Tag: consent

Iraq lowers age of consent to just 9 years old in sick new law so old men can marry children

Iraq has passed a law that would legalise the marriage of children as young as nine.

Three divisive laws have now been passed which give Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including marriage, divorce and inheritance. Activists argue that this undermines Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law, which unified family law and established safeguards for women.

Iraqi law currently sets 18 as the minimum age of marriage in most cases. The changes passed Tuesday would let clerics rule according to their interpretation of Islamic law, which some interpret to allow marriage of girls in their early teens – or as young as 9 under the Jaafari school of Islamic law followed by many Shiite religious authorities in Iraq.

Proponents of the changes defend them as a means to align the law with Islamic principles and reduce Western influence on Iraqi culture.

The parliament also passed a general amnesty law seen as benefiting Sunni detainees and that’s also seen as giving a pass to people involved in corruption and embezzlement. The chamber also passed a land restitution law aimed at addressing Kurdish territorial claims.

Intisar al-Mayali, a human rights activist and a member of the Iraqi Women’s League, said passage of the civil status law amendments “will leave disastrous effects on the rights of women and girls, through the marriage of girls at an early age, which violates their right to life as children, and will disrupt the protection mechanisms for divorce, custody and inheritance for women.” The session ended in chaos and accusations of procedural violations.

“Half of the lawmakers present in the session did not vote, which broke the legal quorum,” a parliamentary official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. He said that some members protested loudly and others climbed onto the parliamentary podium.

After the session, a number of legislators complained about the voting process, under which all three controversial laws – each of which was supported by different blocs – were voted on together.

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Drones Spray ‘Self-Spreading’ COVID-19 Vaccine for ‘Large-Area Inoculation of Humans’ in ‘DEFUSE’ EcoHealth/DARPA Project

  • EcoHealth’s DEFUSE Proposal Exposed: In 2018, EcoHealth Alliance submitted a proposal to DARPA, codenamed DEFUSE, outlining plans to deploy aerosolized immune modulators, chimeric spike proteins, and/or self-spreading vaccines via drones, potentially over humans.
  • Aerosolized Vaccination on Humans: DEFUSE documents explicitly describe large-area aerosol delivery systems for “inoculation of animals/humans,” raising the question of whether these plans were executed on unsuspecting populations.
  • Drone Deployment and Pandemic Origin: The DEFUSE proposal and DARPA’s advanced drone programs suggest a chilling possibility: that drones may have played a role in the COVID-19 pandemic, challenging the mainstream lab-leak narrative.
  • DARPA’s Connection to Moderna: By 2012, DARPA was already working with Moderna on RNA-based spike protein vaccines. A 2016 Moderna patent contains a genetic sequence with a one-in-3-trillion match to the pandemic virus, igniting claims of bioengineering origins.
  • Suppression of DEFUSE Details: Whistleblower revelations show attempts by DARPA and intelligence agencies to classify and censor DEFUSE-related research. U.S. senators have demanded investigations into these actions.
  • Self-Spreading Vaccines and Gain-of-Function: DEFUSE documents reveal plans for self-disseminating vaccines and host-to-host therapeutic distribution, indicating the potential use of engineered viruses as vaccine delivery systems.
  • Unprecedented Drone Funding Surge: A 26% spike in military drone funding in 2019 aligns with DEFUSE’s timeline and its drone-based aerosol delivery technologies, hinting at pre-pandemic preparations.
  • International Drone Use During COVID-19: Governments worldwide deployed drones for “disinfecting,” but studies debunk the effectiveness of this practice, raising suspicion about the true purpose of these operations.
  • A Coordinated Bioengineering Agenda?: The alignment of DEFUSE, DARPA, and drone advancements reveals an unsettling intersection of gain-of-function research, bioweaponized delivery systems, and self-spreading vaccines.
  • Urgent Transparency Needed: The DEFUSE project raises alarming questions about the origins of COVID-19, the ethics of aerosolized bioengineering, and the U.S. government’s role in these developments. The public deserves truth and accountability, especially considering a potentially incoming bird flu pandemic.

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Apple auto-opts everyone into having their photos analyzed by AI for landmarks

Apple last year deployed a mechanism for identifying landmarks and places of interest in images stored in the Photos application on its customers iOS and macOS devices and enabled it by default, seemingly without explicit consent.

Apple customers have only just begun to notice.

The feature, known as Enhanced Visual Search, was called out last week by software developer Jeff Johnson, who expressed concern in two write-ups about Apple’s failure to explain the technology, which is believed to have arrived with iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 on October 28, 2024.

In a policy document dated November 18, 2024 (not indexed by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine until December 28, 2024, the date of Johnson’s initial article), Apple describes the feature thus:

Enhanced Visual Search in Photos allows you to search for photos using landmarks or points of interest. Your device privately matches places in your photos to a global index Apple maintains on our servers. We apply homomorphic encryption and differential privacy, and use an OHTTP relay that hides [your] IP address. This prevents Apple from learning about the information in your photos. You can turn off Enhanced Visual Search at any time on your iOS or iPadOS device by going to Settings > Apps > Photos. On Mac, open Photos and go to Settings > General.

Apple did explain the technology in a technical paper published on October 24, 2024, around the time that Enhanced Visual Search is believed to have debuted. A local machine-learning model analyzes photos to look for a “region of interest” that may depict a landmark. If the AI model finds a likely match, it calculates a vector embedding – an array of numbers – representing that portion of the image.

The device then uses homomorphic encryption to scramble the embedding in such a way that it can be run through carefully designed algorithms that produce an equally encrypted output. The goal here being that the encrypted data can be sent to a remote system to analyze without whoever is operating that system from knowing the contents of that data; they just have the ability to perform computations on it, the result of which remain encrypted. The input and output are end-to-end encrypted, and not decrypted during the mathematical operations, or so it’s claimed.

The dimension and precision of the embedding is adjusted to reduce the high computational demands for this homomorphic encryption (presumably at the cost of labeling accuracy) “to meet the latency and cost requirements of large-scale production services.” That is to say Apple wants to minimize its cloud compute cost and mobile device resource usage for this free feature.

With some server optimization metadata and the help of Apple’s private nearest neighbor search (PNNS), the relevant Apple server shard receives a homomorphically-encrypted embedding from the device, and performs the aforementioned encrypted computations on that data to find a landmark match from a database and return the result to the client device without providing identifying information to Apple nor its OHTTP partner Cloudflare.

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Vaccine by Cop

Heads up New Zealand

Every person alive right now PAY ATTENTION

New laws going in that involve those in charge of civil authority having the ability to use their position, and force for assistance to the chief medical officer of health. THE POLICE

  • for quarantine
  • for assistance with the medical treatment the medical officer of health prescribes

Section 71A

states that a member of the police may do anything reasonably necessary (including the use of force) to help a medical officer of health or any person authorised by the medical officer of health in the exercise or performance of powers or functions under sections 70 or 71.

section 70(1)(f)

The power to detain, isolate or quarantine allows a medical officer of health to ‘require persons, places, buildings, ships, vehicles, aircraft, animals, or things to be isolated, quarantined, or disinfected’ 

thus a medical officer can suddenly detain, isolate or quarantine you.

section 70(1)(h)

The power to prescribe preventive treatment allows a medical officer of health, in respect of any person who has been isolated or quarantined, to require people to remain where they are isolated or quarantined until they have been medically examined and found to be free from infectious disease, AND UNTIL THEY HAVE UNDERGONE SUCH PREVENTATIVE TREATMENT AS THE MEDICAL OFFICE OF HEALTH PRESCRIBES

(va÷÷ine) Va÷÷ine by cop.

This get invoked is easy-

Page 125 of the Pandemic Plan-

“Special powers are authorised

  • by the Minister of Health or
  • by an epidemic notice or
  • apply where an emergency has been declared under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002.”

So lots of ways.

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No Means No: The Child in Vermont Said No, So What Good is the Vermont Supreme Court Ruling?

During the height of the COVID19 pandemic debacle, suggestive reasoning in advocating for Federal vaccine mandates was used to nudge the unthinkable. This observation is directed at a 2022 article by Fraser and Neuss in the journal Chest. At a time when it was already known that the vaccines failed to prevent transmission, the authors nevertheless attempted to nudge subtly toward a nationalized approach to vaccine mandates without explicitly stating this position. Their approach is easily criticized for its passive-aggressive tone, lack of clarity, and failure to fully engage with counterarguments.

I will argue that via a detailed analysis of the principle of informed consent. I will argue that solicited, explicit, and voluntary agreement before administering medical procedures, particularly vaccinations, without pretext, coercion or presumption, is a basic human right. The Vermont Supreme Court’s recent ruling, interpreted by some as allowing schools to vaccinate children without explicit parental consent, is highlighted as an anomalous but significant threat to informed consent and parental rights. In particular, in addition to rights to choose (accept or decline) proferred medical options, this ruling potentially enables the state to enroll children in long-term vaccine safety studies without parental knowledge or consent, contravening ethical standards outlined in 45 CFR 46, the Common Rule, and other federal regulations designed to protect vulnerable populations.

Case examples, such as Murthy v. Missouri (2024) and Medical Professionals for Informed Consent v. Bassett (2023), are used to illustrate the importance of maintaining individual rights and informed consent in public health policies. These cases underscore the necessity for clear legislative frameworks and robust protections to prevent overreach and maintain public trust.

I call for more direct and transparent discussions on vaccine mandates, urging a balanced approach that respects individual autonomy and informed consent while addressing public health needs. The current trend of suggestive reasoning and ambiguous policy advocacy undermines ethical principles and fails to provide a solid foundation for public health strategies.

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Further Ethical Concerns on a Recent Self-Amplifying RNA Vaccine Study

I called for the ongoing study to be ceased given the mass safety signal pointed out by The McCullough Foundation.

Today, I outline further ethical flaws:

  1. Informed Consent:
  • Participants must be fully informed about the novel nature of srRNA technology, including potential unknown long-term effects. Ensuring that informed consent is genuinely informed is critical.
  • Detailed information about the potential risks and benefits, including those observed in preclinical and early-phase clinical trials, should be provided.
  • Since the long-term risks are unknown, this seems impossible.
  1. Conflict of Interest:
  • The authors are employees of Replicate Bioscience Inc., which raises concerns about bias. The review should disclose how the conflict of interest was managed.
  • Independent oversight or review by third-party experts who do not stand to benefit financially from the vaccine should be conducted.
  1. Safety Monitoring:
  • Continuous monitoring for adverse effects is essential, especially given the novel nature of srRNA vectors.
  • Clear protocols for reporting and managing adverse events, including long-term follow-up, and plans to mitigate the ill-health effects of AEs and SAEs, must be transparent and outlined up-front.
  1. Methodological Issues

Cause of Death Determination:

  • Accurate determination of causes of death in clinical trials is crucial. There should be a standardized protocol for post-mortem analysis to ascertain whether deaths are related to the vaccine or underlying conditions. Doctors working for the company determining that the vaccine was not the cause of death is insufficient: it’s a novel vaccine: how do they know they are not confusing deaths from COVID19 with deaths from vaccines? PCR is known to be fraught with errors in this context. How do they know that the vaccine does not interact with COVID19 infection and increase mortality?
  • Independent medical reviews of cause-of-death determinations can mitigate bias.

Manufacturing Quality:

  • The article mentions impurities from poor manufacturing that lead to systemic inflammatory responses. To minimize such risks, strict quality control measures and validation processes should be in place.
  • Detailed documentation and transparency regarding manufacturing practices are essential to ensure reproducibility and safety.

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Belgian Government Will Intervene In Cases Where Prostitutes Refuse Sexual Acts Too Often

A new law in Belgium celebrated by activists for providing a “labour contract” to prostitutes will also enable their pimps to punish them with a government mediator if they refuse sex more than 10 times in a six-month period. The Belgian Parliament voted for the law on May 3, with 93 in favor, zero opposed, and 33 abstentions.  

The legislation is being touted as a win by UTSOPI, the Belgium Union of Sex Workers, which had lobbied extensively for the legislation. The law outlines that prostitutes will receive health insurance, a pension, maternity and holiday leave, and unemployment benefits. Their pimps will be forced to provide them with a “safety button” to use for emergencies.

Their website claims that the law “is a historic step in the battle for sex workers’ rights” and will create a “respectful, fair relationship” between prostitutes and their pimps, with UTSOPI spokesperson Daan Bauwens telling media that he believes “Belgium is really demonstrating that it aims to protect sex workers, regardless of any moral judgements about the profession people may have.”

Prostitutes are to be granted “rights” to refuse sexual acts, stop sexual acts, perform sexual acts in the manner they prefer, and refuse to sit behind Amsterdam-style windows (public facing windows where prostitutes are on display). However, should a prostitute use these “rights” 10 times within six months, their pimp can then call on a government mediator to intervene.

All pimps must have a registered office and apply to the Belgian government for approval to offer contracts to prostitutes. The contracts will be disguised as hotel-restaurant-café (HoReCa) contracts so that prostitutes can remain anonymous.

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DISTURBING FDA LOOPHOLE ALLOWS SCIENTISTS TO DO EXPERIMENTS ON HUMANS WITHOUT INFORMED CONSENT

An FDA rule change published on December 21, 2023 solidifies that scientists are allowed to conduct human experiments without informed consent, as long as the research poses “minimal risk” and includes “appropriate safeguards to protect the rights, safety, and welfare of human subjects.” Investigation by ICAN’s legal team revealed that efforts to undermine informed consent protections have long been in the works, going back to at least 1962. ICAN has filed a FOIA request to dig deeper into this violation of one of our most basic human rights.

Informed consent is one of the bedrocks of human rights. It requires that (1) you be fully informed of the risks and benefits of any intervention or procedure and (2) that you consent to participate without coercion of any kind. Unfortunately, it turns out that Congress and our federal health authorities have been working to weaken informed consent protections for over 60 years!

On the heels of FDA’s new draft guidance which further weakens the already paltry clinical trial requirements for vaccine approval, FDA is once again implementing rules that take aim at informed consent protections. On December 21, 2023, FDA issued a final rule that “allows an exception from the requirement to obtain informed consent when a clinical investigation poses no more than minimal risk to the human subject and includes appropriate safeguards to protect the rights, safety, and welfare of human subjects.”

An investigation by ICAN’s attorneys revealed that back in 1962, Congress passed an amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act which directed HHS to create regulations that required researchers to “obtain the consent of such human beings or their representatives, except where they deem it not feasible or, in their professional judgment, contrary to the best interests of such human beings.” (Emphasis added.)

In 1981, both the FDA and HHS issued updated federal regulations regarding “The Protection of Human Subjects.” HHS’s regulations for example “exempt[ed]  broad categories of research which normally present little or no risk of harm to subjects,” such as “study of data, documents, records and specimens.”

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The Era of Informed Consent is Over

In a significant blow to patient autonomy, informed consent has been quietly revoked just 77 years after it was codified in the Nuremberg Code.

On the 21st of December 2023, as we were frantically preparing for the festive season, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final ruling to amend a provision of the 21st Century Cures Act. This allowed 

…an exception from the requirement to obtain informed consent when a clinical investigation poses no more than a minimal risk to the human subject…

This ruling went into effect on January 22nd, 2024, which means it’s already standard practice across America. 

So, what is the 21st Century Cures Act? It is a controversial Law enacted by the 114th United States Congress in January 2016 with strong support from the pharmaceutical industry. The Act was designed to

…accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of 21st-century cures, and for other purposes [?]…[emphasis added]

Some of the provisions within this Act make for uncomfortable reading. For example, the Act supported: 

High-risk, high-reward research [Sec. 2036].

Novel clinical trial designs [Sec. 3021]

Encouraging vaccine innovation [Sec. 3093].

This Act granted the National Institutes of Health (NIH) legal protection to pursue high-risk, novel vaccine research. A strong case could be made that these provisions capture all the necessary architecture required for much of the evil that transpired over the past four years.

Overturning patient-informed consent was another stated goal of the original Act. Buried under Section 3024 was the provision to develop an

Informed consent waiver or alteration for clinical investigation.

Scholars of medical history understand that the concept of informed consent, something we all take for granted today, is a relatively new phenomenon codified in its modern understanding as one of the critical principles of the Nuremberg Code in 1947. It is inconceivable that just 77 years after Nuremberg, the door has once again opened for state-sanctioned medical experimentation on potentially uninformed and unwilling citizens.  

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New York’s Proposed Minor Consent Law ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Misleading,’ Critics Say

New York state lawmakers are weighing legislation that would allow any child or teen under 18 to seek out and consent to medical treatment — including vaccines, dental procedures, hospitalization and even surgery — without parental consent, as long as the minor appears to have the mental capacity for making that decision.

Assembly Bill A6761, introduced by New York Assemblymember Karines Reyes (D-Bronx), also would allow Medicaid funds to pay for procedures and drugs administered to children.

Proponents of the legislation, such as the American Civil Liberties Union of New York, say the measure is about ensuring all youth have access to quality care.

But critics, including John Gilmore, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Autism Action Network, said the bill is dangerous.

“The bill’s biggest problem,” Gilmore told The Defender, “is that it allows any medical procedure to be done to children of any age without parental knowledge or consent. That’s the kicker.”

Gilmore said the bill has another problem, too: The “active summary” statement on the official New York Assembly website says it “allows homeless youth to give effective consent to certain medical, dental, health, and hospital services.”

But Gilmore said that statement is “deliberately misleading” because the bill’s text applies to more than just “homeless” youth seeking “certain” services.

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