organization:air force

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1. GIULIA TOFANA

Giulia Tofana was a poison-maker in 17th-century Italy. Some sources attribute the invention of the mysterious poison called Aqua Tofana to her, but there are earlier mentions of the “inheritance potion.” (Others attribute the development of Aqua Tofana to Teofania di Adamo, who was executed in 1633 and might have been Giulia Tofana’s mother.) At any rate, both women made and sold the concoction, which included a base of arsenic with some other ingredients, most likely lead and belladonna. Just a few drops could kill a person. At the time, many women had so little status and power that their only means of breaking away from a bad marriage was death, and there was no shortage of women who wanted to keep that option in a small bottle on their dressing tables. As many as 600 people may have died as a result of Tofana’s business over an 18-year period. Eventually, one of her customers was caught, which led to an investigation. Tofana was executed for her activities, along with her daughter and several other accomplices, in 1659.

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2. AMY ARCHER-GILLIGAN

Amy Archer-Gilligan ran a nursing home in Connecticut from 1907 to 1917. When her first husband and business partner James Archer died in 1910, Archer-Gilligan was the beneficiary of a substantial recently-purchased life insurance policy. She married Michael Gilligan in 1913. Three months later, he was dead. Meanwhile, too many people were dying in the nursing home, particularly those who had recently paid for their care with a lump sum. A complaint from a relative led to a newspaper and police investigation, which led to exhumations. Her second husband and several patients tested positive for arsenic. Archer-Gilligan was tried on only one count of murder and found guilty in 1917. She was sentenced to death, but a new trial was granted to determine whether Archer-Gilligan was insane. That trial led to a life sentence, but she was later sent to a mental institution where she lived until her death in 1962. Archer-Gilligan’s number of victims could be anywhere between five and 48. Her story is thought to have inspired the play Arsenic and Old Lace.

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3. BERTHA GIFFORD

Bertha Gifford was born in the 1870s in the town of Morse Mill, Missouri. She married a man named Graham, but when she took up with Gene Gifford, her husband died of a mysterious ailment. She and Gifford married and moved to Catawissa, Missouri, where Bertha became known as a Good Samaritan. She often took care of sick people in her community, going to their homes and cooking for them. She built a reputation as an excellent cook, and she also made home remedies. Quite a few children died under her care, but children, especially sick children, often died from one disease or another in those days. Older people died, too. But in 1917, two healthy, middle-aged men died. Sherman Pounds died at the Gifford’s home, and later hired hand Jim Ogle died after a dispute over pay with the Giffords. Pounds’ three-year-old granddaughter also died while staying with Bertha Gifford in 1922, and seven-year-old Irene Stuhlfelder died under Gifford’s care in 1923. In 1925, Ethel Schamel, two of her sons, and another relative all died within a few months, again under Gifford’s care. Farm hand Ed Brinley died in 1927. Finally, growing rumors of Gifford’s involvement in all those deaths brought an investigation. The bodies of Ed Brinley and the Schamel brothers were exhumed and found to contain large amounts of arsenic. It came out that Bertha Gifford had purchased a lot of arsenic over the years to poison barn rats. She went to trial for two murders in 1928, and was found criminally insane. She was committed to a state mental hospital, where she died in 1951.

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4. MARY ANN GEERING

Wellcome Images // CC BY 4.0

Mary Ann Geering was born in 1800 and lived in Guestling, East Sussex, UK, in 1846 when her husband Richard Geering inherited £20. That was a lot of money back then, but not enough to induce murder plans in most people. Two years later, Richard died after a painful illness of five days. His death was attributed to heart disease. Four months passed, and Geering’s 21-year-old son George died. A few weeks later in 1849, 26-year-old son James also died from a painful illness of just a few days. A third son, 18-year-old Benjamin, fell ill shortly afterward on Easter Sunday. This time, doctors removed the patient from the home, and Benjamin recovered. His doctors raised an alarm, and Mary Ann Geering’s husband and two dead sons were exhumed. The bodies were full of arsenic. Geering was arrested and her three younger children were taken to a poorhouse. She confessed during her trial, and was hanged in 1849.

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5. BLANCHE TAYLOR MOORE

Blanche Taylor Moore married her first husband James Taylor in 1952 when she was 19 years old. She jumped into marriage to escape her abusive father, an alcoholic minister named P.D. Kiser. Kiser died in 1966 of heart failure, although arsenic was later found in his body. Taylor himself died in 1973 after a mysterious illness. Blanche had been carrying on an affair with her co-worker Raymond Reid for years, and they began dating openly after her husband’s death. Reid, however, died in 1986.

Blanche then was able to openly date another man she had been seeing secretly, the Reverend Dwight Moore. The two married in 1989. Immediately after returning from their honeymoon, Rev. Moore was admitted to a hospital. Suspicious doctors found he had been poisoned with arsenic. Dwight Moore survived with treatment, but has suffered lingering health effects. The bodies of James Taylor and Raymond Reid were exhumed; both showed high levels of arsenic. Blanche Moore was arrested and tried in 1990 for the murder of Raymond Reid. She was found guilty and sentenced to death. Moore is on Death Row and continues to profess her innocence. A made-for-television movie about her case was aired in 1993, in which Elizabeth Montgomery played the role of Moore. Incidentally, there is no truth to the rumor that Moore requested a live kitten for her last meal. Now 82, she is still on Death Row.

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6. JUDY BUENOANO

Florida Department of Corrections via Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Judias Buenoano was an abused child and already had a son when she married Air Force officer James Goodyear in 1962. The couple had two more children and settled in Florida. Goodyear served in Vietnam, but died of a mysterious malady three months after coming home to his wife in 1971. Buenoano collected on three life insurance policies. A couple of months later, she collected on another policy when her home burned (another insured home burned a few years later). By 1973 Buenoano had a new lover, Bobby Joe Morris. She and her children moved to Colorado with Morris in 1977, but he died of a mysterious malady in 1978. Again, Buenoano collected on several insurance policies.

Back in Florida by 1979, Buenoano’s adult son Michael visited his mother and suffered base metal poisoning, which left him disabled but alive. He drowned in 1980 while on a canoeing trip with his mother, and Buenoano again collected on three life insurance policies. She dated a man named John Gentry and took out a life insurance policy on him. He was hospitalized with a mysterious malady, but survived, only to return to the hospital when his car exploded in 1983. Gentry cooperated with investigating police, telling them of the vitamins Buenoano gave him before his earlier illness. The “vitamins” contained paraformaldehyde and arsenic. Gentry also found out that Buenoano had told her friends that Gentry had a terminal illness (he did not). The bodies of James Goodyear and Bobby Joe Morris were exhumed and found to contain high levels of arsenic. In 1984, Judias Buenoano was sentenced to life for the murder of her son, and in 1985, she received a death sentence for the murder of James Goodyear. Buenoano was executed in Florida in 1998.

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7. VELMA BARFIELD

Screenshot via YouTube

Margie Velma Bullard Barfield was not home when a house fire killed her first husband Thomas Burke in 1969 in North Carolina. Another fire soon afterwards destroyed what was left of the home. She married Jennings Barfield in 1970, but he died in 1971. Barfield moved in with her parents, but her father died of cancer and her mother died in 1974 of a mysterious illness. A boyfriend also died in a car accident.

Barfield moved in with Dollie and Montgomery Edwards in 1976, working as a nurse for the elderly couple. They both died in 1977. The next elderly man in her care, John Henry Lee, also died in 1977. Barfield then moved in with her boyfriend Stuart Taylor, who soon died of a mysterious illness. Taylor’s autopsy showing the presence of arsenic, and a tip from Barfield’s sister led to her arrest. Jennings Barfield’s body was exhumed and also found to contain arsenic. The widow eventually confessed to several murders. In 1978, Velma Barfield was convicted of the murder of Stuart Taylor and in 1984 became the first woman in the US executed by lethal injection.

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8. NANNIE DOSS

Serial killer Nancy Hazle later became known as Nannie Doss and was also referred to in the press as “the Giggling Granny” because of her bizarre behavior. In 1921, when she was only 16 years old, she married Charlie Braggs. They produced four daughters. The two middle daughters died under mysterious circumstances in 1927, and Braggs left Doss. She met Frank Harrelson through a lonely hearts column and married him in either 1929, 1937, or 1945 (accounts vary). He died from ingesting rat poison in 1945. Meanwhile, two of Doss’ grandchildren died under mysterious circumstances. Doss married her third husband, Arlie Lanning, in 1947. He died in 1952 of heart failure, although he had no history of heart problems. Soon after, their home burned. The house had been willed to Lanning’s sister, but the insurance beneficiary was Doss. Soon after, Lanning’s mother and Doss’ sister died.

Husband number four was Richard Morton, whom Doss married in 1952. During that marriage, Doss’ father died and her mother came to live with her. The arrangement did not last long, as Louisa Hazle died within a few days of her arrival in 1953. Richard Morton died three months later. Nannie Doss immediately began looking for another husband, and married her fifth, Sam Doss, in 1953. Within a couple of months, he was hospitalized with a mysterious illness, but survived and was sent home on October 5th, only to die later that night. Sam Doss’ suspicious doctor ordered an autopsy and found (you guessed it) arsenic. Nannie was finally arrested, and she confessed to murdering all four deceased husbands, a mother-in-law, her own mother, her sister, and a grandson. She pleaded guilty to the murder of Sam Doss and was sentenced to life. She died in prison in 1965.

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9. ANNA MARIE HAHN

The Cincinnati Enquirer via Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Anna Marie Hahn was the first woman to die in Ohio’s electric chair and only the second woman executed by the state. She immigrated from Germany in 1929. After divorcing her second husband, Hahn began working as a private live-in nurse for elderly German men in Cincinnati. Her patients tended to die and leave their fortunes to Hahn, which helped pay for her gambling habit. The string of unusual deaths ended in 1937, when police found a suspicious amount of arsenic in George Obendoerfer’s body. An investigation revealed a string of unusual deaths among Hahn’s patients, and a survivor who caught her trying to poison him. Hahn was convicted of one murder, that of Jacob Wagner, in 1937. She was executed in 1938.

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10. DAISY DE MELKER

Daisy Louisa de Melker was the second woman ever to be hanged for her crimes in South Africa. She married Alfred Cowle in 1909. Four of their five children died in infancy. Cowle died in 1923, and left de Melker a substantial inheritance. Three years later, de Melker married Robert Sproat, who died in 1927 after a painful illness that resembled Cowle’s. De Melker once again collected a fortune in inheritance.

In 1931, Daisy married Sydney Clarence de Melker, a plumber, as her previous husbands had been. In 1932, de Melker’s 20-year old son Rhodes Cowle died after drinking coffee his mother had prepared. William Sproat, the brother of de Melker’s second husband, became suspicious and demanded an investigation. Rhodes Cowle’s body was found to contain arsenic. James Webster, a man who had become sick after drinking some of Cowle’s coffee but survived, also tested positive for arsenic. William Cowle and Robert Sproat, de Melker’s first and second husbands, were exhumed and strychnine was found in the decomposed tissues. De Melker was charged with three murders but found guilty of only one, that of her son. She was hanged in December of 1932.

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11. MARY ANN COTTON

\the ledgeand via Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Mary Ann Cotton had three husbands and at least 10 children who died of ambiguous gastric illnesses between 1852 and 1872. The third of her four husbands survived, and her 13th and last child was born as she awaited trial. Several stepchildren and lovers also died of the same symptoms, but Cotton avoided suspicion by constantly moving to different towns around England. The first sign of trouble for Cotton came in 1872, when she predicted the death of her apparently healthy young stepson Charles Edward Cotton to an official. When Charles Edward Cotton died suddenly a few days later, Cotton’s first errand was to collect on his life insurance. Told that she needed a death certificate, Cotton went to the child’s doctor, who refused to sign until a formal inquest was held. An examination of the body found evidence of arsenic. Two other bodies from the family were exhumed and were also found to contain arsenic. Mary Ann Cotton was found guilty of the death of her stepson and was promptly hanged. Her story was made into a nursery rhyme.

Mary Ann Cotton,
Dead and forgotten
She lies in her bed,
With her eyes wide open
Sing, sing, oh, what can I sing,
Mary Ann Cotton is tied up with string
Where, where? Up in the air
Sellin’ black puddens a penny a pair.

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12. TILLIE KLIMEK

Public Domain

Chicago resident Tillie Klimek had a reputation as a psychic. She began predicting the deaths of neighborhood dogs with startling accuracy. In 1914 she predicted the death of her husband, John Mitkiewitz. Astonishingly, Mitkiewitz died three weeks later. Klimek collected his life insurance money and went to a matchmaker. Her second husband, John Ruskowski, died only three months later, just as Klimek predicted. Husband number three, Frank Kupczyk, lasted only a few years before he died. Klimek also foresaw the death of a neighbor woman who raised suspicions about Klimek’s husbands. Klimek predicted the death of three children belonging to a family she had trouble with as well—and sure enough, the children all died. The widow remarried to Anton Klimek, husband number four, in 1921. Soon after a new life insurance policy went into effect, family members visited the Klimek home and found Anton sick in bed. When his stomach was pumped, the food Klimek has eaten was found to contain arsenic. Tillie was arrested and confessed to the attempted murder of Anton Klimek. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the deaths of her other suspected victims were not investigated. Her sentence carried the stipulation that Klimek was never to be allowed to cook for other prison inmates.

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13. MARIE BESNARD
Getty Images

Marie Joséphine Philippine Davaillaud was called the “Queen of Poisoners” in France, although she was never convicted. Her first husband, a cousin, died of tuberculosis in 1927. Besnard married Léon Besnard the next year. The couple moved in with Léon’s parents, who both died separately within months. Léon’s sister, who shared in the inheritance, died soon after. Marie Besnard’s father also died during the period. Two boarders (a married couple) also died and left the Besnards their estate. Several other relatives who died named the Besnards as their heirs, including Marie’s mother. Both Besnards, by now very wealthy, took lovers into their home. Léon became suspicious that his wife was trying to kill him, and said so to his paramour. He died in 1947. Marie Besnard, who inherited all the accumulated wealth, was finally a suspect. Léon’s body tested positive for arsenic. Other bodies were exhumed, tested for arsenic poisoning, and Besnard was finally charged with 13 counts of murder. Her first trial in 1952 included eleven murders, but ended in a mistrial. The second trial in 1954 also was declared a mistrial. Besnard was acquitted during her third trial in 1961, and died in 1980.

14 - Violette Nozière

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L’une des plus célèbres empoisonneuses des annales judiciaires françaises était bourguignonne. Accusée de parricide en 1934, elle sera réhabilitée trente ans plus tard.

Bien étrange personnalité qu’était Violette Nozière. Depuis sa condamnation à la peine capitale en octobre 1934, bon nombre de chroniqueurs judiciaires, biographes, historiens et réalisateurs se sont penchés sur son cas, avec d’ailleurs plus ou moins de réussite. Pour tous néanmoins, une question demeure : qu’est-ce qui a bien pu pousser une jeune fille d’à peine 18 ans et visiblement inoffensive, à attenter à la vie de ses parents ?

Pour justifier son crime elle tentera de charger son père, l’accusant d’incestes répétés. Jugée crédible par certains, les enquêteurs finiront par abandonner cette piste. Ont-ils fait fausse route ? Plus de quatre-vingts ans après les faits, le mystère reste encore bien épais.

▻http://www.gazetteinfo.fr/2015/02/24/redecouvrez-violette-noziere-la

17 - Groupe de femmes hongroises qui tuèrent plus de 100 maris.

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Maria Aszendi (3 murders)
Christine Chordas (3 murders) executed
Julia Dari (3 murders)
Julia Fazekas (scores of murders) suicide
Juliana Foeldvary (3 murders)
Maria Kardos (3 murders) executed
Julianne Lipka (scores of murders)
Suzi Olah (scores of murders) suicide
Mrs. Louis Oser (3 murders)
Frau Palinka (7 murders)
Julia Sijj (7 murders)
Esther Szabo (multiple murders, including 2 family members) executed
Maria Varga (3 murders)
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J’avais découvert cette histoire via le film Hic que je conseil.
▻http://www.humanite.fr/node/292362

Sérieux comme un pape, le générique de ce Hic, sous-titré De crimes en crimes, nous apprend que l’histoire est tirée de faits réels. Le dossier remis à la presse le confirme, qui comporte une bibliographie incitant à lire les textes fondamentaux, en hongrois et en anglais, consacrés aux meurtres de Tiszazug. Faute de s’adonner à ce plaisir rare, peu de bibliothèques de quartier disposant d’un exemplaire de Tiszazug ; kisérlet a gyilkossagi ügyek tarsadalomtörténeti, on se contente du dit dossier qui résume en nous apprenant l’existence de Susanna Fazekas, empoisonneuse à gages qui « était sage-femme et sans doute un peu faiseuses d’anges. Elle buvait comme un homme à la taverne des hommes, ce qui contribua nettement à sa réputation d’asociale. Et surtout elle fut guérisseuse, exerçant ses multiples talents à soigner les animaux comme les hommes par les plantes. Jusqu’au moment où, passant d’un genre à l’autre, la bonne dame de Nagyrev, gros village de la région de Tiszazug, décida d’enrichir sa palette ». Cela se déroulait en 1912 et au-delà, la brave dame devait être de gauche car elle faisait payer au prorata des revenus du client (ou, plus simplement, elle tirait le maximum de chacun) et on lui prête au moins deux mille vies prématurément interrompues. Peut-être Raffarin pourrait-il mettre sur le dos du clone de Susanna Fazekas son imprévoyance du mois d’août. Cela arrangerait bien du monde.

18 - Locuste

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Locuste était une empoisonneuse de la Rome antique, au premier siècle ap. J.-C.

On raconte que Locuste buvait un peu de poison chaque jour, devenant ainsi immunisée contre n’importe quelle sorte de poisons inventés par les hommes de son temps.

19 - Agrippine

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Agripina_Minor_%28M.A.N._Madrid%29_01.jpg/330px-Agripina_Minor_%28M.A.N._Madrid%29_01.jpg

Julia Agrippina dite Agrippine la Jeune (née le 6 novembre 15 ap. J.-C. à Ara Ubiorum - morte assassinée dans sa villa de Baule près de Baies sur ordre de Néron entre le 19 et le 23 mars 59) est la sœur de Caligula, empereur de 37 à 41, l’épouse de Claude, empereur de 41 à 54, et la mère de Néron, empereur de 54 à 68.

Elle est en outre la descendante directe d’Auguste, empereur de 27 av. J.-C. à 14, et petite-nièce et petite-fille adoptive de Tibère, empereur de 14 à 37.

Petite-fille d’Agrippa et également petite-fille de Drusus, Agrippine la Jeune est la fille de Germanicus, tous trois généraux romains ayant commandé en Germanie Inférieure.

▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrippine_la_Jeune

J’ai trouvé une mine : Female Serial Killer Index
▻http://female-serial-killers-index.blogspot.fr/2015/08/female-serial-killers-image-collection.html

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Conférence de Coline Cardi et Geneviève Pruvost : Penser la violence des femmes (12 janvier 2013)
▻http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzb2hu_conference-de-coline-cardi-et-genevieve-pruvost-penser-la-violen

#conférence

@mad_meg ►https://seenthis.net/messages/553931

Présumées coupables Musée des Archives nationales, Hôtel de Soubise, 60, rue des Francs-Bourgeois 75003. Jusqu’au 27 mars 2017.

Merci @touti il faudrait que j’aille y faire un tour.

Le lien fournis pour le cas 17(les hongroises) est assez pourris et plein de fausses infos issus des sources sensationnalistes de l’époque. Ca semble être un site à tendance masculinistes, il y a tout de même beaucoup de doc sur la criminalité des femmes.

Ici la fiche wikipédia sur cette bande organisé d’empoisonneuses
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Makers_of_Nagyr%C3%A9v

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Il y a un docu sur ces crimes ; The Angelmakers de Astrid Bussink, 2005.
▻http://www.docuart.hu/dokumentum-film/the-angelmakers/index.php
▻http://archivescinereel.bpi.fr/index.php?urlaction=doc&id_doc=2778
▻https://www.scottishdocinstitute.com/films/the-angel-makers
▻https://filmcommission.nl/productions/the-angelmakers

ici un extrait de 4 minutes ▻http://archive.dokweb.net/en/east-silver/completed-films/the-angelmakers-1539

–—

Je découvre que la Hongrie aurais connu beaucoup d’"épidémies" d’empoisonnements au XIX et début XX. Vu la source il faut que j’en cherche d’autres.

▻http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.fr/search/label/Husband-Killing%20Syndicates
–-

▻http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.fr/2011/09/coroner-hanuschs-husband-killing.html

ici une collection de veuves noires : ▻http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.fr/2011/09/black-widow-serial-killers.html

–---
un concert, cabaret sur les faiseuses d’anges mais ca semble dédié aux serial killeuses en général
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIToVLXwhwg

Nixon’s private assessment was correct, Woodward writes: The bombing was not working, but Nixon defended and intensified it in order to advance his reelection prospects. The claim that the bombing was militarily effective “was a lie, and here Nixon made clear that he knew it,” Woodward writes.

Oui, mais pourquoi encore des décennies plus tard ?

#marchand_de_canons

▻http://seenthis.net/#message417111

Syrian rebel faction believed to be US-trained leaves headquarters after attack by al-Qaida
▻http://www.startribune.com/syrian-rebel-group-leaves-their-hq-after-clash-with-al-qaida/320374521

BEIRUT — Clashes between members of al-Qaida’s branch in Syria and a rebel faction in the country’s north believed to have been trained by the U.S. government have stopped after the rebels abandoned their headquarters, activists said Saturday.

[...]

The fighting came a few days after the U.S. and Turkey announced the outlines of a deal to help rebels push the Islamic State group back from a strip of territory it controls along the Syrian-Turkish border, replacing it with more moderate rebels backed by Washington and Ankara.

Ils étaient prévenus, pourtant : ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/317779

#ISIS #OEI #investigation_numérique

Bruce Schneier sur son blog : ▻https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/us_identifies_a.html

Les commentaires sont intéressants (avec moult hyptohèses paranoiaques) :

“Wouldn’t it be smarter for the air force to not identify how they identified the target? If they didn’t reveal this information chances would be higher that ISIS would slip up and post another helpful photo in the future; now you can bet that they will be taking care to make sure that this particular mistake does not happen again.”

“I think Bruce may have been implying that the Air Force made the story up. The utility to them is that believing the US can locate training camps through selfies might scare Islamic State into restricting informal social media communications, which is presumably a major propaganda source for them.”

@Aaron and @Jean Meslier

More than likely the purpose of this ridiculous anecdote is to con gullible Americans into believing that all NSA surveillance (including surveillance of social media) is vital to stopping terrorists.

▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.650192
’First-strike capability’ still an option for Israel, air force chief says Gen. Amir Eshel stressed that Israel Air Force has to be ready to act against neighboring states and beyond – without specifying Iran – adding that such a strike would need international support.

Israel Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said on Wednesday that Israel’s ability to launch a surprise attack on its enemies is still relevant. The commander compared the 2015 model to that of 1967, when Israel started the Six-Day War.

“Some claim that because the enemy can better attack Israel’s home front, the issue is more relevant than ever,” he said, at a Tel Aviv conference held by the Kinneret Center on Peace, Security and Society.

Eshel highlighted a number of changes the air force has undergone since 1967. First, he said, there’s the strategic question: Does Israel even have the legitimacy to strike preemptively?

“The State of Israel, in contrast to that period, is perceived as strong. Israel’s military actions require international legitimacy,” he said. “A surprise action – is it deemed legitimate? I think it’s a significant change. Then, we were weak. Today, we are in a different place.”

Eshel stressed that the enemy has “dramatically changed” compared to 1967. If the issue of unconventional weapons is ignored, he said, “I don’t think we are at the point of existential threat.”

The air force chief added that the scope of surface-to-air missiles [SAMs] possessed by the enemy, endangering Israeli warplanes, has grown immeasurably since 1967.

“Since then, they’ve built SAM batteries intended to prevent [surprise attacks],” said Eshel. “They’re active 24/7, waiting for someone to arrive. To reach targets, you have to beat this – not necessarily physically. But that’s certainly a challenge: attacking the targets and beating all that protects them.”

The commander did not utter the word “Iran” once, but did assert that the air force has to defend Israel both against neighboring countries and what he referred to as “the third circle” – countries that are further away geographically.

According to Eshel, the air force has greatly improved its ability to strike targets within a short time frame in the intervening years, and the Israel Defense Forces can attack thousands of targets from the air daily.

“From a pure military standpoint, there is a very big advantage [in a preemptive strike], because of what you achieve – assuming you have the ability,” he said. Still, Eshel questioned the air force’s ability to make a preemptive strike without it being discovered. “We are a people that talks a lot, and I am talking about a major operation – not about more narrow matters,” he noted, asking, “Will it leak out? Will signals of one kind or another get out because of external forces that want to influence the process?”

Eshel added that activating protection against any retaliatory reaction, such as deploying Iron Dome anti-missile batteries, could also betray a surprise attack. “If the enemy can hurt us with fire and rockets, how ready are we to be less prepared on defense for such an attack? It’s a very difficult dilemma,” he said. Eshel also stressed that a good defense system could frustrate the ability to make a surprise attack.

Talking about any potential future conflict with Lebanon, the commander said he was “convinced that air force bases will be the number one goal of Hezbollah if a confrontation begins.”

Echec pour la première offensive ? ▻http://al-akhbar.com/node/226671

Ce qui serait intéressant, ce serait le taux (rapporté au nombre d’engins et au nombre d’heures de vol). On trouve quelques éléments de référence à ce sujet.

The military owns about 10,000 drones, from one-pound Wasps and four-pound Ravens to one-ton Predators and 15-ton Global Hawks. By 2017, the armed forces plan to fly drones from at least 110 bases in 39 states, plus Guam and Puerto Rico.

The drone industry, which lobbied Congress to pass the new law, predicts $82 billion in economic benefits and 100,000 new jobs by 2025.

(…)

Nobody has more experience with drones than the U.S. military, which has logged more than 4 million flight hours. But the Defense Department tightly guards the particulars of its drone operations, including how, when and where most accidents occur.

The Post filed more than two dozen Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Responding intermittently over the course of a year, the military released investigative files and other records that collectively identified 418 major drone crashes around the world between September 2001 and the end of last year.

That figure is almost equivalent to the number of major crashes incurred by the Air Force’s fleet of fighter jets and attack planes during the same period, even though the drones flew far fewer missions and hours, according to Air Force safety statistics.

Cette dernière info est reprise dans l’article du Monde.

In most instances, military officials convened an accident investigation board to determine the cause. In 18 cases, the drone crashes were so sensitive that the military classified the names of the countries where they occurred and details of what happened.

On peut imaginer que le drone ayant atterri en Iran fait partie de ces événements. Il y a sans doute eu d’autres prises de contrôle que celle-ci.

Sinon, au moins une collision avec un avion…

On Aug. 15, 2011, a C-130 Hercules weighing about 145,000 pounds was descending toward Forward Operating Base Sharana, in eastern Afghanistan. Suddenly, a quarter-mile above the ground, the huge Air Force plane collided with a 375-pound flying object.

“Holy shit!” yelled the Hercules’s navigator, according to a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder. “We got hit by a UAV! Hit by a UAV!”

It was an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV in military jargon. An RQ-7B Shadow, flown by an Army ground crew, had smashed into the cargo plane’s left wing between two propellers. Jet fuel cascaded out of a gash in the wing.

The Hercules crew shut down one engine and radioed to clear the runway. Within two minutes, the plane landed, smoke pouring from the left side. “There’s a big frickin’ hole in the airplane,” the pilot said, according to the cockpit voice recorder. No one was hurt.

About 50 seconds later, the unwitting drone operator radioed the control tower to confess he had lost track of his aircraft.

“We had a, ah, C-130, um, that hit a UAV,” the air-traffic controller responded. “I’m suspecting that it’s yours.”

Ce n’était pas de la faute du pilote mais du contrôleur aérien.

The military has never publicly disclosed the outcome of the investigation. Two Pentagon officials said in interviews that the drone operator was not at fault, but they did not give further details.

In response to a FOIA request from The Post, the Air Force released hundreds of pages of documents from its safety probe. The official finding of what caused the crash was censored, but some of the documents suggest the air-traffic controller was at least partly blamed. The records show the controller, a civilian contractor whose name was redacted, was temporarily demoted and given remedial training.

Military officials said there has been only one other case of a midair drone collision, involving a helicopter and a small, hand-launched drone in Iraq a decade ago.

Ah, plus loin dans l’article, on trouve des informations sur les taux.

The Air Force acknowledged that Predators crash more frequently than regular military aircraft, but officials said the drone’s safety record has improved markedly.

During its first dozen years of existence, the Predator crashed at an extraordinarily high rate — for every 100,000 hours flown, it was involved in 13.7 Class A accidents.

Since 2009, as the Air Force has become more experienced at flying drones, the mishap rate for Predators has fallen to 4.79 Class A accidents for every 100,000 flight hours.

The Reaper has fared better than the Predator, incurring 3.17 Class A mishaps per 100,000 hours over the past five years.

Air Force officials pointed out that the crash rate for Reapers now approaches the standard set by two fighter jets, the F-16 and F-15, which over the past five years have posted Class A mishap rates of 1.96 and 1.47 respectively, according to statistics from the Air Force Safety Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

#silicon_army @thibnton

The Washington Post recently exposed Google’s increasing role in DC’s influence-peddling machine — from partnering with Koch thinktanks to beefing up its rightwing lobby power.
►https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is-transforming-power-and-politicsgoogle-once-disdainful-of-lobbying-now-a-master-of-washington-influence/2014/04/12/51648b92-b4d3-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html

Staffing Google’s public-sector division with connected intel and military insiders is just another component of the this larger effort to grab the levers of power. How else can you expect Google to stave off anti-trust investigations and avoid paying for its massive privacy violations — all while expanding its business into the bottomless pit of federal government contracting?

#lobbying

Je découvre à cette occasion que Pando a son propre tag #silicon_army, eux ils disent #surveillance_valley…
▻https://pando.com/tag/surveillance-valley

… et ce sera même le titre d’un bouquin d’un de leurs journalistes, kickstarté, à paraître :
▻http://surveillancevalley.net

http://surveillancevalley.net/content/1-home/surveillance-valley-sm.jpg

Et ça continue dans l’à peu près : coup de fil ou reconnexion ?

MH370 : le mystérieux coup de fil du copilote - Le Point (en vrai, AFP)
▻http://www.lepoint.fr/monde/mh370-le-mysterieux-coup-de-fil-du-copilote-12-04-2014-1812410_24.php

Le copilote du vol MH370 a tenté de passer un appel de son téléphone portable juste avant que l’avion ne disparaisse des écrans radars, a rapporté samedi un journal malaisien, citant des enquêteurs anonymes. L’appel a été coupé, peut-être « parce que l’avion s’est rapidement éloigné du relais (de télécommunications) », écrit le New Straits Times (NST), sans indiquer qui était le destinataire de l’appel.

Selon une autre source, également citée par le quotidien malaisien, le téléphone mobile de Fariq Abdul Hamid a été « reconnecté » au réseau, sans qu’il soit certain qu’un appel ait été effectivement passé à partir du Boeing 777 disparu le 8 mars. L’avion assurant le vol MH370 aurait volé assez bas près de l’île de Penang, sur la côte ouest de la Malaisie - après avoir changé de cap - pour qu’un relais de télécommunications capte le signal du téléphone du copilote.

La liaison téléphonique a été « reconnectée » entre le moment où l’avion a dévié de sa route et celui où il a disparu des écrans radars, affirme le quotidien contrôlé par le gouvernement, citant la deuxième source. « Une reconnexion ne signifie pas nécessairement qu’un appel a été passé. Elle peut aussi être le résultat de la remise en marche du téléphone », selon cette source.

Il y a deux ans, chez Malaysia Airlines, les enregistreurs de voix du poste de pilotage continuait à fonctionner sans arrêt après l’incident, effaçant les données…

Malaysia Airlines jumbo jet had to return to Heathrow - and all black box cockpit voice recorder data was lost - Mirror Online
▻http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/malaysia-airlines-jumbo-jet-return-3395734

The jumbo jet had a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) - a device which can record the last two hours of cockpit conversations.

The AAIB, which classed the incident as “serious” in its report today, said the CVR continued to run for some time after the aircraft landed “and as a result all relevant CVR recordings were lost”.