Monday, September 11, 2006

Secret CIA Prisons

It's official, there're indeed (publicly) secret CIA prisons, and a public commitment towards improvement :

"All suspects will now be treated under new guidelines issued by the Pentagon on Wednesday, which bring all military detainees under the protection of the Geneva Convention. The move marks a reversal in policy for the Pentagon, which previously argued that many detainees were unlawful combatants who did not qualify for such protections. The new guidelines forbid all torture, the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners, water boarding - the practice of submerging prisoners in water - any kind of sexual humiliation, and many other interrogation techniques."

I assume operating such facilities in the Twilight Zone is flexible from an interrogation point of view, what makes me wonder though is how justified kidnappings of alleged terrorists by recruiting local intelligence agents are. Guess a guy I had a hot discussion with the other night was right, no more Russian skirmishes in guerilla warfare, the adversary leaders just dissapear and no one, even their forces ever hear anything of them -- spooky special forces stealing the hive's queen.

In case you're also interested in DoD's New Detainee Interrogation Policy, it's already available at the FAS's blog, plus "biographies" of 14 detainees.

However, there's one thing the entire synthetic community would always be thankful to the CIA though, and that's the LSD, a proven "ice breaker" during the decades.

Graph courtesy of Spiegel.de

NSA's Terrorist Records Database

Right on time! Inside sources -- this is a creative spoof -- at the NSA finally coordinated their intelligence sharing efforts with the Patriot Search, and came up with a public database giving you the opportunity to lookup your entire neighborhood for suspicious relations with the Middle East.

What's the bottom line? Keep your friends close, your intelligence buddies closer!

Interested in Anti-Terror tips? Follow these :

- Use email software with strong encryption to prevent terrorists from reading your email
- Encrypt the files on your computer using strong encryption such as PGP to prevent terrorists from accessing your files
- Browse the web using an anonymous proxy to prevent terrorists from seeing what sites you visit
- Insist that electronic voting machines provide you with a traceable paper receipt so you can ensure that terrorists haven't altered the electronic ballot
- Report all behavior, especially if it is suspicious

The Freedom Tower - 11th September 2006

That's of course how it's gonna look like in 2012 -- true leaders never look into the past, they're too busy defining the future. Time goes fast given you're busy and always up to something -- disruption! I still clearly remember the moment when 9/11 happened and realize how much I've changed since then. Mixed thoughts started buzzing around my mind, the type of thoughts Cryptome's Daily Photos smartly emphasises on. Anyway, someone or something always has to, either be the result, the consequence, or the foundation for the next stage. I'll leave it open to interpretations on what interacts with what :

Cold War <=> Defense/Intelligence spending/Innovation <=> Post 9/11 World
Terrorist <=> Ideology <=> War
Foreign policy <=> Terrorism <=> Geopolitical dominance
Terrorism <=> OSINT <=> Intelligence
Civil Liberties <=> Terrorism <=> Surveillance
Poverty <=> G8 <=> Developed world
Space exploration budget cuts <=> Terrorism <=> Alternative energy sources development
Paranoia <=> Terrorism <=> Security services/products market growth

I can keep on going, but that's not the point, the point is how globalisation is acting as a double edged sword, and so is paranoia, still, keep in mind that there're one million other ways to get killed compared to a terrorist attack.

There've always been and will always be "bad guys", "good guys", and "greyhat guys" -- barking dogs of course -- trouble is knowing whom to trust at a particular moment in time. I can easily argue that during the past five years, all the "bad guys" had to do was to go through the press and come up "future long term strategies" perceptional enough to shock and awe "the infidels". My point is that, OSINT is also a double edged sword, useful and dangerous to both parties. As far as the infidels are concerned, I'm not one - I believe in myself!

Underestimating an adversary is much worse than overestimating it, just cut using terrorism as the excuse for everything you do, or are about to do, which is as subjective as China's economy taking over the world -- something neither the "bad guys" nor China would do.

Related posts:
Terrorism
Data mining, terrorism and security
Terrorist Social Network Analysis
Benefits of Open Source Intelligence - OSINT
Visualization, Intelligence and the Starlight project
Cyber terrorism - don't stereotype and it's there!
Cyber terrorism - recent developments
Arabic Extremist Group Forum Messages' Characteristics
Tracking Down Internet Terrorist Propaganda
Cyber Terrorism Communications and Propaganda
Steganography and Cyber Terrorism Communications