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California — The Nanny State that Never Sleeps
December 21, 2007

A few years ago, we ordered a fine saltwater fishing reel from a fine specialty sporting goods purveyor in California. It arrived in fine condition, in a fine box listing attributes that would turn the angler into a fisherperson of superhuman ability.

The box, however, was marred by a hideous, scary sticker warning that the product therein contained, by the findings of the most oppressive nanny state in the history of the world (the aforementioned California), could cause cancer to ourselves, our loved ones and our unborn, yea unto generations.

A fishing reel? Well, no, not the reel itself, but the oil the manufacturer had diligently but sparingly applied so as to improve the efficiency of precision machined parts and bearings.

That warning, and literally millions of others like it, resulted from California's Proposition 65, a 1986 initiative authored by the infamous Tom Hayden that has turned California into the warning label capital of the world, worrying more about driplets of this and droplets of that than mudslides, fires and earthquakes that really do pose consequential dangers to Californians in their lifetimes.

Now it's caffeine in the Prop 65 crosshairs. On December 10, California's "Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment's Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee" (we kid you not as to the name) voted 4 to 3 to add caffeine to a new list for review, which will take about a year, and possible inclusion on the Prop 65 warning list.

Well, what could be wrong with that, health-conscious citizens will undoubtedly ask.

Let's start with the fact, largely and conveniently ignored by most nannies including those with advanced degrees, that the very foundation of toxicology (first enunciated by Paracelsus, the father of toxicology) is "the dose makes the poison." That applies to every substance, natural or man-made, which humans ingest or to which we are exposed. Water and arsenic will both kill you dead, but neither in the "doses" to which most humans are exposed.

Caffeine has been studied as many times as almost all other potentially dangerous substances and found to pose no risks (and provide some benefits) when used in moderation. That means it is probably not conscientious to buy a Starbucks card for an infant, but for most of us, we are not "dosing" to any deleterious level, and "at-risk" individuals would be much better advised to consult physicians rather than the state of California.

The real kicker, typically Californian, is that if caffeine is added to the Prop 65 warning list, the warnings will not apply to coffee or tea, of which caffeine is a natural component, from which most caffeine is consumed, but only to prepared drinks in which caffeine is part of the formula.

That makes sense in no known scientific or health context, but only in the context of political correctness so out of control that it, in and of itself, is a danger.

Not to be outdone by the state, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom intends to try to tax sales of soft drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (one of the latest demons being mined by junk science proponents). The stated rationale is the rate of childhood obesity in San Francisco.

The tax will not, however, be applied to all sales of such beverages across the board, but only to "big box retailers," something only a moral titan like Newsom could dream up.

It's for the kids, but how many kids do you know who go running into Sam's Club or Costco after school for their soda, considering that the smallest unit sold by the big boxers is a week's supply for a family of eight. The corner store, with infinitely more individual sales more frequently directly to the so-called population at risk, skates on the tax.

Punitive, discriminatory and self-defeating hypocrisy, with big tax bucks the only objective? Absolutely. It's also just politics as usual for a new breed of politicians so cynical as to not even bother to make their stories plausible. But all that is to be expected. The sheeple (great word, author unknown) of California, San Francisco or anywhere else who roll over for this nonsense are the ones who really need to take a look in the mirror.
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The History Before History
Part I
By Leonardo Vintiñi
Epoch Times Argentina Staff
Oct 09, 2007



It was a hot night so a man decided to take a walk along the beach. Soon after setting out, he felt a soft crunch under his foot. He stopped to inspect the soles of his shoes in the moonlight, and scraped off the remains of the unfortunate creature he had squashed. Unconcerned, he continued his stroll, unaware that the footprint had immortalized the end of that tiny life. After all, what's so strange about stepping on a trilobite?

Approximately 320 million years ago, a species of small lobed creatures began to populate Earth's seas. These relatives of sea arachnids—similar to lobsters and crabs—once flourished but became completely extinct 280 million years ago. We are talking, of course, about the trilobite.

The human being, as it is currently accepted by the majority of scientists, appeared as a species no more than 2 or 3 million years ago. And the history of man such as he is known today does not exceed 10,000 years.

With these dates in mind, we can conclude that the story of the human stepping on a trilobite belongs to the category of science fiction. A human being could never have squashed a creature that became extinct millions of years ago, and even less so a person with shoes—an unequivocal indication of civilization. This is evidence which defies history—an impossible fossil.

In June of 1968, amateur fossil collector William J. Meister found a rock 2 inches thick in Antelope Spring, Utah. With a blow of his hammer, he exposed the fossil of a human footprint. But this footprint had a special feature—a squashed trilobite. It wasn't long before the news spread across the world, and several investigators made their way to Antelope Spring, finding more marks made by modern-style footwear in a geological stratum corresponding to extremely remote ages. What strange joke is seemingly being played on history?

Other Prior Discoveries

In 1852 a giant rock mass in Dorchester, Massachusetts, was dynamited. After the explosion, workers found a curious metallic artifact among the debris, which was broken in two. Upon joining the two pieces together, they revealed a vessel in the shape of a bell with a base of 6.5 inches and height of 4.5 inches. Later they discovered that the vessel was made from a silver alloy. Curiously, this artifact, seemingly constructed with a high level of technology, appears to have been trapped in the rock while it was forming several millions years ago—when humans did not even exist.

Discoveries of this kind are not few. In fact, because of their ability to call in to question modern understandings of humankind's origins, archeological sites have at times hidden various problematic objects.

Eight years before the discovery of the Dorchester vase, a perfect iron nail was found in a 24-inch slab of rock in a quarry in Kingoodie, Scotland. The point of this nail was sticking out of the rock, while an inch of it, including the head, was sealed inside. It is estimated that such a rock would have formed roughly 60 million years ago.

In the1880s, a Colorado rancher extracted pieces of carbon from a mineral vein 300 feet below the surface. Later at his house, as he was breaking up the extracted pieces, he found a strange-looking iron thimble. News of the discovery known as the "Thimble of Eve" spread quickly, but due to its state of corrosion and people's over-handling, it disintegrated.

It is known that thimbles have been used by humans as far back as thousands of years ago. However, a curious detail in this case is that the carbon in which the thimble was found formed 70 million years ago, between the Cretaceous and Tertiary eras. According to modern understanding, the ancestors of human beings at this time were not even monkeys, but a different kind of small mammal, with protruding eyes, swinging between tree branches.

The "Cube of Salzburg" is another challenge to history. It was revealed to the public when in 1885 an Austrian iron smelter broke apart pieces of carbon and uncovered a cube-shaped iron artifact. "The edges of this strange object were already perfectly straight and defined; four of the sides were planes, while the two remaining sides, situated in front of each other, were convex. Halfway up was a deep slot," wrote René Noorbergen, a specialist in these types of cases.

Chemical analysis later determined that the object did not contain any chrome, nickel, or cobalt, but instead was composed of a kind of forged iron. This composition seemed to rule out the hypothesis that the "cube" was a meteorite, as some had suggested.

Another archeological treasure hidden in a carbon deposit was found in 1891 by S.W. Culp, a woman from Illinois. While she was extracting the black material, she accidentally broke a fragment, and a very thin gold chain was knocked loose. It had been lodged inside a bow-shaped cavity in the carbon.

Another case, published in 1831 by the American Journal of Science, deals with a block of marble extracted from a depth of about 60 feet, which was later cut into pieces. The marble, believed to have formed millions of years ago, revealed precise cuts 2 inches by 0.5 inch—the shapes of the very similar modern letters "u" and "i." The regularity of the symbols gave the impression of having been engraved by human hands.

A similar case was brought to light in 2002 in China's Guizhou Province, where a broken rock was found to have, at first glance, perfect Chinese characters of inexplicable origin, considering that the rock dated back to 200 million years ago! This relic is known as "The Stone of Hidden Words."

Contemporary Fossils

In 1976, a spoon that was first unearthed in 1937 inside a chunk of Pennsylvania soft coal was brought to public attention.

To rule out that such findings could be interpreted as a random occurrence, consider the 1967 discovery inside a Colorado silver mine: human bones alongside a 10-inch copper-pointed arrow. According to general estimates, the mineral deposit in which these were discovered is millions of years older than the human race.

While genetics and biology present us with new studies each day intending to validate the common origin of all species, new fossils continue to appear—more signs of a highly advanced distant past. Over time, these findings contribute to an understanding that human origins are far more remote than what is widely believed.

Perhaps the most controversial fossil in recent years was the one discovered by a geologist from the University of Jadaypur in Calcutta, India. A 1,100-million-year-old, reddish colored rock found in Madhya Pradesh, Chorhat, astonished scientists. It presents zigzag marks similar to those made by a worm.

The oldest known fossils of this kind are from Namibia and China, and the marks are understood to be from multicellular organisms, which made their appearance in the course of evolution approximately 600 million years ago. If the finding in India is properly interpreted, it would call for a serious reconsideration of the basis of evolution, giving a giant jump (400 or 500 million years) between this fossil and those found in Namibia and China.

"If you see centimeter-scale organisms and then don't see them for 400 million years, you have a lot to explain," remarks Harvard University paleontologist Andrew Knoll.

After new marks were found in similar rocks, many incredulous scientists were forced to analyze the age of the rocks again. But these specimens (zirconium crystals) continued to point to the impossible, making the issue "even more exciting and more improbable," according to paleontologist Adolph Seilacher from Yale University.

Seilacher believes that, according to what is commonly accepted, it is impossible for these fossilized traces to be from animals. However, he adds: "At the same time, I must accept the evidence. I have not found, nor heard from another person, another explanation. Is there any non-biological explanation for these marks?" The study appears in the October 2, 1998 issue of Science.

In fact, there exist many fossils that challenge our modern understanding of history. An impression of a perfect human hand (with fingernail marks) was discovered in 110-million-year-old limestone in Glen Rose, Texas; a 100-million year-old petrified finger (fossil identified as DM93-083), which had its bone structure revealed through radiography, was found on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada; there is the well-known discovery of giant human footprints beside those of a dinosaur in Rìo Paluxy, Texas; and there are many more. The apparent soundness of our current theories is shaken each time an "impossible fossil" comes to light.
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The History Before History II: Vestiges of a Lost Technology
By Leonardo Vintiñi
Epoch Times Argentina Staff
Oct 20, 2007



Just how old is the human race? While figures vary slightly, modern anthropological and genetic studies confirm a similar length of time. Yet the existence of hundreds of apparently isolated artifacts do not fit into this standard narrative. Some of these findings even question the true origin of modern human technology, while offering valuable clues into the profound mystery of the origin of our species and our science.

One example of these technological curiosities that stubbornly refuses to fit into the conventional timeline of history is an ancient electric battery found in Baghdad. The 2000 year-old artifact was sitting in a museum when an Australian archeologist discovered its true purpose. This ancient battery consisted of a yellow ceramic container with copper cylinder, twelve by four centimeters, found inside. The cylinder featured a soldered seam composed of a 60/40 mix (the same tin/lead ratio used to solder today) and a copper cover, and it was sealed with a material similar to asphalt. Another asphalt-like layer sealed the inner section, with an iron rod suspended in the center. The rod revealed evidence of corrosion from an acidic substance. A reconstruction of this battery demonstrated that it could produce comparable voltage to that of a modern battery. But what would such a device be used to power 2000 years ago? At that time, this area was part of the Parthian Empire. Evidence suggests that this technology did not originate in this area, but more likely in Egypt, where many finely-coated silver objects have been unearthed.

If the use of electricity 2000 years ago time seems amazing, the use of gears before the Christian era is a subject that proves just as baffling. The extremely complex "Antikythera Mechanism" is an astronomical clock found at the beginning of 20th century, in a Greek ship that seems to have been shipwrecked around 80 A.D. A year into the process of identifying and cataloging the diverse objects found on the ship the ship, one of the investigators noticed a strange device of amazing complexity which seemed incorporate a series of gears.

Later analysis revealed that the device contained the names of several celestial bodies and zodiac signs. X-rays determined that this apparatus contained a modest sum of 32 gears, perfectly fitted and still functional. The news shocked the scientific community, which concluded that that mechanism was a sophisticated astronomical calendar that was nearly as accurate as modern models. Yet, the Antikythera Mechanism troubled scientists because it conflicted with historical notions of the technological development of that era. Some even tried to explain it away, arguing that a contemporary navigator must have thrown it overboard, where it coincidentally landed right next to the sunken vessel. Later, the famous marine investigator Jacques Cousteau found more remains of bronze gears in the same area. Where did the Greeks obtain this advanced knowledge to create such a device?

A temple in New Delhi, India, holds another of these ancient curiosities: a pillar made of an iron alloy that has withstood 1,600 years outdoors without sign of oxidation. An ultrasound analysis determined that the pillar is constructed of many welded iron discs. How can a 1600-year-old feat of metallurgical capacity be explained? In Europe the technical ability to construct something of a similar size not available until the end of the 19th century.

In the same vein, scientists remain unable to adequately explain several 40,000 year old human and animal skulls featuring holes that many agree were made with projectiles. Ballistics experts are astonished when confronted with the specimens. Did the cavemen carry firearms?

But it isn't just strange artifacts that speak of an advanced human history, our ancestors may even have written of a distant age of civilization. Consider the following passage from the Mahabharata, an ancient Hindu text:

"A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe...An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor...it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race. (…) The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white."

To propose that the text describes a nuclear blast might be hard for many to take seriously. Yet when we realize that at the Hindu city of Rajasthan, an area of about five square miles is covered by a giant layer of radioactive ash. The intensity of the radiation still causes the area to be uninhabitable. It isn't merely the Mahabharata that details this prehistory; several other Hindu texts narrate the existence of weapons that swept whole armies away like leaves.

There also exist hundreds of ancient artifacts and images that, if carefully examined, provoke us to reconsider the supposed newness of modern technology. Five years before the Wright brothers made their first flight, a 2200 year-old wooden plane was uncovered in Egypt. Since airplanes were not a not device that anyone at the time were even remotely familiar, archaeologists believed the artifact was some kind of stylized bird sculpture. Similar metallic objects were found in different areas of pre-Colombian America. Even more astonishing, cave paintings found in remote parts of the world portray what looks to be a prolific era for spacecraft.

True science is obliged to doubt, reconsider and constantly redefine its own foundations as new discoveries are made, and this process may sometimes sweep aside years of research and investigation. We've come to know a version of history which speaks of a linearly increasing technological evolution, but findings like those listed above tell a much different story, inspiring a serious reflection on our present hypotheses. When faced with a significant amount of evidence that calls into question contemporary notions of our history and the technological sophistication of our ancestors, it is both unconscionable and unscientific to brush such artifacts aside in order to preserve an unsubstantiated belief.
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Intrusive Brain Reading Surveillance Technology: Hacking the Mind
By Carole Smith
Global Research, December 13, 2007
Dissent Magazine, Australia, Summer 2007/2008

"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated.

The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain.È

Dr José Delgado. Director of Neuropsychiatry, Yale University Medical School Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118 February 24, 1974.

The Guardian newspaper, that defender of truth in the United Kingdom, published an article by the Science Correspondent, Ian Sample, on 9 February 2007 entitled:

‘The Brain Scan that can read people’s intentions’, with the sub-heading: ‘Call for ethical debate over possible use of new technology in interrogation".

"Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and read out something that from the outside there's no way you could possibly tell is in there. It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall", the scientists were reported as saying.

At the same time, London’s Science Museum was holding an exhibition entitled ‘Neurobotics: The Future of Thinking’. This venue had been chosen for the launch in October 2006 of the news that human thoughts could be read using a scanner. Dr Geraint Rees’ smiling face could be seen in a photograph at the Neurobotics website, under the heading "The Mind Reader". Dr Rees is one of the scientists who have apparently cracked the problem which has preoccupied philosophers and scientists since before Plato: they had made entry into the conscious mind. Such a reversal of human historical evolution, announced in such a pedestrian fashion, makes one wonder what factors have been in play, and what omissions made, in getting together this show, at once banal and extraordinary. The announcement arrives as if out of a vacuum. The neuroscientist - modern-style hunter-gatherer of information and darling of the "Need to Know" policies of modern government - does little to explain how he achieved this goal of entering the conscious mind, nor does he put his work into any historical context. Instead, we are asked in the Science Museum’s programme notes:

How would you feel if someone could read your innermost thoughts? Geraint Rees of UCL says he can. By using brain-imaging technology he's beginning to decode thought and explore the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind. But how far will it go? And shouldn’t your thoughts remain your personal business?

If Dr Rees has decoded the mind sufficiently for such an announcement to be made in an exhibition devoted to it, presumably somewhere is the mind which has been, and is continuing to be, decoded. He is not merely continuing his experiments using functional magnetic resolution scanning (fMRI) in the way neuroscientists have been observing their subjects under scanning devices for years, asking them to explain what they feel or think while the scientists watch to see which area lights up, and what the cerebral flow in the brain indicates for various brain areas. Dr Rees is decoding the mind in terms of conscious and unconscious processes. For that, one must have accessed consciousness itself. Whose consciousness? Where is the owner of that consciousness – and unconsciousness? How did he/she feel? Why not ask them to tell us how it feels, instead of asking us.

The Neurobotics Exhibition was clearly set up to make these exciting new discoveries an occasion for family fun, and there were lots of games for visitors to play. One gets the distinct impression that we are being softened up for the introduction of radical new technology which will, perhaps, make the mind a communal pool rather than an individual possession. Information technology seeks to connect us all to each other in as many ways as possible, but also, presumably, to those vast data banks which allow government control not only to access all information about our lives, but now also to our thoughts, even to our unconscious processing. Does anyone care?

One of the most popular exhibits was the ‘Mindball’ game, which required two players to go literally head-to-head in a battle for brainpower, and used ‘brainpower’ alone. Strapped up with headbands which pick up brain waves, the game uses neurofeedback, but the person who is calm and relaxed wins the game. One received the impression that this calmness was the spirit that the organisers wished to reinforce, to deflect any undue public panic that might arise from the news that private thoughts could now be read with a scanner. The ingress into the mind as a private place was primarily an event to be enjoyed with the family on an afternoon out:

Imagine being able to control a computer with only the power of your mind. Or read people’s thoughts and know if they’re lying. And what if a magnetic shock to the brain could make you more creative…but should we be able to engineer our minds?

Think your thoughts are private? Ever told a lie and been caught red-handed? Using brain-scanning technology, scientists are beginning to probe our minds and tell if we’re lying. Other scientists are decoding our desires and exploring the difference between our conscious and unconscious mind. But can you really trust the technology?

Other searching questions are raised in the program notes, and more games:

Find out if you’ve got what it takes to be a modern-day spy in this new interactive family exhibition. After being recruited as a trainee spy, explore the skills and abilities required by real agents and use some of the latest technologies that help spies gather and analyse information. Later go on and discover what it’s like to be spied upon. Uncover a secret store of prototype gadgets that give you a glimpse into the future of spy technologies and finally use everything you’ve learnt to escape before qualifying as a fully-fledged agent!

There were also demonstrations of grateful paraplegics and quadriplegics showing how the gods of science have so unselfishly liberated them from their prisons: this was the serious Nobel Prize side of the show. But there was no-one representing Her Majesty’s government to demonstrate how these very same devices can be used quite freely, and with relative ease, in our wireless age, to conduct experiments on free-ranging civilians tracked anywhere in the world, and using an infinitely extendable form of electrode which doesn’t require visible contact with the scalp at all. Electrodes, like electricity, can also take an invisible form – an electrode is a terminal of an electric source through which electrical energy or current may flow in or out. The brain itself is an electrical circuit. Every brain has its own unique resonating frequency. The brain is an infinitely more sensitive receiver and transmitter than the computer, and even in the wireless age, the comprehension of how wireless networks operate appears not to extend to the workings of the brain. The monotonous demonstration of scalps with electrodes attached to them, in order to demonstrate the contained conduction of electrical charges, is a scientific fatuity, in so far as it is intended to demonstrate comprehensively the capability of conveying charges to the brain, or for that matter, to any nerve in the body, as a form of invisible torture.

As Neurobotics claims: ‘Your brain is amazing’, but the power and control over brains and nervous systems achieved by targeting brain frequencies with radiowaves must have been secretly amazing government scientists for many years. The problem that now arises, at the point of readiness when so much has been achieved, is how to put the technology into action in such a way, as it will be acceptable in the public domain. This requires getting it through wider government and legal bodies, and for that, it must be seen to spring from the unbiased scientific investigations into the workings of the brain, in the best tradition of the leading universities. It is given over to Dr Rees and his colleague, Professor Haynes, endowed with the disclosure for weightier Guardian readers, to carry the torch for the government. Those involved may also have noted the need to show the neuroscientist in a more responsible light, following US neuroengineer for government sponsored Lockheed Martin, John Norseen’s, ingenuous comment, in 2000, about his belief about the consequences of his work in fMRI:

‘If this research pans out’, said Norseen, ‘you can begin to manipulate what someone is thinking even before they know it.’ And added: "The ethics don’t concern me, but they should concern someone else."

While the neuroscientists report their discovery (without even so much as the specific frequency of the light employed by this scanner/torch), issuing ethical warnings while incongruously continuing with their mind-blowing work, the government which sponsors them, remains absolutely mute. The present probing of people’s intentions, minds, background thoughts, hopes and emotions is being expanded into the more complex and subtle aspects of thinking and feeling. We have, however, next to no technical information about their methods. The description of ‘shining a torch around the brain’ is as absurd a report as one could read of a scientific endeavour, especially one that carries such enormous implications for the future of mankind. What is this announcement, with its technical obfuscation, preparing us for?

Writing in Wired contributing editor Steve Silberman points out that the lie-detection capability of fMRI is ‘poised to transform the security system, the judicial system, and our fundamental notions of privacy’. He quotes Cephos founder, Steven Laken, whose company plans to market the new technology for lie detection. Laken cites detainees held without charge at Guantanamo Bay as a potential example. ‘If these detainees have information we haven’t been able to extract that could prevent another 9/11, I think most Americans would agree that we should be doing whatever it takes to extract it’. Silberman also quotes Paul Root Wolpe, a senior fellow at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, who describes the accelerated advances in fMRI as ‘ a textbook example of how something can be pushed forward by the convergence of basic science, the government directing research through funding, and special interests who desire a particular technology’. Are we to believe that with the implied capability to scan jurors’ brains, the judiciary, the accused and the defendant alike, influencing one at the expense of the other, that the legal implications alone of mind-accessing scanners on university campuses, would not rouse the Minister for Justice from his bench to say a few words about these potential mind weapons?

So what of the ethical debate called for by the busy scientists and the Guardian’s science reporter? Can this technology- more powerful in subverting thought itself than anything in prior history – really be confined to deciding whether the ubiquitously invoked terrorist has had the serious intention of blowing up the train, or whether it was perhaps a foolish prank to make a bomb out of chapatti flour? We can assume that the government would certainly not give the go-ahead to the Science Museum Exhibition, linked to Imperial College, a major government-sponsored institution in laser-physics, if it was detrimental to surveillance programs. It is salutary to bear in mind that government intelligence research is at least ten years ahead of any public disclosure. It is implicit from history that whatever affords the undetectable entry by the gatekeepers of society into the brain and mind, will not only be sanctioned, but funded and employed by the State, more specifically by trained operatives in the security forces, given powers over defenceless citizens, and unaccountable to them.

The actual technology which is now said to be honing the technique ‘to distinguish between passing thoughts and genuine intentions’ is described by Professor John-Dylan Haynes in the Guardian in the most disarmingly untechnical language which must surely not have been intended to enlighten.

The Guardian piece ran as follows:

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person’s brain and read their intentions before they act.

The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists’ ability to probe people’s minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future.

‘Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and read out something that from the outside there's no way you could possibly tell is in there. It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall,’ said John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, who led the study with colleagues at University College London and Oxford University.

We know therefore that they are using light, but fMRI has been used for many years to attempt the unravelling of neuronal activity, and while there have been many efforts to record conscious and unconscious processes, with particular emphasis on the visual cortex, there has been no progress into consciousness itself. We can be sure that we are not being told the real story.

Just as rats and chimpanzees have been used to demonstrate findings from remote experiments on humans, electrode implants used on cockroaches to remotely control them, lasers used to steer fruit-flies , and worms engineered so that their nerves and muscles can be controlled with pinpricks of light, the information and techniques that have been ruthlessly forged using opportunistic onslaughts on defenceless humans as guinea pigs - used for myriad purposes from creating 3D haptic gloves in computer games to creating artificial intelligence to send visual processing into outer space - require appropriate replication for peer group approval and to meet ethical demands for scientific and public probity.

The use of light to peer into the brain is almost certainly that of terahertz, which occurs in the wavelengths which lie between 30mm and 1mm of the electromagnetic spectrum. Terahertz has the ability to penetrate deep into organic materials, without (it is said) the damage associated with ionising radiation such as x-rays. It can distinguish between materials with varying water content – for example fat versus lean meat. These properties lend themselves to applications in process and quality control as well as biomedical imaging. Terahertz can penetrate bricks, and also human skulls. Other applications can be learnt from the major developer of terahertz in the UK, Teraview, which is in Cambridge, and partially owned by Toshiba.

Efforts to alert human rights’ groups about the loss of the mind as a place to call your own, have met with little discernible reaction, in spite of reports about over decades of the dangers of remote manipulation using technology to access the mind, Dr Nick Begich’s book, Controlling the human mind, being an important recent contribution. A different approach did in fact, elicit a response. When informed of the use of terahertz at Heathrow and Luton airports in the UK to scan passengers, the news that passengers would be revealed naked by a machine which looked directly through their clothes produced a small, but highly indignant, article in the spring 2007 edition of the leading human rights organisation, Liberty. If the reading of the mind met with no protest, seeing through one’s clothes certainly did. It seems humans’ assumption of the mind as a private place has been so secured by evolution that it will take a sustained battle to convince the public that, through events of which we are not yet fully informed, such former innocence has been lost.

Trained light, targeted atomic spectroscopy, the use of powerful magnets to absorb moisture from human tissues, the transfer of radiative energy – these have replaced the microwave harassment which was used to transmit auditory messages directly into the hearing. With the discovery of light to disentangle thousands of neurons and encode signals from the complex circuitry of the brain, present programs will not even present the symptoms which simulated schizoid states. Medically, even if terahertz does not ionise, we do not yet know how the sustained application of intense light will affect the delicate workings of the brain and how cells might be damaged, dehydrated, stretched, obliterated.

This year, 2007, has also brought the news that terahertz lasers small enough to incorporate into portable devices had been developed.

Sandia National Laboratories in the US in collaboration with MIT have produced a transmitter-receiver (transceiver) that enables a number of applications. In addition to scanning for explosives, we may also assume their integration into hand-held communication systems. ‘These semiconductor devices have output powers which previously could only be obtained by molecular gas lasers occupying cubic meters and weighing more than 100kg, or free electron lasers weighing tons and occupying buildings.’ As far back as 1996 the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board predicted that the development of electromagnetic energy sources would ‘open the door for the development of some novel capabilities that can be used in armed conflict, in terrorist/hostage situations, and in training’ and ‘new weapons that offer the opportunity of control of an adversary … can be developed around this concept’.

The surveillance technology of today is the surveillance of the human mind and, through access to the brain and nervous system, the control of behaviour and the body’s functions. The messaging of auditory hallucinations has given way to silent techniques of influencing and implanting thoughts. The development of the terahertz technologies has illuminated the workings of the brain, facilitated the capture of emitted photons which are derived from the visual cortex which processes picture formation in the brain, and enabled the microelectronic receiver which has, in turn, been developed by growing unique semi-conductor crystals. In this way, the technology is now in place for the detection and reading of spectral ‘signatures’ of gases. All humans emit gases. Humans, like explosives, emit their own spectral signature in the form of a gas. With the reading of the brain’s electrical frequency, and of the spectral gas signature, the systems have been established for the control of populations – and with the necessary technology integrated into a cell-phone.

‘We are very optimistic about working in the terahertz electromagnetic spectrum,’ says the principal investigator of the Terahertz Microelectronics Transceiver at Sandia: ‘This is an unexplored area, and a lot of science can come out of it. We are just beginning to scratch the surface of what THz can do to improve national security’.

Carole Smith was born and educated in Australia, where she gained a Bachelor of Arts degree at Sydney University. She trained as a psychoanalyst in London where she has had a private practice. In recent years she has been a researcher into the invasive methods of accessing minds using technological means, and has published papers on the subject.
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