Diversity of People, Ideas and Economy: Lancaster County, known as the Garden Spot of America, is a county located in the south central part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in the United States. With an estimated 2005 population of 490,562, Lancaster County forms the Lancaster Metropolitan Statistical Area, the 99th largest of 361 MSAs in the U.S. The city of Lancaster is the county seat. Locally, Lancaster is pronounced (LANK-ister), like the city in England for which it was named, rather than the wider American pronunciation (LAN-caster).
When Lancaster County was established on May 10, 1729, it became the prototype for the sixty-three counties to follow. The original three counties, Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester, were created as copies of typical English shires. The frontier conditions of Chester County's backwoods, from which Lancaster was formed, presented knotty problems to the civilized Englishmen. Lancaster County, therefore, was an experiment in pragmatism erected on the periphery of Penn's "Holy Experiment". In 1683, Penn purchased from the Indians a tract of land extending from the Delaware to the Susquehanna Rivers. Another purchase made in 1718 added nearly all the land southeast of the South Mountain, including most of present-day York County. As settlers in the hinterlands of Chester County increased in number, additional townships were created by the Chester County court. Soon, settlers were clamoring for constables to keep the peace on the frontier.
Lancaster County is in the Piedmont region with occasional ridges standing above the rolling hills and limestone plains, the largest of which forms the central part of the county and is drained by the Conestoga River and Pequea Creek. The southern portion of the county rests in the Piedmont uplands which hold deposits of iron, nickel, copper, chrome and silver. It is the easily-eroded limestone soil, however, that gives the county its reputation as the finest agricultural land east of the Mississippi River, and the best non-irrigated farmland in the nation. As a result, more than seventy-five percent of Lancaster County is farmland, with the majority of farms being family owned.
Under Pennsylvania law, there are four types of incorporated municipalities: cities, boroughs, townships, and, in at most two cases, towns. The map shows cities, boroughs and townships that are located in Lancaster County.
Representative Joseph Pitts (PA-16th District), exerts a lot of influence over any federal legislation related to food because he is the Chair of the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. The Health Subcommittee has jurisdiction over bills addressing foods and drugs, as well as public health.
Now is the time to stand up and be counted. If raw milk can be banned today, so will back-yard gardening and free ranging chickens and . . . . . ..
The FDA won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington, D.C., region after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines and he told his customers he would shut down his farm altogether.
The decision has enraged Mr. Allgyer's supporters, some of whom have been buying from him for six years and say the government is interfering with their parental rights to feed their children.
But the Food and Drug Administration, which launched a full investigation complete with a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and a straw-purchase sting operation against Mr. Allgyer's Rainbow Acres Farm, said unpasteurized milk is unsafe and it was exercising its due authority to stop sales of the milk from one state to another.
Adding to Mr. Allgyer's troubles, Judge Lawrence F. Stengel said that if the farmer is found to violate the law again, he will have to pay the FDA's costs for investigating and prosecuting him.
His customers are wary of talking publicly, fearing the FDA will come after them.
"I can't believe in 2012 the federal government is raiding Amish farmers at gunpoint all over a basic human right to eat natural food," said one of them, who asked not to be named but received weekly shipments of eggs, milk, honey and butter from Rainbow Acres, a farm near Lancaster, Pa. "In Maryland, they force taxpayers to pay for abortions, but God forbid we want the same milk our grandparents drank."
The FDA, though, said the judge made the right call in halting Mr. Allgyer's cross-border sales.
"Intrastate sale of raw milk is allowed in Pennsylvania, and Mr. Allgyer had previously received a warning letter advising him that interstate sale of raw milk for human consumption is illegal," agency spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey said.
Neither the FDA nor the Justice Department, which pursued the legal case, provided numbers to The Washington Times on the cost of the investigation and court fight.
Fans of fresh milk, which they also call raw milk, attribute all kinds of health benefits to it, including better teeth and stronger immune systems. Raw milk is particularly popular among parents who want it for their children.
In a unique twist, the movement unites people on the left and the right who argue that the federal government has no business controlling what people choose to consume.
In a rally last year, they drank fresh milk in a park across Constitution Avenue from the Senate.
But the FDA says it concluded, after extensive study along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that raw milk is never safer than pasteurized milk. It disputes those who say pasteurization - the process of heating food to kill harmful organisms - makes it less healthy.
Many food-safety researchers say pasteurization, which became widespread in the 1920s and 1930s, dramatically reduced instances of milk-transmitted diseases such as typhoid fever and diphtheria.
The FDA began looking into Mr. Allgyer's operations in late 2009, when an investigator in the agency's Baltimore office used aliases to sign up for a Yahoo user group made up of Rainbow Acres customers.
The investigator placed orders for fresh milk and had it delivered to private residences in Maryland, where it was picked up and documented as evidence in the case. By crossing state lines, the milk became part of interstate commerce and thus subject to the FDA's ban.
At one point, FDA employees made a 5 a.m. visit to Mr. Allgyer's farm. He turned them away, but not before they observed milk containers labeled for shipment to Maryland.
After the FDA first took action, Mr. Allgyer changed his business model. He arranged to sell shares in the cows to his customers, arguing that they owned the milk and he was only transferring it to them.
Judge Stengel called that deal "merely a subterfuge."
"The practical result of the arrangement is that consumers pay money to Mr. Allgyer and receive raw milk," the judge wrote in a 13-page opinion.
Grassfed On the Hill Buying Club has about 500 active members.
Liz Reitzig, a mother who has become a raw-milk activist and is an organizer of the group, said the lawyers who pursued the case against Mr. Allgyer ought to "be ashamed."
"Many families are dependent on the milk for health reasons or nutritional needs, so a lot of people will be desperately trying to find another source now," she said.
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm. New International Version (NIV)
1 You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. 5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand- when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
For all out trying, we have yet to find a biometric system more secure than a good ol' password. Iris and full-face scanners can be beaten with pictures or videos, voice recognition can be beaten with a recording, and fingerprint scanners can be beaten by flour, masking tape and a tossed can.
But scientists, undaunted by the challenge of creating a unique personal identifier, have come up with a new possible solution: your heartbeat.
Everyone has a slightly different heart beat. We have a different rhythm, a different cadence, etc. Much like our irises and fingerprints, our heartbeat is unique to us, and thus can be used to identify us. And it is this fact that Chun-Liang Linof the National Chung Hsing University in Taichung, Taiwan wants to exploit for security. Using an Electro Cardiogram, or ECG, to monitor an individual's heart beat, he managed to create a mathematical model of how an individual's heart beats.
Lin's proof of concept samples an individual once and generates a key, from the mathematical model. Then, when the system is to be unlocked, another ECG reading is taken. The two are compared, and, if it is the same, then the system is unlocked. This can be done quickly, thanks to the reading being taken on the palm.
There are a few inherent advantages to this system. Because it isn't based on a visual metric, there's no way to snap a quick photo of the body part. The reading can only be taken by contact, so it is much harder to crack. And because it is based on the heartbeat, high levels of fear would make it deny entry. So, if his system gets implemented, it could be one of the first truly secure forms of biometric security.
Lin wants to build this technology into external hard drives and other forms of portable mass storage. He wants devices to be unlockable just by touching them, a very natural gesture that is part of using the device. And who knows? Maybe Lin's innovation will lead us to a world of invisible protection.
The 100 or so sheriffs gathered in a Las Vegas hotel ballroom two weeks ago learned that some weighty titles have been attached to the stars they wear on their chests.
"Ultimate enforcers of the Constitution." "Protectors against government tyranny." "America's last hope." "Brave oath keepers."
And the sheriffs, including eight from Colorado, learned that they need to protect their citizenry from much more than local lawbreakers. In today's world, public enemy No. 1 just might be the federal government - or the "out-of-control federal bureaucracy," as organizers of the convention like to refer to it.
The person who will "stand tall against federal tyranny," even if it means armed resistance, according to organizers, is the county sheriff.
The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association's inaugural convention was designed to be the national coming-out for this idea and the start of an educational movement that its founder hopes will sweep the country. Its sponsors included the John Birch Society, the Gun Owners of America and the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute. Advertisers included survivalist businesses, anti-IRS proponents, purveyors of gold-buying secrets and one company that sells a guide, "How to Turn Your Home into a Fortress."
"We have a large group of people in my county who agree with these principles," said Weld County Sheriff John Cook, explaining why he attended the conference. "I agree with a lot of it. But I don't advocate, obviously, violence against other law enforcement offices."
The conference was organized by former Graham County, Ariz., Sheriff Richard Mack. Mack gained fame in the 1990s and became a Tea Party darling when he and six other sheriffs challenged the constitutionality of the gun-control measure commonly known as the Brady Bill. In a case that went to the Supreme Court, Mack's attorneys successfully argued that local law enforcement jurisdictions can't be compelled to carry out federally mandated background checks. It was seen as a huge victory for the sovereignty of local jurisdictions.
Three years ago, Mack wrote a book, "The County Sheriff: America's Last Hope." In it, he asserted that sheriffs have the supreme law enforcement power in their counties under the Constitution and the 10th Amendment. Much of what federal agents are doing in counties is unconstitutional, he wrote. Federal agents have no authority beyond policing treason, piracy, treaty violations and counterfeiting.
Thus, the scofflaws that sheriffs might encounter today - and who should be run out of town by a SWAT team, if that's what it takes - include agents for the U.S. Forest Service; the Bureau of Land Management; the IRS; the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Environmental Protection Agency; and even the Food and Drug Administration.
Online Constitutional Sheriffs materials state, "The sheriff's position overrides any federal agents or even the arrogant FBI agents who attempt to assume jurisdiction in our cases."
Colorado had the largest representation at this convention, along with California and Utah.
"I think sheriffs went because they just wanted to be informed about what is expected of a sheriff," said Montezuma County Sheriff Dennis Spruell. "I know I want to make sure the federal government does what it's supposed to do and doesn't encroach on the rights of my citizens.
"As for that making us radicals, I don't see that."
Some Colorado sheriffs, like Spruell, said they went because they believe in much of what the Constitutional Sheriffs group espouses. They stressed that, at the same time, they have mostly good working relations with law enforcement officers from federal agencies that operate in their counties.
"I have good cooperation with federal agents. I have no problems with them," said Montrose County Sheriff Rick Dunlap. "The feds always contact me when they are doing something in my county."
Some sheriffs were simply curious about Mack's teachings and hoped to learn something about the group. Others said they felt they should go because they have a lot of conservative, right-wing constituents who believe in what was taught in Las Vegas.
In some cases, those constituents donated the money to send their sheriffs. Some pestered the sheriffs about going - something that doesn't happen when the meeting is, say, a mainstream gathering of the County Sheriffs of Colorado.
"It was odd. Two people came to the window out front to ask if I was going," Weld County's Cook said.
Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey was one sheriff who didn't receive an invitation to the convention and was a little uncomfortable with the idea of constituents raising money to send sheriffs to it. He also was unhappy with the impression some sheriffs had that if they didn't go, their conservative voters would try to oust them in the next election.
"I have a lot of respect for the Constitution and for its framework of keeping our people safe," he said. "But sheriffs should not be strong-armed into going to something like this." (Excuse me, sheriffs are elected by WTP! dw)
Chris Olson, executive director of the County Sheriffs of Colorado, said of the convention: "We didn't endorse it or authorize it. It was an individual sheriff's decision."
Mack, who still refers to himself as "Sheriff Mack" and is currently running as a Republican for a congressional seat in Texas, said his organization didn't pressure any sheriffs. In a phone interview, he also said that his movement may come across sounding bellicose, but he is really promoting peace.
"The potential for violence is always there. But I pray it won't come to that. We don't want that," Mack said.
Some of the speakers at the convention did tell of confrontations that involved the threat of officers for different agencies trying to arrest each other. The use of force was not ruled out.
Elkhart County, Ind., Sheriff Brad Rogers told of chasing federal regulators out of his county after they repeatedly did inspections at an Amish dairy farm that was selling raw milk. He threatened to arrest the regulators if they tried to come back.
Sheriff Tony DeMeo of Nye County, Nev., recounted how he had to threaten to bring out his SWAT team to go up against a federal government SWAT team when federal agents were seizing cattle from a local rancher.
Sheriff Dave Mattis of Big Horn County, Wyo., told the conference about the edict he has issued in his county. Federal agents are forbidden to enter his territory without his approval.
El Paso County Commissioner Peggy Littleton, who attended with El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa, gave a presentation that took another tack. She told how her county recently passed a resolution to nullify the National Defense Authorization Act. She urged other counties to do the same.
Fear that this act gives the federal government the power to arrest and detain citizens without filing charges or seeking convictions is another issue that garners a lot of attention on websites associated with the Constitutional Sheriffs group.
It also became a convention flash point when a speaker repeatedly called Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war, a "traitor" for supporting the Defense Authorization Act.
Montrose County's Dunlap said he and several other sheriffs "were ready to walk out at that point."
Many of the presentations at the convention revolved around more common land-use disputes over road closures and hunting restrictions. Those were the stories that resonated most with Colorado sheriffs who attended and who believe the federal government is overstepping its bounds on these issues.
Steven Hall, a spokesman for the BLM, said he doesn't want to argue with sheriffs about interpretations of the Constitution and federal jurisdiction on federal lands. He said that for the most part, his agency has good working relationships with sheriffs, especially when it comes to issues such as fighting wildfires and eradicating marijuana.
"There has been some heated rhetoric but no serious incidents. I hope it remains that way," he said.
Steve Segin, a spokesman for the Forest Service, issued a statement saying his agency has had "excellent working relationships" with sheriffs in Colorado.
Several representatives for the FBI at the state and national level said they had not heard of the Constitutional Sheriffs movement. They declined to comment.
Mack said he is already planning a second convention for this summer, when he will continue to promote the idea that "the greatest threat to our freedom now is the federal government."
"There is nothing subversive about any of this," he said. "It's as American as apple pie."
Representative Joseph Pitts (PA-16th District), exerts a lot of influence over any federal legislation related to food because he is the Chair of the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. The Health Subcommittee has jurisdiction over bills addressing foods and drugs, as well as public health.
Now is the time to stand up and be counted. If raw milk can be banned today, so will back-yard gardening and free ranging chickens and . . . . . ..
The FDA won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington, D.C., region after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines and he told his customers he would shut down his farm altogether.
The decision has enraged Mr. Allgyer's supporters, some of whom have been buying from him for six years and say the government is interfering with their parental rights to feed their children.
But the Food and Drug Administration, which launched a full investigation complete with a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and a straw-purchase sting operation against Mr. Allgyer's Rainbow Acres Farm, said unpasteurized milk is unsafe and it was exercising its due authority to stop sales of the milk from one state to another.
Adding to Mr. Allgyer's troubles, Judge Lawrence F. Stengel said that if the farmer is found to violate the law again, he will have to pay the FDA's costs for investigating and prosecuting him.
His customers are wary of talking publicly, fearing the FDA will come after them.
"I can't believe in 2012 the federal government is raiding Amish farmers at gunpoint all over a basic human right to eat natural food," said one of them, who asked not to be named but received weekly shipments of eggs, milk, honey and butter from Rainbow Acres, a farm near Lancaster, Pa. "In Maryland, they force taxpayers to pay for abortions, but God forbid we want the same milk our grandparents drank."
The FDA, though, said the judge made the right call in halting Mr. Allgyer's cross-border sales.
"Intrastate sale of raw milk is allowed in Pennsylvania, and Mr. Allgyer had previously received a warning letter advising him that interstate sale of raw milk for human consumption is illegal," agency spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey said.
Neither the FDA nor the Justice Department, which pursued the legal case, provided numbers to The Washington Times on the cost of the investigation and court fight.
Fans of fresh milk, which they also call raw milk, attribute all kinds of health benefits to it, including better teeth and stronger immune systems. Raw milk is particularly popular among parents who want it for their children.
In a unique twist, the movement unites people on the left and the right who argue that the federal government has no business controlling what people choose to consume.
In a rally last year, they drank fresh milk in a park across Constitution Avenue from the Senate.
But the FDA says it concluded, after extensive study along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that raw milk is never safer than pasteurized milk. It disputes those who say pasteurization - the process of heating food to kill harmful organisms - makes it less healthy.
Many food-safety researchers say pasteurization, which became widespread in the 1920s and 1930s, dramatically reduced instances of milk-transmitted diseases such as typhoid fever and diphtheria.
The FDA began looking into Mr. Allgyer's operations in late 2009, when an investigator in the agency's Baltimore office used aliases to sign up for a Yahoo user group made up of Rainbow Acres customers.
The investigator placed orders for fresh milk and had it delivered to private residences in Maryland, where it was picked up and documented as evidence in the case. By crossing state lines, the milk became part of interstate commerce and thus subject to the FDA's ban.
At one point, FDA employees made a 5 a.m. visit to Mr. Allgyer's farm. He turned them away, but not before they observed milk containers labeled for shipment to Maryland.
After the FDA first took action, Mr. Allgyer changed his business model. He arranged to sell shares in the cows to his customers, arguing that they owned the milk and he was only transferring it to them.
Judge Stengel called that deal "merely a subterfuge."
"The practical result of the arrangement is that consumers pay money to Mr. Allgyer and receive raw milk," the judge wrote in a 13-page opinion.
Grassfed On the Hill Buying Club has about 500 active members.
Liz Reitzig, a mother who has become a raw-milk activist and is an organizer of the group, said the lawyers who pursued the case against Mr. Allgyer ought to "be ashamed."
"Many families are dependent on the milk for health reasons or nutritional needs, so a lot of people will be desperately trying to find another source now," she said.
Dear Readers, As a mommie of 7 and grandmommie of (soon to be) 7 precious little ones, I am very angry. Now it's very personal and I will not rest until our rights to be left alone are respected. Notice that then Sen. Obama was in favor of creating a national DNA database, and it was GW Bush that signed this Orwellian behemoth into being. If that doesn't prove that there is not much difference between Dems and Reps, then I don't know what will prove it to WTP. Stop voting for guys of the same ilk! Please do your homework and look at how they vote and what legislation they have affixed their signatures. Actions speak louder than words! But on the other hand, I personally think elections are rigged with the electronic voting machines. Check out Bev Harris' website: http://www.blackboxvoting.org . Bless us Lord! Dona Witmer
Collecting and storing every newborn's blood violates Genetic Privacy Act.
In a long running case, a Supreme Court has ruled to limit the use of blood samples collected from newborns by the government. The case has exposed the fact that there is an ongoing semi-covert movement by state and federal governments to claim ownership of every newborn baby's DNA for the purpose of genetic research without the consent of individual citizens.
The Minnesota Court ruled Wednesday that the Minnesota Department of Health is violating the law in storing, using and disseminating newborn screening test results and newborn DNA. Overruling a lower court's decision, the state Supreme Court found that the samples are "Genetic Information" under the State Genetic Privacy Act, and held that "unless otherwise provided, the Department must have written informed consent to collect, use, store, or disseminate [the blood samples]."
In 2003, The Citizens' Council for Health Freedom (CCHF), formerly known as The Citizens' Council on Health Care (CCHC), discovered that The Minnesota Department of Health had been indefinitely storing the blood of newborns since the mid 1980s, and using the samples for purposes beyond the State's newborn screening program since 1997.
The state treated the activity as an "opt out" program, whereby if the parents of the newborn infant do not specifically opt out of the process, the state presumes its has "informed consent" and that the parents have opted in. Consequently, the DNA of nearly a million children is considered government property under Minnesota law. Without the knowledge or consent of the person or their parents, the government has been selling the DNA for genetic research purposes.
In 2008, state Health Department officials began seeking exemption for the so called "DNA Warehouse" from Minnesota privacy law.Essentially this would mean that eventually every person's DNA would be collected at birth, warehoused by the state in what is known as a "genomic biobank", and sold or given away to private or governmental genetic researchers, who may manipulate, alter or splice the DNA in any way they see fit. Hundreds of samples have already been used in government comissioned studies.
Such information would represent a goldmine to employers, insurance companies, medical institutions, and big pharma. Under such conditions we are faced with the prospect of a society that is literally the mirror image of the nightmarish vision outlined by Aldous Huxley in his 1932 novel Brave New World, where individuals are categorized in a social hierarchy according to their genetic traits.
In a statement, Justice Helen M. Meyer, voicing the majority opinion in this week's ruling, writes:
"The Genetic Privacy Act ... restricts the collection, use, storage, and dissemination of blood samples collected pursuant to the newborn screening statutes... "The newborn screening statutes provide an express exception to the Genetic Privacy Act only to the extent that the Department is authorized to administer newborn screening by testing the samples for heritable and congenital disorders, recording and reporting those test results, maintaining a registry of positive cases for the purpose of follow-up services, and storing those test results as required by federal law."
The case was brought by 9-families who sued the Minnesota Department of Health for violation of the state genetic privacy law. The following video shows the oral argument brought before the court back in March and breaks down the issue in much more detail:
In a press release concerning the court ruling, Twila Brase, president of CCHF writes:
"We are cheered by this good news, says. "When our organization discovered the state health department's Baby DNA warehouse in 2003 and the use of newborn DNA for genetic research without parent consent, we determined to do all that we could to stop this practice. No state law expressly permits these activities." "We are pleased that these nine families were willing to sue the State of Minnesota," adds Brase. "Their action and this decision now secures the genetic privacy rights and informed written consent rights of all Minnesota parents and newborn citizens."
Ms. Brase has been warning of the ongoing move for a a number of years. In January 2007 she issued a written testimony to the Minnesota legislature on the unethical and hidden uses of harvested DNA by the state. Watch Twila Brase explain the possible consequences of the pending DNA profiling legislation:
Though the Minnesota case has received recent public attention, such DNA harvesting is not restricted to that state and is being undertaken nationwide.
The National Conference of State Legislatures lists for all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia,the various statutes or regulatory provisions under which newborns' DNA is being collected. DNA of newborns has been harvested, tested, stored and experimented with by all 50 states. In addition, all 50 states are now routinely providing these results to the Department of Homeland Security.
In April 2008, President Bush signed into law a bill which formerly announced the process that the federal government has been engaged in for years, screening the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. within six months of birth.
Described as a "national contingency plan" the justification for the law S. 1858, known as The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007, is that it represents preparation for any sort of "public health emergency." The bill states that the federal government should "continue to carry out, coordinate, and expand research in newborn screening" and "maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening... ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the internet and is updated at least quarterly".
Sections of the bill also make it clear that DNA may be used in genetic experiments and tests, both by the government and by researchers chosen to handle the DNA samples and the information that goes with them. Read the full bill here.
Many have described the law as the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database, like the one in the UK. In 2006 and 2007, then Senator Obama filed legislation that would create a national DNA database. The same bill was filed by Sen. Patrick Kennedy in 2008. The bills required parental consent, but all three died in the Senate.
In certain states, authorities are required to destroy a child's DNA sample if a parent demands they do so. Ludicrously, parents wishing to do this must fill in a form like this one from Texas. In other states, parents have to put their request in writing, however, there is no legal requirement for states to destroy the samples. The subject made national headlines last year as CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent probed the issue:
The practice of taking DNA from all newborns is not limited to the U.S. In the UK, a similar DNA harvesting program was rejected in 2005 by The Human Genetics Commission, who cited cost and ethical problems in a report to government ministers. However, DNA profiling of all newborn babies has since been called for by lawmakers and senior police officers.
The retention of newborn screening cards has also caused controversy in Australia and New Zealand where the DNA has been used by police to help to solve crimes. A sample in New Zealand was used to identify the father of a dead child against the wishes of the mother. There is no doubt that the practice is in operation all over the developed world.
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruling is a small victory on this issue. However, unless this practice is further exposed, publicized, and taken to courts across the country, and indeed the world, we could find ourselves sleepwalking towards the basis for a new eugenics movement, the practice of "perfecting" the human race through genetic manipulation, previously endorsed by Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, and toyed with by the likes of Adolf Hitler.
Dear Readers, Twenty years ago, during my last pregnancy, I learned that PA was routinely testing pregnant women for HIV without their consent. The results were not disclosed to these women but from my understanding, was for statistical purposes only. As far as I can ascertain, the routine collection of blood from newborns (blood drops on a card about the size of a postcard) is sent to the state's Department of Health for analysis of genetic health problems. These cards are supposed to be destroyed once the purpose is fulfilled. Through my many years of research, I have come to the conclusion that we are lab rats to be experimented upon by the powers that be. I encourage you to check out some of my other posts and to do your own research. I'm going to be posting a series of these articles for your careful review. I urge you to contact your elected representatives to support a Genetic Privacy Act. As it was in the days of Noah . . . Blessings, Dona Witmer
Minnesota Newborn Screening Program Keeps Minors' DNA for Testing, Etc.
A class action comprised of parents of newborns in Minnesota is suing the state, its Department of Health, and its commissioner, claiming that they have violated the state's Genetic Privacy Act, which took effect in 2006. The Act was designed to protect the genetic privacy rights of all people living within the state, including newborns.
The complaint alleges that within 5 days of each of the minor plaintiff's birth, in accordance with the state's 'Newborn Screening' program, the defendants "took blood from each minor plaintiff, which contains the genetic information of the minor plaintiff," as they similarly collect samples of genetic information from all of the babies born in Minnesota.
Then, however, after testing the samples for genetic abnormalities, rather than destroying the samples, the defendants stored them and, "disseminated the genetic information, and conducted tests and research on the genetic information belonging to numerous other persons in Minnesota."
"The Genetic Privacy Act states that genetic information may be used only for the purposes for which an individual has given written and informed consent, may be stored only for the period of time that the individual has given written informed consent, and may not be disseminated without an individual's written informed consent," according to the complaint.
It will be interesting to see whether this case ends up eventually going to trial, or the state enters into some sort of settlement agreement. Of course, the collection of blood from newborns for these screening programs is not reserved to the state of Minnesota, it is merely one of the few states that actually has a protective law in place.
Reality of Genetic Protection Laws
I find this case particularly interesting because I recently read a book, called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is a true story about a woman whose cells were used to create a cell line that was so expansive it was the go to material for any sort of genetic testing, whether for testing the affects of diseases, creating immunizations, or testing medications. Yet, Henrietta had never even given consent for the cells to be used in any sort of research, she was merely seeking treatment for cervical cancer.
In fact, the book details, there really isn't any sort of comprehensive legislative protection in place in terms of cells and DNA testing. Once you give a blood or tissue sample, eventhough you may have received test results and moved on, your samples are stored. While waves of support for protective legislation have occurred, the issue hasn't really entered into the spotlight. In fact, this lawsuit only really has a basis because the state has its own Act in place granting protections.
Dear Readers, This "agenda" has been progressing nicely for the FDA. After spending much time researching government websites, I have come to the conclusion that we are nothing but lab rats to these people. None of us own our bodies and we have been the subject of "lab rat experiments" through our foods, vaccines, water, medicines, atmospheric spraying, education, etc. Now it is official--they can regulate your cells! Blessings, Dona Witmer
". . . the latest FDA attempted power grab lies the same problem: a medical system run by special interests under the leadership of the US government, the same government that is supposed to represent "we the people."
In another outrageous power-grab, FDA says your own stem cells are drugs-and stem cell therapy is interstate commerce because it affects the bottom line of FDA-approved drugs in other states!
We wish this were a joke, but it's the US Food and Drug Administration's latest claim in its battle with a Colorado clinic over its Regenexx-SDTM procedure, a non-surgical treatment for people suffering from moderate to severe joint or bone pain using adult stem cells.
The FDA asserts in a court documentthat it has the right to regulate the Centeno-Schultz Clinic for two reasons:
Stem cells are drugs and therefore fall within their jurisdiction. (The clinic argues that stem cell therapy is the practice of medicine and is therefore notwithin the FDA's jurisdiction!)
We discussed the very ambiguous issue of interstate commerce last September-it's an argument the FDA frequently uses when the basis for their claim is otherwise lacking. As we noted then, the FDA holds that an "interstate commerce" test must be applied to all steps in a product's manufacture, packaging, and distribution. This means that if any ingredient or tool used in the procedure in question was purchased out of state, the FDA would in its view have jurisdiction, just as they would if the final product had traveled across state lines.
This time the FDA just nakedly says in court documents that the agency wants to protect the market for FDA-approved drugs. No more beating around the bush-their agenda is right out in the open! This appears to be a novel interpretation of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C), as evidenced by the government's failure to cite any judicial precedent for their argument.
Last year we ran a two-part series on the current status of federal and state law-and FDA jurisdiction-and how it affects integrative treatments (part one and part two).
The Centeno-Schultz Clinic takes your blood, puts it into a centrifuge machine that separates the stem cells, and a doctor puts them back in your body where there is damaged tissue. The clinic has argued numerous times that stem cells aren't drugs because they are components of the patient's blood from his or her own body.
The FDA says otherwise: "Stem cells, like other medical products that are intended to treat, cure, or prevent disease, generally require FDA approval before they can be marketed. At this time, there are no licensed stem cell treatments." There they go again, saying that components of your body are drugs and they have the authority to regulate them! It's the only way the agency can claim that adult stem cell therapy is within FDA's purview.
However, the agency seems to be of two minds. When ESPN magazine was doing a story on stem cell treatments, the FDA stated that US policy is to allow the injection of stem cells that are treated with "minimal manipulation," which federal regulations define as "processing that does not alter the relevant biological characteristics of cells or tissues"-which is certainly the case with the Regenexx clinic.
Despite this policy, FDA has been attacking the clinic for the past four years. They have tried injunctions and demanded inspections in their attempts to make the company bend; this court battle is merely the latest salvo.
The primary role of adult stem cells in a living organism is to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found. The hard part has been to get enough of them. But new technology is giving doctors the ability to obtain more stem cells from a patient than previously thought possible, which is why we're now seeing new treatments. Blood, fat, or tissue is withdrawn from the patient, stem cells are obtained using one of these new processes, and the cells are injected back into the patient where they can repair the patient's tissue.
Gov. Rick Perry received this kind of stem cell therapy. We and others noted that the governor's defense of freedom of healthcare choice when it came to his own treatment was starkly at odds with his directive to administer HPV vaccines to young girls against their own (and their parents') wishes. It's also at odds with his support for some of the most egregious witch-hunters on the Texas State Medical Board, which he appoints.
Behind Perry's blatant inconsistency and the latest FDA attempted power grab lies the same problem: a medical system run by special interests under the leadership of the US government, the same government that is supposed to represent "we the people."
Dear Readers, I applaud this win for WTP but it doesn't address all the other privacy violations as detailed in many of my previous posts that are detailed at the end of this post. Freedom's blessings, Dona Witmer
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must obtain a search warrant before using a GPS device to track criminal suspects. But the justices left for another day larger questions about how technology has altered a person's expectation of privacy.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the government needed a valid warrant before attaching a GPS device to the Jeep used by D.C. drug kingpin Antoine Jones, who was convicted in part because police tracked his movements on public roads for 28 days.
"We hold that the government's installation of a GPS device on a target's vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a 'search' " under the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, Scalia wrote.
All justices agreed with the outcome of the case, which affirmed a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that said evidence of Jones' s frequent trips to a stash house where drugs and nearly $1 million in cash were found must be thrown out.
The police had obtained a warrant for GPS surveillance of Jones, but it expired before they attached the device to his car.
But there was a significant split on the court about whether Monday's decision went far enough.
Scalia's majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, said the electronic surveillance, if achieved without having to physically trespass on Jones's property, may have been "an unconstitutional invasion of privacy."
But Scalia added: "The present case does not require us to answer that question."
It was that question - society's expectation of privacy in a modern world - that had animated the court's consideration of the case. In an intense hour-long oral argument last November, the Big Brother of George Orwell's novel "1984" was referenced six times.
The justices pondered a world in which satellites can zero in on an individual's house, cameras can record the faces at a crowded intersection and individuals can instantly announce their every movement to the world on Facebook. They wondered about the government placing tracking devices in overcoats or on license plates.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the decision also should have settled some of those questions instead of deciding a case about a "21st-century surveillance technique" by using "18th-century tort law."
"The court's reasoning largely disregards what is really important (the useof a GPS for the purpose of long-term tracking) and instead attaches great significance to something that most would view as relatively minor (attaching to the bottom of a car a small, light object that does not interfere in any way with the car's operation)," Alito wrote.
Alito's point was that it was the lengthy GPS surveillance of Jones itself that violated the Fourth Amendment and that "the use of longer term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy."
"For such offenses," he wrote, "society's expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not - and indeed, in the main, simply could not - secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual's car for a very long period."
The key to the court's more narrow decision on the case seemed to be Sotomayor. She praised Alito's "incisively" written concurrence but indicated it might not have gone far enough.
"People reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the court of carrying out mundane tasks," Sotomayor wrote. Perhaps people come to see a "diminution of privacy" as inevitable, Sotomayor said.
"I for one doubt that people would accept without complaint the warrantless disclosure to the government of a list of every Web site they had visited in the last week, or month, or year."
But, she said, "resolution of these difficult questions" is unnecessary because she agreed with the majority that the government's "physical intrusion on Jones' Jeep" supplies a narrower avenue to decide the case.
By using scanners such as the Terahertz Imagining detectors, however, New Yorkers will be forced to endure more than just an unknown number of eyes prying under their clothes. The consequences could be biologically catastrophic, with the scanning technique tied to problems with the human body's ability to operate. According to MIT's Technology Review, the THz waves used by the scanners "unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication."
New York City's war on freedom could be adding a new weapon to its arsenal, especially if NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has his say.
The head of the New York Police Department is working with the Pentagon to secure body scanners to be used throughout the Big Apple.
If Kelly gets his wish, the city will be receiving a whole slew of Terahertz Imagining Detection scanners, a high-tech radiation detector that measures the energy that is emitted from a persons' body. As CBS News reports, "It measures the energy radiating from a body up to 16 feet away, and can detect anything blocking it, like a gun."
What it can also do, however, is allow the NYPD to conduct illegal searches by means of scanning anyone walking the streets of New York. Any object on your person could be privy to the eyes of the detector, and any suspicious screens can prompt police officers to search someone on suspicion of having a gun, or anything else under their clothes.
According to Commissioner Kelly, the scanners would only be used in "reasonably suspicious circumstances," but what constitutes "suspicious" in the eyes of the NYPD could greatly differ from what the 8 million residents of the five boroughs have in mind.
The American Civil Liberties Union has already questioned the NYPD over what they say is an unnecessary precaution that raises more issues than it solves.
"It's worrisome. It implicates privacy, the right to walk down the street without being subjected to a virtual pat-down by the Police Department when you're doing nothing wrong,"Donna Lieberman of the NYCLU says to CBS.
The scanners also raise the question of whether such searches would even be legal under the US Constitution. Under the Fourth Amendment, Americans are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures. Does scoping out what's on someone's person fall under the same category as a hands-on frisk, though?
To the NYPD, it might not matter. In the first quarter of 2011, more than 161,000 innocent New Yorkers were stopped and interrogated on the streets of the city. Figures released by the NYPD in May of last year revealed that of the over 180,000 stop-and-frisk encounters reported by the police department, 88 percent of them ended in neither an arrest nor a summons, leading many to assume that New York cops are already going above and beyond the law by searching seemingly anyone they chose.Additionally, of those 161,000-plus victims, around 84 percent were either black or Latino. At the time, the ACLU's Lieberman wrote, "The NYPD is turning black and brown neighborhoods across New York City into Constitution-free zones."
Given the alarming statistics, many already feel that officers within the ranks of the NYPD are overzealous with their monitoring of New Yorkers, regularly stopping them for unknown suspicions that nearly nine-out-of-ten times prove false. With the installation of the Terahertz Imagining Detection scanners though, those invasive physical searches wouldn't just be replaced with a touchless, more intrusive monitoring, but will only allow New Yorkers one more reason to fear walking the streets.
"If they search you, you're not giving consent, so they can do what they want, meaning they can use that as an excuse to search you for other means. I don't think that's constitutional at all," New Yorker Devan Thomas tells CBS.
"There are a lot of cameras already here, so as people walk they're being filmed. And most of the time they don't know it,"adds Jennifer Bailly.
A lot is somewhat of an understatement. In Manhattan alone there are over 2,000 surveillance cameras, public and private, aimed at every passerby.That number is the same as the tally of both McDonalds and Starbucks on the island, combined, multiplied by a factor of eight.
CBS News adds that the plan puts the NYPD in direct cooperation with the Department of Defense, who is working on testing the scanners to find a way to bring them to the streets. Such a joint effort opens up questions about other endeavors the Pentagon could have planned out with the NYPD in the past, and certainly doesn't mark the first time that New York's boys in blue have worked hand-in-hand with federal agencies. Last year a report surfaced linking the NYPD to the CIA, as documents became available showing a connection between the local police department and government spies installing secret agents into Muslim majority communities in New York.
By using scanners such as the Terahertz Imagining detectors, however, New Yorkers will be forced to endure more than just an unknown number of eyes prying under their clothes. The consequences could be biologically catastrophic, with the scanning technique tied to problems with the human body's ability to operate. According to MIT's Technology Review, the THz waves used by the scanners "unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication."
Dear Readers, I started my volunteer career in a crises pregnancy center called Birthright soon after the 1972 Supreme Court decision that allowed abortion on demand. I remember reading the decision and for the life of me couldn't follow their illogical reasoning. Basically this is my understanding of their decision, we don't know when life begins, therefore, we can't protect it. I looked at the Declaration of Independence and could not reconcile that decision with:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
I am so happy to see a chink in the armour of illogical reasoning. The Truth will set you free my friends! "Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; embrace truth and choose life, so that you and your descendants may live." Dt. 11:26 & Dt. 30:19
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas gave good reason for celebration for the hundreds of thousands who will arrive in Washington Monday for the 39th annual March for Life.
The Court upheld last week the constitutionality of a new law in Texas requiring that abortion providers provide ultrasound exams and that women listen to the physician's description of her unborn child and to the heartbeat before deciding to abort.
The law, signed by Gov. Rick Perry in May, was blocked by a federal district court in August, which argued that the law impinged on free-speech rights of abortion providers.
Now Texas may become not just the nation's largest creator of jobs, but the nation's best protector of human life.
Ultrasound images of unborn children are turning the abortion game around, and it is why abortion providers and organizations such as Planned Parenthood that promote the barbarous abortion regime are so on edge about it.
There is a wide range of estimates on the percentages of woman who intended to abort that change their mind after seeing an ultrasound image of their child, but all these estimates show they have a major impact.
My own anecdotal surveys from crisis pregnancy centers around the country that I work with indicate anywhere from 62 to 95 percent of women who intended to abort change their mind after seeing these images.
Focus on the Family reports that 84 percent do. Focus on the Family also operates a generous program called Operation Ultrasound through which they provide ultrasound equipment and training to crisis pregnancy centers that apply.
According to Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is challenging the Texas law, "If this decision stands, it opens the floodgates for other states to insert themselves in an inappropriate way between doctors and women seeking medical care."
What can you possibly conclude from a movement that labels itself "pro-choice" that opposes ensuring that women who make a decision as serious and grave as abortion have as much vital information as possible before making that choice?
Good information is the oxygen that enables good decision making.
The answer to the question is that the movement that labels itself "pro-choice" is not about promoting choice at all. It is about promoting abortion.
It is why the so called "pro-choice" movement opposes efforts to better provide women - disproportionately young, poor, minority women - with information that raises their awareness and understanding of what they are doing.
We might recall the impact television images had after Hurricane Katrina when the reality of poverty in America suddenly was out there for all to see. No one could turn their eyes from this ugly and unpleasant truth.
Including our politicians. Our nation's capital has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation. Any member of Congress can see it by just walking a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol Building. But suddenly, when the images were on national television, the politicians were out there pontificating.
An ultrasound image of an unborn child is the same type of media event. Suddenly the mother-to-be sees what she didn't know or perhaps knew and wanted to avoid confronting. That she is the bearer of human life and that she is close to murdering that very life she chose to help create.
According to Americans United for Life, 460 pieces of legislation were considered in state legislatures around the nation last year.
The forces promoting ignorance are losing and light is shining through.
It is reason for optimism that increasingly more Americans are grasping that for a free country to function, we need informed and responsible citizens.
We need appreciation that our choices matter. And that the most important choice, as we learn in Deuteronomy, is to choose life.
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