Category: Peace Intelligence

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Freedom Box: The Short Pitch as of March 2011

Advanced Cyber/IO, Autonomous Internet, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), microfinancing, Mobile, Peace Intelligence, Privacy, Real Time, Reform, Technologies

FreedomBox right now as I see it

by James Vasile as posted to HackerVisions, a blog at the intersection of Freedom, Technology, & Community

People have been asking me for a short description of the FreedomBox that doesn’t get too technical but also gets into some details. So here’s my capsule pitch, a short form version of how I see the FreedomBox right now:

The FreedomBox just raised $80K in donations via Kickstarter (the campaign is still going on, if you want to donate) on the strength of positive press in the NYTimes, WSJ, Wired and CBS Evening News. We’re at the very beginning of putting together a team to build this thing. This week we will announce our tech lead, an A+ name with the experience and contacts to lead our architecture design.

Continue reading “Freedom Box: The Short Pitch as of March 2011”

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From Middle East, Dignity Movement Finds Its Feet

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
John Steiner
This article is adapted from a talk that Bob Fuller recently gave at a TEDx event in Berkeley, appearing in both Huffington Post and Psychology Today.   Both versions are linked here.

Robert Fuller Author, “Somebodies and Nobodies” and “All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity”
Huffington Post, March 6, 2011 08:02 PM The Dignity Movement Finds Its Feet
Psychology Today, March 6, 2011 The Dignity Movement Finds Its Feet

Dignity is not negotiable.
– Vartan Gregorian

Dignity on the March

Across North Africa and the Middle East to South and East Asia, the hunger for dignity is driving unrest and heralding social transformation. Everywhere, people are refusing to be taken for nobodies; they're demanding to be treated like somebodies.

A new dream is taking hold: people are sensing the possibility of building societies in which dignity is universal and secure. Life is hard, yes, and we remain vulnerable to natural catastrophes, but couldn't we disallow the indignities to which we subject one another?

Click here for the Psychology Today version….

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Afghanistan: Too Many Contractors, No Accountability

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Commerce, Corruption, IO Sense-Making, Military, Peace Intelligence

SECRECY NEWS EXTRACT:

DOD CONTRACTORS IN AFGHANISTAN AT A RECORD HIGH

The number of private security contractors employed by the Department of Defense in Afghanistan has reached a new record high, according to DoD statistics in a recently updated report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

Continue reading “Afghanistan: Too Many Contractors, No Accountability”

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Pentagon Contractors Baby Gaga on Steroids

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Government, Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, Technologies, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Richard Wright

There is no doubt that, Pentagon Labyrinth is a first rate piece of work.  However it did fail to mention an additional factor in defense procurement costs that is often overlooked and that is the need to subsidize U.S. defense industry giants such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman and General Dynamics. This also explains the over elaborate use of sub-contracting since the boutique sub-contractors used by the defense giants often produce key components for weapon systems so also must be given a portion of the subsidies. Boeing is the only major defense contractor that even makes a pretense of also dealing in commercial aircraft.  Lockheed, Northrop, and General Dynamics along with their networks of sub-contractors are virtually entirely dependent on government contracts or contracts from the government’s foreign clients for their continued existence.

Continue reading “Pentagon Contractors Baby Gaga on Steroids”

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How Many [Taliban Wistful] Ahmeds in Afghanistan?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends....

Background: According to an Afghan friend, the author of this piece was sacked from her job at IWPR, by the British, because she insisted on publishing an unpleasant truth in an article. Now she works free-lance and she’s free to publish exactly what she sees and hears. CS

Those Good Old Taliban Days

A desperate longing for order in the midst of today’s chaos is making many Afghan nostalgic for a simpler time.

Jean MacKenzie, GlobalPost, 5 March 2011

“I hate this country,” said my taxi driver. “Any other country is better. I like Pakistan, I would move to Iran. Afghanistan is just not a good place.”

This categorical announcement in the midst of a bright, sunny Saturday morning was prompted by a rather nasty traffic jam. Cars were lined up to get into the swanky new Gulbahar shopping center, blocking two lanes of a busy road. It did not help that the entrance to the parking garage – the first one I have seen in Afghanistan – had room for only one car at a time. There was a brawny 4X4 trying to get out, a scrappy Toyota trying to get in; neither was willing to give way, so roughly a dozen drivers were blowing their horns and ruining my otherwise benign mood.

I made some noncommittal comment about poor Afghanistan being the war playground for the region, but my driver, let’s call him Ahmed, was having none of it.

“It’s not the English, or the Soviets, or the Americans,” he insisted. “It’s the people. They love to fight. They are dishonest. Everyone, from Karzai right on down to the smallest child.”

Continue reading “How Many [Taliban Wistful] Ahmeds in Afghanistan?”

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Libya Internet Flatlines–Spurs Autonomous Internet

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Autonomous Internet, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, Peace Intelligence, Technologies

Libya Internet is down again, according to Google tool

March 4, 2011 | 10:22 am  Los Angeles Times

Libya-traffic

Libya has shut off the Internet again, according to a Google monitoring tool.

As of about 8 a.m. PST Thursday (or 6 p.m. in Tripoli, Libya's capital), the nation's Internet traffic began to flatline, and has been at zero since, says Google's Transparency Report.

Phi Beta Iota: While the world watches Libya, the USA is in the process of making the Internet a monopoly that can charge by the application instead of by the packet.  In brief, Internet “neutrality” is a  fraud in the USA, and the FCC is a front for the very large ISP's just as the Federal Reserve is a front for the private banks.  Autonomous Internet is something that matters everywhere, including especially the USA.

See Also:

Autonomous Internet (55)

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Crisis Mapping Libya: This Is No Haiti…

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Mobile, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time
Michael Ostrolenk Recommends...

Crisis Mapping Libya: This is No Haiti

Patrick Meier

March 4, 2011 at 8:14 am

We activated the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF) on March 1st and quickly launched a Crisis Map of Libya to support humanitarian preparedness opera-tions. This is the largest deployment of the Task Force since it was formed at the 2010 International Conference on Crisis Mapping in Boston (ICCM 2010). I'm amazed at how far we've come since the response to the Haiti earthquake.

Phi Beta Iota: We've been championing Open Everything since 1988, each year growing from our first realization that Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) was urgently needed to bring government back to accountability, legitimacy, and sanity through transparency.  Below are two graphics, two briefings and two chapters that summarize our recent work in this area.  Here we want to emphazize the emergence of the Autonomous Internet Road Map and the fact that the Crisis Mapping initiative is a very strong manifestation of the power of public intelligence in the public interest.

See Also:

Graphic: Open Everything

Graphic: Intelligence Maturity Scale

2010 M4IS2 Briefing for South America — 2010 M4IS2 Presentacion por Sur America (ANEPE Chile)

2010 The Ultimate Hack Re-Inventing Intelligence to Re-Engineer Earth (Chapter for Counter-Terrorism Book Out of Denmark)

2007 Open Everything: We Won, Let’s Self-Govern

Seven Answers–Robert Steele in Rome