Government – Page 937 – Public Intelligence Blog

EMPHASIS: The larger result of this cynical behaviour is a widespread moral and mental collapse that is rapidly transforming our experiment in building a government of the people, by the people, and for the people into a sham that is more like a 21st Century corporatist mutation of 18th Century court of Louis XVI.

Viewed retrospectively, the political economy of Versailles on the Potomac admits to only two stages in the life cycle of any government program, be it defense, a bailout of the banks, healthcare reform, or anything else: (1) It is too early to tell, and (2) it is too late to do anything about it.

Nowhere is the decision-making conundrum implied by these stages more clearly evident than in the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex, MICC, particularly in the acquisition of high tech weapon systems, but also in the decision to go to war.

Continue reading “Journal: Chuck Spinney on Moral and Mental Collapse of the Federal Government”

2009/09/072009/09/07

Journal: Markle Foundation Focuses on Lack of Information–We Focus on Lack of Integrity

Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO)

Nation At Risk: Policy Makers Need Better Information to Protect the Country

For all the nation has invested in national security in the last several years, we remain vulnerable to terrorist attack and emerging national security threats because we have not adequately improved our ability to know what we know about these threats.

Phi Beta Iota: The Markle Foundation means well, but like most in the two-party tyranny and its circle of “fellow travelers” this report misses two big points: first, Washington does not lack for information, it lacks for integrity. Second, with integrity, there would not only be plenty of money for both Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) within government, and Public Intelligence outside of government, but we would also recognize, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently noted with commendable integrity: it is our mis-behavior that is the threat. We KNOW what the ten high-level threats to humanity are, LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft helped prioritize them. INTEGRITY. One word. Without it, no amount of information or intelligence will do. Markle, and everyone else, need a strategic analytic model as well as the proven process for doing decision-support–absent that, an appreciation for the essential role that integrity plays, they are as irrelevant or counterproductive as are all courtiers to any corrupt government.

Tip of the Hat: Docuticker from Secrecy News.

2009/08/312011/10/22

Journal: 9-11 Truth Movement–Hanging Fire, Still Explosive

09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Government, Media

THE STORY BEHIND 9/11: HIT OR MYTH? TAKING ON THE TRUTHERS

By MAXINE SHEN August 28, 2009

Read Full Story Online First. Then below Response (provided here because original is behind a Facebook Password Access page).:

The 9/11 Official Story Runs Out of Steam?

by Sander Hicks (pictured in insert by Post at right)

(NEW YORK) You know the world is really coming to an end when the New York Post lets this reporter, a leading 9/11 Truth investigator, be the lead source in their review of the new anti-Truther documentary. The National Geographic Channel’s “9/11: Science and Conspiracy” debuts tonight, Monday, August 31. It is so pathetic, it should be scored a victory for the truth movement.

“9/11 Science and Conspiracy” is fundamentally-misconceived, half hearted, poorly planned, slapped together, badly written, mis-cas, and self-defeating. It contains four scientific “experiments” pulled off in the New Mexico desert by a bunch of pyrotechnic geeks, the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC).

Continue reading “Journal: 9-11 Truth Movement–Hanging Fire, Still Explosive”

2009/08/312009/08/31

Journal: True Cost of Hybrids, Dumb Government

03 Economy, 05 Energy, Commerce, Earth Intelligence, Government, True Cost Meme

Steve Gorman

Sun Aug 30, 2009

As hybrid cars gobble rare metals, shortage looms

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods. . . . . . . .Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed.

Phi Beta Iota: The peresistent refusal of the White House and Congress in particular, all governments in general, to create strategic centers that can provide unclassified decision-support in the context of a strategic analytic model that embraces “true cost” accounting and “cross-policy cost harmonization” means that the USA in particular, and all governments generally, are “dumb” and are therefore in automatic betrayal of the public trust. Current references: Intelligence for Everyone; Fixing the White House; Human Intelligence; The Ultimate Hack.

2009/08/312009/08/31

Journal: US Government Still Inept at 183 Languages, 33 of them Core (including 12 distinct dialects of Arabic)

Government, Law Enforcement, Military

Rowan Scarborough

(Contact)

Originally published 04:45 a.m., August 31, 2009,

EXCLUSIVE: Lack of translators hurts U.S. war on terror

The necessary cadre of U.S. intelligence personnel capable of reading and speaking targeted regional languages such as Pashto, Dari and Urdu “remains essentially nonexistent,” the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wrote in a rare but stark warning in its 2010 budget report.

Phi Beta Iota: This is, eight years after 9-11 and 21 years after General Al Gray called for redirection toward the Third World in his article “Global Intelligence Challenges in the 1990's,” a failure of leadership in Congress, the White House, and of course within the US IC. It is also a failure of imagination. The private sector works in 183 languages–33 of them core languages including 12 distinct dialects of Arabic. Anybody who thinks they can solve this problem with language training for native Americans who qualify for clearances should not be in a leadership position. And if Leon Panetta thinks “doubling” anything from a base of less than ten is significant, he needs a new staff. OSS/EIN can solve this problem in under 90 days. This will not happen because the lack of integrity in this town, combined with the lack of imagination and the lack of accountability, leaves the beltway bandit mafia as the sole beneficiary of the hard-earned taxpayer dollars (and the newly-printed leap of faith dollars). Our domestic enemies are now a much greater threat to the Republic than any combination of foreign enemies.

2009/08/312009/09/06

Journal: Why Do We Need a CIA At All?

10 Security, Government

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Monday, August 31, 2009

By Adam Goldman and Pamela Hess

Secret CIA program used Blackwater recruits

“The question remains: Why do we need Blackwater?” said Charles Faddis, a former department chief at the CIA's Counter-terrorism Center who retired in 2008 and was not involved in the secret program. “I remain mystified. This is quintessential CIA work. You wonder what it means that the CIA has to rely on Blackwater? Why are we still funding the CIA?”

Phi Beta Iota: Restore CIA ownership of the South-Central Campus (or give it back to the estate that granted it to CIA in perpetuity); three SMALL towers there with an over-arching top floor: DNI; Open Source Agency; Multinational Decision-Support Agency. Turn CIA HQS into a technical collection agency with one floor per discipline. Split the CIA analysts between DIA (two all-source analytic centers per floor in now vacated DNI spaces) and Open Source Agency. End all contracting of inherently-governmental functions. Re-boot the clandestine service with an emphasis on multinational clandestine operations run out of regional multinational field stations. CIA has been so badly-managed by a series of Directors going back to George Bush the Pater, it might as well not have existed all these years. How's that for an epitaph?

2009/08/312009/08/31

Journal: US Foreign Policy Toward Honduras Uninformed, Intrusive, Embarassing

02 Diplomacy, Government

US prepares further sanctions against Honduras

Phi Beta Iota: This borders on infantile idiocy. Honduras has a Supreme Court ruling against the ousted President. What we have here is the US still having a big stick but having lost its mind. The Department of State is either embarrassingly stupid, or so politicized that ideological bullies in the partisan ranks are calling the shots. Either way, we all lose.