How One Inspector General Is Fighting Fraud and Waste in Afghanistan
November 23rd, 2013Via: The Week:
After 12 years of war, you would think the war planners and defense contractors have the situation in Afghanistan well in hand. And they do, if the goal is wasteful spending on such a colossal scale that it makes Healthcare.gov look like Amazon.com.
The magnitude of the ongoing fiscal irresponsibility in Afghanistan is almost impossible to measure, and there is little hope that either the White House or Congress will show any interest in listening to those who provide the warm bodies and sweaty dollars for the ongoing conflict. The president, who has bragged that he is “very good at killing people,” certainly doesn’t want to stop doing the one thing he’s been good at of late. And while the Democrats continue running interference for their standard-bearer, Republicans in Congress steadfastly refuse to show spine in overseeing the president for fear that they accidentally end the war. No one wants that — things are going so well!
This Massive Robot Could Soon Join Marines on the Battlefield
November 23rd, 2013Via: Defense One:
The future doesn’t always arrive with a gasp and a boom like Skynet inTerminator. No, sometimes it’s more like Office Space.
At least that’s the idea I get watching this video of the Marines’ testing the Legged Squad Support System. DARPA built the LS3 to act as an autonomous pack horse that “can carry 400 lbs of a squad’s load, follow squad members through rugged terrain and interact with troops in a natural way, similar to a trained animal and its handler.”
Its headless form has always disturbed me in its … headlessness. (Like, did Haruki Murakami design these things in a fever dream? Robots galloping across the plains.)
And yet, in the hands of real Marines, it sounds like they’re testing a new network printer out, or maybe putting the office fob system through its paces.
“The experimentation phase is in full swing right now,” said Brigadier General Kevin Killea with all the emotion of a building manager introducing new trash chutes.
“And we’ll come back and we’ll look at all the data and we’ll get the feedback from all the Marines about how they feel it can support them best.”
Britain: Prisons Privatisation Cancelled Amid Serco Probe
November 22nd, 2013Via: BBC:
Plans to privatise three prisons have been cancelled because of an ongoing investigation into the leading bidder.
The justice secretary said the prison service would remain in charge at Hatfield, Lindholme and Moorland, all in South Yorkshire, while allegations against Serco remained outstanding.
The contractor is accused of over-charging the government for electronically tagging prisoners.
North Texas Drivers Stopped at Roadblock Asked for Saliva, Blood
November 22nd, 2013The first post on Cryptogon about Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation was back in 2007.
Via: NBCDFW:
Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at a police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood.
It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers.
“It just doesn’t seem right that you can be forced off the road when you’re not doing anything wrong,” said Kim Cope, who said she was on her lunch break when she was forced to pull over at the roadblock on Beach Street in North Fort Worth.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is spending $7.9 million on the survey over three years, said participation was “100 percent voluntary” and anonymous.
But Cope said it didn’t feel voluntary to her — despite signs saying it was.
“I gestured to the guy in front that I just wanted to go straight, but he wouldn’t let me and forced me into a parking spot,” she said.
Once parked, she couldn’t believe what she was asked next.
“They were asking for cheek swabs,” she said. “They would give $10 for that. Also, if you let them take your blood, they would pay you $50 for that.”
…
NBC DFW confirmed that the survey was done by a government contractor, the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, which is based in Calverton, Md.
A company spokeswoman referred questions to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
An agency spokeswoman sent an email confirming the government is conducting the surveys in 30 cities across the country in an effort to reduce impaired-driving accidents.
She did not respond to another email from NBC DFW asking specific questions about the program.
Air Force Seeks Laser Weapons for Next Generation Fighters
November 21st, 2013Via: U.S. Naval Institute:
The U.S. Air Force has released a new request for a high-powered laser weapon that could be mounted on a next-generation air dominance fighter in the post-2030 era.
How Somebody Forced the World’s Internet Traffic Through Belarus and Iceland
November 21st, 2013Via: AllThingsD:
The attack — and Renesys maintains that it was an attack — targeted large Internet carriers in every major city in the U.S. and numerous major cities in Europe and around the world.
The first incident took place during most of the month of February, when Internet traffic was silently redirected through an Internet service provider called GlobalOneBel, based in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. The targets of these attacks included financial institutions, government agencies and network service providers.
US and UK Struck Secret Deal to Allow NSA to ‘Unmask’ Britons’ Personal Data
November 21st, 2013Via: Guardian:
The phone, internet and email records of UK citizens not suspected of any wrongdoing have been analysed and stored by America’s National Security Agency under a secret deal that was approved by British intelligence officials, according to documents from the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
In the first explicit confirmation that UK citizens have been caught up in US mass surveillance programs, an NSA memo describes how in 2007 an agreement was reached that allowed the agency to “unmask” and hold on to personal data about Britons that had previously been off limits.
The memo, published in a joint investigation by the Guardian and Britain’s Channel 4 News, says the material is being put in databases where it can be made available to other members of the US intelligence and military community.
Britain Operated Death Squad in Belfast in 1972
November 20th, 2013Via: BBC:
Soldiers from an undercover unit used by the British army in Northern Ireland killed unarmed civilians, former members have told BBC One’s Panorama.
Speaking publicly for the first time, the ex-members of the Military Reaction Force (MRF), which was disbanded in 1973, said they had been tasked with “hunting down” IRA members in Belfast.
The former soldiers said they believed the unit had saved many lives.
The Ministry of Defence said it had referred the disclosures to police.
The details have emerged a day after Northern Ireland’s attorney general, John Larkin, suggested ending any prosecutions over Troubles-related killings that took place before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
The proposal has been criticised by groups representing relatives of victims.
Panorama has been told the MRF consisted of about 40 men handpicked from across the British army.
Manned Fly-By Mission to Mars in 2017?
November 20th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
Billionaire Dennis Tito, tired of being told that we can’t send humans to Mars just yet, on Wednesday revealed his scheme for launching two astronauts to the red planet as early as December 2017.
Dubbed “Inspiration Mars,” the fly-by mission would exploit a rare alignment of Earth and Mars that minimizes the time and the fuel it would take to get to Mars and back home again. The astronauts would come within 100 miles of the Martian surface before being slung back to Earth.
“It would be a voyage of around 800 million miles around the sun in 501 days,” Tito testified Wednesday at a hearing of the House subcommittee on space. “No longer is a Mars fly-by mission just one more theoretical idea. It can be done. Not in a matter of decades, but in a few years.”
Grab this opportunity or risk seeing China get to Mars first, the space buff told the members of Congress.
The plan has a lot of moving parts, and would require cooperation from NASA and a great deal of NASA hardware. The agency is building a jumbo rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), that is supposed to be ready for its inaugural, uncrewed test flight in 2017. Tito’s plan would essentially borrow the SLS for the Mars mission.
#Let’s Cook: Feds Stop North Korean Meth ‘Floodgate’ Into New York
November 20th, 2013Via: New York Observer:
Is Walter White working out of North Korea?
According to federal authorities, five men were arrested in New York this week for attempting to bring over 200 pounds of methamphetamine from the dictatorial regime into the Empire State.
(Mirroring the quality of “Blue Magic” meth produced in Breaking Bad, the illegal drugs seized “had a purity of over 99%,” according to the indictment.)
The five men–whose nationalities include the United Kingdom, China and the Philippines–were arrested in Thailand in September and were extradited to the United States yesterday evening, where they were arrested by U.S. authorities.
