War On You: Breaking Alternative News » Patriot Act

Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Without Trial Bill Into Law; Claims His Regime Won’t Use It

WarOnYou — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:22:16 +0000

Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Without Trial Bill Into Law; Claims His Regime Won’t Use It

January 1st, 2012

Whatever you say, Mr. Hopey Changey.

What about the next resident of the White House and the next?

Via: AFP:

The measure, which passed by wide majorities in Congress, says the US military has the power to detain terror suspects without trial for as long as the US global anti-terror campaign is waged.

Obama was particularly troubled by a section of the bill which appears to leave open the option that a US citizen who is considered a terror suspect could be detained indefinitely in military custody.

“I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens,” Obama said.

“Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”

The new law revives debate over the complicated legal thicket surrounding the treatment of terror suspects and over rules hurriedly drawn up by the previous Bush administration after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Obama has sought to preserve the option of trying some terror suspects in federal courts, or for those accused of plotting new attacks against the United States to be processed through the civilian legal system.

“I reject any approach that would mandate military custody where law enforcement provides the best method of incapacitating a terrorist threat,” Obama said in the signing statement.

The transparency problem: the government will not tell you why it’s legal to kill you

WarOnYou — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 06:08:49 +0000

The transparency problem: the government will not tell you why it’s legal to kill you

December 27, 2011

Print Version

By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie

President Barack Obama has leveraged heavy rhetoric on the subject of transparency for some time now, even going as far as to publish on the official White House website that his “Administration is committed to an unprecedented level of openness in Government.”

If this is open government, I can’t begin to imagine what a closed government is.

After Anwar al-Awlaki was allegedly assassinated in Yemen, the New York Times sought to find out the legal basis for the Obama administration’s secretive “kill list” which apparently can now include United States citizens.

The complaint, made by plaintiffs The New York Times Company, Charlie Savage, Scott Shane, and their undersigned attorney was filed after the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) refused to release agency records in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The plaintiffs contend that the requests were made properly and the DOJ improperly withheld the records which deal with the looming questions that surround the legality of so-called “targeted killing” under both American and international law.

The complaint cites “notable legal scholars, human rights activists, and current and former government officials [who] have called for the government to disclose its legal analysis justifying the use of targeted lethal force, especially as it applies to American citizens.”

I think that these questions are even more important in the aftermath of the House and Senate passing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) which allows American citizens to be indefinitely detained without charge or trial.

The complaint states that the New York Times filed proper FOIA requests seeking memoranda detailing the legal analysis and supposed justification behind killing American citizens, both before and after the al-Awlaki killing.

As of the filing of the complaint on December 20, 2011, the DOJ refused to release any of these memos or even any portions of the memoranda, claiming that they were classified and privileged, and thus are exempt from disclosure under the FOIA guidelines.

Even more absurd, the DOJ has actually refused to either confirm or deny the existence of some of the memos entirely.

This is after the The Washington Post published a story on September 30, 2011 which stated, “The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi,” which makes one wonder how The Washington Post knew such a thing when the DOJ refuses to even acknowledge any existence of the memo.

Peter Finn, the author of The Washington Post article stated that, “The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Aulaqi, the officials said.”

Why are officials willing to anonymously discuss these contentious issues with reporters but not willing to account for their decisions to the American people, in accordance with U.S. law?

Clearly, the Obama administration considers their stance transparency to be as iron clad as the rest of his campaign promises; that is to say, not at all.

Finn’s article stated that the nameless officials refused to elucidate the exact legal analysis that brought them to the decision, including how they considered any Fifth Amendment right to due process.

More importantly, the article quoted a “former senior intelligence official” who said that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “would not have killed an American without such a written opinion,” making it very unlikely that the DOJ does not possess such a document or cannot obtain it.

The complaint states that on October 7, 2011, Charlie Savage filed a FOIA request to the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) which sought a copy of “all Office of Legal Counsel memorandums analyzing the circumstances under which it would be lawful for the United States armed forces or intelligence community assets to target for killing a United States citizen who is deemed to be a terrorist.”

One thing that this statement doesn’t emphasize is that while al-Awlaki was clearly “radical” in his approach to Islam and rhetoric, there was never a charge or trial that actually proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was a terrorist.

The entire point of the First Amendment is not that it protects your right to discuss last night’s football game, but instead to protect unpopular speech, which is definitely the type of speech which al-Awlaki was engaging in.

However, the despicable nature of what al-Awlaki was promoting does not somehow strip him of his right to a fair trial under the Fifth Amendment, something which is arguably one of the most vital rights protected by the Constitution, which was gravely injured – if not wiped out completely – by the NDAA.

Just 20 days after Savage filed his FOIA request on October 7, 2011 the DOJ denied his request by letter, leading to this last-ditch effort to bring some semblance of accountability to this issue.

The fact that there are memos of some sort is somewhat undeniable; given that on February 3, 2010, the Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair testified to the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that “we take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community. If we think that direct action will involve killing an American citizen, we get specific permission to do that.”

This quote is included in the complaint on page 6, clearly indicating that there is some sort of legal basis or analysis that they have utilized to justify their actions, while refusing to actually account for this to the American people.

I am obviously not the only one who finds this deeply unsettling, especially with the recent traitorous activities in the House and Senate which could result in such actions being taken against countless Americans who “officials have deemed … to be terrorists.”

A noteworthy issue to bring up here is that if al-Awlaki was indeed a terrorist – which again, is unproven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law – the American government has been directly dealing with and supporting terrorists, something which would make anyone involved eligible for indefinite detention under Section 1021 of the NDAA.

Indeed, the fact that al-Awlaki dined at the Pentagon on February 5, 2002, as exposed by – of all news agencies – Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News raises some larger questions about transparency and the so-called War on Terror, which is a total and complete sham.

Keep in mind that by July 2002, al-Awlaki was already under investigation for being sent funds by an individual who was the subject of a U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) investigation and thus al-Awlaki was placed on a precursor to what is now referred to as the terror watch list.

According to ABC News, “A felony arrest warrant for radical Islamic cleric Anwar al Awlaki was rescinded in 2002 a day before he was intercepted as a terror suspect at New York’s JFK airport, forcing authorities to release him, according to sources familiar with the case. The warrant was cancelled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver, even though Awlaki was on a terror watch list, and even though the office’s supervising prosecutor for terror cases — who has now been appointed by the Obama administration as the U.S. Attorney in Denver — had been fully briefed on Awlaki’s alleged terror ties, according to investigators.”

al-Awlaki had also been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in both 1999 and 2000, leading one to ask: how could such an individual be invited to dine at the Pentagon?

More importantly, why did the Department of Defense’s lawyer who vetted al-Awlaki write that she “had the privilege of hearing one of Mr. Awlaki’s presentations in November and was impressed by both the extent of his knowledge and by how he communicated that information and handled a hostile element in the audience”?

When Fox News attempted to reach the Office of General Counsel for comment on the meeting along with their vetting process, the Department of Defense claimed they did not have any additional information to provide.

This is where the transparency problem rears its ugly head once again and makes it hard to ignore the intimate ties between our government, which claims to be fighting terrorism, and the terrorists themselves.

The most absurd part is that Obama continues to claim that they are working towards transparency, and even going as far as to laughably criticize Mitt Romney for a lack of transparency.

Part of Obama’s re-election campaign is attempting to trick gullible Americans into thinking he is a populist, which to anyone who has followed his administration closely is simply ludicrous.

According to Talk Radio News, today the Obama for America campaign published a link to an editorial published in The Washington Post which accused Romney of being “zero for two when it comes to transparency in campaigning.”

This is clearly implying that Obama has a history of transparency, which once again is so obviously false it is almost painful to see his campaign continuing to leverage this absurdist claim.

I am far from the only one who has criticized the Obama administration for their lack of transparency.

Indeed, yesterday The Hill published a lengthy article entitled, “Watchdogs say Obama has not done enough on government transparency,” although the headline is a bit of an understatement given that Obama has in many ways made transparency even worse.

They pointed to the so-called “supercommittee” meeting on deficit reduction behind closed doors as a shining example of Obama’s “failing to keep his word on putting Congress’s work before the public.”

They also pointed out that Obama failed to uphold his promise to air healthcare negotiations live on C-SPAN, although I think the issues surrounding assassination of American citizens are much more pressing and dire than both of these examples combined.

“Over the past three years, federal agencies have gone to great efforts to make government more transparent and more accessible than ever, to provide people with information that they can use in their daily lives,” a spokesman for the White House, Eric Shultz, said in a statement.

Yet when it comes to the most critical issues of all, the federal agencies continue to stonewall the American people while still slyly implying that they indeed have the justification and analysis to back up their decisions all while refusing to provide them.

The brazenness of how our so-called government is refusing to account for killing Americans is nothing short of astounding, especially given the most recent developments which very well could label immense amounts of Americans as “belligerent” and thus “covered persons” under the NDAA.

As I have previously mentioned, the problem is not only that the language in the NDAA explicitly allows for the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or trial on nothing more than suspicion – not to mention the ability to transfer such “covered persons” to any foreign nation or foreign entity they choose – but that we will likely never even know how the DOJ officially interprets the legislation.

This is far from baseless, empty speculation given that back in May Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, revealed, “the government applies a far broader legal interpretation [to the PATRIOT Act] – an interpretation that the government has conveniently classified, so it cannot be publicly assessed or challenged.”

The May Wired article said that the FBI passed the buck on commenting on any secret interpretations of the PATRIOT Act to the DOJ – the same agency which is now refusing to even comment on the existence of memos justifying the assassination of Americans.

Unsurprisingly, the DOJ stated it would not comment beyond a brief testimony before Congress from Todd Hinnen, the agency’s top national security official.

Hinnen’s testimony in no way cleared up exactly what this secret interpretation is and instead seemed much more like damage control.

During the testimony he said that the material they collect under the PATRIOT Act is individualized and specific, including: “driver’s license records, hotel records, car-rental records, apartment-leasing records, credit card records, and the like.”

Yet Hinnen also stated that the business-record provision of the PATRIOT Act “also” allowed “important and highly sensitive intelligence-collection operations” to be conducted.

This is the typical ambiguous language utilized by government officials to give them the mammoth wiggle-room to covertly abuse legislation and strip us of our rights at every available juncture.

If the American government has any hope of having legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens of the United States, or for that matter, the world at large, transparency needs to be one of the first issued addressed.

We are at a time of crisis in this nation: with economic collapse looming on the horizon thanks to criminals in the financial industry and the corrupt private Federal Reserve; de facto martial law thanks to a steadily militarized police force; the stripping of our most essential rights under the NDAA; comprehensive surveillance programs that include smartphones, centralized biometric databases, drone surveillance, citizen spying programs, and threat assessments; pending draconian internet legislation; dangerous domestic drone programs; and far too many other disturbing trends.

The total lack of transparency in our government is just one of the many symptoms of a disease which is wracking our nation and the world and to make matters even more absurd, for some strange reason our president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Without making this one simple change, likely the easiest thing to demand from our corrupt government, we will only see increasingly disturbing developments that will continue to undermine the foundations of our nation and put all of our lives – and those of future generations – in danger.

Do you have a tip or a story idea? I’d love to hear from you! Please do not hesitate to send me an email at Admin@EndtheLie.com with anything and everything you have to share. I read all of my emails and why I can’t possibly manage to reply to them all, I guarantee I read them all and apply to as many as humanly feasible.

Do not be deceived: S. 1867 is the most dangerous bill since the PATRIOT Act

WarOnYou — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:34:03 +0000

November 30, 2011

Print Version

By Maddison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie

Recently I reported on the highly controversial bill S. 1253, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year of 2012 which was introduced back in June.

This bill was replaced by the one introduced on the 15^th of November, S. 1867. Today Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Senator John McCain of Arizona faced off on the floor of the Senate over a proposed amendment to S. 1867.

The minimal coverage this bill is getting in the corporate-controlled establishment media, especially when it comes to the massive danger it poses to everything America was built upon, is nothing short of deplorable.

This amendment would, according to Senator Paul, put “every single American citizen at risk.” Paul rightly pointed out that if the amendment were to pass, “the terrorists have won.”

I couldn’t agree more and this is the major fact that McCain and far too many others in Washington seem to miss. Or, equally likely, McCain and others are well aware of the erosion of civil liberties and have no interest in stopping it.

After all, it isn’t the sycophantic corrupt politicians in Washington that have to endure being groped by TSA goons or surreptitiously blasted with X-Rays by a passing DHS van; it is the everyday Americans like you and me that are subjected to such absurd “counterterrorism” measures.

John McCain is a man who revels in death and suffering in true sociopathic style: joking about bombing Iran, calling for military operations in Syria, and supporting the murderous and thoroughly racist al Qaeda-affiliated Libyan rebels.

McCain is the epitome of Washington doublethink: in Libya, al Qaeda is good. Yet, al Qaeda is still the biggest threat to humanity, so much so that it justifies turning the entire world into a theater of war in which all rights are suspended in the name of the war on terror?

Senator Paul argued against the amendment to S. 1867 that McCain co-sponsored by saying, “Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well then the terrorists have won. [D]etaining American citizens without a court trial is not American.”

Unfortunately, the PATRIOT Act has already removed “some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism,” but there are very few politicians who will put their careers on their line in saying this fact.

McCain quickly attempted to defend the amendment he’s been peddling on the Senate floor by saying, “Facts are stubborn things. If the senator from Kentucky wants to have a situation prevail where people who are released go back in to the fight to kill Americans, he is entitled to his opinion.”

This is the typical, “Either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists,” fallacious logic employed by those in Washington who will take every opportunity to exploit the non-threat of terrorism as a method of control and erosion of civil liberties.

McCain, who is the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is a member of the camp of individuals who either lie on a regular basis while knowing the facts or are so deluded and removed from reality that they actually fear the al Qaeda boogeyman.

Senator McCain, just like the non-profit groups that are directly linked to the Department of Homeland Security, promotes a fear of terrorism that is completely at odds with the facts, using this climate of fear and paranoia to justify otherwise unacceptable legislation like S. 1867 and the PATRIOT Act.

McCain’s proposed amendment would allow the executive branch, which has already murdered American citizens abroad without so much as a single charge, to have power over if a suspect was put through the civilian court system or through the military tribunal system.

Military tribunals are the complete antithesis of the civilian justice system and putting American citizens through such a system would signal the death of everything the American justice system was built upon.

The most dangerous aspect of S. 1867 is not only that it could subject American citizens to military tribunals and detention, but also that individuals could be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial.

Even if this was not used on American citizens, it represents a deplorable move that would only make the rest of the world hate us that much more, knowing that it is explicitly allowed for the American government to snatch up people and detain them forever without charge or trial.

If any other government were to even consider engaging in such behavior, people like Hillary Clinton who laughably claim to support human rights, would likely decry such moves.

Yet, the nonsensical logic of American exceptionalism makes people like McCain think that America has the right to operate outside of the rule of law (not to mention common decency and respect for other human beings) at home and abroad, so long as it is supposedly to combat terrorism.

Senator Paul countered McCain’s absurd assertion by saying, “I don’t think it necessarily follows I am arguing of the release of prisoners. I am simply arguing that particularly American citizens should not be sent to a foreign prison without due process.”

It amazes me that any such thing would have to even be argued. The Constitution is supposed to protect us from such egregious breaches of our inalienable rights and our so-called representatives take an oath to protect the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.

It is now clear that the true enemies of the Constitution, the ones that truly put our liberties in danger, are domestic.

They wear expensive suits and happily stroll through the halls of power in Washington, seemingly confident that they will not be treated as the traitorous criminals that they are.

McCain is one of these traitors who are launching an all-out assault on our way of life and our civil rights, S. 1867 is just the most recent, and most virulent, manifestation of this.

“An individual, no matter who they are, if they pose a threat to the security of the United States of America, should not be allowed to continue that threat,” McCain said in defense of his attack on our rights.

“We need to take every stop necessary to prevent that from happening, that’s for the safety and security of the men and women who are out there risking their lives … in our armed services,” McCain added.

The real people who put the men and women in our armed services at risk are warmongers like McCain who happily put Americans in the line of fire in order to keep their war profiteering cronies satisfied.

44 Republican Senators and 15 Democrats along with one Independent voted to keep the new detainee provisions in the NDAA, with Senator Paul and Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois being among the few Republicans who broke party ranks and sided with a majority of Democrats who voted to block the new provisions.

Paul argued, “If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay,” while Republican Senator Lindsey Graham countered, “To be clear: These provisions do not apply to U.S. citizens.”

Did that stop the American government from murdering a citizen of the United States in Yemen in a drone attack?

No, in fact, the National Security Council’s secret death panel makes these decisions outside of all legislation and accountability, so Graham’s claim that it wouldn’t apply to American citizens is hollow, at best.

A couple of days ago Glenn Greenwald, a journalist for Salon and a former Constitutional and civil rights lawyer tweeted a very similar sentiment:

“With very few exceptions, the McCain-Levin bill, awful though it is, doesn’t create any powers beyond what the O[bama] Admin[istration] thinks it now has.”

The problem is that this bill would make it explicitly legal for the United States to conduct the horrific operations they have already been carrying out.

If this were to pass, there would be absolutely nothing standing in the way of the government rounding up dissidents who they could easily label terrorists or individuals planning/supporting terrorism (given the absurdly broad definition used).

They could then imprison them without charge or trial for however long they please, and if they have their way, they would be able to openly torture them, not just the torture deceptively labeled “enhanced interrogation” but torture that can go by no other name.

Of course, that is not to diminish the fact that the tactics now employed by the CIA and others are indeed torture. Just ask people like conservative radio host Mancow who was waterboarded and came to the conclusion that it is indeed torture after having held the complete opposite opinion previously.

Or if that isn’t enough proof, take the Vanity Fair article written by Christopher Hitchens in which he describes his experience being waterboarded which brought him to the exact same conclusion: waterboarding is torture.

Even Bahrain ostensibly has more democratic accountability for torture, although I think we all know that is about as legitimate as calling waterboarding “enhanced interrogation.”

McCain laughably claimed that the changes would “help defend our nation against the threat posed by al Qaeda while upholding our values and honoring our Constitution.”

This is especially hilarious given that McCain said that the al Qaeda-affiliated Libyan rebels “inspired the world” in carrying out their bloody revolution.

Does McCain actually believe that he has the power to pick and choose when individuals and groups directly linked to al Qaeda are good or bad?

How can they actually reconcile such absurdist moral relativism? Personally, I don’t think that McCain can actually believe the things he says unless he has actually been able to eliminate every bit of sense and logic that is innate in human beings.

To the many people commenting and emailing me claiming that this is overblown and it will not apply to American citizens, you might want to listen to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham’s own words on the Senate floor.

“In summary here, [section] 1032, the military custody provision, which has waivers and a lot of flexibility doesn’t apply to American citizens. [Section] 1031, the statement of authority to detain does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield including the homeland,” Graham said.

Is there really anything even remotely unclear here? Our government is making the final strides towards turning the brutal military apparatus that has slaughtered so many people abroad in the name of “freedom” back to our own people.

What we are witnessing now is truly historic, the American government is trying to explicitly codify the ability to detain Americans without trial or charge in a military facility under military rule with military tribunals.

While I argue that we already live in a police state, based on the citizen spying programs, ludicrous amounts of domestic surveillance, collection and storage of massive amounts of biometric information, and the Department of Homeland Security’s invisible surveillance state (just to mention a few) the passage of this bill would bring about a new dangerous paradigm in America.

Even if it was sold as something that wouldn’t apply to American citizens, like the PATRIOT Act was sold as a counterterrorism bill, it would undoubtedly be used against us regardless of these claims, just as the PATRIOT Act has been utilized in cases wholly unrelated to terrorism.

Even the officials from the Department of Justice readily admit that the PATRIOT Act is being used against non-terrorist American citizens.

As you will see in the above video, they admit that the PATRIOT Act is used in cases completely unrelated to terrorism.

Is anyone really naïve enough to believe that the government will actually restrict the usage of S. 1867 to terrorists and not Americans who stand up to their corrupt, out of control, and wholly illegitimate criminal government?

To make matters even worse, the usage of drones in the United States is being considered by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that the FAA plans to propose new rules this coming January, which would give free license to police departments and other domestic agencies to use them in the United States.

Yet, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, have been used by law enforcement in the United States for some time now.

In fact, The Washington Post reported on the usage of aerial drones domestically in January of this year along with Homeland Security News Wire.

Currently, law enforcement agencies supposedly have to seek out emergency authorization from the FAA to use drones, which, according to The Washington Post is “only occasionally” granted.

The new FAA regulations coupled with turning the United States into a battlefield in which all Americans could be enemy combatants is dangerous, to say the least.

Given the fact that our current administration under the traitorous warmonger Barack Obama has no problem killing children with drones abroad, do we really think that they wouldn’t conduct such operations at home?

To an administration that commits extrajudicial executions of American citizens – and their 16-year-old child who was born in Denver, Colorado – is anything off the table?

The unfortunate and thoroughly disturbing reality is that our government has no problem carrying out such operations and S. 1867 would just make it that much easier by codifying it and creating an explicit legal apparatus through which they can operate.

I highly recommend that you explore at least some of the 344 proposed amendments for S. 1867 in the Library of Congress’ Thomas system which can be found here.

You can track all of the updates on the act with the amendments organized by date on this Library of Congress page.

As you can tell, the 28^th was by far the busiest day so far in the life of S. 1867 with over 100 amendments considered in that single day, although this very well might be beat in coming days when our so-called representatives continue to debate turning the United States into a giant battlefield.

UPDATE: If the ridiculous assault on our inalienable rights embodied by S. 1867 wasn’t enough, the Senate is also considering repealing the anti-torture measures currently in place (lax though they may be).

This flies in the face of the fact that torture does not provide actionable intelligence or anything even remotely reliable unless you’re looking for a false confession to anything from terrorism to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

This bill must be stopped if we want to preserve anything that America is supposed to stand for. The PATRIOT Act was a crippling blow to the Constitution but S. 1867 would be the death of every last bastion of hope and freedom that was left after the vicious attacks on our civil liberties that have brought us to this point.

UPDATE 2: Updated throughout with more information. If I missed anything please do not hesitate to contact me right away at [email protected]

Senator Joe Lieberman Asks Google for a Terrorist Flagging Button on Blogger

WarOnYou — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 09:30:12 +0000

Senator Joe Lieberman Asks Google for a Terrorist Flagging Button on Blogger

November 26th, 2011

lol

Via: The Verge:

Well, Joe’s at it again, and this time, it really is as embarrassing as it sounds. The Senator has taken pen to paper and written a letter to Google asking that its blogging platform Blogger be equipped with a flagging feature… for terrorists. This is largely because Jose Pimental, a man suspected of attempting to build a pipe bomb to attack the US military hosted his blog on Blogger. Now, there are a lot of terrible Blogger blogs to be sure, but is this really the best way to deal with such a problem?

Talking Points Memo acquired the letter and published it earlier today. “Pimentel’s Internet activity — both his spreading of bomb-making instructions links and his hate-filled writings — were hosted by Google” writes Lieberman, going on to add that, unlike YouTube, “Blogger’s Content Policy does not expressly ban terrorist content nor does it provide a ‘flag’ feature for such content.”

Google has not yet responded to Senator Lieberman’s request for the Blogger kill switch.

Courts Rule US Government Above the Law

WarOnYou — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:38:28 +0000

Courts Rule US Government Above the Law

October 19, 2011

Print Version

Source: Corbett Report – James Corbett

Manhattan Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein has declinedto hold the CIA in contempt for destroying videos that it had been ordered by the courts to preserve.

The case revolves around 92 videos, depicting hundreds of hours of interrogations of detainees. The tapes allegedly contained evidence of torture, and the CIA was ordered by numerous courts to produce the videos in relation to lawsuits arising from torture allegations. The 9/11 Commission also demanded that the tapes be produced. Instead, the agency destroyed them.

Although the Obama Justice Department had already decided last year that no criminal charges would be filed for this blatant obstruction of justice, Judge Hellerstein’s recent ruling insures that the agency will not even face civil sanctions or so much as a contempt order for willfully breaking the law.

In his ruling, Judge Hellerstein, the very judge who had ordered the CIA to produce the tapes in September of 2004, notes that the agency had instead provided a description of what they say was on the tapes and “implemented new protocols” to insure that they don’t destroy evidence again, so there is no need to hold them accountable in any way.

Judge Hellerstein’s decision is not without precedent.

In 2010, Obama’s Office of Legal Council wrote a memo arguing the legality of Obama’s secret list of assassination targets, a list that apparently includes American citizens who have not been convicted or even charged of a crime. The memo was used as the legal justification for the extrajudicial assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen who the President ordered murdered early last year.

Now, the Obama White House is arguing that they don’t even have to show the justification for ordering the unconstitutional assassination of one of its own citizens.

Still, concerned citizens are attempting to challenge the Obama regime’s power grabs in court.

Earlier this year, Senator Wyden revealed that the federal government has a secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act that allows the government much more power than is suggested by the wording of the act itself.

When Charlie Savage of the New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the interpretation, he was denied on the basis that the interpretation is classified.

Last week, Savage and the Times sued the federal government for refusing to release the documents. The case is currently before Judge William Pauley of the US District Court.

Facebook Accused of Violating U.S. Wiretap Law

WarOnYou — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 05:54:25 +0000

Facebook Accused of Violating U.S. Wiretap Law

October 17th, 2011

I know. You get it re: Facebook already. Ok, one more: Why Facebook Is After Your Kids.

Via: Register:

A Mississippi woman has accused Facebook of violating federal wiretap statutes by tracking her internet browsing history even when she wasn’t logged onto the social networking site.

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in federal court in the northern district of Mississippi, Brooke Rutledge of Lafayette County, Mississippi, also asserted claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, trespassing, and invasion of privacy.

The complaint, which seeks class-action status so other users can join, comes three weeks after Australian blogger Nik Cubrilovic published evidence that Facebook “Like” buttons scattered across the web allowed Facebook to track users’ browsing habits even when they were signed out of their accounts.

“Leading up to September 23, 2011, Facebook tracked, collected, and stored its users’ wire or electronic communications, including but not limited to portions of their internet browsing history even when the users were not logged-in to Facebook,” the 17-page complaint stated. “Plaintiff did not give consent or otherwise authorize Facebook to intercept, track, collect, and store her wire or electronic communications, including but not limited to her internet browsing history when not logged-in to Facebook.”

NYTimes Sues The Federal Government For Refusing To Reveal Its Secret Interpretation Of The PATRIOT Act

WarOnYou — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 06:05:38 +0000

NYTimes Sues The Federal Government For Refusing To Reveal Its Secret Interpretation Of The PATRIOT Act

from the secret-laws-and-secret-interpretations dept

We’ve been covering for a while now how Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been very concerned over the secret interpretation the feds have of one piece of the PATRIOT Act. They’ve been trying to pressure the government into publicly explaining how they interpret the law, because they believe that it directly contrasts how most of the public (and many elected officials) believe the feds are interpreting the law. While the two Senators continue to put pressure on the feds and to hint at the feds’ interpretation, just the fact that the government won’t even explain its own interpretation of the law seems ridiculous.

Given all of this, reporter Charlie Savage of the NY Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out the federal government’s interpretation of its own law… and had it refused. According to the federal government, its own interpretation of the law is classified. What sort of democracy are we living in when the government can refuse to even say how it’s interpreting its own law? That’s not democracy at all.

Julian Sanchez points us to the news that Savage and the NY Times have now sued the federal government for not revealing its interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, pointing out that if parts of the interpretation contain classified material, the Justice Department should black that out and reveal the rest, but simply refusing to reveal the interpretation entirely is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. You can bet that the feds will do everything they can to get out of this lawsuit, just as they did with the various lawsuits concerning warrantless wiretapping. Here’s hoping the court systems don’t let them. No matter what you think of this administration (or the last one) and how it’s handling the threat of terrorism, I’m curious how anyone can make the argument that the US government should not reveal how it interprets the very laws under which it’s required to operate.

DARPA Harnessing “Crowd Wisdom” to Develop New “Perch and Stare” Robot Spy Drones

WarOnYou — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:05:01 +0000

DARPA Harnessing “Crowd Wisdom” to Develop New “Perch and Stare” Robot Spy Drones

October 10, 2011

Print Version

Source: Defense-Update

Different services of the U.S. military are working on different solutions providing persistent intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) supporting the warfighter with miniature autonomous vehicles designed for ‘Perch and Stare’ mission profile. One of the most mature programs, the Shrike recently unveiled by Aerovironment was developed under Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency (DARPA) funding to develop a Stealthy Persistent Perch and Stare (SP2S) capability. But Jim McCormick, a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) believes that commercial off-the shelf (COTS) technology harnessed by the innovation of the ‘crowd’ could yield new capabilities that could benefit the warfighter even beyond these military funded programs. “we feel there is more potential there, and the current capability is still not ready for procurement. We hope that the crowd source will be able to overcome these barriers.” McCormick said, adding that 93 teams have already joined, some of them are foreign “Our focus is on innovation, regardless to where it comes from”.

Vertical take off and landing, transition from flight mode to observation mode, while maneuvering around obstacles are basic requirements. DARPA expects teams to demonstrate higher level of autonomy and automation, particularly in transition modes, obstacle avoidance and ‘follow-me’ flight mode, supporting operations on the move. The payload to be used should be able to identify persons or activities of interest up to 100 feet away with real-time video transmission monitored at a distance of two miles. Communications should be able to support non line of site, Total observation time may require up to three hours of pictures and/or video to document the facts. The vehicle should maintain low acoustic and visual signature to minimize probability of detection. The entire air vehicle must fit within a rucksack and a single person traveling by foot must be able to carry and operate the vehicle without assistance.

UAVforge, Crowdsourcing for UAV Innovation

For this program DARPA has collaborated with the U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems center Atlantic PM DARPA to launch ‘UAVForge’, a global crowd sourcing competition to design, build, and fly advanced small unmanned air vehicle (UAV) systems. The winning team will get $100,000 prize to build 15 examples of the winning design to be evaluated by the military by spring 2012 at Camp Lejeune N.C. Teams can qualify for the competition until October 25, 2011. Voting for the winning teams will commence from Oct 27 till Nov 2, 2011.

DARPA has already employed a similar design contest designing and building a Crowd-Driven Combat Support Vehicle Prototype in 98 Days.

Ethiopia’s Patriot Act: Terrorism by “Anti-terrorism Law”

WarOnYou — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 06:04:23 +0000

October 3, 2011

Print Version

Source: Nazret

Lately, Meles Zenawi, the dictator in Ethiopia, has been rounding up dissidents, journalists, opposition party political leaders and members under a diktat known as “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652/2009”. This diktat approved on a 286-91 vote of the rubberstamp parliament is so arbitrary and capricious that Human Rights Watch concluded “the law could provide a new and potent tool for suppressing political opposition and independent criticism of government policy.”

The “anti-terrorism law” is a masterpiece of ambiguity, unintelligibility, obscurity, superficiality, unclarity, uncertainty, inanity and vacuity. It defines “terrorism” with such vagueness and overbreadth that any act, speech, statement, and even thought, could be punished under its sweeping provisions. Anyone who commits a “terrorist act” with the aim of “advancing a political, religious or ideological cause” and intending to “influence the government”, “intimidate the public”, “destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social institutions of the country” could be condemned to long imprisonment or suffer the death penalty. Making or publishing statements “likely to be understood as encouraging terrorist acts” is a punishable offense under the “law”.

Read More Here…

Fear of Repression Spurs Scholars and Activists to Build Alternate Internets

WarOnYou — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 05:32:58 +0000

Fear of Repression Spurs Scholars and Activists to Build Alternate Internets

September 25th, 2011

This is great, but don’t forget the context:

U.S. Has Secret Tools to Force Internet on Dictators

U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors

The Sock Puppet Industrial Complex: U.S. Trains ‘Activists’ to Evade Security Forces

Think outside the box, by all means. Just don’t be surprised when you find another box.

Via: Chronicle of Higher Education:

Computer networks proved their organizing power during the recent uprisings in the Middle East, in which Facebook pages amplified street protests that toppled dictators. But those same networks showed their weaknesses as well, such as when the Egyptian government walled off most of its citizens from the Internet in an attempt to silence protesters.

That has led scholars and activists increasingly to consider the Internet’s wiring as a disputed political frontier.

For example, one weekend each month, a small group of computer programmers gathers at a residence here to build a homemade Internet—named Project Byzantium—that could go online if parts of the current global Internet becomes blocked by a repressive government.

Using an approach called a “mesh network,” the system would set up an informal wireless network connecting users with other nearby computers, which in turn would pass along the signals. The mesh network could tie back into the Internet if one of the users found a way to plug into an unblocked route. The developers recently tested an early version of their software at George Washington University (though without the official involvement of campus officials).

The leader of the effort, who goes by the alias TheDoctor but who would not give his name, out of concern that his employer would object to the project, says he fears that some day repressive measures could be put into place in the United States.

He is not the only one with such apprehensions. Next month TheDoctor will join hundreds of like-minded high-tech activists and entrepreneurs in New York at an unusual conference called the Contact Summit. One of the participants is Eben Moglen, a professor at Columbia Law School who has built an encryption device and worries about a recent attempt by Wisconsin politicians to search a professor’s e-mail. The summit’s goal is not just to talk about the projects, but also to connect with potential financial backers, recruit programmers, and brainstorm approaches to building parallel Internets and social networks.

The meeting is a sign of the growing momentum of what is called the “free-network movement,” whose leaders are pushing to rewire online networks to make it harder for a government or corporation to exert what some worry is undue control or surveillance. Another key concern is that the Internet has not lived up to its social potential to connect people, and instead has become overrun by marketing and promotion efforts by large corporations.

At the heart of the movement is the idea that seemingly mundane technical specifications of Internet routers and social-networking software platforms have powerful political implications. In virtual realms, programmers essentially set the laws of physics, or at least the rules of interaction, for their cyberspaces. If it sometimes seems that media pundits treat Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or Apple’s Steve Jobs as gods, that’s because in a sense they are—sitting on Mount Olympus with the power to hurl digital thunderbolts with a worldwide impact on people.

Instead of just complaining, many of those heading to New York next month believe they can build alternatives that reduce the power of those virtual deities and give more control to mere mortals.

Ogden, Utah police first-in-nation to use surveillance blimp

WarOnYou — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 07:06:00 +0000

Ogden, Utah police first-in-nation to use surveillance blimp

September 23, 2011

Print Version

Source: Homeland Security Newswire

A patrol car fitted with all of the police extras cost $40,000; a surveillance blimp will cost well below that — possibly as low as $15,000; after that, it is $100 a week to keep it filled with helium and charge its electric batteries; the police in Ogden, Utah, decides this is a good deal

Ogden, Utah adds its police to the list of those using blimps // Source: alea.org

The police chief in Ogden, Utah, said the city could launch a surveillance blimp by Christmas as part of the city’s crime-fighting efforts.

The 54-foot-long craft will be equipped multiple cameras and operated by pilots via remote control. It would run for five to seven hours at a time at an altitude of around 400 feet.

“Nobody else in the nation is trying to do this, so the FAA has no regulations for it,” said Police Chief Jon Greiner. The Standard-Examiner reports that the FAA recently approved the first step of the blimp proposal, a 25-page administrative application — but that this is only the first of five steps before the police would be allowed to use the blimp.

FAA officials will visit Ogden at some point to view the blimp in action.

Chief Griener says that that a patrol car fitted with all of the police extras cost $40,000, but the blimp will cost well below that — possibly as low as $15,000. After that, it is $100 a week to keep it filled with helium and charge its electric batteries, one for the propeller and one for the cameras.

The blimp can follow a preprogrammed route, or be instructed to follow a single individual or vehicle.

In the Wake of 9/11: 33 of 50 States Are Actively Spying on Americans

WarOnYou — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 06:04:46 +0000

In the Wake of 9/11: 33 of 50 States Are Actively Spying on Americans

September 11, 2011

Print Version

Source: Activist Post

The weekend of the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, has caused many to reflect on the event itself, as well as the decade that we have experienced since. There have indeed been many casualties to recall. One of the saddest casualties is the First Amendment to the nation’s founding document; it is effectively dead in 33 states according to a ACLU compilation of incident reports across America. A targeted program of surveillance and harassment has become fully centered on the population itself.

This was first made evident in the 2009 MIAC report, which cited supporters of prominent political candidates like Ron Paul, as well as an assortment of other activists who support peace, freedom and liberty, as potential threats. Law enforcement has been directed to treat such “dangers” with suspicion and extreme caution.

The ACLU has compiled an interactive map of those states which have logged incidents of police harassment and surveillance of Americans engaging in other apparently un-American activities, namely: peaceful protest, photographing public servants while on duty, questioning American leadership and policy, recording one’s surroundings while in public, and having certain religious or political affiliations that could apparently be tied to extremism.

Here are just a few examples among dozens of incident reports cited by the ACLU that show the range of First Amendment violations.

Maine – FBI Intercepts and Stores E-mails Planning Peaceful Protests.
The FBI intercepted and stored e-mail communications pertaining to protests at the Brunswick Naval Air Show and against the christening of an Arleigh Burke Class destroyer organized by Veterans for Peace and co-sponsored by Pax Christi Maine, PeaceWorks, WILPF, Peace Action Maine, Smilin’Trees Disarmament Farm, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Maine Coalition for Peace & Justice, Island Peace & Justice, Winthrop Area People for Peace, and Waldo County Peace & Justice

New York – Police Detain Muslim-American Journalism Student for Taking Photos for a Class Assignment.
Mariam Jukaku, a 24-year old Muslim-American journalism student at Syracuse University, was stopped by Veterans Affairs police in New York for taking photographs of flags in front of a VA building as part of a class assignment. After taking her into an office for interrogation and taking her driver’s license, the police deleted the photographs from her digital camera before releasing her.

North Carolina — Pentagon Surveils Veteran.
Debbie Clark, who was honorably discharged from the US army after eight years of active duty and who is married to an active duty military man, found herself under Pentagon surveillance when she participated in a protest at Fort Bragg in March 2005 led by veterans and military families.

Texas — Fusion Center Describes Conspiracy to Spread Tolerance.
In February 2009, a DHS-supported North Central Texas Fusion System intelligence bulletin described a purported conspiracy between Muslim civil rights organizations, lobbying groups, the anti-war movement, a former U.S. Congresswoman, the U.S. Treasury Department, and hip hop bands to spread tolerance in the U.S. The bulletin was reportedly distributed to over 100 different agencies.

Colorado — FBI JTTF Monitors American Indian Movement, Peace Groups, and Environmental Groups.
In August 2005, the ACLU obtained the documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request containing information on the Colorado American Indian Movement and the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. The files show that JTTF agents opened “domestic terrorism” investigations after they read notices on web sites announcing an antiwar protest in Colorado Springs in 2003 and a protest against Columbus Day in Denver in 2002.

Arizona Maricopa County Sheriff Department Surveils Political Enemies.
An internal report accuses the Maricopa County’s Chief Deputy Sheriff of using Maricopa’s anti-corruption unit to conduct politically motivated investigations and of surveiling Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio’s political rivals.

California — Military Monitors Campus Anti-Recruiting Protests. Two Department of Defense (DOD) Threat and Local Observation Notices (TALON) from April 2005 describe anti-recruiting protests by students at the University of California campuses of Berkeley and Santa Cruz. The source for both TALON reports, a “special agent of the federal protective service, U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” relayed protest information he received through email alerts.

Undercover Campus and County Sheriffs Attend Cal State Fresno Lecture on Veganism. On November 10, 2004, the California State Fresno student group Campus Peace and Civil Liberties Coalition (CPCLC) hosted an on-campus lecture by a speaker formerly employed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The lecturer addressed approximately 60 people about the benefits of a vegan diet. Six of those 60 attendees were undercover police officers—three from the county sheriff’s department and three from the campus police department.

The scope of the incidents compiled on the ACLU map reflects a new America; one where the Bill of Rights and Constitution have been re-defined as the most serious threat, rather than the greater threat that exists from promoting an atmosphere of hysteria and fear that is inevitably leading to the eradication of protections afforded by those very documents.

First, do you believe that it is only 33 states? Do you believe that the principles of freedom outlined in the Bill of Rights and Constitution make America less safe in The Age of Terror? Are these incident reports examples of your tax dollars well-spent? Please use the comment section below to give us your thoughts, as well as other incidents that exemplify the loss of our Constitutional rights.

Man arrested by TSA with 4th Amendment on chest says constitutional rights violated

WarOnYou — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:23:23 +0000

Reed Williams
Richmond Times-Dispatch
August 11, 2011

Authorities involved in the arrest of a protester who removed his shirt and pants at a security checkpoint at Richmond International Airport were doing their jobs and acted appropriately, a government attorney argued Wednesday in Richmond federal court.

Carlotta P. Wells, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, argued in favor of a motion to dismiss Aaron B. Tobey’s lawsuit, which claims his constitutional rights were violated. Wells said Tobey had made his point by removing his shirt to display words from the Fourth Amendment written on his torso but went too far when he disobeyed a command to pass through a security scanner.

But Anand Agneshwar, an attorney representing Tobey in his lawsuit against airport and federal officials, said the 21-year-old Charlottesville man obeyed the commands of authorities. Agneshwar said it was the authorities who went too far by detaining Tobey for 90 minutes or longer with his hands cuffed behind his back.

“This was one long process to determine if this gentleman was a security risk,” Agneshwar told U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson.

Read full article

Senate Panel Keeps ‘Secret Patriot Act’ Under Wraps

WarOnYou — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:11:53 +0000

Senate Panel Keeps ‘Secret Patriot Act’ Under Wraps

August 3, 2011

Print Version

Source: Wired

The secret Patriot Act is staying secret.

Two Senators have been warning for months that the government has a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act so broad that it amounts to an entirely different law — one that gives the feds massive domestic surveillance powers, and keeps the rest of us in the dark about the snooping.

“There is a significant discrepancy between what most Americans – including many members of Congress – think the Patriot Act allows the government to do and how government officials interpret that same law,” wrote the Senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. “We believe that most members of the American public would be very surprised to learn how federal surveillance law is being interpreted in secret. ”

The Senators tried to get the government to reveal some of the law’s contents, by forcing the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to produce a report outlining when this secret surveillance has gone overboard. Yesterday, the effort failed. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said no to the report by rejecting Wyden and Udall’s amendment to the FY2012 Intelligence Authorization Act.

In other words: we are all still in the dark about how the government is spying on us.

The Senators won’t say, exactly, what elements of this secret Patriot Act have them so spooked. But Wyden told Danger Room in May that the so-called “business-records provision” is a major source of concern. It empowers the FBI to get businesses, medical offices, banks and other organizations to turn over any “tangible things” it deems relevant to a security investigation.

So instead, the Senators are left to make vague — if vociferous — protests. “In our view, the executive branch’s decision to conceal the U.S. government’s official understanding of what this law means is unacceptable, and untenable in the long run,” Wyden and Udall wrote in the committee’s report on the Authorization Act. “Intelligence agencies need to have the ability to conduct secret operations, but they should not be allowed to rely on secret laws.”

As Secrecy News notes, the committee also rejected an amendment by Wyden and Udall that would have required the Justice Department to estimate how many Americans have been eavesdropped on, in violation of another surveillance law, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. That amendment was voted down, 7-8.

Instead, the committee seemed more focused on potential threats to the intelligence community, rather than the spies’ overreach. The Senators worried about the intelligence agencies’ impulse to move classified information to the cloud, and demanded an “independent review of the efficiency and security implications” of the shift in six months. The committee also expressed concern about how many gadgets and gadget components are now made overseas — and could therefore have backdoors from foreign intelligence agencies built in. The Senators want a second report in six months on “counterintelligence threats to the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, including any risks associated with purchasing equipment and services from foreign manufacturers and suppliers.”

Sinister Public-Private Partnership to Spy on Web Users

WarOnYou — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:54:50 +0000

Sinister Public-Private Partnership to Spy on Web Users

June 23rd, 2011

Via: Guardian:

When President Eisenhower left office in 1960, he provided the American people with a warning.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Sixty years later, the military-industrial complex has been joined by another unprecedented centre of what has increasingly proven to be “misplaced power”: the dozens of secretive firms known collectively as the intelligence contracting industry.

Last February, three of these firms – HBGary Federal, Palantir and Berico, known collectively as Team Themis – were discovered to have conspired to hire out their information war capabilities to corporations which hoped to strike back at perceived enemies, including US activist groups, WikiLeaks and journalist Glenn Greenwald. That such a dangerous new dynamic was now in play was only revealed due to a raid by hackers associated with the Anonymous collective, resulting in the dissemination of more than 70,000 emails to and from executives at HBGary Federal and its parent company HBGary.

After having spent several months studying those emails and otherwise investigating the industry depicted therein, I have revealed my summary of a classified US intelligence programme known as Romas/COIN, as well as its upcoming replacement, known as Odyssey. The programme appears to allow for the large-scale monitoring of social networks by way of such things as natural language processing, semantic analysis, latent semantic indexing and IT intrusion. At the same time, it also entails the dissemination of some unknown degree of information to a given population through a variety of means – without any hint that the actual source is US intelligence. Scattered discussions of Arab translation services may indicate that the programme targets the Middle East.

Despite the details I have provided in the document – which is also now in the possession of several major news outlets and which may be published in whole or in part by any party that cares to do so – there remains a great deal that is unclear about Romas/COIN and the capabilities it comprises. The information with which I’ve worked consists almost entirely of email correspondence between executives of several firms that together sought to win the contract to provide the programme’s technical requirements, and because many of the discussions occurred in meetings and phone conversations, the information remaining deals largely with prospective partners, the utility of one capability over another, and other clues spread out over hundreds of email exchanges between a large number of participants.

The significance of this programme to the public is not limited to its potential for abuse by facets of the US intelligence community, which has long been proverbial for misusing other of its capabilities. Perhaps the most astonishing aspect is the fact that the partnership of contracting firms and other corporate entities that worked to obtain the contract was put into motion in large part by Aaron Barr, the disgraced former CEO of HBGary Federal who was at the centre of Team Themis’s conspiracy to put high-end intelligence capabilities at the disposal of private institutions. As I explain further in the linked report, this fact alone should prompt increased investigation into the manner in which this industry operates and the threats it represents to democratic institutions.

Altogether, the existence and nature of Romas/COIN should confirm what many had already come to realise over the past few years, in particular: the US and other states have no intention of allowing populations to conduct their affairs without scrutiny. Such states ought not complain when they find themselves subjected to similar scrutiny – as will increasingly become the case over the next several years.

—

More: Romas/COIN

Via: Echelon2:

Romas/COIN

For at least two years, the U.S. has been conducting a secretive and immensely sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining against the Arab world, allowing the intelligence community to monitor the habits, conversations, and activity of millions of individuals at once. And with an upgrade scheduled for later this year, the top contender to win the federal contract and thus take over the program is a team of about a dozen companies which were brought together in large part by Aaron Barr – the same disgraced CEO who resigned from his own firm earlier this year after he was discovered to have planned a full-scale information war against political activists at the behest of corporate clients. The new revelation provides for a disturbing picture, particularly when viewed in a wider context. Unprecedented surveillance capabilities are being produced by an industry that works in secret on applications that are nonetheless funded by the American public – and which in some cases are used against that very same public. Their products are developed on demand for an intelligence community that is not subject to Congressional oversight and which has been repeatedly shown to have misused its existing powers in ways that violate U.S. law as well as American ideals. And with expanded intelligence capabilities by which to monitor Arab populations in ways that would have previously been impossible, those same intelligence agencies now have improved means by which to provide information on dissidents to those regional dictators viewed by the U.S. as strategic allies.

The nature and extent of the operation, which was known as Romas/COIN and which is scheduled for replacement sometime this year by a similar program known as Odyssey, may be determined in part by a close reading of hundreds of e-mails among the 70,000 that were stolen in February from the contracting firm HBGary Federal and its parent company HBGary. Other details may be gleaned by an examination of the various other firms and individuals that are discussed as being potential partners.

Of course, there are many in the U.S. that would prefer that such details not be revealed at all; such people tend to cite the amorphous and much-abused concept of “national security” as sufficient reason for the citizenry to stand idly by as an ever-expanding coalition of government agencies and semi-private corporations gain greater influence over U.S. foreign policy. That the last decade of foreign policy as practiced by such individuals has been an absolute disaster even by the admission of many of those who put it into place will not phase those who nonetheless believe that the citizenry should be prevented from knowing what is being done in its name and with its tax dollars.

To the extent that the actions of a government are divorced from the informed consent of those who pay for such actions, such a government is illegitimate. To the extent that power is concentrated in the hands of small groups of men who wield such power behind the scenes, there is no assurance that such power will be used in a manner that is compatible with the actual interests of that citizenry, or populations elsewhere. The known history of the U.S. intelligence community is comprised in large part of murder, assassinations, disinformation, the topping of democratic governments, the abuse of the rights of U.S. citizens, and a great number of other things that cannot even be defended on “national security” grounds insomuch as that many such actions have quite correctly turned entire populations against the U.S. government. This is not only my opinion, but also the opinion of countless individuals who once served in the intelligence community and have since come to criticize it and even unveil many of its secrets in an effort to alert the citizenry to what has been unleashed against the world in the name of “security.”

Likewise, I will here provide as much information as I can on Romas/COIN and its upcoming replacement.

Although the relatively well-known military contractor Northrop Grumman had long held the contract for Romas/COIN, such contracts are subject to regular recompetes by which other companies, or several working in tandem, can apply to take over. In early February, HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr wrote the following e-mail to Al Pisani, an executive at the much larger federal contractor TASC, a company which until recently had been owned by Northrop and which was now looking to compete with it for lucrative contracts:

“I met with [[[Mantech]] CEO] Bob Frisbie the other day to catch up. He is looking to expand a capability in IO related to the COIN re-compete but more for DoD. He told me he has a few acquisitions in the works that will increase his capability in this area. So just a thought that it might be worth a phone call to see if there is any synergy and strength between TASC and ManTech in this area. I think forming a team and response to compete against SAIC will be tough but doable.” IO in this context stands for “information operations,” while COIN itself, as noted in an NDA attached to one of the e-mails, stands for “counter intelligence.” SAIC is a larger intelligence contractor that was expected to pursue the recompete as well.

Pisani agreed to the idea, and in conjunction with Barr and fellow TASC exec John Lovegrove, the growing party spent much of the next year working to create a partnership of firms capable of providing the “client” – a U.S. agency that is never specified in the hundreds of e-mails that follow – with capabilities that would outmatch those being provided by Northrop, SAIC, or other competitors.

Several e-mails in particular provide a great deal of material by which to determine the scope and intent of Romas/COIN. One that Barr wrote to his own e-mail account, likely for the purpose of adding to other documents later, is entitled “Notes on COIN.” It begins with a list of entries for various facets of the program, all of which are blank and were presumably filled out later: “ISP, Operations, Language/Culture, Media Development, Marketing and Advertising, Security, MOE.” Afterwards, another list consists of the following: “Capabilities, Mobile Development, Challenges, MOE, Infrastructure, Security.” Finally, a list of the following websites is composed, many of which represent various small companies that provide niche marketing services pursuant to mobile phones.

More helpful is a later e-mail from Lovegrove to Barr and some of his colleagues at TASC in which he announces the following:

Our team consists of: – TASC (PMO, creative services) – HB Gary (Strategy, planning, PMO) – Akamai (infrastructure) – Archimedes Global (Specialized linguistics, strategy, planning) – Acclaim Technical Services (specialized linguistics) – Mission Essential Personnel (linguistic services) – Cipher (strategy, planning operations) – PointAbout (rapid mobile application development, list of strategic partners) – Google (strategy, mobile application and platform development – long list of strategic partners) – Apple (mobile and desktop platform, application assistance -long list of strategic partners) We are trying to schedule an interview with ATT plus some other small app developers.

From these and dozens of other clues and references, the following may be determined about the nature of Romas/COIN:

1. Mobile phone software and applications constitute a major component of the program.

2. There’s discussion of bringing in a “gaming developer,” apparently at the behest of Barr, who mentions that the team could make good use of “a social gaming company maybe like zynga, gameloft, etc.” Lovegrove elsewhere notes: “I know a couple of small gaming companies at MIT that might fit the bill.”

3. Apple and Google were active team partners, and AT&T may have been as well. The latter is known to have provided the NSA free reign over customer communications (and was in turn protected by a bill granting them retroactive immunity from lawsuits). Google itself is the only company to have received a “Hostile to Privacy” rating from Privacy International. Apple is currently being investigated by Congress after the iPhone was revealed to compile user location data in a way that differs from other mobile phones; the company has claimed this to have been a “bug.”

4. The program makes use of several providers of “linguistic services.” At one point, the team discusses hiring a military-trained Arabic linguist. Elsewhere, Barr writes: “I feel confident I can get you a ringer for Farsi if they are still interested in Farsi (we need to find that out). These linguists are not only going to be developing new content but also meeting with folks, so they have to have native or near native proficiency and have to have the cultural relevance as well.”

5. Alterion and SocialEyez are listed as “businesses to contact.” The former specializes in “social media monitoring tools.” The latter uses “sophisticated natural language processing methodology” in order to “process tens of millions of multi-lingual conversations daily” while also employing “researchers and media analysts on the ground;” its website also notes that “Millions of people around the globe are now networked as never before – exchanging information and ideas, forming opinions, and speaking their minds about everything from politics to products.”

6. At one point, TASC exec Chris Clair asks Aaron and others, “Can we name COIN Saif? Saif is the sword an Arab executioner uses when they decapitate criminals. I can think of a few cool brands for this.”

7. A diagram attached to one of Barr’s e-mails to the group (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/pmo.png/) depicts Magpii as interacting in some unspecified manner with “Foreign Mobile” and “Foreign Web.” Magpii is a project of Barr’s own creation which stands for “Magnify Personal Identifying Information,” involves social networking, and is designed for the purpose of storing personal information on users. Although details are difficult to determine from references in Barr’s e-mails, he discusses the project almost exclusively with members of military intelligence to which he was pitching the idea.

8. There are sporadic references such things as “semantic analysis,” “Latent Semantic Indexing,” “specialized linguistics,” and OPS, a programming language designed for solving problems using expert systems.

9. Barr asks the team’s partner at Apple, Andy Kemp (whose signature lists him as being from the company’s Homeland Defense/National Programs division), to provide him “a contact at Pixar/Disney.”

Altogether, then, a successful bid for the relevant contract was seen to require the combined capabilities of perhaps a dozen firms – capabilities whereby millions of conversations can be monitored and automatically analyzed, whereby a wide range of personal data can be obtained and stored in secret, and whereby some unknown degree of information can be released to a given population through a variety of means and without any hint that the actual source is U.S. military intelligence. All this is merely in addition to whichever additional capabilities are not evident from the limited description available, with the program as a whole presumably being operated in conjunction with other surveillance and propaganda assets controlled by the U.S. and its partners.

Whatever the exact nature and scope of COIN, the firms that had been assembled for the purpose by Barr and TASC never got a chance to bid on the program’s recompete. In late September, Lovegrove noted to Barr and others that he’d spoken to the “CO [contracting officer] for COIN.” “The current procurement approach is cancelled [sic], she cited changed requirements,” he reported. “They will be coming out with some documents in a month or two, most likely an updated RFI [request for information]. There will be a procurement following soon after. We are on the list to receive all information.” On January 18th of next year, Lovegrove provided an update: “I just spoke to the group chief on the contracts side (Doug K). COIN has been replaced by a procurement called Odyssey. He says that it is in the formative stages and that something should be released this year. The contracting officer is Kim R. He believes that Jason is the COTR [contracting officer's technical representative].” Another clue is provided in the ensuing discussion when a TASC executive asks, “Does Odyssey combine the Technology and Content pieces of the work?”

The unexpected change-up didn’t seem to phase the corporate partnership, which was still a top contender to compete for the upcoming Odyssey procurement. Later e-mails indicate a meeting between key members of the group and the contracting officer for Odyssey at a location noted as “HQ,” apparently for a briefing on requirements for the new program, on February 3rd of 2011. But two days after that meeting, the servers of HBGary and HBGary Federal were hacked by a small team of Anonymous operatives in retaliation for Barr’s boasts to Financial Times that he had identified the movement’s “leadership;” 70,000 e-mails were thereafter released onto the internet. Barr resigned a few weeks later.

Along with clues as to the nature of COIN and its scheduled replacement, a close study of the HBGary e-mails also provide reasons to be concerned with the fact that such things are being developed and deployed in the way that they are. In addition to being the driving force behind the COIN recompete, Barr was also at the center of a series of conspiracies by which his own company and two others hired out their collective capabilities for use by corporations that sought to destroy their political enemies by clandestine and dishonest means, some of which appear to be illegal. None of the companies involved have been investigated; a proposed Congressional inquiry was denied by the committee chair, noting that it was the Justice Department’s decision as to whether to investigate, even though it was the Justice Department itself that made the initial introductions. Those in the intelligence contracting industry who believe themselves above the law are entirely correct.

That such firms will continue to target the public with advanced information warfare capabilities on behalf of major corporations is by itself an extraordinary danger to mankind as a whole, particularly insomuch as that such capabilities are becoming more effective while remaining largely unknown outside of the intelligence industry. But a far greater danger is posed by the practice of arming small and unaccountable groups of state and military personnel with a set of tools by which to achieve better and better “situational awareness” on entire populations while also being able to manipulate the information flow in such a way as to deceive those same populations. The idea that such power can be wielded without being misused is contradicted by even a brief review of history.

History also demonstrates that the state will claim such powers as a necessity in fighting some considerable threat; the U.S. has defended its recent expansion of powers by claiming they will only be deployed to fight terrorism and will never be used against American civilians. This is cold comfort for those in the Arab world who are aware of the long history of U.S. material support for regimes they find convenient, including those of Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and the House of Saud. Nor should Americans be comforted by such promises from a government that has no way of ensuring that they will be kept; it was just a few months ago that a U.S. general in Afghanistan ordered a military intelligence unit to use pysops on visiting senators in an effort to secure increased funding for the war, an illegal act; only a few days prior, CENTCOM spokesmen were confidently telling the public that such other psychological capabilities as persona management would never be used on Americans as that would be illegal. The fact is that such laws have been routinely broken by the military and intelligence community, who are now been joined in this practice by segments of the federal contracting industry.

It is inevitable, then, that such capabilities as form the backbone of Romas/COIN and its replacement Odyssey will be deployed against a growing segment of the world’s population. The powerful institutions that wield them will grow all the more powerful as they are provided better and better methods by which to monitor, deceive, and manipulate. The informed electorate upon which liberty depends will be increasingly misinformed. No tactical advantage conferred by the use of these programs can outweigh the damage that will be done to mankind in the process of creating them.

Barrett Brown

Project PM

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