Exercise to Test Aerospace Response Over Washington

(tomorrow could be an interesting date to watch . . . )

Source: Global Security

The North American Aerospace Defense Command will conduct an exercise over the nation’s capital and its suburbs May 15, Defense Department officials said today.

Exercise Falcon Virgo tests the aerospace defense of the national capital area.

Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon jets, Coast Guard Dolphin choppers and Civil Air Patrol Cessnas will participate in the exercise. A number of Falcon Virgo exercises have taken place since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, officials said. The most recent one over Washington was in March.

“The exercise is always held in the middle of the night to not interfere with civilian air traffic,” Pentagon spokeswoman Air Force Lt. Col. Almarah Belk said. “The aircraft involved follow all noise abatement procedures.”

The exercise is in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Capital Region Command Center, the Joint Air Defense Operations Center, the Continental U.S. NORAD Region, the Civil Air Patrol and the Coast Guard.

Residents in the area can expect flights to occur shortly after midnight and into the early morning hours May 15. The exercise should wrap up during the morning. In the event of inclement weather, it will be cancelled.

Military Robots - Designed To Hunt Humans; May Go "Terminator"

Pentagon Wants Packs Of Robots To Detect “Non-cooperative Humans”

Experts warn technology could be used for domestic policing

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, Oct 23, 2008

The Pentagon has put out a request to contractors to develop teams of robots that can search for, detect and track “non-cooperative” humans in “pursuit/evasion scenarios”.

The request, which can be read on the Department of Defense Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program website here, calls for a “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” to be operated by one person.

The proposal describes the need to

“…develop a software/hardware suit that would enable a multi-robot team, together with a human operator, to search for and detect a non-cooperative human subject.

The main research task will involve determining the movements of the robot team through the environment to maximize the opportunity to find the subject, while minimizing the chances of missing the subject. If the operator is an active member of the search team, the software should minimize the chance that the operator may encounter the subject.”

It is seemingly important to the Pentagon that the operator should not have to come into contact with the person being chased down by the machines.

The description continues:

“The software should maintain awareness of line-of-sight, as well as communication and sensor limits. It will be necessary to determine an appropriate sensor suite that can reliably detect human presence and is suitable for implementation on small robotic platforms.”

Paul Marks at The New Scientist points out that given the propensity to adapt this kind of military style technology for domestic purposes such as crowd control, the proposal is somewhat concerning.

“…how long before we see packs of droids hunting down pesky demonstrators with paralysing weapons? Or could the packs even be lethally armed?” Marks asks.

Marks interviewed Steve Wright, an expert on police and military technologies, from Leeds Metropolitan University, who commented:

“The giveaway here is the phrase ‘a non-cooperative human subject’.

What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs. Once the software is perfected we can reasonably anticipate that they will become autonomous and become armed.

We can also expect such systems to be equipped with human detection and tracking devices including sensors which detect human breath and the radio waves associated with a human heart beat. These are technologies already developed.”

Indeed, noted as PHASE III on the Pentagon proposal is the desire to have the robots developed to “intelligently and autonomously search”.

Earlier this year another top robotics expert, Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield, warned listeners to the Alex Jones show that the world may be sleepwalking into a potentially lethal technocracy and has called for safeguards on such technology to be put into place.

Professor Sharkey stated:

“If you have an autonomous robot then it’s going to make decisions who to kill, when to kill and where to kill them. The scary thing is that the reason this has to happen is because of mission complexity and also so that when there’s a problem with communications you can send a robot in with no communication and it will decide who to kill, and that is really worrying to me.”

The professor also warned that such autonomous weapons could easily be used in the future by law enforcement officials in cites, pointing out that South Korean authorities are already planning to have a fully armed autonomous robot police force in their cities.

Perhaps one candidate for the Pentagon’s “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” proposal is Boston Dynamics’ rather frightening BigDog (pictured above). The latest version of this hydraulic quadruped robot can carry up to 340lb load and recovers its balance even after sliding on ice and snow:

Are we looking at the future of policing in America?
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New Navy-funded Report Warns of War Robots Going “Terminator”

Jason Mick

DailyTech
Tuesday, February 17, 2009

A new Navy-funded report warns against a hasty deployment of war robots, and urges programmers to include ethics subroutines — a warrior code of sorts. The alternative they say, is the possibility of a robotic atrocity, akin to the Terminator or other sci-fi movies. (Source: Warner Brothers)Robots must learn to obey a warrior code, but increasing intelligence may make keeping the robots from turning on their masters increasingly difficult

Robots gone rogue killing their human masters is rich science fiction fodder, but could it become reality? Some researchers are beginning to ask that question as artificial intelligence advances continue, and the world’s high-tech nations begin to deploy war-robots to the battlefront. Currently, the U.S. armed forces use many robots, but they all ultimately have a human behind the trigger. However, there are many plans to develop and deploy fully independent solutions as the technology improves.

Some mistakenly believe that such robots would only be able to operate within a defined set of behaviors. Describes Patrick Lin, the chief compiler of a new U.S. Navy-funded report, “There is a common misconception that robots will do only what we have programmed them to do. Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to a time when . . . programs could be written and understood by a single person.”

The new report points out that the size of artificial intelligence projects will likely make their code impossible to fully analyze and dissect for possible dangers. With hundreds of programmers working on millions of lines of code for a single war robot, says Dr. Lin, no one has a clear understanding of what going on, at a small scale, across the entire code base.

Full story here.

IS THE US GOVERNMENT PREPARING TO SEND DISSENTERS TO PRISON CAMPS?

By NWV News writer Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
February 5, 2009
© NewsWithViews.com

Within the last few weeks since Americans witnessed the transition between a Bush Administration to an Obama Administration, some conservatives have noticed an escalation in using the US military and military-style tactics to deal with "national security concerns." Such actions include use of army troops within US borders and the building of camps designed to house and control American citizens.

For example, in January immediately following the inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama, Newswithview.com dispatched a reporter to participate in a US Department of Defense press conference.

Armed Forces Press Service representative Donna Miles reported to news reporters, bloggers and Internet journalists that troops from the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team were deployed to the Naval facility located in Indian Head, Maryland. Their assignment was allegedly to get hands-on training in skills they could depend on to provide "support during a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive incident, known here as a CBRNE."

“It appears to me that the federal government is relaxing Posse Comitatus,” author Jerome Corsi told NewsWithViews.com

The "Rock of the Marne" division, which returned to Fort Stewart, Ga., direct from its third deployment to Iraq, the army division became part of the CBRNE Consequence Management Force. The force includes various military assets assigned to US Northern Command that could be called on to respond to a natural or manmade disaster with US borders.

However, not everyone is happy about this military development coming so close to the transition from the Bush White House to the Obama Administration. Some observers believe this plan is part of a deal between President-Elect Barack Obama and the current Secretary of Defense who will remain in his current position even after the Bush-Obama transition.

While these soldiers are being trained to operate within US borders, another development was discovered by conservative observers: the introduction of a congressional bill that would create de facto detention camps throughout the US.

“Unfortunately, the US has a history of using detention camps,” stated author and investigative journalists Jerome Corsi, best know for his co-authoring Unfit to Command, a work credited with keeping Senator John Kerry out of the White House.

“[This country] used detention camps in Washington, DC during the anti-Vietnam War protests. They were used in World War II to incarcerate Japanese-Americans. We are talking about a slippery slope: camps being prepared to be used in emergencies can easily be used to imprison dissenters,” Corsi told NewsWithViews.com in a telephone interview.

Disgraced former Florida judge -- now a Democrat Party member of the House of Representatives -- Rep. Alcee Hastings -- introduced what some claim is a disturbing piece of legislation. The new bill calls for the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to build at least six facilities that can be designated as "emergency centers. Hastings rationale for such facilities is to gather and "house" civilians on what are basically detention centers guarded by armed soldiers or paramilitary troops.

The House bill (HR 645) is not even on the radar of members of the elite media. According to critics of the plan, if passed the government will create camps or centers that by their nature restrict the activities of US citizens herded into them.

One critic, political strategist Mike Baker claims the idea of such detention center smacks of the type of concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany, Americans find repugnant.

"Why aren't the news media covering this story? Could it be because they fear being the first occupants of these so-called emergency installations? Where is the outrage by our nation's Fourth Estate?" asks Baker.

Hastings bill is suspected of attempting to help expand the President Obama's military and law enforcement powers. While Hastings pushes this bill, even Republican congressmen are hesitant to remind one another and the nation that this Florida congressman was impeached while he sat on Florida's federal court bench.

Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, he became the first African-American federal judge in the state of Florida, and served in that position for ten years. He’s still called “Judge” by some of his colleagues, but one would think he’d rather forget his days on the federal bench.

In 1989, Judge Hastings was impeached by the US House of Representatives for bribery and perjury. The Democratic-controlled Senate convicted Hastings of accepting a $150,000 bribe in 1981 in exchange for a lenient sentence and of perjury in his testimony about the case. Hastings said the charges against him smacked of racism.

Even Rep. John Conyers, who is also black, said he “found no trace of racism during the investigation.” He urged his colleagues to remove Hastings from the bench. He said, “[Hastings] is unfit to serve.”

When the ultra-liberal Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi nominated Hastings for the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, even members of her own political party balked.

"The prospect of Rep. Alcee Hastings becoming the chairman of the House of Representative’s Intelligence Committee was proposed by Congressional Black Caucus, who had been pressuring the new House Speaker Pelosi to appoint blacks to key leadership positions and Hasting benefited from the pressure on the radical left Pelosi," said former Detective Sidney Frances (NYPD-ret.), himself an African-American.

While not appointed to chair the intelligence committee, Hastings is currently a member of the powerful House Rules Committee and is a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). On the HPSCI, Hastings is the ranking Democratic member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security.

"While Obama and his team are making it sound as if they will use the military in a non-combative roll, part of the training being conducted is in urban warfare," claims political strategist Mike Baker.

"Obama appears oblivious to Posse Comitatus and to the US Constitution when it comes to using the military against civilians within US borders," he said.

"And where do you think they'll keep these American prisoners of war? In comes impeached and corrupt Congressman Hastings with a solution," adds Baker.

Why the U.S. needs a space-based missile defense against an EMP attack

The following paragraphs are quotes and excerpts from today's Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal regarding our nation's exposure to an EMP attack . . .

"As severe as the global financial crisis now is, it does not pose an existential threat to the U.S. Through fits and starts we will sort out the best way to revive the country's economic engine. Mistakes can be tolerated, however painful. The same may not be true with matters of national security.

"Although President George W. Bush has accomplished more in the way of missile defense than his predecessors -- including Ronald Reagan -- he will leave office with only a rudimentary system designed to stop a handful of North Korean missiles launched at our West Coast. Barack Obama will become commander in chief of a country essentially undefended against Russian, Chinese, Iranian or ship-launched terrorist missiles. This is not acceptable. . . . .

"Any consideration of how best to provide for the common defense must begin by acknowledging these facts.

"Consider Iran. For the past decade, Iran -- with the assistance of Russia, China and North Korea -- has been developing missile technology. Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani announced in 2004 their ability to mass produce the Shahab-3 missile capable of carrying a lethal payload to Israel or -- if launched from a ship -- to an American city.

"The current controversy over Iran's nuclear production is really about whether it is capable of producing nuclear warheads. This possibility is made more urgent by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement in 2005: "Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved." . . .

"Think about this scenario: An ordinary-looking freighter ship heading toward New York or Los Angeles launches a missile from its hull or from a canister lowered into the sea. It hits a densely populated area. A million people are incinerated. The ship is then sunk. No one claims responsibility. There is no firm evidence as to who sponsored the attack, and thus no one against whom to launch a counterstrike.

"But as terrible as that scenario sounds, there is one that is worse. Let us say the freighter ship launches a nuclear-armed Shahab-3 missile off the coast of the U.S. and the missile explodes 300 miles over Chicago. The nuclear detonation in space creates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

"Gamma rays from the explosion, through the Compton Effect, generate three classes of disruptive electromagnetic pulses, which permanently destroy consumer electronics, the electronics in some automobiles and, most importantly, the hundreds of large transformers that distribute power throughout the U.S. All of our lights, refrigerators, water-pumping stations, TVs and radios stop running. We have no communication and no ability to provide food and water to 300 million Americans.

"Let us be clear. A successful EMP attack on the U.S. would have a dramatic effect on the country, to say the least. Even one that only affected part of the country would cripple the economy for years. Dropping nuclear weapons on or retaliating against whoever caused the attack would not help. And an EMP attack is not far-fetched.

"Twice in the last eight years, in the Caspian Sea, the Iranians have tested their ability to launch ballistic missiles in a way to set off an EMP. The congressionally mandated EMP Commission, with some of America's finest scientists, has released its findings and issued two separate reports, the most recent in April, describing the devastating effects of such an attack on the U.S.

"The only solution to this problem is a robust, multilayered missile-defense system. The most effective layer in this system is in space, using space-based interceptors that destroy an enemy warhead in its ascent phase when it is easily identifiable, slower, and has not yet deployed decoys. We know it can work from tests conducted in the early 1990s. We have the technology. What we lack is the political will to make it a reality.

"An EMP attack is not one from which America could recover as we did after Pearl Harbor. Such an attack might mean the end of the United States and most likely the Free World. It is of the highest priority to have a president and policy makers not merely acknowledge the problem, but also make comprehensive missile defense a reality as soon as possible.

Now, if you are still with me, the following is a video that might be of interest: