Events, Verisoph

2001 Clinton pardons Patty Hearst ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Levenda notes that in January 2001, President Bill Clinton pardoned Patty Hearst as one of his last official acts as President. ●●

2001 Wikipedia adopts wiki software ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Jimmy Wales called Ward Cunningham in January 2001 to say he would use wiki software for his encyclopedia project. ●●

20 May 2002 Independence of Timor-Leste 0 cit. no story Timor-Leste's independence is restored after Indonesian occupation and a UN transition, following the 1999 referendum. politics / war ●●●

2002 National Science Foundation publishes Converging Technologies report ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In June 2002 the National Science Foundation published a 482-page report, Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, calling for the integration of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (NBIC). Wood ties this convergence to transhumanist goals. ●●

2002 Giscard d'Estaing authors the EU Constitution ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Valery Giscard d'Estaing authored the European Union's Constitution in 2002-2003 as President of the Convention on the Future of Europe. Wood highlights his Trilateral Commission membership. ●●

2002 CBS reports USDA-financed spermicidal corn trials ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The book asserts that on October 6, 2002 CBS News reported the USDA had financed field trials including Epicyte's spermicidal corn. It presents this as evidence of a hidden fertility-reduction effort. ●●

2002 Cheney asserts Iraq has WMD ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Vice President Cheney declared there was no doubt Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was amassing them to use against America. Rumsfeld and other officials echoed the certainty. ●●

2002 Evergreen begins flights to Afghanistan ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Evergreen, the CIA-linked airline, began flights to Afghanistan just a few months after the American invasion in February 2002. ●●

2002 Bush names Iran in axis of evil speech ai_extracted 1 cit. no story ives are obscured by the demonization process and the necessity of contesting “evil” and its associated threats. Iran was named by George Bush in his January 2002 State of the Union message as one of the three charter members of the “axis of evil” (a ●●

2002 Hal Varian joins Google as chief economist ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Hal Varian joined Google as its chief economist, noting that every user action is a signal analyzed and fed back into the system. ●●

2002 Poindexter proposes Total Information Awareness ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Admiral John Poindexter proposed the Total Information Awareness program with a vision matching behavioral surplus capture concepts. ●●

2002 Winston-Salem Journal exposes eugenic sterilization ai_extracted 1 cit. no story ept of mercy killing to medical patients, starting with the vegetative. Discussions about euthanasia commonly focused first on the most obvious medical candidates at the rim of the slippery slope. In 2002, the Winston-Salem Journal published a riveting newspaper series exposing the deep veins of eug ●●

2003 Rose Revolution wikidata 0 cit. no story 2003 popular uprising against corrupt leadership in Georgia ●●●

20 March 2003 to 18 December 2011 Iraq War 0 cit. no story A US-led coalition invades Iraq and overthrows Saddam Hussein, citing weapons of mass destruction that are never found. The occupation collapses into insurgency and sectarian civil war killing hundreds of thousands. politics / war ●●●●

26 February 2003 to 31 August 2020 War in Darfur 0 cit. no story Darfuri rebels rise against Khartoum, which responds with Janjaweed militia campaigns widely described as genocide. Around 300,000 die and millions are displaced. war ●●●

2003 Stanford publishes Greening NAFTA ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 2003 Stanford University Press published Greening NAFTA, which detailed the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation and its commission (CEC). Wood uses the book's account of the San Pedro River Basin case to illustrate Reflexive Law in practice. ●●

2003 Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability created ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability was created in 2003 under President George W. Bush and elevated in 2007 with a new Assistant Secretary post. It leads federal Smart Grid coordination. ●●

2003 Human genome mostly mapped ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Scientists began mapping the human genome in 1990 and largely completed it in 2003. Wood notes the parallels drawn between DNA and digital information technology that underpin the NBIC convergence. ●●

2003 New York Times reports Harvard rejects valedictorians ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Gatto notes a March 9, 2003 New York Times article by Sara Rimer reporting that Harvard rejects four of every five valedictorians who apply. He uses it to question the reliability of standardized measures of merit. ●●

2003 Bush's State of the Union case for war ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In his State of the Union, President Bush presented the CIA's case and more, claiming Saddam had biological and chemical arms and had sought uranium from Africa. All of it was terrifying, and none of it was true. ●●

2003 Powell's WMD case at the United Nations ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On the eve of war, Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the UN with Tenet at his shoulder and laid out the case for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He called it facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. ●●

2003 Iraq War begins ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The invasion of Iraq began ahead of schedule on a bad CIA tip that Saddam was hiding at a compound south of Baghdad. The strike missed him, the first of many targeting failures. ●●

2003 Tenet's CIA backs the case for war in Iraq ai_extracted 1 cit. no story As the Iraq war began, Director George Tenet stood by the CIA's claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The assertion proved false. ●●

2003 US invades Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On March 19, 2003, President Bush publicly announced the launch of the long-planned military invasion of Iraq with the stated goal of disarming Saddam Hussein and liberating the Iraqi people. ●●

2003 Neil Postman dies ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death and a prominent media theorist and educator, died in October 2003 at the age of seventy-two after more than forty years as a professor at New York University. ●●

2003 Bush administration invades Iraq ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Bush administration pushed the limits of intervention doctrine by invading Iraq based on anticipatory threat of weapons of mass destruction ●●

2003 North Carolina repeals its sterilization law ai_extracted 1 cit. no story em Journal published a riveting newspaper series exposing the deep veins of eugenic sterilization undertaken during the twentieth century. The mainly dormant sterilization law was finally repealed in 2003. Governor Michael Easley issued a formal apology for the state’s campaign. The apology led to a ●●

2003 US invasion topples Saddam Hussein's Iraqi state ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Similarly, Iraq had a functioning state under Saddam Hussein, which collapsed following the American invasion in March 2003 and the early decision to disband the Iraqi army. ●●

2003 US invades Iraq and removes Saddam Hussein ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The American architects of the 2003 Iraq invasion expected that democracy would appear spontaneously in the wake of their removal of Saddam Hussein. ●●

2003 Wikipedia's English edition reaches 100,000 articles ai_extracted 1 cit. no story By March 2003 Wikipedia's English-language edition had grown to 100,000 articles with hundreds of active editors. ●●

c. June 2004 Kivu Conflict 0 cit. no story Dozens of armed groups, including the Rwandan-backed M23, fight over eastern Congo's people and minerals in the long aftermath of the Congo wars. Millions have died or been displaced in two decades of violence. war ●●●

10 December 2004 Death of Gary Webb 0 cit. no story Gary Webb is found dead of two gunshot wounds in 2004; the coroner rules it suicide, a conclusion many of his supporters have disputed. politics / society ●●

2004 CFR launches task force on the future of North America ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On October 15, 2004 the Council on Foreign Relations announced an independent task force on the future of North America, with Robert Pastor as U.S. vice-chairman. ●●

2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 passed ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, reorganizing the US intelligence community and creating the Director of National Intelligence. Wood argues it opened the door to mass data collection on nearly every American. ●●

2004 Kay reports no Iraqi weapons found ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The CIA's chief weapons hunter David Kay told the Senate that the search of Iraq had found nothing. We were almost all wrong, he said. ●●

2004 Tenet resigns as CIA director ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Seven years after taking office, George Tenet resigned. He would be remembered for his 'slam dunk' assurance to the president about Iraq's weapons. ●●

2004 Goss confirmed as CIA director ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Porter Goss went to his Senate confirmation hearings vowing to fix the CIA once and for all. His arrival began one of the most sweeping purges in the agency's history. ●●

2004 Congress creates the Director of National Intelligence ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Congress passed and the president signed a law creating a director of national intelligence, as the 9/11 Commission had urged. The hastily drafted law did nothing to ease the agency's chronic problems. ●●

2004 John Yoo appointed a public member of the IWG ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Insider resistance to the IWG reached its logical consummation when the White House appointed John Yoo as a public member of the IWG in May 2004. ●●

2004 The Aviator released ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, about Howard Hughes, was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won five. ●●

2004 GAO surveys 199 federal data-mining projects ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The US General Accounting Office surveyed 199 data-mining projects across federal agencies. ●●

14 February 2005 to 27 April 2005 Cedar Revolution wikidata 0 cit. no story 2005 anti-Syrian protest movement in Lebanon ●●●

22 March 2005 to 11 April 2005 Tulip Revolution wikidata 0 cit. no story 2005 revolution in Kyrgyzstan ●●●

2005 Waco summit creates the Security and Prosperity Partnership ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada met at a summit in Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005, creating the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. ●●

2005 Network of European Technocrats formed ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Network of European Technocrats (NET) was formed in 2005 as a research and social movement to develop the theory and design of technocracy. Wood presents it as evidence the movement was spreading beyond North America. ●●

2005 John Negroponte becomes first Director of National Intelligence ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was organized in 2005 with John Negroponte, appointed by President George W. Bush, as its first Director. Wood highlights Negroponte's Trilateral Commission membership. ●●

2005 Ray Kurzweil publishes The Singularity is Near unproven ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Ray Kurzweil published The Singularity is Near in 2005, arguing technological evolution is the next step after biological evolution and attaching spiritual meaning to it. Wood presents Kurzweil's Singularity as an unproven but influential transhumanist theory. ●●

2005 States nullify the REAL ID Act of 2005 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The book cites two dozen American states nullifying the REAL ID Act of 2005 as an example of state nullification. It presents nullification as a nonviolent check on federal overreach. ●●

2005 Office of Director of Central Intelligence abolished ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The office of director of central intelligence, held by nineteen men over nearly sixty years, disappeared into history. Goss called the swearing-in of the new intelligence chief the burial ceremony for the old agency. ●●

2006 Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement wikidata 0 cit. no story multinational intellectual property rights treaty ●●●

3 June 2006 Independence of Montenegro 0 cit. no story Montenegro declares independence after a referendum narrowly passes, dissolving the state union with Serbia. politics ●●

11 December 2006 Mexican Drug War 0 cit. no story The Mexican government deploys the military against drug cartels, triggering fighting among cartels and security forces. The conflict has killed several hundred thousand people, with tens of thousands missing. society / war ●●●

2006 Second North American summit in Cancun ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The second annual summit under the Security and Prosperity Partnership took place March 30-31, 2006 in Cancun, Mexico with Bush, Fox and Harper. ●●

2006 Augusto Pinochet dies under indictment ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Chile's former dictator died at ninety-one while facing murder charges. He left tens of millions of dollars in secret foreign accounts. ●●

2006 Michael Hayden sworn in as CIA director ai_extracted 1 cit. no story General Mike Hayden took over the CIA as it lost its primacy in American intelligence. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte presided. ●●

2006 Bush fires CIA director Porter Goss ai_extracted 1 cit. no story President George W. Bush fired Porter Goss from his position as CIA Director on May 5, 2006, after only nineteen months leading the agency. Goss's departure followed persistent conflict and instability within the intelligence community during his tenure. ●●

2006 Robert Gates becomes Secretary of Defense ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Bob Gates, a former CIA director and one of the agency's most capable analysts, took over as Secretary of Defense on December 18, 2006. His appointment reflected the Pentagon's dominance over the CIA and signaled an effort to contain the military's influence over intelligence. ●●

2006 Rafael Correa elected president of Ecuador ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Correa wins democratic election and begins investigating EHM strategy and illegitimate debt ●●

2006 Limelight Pictures exposed as ecstasy smuggling front ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Limelight Pictures, with Kiera Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter) as president, was exposed as a front company for international ecstasy smuggling operations. ●●

2006 Facebook launches the News Feed ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Zuboff documents that in 2006, Facebook engineered News Feed to exploit fear of invisibility and social comparison, deliberately engineering addiction through behavioral amplification. ●●

2006 Military coup ousts Thaksin in Thailand ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The middle classes, who had strongly supported the democratic opening in the early 1990s, turned against Thaksin and supported a military coup that forced him from power in 2006. ●●

2006 Reality mining predicts behavior with 90% accuracy ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Zuboff documents the 2006 breakthrough where Pentland and Eagle achieved 90% accuracy predicting individual location and activity within one hour using continuously harvested phone data. ●●

2006 Congressman Randy Cunningham convicted of corruption ai_extracted 1 cit. no story There have of course been egregious cases of outright individual corruption, such as those leading to the convictions of California congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham in 2006, and Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in 2011. ●●

2007 2007 FT/Harris poll on globalization ai_extracted 1 cit. no story A 2007 Financial Times/Harris poll found fewer than 20 percent of people in six industrialized countries thought globalization was good for their country. ●●

2007 CIA official Dusty Foggo indicted for corruption ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Federal authorities indicted Dusty Foggo, the third-highest official at the CIA, on February 13, 2007, for fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering involving fixed contracts. The indictment revealed a corruption scandal at the highest levels of the intelligence agency. ●●

2007 Russian cyberattack paralyzes Estonia ai_extracted 1 cit. no story formation on a scale sufficient to affect diplomatic conduct. Stuxnet, an example of a state-backed cyberattack, succeeded in disrupting and delaying Iranian nuclear efforts, by some accounts to an extent rivaling the effects of a limited military st ●●

2007 Kenya's contested 2007 election deepens ethnic divisions ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Kenya today, particularly since the contested presidential election of 2007, is fractured along ethnic lines that have pitted groups like the Kikuyu, Luo, Kalenjin, and Maasai against one another. ●●

17 February 2008 Independence of Kosovo 0 cit. no story Kosovo declares independence from Serbia, nine years after the Kosovo War; it is recognized by many but not all states. politics / war ●●●

2008 Gates Foundation funds Common Core ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Wood says the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the development of the Common Core State Standards in 2008 to the tune of $239 million. ●●

2008 PNNL develops the Grid Friendly Appliance Controller ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 2008 the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed a circuit board called the Grid Friendly Appliance Controller, which can shut household appliances off briefly during high demand. PNNL is owned by the Department of Energy and operated by Battelle Memorial Institute. ●●

2008 Bob Buford establishes the Drucker Institute ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 2008 Bob Buford established The Drucker Institute at Claremont College in California to house Peter Drucker's writings and management ideas. Wood argues Drucker seeded Communitarian ideas into America's megachurches through Buford. ●●

2008 CFR launches its global governance program ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The book quotes a 2008 CFR program on international institutions and global governance aimed at world order for the 21st century. It presents the effort as seeking to erode US sovereignty and constitutional limits. ●●

2008 Onset of the 2008 financial crisis ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In September 2008 a financial crisis began that nearly halted the world economy. Trade collapsed and banks largely stopped lending. ●●

2008 Iceland's banking system collapses ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Dalrymple compares the Company's power to modern corporate crises. Iceland's three major privately owned banks collapsed together, bringing the country to the brink of bankruptcy. ●●

2008 Fed facilitates Bear Stearns sale to JPMorgan ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Federal Reserve facilitated Bear Stearns sale to JP Morgan in March 2008 with $30 billion support from Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This marked the first major financial institution intervention during the crisis. ●●

2008 Global credit crisis erupts ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Global financial crisis exposes vulnerability of interconnected economies; many economists failed to predict the collapse. ●●

2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy triggers global crisis ai_extracted 1 cit. no story This is exactly the scenario that occurred in the wake of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008, leading to a near collapse of the global payment system and the deepest U. ●●

26 July 2009 Boko Haram Insurgency 0 cit. no story The jihadist group Boko Haram wages an insurgency across northeastern Nigeria and neighboring states, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions. The conflict continues despite regional military campaigns. religion / war ●●●

2009 Obama administration awards $3.4 billion for Smart Grid projects ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On October 27, 2009 the Obama administration announced $3.4 billion in awards to 100 Smart Grid projects, funding sensors, smart transformers, automated substations, in-home displays and load-control devices. Wood treats this as the kick-start of Smart Grid in the United States. ●●

2009 Business journal declares 2010 the year smart meters go global ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On November 16, 2009 a business journal reported that 2010 could be the year smart meters went global. Wood cites the wave of government-funded pilot projects across many countries that followed. ●●

2009 Greece's true budget deficit revealed ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Greece's actual budget deficit was revealed to be 12.7 percent of GDP in late 2009, far exceeding the claimed 3.7 percent. The revelation of widespread accounting fraud using financial swaps triggered the European debt crisis. ●●

2009 Evergreen wins Air Force helicopter contract ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Evergreen won a 158 million dollar contract to supply the Air Force with helicopters in 2009. ●●

2009 Pentland deploys sociometric badges on office workers ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Zuboff describes Pentland's 2009 deployment of wearable sociometric badges to monitor office workers' communication patterns, voice tones, and body language in real time. ●●

6 April 2010 to 14 December 2010 Kyrgyz Revolution of 2010 wikidata 0 cit. no story revolution ●●●

2010 Common Core State Standards copyrighted ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Common Core State Standards were copyrighted in 2010 by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers, both private organizations. ●●

2010 Bernanke returns to Jekyll Island for the Fed centennial ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The book notes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke returned to Jekyll Island in 2010 to commemorate the Fed's founding a century earlier. It uses this to argue the meeting's reality is undeniable yet still little known. ●●

2010 European sovereign debt crisis ai_extracted 2 cit. no story These weaknesses were made painfully evident in the European debt crisis of 2010–2013. ●●

2010 Sociometric Solutions founded for workplace surveillance ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Zuboff documents that Pentland and colleagues founded Sociometric Solutions to bring Skinner's longed-for behavioral instruments and methods to marketplace as people analytics. ●●

2010 Affordable Care Act passed under Obama ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Barack Obama was able to get the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010 only because he abdicated virtually any role in shaping the legislation, leaving the final bill in the hands of multiple congressional committees. ●●

9 July 2011 Independence of South Sudan 0 cit. no story South Sudan becomes the world's newest country after a referendum that followed decades of civil war with the north. politics / war ●●●

15 February 2011 to 23 October 2011 First Libyan Civil War 0 cit. no story An Arab Spring uprising against Muammar Gaddafi becomes a civil war in which NATO air power backs the rebels. Gaddafi is captured and killed, but Libya fragments in the years that follow. politics / war ●●●

15 March 2011 to 8 December 2024 Syrian Civil War 0 cit. no story Protests against Bashar al-Assad spiral into a multi-sided war drawing in Iran, Russia, Turkey, the United States, and jihadist groups. Over half a million die and half the population is displaced before rebels topple Assad in December 2024. politics / war ●●●●

2011 Monti and Papademos installed as prime ministers ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 2011, amid the European debt crisis, Mario Monti was installed as prime minister of Italy and Lukas Papademos as prime minister of Greece. Wood notes both were Trilateral Commission members widely described in the press as technocrats. ●●

2011 Arab Spring uprisings begin ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Political and social upheavals spread across Arab world; few political scientists predicted their emergence. ●●

2011 Indignados movement mobilizes in Madrid ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Indignados movement emerged in Madrid with large-scale public mobilization in May 2011. ●●

2011 NATO helps oust Qaddafi in Libya ai_extracted 1 cit. no story These militias were formed in various parts of the country in opposition to Libya’s longtime dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, whom they ousted, with significant help from NATO, in the first year of the Arab Spring in 2011. ●●

2011 South Sudan gains independence from Sudan ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Sudan fought a long war with its own south, which finally became an independent country in 2011, while committing atrocities against the population of Darfur. ●●

2011 Wenzhou high-speed rail crash and cover-up ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Following the highly publicized crash of a new high-speed rail train near Wenzhou in mid-2011, the ministry tried to hide evidence of malfeasance by burying the cars involved, until discussions on China’s microblogs forced it to unbury them. ●●

2011 Governor Rod Blagojevich convicted of corruption ai_extracted 1 cit. no story There have of course been egregious cases of outright individual corruption, such as those leading to the convictions of California congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham in 2006, and Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in 2011. ●●

2011 Pentland proposes a planetary nervous system ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Zuboff details Pentland's 2011 paper proposing that ubiquitous sensing and Big Data create a planetary nervous system for monitoring all human behavior to ensure stability and efficiency. ●●