Just another way of rendering Posse Comitatus moot

these days, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether our military is being deployed on the streets of new orleans or they're keeping our citizens in line while sitting behind computer screens in the pentagon... our puppet-masters are intent on using ALL the resources necessary to keep us peasants in line - chicago, tehran, wherever...

the nyt take is, as you would expect, somewhat benign...

The Obama administration has adopted new procedures for using the Defense Department’s vast array of cyberwarfare capabilities in case of an attack on vital computer networks inside the United States, delicately navigating historic rules that restrict military action on American soil.

yes, the nyt "navigates" somewhat "delicately" too, not even bothering to mention the "historic rule's" name, posse comitatus...

tom burghardt, posting in his blog, antifascist calling, offers an in-depth analysis of the development in addition to a detailed description of the innocently-named, project 12...

A "Memorandum of Agreement" struck last week between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Security Agency (NSA) promises to increase Pentagon control over America's telecommunications and electronic infrastructure.

It's all in the interest of "cybersecurity" of course, or so we've been told, since much of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) driving administration policy is a closely-held state secret.

Authority granted the über spy shop by the Bush and Obama administrations was handed to NSA by the still-classified National Security Presidential Directive 54, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD 54/HSPD 23) in 2008 by then-President Bush.

The Agreement follows closely on the heels of reports last week by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that DHS has been tracking people online and that the agency even established a "Social Networking Monitoring Center" to do so.

Documents obtained by EFF through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, revealed that the agency has been vacuuming-up "items of interest," systematically monitoring "citizenship petitioners" and analyzing "online public communication."

The documents suggest that "DHS collected a massive amount of data on individuals and organizations explicitly tied to a political event," the Obama inauguration.

This inevitably raises a troubling question: what other "political events" are being monitored by government snoops? Following last month's raids on antiwar activists by heavily-armed FBI SWAT teams, the answer is painfully obvious.

And with new reports, such as Monday's revelations by The Wall Street Journal that Facebook "apps" have been "transmitting identifying information--in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names--to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies," online privacy, if such a beast ever existed, is certainly now a thing of the past.

[...]

"In early 2008," a PI analyst writes, "President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD-54/HSPD-23) formalizing the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). This initiative created a series of classified programs with a total budget of approximately $30 billion. Many of these programs remain secret and their activities are largely unknown to the public."

Amongst the programs stood up by CNCI "is an effort to encourage information sharing between the public and private sector called 'Project 12'."

The whistleblowing web site "recently acquired the key report from the Project 12 meetings: Improving Protection of Privately Owned Critical Network Infrastructure Through Public-Private Partnerships. This 35-page, For Official Use Only report is a guide to creating public-private partnerships that facilitate the implementation of 'actionable recommendations that [reflect] the reality of shared responsibility between the public and private sectors with respect to securing the nation's cyber assets, networks, systems, and functions'."

patético...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

And the hits just keep on comin' - another Friday night news dump

i'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but anyone who's been paying the slightest bit of attention won't find this to be the least bit surprising...

Bush Administration Debated Using Military in Terrorism Arrests

[in the U.S.]

Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the
Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of
Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with
Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including
Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the
power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the
terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna
Six, and declare them enemy combatants. Mr. Bush ultimately
decided against the proposal to use military force.

headline augmentation by yours truly...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

You have a "horrible, horrible, horrible feeling this is going to end badly...?" That's cuz it's been rotten to the core from the get-go...

aig has rapidly become a symbol of all that is wrong with both our financial system and our government, and it's now a litmus test for the obama administration... if this brand-new president, his treasury secretary, and his advisors want to retain a shred of credibility for their "change" agenda, they've got to find a way to deal with this effectively and show the american people that they aren't just funding a give-away to the already super-rich, cuz that's for goddam sure what it looks like...

Attorneys working for the Fed had been examining the matter for months and determined that the retention payments couldn't be touched because AIG would face costly lawsuits and be subject to penalties from states and foreign governments. Administration officials said over the weekend that they agreed with that assessment.

check this...

A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn't show up at all.

"It's a mob effect," one senior executive said. "It's putting people's lives in danger."

Politicians and the public spent yesterday demanding that AIG rescind payouts that they said rewarded recklessness and greed at a company being bailed out with $170 billion in taxpayer funds. But company officials contend that the uproar is scaring away the very employees who understand AIG Financial Products' complex trades and who are trying to dismantle the division before it further endangers the world's economy.

"It's going to blow up," said a senior Financial Products manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "I have a horrible, horrible, horrible feeling that this is going to end badly."

do i smell a domestic military deployment in the air...? (see previous posts here, here, and here...)

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

More fear-mongering, beating the Posse Comitatus dead horse and preparing for martial law

it's a trifecta...!

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

sheesh...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Domestic military deployments

although i've been following this story for the past few weeks, i've avoided posting on it primarily because it's so goddam depressing... i guess i find it preferable to pretend it isn't happening... unfortunately, like the dead skunk under the back porch, it's damn near impossible to ignore...

Following reports that US troops will be permanently on call to work inside the United States handling "civil unrest," "crowd control" and other functions traditionally carried out by civilian law enforcement agencies, activists are demanding to know why the Pentagon is reversing a longstanding prohibition on domestic deployment of the military.

The Department of Defense for the first time is assigning a full-time Army unit to be on call with Northern Command, which was created after Sept. 11 to facilitate military cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security in the event of another terrorist attack.

The American Civil Liberties Union is demanding more details on the domestic deployments, which appear to violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits use of the military to direct internal affairs of the US. The ACLU warns that without fully knowing the reasoning and justifications behind the Army's plan, the domestic deployments could be used to expand a militarized surveillance apparatus that already includes the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program and DHS's plans to turn military spy satellites inside US borders.

do you ever get the feeling that we're fighting a rear guard action against an enemy that already has us inescapably boxed in...?

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments