David Isenberg: Secret Contracting – Totally Beyond the Reach of Inspectors-General

Corruption, Government, Ineptitude
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David Isenberg

The use of private contractors is not just for the Pentagon or the State Department. It is also for that frequently crashing collection of agencies euphemistically known as the intelligence community (IC).

I have written previously on this but let's consider some of the costs of using contractors in the IC. The following is taken from a paper, “‘We Can't Spy … If We Can't Buy!': The Privatization of Intelligence and the Limits of Outsourcing ‘Inherently Governmental Functions” by Simon Chesterman of the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, presented at a meeting of the International Studies Association in San Diego back in April. Chesterman is author of the book One Nation Under Surveillance: A New Social Contract to Defend Freedom Without Sacrificing Liberty, published last year.

Just like old Pentagon contractors, IC contractors can go way over budget. One example was the “National Security Agency's contract with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to modernize its ability to sift vast amounts of electronic information with a proposed system known as ‘Trailblazer,'” according to Chesterman's work.

“Between 2002 and 2005, the project's $280 million budget ballooned to over $1 billion and was later described as a ‘complete and abject failure'. Perhaps the most spectacular such failure was Boeing's Future Imagery Architecture, a 1999 contract with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to design a new generation of spy satellites. It was finally cancelled in 2005 after approximately ten billion dollars had been spent. Nevertheless the pool of potential contractors — in particular given the requirement for security clearances — remains small. Thus when the NSA sought a replacement to the failed Trailblazer, the contractor it retained to develop the new programme ExecuteLocus was SAIC.”

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SmartPlanet: SmartNation Starts with SmartBra Whose Temperature Sensors Detect Tumors

SmartPlanet
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Early detection is key when it comes to tackling breast cancer but getting screened more than once a year can be impractical, especially for women under 40.

Now, one medical company hopes to make spotting tumors as easy as getting dressed in the morning. The First Warning System is a “smart bra” designed to catch cancer far before it becomes noticeable to mammograms. Since it would be easy to slip on and could presumably be worn at least a few times a week, having frequent breast cancer screenings wouldn’t even require a trip to the doctor’s office.

The bra, which is lined with extremely precise sensors, measures changes in cell temperature. Such changes are created by blood vessel growth, which can indicate a developing tumor. The data collected by the bra is then processed by software that uses an algorithm to make sense of the changes and determine whether or not a tumor could be growing.

Read full article.

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David Swanson: Non-VIolent Catholic Protester Sentenced to Six Months in Prison

09 Justice
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David Swanson

Nonviolent Protester of Drone Wars Sentenced to Federal Prison

Catholic Worker Brian Terrell of Maloy, Iowa has been sentenced to serves 6 months in a federal prison for his witness against the use of drone warfare.Below is a message from Brian and his statement before the court.Friends, We are just out of court. I have been ordered to surrender to a federal prison not yet designated on November 30 to serve a six months in lock up, co-defendant Ron Faust was sentenced to five years on probation. Below is the statement I made to the court. Judge Whitworth took great offense at my reference to Air Force security personnel as “goosestepping riot police.” Comparing our fighting men to Nazis (the judge’s word, not mine) was reprehensible, he said. He is not offended, apparently, by goosestepping US military police intimidating nonviolent protestors, nor by Air Force drones committing crimes against humanity and murdering children. Mentioning these embarrassing facts, however, is an affront to good manners.

Punishing free speech and letting murder off the hook is the order of the day in this courtroom.

Read full statement by defendant.

See Also:

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Marcus Aurelius: Mark Bowden Election Year Version of the Final Chapter of the Bin Laden Story

IO Deeds of War
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Marcus Aurelius

Another chronicle of Operation NEPTUNE'S SPEAR, the May 2011 Abbottabad raid that took down Usama bin Laden. In this case, the author is Mark Bowden, once of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who, at least in some people's minds, has significant credibility in writing about special operations because of his prior works, “Blackhawk Down” and “Killing Pablo.” That said, I think Bowden may have gone further than justified in articulating certain conclusions and characterizations of the raiding force as they applied to actions on the objective.

The Hunt For ‘Geronimo'

Vanity Fair. November 2012, Pg. 144

President Obama saw it as a '50–50′ proposition. Admiral Bill McRaven, mission commander, knew something would go wrong. So how did the raid that killed bin Laden get green-lighted? In an adaptation from his new book, Mark Bowden weaves together accounts from Obama and top decision-makers for the full story behind the daring operation.

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Review (Guest): State of the World 2012 – Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity

4 Star, Atlases & State of the World
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Amazon Page

Lester Brown, Erik Assadourian, Michael Renner et al

4.0 out of 5 stars Inspiration for both policy makers, negotiators and me as “normal” civilian  August 3, 2012

By H.J. van der Klis

In the 2012 edition of its flagship report, Worldwatch.org celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the Rio de Janeiro 1992 Earth Summit with a far-reaching analysis of progress toward building sustainable economies. Written in clear language with easy-to-read charts, State of the World 2012 offers a new perspective on what changes and policies will be necessary to make sustainability a permanent feature of the world's economies. The Worldwatch Institute has been named one of the top three environmental think tanks in the world by the University of Pennsylvania's Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program.

The first part consists of 15-20 page articles reviewing recent sustainability developments, such as:

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Owl: World Bank Leading Eugenics Actor? + Eugenics RECAP

06 Family, 07 Health, 11 Society
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Who? Who?

The article provides no substantive information on World Bank vaccination programs including undeclared sterilization protocols, but past reports have found that various parties have in fact executed such programs.

Leading World Bank Demographer: Vaccination Campaigns Part Of Population Reduction Policy

Jurriaan Maessen

ExplosiveReports.Com

October 4, 2012

On October 2nd a retired demographer at the World Bank admitted that vaccination campaigns are an integral part of the World Bank’s population policies. John F. May, the Bank’s leading demographer from 1992 to 2012, told the French web journal Sens Public (and in turn transcribed by the think-tank May works for) that vaccination campaigns, especially in so-called “high-fertility countries”, are means to achieve population reduction in those countries. May:

“The means used to implement population policies are “policy levers” or targeted actions such as vaccination campaigns or family planning to change certain key variables.”

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