Media Ignores Israel Connection To Eric Schmidt's Push For NY "Smart Cities"

WITH NY GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO RECENTLY ANNOUNCING THAT FORMER HEAD OF GOOGLE, ERIC SCHMIDT, WOULD LEAD AN EFFORT TO “REIMAGINE” POST-PANDEMIC LIFE IN THE STATE, MEDIA REPORTS HAVE FAILED TO NOTE THAT THE GROUNDWORK FOR THAT “REIMAGINING” WAS LAID LAST YEAR AND INTIMATELY INVOLVES THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

In recent weeks, considerable media attention has been given to the decision by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo to tap former Google executive Eric Schmidt to lead a 15-member panel tasked with “reimagining” New York’s post-pandemic tech infrastructure as well as its education, economic and healthcare system. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was also recruited for this initiative by Gov. Cuomo, leading some American media outlets to criticize the venture as turning New York “into a Silicon Valley science experiment.”

However, it is much more than merely a Silicon Valley experiment. As The Last American Vagabond reported last month, Schmidt currently chairs the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), which discussed plans last May regarding how to re-make American society to foster the mass adoption of AI-driven technologies, including so-called “smart cities” and related systems of mass surveillance. That commission includes key people, not just from Silicon Valley, but also the U.S. military and intelligence communities – a testament to how the divisions between Big Tech, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence have become increasingly blurred in recent years.

Unsurprisingly, one of the main initiatives that the Schmidt-chaired New York panel is set to promote is the fast-tracking of “smart city” implementation as outlined by the Schmidt-chaired NSCAI. The use of the term “reimagining” in the announcement that Schmidt would chair this panel also underscores this point, given that Google’s “smart city” subsidiary, Sidewalk Labs, describes itself as “reimagining cities from the Internet up.” Smart cities are more accurately defined as cities that are micromanaged by technocrats via an all encompassing system of mass surveillance and a vast array of “internet of things” devices that provide a constant and massive stream of data that is analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI).  (more...)

Media Ignores Israel Connection To Eric Schmidt's Push For NY "Smart Cities"