- Texas health officials secretly transferred hundreds of newborn babies‘ blood samples to the federal government to build a DNA database, a newspaper investigation has revealed. According to The Texas Tribune, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) routinely collected blood samples from newborns to screen for a variety of health conditions, before throwing the samples out. But beginning in 2002, the DSHS contracted Texas A&M University to store blood samples for potential use in medical research. These accumulated at rate of 800,000 per year. The DSHS did not obtain permission from parents, who sued the DSHS, which settled in November 2009. Now the Tribune reveals that wasn’t the end of the matter. As it turns out, between 2003 and 2007, the DSHS also gave 800 anonymised blood samples to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) to help create a national mitochondrial DNA database. This came to light after repeated open records requests filed by the Tribune turned up documents detailing the mtDNA programme. Apparently, these samples were part of a larger programme to build a national, perhaps international, DNA database that could be used to track down missing persons and solve cold cases. Jim Harrington, the civil rights attorney who filed the blood spot lawsuit (pdf) last year on behalf of five Texas parents and who directs the Texas Civil Rights Project, suggests to the Tribune that the DSHS settled with the parents to avoid risking a court case that might have revealed the DNA database. “This explains the mystery of why they gave up so fast,” he says.
By: @endunlv
*[Readers are encouraged to read through the 'Finding America' series discussing ' How do we fix this?' and participate with comments and suggestions.]*
If you throw dirt you’re bound to lose ground!
Throughout previous Endrunlv posts is a thread of redundancy designed to encourage readers to focus and understand factors that are critical to the future success or failure of America, the world as we know it, and humanity itself.
Not Rocket Science
It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots and recognize patterns of social behavior that has potential for making or breaking nations or cultures.
A little common sense can tell even a child with a basic understanding of history, that unlike any war or time in the nation’s history, the United States is at the historical make it or break it point where empires have fallen.
Even without a historical knowledge, a child can sense something is very, very wrong in their world.
A child caught up in a family with a history of domestic violence and abuse through no fault of their own, is no different from America’s children watching their nation self destruct without
an ability to be heard or do anything to stop the arguing that leads to an all too familiar violence.
In their own way a child knows if things continue in the direction they are going, that something really bad is going to happen; often, despite their innocence …becoming the victim.
Does this make sense?
As part of ongoing research, many people have been directly asked via ©Twitter @endunlv regarding the last ‘So, how do we fix this? post: ‘Does this make sense?’
The people asked are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, members of Congress and 2010 candidates, journalists, authors, Isolationists, Globalists, self-proclaimed ‘Liberals’, ‘Patriots’, ‘Conservatives’, and people of various religious beliefs.
Thankfully, response to the question ‘Does this make sense?’ … from all directions and all over America, has literally been passionate and constructive.
Without solicitation, an unexpected 10% of total visitors reading ‘So, How do we fix this? ‘Silver Bullet’ 2010: Finding America [The Way Back] have been from major cities around the world like Athens, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, London, Moscow, Rome, Kabul, Tel Aviv ; Turkey, Finland, Australia, Mexico, India, Canada, Slovakia, Norway, The Netherlands,and many others (some of whom are involved in other governments).
The Feed Back
Americans from coast to coast are genuinely concerned about the direction the nation is going. A growing consensus recognizes that the division within The People of America and the United States Government (s) is tearing the nation apart to the level assured self-destruction if the nation remains polarized.
President becomes UN Special Envoy to earthquake-stricken Haiti.
A born-again neo-conservative US business wheeler-dealer preacher claims Haitians are condemned for making a literal pact with the Devil.
Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Bolivian, French and Swiss rescue organizations accuse the US military of refusing landing rights to planes bearing necessary medicines and urgently needed potable water to the millions of Haitians stricken, injured and homeless.
Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the worlds richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.
Haiti, and the larger island of Hispaniola of which it is a part, has the geological fate that it straddles one of the worlds most active geological zones, where the deepwater plates of three huge structures relentlessly rub against one anotherthe intersection of the North American, South American and Caribbean tectonic plates. Below the ocean and the waters of the Caribbean, these plates consist of an oceanic crust some 3 to 6 miles thick, floating atop an adjacent mantle. Haiti also lies at the edge of the region known as the Bermuda Triangle, a vast area in the Caribbean subject to bizarre and unexplained disturbances.
This vast mass of underwater plates are in constant motion, rubbing against each other along lines analogous to cracks in a broken porcelain vase that has been reglued. The earths tectonic plates typically move at a rate 50 to 100 mm annually in relation to one another, and are the origin of earthquakes and of volcanoes. The regions of convergence of such plates are also areas where vast volumes of oil and gas can be pushed upwards from the Earths mantle. The geophysics surrounding the convergence of the three plates that run more or less directly beneath Port-au-Prince make the region prone to earthquakes such as the one that struck Haiti with devastating ferocity on January 12.
A relevant Texas geological project
Leaving aside the relevant question of how well in advance the Pentagon and US scientists knew the quake was about to occur, and what Pentagon plans were being laid before January 12, another issue emerges around the events in Haiti that might help explain the bizarre behavior to date of the major rescue playersthe United States, France and Canada. Aside from being prone to violent earthquakes, Haiti also happens to lie in a zone that, due to the unusual geographical intersection of its three tectonic plates, might well be straddling one of the worlds largest unexplored zones of oil and gas, as well as of valuable rare strategic minerals.
Posted on 27 January 2010
By John W. Whitehead
President, The Rutherford Institute
“As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid.” – Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America
Ominous developments in America have been a long time coming, in part precipitated by “we the people” – a citizenry that has been asleep at the wheel for too long. And while there have been wake-up calls, we have failed to heed the warnings.
Just consider the state of our nation:
We’re encased in what some are calling an electronic concentration camp. The government continues to amass data files on more and more Americans. Everywhere we go, we are watched: at the banks, at the grocery store, at the mall, crossing the street. This loss of privacy is symptomatic of the growing surveillance being carried out on average Americans. Such surveillance gradually poisons the soul of a nation, transforming us from one in which we’re presumed innocent until proven guilty to one in which everyone is a suspect and presumed guilty. Thus, the question that must be asked is: can freedom in the United States flourish in an age when the physical movements, individual purchases, conversations and meetings of every citizen are under constant surveillance by private companies and government agencies?
We are metamorphosing into a police state. Governmental tentacles now invade virtually every facet of our lives, with agents of the government listening in on our telephone calls and reading our emails. Technology, which has developed at a rapid pace, offers those in power more invasive, awesome tools than ever before. Fusion centers – data collecting agencies spread throughout the country, aided by the National Security Agency – constantly monitor our communications, everything from our internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails. This data is then fed to government agencies, which are now interconnected – the CIA to the FBI, the FBI to local police – a relationship which will make a transition to martial law that much easier. We may very well be one terrorist attack away from seeing armed forces on our streets – and the American people may not put up much resistance. According to a recent study, a greater percentage of Americans are now willing to sacrifice their civil liberties in order to feel safer in the wake of the failed crotch bomber’s attack on Christmas Day.
Posted on 2009 12, 22 by duo
By Vincent Gioia
After the Bolsheviks took over Russia, many who lived there before were able to compare life before and after the Communist take-over. It became readily apparent that they had gone from the proverbial frying pan into the fire. However subsequent generations, having nothing to compare, had no idea what life could be under some other kind of government and simply accepted the regime as a way of life. Is this what will happen in the United States?
As we experience the “perfect storm” of leftist control of the government and the country, Americans stand to see our traditional way of life deteriorating under our very nose. Those of us who experienced life under less government control of our lives are outraged and oppose the direction of the Obama government and allies in congress led by Speaker Pelosi in the House and Senator Reid in the Senate. Clearly the views and beliefs of the people who are opposed to current Executive and Congressional action are not being represented in our so-called representative republican form of government. Sadly, our representatives choose to establish their agenda and care not if the public opposes the agenda. The leftist mantra is “if not now, then when?”
If successful, and there is presently no reason to expect otherwise, the total transformation of our country with less individual rights and freedom and more government control of our lives than ever envisioned by country’s founders, is a virtual certainty.
Posted on 2009 12, 14 by duo
By Tom Mullen
At some point in the past, the American ethos was centered on suspicion of government –whether liberal, conservative, or otherwise. For most of America’s first two centuries, Americans were taxed less, regulated less, and left more alone by their government than any other people in the world. These conditions resulted in an explosion of innovation, wealth, and culture unsurpassed at any time in human history.
As that trend seems to have reversed, Americans look to their past to try to establish where we have gone wrong and what we can do to solve our problems. Increasingly, some Americans point to the U.S. Constitution and our abandonment of its “limits on government” as the reason for our downfall. It is generally argued by “strict constitutionalists” that the purpose of the U.S. Constitution was to limit the power of the government. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Don’t get me wrong. If our government were limited to the powers granted it in that document, the United States of America would be far freer, far more prosperous, and likely not facing any of the monumental problems that it is facing now. However, that does not change the facts about why the Constitutional Convention was called or why the Constitution itself was created. If you are astounded that any Republican can still claim that George Bush was “pro-freedom” or that any Democrat can claim that Barack Obama is “anti-war,” you should be equally surprised that anyone can claim that the U.S. Constitution limited the powers of the central government.
By Tom Burghardt
Global Research, December 11, 2009
“Follow the money.”
And why not. As the interface between state and private criminality, following the money trail is oxygen and combustible fuel for rooting out corruption in high places: indelible signs left behind like toxic tracks by our sociopathic masters.
After all, there’s nothing quite like exposing an exchange of cold, hard cash from one greedy fist to another to focus one’s attention on the business at hand.
And when that dirty business is the subversion of the American people’s right to privacy, there’s also nothing quite like economic self-interest for ensuring that a cone of silence descends over matters best left to the experts; a veritable army of specialists squeezing singular advantage out of any circumstance, regardless of how dire the implications for our democracy.
In light of this recommendation researcher Christopher Soghoian, deploying the tools of statistical analysis and a keen sense of outrage, reaffirmed that “Internet service providers and telecommunications companies play a significant, yet little known role in law enforcement and intelligence gathering.”
That the American people have been kept in the dark when it comes to this and other affairs of state, remain among the most closely-guarded open secrets of what has euphemistically been called the “NSA spying scandal.”
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