But the game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policy makers over the consequences of any Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those in the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States.
blackwater's prince cuts & runs from danger room: The rebranding of Blackwater continues. First, the mercenary firm expands beyond its core, guns-for-hire business. Then, the company changes its name - to the inscrutable, barely-pronounceable "Xe." The latest: Outspoken and controversial firm founder Erik Prince announces he's stepping down as CEO. "I'm a little worn out by the whole thing, the politics of it all," Prince tells the Wall Street Journal. "Me not being part of the equation reduces the 'X' on the thing." I guess that means the company is now called "e?"
report: diebold system has 'delete' button for erasing audit logs from threat level: After three months of investigation, California's secretary of state has released a report examining why a voting system made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly known as Diebold) lost about 200 ballots in Humboldt County during November's presidential election. But the most startling information in the state's 13-page report [156kb PDF] is not why the system lost votes, which Wired.com previously covered in detail, but that some versions of Diebold's vote tabulation system, known as the Global Election Management System (Gems), include a button that allows someone to delete audit logs from the system. Auditing logs are required under the federal voting-system guidelines, which are used to test and qualify voting systems for use in elections. The logs record changes and other events that occur on voting systems to ensure the integrity of elections and help determine what occurred in a system when something goes wrong. "Deleting a log is something that you would only do in de-commissioning a system you're no longer using or perhaps in a testing scenario," said Princeton University computer scientist Ed Felten, who has studied voting systems extensively. "But in normal operation, the log should always be kept."
finland's parliament passes 'lex nokia' bill from yle: Parliament has passed the controversial reforms to the data protection law, the so-called "Lex Nokia" bill. The vote was 96 for, 56 against. The hotly debated reforms caused arguments within the government coalition, but also caused a crack in the Green League. Notably, three Green MPs who had previously voted against the bill abstained from the vote: Johanna Karimäki, Ville Niinistö and Kirsi Ojansuu. They were just three of the 47 parliamentarians who decided not to cast a vote. The bill, dubbed "Lex Nokia" because of the mobile phone giant's perceived advocacy for the law, angered unions and privacy rights advocates.
army pitches 'future' killers as job-savers from danger room: In late January, the Air Force's defense contractor buddies started pushing their pet project, the Raptor stealth fighter jet, as a jobs program. "Without it, more than 95,000 jobs are at risk," proclaimed one online ad. (The New America Foundation figures the real number is more like 35,000. You get the idea, though.) But at least the Air Force had the good sense to step back and let its industrial partners make the case for their weapons-as-stimulus. The Army wasn't so slick, alas. The Army is trying hard to keep Future Combat Systems - its massive effort to make the force lighter, more-lethal, and better-networked - away from the budget axe. During the presidential campaign, both the Obama and McCain camps talked about slowing down or killing the project. Despite some successes, FCS has become a poster child in Washington for Pentagon bloat and overreach.
russian general says US may have planned satellite collision from ria novosti: A collision between U.S. and Russian satellites in early February may have been a test of new U.S. technology to intercept and destroy satellites rather than an accident, a Russian military expert has said. According to official reports, one of 66 satellites owned by Iridium, a U.S. telecoms company, and the Russian Cosmos-2251 satellite, launched in 1993 and believed to be defunct, collided on February 10 about 800 kilometers (500 miles) above Siberia. However, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Leonid Shershnev, a former head of Russia's military space intelligence, said in an interview published by the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper on Tuesday that the U.S. satellite involved in the collision was used by the U.S. military as part of the "dual-purpose" Orbital Express research project, which began in 2007... Shershnev claims the U.S. military decided to continue with the project to "develop technology that would allow monitoring and inspections of orbital spacecraft by fully-automated satellites equipped with robotic devices." The February collision could be an indication that the U.S. has successfully developed such technology and is capable of manipulating 'hostile satellites,' including their destruction, with a single command from a ground control center, the general said.
a billion over budget, nasa gets a bilion more from stimulus from ap: NASA can land a spacecraft on a peanut-shaped asteroid 150 million miles away, but it doesn't come close to hitting the budget target for building its spacecraft, according to congressional auditors. NASA's top officials know it and even joke about it. This week auditors found that on nine projects alone NASA is nearly $1.1 billion over cost estimates that were set in the last couple of years. Congress' financial watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, reviewed NASA's newest big-money projects and found most were either over budget, late or both. That doesn't include two of NASA's largest spending projects whose costs have wildly fluctuated and still aren't firm - replacements for the space shuttle fleet and Hubble Space Telescope. Historically, overruns have caused NASA to run low on money, forcing it to shelve or delay other projects. Often, the agency just asks taxpayers for more money. In fact, NASA got $1 billion from the new stimulus package. It's to be spent on climate-watching satellites and exploration among other things. "Getting an extra infusion of money doesn't necessarily mean you have a capability to spend it well," said Cristina Chaplain, GAO's acquisitions chief who wrote the study [2.8mb PDF].
task force urges broader role for nuclear labs from washington post: The nation's nuclear weapons laboratories would be spun out of the Energy Department and become the center of an independent Agency for National Security Applications under a proposal to be released today by a bipartisan task force formed by the Stimson Center, a research organization devoted to security issues. Changing the status and making wider use of Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories for other research would help reestablish and assure "the nation's global science and technology leadership in the 21st century," said the task force report. At present, the labs are directed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is a semiautonomous part of the Energy Department. "This action would enable the laboratories to remain trusted third party advisors as well as providers of capabilities, but it would initiate a full transformation from a Cold War, industrial age mindset and culture," according to the task force, which was chaired by Francis Fragos Townsend, who was an assistant to President George W. Bush for homeland security and counterterrorism, and retired Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick, who was deputy national security adviser to President Bill Clinton. The proposal comes at a time when the future of the nation's multibillion-dollar nuclear weapons complex is under review.
video: robo-beast & human troops march together from danger room: We've seen BigDog, the military's alarmingly-lifelike robotic quadruped, climb over hills, stomp through snow, and survive swift kicks to the chops. Now, for the first time, we're seeing it on patrol, with human soldiers. Mass High Tech uncovers this video of the BigDog going through exercises at Ft. Benning, Georgia. It comes on the heels of the robo-beast's longest walk yet - a 12.8 mile hike, following a series of GPS waypoints. Soldiers at Ft. Benning seemed intrigued by the idea of a mechanical pack mule that could one day carry some of their load.
darpa wants sim to 'resurrect' battlefield trauma from danger room: Far-off commanders can already watch battles unfold, thanks to spy drones, streaming video overhead. They can read after-action reports, to learn how troops on the ground experienced the fight. But those officers don't have detailed, digitally-animated simulations, merging all that info - and showing how similar fights might go, in the future. Which is a situation Darpa, the Pentagon's blue-sky research arm, would like to fix. The agency is holding a mid-December meeting in Virginia to launch its "RESURRECT" (REstoring SURvivability by REConstructing Trauma) project. It aims to "create high-fidelity computer simulations" of warzone events "for tactical, operational and strategic review."
fighting with photons: the most famous weapon of science fiction is rapidly becoming fact from economist: Like so much else in science fiction, the ray gun was invented by H.G. Wells. In the tentacles of Wells’s Martians it was a weapon as unanswerable by earthlings as the Maxim gun in the hands of British troops was unanswerable by Africans. Science fiction, though, it has remained. Neither hand-held pistols nor giant, orbiting anti-missile versions of the weapon have worked. But that is about to change. The first serious battlefield ray gun is now being deployed. And the next generation, now in the laboratory, is coming soon. The deployed ray gun (or “directed-energy weapon”, in the tedious jargon that military men seem compelled to use to describe technology) is known as Zeus. It is not designed to kill. Rather, its purpose is to allow you to remain at a safe distance when you detonate unexploded ordnance, such as the homemade roadside bombs that plague foreign troops in Iraq... The Missile Defence Agency releases a fact sheet about its Airborne Laser. Raytheon has a video and a press release about LADS.
eads north america's tentainer(tm) mobile shelter from marketwatch: A compact and highly deployable mobile shelter for military medical support missions, emergency response and disaster relief will be unveiled by EADS North America at this month's Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS) annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, beginning Monday, Nov. 10. The new unit, called Tentainer, is a hybrid shelter that combines a rigid-walled, lightweight lower container with a multi-cell inflatable tent upper portion. Built by EADS North America Integrated Shelter Systems in Russellville, Ark., Tentainer is tailored for applications such as military forward surgical stations, trauma treatment facilities, first aid stations and mobile command posts.
kuwaiti navy, nato conclude military drills in gulf from rtt news: Kuwaiti Navy and ships from the Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG2) concluded strategic military exercises Sunday, the first of their kind in the Gulf region. The joint exercises were part of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) and a security agreement with the NATO on information exchange. The six-day drills included fast inshore attack training, anti-piracy demonstration, an air defense exercise, and a demonstration of firepower.
test drill at miami international airport aims to slow pandemics from miami herald: About 400 people participated in the nation's first pandemic flu exercise at Miami International Airport. What if a deadly global pandemic were sweeping across the world and the United States needed to try to delay its effect on our shores? For the first time, at Miami International Airport on Wednesday [nov5], about a dozen federal, state and local agencies participated in a simulation exercise to review the steps needed to screen international passengers arriving in the face of a severe influenza pandemic. "It's an opportunity to test the plan, see how it works and what needs to be improved, so that when we need to use it for real we are ready," said Christine Pearson, spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. About 400 people participated in the test drill, including about 200 voluntary actors. CDC, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation led the effort... "A pandemic is inevitable, but we can't say it's imminent," said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of global migration and quarantine for the CDC.
navy intercepts ballistic missile target in fleet exercise from spacewar: Vice Adm. Samuel J. Locklear, Commander, U.S. Third Fleet has announced the successful Navy intercept of a ballistic missile target over the Pacific Ocean during Fleet Exercise Pacific Blitz. This was the first Fleet operational firing to employ the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) against a ballistic missile target. Command and control of this mission resided with Commander, U.S. Third Fleet, based in San Diego, Calif... "The successful engagement of ballistic missile targets from ships at sea is extraordinary... Pacific Blitz highlights the successful transition from developmental test flights to operational fleet execution and demonstrates the viability of the Maritime BMD Concept of Operations."
nato voices serious worries about russian missile plans from afp: NATO has "serious worries" about the compatibility of Russian plans to deploy missiles in a western Russian enclave with arm control "arrangements," an alliance spokesman said Wednesday. "We have seen the press reports on the statement of President (Dmitry) Medvedev regarding deployment of Iskander missiles to the Kaliningrad region," spokesman Robert Pszczel told AFP. "If confirmed, it would raise serious worries concerning the conformity with existing arms control arrangements which are important for European security," he added.
venezuela & russia discuss nuclear energy & flights from ap: Top Venezuelan and Russian officials met Thursday to discuss bilateral agreements on everything from nuclear energy to direct flights connecting Caracas to Moscow. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin headed a delegation of business leaders visiting Venezuela to discuss development plans prior to Russian President Dimitri Medvedev's visit later this month. "In a moment when the banks of the developing world are going bankrupt and disappearing, our two countries are negotiating the creation of a binational bank that will allow the financing of development," Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez said.
china's space industry takes off from spacedaily: China put another two satellites into orbit on Wednesday, just weeks after its third successful manned space mission and the first space walk by Chinese astronauts in September. The space industry is taking off, thanks to the 30-year-old Reform and Opening-up Drive, said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of the manned space program. China established its space sector in the 1950s, an era of difficulty and hardship.
postal anthrax aftermath: has biodefense spending made us safer? from sciam: As the Federal Bureau of Investigation was about to move in, U.S. Army biodefense scientist Bruce Ivins committed suicide, thus possibly closing the chapter on the first—and so far only—fatal bioattack in U.S. history. The FBI alleges that Ivins, who worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Md., mailed anthrax-laden letters in September and October 2001 that killed five people. The incidents sparked a massive infusion of research funds to counter civilian bioterrorism, $41 billion spread over seven federal departments and agencies. Yet some observers argue that those funds have done little to guard against another bioterror incident, especially if the FBI is right about Ivins.
playing tricks with the fort dix six? from time: "Now you see why we were going to sacrifice all for the sake of allah in jihad," says the neatly handwritten note on prison-issue paper. "We weren't able to finish." Those seemingly incriminating words are part of a letter the U.S. Attorney's office in New Jersey says one of the defendants in the "Fort Dix Six" homegrown terror case wrote to a fellow inmate at the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in Philadelphia. But a TIME investigation of the Fort Dix Six shows that little in this case is as it first appears.
modeling urban panic from slashdot: Schneier is reporting that Arizona State University's Paul Torrens has been developing a computer simulation tomodel urban panic. "The goal of this project is to develop a reusable and behaviorally founded computer model of pedestrian movement and crowd behavior amid dense urban environments, to serve as a test-bed for experimentation." The simulation tests behaviors from how a crowd flees from a burning car to how a pathogen might be transmitted through a mobile pedestrian over time among others.
inspectors disclose security breach at nuclear lab from abc: Federal inspectors have detailed yet another security breach at one of the nation's oldest nuclear weapons plants. There may have been dozens of security violations involving the use of unauthorized laptop computers being brought into secure areas of the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, according to a report released by the Department of Energy's inspector general.
7 steps to a homeland security campus from michael gould-wartofsky: Free speech zones. Taser guns. Hidden cameras. Data mining. A new security curriculum. Private security contractors... Welcome to the new homeland security campus... From Harvard to UCLA, the ivory tower is fast becoming the latest watchtower in Fortress America. The terror warriors, having turned their attention to "violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism" - as it was recently dubbed in a House of Representatives bill of the same name - have set out to reconquer that traditional hotbed of radicalization, the university. Building a homeland-security campus and bringing the university to heel is a seven-step mission:
1. Target dissidents 2. Lock and load 3. Keep an eye (or hundreds of them) focused on campus 4. Mine student records 5. Track foreign-born students, keep the undocumented out 6. Take over the curriculum, the classroom, and the laboratory 7. Privatize, privatize, privatize
homeschooling a crime in germany from truthnews: In Germany, enveloped in the EU, it will soon be a crime to homeschool children. “Homeschoolers need to be making plans to flee Germany en masse after a government document implied the advent of a coming crackdown that would target them, an advocate says,” reports WorldNetDaily... Germany has not had banned homeschoolers since the Nazis ruled. Are you surprised that it is being implemented now?
swat goons dispatched on colorado homeschoolers from truthnews: In Garfield County, Colorado, not only will the state determine if you should take your child to a doctor after a mishap, but if you don’t comply with their on-high directives, they will dispatch a SWAT team to ensure compliance. According to Tom Shiflett, a Vietnam vet, his son was injured during horseplay, WorldNetDaily reports. Shiflett’s son, John, “was grabbing the door handle of a car as his sister was starting to drive away slowly. He slipped, fell to the ground and hit his head... There were no broken bones, no dilated eyes, or any other noticeable problems.” listen to an interview with tom shifflet here...
fair use notice: this site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. we are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, & social justice issues, etc. we believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law. In accordance with title 17 usc section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
from nytimes.com: A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials. The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict.
