Muslims in America training for War against America

Peter Schiff warns of economic depression, martial law

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/wnd_video/peter-schiff-warns-of-economic-depression-martial-law/#eZpgB8rPZciHjz26.99

Two D.C. Attacks and a Series of Unfortunate “Coincidences”

 

By Erik Rush (Bio and Archives)  Sunday, October 6, 2013 Comments | Print friendly | Subscribe | Email Us

 

So - what do you think are the odds that within a few weeks of each other, two 34-year-old black people from Brooklyn, New York, with nothing in common so far as is known, begin acting out in the same U.S. city in such a manifestly dangerous manner after claiming to have been exposed to vague, arcane technology that they wind up having to be put down like animals by the local constabulary?

I thought so… 

At this juncture, I’m sure that any other connections that may have existed between Miriam Carey (the woman who used her car as a weapon against the Secret Service and D.C. Police on October 3) and Aaron Alexis (the former Navy technician and contractor who murdered 12 people and wounded several others at the D.C. Naval Yard on September 16) are being judiciously scrubbed by the White House.

In actuality, there may not have been any commonalities between them, save that both were 34 years old, black, from Brooklyn – and that they both decided to go berserk in the nation’s capitol within a few weeks of each other.

In the aggregate, I would still say that’s a hell of a set of coincidences to swallow…

So where do I get off considering connections between Carey and Alexis where none are apparent? Because, as I advised my listening audience this week, I’ve been connecting the dots long enough to see existing connections where none are apparent. In an environment in which an American president who openly commits treason (in the form of supplying military aid to al-Qaeda fighters in Syria) is not prosecuted with all due speed, journalists investigating the administration die in mysterious, fiery car wrecks; in which SEAL teams inexplicably perish within weeks after historic, sensitive operations, practically any scenario should be considered a viable possibility.

The rapid, pat assessments that were made with regard to Ms. Carey’s condition, history, and possible motivation for the attack were too… well, rapid and pat. These assessments, reported as having come from “sources,” also give rise to questions about the narrative with regard to the condition, history, and possible motivation of Aaron Alexis. Were these accounts of mental incapacity mere cover stories, crafted over time in advance, in order to validate the antisocial behavior that was to occur later, by design? 

It would not be the first time it was suggested that our government or this administration engaged in PsyOps, sophisticated psychological manipulation techniques calculated to impel an individual toward a predetermined action.

Prior to his meltdown, Aaron Alexis told a Rhode Island policeman that he was being followed by people who were using some sort of technology to disorient and torment him. According to some reports, Miriam Carey believed that President Obama was electronically monitoring her Connecticut home in order to “broadcast her life on television.”

Other reports stated that she said he was communicating with her “via radio waves.” Well, which was it?

Prior to attempting to run the barricade in front of the White House, Carey supposedly exchanged words with the Secret Service agent she nearly ran down moments later. What was the nature of the exchange?

And who brings a one-year-old child to an assault on one of the most closely-guarded compounds on the planet?
A crazy woman, of course. But was she?

First things first: Do we (meaning we as a technological society, and more specifically, our government) possess the kind of technology that could whip a person of normal mental constitution into a murderous frenzy, or do so even more easily in the case of someone who was not particularly stable to start with? It depends upon who you ask. Among those who buy into nearly every conspiracy theory that comes over the transom, the answer is a resounding “yes.” Others presume that we are simply not sophisticated enough at present from a standpoint of understanding the human brain to influence behavior to such specific purpose.

There are still others, credentialed experts who testify to having actually worked to develop such technologies.
We do know that the government, and even private concerns, have been working in the field of mind control since before World War II. We know that unscrupulous methods have been used by the government in the area of medical and psychological experimentation before. Respecting the question of whether or not technology that could distort someone’s perceptions to the degree that they became capable of violence exists, in this case I shall have to defer to the conspiracy theorists and the accounts of experts.

In recent weeks, unconfirmed reports have surfaced from within and outside of the US, claiming that the Obama administration and the president have been under investigation by various parties in the American intelligence community. These have proffered a number of profoundly alarming allegations, such as charges being prepared against Obama for treason and murder, the D.C. Naval Yard shootings having been a “message” to enemies or a false flag attack, accusations of planned false flag attacks – one of them including a nuclear device to be detonated by Obama operatives in the D.C. area – and several others.

Is it another strange “coincidence” (such as the commonalities between Aaron Alexis and Miriam Carey) that Navy Vice Admiral Tim Giardina, the Number 2 official in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal, was suspended and came under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (which just happens to have offices at the D.C. Naval Yard) at the same time it was alleged that the NCIS discovered the false flag nuke plot?

Why, it’s all so bizarre that it couldn’t possibly be true, could it? Au contraire; bizarre has been an ongoing theme of this administration’s modus operandi: Operate so far outside the realm of believability that no one believes you’re doing what you are in fact doing. If you’re implicated, the President will dispel all suspicion with teleprompter and Jedi hand wave…

No one would have ever believed beforehand that the President might conspire with his Department of Justice and other agencies to funnel weapons to Mexican drug lords in order to precipitate a panic over America’s rampant “gun culture” – but indeed, this occurred. Nor would Americans have thought that the President would clandestinely provide arms to the same Muslim fanatics who attacked us in 2001, then order an attack on the compound facilitating such action when it became a liability. No one would have believed that Obama would allow American personnel to perish at that compound in order to preserve his power.

Yet it is more or less apparent that he did all of those things and more. In fact, he is now supplying the same Muslim fanatics in Syria with weaponry overtly, having simply declared that he has the legal right to do so.
If that is not definitive of a tyrant – and one who would employ any means necessary in order to attain his objectives – then what is?

In the eyes of most Americans, the idea that Obama could or would perpetrate such evil or participate in such abject criminality remains as likely as the president being a shape-shifting reptilian overlord from another dimension. We can thank the press for this of course, as well as the Democrat congressional leadership and hundreds of cretinous journalists who continue to idolize this clumsy, two-bit hustler just because he’s black.
None of that negates, nor will it ever negate the fact that Obama is a traitor and a criminal, regardless of whether he had a hand in the tragic events of September 16 and October 3 of this year, and whether or not it is ever revealed.

Comments

Erik Rush is a New York-born columnist, author and speaker who writes sociopolitical commentary for numerous online and print publications. In February of 2007, Erik was the first to break the story of President (then Senator) Barack Obama’s ties to militant Chicago preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright on a national level, which ignited a media firestorm that smolders to this day. His latest book, “Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal ~ America’s Racial Obsession,” examines the racist policies by which the political left keeps black Americans in thralldom, white Americans guilt-ridden and yielding, and maintains the fallacy that America remains an institutionally racist nation. Links to his work are available at Erikrush.com.

Sen. Ted Cruz with Candy Crowley on CNN's State of the Union

The Republicans are being reasonable.  The President's Democrats are not.  Simple.

 

Peace News Now

America is becoming Damaged. It's no longer the "Home of the Free", it still may be the "Land of the Brave", but if it is the Brave need to speak up.

DEMOCRAT SHUTDOWN: BRILLIANT OR 'BATTY'?

Published: 21 hours ago

Kathy Shaidle About    

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/democrat-shutdown-brilliant-or-batty/#CUXHYebXw4ymoHXq.99

Michael Savage

He’s done it again! Michael Savage once again takes the top spot on the TSL list of “Top 25 Streaming Talk Shows.”

As Talk Stream Live notes, “The Savage Nation claims No. 1 for the second consecutive quarter solidifying Michael Savage’s dominance in the digital domain. Savage topped Rush by a full ratings point in the third quarter of 2013. This is the third time that Savage has become the top streaming talker.”

On the air, Dr. Savage declared, “I’m proud to be a right winger,” referring to the president’s label for anyone who dares to disagree with him (Free audio).

“I’m very proud that I’ve been working since I was five years old and am still working at my age,” he went on. “I’m not proud that a bunch of leeches are sucking me dry with taxation without representation.”

Rush Limbaugh

Limbaugh has no plans to run for public office. He was still put out, however, when pundit Bernie Goldberg told Bill O’Reilly that Limbaugh would be “too conservative” to ever get elected president.

Limbaugh fired back: “The reason I couldn’t win is that I’ve been demonized. I’ve had – my reputation has been demonized and assaulted for 25 years. … It’s not conservatism that can’t win, it’s that conservatism has been so ogre-ized and so demonized by an alliance of the Democrat Party and the media” (Free audio).

Later in the week, as the government “shutdown” continued, Rush said the Democrats “are imploding. I think they’re getting batty. I think they are going nuts. This is not playing out the way they thought” (Free audio).

Aaron Klein

A prolific author, Klein already has a new book in the works, and he’s inviting listeners to help come up with the title. He also gave his audience the chance to ask an imam why he believes women should wear burqas.

This week, Klein also welcomed Israel’s deputy defense minister to the program to talk about the counterproductive “land for peace” process. As one of the only broadcasters who has read the entire Obamacare legislation, Klein is able to present evidence of rationing and “death panels” written right into the text of the document.

Finally, Klein’s investigations continue to reveal more facts about Benghazi and other Obama administration scandals (Free audio).

Mark Levin

The White House tried to block World War II vets from visiting their own Washington, D.C., memorial this week, but Mark Levin was having none of it: “I want to say this loud and clear to the people on Capitol Hill who are listening, to this administration. You lay one d— hand on one of those World War II vets at that memorial, and I’ll bring half a million people to that damn memorial! You got that?!” (Free audio).

About that government “shutdown,” Levin reminded listeners that “the federal government is not the country” and the media (including conservative pundits) are exaggerating the impact it is having on the nation at large (Free audio).

Laura Ingraham

This week, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus assured Laura and her listeners that Republicans are “united” on the subject of the government “shutdown.” Ingraham was skeptical, having dubbed the exercise a “countdown to cave-in” and declaring it is only a matter of time before “cowardly” establishment Republicans back down (Free audio).

Ingraham’s other guests included Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who maintains that Obama himself has “delegitimized” his own health-care law by allowing so many exemptions and delays to implementation.

Glenn Beck

Beck is rarely speechless, but he and his guest, GOP Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, paused during their interview on Wednesday morning.

Gohmert was calling in from the World War II memorial, where veterans were tearing down barriers designed to keep them out during the “shutdown.”

In the background, veterans began singing “Amazing Grace.” Beck and his guest were so moved that they halted their conversation to allow listeners to hear (Free audio).

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/democrat-shutdown-brilliant-or-batty/#CUXHYebXw4ymoHXq.99

Quotes On Islam From Famous People…A Must Read

Posted on 9/27/2013 by admin

If you’ve never shared one of our articles before, I hope you share this one…the “religion of peace” is getting more and more powerful because the rest of the world is becoming more and more apathetic!http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2013/09/27/quotes-on-islam-from-famous-people-a-must-read/

 

1. Winston Churchill On Islam

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science – the science against which it had vainly struggled – the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

2. John Quincy Adams on Islam

“The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.”

3. John Wesley on Islam

“Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it…have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are raised from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind.”

4. Hilaire Belloc on Islam

“Will not perhaps the temporal power of Islam return and with it the menace of an armed Mohammedan world, which will shake off the domination of Europeans – still nominally Christian – and reappear as the prime enemy of our civilization? The future always comes as a surprise, but political wisdom consists in attempting at least some partial judgment of what that surprise may be. And for my part I cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing of the future is the return of Islam.”

5. Bishop Fulton J Sheen on Islam

“Today (1950), the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is becoming hatred against Christianity itself. Although the statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has ceased to be Christian, and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world Power.”

6. Patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria on Islam

“I am afraid that God has sent these men to lay waste the world”.

7. Gregory Palamus of Thessalonica on Islam

“For these impious people, hated by God and infamous, boast of having got the better of the Romans by their love of God…they live by the bow, the sword and debauchery, finding pleasure in taking slaves, devoting themselves to murder, pillage, spoil and not only do they commit these crimes, but even – what an aberration – they believe that God approves of them. This is what I think of them, now that I know precisely about their way of life.”

8. William Eaton on Islam

“Considered as a nation, they are deplorably wretched, because they have no property in the soil to inspire an ambition to cultivate it. They are abject slaves to the despotism of their government, and they are humiliated by tyranny, the worst of all tyrannies, the despotism of priestcraft. They live in more solemn fear of the frowns of a bigot who has been dead and rotten above a thousand years, than of the living despot whose frown would cost them their lives. The ignorance, superstitious tradition and civil and religious tyranny, which depress the human mind here, exclude improvement of every kind.”

9. John Quincy Adams on Islam

“In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind.”

“THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE (Adams’s capital letters). Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and goodwill towards men.”

10. Lord Tebbit on Islam

“The Muslim religion is so unreformed since it was created that nowhere in the Muslim world has there been any real advance in science, or art or literature, or technology in the last 500 years.”

11. Vernon Richards on Islam

“The true Islamic concept of peace goes something like this:’Peace comes through submission to Muhammad and his concept of Allah’(i.e. Islam). As such the Islamic concept of peace, meaning making the whole world Muslim, is actually a mandate for war. It was inevitable and unavoidable that the conflict would eventually reach our borders, and so it has.”

12. Andre Servier on Islam

“Islam was not a torch, as has been claimed, but an extinguisher. Conceived in a barbarous brain for the use of a barbarous people, it was – and it remains – incapable of adapting itself to civilization. Wherever it has dominated, it has broken the impulse towards progress and checked the evolution of society.”

13. Theodore Roosevelt on Islam

“The Greeks who triumphed at Marathon and Salamis did a work without which the world would have been deprived of the social value of Plato and Aristotle, of Aeschylus, Herodotus, and Thucydides. The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization, because the victories stretching through the centuries from the days of Miltiades and Themistocles to those of Charles Martel in the eighth century and those of John Sobieski in the seventeenth century.”

“During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier and the Polish king, the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any ‘social values’ whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influence. There are such ‘social values’ today in Europe, America, and Australia only because during those thousand years the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do – that is, to beat back the Moslem invader.”

14. David Selbourne on Islam

“Of course, there are distinguished precedents even for the bleakest and coarsest of these judgements. To Montesquieu in 1748, Islam’s ‘destructive spirit’ spoke ‘only by the sword’; to Schopenhauer in 1819, the Koran was a ‘wretched book’ in which he had ‘not been able to discover one single idea of value’; to De Tocqueville in 1843, Islam was ‘deadly’,'to be feared’ and a ‘form of decadence’”.

CIA, mind control & mass shootings - Is there a correlation?

By Doug Hagmann (Bio and Archives)  Tuesday, September 24, 2013 Comments | Print friendly | Subscribe | Email Us

 

Consider the common public characterizations of the prpetrators of the last several mass shootings in the U.S., such as James Holmes (the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting),  Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook Elementary School) and most recently,  Aaron Alexis, the named shooter at the Naval Sea Systems Command inside the Washington Navy Yard in Southeast Washington, D.C.  Even the most skeptical among us would have to agree that there is not only something eerily similar about the characterizations made public of each alleged perpetrator, but there is something not quite right with the changes made to the official narratives in “real time” as well as after the fact.

Perhaps the circumstances of Aaron Alexis are the most blatant as well as the most current. The man who brought wholesale death to a quiet morning at a secure military location has been characterized as mentally ill, with the media noting that he was plagued by voices in his head.

More than a month before the shooting, on August 7, 2013, Alexis reported to police that he was being stalked by unidentified individuals who followed him to three different motels, and these individuals were using some sort of “microwave machine” to send voices into his body and keeping him awake at night. It is interesting and potentially relevant that Alexis refused to tell police what the voices were instructing him to do. [A copy of the redacted police report can be downloaded in PDF format here]. At this point, I suspect that the majority of the “sane” among us would simply write Alexis off as mentally ill and unworthy of any further intellectual discourse. But could there be something more to this story?

While the media has been consistently reporting that Alexis had a long history of mental illness, those who knew Alexis long before and up to the shooting defended his mental stability. Although he reportedly had several previous altercations with the law, it is rather curious that Alexis was not criminally charged in at least two of the more severe of those occasions. A review of his criminal records history might suggest that something else was going on, especially considering his self-described “blackouts” during those events.

Despite his reported checkered history and claims of recent public questions regarding his mental stability, Alexis was granted security clearance as a government subcontractor, working for a company called “The Experts,” which is a subsidiary of HP Enterprise Services owned by Hewlett Packard. Notably, congressional oversight is now asserting that there were faults with the company performing the background checks for government workers and subcontractors. Nonetheless, is it reasonable, although certainly unpopular, to ask whether incompetence alone is responsible for Alexis being granted the security clearance.

It is unpopular if not unacceptable in “normal” social circles to discuss other possibilities or facilitating factors associated with not only the homicidal actions of Aaron Alexis, but of others including James Holmes, Adam Lanza and others. Such discussion will result in one labeled as residing in the lunatic fringe of society, with accusers quick to shut down any intellectual discourse of the topic.

An example of this appears in a September 20, 2013 article in Wired Magazine by author Allen McDuffee, titled Conspiracy Theories Abound After Navy Yard Shooting. While the title seems to tell it all, it is interesting that the author nearly makes the case in favor of a “mind control” conspiracy regarding the most recent shooting. Excerpted from the article:

“The microwave weaponry theory would be just as absurd as some of the other conspiracies if the Pentagon hadn’t been researching the possibility of using similar voice-projection technology in the past as a nonlethal weapon.”

“According to one report on the project, such a weapon would create a condition similar to schizophrenia. ‘Application of the microwave hearing technology could facilitate a private message transmission. It may be useful to provide a disruptive condition to a person not aware of the technology. Not only might it be disruptive to the sense of hearing, it could be psychologically devastating if one suddenly heard ‘voices within one’s head.’”

Behind the looking glass

Just a few short years ago, I too would have scoffed at the mere mention that these mass shooting events were anything but tragedies at the hands of sick and mentally-ill psychopaths. Granted, there are some sick and twisted people out there who need no help to kill others. But looking at these events collectively, a pattern seems to be emerging beyond the confines of the individual events themselves.

If we confine our investigation to the most recent shooting alone, it is unlikely that we are seeing all of the facts pertinent to the numerous shootings over the last few years - even the last several decades. If we look back into history, even as far back as the shooting death of Robert F. Kennedy, might we be seeing something more to the story of these random shooting events? Is it possible that there are agendas at play, and programs at work behind the scenes to which we are not privy?

Is it possible for rogue, criminal elements inside of the U.S. government to target the minds of certain individuals through electronic means to engage in certain behavior, including killing others? Before dismissing this possibility as some conspiracy theory unworthy of further consideration, please do some research, starting with the 1975 findings of the Church Committee. The disclosures from this investigation alone confirmed that our government was engaged in mind control experiments, spending billions of dollars and using unwitting subjects on which to test their latest drugs and electronic weaponry.

This CIA activity was further verified in the August 6, 2010 publication of Time Magazine, not exactly considered to be a fringe publication. A list of “Top Ten Weird Government Secrets” was published with number two on that list being “mind control.”

Within that article, it is stated that “some historians argue that the goal of the program was to create a mind-control system by which the CIA could program people to conduct assassinations.” Is it possible that we’ve been seeing this being played out in different venues, for different reasons? For today’s purposes, for gun control, perhaps? To condition the population to accept tighter “security” measures?

Before dismissing this as nonsense, consider the highly credentialed and well-researched Dr. John Hall, MD, who authored the book A New Breed: Satellite Terrorism in America. Just five-(5) days before the mass shooting event at the Washington Navy Yard, Dr. Hall appeared as a guest on The Hagmann & Hagmann Report, speaking about his documentation of stalking and mind control. Interestingly, Aaron Alexis complained of being stalked, or harassed and having voices thrust into his head prior to his shooting spree last week. Listening to the broadcast could have been a template for what we observed not only at the Naval Yard, but at previous historical shooting events.

In addition to the mind control aspect of this and other such events, is it not reasonable to consider and even question the many inconsistencies in nearly all of the official narratives of the incident reports, from the shooting of Robert Kennedy to the latest shooting at the Navy Yard? Is it responsible for us to simply dismiss these documented inconsistencies in light of what we know about CIA mind control experimentation? I would argue that failing to address such issues is not only irresponsible, but possibly being complicit in these events.

We are living in strange times where it would irresponsible of us not to ask questions, demand answers and accountability, despite the risks of being described as a conspiracy theorist. Based on factual evidence presented before congress nearly 40 years ago, CIA mind control is not a conspiracy. What would make you believe their actions have stopped following the disclosure by the Church Committee?

Related: Listen to the interview with Dr. John Hall here (advance to the second hour)

Comments

Copyright © Douglas J. Hagmann and Canada Free Press

Douglas J. Hagmann and his son, Joe Hagmann host The Hagmann & Hagmann Report, a live Internet radio program broadcast each weeknight from 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET.

Douglas Hagmann, founder & director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, and a multi-state licensed private investigative agency. Doug began using his investigative skills and training to fight terrorism and increase public awareness through his website.

Doug can be reached at: director@homelandsecurityus.com

Government dream of a cashless society already a reality | The Times of Israel

Government dream of a cashless society already a reality | The Times of Israel

David Shamah

It almost sounds like the opening to a bad joke: The government is seeking to severely limit the use of cash, in order to afford the authorities greater control over the economy and prevent tax evasion. Does that mean Israeli kids will be issued credit cards for when they buy gum from the candy store?

Not credit cards – but credit accounts on their cellphones. New payment systems using technologies like NFC (near field communications) are already allowing shoppers to make even small purchases using ubiquitous smartphones and other portable devices, bringing the dream – or nightmare, depending on your point of view – of a cashless society within reach.

In a recent meeting, the government decided to appoint a committee tasked with investigating ways to limit the use of cash in the Israeli economy. You can’t really blame them: A report by Visa Europe says that NIS 170 billion ($48.2 billion) – an amount equivalent to 21 percent of Israel’s GDP – was unaccounted for in 2010. That money floated around the economy “under the table,” unreported to the authorities, and of course with taxes unpaid.

Israelis are certainly not the worst offenders; in countries like Romania and Bulgaria, undocumented transactions account for as much as a third of the country’s economic activity. But in an era of unpopular budget cuts and even more unpopular tax hikes, the government is seeking to grab every shekel it has coming to it under the law, and if banning cash or sharply limiting its use will help bring that revenue in, then so be it, according to the Prime Minister’s Office, which the committee will report to.

“There are billions of untaxed shekels, according to our estimates, and the public is missing out on use of these funds,” said Harel Locker, the director of the PMO and the head of the committee, which, he continued, “will research solutions to correct this situation.” On the committee are also officials from the Israel Police, the Finance Ministry, the Israel Tax Authority, the director of accounting at the Bank of Israel, and the attorney general. The committee will present its results to the prime minister by the end of the year.

But media have been quoting critics, of which there are many, who say the change will have a dramatically negative impact on the economy. They predict that rather than ditch cash altogether, Israelis will simply switch to foreign currency in order to conduct transactions, and that the move will impoverish small business-owners, artisans, and self-employed Israelis while enriching the banks, which will be able to collect a plethora of new fees. Another argument contends that large segments of the population – ultra-Orthodox Jews, Arabs, the elderly, and others – who are largely “unbanked” or who, for cultural or other reasons, prefer to use cash, will be frozen out of this new economy. And a third argument has the government seeking to expand its reach, searching for new ways to control the body politic.

But regardless of government edict, chances are that Israelis will in the future be using far less cash than they do now. New cellphone technologies are coming onto the market that will make it easier to use devices to buy anything – even small items, like gum from the candy store – with the payment collected electronically not directly from a bank account, but tacked onto a user’s cellphone bill.

NFC is one of the technologies that will make implementing cashless payments easier. While many people don’t carry credit cards, many of them do carry cellphones, so the ubiquitous infrastructure needed to implement a cashless payment system is already widespread. In a typical-use case, a customer will wave their NFC-capable phone at a cash register reader and the price for the purchased item will be tacked onto their cellphone bill, with payment due at the end of the month. All three of the major cellphone service companies in Israel – Orange, Cellcom, and Pelephone – now offer a “digital wallet” option. It’s like the real thing, only virtual, with money withdrawn from your bank account or tacked onto the monthly cellphone service bill — in cooperation with credit card companies. The wallet can be used to make payments at retail stores with devices, as well as to receive coupons and manage expenses. For example, Pelephone’s system, which has been available since July, can be used by customers who have devices with NFC chips, while users whose devices don’t include such chips (Apple iPhones, for example) are issued a sticker that functions as an NFC “credit card.”

Several Israeli start-ups are involved in the NFC business. On Track Innovations supplies key components to contactless payment programs developed by the major credit card companies, such as MasterCard PayPass, Visa PayWave, Discover Zip and ExpressPay from American Express, as well as a host of apps for specific NFC uses, such as EasyPark, which uses NFC on parking meters to allow users to forgo coins. Israel’s TapMyBiz has a technology to easily install NFC connections for use by devices, in the form of special chips that can easily be added to almost anything. Its showcase product is a business card that includes an NFC chip that, when passed in front of an NFC cellphone, records the information on the business card on the device. And the Tadbik Group helped cellphone service company Orange roll out its NFC tag package, producing tags that could be placed on packages to interact with NFC phones.

But what may potentially become the biggest digital wallet app is the one made by the biggest digital company. A new version of Google Wallet allows NFC and non-NFC phones to connect to the company’s payment network. US users will now be able to link a credit card or bank account to their Wallet, allowing them to make payments in retail stores or to send money from one user to another (Wallet’s main competition in the US is an app called Isis, a joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon).

While the companies behind the technology tout the benefits to consumers – Google Wallet, for example, says consumers can “check out faster” at retail payment points, get 100 percent protection for their money, and “never miss out” on coupons and loyalty programs – the boon for government is clear. As with all other digital information, financial transactions on your cell device will be recorded, with the information a taxpayer supplies about economic activity easily corroborated against the records.

Plenty of Israelis are incensed over the initiative; numerous web sites and Facebook pages have cropped up in recent days complaining about both the practical and theoretical aspects of sharply curbing the use of cash. “When we pay via electronic means like credit cards, the government can track our activities, and even more, our movements,” says one Facebook page. “If you buy something at a kiosk and then get on a bus, paying with a credit card, ‘they’ can track where you are going, what you are doing, and when you are doing it.”

And then there is the problem of those who don’t have credit cards. “What are they supposed to do?” asked the administrators of the page in a post. “Are they to be banned from public transportation – meaning that not only will they starve to death because they can’t buy food, but they will have to do it alone at home?

“A plan to create absolute control over money and commerce reminds us of Communist Russia. The State of Israel is moving much faster than any other Western country to a state where there will be the possibility of exerting total control over the lives of its citizens.”

According to the post, “the great excuse that supporters of this program have come up with – reducing the rate of tax evasion – is clearly fraudulent, since we know that the large companies pushing this are the ones that get away with paying the least taxes, using credits and benefits handed to them by the government on a silver platter.”

Given the extensive credit checks consumers usually must go through to get a credit card, the plan for a near-cashless society would probably be impractical – if it depended on credit cards. But with NFC and cellphone system payments, implementing the plan would require nothing more than an expansion of the number of retail establishments accepting those kinds of payments – something the cellphone companies, retailers, and government are all in favor of – and less printing of currency. As the number of bills in circulation fall, the number of electronic transactions will rise, as people follow the line of least resistance. According to Pelephone CEO Gili Sharon, it’s practically a shoe-in. “I predict that within three years we will have half a million users,” he said. “In a few years, this payment method will become most convenient and effective and will replace credit cards.” And cash, if the government has its way.