ClubOrlov: Undermining the Surveillance State

[Guest post by Keith Farnish, who has a new book out.]

Some people are prone to sleepwalking. The zombie-fuelled idea of a sleepwalker, with arms outstretched and eyes closed, magically avoiding contact with walls and tables, really isn’t the way people do it. More truthfully, their eyes are open with a level of awareness usually sufficient to avoid serious injury, but with actions more akin to a computer program than a fully aware individual. Many can communicate, of a fashion, but it is cursory and stilted. It’s an appropriate metaphor when describing the functional level of a typical citizen, compared to the fully connected and aware pre-industrial human.

Some people who sleepwalk also have night terrors. They report seeing strange figures looming over them, as if watching their every move – silent, dark, conspiratorial. Not so strange, given the circumstances...

The New Secrecy

I have spent a great deal of time, perhaps too long, pondering conspiracy theories and the vast range of plots being overseen by “those in control” against the ordinary person. It wasn’t so much the nature of these conspiracies, as the nature of the belief in such conspiracies that most interested me. This came to a head when I discovered yet another apparent plot against humanity related to that old chestnut Chemtrails. Apparently people exposed to the precisely-targeted-toxins-from-thirty-thousand-feet are finding strange threads emerging from wounds that HAVE NO EARTHLY ORIGIN! The previous emphasis is that of the Conspiracy Theorists (the capitalization of the previous two words is mine—there has to be some way of identifying crackpot theories from sensible ones).

So, about two-thirds of the way through writing my most recent book, I had a pop at the whole idea of Conspiracy Theories, with the express purpose of clarifying the real dangers we face from those who purport to control our behaviour. If we can learn to look towards that which is obvious and tangible, rather than being distracted by the ethereal and, frankly, bizarre, then we will learn an awful lot and perhaps do something about it. 

Bradley Manning (soon to be Chelsea Manning, which should throw a few libertarians into apoplexy) knew that vast amounts of data were being kept out of the public realm, for no better reason than to protect the murderous activities of those keeping the information secret. His conscience, and his obvious intelligence, gave him little other option than to release what he knew – and conveniently, Wikileaks was in a position to receive that information, and channel it on to the wider media.

Keep reading on ClubOrlov >>

Los riesgos de viajar a Cuba

Andy P. Villa

Aunque no se publiquen las estadísticas sobre los incidentes y accidentes ocurridos a los extranjeros que visitan Cuba, estas sí existen, pero son celosamente guardadas por el Gobierno como “secreto de estado”.

Y aunque en la mayoría de los casos solo se dispone de noticias que son reportadas de forma independiente, o por comentarios de persona a persona, Cuba debe de estar entre los países de mayor riesgo para el turismo en América.

La característica de estado totalitario, donde las posibilidades de mejorar económicamente están institucionalmente prohibidas, ha llevado a Cuba a una situación de miseria y pobreza generalizada.

Dado que el salario promedio ronda los 20 USD mensuales y en la actualidad son dichosos los que tienen un empleo gubernamental, en el marco de una fuerte reducción de plantilla laboral; un turista que se pasea por las calles de La Habana es una potencial fuente de recursos económicos, aunque solo lleve en su cartera unas pocas decenas de dólares. Por lo que los riesgos de ser asaltado, estafado y hasta asesinado son cada vez más altos.

Uno de los atractivos más importantes de la isla es su condición de ser uno de los últimos reductos del fracasado comunismo dictatorial, por lo que una gran parte de los turistas que la visitan van con el objetivo de conocerlo antes de que colapse, y ver de primera mano los efectos de la represión e intimidación a la población.

Es particularmente curioso y pintoresco ser testigos de casos de simulación y doble moral tan espontáneos como ver a una persona gritar consignas revolucionarias y aplaudir al dictador en una tribuna pública y un rato después, en la intimidad de su casa, escucharlo hablar pestes del Gobierno y del mismo líder que minutos antes alabó.

Pero todo esto tiene sus riesgos. Cada día que pasa son más las personas que “salen del otro closet” y toman una actitud abierta de oposición a la dictadura y son inmediatamente vigiladas por la Seguridad del Estado, por lo que el relacionarse con alguno de estos individuos puede conducir a una desagradable experiencia para el turista, ávido de información o de contactos con el pueblo, que puede ir desde: una advertencia o un interrogatorio, hasta la expulsión del país o el hospedaje en tenebrosos lugares como: “100 y Aldabó” o “Villa Marista”.

Otros de los riesgos latentes es alquilar un auto y conducirlo por las calles y carreteras cubanas, donde las posibilidades de tener un accidente de tránsito son muy altas, tanto por las pésimas condiciones viales y se señalización, como por el elevado estado de deterioro del parque automotor de la isla, donde es común que los autos no frenen correctamente, carezcan de luces, o presenten fallas mecánicas en plena operación.

Un accidente automovilístico que termine con fallecidos o lesionados puede retener al turista en Cuba durante meses o años, según la suerte que le toque correr.

En los últimos tiempos otro factor de riesgo es el sanitario, al multiplicarse el contagio de enfermedades infecciosas por la acumulación de basura y desperdicios en las calles, el hacinamiento dentro del transporte público, y la deficiencia de atención médica al ser desviados los trabajadores de la salud a laborar en otros países para producir ganancias para el Gobierno.

El Dengue, el Cólera, la H1N1, la Conjuntivitis Hemorrágica, entre otras enfermedades contagiosas, tienen en jaque a la población y son un riesgo latente para los visitantes externos.

Cryptoparty: privacy goes viral

RTAmerica

Is Google spying on Americans for the NSA?

WND/ By Bob Unruh

A federal appeals court has ruled that the government can go dark – essentially conceal all of its information – regarding communications or operations involving the National Security Agency and Google Inc.

The issue arose following a January 2010 cyber attack on Google that the court said primarily targeted Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

At the time, Google confirmed it was “working with the relevant U.S. authorities” on the problem and the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post both reported that Google had contacted the National Security Agency “immediately following the attack.”

Further, NSA Director Mike McConnell then told the Washington Post that collaboration between NSA and private companies like Google was “inevitable,” according to the court.

The case arose, then, when the Electronic Privacy Information Center sought additional details of the agreement and cooperation between the NSA and Google.

The federal government refused, and when EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act Request the agency said it would neither confirm nor deny the existence of any such information.

That decision now has been endorsed by Judges Janice Brown, Brett Kavanaugh and Doug Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.

That ruling said a federal agency may “refuse to confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of responsive records if the particular FOIA exemption at issue would itself preclude the acknowledgment of such documents.”

The ruling continued, “An agency may issue a Glomar response [refuse to admit or deny existence of documents] when ‘to answer the FOIA inquiry would cause harm cognizable under’ an applicable statutory exemption. The agency must demonstrate that acknowledging the mere existence of responsive records would disclose exempt information.”

The judges said, “NSA need not make a specific showing of potential harm to national security in order to justify withholding information under Section 6, because ‘Congress has already, in enacting the statute, decided that disclosure of NSA activities is potentially harmful.’

“EPIC claims its request seeks some records that are not covered by [exemptions], specifically, unsolicited communications from Google to NSA, which would fall within the second category of information described in the request,” the court said.

But the court said if “NSA disclosed whether there are (or are not) records of a partnership or communications between Google and NSA regarding Google’s security, that disclosure might reveal whether NSA investigated the threat, deemed the threat a concern to the security of U.S. government information systems, or took any measures in response to the threat.  More >>

Obama quietly seeking to cede U.S. oceans to U.N. law

stevenjohnhibbs.wordpress.com

WND/ By Aaron Klein

President Obama’s ambitious plan for stepped up government regulation of the oceans includes an unreported effort to cede U.S. oceans to United Nations-based international law, WND has learned.

The plan was previously a pet project of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, whose ocean-zoning scheme was partnered with a globalist group that also aimed to hand over U.S. oceans to U.N. governance.

Obama’s plan is still in draft form. It calls for an executive order to be issued for a National Ocean Policy that will determine how the ecosystem is managed while giving the federal government more regulatory authority over any businesses that utilize the ocean.

The executive order is to be based on the recommendations of Obama’s Interagency Ocean Policy Taskforce, created in 2010 also by executive order.

The agency is tasked with recommending specific actions for a presidential plan to achieve the vision of “an America whose stewardship ensures that the ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes are healthy and resilient, safe and productive, and understood and treasured so as to promote the well-being, prosperity, and security of present and future generations.”

The Taskforce’s final recommendations, based in part on the supposed effects of “global warming, were released in a 78-page paper reviewed by WND.

The entire third section of the report recommends that the U.S. join the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Convention.

The convention defines the rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world’s oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment and the management of marine natural resources.

States the report:

The Task Force strongly and unanimously supports United States accession to the Convention on the Law of the Sea and ratification of its 1994 Implementing Agreement. The Law of the Sea Convention is the bedrock legal instrument governing activities on, over and under the world’s oceans.
United States accession to the Convention will further our national security, environmental, economic, and diplomatic interests.

The report lists key reasons for compliance with the law, including:

• The Convention has garnered the unequivocal support of our national security leadership under both Republican and Democratic administrations, because, among other things, it codifies essential navigational rights and freedoms upon which our Armed Forces rely.

• The Convention sets forth the rights and responsibilities of nations to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment and to protect and preserve resources off their shores.

• By becoming a party to the Convention, U.S. legal rights to our extended continental shelf can be put on the strongest legal foundation.

• As a party to the Law of the Sea Convention, the United States would have the ability to participate formally and more effectively in the interpretation and development of the Convention.

• Joining the Law of the Sea Convention would reaffirm and enhance United States leadership in global ocean affairs.

While the White House claims its ocean plans are not meant to zone the seas, a major conclusion of the Taskforce was to “establish a framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP) that establishes a comprehensive, integrated, ecosystem-based approach to address conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources.”

Panetta’s ocean scheme

Much of the Taskforce’s recommendations were previously called for by a group headed by Panetta until his appointment as CIA director in 2009. Panetta became defense secretary in July 2011.

Until his CIA appointment in 2009, Panetta co-chaired the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, which is the partner of Citizens for Global Solutions in a push to ratify U.S. laws and regulations governing the seas.

The oceans initiative bills itself as a bipartisan, collaborative group that aims to “accelerate the pace of change that results in meaningful ocean policy reform.”

Among its main recommendations is that the U.S. should put its oceans up for regulation to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Other recommendations of Panetta’s Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, which mirror Obama’s taskforce recommendations, include:

• The administration and Congress should establish a national ocean policy. The administration and Congress should support regional, ecosystem-based approaches to the management of ocean, coastal and Great Lakes.

• Congress should strengthen and reauthorize the Coastal Zone Management Act.

• Congress should strengthen the Clean Water Act.

The Joint Ocean Commission Initiative Leadership Council includes John Podesta, president and CEO of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, which is reportedly highly influential in advising the White House on policy.

Podesta served as co-chairman of Obama’s presidential transition team.

Panetta’s oceans initiative is a key partner of Citizens for Global Solutions, or CGS, which, according to its literature, envisions a “future in which nations work together to abolish war, protect our rights and freedoms and solve the problems facing humanity that no nation can solve alone.”

CGS states it works to “build the political will in the United States” to achieve this global vision.

The organization currently works on issues that fall into five general areas: U.S. global engagement; global health and environment; peace and security; international law and justice; and international institutions.

CGS is a member organization and supporter of the World Federalist Movement, which openly seeks a one-world government. The World Federalist Movement considers the CGS to be its U.S. branch.

The movement brings together organizations and individuals that support the establishment of a global federal system of strengthened and democratized global institutions with plenary constitutional power accountable to the citizens of the world and a division of international authority among separate global agencies.

The movement’s headquarters are located near the U.N. building in New York City. A second office is near the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

The locations are significant, since the movement heavily promotes the U.N. and is the coordinator of various international projects, such as the Coalition for the International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect military doctrine. That doctrine formed the basis of Obama’s justification last year to launch NATO airstrikes in Libya.

Inside the U.S. Secret Service - National Geographic

Decoding the Secret Service

http://discovery.com/ By Emily Sohn

Getty

A recent scandal involving Colombian prostitutes and the Secret Service has drawn new attention to an agency that has long been shrouded in mystery and dominated by romantic images of sculpted men wearing sunglasses and earpieces.
While investigations into the late-night carousing continue, the scandal offers an opportunity to look inside the very secret organization.
Among other little-known facts about the Secret Service, one of the agency's main purposes is to protect our nation's currency against counterfeiting, forgery and related threats. The men and women who make it into the Service go through a long and rigorous training process before they ever even get close to the President or the Vice President. Many never do.

“The Secret Service has the romantic thing called the Presidential Protective Division, and every time you see the President, you see these guys with wires in their ears,” said Jeffrey Robinson, co-author of "Standing Next to History: An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service." “But that’s a long way away from the day you sign up.”
Abraham Lincoln started the Secret Service in 1865 as a branch of the United States Treasury. The agency’s original mission was to tackle counterfeiting crimes, which were rampant just after the Civil War. After the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, its role expanded to include presidential vigil.

The Service is required by law to protect the President and the Vice President at all times.
The President can also authorize protection for others,  including presidential candidates. Mitt Romney, for example, now has Secret Service protection.
When a President’s term is over, he and his VP can opt to keep their protective detail for 10 years, or they can opt out at any time. Once they’ve dropped their agents, though, they can’t opt back in. Their kids automatically lose protection at age 21.
There is no single way to land a job with the Secret Service. Once an agent is accepted into the service, he or she goes through an intensive training program that lasts for several months. Then, it’s off to an assignment in one of the Service’s many field offices, where agents first and foremost learn to be investigators. The Service is particularly fond of football players, Robinson said, because they understand how to play their positions in situations where teamwork is essential.
Women make up about a quarter of the 6,500-plus agents in Service, Robinson said, and like their male colleagues, they usually have athletic backgrounds. No matter their gender or size, all agents need to meet the same physical standards to qualify for certain positions. If the President is an avid runner or athlete, for example, they may need to be able to run a six-minute mile while carrying heavy guns and other equipment.
Starting annual salary for a special agent, according to the agency’s website, is between about $44,000 and $75,000.
For the first five years, the job consists mostly of grunt work, Robinson said. But every time the president comes to town, agents work long days and nights in concentric circles, creating a layered fishbowl of protection around the president’s every move.
The newest recruits do things like stand post by barricades in foul weather all night long. More experienced agents investigate every possible threat that could possibly arise during a presidential visit. They guard hotels, where they monitor every person allowed in or out. They scope out airports before Air Force One arrives. And they clear out streets before the motorcade comes through.
At every destination, agents also make sure that there is always a trauma hospital within 10 minutes of the president that is ready for an emergency situation, Robinson said. If there are no hospitals nearby, the Service sets up a temporary trauma center in a makeshift location, like on an offshore aircraft carrier that is equipped with a helicopter.
After putting in their time for six years or more, agents can apply for the Presidential Protective Division, where they again start at the bottom. At first, they do things like answer phones and scan the mail that comes into the White House.
Eventually, PPD agents get onto teams that travel at least four times to each location that the president plans to go, starting three months before the trip. Secret Service agents spend 10 days in a city before the President arrives. Some stand within bullet-blocking range of the President, but most are further out.

The work requires a stressful amount of travel, sleep deprivation, and commitment to being on call 24 hours a day. Agents often end up working 18-hour days, day after day. Added pressure comes from an intense sense of responsibility for protecting our nation’s leaders.
Bonded by such intense work, agents form close friendships with each other. But they miss more than their share of anniversaries and kid birthday parties. Divorce rates are high.
“They really are not like what we saw in Columbia,” said Ronald Kessler, author of “In the President's Secret Service: Behind The Scenes With Agents In The Line of Fire And The Presidents They Protect.” “They are very straight-laced. Sure, they drink and go to parties, but most of the time they are so overworked, they are just exhausted and they don’t have a life at all.”
What underlies the Colombia scandal, is not lack of pride among agents, said Kessler. Instead, the problem is an agency that is facing increasing demands without the resources to meet them. In turn, he argued, the Service has been cutting corners, leading to low morale, contempt for rules and a culture of recklessness.
Experts are debating whether the bad behavior of agents in Colombia actually put the President in any danger. Robinson thinks not. Most of the men implicated in the scandal were uniformed officers whose responsibilities included handling dogs and manning metal detectors. They were not part of the President’s inner circle.

“When you take a bunch of 24-year old guys, mix testosterone and alcohol and throw in a bit of hubris, you have a really bad situation, and those guys were idiots,” Robinson said. “That’s not representative of the PPD and the pride those guys have in the job they do. They’re a great bunch of men and women.” More >>

Man protests TSA, strips naked at Portland International Airport

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read >>

What's scam: Prostitute's $50 fee for two agents triggered Secret Service scandal

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read >>

Obama's Hooker Orgy Story in Cartagena: A Convenient Distraction

Published on Apr 17, 2012 by TheAlexJonesChannel

Possible security breach: Secret Service agents had president’s schedule in rooms

By Isolde Raftery, msnbc.com

The Secret Service agents who brought prostitutes back to their hotel rooms in Colombia last week had copies of the president’s schedule in their rooms, which raises the issue of a potential security breach, officials told Reuters.

Secret Service personnel were in Cartagena in advance of President Barack Obama’s arrival at the Summit of the Americas, a trade conference, over the weekend. At least 11 were placed on administrative leave and flown back to the United States on Saturday when it came to light that they had hired prostitutes. Their security clearances have since been pulled, NBC News has learned.

The story might have been kept a secret had it not been for a disgruntled woman who claimed she had not been paid by one of the agents. She argued with two Secret Service agents and then went to Colombian police. Local police reported the matter to the U.S. Embassy, Reuters reported.  

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

More >>

Anonymous attacks 'alarming,' says security adviser

Michael Isikoff , NBC News/

The  vigilante group known as  Anonymous has claimed credit for yet another of its weekly cyber  attacks, fueling high level concerns among U.S. national security officials that the so-called “hackivists” are posing an increasing threat to government and private sector websites and computer systems.

“What we’ve seen from Anonymous is alarming,” Michael Leiter, the former director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center and a member of a US. Government advisory board on cybersecurity, said in an interview. “Their  ability to repeatedly take down government websites and potentially penetrate those websites shows that the group is quite committed — and growing in its ability to perpetrate cyber attacks.”

In keeping with its pledge to launch cyber attacks every Friday, hackers associated with Anonymous today took credit for defacing a website associated with InfraGard, an organization that partners with the FBI to share information about potential cybersecurity threats.

“We broke into their webserver, perused their assorted presentation materials, and finally deleted everything and vandalized their website,” according to a statement posted on the Ohio chapter of InfraGard. The group describes itself as an association of businesses, academic institutions and law enforcement agencies that shares intelligence “to prevent hostile acts against the United States.” The hackers in their statement called InfraGard  a “sinister alliance between law enforcement, corporations, and white hat wannabees.” (InfraGard did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.)

The attack is the latest in a series of weekly strikes  that appear to have confounded U.S.  cyber security officials and prompted an ever expanding probe by the FBI. These have included temporarily shutting down the CIA’s public web site, penetrating a transatlantic FBI conference call with Scotland Yard about ongoing  investigations into hackers, taking down  the Federal Trade Commission’s website and penetrating the computers of a Washingto area law firm and dumping thousands of its private emails — including some with members of Congress onto the Internet.

In a statement last week, hackers calling themselves AntiSec — an Anonymous affiliate — vowed to  keep up the strikes. “Yes, each and every Friday, we will be launching attacks ... with the specific purpose of wiping as many corrupt corporate and government systems off our Internet,” the group stated.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, recently privately warned White House officials that Anonymous hackers could have the ability to cause a limited power outage within the two years through a cyber attack on the U.S. electrical grid. The warnings were reportedly conveyed in a meeting chaired by John Brennan, President Obama’s chief homeland security advisor. (A White House spokeswoman said in an email  she could not discuss “interagency deliberations” but that the “the Administration has made cybersecurity a top priority and we are working tirelessly to protect ourselves from the threats we face.”) More >>

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VIRUS FEARS: Key-logging bug hits US drone fighter planes

Published on Oct 8, 2011 by itnnews

US military technicians are at a loss as to how to eliminate a virulent key-logging bug which is monitoring every action of the country's drone fleet.

U.S. eyes fencing along Canadian border as missing link in security

OTTAWA - The United States is looking at building fences along the border with Canada to help keep out terrorists and other criminals.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has proposed the use of "fencing and other barriers" on the 49th parallel to manage "trouble spots where passage of cross-border violators is difficult to control."

The border service is also pondering options including a beefed-up technological presence through increased use of radar, sensors, cameras, drones and vehicle scanners. In addition, it might continue to improve or expand customs facilities at ports of entry.

The agency considered but ruled out the possibility of hiring "significantly more" U.S. Border Patrol agents to increase the rate of inspections, noting staffing has already risen in recent years.

The proposals are spelled out in a new draft report by the border service that examines the possible environmental impact of the various options over the next five to seven years.

Customs and Border Protection is inviting comment on the options and plans a series of public meetings in Washington and several U.S. border communities next month. It will then decide which ideas to pursue.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano noted last month the challenges of monitoring the vast, sparsely populated northern border region. She stressed manpower, but also a greater reliance on technology.

Homeland Security Released Terror Operative Who Illegally Crossed Border

Pajamas Media

Two Bangladeshis who were caught by Customs and Border Protection illegally crossing the border in June 2010 admitted under questioning that they were members of a designated terrorist organization that signed on to a fatwa by Osama bin Laden pledging to wage war against Americans.

But amazingly, after one of the men requested asylum, he was released on bond. And now one Homeland Security official tells me, concerning the released terror operative, “We don’t have the slightest idea where he is now.”

The two men, Muhammad Nazmul Hasan and Mirza Muhammad Saifuddin, were intercepted near Naco, Arizona, not long after they had crossed the border on June 25, 2010. During their interrogation, one of the men admitted that they were members of Harakat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), which was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in February 2008. Earlier this month the group claimed responsibility for a bombing a courthouse in New Delhi. That attack killed 11 and wounded at least 45 others.

A 2006 State Department report described HuJI-B’s goals and connections to other terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda:

The goal of HUJI-B is to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. The group’s core membership consists primarily of Bangladeshi veterans of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Bangladeshi Government arrested a senior HUJI-B leader, Mufti Abdul Hannan, in October. HUJI-B has connections to the Pakistani militant groups Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami (HUJI) and Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HUM), which advocate similar objectives in Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir. The leaders of HUJI-B and HUM both signed the February 1998 fatwa sponsored by Usama bin Ladin that declared American civilians to be legitimate targets for attack.

Capturing two terrorist operatives illegally crossing the border would appear to be a big win for the Border Patrol. But in a stunning move, one of the men was released on bond after claiming asylum.

A Homeland Security official I met with last week in Washington, D.C., who was familiar with the case says that no government agency is tasked with monitoring those that are released pending asylum hearings, and that the terror operative’s whereabouts now are unknown.

That this guy was allowed out on bond is criminal. We don’t have the slightest idea where he is now. If he sets off a car bomb in Tucson or Phoenix, or shoots up a shopping mall or elementary school somewhere, there will be a lot of finger-pointing. But nobody seems that concerned about it now. And this is not the first time something like this has happened.

Back in March I reported here exclusively at PJMedia on a Department of Justice memo submitted in a court case of Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane, who ran a human smuggling ring out of Brazil on behalf of the Somali Al-Shabaab terrorist organization. Dhakane was nearly granted asylum, but was eventually charged with lying about his terrorist associations based on his conversations with a jailhouse informant. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Dhakane’s case was representative of the surging wave of Somalis who have been intercepted crossing the border over the past two years. And now some officials are worried that the case of Hasan and Saifuddin might be the tip of the iceberg of extremist Bangladeshis who are leaving their country under pressure from authorities there cracking down on HuJI-B and setting up terror-support operations in the United States. And the preferred transit route into the U.S. appears to be illegally entering over the southern border — the route taken by the two Bangladeshi terror operatives.

Cameras May Soon Recognize Criminals by Their Gait [Video]

Scientific American

The capture and analysis of surveillance footage has been an indispensable tool for U.S. counterterrorism and law enforcement in the past decade. Video analysis software has improved since the 9/11 terrorist attacks—it can be programmed to identify certain patterns and colors, for example, and to issue security alerts when these characteristics are detected. But as terrorists and criminals change their tactics to slip through security the surveillance technologies designed to stop or catch them must likewise become more sophisticated.

 

INTRINSIC BIOMETRICS: Unique movement can be used to identify people, even separating politicians from the comedians imitating them. Image: N.Y.U. Movement Lab

One of the biggest challenges to improving video analytics is programming the software to identify specific people and objects under a variety of conditions, such as poor lighting, cluttered backgrounds and subtle changes in appearance (such as facial hair). Video analytics has a lot of room to improve in these areas with the help of software that sharpens computer vision, enhances facial- and pattern-recognition capabilities, and captures the motion of people and things passing in front of the camera's lens. [See our earlier coverage of post-9/11 security and surveillance.]

A team of New York University researchers has homed in on motion capture as a particularly promising approach to analysis. Associate computer science professor Chris Bregler is studying whether potential security threats can be identified via unique patterns of movement. How might someone walk if he was carrying a bomb in his backpack?

A person's body moves differently when it must compensate for some unnatural burden, such as a heavy backpack or even high-heeled shoes, says Bregler, who performs much of his research out of N.Y.U.'s Movement Lab, a motion-capture studio and research group housed at the school's ITP Tisch School of the Arts. When a person is weighed down by a backpack, for example, his or her feet will strike the ground with greater force than they otherwise would. Yet a person with natural-grown weight learns how to counterbalance it and maintain an even stride, he adds.

Bregler and his team have identified certain movement signatures with the help of the same motion-capture technology used for special effects in the Lord of the Rings​ and Harry Potter movies. Reflective markers placed at various locations on a special motion-capture suit can be picked up by a series of cameras that Bregler places in a circle around the Movement Lab. As a person in the suit moves, the cameras capture information about the reflective markers and feed the data to software that maps the location of each marker on a computer screen.

Outside the laboratory, however, the real world poses problems for motion-capture research—there simply are not enough motion-capture suits for everyone to wear. As a result, Bregler's team is developing software that can detect a person's motion signature without the markers.

Their GreenDot project trains cameras to scan the surroundings and identify spots that are unique, such as the way light reflects off a shirt's button differently than it does off the shirt's fabric. These spots are then represented as green dots on the computer screen. "Wherever you have texture [the software] can find something and track it from frame to frame," Bregler says. GreenDot's objective is to program a computer to recognize a person based on his or her motions. The software should even be able to identify a person's emotional state, cultural background, and other attributes based on movement.

Bregler's motion-analysis research attracted the attention of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency​ (DARPA) in 2000 as a possible means of identifying security threats. Following 9/11 his researched ramped up thanks to funding from the National Science Foundation​ and the U.S. Office of Naval Research. Law enforcement and counterterrorism organizations already had facial-recognition technology but were looking for additional ways to better make sense of countless hours of surveillance footage.

New York City's Police Department and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's security staff also expressed an interest in Bregler's research in 2004. "They asked us if we could detect suicide bombers, and that's why we started the experiment studying artificial weight," he says.

Facial recognition has in recent years matured to the point where it is useful but only if the subject is within six or so meters from the camera, Bregler says. "That's why we're working on something called intrinsic biometrics, which studies your body patterns, your timing, the way you walk, the way you use your hands when you speak," he adds. "These are very hard to fake."

Based on the decade or so it took for facial recognition to become reliable, Bregler estimates intrinsic biometrics is years away from maturity. Ten years after facial recognition started yielding meaningful results, it has moved beyond the realm of security and is being used by Facebook, Google, Apple's iPhoto and a number of other commercial applications. "We are just starting with intrinsic biometrics so estimating from the past it probably takes five to 10 more years before it becomes as accurate as facial recognition and other biometrics," he adds.

Homeland Security Getting in the Mind Reading Business

Darlene Storm|ComputerWorld

The movie "Minority Report" depicted a future where crime was prevented before its occurance. Has this science fiction lent itself to modern day?

Many times, technologies from popular science fiction movies have later blended with real science and technology to become reality. Deployment of just such surveillance technology, somewhere between mind-reading machines and a “pre-crime” program, is currently being tested against real life to remotely detect terrorists or assassins, to find people with malicious intentions.
So whether someone cut you off in traffic or you had a spat with your significant other, if you are having adrenaline-driven aggressive thoughts and you are in northeastern USA, you might quickly take a chill pill because that’s where terrorist “pre-crime” detectors are being tested by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
According to Nature magazine, in an undisclosed location in the northeast, Homeland Security has been testing its Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) program which is designed to ‘sense’ and spot people who intend to commit a terrorist act. Critics of FAST have compared the system to the ‘pre-crime’ concept that was made famous in the film Minority Report. FAST technology uses remote sensors to detect when a person experiences irregular physiological properties like increased heart rate and darting eye movements that are supposedly associated with malicious intent.
FAST merges technology with behavioral science [PDF] and has been in development since 2008. According to the DHS privacy impact document, there are five remote sensors that can measure heart and respiration rates, and remote eye trackers that can measure pupils, position and gaze of eyes. There are also thermal cameras as well as audio to analyze pitch changes in human voices. High resolution video is used to analyze facial expressions and body movement. “Other sensor types such as pheromones detection are also under consideration.” Previous FAST testing involved people passing through the system while role-playing that they would carry out a “disruptive act.”
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