Year: 2006

Nanotech Weapons

President Bush Signed the Nanotechnology Research and Development Act s189 in Dec., 2004 authorizing funding for nanotechnology research and development over four years and implementation of a National Nanotechnology Program. The President’s 2007 Budget provides over $1.2 billion for the multi-agency National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The hope is that the research will channel towards medical and energy projects.

It can also lead to the mass production of weapons with terrible consequences. Federal agencies that participate in the National Nanotechnology Initiative under the auspices of the Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council include Department of Homeland Security ( includes Transportation Security Administration ), Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Defense.

At an address at the 1995 Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology, Admiral David E. Jeremiah, Vice-Chairman (ret.), U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “Military applications of molecular manufacturing have even greater potential than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power.”

A Nano, by definition is a Billionth (10 to the -9th power) (0.000 000 001), a small insect is about 200 microns (10 to the –6th power) ( 0.000 001).

“…this creates a plausible size estimate for a nanotech-built antipersonnel weapon capable of seeking and injecting toxin into unprotected humans. The human lethal dose of botulism toxin is about 100 nanograms, or about 1/100 the volume of the weapon. As many as 50 billion toxin-carrying devices—theoretically enough to kill every human on earth—could be packed into a single suitcase. Guns of all sizes would be far more powerful, and their bullets could be self-guided. Aerospace hardware would be far lighter and higher performance; built with minimal or no metal, it would be much harder to spot on radar. Embedded computers would allow remote activation of any weapon, and more compact power handling would allow greatly improved robotics. These ideas barely scratch the surface of what’s possible.” CRN (Center for Responsible Nanotechnology)

“The future cannot be predicted, but it can be invented.
-Hungarian scientist and author Dennis Gabor

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Does Surveillance Make Us Safer?

With all the surveillance initiatives, programs, and policies it would be easy to think that we are safer than ever. I personally do not see how scanning my email, web communications, or listening in on my phone conversations with my mother can be a good thing. I have only heard of one account where this use of technology has saved me from anyone. I guess that is classified. I have read numerous accounts of Homeland Security taken overboard and blog authors discussing privacy rights.
Not to worry some say, the government is doing all this to keep us safe and secure. What are we sacrificing? Pre Patriot Act and warrant less times, I never thought much about discussing topics that might include the words bomb, a terrorist related name, nasty comments about the President, Congressional members, or the ELF fires. Now, I think about these words and how I use them. I would like to tell you that I have nothing to fear, after all if I am not doing anything wrong, why worry. I am not as worried as I am disgusted. I assume that if I were a terrorist that I would know enough to realize that Uncle Sam is listening and would circumvent the system somehow.

How many citizens will be falsely accused, questioned, maybe detained over false computer interpretations analyzing threat potentials. We already know our government disregards the grand daddy of law, our Constitution. Some wayward military personal find nothing wrong with torturing their prisoners and to heck with the Geneva Convention. I no longer trust my governments system to work for me and not against me if caught in this situation.

Racial profiling, our presence in Iraq, and rhetoric about the Clash of Civilizations creates more terror. Mass surveillance, tracking, biometrics, Echelon, Carnivore, Magic Lantern, MATRIX the infrastructure of the operations roadmap is surrounding us, systems that may convert our constitutional republic into a very large panopticon.

“… each man is a coded number and the telescreens spy on every activity.”

“Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen, partly because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly regimented society.”

George Orwell in 1984

Winston Smith, the protagonist in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, ultimately had nowhere to hide.

Unprecedented Suppression of Civil Rights and Liberties

The Bush administration responded to the Sept. 11th, 2001 attacks by pushing the Patriot Act and other legislation through congress to fight terrorism. His agenda was backed by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373. and the economic and military power of our country. (Res. 1373 pdf file) Other countries joined our country and soon the combined efforts of the “Coalition” brought about an unprecedented suppression of civil rights and liberties.

We are sacrificing our privacy and freedoms for the cause of National Security while our President demands extraordinary powers (see post here) The legal protections that are essential to our democratic society; due process, presumption of innocence and rights against unreasonable search and seizure, arbitrary detention and punishment, interception of personal communications without warrant are being ignored. (example link to for each) Infrastructures for strategic mass surveillance and dissemination of propaganda are in place to support governmental agendas. (See Govt. pdf docs: Information Operations Roadmap, Information Operations: Doctrine, Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures)

InfraGuard is Federal Bureau of Investigation program “that began in the Cleveland Field Office in 1996. It was a local effort to gain support from the information technology industry and academia for the FBI’s investigative efforts in the cyber arena. The program expanded to other FBI Field Offices, and in 1998 the FBI assigned national program responsibility for InfraGuard to the former National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) and to the Cyber Division in 2003. InfraGard and the FBI have developed a relationship of trust and credibility in the exchange of information concerning various terrorism, intelligence, criminal, and security matters.” Info Businesses are surrendering their databases to government agencies. Among them are commercial airlines, Universities, driving schools, Double Click, and Choice Point. Major Internet companies have started to deal with this problem also.

CALEA gives law enforcement officials a back door that can be used to wiretap systems. Read my previous post on this subject here.

In Orwell’s 1984 Four, the hero says:

“It was inconceivable that they watched
everybody all the time. But at any rate,
they could plug in your wire whenever
they wanted to. You had to live – did
live from the habit that became instinct
– in the assumption that every sound
you made was overheard.”
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949 (London,
Penguin Classics: 2000), p. 5.

In its May 2004 report on federal data mining efforts, Federal Efforts Cover a Wide Range of Uses, GAO-04-548,May 2004. . The U.S. General Accounting Office(now called the Government Accountability Office) revealed projects that use personal information from the private sector. The Defense Intelligence Agency, mines data “to identify foreign terrorists or U.S. citizens connected to foreign terrorism activities”. The National Security Agency program called Novel Intelligence from Massive Data, extracts information from databases including text, audio, video, graphs, images, maps, equations, and chemical formulas. The C.I.A. reportedly has a data-mining program called “Quantum Leap” which “enables an analyst to get quick access to all the information available – classified and unclassified – about virtually anyone”.

“Are we beginning, as a society to accept inhumane and extraordinary practices of social control? The majority of American’s have become apathetic and sheepishly have accepted the infringements of their rights and the rights of others. If you are not with us your against us. If you have nothing to hide, why worry. A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”

–Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Scottish historian

Twenty one Not Six Ports Transferred to Dubai Company

Where will it all lead?

It seems that many people are under the impression that the Dubai ports deal includes six ports. Here is the count:

P&O Operated Ports in U.S

  1. Port of Portland (ME)
  2. Port of Boston (MS)
  3. Port of Davisville
  4. Port Newark Container Terminal
  5. Port Authority of NY & NJ
  6. Philadelphia Regional Port Authority
  7. Delaware River Port Authority of PA & NJ
  8. Port of Wilmington (DE)
  9. Maryland Port Administration
  10. Port of Virginia
  11. Port of Miami (FL)
  12. Mississippi State Port at Gulfport
  13. Port of New Orleans (LA)
  14. Greater Baton Rouge (LA)
  15. Port of Lake Charles (LA)
  16. Port of Beaumont (TX)
  17. Port of Port Arthur (TX)
  18. Port of Galveston (TX)
  19. Port of Houston (TX)
  20. Port of Freeport (TX)
  21. Port of Corpus Christi (TX)

The P&O website shows that these ports are part of the US holdings and the Beaumont and Corpus Christi ports list the US Army as a client. Woo hoo! Yippe skippy! Does the transfer include the ports that P&O provides stevedoring for? Once again I am soooo confused.