The Navy will not use a target depicting a Muslim woman holding a gun at a new training range for SEALs in Virginia Beach.
The announcement came hours after the Council on American-Islamic Relations asked the Pentagon to remove the target. A picture of the cardboard target, which shows a woman in a headscarf holding a pistol, was published in The Virginian-Pilot on Tuesday. The image shows verses of the Quran hanging on the wall behind the woman, which also generated criticism from the group.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington-based council, said in the letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta dated Friday that the target "is offensive and sends a negative and counterproductive message to trainees and to the Muslim-majority nations to which they may be deployed."
20120709
SEAL training range won't show woman as target | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com
20120708
Pentagon Digs In on Cyberwar Front - WSJ.com
The U.S. military is accelerating its cyberwarfare training programs in an aggressive expansion of its preparations for conflict on an emerging battlefield.
The U.S. military is accelerating its cyberwarfare training programs to better defend military networks and enable troops to wield cyberweapons. Julian Barnes has details on The News Hub. Photo: U.S. Air Force.
The renewed emphasis on building up cyberwarfare capabilities comes even as other defense programs have been trimmed. Along with unmanned aircraft and special operations, cyberwarfare is among the newer, more high-tech and often more secretive capabilities favored by the Pentagon's current leadership.
In June, the U.S. Air Force's elite Weapons School—the Air Force version of the Navy's famed "Top Gun" program—graduated its first class of six airmen trained to fight in cyberspace. The new course, at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, trains airmen working at computer terminals how to hunt down electronic intruders, defend networks and launch cyberattacks.
Cisco apologizes for privacy 'confusion,' makes cloud service an opt-in feature - privacy, routers, networking hardware, WLANs / Wi-Fi, wireless, networking, security, Cisco Systems - CIO
Cisco Systems has taken a step back from its Cisco Connect Cloud service, removing it as the default setting for management of its Linksys EA Series Wi-Fi routers after a firestorm of complaints from customers about automatic firmware updates and the service's terms of service.
The default method for managing the high-end Linksys routers has been changed to traditional setup and management over the local network, Cisco said in a blog entry posted on Thursday. When the company brought Cisco Connect Cloud online last week, it made the Internet-based administration service into the default tool for the routers.
20120707
Confrontation With TSA Agent Leaves Grandpa's Ashes On Floor - Indiana News Story - WRTV Indianapolis
INDIANAPOLIS -- A man's attempt to bring the ashes of his grandfather home to Indianapolis ended with an angry scene in a Florida airport, with the ashes spilled on the terminal floor.John Gross, a resident of Indianapolis' south side, was leaving Florida with the remains of his grandfather -- Mario Mark Marcaletti, a Sicilian immigrant who worked for the Penn Central Railroad in central Indiana -- in a tightly sealed jar marked "Human Remains."Gross said he didn't think he'd have a problem, until he ran into a TSA agent at the Orlando airport.
Project PM
The purpose of Project PM's wiki is to provide a centralized, actionable data set regarding the intelligence contracting industry, the PR industry's interface with totalitarian regimes, the mushrooming infosec/"cybersecurity" industry, and other issues constituting threats to human rights, civic transparency, individual privacy, and the health of democratic institutions.
Contents
[hide]Joining Project PM
This is a crowdsourced investigation focused on research and analysis. If you care that the surveillance state is expanding in capabilities and intent without being effectively opposed by the population of the West, you can assist in making this an actionable resource for journalists, activists, and other interested parties. Consider doing a bit of research on the companies and government agencies listed on this wiki, or even adding new topic for investigation by our participants. The best place to start is the Community Portal. We also need help adding much more to Media Reports.
Do not editorialize when contributing; simply add pertinent facts and link to source material. Employ the same writing style one finds at Wikipedia. If you'd like to contribute information to our data set without editing the wiki yourself, you may do so by sending the info to us at staff@project-pm.org (more secure means of communication can be arranged if you care to send an anonymous e-mail to that account). If you have personal knowledge about this topic for any reason, please consider letting us know via that e-mail address. Better yet, you can download an IRC client and join us at ircs://project-pm.org:6697 (If you're not familiar with IRC, you can use this Mibbit, weblink to connect to our IRC chat server) Those interested in starting groups similar to Project PM should see our Guide to Pursuants. Another great resource on this subject matter is the Telecomix Blue Cabinet wiki.
Editing the Wiki
Public editing has returned to the wiki, feel free to contribute research to this project. Only registered accounts may edit, and you may need to recreate your account if you had one previously.
To browse through the complete list of pages on this site, click here. Some important pages are listed below. For a list of terms used in these articles, you can check the Glossary and Acronyms
Entities of Particular Interest re: Metal Gear
Team Themis: Palantir, Berico, HBGary
Government entities involved include:
Other Entities of Interest
Pages of General Interest
20120706
LIBOR Banking Scandal Deepens; Barclays Releases Damning Email, Implicates British Government | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
This Libor-manipulation story grows crazier with each passing minute. We have officially disappeared now down the rabbit-hole of the international financial oligarchy.
Former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond is testifying before parliament in London today, and that's sure to bring some shocking moments. But there's already been one huge stunner. In advance of that testimony, Barclays released an email from October 29, 2008, written by Diamond to then-Chairman John Varley and COO Jerry del Messier (who also stepped down yesterday). The email from the CEO to the other two senior Barclays execs purports to detail the content of the conversation Diamond had with Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker that same day.
In the email, Diamond essentially tells the other two execs that he has been given permission by Tucker – encouraged, actually – to rig Libor rates downward. What’s even worse is that Diamond’s email suggests that Tucker was only following orders, i.e. that Tucker had received phone calls from "a number of senior figures within Whitehall" – that is, the British government – expressing concern about Barclays' high Libor rates. Tucker in this version of events was acting as a middleman for the British government, telling Diamond to fake his borrowing rates in order to preserve the appearance of financial stability, for the good of Queen and country as it were.
20120705
Obama vs. Romney: Who Would Handle an Alien Invasion Better? – News Watch
I am not sure if this was timed as part of a sendoff for our very favorite Breaking Orbit blogger, Victoria Jaggard, or for the new show Chasing UFOs airing Friday, June 29 on the National Geographic Channel , but National Geographic has just released the results of new survey that declares most Americans think President Obama would handle an alien invasion better than Mitt Romney.
According to the results:
“President Obama and his staff might have to be on high alert for an alien attack if the predictions of many Americans come to fruition. Nearly one in five (19%) think Washington, D.C., is the most likely landing zone for a UFO. And more than one in four (28%) think one would touch down in Roswell, N.M., which is certainly best known for unidentified flying objects. Furthermore, many think officials have put a tight lid on what they actually know, as nearly four in five (79%) believe that the government has kept information about UFOs a secret from the public. Whether or not the White House is being buttoned up about UFOs, the commander in chief would need to let loose on aliens if our nation were being threatened. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Americans think Barack Obama would be better suited than fellow presidential candidate Mitt Romney to handle an alien invasion. In fact, more than two in three (68%) women say that Obama would be more adept at dealing with an alien invasion than Romney, vs. 61 percent of men. And more younger citizens, ages 18 to 64 years, than those aged 65+ (68% vs. 50%) think Romney would not be as well-suited as Obama to handle an alien invasion.”