Showing posts with label homeland security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeland security. Show all posts

Friday, June 15, 2007

Why the President is a Puppet

To understand why the President is a puppet, it is important to think of the President as primarily a communications hub. The volume of sensitive information passing across the President's desk makes the President a valuable intelligence-gathering target.

This is why the President is always surrounded by so many people: it is important to pass information directly from person to person because, for many communications, the use of communications technology is a counter-intelligence liability.

The President probably doesn't carry a cellphone all that often. Since the FBI can access your cellphone's GPS chip, or can remotely activate the microphone, so can some disgruntled Nokia or AT&T employee. The President needs to have many person-to-person communications for security reasons.

COINTELPRO AND THE PATRIOT ACT, THE WTO, CLIMATE CHANGE, THE GREEN RUN, PROJECTED OIL RESERVES, ALTERNATIVE ENERGY, THE 1996 COMMUNICATIONS ACT, NOAM CHOMSKY, SEVENSTORIES, THE TUSKEGEE EXPERIMENTS, HOWARD ZINN, USA WEAPONS EXPORTS, LAND MINES, OIL AND WARS, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES, TORTURE, PSYOPS COMES HOME , POLITICAL PRISONERS IN THE USA, THE CREEL COMMISSION, MEDIA CONSOLIDATION AND FREE SPEECH, THE BILL OF RIGHTS, GREG PALLAST, BBC WORLD, FEED THE CHILDREN, DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG, LABOR RIGHTS, SIAPAM AND DELAY, RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK, NATIONAL DEBT, LARGEST EXPORT OF THE USA, MISSLE DEFENSE AND THE ARMS RACE, THE MILITARY BUDGET, THE MITLITARIZATION OF SPACE, BIOTECH, WHITE PHOSPHOROUS AND FALLUJAH, WARS CRIMES OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, NEWS CORP AND MEDIA CONSOLIDATION, WHAT DO ATTORNEY GENERALS DO?, BILL CLINTON AND THE WTO, AND BILL CLINTON AND THE 1996 COMMUNICATIONS ACT
The content of the communications with which the President is entrusted contain implicit or explicit instructions regarding how the President ought to behave. Either a piece of information is not to be divulged, or it may only be divulged under certain circumstances. Every communication the President receives says either "do this" or "don't do this," and the President is entrusted with skillfully discerning and faithfully following these instructions.

In many instances, specific phraseology is important. Between the nuances of jargon, inner-circle meetings, and the spin-doctor's propaganda marketing prescription, one word or a few letters can make a world of difference to different people. "At the end of the day," "make no mistake," "going forward," "support the troops," "family values" -- people pledge allegiance to these terms. The President needs to identify which phrases serve as proper nouns, which as verbs, which as convenience, which as ornament; and the President needs to know how to act accordingly.

In many instances, the President may not know what a specific phrase means to a specific group of people, although the phrase may fit quite comfortably inside a sentence of otherwise ordinary speech. The President just follows orders. It was no excuse at Nuremberg, but it's how our present government operates. This is why third-party candidates have difficulty breaking into Washington politics: third-party candidates are outsiders who don't know what phrases motivate various interests, or which phrases tell various interests "I understand what you really want, and I'll help you get it." The consolidation and perpetuation of this pass-phrase system is why the central government seeks to expand its influence into local realms.

Most of the Administration doesn't turn over every four years. The phraseology and popular parlance of various departments have a life of their own, to which any new President must adapt. The concept of "Homeland Security" was already in use among various military circles in the 1990's. This is a concept which has lived in the Administration for years. Sami G. Hajjar discusses "homeland defense" in the 1998 report, "Security Implications of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East." The Department of Defense Advanced Concepts Technology Demonstration program proposed the Homeland Security Command and Control several months prior to September 11, 2001. Although I can't recall ever thinking of my country as my "Homeland" until after 911, it would seem a good number of military professionals have been working out this doctrine for some time. The Department of Homeland Security is not something the President thought up in a pinch, it is something the President assembled for entrenched political interests. The President may not be fully aware of the scope of the communications he issues, but one thing is clear: whenever the President talks about "homeland security," there are groups of people all over the place who behave according to decades of doctrinal development.

And so the puppet is also a puppeteer, albeit one with a limited understanding of the drama that is unfolding. And so this is why a Washington outsider would serve the American people better than a career politician from the ranks of the political aristocracy: an effective outsider would need to ask all sorts of people what they mean when they speak, whereas a Crown Prince who has lived his life immersed in the secret incantations need not understand them to see how they are used.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The War in Iraq is a Decoy

We are told that the War on Terror is a New Kind of War, and that the War in Iraq is the central front in this War.

Why is it, then, that our government and our media go to such great lengths to paint us a picture of a conventional war, when we are in reality engaged with an unconventional enemy?

The War in Iraq has nothing to do with the War on Terror, except insofar as it serves to distract the public from the erosion of civil liberties in the United States, and from the careful establishment of legal precedents by a rogue Administration bent on paving the way for Fascist rule.

One advantage of this approach is the fragmentation of opposition. We have been told there would be more fierce opposition to the War on Iraq were there a draft; we are not often told that the War on Terror does, in fact, have a draft.

One reason we have not heard more about the War on Terror's draft is that those who are drafted are not allowed to discuss it. This means that the 150,000 or so persons who have received national security letters since the start of the Iraq War, and who have been compelled to become agents of the national intelligence infrastructure, are silent warriors in this New Kind of War, with no citizens to rally around them.

Who are these people? What are their duties? To whom do their duties pertain?

We cannot know the answers to these questions. How then can we know that the Constitution is being upheld? How can we be informed voters, or claim to participate in a Democracy with our votes?

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Taxation Without Representation

The reason the National Security Agency wants to read your email is because they are trying to use algorithms to detect terrorist activity. This invasion of privacy is based on the assumption that terrorists use the Internet in ways that are statistically distinct from the ways ordinary Americans use the Internet. In order to statistically detect online terrorist activity, the governmet needs a large sample of "normal" Internet use.

Although this may seem reasonable when we are confronted with an indistinct enemy, fighting on ill-defined battlefields, this really amounts to an unconstitutional indirect tax. Just as the Federal government incorporated FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security to hide the cost of creating the largest bureaucracy in the history of civilization, the government's use of private citizens' Internet service for surveillance purposes is used to hide the true cost of the War on Terror.

When the government compels private corporations to comply with national security directives, without compensating these corporations for the cost of implementing such directives, the cost is passed on to consumers.

Because the Administrative branch of government refuses to inform Congress as to the nature of these programs, these programs amount to taxation without representation.

Beyond violating the 4th Amendment right to protection against unwarranted search and seizure, this practice also violates the 5th Amendment, by effectively situating military operatives within private homes, taking private property for public use, and opening up the potential to compel private citizens to, in effect, unwittingly testify against themselves. Not only do these practices appropriate private citizens into the Federal intelligence infrastructure without compensation, but citizens are furthermore charged for this.

Our current Administration has a constitutional duty to either halt these programs, or to fully inform Congress as to their nature. In lieu of such disclosures, we as citizens have a duty to remove these criminals from office.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

fragmentary aggregations


IF


you can accept the premises that

1. your communications are being monitored
2. there are computerized as well as human monitors
3. somebody somewhere is paying attention

AND

1. you dislike domestic eavesdropping
2. you're not sure your legislature can do much about it
3. you don't think you are powerless

THEN

1. talk to those who pay attention
2. deny monitors the value of your metadata - this is secret, indirect taxation
3. do not fear the consequences if you are not a terrorist


use google to tell the national security agency what you think.

get pro-active and email your concerns to media outlets.

leave cryptic phone messages every chance you get.


in this age patriots refuse to serve. just as wars cannot be fought without soldiers, the private/military surveillance apparatus cannot function without ideological devotees.

loyalty to the country always, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

be critical of rhetoric exploiting religious sentiment in extremist politics.

the christian conception of god is inherently self-contradictory (mystical in character).

from:

1. god is omniscient
2. god is omnipotent
3. god is morally perfect (incapable of evil)

it follows that:

1. if god is omniscient and omnipotent, god knows what evil is and is able to do evil
2. premises 1 (omniscience) and 2 (omnipotent) contradict premise 3 (moral perfection)
3. anything follows from a contradiction
4. "god is on our side" can be used to justify anything, moral or immoral


be pro-active, engage with a positive aesthetic of cryptocyberanarchism, make poetry out of terror, use as many of the following words in context as possible:

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Meade SEAL Team 6 Honduras PLO NSA terrorist Ft. Meade strategic supercomputer $400 million in gold bullion quiche Honduras BATF colonel Treasury domestic disruption SEAL Team 6 class struggle smuggle M55 M51 Physical Security Division Room 2A0120, OPS 2A building 688-6911(b), 963-3371(s). Security Awareness Division (M56) Field Security Division (M52) Al Amn al-Askari Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI) Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti Federalnaia sluzhba besopasnosti GCHQ MI5

Friday, January 12, 2007

Diplomacy for the War at Home

If we are to fight a War at Home - waged by the NSA, the FBI, the Pentagon, the DIA - against terrorist threats to our Homeland, are we to do so in such a manner as to deliberately rule out any possible diplomatic solution?

If we are to trust our Government's assertion that a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would increase the risk of terror attacks on our Homeland, and if it is the goal of our Government to remove our troops expediently and expidiciously, then it follows that a non-military approach to solving our National Quagmire is essential. Distasteful though it may seem, the search for a diplomatic victory may require the formal recognition of Al Qaeda, and a diplomatic relationship with this formal body.

I think it can be taken as obvious by now that Al Qaeda is not some loose band of thugs and theives hiding out in mountain caves, but is a group of individuals who are organized and resourceful, who confess a group identity, and who associate with various similar groups of individuals.

In terms of the phenomenology of the movement, it may be worthwhile to consider nationalism as a mechanism to account for Al Qaeda. If it seems odd to think of Al Qaeda in nationalistic terms - we are, after all, told Al Qaeda is a "network" - it is worth noting that we speak of "the Palestinians" as we speak of nationalities. We hear the President speak of "Palestine," although no such State has yet been established.

Any number of causes can be used to account for the motivations of individual members of Al Qaeda. Some individuals, certainly, are motivated by ideology; some, certainly, are so lost as human beings they hate our Country enough to die just to prove it. Others, likely, are motivated by what they've seen America do in Iraq, Panama, Angola, or the disputed Israeli territories - these latter persons motivated by desperation and the fear they will be assimilated next.

Were America to publicly recognize Al Qaeda as we recognize Nations, and open formal diplomatic negotiations, we could meaningfully ask the question, "How can we help make the Middle East more stable, prosperous, and egalitarian?" The asking of the question in such a context - backed by the demonstrable Will and ability to help carry out positive initiatives - means violence would no longer be a necessary first and last resort.

We must eliminate the need for terror as a political approach by separating terror as a tactic from the ideologies terrorists represent. In the absence of desperation, a radical approach is not necessary. Diplomacy as an outstretched hand gives reason to doubt the need for desperate measures.

Our Government must acknowledge the problematic nature of its present Middle East policy in order to demonstrate our leadership is not so rigid as to be unmoved even in the face of its own citizenry. We must demonstrate that our military presence in the Middle East does not represent a Colonial occupying force. We must demonstrate that our relationship with regional leaders is sufficiently developed as to facilitate regional cooperation.

Because cultural familiarity will be vital to successful diplomacy, we must build enduring ties with regional institutions, such as universities, art and natural history museums, humanitarian and civil liberties organizations, and entreprenurial or trade associations. We must help motivate Europe and China to engage in similar iniatives. We should help facilitate trade between the Middle East, South America, and Africa, possibly by subsidizing transportation or by providing training in management strategies. Al Qaeda must be granted the status of Nation; identified as such, these people will most likely seek to establish a State, and the interest of this people will require legitimate advocacy.

We must bring a truly global body of allies (and the whole array of their interlocked interests) to the negotiation table to produce a consensus regarding the appropriate steps for US troop withdrawal from the Middle East. As the United States Government contemplates new fronts in the War on Terror - from the Middle East to Asia to Africa - truly global negotiations with a formal body representing Al Qaeda are becoming increasingly necessary if we are to avert a global economic and humanitarian disaster.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

laying the foundations of the police state

Since 2004, the Bush Administration has aggressively pursued a program of federalizing law enforcement through the creation of "Intelligence Fusion Centers."

These centers are designed to serve as communications hubs, connecting local, state, and federal law enforecement agencies. By incorporating local agencies into the federal infrastructure, these centers expand the purview of federal intelligence gathering and enforcement.

The extent to which Intelligence Fusion Centers seek to expand federal law enforcement powers is perhaps best found in wording from the Fusion Center Guidelines, a document which exhorts state and local officials that "it is the responsibility of leadership to implement and adhere to the Fusion Center Guidelines."

On page 3 of the Guidelines Executive Summary, the document states that "nontraditional collectors of intelligence, such as public safety entities and private sector organizations, possess important information (e.g., risk assessments and suspicious activity reports) that can be 'fused' with law enforcement data to provide meaningful information and intelligence about threats and criminal activity."

The reference to "nontraditional collectors of intelligence" has a disconcerting resonance with the stated goal of Operation TIPS. The Terrorism Information and Prevention System ("TIPS") was an ill-fated Bush Administration effort to use postal workers and cable-TV technicians as informants, which ended when Rep. Dick Armey included specific legislation in the House's Homeland Security Bill to prohibit the program.

The single-mindedness with which the Bush Administration seeks to expand its executive power poses a clear and present danger to American democracy. Secret surveillance laws, secret detentions, secret national security subpoenas, and secret police all deprive Americans of the assurance that executive power is not exercized arbitrarily.

No use watching your back... you better pray the new gestapo doesn't dislike your politics.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

more doublespeak?

...Bush's signing statement Wednesday challenges several other provisions in the Homeland Security spending bill.

Bush, for example, said he'd disregard a requirement that the director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency must have at least five years experience and "demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security."

His rationale was that it "rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061005/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_privacy_1

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

patents assigned to the national security agency

the following patents are all issued to the national security agency, and describe one proprietary method the nsa may be using to analyze the network traffic it intercepts by tapping into data streams at telecommunications companies such as at&t:

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United States Patent 6704449
Method of extracting text from graphical images
US Patent Issued on March 9, 2004

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for extracting text from an image which is typically displayed on web pages of the World Wide Web. The character recognition will be determined to be successful by comparing the extracted text to a lexicon of legitimate words, computing the likelihood of the sequence of characters (e.g. "Qxv" is highly unlikely in English, whereas "com" is relatively common), or character recognition software which can provide a confidence measure for each character based upon how well its pixels matched the nominal template or features.

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United States Patent 7020338
Method of identifying script of line of text
US Patent Issued on March 28, 2006

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Script identification is a useful preprocessing step in automatic document recognition. Most optical character recognition (OCR) devices are trained to recognize a limited set of scripts. If an OCR device was presented with a document that includes text printed in a script for which the OCR device was not trained to recognize then the OCR device would not be able to process the document correctly. So, there is a need for a method of identifying each script in which a document is printed so that an OCR device that was trained in all of the scripts can be identified and used to process the document.

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United States Patent 6904564
Method of summarizing text using just the text
US Patent Issued on June 7, 2005

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Prior art methods of processing text typically incorporate linguistic knowledge that is not resident in the text (e.g., document) being processed. Prior art text summarization methods often rely on a collection of exemplary text that is external to the text being processed to assess the role a word plays in the text being processed. For those methods that rely on a collection of exemplary text, it is difficult, if not impossible, to generate a single collection of exemplary text that can be used to successfully summarize textual documents on widely different topics because a word in one context may have a different meaning in another context. This problem is often overcome in the prior art by generating multiple collections of exemplary text, where each collection is tailored to a specific topic (e.g., scientific, financial). Generating a collection of exemplary text is difficult, time consuming, and prone to error (e.g., biases of those generating the collection).

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United States Patent 6990634
Method of summarizing text by sentence extraction
US Patent Issued on January 24, 2006

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The field of automatically summarizing text consisting of a collection of sentences has been studied for over forty years. However, automatic text summarization has received greater attention recently because of its pervasive use in present information retrieval systems. One type of text summarization method consists of extracting a number of sentences from the text that convey the essential points of the text. The number of sentences extracted from a text may be few to present only enough information to allow a user to determine whether or not to read the entire text or many to act as a substitute for the text.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-mailer/intelligence-101a_b_1142.html