Jatinder Sandhu - Democracy Now

Jatinder Sandhu

Soc 122

5-14-2014

Democracy Now

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/12/did_cias_fake_polio_vaccination_program

Democracy now tackles the ever growing problem of Polio around the world. We were very close to eradicating it; however efforts to thwart vaccinations have spread the virus much more than it has ever been in the last 25 years. The World Health Organization is asking for assistance from the international community in eradicating polio. Pakistan is the largest offender when it comes to the polio virus. Since the United States' CIA used an undercover operation in the guise of Polio Vaccines to capture Osama Bin Laden, there has been fierce push back to vaccinations.  The Taliban has begun to kill medical workers that provide the vaccine leading to an outbreak. The outbreak in Pakistan cannot be solely put on the US, the locations of where polio has exploded is in the parts of Pakistan where there is civil war. The timing of the CIA operation came at a terrible time. Public opinion was on shaky grounds at the start and now there is absolutely no trust left. In order for there to be a widespread eradication of Polio we need to rebuild the trust. Another problem highlighted by the article is that Polio requires a lot of manpower and money. Pakistan itself cannot fund and run the campaign against Polio and the organizations on the ground are ill equipped. The combination of civil war, war on terror, and polio outbreak, has pushed the government to the brink. They can only focus on one serious topic at a time and right now preventing civil war is most important to Pakistan. Most of the countries that have polio outbreaks also have large scale civil wars happening. Medical workers are in the crossfire and cannot vaccinate the population without protection.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/13/collect_it_all_glenn_greenwald_on

This article goes into the depth of the NSA hacking scandal and Edward Snowden. Glenn Greenwald, the reporter that Snowden leaked documents to, discusses the scope of the NSA hacking scandal. The controversial PRISM program has had its fingers in the user date of Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Skype, and Microsoft. They record our every call and every person we contact. It is important to note that these are American's being spied on not some foreigners we don't care about. The Snowden leak helped foster a new movement into what kind of things our government is up to. Greenwald notes that hundreds and thousands of people are unaware that they are even being tracked. NSA is able to intercept packages from CISCO or other router and server providers and then they plant backdoor devices and sends them back out. It's remarkable unconstitutional this all seems, but according to the NSA it is all legal. It's funny to think that the United States used to warn its citizens from Chinese hacking when in reality they were the ones hacking their own people. Ever since Snowden has opened up about the NSA hacking scandal, other scandals from other governments have come to light. This is not just a US thing, it is a worldwide occurrence, governments spy on their people.