Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 2105 – Public Intelligence Blog

2012/12/162012/12/16

Event: 27 Dec 2012 Hamburg DE Enemies of the State: What Happens When Telling the Truth about Secret US Government Power Becomes a Crime

Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, IO Technologies

Enemies of the State: What Happens When Telling the Truth about Secret US Government Power Becomes a Crime

Blowing the Whistle on Spying, Lying & Illegalities in the Digital Era

Featuring Thomas Drake, William Binney, and Jessaelyn Radack

With the post 9/11 rise of the leviathan national security state, the rule of law in the United States under the Constitution is increasingly rule by secrecy, surveillance and executive fiat.

Under the guise and veil of “national security” and “protecting” America through enabling act legislation and state “privilege,” the United States government embarked on an unparalleled expansion of secret government power after 9/11, operating largely in the dark, while using extra-judicial executive authority for justifying its policies, including secret spying on its own citizens in violation of the Constitution.

Speakers Radack, Drake and Binney will highlight their searing experiences with the Department of Justice and the National Security Agency, when they were marked as criminal targets of the US government due to their whistleblower disclosures involving rendition/torture, national security, multi-billion fraud, pervasive institutional corruption, violations of the 1st and 4th Amendments, civil and human rights, illegal surveillance on a vast scale and other unlawful secret government conduct and wrongdoing.

They will also discuss the serious and compelling implications resulting from their excruciating ordeals centered on the nexus of secrecy, transparency, technology, privacy, anonymity, Internet and the law as well as actions people can take to deal with the reality of the growing surveillance state and its direct threats to human rights, liberty and freedom around the world in both our off- and on-line lives.

Conference Information

2012/12/162012/12/16

Event: 27-30 Dec 2012 Hamburg DE European Hackers Conference

Advanced Cyber/IO

29C3: 29th Chaos Communication Congress

December 27th to 30th, 2012

CCH Congress Center Hamburg, Germany, Earth, Milky Way

The Event

The 29th Chaos Communication Congress (29C3) is an annual four-day conference on technology, society and utopia. The Congress offers lectures and workshops on a multitude of topics including (but not limited to) information technology and generally a critical-creative attitude towards technology and the discussion about the effects of technological advances on society.

For 29 years, the congress has been organized by the community and appreciates all kinds of participation. You are encouraged to contribute by volunteering, setting up and hosting hands-on events with the other components of your assembly or presenting your own projects to fellow hackers.

Some basic survival guidelines might come in handy for everything not answered in our 29C3 FAQ. Updated information are covered by the CCC Events Blog or via Twitter (@CCC).

As this website is part of a wiki you can contribute information, too. Login or register an account and go ahead. Refer to the 29C3-wiki-usermanual and the help page for information about using a MediaWiki.

Learn more.

2012/12/152012/12/15

Owl: Security Theater — At What Cost?

Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement

Judging by Bruce Schneier's review of Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger, a new book by Harvey Molotch, this is a must-read:

The common thread in Against Security is that effective security comes less from the top down and more from the bottom up. Molotch’s subtitle telegraphs this conclusion: “How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger.” It’s the word ambiguous that’s important here. When we don’t know what sort of threats we want to defend against, it makes sense to give the people closest to whatever is happening the authority and the flexibility to do what is necessary. In many of Molotch’s anecdotes and examples, the authority figure—a subway train driver, a policeman—has to break existing rules to provide the security needed in a particular situation. Many security failures are exacerbated by a reflexive adherence to regulations.

Amazon Page

Molotch is absolutely right to hone in on this kind of individual initiative and resilience as a critical source of true security. Current U.S. security policy is overly focused on specific threats. We defend individual buildings and monuments. We defend airplanes against certain terrorist tactics: shoe bombs, liquid bombs, underwear bombs. These measures have limited value because the number of potential terrorist tactics and targets is much greater than the ones we have recently observed. Does it really make sense to spend a gazillion dollars just to force terrorists to switch tactics? Or drive to a different target? In the face of modern society’s ambiguous dangers, it is flexibility that makes security effective.

We get much more bang for our security dollar by not trying to guess what terrorists are going to do next. Investigation, intelligence, and emergency response are where we should be spending our money. That doesn’t mean mass surveillance of everyone or the entrapment of incompetent terrorist wannabes; it means tracking down leads—the sort of thing that caught the 2006 U.K. liquid bombers. They chose their tactic specifically to evade established airport security at the time, but they were arrested in their London apartments well before they got to the airport on the strength of other kinds of intelligence.

2012/12/152012/12/15

George Abney: Emerging Desalination Technology

05 Energy, 12 Water

Respect is due to those who developed the viable method of desalination of seawater described in this report. A means of mitigating the damage done by fracking to potable ground water should include Canadian advances in desalination technology presented by Tang/Zoshi of rexresearch.com. The cumulative effects of fracking includes networked systems in the environment including aquatics. Mere substitution of lost fresh water supplies may prove inadequate to remedy the total negative cost of fracking. Anticipated economic benefits from shale oil production may fund a more profound restoration of lost environmental securities.

James TANG & Joshua ZOSHI

Desalination

Saltworks Technologies is positioned to commercialize a breakthrough desalination technology during a time of increasing freshwater scarcity, rising energy prices, and mounting concerns over carbon impacts.

Saltworks' patent pending technology employs an innovative Thermo-Ionic™ energy conversion system that uses up to 80 per cent less electrical/mechanical energy relative to leading desalination technologies. The energy reduction is achieved by harnessing low temperature heat and atmospheric dryness to overcome the desalination energy barrier. Saltwater is evaporated to produce a concentrated solution. This solution, which has concentration gradient energy, is fed into Saltworks' proprietary desalting device to desalinate either seawater or brackish water. Some electrical energy is used to circulate fluids at a low pressure, yet the bulk of the energy input is obtained through the evaporation of saltwater.

Perfomance of this novel process improves in arid regions, which happen to be the very regions that require freshwater. The technology also requires less pre-treatment and chemicals than traditional processes.

Applications for Saltworks' technology include producing drinking water for communities and municipalities, irrigation water for agriculture, and process water for industry. It is especially well-suited for situations with low temperature thermal energy (30-40 degrees Celsius) such as simple solar thermal or waste heat.

The technology has been proof-tested by the National Research Council of Canada and BC Hydro's Powertech Labs. An outfitted 1,000 litre a-day seawater pilot plant complete with chemical free pre-treatment will soon be fully operational at a harbour location in Vancouver, British Columbia.

2012/12/152016/03/25

Robert Steele: How Dutch Intelligence Survived & Prospered Using Open Source Human Intelligence as a Foundation for Ethical Evidence-Based Decisions

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics, Government

Robert David STEELE VivasClick on Image for Bio Page — Robert David STEELE Vivas
Click on Image for Bio Page

REACTION TO: 2012 Robert Steele: The Human Factor & The Human Environment: Concepts & Doctrine? Implications for Human & Open Source Intelligence 2.0

These are my words, reflecting what I learned in multiple funded trips to work with Dutch intelligence at various levels, and multiple conversation across various conferences I attended in Europe. This is more or less what I told George Tenet when he became DCI….to no effect, naturally.

1994 was a very stressful time in Dutch intelligence history. A scandal had erupted in which the Parliament was investigating Dutch intelligence intrusions with audio-video into the homes of specific Dutch citizens suspected of this and that. Parliament was so angry they threatened to cut all funding for all intelligence. Two very good things emerged from this:

Continue reading “Robert Steele: How Dutch Intelligence Survived & Prospered Using Open Source Human Intelligence as a Foundation for Ethical Evidence-Based Decisions”

2012/12/152012/12/15

SchwartzReport: Poisoning the Well – Federal Collusion with Industry to Pollute Natio’s Underground Water Supply

Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude

Injection Wells: The Hidden Risks of Pumping Waste Underground

Poisoning the Well: How the Feds Let Industry Pollute the Nation’s Underground Water Supply

Federal officials have given energy and mining companies permission to pollute aquifers in more than 1,500 places across the country, releasing toxic material into underground reservoirs that help supply more than half of the nation's drinking water.

In many cases, the Environmental Protection Agency has granted these so-called aquifer exemptions in Western states now stricken by drought and increasingly desperate for water.

EPA records show that portions of at least 100 drinking water aquifers have been written off because exemptions have allowed them to be used as dumping grounds.

“You are sacrificing these aquifers,” said Mark Williams, a hydrologist at the University of Colorado and a member of a National Science Foundation team studying the effects of energy development on the environment. “By definition, you are putting pollution into them. … If you are looking 50 to 100 years down the road, this is not a good way to go.”

As part of an investigation into the threat to water supplies from underground injection of waste, ProPublica set out to identify which aquifers have been polluted.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: The ignorance of the US National Intelligence Council in endorsing fracking as a path to energy is breathtaking. $70 billion a year plus, and the National Intelligence Council has no idea that fracking causes earthquakes and contaminates scarce groundwater?

2012 Global Trends 2030: Review by Robert Steele — Report Lauds Fracking as Energy Solution, Disappoints on Multiple Fronts

Sir Richard Branson: Breaking the Taboo — Ending the War on People also known as the War on People

2012/12/142012/12/14

2012 Ishmael Jones (P) on The Human Factor

Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), IO Impotency

REACTION TO: 2012 Robert Steele: The Human Factor & The Human Environment: Concepts & Doctrine? Implications for Human & Open Source Intelligence 2.0

Ishmael Jones (a pseudonym) is a very experienced non-official cover (NOC) officer who left the CIA and wrote an excellent book, The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture (Encounter Books, 2008). The lessons from his experience are available directly from him to DoD clients that wish to avoid CIA's many mistakes.

Hello Robert, thanks for your note and I comment as follows:

I certainly agree with Tom on bad management being the cause of poor intelligence collection. Bad management in the intelligence field thrives within bureaucracy, which is easy to create in the Washington, DC area. Today, more than 90% of CIA employees live and work entirely within the United States because bad management finds it convenient to do so. Employees learn skills which advance them within bureaucracy but which do not contribute to intelligence gathering. The lack of on-the ground focus on foreign lands leaves major intelligence gaps unfilled.

Best regards, Ishmael Jones

2012 Tom Briggs on The Human Factor