The Drone War Doctrine We Still Know Nothing About - ProPublica
http://www.propublica.org/article/drone-war-doctrine-we-know-nothing-about
What qualifies as a “signature” that would prompt a deadly strike?
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In Pakistan, a signature might include:
Training camps…
Convoys of vehicles that bear the characteristics of Qaeda or Taliban leaders on the run. – Senior American and Pakistani officials, New York Times, February 2008.
“Terrorist training camps.” – U.S. Diplomatic Cable released by Wikileaks, October 2009.
Gatherings of militant groups or training complexes. – Current and former officials, Los Angeles Times, January 2010.
Bomb-making or fighters training for possible operations in Afghanistan…. a compound where unknown individuals were seen assembling a car bomb. – Officials, Los Angeles Times, May 2010.
Travel in or out of a known al-Qaeda compound or possession of explosives. – U.S. officials, Washington Post, February 2011.
Operating a training camp… consorting with known militants. – High-level American official, The New Yorker, September 2011.
A group of guys…Large groups of armed men. – Senior U.S. intelligence official, Associated Press, March 2012.
Groups of armed militants traveling by truck toward the war in Afghanistan. – Administration officials, Washington Post, April 2012.
The joke was that when the C.I.A. sees “three guys doing jumping jacks,” the agency thinks it is a terrorist training camp. – Senior official, May 2012.
“The definition is a male between the ages of 20 and 40.” – Former Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, Daily Beast, November 2012.
“Armed men who we see getting into pickup trucks and heading towards the Afghanistan border or who are in a training exercise.” – Former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, Council on Foreign Relations, January 2013.
Officials have characterized the intelligence that goes into these strikes as thorough, based on “days” of drone surveillance and other sources — and said that apparently low-level people may still be key to an organization’s functioning. In 2010, an official told the Los Angeles Times that the CIA makes sure “these are people whose actions over time have made it obvious that they are a threat."In Yemen, signature strikes are reportedly bound by stricter rules. Officials have often cited the necessity of a plot against Americans:
Clear indication of the presence of an al-Qaeda leader or of plotting against targets in the United States or Americans overseas. — Administration officials, Washington Post, April 2012.
“Individuals who are personally involved in trying to kill Americans… or intelligence that…[for example] a truck has been configured in order to go after our embassy in Sanaa.” — Senior administration official, Washington Post, January 2013
These strikes are not supposed to target “lower-level foot soldiers battling the Yemeni government,” U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal. A White House spokesman said last summer that the U.S. “[has] not and will not get involved in a broader counterinsurgency effort” in Yemen.But experts say some strikes in Yemen do appear to have been aimed at local militants. In Pakistan, in addition to low-level militants who might be involved in the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. has sometimes hit those who posed a threat to the Pakistani government.
As we detailed, signature strikes have also been criticized by human rights groups and some legal observers because of the lack of transparency surrounding them, including on the number of civilians killed.
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b o r d e r l a n d s e-journal
http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol1no1_2002/perera_camp.html
Via Cristina Del Biaggio @CDB_77
What is a Camp...?
Suvendrini Perera
La Trobe UniversityWhat is a camp, what is its juridico-political
structure, that such events could take place there?Giorgio Agamben
Among the innocent victims of the 9/11 terror attacks are several thousand asylum seekers in the west, non-combatants painfully caught at the point where the ’war on terrorism’ meets the ’war at home’. Indeed, more than a point of intersection, the bodies of asylum seekers and refugees are the very media through which the ’war on terror’ is normalised into ’the war at home’: through the new forms of control and power it seeks to exercise over the bodies of asylum seekers, the war abroad becomes the war at home.
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Who’s Faking It? Pentagon “Cyber-Warriors” Planting “False Information on Facebook” | Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/whos-faking-it-pentagon-cyber-warriors-planting-false-information-on-facebook/5320550On November 22, 2012, the Los Angeles Times published an alarming piece of news entitled “Cyber Corps program trains spies for the digital age” http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/22/nation/la-na-cyber-school-20121123 . The “cyber-warriors” who are headed for organizations such as the CIA, NSC, FBI, the Pentagon and so on, are trained to stalk, “rifle through trash, sneak a tracking device on cars and plant false information on Facebook [emphasis added]. They also are taught to write computer viruses, hack digital networks, crack passwords, plant listening devices and mine data from broken cellphones and flash drives.”
#cyber #espionnage #surveillance #tracking #data-mining #BBC #Iran
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Facebook : les très nombreux amis du guide suprême iranien
http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2013/01/28/facebook-les-tres-nombreux-amis-du-guide-supreme-iranien et http://seenthis.net/messages/110556 -
Iran numérique, l’ambivalence des mollahs
http://reseaux.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/10/02/irano-nox-irano-vox
http://reseaux.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/10/22/iran-numerique-ambivalence-mollahs
http://reseaux.blog.lemonde.fr/files/2012/10/GPX_IDC1.png
par où passent les #câbles
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Sending canned monkeys in space or on rocks devoid of our cosy magnetosphere and atmosphere will remain a non-survivable proposition for quite a while - http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/15qvo3/houston_we_have_another_problem_study_shows_space/c7p3atu
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passionnant ; je suis en train de lire “2312”, où ce problème est résolu par la réparation génique…
Kim Stanley Robinson’s ’2312’ a masterful, moving vision - Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/08/entertainment/la-ca-kim-stanley-robinson-20120708By the year of the book’s title, humankind has (just barely) survived global warming, in part because of terra-forming technologies that have made possible the colonization of Mars, Mercury and Venus. Asteroids and moons have been transformed into a bewildering variety of biospheres. Personal artificial intelligences called “qubes” augment reasoning, and humans have gone well beyond traditional family units, with gender a fluid and self-determined part of one’s identity. Meanwhile, Earth has become an ever more degraded place in which China is a major power with considerable influence throughout the solar system.
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Je n’avais pas encore lu d’oeuvres de science-fiction traitant explicitement ce problème... Ca en fait au moins une où il n’est pas oublié !
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Breaking News: Egypt announces cease-fire between Israel, Hamas « MasterAdrian’s Weblog
http://masteradrian.com/2012/11/21/breaking-news-egypt-announces-cease-fire-between-israel-hamasBreaking News: Egypt announces cease-fire between Israel, Hamas
November 21, 2012
Egypt announces cease-fire between Israel, Hamas
Los Angeles Times | November 21, 2012 | 9:38 AMEgypt announced a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas effective Wednesday evening, the Associated Press reported.
For the latest information go to www.latimes.com.
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Los Zetas drug cartel operate spy networks in Mexico and U.S. - Wichita Military Affairs | Examiner.com
https://www.examiner.com/article/los-zetas-drug-cartel-operate-spy-networks-mexico-and-u-sTo protect and ever expanding criminal enterprises, the Zetas drug cartels maintain highly developed intelligence networks on both sides of the border and have hired private armies to carry out enforcement measures and espionage according to U.S. government sources (see report: A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Border, prepared by the Majority Staff if the House Committee in Homeland Security, Subcommittee on investigations http://www.house.gov/sites/members/tx10_mccaul/pdf/Investigaions-Border-Report.pdf ).
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PressTV - Mexico state slipped under Zetas cartel control
http://presstv.com/detail/2012/11/04/270410/zetas-drug-cartel-occupies-mexico-stateThe brutal Zetas drug cartel now has full control over Mexico’s northeastern province of Coahuila, and dominates all aspects of local criminal businesses.
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Zetas cartel occupies Mexico state of Coahuila - Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/03/world/la-fg-mexico-zetas-control-20121104Few outside Coahuila state noticed. Headlines were rare. But steadily, inexorably, Mexico’s third-largest state slipped under the control of its deadliest drug cartel, the Zetas.
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In Brazil, police massacre case turns back tide of injustice - latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-brazil-amazon-massacre-20121007,0,4160990,full.storyPolice massacre case turns back tide of injustice in Brazil
Nineteen sharecroppers demanding land were gunned down by police in 1996. In a stunning result, two top officers involved have been imprisoned, signaling a shift from impunity to accountability.print
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In Brazil, accountability for massacre
At the scene of the massacre, 19 burned trunks of Brazil nut trees stand as a roadside monument to the dead. (Matthew Teague, Los Angeles Times / October 7, 2012)
Brazil prisoners ride bikes toward prison reform Brazil prisoners ride bikes toward prison reform
In Brazil, opportunity and obstacles for Africans flowing in In Brazil, opportunity and obstacles for Africans flowing in
Brazil’s hip-hop scene takes the country by storm Brazil’s hip-hop scene takes the country by storm
Thousands march for reform in Jordan Thousands march for reform in Jordan
India anti-corruption movement splinters India anti-corruption movement splintersBy Matthew Teague, Los Angeles Times
October 6, 2012, 5:16 p.m.
ELDORADO DOS CARAJAS, Brazil — At 4 in the afternoon on April 17, 1996, a 13-year-old girl with blond hair climbed onto a truck stopped on a road in the Amazon basin. From the top, Ana Paula Silva — known for a long time after as “the girl” — could see everything.
More than a thousand protesters had gathered on the road outside a village called Eldorado dos Carajas. People called them the sem terra, the landless. They sharecropped for large landowners, and they were among the poorest people in a country of very many poor and very few rich.
They wanted to make their way to Belem, the capital of Para state, to contend for land of their own, but the horizon seemed to retreat forever. When a pregnant woman could go no farther, they stopped to devise a new plan.
The women sat along the shoulders of the road and tended to the children, washing, nursing, rocking them to sleep. The men stood in the road and stopped trucks passing on the highway. That was the plan: They would block the road with the trucks to get the attention of the military police.
The police soon arrived in the form of Col. Mario Pantoja. He had a congenial, hangdog appearance, and met some of the leading protesters to hear their demands. They wanted buses to the next city, Maraba, if not all the way to Belem. And they wanted water.
Fair enough, the colonel told them. You’ll get water and buses.
From the policeman’s perspective, some of the landless men cast impressive shadows on the road. Josemar Pereira was an ox of a man. Everything about him stood broad, from his forehead to his boots. He wore canvas trousers, a shirt open to his torso, and a flopping felt hat. With his scythe in his hand, he was the archetypal South American peasant.
Less so Jose dos Santos. The thin 16-year-old hovered, listening in on the men’s negotiations. He had no great stake in the sem terra cause, but a protest sounded like fun, and fun was hard to come by in the Amazon basin.
From her perch, the girl watched as the buses arrived from north and south. When they came to a stop, scores of policemen poured out with weapons drawn. Friendly Col. Pantoja led them, along with a major called Jose Oliveira.
The workers held up their machetes, their pitchforks and their fists. In the chaos, Jose noticed that one officer had torn his name tag from his uniform.
As he watched the officer lift his rifle and level it at his face, he wondered: Why would he remove his name?
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Brazil workers exploited in modern-day slavery in Amazon - Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/07/world/la-fg-brazil-slave-labor-20120607After months of chopping down trees in the forest without pay and living on rice, beans and dirty water, Gil Dasio Meirelles decided he had to escape from the remote clearing in the middle of the vast Brazilian Amazon.
But he would have to make his way alone through dense foliage, a place where a man can lose his bearings and find himself lost amid a constant, menacing buzz of jungle creatures.
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2008 - Los Angeles Times: Public Utilities Commissioner Timothy A. Simon donation request raises questions (TLR Note: 1- Simon “mentee” of Willie Brown, as is Tony West, Kamala Harris and Gwen Moore 2- CPUC-California Bar - Utilities-African American Money Connection i.e. CaliforniaALL, CCPF)
Please see @:
http://lesliebrodie.posterous.com/2008-los-angeles-times-public-utilities-commi
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Japanese evicted from Terminal Island
February 1942: Following President Franklin D. Roosevelt issuing Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942, the first major Los Angeles relocation of Japanese and Japanese Americans occurred at Terminal Island.
http://latimesphoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/fa_540_termisland_32_970.jpg
Photo Andrew Hugh Arnott / Los Angeles Times
#photographie -
Attention, c’est énorme : La CIA privée d’informateurs au Liban | Slate
http://www.slate.fr/lien/46529/cia-liban-hezbollah-services-secrets-espionnageEn juin 2011, le chef du Hezbollah libanais, Hassan Nasrallah, avait affirmé que son mouvement créé en 1982 avait été infiltré par les renseignements américains. Une annonce qui avait été démentie par l’ambassade américaine qui suggérait que la mouvance d’obédience chiite faisait face à des problèmes internes et que ces accusations étaient « sans fondement ».
Pourtant, la CIA a été contrainte de réduire ses activités d’espionnage au Liban, affirme le Los Angeles Times dans son édition du dimanche 20 novembre 2011, après l’arrestation de plusieurs de ses informateurs, selon des responsables américains. Le bureau de Beyrouth « a fait faillite », explique de manière imagée une source au LA Times.
L’article du LA Times : CIA forced to curb spying in Lebanon
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cia-spy-20111121,0,868084.storyThe CIA was forced to curtail its spying in Lebanon, where U.S. operatives and their agents collect crucial intelligence on Syria, terrorist groups and other targets, after the arrests of several CIA informants in Beirut this year, according to U.S. officials and other sources.
“Beirut station is out of business,” a source said, using the CIA term for its post there. The same source, who declined to be identified while speaking about a classified matter, alleged that up to a dozen CIA informants have been compromised, but U.S. officials disputed that figure.
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Hezbollah unravels CIA spy network in Lebanon http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEZBOLLAH_CIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-11-21-0
To find them, U.S. officials said, Hezbollah examined cellphone data looking for anomalies. The analysis identified cellphones that, for instance, were used rarely or always from specific locations and only for a short period of time. Then it came down to old-fashioned, shoe-leather detective work: Who in that area had information that might be worth selling to the enemy?
The effort took years but eventually Hezbollah, and later the Lebanese government, began making arrests. By one estimate, 100 Israeli assets were apprehended as the news made headlines across the region in 2009. Some of those suspected Israeli spies worked for telecommunications companies and served in the military.
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Évidemment, ces informations vont (curieusement) toutes dans le sens des arguments du Hezbollah en réponse à l’acte d’accusation du TSL (meurtre Hairi), mais je te conseille de ne pas faire le rapport.
(Selon Nasrallah, il est impossible de faire reposer l’accusation sur des analyses de données téléphoniques, puisqu’on a dévoilée des dizaines d’espions israéliens travaillant chez les télécommunications téléphoniques libanaises ; toute donnée téléphonique peut ainsi être falsifiée.)
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Israel feminists see a backsliding as ultra-Orthodox flex muscle - Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/12/world/la-fg-israel-women-20111113Israel’s ranking in gender equality — based upon workplace discrimination, pay differentials and other factors — compared with other countries dropped from 36th place in 2007 to 55th in 2011, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index.
During a religious holiday last month, male residents of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood banned women from using the main streets to prevent mingling of the sexes, defying a Supreme Court order allowing women on the streets. Last year, the same neighborhood constructed a separate, covered sidewalk that women were forced to use, a measure also rejected by the court as discriminatory. [...]
The conflict is gaining intensity, he said, because of the rising influence and numbers of the haredi community, once a small, scattered minority that today numbers 1 million, about 15% of the population. The ultra-Orthodox live mostly in separate cities and neighborhoods where they have been free to practice their beliefs without interference. As their political power grows, they are demanding more accommodation for their way of life, Pappenheim said.
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Dangerous Minds | The Dogs of OWS
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/the_dogs_of_ows
http://www.dangerousminds.net/images/uploads/Dogs-Of-Occupy-Wall-Street-04.jpg 
http://www.dangerousminds.net/images/uploads/Dogs-Of-Occupy-Wall-Street-10.jpg ils sont concernés en même temps par toutes ces taxes et cette austérité, bientôt leurs maîtres n’auront plus de quoi financer leur croquettes
Excessive dog barking will cost you in L.A.
Under the changes, dog owners would face fines starting at $250 for a first offense, $500 for a second and $1,000 for a third if a hearing conducted by the Department of Animal Services determines that a dog barks too much.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/02/local/la-me-barking-dogs-20111102
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Un demi-pourcent (0,5%) de 3000 chinois de confession juive qui vivent à Kaifeng se sont installés en Israël, malgré la présence d’une association israélienne spécifiquement destinée à persuader les chinois juifs d’émigrer. Puisque 99,5% des chinois juifs évoqués dans cet article ont décidé de ne pas émigrer en Israël, cela permet (évidemment) au Los Angeles Times de titrer : « Les Juifs chinois se sentent plus à la maison en Israël » (via @angryarab).
Chinese Jews feel more at home in Israel - latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-jews-20111016,0,1894957,full.storySo far the organization has helped 14 Jews, out of an estimated 3,000 who live in Kaifeng, move to Israel. But Freund complained that Israel’s bureaucratic and religious red tape has prevented Shavei Israel from bringing over more of these Chinese Jews.
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Syria neighbors : Syria in chaos sends shivers in region - latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-syria-neighbors-20110427,0,4386461.story?page=2Analysts say Saudi Arabia may be considering using its diplomatic and political influence to offer Assad a way out of his predicament, but for a price: breaking his alliance with Iran, which is accused of stirring up trouble among Shiite minorities in countries such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Ici, le Los Angeles Times suggère que l’Arabie Séoudite serait capable de mettre fin aux évéments en Syrie. Ah bon.
Avant de se raviser.
Other than possibly toning down news coverage, it remained unclear how much influence Saudi Arabia and its Arabian Peninsula allies, or anyone else, may have on events in Syria, which appear to have taken on a life of their own.
Donc... on ne sait pas trop.
