- Chicago Plans ‘Extraordinary Measures’ Against Anti-NATO/G8 Protests
- U.S. Congress Passes $662 Billion Military Authorization Bill
- Congress Authorizes Pentagon To Wage Internet War
- Pentagon Plans Space Telescopes To Spy Anywhere On Earth
- Uganda: U.S. Special Forces Begin Counterinsurgency Mission
- Africa Partnership Station: U.S. Warship Completes Six-Month Mission
Chicago Plans ‘Extraordinary Measures’ Against Anti-NATO/G8 Protests
Chicago Sun-Times
December 14, 2011
In advance of NATO/G-8, Emanuel to increase fines for resisting arrestBy Fran Spielman
-The mayor’s plan would…empower Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to ‘deputize law enforcement personnel,’ make cooperative agreements with a host of state, federal and local law enforcement agencies, and forge agreements with ‘public or private entities concerning placement, installation, maintenance or use of video, audio telecommunications, or other similar equipment.’Chicago’s Big Brother network of more than 10,000 public and private surveillance cameras is already the most extensive and integrated in the nation.
Protesters who descend on Chicago for the NATO and G-8 summits would face extraordinary security measures — including dramatically higher fines for resisting arrest, more surveillance cameras and parks and beaches closed until 6 a.m. — under a plan proposed Wednesday by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
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The last time the G-8 and NATO met in the same city was in 1977 in London.
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The ordinance introduced at Wednesday’s City Council meeting would dramatically increase fines for ‘resisting or obstructing’ the performance of anyone ‘known to the person to be a peace officer’ as well as the fine for assisting someone in escaping from police custody. Minimum fines for those violations would increase from $25 to $200, while maximum fines would jump from $500 to $1,000.
Parks, playgrounds and beaches would be closed between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. The current overnight closing only extends until 4 a.m.
The mayor’s plan would also empower Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to ‘deputize law enforcement personnel,’ make cooperative agreements with a host of state, federal and local law enforcement agencies, and forge agreements with ‘public or private entities concerning placement, installation, maintenance or use of video, audio telecommunications, or other similar equipment.’
Chicago’s Big Brother network of more than 10,000 public and private surveillance cameras is already the most extensive and integrated in the nation.
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Asked why the fines for resisting arrest need to be so high, the mayor said, ‘Just to make sure we have all that we need…We’re setting the ground rules…We’re gonna have a fine that reflects something different for a one-time incident. It’s not that hard’ to understand.
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Officials with the ACLU declined to comment. But constitutional law experts said the city could be on shaky legal ground.
‘If you’re going to have these just for this time, I think he’s treading very close to content-based discrimination, which is a no-no under the First Amendment,’ said University of Chicago Law Prof. Craig Futterman.
Aziz Huq, a U. of C. professor of constitutional law, said the city will likely face arguments that it is targeting a particular kind of speech with these temporary high fines.
‘The normal rule is that a local government has quote broad authority to place time, place and manner‚ restrictions on the use of public sidewalks or other forums,’ Huq said. ‘That power, though, assumes that the government is not acting in a way that is differentiating or distinguishing between different kinds of speech based upon the content of the speech. You can’t, say, have two sets of time-place-manner rules, one set for people who are pro-choice, more leeway, [and] another for people who are pro-life, more strict and onerous.’
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Shortly after taking office, Emanuel, a former congressman and White House chief of staff, used his formidable Washington clout to lure the NATO and G-8 summits to Chicago.
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Contributing: Abdon M. Pallasch
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U.S. Congress Passes $662 Billion Military Authorization Bill
Voice of America News
December 14, 2011
House Lawmakers Pass Defense Bill
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a $662-billion defense bill that contains a provision regarding the handling of certain terror suspects.
By a margin of 283 to 136, lawmakers Wednesday approved the measure after the White House dropped a veto threat over the provision. The bill is expected to pass the Senate and then go to President Barack Obama for his signature. Lawmakers had said revisions were made to the detainee provision in an effort to avoid the threatened veto.
The bill authorizes funding for the Defense Department and national security programs of the Energy Department. It also provides money for military personnel, weapons systems as well as operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the fiscal year that began October 1.
The measure requires military detention, subject to a presidential waiver, for foreign al-Qaida terrorists who are captured when plotting to attack the United States. A change to the detainee provision exempts U.S. citizens, but it does not guarantee suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens, a trial, and leaves open the possibility of indefinite detention.
The legislation would place a freeze on some aid to Pakistan until Islamabad gives assurances that it is helping fight the spread of homemade bombs, known as improvised explosive devises, or IEDs. The measure also expands sanctions in Iran.
Separately, the bill prohibits the transfer or release of Guantanamo detainees to or within the United States and prohibits the use of funds to house Guantanamo detainees in the U.S.
The White House had previously warned of a veto for any bill that challenges or constrains the president’s authority to collect intelligence, incapacitate terrorists and protect the nation. The Obama administration argues that the military, law enforcement officials and intelligence agents need flexibility to act on a case-by-case basis in dealing with terror suspects.
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Congress Authorizes Pentagon To Wage Internet War
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2011/12/offensive_cyber.html
Secrecy News
December 14, 2011
Congress Authorizes Pentagon to Wage Internet War
By Ryan Singel
The ancient art of war is coming to the internet.
The House and Senate agreed to give the U.S. military the power to conduct ‘offensive’ strikes online — including clandestine attacks, via a little-noticed provision in the military’s 2012 funding bill.
The power, which was included in the House version but not the Senate version, was included in the final ‘reconciled’ bill that is all but guaranteed to pass into law.
Congress affirms that the Department of Defense has the capability, and upon direction by the President may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend our Nation, Allies and interests, subject to –
(1) the policy principles and legal regimes that the Department follows for kinetic capabilities, including the law of armed conflict; and
(2) the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1541 et seq.).
While ‘offensive’ action isn’t defined, that’s likely to include things like unleashing a worm like the Stuxnet worm that damaged Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, hacking into another country’s power grid to bring it down, disabling websites via denial-of-service attacks, or as the CIA has already done with some collateral damage, hacking into a forum where would-be terrorists meet in order to permanently disable it.
The conference report goes on to say:
The conferees recognize that because of the evolving nature of cyber warfare, there is a lack of historical precedent for what constitutes traditional military activities in relation to cyber operations and that it is necessary to affirm that such operations may be conducted pursuant to the same policy, principles, and legal regimes that pertain to kinetic capabilities.
The conferees also recognize that in certain instances, the most effective way to deal with threats and protect U.S. and coalition forces is to undertake offensive military cyber activities, including where the role of the United States Government is not apparent or to be acknowledged. The conferees stress that, as with any use of force, the War Powers Resolution may apply.
Despite mainstream news accounts, there’s been no documented hacking attacks on U.S. infrastructure designed to cripple it. A recent report from a post-9/11 intelligence fusion center that a water pump in Illinois had been destroyed by Russian hackers turned out to be baseless — and was simply a contractor logging in from his vacation at the behest of the water company.
Over the last few years, there’s been a drumbeat from D.C. and security contractors about the possibility of ‘cyberwar,’ and the military has been pushing for, and largely receiving, increased funding for internet security research and more power to monitor and operate on the civilian internet.
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However, spying isn’t an act of war — just ask the NSA and CIA, who spend billions of dollars a year spying on other countries by intercepting communications and persuading foreign citizens to give the U.S. valuable intelligence. It’s certainly an aggressive state action, and a diplomatic issue. But if spying was an act of war, every CIA agent hiding under diplomatic cover would count as cause for a country to attack the U.S.
After perfunctory votes in both the House and Senate, the spending measure — and the cyberwar green light — will go to the President for his signature.
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Pentagon Plans Space Telescopes To Spy Anywhere On Earth
http://www.innovationnewsdaily.com/military-satellite-images-video-anywhere-2424/
Innovation News Daily
December 14, 2011
Dream military space telescope could spy anywhere on Earth
DARPA concept would do away with the need to rely on secret planes, drones
If the U.S. military wants live video of a missile launcher vehicle halfway around the world, it must rely on spy planes or drones in danger of being shot down. Tomorrow, the Pentagon wants space telescopes hovering in geosynchronous orbit that could take real-time images or live video of any spot on Earth.
Contrary to Hollywood’s ideas, today’s spy satellites that orbit the Earth at fast speeds and relatively lower altitudes can only snap photos for the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. Taking live video of a single location would require satellites to hover by matching the Earth’s rotation in geosynchronous orbit about 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) high — but creating and launching a space telescope with the huge optics arrays capable of seeing ground details from such high orbit has proven difficult.
As a solution, DARPA — the Pentagon’s research arm — envisions a lightweight optics array made of flexible membrane that could deploy in space. Ball Aerospace has just completed an early proof-of-concept review as part of a DARPA contract worth almost $37 million.
‘The use of membrane optics is an unprecedented approach to building large aperture telescopes,’ said David Taylor, president and chief executive officer of Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colo.
DARPA eventually wants a space telescope with a collection aperture (light-collecting power) of almost 66 feet (20 meters) in diameter. By comparison, NASA’s next-generation James Webb Space Telescope is designed to have an aperture of 21 feet (6.5 m).
Such a telescope should be able to spot missile launcher vehicles moving at speeds of up to 60 mph on the ground, according to the DARPA contract. That would also require the image resolution to see objects less than 10 feet (3 m) long within a single image pixel.
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If all goes well, U.S. military commanders and intelligence agents may someday get live streaming video and up-to-date images of battlefields or trouble spots around the world. Such capability could complement the swarms of cheap drones providing battlefield surveillance today, and might even spare the U.S. embarrassment from losing spy drones over Iran or other countries.
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Uganda: U.S. Special Forces Begin Counterinsurgency Mission
http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=7494&lang=0
U.S. Africa Command
U.S. Department of State
December 13, 2011
U.S. Military Advisers to Support African Fight Against LRA
STUTTGART, Germany: U.S. troops serving as advisers in the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are beginning to deploy from Uganda to LRA-affected areas to support ongoing regional military efforts…
President Obama announced on October 14, 2011 that a small number of U.S. military personnel would be deployed to help advise the security forces of Uganda, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan in their joint efforts against the LRA.
Since that time, the U.S. military has been coordinating with the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) to lay the groundwork for forward deployments to field locations, and ‘starting this month, teams of the advisers are beginning to deploy to LRA-affected areas,’ Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said in a speech on December 7.
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Africa Partnership Station: U.S. Warship Completes Six-Month Mission
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=64383
U.S. Navy
December 14, 2011
USS Samuel B. Roberts Completes Six-Month Deployment
By Lt. j.g. K. Matthew Wall, USS Samuel B. Roberts Public Affairs
MAYPORT, Fla. – Families and friends welcomed home Sailors from USS Samuel B. Roberts during their scheduled return to Mayport Dec. 14.
The historic warship departed for Africa exactly six months earlier June 14 to the 5th and 6th Fleet areas of responsibility in support of Africa Partnership Station (APS).
Roberts sailed more than 34,000 nautical miles operating in the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean. [It] also transited through the Straits of Gibraltar and Suez Canal twice during the deployment.
As an independent deployed ship, Roberts was accompanied by Jacksonville-based helicopter squadron, HSL-42 Detachment 1, ‘Yellow Belly Sliders.’ As a vital asset, they provided increased radar range for the Roberts…
During deployment the ship conducted many joint military exercises with partnering African navies. As part of APS, Roberts embarked officers and Sailors from Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa and Seychelles to participate in a variety of training to include visit, board, search and seizure, ship navigation and damage control.
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The overall goal of APS is to strengthen relations between the U.S. and partner countries in Africa…
The deployment adds to Roberts many accomplishments for 2011 to include a successful joint-Navy maritime training exercise, Joint Warrior, conducted in the United Kingdom between March and May and her record-setting board of inspection and survey in early March.
Samuel B. Roberts is assigned to Destroyer Squadron 14 and is homeported in Mayport, Fla.
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