Archive for the 'Outsourced' Category
Army Recruits Prisoners to Make Body Armor
March 14th, 2011Via: Wired: Building parts for Patriot missile systems was just a warm-up, apparently, for a government-owned company that relies on federal inmates making as little as 23 cents an hour. On Wednesday, the U.S. Army announced that it handed Federal Prison Industries a no-bid, nearly $20 million contract to build body armor. It’s the latest […]
Libya: Thanks to U.S. Pressure, Libyan Mercenaries Won’t Be Prosecuted for War Crimes
February 28th, 2011The U.S. couldn’t possibly be held accountable for the atrocities that its mercenaries have carried out (and continue to carry out). Oh, no, no, no. Via: Telegraph: African mercenaries hired by the Gaddafi regime to kill Libyan protesters would be immune from prosecution for war crimes due to a clause in this weekend’s UN resolution […]
Ex Judge Convicted of Racketeering; Taking Bribes from For-Profit Juvenile Detention Centers
February 19th, 2011Via: AP: A former juvenile court judge was convicted Friday of racketeering in a case that accused him of sending youth offenders to for-profit detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in illicit payments from the builder and owner of the lockups. Luzerne County ex-Judge Mark Ciavarella, 61, left the bench in disgrace two […]
New Zealand: Rural Broadband Scheme ‘Destructive’
February 17th, 2011Via: New Zealand Herald: John Key says he wants to “streamline and improve” bureaucracy. Bill English says the country can’t afford waffly policy. Great. They can do away with the Ministry of Economic Development. That should save billions and get rid of policy that is not only waffly but downright destructive. The decision to start […]
Mercenary Deaths Surpass U.S. Military Losses in Both Iraq and Afghanistan
February 10th, 2011Via: Foreign Policy: …more than 2,000 contractors have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Contractor deaths now represent over 25 percent of all U.S. fatalities” in those conflicts, write Steven Schooner and Collin Swan of the George Washington University Law School. Research Credit: Matt
OpenLeaks Site Goes Live
January 28th, 2011…after someone leaked the material to Cryptome. *chortle* Via: OpenLeaks: OpenLeaks is a project that aims at making whistleblowing safer and more widespread. This will be done by providing dedicated and generally free services to whistleblowers and organizations interested in transparency. We will also create a Knowledge Base aiming to provide a comprehensive reference to […]
Blackwater’s Prince Building Mercenary Force with Apartheid-Era ‘Hit Squad’ Officer
January 21st, 2011Via: Raw Story: According to news reports published Thursday, Prince has partnered with an African-based security company, Saracen International, to win security contracts from the Somali government that would see the mercenaries fight the on-land part of the war against Somali high-seas pirates, and would also go after al-Shabab, the Islamist militant group that has […]
Ex Tunisia President’s Wife Left with 1.5 Tons of Gold
January 18th, 2011Via: CNBC: The French government suspects that former Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his family may have fled the country with 1.5 tons of gold, French daily Le Monde reported Monday. According to the French secret service, Leila Trabelsi, the wife of the ex-president, went to the Central Bank of Tunisia to fetch […]
Documentary Film: Dreamland
January 6th, 2011Via: dreamland.is: How much unspoiled nature should we preserve and what do we sacrifice for clean, renewable energy? Dreamland gradually turns into a disturbing picture of corporate power taking over small communities. Dreamland is a film about a nation standing at cross-roads. Leading up to the country’s greatest economic crisis, the government started the largest […]
DARPA Kicks Off Mind’s Eye Program; ‘Persistent Stare, Camera-Equipped Unmanned Ground Vehicles’
January 6th, 2011Via: U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (.pdf): Ground surveillance is a mission normally performed by human assets, including Army scouts and Marine Corps Force Recon. Military leaders would like to shift this mission to unmanned systems, removing troops from harm’s way, but unmanned systems lack a capability that currently exists only in humans: visual […]
