In short, the farce of federal efforts to create an efficient terrorist profiling system to keep terrorists off airplanes--and the farce of privacy-advocacy organizations' reactions to those efforts--will continue. Before September 11, 2001, the U.S. government's list of suspected terrorists banned from air travel held 16 names. Afterward, every government agency indiscriminately dumped information about every potential suspect from its databases onto the watch lists. By March 2003, when the TSA did early tests of CAPPS II (Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II), the watch lists had expanded to 75,000 names--many of them being, notoriously, common ones like Ted Kennedy and Robert Johnson.
In February 2006, sources at the National Counterterrorism Center told the Washington Post that the watch lists had grown to 325,000 names--more than quadruple the 75,000 on the lists in 2003.
"I've got a new rule. If I want to keep a secret, I give a speech about it. Because if I make a speech, no one picks it up. But if I put it in a document and I slip it under the table, then it gets the front page."
... Soundex assigns to the name Laden the code L350, as it does Lydon, Lawton, and Leedham. This is, in other words, an algorithm so deficient for identification purposes that it confuses al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden and the Sex Pistols' Johnny (Lydon) Rotten. To see for yourself how poorly Soundex performs, go to nofly.s3.com, where S3 Matching Technologies has combined the algorithm with a list of potential-terrorist names recorded in U.S. government databases. "The U.S. government obviously updates its lists every day, so we don't suggest this is up-to-date," says James Moore, a company spokesperson. "But we got the best available data on who'd be on terrorist watch lists from various private intelligence agencies." Using Soundex and S3 Matching Technologies' version of the watch list reveals that the names Jesus Christ and George Bush resemble terrorists' names enough that they're assigned to the no-fly or selectee list.
I think somebody is the weest bit skeptical ... (it's a word -- look it up)
WHAT TIMING! Just when the attorney general and the president were coming under fire for the politicized dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys, the Pentagon released a transcript of a March 10 hearing in which Guantanamo detainee Khalid Shaikh Mohammed confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks. Now we can get back to the Bush administration's preferred topic: What a heck of a job it's doing in the war on terror.
... The 9/11 commission report noted the "grandiose" nature of KSM's "true ambitions." ... What he longed for "was theater, a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star."
"We will disrupt their workday with a mildly offensive blinking neon light!"
Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll on nuclear terrorism.
At some point, perhaps after the expenditure of a great amount of money, it will probably be cops like these, and not scientists or defense theorists, who decide where radiation detection should rank on the long and diverse list of counter-terrorism techniques. The Department of Homeland Security recently announced an initiative to experiment with the installation of radiation detection at some bridges, tunnels, roadways, and waterways leading into Manhattan; later, the department hopes to surround other cities. The N.Y.P.D. fears that the sensors might prove to be too costly and would generate too many false alarms. Nearly three hundred thousand cars and trucks cross the George Washington Bridge in both directions on an average day; without an efficient way to process radiation alerts, a single convoy of banana trucks could jam up traffic for hours. "There are a lot of possible concerns that could surface with it," Raymond Kelly, the NYPD's commissioner, told me. Yet, he said, "we see this as something certainly worth trying." Kelly wants to deploy rings of sensors fifty miles or more from New York, so there would be a better chance of spotting an incoming device. In February, he held talks with his counterparts in Connecticut and New Jersey. Still, Kelly said, the entire project remains "very conceptual in nature."
See also this recent conference on the subject. No briefing materials are directly available, but the participant/speaker list is a good set of pointers.
General Pace said that “early data points” showed that sectarian attacks were slightly down since the Baghdad operation began. But he said that the increase in car bombs suggested that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia was trying to incite further hostilities with this method.
At Comstat, Rawls and Burrell go on the warpath, ripping their commanders for their inability to stem the rising tide of crime. Rawls orders that felony cases must drop by 5 percent for the year, and murders must be kept under 275. "Here's a fun fact," Rawls tells his commanders. "If Baltimore had New York's population, we'd be clocking four thousand murders a year at this rate. So there is no excuse I want to hear. I don't care how you do it, just fucking do it." Major Bunny Colvin, 30 years on the force and six months from retirement, questions the wisdom of the new mandate: "You can reclassify an agg assault and you can unfound a robbery. But how do you make a body disappear?" Rawls and Burrell are infuriated, and Burrell warns Colvin: "Anyone who can't bring the numbers we need will be replaced by someone who can."
They need to set up a little Hamsterdam in Baghdad where the hard cases can kill each other in peace:
Bubbles tips off Greggs that Marlo and Barksdale are involved in a war, but Greggs, under orders to stop pursuing Barksdale, is uninterested. At least until she learns that Marlo's gang has just killed two Barksdale players. In the war that is sure to follow, Bubbles says, "Westside gonna be all Baghdad an' shit."
Current US counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy has relied heavily on the use of force against Islamist insurgents — a tactic that has increased their ranks. What is needed instead are stronger cognitive capabilities that will enable more effective COIN against an elusive, decentralized, and highly motivated insurgency — capabilities that will enable the United States to “fight smarter.” Cognitive COIN goes beyond information technology and encompasses comprehension, reasoning, and decisionmaking, the components that are most effective against an enemy that is quick to adapt, transform, and regenerate. Countering the challenges of a global insurgency demands the ability to understand it, shape popular attitudes about it, and act directly against it. The four cognitive abilities that are most important to COIN operations are anticipation, opportunism, decision speed, and learning in action, applied through rapid-adaptive decisionmaking. In 21st-century COIN, tight control and bureaucracy must yield to the power of networked intelligence, with each operative authorized to act, react, and adapt. With these notions as a backdrop, this paper offers concrete ideas for gaining the cognitive advantage in anticipating and countering the new global insurgency.
Excerpt from the Summary:
The US response to this pattern of insurgency has stressed (1) new bureaucratic layers, e.g., the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, that seem to have improved neither analysis nor decisionmaking; (2) increased investment in military platforms, which are of marginal utility against a diffuse and elusive insurgency; and (3) the use of force, which may validate the jihadist argument, producing more jihadis and inspiring new martyrs. What has been missing is a systematic attempt to identify and meet critical analytical, planning, and operational decisionmaking needs for global COIN, exploiting revolutionary progress in information networking. Consequently, US COIN has been as clumsy as the new insurgency has been cunning. Among other benefits, more attention to cognition would improve the cost-effectiveness of US structures, forces, and operations.
This short commentary analyzes a major report on the U.S. intelligence community that was released in August by Muhammad Khalil al-Hakaymah, a long-time operator in the Egyptian al-Gamaa al-Islamiya.
Al-Hakaymah recently joined Al-Qa'ida and seems to aspire to be its chief intelligence analyst. His report indicates that Al Qa’ida has evolved from studying U.S. security tactics and electoral politics to more sophisticated analyses of U.S. bureaucratic structure and weaknesses. Whereas security planners have tended to think of bureaucratic limitations as internal problems that may limit our ability to detect, prevent, or respond to an attack, we must now consider that Al Qa’ida will actively attempt to exploit these weaknesses.
RE: Center for American Progress | The Terrorism Index
Topic: War on Terrorism
9:28 pm EST, Feb 15, 2007
These results strike me as unsurprising. The effort here seems worthwhile, but analysis of the survey results leaves something to be desired.
First, about the overall question: "Thinking about the present situation, would you say that the world is becoming safer or more dangerous for the United States and the American people?"
There's nothing directly in the question about terrorism. Degrading relations and increasing tensions with North Korea and Iran are not primarily related to "terrorism."
A question about "winning the war on terror" presupposes that: 1) there is a war, beyond its declaration; 2) that "terror" is something against which you can wage war, as distinct from simply raging against it; 3) that "winning" such a war is necessary and important. To my view, none of these are obviously true.
The questions about public diplomacy are valid but not especially helpful. Failure at public diplomacy is not about declining to hire the right ad men. A successful public diplomacy is not even really about leadership; to be sure, a poor leader can screw up big time, but so can a buck private with a digital camera. Rather, achieving success in public diplomacy is the responsibility of the Public. That means You. Why is this seemingly so hard to understand?
I would propose for discussion the hypothesis that no major nation is doing a particularly good job at public diplomacy. Surely our public diplomacy is more effective than that of North Korea, or of Iran. When was the last time you met a North Korean at an industry conference? Have you ever talked with a North Korean about what it's like to live in the countryside? Iran is in somewhat better shape, but the contemporary popular understanding of Iran is dominated by the actions of its President -- to a much greater extent than for the United States, I'd argue.
RE: Boston Devices a Cartoon Publicity Ploy | ajc.com
Topic: War on Terrorism
5:56 am EST, Feb 1, 2007
Mayor Thomas Menino said the security scare may have cost the city more than $500,000.
Are the bomb squads hired on a fee-for-service basis? I would have thought they were part of the salaried police force, in which case they didn't "cost" anything we weren't already paying. In real terms of additional expenditures, it sounds like we're mostly talking about overtime pay.
Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke praised Boston authorities for sharing their knowledge quickly with Washington officials and the public.
In other words, Knocke praised the city for its fearmongering and rumor-spreading? I think calling it "knowledge" is a bit rich.
"Hoaxes are a tremendous burden on local law enforcement and counter-terrorism resources and there's absolutely no place for them in a post-9/11 world," Knocke said.
The officials who continue to call them "hoax devices" would seem to be having serious problems with perspective. The definition of hoax, "an act intended to trick or dupe", makes it clear that the suitability of the term rests on the question of intent.
It is quite obvious that Turner did not intend to instill fear in the hearts of city police, the mayor's office, etc. To continue to misapply the term suggests that not only were they duped initially, but that they still don't understand.
An envelope full of white talcum powder, delivered by mail along with a menacingly worded letter to the White House or a member of Congress ... that's a "hoax device".
On Turner's part, a key error was the (apparent) decision not to label the devices with any kind of identifying information. In retrospect, a simple little sticker on the device, saying "Property of Turner Broadcasting System, Managed by Mooninite Outdoor Advertising Inc. Call 800-555-MOON" would have done wonders.
Of course, at this point $500k may be a small price to pay for the publicity that the incident has garnered for ATHF.
Welcome to being misunderstood, demonized and wanted by the law.
This is a video put together by the marketing team that hung the ATHF signs around Boston. The style of this video is VERY similar to that of the Graffiti Research Lab, but it is not...
