Big Data: Stealth Control Read the article here.
From the Blogs
DoD Classifies Data on Afghanistan Oversight:
U.S. General John F. Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in
Afghanistan, ordered the classification of a broad range of previously
public information concerning operations in that country.How has the $25
million authorized by Congress for women in the Afghan army been used?
What are the definitions of the terms “unavailable” and “present for
duty”? What is the total amount of funding that the U.S. has expended on
salaries for the Afghan National Police? The answers to those
questions, and more than a hundred others that had formerly been subject
to public disclosure, are now considered classified information. The
newly classified data was withheld from disclosure in the public version
of the latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for
Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) that was released last week.
More Russians Fear Nuclear War:
A recent poll shows that 18% of Russians fear nuclear war, compared to
8% in a poll taken two years ago. Martin Hellman, Adjunct Senior Fellow
for Nuclear Risk Analysis, writes that many in the United States do not
seem aware of the nuclear dimension in the Ukraine crisis; much of the
difference in American and Russian perspectives is due to relative
distances from the carnage. The Ukrainian civil war is being fought on
Russia’s doorstep, and has flooded Russia with hundreds of thousands of
Ukrainian refugees.Unfortunately, those very different perspectives also
create the possibility for one side to inadvertently threaten the
perceived vital interests of the other.
Classification May Impede Treatment for Vets: National
security secrecy can be an impediment to veterans who are seeking
treatment for traumas suffered during military service yet who are
technically prohibited from disclosing classified information related to
their experience to uncleared physicians or therapists. The problem was
epitomized by the case of U.S. Army Sgt. Daniel Somers, who
participated in classified Special Operations missions in Iraq. He
returned with significant physical, mental and psychological damage. He
killed himself in June 2013. Secrecy, among other factors, appears to
have exacerbated his condition, according to Rep. Kyrsten Sinema
(D-AZ). To address this problem, Rep. Sinema last week re-introduced
the Classified Veterans Access to Care Act, HR 421, which would require
the Secretary of Veterans Affairs “to ensure that each covered veteran
may access mental health care provided by the Secretary in a manner that
fully accommodates the obligation of the veteran to not improperly
disclose classified information.”
Drones in Fact and Fiction: The
emergence of unmanned aerial systems, or drones, as an instrument of
war is often referred to as a “revolutionary” development in military
technology. But if it is a revolution, it is more like a turning of a
wheel that will continue to revolve rather than the permanent
transformation of all that has come before it. Armed drones represent an
innovative response to a particular threat, but they are themselves
bound to inspire other innovations and reactions from adversaries.
Court Views State Secrets Too Narrowly, Govt Says: The
scope of the state secrets privilege is again a matter of contention,
as government attorneys in an ongoing lawsuit told a judge last week
that he had construed the privilege too narrowly.Is the state secrets
privilege applicable only to discrete items of evidence whose disclosure
can be shown to harm the Nation? Or can the privilege be invoked more
broadly based on the “context” in which litigation occurs? The proper
parameters of the state secrets privilege have never been defined in
statute, and so these questions recur. In a pending lawsuit concerning
the constitutionality of the “no fly” list (Gulet Mohamed v. Eric Holder), the presiding judge has taken a distinctly skeptical view of the government’s use of the state secrets privilege. |
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