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China Leads Weather Control
Race By Brandon Keim November 14, 2007 | 10:45:13 AMCategories: Climate, Engineering Not content to push the edge in cloning, architecture and geological engineering, China's also leaving the rest of the world behind when it comes to controlling the weather. It's uncanny living in Beijing how it rains on the eve of major events. Be it a big domestic event, or a visiting foreign politician, the rain has usually fallen the day before, making for temporary blue skies free of the normal haze. Chinese officials say cloud seeding has helped to relieve severe droughts and water shortages in cities. In Shanghai officials are considering the measure to cool the daytime temperature, easing demand for electricity. When next summer's Olympics roll around, the Beijing Weather Modification Office will be poised to intercept incoming clouds, draining them before they get to the festivities. No fewer than 32,000 people nationwide are employed by the Weather Modification Office -- "some of them farmers, who are paid $100 a month to handle anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers" loaded with cloud-seeding compounds. Some estimate that up to 50 billion tons of artificial rain will be produced by 2010. But Taylor noted that this has resulted in competition between cities to seed clouds first, and bitter acrimony when when region receives water claimed by another. During my cloud seeding reportage, a few weather modification scientists praised China's initiative. My gut instinct was to focus on China's less-than-stellar human rights record and just say, "Well, it's easy to mess with the weather when there's no paperwork to fill out or reparations to pay if you flood a village or turn a county into desert." But that's reductionist. At some level, it's about vision and will -- and China's got it. Said Bill Woodley, a weather modification researcher who spent several decades running cloud seeding experiments for NOAA, "There's much we don't know, as compared to China, where investment is 100 million a year. They're training young scientists and pilots; they've just gone crazy there. It's the epicenter of all weather modification activity. They're pushing hard. Whereas in the United States, the amount of money invested by any government is probably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if that. For a country our size, not much is being invested. Interestingly, when I opined that this was a shame, because with all the billions of federal dollars spent uselessly elsewhere, the government ought to shake a few million weather modification dollars out of the White House sofa, Woodley seemed a bit chagrined. You can't just throw money at it, he said -- there needs to be strong oversight, someone to make sure the research is first-rate, and so on. He mentioned a couple of weather modification research bills now creeping through Congress -- one introduced by Mark Udall (D-Colorado), the other pushed by Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas). If you think weather modification research is a good idea, go get your democratic participation on. Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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Police to Search for Guns
in Homes By Maria Cramer Globe Staff / November 17, 2007 Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms. The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households. In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager's parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave. If officers find a gun, police said, they will not charge the teenager with unlawful gun possession, unless the firearm is linked to a shooting or homicide. The program was unveiled yesterday by Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis in a meeting with several community leaders. "I just have a queasy feeling anytime the police try to do an end run around the Constitution," said Thomas Nolan, a former Boston police lieutenant who now teaches criminology at Boston University. "The police have restrictions on their authority and ability to conduct searches. The Constitution was written with a very specific intent, and that was to keep the law out of private homes unless there is a written document signed by a judge and based on probable cause. Here, you don't have that." Critics said they worry that some residents will be too intimidated by a police presence on their doorstep to say no to a search. "Our biggest concern is the notion of informed consent," said Amy Reichbach, a racial justice advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union. "People might not understand the implications of weapons being tested or any contraband being found." But Davis said the point of the program, dubbed Safe Homes, is to make streets safer, not to incarcerate people. "This isn't evidence that we're going to present in a criminal case," said Davis, who met with community leaders yesterday to get feedback on the program. "This is a seizing of a very dangerous object. . . . "I understand people's concerns about this, but the mothers of the young men who have been arrested with firearms that I've talked to are in a quandary," he said. "They don't know what to do when faced with the problem of dealing with a teenage boy in possession of a firearm. We're giving them an option in that case." But some activists questioned whether the program would reduce the number of weapons on the street. more stories like thisA criminal whose gun is seized can quickly obtain another, said Jorge Martinez, executive director of Project Right, who Davis briefed on the program earlier this week. "There is still an individual who is an impact player who is not going to change because you've taken the gun from the household," he said. The program will focus on juveniles 17 and younger and is modeled on an effort started in 1994 by the St. Louis Police Department, which stopped the program in 1999 partly because funding ran out. Police said they will not search the homes of teenagers they suspect have been involved in shootings or homicides and who investigators are trying to prosecute. "In a case where we have investigative leads or there is an impact player that we know has been involved in serious criminal activity, we will pursue investigative leads against them and attempt to get into that house with a search warrant, so we can hold them accountable," Davis said. Police will rely primarily on tips from neighbors. They will also follow tips from the department's anonymous hot line and investigators' own intelligence to decide what doors to knock on. A team of about 12 officers will visit homes in four Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods: Grove Hall, Bowdoin Street and Geneva Avenue, Franklin Hill and Franklin Field, and Egleston Square. If drugs are found, it will be up to the officers' discretion whether to make an arrest, but police said modest amounts of drugs like marijuana will simply be confiscated and will not lead to charges. "A kilo of cocaine would not be considered modest," said Elaine Driscoll, Davis's spokeswoman. "The officers that have been trained have been taught discretion." The program will target young people whose parents are either afraid to confront them or unaware that they might be stashing weapons, said Davis, who has been trying to gain support from community leaders for the past several weeks. One of the first to back him was the Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown, cofounder of the Boston TenPoint Coalition, who attended yesterday's meeting. "What I like about this program is it really is a tool to empower the parent," he said. "It's a way in which they can get a hold of the household and say, 'I don't want that in my house.' " Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, whose support was crucial for police to guarantee there would be no prosecution, also agreed to back the initiative. "To me it's a preventive tool," he said. Boston police officials touted the success of the St. Louis program's first year, when 98 percent of people approached gave consent and St. Louis police seized guns from about half of the homes they searched. St. Louis police reassured skeptics by letting them observe searches, said Robert Heimberger, a retired St. Louis police sergeant who was part of the program. "We had parents that invited us back, and a couple of them nearly insisted that we take keys to their house and come back anytime we wanted," he said. But the number of people who gave consent plunged in the next four years, as the police chief who spearheaded the effort left and department support fell, according to a report published by the National Institute of Justice. Support might also have flagged because over time police began to rely more on their own intelligence than on neighborhood tips, the report said. Heimberger said the program also suffered after clergy leaders who were supposed to offer help to parents never appeared. "I became frustrated when I'd get the second, or third, or fourth phone call from someone who said, 'No one has come to talk to me,' " he said. Residents "lost faith in the program and that hurt us." Boston police plan to hold neighborhood meetings to inform the public about the program. Police are also promising follow-up visits from clergy or social workers, and they plan to allow the same scrutiny that St. Louis did. "We want the community to know what we're doing," Driscoll said. Ronald Odom - whose son, Steven, 13, was fatally shot last month as he walked home from basketball practice - was at yesterday's meeting and said the program is a step in the right direction. "Everyone talks about curbing violence," he said, following the meeting. ". . . This is definitely a head start." Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com. © Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company. Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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Congress OKs Va
Tech-inspired Gun Bill By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer December 20, 2007 WASHINGTON - Congress passed a long-stalled bill inspired by the Virginia Tech shootings that would more easily flag prospective gun buyers who have documented mental health problems. The measure also would help states with the cost. Passage by voice votes in the House and Senate Wednesday came after months of negotiations between Senate Democrats and the lone Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who had objected and delayed passage. It was not immediately clear whether President Bush intended to sign, veto or ignore the bill. If Congress does not technically go out of session, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has threatened, the bill would become law if Bush does not act within 10 days. "This bill will make America safer without affecting the rights of a single law-abiding citizen," said the Senate's chief sponsor, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer. One of the House's chief sponsors, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, spoke in the full House about her husband, who was killed by a gunman on the Long Island Railroad in New York. "To me, this is the best Christmas present I could ever receive," said McCarthy, D-N.Y. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., added that the bill will speed up background checks and reinforce the rights of law abiding gun owners. Propelling the bill were the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16 and rare agreement between political foes, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association. But other interest groups said that in forging compromise with the gun lobby, the bill's authors unintentionally imposed an unnecessary burden on government agencies by freeing up thousands of people to buy guns. "Rather than focusing on improving the current laws prohibiting people with certain mental health disabilities from buying guns, the bill is now nothing more than a gun lobby wish list," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center. "It will waste millions of taxpayer dollars restoring the gun privileges of persons previously determined to present a danger to themselves or others." The measure would clarify what mental health records should be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which help gun dealers determine whether to sell a firearm to a prospective buyer, and give states financial incentives for compliance. The attorney general could penalize states if they fail to meet compliance targets. Despite the combined superpowers of bill's supporters, Coburn held it up for months because he worried that millions of dollars in new spending would not be paid for by cuts in other programs. His chief concern, he said, was that it did not pay for successful appeals by veterans or other people who say they are wrongly barred from buying a gun. Just before midnight Tuesday, Coburn and the Democratic supporters of the bill struck a deal: The government would pay for the cost of appeals by gun owners and prospective buyers who argue successfully in court that they were wrongly deemed unqualified for mental health reasons. The compromise would require that incorrect records — such as expunged mental health rulings that once disqualified a prospective gun buyer but no longer do — be removed from system within 30 days. The original bill would require any agency, such as the Veterans Administration or the Defense Department, to notify a person flagged as mentally ill and disqualified from buying or possessing a gun. The new version now also would require the notification when someone has been cleared of that restriction. The bill would authorize up to $250 million a year over five years for the states and as much as $125 million a year over the same period for state courts to help defray the cost of enacting the policy. Propelling the long-sought legislation were the April 16 killings at Virginia Tech. Student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and himself using two guns he had bought despite his documented history of mental illness. Cho had been ruled a danger to himself during a court commitment hearing in 2005. He had been ordered to have outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying the two guns he used. But Virginia never forwarded the information to the national background check system. Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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Rocket Launched Into Space; Carries Satellite to Guide Weapons Associated Press December 20, 2007 CAPE CANAVERAL - A rocket carrying a GPS satellite to better guide military weapons was launched into space Thursday. The Delta 2 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 3:04 p.m. with the modernized NAVSTAR Global Positioning System Block 2R military navigation satellite aboard for the U.S. Air Force. The satellite is part of a constellation of 24 and one of eight that were modernized to more Powered by a solar panel that can produce up to 800 watts of power, the 4,540-pound satellite is expected to circle the earth for up to a decade before becoming obsolete. Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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FBI Prepares Vast
Database Of Biometrics $1 Billion Project to Include Images of Irises and Faces By Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, December 22, 2007; A01 CLARKSBURG, W. Va. -- The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad. Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law. "Bigger. Faster. Better. That's the bottom line," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which operates the database from its headquarters in the Appalachian foothills. The increasing use of biometrics for identification is raising questions about the ability of Americans to avoid unwanted scrutiny. It is drawing criticism from those who worry that people's bodies will become de facto national identification cards. Critics say that such government initiatives should not proceed without proof that the technology really can pick a criminal out of a crowd. The use of biometric data is increasing throughout the government. For the past two years, the Defense Department has been storing in a database images of fingerprints, irises and faces of more than 1.5 million Iraqi and Afghan detainees, Iraqi citizens and foreigners who need access to U.S. military bases. The Pentagon also collects DNA samples from some Iraqi detainees, which are stored separately. The Department of Homeland Security has been using iris scans at some airports to verify the identity of travelers who have passed background checks and who want to move through lines quickly. The department is also looking to apply iris- and face-recognition techniques to other programs. The DHS already has a database of millions of sets of fingerprints, which includes records collected from U.S. and foreign travelers stopped at borders for criminal violations, from U.S. citizens adopting children overseas, and from visa applicants abroad. There could be multiple records of one person's prints. "It's going to be an essential component of tracking," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's enabling the Always On Surveillance Society." If successful, the system planned by the FBI, called Next Generation Identification, will collect a wide variety of biometric information in one place for identification and forensic purposes. In an underground facility the size of two football fields, a request reaches an FBI server every second from somewhere in the United States or Canada, comparing a set of digital fingerprints against the FBI's database of 55 million sets of electronic fingerprints. A possible match is made -- or ruled out--as many as 100,000 times a day. Soon, the server at CJIS headquarters will also compare palm prints and, eventually, iris images and face-shape data such as the shape of an earlobe. If all goes as planned, a police officer making a traffic stop or a border agent at an airport could run a 10-fingerprint check on a suspect and within seconds know if the person is on a database of the most wanted criminals and terrorists. An analyst could take palm prints lifted from a crime scene and run them against the expanded database. Intelligence agents could exchange biometric information worldwide. More than 55 percent of the search requests now are made for background checks on civilians in sensitive positions in the federal government, and jobs that involve children and the elderly, Bush said. Currently those prints are destroyed or returned when the checks are completed. But the FBI is planning a "rap-back" service, under which employers could ask the FBI to keep employees' fingerprints in the database, subject to state privacy laws, so that if that employees are ever arrested or charged with a crime, the employers would be notified. Advocates say bringing together information from a wide variety of sources and making it available to multiple agencies increases the chances to catch criminals. The Pentagon has already matched several Iraqi suspects against the FBI's criminal fingerprint database. The FBI intends to make both criminal and civilian data available to authorized users, officials said. There are 900,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers who can query the fingerprint database today, they said. The FBI's biometric database, which includes criminal history records, communicates with the Terrorist Screening Center's database of suspects and the National Crime Information Center database, which is the FBI's master criminal database of felons, fugitives and terrorism suspects. The FBI is building its system according to standards shared by Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. At the West Virginia University Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR), 45 minutes north of the FBI's biometric facility in Clarksburg, researchers are working on capturing images of people's irises at distances of up to 15 feet, and of faces from as far away as 200 yards. Soon, those researchers will do biometric research for the FBI. Covert iris- and face-image capture is several years away, but it is of great interest to government agencies. Think of a Navy ship approaching a foreign vessel, said Bojan Cukic, CITeR's co-director. "It would help to know before you go on board whether the people on that ship that you can image from a distance, whether they are foreign warfighters, and run them against a database of known or suspected terrorists," he said. Skeptics say that such projects are proceeding before there is evidence that they reliably match suspects against a huge database. In the world's first large-scale, scientific study on how well face recognition works in a crowd, the German government this year found that the technology, while promising, was not yet effective enough to allow its use by police. The study was conducted from October 2006 through January at a train station in Mainz, Germany, which draws 23,000 passengers daily. The study found that the technology was able to match travelers' faces against a database of volunteers more than 60 percent of the time during the day, when the lighting was best. But the rate fell to 10 to 20 percent at night. To achieve those rates, the German police agency said it would tolerate a false positive rate of 0.1 percent, or the erroneous identification of 23 people a day. In real life, those 23 people would be subjected to further screening measures, the report said. Accuracy improves as techniques are combined, said Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's biometric services section chief. The Next Generation database is intended to "fuse" fingerprint, face, iris and palm matching capabilities by 2013, she said. To safeguard privacy, audit trails are kept on everyone who has access to a record in the fingerprint database, Del Greco said. People may request copies of their records, and the FBI audits all agencies that have access to the database every three years, she said. "We have very stringent laws that control who can go in there and to secure the data," Bush said. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the ability to share data across systems is problematic. "You're giving the federal government access to an extraordinary amount of information linked to biometric identifiers that is becoming increasingly inaccurate," he said. In 2004, the Electronic Privacy Information Center objected to the FBI's exemption of the National Crime Information Center database from the Privacy Act requirement that records be accurate. The group noted that the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2001 found that information in the system was "not fully reliable" and that files "may be incomplete or inaccurate." FBI officials justified that exemption by claiming that in law enforcement data collection, "it is impossible to determine in advance what information is accurate, relevant, timely and complete." Privacy advocates worry about the ability of people to correct false information. "Unlike say, a credit card number, biometric data is forever," said Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley technology forecaster. He said he feared that the FBI, whose computer technology record has been marred by expensive failures, could not guarantee the data's security. "If someone steals and spoofs your iris image, you can't just get a new eyeball," Saffo said. In the future, said CITeR director Lawrence A. Hornak, devices will be able to "recognize us and adapt to us." "The long-term goal," Hornak said, is "ubiquitous use" of biometrics. A traveler may walk down an airport corridor and allow his face and iris images to be captured without ever stepping up to a kiosk and looking into a camera, he said. "That's the key," he said. "You've chosen it. You have chosen to say, 'Yeah, I want this place to recognize me.' " Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report. Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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New Stealth? Aircraft FALSE 12/2007 This is from the movie STEALTH. This is not a new aircraft. UPDATE! Below are pictures of a new aircraft being tested. Any help in indentifying this would be of great help. 
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Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs'1/14/2008 Hi-tech 'satellite' tagging planned in
order to create more space in jails
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Threat
As 10-ton Satellite Set to Crash Back to Earth David Watts The Sunday Times January 27, 2008 A LARGE American spy satellite has lost power and is expected to crash back to Earth sometime late next month. The 10-ton satellite’s controllers admit that they do not know where it might come down and they have no way of controlling the return of a vehicle which may contain hazardous materials. “Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the US National Security Council. “We are looking at all potential options to mitigate any possible damage that this satellite may cause.” Governments around the world have been warned of the satellite’s plight. The spokesman refused to speculate on the possibility that the satellite may be shot down by a missile to prevent any debris causing damage. If the US government elected not to use that method to destroy the errant satellite, then it could opt instead to employ America’s new laser weapons for use against incoming missiles, which are now being tested on board a modified Boeing jumbo jet. Falling satellites and their trajectories can usually be predicted well in advance and airlines notified. The lack of certainty over the reentry location of this dying spy in the sky, not to mention the risk from any poisonous materials that it may be carrying, underlines the threat the satellite poses as it plunges from its orbit 100 miles above the Earth. Last year 270 passengers on board an airliner above the Pacific had a lucky escape when the wreckage of a blazing Russian satellite narrowly missed their aircraft. Pilots of the Latin American Airbus A340 saw the fiery debris streaking through the darkness directly ahead of them. The wreckage caused a sonic boom, which temporarily drowned out the noise of the jet’s four engines. The near-disaster happened about four hours southwest of Auckland, New Zealand, and air traffic controllers quickly realised that the flaming wreckage was what remained of a communications satellite that had not been due to enter the Earth’s atmosphere for a further 12 hours. The Pacific area is favoured for bringing satellites to Earth because of the relatively light population. The largest uncontrolled reentry of a Nasa spacecraft from space orbit was Skylab, the 78-ton space station that fell back to Earth in 1979. The debris from the station fell across the Indian Ocean and a remote part of Western Australia. There were no reported injuries or damage from Skylab. In 2000 Nasa engineers successfully directed a safe return from orbit of the 17-ton Compton Gamma Ray Observatory using rockets on board the satellite to bring it down in a remote part of the Pacific. The difficulty or predicting reentry was reinforced two years later when debris from a science satellite crashed onto the Earth’s surface several thousand miles from where it had been expected to impact. Elements of the 7,000lb satellite rained down over the Gulf. Fortunately there was no reported injury to life or property. The most dangerous satellite disaster came in January 1978 when a fireball streaked through the skies of western Canada, heralding the demise of a Russian spy satellite. The remains of the satellite came down over Great Slave Lake and fell across the North West Territories, Alberta and Saskatchewan spreading mildly toxic radioactive waste. In the subsequent furore the then Canadian prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, accused the United States of failing to warn the Ottawa government of the impending danger. Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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US Military
Prepares for Plummeting Spy Satellite Military
opt to act...now that crash is imminent over US soil By Scott Snowden 30th January 2008 15:04 GMT The US military is putting into effect contingency plans to deal with the possibility that a large spy satellite expected to fall to Earth in late February or early March could actually hit North America. Exactly what these contingency plans consist of is not clear at this stage - we thought perhaps a giant baseball mitt. But one thing's for sure, the race will be on to salvage the splatted spy sat. Air Force General Gene Renuart, who heads US Northern Command, told the Associated Press a number of pieces will not burn up as the orbiting vehicle re-enters the Earth's atmosphere and will instead hit the ground. "We know there is at least some percentage that it could land on ground as opposed to in the water." Renuart added that, "...it looks like it might re-enter into the North American area." The US military along with the Homeland Security Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will either have to deal with the impact or assist Canadian or Mexican authorities - depending exactly where it lands of course. Experts at Global Security , a defense research group, say a crash could put the secrets of the satellite at risk. "One concern the intelligence community is going to have is that parts of this satellite will fall into the hands of the Russians or Chinese or somebody else," says Global Security director John Pike. According to Pike, the satellite carries a new generation of spy equipment, able to provide round-the-clock intelligence. "The hopes were that this was going to be a more capable, less expensive spy satellite or radar satellite that could see objects through clouds and in the dark." Satellite Watchers, a worldwide network of hobbyists who track satellites for recreation, have been plotting the gradual degradation of the spy satellite's orbit for about year. They estimate it is now at an altitude of approximately 173 miles, and dropping about 1,640 feet a day. ® Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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Satellite Spotters Glimpse Secrets, and Tell Them
NY Times 2/2008 When the government announced last month that a top-secret spy satellite would, in the next few months, come falling out of the sky, American officials said there was little risk to people because satellites fall out of orbit fairly frequently and much of the planet is covered by oceans. But they said precious little about the satellite itself. Such information came instead from Ted Molczan, a hobbyist who tracks satellites from his apartment balcony in Toronto, and fellow satellite spotters around the world. They have grudgingly become accustomed to being seen as “propeller-headed geeks” who “poke their finger in the eye” of the government’s satellite spymasters, Mr. Molczan said, taking no offense. “I have a sense of humor,” he said. Mr. Molczan, a private energy conservation consultant, is the best known of the satellite spotters who, needing little more than a pair of binoculars, a stop watch and star charts, uncover some of the deepest of the government’s expensive secrets and share them on the Internet. Thousands of people form the spotter community. Many look for historical relics of the early space age, working from publicly available orbital information. Others watch for phenomena like the distinctive flare of sunlight glinting off bright solar panels of some telephone satellites. Still others are drawn to the secretive world of spy satellites, with about a dozen hobbyists who do most of the observing, Mr. Molczan said. In the case of the mysterious satellite that is about to plunge back to earth, Mr. Molczan had an early sense of which one it was, identifying it as USA-193, which gave out shortly after reaching space in December 2006. It is said to have been built by the Lockheed Martin Corporation and operated by the secretive National Reconnaissance Office. Another hobbyist, John Locker of Britain, posted photos of the satellite on a Web site, galaxypix.com. John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a private group in Alexandria, Va., that tracks military and space activities, said the hobbyists exemplified fundamental principles of openness and of the power of technology to change the game. “It has been an important demystification of these things,” Mr. Pike said, “because I think there is a tendency on the part of these agencies just to try to pretend that they don’t exist, and that nothing can be known about them.” But the spotters are also pursuing a thoroughly unusual pastime, one that calls for long hours outside, freezing in the winter and sweating in the summer, straining to see a moving light in the sky and hoping that a slip of the finger on the stopwatch does not delete an entire night’s work. And for the adept, there is math. Lots of math. “It’s somewhat time consuming and tedious,” Mr. Molczan said, acknowledging that the precise and methodical activities might seem, to the uninitiated, “a close approximation to work.” When a new spy satellite is launched, the hobbyists will collaborate on sightings around the world to determine its orbit, and even guess at its function, sharing their information through the e-mail network SeeSat-L, which can be found via the Web site satobs.org. From his 23rd-floor balcony, or the roof of his 32-floor building, Mr. Molzcan will peer through his binoculars at a point in the sky he expects the satellite to cross, which he locates with star charts. When the moving dot appears, he determines its direction and the distance it travels across the patch of sky over time, which he can use to calculate its speed. Mr. Molzcan declined a request to visit him in Toronto and to be photographed for this article, saying: “No offense intended, but this is beginning to sound like more of a human interest story than one about the substance of the hobby. My preference is for the latter. Also, I prefer not to have photos of myself published.” Mr. Locker, who favors a telescope for his camerawork, said that people like him and Mr. Molczan were not, as he put it, “nerdy buffs who lie on our backs and look into the sky and try to undermine governments.” Spotting, he said, is simply a hobby. “There are people who look at train timetables and go watch trains,” he said. People are drawn to what interests them, he said, and “it’s what draws people to any hobby.” While recent news coverage has focused on the current satellite’s threat to people when it falls from above, that threat is, statistically, very small. Even when the space shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas five years ago and rained debris over two states, no one on the ground was injured. Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, noted that 328 satellites had come down in the past five years without injury to anyone. While Mr. Johndroe declined to divulge much about the current satellite aside from the fact that it carries no nuclear material, he said that the government would take responsibility in the remote chance of damage or injury. The government’s relationship with the hobbyists is not a comfortable one. Spokesmen for the National Reconnaissance Office have stated that they would prefer the hobbyists not publish their information, and suggest that foreign countries try to hide their activities when they know an eye in the sky will be passing overhead. The satellite spotters acknowledge that this may be so, though they doubt that such tactics are effective. Mr. Molczan said he believed that the hobbyists hurt no one but that “you can’t say with absolute certainty what effect you’re having.” Mr. Pike said the officials who complained about the hobbyists “don’t like it, but they’ve got to lump it.” Despite the many clever ways that the spy agencies try to minimize the likelihood that their satellites will be spotted, he said, they will be. And that, he said, is a valuable warning: a world with so many eyes on the skies renders deep secrets shallow. “If Ted can track all these satellites,” Mr. Pike said, “so can the Chinese.” Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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Russia Tracks Rogue U.S. Satellite Containing
Nuclear Material MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Defense Ministry is closely monitoring a U.S. spy satellite that has gone out of control and may have nuclear material on board, a high-ranking defense source said on Friday. "The Defense Ministry is using its space surveillance systems to track the satellite's movement in orbit," he said. Russian military experts suggest the satellite could have an on board nuclear power source, a senior parliament member said. Igor Barinov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, also expressed concern that the U.S. had made a unilateral decision to destroy the satellite. He said that decisions, which could jeopardize collective security, "should be made taking into account all parties concerned and all countries involved in space research." The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday it would shoot down the decaying satellite, which it earlier considered to be low risk. The department said the chances that the "uncontrollable U.S. experimental satellite" will hit a populated area are small, but "the potential consequences would be of enough concern to consider mitigating actions." The U.S. will attempt to shoot down the satellite using a Navy Standard Missile 3, U.S. officials said. They said the satellite will be shot down after the space shuttle Atlantis, which is in orbit, completes its mission and lands next week. NASA officials do not want to risk sending debris into the path of shuttle. Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. officials would attempt to hit the satellite at an altitude of 130 nautical miles, or just outside Earth's atmosphere, so that most of the debris would fall to Earth within two orbits. He said the window of opportunity for taking the satellite down would open in three or four days, and would last for about seven or eight days. If the missile shot is successful, much of the debris will burn up as it falls. The goal is to hit the fuel tank in order to minimize the amount of fuel that returns to Earth, Cartwright said. The satellite was launched in 2006 and malfunctioned almost immediately. On board is around 1,000 pounds of propellant fuel (hydrazine), a hazardous material. President George W Bush has authorized the destruction of the satellite using a sea-to-air missile within the next few days. Earlier the director of the Henry L. Stimson Center, which monitors space security and research Michael Krepon, said that the reasons given for shooting down the satellite were "unpersuasive," adding previous satellites that had gone out of control had not caused any damage. "The president has decided to take action to mitigate the risk to human lives by engaging the nonfunctioning satellite," the Defense Department explained in a news announcement. "Because our missile defense system is not designed to engage satellites, extraordinary measures have been taken to temporarily modify three sea-based tactical missiles and three ships to carry out the engagement." Several government agencies are involved in monitoring and planning for re-entry of the satellite. Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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U.S. to Shoot Down
Its Own Spy Satellite Navy Cruiser to Aim Missile at Satellite Before Re-Entry By NED POTTER Feb. 14, 2008 (ABC News) The Pentagon says it will ask the Navy to shoot down a broken spy satellite that was expected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere in late February or early March. In a briefing at the Pentagon, Defense Department officials said they believe about 2,800 pounds of the two-and-a-half-ton satellite could survive and crash, in pieces, on Earth. The satellite, launched in December 2006, broke down soon after reaching orbit. Officials say it was a "test bird," launched by the National Reconnaissance Office, but did not want to give more details. Globalsecurity.org, a Web site that follows defense issues, has said the satellite is called NROL-21 and was testing new radar systems. Other sources called it USA-193. It was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California by a Delta II rocket. The chances of the debris actually hitting anyone are quite small, they say; 70 percent of the planet is water, and most of the rest is mountain, desert, tundra, or open farmland. But the satellite does carry hydrazine fuel in a well-insulated tank, and the officials said they would like to destroy that tank to protect against the chance of its landing near people. Hydrazine is highly toxic, and the tank would almost certainly leak. Modeling suggests that the tank, 40 inches in diameter, is the largest component likely to survive re-entry. "That's our objective. Get rid of the hydrazine and have this fall in the ocean," said Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefing reporters this afternoon. "If we fire at the satellite, the worst is that we miss. If we graze the satellite, we're still better off because we'll bring it down sooner and more predictably," said Gen. Cartwright. "The regret factor of not acting clearly outweighs the regret factors of acting." Some defense analysts said the U.S. has another, unmentioned motive: it doesn't want pieces of the secret satellite falling into the wrong hands. "I think they are maybe afraid that pieces of it are going to end up in Russian or Chinese hands; souvenir hunters find this thing selling on eBay, and the Russians and Chinese will get into a bidding war to see who can get these pieces," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. Cartwright disagreed. He said the charred wreckage that reaches Earth — if it is ever found — is unlikely to be of much use to an unfriendly country. The Pentagon said it would deploy three Aegis cruisers, one of which would fire a small missile at the satellite. The other two would act as backups. The Defense Department says it has high confidence that the missile would launch — but actually hitting a satellite in an unstable orbit at 17,000 miles an hour is an iffy proposition. "This is the first time we've used a tactical missile to engage a spacecraft," said Cartwright. Officials didn't provide an exact date for the shoot-down, but said late February or early March was likely. Other sources, who declined to be identified, said the Pentagon may be thinking of this effort as target practice. U.S. forces may someday want to destroy an enemy satellite in wartime. The case is also potentially embarrassing to the United States in its relationships with other countries, said officials. The U.S. informed other countries when it realized the satellite was likely to re-enter, and has now told them of its plans to intercept it. "We believe in an exchange of information," said Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffries, "and we believe in keeping them informed and we will live up to all of our international obligations." In 2007, China successfully launched a missile to destroy a weather satellite — and the U.S. forcefully objected. The debris from the collision gradually spread out in a vast ring several hundred miles above the Earth, and many spacecraft, including the International Space Station, regularly passed through that ring. There have been no reported accidents, but the potential risk to orbiting vehicles was raised. The Pentagon today said such a risk should not be created if the U.S. successfully destroys the spy satellite. The attempt would only be made when the satellite is within a few days of re-entry. Debris from a successful hit would mostly follow the satellite's original orbit, and soon burn up in the atmosphere. Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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Gas Price
Manipulation And Gull Island Oil
By Joel Skousen World Affairs Brief 5-18-8 It's well and good that Congress vote to stop filling the US Strategic Oil reserve because the US already has billions of barrels in the ground in Alaska--entire oil fields capped and drilled, but kept off the market. The filling of the Strategic Petroleum reserve is merely one more attempt to keep fuel in short supply. I will be blunt. There is a conspiracy to raise fuel prices and it is pernicious. No one is targeting the collusion we see daily between the oil companies. Fred Cederholm in a Baltimore Blog noted these careful observations during the latest and suspicious run up in gas prices--too rapid and too well coordinated to be a result of natural market demands. "It must have been some pricing strategy by all of the fuel retailers because the spike [of 13 cents a gallon] occurred everywhere, regardless of the company or the brand, at almost the same moment [within 2 hours]... I had already been on-line checking world-wide news and developments when a friend and neighbor stopped at the house to tell me I had better fill up immediately because a price jump was coming. I logged off and topped off my gas supplies for all of my fuel thirsty vehicles and gizmos. I then went back on-line to find out why the spike occurred. I found not one single development, catastrophe, or explanation. I found nothing to justify the jump!" Later, the media will always be fed some event used to justify the increase, just like their servile explanations that "the stock market rose today due to some company performing better than expected." Nonsense. PUBLIC NEEDS TO DEMAND OPENING OF THE GULL ISLAND OIL FIELD I have long maintained that the US government is purposely keeping US oil discoveries off the market in order to allow insider oil companies to drive up prices and save US supplies for the next war. Evidence continues to confirm that charge. A massive oil/natural gas field exists under Gull Island, located in the waters of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, according to Lindsay Williams. Williams was an Alaska oil field Chaplain who was so successful at boosting moral during the building of the Alaskan pipeline that he was given special access to many high level meetings at the Atlantic Richfield company. At one of those meetings, he witnessed, first hand, discussions confirming a successful find of a massive new oil field near Prudoe Bay in Alaska--at Gull Island the day before the meeting. A few days later, the chief operating officer of Atlantic Richfield for Alaska, Ken Fromm, who had invited Williams to the meeting, called him and told him he must never mention this new discovery--that the US government had classified it and was ordering it capped. It is still being held off the market and is not part of the environmental lock-down of oil in the Arctic National Wilderness. Williams was given a British Petroleum memoranda [probably by Fromm] which related the statements of upper echelon oil officials from Arco which said that Gull Island would be kept under wraps, limiting domestic supplies so Americans would someday see prices hit up to $10 a gallon at the pump. Lindsey Williams decided to violate that informal ban and publish a book, The Energy Non-Crisis, about the scandal. Ken Fromm was finally fired by Atlantic Richfield for allowing Williams in on the meeting and for helping correct technical details in Williams' book. He told Williams that the Powers That Be were making sure his book would be suppressed and would not get any establishment media coverage. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 17 The Energy Non-Crisis. The entire book is online and on U-tube videos: http://educate-yourself.org/cn/lindsywillaimsvideos22may07.shtml "Gull Island just proved what the oil companies have believed for some time. It authenticated the seismographic findings. Seismographic testing has indicated that there is as much crude oil on the North Slope of Alaska as in Saudi Arabia. Since the Gull Island find proved to be seismographically correct, then the other testings are correct also. There are many hundreds of square miles of oil under the North Slope of Alaska. "To clarify what I am about to say, let me first re-emphasize that the government permitted the oil companies to drill and prove many sites (subsequently making them cap the wells and keep the proof of the finds secret), but they do not allow them to produce from the wells. This is why I have referred (below) to a number of wells having been drilled (after I left the North Slope). The only production permitted is from the small area of the North Slope. "Gull Island is located five miles off shore from Prudhoe Bay. It is in the Beaufort Sea. The chemical structure of the oil at Gull Island is different from that of the oil in the Prudhoe Bay field and the pressure of the field is different, proving that it is a totally different pool of oil from that at Prudhoe Bay... Three wells have been drilled, proven, and capped at Gull Island. The East Dock well also hit the Gull Island oil pool (you can tell by the chemical structure). For forty miles to the east of Gull Island, there has not been a single dry hole drilled, although many wells have been drilled. This shows the immensity of the size of the field. "Only recently, just west of Gull Island, the Kuparuk oil field has been drilled. Again, this is a totally separate pool of oil from either the Prudhoe Bay field or the Gull Island field. The chemical make up of the field and the pressure of the field is different from the others, proving it to be a totally separate pool of oil. In an entirely different area of the North Slope than the 100-square-mile area of the Prudhoe Bay field, the Kuparuk field is approximately 60 miles long by 30 miles wide and contains approximately the same amount of oil as the Prudhoe Bay field. "From 1973 through 1980 we were being told continually that America was in the midst of a major energy crisis, yet no oil production was allowed from the Kuparuk field. It wasn't until 1981 that permission was finally granted for production. Why the delay--if there really was a crisis? The reason Mr. X made the statement that there is as much crude oil on the North Slope of Alaska as in all of Saudi Arabia is because the oil companies have drilled all over the North Slope and have proven there is that much oil there, but still they are only allowed to produce from the small area." "Americans will also be shocked to know that almost all Alaskan crude is shipped overseas (most to Japan) while America has to import most of its oil. "Possibly you have heard it stated that the Alaskan crude oil has such a high sulphur content that it cannot be refined by most oil refineries in the U.S. We are being told that this is the reason why the Alaskan oil is not helping to solve America's energy crisis. This is also the excuse that is being used for shipping Alaskan crude oil to other countries. It has also been reported that major power companies are even telling this to their customers, using it to justify their need for rate increases....[However] An August 11, 1980, analysis of the Prudhoe Bay crude oil, which is flowing in the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline, reads as follows: Sulphur content - 0.9% The sulphur content of the Prudhoe Bay Alaskan oil is low in comparison to oil from other sources in the U.S., as well as many foreign oils." World Affairs Brief - Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World. Copyright Joel Skousen. 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Hats Banned
From Yorkshire Pubs Over CCTV Fears
By Paul Stokes Last Updated: June 23, 2008 Pubs in Yorkshire have been ordered to ban people from wearing flat caps or other hats so troublemakers can be more easily recognised. The Park Hotel in Wadsley, Sheffield, is the latest to be asked to impose the rule by senior police officers. Mark Kelly, the landlord said: "Police asked us to ensure that everyone removes headgear. "With pensioners, by the time they sit down their hats always come off anyway because they were brought up with manners so usually take their hats off indoors." The measure, designed to prevent people from obscuring their faces from CCTV cameras, has been questioned by Barnsley's former Test umpire Dickie Bird, 75, well-known for his favoured white flat cap. He said: "Asking a Yorkshireman to take off his flat cap -- whoever heard of anything so silly. "It's a Yorkshire tradition, men wearing flat caps. Although youngsters don't bother these days, older men still wear them and should be allowed to continue. "I still wear a flat cap when I go out shopping and often leave it on when I get home and end up sitting watching TV with my cap on They look smart and they keep your head nice and warm." A South Yorkshire Police spokesman said bans on people wearing headgear in public premises had been operated in banks and post offices for years. She added: "There have been incidents both in pubs and other establishments when it has not been possible to identify offenders captured on CCTV because hats were hiding their faces." Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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Councils Told: Stop
Spying On The Public June 23, 2008 Councils have been urged to stop using controversial surveillance powers for "trivial" offences. Bosses have been warned by the head of the Local Government Association (LGA) that they risk alienating the public for so-called snooping. They may also be stripped of the right to use spying methods. But Sir Simon Milton defended councils that used surveillance to tackle fly tippers, rogue traders and tax and benefit fraudsters. There has been growing anger about the methods used by councils to probe minor crimes, such as dog fouling. The powers were introduced under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act as part of the Government's anti-terror drive but it is claimed some councils are abusing the powers. Sir Simon has now written to every council in the country urging them to review their use of the Act. "Parliament clearly intended that councils should use the new powers, and generally they are being used to respond to residents' complaints about fly tippers, rogue traders and those defrauding the council tax or housing benefit system," he wrote. Figures released by councils under the Freedom of Information Act show that the telephone and email records of thousands of people have been accessed under the Act. A sample of less than 10% of councils disclosed using spying techniques 1,343 times. Sky's political correspondent Niall Paterson said: "If councils continue to use their powers in this fashion they'll soon find them being withdrawn - especially given the focus of late on our 'surveillance society'. "It certainly lends weight to David Davis' by-election campaign against the abrogation of our privacy, even if there's no one of any real importance to campaign against in Haltemprice and Howden." Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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Microwave Ray Gun
Controls Crowds With Noise July 3, 2008 NewScientist.com news service David Hambling A US company claims it is ready to build a microwave ray gun able to beam sounds directly into people's heads. The device – dubbed MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio) – exploits the microwave audio effect, in which short microwave pulses rapidly heat tissue, causing a shockwave inside the skull that can be detected by the ears. A series of pulses can be transmitted to produce recognisable sounds. The device is aimed for military or crowd-control applications, but may have other uses. Lev Sadovnik of the Sierra Nevada Corporation in the US is working on the system, having started work on a US navy research contract. The navy's report states that the effect was shown to be effective. Scarecrow beam?MEDUSA involves a microwave auditory effect "loud" enough to cause discomfort or even incapacitation. Sadovnik says that normal audio safety limits do not apply since the sound does not enter through the eardrums. "The repel effect is a combination of loudness and the irritation factor," he says. "You can’t block it out." Sadovnik says the device will work thanks to a new reconfigurable antenna developed by colleague Vladimir Manasson. It steers the beam electronically, making it possible to flip from a broad to a narrow beam, or aim at multiple targets simultaneously. Sadovnik says the technology could have non-military applications. Birds seem to be highly sensitive to microwave audio, he says, so it might be used to scare away unwanted flocks. Sadovnik has also experimented with transmitting microwave audio to people with outer ear problems that impair their normal hearing. Brain damage riskJames Lin of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Illinois in Chicago says that MEDUSA is feasible in principle. He has carried out his own work on the technique, and was even approached by the music industry about using microwave audio to enhance sound systems, he told New Scientist. "But is it going to be possible at the power levels necessary?" he asks. Previous microwave audio tests involved very "quiet" sounds that were hard to hear, a high-power system would mean much more powerful – and potentially hazardous – shockwaves. "I would worry about what other health effects it is having," says Lin. "You might see neural damage." Sierra Nevada says that a demonstration version could be built in a year, with a transportable system following within 18 months. They are currently seeking funding for the work from the US Department of Defence. Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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US Army Toyed With
Telepathic Ray Gun March 21, 2008 NewScientist.com news service David Hambling A recently declassified US Army report on the biological effects of non-lethal weapons reveals outlandish plans for "ray gun" devices, which would cause artificial fevers or beam voices into people's heads. The report titled "Bioeffects Of Selected Nonlethal Weapons" was released under the US Freedom of Information Act and is available on this website (pdf). The DoD has confirmed to New Scientist that it released the documents, which detail five different "maturing non-lethal technologies" using microwaves, lasers and sound. Released by US Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Meade, Maryland, US, the 1998 report gives an overview of what was then the state of the art in directed energy weapons for crowd control and other applications. A word in your earSome of the technologies are conceptual, such as an electromagnetic pulse that causes a seizure like those experienced by people with epilepsy. Other ideas, like a microwave gun to "beam" words directly into people's ears, have been tested. It is claimed that the so-called "Frey Effect" – using close-range microwaves to produce audible sounds in a person's ears – has been used to project the spoken numbers 1 to 10 across a lab to volunteers'. In 2004 the US Navy funded research into using the Frey effect to project sound that caused "discomfort" into the ears of crowds. The report also discusses a microwave weapon able to produce a disabling "artificial fever" by heating a person's body. While tests of the idea are not mentioned, the report notes that the necessary equipment "is available today". It adds that while it would take at least fifteen minutes to achieve the desired "fever" effect, it could be used to incapacitate people for almost "any desired period consistent with safety." Less exotic technologies discussed include laser dazzlers and a sound source loud enough to disturb the sense of balance. Both have been realised in the years since the report was written. The US army uses laser dazzlers in Iraq, while the Long Range Acoustic Device has military and civilian users, and has been used on one occasion to repel pirates off Somalia. However, the report does not mention any trials of weapons for producing artificial fever or seizures, or beaming voices into people's heads. Potentially torturousSteve Wright, a security expert at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, warns that the technologies described could be used for torture. In 1998 the European Parliament passed a motion banning potentially dangerous incapacitating technologies that interfere with the human brain. "The epileptic seizure inducing device is grossly irresponsible and should never be fielded," says Steve Wright "We know from similar [chemically] artificially-induced fits that the victim subsequently remains "potentiated" and may spontaneously suffer epileptic fits again after the initial attack." The acoustic energy device that affects the ear canals, disrupting the motion sense, may require dangerously loud sound levels to be effective, points out Juergen Altmann, a physicist at Dortmund University, Germany, who is interested in new military technologies. "[There is] inconsistency between the part that says "interesting" effects occur at 130-155 dB and the Recovery/Safety section that says that 115 dB is to be avoided - without commenting on the difference." Weapons Technology - Keep up with the latest innovations in our cutting edge special report. Focus on America - Delve into the science and technology questions facing the USA in our special report. - Back to Shadow Government Secret Weapons Menu --- Main Page --- |
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