Flashback: Boston’s Pandemic Bracelet Scheme

Stephen Smith
Boston Globe
September 15, 2009

Editor’s note: It could also be used to track who did not get a toxic vaccine. The following article first appeared on November 21, 2008.

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Using technology originally developed for mass disasters, Boston disease trackers are embarking on a novel experiment – one of the first in the country – aimed at eventually creating a citywide registry of everyone who has had a flu vaccination.

The resulting vaccination map would allow swift intervention in neighborhoods left vulnerable to the fast-moving respiratory illness.

The trial starts this afternoon, when several hundred people are expected to queue up for immunizations at the headquarters of the Boston Public Health Commission. Each of them will get a bracelet printed with a unique identifier code. Information about the vaccine’s recipients, and the shot, will be entered into handheld devices similar to those used by delivery truck drivers.

Infectious disease specialists in Boston and elsewhere predicted that the registry approach could prove even more useful if something more sinister strikes: a bioterrorism attack or the long-feared arrival of a global flu epidemic. In such crises, the registry could be used to track who received a special vaccine or antidote to a deadly germ.

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URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/flashback-bostons-pandemic-bracelet-scheme/

Boston NPR Editorial Defends Massachusetts Flu Pandemic Police State Bill

WBUR Boston
September 12, 2009

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Richard T. Moore (D-Uxbridge), Senate Chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Health Care and the Special Senate Committee on National Health Reform, says the latest target of anti-government advocates is Senate Bill No. 2028, a pandemic and emergency preparedness plan that gives officials authority to quarantine individuals if necessary:

This summer, vividly and loudly dominating our TV news and print media, America witnessed a raucous display of distrust of our own elected government in the health care town hall meetings. The President and Congress are seeking to expand access to affordable health insurance, and therefore health care, to all Americans. But some of our fellow citizens, skeptical of anything government does, demonized those who tried to explain the proposals before Congress and shouted down explanations rather than engage in a reasonable discussion of the problems and possible solutions.

The anger over health reform efforts by the national government to help Americans expand their right to life, health and happiness has, apparently spilled over to Massachusetts in the form of anger at efforts under discussion in the state government to protect the rights of all citizens during a time of public health emergency. For more than a century, government has had extraordinary powers to respond to an epidemic, and it has generally exercised those powers responsibly. However, legislation aimed at modernizing and refining those powers to preserve individual liberty while protecting everyone from epidemic has been seen by some as more “big brother” government.

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URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/boston-npr-editorial-defends-massachusetts-flu-pandemic-police-state-bill/

FBI Says Boston Cops Need M-16s to Prevent City from Becoming Next Mumbai

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
August 19, 2009

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I kid you not. This is the reasoning used by the FBI. The cops need automatic weapons to respond if the city falls victim to a Mumbai-like terror attack. It’s more likely Boston will get hit by a hurricane, but you don’t see the government building levees and boarding up windows. A terror attack launched against Boston figures pretty low on the probability chart.

“Warren Bamford, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston, said Tuesday that he is baffled by opposition to a proposal to give some neighborhood police officers the semiautomatic weapons,” reports the Associated Press. “In May, Boston Mayor Tom Menino criticized a proposal to arm up to 200 officers with M-16s that the police department had ordered from the U.S. military. Menino said only specially trained units should have the guns.”

Menino, after all, has to face the wrath of citizens who will naturally resent the cops walking around as if Boston is Baghdad.

The FBI is merely playing its assigned role. From the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland Security to the FBI, the government is on the fast track to turn the country into a police state from sea to shining sea. A major part of that effort is the militarization of the police, a process already well along.

Let’s hand it to Boston Mayor Tom Menino — he didn’t buy into the FBI’s malarkey about a terrorist event that will probably never happen.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/fbi-says-boston-cops-need-m-16s-to-prevent-city-from-becoming-next-mumbai/

Boston to arm patrol cops with semiautomatic assault rifles

Donovan Slack and Maria Cramer
The Boston Globe
May 29, 2009

The Boston Police Department is preparing a plan to arm as many as 200 patrol officers with semiautomatic assault rifles, a significant boost in firepower that department leaders believe is necessary to counter terrorist threats, according to law enforcement officials briefed on the plan.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t
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The initiative calls for equipping specialized units, such as the bomb squad and harbor patrol, with the high-powered long-range M16 rifles first, the officials said. The department would then distribute the weapons to patrol officers in neighborhood precincts over the next several months, according to the two law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak publicly.

The officials did not know exactly when the department planned to start handing out the rifles but said police officials already have acquired the guns.

Police department spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll declined to discuss any details of the plan yesterday. She said the plan was still in an “inquiry stage.”

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URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/boston-to-arm-patrol-cops-with-semiautomatic-assault-rifles/