worthwhile jobs in what is left of our private, free enterprise sector.

Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) Dr. Marlo Lewis, Jr. said:

“There’s only three things you need to know about Cap and Trade: It’s a tax, it’s a tax, it’s a tax. It’s a massive energy tax in disguise” [all going to a few hundred financial oligarchs, less some expense money used to buy off our governmental "leaders"].

UN Security Stops Journalist’s Questions About ClimateGate

December 12, 2009

Big Government - A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him “inconvenient questions” during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Professor Stephen Schneider’s assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.

McAleer, a veteran journalist and film maker, has recently made a documentary "Not Evil Just Wrong," which takes a sceptical look at the science and politics behind Global Warming concerns.

He asked Professor Schneider about his opinions on Climategate – where leaked emails have revealed that a senior British professor deleted data and encouraged colleagues to do likewise if it contradicted their belief in Global Warming...

PositiveID's Implantable Microchip

PositiveID Deal Advances Use of Microchip Implants in Florida Health System

December 3, 2009

BNet - PositiveID (PSID), the microchip implant health record marketer formerly known as VeriChip, has entered into a “strategic alliance” with Innovations Avocare to use the chips in Florida’s various regional healthcare organizations. PositiveID said that integrating its Health Link microchip into the system will serve more than 1 million patients.

The alliance brings PositiveID one step closer to its dream of having as many Americans as possible volunteer to have a microchip surgically implanted under their skin that will link to an online database containing their medical records. BNET has previously noted that PositiveID also owns a credit monitoring and identity-theft prevention company, Steel Vault, and that it envisions its chips being linked to Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and employers. PositiveID explicitly linked Steel Vault to Health Link in its most recent 10-Q form with the SEC:

Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2009, with the acquisition of Steel Vault, the Company intends to pursue its strategy to offer identification tools and technologies for consumers and businesses, including healthcare identification products, initially focused on the Health Link personal health record and the identification security products currently offered by NationalCreditReport.com.

The PositiveID/Avocare alliance will doubtless be painted by critics as a sinister development in which Americans’ medical privacy will end up becoming the online plaything of PositiveID, and that life in the U.S. will become difficult for those who do not want a chip inside them (in much the same way as it is currently difficult for anyone without a credit card, cellphone, email address or internet access) ...

VeriChip Re-Launches Its VeriMed Health Link EHR System (8/25/09)

VeriChip Corporation has developed the VeriMed™ Health Link System for rapidly and accurately identifying people who arrive in an emergency room and are unable to communicate; this system uses the first human-implantable passive RFID microchip and corresponding personal health record, cleared for medical use in October 2004 by the United States Food and Drug Administration... The Company believes its history and expertise in patient identification and electronic health records (EHRs) will position it to benefit from stimulus funds provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, which authorized $23 billion in spending for healthcare information technology, with a concentration on the implementation and adoption of EHRs... In early 2008, the Company changed the name of this system to Health Link and has enrolled a total of 536 patients in the Health Link EHR... The Company said it has begun a process to ensure that its EHR is compliant with the certifications set by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), thereby enabling those physicians and hospitals that utilize the Company's EHR to qualify for stimulus funding.

VeriChip Buys Steel Vault, Changes Name to “PositiveID,” Creating Micro-Implant Health Record/Credit Score Empire

November 12, 2009

industry.bnet.com - VeriChip (CHIP), the company that markets a microchip implant that links to your online health records, has acquired Steel Vault (SVUL), a credit monitoring and anti-identity theft company. The combined company will operate under a new name: PositiveID.

The all-stock transaction will leave PositiveID in charge of a burgeoning empire of identity, health and microchip implant businesses that will only encourage its critics. BNET previously noted that some regard the company as part of a prophecy in the Book of Revelation (because the HealthLink chip carries an RFID number that can be used as both money and proof of ID) or as part of President Obama’s secret Nazi plan to enslave America.

The most obvious criticism to be made of the deal is that it potentially allows PositiveID to link or cross-check patient health records (from the HealthLink chip) to people’s credit scores. One assumes that the company will put up firewalls to prevent that. PositiveID CEO Scott Silverman said:

“PositiveID will be the first company of its kind to combine a successful identity security business with one of the world’s first personal health records through our Health Link business. PositiveID will address some of the most important issues affecting our society today with our identification tools and technologies for consumers and businesses.”

Unless, of course, consumers don’t actually want to be implanted with chips, have their health records available over the internet, or have their medical records linked to their credit scores.



Editor's Note: If the government can require us to purchase health insurance, will it also require us to get microchip implants as part of our health care plans?

Microchip Implant: Mark of the Beast or the Coming 'Singularity'?
Congress Proposed Implanting Airport Workers with RFID Chips
British Court Orders Singer Get "Medical Implant" for Drug Addiction
Humans 'Will Be Implanted with Microchips'
Out of Financial Chaos, Futurist Predicts Cashless Society and Robocops
Lawmaker Joins Fight to Outlaw Human Microchip Implants
IBM and the Holocaust
In Denmark's Electronic Health Records Program, a Lesson for the U.S.
Improving Patient Safety with the Military Electronic Health Record
The state of electronic medical record privacy
U.S. Senate Hearing on Investing in Health IT: A Stimulus for a Healthier America (1/15/09)
"The federal government should require the adoption of transaction and semantic interoperability standards for the storage and transmission of data captured within EHRs. Further, the standard-format data captured in EHRs should be readily accessible to be transmitted to quality reporting systems." - Testimony of Mary R. Grealy, President, Healthcare Leadership Council
IBM Strikes Electronic Health Care Records Deals
Health Information Technology: The Case for a Sound Federal Policy
Microchip Implant to Link Your Health Records, Credit History, Social Security
Novartis and Proteus Biomedical are not the only companies hoping to implant microchips into patients so that their pill-popping habits can be monitored. VeriChip of Delray Beach, Fl., has an even bolder idea: an implanted chip that links to an online database containing all your medical records, credit history and your social security ID. As this presentation to investors makes clear, the chip and its database could form the basis of a new national identity database lined to Social Security and NationalCreditReport.com.
VeriChip Selected to Offer Personal Health Record through Microsoft HealthVault
Microsoft Wants to Get Under Your Skin
Obama's Government Job Creation Includes Shifting to a Paperless Health System
Injectable Microchips Ready for Use with Swine Flu Vaccine
VeriChip Shares Jump After H1N1 Patent License Win
Big Pharma Microchip to Force Drugging
VeriChip Sells 1,000 Implantable RFID Microchips to Kentucky Health Department
Hybrid Tag Includes Active RFID, GPS, Satellite and Sensors
British Court Orders Singer Get "Medical Implant" for Drug Addiction
Microchips Tell Doctors If You are Taking Your Pills, or Not
"Pork" Bailout Bill Could Mean Government Control of Health Records and Services
Stimulus Plan to Digitize Health Records and Ration Health Services
VeriChip/PositiveID Buys Steel Vault, Creating Micro-Implant Health Record/Credit Score Empire
PositiveID Seeks Diabetics for Chip Implant Study
VeriChip’s Merger with Credit Monitoring Firm Worries Privacy Activists
Google to Store Patients’ Health Records
Google begins storing medical records
New Computer Operating System Stores All Data On Google Servers
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Google’s mission is to store all the world’s information
Why Google Has Become Microsoft’s Evil Twin
Critics Say Google Invades Privacy With New Service
PositiveID Deal Advances Use of Microchip Implants in Florida Health System
VeriChip Re-Launches its VeriMed Health Link EHR System (8/25/09)
VeriChip Corporation has developed the VeriMed™ Health Link System for rapidly and accurately identifying people who arrive in an emergency room and are unable to communicate; this system uses the first human-implantable passive RFID microchip and corresponding personal health record, cleared for medical use in October 2004 by the United States Food and Drug Administration... The Company believes its history and expertise in patient identification and EHRs will position it to benefit from stimulus funds provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, which authorized $23 billion in spending for healthcare information technology, with a concentration on the implementation and adoption of EHRs... In early 2008, the Company changed the name of this system to Health Link and has enrolled a total of 536 patients in the Health Link EHR... The Company said it has begun a process to ensure that its EHR is compliant with the certifications set by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), thereby enabling those physicians and hospitals that utilize the Company's EHR to qualify for stimulus funding.

Final Push for World Government

World Leaders Urged to Take Climate Change Action

December 7, 2009

BBC - Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen has described the UN climate summit in Copenhagen as an "opportunity the world cannot afford to miss".

Opening the two-week conference in the Danish capital, he told delegates from 192 countries a "strong and ambitious climate change agreement" was needed.

About 100 leaders are to attend the meeting, which aims to strike a deal on major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions...

The first formal sign of a discord between various parties surfaced in the opening session. The head of the Grenadan delegation said the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) would "consider their options" if a legally-binding deal did not materialise here.

It appears that this bloc of 43 countries may simply not sign a deal that they believe votes their nations out of existence. Some people here raise the point that small countries can be easily "bought off" by aid money or trade, or bullied into conformity, by their larger brethren. Surely history indicates that is true; but if you perceive that the end of your nation is in sight as sea levels rise, perhaps that changes the usual terms of business.

But on the first day of the summit, divisions were evident between various blocs, with small island states indicating they would not accept anything less than a legally binding deal including deep cuts in emissions.

In July, the G8 bloc of industrialised countries and some major developing countries adopted a target of keeping the global average temperature rise since pre-industrial times to 2C.

However, small island states think this would cause serious climate impacts from rising sea levels, and have been arguing for a lower target of 1.5C. A number of African nations also back the lower target.

BBC environment correspondent Richard Black say it is possible that the G77/China bloc will endorse the lower target. He says this would raise a huge obstacle, because none of the industrialised countries have put forward emission cuts in the range that would be required to meet a 1.5C target.

The African Union has threatened to walk out of the talks if industrialised countries do not agree to help poor states pay for the transition to cleaner economies.

The main areas for discussion at Copenhagen include:

• Targets to curb greenhouse gas emissions, in particular by developed countries


• Financial support for mitigation of and adaptation to climate change by developing countries


• A carbon trading scheme aimed at ending the destruction of the world's forests by 2030.

Any agreement made at Copenhagen is intended to supplant the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which expires in 2012. World leaders who have pledged to attend include US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

In his opening remarks, the Danish prime minister told delegates that the world was looking to the conference to safeguard humanity.

...The ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency on the dangers of greenhouse gases allows it to issue rules to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, even if the US Congress fails to pass suitable legislation. Climate legislation passed narrowly in the House of Representatives in June, but the bill has been delayed in the Senate...

To stress the importance of the summit, 56 newspapers in 45 countries published the same editorial on Monday, warning that climate change will "ravage our planet" unless action is agreed, the London-based Guardian reported.

The editorial - published in 20 languages - was thrashed out by editors ahead of the Copenhagen talks, the newspaper said.

"At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world," the editorial says.

Environmental activists are planning to hold protests in Copenhagen and around the world on 12 December to encourage delegates to reach the strongest possible deal.

COPENHAGEN IN BRIEF
192 countries attending talks, including about 100 leaders
To discuss emissions cuts and financial measures to combat climate change
Danish PM urges delegates to deliver "hope for the future"
South Africa is the latest country to make emissions offer
Due to end 18 December

TIMELINE: Carbon pledges, schemes pile up ahead of Copenhagen

Open or Obstinate, the Arab World Heads to Copenhagen

December 6, 2009

Jerusalem Post - The oily lands of the Middle East have an image problem.

As the nations of the world prepare for the most significant international negotiations on carbon emissions in two decades, countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Morocco are rarely depicted as 'leading the charge'...

Munqeth Mehyar, Vice President of the Jordan Society for Sustainable Development and the Jordan director of EcoPeace, argued that the oil producing Arab states posed one of the principal obstacles to international consensus on combating climate change.

"There are two positions in the Arab world," he told The Media Line. "The oil producing countries and the non-oil producing countries. The non-oil producing countries want to see less emissions and to see the developing world lead in cutting emissions. But the oil producing states are absolutely unsupportive of all this talk about carbon emissions"...

Nejib Friji, a United Nations official in Bahrain, argued that Gulf states' reputation for working against international initiatives towards sustainability was undeserved.

"I take exception to the depiction of oil producing Gulf countries as obstinate to working to curb the effects of climate change," he told The Media Line. "Over the last few months there has been quite an active reaction to the summit both on the government and civil society levels, and you can see, read and hear lots of talk about climate change in the local media."

"Arab nations are trying to come to a consensus with other UN member nations," Friji said. "Of course it's not easy but at least they are actively involved."

"There are lots of major challenges threatening this region," he said. "The rising sea level could flood the Nile Delta and endanger small islands throughout the Arab world, temperatures will increase by three to four degrees and the Sahara, which is a huge phenomenon of desertification, is affecting the ecosystems in most of the Arab regions, and water scarcity will increase throughout much of North Africa and the Middle East, with shorter rain seasons for farmers impacting our food security."

"So there is a growing awareness that nobody is hidden from the risk of the impact of climate change," Friji stressed. "The Arab states are just as concerned and desperate to seal the deal in Copenhagen."

"Although climate change largely carries a "made in the west" label, the region is set quite literally to take the heat for it," Khaled Diab wrote in The Guardian. "Both temperatures and populations are expected to rise over the coming decades, causing water reserves to diminish, or at best stagnate, and desertification to accelerate. This means that scarce water will become even scarcer. Rising sea levels could also threaten major coastal population centres."

"In the Arab world, although direct industrialisation has slowed down over the past three decades, modernisation has not - stressing the environment enormously," Diab added. "The region may be the world's main petrol pump, but this finite resource is rapidly dwindling and dependence on it has affected air quality in large urban centres and on the coastal plains where half of the region's population lives. Major investment in harnessing the region's massive solar resources makes both economic and environmental sense."

FACTBOX: Who Is Going to Copenhagen?

December 5, 2009

Reuters - The number of world leaders due to attend the Copenhagen climate conference has risen to 105, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Saturday.

They represent 82 percent of mankind, 89 percent of the world's GDP, and 80 percent of the world's current greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

Most are expected to come for the climax of the December 7-18 conference: U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are the latest to announce such plans, adding to momentum for a new accord to curb global warming...

Bankrupting the Common People

FICO and the Credit Card Financial Prison: How a Three Digit Credit Score Reflects Consumerism and Not Financial Independence

December 3, 2009

mybudget360 - ...The credit card industry is gouging the living daylights out of consumers as the unemployment and underemployment rate hits 17.5 percent. You would think that the banking sector that owes its life to the American taxpayer for bailing it out would have some sympathy. Instead, the new Wall Street oligarchy is running the show and we have new feudal lords running this country. The credit card is merely your key into the kingdom of serfdom.

The credit card industry with the mysterious FICO score would like you to believe that there is some enormous world of credit cards out in the market. In reality, it is simply rebranding. Five issuers make up over 60 percent of all credit card debt.

FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation and provides services to the world’s 10 largest banks. No shocker there. The FICO score is based on multiple factors and ranges from 300 to 850:

Fair Isaac Corporation doesn’t store the credit scores but provides the big three credit reporting agencies with the algorithm to compute the score. It is a very tiny and selective world. You would think that something as important as a credit score would be open to the public but it isn’t. In our current market with bail outs and hidden agendas on Wall Street, transparency is of paramount importance. But of course why would they give up the algorithm since so much money is based on this score?

...The bottom feeders of the credit card industry have taken it upon their shoulders to now put clamps around good paying customers. Since they can’t squeeze any more blood out of 27 million unemployed or underemployed Americans, many who were recruited from companies like Providian, credit card companies are now going after “good FICO score” customers...

Credit card debt is merely one factor in many bankruptcy cases. So you might say “well stay away from any form of credit then!” The problem is, even if you are looking to rent a home many people will simply run your credit score. Looking for a decent mortgage? Getting a good rate is largely based on your credit worthiness (at least now it is). Even some employers (the two that are hiring) will run your credit report.

To function in our society the financial sector has largely forced people to comply like sheep. Think of overdraft fees. Why doesn’t the banking sector simply setup an opt-in policy instead of having everyone by default taking overdraft charges of $39 for a $5 cup of coffee? Because they make billions from this:

“Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — U.S. limits on overdraft fees may cost banks more than $15 billion in revenue and prompt lenders to impose charges to close the gap, said the head of consulting firm Oliver Wyman’s North American financial-services business.

“We’re talking about $15 billion of revenue that basically falls right to the bottom line, so to take that out of the banking system then that’s $15 billion of capital that is not being created,” Michael Poulos said in an interview yesterday. “For some of our clients, this is a very big deal and it’s not clear that regulators have thought everything through.”

You notice how they call this revenue? PBS had a special on Frontline showing a banking industry lobby front man saying that the public wants overdraft access. Really? Show us the data. I wonder how much the public can take from this industry. It is literally bank robbery. They hide behind phony data and a structure that traps many Americans. Now that they can’t trap the poor, they are going after middle class Americans that are merely trying to make ends meet.

Of course, recent legislation is merely a token gesture. It has been gutted and practically written by the industry. The system is flawed. Wall Street and the banking industry have become invalid just like the FICO credit score. In California, we are seeing thousands of people default on mortgages strategically that had “excellent” credit scores. Why? Many don’t want to be paying for decades on an asset that has collapsed by 30, 40, or even 50 percent.

Until we reign in the financial sector, the average American is going to see their financial future sucked into the Wall Street vortex. Wall Street wags their finger and says, “keep up your credit score you little consumer” while they gamble like ADHD maniacs funded by the U.S. taxpayer on the most speculative products on the planet. Do as I say, not as I do.

Fears of Credit Card Crisis as Bank Write-Offs Double

Fears that the banking system is facing a credit card timebomb were underlined as official figures showed that the amount of card debt banks have written off has unexpectedly doubled.

November 30, 2009

Telegraph - In a sign that Britons are facing increasing difficulties keeping their finances under control, bad debts from credit cards leapt from £812m to £1.6bn in the third quarter, said the Bank of England.

The rise meant that the total amount written off by UK banks in that quarter was, at £4.3bn, a record. In the first nine months of the year, banks have already written off more than they did in the whole of 2008 - itself a record year for write-downs.

The news came as a surprise to banking experts, since most of the UK banks have reported that the outlook improved marginally in the third quarter. Although banks have already provisioned for significant losses, some will view the statistics as a sign of a potential second wave of difficulties for the banking sector. While most of the losses faced in the financial crisis were associated with US sub-prime lending and the closure of securitisation markets, some suspect there may follow major "home-grown" losses as UK households face higher unemployment and falling real wages.

The International Monetary Fund warned earlier this year of a potential credit card crisis in Europe as families default on their debts, predicting that up to 7pc of Europe's £1.49 trillion consumer debt could be written off, with the UK hardest hit.

The Bank also reported that households repaid a record amount of unsecured credit in October as they faced up to unprecedented credit card bills. It said net unsecured debt contracted by £579m. Its statistics also showed that its key measure of underlying money growth dropped by 0.7pc in October. The fall is a concern, since the Bank has repeatedly said that this measure will help show the success or otherwise of quantitative easing. However, a household-focused measure of money growth is still rising.

U.S. Housing Market Crash Not Over Yet

December 2, 2009

Reuters - The meltdown of the U.S. housing market is not over yet, and home prices will soon start trekking downward again as a flood of foreclosures looms, a well-known economist said on Wednesday.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said in an interview with Reuters that home prices will resume their decline by early next year as foreclosure sales pick up again.

"The housing crash is not over," he said.

The U.S. housing market has suffered the worst downturn since the Great Depression, and its impact has rippled through the recession-hit economy as well as the rest of the world.

A setback for the hard-hit housing market could portend problems for the U.S. economy.

Home prices, as measured by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, will trough in the third quarter of 2010 after declining 38 percent, Zandi said.

The index peaked in the second quarter of 2006 and hit a trough in the first quarter of 2009, a drop of about 32 percent.

Home prices in many regions have been rising. That is because foreclosure sales fell over the summer and fall as mortgage servicers have tried to put stressed homeowners into the Home Affordable Modification Program and other modification plans, he said.

"This lull in foreclosures sales has resulted in the price gains in the past few months," he said.

"Foreclosure sales will increase, and home prices will resume their decline by early 2010 as mortgage servicers figure out who will not qualify for a modification," he said.

Zandi said 7.5 million foreclosure sales will have taken place between 2006 and 2011. The majority of these sales, however, have not emerged yet, with 4.8 million foreclosure sales expected between 2009 and 2011.

Attractive rates and high affordability have been positives for the U.S. housing market, which has been showing signs of stabilization. Sales have surged in recent months as buyers scrambled to take advantage of the government's first-time home buyer tax credit, which was originally set to end November 30.

Last month the Omaha administration extended the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit, added a $6,500 credit for home owners buying a new residence, and increased income limits. Eligible borrowers must sign contracts by April 30 and close loans by June 30.

Zandi said another significant obstacle to a housing market recovery is the number of mortgages that are "underwater," where borrowers owe more for the loan than the residence is worth. This negative equity disqualifies many homeowners from refinancing and prevents some from selling their homes.

Borrowers in negative equity are also more prone to defaults and foreclosures...

Treasury Claims It Will Get Tougher on Home Loan Relief

November 30, 2009

Reuters - The Obama administration threatened on Monday to punish mortgage lenders with fines unless they speed up efforts to give hard-pressed homeowners a permanent break on monthly payments.

With foreclosures still rising and roughly 375,000 borrowers seen as eligible for permanent loan modifications by year-end, the U.S. Treasury and Housing and Urban Development departments want to make sure that banks come through on the promise of lower payments.

"Banks should be moving more rapidly and more efficiently to decisions once documents are in and we will have more detailed metrics on that in coming months," Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr said during a conference call.

Some 650,000 borrowers have completed trial modifications under the Home Affordable Modification Program that was initiated by the Obama administration earlier this year.

The $75 billion taxpayer-financed program is aimed at slowing the pace of foreclosures. But there are frequent complaints that loan servicers are slow and lose or misplace paperwork that people have sent in.

Rick Mullen, a Valencia, California, homeowner told Reuters he had delivered documents four times to three different addresses while seeking a modification from Chase Home Mortgage. His monthly payment was reduced more than $1,000 on a trial basis several months ago but the document requests continue.

"The bottom line is, I figure if I keep making my payments they are not going to throw me out of my house," he said.

Industry observers offered mixed praise for the Treasury's efforts, commenting that the administration seemed overwhelmed by the rising volume of troubled loans but at least it was trying to get the system performing better.

"It's good they are doing this," said Thomas Lawler, founder of Lawler Economic & Housing Consulting in Leesburg, Virginia. "It's hard to tell if the HAMP is delaying a horrible problem or is working."

A slumping housing sector was at the center of the financial crisis that struck in 2007, dragging the U.S. economy into a deep recession that has pushed jobless rates to their highest in nearly 30 years and piled pressure on homeowners.

The Treasury and HUD want lenders to step up now to make sure trial modifications are converted into permanent cuts in monthly payments. The federal agencies are setting performance standards to make sure banks do so or explain why not.

Mortgage servicers will have to submit plans saying how they would decide whether a loan will be permanently modified. If a bank fails to meet guidelines set in an agreement with the Treasury, it would face "consequences which could include monetary penalties and sanctions," the Treasury said.

But Barr refused to offer any details on how large fines might be or what potential sanctions banks might face.

According to a report from the congressional panel that oversees HAMP, only 1,711 permanent mortgage modifications had been offered by September 1, 2009, an indication of how reluctant banks seemed to move beyond trial offers.

"We now must refocus our efforts on the conversion phase to ensure that borrowers and servicers know what their responsibilities are in converting trial modifications to permanent ones," said Phyllis Caldwell, who will head Treasury's Homeownership Preservation Office.

Caldwell said the Treasury was sending "SWAT teams" into mortgage servicers' offices beginning this week to investigate the issues slowing down decision-making. Servicers will be reporting to the Treasury daily during December on progress in coming to decisions on permanent loan modifications.

The Treasury also said it was making more information available on a website (www.MakingHomeAffordable.gov) to tell would-be applicants for loan modifications how to gather and submit the documentation they need to apply to lenders for relief.

Until now, the Treasury has not published figures on how many trial loan modifications have been made permanent, but it said it will start doing so in December.

Loan servicers will have to report on the status of each modification so any situations in which borrowers are facing obstacles can be identified and handled.

The last report on the HAMP program on November 10 showed two servicers, Bank United and Franklin Credit Management Corp, had not extended any modification offers.

Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Wells Fargo & Co were the top three servicers with 136,994, 133,988 and 93,652 active trial modifications, respectively. But Bank of America's percentage of eligible borrowers was the lowest of the big banks -- just 14 percent of eligible borrowers.

Baltimore and Washington DC 'One-pass' Smart Card for Public Services; Britain to Shift to Smart Grid Meter Systems

Baltimore Council President Proposes 'One-Pass' System for Children (VIDEO)

December 9, 2009

WBAL-TV 11 (Baltimore) - A city plan that would create a "one-pass" system for children and young adults is provoking concerned reaction from some parents.

The proposed pass system would allow officials to track how services are being used and make them more efficient.

However, some parents said they worry it could also put too much personal information into the system.

The idea is to provide kids with one card to swipe on the bus, at recreation centers and libraries.

Officials said it seemed like a natural next step for public services. The smart card would help the city streamline the boarding process for bus riders and allow agents to track bus lines that are over-burdened or under-utilized.

"It would be a great way for us to collect revenue and know the exact amount of students getting on and off the system," MTA spokeswoman Jawauna Greene said.

The concept is modeled after the Washington, D.C. Metro's debit card. Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she wants to go a step further and issue a "one-pass" card to city youth that could be used for transportation, recreation centers, libraries and possibly as school ID cards.

"We're trying to find a way that's universal, to know what young people are doing so we can do more of what works and less of what doesn't," Rawlings-Blake said.

However, the idea of city officials tracking children makes some uncomfortable.

"It is giving the city too much info. Children can lose those things just like anything else," MTA rider Darlene Randall said.

When asked if law enforcement would be able to access information captured by the cards, Rawlings-Blake said:

"We're not asking, 'Is John Doe in this rec center?' We want to know, 'Is there a 14-year-old male in this rec center?,' because then we'll know that this rec center is speaking to the needs of our young people," Rawlings-Blake said.

The information could be valuable to police when a crime is committed, such as a 2007 case in which a woman was assaulted by students on a MTA bus and the security cameras were broken.

The city held a public hearing on the one-pass card system on December 8.

Meanwhile, the MTA is currently testing transportation smart cards that should be available to all riders in the winter.

City of Baltimore
Legislative File ID 09-0148R
Introduced: 9/14/2009
Hearing Date: 12/8/2009
Investigative Hearing - One Card - Youth Identification Card and Access Card to City Services
FOR the purpose of exploring the efficacy of instituting a single identification card system to make accessing services easier and more convenient for Baltimore City residents; examining the mechanism of the D.C. One Card system; and estimating the cost of implementing a similar system in Baltimore City.

Related Baltimore City Council Resolution
Legislative File ID 08-0048R
Introduced: 6/9/2008
Hearing Date: 11/4/2009
Request for State Legislation - Child Tracking System
FOR the purpose of urging the Baltimore City Delegation to the 2009 Maryland General Assembly to introduce legislation creating a centralized community and governmental resource that would allow for the collection and integration of Maryland-born childrens’ evolving data and would help to share children’s information among schools, after-school programs, social service agencies, and medical providers from birth to age of majority, in order to increase positive outcomes for Maryland’s youth.

Britain to Shift to Smart Grid Meter Systems

December 2, 2009

Reuters - Britain is to shift to a smart energy system, including a national smart grid, which should pave the way to a low carbon future that includes large wind farms, more efficient heating systems and electric vehicles.

The government said smart meters, which provide real-time information to consumers about energy usage, and smart grids, which give real-time data about power demand and generation across the network, were integral for Britain to hit its carbon targets.

The Department of Energy and Climate Chance (DECC) estimated the cost of replacing the country's 47 million meters with smart meters by 2020 to be around 8.6 billion pounds ($14.25 billion) and will publish a detailed smart grid route map in early 2010...

It is the first time the government has talked about a smart grid, and it will provide 6 million pounds to develop smart meter technologies. The energy regulator Ofgem will make 500 million pounds available over the next five years for large scale smart grid trials.

The government also called for communications across the new national smart grid to be managed centrally, while maintaining metering competition. All suppliers would be obliged to use the central function under license.

DECC said utility companies would be responsible for installing smart electricity and gas meters in all British homes and most small businesses by the end of 2020.

Smart meters are seen as a first step toward creating smart grids and could reduce energy demand by cutting power to appliances that do not need continuous power, such as washing machines and laptops with batteries.

Director of British Gas smart metering, Peter Allison, said it estimated energy savings from smart meters to be around 2-3 percent, around the same as government estimates...

Under the Conservatives all homes would have smart meters by 2017 at the latest...
Will the smart grid protect consumer privacy?
As announced by President Obama on Oct. 27, the Department of Energy has awarded $3.4 billion in stimulus money to 100 smart-grid projects.

Historic EPA Finding: Greenhouse Gases Harm Humans

Historic EPA Finding: Greenhouse Gases Harm Humans

It signaled the administration was prepared to push ahead for significant controls in the U.S. if Congress doesn't act first on its own

December 7, 2009

Associated Press – The Obama administration took a major step Monday toward imposing the first federal limits on climate-changing pollution from cars, power plants and factories, declaring there was compelling scientific evidence that global warming from manmade greenhouse gases endangers Americans' health.

The announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency was clearly timed to build momentum toward an agreement at the international conference on climate change that opened Monday in Copenhagen, Denmark. It signaled the administration was prepared to push ahead for significant controls in the U.S. if Congress doesn't act first on its own.

The EPA finding clears the way for rules that eventually could force the sale of more fuel-efficient vehicles and require plants to install costly new equipment or shift to other forms of energy.

Energy prices for many Americans probably would rise — though Monday's finding will have no immediate impact since regulations have yet to be written. Supporters of separate legislation in Congress argue they could craft measures that would mitigate some of those costs.

Environmentalists hailed the EPA announcement as a clear indication the United States will take steps to attack climate change even if Congress fails to act. And they welcomed the timing of the declaration, saying it will help the Obama administration convince delegates at the international climate talks that the U.S. is serious about addressing the problem. Obama will address the conference next week.

But business groups said regulating carbon emissions through the EPA under existing clean air law would put new economic burdens on manufacturers, cost jobs and drive up energy prices.

"It will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," declared Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which in recent months has been particularly critical of the EPA's attempt to address climate change.

The EPA signaled last April that it was inclined to view heat-trapping pollution as a threat to public health and welfare and began to take public comments for formal rulemaking. That marked a reversal from the Bush administration, which had refused to issue the finding, despite a conclusion by EPA scientists that it was warranted.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said Monday:

"There are no more excuses for delaying," adding that the so-called endangerment analysis from global warming had been under consideration at the agency for three years. After the official finding, she said the agency is now "obligated to make reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants under the Clean Air Act."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama "still believes the best way to move forward is through the legislative process" — something Obama has expressed on a number of occasions as he has pressed Congress to shift the nation's energy priorities away from fossil fuels and to reduce climate-changing pollution.

The EPA said scientific evidence clearly shows that greenhouse gases "threaten the public health and welfare of the American people" and that the pollutants — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels — should be reduced, if not by Congress then by the agency responsible for enforcing air pollution.

"These long-overdue findings cement 2009's place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution," said Jackson.

She rejected claims by climate skeptics that the science of global warming remains in doubt, an argument given additional attention in recent weeks with the disclosure through intercepted e-mails that a British scientist had privately discussed ways to shield certain climate data from public scrutiny.

"The vast body of evidence not only remains unassailable, it has grown even stronger," said Jackson.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a lead author of a climate bill before the Senate, said of the finding:

"This is a clear message to Copenhagen of the Obama administration's commitments to address global climate change. ... The message to Congress is crystal clear: Get moving."

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., also a co-author, said:

"The Senate has a duty to act."

Business groups have strongly argued against tackling global warming through the Clean Air Act, saying it is less flexible and more costly than the cap-and-trade legislation being considered by Congress. Any regulations from the EPA are certain to spawn lawsuits and a lengthy legal fights.

"Such regulations would be intrusive, inefficient and excessively costly, chill job growth and delay business expansion," argued Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, which also has been critical of the climate legislation before Congress.

"The Clean Air Act can complement legislation," said Jackson. In fact, if Congress were to cap greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA probably would be given the responsibility of implementing the law.

The EPA's involvement in reducing climate-changing pollution, stems from a 2007 Supreme Court decision that declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act. But the court said the EPA would have to determine if these pollutants pose a danger to public health and welfare before it could regulate them.

'Market-based Solutions to Funding Climate Change Measures' is Code for Carbon Taxes

Copenhagen Climate Summit: UN Pleads for Investment Deals to be Done

December 8, 2009

Telegraph - The United Nations executive secretary has begged companies to "do some deals" behind the scenes at the Copenhagen climate change conference to encourage market investment, as the US leaned towards more regulation on industry emissions.

Yvo de Boer's pleaded for market-based mechanisms such as carbon trading to be made a priority over regulation, after US President Barack Obama's administration decided to classify carbon dioxide as a health hazard.

US companies, including oil major ExxonMobil, on Tuesday strongly criticised the US Environmental Protection Agency's decision, saying it would cause untold harm to the energy industry.

Speaking about the US plans, Mr de Boer said:

"We all know taxes and regulation tend to be a lot less efficient and much more expensive than market based approaches."

"Please please, please, if you are a business man, do a deal in Copenhagen and please, please, please make it market-based. Because if we fail to get a market-based agreement, we will be forced to turn to tax and regulation."

However, his defence of market-based solutions to funding climate change measures came as the UN admitted its administration of global carbon offsetting, the Clean Development Mechanism, had lost its way.

The UN, which unveiled an independent review of the system by consultants McKinsey, said they needed to get the system "back to its original intent" and acknowledged it suffered long delays, poor documentation and staff shortages.

"The subjectivity is demotivating project developers," Martina Bosi, a senior carbon-finance specialist for the World Bank said at the Copenhagen conference.

The multi-billion pound Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows big utilities and heavy industry in Europe to "offset" their emissions by buying certificates from low-carbon projects, such as wind farms, in emerging nations.

But many green campaigners and investors alike argue it has not been properly monitored, allowing low-carbon project developers to engage in creative green accounting.

The UN last week banned several Chinese wind farms from participating in the scheme, having temporarily suspended the whole country, over fears they had been playing the system.

Copenhagen Must Deliver, Says UN

December 7, 2009

Reuters - The biggest climate talks in history must deliver an ambitious, sweeping agreement to capitalise on pledges by countries to fight global warming, the United Nations has said.

A day before the two-week talks in the Danish capital formally begin, the UN climate chief said time was up to agree on the outlines of a tougher climate deal after troubled negotiations have deepened splits between rich and poor nations.

"I believe that negotiators now have the clearest signal ever from world leaders to draft a solid set of proposals to implement rapid action," Yvo de Boer told reporters.

"Never in the 17 years of climate change negotiations have so many different nations made so many firm pledges together. Almost every day countries announce new targets or plans of action to cut emissions," he said.

Much is at stake at Copenhagen.

Scientists say the world is heating up because of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and massive deforestation.

The United Nations says the world needs a tougher climate pact to brake rapidly rising carbon pollution.

Failure to do so would mean triggering dangerous climate change such as rising seas, melting ice caps and greater weather extremes that could disrupt economies and force millions to become climate refugees.

In a show of support, 105 world leaders have said they will attend the talks' closing stages to try to seal a deal after years of bitter debates over how to divide up the burden of emissions curbs and who should pay...

Big Government Elitists Steal Our Liberties and Make Us Slaves; They Care About Power, Not Security

Homeland Security or Homeland Enslavement?

December 2, 2009

Chuck Baldwin - By now, most readers are familiar with the story of how a Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, crashed the White House State Dinner last Tuesday evening. President and Mrs. Obama were entertaining Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the first official State Dinner of the new administration. The Salahis were not on the invited guest list, but were still allowed to walk right into the White House. They even had face-to-face conversations with both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Photographs of the Salahis with the President and Vice President have been published in numerous newspapers and on hundreds of web sites.

I wonder if the American people are thinking this episode through? Think of it: in the post-9/11 world, a world that has invented the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), body scanners, retina readers, the Patriot Act, hundreds of laws and regulations restricting the freedoms and liberties of the American people, thousands of cameras photographing our public movements, and satellite spy devices, a couple can walk right into the White House and meet the President and Vice President without being invited!

Is there something wrong with this picture, or what?...

That an uninvited couple could be granted access to the President and Vice President in this day and time is more than a “fluke.” It betrays something much deeper.

For the last 8 years, the American people have been told they must sacrifice certain liberties in order that the federal government might protect them. And for the most part, the American people have been happy to accommodate this incessant intrusion into their personal liberties.

They know the feds are monitoring their emails, personal phone conversations, and even their personal letters when received from overseas. They have sat silently as their banking institutions have monitored and reported virtually any and all financial transactions to the federal government. In today’s super-security world, one cannot even cash a check without showing the bank teller his or her driver’s license, which is recorded and made available to the feds. Sometimes, we are even required to provide our thumbprints. Beyond that, even certain service personnel that must come into our homes to provide in-home repair services, home inspections, or general services are often required to report what they see to various law enforcement authorities.

All of this is done in the name of “national security”...

Yet, in spite of all of the above, an uninvited couple is allowed to calmly walk right past Secret Service personnel and have personal audiences with the President and Vice President of the United States in what is ostensibly the most heavily-guarded, tightly secured building in the country: the White House.

Furthermore, this story comes on the heels of the mass shooting on what one would think would be a rather secure location: the US Army base at Fort Hood, Texas. And, have we forgotten the fellow who brought a gun into the Capitol Building (the home of the US Congress) in Washington, D.C., a few years ago and killed two police officers?

Dear Reader, ask yourself this question, Do you really think those schmucks in Washington, D.C., actually believe that protecting you and me is more important than protecting American soldiers, US congressmen, and especially the President of the United States? “Are you serious?” (To quote Nancy Pelosi.) The truth is, to the elites in DC, you and I are expendable commodities. In fact, to some of the soulless creatures running things, you and I are worth more dead than alive (but that’s a topic better discussed at a later date).

The point is, all this talk about “national security” is simply a ruse for Big Government elitists to steal our liberties and make slaves out of us. They don’t care about security; all they care about is POWER.

So, the next time you are required to be strip-searched by an airport screener, or to surrender your pocketknife at your local county commissioner’s office, or to show your driver’s license to your bank teller, or to submit to a random police checkpoint; the next time you make a phone call that you know is monitored by a federal agent (and they all are), or drive under a video camera, or visit these castle-esque federal buildings, remember Michaele and Tareq Salahi. And, if you are old enough, remember the time in America when we really were the “land of the free.” And also remember that it’s not security they seek–it’s the abolition of our liberty.