Lethal autonomous robots (LARs) may provide the best counter to the asymmetric threats of the future. From China’s considerable capacity for jamming and general cyber attack to swarms of Iranian patrol boats, dangers are proliferating, and LARs can operate faster than humans and achieve lethal outcomes even where there are no communications links. LARs are apt to prove attractive to a number of players, so the United States should act at once to secure a commanding capability in fully autonomous targeting. Legal concerns do not appear to be a game-ender, so operational commanders in particular should lead in harnessing this emerging technology. With appropriate control measures, these unmanned systems will be safe, effective, and legal weapons as well as force multipliers. They have already proven their value during the Global War on Terror, and all branches of the U.S. military are poised to rely on ever-more sophisticated LARs.
20121028
JFQ-67: No One at the Controls: Legal Implications of Fully Autonomous Targeting
CIA veteran John Brennan has transformed U.S. counterterrorism policy - The Washington Post
In his windowless White House office, presidential counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan is compiling the rules for a war the Obama administration believes will far outlast its own time in office, whether that is just a few more months or four more years.
The “playbook,” as Brennan calls it, will lay out the administration’s evolving procedures for the targeted killings that have come to define its fight against al-Qaeda and its affiliates. It will cover the selection and approval of targets from the “disposition matrix,” the designation of who should pull the trigger when a killing is warranted, and the legal authorities the administration thinks sanction its actions in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond.
“What we’re trying to do right now is to have a set of standards, a set of criteria, and have a decision-making process that will govern our counterterrorism actions — we’re talking about direct action, lethal action — so that irrespective of the venue where they’re taking place, we have a high confidence that they’re being done for the right reasons in the right way,” Brennan said in a lengthy interview at the end of August.
20121026
Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists - The Washington Post
The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.
Although the matrix is a work in progress, the effort to create it reflects a reality setting in among the nation’s counterterrorism ranks: The United States’ conventional wars are winding down, but the government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.
Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaeda continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight.
20121023
DoD Compares 9/11 Attack and WikiLeaks-Manning
FORT MEADE, Md., Oct. 18, 2012 – Pretrial hearings for two major court cases – one involving the alleged perpetrators behind the 9/11 terror attacks and the other involving the soldier charged with the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history – are converging this week as attorneys operating in two very different legal systems focus on the issue of classified information in the courtroom.
The pre-trial hearing for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who has confessed to planning the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z,” and four others who allegedly trained, financed or arranged transportation for the 19 hijackers entered its fourth day today at Naval Air Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Mohammed’s codefendants in the case are his nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali; Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak bin Attash, charged with selecting and training some of the hijackers; and Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, accused with helping finance the attacks.
CIA Proprietary Agencies & Agents Worldwide
CIA Proprietary Agencies & Agents Worldwide
A
AALC, see Afro-American Labor Center
Acrus Technology
ADEP, see Popular Democratic Action
Advertising Center, Inc.
Aero Service Corp. of Philadelphia
Aero Systems, Inc.
Aero Systems Pvt. Ltd
AFME, see American Friends of the Middle East
"African Report"
African-American Institute
Afro-American Labor Center (AALC) of
What my father would have said about the TSA
My father fathered the way they did on black-and-white TV, though not so much Ward Cleaver as Ralph Kramden (if he and Alice had had kids). He went to work, Mom stayed home. Every night we ate dinner together, but I don’t remember Dad ever saying much. When he did, it was so unusual that it stuck with you.
I was a latecomer, a product of the more permissive 1960s. That was the Vietnam era, a time when people weren’t feeling so good about their government. One night at dinner — I was maybe 10 or 12 years old — I was relating the story of a discussion at school about the Pledge of Allegiance. I opined that it was rather foolish to pledge allegiance to “a piece of cloth on a stick.” I was a precocious kid in a turbulent time, what did you expect? Dad, a World War II veteran, looked up, fixed his gaze on me and said, “A lot of people died defending that piece of cloth on a stick.”
A dozen words, give or take. It may have been the only civics lesson he ever gave me, but I’ve carried it with me for 40-some years. I suspect I’ll carry it to my grave.
I’m thinking about Dad while I wait in line at the airport. They’re ordering an older man to stand on the mat with his arms extended so they can pat him down. A blue-shirted agent struts like the cock of the walk. Whenever I watch this I seethe.
20121022
How US Ambassador Chris Stevens May Have Been Linked To Jihadist Rebels In Syria - Business Insider
The official position is that the US has refused to allow heavy weapons into Syria.But there's growing evidence that U.S. agents—particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens—were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels.
In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group—a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens' life.
Ex-CIA officer expected to plead guilty to some charges in leak case - CNN.com
(CNN) -- A former CIA officer accused of disclosing classified information to reporters and lying to a review board about material in a book he wrote is expected to plead guilty to some charges on Tuesday.
John Kiriakou, is scheduled to appear Tuesday morning for a change of plea hearing at U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, but the court docket on the case does not reveal the charges to which Kiriakou will admit guilt.
A five-count indictment brought against Kiriakou in April included charges that he illegally identified two people to reporters: a covert intelligence officer and an analyst.
20121007
The 9/11 Consensus Points | Consensus 911
The official account of the events of September 11, 2001, has been used:
- to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have resulted in the deaths of millions of people; 1
- to authorize torture, military tribunals, and extraordinary rendition; and
- to suspend freedoms guaranteed by the American Constitution such as habeas corpus in the USA, and similar freedoms in Canada, the UK, and other countries.
The official claims regarding 9/11 are contradicted by facts that have been validated by a scientific consensus process, and which include the following points of “best evidence”.
The 28 Consensus Points are divided into the nine categories below, which in turn link to the individual 28 points:
