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Pentagon planning massive cybersecurity increase

“The US Department of Defense has approved a fivefold expansion of its cybersecurity force over the coming years in a bid to increase its ability to defend critical computer networks, The Washington Post reported. Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said the Defense Department’s Cyber Command, which currently has a staff of about 900, will expand to about 4,900 troops and civilians. The decision to expand the Cyber Command was made by senior Pentagon officials late last year in recognition of a growing threat in cyberspace, the report said.” Continue reading →

NYPD Comissioner Ray Kelly: Police to use Tera-Hertz scanners within six months

“The New York Police Department will begin using scanner technology that can see through a person’s clothes within the year, according to Commissioner Ray Kelly. ‘We’ve been looking at it for several years, looking at it with the Department of Defense, and also Metropolitan Police in London,’ he said on CBS News’ Face the Nation. New technology called Tera-Hertz scanners or T-Ray machines can be used to detect whether a person is carrying a concealed firearm. The new device utilizes T-rays, which pass through fabric and paper, but not cannot pass through metals.” Continue reading →

After riots, Mohamed Morsi declares emergency in three Egyptian cities

“President Mohamed Morsi has announced a state of emergency in three cities near Egypt’s Suez Canal, following four days of civil unrest that have left at least 40 dead and over 500 injured. Since Thursday, hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in 12 of the country’s 21 provinces, to protest against the Islamist president, the Muslim Brotherhood, and police brutality – exactly two years after the start of the Egyptian revolution. ‘We think the president is totally responsible for the conflict,’ said Khaled Daoud, a spokesman for the National Salvation Front, a disparate collection of liberal and leftist parties opposed to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.” Continue reading →

How cigarette smuggling fuels Africa’s Islamist violence

“The key role cigarettes play in facilitating terrorism has been inexplicably ignored. But it has become of urgent interest to western intelligence agencies as they seek to check al-Qaida’s diverse factions operating across the Saharan region. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has concluded that ‘cigarette smuggling has provided the bulk of financing for AQIM’. The total value of the illicit tobacco trade in north Africa is thought to exceed $1bn (£632m). The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that Africans smoke 400bn cigarettes a year, of which 60bn are bought on the black market.” Continue reading →

Peaceful Azerbaijan rally against police violence broken up brutally by police

“Azerbaijan police on Saturday brutally dispersed an unauthorised rally in central Baku, beating up and arresting scores of people, an AFP correspondent witnessed. Several dozen protesters briefly gathered in Baku’s central Sahil square to protest against the police using excessive force against peaceful protests. But police halted the rally within 10 minutes, beating up and arresting dozens of people.” Continue reading →

Obama ‘guidebook’ for targeted killings to include exemption for CIA drone strikes in Pakistan

“The administration of President Barack Obama is completing a counterterrorism manual that will establish clear rules for targeted-killing operations, The Washington Post reported. But citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said the guidebook would contain a major exemption for the CIA’s campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan. This exemption will allow the Central Intelligence Agency to continue striking Al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan for a year or more before the agency is forced to comply with more stringent rules spelled out in the document. Between 2,627 and 3,457 people have been reportedly killed by US drones in Pakistan since 2004.” Continue reading →

Julian Assange calls WikiLeaks movie a ‘massive propaganda attack’

“Speaking to students at Britain’s prestigious Oxford University by videolink from the Ecuadoran embassy in London, Assange revealed that he had acquired a copy of the script for ‘The Fifth Estate’, due to be released in November. ‘It is a lie upon lie. The movie is a massive propaganda attack on WikiLeaks and the character of my staff,’ the Australian Internet activist told the audience at the university’s Oxford Union debating club. Assange, 41, also blasted the movie for ‘fanning the flames’ of war against Iran by implying that the Islamic republic was working on a nuclear bomb.” Continue reading →

Michael Scheuer: In Mali, the interventionist establishment already is lying about “unintended consequences”

“When the relentless, war-causing interventionists in those places decided to remove Gadhafi in favor of a ‘democratic revolution’ that did not exist in Libya, or in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Pakistan, Syria or anywhere else in the Arab world, they ushered in everything that has happened since, and if they knew anything about history, the region, and the Islamist movement they would have known it. How could these genius Western interventionists know that they were deliberately opening Pandora’s Islamist Box? A few facts that should have been obvious to anyone with a bit of commonsense make a claim of ‘unintended consequences’ preposterous in the extreme.” Continue reading →