tagged w/ Intelligence Agency
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A January 27 hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security established that US intelligence agencies stopped the State Department from revoking the US visa of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian student, whom US officials suspected of being affiliated with the Yemeni terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, attempted to set off a bomb on Northwest Flight 253 into Detroit on Christmas Day. Revocation of Abdulmutallab’s visa would have prevented him from boarding the airplane.
The hearing was reported in a brief article posted January 27 on the web site of the Detroit News, headlined, “Terror Suspect Kept Visa to Avoid Tipping Off Larger Investigation.”
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Why would the intel agencies stop the State Department from revoking his visa? Gee, I wonder....A January 27 hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security established that US... more
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The British publisher Penguin launched an unusual book Monday — an authorized history of MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency, to mark the centenary of its founding in 1909. It's the first authorized history of any Western intelligence agency. Allowing an academic to write it and comb through the agency's files has raised questions about why its secrets shouldn't be kept secret.
James Bond was MI6, but the launch of a book about the history of MI5, presided over by a former intelligence chief, still conjures up expectations of hearing, "Now, listen carefully 007," or seeing rogue journalists gunned down with a ballpoint pen. But that, it seems, is in many ways why MI5 has taken the unusual step of allowing an outside historian to trawl through its files.
There are too many myths, movies and conspiracy theories about the intelligence agencies, said former MI5 chief Sir Stephen Lander, who commissioned the book.
"We thought if we had a history, we could assign to history all those allegations and stories that have been around, with someone not in the service making a professional judgment about what really happened," Lander said. "And it would be possible not to have to be dragged back in the press or anywhere else to stories about the Wilson plot, or about whether we investigated John Lennon, or studied Mickey Mouse ... or all the rest. The answer is, 'Read the book.' "
The Defence of the Realm, with more than 1,000 pages, will be published in the United States next month. The man chosen to write it was Christopher Andrew, professor of history at Cambridge, a university that provided a large number of senior agents for MI5 in the past — though, as it turned out, many of them unfortunately were also working for the KGB.The British publisher Penguin launched an unusual book Monday — an authorized... more
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Conficker uses flaws in Windows software to co-opt machines and link them into a virtual computer that can be commanded remotely by its authors.Conficker uses flaws in Windows software to co-opt machines and link them into a... more
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Forget performance-enhancing drugs for soldiers, the next frontier is performance-degrading drugs for our enemies. Rick Weiss at the Science Progress blog has just written a nice post about a just-released 150-page report from the National Research Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency that argues that the military needs to do a better job keeping up with neuroscience: in part so it can learn how to make our enemies stupider.
“Although conflict has many aspects, one that warfighters and policy makers often talk about is the motivation to fight, which undoubtedly has its origins in the brain and is reflected in peripheral neurophysiological processes," quotes Weiss from the report. “So one question would be, ‘How can we disrupt the enemy’s motivation to fight?’ Other questions raised by controlling the mind: ‘How can we make people trust us more?’ ‘What if we could help the brain to remove fear or pain?’ ‘Is there a way to make the enemy obey our commands?’… As cognitive neuroscience and related technologies become more pervasive, using technology for nefarious purposes becomes easier.”Forget performance-enhancing drugs for soldiers, the next frontier is... more
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