Showing posts with label Military Contracts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Military Contracts. Show all posts

Monday, December 28, 2009

Israeli Organ Harvesting Goes Mainstream



Israel Admits To Taking Organs Illegally
By Mark Lavie
Associated Press


The former head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute has admitted that in the 1990s, the institute's forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without the permission of their families.

The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr Jehuda Hiss.

In it, Hiss said, "We started to harvest corneas... Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family".

The Channel 2 report said that in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.

In a response to the TV report, the Israeli military confirmed that the practice took place.

In the interview, Hiss described how his doctors would mask the removal of corneas from bodies.

"We'd glue the eyelid shut," he said. "We wouldn't take corneas from families we knew would open the eyelids."

Sheppard-Hughes said she felt the interview must be made public now because "the symbolism, you know, of taking skin of the population considered to be the enemy, (is) something, just in terms of its symbolic weight, that has to be reconsidered."

Angry Israeli officials called the report "anti-Semitic."

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Get Ready For The Reapers



U.S. Now Trains More Drone Operators Than Pilots
By Edward Helmore
The Observer


As part of an expanding programme of battlefield automation, the American Air Force has said it is now training more drone operators than fighter and bomber pilots.

Three years ago, the service was able to fly just 12 drones at a time; now it can fly more than 50. At a trade conference outside Washington last week, military contractors presented a future vision in which pilotless drones serve as fighters, bombers and transports, even automatic mini-drones which attack in swarms.

Five thousand robotic vehicles and drones are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. By 2015, the Pentagon's $230bn arms procurement programme Future Combat Systems expects 15% of America's Armed Forces to be robotic.

A recent study 'The Unmanned Aircraft System Flight Plan 2020-2047' predicted a boom in drone funding to $55bn by 2020 with the greatest changes coming in the 2040s.

"The capability provided by the unmanned aircraft is game-changing," said General Norton Schwartz, the Air Force Chief of Staff. "We can have eyes 24/7 on our adversaries."

This year, the service started training career drone operators with no airborne experience. They operate out of cubicles with eight video screens.

"It is safe to say most pilots will always miss getting back in the air," said Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Turner, who trains pilots. "But we see where the Air Force is going."

Stumble Upon Toolbar

iPhone App Flies Micro-UAV



Lasers, Math Help iPhone-Bot Fly Indoors
By David Axe
Wired


This summer, MIT’s Humans and Automation Lab designed an app to turn a standard iPhone into a quick-and-dirty controller for small, smart Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The idea, according to Prof. Missy Cummings, is to keep things so simple that almost anyone can become a robot wrangler, in an instant.

“Our philosophy is that humans have important jobs they need to do, and should not worry about low-level housekeeping, telling a UAV to go from point to point,” Cummings told Danger Room.

The kinds of users Cummings imagines — Marines and soldiers in urban combat, of course, but also everyday city dwellers looking to scope out the line at the local Starbucks — need bots that work indoors, where GPS signals can’t reach.

Her team’s solution: equip a small robot with LIDAR, fast-scanning lasers that can create quick, electronic models of any environment. Plus, giving the bot new computer algorithms for sending the models back to the iPhone, in the form of simple, graphical maps.

“The goal is that a small micro-UAV can enter a window or door and then map the world, both in 2D and 3D.”

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Prepare For The Robot Revolution



Robots Ready To Run The World
By Gabrielle Pickard
Russia Today


Researchers predict there will be a surge in the worldwide dependency of robots during the next decade.

Whilst it has previously been considered it will take a long time for robots to match humans and human-controlled technology, it seems the moment is now imminent. As the International Federation of Robotics has stated, the next three years will see a phenomenal rise in the use of robots.

An intensive study into the possible achievements of robots has allowed scientists to surmise there will be an amalgamation between humans and robots. Antonio Lopez Palaez, co-author of the research and a Professor of Sociology at Spain’s National Distance Learning University said,

“Just as we depend on mobile phones and cars in our daily lives, the next 15 years will see mass hybridization between humans and robots.”

In the US robots are already being employed in logistics support by controlling unmanned vehicles. Whilst pilotless airplanes are being guided by robots, so confident are scientists of the potential of these machines, it has been suggested 40 per cent of the world’s armies will be made up of robots by the year 2020.

Armies of robots, robotic partners and workforces made up entirely of walking and talking machines, suggests the world may be heading towards a robotic revolution.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

McConnell: Global Intelligence Enterprise By 2015



Vision 2015:
Consolidation of Intelligence
Into Global Intel Network

By Michael Vail
Global Research


The Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and The Council on Foreign Relations has made public a twenty eight page document called ‘Vision 2015’ which outlines a plan to integrate the entire United States intelligence network into a global intelligence community.

“Old problems assume new dimensions: information operations with emphasis on a cyber domain, asymmetric political or military responses, and illicit trafficking. Lastly, we confront the challenge of acting in an environment that is more time-sensitive and open to the flow of information, in which intelligence sources and analysis compete in a public context established by a global media. By 2015 we will need integrated and collaborative capabilities that can anticipate and rapidly respond to a wide array of threats and risks.” –Mike McConnell (DNI)


This mammoth global intelligence project has been under wraps for some time and now the NGOs, members of elite academia and think tanks are going to unveil it in front of our eyes as if it was a brand new concept.

“Our analytic professionals will collaborate with world-class experts in academe, commercial interests, and think tanks, all with similar knowledge and personal networks. Deep expertise will require broad access to open source information, our unique collection results, and a network of outside experts.” –Mike McConnell (DNI)


Our world has slowly been globalized from the economic sector to health, wealth and trade. The direct and after effects of the IMF [International Monetary Fund], WTO [World Trade Organization], and WHO [World Health Organization] are well known but just imagine the power and influence that will be wielded by those who will control our spy satellites and command intelligence forces around the world.

“By 2015, the Intelligence Community will be expected to provide more details about more issues to more customers. We anticipate different types of customers — with greater expectations — and new demands to change the basic engagement model by which we serve them.

Greater systems interconnectedness increases the need to identify vulnerabilities emerging at the nexus of multiple systems (e.g., critical information infrastructures, disruptions in energy supplies, fragile financial markets, and climate change-related spread of diseases) and the potential for multiple, simultaneous crises." –Mike McConnell (DNI)


The intelligence agencies which provide geopolitical statistical data and analysis increasingly have to compete with multinational corporations who have former high-level military generals on staff making six figure salaries. Booz Allen Hamilton, Blackwater Worldwide, SAIC [Science Applications International Corporation] and others have Intel analysts who have been providing services to not only the NSA [National Security Agency], NGA [National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency], and NRO [National Reconnaissance Office] but also to foreign governments. These multilateral corporations offer their services to the highest bidder. Everything is for sale in this global economy.

“The opportunity now exists to tap into a vastly larger amount of expertise than was previously available to intelligence.

The new paradigm, in contrast, will focus on “open source” information and reach out to a wide variety of experts who are non-intelligence professionals drawn from different sectors and often non-Americans.” –Roger Z. George (CIA)


Globalization dissolves our borders, strips us of our independence and renders us dependant on unstable nations for our daily bread and clothes on our backs. This should be a stark example for anyone who would rely on this government for the protection of their life and liberty. The only way to survive in this new dark age of global governance is to become self reliant. Let’s establish our own intelligence network on and off the internet.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Friday, May 23, 2008

Monday, May 19, 2008

***PMC Profile - SAIC***



Washington's $8 Billion Shadow
By Donald L. Barlett
James B. Steele
Vanity Fair


One of the great staples of the modern Washington movie is the dark and ruthless corporation whose power extends into every cranny around the globe, whose technological expertise is without peer, whose secrets are unfathomable, whose riches defy calculation, and whose network of allies, in and out of government, is held together by webs of money, ambition, and fear. You've seen this movie a dozen times. Men in black coats step from limousines on wintry days and refer guardedly to unspeakable things. Surveillance cameras and eavesdropping devices are everywhere. Data scrolls across the movie screen in digital fonts. Computer keyboards clack softly. Seemingly honorable people at the summit of power—Cabinet secretaries, war heroes, presidents—turn out to be pathetic pawns of forces greater than anyone can imagine. And at the pinnacle of this dark and ruthless corporation is a relentless and well-tailored titan—omniscient, ironic, merciless—played by someone like Christopher Walken or Jon Voight.

If there were such a company it might look a lot like the largest government contractor you've never heard of: a company known simply by the nondescript initials SAIC (for Science Applications International Corporation)...

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Sunday, May 18, 2008

***PMC Profiles - Carlyle, BoozAllen, & Mike McConnell***



Who is the Carlyle Group?

The Carlyle Group is a private equity fund – a group of financial advisers that invests large sums of money from pension funds, large corporations, wealthy individuals and foreign banks into privately held companies in many different industries, and then run those companies until the market is right to sell them at a substantial profit. During the early years of the George W. Bush administration, it gained attention – and some notoriety – because of the large number of former high-ranking political figures it had attracted as advisers and managers. They included former President George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of State James Baker and former British Prime Minister John Major.

Shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, Carlyle was in the news again when newspapers revealed that Osama Bin Laden’s family in Saudi Arabia – which owns one of the world’s largest construction companies – held a stake in the fund...





Shadowy Intelligence Agency

Booz Allen prides itself on the long-term personal relationships it has forged between its personnel and their government clients. “We stay for a lifetime,” Mark J. Gerencser, the senior vice president in charge of Booz Allen’s government contracting division, remarked in 2006. A quick study of their biographies posted on Booz Allen’s Website suggests that this is indeed true – the senior management have shuttled back and forth between the company and the government for their entire lives...





Michael McConnell

Booz Allen Hamilton’s most illustrious alumnus is Michael McConnell, the current Director of National Intelligence, the top spy job in the country, who epitomizes the term revolving door, spinning from government job to industry and back again.

McConnell was a senior Pentagon official during George Bush Senior’s administration and the first Gulf War, where he worked for Dick Cheney, then the Secretary of Defense, as the chief intelligence adviser to General Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Cheney was so impressed with McConnell’s work during the war that he appointed him to head the NSA in 1993 (he later intervened personally to convince McConnell to take the DNI job in 2007). He now oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, and thus much of Booz Allen’s government business...

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Thursday, April 17, 2008

One Nation Under Google



Google, Seeking To Diversify, Looks To Uncle Sam
By John Letzing
MarketWatch


Rob Painter doesn't fit the typical profile of a Google Inc. employee. While many of the company's new workers are hired fresh from prestigious universities, Painter, the chief technologist for Google's federal business, has a background that includes stints with U.S. Special Operations and the intelligence community. He's also well removed from the company's Silicon Valley headquarters, working out of Washington, D.C. and Virginia.

But Painter's division -- selling souped-up versions of Google Earth satellite-image technology to military, intelligence and other government organizations -- is one of many smaller parts of the company that is becoming increasingly important as it seeks to expand beyond its traditional online-advertising business.

To the benefit of Google and other companies, a policy authorized by President Bush in 2003 [U.S. Commercial Remote Sensing Space Policy] specifically directed agencies to rely more on commercial satellite companies. Since then, the private sector also has become able to provide better imagery through advancing technology.

DigitalGlobe Inc., for example, a provider of images to Google Earth, launched a satellite last fall that boasts clear pictures of earthbound objects as small as 50 centimeters across.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which collects and analyzes satellite imagery for national-security purposes, has awarded contracts to Google in the past. A spokesman for the NGA said Google Earth can be useful for everything from providing imagery during natural disasters to supporting the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The NGA was established by the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Department in the 1990s.

While versions of Google Earth sold to customers like the NGA do feature imagery accessible online by the public, Painter said that they can include enhancements such as more-frequent image updates and the means to quickly access and blend in the agencies' own specific data.

Google acquired a direct line into selling the product to U.S. intelligence agencies when it bought a startup in 2004 called Keyhole Inc. Keyhole was funded by In-Q-Tel, a venture-capital fund administered by the CIA, and its technology was rebranded as Google Earth.

"We're not only interested, we're the government agency that developed Google's technology and spun it off into the private sector," the NGA spokesman said. "We've had that stuff embedded in us since day one."

Painter, who served as director of technology assessment with In-Q-Tel, pointed out that connections developed during his years in government can be of use now, with his unit growing at brisk pace: "We're functionally more than tripling the team each year."

But Google faces a number of competitors in the market, including rival Microsoft Corp.'s Virtual Earth product. What's more, the NGA has developed its own technology, called Palanterra, which the NGA spokesman described as "exactly the same kind of system that allows you to look at a part of the world and have the maps and charts readily available along the lines of Google."

Google's contract opportunities may expand alongside a private sector progressively able to provide better satellite imagery. Its partner DigitalGlobe, for example, plans to launch a new satellite by the end of this year called WorldView-2, which is touted as a significant step forward.

"WorldView-2 will advance the state of the art ... by providing significantly expanded area coverage each day," said Steven Aftergood, a research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists. "It's a good bet that demand will follow supply."

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Monday, March 31, 2008

Air-Dropped Spy Rocks - Paranoid Yet?



Air Drop Sensor Systems
McQ Incorporated

McQ is recognized as the leading developer of air drop sensor technology using a variety of innovative approaches.

Recently, we developed for the United States Special Operations Command an airdrop weather station with satellite communications. This special unit was designed to survive an unretarded airdrop from C-130 aircraft and helicopters.

The Remote Miniature Weather Station (RMWS) is dropped from the aircraft, falls to the earth, automatically rights itself and deploys a solid state sensor pod up from the ground. The weather station provides temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, visibility, wind speed and direction.

McQ has also developed a RMWS Support System (RSS) that is a camouflaged airdrop unit that can point communications antennas to relay data via satellite. McQ has developed RemoteSense surveillance sensors that can be airdropped in camouflage packages.


Stumble Upon Toolbar

Monday, March 24, 2008

Miniature Weaponized Spy Balloons



Robot Spy Balloons Could Track Insurgents
By Sharon Weinberger
Wired


Next time you see a few colorful balloons floating through the sky, don't assume they're the remnants of a child's birthday part. A new patent describes small balloons that "may act robotically (in unison) without command input at times." The balloons, which would be powered by combustible gas, would provide "video surveillance." The patent goes on to describe the potential uses:

In modern counter-insurgency warfare, as well as domestic urban assaults, there is no substitute for knowing the quantity and exact location of enemy combatants. Satellite surveillance is certainly useful, but can be obscured by cloud cover. Unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles are also useful, but are either at elevations too high to provide the desired viewing angle or when making low passes, are only in a particular location for a brief amount of time.

Having better knowledge of enemy positions, especially in house-to-house fighting, is not only advantageous in preserving the lives of friendly combatants by pinpointing the enemy's location, strength, and weaponry. By careful targeting guided by improved surveillance, lives of innocent civilians will also be saved that would otherwise have been lost.

Soldiers have always suffered from lack of knowledge regarding what is "just around the corner". The concept of deploying a cluster of miniature surveillance balloons addresses this problem. These devices would observe activity and relay video or still image information from one to the next, the information eventually arriving at the soldiers who require the information and/or Command & Control.

These miniature surveillance balloons are essentially robots--capable of operating on their own when necessary. They also are able to operate in an intelligent cluster where together they can accomplish a goal by coordinating their efforts. Thus they become a socially interactive multiple robot system. Methods for controlling and manipulating a cluster of such robots have been described in a number of prior art references.

What is currently lacking, besides miniaturization, is the ability of a robot surveillance balloon to control its position in order to coordinate with other such balloons to effectively cover the deployment such that the desired surveillance objective is properly viewed. To do this, a balloon should have the ability to control its motion in both vertical and lateral directions.


Quite obviously, another use of such a balloon is as an explosive: "[the] unit may optionally carry a small amount of explosive to be used as a weapon if necessary."

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

DARPA Contracts Northrop & Lockheed For Next-Gen Satellites



Northrop Grumman Selected For First Phase Of DARPA F6 Next-Generation Wireless Satellite Network
Northrop Grumman Corporation
Globe Newswire

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has been awarded the first phase of a four phase advanced research contract to design and build a cluster of wirelessly interconnected free flying spacecraft.

Awarded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Phase 1 of the Future, Flexible, Fast, Fractionated, Free-Flying, Spacecraft united by Information Exchange (F6) program is a 12-month study of ways to break up a typical monolithic satellite into distributed modules. In Phase 1, Northrop Grumman will develop a satellite-to-satellite wireless network, a distributed command and control system, and network protocols.

Rather than being assembled onto a monolithic bus satellite, components of the F6 are distributed onto separate spacecraft modules. By the end of the first phase, Northrop Grumman will demonstrate essential networking and communications capabilities, will present a preliminary design and will prove the business case for this strategy. An actual flight demonstration composed of multiple satellites will be developed in subsequent phases.

The functionality of a traditional satellite will be reconstituted by a cluster of wirelessly interconnected spacecraft modules that fly in approximately the same orbit while flying freely in space. In this distributed virtual satellite system, each "fractionated" module contributes a unique capability such as command and data handling, guidance and navigation, and payload functions. At the same time, virtual and distributed satellite components do not interfere with each other, do not have to be developed on the same schedule and can be replaced more cost effectively.

The System F6 concept is enabled by five technology pillars: autonomous self-forming networks, wireless communications and power, cluster operations, and distributed computing. The combination of these elements represents a next generation space satellite structural design.

Northrop Grumman's Space Technology sector is leading a diverse team that will develop and integrate key technologies for the F6 program. This team is composed of Swales Aerospace, a division of Alliant Techsystems Inc.; NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; L3Comm; BAE Systems; Payload Systems, a division of Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Cornell University.



Lockheed Martin Team Receives $5.7 Million Contract From DARPA
By Shirleen Dorman
CNN Money

A team headed by Lockheed Martin Corp.'s (LMT) Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. received a $5.7 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to compete in Phase 1 development of the System F6 space technology program.

Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Services will deliver ground systems.

Other team members include Colbaugh & Heinsheimer, Aurora Flight Sciences and Vanderbilt University.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

U.S. War Games Causing A Stir In Southeast Asia



Korea-U.S. Joint Military Exercise Begins
The Chosun Ilbo

South Korean and U.S. forces on Sunday began Key Resolve, an annual joint military exercise that practices the rapid deployment of U.S. troop reinforcements to Korea in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula.

Until 2007 the exercise had been called "Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration of Forces" (RSOI). This year's exercise will be conducted throughout the southern part of Korea until Friday.

Foal Eagle, a joint field maneuver drill, will also be conducted during the same period.

During Key Resolve, U.S. troop reinforcements will deploy from the U.S. mainland and Pacific bases in Hawaii and Guam to mock battlefields in Korea, and South Korean and U.S. forces will conduct joint operations in preparation for war on the Korean Peninsula.

About 6,000 U.S. troop reinforcements from overseas will join 12,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea in the exercise. In addition, 9,000 U.S. troops will be on standby aboard ships at sea. The total number of U.S. troops participating in this year's exercise is similar to that of previous years.

Also participating in this year's exercise are the USS Ohio, a U.S. Navy nuclear-propelled submarine which carries 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the 93,000-ton USS Nimitz, a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered supercarrier.

North Korea has denounced the joint military exercise as a "war game aimed at a northward invasion."

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Russia & China Don't Buy Excuse For Satellite Shoot-Down



China and Russia Cry Foul Over Satellite
By David Byers
Jane Macartney
The Times


America's decision to destroy a defunct spy satellite orbiting Earth by firing a missile into outer space provoked a diplomatic row today, with both China and Russia accusing the US of having carried out a covert weapons test.

The Pentagon claimed that it had fired the missile from the Pacific Ocean to destroy the satellite - which was 133 miles above the Earth - purely because of potentially toxic hydrazine fuel on board the spacecraft which could harm humans.

However, Moscow and Beijing complained that the missile strike smacked of hypocrisy as the US had rejected a joint attempt by the two countries from banning weapons in outer space only a month ago.

A Chinese state newspaper, the People's Daily, criticized Washington for hypocrisy for rejecting a treaty to ban weapons in space proposed by Russia and China and then firing a missile at the spy satellite. Washington claims it had rejected the proposed treaty as unworkable, and said it instead favoured confidence-building efforts.

"The United States will not easily abandon its military advantage based on space technology, and it is striving to expand and fully exploit this advantage," the newspaper commentary said.

Speaking at a press conference this morning, Liu Bianca, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said, tersely: "The Chinese side is continuing to closely follow the US action which may influence the security of outer space and may harm other countries."

His words were believed to have been carefully modulated to echo criticisms leveled at Beijing by the Bush Administration when China fired its own ground-based missile into an obsolete weather satellite in January 2007.

US defense officials say their case is different because Washington, unlike Beijing, informed the public and world leaders before firing their missile.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Sunday, February 24, 2008

KillBotCon - Major Defense Robotics Contractors To Meet In Orlando

Click Picture For A Better View


SPIE Defense & Security Symposium Features Unmanned Vehicles, Sensors, And Space Missions
Vision Systems Design

Displays and demonstrations of robotic and unmanned vehicle systems are among featured events planned for the SPIE Defense + Security conference in Orlando, FL, USA, next month. The event is the largest international unclassified defense-related symposium and draws engineers and researchers from industry, academia, government, and military labs throughout the world. It will be held in the Orlando World Center Marriott Resort and Convention Center, with professional-development courses running 16-20 March, technical conferences 17-20 March, and the exhibition 18-20 March.

Nearly 1700 technical papers will be presented in 45 conferences, and approximately 5300 attendees are expected to attend. Topics range from core defense-related technologies to dual-use applications in IR sensing.

Highlights among special events are a plenary talk by The Honorable Jay Cohen, Undersecretary for Science and Technology, US Department of Homeland Security, and an industry forum talk by Sir John Chisholm, executive chairman of QinetiQ and chair of the UK Medical Research Council.

Space exploration is one focus of plenary sessions, with talks on the deep-space flight of the Hayabusa Asteroid Explorer by Hitoshi Kuninaka and Junichiro Kawaguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and protecting the Moon's environment by Jeffrey Maclure of the International Academy of Astronautics and International Institute of Space Law. Other plenary topics are display content of night-vision goggles and helmet-mounted displays, and radar sensors and imagers.

More than 435 exhibitors will present hardware, systems, and services across a wide range of IR, imaging, optics, and sensors and sensor systems technology. Exhibiting companies include FLIR Systems, L-3 Communications, Santa Barbara Infrared, Axsys Technologies, SOFRADIR, Cedip Infrared Systems, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and DRS Sensors & Targeting Systems.

The Robotics and Unmanned Systems Pavilion will feature vehicles from the DARPA Challenge autonomous-vehicle competition, robotics systems used by the US Army and Navy, and unmanned aerial vehicles currently used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pavilion exhibitors will showcase the latest technology in IR imagers, sensors, and optics used by military robots and unmanned systems.

Symposium chairs are Larry B. Stotts, deputy director for strategic technology at DARPA, and Ray O. Johnson, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Lockheed Martin and a member of the SPIE board of directors. More information is available online at spie.org/defense-security.xml.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

What You Are Witnessing Is An Accelerating Space Arms Race



China Set To Launch Record Number Of Spacecraft In 2008
American Free Press

China will launch a record number of spacecraft this year, state media reported Tuesday, amid a rise in tensions among world powers over the militarisation of space.

"China's space technology has entered a new stage. The design and manufacture of satellites takes less time, and homemade satellites are more reliable and have a longer lifespan," Yang said.

The missions this year will include two Shenzhou VII spaceships -- one of which will feature the country's first spacewalk -- two environmental satellites and a communications satellite for Venezuela.

The news comes amid rising tensions between Russia, China and the United States over the militarisation of space.

Adding to the tensions, Russia and China last week unveiled plans for a new treaty banning the deployment of any weapons in space, but the United States rejected the move as "impossible".

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Friday, February 22, 2008

Who's Keeping Tabs On 3rd Eye News?


Apparently More Than Just Your Average Conspiracy Nuts!









Stumble Upon Toolbar

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Russia Says HAARP Could Cause Polar Shift



Russian Journal: HAARP Could Capsize Planet
By Sharon Weinberger
Wired


Just when you think you've heard all the possible far-out theories behind the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Alaska, leave it to the Russians to come up with one better. Forget mind control, the Russians think HAARP is a "geophysical weapon" that's gonna capsize the planet. HAARP, just by way of a reminder for those who don't obssessively follow its progress, is a military project that's supposed to study the ionosphere and "use it to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes." In more recent years, the Pentagon has also expressed interest in using HAARP to mitigate the effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions. However, HAARP's use of an antenna array operating in the High Frequency (HF) range has also prompted tons and tons of other theories about its uses, ranging from weather control to altering human behavior.

According to this article published in a Russian military journal (and helpfully translated by the CIA-funded Open Source Center), HAARP is the ultimate superweapon:

Some Russian and foreign analysts argue that the US program is in effect a disguised idea of creation of an immensely powerful ray, a geophysical weapon, whose principle of operation is based on the use of means of influencing the processes which take place in the solid, liquid and gaseous layers of the Earth for military purposes.

It is possible to control the artificially created plasmoid (localized areas of highly ionized gas - E.L.) or a globular lightning in ionosphere by using lasers to shift the focal point of the aerials. In other words, using enormous installations, Americans plan to bombard the sky with energy beams which, when they are reflected from ionosphere, can return back to Earth in the form of low-frequency electromagnetic waves.

The opponents of the program have quite weighty reasons not to trust the soothing statements by Americans.

"The layer of ionosphere which is excited by HAARP influences the radio and electronic equipment which is installed in the military hardware: Fire control and guidance systems, fire adjustment equipment, navigation systems, etc. As a result, an aircraft or a missile will be damaged if they fly through the beam," Col Plaksin said.

And this is by far not the only consequence of implementation of the HAARP program. Compared to, say, nuclear weapons, geophysical weapons are much more powerful. And if, say, the beam is sent to Britain, it can make the country dysfunctional in a matter of seconds.

So, some scientists say that a group of the military who use the geophysical weapon might bring the economy of an entire country on its knees in a few years' time - and no one will understand anything.

The most dangerous thing is that even developers cannot say with certainty what will happen to the planet and how ionosphere will react to the attack with these rays if the system is switched to the maximum power. As is known, ionosphere and the ozone layer protect the Earth from the deadly cosmic radiation. The electromagnetic cannon of the HAARP system will damage ionosphere, and the cosmic radiation will be able to reach the surface of the planet.

Moreover, the effects of this know-how (as published) cannot be controlled, some researchers say. Even a single use of this weapon may result in so-called trigger effect which no one will be able to stop: Earthquakes, sudden cooling on the global scale, etc. In the opinion of Canadian scientist Rosalie Bertel, who is studying the effects of wars on the environment, intense disturbance of ionosphere may result in a release of huge masses of free electrons - so-called electron showers. For its part, this might result in the change of electric potential of the poles and ensuing shift of the magnetic pole of the Earth. Simply speaking, the planet will "capsize." So the location of the north pole will become uncertain.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Spying On The Public Is For The Birds - The RoboSwift



Robotic Bird Designed To Spy On Humans
By Jeanna Bryner
Live Science


A shape-shifting, robotic bird that can sweep through the skies without a peep has all the right stuff for ground surveillance and even spying on its real-life inspiration—the common swift.

Engineering students presented their design of the so-called RoboSwift at an annual Design Synthesis symposium at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. The robotic bird measures 20 inches (51cm) from wingtip to wingtip and weighs less than three ounces (80g).

By folding its feathers over one another and sweeping them back and forth, the bird changes its wing shape and the surface area exposed to the elements. The feathery adjustments boost flight efficiency and maneuverability.

The new robot has “unprecedented” features, the researchers say. It relies on only four “feathers” for morphing ability. To steer, it sweeps one wing back more than the other, creating a difference in lift force on the wings so that the craft can roll or make sharp turns in the air.

Like real birds, the robot can adjust both the wing shape and surface area continuously throughout flight. Onboard lithium-polymer batteries power an electromotor that drives a propeller, allowing RoboSwift to follow a group of real birds for 20 minutes or perform ground surveillance for an hour. The RoboSwift's propeller can also fold back to reduce air drag.

RoboSwift carries three onboard micro cameras, with two mounted on the wing and one in the belly pointing downward. A display mounted to the robo-plane’s head will beam the images to the ground where pilots can get a bird’s-eye view.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

Mobile Spy Towers - Where To Next?



SBInet Goes Mobile With Radar
By Alice Lipowicz
Washington Technology


The Homeland Security Department is adding mobile radar units to its $8 billion SBInet border surveillance system to provide extra capabilities and fill small gaps in coverage, a senior official said.

Kirk Evans, program manager for SBInet, likened the system to a football team. “We view the mobile system as a linebacker, to plug gaps in certain areas,” he said. DHS purchased 30 mobile radar units from Telephonics Corp. for $14.5 million.

SBInet is the Secure Border Initiative Network border surveillance system under construction along the U.S. land borders. The system is largely made of cameras, radars, sensors and communications equipment mounted on towers. The prime contractor, Boeing Co., has completed the first 28-mile segment in Arizona, which was conditionally accepted by Customs and Border Protection in December and is currently undergoing final testing.

The agency anticipates that imminent deployment of the SBInet surveillance system in parts of Arizona could shift illegal border crossing activity to new locations, Evans said, and CBP wants to be prepared to move the mobile units quickly to those new areas.

“We can put them up faster than we can put up towers,” Evans said.

The 30 systems will be adequate for strategic coverage of most of the Arizona-Mexico border, he said.

Assuming the initial operations go well, the agency anticipates purchasing enough mobile radar units to provide gap coverage along the entire U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada land borders.

Stumble Upon Toolbar