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millions of rounds of ammunition are criminally abandoned by the Pentagon in bases around the world. In September 2009, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development proposed creating a new artificial currency that would replace the dollar as reserve currency. The UN wants to redesign the Bretton Woods system of international exchange. a reserve currency. The UN wants to redesign the Bretton 3. Internet Privacy and Personal Access at Risk Woods system of international exchange. Following in the steps of its predecessor, the Obama administration is expanding mass government 2. US Department of Defense: Planet's Worst Polluter surveillance of personal electronic communications. The United States military is responsible for the mos This surveillance, which includes the monitoring of the egregious and widespread pollution of the planet. In Internet as well as private (nongovernmental) spite of the evidence, the environmental impact of the | computers, is proceeding with the proposal or passage US military goes largely unaddressed by environmenta of new laws granting government agencies increasingly organisations and was not the focus of any discussions _ wider latitude in their monitoring activities. At the or proposed restrictions at the UN Climate Change — same time, private companies and even some schools Conference in Copenhagen. The extensive globa are engaging in surveillance activities that further operations of the US military (wars, interventions and diminish personal privacy. secret operations on over 1,000 bases around the world In spring 2009, Senate Bill 773, the Cybersecurity Act o and 6,000 facilities in the United States) are not counted 2009, was proposed, which gives the US President power against US greenhouse gas limits. to "declare a cyber security emergency" with respect to As it stands, the Department of Defense is the larges' private computer networks and to do with these networks polluter in the world, producing what is deemed necessary to more hazardous waste than the diffuse the attack. In a nationa ive largest US chemica Q emergency, the President would mpani mbined. Depl In a national emergenc also have the power to shu companies combined. Depleted ) p bantam petrleum cll | the President would also J cow th tet comple pesticides, defolian , . such as Agent Orange, and lead, have the power to requires that certain private song with west amounts (shut-down the Internet ff" asters apd netwars produced, tested and used, are completely in the professionals" licensed by the j i * . The bil ust some of the pollutants with United States. ederal government e bi which the US military is permits the President to direc contaminating the environment. he national response to the ournalist Sara Flounders has cyber threat, if necessary, for identified key examples: national defence and security, to conduct "periodic ¢ Tens of thousands of pounds of microparticles of | mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical to radioactive and highly toxic waste contaminate the national security, and to require these companies to Middle East, Central Asia and the Balkans. "share" information requested by the federal government. ¢ US-made land mines and cluster bombs spread over Such steps toward increased control over private wide areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle computer networks have been taken amid an ongoing East continue to spread death and destruction. program of mass surveillance begun by the George W. ¢ Thirty-five years after the Vietnam War, dioxin Bush administration, supposedly in response to the contamination is 300 to 400 times higher than "safe" 9/11 attacks. Presently, no legislation exists that levels, resulting in severe birth defects and cancers into — disallows the use of such technology to conduct mass, the third generation of those affected. warrantless surveillance. ¢ US military policies and wars in Iraq have created severe desertification of 90 per cent of the land, 4. ICE Operates Secret Detention and Courts changing Iraq from a food exporter into a country tha Agents of the US Immigration and Customs imports 80 per cent of its food. Enforcement (ICE) are holding thousands of US ¢ In the US, military bases top the Superfund list o residents in unlisted and unmarked subfield offices and the most polluted places, as perchlorate and deporting tens of thousands in secret court hearings. trichloroethylene seep into the drinking water, aquifers "If you don't have enough evidence to charge and soil. someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can ¢ Nuclear weapons testing in the American Southwes make him disappear." Those chilling words were spoken and the South Pacific Islands has contaminated millions by James Pendergraph, then executive director of the of acres of land and water with radiation, while uranium ICE's Office of State and Local Coordination, at a tailings defile Navajo reservations. conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. ¢ Rusting barrels of chemicals and solvents and People are held in a vast network of more than 300 In a national emergency, the President would also have the power to shut down the Internet completely in the United States. 4, ICE Operates Secret Detention and Courts Agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are holding thousands of US residents in unlisted and unmarked subfield offices and deporting tens of thousands in secret court hearings. "If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear." Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of the ICE's Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. People are held in a vast network of more than 300 12 * NEXUS DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011 www.nexusmagazine.com