David Isenberg: 70% of the US Intelligence Community — Contractors — Reasonably Subject to Question on Both Legal and Efficiency Grounds

Corruption, Government
David Isenberg
David Isenberg

From Boox Allen to James Bond

EXTRACT (CONCLUSION):

Ms. Windsor’s bottom line is this:

When the government forms contracts for core governmental functions, particularly in the area of national security, the consequences of problems arising under those contracts can be severe. Preventing those harms is in the United States’ interest, under the two-pronged policy of supporting wise, efficient use of taxpayer dollars while maintaining government control over sovereign activities. Because of the barriers to litigation of such contracts after-the-fact when things go wrong, it is even more important to prevent the contracting out of such functions a priori. The three approaches outlined above recommend that the government use inherently-governmental-functions law to prevent unwise contracting of activities that are core to the United States’ national security, and also to deter similar future cases. This will allow contractors to continue to support government activities efficiently while maintaining a proper balance with government authority and oversight.

Read full commentary with quotes.

Continue reading “David Isenberg: 70% of the US Intelligence Community — Contractors — Reasonably Subject to Question on Both Legal and Efficiency Grounds”

Owl: Trans-Pacific Partnership A Worst Case View

Commerce, Corruption, Government
Who?  Who?
Who? Who?

Another Cog Coming Into Machinery of US Destruction: The Trans-Pacific Partnership

This trade pact is vile beyond words. If passed, it will devastate the US economy, health, well-being and workplace like nothing that has ever come before it, making Clinton's NAFTA look benign by comparison. This may become Obama's greatest and most hostile anti-99% accomplishment as president of the United States.

“Did you know that Barack Obama has been secretly negotiating the most important trade agreement since the formation of the World Trade Organization?  Did you know that this agreement will impose very strict Internet copyright rules, ban all “Buy American” laws, give Wall Street banks much more freedom to trade risky derivatives and force even more domestic manufacturing offshore?

Continue reading “Owl: Trans-Pacific Partnership A Worst Case View”

Owl: US Gestapoization News: “Insider Threat” – Name of American Internal Security Program to Spy and Report on Government Employees

Government, Idiocy
Who?  Who?
Who? Who?

US Gestapoization News: “Insider Threat” – Name of American Internal Security Program to Spy and Report on Government Employees

The ever-expanding US police state is not being extended only to the civilian or private population. It's quietly being extended to the government and military population, too, as proven by the implementation of “Insider Threat.” This new amateur spy program will fail and cause untold misery. Lots of careers of innocent people are destined to be ruined, lots of false accusations and hysterical finger-pointing will create a morbidly paranoid culture in government due to this program, which will fail in it's stated objective to root out “leakers.” Of course, does anyone really believe the officially stated objective of this program is only to find leakers? Maybe it's really about control: extending it, deepening it and widening it by fear, by intimidation and by paranoia. A Stalinist paradise! Welcome to the the “United Stasi of America.”

Continue reading “Owl: US Gestapoization News: “Insider Threat” – Name of American Internal Security Program to Spy and Report on Government Employees”

Paul Craig Roberts: Putin Chews Out G8, Merkel Supports Him — A Must Read!

06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military, Peace Intelligence
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts

Below is a translation from As-Safir, a Lebanese newspaper, July 6, 2013, by Arabic-English translator Eric Mueller. As the translator was not present at the Group of Eight meeting, he cannot vouch for the accuracy of the report, only for the accuracy of the translation. The report by Dawud Rimal does reflect Putin's no-nonsense manner of speaking. The report from As-Safir contrasts with the US coverage.

Diplomatic sources: Putin tells G8 “You want Asad to resign. Look at the leaders you've made in the Middle East.”

MUST READ — Full text below the line.

Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: Putin Chews Out G8, Merkel Supports Him — A Must Read!”

Winslow Wheeler: DoD Financial Mis-Management Destroys Lives — Many of Them Wounded Warriors

Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military
Winslow Wheeler
Winslow Wheeler

Long time financial management reporter Scot Paltrow and his colleague Kelly Carr have written a series, now beginning to appear at Reuters, on the incredible, continuing story of the Pentagon's gross incompetence in managing its own books. The first two pieces of the series follows. The first article is long, but I urge you to read every word. If you think financial management is a green eyeshade-only subject or if you think the Pentagon is making a meaningful, or even good faith, effort at fixing the problem, read on. The anecdotes and the callous DOD incompetence are truly magnetic.

In the story, the Pentagon's CFO (Comptroller Robert Hale) is quoted saying, “We’re not out to screw our own people. The military pay system is just very complex.” He should have added: “But we do sit around and let it happen. We think we have more important things to do”

Indeed, it has been happening since the early 1990s when Congress passed legislation to require DOD to fix all this–legislation that DOD purposefully circumvents.

Today, DOD asserts it has a plan to fix all this: in 2014 it will produce an “audit ready” statement of budgetary resources and by 2017 (close to three decades after the original legislative direction) it will produce an audit of assets. However, it has already been made pretty clear DOD will blow, yet again, the first deadline, and in fact neither of those all too modest goals would fix the horrendous problems that Paltrow and Carr describe below.

After decades of banal rhetoric from Capitol Hill and cynical excuses from DOD, what could possibly fix this? Perhaps these people need some incentives. I would recommend putting all of Capitol Hill and the White House on the DFAS payroll system that this fascinating Reuters series describes below.

Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon's bad bookkeeping

SPECIAL REPORT-How the Pentagon's payroll quagmire traps America's soldiers

Pentagon's paymasters hound a master sergeant

Berto Jongman: As the World Turns

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Byte-sized graphic guide to data storage

Can Security Be Achieved Through Surveillance And Spying?

Even Le Carré's latest fiction can't do justice to Snowden

The New York Times pointed out that the Fisa court had become a “parallel supreme court“. It catered to a mirror universe beyond the reach of Congress or normal courts, servicing a new and burgeoning realm of government and private securocrats. When asked about this world, NSA bosses merely said they could not “jeopardise American security“.

How likely is the NSA PRISM program to catch a terrorist?

Pirate Bay Co-Founder Wants to Build NSA-Proof Messaging App

The State Department’s Arabic outreach team spoofed an al-Qaeda video

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: As the World Turns”

Eagle: Why Should Anyone Ever Trust Microsoft?

Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency
300 Million Talons...
300 Million Talons…

Open Enterprise

How Can Any Company Ever Trust Microsoft Again?

Irrespective of the details of the current revelations about US spying being provided by Edward Snowden in the Guardian, there is already a huge collateral benefit. On the one hand, the US government is falling over itself to deny some of the allegations by offering its own version of the story. That for the first time gives us official details about programmes that before we only knew through leaks and rumours, if at all. Moreover, the unseemly haste and constantly-shifting story from the US authorities is confirmation, if anyone still needed it, that what Snowden is revealing is important – you don't kick up such a fuss over nothing.

Read full article with detailed indictments of Microsoft's betrayal of commercial and public trust.

noble gold