IN T E L SE Ç T ECHNOLOGY

new NSA Special Collections Svc NIMA Promis JASON Alfred Loomis sapper drones taser bot Epoc duroquinone strays Tenet targets Alltel Information Services InQTel Amdocs & Comverse Stewart Nozette Ptech NSA's leviathan telcom database Megiddo Mormon tech F. Carlucci Carlyle Group NatSec kereitsu GOP reshuffle RPVs mayfly CTS omni-surveillance ebombs HAARP stray cat NRO OnStar CCS torture exports Hessians & PMCs Martian Cold War relics NatSec career fair Ctr for Public Inquiry CLW FPIF Infowar Defensetech Politech The Register WashTech (Wash.Post) professionals cold war facilities DEW Tempest Seeds of Fire, G.Thomas 11.01 Tom Bearden OKC Cathy O'Brien re C.O'Brien MKUltra T. Kazcynski Alfred Loomis Proj.Artichoke's 8 methods Fifth Horseman

To be politically active and not live in fear & mutual suspicion, stand at each meeting's start & insist on applause for enemy agents among us.   Invite them to return with all their cohorts because their presence only strengthens our capability for resistance since our commitment & righteousness are invincible & inevitably triumphant. ~   Zopilote fronterizo

CTS will keep watch by equipping each camera with a processor, like the one in your computer. The chips will have programmed into them "video understanding algorithms" that can distinguish one car from another. At each checkpoint, the car's speed, time of arrival, color, size, license plate, and shape are all instantly passed on to a central server. If the early tests identifying cars go well, software that recognizes a person's face and style of walk could also be added.
By sharing only this refined data, instead of the raw video itself, CTS should keep fragile computer networks from becoming overloaded with hours & hours of meaningless footage. CTS would help govt networks avoid that burden, with each camera transmitting a mere 8 kilobits per second, instead of the 200 or so kilobits needed for high-resolution video. CTS would also keep the snoops who stare at the monitors from being overwhelmed. "We have enough cameras, but not enough people to watch the video feeds," said CTS head Tom Strat for DARPA's Information Exploitation Office.

CTS cameras might send back to headquarters only basic data or the occasional low-resolution image. But when there's something fishy going down, like a car speeding away unexpectedly, or a briefcase left in a train station, the images could come sharper, and more quickly. Proto-CTS programs from contractors Northrop Grumman & Sarnoff Corp. would interrupt monotony of surveillance footage, setting red boxes aflash around the suspect person or object. "It focuses your attention right there," said Bruce De Witte of Northrop.
CTS would do more than change what investigators see. It would also give them a record of everything that happens in a city's public places, potential evidence for prosecutors and terrorist hunters. In its presentation to industry, DARPA said it wanted CTS to be able to find the common threads between a shooting at a bus stop one month and a bombing at a disco the next. In theory, CTS could take an inventory of all of the cars around the bus stop and near the disco immediately before and after the incidents. Then it could examine where those cars went, to see if there were any vehicles in common or if a car acted as a sort of messenger between two others.

The forensic process could be further enhanced by one of DARPA's analysis programs, like LifeLog or Total Information Awareness. After mining license plate numbers from the footage, investigators could identify the car owners, then dig into the owners' Web-surfing trails, to see if there were any visits to explosive-making sites and scan e-mail accounts for virulent language and plumb credit card receipts for big fertilizer purchases.
To the uninitiated, storing & sharing all this information might seem like insurmountably complex tasks. According to CTS manager Strat, the ability to network surveillance cameras over a wide area is "not right around the corner." Defense and technology analysts have a different view. "(CTS) is pretty creepy. And the creepiest part about it is that it's not all that sophisticated," said privacy-rights proponent Electronic Frontier Foundation sr staff atty Lee Tien.

DARPA has mandated that the CTS demonstrations be done only with readily available, "off the shelf" equipt What may be harder is handing off information, a description of a suspicious vehicle, from one camera to the next. These lenses will be separated by hundreds, even thousands, of meters. And "appearances can change dramatically" in those distances, Johns Hopkins Univ. sr research scientist Chris Diehl said. Slight variations in light or in the camera's angle can make a car look very different to a mechanical eye. "If you read the literature, there really isn't a proven method" for solving this problem, he said.
Yet this obstacle seems surmountable. In a CTS simulation conducted by software developer Alphatech, a car could be tracked over 10 kilometers with accuracy of 90% or better with cameras placed 400m apart. The percentage went up, of course, as the cameras moved closer together.

CTS is but one of an array of private & public sector programs to sort through the ever expanding amount of surveillance imagery. UCSD Computer Vision & Robotics Research lab just received a $600,000 grant from a Defense Dept counterterror group for a CTS-like project. At Los Alamos National Laboratory, Stephen Brumby is using genetic algorithms, programs that are bred from smaller components of code, to automatically analyze satellite pictures. At the Sarnoff Corporation, a project dubbed Video Flashlight would morph cameras' views into a single 3D model. Using a joystick, a security officer could maneuver through this simulated world as though playing a game.

In order for Video Flashlight to work, however, it would have to use stationary cameras. CTS doesn't have that limitation; it's supposed to function with drones & other battlefield sensors. That's one of the reasons Globalsecurity.org's John Pike thinks the program could have a legitimate military function, "to the extent that it is relevant to urban operations, as opposed to the running of a well-oiled police state." Combat in cities "tends to quickly degenerate into small firefights," Pike explained. It's a lot harder to know what's happening in a crowded city than it is in an open desert. Radios cut out quicker; drones & satellites have a harder time peering through the concrete canyons and narrow passageways of urban life. CTS could restore some of that sight, giving U.S. generals a "broader situational awareness."

This assumes CTS has anything to do with urban combat. If it does, it'd be a surprise to some of the businesses bidding for the CTS contract. "The primary application is for homeland security," said Sarnoff Corp. spokesman Tom Lento. "The whole theme here is homeland security," added Northrop Grumman's De Witte. Strat disagreed. "DARPA's mission is not to do homeland security," he said.
In a presentation to industry, DARPA noted, "CTS technology will be demonstrated only within the observable boundaries of govt installations where video surveillance is expressly permitted, and operational deployment areas outside U.S. where it is consistent with all local laws." But in an interview, Strat did admit that "there's a chance that some of this technology might work its way" into domestic surveillance programs.

In the test at Ft Belvoir this year the aim is to track 90% of all of cars within the target area for any given 30-minute period. The paths of 1 million vehicles should be stored and retrievable within 3 seconds. A year after that, CTS is supposed to move on to testing in an urban combat setting, where it will gather information from 100 mobile sensors, like drone spy planes and "video ropes" containing dozens of tiny cameras.
"This is coming whether we like it or not," said CSIS Jim Lewis. "It's not how do we stop the tidal wave. It's how do we manage it."

Cyber national guard Defense Dept for controversial AZ cybersecurity plan 4.18.01   Kevin Poulsen SecurityFocus Pentagon cyber security wonks are looking to the Grand Canyon State for the future of information warfare defense, thanks to a bill in the Arizona legislature that would create the country's first State Infrastructure Protection Center (SIPC). Like its national namesake, the FBI-housed NIPC, the Arizona SIPC would be poised to respond to physical   cyber attacks on 7 critical infrastructures: telecommunications, energy, banking, finance, transportation, water and emergency services. But it would be overseen by the state's emergency management department, and be comprised primarily of state agencies. It would also maintain close ties to the Pentagon, which has endorsed the proposal. Under the plan, the Defense Dept would provide the SIPC with up-to-date, sanitized information on network vulnerabilities and ongoing attacks through a new Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) established within the Arizona National Guard. "The National Guard is the perfect conduit between the [Defense Dept] & the state," says James Christy, law enforcement & counterintelligence coordinator for the Pentagon's Defense-wide Information Assurance Program, who helped draft the proposal. "The National Guard works for the state governor most of the time, but they can be federalized in times of crisis." The Guard's quasi-federal status is key to the plan, which Christy wants to see spread to all fifty states. He argues that state-level involvement is needed to protect critical infrastructures from terrorists & foreign info-warriors. "If we were ever to see a strategic attack on the nation, what you need is somebody on the local level, and then upstream it to the national level," says Christy. "The National Guard is the perfect conduit between the Defense Dept & the state." James Christy, Defense Dept "If something happens here in the state, it could disrupt Luke Air Force Base, for example, which is here in the Arizona," agrees Rep. Wes Marsh, the bill's sponsor. "The cyber impacts the physical, and that's what's so unique about the bill." But the SIPC bill is not without critics, and an earlier version passed Arizona's House of Representatives only to be shot down in the Senate. At issue: The legislation foresees crafting the SIPC out of existing hardware & personnel, at no cost to taxpayers, a proposition Arizona governor Jane Hull says is unrealistic. Moreover, the bill would require the state's technology managers to promulgate a series of cyber security plans including use of intrusion detection systems in every govt agency, but doesn't offer any money for that effort. "The governor has concerns because it's not funded, and it calls for the creation of 15 different plans with no implementation strategy or funding," says Susan Patrick, strategic communications manager with Arizona's Govt Information Technology Agency, the group that would be responsible for pushing the reforms. "It also calls for us to use existing resources, and we have no statewide information security specialists in our agency." Marsh counters that the state should already be using IDS systems, and other security measures, across the board, and argues that availability of freeware programs like Snort and PGP should alleviate cost concerns. "Current statutes require them to have disaster recover & reconstitution plans," says Marsh. "Information assurance is a critical component of that."

E-Bomb   more   In an eye blink, electromagnetic bombs can put civilization back 200 years. Terrorists' building cost is $400.   9.01   Jim Wilson Popular Mechanics … high-power microwave pulses … 1925 by physicist Arthur H. Compton, … the Compton Effect … first major test of an American electromagnetic bomb is scheduled for next year. … In the 1980s, the Air Force tested E-bombs that used cruise-missile delivery systems. … idea the U.S. studied but discarded, the Flux Compression Generator (FCG). … Virtual havoc 8.5.01   Jim Beamguard Tampa Tribune In the wee hours of a recent Sunday morning, a young oaf from Taiwan had me crawling around my attic, desperately searching for an old document I needed to save my sanity. It's a long, sad tale that began around 8 pm on a Saturday, when my younger son reported the computer had refused to play games. I watched him try again and saw a dreaded message: Virus detected. I took over and asked the virus detection program to seek and destroy. It wouldn't or couldn't. Nothing I tried worked. Round one to Chen Ing-Hau. I resigned myself to wiping clean the hard drive and reloading all the programs. But to my dismay, the emergency boot disk did not work. The hard drive refused to be erased or reformatted. Windows 98 wouldn't even try to load. It told me the computer had no room for an operating system. Give round two to the student from Taiwan. At this point I called Dell Computer, which guaranteed lifetime support. After a while I reached someone who gamely tried everything he could think of to restore my machine to meaningful life. Finally in frustration, he asked me to tell him exactly what had gone wrong. I mentioned seeing the name Windows95.CIH, and he let out a gasp of horror: The Chernobyl virus! Round three goes to Chen. MS-DOS layer still at the heart of Microsoft Windows 98 & Windows ME was first written in 1981, and even it was a quick "port" (without many changes) of an earlier operating system called CP/M, written in 1970s. Year 2038 problem 4.9.02 Roger M. Wilcox It was named after the initials of this Chen Ing-Hau, a university student who is said to have written & unleashed it to cause suffering worthy of a nuclear disaster. It does more than destroy data; it rearranges it to defy an easy fix. The voice on the phone worked me through a tedious process of typing in many short lines of arcane code and telling him what the machine did in reply. Together we gradually sandblasted clean my hard drive. After an hour's work, we had it as information-free as a newborn baby. I thanked the virtual surgeon, who left the rest to me. Round four to the home team. Now I could reload Windows 98, or so I thought. The CD began to load but stopped and asked for the verification number that came with the disk. It wanted to be sure I wasn't cheating Microsoft by borrowing someone's software. That meant a trip to the attic to search through boxes of stuff, most of which should have been thrown away, but you never know. The attic is cramped, hot and dark. Round five to Chen. Somehow I found the right paper. It was 1 a.m. and hope lived. The machine accepted the long list of numbers and letters from the authentication document but then shocked me by stopping to announce that what I had was a Windows 98 upgrade. The upgrade demanded to be installed on top of Windows 95. I had the Windows 95 disk handy and popped it in but was stopped again. The screen asked me to type in the Windows 95 authentication code. Chen wins round six. I had the code six years ago, probably had it still, but where? I should have kept it in a fireproof lockbox with my birth certificate and marriage license, but in fact I had lost it in some pile of computer stuff somewhere. Finally I found it and got things almost right. I went straight on the Internet to download a better, newer virus program. Round seven to the home team. After I paid $25 via credit card, it told me to print out the screen as a receipt. Oops, the printer wasn't reinstalled yet, so the computer froze. When I got it going again, the virus Web site wouldn't talk to me unless I first typed in my code name and password, which it had sent by e-mail. Trouble was, my Roadrunner e-mail program was gone. Round eight to Chen. I began setting it up again, and it refused to accept my sign-on name and password. I tried every password I've ever used and none worked. So early one Sunday morning, a Roadrunner worker got a call from a very grouchy customer. I convinced him I was not an identity thief and he confirmed my sign-on name & password, exactly what I had typed in, almost. The name needed to start with a lower-case letter, not an upper-case one. Around 2 a.m. I was able to get the e-mail, download the virus-fighting info and declare my computer safe and germ-free. Round nine and Chen finally went down for the count. But I didn't celebrate, just went to bed. If another virus strikes my household, I hope I catch it instead of my computer. Anything short of Ebola would cause less misery than Win95.CIH.

Weapons of the secret war   ¹ ² ³   £ Drug war signals honed intelligence for terrorism fight Nov. 2001   Paul Kaihla Business 2.0 The target never had a clue that he was in imminent danger. A high-ranking member of a Kashmiri terrorist group implicated in the World Trade Center attack, he had every reason to believe he had eluded the manhunt. He was lying low in a nondescript safe house on the outskirts of Peshawar in Pakistan's Khyber Pass region. He steered clear of phones and kept to himself. His sole contact with his global ring was through wireless e-mail transmitted by a high-frequency radio running on only eight flashlight batteries. Using that low-powered signal to send messages of only a few words at a time, keeping transmissions to short bursts, he was impossible to trace. Or so he thought. What the terrorist couldn't know was that signals intelligence operatives had been on his trail for months. His communications network relied on a base station hundreds of miles away in the Afghan desert; that device had been spotted by a robotic USAF Predator spy plane mapping radio traffic along mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border from an altitude of 25K ft. Thereafter, each radio message he sent brought his fate closer, the final one pinpointed by members of the U.S. antiterrorism unit, Delta Force, who were sweeping his outpost with handheld direction finders. They staked out the house with local commandos and waited. When their man stepped out for some air, they made a visual confirmation and radioed the kill order to a Pakistani sniper team. From a quarter-mile away, a shooter took out the target with a single .50-caliber bullet.

Hypothetical scenario above parallels almost exactly the real-life 12.2.93 demise of public enemy number one in the U.S. war on drugs, Pablo Escobar. That manhunt ended in Medellin, not Peshawar, and infinite justice was Colombian, not Pakistani commandos. Still, U.S. intelligence & military say 1990s drug cartel raids are model for antiterror strategy. In both, U.S. special forces advise indigenous troops, who do the actual dirty work. And in both cases, American signals intelligence technology plays a crucial role. Broadly speaking, signals intelligence (sigint) is the interception, exploitation, and jamming of electronic communication, whether it's radiated through the atmosphere and sea or through fixed lines like the telephone grid. In its 21st-century American application, it is a multibillion-dollar enterprise designed to eavesdrop on the conversations and data traffic of U.S. adversaries anywhere in the world. (However, the law prohibits blanket electronic monitoring of U.S. residents, one reason perhaps that intelligence agencies missed the hundreds of e-mails 9.11.01 hijackers exchanged with each other from personal computers and public library kiosks.)

Listening posts in worldwide surveillance network range from simple radio antennas wired into sophisticated receivers to P-3 Orion spy planes operated by the U.S. Navy & Customs Service to nuclear submarines like the USS Jimmy Carter , which can sit on the ocean floor for weeks at a time tapping undersea fiber-optic cables. The network even extends into space, where at least 8 geosynchronous spy satellites vacuum up radio and other waves emanating from earth, beam the captured data to receivers on various continents, and then relay them to Fort Meade, MD NSA HQ. Some listening points feed data computers of Cold War-inspired intelligence cooperative called Echelon, maintained by U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Spectrum analyzers, like MRI-scanners for all electromagnetic signals in an area find radio transmitter in mountains & tell its energy source. Data-mining software combs hundreds of millions of intercepted e-mail msgs, faxes, and phone calls in minutes to find a single flagged sequence. System can pick single voice from thousands of cell-phone conversations in area, even if speaker is constantly switching phones to avoid interception.

At the controls are specialists who number only a few hundred in U.S. and perhaps 2,000 in the entire world. One of handful of private contractors told Business 2.0 he was hired by 3 letter govt agency 9.11.01 and has worked practically around the clock since. Steve Uhrig is another private sigint contractor, onetime "spook" with U.S. Naval Intelligence now one of most respected surveillance & technical countermeasure specialists in world. He installs bugs & wiretaps, sweeps for them, and designs "black boxes". Colombian army is by far his largest customer. Among surveillance systems he set up in Colombia is 100 "beeper busters" network, computer-driven receivers with decoders that filter both pager numbers & content of interest to authorities in real time. The instant suspect receive pager message, Colombian army intelligence has a copy.

In 1993 the CIA & covert U.S. Army unit called Centra Spike spent months in Colombia monitoring Escobar's communications from both ground & air, finally pinpointing his location when he made a cell phone call. Colombian special forces commandos killed him as he ran barefoot across apt bldg rooftop. Escobar's death taught traffickers cell phones vulnerability. Cartel countermeasure is to "roll" cell phones to confuse wiretappers. Using scanners, they steal identities of innocent bystanders' mobile phones and program the "cloned" numbers into their own handsets for a few days at a time. Authorities can't keep track of what phone numbers they should be tapping. In response, authorities deployed surveillance techy that operates over Colombia from spy planes. It uses a series of intermediate frequency-to-tape converters with directional antennas, receivers, and wide-band recorders, to scoop major bands across entire cellular spectrum. Loaded with the proper gear, one aircraft can record all cell traffic in major city by circling at high altitude exploiting microwave signals that form handshake between cell sites in wireless networks. At plane's base, computer extracts audio files of conversations from captured signals. Audio files then filtered with voice recognition software, allowing identification by suspect's voice.

According to Uhrig, those vacuum cleaner technologies will not be as effective against Middle Eastern terrorists. Afghanistan has no cellular service. This year's successful prosecution of 4 terrorists implicated in 1998 African embassy bombings relied heavily on NSA intercepts of cellular & satellite phone calls between terrorist leader Osama bin Laden & his al Qaeda network. All too aware its phones were compromised, al Qaeda reportedly curtailed its use of phones. Task is the forte of unacknowledged U.S. intelligence agency named of Special Collections Service (SCS) in Beltsville, MD, short freeway ride from NSA HQ, jointly staffed by NSA & CIA. Operating under U.S. embassy cover around world, agency known for hiding bugs on pigeons on windowsills of Soviet embassy in WashD.C.

SCS currently eavesdropping on govt communications in MidEast capitals and, where possible, setting up listening posts around figures close to bin Laden's network. "They'll be trying to build a case to show the Taliban's support for al Qaeda," says retired U.S. special ops colonel still involved with military. Suspects try to blend into densely populated city talk on a radio freq they "snuggle" next to powerful signal like local tv transmitter. "Sweeping area for a radio, you'll miss it unless you know exactly what you're looking for," says Uhrig, technical consultant for film Enemy of the State. "Receiver will lock on to the big transmitter." In that case, hunt with spectrum analyzer for picture monitoring all signals big & small, and break them down into parts.

In mountains, Uhrig surmises low-powered high-freq radio network, whose signals drowned in background noise emitted by electronic car ignitions. In a manhunt, ascertain coordinates of a target. Modern direction finders get bearing on radio or a cell phone even if they capture as little as 20msec signal. Put Tomahawk into cave with laser detonator." Anything that creates RF signal, …

bin Laden's software   10.01   Gordon Thomas Accenture Ptech stolen supercellphone Iraq Regulatory Data Corp corporate welfare untracked pensions Vince Foster Seeds of Fire Robert Maxwell: Israeli superspy Osama bin-Laden is using the world's most sophisticated software to track PM Tony Blair, Pres. GWBush and key members of the Coalition against Global Terrorism. Convicted FBI super-spy Robert P Hanssen stole the software for his Russian paymasters. They sold it to bin-Laden for £Stg 3 million a month before he launched his attack on America. As well as tracking the Coalition leaders, bin-Laden is using the software to avoid intelligence agencies trying to freeze his vast fortune, estimated at over £Stg 400 million and deposited in over 100 accounts in banks around the world. The software was used to empty his holdings in the City of London, Wall Street, the Frankfurt Bourse and other key financial centers. Bin-Laden's money is now believed to be stored under a variety of aliases in China's banking system. So far the Beijing regime has refused to collaborate with Western financial specialists trying to trace the funds. The software is called Promis and is designed to be operated from a laptop computer by spies. It has been sold to the CIA, FBI, MI5, MI6 and European agencies like Germany's BND. It was developed by a small specialist company in Washington called Inslaw, long at the cutting edge of creating electronic intelligence-gathering equipment. Its President, William Hamilton, a 45 year old bearded computer expert who is regarded as one of the world's leading experts in the field of electronic surveillance confirmed the Promis software gives bin-Laden access to any govt database including Downing Street and the White House. "It also has the ability to empty his bank accounts in the blink of an eye and organise money-laundering operations. With Promis, bin-Laden can monitor efforts to track him down. The irony of it is that Promis is so sophisticated that it can be used by somebody who is not really computer literate. All bin-Laden has to do is to insert the software into a computer and press the command buttons on his screen." That simplicity of operation has pressed panic buttons in the White House and Downing Street. Evidence of that emerged last week when the BBC was castigated by the govt after reporting the travel movements of Tony Blair to the MidEast. Fearful that bin-Laden could attack the White House when both President Bush & VP Cheney, were together, the FBI has ordered the men to stay apart. Cheney now operates out of a bunker 250 miles from Washington. Its location is classified. Known as Hotel Armageddon, … The first hint that bin-Laden had obtained Promis came on the morning of 9.11.01. As Air Force One flew Bush from Florida to Washington, the chief of the Secret Service detail on board was called to the communications shack behind the flight deck. Karl Rove, Bush's senior adviser, remembered: "The chief was told that a coded message had just come in that said 'Bush, you are next'. It was clear from the message that somebody knew how to break through all the procedures and the daily code book. The only way that could be done is with the Promis software." Air Force One was diverted to a military airfield in Louisana. "You can change the codes and procedures. But Promis is designed to work its way past them," said Hamilton. "To know what is going on in any seat of govt, all bin-Laden has to do is to insert an electronic trapdoor in his software. It would give him an eavesdropping facility that would probably cost no more than £400 to install," added Hamilton. Since last week Germany's BND, its external intelligence service, has stopped using its Promis software in case it can be intercepted by bin-Laden. Promis is designed to "electronically speak" to other versions of the software. In one of his last overseas assignments before being arrested, Hanssen flew to London and supervised the installation of Promis in MI5 and MI6 headquarters. He has assured the FBI in return for being spared the death sentence for his treachery that there are no trapdoors in Britain's intelligence computers. But last week it emerged that secret details about bin-Laden's organisation and its contacts with the Real IRA, ETA (the Basque separatist group), and other Middle East groups with cells in Montreal, had been electronically lifted from computers of the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service (CSIS). CSIS has had a poor reputation in recent years for maintaining operational secrecy. The country's internal security service, operated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Mounties, has already conducted one lengthy investigation last year into the misuse of Promis. The results of that investigation have remained secret. Cops tap database to harass, intimidate Some say police misuse frequent, but punishments rare 7.31.01   M. L. ElrickM. L. Elrick Free Press Police throughout Michigan, entrusted with personal & confidential information in a state law enforcement database, have used it to stalk women, threaten motorists and settle scores. Over the past 5 years, more than 90 Michigan police officers, dispatchers, federal agents and security guards have abused the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN), according to a Free Press examination of hundreds of pages of LEIN records & police reports. In many cases, abusers turned a valuable crime-fighting tool into a personal search engine for home addresses, for driving records and for criminal files of love interests, colleagues, bosses or rivals. Even police are vulnerable to having their privacy violated. Former Center Line police chief Adam Garcia's name was run through the LEIN by one of his own officers when he took the job in June 1998. Garcia said his record was clean and he had nothing to hide. "It was meant to harass and intimidate me," Garcia said. "And to let me know that they knew all about me when they weren't supposed to know." Police said they think the system, which is used to make about 3 million background checks each month, is more widely abused than anyone knows. "I wouldn't doubt that it happens very often," said Lawrence Carey, who retired this month as Plymouth Township's police chief. "A lot of them are taken care of internally." Since 1967, the LEIN has been a powerful weapon in the fight against crime. Using the FBI's National Crime Information Ctr, Michigan Sec.State vehicle registrations & driving histories, and other databases, LEIN can tell police whether someone is wanted on an arrest warrant, is a sex offender, was reported missing, or is deemed dangerous. Police can find out where someone lives as well as confidential information such as whether the person applied for a concealed weapon permit or has a suppressed juvenile record. All it takes to access someone's detailed personal information is their name or license plate number. Sometimes, one officer will have another officer run a questionable LEIN check for them, possibly as a way of avoiding detection. Despite rules limiting LEIN use to law enforcement purposes, police told the Free Press their colleagues use LEIN to check out attractive people they spot on the road. "I'm not going to be so naive as to say an officer hasn't seen a pretty girl and run her plate," said Carey, who also was once chief in Troy. Former Memphis Police Chief Phillip Ludos said the practice is so common it is known simply as "Running a plate for a date." Part-time Memphis police officer Scott Woods, also known by his Internet nom de plume, BRN 2B NAKED, used the LEIN to find out personal information about a woman he met on the Internet around March 1999, according to Memphis police reports. Woods, who was also working as a Macomb County Jail guard, asked a friend in Detroit's 9th (Gratiot) Precinct to get information on a St. Clair Shores woman, according to a Memphis police incident report and Macomb County sheriff's investigation report. Woods began corresponding with the woman, and over the course of 2 months told her he was a widower raising a baby daughter. The woman told the Free Press she was afraid to talk about the case and did not want her name used. According to police records, the woman gave Woods her phone number and arranged to meet him after work one night. But instead of going on a date, Woods sat outside her workplace in his sport-utility vehicle, the woman told police. She said she waved Woods in, but he just sat there. Woods later told the woman he had followed her home the night before, according to police records. He called her by her middle name, which she had not told him. He described her height & weight. He went on to call her at home and work up to 3 times a day, according to police & sheriff's records. Woods declined to discuss the case. "It's something from my past," he said. "That was all blown out of proportion." Ludos, who was Memphis chief at the time, said Woods confirmed the woman's account when confronted. Ludos said he fired Woods from the Memphis force for conduct unbecoming an officer in 1999. He resigned from the Sheriff's Dept. Sharing LEIN information is a misdemeanor in Michigan, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine, upon conviction. As is often the case, the Detroit officers accused of abusing the system to help Woods were not prosecuted. Both are facing a hearing on possible departmental discipline, but it has not been scheduled. Sometimes the LEIN is used as a weapon in domestic disputes. Former Oakland Cty asst prosecutor Cathy McGuigan said she should not have been surprised when her ex-husband, John Knechtges, ran her new husband's information through the LEIN. "When you start getting into the romantic entanglement dept, I think that's when the cops abuse it a lot," she said. "Anybody who's ever been involved with a police officer should be concerned about it happening to them." Knechtges, then a Troy police lt, and a friendly FBI agent ran McGuigan's husband through LEIN. Armed with information, Knechtges took McGuigan to court and attempted to gain custody of their son. McGuigan said Knechtges was unsuccessful, but his power play helped end her new marriage. Knechtges was reprimanded and suspended for a week without pay. FBI agent James Triano, who ran McGuigan's husband through LEIN, received a letter of censure and was put on probation for 6 months, said Detroit FBI Special-Agent-In-Charge John Bell Jr. Bell called the incident "very serious, you're talking about our bread & butter, controlling information." But, he said, the agent acted out of concern for the couple's child. Triano did not respond to requests for an interview. Knechtges, who now works for a glass manufacturer, declined to comment. It's not uncommon for police to help friends get information through LEIN. One hour after Carl Daisy exchanged heated words with another motorist in Northville on 4.7.98, Highland Park Public Safety Officer Eric Hollowell, who was not involved in the altercation, asked a dispatcher to run Daisy's license plate number through the LEIN system, state records show. Less than an hour later, Daisy received the first of many ominous calls. "You're talking to God. I know everything about you," the man told Daisy. On at least one occasion, Daisy said the caller told him he "had a beautiful wife and that it would be a shame if anything happened to her." The caller was never identified. Hollowell is not suspected of calling Daisy, and he denies abusing the LEIN system. But Ronald Parham, who was Highland Park Police Chief at the time, said he concluded that Hollowell used the LEIN to help an acquaintance locate Daisy. Parham said he reprimanded Hollowell, and Wayne County prosecutors declined to prosecute.That outrages Daisy. "What would happen if I accessed that information?" he asked. "There are stalking laws. I'd be creamed." Hollowell's explanation for being linked to the LEIN check on Daisy: a bookkeeping error or another officer requesting a LEIN check under his name. "I honestly don't remember running that plate," Hollowell said. "If I did run it, it was legitimate. It wasn't for any bull." In 1996, police running license plates through LEIN exposed a secret surveillance operation, according to state records. St. Clair Police were investigating a major seller of illegal cable boxes when a Detroit police detective and a Michigan State Police trooper separately ran LEIN checks on their undercover vehicles, St. Clair Police Chief Donald Barnum said. Records don't show why the checks were made. St. Clair police didn't learn they had been exposed until they searched the suspect's home and found LEIN printouts, Barnum said. "That information was very, very classified and very, very difficult to obtain," he said. "That information could have been very detrimental to the outcome of our case." Investigators were unable to determine which trooper tapped into the database, but records show that the Detroit detective was suspended for 2 days. Sometimes LEIN abuse becomes a part of political campaigns. Genesee County Sheriff's Dept Sgt. Chuck Melki blames LEIN abuse for undermining his campaign against incumbent Sheriff Robert Pickell in the 2000 Democratic primary. On 6.21.00, Genesee County Jail administrator Kenneth Emigh, a Pickell appointee, had deputies run the license plates of 3 cars with pro-Melki bumper stickers. State police investigated after an anonymous letter writer reported the incident. As word spread within the dept, Melki said his supporters became intimidated. "A lot of my support shrunk up, went underground when they found out they were running people's plates," Melki said. Pickell suspended Emigh for 3 days. Emigh said he used bad judgment, but was not trying to help Pickell. "I really regret doing it," Emigh said. "I have not run one since. It's not worth the trouble." Said Melki: "The public can't use it for personal gain, why can a police officer? ...If you'd have done that, we'd have been getting a warrant on you." Database on U.S. visitors set for huge expansion 6.2.04   Anitha Reddy & Sara kehaulani goo Wash.Post Dept of Homeland Security yesterday awarded a contract worth up to $10 billion to Accenture LLP to oversee & expand a massive U.S. program to track millions of foreign visitors as they cross American borders. The project, called U.S. Visit, collects & stores information about foreigners entering & exiting the country on visas through airports & seaports. The data, incl digital photographs & fingerprints, are stored in an electronic database and shared among some govt agencies to ensure that visitors do not overstay their visas and to help authorities capture suspected terrorists and criminals. The program debuted at U.S. airports & seaports in January and has processed more than 4.5 million people. Homeland Security officials said they have used U.S. Visit to deny entry to suspected terrorists and to arrest more than 500 wanted or suspected criminals. Now the program will expand to track all foreign visitors entering & exiting the country, incl those who don't need visas and those who arrive by land. About 94% of all foreign visitors enter and exit the country by land. Accenture will oversee or replace a number of govt contractors that are working on the existing pieces of the U.S. Visit program, which began under the former Immigration & Naturalization Service. Co. task will be to vastly broaden the project to visitors crossing land borders without slowing intl commerce. "I don't think you could overstate the impact of this responsibility, in terms of security of our nation," said Dept of Homeland Security undersecretary for Border & Transportation Security Asa Hutchinson. "If you look at the 9.11.01 terrorists, they came here in violation of our immigration laws." Some critics complained that Reston VA based Accenture LLP should not have won the contract over competitors Lockheed Martin Corp. & Computer Sciences Corp. because its parent consulting firm Accenture Ltd. is based in Bermuda. "Accenture isn't contributing its fair share to the costs of the very contract that it's now been given," because of the tax advantages it receives, said Rep. Lloyd Doggett D-TX who authored a bill to eliminate incentives for American companies that move their headquarters abroad. Homeland Security's Hutchinson said yesterday that Accenture LLP is a U.S. taxpayer and is qualified to bid on U.S. govt contracts. He said the agency chose Accenture based on its management & technical ability, its past performance on govt contracts and the amount of its bid. Officials yesterday declined to provide total value of the 5 year contract, saying it would range from $10 million to $10 billion, depending on how much funding the program receives from Congress, the agency's policy decisions and Accenture's performance. Homeland Security officials said Accenture bid $72 million to complete the first year's work. Accenture will help Homeland Security meet 2 ambitious deadlines. By 12.31.04, Homeland Security must begin fingerprinting & photographing foreigners who enter the country at the 50 busiest land borders. A Homeland Security spokesman said initially most Canadians & Mexicans will be exempt from the program, but eventually all Mexicans & Canadians may have to comply. By 12.31.05, the program will be extended to all land crossings. Some vehicles crossing land borders are already equipped with radio frequency tags that transmit data about the driver, incl photographs, to immigration & customs officers, much as EZPass technology works at tollbooths. Homeland Security officials envision eventually using similar technology to allow drivers & passengers to transmit their personal information instantly while crossing the border. Under Accenture's plan, U.S. Visit would create "virtual" folders for each foreign traveler entering by air, sea or land that would electronically store visa application information, fingerprints, photographs, entry and exit dates, and the purpose of the visits. For travelers with a student visa, for example, the folder would also include relevant details such as the school and period of enrollment. "They selected us because we had a clear understanding for their vision of the future of border management for this country," said Accenture managing partner for defense & homeland security Eric Stange. Accenture will create a chief privacy officer because the system will give inspectors unprecedented access to travelers' personal information. Originally conceived as an immigration program, U.S. Visit is now being designed to integrate immigrations databases and to share information about millions of foreigners with a host of federal & state agencies. The program will enable Homeland Security officials to share information about individuals with the DoJ, Transportation &Commerce Dept and FBI. Officials said they would only share information with other agencies as part of a specific criminal investigation or "authorized purpose," such as the agency's Citizenship & Immigration Services, which processes citizenship applications. Electronic Privacy Information Ctr general counsel David L. Sobel said govt should be more clear about the conditions under which it shares people's information. "The large-scale collection & sharing of information is a serious concern," he said. "Its always inevitable that once one agency has a large collection of information, it's really only a matter of time [before] that information" is sent throughout the govt. The contract is largest yet awarded by the 18-month-old Homeland Security agency and is widely seen as a stepping stone to other big dept contracts. U.S. Visit program received $367 million for fiscal 2003 and has received $340 million for fiscal 2004. "That's why all of these companies are working so hard to really try to win these contracts," said defense research firm Teal Group analyst Philip Finnegan. "They all really see homeland security as a bit of a wild card but a real potential growth area." Accenture team comprises 29 subcontractors, incl AT&T Corp., Dell Inc. and Halliburton Co. subsidiary KBR.

FBI 'Magic Lantern' reality check 12.3.01   Thos.C Greene The Register Washington   There's been a lot of noise since MSNBC's Bob Sullivan broke the story of a new viral snoop tool called 'Magic Lantern' which the FBI is purportedly developing to capture crypto passphrases so they can decrypt files on suspects' computers. Of course this all comes from an anonymous source whose level of access isn't even hinted at, so we remain unconvinced. The tool is described, Sullivan implies, in the blacked-out sections of a series of documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center under an FIOA request. Right. Next, ZD-Net's Robert Lemos grabbed it and affected to be skeptical, calling it a Trojan. He said it was nothing new, but he didn't seem to doubt it exists. Then AP's Ted Bridis grabbed it and added another unsubstantiated embellishment, claiming that anti-virus outfit McAfee had contacted the FBI offering to engineer its products to fail to alert users when Magic Lantern heads their way. McAfee has flatly denied Bridis' claim. In reply, Bridis, like Sullivan, appealed to an anonymous source. So what we have here are 3 stories, none of which contains a single verifiable fact substantiating the existence of an FBI 'virus' or 'Trojan' or any conspiracy between the Feds and the AV industry to ensure that it remains undetected. Some truth Assuming Magic Lantern exists, we can be sure that it's not a virus and that it's not Trojan according to Lemos' examples of BO2K and SubSeven. The FBI simply is not going to root someone's box. That would give them remote access, which means they would blow the bust because they'd be open to reasonable doubt that they planted evidence. The only thing it could reasonably be is a simple self-extracting keylogger concealed as a friendly progie or upgrade, which is far from ground-breaking news. Software keyloggers like Ghost have been available for ages, and it's hardly surprising that the FBI might be interested in them. Technical challenges Getting the malware to the right person's machine will be a bit of a trial. For this, perhaps the FBI can leverage the malware propagation features cleverly coded into Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, and e-mail malicious porn files and whack-a-mole games to drug lords & intl terrorists. Once a victim is infected, there are quite a few countermeasures he can employ. A proper firewall properly set up should inform a watchful user of any attempts by malware to phone home. Preventing e-mail from going out in secret is a bit more of a problem, but setting up a bogus default account might give one an edge. Now, Windows has a handy 'system restore' feature which works wonders. Simply clean install the OS, load all your apps and progies and drivers, and back up your system before you do anything else. Once the backup is done, you can revert to the clean version periodically. In Win 9x, go to C:\Windows\System\Msconfig.exe and start the program. You'll find a button that says 'Create Backup'. That's how you take a 'snapshot' of your system. Whenever you get the urge, just bring up the utility and hit the other button which says 'Restore Backup'. Goodbye Magic Lantern (probably). In Windows Me, 2K, XP, go to the Start menu, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. You can also do this the hard way by following the twin-HDD routine elaborated in this article. This method is more troublesome, but more thorough if you prefer not to leave anything to chance. Search or wiretap? Of course, even a simple keylogger is ripe for official abuse; and ever since the September 11 disaster Mueller's FBI and Ashcroft's DoJ have exhibited a most neurotic, Stasi-like compulsion to trample the Bill of Rights for the public good. The technology itself may be enormously duller than the press has been hoping, but it's perfectly suited to dirty deeds. The chief question is whether the Feds should be required to get a wiretap warrant which demands a higher level of evidence rather than a simple search warrant before they can use a keylogger. To my mind, logging someone's keystrokes is a lot more like a wiretap than it is like a search, and I personally believe that the conditions for a wiretap warrant should have to be satisfied before it can be authorized. The FBI will of course argue that if they have a search warrant to examine the files on someone's computer, and logging keystrokes to capture crypto passphrases is necessary for them to execute the search fully, then the right to do so is implied in the warrant. Another abuse that comes to mind is using any sort of data, including key logs, which has been gathered improperly to extract a confession during interrogations. If a suspect doesn't realize that the evidence against him is useless in court, he may be frightened into accepting a plea arrangement straight away. But this is not a problem specific to Magic Lantern; it's a problem specific to a frightened Bush Administration which has elected to take as many pages as it can from the Stalinist playbook to keep us safe from bad men who sneak about in the shadows and use violence, deception and coercion against us. I wouldn't worry too much about keyloggers. I'd worry a good deal more about the sudden, dramatic erosion of laws protecting us from their misuse by zealous, terrified Feds. FBI takes page from Mormons' data book 3.22.02   Kevin Johnson USA TODAY WASHINGTON   The FBI is consulting Mormon Church computer experts who oversee the institution's vast genealogy data bank to help rebuild the bureau's outdated information system. Officials say repeated failures by the FBI system have hindered some of the bureau's most important investigations in recent years, including the probe into 9.11.01. In days after the attacks, the FBI computer system did not have the capacity to distribute mug shots of the 19 suicide hijackers to investigators in the bureau's 56 U.S. field offices and its posts overseas, FBI Exec. Asst Dir. Robert Chiaradio told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Instead, Chiaradio said, FBI officials involved in the largest probe in U.S. history had to send critical, time-sensitive material, including the hijackers' mug shots, by overnight mail to agents around the world. ''At senior levels, we must lead the bureau back to where (information management) is accepted as second nature,'' Chiaradio said. Earlier this week, the FBI's computer problems were cited in a report that examined why the bureau initially failed to disclose more than 3,000 documents related to the trial of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 1997. The discovery of the documents last year led officials to delay McVeigh's execution by one month, until a federal judge ruled that the FBI's snafu did not warrant a new trial. Justice Dept investigators determined the FBI did not intentionally withhold information from prosecutors and defense attorneys. Even so, ''the FBI's troubled information management systems are likely to have a continuing negative impact on its ability to properly investigate crimes,'' says Justice Dept Inspector General Glenn Fine, who reviewed the FBI's conduct in the McVeigh case. ''The FBI has both a paper and an electronic management system in place, neither of which is reliable.'' Chiaradio says the FBI has begun addressing its problems in managing & analyzing the mass of information it gathers in investigations. As part of that effort, Mormon officials are providing advice for developing name- recognition programs that would assist authorities in finding & tracking suspects. The system currently available to agents, which is more than a decade old, is so limited that its search engines do not automatically provide investigators with alternate spellings for suspects' names. An agent must spell a suspect's name exactly right, or the FBI computer will not recognize it. That can be particularly frustrating in cases such as 9.11.01 in which suspects have used multiple names and sometimes created identities simply by switching a few letters in their names. Based in Salt Lake City, the Mormon Church is known throughout the world for maintaining a popular & accessible data bank for tracing family histories. FBI officials say the church has expertise in developing programs that respond to deviations in spelling & other name constructions. Congress has given the FBI $417 million for a new computer system. FBI officials say they expect it to be operational by early next year. Among its features, Chiaradio says, is a security system that will allow senior officials to check who is accessing confidential files. That is aimed at preventing a situation such as that orchestrated by former FBI agent Robert Hanssen who spied for Moscow for more than a decade before he was caught last year. He is serving a life sentence. Information abuse has many forms 8.1.01   M.L. Elrick Free Press "There isn't anybody, anywhere in law enforcement that doesn't check people out," said former Ingham County Sheriff's Deputy Ted Palmer. "If they say they don't, I'd stake you a hundred that they're lying." Palmer knows the Law Enforcement Information Network, or LEIN, from both sides of the law. The Ingham County prosecutor in July 1999 charged him with 5 counts of abusing the system after his ex-wife told sheriff's investigators that he may have run as many as 17 friends & relatives through the LEIN in 1998 & 1999. Palmer called the charges a witch-hunt and sued. Although he acknowledged in an interview that he ran identifying information of family & acquaintances through LEIN, he said he was investigating or checking to make sure he did not consort with felons. "It is not illegal for any law enforcement officer to run anybody that they want to," Palmer said. He also said what constitutes legitimate LEIN use "is a gray area." Prosecutors dropped their case against Palmer after he quit the Sheriff's Dept and abandoned his lawsuit. Robin Richey didn't give much thought to the foul-mouthed driver of the black sport-utility vehicle that rushed up behind her on Dodge Park Road in Sterling Heights on 5.30.00. She made an obscene gesture. 8 days later, Richey said an irate caller left a message on her home machine, warning her to be careful about making rude gestures. The caller said he knew where she lived and threatened to damage her cars, according to a Sterling Heights police report. "I was really scared," Richey said. "I just didn't want this guy coming after me or my 3 children." After calling police, she began sleuthing on her own. Surmising that the caller tracked her by her license plate, Richey contacted the Secretary of State's Office, which told her Clinton Township Police Capt. Thomas White had run it. "If it was any Joe Blow off the street, I could take it with a grain of salt," Richey said. "But this was someone who was supposed to be protecting people, not abusing them." White did not return messages seeking comment. White told investigators he ran Richey through LEIN after he saw her driving erratically. He was suspended for 30 days without pay, according to state records on LEIN violations. Jesse Robitaille knew something was wrong when he got a call Sept. 1999 demanding $917 for repairs to a car he never hit. What concerned the Lake Odessa man more was that a retired police sergeant allegedly used the LEIN to locate him. The caller claimed Robitaille ran him off the road and said that if Robitaille paid up, he wouldn't call police. However, State Police found no evidence of an accident. Robitaille called State Police, who suspected that a retired Kentwood police sergeant ran Robitaille through LEIN for an acquaintance. The suspicion was not proved. Michigan State Police Sgt. Ken Olney, who investigated, said the retired officer was working as a civilian employee of a State Police task force when the LEIN check was run. Penalties uneven for data misuse Some cops are sanctioned severely, some not at all 8.1.01   M.L.Elrick Free Press Detroit   Michigan's system for disciplining officers who abuse the confidential Law Enforcement Information Network is flawed, meting out unequal justice for violators and victims alike. Overseeing the system is a committee virtually powerless to punish those who have used the system's database of addresses, criminal records, license plate numbers and driving records to seek romance, revenge or an upper hand in personal, legal or political conflicts. Instead, it must rely on individual depts to deal with their own; the punishments they hand down vary widely. Free Press review of more than 90 cases of LEIN abuse during the past 5 years reveals that the system is vulnerable to misuse and that there are wide disparities in how local, state and federal depts deal with those who abused it. The LEIN is a state law-enforcement database that contains personal information, incl addresses, driving records and criminal records. Because LEIN machines are often left on and users are not assigned individual passwords to access the system, investigators frequently have trouble proving who violated the system. Even when investigators identify abusers, punishment varies widely. Cases:   An Albion police officer was suspended for one day after using the system to pursue a woman he wanted to date. By contrast, a Memphis police officer was fired after using LEIN to find out background information about a woman he met through the Internet.   An FBI agent received a written reprimand after running a criminal background check for a friend, yet a U.S. Border Patrol agent was prosecuted and forced to resign after checking out a license plate for an acquaintance.   A Renaissance Ctr security guard & his supervisor received written reprimands after running the guard's ex-wife through LEIN. But at the Detroit Medical Ctr, a guard was fired for making unauthorized checks. LEIN users are required to attend at least one day of training, which explains how the system works and how each transaction is tracked by the user's name. The training emphasizes one point above all: The system must only be used for legitimate police work. Nevertheless some officers abuse the system, making inquiries under another person's name or falsifying the purpose of their query to cover their tracks, according to state records of suspected LEIN violations. People whose privacy was violated by officers wrongfully using LEIN can file complaints with the Criminal Justice Information Systems Policy Council, a group of prosecutors, police executives, judges and Michigan Secretary of State's Office officials. But the council is essentially powerless to impose discipline. Law enforcement agencies that tap into the LEIN agree to abide by its rules or face revocation of their privileges. But the council is reluctant to levy such a serious penalty, the only one available to it. "That's something that nobody wants to see happen because law enforcement officers out in the field are going to be harmed," said Clinton County Prosecutor Charles Sherman, who chairs the council's committee that reviews allegations of LEIN abuse. So the council relies on its ability to persuade local police depts to investigate and punish their own. Concerned that violators were escaping punishment, a state senator 3 years ago authored a law making it a crime to misuse the LEIN. Still, of the approximately three dozen police officers who misused the system since July 1998, only 3 have faced prosecution. Most avoided criminal charges because prosecutors have interpreted the law to say that sharing LEIN information is a misdemeanor only when it is shared outside law enforcement. "You could have a police officer gaining information and using it to stalk somebody, but they haven't committed a misdemeanor because they're using it themselves," Sherman said. State Sen. Chris Dingell, D-Trenton, a lawyer who wrote the law, said tapping into the network for personal reasons is enough for prosecution. To close any loopholes, Eaton County Prosecutor Jeff Sauter, member of the LEIN policy council, said the council is drafting new legislation. "One of the proposals is to expand the criminal penalty to unlawful access, use or dissemination," he said. "In other words, to cover the gamut." But the public has limited ability to find out about violators. After reviewing an incident, the council shreds its records. Sherman said the shredding policy is a compromise between the council, which wants details on alleged abuses, and some police officials, who object to providing detailed reports. With prosecution difficult, the council also refers instances of LEIN abuse to the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards, which can decertify police officers. So far, none has been sanctioned. So police chiefs impose discipline based on factors such as an officer's work record, the circumstances that led to the offense and local union rules. But that system allows some violators to escape punishment. State Police Sgt. Diane Oppenheim said she gave the Detroit Police Dept the name of an employee suspected of using LEIN to help Warren City Councilman Mike Wiecek allegedly harass a political foe in August 1999. But, according to LEIN policy council minutes, the dept took no disciplinary action. Wiecek, a former Detroit police officer, told the Free Press he did not ask anyone to run a LEIN check. Wiecek said he was wrongly accused of stalking by the boyfriend of Jennifer Faunce, his opponent in a state House primary. Oppenheim's investigation determined that a LEIN check had been run on Faunce's boyfriend by a specific Detroit police employee. But Detroit police told state officials they could not identify the employee who did the check. "It was kind of a joke when they had someone from DPD investigating one of their own," Oppenheim said. "It just doesn't seem kosher to me." Dingell, the state senator, said he does not have much confidence in any dept scrutinizing its own officers. "The American system of govt never trusts a body to investigate itself," he said. Sherman said that without more staff to investigate alleged abuses, the LEIN policy council must rely on local depts. "We just have to trust that they have the integrity to look into a matter like that and they're not going to want to have an officer doing things that are in violation of the law," he said. Some depts take a hard line on LEIN violations. For allegedly obtaining a stripper's address for a friend in 1997, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Duncan was forced to quit his job and agree not to apply for any other federal law enforcement jobs. He also agreed to do 40 hours of community service. Duncan said he was duped into running the license plate for a friend who often passed along the license plate numbers of possible illegal aliens. Duncan said he was angry when when he found out the friend's real purpose, and told him, "I'm not running down your girlfriends for you." Asst U.S. Atty Lynn Helland, who prosecuted Duncan, said LEIN abusers must pay for violating the public's trust. "We're concerned with public confidence that when the govt does have access to a lot of information, it's going to use the information responsibly," he said. "By bringing a prosecution, we want to make clear to the public & law enforcement itself that this is a sacred trust and we need to be accountable for that trust." LEIN policy council exec. dir. Kathy Rector said individual passwords may soon be assigned to LEIN users to improve security by matching police to individual LEIN inquiries. Dingell said violators should be locked out of the system. Michigan lawmakers are expected to consider that proposal in the fall. In the meantime, some police depts are asking outside agencies to investigate possible LEIN violations. Oscoda County Sheriff's Dept recently turned to the Michigan Sheriff's Association Mission Team to investigate whether one of its deputies misused the LEIN.

The team, which consists of investigators from sheriffs' depts throughout Michigan who volunteer their time, determined that the deputy abused the system. The man was disciplined and is no longer a deputy.

If you suspect you have been improperly checked through the Law Enforcement Information Network, or LEIN, write to Kathy Rector, exec. dir., Criminal Justice Information Services Policy Council
c/o Michigan State Police 7150 Harris, Lansing MI 48913
Include your name, dob, driver's license number, license plate number and any details that caused you to suspect a LEIN abuse. Also include the date you suspect the violation occurred, who may have misused the LEIN and your phone number.

Confounding Carnivore How to protect your online privacy 11.29.01   Omar J. Pahati AlterNet U.S. backs radio technology that sees through walls 2.15.02   Jonathan Cox Bloomberg News WASHINGTON   U.S. regulators approved a new technology that lets law enforcement find objects buried in rubble, helps drivers avoid accidents and may give consumers options for high-speed communications in their homes and offices. The Federal Communications Commission said it took a cautious approach to so-called ultra-wideband, adopting strict guidelines for services using the system of wireless transmission. The rules will prevent the system from interfering with air traffic control operations and global positioning satellites that track military troops, hikers and other people. Ultra-wideband, developed by companies such as closely held Time Domain Corp. of Huntsville, Alabama, operates over a wide slice of airwaves using bursts of radio signals. Opponents, such as the Pentagon, mobile-phone carriers and other U.S. agencies, feared the service might interfere with equipt. "Our first step today is extremely conservative and cautious," said FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy. "I'm pleased we've come as far as we have; I wish we could go further." It will review rules within the next six to 12 months to determine whether it may relax restrictions on the technology to promote more uses. Ultra-wideband has been discussed in Washington for almost three years, with govt agencies and companies preparing competing studies about potential risks. One analyst compared today's decision to the approval of transmission systems in the 1980s that led to the development of the mobile-phone industry. 'Big Deal' "This is a big deal," said Scott Cleland, chief executive of the Precursor Group in Washington. "This is a once-in-a- generation new technology." The agency allowed three types of ultra-wideband devices to be used. Law enforcement, rescue personnel and some companies may use imaging systems to track criminal suspects through walls or look underground to seek individuals trapped in rubble or find cracks in water pipes. Automakers such as DaimlerChrysler AG may install equipt in cars to warn drivers when they get too close to vehicles in front of them or that adjusts suspension systems to handle changes in road conditions. Consumers may be able to buy new gear letting them set up home wireless networks to broadcast, for example, digital tv signals to a mobile receivers anywhere in the house. "The interest level is phenomenal," said Ralph Petroff, chief executive of Time Domain in a statement e-mailed to reporters. smart card   TWIC Britney Spears woos fans with smart cards Feb.2002   Card Technology.com Pop star Britney Spears is offering her fans smart cards that will give them exclusive access to behind-the-scenes videos & photos, as well as to promotional offers. The singer's Web site is offering 5 versions of the multicolored SmartFlash Collectible Card, each bearing an image of Britney and carrying a different feature in its chip. Fans will plug in smart card readers to their personal computers and insert the cards, which will take them to restricted sections of the Web site to find back-stage concert photos, rehearsal videos, samples of new music & other content not available to others. The Web site says the cards will be available soon. Spear's representatives did not respond to requests for comment, but sources say the Britney Spears card is the first in a series of smart cards featuring sports, music & film celebrities. Meanwhile, another company has launched a smart card aimed at video game enthusiasts. Norwalk, CT based StatCard Entertainment Inc. began selling its XAction Skate chip card at the Toys 'R Us store in midtown Manhattan last month, and the toy retailer will offer the cards nationwide in March, says Art Swanberg, StatCard's president & CEO. Once kids plug a smart card reader into a PC, they can insert cards featuring likenesses of skateboarding stars that take them to a StatCard Web site. There, they can earn points & add features to their cards by playing a skateboarding video game. They can also play against other kids on the Internet, winning or losing points based on the results. Swanberg says the company plans to introduce a snowboarding game card in the fall, and has plans for sports & music cards, a well. He projects selling 3 million to 5 million smart cards this year. The cards, which sell for $7.99, carry an 8-kilobyte chip from Germany's Zeitcontrol Cardsystems GmbH and are manufactured by Versatile Card Technology Inc. of Downers Grove, IL (2.6.02) Threat from cloned cards real, French banking official says Feb.2002   Card Technology.com The French banking association Groupement des Cartes Bancaires has no evidence any of its members' more than 40 million payment smart cards has been cloned, but there is a "concrete threat" counterfeiters will strike, acknowledges association CEO Yves Randoux. In addition, most of the credit & debit smart cards complying with international EMV standards to be issued over the next few years in Europe & elsewhere are at risk, say sources. The clone will work only with the current French chip cards & cards that use the weakest of the authentication methods specified in the EMV standards. Under this method, called static data authentication, the digital signature that identifies the cardholder never changes, which is why fraudsters can copy it directly onto a counterfeit card and expect any POS terminal to accept it just as it would the genuine article. "It's not that you can break the system, it's totally, totally public; it's as secret as this evening's newspaper," says Paris-based smart card consultant Jerome Ajdenbaum. How easy is it to clone one of France's current banking smart cards? "Click, click," responds computer expert Michaël Pagis, who demonstrated the clone in the Paris office of the newly formed European Institute for Information System Security. Would-be counterfeiters do have to have some technical savvy. Even then, the cloned cards will only work when the transaction stays offline, which it usually does for low-value purchases. If the terminal calls the bank for approval, as it will for higher-value purchases & withdrawals from automated teller machines, the bank will reject the transaction. The chief option is for banks to use the other main authentication method available under EMV, which changes the digital signature with each transaction. But this requires the chip to pack more processing power, which will raise the price of cards by 50% to 100%. For French banks, which last fall finished a 2 year swap-out of cards that had been compromised by hackers, that price is too high for the time being. They plan to start rolling out EMV this year, but will put off issuing the more sophisticated EMV cards until late 2003. The extra time will also be needed to complete tests of the more secure cards, says Cartes Bancaires' Randoux. (2.15.02)

Do-it-yourself Internet anonymity
11.14.01   Thos.C Greene The Register

Proxies
These are your first line of defense, so let's start with them. Proxies provide a useful layer of mediation between your machine and the Internet. There are several types, but Web proxies and Socks proxies are the two most relevant to our purposes. Grossly oversimplified, a proxy is a remote machine which you connect through to the Net, which forwards your IP traffic, and which you then appear to be originating from. When you contact a Web site via an anonymous proxy, it's the proxy's IP which shows in their logs. You can use either Web or Socks proxies with your browser, and Socks proxies with other Net clients to obscure your IP from prying eyes. But you do have to choose them with care.
Socks proxies are the best, general-purpose proxies. This is so because Socks are non-caching, which means, for example, that there won't be a record of the Web pages you fetched while connecting through one, except on your own machine, and this you can fix rather easily (more on that in 'Browser Settings'). It also means they're slow, but if you want anonymity, you shouldn't quibble. But older versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape don't support Socks. What to do? You can upgrade, but I prefer an older browser with fewer 'features', which I equate with fewer security leaks (though these should be patched regularly, of course). Rather than upgrade, you can download an application called SocksCap, and use it to 'socksify' any IP client you use. It will work with browsers, e-mail clients, telnet, SSH, chat clients, even your l4me e-mail bomber. Test it; socksify your e-mail client and send a message from one of your accounts to another. Check the header. Is the originating IP your proxy? If so, your e-mail now appears to originate from the proxy's IP. This can be extremely useful, as we'll see below.

Useful but not foolproof. Of course the proxy machine's admin can easily learn that you connected to it after perusing his logs, so a proxy doesn't actually conceal you; it just adds a layer between you and whatever you're contacting on the Net. This layer can be thick or thin, depending on where the proxy machine is physically located. If your proxy is located in a country unlikely to cooperate with requests for their logs from foreign officials, or a country where your mother tongue is rarely spoken, it can be, in practical terms if not theoretical terms, quite an effective layer of protection.
It's easy to determine a proxy's country of origin with the $20.00 Patrick Project DNS utility, which will resolve IPs to addresses and vice versa, and a good deal more to boot. You cheapskates out there can go to SamSpade.org and do it all for free. Now you know how to determine your proxy's location. The more exotic the better: Korea is better than Japan; Thailand is better than Korea; Indonesia is better than Thailand; Papua New Guinea is pure gold. Kenya is better than Morocco; Ghana is better than Kenya; Guinea is better than Ghana; Burkina Faso is pure gold. You get the picture. Now you need to test the proxy for anonymity. Some of them can leak appalling amounts of information, like your true IP, for example. There are several environmental variables checkers on line which will tell you just what information your proxy is leaking to the world, and a nice links page to a heap of them is located at Proxys4all.com.

And what do env checkers tell you? The chief variables you need to know about are: REMOTE_ADDR: Your apparent IP, which should be the proxy. If not, use another proxy.

REMOTE_HOST: Your apparent address, which should resolve to the proxy IP. or better yet not be resolvable at all. If it resolves to you, use another proxy.

HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR: Sometimes your true IP is revealed -- get another proxy.

HTTP_USER_AGENT: Your browser type -- unimportant.

FORWARDED: Reveals the fact that you're using a proxy; not fatal, but better if blank.

VIA: Reveals the fact that you're using a proxy; not fatal, but better if blank.

CLIENT_IP: Sometimes your IP is revealed -- use another proxy.

HTTP_FROM: Sometimes your IP is revealed -- use another proxy.

You can use a free application called ProxyHunter to scan ranges of IPs and find your own proxies. These you can evaluate, determining location and anonymity according to the guidelines above. A scan such as this is non-invasive and non-destructive, but it's still possible one may get a nastygram from one's ISP for performing them.
Socks proxies are located on port 1080, so you'll want to use that in most searches with ProxyHunter. HTTP proxies on ports 80, 3128 and 8080 are useful, and can be loaded directly into your browser, but they're not quite as secure. You can load a good Socks in your chat clients like IRC and ICQ; and with SocksCap you can run your telnet and e-mail clients and browser through one as well.

For even more anonymous surfing, you can give yourself an added measure of security by connecting to a Web proxy like Anonymizer through a Socks (or even a decent HTTP proxy). Feel free to e-mail me if you can't figure all this stuff out, but please, I beg you, give it a fair go on your own first. I'm a humble news reporter, not a help desk. When you find a Socks proxy with ProxyHunter, or by perusing the many public Web sites where they're listed, and you get satisfactory results from the env check, and your proxy is located on some God-forsaken corner of the Earth, then you've acquired a decent layer of protection. Congratulations. But that's far from the whole shebang.

Anonymous dialups
Whenever you dial in to an Internet connection, your ISP can determine your phone number with caller ID. This information is recorded, and can be turned over to nosy Feds on request with an administrative subpoena, which doesn't require a judge's approval. If you've got a regular ISP account billed to a credit card, your ISP knows perfectly well who and where you are, so concealing your phone number from them is hardly an obstacle to associating you with your Net activity. In much of Europe, the telco is the ISP, so the possibility of making anonymous dial-ups is remote. In that case, all I can suggest is trying to find a data-capable pay-as-you-go mobile phone, and of course paying cash for it. If you're asked your name, lie. If you're asked for ID, leave.

However, there are free ISPs like NetZero on which you can register with totally fictitious personal information, and to which you can connect with caller ID disabled. This isn't a solution in itself, but combined with the judicious use of good proxies, it can add a second layer of anonymity to your comings and goings. It can make you a bit more difficult to identify. These ISPs don't allow you much free surfing time, usually something like ten hours a month; and they feed adverts to you and they're slow (made slower still by proxy use); but they can be a superb means of connecting when you need to be even more anonymous than usual, such as when you make a controversial post to a newsgroup or BBS, or send a sensitive e-mail.
Get your ducks in a row: first, go to an Internet cafe or a library. If they require identification, go elsewhere. When you find a public place where you can surf anonymously, set up an account with NetZero using fictitious personal information. Even better, go through a Web proxy while you're at it. Record your login, password, and a dialup number convenient for your home location. Now go home, and disable caller ID (contact your phone company for instructions), and dial in to your new fictitious account. And always dial in with caller ID disabled.

Finally, use an anonymous Socks proxy with your e-mail client for newsgroups, and a Socks along with a Web proxy for BBS posts. Theoretically, you can still be traced because the phone company knows what you're up to; but unless you're under active surveillance by the Feds, you can safely gamble that no one from NetZero is ever going to peg you. You're getting very close to effective anonymity, and you still haven't gone beyond what our friend Harry Homeowner can handle.
There are other things you can do with this caller-ID-off+Netzero+Socks+Web-proxy setup. You can, for example, open a Web-based e-mail account with fictitious personal information and send and receive anonymously, so long as you set up your NetZero account properly, and always connect to it with caller ID disabled, always use a Socks with your browser, and/or always use a Web proxy. You've got ten hours a month. Spend them wisely, and you can surf almost anywhere or post almost anything on line with no repercussions.
But what if your e-mail is intercepted by something hideous like the FBI's packet sniffer Carnivore? Unless you stupidly identify yourself in your mail, you're almost certain not to be identified, but you still may not want the contents read by anyone but the intended recipient. You don't have to be a criminal to desire privacy, much as the Feds like to pretend otherwise.

Crypto Now this is funny. If you use a nice, free crypto program like PGP, you can easily encrypt your e-mail. Just follow the instructions, there's really nothing to it. The problem here is that the Feds, if they happen to be watching, can gather that you sent an encrypted message to Recipient X, a fact which you may not wish them to know. If you follow the scheme above, you can send a message anonymously via a Web-based account. But unless I'm missing something, you can't use PGP to encrypt Web-based e-mail messages. So how do you have your cake and eat it too? It's quite simple: you create an encrypted text file and attach it to your Web-based anonymous e-mail, or copy it into the message body. Now all the Feds can determine is that Recipient X got an e-mail message with an encrypted body or an attachment from Monica_Lewinski666@hotmail.com or whatever. Browser settings Proxy or not, your browser can leak ghastly amounts of information about you. Fortunately, tightening it up is easy when you know what to do. Since our Harry almost certainly uses MS Internet Explorer, we'll deal with that, though Netscape users should find this information easy to apply to their own setups. Get into Tools/Internet Options. Set 'days to keep pages in history' to zero. Go to Tools/Internet Options/Security. Go to 'Custom Level' and disable 'Download unsigned ActiveX Controls' and 'Initialize and script ActiveX Controls not marked safe for scripting'; set 'Java permissions' to 'High Safety'; disable 'Meta Refresh'; disable 'Launching programs and files in an IFRAME'; set 'Software Channel permissions' to 'High Safety', disable 'Userdata persistence'; disable 'Active scripting', 'Allow paste operations via script', and 'scripting of Java applets'. Accept session cookies but not stored cookies. Never use in-line auto-complete, and never allow Windows to save any of your passwords. Now go to Tools/Internet Options/Advanced and clear 'Enable Profile Assistant', select 'Do not save encrypted pages to disk', clear 'Enable page hit counting', and select 'Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed'. That should about do it. While you're about it, pop over to Control Panel/Network and ensure that File and Printer sharing are disabled. Spyware While you're on the job, never do anything with your company's computer that you wouldn't want your Grandmother to know about. Spyware is ubiquitous in the work place. Don't even mess with a company-issued laptop, which may well contain 'remote administration' features which will enable a company admin to connect to it. If you want to be anonymous, use your own equipment. If you're using anyone else's hardware, assume that anonymity is impossible. You can get a fab program for detecting Trojans called The Cleaner for $30.00 from Moosoft. A number of Trojans fail to be detected by the fine products of the popular anti-virus companies, in spite of their powerful suggestions to the contrary. Moosoft picks up most of them. Most software firewalls are notoriously bad at stopping, or even notifying you, when a malicious program sends data out from your machine. An application like The Cleaner can go a long way towards assuring you that no such contaminant exists on your box. PC Hygiene There's a crucial difference between deleting a file and wiping it. A deletion leaves a file's entire contents on your disk, until the space it occupied happens to be overwritten by a subsequent file. In the mean time, the data can be recovered with forensic techniques. A proper wipe, on the other hand, overwrites that space immediately so the file's contents can't be recovered. Utilities capable of this include BCWipe, Norton Wipeinfo, Evidence Eraser, and PGP. The only certain way to keep your machine free of incriminating files and alien malware is to wipe your HDD periodically and clean-install your OS from original media while preserving those files and progies you can't do without. If you're serious about anonymity and file preservation, then you'll cough up the $200.00 or so needed to maintain two HDDs, because nothing beats a spare, non-removable magnetic storage device; and nothing beats a true file wipe, which is the only insurance against forensic probing. This is how I do it, and I do it frequently: I have two HDDs in my Windows box. When I get ready to wipe my primary, I've already done an fdisk and format /u and a thorough 'govt wipe' on the secondary using Norton Wipeinfo. I simply copy all the files and progies I wish to preserve onto that thoroughly-wiped secondary disk. I then switch the primary and secondary, and install Windows from original media onto the wiped disk, from which I'll boot. I install Norton Utilities, naturally. I then fdisk and format /u the former primary and do a thorough 'govt wipe' using Norton Wipeinfo.

To hell with proprietary encryption algorithms 8.27.01   Winn Schwartau Network World I sat in the front seat of a Mustang convertible, next to the driver. In the back seat sat The Third Man, who was demonstrating how easy it is to break into a wireless network using a laptop, Global Positioning System, wireless LAN card and free downloadable software. We drove around Las Vegas the day before DefCon and found an endless supply of wireless networks. How do you break in? Reboot your computer, the wireless access point sees you, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol assigns you an IP number, and you're a remote wireless node on the net. In only 2 cases did we find networks that use the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) algorithm. WEP is fundamentally useless because the 26-bit algorithm can be routinely cracked in less than 4 hours, again using downloadable tools. Why anyone would use wireless nets is beyond me, esp. knowing that break & enter is as simple as firing up Windows from a car or the nearest McDonald's. So I talked to folks who live & breathe breaking through security & encryption. RSA Security just announced a $200,000 prize for the crypto-geek who can successfully factor impossibly large numbers. That reminded me that the older & weaker RC-4 algorithm was cracked by a distributed processing assault. During the last decade, companies have routinely tried to crack proprietary cryptography. Elcomsoft has a host of products whose sole goal is to crack password protection on Microsoft & other major products, ostensibly to recover lost corporate files. Search for "password crackers" and you'll find every kind imaginable. The cryptography in Lotus Notes is another victim of aggressive & successful crypto-hacking. Things only get worse from there. It turns out that major mission-critical, enterprisewide software packages are just as vulnerable to crypto-""hacks. Imagine if you found that your entire database was not really protected by "strong proprietary encryption algorithms," as the vendor claimed; or that your payroll system's password security was similarly vulnerable because the vendor figured it could out-design the best cryptographers in the world. Later this year, a group of security professionals plans to release a study naming some top enterprise applications with screamingly weak cryptographic implementations. They are esp. focusing on embedded cryptographic security for database applications. This study will provide enough evidence of how weak these "strong proprietary cryptographic algorithms" are. But the authors will stop one step short of releasing the step-by-step methodology on how to crack them. The goal is to get vendors to 'fess up to their crypto-errors then repair the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable systems deployed worldwide. No matter; soon enough hacks such as these become public knowledge, to the benefit of malicious insiders & external attackers. I don't get it. As an industry, we have some pretty good cryptography out there. Whence comes the arrogance that applications vendors can do a better job than the best mathematicians and trained cryptographers the National Security Agency, Govt Communications HQ and academia can muster? We have the Data Encryption Standard (DES), which still provides a free & reasonably good, well-tested means of protection. Triple-DES, which is good enough for the banking community, is also free & thoroughly understood. The new Advanced Encryption Standard will take us a "guesstimated" 20 years forward, and RSA & Network Associates have stables of proven cryptographic methods. What's with this proprietary stuff? Developing the best cryptographic algorithm is a battle the commercial software vendor should not enter. With the incredibly complicated mathematics, expensive & advanced technologies, and limited set of skilled humans, vendors are best suited to implement well-known, open source, tested & accepted cryptographic approaches. My advice to user companies is to use approved & well-known public algorithms, not proprietary ones. Implement cryptography carefully, making key management your focus. Use trusted third parties for testing & evaluation. If your vendor uses a proprietary algorithm for anything you want to protect, such as data & passwords, run. If your vendor claims that the proprietary algorithm is secret, run. If your vendor won't show you or the cryptographic community the engine that makes its cryptography so great, run. Vendors: Stick to your strong suit, your business application. Hire proper crypto-geeks and let them do the job right. The alternative, as we may see in the coming months, may be terribly painful.

Thus it's ready, and spotless, whenever I need it. I tend to do this every 2 or 3 months, depending on what I've been up to.

As soon as I get a sense that my current primary contains material I'd rather not preserve for posterity, I repeat the process. With two HDDs, it all takes about forty-five minutes. With this method you wipe not only your files, but your registry and swap file too. Forensics, as it's normally practiced, becomes futile. If this seems too extreme, a utility called the Evidence Eliminator Eliminator (E3) by Radsoft (not to be confused with Robin Hood Software's lame 'Evidence Eliminator') will wipe a good many of your messes and excesses for a cool $80.00. It's considerably cheaper than a spare HDD, and pretty thorough. It doesn't merely delete files, it wipes them properly. To add to its effectiveness, you can use a proper file wipe utility like BCWipe or Norton Wipeinfo to eliminate your swap file, where a good deal of what you've been up to is stored. The file is in your C:\ directory and is named Win386.swp.

One final item; whenever you clean-install your OS and apps, always use an alias for yourself and your machine. MS Word, for example, includes user info in your documents. So make sure this info is not specific to you. And never send any MS Office document to any destination when you're concerned about privacy. Just copy the contents into a text editor like Notepad and send the .txt file, or copy and paste it into the body of an e-mail. Follow these basic guidelines, and you'll be quite safe, though not perfectly safe. It's a bit like copulation, there are quite effective birth control methods, but the only way to be absolutely certain you won't ever get pregnant is not to do the deed. ut that's no fun. And neither is never using a computer. So practice safe computing and stop fretting. As with the pill, the odds are immensely in your favor. So smile, relax, and enjoy.

JASON   Wiki Pentagon cuts off SD-based research group Rift leaves JASON, which has been providing military with answers for 42 years, in the lurch 3.31.02   Bruce Lieberman SD Union-Tribune   ¹ Since the dark days of the Cold War, a group of scientists has met secretly every year in La Jolla to ponder the Pentagon's most vexing challenges. But a rift between the group, known as JASON, and its Defense Dept sponsor may threaten the meeting this summer at a time when the nation faces the risk of biological, chemical and nuclear terrorism. Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, has severed its 42-year-old contract with JASON, suggesting that its members are relics of the Cold War focused on nuclear physics and ill- suited for today's threats to national security. JASON members disagree, and believe they will soon secure a new sponsor at the Pentagon. The group, which has 50 members, relies on a $1.5 million annual budget from Defense Dept and $2.25 million from Energy Dept and a variety of federal agencies. But its continued work depends on Pentagon sponsorship. "I'm optimistic that we'll close a deal very soon, within a few days," said physicist Steven Koonin, JASON chair and California Institute of Technology in Pasadena prof. & & provost . Still, without firm assignments and enough time to prepare, JASON scientists, or Jasons, as they are called, may not be able to convene this summer for their annual 6-week meeting at General Atomics in La Jolla, Koonin said. "We are dead in the water at the moment," he said. The uncertainty comes at a time when scientific expertise in biological & chemical terrorism is critically needed, JASON members say. Pres. GWBush's science adviser John H. Marburger III expressed support for the group during a visit to San Diego last week. "I think the Jasons are a valuable asset to the nation, and I hope that we can continue to take advantage of what they have to offer," he said. The federal govt depends on numerous science advisory groups. But JASON members say they are unique because of their independence from govt. And, unlike other advisory groups, they actually create new technologies. "None of us depends on this for our economic livelihood," said JASON sr adviser Edward Frieman, Scripps Institution of Oceanography dir. 1986 to 1996. "We can be incredibly honest and look very dispassionately at the issues," he said. "We will take on something and do our best to get at the ultimate aim, whether it agrees with the govt position or not." As a senior adviser, Frieman, who joined JASON 40 years ago, is less active in the group than he once was. Most JASON work is classified. Acting on assignment from Pentagon, Energy Dept and other federal agencies and working on their own ideas, the Jasons prepare detailed reports ¹ ² ³   that summarize their summer studies. Officials at DARPA have said little about their decision to cut ties with the group. "DARPA didn't feel that JASON was responsive to DARPA's current needs," agency spokeswoman Jan Walker said March 22, refusing to elaborate. JASON members say the Defense Dept's belief that they are out of touch with today's realities is bogus.

In 1958, John A. Wheeler & 2 other Princeton professors proposed establishment of a body of scientists who could advise govt on highly technical matters connected with national security. The proposal was approved by the President's science advisor James R. Killian and JASON, now run by Mitre Corp. (McLean, VA), was established with ARPA funding in 1960. ¹ JASON back in business w/ new defense contract     7.28.02   AIP "We're back in business," said physicist Steven Koonin, provost at Caltech and chairman of JASON. U.S. retains science advisers 5.24.02   Jim Puzzanghera Mercury News WASHINGTON   An elite group of scientists known as "JASON'' has secured a new contract with the Pentagon to provide advice on classified national security issues, ending a dispute that had threatened the future of the 43-year-old independent advisory panel. The Office of the Director of Defense Research & Engineering agreed to a contract with Jason on May 9 that will be the main source of funding for the group of academic scientists, said Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin. Jason will be paid $3.3 million through the end of 2002 to study Pentagon research programs dealing with aerospace & fuel-cell technology. The new source of funding allows Jason to hold its annual summer research session in La Jolla, which lasts 6 to 8 weeks and produces important scientific studies for the govnt, said Jason's steering committee chair Steven Koonin, also provost of the California Inst. of Technology. He said he was "optimistic'' about the new arrangements at the Pentagon. … The bitter dispute reverberated through the scientific community. Many scientists rallied to Jason's aid, saying it was the only source of independent, science-based analysis of classified govt projects. Though most of Jason's work is secret, the group has provided analyses that have helped shape the nation's policies on issues such as nuclear testing & missile defense. The scientific journal Nature wrote an editorial urging the Bush administration to restore Jason's funding, and the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy dir. John Marburger, said the group was an important resource. Jason's new main sponsor is, ironically, the arm of the Pentagon that oversees DARPA, leaving open the possibility that the group could do work for that agency again. Jason had been discussing a new contract with the Office of the Director of Defense Research & Engineering for weeks before finally hammering out an agreement, said Koonin, the committee chair. The uncertainty has delayed some of Jason's studies and will very likely lead to fewer members attending the group's crucial summer session, he said. "I think our participation is not as high as it would have been because the dates were not firmly blocked out on everybody's calendar,'' Koonin said. The contract dispute with the Pentagon "hasn't been without impact, though not a disaster.''

"To imply that we're a bunch of physicists caught in the Cold War is just wrong," said Koonin. Instead, members say, the conflict stems from DARPA's insistence that the scientists accept 3 new members, 2 Silicon Valley executives & an engineer, who members say lack the credentials to join. The Jasons viewed the Pentagon's effort to handpick new members as an attempt to politicize a fiercely independent group.
JASON refused DARPA's call, so the agency dropped its association with the group, members said. Accepting new members at the behest of the govt would "send us down the slippery slope to not being independent," said Frieman. "We are neutral. . . . It was rather disturbing to see an attempt to politicize (the Jasons)." The Jasons say they recruit members from a variety of disciplines. At the height of the Cold War, when the Pentagon saw repeated successes in the Soviet space program as a peril to national security, nearly all JASON members were physicists. But over the years, the group has adapted to changing times, tackling problems related to submarine warfare, nuclear weapons testing and missile defense; and more recently bioterrorism and advances in decoding the human genome, Koonin said. Some JASON members have said DARPA's snub has damaged the govt's relationship with some of the country's top scientists, thinkers to whom the Pentagon has repeatedly turned to for expertise. "The current flap is basically something that none of us wanted," said Frieman. "It's unfortunately left scars."

JASON began in 1959 with 3 scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Marvin Goldberger, Kenneth Watson and Keith Brueckner, then young theoretical physicists, were the first members. It was the idea of physicist Charles Townes, head of consortium of universities attempting to aid the Pentagon. Defense Dept was in dire need of technical direction. Nuclear weapons research was under the aegis of the Atomic Energy Commission, now the Energy Dept. Townes, who later won the 1964 Nobel Prize for his work in the development of the laser, conceived of JASON as a group of advisers who could counsel govt on new, rapidly evolving technologies, from nuclear weapons to intercontinental ballistic missiles to submarine detection. "At the time, we recognized the need for expertise we could never get in-house," said Pentagon official Herbert York, DARPA co- founder in 1958 and champion of JASON's formation. York, the first chancellor of UCSD, is a senior JASON adviser.
Of the group's 50 members, 19 are biologists, chemists, engineers, computer experts and other nonphysicists, he said. Many San Diego scientists have been Jasons, including Russ Davis, Kenneth Watson, Walter Munk, Wm Nierenberg, Frieman, Henry Abarbanel, Kenneth Case, Roger Dashen, Patrick Diamond, Michael Freedman, Marshall Rosenbluth and Herbert York from UCSD. Among the Jasons today are women; former astronaut Sally Ride, who now lives in San Diego, used to be a member, said Koonin.

JASON offered the Pentagon what it needed, said Goldberger, now 79. The Defense Dept "simply did not have a high level of technical competence, and we, in a number of areas, supplied that," said Goldberger. "It was at a time when the Cold War was very intense, and we wanted to try to make a contribution to the country." Goldberger, Watson and Brueckner, who along with York & Frieman today live in La Jolla, quickly founded JASON. Goldberger, who worked on the Manhattan Project as a young college graduate, was named the group's first chairman, and the 3 men invited 30 colleagues to join them in a preliminary meeting in 1959 in Wash.D.C. JASON held its first summer session in 1960 in Berkeley.
The name, JASON, was the invention of Goldberger's wife, Mildred, who suggested it after seeing the consortium's logo, which resembled a Greek temple, and thought of the Greek myth about Jason and the Argonauts. "Here were these bright young men going out to save the world," Goldberger said, laughing as he recalled his wife's idea. The early Jasons were all scientists between 35 and 40 years old, a deliberate move, Goldberger said, to bring young blood into the highest circles of scientific research. "We began to see the same people on all these committees, and they were all the same old warriors from WWII," said Goldberger. "We thought it was important to bring in young people." That tradition continues today, members say, and keeps the Jasons fresh & relevant. The average age of a Jason is about 50. "It's really rather remarkable that it's stayed together so long and stayed effective, and brought in young people," said Goldberger. "The idea that everyone is 77 years old is just false."

Alfred Loomis   dream chase source links   ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ Loomis, Harvey & Hobart (1935, 1936) observed the EEG of sleep and noted vast changes during that state.   sleep stages are   STAGE 1 :   occurs first when falling asleep, or after gross body movements in sleep.    STAGE 2 :   This stage has 'k-complexes' (Loomis et al, 1938) and/or sleep-spindles present, but the EEG amplitude is still generally low (under 75 microvolts). A k-complex is an EEG wave having a sharp negative front followed by a positive component : for scoring purposes it should exceed 0.5 secs. They occur in response to sudden external stimuli, but may also occur spontaneously (Johnson & Karpam, 1968). Sleep-spindles are bursts of 12-14Hz activity occurring often with a k-complex.

WHEN the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear, ("It's all one," says the Sapper), The Lord He created the Engineer, Her Majesty's Royal Engineer, With the rank and pay of a Sapper!   … They send us in front with a fuse an' a mine To blow up the gates that are rushed by the Line, But bent by Her Majesty's Engineers, Her Majesty's Royal Engineer, With the rank and pay of a Sapper!   … Now the Line's but a man with a gun in his hand, An' Cavalry's only what horses can stand, When helped by Her Majesty's Engineers, Her Majesty's Royal Engineer, With the rank and pay of a Sapper! Artillery moves by the leave o' the ground, But we are the men that do something all round, For we are Her Majesty's Engineers, Her Majesty's Royal Engineer, With the rank and pay of a Sapper! from Sappers, auth. Rudyard Kipling   ¤

Loomis' first cousin was Taft admin secretary of war & secretary of state Henry Stimson. Loomis' father died when Alfred was very young, and Stimson became a great influence on him.
He did his undergraduate work in math and science at Yale University, and graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1912. After graduation Loomis worked in a law firm, Winthrop and Stimson, from 1912 on corporate law. He went to a military academy and then off to Andover and then, in true Stimson fashion, you had to go to Yale and Harvard Law. It was a well-beaten path by Stimsons. Henry Stimson had done the same thing.

Loomis attended St. Matthew's Military Academy in Tarrytown NY from age nine until he entered Andover at 13. His early interests were chess & magic; in both fields, he attained near professional status.
He was a child prodigy in chess, and could play 2 simultaneous blindfoId games. He was an expert card & coin manipulator, and he also possessed a collection of magic apparatus of the kind used by stage magicians.

On one of the family summer trips to Europe, young Alfred spent most of his money on a large box filled to the brim with foIded paper flowers, each of which wouId spring into shape when released from a confined hiding place. His unhappiest moment came when a customs inspector, noting the protective manner in which the box was being held, insisted that it be opened over strong protest of its owner. It took a whole afternoon to retrieve all the flowers.
As he grew bigger, his manual dexterity lessened, but he still enjoyed showing his sleight of hand tricks to the children of his friends and to his grandchildren but never to adults.
He never gave interviews during his lifetime and destroyed all his papers before his death.
"Few men of Loomis' prominence & achievement have gone to greater lengths to foil history.,"

Loomis got his degree in law and joined the very proper New York firm of Stimson and Winthrop, Stimson's very white-glove law firm, and did very, very well very quickly.
He left to enter WWI. When he joined the Army, his fellow officers were surprised to learn that he knew much more about modern field artillery than anyone they had ever met.
He had made good use of the special communication channels available to Wall St lawyers, and had accumulated a vast store of up-to-the-minute data on the latest ordinance equipt available to the warring European powers.
His expertise in such matters led to his assignment to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Before long, he was put in charge of experimental research on exterior ballistics, with the rank of major. At Aberdeen, he was thrown into daily contact with some of the best physicists & astronomers of this country.

One of the friends Alfred made at Aberdeen was R. W. Wood, consiclered by many to be the most brilliant American experimental physicist then alive. They had known each other casually from the circumstance that each of their families had summer homes at East Hampton, on Long Island.
At Aberdeen, they initiated a symbiotic relationship that lasted many years. Wood became, in effect, Alfred's private tutor, and Alfred responded by becoming Wood's scientific patron.

After WWI, he went on to Wall St.
He pioneered the concept of the holding company, consolidating many of the electric companies on the East Coast. Loomis increased his fortune further by insider trading practices which have since been made illegal.
Loomis & partner Thorne helped to organize mergers & acquisitions, in the process acquiring numerous seats and untold influence on the resulting boards of directors. Their phenomenal 9 year run, during which Bonbright leaped from near bankruptcy to the lead in private utility investment, made them legends in their own time.
Foreseeing the 1929 crash, Loomis had converted most of his investments into cash, and got even richer as Wall St foundered, by buying back in cheaply.

When the dominant house of Morgan belatedly decided to enter the public utility field, it asked the dynamic duo to help structure & assemble a conglomerate to be known as the United Corporation, incl several of the largest power & light companies of the day.
Loomis & and Thorne finalized the deal Jan. 1929 and suggested an appropriate price for the IPO. They were both surprised and dismayed when Morgan insisted on a higher figure.
When the overpriced shares sold like hot cakes, the two became convinced that the entire market was infected with "irrational exuberance." So, very quietly and over a period of months, they converted the bulk of their equity holdings to rock-solid treasury bonds or cash. When Black Thursday arrived 10.4.29, they were thoroughly prepared.

Soon after the New Deal's Emergency Banking Act was passed into law, the pair announced that they would be stepping down as Bonbright chief executives, rather than abandon their numerous bank directorships.
They bought Hilton Head as a private hunting and fishing reserve, and they had it for nearly 20 years
An island off the coast of South Carolina. Hilton Head is now a famous resort area, with luxurious hotels and golf courses. When Alfred and Landon owned it, it was completely rustic. Another joint endeavor was the Thorne-Loomis Foundation which sent ten boys at a time (2,000 in all) on six-week tours of industrial plants in special trucks, designed by Alfred.

With his wealth, he established a private laboratory in NY and hired scientists whose work in 1930s wound up making possible both radar & atomic bomb. At the Tuxedo Park lab, Loomis attracted top-flight scientists who experimented with sound, time measurement and brain waves, encephalography, radiographic examination of the brain in which some of the cerebrospinal fluid is replaced with air or another gas that acts as a contrasting medium.

He was in effect Stimson's minister without portfolio to the scientific leadership of the Manhattan District, old friends incl Ernest Lawrence, Arthur Compton, Enrico Fermi, and Robert Oppenheimer. Alfred maintained a hotel room in Wash.D.C. throughout WW2, which his friends used when they couIdn't find other accommodations, and one of the reasons for this was so that he could be available to talk with the Secretary on short notice.
Alfred was also a member of a small committee set up by the Secretary to advise him concerning the V-l & V-2 weapons being developed by the Germans, and just coming to the attention of military intelligence.

Loomis worked with a number, obviously, of brilliant scientists and administrators and lawyers in putting together this giant laboratory and running it, all during the war. It was a massive operation, 2,000 people at its height w/ millions and millions and millions of dollars in congressional funding, issued hundreds of thousands of contracts.
These were contracts they were writing by the hour, by the month, and they needed very sophisticated lawyers and businessmen to run it. One of the lawyers that he hired was a San Francisco attorney named Roland Geyser, who became Ernest Lawrence's closest friend as well. Geyser founded the RAND Corporation and asked Loomis to help be a founding member of it. Loomis & Geyser laid the groundwork for what became the RAND Corp.

Co-author of Loomis's second research paper concerning chemical effects of high-frequency sound waves, was William T. Richards, youthful Princeton chemistry instructor who toiled several summers at the Loomis Lab. The young man's father was Harvard chemistry dept chair T.W. Richards and a Nobel laureate. His sister Grace Richards married Harvard president James B. Conant, a former Harvard chemistry dept chair. Though his real talents lay in music & art, the young man felt pressured to achieve greatness in science. Eventually deciding that he never would, he committed suicide on January 30, 1940, just weeks before the publication of his novel Brain Waves and Death. Written under pseudonym Willard Rich, it was a thinly veiled account of life at the Loomis Lab. In 1940 Nobel 1915 Chemistry Prize winner William Richards was found dead with his wrists slashed. He was about to publish a book, Brain Waves and Death, about a Wall St tycoon turned amateur scientist who had a private lab where murder had been committed. He'd changed the lab’s location and architecture but its director Howard Ward, was plainly Loomis.  The novel’s protagonist is murdered by poison gas used in experiments at the lab to record the brain waves of dying animals. Irked at being portrayed as a half-mad scientist whose guests spent more time having affairs with their colleagues’ wives than doing research, Loomis considered suing for libel but finally relented, apparently fearing the publicity that the case might attract. The novel’s author was James Conant’s brother-in-law who'd worked at Loomis’ lab. Loomis' 3 sons each shared one or more of his father's major interests. Alfrecd's ideas on child rearing were unorthodox, but very successful. He thought that his sons shouId learn at an early age to manage all their own affairs, so he gave each of them a large sum of money at age 14, with no controls whatsoever. Each one planned his own education, and decided what hobbies to pursue, after much consultation with, but no veto power from, Alfred. Oldest son, Lee (Alfred Lee Loomis, Jr.), is a successful financier & famous deep sea sailor.   [ dynasty fortune tender ] Second son, late Farney (William Farnsworth Loomis), was a physician and later Professor of Biochemistry at Brandeis University. He was a Himalayan climber, pilot, and as an OSS doctor, parachuted into China beyond Japanese lines in WWIl.   [ resource scout & recruiter, spy & advance agent ] Third son is Henry, WWII radar officer who gave up a career in physics for one in public service administration. He was assistant to President of MIT, later Director of the Voice of America, and is now President of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.   [ lobbyist & promoter for dynasty's procurement cashcow ]

A computer game headset that reads minds   $299 headest will read facial expressions and simple thoughts such as 'lift' or 'drop' to control in-game actions 2.20.08   Jonathan Richards Times Online UK A headset which reads electrical impulses in the brain will allow gamers to interact with virtual worlds merely by 'thinking and feeling'. The Epoc headset, which is due to go on sale later this year, works by reading a player's facial expressions as well as basic thoughts, such as 'lift' or 'drop', and transferring them to their character in the game. For instance if a player winks, smiles or grimaces while wearing the device, similar expressions would be seen on the person's character or avatar in the game. Basic emotions, such as happiness, can also be detected, the company which makes the headset said. The headset, which has been developed by the San Fransisco-based firm Emotiv, relies on a technology known as non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG), which reads neural activity within the brain. It is hoped that the device will make the emotional responses of characters to situations in games and virtual worlds more realistic. "If you laughed or felt happy after killing a character in a game then your virtual buddy could admonish you for being callous," Tan Le, the president of Emotiv, said. So far, the headset can detect more than 30 different expressions, actions and emotions, including smiling, winking, raised eyebrows, laugter and shock. It can also pick up more basic emotions such as excitement and frustration, and, perhaps the most ingenious application, can command a character to perform an action merely by the player thinking of it. Among the actions it understands are push, pull, lift, drop, and rotate. "We've created a brain computer interface that reads electrical impulses in the brain and translates them into commands that a video game can accept and control the game dynamically," Ms Le told the BBC. The Epoc, which connects with all the gaming consoles as well as PC, attaches to a player's head at 16 sensor points, and has a wireless capability as well as a gyroscope, which measures movement much in the manner of Nintendo's Wii handset. It will cost $299 . Techniques which measure the activity of the brain's 100 billion or so nerve cells date back nearly a century, but it is only since the 1970s that EEG has been used to enable a person to communicate with a computer using their brain. Emotiv said its headset would be the first consumer-focused EEG device to be used for gaming. "It doesn't require a large net of electrodes, or a technician to calibrate or operate it - and it doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars," Ms Le said. The company is also working with the likes of IBM to develop business applications for the technology.

Tiny brain-like computer created
3.11.08   Charles Q. Choi LiveScience

The device is made of a compound known as duroquinone. This molecule resembles a hexagonal plate with four cones linked to it, "like a small car," explained researcher Anirban Bandyopadhyay, an artificial intelligence and molecular electronics scientist at the National Institute for Materials Science at Tsukuba in Japan.
Duroquinone is less than a nanometer, or a billionth of a meter large. This makes it hundreds of times smaller than a wavelength of visible light. The machine is made of 17 duroquinone molecules. One molecule sits at the center of a ring formed by the remaining 16. The entire invention sits on a surface of gold.

Scientists operate the device by tweaking the center duroquinone with electrical pulses from an extremely sharp electrically conductive needle. The molecule and its four cones can shift around in a variety of ways depending on different properties of the pulse, say, the pulse's strength.
Since weak chemical bonds link the center duroquinone with the surrounding 16 duroquinones, each of those shifts too. Imagine, for instance, a spider in the middle of a web made of 16 strands. If the spider moves in one direction, each thread linked to it experiences a slightly different tug from all the others.

In this way, a pulse to the central duroquinone can simultaneously transmit different instructions to each of the surrounding 16 duroquinones. The researchers say this design was inspired by that of brain cells, which can radiate branches out like a tree, with each branch used to communicate with another brain cell.
"All those connections are why the brain is so powerful," Bandyopadhyay said.

Since duroquinone possesses four cones, each molecule essentially has four different settings. Since the central molecule can simultaneously control 16 other duroquinones, mathematically this means a single pulse at the machine can have 4^16 or nearly 4.3 billion different outcomes.
In comparison, a normal computer transistor can only carry out just one instruction at once, and only has two settings, 0 and 1. This means a single pulse at it can only have two different outcomes.

The idea is to hook this new gadget up with other molecules, either copies of itself or different compounds other scientists have invented. For instance, researchers have created a host of machines just a molecule or so large over the last decade or two, e.g. motors, propellers, switches, elevators, sensors and so on.
The new invention might offer a way to control all those other compounds to work as a whole. Bandyopadhyay and his colleagues revealed they could hook up 8 other such "molecular machines" to their invention, working together as if they were part of a miniature factory.

This invention could serve as the controlling element of complex assemblies of molecular machines, Bandyopadhyay suggested. One future application for such assemblies "could be in medical science," he told LiveScience. "Imagine taking assemblies of molecular machines and inserting them into the blood, perhaps if you wanted to destroy a tumor inside the body."
The device currently is operated with an extremely sharp electrically conductive needle belonging to a scanning tunneling microscope, a bulky machine far larger than the 17 molecules in question. However, Bandyopadhyay hopes that in the future they can issue commands to their invention using molecules that deliver electric pulses instead.

The device needs to be made in vacuum conditions at extremely cold temperatures, about -321 degrees F (-196 degrees C). Bandyopadhyay said it could be operated at room temperature, however. Bandyopadhyay added they could expand their device from a two-dimensional ring of 16 duroquinones around the center to a three-dimensional sphere of 1,024 duroquinones. This means it could perform 1,024 instructions at once, for 4^1024 different outcomes, a number larger than a 1 with 1,000 zeroes after it.

They would control the molecule at the center of the sphere by manipulating "handles" sticking out from the core. "We are definitely going to 3-D from 2-D immediately," Bandyopadhyay said.
Bandyopadhyay and his colleague Somobrata Acharya detailed their findings online 3.10.08 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

drones "The venue for Peace Wing will likely be Africa. Large numbers of animals traditionally migrate between Sudan & South Africa. [ aka refugees ] This is also where a drought is building. Drought mitigation is essential. With drought comes malnutrition, pneumonia, dysentery, other diseases and political unrest," 10.29.99   Larry Roeder, State Dept sr policy advisor Intl Emergency Information Pgm Federal guidelines for searching & seizing computers lunacy	Taxi flattened CIA's spy-cat project 9.17.01 16:49   Ananova   frankenkitty allergy stray economic kitty The CIA trained 'spy-cats' to secretly gather information on suspects, declassified secret documents have revealed. Project 'acoustic kitty' saw the pets fitted with hi-tech listening equipment and being trained to wander into secure areas. But the project never went any further than the testing stage after the first spy-cat was run over by a taxi. The information is from secret documents drawn up in 1967 by the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology that have only just been released. At the time experts concluded the cats could be trained but decided the project just wouldn't work. It reports: "The programme would not lend itself in a practical sense to our highly specialised needs.
war stories Dull drone Why unmanned U.S. aerial vehicles are a hazard to Afghan civilians 3.13.02   Eric Umansky Slate In every U.S. war, one weapon gains superstar status. 10 years ago it was the Patriot missile. Now it's the Predator armed drone. Wash.Post declared the Predator "a revolution in the sky over Afghanistan." Time magazine recently named its creator as part of the "Time 100: Next Wave." According to press reports, Pres. GWBush regularly watches live Predator video piped into the White House. But the Predator, like the Patriot, turns out to be less revolutionary and more risky than news accounts suggest. Last month an armed Predator drone spotted what appeared to be a number of senior al-Qaida leaders. Time magazine ran a detailed account of the Feb. 4 incident: After lurking for hours above eastern Afghanistan mountains , the Predator drone found its target: a truck surrounded by a group of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists who had been threading their way along precarious mountain roads amid 11,000-ft. peaks. From several miles away, the unmanned surveillance plane, operated by the CIA, locked in on the gathering. An agent somewhere in the region, viewing a live feed from the Predator's belly-mounted camera, thought the men were wearing Arab, not Afghan, garb, and that the leader was tall. After conferring with U.S. Central Command officials at their Florida headquarters, the agent signaled the Predator to shoot. A few weeks later, the Post 's Doug Struck in the area found that according to everybody in the neighborhood, the people killed weren't al-Qaida. Instead, villagers said, the men were subsistence farmers gathering scrap metal. The Pentagon says it's trying to confirm the identities of the dead, but it maintains that whatever their names, they're al-Qaida operatives. That contention has gained a touch of credibility since it turns out that the attack occurred in the Paktia province, where U.S. forces are currently slugging it out with al-Qaida troops. Still, there are plenty of other cases in which Afghans have been collaterally damaged; it's certainly possible that's what happened here. If so, how could the military have mistaken a couple of scavengers for the world's most wanted terrorists? The press has speculated that it was bad intelligence, another case of Afghan allies feeding us bogus tips. But there's another possible explanation: the drone. That CIA agent must have had an eye for fashion, because the Predator doesn't. According to a recent report by the Pentagon's independent Office of Testing and Evaluation, Predator operators, who fly the drones from hundreds of miles away, frequently can't tell what they're looking at. The report states: The Predator's infrared camera could detect targets, but could classify [between wheeled versus tracked targets] only 21% of the time and recognize [the model of tank, i.e., Russian versus American] only 5% of the time. The Day TV camera could detect targets, but could not classify or recognize them. Predator can tell the difference between a Suburban & a Honda Civic, but don't count on it to ID bad guys. And that's on a bright sun-shiny day. The report explains that the cameras "cannot operate in less than ideal weather," thus the tests were scrubbed any time there were "adverse weather conditions." The military hasn't said what the weather was like on the day of the strike. But as Time noted, it occurred in the mountains at 11,000 feet, in an area that Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem characterized as "very tough climate-wise." (The Air Force contends that the Sept. 2001 report is outdated. "They always say that," says Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's former chief tester.) The CIA owns the only armed Predators. Those drones are designed to detect, target, and destroy their targets. The problem with that is that drones often need a helping hand. According to Coyle, "Somebody operating a Predator will see a bunch of vehicles and they'll say, 'We know they're not ours.' " Coyle says that the Air Force's standard tactics, apparently not followed by the CIA, specify that the next move is "to bring in other recon, like special operations teams, and try to figure out what they're seeing. But to start with, all they know is that there's movement. "Looking through the Predator's camera is somewhat like looking through a soda straw," Coyle adds. "Your field of view tends to become distorted. I suppose you might be able to tell a Saudi headdress from an Afghan one. They are different. But it'd be pretty hard to do." Black Widow short-distance micro-air vehicle transmits images via radio freq. to ground-control. 6" length, 6" wingspan; 769 ft ceiling, 43 mph. Range = less than one nautical mile; endurance = 30 minutes	RPV Black Widow micro UAVs brain jockeys battle of Palmdale LAPD air force retail RC models Al Martin DARPA centibots Centibot home pg
	Flyboys in the ointment Does the Pentagon have the right stuff on drones? 2.28.02   Scott Shuger Slate In its Afghan operations, the U.S. has achieved an unprecedented breakthrough using unmanned aircraft to destroy targets. Almost all reporting portrays it as a brand-new technology. But it's not. Aviation Week & Space Technology has reported U.S. experimented with drones firing missiles & laser-guided bombs as early as the 1960s. One engineer confirmed in one test he worked on a U.S. drone successfully launched an attack against a mock-up of a N.Vietnamese radar site. I asked him why the U.S. never tried this technology against real N.Vietnamese radars, and why it had lain fallow through all the intervening years. His answer: the Pentagon pilots' union. That is, for all their advantages, drones have one big disadvantage, they threaten the jobs of the people who run the Air Force & the air branches of the other services. It was, after all, not the Pentagon but the CIA that in Afghanistan finally turned a drone into a strike aircraft. This is a key issue, because like the appearance in WWII of the first jet fighter, the new U.S. drones could be the start of a revolution in warfare. After decades of serving mostly as targets for gunnery practice & occasionally as battlefield reconnaissance platforms, drones now appear poised to take on the immense variety of combat roles heretofore reserved for things that eat, drink, sleep, and die. •   Most obvious advantage of drones is use for the majority of air combat missions would let U.S. consider more military solutions to international problems on the merits rather than on the domestic political complications of pilot losses & POWs. •   Lower cost. Drones don't need ejection seats, instrument displays, cockpit heating or air conditioning, or canopies; given often conflicting requirements of aerodynamics, visibility, and survivability, these can be surprisingly expensive. No pilots means eliminating initial flight training expense, typically several million dollars per aviator, and substantially reducing ongoing training. Drone operators still need flight-related skills but can train almost exclusively in ground simulators. Between wars, drones sit in a box with very little upkeep required. Drones combine low-cost feature of missiles, comparative simplicity, with the low-cost feature of airplanes, reusability. •   More maneuverability. Even well-conditioned, frequent-flying tactical pilots can at most tolerate pushes & pulls equal to 9x force of gravity, but airframes & engines can take more on the order of 20 G's. Taking the human out of the loop gives an aircraft with a greatly increased ability to turn, climb, and dive, which means greater battle survivability against missiles therefore greater probability of mission success. •   More speed. A drone's lower weight & increased G-loading means much higher top speeds: 12-15x speed of sound, at least 6x as fast as the world's best manned fighters. •   More stealth. Design freedom comes from being able to eliminate all pilot-supporting systems, directly translating into reduction of radar reflection, one-fourth less than comparable piloted planes, a 1996 Air Force report estimated. Pilots insist even if foregoing factors mean they can eventually be replaced in the surveillance & strike missions, they'll remain essential when it comes to air-to-air combat. But air-to-air combat is steadily diminishing in importance. There was absolutely none of it in Afghanistan or Kosovo. And although a generation ago, planes could avoid missiles with hard turns & flares, since then missiles have become increasingly aerodynamic and discriminating about targets. The latest version of the top American air-to-air missile, the Sidewinder, has flare-rejection technology. With continuing sophistication of computerized circuitry, there is no reason to think that missiles and drones assisted by ground controllers couldn't mimick pilots' flying & perceptual skills Drone-based air forces' flying skills exercised at 1 G & at Mach 0 in a dark van in a parking lot are why aviators are upset at huge net loss in fun & prestige. Horse cavalry resisted the tank, the infantry generals and battleship admirals suppressed development of air power, air admirals stalled the nuclear submarine, and bomber pilots tried to do the same to the ballistic missile. Rumsfeld: CIA used pilotless spy plane 2.13.02   Matt Kelley AP … War against terrorism so strained the Army that it announced Tue. it ordered more than 10,700 active-duty & reserve soldiers to stay in the service. Most of those covered by the order are military police or intelligence specialists. Rumsfeld took the unusual step of publicly discussing the CIA's role in the Afghan war at a Pentagon news briefing Tuesday. He said the CIA pilots operating unmanned Predator spy drones armed with Hellfire missiles over Afghanistan are outside the military chain of command for the war headed by Central Command Gen. Tommy Franks. He said Franks, as commander of U.S. military forces in the Afghan war, is in nearly constant touch with the CIA. There are times when the CIA does not tell the military what it is doing, however, Rumsfeld said.

He said of the CIA, "If they have capabilities, they do them, what they wish to do." The CIA was operating the Predator over Afghanistan before the military campaign began there Oct. 7, Rumsfeld said. Designed as a pilotless airplane to relay live video images, some CIA Predators were recently modified to carry one Hellfire air-to-ground missile under each wing. "It's just a historical fact that they were operating these things over recent years and they were in Afghanistan prior to the involvement" of the military, Rumsfeld said. Other officials said later that the armed version of the Predator became available to the CIA in Sept 2002 shortly after 9.11.01. …

Taser, IRobot team up to arm robots 6.28.07   Mark Jewell AP BOSTON   RoboCops and robot soldiers got a little closer to reality Thursday as a maker of floor-cleaning automatons teamed up with a stun-gun manufacturer to arm track-wheeled 'bots for police and the Pentagon. By adding Tasers to robots it already makes for the military, iRobot Corp. says it hopes to give soldiers and law enforcement a defensive, non-lethal tool. But some observers fear such developments could ultimately lead to robots capable of deciding on their own when to shoot and kill. "It's one more step in that direction," said Alexandria VA based military research organization GlobalSecurity.org dir. John Pike. "It is not the first step in that direction, but I think at some point toward the end of the next decade, you're going to start seeing RoboCops, or a Terminator," Pike said, referring to a pair of 1980s robot-themed sci-fi films. "We may see autonomous robots capable of inflicting lethal force". Burlington MA based iRobot business development vp Jim Rymarcsuk said notions of armed robots acting on their own are far beyond what the company envisions for the partnership announced Thursday with Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Taser International Inc. "Right now, we have no plans to take any robot with a lethal-weapon approach to the market," Rymarcsuk said. "For this system, and all systems we have looked at, there is a human in the loop making the decisions. This in no way is giving the robot the capability to use force on its own". Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed. The companies said they have developed a model that will be demonstrated at a conference Taser is holding in Chicago on July 9-10, 2007. The model pairs iRobot's existing PackBot Explorer with the Taser X26 in what iRobot calls "the first robot of its kind with an on-board, integrated Taser payload". There's no word when the system will be offered for sale, or for how much. The system isn't entirely unprecedented. Waltham MA based iRobot rival Foster-Miller Inc. already offers a version of its track-wheeled Talon robot that can be fitted with a Taser with laser-dot aiming capability. The Taser, used by thousands of law enforcement agencies, is an electric stun gun designed to help officers subdue violent suspects without nightsticks or guns. However, some critics contend the weapon can be deadly, particularly on suspects who use drugs or suffer from heart problems. Taser International and police counter that no weapon is risk-free, and that Tasers actually save lives by helping officers avoid more dangerous weapons. For iRobot, its Taser-equipped system will be the first robot capable of using force to disable a person, rather than a bomb. The 17-year-old company is best known for its mobile robots for the consumer market, including the disc-shaped, carpet cleaning Roomba. But home robots account for only 60 percent of the company's revenue. The rest comes from government and industrial customers, including the military & police. Versions of iRobot's PackBot have disarmed roadside bombs and searched caves and buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some scout dangerous areas before soldiers or emergency responders go in. With the Taser venture, iRobot "is testing a new market, and they've found a cheap way to do it," said The Benchmark Co analyst Alex Hamilton. "The PackBot works. You'll need software to make it work with the Taser, but my guess is they will be able to achieve it." Pike at GlobalSecurity.org envisions police SWAT teams and prison guards using Taser-equipped robots to deal with hostage situations and unruly inmates. He also expects they could supplement or even replace human guards patrolling property. "I could see rent-a-cop companies wanting to buy it, I can see corrections depts wanting to buy it, because it might be seen as a cost-effective alternative to having a human guard patrolling a perimeter," Pike said. Pike says Taser-equipped, remote-controlled robots are still a few steps away from becoming killing machines. If that happens, the development would run counter to a robots-should-not-harm-humans principle that classic science fiction author Isaac Asimov outlined in his 1950 anthology, "I, Robot", namesake of iRobot the company. "For now, as soon as you let go of the joystick, the robot just sits there," Pike said. "So questions of moral agency don't arise as to whose finger is on the trigger. But a little further down the road, when these ground vehicles do achieve greater autonomy, there may be no human finger on the trigger." Spy plane contract to create S.D. jobs Northrop Grumman expects to add 1,700 4.23.08   Paul M. Krawzak SD UT Wash.D.C.   The Navy yesterday awarded a $1.16 billion contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. to design and build an unmanned surveillance aircraft for the Navy, a decision the company said would bring 1,700 new jobs to San Diego. Northrop Grumman bested two rivals, including a San Diego company, in the competition to create a spy plane that will detect and transmit threats and provide other intelligence to Navy fleets around the globe. The Los Angeles-based contractor will use a modified version of its Global Hawk, an unmanned aircraft employed by the Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan, for what the Navy calls the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance project. Navy officials gushed over the project, which they said marks the Navy's largest investment in increasingly important unmanned aerial vehicles. “This is a huge deal for us,” said Navy deputy assistant secretary for air programs Bill Balderson during a Pentagon briefing. “It represents the Navy getting real traction in the UAV world". The Navy said in a statement that the aircraft would “enhance battle space awareness, improve force projection capabilities, and protect and defend the fleet and the nation.” General Atomics Aeronautical Systems was among the losing bidders. The privately held San Diego company had partnered with Lockheed Martin of Bethesda MD, in proposing to use a variant of its unmanned vehicle, called the Mariner. The other losing bid was from Boeing, of Chicago, which offered a variation of its Gulfstream 550 business jet. GA Aeronautical Systems had no comment on the selection. But company spokeswoman Kimberly Kasitz said failure to get the contract would not lead to layoffs, because the company has enough other business. Although Northrop Grumman plans to manage the project out of Bethpage, N.Y., San Diego is slated to get 25 percent of the work, co. spokeswoman Cynthia Curiel said. She said the 1,700 jobs expected to be created in San Diego include hiring by Northrop Grumman as well as suppliers. Those jobs are expected to last through the end of the contract in 2014, she said. The project is focused on the design and construction of two unmanned aircraft, as well as supporting equipment for transmitting information. Over time, the Navy plans to build a total of 68 aircraft, at a cost of $55 million per aircraft, officials said. In addition to the work being done in San Diego, Bethpage will get 30 percent of the project, while several other states will get other pieces. The aircraft is expected to be built in St. Augustine FL, Curiel said. Local officials welcomed the project, which they said would boost the region's shrinking aerospace industry. San Diego Institute for Policy Research economist Kelly Cunningham said the jobs would pay well. “Any jobs here, particularly in that area, are going to be welcomed,” he said. San Diego Association of Governments chief economist Marney Cox said the employment would have far-reaching effects. “These are high-value-added jobs (that) come at a time when not only San Diego but the state of California is seeing increased unemployment,” Cox said. Lockheed Martin expressed disappointment with the selection and said it would ask for an explanation. “We will wait for the formal customer debrief to better understand the decision and criteria used to select the prime contractor,” the company said in a statement. Navy officials declined to specify why Northrop Grumman was chosen because that would reveal confidential information about the companies, they said. The Navy's Balderson defended the selection process, saying it was rigorous and disciplined. "To us, fairness is paramount,” he said. Northrop Grumman's stock closed down $1.52 at $69.56. Lockheed Martin shares fell $2.78 to $103.79.

[ Orwellian hypocrisy of high tech terror as weapon contra low tech terrorists ] CIA expands use of drones in terror war 'Targeted killing' w/ missile-firing Predators is a way to hit Al Qaeda in remote areas, officials say. Host nations are not always given notice. 1.29.06   Josh Meyer L.A. Times Wash. D.C.   Despite protests from other countries, U.S. is expanding a top-secret effort to kill suspected terrorists with drone-fired missiles as it pursues an increasingly decentralized Al Qaeda, U.S. officials say. The CIA's failed 1.13.06 attempt to assassinate Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri in Pakistan was the latest strike in the "targeted killing" program, a highly classified initiative that officials say has broadened as the network splintered and fled Afghanistan. The strike against Zawahiri reportedly killed as many as 18 civilians, many of them women and children, and triggered protests in Pakistan. Similar U.S. attacks using unmanned Predator aircraft equipped with Hellfire missiles have angered citizens and political leaders in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. Little is known about the targeted-killing program. The Bush administration has refused to discuss how many strikes it has made, how many people have died, or how it chooses targets. No U.S. officials were willing to speak about it on the record because the program is classified. Several U.S. officials confirmed at least 19 occasions since 9.11.01 on which Predators successfully fired Hellfire missiles on terrorist suspects overseas, including 10 in Iraq in one month last year. The Predator strikes have killed at least 4 senior Al Qaeda leaders, but also many civilians, and it is not known how many times they missed their targets. Critics of the program dispute its legality under U.S. and international law, and say it is administered by the CIA with little oversight. U.S. intelligence officials insist it is one of their most tightly regulated, carefully vetted programs. Former CIA counsel Lee Strickland , who retired in 2004 from the agency's Senior Intelligence Service, confirmed that the Predator program had grown to keep pace with the spread of Al Qaeda commanders. The CIA believes they are branching out to gain recruits, financing and influence. Many groups of Islamic militants are believed to be operating in lawless pockets of the Middle East, Asia and Africa where it is perilous for U.S. troops to try to capture them, and difficult to discern the leaders. "Paradoxically, as a result of our success the target has become even more decentralized, even more diffused and presents a more difficult target; no question about that," said Strickland, now Univ. of Maryland Information Policy Ctr director. "It's clear that the U.S. is prepared to use and deploy these weapons in a fairly wide theater," he said. Current and former intelligence officials said they could not disclose which countries could be subject to Predator strikes. But the presence of Al Qaeda or its affiliates has been documented in dozens of nations, including Somalia, Morocco and Indonesia. High-ranking U.S. and allied counter-terrorism officials said the program's expansion was not merely geographic. They said it had grown from targeting a small number of senior Al Qaeda commanders after 9.11.01 to a more loosely defined effort to kill possibly scores of suspected terrorists, depending on where they were found and what they were doing. [ Homicidal automatons cannot defend against suicidal martyrs ] "We have the plans in place to do them globally," said a former counter-terrorism official who worked at the CIA and State Dept, which coordinates such efforts with other govts. "In most cases, we need the approval of the host country to do them. However, there are a few countries where the president has decided that we can whack someone without the approval or knowledge of the host govt." The CIA and the Pentagon have deployed at least several dozen of the Predator drones throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and along the borders of Pakistan, U.S. officials confirmed. The CIA also has sent the remote-controlled aircraft into the skies over Yemen and some other countries believed to be Al Qaeda havens, particularly those without a strong govt or military with which U.S. can work in tandem, a current U.S. counter-terrorism official told The Times. Such incursions are highly sensitive because they could violate the sovereignty of those nations and anger U.S. allies, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Predator, built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of San Diego, is a slender craft, 27 feet long with a 49 ft wingspan. It makes a clearly audible buzzing sound, and can hover above a target for many hours and fly as low as 15,000 ft to get good reconnaissance footage. They are often operated by CIA or Pentagon officials at computer consoles in U.S. The drones were designed for surveillance and have been used for that purpose since at least the mid-1990s, beginning with the conflict in the Balkans. After 9.11.01, President Bush ordered a rapid escalation of a project to arm the Predators with missiles, an effort that had been mired in bureaucratic squabbles and technical glitches. Now the Predator is an integral part of the military's counter-insurgency effort, especially in Iraq. But the CIA also runs a more secretive, and more controversial, Predator program that targets suspected terrorists outside combat zones. The CIA does not even acknowledge that such a targeted-killing program exists, and some attacks have been explained away as car bombings or other incidents. It is not known how many militants or bystanders have been killed by Predator strikes, but anecdotal evidence suggests the number is significant. In some cases, the destruction was so complete that it was impossible to establish who was killed, or even how many people. Among the senior Al Qaeda leaders killed in Predator strikes were military commander Mohammed Atef in Afghanistan in November 2001 and Qaed Sinan Harithi, a suspected mastermind of the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen, in 2002. Last year, Predators took out two Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan: Haitham Yemeni in May and Abu Hamza Rabia in December, one month after another missile strike missed him. The attack on Rabia in North Waziristan also killed his Syrian bodyguards and the 17-year-old son and the 8-year-old nephew of the owner of the house that was struck, according to a U.S. official and Amnesty Intl, which has lodged complaints with the Bush administration following each suspected Predator strike. Another apparent Predator missile strike killed a former Taliban commander, Nek Mohammed, in South Waziristan in June 2004, along with five others. A local observer said the strike was so precise that it didn't damage any of the buildings around the lawn where Mohammed was seated. At the time, the Pakistani army said Mohammed had been killed in clashes with its soldiers. Former chief of the CIA's special unit hunting Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda Michael Scheuer, said he was aware of at least 4 successful targeted-killing strikes in Afghanistan alone by November 2004, when he left the agency. In the attack on Zawahiri, word spread quickly that a U.S. plane had been buzzing above the target beforehand. Afterward, villagers reportedly found evidence of U.S. involvement. The missiles intended for bin Laden's chief deputy incinerated several houses in Damadola, a village near Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan. But Zawahiri was not there, U.S. officials now believe. Pakistan said it was investigating whether the strikes killed other high-ranking militants. There were some well-publicized failures before the Zawahiri strike. In February 2002, a Predator tracked and killed a tall man in flowing robes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The CIA believed it was firing at bin Laden, but the victim turned out to be someone else. Before 9.11.01, U.S. govt had targeted bin Laden in at least one Cruise missile strike. But the CIA was reluctant to engage in targeted killings because it said the laws regarding assassinations were too vague and the agency could face criminal charges. Even today, documents and interviews suggest that the U.S. policy on targeted killings is still evolving. Some critics, including a U.N. human rights watchdog group and Amnesty Intl, have urged the Bush administration to be more open about how it decides whom to kill and under what circumstances. A U.N. report in the wake of the 2002 strike in Yemen called it "an alarming precedent [and] a clear case of extrajudicial killing" in violation of international laws and treaties. The Bush administration, which did not return calls seeking comment for this story, has said it does not recognize the mandate of the U.N. special body in connection with its military actions against Al Qaeda, according to Amnesty Intl. "Zawahiri is an easy case. No one is going to question us going after him," said former U.S. govt counter-terrorism consultant and Justice Dept lawyer Juliette N. Kayyem.

"But where can you do it and who can you do it against? Who authorizes it? All of these are totally unregulated areas of presidential authority. … Paris, it's easy to say we won't do it there," said Kayyem, now a Harvard Univ. law prof. specializing in terrorism-related legal issues. "But what about Lebanon?"

Former CIA deputy counter-terrorism chief Paul Pillar said the authority claimed by the Bush administration was murky.
"I don't think anyone is dealing with solid footing here. There is legal as well as operational doctrine that is being developed as we go along," Pillar said. "We are pretty much in uncharted territory here." Pillar, who was also the CIA's National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia before retiring in mid-2005, said there had long been disagreement within the intelligence community over whether targeted killings were legally permissible, or even a good idea.
Before 9.11.01, Pillar said, CIA officers were issued vaguely worded guidelines that seemed to give them authority to kill bin Laden, but only during an attempt to capture him. The 9/11 commission investigating the attacks in New York and Washington concluded that such vaguely worded laws and policies gave little reassurance to those who might be pulling the trigger that they would not face disciplinary action or even criminal charges.

Although presidents Ford and Reagan issued executive orders in 1976 and 1981 prohibiting U.S. intelligence agents from engaging in assassinations, the Bush administration claimed the right to kill suspected terrorists under war powers given to the president by Congress after 9.11.01.
It is the same justification Bush has used for a recently disclosed domestic spying program that has the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants, and a CIA "extraordinary rendition" program to seize suspected terrorists overseas and transport them to other countries with reputations for torture.

Strickland, like some other officials, said the Predator program served as a deterrent to foreign govts, militias and other groups that might be harboring Al Qaeda cells.
"You give shelter to Al Qaeda figures, you may well get your village blown up," Strickland said. "Conversely, you have to note that this can also create local animosity and instability."
The CIA's lawyers play a central role in deciding when a strike is justified, current and former U.S. officials said. The lawyers analyze the credibility of the evidence, how many bystanders might be killed, and whether the target is enough of a threat to warrant the strike.
Other agencies, incl Justice Dept, are sometimes consulted, Strickland said. "The legal input is broad and extensive," he said.

Scheuer said he believed the process was too cumbersome, and that the agency had lost precious opportunities to slay terrorists because it was afraid of killing civilians. But others said they had urged the Bush administration to adopt a multi-agency system of checks and balances similar to that used by Israel, which for decades has convened informal tribunals to assess each proposed targeted killing before carrying it out.
Sr Israeli military judge advocate Amos N. Guiora, who participated in such tribunals, said that although the failed Zawahiri strike itself appeared to be justifiable, the result suggested a lack of adequate deliberations on the quality of the intelligence.
"I think [the] attack was a major screw-up, because so many kids died. It raises questions about the entire process," said Guiora, who now a professor at Case Western Law School and Institute for Global Security Law & Policy director. "It shows the absolute need to have a well-thought-through and developed process that examines the action from a legal perspective, an intelligence perspective and an operational perspective. Because the price you pay here is that you are going to have to be hesitant the next time you pull the trigger."

Sources: U.S. kills Cole suspect CIA drone launched missile 11.5.02   CNN Sanaa, Yemen   6 suspected al Qaeda members incl an al Qaeda chief wanted in the bombing of the USS Cole were killed early Monday in Yemen when a CIA drone launched a "Hellfire" missile and struck the car they were traveling in, sources told CNN. It was the first direct U.S. strike against Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network outside Afghanistan since U.S.-led war on terrorism after 9.11.01. CIA & Pentagon officials refused to discuss the report. The sources who spoke to CNN said the Hellfire missile was launched from an unmanned Predator aerial vehicle. All 6 people in the car died, they said. Video from the scene in Yemen's oil rich Marib province showed the car blown apart, with most of it reduced to black ash in the desert. Sources identified one of the dead as Abu Ali, also known as Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, former bin Laden security guard who was believed to have played a major role in the Oct. 2000 attack on the destroyer Cole that killed 17 sailors. Yemen Times managing ed. Walid Al-Saqqaf told CNN that Ali was identified by a mark on his leg, which was blown off in the blast and found nearby. He said Ali, who has been on the run and was believed to be harbored by tribesmen, has been the source of a massive hunt by security forces in Yemen. An attempt to capture him late last year failed. That botched attempt left more than a dozen security forces dead. About 50 U.S. Special Forces troops have been in the country training Yemeni security forces. There was no immediate indication they took part in the strike. During a campaign rally in Arkansas, President Bush did not comment directly on the incident in Yemen but said U.S is pursuing "international killers." "The only way to find them is to be patient & steadfast and hunt them down. And U.S. is doing just that," Bush said. DefSec Rumsfeld spoke of Ali at a Pentagon press briefing Monday when questioned about the attack. "It would be a very good thing if he were out of business," Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld said the U.S.-Yemen relationship "has been a good one and it's ongoing." He noted that Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh visited the Pentagon and agreed to cooperate in the war on terrorism. "As a result, we have some folks in that country that have been working with the govt and helping them think through ways of doing things," Rumsfeld said. "And it's been a good cooperation, and we've shared some information, and we think that over time it ought to be beneficial." Rumsfeld said a number of al Qaeda members are known to be hiding in Yemen, slipping into the country by sea and through its sparsely populated border areas, what he said are used "advantageously by terrorists."

AGM-114 "Hellfire" air-ground anti-tank subsonic missile   5' 4" long   7" dia.   28" wingspan   98 to 107 lbs Laser or radar guidance; launched from Navy Seahawk, Army Apache, and Marine Super Cobra helicopters; Predator unmanned aerial vehcles (drones) Predator a lethal eye in the sky 11.5.02   CNN Wash.D.C.   The Predator drone was designed to gather intelligence on enemy forces without putting U.S. pilots at risk, but it's also found a role as a deadly offensive weapon in America's war on terrorism. The small, unmanned aircraft has a range of about 460 miles and can stay in the air for up to 24 hours. It can beam real-time video to controllers on the ground without landing. Predators have been used as reconnaissance planes since 1995. They were equipped with Hellfire anti-tank missiles in Feb. 2001, months before 9.11.01 & Afghanistan war. The drones have been used against al Qaeda & Taliban targets in Afghanistan, incl 2.4.02 strike that was believed to have killed a number of senior al Qaeda leaders in Zawar Kili. In Oct. 2001, before U.S. troops entered Afghanistan, a Predator was used to try to protect Afghan opposition leader Abdul Haq before he was captured by the Taliban. The drone fired several missiles at Taliban forces but was unable to drive them off. Haq was executed. USAF has recently begun flying armed Predators over Iraq. Joint Chief of Staff chair Gen. Richard Myers last week said the plane is most valued because "it's persistent" and can stay "over the target area for long periods of time and it can move between targets" without being detected. Patients control video with thought alone in study 6.14.04   Reuters Wash.D.C.   Using thought alone and with some electrodes placed on the surface of the brain, 4 volunteers were able to control a video game, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. By thinking the word "move," the volunteers played the simple video game, the researchers reported. "We are using pure imagination. These people are not moving their limbs," said Barnes-Jewish Hospital neurosurgeon Eric Leuthardt in St. Louis who worked on the study. Their findings add to work being done at several centers and are aimed at finding ways to help people control computers or machines using brainpower alone. Potentially, people paralyzed by disease or accidents could use such devices to work, read, write and even possibly to move around. Leuthardt said they tested 4 patients with epilepsy. "These electrodes are placed on peoples' brains on a routine basis for seizure localization," Leuthardt said in a telephone interview. Patients have their skulls opened and the electrodes placed on the surface of the brain to find out where their seizures are originating, so the connections in that area can be cut in the hope of a cure. "We piggy-backed our study on that," Leuthardt said. Other researchers have worked with implanted electrodes in both monkeys & humans, but Leuthardt said this approach does not require putting anything deep into the brain. "There is the potential for it to be very much less invasive," he said. Writing in Monday's issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering, Leuthardt and Washington University (St. Louis MO) biomedical engineering asst prof. Daniel Moran said the patients learned in minutes how to control a computer cursor. "It took 6 minutes of training and they all achieved control in less than 24 minutes," Leuthardt said. "After a brief training session, the patients could play the game by using signals that come off the surface of the brain," added Moran. "They achieved between 74 & 100 percent accuracy, with one patient hitting 33 out of 33 targets correctly in a row." During the study their patients were forced to stay in bed tethered to a computer for up to 2 weeks, but Moran & Leuthardt hope to develop electrodes that can transmit signals without physical connections. "You can't keep wires directly from the brain to the outside world indefinitely because of the increased risk of infection," Leuthardt added. "We have to create a wireless system." Leuthardt and Moran centered about 32 electrodes over the sensory motor cortex of the brain and a region called Broca's area, which is associated with speech. The pair did their work on a small amount of money, about $20,000 for the whole study, they said. "We really built this from matchsticks & paperclips," Moran said. "There will have to be a rigorous study on monkeys for an indeterminate number of years before we can consider permanent implants in human subjects, but we're really excited about this advance," he added. A team at Duke University in North Carolina reported in March they had used electrodes implanted deep in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients to transmit signals that might someday be used to operate remote devices.

America's ultra-secret weapon freq cannon HAARP xray eyes re 802.11b more e-bombs cyberterrorism et al WIO contratech DEW 1.19.03   Mark Thompson Time In Afghanistan, it was the Predator, the unmanned drone that would loiter, invisibly, over the battlefield before unleashing a Hellfire missile on an unsuspecting target. The Gulf War marked the debut of precision-guided munitions, and in Vietnam helicopters came of age. WWII gave us the horror of nuclear weapons, and WWI introduced the tank. In the second Gulf War, meet the high-power microwave. HPMs are man-made lightning bolts crammed into cruise missiles. They could be key weapons for targeting Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of biological & chemical weapons. HPMs fry sophisticated computers & electronic gear necessary to produce, protect, store and deliver such agents. The powerful electromagnetic pulses can travel into deeply buried bunkers through ventilation shafts, plumbing and antennas. Unlike conventional explosives, they won't spew deadly agents into the air, where they could poison Iraqi civilians or advancing U.S. troops. The HPM is a top-secret program; the Pentagon wants to keep it that way. Senior military officials have dropped hints about a new, classified weapon for Iraq but won't provide details. Still, information about HPMs, first successfully tested in 1999, has trickled out. "High-power microwave technology is ready for the transition to active weapons in the U.S. military," USAF Col. Eileen Walling wrote in a rare, unclassified report on the program 3 years ago. "There are signs that microwave weapons will represent a revolutionary concept for warfare, principally because microwaves are designed to incapacitate equipt rather than humans." HPMs can unleash in a flash as much electrical power, 2 billion watts or more, as the Hoover Dam generates in 24 hours. Capacitors aboard the missile discharge an energy pulse moving at the speed of light and impervious to bad weather in front of the missile as it nears its target. That pulse can destroy any electronics within 1,000 ft. of the flash by short-circuiting internal electrical connections, thereby wrecking memory chips, ruining computer motherboards and generally screwing up electronic components not built to withstand such powerful surges.

Most of this "e-bomb" development is taking place at Kirtland AFB Albuquerque, NM. The Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland has been studying how to deliver varying but predictable electrical pulses to inflict increasing levels of harm: to deny, degrade, damage or destroy, to use the Pentagon's parlance. HPM engineers call it "dial-a-hurt." But that hurt can cause unintended problems: beyond taking out a tyrant's silicon chips, HPMs could destroy nearby heart pacemakers & other life-critical electrical systems in hospitals or aboard aircraft. That's why the U.S. military is putting them only on long-range cruise missiles.
The U.S. used a more primitive form of these weapons known as soft bombs against Yugoslavia and in the first Gulf War, when cruise missiles showered miles of thin carbon fibers over electrical facilities, creating massive short circuits that shut down electrical power.

Although the Pentagon prefers not to use experimental weapons on the battlefield, "the world intervenes from time to time," DefSec Rumsfeld says. "And you reach in there and take something out that is still in a developmental stage, and you might use it."

'Battle of Palmdale': sound, fury and 1 lost plane
Fighter jets chasing an errant drone fired 200 missiles, missing the aircraft but causing a string of brush fires.
9.11.05   Cecilia Rasmussen L.A. Times

In the midst of the Cold War, when Nike missile sites dotted the Southland, a bright red runaway Navy drone airplane veered off course and headed for Los Angeles, triggering a dangerous sequence of events known as the "Battle of Palmdale." It's not a battle that the military could say it won back on 8.16.56.
The Navy summoned 2 fighter jets to shoot down the pilotless drone, a Grumman F6F-5K Hellcat, minutes after it went out of control after being launched from Point Mugu Naval Air Station. As the wayward Hellcat headed toward Los Angeles, twin Scorpion interceptors fired more than 200 missiles at it, missing their target each time.

Instead the missiles, each pod containing 52 Mighty Mouse 2.75-inch rockets, damaged property and set off a string of brush fires across northern Los Angeles County. The Hellcat drone finally crash-landed harmlessly in the Mojave Desert.
Angry and frightened residents complained. Los Angeles County Supervisor Roger W. Jessup promised a detailed investigation and introduced a resolution urging the "utmost care" by Navy officials in sending the "robot planes skyward." The Navy may have lost radio control with the Hellcat either because the ground transmitter failed or the aircraft receiver broke down, according to experts.

More than 4 decades later, Peter Merlin, 41, an archivist and historian in the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center history office at Edwards Air Force Base, was documenting more than 400 military and civilian crash sites in the base's vicinity when he stumbled across this little-remembered aviation incident.
"I thought I knew every aviation mishap since 1935, but I was wrong," said Merlin, who, with a partner, is driven to conduct the detective-like work of pinpointing aviation crash sites. "Finding plane crash sites has been a passion of mine for decades," Merlin said. The Hellcat voyage and wreck are "forgotten history, filled with drama, humor, and it's not morbid."

Merlin and fellow wreck finder Tony Moore, 46, a graphic designer, founded the X-Hunters Aerospace Archeology Team in 1992. The search for old crash sites is part obsession and part tribute to their heroes, including Lt. Col. Fitz Fulton, who flew a record 235 types of aircraft for the Air Force and NASA, and Capt. Iven C. Kincheloe, a Michigan test pilot who died in training flights over the California desert.
The 2 wreck sleuths explore military crash sites untouched for decades, such as the spot where Capt. Glenn W. Edwards' Northrop experimental YB-49 "flying wing" crashed in 1948, killing him. Edwards Air Force Base was named in his honor. In 1997, the duo marked out an area where they thought the Hellcat drone had crashed, 8 miles east of Palmdale. They used military crash records, old photographs and details from the L.A. Times, incl a front-page headline that screamed: "208 Rockets Fired at Runaway Plane: Missiles Spray Southland Area in Effort to Halt Wild Drone."

Following power lines, the men found spliced repair marks to the wires, which the drone snagged before hitting the ground. "Almost immediately we spotted aircraft debris," Merlin said. Metal plates with inspection stamps and serial numbers, aircraft rudder trim and fragments from camera pods were among the treasures that had lain undisturbed more than 4 decades.
"So many people say we're wasting our time looking for these crashes, because the Air Force cleaned it up," Merlin said.
Specializing in recovering experimental aircraft (X-planes) artifacts, he and Moore have visited more than 100 air crash sites and posted many of their finds on their website: http://www.thexhunters.com .

"That August morning in 1956," Merlin said, "Navy personnel prepared the F6F-K5 for its mission. The aircraft had been painted red to make it easy to see. Red and yellow camera pods were mounted on the wingtips."
According to Times news clips, the event unfolded over several tense hours:

The Hellcat took off from Point Mugu at 11:34 a.m. and headed out over the Pacific. As a target for missile tests, it had miles of ocean for a crash zone. But when it failed to respond to ground controls and instead headed toward Los Angeles, the Navy called for help.


The Hellcat was circling the Santa Paula area when, at Oxnard Air Force Base, now Camarillo Airport, 1st Lts. Hans Einstein and C.D. Murray jumped into one of the Scorpion twin-jet fighters, while 1st Lts. Richard Hurliman and Walter Hale climbed into the second jet.


The drone soon crossed above Fillmore and Frazier Park, heading toward the Antelope Valley. Then, as it turned back toward Los Angeles, passing over Castaic, the Scorpion crews fired the first salvos, but missed.


Below, the orange bursts of shrapnel sparked brush fires near Castaic and Bouquet Canyon. More rockets rained over Newhall. One rocket landed and bounced, igniting fires near the oil fields in Placerita Canyon.


Blazes raged perilously close to now-defunct Bermite Powder Co., which produced munitions and rocket fuel, south of Soledad Canyon Road.


When the drone headed for Palmdale, the Scorpion crews fired their remaining rockets. They didn't score one hit on the drone, but their unguided and fairly inaccurate rockets startled part of Palmdale.
Edna Carlson was at home there with her 6-year-old son when shrapnel exploded through her front window, bounced off the ceiling, pierced a wall and landed in a cupboard.


More fragments passed through the home and garage of J. R. Hingle, barely missing a visitor sitting on his couch.
Larry Kempton was driving west on Palmdale Boulevard with his mother, Bernice, when a rocket hit the street in front of the car. Fragments splintered the windshield, blew out a tire and put holes in the radiator. Neither person was injured.


Mrs. H. E. Boyes watched a rocket spin across Placerita Canyon's oil fields. She loaded her 17-year-old daughter, Betty; her boxer dog, Bob; and her bulldog, Susie, into the family station wagon, and drove to safety.


The Hellcat ultimately ran out of fuel and sliced through power lines before its right wingtip dug into the sand. It cartwheeled and splintered into pieces east of Palmdale Airport.

High-tech pot bust becomes political issue 6.16.04 Fox News Two Swiss pot smokers thought they could puff away undisturbed in a parked car, but they weren't counting on the military surveillance drone flying overhead. The soldiers testing the pilotless plane via remote control near the city of Lucerne called police when they spotted the pair, reports the Le Matin Dimanche newspaper. Cop cars soon drove up, sirens screaming, and arrested the puffers in mid-joint. The whole thing would have ended there had not Swiss parliament socialist member Boris Banga complained to fellow lawmakers that the incident in late May was an infringement of the unnamed smokers' civil liberties. Defense Minister Samuel Schmid admitted that the drone hadn't been "made to spy on citizens" and reassured the public that the Israeli-built aircraft's camera wasn't powerful enough to identify individuals. But Schmid went on to argue that "when one is in national service, one is also a citizen, and citizens have the duty to denounce that which seems abnormal." In this case, Schmid explained, the soldiers guiding the craft had noticed two unidentifiable individuals taking long drags on a lit cigarette being passed back and forth, something clearly "abnormal." Banga did not respond to that line of reasoning, the paper reports, but he did later make a statement wondering if Swiss citizens should begin to worry about "being observed not only horizontally, but vertically as well." Switzerland has 7 such drones, capable of flying as high as 10,000 ft, said the newspaper. It added that paranoid residents could take comfort in the fact that none of them can operate more than 60 miles from either of two radio base stations.

FAA grounds L.A. Sheriff's drone air force   Federal officials say the sheriff didn't have the OK for a media demonstration of his surveillance drone. 6.22.06   Lynn Doan & Ashraf Khalil L.A. Times, Federal Aviation Admin temporarily shot down Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca's plans to launch unmanned surveillance drones to monitor crime. L.A. Sheriff's Dept has been working for 7 years with a defense contractor to build SkySeer, 3 ft long remote-controlled model airplane with 6.5 ft wingspan and tiny video cameras that can fit in the back of a patrol car when disassembled. Baca and other officials had seen the drones as a major advance in law enforcement, providing deputies with a bird's-eye view of standoffs and other surveillance operations without the noise and high visibility of helicopters. The project hit a milestone last week when the Sheriff's Dept performed its first demonstration for the media, showing the plane take off, beam its video images 250 ft to deputies below and then landing. But the test raised the ire of FAA officials, who said they had told the Sheriff's Dept a week earlier that it could not fly the drones without receiving a certificate of authorization from the agency. "I wouldn't want to term us as peeved, but we were definitely surprised," FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. Sheriff's officials were told "that we were more than willing to sit down and talk about a certificate, but that was before their first flight." The FAA is now investigating Friday's demonstration to determine whether the Sheriff's Dept should face disciplinary action. Until the investigation is over, Brown said, the agency will not authorize the county's use of the drones. Sheriff's officials dismissed the conflict as a misunderstanding that would soon be cleared up. But they were incredulous about what they consider red tape getting in the way of their law enforcement tool. "A private citizen can go to the store and buy one of those model airplanes and fly them around. But because we're doing it as a public service, we have to deal with the FAA?" said Sheriff's Cmdr. Sid Heal. Once they "take a deep breath and realize there was no malice intended, it will get back on track."

Baca said Wednesday that he was unaware of the FAA investigation but downplayed the dispute.
"There's no reason for the FAA to be concerned," he said, calling the drones "non-invasive and nearly silent."
Sheriff's Dept has been developing the drone in conjunction with La Verne-based defense contractor Octatron.
The drones are still in the testing stages. But if they prove effective, the department planned to buy 20 SkySeers at a cost of $20,000 to $30,000 each. Backers say the drones are much cheaper to operate than helicopters and are virtually silent, something that can be an advantage in undercover surveillance.

But that silence worries privacy advocates, who fear the Sheriff's Department will spy on people.
"Drones are far more nimble and silent; at least with a helicopter, you know you're being looked at," said Privacy Rights Clearinghouse founder Beth Givens in San Diego. "The use of drones steps over the line."
Heal said the dept has no plans to spy on people. Rather, they would most likely be used to track fleeing suspects, monitor hostage situations and search for missing children and hikers, he said.

The drone would fly about 300 ft above the ground, much lower than small planes and helicopters. Still, the FAA said it tightly regulates all drones and other "unmanned aerial vehicles" because they could interfere with other aviation activity.
"We've already got certain lanes designated in the sky out there," Brown said. "There are certain ways that UAVs must operate so that they have less impact on other types of things."
The FAA is especially concerned about drones in Los Angeles, which has very congested airspace and where certain types of planes and helicopters are assigned specific "air corridors."

But it's not unheard of for the FAA to reserve airspace for drones.
The FAA recently created such a zone in New Mexico to accommodate a Homeland Security drone that patrolled the U.S.-Mexico border in search of illegal border crossings.

NIMA: the eyes of the nation ¹ ² 2.5.01   Rudi Williams American Forces Press Service Wash.D.C.   Nothing & no one in the military moves without National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Sanctioned by Congress and created by Defense Dept. 10.1.96, NIMA is a national resource that supports everyone from the White House down to the foxhole, said NIMA's Initiative Group dir. Robert Zitz. "NIMA can be called the eyes of the nation," he said. The agency, he continued, serves 3 broad categories of customers: the national customer, incl national security leadership, White House and State Dept; military users; and civilian users during natural disasters & humanitarian crises. Until NIMA's establishment, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and military services had their own imagery intelligence capabilities. The entire community was fragmented, Zitz said. The situation presented an unsolvable challenge: They couldn't share knowledge easily during joint operations, so no one had a full picture of the battle space. Operation Desert Storm drove the point home when significant problems occurred in providing information, incl imagery intelligence, he said. "We weren't getting imagery to tactical commanders fast enough for them to make use of it," Zitz noted. "The mapping data wasn't as current as it needed to be." The idea behind creating NIMA was to merge capabilities in imagery intelligence, mapping, charting and geodesy into one combat support agency, and then empower it with the best information technology available, Zitz explained. They must do this while balancing the support they provide to national policy makers. The military unified commands & the military services, retained some imagery analysis & map-making capability for tactical purposes, but they & NIMA work together closely today, he said. NIMA provides terrain & topographic information for ground troops, aeronautical information for the pilots and nautical information for the sailors to move through & control their battle space. Its best-known products among troops are the paper maps they use every day during training. "There's not a soldier who doesn't rely on a map to move around," Zitz noted. "Today, we use paper maps. We collect intelligence information using imagery sources and put that out largely in a paper analog process. But we're moving away from that paper-slow process. Military commanders ask us to give them 2 things: speed & accuracy. In a digital environment, we can have more speed," he said. "That's where we're moving." Another force driving NIMA's creation: The U.S. military shrank after the Cold War, he said. The forces today are more lethal & agile than before, but they are also smaller, lighter and facing a changing world environment and more complicated set of threats. "NIMA must strive for information superiority," he said. "That doesn't mean flooding commanders with data. It means putting as much meaningful, relevant information as possible into their hands in time for them to exploit it." "Think about the power of going onto a battlefield knowing not only where you and your friends are, but also knowing where the enemy is and what he's doing," he said. "It's not all in real time now, but that's the direction we're moving in. "That way you can have a smaller force structure and still be able to win decisively," he said. "We're trying to harness the power of information technology the same way we've harnessed technology for weaponry. Warfighters have gone from dumb bombs to smart bombs to brilliant bombs. We're trying to go from dropping hundreds of bombs on a target to 'one shot, one kill' scenarios. NIMA HQ Bethesda, MD and major facilities in Wash.D.C.; Reston, VA, and St. Louis, MO. Liaisons & support teams are spread out around the world. The agency objective is to use imagery, "remote sensing", fused with geospatial information to provide information swiftly & accurately. It's knowing what's happening at any given point on the battlefield, and when, Zitz noted. Using a peacetime scenario, for instance, NIMA contributes to navigational safety, he said. "When a military aircraft takes off & lands safely, NIMA was there providing the mapping, charting and geospatial information to help ensure the success of the mission," he pointed out. "That's true whether it's an aircraft, ship or soldiers on the ground moving across terrain." Besides being involved with everything that moves in the military, though, there are those services to other customers. NIMA information, Zitz said, supports a full range of diplomatic activities, disaster relief operations, "no fly" zone enforcement and other countermobility missions, force protection, and humanitarian & multinational peacekeeping activities. "On a daily basis in peacetime, we support the intelligence that goes to the president, State Dept, CIA and other agencies that help shape national policy," said Zitz, a former Army counterterrorism analyst and former staff member of the CIA. NIMA's cartographers, imagery analysts, physical scientists, geodesists, analysts, computer and telecommunications engineers, and photogrammetrists compile that data. NIMA is also indirectly involved with commercial traffic because of its relationship and support of the Global Positioning System, or GPS. DoD spent more than $12 billion developing the system. Today, any users, military or civilian, domestic or foreign, with a GPS receiver can pinpoint their location on land or sea or in the air, their velocity and local time, anytime in any weather, anywhere, Zitz explained. First-generation GPS receivers were relatively bulky & heavy. Less than 10 years later, they're the size of wireless phones and just as cheap. The technology, he said, is in reach of virtually everyone, and it's creeping into everything from laptops to cars, boats, airplanes, construction equipt, farm machinery and a host of military items. "Some technologists predict that not too long from now, GPS will be almost as basic as the telephone," he said. "They give thanks to forward-thinking DoD military & civilian leaders."

Christopher native sons Falcon & the Snowman Flight of the Falcon Falcon & the Snowman 1979   Robt Lindsey Simon & Schuster Perhaps a trip he made to Mexico with his classmates from the sixth grade at St. John Fisher had been first to cause something to stir. The class left The Hill (Palos Verdes) before dawn in a caravan of station wagons led by Sister Jean to deliver food, medical supplies and Christmas packages to a rural village in Mexico; it was a routine Saturday charity mission for parochial schools in Southern California those days. It was a one way drive of less than 4 hours from his doorstep in Palos Verdes. But the economic chasm that separated his town and the village stunned Chris and moved him to tears. The caravan rolled into the the village and he saw unpaved streets, shacks made of sticks and cardboard, open sewers; he looked away quickly. Their faces were disfigured and glazed by ugly red scar tissue, the result of fires ignited by fallen candles in their paper hovels. Years later, Chris would recollect "There were thousands of them, their flimsy shacks bending in the wind. They were lining the highway and in the ravines and on the hillsides. The children stood by the side of the road wearing only filthy underclothes. Here & there a dozen or so crouched around cooking fires. Their dreams were empty, but they were still people, just forgotten have-nots. I promised myself then that I would never forget. I had been taught that Mexico was a democratic nation, but what spirit of liberty existed in the cardboard hovels? They had nothing, no hope, no future; they stood wan & emaciated. They had not even retained the bruised dignity of peasants. I wondered if we were in no way responsible for what existed 10 miles beyond our borders. Will no authority take responsibility for all of mankind. Will the 3rd world always just be an abcess? Most frightening, I wondered, wasn't it in America's best self-interest to perpetuate its disproportionate consumption? Had we based our system on permanent inequity?" Perhaps something else stirred in Chris one night during summer 1965 when his father took him to St. John Fisher, which sat atop one of the highest points on the Peninsula, and, together, they looked out toward L.A. It was a rare night; wind had pushed aside the layer of smog that usually blanketed the city, and every light below was like a star. They had come there to watch Watts ghetto burn. … Robin, age 21, arrived at Chris's home in Palos Verdes Saturday morning 1967 with hair to his waist, beads, a windowless VW van, "roaches" in the ashtray and a hooded falcon named Mohammed on his wrist. The son of a wealthy doctor in the neighborhood, he'd heard there was nearby teen interested in birds. Chris, age 15, took one look at his falcon and was never the same. … Robin die in a freak accident nearly 2 years later, fatally burned by blazing hashish oil he was preparing for sale. He lingered for 3 days in the hospital and left behind wife, children and Chris's respect. There was an article in the paper which Chris's father showed him. From then on, falconry was anathema to his dad. … Several years later Chris would say of the year he spent on Morro Bay "Why I didn't stay there I'll never know. I guess I was guilty about being so happy and felt if I didn't at least try entering the Establishment, I would forever be locked in prejudices of my own making. How dumb." On the day Chris was hired 7.29.74, TRW granted him access to "confidential" defense information, as was standard procedure for new employees in the defense industry. … Early in November, TRW received a classified message from the CIA. It said Christopher John Boyce had been cleared for a Special Projects Briefing … Rhyolite & the Black Vault. … A new breed of spy, robots in space, had been created; Chris was now about to help operate it. … During the briefing, Chris smiled after Rogers kept referring to the satellites as "birds". The word was like a switch. It made his thoughts drift as if they had been lifted on the wings of his falcon with its darting eyes that could spot a rabbit tryng to find shade beneath flimsy desert cactus shadows. Then he thought of the satellite, men watching men using eyes in space. It was Big Brother, a 1984 world. Early in 1954 after agents' reports of (Soviet) rocket research were confirmed, when Chris was one year old, a hastily appointed Pentagon advisory panel sent a scientific study to President Eisenhower concluding that it was feasible & urgent for U.S. to develop its own intercontinental ballistic missiles to counterbalance Soviet threat. …

Within a few weeks, a group of USAF officers wearing civilian clothes landed at L.A. airport and began searching for a command post from which to direct the secret project. They chose an abandoned Spanish style Catholic church and connected parochial school in downtown Inglewood, middle class town near the airport 30 minutes by car from Palos Verdes where many of the scientists, engineers and military men eventually chose to live.

Because the urgency to develop the weapon was so great, the Pentagon decided that it couldn't rely on conventional military command & engineering organizations. In an innovation, it decided to sponsor establishment of a private corporation to manage the project, recruit engineering & scientific talent, and oversee design, testing and deployment of the ICBM on a parallel basis with USAF.
2 entrepenurial engineers, Simon Ramo & Dean Woolridge, were chosen to head the task; they founded Ramo-Woolridge Corp. to direct the project in 1953. 5 years later after a merger with Thompson Products Inc., the co. changed its name, later to become TRW Corp. Under TRW stewardship, U.S. … developed Atlas, Titan, Thor, and Minutemen missiles and started initial design of the nation's first espionage satellites. …

automatons Robots performing tech wonders in Iraq 2.1.05   Spc. Jonathan Montgomery Military Press Baghdad, Iraq   Whenever an Explosive Ordinance Disposal technician heads downrange, one thing is certain: the robot goes first. "The cost of losing a robot is not nearly as close as losing a trained EOD person," said Sgt 1st Class Gregory Carroll, noncommissioned officer in charge of the 184th Ordnance Battalion, an EOD Robotics team from Ft Gillem, GA deployed to Baghdad. "Time on target is our biggest danger, and these robots eliminate us from having to go downrange if we don't have to." Since their EOD inception, robotic systems have saved numerous lives by helping to wipe away the threat of improvised explosive devices and vehicle borne IEDs encountered daily throughout the Iraqi theatre of operations. Not surprisingly, 95% of all EOD robots are used for reconnaissance missions and delivering explosives to the hazard for detonation, said Carroll. "We wouldn't have EOD guys if we didn't have robots to take the hit," he explained about the constant number of IED casualties along main supply routes and in close quarter urban areas. "These robots are a human cost-saving mechanism." In addition to taking an IED blast, EOD robots also get shot at by small arms fire, added Carroll. These "man-portable" robots, initially employed by infantry units for advance scouting purposes, dually serve as multi-versatile, lightweight machines supplementing EOD teams on the roads of Iraq. "The IED threat is so critical," said Cpt. Jason Souza, officer in charge of the 184th EOD Robotics team. He added that the EOD missions in both Iraq & Afghanistan have exceeded the demand for robots. The robots, able to be thrown in the back of a chopper or tactical vehicle with ease, each consist of thousands of interlocking parts. They are primarily designed as a track vehicle with a retractable arm claw & camera, and are also capable of being armed with a grenade launcher or other infantry arsenals. "You put this (robot) on the ground, and people know who you are," said Carroll about EOD. (Iraqi) kids go 'Boom! boom!' when they see us because they know an explosion is going to happen. People start to scatter." Common city obstacles such as getting over a curb or wading through a foot of sewer water are often overcome with the remote control expertise of a skilled EOD technician, but sometimes a bomb blast can get the best of the robot's size, strength and dexterity. "One lady came back (to the robot repair depot) with only two tracks in her hands," said Marine Master Sgt Thomas Bogosh, sr noncommissioned officer of the Joint Robotic System Repair Station in Iraq. "They weren't even whole tracks, only parts of them." His repair station workers, many of whom are former Army & Air Force, work to salvage destroyed robot parts, some still covered in white phosphorus & oil. But, whatever the hurdles, the EOD team who are out making a safer Iraq, are doing so by learning from each other. "(EOD) is a joint service environment, but we're definitely one team, one fight," said Navy Petty Officer 2nd class Jennifer Smith. "We're a tight community which shares a lot of information with each other. Whoever needs eqipt gets equipt in EOD." EOD technicians are schooled on many different types of robots in case the one they prefer is in the repair shop. A well working, repairable robot completes more than 1000 missions during its theatre tenure The missions' wear & tear these battle droids more than in the U.S., said Bogosh. "A year's worth of work back home is equal to one day in Iraq for these robotos," he said.

strays   ¹ U.S. military secrets for sale at Afghan bazaar 4.10.06   Paul Watson, Wesal Zaman L.A. Times Bagram, Afghanistan   No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling U.S. base here, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghan officials and descriptions of American defenses are on sale in the local bazaar. Shop owners at the bazaar say Afghan cleaners, garbage collectors and other workers from the base arrive each day offering purloined goods, including knives, watches, refrigerators, packets of Viagra and flash memory drives taken from military laptops. The drives, smaller than a pack of chewing gum, are sold as used equipt. The thefts of computer drives have the potential to expose military secrets as well as Social Security numbers and other identifying information of military personnel. A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked "Secret." The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a U.S. ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for "kill or capture" and discussions of U.S. efforts to "remove" or "marginalize" Afghan govt officials whom the military considered "problem makers." The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 U.S. service members and their Social Security numbers, information that identity thieves could use to open credit card accounts in soldiers' names. After choosing the name of an army captain at random, a reporter using the Internet was able to obtain detailed information on the woman, including her home address in Maryland and the license plate numbers of her 2003 Jeep Liberty sport utility vehicle and 1998 Harley Davidson XL883 Hugger motorcycle. Troops serving overseas would be particularly vulnerable to attempts at identity theft because keeping track of their bank and credit records is difficult, said Identity Theft Resource Center co-exec. dir. Jay Foley in San Diego. "It's absolutely absurd that this is happening in any way, shape or form," Foley said. "There's absolutely no reason for anyone in the military to have that kind of information on a flash drive and then have it out of their possession." A flash drive also contained a classified briefing about the capabilities and limitations of a "man portable counter-mortar radar" used to find the source of guerrilla mortar rounds. A map pinpoints the U.S. camps and bases in Iraq where the sophisticated radar was deployed in March 2004. Lt. Mike Cody, a spokesman for the U.S. forces here, declined to comment on the computer drives or their content. "We do not discuss issues that involve or could affect operational security," he said. Workers are supposed to be frisked as they leave the base, but they have various ways of deceiving guards, such as hiding computer drives behind photo IDs that they wear in holders around their necks, shop owners said. Others claim that U.S. soldiers illegally sell military property and help move it off the base, saying they need the money to pay bills back home. Bagram base, the U.S. military's largest in Afghanistan and a hub for classified military activity, has suffered security lapses before, including an escape from a detention center where hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects have been held and interrogated. Last July, 4 Al Qaeda members, including the group's commander in Southeast Asia, Omar Faruq, escaped from Bagram by picking the lock on their cell. They then walked off the base, ditched their prison uniforms and fled through a muddy vineyard. The men later boasted of their escape on a video and have not been captured. The military said it had tightened security at Bagram after the breakout. One of the computer drives stolen from Bagram contained a series of slides prepared for a January 2005 briefing of American military officials that identified several Afghan governors and police chiefs as "problem makers" involved in kidnappings, the opium trade and attacks on allied troops with improvised bombs. The chart showed the U.S. military's preferred methods of dealing with the men: "remove from office; if unable marginalize." A chart dated 1.2.05, listed 5 Afghans as "Tier One Warlords." It identified Afghanistan's former defense minister Mohammed Qassim Fahim, current military chief of staff Abdul Rashid Dostum and counter-narcotics chief Gen. Mohammed Daoud as being involved in the narcotics trade. All 3 have denied committing crimes. Another slide presentation identified 12 governors, police chiefs and lower-ranking officials that the U.S. military wanted removed from office. The men were involved in activities including drug trafficking, recruiting of Taliban fighters and active support for Taliban commanders, according to the presentation, which also named the military's preferred replacements. The briefing said that efforts against Afghan officials were coordinated with U.S. special operations teams and must be approved by top commanders as well as military lawyers who apply unspecified criteria set by DefSec Rumsfeld. The military also weighs any ties that any official has to President Hamid Karzai and members of his Cabinet or warlords, as well as the risk of destabilization when deciding which officials should be removed, the presentation said. One of the men on the military's removal list, Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, was replaced in December as governor of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. After removing him from the governor's office, Karzai appointed Akhundzada to Afghanistan's Senate. The U.S. military believed the governor, who was caught with almost 20,000 pounds of opium in his office last summer, to be a heroin trafficker. The provincial police chief in Helmand, Abdul Rahman Jan, whom U.S. forces suspect of providing security for narcotics shipments, kept his job. Though U.S. officials continue to praise Pakistan as a loyal ally in the war on terrorism, several documents on the flash drives show the military has struggled to break militant command and supply lines traced to Pakistan. Some of the documents also accused Pakistan's security forces of helping militants launch cross-border attacks on U.S. and allied forces. Militant attacks on U.S. and allied forces have escalated sharply over the last half year, and once-rare suicide bombings are now frequent, especially in southern Afghan provinces close to infiltration routes from Pakistan. A document dated 10.11.04, said at least 2 of the Taliban's top five leaders were believed to be in Pakistan. That country's government and military repeatedly have denied that leaders of militants fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan operate from bases in Pakistan. The Taliban leaders in Pakistan were identified as Mullah Akhtar Osmani, described as a "major Taliban facilitator for southern Afghanistan" and a "rear commander from Quetta" in southwest Pakistan, and Mullah Obaidullah, said to be "responsible for planning operations in Kandahar." At the time, fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, his second-in-command Mullah Berader, and 3 other top Taliban commanders were all suspected of being in southern or central Afghanistan, according to the military briefing. Another document said the Taliban and an allied militant group were working with Arab Al Qaeda members in Pakistan to plan and launch attacks in Afghanistan. A map presented at a "targeting meeting" for U.S. military commanders here on 1.27.05, identified the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta as planning and staging areas for terrorists heading to Afghanistan. One of the terrorism groups is identified by the single name "Zawahiri," apparently a reference to Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy and chief strategist in Al Qaeda. The document said his attacks had been launched from a region south of Miram Shah, administrative capital of Pakistan's unruly North Waziristan tribal region. In January, a CIA missile strike targeted Zawahiri in a village more than 100 miles to the northeast, but he was not among the 18 killed, who included women and children. Other documents on the computer drives listed senior Taliban commanders and "facilitators" living in Pakistan. Pakistani govt strenuously denies allegations by the Afghan govt that it is harboring Taliban and other guerrilla fighters. An August 2004 computer slide presentation marked "Secret" outlined "obstacles to success" along the border and accused Pakistan of making "false and inaccurate reports of border incidents." It also complained of political and military inertia in Pakistan. Half a year later, other documents indicated that little progress had been made. A classified document from early 2005 listing "Target Objectives" said U.S. forces must "interdict the supply of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) from Pakistan" and "interdict infiltration routes from Pakistan." A special operations task force map highlighting militants' infiltration routes from Pakistan in early 2005 included this comment from a U.S. military commander: "Pakistani border forces [should] cease assisting cross border insurgent activities."

U.S. military buys back data from Afghans   Merchants sell stolen information back to investigators for thousands   4.14.06   AP Bagram, Afghanistan   American investigators armed with a “box full” of cash have paid thousands of dollars to buy back stolen computer drives, many of which contain sensitive military data, shopkeepers outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan said Friday. But dozens are still on sale, including memory sticks with information ranging from U.S. troop resumes to photographs of Air Force One during President Bush’s visit last month. The surfacing of the stolen computer devices has sparked an urgent probe to discover how security could have been breached at the heavily guarded Bagram base, which coordinates the fight against Taliban and al-Qaida militants and includes one of the military’s main detention facilities for suspected terrorists. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Mike Cody said he could not comment because an investigation was ongoing. Shopkeepers let an AP reporter review about 40 of the drives on a laptop computer Friday. Most were blank or did not work, but 3 contained data, including a soldier’s military discharge certificate, troop resumes and photographs of Air Force One during Bush’s visit to Afghanistan last month. One shopkeeper, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution, said soldiers went around the market outside the base Thursday carrying “a box full of afghanis (the Afghan currency), buying all they could find.” He said he sold about 50 for $2,000, roughly $40 each. A day earlier, he was selling them for about half that price. “They said they wanted them all and price wasn’t important,” the shopkeeper said. The troops hadn’t returned to the market by Friday afternoon despite dozens of the flash drives still being available. Another shopkeeper, who declined to be identified for the same reason, said the troops promised to return. Included on some memory drives seen by AP earlier this week were the Social Security numbers of hundreds of soldiers, including 4 generals, and lists of troops who completed nuclear, chemical and biological warfare training. … L.A. Times also said the drives appeared to contain the identities of Afghan sources spying for U.S. Special Forces that operate out of Bagram. The shopkeepers have said they were not interested in the data and were only selling the drives for the value of the hardware. They say the drives were stolen by some of the 2,000 Afghans employed as cleaners, office staff and laborers at Bagram. Though workers are searched coming in and out of the base, the flash drives are the size of a finger and can easily be concealed on a body. The memory sticks seen Friday included photographs of mine clearing vehicles that appeared to have been damaged by explosions. There were several performance reviews of troops, which included their Social Security numbers. One review reprimanded a soldier for misplacing his weapon. U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry has ordered a review of policies and procedures relating to the accountability of computer hardware and software at Bagram, outside which hundreds of shops have sprung since the Americans took it over in 2001 after ousting the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The leaked data wasn’t the first time secret information has been discovered electronically by reporters in Afghanistan. Shortly after U.S.-led troops invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal bought a computer in Kabul that had belonged to al-Qaida. It contained memos of the terrorist group’s chemical and biological weapons program, justifications for killing civilians and a propaganda video made from footage of people fleeing from the World Trade Center during 9.11.01.

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