Idiocy – Page 92 – Public Intelligence Blog

Of note:

Just to show us that the national security state doesn't lack for a wicked sense of ironic humor, I see this DARPA topic in the new SBIR
solicitation out today:

“Investigate the national security threat posed by public data available either for purchase or through open sources. Based on
principles of data science, develop tools to characterize and assess the nature, persistence, and quality of the data. Develop tools for
the rapid anonymization and de-anonymization of data sources. Develop framework and tools to measure the national security impact of public data and to defend against the malicious use of public data against national interests.”

(Personally, I'd recommend (1) re-engineering government to see openness as less of a threat, and to focus on making vulnerable
systems, where the government has a responsibility, less so, e.g., ratchet back stock trading so it's not the province of millisecond
traders and flash crashes, but actually first serves the need for capital investment; and (2) giving *everyone*, and not just the state,
more privacy in their transactions on what are essentially common carriers… this “metadata” being snarfed up by the NSA is data about *me*, and I want to pay Verizon to complete my phone calls, not to be in the “information about me” business.)

Learn More at DARPA Call

2013/07/262013/07/26

Chuck Spinney: Sick People at the Aspen Summit — “Extermination” Fantasies of the Empire

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Media, Military

What kind of people are running American? Here are some insights.

Shocking ‘Extermination' Fantasies By the People Running America's Empire on Full Display at Aspen Summit

Security Forum participants expressed total confidence in American empire, but could not contain their panic at the mention of Snowden.

AlterNet / By Max Blumenthal, July 25, 2013

Seated on a stool before an audience packed with spooks, lawmakers, lawyers and mercenaries, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer introduced recently retired CENTCOM chief General James Mattis. “I’ve worked with him and I’ve worked with his predecessors,” Blitzer said of Mattis. “I know how hard it is to run an operation like this.”

Reminding the crowd that CENTCOM is “really, really important,” Blitzer urged them to celebrate Mattis: “Let’s give the general a round of applause.”

Following the gales of cheering that resounded from the room, Mattis, the gruff 40-year Marine veteran who once volunteered his opinion that “it’s fun to shoot some people,” outlined the challenge ahead. The “war on terror” that began on 9/11 has no discernable end, he said, likening it to the “the constant skirmishing between [the US cavalry] and the Indians” during the genocidal Indian Wars of the 19th century.

“The skirmishing will go on likely for a generation,” Mattis declared.

Mattis’ remarks, made beside a cable news personality who acted more like a sidekick than a journalist, set the tone for the entire 2013 Aspen Security Forum this July. A project of the Aspen Institute, the Security Forum brought together the key figures behind America’s vast national security state, from military chieftains like Mattis to embattled National Security Agency Chief General Keith Alexander to top FBI and CIA officials, along with the bookish functionaries attempting to establish legal groundwork for expanding the war on terror.

Partisan lines and ideological disagreements faded away inside the darkened conference hall, as a parade of American securitocrats from administrations both past and present appeared on stage to defend endless global warfare and total information awareness while uniting in a single voice of condemnation against a single whistleblower bunkered inside the waiting room of Moscow International Airport: Edward Snowden.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Sick People at the Aspen Summit — “Extermination” Fantasies of the Empire”

2013/07/252013/07/25

Marcus Aurelius: Democratic Defense Play-Book — Truman Security Briefing Book Edition 5 — Idiocy Lite

Cultural Intelligence, Idiocy, Military

From Politico Morning Defense:

FIRST LOOK – THE STRONG-ON-DEFENSE PLAYBOOK: A leading national-security think tank is releasing the latest edition of its annual briefing book, which has become a kind of playbook for strong-on-defense Democrats. The Truman National Security Project, which spent more than $90,000 during the 2012 presidential campaign to help defeat Republican Mitt Romney, has been working to build a coalition of center-left members of Congress with strong records on defense – and its briefing book offers messaging strategies for countering Republican defense hawks.

The book, an advance copy of which was provided to Morning D, urges an increased emphasis on diplomacy and alliance-building and says the U.S. should remain committed to the international community as it withdraws from Afghanistan and cuts its defense budget. The group is scheduled to hold a launch event this evening in Washington attended by Doug Wilson, former assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs, who recently joined the think tank as a senior fellow. We've got the rundown, for Pros: http://politico.pro/1c226p4. And here's a first look at the full briefing book: http://bit.ly/18yag6a.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Democratic Defense Play-Book — Truman Security Briefing Book Edition 5 — Idiocy Lite”

2013/07/222013/07/22

Ray McGovern: General Hayden’s Glass House

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

Gen. Hayden’s Glass House

By Ray McGovern

July 21, 2013

Editor Note: Official Washington’s national security/mainstream media incest was on scandalous display when ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden posed as a CNN analyst to denounce Edward Snowden for exposing surveillance excesses that Hayden had a hand in creating.

Former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden should not throw any more stones, lest his own glass house be shattered. His barrage Friday against truth-teller Edward Snowden and London Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald invited a return rain of boulders for Hayden committing the same violations of constitutional protections that he is now excusing.

Writing as “CNN Terrorism Analyst,” Hayden read from the unctuous script previously used by “Meet the Press” host David Gregory on June 23 when he questioned Greenwald’s status as a journalist. Hayden claimed Greenwald deserves “the Justice Department’s characterization of a co-conspirator.”

But the principal target of Hayden’s ire was Snowden. After lumping him together with despicable characters like CIA’s Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen of the FBI, and others who spied for the U.S.S.R. – and then disparaging “leakers” like Bradley Manning – Hayden wrote, “Snowden is in a class by himself.”

But it is Michael Hayden who is in a class by himself. He was the first NSA director to betray the country’s trust by ordering wholesale violation of what was once the First Commandment at NSA: “Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on Americans Without a Court Warrant.” Not to mention playing fast and loose with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

Continue reading “Ray McGovern: General Hayden's Glass House”

2013/07/192013/07/19

John Maguire: Russia Goes to Full Strategic Combat Readiness (Troops & Bombers) Exercise in Eastern District (Furthest from Middle East)

Civil Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Media, Military, Peace Intelligence

While everyone is distracted by the Trayvon Martin case….two stories.

From 14 July 2013:

WW3 Brews As Nation Distracted By Trayvon Martin Case

EXTRACT

Now enter new reports surfacing from the Russian Defense Ministry on orders of Vladimir Putin that the largest military ‘state of full combat readiness’ drill is taking place with around 160,000 troops ordered to report from all corners of the military. Specifically, the translated reports detail how Putin is calling together not just Armed Forces of Russia troops, but all forms of long-range aircraft, 70 naval ships, bomber and fighter aircraft, and so on.

According to a syndicated Russian announcement:

“On Friday, during a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Russian, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an unexpected military drill, urging all forces to enter a state of full combat readiness on the night of July 13.”

Read full post.

Continue reading “John Maguire: Russia Goes to Full Strategic Combat Readiness (Troops & Bombers) Exercise in Eastern District (Furthest from Middle East)”

2013/07/192013/07/19

Marcus Aurelius: Nation Needs Leadership, Not Gimmicks

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

From a relatively local yokel paper, among the best issue summaries I've seen. From my foxhole in the Pentagon, things are bad now and appear to be getting worse fast.

Fayetteville (NC) Observer
July 19, 2013

Nation Needs Leadership, Not Gimmicks

At Fort Bragg, a name almost synonymous with “readiness,” Congress is idly flirting with unreadiness.

Says who? Said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a Monday visit appropriately set at the Green Ramp: “We have planes not flying, ships not sailing and soldiers not training. We are doing damage to our readiness, to our future readiness.”

Thus far, casual onlookers have found it easy to dismiss the blind, automatic budget cuts called the sequester as political theater. No Independence Day fireworks display this year; maybe something goes unpainted a while longer. Big deal.

That's ending.

For 8,500 civilian workers caught in a furlough (worldwide, the number is well over half a million) it has already ended. They'll lose about 20 percent of their pay for five months – a loss that will be hardest on them, but one that will also affect counties surrounding the fort.

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2013/07/182013/07/18

Chuck Spinney: Boeing Implosion a Case Study in Integrity Lost — Specific Decisions Leading to Plastic Flammable Planes with Explosive Batteries

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude

Two and one-half years ago, on 11 February 2011, Pierre Sprey and I posted a blog entry on the Blaster, Why is Boing Imploding?. This post is still the fourth most popular since I began the website in 2008. It describes how the corrosive practices of the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC) spill over to weaken manufacturing competitiveness in the private sector. Included in this blog entry was a link to a very revealing internal 2001 Boeing report documenting perils of outsourcing production as a means of increasing profitability to Boeing. Increased outsourcing was and remains a central tenant of the plan for production of the Boeing 787 program.

The spillover of MICC’s dysfunctional manufacturing practices into the private manufacturing sector has a lot to do with America's economic stagnation. The uncompetitiveness of the defense sector and the dangers of spillover are themes I have addressed repeatedly — for example, here or here, esp. beginning with 2^nd paragraph of pg. 58.

That the MICC's disfunctional practices would contribute to deindustrialization and the eventual loss of high paying manufacturing jobs was first foreseen and written about in late 1950s by Professor Seymour Melman of Columbia University. In his prescient book, Profits Without Production (Knopf, 1983), Melman explained why the growing militarization of our economy was one of the central causes of the decline in America’s manufacturing competitiveness and the loss of high wage manufacturing jobs. This decline started in the 1970s, but Melman showed how it grew out of seeds planted by the permanent military mobilization of a huge defense industry in the 1950s. The introduction “How The Yankees Lost Their Knowhow” is worth the price of book.

Fast forward to July 2013: My good friend Andrew Cockburn has brilliantly updated the sorry story of Boeing's implosion in an important Harpers essay “How Boeing’s adoption of defense-related contracting practices led to the flawed Dreamliner 787” (also attached below).

Read it carefully, because without saying so, Andrew's case study reminds us of the prescient but ignored warnings in Melman’s pathbreaking work in identifying some of the real causes of America’s industrial decline, the loss of high paying manufacturing jobs (plotted in Figures 1 and 2 here), and the rise of inequality — and now the opportunity costs incurred when a manufacturing company uses DoD outsourcing practices to maximize profits by reducing its own production, while passing the increased risks of air travel onto the customer.

Chuck Spinney

Marina di Camp, Elba

Heart of Empire —

Boeing’s Plastic Planes

How Boeing’s adoption of defense-contracting practices led to the flawed Dreamliner 787

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Boeing Implosion a Case Study in Integrity Lost — Specific Decisions Leading to Plastic Flammable Planes with Explosive Batteries”

Category: Idiocy

Ross Stapleton-Gray: DARPA Treats Public Data as a Threat