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The U.S. Arsenal Is Antiquated And Falling Apart
Image: wikipedia commons
Despite the daily stories of billion dollar purchasesand enormous contracts, the military’s main arsenal of ships, tanks, helicopters, and planes is decades old and ready to be replaced.
The Wall Street Journal reports that because the U.S. spent the last decade developing weapons and equipment for two specific conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, updating the rest of the arsenal was left undone.
In one instance, an Air Force pilot flies the same 30-year-old F-15 his father flew; in another, an Air Force navigator bought an off-the-shelf GPS to get better weather data and aviation notices than what’s available in his C-130 cargo plane.
From WSJ:
Much of the equipment currently in service dates to the Reagan-era Read more…
Kill Switch Beta: Government Blocks 84,000 Websites
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
February 16, 2011
Under the banner of fighting child pornography, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice knocked out 84,000 websites last week. The websites did not host or link to child pornography as the government claims.
“As part of ‘Operation Save Our Children‘ ICE’s Cyber Crimes Center has again seized several domain names, but not without making a huge error. Last Friday, thousands of site owners were surprised by a rather worrying banner that was placed on their domain,” reports TorrentFreak, a tech site.
Senator Joe Lieberman peddles his kill switch legislation under the rubric of the phony war on terror.
“Advertisement, distribution, transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography constitute federal crimes that carry penalties for first time offenders of up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution,” was the message visitors to the sites were Read more…
CIA Director Leon Panetta Warns of Possible Cyber-Pearl Harbor
Top Intelligence-Security Officials Say Computer Attacks Increasing
By JASON RYAN
Top U.S. intelligence officials have raised concerns about the growing vulnerability the United States faces from cyberwarfare threats and malicious computer activity that CIA Director Leon Panetta said “represents the battleground for the future.”
“The potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber-attack,” he testified on Capitol Hill Thursday before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also appeared, telling the committee, “This threat is increasing in scope and scale, and its impact is difficult to overstate.”
There are roughly 60,000 new malicious computer programs identified each day, Clapper said, citing industry estimates.
“Some of these are what we define as advanced, persistent threats, which are Read more…
China gains chokehold over U.S. defense
WorldNetDaily
An alarming new report says the United States is choosing to rely on China for the rare earth metals that are critical for the production of America’s strategic defense weapons, giving the communist nation a chokehold on the ability of the U.S. to defend itself, according to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
While the U.S. has the world’s second-largest reserves of the substances, instead of facilitating production, it has left China to take over the market – it controls some 97 percent of the global sales of these elements, according to the report.
The American Security Project, in fact, says the U.S. is “completely reliant on China” for rare earth metals for the production of the nation’s most critical weapons systems.
“Rare earth metals are essential for the United States’ military and economic well-being,” the report said. “Yet, the U.S. has been particularly lax when it comes to securing the supply of these metals.
“The U.S. has gone from the world’s top producer and supplier of rare earths to Read more…
Mobile Body Scanners :Backscatter Vans
X-Ray “Backscatter Vans” Can See in your Car and Home, Feds are Radiating Americans “And not only are you no longer secure in your home but they can see your hidden guns in the wall or in the floor along with your precious metals. American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E’s machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the U.S.
“This product is now the largest selling cargo and vehicle inspection system ever,” says Reiss.
The Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs, as the company calls them, bounce a narrow stream of x-rays off and through nearby objects, and read which ones come back. Absorbed rays indicate dense material such as steel. Scattered rays indicate less-dense objects that can include explosives, drugs, or human bodies. That capability makes them powerful tools for security, law enforcement, and border control. Read more…
Utah’s $1.5 billion cyber-security center under way
CAMP WILLIAMS — Thursday’s groundbreaking for a $1.5 billion National Security Agency data center is being billed as important in the short term for construction jobs and important in the long term for Utah’s reputation as a technology center.
“This will bring 5,000 to 10,000 new jobs during its construction and development phase,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said on Wednesday. “Once completed, it will support 100 to 200 permanent high-paid employees.”
- Utah’s NSA spy center will house data, not analysts – Jan. 7, 2011
- Utah firm to work on NSA data center – Sept. 27, 2010
- National Security Agency data center at Camp Williams drawing huge interest in Utah – Jan. 13, 2010
Officially named the Utah Data Center, the facility’s role in aggregating and verifying dizzying volumes of data for the intelligence community has already earned it the nickname “Spy Center.” Its really long moniker is the Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center — the first in the nation’s intelligence community.
A White House document identifies the Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative as addressing “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation, but one that we as a government or as a country are not adequately prepared to counter.” The document details a number of technology-related countermeasures to the security threat.
Hatch said Utah was chosen for the project over 37 other locations. He characterized the cyber-security center as the “largest military construction project in recent memory.”
Hatch said he promoted Utah’s favorable energy costs, Internet infrastructure, thriving software industry and proximity to the Salt Lake City International Airport in the bid process that ended up with Camp Williams earning the data center.
The Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the project that is under contract to a joint venture between Big-D Construction in Salt Lake City, U.K.-based Balfour Beatty Construction and DPR Construction out of California.
“This project is going to give an opportunity for an awful lot of Utahns” who have seen construction jobs in Utah drop from 100,000 in 2008 to about 66,000 today, said Rob Moore, president and COO of Big-D and chairman of the Associated General Contractors in Utah. “My subcontractors, suppliers and vendors are very appreciative of the work that will be available on this project.”
Grading work is already under way for the complex, which is scheduled to include 100,000 square feet for the data center and 900,000 square feet for technical support and administrative space. The center is designed to be capable of generating all of its own power through backup electrical generators and will have both fuel and water storage. Construction is designed to achieve environmentally significant LEED Silver certification.
“It is so unique and so intensive,” Hatch said. “This will establish our state as one of the leading states for technology.”
China J-20 STEALTH FIGHTER VIDEO FOOTAGE
Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, recently said China would be able to produce a combat jet by 2020, but if the video is genuine, it would suggest that it may be able to do so a decade or more sooner.
The photographs come amid growing fears over China’s rapidly-expanding military capabilities. Naval experts have expressed concern over the Dong Feng-21D ballistic missile, which is designed to target aircraft carriers in mid-sea – thus denying the United States its traditional military dominance of the Pacific.
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