U.S. Special Forces getting constellation of mini surveillance satellites to hunt down ‘people considered to be dangerous’

In September, the U.S. government will fire into orbit a two-stage rocket from a Virginia launchpad. Officially, the mission is a scientific one, designed to improve America’s ability to send small satellites into space quickly and cheaply. But the launch will also have a second purpose: to help the elite forces of U.S. Special Operations Command hunt down people considered to be dangerous to the United States and its interests.

For years, special operators have used tiny “tags” to clandestinely mark their prey — and satellites to relay information from those beacons. But there are areas of the world where the satellite coverage is thin, and there aren’t enough cell towers to provide an alternative. That’s why SOCOM is putting eight miniature communications satellites, each about the size of a water jug, on top of the Minotaur rocket that’s getting ready to launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. They’ll sit more than 300 miles above the earth and provide a new way for the beacons to call back to their masters.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/special-ops-mini-sats-manhunts/

Who needs drones when you’ve got satellites?

The belief that the US government will be using drones to spy on its citizens might not have any basis, as its security forces move towards satellite spying instead.

In September, the US government will fire into orbit a two-stage rocket from a Virginia launchpad. According to official reports, the mission is scientific one, designed to improve America’s ability to send small satellites into space quickly and cheaply.

http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-brief/71809-who-needs-drones-when-youve-got-satellites

via BREAKING: U.S. Special Forces getting constellation of mini surveillance satellites to hunt down ‘people considered to be dangerous’ | InvestmentWatch.

Satellites. So humans can hunt humans. Great. Since the days when simple spears were used for the same purpose, how have we progressed, morally? What new world-wide compassion programs, what great ethics and understanding revolutions have we had to prevent the misuse of our rockets and our meat cleavers?

Brutal, fatal cleaver assault in London called a terrorist attack

They first hit the man, thought to be a British soldier, with a car in broad daylight. Then the two attackers hacked him to death and dumped his body in the middle of a southeastern London road. As the victim — dressed in what appeared to be a T-shirt for Help for Heroes, a charity that helps military veterans — lay prone, one of the two attackers found a camera.

“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone,” said a meat-cleaver-wielding man with bloody hands, speaking in what seems to be a London accent.

“The only reasons we killed this man … is because Muslims are dying daily,” he added, in video aired by CNN affiliate ITN. “This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth.”

One witness, Michael Atlee, described the gruesome, frenzied and ultimately fatal sequence of events Wednesday afternoon as “a bloody mess.” British Prime David Cameron called it a terrorist attack.

“We will never buckle to terror,” Cameron wrote on Twitter. Home Secretary Theresa May offered a similar assessment Wednesday night of the situation and a similar message of resolve.

“We have seen terrorism on the streets of Britain before, and we have always stood against it,” she said. “Despicable acts like this will not go unpunished.” A witness, who identified himself only as James, told London’s LBC 97.3 radio station that he saw two men standing by the victim, who was on the ground in the British capital’s Woolwich neighborhood. At first James thought they were trying to help the man. But then he saw two meat cleavers, like a butcher would have.

“They were hacking at this poor guy, literally,” he told the radio station, as if they were trying to remove his organs.

“These two guys were crazed. They were just not there. They were just animals.” Afterward, the men appeared to want to be filmed, with one of the attackers going over to a bus and asking people to take photos of him as if he wanted to be on TV.

A man who asked not to be identified told ITN that he was on his way to a job interview when he came up on the scene and started filming it. Then, a man with a cleaver and knife in his bloody hands “came straight to me (and) said, ‘No, no, no, it’s cool. I just want to talk to you.’” The suspect went to apologize to women who had witnessed the attack, then quickly added “but in our lands our women have to see the same.”

“You people will never be safe,” he said. “Remove your government. They don’t care about you. You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns?

“… Get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back so we can all live in peace.” The first call about an assault came in at 2:20 p.m. (9:20 a.m. ET). At some point afterward, police responded, including armed members of a firearms unit, even though British police typically don’t carry guns. Metropolitan Police Commander Simon Letchworth noted that “early reports” indicated the attackers had “weapons.” Metropolitan Police say they’re aware of reports it took 30 minutes for police to arrive. The suspects rushed at the arriving officers before being shot, James told the radio station. The Independent Police Complaints Commission said the Metropolitan Police informed them at 2:50 p.m. of “an incident,” as would happen when police shoot and injure someone. Letchworth said both suspects were taken to separate London hospitals for treatment. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe later said the two had been arrested, though it wasn’t immediately clear if this happened at the hospitals or elsewhere.

“We understand concern about the motivation, and we will work tirelessly to uncover why this occurred and and who was responsible,” Hogan-Howe said, adding that his force’s counterterrorism unit will lead the investigation. “I understand people want answers, but I must stress we are in the early stages of investigations.” …

via Brutal, fatal cleaver assault in London called a terrorist attack – CNN.com.

Just one citizen with a handgun might have saved the dead soldier’s life. Oh wait, guns are too dangerous for average London citizens who want protection. Someone might get hurt. Just ignore the fact that a foreign soldier claimed there are future plans to “burst guns” in the streets of London.

Contrary to claims that the killers were crazed and “not there”, the one knife killer who spoke to a video camera before being shot by police was obviously quite lucid. He did not seem to be on any kind of drugs. After he was done with the horrific attack, he spoke clearly and with relative calm.  It seemed to me that he was telling the truth about seeing this kind of thing before in his homeland. Senseless tragic revolting stupidity.

Perhaps some kind of a god could appear and demand an end to all religion on Earth while simultaneously making everyone the same race and distributing the natural resources equally. Would that end our problems? No. The real problem is diseased thinking.

Why do innocent people falsely confess?

Japan has a conviction rate of more than 99%. But in recent months there has been a public outcry over a number of wrongful arrests where innocent people confessed to crimes.

It started with a threat posted on the city of Yokohama’s website in late June: “I’ll attack a primary school and kill all the children before the summer.”

In the months that followed, there were a number of similar threats posted on the internet – some threatening famous people, including the Emperor’s grandchildren.

After a police investigation, four people were arrested. Two, including a 19-year-old student, confessed while in custody.

But on 9 October, the real perpetrator sent an email to a lawyer – Yoji Ochiai – and local media, explaining how he or she made those threats by taking control of innocent internet users’ computers with a virus.

His or her purpose, as stated in the email to Ochiai, was “to expose the police and prosecutors’ abomination”.

And in a way, it did. It raised the question – why did the innocent people confess to a crime that they didn’t commit? What kind of pressure were they put under?

“I was surprised to have received the email but I wasn’t surprised that the innocent people confessed,” says Ochiai.

There have been a number of wrongful convictions in the past, he says.

“But unlike other cases, the fact that these cyber threat incidents happened to ordinary people who were just using the internet raised the fear that it could have happened to anyone,” he adds.

When Ochiai posted the email on his Twitter account and blog, he received hundreds of responses from the public – most of which were more critical towards the police than the real perpetrator.

Shoji Sakurai spent 29 years in jail for a robbery-murder that he didn’t commit. It took him another 15 years to win a not-guilty verdict at his retrial last year.

“I was a bit naughty when I was young and the Japanese police go after people with criminal records, so my friend Sugiyama and I became prime suspects for the murder.”

When arrested, aged just 20, he was treated like a guilty criminal, he says.

“They interrogated me day and night, telling me to confess. After five days, I had no mental strength left so I gave up and confessed.”

“It may be difficult for people to understand, but being denounced repeatedly – it is harder than you think,” he adds.

Sakurai says his interrogators weren’t aggressive but there have been cases in which the police or prosecutors are alleged to have treated their suspects badly.

Hiroshi Ichikawa was a prosecutor for nearly 13 years – until he lost his job for threatening to kill a suspect during an interrogation.

“I am not trying to make an excuse for my behaviour by saying that others did the same, but I don’t think I was some kind of a monster in making a death threat to a suspect,” he says.

“I have overheard other prosecutors yelling at suspects and one of my bosses boasted how he kicked the shin of a suspect underneath the desk.”

Another thing he regrets – aside from making the death threat – is writing up a confession statement which did not correspond with the truth.

“After I grilled the suspect for eight hours, I got him to sign this statement even though he didn’t say a single word of it,” he says.

“My boss was pressuring me to get his confession so I thought I couldn’t go home without it.”

For Ichikawa, it didn’t matter if it was true or false as long as he had the confession. …

via BBC News – Japan crime: Why do innocent people confess?.

Don’t be certain that someone is guilty. What you think you know or see may be false. Even a confession may be completely false. If you arrest 100 random innocent people and have cops interrogate them, cops who are told by other cops that they are guilty,  how may of the 100 would end up confessing to something they didn’t do? Answer: 100%. All of them will sign a confession or will say they did it eventually as the interrogation becomes more intense. Honesty is not more important than breathing, eating, sleeping, avoiding pain, the distress of being hated by an authority figure, etc.

Most people, particularly members of the jury acting as the fact-finder, have difficulty comprehending that an innocent person may confess to a crime he did not commit. However, false confessions are not uncommon. Some common elements that can lead to a false confession are:

• Duress
• Coercion
• Intoxication
• Diminished Capacity
• Mental Impairment
• Ignorance of the Law
• Fear of violence
• Threat of Harm
• Misunderstanding of the Situation

Understanding what can lead to a false confession is the key to recognizing one in the future …

Coerced Confession	Forced Confession	False Confession
Pressure	Physical Threats	Youth
Deception	Emotional Threats	Mental Health Issues
Persuasion	Isolation	Linguistic Clues
Mental Health Issues	Deprivation of Food	Inaccurate Answers
False Promises	Physical Contact	Non-Responsive
False Facts	Several Interrogators	Contradictions
Youth	Length of Detention	Exaggeration
Low Self-Esteem	Fear	Desire to Pleas

…Edgar Garrett presents another example of a false confession resulting from extreme interrogation and persuasion by the police. Garrett’s 14 year old daughter, Michelle, was murdered. After a 14-hour interrogation, Garrett confessed. The police told him that witnesses placed him with his daughter shortly before her disappearance. One of the officers suggested to Garrett that he could have blacked out and reminded Garrett that he had once struck Michelle while drinking. Garrett, who had initially insisted that he hadn’t seen Michelle before she disappeared, began to change his story and signed a confession. However, his confession contradicted all the major facts of the case and the police lacked any additional evidence. Garrett was acquitted by the jury. A partial excerpt from the transcript of his police interrogation is provided below:
Interrogation Transcript

Garrett: I just don’t remember if I went out, if I did talk to Michelle…. I can’t remember fighting with Michelle on Sunday.

Detective: You did. Not only did you fight but you thumped her. You didn’t mean to hurt her.

G: What did I thump her with?

D: I don’t know.

G: I don’t know either.

D: But you thumped her.

G: Well, I killed my own daughter?

D: Yeah.
When Garrett kept insisting that he didn’t remember attacking her, the interrogator again raised the possibility of an alcohol-induced blackout.

D: Okay, then what happened next?

G: I must have left her there.

D: Okay.

G: And must have went home.

D: All right. What did you do with the stick?

G: It’s in the house. I must have took it back to the house.
This excerpt from Garrett’s interrogation illustrates how interrogators can railroad a suspect into believing they committed the crime.

From wikipedia

Most people still do not realize that we invaded Iraq based on a false confession elicited by torture.

On Wednesday, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson dropped a bombshell (h/t Heather):

what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 — well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion — its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just “committed suicide” in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi….)

On April 21, McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay first suggested the Bush Administration used torture to intentionally extract false confessions linking Al Qaeda (and 9/11) to Iraq, to give Bush a false “casus belli” to invade Iraq.

Landay’s suggestion was shocking. I called it the “Iraq-Torture Scandal” because of its similarity to the Iran-Contra Scandal, where two seemingly unconnected scandals (Reagan’s illegal sale of weapons to Iran and his illegal funding of the Nicaraguan contras) were suddenly linked. Paul Krugman called it the “Grand unified scandal”:

Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.

There’s a word for this: it’s evil.

A number of prominent progressives came to the same conclusion, including Keith Olbermann (who calls it “backfilling”), Rachel Maddow, Ron Suskind, Frank Rich, and Dan Froomkin. But serious coverage of this humongous scandal did not go beyond progressives.

Why? ..

via http://www.democrats.com/lawrence-wilkerson-drops-an-iraq-torture-bombshell

Afghanistan’s heritage is at stake

South east of Kabul lies Logar, the latest province to backslide into the clutches of insurgency and Taliban rule. Upon the region’s barren landscape sits a cluster of rocky foothills known collectively as Mes Aynak. To the Afghan and Chinese governments, Mes Aynak is the site of massive copper reserves, the world’s second largest, with an estimated worth exceeding $100bn (£66bn). To others, it is a site of enormous historical importance, a settlement dating back to the Bronze Age which includes a 100-acre ancient monastery complex, and a mere 10 per cent of which has been excavated. Its destruction would see Afghan society robbed of a unique link to its rich heritage.

Decades of conflict mean Afghans have already lost countless historical artefacts from heritage sites and museums. In 2012, a single consignment handed over by the British Armed Forces to the National Museum of Afghanistan saw the return of more than 800 items that were carried illegally into the UK. This slow leak compounds catastrophic losses such as the Taliban’s demolition of the 35- and 53-metre tall Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001.

Mes Aynak is the latest piece of heritage facing an existential threat, only this time the threat is government sponsored. The Ministry of Mines sold rights to the copper reserves directly below and around the archaeological site to the Chinese state-owned China Metallurgical Group (MCC) roughly four years ago. This despite international experts repeatedly describing it, since its rediscovery in the 1960s, as a hugely important cradle of Bronze Age, Buddhist and Islamic heritage.

Mes Aynak also satisfies the criteria for becoming a Unesco World Heritage Site. Yet, unlike at Bamiyan, the process has never been initiated. Campaigners insist it is not too late. However, a valid proposal can only come from government officials, and herein lies the tragedy. No one with the power to save Mes Aynak will or, perhaps, can defy the Ministry of Mines to contact Unesco or another conservation body, such as the International Council on Monuments and Sites.

It is hard to explain how echoes of Mes Aynak’s magnificence bewitch its self-appointed protectors and increasingly rare visitors. Imagine an intricate complex of Buddhist monasteries and settlements, bustling with a religious and civil life, as early as the 1st century BC, that thrived for a millennium.

Now consider these centuries of vigorous and diverse human activity lying excellently preserved, above and well below ground, mere miles from the capital. Lastly, bear in mind that general lack of access, resources and time mean that, to this day, no one knows how far the site extends or how revelatory its historical secrets could prove. The only firm conclusion to be drawn so far is that Mes Aynak represents a people’s history waiting to be discovered which could, perhaps, reinforce an embattled national identity and pride.

A report released by the National Museum of Afghanistan in 2011, in collaboration with European experts, says that only 10 per cent of the Buddhist settlement has so far been excavated. Of that, much has been subject to the harsh procedures of “rescue” or “salvage” archaeology, which is necessary when time constraints and other pressures – in this case mostly security related – prevent the painstaking processes of conventional archaeology.

Expert consensus currently holds that at least 30 years is needed, from now, to carry out a satisfactory excavation of the entire site. Current rumour – for clarity and transparency have never prevailed in this process – suggests that the woefully under-resourced team on site now has only until June of this year before time is called on archaeology at Mes Aynak forever.

Yet even the relatively tiny area haphazardly excavated so far has been found bursting with archaeological treasures. A cursory glance over initial surveys shows mention of over 100 clay statues of Buddha – many measured in metres not centimetres, ornate engravings, extremely rare manuscripts and huge quantities of smaller icons, coins, pot shards and tools.

via Afghanistan’s heritage is at stake – Asia – World – The Independent.

War Atrocities: Man cuts out and bites heart of dead enemy soldier in Syria

It is not enough for Syria’s opposition to condemn such behavior or blame it on violence by the government. The opposition forces need to act firmly to stop such abuses.

Nadim Houry, Middle East deputy director

Human Rights Watch has reviewed graphic evidence that appears to show a commander of the Syrian opposition “Independent Omar al-Farouq” brigade mutilating the corpse of a pro-government fighter. The figure in the video cuts the heart and liver out of the body and uses sectarian language to insult Alawites. The same brigade was implicated in April 2013 in the cross-border indiscriminate shelling of the Lebanese Shi’a villages of al-Qasr and Hawsh al-Sayyed.

It is not known whether the Independent Omar al-Farouq Brigade operates within the command structure of the Free Syrian Army. But the opposition Syrian National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army leadership should take all possible steps to hold those responsible for war crimes accountable and prevent such abuses by anyone under their command. Any party with the power to do so should do all it can to keep weapons from reaching the brigade. Human Rights Watch repeated its call to the United Nations Security Council to refer theSyria situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure accountability for all war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“One important way to stop Syria’s daily horrors, from beheadings to mutilations to executions, is to strip all sides from their sense of impunity,” said Nadim Houry, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch. “These atrocities are shocking but so is the obstruction of some Security Council members that still do not support an ICC referral for all sides.”

In the video obtained by Human Rights Watch, a man identified by the person filming the incident as Abu Sakkar is filmed cutting the chest of a dead uniformed fighter, and removing the heart and liver from the corpse. The person filming the incident then comments, while “Abu Sakkar” is cutting out the corpse’s liver: “God Bless you, Abu Sakkar, you look like you are drawing [carving] a heart of love on him.” After Abu Sakkar completes the cutting out of the corpse’s heart and liver, he is filmed holding the heart and liver in his hands and speaks into the camera:

I swear to God, soldiers of Bashar, you dogs – we will eat your heart and livers! Takbir! God is Great! Oh my heroes of Baba Amr, you slaughter the Alawites and take their hearts out to eat them!

At the end of the video, after that statement, the man called Abu Sakkar is filmed putting the corpse’s heart into his mouth, as if he is taking a bite out of it. Because of the extremely graphic and disturbing nature of the video, Human Rights Watch has decided not to publicly release the footage, although an edited and blurred version is available on the internet.

By comparing frames of the mutilation video to other videos showing what appears to be the same man participating in the shelling thatindiscriminately hit Lebanese Shi’a villages and talking about killed Hezbollah fighters, Human Rights Watch believes the person in the video to be Commander Abu Sakkar. Journalists and other commanders have said that Abu Sakkar is the nom de guerre of a former commander from the mainstream al-Farouq Brigade from the Baba Amr district of Homs, in Syria.

Four international journalists told Human Rights Watch that they met him during or after the battle of Homs in 2011 and 2012. Several other videos posted by the Independent Omar al-Farouq Brigade also show the man known as Abu Sakkar, wearing the same jacket as in the mutilation video, loading rockets into an improvised rocket launcher before apparently firing them into Lebanon at Shi’a villages in the Bekaa Valley. In yet another video, Abu Sakkar appears with what he claims are the bodies of killed Hezbollah fighters in the town of al-Qusayr. TIME Magazine reported on May 13 that two of its reporters first saw the mutilation video in April in the presence of several of Abu Sakkar’s fighters and supporters, including his brother, who all told them that the video was authentic.

The laws of war prohibit any mutilation of dead bodies. As set out by the International Committee of the Red Cross’s study of customary international humanitarian law, this rule requires that “each party to the conflict must take all possible measures to prevent the dead from being despoiled.” Under the Rome Statute of the ICC, “outrage upon personal dignity” is a war crime, which includes humiliating, degrading, or otherwise violating the dignity of a dead body. …

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/13/syria-brigade-fighting-homs-implicated-atrocities

Man cuts out and bites heart of dead enemy soldier in Syria. Anyone who does this should be recognized as diseased beyond repair. His own troops should have shot him in the head on the spot.

Air Force strips 17 officers of nuclear watch command

The US Air Force has removed 17 officers from the authority to control nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, US media have reported.
The unprecedented action was taken in April, after the unit’s deputy commander wrote in email the programme was suffering “rot”.

The story was first reported by the Associated Press.

The Air Force’s top official told a Senate hearing that the revelation shows it has strengthened inspections.

Michael Donley, the Air Force secretary, said he was confident that the nuclear missile force was secure.

24-hour watch
In an email initially obtained by the AP, Lieutenant Colonel Jay Folds wrote that drastic action was needed because “we didn’t wake up” after an underwhelming inspection the month before.

The 91st Operations Group at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, the unit responsible for 15 Minuteman III missile launch control centres, received an satisfactory review overall in March.

But the unit received the equivalent of a D grade on the test of its mastery of the missile launch operations.

Lt Col Folds also complained of unwarranted questioning of orders by launch crews and the failure of more senior officers to report infractions.

“We’re discovering such rot in the crew force,” he wrote, that the unit was accepting violations of safety rules and code compromises “all in the name of not inconveniencing yourselves”.

The 17 officers were removed from duty of 24-hour shifts watching over nuclear missiles that can strike targets across the globe. Inside each underground launch control capsule, two officers stand “alert’” at all times, ready to launch an ICBM upon presidential order.

The Air Force said the lapses never put the security of the nuclear force at risk and that the officers pulled from the watch will receive more training. They are expected to return to normal duty within two months.

The service has removed officers from nuclear authority before, but never so many at one time.

The move comes after a 2008 Pentagon report excoriated the Air Force for a series of blunders, including a bomber’s mistaken flight across the country armed with nuclear-tipped missiles.

The top civilian and military leaders of the Air Force resigned over the report.

It had taken numerous steps since then to improve the force’s nuclear performance.

Deep malaise
At a Senate hearing Wednesday, Mr Donley, said the launch control officers were relatively junior in rank and need to be reminded continually of the importance of “this awesome responsibility”.

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said the nation’s nuclear missile force is secure
The air force’s chief of staff also endorsed the handling of the situation by Minot Air Force base officials and said it had been “more of an attitude problem than a proficiency problem”.

But at least one Senator was not calmed by official assurances. Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin, chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, expressed outrage, saying the AP report revealed a problem that “could not be more troubling”.

Bruce Blair, who served as an Air Force ICBM launch control officer in the 1970s and is a co-founder of nuclear weapons elimination group Global Zero, said the email points to a broader problem.

“The nuclear air force is suffering from a deep malaise caused by the declining relevance of their mission since the Cold War’s end over 20 years ago,” Mr Blair said.

“Minuteman launch crews have long been marginalised and demoralised by the fact that the Air Force’s culture and fast-track careers revolve around flying planes, not sitting in underground bunkers baby-sitting nuclear-armed missiles.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22457265

Right, we don’t want any questioning of orders when it comes time for a big mass murder.

Syrian Internet and Phone Blackout Enters Second Day

The Internet shutdown in the war-torn nation of Syria has entered its second day. Government media reports there are blaming a “fault in fiber optic cables,” according to a report from Al-Jazeera, the Dubai-based news organization that covers the Middle East.

The reports from SANA, the official Syrian government news agency, are also confirming reports I picked up last night via Twitter that domestic phone service within Syria is also down.

SANA’s explanation doesn’t pass the smell test, mainly because it would require the simultaneous failure of four separate fiber optic cables that bring bandwidth into the country. And there would the additional reports of service problems in countries that share the same cables. According to Google’s Transparency report, there are no such failures in Turkey, or Lebanon, or Cyprus, or Jordan.

Renesys, the U.S.-based research firm that tracks the health of Internet infrastructure around the world, shared via Twitter a map showing the routes of three undersea cables that service Syria. …

As we on the outside of all this speculate on reasons why the government would shut off Internet access, I have a few ideas. One thing I noticed as I drilled down into Google’s Transparency report for Syria was what to my eye appears to be an unusual rise in traffic from Syria to YouTube relatively early in the day. See the image below and look at the spike that occurs on May 7.

I’m just speculating here, but there have been reports of a significant massacre of at least 62 civilians by a pro-Assad paramilitary force in the coastal city of Banias on May 3 and May 4. I’ve noticed that there are several very grisly videos circulating on YouTube concerning this. (I’ve seen one that nearly made me sick, so I won’t show them to you…)

Perhaps the YouTube-related spike I noticed might coincide with increased interest inside Syria in these YouTube videos, and that the Assad government may find them enough of a threat that it would rather shut down the Internet while trying to find a way to block them or maybe try to scrub them.

There would also be a side benefit for the government side in disrupting communications capabilities of the rebel fighters, in order to keep them on the back foot. Meanwhile, any new offensives that the pro-Assad camp might have been planning can go on, and no one on the other side can share any new videos or other information about them with the outside world.

it bears repeating that the civil war in Syria has gone on for two years, and that somewhere between 70,000 and 75,000 people have died in it, most of them civilians.

http://allthingsd.com/20130508/syrian-internet-and-phone-blackout-enters-second-day/

Nun, two others in federal court for nuclear breach

When an elderly nun and two fellow peace activists walked undetected onto one of the nation’s most secure nuclear facilities last year, they wanted to call attention to the dangers of nuclear weapons.

Yet their actions in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, triggered a very different concern:

If three older peaceniks can easily trespass onto the Y-12 National Security Complex — once considered the “Fort Knox” for highly enriched uranium — just how safe are the nation’s nuclear weapons facilities from terrorists?

Sister Megan Rice, 83; Greg Boertje-Obed, 57; and Michael Walli, 63, will stand trial this week on federal charges of destroying U.S. government property, depredation against federal property exceeding $1,000, trespassing and injuring national-defense premises.

The last charge alone carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday at federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee. In the predawn hours of July 28, 2012, Rice, Boertje-Obed and Walli walked under the cover of darkness through the woods and up a hillside, approaching a chain-link fence surrounding the Oak Ridge nuclear facility. Armed with flashlights and a bolt cutter, they cut their way through the fence, fully expecting to be arrested on the spot. Instead, they walked nearly a mile, cutting through four fences in all, breaching what was supposed to be the most tightly secured uranium processing and storage facility in the country.

“When we got to the very high security fence where there’s a lethal force authorized … I thought, maybe we should turn around,” Boertje-Obed told CNN’s David Mattingly. But they didn’t. Hours later, the three activists were finally confronted by a guard after hoisting banners, spray-painting messages and splattering human blood on a building that houses highly enriched uranium. …

Since the incident, Congress has held a series of hearings and issued security recommendations to the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs Y-12 and seven other nuclear weapons sites. Most recently, Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in March that the Department of Energy has taken “several major actions … to improve security” since the Y-12 breach, including management changes and independent security reviews.

Today, changes at Y-12 are noticeable. A new security contractor is in charge. New signs and security fences are going up. While last year’s security breach shed light on systematic weaknesses at Y-12, a former nuclear reactor safety manager at the Sandia National Laboratories said he doesn’t think the nation’s nuclear weapons material were ever at any risk.

“What these people did was more like trespassing than gaining access to any weapons-grade material,” said Michael Allen, who is now a vice provost and dean at Middle Tennessee State University.

“Once they got in, they could spray paint things, but it’s just like if you got into Fort Knox, you wouldn’t know the combination to the locks.” …

via Nun, two others in federal court for nuclear breach – CNN.com.

British businessman guilty of selling fake bomb detectors

… A British businessman was convicted Tuesday of selling gussied-up golf ball detectors as devices that could detect bombs, drugs and even diamonds.
Jim McCormick, 57, faces a substantial prison term for fraud, the Evening Standard reported. Investigators said he made millions of dollars selling useless detectors for as much as 27,000 pounds ($40,000) each, with customers that included the Iraqi military.

McCormick is scheduled to be sentenced May 2 at the Old Bailey in London. He could also have his fortune confiscated.

Trial witnesses included Belgian Police Superintendent Theiry Meunier, who described his experience with one of McCormick’s devices.

“It was not only the cheapest machine, it was the only machine,” Meunier said. “We had no results from it. We tried to use the device for detecting drugs in cars for several months. We also provided the detector to detectives seeking to detect drugs. The results again were negative.”

McCormick, who lives in the Bath area, went on trial in March after a three-year investigation by Avon and Somerset police.

Investigators said he put lives at risk by selling a device that might give security officers a false sense of confidence.

… McCormick has continued to maintain his devices do the job they were supposed to…

http://m.upi.com/story/UPI-28081366744576/

It was all nonsense, albeit potentially lethal for the people of Iraq, where 6,000 of the fraudulent gadgets formed a first line of defence against car bombs and suicide bombers at checkpoints. When the devices were opened, it emerged that cable sockets were unconnected and supposed data cards were linked to nothing. One scientist told the jury who on Tuesday convicted McCormick of three counts of fraud that the antenna intended to point to suspect substances was “no more a radio antenna than a nine-inch nail”.It is thought hundreds of lives could have been lost as a result of the failure of the devices, whose detection powers were no better than a random check.

via GuardianUK

FBI and RCMP Bust al-Qaeda “Major Terror Plot” in Canada

One week after the Boston bombing, Canada has arrested two men it claims planned to attack a passenger train running between New York and Toronto. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the terrorist plot involved derailing the train, but gave no further details.

Canadian authorities said they believe al-Qaeda was behind the attack.

Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35, are said to have had the ability to carry out the attack. Officials, however, said “there was no imminent threat to the general public, rail employees, train passengers or infrastructure.” Esseghaier and Jaser are charged with “conspiring to carry out an attack against, and conspiring to murder persons unknown for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.”

Authorities also said the suspects are not connected to the attack carried out last week in Boston.

In what is now a familiar pattern, the suspects were under surveillance for more than a year before their arrest. The FBI worked with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Canada Border Service Agency, and eight other police agencies, RCMP said Monday.

The FBI has a long and well-documented history of staging terror events.

The alleged attack arrives as the Harper government works to pass S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act, legislation that will rollback civil liberties in Canada.

via » FBI and RCMP Bust al-Qaeda “Major Terror Plot” in Canada Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!.