January 2012 – Page 24 – Public Intelligence Blog

2012/01/13

Eagle: Indefinite detention – Instrument of tyranny

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, DoD, Government, Law Enforcement, Military

Indefinite detention: Instrument of tyranny

By By ALLEN S. KELLER AND YANG-YANG ZHOU

McClatchy, 13 January 2012

When President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve, he codified policies of arbitrary and indefinite detention for terror suspects including possibly U.S. citizens. Alexander Hamilton referred to such policies as the “favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.” Based on our experience in evaluating and caring for victims of torture and human rights abuses from all over the world, Hamilton was right.

Regardless of the law's applicability to U.S. citizens, indefinite detention in a military facility without charge can be tantamount to torture, causing profound health consequences.

Read full article.

2012/01/132012/01/13

USA Comprehensive Annual Financial Statement (CAFR)

Budgets & Funding

Our local government agencies may be whining about the budget and how they don't have enough money resulting in higher taxes, cutting services or both. They cite a budget shortfall and need us to dig them out now! Next time this happens ask them to look at the cash account on the statement of net assets from the comprehensive annual financial report. Say what is a CAFR?

Every governmental agency produces this document by law yet the Federal version is a labyrinth compared to the State level on down. It's simply a statement to the wealth of the government, the sum total of everything we've entrusted them with. Would you say they're doing a lousy job? When we don't have the money from a paycheck we dip into savings and the government has done a great job of saving a giant pile of your money! In the past few years a few politicians have begun to question these savings demanding at least a discussion of them. Here is a story from Oregon detailing one such discussion on how to use the funds.

Recently the most famous case has been CA with their deficits yet lets check the 2010 CAFR, pg 46 they have $25 BILLION sitting in the cash account alone which is invested in federal treasuries and other short term investments. This is the total of decades of over collecting taxes, taking too much from us and yet some of the same people who know this come begging us to pay more taxes! They had over $11 BILLION in receivables; I wonder what the past due ratios are!?

The government isn't a for profit company is it? Wasn't this social contract a giant trust agreement anyway? There is money sitting in the coffers of these government accounts that are controlled by who? That's the real question as you dig deeper and deeper you start to look at pension funds and where that money gets invested and you sum total all the various lower levels on up and the big picture doesn't really surprise you. Time is short so I won't digress into that so lets focus on what we can do.

Look yours up! Google “Comprehensive annual financial statement” (not “CAFR”) and the name of the government entity being researched (lottery, school district, water district, city, county, or state etc). Find the statement of net assets, look at the first line, this is cash! It might be held in short term government debts but its liquid like cash. Lets start forcing this question to be answered whenever we interact with them! Let's ask the hard questions!

There is a lengthy 3 hour documentary on the extent of this scam by Walter Burien who runs a website CAFR1.com detailing the extent of this duplicity. Time is short and the time to act is now so get a handle on the basic idea and just go with it. Look up as many as you can but Walter has most of them listed on his site to save some time. For a great analogy check out this article. Tell everyone who will listen but it is hard to accept, they programmed us well. Time to take the red pill folks.

Tip of the Hat to Patrick Ivy.

Watch 9:59 Video and Learn Much More

Wikipedia / Comprehensive annual financial report

2012/01/12

Bob Dylan: The Times, They Are A’ Changing

Uncategorized

Tip of the Hat to Theophilis Goodyear.

2012/01/122014/01/13

Who’s Who in Peace Intelligence: Col Anthony Pfaff

Alpha M-P, Peace Intelligence

Colonel Tony Pfaff, USA is a Foreign Area Officer for the Middle East and North Africa, currently serving as the Senior Military and Army Advisor to the Department of State. Colonel Pfaff began his military career as an Infantry officer and first served as platoon leader and company executive officer in the 82nd Airborne Division, with whom he deployed to Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. He then served as a company commander and battalion operations officer in the 1st Armored Division, with which he deployed to Operation ABLE SENTRY in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Colonel Pfaff has also served on the faculty at West Point and as the Senior Intelligence Officer for the Joint Staff’s Iraq Intelligence Working Group. He has served twice in Iraq, once as the Deputy J2 for a Joint Special Operations Task Force, and as the Senior Military Advisor for the Civilian Police Assistance Training Program. Most recently, he served as the Defense Attaché in Baghdad and prior to that as the Chief of International Military Affair for Army Central Command and as the Defense Attache Kuwait. He also served as a consultant for the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Procedures headed by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and contributed to the ethics section of the Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual. Colonel Pfaff has a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Economics from Washington and Lee University, a master’s degree in Philosophy from Stanford University, a master’s in National Resource Strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and a doctorate in Philosophy from Georgetown University.

“Risk, Military Ethics, and Irregular Warfare,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, E-Note, December, 2012, http://www.fpri.org/enotes/2011/201112.pfaff.irregularwarfare.html

“Aligning Means and Ends: Towards a New Way of War,” Military Review, September-October, 2011, pp. 78-83

“Ethics in Dangerous Situations,” with Ted Reich, Walter Redman, and Michael Hurley, in Patrick Sweeney and Michael Matthews, Leadership in Dangerous Situations (Naval Institute Press, 2011) pp. 121-138.

Resolving Ethical Challenges in an Era of Persistent Conflict (Strategic Studies Institute, March 29, 2011)

“Bungee Jumping Off the Moral High-ground: The Ethics of Espionage in the Modern Age,” published in Ethics of Spying: A Reader for the Intelligence Professional, Jan Goldman, ed. (Scarecrow Press, 2009)

Development and Reform of the Iraqi Police Forces (Strategic Studies Institute, January 25, 2008)

“Officership and Character,” in The Future of the Army Profession, Don M. Snider, ed. May 2005

The Ethics of Espionage,” in the Journal of Military Ethics, Vol 3, Issue 1, 2004, pp. 1-15

“Officership: Character, Leadership, and Ethical Decision Making” in Military Review January-February 2003, pp. 66-71.

“Military Ethics in Complex Contingencies,” published in The Future of the Army Profession, 2nd Ed., Don Snider and Lloyd Matthews, eds. (McGraw-Hill, 2002), pp. 409-428

Peacekeeping and the Just War Tradition (Strategic Studies Institute, September 01, 2000)

Army Professionalism, the Military Ethic, and Officership in the 21st Century (Strategic Studies Institute, December 01, 1999)

“Toward an Ethics of Detention and Interrogation: Consent and Limits,” published in Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly

“Chaos, Complexity, and the Modern Battlefield,” published in Military Review, pp. 83-86

“Developing Commanders for Peace and War,” with Dr. Don Snider, Major John Nagl, in Culture and Command, Strategic Policy Studies 3 published by The Strategic Policy Studies Group of the Britannia Royal Naval College and Exeter University, 2000.

“Homeland Defense and Issues of Civil Military Relations,” in …to insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence… published by Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, December 2000.With Dr. Don Snider, Major John Nagl,

“Peacekeeping and the Just War Tradition” in Pacem, (Norwegian Military Journal)Issue Nr 2, 2000.

2012/01/122012/01/12

PROPOSAL: 21st Century Governance – Beyond Participatory Budgeting

Collective Intelligence, Methods & Process, Office of Management and Budget, Policies, Reform, Serious Games, Threats, True Cost

Event: 30-31 March 2012 NYC Participatory Budgeting

21st Century Network Governance – Beyond Participatory Budgeting

Participatory budgeting is a very important step in the right direction, but in the larger context of both obstacles presented by corrupt governance and what is possible enabled by the Internet, it can be taken–quickly–to a higher level.

Participatory budgeting is also somewhat ineffective in that the false assumption of the public and private sectors are accepted. True Cost Economics is the only possible foundation for a sustainable public sector and a sustainable private sector, and most participatory budgeting projects have no idea what the difference is between the false budget and the true budget. To discuss budget disposition without seeing, for example, that fracking creates earthquakes and that tar sands consume vast quantities of potable water, is an exercise in futility.

This session will present a very rapid 30 minute overview of the pioneering work done by Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 with 24 co-founders including Medard Gabel (co-creator with Buckminster Fuller of the analog World Game, designer of the current digital EarthGame). Three integral foundations for effective collective intelligence will be introduced:

a. Strategic Analytic Model highlighting the ten high-level threats to humanity ignored by most governments and the twelve core policy areas from Agriculture to Water that are not harmonized by most governments

b. Six Bubbles consisting of an Autonomous Internet connecting an Earth Intelligence (Decision-Support) Network, EarthGame, EarthPolicy, and EarthBudget, all glued together with transpartisan memetics and transitional facilitation. Illustration

c. M4IS2, the new craft of intelligence, no longer secret, expensive or federal–Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information Sharing and Sense Making unites the eight tribes of intelligence (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, non-government / non-profit) to harmonize decisions, policies, budgets, and behavior across all boundaries, by using shared information to achieve shared objectives.

Following the 30 minute illustrated presentation, two discussants will expand on the possibilities, one from a government perspective and the other from a civil society perspective.

The final 30 minutes will be devoted to interactive questions and answers.

It is our hope that the entire session can be video-taped and streamed online for permanent public access.

steele smiling final — Robert David STEELE Vivas

Robert David STEELE Vivas, CEO of Earth Intelligence Network (501c3), has spent 30 years in the intelligence (decision-support) field, and the last twenty helping ninety governments get a grip on open sources of information to create Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). His second book, THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political (2002, also free online) remains the primer for public intelligence in the public interest. He is also the originator of the concept of the Smart Nation, first published in Government Information Quarterly in 1995, and then in THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest (EIN, 2006). He is a former spy, an honorary hacker associated with Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE), the Silicon Valley Hackers Conference (as started by Stewart Brand), and Hactic / Chaos Computer Club in Europe. He is also the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, reading in 98 categories, with all of his reviewed accessible online by category at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. In October he presented his Electoral Reform proposal to Occupy NYC, the six minute video someone else posted went viral. He is one of three candidates for the Reform Party presidential nomination, and has created a web site, We the People Reform Coalition, that represents the next level in participatory governance, integrating Electoral Reform, a Coalition Cabinet and Balanced Budget that are crowd-sourced and presented in advance of election day, and a commitment to True Cost Economics. In June 2012 Random House / Evolver Editions is releasing his newest book, THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth, & Trust.

2012/01/12

Event: 18-21 June 2012 NYC Games for Change Festival

Advanced Cyber/IO, Games Serious / Change

JUNE 18 – 20: 9^THANNUAL GAMES FOR CHANGE FESTIVAL

We will return to the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts for this year’s Festival on June 18-20. Our call for talks, panels and presentations goes live this month, and you can begin registering for the Festival in mid February.

This year's Festival will include Opening Night Festivities, a Game Arcade, Keynotes, the Games for Change Awards and Ceremony, Games for Learning Institute @ Games for Change Festival, Youth Game Design Workshops, Game Demo Spotlight, and more.

Follow Games for Change at www.gamesforchange.org.

2012/01/12