To Protect and Serve? MRAPS Come Home
September 28th, 2013Via: Dallas Observer:
Now that the war in Iraq is officially over and the one in Afghanistan winding down, the Department of Defense found itself facing a conundrum. It had just spent billions of dollars buying heavily armored personnel carriers designed to stand up to insurgent attacks only to find that it had run out of wars to use them in.
The initial plan was to shove the vehicles, called MRAPS (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) into a warehouse and let them collect dust. That changed when someone decided that, having served so admirably overseas, it would be only just to bring the MRAPs stateside and deploy them in the domestic war on crime.
And so, for the past couple of months, news reports have been popping up announcing that places like Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Ohio State University have been receiving their very own military-grade armored SUVs.
Now, it’s Dallas’ turn. Dallas County sheriff’s deputies traveled to Fort Hood earlier this month and picked up their very own International MaxxPro MRAP. This particular truck has never seen any actual combat, having only been deployed stateside for training exercises, so it doesn’t have any cool battle scars, but with the dealer’s $600,000 price tag knocked down to nothing, and with just 10,000 miles on it, the deal was too good to pass up.
Related: U.S. Scrapping Billions of Dollars Worth of Military Equipment in Afghanistan
NSA Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens
September 28th, 2013Via: New York Times:
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.
The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.
The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said. Because of concerns about infringing on the privacy of American citizens, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners.
The agency can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents. They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such “enrichment” data, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners.
Related:
NSA Building Dossiers on Every American
U.S. Government Building Extensive Travel Dossiers on Americans
No. 2 U.S. Nuke Commander Under Investigation, Counterfeit Gambling Chips?
September 28th, 2013Via: AP:
The No. 2 officer at the military command in charge of all U.S. nuclear war-fighting forces is suspected in a case involving counterfeit gambling chips at a western Iowa casino and has been suspended from his duties, officials said.
Navy Vice Adm. Tim Giardina has not been arrested or charged, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation special agent David Dales said Saturday. The state investigation is ongoing.
Giardina, deputy commander at U.S. Strategic Command, was suspended on Sept. 3 and is under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, a Strategic Command spokeswoman said.
The highly unusual action against a high-ranking officer at Strategic Command was made more than three weeks ago but not publicly announced at that time. The command is located at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb.
Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler, who heads Strategic Command, suspended Giardina, according to the command’s top spokeswoman, Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze. Giardina is still assigned to the command but is prohibited from performing duties related to nuclear weapons and other issues requiring a security clearance, she said.
Kehler has recommended to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that Giardina be reassigned, Kunze said. Giardina has been the deputy commander of Strategic Command since December 2011. He is a career submarine officer and prior to starting his assignment there was the deputy commander and chief of staff at U.S. Pacific Fleet.
DCI agents stationed at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa, discovered the counterfeit chips, Dales said. He would not say when the discovery was made or how much in counterfeit chips was found, only that “it was a significant monetary amount.”
Council Bluffs is located across the Missouri River from Omaha.
“We were able to detect this one pretty quickly and jump on it,” Dales said. He declined to give specifics on how authorities determined that casino chips had been counterfeited or how Giardina might have been involved.
Strategic Command oversees the military’s nuclear fighter units, including the Navy’s nuclear-armed submarines and the Air Force’s nuclear bombers and nuclear land-based missiles.
Kenya: NIS Knew an Attack Would Happen
September 27th, 2013Via: Independent:
Kenya’s National Intelligence Agency (NIS), widely accused by politicians of failing to pick up chatter about the attack, has insisted it did warn the police and officials inside the President’s office before the Westgate siege, but its warnings went unheeded, The Star reported.
According to the same report, a pregnant policewoman avoided Westgate after her brother, who works for Kenyan intelligence, warned her of a terror attack. “She has told police that her brother who is a NIS officer warned her not to visit Westgate that Saturday because she would not be able to run,” a senior officer was quoted as saying.
For the Lulz: LA Officials May Delay School iPad Rollout After Students Effortlessly Bypass Restrictions
September 26th, 2013“Runaway train scenario.”
I love it.
Via: Engadget:
Just a week after it began the first phase of putting iPads in the hands of all 640,000 students in the region, the Los Angeles school district already has a fight on its hands. In a matter of days, 300 children at Theodore Roosevelt High School managed to work around protective measures placed on the Apple tablets, giving them complete access to features — including Facebook, Twitter and other apps — that should otherwise have been blocked.
Students bypassed the security lock on the device by deleting a personal profile preloaded in the settings — a simple trick that has the school district police chief recommending the board limit the $1 billion rollout (including hardware and other related expenses) before it turns into a “runaway train scenario.”
Afghanistan: ‘$37 Million Aviation Facility May Have Been Used to Store Opium’
September 26th, 2013Your what hurts?
Via: Reuters:
The U.S.-led effort to train the Afghan air force faces big challenges ranging from security threats to possible repercussions from a new review of infrastructure and equipment projects, the U.S. general in charge said.
“This is a hard deal. We’re far from 100-percent guaranteed on delivery,” said Air Force Brigadier General John Michel, who leads NATO Air Training Command Afghanistan, which is due to complete its training of the Afghan air force by December 31, 2017 – three years after most U.S. forces leave Afghanistan.
The one-star general cited progress in training and planning for Afghanistan to assume control over the air force but said many factors were outside his control.
Michel spoke to Reuters this week during the annual Air Force Association conference here.
He said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was re-examining all infrastructure projects after a report that one $37 million aviation facility may have been used to store opium and other concerns raised by Congress.
Research Credit: almaverdad2
Say Hello to Rick Ross
September 26th, 2013Via: Esquire:
Back in the day, Ross would offer the same deal with crack cocaine — to start you out, he’d give you $100 worth for free and you could sell it for $300. Between 1982 and 1989, federal prosecutors estimated, Ross bought and resold three tons of cocaine. In 1980 dollars, his gross earnings were said to be in excess of $900 million — with a profit of nearly $300 million. Converted roughly to present-day dollars: $2.5 billion and $850 million, respectively. As his distribution empire grew to include forty-two cities, the price he paid per kilo of powder cocaine dropped from as much as $60,000 to as low as $10,000. This was partially due to his exponentially increasing network of distributors, as Crips and Bloods struck out across the country to franchise the trade, spreading their gang culture with it… and partially due to his sweetheart connection with a Nicaraguan national who would later be said to have ties to both the CIA and the contra rebels supported during the 1980s by the Reagan administration. (Later this same connect — Oscar Danilo Blandón — would be hired by the DEA as an informant; it was he who would bring Ross into the deal that led to his life sentence.)
Fueled by the findings of an investigation by San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb in 1996, many would come to believe that the CIA had actually created the crack epidemic in America by allowing (or turning a blind eye to) massive shipments of cocaine into the country, the profits from which went to arming rebels fighting a Latin American regime disfavored by our government. Webb also theorized that much of the contra coke (cultivated in Colombia) ended up in the hands of Freeway Rick Ross.
Webb’s revelations were aggressively attacked by the country’s major newspapers, in reports heavy with unnamed government sources. Webb left the paper in disgrace; he was later found dead with two bullets in his head, an apparent suicide. An earlier inquiry led by then-senator John Kerry supported the substance of Webb’s allegations, as did a 1998 report by the CIA’s inspector general. Even many of those who vilified Webb now acknowledge that much of what he reported was true. A minority of the citizenry still believes there was genocidal intent in the CIA’s actions — that the coke was deliberately funneled toward black ghettos as a way of decimating a troublesome population.
Related:
Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb
Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed
How Does Obamacare Affect Americans Living Abroad?
September 26th, 2013*phew* For now, anyway…
However, about 3/4 of Cryptogon readers will be affected by this, so…
Via: Yahoo:
If you’re living outside the US, you don’t have to purchase health insurance by the end of March, 2014, through what will be the newly established health insurance marketplaces in each state. And unlike other citizens residing in the US, you won’t be penalized through a fine for not buying the mandatory insurance. In other words, if you’re an American living abroad throughout 2014, you will be exempt from buying heath insurance and exempt from the penalty for not buying it.
In fact, in order to buy the insurance as an individual, you must be living in the US.
15% in U.S. Shun Internet; Most Intend to Stay Offline
September 26th, 2013Via: AFP:
Despite a seemingly unstoppable move to digital lifestyles, some 15 percent of Americans don’t use the Internet, and most are quite content to remain offline, a survey shows.
The survey released Wednesday found that in addition to the 15 percent of adults who don’t use the Internet on any device, another nine percent say they only go online at their workplace.
The report by the Pew Research Center found a whopping 92 percent of these “offline adults” with no interest in using the Internet or email in the near future.
“A lot of people are surprised to discover that not everyone is online,” said Kathryn Zickuhr, a Pew researcher and author of the report.
“Most offline adults either don’t see the Internet as relevant to them, or feel that it would not be worth the effort. And though many have had some experiences with the Internet in the past, most non-Internet users say they are not interested in going online in the future.”
The survey found 34 percent of the offline Americans said the Internet is not relevant to them, that they are not interested, do not want to use it, or have no need for it.
Another 32 percent in this group said they believe using the Internet is difficult or frustrating to use, or cite issues such as spam, spyware, and hackers.
Pew found 19 percent of non-Internet users cited the expense of owning a computer or online connections, and just seven percent said the Internet was not available to them.
Monsanto Protection Act Left to Expire
September 25th, 2013Via: The Hill:
The Senate bill to keep the government funded will drop a controversial provision that food safety advocates warn lets agricultural giants avoid judicial oversight.
The provision, dubbed the “Monsanto Protection Act,” was extended under the House’s continuing resolution passed last week. Under the Senate bill, it will expire at the end of the month.
Opponents of the measure, which allows biotechnology companies to sell genetically modified seeds even if a court blocks them, cheered the news.
