David Isenberg: 70% of the US Intelligence Community — Contractors — Reasonably Subject to Question on Both Legal and Efficiency Grounds

Corruption, Government
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David Isenberg
David Isenberg

From Boox Allen to James Bond

EXTRACT (CONCLUSION):

Ms. Windsor’s bottom line is this:

When the government forms contracts for core governmental functions, particularly in the area of national security, the consequences of problems arising under those contracts can be severe. Preventing those harms is in the United States’ interest, under the two-pronged policy of supporting wise, efficient use of taxpayer dollars while maintaining government control over sovereign activities. Because of the barriers to litigation of such contracts after-the-fact when things go wrong, it is even more important to prevent the contracting out of such functions a priori. The three approaches outlined above recommend that the government use inherently-governmental-functions law to prevent unwise contracting of activities that are core to the United States’ national security, and also to deter similar future cases. This will allow contractors to continue to support government activities efficiently while maintaining a proper balance with government authority and oversight.

Read full commentary with quotes.

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NIGHTWATCH: Weak Signals – Sinai Instability, Suez Risk

08 Wild Cards
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suez and sinaiSinai. Gunmen fired on the car of the commander of the Second Field Army in Sinai today. This is the third attack in four days in Sinai.

Comment: Security conditions in Sinai require watching because any threat to disrupt traffic in the Suez Canal most likely would emerge from the eastern, Sinai, bank of the Canal. The new administration cannot afford to show any sign of hesitation to control the Sinai militants. Army operations were supposed to have already begun, but no news outlet has confirmed them.

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2013 Robert Steele: It’s Time for Crisis Mappers to Spin Up Corruption Mappers 2.0 + Corruption RECAP

Advanced Cyber/IO, Corruption
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Robert David STEELE Vivas
Robert David STEELE Vivas

I share with Lawrence Lessig the conviction that corruption is the principal threat to humanity.  I would add to that my own view that corruption is responsible for 50% of all investments being wasted, be they in agriculture, energy, health, or the military, as representative domains.  I also believe that corruption will persist until individuals can report corruption with absolute anonymity; an intermediary can combine reports from multiple sources to achieve a degree of trust in the accusations; and individuals, by name, time, place, and amount, and be publicly outed.  We must also use this information to identify systemic unfairness in wages that often underlay corruption.

The key problem, as identified below in an overview of the latest report from Transparency International, is that no one trusts the government — where most of the corruption takes place or high crimes such as banking fraud are legalized.

Crisis Mappers, the rapid maturation of humanitarian technologies (relying on open source software and hardware), have impressed me deeply.  I was one of the pioneers striving to get the US secret world to be intelligent about advanced information processing and analysis from 1986-1992, and they still don't get it.  In my view, the time has come for Crisis Mappers to join with Transparency International (based in Berlin) and the Chaos Computer Club in Germany, to create Corruption Mappers.

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Owl: Trans-Pacific Partnership A Worst Case View

Commerce, Corruption, Government
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Who?  Who?
Who? Who?

Another Cog Coming Into Machinery of US Destruction: The Trans-Pacific Partnership

This trade pact is vile beyond words. If passed, it will devastate the US economy, health, well-being and workplace like nothing that has ever come before it, making Clinton's NAFTA look benign by comparison. This may become Obama's greatest and most hostile anti-99% accomplishment as president of the United States.

“Did you know that Barack Obama has been secretly negotiating the most important trade agreement since the formation of the World Trade Organization?  Did you know that this agreement will impose very strict Internet copyright rules, ban all “Buy American” laws, give Wall Street banks much more freedom to trade risky derivatives and force even more domestic manufacturing offshore?

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Owl: US Gestapoization News: “Insider Threat” – Name of American Internal Security Program to Spy and Report on Government Employees

Government, Idiocy
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US Gestapoization News: “Insider Threat” – Name of American Internal Security Program to Spy and Report on Government Employees

The ever-expanding US police state is not being extended only to the civilian or private population. It's quietly being extended to the government and military population, too, as proven by the implementation of “Insider Threat.” This new amateur spy program will fail and cause untold misery. Lots of careers of innocent people are destined to be ruined, lots of false accusations and hysterical finger-pointing will create a morbidly paranoid culture in government due to this program, which will fail in it's stated objective to root out “leakers.” Of course, does anyone really believe the officially stated objective of this program is only to find leakers? Maybe it's really about control: extending it, deepening it and widening it by fear, by intimidation and by paranoia. A Stalinist paradise! Welcome to the the “United Stasi of America.”

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Owl: Top Violators of Religious Freedom

Cultural Intelligence
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Top Violators of Religious Freedom

“For its own safety's sake, America should give much higher priority to promoting global religious freedom. Whenever governments in unstable places persecute believers, that policy is not merely bad in itself but dangerous because it has the perverse effect of weakening moderate people of faith and empowering extremism. Those were some of the broad conclusions drawn by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom as it prepared its 2013 annual report, released April 2013. Some of its harshest words were reserved for religious repression in former Soviet places like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia itself, including the north Caucasus. The Boston bombings had lent a grim topicality to the report's findings, said Katrina Lantos Swett, who chairs the panel.”

This Commission's list of top violators of religious freedom differs from that of the State Department:

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