News ArticlesExcerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media
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In a landmark verdict cheered by human rights defenders around the world, a federal jury in Virginia found a U.S. military contractor liable for the torture of three prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison during the invasion and occupation of Iraq in the early 2000s. The jury ordered CACI Premier Technology to pay each of the three Iraqi plaintiffs $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages, for a total of $42 million. It is the first time that a civilian contractor has been found legally responsible for abusing Abu Ghraib detainees. The lawsuit against CACI–filed in 2008 by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Al Zuba'e, and Salah Al-Ejaili–alleged that company officials conspired with U.S. military personnel in subjecting the plaintiffs to torture and other crimes. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners endured torture ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam. A separate U.S. Army report concluded that most Abu Ghraib prisoners were innocent, with the Red Cross estimating that between 70-90% of inmates there were wrongfully detained. These include women who were held as bargaining chips to induce suspected militants to surrender. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison's commanding officer, was demoted. No other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse.
Note: Learn more about US torture programs in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. War destroys, yet these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world.
Beheadings, mass killings, child abuse, hate speech – all of it ends up in the inboxes of a global army of content moderators. You don't often see or hear from them – but these are the people whose job it is to review and then, when necessary, delete content that either gets reported by other users, or is automatically flagged by tech tools. Moderators are often employed by third-party companies, but they work on content posted directly on to the big social networks including Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. "If you take your phone and then go to TikTok, you will see a lot of activities, dancing, you know, happy things," says Mojez, a former Nairobi-based moderator. "But in the background, I personally was moderating, in the hundreds, horrific and traumatising videos. "I took it upon myself. Let my mental health take the punch so that general users can continue going about their activities on the platform." In 2020, Meta then known as Facebook, agreed to pay a settlement of $52m (Ł40m) to moderators who had developed mental health issues. The legal action was initiated by a former moderator [who] described moderators as the "keepers of souls", because of the amount of footage they see containing the final moments of people's lives. The ex-moderators I spoke to all used the word "trauma" in describing the impact the work had on them. One ... said he found it difficult to interact with his wife and children because of the child abuse he had witnessed. What came across, very powerfully, was the immense pride the moderators had in the roles they had played in protecting the world from online harm.
Note: Read more about the disturbing world of content moderation. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on Big Tech from reliable major media sources.
In January 2024, The GivingBlock, one of the largest crypto donation platforms, reported that crypto donations had reached more than $2 billion, projected to exceed $10 billion by 2032. Crypto donors, who are largely millennials, contribute on average 128 times more per donation than cash donors. By leveraging tax incentives like capital gain offsets to eliminate taxes on donations, crypto giving is as financially smart as it is impactful. But the benefits of crypto giving go far beyond the financial incentives. Social impact is embedded in the foundation of Web 3. This new economy is fueled by cutting out traditional middlemen, banks, and allowing transparent, secure, and borderless peer-to-peer payments. No ID or passport is needed. This allows people, especially the unbanked, to have full control of their assets with minimal fees. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has championed using memecoin momentum for good, saying, "I want to see quality fun projects that positively impact the ecosystem and the world." He donated nearly $2 million in memecoin winnings to charities, including $532,000 to the Effective Altruism Fund's Animal Welfare Fund and over $1 million to the United Humanitarian Front, an organization providing grants to humanitarian relief initiatives in Ukraine. New Story, a nonprofit building homes to alleviate homelessness worldwide, partnered with artist Brian Ku to release a limited edition series of NFTs where each sale provided a 3D house for a family in Latin America.
Note: Watch our latest video on the potential for blockchain to fix government waste and restore financial freedom. Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good.
A week after an intense storm battered its eastern coast, Spain has seen thousands of volunteers come from all directions to help towns devastated by floods. "Humanity is still capable of forgetting its differences," said Toni Zamorano, who spent hours on the roof of his submerged car in the town of SedavĂ. "Here, race or economic level don't matter. This solidarity makes you feel great," he [said]. Political differences in Spain bore little relation to the unity felt by ordinary citizens during the disaster. "Polarization is a major distraction," [España Mejor, a civil society group] stated. The storm's impact brought a visit by King Felipe VI on Sunday to the city of Paiporta, where floods had swept away thousands of homes and businesses. Some residents pelted him and his entourage with mud and insults out of anger over the government's slow response to the disaster. In Paiporta, the [king's] security detail begged him three times to leave the throng. He and Queen Letizia stayed. They listened, hugged, and wept with residents. Anger softened. In a poll published Tuesday in the online newspaper El Español, the townspeople expressed their gratitude for the monarchs' visit. They acknowledged the risk they had taken to be there. Back in Madrid, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez PĂ©rez-CastejĂłn said his government should have done more sooner. Spain's unity at this moment is from the bottom up. Or, as Spanish professional soccer player Ferran Torres wrote on social media, "The people are the ones who save the people. ... Long live Spain."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.
Before the digital age, law enforcement would conduct surveillance through methods like wiretapping phone lines or infiltrating an organization. Now, police surveillance can reach into the most granular aspects of our lives during everyday activities, without our consent or knowledge – and without a warrant. Technology like automated license plate readers, drones, facial recognition, and social media monitoring added a uniquely dangerous element to the surveillance that comes with physical intimidation of law enforcement. With greater technological power in the hands of police, surveillance technology is crossing into a variety of new and alarming contexts. Law enforcement partnerships with companies like Clearview AI, which scraped billions of images from the internet for their facial recognition database ... has been used by law enforcement agencies across the country, including within the federal government. When the social networking app on your phone can give police details about where you've been and who you're connected to, or your browsing history can provide law enforcement with insight into your most closely held thoughts, the risks of self-censorship are great. When artificial intelligence tools or facial recognition technology can piece together your life in a way that was previously impossible, it gives the ones with the keys to those tools enormous power to ... maintain a repressive status quo.
Note: Facial recognition technology has played a role in the wrongful arrests of many innocent people. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on police corruption and the disappearance of privacy.
The food system is inextricably linked to an economic system that, for decades, has been fundamentally biased against the kinds of changes we need. Economic policies almost everywhere have systematically promoted ever-larger scale and monocultural production. Those policies include: Massive subsidies for globally traded commodities, direct and hidden subsidies for global transport infrastructures and fossil fuels, â€free trade' policies that open up food markets in virtually every country to global agribusinesses, [and] health and safety regulations [that] destroy smaller producers and marketers and are not enforced for giant monopolies. Monocultures rely heavily on chemical inputs–fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides–which pollute the immediate environment, put wildlife at risk, and–through nutrient runoff–create "dead zones" in waters ... thousands of miles away. More than half of the world's food varieties have been lost over the past century; in countries like the U.S., the loss is more than 90 percent. Agribusiness has gone to great lengths to convince the public that large-scale industrial food production is the only way to feed the world. But the global food economy is massively inefficient. More than one-third of the global food supply is wasted or lost; for the U.S., the figure is closer to one-half. The solution to these problems ... requires a commitment to local food economies. [Several towns in the state of Maine] declared "food sovereignty" by passing ordinances that give their citizens the right "to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing." In 2013, the government of Ontario, Canada, passed a Local Food Act to increase access to local food, improve local food literacy, and provide tax credits for farmers who donate a portion of their produce to nearby food banks.
Note: Read the full article for a comprehensive explanation of why local food and economies are far better for human health and environment. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of news articles on food system corruption.
Neonicotinoids–"neonics" for short–[are] now the most common chemicals used to kill bugs in American agriculture. Farmers can spray them on fields, but these insecticides are also attached to seeds as an outer coating, called a seed treatment. As the seeds germinate and grow, the plant's tissues become toxic. Research shows neonics threaten pollinators, birds, aquatic organisms, and mammals, and pose risks to humans. Data from 2015 to 2016 showed about half of Americans over three years old were recently exposed to a neonic. Nearly all commodity corn farmers receive seed coated with neonics at the start of each season; many cannot identify the chemical that's in the coating and don't even know if another option exists. In corn and soy fields, new research ... suggest that widespread use of neonic-treated seeds provide minimal benefit to farmers. One study from Quebec helped convince the Canadian province to change its laws to restrict the use of neonic seed treatments. After five years and a 95 percent drop in the use of neonic-coated seeds, there have been no reported impacts on crop yields. For agronomist Louis Robert, the success of the Quebec government's decision to move away from neonics on corn and soy seeds is apparent ... in the silence. "The most reliable proof is that it's not even a matter of discussion anymore," Robert said. "Today, as we speak in 2024 in Quebec, over half of the corn and soy acreage doesn't carry any insecticide, and we're going to have a fantastic year in terms of yield. So, the demonstration is right there in front of you."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.
The world over, thousands of babies are adjusting to life outside the womb not in incubators in hospital nurseries, but on the warm chests of their parents. This is kangaroo mother care, modern medicine's latest protocol for babies born prematurely or underweight – and a long-standing traditional midwifery practice. It derives its fetching name from female kangaroos who keep their infants warm and stable in a pouch on their bodies. This immediate skin contact provides warmth and protection from infections while also aiding stress relief and emotional bonding. In 2017, [researchers] began studying whether kangaroo mother care (KMC) could be used for every preterm baby. They randomly assigned unstable newborns ... to two groups. Group 1 received immediate KMC. Group 2 received conventional care in an incubator or warmer until the baby's condition stabilized. They observed a 25 percent reduction in preterm deaths, 35 percent reduction in incidence of hypothermia and 18 percent fewer infections in the immediate KMC group, compared to babies in the control group. Public health advocate [Aarti] Kumar is helping design one of India's first KMC-enabled special newborn care units. "We need such facilities," she says. "More than science and modern medicine, the most powerful treatment for a premature, underweight infant is their mother, no matter if she is educated or illiterate, rich or poor ... I think that's amazing."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing our bodies.
Industry research reviewed by independent scientists show that exposure to the nation's most common pesticides, neonicotinoids, may affect developing brains the same way as nicotine, including by significantly shrinking brain tissue and neuron loss. Exposure could be linked to long-term health effects like ADHD, slower auditory reflexes, reduced motor skills, behavioral problems and delayed sexual maturation in males. The industry science will be used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set new regulations, but the independent scientists say they found pesticide makers withheld information or did not include required data, and allege the EPA has drawn industry friendly conclusions from the research. Neonicotinoid residue is common on produce, and the EPA seems poised to set limits that are especially dangerous for developing children. Neonicotinoids are a controversial class of chemicals used in insecticides spread on over 150m acres of US cropland to treat for pests, in addition to being used on lawns. The pesticides work by destroying an insect's nerve synapse, causing uncontrollable shaking, paralysis and death – but a growing body of science has found it harms pollinators, decimates bee populations and kills other insects not targeted by the chemical. Recent research has found the chemicals in the bodies of over 95% of pregnant women, and in human blood and urine at alarming levels.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.
On a chilly, early morning in January 2019, a group of animal rights activists descended upon a poultry farm in central Texas. Activists with Meat the Victims, a decentralized, global movement to abolish animal exploitation, later uploaded gruesome photos of injured and dead chicks to social media platforms. The police identified [Sarah Weldon] and issued a warrant for her arrest, along with 14 other activists. She was charged with criminal trespassing. The local police weren't the only ones paying attention. An FBI agent in Texas had been secretly monitoring the demonstration. His focus? Weapons of mass destruction. The FBI has been collaborating with the meat industry to gather information on animal rights activism, including Meat the Victims, under its directive to counter weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, according to agency records. The records also show that the bureau has explored charging activists who break into factory farms under federal criminal statutes that carry a possible sentence of up to life in prison – including for the "attempted use" of WMD – while urging meat producers to report encounters with activists to its WMD program. "This ... is textbook escalation by government actors against successful efforts by social movements that they disagree with or find subversive," said Justin Marceau, a law professor. "Framing of civil disobedience against factory farms as terrorism is a form of government repression."
Note: Animal rights activists are relentlessly prosecuted while the evidence of animal cruelty they uncover is ruthlessly suppressed. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in law enforcement and in the food system from reliable major media sources.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the WK Kellogg headquarters in Michigan on Tuesday calling for the company to hold up its promise to remove artificial dyes from its breakfast cereals sold in the U.S. Nearly 10 years ago, Kellogg's, the maker of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks, committed to removing such additives from its products by 2018. While Kellogg's has done so in other countries including Canada, which now makes Froot Loops with natural fruit juice concentrates, the cereals sold in the U.S. still contain both food dyes and a chemical preservative. In the U.S., Froot Loops ingredients include Red Dye No. 40, Yellow Dye No. 5, Yellow Dye No. 6 and Blue Dye No. 1. Kellogg's insisted its products are safe for consumption, saying its ingredients meet the federal standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.The agency has said that most children experience no adverse effects from color additives, but critics argue the FDA standards were developed without any assessment for possible neurological effects. The protests come in the wake of a new California law known as the California School Food Safety Act that bans six potentially harmful dyes in foods served in California public schools. The ban includes all of the dyes in Froot Loops, plus Blue Dye No. 2 and Green Dye No. 3. Consumption of said dyes ... may be linked to hyperactivity and other neurobehavioral problems in some children.
Note: Big Food profits immensely as American youth face a growing health crisis. Read about the health concerns linked to these food dyes, including neurobehavioral problems, attention issues, DNA damage, allergies, chronic digestive issues, cancer, and more. Check out our latest Substack for a deep dive into who's behind the chronic disease epidemic that's threatening the future of humanity.
Two decades ago, Shahawar Matin Siraj started to feel uneasy about a plan to bomb a subway station in Manhattan. Osama Eldawoody, a New York City Police Department informant recruited after 9/11, had established himself as a father figure to Siraj, who was 21 when they met. But as it started to feel real, Siraj tried to back out – insisting about 18 times that he was not willing to place bombs in the station. "I have to, you know, ask my mom's permission," he had said. Siraj [was] arrested a week later ... and was sentenced in 2007 to 30 years in prison after three years of pretrial detention. Siraj is one of almost 1,000 terrorism defendants prosecuted by the U.S. since 9/11. More than 350 defendants' cases involved FBI stings with an informant or undercover agent. The fear of this kind of surveillance transformed the social fabric of Muslim communities and made them more insular. "You didn't know if the person you're talking to was an informant or undercover," says Fahd Ahmed, executive director of Desis Rising Up and Moving, or DRUM. (Siraj's family are members.) A 2014 Human Rights Watch report closely reviewed 27 federal prosecutions involving 77 defendants and found that in some instances, "the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act." The report also described a pattern of targeting people with mental or intellectual disabilities in these stings.
Note: Read more about the FBI's manufacture of terrorist plots. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on law enforcement corruption and terrorism from reliable major media sources.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, the highest-ranking transgender official in the Biden administration ... has supported a misinformation campaign that has turned the U.S. into an international outlier in the use of the "gender-affirming" model of care, which recommends hormones and surgeries rather than psychotherapy as the first-line treatment for adolescent distress around puberty. In 2022, Levine pressured the World Association for Transgender Health to remove age minimums for gender surgeries. Since 2017, a Manhattan Institute analysis of health insurance claims has shown, that more than 5,000 teenage girls had their breasts amputated as part of a "gender-affirming" procedure designed to help them achieve a male look. These figures ... do not include procedures performed at large health care systems like Kaiser Permanente (which is currently being sued by two young women who underwent "top surgery"). These surgeries do not seem to pose a problem for those like Levine who believe the theory that "trans kids know who they are." Children who do not fit sex stereotypes and same-sex attracted adolescents are now given the idea they are "trans" and encouraged to perceive hormones and surgeries as a solution to the substantial difficulties that society imposes on gender non-conforming young people. Contrary to the slogans, these treatments are not lifesaving.
Note: For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on transgender medicine.
REMspace, a California-based neurotech startup, claims to have achieved the first two-way communication between individuals during lucid dreaming. Using specially designed equipment, participants reportedly exchanged a message while asleep–an extraordinary claim that has yet to be peer-reviewed. This milestone, if validated, could mark a turning point in dream research, with REMspace suggesting applications from mental health therapies to skill training. Lucid dreaming ... is the state of being aware that you are dreaming while asleep. While around 50 percent of people report experiencing at least one lucid dream, the idea of communication within such a state is still in its early stages of research. The REMspace team claims they achieved communication between two participants during a lucid dream on September 24, 2024. Participants received random words generated by a server through earbuds while they were dreaming. One participant reportedly repeated the word in their dream, and the second confirmed it after waking. Looking ahead, they claim to be working on enabling more complex forms of dream communication, including full conversations and interactions with external servers. [REMspace founder Michael] Raduga predicts that within a few years, "dream communication will become common." Until then, the scientific community awaits peer-reviewed evidence to substantiate these intriguing, but currently unverified claims.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality and technology for good.
Lockdowns were instituted, they failed to stop the dying, they failed to stop the spread - that's the data: Bjornskov, 2021; Bendavid, 2021; Agarwal, 2021; Herby, 2022; Kerpen, 2023; Ioannidis, 2024. And yes, lockdowns also inflicted massive damage on children and literally killed people. Lockdowns were not caused by the virus. Human beings decided to do lockdowns. I was the ONLY health policy scholar on the White House Task Force. My interviews as Advisor to the President were pulled down: by YouTube on September 11, 2020, by Twitter blocking me on October 18, 2020. You might think the public – in a free society - should know what the Advisor to the President was saying? When you censor health policy, it's not simply ... a less-than-ideal environment for diverse views. People die. And people died from the censorship of correct health policy. Why is Censorship used? To shut someone up, yes; but more importantly, to deceive the public – to stop others from hearing, to convince a public there is a "consensus". Truth is not determined by consensus, or by numbers of people who agree, or by titles. It is discovered by debate, proven by critical analysis of evidence. Arguments are won by data and logic, not by personal attack or censoring others. THAT is why lockdowners - at Stanford and elsewhere - needed censorship and propaganda; they couldn't win on the data; they needed to delegitimize and demonize opposing views as highly dangerous, to convince the public.
Note: This was written by Scott W. Atlas, MD, who served as Advisor to the President and on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Read an insightful article by New York Magazine about the harmful effects of COVID lockdowns, highlighting how some countries achieved low death rates without resorting to lockdown measures. Former chief economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers published a study last year showing how non-COVID excess deaths soared as a result of lockdown policies. Prominent economists from John Hopkins University and Lund University concluded that lockdowns reduced mortalities by 0.2%. For more, explore our COVID Information Center.
Over the past several years, the US Defense Department has been gradually integrating what appear to be variants of the Freedom of Movement Control Unit (FMCU) handsets as the primary control units for a variety of advanced weapons systems. Produced since 2008 by Measurement Systems Inc. (MSI), a subsidiary of British defense contractor Ultra that specializes in human-machine interfaces, the FMCU offers a similar form factor to the standard Xbox or PlayStation controller but with a ruggedized design intended to safeguard its sensitive electronics against whatever hostile environs American service members may find themselves in. A longtime developer of joysticks used on various US naval systems and aircraft, MSI has served as a subcontractor to major defense "primes" like General Atomics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and BAE Systems to provide the handheld control units for "various aircraft and vehicle programs," according to information compiled by federal contracting software GovTribe. At the moment, it's unclear how exactly many US military systems use the FMCU. When reached for comment, the Pentagon confirmed the use of the system on the NMESIS, M-SHORAD, and RADBO weapons platforms and referred WIRED to the individual service branches for additional details. The Marine Corps confirmed the handset's use with the GBOSS, while the Air Force again confirmed the same for the RADBO.
Note: The latest US Air Force recruitment tool is a video game that allows players to receive in-game medals and achievements for drone bombing Iraqis and Afghans. 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 from reliable major media sources.
[Robert] Brito and his family, who live along the Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon, only saw the monetary value of logged trees. Now, when Brito looks at a tree, everything has changed. "We stopped thinking about price and started thinking about [a different kind of] value. For example, when I see a beautiful cumaru [Brazilian teak] tree, 300 to 400 years old ... I still touch it, but with a different mindset. I have access to education, technology, a future for the young people living here, and I still contribute to the preservation of our planet in relation to climate change." Brito's transition ... required the support and alignment of financial, social and environmental incentives. In 2008, the government of the Brazilian state of Amazonas created the Rio Negro Sustainable Development Reserve, in order to preserve nature and to support communities living within it. The designation of the sustainable development reserve led to organisations including the Foundation for Amazon Sustainability (FAS) establishing education and health projects there. Brito recalls that one day Virgilio Viana, the director general of FAS, suggested that he might like to work in community-based tourism. "I started receiving people in my own home," Brito says. This trial was a success. He realised that he earned more in a week than he had ever seen in three months of logging. In 2011 – three years after the creation of the sustainable development reserve and over two decades since he cut down his first tree – Brito opened his nature lodge. And he put down his chainsaw. Moving away from blaming or shaming individuals can bring more people into the environmental movement. So can valuing people's prior experiences, such as Brito drawing on his decades of logging as he guides visitors around the forest in his flip-flops.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing the Earth.
Border Patrol agents are warning that kids as young as 8 are being drugged and smuggled into the US by traffickers posing as their parents or family members – and nobody knows how common the horrifying practice is. Authorities have rescued children caught up in two different instances of such smuggling in recent weeks – including one instance in which the alleged traffickers had birth certificates for multiple kids to whom they weren't related, according to the Border Patrol. Authorities say it's not clear what is happening to the children once they are smuggled into the US – but many are vulnerable to being exploited for child labor and child sex trafficking. "Sometimes we encounter criminal actions so horrendous, they defy human decency," said Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief of California's El Centro sector in the southeast of the state, in response to the case. In one case, border agents rescued a child at the California border who had been "heavily dosed with sleep aids to prevent him from talking" to authorities, Bovino said Friday. Those agents found that the traffickers had birth certificates for more children. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the number of children crossing illegally into the US alone and without relatives has skyrocketed. Thousands of those children have also gone unaccounted for after they've been released to sponsors, who whistleblowers say aren't properly vetted, in the US.
Note: Why is this horrific issue not being discussed on a significant mainstream level? According to a report by The Center for Public Integrity, thousands have disappeared from sponsors' homes after the federal government placed them there. Watch our Mindful News Brief video on how the US government facilitates child trafficking at the border.
Tech companies have outfitted classrooms across the U.S. with devices and technologies that allow for constant surveillance and data gathering. Firms such as Gaggle, Securly and Bark (to name a few) now collect data from tens of thousands of K-12 students. They are not required to disclose how they use that data, or guarantee its safety from hackers. In their new book, Surveillance Education: Navigating the Conspicuous Absence of Privacy in Schools, Nolan Higdon and Allison Butler show how all-encompassing surveillance is now all too real, and everything from basic privacy rights to educational quality is at stake. The tech industry has done a great job of convincing us that their platforms – like social media and email – are "free." But the truth is, they come at a cost: our privacy. These companies make money from our data, and all the content and information we share online is basically unpaid labor. So, when the COVID-19 lockdowns hit, a lot of people just assumed that using Zoom, Canvas and Moodle for online learning was a "free" alternative to in-person classes. In reality, we were giving up even more of our labor and privacy to an industry that ended up making record profits. Your data can be used against you ... or taken out of context, such as sarcasm being used to deny you a job or admission to a school. Data breaches happen all the time, which could lead to identity theft or other personal information becoming public.
Note: Learn about Proctorio, an AI surveillance anti-cheating software used in schools to monitor children through webcams–conducting "desk scans," "face detection," and "gaze detection" to flag potential cheating and to spot anybody "looking away from the screen for an extended period of time." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
On Oct. 14, 2020, three weeks out from the election, with Joe and President Donald Trump neck and neck in the polls, the New York Post's first story about Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop exploded like a bomb. The front page featured an email from Hunter's Burisma paymaster, Vadym Pozharskyi, thanking him for "the opportunity to meet your father." It was hard to square with Joe's assertions throughout the campaign that he knew nothing about Hunter's seeming international influence-peddling operation. Even as Twitter and Facebook, in collusion with the FBI, censored The Post, and the mainstream media collectively looked the other way, the Biden campaign knew that the sheer weight of the evidence would eventually be impossible to ignore. [Antony] Blinken's solution was to set in motion one of the most brazen dirty tricks in US electoral history. Using the intelligence community to sound the false alarm of "Russian disinformation," ground already prepared by corrupt elements inside the FBI, he set out to discredit the whole laptop story. CIA veteran Mike Morell [organized] 50 intelligence colleagues to sign a letter falsely insinuating that the damning material from Hunter's laptop published by The Post was Russian disinformation. The Dirty 51 letter, as it came to be known, was timed to appear on the eve of the final presidential debate, to maximize its benefit to Joe, by giving him a "talking point to push back on [President] Trump on this issue," as Morell put it.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on censorship and intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.