Public Intelligence Blog – Page 2787 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

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The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Chapter 3 Manifesto Extract III

Sharing, not secrecy, is the means by which we realize such as lofty destiny as well as create infinite wealth. The wealth of networks, the wealth of knowledge, revolutionary wealth–all can create a nonzero win-win Earth that works for one hundred percent of humanity. This is the “utopia” that Buckminster Fuller foresaw, now within our reach.

Context matters. Context creates coherence and restores the missing connections that the fragmentation of knowledge into academic specializations has caused. Economy needs to be reimagined in terms of a whole-systems approach–the “true costs” of human action need to be measured holistically, in terms of effects on the regenerative capacity of the biosphere as a whole. If we as Homo sapiens fail to connect the dots and make decisions on the basis of truthful, true-cost information, we will self-destruct.

. . . . . . . . .

Integrity is how we enter a “state of grace” and become “one with God,” however you choose to define and understsand these broad terms. This manifesto defines “God” as an experience of collective solidarity that extends from the human realm to the universe as a whole.

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2012/06/092012/06/15

Review: The Art of Intelligence – Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

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Henry Crumpton

4.0 out of 5 stars As Good as It Gets From an Approved Insider,June 9, 2012

I write this as a former clandestine case officer who spent 30 years across all of the functions of intelligence less MASINT, and went on to write, edit, and publish nine non-fiction books on the craft of intelligence.

The author's first book, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander, remains a classic in the field of CIA Special Operations at its best. This book, an approved book by an insider who sees the world through the very narrow lens of the CIA bureaucracy that shuts out everything it does not understand (which is to say, 80% of reality), is certainly one that should join the two standard works I recommend, Allen Dulles' The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World and Miles Copeland Without Cloak or Dagger: The Truth About the New Espionage, but the title misrepresents the book.

The book is vastly superior to any of the tripe from wanna-bees that flunk out of training or fail in their first couple of tours and leave the CIA as disgrunted former employees. It is slightly better than some of the non-official cover officer memoirs but not as good as The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture or Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA. It is not quite the equal of some of the deeper works, such as Milt Bearden's The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB or Steven Coll's Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.

Continue reading “Review: The Art of Intelligence – Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service”

2012/06/092012/06/09

Marcus Aurelius: Cyberwar as the Alternative to Micro/Macro Violence

IO Deeds of War

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Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

Need To Know: Technolog: In Praise Of Cyberwar

It's better than the alternative. How malware could actually help keep the peace.

By Michael Hirsh

National Journal, June 9, 2012

EXTRACT:

Above all, cybertactics could supply a new way out of an old conundrum — a kind of halfway house between the only two effective options that nations trying to resolve conflicts have known: diplomacy and war. “Having a tool that can slow certain programs you’re worried about that’s short of war may make war less likely,” Bunn says. David Sanger, who reveals the U.S. role in Stuxnet in his new book, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, writes that in designing Stuxnet with Israel, American officials were seeking in part “to dissuade the Israelis from carrying out their own preemptive strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities. To do that, the Israelis would have to be convinced that the new line of attack was working.”

Full Article (Subscribers Only)

2012/06/09

John Robb: Worms, Drones, SuperBugs, & Plagues – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

07 Other Atrocities, Government, Idiocy, Military, Peace Intelligence

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This Version of the Four Horsemen the Apocalypse actually Makes Sense

What types of weapons will use self-replication (which in this context means the ability to easily and rapidly make exact copies of themselves on a massive scale without human oversight)?

Here's a really simple taxonomy. Had some fun with this. All of these use rapid, very difficult to counter self-replication to do massive damage.

Weaponized computer worms/viruses/malware. Legal bot networks that control/manipulate society and markets (think in terms of quant hedge funds). That's the White horse. Conquest.
Drones/robots. Weaponized drones that at first self-perpetuate by acquiring fuel from the environment. Weaponized drones that can self-replicate ala 3-D fabrication and scavanged materials (think rep-rap). That's the Red Horse. War.
Superbugs/superweeds (some may be aided by engineered modification, but all get their start due to the stupidity of growing food in monocultures). Organisms that can wipe out monocultures and cause the loss of productive farmland and crops ond a global scale. That's the Black Horse. Famine.
Plague. Genetically modified weapons, laboratory mistakes, or naturally occuring disease (due to too much physical proximity) that result in plagues. That's the Pale Green horse. Death.

Again, folks. The only long term counter to self-replication is through the smart decentralization afforded by networked resilient communities.

Communities that produce most of what they need locally. Communities that can physically disconnect themselves as needed. Communities that aren't dependent on complex global computer systems that can be corrupted. Communities that use diverse polycultures to produce their food.

2012/06/082012/06/11

The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Chapter 3 Manifesto Extract II

Manifesto Extracts

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The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Chapter 3 Manifesto Extract II

History is a narrative we construct and a tool we can shape. Our model of history has been corrupted by “information pathologies” that include weapons of distortion and deception; suppression of alternatives and repression of inconvenient knowledge; and manufactured consent, propaganda, secrecy, and outright ideologically justified lies that go unchallenged by most journalists and scholars.

. . . . . . .

We find ourselves at the end of centuries of isolation and alienation. The evolution of social technologies and communications media appears to align with prophecies of indigenous cultures like the classic Maya, who looked toward our epoch [and 22 December 2012 specifically] as the end of one great cycle and the beginning of another. It's a window of opportunity for us, potentially the threshhold of transformation of humanity into a new psychic collectivity, a new global civilization that can attain galactic citizenship.

2012/06/082012/06/08

Event: 12-14 Oct Seattle National Conference on Dialog & Deliberation

Cultural Intelligence, Methods & Process

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Special announcement from NCDD…

Registration is live for the 2012 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, at www.ncddseattle.eventbrite.com. Be sure to register soon to take advantage of the $350 early bird rate.

We’re so excited about NCDD Seattle! We’re coming together October 12-14 (Fri through Sun) at the beautiful Hyatt at Olive 8 in downtown Seattle for a great event that will bring together hundreds of the most active, thoughtful, and influential people involved in public engagement and group process work across the U.S. and Canada.

After organizing 5 regional events in 2010, we’re going back to holding our biennial national gathering. Spending three days with some of the most amazing people in our field and exploring together how we can shape the future of this important movement… there’s really nothing like it. I hope you plan to join us.

Learn more at www.ncdd.org/events or register today at www.ncddseattle.eventbrite.com. And please share this announcement widely!

Sandy Heierbacher

Director, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD.org)

sandy@ncdd.org

Learn more or get involved…

Check out our FAQs page for lots of details about registration fees, conference venue, and much more.
Complete our Interest Form for NCDD Seattle to let us know if you’re interested in getting involved in the planning process, helping out at the event, sponsoring, publicizing the conference, presenting a workshop, etc.
Consider supporting this important convening by becoming an All-Star Sponsor, Co-Sponsor or Partner of NCDD Seattle. Learn more about sponsorship options and benefits.
Learn more about NCDD’s events and why we think you’ll enjoy NCDD Seattle.