http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-10-02/chief-dhs-privacy-officer-government-called-privacy-office-terrorists
Submitted by George Washington on 10/02/2013 12:34 -0400
And more NSA items .....
and...
http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_iPhone%27s_Fingerprint_Scanner_Has_Shady_Government_Ties%2C_Anonymous_Says/29311/0/38/38/Y/M.html
Anonymous has drawn the connections between AuthenTec and the US government by first pointing out that the company is a spin-off of the Harris corporation. Harris pulls in $6 billion dollars of revenue yearly and, according to its Wikipedia page, the company “produces wireless equipment, electronic systems, and both terrestrial and spaceborne antennas for use in the government, defense, and commercial sectors.” Judging from Harris’ own press releases, which Anonymous linked to in its Pastebin release, the firm makes a ton of money from US government contracts. Plus, AuthenTec is run by dudes like Frederick Jorgensen, who came from the Raytheon Corporation—a private defense contractor.
The connections between AuthenTec and the US government don’t end there. As Anonymous points out, in 2010 AuthenTec named Robert E. Grady as the chairman of the biometrics-loving company. Just in case you’re playing with an incomplete deck of Military-Industrial Complex trading cards, ol’ Grady served in George H. W. Bush’s White House.
Read More...
By Tom Burghardt
Antifascist Calling…
In 2008, the Armed Forces Journal published a prescient piece by Colonel Charles W. Williamson III, a staff judge advocate with the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, the National Security Agency listening post focused on intercepting communications from Latin America, the Middle East and Europe.
Titled "Carpet bombing in cyberspace," Col. Williamson wrote that "America needs a network that can project power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
While Williamson's treatise was fanciful (a DDoS attack can't bring down an opponent's military forces, or for that matter a society's infrastructure), he had hit upon a theme which Air Force researchers had been working towards since the 1980s: the development of software-based weapons that can be "fired" at an adversary, potentially as lethal as a bomb dropped from 30,000 feet.
Two years later, evidence emerged that US and Israeli code warriors did something far more damaging.
Rather than deploying an "af.mil" botnet against Iran's civilian nuclear infrastructure at Natanz, they unleashed a destructive digital worm, Stuxnet. In the largest and most sophisticated attack to date, more than 1,000 centrifuges were sent spinning out of control, "no more useful" to Iranian physicists "than hunks of metal and plastic."
A line had been crossed, and by the time security experts sorted things out, they learned that Stuxnet and its cousins, Duqu, Flame and Gauss, were the most complex pieces of malware ever designed, the opening salvo in the cyberwar that has long-guided the fevered dreams of Pentagon planners.
'Plan X'
Today, that destructive capability exists under the umbrella of US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), one which has the potential of holding the world hostage.
Last year the Pentagon allocated $80 million dollars to defense giant Lockheed Martin for ongoing work on the National Cyber Range (NCR), a top secret facility that designs and tests attack tools for the government.
Under terms of the five year contract, Lockheed Martin and niche malware developers have completed work on a test-bed housed in a "specially architected sensitive compartmented information facility with appropriate security protocols" that "emulates the public internet and other networks, and provides for the modeling of cyber attacks."
Originally developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's geek squad, NCR has gone live and was transitioned last year to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, federal contracts uncovered by NextGov revealed.
As Antifascist Calling reported back in 2009, "NCR will potentially serve as a new and improved means to bring America's rivals to their knees. Imagine the capacity for death and destruction implicit in a tool that can . . . cause an adversary's chemical plant to suddenly release methyl isocynate (the Bhopal effect) on a sleeping city, or a nuclear power plant to go supercritical, releasing tens of billions of curies of radioactive death into the atmosphere?"
NextGov also reported that the "Pentagon is seeking technology to coordinate and bolster cyberattack capabilities through a funding experiment called 'Plan X,' contract documents indicate."
A notice from DARPA's Information Innovation Office (I2O) informs us that "Plan X is a foundational cyberwarfare program to develop platforms for the Department of Defense to plan for, conduct, and assess cyberwarfare in a manner similar to kinetic warfare. Towards this end the program will bridge cyber communities of interest from academe, to the defense industrial base, to the commercial tech industry, to user-experience experts." (emphasis added)
Although DARPA claims "Plan X will not develop cyber offensive technologies or effects," the program's Broad Agency Announcement, DARPA-BAA-13-02: Foundational Cyberwarfare (Plan X), explicitly states: "Plan X will conduct novel research into the nature of cyberwarfare and support development of fundamental strategies needed to dominate the cyber battlespace. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems."
The document also gives notice that DARPA will build "an end-to-end system that enables the military to understand, plan, and manage cyberwarfare in real-time" as an "open platform architecture for integration with government and industry technologies."
The Military & Aerospace Electronics web site reported that DARPA has "chosen six companies so far to define ways of understanding, planning, and managing military cyber warfare operations in real-time, large-scale, and dynamic networks."
Collectively worth some $74 million, beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse include "Data Tactics Corp. in McLean, Va.; Intific Inc. in Peckville Pa.; Raytheon SI Government Solutions in Arlington, Va.; Aptima Inc. in Woburn Mass.; Apogee Research LLC in McLean, Va.; and the Northrop Grumman Corp. Information Systems segment in McLean, Va."
Additional confirmation of US government plans to militarize the internet were revealed in top secret documents provided by former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden. Those documents show that the Pentagon's goal of "dominating cyberspace" are one step closer to reality; a nightmare for privacy rights and global peace.
Such capabilities, long suspected by security experts in the wake of Stuxnet, are useful not only for blanket domestic surveillance and political espionage but can also reveal the deepest secrets held by commercial rivals or geostrategic opponents, opening them up to covert cyber attacks which will kill civilians if and when the US decides that critical infrastructure should be been switched off.
Before a cyber attack attack can be launched however, US military specialists must have the means to tunnel through or around security features built into commercial software sold to the public, corporations and other governments.
Such efforts would be all the easier if military specialists held the keys that could open the most secure electronic locks guarding global communications. According to Snowden, NSA, along with their corporate partners and private military contractors embarked on a multiyear, multibillion dollar project to defeat encryption through the subversion of the secure coding process.
Media reports published by Bloomberg Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, also revealed that US intelligence agencies are employing "elite teams of hackers" and have sparked "a new arms race" for cyberweapons where the "most enticing targets in this war are civilian--electrical grids, food distribution systems, any essential infrastructure that runs on computers," Businessweek noted.
Confirming earlier reporting, The Washington Post disclosed that the US government "carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secretdocuments" provided by Snowden to the Post.
Since its 2009 stand-up as a "subordinate unified command" under US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), whose brief includes space operations (military satellites), information warfare (white, gray and black propaganda), missile defense, global command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), as well as global strike and strategic deterrence (America's first-strike nuclear arsenal), Cyber Command has grown from 900 personnel to a force that will soon expand to more than "4,900 troops and civilians," The Washington Post reported earlier this year.
Under the USSTRATCOM umbrella, the organization is comprised of "Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER); Air Forces Cyber (AFCYBER); Fleet Cyber Command (FLTCYBERCOM); and Marine Forces Cyber Command (MARFORCYBER)."
"The Command," according to a 2009 Defense Department Fact Sheet, "is also standing up dedicated Cyber Mission Teams" that "conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries."
The Defense Department Memorandum authorizing it's launch specified that the Command "must be capable of synchronizing warfighting effects across the global security environment as well as providing support to civil authorities and international partners."
In written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee during 2010 confirmation hearings, NSA head General Keith Alexander agreed, and The New York Times reported that Cyber Command's target list would "include civilian institutions and municipal infrastructure that are essential to state sovereignty and stability, including power grids, banks and financial networks, transportation and telecommunications."
But what various "newspapers of record" still fail to report is that the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure are war crimes that cause catastrophic loss of life and incalculable suffering, as US attacks on the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and more recently, Libya, starkly demonstrate.
In a portrait of Alexander published earlier this summer by Wired, James Bamford noted that for years the US military has "been developing offensive capabilities, giving it the power not just to defend the US but to assail its foes. Using so-called cyber-kinetic attacks, Alexander and his forces now have the capability to physically destroy an adversary's equipment and infrastructure, and potentially even to kill."
While the specter of a temporary "interruption of service" haunt modern cities with blackout or gridlock, a directed cyberattack focused on bringing down the entire system by inducing widespread technical malfunction would transform "the vast edifices of infrastructure" into "so much useless junk," according to urban geographer Stephen Graham.
In Cities Under Siege, Graham discussed the effects of post-Cold War US/NATO air bombing campaigns and concluded that attacks on civilian infrastructure were not accidental; in fact, such "collateral damage" was consciously designed to inflict maximum damage on civilian populations.
"The effects of urban de-electrification," Graham wrote, "are both more ghastly and more prosaic: the mass death of the young, the weak, the ill, and the old, over protracted periods of time and extended geographies, as water systems and sanitation collapse and water-borne diseases run rampant. No wonder such a strategy has been called a 'war on public health,' an assault which amounts to 'bomb now, die later'."
A further turn in US Cyber Command's brief to plan for and wage aggressive war, was telegraphed in a 2012 Defense Department Directive mandating that autonomous weapons systems and platforms be built and tested so that humans won't lose control once they're deployed.
There was one small catch, however.
According to Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, a former member of the Board of Trustees at the spook-connected MITRE Corporation, the Directive explicitly states it "does not apply to autonomous or semi-autonomous cyberspace systems for cyberspace operations."
Presidential Policy Directive 20: Authorizing 'Cyber-Kinetic' War Crimes
We now know, based on documents provided by Edward Snowden, that President Barack Obama "has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks," according to the 18-page top secret Presidential Policy Directive 20 published by The Guardian.
Though little commented upon at the time due to the avalanche of revelations surrounding dragnet domestic surveillance carried out by NSA, in light of recent disclosures by The Washington Post on America's bloated $52.6 billion 2013 intelligence budget, PPD-20 deserves close scrutiny.
With Syria now in Washington's crosshairs, PPD-20 offers a glimpse into Executive Branch deliberations before the military is ordered to "put steel to target."
The directive averred that Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) "can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging."
These are described in the document as "cyber effects," the "manipulation, disruption, denial, degradation, or destruction of computers, information or communications systems, networks, physical or virtual infrastructure controlled by computers or information systems, or information resident thereon."
To facilitate attacks, the directive gives notice that "cyber collection" will entail "Operations and related programs or activities conducted by or on behalf of the United States Government, in or through cyberspace, for the primary purpose of collecting intelligence--including information that can be used for future operations--from computers, information or communications systems, or networks with the intent to remain undetected."
Such clandestine exercises will involve "accessing a computer, information system, or network without authorization from the owner or operator of that computer, information system, or network or from a party to a communication or by exceeding authorized access."
In fact, PPD-20 authorizes US Cyber Command to "identify potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power."
Indeed, the "directive pertains to cyber operations, including those that support or enable kinetic, information, or other types of operations . . . that are reasonably likely to result in 'significant consequences'" to an adversary.We are informed that "malicious cyber activity" is comprised of "Activities, other than those authorized by or in accordance with US law, that seek to compromise or impair the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of computers, information or communications systems, networks, physical or virtual infrastructure controlled by computers or information systems, or information resident thereon."
In other words, if such activities are authorized by the President acting as Commander-in-Chief under the dubious "Unitary Executive" doctrine, like Richard Nixon, Obama now claims that "when the President does it that means that it is not illegal," a novel reading of the US Constitution and the separation of powers as it pertains to declaring and waging war!
"Military actions approved by the President and ordered by the Secretary of Defense authorize nonconsensual DCEO [Defensive Cyber Effects Operations] or OCEO, with provisions made for using existing processes to conduct appropriate interagency coordination on targets, geographic areas, levels of effect, and degrees of risk for the operations."
This has long been spelled out in US warfighting doctrine and is fully consistent with the Pentagon's goal of transforming cyberspace into an offensive military domain. In an Air Force planning document since removed from the web, theorists averred:
Those plans were made explicit in 2008, when the Air Force Research Lab issued a Broad Agency Announcement entitled Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement and Supporting Technology, BAA-08-04-RIKA.
Predating current research under "Plan X" to build "an end-to-end system that enables the military to understand, plan, and manage cyberwarfare in real-time," the earlier notification solicited bids from private military contractors to build cyberweapons.
We learned that the Air Force, now US Cyber Command, the superseding authority in the realm of cyberweapons development, a mandate made explicit in PPD-20, was "interested in technology to provide the capability to maintain an active presence within the adversaries information infrastructure completely undetected. Of interest are any and all techniques to enable stealth and persistence capabilities on an adversaries infrastructure."
"This could be a combination of hardware and/or software focused development efforts."
"Following this," the solicitation read, "it is desired to have the capability to stealthily exfiltrate information from any remotely-located open or closed computer information systems with the possibility to discover information with previously unknown existence."
While the United States has accused China of carrying out widespread espionage on US networks, we know from information Snowden provided the South China Morning Post, that NSA and US Cyber Command have conducted "extensive hacking of major telecommunication companies in China to access text messages"; carried out "sustained attacks on network backbones at Tsinghua University, China's premier seat of learning"; and have hacked the "computers at the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which owns one of the most extensive fibre optic submarine cable networks in the region."
China isn't the only target of US industrial espionage.Earlier this month, O Globo disclosed that "one of the prime targets of American spies in Brazil is far away from the center of power--out at sea, deep beneath the waves. Brazilian oil. The internal computer network of Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant partly owned by the state, has been under surveillance by the NSA, the National Security Agency of the United States."
Top secret documents mined from the Snowden cache revealed that NSA employees are trained "step-by-step how to access and spy upon private computer networks--the internal networks of companies, governments, financial institutions--networks designed precisely to protect information."
In addition to Petrobras, "other targets" included "French diplomats--with access to the private network of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France--and the SWIFT network, the cooperative that unites over ten thousand banks in 212 countries and provides communications that enable international financial transactions. All transfers of money between banks across national borders goes through SWIFT," O Globo disclosed.
The 2008 Air Force solicitation stressed that the service was interested in "any and all techniques to enable exfiltration techniques on both fixed and mobile computing platforms are of interest. Consideration should be given to maintaining a 'low and slow' gathering paradigm in these development efforts to enable stealthy operation."
The Air Force however, was not solely interested in defense or industrial spying on commercial rivals; building offensive capabilities were viewed as a top priority. "Finally," the solicitation reads, "this BAA's objective includes the capability to provide a variety of techniques and technologies to be able to affect computer information systems through Deceive, Deny, Disrupt, Degrade, Destroy (D5) effects."
As Bloomberg Businessweek reported in 2011, recipients of that Broad Agency Announcement may have included any number of "boutique arms dealers that trade in offensive cyber weapons. Most of these are 'black' companies that camouflage their government funding and work on classified projects."
"Offensive Cyber Effects Operations" will be enhanced through the development and deployment of software-based weapons; the Obama administration's intent in PPD-20 is clear.
The US government "shall identify potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power, establish and maintain OCEO capabilities integrated as appropriate with other US offensive capabilities, and execute those capabilities in a manner consistent with the provisions of this directive."
Evidence has since emerged these programs are now fully operational.
On the Attack: Economic, Political and Military 'Exploits'
Despite diplomatic posturing and much handwringing from the "humanitarian intervention" crowd, the Obama administration's itchy trigger finger is still poised above the attack Syria button.
The conservative Washington Free Beacon web site reported recently that US forces "are expected to roll out new cyber warfare capabilities during the anticipated military strike on Syria," and that the targets of "cyber attacks likely will include electronic command and control systems used by the Syrian military forces, air defense computers, and other military communications networks."
Whether or not that attack takes place, NSA and US Cyber Command are ramping-up their formidable resources and would not hesitate to use them if given the go-ahead.
This raises the question: what capabilities have already been rolled out?
"Under an extensive effort code-named GENIE, The Washington Post disclosed, "US computer specialists break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious US control."
According to top secret budget documents provided by Snowden, the Post revealed the "$652 million project has placed 'covert implants,' sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions."
"Of the 231 offensive operations conducted in 2011," the Post reported, "nearly three-quarters were against top-priority targets, which former officials say includes adversaries such as Iran, Russia, China and North Korea and activities such as nuclear proliferation. The document provided few other details about the operations."
As other media outlets previously reported, the Post noted that US secret state agencies "are making routine use around the world of government-built malware that differs little in function from the 'advanced persistent threats' that US officials attribute to China."
One firm featured in Bloomberg Businessweek's cyberwar exposé is Endgame Systems, which first gained notoriety as a result of the 2011 HBGary Federal hack by Anonymous.
The shadowy firm has received extensive funding from venture capitalists such as Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the intelligence-connected Paladin Capital Group.
Endgame is currently led by CEO Nathaniel Flick, previously the CEO of the "nonpartisan" Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a warmongering Washington think tank focused on "terrorism" and "irregular warfare."
Flick replaced Christopher Rouland, Endgame's founder and CEO in December 2012. A former hacker, Rouland was "turned" by the Air Force during the course of a 1990 investigation where he was suspected of breaking into Pentagon systems, Businessweek reported.
The Board of Directors is currently led by Christopher Darby, the President and CEO of the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel. Earlier this year, the firm announced that Kenneth Minihan, a former NSA Director and managing partner at Paladin Capital had joined the Board.
According to Businessweek, Endgame specializes in militarizing zero-day exploits, software vulnerabilities which take months, or even years for vendors to patch; a valuable commodity for criminals or spooks.
"People who have seen the company pitch its technology," Businessweek averred, "say Endgame executives will bring up maps of airports, parliament buildings, and corporate offices. The executives then create a list of the computers running inside the facilities, including what software the computers run, and a menu of attacks that could work against those particular systems."
While the United States has accused the Technical Reconnaissance Bureau of China's People's Liberation Army of launching attacks and stealing economic secrets from US networks, American cyberoperations involve "what one budget document calls 'field operations' abroad, commonly with the help of CIA operatives or clandestine military forces, 'to physically place hardware implants or software modifications,'" according to The Washington Post.
"Endgame weaponry comes customized by region--the Middle East, Russia, Latin America, and China--with manuals, testing software, and 'demo instructions.'"
"There are even target packs for democratic countries in Europe and other US allies,"Businessweek noted.
Readers will recall that Snowden documents have exposed how NSA has carried out widespread economic and political espionage against erstwhile "friends and allies" such asBrazil, France, Germany, India, the European Union and the United Nations.
Add to that list, Endgame exploits which are solely military in nature; in all probability these have been incorporated into NSA and US Cyber Command's repertoire of dirty tricks.
"Maui (product names tend toward alluring warm-weather locales) is a package of 25 zero-day exploits that runs clients $2.5 million a year," Businessweek reported. "The Cayman botnet-analytics package gets you access to a database of Internet addresses, organization names, and worm types for hundreds of millions of infected computers, and costs $1.5 million."
"A government or other entity could launch sophisticated attacks against just about any adversary anywhere in the world for a grand total of $6 million. Ease of use is a premium. It's cyber warfare in a box."
Sound familiar?
"An implant is coded entirely in software by an NSA group called Tailored Access Operations (TAO)," Snowden documents revealed. "As its name suggests, TAO builds attack tools that are custom-fitted to their targets," according to The Washington Post.
"The implants that TAO creates are intended to persist through software and equipment upgrades, to copy stored data, 'harvest' communications and tunnel into other connected networks" the Post disclosed.
"This year TAO is working on implants that 'can identify select voice conversations of interest within a target network and exfiltrate select cuts,' or excerpts, according to one budget document. In some cases, a single compromised device opens the door to hundreds or thousands of others."
This does much to explain why NSA's parallel, $800 million SIGINT Enabling Project stresses the importance of obtaining total global access and "full operating capacity" that can "leverage commercial capabilities to remotely deliver or receive information."
With "boutique arms dealers" and others from more traditional defense giants along for the ride, NSA and US Cyber Command hope their investment will help "shape the global network to benefit other collection accesses and allow the continuation of partnering with commercial Managed Security Service Providers and threat researchers, doing threat/vulnerability analysis."
"By the end of this year," the Post noted, "GENIE is projected to control at least 85,000 implants in strategically chosen machines around the world. That is quadruple the number--21,252--available in 2008, according to the US intelligence budget."
The agencies are now poised to expand the number of machines already compromised. "For GENIE's next phase, according to an authoritative reference document," the Post disclosed, "the NSA has brought online an automated system, code-named TURBINE, that is capable of managing 'potentially millions of implants' for intelligence gathering 'and active attack'."
It should be clear, given what we have learned from Edward Snowden and other sources, that the US government views the internet, indeed the entire planet, as a battlespace.
In congressional testimony earlier this year, General Alexander told the House Armed Services Committee that "Cyber offense requires a deep, persistent and pervasive presence on adversary networks in order to precisely deliver effects."
"We maintain that access, gain deep understanding of the adversary, and develop offensive capabilities through the advanced skills and tradecraft of our analysts, operators and developers."
With US Cyber Command fully funded and mobilized, those "offensive capabilities" are only a mouse click away.
Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists based in Montreal, he is a Contributing Editor with Cyrano's Journal Today. His articles can be read on Dissident Voice,Pacific Free Press, Uncommon Thought Journal, and the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed byAK Press and has contributed to the new book from Global Research, The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century.
California Governor Jerry Brown Signs NDAA Indefinite Detention Nullification Bill Into Law
It is the policy of this state to refuse to provide material support for or to participate in any way with the implementation within this state of any federal law that purports to authorize indefinite detention of a person within California. (emphasis added)
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Police_are_now_recording_tailgaters_at_football_games_under_the_DHS_sponsored_%22Urban_Areas_Security_Initiative%22/29299/0/0/0/Y/M.html
Chief DHS Privacy Officer: Government Called Privacy Office "Terrorists"
Wall Street Journal reporter Jennifer Valentinotweets:
Former DHS Privacy Officer Mary Ellen Callahan: DHS Privacy Office was accused monthly of being "terrorists" by DHS, IC
"DHS" stands for the Department of Homeland Security; "IC" stands for the intelligence community.
This is not an isolated or melodramatic statement. Rather, it is how the homeland security and intelligence communities look at privacy.
For example, former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden compared privacy advocates to terrorists:
“If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?” said retired air force general Michael Hayden, who from 1999 to 2009 ran the NSA and then the CIA, referring to “nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven’t talked to the opposite sex in five or six years”.“They may want to come after the US government, but frankly, you know, the dot-mil stuff is about the hardest target in the United States,” Hayden said, using a shorthand for US military networks. “So if they can’t create great harm to dot-mil, who are they going after? Who for them are the World Trade Centers? The World Trade Centers, as they were for al-Qaida.”Hayden provided his speculation during a speech on cybersecurity to a Washington group, the Bipartisan Policy Center, in which he confessed to being deliberately provocative.
Similarly, Slate reported last year:
If you’ve ever cared about privacy while using the Internet in public, you might be a terrorist. At least that’s the message from the FBI and Justice Department’s Communities Against Terrorism initiative. The project created flyers to help employees at several types of businesses—including military surplus stores, financial institutions, and even tattoo shops—recognize “warning signs” of terrorism or extremism. An admirable goal, perhaps, but the execution is flawed—particularly for the flyers intended to help suss out terrorists using Internet cafes.The flyers haven’t been publicly available online, but Public Intelligence, a project promoting the right to access information,collected 25 documents that it found elsewhere on the Web. As Public Intelligence puts it, “Do you like online privacy? You may be a terrorist.”
Sadly, in its paranoid bunker mentality, the government considers just about all Americansto be terrorists.
Postscript (Irony Alert): University of Washington Law School professor Ryan Calopoints out an amusing irony in this story:
Former DHS chief privacy officer says # of privacy officers at NSA,including the chief privacy officer, was zero.
(Calo was reporting on a statement made by former chief DHS Privacy Officer Mary Ellen Callahan at a recent talk.)
Tech Dirt explains:
Mary Ellen Callahan was the Chief Privacy Officer (and the Chief Freedom of Information Act Officer) at the Department of Homeland Security from 2009 until 2012 (though, don't tell DHS, since they still have a page on their website about her claiming she still has that role -- even though she left over a year ago).
In other words, the DHS considers government privacy officers to be terrorists, doesn't have any ... and yet - in blatant propaganda -pretends it does.
And more NSA items .....
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| NSA Chief Admits Tracking Cellphone Locations in Secret Tests |
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and...
http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_iPhone%27s_Fingerprint_Scanner_Has_Shady_Government_Ties%2C_Anonymous_Says/29311/0/38/38/Y/M.html
The iPhone's Fingerprint Scanner Has Shady Government Ties, Anonymous Says
October 2, 2013
Source: Motherboard
Photo via Apple
Yesterday, just as the US government shut itself down and put 800,000 people temporarily out of work, the hacktivist group Anonymous—who the FBI wrongly declared to be dead in August—released a video statement with an accompanying Pastebin document claiming that there are definitive links between AuthenTec, the company that developed the iPhone 5S’s fingerprint scanner, and the US government.Anonymous has drawn the connections between AuthenTec and the US government by first pointing out that the company is a spin-off of the Harris corporation. Harris pulls in $6 billion dollars of revenue yearly and, according to its Wikipedia page, the company “produces wireless equipment, electronic systems, and both terrestrial and spaceborne antennas for use in the government, defense, and commercial sectors.” Judging from Harris’ own press releases, which Anonymous linked to in its Pastebin release, the firm makes a ton of money from US government contracts. Plus, AuthenTec is run by dudes like Frederick Jorgensen, who came from the Raytheon Corporation—a private defense contractor.
The connections between AuthenTec and the US government don’t end there. As Anonymous points out, in 2010 AuthenTec named Robert E. Grady as the chairman of the biometrics-loving company. Just in case you’re playing with an incomplete deck of Military-Industrial Complex trading cards, ol’ Grady served in George H. W. Bush’s White House.
Read More...
http://www.blacklistednews.com/US_Cyber_Command%3A_Documents_Reveal_Pentagon_Launching_Covert_Cyber_Attacks/29312/0/38/38/Y/M.html
US Cyber Command: Documents Reveal Pentagon Launching Covert Cyber Attacks
October 2, 2013
By Tom Burghardt
Antifascist Calling…
In 2008, the Armed Forces Journal published a prescient piece by Colonel Charles W. Williamson III, a staff judge advocate with the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, the National Security Agency listening post focused on intercepting communications from Latin America, the Middle East and Europe.
Titled "Carpet bombing in cyberspace," Col. Williamson wrote that "America needs a network that can project power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
While Williamson's treatise was fanciful (a DDoS attack can't bring down an opponent's military forces, or for that matter a society's infrastructure), he had hit upon a theme which Air Force researchers had been working towards since the 1980s: the development of software-based weapons that can be "fired" at an adversary, potentially as lethal as a bomb dropped from 30,000 feet.
Two years later, evidence emerged that US and Israeli code warriors did something far more damaging.
Rather than deploying an "af.mil" botnet against Iran's civilian nuclear infrastructure at Natanz, they unleashed a destructive digital worm, Stuxnet. In the largest and most sophisticated attack to date, more than 1,000 centrifuges were sent spinning out of control, "no more useful" to Iranian physicists "than hunks of metal and plastic."
A line had been crossed, and by the time security experts sorted things out, they learned that Stuxnet and its cousins, Duqu, Flame and Gauss, were the most complex pieces of malware ever designed, the opening salvo in the cyberwar that has long-guided the fevered dreams of Pentagon planners.
'Plan X'
Today, that destructive capability exists under the umbrella of US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), one which has the potential of holding the world hostage.
Last year the Pentagon allocated $80 million dollars to defense giant Lockheed Martin for ongoing work on the National Cyber Range (NCR), a top secret facility that designs and tests attack tools for the government.
Under terms of the five year contract, Lockheed Martin and niche malware developers have completed work on a test-bed housed in a "specially architected sensitive compartmented information facility with appropriate security protocols" that "emulates the public internet and other networks, and provides for the modeling of cyber attacks."
Originally developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's geek squad, NCR has gone live and was transitioned last year to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, federal contracts uncovered by NextGov revealed.
As Antifascist Calling reported back in 2009, "NCR will potentially serve as a new and improved means to bring America's rivals to their knees. Imagine the capacity for death and destruction implicit in a tool that can . . . cause an adversary's chemical plant to suddenly release methyl isocynate (the Bhopal effect) on a sleeping city, or a nuclear power plant to go supercritical, releasing tens of billions of curies of radioactive death into the atmosphere?"
NextGov also reported that the "Pentagon is seeking technology to coordinate and bolster cyberattack capabilities through a funding experiment called 'Plan X,' contract documents indicate."
A notice from DARPA's Information Innovation Office (I2O) informs us that "Plan X is a foundational cyberwarfare program to develop platforms for the Department of Defense to plan for, conduct, and assess cyberwarfare in a manner similar to kinetic warfare. Towards this end the program will bridge cyber communities of interest from academe, to the defense industrial base, to the commercial tech industry, to user-experience experts." (emphasis added)
Although DARPA claims "Plan X will not develop cyber offensive technologies or effects," the program's Broad Agency Announcement, DARPA-BAA-13-02: Foundational Cyberwarfare (Plan X), explicitly states: "Plan X will conduct novel research into the nature of cyberwarfare and support development of fundamental strategies needed to dominate the cyber battlespace. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems."
The document also gives notice that DARPA will build "an end-to-end system that enables the military to understand, plan, and manage cyberwarfare in real-time" as an "open platform architecture for integration with government and industry technologies."
The Military & Aerospace Electronics web site reported that DARPA has "chosen six companies so far to define ways of understanding, planning, and managing military cyber warfare operations in real-time, large-scale, and dynamic networks."
Collectively worth some $74 million, beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse include "Data Tactics Corp. in McLean, Va.; Intific Inc. in Peckville Pa.; Raytheon SI Government Solutions in Arlington, Va.; Aptima Inc. in Woburn Mass.; Apogee Research LLC in McLean, Va.; and the Northrop Grumman Corp. Information Systems segment in McLean, Va."
Additional confirmation of US government plans to militarize the internet were revealed in top secret documents provided by former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden. Those documents show that the Pentagon's goal of "dominating cyberspace" are one step closer to reality; a nightmare for privacy rights and global peace.
Such capabilities, long suspected by security experts in the wake of Stuxnet, are useful not only for blanket domestic surveillance and political espionage but can also reveal the deepest secrets held by commercial rivals or geostrategic opponents, opening them up to covert cyber attacks which will kill civilians if and when the US decides that critical infrastructure should be been switched off.
Before a cyber attack attack can be launched however, US military specialists must have the means to tunnel through or around security features built into commercial software sold to the public, corporations and other governments.
Such efforts would be all the easier if military specialists held the keys that could open the most secure electronic locks guarding global communications. According to Snowden, NSA, along with their corporate partners and private military contractors embarked on a multiyear, multibillion dollar project to defeat encryption through the subversion of the secure coding process.
Media reports published by Bloomberg Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, also revealed that US intelligence agencies are employing "elite teams of hackers" and have sparked "a new arms race" for cyberweapons where the "most enticing targets in this war are civilian--electrical grids, food distribution systems, any essential infrastructure that runs on computers," Businessweek noted.
Confirming earlier reporting, The Washington Post disclosed that the US government "carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secretdocuments" provided by Snowden to the Post.
Since its 2009 stand-up as a "subordinate unified command" under US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), whose brief includes space operations (military satellites), information warfare (white, gray and black propaganda), missile defense, global command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), as well as global strike and strategic deterrence (America's first-strike nuclear arsenal), Cyber Command has grown from 900 personnel to a force that will soon expand to more than "4,900 troops and civilians," The Washington Post reported earlier this year.
Under the USSTRATCOM umbrella, the organization is comprised of "Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER); Air Forces Cyber (AFCYBER); Fleet Cyber Command (FLTCYBERCOM); and Marine Forces Cyber Command (MARFORCYBER)."
"The Command," according to a 2009 Defense Department Fact Sheet, "is also standing up dedicated Cyber Mission Teams" that "conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries."
The Defense Department Memorandum authorizing it's launch specified that the Command "must be capable of synchronizing warfighting effects across the global security environment as well as providing support to civil authorities and international partners."
In written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee during 2010 confirmation hearings, NSA head General Keith Alexander agreed, and The New York Times reported that Cyber Command's target list would "include civilian institutions and municipal infrastructure that are essential to state sovereignty and stability, including power grids, banks and financial networks, transportation and telecommunications."
But what various "newspapers of record" still fail to report is that the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure are war crimes that cause catastrophic loss of life and incalculable suffering, as US attacks on the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and more recently, Libya, starkly demonstrate.
In a portrait of Alexander published earlier this summer by Wired, James Bamford noted that for years the US military has "been developing offensive capabilities, giving it the power not just to defend the US but to assail its foes. Using so-called cyber-kinetic attacks, Alexander and his forces now have the capability to physically destroy an adversary's equipment and infrastructure, and potentially even to kill."
While the specter of a temporary "interruption of service" haunt modern cities with blackout or gridlock, a directed cyberattack focused on bringing down the entire system by inducing widespread technical malfunction would transform "the vast edifices of infrastructure" into "so much useless junk," according to urban geographer Stephen Graham.
In Cities Under Siege, Graham discussed the effects of post-Cold War US/NATO air bombing campaigns and concluded that attacks on civilian infrastructure were not accidental; in fact, such "collateral damage" was consciously designed to inflict maximum damage on civilian populations.
"The effects of urban de-electrification," Graham wrote, "are both more ghastly and more prosaic: the mass death of the young, the weak, the ill, and the old, over protracted periods of time and extended geographies, as water systems and sanitation collapse and water-borne diseases run rampant. No wonder such a strategy has been called a 'war on public health,' an assault which amounts to 'bomb now, die later'."
A further turn in US Cyber Command's brief to plan for and wage aggressive war, was telegraphed in a 2012 Defense Department Directive mandating that autonomous weapons systems and platforms be built and tested so that humans won't lose control once they're deployed.
There was one small catch, however.
According to Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, a former member of the Board of Trustees at the spook-connected MITRE Corporation, the Directive explicitly states it "does not apply to autonomous or semi-autonomous cyberspace systems for cyberspace operations."
Presidential Policy Directive 20: Authorizing 'Cyber-Kinetic' War Crimes
We now know, based on documents provided by Edward Snowden, that President Barack Obama "has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks," according to the 18-page top secret Presidential Policy Directive 20 published by The Guardian.
Though little commented upon at the time due to the avalanche of revelations surrounding dragnet domestic surveillance carried out by NSA, in light of recent disclosures by The Washington Post on America's bloated $52.6 billion 2013 intelligence budget, PPD-20 deserves close scrutiny.
With Syria now in Washington's crosshairs, PPD-20 offers a glimpse into Executive Branch deliberations before the military is ordered to "put steel to target."
The directive averred that Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) "can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging."
These are described in the document as "cyber effects," the "manipulation, disruption, denial, degradation, or destruction of computers, information or communications systems, networks, physical or virtual infrastructure controlled by computers or information systems, or information resident thereon."
To facilitate attacks, the directive gives notice that "cyber collection" will entail "Operations and related programs or activities conducted by or on behalf of the United States Government, in or through cyberspace, for the primary purpose of collecting intelligence--including information that can be used for future operations--from computers, information or communications systems, or networks with the intent to remain undetected."
Such clandestine exercises will involve "accessing a computer, information system, or network without authorization from the owner or operator of that computer, information system, or network or from a party to a communication or by exceeding authorized access."
In fact, PPD-20 authorizes US Cyber Command to "identify potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power."
Indeed, the "directive pertains to cyber operations, including those that support or enable kinetic, information, or other types of operations . . . that are reasonably likely to result in 'significant consequences'" to an adversary.We are informed that "malicious cyber activity" is comprised of "Activities, other than those authorized by or in accordance with US law, that seek to compromise or impair the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of computers, information or communications systems, networks, physical or virtual infrastructure controlled by computers or information systems, or information resident thereon."
In other words, if such activities are authorized by the President acting as Commander-in-Chief under the dubious "Unitary Executive" doctrine, like Richard Nixon, Obama now claims that "when the President does it that means that it is not illegal," a novel reading of the US Constitution and the separation of powers as it pertains to declaring and waging war!
"Military actions approved by the President and ordered by the Secretary of Defense authorize nonconsensual DCEO [Defensive Cyber Effects Operations] or OCEO, with provisions made for using existing processes to conduct appropriate interagency coordination on targets, geographic areas, levels of effect, and degrees of risk for the operations."
This has long been spelled out in US warfighting doctrine and is fully consistent with the Pentagon's goal of transforming cyberspace into an offensive military domain. In an Air Force planning document since removed from the web, theorists averred:
Cyberspace favors offensive operations. These operations will deny, degrade, disrupt, destroy, or deceive an adversary. Cyberspace offensive operations ensure friendly freedom of action in cyberspace while denying that same freedom to our adversaries. We will enhance our capabilities to conduct electronic systems attack, electromagnetic systems interdiction and attack, network attack, and infrastructure attack operations. Targets include the adversary's terrestrial, airborne, and space networks, electronic attack and network attack systems, and the adversary itself. As an adversary becomes more dependent on cyberspace, cyberspace offensive operations have the potential to produce greater effects. (Air Force Cyber Command, "Strategic Vision," no date)
Those plans were made explicit in 2008, when the Air Force Research Lab issued a Broad Agency Announcement entitled Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement and Supporting Technology, BAA-08-04-RIKA.
Predating current research under "Plan X" to build "an end-to-end system that enables the military to understand, plan, and manage cyberwarfare in real-time," the earlier notification solicited bids from private military contractors to build cyberweapons.
We learned that the Air Force, now US Cyber Command, the superseding authority in the realm of cyberweapons development, a mandate made explicit in PPD-20, was "interested in technology to provide the capability to maintain an active presence within the adversaries information infrastructure completely undetected. Of interest are any and all techniques to enable stealth and persistence capabilities on an adversaries infrastructure."
"This could be a combination of hardware and/or software focused development efforts."
"Following this," the solicitation read, "it is desired to have the capability to stealthily exfiltrate information from any remotely-located open or closed computer information systems with the possibility to discover information with previously unknown existence."
While the United States has accused China of carrying out widespread espionage on US networks, we know from information Snowden provided the South China Morning Post, that NSA and US Cyber Command have conducted "extensive hacking of major telecommunication companies in China to access text messages"; carried out "sustained attacks on network backbones at Tsinghua University, China's premier seat of learning"; and have hacked the "computers at the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which owns one of the most extensive fibre optic submarine cable networks in the region."
China isn't the only target of US industrial espionage.Earlier this month, O Globo disclosed that "one of the prime targets of American spies in Brazil is far away from the center of power--out at sea, deep beneath the waves. Brazilian oil. The internal computer network of Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant partly owned by the state, has been under surveillance by the NSA, the National Security Agency of the United States."
Top secret documents mined from the Snowden cache revealed that NSA employees are trained "step-by-step how to access and spy upon private computer networks--the internal networks of companies, governments, financial institutions--networks designed precisely to protect information."
In addition to Petrobras, "other targets" included "French diplomats--with access to the private network of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France--and the SWIFT network, the cooperative that unites over ten thousand banks in 212 countries and provides communications that enable international financial transactions. All transfers of money between banks across national borders goes through SWIFT," O Globo disclosed.
The 2008 Air Force solicitation stressed that the service was interested in "any and all techniques to enable exfiltration techniques on both fixed and mobile computing platforms are of interest. Consideration should be given to maintaining a 'low and slow' gathering paradigm in these development efforts to enable stealthy operation."
The Air Force however, was not solely interested in defense or industrial spying on commercial rivals; building offensive capabilities were viewed as a top priority. "Finally," the solicitation reads, "this BAA's objective includes the capability to provide a variety of techniques and technologies to be able to affect computer information systems through Deceive, Deny, Disrupt, Degrade, Destroy (D5) effects."
As Bloomberg Businessweek reported in 2011, recipients of that Broad Agency Announcement may have included any number of "boutique arms dealers that trade in offensive cyber weapons. Most of these are 'black' companies that camouflage their government funding and work on classified projects."
"Offensive Cyber Effects Operations" will be enhanced through the development and deployment of software-based weapons; the Obama administration's intent in PPD-20 is clear.
The US government "shall identify potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power, establish and maintain OCEO capabilities integrated as appropriate with other US offensive capabilities, and execute those capabilities in a manner consistent with the provisions of this directive."
Evidence has since emerged these programs are now fully operational.
On the Attack: Economic, Political and Military 'Exploits'
Despite diplomatic posturing and much handwringing from the "humanitarian intervention" crowd, the Obama administration's itchy trigger finger is still poised above the attack Syria button.
The conservative Washington Free Beacon web site reported recently that US forces "are expected to roll out new cyber warfare capabilities during the anticipated military strike on Syria," and that the targets of "cyber attacks likely will include electronic command and control systems used by the Syrian military forces, air defense computers, and other military communications networks."
Whether or not that attack takes place, NSA and US Cyber Command are ramping-up their formidable resources and would not hesitate to use them if given the go-ahead.
This raises the question: what capabilities have already been rolled out?
"Under an extensive effort code-named GENIE, The Washington Post disclosed, "US computer specialists break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious US control."
According to top secret budget documents provided by Snowden, the Post revealed the "$652 million project has placed 'covert implants,' sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions."
"Of the 231 offensive operations conducted in 2011," the Post reported, "nearly three-quarters were against top-priority targets, which former officials say includes adversaries such as Iran, Russia, China and North Korea and activities such as nuclear proliferation. The document provided few other details about the operations."
As other media outlets previously reported, the Post noted that US secret state agencies "are making routine use around the world of government-built malware that differs little in function from the 'advanced persistent threats' that US officials attribute to China."
One firm featured in Bloomberg Businessweek's cyberwar exposé is Endgame Systems, which first gained notoriety as a result of the 2011 HBGary Federal hack by Anonymous.
The shadowy firm has received extensive funding from venture capitalists such as Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the intelligence-connected Paladin Capital Group.
Endgame is currently led by CEO Nathaniel Flick, previously the CEO of the "nonpartisan" Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a warmongering Washington think tank focused on "terrorism" and "irregular warfare."
Flick replaced Christopher Rouland, Endgame's founder and CEO in December 2012. A former hacker, Rouland was "turned" by the Air Force during the course of a 1990 investigation where he was suspected of breaking into Pentagon systems, Businessweek reported.
The Board of Directors is currently led by Christopher Darby, the President and CEO of the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel. Earlier this year, the firm announced that Kenneth Minihan, a former NSA Director and managing partner at Paladin Capital had joined the Board.
According to Businessweek, Endgame specializes in militarizing zero-day exploits, software vulnerabilities which take months, or even years for vendors to patch; a valuable commodity for criminals or spooks.
"People who have seen the company pitch its technology," Businessweek averred, "say Endgame executives will bring up maps of airports, parliament buildings, and corporate offices. The executives then create a list of the computers running inside the facilities, including what software the computers run, and a menu of attacks that could work against those particular systems."
While the United States has accused the Technical Reconnaissance Bureau of China's People's Liberation Army of launching attacks and stealing economic secrets from US networks, American cyberoperations involve "what one budget document calls 'field operations' abroad, commonly with the help of CIA operatives or clandestine military forces, 'to physically place hardware implants or software modifications,'" according to The Washington Post.
"Endgame weaponry comes customized by region--the Middle East, Russia, Latin America, and China--with manuals, testing software, and 'demo instructions.'"
"There are even target packs for democratic countries in Europe and other US allies,"Businessweek noted.
Readers will recall that Snowden documents have exposed how NSA has carried out widespread economic and political espionage against erstwhile "friends and allies" such asBrazil, France, Germany, India, the European Union and the United Nations.
Add to that list, Endgame exploits which are solely military in nature; in all probability these have been incorporated into NSA and US Cyber Command's repertoire of dirty tricks.
"Maui (product names tend toward alluring warm-weather locales) is a package of 25 zero-day exploits that runs clients $2.5 million a year," Businessweek reported. "The Cayman botnet-analytics package gets you access to a database of Internet addresses, organization names, and worm types for hundreds of millions of infected computers, and costs $1.5 million."
"A government or other entity could launch sophisticated attacks against just about any adversary anywhere in the world for a grand total of $6 million. Ease of use is a premium. It's cyber warfare in a box."
Sound familiar?
"An implant is coded entirely in software by an NSA group called Tailored Access Operations (TAO)," Snowden documents revealed. "As its name suggests, TAO builds attack tools that are custom-fitted to their targets," according to The Washington Post.
"The implants that TAO creates are intended to persist through software and equipment upgrades, to copy stored data, 'harvest' communications and tunnel into other connected networks" the Post disclosed.
"This year TAO is working on implants that 'can identify select voice conversations of interest within a target network and exfiltrate select cuts,' or excerpts, according to one budget document. In some cases, a single compromised device opens the door to hundreds or thousands of others."
This does much to explain why NSA's parallel, $800 million SIGINT Enabling Project stresses the importance of obtaining total global access and "full operating capacity" that can "leverage commercial capabilities to remotely deliver or receive information."
With "boutique arms dealers" and others from more traditional defense giants along for the ride, NSA and US Cyber Command hope their investment will help "shape the global network to benefit other collection accesses and allow the continuation of partnering with commercial Managed Security Service Providers and threat researchers, doing threat/vulnerability analysis."
"By the end of this year," the Post noted, "GENIE is projected to control at least 85,000 implants in strategically chosen machines around the world. That is quadruple the number--21,252--available in 2008, according to the US intelligence budget."
The agencies are now poised to expand the number of machines already compromised. "For GENIE's next phase, according to an authoritative reference document," the Post disclosed, "the NSA has brought online an automated system, code-named TURBINE, that is capable of managing 'potentially millions of implants' for intelligence gathering 'and active attack'."
It should be clear, given what we have learned from Edward Snowden and other sources, that the US government views the internet, indeed the entire planet, as a battlespace.
In congressional testimony earlier this year, General Alexander told the House Armed Services Committee that "Cyber offense requires a deep, persistent and pervasive presence on adversary networks in order to precisely deliver effects."
"We maintain that access, gain deep understanding of the adversary, and develop offensive capabilities through the advanced skills and tradecraft of our analysts, operators and developers."
With US Cyber Command fully funded and mobilized, those "offensive capabilities" are only a mouse click away.
Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists based in Montreal, he is a Contributing Editor with Cyrano's Journal Today. His articles can be read on Dissident Voice,Pacific Free Press, Uncommon Thought Journal, and the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed byAK Press and has contributed to the new book from Global Research, The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/California_Nullifies_NDAA_Indefinite_Detention/29304/0/0/0/Y/M.html
Source: Ben Swann
California Governor Jerry Brown Signs NDAA Indefinite Detention Nullification Bill Into Law
Assembly Bill (AB) 351 was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown yesterday. California is the third state to have passed legislation, which nullifies the unpopular federal provision. A selection of AB 351 reads:
The United States Constitution and the California Constitution provide for various civil liberties and other individual rights for a citizen of the United States and the State of California, including the right of habeas corpus, the right to due process, the right to a speedy and public trial, and the right to be informed of criminal charges brought against him or her.
Certain provisions of federal law affirm the authority of the President of the United States to use all necessary and appropriate force to detain specified persons who engaged in terrorist activities.
This bill would prohibit an agency in the State of California, a political subdivision of this state, an employee of an agency or a political subdivision of this state, as specified, or a member of the California National Guard, on official state duty, from knowingly aiding an agency of the Armed Forces of the United States in any investigation, prosecution, or detention of a person within California pursuant to (1) Sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA), (2) the federal law known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force, enacted in 2001, or (3) any other federal law, except as specified, if the state agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the California National Guard would violate the United States Constitution, the California Constitution, or any law of this state by providing that aid. The bill would also prohibit local entities from knowingly using state funds and funds allocated by the state to those local entities on and after January 1, 2013, to engage in any activity that aids an agency of the Armed Forces of the United States in the detention of any person within California for purposes of implementing Sections 1021 and 1022 of the NDAA or the federal law known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force , if that activity would violate the United States Constitution, the California Constitution, or any law of this state, as specified.
The bill’s common name is “The California Liberty Preservation Act.” California’s legislation takes things a step further than other states, which have implemented nullification legislation with regard to the NDAA.
The bill specifically states:
It is the policy of this state to refuse to provide material support for or to participate in any way with the implementation within this state of any federal law that purports to authorize indefinite detention of a person within California. (emphasis added)
This meaning the legislation takes aim at not only the NDAA provision, but any federal law, which seeks to disregard one’s constitutional rights.
Democrats and republicans worked together to sponsor and pass the legislation. The bill was introduced by ultra-conservative Tim Donnelly, and managed by San Francisco liberal-democrat Mark Leno.
Nullification has broken barriers in the political world not seen since Reagan won every state in the country in 1984 except Minnesota, home of challenger Mondale (D).
Nullification is able to do this because the federal government has put its hands in far too many pies. Liberals passionate about marijuana legalization and privacy rights find refuge in nullification. Meanwhile, conservatives passionate about the federal reserve, taxes and guns find refuge as well.
The Tenth Amendment Center stands in as the moderator working to nullify all unconstitutional laws in every state. They have provided model legislation to nullify indefinite detention in each state.
Tenth Amendment Center’s national communications director Mike Mike Maharrey tells us-
“Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle came together and passed legislation to protect against federal kidnapping,” adding that, “by saying, ‘No!’ to indefinite detention and refusing any state cooperation, the California legislature and Gov. Brown just ensured it will be very hard to whisk somebody away in the dead of night and hold them without due process.”
“Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle came together and passed legislation to protect against federal kidnapping,” adding that, “by saying, ‘No!’ to indefinite detention and refusing any state cooperation, the California legislature and Gov. Brown just ensured it will be very hard to whisk somebody away in the dead of night and hold them without due process.”
Police are now recording tailgaters at football games under the DHS sponsored "Urban Areas Security Initiative"
October 2, 2013
Source: Mass PrivateI
Phoenix, AZ- It was, as Sal DiCiccio tells it, the end of the world as we know it.
Phoenix, AZ- It was, as Sal DiCiccio tells it, the end of the world as we know it.
The Phoenix District 6 Councilman said he was enjoying the ASU-USC game Saturday in Tempe when, on the north side of Sun Devil Stadium, he encountered a white flatbed truck from the Phoenix Police Department. He and a group of friends noticed a camera mounted in the back videotaping tailgaters at the game.
“It looked like something from The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells,” DiCiccio said Monday. “All I can tell you is it’s just creepy.”
Never one to mince words, DiCiccio took to his Facebook page the next morning.
“Terrorist at Tailgate parties? Creepy: PHX Police/Homeland Security at ASU game last night were spying and videotaping tailgaters. If you saw a white truck with a tall adjustable spire driving through the tailgate parties-then PHX PD/Homeland Security saw you and has a video tape of you eating your hot dog, No need to worry about the NSA or drones flying above your head, they are already here and now big brother is watching your tailgate party. I’m going to ask for a full explanation and sending a letter to Dr. Crow objecting to this over the top spying of ordinary citizens doing normal things.”
A few hours later, he posted again:
“My apology to ASU and Dr. Crow re the earlier post. They did not order the truck with the spy equipment at the tailgate parties. So, the question is, why was PHX PD driving the tailgate parties with the video camera rolling. I contacted city mgt and they are looking into it. Everyone wants to be safe, but having a video truck roam the tailgate parties taking video of normal people doing normal things is out of line. IRS, NSA now roaming video's at tailgate parties. Stop this nonsense.”
DiCiccio later explained his posts.
“I was just frustrated, and I wasn’t happy about it,” DiCiccio said. “Why does Phoenix police send out a truck with a camera videotaping tailgaters? ... It’s just one more level of intrusion by the government looking into our personal lives.”
The Phoenix Police Department had a different take: It wasn’t a sinister alien invasion, but rather a response to a request by ASU police to borrow resources from Phoenix police’s Threat Mitigation Unit for the big game. When third parties request assistance, the department lends its resources — including cameras, truck and manpower — under a mutual-aid agreement it has under the Urban Areas Security Initiative, a federal grant that funds the equipment.
“This was part of a multi-jurisdictional operation to monitor entry and exit points from the stadium area from a homeland security perspective,” Phoenix Police Chief Daniel V. Garcia said in a statement.
They didn’t give a reason for why they were at the ASU-USC game, except to note that the department has similarly participated in “large, high-profile events” like NBA and MLB All-Star games in Phoenix and the Pat Tillman Run, which took place days after the Boston Marathon bombings.
“For security reasons, Phoenix Police and other agencies do not advertise participation in specific operations nor do we comment on specific tactics or reasons for deployment,” Garcia said. “Our participation in these multi-jurisdictional operations is a best practice recognized by our federal partners and key to preparedness in the Phoenix metro area.”
DiCiccio remains unsatisfied with the response.
“It has me more concerned. The fact is there is always a concern that something can happen, anywhere, anytime,” he said. “But there is a reasonable expectation from citizens for a level of privacy from their government ... The question is how far do you want government to do everything they’re doing?
DiCiccio said he has asked Phoenix police to come up with a written policy that outlines “when and where these type of video activities can occur.”
“Anybody can videotape anyone for any reason,” he said. “It’s a problem when your government is out there doing that.”
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/20130930councilman-diciccio-not-pleased-by-phoenix-police-videotaping-tailgaters-beat.html?nclick_check=1
$7 Billion dollars in DHS grants include wasteful police costs:
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released an oversight report, “Safety at Any Price: Assessing the Impact of Homeland Security Spending in U.S. Cities.” The report is based on a year-long investigation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant programs and the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI).
A decade long, $7-billion federal program to help local police and fire departments prepare for a terrorist attack has allowed communities to buy millions of dollars worth of equipment that goes unused or is unrelated to terrorism, according to a new report.
Since 2003, a Department of Homeland Security grant program called the Urban Areas Security Initiative has ballooned from 12 major metropolitan areas to 31 jurisdictions. The study found that some cities and towns had created implausible attack scenarios to win federal grants, and had scrambled at the end of each fiscal year to buy extra, unnecessary gadgets to spend excess cash.
A report on the effectiveness of the Urban Area Security Initiative Program:
http://info.publicintelligence.net/UASI-EffectivenessReport.pdf$7 Billion dollars in DHS grants include wasteful police costs:
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released an oversight report, “Safety at Any Price: Assessing the Impact of Homeland Security Spending in U.S. Cities.” The report is based on a year-long investigation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant programs and the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI).
A decade long, $7-billion federal program to help local police and fire departments prepare for a terrorist attack has allowed communities to buy millions of dollars worth of equipment that goes unused or is unrelated to terrorism, according to a new report.
Since 2003, a Department of Homeland Security grant program called the Urban Areas Security Initiative has ballooned from 12 major metropolitan areas to 31 jurisdictions. The study found that some cities and towns had created implausible attack scenarios to win federal grants, and had scrambled at the end of each fiscal year to buy extra, unnecessary gadgets to spend excess cash.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/From_NSA_Spying_and_VIPR_Sweeps_to_Domestic_Drones%3A_A_Round-Up_of_the_Police_State_Programs_NOT_Affected_by_a_Government_Shutdown/29291/0/0/0/Y/M.html
From NSA Spying and VIPR Sweeps to Domestic Drones: A Round-Up of the Police State Programs NOT Affected by a Government Shutdown
October 2, 2013
Source: John W. Whitehead
Like clockwork, we’ve ticked back to the annual government shutdown scare that invariably dominates news headlines and sends stocks seesawing for a few scant weeks until, at the very last moment, the nation is miraculously pulled from the brink of disaster. It’s always an entertaining show, with both Republicans and Democrats doing their best to one-up each other with heartbreaking anecdotes about the millions who will suffer in the event of a government shutdown and showy bravado over the need for greater fiscal stewardship, while conveniently failing to rein in two of the biggest drains on our budget—namely, the military and surveillance industrial complexes.
Indeed, while a government shutdown will inevitably impact everything from Head Start, and key welfare services to national museums and IRS audits, the one area not impacted in the least will be the police/surveillance state and its various militarized agencies, spying programs and personnel. Incredibly, although more than 800,000 government workers could find themselves without paychecks or with reduced (or for members of the military, delayed) paychecks, President Obama and Congress will still get paid on time.
Take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by a government shutdown, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities—priorities which, as I point out in my new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, have little to do with serving taxpayers and everything to do with maintaining power and control, while being sold to the public under the guise of national security.
Domestic surveillance. On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
NSA domestic programs. Government shutdown or not, the National Security Agency (NSA), with its $10.8 billion black ops annual budget, will continue to spy on every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone using programs such as PRISM and XKEYSCORE. By cracking the security of all major smartphones, including iPhone, Android, and Blackberry devices, NSA agents harvest such information as contacts, text messages, and location data. And then there are the NSA agents who will continue to use and abuse their surveillance powers for personal means, to spy on girlfriends, lovers and first dates.
Global spying. The NSA’s massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion “espionage empire,” will continue to span the globe and target every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone to the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage.
Roving TSA searches. If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off. Indeed, one of the greatest culprits when it comes to swindling taxpayers has been the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), with its questionable deployment of and complete mismanagement of millions of dollars’ worth of airport full-body, X-ray scanners, punitive patdowns by TSA agents and thefts of travelers’ valuables. Considered essential to national security, TSA programs will continue, not only in airports but at transportation hubs around the country.
VIPR Strikes. Under the pretext of protecting the nation’s infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, VIPR task forces (comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams) will continue to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations, airports, ferries and subways. VIPR teams will also be deployed to elevate the security presence at certain special events such as political conventions, baseball games and music concerts. Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology, pat-downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things.
USA Patriot Act, NDAA. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, has chipped away at our freedoms, unraveled our Constitution and transformed our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, re-orienting our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States—will continue to be enforced.
Militarized police state. Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, will continue to keep the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens. Just recently, the Dept. of Justice—clearly not suffering from a shortage of funds—approved grants totaling $3.2 million to fund law enforcement jobs and expand community policy, and that’s just in Virginia.
SWAT team raids. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties will continue to rise. Nationwide, SWAT teams will continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.
Domestic drones. The domestic use of drones will continue unabated. As mandated by Congress, there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020, all part of an industry that could be worth as much as $30 billion per year. These machines will be able to record all activities, using video feeds, heat sensors and radar. A recent Inspector General report revealed that the Dept. of Justice has already spent nearly $4 million on drones domestically, largely for use by the FBI, with grants for another $1.26 million so police departments and nonprofits can acquire their own drones.
Schoolhouse to jailhouse track. The paradigm of abject compliance to the state will continue to be taught by example in the schools, through school lockdowns where police and drug-sniffing dogs enter the classroom, and zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior. School districts will continue to team up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court. Just recently, in Virginia, two seventh graders were suspended for the rest of the school year for playing with airsoft guns in their own yard before school.
Overcriminalization. The government bureaucracy will continue to churn out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, rendering the rest of us petty criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to this overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal. Consequently, small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community will continue to have their farms raided.
Privatized Prisons. States will continue to outsource prisons to private corporations, resulting in a cash cow whereby mega-corporations imprison Americans in private prisons in order to make a profit. In exchange for corporations buying and managing public prisons across the country at a supposed savings to the states, the states have to agree to maintain a 90% occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years. Just recently, California entered into a 5-year contract to have Geo Group house their inmates to the tune of $30 million annually.
Endless wars. America’s expanding military empire will continue to bleed the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour). The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense. In fact, given that Al-Qaeda’s capability to penetrate the American homeland is nil, the chances of dying in a terrorist attack are miniscule.
Thus, when it comes right down to it, whether or not the shutdown takes place, it will remain business as usual in terms of the government’s unceasing pursuit of greater powers and control. These issues are not going away. They are the backbone of an increasingly aggressive authoritarian government, formed by an unholy alliance between the mega-corporations with little concern for the Constitution and elected officials and bureaucrats incapable or unwilling to represent the best interests of their constituents.
So where do we go from here? If public opposition, outright challenges, and a government shutdown don’t stop or even slow down the police state, what’s to be done?
Do what you must to survive. Go to work, take care of your family, pay off your debts. But when you’re not doing those things, which allow you to get by day-to-day, consider the future.
Pay attention to the political structure that is being created in the shadows, the economic system that is chaining us down with debt, and the feudal, fascist society borne out of the marriage of government and big business. Avoid the propaganda mills posing as news sources. Express your outrage, loudly and tirelessly, to the government’s incursions on our freedoms. Yet act locally—taking issue with any and every encroachment on your rights, no matter how minor, whether it’s a ban on goat cheese or installations of red light cameras at intersections and on school buses—because reclaiming our rights from the ground up, starting locally and trickling up, remains our only hope.
Resistance may seem futile, it will be hard, and there will inevitably be a price to pay for resisting the emerging tyranny, but to the extent that you are able, RESIST.
Like clockwork, we’ve ticked back to the annual government shutdown scare that invariably dominates news headlines and sends stocks seesawing for a few scant weeks until, at the very last moment, the nation is miraculously pulled from the brink of disaster. It’s always an entertaining show, with both Republicans and Democrats doing their best to one-up each other with heartbreaking anecdotes about the millions who will suffer in the event of a government shutdown and showy bravado over the need for greater fiscal stewardship, while conveniently failing to rein in two of the biggest drains on our budget—namely, the military and surveillance industrial complexes.
Indeed, while a government shutdown will inevitably impact everything from Head Start, and key welfare services to national museums and IRS audits, the one area not impacted in the least will be the police/surveillance state and its various militarized agencies, spying programs and personnel. Incredibly, although more than 800,000 government workers could find themselves without paychecks or with reduced (or for members of the military, delayed) paychecks, President Obama and Congress will still get paid on time.
Take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by a government shutdown, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities—priorities which, as I point out in my new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, have little to do with serving taxpayers and everything to do with maintaining power and control, while being sold to the public under the guise of national security.
Domestic surveillance. On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
NSA domestic programs. Government shutdown or not, the National Security Agency (NSA), with its $10.8 billion black ops annual budget, will continue to spy on every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone using programs such as PRISM and XKEYSCORE. By cracking the security of all major smartphones, including iPhone, Android, and Blackberry devices, NSA agents harvest such information as contacts, text messages, and location data. And then there are the NSA agents who will continue to use and abuse their surveillance powers for personal means, to spy on girlfriends, lovers and first dates.
Global spying. The NSA’s massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion “espionage empire,” will continue to span the globe and target every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone to the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage.
Roving TSA searches. If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off. Indeed, one of the greatest culprits when it comes to swindling taxpayers has been the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), with its questionable deployment of and complete mismanagement of millions of dollars’ worth of airport full-body, X-ray scanners, punitive patdowns by TSA agents and thefts of travelers’ valuables. Considered essential to national security, TSA programs will continue, not only in airports but at transportation hubs around the country.
VIPR Strikes. Under the pretext of protecting the nation’s infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, VIPR task forces (comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams) will continue to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations, airports, ferries and subways. VIPR teams will also be deployed to elevate the security presence at certain special events such as political conventions, baseball games and music concerts. Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology, pat-downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things.
USA Patriot Act, NDAA. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, has chipped away at our freedoms, unraveled our Constitution and transformed our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, re-orienting our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States—will continue to be enforced.
Militarized police state. Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, will continue to keep the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens. Just recently, the Dept. of Justice—clearly not suffering from a shortage of funds—approved grants totaling $3.2 million to fund law enforcement jobs and expand community policy, and that’s just in Virginia.
SWAT team raids. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties will continue to rise. Nationwide, SWAT teams will continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.
Domestic drones. The domestic use of drones will continue unabated. As mandated by Congress, there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020, all part of an industry that could be worth as much as $30 billion per year. These machines will be able to record all activities, using video feeds, heat sensors and radar. A recent Inspector General report revealed that the Dept. of Justice has already spent nearly $4 million on drones domestically, largely for use by the FBI, with grants for another $1.26 million so police departments and nonprofits can acquire their own drones.
Schoolhouse to jailhouse track. The paradigm of abject compliance to the state will continue to be taught by example in the schools, through school lockdowns where police and drug-sniffing dogs enter the classroom, and zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior. School districts will continue to team up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court. Just recently, in Virginia, two seventh graders were suspended for the rest of the school year for playing with airsoft guns in their own yard before school.
Overcriminalization. The government bureaucracy will continue to churn out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, rendering the rest of us petty criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to this overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal. Consequently, small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community will continue to have their farms raided.
Privatized Prisons. States will continue to outsource prisons to private corporations, resulting in a cash cow whereby mega-corporations imprison Americans in private prisons in order to make a profit. In exchange for corporations buying and managing public prisons across the country at a supposed savings to the states, the states have to agree to maintain a 90% occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years. Just recently, California entered into a 5-year contract to have Geo Group house their inmates to the tune of $30 million annually.
Endless wars. America’s expanding military empire will continue to bleed the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour). The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense. In fact, given that Al-Qaeda’s capability to penetrate the American homeland is nil, the chances of dying in a terrorist attack are miniscule.
Thus, when it comes right down to it, whether or not the shutdown takes place, it will remain business as usual in terms of the government’s unceasing pursuit of greater powers and control. These issues are not going away. They are the backbone of an increasingly aggressive authoritarian government, formed by an unholy alliance between the mega-corporations with little concern for the Constitution and elected officials and bureaucrats incapable or unwilling to represent the best interests of their constituents.
So where do we go from here? If public opposition, outright challenges, and a government shutdown don’t stop or even slow down the police state, what’s to be done?
Do what you must to survive. Go to work, take care of your family, pay off your debts. But when you’re not doing those things, which allow you to get by day-to-day, consider the future.
Pay attention to the political structure that is being created in the shadows, the economic system that is chaining us down with debt, and the feudal, fascist society borne out of the marriage of government and big business. Avoid the propaganda mills posing as news sources. Express your outrage, loudly and tirelessly, to the government’s incursions on our freedoms. Yet act locally—taking issue with any and every encroachment on your rights, no matter how minor, whether it’s a ban on goat cheese or installations of red light cameras at intersections and on school buses—because reclaiming our rights from the ground up, starting locally and trickling up, remains our only hope.
Resistance may seem futile, it will be hard, and there will inevitably be a price to pay for resisting the emerging tyranny, but to the extent that you are able, RESIST.
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