The question should be asked, which prison or ICE facilities should we keep Bush and his entire administration in? The end is fast approaching for these petty criminals. I suggest any of you who either "worked" in the administration, or are employed by us in a federal agency, start to lawyer up.

• Do you work in the Border Patrol, ICE or any other racial profiling agency? You might want to lawyer up.

• Are you one of the analysts reading my blog posts, before I can even spell check it? You might want to lawyer up as well.

• Do you warm up Secretary Chertoff's coffee? File documents for Keith Alexander at the NSA? Maybe you "polish" Michael Hayden's belt buckle at the CIA? Lawyer up, lawyer up, lawyer up.

It's going to be a great show. I wonder who cries first, Addington? Mukasey? Gonzales? Bush, Cheney, Negroponte? Limbaugh? My worthless dollar is on Limbaugh.....

Good luck to you all of you traitors, you're gonna need it. And remember, saying you were just following orders....is not going to cut it.

My God! I can't wait for the smirking Dan Rather to report on the trials!

CNN reports that al Qaeda has experienced a leadership transition but omits some pretty important details:

Osama bin Laden is no longer believed to be the head of al Qaeda's day-to-day operations, but the United States' capturing or killing him would still have a powerful effect on the organization, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Tuesday.

There is no greater security threat facing the United States than al Qaeda and its associates, Hayden said in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

The CIA's top issues, however, also include nuclear proliferation -- particularly in countries like Iran, North Korea and more recently Syria, he said. The greatest challenge lies in detecting those countries who might be developing in secret, Hayden said, as access to sensitive technologies is no longer the exclusive domain of a few advanced nations.

No word on who leads the organization now, or for how long that person has occupied that role.  Of course, al Qaeda is a less-than-traditional organization, but there are reasons to believe that it has a day-to-day management structure.  Also, Hayden failed to specify (or CNN failed to report) what that "powerful effect on the organization" might be.  I would surmise from what I have read and heard that one effect on the organization might be to further radicalize potential converts and make bin Laden a recruiting-poster martyr.  Despite bin Laden's ideological leadership, it's hard to imagine that taking him out would disrupt the organization's management.

Hayden also omits to compare the threat posed by al Qaeda to that of traditional state actors such as Iran, Russia, and North Korea.  Among the three, it's hard to imagine al Qaeda being more threatening.  Although al Qaeda's successes tend to be dramatic, its actual power is probably far less than that of the organized state actors, at least at this stage.  While the organization may be a potentially greater threat, that potential is as yet unrealized.  This could be mitigated through cooperation with a state actor, especially one with nuclear weapons as Pakistan has.

Nuclear proliferation, on the other hand, is increasingly serious as society and organizations move increasingly toward open-source information.  Take the piracy challenges faced by the film and recording industries as an example.  Institutions with clear profit motives and staggering resources are largely unable to stem their losses, and their attempts are usually seen as heavy-handed or laughable.  In fact, many believe illegal downloads are no big deal.  It's no stretch to imagine extremely loose networks with state and non-state participation passing nuclear technologies to those who seek them.  Governments are ill-equipped to prevent these exchanges.  There are potential remedies, but entrenched cultures make these difficult to explore and adopt.

Despite my respect for Director Hayden, I believe he missed another key opportunity in his address:

In response to a question about how the next president can help the agency focus on its core mission of protecting the homeland, Mr. Hayden replied "do nothing," as the overall current structure of the Central Intelligence Agency is functioning well.

There is a great deal of evidence to the contrary, most thoroughly detailed in Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA as well as in former National Security Agency Director William Odom's Fixing Intelligence: For a More Secure America.  There are few leaders of organizations who would allow themselves the hubris to claim that their organizations could not be continually improved.  This seems a little out of character for Hayden, but there may be other reasons for his curt response.  Incidentally, the mission of the CIA is not directly protecting the homeland, but rather providing national security intelligence to senior US policymakers.  It is those policymakers who decide how to use the intelligence to develop policy that protects the homeland.  The strategic implications of this distinction are far beyond semantic.

There is much to consider in Hayden's speech, and many questions that remain unanswered (and sometimes unanswerable).  It would be useful to hear more high-profile briefings of this nature from the Director of National Intelligence, a role designed to provide comprehensive oversight and management of the intelligence community.  While much of the content of intel is by nature classified, the processes of intel--by Odom's own advice--are and should be open and subject to discussion and debate.

UPDATE: I wasn't aware that Odom passed away last Friday.  In addition to being a fellow Tennessean, Odom was distinguished for having a keen eye for intel organization reform and for being very clear-eyed about the rather benign threat posed by Iraq prior to the US-led invasion:

“Vindication is not pleasing,” Mr. Odom told The Washington Post last year. “Even some of my friends have noted: The more vindicated I’ve been, the more irritable I’ve become.”

His parting advice may prove to be similarly prescient:

"Current U.S. policy toward the regime in Tehran will almost certainly result in an Iran with nuclear weapons. The seemingly clever combination of the use of 'sticks' and 'carrots,' including the frequent official hints of an American military option 'remaining on the table,' simply intensifies Iran's desire to have its own nuclear arsenal. Alas, such a heavy-handed 'sticks' and 'carrots' policy may work with donkeys but not with serious countries."

MORE: Embassy bombings aside, R notes some other threats that are probably greater than al Qaeda, including HIV/AIDS, water shortages, and, by the intel community's own analysis, climate change.

Fact: CIO magazine is running a big story on the CIA's Chief Information Officer Al Tarasiuk and his IT operation, and their online site is breaking it up into a four-part series running this week.  Below I analyze the series.

Analysis: By the halfway mark in the series, the magazine's reporter Thomas Wailgum had only accomplished a fairly rote recounting of what CIA is, what its CIO does, and how both those factors have changed since the good ol' spy days amid the challenges of a post-9/11 world.

Part Onedescribed "a business-IT alignment project like few others," although it mainly served to introduce CIO magazine's broad readership to the unfamiliar world of a walled-off intelligence agency, waxing on about the hyper-security at Langley.  Part Two similarly was background on the bureaucratic culture of the agency and its relegation of IT to backwater status - until 9/11 came along.

Today's Part Three, though, attempts to examine "how CIO Al Tarasiuk got both high-level and low-level CIA employees to think about critical intelligence-sharing processes and showed that IT can be a valued partner."  That was symbolized when new Director Mike Hayden realigned the CIO to be a direct report, unlike his predecessor. 

For many of the readers of CIO magazine outside government, that will be a familiar point of contention, as commercial enterprises have addressed the same problem of aligning the IT shop more directly with the business side.

Today's installment also mentions Tarasiuk's admirable emphasis on better project management, SOA, and the new enterprise data layer (which my group consulted on from DIA in 2006-07).   That data layer, to my judgment, doesn't yet earn the adjective "enterprise," since it includes only the most basic data sources so far, but it isn't for lack of an overarching vision - it lags only because of the symbiotic deficits of money and enthusiasm to tackle the problem.  One true comment, buried near the end of today's article, states matter-of-factly, "There are also thousands of databases across the intelligence community whose contents may or may not need to be connected." 

By the way, a sidebar story on the much-lauded Intellipedia has a helpful link to an earlier story in sister publication ComputerWorld with the origins of Intellipedia and other Web 2.0 approaches in the IC, some of which I was involved with back in the day. 

Overall, Tarasiuk is getting well-deserved attention for his battles (truth in advertising - I know Al personally), and  I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Part 4, promising to cover "CIA's efforts to use new applications and Web 2.0 technologies." 

Front-Lines of the Debate on "Government 2.0"

Speaking of 2.0, if you'd like a really up-to-date and incisive look at "Government 2.0," I recommend reading two pieces in tandem - they essentially serve as a pointed debate with each other.   Mark Drapeau of National Defense University just published "Government 2.0: An Insider's Perspective" on Mashable.com, and makes clear his understandably enthusiastic embrace of social media for government organizations.  He writes about the "many potential benefits for our military forces and associated civilians."

Meanwhile, Ted Cuzzillo has published "Government 2.0: The Problems of Empowerment" in Enterprise Systems Journal, which holds that the buzz about enterprise 2.0 approaches in general is "just more theory and fanfare."   Cuzzillo says that "Alarms go off in my head when I hear nothing but optimism," and he recommends a healthy amount of skepticism, particularly about the likelihood of bureaucratic cultures easily adopting the social-sharing openness of the 2.0 wave, whether the tech tools are powerful or not.

I give the edge to Drapeau's optimism, but note that he approvingly quotes John Hale of the DNI's IC Enterprise Services office as saying "It’s not about technology. It’s about people and information sharing."   So there's something to be learned from both sides in this grand debate, which we will all participate in over the next few years, as technologists or as members of the polity, through efforts to reform and improve government.

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Almost two years have passed since President George W. Bush publicly acknowledged the existence of a CIA program in which agency-leased aircraft fly terror suspects between secret prisons and interrogation sites around the world. >>>>> 

"O conspiracy,  Sham'st thou to show thy dang'rous brow by night,  When evils are most free? " - William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (Brutus at II, i)

NSA Failures

One thing that made very little sense to me about the intelligence community’s performance before 9/11 was the story of the NSA’s intercepts of calls between the hijackers in the US and al-Qaeda's global communications hub in Yemen. The NSA intercepted and analyzed multiple such calls between February 2000 and 9/11 (see here, here, here and here), but, for some reason never adequately explained, never bothered to trace the calls, even though the FBI had specifically requested it be notified of all calls between the hub and the US. There was also a lot of weirdness generally surrounding the calls (see here, here and here), and the failure to exploit them to prevent the attacks was used justify Bush’s warrantlesss wiretapping programme after 9/11.The calls clearly could have been exploited to prevent the attacks—some of them were made from phones registered to Nawaf Alhazmi in San Diego, and the NSA knew he was a terrorist and had begun intercepting his calls in other countries in 1999, at the latest. All they had to do was trace them, and then tell the FBI there was a major-league terrorist living openly in San Diego. All the FBI would have had to do was follow him, and he would have led them to all the other hijackers; the hijackers’ operational security was awful, the various teams lived and banked together, as well as obtaining ID cards together.

Official Explanation Makes No Sense

NSA Director Michael Hayden said that after 9/11 he realised ”there are no communications more important to the safety of this country than those affiliated with al Qaeda with one end in the United States.” Think about this-he's telling us he didn't realise this before 9/11. Do you believe that?Before 9/11 the NSA knew that al-Qaeda’s main global communications hub, which was involved in the 1998 embassy bombings and, reportedly, the 2000 USS Cole bombing, was calling people in the US, and knew the FBI wanted information about this, but failed to identify the party in the US and inform the FBI because, according to what Hayden told the 9/11 Commission, “it believed this was an FBI role,” (page 87-88 of the final report).How could the FBI have got a warrant to trace the US end of the call—a call they did not know about? This is a Catch 22 situation. The NSA wouldn’t trace the US end, because, allegedly, it thought this was the FBI’s job. But it wouldn’t tell the FBI about the calls so the FBI could investigate them either.If this were indeed NSA policy before 9/11, then that would mean the NSA systematically failed to trace the US end of all communications between top al-Qaeda leaders and operatives in the US–and presumably all such calls between members of other terrorist organisations as well. This is despite the fact that the NSA could legally have done so.

What Is Really Going On

Hayden’s post-9/11 implication that the US intelligence community failed to trace the US end of all such calls is incredible and cannot be true. However, what may really be going on here is that the NSA did not officially trace the US end of the calls because this was being done elsewhere—in some sort of shady semi-legit, off-the-books type operation—and the NSA knew this. One reason for this could be that the NSA (or someone else?) did not want the information to get to another element of the US intelligence community, such as the FBI, because it was worried that such element might disrupt a sensitive intelligence operation involving the surveillance targets (i.e. the FBI might have arrested the hijackers before they could fly a plane into the Pentagon).This is where Main Core comes in. From where I’m sitting, it, or one of the programmes it was used to support, certainly fits the description of the off-the-books programme that must have been used to monitor the hijackers. The existence of such a programme would also explain why the CIA took a series of measures to conceal information about the hijackers from the FBI. And it would of course explain why a government document dated 11 September 2001 states, of the Flight 77 hijackers, "3 indiv have been followed since Millennium + Cole."So, if there was additional surveillance of the hijackers (or perhaps something more sinister?) that we haven’t heard about, the odds are that it is here, closely linked to Main Core. And there is talk of a Church Committee-style investigation into it. Such investigation could, but not necessarily would, expose a lot about 9/11 that is still under wraps.

Al-Qaeda is near defeat, according to CIA director Michael Hayden. He said the organization collapsing in its strongest areas, Saudia Arabia and Iraq. He also cited global advances as the religion of Islam distances itself from its extremists.

"Near strategic defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al Qaeda globally -- and here I'm going to use the word 'ideologically,' as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam," Hayden said this morning in a Washington Post interview.

Reuters

Bush releases climate change report

The White House bowed in to a court decision and released a climate change report online yesterday. The report reiterates much evidence like the spread of heat-loving pests and the effect of rising sea levels. It also projects the health effects of a warmer global climate.

The Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States predicts heat waves will pose a threat to children and elderly adults. It estimates the spread of the spread of food and water-borne diseases plus animal-spread viruses like West Nile.

A 1990 law requires the president to submit to Congress a report on global climate and the environment every four years. The last report was released by the Clinton Administration. Bush releases a series of reports in 2003 but a circuit judge decided that didn't fit the requirements.

NY Times

Bush authorized Libby leak

Scott McClellan's controversial memoir hasn't even been published yet, and is already creating a stir. It not only criticizes the administration but brings to light new information regarding the Scooter Libby leak case. According to the book, President Bush personally authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified information, including the identity of Valerie Plame, to select media sources.

The AP provides this excerpt:

The president was leaving an event in North Carolina, McClellan recalled, and as they walked to Air Force One a reporter yelled out a question: Had the president, who had repeatedly condemned the selective release of secret intelligence information, enabled Scooter Libby to leak classified information to The New York Times to bolster the administration's arguments for war?

McClellan took the question to the president, telling Bush: "He's saying you yourself were the one that authorized the leaking of this information."

"And he said, 'Yeah, I did.' And I was kind of taken aback," McClellan said.

"For me I came to the decision that at that point I needed to look for a way to move on, because it had undermined, I think, a lot of what we had said."

Huffington Post

ANALYSIS: Funny moment, and excellent movie.  In its honor, below I'm going to give you access to a remarkable, recently declassified document describing one of America's boldest Cold War technical achievements.  If you've ever run (or wanted to run) a high-tech company or program, like Tony Stark in the movie, you'll appreciate the startling scope of the work - and if you've recently worked in DoD or the Intelligence Community you'll marvel at how they did it "in the good old days."

A few days ago I wrote about the A-12 high-altitude spy plane, the once-top-secret precursor to the more heavily publicized SR-71. Since the program was declassified last fall, a long-retired A-12 has now been installed over in the parking lot at CIA headquarters at Langley. 

This morning I got a comment on my blogpost from none other than Col. Ken Collins, USAF ret'd and legendary A-12 pilot for the CIA, who was present at the Langley unveiling ceremony last fall.  It means a lot for a guy like Ken (flying call sign "Dutch 21") to have written in response to my post: "This is a great article for an amazing triple-sonic aircraft, the world’s first Mach 3.3, 90,000 feet combat aircraft… one year before the SR-71 was deployed. I flew them both."  Here's more on Ken and his colleagues, and here's a great story of the time Ken had to eject....

So how does a government agency wind up being able to accomplish such engineering feats as those required to build an A-12?  At the Langley unveiling ceremony last fall, CIA Director Gen. Hayden's remarks captured the audacity of the project as it began in the waning years of the Eisenhower Administration: "The goal was an aircraft that could outrun any Soviet missile. [Lockheed's Kelly] Johnson, the visionary behind development of the U-2, shared his idea for something even more revolutionary: A long-range, radar-evading plane that would fly three miles higher and more than four times faster than the U-2."

If you've ever had the pleasure of overseeing a multimillion-dollar secret program, as I did repeatedly at DIA for four years, you know that there are challenges to managing a distributed engineering program within the contraints of secrecy and government red-tape.  Yet I was doing so in the era of instantaneous global communications; I could get my engineers and managers on classified "face-phones" (desktop videoteleconferencing or DVTC machines) at the press of a button, from Korea to the Middle East or simply from another floor in the DIA building; I could call up spreadsheets and project files with a snap to track the current status of work; we even had some projects tracked in SharePoint wiki's updated by distributed users in realtime.  

Imagine the challenges of an enormous program like designing and building a revolutionary craft like the A-12 - and doing so in the strictures of secrecy at the height of the Cold War.  Plus, no email! 

It boggles the mind.  They were giants in those days....  So Ken Collins' pride in the plane made me hunt down the story of how it was done.

I recommend that anyone with an interest in technology, aviation, management, or even Cold War history, read Clarence "Kelly" Johnson's own account of how the storied Lockheed Skunk Works accomplished building this early stealth aircraft.  The CIA has done you a favor: they've recently declassified the official "History of the OXCART Program" which he wrote in the summer of 1968, as OXCART was shutting down and the SR-71 took on the single mantle of aerial high-altitude manned reconnaissance.  

You can get this formerly "Top Secret" History document here on the CIA's list of declassified A-12 documents  - see "History of the OXCART Program" near the bottom of the first-page list. The 25-page report is eye-opening, offhandedly funny in places, and remarkably candid.  The description of a decade of innovative work captures,  as Gen Hayden said in his remarks last fall, an important lesson we can draw from OXCART: "pioneering scientific achievement requires not only genius, but patience and discipline."

And by the way, just to remind you of the flavor of just how cool and extraordinary the A-12 program was, here's a snippet from pilot Ken Collins' own description of his induction into the CIA's Project OXCART published online for the A-12 and SR-71 alumni group:

At this phase (April 1961) of the overall evaluation we did not know for what we were being evaluated... I was scheduled for my “astronaut” physical at the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is the same facility that the original astronauts received their medical evaluations. It was also the medical facility for the original U-2 pilots. I discovered this after I ran into and met Francis Gary Powers at the clinic.... I was told that it was not the astronaut program, but a project to fly and test an exotic new airplane for the Central Intelligence Agency. Still there was no pictures or any other details....

The first time I saw the A-12 or even heard the name was in December 1962 after I arrived at Area 51. Colonel Doug Nelson, Project Operations Officer, took me to the hangar and let me walk in by myself. What an amazing sight! There were no hangar lights. The sunrays entered the upper hangar windows illuminating only the nose and the spikes. As your eyes adjusted to the restricted light, you began to take in its sleek length, the massive twin rudders and its total blackness.  A vision that will never be forgotten."

Go here for more photos of the A-12 and its sister ships.  Anyone still wondering how the rumors got started of UFO's at Area 51?

Postscript: By the way, if you've seen "Iron Man," you'll find it funny that one apparent model for Stark Industries is Lockheed Martin  - a comparison that has been blogged about, with one blog-commenter from the world of LMCO employees claiming that "Lockheed Martin gave Jeff Bridges a day with LM VPs and a VIP tour of its facilities, so he could get an idea of what its like to work for a DoD contractor!!"  If you're interested in the real-life story of Lockheed genius Kelly Johnson and his Skunk Works programs, you can read his own autobiography, "Kelly," or the broader history "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich.

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The evening's billed highlight was the awarding of the annual BENS Eisenhower Award to Sec. of Defense Robert Gates, who gave just a phenomenal speech (see Reuters and AP coverage today, and the full text here). I blogged a couple of days ago about his speech to the Heritage Foundation, which I read the text of, but seeing Gates deliver this speech really impressed me, to be honest. He comes across as sincerely dedicated to fixing some of the fundamental problems of DoD and the intelligence community (his career after all was at CIA and he is obviously a thoughtful critic of the DNI structure and "reforms").  I sat there wondering whether Gates would be willing to continue at the Pentagon in the next Administration (odds are much higher of that with a McCain victory, obviously, and infinitesimal otherwise).

Brent Scowcroft introduced Gates with a warm and witty tribute, and it was nice to see him in person.  He told several jokes making fun of the Beltway culture, getting big laughs. Gates continued in kind at the beginning of his remarks, before he got serious - keep reading for one of Gates's best jokes:

The festivities this evening – the cocktail hour, wine with dinner – remind me of the risks of government officials drinking in public.  Some years ago, a European foreign minister who shall remain unnamed, and who was a notoriously heavy drinker, was on a trip to South America.  And he showed up at an official reception in Peru and was quite drunk.  There was music playing and he invited a passing guest in a flowing gown to dance.  The guest somewhat haughtily replied, “First, sir, you are drunk.  Second, this is not a waltz – it is the Peruvian national anthem. Third, I am not a woman.  I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima.”

I say that Gates was the "billed highlight" because to me another fun part of the evening was having a chat with some Washington celebrities.  At one point  I said excitedly to my wife,  my wife excitedly said to me, "Look!  There's Charles Krauthammer!!"  [Blogger's Note: my wife, an infrequent-reader of this blog, says she noticed him first.]

I have loved Krauthammer's column for many years, and told him so; we had a nice time talking about his TV gig on Fox News. He noticed my University of Virginia bow tie, and I commiserated with him for having to put up with two of my fellow Cavaliers, Fred Barnes and Brit Hume (both Class of '65), who have been lifelong friends even predating college. (I only know that because Hume told some funny stories in an interview in the UVa alumni magazine a couple of months ago).

A little later, we happened upon the legendary John McLaughlin, inimitable host of the McLaughlin Group.  (Well, he's actually imitable, at least by Dana Carvey.)  He laughed when I addressed him as "Father McLaughlin," because of his long-ago priestly position, and was supremely happy when I began the conversation by mentioning his local channel switch last week - yes, I am a regular viewer, and teased him about his direct-to-camera address at the end of last week's show explaining why the show had changed from one local station to another. Coddling those remote-wielding viewers!

I was also able to tell Mike Hayden that I will be dropping off at his office his autographed copy of James Swanson's best-selling book "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer."  Kathryn and I ate dinner with Hayden and his wife last month at the Lincoln Assassination memorial event put on by Ford's Theater and the National Portrait Gallery, and Hayden really enjoyed Swanson's talk about the assassination and its aftermath - with James and Mike both loving battlefield tours, we all wound up having an engaging chat about the War and the study of history.  James is a good friend who is now working on another Civil War book, about the pursuit of Confederate President Jefferson Davis at the end of the war.

So now I'm thinking of getting James this T-shirt...

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Am 3. April 2008 hatten wir exklusiv über eine geheime Studie der CIA berichtet, nach der die CIA intern spätestens um das Jahr 2020 herum in vielen europäischen Ballungsgebieten Bürgerkriege erwartet. Einige haben unserer Redaktion deshalb »Panikmache« und nicht belegbare »Spekulationen« vorgeworfen. Zu jenem Zeitpunkt war die CIA-Studie noch als geheim eingestuft. Nun ist CIA-Chef Michael Hayden selbst an die Öffentlichkeit getreten – und warnt eindringlich vor den sich abzeichnenden Bürgerkriegen im Herzen Europas ...

CIA-Chef Hayden wird von der renommierten Zeitung Washington Post mit den Worten zitiert, Europa werde weiterhin ein starkes Anwachsen der moslemischen Bevölkerungsgruppe zu verzeichnen haben. Zugleich würden die Geburtenzahlen der alt eingesessenen europäischen Bevölkerung weiter sinken. Die Integration dieser moslemischen Migranten werde die europäischen Staaten vor große Herausforderungen stellen – und das Potential für Bürgerkriege und Extremisten deutlich erhöhen (Quelle: Washington Post Mai 2008). Hayden machte diese Aussage bei einer öffentlichen Rede an der Kansas State University.

Der CIA-Chef machte damit die Zusammenfassung einer von uns schon am 3. April 2008 zitierten CIA-Studie aus dem Frühjahr 2008 über Globalisierung, Migration und drohende Bürgerkriege zum ersten Mal öffentlich. In der von KOPP EXKLUSIV schon im  April vorgestellten CIA-Studie wird die »Unregierbarkeit« vieler europäischer Ballungszentren »etwa um das Jahr 2020 herum« prognostiziert. In Deutschland fallen darunter angeblich: Teile des Ruhrgebietes (namentlich erwähnt werden etwa Dortmund und Duisburg), Teile der Bundeshauptstadt Berlin, das Rhein-Main-Gebiet, Teile Stuttgarts, Stadtteile von Ulm sowie Vororte Hamburgs.

Ähnliche Entwicklungen sieht die CIA für den gleichen Zeitraum in den Niederlanden, Belgien, Frankreich, Großbritannien, Dänemark, Schweden und Italien. Die Studie spricht von »Bürgerkriegen«, die Teile der vorgenannten Länder »unregierbar« machen würden. Hintergrund der Studie sind Migrationsbewegungen und der mangelnde Integrationswille von Teilen der Zuwanderer, die sich »rechtsfreie ethnisch weitgehend homogene Räume« erkämpfen und diese gegenüber allen Integrationsversuchen auch mit Waffengewalt verteidigen würden. Die CIA behauptet vor diesem Hintergrund, dass Teile Europas »implodieren« und die Europäische Union in ihrer derzeit bekannten Form wohl auseinander brechen werde.

Die CIA ordnet schwere Jugendunruhen, wie sie sich in den letzten Monaten in französischen Vorstädten, in den Niederlanden, in Dänemark, Großbritannien und Schweden ereignet haben, als »Vorboten« dieser kommenden Bürgerkriege ein. In den kommenden Jahren werde die Kriminalität unbeschäftigter Kinder von Zuwanderern steigen, die steigenden Sozialausgaben der europäischen Staaten würden nicht reichen, um diese Bevölkerungsgruppe dauerhaft ruhig zu stellen.

Die CIA-Studie weist darauf hin, dass schon jetzt in einigen europäischen Staaten bis zu 70 Prozent der inhaftierten Straftäter (beispielsweise in Spanien wie auch in Frankreich) aus dem islamischen Kulturkreis stammen. Europa werden von einem beachtlichen Teil der Migranten als schwach und dem Untergange gewidmet gesehen. Die Gesetze, Werte und Normen würden nicht anerkannt. Damit steige das Unruhepotential für die kommenden Jahre beachtlich.

A CIA deu a conhecer esta foto (não datada) que mostra um reactor nuclear em construção na Síria. A Casa Branca quebrou o silêncio sobre o misterioso ataque aéreo israelita, a 6 de Setembro de 2007, confirmando que o alvo foi aquele reactor que andava a ser construído com a ajuda da Coreia do Norte.

O director dos serviços secretos norte-americanos, Michael Hayden, revelou aos jornalistas que esse reactor nuclear sírio era semelhante ao reactor norte-coreano de Yongbyon e que estaria a poucas semanas ou meses de ficar concluído.

No espaço de um ano, já teria produzido plutónio suficiente para uma ou duas armas.”

]]> http://svnlsenetter.wordpress.com/?p=730 Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:22:01 +0000 Anders http://svnlsenetter.pt.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/al-qaeda-grooming-militants-who-look-western-cia-chief/ YAHOO! NEWS / AFP: Al-Qaeda grooming militants who 'look western': CIA chief

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The head of the main US spy agency has warned that Al-Qaeda is training operatives who "look western" and could enter the United States undetected to conduct terrorist attacks.

Central Intelligence Agency Director General Michael Hayden also said the terror network, which over the past 18 months has established a "safe haven" in Pakistan's tribal areas along the Afghanistan border, has shed its operational reliance on mastermind Osama bin Laden.

(...)

Hayden also stressed that while he was confident Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden was still hiding out near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Saudi-born fighter no longer has operational control over the terror network.

This now lies with Egyptian militants, he argued, although he said bin Laden remains an "iconic figure," and the CIA is making "every effort to kill or capture" him along with his Al-Qaeda lieutenants. (Emphasis added throughout)

(...)

AQIKJH - al-Qaida-indoktrinerte-kvasi-jihadist-hvitinger....

Le? Gråte?

Er det virkelig noen som tror at CIA og USA gjør hva de kan for å få has på bin Laden? Hvor vanskelig kan det være, med ressursene de har for hånden? Absurd-Orwelliansk ...

Kanskje det snart begynner å demre for folk?

DETTE ER EN KRIG MOT OSS ALLE!

PS - Takk for tipset, Elmer.

All American oversight agencies agreed in the N.I.E.'s statement that the conclusion that Iran had no nuclear weapons development program was accurate to a very high degree of probability. Since then, while officials in the administration (including Bush) have said that they did not accept this conclusion, to my knowledge no one has offered any reason for rejecting the clear conclusion of all the country's intelligence agencies. Last week Cheney announced without any support whatsoever that Iran was heavily engaged in a nuclear weapons program.

(While I'm on the subject of the National Intelligence Estimate, I would also like someone in the administration to address the repeated statements in this annual report that Iraq is serving as a training ground for terrorists, resulting in a substantially increased threat of terrorism. I have yet to hear -- and maybe I just missed it -- a reasoned debate of this conclusion reached by the agencies that are supposed to know about terrorism.)

I was alarmed by the recent public statement of the director of the C.I.A., Michael V. Hayden. He now appears to take issue with his own National Intelligence Estimate. This of course would not be alarming if there was any data to warrant a different conclusion. One would presume that there might be a different conclusion if there were events subsequent to the report that were inconsistent with the events relied on in the report. He however asserts that proof of the existence of this program lies in Iran's willingness to suffer penalties rather than open itself to inspections. This is after the U.S. agreed to the U.N. imposed sanctions and without any evidence whatsoever of Iran's failure to comply with the edict to stop nuclear weapons development.

Hayden, however, publicly asserted that there was the threat of nuclear weapons development in Iran because there was no new information since the opposite conclusion was reached. This of course is not in keeping with conventional notions of logic. There are other explanations for not allowing inspections. The United States for example has historically resisted inspections itself based on its national sovereignty.

Fox News Sunday: Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) & Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI)

Meet The Press: CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, then The New York Times’ David Brooks and Peter Beinart of the Council on Foreign Relations and The New Republic

Face the Nation: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, then Clinton supporter Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, followed by Democratic strategist Joe Trippi and John Dickerson of Slate

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The passport file of any American could be exposed, but there have been only a few breaches of the Passport Office's security system, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday.

Those few incidents were likely "imprudent curiosity," he said.

Original DVD cover.
(Sean looks better with a hat, doesn't he?)

The issue of exposed passport files came to light during the past two days as the State Department revealed the files of the three presidential contenders, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, and Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, had been accessed without authorization.

A State Department source said passport files contain scanned images of passport applications, birth date and basic biographical information, records of passport renewal and possibly citizenship information.

March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she personally apologized to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for a security breach in which three contractors looked at his passport information.

...snip...

The State Department has fired two of the contract employees and disciplined the third after senior managers discovered the workers at three locations looked at Obama's personal data on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday.

The department's inspector general will be asked to conduct a review and internal lawyers are looking into whether any laws were broken, Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, said yesterday. The State Department is also investigating whether the individuals did anything with the information, he said.

...snip...

McCormack and Kennedy said they were looking into what information was accessed. The workers read Obama's passport application among other records, the Washington Times, which reported the story earlier, said.

...snip...

Kennedy is going to Obama's office today to continue to review the matter.

From Time:

The State Department is under fire for the revelation that employees or contractors for the agency were snooping through the passport records of three presidential candidates, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, at different points over the last year. But at the same time agency workers were breaching the files of those high-profile individuals, it turns out that the Bush Administration was in the process of greatly expanding the number of agencies and foreign governments that have routine access to that same database. Called Passport Records, the sensitive computer system includes all documents, photographs and information attached to passport applications and renewals.

Under new guidelines printed in the federal registry on January 9, the same day Obama's records were first breached, the Bureau of Consular Affairs allows the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counter-Terrorism Center, "foreign governments, and entities such as Interpol" to link into the same system.

...snip...

The expanded access does not appear to be related to the breaches of the candidates' records. But privacy experts are concerned nonetheless, because the move is part of a trend in which more and more of citizens' personal information is being put at the fingertips of a growing number of government employees.

...snip...

What kind of personal information do these Passport Records actually contain? [...] That [passport] application has your address, Social Security number, phone number, the name and number of your emergency contact and your photograph. The records also have information on any attempts to change the status of your citizenship, which is what employees in the elder Bush Administration were suspected of looking for in Bill Clinton's records in 1992.

Like Poppy, like son? The Chimpy apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

A search by name or passport number can also dredge up other items that have been attached to the file, such as court orders, arrest warrants, financial reports and even medical reports, according to the public State Department records.

Senior managers at the State Department are rightly embarrassed they weren't notified about the high-profile breaches before a reporter's inquiry.

...snip...

We don't know yet if the individuals who engaged in the candidates' browsing passed the information on to someone else. But changes at the State Department have certainly made it easier to access those records, not harder.

What companies were involved?

March 22 (Bloomberg)...
The two companies that gained unauthorized access to Obama's passport files were Stanley Inc. and Analysis Corp., the State Department said in an e-mailed statement.

Stanley is a 3,500-person Arlington, Virginia-based company that this week won a $570 million State Department contract to continue passport services. Both the employees who accessed Obama's information in separate incidents were terminated the day the breach occurred, Stanley said yesterday in a statement.

Employment candidates for Stanley and its subcontractors submit to security and government-sponsored background checks and are trained in the Privacy Act, Stanley said. They also sign a statement that includes acknowledgement that they are subject to immediate dismissal, civil charges and criminal prosecution for knowingly obtaining access to information under false pretenses, the company said in the statement.

McLean, Virginia-based Analysis Corp., known as TAC, said late yesterday that the ``individual's actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at TAC and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards.''

...snip...

TAC President and Chief Executive Officer John O. Brennan is an informal foreign policy adviser to Obama's campaign. Jim Flynn, a spokesman for the company, didn't immediately return a call today seeking comment on Brennan's role in the campaign.

Brennan spent 25 years as an intelligence officer, including in the Central Intelligence Agency and as interim director of the multi-agency National Counterterrorism Center. TAC said in January 2006 that he'd been awarded the National Security Medal by then-Deputy Director of National Intelligence Michael Hayden, who is now head of the CIA.

And what is our esteemed Attorney General doing about the matter? (Also from Bloomberg):

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, speaking to reporters in Washington, said the Justice Department will likely wait for a referral from the State Department before looking into the matter.

``When, as and if we have a basis for an investigation'' into the breach ``we would conduct one,'' Mukasey said.

Kids, let's not hold our breath. Condi should be furious and itching to get to the bottom of this, but, instead of steamed Rice, I get the feeling we'll get another serving of reheated....