http://www.newdawnmagazine.com.au/Articles/E-commerce.html
This assembly will, in later years, be seen as a turning point. Things will never be the same again.
- The then British Ambassador to the UN, Ivor Richardson, describing the UN resolution for a New International Economic Order
The New International Economic Order (NIEO) is seldom mentioned these days and yet it is the harbinger of globalisation. It was the 1974 United Nations resolution on the NIEO and the attendant 1975 Lima Declaration on Industrial Development and Cooperation,1 which began the drive for reduction of tariffs, removal of impediments to free trade and the introduction of the so-called level playing field. The then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was mentor of the NIEO resolution. In announcing the shift toward a global economy, Kissinger declared: "All nations can now participate in a common world monetary system." The process of economic globalisation had begun.
The United Nations (UN) declared that the NIEO would help poor, debt ridden third world nations become wealthy and banish disparities in the world. This was to be achieved by transferring at least 25 percent of the world's industrialisation and manufacturing processes from developed nations to less developed countries by the year 2000.
The transfer of wealth from rich to poor nations never occurred. But what the NIEO did achieve was dramatic structural changes in the world economy in the areas of commodities, natural resources, trade and monetary reform. In line with the Lima declaration, important manufacturing and industrialisation processes were transferred to third world nations, where people, the environment and natural resources were able to be acutely exploited by Transnational Corporations (TNCs). For the developing nations, the NIEO meant that world market leaders such as Nike sport shoes corporation or the toys giant Mattell no longer needed to keep factories under their own management. They simply allocated orders to changing producers from Indonesia through to Poland or Mexico - to any country where costs were low and people could be employed on starvation wages.
For the rich nations, the NIEO was equally disastrous. Millions of people lost their jobs. With the growth of just-in-time production, companies called for just-in-time workers - the day labourer was back! Many workers had their incomes savaged and were forced to accept lower wages and poor employment conditions. The part-time and casual workforce increased. Small to medium enterprises unable to compete with the buying power of TNCs were swallowed up. Primary industries were deregulated and bankrupted as agribusiness conglomerates assumed control. Wage workers were transformed into human resources. The public sector was corporatised, then privatised.
The real beneficiaries of the NIEO were the world's top transnational companies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the World Bank and the United Nations. Economic globalisation, the final outcome of the NIEO, provided TNCs with access to new markets, cheap sources of labour and subsidised production facilities. The IMF, a private insurance company, used its leverage to compel sovereign nations to implement necessary structural adjustments ensuring wages and real living standards were pared down. Meanwhile, the World Bank advanced billions of dollars to third world nations for NIEO 'development' projects,2 ensuring that the Bank's loans to heavily indebted nations could be carried on the books as performing assets. The United Nations cheered from the sidelines. What the UN had failed to achieve politically - a world government - would now be brought about via economic means.
E-Commerce Revolution
Economic globalisation has necessitated and facilitated the e-commerce revolution. This so-called revolution has many important features. Firstly, e-commerce transactions are cashless, taking place in cyberspace over the Internet. Secondly, e-commerce transactions are globalised - they can take place anywhere in the world where there is Internet access. Third, for e-commerce transactions to be secure, participants need to verify their identity via a digital signature or biometric device. This identification regime will become paramount as more and more people utilise e-commerce facilities.
As e-commerce spreads, we will see a gradual transmigration to a world currency - e-currency - fostered via the Internet, a tool originally developed for use by the US military. As the e-commerce revolution continues, it will be necessary to have a truly global bank of issue for the one world currency. The outgoing director of the IMF, Michel Camdessus, his underling Stanley Fischer,3 and international financier Georg Soros, have already started to talk up the possibility of the IMF becoming a world central bank.4
The world's leading information and telecommunication companies are now spearheading the development of a global information infrastructure. Once fully developed, this infrastructure will form the basis for the one world money system, based on the e-currency. How is this infrastructure evolving? Who are the key players? And what are their end goals? To find out, we go back to 1 January 2000.
The Y2K 'Emergency'
Many New Dawn readers will remember the former US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dr. John Hamre, who took a lead role in preparing the US Defense Department's computer networks for the Y2K rollover. Just ten days after the rollover, Hamre announced his resignation. His new posting as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank representing the Washington establishment, draws together many threads in the puzzling Y2K scenario.5 It was Hamre who said of Y2K, "this is going to have implications for American society and the world that we can't even comprehend." Certainly there were implications for the world, but not the disasters and social disruptions we were all expecting. The real story is that Y2K was the capstone in long range plans for the e-commerce revolution and an important step towards the cashless one world monetary system.
We begin with the establishment of the International Y2K Cooperation Centre (IY2KCC), set up under the auspices of the United Nations and funded by the World Bank, the two organisations at the forefront of the NIEO declaration. The IY2KCC became the focus of media attention during the rollover to 2000, but as country after country gave the all-clear signal, the Centre became the laughing stock of the world.
The IY2KCC was dubbed a white elephant, but in reality it was a Trojan horse. The so-called 'Y2K emergency' facilitated a computer hook up of governments from over 200 countries and territories throughout the world. From Albania to Zimbabwe, countries were networked into the IY2KCC computer system. A system with the capacity to monitor all of the vital sectors within each country including energy; telecommunications; finance; air, sea and land transport; health and hospitals; government services; customs and immigration; food and water. Nearly all governments throughout the world now have dedicated computer links to the UN, and are able to report on the operations of all of their critical infrastructures - a vital step towards global governance.
The IY2KCC is one of the largest on-line computer networks ever established. No wonder governments were scrambling to become Y2K compliant and the World Bank was siphoning billions of dollars to developing nations to help with Y2K upgrades. They all had to be linked into the IY2KCC. Not surprisingly, IY2KCC Director Bruce McConnell is now negotiating with the UN, the World Bank, and national Y2K coordinators to find ways of putting the computer network to good use. Accordingly, the Centre will remain operational in cyberspace, for 'research purposes'.
Now to the IY2KCC sponsors. These are the organisations that work in partnership with the UN and the World Bank to help the IY2KCC along. They are: !Candle, the IY2KCC mailing list coordinator; DEL, the Direct Computer Systems Company; the US Federal Reserve, which provided the hardware and software for the IY2KCC; the META Group, administrator of the IY2KCC Yes Corps;6 the Centre for Quality and Productivity, coordinator for the Yes Corps volunteers; and WITSA, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance, the administrator of the IY2KCC.
Now we really see who was running the IY2KCC and the likely purpose behind it. The two important entities involved are the US Federal Reserve and WITSA. The US Federal Reserve needs no introduction, suffice to say that for many years the Fed has been behind the push for a one world currency in all its guises. The second organisation, WITSA, is a consortium of 32 information technology industry associations from economies around the world. Founded in 1978 (just a few years after the NIEO declaration), WITSA touts itself as the global voice of the IT industry and has been instrumental in the development of the e-commerce revolution.
Long Term Covert Planning
So what is the significance of Dr. John Hamre's presence at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies? And what does the IY2KCC have to do with the e-commerce revolution? Here is how it all fits together. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies7 is funded by contributions from more than 300 transnational corporations, foundations, and individuals.8 (CSIS illuminaries are listed at end of article.) The CSIS represents the globalists with illuminaries such as Henry Kissinger (remember, he was the mentor of the NIEO resolution) and Zbignew Brezinski holding office.
Importantly, the Center for Strategic and International Studies has had a long term interest in electronic transactions and surveillance. In 1971, long before we had heard of e-commerce, CSIS assigned a group of informatics specialists to develop a system of surveillance of all citizens in a manner neither obvious nor intrusive. The best way to keep citizens under surveillance, CSIS concluded, was to develop a national EFTPOS system.
One of the principal projects of the CSIS is the formation of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC), a private grouping of elites, dedicated to driving the e-commerce revolution forward. The stated goal of the GIIC is to work towards a global networked economy "in which every nation and individual has a chance to participate." To cut through this doublespeak, what a global networked economy means is access and connectivity to the Internet and more electronic commerce for all. That means ordinary people, sitting in their house with a PC, ordering everything online from groceries to pizza and lawn mowing services, verifying their identity via a biometric device or a digital signature. Outside the home, there will be Internet kiosks, which will become as prolific as ATMs are now.
The GIIC says it is "the only truly global organisation addressing the information revolution economy as it fundamentally impacts societies, nations and individuals operating within the global networked economy." Who are these comm-issioners that the CSIS has charged with this important job? They are none other than representatives from the world's top information technology companies, tele-communications providers, the United Nations and the World Bank (GIIC Commissioners are fully listed at end of article). These are the same people that have a vested interested in the development of a one world monetary system. These are the people behind the push for a global information infrastructure which will propel the e-commerce revolution to the far flung corners of the earth.
The GIIC is a founding member of the Alliance for Global Business. The other members of the AGB are the Business Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC); the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC);9 International Telecommunications Users Group (INTUG), and the previously mentioned World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) - the IY2KCC administrator.
The self-important Alliance for Global Business has issued a set of fundamental principles as the basis for policymaking for electronic commerce in the document, "Global Action Plan for Electronic Commerce." The document advocates tax neutrality for e-commerce (which is great for the TNCs) and provides views on the full range of e-commerce issues, including privacy, cryptography, consumer protection in the online environment, intellectual property protection, standards, competition, and Internet governance.
The AGB is presently using the "Global Action Plan for Electronic Commerce" in discussions with several other international organisations, including the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. It was also officially submitted to Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) governments at the October 1998 OECD Ministerial Conference on Electronic Commerce. This "Global Action Plan for Electronic Commerce" has been presented to governments of the world without even any input from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or so-called civil society organisations.
End Game Plan
The final link in this e-commerce web is the US military. The organisation that brought us the Internet, and the organisation which sent Dr. Hamre to the CSIS to oversee the entire big brother operation - the end game plan - the introduction of a one world money system - e-currency. The e-commerce revolution will slowly spawn a regime of identification and control via biometric verification devices. The potential for surveillance of a person's digital persona, or data trail is unlimited. A working model has already been established through the EFTPOS system.
The US National Security Agency (NSA), the military organisation that runs the world wide Echelon system, is the group at the forefront of the worldwide push for the biometric identification regime. The NSA sponsored Biometric Consortium, established in 1992, has been conducting and developing advanced biometric processing, testing, and evaluation techniques. The Consortium is comprised of representatives from six executive departments of the US Government and each of the military services.
Headquartered at NSA's Fort Mead installation, the Consortium is working to increase the global availability of biometric authentication and identification technologies. It is one of the primary sources of technical information for biometric applications under consideration by governments and corporations worldwide.
The co-Chairs of the Biometric Consortium are Jeffrey S. Dunn of the NSA and Fernando Podio of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. The Biometric Consortium works closely with the BioAPI Consortium, of which Podio is also a member. The BioAPI Consortium was formed in April 1998 with the intent of developing a biometric API (application) standard. This worldwide standard for biometric devices would ensure the compatibility and interoperability of biometrics across the board.
To conclude, let's have a look at the overall picture. First we had the UN and the World Bank pushing for a New International Economic Order under the guise of helping developing countries. The resolution was mentored through the UN by the then Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. The NIEO via the 1975 Lima Declaration became official policy of most of the world's governments throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s. The process of economic globalisation was under way.
Meanwhile, the US military had been developing the Internet, and finally commercialised it, bringing about the information revolution. This enabled the e-commerce environment to really take off. To ensure that online transactions are secure, a person's identity will need to be verified via a biometric device or digital signature. The NSA saw the big picture unfolding and got in on the act to ensure it had control of biometric technologies, co-opting the world's major biometric companies.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies began its inquiries into surveillance techniques that would enable ordinary citizens to be monitored by big brother, ultimately the NSA. They came up with a national EFTPOS system, the logical extension of which would be e-commerce. CSIS founded the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, to ensure that e-commerce would develop within a harmonised regulatory framework providing a standardised operating environment. The GIIC sponsored organisation, the Alliance for Global Business, advanced a global action plan for e-commerce, ensuring that governments themselves became major players in the e-commerce revolution.
The Year 2000 date change linked up governments worldwide to the UN sponsored, World Bank funded IY2KCC. The US Federal Reserve provided the hardware and software for the Centre, and WITSA, a member of the AGB served as its administrator. The computer network established via the IY2KCC could well become the hub of the future e-commerce one world monetary system.
Unless nation states restore the primacy of politics over economics, the dramatic fusing together of humanity through technology and trade will take place. Will we continue to sit back and marvel at the wonders of the Internet and the convenience of e-commerce as the chains of slavery are fastened to us? Will complacency deliver us into the hands of the one world monetary system? Are we so dazzled by technological innovation that we will willingly accept the NSA's biometric regime? This is what the globalists are counting on. We must say no to this system now, while there is still a chance that it can be defeated. If we do not act now, many of us will end up fighting against it in the future, when there is no hope of victory at all.
Footnotes:
1. United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, Second General Conference of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, Lima, Peru, 12-26 March 1975 LIMA DECLARATION AND PLAN OF ACTION ON INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND CO-OPERATION, adopted by the Second General Conference of UNIDO at its final plenary meeting.
2. A good example is the World Bank's partnership with Siemens. The partnership is promoting the development and use of tailor-made, off-the-shelf fossil fuel fired power plants.
3. Fischer has been nominated for the IMF Executive Director's position.
4. This was discussed in March 1999.
5. On 1st May, 2000, Dr. Kurt Campbell, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia and Pacific affairs for the past five years, will become CSIS senior vice president and director of the CSIS International Security program.
6. The YES Corps are volunteers who would sign up with the IY2KCC to assist during the emergency period.
7. CSIS was founded in 1962.
8. This funding constitutes 85 percent of the revenues required to meet the Center's budget, which in 1998 was $17 million. The remaining funds come from endowment income, government contracts, and publication sales.
9. The International Chamber of Commerce is the all powerful self-declared world business organisation. The ICC represents the largest transnational corporations including General Motors, Novartis, Bayer and Nestle. For many years, the ICC has been behind the WTO, G7 and OECD push for so-called free trade. The UN and the ICC have agreed upon a joint series of business investment 'guides' to the 48 countries that the UN identifies as 'least developed'.
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Susan Bryce is an investigative journalist and researcher. Her interests include democracy and freedom, the technologies of political control, environmental health and global politics. She can be contacted at PO Box 66 Kenilworth Qld Australia 4574. email: sbryce@squirrel.com.au
BioAPI Members
Authentec
Barclays Bank
Biometric Identification Inc.
BioNetrix
Business Integrated Technology Solutions (BITS)
Compaq*
Dialog Communications Systems AG
Digital Persona
HP
IBM
Identix/Identicator
Image Computing Incorporated (ICI)
Infineon Technologies (formerly Seimens)
Integrated Visions, Inc.
Intel Corporation*
I/O Software, Inc.
IriScan*
ITT
J. Markowitz Consulting
Janus Associates
Kaiser Permanente
Keyware Technologies
Miros
Mytec Technologies*
National Biometrics Test Center
NSA
NIST *
OKI
Precise Biometrics
Recognition Systems
SAFLink*
Sagem-Morpho
Secugen
Sensar
Skytale
Startek
STMicroelectronics
Systemneeds, Inc
Transaction Security
Transforming Technologies
TRW
UniSoft Corporation
Unisys*
Veridicom;
Viatec Research
Visionics
Who?Vision
* indicates BioAPI Consortium steering committee members
Key Members Of The Centre For Strategic & International Studies:
President & CEO: Dr. John Hamre
Senior Vice President: Dr. Kurt Campbell (also director of the CSIS International Security program)
Chairman: Sam Nunn, partner, King and Spalding; Former US Senator*
Vice Chairman: David M. Abshire Cofounder, CSIS; President, The Center for the Study of the Presidency
Chairman Executive Committee: Anne Armstrong,* Former US Ambassador to Great Britain
Members: Lester M. Alberthal, Jr.; Betty Beene; Reginald K. Brack, Jr.; William E. Brock; Harold Brown; Zbigniew Brzezinski; Robert A. Day; Richard Fiarbanks (ex officio)*; Michael P. Galvin*; Joseph T. Gorman; Carla A. Hills; Ray L. Hunt; James A. Kelly (ex officio); Henry A. Kissinger; Donald B. Marron; Homer A. Neal; John E. Pepper; William J. Perry; Charles A. Sanders; John C. Sawhill; James R. Schlesinger; William A. Schreyer*; Brent Scowcroft; Murray Weidenbaum; Dolores D. Wharton; Frederick Whittemore; R. James Woolsey; Amos A. Jordan, Emeritus; Leonard H. Marks, Emeritus; Robert S. Strauss, Emeritus
*member of the Executive Committee
Advisory Board: composed of both public and private sector policymakers, including 11 members of the US Congress. The Board is co-chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carla Hills.
Corporate Officers: Richard Fairbanks, President and CEO; Anthony A. Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; Erik R. Peterson, Senior Vice President and Director of Studies; Bradley D. Belt, Vice President for International Finance and Economic Policy; Judy L. Harbaugh, Vice President for Development; Robin Niblett, Vice President for Strategic Planning; M. Jon Vondracek, Vice President for External Relations; Brenda Palmer, Vice President for Finance and Administration
Counselors: CSIS Counselors are world-class strategists who have formerly held top-level government posts. They are: William E. Brock; Harold Brown; Zbigniew Brzezinski; Henry A. Kissinger; Sam Nunn; James R. Schlesinger
Distinguished Senior Scholars: Fred C. Iklé (in residence); Bernard Lewis
Senior Advisers; J. Carter Beese; Arnaud de Borchgrave; Charles Bowman; M. Stanton H. Burnett; Richard R. Burt; William Clark, Jr.; Diana Lady Dougan; Luis E. Giusti; Ernest Graves; Amos A. Jordan; Max M. Kampelman; Robert H. Kupperman; David McCurdy; Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty (special counselor); The Duke of Westminster
GIIC Commissioners:
GIIC Americas Co-Chair
Mr. H. Brian Thompson, Chairman & CEO, Global TeleSystems Group, Inc. (US)
GIIC Europe and Africa Co-Chair
Dr. Volker Jung, Executive Vice-President, Member of the Managing Board, Siemens AG (Germany)
GIIC Asia Co-Chair
Mr. Michio Naruto, Vice Chairman, Fujitsu Limited (Japan)
GIIC Steering Committee Chair
Mr. W. Bowman Cutter, Managing Director, E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Company, LLC. (US)
GIIC Steering Committee Chair Emeritus
The Honorable Diana Lady Dougan, Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic & International Studies (US)
Commissioners
Mr. Hironori Aihara, Executive Vice President, Mitsubishi Corporation (Japan)
Dr. K.Y. Amoako, Under Secretary-General, UN, and Executive Secretary, ECA
Dr. Boris Antoniuk, Chairman & CEO, Teleport - TP (Russia)
Mr. Hiroshi Araki, President, TEPCO (Japan)
Mr. David A. Bayer, Chairman of the Board, Leo One Corporation (US)
Mr. Koos Bekker, Managing Director of Naspers, and Director of MIH Limited
Dr. Lewis Branscomb, Professor Harvard University (US)
Mr. John T. Chambers, President & CEO, CISCO Systems
Mr. Gustavo Cisneros, Chairman & CEO, Cisneros Group of Companies
Mr. James E. Daley, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Electronic Data Systems (US)
Dr. Hisham El Sherif, Chairman of the Advisory Board, Regional Information Technology & Software Engineering Center (RITSEC) (Egypt)
Mr. Rui Fernandes, Managing Director, Telecom de Mocambique (Mozambique)
Mr. Fernando Xavier Ferreira, CEO, TELESP and Tele-sudeste (Brazil)
Dr. Geoff G. Garrett, President and CEO, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) (South Africa)
Dr. Wadi Haddad, President, Knowledge Enterprise (US)
Mr. Jeffrey A. Hedberg, Member of the Board, International Division, Deutsche Telekom AG (Germany)
Mr. Edward Horowitz, Executive Vice President, Citibank
Mr. Hiroshi Kuwahara, Vice President, Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan)
Mr. Ray Lane, President and Chief Operating Officer, Oracle Corporation (US)
Mr. Rolf-Dieter Leister, Independent Consultant for Information Technologies (Germany)
Mr. Richard Li, Chairman & Chief Executive, Pacific Century Group (Hong Kong)
The Honorable Lü Xinkui, Vice Minister, Ministry of Information Industry (China)
Mr. Olof Lundberg, Chairman, ICO Global Communications
Dr. Klaus Mangold, Chairman of the Board, DEBIS Daimler Benz AG (Germany)
Datuk Wira Said Mohamed Ali, Chief Executive, Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia)
Adv. Dikgang Ernest Moseneke, Chairman, Telkom S.A. Limited (South Africa)
Mr. Taizo Nishimuro, President, Toshiba Corporation (Japan)
Mr. Jorma Ollila, President & CEO, Nokia (Finland)
Mr. Francisco J. Azevedo Padinha, Member of Board of Directors Portugal Telecom (Portugal)
Mr. Ravi Parthasarathy, Managing Director, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services, Ltd. (India)
Mr. Manuel Arturo Pellerano Peña, President, Tricom SA (Dominican Republic)
Mr. Fausto Plebani, President, Italtel s.p.a. (Italy)
Mr. Donald B. Reed, Executive Director, Cable & Wireless
Mr. Fernando Restrepo, Chairman of the Board, R.T.I. Televisión, S.A. (Colombia)
Mr. Jean-François Rischard, Vice-President, Europe, The World Bank
Mr. Souleymane Sall, President, Silicon Valley, Computer Technology and Services (Senegal)
Mr. Shigeo Sawada, Chairman, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (Japan)
Mr. Ryoki Sugita, Executive Managing Director, NIKKEI (Japan)
Dr. Pairash Thajchayapong, Director, Natl Science & Technology Development Agency (Thailand)
Ben Verwaayen, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Lucent Technologies
Mr. Jose Manuel Villalvazo Baz, President, TECELMEX (Mexico)
Mr. Maxwell R. Wynter, Managing Director, The Jamaica Observer Ltd. (Jamaica)
Mr. Eiichi Yoshikawa, Senior Vice President, NEC Corporation (Japan)
Mr. Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, President, Ayala Corporation (Philippines)