Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Facebook is CIA's Primary Intelligence Source

CIA uses Facebook to Openly and Legally Spy on Americans


People share virtually every bit of information about themselves with Facebook. From age, race, sexual orientation, religious and political affiliation, even daily updates about their whereabouts, people are sharing literally everything. And since this is open source information, it is totally legal for the CIA, FBI, DHS and any other acronym and law enforcement agency to use it.

When this information is posted alongside with your picture, the government can (and does) create a composite profile of you and literally every American who is even remotely connected to a social media site, particularly Facebook, but also Twitter, Google Plus, MySpace, YouTube and about a dozen others.

Deputy CIA Director, Christopher Sarinsky, said about Facebook: “After years of secretly monitoring the public, we were astounded so many people would willingly publicize where they live, their religious and political views, an alphabetized list of all their friends, personal emails addresses, phone numbers, hundreds of photos of themselves, and even status updates about what they were doing moment to moment. It is truly a dream come true for the CIA.”

Although I was aware of the U.S. government efforts to monitor the Internet, including social media, having written several articles about the subject, including, U.S. Homeland Security Monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other Sites for Signs of Discontent, Internet Anonymity, Security is a Purposely Spread Illusion and Big Brother has Your Password, but even I had no idea as to what extent.

The collected data is then assessed, studied and analyzed by every type of expert known to man. This analysis is "sought by the highest levels at the White House" and ends up in the President's intelligence briefing almost on a daily basis, Doug Naquin, director of the CIA's Open Source Center was quoted saying.

Facebook and the other social media sites are enabling the CIA, NSA, DHS, FBI and every other acronym reporting to Washington to get reliable real-time assessments of public sentiment during rapidly changing events around the world.

Monitoring these sites saves intelligence and police agencies millions in information gathering operations, as well as countless man hours. It's a lot easier and cheaper to obtain information that is shared with you voluntarily, than when it has to be gathered through wiretaps, interrogations and informants.   

The CIA facility focused on counterterrorism operations was set up in response to recommendations by the 9/11 Commission.

Though the CIA team known as the "vengeful librarians" is just one of the teams that gathers information in multiple languages to build a real-time picture of the mood in various regions of the world, it is the only one the news media caught with their pants down.  Who knows what other secret intelligence gathering and analyzing activities the NSA, DHS or FBI have operating in the shadows right now?

However, we do know, by their own admission, that the CIA is monitoring Facebook and watching other social networks from a nondescript facility in a Virginia industrial park, twenty-four hours a day.



News of the CIA operation comes just before the United States Department of Homeland Security said it was working on guidelines for protecting the privacy rights of US citizens while it monitors social media sites.


Yet, the CIA is suspected of even using Facebook applications, like suggested friends, which allowed the agency in more than one occasion to go deeper undercover into people's networks, to which they gained trust and access when Agents befriended them on Facebook.They are thought to use location apps like Forursquare together with GPS, to know exactly where you go, when you go there, who you meet there and how long you stay.



With Washington afraid that an Internet Revolution is Inevitable, and that it could it spill over into the Real World our government is going to be keeping closer tabs on us than ever. Maybe mainstream will wake up to what's going on when martial law is declared and various so called ‘trouble makers’ are rounded up and shipped off to Gotonomo Bay style concentration camps.

If you had been reading my articles, such as The United States is under Martial Law right now through Obama's New Executive Order and China and Russia threaten US Attack on Iran fraught with unpredictable consequences, you would know that this scary scenario becomes more likely with each passing day. I don't know what our leaders are thinking, but it appears as if they care little about our welfare, much less our wishes.

With them monitoring the Internet, social media and Bloggers, I should be worried that I would be one of the first to disappear, but I will not let them scare me any more than I will let them silence me.

Am I on Facebook? Why certainly! I love using their own systems against them.

Written By: Tom Retterbush


One Nation Under Surveillance

What limits, if any, should be placed on a government's efforts to spy on its citizens in the name of national security? Spying on one's own citizens in a democracy? Changes in technology make it impractical to distinguish between 'foreign' and 'local' communications. And our culture is progressively reducing the sphere of activity that citizens can reasonably expect to be kept from government eyes. The main casualty of this transformed environment will be privacy. Recent battles over privacy have been dominated by fights over warrantless electronic surveillance or CCTV; the coming years will see debates over DNA databases, data mining, and biometric identification. There will be protests and lawsuits, editorials and elections resisting these attacks on privacy. Those battles are worthy. But the war will be lost. Modern threats increasingly require that governments collect such information, governments are increasingly able to collect it, and citizens increasingly accept that they will collect it.


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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Obama first took our Rights with NDAA, he's now taking our Guns, leaving us Defenseless

Quietly our government is taking our rights, now also taking our guns, leaving us defenseless to tyranny. 

Starting with the Patriot Act, our government is taking our rights one by one, now also wanting to take our guns, hinting that the U.S. government is preparing for a response against probable civil unrest, possible civil war, maybe even revolution. 

When looking at Obama as Commander and Chief of the U.S. military, his authority of Executive Order, the National Security Directives and the Homeland Security Presidential Directives, you will notice that there is already a lot of dictatorial power being thrown around by the President.

Indeed, over the years, the President of the United States has been allocated more and more power. Abe Fortas, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, who believed in an expanded executive branch and a less powerful legislative branch, put it like this: "The enormous growth of presidential power from FDR to Lyndon Johnson was a necessary and an inevitable adaptation of our constitutional system to national needs."

Then there came of course the Patriot Act, which  dramatically reduced restrictions in law enforcement agencies' gathering of intelligence within the United States; expanded the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts.

Recently there came the newly revised and amended NDAA bill, with all it's new language, limiting our rights even further. Then later still came SOPA and PIPA, being replaced by ACTA and the Internet 'Kill Switch', which are attempting to censor the Internet as part of the U.S. government's ongoing effort to control and contain communication and information.

Sources show that an estimated 1,271 U.S. government organizations and approximately 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence located in over 10,000 different locations across the continental United States. Who are they spying on and what are they afraid of.

By now you may have noticed a pattern, where the U.S, government is systematically taking more and more of our rights and freedoms, while gaining more and more control over our lives. It remains only for them to take our guns, thereby leaving us defenseless if or when they make their final move towards total control by declaring Martial Law. The government is more afraid discontent Americans than fanatic terrorists!

Without guns, there can be no militia, which our founding fathers saw as the last line of defense against oppressive government and crucial to the life, liberty and freedom of our people.

Gun Control is not about Guns, it is about Control!

Barack Obama will become known as the most anti-gun president in American history. Back when he was still Senator Obama, he said “words matter.” But he refuses to speak honestly about where he stands when it comes to your Second Amendment rights. Obama is a master of hiding behind cleverly chosen words and vague statements about all his policies, but particularly when talking about gun rights, he is careful to sidestep and camouflage the truth.

But even he can’t hide from the truth forever … his voting record, political associations, and long standing positions make it clear that Barack Obama is the most anti-gun president in American history.
"...just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right..." - Barack Obama
To give you a quick look at the double standard of the Obama administration, note that Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday, February 2, 2012, to answer questions about his role in the deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal. However, backed Obama, instead of answers, Congress got more defiance, arrogance and wasted time with an attorney general who only feels loyalty towards his President, rather than the American people they both swore to serve.

But at least this hearing revealed Holder's foolhardy attempt to divert attention away from himself and his disregard of responsibility, letting Congress know that Obama is still working hard to reinstate former President Bill Clinton’s so-called “assault weapons” ban.

Holder said that this administration has consistently favored the assault weapons ban. It is something that they think useful in regard to the reduction in crime, and what would have a positive impact on the crime situation in Mexico.

The Obama administration's Eric Holder and his Justice Department oversaw a scandal where our federal government illegally and immorally supplied thousands of firearms to Mexican cartels. This resulted indirectly in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent and hundreds of Mexicans, including both cartel members and dozens of civilian casualties.

Despite being  our nation’s chief law enforcement officer as head of the Justice Department, Eric Holder maintains to this day that he doesn’t know how or why this scandal occurred, or even which of his subordinates may have authorized it. Holder still refuses to surrender critical documents to congressional investigators that may help prevent something this corrupt from happening again.
"Gun Control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna' have a gun. Safety locks? You pull a trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins." - Former mobster Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, who testified against John Gotti (his former boss), admitted to killing nineteen people, and is now living under the Witness Protection Program.
Obama believes he can ban a large number of the legal firearms from law-abiding Americans, which they use for self-defense, recreational shooting and hunting, thereby solving Mexico’s crime problem. Who does he think he's fooling? Or is he really that stupid?

GunBaNObama.com is now disclosing the truth about Barack Obama’s words,like:

  • “Do you support state legislation to … ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns? Yes.” (Independent Voters of Illinois/Independent Precinct Organization general candidate questionnaire, Sept. 9, 1996
  • “I’m consistently on record and will continue to be on record as opposing concealed carry.” (Chicago Tribune, April 27, 2004)
  • “I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers lobby.” Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (2006).

GunBaNObama.com is also exposing Obama’s deeds, like:

  • Obama voted to ban almost all rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sports shooting. (United States Senate, vote no. 217, S. 397, July 29, 2005)
  • Obama voted to uphold local gun bans and the criminal prosecution of people who use firearms in self-defense. (Illinois Senate, SB 2165, vote 20, March 25, 2004)
  • In his only two votes on confirming Supreme Court nominees, Obama voted against two of the five justices (Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito) who later affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.

Legislation is now pending in Congress to confiscate all handguns, register all guns, and tax ammunition up to 500%. Others want to go much farther. Within a few years it could be illegal for you to buy any guns or ammunition.

If you already own guns, you may be required to turn them in to the Gestapo... oops... I mean, government, under penalty of fine and imprisonment.



On February 28, 1994, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen announced the reclassification of several 12-gauge revolver-action shotguns. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) announced they would trace the owners, and order them to be fingerprinted and register with the BATF within 30 days or face a $250,000 fine and 10 years imprisonment.

In some cities police have already begun warrantless, door-to-door searches of public housing projects for guns.

Will gun prohibition make you and your family safer? The evidence from cities in the US where guns have already been virtually banned is not reassuring.
Either way, our government will make sure we all comply to whatever they are cooking up. Never before in history and nowhere else on earth has there been an intelligence and information gathering apparatus like what we have in America today.

It all started with Sellar Wind, the open secret code name for a collection of activities performed by the NSA in the wake of 9/11 involved data mining a large database of the communications of American citizens, including e-mail conversations, phone calls, financial transactions, and Internet activity. Since the implementation of the program, there have been internal disputes within the U.S. Justice Department about the legality and in 2004 Attorney General John Ashcroft ruled the program illegal. 
But no problem, there was always the President’s Surveillance Program (PSP), the collection of secret intelligence activities authorized by George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The only section of the PSP program publicly disclosed has been the warrantless wiretapping of international communications. The other PSP activities remain classified information to this day.

There was the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 is a 236-page Act of Congress, signed by President George W. Bush that broadly affects U.S. federal terrorism laws. It established both the position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

In conclusion, the U.S. government will continue to take control of our every move, in our mundane, everyday lives. They will continue to make laws, rules and regulations, enforcing them through an ever increasing integrated effort with KGB like intelligence and Gestapo like law enforcement.

Are you going to stand for that? If this pisses you off half as much as it does me, I ask you get involved in some of our discussion on the Conspiracy Watch Facebook Page, sign-up for the free Conspiracy Watch Newsletter, share this article with your Facebook and Twitter friends and maybe even start your own initiative for change. Everybody must do their part if we want things to get better... or at least, stop them from getting any worse! 

Written By: Tom Retterbush


The Bias Against Guns
Why most Everything You Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

John Lott shows how liberals bury pro-gun facts out of sheer bias against the truth. With irrefutable evidence, Lott shoots gun critics down and provides the information needed to win arguments with those who want to ban guns. Lott shows: How Diane Sawyer, Dan Rather, Charlie Gibson, and other TV talking heads promote gun control in the guise of 'news'; The clever way reporters and the New York Times 'spike' pro-gun stories; The trick government statisticians use to 'cook' data for the anti-gun lobby; Why bicycles, buckets, and football games are more dangerous to children than guns; Why 'assault weapons bans' and 'gun show' regulations are counterproductive; Why Britain -- which recently banned handguns -- now has a violent crime rate double that of America's; The fallacy of 'safe storage' laws. Want the facts? John Lott has them. With this book, anyone can arm themselves against liberals who would rather confiscate guns than fight crime.
 
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Thursday, February 9, 2012

Are the Violent Black Bloc Sheep of Occupy Killing the Movement?

Are Violent Black 'Bloc' Protestors threatening the Success of the Occupy Movement?

The Occupy Movement includes people from all walks of life with all sorts of agendas. Though unified by the desire for change, the participants vary by age, race, occupations, financial status, interests and intentions.

Though most of those who Occupy do so for righteous reasons and purpose, there are those who are only there to disrupt and destroy. Out of those there to harm the movement, there those who seek to do so for the “hell” of it, there are undoubtedly those who do so to give a bad name to a noble cause. 

It would be interesting to know how many among Black Bloc are police infiltrators provoking more violence and harm. 

The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on every front and in every city of the Occupy Movement, are that bad name. The attendance of these Black Bloc anarchists (named so because they dress all in black) who hide their faces, move around in packs, destroy property and provoke physical confrontations with police every chance they get is what not only gives Occupy a bad name, it destroys sympathy, credibility and likeability, while alienating The Movement from potential supporters.

In several cities Occupy encampments were even shut down because of these Black Bloc anarchists. There is ever growing concern that the movement is being taken over by these hate mongers bent on overthrowing capitalism with violent revolution. More and more the majority of peaceful activists worry that their message is being hijacked by hoodlums.

The Black Bloc fanatics hate those on the left, looking for ways to take away our tools of empowerment. They actually believe that petty acts of violence and vandalism is a revolution.

They argue that the real enemy is not the capitalists, globalists and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but the radical intellectuals, environmental activists and unions. Anyone seeking to rebuild society through nonviolent, civil disobedience their enemy. Anyone on the left who is not willing to use violence is not helping their cause.

Fortunately for the Occupy movement, because anarchists do not believe in organization, they guarantee their own powerlessness. Thus, they limit themselves to being obstructionists.

Defending the rambling manifesto by their hero, the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, called “Industrial Society and Its Future,” the leader of the Black Bloc, John Zerzan is a vocal critic of a long list of supposed sellouts, including Noam Chomsky (one of the greatest political minds in history) and anyone else who is not willing to use violence as a means to justify their goal... whatever that might be.

In Zerzan’s magazine failure, Green Anarchy, he once published an article by someone known as “Venomous Butterfly” which criticized the EZLN (Zapatista Army for National Liberation), declaring that “not only are those [the Zapatistas’] aims not anarchist; they are not even revolutionary.”

Even those who disagree with the use of violence and vandalism are unwilling to oppose and afraid to speak out against the Black Bloc, not only because that would be siding with “the enemy,” but also out of fear of revenge by these violent thugs, who are not above using vandalism and beatings to intimidate people who don't agree with them.

Occupy locations around the nation have set-up General Assemblies (“GA”) for governance and planning of their agenda. Unfortunately, the Black Bloc excessively manipulates decisions made at the GAs, with the majority of the Occupy participants only showing up for demonstrations, the Black Bloc hoods which often camps on location overnight, are often left to dominate activities.

Time magazine national poll found: “Occupy movement has a 54 percent favorable rating; the Tea Party’s rating is 27 percent,” in mid-October, but after the vandalism and reported rapes in Occupy New York, Dallas, Cleveland and Baltimore, only 33 percent of likely U.S. voters held a favorable view of the protesters, with 43 percent regarding them unfavorably.



The growing Black Bloc is obviously attempting to disrupt the Occupy Movement. The question is if America and the world will embrace the overall message of the real, honorable activists or succumb to the anti-message of violent thugs.

In the end, it may prove to be more effective using Anonymous, rather than Occupy, as a model for demanding change. Though even Anonymous has it’s own Black Bloc of sorts, the sheer numbers possible with this representation, will show it the more effective way to force governments to pay attention, even getting them to accept some of their demands.

This way of persuasion proved itself recently by getting the prominent SOPA and PIPA censorship bills shelved. Nobody thought it would be possible to reverse bills that had already been voted in, but the overwhelming social media protest participation of people everywhere finally made Washington realize it would be wise to back down.

Unfortunately, Washington is already preparing for a better response to any such attempts to get legislation changed in the future. In fact, by passing measures such as CISPA, NDAA and the new Executive Order, lawmakers are laying the groundwork to squash any future attempts by the public, whether it be Occupy, Anonymous or anybody else, to dictate policy.

Fortunately, the countless attempts that have been made to provide Obama with an Internet “kill switch,” have met with such an outcry from left and right alike that they have died in Congress. The day this happens is the day our last shreds of freedom will truly be in jeopardy, effectively shutting down Anonymous and other hacktivists, as well as stopping the free-flow of information and communication needed for the public to be kept aware of oppressive plans and actions and the means to organize and launch an opposition like the Occupy Movement. 

No, I don’t think it will be quite as easy to stop Washington next time, folks.

But let’s do our best anyway!

Written By: Tom Retterbush
Email: tomretterbush@gmail.com
Updated: 5-20-12



This book is an In Search of Excellence for social initiatives, intertwining personal stories, anecdotes, and analysis. It is the #2 Bestseller on Amazon right now. Readers will discover how one person can make an astonishing difference in the world. The case studies in the book include Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for the international campaign against landmines she ran by e-mail from her Vermont home; Roberto Baggio, a 31-year old Brazilian who has established eighty computer schools in the slums of Brazil; and Diana Propper, who has used investment banking techniques to make American corporations responsive to environmental dangers. The new foreword by the author that shows how the concept of social entrepreneurship has expanded and unfolded over the last few years, including the Gates-Buffetts charitable partnership, the rise of Google, and the increased mainstream coverage of the subject. The book will also update the stories of individual social entrepreneurs that appeared in the cloth edition.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Big Brother is Spying from Drones Overhead

Unmanned Drones are already flying for Law Enforcement

The killing of terrorist and insurgents by heavily armed drones, controlled by operators thousands of miles away has prompted criticism that the technology is too impersonal and results in too much collateral damage, but most critics have been silent considering the many pilots that have been spared.

While drones are in heavy use in the wars abroad, their use in the States is rare, because of federal restrictions on air space. Commercial use is virtually forbidden, and less than 300 certificates of authorization have been issued to government entities to take drones for a whirl. The Federal Aviation Association, though, has announced that it plans to revisit its restrictions in the spring of 2012. That means it could be much easier to fly drones in the U.S. as soon as 2013 or 2014. What will that mean? Who will use them?

The technology has attracted not only military, but also intelligence and law enforcement customers.

Drones are already in use by British police, there is a discussion about equipping domestic drones with weapons in the US, and Australian police have started to show interest in acquiring them.

The thought of drones in civilian spaces—especially drones operated by law enforcement—makes many American civil libertarians suspicious. The same is true in the United Kingdom. Several companies that want the U.K. to adopt surveillance drones are trying to combat the machines’ “spy in the sky” stigma.

Recently, the L.A. published a rather disturbing story about the use of Predator drones by local law enforcement officials in the United States. The article reported a recent example where a sheriff in South Dakota called in a Predator B drone to perform surveillance on a family farm!

The article recounts an incident which occurred over the summer in Nelson County, South Dakota. The local sheriff, Kelly Janke, went looking for six missing cows at a farm owned by the Brossart family. Coincidentally, the family allegedly belongs to an anti-government group called the Sovereign Citizen Movement and has had repeated run-ins with local police in Nelson County.

The cows had supposedly crossed into the Brossart's farm, which was reason enough apparently for the sheriff to get a search warrant and pay them a visit. I suppose that in South Dakota it's normal to obtain search warrants to search for missing cows. When the sheriff arrived at the farm he was confronted by three men with rifles who ordered him to get off of their property.

This being South Dakota, the sheriff naturally called for reinforcements from from three different county sheriffs departments, the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, the bomb squad, ambulances and of course, a Predator drone! What the hell is happening in America?

Sheriff Janke found out about the drones last spring when attending a briefing on how two Customs and Border Protection drones based at a nearby air base could help local law enforcement. When Janke called for backup, one of the drones patrolling the Canadian border over North Dakota and Montana was called in to assist at the Brossart farm.

Officers were able to watch live video from the drone as it circled at 10,000 feet, providing a feed of thermal imaging streamed down to a handheld device, showing the Brossarts moving around their property with rifles in hand. Sheriff Janke and his army decided to retreat until the following day.

The following morning, the Predator was back above the Brossart farm providing images to the sheriff, showing that the Brossarts were no longer armed. Janke and the SWAT team were able to arrest Rodney Brossart, his daughter and three sons and find the missing cows.

Unbelievable! The use of drones for retrieving some cows! This is hardly an isolated incident, as Predator drones are being used for surveillance purposes by Federal, state, and local agencies all across the country. It appears as if this is becoming a common practice and without any public acknowledgement or debate. Like a lot of things outrageous, unnecessary and controversial, our leaders manage to keep these types of things out of mainstream media.

For example, though North Dakota has used the Grand Forks' Predators to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June, Michael C. Kostelnik, a retired Air Force general who heads the office that supervises the drones said, Predators are flown "in many areas around the country, not only for federal operators, but also for state and local law enforcement and emergency responders in times of crisis."

Good to know! Good to know how our tax money is being flown around.

Drone purchases for the Customs and Border Protection agencies were first authorized by Congress in 2005. According to the Times, these Federal agencies own eight of the unmanned spy planes.

Furthermore, there use in state and local matters is apparently justified by Federal officials who cite "broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite 'interior law enforcement support' as part of their mission," according to Bennett's article.

The reason that such controversial and scary tactics have been under the mainstream "radar" is because U.S. courts have allowed law enforcement to conduct aerial surveillance in the absence of a warrant. Predator drones can not be seen or heard and are operated remotely, falling under the same legal guidelines as police helicopters or aircraft.

This means that Federal, state, and local law enforcement officials are using U.S. air space to conduct surveillance on American citizens in missions that resemble those being carried out against Al-Qaeda and other terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other foreign countries.

Does anybody other than myself see a problem with this?

Written By: Tom Retterbush


Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan: A Pilot's Story
The Nintendo generation has taken to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan where remotely controlled aircraft are killing America¹s enemies and saving American lives. Matt J. Martin is considered a "top gun" in the world of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). For nearly four years, he has flown hundreds of missions on two warfronts in a new kind of combat that, until recently, was largely classified Top Secret. He and his fellow Predator pilots have been actively involved in virtually every facet of the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan: tracking Osama bin Laden; capturing top al-Qaeda leader al-Zarqawi; fighting with the U.S. Marines in Fallujah; and rescuing aid workers kidnapped in Afghanistan by the Taliban. This is Matt J. Martin's story and that of his aircraft, the 27-foot long Predator. 
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Friday, February 3, 2012

New Future Airport Screening Technology Seeking to Auto-Find Terrorists & Criminals

F.A.S.T. the Automatic Screening Technology to Routinely Detect Terrorists and Criminals

Those of you who are offended by "inappropriate" and "offensive" airport security pat-downs may soon be able to breath easier. But at what a price?

The Department of Homeland Security is currently developing a new $20 million dollar technology, called F.A.S.T., or “Future Attribute Screening Technology,” which will use crowd-monitoring body sensors that detect individuals’ pulses, body language, breathing rates and facial temperatures to determine threats.

FAST is credited with surprisingly accurate results, identifying suspicious behavior in four out of five scenarios. The effective accuracy rate of FAST is said to be 78% on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception.

Project officials hope various sensors and cameras located at security checkpoints that would measure the natural signals coming from your body, such as your heart rate, breathing, eye movement, body temperature and fidgeting, can help security more effectively find out if you are a terrorist or criminal, rather than trying to find whether you have hidden explosives or whether you're carrying a weapon. 




Project manager Robert Burns said that those physiological signs, measured together, will indicate whether you might have the desire or intent to do harm.

"There's been a large field of research that ties your physical reactions to your mental state, your emotional state. We're looking for those signals that your body gives off naturally," he continued.

Burns said the technology will pick up signals that may not be noticed by a human and help security personnel decide more effectively whether to hold someone for questioning.

FAST could even be used in locations other than airports, wherever there are security concerns, such as convention centers, federal buildings, mass transit centers, arenas and stadiums.

One of the units is a thermal imaging device that measures the temperature of a face. A screener would look for temperature changes (a possible response to stress) as a person is asked questions. 

Some have compared FAST with the Pre-Crime of the movie Minority Report
Another device, an eye tracker, follows a person's gaze, checking blinking and pupil dilation. One of the machines tracks the heart and another the respiratory rates. Believe it or not, there is a fidgeting monitor! And they aren't just going to look at gestures, they are also going to look for the absence of signals, which is indicative of something being wrong.

Civil liberties groups claim this screening technology is an invasion of privacy. "Nobody has the right to look at my intimate bodily functions, my breathing, my perspiration rate, my heart rate, from afar," a prominent civil rights advocate said. 

John Verdi of the Electronic Privacy Information Center states that FAST is “substantially more invasive in airports,” referring to it as a medical exam that the government has no right to conduct. There’s also concern that FAST could improperly identify physical conditions heart murmurs, breathing problems, and high stress levels as threats. But wouldn't that be a good thing?

Maybe the security guard at the airport could tell me when I'm getting ready to have a heart attack? Maybe airport security can refer me to a doctor?
  
Written By: Tom Retterbush


Terrorism and Public Safety Policing 
Implications for the Obama Presidency
A perfect storm of extremist ideologies is on the horizon that threatens to challenge the current state of public safety—forcing police chiefs, public administrators, and security professionals to rethink their approach to policing the streets of America. Professor James Pastor, a recognized authority on policing and security, draws on three decades of experience fighting on the front lines against domestic terrorism to identify key indicators that point to an increase in extremist violence and terrorist threats here at home. Complete with supporting statistics, graphics, and photos, this book provides a realistic look into the future of law enforcement, public safety, and private security. By providing a narrative of the important decisions that need to be made, the author guides policymakers, police administrators, and security professionals with the vision needed to anticipate predicaments on the horizon. Merging public policy analysis with an understanding of human nature, Terrorism and Public Safety Policing: A thorough examination of the current state of policing to identify trends and vulnerabilities must be addressed.
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