HoltesThoughts

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Prosecutors should be officers of the court first

I see it all over the place. Prosecutors who charge people based on what they can get away with rather than what is appropriate, and lawyers in general who treat justice as a big money game: How to get off those with the most money, and sock it too everyone else. This, of course is not how it is supposed to be, and you almost never will see a lawyer admit that that is the game. But I've been trying to help a family member with a judicial problem, and that is the confession I hear from all the lawyers I consult. Don't have too much more to report on this one. But when the judicial system is a game for the lawyers that is injustice and tyranny not justice. We need major reforms to the incentives and disincentives of all our major systems.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Syrian Chemical Weapons attack: False Flag or not?

Normally, I prefer to believe people are being straight up with me. I don’t’ like conspiracy theories or theorists. They usually don’t get their facts right and they usually misuse those facts to go after their personal prejudices. So it really bothers me when something doesn’t smell right and I find out that they have a point. I prefer explanations for events to follow Occams razor – the simplest explanation is often the right one.

That being so, sometimes the facts require me to agree with folks I ordinarily don’t agree with. Like in this case Pat Buchanan:

Buchanan said on Newsmax about the allegations against the Syrian Government.:

“This thing reeks of a false flag operation,” Buchanan told Newsmax. “I would not understand or comprehend that Bashar al-Assad—no matter how bad a man he may be—would be so stupid as to order a chemical weapons attack on civilians in his own country, when the immediate consequences of which might be that he would be at war with the United States.”

Unless Assad has a secret death wish Buchanan is right. It does the Syrians no good to use chemical weapons on their own people – but it is a great opportunity for Syrian Rebels seeking outside support.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/buchanan-syria-chemical-weapons-attack-reeks-of-false-flag-operation/

This makes a good place to start. For the Republicans and their front groups disinformation is a stock in trade. Crooks recognize each other. So when two crooks duke it out in public that is often when we learn the dirty laundry both sides had been hiding.

Government Claims:

The government assessment of the attack makes most of it’s claims based on Signal intelligence (Sigint) and Satellite intelligence. The administration claims:

Multiple streams of intelligence indicate that the regime executed a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21. Satellite detections corroborate that attacks from a regime-controlled area struck neighborhoods where the chemical attacks reportedly occurred – including Kafr Batna, Jawbar, ‘Ayn Tarma, Darayya, and Mu’addamiyah. This includes the detection of rocket launches from regime controlled territory early in the morning, approximately 90 minutes before the first report of a chemical attack appeared in social media. The lack of flight activity or missile launches also leads us to conclude that the regime used rockets in the attack.

So, the government’s claim is that the Syrian Government prepared for this attack and launched it early in the morning of August 21, 2013. They further complain that they have intercepts and humint intelligence. Summarizing:

… “there is a substantial body of information that implicates the Syrian government’s responsibility in the chemical weapons attack that took place on August 21.As indicated, there is additional intelligence that remains classified because of sources and methods concerns that is being provided to Congress and international partners.”

But is this information reliable?

But is this information all the information, is it accurate? The trouble with our Espionage act and our SIG-INT and SAT-INT intelligence is that the days when we could be sure the intelligence was really truly accurate are long over, and were an illusion in the first place. Secrecy and Honest intelligence analysis can go hand in hand, but depend on military officers with a kind of integrity that isn’t always in evidence anymore. Even if we concede that the missiles in the attack were fired from within Syrian Government controlled lines, that doesn’t mean that the Syrian Government necessarily fired them. It might give analysts reasonable confidence, but only if one assumes that those lines are stable. The attacks occurred at night, and the rockets were launched around 2 AM. That is plenty of time for rebels to setup and fire their weapons, with plenty of time to return to their own lines, assuming that the Syrian Army even actually in fact controls those lines by day. That is the nature of irregular warfare. A false flag is extremely possible, and if our security forces are compromised by frenemies (such as Prince Bandar’s Saudi Secret Service) then they know exactly where to position rockets to setup a false flag attack that would fool our CIA Satellites. Assuming our CIA isn’t in on the con.

So “substantial” body of information is not enough given the untrusted and untrustworthy environment we work within, and the untrustworthy past behavior of our CIA and it’s past “mistakes” all of which bear an uncanny resemblance to what is going on now.

In 2003 we were told that they had a substantial body of information to implicate Iraq in having Weapons of Mass Destruction, and supposedly the Iraqis were developing a Nuke WMD capability as well. The Iraqis were complaining that they were complying with the WMD treaty obligations they’d signed after the first gulf war but no one was listening to them. Later it turned out we were being played by an Iraqi Shiite operative who was lying to us. Facts that contradicted the official narrative were stepped on, and Colin Powell gave a presentation at the UN on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, that later turned out to be based on pure fabrication….

Understand why most of us who remember this are alarmed?

Evidence for False Flag attacks:

The Turks intercepted Al Nusra (Al Qaeda group under Prince Bandar's control) delivering chemical weapons through their country:

"The EGM identified 12 members of the AL Nusra terrorist cell and also [seized] ceased fire arms and digital equipment. This is the second major official confirmation of the use of chemical weapons by Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria after UN inspector Carla Del Ponte’s recent statement confirming the use of chemical weapons by the Western-backed terrorists in Syria."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/turkish-police-find-chemical-weapons-in-the-possession-of-al-nusra-terrorists-heading-for-syria/5336917

Dale Gavlak, who used to work at Salon but now works at “Mint Press” and Yahya Ababneh who speaks fluent Arabic were in the Damascus region, interviewing victims and investigating the subject ( http://www.sott.net/article/265653-Syrian-rebels-and-local-residents-testify-that-Saudi-intelligence-chief-Prince-Bandar-bin-Sultan-supplied-chemical-weapons-to-al-Qaeda-linked-group) They write:

Ghouta, Syria - As the machinery for a U.S.-led military intervention in Syria gathers pace following last week's chemical weapons attack, the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit. ."

Of course Syria and it’s allies are making the same claims, but nobody is listening.

”Interviews with people in Damascus and Ghouta, a suburb of the Syrian capital, where the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders said at least 355 people had died last week from what it believed to be a neurotoxic agent, appear to indicate as much."

So, the people on the ground seem to believe they were attacked by Rebels:

”The U.S., Britain, and France as well as the Arab League have accused the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for carrying out the chemical weapons attack, which mainly targeted civilians. U.S. warships are stationed in the Mediterranean Sea to launch military strikes against Syria in punishment for carrying out a massive chemical weapons attack. The U.S. and others are not interested in examining any contrary evidence, with U.S Secretary of State John Kerry saying Monday that Assad's guilt was "a judgment ... already clear to the world."

But as we found out from the Iraqi debacle, the people “on the ground” often have more accurate information about what is going on than governments:

”However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.”

The story they recount claims that some of the rebels were given weapons to use against Assad that turned out to be chemical weapons:

”Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons

when they apparently inadvertently set off the weapons they’d been given by “a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion.”

”The father described the weapons as having a "tube-like structure" while others were like a "huge gas bottle."

And of course he is describing chemical weapons . The rebels stored the weapons in tunnels and fired them at night. And he says his son died during the chemical weapons attack, apparently from weapons they’d been given by “Jabnat al Nusrat” allies. They interviewed a rebel named “J” who said:

"We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,"

Syrian Rebel Rocket Attacks:

We know that statements that Syrians can’t carry out rocket attacks are a lie because the Syrians have been successfully using Rocket launchers and rockets, starting with smaller models back in April. On Mon Jun 17, 2013 9:01am EDT Reuters reported an article by By Amena Bakr from DUBAI titled

Saudi supplying missiles to Syria rebels: Gulf source

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/17/us-syria-crisis-missiles-saudi-idUSBRE95G0DK20130617

Those were followed by anti-tank and larger rocket platforms. Reuters reporter Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN | Thu Aug 15, 2013 11:45am EDT reported:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/15/us-syria-crisis-arms-idUSBRE97E0QH20130815

Headline: “New Saudi-supplied missiles boost rebels in south Syria” “(Reuters) - Rebels in southern Syria have fired newly acquired anti-tank guided missiles supplied by Saudi Arabia in a significant boost to their battle against President Bashar al-Assad, rebel, intelligence and diplomatic sources say.

So when the administration claims that the rebels couldn’t have fired rockets, they are wrong.

Gavlak’s article then references an article by Peter Oborne, which is in the Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10271248/The-rush-to-judgment-on-Syria-is-a-catastrophic-and-deadly-error.html

”Consider this: the only beneficiaries from the atrocity were the rebels, previously losing the war, who now have Britain and America ready to intervene on their side. While there seems to be little doubt that chemical weapons were used, there is doubt about who deployed them. It is important to remember that Assad has been accused of using poison gas against civilians before. But on that occasion, Carla del Ponte, a UN commissioner on Syria, concluded that the rebels, not Assad, were probably responsible.”

So not only could the rebels use rockets and poison Gas, but they’d been caught using poison gas before.

Al Qaeda and Bandar

But the interviews by Gavlak and his confederate show some other juicy facts. Maybe, just maybe Bandar is revealing some things that he probably should have kept more circumspect. For example, while the Saudis are funding moderate rebels, most of their funds are going to the radical and the radicals refer to Bandar affectionately:

”rebels interviewed said Prince Bandar is referred to as "al-Habib" or 'the lover' by al-Qaida [Al Nusra] militants fighting in Syria.”

Bandar has also boasted recently about being in control of the Chechen Rebels against Russia.

Reuters also reported:

I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us, and they will not move in the Syrian territory’s direction without coordinating with us. These groups do not scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role or influence in Syria’s political future.”

To which Putin is said to have replied:

“We know that you have supported the Chechen terrorist groups for a decade. And that support, which you have frankly talked about just now, is completely incompatible with the common objectives of fighting global terrorism that you mentioned. We are interested in developing friendly relations according to clear and strong principles.”

The Chechen rebels that Bandar supported were doing the equivalent of Al Qaeda in Russia, attacking train stations, schools, and killing innocent people far from Chechnya. Bandar is also famous for supporting Bin Laden. Supposedly breaking with him when he started plotting 9/11, but all the attackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia or Yemen. Whose side are we on here? There is only circumstantial evidence leaking Bandar to 9/11, but the evidence there is stronger than claims that Iraq had anything to do with it – or Syria.

Following President Carter's advice:

I almost forgot the most important thing, a kind of post script. President Carter suggests:

"ATLANTA....The use of chemical weapons on August 21 near Damascus is a grave breach of international law that has rightfully outraged the world community. The United States and some of its European allies are calling for military strikes on Syria, but apparently without support from NATO or the Arab League. Predictably, Russia, Iran, and Syria are predicting dire consequences. At Syria's invitation, a U.N. investigation is already underway and will soon make its report. A punitive military response without a U.N. Security Council mandate or broad support from NATO and the Arab League would be illegal under international law and unlikely to alter the course of the war. It will only harden existing positions and postpone a sorely needed political process to put an end to the catastrophic violence. Instead, all should seek to leverage the consensus among the entire international community, including Russia and Iran, condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria and bringing under U.N. oversight the country's stockpile of such weapons."

"It is imperative to determine the facts of the attack and present them to the public. Those responsible for the use of chemical weapons must bear personal responsibility," said President Carter. "The chemical attack should be a catalyst for redoubling efforts to convene a peace conference, to end hostilities, and urgently to find a political solution."

http://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/syria-083013.html

Doctors Without borders

Doctors Without borders reports: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=7033&cat=press-release

Response to Government References to MSF Syria Statement

Over the last two days, the American, British, and other governments have referred to reports from several groups, including Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), while stating that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was “undeniable” and designating the perpetrators.

"MSF today warned that its medical information could not be used as evidence to certify the precise origin of the exposure to a neurotoxic agent or to attribute responsibility."

"On August 24, MSF announced that three hospitals it supplies in Syria’s Damascus governorate had reportedly received 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms, of which 355 died. Although our information indicates mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent, MSF clearly stated that scientific confirmation of the toxic agent was required, and therefore called for an independent investigation to shed light on what would constitute, if confirmed, a massive and unacceptable violation of international humanitarian law."

"MSF also stated that in its role as an independent medical humanitarian organization, it was not in a position to determine responsibility for the event. Now that an investigation is underway by United Nations inspectors, MSF rejects that our statement be used as a substitute for the investigation or as a justification for military action. MSF's sole purpose is to save lives, alleviate the suffering of populations torn by Syrian conflict, and bear witness when confronted with a critical event, in strict compliance with the principles of neutrality and impartiality."

"The latest massive influx of patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in Damascus governorate comes on top of an already catastrophic humanitarian situation facing the Syrian people, one characterized by extreme violence, displacement, the destruction of medical facilities, and severely limited or blocked humanitarian action."

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Two Cons and the Emperor's new clothes

The Security con and most securities cons have one important thing in common. They are both variations of the "emperor's new clothes" con. Both rely on often faulty intelligence and analysis Sometimes folks really know what they are doing, but it is easier to play the con, and cheaper. In real life the more data one has the more muddy the picture of what is going on usually is. To get information out of that data one must analyze it, and that introduces personal biases, group biases, cultural, and emotional biases. For that reason it is easier to simply apply those biases and pretend one's data is better quality than it is in fact. Both the security game and the financial game rely on secrecy to make that so much easier.

You remember the story:

A group of salesmen come to the Kings court and tell the king they are weavers of the most wonderful clothing. They arrange an audience with the king in which they pay people to help them convince the king they are selling such clothing. They show him bolts of cloth so magical that only a fool can't see it's wondrous qualities, and all the people in the room nod and pretend that they are looking at real cloth while there actually is nothing there. They then take money from him and begin pretending to weave, and next thing you know he's parading down the street stark naked. All are convinced "that only a fool can't see this cloth" and so everyone watches in awe, pretending that the clothes are magnificent. Meanwhile the grifters abscond with their takings and head for the hills. In the story sometimes a little boy notices the nakedness and points it out and that is how the con is revealed. In some versions they stone the little boy and don't realize the con until they see the grifters have robbed the pallace during the parade.

Our Financial and Security industries have been running such cons.

There are legitimate reasons to keep both economic information and military-industrial-police-security information secret and private. Ironically the main reason is to protect that information from falling into the wrong hands. However, while the "wrong hands" are usually sold to people as outside enemies. The most likely enemy to individual security, safety, privacy and wealth, is usually found in the trustees of that information. Thus we are in most danger for our personal wealth from our security personnel and from those we've trusted to invest our money. Our republic is in danger, not from outside enemies (they are a danger more to their own communities than ours), but from these grifters who are using our injust laws and spy state to steal from us and empoverish us. In the name of "security, jobs, and prosperity." We once had nice clothes, now all of us are naked because of the cons.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Catch 22 and unintended/Intended consequence

The other day in my article "Surveillance metastasizes" I wrote how the NSA has basically been spun off into various daughter organizations, Fusion Centers, and various program agencies. All this was ordered by an National Security Directive you can find at the Whitehouse website. The article detailed a few of the orders, but not all of them. But it shows how fiendishly transparent our government can be in a Catch 22 Milo Minderbinder kind of way. Anyway one of the organizations had these Instructions:

"Using the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, an interagency and inter- national law enforcement task force established in 2000 and led by ICE, to assist with combating intellectual property theft and maintaining the integrity of public health, public safety, the military, and the U.S. economy."

... and I deduced (predicted): that "We can expect to find out that NSA intelligence sharing is helping Giant Companies go after people who download movies, pirate software and who knows what else." Well I was right (of course) the referenced organization exists and is relentless in it's pursuit of housewives, teachers and other people in search of material long in the public domain:

http://www.iprcenter.gov/reports/public-service-announcements is their website. And they have a mission:

"The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) stands at the forefront of the U.S. government’s response to global intellectual property (IP) theft. As a task force, the IPR Center uses the expertise of its member agencies to share information, develop initiatives, coordinate enforcement actions, and conduct investigations related to IP theft. Through this strategic interagency partnership, the IPR Center protects the public’s health and safety, the U.S. economy and the war fighters."

"http://www.iprcenter.gov/about-us"

So they've been active since 2000. With some successes world wide! An article in the blog "Daily dot" claims " Mega founder Kim Dotcom had some key intelligence on his online activity, provided by a foreign government's spy powers" which were used to bring him down. They've also made it possible to arrest folks buying knock off purses and such in New Yorks Manhattan Garment District. That would have killed my late wife twice.

All these fusion centers and orgs are not strictly speaking NSA, so when NSA demurres from claims it spies on school teachers downloading files for teaching materials -- they are technically right. Our Catch 22 rules are secret, so if you want to see them you have to fill out a form. But what you will see, if you are ever allowed to see it, will be redacted.

Lots in the news today.

And when the NSC decided to protect "intellectual property" I'm sure they had more Kim Dotcom in mind than the school teachers they so openly went after recently. It's just easier to go after teenagers, cheap purse buyers, and moms, than Mega companies or actual Pedophiles who might be coaches at important universities or Senators, or Wall Street kleptarchs. Thus we find the FBI working with spies to go after folks protesting Wall Street instead of Wall Street. It's just easier and your benefactors will pay you. That's the law of intended/unintended consequences. Modern Catch 22.

Daily Dot: http://www.dailydot.com/politics/nsa-kim-dotcom-xkeyscore-gcsb/

PBS article on the spies spying on journalists and politicians to keep them in line: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/july-dec13/whistleblowers_08-01.html

Yesterdays' post reviewing Sirota's article:The Ghost of J. Edgar Hoover lives on

Catch 22: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Minderbinder

AP Report on court decision about NSA: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/nsa-collected-thousands-us-communications

Thursday, August 22, 2013

The Ghost of J. Edgar Hoover lives on -- A review of Sirota's article

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Strategic thinking and Corporatism

Strategic thinking means thinking about the long term effects: blow-backs, synergies, negative feedback -- suppresses an effect and positive feedback -- amplifies an effect, of our actions. Generals are taught to think strategically.

Unfortunately Generals usually get to be Colonels by following orders and tactical brilliance -- which isn't always strategically smart -- so truly brilliant Generals are rare. Less rare than you'd think however, and so we've got work by the Joint Chiefs that has looked into all of it.

Those strategies used to be public information, but I believe are now classified, and those fellows examined all these sorts of thing. Colin Powell wrote the book on Asymmetric warfare, and then burned it because he and other Generals involved in Vietnam concluded that such warfare was counterproductive strategically.

More recently they either rewrote the books or dusted them off of hidden shelves because they had to reinvent asymmetric warfare to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, with pretty much the same inconclusive and strategically stupid results. Even the expansion into other countries reminds people familiar with Vietnam of our invasions of Cambodia and Laos. And folks familiar with the backstory can see how it also involved misunderstandings and bad decisions about countries all over the world in the name of fighting communism but actually in the name of corporatism and international banking.

Ironically the international banking folks won the Vietnam war at our expense. We don't even notice when our jobs get shipped to Vietnam and China.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Surveillance metastasizes

Often the worst official crimes start out as well meaning attempts to improve the fight against criminality, but in a bureaucratic context. That is the case with NSA and it's capabilities. We are told publicly that the NSA only collects "meta information" that there is no privacy expectation on meta-information, and that therefore we should trust NSA that it will strictly enforce the law and hold it's efforts to the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and we won't spy on Americans. But this is too powerful a tool for the various police agencies in our government to keep to themselves.

From an Anti-Terrorism tool to an Anti-Drug Crime tool

So how did that NSA program get to be the basis for a massive internal spy effort? Well it starts out with a directive asking for improved capability to fight "Transnational Organized Crime"

I can't find the date on this directive. So you have an innocent sounding directive from the white house from the National Security Council dated sometime in 2012 calling for improved Intelligence and information sharing:

Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime: Enhance Intelligence and Information Sharing

The Article gives the standard boilerplate justification:

"A shift in U.S. intelligence collection priorities since the September 11, 2001 attacks left significant gaps in TOC-related intelligence. Meanwhile, the TOC threat has worsened and grown in complexity over the past 15 years. The fluid nature of TOC networks, which includes the use of criminal facilitators, makes targeting TOC increasingly difficult."

So this becomes the rationale for a program initially directed against international Crime Syndicates to become a nationwide program:

"Enhancing U.S. intelligence collection, analysis, and counterintelligence on TOC is a necessary first step, but should be accompanied by collaboration with law enforcement authorities at Federal, State, local, tribal, and territorial levels and enhanced sharing with foreign counterparts. We will also supplement our understanding of TOC involvement in licit commercial sectors to better enable policymakers to develop specific interventions. Our aim is enhanced intelligence that is broad-based and centered on substan- tially upgraded signals intelligence (SIGINT), human intelligence (HUMINT) and open sources intelligence (OSINT). This effort will be aided through greater information sharing with foreign partners and closer cooperation among intelligence, law enforcement, and other applicable agencies domestically."

The problem here is that a program aimed at international drug cartels, but operated down to the locality is going to enable spying on not only drug king-pins, but all the way down to the local pot-head who sells on the side to support his habit. In otherwords. This noble sounding objective is the rationale for a massive program that enables blanket wiretaps of millions of people.

And of course every legal issue has to be a national security issue to justify the secrecy involved:

We will augment our intelligence in step with the new TOC threats described previously. The Administration will review its current intelligence priorities, including the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, and determine how best to enhance our intelligence against the highest-level TOC threats to national security.

Decoding (note some terms skipped because not germaine):

"Enhancing SIGINT and HUMINT collection on TOC threats"...: SIGINT authorizes NSA to gather and keep phone and messaging records on targets. HUMINT allows the hiring of personnel ot infiltrate or spy on people individually.
"Coordinating with the interagency International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center (IOC-2) to utilize existing resources and databases of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Fusion Center (OFC) and SOD to share intelligence, de-conflict operations, and produce actionable leads for investigators and prosecutors working nationwide;
The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF): "Employs a strategy to focus federal drug resources on reducing the flow of illicit drugs and drug proceeds.., and conducting expanded, nationwide investigations against all the related parts of the targeted organizations." which means down to the end user essentially.; Source; http://www.justice.gov/criminal/taskforces/ocdetf.html; All folks had to do was to read these messages carefully and run down the terms and they could have seen that this order authorized a nationwide spy program. Reuters detailed from what they did, but anyone reading this directive and being able to decode the Acronyms could have predicted it.
Special Operations Division
Established in 1994, the Special Operations Division (SOD) is a DEA-led multi-agency operations coor- dination center with participation from Federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and international law enforcement partners. SOD’s mission is to establish strategies and operations to dismantle national and international trafficking organizations by attacking their command and control communications. Special emphasis is placed on those major drug trafficking and narco-terrorism organizations that operate across jurisdictional boundaries on a regional, national, and international level. SOD provides foreign- and domestic-based law enforcement agents with timely investigative information that enables them to fully exploit Federal law enforcement’s investigative author- ity under Title III of the U.S. Code. SOD coordinates overlapping investigations, ensuring that tactical and operational intelligence is shared among law enforcement agencies.
The Fusion Centers: ...are State organized entities that use wiretap information to go after general crime as directed by Governors at the State Level. There are also Fusion centers established by the Federal Government to operate various programs. The article goes on to define a number of them. I'm only sharing those directly related to domestic spying but the whole idea of fusion centers is to coordinate efforts, which usually means coordinating domestic spying, law enforcement and international spying. So the argument that "we don't spy on US citizens" is either false, or these organizations don't do anything.
De-conflict operations: First reading suggested this was an effort to prevent conflict, but it appears that this referred to the effort to ensure that every effort using spying was supported by nonspying corroborating evidence so the investigation real sources could be kept secret.
And this is a scandal as yet unrevealed:: "Using the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, an interagency and inter- national law enforcement task force established in 2000 and led by ICE, to assist with combating intellectual property theft and maintaining the integrity of public health, public safety, the military, and the U.S. economy."
The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Fusion Center: Created in June 2006, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Fusion Center (OFC) serves as a central data warehouse for drug intelligence, financial intelligence, and related investigative information, and is designed to conduct cross-agency integration and analysis of such data with a view to creating comprehensive intelligence pictures of targeted organizations, including those identified as Consolidated Priority Organization Targets—the United States’ most wanted international drug and money laundering targets. The OFC provides agencies with operational human and financial intelligence, and is staffed with agents and analysts detailed from 14 participating investigative agencies. These personnel conduct analysis to produce investigative leads, develop target profiles, and identify links between drug organizations and other criminal activity in support of drug investigations.
The International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center: In May 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the establishment of the International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center (IOC-2), an entity that marshals the resources and information of U.S. law enforcement agencies and Federal prosecutors to collectively combat the threats posed by inter- national criminal organizations. Understanding that international criminal organizations are profit-driven, IOC-2 also works with investigators and prosecutors to target the criminal proceeds and assets of inter-national criminal organizations. In recognition of the demonstrated interrelationship between criminal organizations that engage in illicit drug trafficking and those that engage in international organized crime involving a broader range of criminal activity, IOC-2 works in close partnership with the OFC and SOD.
The EPIC Border Intelligence Fusion Section: The El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), managed by the DEA, was established in 1974 to support enforce- ment efforts against drug and alien smuggling along the Southwest border. EPIC has grown over time to better support Federal, State, local and tribal law enforcement. The DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis established the Border Intelligence Fusion Section (BIFS) at EPIC in November 2010 with the objective of providing U.S. law enforcement, border enforcement, and investigative agencies with multi-source intelligence and law enforcement information to support investigations, interdictions, and other law enforce- ment operations related to the Southwest border. The BIFS is a joint, collaborative effort of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of Defense, and partners in the Intelligence Community and, as a multi-source/all threats intelligence section at EPIC, the BIFS will access and analyze intelligence and information received by and developed at EPIC in order to produce a common intelligence picture and common operating picture.; Reuters Article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-dea-irs-idUSBRE9761AZ20130807; article on NSA http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/?p=58188; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office; http://www.alternet.org/how-many-americans-are-rotting-prison-because-secret-evidence-collected-spy-agencies
Further Readings:: ttp://www.infragard-norfolk.org/; http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/05/secret-dea-unit-surveillance-authorities
Later writings by me:: On DSAC:http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-domestic-security-alliance-council.html
Additional Readings:: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/09/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-882013; http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/08/09/protecting-our-security-and-preserving-our-freedoms; Bush's Loogie: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/08/bushs-loogie.html; Forbes Editorial:http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/08/09/lavabits-ladar-levison-if-you-knew-what-i-know-about-email-you-might-not-use-it/; Forbes Lavabit article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/08/08/email-company-reportedly-used-by-edward-snowden-shuts-down-rather-than-hand-data-over-to-feds/; Guardian Articlehttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/09/lavabit-shutdown-snowden-silicon-valley