Communities of Practice – Page 805 – Public Intelligence Blog

Everybody play nice together while the bulk of already inadequate and dwindling resources are weighted to Navy and Air Force in the Pacific. [Oh, BTW, in separate Armed Forces Journal reporting, twp Army officers, a major general and a colonel, assert that former Chief of Naval Operations ADM (Ret) Gary Roughead and Hoover Institution analyst Kori Schake have recommended in a recent presentation at the Brookings Institution, that, “The active duty Army would be reduced by 200,000 soldiers from the 490,000 planned for the FY 2013 budget” to pay for it.

The Future Of Joint Operations

Real Cooperation for Real Threats

By Martin E. Dempsey

ForeignAffairs.com, June 20, 2013

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: The Future of Joint Operations”

2013/06/23

Marcus Aurelius: Jim Bamford on Five Myths About NSA

Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Military

Five Myths About The National Security Agency

By James Bamford

Washingtonpost.com, June 21, 2013

When the National Security Agency was created through a top-secret memorandum signed by President Harry Truman in 1952, the agency was so secret that only a few members of Congress knew about it. While the NSA gradually became known over the decades, its inner workings remain extremely hidden, even with the recent leaks about its gathering of Americans' phone records and tapping into data from the nine largest Internet companies. Let's pull back the shroud a bit to demystify this agency.

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2013/06/222013/06/22

Michael Hastings: In Memory — His Last Article — Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans While Betraying the Public Trust in Every Possible Sense of the Term

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government

Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans

Besides Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, most Democrats abandoned their civil liberty positions during the age of Obama. With a new leak investigation looming, the Democrat leadership are now being forced to confront all the secrets they’ve tried to hide.For most bigwig Democrats in Washington, D.C., the last 48 hours has delivered news of the worst kind — a flood of new information that has washed away any lingering doubts about where President Obama and his party stand on civil liberties, full stop.

Glenn Greenwald’s exposure of the NSA’s massive domestic spy program has revealed the entire caste of current Democratic leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security.

“Everyone should just calm down,” Senator Harry Reid said yesterday, inhaling slowly.

That’s right: don’t panic.

The very topic of Democratic two-facedness on civil liberties is one of the most important issues that Greenwald has covered. Many of those Dems — including the sitting President Barack Obama, Senator Carl Levin, and Sec. State John Kerry — have now become the stewards and enhancers of programs that appear to dwarf any of the spying scandals that broke during the Bush years, the very same scandals they used as wedge issues to win elections in the Congressional elections 2006 and the presidential primary of 2007-2008.

Continue reading “Michael Hastings: In Memory — His Last Article — Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans While Betraying the Public Trust in Every Possible Sense of the Term”

2013/06/222013/06/22

John Robb: Every Person Must be Considered a Potential Terrorist — Local to Global Education, News, and Social Media Must be Controlled (Satire)

Government, Idiocy, Law Enforcement

Positive Control

When something is very dangerous, like nuclear weapons, standard forms of protections and control methodologies aren't sufficient.

Something that potentially dangerous needs something more aggressive.

In the military, that's called positive control.

Positive control is an active form of control where the dangerous item is under 24x7x365 monitoring, checking, patrolling, testing, etc.

In this type of system, no information = danger. Alarm bells sound when the feeds and system checks monitoring the item go dark.

This is the opposite of the type of security and law enforcement we're used to in our daily lives. These systems are best described as negative control systems.

Negative control systems are focused on detecting exceptions. A crime. Good behavior is expected. As a result, this system only takes action when a failure occurs.

Positive security and People

Positive security can apply to people too, if they are dangerous enough.

Continue reading “John Robb: Every Person Must be Considered a Potential Terrorist — Local to Global Education, News, and Social Media Must be Controlled (Satire)”

2013/06/222013/06/22

David Swanson: US Government Abuse of “Orders of Protection” to Detain, Interrogate, and Disarm wihtout Due Process Any Peace Activists

Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement

Anti-Drone Activists Stopped at U.S. Canadian Border due to “Orders of Protection” given by court to Commander of Drone Base

By Charley Bowman

In mid-June, 2013, Western New York Peace Center board member Valerie Niederhoffer was stopped and interrogated for several hours at the U.S.-Canadian border when returning to the US from an afternoon doing Tai Chi in Canada with friendsi.

The U.S. immigration and customs officer entered Val's name into his computer system and discovered Val had an Order of Protection. He then asked her to pull over for an extended interview.

Orders of Protection (restraining orders) are generally given for spousal abuse, but this unique Order of Protection has been given to activists who have been arrested for challenging the U.S. assassin drone policies.

Continue reading “David Swanson: US Government Abuse of “Orders of Protection” to Detain, Interrogate, and Disarm wihtout Due Process Any Peace Activists”

2013/06/222013/06/22

NIGHTWATCH: China Manages North Korea

02 China, 08 Wild Cards, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace, Peace Intelligence

North Korea-China: Xinhua published remarks of Chinese State Councilor and former Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, who held discussions today, 21 June.

“Yang said: Positive results have been achieved in the strategic dialogue between foreign affairs departments of the two countries. China is willing to work with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to promote the sound and stable development of relations between the two countries. China insists on actualizing non-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, insists on maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula, and insists on resolving issues through dialogue and consultation. Currently, an easing momentum has emerged in the situation on the peninsula, which is nevertheless still complex and sensitive. It is hoped that all parties will actively engage in dialogue and contact, push for the situation to continue to turn better, and seek an early resumption of the six-party talks.”

“Kim said: Friendship between the DPRK and China has a long history. It is hoped that the two sides will inherit it and carry it forward. Non-nuclearization of the peninsula is the instruction left behind by President Kim Il-song and General Secretary Kim Chong-il. The DPRK hopes the situation on the peninsula will ease, insists on resolving issues through dialogue, and is willing to take part in various forms of dialogue including the six-party talks.”

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2013/06/21

Berto Jongman: Who Murdered Michael Hastings? Why? How?

Corruption, Government

None of this can be validated.

Email Sent by Michael Hastings Hours Before His Death Mentions ‘Big Story’ and a Need to ‘Go Off the Radar’ (The Blaze)

Is Journalist Michael Hastings a Victim of Obama’s Assassination Policy? (InfoWars)

Michael Hastings researching Jill Kelley case before death (LA Times)

Michael Hastings, the FBI, and WikiLeaks: Death of Journalist Sparks Conspiracy Theories (New York Magazine)

Photos and video from the aftermath show extreme wreckage, and as of yesterday, the coroner had not officially identified the body because it was too badly burned.

But an automotive writer also fed the doubters:

I’m here to state that I’ve seen dozens of cars hit walls and stuff at high speeds and the number of them that I have observed to eject their powertrains and immediately catch massive fire is, um, ah, zero. Modern cars are very good at not catching fire in accidents. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, which is an evolutionary design from a company known for sweating the safety details over and above the Euro NCAP requirements, should be leading the pack in the not-catching-on-fire category. Nor is the C-Class known for sudden veering out of control into trees and whatnot.

Questions surround death of journalist Michael Hastings (World Socialist Web Site)

Top US Journalist Attempting To Reach Israeli Consulate Assassinated (Sorhca Faal)

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Who Murdered Michael Hastings? Why? How?”