Starting next week, consumers who buy one of the GPS-implanted detergent boxes will be surprised at home, given a pocket video camera as a prize and invited to bring their families to enjoy a day of Unilever-sponsored outdoor fun. The promotion, called Try Something New With Omo, is in keeping with the brand’s international “Dirt is Good” positioning that encourages parents to let their kids have a good time even if they get dirty.

Omo accounts for half of Brazil’s detergent sales and is already found in 80% of homes there, so Unilever’s goal is more to draw attention to a new stain-fighting version of Omo and get it talked about rather than looking for a big increase in sales.

That made the idea of doing a promotion where the prize finds the consumer, rather than the consumer having to look for the prize — and maybe not bothering — appealing.

Fernando Figueiredo, Bullet’s president, said the GPS device is activated when a shopper removes the detergent carton from the supermarket shelf. Fifty Omo boxes implanted with GPS devices have been scattered around Brazil, and Mr. Figueiredo has teams in 35 Brazilian cities ready to leap into action when a box is activated. The nearest team can reach the shopper’s home “within hours or days,” and if they’re really close by, “they may get to your house as soon as you do,” he said.

Once there, the teams have portable equipment that lets them go floor by floor in apartment buildings until they find the correct unit, he said.

Of course, Brazil has a high crime rate, and not everyone is going to open the door to strangers who claim to have been sent by her detergent brand to offer a free video camera. Bullet has thought of that. If the team tracks a consumer to her home but she won’t let them in, they can remotely activate a buzzer in the detergent box so that it starts beeping. And if the team takes too long to arrive, and the consumer has already opened the box to see if she’s a winner or just do laundry, she’ll find, along with the GPS device and less detergent than expected, a note explaining the promotion and a phone number to call.

“Anything can happen,” Mr. Figueiredo said. “We have to be innovative, but we don’t know what reaction to expect from consumers.”

In a big web component, the site experimentealgonovo.com.br (Portuguese for “try something new”) goes live in August, and will include a map showing roughly where the winners live, pictures of each winner and footage of the Bullet-Omo teams hunting down the GPS-enabled detergent boxes, knocking on doors and surprising consumers.

“It costs more than a traditional promotion and is riskier because it’s never been done before, but it’s worth it,” Mr. Figueiredo said. The technology aspect of the promotion costs less than $1 million, out of Omo’s overall marketing budget of about $23 million.

“We believe in using new technology for promotional marketing,” Mr. Figueiredo said.

Plus Bullet just likes figuring out how to ingeniously embed stuff in products. Two summers ago, sales of Unilever’s Fruttare Popsicles soared when Bullet disguised 10,000 iPod Shuffles as popsicles and popped them in freezer cases. The agency’s creatives had noticed while reading their iPod instruction manuals that an iPod can operate at temperatures below freezing. They immediately began freezing their own devices as a test, then constructed a fake ice-cream bar case that mimicked the popsicle but fit an iPod, and a wildly successful summer ice cream promotion was born.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has widened the power of the Federal Security Service, giving it Soviet-era KGB powers.  Rights groups are criticizing the new law saying it could be used to stifle protests and intimidate the Kremlin’s political opponents. 

Under the new law the FSB, the main successor to the KGB, can now issue warnings or detain people suspected of preparing to commit crimes against Russia’s security.   The Kremlin says law the law is part of an effort to combat extremism and thwart terrorist attacks, however critics argue that the measures could be used to infringe the rights of opposition.   

In response to protests from human rights activists, lawmakers removed sections allowing the FSB to summon people to their offices to hand out the warnings and also publish their warnings in the media.  Also removed from the law was a provision for stricter controll over media for “extremeist” statements.

Many opponents have accused the Kremlin of turning Russia into a Soviet-style police state, and many Russians say they fear abuse at the hands of FSB officers.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former FSB chief and KGB officer, is believed, by many, to be behind the push to restore power and influence to the security service.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese naval forces have carried out a series of drills in the South China Sea, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday, strategic waters which are disputed by a number of Southeast Asia countries.

The exercises were overseen by General Chen Bingde, Chief of General Staff for the three-million-strong People’s Liberation Army, the Defense Ministry said on its website (www.mod.gov.cn).

The ministry’s statement did not say exactly where the drills took place or how many ships or sailors participated. It said guided missiles were fired and anti-aircraft attacks simulated, as well as electromagnetic interference.

“Pay close attention to changes in the development of the mission, soundly prepare for combat,” the ministry paraphrased Chen as saying.

China was furious after it was ambushed at Asia’s top security forum last week by a discussion of sensitive territorial claims in the South China Sea, an area rich in energy and key for shipping. China has long-standing territorial disputes there with Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Beijing had kept serious discussion of the South China Sea off the agenda of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) for a decade and a half. But last week in a meeting in Hanoi, 12 of the 27 members — including some with no direct stake in the territorial disputes — raised maritime issues.

China’s Foreign Ministry accused U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of a barely disguised assault on Chinese interests by bringing up the topic.

Chinese state media has since weighed in, warning the United States to alter its policy to take account of China’s role as a major player on the world stage if it wants to avoid friction and instability.

U.S.-China security ties have also been strained over joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises this week directed at North Korea but held in seas near China.

China’s own growing military clout has worried many of its neighbours, including Japan and Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

Vietnam recently ordered six Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia as part of a major arms purchase that analysts see as an attempt to counterbalance China’s growing naval reach in the region.

Some Mexican drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) are involved in smuggling potential terrorists across the southwestern border, according to the Government Accountability Office.
 
“Aliens from countries of special interest to the United States such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan (known as special-interest aliens) also illegally enter the United States through the [southwest border] region,” Richard Stana, the GAO homeland security and justice issues director, said in a report  on alien smuggling issued July 22. 
 
“These [drug trafficking] organizations collect fees from alien smuggling organizations for the use of specific smuggling routes, and available reporting indicates that some Mexican drug trafficking organizations specialize in smuggling special-interest aliens into the United States,” he added. 
 
Stana told CNSNews.com that the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center’s (NDIC) 2008 National Drug Threat Assessment and “other reports” corroborate his comments, although he did not elaborate on what other reports he was referring to.
 
When asked to provide evidence of any recent cases involving Mexican DTOs bringing in individuals from countries of special interest, Stana said, “(I) haven’t seen any specifics that are not ‘law enforcement sensitive.’”
 
According to the 2008 NDIC: “Hundreds of undocumented aliens from special-interest countries illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border annually.”
 
The drug-threat assessment echoed Stana, saying, “Mexican DTOs specialize in smuggling special-interest aliens into the United States.”
 
According to the GAO report, alien smugglers are more likely now than in past years to use violence against U.S. law enforcement officers as they bring groups of aliens across the southwest border.”
 
“Assaults, kidnappings, and hostage situations attributed to this conflict are increasing, particularly in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona,” the report said. “Communities across the country are at risk since among those individuals illegally crossing the border are criminal aliens and gang members who pose public safety concerns for communities throughout the country.”
 
At a hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism where Stana presented his report, Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), the panel’s ranking member, suggested that the U.S. treat Mexican drug traffickers and human smugglers operating along the southwest border as “enemy combatants.”
 
“I would submit that we need to be thinking a bit about some of these folks who are coming here with guns and everything else as enemy combatants,” she said. “They should not be afforded necessarily all of the constitutional rights that American citizens have.”
 
On July 1, in a speech at American University in Washington, D.C., President Obama said, “Even as we are committed to doing what’s necessary to secure our borders, even without passage of the new law, there are those who argue that we should not move forward with any other elements of reform until we have fully sealed our borders.”
 
Obama added: “But our borders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the problem only with fences and border patrols. It won’t work. Our borders will not be secure as long as our limited resources are devoted to not only stopping gangs and potential terrorists, but also the hundreds of thousands who attempt to cross each year simply to find work.”

The president later said: the southern border “is more secure today than at any time in the past 20 years.”

By Marilyn M. Brannan, Assoc. Editor

IRN/USA News

July 23, 2010

Last December, when a majority of Americans were caught up in holiday preparations (and probably paying less attention than usual to the political machinations in Washington), President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), operating on our soil, immune from the restraints of American law.

The signing occurred almost clandestinely—“dead of night,” so to speak—on December 16, 2009.  And the shocking fact is, the transfer of power accomplished in that surreptitious action is nothing less than the authorization for an international law enforcement body to operate with complete immunity on American soil, beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and immune from Freedom of Information Act requests and even the authority of the United States Congress!

INTERPOL was established in 1923, and operates in roughly 188 countries.  By executive order #12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats.  However, INTERPOL is also an active law-enforcement agency; therefore, critical privileges and immunities (Section 2[c] of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld by Reagan’s order. Specifically, property and assets of INTERPOL remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  It has been the constraints of Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations imposed by the U.S. Constitution and federal law that have protected the liberty and privacy of Americans and prevented law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.

But no longer. 

On December 16, 2009, President Obama issued an executive order that removed the Reagan limitations.  INTERPOL’s property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable.  “Property and assets” could conceivably include human assets—Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.  This international police force (headquartered in the Justice Department in Washington) will, by order of Barack Obama, be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States; it also affects Americans and American interests outside the United States.

INTERPOL works closely with international tribunals—such as the International Criminal Court, which the U.S. has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions—but which the Obama administration wants the U.S. to join. INTERPOL works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities, such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported “war crimes”—in other words, actions taken in America’s defense.

Why Are the Media Silent?

This action by Obama was unlike the “legislative triumph” of ObamaCare in March, endlessly extolled in the controlled media (despite the fact that roughly 65 to 70% of Americans opposed its enactment).  Readers will remember a smiling but defiant Nancy Pelosi, surrounded by her entourage, carrying her huge gavel through a sea of Tea Party attendees to send a message to the American people:  the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Triumvirate will force Obama’s agenda on you—whether you like it or not.  

Tens of thousands of pages of hard copy “news” and months of radio and television coverage preceded the historic ObamaCare signing event, when press and photographers swarmed around the president for the “changing of the pens” ritual.  At that point, America lost her freedom to decide what health care in this country will consist of, how it will be paid for, and who will get it.

Our organization first reported on Obama’s quiet change to EO 12425 in January of 2010.  But why wasn’t this front-page news all across the nation?  Why has so little about this egregious power shift been published or aired on radio or television?

What Is Behind This?

Why would we elevate an international police force above American law?  Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies?  Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize? Those are questions asked by former federal prosecutor, Andrew C. McCarthy, writing at National Review Online.[1] 

At least one answer to these questions is very clear.  A coup is underway in the United States of America, the goal of which is to establish complete, unquestioned authority over the citizens—a ‘fundamental change’ to the United States where citizens have no legal recourse against an authoritarian central government.”

By the stroke of his pen, Barack Obama removed all legal authority that American citizens formerly had to demand documentation concerning any charges brought against them. Forget habeas corpus.  Forget Constitutional protections.  Forget the Bill of Rights. 

The liberal media—which are increasingly revealing themselves to be the propaganda arm of the far Left and this current administration—have been appallingly silent. 

The American people have reason to be alarmed about this.

They should be contacting their representatives in Congress, asking pointed questions, demanding to know why this stealth action, which has virtually put all of us under international police power, has not been exposed.