Worth a Look: Contractors in Stability Operations

10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Worth A Look

Stability Operations for Dummies: The Role of the Prvate Sector in Iraq (YouTube Briefing)

Doug Brooks, founding President of the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) has a video circulating that offers the soft sales pitch for outsourcing “contingency support.”  It is all positive and completely avoids all of the negatives, such as:

1.  Pillaging and disrupting existing intelligence and special operations ranks by incentivizing early retirement.

2.  Cost 3x to 10X that of a uniformed or civil service source.

3.  Profit motive rather than mission motive.

4.  Pretends contractor mistakes are not politically accountable.

5.  Pretends contractors actually favor low-cost locals (which radically reduces overhead profits)

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Contractors in Stability Operations”

Journal: Citizen Cyber-Detectives on the March

10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Mobile, Peace Intelligence, Real Time

Video 9:40 Min
Video 9:40 Min

The Internet Detective – Switzerland

There is a new breed of super-sleuth emerging in the virtual world of the web. For both petty criminals and major terrorist groups, internet detectives are fast becoming a force to be reckoned with.  Making it his business to track down criminal activity through the web, Guido Rudolphi, the Sherlock Holmes of the cyber world, considers himself a legal hacker. “So much more information can be accessed, quite legally, than the individual user would ever imagine.” Rudolphi has taken advantage of this new free-flow of online information to catch paedophiles, fraudsters, and even unearth international cells of Al-Quaeda. He demonstrates how it takes less than twenty minutes to establish a persons credentials, locate them and hand them over to the police. “People seem to think theyre anonymous online, that nothing can happen to them there thats very naive.”

Reference: Are Hackers Pioneers with the Right Stuff or Criminal Pathological Scum? Mitch Kabay Reprises

03 Economy, 04 Education, 10 Transnational Crime, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Hacking, ICT-IT, InfoOps (IO), Law Enforcement, Media Reports, Methods & Process, Mobile, Real Time, Technologies

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Why Criminal Hackers Must Not Be Rewarded
Part 1: The Fruit of the Poisoned Tree

By M. E. Kabay, 11/30/2009

In 1995, I participated in a debate with distinguished security expert Robert D. Steele, a vigorous proponent of open-source intelligence. We discussed the advisability of hiring criminal hackers. Perhaps readers will find the polemic I published back then of interest today. I’m sure it will provoke vitriolic comments from the criminal hacker community.

Continue reading “Reference: Are Hackers Pioneers with the Right Stuff or Criminal Pathological Scum? Mitch Kabay Reprises”

Journal: China May Demand Physical Gold

02 China, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Ethics, Government

SPECIAL FROM OUR SOURCES IN ASIA

Gold could be about to get disorderly also as it approaches the key $1200 call option strike. The strong rumour is the large $1200oz Dec call owner is the Peoples Bank of China. Gold traders increasingly believe that China will force physical delivery of 2.8moz of gold instead of the usual cash settlement. My contacts suggest short-term mayhem may be about to break out in gold for a few days as those who have sold the call and get exercised scramble to buy physical for delivery.   To put this in context 2.8moz is around 80 tonnes of gold. Yes, it's that big and you can see why there is short-covering everywhere in gold.

Phi Beta Iota: If John Mack becomes Secretary of the Treasury, we anticipate China having a subtle but respected influence on the US Treasury as a condition for selective cover-ups, and China managing the situation so it ultimately gets compensation for all the gold stolen by Japen and confiscated by the US to create the Treasury Black Eagle Trust and Golden Lily slush funds.  China did NOT sign the San Francisco Treaty and is on solid ground.  We respect John Mack, he might possibly be the first truly multinational Secretary of the Treasury, and if he can make a commitment to Open Money and Real Wealth as a future path for the global economy, he could conceivably be the single most important person in the 21st Century.  For background see

Continue reading “Journal: China May Demand Physical Gold”

Journal: Gold, Treasury, Wall Street, & Stuff

02 China, 03 Economy, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Home
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Home

Below are six flagged Alerts from a source we have learned to trust.

Morgan Chase CEO touted as Geithner's replacement

What is very interesting about this is that Mack is the only guy on Wall Street the Chinese leadership really trusts.  There is no real difference between Goldman Sachs, Citi-Bank (the original Black Eagle Trust holder) and Morgan, although Mack does seem considerably more classy, and perhaps more able to get a grip on reality going into the future.

Welcome to Stage Two of Gold's Bull Market

CNBC's Santelli blurts it out: Central banks suppress gold

Scenes from the Munich precious metals conference

Developing world's central banks have plenty of room for gold

Continue reading “Journal: Gold, Treasury, Wall Street, & Stuff”

Worth a Look: Berto Jongman Recommends….

05 Civil War, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Worth A Look

Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Researcher Berto Jongman recommends 6 monographs, 5 articles, 3 books.

EDIT of 24 Nov 09: 6 monograph recommendations added.

Russia: A Promising Market for Islamic Finance
21/11/2009By Lahem al Nasser

Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat- There are around 47 million Muslims in Russia, which means that Muslims make up around one third of Russia's overall population. This figure is expected to rise to 50 percent by 2050 due to the high birth rate among the Muslim community, the decrease in the non-Muslim Russian population which is decreasing at a rate of 1 million people per year, as well as the immigrations of Muslims from central Asia into the Russian Federation. The Islamic presence in Russia is centered in the Caucasus, Siberia, and Moscow.

Survey of Pakistan’s Young Predicts ‘Disaster’ if Their Needs Aren’t Addressed
By SABRINA TAVERNISE,   November 21, 2009

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan will face a “demographic disaster” if it does not address the needs of its young generation, the largest in the country’s history, whose views reflect a deep disillusionment with government and democracy, according to a report released here on Saturday.

Crime and Terrorism Small Wars Journal
4 November 2009 by Colonel Robert Killebrew

According to a panel of experts at a recent conference sponsored by the Center for a New American Security, terrorism and crime have now merged, to such an extent that all terrorist movements – all of them — have become partly criminal organizations to fund their operations, expand their reach – and incidentally make the people on top extremely rich, while lower-level zealots continue to be recruited for suicide missions.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Berto Jongman Recommends….”

Journal: Federal Financial Difficulties

03 Economy, 10 Transnational Crime, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Reform

Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON — The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true. But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest rates, may not last much longer.   Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.

Revisiting a Fed Waltz With A.I.G.

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

‘A government report on the bailout of A.I.G. is must reading for taxpayers looking to know why the $182 billion “rescue” is the most troubling episode of the financial disaster.')   …  The Fed, under Mr. Geithner’s direction, caved in to A.I.G.’s counterparties, giving them 100 cents on the dollar for positions that would have been worth far less if A.I.G. had defaulted. Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Société Générale and other banks were in the group that got full value for their contracts when many others were accepting fire-sale prices.

By TOM RAUM (AP)

WASHINGTON — Suddenly the Federal Reserve is everybody's punching bag.  …  Strip the Fed of its bank regulation powers, some in Congress are demanding. Get probing audits of its behind-the-scenes operations, others say.

Continue reading “Journal: Federal Financial Difficulties”