organization:department of defense

The revolving door between #Google and the Department of Defense
▻http://pando.com/2014/04/23/the-revolving-door-between-google-and-the-department-of-defense

Many of Google Federal’s top managers come from the biggest and baddest military and intel outfits: US Army, Air Force Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Director of National Intelligence, USAID, SAIC, Lockheed… the list keeps going on and on.

Take Michele R. Weslander Quaid, Google’s Chief Technology Officer of Public Sector and “Innovation Evangelist.”

Chances are you’ve never heard of her. Neither had I. But Weslander Quaid took the top spot in Entrepreneur Magazine’s list of the seven most powerful women to watch in 2014.

The reason?

She helped bring the Google mindset to federal intelligence agencies.

(...)

#porte_tournante

Amazon gets clearance to provide more cloud services to Pentagon
FT.com By Barney Jopson 26/03/14
▻http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/22a91a08-b504-11e3-9166-00144feabdc0.html

Amazon’s cloud computing business has received high-level security clearance from the Pentagon, paving the way for it to provide more services to the US government.

#Cloud computing is a growing part of the online retailer’s services business and #Amazon is making a big push to persuade government clients to switch their systems from old-fashioned in-house servers to its own data centres.

Amazon said on Wednesday that the Department of Defense had granted its eight-year old cloud computing business new authorisations after concluding that it met the Pentagon’s “stringent security and compliance requirements”.

(...) Some Department of Defense agencies, including the US air force and the navy, already use the Amazon cloud, but the latest authorisations will make it easier for other agencies to approve its use. Across the US government Amazon says more than 600 agencies use AWS services.

(...) Amazon faces competition in the cloud computing market from Google’s cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace and others.
This month the Pentagon rolled out a private cloud computing service of its own called MilCloud. It does not compete against commercial cloud providers and provides an extra level of security for sensitive and classified information, according to the Defense Information Systems Agency, which developed it.

#silicon_army

Fire kills two Syrian children at refugee camp in #Jordan
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/fire-kills-two-syrian-children-refugee-camp-jordan

A fire caused by a candle tore through a Syrian refugee caravan in a town north of Jordan, killing two children, a civil defense department official said on Sunday. “The two Syrian brothers, aged two and five, died late last night after their caravan caught fire in #zaatari town in the Mafraq governorate,” he told AFP. “The fire swept through the caravan. The children died after sustaining fourth-degree burns,” the official said, adding that “a candle sparked the fire.” read more

#syria #Top_News

The Pentagon’s Vision for the Future of Military #Drones | Motherboard
▻http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-pentagons-vision-for-the-future-of-military-drones

The Defense Department released its updated roadmap for the future of military drones this week, outlining the 25-year plan to “take the ’man’ out of ’unmanned’” warfare, to quote one of the more colorful bullet points in the report.

(...)

To take the long-term vision first, the Pentagon will aim to develop fully autonomous machines by 2030 or beyond. (...)

The Defense Department wants (...) drones that can perceive, analyze, plan, react, and make decisions without human intervention. In other words, adapt to snags in the plan or changes in the environment. So it’s investing in artificial intelligence and machine learning research with an eye toward creating a machine that mimics the human brain, and eventually cutting the human out of the loop altogether.

Intelligence contractors donate millions to intelligence watchdogs in Congress
▻http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/12/09/13959/intelligence-contractors-donate-millions-intelligence-watchdogs-con

According to a new report, however, every single one of those lawmakers has received campaign funds from twenty of the largest contractors providing intelligence services to the Defense Department, which accounted for a signficant portion of the nation’s overall $75.4 billion intelligence budget in 2012.

The total, election-related benefits for current intelligence committee members, including ex-officio members, provided by companies in the industry they directly oversee amount to at least $3.7 million from the companies’ PACs and employees since 2005, according to the report released Dec. 9 by Maplight.org, a nonpartisan group that investigates campaign finance issues.

(...)

In 2007, 70 percent of the overall intelligence budget went to contractors, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, but the number of contractors providing core services to the intelligence community has declined by about a third since then. A Senate intelligence committee report in March said that after some recent cutbacks, the intelligence contracting workforce “continues to grow.”

The issue of whether the contractor donations have any impact on the committees’ oversight functions is pertinent because so much of the committees’ authority is exercised behind closed doors. The Senate Intelligence Committee lists 56 hearings this year on its website, but only three were open to the public. Similarly, the House Intelligence Committee has had fewer than 10 open hearings this year.

The committees are “supposed to be exercising check and balances,” but they haven’t, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. He noted that in the aftermath of Snowden’s disclosures, for example, the intelligence committees have been “generally supportive” of the intelligence community, while the House and Senate Judiciary committees “have been quite critical on a bipartisan basis.”

“It says something about the character of the intelligence committees,” Aftergood said.

Spokesmen for the two intelligence committees, asked by phone and e-mail whether the campaign donations to their members influenced their work, declined to comment. Mikulski, Langevin, and LoBiondo also did not respond to requests for comment.

▻http://www.rcfp.org/sites/default/files/2013-12-02-Home_Affairs_Cmte_letter.pdf
December 2, 2013 OPEN LETTER TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE:
As news organizations, editors, and journalists who often report on government actions that officials seek to keep secret, we write to the Committee on the eve of the forthcoming appearance of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger to express our grave concern over pointed calls by those in authority for censorship of The Guardian and criminal prosecution of its journalists in the name of national security. Such sanctions, and the chilling impact created by even the threat to impose them, undermine the independence and integrity of the press that are essential for democracy to function.
At the height of the Vietnam War in 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court refused the request of President Nixon to enjoin a newspaper from publishing a classified Defense Department report on the war that had been leaked to a reporter. In rejecting censorship of true, newsworthy information as fundamentally inconsistent with a free press and a free people, Justice Hugo Black cautioned that “[t]he word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality” that should not be invoked to abrogate the right of the press to educate citizens. “The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic.”
Recent disclosures concerning secret activities of GCHQ and the U.S. National Security Agency may have embarrassed or angered political leaders, but they have educated the public on critically important matters and sparked a valuable global debate over the proper exercise of the vast surveillance powers that now exist. It is the responsibility of journalists to provide the type of accurate and in-depth news reports published by The Guardian and others that have informed the public and framed important, unresolved issues concerning the balance between security and privacy. Vigorous news coverage and the debate it fosters advance the public interest.
It is thus unwise and counterproductive to react to the reporting on disclosures from Edward Snowden by reflexively invoking security concerns to silence the press or to accuse a news organization of aiding terrorists simply by providing citizens with information they need to know. Published reports in The Guardian on the Snowden disclosures have been prepared with the care and sensitivity to security concerns that editors have long demonstrated. We understand that both GCHQ and the NSA were provided an opportunity, in advance of publication, to comment and alert the journalists to particular security concerns. The reporting has been both responsible and, given the intense displeasure of those in power, courageous.
To the rest of the world, it appears that press freedom itself is under attack in Britain today. British politicians are publicly calling for the criminal prosecution of The Guardian for having published true, accurate, and newsworthy information. A Scotland Yard investigation has been launched. “D notices” have been threatened. And the Prime Minister has raised the prospect of seeking an injunction prohibiting The Guardian from publishing any further intelligence revelations. These aggressive actions intimidate journalists and their sources. They chill reporting on issues of national security and on the conduct of government more generally.
In our Internet-connected world, the impact of actions in Britain extends far beyond the United Kingdom. U.N. Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue rightly expressed alarm that these actions do more than damage Britain’s international reputation as a defender of press freedom; they “provide encouragement to non-democratic regimes to justify their own repressive actions.” They undermine globally the essential independence of the press.
We therefore urge the Committee to use the occasion of Mr. Rusbridger’s appearance to reaffirm Britain’s commitment to a vigorous, free, and independent press. It is important to acknowledge that the Snowden revelations, filtered to the public through responsible journalists, have served the public interest. And it is equally important to respect the autonomy of the newsroom. Damage to democracy and to the credibility of elected governments inevitably is inflicted when disapproval of truthful reporting causes officials to intrude into the internal editorial decisions of news organizations.
Respectfully,
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press American Society of News Editors
The Associated Press
The E.W. Scripps Company
The McClatchy Company
The New York Times Company
The New Yorker
Newspaper Association of America ProPublica
The Seattle Times Company
Society of Professional Journalists
The Washington Post
World Association of Newspapers and News
Publishers (WAN-IFRA)
#surveillance
#nasa
#snowmen

Pentagon Approves Record Sale Of Advanced Arms To Countries At War
▻http://www.mintpressnews.com/pentagon-approves-record-sale-of-advanced-arms-to-countries-at-war/173618

Today’s high-tech weapons manufacturers are enjoying record sales. The State Department’s Military Assistance Report stated that it approved $44.28 billion in arms shipments to 173 nations in the last fiscal year. One of the more controversial is the Defense Department’s plans to sell Saudi Arabia $6.8 billion and the United Arab Emirates $4 billion in advanced weaponry, including air-launched cruise missiles and precision munitions. The trouble is – has anyone asked where these weapons will ultimately end up?

(...) 

The U.S. sells to Saudi Arabia, but who buys Saudi weapons?

(...)

The influence of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East political landscape is considerable. It has assisted in overthrowing Egyptian Prime Minister Morsi, and is currently providing training to the interim military government. With the world already nervous of the unknown outcome of both the Syrian and Egyptian conflicts, should the U.S really be finalizing a $10.8 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia?

 
Does the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty work?

(...)

The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor cites this about India: “The most significant human rights problems were police and security force abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape; widespread corruption at all levels of government; and separatist, insurgent, and societal violence. Other human rights problems included disappearances, poor prison conditions that were frequently life threatening, arbitrary arrest and detention, and lengthy pretrial detention.”

But the U.S is nevertheless allowing arms sales to India. As the law stands, U.S arms exporters don’t have to follow the State Department’s human rights assessment. Instead, companies can opt to use “Leahy Law,” named for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), which passed in 1997 and prohibits U.S. assistance to specific military and police units deemed responsible for human rights abuses.

Yet this law only covers direct government-to-government direct sales overseen by the Pentagon, and allows non-defense department commercial export sales approved by the State Department. So this year the Defense Department sold $34.8 billion in direct government-to-government sales are covered by the Leahy Law, but $44.28 billion in sales authorized by State are not.

Adotei Akwei, director of Amnesty International’s government relations efforts, said: “(...) There’s a much-exemplified disconnect between the identifying of abuse and the sales.”

#Etats-Unis #commerce_des_armes #sang #mort #malheur

Special Report: The Pentagon’s doctored ledgers conceal epic waste
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/18/us-usa-pentagon-waste-specialreport-idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118

«Les registres falsifiés du #Pentagone dissimulent un #gaspillage épique»

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declined to comment for this article. In an August 2013 video message to the entire Defense Department, he said: “The Department of Defense is the only federal agency that has not produced audit-ready financial statements, which are required by law. That’s unacceptable.”

DFAS [ organe de surveillance des dépenses du Pentagone ] Director Teresa McKay declined to be interviewed for this article.

Over the past 10 years, the Defense Department has signed contracts for the provision of more than $3 trillion in goods and services. How much of that money is wasted in overpayments to contractors, or was never spent and never remitted to the Treasury, is a mystery. That’s because of a massive backlog of “closeouts” - audits meant to ensure that a contract was fulfilled and the money ended up in the right place.

#vol

Healthcare.gov and the Inevitably Digital Future of American Governance - Zachary Karabell - The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/healthcaregov-and-the-inevitably-digital-future-of-american-governance/281097

What is evident, however, is how inexperienced the federal government is when it comes to developing complicated technology systems unrelated to the defense department.

#obamacare #bug

On le savait, mais ce rapport le documente : des médecins participaient aux séances de #torture de la #CIA.
CIA made doctors torture suspected terrorists after 9/11, taskforce finds | World news | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/04/cia-doctors-torture-suspected-terrorists-9-11

Medical professionals were in effect told that their ethical mantra “first do no harm” did not apply, because they were not treating people who were ill.

The report lays blame primarily on the defence department (DoD) and the CIA, which required their healthcare staff to put aside any scruples in the interests of intelligence gathering and security practices that caused severe harm to detainees, from waterboarding to sleep deprivation and force-feeding.

Le rapport (269 pages) Ethics Abandoned : Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the “War on Terror” ▻http://imapny.org/File%20Library/Documents/IMAP-EthicsTextFinal2.pdf
Pour l’instant, j’ai lu les éléments sur la formation des médecins militaires au traitement des prisonniers (ch. 4)

New DHS Nominee Spent Years Justifying War on Terror’s Excesses
▻http://www.thenation.com/blog/176726/new-homeland-security-chief-spent-years-justifying-war-terrors-excesses

... as AP reports:

As general counsel at the Defense Department during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, [Jeh Johnson] was an aggressive advocate on a number of complex and contentious legal issues. He oversaw the escalation of the use of unmanned drone strikes, the revamping of military commissions to try terrorism suspects rather than using civilian courts and the repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay service members. He also mapped out the legal defense for the American cross-border raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden .

#guerre_contre_le_terrorisme

Asia Times Online :: Obama dips toe in Syrian Rubicon
▻http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-040913.html
By M K Bhadrakumar , 4 septembre 2013

A leading international authority on the subject, Professor Jack Goldsmith at the Harvard Law School (who previously served as US Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel and also as Special Counsel to the Department of Defense, apart from being a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law) warned on Sunday, “There is much more here [in the proposed AUMF] than at first meets the eye.”

In a detailed commentary for the Lawfare journal, the professor wrote:

It [AUMF] authorizes the President to use any element of the US Armed Forces and any method of force. It does not contain specific limits on targets - either in terms of the identity of the targets (eg the Syrian government, Syrian rebels, Hezbollah, Iran) or the geography of the targets.

Does the proposed AUMF authorize the President to take sides in the Syrian Civil War, or to attack Syrian rebels associated with al Qaeda, or to remove Assad from power? Yes, as long as the President determines that any of these entities has a (mere) connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war, and that the use of force against one of them would prevent or deter the use or proliferation of WMD within, or to and from, Syria, or protect the US or its allies (eg Israel) against the (mere) threat posed by those weapons. It is very easy to imagine the President making such determinations with regard to Assad or one or more of the rebel groups.

Does the proposed AUMF authorize the President to use force against Iran or Hezbollah, in Iran or Lebanon ? Again, yes, as long as the President determines that Iran or Hezbollah has a (mere) connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war, and the use of force against Iran or Hezbollah would prevent or deter the use or proliferation of WMD within, or to and from, Syria, or protect the US or its allies (eg Israel) against the (mere) threat posed by those weapons.

The proposed Syrian AUMF is worth a lot, for it would (in sum) permit the President to use military force against any target anywhere in the world (including Iran or Lebanon) as long as the President, in his discretion, determines the target has a connection to WMD in the Syrian civil war and the use of force has the purpose of preventing or deterring (broad concepts) the use or proliferation of WMDs in, to, or from Syria, or of protecting the US and its allies from the mere threat (again, a broad concept) of use or proliferation of WMDs connected to the Syrian conflict.

Congress needs to be careful about what it authorizes. [Italics as in original text.]

Syrie : le scénario envisagé par le Sénat américain
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2013/09/04/syrie-le-scenario-envisage-par-le-senat-americain_3470698_3218.html

Cette version du texte remplacerait celle envoyée au Congrès par la Maison Blanche samedi, et qui était considérée comme donnant trop de latitude au président.

Pas tout à fait selon le site Lawfare,

Lawfare › The Senate Draft AUMF for Syria is Narrower Than the Administration’s Draft, But Still Broad In Some Respects
▻http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/09/the-senate-draft-aumf-for-syria-is-narrower-than-the-administrations-dr

Th[e] language is narrower than the administration’s draft. It limits the use of force to “targets in Syria,” and has a more narrowly tailored purpose. It would not give congressional sanction to the use of force outside of Syria (in, for example, Iran or Lebanon). It would, however, authorize attacks on the Syrian command hierarchy in Syria, all the way up to Assad himself, as long as the President determined such attacks to be “necessary and appropriate” to respond to and deter and degrade Syrian WMDs. (The “limited and tailored manner” qualification is not much of a restriction, since all DOD uses of force are, under the laws of war, proportionate and discriminate, and since the President is charged with determining what is necessary and appropriate in any event.)

Ground Troops “Limitation.” Section 3 of the draft provides: “The authority granted in section 2 does not authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Syria for the purpose of combat operations.”

This is a limit on the authority conferred by Congress in Section 2, and not a limit on the President’s independent constitutional power to send ground troops into Syria, even for combat purposes. Section 3 merely says that the congressional approval of the use of presidential force in Syria does not entail approval for the use of ground troops in Syria. But it does not speak to, much less prevent, the President from using ground troops on his own authority.

Moreover, even the ground troop limitation on Congress’s authorization contains an exception for ground troops introduced into Syria for a purpose other than “combat operations.” In other words, Sections 2 and 3 in combination affirmatively authorize the President to introduce U.S. ground troops in Syria for non-combat purposes if he thinks they are necessary and appropriate to achieve the purposes of the authorization. Section 3 is probably written this way to capture the fact DOD Special Operations Forces are being used in Syria, or will be used there, for intelligence-related and other “preparation of the battlefield” tasks. (I imagine, but of course do not know, that this is a nod to operational reality, since DOD has probably already sent Special Operations Forces into Syria, under the President’s Article II power, to prepare the battlefield.) It is also probably meant as a carve out for search-and-rescue missions, and the like, if necessary.

Open Letter to the Tor Project: Where Does Your Money Come From and Why Do You Hide It From the Public? | Friends of WikiLeaks
▻http://fowlchicago.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/open-letter-to-the-tor-project-where-does-your-money-come-fro

From our rather cursory look into the Tor Project and its funding it appears that – in 2011 at least – the organizers of the Tor Project and their US Government “sponsors” attempted to hide the true sources of its funding from the public by utilizing the classic US Government cloak-and-dagger method of using “cutout” companies and NGOs to “pass-through” money from the US Defense Department and the US State Department to Tor – to the tune of over $730,000.00 – a huge chunk of their total funding.

The Tor Project’s own “amended” financial document for 2011 which reveals these current relationships between Tor and the highest levels of the US Government, presented to Tor by their accountants in July 2012

#Tor #DoD #silicon_army

Who Are We at War With? The Answer Is Classified | The National Interest Blog
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/who-are-we-war-the-answer-classified-8769

...the [May congressional] hearing made it “plain that the AUMF-war is much broader and much more easily expandable” than was previously believed, and that the Senate Armed Services Committee “has no idea how DOD is interpreting the AUMF.”

At the hearing, Senator Carl Levin asked the administration to provide the committee with an “existing list of groups that are affiliated with al Qaeda” and to let the committee know when changes are made to the list, and the witnesses promised to do so. Today, Goldsmith tells us:

I have it on reliable authority that DOD has responded to Levin’s request, albeit in a classified fashion. Apparently DOD answered numerous questions for the record by committee members, and some of the answers (the unclassified ones) will be released with the official print of the hearing transcript (which apparently has not yet been released).

This is, in some sense, a limited piece of good news. But it’s also a sign of just how bizarre it is that up until recently, the Senate committee responsible for overseeing the Defense Department did not know exactly which organizations the administration believed it had the legal authority to target. It’s hard to think of a better example to illustrate former senator Jim Webb’s thesis, argued in a recent cover essay in TNI, that Congress has become increasingly irrelevant to the making and functioning of the country’s foreign policy.

...

To argue that this list should stay classified, you have to believe that the U.S. public either should not know or does not need to know who its government considers itself to be at war with. Either assertion makes a mockery of even the possibility of democratic accountability when it comes to matters of war and peace.

In debate over military aid to Egypt, contractual issues loom large for U.S. - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-debate-over-military-aid-to-egypt-contractual-issues-loom-large-for-us/2013/07/25/9d0834c0-f4a5-11e2-aa2e-4088616498b4_print.html

State and Defense Department officials at the time told the GAO that Cairo understood that cash-flow financing did not obligate Congress to allocate money for years into the future. But the GAO argued that “it would be difficult for Egypt to interpret it any other way.”

Quand le régime étasunien donne sa parole, il la respecte toujours. #foutage_de_gueule

Russia is everywhere - #dashcam use becomes ubiquitous

Dashcams are those little cameras fixed behind the windscreen which record everything in front of a car. Russian drivers desperately need them because blackmailing and abuse of traffic regulations are widespread in this slightly corrupt society.

Should I use a dashcam ?

Find out for yourself, but make sure you understand what you do. First choose one that works.

LS300W ▻http://dashcamtalk.com/ls300w

http://dashcamtalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/LS300W.jpg

The LS300W was released in mid 2013 under the DOD brand. An identical unbranded model is sold as the GT300W by a company called TioTech. Initial impressions of this camera are excellent. Video quality during the day is very good and night quality is good as well. This dash cam utilizes Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) to improve low light video quality and it appears to be quite effective.

This dashcam comes for about 100 Euros without GPS location recording. If you just want to prove your innocence in a traffic accident, this should not be a problem.

iTracker H.264 FULL HD 1080p ▻http://dashcam-shop.de/gps-dashcam-full-hd-1080p

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41%2Bt7nTFJtL.jpg

Mentioning paranoia one has to talk about privacy and legal questions of dashcam use. In Switzerland officials oppose dashcam use, in Germany and France the situation is less clear. If you are a hard-boiled privacy activist you will consider dashcam use another piece in the construction of a surveillance society where everybody is a little #NSA on his own behalf.

On the other hand you might say that dashcam recordings are ephemeral since they are automatically erased once the storage chip is full. If you consider regulations defining limits for photographers when taking pictures of people, you see that dashcams do not really create a threat to privacy. Since they have extreme wide-angle lenses that do not show people’s faces closely enough to let them obtain protection through the right to control the use of images of themselves.

Dashcam is subject of different laws and considerations depending on the intention of the camera operator. If you use them to film a ride through your beautiful city with the project to show your recording to potential visitors, the same rules apply as would to any camera crew.
If you use your dashcam for surveillance and theft-protection you have to take into account limitations governing any #CCTV system.

Last but not least one should ask whether it is really worth it contributing to the omnipresence of surveillance gear just to have an additional proof of your innocence in your next traffic accident. Don’t forget your camera will capture your next mistake as well.

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R6mQE7rM2U

Frau baut Unfall und macht dann einen auf Aggro. Wie könnte es anders sein: #Berlin-Neukölln.
Beste: „Kann alles passieren“. Ja, andauernd passieren Auffahrunfälle an roten Ampeln. Von vorne.

U.S. Providing Aircraft That Afghans Can’t Fly - NationalJournal.com
▻http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/u-s-providing-aircraft-that-afghans-can-t-fly-20130628

(...)

According to a new report released on Friday from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the Department of Defense is moving forward with the purchase of aircraft—valued at $772 million—that Afghan Special Mission Wing (SMW) pilots lack the numbers and expertise to operate.

And the numbers are quite damning. The SMW has less than a quarter of the personnel needed for full strength, operating with just 180 people. While the 47 SMW pilots are supposed to carry out counterterrorism operations, only seven of those pilots are qualified to fly with night-vision goggles. This skill is essential, seeing as most of the counterterrorism missions are done at night.

Despite all of this, the Defense Department purchased 48 new aircraft for the Afghan forces, awarding a $218 million to Sierra Nevada Corp. in October 2012 for 18 PC-12 fix-wing planes and a $553.8 million contract to Rosoboronexport for 30 Mi-17 helicopters on June 16, 2013. Rosoboronexport is an agency of the Russian government, which also provides military weaponry to the Assad regime in Syria.

Furthermore, the aircraft needs maintenance and repair. Defense Department contractors were performing a majority of the repairs on the SMW’s Mi17 helicopters.

(...)

In order to improve their numbers, the Afghan military needs to find recruits that are literate and pass a U.S. vetting process that lasts 18 to 20 months, which attempt to find any infiltrated insurgents. These so-called green-on-blue have claimed the lived of dozens of U.S. troops. In 2012, 64 NATO troops were killed by attacks where insurgents dressed as Afghan forces have opened fire on U.S. and NATO forces.

(...)

U.S. publishes details of missile base Israel wanted kept secret | McClatchy
▻http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/03/192895/us-publishes-details-of-missile.html

Israel’s military fumed Monday over the discovery that the U.S. government had revealed details of a top-secret Israeli military installation in published bid requests.

The Obama administration had promised to build Israel a state-of-the-art facility to house a new ballistic-missile defense system, the Arrow 3. As with all Defense Department projects, detailed specifications were made public so that contractors could bid on the $25 million project. The specifications included more than 1,000 pages of details on the facility, ranging from the heating and cooling systems to the thickness of the walls.

“If an enemy of Israel wanted to launch an attack against a facility, this would give him an easy how-to guide. This type of information is closely guarded and its release can jeopardize the entire facility,” said an Israeli military official who commented on the publication of the proposal but declined to be named because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the facility. He declined to say whether plans for the facility have been altered as a result of the disclosure.

“This is more than worrying, it is shocking,” he said.

Un système de navigation sans GPS pour l’armée américaine
▻http://www.futura-sciences.com/fr/news/t/technologie-1/d/un-systeme-de-navigation-sans-gps-pour-larmee-americaine_46107

Les forces armées américaines ne veulent plus dépendre du seul système GPS là où la perte du signal satellite pourrait avoir de graves conséquences. Des chercheurs de la Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency sont parvenus à miniaturiser sous forme de puce un système de navigation qui peut …

http://www.futura-sciences.com/uploads/tx_oxcsfutura/Indoor_Atlas_2_01.jpg

Source : Futura-Sciences

#GPS #satellite #Defense_Advanced_Research_Projects_Agency #système_de_navigation #militaire #Darpa #robot-mulet #AlphaDog #Cheetah #robot_quadrupède #la_main_artificielle #démineur #drone #rapace #accéléromètre #gyroscope #horloge #silice #université_du_Michigan #centrale_de_mesure_inertielle #TIMU #timing_and_inertial_measurement_unit #IndoorAtlas #cartographie_du_champ_magnétique_terrestre #boussole #smartphone #Micro-Technology_for_Positioning #Navigation_and_Timing #Micro-PNT #DoD

Transparency Victory : Department of Defense Must Release Names of Notorious Torture School Instructors, Trainees | Common Dreams
▻http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/25-4

In a “victory against government secrecy,” a federal judge has ordered the Department of Defense to release the names of instructors and trainees at the notorious School of the Americas, a facility one watchdog group reports as being “connected to torturers, death squads and military dictators throughout the Americas.”

Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, a group that seeks to close the facility now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), hailed the decision and called it "a victory for transparency and human rights, and against government secrecy.”

Petman Tests Camo - YouTube
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFrjrgBV8K0

The PETMAN robot was developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from the DoD CBD program. It is used to test the performance of protective clothing designed for hazardous environments. The video shows initial testing in a chemical protection suit and gas mask. PETMAN has sensors embedded in its skin that detect any chemicals leaking through the suit. The skin also maintains a micro-climate inside the clothing by sweating and regulating temperature. Partners in developing PETMAN were MRIGlobal, Measurement Technology Northwest, Smith Carter, SRD, CUH2A, and HHI.

#androïde #drone

Wars on Drugs- ▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/opinion/sunday/wars-on-drugs.html

... according to data not reported on until now, the military evidently responded to stress that afflicts soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan primarily by drugging soldiers on the front lines. Data that I have obtained directly from Tricare Management Activity, the division of the Department of Defense that manages health care services for the military, shows that there has been a giant, 682 percent increase in the number of psychoactive drugs — antipsychotics, sedatives, stimulants and mood stabilizers — prescribed to our troops between 2005 and 2011. That’s right. A nearly 700 percent increase — despite a steady reduction in combat troop levels since 2008.

The prescribing trends suggest that the military often uses medications in ways that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and do not comport with the usual psychiatric standards of practice.

Influential Ex-Aide to Obama Voices Concern on Drone Strikes - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/us/influential-ex-aide-to-obama-voices-concern-on-drone-strikes.html?_r=0

Sur le tintamarre fait autour du transfert du programme drones de la CIA vers le Pentagone : Pure opération de relations publiques qui, au minimum, ne changera pas grand chose en termes de victimes civiles et donc de transparence.

Some close observers of the drone program disputed the widely repeated notion that moving it entirely to the Defense Department would necessarily make it more open, particularly if it is to be operated by the Joint Special Operations Command, among the least transparent elements of the military.

“We know JSOC is far more secretive than the C.I.A., and that Congressional oversight is weaker,” said Naureen Shah, associate director of the Counterterrorism and Human Rights Project at Columbia Law School. She said that while units under the Joint Special Operations Command were accused of serious abuse of prisoners in Iraq, “it never had to face public scrutiny about it in the way the C.I.A. did.”

#drones #FDG

Petit récapitulatif de ces étranges « disparitions » de milliards de dollars américains dans des régions à forte teneur en combattants et mercenaires plus ou moins islamistes :

– au moins 8 à 10 milliards de dollars « perdus » dans la « reconstruction » en Irak :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/119398

– 1 milliard « perdu » en Afghanistan :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/78587

– 34 milliards « perdus » en Afghanistan et en Irak :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/29240

– 6 milliards d’USAID à l’Égypte « mal utilisés » :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/25819

– 18 milliards d’argent du pétrole « perdus » en Iraq depuis l’invasion américaine :
►http://seenthis.net/messages/25344

– 6,6 milliards de dollars perdus « en cash » en Iraq :
►http://seenthis.net/messages/24916

– des millions de dollars « donnés » par erreur aux Talibans :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/29229
et ici :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/31051

– Newsweek découvre que 14 milliards de dollars sont très officiellement partis dans des contrats du Pentagone à des entreprises appartenant directement à des membres des pétromonarchies du Golfe :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/26109

Pour rappel, l’argent ne se « perd » pas : il change simplement de mains. Pour ma part, forte suspicion de noircissement d’argent :
►http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noircissement_d'argent

[Ajout août 2014] - Des dizaines de milliards de dollars perdus en Libye :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/284009

[Octobre 2014] - Investigation Into Missing Iraqi Cash Ended in Lebanon Bunker
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/301545

[Novembre 2014] - Des trous dans l’inventaire US : pour 419 millions de dollars d’équipements égarés en Afghanistan
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/316325

[Décembre 2014] - Un milliard de dollars en deux ans pour aider les femmes afghanes – mais on ne sait pas trop où est passé l’argent
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/323668

[Mars 2015] - Le Pentagone perd 500 millions de dollars d’armes et d’équipements « donnés » au Yémen :
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/352290

[Novembre 2015] - Une station essence à 43 millions de dollars en Afghanistan
►http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176068/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_roads_to_nowhere,_ghost_soldiers,_and_a_$43_mill

[Novembre 2015] - Un demi-milliard de dollars d’armes et d’équipement militaire « perdu » au Yémen. Le Pentagone ne sait pas si ça n’est pas allé à Al-Qaeda.
►https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-loses-sight-of-500-million-in-counterterrorism-aid-given-to-yemen/2015/03/17/f4ca25ce-cbf9-11e4-8a46-b1dc9be5a8ff_story.html

[Août 2016] - Sur 2015, l’Armée arméricaine falsifie pour 6.500 milliards de dollars (?) dans ses comptes. U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds
►http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG

The Defense Department’s Inspector General, in a June report, said the Army made $2.8 trillion in wrongful adjustments to accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year. Yet the Army lacked receipts and invoices to support those numbers or simply made them up.

[…]

“Where is the money going? Nobody knows,” said Franklin Spinney, a retired military analyst for the Pentagon and critic of Defense Department planning.

[Juin 2017] - L’Armée reconnaît avoir perdu la trace d’un milliard de dollars d’armes en Irak et au Koweit :
►https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/05/us-military-admits-failures-to-monitor-over-1-billion-worth-of-arms-transfe
#rien_ne_sert_perd