By B.N. Frank

These states are not messing around and their lawsuits are getting a lot of media coverage.  There is also increasing U.S. opposition to widespread 5G installation which now includes the U.S. Navy, NASA, meteorologists and utility companies. Even more disturbing – the telecom industry has still provided no evidence that 5G is safe and plenty of researchers say it isn’t.

From KTIA:

The state attorneys general said the promised benefits, such as better networks in rural areas and faster service overall, cannot be verified, while eliminating a major wireless company will immediately harm consumers by reducing competition and driving up prices for cellphone service.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that combining the two companies would reduce access to affordable, reliable wireless service nationwide and would particularly affect lower-income and minority communities in New York and other urban areas.

Other attorneys general joining Tuesday’s lawsuit are from Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Virginia and Wisconsin. All 10 attorneys general are Democrats. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in New York.

The lawsuit is an unusual step by state officials ahead of a decision by federal antitrust authorities. The Justice Department’s decision is pending. The Republican majority of the Federal Communications Commission supports the deal, though the agency has yet to vote.

T-Mobile and Sprint have argued that they need to bulk up to upgrade to a fast, powerful “5G” mobile network that competes with Verizon and AT&T. The companies are appealing to President Donald Trump’s desire for the U.S. to “win” a global 5G race.

Consumer advocates, labor unions and many Democratic lawmakers worry that the deal could mean job cuts, higher wireless prices and a hit to the rural cellphone market.

Amanda Wait, an antitrust lawyer and former Federal Trade Commission lawyer, said states are acting because they disagree with what they have seen the federal government doing.

“They see the FCC accepting certain remedies and concessions that don’t, in their minds, solve the problem,” she said.

Activist Post continues to regularly cover FCC and telecom shenanigans – especially the insane and insidious “Race for 5G.”  Please see our archives for more details.



For more information, visit the following websites:

• Wireless Information Network


• Americans for Responsible Technology


• 5GCrisis


• 5GExposed


• 5G Information


• Environmental Health Trust


• Last Tree Laws


• My Street, My Choice


• Our Town Our Choice


• Parents for Safe Technology


• Physicians for Safe Technology


• SaferEMR


• Scientists for Wired Tech


• TelecomPowerGrab.com


• Whatis5G.Info


• Zero5G

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By B.N. Frank

Activist Post has reported about the many organizations concerned about and fighting 5G installation including NRDC. The organization is holding another phone conference Wednesday afternoon, June 19, 2019.  An email was sent to subscribers that provides more details:

Description: Wednesday, June 19th 3-4pm Eastern Time

Hello, and thank you again for your ongoing interest in the deployment of 5G infrastructure.

Please join Sharon Buccino for a status update on NRDC’s efforts to protect the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) from being excluded in the Federal Communication Commission’s permitting of the implementation of 5G wireless infrastructure.

Agenda:
-Litigation Update (United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, et al., v. FCC)
-Legislative Update

-Opportunity for individuals to share how this issue is playing out locally in their area

As a reminder here are Sharon’s most recent blogs on the issue:

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/sharon-buccino/5g-and-fcc-10-reasons-why-you-should-care

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/sharon-buccino/preserving-local-voices-broadband-deployment

We hope you can join.

Craig Dylan Wyatt
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>

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Image credit: Pixabay

By B.N. Frank

Hooray for Bruce Kushnick and The IRREGULATORS! Activist Post and many others have reported about their most recent efforts against telecom corruption.

From Counterpunch:

On May 20th, a group known as the Irregulators submitted legal briefs to the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, seeking standing to appeal a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision that, in effect, has facilitated one of the largest accounting scandals in American history.  The petitioners are accusing the FCC of allowing the nation’s telecommunications companies – the telecom trust – to engage in a bookkeeping slight-of-hand scam that cost telecom users, states and tax payers across the country an estimated $50-$60 billion a year over the last decade.

And now some good news from Bruce:

On June 3rd, 2019, the FCC decided to not attempt to challenge or block our standing request and we are moving to the next round, the “merits” phase: the presentation of briefs and the identification of supporting evidence.

Ay carumba.  Do they have supporting evidence!

There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about this long-time corruption other than being ripped off.  It has led Americans to a very dangerous time in history – the “Race for 5G.”

Warnings about widespread 5G deployment have come from:

1. Security experts,


2. Meteorologists, NASA, NOAA and the U.S. Navy


3. Doctors and scientists (see 1, 2, 3)


4. Utility companies

Even the Telecom Industry won’t say they have evidence that 5G is safe.

Activist Post regularly reports about 5G issues, warnings, and opposition as well as the FCC’s role in all of this (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).  Increasing numbers of people in the U.S. and around the world are fighting its installation.

For more information, visit the following websites:

• Wireless Information Network


• Americans for Responsible Technology


• 5GCrisis


• 5GExposed


• 5G Information


• Center For Safer Wireless


• Environmental Health Trust


• In Power Movement


• Last Tree Laws


• My Street, My Choice


• Our Town Our Choice


• Parents for Safe Technology


• Physicians for Safe Technology


• SaferEMR


• Scientists for Wired Tech


• TelecomPowerGrab.com


• Whatis5G.Info


• Zero5G

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By EFF Threat Lab

There’s been quite a bit of media hype about the improvements 5G is set to supposedly bring to users, many of which are no more than telecom talking points. One aspect of the conversation that’s especially important to get right is whether or not 5G will bring much-needed security fixes to cell networks. Unfortunately, we will still need to be concerned about these issues—and more—in 5G.

Past security flaws in the design of cell network infrastructure are being used for everything from large scale SMS spamming to enabling dragnet surveillance by law enforcement and spying in DC via cell site simulators (a.k.a. Stingrays, IMSI-catchers). Longtime cell network security researcher Roger Piqueras Jover has recently published a short but comprehensive reflection on the history of the cell security research that uncovered much of those flaws, and with it, his view of the security outlook for 5G.

Jover draws attention to how rapidly the field of cell network security research has been accelerating. It took researchers over 10 years after GSM was first standardized and deployed to find the first security flaws in the GSM (2G) protocol. For LTE (4G), it took approximately 7 years. Fast forward to the 5G standard, which was finalized  in March 2018. While there are currently no commercial implementations of 5G widely in use yet, researchers have already discovered over 6 critical security flaws in this new protocol.

Standardization efforts simply aren’t keeping up with the rapid rise of critical security flaws. The group responsible for maintaining the standards and incorporating security fixes (the 3GPP) primarily consists of big players in the telco industry, who don’t have much incentive to come up with and incorporate the critical user privacy fixes that are needed.

On the positive side, Jover points out that there are increasing efforts from researchers to explore potential fixes for many of the security problems in cell networks. In the recent past Ericsson has stepped up their efforts to fix some of the vulnerabilities in 5G’s identification and authentication procedures (i.e. the process that takes place between a mobile phone and a cell tower when each is verifying the other is who they claim to be). Similarly, researchers recently published a proof-of-concept paper proposing a PKI (public key infrastructure) & digital certificate system for the connection between mobile phones and cell towers (similar to SSL certificates and HTTPS).

Despite these efforts, for real change to take place, it must come from within: the 3GPP’s biggest players need to embrace the work required to fix the fundamental flaws that have plagued cell networks for years. Until then, our mobile devices are still vulnerable to being caught up in dragnet and targeted surveillance attacks. As it stands, 5G won’t be any sort of panacea—for increasing security, for improving wireless accessibility, or for solving the issues of broadband monopolies that contribute to each of these.

Brave - The Browser Built for Privacy

This article was sourced from EFF.org

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By B.N. Frank

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is supposed to protect the public by regulating the telecom industry.  It has a long history of employing people who do the exact opposite.

The current “Race for 5G” has made this much worse.  The telecom industry has provided no scientific evidence that 5G is safe and there is research that already proves it isn’t (see 1, 2).  Despite increased opposition and warnings from a variety of sources (including the U.S. Navy), The FCC is still forcing it on Americans anyway.

The FCC is also under investigation for collusion because of forced 5G and lawsuits (see 1, 2) have been filed as well.  It’s not surprising that one of these folks has finally ended up in the pokey.

From Arstechnica: “Ex-chair of FCC broadband committee gets five years in prison for fraud”

Elizabeth Ann Pierce was CEO of Quintillion, an Alaskan telecom company, when she lied to two investment firms in New York in order to raise $270 million to build a fiber network. She also defrauded two individual investors out of $365,000 and used a large chunk of that money for personal expenses.

Pierce, 55, pleaded guilty and last week was given the five-year prison sentence in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, US Attorney Geoffrey Berman announced. Pierce was also “ordered to forfeit $896,698.00 and all of her interests in Quintillion and a property in Texas.” She will also be subject to a restitution order to compensate her victims “at a later date.”

Pierce’s industry experience helped her land the top spot on Pai’s broadband advisory committee in April 2017. But she left Quintillion in July 2017 as her scheme unraveled, and she resigned from the FCC advisory panel. Pai appointed a new chair for his committee two months later; he thanked Pierce for her service, saying she did “an excellent job” chairing the committee and “wish[ed] her all the best in her future endeavors.”



Activist Post reports regularly about FCC ne’er-do-wells.  Please see our archives for more details and visit the following websites:

• Wireless Information Network


• Americans for Responsible Technology


• 5GCrisis


• 5GExposed


• 5G Information


• Environmental Health Trust


• Last Tree Laws


• My Street, My Choice


• Parents for Safe Technology


• Physicians for Safe Technology


• SaferEMR


• TelecomPowerGrab.com


• Whatis5G.Info


• Zero5G

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Image credit: Pixabay

By Renee Parsons

The recent Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing regarding oversight of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) failed to shed any real light on details of the proposed 5G network as it received less scrutiny than expected given its highly anticipated, ubiquitous role in American life.

While the Senate Committee would be the logical committee to hold 5G hearings, it was curious that the Committee’s website does not specifically identify The Internet or Digital Communication or any other broadband subject on its list of committee jurisdiction.  The closest mention is “all matters relating to science and technology” even though the Committee has held a series of related 5G hearings beginning in late 2017.

Perusing the Committee’s schedule of hearings, the question remains how and when did the genesis of the 5G project occur?  While there were no introductory or oversight hearings on the project as a stand-alone entity, it was as if 5G was a done deal.  There have been, however, hearings that address individual items specific to the 5G project.  So the question is how exactly did such a complex 5G move so far, so fast without public hearings and little public awareness?   Exactly how did this juggernaut get rolling?  If the 5G project and its massive diabolical offspring came out of Silicon Valley, it would be curious that no representatives appeared before the Committee to take credit for introducing such a sophisticated piece of malevolence.

While the digital revolution ostensibly began in America in 1975, Israel has hosted Intel’s largest and most advanced development and computer chip manufacturing center in the world since 1974 specializing in IOT devices, AIs and cyber security while China’s leading telecoms Huawei and ZTE were founded in 1987 and 1985; respectively.

An Intel promotional essay entitled “Intel Lays the Groundwork for America’s 5G Future” appears to answer the question of origination when it states:

In preparation for widespread 5G implementation, Intel released the industry’s first 5G trial platform in 2016. This made it possible for Intel to test 5G wireless technology across multiple U.S. markets, working closely with telecom equipment manufacturers such as Ericsson and Nokia.

The same document goes on to suggest that “the nation’s 5G needs to be built by American innovators” that the “groundbreaking technology should be supported by lawmakers” and that “US competitiveness in key 4G technologies is essential to US leadership in 5G.”

One interpretation of the above is that once Israel/Intel put the product together, it was then up to the US to sneak this technological atrocity past a naturally suspicious public, sell it to stressed-out skeptical citizens, line up the infrastructure, take it to market and deal with the political blowback.

By September, 2018, Intel announced that Nokia and Ericsson would partner to deploy 5G globally describing that, according to an Ericsson spokesman “for 5G we’ve been collaborating since four years back.” In other words, while 5G has been a gleam in Israel/Intel’s eye for sometime, there has been a sort of shakedown cruise to work out the kinks prior to introducing the project to the gullible Americans.

Clearly, the Senate Committee (and 5G proponents) were intent on bamboozling the American public, assuring that discovery of the project would come only after it was too little, too late.

The following hearings, some with obscure sounding titles, were vague enough to deflect public attention and thus escape public scrutiny.  The intent was to avoid public hearings specifically identified as the Big Overall Picture which would have opened 5G to a massive interrogation.  Such hearings would have stirred the American public in furious national outrage and provided them an opportunity to mount an organized, coordinated opposition – and it is not too late.

Clearly, if 5G represented such a social boon, a true benefit to American life as the proponents allege, the Committee would have acted with more accountability, more openness and transparency, a willingness to fully inform the public of its intentions.  They did not do so.  Clearly, the Committee and its 5G proponents meant to preclude exactly the kind of national debate as it was their job to have initiated.

2019

June 25  Optimizing for Engagement: Understanding the Use of Machine Learning and Internet Platforms
June 12  Oversight of the Federal Commerce Commission
May 1  Consumer Perspectives: Policy Principles for Federal Data Privacy Framework
April 30  Strengthening the Cybersecurity of the Internet of Things
April 10  Broadband Mapping:  Challenges and Solutions
March 26  Small Business Perspective on Federal Data Privacy Framework
March 12  Impact of Broadband investments in Rural America
March 7  China: Challenge for US Commerce
February 27  Policy Principles for Federal Data Privacy Framework in the US
February 6  Winning the Race to 5G and the Next Era of Technology Innovation in the US

2018

October 12  The Race to 5G:  A View from the Field (South Dakota)
October 4  Broadband: Opportunities and Challenges in Rural America
August 16  Oversight of the FCC
July 31  The Internet and Digital Communication:  Examining the Impact of Global Internet Governance
July 25  The Race to 5G:  Exploring Spectrum Need to Maintain US Global Leadership
July 11  Complex Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities:  Lessons Learned from Spectre and Meltdown
June 19  Cambridge Analytica and other Facebook Partners: Examining Data Privacy Risks
March 13  Rebuilding Infrastructure in America: Investing in Next Generation of Broadband

2017

December 12  Digital Decision Making:  The Building Block of Machine Learning and AI
November 7  Advancing the Internet of Things in Rural America

Clearly the 5G campaign has been in the Intel pipeline prior to 2016 which explains the sense of urgency for the FCC’s adoption of ‘fast lane’ approval processes.  The US was tasked in January, 2018 by a National Security Council 5G presentation to provide the necessary infrastructure requirements within a three-year period in order to not lose the global initiative.

American Natural Superfood - Free Sample

The mega-mammoth project is being sold to the American public as essential to modern life and deliberately focused on increased broadband network speeds, improved reliability and greater capacity including a connectivity to all that can be connected.  The mostly worthless connectivity of all things is little more than a sham, a talking point that offers no real merit to American consumers.  The slick PR focus on broadband speed is a not-so-clever smokescreen for the sinister Massive Internet of Things (MIOT) and its fiendish compatriot, Artificial Intelligence.  The pretense is that faster speeds are far superior and very desirable, as if the current 4G LTE speed is somehow inferior or as if the public has been clamoring for faster speeds – neither is the case.  The truth is that 5G is much more than an irrelevant connectivity opportunity that begins with a digital transformation but rather provides an opportunity to transform humanity and civilization into a profound grotesque distortion of reality.

This level of razzle-dazzle has not been seen since taming the ‘peaceful’ atom opened the door to a radioactive world of nuclear weapons, nuclear waste and creation of a monolithic military industrial complex.  In return, the American public was promised low-cost, reliable, safe electricity, all of which proved to be a blasphemous scam spawned by the snake-oil salesmen and neocons of the day – not unlike the 5G PR campaign we are witnessing today.

The creators of 5G are pinning their hopes on enough wirelessly addicted, self indulgent humans being open to the opportunity for new digital bells and whistles to take over every personal and professional task.  The success of 5G depends on human being willingness to acquiesce those burdensome tasks of setting a timer on the coffee brewer or starting the washing machine so that humanity will have more time to escape into virtual reality toys rather than taking a hike in nature.  Without explicitly saying so, the ultimate objective is to free humanity from the burden of personal interaction with the rest of humanity in favor of interaction with computerized machines or gadgets.  As if the need for human relationship is a genetic weakness, the true existence of human beings becomes extraneous as increased surveillance and monitoring of all daily activity is recorded.  As the State will monitor all thought, our personal bathroom habits, whether to become pregnant (or not) or personal private choices, all will be entered into a personal data registry – not unlike China’s ‘social credit score’ evaluating each citizen’s loyalty.  There will be no on or off switch as opting out will no longer be permitted.

The human heart of kindness, love and compassion will be but a memory of the past when our neighbors were our friends and our friends were like family and our family a scant remnant of a poignant reminiscence that has no authenticity.  These are not exaggerated forecasts of the future but a creepy reality check of what the Silicon Valley and apparently Israel/Intel techno twits have in store as humanity becomes complacent to its own basic life decisions and that of future generations.

To be continued…

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31

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By corbettreport

Welcome back to #NewWorldNextWeek – the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news.

This week:

Story #1:

• US Census Bureau Using Aerial Tech to Help With 2020 Count https://bit.ly/2KEK0TI


• Secret Cameras Record Baltimore’s Every Move From Above https://bloom.bg/2beSnTn

Story #2:

• “Surveillance Capitalism” – Toronto Urged to Abandon Google’s Smart City https://bit.ly/2KF7kkl


• Toronto Officials Question Alphabet Unit Sidewalk Labs’ Ambitions for ‘Smart City’ https://bit.ly/2X6bljE


• Alphabet Promises It Won’t Sell Personal Data from Smart City https://bit.ly/2YfFbUj


• Sidewalk Toronto https://bit.ly/2YhQBGU


• The 5G Dragnet https://bit.ly/2J8N0Vw


• Alphabet Inc.’s Google Pulls Videos From YouTube That Expose Google’s 2020 Election Manipulation https://bit.ly/31SImU2

Story #3:

• Petitions Call for 5G Ban at Glastonbury Festival https://bbc.in/2X2wNpL


• Glastonbury Residents Sign Petition to BAN 5G Ahead of Music Festival – Here’s Why https://bit.ly/2LomJVK


• EE 5G Claims Prompt Tin Foil Hat Backlash https://bit.ly/2RIi6qU


• Glastonbury Festival 2019 Full Line-Up https://bit.ly/2Lonw9a


• Wi-Fi Refugees’ Shelter in West Virginia Mountains https://bbc.in/2RBNUxy

You can help support our independent and non-commercial work by visiting http://CorbettReport.com/Support & http://MediaMonarchy.com/Join. Thank You.

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By B.N. Frank

A city employee clicking on a malicious link is being blamed for this recent cyber attack in Lake City, Florida.  Insurance will cover most of the ransom and taxpayers will cover the rest.  Argh.

Hackers targeting local and state governments is on the rise.  Regardless, many local and state governments are choosing to set themselves up for this by installing wireless utility Smart Meters (see 1, 2), 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT) and by promoting and incorporating Smart Cities.

For many years already, security experts have been warning that everything operated wirelessly has the potential to be hacked – especially 5G (see 1, 2).  So it’s not a matter of if communities and states who incorporate these programs will be hacked.  It’s only a matter of when.  How not smart or inexpensive or environmentally UNfriendly is that?

Additionally – everything that operates wirelessly emits Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) aka “Electrosmog” which is biologically and environmentally harmful.  Again – not smart one iota.

For more information, visit the following websites.

• Wireless Information Network


• Americans for Responsible Technology


• 5GCrisis


• 5GExposed


• 5G Information


• Center For Electrosmog Prevention


• EMF Safety Network


• Environmental Health Trust


• In Power Movement


• Last Tree Laws


• Physicians for Safe Technology


• SaferEMR


• Scientists for Wired Tech


• SmartMeterHarm


• StopSmartMeters.org


• Smart Grid Awareness


• Take Back Your Power


• TelecomPowerGrab.com


• Whatis5G.Info


• Zero5G

Image credit: Pixabay

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By Catherine Austin Fitts

This is a transcript from an extensive and wide-ranging interview with Catherine Austin Fitts on June 13, 2019. We covered Opportunity Zones, Smart Cities and Technocracy. It is a must-read for everyone wanting to understand the economic side of Technocracy. ⁃ TN Editor

C. Austin Fitts: Ladies and gentlemen, it’s an absolute pleasure to welcome back to The Solari Report Patrick Wood, who recently joined us for an interview on technocracy. If you reviewed ‘The Best Books’ for the last several years, you will see one of his books on technocracy.

He is the editor and publisher of Technocracy News & Trends at www.Technocracy.news. I recommend it strongly to you. There is a great deal of information about technocracy. If you haven’t listened to our first interview, you absolutely have to do it. You have to check out his website and I strongly recommend his books on technocracy. I think that it will help you to see the way that AI software and systems are being used to micromanage and replace markets and democracy in a trend that we don’t want to let continue.

Patrick, welcome to The Solari Report. We are here to talk about Opportunity Zones, something I very much have wanted to talk about on The Solari Report. When I found out that you were deep diving Opportunity Zones, I said, “This is fantastic!”

Patrick Wood: Thank you, Catherine, for that. I want to say how much I appreciate the area that you are coming from because my background – going back for 45 years – is economics and business. I wrote extensively about economic issues over the years. Quite frankly, for most people, it’s a boring thing to write about. The economy – who needs it?

This has been my specialty since I started writing, even when we wrote Trilaterals over Washington back in the 1970’s. That was primarily a book about the economic takeover of our country. So, today very few people recognize or give assent to the economic aspect of technocracy, but this is the only reason I am interested in the first place. It’s about the economy. It’s about trying to transform the economy out of free enterprise and capitalism into this new ‘Green New Deal’ type of economy that cannot possibly work; not in 10,000 years will it ever work.

Fitts: It’s total control by micromanagement through AI and software. The thing that makes it go are the Federal regulations and the Federal credit to subsidize it, but it is phenomenally wasteful. It’s unbelievably profitable for the top people.

Wood: It is. The very, very top will accumulate wealth and concentrate wealth like never before in history. It’s already happening and has been happening for a long time.

Fitts: Yes, but there is much more to go and that is part of what you’ve nailed.

Wood: There are a few resources out there yet that they don’t have control of, but they are going for them right now.

Fitts: It’s hard for people to fathom the extent to which they think that they can harvest everything.

I was at the Aspen Institute two years ago, and sat on a panel. Ed Griffin was there, and it was wonderful. I dealt with a billionaire venture capitalist on the panel. I tried to engage with him afterward, and he looked at me with these stoned eyes. He was a software developer. He said, “Look, I can automate every job in America, and that is exactly what we are going to do, and there is nothing that you can do to stop us.”

He had that look on his face as if, “I’ve been up in the UFO, honey, and I’m telling you how it is.”

Basically, he was saying that we can insert ourselves with software and AI into every process in the country and harvest 100%.

Wood: That’s right, and that is the technocrat mindset, by the way. You ‘hit the nail on the head’. This is the technocrat mindset: Technology has a solution for every conceivable problem that mankind has.

Fitts: Right, and they can automate every conceivable thing. Part of this is the transhumanism. They think that they can insert digital technology into humans and integrate digital systems with biological systems.

So, tell us about Opportunity Zones. I am anxious!

Wood: I probably would not have taken a second look at Opportunity Zones except that I ‘smelled a rat’. Don’t you just love Patrick Henry? He was the person who coined the phrase, “I smell a rat!” He’s my favorite founding father.

Fitts: This is a big rat – a big, stinking rat.

Wood: I started to look into it, and at first, as you look at the Tax Cuts and Job Act of 2017 – which was supposed to be the big windfall tax cut for Americans across the board, especially the middle class who desperately need it – I never really examined that act. I didn’t get it and read it because I’m not a tax person. Frankly, that thing drives me crazy. But when I saw that on December 12 of 2018, the President had executed an executive order called the Executive Order on Establishing the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, I thought, “What is that? What is this all about?”

I read the EO, and it’s all about Opportunity Zones. I thought, “That is strange. Congressed the Tax Act. Why do we need an executive order to support or somehow streamline that process?”

It wasn’t streamlining anything to do with you and me. I don’t know where you are in the socioeconomic status, but it certainly doesn’t address me. As I studied this, the President has pulled out all the Federal stops to allow these Opportunity Zones to flourish. What the tax law actually did – the Tax Cuts and Job Act – is create a system called Opportunity Zones where the Governors of each state would designate areas in their state-up to 25% of their low-income areas in the state-to qualify. It’s all self-certified and there is no checking anywhere. They just send the zone designations to the Treasury, the Treasury rubber stamps them, and that is basically it.

Fitts: I’m going to mention that in the Subscriber links. You will find a link to the government website that will give you a list by census tract of the Opportunity Zones and will map them, so you can look at the map. I should point out that in my county in Tennessee, the biggest portion of our county seat is mapped as an Opportunity Zone.

Wood: The idea behind the Opportunity Zone is that somebody who has locked down capital gains, such as they bought an asset 30 years ago or they inherited something that has an extremely low-cost base, and they want to sell it. Many people are put off by selling assets like this because it plays horrible games with your income tax. If you have a really large capital gains, it can push you into the maximum tax bracket, and you will end up paying a large amount of money to unlock that asset that was in stocks or real estate.

Fitts: I would like to mention one thing? One of the problems with that tax is that when you dig in and look at a lot of their increase, it’s really only inflation and currency debasement. So, if they are going to get a real return and stay ahead of inflation and beat inflation – which is part of staying in the top one percent – they need to come up with a return that beats inflation. That means avoiding the tax.

Wood: That is exactly right and, of course, they get it. They have the ability to lobby Congress to do things that you and I simply can’t do. But when I discovered that this was a tax dodge and people with income that are worried about paying income tax on or have a huge capital gains tax staring them in the face, what better way to solve everybody’s problem than to just simply sell their asset, take the proceeds, and invest it anywhere in these Opportunity Zones. The taxes that would normally be due are deferred at least for six years, and in some cases permanently. I thought that was a sweet little deal.

Then I started looking into where this idea came from. Somebody had to come up with it. Was it a Congressman? A Senator? Who was it?

It led me back on the trail to an organization called the Economic Innovation Group (EIG). That is a boring name – Economic Innovation Group. What’s that?

I found out that this is the organization that originally came up with the whole idea. They readily admit it.

Fitts: I’m going to take it back longer because, if you read my online book, Dillon Read and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits, you can take it back to the person who came up with place-based development of this kind – at least defining the capital gains opportunity – and it was me.

I had a company, that was doing the financial advisory work for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I identified, and did all the prototyping and took the numbers, and worked with OMB and the Brookings Institution to prove that the number one capital gains opportunity in America was swinging in new technology into places and reengineering how the government reinvestment worked.

I didn’t know about the ability to dramatically lower the energy price, but that is one thing that I want to talk with you about because I think that is part of it. I had built relational databases that allowed you to simulate what could be done economically, and the capital gains opportunity was the number one capital gains opportunity in America. It was particularly strong in the low-income areas.

It was basically new technology plus reengineering the government money, and I took it to the pension funds. They said to me, “Oh my God! We can save America and make the pension fund targets.” That was the summer of 1997 at Safeguard Scientifics.

That year, the Department of Justice seized our offices, stole all our software tools that would allow us to look at Federal investment by county and congressional district and by place. It took me six years in court to get those databases back. When I finally got them, the most valuable pieces were gone forever.

So, they have been looking at the real estate capital gains opportunity in these neighborhoods for a long, long time. They have known it’s there.

Wood: I actually talked to my CPA about the tax laws surrounding this, and the very first thing that she came up with – which is very common in the agricultural industry where I came from – is the exchange program where you can exchange assets without having capital gains being incurred.

It was very common when buying and selling farmland that you would seek to find an exchange rather than just selling property outright, and then buying another piece of property so that you could avoid paying capital gains tax.

You are absolutely right. This is something where the concept has been floating around for a long time.

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Fitts: They know that all the farmers are hitting retirement age and need to liquefy their estates, so there is a big push to capture the farmland. One of my questions to you is going to be: To what extent are they placing these Opportunity Zones in places where they want to pick up big pieces of farmland?

Wood: That is a good point. There are a lot of rural areas that have been defined within the Opportunity Zone map, and you mentioned the interactive map that is on the Treasury website. That is a great place to find them. There are many of them out there.

Grilling down into it, we find a paper that was generated by this EIG Group back in 2015. It was called ‘Unlocking Private Capital to Facilitate Economic Growth in Distressed Areas’. That says nothing in the title. Then when you read it, it doesn’t really say much other than what we’ve been talking about already. But what happened as a result of this article is that two bills were introduced: One in the House, and one in the Senate. The ones that were introduced in the Senate were cosponsored by a Democrat and a Republican.

The first Democrat sponsor was Senator Cory Booker-Mr. Green New Deal. I thought, “That’s a warning sign. Why would he be interested in this?”

It was called The Investing and Opportunity Act, and it failed. It got stuck in committee, and it stayed there.

Then came the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and lo and behold, they were able to lift that text out and throw it right into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and it survived. It found its way into law, and the President signed it.

If you go in and look at the legislation and what it actually says, it says very clearly what the intent is of Opportunity Zones. But here is the kicker: The people who founded EIG – and this always interests me – was none other than Sean Parker. People don’t recognize Sean Parker very quickly. That’s not Peter Parker of Spiderman. It’s not his father or anything like that either.

Sean Parker was the cofounder of Facebook.

Fitts: Sean Parker got famous because he said, “I’m going to live to be 145.” He essentially said, “I built something that was designed to addict your children, and I’m going to live to 145 because I’m a billionaire as a result.”

Many people connected it to what was going on in Silicon Valley about buying children’s blood. It was a very gruesome moment that put Sean Parker on the map.

Wood: I’ll say good luck to him on that account. I don’t think he’s going to live that long. In the meantime, just so people understand who Sean Parker is, this is the man who cofounded Napster before 2000.

Read full story here…

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By Daniel Taylor

Artificial reality could enslave the human race.

Over 2,000 years ago, Plato envisioned a prison in which individuals were kept chained in a cave. They had nothing but a wall to stare at which puppeteers projected shadows onto.



As reported by Fast Company, Silicon Valley is developing augmented reality technology based on a 2012 science fiction film called Sight.

Eran May-raz and Daniel Lazo, the film’s creators, have been working for several years with a Silicon Valley based firm. As Fast Company reports:

For three years, the two found their footing as the in-house concept studio for Silicon Valley-based Meta, a burgeoning AR firm that was building its own headset.

“While we were working at Meta, [the company] developed AR guidelines. Some of them were actually based on Sight,” Lazo says.

Last year, Amazon’s “digital assistant” Alexa was incorporated into augmented reality glasses by Vuzix Corp.

In an advanced form of Plato’s cave, augmented reality involves digital information about real physical locations, products, and people displayed on various devices.

The technology is part of a trend among tech giants to introduce the idea of a heads-up display method of interacting with the digital world, with contact lenses and brain chips the inevitable end goal. Hollywood films and video games have pushed this concept on the public for many years now.

Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook are all heavily investing in and developing products that will plunge users into a new “augmented” reality that is superimposed over our real world.

Controversial 5G technology will enable the connectivity and bandwidth for these wireless devices, which will be connected to the “Internet of Things”.

Also Read from Activist Post:

Google and Microsoft Investing in a Future of Augmented Reality

Airline Begins Testing Augmented Reality Smart Glasses To Read Travelers’ Emotions

Image credit: Pixabay

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By Renee Parsons

While there is considerable telecom hubris regarding the 5G rollout and increasing speculation that the next generation of wireless is not yet ready for Prime Time, the industry continues to make promises to Rural America that it has no intention of fulfilling.  Decades-long promises to deliver digital Utopia to rural America by T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T have never materialized.

Despite much bravado, the biggest telecom carriers have never shown the willingness to fund the necessary infrastructure nor do they possess the necessary infrastructure to bridge the digital divide  – despite $22 billion in government subsidies and grants over the last five years specifically to provide wireless coverage to rural America.  At the same time, the incompetence at the FCC has been staggering – as an unreliable, albeit compromised, Commission that has consistently failed to provide accurate, reliable maps to identify broadband availability for rural America.

Whether 5G will measure up to its hype of performance and expectations remains a question since there is a different market today than when 4G came on line in 2010.   At that time, there was room for improved cell service, more apps, video streaming and new subscribers.  Today there is little new subscriber growth except in the chronically underserved areas of rural America which has been neglected by the telecom industry and FCC for decades.  The challenge for 5G is to create a market demand, to devise new gimmicks to finagle higher revenues out of current subscribers and most especially to expand their toxic infrastructure to rural America.  The market is much more aware than it was in 2010 as customers are no longer lining up around the corner to purchase the newest thingamajig.

As universal wireless coverage remains a myth in rural America, the Digital Divide is alive and well after decades of neglect by those telecoms who now see rural customers as their cash cow.

With the digital world of personal computers and cell phones a reality for the last three decades,  broadband service to rural America has continued to play second fiddle in favor of upgrades to more affluent urban customers and the telecom industry’s bottom line.

Unlike the national commitment to provide rural electrification in the 1920s as a major accomplishment, there has been no such Federal commitment to bring geographically challenged citizens into the digital age nor has Congress demanded that the telecom industry do whatever it takes to end the Digital Divide.

The fact that rural America was the topic of three previous Commerce committee hearings is indicative of how closing the Digital Divide is considered mandatory for a successful 5G rollout.  As the National Security Council power point suggested “by initially focusing on rural broadband, the network would guarantee a revenue stream while further business models develop.”  In other words, the telecom industry is banking on rural America, in its desperation for wireless service, to subscribe (probably at premium rates) after decades of neglect.

In 2017, the USDA reported that 29% of American farms had no internet access. The FCC says that 14 million rural Americans and 1.2 million Americans living on tribal lands do not have 4G LTE on their phones, and that 30 million rural residents do not have broadband service compared to 2% of urban residents.  It’s beginning to sound like a Third World country.

Despite an FCC $4.5 billion annual subsidy to carriers to provide broadband service in rural areas, the FCC reports that “over 24 million Americans do not have access to high-speed internet service, the bulk of them in rural area” while a  Microsoft Study found that  “162 million people across the US do not have internet service at broadband speeds.”

At the same time, only three cable companies have access to 70% of the market in a sweetheart deal to hike rates as they avoid competition and the FCC looks the other way.  The FCC believes that it would cost $40 billion to bring broadband access to 98% of the country with expansion in rural America even more expensive.  While the FCC has pledged a $2 billion, ten year plan to identify rural wireless locations, only 4 million rural American businesses and homes will be targeted, a mere drop in the bucket.

Which brings us to rural mapping:  Since the advent of the digital age, there have been no accurate maps identifying where broadband service is available in rural America and where it is not available.   The FCC has a long history of promulgating unreliable and unverified carrier-provided numbers as the Commission has repeatedly ‘bungled efforts to produce accurate broadband maps” that would have facilitated rural coverage.

During the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on April 10^th regarding broadband mapping, critical testimony questioned whether the FCC and/or the telecom industry have either the commitment or the proficiency to provide 5G to rural America.  Members of the Committee shared concerns that 5G might put rural America further behind the curve so as to never catch up with the rest of the country.  Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss) opened the hearing with

To close the digital divide, we need to have accurate broadband maps that tell us where broadband is available and where it is not available. This is critical because maps are used to inform federal agencies about where to direct broadband support. Flawed and inaccurate maps ultimately waste resources and stifle opportunities for economic development in our rural and underserved communities.

Tim Donovan of the Competitive Carriers Association told the committee that the FCC had falsely claimed in a December report that “approximately 100% of the American population lives in geographical areas covered by mobile LTE with a minimum 5Mbps speed” as an example of the Commission peddling false data.

Mike McCormick, President of the Mississippi Farm Bureau with 200,000 family members quoted from the FCC’s 2018 report that 72% of Mississippi resident had broadband coverage while data from a comparable  Microsoft study found that only 487,000 citizens or 16% had broadband service.   Further, the FCC reported that 41% of Jefferson County residents had broadband usage while the Microsoft study found that only 5.6% Jefferson County residents had usage.  McCormick told the committee he was ‘very confident” in disputing the FCC figures.

In discussing variable terrain and foliage in rural areas that has delayed installation of necessary cellular infrastructure, McCormick mentioned that “pine needles are some of the bigger deflectors of broadband signal because they are the exact same size of band width” as an example of challenges in rural America. Who knew pine needles could be a factor to 5G?

McCormick went on to explain that in February 2018, the FCC released a map showing areas eligible to receive FCC Mobility Fund Phase II funding for deployment of 4G LTE service which provides $4.53 billion over ten years for telecom carriers to bring mobile and broadband service to rural and underserved areas.  The Mississippi map showed that 98% of the state was already receiving mobile broadband service which the Farm Bureau disputed, ultimately filing a waiver request with the FCC to challenge the map’s accuracy.

The short of the story is that while the Farm Bureau collaborated with the Mississippi Public Service Commission (PSC) to fulfill FCC requirements, the final conclusion was that not one of their speed tests processed through the PSC program was approved by the FCC for challenge.  In  other words, no ‘average’ member of the public would have been able to successfully challenge the integrity of the FCC maps.

Chair Wicker (R-Miss) responded,

Here’s where you were not a failure Mr. McCormick…we determined that the challenge process is unworkable and frankly worthless. The map is inaccurate and almost impossible using that challenge process to demonstrate this.  It needs to be fixed and no program should go forward unless we are satisfied in the Congress that the process is going to touch areas that need it.

There was unanimous agreement among Members of the Committee and the witness panel that “the maps are fake news and not reliable.”  Sen. Roy Blount (R-Missouri) who reported that 51% of rural Missouri is without broadband coverage, inquired “Does anyone believe that the maps are worth relying on?”  No one responded affirmatively.

Jonathan Spalter of the US Telecom Association informed the Committee that the ‘our 5G future will be built and based on our ability to pull the fiber ubiquitously, extensively and quickly” and further dropped a bomb on the Committee that the “final last mile of any 5G wireless network is built and based on the fiber based backhaul opportunities that exists through the wireline businesses..upon which 5G wireless networks ultimately rely.”

Chair Wicker used the analogy that when electricity came to rural Mississippi, “we ran the power out to the end of the dirt road.  Are you saying that, as a general rule, we are going to have to, big time, run fiber out to the end of the dirt road?  Sen. Blount has touched on a very, very important subject that we’ll need a lot more discussion about.” Spalter confirmed Wicker’s understanding. Clearly, the concern about providing 5G to rural America had just hit a seemingly insurmountable roadblock that given the diversity of rural terrain obstacles, laying fiber cables would be mandatory as Spalter had described.

NTSA

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Previously, both T-Mobile and Sprint promised, if allowed to merge, 5G networks to 85% of rural areas in three years, and 90% of rural areas in six years but that was before the issue of how installing miles and miles of fiber optics might affect that promise.  Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTSA, the rural broadband association representing 850 rural telecom companies, responded that the T-Mobile/Sprint promise

would require huge amounts of fiber backhaul that neither company currently possesses, as small cells must be placed very close to the customer (often within 300 to 500 feet) to reach the higher speeds contemplated by 5G making the technology particularly impractical (and very expensive) for most rural applications anytime soon.

In October, 2018, NTSA opposed the merger citing T-Mobile as the owner of “valuable spectrum for many years” that “had ample time to build out the rural areas or enter into a joint venture.” In other words, the telecom industry is already well aware of the necessity to “pull wire” in order to install 5G infrastructure throughout rural America.

The question for the telecom industry is that if the economics of 4G did not dramatically increase subscribers in rural America, how will the very expensive and much more controversial 5G provide a sufficient customer base to guarantee a return on the telecom industry’s $275 billion investment?

To be continued….

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31

Image credit: MeriTalk

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By B.N. Frank

Last month a new one-page flyer was released to provide information about how bees are harmed by exposure to 5G and other sources of cell phone and wireless radiation.

This new video posted on YouTube seems to document that 5G cell towers are causing bees to die underneath them:



Register Now for The 5G Crisis: Awareness & Accountability Summit. Online and FREE from August 26 – September 1, 2019.

In February, telecom industry executives provided congressional testimony that they have no scientific evidence that 5G is safe. Many credible researchers say it isn’t (see 1, 2, 3).

Meteorologists, NASA, NOAA, the U.S. Navy, security experts, and utility companies have also issued grave warnings about installing 5G for reasons other than biological and environmental risks.

Activist Post reports regularly about 5G risks and increasing worldwide opposition.  For more information visit our archives and the following websites:

• Wireless Information Network


• Americans for Responsible Technology


• Center For Safer Wireless


• Center For Electrosmog Prevention


• Ecological Options Network


• ElectromagneticHealth


• EMF Safety Network


• Environmental Health Trust


• Last Tree Laws


• Physicians for Safe Technology


• SaferEMR


• SafeG


• Scientists for Wired Tech

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