O juiz federal Antonio Carlos de Almeida Campelo, da 5ª Vara Federal em Belém, atendendo a pedido do Ministério Público Federal, obrigou a Telemar Norte Leste S/A a oferecer acesso a internet sem provedor adicional para os clientes do serviço Velox. O benefício vale para usuários em todo o Brasil.

A decisão é liminar (urgente e provisória) e considera que a prática da Telemar configurava venda casada, proibida pelo Código de Defesa do Consumidor. Apesar da alegação da empresa de que só poderia oferecer acesso com intermediação de algum provedor pago, as provas técnicas oferecidas pelo MPF comprovaram que a afirmação é falsa.

Investigação da Coordenadoria de Informática do MPF foi decisiva para esclarecer a questão. De acordo com os técnicos, ao contrário da antiga tecnologia de acesso discado à internet, o tipo de acesso de banda larga fornecido pelo Velox (ADSL) permite a conexão utilizando apenas a infraestrutura de servidores DNS (domain name system) e o endereço IP (internet protocol) da própria Telemar, o que torna desnecessário o provedor de conteúdo.

A Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (Anatel), também é considerada responsável pela situação, porque editou uma norma determinando o uso de provedores pagos para o acesso a internet e colocando os consumidores em situação desfavorável.

De acordo com o MPF, a norma da Anatel ignora as especifidades técnicas da tecnologia ADSL, induzindo o usuário a um gasto que poderia ser evitado, além de limitar a livre concorrência e o direito à informação para a sociedade. A Telemar, por sua vez, pratica venda casada, para o MPF, porque bloqueia o direito de escolha do consumidor, impedindo que ele use provedores gratuitos, por exemplo.

Anatel e Telemar terão que pagar multa diária de R$ 100 mil por cada caso de descumprimento da decisão judicial, que começa a valer a partir do momento em que forem notificadas pela Justiça Federal. Ainda cabe recurso ao Tribunal Regional Federal da 1ª Região. O processo tramita em Belém com o número 2008.39.00.009147-0.

Helena Palmquist
Procuradoria da República no Pará
Assessoria de Comunicação
Fones: (91) 3299.0148 / (91) 3222.1291 / (91) 9999.8189

 Alex Jones was joined on air yesterday by investigative journalist, economic expert and Harvard Doctor of Political Science Jerome Corsi for an in depth discussion on the state of the economy and the engineered decline towards regionalization and a globalized monetary system.

Corsi warned that the crisis in the stock market we are currently witnessing is simply the tip of the iceberg and part of an overall meltdown that represents a gutting of the United States by neo-mercantilist institutions bent on the formation of a new global monopoly.

"We're gonna go through Stagflation, which is basically stagnation and inflation. We are already in a recession, it just hasn't been publicly declared yet. I think it will deepen through the rest of 2007 into 2008. Corsi stated.

Corsi warned that this is going to be the formula for producing the Amero, a continental solution to the tanking of the Dollar.

Listen to the entire eye opening interview here.

Last September Corsi received the first documents pertaining to a FOIA request asking for full disclosure of activities towards creating a Pan American Union.

The documents show that a wide range of US administrative law is being re-written in stealth under the Security and Prosperity Partnership program to "integrate" and "harmonize" with administrative law in Mexico and Canada, just as has become commonplace within the EU.

The documents contain references to upwards of 13 working groups within an entire organized infrastructure that has drawn from officials within most areas of administrative government including U.S. departments of State, Homeland Security, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Transportation, Energy, Health and Human Services, and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Corsi also reported that at a recent high-level confab in Banff, an assistant U.S. secretary of state, Thomas A. Shannon , chaired a panel that featured a presentation by Prof. Robert Pastor, author of a book promoting the development of a North American union as a regional government and the adoption of the Amero as a common monetary currency to replace the dollar and the peso.

Just a conspiracy theory? Not according to leading economists such as Steve Previs of Jefferies International who stated on CNBC, "I think one thing for people who are dollar based need to focus on is the Amero, that's the one thing that nobody is talking about that I think is going to have a big impact... on everybody's life in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico..."

A global crash and a totally devalued dollar that can barely rival the peso are greasing the skids for a single North American currency. This spells disaster for all Americans who wish to maintain their standard of living and not find themselves barefoot on the street in a bread queue.

Corsi went on to forecast a five to seven year deep recession:

Dr Corsi also warned against the school of thought that says if you get a bigger mortgage, as long as you have savings to pay for it, you can accelerate the pay off of it with inflation. He stressed that unless you have a long term fixed rate mortgage and you fully understand the terms of your contract you could at any point be subject to a change in terms and the loan could be called in:

Dr Corsi firmly believes that the crisis is an engineered one on behalf of a global elite who have long pushed for a regionalization, a single currency and a market they can monopolize more effectively:

Editing your own entry on Wikipedia is usually the province of vain celebrities keen for some good PR. But a new website has uncovered dozens of companies that have been editing the site in order to improve their public image.

The Wikipedia Scanner, which trawls the backwaters of the popular online encyclopaedia, has unearthed a catalogue of organisations massaging entries, including the CIA and the Labour party.

Workers operating on CIA computers have been spotted editing entries including the biography of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, while unnamed individuals inside the Vatican have worked on entries about Catholic saints - and Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.

Meanwhile, an anonymous surfer from Labour's Millbank headquarters excised a section about Labour Students which referred to "careerist MPs" and criticisms that the party's student movement was no longer seen as radical.

And somebody from a computer traced to Democrat HQ edited a page on conservative American radio host Rush Limbaugh, calling him "idiotic", "ridiculous" and labelling his 20 million listeners as "legally retarded".

But the biggest culprit that the Scanner claims to have discovered is Diebold, a supplier of voting machines, which it says has made huge alterations to entries about its involvement in the controversial "hanging chad" election in the US in 2000. The company was criticised in the wake of the disputed results, but edits made by its employees on Wikipedia have included the removal of 15 paragraphs detailing the allegations.

"In August 2003 Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fundraiser for George W Bush ..." the deleted text read. "When assailed by critics for the conflict of interest ... he vowed to lower his political profile."

The change, made two years ago, was quickly reversed and the culprit warned off for "vandalism". A Diebold official was not available for comment.

The United States Department of Homeland Security is to install a host of new technology to covertly scan the behaviour and emotions of American citizens in an effort to prevent terrorism according to an upcoming article in the New Scientist.

Scientists and engineers have been asked to devise ways of analysing people's behaviour and physiology from afar, in the hope they may reveal clues about their mental state and even their future intentions, reports the London Guardian.

A program named Project Hostile Intent (PHI) is aiming by 2010 to develop technology that can scan the bodily functions of citizens without them knowing and uncover any possible hostile intent or deception.

Testimony by the American Psychological Association (PDF link) states that "Project Hostile Intent aims to detect and model the behavioral cues that indicate an individual’s intent to carry out acts of terrorism." The testimony continues:

The cues examined in PHI are those that can be assessed remotely and in real time, and the procedures and technologies required to collect these cues are non-invasive and amenable to integration into busy operational contexts.

In other words the technology will be covertly placed in public and will operate just like CCTV, with DHS officials able to remotely access it and apply its use to anyone in the area.

The DHS offers a further brief explanation of Project Hostile Intent here.

The Guardian reports that the DHS has revealed to New Scientist that technology to be used for PHI includes lasers, cameras, eye trackers, microphones and heart rate and breathing sensors. The DHS has also stated that it wishes to develop a lie detector-type test that can be used remotely which is described as "an advantage because it would not interfere with the flow of a crowd and it could be used without the target's knowledge."

The report also states that the Project represents an enhancement of technology already in use to scan faces in crowds, details of which we have previously covered.

Infowars has posted hundreds of articles over the years detailing the involvement of DARPA and the Defense Department in mandating that the States adopt uniform biometrics on state licenses and ID cards, RFID tracker chips to replace the bar-code, and cameras that recognize individuals by their faces, walk, vehicle type or license plate number. Now the DHS is taking America all the way down the line towards the big brother state.

Peter McOwan, a computer scientist who is developing sensors to detect people's moods at Queen Mary, University of London, told the Guardian: "It's just like something from Minority Report. They have been watching too many Tom Cruise movies."

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." --Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th US President, Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961

“An agreement [with the U.S.] to harmonize trade, security, or defence practices would, in the end, require Canada and Mexico to . . . cede to the United States power over foreign trade and investment, environmental regulation, immigration, and, to a large degree, foreign policy, and even monetary and fiscal policy.” --Roy McLaren, former liberal trade minister

Look for a very strong backlash coming from the Canadian people, but also from the American and Mexican peoples, once they clearly understand what the Bush-Calderon-Harper trio has been concocting in near complete secrecy and with nearly no public debate whatsoever, over the last few years.

Indeed, the three relatively unpopular governments presently in charge in Washington, Ottawa and Mexico, have aligned themselves with very large corporations, most of them American owned, to lay the foundations for a new North American Union, (NAU) also called the "Deep Integration" project. This would be a new permanent alliance that would be de facto placed under American control. Canada and Mexico would have to harmonize many of their laws and regulations to suit the interests of big business and the undemocratic and imperial ambitions of the U.S. government around the world.

With such a plan for an enlarged continental integration at both the economic and political levels, we are far from the initial program of fair and free trade for goods and services and for removing barriers to trade between the three countries, as initially envisaged by the 1988 Free Trade Agreement, (FTA) between Canada and the United States. It has to be remembered that under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canada not only accepted that Mexico be incorporated into the North American free trade zone, but made substantial concessions regarding the Investment Canada Act's rules for American takeovers of Canadian companies and for a privileged American access to Canadian energy resources. This should have sufficed to keep the American market open to Canadian exporters. It seems that this is no longer the case. Large corporations and the U.S. administration alike want to take advantage of the terrorist threat to go much further in extracting concessions from Canada.

Indeed, under the leadership of large American owned corporations, which operate freely on both sides of the border, and with the new security concerns of the U.S. administration, the initial trade objective is being further expanded and pushed to a much higher level. The idea now is to turn the trade agreements into some sort of an umbrella political organization that would be parallel to the 27-nation European Union.

In fact, it could mean a more ambitious project that could go even further than the EU toward economic and political integration in North America. In Europe, the more than two dozen participating countries have retained control over their armed forces and over their foreign policies and, what is very important, no single country exercises a hegemonic control over the entire alliance. That would not be the case in North America, however, because of the overwhelming importance of the United States vis-a-vis the other two countries.

Indeed, what has been advanced for Canada, Mexico and the United States -- three countries very much dissimilar in populations, cultures and outlooks -- could go as far as de facto merging the armed forces and foreign policies of all three countries to form a sort of Fortress North America under the protectorate of the United States. Any such deep integration beyond trade relationships would place the United States and its government in the driver's seat, with the other two countries somewhat relegated to the status of near political and economic colonies.

It won't work. For one thing, the Canadian people will never accept that Canada become a colony of the United States, and the current minority government of Stephen Harper could pay dearly politically if it continues pushing in that direction. Canadians do not want their armed forces and their foreign policy to be de facto merged with those of imperial America. Moreover, they do not want their natural resources to be placed under U.S. control and exploited nearly completely by large American corporations, which have little regard for Canada's sovereignty and little concern for the welfare of Canadians. Also, they do not want the Canadian dollar ditched in favor of a less and less attractive U.S. dollar, as some have suggested.

However, all this could be the end result of the secretive efforts that have been deployed at the highest levels under the disguise of the mysterious acronym of "SPP," the so-called program of Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, also referred to by its proponents as "Deep Integration." This integration initiative was officially launched in a summit meeting between George W. Bush (USA), Vicente Fox (Mexico) and Paul Martin (Canada), held in Waco Texas, on March 23, 2005.

Large Canadian corporations and not so "Canadian" corporations any more -- such as Alcan, about to be sold to British owned Rio Tinto -- and many Canadian subsidiaries of American corporations have been the driving force behind the push for a North American Union. In Canada, they are regrouped within the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), which has been lobbying the Harper government in favor of the plan.

Among the 150 corporate members of the Canadian Council of CEOs, alongside large Canadian banks and corporations, one finds many leading American corporations that have branches or subsidiaries in Canada, such as du Pont, FedEx, General Electric, General Motors, Chrysler, Hewlett-Packard, Home Depot, IBM, Imperial Oil, Kodak, 3M, Microsoft, Pratt & Whitney, Suncor, Wyeth, Xerox, etc. These CEOs do not really see Canada as a country separate from the United States, but more as an adjacent market to be occupied and controlled.

It was four years ago, in January 2003, that the CCCE launched its North American Security and Prosperity Initiative (NASPI). The politicians then followed suit. The CCCE's initiative advanced a strategy comprising five major elements:

1- The reinvention of Canada-U.S.-Mexico borders;

2- The maximization of regulatory efficiencies;

3- The negotiation of a comprehensive continental resource security pact;

4- The negotiation of a North American defence alliance;

5- And the creation of a new institutional framework for this new North American Union.

Then the Canadian Council of CEOs enlisted the support of two other organizations, first, the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, a foreign affairs outfit that has been strongly supportive of George W. Bush's war against Iraq and, second, the Mexican Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales.

Their joint task force, called the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, issued a report in May 2005, whose title was "Building a North American Community." The report contained 39 specific recommendations aimed at de facto erasing borders and at creating a single North American economic and security space within a North American political partnership, involving the United States, Canada and Mexico.

In a nutshell, the Task Force’s central recommendation was to establish, by 2010 (only three years from now!!!), a North American economic and security community, the North American Union, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and a common outer security perimeter, including a common border pass. That is the essence of the proposed new "Deep Integration" project: One market, one economic border, and one official security apparatus. Nobody is talking yet of "one flag" or "one currency," but that could come.

This proposal has been discussed at summits held by the leaders of the three involved countries, first in Waco, Texas, in March 2005, to launch the initiative, then one year later in Cancun, Mexico, in March 2006, where it was decided to create the 30-member North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), a tri-national working group responsible for setting priorities for the SPP and to act as a stable driver of the deep integration process through changes in government in all three countries.

On August 20-21 (2007), at Château Montebello, in Montebello, Québec, American President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon will again discuss the project during a third (SPP) summit.

For most Canadians, until now, this trilateral initiative seemed simply to pursue the goal of facilitating trade and travel between the three countries, in a way that would not jeopardize the implementation of security measures that have become necessary in the aftermath of 9/11. For sure, if this were the only objective of such trilateral political and bureaucratic consultations (and they started in 2001), most people would understand the need, either for new physical installations at the border and/or for new administrative arrangements designed to reduce transit times, through pre-customs clearing or otherwise. They would not have the fear of seeing their government embarking on a wholesale abandonment of their national sovereignty.

As of now, however, one suspects that the long lines of Canadian trucks frequently observed at the U.S-Canada border, six years after 9/11, reflect some bad faith on the part of the U.S. government. It seems to be using terrorist threats as a excuse to raise its protectionist stance and a reason for applying undue pressures on the relatively inexperienced Harper government. Canadians remember how the Bush-Cheney administration refused to follow the rulings of numerous NAFTA arbitration panels and imposed upon Canada a managed trade deal for softwood lumber trade.

In any case, the objectives being pursued by the "Deep Integration" project go far beyond shortening transit times at the border. They are much more numerous and much more controversial and risky for Canada's national sovereignty than simply building larger installations and harmonizing border controls to enhance trade and travel flows.

Indeed, the real overall goal of the "Deep Integration" project goes much further and would ultimately lead to the creation of a North American Union of a political and not only an economic nature, within which the three countries, but especially a smaller country such as Canada, could lose much of their national sovereignty. It would be an economic and political arrangement resembling the European Union, which encompasses more than two dozen countries, but in North America it is to be feared that such a union would have an imperial twist. It would transform NAFTA into a common market and would force the two smaller partners to change all their relevant laws and regulations to conform to American laws and regulations, including toeing the American line on defense and foreign policies.

As can be seen, we are quite far from the idea of simply having facilitated border controls for products and people. What these secret meetings are envisaging is more like a new political and comprehensive alliance between the United States, Canada and Mexico. But because of the force of gravity, this also means, in practice, that the United States will turn Canada, and to a certain extent Mexico, into quasi colonies of the U.S. Indeed, the United States is a political elephant that does pretty much what it wants, especially under the Bush-Cheney administration, while Canada and Mexico are, at best, a small beaver in one case, and a small fox in the other. This could have the consequence of considerably reducing the quality of democratic life in Canada.

And that's where the rubber hits the road. Once a medium size country accepts a de facto merger of its defence policy with the policy of a much larger one, and all the more so with the United States which is an empire, it becomes very difficult for the former to maintain an independent foreign policy. Its national sovereignty risks being forever diminished and compromised.

Many Canadians justly fear that the kind of "Deep Integration" that is being planned and promoted in relative secrecy could lead to the abandonment of an independent Canadian foreign policy, the loss of independence of the Canadian Armed forces, and the loss of national control over Canada's national resources, forcing Canada to abandon the economic rents over its oil and gas reserves, but also over its water and its hydroelectric power.

Some even fear that the next big step would be the abandonment of the Canadian dollar, in favor of the U.S. dollar, and the loss of independent monetary and fiscal policies. If this is not the case, where are the safeguards for Canada's sovereignty and independence? What are the democratic foundations of such an enlarged political union? What are the political and economic costs relative to the expected economic gains? There exists no study to my knowledge that evaluates these overall questions in order to form the basis for an enlightened public debate.

Therefore, we have to conclude that the plan for a very "Deep Integration" of Canada within North America is basically flawed, if not fundamentally democratically subversive. There has been no thorough public debate on the issue, even though the minority Harper government would certainly have to consult and persuade Canadians before tabling any special legislation that would need to be enacted before the project could be implemented.

Such a public debate has not taken place yet. On the contrary, everything seems to have been planned to keep it away from the public eye with all discussions being held behind closed doors. This should be enough to raise suspicions, even though the ongoing discussions are not yet legally binding. In a more or less near future, however, the ad hoc arrangements so discussed are likely to lead to a new formal agreement or even a new treaty between the three countries. This is presently denied, but the logic of the operation militates in favor of the last option.

I personally think the issue is of such paramount importance that sooner or later we need a countrywide referendum on the entire "Deep Integration" project. A general election is not sufficient to settle such a complicated issue, because a single political party can gather a minority of votes and squeeze into power between numerous opposition parties. No fundamental democratic legitimacy for such an important political project can be obtained through a general election. For that, a special national referendum would be required so that the sovereign people can decide.