Crime-Fighting Robots Hitting The Streets In California

Technocracy News and Trends
January 2, 2016

WRITTEN BY: SARAH BUHR JANUARY 1, 2016

TN Note: The Police State and Total Surveillance Society are joined at the hip. Automated police robots are currently only used as threat assessment and surveillance collection devices, but there will be a time when force/intervention features will be added. These robots are driven by AI, of course, and communicate everything the see, hear and think back to a central computer for analysis. This is a bad trend but one that will greatly further the aspirations of technocrats everywhere. 

The robots might one day rise up and take over, but a Palo Alto startup called Knightscope has developed a fleet of crime-fighting machinery it hopes to keep us safe.

Knightscope’s K5 security bots resemble a mix between R2D2 and a Dalek from Doctor Who – and the system behind these bots is a bit Orwellian. The K5’s have broadcasting and sophisticated monitoring capabilities to keep public spaces in check as they rove through open areas, halls and corridors for suspicious activity.

The units upload what they see to a backend security network using 360-degree high-definition and low-light infrared cameras and a built-in microphone can be used to communicate with passersby. An audio event detection system can also pick up on activities like breaking glass and send an alert to the system as well.

Malls and office buildings are also starting to employ the K5 units as security assistants. Knightscope couldn’t name names, but tells TechCrunch the robots are being used at a number of tech companies and a mall in Silicon Valley at the moment.

CEO Stacey Dean Stephens, a former law enforcement agent, came up with the idea to build a predictive network to prevent crime using robots. He and his co-founder William Li have raised close to $12 million in funding so far from Konica Minolta and others to build on the idea.

While Knightscope doesn’t think its robots will replace mall cops or security guards in the near future, the company does see them as assistants to human security teams. The startup currently rents each five-foot, 300-pound K5 unit out for $6.25 per hour (or less than minimum wage). However, teenagers or others tempted to kick or push the robots over may be shocked to find the robots can talk back to them, capture their behavior on film and alert authorities behind the scenes as well.

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Putin Names United States Among Threats In New Russian Security Strategy

One America News
January 2, 2016

Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on as he delivers his annual New Year address to the nation in Moscow, Russia, December 31, 2015. REUTERS/Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/Kremlin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A new appraisal names the United States as one of the threats to Russia’s national security for the first time, a sign of how relations with the west have deteriorated in recent years.

The document, “About the Strategy of National Security of Russian Federation”, was signed by President Vladimir Putin on New Year’s Eve. It replaces a 2009 version, endorsed by then- President Dmitry Medvedev, the current prime minister, which mentioned neither the United States not NATO.

It says Russia has managed to heighten its role in solving global problems and international conflicts. That heightened role has caused a reaction by the West, it says.

“The strengthening of Russia happens against the background of new threats to the national security, which has complex and interrelated nature,” the document says.

Conducting an independent policy, “both international and domestic” has caused “counteraction from the USA and its allies, which are striving to retain their dominance in global affairs.”

That in turn is likely to lead to “political, economical, military and informational pressure” on Russia, the document says.”

Relations between Russia and the West reached a low after Russian forces annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014, after protests in Ukraine forced its pro-Moscow president to flee to Russia.

Since then, the West has accused Russia of aiding insurgents in eastern Ukraine. Moscow denies actively assisting the rebels.

The United States and the European Union have since imposed wide-ranging sanctions against Russian individuals and companies. Moscow has reacted by restricting food and other goods from the EU.

The document says that the United States and the EU have supported an “anti-constitutional coup d’etat in Ukraine”, which led to a deep divide in Ukrainian society and a military conflict.

It also names the expansion of NATO as a threat to Russia’s national security and said that the United States has expanded its network of military-biological laboratories in neighboring to Russia countries.

The document, which serves as a basis for planning strategy related to national security by different state bodies, does not mention Syria. On Sept. 30, Russia began air strikes against anti-government rebels opposed to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin)

Obama to Announce New Gun Controls by Executive Order Next Week

The New American
January 2, 2016

With time running out for his presidency, President Obamais hurrying to issue another executive order further infringing on Americans’ Second Amendment-guaranteed rights.

It’s taken longer than expected, as the Obama administration and its friends in the gun-control movement have had to work around existing law and find areas where they can impose those additional restrictions without having to go to Congress for approval. As White House spokesman Eric Schultz explained, “It’s complicated. That’s why it’s taken some time for our policy folks, our lawyers and our experts to work through this and see what’s possible." He added. "That is why [the president] has asked his team to scrub existing legal authorities to see if there’s any additional action we can take administratively."

In other words, constitutional restrictions and limitations aren’t to be enforced but are instead to be circumvented in order to advance the president’s unconstitutional gun-control agenda. Put simply, Obama’s oath of office means nothing when it conflicts with that agenda.

According to Politico, the president’s announcement, expected next week, will contain at least two additional infringements: requiring stolen guns to be reported to the ATF, and broadening the definition of who must have a federal license (Federal Firearms License or FFL) to sell firearms.

It’s the second infringement that’s going to cause the most heartburn among law-abiding gun owners. Present law requires all citizens who are “engaged in the business” of selling guns with the “principal objective of livelihood and profit” to pay a fee, complete a rigorous and invasive application that includes a photograph and fingerprints, and undergo background checks in order to do so.

But the president’s lawyers have decided that “engaged in the business” is far too broad, and so Obama will likely announce next week that anyone selling more than 25 guns in a year — or selling a gun in its original packaging, or hoarding more than a certain number of firearms, or selling a gun within 30 days of original purchase — will have to obtain an FFL. After the government has granted its approval, the new licensee would then be required to do a background check on every person he sells a gun to. In addition he’ll be forced to undergo audits from ATF agents dropping in unannounced to check his paperwork.

There are so many problems with this proposed requirement that one scarcely knows where to begin. Aside from it being another infringement of a right guaranteed under the Second Amendment, who would line up, raise their hand, and plead with the ATF for permission to buy and sell firearms?

There are other problems. The ATF would be the agency in charge of doing the administrative work for an estimated 100,000 new gun dealers who would be forced to turn their hobby into a business. As Lawrence Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), put it,

[Obama’s new expected executive order] will create an administrative problem for the ATF in the sense that their budget does not provide for them to handle some huge increase in the volume of FFLs.

If the ATF now has to manage [another] 100,000 individuals [currently the ATF is tracking about 130,000 FFLs], or whatever the number is, who have to get a license, that’s going to divert resources that the ATF needs to be servicing the industry, and it takes money away from ATF’s ability to do its law enforcement duties.

That, of course isn’t really a problem. All the ATF has to do is plead with Congress for more money for its increased duties, as the IRS did when Congress granted that agency some $200 million in new funds.

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HILLARY SAYS SHE LIED TO BENGHAZI FAMILIES DUE TO “FOG OF WAR”… DONALD TRUMP RESPONDS

Gateway Pundit
January 2, 2016

In early December Hillary Clinton told ABC liberal hack and friend George Stephanopoulos she didn’t lie when she told the Benghazi families that the attack was in response to the film.
She told “This Week” viewers she suffered from a military phenomenon know as the ‘fog of war’


A majority of Americans question her honesty.

On New Year’s Day Donald Trump let Hillary have it.

“No fog of war is allowed in the White House, Hillary. Vote Trump”

See the full article here