Let Freedom Ring! (and let Big Brother record it?!)

Counter PSYOP | By David Ferguson

(Part 2 in a series)

The “Torture Memos”

A transparent cue of a republic gong wrong is when torture becomes justified as a means of obtaining HUMINT (Human Intelligence). In other words, when authorities begin torturing people to obtain information; it means bad news for everyone.

The infamous Bybee Memo was sent from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee to Alberto R. Gonzales. The Aug. 1, 2002 dated document rendered wording from the Geneva Convention & a 1994 UN convention on torture to the U.S. administration’s own definition. Torture in their words, is pain that is “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." It must be done with “specific intent” to be considered torture.

Through these “torture memos,” the Executive branch and the DoJ have set a precedent for interpretive denial of torture. Torture can now be described as “pressure” or “stress or duress.” Techniques to deflect criticism of torture such as extraordinary rendition (or Torture by proxy) involve transferring suspects marked for extreme interrogation to black sites. In effect, those responsible for this are making torture, of all things, politically correct.

These broad definitions leave room for all sorts of real torture and interrogation methods to be used. The Bybee and other “torture memos” include the “ticking time bomb” scenario: what should the government do, if someone with apparent first-hand knowledge of a major terrorist plot is in custody? If traditional interrogation does not yield information, should authorities torture the suspect to obtain potentially life-saving information? The DoJ’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo’s answer: “Well, I think in this area, I think the Justice Department had long thought that Congress couldn't limit the commander-in-chief power; that Congress cannot tell the president how to exercise his judgment as commander in chief.”

The “ticking time bomb” scenario is very unlikely to ever occur. It is also questionable what results torture would have on a person who would already be ready to die for their cause. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, former Al-Qaeda member, confessed to nearly everything under “pressure.” In the mainstream media, talk of him being torture was panned, but it is clear he was. It is also clear that torture does not yield legitimately truthful information. He was arrested in 2003, and by March of 2007, had confessed to a plot against a Plaza Bank in Washington State. The problem is, this Plaza Bank was not even founded until 2006; making it nearly impossible for him to have been a part of any plot against it. Former CIA officer Bob Baer wrote, “There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.”

Still, despite the endless debate as to whether torture could actually provide legitimate information key to saving American lives, it is wrong. It is wrong, because not only does it not yield “workable” information, but it is un-American. Yes, torturing our enemies is un-American!

Our government apparently thinks otherwise. According to our Justice Department, the decision to torture someone to obtain information would come down to the President’s decision. On Dec. 1, 2006, human rights scholar & Notre Dame professor had this exchange with John Yoo:

Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

Yoo implies that the President can order to torture the children of an “enemy combatant” if the President has a “reasonable cause”…Everyone should be outraged at this. This line of thinking goes back to the distortion of the Constitution that began with the Patriot Act. To suggest that torture of children is fine when the President makes a decision to do so, is paramount to the completion of an evil dystopian society.

Torture is un-American. It is not only unethical, it is evil. Torturers are considered to be among the evilest people to forensic psychiatrists. Tormenting the enemy combatants indefinitely held is what the real Islamic fascists and extremists want our government to do, to agitate the beehive that is the Mideast. President Bush claimed that we were attacked on 9-11 because of our freedom. If this is so, and we give up our liberties, and treat enemy combatants inhumanely, we are doing what the terrorists want Americans to do!

Islamic fascists & terrorists want us to bend laws and sidestep our sacred liberty to “fight the war on terror.” These terrorists want America to weaken from the inside. Al-Qaeda wants our own fears to fuel the fire that will ignite our own Bill of Rights and Constitution, indeed our own American ideals. This is simply the historical precedent of how terrorists operate! Yet, when we have given up our own freedom and approved torture of other human beings, the terrorists have already won!

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself” – Thomas Paine

Let Freedom Ring! (and let Big Brother record it?!)

Counter PSYOP | By David Ferguson

(Part 1 in a series)

The foundation that the Global War on Terrorism is built on is one of the September 11th terrorist attacks; based on “Islamic-fascists” Mujahideen committing Jihad against the U.S.A. Even though there is much evidence contrary to the official “conspiracy theory”; the outcome of the Global War on Terror and its domestic implications are likely greater than the attacks themselves. The reaction has been a more severe variable in the equation than the problem in itself.

The Patriot Act was almost certainly written prior to the 9/11 attacks. The 342-page bill went from being distributed to being passed in hours. Legislator after legislator have admitted that they did not have a chance to read it. Yet, they use the Orwellian title of “Patriot” Act on a piece of legislation in the wake of 9/11. Sadly, even a legislative document that distorts the interpretation of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, our liberty itself can be passed easily in the Congress of the 21st century.

We shall not give up our liberty as citizens despite the fact a great tragedy took place because of a terrorist organization called Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda, a group translated literally “the Base” as in the database file on CIA computers that contained lists of Mujahideen. These are the same Islamic radicals our intelligence services used to fight a proxy war against Soviets in 80’s Afghanistan. The same Al-Qaeda that helped trained the Kosovo Liberation Army; the faction the U.S.A. supported in the Kosovo conflict.

I'd like to reiterate - It is not American to give up our liberty for Al-Qaeda, oligarchs, authoritarians, cures to disease, or a solution to climate change. We should never let go of our freedom, regardless the reason. I for one, would rather walk the streets in fear and yet a freeman; as opposed to walking among a completely controlled and oppressed nation.

Edmund Burke once said, “Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.”

Much legislation has been passed since 9/11 (and prior to it, of course) that drastically endangers our freedom as United States Citizens; as human beings.

I would say the following are the prime suspects in setting this dangerous precedent: The Patriot Act, the Real ID Act, the “Torture memos,” the Military Commissions Act, and the John Werner Defense Act, in addition to Presidential Directives.

The Patriot Act

The chief problem with the Patriot Act (H. R. 3162) is this: While eroding our rights by allowing comprehensive surveillance, it also acts to remove the vital checks & balances that were put into place by our founding fathers to prevent jeopardizing the Republic. (Contrary to what I was taught in American public schools, America is a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.) The Act is also written in a manner that it covers civil issues and crime, although it was supposedly written to address specifically terrorism. This has resulted in all sorts of abuses, not to mention taxpayer money.

Much has been written about it, so I will briefly cover some of the more disturbing details. The travesty that is § 213 allows secret “sneak & peak” searches of your home or business by the authorities, without a warrant. All that is needed is “reasonable cause.” From the Patriot Act analysis by Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC.org): “This significant change in the law applies to all government searches for material that "constitutes evidence of a criminal offense in violation of the laws of the United States" and is not limited to investigations of terrorist activity…The expansion of this extraordinary authority to all searches constitutes a radical departure from Fourth Amendment standards and could result in routine surreptitious entries by law enforcement agents.”

§ 215 allows the FBI to request "the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items)" if it is deemed relevant to an investigation. The FBI can then issue a National Security Letter, to notify your postman, librarian, Internet Service Provider (ISP), cell provider, etc. about their “reasonable cause” for surveillance. This situation of a service-provider complying with them to spy on you, or risking their career and their own rights to protect yours, is a tragic case study in 21^st century America.

§ 503 actually stipulates collection of a DNA database, ostensibly for terrorism, but the writing is so broad that any citizen committing “any crime of violence” would be subject to being forced to submit a DNA sample.

Congress couldn’t just destroy the country in one piece of legislation though, so more work had to be done. The government is using incremental legislation in order to eventually produce their desired dystopian effect.

Greenspan: Euro Gains As Reserve Choice

Report: Former Fed Boss Says Euro Could Replace U.S. Dollar As Favored Reserve Currency

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said it is possible that the euro could replace the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of choice.

According to an advance copy of an interview to be published in Thursday's edition of the German magazine Stern, Greenspan said that the dollar is still slightly ahead in its use as a reserve currency, but added that "it doesn't have all that much of an advantage" anymore.

The euro has been soaring against the U.S. currency in recent weeks, hitting all-time high of $1.3927 last week as the dollar has fallen on turbulent market conditions stemming from the ongoing U.S. subprime crisis. The Fed meets this week and is expected to lower its benchmark interest rate from the current 5.25 percent.

Greenspan said that at the end of 2006, some 25 percent of all currency reserves held by central banks were held in euros, compared to 66 percent for the U.S. dollar.

In terms of being used as a payment for cross-border transactions, the euro is trailing the dollar only slightly with 39 percent to 43 percent.

Greenspan said the European Central Bank has become "a serious factor in the global economy."

He said the increased usage of the euro as a reserve currency has led to a lowering of interest rates in the euro zone, which has "without any doubt contributed to the current economic growth."

see related:

• Prepare for prolonged turmoil, says US Treasury Secretary

• Oil Trades Near Record on Speculation of Reduced U.S. Supplies

• $200 Dollar a Barrel Oil Is Bilderberg Plan To Destroy Middle Class

Mystery Trader To Collect On Financial Meltdown?

Suspicion increases about so-called Bin Laden trades as markets tumble after bank run

Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars

A run on the Northern Rock bank in Britain has increased the possibility that a mystery trader could stand to collect around $2 billion should a panic send markets tumbling during the course of this week, as investors have predicted.

Last month, we reported on the mystery trader who risks losing around $1 billion dollars after placing 245,000 put options on the Dow Jones Eurostoxx 50 index, which led many analysts to speculate that a stock market crash preceded by a new 9/11 style attack or another catastrophe could take place before or during the third week of September.

The anonymous trader only stands to make money if the market crashes by a third to a half before September 21st, which is when the put options expire.

(article continued)

9/11 Families Slam Government Over Anniversary

Attempt to "force a non-existent connection" via Petraeus Testimony called "abuse" to the memory of loved ones, lack of government accountability and secretive 9/11 reports also criticized

Steve Watson | Infowars.net

The decision to hold Iraq war commander Gen. David Petraeus' testimony to the Congress on the sixth anniversary of 9/11 has been condemned by families of the victims of the attacks as another crude attempt by government officials to link the event to the war in Iraq despite the fact prior intelligence reports have dismissed any such notion.

Petraeus' testimony, throughout which he has advocated a continuation of the so called surge in Iraq, has been running side by side all day on news networks with the 9/11 memorials and tributes taking place in New York.

The 9/11 family group September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows has released a statement which slams the timing of the hearing:

"The timing of this testimony is another attempt by government officials to force a non-existent connection between the events of 9-11 and this administration's disastrous policy of invasion and war in Iraq. The 9-11 Commission found there was no operational or cooperative relationship between Al Qaida and Iraq. It is widely understood today that this administration's actions in Iraq have in fact created a terrorist sanctuary where none previously existed, at a cost of more American lives than were lost on 9-11, tens of thousands maimed and wounded, and over 100,000 Iraqi dead.

Six years after September 11, 2001, politicians, from the White House to the halls of Congress, continue to abuse the memory of our loved ones who died in that attack by attempting to invoke their and our suffering to further this administration's political goals. As we have stated on previous occasions, we ask any and all politicians and candidates for office to respect the memory of the innocent lives lost on 9-11 by refraining from using the 9-11 sites, memorials, and anniversaries for political ends, either explicitly or as political 'backdrop.'"

Senior officials including Bush, Rumsfeld and particularly Dick Cheney have repeatedly asserted that the U.S. needed to go to war with Iraq because U.S. intelligence had evidence that Saddam Hussein was working with Al Qaeda.

As reported by the NY Times, "The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track Al Qaeda told reporters that his team had found no evidence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein" [6/27/03]. Similarly, even the 9/11 commission report undercuts claims before the war that Hussein had links to Al Qaeda.

Even the Pentagon dismissed any link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

In addition to condemning the use of 9/11 to launch preemptive war, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows has also slammed the use of 9/11 by the Neocon White House to engage in domestic repression of civil rights, stating on their website:

"We have witnessed the use of 9/11 to justify the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of our own soldiers have been killed. Two million refugees in Syria and Jordan languish in poverty and desperation. And we have witnessed as well the suppression of our constitutional rights at home. We have been unable to stop any of it."

The group has also been vocal in calling for an end to secrecy surrounding the events of 9/11 and has dispelled the myth, often leveled at 9/11 truth groups, that the families are insulted by questioning of the official version of events:

"And so we come to the sixth anniversary of the attacks of September 11th. There has been too little introspection concerning those attacks, no accountability from our government, and reports more secretive than revealing about what happened in the immediate aftermath of those attacks. Six years later, we have more questions than answers, more dead to mourn, and a thing with feathers still perches in our souls, yearning for peaceful tomorrows."

We have reported many times previously that some of the largest 9/11 family groups are, like 9/11 truth groups, seriously concerned over the government's account of the events and are themselves vocally active in demanding answers to the many questions that still remain unanswered and uninvestigated six years later.

9/11 First Responder Heard WTC 7 Demolition Countdown

Paul Joseph Watson| Jones Report

A 9/11 first responder has gone on the record to describe how he heard a demolition-style countdown precede the collapse of WTC 7, eyewitness testimony that dovetails with other EMT's and rescue personnel who were also told that Building 7 was going to be "brought down".

Earlier this year, we reported on the testimony of an anonymous EMT named Mike who told Loose Change producer Dylan Avery that hundreds of emergency rescue personnel were told over bullhorns that Building 7, a 47 story skyscraper adjacent the twin towers that was not hit by a plane yet imploded symmetrically later in the afternoon on 9/11, was about to be "pulled" and that a 20 second radio countdown preceded its collapse.

(Article Continues)

"We have broken speed of light"

Nic Fleming | Telegraph.co.uk

A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time.

	Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921

According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second.

However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.

The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.

Being able to travel faster than the speed of light would lead to a wide variety of bizarre consequences.

For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving.

The scientists were investigating a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which allows sub-atomic particles to break apparently unbreakable laws.

Dr Nimtz told New Scientist magazine: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."

Learn from the fall of Rome, US warned

By Jeremy Grant in Washington| Financial Times

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.

David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations”.

These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”

Mr Walker’s views carry weight because he is a non-partisan figure in charge of the Government Accountability Office, often described as the investigative arm of the US Congress.

While most of its studies are commissioned by legislators, about 10 per cent – such as the one containing his latest warnings – are initiated by the comptroller general himself.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Walker said he had mentioned some of the issues before but now wanted to “turn up the volume”. Some of them were too sensitive for others in government to “have their name associated with”.

“I’m trying to sound an alarm and issue a wake-up call,” he said. “As comptroller general I’ve got an ability to look longer-range and take on issues that others may be hesitant, and in many cases may not be in a position, to take on.

“One of the concerns is obviously we are a great country but we face major sustainability challenges that we are not taking seriously enough,” said Mr Walker, who was appointed during the Clinton administration to the post, which carries a 15-year term.

The fiscal imbalance meant the US was “on a path toward an explosion of debt”.

“With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks,” said Mr Walker, a former senior executive at PwC auditing firm.

Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an “unsustainable path”.

“Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernise everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.”

Mr Walker said he would offer to brief the would-be presidential candidates next spring.

“They need to make fiscal responsibility and inter-generational equity one of their top priorities. If they do, I think we have a chance to turn this around but if they don’t, I think the risk of a serious crisis rises considerably”.

Pentagon to implant microchips in soldiers

Adam Thomas|Press Esc

The Department of Defense is planning to implant microchips in soldiers' brains for monitoring their health information, and has already awarded a $1.6 million contract to the Center for Bioelectronics, Biosensors and Biochips (C3B) at Clemson University for the development of an implantable "biochip".

Soldiers fear that the biochip, about the size of a grain of rice, which measures and relays information on soldiers vital signs 24 hours a day, can be used to put them under surveillance even when they are off duty.

But Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, C3B director and Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Bioengineering claims the that the invivo biosensors will save lives as first responders to the trauma scene could inject the biochip into the wounded victim and gather data almost immediately.

He believes that the device has other long-term potential applications, such as monitoring astronauts’ vital signs during long-duration space flights and reading blood-sugar levels for diabetics.

“We now lose a large percentage of patients to bleeding, and getting vital information such as how much oxygen is in the tissue back to ER physicians and medical personnel can often mean the difference between life and death,” said Guiseppi-Elie. “Our goal is to improve the quality and expediency of care for fallen soldiers and civilian trauma victims.” The biochip also may be injected as a precaution to future traumas."

Clemson scientists have formulated a gel that mimics human tissue and reduces the chances of the body rejecting the biochip, which has been a problem in the past.

The researcher predicts the biochip is five years away from human trials, and the DoD could start implanting microchips in soldiers bodies soon after.

Functioning Neurons Produced From Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Science Daily, August 10, 2007

Scientists with the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Medicine at UCLA produced a highly pure, large quantity of functioning neurons from human embryonic stem cells. This will allow them to create models of and study diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, prefrontal dementia and schizophrenia.

Researchers previously had been able to produce neurons from human embryonic stem cells. However, the percentage of neurons in the cell culture was not high and the neurons were difficult to isolate from the other cells.

Read Original Article>>

New Law Gives Government Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture

By Ryan Singel|Wired News: Threat Level

For those who are adept at reading legal documents, or just perhaps curious, you can download the actual legislation (bill) from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) website

• S. 1927 (49K PDF)

A new law expanding the government's spying powers gives the Bush Administration a six-month window to install possibly permanent back doors in the nation's communication networks. The legislation was passed hurriedly by Congress over the weekend and signed into law Sunday by President Bush.

The bill, known as the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers.

The Administration pushed for passage of the changes to close what it called a "surveillance gap," referring to a long-standing feature of the nation's surveillance laws that required the government to get court approval to capture communications inside the United States.

While the nation's spy laws have been continually loosened since 9/11, the Administration never pushed for the right to tap the nation's domestic communication networks until a secret court recently struck down a key pillar of the government's secret spying program.

The Administration argues that the world's communication networks now route many foreign to foreign calls and emails through switches in the United States.

Prior to the law's passage, the nation's spy agencies, such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, didn't need any court approval to spy on foreigners so long as the wiretaps were outside the United States.

Now, those agencies are free to order services like Skype, cell phone companies and arguably even search engines to comply with secret spy orders to create back doors in domestic communication networks for the nation's spooks. While it's unclear whether the wiretapping can be used for domestic purposes, the law only requires that the programs that give rise to such orders have a "significant purpose" of foreign intelligence gathering.

The law:

• Defines the act of reading and listening into American's phone calls and internet communications when they are "reasonably believed" to be outside the country as not surveillance.
• Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders to "communication service providers," to help with spying that "concerns persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." The language doesn't require the surveillance to only target people outside the United States, only that some of it does.
• Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court. Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their cooperation and can not be sued for complying.
• Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months perpetually renewable after the six month "sunset" of the new powers last for a year after being authorized
  
• Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program -- sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- and any others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
• Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance court its reasons why these programs aren't considered domestic spying programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds that they are "clearly erroneous."
• Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.
• Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.

In short, the law gives the Administration the power to order the nation's communication service providers -- which range from Gmail, AOL IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create possibly permanent spying outposts for the federal government.

These outposts need only to have a "significant" purpose of spying on foreigners, would be nearly immune to challenge by lawsuit, and have no court supervision over their extent or implementation.

Abuses of the outposts will be monitored only by the Justice Department, which has already been found to have underreported abuses of other surveillance powers to Congress.

In related international news, Zimbabwe's repressive dictator Robert Mugabe also won passage of a law allowing the government to turn that nation's communication infrastructure into a gigantic, secret microphone.

UPDATE: This analysis originally said that the orders entered under the new rules could be renewed indefinitely. That is not accurate. I conflated the ability of the government to continue indefinitely the programs under way under FISA before the law was signed, with the section that says that the programs under the new law go for a full year, despite the 6 month sunset.

That said, if a future bill includes the same grandfather clause that this bill has, the spying outposts could easily permanent.

Those interested in seeing how I made this mistake, look at Section 6 of the bill. I regret the error.

UPDATE 2: James Risen, the New York Times reporter who broke the story of the warrantless wiretapping program, has an analysis piece here.

"Uploading minds" to solve overpopulation

Nanotechnology Now

Wednesday (July 25th...) at Transvision 2007, Marvin Minsky, the artificial intelligence guru who heads up MIT's Media Lab, puckishly suggested we could solve any population problem by uploading the minds of 10 billion people and running them on a computer that occupies a few cubic meters and costs only a few hundred dollars to run.

Source: reason.com

U.S. Terror Attack — 'Ninety Days at Most'

FOX News

Counterterrorism expert Juval Aviv spoke with FOX Fan Central about what Americans can do to protect themselves in case of a terror attack.

Do you believe another terrorist attack is likely on American soil?

I predict, based primarily on information that is floating in Europe and the Middle East, that an event is imminent and around the corner here in the United States. It could happen as soon as tomorrow, or it could happen in the next few months. Ninety days at the most.

What advice do you have for individuals that have the misfortune of finding themselves in the middle of a terror attack?

Since mass transportation is the next attack, when you travel to work have with you, a bottle of water, a small towel and a flashlight. What happened in London is exactly a point to look at. Those people who were close to the bombs died, then others were injured or died from inhaling the toxic fumes or getting trampled. The reason you take a bottle of water and a towel is that if you wet the towel and put it over your face, you can protect yourself against the fumes and get yourself out of there.

Don't be bashful. If your gut feeling tells you when you walk onto a bus there is something unusual or suspicious, get out and walk away. You may do it 10 times for no reason, but there will be one time that saves your life. Let your sixth sense direct you.

Try to break your routine. If you travel during rush hour every day, try to get up a little earlier and drive to work or take the train when it’s still not full. Don’t find yourself every day in the midst of rush hour. Terrorists are not going to waste a bomb on a half-empty train.

What portion of the American infrastructure do you believe is at the greatest risk for a terror attack?

We have put all of our emphasis, right or wrong, on the aviation area. What has happened, in the last two to three years, based on information we have, is the terrorists have realized that they cannot hijack a plane in America soon because the passengers are going to fight back. So they realize what they have been very successful with over the last 50 years in Madrid, London, Iraq, Israel: demoralizing the public when they go to work and when they come back from work.

What they’re going to do is hit six, seven or eight cities simultaneously to show sophistication and really hit the public. This time, which is the message of the day, it will not only be big cities. They’re going to try to hit rural America. They want to send a message to rural America: "You’re not protected. If you figured out that if you just move out of New York and move to Montana or to Pittsburgh, you’re not immune. We’re going [to] get you wherever we can and it’s easier there than in New York."

What more do you think the government can do to protect the public?

Number one, and this is the beef I’ve had with Homeland Security for the last four years, is educating the public on how to deal with those types of events. There’s no education. We’re raising the color code alert and that means nothing to anyone. Whether it’s green, yellow, pink, no one ever educated the public how to identify suspicious items or people. In Israel, so many of them [terrorists] have been apprehended just because people have phoned in. We don’t have that training on campuses, schools or kindergarten.

In Israel, it’s very popular right now [amongst terrorists] to put one device to explode and time another one for five minutes later when it’s all calm, people are getting up and the rescue teams have responded. You need to know all those things and think about those things. The government must pursue that. Law enforcement will never have enough people on the street to detect things. We don’t have that kind of manpower. That’s why the government must enlist the public.

Juval Aviv is a former Israeli Counterterrorism Intelligence Officer and President and CEO of Interfor, Inc. Mr. Aviv has also served as a special consultant to the U.S. Congress on issues of terrorism and security and is the author of “Staying Safe : The Complete Guide to Protecting Yourself, Your Family, and Your Business.”

Tillman most likely executed

Counter PSYOP note:
You can find the DoD/U.S. Army's own report regarding his killing here.

Paul Joseph Watson|Prison Planet

Army medical examiners concluded Tillman was shot three times in the head from just 10 yards away, no evidence of "friendly fire" damage at scene, Army attorneys congratulated each other on cover-up, Wesley Clark concludes "orders came from the very top" to murder pro-football star because he was about to become an anti-war political icon.

Astounding new details surrounding the death of Pat Tillman clearly indicate that top brass decided to execute the former pro football star in cold blood to prevent him from returning home and becoming an anti-war icon.

These same criminals then engaged in a sophisticated conspiracy to create a phony "friendly fire" cover story.

Shocking new facts emerged about the case last night but were bizarrely underplayed by the Associated Press under nondescript headlines like 'New Details on Tillman's Death' - a complete disservice to the horrific implications that the new evidence carries.

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

The report also states that "No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene - no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck."

The article also reveals that "Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments."

So there was no evidence whatsoever of friendly fire, but the ballistics data clearly indicated that the three head shots had been fired from just 10 yards away and then the Army tried to concoct a hoax friendly fire story and sent gloating back-slapping e mails congratulating each other on their success while preventing the doctors from exploring the possibility of murder. How can any sane and rational individual weigh this evidence and not come to the conclusion that Tillman was deliberately gunned down in cold blood?

(read rest of original article)

Analysis of Al Qaeda Images Reveals "Surprises"

By Kim Zetter|Wired News

Neal Krawetz, a researcher and computer security consultant, gave an interesting presentation today at the BlackHat security conference in Las Vegas about analyzing digital photographs and video images for alterations and enhancements.

Using a program he wrote (and provided on the conference CD-ROM) Krawetz could print out the quantization tables in a JPEG file (that indicate how the image was compressed) and determine the last tool that created the image -- that is, the make and model of the camera if the image is original or the version of Photoshop that was used to alter and re-save the image.

Comparing that data to the metadata embedded in the image he could determine if the photo was original or had been re-saved or altered. Then, using error level analysis of an image he could determine what were the last parts of an image that were added or modified.

Error level analysis involves re-saving an image at a known error rate (90%, for example), then subtracting the re-saved image from the original image to see every pixel that changed and the degree to which it changed. The modified versions will indicate a different error level than the original image.

You can see the difference in the two pictures (right) of a bookshelf. Krawetz added some books and a toy dinosaur to the original image -- both of which show up clearly in the second picture after he's completed the error level analysis.

But more interesting were the examples Krawetz gave of al Qaeda images. Krawetz took an image from a 2006 al Qaeda video of Ayman al-Zawahiri (above right), a senior member of the terrorist organization. The image shows al-Zawahiri sitting in front of a desk and banner with writing on it. But after conducting his error analysis Krawetz was able to determine that al-Zawahiri's image was superimposed in front of the background -- and was most likely videotaped in front of a black sheet.

Krawetz was also able to determine that the writing on the banner behind al-Zawahiri's head was added to the image afterward. In the second picture above showing the results of the error level analysis, the light clusters on the image indicate areas of the image that were added or changed. The subtitles and logos in the upper right and lower left corners (IntelCenter is an organization that monitors terrorist activity and As-Sahab is the video production branch of al Qaeda) were all added at the same time, while the banner writing was added at a different time, likely around the same time that al-Zawahiri was added, Krawetz says.

Even more interesting is the analysis he conducted on another 2006 video image of Azzam al-Amriki showing him in a white room with a desk, computer and some books in the background. Error level analysis shows that the books in the lower right-hand corner of the image have a different error level than the items in the rest of the image, suggesting they were added later. In fact the books register the same error level as the subtitles and As-Sahab logo.

Further analysis also shows that the books have a different color range than the rest of the image, indicating that they came from an alternate source. Krawetz wasn't able to determine what the books were but says if they were religious books, they might have simply been added to lend authority and reverence to the video. It's also possible, he says, that such details could be added to a picture to send a message in code to al Qaeda operatives.

UPDATE:
Expert Suspiciously Reverses Stance On Doctored Al-Qaeda Tapes

White House Seeks Broader Wiretap Surveillance Powers

Privacy.org

The Bush administration is pressing Congress this week for the authority to intercept, without a court order, any international phone call or e-mail between a surveillance target outside the United States and any person in the United States. The proposal, submitted by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to congressional leaders on Friday, would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for the first time since 2006 so that a court order would no longer be needed before wiretapping anyone "reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States." It would also give the attorney general sole authority to order the interception of communications for up to one year as long as he certifies that the surveillance is directed at a person outside the United States.

A Push to Rewrite Wiretap Law, Washington Post, August 1, 2007.

see also: Bush Administration: NSA Domestic Surveillance Part of Much Larger Spy Program

Revolution of Accelerating Info: Beyond Tech

Wiring your brain & central nervous system (CNS) to the "Wired"...

Counter PSYOP exclusive

Forget the iPhone, the near-distant future may be a world of infinite potential for technological achievement yet a danger of paradigm shift so great it could change civilization as we perceive it today.

GNR

The time is now for the revolution of the emerging and converging technologies of the early 21st century technology:
GNR-(Genetics, Nanotech, and Robotics) or NBIC (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno) Perhaps most interestingly to me personally, Cognotech (advanced neurotechnology) could unlock the key to "hacking" our own consciousness. The flipside to this is it will be possible to literally "get inside someone's head" as well. These descendants of the Industrial Revolution and the Digital Age could make anything possible.

GNR is so powerful it could easily potentially destroy the 85-95% of the human population; implementing the extreme population control as advocated by Malthusian eugenicists worldwide. Like antimatter, it also has the capability to destroy the entire planet. Genetic tech could lead to advanced medicine practice, minimizing nearly all health problems. Nanotech, would integrate or converge with all other technologies; and could revolutionize everyday (literally) down to even mundane minutiae. Getting a shot at the doctor's would no longer sting, because it would now be essentially noninvasive. A nanobot will now adminster the medicine.


A nanobot inside the body could help healing processes like repairing cells

Robotics, especially AI (artificial intelligence), could metamorphosize work, war, weapons and beyond. At the true cutting edge of IT, Quantum computers would be virtually completely secure; as well as make the most powerful conventional supercomputers of research facilities seem like an antiquated, early home computing-era desktop PC.

It would be wise to advise that not only do these converging technologies hold the key to the future; but may also be the door to a utopian or dystopian global society. GNR can either unlock mankind's true potential or seal its fate. Advanced tech could make our lives longer and more enjoyable but it could also enslave the entire race in a total dicatatorial police state - governed by high-tech surveillance and profiling. Even now, America's armed forces are using increasingly large amounts of UAVs (Unmanned Air Vehicles) and UGVs (Unmanned Ground Vehicles). The DoD and other military forces have the military-industrial complex busy as a beehive building full armies of these drones. AI will become so advanced that by 2015, drones may compose the majority of the force.


Fleet of the future: UAV drone craft like this X-7 Pegasus


The Technological Singularity & Transhumanism

Many futurists, researchers, sci-fi authors, and technophiles have all anticipated and referred to a technological "singularity". This singularity is the theory that, according to the exponential rate that technologies are advancing at, the birth of transhumanism will make history. In the words of the World Transhumanist Foundation, "We support the development of and access to new technologies that enable everyone to enjoy better minds, better bodies and better lives." In theory, with the use of these converging technologies, this singularity will make people god-like and literally immortal. With the combination of AI , cognotech such as brain-computer interfaces, advances in health through biotech, genetics, and molecular engineering, the singularity's blueprint for the transhuman is here & now.


(Click image to enlarge) Diagram of a specific transhuman prototype, zoom in to see the different "components

The singularity theory, a massive paradigm shift, requires extremely accelerated change. It's already here though, Moore's Law may already be obsolete. Commentators on all this have mentioned these events could develop so quick we could face a cinematic-like scenario of man vs. machine.

related links:

• Experimental AI Powers Robot Army

• Launching a new kind of warfare

• Israel developing anti-militant "bionic hornet"

• U.S. military develops Robocop armour for soldiers

• Connect Your Brain To The Internet?

• High-Tech Uniforms Finally Heading to War

• Pentagon to Merge Next-Gen Binoculars With Soldiers' Brains

DARPA says a soldier's brain can be monitored in real time, with an EEG picking up "neural signatures" that indicate target detection. (Image: DARPA)

• Use your Cloaking Device...

• Israel unveils portable hunter-killer robot

• Pentagon Plots Digital "Crystal Ball" to "See the Future" in Battle

(to be cont.)

Rothschild banking group unifies

From correspondents in Paris|news.com.au

THE French and English branches of the fabled Rothschild banking family announced their unification overnight, ending a separation that dates from the 19th century.

Under an agreement announced overnight the two will unify their shareholdings under a single holding company, the French group Paris-Orleans.

Symbols of big money and finance, the Rothschild dynasty, which includes media personalities, amateurs of horse racing and owners of prestigious vineyards, is best known for its capital management activities.

The two branches were created at the beginning of the 19th century when the founder of the dynasty, Frankfurt-based Meyer Amschel, sent his sons on a mission throughout Europe to develop the bank he had created.

Mr Amschel was renamed Rothschild by his neighbours because of the red shield which adorned his house.

Of the four sons who left Germany, Nathan settled in London and founded NM Rothschild and Sons. Jacob Meyer, who was nicknamed James, settled for Paris.

Jacob Meyer's success was astounding. He in no time gained influence, largely thanks to his interest in high society life.

The success of the British branch was also spectacular. The son of Nathan, Lionel, in 1858 became the first Jewish member of the upper house of parliament, the House of Lords.

His descendant, Sir Evelyn, the former chief of the British branch who is now aged 75, had privileged relations with the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

A backer of the merger between the French and British branches, Sir Evelyn has passed responsibility over to his three children, Jessica, 33, Anthony, 30 and David 28, who all inherit a share in the new group.

Paris-Orleans is to buy the 50 per cent stake held by the English branch of the family in a holding company that controls the banking empire, Concordia BV.

The transaction will cost Paris-Orleans €446 million ($707.71 million), with payment made 50 per cent in shares and 50 per cent in cash.

Sir Evelyn will receive most of the cash, with the shares passed to his children.

The French cousins David and Eric de Rothschild are the two strongmen of the banking empire.

The former already oversees Rothschild's entire banking activities and he will be soon be at the head of the Paris Orleans holding company that groups the two branches.

Eric will remain president of the Paris Orleans supervisory board.

They will thus share the reins of an international group, active in mergers and acquisitions, as well as private asset management.

Sailors may have cruised the Med 14,000 years ago

By Michele Kambas|Reuters

NICOSIA (Reuters Life!) - Archaeologists in Cyprus have discovered what they believe could be the oldest evidence yet that organized groups of ancient mariners were plying the east Mediterranean, possibly as far back as 14,000 years ago.

The find, archaeologists told Reuters on Wednesday, could also suggest the island of Cyprus, tucked in the northeast corner of the Mediterranean and about 30 miles away from the closest land mass, may have been gradually populated about that time, and up to 2,000 years earlier than previously thought.

"This is a major breakthrough in terms of the study of early Cyprus archaeology and the origins of seafaring in the Mediterranean," Pavlos Flourentzos, director of Cyprus's Department of Antiquities, told Reuters.

The discovery at a coastal site on the island's northwest has revealed chipped tools submerged in the sea and made with local stone which could be the earliest trace yet of human activity in Cyprus.

U.S. and Cypriot archaeologists conducting the research have known since 2004 that Cyprus was used by small groups of voyagers on hunting expeditions for pygmy elephants.

But the newly discovered expanse of the Aspros dig in the Akamas peninsula, which stretches into the sea, suggests the site held larger numbers of people, possibly for months.

"It shows that activity is much more organized than some isolated visit," said Tom Davis, director of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) in Nicosia.

Flourentzos and Davis said the new find told archaeologists nomads knew the island well enough to find tool material, suggesting they were repeat visitors.

Archaeologists say the first human settlements in Cyprus date from 10,000 BC and are located inland. Logically, the coastal settlements should be older, and in Aspros dig case where a good deal of it is now in the sea, possibly up to 2,000 years older. Continued...

Bush To Veto Ban On Mercury In Vaccines

Clear links to neurological disorders ignored, removed from animal vaccines but fine for babies

Steve Watson|Infowars.net

President Bush is to veto a bill that would ban mercury in flu vaccines for children despite its known links to autism and other neurological disorders and despite the fact that he pledged in 2004 to support such a move when campaigning for re-election.

The White House stated on Tuesday that President Bush would veto the FY 2008 HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill because of the cost and "objectionable provisions" such as a measure to ban the use of childhood flu vaccines that contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, a press release from Autism advocacy group Safe Minds on the PRNewswire-USNewswire states.

Bush is calling for an amendment that would remove the children's safety provision from the bill.

Safe Minds warns:

"Under the current administration, mercury has been and will continue to be knowingly injected into the youngest of American citizens. The controversial mercury-containing preservative thimerosal has been linked by thousands of parents as being the cause of their children's mercury poisoning and autism."

The flu vaccine, which continues to be manufactured with mercury, is recommended for all pregnant women, infants and children despite the fact that the Institute of Medicine in 2001 recommended against the policy of
exposing these same sensitive groups to thimerosal containing vaccines.

Mercury is the second most toxic metal known to man behind Uranium. Thimerosal is used in vaccines not because it is good for you, but purely because it prevents vaccine contamination. Yet some have questioned why thimerosal is even considered for vaccines because there are obviously safer alternatives to preventing contamination. Questions also remain about how pharmaceutical companies conduct vaccine research and how the government regulates those companies.

Despite these facts, sickening reports such as the one below continue to make out that injecting the second most poisonous substance in the world into babies is actually GOOD for their health:

read rest of original article

Bush revives CIA’s terrorism interrogation program

By Mark Mazetti|The New York Times

WASHINGTON | The White House said Friday that it had given the CIA approval to resume its use of some severe interrogation methods for questioning terrorism suspects in secret prisons overseas.

With the new authority, administration officials said, the Central Intelligence Agency could proceed with a program that has been in limbo since a Supreme Court ruling last year.

The court ruled that all prisoners in American captivity must be treated in accordance with prohibitions in the Geneva Conventions against humiliating and degrading treatment.

A new executive order signed by President Bush does not authorize the full set of harsh interrogation methods used by the CIA since the program began in 2002.

Government officials, however, said the rules would still allow some techniques more severe than those that govern interrogations by military personnel in places like the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Several officials said the permitted techniques did not include some of the most controversial past techniques, among them “waterboarding,” which induces a feeling of drowning.

Bush’s order prohibits “acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation, and cruel and inhuman treatment.” It also prohibits “willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual in a manner so serious that any reasonable person … would deem the acts beyond the bounds of human decency,” according to a statement by White House press secretary Tony Snow.

In addition, the order forbids the degradation or humiliation of a prisoner’s religious beliefs, practices or personal objects.

Some experts in human-rights law said that Bush’s order contains “loopholes” that would allow the CIA to continue using aggressive interrogation techniques that others would consider torture.

“Let’s not forget that the administration’s theory of executive authority is very broad. They reserve the right to interpret laws in ways no one agrees with in emergency situations,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit activist group.

The basic outcome had been expected, but it was preceded by months of intense disagreement within the administration about where to draw the line on CIA interrogations.

The new list of techniques has been approved by the Justice Department as not violating the Geneva strictures, a step that Congress insisted on last October when it passed the Military Commissions Act, which formally authorized the CIA program.

In a message to agency employees on Friday, CIA Director Michael Hayden defended the interrogation program as having been irreplaceable, although he said extraordinary techniques had been used on fewer than half of about 100 terrorism suspects.

Hayden said the White House order would allow the agency to “focus on our vital work, confident that our mission and authorities are clearly defined.” The CIA said it had suspended its use of harsh interrogation procedures in the debate over the new rules, even as the White House argued that the agency should be given extra latitude to carry out effective interrogations of terrorism suspects.

The Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, said he would wait to review the Justice Department’s legal reasoning before he passed judgment.

The specific interrogation methods now approved for CIA use remain classified. The CIA acted on its own beginning in 2004 to prohibit some measures, including waterboarding, after their use became publicly known.

Unclear was whether sleep deprivation, another technique used in past CIA interrogations, is authorized under the new guidelines.

The executive order uses a definition of “humiliating and degrading treatment” that conforms to standards set by international case law, a victory for State Department officials who have tried to calm anger among allies about the secret detention program.

According to the senior administration official, the CIA will bar the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting detainees in agency hands, a prohibition it has enforced in the past.

McClatchy Newspapers’ William Douglas and Jonathan S. Landay contributed to this report.

CIA Defines Reputable News as Bought and Paid

[Federal Register: July 18, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 137)]
===================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
excerpt from Cryptome, 
CIA Defines Reputable News as Bought and Paid

*note that they say their examples are not all-inclusive and include alternative media and freelance journalists, but only if they are scheduled to have their work published.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

   (3) Representative of the News Media refers to any person actively
gathering news for an entity that is organized and operated to publish
or broadcast news to the public. The term ``news'' means information
that is about current events or that would be of current interest to
the public. Examples of news media entities include television or radio 
stations broadcasting to the public at large, and publishers of 
periodicals (but only in those instances when they can qualify as 
disseminators of ``news'') who make their products available for 
purchase or subscription by the general public. These examples are not
intended to be all-inclusive. Moreover, as traditional methods of news
delivery evolve (e.g., electronic dissemination of newspapers through
telecommunications services), such alternative media would be included
in this category. In the case of ``freelance'' journalists, they may be
regarded as working for a news organization if they can demonstrate a
solid basis for expecting publication through that organization, even
though not actually employed by it. A publication contract would be the
clearest proof, but agencies may also look to the past publication
record of a requestor in making this determination:
* * * * *

   Dated: July 9, 2007.
Edmund Cohen,
Chief of Information Management Services.
[FR Doc. E7-13931 Filed 7-17-07; 8:45 am]

Pentagon Plots Digital "Crystal Ball" to "See the Future" in Battle

By Noah Shachtman | Wired News

Darpa, the Pentagon's way-out research arm, is looking to design a software suite that predicts the future for battlefield commanders. At the heart of the package: A digital "Crystal Ball" that forecasts how a mission is going to turn out, before it's done. No, I am not kidding.

The overall, three-year program is called "Deep Green." Its goal is to "allow the commander to think ahead, identify when a plan is going awry, and help develop alternatives 'ahead of real time.'" If it works out the way agency officials hope (a very big if), Deep Green will enable officers to out-hustle and out-think any potential foes -- and do all that planning and analysis with a quarter of the staff that it takes today.

Deep Green has a half-dozen different interlocking components, including a "Sketch to Plan" program that reads a commander's doodles, listens to his words, and then "accurately induces" a plan, "fill[ing] in missing details." That allows an officer "to specify an option at a coarse level, then move on to the next cognitive task." A related program, "Sketch to Decide" allows a commander to "see the future" by producing a "comic strip" to represent his possible options in a given situation. That may "sound exotic," the Agency notes. But "since the 1970s (and perhaps earlier), there have been novels and game books in which the reader is asked to make a decision and then is directed to a different page or paragraph, depending on the choice made."

To make these warzone versions of choose-your-own-adventure novels, Darpa proposes two pieces of software. "Blitzkrieg" will quickly model sets of alternatives, while "Crystal Ball" will take information currently coming into a headquarters to figure out which scenarios are the most likely to happen, and which plans are likely to work best. Crystal Ball will use this estimate to nominate to the commander futures at which he/she should focus some planning effort to build additional options/branches. Crystal Ball will identify the trajectory of the operation in time to allow the commander to generate options before they are needed.

Darpa believes these kind of clairvoyant tools are needed, because some well-worn martial concepts have been proven obsolete by the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Specifically, the "venerable Observe Orient Decide Act (OODA) loop is no longer viable for an information-age military." To fight a fast-moving foe, these four tasks have to now happen all at once. That's the goal of Deep Green.

The Observe (execution monitoring) and Orient (options generation and analysis) phases run continuously and are constantly building options based on the current operation and making predictions as to the direction the operation is taking. When something occurs that requires the commander’s attention or a decision, options are immediately available. Ideally, the OO part of OODA is done many times prior to the time when the commander must decide. When the planning and execution monitoring components of Deep Green mature, the planning staff will be working with semi-automated tools to generate and analyze courses of action ahead of the operation while the command concentrates on the Decide phase. By focusing on creating options ahead of the real operation rather than repairing the plan, Deep Green will allow commanders to be proactive instead of reactive in dealing with the enemy.

An "Industry Day," to discuss how such a fortune-teller might work, is set for next week. Final proposals, DANGER ROOM predicts, won't be due for a year.

My Wake-up Call: Watch For Another 9/11-WMD Experience

By Paul Craig Roberts | VDARE.com

This is a wake-up call that we are about to experience another 9/11-WMD experience.

The wake-up call is unlikely to be effective, because the American attitude toward government changed fundamentally seventy-odd years ago. Prior to the 1930s, Americans were suspicious of government, but with the arrival of the Great Depression, Tojo, and Hitler, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Americans that government existed to protect them from rapacious private interests and foreign threats. Today, Americans are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to government than they are to family members, friends, and those who would warn them about the government’s protection.

Intelligent observers are puzzled that President Bush is persisting in a futile and unpopular war at the obvious expense of his party’s electoral chances in 2008.

In the July 18 Los Angeles Times (“Bush the Albatross”), Ronald Brownstein reminds us that Bush’s behavior is disastrous for his political party. Unpopular presidents “have consistently undercut their party in the next election.” Brownstein reports that “88% of voters who disapproved of the retiring president’s job performance voted against his party’s nominee in past elections. . . . On average, 80% of voters who disapproved of a president’s performance have voted against his party’s candidates even in House races since 1986.”

Brownstein notes that with Bush’s dismal approval rating, this implies a total wipeout of the Republicans in 2008.

A number of pundits have concluded that the reason the Democrats have not brought a halt to Bush’s follies is that they expect Bush’s unpopular policies to provide them with a landslide victory next year.

There is a problem with this reasoning. It assumes that Cheney, Rove, and the Republicans are ignorant of these facts or are content for the Republican Party to be destroyed after Bush has his warmonger-police state fling. “After me, the deluge.”

Isn’t it more likely that Cheney and Rove have in mind events that will, once again, rally the people behind President Bush and the Republican Party that is fighting the “war on terror”“want to lose”? that the Democrats

Such events could take a number of forms. As even diehard Republican Patrick J. Buchanan observed on July 17, with three US aircraft carrier battle groups in congested waters off Iran, another Tonkin Gulf incident could easily be engineered to set us at war with Iran.

If Bush’s intentions were merely to bomb a nuclear reactor, he would not need three carrier strike forces.

Lately, the administration has switched to blaming Iran for the war in Iraq. The US Senate has already lined up behind the latest lie with a 97-0 vote to condemn Iran.

Alternatively, false flag “terrorist” strikes could be orchestrated in the US. The Bush administration has already infiltrated some dissident groups and encouraged them to participate in terrorist talk, for which they were arrested. It is possible that the administration could provoke some groups to actual acts of violence.

Many Americans dismiss suspicion of their government as treasonous, and most believe conspiracy to be impossible “because someone would talk.”

There is no basis in any known fact for this opinion.

According to polls, 36% of the American people disbelieve the 9/11 Commission Report. Despite this lack of confidence, and despite the numerous omissions and errors in the report, it has proven impossible to have an independent investigation of 9/11 or to examine the official explanation in public debate. Even experts and people with a lifetime of distinguished public service are dismissed as “conspiracy theorists,” “kooks,” and “traitors” if they question the official explanation of 9/11. This despite the fact that war in the Middle East, a long-planned goal of Bush’s neoconservative administration, could not have been initiated without a “new Pearl Harbor.”

That powerfully constructed steel buildings could suddenly turn to dust because they were struck by two flimsy aluminum airliners and experienced small fires on a few floors that burned for a short time appears unexceptionable to a majority of Americans.

Moreover, people have talked. Hundreds of them. Firefighters, police, janitors, and others report hearing and experiencing a series of explosions in upper floors and massive explosions in the underground basements. This eyewitness testimony was kept under wraps for three or more years until the official explanation had taken root. The oral histories were finally forced loose by Freedom Of Information Act suits. The eyewitness reports of explosion after explosion had no effect.

Larry Silverstein, who received billions of dollars in insurance payments for the destroyed buildings, talked. He said on public television that the order was given “to pull” building 7. His stunning admission had no effect.

The Bush administration is preparing us for more terrorist attacks. The latest intelligence report says that Al Qaeda has regrouped, rebuilt, and has the ability to come after us again. “Al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here,” says the report.

Security operatives, such as Michael Chertoff, and various instruments of administration propaganda have warned that we will be attacked before next year’s election. Chertoff is not a person who wants to be known as Chicken Little for telling us that the sky is falling.

Bush has the Republican Party in such a mess that it cannot survive without another 9/11. Whether authentic or orchestrated, an attack will activate Bush’s new executive orders, which create a dictatorial police state in event of “national emergency.” [See here. ]

The UK government is hand-in-glove with the Bush administration and will provide cover or verification for whatever claim the Bush administration advances. So will the right-wing governments in Canada and Australia. That takes care of the English-speaking world from which contrary explanations might reach the American people.

It is possible that Bush is now too weak, that suspicion is too great, and that there is too much internal resistance in the federal bureaucracy and military for any such scenario. If so, then my prediction prior to the invasion that the US invasion of Iraq will destroy Bush, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement will be proven true. The Democrats’ strategy of doing nothing except making sure Bush gets his way will produce the landslide that they expect.

However, this assumes that Cheney, Rove, and their neoconservative allies have lost their cunning and their manipulative skills. It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous assumption for Democrats and the American people to make.

Once the US experiences new attacks, Bush will be vindicated. His voice will be confident as he speaks to the nation:

“My administration knew that there would be more attacks from these terrorists who hate us and our way of life and are determined to destroy every one of us. If only more of you had believed me and supported my war on terror these new attacks would not have happened. Our security efforts were impaired by the Democrats’ determined attempts to surrender to the terrorists by forcing our withdrawal from Iraq and by civil libertarian assaults on our necessary security measures. If only more Americans had trusted their government, this would not have happened.”

And so on. Anyone should be able to write the script.

iPhone: NSA iSnoop Device?

Another Day in the Empire| Kurt Nimmo

According to a Russian hacker team called “web-hack,” Apple’s much heralded & overly hyped iPhone contains “a built-in function which sends all data from an iPhone to a specified web-server. Contacts from a phonebook, SMS, recent calls, history of browser can be hijacked, as the VS iPhone blog reports.

In a white paper, according to the blog, the Russians indicate a possible “debug feature or a built-in backdoor module for some governmental structures,” i.e., the National Security Agency, the lead governmental structure responsible for violating en masse the constitutional rights of Americans.

Of course, it helps that “Apple has chosen AT&T, the best and most popular carrier in the US with over 62 million subscribers, to be Apple’s exclusive carrier partner for iPhone in the United States,” as the AT&T website boasts. As we know, the telecom leviathan illegally collaborated with the NSA to break the law.

“AT&T violated the law, and the rights of its customers, by allowing and assisting with the illegal wiretapping and data-mining. The government’s spying program on ordinary Americans would not be possible without AT&T collaborating in violating your privacy,” explains an Electronic Frontier Foundation FAQ. “EFF alleges that under the NSA domestic spying program, major telecommunications companies—and AT&T specifically—gave the NSA direct access to their vast databases of communications records, including information about whom their customers have phoned or emailed with in the past. EFF alleges that AT&T, in addition to allowing the NSA direct access to the phone and Internet communications passing over its network, and gave the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte ‘Daytona’ database of caller information—one of the largest databases in the world.”

“The essential hardware elements of a (Total Information Awareness)-type spy program are being surreptitiously slipped into ‘real world’ telecommunications offices,” Wired News reported former AT&T technician Mark Klein as writing. According to Klein and a report published by the New York Times, the NSA-AT&T “Orwellian project… is vastly bigger” than previously figured “and was directly authorized by President Bush, as he himself has now admitted, in flagrant violation of specific statutes and constitutional protections for civil liberties.” In the meantime, Bush has signed a number of executive orders essentially granting himself the power of a Roman Magister Populi, a dictatorial master over the commoners.

Considering all of this, it makes perfect sense for the Apple iPhone to double as an NSA iSnoop device.

“Last year, it was discovered that AT&T has been secretly spying on Americans for the government,” notes Adam Frucci for the Gizmodo blog. “Maybe it still is. Then, just recently, it announced that it planned to spy on Internet surfers yet again, looking for pirated media files, presumably to the delight of the RIAA and MPAA. If you don’t want to get spied on and want to switch ISPs, guess what? Depending on where you live, you might not have any other options. And if AT&T snoops on all data passing through its network, most US Internet users will be affected, not just AT&T customers. It runs a significant amount of the backbone infrastructure of the Internet, leaving little traffic outside its grasp.”

But never mind. Apple’s iPhone is so cool and trendy a lot of buyers and potential buyers will shrug off the fact the device is—if the Russian hackers who reverse engineered the gadget are correct—a custom-made snoop device that routes your personal data right to an NSA Cray super computer.

Non Executive Entity Cheney To Assert Executive Privilege

Maintains he does not belong to Executive branch but will still abuse it's perks to escape oversight

Steve Watson|Infowars.net

Three weeks ago it was revealed that for the past four years Dick Cheney's office has declared itself above the law by claiming it was not part of the executive branch, despite continuing to receive funding from the bill that funds the executive branch. Now letters out of Cheney's office indicate that it is to attempt to make an independent assertion of executive privilege, contradicting its previous statements and seemingly just making up the law as it goes along.

The implication was contained within a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in relation to an extension, which has been granted, to comply with a subpoena on documents related to the NSA domestic spying program.

As reported by Raw Story today:

Counsel to the Vice President Shannen Coffin appeared to imply that Cheney's office may assert executive privilege after it finishes reviewing documents that are responsive to the committee's subpoena. The documents are due today.

"While the Office of the Vice President reserves legal protections that apply in this matter, we look forward to working to meet the Committee's needs for information and on legislative matters to protect the Nation," Coffin wrote.

So Cheney's office is maintaining that it is not part of the executive branch, yet now it is going to continue to invoke executive privilege. Which is it to be?

Cheney has come under fire previously for abusing executive privilege and it is now clear that his office considers it to be merely a tool to avoid oversight and accountability.

Furthermore, as Michael C. Dorf, Vice Dean and Professor of Law at Columbia University, has asserted:

Nor is it clear... that the Vice President can assert executive privilege. The Constitution vests the Executive Power in the President. So long as the President remains healthy, the Vice President has no constitutionally assigned executive function. As far as the Constitution is concerned, the Vice President's role is legislative in nature: to preside over and break ties in the Senate.

The documents released three weeks ago by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform revealed that Cheney's office has not cooperated with an office at the National Archives and Records Administration which is responsible for overseeing the protection of classified material by the executive branch.

Clearly the reason Cheney's office continued to declare itself autonomous, also attempting to abolish agencies it is supposed to be accountable to, was the fact that a key component of the presidential order Cheney's office was defying included mandatory on-site inspections. At least one of those inspections would have come at a particularly delicate time — when Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and other aides were under criminal investigation for their suspected roles in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Libby's trial has brought Cheney's role to center stage. According to evidence and testimony, Cheney selectively leaked and declassified intelligence information to bolster the administration's case for war and later to defend against charges that he had misrepresented prewar intelligence.

Even former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham has stated:

"It's hard to believe that the chief of staff to the vice president was acting as a rogue agent. What we have learned from the trial validates the suspicion that Libby was not just operating as a lone ranger. He was carrying out what the vice president wanted him to do, which was to besmirch Joe Wilson. I think Libby has been a conspirator in one of the most reprehensible and damaging breaches of American security in modern history."

Back in March a spokesman for the jury that convicted Libby told reporters immediately afterward that many felt sympathy for him and believed he was only the "fall guy."

Denis Collins said they believed that Vice President Cheney did "task him to talk to reporters" and out Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.

However this will all seemingly go down the memory hole. Libby will now skip jail and Cheney himself will face no recrimination, not even a cursory investigation.

We have been reminded time and time again by the criminals in office that they consider themselves subject to no law or oversight.

Dick Cheney has previously declared both himself and President Bush unaccountable to Congress, stating last year that "vice president and president and constitutional officers don’t appear before the Congress.”

It is also now clear that Bush and Cheney have broken literally hundreds of laws because they see themselves as outside of their reach.

The Constitution assigns power to Congress to write the laws and asserts that the president has an obligation ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

Bush and Cheney are vastly expanding Presidential power and creating provisions that set their offices up as dictatorial bodies. Two months ago new legislation was signed which declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.

The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, which also places the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic "security", was signed on May 9th without the approval or oversight of Congress and seemingly supercedes the National Emergency Act which allows the president to declare a national emergency but also requires that Congress have the authority to "modify, rescind, or render dormant" such emergency authority if it believes the president has acted inappropriately.

It has now become chillingly clear that the President and the Vice President believe that they have absolute power over the Government of the United States and cannot be held accountable to anybody.

Proof Bin Laden Tape Is 5-Year-Old, Re-Released Footage

Why did IntelCenter, the middleman between "Al-Qaeda" and the media, a group that has government and Pentagon ties, re-release old footage and why did the media report it as new when it had already aired twice before?

Paul Joseph Watson / Jones Report

A videotape that was heralded as "new" footage of Osama bin Laden by many quarters of the press has been conclusively proven to be more than 5 year old re-released footage, leading to questions about why the government and the media continue to act as willing propagandists for the terrorists while striking fear into Americans by claiming an attack is inevitable.

Though some reports included the proviso that the tape could contain old footage, the importance and ceremony attached to the re-release of the Bin Laden tape over the weekend left the distinct impression that the footage was new and that it correlated with the alleged increase of "chatter" amongst terrorist organizations indicating that a new attack is imminent, a message that was again pushed by the U.S. government following the release of the National Intelligence Estimate yesterday.

In reality, the tape was being released for the third consecutive time, having first popped up in 2002 before re-airing again in 2003. The footage of Bin Laden was filmed six years ago in October 2001.

The Associated Press ran the tape as a top story on Saturday under the headline "Bin Laden Appears in New al-Qaida Video".

Euro News, the propaganda arm of the European Union broadcast in dozens of countries around Europe, described the footage as "apparently new".

"Possible New Message From Osama Bin Laden," reported ABC News, noting that "a brief clip of an older-looking Osama bin Laden is contained in a new al Qaeda videotape," when in reality the graying in Bin Laden's beard was exactly the same as when he appeared in a 2001 videotape, while also wearing the exact same jacket.

The footage was not new and any small amount of cursory research would have verified that fact, and yet the media went full board with the story, creating the illusion that it was new, while rabid Neo-Cons lauded the tape as another reason for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq while fearmongering about upcoming terror attacks at home.

The footage first appeared in May 2002, having been released by a Pakistani security official to the Al-Ansaar Islamic news agency, based in Birmingham, England. This CBS video clip clearly shows the same footage as the apparent "new" tape.

Here is a screenshot from the 2002 tape (right) compared to the new tape (left). Notice the sloping mountain in the left background.

Sources indicate that the footage was shot in either October 2001 or March 2002, with the earlier date being the favorite as Bin Laden's appearance matches with the footage from a different tape that was released in October 2001.

Al-Jazeera said they had the footage as far back as October 2001, but chose not to air it as they saw it as "not newsworthy" and "nothing more than a PR stunt." Six years later, and with the footage having been released on two separate occasions already, the western media insinuated that the tape was new and splashed it everywhere as a top headline.

In our previous groundbreaking investigation, we exposed IntelCenter, the middleman between "Al-Qaeda's media arm" and the press, and the organization that routinely obtains the tapes, as little more than a Pentagon front group staffed by individuals with close connections to the military-industrial complex.

IntelCenter were also behind the release of the "new" Osama tape - having previously released the same footage (the second time it had appeared) in October 2003!

IntelCenter issued a tacit warning that the footage may be re-hashed when they released the "new" tape to the media, but they failed to mention the fact that they released portions of the exact same clips in October 2003. The screenshots of Bin Laden which clearly correlate with the "new" tape were on their website all along, and yet they still labeled the footage as "significant". IntelCenter knew the tape was definitely old, yet their meandering uncertainty left doubts that the media exploited to the full in claiming the footage may be new.

The screenshot from IntelCenter's website from a tape released in October 2003 clearly match with screenshots from the "new" tape, a fact completely ignored by both IntelCenter themselves and the mass media.

Even a senior Bush administration official admitted to Newsbuster, "Intelligence agencies have determined the video was previously aired as a portion of a longer show first on MBC TV (Middle East broadcast station) on April 17, 2002," and yet retractions to the supposition that the footage was new are nowhere to be seen in the media.

"What's the result of the MSM's sloppy "air-first-verify-later" approach? The world’s most evil and despicable terrorists are given tons of free air time and print exposure," adds Newsbuster.

Even if you believe that Al-Qaeda itself is deciding to re-package old footage and constantly re-release it, and that this isn't a crude propaganda ploy on behalf of IntelCenter in collusion with the Neo-Cons, why are the government and the media consistently affording lavish attention and giving prominence to such activity, aiding the terrorists to spread their propaganda ad infinitum?

It would be foolishly naive to think that the re-release of this tape - for the third time running - has little to do with the fact that the Bush administration has been ramping up the fearmongering and hinting at the inevitability of another attack over the past two weeks - ostensibly for political purposes to mute dissent.

Six months after the failed "surge" in Iraq and with Bush's approval ratings sliding to all time lows while calls for impeachment reach a crescendo, a slew of information threatening a new Al-Qaeda attack gets released and up pops Osama - in a tape that is re-hashed for a third time - to validate the Neo-Cons insistence that to leave Iraq is to hand the terrorists a victory. That tape is released by an organization with clear links to the military-industrial complex who had knowingly released the same footage years earlier.

Is all this a coincidence, or does such chicanery and crass manipulation of the electorate and the political process demand an immediate Congressional investigation as to why the U.S. government and its lapdog media fronts are working with the terrorists to artificially boost their profile while scaring the holy crap out of the American people at the most politically opportune moments?