The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Phi Beta Iota: Act I was 1988-1993. Act II was 1993-2011. Act III began with the publication of NO MORE SECRETS with a Foreword by Senator Gary Hart (D-CO).
Below the line in full (or click on links to originals):
OPEN UP OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE
THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE
Continue reading “Steven Aftergood: Open Source Intelligence Act III”
Reasoning by analogy is powerful, but dangerous for of thinking. Einstein, for example, showed how reasoning by analogy can unleash stunning insights , but only when properly tempered by critical observation, testing, and systematic analysis, can analogical insights lead to brilliant syntheses that literally change our view of reality.
But that benefit comes with a heavy price, because this kind of reasoning is also a very dangerous way to think. Analogies can capture the imagination and thereby bias the Orientation of less disciplined thinkers and decision makers to distort and twist their Observations into a vision of reality the Observer/Decision Maker wants to see. In so doing, the distorted Orientation takes decision maker off the cliff by disconnecting his Actions from the real world. And … for every Einstein with a highly disciplined Observation – Orientation – Decision Action loop, there are thousands of crackpots, nutcases, and charlatans trying to sell their visions of “what is” to sell their pre-concieved views of appropriate decisions and actions of action.
In the below essay, Richard Falk offers a good example of reasoning by analogy done properly. He carefully crafts and explains a limited set of parallels between the January 1968 Tet Offensive in Viet Nam to Obama's dilemma in Afghanistan. CS
The Tet Offensive's parallels to Afghanistan
The United States should learn from mistakes it made during the Vietnam War and withdraw from Afghanistan.
EXTRACTS:
Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Richard Falk on USG Learning Disability”
Electronic Privacy Information Center (Author), Marc Rotenberg (Editor), Harry A. Hammitt (Editor), Ginger McCall (Editor), John A. Verdi (Editor), Mark S. Zaid (Editor)
I'm exploring a major campaign to expose illegal actions across the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals and the Defense Intelligence Agency in particular, and in talking to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) leadership got a chance to understand just how vital and USEFUL this guide is.
Senator Patrick Leahy, co-sponsor of the OPEN Government Act of 2007, and many others are on record as considering this the single most indispensable tool in any citizen's toolkit.
For myself, having seen the capricious, arbitrary, and often unethical and even abusive manner in which DIA Personnel “cooks the books” and manipulates job announcements and screening decisions, and having been personally privy to enormous abuse by the Director of the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals and a specifc group of his subordinates, consider this manual essential to my own search for justice.
Although I will use it more to inform myself so I can assist the specialist lawyers in making the most of what I know in their probing inquires at DIA and DOHA, I certainly recommend it to any citizen that has a specific concern that is not getting a fair hearing.
I also recommend the publisher and experts that put it together, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Many folks do not realize that they have been one of the leading champions of open government, and have also been one of the leading champions in exposing fraud, waste, and abuse that has been concealed by secrecy.
The US Government, in my view, as a general observation, is out of control and no longer representative of We the People. This is the handbook for citizens to use in holding every branch of the federal government accountable for its misbehavior and its dereliction of duty in failing to represent the public interest as opposed to the interest of its very big stakeholders who are recipients of the tax dollar rather than contributors to the treasury of the Republic.
Arm yourself with this knowledge, and go into battle confident in the righteousness of your cause.
See Also [Amazon book link still broken]:
Piercing the Veil of Secrecy: Litigation Against U.S. Intelligence by Janine Brookner
The memorandum “Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001” has been circulating for years on the Internet, studiously ignored by most. It was previously posted as a journal item on this website. Since then, the public has learned a great deal more about both gold and greed, and the memorandum is once again circulating.
This is by no means the complete story, and there are some leaps of imagination and speculation that must be deeply investigated or discounted. Central to appreciating the magnitude of the government cover-up is the FACT that MONTHS before 9/11 Dick Cheney set in motion the national counter-terrorism exercise that gave him complete control on “the day” of 9/11.
What is clear is that there is a great deal more investigation to be done, and that a truth and reconciliation commission should be created in time to put Dick Cheney and the others on the stand before they either die a natural death or are assassinated by foreign governments righteously angry over what has been done to them by American children playing with fire.
Here are a few extracts that today have a greater likelihood of being appreciated for their substance.
Archive Cuba Project posts Four Volumes; calls for declassification of still secret Volume 5
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 355
Posted – August 15, 2011
By Peter Kornbluh
For more information contact:
Peter Kornbluh – 202/374-7281 or by email
EXTRACT
This candid assessment was not shared with the President-elect then, nor later after the inauguration. As Pfeiffer points out, “what was being denied in confidence in mid-November 1960 became the fact of the Zapata Plan and the Bay of Pigs Operation in March 1961”—run only by the CIA, and with a force of 1,200 men.
Did the CIA keep mum about two 9/11 hijackers because it tried and failed to recruit them? Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, authors of ‘The Eleventh Day,' on whether there’s any truth behind ex-Bush official Richard Clarke’s claim.
Daily Beast, 12 April 2011
EXTRACT
At the heart of the suggestion that the agency intentionally withheld information was the discovery by the Justice Department’s inspector-general of a draft cable—one that was prepared but never sent—by an FBI agent on attachment to the CIA’s bin Laden unit.
The CIA’s “screw-up” explanation of its lamentable failure to act remains at best unconvincing, at worst indicative that it conceals a very different, secret scenario.
See Also:
YouTube: The Science of Spying 1965
The Science of Spying. NBC show narrated by John Chancellor donated to the US government. Purchased from the US National Archives via Amazon. Also can be downloaded free.
Koko: See the comments for insights on how the attentive public is reacting to this film.
Phi Beta Iota: The reason we emphasize integrity on this website is because it has been so visibly lacking in the US Government, and especially so in relations between the secret intelligence world and the White House. It is now clear that a series of Presidents have abused their power when directors of central or national intelligence have been willing to prostitute themselves; while at the same time, and mostly during the Allen Dulles era, but also under others, the secret world has lied–has committed treason–to the President and his senior advisors. We continue to be skeptical of the alleged assassination and disposal of Bin Laden. More generally, the secret world today is largely worthless to the public or the public interest, and exists primarily to channel taxpayer resources to beltway bandits who fund corrupt members of Congress (in fairness to the beltway bandits, it is the corrupt Representatives doing the shaking down). “Intelligence” today is grotesquely immature and ill-suited to the complexities and nuances of the age.
See Also:
