Phi Beta Iota: A very long article (8 sections), this is worth a full reading because it documents both the atrocities that occur in prisons to people who are weak or not part of a gang, and the complete lack of integrity among the prison officials, the state officials, and the US Department of Justice officials, all over the course of decades. In combination with the prison-industrial industry and the out-sourcing of slavery for profit, one can conclude that crimes against humanity in US prison are both routine, and sanctioned by officials, many of whom are themselves criminal.
Two contrasting views–one written for the people against an out of control government, the other for a well-intentioned government facing out of control criminal organizations with foreign government support.
Amazon Page
This book is a primer on armed resistance to tyranny. It is intended to answer questions the reader might not think of asking, and to direct the reader to sources of more detailed information. Topics covered include justifying revolt, conditions for success, possible government responses, strategy & tactics, the overt and covert organizations, weapons, equipment, survival skills, land navigation, camouflage, boobytraps, weapons caching, training, secure camps, safe houses, communications, encryption & codes, gaining public support, sniping, sabotage, raids, intelligence and counter-intelligence. It is intended for scholarly information purposes only. Dr. Martino is a retired Air Force Colonel. He served in Thailand where he conducted research on counterinsurgency. He later was Chairman of the Counterinsurgency Working Group of the Military Operations Research Society. He teaches a course in Just War Doctrine at Yorktown University. He holds degrees in Physics, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics.
Laurel Adams February 6th 2011
Center for Public Integrity
EXTRACT: The GAO singled out the Pentagon, the Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as agencies with risky contractor oversight. The GAO also said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services failed to review contractor rates and identified $90 million in questionable costs.
Phi Beta Iota: Government–and society–are comprehensive design problems–advanced intelligence (decision-support). The US Government is archaic in its design, and lacks integrity (holistic accurate feed-back loops) at all levels across all mission areas. It is a useful challenge for 2012 and beyond.
Maj. Nidal Hasan, accused in the murders of 13 people and the attempted murders of 32 others in the shooting spree at Fort Hood, Tex., in November 2009, appears to be the toughest kind of terrorist to spot: a lone wolf who plots without the overt support of domestic cells or foreign sponsors.
Still, the attack did not come as a complete surprise to some in the Army and the FBI, and that makes this incident all the more tragic. Our Senate committee's 14-month investigation of the Fort Hood killings has concluded that the Department of Defense and the FBI “collectively had sufficient information to have detected Hasan's radicalization to violent Islamist extremism but failed both to understand and to act on it.”
The deaths at Fort Hood could and should have been prevented. The Defense Department's failure to acknowledge the threat of violent Islamist extremism within its ranks, coupled with organizational and communication flaws in the FBI's counterterrorism operations, contributed to the tragedy.
Computer hackers have repeatedly breached the systems of the company that runs the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York but did not penetrate the part of the system that handles trades, according to several law enforcement officials.
* You might have to advocate policies that would be hard on yourself, your constituents or your supporters — even temporarily. You might become unpopular. You might get assassinated or your plane might develop unexplained engine trouble and crash. You might even not get re-elected!
* You would actually have to face reality, get the facts, learn about complicated stuff like how complex systems work. (It's really unfortunate, but most of our thorny problems are all tangled up with complex systems that are tangled up with other problems, too. Yuck!!)
* You would have to listen to and work with people who see things differently from you. After all, they may know something that's important to take into consideration. That could be really unpleasant and take you far afield from your party line, out in the political boonies where the real danger lies.
* You just wouldn't get the same adrenaline rush you get when you stick with oversimplifications, grandstanding, being loved by your supporters, and launching juicy attacks on your enemies. There just aren't as many ego-strokes or perks available for working with others to deeply understand things and come up with what makes sense for the long haul.
Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is not worth a doctorate. What is worth a doctorate is the ability to meld intelligence and policy-making into a coherent ethical whole. Reflexive practice and comprehensive design are also worth PhDs, both are integrated in principle into the PhD central to the new holistic public policy PhD. Here is one vision for greating a new reflexive practice that allows political and civil service professionals to be both ethical and effective.
