U.S. Intelligence Official: Privacy Is a Soviet Style Bureaucracy That Knows Everything About You
November 12th, 2007In other words, anonymity is out, but trust us to implement, “a system of laws, rules, and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General, oversight committees, and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured.”
You can already see where this is going: We don’t want to do this, but the terrorists give us no choice. Besides, you have no anonymity anyway. (Read the full transcript.)
This isn’t a question of some theoretical, far out situation in the future.
It’s built. Done. Operational:
NSA, AT&T and the NarusInsight Intercept Suite
Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation
AT&T Invents Programming Language for Mass Surveillance
Mark Klein on AT&T/NSA Domestic Surveillance Program: “The NSA is Getting Everything.â€
The Ugly Truth About Online Anonymity
Anyone who doubts it hasn’t been paying attention.
Via: Arstechnica:
Donald Kerr, a top intelligence official with the US government, says that citizens need to change their definition of privacy to match the government’s definition, the AP reports. Appointed Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in 2005, Kerr is now the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Kerr is one of many in the intelligence community who finds Americans’ views on privacy to be antiquated and unreasonable.
Kerr echoes the view that privacy is not synonymous with anonymity. Americans who want to see anonymity at the center of privacy policies need to give up this notion, he says. “Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity; and it’s an idea that is deeply rooted in American culture… but in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity – or the appearance of anonymity – is quickly becoming a thing of the past,” Kerr said according to a PDF transcript of his comments.
Americans need to shift their definition of privacy to center instead on the proper maintenance and protection of personal data by government and business entities. Kerr said that “privacy, I would offer, is a system of laws, rules, and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General, oversight committees, and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured. And it is that framework that we need to grow and nourish and adjust as our cultures change.”
Asian Markets Selling Off
November 12th, 2007WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Again, watch gold today. Lots of speculators are going to have to cover their long equity bets by exiting gold positions. How much interest is lurking just beneath the spread on gold?
We’ll see.
Via: MarketWatch:
Asian indexes fell sharply Monday, with Japan’s two main indexes falling below their 52-week lows as the yen’s brisk appreciation hurt exporters such as Honda Motor Co., while Hong Kong stocks tumbled on continued selling in China-related issues such as PetroChina Co. and China Mobile.
The Nikkei 225 average fell 3.3% to 15,065.42 in the morning session, in the wake of a continued sell-off on Wall Street Friday. Earlier in the day, it fell as low as 14,998.51, a level it hasn’t seen since July last year. The broader Topix index lost 2.8% at 1,452.28, after falling as low as 1,440.29, its lowest level since June 2006, earlier in the day.
New U.S. Army Helicopters Unsafe to Fly on Hot Days
November 11th, 2007This is my favorite story today.
Via: Boston Globe:
The Army is spending $2.6 billion on hundreds of European-designed helicopters for homeland security and disaster relief that have a crucial flaw: They are not safe to fly on hot days, according to an internal report obtained by the Associated Press.
While the Army scrambles to fix the problem, potentially adding millions to the taxpayer cost, at least one high-ranking lawmaker is calling for the deal to be scrapped.
During flight tests in Southern California in mild 80-degree weather, cockpit temperatures in the UH-72A Lakota soared above 104 degrees, the point at which the Army says the communication, navigation, and flight-control systems can overheat and shut down.
No cockpit equipment failed during the nearly 23 hours of testing, according to the report, prepared for the Army in July. But it concluded that the aircraft “is not effective for use in hot environments.”
The Army said that to fix the problem it will take the highly unusual step of adding air conditioners to many of the 322 helicopters ordered.
Chinese Sub Pops Up in Middle of U.S. Navy Exercise
November 11th, 2007There are a few navy.mil readers who haven’t been blocked from reading Cryptogon… So, any guesses on why that Chinese sub didn’t show up on active sonar? (Not holding my breath for a response.)
Update: The Story Appears to be Over a Year Old
Via: Daily Mail:
When the U.S. Navy deploys a battle fleet on exercises, it takes the security of its aircraft carriers very seriously indeed.
At least a dozen warships provide a physical guard while the technical wizardry of the world’s only military superpower offers an invisible shield to detect and deter any intruders.
That is the theory. Or, rather, was the theory.
American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast U.S.S. Kitty Hawk – a 1,000ft supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board.
By the time it surfaced the 160ft Song Class diesel-electric attack submarine is understood to have sailed within viable range for launching torpedoes or missiles at the carrier.
According to senior Nato officials the incident caused consternation in the U.S. Navy.
The Americans had no idea China’s fast-growing submarine fleet had reached such a level of sophistication, or that it posed such a threat.
One Nato figure said the effect was “as big a shock as the Russians launching Sputnik” – a reference to the Soviet Union’s first orbiting satellite in 1957 which marked the start of the space age.
The incident, which took place in the ocean between southern Japan and Taiwan, is a major embarrassment for the Pentagon.
The lone Chinese vessel slipped past at least a dozen other American warships which were supposed to protect the carrier from hostile aircraft or submarines.
And the rest of the costly defensive screen, which usually includes at least two U.S. submarines, was also apparently unable to detect it.
According to the Nato source, the encounter has forced a serious re-think of American and Nato naval strategy as commanders reconsider the level of threat from potentially hostile Chinese submarines.
Military Releases Heavily Redacted Report on Directed Energy Weapon Accident
November 10th, 2007Don’t microwave me, bro!
Via: Wired:
Seven months after an airman was burned in a test of the nonlethal heat beam, the Air Force has released a heavily redacted version of the mishap report that reveals few details about what happened.
The military has bent over backwards to demonstrate to the public that the Active Denial System (ADS), a millimeter wave directed energy weapon that heats up the top layer of skin, is a well-tested nonlethal weapon, and not a scary microwave weapon with unknown health effects. For example, last month, they staged demonstrations of ADS for reporters at Quantico.
That’s why the Air Force Safety Center’s decision to sanitize the report is a big setback. Full of dark black lines, redacted pages, and white space through anything that would actually provide any substance on what happened was described, the best I can get out of the report is that the mishap was a combination of technical problems with the system possibly compounded with operator error (but it’s not clear from the redacted version).
…
The injury cost the military $17,748.00.
Related: Several Posts on Cryptogon About ADS
Cryptogon Readers Contribute $50 and $100!
November 10th, 2007Eileen sent $50 and Cryingfreeman sent $100. These are core contributors. Their generosity is astonishing. Thank you.
Lifelines for the Drowning Dollar
November 10th, 2007Investing Very Close to Home: Shelter, Water, Food, Security/Community.
Collapsitalism: What I’d Keep in My Collapse Portfolio: Analysis on how to protect your assets (and profit) from this dire situation.
Investing in Oil, Food, Alternative Energy, Gold or Water? Yes, All of the Above: Many eggs, many baskets.
Cryptogon’s Strategic Bearish Call on the Dollar, April 2007: “I’m not trying to make traders out of you guys, or frighten anyone, but there is a good chance that we are about to lose cabin pressure on the U.S. Dollar.”
Via: Wall Street Journal:
Dollar weakness is neutralizing the positive effects of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate cuts. As the dollar spirals downward, weakened by Washington’s indifference and market expectations of more rate cuts, liquidity drains from the U.S. into inflation hedges like gold and, in the case of entrepreneurship and risk-taking capital, to countries with strengthening currencies. This drain undercuts the growth impact of the Fed’s recent rate cuts, complicating the recovery from the August credit-market turbulence. Question: What’s harder to sell than a complex loan during a credit crunch? A dollar-denominated one.
Foreign countries are suffering the opposite phenomenon. Global investors want to buy more in strong-currency countries, heating up those countries’ economies, land values and stock markets. If their central banks hike rates, as China has been doing and Australia did on Nov. 7, it invites even more capital inflows in search of higher yields and currency appreciation, reinforcing the upward currency spiral.
Chart: The Cost of the War in Iraq vs. Spending on Solar Energy Research
November 10th, 2007In The Power Crisis Mythology, the 40% Efficient Solar Cell and the Cost of the War in Iraq, I wrote:
Spectrolab, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing, has developed a solar cell technology that has a conversion efficiency of 40.7%. They accomplished this with a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The annual budget of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory: $210 million
The cost of America’s war in Iraq per day: $300 million
The U.S. spends more on the war in Iraq in one day (about $300 million) than it does on the ANNUAL BUDGET for the primary government laboratory that is tasked with renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. As absurd as that is, a recipient of a grant from this lab has developed a 40% efficient solar cell.
What if that lab had the funding equivalent of what the U.S. is spending on the war over a period of two or three days?
In that post, I also wrote that the energy scarcity argument is like the American dream: you’d have to be asleep to believe it. But that was far too kind.
You’d have to be retarded. Or in on the swindle.
The world is suffering under a good, old fashioned shakedown. Think about this obscene chart the next time you fill your vehicle with gasoline, or the lights go out, or your power bill goes up, or smog burns your throat:
Clean energy is expensive? Hmm.
Via: Solar Power Rocks:
These figures are in millions. The source for energy R&D expenditures is from the National Council for Science and the Environment. Take a look here: http://www.ncseonline.org/Affiliates/Handbook/cms.cfm?id=904
Though the war in Iraq now costs about $120B a year, two authors (one a Nobel prize winner) estimates the total cost of this war exceeds 2 Trillion Dollars: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15499.htm
…
That $2,000,000,000,000? Well, that amount of money could’ve built solar thermal plants here that would have provided energy for 2/3rds of our nation’s energy demand…
More: Energy Scarcity vs. Cost of the War in Iraq
Wave Power Attracts Investors
November 10th, 2007BIG investors.
And it’s fascinating, the shit-for-brains level of context that Business Week manages here: “…if wave power becomes commercially viable.”
A far more fascinating question is why and how it didn’t become viable over forty years ago?! Who died, and who made a killing?
Think of it another way: The U.S. landed guys on the moon—decades ago—but building a linear induction wave buoy is somehow a big engineering challenge…
Uh, duh, ok, thanks Business Week. Yep, uh, duhhh, wave power = hard. Thx again.
Via: Business Week:
Anyone who has ever been swimming in the ocean knows the awesome power of waves: They can toss large boats about like bathtub toys even during mild weather, or crush buildings to bits during storms. As oil prices rise and concerns over the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels keep growing, more companies are becoming interested in capturing the energy contained in those massive walls of water to help meet the ever-rising demand for electric power.
Although there are companies currently working on devices to capture the power of waves, their technologies are not nearly as refined as those for wind and solar power. They are beginning to attract the interest of large electric utilities and industrial equipment manufacturers hoping to cash in if wave power becomes commercially viable.
Like it or Not, $100 Oil Forces New Energy Policy on U.S.
November 10th, 2007“The reality is that the oil companies are going to lift our wallets and then flip us upside down to shake loose any change that may have remained in our pockets.”
—From an upcoming Cryptogon essay
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. BP solar panels, Chevron wave power, etc… Who knows? Cheney’s Own Organic Organs and Entrails?
The usual suspects are going to be powering clean green fascism, alright, but there’s still a lot of oil to be sold at $100 or more per barrel.
Via: USA Today:
The reality is that $96 oil will accomplish more than all of the energy bills passed in the last generation combined. Painful, yes. Troubling, absolutely. But perhaps the only force powerful enough to alter the way America fuels its economy.
