The Collapse of Industrial Farming

BY ROBERT HUNZIKER   

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Photograph Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture – CC BY 2.0

The most upending event of the past 10,000 years is the advent of engineered food as fermentation farms displace factory farms. “We are on the Cusp of the Fastest, Deepest, Most Consequential Disruption of Agriculture in History.” (RethinkX.com)

“Modern foods will bankrupt the cattle industry within a decade.” (RethinkX)

More on that to follow, but first: Industrial farming, alongside global warming, ranks at the top of the list of existential risks this century. And, similar to the dangers attendant to excessive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, industrial farming is dangerously out of control, but in contrast to global warming, it is not followed at all by corporate media, begging the Orwellian question whether media other than corporate media truly exist?

All of which serves to highlight George Orwell’s concerns as expressed in his famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (Secker & Warburg Publishers, 1949) wherein he explained the primary consequences of “media manipulation” described as: (a) “loss of a critical thinking faculty” and (b) “diminished capacity for self-expression.”

More than 70 years post-Orwellian, his words ring true as corporate media skims over the tragic news of a world in such a dangerous state that only the collapse of industrial agriculture itself, along with cutting GHG emissions, can help to stop the pronounced ongoing collapse of ecosystems throughout the world, especially evident at the extreme latitudes, north and south.

According to Forest Trends, as of 2021, clear-cutting of forests for commercial agriculture purposes, principally for beef and soy production, within the past couple of years increased by a rip-snorting +50%, mostly illegal, to 27 million acres a year. (Source: Trees Fell Faster in the Years Since Companies and Governments Promised to Stop Cutting Them Down, Inside Climate News, May 19, 2021).

That huge acceleration of clear-cutting follows in the footsteps of the New York Declaration on Forests signed in 2014 by 200 endorsers to cut deforestation in half by 2020 (ahem!) and stop it altogether by 2030 (lol).

Industrial farming is destroying the planet’s resources with clear-cutting as well as spewing tons upon tons of toxic chemicals that subtly destroy major ecosystems throughout the world, including wetlands, floral meadowlands, and precious farmland as toxic chemicals turn rich black soils into useless dirt.

The Center for Biodiversity and the World Animal Protection-US orgs in February of 2022 released a major report “Collateral Damage” documenting the deadly harm of toxic chemicals used by factory farms. Clearly, humans are poisoning the planet, and in a mind-blowing “tip of the hat” to Orwell’s prognosis about human dullness, it is legal! Yes, poisoning the planet is legal! Which suggest that Orwell’s concern about “loss of a critical thinking faculty” is understated.

That amazing fact is underscored by the frightening knowledge that within only a few decades industrial farming, assuming it can be called “farming,” displaced thousands of years of family farming that husbanded nature, displaced by rapacious corporate models of stern-minded profit-oriented callous mass slaughter to satisfy the gluttonous fast-food craze that’s unique to the decadent 21^st century.

This sudden emergence of CAFOs or concentrated animal feed operations is so gruesome and so powerful and so outlandishly disparate from traditional family farming that only a fantasy comparison can approximate its oddity via the passing of a magical wand that morphs Tinker Bell into Hannibal Lecter.

On the other hand, a turning point may be at hand. Factory farming is about to be disrupted via better foods, tastier foods, cheaper foods, healthier foods, and a much healthier environment. That future, sans institutional slaughterhouses and sans widespread use of chemicals and the end of clear-cutting has been theorized in detail by the independent think tank RethinkX.

The not-so-secret formula to better, tastier, cheaper, healthier, more prevalent food is the production of microorganisms. Already over past centuries humanity has shown the value of controlling microorganisms through fermentation, producing bread, cheese, alcohol, as well as preserving fruit and vegetables.

“Moving food production to the molecular level promises a more efficient means of feeding ourselves and the delivery of superior, cleaner nutrients without the unhealthy chemical/antibiotic/insecticide additives required by current industrial means of production.” (RethinkX)

The capability to create foods with exact attributes of nutrition, structure, taste, and texture is advancing whereby ordering food will be similar to installing software on your phone but via databases of engineered molecules, as fermentation farms displace factory farms.

Impossible Foods is an example that utilizes fermented (heme) to create a higher-performing product. (Source: A Rainbow of Opportunity: How Fermentation Biotech is Creating “Agricultural 2.0”, Food Navigator, March 25, 2021)

According to RethinkX: “By 2035, 60% of the area currently allocated to livestock and food production will be freed for other uses. This is enough land that if it were dedicated to the planting of trees for carbon sequestration, it could completely offset U.S. greenhouse emissions.”

Moreover, it is anticipated that rapid uptake of engineered foods means water consumption for cattle will drop by 50% within a decade. And destruction of rainforests for cattle-raising and soy oil production will plummet.

And most importantly for human health concerns, toxic chemicals will be unnecessary. The current industrial food supply chain, from A to Z, is loaded with chemicals. For starters, pesticides used to grow food and livestock end up in human bodies one way or another, and in high enough concentrations proven to influence cancers, brain, nerve, genetic and hormonal disorders, kidney and liver damage, asthma and allergies. (Source: Julian Cribb: Earth Detox, Cambridge University Press, August 2021)

In addition to pesticides, some 3,000 chemical ingredients added to food are permitted by the FDA to enhance freshness, taste, and texture. Preservatives, for example, which extend shelf life, are chemicals that poison the bacteria and moulds that cause food to rot: “Common chemical preservatives such as sodium nitrate and nitrite, sulphites, sulphur dioxide, sodium benzoate, parabens, formaldehyde and antioxidant preservatives, if over-consumed in the modern processed food diet, may also lead to cancers, heart disease, allergies, digestive, lung, kidney and other diseases and constitute a further reason for avoiding or reducing one’s intake of industrial food.” (Earth Detox, pg 70)

Two hundred million (200,000,000) or more than 50% of Americans have at least one chronic disease. (Rand Corporation, 2017) Prompting the query, what causes chronic disease? Answer: Mainstream medical sites blames tobacco, secondhand smoke, poor nutrition, alcohol and lack of exercise, sinful-related stuff. Yet, there are several books and science papers published that point the finger at toxic chemicals in our environment as the cause of chronic diseases. Here’s one recent publication: Stephanie Seneff, PhD: Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate Is Destroying Our Health and the Environment, Chelsea Green Publishing, London, UK, 2021)

“Interestingly enough, Europe only permits the use of 400 out of the 3000 food additives permitted in the US (ed.- the EU has only one-half the US rate of chronic diseases). Essentially, Europe has banned 4/5ths of the chemicals allowed in the US food chain. Europe outlaws any chemicals that do not meet its criteria for ‘non-harm to humans or the environment.” (Earth Detox, pg. 73)

The Center for Biological Diversity in conjunction with World Animal Protection-US report Collateral Damage (February 4, 2022) studied the impact of an estimated 235 million pounds annually of herbicides and insecticides applied to feed crops for factory farms. The chemicals are applied to corn and soybeans for farmed animal feed in the US. Roughly 50% of toxic pesticide use on a global basis is for corn and soy for factory farms… hundreds of millions of pounds of chemicals are applied to corn and soy crops as pesticides in the US.

If only two out of the thousands of toxic chemicals could be eliminated, i.e., glyphosate (herbicide) and atrazine (pesticide); it would be a major health benefit to complex life and ecosystems.

Glyphosate, the king of toxic chemicals, is the most widely used herbicide worldwide. Already 13,000 lawsuits have been filed claiming it causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. WHO claims it is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Atrazine is one of the most widely used pesticides, especially in the US. To date, thirty-five (35) countries have banned its use, including the EU because of persistent groundwater contamination and dangerous levels of toxicity.

“Atrazine is a potent endocrine disruptor and is linked to a variety of human health issues, including different types of cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and harm to the reproductive system. After just six hours of exposure an increase in cell death and DNA damage were observed. The same level of damage from exposure to Gamma radiation would take a full 15 minutes. Atrazine also alters the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain and decreases the electrical activity of certain cells in the cerebellum (the region of the brain that controls motor function). As an endocrine disruptor it can interfere with the balance of hormones in the body, significantly impacting overall physiology and development.” (Source: Collateral Damage: How Factory Farming Drives Up the Use of Toxic Agricultural Pesticides by World Animal Protection, New York, NY, February 2022).

It’s not at all surprising that 35 countries, including the EU, banned atrazine. But, it’s enormously popular in the US.

Time after time, the brilliance of Orwell’s mass media prognosis of “loss of a critical thinking faculty” shows up on the shores of the United States.

It’s probably a good idea to reread Nineteen Eighty-Four:

“IT WAS a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind… at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week… On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.” (1984, pg. 1)

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

DeSantis blasted for 'Orwellian' vaccine investigation

Alexander Nazaryan
·Senior White House Correspondent
Thu, December 15, 2022 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a news conference in Miami on Dec. 1. 

(Ronen Tivony/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire)

One day after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a push to investigate alleged harms caused by coronavirus vaccines, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, criticized the move as a pointless exercise that would only undermine public confidence in efforts to boost and maintain protection against the circulating pathogen.

“We have a vaccine that, unequivocally, is highly effective and safe and has saved literally millions of lives,” Fauci said Wednesday on CNN. “What’s the problem with vaccines?”

The problem is vaccines have become part of America’s polarized politics. Since the advent of COVID-19 vaccines late in the Trump administration, skepticism of the established medical science has become a kind of creed for many conservatives, as well as for some on the far left. Political disagreements about lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccine requirements have hardened into antipathy toward the vaccines themselves.


Seizing on rare adverse side effects and diminishing effectiveness — the result of new variants and low booster uptake — vaccine critics have dismissed inoculation as ineffective and potentially dangerous.

Some have also embraced outlandish conspiracy theories about vaccines as a form of government and corporate control.

Anti-vaccination activists at a rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in January. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

During a pandemic-related hearing in the House, Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland progressive, called the proposed grand jury an “Orwellian” development. “These actions are transparently designed to falsely suggest that coronavirus vaccines, and not the coronavirus itself, are dangerous,” he said Wednesday.

Widely expected to seek the Republican nomination in 2024, DeSantis played open to those concerns on Tuesday, when he announced that he would call for Florida's Supreme Court to empanel a grand jury “to investigate crimes and wrongdoing committed against Floridians related to the COVID-19 vaccine.” He is also seeking “further surveillance into sudden deaths of individuals that received the COVID-19 vaccine in Florida.”

Such deaths are rare, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose vaccine surveillance statistics indicate that 17,868 people — or 0.0027% of vaccine recipients — died after their shots. But those reports unquestionably include thousands of deaths that happened after vaccination but had nothing to do with the vaccines themselves.

Vaccine skeptics have often used reports of supposed side effects — such as those to a vaccine database that does not require confirmation — to exaggerate supposed dangers. And such critics invariably downplay the fact that vaccines are exceptionally effective at stopping serious and critical COVID-19 illness, which has killed more than 6.6 million people globally.

A health care worker administers a COVID-19 vaccine 

at a drive-through site in Miami in December of last year. 

(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

And with online misinformation and partisan politics exercising strong pressures on the American public, vaccine fears have been easily exploited, leading to low uptake among Republicans. As a consequence, heavily Republican areas have had higher death rates than Democratic ones.

In Florida, more than 83,000 people have died from COVID-19, and cases there have been rising recently. DeSantis, who has decried what he describes as “Faucism” (the echoes of “fascism” are difficult to miss), downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic from the start, though he has also been credited for opening schools and other businesses well before Democratic counterparts, some of whom remained in a cautious crouch well into 2021.

Earlier this year, DeSantis clashed with former President Donald Trump for supporting vaccination, refusing to say whether he received a booster shot; Trump shot back by calling DeSantis “gutless.”

DeSantis has also regularly attacked Fauci in personal terms. “Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac,” he said earlier this year of Fauci, who has been the face of the pandemic for both the Trump and Biden administrations. (He was eventually sidelined by the former in favor of experts closer in line with DeSantis’s views.)

In late 2021, DeSantis hired Dr. Joseph Ladapo as Florida’s surgeon general. Ladapo has had no experience with infectious diseases and has routinely attacked vaccination and masking. “With these new actions, we will shed light on the forces that have obscured truthful communication about the COVID-19 vaccines,” Ladapo said after Tuesday’s event.

Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, 

with Gov. Ron DeSantis looking on, in Brandon, Fla., 

in November 2021. (Chris O'Meara/AP)

The announcement by DeSantis comes days after new Twitter owner Elon Musk attacked Fauci on Twitter, calling for his prosecution. A supporter of DeSantis, Musk has argued that prior to his ownership, Twitter executives suppressed information on the coronavirus that presumably undermined public health messaging.

Last week, he invited Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya — an outspoken critic of pandemic precautions — to Twitter’s headquarters. Bhataccharya, who has advised DeSantis in the past, will be on the governor’s new public safety committee, along with Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard (a co-author, with Bhatacharrya, of the pro-reopening Great Barrington Declaration) and Bret Weinstein, a quasi-celebrity on the so-called Intellectual Dark Web with no professional experience in vaccinology.

“I’m not sure what they’re trying to do down there,” Fauci said in the Wednesday CNN interview. Though he is about to retire after four decades of federal service, he is likely to face calls to testify from House Republicans, who continue to accuse him of making misleading statements on masks, vaccines and the origins of the coronavirus.

As his retirement has approached, Fauci has been increasingly vocal and defiant about the challenges revealed by the nation’s faltering coronavirus response, which has left more than a million people dead in the U.S.

In a New York Times essay, Fauci lamented the role “disinformation and political ideology” have played in sowing doubt about masks, vaccines and other measures.

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Dec. 9 during a virtual event to urge 

Americans to get vaccinated ahead of the holiday season.

(Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

AUSTRALIA

'Orwellian': Coalition accused of planning to open green bank to fossil fuel investments

Angus Taylor introduces bill to give Clean Energy Finance Corporation $1bn for ‘grid reliability fund’

Angus Taylor flanked by Scott Morrison at a Snowy 2.0 press conference. The CEFC’s definition of low-emissions technology would be expanded to include gas under a bill the minister has brought before parliament. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Adam Morton Environment editor
THE GUARDIAN
Fri 28 Aug 2020

The Morrison government has been accused of planning to open up the taxpayer-owned green bank to fossil fuels investments through a change that explicitly defines gas-fired power as a “low-emissions technology”.

The energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, introduced legislation to parliament on Thursday that would give the Clean Energy Finance Corporation an additional $1bn funding for a “grid reliability fund”.

Taylor said the new fund would be used to encourage private investment in infrastructure needed to balance electricity generation from solar and windfarms – battery and pumped hydro storage, “dispatchable” power plants that can be ramped up as needed, transmission projects and technologies that stabilise the grid.


Methane released in gas production means Australia's emissions may be 10% higher than reported
Read more

It would also allow the CEFC to administer a long-promised underwriting program for new electricity generation announced before last year’s federal election. The government has released a shortlist of 12 projects being considered for support through the controversial program – six renewable energy, five gas and one coal.

Under Taylor’s proposed legislative changes, the CEFC’s definition of low-emissions technology would be expanded to include any projects that “support the achievement of low emission energy in Australia”. An explanatory memorandum says this could include “certain types of gas-fired electricity generation” but coal would not qualify.

The bill would exempt the grid reliability fund from a CEFC requirement that at least 50% of funding must go to renewable energy. The fund would also be freed of a rule that individual CEFC investments have to deliver a return for taxpayers, though it would need to overall.

Taylor told parliament: “To ensure we can continue to be a world leader, we must back more grid reliability investments, such as flexible gas generators or significant pumped hydro projects.”

The Australian Energy Market Operator last month found additional gas-fired power was an option, but not essential, for an electricity grid increasingly based on renewable energy, and gas prices would need to stay at lower levels than expected if it was to compete with pumped hydro, batteries and other alternatives.


Australia's chief scientist rejects experts' letter warning him not to back gas

Labor’s climate and energy spokesman, Mark Butler, said the opposition was yet to form a view on the proposal but criticised the government for previously trying to abolish the CEFC.

“Labor established the CEFC, we have consistently protected the integrity of the CEFC as a renewable energy financing body, and we will continue to do so,” he said.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said the proposal to define gas as low emissions was “Orwellian”.

“This is nothing more than a shameless attempt to bankroll gas corporations with public money meant for renewables,” he said. “The Greens are calling on Labor to join us in the fight against a gas-loving government that is hurtling us towards climate catastrophe.”

The CEFC was created in 2012 under a deal between Labor, the Greens and independents with a mandate to invest in renewable energy, low-emissions technology and energy-efficiency projects that would deliver a return.

Introducing the legislation to create it in 2012, the then climate change minister, Greg Combet, said gas may “technically be eligible for funding as a low-emissions technology” but was not expected to win backing as it had a track record in getting financed.

Gas is often described as having about half the emissions of coal but studies have suggested this could be more due to leakage of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas. In addition to being burned to create electricity, gas is used as a feedstock in some manufacturing industries.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, this week told parliament that expanding gas supply was critical to Australia’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. His handpicked National Covid-19 Coordinating Commission has recommended the government underwrite new gas infrastructure.


Large-scale renewable energy investment in Australia falls to lowest level since 2017
Richie Mezian, the climate and energy program director at the Australia Institute, said the proposed amendments would transform the CEFC “from an explicitly profit-making investor of renewable energy projects for the Australia to a potentially loss-making underwriter of fossil fuel projects”.

He said investment in renewable energy was falling dramatically and the government should be doubling down on its mandate to support it. “How the government will justify its amendments that ensure CEFC is no longer obligated to fund at least 50% of its projects from renewable energy is beyond me,” he said.

Jonathan Moylan, a Greenpeace campaigner, accused the government of trying to give gas an unfair competitive advantage over batteries and renewable energy, despite them being cheaper. “Instead of making money from fossil fuels, the government is seriously considering handing them public money and not expecting anything in return,” he said.

Beijing reveals its Orwellian plan to shackle Hong Kong, but can they kill an idea?

by STEPHEN VINES 22ND MAY 2020 HKFP

Beijing did not send in the tanks to crush Hong Kong’s protests. Instead, it mobilised its grey men (and a few women) in the capital to put down the revolt excruciating-step-by-excruciating-step. All with a weaponised law that threatens to make protest illegal and will bring the Orwellian prospect of thought crimes to the SAR.

The names of the Hong Kong Quislings who gathered in the capital to cheer on the death of One Country Two Systems will live in infamy. When Hong Kong is freed from the shackles, as it will be, they will go down in history as the Wang Jingweis of the second decade of the 21st century. Like Wang, who headed the Japanese puppet government of occupied China, they will be reviled for their betrayal.

Police surrounded student protests at the Civic Square on September 27, 2014. File Photo: Occupy Central with Love and Peace.

The hard, unflinching face of the Chinese Communist Party has now been revealed without the smallest attempt at disguise. The idea of Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong has been swept away while Chief Quisling Carrie Lam stood there blinking and applauding.

The high degree of autonomy that was consistently promised has also been flicked aside as so much dust lingering on the sleeves of the Beijing Mandarins.

The Party knows that this move to crush Hong Kong will not come without cost but, as ever, it believes that no price is too high to pay for exerting control and exacting obedience.

Before the Quislings even get to “vote” on the new national security law at the rubber-stamp National People’s Congress, the usual suspects have been lining up to airily proclaim that although there will inevitably be protests and widespread international condemnation, it is far better to bring matters to a head, suffer some short term pain before clamping down and extinguishing the flame of liberty.

File photo: Lukas Messmer/HKFP.

Look what happened after the Tiananmen Square massacre, they say. Sure, China went into diplomatic deep freeze, the economy took a bashing and yes, there was blood but, they add, we bounced back.

The memory of foreigners is short, the blood can be washed away and the mighty engine which fires the economy was fired up to produce even more spectacular results.

However the world has changed since 1989. China has propelled itself far higher up the international agenda, attracting fear and admiration in unequal ways. Fear has now triumphed over admiration as nations throughout the world reassess their relationship with the PRC and start seeing it as more of an enemy than a friend.

The implications for this are not merely political, it will also impact an economy highly dependent on exports

.

File Photo: May James/HKFP.

It is fair to say that even China’s most implacable opponents would not, in the last analysis, risk their own interests for those of the people of Hong Kong. But they are more than prepared to add this latest attack on liberty to the list of reasons why they need to stand up to Beijing.

Meanwhile, three decades on from the Tiananmen massacre, much has changed in Hong Kong itself. Indeed it can be argued that Hongkongers’ response to this event gave birth to the mass protest movement that, despite enormous setbacks, has stubbornly refused to go away. On the contrary, it has grown bigger and stronger.

Popular support for the democracy movement is at an all-time high. That support is even more tenacious among the younger generation, proudly identifying as Hongkongers and not even slightly convinced by the barrage of propaganda telling them that the best way to survive is to shut up and accept their fate.

Armed with fearsome powers under the new national security legislation, the state will not hesitate to mount a crackdown on dissent. It will be brutal and could well cow the people to an extent that they dare not venture out to defy the government.Tiananmen Massacre Vigil, Victoria Park 2019. Photo: Dan Garrett.

But, is this it? Is this the end?

Channelling the great American civil rights leader Medgar Evers, the slain Pakistani President, Benazir Bhutto said, ‘you can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea.’

Who seriously believes that the idea of liberty can be extinguished in Hong Kong? The answer is only those who despise this place and its people.

The defenders of autocracy really believe that dictatorships are impregnable and will live forever. History tells another story which is that they are brittle and have a relatively short shelf life.

The Chinese dictatorship has lasted longer than most, even exceeding the life of its mentor, the Soviet Union.

In tiny Hong Kong, the Chinese Communist Party had a unique opportunity to show the world that it is big and strong enough to accommodate an island of freedom within its sovereign borders. But it was scared by this challenge and ended up revealing its weakness by reverting to the only means of control it knows and really trusts.

STEPHEN VINES
Stephen Vines is a Hong Kong-based journalist, writer and broadcaster and runs companies in the food sector. He was the founding editor of 'Eastern Express' and founding publisher of 'Spike'. In London he was an editor at The Observer and in Asia has worked for international publications including, the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, BBC, Asia Times and The Independent. Vines is the author of several books, including: Hong Kong: China’s New Colony, The Years of Living Dangerously - Asia from Crisis to the New Millennium and Market Panic and most recently, Food Gurus. He hosts a weekly television current affairs programme: The Pulse. More by Stephen Vines

India's top court orders probe into Pegasus snooping

Issued on: 27/10/2021 

 JOEL SAGET AFP/File

New Delhi (AFP)

India's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered an independent investigation into the alleged government use of Pegasus spyware on journalists, opposition politicians and activists with the chief justice calling the implications "Orwellian".

India was one of 45 countries where tens of thousands of numbers were targeted by the spyware made by Israeli firm NSO, according to leaked documents released this year.

More than 1,000 of the numbers were Indian and the Supreme Court order followed petitions from individuals that the chief justice N.V. Ramana said "raise an Orwellian concern".

He added that the court had accepted the petitions because "there has been no specific denial" by the government

The state cannot be given a "free pass every time the spectre of national security is raised," the court said as it named cyber and computer science experts to look into the allegations.

Phones infected with Pegasus software, which is normally only sold to governments or security agencies, give the user access to the target’s messages and photos, and track their location.

Critics say that in India it is part of a growing assault on dissent and civil liberties under the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Indian government would not deny or confirm the use of Pegasus because of national security. It offered to set up its own committee.

Soon after the Pegasus reports emerged in July, India's Parliament was disrupted by opposition calls for an investigation.

The Indian phone numbers put under surveillance reportedly included senior opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, journalists, activists, government critics and former judges.

A woman who had accused India's former chief justice of sexual harassment was also reported to be on the list.

The Washington Post said an analysis of more than 20 Indian phones on the list showed that 10 had been targeted by Pegasus, seven successfully.

© 2021 AFP

'Thuggish and Orwellian Abuses of Power': Dems Demand DOJ End Practice of Spying on Journalists

"Simply put, the government should not collect journalists communications records unless it's investigating them for a crime or as part of an investigation into foreign espionage in which case it should get a warrant."

by

Andrea Germanos, staff writer 

 

Published on Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Then-President Donald Trump talks to reporters before departing the White House March 22, 2019 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A pair of Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to revamp Justice Department guidelines to stop surveillance of journalists as a way to identify their sources.

The call came in a letter sent by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they urged the administration to seize the "opportunity to voluntarily leave behind the thuggish and Orwellian abuses of power of the last administration, and stand up as a world leader for press freedoms."

Very important: Sen. Wyden and Rep. Raskin call for the Biden DOJ to categorically bar the surveillance of journalists for the purpose of going after their sources. https://t.co/qDLNaPlMNY

— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) May 19, 2021

The letter points to revelations by the Washington Post earlier this month that former President Donald Trump's Justice department, in early 2017, secretly seized phone records and tried to get email records of three Post reporters covering Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Biden's Justice Department defended the seizure and attempted seizure, the Post reported, with department spokesperson Marc Raimondi asserting the targets of the investigations were not the journalists "but rather those with access to the national defense information who provided it to the media and thus failed to protect it as lawfully required."

Wyden and Raskin noted that "in years past, the government would often attempt to force journalists to reveal their sources by dragging them into court."

"Now that most Americans carry always-on, always-recording smartphones, the government prefers to go to telecommunications companies, hoping that records of calls and texts might reveal the source," they wrote.

"While certainly more convenient for the government," they continued, "using subpoenas and surveillance orders to pry into a journalist's communications history is no less invasive and destructive than forcing a journalist to reveal their source."

"Simply put, the government should not collect journalists communications records unless it's investigating them for a crime or as part of an investigation into foreign espionage in which case it should get a warrant," wrote Wyden and Raskin.

The Democrats also wrote that they plan on introducing legislation in the coming months to shield journalists from being forced to reveal their sources.

A press statement from the lawmakers acknowledged that previous administrations have also sought to spy on reporters to identify sources and said, "It is past time that the United States end this invasive practice that threatens freedom of the press.

 

Extremists Want to Ban Discussing Their Abortion Bans

 

Sensing just how unpopular their agenda is, anti-choice extremists are attacking reporters for calling their abortion bans “bans.”

July 29, 2023 by Other Words Leave a Comment

By Jim Hightower

Unfortunately, it’s 1984 again in America.

Not the year. The book. George Orwell’s classic novel tells of a far-right totalitarian clique that uses “newspeak” and “doublethink” to impose their rigid, anti-democratic doctrine on society.

Their regime held power through mind control — they had a “Ministry of Truth” for perverting language and manipulating facts, while their “Thought Police” enforced ideological purity and suppressed dissent.

Thirty-nine years later, here comes a clique of theocratic extremists in our country using Orwellian manipulation in its crusade to take control over every woman’s personal reproductive rights.

Having seized the Supreme Court and practically the entire Republican Party, these present-day autocrats are now demanding that state and national lawmakers enforce the group’s ultimate dictate: A total ban on abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.

To their amazement, however, the great majority of Americans — including many Republican voters — think abortion ought to be generally available, with each woman deciding what’s best for her. Moreover, the idea of Big Brother imposing a federal ban is massively unpopular.

No problem, say today’s Orwellian newspeakers, we’ll just ban the word “ban” from our PR campaigns. Thus their harsh abortion ban has magically morphed linguistically into a “pro-life plan.” There — feel better?

Doubling down on their propaganda ploy, the abortion truth twisters are also plotting to ban reporters from using what one called “the big ban word.” Anti-abortion agents are now barraging news outlets with warnings that any use of that verb will be considered proof of political bias.

Sure enough, rather than risk right-wing fury, some scaredy-cat reporters are already caving in, meekly describing bans as “restrictions on procedures.” How nice — a kinder, gentler tyranny!

To keep up with the 2023 version of Orwell’s Thought Police, follow journalist Jessica Valenti’s diligent tracking of anti-abortion trickery at Jessica.substack.com.

 

—

Previously Published on otherwords.org with Creative Commons License

Rhetorical Question

This is a rhetorical question, right?

Is killing off big, bad wolves the best way to halt attacks?

Of course it is.

Killing wolves is stupid.

Killing wolves works -- briefly

And it is only done to appease stupid ranchers and farmers, who believe that they have the God Given Right to invade the wilderness, and their creation of private property, fenced in enclosures, justifies their wiping out predators.

For generations, ranchers have believed that the only good wolf is a dead wolf.

Predators that they cannot prove kill their cattle.Since wolves and other predators do not enter farms and ranches to kill, they kill the cattle, if they kill them at all on on public land. Land that borders the wilderness. Farmers and Ranchers who celebrate their inherent right to private land allow their Cattle to graze and wander across unenclosed public land. And since wolves don't recognize property rights they come in conflict with humans and their property (cattle).

Of course their stupidity is only matched by the Government of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (sic) Department;

"The wolves are the primary cause of mortality in the caribou," said Dave Ealey, a spokesman with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, who also cites weather and human development as contributing factors.

Clever turn of phrase, the caribou population is NOT endagered by the wolves, who yes kill them. They are endangered by the expansion of tourism, oil and coal development. Which of course is not Sustainable developement at all, except in the Orwellian mind of the Alberta Government which uses the phrase sustainable to mean, long term development. To anyone else sustainable development means a balance between wilderness ecology and human development.

And while the government claims Wolves are not endangered, that is another bit of Orwellian logic. True in Alberta we have a large population however in B.C. and to the South of us the wolf population is declining. So geographically we are one of the last prairie sites in either the U.S. or Canadian Pacific North West and Prairies that contains a large wolf population.

I would define that as endangered. More endangered than cute furry seals.





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Big Brother Bush

Subpoena for Google Records Raises Privacy Fears



Don't Be Evil:
Google fights back against the Orwellian
Bush Administration and
says 'no' to handing over search data.

The attempt by the Bush administration to get Google to allow it to spy online on millions of the world citizens is another good reason that the Internet Protocol should not be controlled by one country.

China, Arab-League Build New Internets

Recently there was controversy of the addition of a .xxx domain name as the US government twisted the arm of Icann to squash this new domain name. Other countries cited this example of how the US controls the Internet and have subsequently pressed for Icann to be under the UN’s control. As the Internet becomes a bigger part of every country’s daily lives and economy the fear of having US control over such an important network is growing.

In response, the US is saying that countries like China, Libya, Syria and Cuba who complain about US-based Internet control don’t have democracies and as such taking control of the Internet for them means they will use their power for censorship.

Alternatives to Icann are also popping up in Europe where the Open Root Server Network or ORSN mirrors Icann and is there almost as a safeguard in case Icann starts to behave badly. In other words this root can be used as leverage to ensure Icann operates in a fair and equitable manner.

Should World Make Room For Another Wide Web?

Grundmann told Vixie that he set up ORSN in February 2002 because of his distrust of the Bush administration and its foreign policy. He fears that Washington could easily "turn off" the domain name of a country it wanted to attack, crippling the Internet communications of that country's military and government.

To build a better Net

Reforming the Internet to fence off thieves and to shore up performance could make cyberspace safer and possibly faster. In the transition, however, much of what is appealing about the Internet — the abandon with which information is traded; the ability to sound off anonymously; the wealth of links built over the brief, rich history of the World Wide Web — could be lost.

Those are among the reasons researchers are at work on a better Internet. In a room whirring with the soft buzz of computer hard drives financed by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security, computer scientists set up a mock battlefield at the Cyber Defense Technology Experimental Research Network, or DETER, on the campus of the University of Southern California. Stocked with a thick library of subversive software, the project offers a “test bed” equal to 2,000 quarantined personal computers where worms and viruses are set free to war against good-guy software.

While Google is an American corporation, its reach is world wide, and as a truly transnational corporation it has responbilities to those who use its search engine, to gurantee our privacy whether we are American citizens or not.

Which is what Google has done in rejecting the search demand made by the Bush Big Brother Regime. While also protecting its commercial software search engine. Intellectual property rights, patent and corporate secrecy trump the American State. Ironic that.

While being done under the auspices of protecting children this is no different than the recent scandals in the US about the Bush administrations warrentless spying on emails, phone calls, mail etc of thousands of Americans.

How Cheney used the NSA for domestic spying prior to 9/11

Instead of using the excuse of National Security or War on Terror, which would immediate raise the hackles of civil libertarians, the Bush administraion uses the red herring of child porn to attempt to sweep through weeks of Google searches.

Spying on innocent Americans unlawful

It doesn't stop with Google, and what is scary is that unnamed commercial Internet sites have been sited as having already complied.

By trying to get Googles records, the Bush Administration is threatening the privacy of the worlds citizens and not just its own.

If Russia or China attempted this same kind of move we would rightly call them authoritarian and view this as a threat to Free Speech. The same applies in this case.

Good for Google, Bad Bush Bad.

Tags
USA
WWW
internet
spyingGoogle

Creationist Cretins

Ok now this is what happens when right wing lunacy and religious dogma once again dominate the public discourse in civil society. Couple sues operators of UC Berkeley Web site that teaches evolution

In that clever Orwellian speak that the right wing uses, they claim that evolution is a 'religious' theory and should not get government funding. Thats because they claim secular science, pluralist society, and humanism itself is a 'religion'.

The plaintiffs are not proponents of "intelligent design" - a theory that living organisms are so complex they must have been created by a higher intelligence - but they object to the teaching of evolution as scientific fact, Jeanne Caldwell said.

Yep evolution is just another 'belief' option. Seems they have believe scientists have 'faith' in evolution like they have 'faith' in the existance of God.

Actually these folks are dyed in the wool creationists, believers that God created the world 4,400 years ago, in a blink of a cosmic eye. The reason we have fossils according to creationists is that every animal and plant, bacteria, amobia, etc. were all created at once and some just happened to get caught in the magma of creation as it cooled between Monday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday remain in dispute due to being the Sabbath.

So if creation began instantly in a blink of the big fellows eye 4,400 years ago explain this;Scientists think they have deduced the moon's birthday from rock and soil samples -- and it's older than they thought. The researchers examined tungsten isotopes in the rocks and concluded that the collision occurred about 30 million to 50 million years after the formation of the solar system. That's just a blip compared with the 4.5 billion years that the Earth and solar system have existed.

Creationism originated with the belief that the world was flat. However contrary to popular belief this minority view was not held by everyone living in the Rennisance world or prior to Columbus's voyage to North and Central America. Only a small sect of christians believed this nonsense. Colombus himself availed himself of ancient Phonecian and Peloponnesian maps for his voyage as did other of his sailing contemporaries. And these maps did not show the world was flat, well ok the maps were, they showed the world as known at that time and what wasn't was called the unknown.

the claims of creation science do not refer to natural causes and cannot be subject to meaningful tests, so they do not qualify as scientific hypotheses.

So there, science is NOT a religion. It is as Bakunin attests, the study of natures laws. And that contradicts faith for nature according to creationists is the mere beast of God.

Science maybe called an outgrowth of philosophy, and that is where the Orwellian Right sneakily equates philosophy with religion. They have an agenda to evangelize the world, to counter what they see as the humanist attempt to free humanity from God and faith by immanitizing the eschaton, a term right wing philospher Eric Voegelin coined in his book The New Science of Politics.

If science is the child of reason, the Rennisance and the revolutionary ideals of the Enlightenment as Voegelin and his pals like Von Mises and William Buckley claim then it is too modern for them. And for creationists and the neo-con religious right.They want to force us backwards into their glorious age of medivalist theocracy and that theocracy was Catholic, while the modern evangelicals are protestants. But I will leave that contradiction for another day.

 

Libertarian or Orwellian: What to make of the vaccine passport? 

BBB y Tim Sandle     Feb 17, 2021

Heralded as key to returning to normal, the digital "vaccine passport" may offer a way to make things easier. However, there are many who baulk at the idea of the mass holding of personal data along with security concerns.

How likely is a digital vaccine passport? Quite probable in some parts of the world. For example, Denmark has put forward plans to develop a digital vaccine passport, designed to identify those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine. Is this concept a force for freedom, allowing people to travel widely? Or is it an unwanted extension of state control? And what happens to the data held within the passport, and what are the concerns of these data falling into the wrong hands?

The concept has, inevitably, attracted interest from technology firms: From facial recognition businesses to digital identity experts, as the BBC reports. But what of cybersecurity?

To look more deeply at the security implications of the digital vaccine passport concept, Digital Journal sought the opinion of Erez Yalon, senior director of security research at Checkmarx. Yalon has especially strong thoughts around cybersecurity and the use of electronic medical records.

Digital Journal: What are the cybersecurity concerns with digital vaccine passports?

Erez Yalon: These ‘software passports’ present a variety of challenges pertaining to security and privacy. Some immediate considerations that should be taken into account include identification: "Who am I?” – Passport carrier identification – There will be a need to ensure that the individual carrying the passport is who they claim they are. This is relatively easy to solve if the process is done manually, where a person can check a picture or ID, but if required to be done automatically, there is a challenge.

DJ: Who can pull (read) the information?

Yalon: System user identification – Who will be allowed to check the data? Anyone? Police? Airline personnel? Bouncers at the doors of clubs and arenas? Authentication of system users, and the correct authorization, are needed to avoid malicious use.

Also, “who can push (write) information?” This is about system component identification. Such a system is complex when considering the multitude of responsible ‘contributors.’ Vaccination information is going to be submitted by various medical outlets including hospitals, public and private clinics, independent doctors and nurses, and more. These submissions will be communicated and reported to local, regional, and national medical centers that should eventually aggregate all information under one organization. Each step of the way must be correctly authenticated and authorized to make sure that data is added to the system only by individuals who are allowed to do so.

DJ: What are the data handling concerns?

Yalon: There is data transfer: The complex network described earlier requires the handling of a lot of “moving data” when being sent and received. It only takes one branch of this network to not be secure enough to place the data at risk.

We also need to be concerned with privacy. Leaking data, especially medical data that is considered sensitive, can cause a huge issue of privacy breach. Considering these ‘software passports’ will potentially hold everything from medical information to travel logs to biometric data, the importance of placing privacy at the forefront is clear.

And there is integrity, If the transportation of data is not secure enough, it might be corrupted or forged, which could damage the integrity of the information and the entire system at-large.

Finally, with data retention. Even when not “on the move,” sensitive data needs to be protected and secured. Controls need to be implemented to ensure that the data cannot be accessed by malicious actors.

DJ: What happens if data needs to be shared?

Yalon: With data sharing and minimization, this is similar to as we saw with contact tracing applications, if individuals will not be mandated to opt-in to this digital identification system, then an opt-in / opt-out mechanism must be made available. Additionally, the PII data that is collected should be kept to a minimum, only gathering the essential information that makes this a viable solution.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/health/libertarian-or-orwellian-what-to-make-of-the-vaccine-passport/article/585513#ixzz6myOz3r42

POST MODERN FALSE FLAG

U.S. Energy Department believes lab leak was most likely the source of COVID, report says

The conclusion is due to new intelligence, but the department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report, The Wall St. Journal said.

By Olivia Konotey-Ahulu

Bloomberg
Mon., Feb. 27, 2023

A laboratory leak was the most likely origin of the COVID-19 virus, according to findings by the U.S. Energy Department, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A classified intelligence report provided to the White House and key members of Congress said the virus likely spread due to a mishap at a Chinese laboratory, The Journal reported on Sunday.

The Energy Department had previously been undecided on the source of the virus. The conclusion is due to new intelligence, but the department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report, The Journal said.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday there’s “a variety of views” in the U.S. intelligence community about whether the virus originated naturally or in a lab and he “can’t confirm or deny” the Wall Street Journal report.

President Joe Biden has asked the National Laboratories, which are part of the Energy Department, to be part of the assessment, Sullivan said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“And if we gain any further insight or information, we will share it with Congress and we will share it with the American people,” he said. “But, right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question.”

China has long hit back at any suggestion that the COVID-19 virus originated in a lab. The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular working hours.

China Must Be 'More Honest' on COVID Origins, Envoy Says

By Reuters
Feb. 27, 2023

Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns attends the World Peace Forum at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China July 4, 2022. 

REUTERS/Yew Lun Tian

By Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) -China must be more honest about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. ambassador to China said on Monday, after reports that the U.S. Energy Department concluded the pandemic likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak.

Nicholas Burns, speaking by video link at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event, said it was necessary to push China to take a more active role in the World Health Organization (WHO) if the U.N. health agency was to be strengthened.

China also needed to "be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the COVID-19 crisis," Burns said, referring to the central Chinese city where the first human cases were reported in December 2019.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Sunday that the U.S. Energy Department had concluded the pandemic likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak, an assessment Beijing denies.

The department made its judgment with "low confidence" in a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress, the Journal said, citing people who had read the intelligence report.

Four other U.S. agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that COVID-19 was likely the result of natural transmission, while two are undecided, the Journal reported.

The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment.

President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Sunday there were a "variety of views in the intelligence community" on the pandemic's origins.

"A number of them have said they just don't have enough information," Sullivan told CNN.

Asked to comment on the report, which was confirmed by other U.S. media, China's foreign ministry referred to a WHO-China report that pointed toward a natural origin for the pandemic, likely from bats, rather than a lab leak.

"Certain parties should stop rehashing the 'lab leak' narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing the origins-tracing issue," foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.

'A LITTLE BIT ORWELLIAN'

Burns told the Chamber event that it was a difficult moment for U.S.-China relations, with Beijing seeking to deflect blame after the U.S. military this month downed an alleged Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the continental United States.

"We're now in this surreal moment where the Chinese, who I think lost the debate over the balloon globally, lost influence and credibility around the world because of what they've done - they're now blaming this on us," Burns said.

"It's a little bit Orwellian. And it's a little bit frustrating, because I think everybody knows the truth here."

China reacted angrily when the U.S. military downed the balloon on Feb. 4, saying it was for monitoring weather conditions and had blown off course.

Burns added that it was the obligation of the United States to maintain its military strength "in and around Taiwan" to ensure the self-governed island claimed by Beijing has the ability to deter any kind of "offensive action" by China.

"It's also ... our responsibility to galvanize the rest of the world to make sure that the Chinese cannot get away with coercion or intimidation against Taiwan itself," he said.

(Reporting by Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom in Washington and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Don Durfee and Alistair Bell)

China Responds to 'Politicized' Wuhan Lab Leak Theory

BY JOHN FENG ON 2/27/23 

China said Monday that studies into the origins of COVID-19 "should not be politicized" after a new assessment led to fresh scrutiny into a possible laboratory accident in late 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, pointed to the March 2021 findings of a joint WHO-China report that called the lab leak theory "extremely unlikely." That verdict was "a science-based, authoritative conclusion," she said at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

"Certain parties should stop rehashing the 'lab leak' narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing origin tracing," Mao said after The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the United States Department of Energy concluded, with "low confidence," that SARS-CoV-2 had emerged as a result of a lab mishap.

The DOE, which oversees U.S. national laboratories, was previously undecided about the virus's origins. It now joins the FBI's own "moderate confidence" assessment as only the second agency to side with the lab leak theory. Four other agencies still lean toward natural transmission as the most likely explanation for the initial outbreak, while two remain undecided.

This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's central Hubei province on May 27, 2020. China has said that studies into the origins of COVID-19 "should not be politicized."

HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The WHO-China report published almost two years ago was the only authoritative assessment the United Nations health agency was able to produce about the start of the pandemic. Beijing appointed half the researchers on the mission, restricted the team's access to critical data, and blocked WHO attempts to conduct a phase-two study that included a review of Wuhan's surroundings.

Beijing's decisions went some way toward undermining the report's eventual findings, which were largely dismissed by American officials. As a result, the phase-one mission report lacked "extensive recognition from the international community," contrary to China's claim.

Four months after taking office, President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community to determine the likely origins of the virus behind the disease that has now killed at least 6.8 million people worldwide, including upward of a million Americans. The report after 90 days was inconclusive, but the agencies judged the virus was not a biological weapon and wasn't released with Beijing's knowledge.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID, said at a press conference on February 15 that the unsuccessful phase-two plans later morphed into the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), a multinational panel that included Chinese experts, announced in October 2021.

"I think we need to be perfectly clear that WHO has not abandoned studying the origins of COVID-19. We have not and we will not," Van Kerkhove said in Geneva. "But let me also be very clear that we continue to ask for more cooperation and collaboration with our colleagues in China to advance studies that need to take place in China."

"We will follow the science. We will continue to ask for countries to depoliticize this work, but we need cooperation from our colleagues in China to advance this," she said.

"We will not stop until we understand the origins of this. And it is becoming increasingly difficult because the more time that passes, the more difficult it becomes to really understand what happened in those early stages of the pandemic."

Republicans React to Energy Department’s Reported Finding That COVID ‘Likely’ Leaked From Wuhan Lab

By Gary Bai
February 27, 2023

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) questions Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, former head of security at Twitter, during Senate Judiciary Committee on data security at Twitter, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 13, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Republican lawmakers responded to a news report saying that the U.S. Energy Department had concluded the lab leak theory was “likely,” saying that the finding supports what many have long suspected.

A Wall Street Journal article on Feb. 26 reported that a classified intelligence report by the Energy Department said that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“So the government caught up to what Real America knew all along,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote in a Twitter post on Sunday.

The responses came as GOP lawmakers ramp up investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and allegations of government-big tech censorship of the debate.

The Energy Department was previously undecided on the issue but now joins the FBI in corroborating the lab leak hypothesis, according to the report. Several people who have read the report said the Department’s judgment was made with “low confidence,” the Journal reported.

Responding to the report on Sunday, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN that the intelligence community does not have a “definitive answer” on the matter at this point.

Republican lawmakers have been vocal about the theory that the virus leaked from the Wuhan laboratory soon after the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Initially, some health professionals and legacy media outlets dismissed the theory, labeling the theory’s proponents as racist and conspiracy theorists.

Fauci

Some lawmakers also accused Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), of colluding with big tech companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, and censoring stories about the lab leak theory via what these companies describe as a crackdown on “misinformation.”

“Fauci knew this immediately but dismissed it because of funding for the Wuhan lab,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) wrote in another post. “We know what happened next — when Fauci spoke Big Tech censored. I exposed this collusion as AG and I’ll work to ensure this type of censorship never happens again.”

“Americans knew this from Day One,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “Unfortunately, Big Tech and Big Government silenced them.”

Republicans and critics of Fauci have raised concerns about the NIAID’s funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology via the non-governmental organization EcoHealth Alliance, including for research described by experts as gain-of-function. The NIAID issued about 3.4 million in grants to EcoHealth.

Gain-of-function research makes the virus more deadly by enhancing its pathogenicity, its ability to cause disease and harm the host, or transmissibility, how easily it spreads.

The NIH has denied that the grants were for gain-of-function research, while Fauci has defended the decision to issue the grants to EcoHealth.

“More evidence continues to mount that COVID came from the Wuhan lab. We’ve uncovered emails showing Dr. Fauci was warned that the virus looked man-made & came from a lab, but he may have acted to cover it up. Why? We need answers & accountability,” wrote the official Twitter account of the House Oversight Republican Committee.

Republicans on the committee previously disclosed internal NIH emails that showed Fauci was informed by senior scientists early in the pandemic that the theory that COVID-19 had a natural origin was “highly unlikely,” even while Fauci was publicly promoting the natural origin theory.

Additional Responses

Republican lawmakers such as Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) took issue with what he described as a lack of transparency in government investigations related to the origins of COVID-19.

“The American people deserve the full truth about #covid origins. No more whitewash. I will again introduce legislation to make the US government’s intelligence reports on covid open to the people,” Hawley wrote.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) echoed Hawley’s view.

“The elites and academics owe everyone who had legitimate questions and concerns about the origins of COVID an apology,” Buck wrote in a Twitter post. “The American people deserve to see all the information concerning the Chinese lab leak and the origins of COVID. This won’t be forgotten.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) says the United States should focus on the further implications of the report, namely, the need for the U.S. government to act to hold the Chinese regime accountable for the pandemic.

“Re. China’s lab leak, being proven right doesn’t matter,” Cotton wrote in a Twitter post. “What matters is holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable so this doesn’t happen again.”

The Epoch Times contacted the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy for comment.

From The Epoch Times