"Goofy" conspiracy theories

Some say that conspiracy theorists are "nuts". This part of my Blog argues against that.
First of all "supersoldiers"; are they just some crazy guy's drug induced ideas or are they really being worked on? Let's take a look at what Derek Gantt has to say:

"Super Soldiers: Engineering Better Humans for the Military

Derek Gantt Duke Undergraduate

MANY PEOPLE have seen pictures of Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis standing next to a monkey that he and a team of researchers successfully enabled to move a robotic arm using only its brain signals. Some are aware that Nicolelis’s work could contribute to new therapies for people with paralysis, but far fewer know that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a Pentagon-linked organization, funds the research. As DARPA says in its website, the research is part of a project that involves “harvesting biology” for “enhancing human performance,” which one researcher says could “lead to cyborg soldiers.” DARPA’s website also claims that altering human biology is necessary: “as combat systems become more and more sophisticated and reliable, the major limiting factor for operational dominance in a conflict is the war fighter.” DARPA, the chief Research and Development branch of the Department of Defense, is known not only for creating a precursor to the Internet but also for the infamous (now cancelled) “Terrorism Futures” project that called on people to bet on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks so that attacks might be predicted and prevented.The $26 million contract offered to Duke University by DARPA for research related to the development of innovations, like the monkey-controlled robotic arm, is part of DARPA’s Brain-Machine Interface (BMI) program.


According to DARPA’s web site, the BMI program “will create new technologies for augmenting human performance through the ability to noninvasively access codes in the brain in real time and integrate them into peripheral device or system operations.” Despite this claim that the goal of the research is to “noninvasively” access the brain, work funded by DARPA for BMI has involved the development of a silicon implant meant to be inserted into the brain through a process that may not seem “noninvasive” to a layperson. Theodore Berger of the University of Southern California, using DARPA funding, has worked on a microchip that can be implanted into the brain intending to offer relief for people who suffer from brain-impairing conditions such as dementia. Berger is the researcher who claimed that his work could lead to the development of cyborg soldiers, as reported by The Times of London in October 2003.The Brain-Machine Interface program is part of a DARPA project presented at a conference in June 2003 under the title of “Harvesting Biology for Defense Technology: Enhancing Human Performance.” Other programs within the Enhancing Human Performance project include: “Metabolic Engineering for Cellular Stasis,” which involves the research of ways to artificially quicken injury recovery through bioengineering, such as manipulating the body’s metabolic system; “Persistence in Combat,” which involves a novel form of self-treatment that would allow soldiers to continue fighting despite injuries otherwise considered debilitating; and “Continuous Assisted Performance,” which aims to find biotechnological ways for soldiers to participate in combat continuously without sleep for long periods of time without an effect on performance.Citing past cases of the United States military and government’s harmful experimentation on soldiers, such as feeding them LSD and intentionally exposing troops to chemical weapons, some opponents of the program are wary of applying future biotechnological innovations to the battlefield. These critics say that the government’s record of disregarding the harmful effects of biotechnological innovations on its soldiers should make the Enhancing Human Performance project proceed with caution.

Along with the potential for the careless implementation of biotechnological advances to military contexts, the new technology of the Enhancing Performance project could have potentially harmful effects. A large number of soldiers return from combat suffering from symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), having disturbing flashbacks and uncharacteristically violent behavior. Would PTSD be “augmented” along with the bodies of soldiers? Would a soldier get “phantom pain” in the robotic arm he had controlled with his brain that had been destroyed in combat? What could be the long-term effects of drugging soldiers to stay awake for seven days at a time?With reference to this question of the possible harmful effects of “stay-awake” drugs on soldiers, Sam Deadwyler, a Wake Forest University neuroscientist working towards the development of such drugs with DARPA funding as part of the Continuous Assisted Performance program, said that his research is geared towards the minimization of the harmful effects associated with staying awake for long periods of time.

Deadwyler said that because any drug that hurts a soldier’s body could negatively impact combat performance, research into making new drugs would necessarily keep the health of the soldier in mind. Deadwyler also emphasized that any military use of Enhancing Performance technology most likely lies in the far future, and may never occur in any widespread manner.Miguel Nicolelis of Duke has emphasized that any implementation of his research to the level of the “cyborg soldiers” mentioned by Ted Berger probably will not occur any time soon. In addition, Nicolelis emphasized in an e-mail that, to his knowledge, none of the work done by him or his colleagues is “anything different from the typical neuroprosthetic research,” which is usually funded by organizations like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Nicolelis said that DARPA has not asked him to conceive of any application of BMI technology besides developing “a potential new rehabilitation approach to severely paralyzed patients.” Indeed, all of the work Nicolelis does in his laboratory is aimed at understanding the dynamics of neural circuits in the brain and in the long run to develop new therapy for patients suffering from devastating paralysis.

This situation of DARPA funding work that is ongoing regardless of DARPA’s interest in the work is typical of researchers who receive funding from DARPA. In the situations where DARPA funds a work that it sees as contributing to the realization of the Enhancing Performance project, DARPA oversees the work by reviewing periodical reports of its researchers, but they do not actively direct or drive the work being done. Officials at DARPA want to keep tabs on technological breakthroughs that could contribute to the Enhancing Performance project, and they do so by awarding grants to researchers who are bound to consistently inform DARPA on the progress of their research.DARPA spokesperson Jan Walker said in an e-mail that Dr. Nicolelis was funded by a “basic research investment,” which is defined as the “systematic study directed toward greater knowledge or understanding of the fundamental aspects of phenomena and of observable facts without specific applications toward specific applications toward processes or products.” Walker said that the Department of Defense had members and veterans who could benefit from applications of BMI in biomedicine and that there might be battlefield applications in the far future. Despite semantics of the grant, DARPA does have applications in mind for BMI research.

The assertion made by Walker that the interest in BMI is largely due to its implications for biomedicine is supported neither by a large selection of resources and documents on DARPA’s website nor by articles that have been written about the BMI program, all of which state that DARPA’s interest in BMI chiefly pertains to battlefield implications. When asked via e-mail what official statements of policy or other documents express any interest by DARPA in BMI implications for biomedicine, Walker did not reply.The commitment of DARPA to invest in a project that has utility only in the long-term speaks to its goal of exploring “high-risk” and “high-benefit” projects. According to its website, DARPA seeks out projects that are ambitious and broad in scope. The applications of research in areas such as BMI technology that seem the most fantastic, such as “brain-to-brain” communication that allows soldiers to communicate with each other through neural signals, may be the most remote from coming into fruition. Nevertheless, some researchers at DARPA see the implementation of the Enhancing Performance project as potentially crucial to the success of a new generation of soldiers whose primary battlefield experiences will be in urban combat.In their 2000 report “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” members of the political advocacy group The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) expressed their support for the Enhancing Performance technology. Supporting influential members such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the PNAC seems to have articulated the Bush administration’s aggressive foreign policy in its 2000 report, which was released before President Bush was even inaugurated. In that report, the PNAC sets a goal of making soldiers better fighters through the use of unprecedented forms of bioengineering.

The PNAC report envisions a “transformation” in America’s armed forces after which troops will go into battle with “skin-patch pharmaceuticals” to “help regulate fears, focus concentration, and enhance endurance and strength.” As far-fetched as a force of American soldiers going into battle equipped with performance-enhancing drugs and cyborg-style technologies may appear that vision evidently is taken quite seriously by some of the most powerful policymakers in the United States.Overall, not all the concerns brought up by the existence of the Enhancing Performance project are necessarily valid, but the future widespread implementation of Enhancing Performance-style technology is not an impossibility. At least some of the concerns expressed by critics of the Enhancing Performance project regarding the possible side effects are being addressed directly within the ongoing research. However, the claims of some researchers that Enhancing Performance technology will never be used by the US military in any major way are belied by the strong support given to such programs by influential people in the White House and in the Pentagon. The denial by some researchers that Human Enhancement will ever come to fruition thus represents a disavowal of responsibility for the effects of their work. A similar neglect is represented by the tendency of some to emphasize the parity and similarity between research grants meant to promote the health of Americans and grants that guarantors seek through bioengineering to facilitate imperialistic foreign policies, which guarantee the placing of American soldiers in urban environments in and among high concentrations of non-combatant civilians."



Part two: Wire tapping

In 2005, the New York times "released" the big news: Americans were being wire tapped-or did they?

In Texan populist, Jim Hightower's 2003 book, "THIEVES IN HIGH PLACES"
on page 89; you can find the following:

"Thanks to their new rules, laws, and decrees, Big Brother is no longer a paranoid's nightmare, but is alive and very much on the prowl:

Were you at the rally?
Did you write a letter about the Florida vote tally?
Was that you at the mosque?
Have you ever critisized John Ashcroft?

Don't speak out, don't try to defy
Never question authority
Here's the reason why

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING FROM ON HIGH!

HE'S

Reading your medical records
Scrutinizing your credit card bills
Searching your home or business without telling you
Patrolling your Internet use
Wiretapping your phone
Spying on you in your house of worship
Examining your travel records
Inspecting your bookstore purchases
Snooping on your library records
Monitoring your political activities"