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Qwest Launches VoIP Trial
prostoalex writes "Qwest Communications International, a local phone operator covering 14 Northern and Western United States, launched its first Voice-over-IP trial in Minneapolis/St.Paul area. 'The future of voice communications will be based on the Internet', Qwest's CEO was quoted as saying." Also in the news: some vague plans by AT&T to use VoIP as well.
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first po9st
If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he were I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than his might swell
From my lyre within the sky.
Hitler used the 1933 burning of the Reichstag (Parliament) building by a deranged Dutchman to declare a "war on terrorism," establish his legitimacy as a leader (even though he hadn't won a majority in the previous election).
"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their "evil" deeds in their religion.
Two weeks later, the first prison for terrorists was built in Oranianberg, holding the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the nation's flag was everywhere, even printed in newspapers suitable for display.
Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation, in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it, that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack on the Reichstag building was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained.
Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. Instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as The Fatherland. As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands.
Within a year of the terrorist attack, Hitler's advisors determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, including those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist sympathizers. He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the Fatherland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single powerful leader.
Most Americans remember his Office of Fatherland Security, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and Schutzstaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.
And, perhaps most important, he invited his supporters in industry into the halls of government to help build his new detention camps, his new military, and his new empire which was to herald a thousand years of peace. Industry and government worked hand-in-glove, in a new type of pseudo-democracy first proposed by Mussolini and sustained by war.
http://c0balt.com/resources/terror/terror.shtml
If This Is Freedom, What Exactly Is Dictatorship?
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Let me see if I have this right. In the United States of America:
1. The president now has the unrestricted power to declare war against a country that has not attacked the United States, wreaking death and destruction on both sides of the conflict.
2. The president now has the unrestricted power to round up unlimited numbers of American citizens within the United States and incarcerate them in military brigs or concentration camps for the rest of their lives and keep them from ever again communicating with friends, families, and attorneys, simply on the president's certification that the incarcerated Americans are "terrorists," as he has done with Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi.
3. The president now has the unrestricted power to seize American citizens abroad and remove them to its military base in Cuba, where they can be kept for the rest of their lives and kept from ever again communicating with friends, family, and attorneys, solely on the basis of his certification that the imprisoned Americans are "terrorists," as he initially did with Yaser Esam Hamdi.
4. The president now has the unrestricted power to kill American citizens abroad solely on the basis of his certification that the killed Americans are "terrorists," as he did to Ahmed Hijazi, the American who was killed with a U.S.-fired missile in Yemen.
Pardon me for asking the following two indelicate questions:
First, if all this is freedom, what exactly is dictatorship?
Second, after the Iraqi people are freed from dictatorship, would it be asking too much to do the same for the American people through the adoption of the following two amendments to the U.S. Constitution:
"The Congress shall have the power to declare war, and this time we really do mean it."
"No person shall be denied life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and this time we really do mean it."
Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Increasingly i have witnessed a flood of American refugees who come to Canada in order to escape their oppresive government.
After the 2000 election it became apparent even to the most trusting of observers that the political process is non existant in the United States, and that anything short of a miracle means that America- as it were, no longer exists.
In its place is a highly organised structure which is a conglomoration of special interest fronted by egomaniacs who dont even pretend to represent the people anymore.
Recently, after 9/11, many Americans have flooded Canada with their families seeking a more sane way to live. Only some of them realise that Canada is just behind the United States in terms of governmental corruption, and it is only a matter of time before we too fall victims to what has become an open source conspiracy- a systematic, economic and social coup by the global elite.
Some of them are escaping the wildly outrageous drug laws in the US, some for gay marriage, some for other, broad reasons which have to do with escaping the shame that they carry with them as being part of and a contributor to what has become the American nightmare.
Most recognised years back the level of governmental deception and corruption that took place, but felt disjointed enough from the federal government that they could survive on pure apathy. After 9/11 the disease of lies infected the public conscience within a matter of hours. No long could stand having their children grow up in a country where 2+ 2= 5.
One man I spoke to really couldnt quantify why he and his family escaped from America. He as a well paid federal contractor for the FBI. He had no specific knowledge of anything outside of the open source pertaining to 9/11, but he and his friends heard and observed certain facts about the structure and mandates that could not be ignored. Speaking out meant being labelled a traitor and a terrorist. This wasnt what he wanted for his little girl, so he left his high paying job and moved the family to Canada.
Another person I know wasnt so lucky and got caught at the border. Someone in his car was found with a bag of marijuana one night while they were driving to a resteraunt one night. State law required mandatory sentencing for both of them. Being a law abiding citizen, yet knowing he could not win in court with his resources, he went on the run north, towards Canada. He thought he had almost made it until the police tracked hm down one night after he used a computer to contact some friends. Using the Patriot act the authorities obtained information as to his whereabouts and arrested him just hours from the border. As far as I know this good person is rotting in jail somewhere in the southern US, facing multiple charges stemming from someone in his car havng a 20 dollar bag of marijuana in his pocket.
Every week i meet someone else who moved to Vancouver so they could escape the embarassment and shame that has become of their country. They say there is no point fighting something so intagible as the United States government. Where do you start? Where does it end? A democratic president would be slightly better, but just slightly, America has become a nightmare for all those who do not adhere to the belief that ultimate security is tatamount to patriotism, unquestioning patriotism that makes so little sense to those of us who are still able to think.
I dont know about brainwashing or global conspiracys or the rest of it, but I do know that America has become an overt police state, and things are slated to get worse if there is another "terrorist" attack.
Thousands if not more will be rounded up in the days subsequent to any attack, and they will most likely indefinitly held for a long time. The remaining population will become further enslaved as the last bastions of privacy crumble against the massive demand for the security that the population wants so so badly.
My advice is to escape america while you still can. All the signs are