NY Post Pisses Its Pants Over Terrorism Homework; And You Should Too
Ryan Singel
WIRED, 29 October 2012
The New York Post is quivering in fear and outrage over a graduate level course for intelligence analysts that requires students to write a fake terrorism plot, complete with methods of execution, sources of funding, number of operatives needed and the target government’s reaction.
Students, who are training for intelligence and counterterrorism careers, must take into account the “goals, capabilities, tactical profile, targeting pattern and operational area,” the syllabus states — according to the Post‘s harrowing story Monday.
The Post‘s crack investigative team uncovered the covert training of terrorists by obtaining the syllabus of the class offered by NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs.
ROBERT STEELE: In 1990-1994, when I was active in supporting Winn Schwartau (Terminal Compromise, Information Warfare) and Peter Black (RIP) among others including Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE), we were called traitors and lunatics for identifying vulnerabilities in the system. Among the other so-called traitors and lunatics that I continue to hold in very high regard were Air War College field grade officers who did utterly superb work on the vulnerabilities of the financial, electrical, and communications systems of the USA. No one wanted to listen — they just wanted to shut us up. Even a letter to Marty Harris, at the National Information Infrastructure, collating inputs from Jim Anderson at NSA, Winn Schwartau, and Bill Caelli of Australia, was ignored — not even the courtesy of a reply. The US Government never lacks for warning — it lacks for integrity in not being able to process weak signals that are not accompanied with a substantial political campaign contribution. In the US military “vulnerabilities” are classified, which has the direct effect of giving a lifetime monopoly on “fixes” and budget over-runs to the original dishonest ineffective contractor. The reluctance among policy makers, acquisition managers, and even operational commanders (what do you mean, my aviation is not 100% available?) to receive the truth, much less demand the truth, is the sucking chest wound in governance, depriving the government of the legitimacy as well as the capacity to do what it is supposed to do in the public interest. As we enter the 21st Century, the self-imposed financial crisis and national depression have exhausted our ability to borrow and to pursue a path that leaves roughly 50% of every federal dollar in the fraud, waste, and abuse bin. Now is the time to restore intelligence and integrity to the US Government, across all of the mission areas. Doing so is the fastest, least expensive, most moral means of getting right with God, Country, Service, and Self. In passing, it can get us a 450-ship Navy, a long-haul Air Force, an air-deliverable Army and a Whole of Government PPBS/E capable of leveraging all of the instruments of national power so as to create a prosperous world at peace as a context for the USA restoring its national security and competitiveness.
See Also:
“The righter we do the wrong thing, the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. This is very significant because almost every problem confronting our society is a result of the fact that our public policy makers are doing the wrong things and are trying to do them righter.” (Ackoff 2004)
Graphic: Ethical Evidence-Based Decisions
Graphic: Four Forces After Next with IO
Graphic: Public Governance in the 21st Century
21st Century Intelligence Core References 2007-2013
2011 Peace from Above: Future of Intelligence & Air Power
2010: OPINION–America’s Cyber Scam
2008 U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century
2001 Threats, Strategy, and Force Structure: An Alternative Paradigm for National Security
1994 Sounding the Alarm on Cyber-Security
