Public Intelligence Blog – Page 2529 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

Press TV's documentary program “Untold Truths” is a revealing documentary film about the life and experiences of former White House Middle East policy adviser, Gwenyth Todd, who has escaped to Australia to keep safe from FBI prosecution.

Phi Beta Iota: RIVETING. From Larry Franklin to Admiral Cosgrove. Traitors working for Israel and handled by AIPAC. Includes murder on the street of the Turkish billionaire paying her bills in exile, ruled a “suicide.” This entire video-tape consists of one US citizen talking. We pray she is heard. The arrogance and impunity of those who are behind this exceeds that of all other dictators combined (40 of them!). We pray that one day the USA gets an honest counterintelligence service that can flush traitors out of the Pentagon and keep it focused on legitimate US interests and US needs.

‘Two Navy officials accused of plot to make US attack Iran’

2013/02/05

Bojan Radej: German Government Screws Up Open Data

Data

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German government screws up open data

OpenGov Germany, 4 February 2013

Last year, the German government commissioned a fairly extensive study (Link) on open data, and started preparations for an open government data portal. The open data community felt somewhat relieved. After all, lobbying for more open government in Germany, the cradle of prussian bureaucracy, is not exactly an easy task. This is a state apparatus dominated by information silos, dusty hierarchies, pen and paper workflows and an attitude towards citizens that often borders on arrogant. Bravo to the few change agents within the Federal Ministry on the Interior, who over the last months and years have closely collaboratored with a multitude of actors, including app contests and bar camps.

Here is what happened. Actors like the Open Knowledge Foundation (German chapter) had long ago built an open data visualization website (link), and had offered both the Interior as well as the Ministry of Finance, to actually provide that platform to them, basically developing infrastructure for the government. How nice. Community-public-partnership, real open government. What a pipe dream. Last fall, the Ministry of Finance unveiled its own data visualization website, for who knows how many thousand euros in fees paid to web agencies (Update: it cost 40.000 EUR, the original budget was 200.000 EUR ). It looks alright but isn’t as open as experts had hoped, and the amount of data is lackluster – tools for comparison and other accountability-encouraging functionality is missing.

Read full article.

2013/02/05

Theophillis Goodyear: Chomsky on Paranoia of the Superrich

Ethics

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The Paranoia of the Superrich and Superpowerful

Noam Chomsky

Huffington Post, 4 February 2013

EXTRACT

Right after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, amid all the cheers and applause, there were a few critical comments questioning the legality of the act. Centuries ago, there used to be something called presumption of innocence. If you apprehend a suspect, he’s a suspect until proven guilty. He should be brought to trial. It’s a core part of American law. You can trace it back to Magna Carta. So there were a couple of voices saying maybe we shouldn’t throw out the whole basis of Anglo-American law. That led to a lot of very angry and infuriated reactions, but the most interesting ones were, as usual, on the left liberal end of the spectrum. Matthew Yglesias, a well-known and highly respected left liberal commentator, wrote an article in which he ridiculed these views. He said they’re “amazingly naive,” silly. Then he expressed the reason.

He said that “one of the main functions of the international institutional order is precisely to legitimate the use of deadly military force by western powers.” Of course, he didn’t mean Norway. He meant the United States. So the principle on which the international system is based is that the United States is entitled to use force at will. To talk about the United States violating international law or something like that is amazingly naive, completely silly. Incidentally, I was the target of those remarks, and I’m happy to confess my guilt. I do think that Magna Carta and international law are worth paying some attention to.

I merely mention that to illustrate that in the intellectual culture, even at what’s called the left liberal end of the political spectrum, the core principles haven’t changed very much. But the capacity to implement them has been sharply reduced. That’s why you get all this talk about American decline. Take a look at the year-end issue of Foreign Affairs, the main establishment journal. Its big front-page cover asks, in bold face, “Is America Over?” It’s a standard complaint of those who believe they should have everything. If you believe you should have everything and anything gets away from you, it’s a tragedy, the world is collapsing. So is America over? A long time ago we “lost” China, we’ve lost Southeast Asia, we’ve lost South America. Maybe we’ll lose the Middle East and North African countries. Is America over? It’s a kind of paranoia, but it’s the paranoia of the superrich and the superpowerful. If you don’t have everything, it’s a disaster.

Continue reading “Theophillis Goodyear: Chomsky on Paranoia of the Superrich”

2013/02/052013/02/05

Owl: Disposable Drones to Assassinate Military-Industrial Complex Leaders and Bankers at Home — Panic, Anyone?

09 Justice, Commerce, Corruption, Ethics, Military

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A brief article Bring on the Drones! offers a wonderfully hopeful and positive view of open-sourced drone technology that will be available to the 99%.

Here's the key take-away quote from it:

“Imagine, if you will, a world in which drones are cheap and widely available. Then stop and think about the target profile of the Empire and the corporate interests it serves. Imagine how easy it would be to get targeting information on the homes, churches and country clubs of the senior management and directors of the aerospace companies that make American drones. The Boardrooms and C-Suites themselves. The factories. The whole South Asian chain of command, from CINC CENTCOM down to battalion and flight headquarters. The logistical tail of the drones, including the control centers at every airbase from which drones are staged. Begin to get the picture? Even as it is, the current American advantage in drones is just an outlier in the general trend toward cheap area-denial technologies (carrier-killing Sunburn missiles, mines, etc.). In fact the panic in U.S. ruling circles is so extreme that the latest U.S. Defense Guidance document was centered on the need to prevent the United States losing its regional power projection capabilities to such technologies — the 21st century equivalent of the most powerful army in the world being defeated by a guerrilla army using punji sticks and a bicycle-borne logistical tail.”

Targeting drones at the homes and country clubs of senior defense managers is similar to some plot elements of Daniel Suarez's remarkable novel about drones, which is highly recommended novel, Kill Decision

But why stop at defense executives? Why not add to the list the bankers, lawyers, corrupt politicians, bad cops. Open source drone technology will become the great “equalizer,” just as handguns were in the 19th century wild west and many other more recent contexts:

Bring on the Drones!

Continue reading “Owl: Disposable Drones to Assassinate Military-Industrial Complex Leaders and Bankers at Home — Panic, Anyone?”

2013/02/052013/02/05

SmartPlanet: Is a free nationwide WiFi network coming to the U.S.?

Autonomous Internet

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Is a free nationwide WiFi network coming to the U.S.?

Tyler Falk, 4 February 2013

The United States government wants to make access to fast and free WiFi as easy as accessing public roads.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has proposed to free up digital infrastructure to allow free public access to WiFi — more powerful than what most people have in their homes — in most metropolitan areas and many rural areas, The Washington Post reports:

If approved by the FCC, the free networks would still take several years to set up. And, with no one actively managing them, connections could easily become jammed in major cities. But public WiFi could allow many consumers to make free calls from their mobile phones via the Internet. The frugal-minded could even use the service in their homes, allowing them to cut off expensive Internet bills.

To achieve this, the government would have to repurpose how airwaves are used. As the Post points out, that means local television stations and other broadcasters would have to sell some of their airwaves to the government. Whether companies are willing to make the sale is yet to be seen.

As you can imagine, support of the proposal is split between two major industries. On the one hand, the telecomm industry is lobbying the government to keep those airwaves in the hands of businesses.

Tech giants like Google and Microsoft, however, see a nationwide public WiFi network as a catalyst for innovation (and increased sales of their products). Though Google, at least, isn’t waiting for the government to act to offer free public WiFi. In New York City, the company recently launched free public WiFi in the Chelsea neighborhood.

But a free-for-all WiFi network? Politics will decide its fate.

Tech, telecom giants take sides as FCC proposes large public WiFi networks [Washington Post]