Signs of ritual mind abuse programming in Virginia Tech killer

[kimiko]

A 'Troubled' Young Man

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

Am I reading this correctly? The government keeps a "federal database" of people and what prescription medication they take? When I first read the phrase "government files" I thought maybe they just mean the files (medical, police, student, etc) relating to the killer the investigators have pulled. But then the "database" phrase doesn't read that way to me.

 

[Argo]

A 'Troubled' Young Man

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

Am I reading this correctly? The government keeps a "federal database" of people and what prescription medication they take? When I first read the phrase "government files" I thought maybe they just mean the files (medical, police, student, etc) relating to the killer the investigators have pulled. But then the "database" phrase doesn't read that way to me.

Yes, it seems like that, but maybe the point is that every files which one citizen has, tax, medical, police, student, are linked all together in one system, and 'government' has access to all of them. Maybe this is that "database".

 

[anart]

Yes, if you're a U.S. citizen with a social security number, you have a comprehensive file - anything linked to your social security number is in it - medical, financial, consumer purchases, education, employment - 'land of the free', remember?

 

[Zadius Sky]

Yes, if you're a U.S. citizen with a social security number, you have a comprehensive file - anything linked to your social security number is in it - medical, financial, consumer purchases, education, employment - 'land of the free', remember?

So, a Social Security number is another word for "Prison Number"? Figures.

 

[Al Today]

Just yesterday, I telephoned a certain USofA tax collection agency because of an omission of a dependent's social security number on the 1040 tax form for year 2006. Being on the telephone, I was asked numerous questions for verification purposes. Asked for were the birthdates of ALL in the household as defined by the 1040 tax form entered. Apparantly they knew all birthdates? Give note that birthdates have no place for entry on the 1040 tax form.!.!.! What would have happened if I gave the wrong birthdates? I dunno.

 

[notanothermonday]

and is this a way to cover his possible use of anti-depressants which are known to have side effects that can lead to violence. may be a reach but certainly is not out of the question. dylan klebold, although not widely known, was using at least one anti depressant med. we will possibly find out as time goes on.

 

[Mr. Premise]

Yep. I just read this by Glenn Greenwald in Salon http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/18/surveillance/:

Our benevolent surveillance state
Both the scope and the number of databases maintained by the federal government on American citizens continue to grow.
Glenn Greenwald

Apr. 18, 2007

The expansion of the Surveillance State is endless. Buried within an ABC report on the Virginia Tech shootings is this paragraph:

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.
Is there any good reason whatsoever why the federal government should be maintaining "files" which contain information about the pharmaceutical products which all Americans are consuming? The noxious idea has taken root in our country -- even before the Bush presidency, though certainly greatly bolstered during it -- that one of the functions of the federal government is to track the private lives of American citizens and maintain dossiers on what we do.

If that sounds hyperbolic, just review the disclosures over the course of recent years concerning what data bases the Federal Government has created and maintained and the vast amounts of data they contain -- everything from every domestic telephone call we make and receive to the content of our international calls to "risk assessment" records based on our travel activities to all sorts of information obtained by the FBI's use of NSLs. And none of that includes, obviously, the as-yet-undisclosed surveillance programs undertaken by the most secretive administration in history.

It is true that much (though not all) of this data is already scattered in the hands of various private corporations and insurance companies. But, for multiple and self-evident reasons, it presents a fundamentally different type and level of threat when it is all consolidated and centralized in the hands of the federal government. Amazingly, it is the political movement that spent all of the 1990s stridently warning of the dangers of federal government power -- The Black Helicopters And Janet Reno Are Coming -- which has brought us this Surveillance State and continues to cheer on its infinite expansion.

The federal government data base which contains all of our controlled substance prescriptions, for instance, was mandated by a law -- The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act -- passed in 2005 by the Republican-controlled Congress (though with full bipartisan support) and signed into law by the "conservative" Leader. That law appropriates funds to each state to create and maintain these data bases which are, apparently, accessible to federal agencies, federal law enforcement officials, and almost certainly thousands of other state and federal employees (as well as, most likely, employees of private companies).

Along these lines, the Department of Homeland Security last month promulgated proposed regulations for enforcement of the so-called Real ID Act of 2005 (.pdf). Those regulations require that every state issue technologically compatible Driver's Licenses which enable, in essence, uniform and nationwide tracking of all sorts of private information about every individual. Just as the Prescription Drug Tracking Law is "justified" by the Drug War, these national ID cards are justified by the War on Terrorism. As the Homeland Security Department explains:

The 9/11 Commission endorsed the REAL ID requirements, noting that: "For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons . . . All but one of the 9/11 hijackers acquired some form of identification document, some by fraud. Acquisition of these forms of identification would have assisted them in boarding commercial flights, renting cars, and other necessary activities."
EPIC notes that "the deadline for public comment [on the DHS regulations] is May 8, 2007" -- and from what I understand, more public comments are needed from people who have strong views about these regulations. EPIC explains why these regulations are so disturbing:
The requirement for non-REAL ID-compliant DL/ID to have explicit "invalid for federal purposes" designations, turns this "voluntary" card into a mandatory national ID card. Anyone with a non-REAL ID-compliant card would be instantly suspicious. Compliant cards would be necessary for federal purposes such as entering courthouses, air travel or receiving federal benefits, such as Medicaid or Social Security. It would be easy for insurance companies, credit card companies, even video stores, to demand a REAL ID-compliant DL/ID in order to receive services.
That the "conservative" movement is ushering in measures such as a federal law mandating that every state create National ID cards is ironic on multiple levels. But as Wired's Ryan Singel notes, numerous states -- the latest being Montana (after Idaho, Arkansas and Maine) -- have enacted laws refusing to comply with these requirements on the ground that they infringe on the privacy of the citizens of that state and/or on the ground that the law violates federalism principles by taking over areas (i.e., regulating driver's licenses) traditionally preserved for the states. For those reasons, many other states, particularly in the Mountain West and even the Deep South, are on their way to enacting similar laws refusing to comply.

It is simply no longer news when the "conservative" movement violates every "small-government" and states' rights principle it pretended to embrace ("conservatives" Andy McCarthy, David Frum, and John Yoo tonight are appearing at an event to argue for this Orwellian proposition: "Better More Surveillance than Another 9/11"). Apparently, we need to empower the federal government to maintain comprehensive dossiers on all Americans, otherwise our freedoms might be at risk from The Terrorists.

It is hardly worth pointing out that the idea of the Federal Government engaging in massive surveillance of innocent American citizens is about as far away from the core beliefs of the American Founders as one can get. Anyone who does not realize that is likely beyond the realm of persuasion.

But the only people who would think that it is fine to have the Federal Government compiling dossiers like this are those who place blind faith in our Leaders not to abuse their power. But that is the ethos that is the exact opposite of the one on which the country was founded, but which has come to dominate so much of our political culture.

UPDATE: Markos notes some news that is highly encouraging on several levels -- it was Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer who, in Montana, drove enactment of the state law refusing to comply with the REAL ID Act, and Democratic Senator Jon Tester -- who, as Markos said, "violated every tenet of conventional wisdom and the blatherings of the pundit class by running on opposition to the Patriot Act" -- intends to lead efforts in the Senate to repeal the law altogether.

As the map linked above demonstrates, most of the states in the Mountain West are still highly resistant to the types of invasive federal surveillance schemes which the Bush-led Republicans/neoconservatives crave more and more. Markos has insightfully argued before -- in an essay for Cato Institute -- that there is a potentially valuable political opportunity for Democrats in the Mountain West (and elsewhere) to stand for principles of individual liberty against ever-expanding federal police power -- efforts that I wrote about awhile back, here at Salon, in the context of the rejection by Arizona (and near-rejection by Colorado) of anti-gay-marriage referenda.

Whatever else one can say the modern-day Republican Party stands for, individual liberty is plainly not it. Democrats could do themselves -- and the country -- a great service by devoting themselves to a defense of the core liberties which are being eroded so rapidly by "conservatives" in the name of Protection from the Terrorists and The Glorious, Endless, Epic War of Civilizations.

UPDATE II: Having looked at this prescription data base law more carefully -- and I should caution that today is the first day I have really looked at it -- I really do not see any authorization for federal investigators to have accessed this information in connection with the Virginia Tech shootings.

The data bases in question are maintained by the various states (funded by Congress pursuant to the 2005 law). That statute outlines the specific circumstances when that information can be released to federal officials, and prohibits access except in those circumstances. Following are the access authorization provisions, with the plainly inapplicable portions deleted:

(f) Use and Disclosure of Information-

(1) IN GENERAL- Subject to subsection (g), in implementing or improving a controlled substance monitoring program under this section, a State may disclose information from the database established under subsection (e) and, in the case of a request under subparagraph (D), summary statistics of such information, only in response to a request by -- . . . .

(B) any local, State, or Federal law enforcement, narcotics control, licensure, disciplinary, or program authority, who certifies, under the procedures determined by the State, that the requested information is related to an individual investigation or proceeding involving the unlawful diversion or misuse of a schedule II, III, or IV substance, and such information will further the purpose of the investigation or assist in the proceeding; . . . .

(D) any agent of the Department of Health and Human Services, a State medicaid program, a State health department, or the Drug Enforcement Administration who certifies that the requested information is necessary for research to be conducted by such department, program, or administration, respectively, and the intended purpose of the research is related to a function committed to such department, program, or administration by law that is not investigative in nature. . . .


Those are the only two possible provisions which authorize disclosure of any of this information to federal agents, and neither even arguably apply -- at least in the absence of some absurd claim that they are posthumously investigating the Virginia Tech shooter for having illegally obtained prescription drugs.

I realize, of course, that we are not supposed to mind when our Government breaks the law when the law-breaking is for our own Good (like when The President broke the eavesdropping laws but only did so to Protect us, so it was OK). But the Congress created this data base and then placed fairly stringent protections on who could access this sensitive data and specified the circumstances under which access was permitted.

If ABC's report is correct and federal investigators accessed this data base in order to determine if the VT shooter had obtained anti-depressants, that would appear (again, based on my limited knowledge of this statute, which might be wrong) to be illegal. The larger issue is still the continual compiling of data on the private activities of Americans, but the accessing of this data by the Federal Government in violation of this statute (if that occurred) seems notable as well.

Am I reading this correctly? The government keeps a "federal database" of people and what prescription medication they take? When I first read the phrase "government files" I thought maybe they just mean the files (medical, police, student, etc) relating to the killer the investigators have pulled. But then the "database" phrase doesn't read that way to me.

 

[mcjoyous]

When I began watching news coverage of the Virginia Tech murders (which was some hours after the event took place) I immediately thought of mind control and Dr. Greenbaum. There was just something about the mechanical nature of how he went about the killings. The next day when more details about him came out, I was even more suspicious.
Here's some of what aroused my further suspicion:
-the English teacher who described interaction with him as like "talking to a hole"
-his sleeping with the lights on
-riding around all night on his bike (where was he going? was he meeting anyone? etc)
-constantly playing one song on his laptop (programming?)
-the 'suicide package' he supposedly mailed to NBC that day
I knew about the AGAG hearings and also about Denis Kuchinich's recent impeachment proceedings against Cheney (just read tonight about the Vermont impeachment movement). I wondered if this could have been done to divert attention from these; at the very least, it seemed like convenient timing. I also wondered if this was a ‘mind control’ gone wrong or perhaps cover for something even bigger (Iran?). A couple of days ago a caught a few minutes of an interview with some experts that either CNN or MSNBC (can’t remember which) had on to explain Cho’s mental state. What really caught my attention in that interview was one of the experts saying that these events tend to come in clusters (ie. they feed on themselves). My thought upon hearing this was: Are we be conditioned for more of these events to occur?
Regarding his taking anti depressants: Just because he was prescribed the medications, doesn't mean he was actually taking them. How would we know? I assume they will do an autopsy, but even if the results are published can we believe them?

 

[Azur]

There is one thing that stands out for me: entertaining the idea that Cho might have been a Greenbaum, this does NOT explain his remarkable marksmanship.

There have been a few public sources (and many more hitherto unheard of) that are amazed by the accurate targeting, with handguns, no less, of this "amateur".


Can you plant an idea of being a "perfect marksman" into someone and have it work?

 

[mcjoyous]

Can you plant an idea of being a "perfect marksman" into someone and have it work?

I don't know the answer to your question, however you can teach someone to be a marksman.
Consider, that his sister works for a company that services intelligence agencies, including the NSA and CIA.
MacNeil Technology - provides full spectrum security services.

 

[Azur]

Can you plant an idea of being a "perfect marksman" into someone and have it work?

I don't know the answer to your question, however you can teach someone to be a marksman.
Consider, that his sister works for a company that services intelligence agencies, including the NSA and CIA.
MacNeil Technology - provides full spectrum security services.

An avenue that provides a means.


MacNeil as a security company most likely had training sessions, "days at the range", and so forth. The connection here is the sister: did she "liaise" these range days with an interest of her brother to indulge him? Popping off of few rounds at the range is miles away from "dynamic action".


The sort of training he must have received goes beyond the indulgence of "hitting a couple of cans off a fence for fun".

 

[mcjoyous]

[The sort of training he must have received goes beyond the indulgence of "hitting a couple of cans off a fence for fun".

I was thinking more along the lines of his being a Greenbaum who was trained by his 'handlers' as a marksman. I really have no idea how it would work but his sister's connection to this company is interesting. For instance, I keep thinking of his riding his bike around all night. Could he have been going somewhere for training? For all we know, he could have received years of training in secret.