Metro Spirit national security blog

Lame

2007-03-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

The LA Times had the NSA wiretapping story before the NY Times but didn't run it.

Army Times: 'Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet'

2007-02-28T11:26:00.000-08:00

So much for Secretary Gates' prompt and open response.

'Victory Is Not an Option'

2007-02-19T05:15:00.000-08:00

Former NSA director Gen. William Odom, interviewed by the Metro Spirit last fall, had a big Sunday op-ed in the Washington Post. Everybody's talking about it.

Odom, who favors a hasty withdrawl from Iraq, takes on the "most pernicious" myths used to sell escalation. For example, that "We must continue to fight in order to 'support the troops.'"

This argument effectively paralyzes almost all members of Congress. Lawmakers proclaim in grave tones a litany of problems in Iraq sufficient to justify a rapid pullout. Then they reject that logical conclusion, insisting we cannot do so because we must support the troops. Has anybody asked the troops?

United they stand?

2007-02-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

Times of London: "Giants meet to counter US power"

This probably isn't total bullshit. And Americans should be aware how differently the rest of the world views us now.

Seeking hot TS/SCI-cleared USPER for NSA fun

2007-02-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

On Craigslist, "NSA" usually means "no strings attached." As in:

"femme seeks older butch for relaxing evenings - NSA"

or,

"Looking to provide expert, NSA oral service for hot, fit men under 30"

Sometimes, it's a different kind of recruitment ad. Looks like this job should be filled by now. But do people with these kind of qualifications still do their job-hunting on Craigslist?

E2484:Intelligence Analyst Stf
Reply to: R1076116905440@PostTrak.com
Date: 2007-01-19, 2:31PM CST

E2484:Intelligence Analyst Stf
Position based in Omaha, NE

JOB DESCRIPTION
Lockheed Martin Information Technology-Professional Services has an opening for an Intelligence Analyst to research and write comprehensive cyber threat studies of potential U.S. and Ally adversaries. Will function as the authority for cyber threat analysis on groups and countries in the CENTCOM and EUCOM AORs. Must be completely knowledgeable of CND lexicon, cyber threat tools and techniques, state and non-state threat entities. Maintain near-daily interaction with CND experts at JTF GNO, DIA, CIA, NSA, and the Service CND intelligence centers. Represent USSTRATCOM in national CND Warning working groups. Support USSTRATCOM deliberate planning-write CND intelligence inputs to OPLANS, CONPLANS, SUPPLANS. Experienced in the use of intelligence automated systems and tools, including JWICS, SIPRNET, COLISEUM, NSA Anchory, CIA Source.

Participate in future development of the U.S. International Network Activity Team (I-NAT). Coordinate the inclusion of the other 5 EYEs nations and specific organizations within the 5 EYE communities. Present briefings on I-NAT developments at 5 EYEs'' conferences. In-depth knowledge of Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew languages and cultures to facilitate open source research. In-depth knowledge of open source databases and search techniques to ensure complete situational awareness of U.S. and International CND intelligence issues that could affect the Global Information Grid. Compensation is based on qualifications, education and experience - negotiable. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer (M/F/V/D); a drug-free work place with pre-employment screening. This position will be available beginning February 1st, 2007.

Requirements: US citizen with a TS/SCI security clearance (selected applicant will be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information).

QUALIFICATIONS
Bachelors degree from an accredited college in a related discipline, or equivalent experience/combined education, with 9 years of professional experience; or 7 years of professional experience with a related Masters degree. Considered an emerging authority. Must posses a TS/SCI clearance, strong writing skills, strong communication skills, proficient in MS Office [after all that, one would hope so...]

BENEFITS
A Total Value package.
There is much to be said about the Lockheed Martin Total Value package. Part of the package involves a commitment to develop top talent from within as well as provide access to a wide range of training programs and services. There is also the opportunity to work in exceptional environments marked by: Project Significance â€¢ Quality People â€¢ Recognition â€¢ Learning and Development â€¢ Internal Career Mobility â€¢ Competitive Pay â€¢ and Excellent Benefits.

A commitment to your work/life balance.
Part of the Lockheed Martin experience includes a focus on work/life satisfaction. We offer programs and policies that include: Flexible/Alternative Work Schedules and Casual Dress at many locations â€¢ Telecommuting â€¢ Tuition Reimbursement â€¢ Employee Assistance Program â€¢ Fitness Centers â€¢ Birth/Adoption Leave â€¢ Domestic Partner Benefits â€¢ and Adoption Assistance.

COMPANY PROFILE
At Lockheed Martin, we are driven by innovation and integrity. We believe that by applying the highest business ethics and visionary thinking - everything is within our reach, and yours.

We invite you to explore the possibilities with one of the foremost systems engineering, software and systems integration companies in the world.

Exceptional choices in careers, challenges, and locations across the nation.

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company
Join in designing, building and supporting the world''s most sophisticated military aircraft. Your involvement may include: The multiservice F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) â€¢ The proven multirole fighter, the F-16 â€¢

Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems & Solutions
Enable joint operations and informed, real-time decision-making by Defense, Intelligence and Homeland Security customers. Areas of focus encompass: C3ISR â€¢ Open, flexible architectures and advanced modeling and simulation â€¢

Lockheed Martin Space Systems
Lay the foundation for future space systems. A sampling of programs includes: The world''s most powerful and advanced telecommunications satellites for government, civil and commercial interests â€¢

Lockheed Martin Electronic Systems
Pioneer, integrate and deliver cutting-edge technologies across three key areas: maritime systems and sensors, missiles and fire control programs and platforms, training and transportation solutions â€¢

Lockheed Martin Information & Technology Services
Redefine the promise and potential of both software and technology in such areas as: E- commerce and supercomputing â€¢

Diversity and inclusion
What we believeâ€¦what we live. You will find that we are both a uniquely diverse and unified team; reflecting many cultures and points of view.

An Equal Opportunity Employer.

To Apply: http://www.PostTrak.com/cgi-bin/PostTrak.cgi?RefCode=R1076116905440

RUSALMC9019-484916

* Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 265225305

Has the press learned anything?

2007-02-12T05:22:00.000-08:00

No, not a damn thing.

The military's Iran-is-attacking-us PowerPoint presentation in Baghdad on Sunday was timed to make it everyone's lead story at the beginning of the weekly news cycle.

The officials providing the "evidence" that may eventually be used to justify an attack on Iran not only wouldn't go on the record, but wouldn't give their names.

Reporters should know better than to use unverifiable information from an unknown source. Especially when the stakes are so high.

Ethics of the NSA

2007-02-09T04:42:00.000-08:00

A worker for the NSA has pleaded guilty to illegally steering $750,000 of federal money into a business that he and his wife ran out of their home. This raises an interesting quesion. If you encourage people to deceive in the national interest, does it make it easier for them to deceive in their personal interest?

Top Gun II: The Stuff We Didn't Tell You

2007-02-06T05:56:00.000-08:00

Why is this video classified? Does the Freedom of Information Act have an exemption for "potentially very embarrassing content"?

Another question: Were the pilots taking go-pills? That was the case when USAF pilots attacked those Canadians at Tarnak Farms in Afghanistan.

Fake recruiters looking at NSA workers?

2007-02-06T04:50:00.000-08:00

One expert says that fake job recruiters may be used to gather sensitive information, even from government agencies like the NSA:

"An internet search turned up multiple resumes of individuals with Top Secret/SCI clearance that listed their home addresses and past and current projects for major defense contractors. One resume listed projects at Ft. Meade, home of the National Security Agency. While the information contained on the resume may or may not provide any useful intelligence, it at least creates a security risk for the individuals who provided their home address. It is time to train HR staff, Security Officers and employees on this threat."

Apparently, Fort Gordon isn't alone in its security problems.

For more, read "Are Fake Recruiters Stealing Your Secrets?"

$622 Billion

2007-02-05T05:51:00.000-08:00

Budgets are just numbers. Didn't Don Rumsfeld say that?

***

The New York Times says "Without a public debate or formal policy decision, contractors have become a virtual fourth branch of government."

They're just jealous 'cause the press used to be the Fourth Estate.

Speaking of military contracters: Is Sen. Feinstein in bed with special interests? (Cue groans, rotten tomatoes.)

***

Homeland Security says local constabularies don't have a "need to know" about possible terror threats, like that suspicious swarthy guy Mrs. Belle saw at the Krispy Kreme on Washington Road the other day. He had shifty eyes.

Curious: Will DNA samples be subject to "information sharing"?

***

"North Korea must get out of the nuclear business if it wants energy or economic aid, the chief U.S. negotiator said Monday, adding he believed the North was prepared to negotiate..." -- AP

Doesn't he mean, now that North Korea has the bomb, and the U.S. has lost much of its leverage, that we're prepared to negotiate?

Brilliant. Kim never saw it coming.

Don't Look Here!

2007-02-01T07:36:00.000-08:00

Are stolen military IDs going on the black market? Is the NSA going underground to fix Fort Gordon’s security problems? The Garden City isn’t as sleepy as you think.

By Corey Pein

The purse was designed to honor the Dukes of Hazzard. A couple of weeks ago it lay unattended on the floorboard of a white Hyundai SUV, which was parked outside the Augusta Ice Sports Center.

Sometime between 7 and 8:30 p.m., a thief broke the passenger-side window and made off with the purse. Inside were a cell phone, a key ring, some credit cards and identification.

A broken window, a stolen purse, a lost ID. For most people, this would be a headache.

For those in the military and intelligence business — which is quite a lot of people around here — it could be a serious problem, one that affects everybody.

The theft of that military ID was one more potential hole in the security of Fort Gordon and the National Security Agency offices there. The man who called police about the theft of his wife’s purse, the report indicated, worked for the Navy in a secure intelligence facility.

Such thefts are common, judging by Richmond County Sheriff’s Office reports. Rarely does a week go by without at least one military-issued card reported lost or stolen, usually out of a vehicle. At least three were reported stolen last week.

No doubt many such thefts are run-of-the-mill acts of petty crooks looking for stereos or cash who wouldn’t recognize the value of a military ID. But what concerns the Department of Defense are the professional underworld types who know what can be done with a ticket into a secure area.

A July 2005 military intelligence report, first obtained by journalist William Arkin, reveals official concerns about a growing black market in stolen and counterfeit military IDs.

The report, prepared by the Pentagon’s Counterintelligence Field Activity, a classified agency that conducts surveillance within the United States, says, “The mere possession of a stolen card could, in fact, pose a security risk.”

***

Many locals are aware that the National Security Agency — so secret that the government didn’t admit its existence for several decades — has a major presence at Fort Gordon.

But fewer people know the nature of what the NSA is doing here. Augusta is the agency’s main listening post for the Middle East.

Just down Gordon Highway, intelligence analysts — your neighbors — are eavesdropping on conversations happening in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere in the region. They’re looking for information of use to the planners and fighters of America’s wars.

It’s the kind of work that can change the course of history. That’s why it’s secret. And that’s why any security holes at the base — even seemingly minor ones — can endanger the lives of soldiers abroad and civilians at home.

Considering the nature of some missions that go on at Fort Gordon, you might expect it to be among the most secure places in the world, right up there with the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

It’s not. At least not for the time being.

Many buildings are aging and unsuitable for sensitive operations. The personnel make occasional mistakes, as human beings are bound to do. And the security policies imposed from on high don’t always improve the situation.

For example, when the Pentagon decided in 1999 to modernize and standardize military IDs throughout the bureaucracy, it hoped to strengthen security. The decision may have inadvertently weakened it.

One principle embraced by hackers and security experts alike is the importance of having multiple levels of security. The Common Access Card now issued to military personnel forsakes layered fail-safes in favor of a single piece of plastic.

The card includes an abundance of digital information: the holder’s name, Social Security Number, date of birth, rank, blood type and other information, including e-mail and computer passwords.

According to an NSA assessment cited in the 2005 counterintelligence report, the cards are vulnerable to hacking. Some weaknesses “have yet to be mitigated.”

***

Fort Gordon’s security problems have been an open secret for years. Soldiers sometimes laugh knowingly when you bring up the issue.

The base’s problems begin with the land around it. The military reservation has a 43-mile perimeter, most of which is forested and borders public roads.

As the home of the Army’s signal corps, as well as thousands of soldiers and their families, the base itself was not designed to host a super-secret spy station.

Nor does the base’s culture, which people who’ve trained and worked there describe as relatively laid-back, seem to have kept pace with the increasing sensitivity of its operations.

John Young, who runs the intelligence Web site cryptome.org, recounted a 2002 conversation with an anonymous cryptological officer stationed at Fort Gordon: “Security measures taken at GRSOC are very lax, even in this post-Sept. 11 world,” the officer told Young. “A sailor newly arrived, not wanting to wait in a holding unit until issued a security clearance, was able to find a way into working in a SCIF.”

SCIF stands for sensitive compartmented information facility, which denotes an area that should be very much off-limits to people who don’t have the right security clearances. GRSOC is the acronym for the Georgia Regional Security Operations Center, a joint-service facility established by the NSA and housed at Fort Gordon.

Inside accounts like this are supported by outside observation.

After the 9/11 attacks, when just about everything of any importance in the United States seemed to be under armed guard, Fort Gordon stepped up its security procedures. There were long lines on the road leading onto the base as guards searched cars and checked IDs.

Meanwhile, about 200 yards away from a guard booth, people were sneaking onto the base through the woods. Granted, they were allowed to be on base. They were, apparently, employees at Eisenhower Medical Center who decided to park their cars nearby and walk a quarter-mile to avoid the three-hour delays at the checkpoint.

“We haven’t had anybody do that in a while,” says Barry Wood, director of business and public affairs at the National Science Center Foundation, located off Gordon Highway. He remembers noticing the telltale Fort Gordon stickers on cars in the parking lot outside his building. “Really,” Wood says, “there was nothing much to it.”

That may be true, but consider the implications. For a moment, think like a spy.

If it’s that easy to slip onto base during one of the most paranoid moments in American history, how hard would it be for a determined person with malicious intent on an ordinary day of the week? Especially if he looked like he was supposed to be there — if he had, say, a military ID card.

Of course, just because someone can sneak on base doesn’t mean he can stroll right into a sensitive compartmented information facility. The really important secret stuff is hidden.

There is another “but” here: A well-equipped spy wouldn’t necessarily have to get inside his target. Turning the NSA’s own techniques against it, all he would have to do is get close. Which turns out to be pretty easy at Fort Gordon.

***

“If a spy can get within 300 feet of where classified material is handled, he owns it,” says James Atkinson, who calls himself the Spyhunter. “I mean, he owns it big time.”

Atkinson used to work for the NSA and, he says, “other organizations I don’t talk about.” Now, as the president and senior engineer of Granite Island Group, a Massachusetts-based security consulting firm, he’s still immersed in the world of intelligence, counterintelligence and, one can presume, counter-anti-counterintelligence.

He has clients in business and in government. They often fail to recognize security holes that to him seem big enough to steer a tank through.

Technology creates some of the most critical vulnerabilities. In the modern world, people are like walking radio towers, always broadcasting. Most of us don’t realize this. Just about everything that’s electronic can be intercepted at a distance. (Your cell phone can even be turned on remotely and used as a listening device, without your knowledge.)

Your phone, your television and your computer all give off electromagnetic radiation with distinct frequencies. With the right equipment, it’s possible to separate those signals and know what’s being said over the phone, shown on the screen or processed by the computer. The same applies to the machines the NSA relies on, even though they are specially shielded.

Though it used to be thought that only governments could afford to produce sophisticated interception gear, technological improvements make covert eavesdropping easier all the time. For example, in 2003, a Cambridge University professor demonstrated that he could piece together the information on a computer monitor based on the dim reflections the monitors made on the wall, even through curtains or blinds. And that’s not the only way to spy from a distance.

“If I can get close enough, I can read everything that the cryptographic equipment does,” Atkinson says. “Let’s say we deliberately put a wireless camera into the President’s office. The advertised range is 50 feet. If a spy is very dedicated to what he’s doing and has a significant amount of money, he can extend the distance of his reception by one-thousand fold.”

Thus the camera’s supposed 50-foot signal could be picked up eight-and-a-half miles away. “It’s simple electronics,” Atkinson says. “This is historical, not secret.”

Many of Atkinson’s most interesting stories are, like that one, hypothetical. At least, he phrases them hypothetically.

“We can go to the White House a week after Christmas, when everybody gets back from vacation,” he says, “and the security people are going bonkers, trying to cleanse the White House of all those Bluetooth headsets and Crackberries people just picked up for Christmas.” Wireless gadgets are particularly insecure.

Last year the Metro Spirit reported that the Navy contingent at Fort Gordon purchased hundreds of iPods for language training. Might they be vulnerable to eavesdropping?

“If they have an iPod at work [and] that iPod has a transmitter on it, they’re transmitting room audio,” Atkinson says.

Most iPods now come equipped with transmitters, so you can send your music to an FM radio and play it over the speakers. If a gadget doesn’t already have a transmitter in it, Atkinson says, one could be covertly installed while the owner is at the gym or church.

As a matter of fact, last weekend, a Navy issued iPod was stolen from a young man’s car parked on Broad Street. His work phone number can be tracked to Fort Gordon and what appears to be an intelligence group.

The NSA already knows all of these vulnerabilities. Their engineers invented many of the spy techniques that might be used against them. And the agency takes measures to guard its equipment from remote eavesdropping. They call it “information assurance,” and they take it very seriously.

Those measures, however, may not be enough.

***

The NSA’s home at Fort Gordon, the Georgia Regional Security Operations Center, consists of at least five buildings spread wide over the base.

These buildings were not made for the task. Given the agency’s expanding mission, they are now overcrowded and stretched to capacity. And they are much closer to the curb than the 300-foot danger zone described by Atkinson.

“The exposed position of the main operations facility on Fort Gordon leaves the facility at risk to threats from potential adversaries,” according to a Pentagon budget document drafted in February of 2006.

“None of the facilities meet the minimum standards or requirements for Antiterrorism Force Protection, DOD operation facilities, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or life-safety,” the document says.

Back Hall, a large sensitive compartmented information facility originally used for classrooms, has only a “50-foot setback from Chamberlain Avenue, which is an unrestricted major thoroughfare with no entry control points other than inside the main entrance.” Two other buildings, the headquarters of NSA Georgia and an annex, were converted, respectively, from a cafeteria and a mailroom. A building used for language training was originally a barracks. These facilities, the document says, were “not designed or constructed to be an intelligence center” and have exceeded their practical lifetimes.

There is a reason the NSA — which rarely reveals anything about itself — publicly disclosed all this troubling information. It wanted the money to build a new facility.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Work will commence this year on a $340-million, 525,000-square-foot new NSA facility at Fort Gordon. It’s called project Sweet Tea, and it’s the biggest thing going up anywhere near Augusta, though you wouldn’t know it by the dearth of publicity.

The project had been in the works for years. The contract wasn’t announced until after the Metro Spirit began making inquiries in December, though it was scheduled to have been awarded as early as September.

The new buildings are supposed to fix all those security problems with the current structures. Sweet Tea includes a new shredder facility and antenna farm, along with such amenities as a workout room, nursing areas, a mini shopping center, a credit union, an 800-seat cafeteria and lots of parking spaces. One aspect of Sweet Tea hasn’t yet been reported, and that is, the literal depth of the project.

The construction contract went to Phelps/Kiewit Joint Venture out of Virginia. Both companies bring expertise to the project. Hensel Phelps Construction won the rebuilding contract for the Pentagon after 9/11.

Kiewit is an interesting choice. One of the company’s specialties is tunneling.

The company did some work on Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, the controversial nuclear waste dump. Back during the Cold War, Kiewit built many of the nuclear missile silos still scattered across the Midwestern United States.

So what, you ask?

It looks like NSA Georgia is going underground. Other American intelligence agencies already have, not to mention the North Koreans and the Iranians.

Not only would tunneling solve, pretty definitively, the NSA’s setback problem, it would guard against nuclear and electromagnetic attack (which works something like how George Clooney’s gang shut down the power in Las Vegas in “Ocean’s Eleven”).

The new and improved Georgia Regional Security Operations Center is supposed to be occupied by December 2011.

That means five years of living with the current, not-up-to-code Fort Gordon facilities.

An NSA spokesperson declined to discuss the setback problem on the record. The agency did respond to certain questions in writing:

“Q: How will you handle security while building the new facility? Will everyone [who works on the building] have to be cleared?
“A: According to an NSAG spokesperson, contract security personnel will be assigned 24/7 for the protection of the site, access control, and badge issuance for contractor personnel. All persons requiring access within the boundaries of a government project site or restricted access area must comply with all security requirements. One primary requirement is that all persons must be U.S. citizens. Depending on the information obtained, access may be denied.”

Atkinson says that, as usual, these measures — and the military’s standard security procedures — don’t go far enough. He knows how he would handle security during construction, if he were in charge.

“First of all, you build [the facility] in a remote area, way out in the middle of a corn field somewhere. And before you start breaking ground, you build a double berm on the outside, so somebody who’s driving by cannot see what’s going on,” he says.

The outer berm should be covered with trees and vegetation. The inner berm should be patrolled. There should be chain-link fences with barbed wire inside and outside the berms. Bright lighting is important. The idea, he says, is to “create a no man’s land.”

The buildings should be no closer to the berm than 1,000 feet, Atkinson says, to “make sure there’s no way in hell anyone can get closer than 300 feet to the building. A good rule is four times that distance.”

There should be surveillance cameras all over the place, both visible and covert, as well as multiple entrances.

“You create a type of maze, so if someone approaches in a semi truck at 60 miles per hour, they cannot get to the building,” Atkinson says. “You have multiple guards, and they’re in the houses seven/twenty-four, and there’s absolutely no reason for them to leave the guardhouse.”

It’s an open question whether procedures at Fort Gordon during the construction of Sweet Tea will be as strict as Atkinson suggests.

***

“Perhaps you can recall your initial impression upon entering an NSA facility. Like most people, you probably noticed the elaborate physical security safeguards — fences, concrete barriers, Security Protective Officers, identification badges, etc. While these measures provide a substantial degree of protection for the information housed within our buildings, they represent only a portion of the overall Agency security program. In fact, vast amounts of information leave our facilities daily in the minds of NSA personnel, and this is where our greatest vulnerability lies. … Agency personnel may become potential targets for hostile intelligence efforts.”

— From an NSA Security Guidelines Handbook posted by Atkinson

As ever, the biggest problem is people. People are people. People screw up, even when they’re well trained.

The screening process for security clearances, which take months to obtain and involve background checks and extensive interviews, is supposed to eliminate people prone to winding up compromising situations.

The process doesn’t always work.

For instance, in 2005, Said Mutazz, a young Air Force enlisted man who worked in intelligence at Fort Gordon, reportedly as a linguist, was charged with murder along with another man, Walter Geter. Police said it was a botched drug deal.

Mutazz’s attorney, Pete Theodocion, says the case will have to be retried. Among other problems with the state’s case, Mutazz wasn’t read his Miranda rights.

Theodocion says the Air Force helped Mutazz out with his bond, but eventually kicked him out after he tested positive for marijuana.

If someone obtains a clearance and later becomes a security risk, they are supposed to lose that clearance or even, like Mutazz, get the boot.

Clearances can be revoked for seemingly minor infractions — like going too far into debt, for instance. The reasoning is that someone with financial problems is more liable to accept work as a double agent.

Smoking dope is obviously verboten. As would be murder.

But mistakes are forgivable. Fort Gordon’s public affairs says the loss of an ID card does not affect an individual’s security clearance, “unless it is done intentionally for profit.”

That happens, apparently. The 2005 Counterintelligence Field Activity report mentioned early in this story says investigators suspect some Defense Department personnel of illegally obtaining and selling military ID materials.

There’s no indication that such mercenary subterfuge has taken place at Fort Gordon. But, to a determined adversary, that doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t need to buy a key to get through the gate. All he has to do is find the holes in the fence.

Where to start?

Where else? Google.

The military has removed much information that used to be publicly available from the Internet since 9/11, but apparently without rhyme or reason.

For example, the Web site for Total Information Awareness, a program designed to compile massive dossiers of data on pretty much every American, was taken down after the controversial program’s existence was revealed in the newspapers. It seemed like a public relations move.

But other information that might actually be of use to an adversary, such as intelligence personnel’s names and job titles, is still available online.

A quick search turns up a PowerPoint presentation designed to accompany a course on “information assurance” given at Fort Gordon.

“There is NO security without Physical Security!” the briefing warns.

Among other things, it warns against plugging unauthorized devices into classified computers (officially issued iPods may be “authorized,” but they could always be compromised). It urges officers to log out of their computers when they get up and leave, even for a short time. And so on.

The briefing also contains the names of the instructors, some of whom are in the phone book and live off base, where there are no guards, no berms and no barbed wire.

Even if the military removed all potentially compromising information from its own Web sites — and that may be impossible — it can’t always control what its personnel post elsewhere.

The people who serve in intelligence tend to be bright. But they are also, oftentimes, young — which is to say, they can be stupid.

The NSA security handbook says, in the section titled “answering questions about your employment,” that “you may say that you are a linguist, if necessary. However, you should not indicate the specific language(s) with which you are involved.”

Now, you don’t have to be in Augusta long to meet fresh young Americans hanging around a bar, demonstrating an impressive fluency in Arabic, perhaps in an attempt to impress a member of the opposite sex.

A clever spy might follow these people out of the bar, see what car they get into, and take it from there.

Or, a clever spy, knowing that many intelligence analysts are trained at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, might look to see who in Augusta has attended that school.

This hypothetical spy might be happy to find dozens of potential targets who have posted quite a bit of personal information on social networking and dating Web sites.

If the MySpace site says “male, single, 26, Gemini” residing at “Fort Gordon” and lists his job as “intelligence analyst” employed by the “Navy,” it doesn’t take a James Bond to figure out who he’s working for.

What can you do? People are people.

---

From the Feb. 1 issue of the Augusta, Ga. Metro Spirit.

The Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007

2007-01-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

Guess we know who the serious antiwar candidate is.

Forget the nonbinding resolution. Now everybody else has to deal with what Obama put on the table.

This was a smart move for him, politically. He needed to throw down something dramatic to maintain his momentum. It almost doesn't matter -- for his purposes -- whether the bill passes, because it defines his position.

Should his bill pass? That's another question. But it's a far more important one than whether the name "Obama" sounds right...you know, American.

***

RELATED: Check out Slate's new Obama Messiah Watch. Tim Noah wonders,

Is Barack Obama ... the second coming of our Savior and our Redeemer, Prince of Peace and King of Kings, Jesus Christ? His press coverage suggests we can't dismiss this possibility out of hand.

Rockefeller bird-dogs the NSA

2007-01-30T13:49:00.000-08:00

More on the agency's electric bills from the Baltimore Sun.

Whistleblowers get the brush-off

2007-01-28T06:51:00.000-08:00

According to an article by the Congressional Quarterly national security editor, whistleblowers in Washington get no thanks from the government. In fact, telling the truth can be dangerous to your career, Jeff Stein writes. About 60 of whistleblowers, including NSA types, have formed their own organization.

What's good for Lockheed is good for America

2007-01-25T08:51:00.000-08:00

Ford isn't doing so well. But Lockheed is raking it in.

In case you missed it, Harper's magazine recently published an unflinching National Intelligence Estimate on the United States, by the political scientist and Asia hand Chalmers Johnson. Back in '60s and '70s, Johnson consulted with the CIA office that prepared those reports for the President's benefit.

Johnson argues that our commitments in Iraq in Afghanistan were not solely a response to global events. Rather, they were the "inevitable result" of America's "decades-long policy of military Keynesianism."

That is to say, the defense establishment's continued growth -- and by extension the health of the entire American economy -- demanded something like the "war on terror."

Too out there for you? Remember, he said it first.

Johnson writes:

To understand the real weight of military Keynesianism in the American economy today, however, one must approach official defense statistics with great care. The "defense" budget of the United States-that is, the reported budget of the Department of Defense-does not include: the Department of Energy's spending on nuclear weapons ($16.4 billion slated for fiscal 2006), the Department of Homeland security's outlays for the actual "defense" of the United States ($41 billion), or the Department of Veterans Affairs' responsibilities for the lifetime care of the seriously wounded ($68 billion). Nor does it include the billions of dollars the Department of State spends each year to finance foreign arms sales and militarily related development or the Treasury Department's payments of pensions to military retirees and widows and their families (an amount not fully disclosed by official statistics). Still to be added are interest payments by the Treasury to cover past debt-financed defense outlays. The economist Robert Higgs estimates that in 2002 such interest payments amounted to $138.7 billion.
Even when all these things are included, Enron-style accounting makes it hard to obtain an accurate understanding of U.S. dependency on military spending. In 2005, the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that "neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing" or "details on how the appropriated funds are being spent." Indeed, the GAO found that, lacking a reliable method for tracking military costs, the Army had taken to simply inserting into its accounts figures that matched the available budget. Such actions seem absurd in terms of military logic. But they are perfectly logical responses to the requirements of military Keynesianism, which places its emphasis not on the demand for defense but rather on the available supply of money.

This is too getting too deep for a blog. The upshot is, Johnson is pessimistic.

His article was in the January issue. If you want to read more of it, drop me a line.

Ow

2007-01-25T06:34:00.000-08:00

We had the chance to see the first public demonstration of the military's new ray gun at Moody AFB yesterday. We couldn't make it, unfortunately. (Fortunately?)

Jobs available at NSA

2007-01-24T04:38:00.000-08:00

The National Security Agency is listed as one of the top 25 employers of college students and recent graduate. According to College Recruiter, rental car agencies, accounting firms and retailers are higher up the list than the NSA. But it's projecting 1,500 entry level hires for the agency in 2007.

News you probably didn't hear

2007-01-22T14:33:00.000-08:00

The BBC recently reported that in 2003 the Bush administration rejected a sort of nonagression pact proposed by Iran. The network saw an unsigned letter regarding the deal, and got Colin Powell's old chief of staff to go on the record about it.

Apparently the Iranians would open up their nuclear program in exchange for an end to sanctions and security guarantees. This is pretty much what North Korea wanted, too. And they were also blown off.

The Beeb story made news elsewhere in the world, but in the US, not so much.

From CNN's top stories:

# Mystery woman emerges after years in jungle
# Fortune: Second Life evolution could be a gold mine
# Son who dismembered mother gets six months
# 20-lb. rabbits may help save starving families
# Time.com: Are kids' parties out of control?

Still not enough linguists?

2007-01-21T08:52:00.000-08:00

A conservative blog called The Compass says that the NSA and other agencies still have not hired enough translators to keep up with their intelligence mission.

The blog reports:

"How mountainous is the backlog of untranslated intercepts? Read this comment from a National Security Agency (NSA) official quoted from Congressional hearings in a Washington Times article on the subject written by Rowan Scarborough and Bill Gertz entitled: 'Intelligence backlog.'

"NSA director, Army Lt. Gen. Keith in commenting in written response to Senators on the large backlog of time consuming labor intensive foreign language intercepts on terrorism noted:

"'Today’s backlog is no longer confined to Arabic and its multiple dialect but also less commonly taught languages where linguists are in short supply.'"

The Compass also says many linguists have been turned away for reasons that seem inconsequential, given the grave need for translators.

Secret FISA Courts: Just What The Founders Intended

2007-01-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

Baby steps.

The secret courts will supposedly reassert their (secret) authority over the NSA's no-longer-secret domestic surveillance programs.

It's fair to ask: Did Alberto Gonzales have his fingers crossed behind his back when he made this announcements?

This latest administration "concession" reminds me of what happened with Total Information Awareness. That program, you'll remember, was supposedly killed by Congress after it was exposed, but in reality, the administration pursued the same objectives under new programs with different names -- and without John Poindexter.

The administration knows full well that nobody can really confirm whether it's telling the truth, and that it actually does intend to stop spying on Americans. (That is, unless we get lucky and more insiders blow the whistle.)

Considering that the administration was arguing very recently that it had the right to open people's mail, I find it hard to believe that this is the end of domestic surveillance without judicial oversight. As the Washington Post notes:

Officials would not say, for example, whether the administration will be required to seek a warrant for each person it wants to monitor or whether the FISA court has issued a broader set of orders to cover multiple cases. Authorities also would not say how many court orders are involved or which judge on the surveillance court had issued them.

At least the administration has been put on the defensive on this issue. Count your blessings.

'Budget falling short at NSA'

2007-01-17T12:27:00.000-08:00

That's a counterintuitive headline, if I ever saw one. From the Baltimore Sun.

The reason? Apparently, the agency is using too much electricity.

Um... not sure Congress is going to bite, there.

Maybe they should tell analysts to wear sweaters to work, in the winter.

Enemies foreign and domestic?

2007-01-17T12:10:00.000-08:00

2,821 "force protection threats" under military surveillance carry U.S. passports.

Considering this is a country of 300 million, that may not sound like a lot of people who have been subject to domestic surveillance by an arm of the government that's still bound, or at least ought to be, by the principles of Posse Comitatus.

Look at it another way, and the problem is obvious.

Judging by these numbers, roughly one of every 70 reports in the Pentagon's Talon counterintelligence database concerned an American citizen who happened to be a peace activist.

That's clearly a disproportionate amount of concern about a group of people -- the peaceniks -- who are so ineffective they haven't staged a significant demonstration since 2003.

But let's say the military spied on ONE American citizen without just cause. Wouldn't that still be a problem?

Only 5 more missions

2007-01-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required to serve on active duty ...

Until now, the Pentagon's policy on the Guard or Reserve was that members' cumulative time on active duty for the Iraq or Afghan wars could not exceed 24 months. That cumulative limit is now lifted ...
In other words, a citizen-soldier could be mobilized for a 24-month stretch in Iraq or Afghanistan, then demobilized and allowed to return to civilian life, only to be mobilized a second time for as much as an additional 24 months.

***

"You're wasting your time," Doc Daneeka was forced to tell him.

"Can't you ground someone's who's crazy?"

"Oh sure, I have to. There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy."

"Then why don't you ground me. Ask Clevinger."

"Clevinger? Where is Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him."

"Then ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am."

"They're crazy."

"Then why don't you ground them?"

"Why don't they ask me to ground them?"

"Because they're crazy, that's why."

"Of course they're crazy," Doc Daneeka replied. "I just told you they're crazy didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide whether you're crazy or not can you?"

Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. "Is Orr crazy?"

"He sure is," Doc Daneeka said.

"Can you ground him?"

"I sure can but first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule."

"Then why doesn't he ask you to?"

"Because he's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."

"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"

"That's all. Let him ask me."

"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.

"No, then I can't ground him."

"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there is a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of the clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka replied.

'They helped us load our van.'

2007-01-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

That's a GAO investigator explaining how easy it was to buy security-sensitive military surplus -- rocket launchers, jet parts, missile parts -- at auction.

Iran and China got some.

Hey, why not? Who's the Defense Department to get in the way of the free market?

Cheney: Try And Stop Us

2007-01-15T11:51:00.000-08:00

The Vice President on the Pentagon's financial record-fishing:

“There’s nothing wrong with it or illegal,” Mr. Cheney said. “It doesn’t violate people’s civil rights. And if an institution that receives one of these national security letters disagrees with it, they’re free to go to court to try to stop its execution.”

The people subjected to a warrantless search, however, will just have to suck it up.

Beware of "unexplained wealth"

2007-01-15T04:43:00.000-08:00

Your bank and credit card company are quite willing to part with your personal information. According to an article in The International Herald Tribune, the Pentagon and CIA have been sending out "non-compulsory" letters asking for financial records.

In hundreds of cases, financial institutions complied, allowing investigators to look at the files of both military personnel and civilians.

"While they would not provide details about specific cases, military intelligence officials with knowledge of them said the military had issued the letters to collect financial records regarding a government contractor with unexplained wealth, for example, and a chaplain at Guantánamo Bay erroneously suspected of aiding prisoners at the facility," the paper reports.

Apparently "unexplained wealth" now makes people subject to terrorism investigations.

Inspiring less confidence in Vista

2007-01-14T07:49:00.000-08:00

Microsft has confirmed that the NSA calls had a hand in the development of Microsoft’s Vista operating system, Microsoft confirmed Tuesday.

"The National Security Agency (NSA) stepped in to help Microsoft develop a configuration of its next-generation operating system that would meet U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) requirements, said NSA spokesman Ken White."

Exactly what Department of Defense requirements are they talking about. After recent revelations in the New York Times that the Department of Defense is expanding its role in domestic intelligence gathering, this does little to inspire confidence in the security of the new software.

However, it's nothing new. Some say the Windows operating system was undermined by the NSA.

"A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors)," according to this post from 1999.

What's in a name?

2007-01-12T07:35:00.000-08:00

No whooping at Ft. Benning. "Bush Speaks and Base Is Subdued" (NYT):

Though Mr. Bush’s lunch was open to the press, the base commander, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, would not let the troops in attendance talk to reporters. His spokeswoman said the commander wanted “the focus to be on the president.”

Oh, it is.

Gag orders aside, more than 1,000 uniformed soldiers have found a way to speak. If you haven't seen it yet, the Appeal for Redress has been making the rounds since before the "surge" was announced.

If you support the surge, here's another petition to consider.

'Certified geek' from NSA to replace Negroponte?

2007-01-05T07:32:00.000-08:00

Defense Tech notes how SIGINT vets are ascending to top intel jobs and asks what that could mean for the quality of US intelligence overall.

***

More on Mike McConnell at DT and Salon. Some possible ~~Total~~ Terrorist Information Awareness ties.

... We Open Them First.

2007-01-05T06:58:00.000-08:00

Why would Bush issue a signing statement affirming his right to open anyone's mail without a warrant?

I'm guessing it's a CYA maneuver. It's probably been going on for years, and now that Congressional investigations are possible, the administration wants to prepare some retroactive legal(istic) defense.

This theory isn't a total shot in the dark. Bush is, at the moment, getting lawyered up.

(Also, wasn't there a case a couple of years ago where DHS or FBI was intercepting some journalists' mail without going through the courts? Can't remember the specifics right now and my files are in disarray...)

Terror Target #1: Spencer's Gifts

2007-01-03T10:40:00.000-08:00

Homeland Security training for mall security guards.

Well, that only took about 2000 days.

I can't even think of a joke for this one. I just wonder how long it'll be before we issue assault rifles to the rent-a-cops at Regency Mall.

Things are getting safer by the day, here...

The new foreign legion?

2006-12-28T08:26:00.000-08:00

Boston Globe via IHT:

The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks, including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and put more immigrants on a faster track to U.S. citizenship if they volunteer, according to Pentagon officials.
Foreign citizens' serving in the U.S. military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans' willingness to serve in uniform.

Uh, yeah.

The story says that the number of soldiers who've gained citizenship through serving has increased by about six times since 9/11... but the total is still under 5,000, so we're talking about a very small piece of the pie here.

That said, it was recently reported that there are about as many private contractors in Iraq as there are active military. So, overall, the "mercenary" fears seem warranted.

Love that memory hole

2006-12-27T11:03:00.000-08:00

"FBI Says Files In Leak Cases Are ‘Missing'": C'mon, really?

Aside: Josh Gerstein files a mean FOIA. "[A]lmost no reporters filed FOIA requests about [America's secret] detainee system. (The one apparent exception was an enterprising reporter at The New York Sun named Josh Gerstein, who actually beat the ACLU to the punch but had his FOIA request dismissed on a technicality.)"

So hard to find good help these days

2006-12-27T10:54:00.000-08:00

Analysts recently downgraded the target share price for NSA contractor Applied Signal Technology "on account of delays in shipments and customer orders." Geez, who's running the show over there? Among others, a former NSA chief of staff.

Feel safer now? How about now?

2006-12-27T06:16:00.000-08:00

"Contractor's Handguns Missing From Homeland Security Vault."

35 million secret pages to be released

2006-12-22T04:53:00.000-08:00

The New York Times writes about the 25-year rule, which forces the NSA and other federal agencies to release classified information after 25 years. Many become available at the end of the month. It reports:

"The National Security Agency, the eavesdropping and code-breaking agency, has released 35 million pages, including an extensive collection on the Gulf of Tonkin incident that led to the escalation of the Vietnam War. The agency plans a major release early next year on the Israeli attack on the Liberty, an American eavesdropping ship, in 1967."

Classified slapstick

2006-12-21T14:28:00.000-08:00

New details on Sandy Berger's follies in the National Archives:

Berger removed a total of five copies of the same document without authorization and later used scissors to destroy three before placing them in his office trash ...

... one archives official claimed to have seen Berger fiddling with what appeared to be a piece of paper "rolled around his ankle and underneath his pant leg," Berger told investigators he was merely pulling up his socks, which he said "frequently fall down." He said "this story was absurd and embarrassing."

Three words: National. Security. Adviser.

'We need to reset our military.'

2006-12-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

-- President Bush to the Washington Post.

Reset. Right, like when you're playing Duck Hunt on the old Nintendo, and you miss too many times and the dog laughs at you. (Struggling for a Cheney joke.)

Some undercurrents:

LA Times: "A once-prominent Iraqi American, jailed on corruption charges, was sprung from a Green Zone prison this weekend by U.S. security contractors he had hired..."

There have been no suggestions that American officials had a role in [the] escape Sunday afternoon. But the B-movie scenario of a rich businessman hiring armed muscle to bust himself out of jail from inside the fortress-like, U.S.-protected enclave could further contribute to Iraq's image of instability and lawlessness. The flamboyant former government minister's arrest and prosecution were held up by Iraqi and U.S. officials as a rare example of good government prevailing in the new Iraq.

***

AZ Star: "Tucson military recruiters ran cocaine"

In one case not mentioned in the plea agreement, [a Nat'l Guardsman] is said to have recruited a Nogales woman named Leslie Hildago, then in her early 20s, to join the drug ring after he had recruited her to join the National Guard.

***

Iraqslogger: "Jihadists Read, Mock New U.S. Army Guide"

Notable Arabic-language comments from readers of the Tajdeed posting include "Bless you, you who have broken the U.S. and its military and made it resort to booklets." Also: "The Pentagon is distributing the booklet to save whatever is left of it!," referring to the U.S. military.

Oceana has always been fighting Eurasia

2006-12-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

DoD nondenies CBS crimespeak.

Team HLS 4

2006-12-17T11:52:00.000-08:00

Another installment of Team HLS (Homeland Security). We're considering it for inclusion in the Metro Spirit. Tell us what you think. Email tom.grant@metrospirit.com.

Team HLS cartoon

2006-12-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

The NSA and Princess Di

2006-12-16T05:57:00.000-08:00

What role did the NSA play in the Princess Di case? According to the Princess Di report, which has been posted online, no role at all. After reviewing chapter 15, which discusses the allegations about the NSA and Diana, it appears there is no evidence that Di was targeted for surveillance by the NSA.

The NSA has admitted having 39 documents (124 pages) related to the princess, but people from two administrations who have reviewed those documents say there's nothing relating to Princess Di's death.

However, one attorney and writer claims to have heard an NSA-taped discussion between two women discussing hairstyles. Wow. Is "hairstyle" a code word?

Leahy will look into domestic wiretaps

2006-12-16T05:45:00.000-08:00

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont will use his new position as chairman of the Judiciary Committee to go after information about the NSA's domestic wiretapping program. U.S. Attorney General Alberto has refused in the past to provide such information, but Leahy's Democrats were in the minority at the time. Here's what the Brattleboro Reformer writes:

Gonzales previous committee appearances have left Leahy frustrated. In February, Gonzales flatly refused to reveal details of the president's program authorizing the National Security Agency to wiretap domestic phones used for some foreign conversations.
"Our enemy is listening," Gonzales warned the senators. The next hearing might be different if Leahy is armed with supporting documents and the ability to swear-in administration officials -- an element absent from the Gonzales hearing in February, despite Democratic complaints.
"I will look again into this issue of wireless wiretapping. Nothing frightens me more," Leahy said Wednesday. "I'm not prepared to accept answers (of), 'I can't answer that.'"

Anybody know a good real estate agent?

2006-12-15T09:35:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking beachfront condos.

***

Also, and unrelatedly, NSA contractor Argon ST announced its fourth-quarter results. Company prez says: "While we are disappointed in our operating performance in both the fourth quarter and year, we remain confident that we are well positioned for future growth." No kidding.

Argon's board includes Maureen Baginski, said to be "first-ever recipient of NSA’s Outstanding Leadership Award, an award voted on and bestowed by the NSA workforce."

***

Problem of the day: "My fear is that if we have more troops sent to Iraq, we will just see more injuries and more deaths." -- Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)

Solution: Turn off the television and go shopping.

Subcutaneous tracking devices: Bringing you peace of mind since 2014

2006-12-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

A Toronto Star op-ed contemplates the "chipping" of citizens, and outlines how it might happen within a single generation:

"Employers will start to expect implants as a condition of getting a job. The U.S. military will lead the way, requiring chips for all soldiers as a means to enhance battlefield command and control — and to identify human remains. ...

"[An] unfortunately common tragedy of modern life will occur: A small child, likely a photogenic toddler, will be murdered or horrifically abused. It will happen in one of the media capitals of the Western world, thereby ensuring non-stop breathless coverage. Chip manufactures will recognize this as the opportunity they have been anticipating for years. With their technology now largely bug-free, familiar to most citizens and comparatively inexpensive, manufacturers will partner with the police to launch a high-profile campaign encouraging parents to implant their children 'to ensure your own peace of mind.'"

The author, Kevin Haggerty, has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about this.

Any rebuttals?

I'm still trying to think of one. All I can think of is that it's more likely that RFID tags will soon be so widespread in consumer goods, like clothing and cell phones, that it won't be necessary to actually plant microchips under the skin.

Out of thin air

2006-12-14T08:50:00.000-08:00

Huge new NSA facility suddenly appears on Fort Gordon’s radar
By Corey Pein

It’s a boom time for spooks. Much like the Pentagon’s Cold War megaprojects put entire cities on the map virtually overnight, the untold billions in tax dollars now pouring into the intelligence agencies fighting the Global War on Terrorism are beginning to trickle down to the local level.

And Augusta is about to get a $340-million taste of Sweet Tea.

The National Security Agency is building a massive new operations facility, dubbed project Sweet Tea. It will come complete with all the amenities: a workout room, nursing areas, a mini-shopping center, a credit union, an 800-seat cafeteria and thousands of exclusive parking spaces. Secret parking spaces.

There are, of course, actual operational national security-type elements to the project. For example, it will include a new shredder facility (for all those classified documents) and an antenna farm (to help listen in on enemy combatants like Osama bin Laden and Princess Di).

According to unclassified NSA documents obtained by the Metro Spirit, the project will relocate all existing antennas to the southern end of the new site. The location “provides the perfect look angles with no possibility for encroachment to their required line-of-sight in the future.”

The project also includes a new 7,600-square-foot Visitor Control Center, thousands of additional square feet for warehouses, a vehicle inspection facility, modular training spaces and modular workspace for the growing Navy contingent at NSA-Georgia.

The plans will also force some adaptations to existing facilities. The primary entrance to Back Hall, the socalled compartmented information facility on Chamberlain Avenue and 25th Street, will change to what is now the rear entrance.

“Anyone working or visiting Back Hall knows that space has been at a premium for years,” the document says. “To ease the growth and handle new mission personnel” in coming years, an 800-workstation facility will be added in the Back Hall parking lot.

Those 800 seats translate into 1,200 new personnel, the document notes. Equipment will be added as personnel arrive, to “ensure that the IT placed for new arrivals is current technology, is under warranty, and is the best strategy for reducing initial construction costs.”

The document says the main new structure, a 525,000- square-foot Regional Security Operations Center, should be complete by May 2010.

The NSA and its allies in the U.S. Congress have been pushing this project for years. The Defense Department requested a $340.8 million appropriation for the Georgia Regional Security Operations Center back in February. And a construction award was scheduled for Sept. 25, NSA documents show.

Maybe the deal was awarded on schedule. Maybe there was a delay. Either way, it wasn’t announced until Dec. 8, one day after the Metro Spirit started calling around with questions. The announcement was one of only eight press releases that the usually silent spy agency had issued all year.

The NSA announcement said The Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, awarded the contract on Dec. 7.

The world is full of strange coincidences. But this deal is rife with them.

Not only was the long-awaited contract ostensibly awarded the very day a reporter happened to call a Congressional staffer about it, the press release was sent out three days before the award was published on federal contracting Web sites.

It almost gives the impression that if the government hadn’t been asked, it wouldn’t have bothered to say how it planned to spend more than a third of a billion dollars.

“NSA is not in the habit of announcing these contracts. Certainly not in any kind of expedited manner,” says Steven Aftergood, who runs the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC.

“If the overall intelligence budget is on the order of $45 billion, only a small fraction of that is publicly reported,” Aftergood says. “The largest and most consequential programs, which have annual appropriations in the $100-million or larger category, go completely unremarked on in public. It’s a strange way to do business.”

Military and intelligence agencies enjoy the luxury of so-called black budgets, pools of money intended for top-secret projects that even members of Congress are prohibited from knowing about.

The blanket secrecy increases the likelihood of corruption, such as last year’s garish, prostitute-ridden bribery scandal surrounding former California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

“When billions of dollars each year are allocated in secret, you can be pretty confident that that money is not being adequately overseen,” Aftergood says.

Indeed, there is reason to believe that the NSA-Georgia project’s actual cost will be even higher than the $340 million that’s known to have been appropriated.

A military source familiar with cost analysis told the Metro Spirit that the facilities may wind up costing more than $1 billion.

The $286 million award for the new NSA facilities went to Phelps/Kiewit Joint Venture, which is, as the name suggests, actually two companies sharing the work and the profits. This is an increasingly common practice in the world of major military projects, where competition between lead contractors is often more theoretical than actual.

Phelps appears to be part of Hensel Phelps Construction, which, four days after the 9/11 attacks, won the rebuilding contract for the Pentagon. It was worth up to $758 million. Kiewit is not as high-profile. In 2002, one of the company’s divisions won a $15 million contract to build a vehicle maintenance facility at Fort Gordon. Both companies are based in the military contracting mecca of Virginia.

Clyde Taylor, military legislative assistant to Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, said his office spent a couple of years obtaining the appropriation. Taylor also gave credit to Georgia Rep. Charlie Norwood, whose office issued its own press release last Friday.

The need for the new NSA facility is driven by the growth in overseas surveillance activities, Taylor said. He said that the agency plans to move linguists and analysts down from its Fort Meade, Md., headquarters to the Augusta listening station, which targets the Middle East.

Billy Birdwell, chief of public affairs with the Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, says Phelps/Kiewit will probably get the go-ahead to proceed in January.

---

From the Dec. 14 issue of the Augusta, Ga. Metro Spirit.

More of Team HLS

2006-12-14T06:37:00.000-08:00

Gus Green, hero of the cartoon Team HLS (Homeland Security), as a youth. We'll be posting one a day for a while. Let us know what you think. It's drawn by an Augusta cartoonist and we're considering it a for a place in the Metro Spirit.

Someone, please book these guys. Coco?

2006-12-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

The Secret Sound of the NSA, coming to you from Columbus, Ohio. Check out their cover of "Armagideon Time."

A 'slip of the tongue?'

2006-12-13T11:27:00.000-08:00

Doubt it.

PM Olmert reveals "Israel's holiest secret."

Meanwhile, in Tehran ... David Duke and Ahmadinejad find common ground. They're, like, BFF now.

But don't worry, citizens! Watch more television!

Top story on AOL:

'Raymond' Dad
Peter Boyle Dies
Starred in 'Young Frankenstein'
Emmy-Winning Actor Was 71

EXCLUSIVE! Di wiretap transcript: 'And then, he said Okay, and I was like, Oh my God!'

2006-12-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

Alright, so we're late to the Princess Di thing. All you need to know is: "NSA did not target Princess Diana's communications." Okay? Okay. Let's never speak of this again.

[Bill Arkin has a good take: "The real story here, which the Post seems to have missed, is that if Forstmann's communications were being monitored, an American citizen's communications, then it would have been a violation of the law. That is, unless he is a criminal or a terrorist."]

***

More WaPo...Looks like Gen. Jerry "My God Is Bigger Than Your God" Boykin wasn't the only one trying to put Our Lord in his rightful place as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Sunni 'nough: Saudi Arabia just demonstrated why the 80 percent solution is no such thing.

Finally, here's something to ponder over lunch:

Who's thinking, "Architecture"?

Tells us about new cartoon

2006-12-13T07:48:00.000-08:00

We're considering this cartoon, drawn by Augusta local cartoonist B. J. Wood, for the Metro Spirit. It's called Team HLS, which stands for Homeland Security. Over the next few weeks, we'll post one cartoon a day. Tell us what you think. Does it make you laugh? Email tom.grant@metrospirit.com with your opinions.

RSOC it to me

2006-12-08T14:32:00.000-08:00

Charlie Norwood's office announced a big construction contract at Ft. Gordon today. Watch the Metro Spirit for more...but for now, here's the release:

National Security Agency Operations Center
Project Moves Forward at Fort Gordon

(Fort Gordon, GA) - U.S. Representative Charlie Norwood (R-GA) today announced that a construction contract has been awarded for a new operations center for the National Security Agency/Central Security Service Cryptologic Center in Georgia - NSAG.

"This is a great day for America's security and intelligence forces, for Fort Gordon, and for the CSRA," says Norwood, who lobbied extensively for the facility in recent years. "We're now cleared for groundbreaking, and that means we've passed the last conceivable hurdle to the center becoming a reality."

[Knock on wood!]

Norwood says infrastructure improvements and expanded national security missions at Fort Gordon were critical to the Fort's staying off the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) list ...

According to the U.S. Army, a contract for $23,127.979 was awarded this week to Phelps/Keweit [sic] Joint Venture of Chantilly, Virginia, for construction of the operations center, with an estimated completion date of June 29, 2010.

To destroy your sensitive files

2006-12-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

... don't mess around with generic-brand degaussers. Buy an NSA-approved degausser today!

Document Type:	Presolicitation Notice
Solicitation Number:	HM1575-06-T0010
Posted Date:	Oct 12, 2006
Original Response Date:
Current Response Date:
Original Archive Date:
Current Archive Date:
Classification Code:	36 -- Special industry machinery
Set Aside:	Total Small Business
Naics Code:	333319 -- Other Commercial and Service Industry Machinery Manufacturing

Contracting Office Address

Other Defense Agencies, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, St Louis Contracting Center (ACSS), Attn: ACSS Mail Stop L-13 3838 Vogel Road, Arnold, MO, 63010-6238

Description

... Requirement being solicited is to provide NSA Approved Destructor and NSA Approved Degausser, installation, customer training, and warranty maintenance. Both items must be on the NSA CSS Evaluated products list for high security disintegrators and degaussers. ...

Maintaining a false sense of security

2006-12-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

That seems to be an overriding concern these days. Complete security is impossible, so we make a meaningless show of force.

We'll scan container ships for radiation -- but only those that departed from a few ports, and not other kinds of cargo ships. Because we can't check them all. Trade would grind to a halt.

We'll randomly check some people's luggage at the airport, but not everyone's. Because we can't. The check-in would take longer than the flight.

We'll post conspicuous, heavily armed guards in some tourist areas. Why? Apparently, this makes a lot of people feel safe.

We'll search some people's bags on the New York City subway, just because we can.

Meanwhile, we'll leave the chemical plants unguarded, and we'll continue selling automatic weapons to anyone who wants one. Terrorists don't use guns? Right.

The same dubious thinking about security also applies to privacy. Google's chat program, for instance, automatically saves and stores every transcript on the company's servers. To reassure people that their conversations won't be recorded and used for nefarious ends, Google lets you check a box that promises your chats won't be saved. You have to check another box each time you chat to make sure the other party can't save the transcript.

But even if you believe that no digital trace exists of your conversations, what's to keep the other party from copying it down as you type, or taking screenshots?

Don't think too hard about it. Just check the box. You're "off the record," okay? Trust us. Now, just let us see what's in your bag. There, there. Don't you feel safer?

'Axis of Weasels' was better

2006-12-08T08:04:00.000-08:00

It's reassuring to know that our society has progressed. Now we have PhotoShop!

Card-carrying member

2006-12-08T07:12:00.000-08:00

The Village Voice's Nat Hentoff explains how to get your hands on your "file." Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

In other news

2006-12-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

Wired: "Privacy Board Knows Number of Americans Targetted by NSA but Won't Share the 411"

"Had Congress wanted us to be an indendepent agency, it would have made us independent."

So says a member of the White House Privacy and Civil Liberties Board.

CQ: "Fine Print in Defense Bill Opens Door to Martial Law"

“The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor,” [Sen. Patrick Leahy] said.

Wired, again: "DHS Passenger Scoring Illegal?"

Describes

"A newly revealed system that has been assigning terrorism scores to Americans traveling into or out of the country for the past five years..."

Which reminds us of North Korea's categorization of its citizens into three groups: "Loyal," "Wavering" and "Hostile."

Media Matters: O'Reilly's banging the drums again

Big Brother Bill says,

"If Iran takes over Iraq and then fosters a revolution inside Saudi Arabia, which Iran wants to do, and overthrows that kingdom and gets control of all the oil and says we're not selling to the USA, we are going to level that country, because you, [caller], need gasoline to live. See? Now that's the biggest example I can give you."

IHT: "Rights group says Indian military assistance fuels repression in [Burma]"

We can't just blame China anymore.

"It is shocking that a democracy like India would offer military assistance to Burma's brutal military dictatorship, which is likely to use that assistance against the civilian population," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Can Jim Baker dance?

2006-12-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

With all eyes on the Baker report (a dud, the consensus has it), Israel's new minister for strategic affairs -- a real hardliner, judging by this profile -- is meeting with Condi today.

In other words, while we're talking Iraq, Iraq, Iraq -- and getting nowhere -- the people who matter are talking Iran, Iran, Iran.

The minister tells The New York Times: “The dialogue with Iran will be a 100-percent failure, just like it was with North Korea," and, “We must also be prepared to deal alone with this problem.”

Hm, preemptive strike? Or...what? If you rule out diplomacy, what else is there?

Not that we'd engage in speculation in this forum. Until Jim Baker says it's a problem, we're not going to worry about it.

* * *

About that Baker report: Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi summed it up nicely yesterday morning.

In essence, all Baker-Hamilton accomplished was a very vague admission that Bush's Iraq adventure is somehow irrevocably fucked and that we have to get our troops out of that country as soon as possible, a conclusion that was obvious to the entire world two long years ago.

Not true! Some of us were too enthralled by Dancing With the Stars.

Looks peaceful enough from space

2006-12-06T09:35:00.000-08:00

News:

The US Navy just reasserted control over a multinational task force patrolling the southern Persian Gulf. Stories here and here and here and here.

Presumed context:

Iran, of course, is the elephant in the room, and the Strait of Hormuz is the, uh...great...big...whale (ok?).

Footnote that's more interesting than the news:

A few Heritage hawks point out some problems with the US Navy's minesweepers and note that "Iran’s mine warfare capabilities may pose a more persistent challenge than is commonly accepted."

Iraqi perspective:

"Iran is the beneficiary of this current situation." So says Moqtada al-Sadr's spokesman. He's interviewed here, and it's interesting if not groundbreaking stuff. He says "bureaucratic competition for power" within America dooms its project in Iraq.

The misuses of SIGINT

2006-12-06T07:16:00.000-08:00

Martin Streetly, who edit's Jane’s Electronic Mission Aircraft, worries that overreliance on tactical signals intelligence spells trouble for future coalition warfare and for the health of society in general. An overview of his article is available here, but you need to be a subscriber to read the whole thing. (Nuts.)

Streetly writes:

A plausible scenario suggests that [war on terror] operations in southwest Asia are unlikely to long outlive the current Bush and Blair administrations, leaving a SIGINT capability that is overly developed in the tactical area playing catch-up in strategic realms, such as the monitoring of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and other global hotspots.

Who's worried about nuclear proliferation? We're all about nuclear proliferation.

The editor also sees "increasing danger inherent in the attractions of SIGINT as a tool to combat domestic terrorism, with all the inherent dangers for civil liberties such a 'surveillance' society offers."

Civil liber-wha?

The Office

2006-12-04T15:04:00.000-08:00

FAS's Secrecy News got a copy of an employee survey recently given to America's intel workforce. "To ensure your anonymity," the survey cautions, "do not write anything on this survey or the return materials that would identify you personally."

Certainly.

Steve Aftergood explains:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is conducting an
annual survey of intelligence community employees to lay a
foundation for future reforms of personnel practices.

The survey asks IC employees to evaluate a range of issues from
workplace environment and job satisfaction ("How satisfied are you
with the policies and practices of your senior leaders?") to
attitudes towards other intelligence agencies ("How easy or
difficult is it for you to collaborate with members of the IC who
are outside your own IC agency?")

There are no wrong answers (wink wink).

Rebuild Abu Ghraib, too, while you're at it

2006-12-04T09:38:00.000-08:00

In all the weekend ruckus over the Rumsfeld memo, Juan Cole singles out one of Rummy's parting nuggets of advice that I didn't hear mentioned anywhere else:

"Rumsfeld openly admits that he wants to run Iraq just like Saddam did," Cole writes.

He cites the ex-SecDef's suggestion to "Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period."

Says Cole:

I mean, bribing people to be your puppets is bad enough, but citing Saddam's policies as an example for how Iraq should be run is absolutely outrageous.

Get with the program, professor! Don't you know it's the Iraqis' fault?

'Is James Bond responsible for the Iraq War?'

2006-12-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

No, seriously. The gist of Richard Cohen's argument is this: If GWB had said Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium in Africa according to Russian intelligence or Italian intelligence, "We'd still be laughing."

But because the bogus story came from British intelligence, which we all know is very exacting and debonair, we bought it hook line and sinker.

In a roundabout way, Cohen is saying that the Bond films helped Bush sell his intelligence the same way that Top Gun helps Air Force recruiters -- by making the whole thing same easy, exciting and infallible. You have to wonder, would people put so much trust in the powers of Homeland Security without shows like 24 and CSI? Probably not... Some people, though, have always preferred Stripes.

Anyway: interesting essay.

Who didn't see this coming?

2006-12-01T07:03:00.000-08:00

"The Bush administration is deliberating whether to abandon U.S. reconciliation efforts with Sunni insurgents and instead give priority to Shiites and Kurds..." -- Wash. Post

'New Normal' Holidays

2006-12-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

By Newsday's Doug Marlette

Big Nike is watching you

2006-11-30T13:21:00.000-08:00

Via Defense Tech: A "convenient and cool" new toy for health-conscious grownups is an accidental (?) homing device.

Gee, how did we ever get by before RFID?

(Note Ft. Gordon's iPod-toting linguists: Buy Reeboks.)

Reagan’s NSA chief speaks out

2006-11-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

Retired general asks, What’s wrong with cutting and running?
By Corey Pein

Some would have you believe that only terrorists and San Francisco liberals want the U.S. out of Iraq. Retired Lt. Gen. William Odom proves otherwise. Odom ran the National Security Agency — a major employer here in Augusta — for three years under President Ronald Reagan. Now he is a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. He is also an outspoken opponent of the invasion of Iraq and the “war on terrorism,” which he derides as “a slogan” that made Al Qaeda “far more effective.” The Metro Spirit interviewed him recently.

Metro Spirit: What are your feelings on the NSA’s program of warrantless wiretapping of American citizens?

William Odom: It didn’t happen under my watch. And I’m still puzzled why somebody hasn’t tried to impeach the president for doing it. Any conservative in the United States who values his life [ought to be outraged]. In fact, the South seceded in defense of minority rights — why the hell have they forgotten them now? Ben Franklin said, “somebody who values security over liberty deserves neither.”

MS: What do you say to people, and there are plenty here in Augusta, who say that cutting and running from Iraq is traitorous act?

WO: Well, just tell ‘em they’re full of shit. They're traitors. You know what lemmings are? Yeah, they’re lemmings. We went to war for our enemies’ best interests. You ask those people why it makes sense that we went to war to advance the interests of Iran and Al Qaeda.

MS: Will the Democrat-controlled Congress change anything?

WO: No, not much. I think that what’s gonna change the course is that we’re losing the war. It’s not the Congress that’s changing things. I’ve never seen much spine on the part of the Democrats. What’s gonna change it, if anything, is that [Defense Secretary nominee Robert] Gates has thought that we have a ridiculous policy toward Iran, because they’re going to get nuclear weapons anyway. He has never thought the war made any sense.

MS: Do you think President Bush wants to invade Iran?

WO: The prime minister of Israel was here begging him [Bush] to do it. People down there in Augusta, they’re just being led around by the snout. I grew up in East Tennessee. I know what Georgians are like. I’m a redneck, and there are a lot of stupid rednecks. You can quote me saying that. Ask ‘em if they know that the United States is one of the greatest supporters of terrorism in the globe. I’m all for my terrorists, I’m just against their terrorists.

MS: So you think the Israel lobby, as you put it, was the reason we invaded Iraq?

WO: The religious right here pushed it. I don’t think the oil issue has much to do with it. Your enemies will sell you oil. Do we need to own a country to get oil from it? As much as [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez hates us, he gives us oil. The oil issue by and large is a red herring. Ask those guys after what we’ve done in Iraq, if anybody who’s gonna run Iraq is gonna be pro-American. The Iranians have been telling the Shiites, “Do what the Americans tell you.” Do you know why? Because the American democracy program was gonna put Shiites in charge. There are more Shiites in the country. Now they can kill off the Sunnis.

MS: It’s been said that Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile whose bogus intelligence helped build American support for war, was an Iranian agent. Do you think so?

WO: Of course he’s working for Iran. He’d work for anybody against anybody else. You got all those hardliners in Augusta who are suckers for any kinda city slicker. They’re suckers for this criminal banker from Jordan.

MS: You say the Iranians will get nukes no matter what we do.

WO: Just like North Korea got ‘em.

MS: So, then, what should we do? Should we pressure Israel to disarm its nuclear weapons?

WO: I don’t care whether they disarm or not. Why don’t you ask Israel to give up their weapons if the Iranians will give ‘em up, too? The Iraq war has made Israel much less secure. Al Qaeda can operate in Iraq now. How stupid can you be? The crowd I don’t know what to do about is the religious right who believe in the Book of Revelations. They used to tell me the Earth was flat. There must be some smart rednecks down there. It’s time for them to stand up.

---

From the Nov. 30 issue of the Augusta, Ga. Metro Spirit. Visit www.metrospirit.com. Find Odom's articles at niemanwatchdog.org.

Oops!

2006-11-30T08:16:00.000-08:00

Wash. Post:

The U.S. government agreed yesterday to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit filed by an Oregon lawyer who was arrested and jailed for two weeks in 2004 after the FBI bungled a fingerprint match and mistakenly linked him to a terrorist attack in Spain. ...

This raises the question: What good is "information sharing" if the information is wrong? The courts may be wondering that, too. The Post says Mayfield can "continue pursuing his legal challenge to the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law, which was used to obtain his personal records while he was under investigation."

There's a strong argument against the government's wide-net approach to problems like terrorism, and Darshak Sanghavi put it pretty succinctly yesterday in Slate:

[E]ven highly accurate screening tests have many false positives. Take a random airport test for cocaine that correctly identifies 99 percent of cocaine smugglers and correctly excludes 99 percent of nonsmugglers, and assume about 100 smugglers enter an airport of 100,000 passengers. Among smugglers, 99 would have a positive test, and one would be negative. But among law-abiding travelers, 999 would have false-positive tests. Thus, only 99 out of 1,098 people who test positive, or less than 10 percent, are real smugglers. So, a lot of innocent people endure fruitless internal body-cavity searches.

But then, what have you got to worry about, if you're not a smuggler.

Is oversight making a comeback?

2006-11-29T10:43:00.000-08:00

Congress gets a briefing from a "civil liberties" panel on the administration's Swift financial records surveillance program. The panel says it's all good.

The reach of NSA spying

2006-11-29T00:22:00.000-08:00

Have you ever called Afghanistan? The NSA is still listening.

According to Reuters last December, the volume of information gathered from telephone and Internet communications by the National Security Agency without court-approved warrants was much larger than the White House has acknowledged.

But according to the New York Times, nearly a year later, the nation still doesn't know how great that reach may be and Congress is still undecided about how to deal with the spying.

"For all the sound and fury in the last year, the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program continues uninterrupted, with no definitive action by either Congress or the courts on what, if anything, to do about it, and little chance of a breakthrough in the lame-duck Congress," the Times writes.

Philosophy and the NSA

2006-11-29T00:06:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia defines ontology in two ways: "The term ontology has its origin in philosophy, where it is the name of a fundamental branch of metaphysics concerned with existence. According to Tom Gruber at Stanford University, the meaning of ontology in the context of computer science, however, is 'a description of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents.' He goes on to specify that an ontology is generally written, 'as a set of definitions of formal vocabulary.'"

Somehow, the intelligence community uses this applied philosopy. And they're talking about it this week "in the shadow of the National Security Agency." Read about it here.

Fort Gordon NSA employee dies

2006-11-29T00:02:00.000-08:00

Curtis Lee Adams, 38, of Atlanta, died of a heart attack on Nov. 14, 2006. According to his obituary, he had been working in Augusta, Ga., for the National Security Agency, the U.S. Department of Defense, since January.

NSA wiretapping comes under scrutiny

2006-11-28T04:47:00.000-08:00

According to The New York Times, "the Justice Department’s inspector general said Monday that his office had opened a full review into the department’s role in President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program and the legal requirements governing the program."

This will allow an investigation into procedures that allow the National Security Administration to monitor, without obtaining warrants from the court, communications between Americans and people outside this nation who are suspected of terrorism.

Across the pond, realignment

2006-11-27T14:19:00.000-08:00

From Cryptome (gotta love Cryptome) we hear vaguely that some changes are in store at Menwith Hill, described here as "the premiere NSA electronic surveillance station in Europe. "

How could it not be, with all those big orbs?

FAS (gotta love FAS) describes Menwith Hill as "the principal NATO theater ground segment node for high altitude signals intelligence satellites." FAS tells us that it won the NSA's "'Station of the Year' prize for 1991 after its role in the Gulf War," and many other interesting things.

Anyway, the Pentagon release is pretty damn vague, which isn't surprising, I guess. Are they shuttering the SIGINT operation there or what? Is it a lot of nothing? If something truly interesting was happening, would they announce it?

'Bomb Iran'

2006-11-22T13:19:00.000-08:00

That's one neocon's policy advice, as relayed by the Los Angeles Times.

One wonders: Then what?

Scott Ritter (yes, that Scott Ritter), offers an alternative view, in an excerpt from his new book "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change."

A couple of weeks ago Ritter was talking about his book with Sy Hersh on C-SPAN. I'm paraphrasing here, but Ritter said that whenever he heard someone advocate a preemptive nuclear strike against Iran, he'd ask that person to "pick a city."

That is, to pick an American city they wouldn't mind seeing wiped off the map in retaliation.

So, what will it be Detroit? New York? Atlanta?

Seems like a fair question. Anybody out there wargaming this?

A class in National Security Administration

2006-11-22T13:02:00.000-08:00

Apparently, people can train in national security administration at the University of New Haven. Here's one class:
"NSP 648:'Achieving Excellence in National Security Administration.' This course will consist of a survey of the methods used by effective administrators and managers, in the private sector, to achieve their strategic objectives. The survey will be supplemented by focused conversations about how these well researched and practiced methods could be applied to administrative challenges within the national security enterprise."

Bush and warrantless wiretaps

2006-11-22T12:54:00.000-08:00

Some people think President Bush should be impeached. Why? Tim Collins summarizes a possible reason: "Whereas the president authorized the National Security Administration to engage in warrantless wiretaps of American citizens in violation of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the doctrine of separation of powers, and the express will of Congress in establishing the fisa courts." (See Mother Jones)

Do you think the NSA is listening to this?

Let them eat duct tape

2006-11-22T11:41:00.000-08:00

Homeland Security contracting is a mess, says a consultant's confidential audit reported in the Washington Post. That's not exactly a revelation, at this point, but there are some nice details in the story. For example: "At the outset, the team of acquisition specialists could not locate 33 of the 72 contract files it had selected for the review, so the consultants had to select 33 others."

Memo to Chertoff: Blame the consultants.

No, wait. Blame the Washington Post.

Army Strong, with the munchies

2006-11-22T11:33:00.000-08:00

The CBS News affiliate out of Denver investigates the rising use of "moral waivers" by Army recruiters, which allow them to accept gang members and dope smokers. The report says:

With a high demand for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has struggled to meet its recruiting and retention goals in past years. However, in the 2006 fiscal year, the Army exceeded its goal by enlisting 80,635 new troops. ...

Nationally, the Army has increased its acceptance of moral waivers from 7,640 in 2001 to 11,018 in 2006.

At the same time, the age limit was also increased, and the aptitude requirements were lowered.

Hello

2006-11-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Metro Spirit's national security blog, covering the NSA, Ft. Gordon, foreign policy and all things spook.