Pilot May Have Targeted IRS in Austin Crash

Because of his expenses and lack of income, Mr. Stack wrote, he didn't file a tax return, prompting an IRS audit that cost him $10,000. He wrote that he had other problems involving “Sheryl's unreported income.”

“I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are,” the author wrote.

Phi Beta Iota: See the small selection below for a sense of the growing rage across America. The Wall Street bail-out has been in our view, “the last straw” for most Americans who wonder why the IRS or any other federal agency is spending time harassing them at the same time that the US Government is doing so many very expensive and highly questionable things including allowing US taxpayer funds to pay multi-million dollar bonuses to individuals who knowingly cheated multiple governments and millions of shareholders. This is called Cognitive Dissonance. The last reference below is to a Chapter 20: 21st Century Counterintelligence: Evaluating the Health of the Nation. We predict a wave of death threats against serving Members of Congress (more of whom will announce their retirement); a wave of threats–many false but intended to distrub–against federal buildings; and a growing wave of civil disobedience reflective of the public's deep anger at the bi-partisan betrayal of the public trust these past forty years. There are 65 political parties in America–63 of them have been locked out of what must be seen as a fraudulent democracy that does not meet minimalist international standards.

Review: Harvest Of Rage–Why Oklahoma City Is Only The Beginning

Review: TYRANNICIDE The Story of the Second American Revolution

Review: Rage of the Random Actor

Review: Dying to Win–The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Hardcover)

Review: Leave Us Alone–Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives

Review: The End of America–Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot

21^st Century Counterintelligence: Evaluating Health of the Nation

2010/02/17

Journal: Goldman Sachs Outed, European Audit Soon?

03 Economy, 08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement

Chuck Spinney

Goldman Goes Rogue – Special European Audit To Follow

Simon Johnson Baseline Scenario February 14, 2009

We now learn – from Der Spiegel last week and today’s NYT – that Goldman Sachs has not only helped or encouraged some European governments to hide a large part of their debts, but it also endeavored to do so for Greece as recently as last November. These actions are fundamentally destabilizing to the global financial system, as they undermine: the eurozone area; all attempts to bring greater transparency to government accounting; and the most basic principles that underlie well-functioning markets. When the data are all lies, the outcomes are all bad – see the subprime mortgage crisis for further detail.

A single rogue trader can bring down a bank – remember the case of Barings. But a single rogue bank can bring down the world’s financial system.

Goldman will dismiss this as “business as usual” and, to be sure, a few phone calls around Washington will help ensure that Goldman’s primary supervisor – now the Fed – looks the other way.

But the affair is now out of Ben Bernanke’s hands, and quite far from people who are easily swayed by the White House. It goes immediately to the European Commission, which has jurisdiction over eurozone budget issues. Faced with enormous pressure from those eurozone countries now on the hook for saving Greece, the Commission will surely launch a special audit of Goldman and all its European clients.

Phi Beta Iota: The balance of the above article is a “must read.”

2010/02/172011/10/22

Journal: Potential End to Two-Party Monopoly

Collective Intelligence, Government

Disillusioned Bayh advocates electoral “shock” to broken system

In an interview on MSNBC this morning, newly retiring Sen. Evan Bayh declared the American political system “dysfunctional,” riddled with “brain-dead partisanship” and permanent campaigning. Flatly denying any possibility that he'd seek the presidency or any other higher office, Bayh argued that the American people needed to deliver a “shock” to Congress by voting incumbents out en masse and replacing them with people interested in reforming the process and governing for the good of the people, rather than deep-pocketed special-interest groups.

Phi Beta Iota: For some time now, since we published ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig, we have sought to do three things: 1) show the 70% that did not vote for President Barack Obama that Electoral Reform is the only thing that will cure Washington, and also the only thing needed to restore the Constitution and the Republic; 2) show Barack Obama, beginning with a memorandum under his hotel room door in Des Moines that he needs to eject the partisans from the White House and begin governing with a coaltion cabinet and an open source decision support network; and 3) show all those who claim to be interested in transpartisan or post-partisan processes that holding hands and singing kum-ba-ya together is not enough–a Strategic Analytic Model is needed, along with a Policy-Budget Outreach Web that allows all citizens to be connected with all relevant information so as to have informed appreciative dialog online, harnessing all humans minds to create a Smart Nation.

We recommend a three-pronged strategy for liberty:

1) Electoral Reform at the state and local level beginning with wide open ballot access for 2010 or we recall every Governor and Secretary of State who persists in protecting the two-party tyranny through restricted ballot access

2) Electoral Reform at the national level–any Member not sponsoring and voting for the Electoral Reform Act in time for 2010 (first four provisions) will be rejected at election or recalled if a Senator not up for reelection.

3) Aggressive state nullification of all federal programs inclusive of income tax levies until such time as the Secretary of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are fully transparent.

We strongly support elected President Barack Obama and elected Vice President Joe Biden. If they cleanse the White House of the partisan hacks (Emmanuel, Axelrod, and Plouffe), get themselves a Chief of Staff that can manage in the public chief, and get themselves an intelligence community leadership able to deliver public decision support on the ten threats and twelve policies to all levels of government, there is every reason to believe that this Administration can still be rescued from itself and that Barack Obama can rise to his rhetorical potential with real non-partisan governance. Absent such a change, he will not be re-elected and an Independent promising a coalition cabinet and an end to winner take all control of Congress will probably win in 2012. America is awake, fed up, and on the move.

See Also (Graphics, Reviews of Solutions, Secession, and Problems)

Continue reading “Journal: Potential End to Two-Party Monopoly”

2010/02/152010/02/15

Happy Birthday Arno Reuser–Master Librarian

08 Wild Cards, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Librarian Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)

PLATINUM LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Arno “The Curious” Reuser

Mr. Arno Reuser, Arno the Curious, is a Master Librarian who has done more for the practice of Open Source Inteligence (OSINT) in support of national security than anyone else in Europe. He has been a pioneer in the explotiation of badly-delivered OSINT from private sector vendors, writing original PERL programs to make sense of their feeds; he has known how to make the most of the Internet; and above all, he has known how to find and engage human intellects around the world, each capable of producing unique tailored knowledge not available online or in print. He is the Master Librarian of the OSINT world and all seven intelligence tribes.

When InterNET is InterNOT (2008)

Virtual Open Source Agency (2006)

Librarian Tradecraft (2003)

2010/02/132010/02/13

Journal: Drones of War

08 Wild Cards, Military

America's Deadly Robots Rewrite The Rules (Sydney Morning Herald)

In the artistry of war, the insertion of a Jordanian double-agent who detonated his explosive vest inside this super-sensitive CIA bunker was flawless. But, in their payback, the enraged Americans confirmed the breadth of a new horizon in modern warfare – launching 15 clinical drone attacks in which more than 100 people died along the border, as Washington's electronic eyes and guns sought out Mehsud and his Taliban and al-Qaeda allies.

War does not get more radical than this – technically, politically and, perhaps, ethically.

Consider: for the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war. . . .

The US Air Force now has more drone operators in training than fighter and bomber pilots.

What Would Errol Flynn Think? (Boston Globe)

The drone has become the weapon of choice against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. CIA director Leon Panetta called it “the only game in town,’’ and the Pentagon recently announced it was doubling drone production. The US Air Force will soon have more drones than fighter aircraft. . . .

As Jane Mayer described it in the New Yorker, he’s sitting at a screen. He can zoom in, see whom he wants to kill, and push a button. Sometimes he sees people running out of targeted houses for cover. This is so common, according to Mayer, that the running people are called “squirters’’ at Langley.

Obama's Drone War: Does The Killing Pay Off? (PoliticsDaily.com)

“The drone attacks have become very effective over time, hitting an increased number of targets, more precisely with less collateral damage,” said Haider Ali Hussein Mullick, a counterinsurgency analyst at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University.

But those stepping into vacant leadership positions, he added, “are more deadly. They do not have strong ideological links. They are dangerous. These are not guys you can talk to.” . . .

These attacks, the resurgence of al-Qaeda, and the flare-up of its operations in Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere, suggest that the campaign to stop terrorists by killing off terrorist leaders has been less than successful.

“Killing leaders supports an illusion of progress, but not the reality,” said John McCreary, former strategic analyst for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

2010/02/12

Journal: Real-Time Intelligence & Information Sharing

10 Transnational Crime, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Real Time

OcPac officers collaborate on drug cases

By Benjamin Brown

GateHouse News Service

Posted Feb 11, 2010 @ 04:00 PM

Scituate —

As a way of dealing with cross-town crime and drug use, Scituate police have banded together with other local departments to pursue cases beyond individual town borders.

Marshfield Police Capt. Phil Tavares founded the coalition, formally known as the Old Colony Police Anti-Crime Task Force, or OcPac.

“The most logical approach to combating fiscal hardships and a surge in crime is to make available and consolidate our tangible and intangible resources, as well as real-time intelligence sharing,” said Tavares.

2010/02/122010/02/12

Handbook: Bullets and Blogs Information Operations

Communities of Practice, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence

Invite your attention to attached — contains a couple of interesting observations about Open Source Intelligence (OSINT):

“…open source intelligence — catapulting it to primary place for new adversaries and increasingly for the U.S. military — and also rapid organizational learning and assembly of capabilities…” [page 9]

“…There are strong indications that Hezbollah made significant use of OSINT — gathering valuable intelligence from Israeli press and news broadcasts as well as websites. Reports suggest that Hezbollah used Israeli press reports to plot the location of its rocket strikes in Israel and may have used Google Earth to help re-calibrate the accuracy of its fire….” [page 56]

Continue reading “Handbook: Bullets and Blogs Information Operations”

Category: Communities of Practice

Journal: Air Rage–More to Come