military industrial complex

Bomb Syria, Get Cyber Attacked

"The U.S. used to parade around the world, and life would go on as usual back home. But American military muscle isn’t the be all and end all anymore. Land, sea, air and space superiority are so 20th century. Cyberstrike capabilities have leveled the battlefield. And the scrappy countries are holding more bargaining chips. 'One of the risks is that you’ve got Iran talking to Russia,' says James Lewis, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'You have Iran talking to North Korea; you’ve got the Syrians talking to Iran.' The Pentagons realize the catastrophic damage that cyberattacks pose. And they want to be able to cause that damage just as much as they want to prevent it here at home." Continue reading →

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Leaked documents show massive expansion of CIA budget

"The CIA has mushroomed into the largest US spy agency with a nearly $15 billion budget as it expands intelligence, cyber sabotage and overseas covert operations, secret leaked documents showed Thursday. It shows a dramatic resurgence of the Central Intelligence Agency, once thought to be on the decline after it acknowledged intelligence failures prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. It now is the dominant colossus within the national intelligence community, expanding its workforce by more than 25 percent from a decade ago, to 21,575 this year." Continue reading →

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Washington Post: U.S. $53 billion ‘Black budget’ details leaked by Snowden

"U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government’s top-secret budget. The $52.6 billion 'black budget' for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. The Post is withholding some information after consultation with U.S. officials who expressed concerns about the risk to intelligence sources and methods." Continue reading →

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NSA’s Prism Could Cost Global IT Service Market $180 Billion

"James Staten, a Forrester analyst who follows IT services, argued in a blog post Wednesday that financial losses could prove substantially higher when other market segments are considered. In calculating his higher estimate, Mr. Staten said that in addition to the $35 billion estimated by the ITIF, vendors of hosting and outsourcing services – which offer many of the same services as cloud companies, but use different processes and revenue models — could suffer an additional $100 billion in lost business. Moreover, non-U.S. cloud service providers could lose $35 billion worth of business from international customers, as awareness grows of the surveillance activities of other governments." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA’s Prism Could Cost Global IT Service Market $180 Billion

Ten Reasons the U.S. Is No Longer the Land of the Free

"Since 9/11, we have created the very government the Framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely. The indefinite-detention provision in the defense authorization bill seemed to many civil libertarians like a betrayal by Obama. While the president had promised to veto the law over that provision, Levin, a sponsor of the bill, disclosed on the Senate floor that it was in fact the White House that approved the removal of any exception for citizens from indefinite detention. Dishonesty from politicians is nothing new for Americans. The real question is whether we are lying to ourselves when we call this country the land of the free." Continue reading →

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Julian Assange on Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the ‘sh*t-bag’ now?

"Google started out as part of Californian graduate student culture around San Francisco’s Bay Area. But as Google grew it encountered the big bad world. It encountered barriers to its expansion in the form of complex political networks and foreign regulations, it started leaning heavily on the State Department for support, and by doing so it entered into the Washington DC system. A recently released statistic shows that Google now spends even more money than Lockheed Martin on paid lobbyists in Washington. That Google was taking NSA money in exchange for handing over people’s data comes as no surprise. When Google encountered the big bad world, Google itself got big and bad." Continue reading →

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Why Conservatives Accept High Taxes, the Federal Reserve System, and Fiat Money

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"The alliance between the modern welfare state and the modern warfare state is based on the legitimacy of an ever-growing federal government: an ever-growing federal deficit, ever-increasing tax rates, and the permanence of the Federal Reserve. The liberals do not want to change the prevailing political system, and neither do the conservatives. The liberals want their welfare checks to go out, and so to the conservatives. The liberals want to push foreign nations around, and so to the conservatives. This is why taxes will not go down, the Federal Reserve will not be abolished, and the gold coin standard will not be re-established until such time as the Great Default bankrupts the federal government." Continue reading →

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All-seeing eyes focus on the sea

"The center, operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, can track as many as 50,000 aircraft at any moment. Officials say the center has reduced illegal cross-border flights from thousands per year in the mid-1980s to a handful. Initially, the focus was on drug trafficking, but has expanded over the years to include human trafficking, the smuggling of counterfeit products, and terrorist activities. The center now is testing software that will allow similar scrutiny of maritime traffic. The system would provide a comprehensive view of marine vessels within 100 miles of the U.S. coastlines. The omniscient view allows for greater coordination of agencies that might respond to a potential emergency." Continue reading →

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Bill Kristol’s Empire of Death

"What do Bill Kristol's enterprises all have in common? They traffic in murder and mayhem worldwide. They provide well-paid sinecures to 'intellectuals' to argue the case for a permanent revolution to be fought by the US to the benefit of the military industrial complex. They are heavily subsidized by the mega-wealthy who have an international agenda that does not necessarily reflect US interests. They are oblivious to public opinion in the US and are impervious to market forces. Though purporting to advocate the spread of democracy worldwide, they are disdainful of majority opinion in the US, preferring to adhere to the Straussian view that the non-elites must be lied to continuously." Continue reading →

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Pentagon requests more funding for Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’

"The Pentagon has requested $220.3 million in 2014 to bolster Israel’s 'Iron Dome' missile defense system despite broader cuts to US military spending, according to budget documents. The US Missile Defense Agency also is asking for an additional $175.9 million in fiscal year 2015 for Israel’s homegrown missile defense network, according to the agency’s budget proposal posted online. The Pentagon already invested $204 million on the system in 2011 and $70 million in 2012. US military assistance to Israel comes to about three billion dollars a year to ensure the country’s 'qualitative military edge' in the region, as mandated by Congress." Continue reading →

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