Amazon may allow software developers to read your private Alexa transcripts

Could you imagine living in a country that made technological advancements that weren’t at the expense of your individual right to privacy? What would it be like if the Fourth Amendment was actually respected, and each new idea for an invention started off with the simple question, “Is this going to infringe on the privacy rights of our customers?” If this type of a society sounds too good to be true, that’s because sadly, it is. From cellphones to television sets, to the cars that we drive, the American people are routinely being spied upon and listened to, and unless we stop purchasing these specific items altogether, there’s really not much we can do about it.

According to The Information, and as reported by Breitbart News, owners of the Amazon Alexa devices may soon be having some or even all of their conversations transcribed and reviewed by third-party developers, a move that is already sending up a red flag in the minds of many of Amazon’s customers.

For those who are unaware, the Amazon Echo is a device that essentially acts as a home computer that is instantly activated the second someone in the room says, “Alexa.” For instance, if you were cooking dessert and needed the recipe for homemade brownies, you could simply say “Alexa, read me a brownie recipe,” and the device would answer you within seconds. But while this sounds like something straight out of a science fiction movie, the underlying problems that come with a device that constantly listens for that activation word can be rather significant.

As Breitbart reports, “At the moment, developers making apps that will use Alexa are only permitted to see non-identifying information, such as location data, how often users talk to their devices, and how many times a specific ‘skill’ is used. If full transcripts were visible to developers, the greater amount of data could be put to use in order to improve and fine-tune their applications.”

Although ex-product head for the Alexa team, Ahmed Bouzid, claims that developers are currently only allowed to see “70 percent of what they need to know,” The Informationexplains that some have access to every single piece of information that is gathered by the Alexa device. This acquisition of this data is not only a clear violation of Fourth Amendment privacy rights, but it also opens the door to an entire world full of hackers who are eager and capable of breaking in and stealing your personal information.

During a speech earlier this summer at the Cheltenham Science Festival, cyber security expert Dr. Jason Nurse elaborated on the very real privacy concerns regarding these Amazon devices. “If hackers find a way to compromise these devices in our homes, they could have it recording all of the time and you wouldn’t necessarily know,” he explained. Nurse went on to say that hackers could hear you discussing holiday plans and find out when you will be away from home, or even collect credit card information.

If Amazon really does decide to give third-party developers access to all of the information collected by devices like the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Look, then it’s not a stretch that at least with respect to privacy, the company is going in the wrong direction. Corporations that are constantly putting out new forms of technology should never stop doing so, but that being said, it is also important that they maintain a level of respect for the Fourth Amendment. If our country continues to develop new technology but the liberties of the American people are squandered in the process, what is the point?

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

TheInformation.com

NaturalNews.com

After merger with pro-Monsanto Amazon.com, will Whole Foods still keep its promise to label everything it sells by 2018?

Back in March 2013, Whole Foods Market made a big decision that, even though it was still a long way off at the time, was an answer to overwhelming consumer demand. The company announced that, beginning in 2018, every item sold in its stores would be accurately labeled to indicate the presence of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), a major change that is now just a few months away from becoming a reality. But now that Whole Foods is soon to be acquired by Amazon.com, will this still happen as planned?

Many people are now asking this pertinent question as they consider the potential role that Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon.com, could play in changing the course of Whole Foods. Despite its own set of problems without Bezos, Whole Foods had been moving forward on certain issues at the behest of its customer base, which at the end of the day still calls the shots when it comes to the store’s offerings and agenda. But with Bezos, many fear that Whole Foods will take a serious turn for the worst.

As reported by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, neither Whole Foods nor Amazon seems to care all that much about the integrity of its products. They both play lip service by saying that providing their customers with clean, safe food and personal care products, but independent testing has revealed that products sold at both retailers contain concerning levels of toxins such as heavy metals and pesticides.

Jeff Bezos is a pro-Monsanto opportunist who cares nothing about clean food

Scientific testing conducted by Natural News has found that products sold by both Whole Foods and Amazon aren’t as clean as they appear to be. Protein powders, bulk spices, and various other products have all tested positive for things like lead, cadmium, and mercury, three increasingly ubiquitous neurotoxins that are known to cause damage to the brain and central nervous system. When confronted about this back in 2014, executives at the Whole Foods headquarters in Austin, Texas, reportedly refused to take action.

This was before Whole Foods was purchased by Amazon, by the way. The company has been deceiving its customers in other ways as well, including by adding industrial chemical oils like canola and soy to the food products offered on its hot food and salad bars. Customers think they’re buying clean food made with natural ingredients of the highest quality when in reality they’re buying some of the same things one would normally find at a conventional grocery store.

While it would be premature to make an absolute declaration as to the direction Whole Foods will go under Bezos, the writing already seems to be on the wall. Bezos is an unabashed globalist who is driven by greed and his own special interest agenda. He doesn’t appear to care nearly as much about the integrity of the products his company moves, whether it be consumer electronics or groceries, which doesn’t bode well for the future of Whole Foods.

“The lack of ethics at Whole Foods … makes the company a perfect match for the lack of ethics at Amazon, another greed-driven retailer that also sells contaminated, toxic health products to unwary consumers,” writes Adams about this latest development.

As far as the direction Whole Foods will take under Bezos on the GMO labeling issue Adams believes it a strong possibility that the company will renege on this promise. After all, Bezos maintains powerful alliances with chemical companies and industrial food manufacturers that will likely trump any loyalty some people might hope he has with his customer base. (RELATED: Keep up with the latest news developments on Whole Foods Market by visiting WholeFoods.news)

Sources:

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

A convergence of EVIL: Google, Amazon and Facebook use technology to enslave humanity, suppress knowledge and accelerate human suffering

With Amazon.com now purchasing Whole Foods, giving it a near-monopoly over multiple sectors of the U.S. economy, we are entering the age of corporate giants dominating and enslaving humankind. Apple has more debt-free cash than nearly all world governments, including the United States of America (which is drowning in debt). Google has a near-monopoly over all search results, a position of power it exploits to silence dissenting views and disconnect humanity from important knowledge. And Facebook suppresses all truthful information that challenges the false narratives of the globalists. Corporations like these abuse their power to enslave humanity rather than setting us free.

At the dawn of the invention of television, the technology was hailed as a way to bring uplifting education to every corner of the globe. It didn’t take long, however, before broadcast television was turned into a means to control the masses through the dissemination of fake news — which has been going on forever — and the programming of consumers to purchase branded products often made with toxic ingredients. The dream of turning TV technology into a mechanism to set humanity free was quickly crushed, and today it is widely known that the more hours people spend watching TV, the more unintelligent and unaware they are. (Do you know any intelligent, self-aware, healthy person who indulges in watching fake TV?)

Similarly, the internet was once hailed as a means to set humanity free. But that dream, too, has been crushed under the extreme censorship and obfuscation of internet-intensive businesses like Google, Amazon and Facebook. Here are just a few examples:

• Google censors nearly all REAL news publishers from Google News, making sure that only FAKE (mainstream) media achieves visibility so that fake media narratives dominate public attention. Those fake narratives include everything from the collapse of WTC 7 from “office fires” to the pharmaceutical industry’s ridiculously false claim that vaccines have never harmed any child in the history of the world. For all the same reasons, Google also algorithmically suppresses websites it doesn’t like, including independent news publishers covering investigative stories on vaccines, GMOs and the climate change science hoax. Far from setting humanity free to find what they want on the internet, Google covertly limits search results to primarily those content sites that agree with globalist narratives, all of which are anti-human and anti-progress. Google is also pro-Big Pharma and bans the advertising of natural supplement products that help people prevent disease and reduce suffering.
• Facebook follows a similar algorithmic censorship track, penalizing websites that dare talk about children being harmed by vaccines, science corruption in the genetic engineering industry, the dangers of pesticides or the scientifically validated benefits of carbon dioxide to planet Earth. Facebook manually assigns penalty scores to entire websites, crushing their reach and making sure their content can’t even reach fans who have deliberately “liked” the site and want to receive its information. Mark Zuckerberg, the grandson of a Rockefeller, is being groomed for a position of globalist domination and says he might run for president. He’s already obediently spouting every official lie that Hillary Clinton repeated on the campaign trail in 2016.
• Amazon.com, founded by evil globalist Jeff Bezos, uses its marketplace dominance to promote the interests of the pharmaceutical industry while suppressing natural medicine. Did you know that Amazon is getting into the prescription drug business in the hopes of putting local pharmacies out of business? The company also bans FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) activities with many nutritional supplements and botanical extracts that can prevent serious diseases such as cancer. Now that Amazon is purchasing Whole Foods, Jeff Bezos is likely going to use the same pro-pharma stance to try to transform Whole Foods stores into prescription drug pharmacy locations while eliminating most of Whole Foods’ staff by replacing them with robots.
• Amazon has already pioneered robot-staffed retail stores and has also developed a way to eliminate human cashiers by using RFID tracking of all customers and the items they pick off the shelves. Whole Foods workers are already freaking out, realizing they’re going to be replaced by robots and drones. In effect, Jeff Bezos will promote mass unemployment, mass drug addiction, the censorship of natural products and centralized control over retailing. All of this makes Jeff Bezos richer and more powerful, but it also destroys human dignity, human health and human knowledge. (For people like Jeff Bezos, selling opioids is a great business model because people keep buying them over and over again… the impact on society be damned!)

Evil corporations, evil globalists and evil agendas

What do all these evil corporations and globalist leaders have in common? They are all enemies of humanity:

• They all promote toxic vaccines that are right now killing over 1,400 children a year in the U.S. alone, injuring another 100,000 plus annually.
• They all promote Big Pharma’s toxic medications that earn high profits.
• They all suppress natural medicine, medicinal herbs and cannabinoids (CBD).
• They all supported Hillary Clinton and promote Democrats, the DNC and big government. They all hated Trump just like they hate America, the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment.
• They all promote Monsanto, GMOs, glyphosate and pesticide chemicals as being “good for humanity.” They all claim to be “pro environment” even while supporting the corporations that poison our world with toxic chemicals that kill life and devastate ecosystems.
• They all believe in censorship and suppression as a way to shore up their power and silence dissent.
• They all put profits first and humanity last. To them, human beings are just “useless idiots” to be manipulated or exploited for profit. If Jeff Bezos could fire every single Whole Foods worker right now and replace them all with robots, he would absolutely do so.
• They all believe the ends justify the means, which is why Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post feels justified in completely fabricating “anonymous sources” to publish fake news in an attempt to overthrow the American Republic.
• They all despise diversity of thought and demand absolute conformity and obedience to left-wing narratives covering everything from LGBT issues to the elimination of gun rights. Diversity of opinion is not allowed. Conformity is mandatory.

In effect, these corporations are pure evil. They are run by evil globalists and they ally themselves with other evil corporations that poison our planet, enslave humanity and seek to deprive us all of basic human liberty and dignity.

You’re not helpless: Here’s what you can do to protect your power, your liberty and your future

All these evil corporations depend on one thing to remain in business: Compliant consumers.

If people stop financially supporting these evil corporations, they will cease to exist. The only reason they continue to grow right now is because people continue to feed them economic resources.

Until now, many people had not been fully aware of just how evil these corporations truly are. They had no idea they were about to be enslaved and overrun by Google, Amazon, Facebook and other similar corporate entities. Suddenly, however, it’s becoming obvious to even those who previously decried such warnings as “conspiracy theories.” Suddenly even Whole Foods workers are waking up, flipping out and realizing they are all about to be made obsolete by the Jeff Bezos robot apocalypse. From Reuters:

“I’ve heard that Amazon’s culture is really cutthroat. That worries me,” one bagger at a Providence, Rhode Island, store said.

At least one customer was concerned that an Amazon purchase would further distance Whole Foods from its roots as a purveyor of premium, organic and specialty foods.

…”I think that they are a very profit-driven company, so there might be some streamlining as far as labor,” said Sasha Hardin, 28, of the Mount Pleasant store, who has been with Whole Foods for 6-1/2 years.

Here are some action items you can take right now to stop feeding these corporate monsters that are destroying our collective future:

1. Stop using Google. Find alternative search engines such as DuckDuckGo. For searching news and the independent media, use GoodGopher.com or read Censored.news each day, which aggregates headlines from the internet’s most censored indy news sites.
2. Stop using Facebook. Why would you divulge all the details of your private life to an NSA data collection front anyway? Facebook is nothing but a massive social network spy machine that ruins your life and makes you feel disconnected and depressed. Check out GAB.ai instead.
3. Stop shopping at Amazon.com and Whole Foods. Support local retailers and local grocers, or you’ll soon find them all out of business. If you don’t consciously decide to start shopping at other retailers, you’re going to wake up one day in a world totally dominated by Amazon, where natural health products are banned and prescription drugs are pushed for everything. For lab-verified natural health products, support the Health Ranger Store. For fresh produce, grow your own food or support your local grocers that provide organic and non-GMO options.
4. Make conscious choices about where you spend your money, knowing that every dollar you spend is a “vote” for that organization. Globalist organizations like Google, Amazon and Facebook are all about enslaving humanity and stripping you of knowledge, dignity and health. Vote for the kind of companies who share your belief in natural medicine, empowering individuals, decentralizing political power (returning power to local communities) and halting the mass poisoning of our world with pesticides and GMOs.

The power is in your hands.

P.S. On a personal note, I’m ready to pre-announce a massive expansion to the Health Ranger Store warehouse and fulfillment center in Texas which will be completed at the end of this year. I’m going to post a survey where you can tell us what sort of products you want us to carry and ship. Because we’ll have so much warehouse space available, we’re going to substantially expand our product offerings so that you have an ethical choice of where to buy those products. Watch for a story + survey to be posted soon on Natural News. Although we’ll never be able to compete with the sheer scale of Amazon — nor its free Prime shipping — we aim to bring you a real alternative to Amazon.com and Whole Foods for the non-perishable products you want the most.

Amazon Echo devices can be exploited by hackers to steal your bank account information

While it may be convenient to walk into your home and turn the lights on by simply saying “Alexa” or “Ok Google,” a security expert has warned that devices like the Amazon Echo could pose a serious security risk. “If hackers find a way to compromise these devices in our homes, they could have it recording all of the time and you wouldn’t necessarily know,” explained cyber security expert Dr. Jason Nurse. “They could hear you discussing your holiday plans, so they know when you are away and could burgle you. They may hear you buying something on the phone, giving away your credit card details.”

Nurse’s comments came during a recent speech at the Cheltenham Science Festival. The cyber security expert explained that he is so concerned about the potential privacy risks that come with the use of devices like the Amazon Echo that he refuses to keep electronic assistants of any kind in his home.

But despite the fact that your banking information is put in jeopardy every time you turn on your Amazon Echo, the gadget is more popular than ever. With the ability to answer virtually any question you have, pick up commands even in a noisy room, track online shopping and even lower the thermostat, it’s easy to see why devices like the Amazon Echo are being used by millions of people across the country. But still, some are concerned that such gadgets are inviting electronic spies right into their living rooms.

“If there’s something private you want to say, the first thing you should do is mute the device… or turn it off,” Dr. Nurse advises. “You should think twice about what you say in front of these devices.” Dr. Nurse went on to explain that “someone else in your home may say the wake word without your knowledge and start it recording while you are discussing something private or sensitive.”

In the case of the Amazon Echo, the “wake word” is “Alexa,” and in the case of Google Home, the “wake word” is “Ok Google.”

Although an Amazon spokesperson claimed that they take customer privacy very seriously, this isn’t the first time that the electronic commerce company has been surrounded by controversy. Back in April, Natural News reported on the potential privacy risks concerning the Echo Look, a $199 device recently released by Amazon that has the ability to watch you get dressed in your own bedroom. Even though the original purpose of the Echo Look was to give you recommendations on what to wear, many people are concerned that it could secretly record you during some of your most intimate moments.

With technology advancing at an astonishing rate and new devices coming out every year that once were only imaginable in science fiction films, our everyday lives are becoming more and more simplistic. We used to have no choice but to drive our own cars from point A to point B; now we have the option of purchasing a car that is able to drive itself. We used to have to walk into a dark house and feel around blindly for the light switch; now all we have to do is say “Alexa, turn on the lights.” Without question, life is much more convenient than it was even just five years ago.

But just because it is more convenient doesn’t mean it’s safer. As a matter of fact, one could argue that with the invention of devices like the Amazon Echo, people are more at risk of experiencing some type of privacy violation, whether it’s a video recording taken of you while you get dressed or a hacker stealing your banking information. That is why it is up to companies like Amazon and Google to continue looking for ways to protect the privacy rights of their customers, while simultaneously putting new products on the market.

Sources:

Dailymail.co.uk

NaturalNews.com

Amazon buys Whole Foods, creating the world’s largest marketplace of untested health products contaminated with heavy metals and pesticides

 Amazon will acquire Whole Foods Market for $42 a share in a deal with a total value of $13.7 billion, according to multiple news reports (including CNBC), creating the world’s largest marketplace for untested health products contaminated with heavy metals and pesticides.

Neither Whole Foods nor Amazon tests every product it sells for heavy metals or pesticides. Both retailers rely on product providers to meet all USDA and FDA product safety requirements, but product manufacturers routinely misrepresent their own products for the simple reason that they almost never conduct their own testing, either. (Their suppliers lie to them, and in turn they lie to Whole Foods, and Whole Foods accepts that chain of lies as “fact” … which is, ironically, the same method by which the Washington Post writes fake news.)

Both Whole Foods and Amazon continue to sell products contaminated with heavy metals

Natural News has conducted extensive testing of off-the-shelf products from both Whole Foods and Amazon and has found alarming levels of toxic heavy metals like LEAD in products being retailed by both companies. Natural News has purchased, tested and identified numerous products sold by Amazon.com that contain alarming levels of toxic heavy metals, including lead and mercury.

For example, Amazon sells numerous ground turmeric root powders that we recently tested via ICP-MS, finding they contain alarming levels of toxic lead:

• Indus Organic Turmeric Powder sold by Amazon was found to contain over 225 ppb lead. (See lab test document here – PDF)
• Frontier CO-OP Turmeric Root sold by Amazon was found to contain over 350 ppb lead. (See lab test document here – PDF)
• Rani Brand Ground Turmeric sold by Amazon was found to contain over 600 ppb lead. (See lab test document here – PDF)

Personally, I would never sell products with lead levels that high. It doesn’t bother Jeff Bezos, however, who apparently has no limit whatsoever on how much toxic lead, cadmium, mercury or arsenic might be contained in the products they sell for profit.

In 2014, I met with a Whole Foods executive at their headquarters in Austin to hand them heavy metals lab data on the contaminated protein products they were selling. Instead of taking action to remove toxic heavy metals from their products, they ignored the problem and swept the problem under the rug. Whole Foods has since continued to act in a highly unethical manner, selling numerous products on their shelves that are contaminated with lead and other heavy metals.

The lack of ethics at Whole Foods, however, makes the company a perfect match for the lack of ethics at Amazon, another greed-driven retailer that also sells contaminated, toxic health products to unwary consumers. (Have you ever read the ingredients on the foods at the Whole Foods buffet? It’s full of GMOs and pesticides…)

Jeff Bezos turned the Washington Post into FAKE NEWS… will Whole Foods be turned into FAKE FOOD?

Notably, Jeff Bezos, the “Dr. Evil” globalist who purchased Washington Post (i.e. “Bezos’ Blog”) managed to very quickly turn it into a fake news rag that deliberately and maliciously fabricates fake news in an attempt to overthrow America’s constitutional Republic. Under the corruption of Bezos, the Washington Post has invented totally false news stories by citing fabricated “anonymous sources” to smear President Trump at every opportunity.

It only stands to reason that Whole Foods will follow the same path of corruption under Jeff Bezos, where “health foods” will become “fake foods” filled with garbage ingredients and toxic contaminants such as pesticides and lead.

Will Whole Foods even keep its promise to label everything it sells with GMO status by the year 2018? Don’t be surprised if Jeff Bezos withdraws that commitment, given how the Washington Post is in bed with Monsanto, DuPont and every evil manufacturer of GMOs and pesticide chemicals. The Washington Post “science” section reads like a public relations whorehouse for Monsanto.

Stop shopping at Whole Foods and start supporting smaller grocery chains that aren’t owned by an evil globalist who hates America

What’s the solution in all this? Stop shopping at Whole Foods. It’s about to be owned by an evil, unethical, anti-American globalist who loves Monsanto and hates democracy.

Instead, spend your money at local health food stores, local grocers and smaller grocery chains that offer organic and natural products. Don’t hand your money over to an evil globalist who produces fake news and sells contaminated products on a daily basis.

You can also, of course, shop for non-perishable items at the Health Ranger Store, where everything we sell is laboratory tested and verified before we offer it to the public (which is why we often have shortages on many products because we reject a lot of raw materials).

Also, watch for the latest headlines on whole foods at WholeFoods.news