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Is It in My Head?

@diegueno / diegueno.tumblr.com

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Fourteen years after 9/11, we still have astonishingly little empirical evidence about which counterterrorism techniques are effective and which aren’t. In large part, this is because governments haven’t made it a priority to fund or conduct evidence-based counterterrorism research. This needs to change. We need to be hardheaded and unsentimental about this, just as we’re hardheaded about the prevention of crime, disease, car accidents, and a thousand other more run-of-the-mill risks. How much do we think more police (or border guards or NSA programs or bombs) will make a difference, and at what point will we see diminishing marginal returns? At what point do we say: Yes, we could reduce the risk of successful terrorist attacks by another 5 percent if we added 5,000 more border guards, but the costs are just too high? Or even: We could reduce the risk by 85 percent if we turn France or the United States into police states, but we’d rather accept the added short-term risk than abandon the values that make our countries what they are?

The Threat Is Already Inside | Foreign Policy

Source: foreignpolicy.com
#terrorism#security#law enforcement#privacy#homeland security#civil liberties
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If the Islamic State wanted to dispatch a terrorist to America, it wouldn’t ask a mole to apply for refugee status, but rather to apply for a student visa to study at, say, Indiana University. Hey, governors, are you going to keep out foreign university students?
Or the Islamic State could simply send fighters who are French or Belgian citizens (like some of those behind the Paris attacks) to the U.S. as tourists, no visa required. Governors, are you planning to ban foreign tourists, too?
Refugee vetting has an excellent record. Of 785,000 refugees admitted to the United States since 9/11, just three have been arrested for terrorism-related charges, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.

(via They Are Us - The New York Times)

Source: The New York Times
#nicholas kristof#immigration#migration#refugees#assylum#terrorism#security#ISIL
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We are encouraged by the President’s commitment to the acquisition of body-worn cameras for police departments as an important policy change that will help prevent police abuse in our nation. However, border residents must remind the President that our region is home to tens of millions of people from San Diego, California to Brownsville, Texas. Border communities should be consulted in policies that address accountability in border agencies. Customs and Border Protection, the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, continues to be plagued with serious cases of misconduct. It is vital that the White House mandate CBP to immediately equip its agents with body-worn cameras for this ambitious and urgently needed program to work.

Southern Border Communities Call on the Obama Administration to Equip CBP with Body-Worn Cameras

Source: soboco.org
#border#security#CPB#law enforcement#body cameras#Obama#Immigration#Homeland Security
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All of the failures of the NSA cited above are exactly the kind of connect-the-dots fails that spying on all Americans were supposed to alleviate. At this point we’re left with one of two explanations. The first explanation is that the NSA is simply incompetent. They may not be very good at their job, their technological ability to collect may not be matched with an ability to process the data, or they are simply so flooded with data as to be ineffective. Why should we expect a government that stumbles on everything from managing appointment lists at veteran’s hospitals to major foreign policy endeavors to do any better at intelligence work. The second explanation is much darker. It remains possible the business about connecting dots and protecting America is a ruse, a sham, a cover story, and that mass surveillance has a much more sinister purpose. Pick one: control dissent, spy on groups like Occupy, blackmail, political advantage, industrial intel, and so forth. Snowden’s revelations, as significant as they are, really only shed light on what the NSA does. They do not address why the NSA spies on us. Therein lies the real story of the century, waiting for the next whistleblower to expose.

Where was the NSA before the Isla Vista Mass Shooting? | The Dissenter

#National Security Agency#Security#Safety#Surveillance#privacy#mass murder#Isla Vista Massacre
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The U.S. National Security Agency knew for at least two years about a flaw in the way that many websites send sensitive information, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence, two people familiar with the matter said. The NSA’s decision to keep the bug secret in pursuit of national security interests threatens to renew the rancorous debate over the role of the government’s top computer experts.

NSA Said to Have Used Heartbleed Bug, Exposing Consumers - Bloomberg

Source: bloomberg.com
#security#privacy#civil liberties#national security agency#Keith Alexander#Heartbleed#technology#computer virus#government
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app.e2ma.net

Press conference to announce border-wide Revitalize Not Militarize campaign launch.

(via The Southern Border Communities Coalition)

SOUTHERN BORDER REGION: The next few weeks promise to be a critical moment for immigration reform.  Last week, President Barack Obama once again encouraged the House of Representatives and Congress to prove to the American people that Washington can get this done.

In light of this window of opportunity, the Southern Border Communities Coalition (a coalition with representatives in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) will launch the Revitalize Not Militarize campaign, which is a platform for border communities and others affected by border policies to weigh in.  The message, Revitalize Not Militarize expresses the need to invest in border communities and improve the quality of life for border residents while improving trade for the nation. This approach, together with a comprehensive immigration reform, will stimulate the U.S. economy, helping us all move forward together.

Organizations participating in the campaign include the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (CA), the Border Action Network (AZ), the Arizona Sonora Southern Border Coalition (AZ), the ACLU of New Mexico (NM), the ACLU of Texas (TX), the Rio Grande Equal Voice Network (TX) and the Campaign for Accountable, Moral, Immigration Overhaul (CAMBIO based in Washington D.C.) among others.Two projects will be launched along the southern border simultaneously as part of this campaign.

“The border is more than a line, it is the home of 15 million people, it is a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, and it is a unique cultural and historical space that is sacred to many who live here. The border enforcement bills that have been proposed as part of immigration reform would result in nothing more than a militarization of our communities, and is not what we need or want” states Pedro Ríos, Director of the American Friends Service Committee’s San Diego office which is a member organization of the SBCC.

“Through this campaign, border residents will tell the nation what it means to live in the border region, how militarization has negatively impacted families and residents here, and why we must broaden our perspective about the border,” states Elizabeth Maldonado Robinson who speaks for the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice which is also a member of the SBCC.

Project 1: The Border Quilt

Inspired by the AIDS Quilt, the Border Quilt will express how militarization has resulted in losses for border residents. On 2’ x 4’ cloth panels, border residents will tell stories of lives lost, loss of civil rights, loss of security and loss of humanity. Cloth panels will be created across the four southern border states and will be sent to Washington D.C. to be installed during the third week of November. A manual has been created for all who want to participate which can be downloaded here and a sample panel will be on display at the press conference.

On Friday, November 1st, Alliance San Diego will host the community and provide space and materials for producing quilts from 4-7 pm.

Project 2: Flower Power Social Media Project

Border residents are being asked to use an orange Gerbera daisy as a symbol of revitalization to contrast with examples of border militarization in their communities. The objective is to take a picture either holding the daisy or placing the daisy near an example of militarization such as Border Patrol vehicles, agents, checkpoints, signs or whichever form it is manifested in their communities.

Participants will be asked to send the photo to [email protected] and to mention details about where the photo was taken so that the extent of militarization can be documented on a webpage. A manual is also available for more details and can be downloaded here. Two large Flower Power images will be unveiled at the press conference, including one with a border agent who has participated in this action.

The progress of these two projects will be documented and shared through the campaign website RevitalizeNotMilitarize.org and the campaign’s social networks:

Source: app.e2ma.net
#border#Texas#New Mexico#Arizona#California#immigration#security#families#CIR
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Groklaw, the 11-year-old website devoted to covering legal disputes related to open source software, has announced it will shut down rather than risk the government reading its e-mail.Groklaw founder Pamela Jones (commonly known as "PJ") wrote today that she is not confident the government won't someday be able to crack her encrypted e-mails. "There is no way to do Groklaw without e-mail," she wrote. "So this is the last Groklaw article.

Groklaw shuts down rather than risk feds snooping through e-mail | Ars Technica

Source: Ars Technica
#news#privacy#NSA#FISA#security#Groklaw#open source#law#wikileaks#journalism#surveillance
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I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations,...I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot.I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the First Amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise....As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.

Encrypted email service used by Snowden mysteriously shuts down — RT USA

Source: rt.com
#privacy#security#surveillance#civil liberties#Lavabit#national security#tech#NSA#Edward Snowdon
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#Snowden didnt expose legal stuff. He exposed illegal acts, from perjury to potential constitutional violations: salon.com/2013/06/11/put…— David Sirota (@davidsirota) June 11, 2013
The idea here – which has quickly become the standard talking point for partisans trying to defend the NSA program and the Obama administration – is that while you may object to the NSA’s mass surveillance system, it is nonetheless perfectly legal as is the conduct surrounding it. Therefore, the logic goes, Snowden isn’t an honorable “whistleblower” he’s a traitorous “leaker” – and the only criminal in this case is Snowden and Snowden alone.
The first – and most simple – way to debunk this talking point is to simply behold two sets of testimony by Obama administration national security officials. In one, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper categorically denies that the government “collect(s) any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.” In another, the Guardian reports that NSA director General Keith Alexander “denied point-blank that the agency had the figures on how many Americans had their electronic communications collected or reviewed.”

Put the NSA on trial

Source: salon.com
#NSA#Edward Snowdon#surveillance#security#national intelligence
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The bill doesn't say it clear out, but in my opinion It creates a DMZ like North and South Korea, except [it's] between the U.S. and Mexico—our third largest trading partner," said Mark Noferi, an immigration law professor at Brooklyn Law School.The bill has a provision that extends the concept of 'the border' to 100 miles [within] the southern U.S. border, but I think that DMZ could conceivably extend along our northern border as well, through most of Vermont as it now stands," Noferi said.The bill itself calls for increased training for any U.S. agents within 100 miles of "any land or marine border of the United States." The also bill calls for more Border Patrol stations within the 100-mile band, for improved communications there, and for the use of surveillance drones.

Immigration Bill 'Could Create DMZ' Like Korea

I'd like it if politicians got the sense and the stones together to admit that after 4 decades that they haven't been able to put the genie back in the bottle and end The War About Drugs©; that would defund some of the most vicious criminal organizations on either side of the border. After that, the USA would only have to worry about economic refugees.

...or would that hurt government patrons in the penal industrial complex?

Source: cnbc.com
#immigration#security#borders#law#prohibition#penal industrial complex
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wonderful technological advances

Did you know that commercial color photocopiers have a built in device that stop it from operating when it detects documents from governmental agencies?

Do you know how hard that makes it to get copies of stuff for a lawyer?

#technology#surveillance#security#trying to get shit done
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pieceinthepuzzlehumanity-deacti
Many of the documents publicize for the first time what was first made clear in the 9/11 Commission: The White House received a truly remarkable amount of warnings that al-Qaida was trying to attack the United States. From June to September 2001, a full seven CIA Senior Intelligence Briefs detailed that attacks were imminent, an incredible amount of information from one intelligence agency. One from June called “Bin-Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” writes that “[redacted] expects Usama Bin Laden to launch multiple attacks over the coming days.” The famous August brief called “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the US” is included. “Al-Qai’da members, including some US citizens, have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure here,” it says. During the entire month of August, President Bush was on vacation at his ranch in Texas — which tied with one of Richard Nixon’s as the longest vacation ever taken by a president. CIA Director George Tenet has said he didn’t speak to Bush once that month, describing the president as being “on leave.” Bush did not hold a Principals’ meeting on terrorism until September 4, 2001, having downgraded the meetings to a deputies’ meeting, which then-counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke has repeatedly said slowed down anti-Bin Laden efforts “enormously, by months.”

New NSA docs contradict 9/11 claims (via drinkthe-koolaid)

Somewhere in Hell, Warren G. Harding is looking forward to a cooler cell in a matter of decades.

Source: salon.com
#Dubya#terrorism#bin Laden#9/11#security#POTUS
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