Fukushima Fallout ‘Caused Physiological and Genetic Damage’ to Butterflies
August 13th, 2012Via: Nature:
The collapse of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant caused a massive release of radioactive materials to the environment. A prompt and reliable system for evaluating the biological impacts of this accident on animals has not been available. Here we show that the accident caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha, a common lycaenid butterfly in Japan. We collected the first-voltine adults in the Fukushima area in May 2011, some of which showed relatively mild abnormalities. The F1 offspring from the first-voltine females showed more severe abnormalities, which were inherited by the F2 generation. Adult butterflies collected in September 2011 showed more severe abnormalities than those collected in May. Similar abnormalities were experimentally reproduced in individuals from a non-contaminated area by external and internal low-dose exposures. We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.
America’s Secret Drone War in Africa
August 13th, 2012Via: Wired:
More secret bases. More and better unmanned warplanes. More frequent and deadly robotic attacks. Some five years after a U.S. Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle flew the type’s first mission over lawless Somalia, the shadowy American-led drone campaign in the Horn of Africa is targeting Islamic militants more ruthlessly than ever.
Thanks to media accounts, indirect official statements, fragmentary crash reports and one complaint by a U.N. monitoring group, we can finally begin to define — however vaguely — the scope and scale of the secret African drone war.
The details that follow are in part conjecture, albeit informed conjecture. They outline of just one of America’s ongoing shadow wars — and one possible model for the future U.S. way of war. Along with the counterterrorism campaigns in Pakistan, Yemen and the Philippines, the Somalia drone war demonstrates how high-tech U.S. forces can inflict major damage on America’s enemies at relatively low cost … and without most U.S. citizens having any idea it’s even happening.
Pics of New Mexican President with Sinaloa Cartel Lieutenant
August 13th, 2012Via: Mad Cow Productions:
He hasn’t even taken office yet, but Mexico’s new President Enrique Peña Nieto has already got some ‘splainin’ to do.
Mexico City newspapers today reported the discovery of pictures of the not-yet-inaugarated new President in which he appears chummy with a man arrested yesterday in Madrid and charged with importing 337 kilos of cocaine into Spain from South America.
Related:
Spain Drug Bust Links Chapo Guzman, Mexico’s new President
Arrest of 4 Mexican Generals Linked to Downed CIA Drug Plane
South Pacific: 7500sq Miles of Pumice from Underwater Volcano; ‘The Wierdest Thing I’ve Seen in 18 Years at Sea’
August 13th, 2012Via: Scoop:
An area of floating pumice 250 nautical miles in length and 30 nautical miles wide was spotted in the South Pacific ocean yesterday by a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) Orion.
The RNZAF Orion, which was on Maritime patrol from Samoa to New Zealand, relayed the information to HMNZS CANTERBURY and last night, approximately 85 nautical miles West South-West of Raoul Island CANTERBURY spotted the phenomenon.
Lieutenant (LT) Tim Oscar, a Royal Australian Navy officer on a three year exchange with the Royal New Zealand Navy, saw what he describes as, “the wierdest thing I’ve seen in 18 years at sea.”
“The lookout reported a shadow on the ocean ahead of us so I ordered the ship’s spotlight to be trained on the area.
“As far ahead as I could observe was a raft of pumice moving up and down with the swell.
“The rock looked to be sitting two feet above the surface of the waves, and lit up a brilliant white colour in the spotlight. It looked exactly like the edge of an ice shelf,” said LT Oscar.
LT Oscar said he had been briefed by GNS Volcanologist Helen Bostock the previous day when the ship first encountered an area of pumice from an undersea volcano.
Federal Government’s Financial Burden Grows By $10 Million A Minute
August 12th, 2012Via: U.S. News and World Report:
Former U.S. comptroller general David Walker is sounding the alarm on the federal government’s “financial sinkhole,” which he says is growing deeper by about $10 million every minute.
By “sinkhole,” Walker is not just referring to debt, but the government’s total liabilities, unfunded social insurance promises, and other federal commitments. Through his fiscal responsibility group, the Comeback America Initiative, Walker wants Americans to know that the financial challenge facing our country is much larger than most people think.
To reflect that challenge, the Comeback America Initiative has produced an enhanced and more comprehensive version of the National Debt Clock—the “Burden Barometer.”
The Burden Barometer counts the government’s financial obligations that go further than the national debt, such as retiree health obligations, Social Security and Medicare, and unfunded military pensions. As a result, the number is significantly higher than that displayed on the National Debt Clock.
At the time of this post, the National Debt Clock read $15.9 trillion, while the Burden Barometer read $69.9 trillion. (When the National Debt Clock was unveiled in 1989, it was at just $2.7 trillion.)
White House Pulls Down TSA Petition
August 12th, 2012Via: EPIC:
At approximately 11:30 am EDT, the White House removed a petition about the TSA airport screening procedures from the White House “We the People” website. About 22,500 of the 25,000 signatures necessary for a response from the Administration were obtained when the White House unexpectedly cut short the time period for the petition. The site also went down for “maintenance” following an article in Wired that sought support for the campaign.
Unravelling TrapWire: The CIA-Connected Global Suspicious Activity Surveillance System
August 11th, 2012Via: Public Intelligence:
Hacked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor have shed light on a global suspicious activity surveillance system called TrapWire that is reportedly in use in locations around the world from the London Stock Exchange to the White House. The emails, which were released yesterday by WikiLeaks, provide information on the extent and operations of a system designed to correlate suspicious activity reports and other evidence that may indicate surveillance connected with a potential terrorist attack.
A proprietary white paper produced by TrapWire, formerly called Abraxas Applications, describes the product as “a unique, predictive software system designed to detect patterns of pre-attack surveillance.” In an interview from 2005 with the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the CEO of Abraxas Corporation Richard “Hollis” Helms says the goal of TrapWire is to “collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition, draw patterns, and do threat assessments of areas that may be under observation from terrorists.” Fred Burton, the CEO of Stratfor, describes Trapwire in an email from November 2009 as “a technology solution predicated upon behavior patterns in red zones to identify surveillance. It helps you connect the dots over time and distance.”
Documents submitted with Abraxas’ initial trademarking of TrapWire, describe the system as utilizing “a facility’s existing technologies (such as pan-tilt-zoom [PTZ] cameras) and humans (security personnel, employees, and neighbors)” to collect data which is then “recorded and stored in a standardized format to facilitate data mining, information comparison and information sharing across the network.” TrapWire “standardizes descriptions of potential surveillance activity, such as photographing, measuring and signaling” and then shares “threat information” across the network to track potential correlations across other locations on the network.
One thing that makes TrapWire a particularly interesting company is that its president, chief of operations and director of business development are all former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.
AntiLeaks Group Claim Responsibility for WikiLeaks Attacks
August 11th, 2012Operational Mirror as of 12 August 01:30 NZ time.
Via: Register:
The WikiLeaks website has been under a major DDoS attack over the last few days and a group calling itself AntiLeaks has claimed responsibility.
“We are young adults, citizens of the United States of America and are deeply concerned about the recent developments with Julian Assange and his attempt at asylum in Ecuador,” said the group’s self-proclaimed leader, who calls himself Diet Pepsi.
“Assange is the head of a new breed of terrorist. We are doing this as a protest against his attempt to escape justice into Ecuador. This would be a catalyst for many more like him to rise up in his place. We will not stop and they will not stop us.”
According to the WikiLeaks Twitter feed, the website, and those of its associates and mirrors, have been hit by a massive DDoS attack reaching 10Gbits/s and using a more complex system than a standard bulk UDP or ICMP packet flooding. The range of IP addresses is huge, indicating either thousands of machines taking part or some really good simulation.
The AntiLeaks group hasn’t been heard of before and its Twitter feed only started this month. While it’s possible they are simply claiming the attacks rather than carrying them out, it’s clear the attacks are being taken by WikiLeaks as an attempt to shut down information.
The attack comes as WikiLeaks is trying to distribute more emails from the hacking of private security group Stratfor Global Intelligence. This latest batch, released in the last few days, concern the existence of a US-based monitoring system called Trapwire.
U.S. Banks Told to Make Plans for Preventing Collapse
August 11th, 2012In other words, during a liquidity crisis, make sure that online banking and ATMs are not accessible due to technical difficulties.
Via: Reuters:
U.S. regulators directed five of the country’s biggest banks, including Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, to develop plans for staving off collapse if they faced serious problems, emphasizing that the banks could not count on government help.
The two-year-old program, which has been largely secret until now, is in addition to the “living wills” the banks crafted to help regulators dismantle them if they actually do fail. It shows how hard regulators are working to ensure that banks have plans for worst-case scenarios and can act rationally in times of distress.
Officials like Lehman Brothers former Chief Executive Dick Fuld have been criticized for having been too hesitant to take bold steps to solve their banks’ problems during the financial crisis.
According to documents obtained by Reuters, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency first directed five banks – which also include Citigroup Inc,, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co – to come up with these “recovery plans” in May 2010.
They told banks to consider drastic efforts to prevent failure in times of distress, including selling off businesses, finding other funding sources if regular borrowing markets shut them out, and reducing risk. The plans must be feasible to execute within three to six months, and banks were to “make no assumption of extraordinary support from the public sector,” according to the documents.
Spokespeople for the five banks declined to comment. The Federal Reserve also declined to comment.
Trapwire
August 10th, 2012Via: Privatepaste 1, 2:
From: Justin Ferguson
Date: Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 6:22 AM
Subject: Re: [TSCM-L] {6221} Domain Awareness System
To: tscm-l2006@googlegroups.com
Cc: michael.maness@abraxasapps.com, dan.botsch@abraxasapps.com,
jeff.nielsen@abraxasapps.com
I’m not entirely sure how this is new so to speak, they’ve had this
capability for years from the ‘trapwire’ system (trapwire.com formerly
abraxas applications– a subdivision of intelligence contractor
abraxas and staffed almost exclusively by ex-CIA, see page 137 of
‘spies for hire’).
Per the stratfor email dump, the trapwire system contains
functionality like facial recognition and is installed at every HVT in
the continental US, in addition to Ottawa and Canada– but confirmed
in LA, NYC, NJ, DC, Las Vegas, et cetera. It’s essentially a system
setup to detect surveillance, so if you’ve ever taken a picture of
basically anything ‘important’ you probably flagged a ‘suspicious
activity report’ (SAR). It’s logged to a central database and then
cross-site reports are disseminated. If you’re familiar with the ‘see
something say something’ or ‘iWatch’ programs, that’s the public
reporting component, but in the email dumps when explaining similar
systems they note repeatedly that trapwire has the capability to walk
the cat back you just need a few pictures of the persons. From the
emails, what’s been enumerated specifically is NY/DC mass transit,
unspecified sections of LA, London Stock Exchange, Scotland Yard, #10
Downing, the White House. From googling, we can find that NJ transit,
all army bases, the department of energy, the marines, et cetera are
as well. No idea if they got the contract, but they were apparently
trying to get it into the Nigerian presidential palace as well.
It’s not just in public sector areas, it sounds like any big
corporation that wants in gets to link their CCTV/surveillance systems
into it as well– apparently salesforce.com, google, potentially Dell,
Wal-Mart, & Coca-cola, et cetera are all linked in.
Throughout the email dumps they repeatedly ask for non-attribution and
you have to google stalk quite a bit to really find much, but this
magazine has an article on it
http://www.cjimagazine.com/archives_PDF/CJI_Magazine_Archive_2006_11-12.pdf
and what’s been released of the stratfor emails contains a lot of
chatter about it and the parts that haven’t been released yet contain
quite a bit more.
I guess my biggest concern is that the parent company is the company
that at least used to develop NOC companies/persona’s for the agency,
several members of the executive board also sit on the ‘ntrepid
networks’ board– which produces the software to create online
persona’s/sock puppet accounts as part of Operation Earnest Voice for
DoD (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks),
that basically the entire executive staff and regular employee’s are
also ex-agency and I just refuse to believe that the CIA is passing up
such a golden opportunity to get into the surveillance feeds from
basically everywhere in the country (and all over London and Ottawa).
That doesn’t even include the tie in’s to DHS & their fusion centers,
the secret service accounts, etc etc. If you ask me, it sounds like
that system is the CIAs version of the Trailblazer project. We’ll have
to wait on FOIA requests to confirm that though. Another interesting
point is going to be that with foreign links, they (the CIA) have the
authority to spy on them, but I wonder how they keep clear of FISA &
their own charter/eo 12333/et cetera. I bet they dont.
I’ve been kind enough to CC several of the people behind trapwire in
case they have comments or want to further enlighten us, but I
wouldn’t hold my breath. Hopefully they make sure to thank Mr.
Burton’s big mouth for helping bring this to light.
Best Regards,
Justin N. Ferguson
—
From: Justin Ferguson
To: tscm-l2006@googlegroups.com
Cc: michael.maness@abraxasapps.com, dan.botsch@abraxasapps.com,
jeff.nielsen@abraxasapps.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Ah, I forgot a couple details & had some typos; when I said “Ottawa
and Canada”, I meant Ottawa and London. I totally forget Austin, et
cetera.
Here’s a bunch of links to copy/pastes from stratfor emails detailing
a lot of what I had to say in the prior email. There’s like 10+ pages
of hits in the stratfor dumps, so it’s not all of it, just what I had
bookmarked while reading into it some.
Cheers.
http://privatepaste.com/c56f6848d2/trapwireCentralizedDatabaseMGMGrandLinke=
dSystemEtc
centralized database, vegas hotels, linked sites, etc
http://privatepaste.com/e5b7f4a21d/trapwireNYC – NYC circa 2010
http://privatepaste.com/a9bc9274ea/trapwireAustin – Austin
http://privatepaste.com/04eaef4343/trapwireEveryHVTUSCANUK – note the
last paragraph
http://privatepaste.com/90198aa545/trapwireTexasBorder – Texas border circa=
2009
http://privatepaste.com/568f0a512a/trapwireWalkTheCatBack – Talking
about images to analyze and walking the cat back
http://privatepaste.com/318e0e652b/trapwireHVTCitizens – Trapwire for
certain citizens that are important, but not USSS important
http://privatepaste.com/670091f5b0/trapwireLondonStockExchange –
London Stock Exchange
http://privatepaste.com/b62ceaf254/trapwireNYCDCVegasLondonOttawaLA –
NYC, DC, Vegas, London, Ottawa, LA
http://privatepaste.com/fba46e24ca/trapwireAustinDPSAllocated1Point8M
– 1.8M for trapwire & equipment from Austin DPS
http://privatepaste.com/caf299c230/trapwireOnDesksOfUSSSMI5LAPDRCMPNYPD
– trapwire on the desks of USSS CP, MI5, RCMP, LAPD CT, NYPD CT
http://privatepaste.com/5a71bac416/trapwireDCMetroNationalParkPoliceEtc
– trapwire DC metro, National Park Police, etc
http://privatepaste.com/e6031c14f6/trapwireLAPD – trapwire LAPD as a protot=
ype
http://privatepaste.com/febefa287f/trapwirePentagonArmyUSMCNavy –
trapwire Army, Pentagon, USMC, Navy
http://privatepaste.com/58a60bff35/trapwireNSIFBIFtMeadeSevenYears –
Trapwire 7 years circa 2011, National SAR Initiative (NSI), FBIs
eGuardian, Ft. Meade, etc
http://privatepaste.com/f7b7ac02ab/trapwireAmtrackDHSFusionCenters –
Amtrack, DHS fusion centers, DC Metro
http://privatepaste.com/7add918e4c/trapwireBehaviorPatternsToIdentifySurvei=
llance
– “TrapWire is a technology solution predicated upon behavior patterns
in red
zones to identify surveillance. It helps you connect the dots over
time and distance.
http://privatepaste.com/d503851f0c/trapwireSalesforceGoogleDHSInstitute
– salesforce, google, DHS institute
http://privatepaste.com/626712c0fa/trapwireNigerianPresidentialPalace
– Nigerian Presidential Palace
http://privatepaste.com/bf0a0abf67/trapwireScotlandYardDowningWhiteHouseWal=
MartDell
– Scotland Yard, 10 Downing St, White House, Wal-Mart, Dell
—
More: Stratfor Emails Reveal Secret, Widespread TrapWire Surveillance System
Research Credit: luky
