Congressman wants safeguards for privacy; targets NDAA.

The House of Representatives has approved an amendment to the draconian National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that will limit the Department of Defense from using data collected by unmanned spy drones against Americans.

The Amendment, introduced by Congressman Landry (R-LA), will prohibit information collected by DoD drones without a warrant from being used as evidence in court.

The amendment, was approved early Thursday afternoon along with 19 other en bloc amendments, reads:

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, information acquired by an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the Department of Defense may not be admitted in a Federal court, State court, or court of a political subdivision of a State as evidence against a United States citizen unless such information was obtained by such unmanned aerial vehicle pursuant to a court order.”

Landry’s amendment is an important one given that a recently uncovered Air Force documentcontends that the Pentagon can use drones to monitor the activities of Americans.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet.

Defense Secretary re-affirms Obama administration’s unconstitutional stance.

Following controversy over his assertion that seeking “international permission” from the UN to launch wars trumps the authority of Congress, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta re-affirmed this premise during recent testimony in which he again stated that Congress would play second fiddle to the international community.

Asked by Congressman Walter Jones, who has launched a resolution re-affirming the limits to Presidential power by making the launching of war without Congressional approval an impeachable offense, whether President Obama would seek authorization from Congress before attacking Iran or Syria, Panetta stopped short of answering in the affirmative.

“We will clearly work with Congress if it comes to the issue of the use of force,” said Panetta, backing away from comments made in March when he told a Senate Armed Services Committee, “Our goal would be to seek international permission. And we would come to the Congress and inform you and determine how best to approach this, whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress.”

However, Panetta later told Congressman Randy Forbes during the House Armed Services Committee meeting, “The commander in chief has the authority to take action that involves the vital interests of this country,” adding that the President would have to “take steps” to get Congressional approval under the War Powers Act.

“Would the approval be required before you could take military action against Syria?” asked Forbes.

“The President could in fact deploy forces if he had to if our vital interests were at stake,” said Panetta.

“So you get the support of Congress after you began military operations?” asked Forbes.

“In that particular situation, yes,” said Panetta, re-affirming that Congressional authorization would not be needed.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet.

It’s true, superhero movies are generally not known for their adherence to strict reality. No surprise there, though I’d say it could be argued that Marvel has actually done a passable job of finding real-world ways and reasons for its heroes to possibly exist (Thor obviously excluded).

But in an angle that I freely admit I would never have anticipated, when the Pentagon chose to withdraw its support for Marvel’s THE AVENGERS due to its “unreality” they were actually referring to SHIELD any not any of the super-powered beings found therein.  “We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it,” said Phil Straub, the Defense Department’s Hollywood liaison.  “To whom did S.H.I.E.L.D. answer? Did we work for S.H.I.E.L.D.? We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn’t do anything with the film.”

As an example: while the humvees which show up at the end (driven by members of the National Guard) were used in cooperation with the Defense Department, any of the military planes seen on or around the Helicarrier (“F-22 Raptors and what looked like F-35 Joint Strike Fighters”) were all inserted digitally as the military refused to provide real ones.

To be fair, Marvel has been suitably murky as to just what SHIELD is in the world of the movies – not that they have to explain everything away by any means, but is it an American governmental agency that has authority over America’s military, or is it a more international organization created via a sort of ”United Nations Security Council resolution” uses American military equipment on loan? Without answers to these questions, all Straub could do was decide “It just got to the point where it didn’t make any sense.”

Source: JoBlo.

The U.S. Army is dedicating millions of research dollars into discovering building helmets to allow soldiers to telepathically communicate with one another on the battlefield.

The technology, which seems like something out of a science fiction novel, would use electrodes to pick up code words that soldiers were thinking.

Those codewords would then be transmitted back to a computer where the soldier’s position and message- telling, for instance, that it is safe to progress towards a target- which would be transmitted to their peers in the field.

Rumors that army intelligence was determined to use mind control technology to their advantage have been milling around for decades, and have been shrouded in a mix of truth and fiction.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was established in 1958 and was dedicated to expanding the Department of Defense’ technology usage, some of which included state-of-the-art, and top secret, research into the mind.

Delving more into the fiction side of things was the book, and later George Clooney movie, called The Men Who Stare At Goats which depicts the use of New Age concepts, like mind control, used during interrogation exercises in the last three decades.

Now, new details are emerging about the very real $4million research project being conducted across the country on the Pentagon’s dime.

Based largely out of University of California-Irvine, in conjunction with labs in Philadelphia and Maryland, scientists are trying to improve so-called ‘synthetic telepathy’ so that it could be used in a battlefield.

At this point, they have set their sights on 2017 as the year when their plan may turn into silent action.

So far, 45 per cent of the commands that are transmitted from one volunteer to another- like ‘call in helicopter’ or ‘enemy ahead’- are correct. That statistic is expected to improve.

According to a soldier quoted in Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, many of those people who will be the ones utilizing the technology are on board.

These days we learn warfare through video games and shoot with plastic weapons,’ the unnamed soldier said.

‘One week it’s science fiction- the next it’s on the front line. If it means I don’t have to listen to my sergeant’s voice one more day, then bring it on.’

Others, including civil rights activists, take the opposite view, bringing up concerns about a possible infringement on civil liberties if the technology were to be misused.

For the time being, the research is being focused on learning and applying the short military-based codewords, and not individuals private thoughts and deep secrets.

CONTINUED at The Daily Mail.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb and called for continued diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Tehran not to take that step. As he has previously, Panetta cautioned against a unilateral strike by Israel against Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying the action could trigger Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces in the region. “We have common cause here” with Israel, he said. “And the better approach is for us to work together.” Panetta’s remarks on CBS’ Face the Nation, which were taped Friday and aired Sunday, reflect the long-held view of the Obama administration that Iran is not yet committed to building a nuclear arsenal, only to creating the industrial and scientific capacity to allow one if its leaders to decide to take that final step. – PressTV/YouTube/Washington Post

Dominant Social Theme: Iran is evil. War is in the offing.

Free-Market Analysis:  Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta admitted on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Iran was not seeking to make nuclear weapons. OK, we can all relax now, right? Not quite. Panetta went on to caution that Iran was seeking a “nuclear capability” and that this “concerned” him – and presumably others as well.

Who are the others, we ask? President Barack Obama? The military? The CIA? Israel? No, we have another hypothesis. We think the current crisis is a manufactured one and that Iran’s “capability” – whatever it is – has little to do with any contemplated war.

There will be war, if there is war, between the West and Persia because the West NEEDS a war. Already, in the West, the alternative media – often a beacon of truth and hope – is explaining there will be war because ISRAEL feels threatened.

But this is not quite true, either. Israel is a creation of the power elite and it is the Anglosphere power elite that is currently seeking war, in our view. It seems to need or want a war to prop up its failing central banking system.

It is the failure of the financial system, proceeding apace, that gives rise to this talk of war, to the military tensions, to the tendentious statements made by Washington, DC and to a lesser extent by European and Israeli leaders.

What other conclusion can be reached? Iran HAS no nuclear weapons. And even if it did, is Iran somehow more evil or unstable than North Korea, which is evidently bent on increasing a nuclear arsenal that it already has built?

But Iran, it is said, can target Israel with nuclear weapons. Yet North Korea can do the same with South Korea. Compare the “tensions” and rhetoric and one has to conclude that a double standard is being applied. It is seemingly a situation where Iran’s ongoing nuclear program is simply a tool designed to unlock wider rhetoric. Here’s a further excerpt from a Washington Post on the subject:

The comments suggest the White House’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear strategy has not changed in recent months, despite warnings from advocates of military action that time is running out to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear-armed state. Iran says its nuclear program is only for energy and medical research, and refuses to halt uranium enrichment.

Several Republican candidates have called for a tougher line against Iran, saying they believe it is committed to building the bomb. “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon,” said Mitt Romney. “And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Rick Santorum has said that the U.S. should plan a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and “say to them that if you do not open up those facilities and close them down, we will close them down for you.” Iran has opened two dozen of its facilities to international inspectors, but has refused in defiance of the U.N. Security Council to suspend its uranium enrichment.

Panetta did not rule out launching a pre-emptive strike. “But the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them to force them to do the right thing,” he said. “And to make sure that they do not make the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.”

We can see from the above excerpt how strongly the drums of war are beating. Panetta, while admitting that Iran has no weaponized nuclear program, will not rule out a “pre-emptive” strike. The entire scenario seems to be some kind of power elite dominant social theme.

These fear-based themes are essentially tools used by the elites to stampede Western middle classes into giving up wealth and power to global institutions specially constructed for that purpose, such as the UN, IMF and World Bank.

In this case, we are not quite sure why the Pentagon – an elite-oriented institution – has decided to focus so intently on Iran. We are sure, however (as we have pointed out previously), that the powers-that-be are creating an Islamic crescent arc in the Middle East by destabilizing secular regimes and replacing them with Islamic ones.

This is ongoing … and perhaps the malicious rhetoric surrounding Iran is merely part of a propaganda process intended to further demonize the region preparatory to a full-on regional war.

Modern wars need years, even decades, to foment, in our view. In the Internet era, this is even harder because people’s natural skepticism about being manipulated will surely be fueled by the fodder provided by various alternative ‘Net news.

Iran/Western tensions seen through this lens are perhaps preparatory and do not indicate an immediate state of hostilities. On the other hand, the amount of weaponry now emplaced in and around Iran certainly gives rise to concern. Even a war planned for later can be generated sooner by mistake (intentional or not). View the video below and make up your own mind.

*Taken from FT.

US military operations in Libya are on course to cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Pentagon estimated, according to figures obtained by the Financial Times.

Robert Gates, the outgoing secretary of defence, said last month that the Pentagon expected to spend “somewhere in the ball park of $750m” in the 2011 fiscal year as part of efforts to protect the Libyan people.

But according to a Pentagon memo which includes a detailed update on the progress and pace of operations, by mid-May US operations in Libya had cost $664m, a figure confirmed by the Department of Defence.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from BBC.

US defence firm Lockheed Martin says it has come under a significant cyber-attack, which took place last week.

Few details were available, but Lockheed said its security team had detected the threat quickly and ensured that none of its programmes had been compromised.

The Pentagon said it is working to establish the extent of the breach.

Lockheed makes fighter jets, warships and multi-billion dollar weapons systems sold worldwide.

Lt Col April Cunningham, speaking for the US defence department, said the impact on the Pentagon was “minimal and we don’t expect any adverse effect”.

CONTINUED..

What happens when science is captured by rulemaking agencies and politicians? Please rate this clip and subscribe to our channel for more videos from Cato!

Senior Fellow Patrick J. Michaels talks about global warming alarmism’s invasion of almost every aspect of our society- from national defense, law, trade, and politics to health, education, and international development. This unprecedented takeover is documented in Climate Coup, a new book published by the Cato Institute. The book also features contributions from Roger Pilon, Evan Turgeon, Ross McKitrick, Ivan Eland, Sallie James, Indur M. Goklany, Robert E. Davis and Neal McCluskey. Michaels spoke at a Cato Book Forum on May 4, 2011.

Click below for a more detailed description and ordering information about this new book from the Cato Institute:
http://www.cato.org/store/books/climate-coup-global-warming-s-invasion-our-go…

*Taken from U.S. News.

A $600,000 frog sculpture that lights up, gurgles “sounds of nature” and carries a 10-foot fairy girl on its back could soon be greeting Defense Department employees who plan to start working at the $700 million Mark Center in Alexandria, Va. this fall. That is unless a new controversy over the price tag of the public artdoesn’t torpedo the idea.

Decried as wasteful spending that will be seen by just a couple thousand of daily workers who arrive on bus shuttles, foes have tried to delay the decision, expected tomorrow, April 1. But in an E-mail, an Army Corps of Engineers official said that the decision can’t be held up because it would impact completion of the huge project.

The City of Alexandria just announced that there are four works of art being considered and that a final decision needs to be made fast. The artwork was put on display for public comment from March 24 to today. The Alexandria News first reported the hasty announcement to decide a winner.

The schedule surprised some who thought that the costly artwork project was on the “back burner,” according to critic Donald Buch, a member of the mayor’s advisory committee overseeing the Mark Center project. “What’s the rush?” he asked.

Buch says he’s not opposed to art, just high-priced works that won’t be seen by many. He estimates that only 2,500 will see the artwork every day as they use the bus transfer station at the Mark Center. “Who the heck is going to see it,” he asked. “To spend six hundred grand to amuse the same people every day is nuts.”

The Mark Center is one of the facilities that thousands of defense workers will be reporting to as part of the Base Realignment and Closure plan, or BRAC, that is shifting workers around Virginia and Maryland. The BRAC plan itself has been criticized as wasteful.

The four art proposals for the bus terminal include works for a wall and sculpture. But the one drawing most attention is the fairy and frog from artist Cheryl Foster. Her proposals describes the sculpture this way: “A 10-foot fairy, using an American Toad as ‘transportation,’ scurries to the entrance of the station. The interior of the toad is illuminated and the sounds of nature emanate from his throat.” She said that nature inspired her.

Buch suggested instead that the Corps should consider a nature park or water feature, not a toad.

According to the Corps, the artwork was the city’s idea. A city official, however, said that Alexandria officials didn’t demand art, but just asked that public artwork be included in the structure. What’s more, the official said that the $600,000 is federal money, and that no Alexandria funds will pay for the art.

*Taken from Prison Planet. Written by Steve Watson.

The Obama administration is to propose a $37 billion increase in federal spending for the Department of Homeland Security, earmarking funds for more radiation firing naked body scanners in airports around the country.

The DHS’ budget will grow by almost 3 percent over the 2011 budget level, as Reuters reports, while the overall national security budget will increase by almost 2 percent.

The 2012 budget proposal requests $43.8 billion for homeland security across the entire federal government, excluding the Defense Department, up $800 million from 2011.

The DHS plans to add an additional 275 naked body scanners to the 500 already installed and operated by the TSA at 78 airports nationwide.

The administration has proposed deploying 1,275 body scanners in airports by the end of 2012.

“The U.S. Transportation Security Administration hopes to buy more full-body scanners to detect explosives and other weapons potential attackers may hide on their bodies that cannot be detected by traditional metal detectors.” the Reuters reports suggests, failing to highlight the fact that the body scanners do not even have such capabilities according to their manufacturers.

Experts have dismissed the devices as “useless”, have repeatedly warned that the machinescannot detect explosive material effectively and would not have prevented the Christmas Day bomber from boarding Flight 253.

Add to this the ongoing safety concerns of respected scientists, and one is left asking why is the government ploughing billions into technology that is ineffective and potentially dangerous?

The answer is security theatre.

A largely manufactured and over hyped threat is being met with a manufactured response, the net effect of which is an overwhelming stripping away of the basic freedoms of Americans while lining the pockets of security contractors.

The DHS is instituting a complete takeover of society, with it’s Walmart telescreens, its active citizen spy programs, its armies of agents frisking crowds at sports events, and even extending it’s tentacles into parking restrictions and the like.

In addition, at the same time as the announcement that a further $3 billion will be pumped into the DHS for protection against a chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological attack, a strange story has emerged of a port official in San Diego suggesting that such weapons have been found inside the U.S. by federal authorities.

Related: “See Something, Say Something” Exposed As Hoax