WARP 10 FOR WES CLARK

Fire up the warp drive. Wesley Clark is convinced people will one day be able to travel faster than light -- a feat Einstein and others have deemed impossible.

"During a whirlwind campaign swing Saturday through New Hampshire, Clark, the newest Democratic presidential candidate... dropped something of a bombshell," reports Brian McWilliams for Wired News.

"I still believe in e=mc², but I can't believe that in all of human history, we'll never ever be able to go beyond the speed of light to reach where we want to go," said Clark. "I happen to believe that mankind can do it."

"I've argued with physicists about it, I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative." Clark's comment prompted laughter and applause from the gathering.

Gary Melnick, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said Clark's faith in the possibility of time travel was "probably based more on his imagination than on physics."

While Clark's belief may stem from his knowledge of sophisticated military projects, there's no evidence to suggest that humans can exceed the speed of light, said Melnick. In fact, considerable evidence posits that time travel is impossible, he said.

"Even if Clark becomes president, I doubt it would be within his powers to repeal the powers of physics," said Melnick.

THERE'S MORE: Glenn Reynolds, who used to chair the National Space Society, says the General's faster-than-light dreams might not be so off-base.

TROOPS IN IRAQ: BODY ARMOR LACK

"Thousands of U.S. troops invaded Iraq in March without the new body armor that can stop rifle bullets, and thousands more still lack the lifesaving protection," according to the Daily News.

"I can't answer for the record why we started this war with protective vests that were in short supply," Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of the U.S. Central Command, told Congress last week.

Abizaid asked for quick approval of President Bush's request for $87 billion in new funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, which would include $300 million for body armor and $177 million to upgrade Humvees with chassis armor.

CIA WANTS VIDEO GAME FOR ANALYSTS

"The CIA is set to spend several million dollars to develop a video game aimed at helping its analysts think like terrorists," reports the Washington Times.

"The agency's Counter Terrorist Center, or CTC, is working with the Los Angeles-based Institute for Creative Technologies on a project designed to help its analysts, 'think outside the box,'" a CIA spokesman tells the paper.

In the not-too-distant past, the Insitute has helped the Army build video games that supposedly help "develop leaders that can deal with complex problems, ones that involve emotional issues, political issues and social issues."

"Among those leadership tasks: getting a team to clear a house, protect aid workers, or hold off a mob from a U.S. embassy."

Guess they didn't get that one ready in time for Iraq.

Check this Wired News story from 2001 for more.

FBI CALLS: A PATRIOT ACT?

Ten days ago, the FBI called Defense Tech, looking for information about Adrian Lamo, the so-called "Homeless Hacker." Get ready to turn over your notes about Lamo, an agent warned.

Now, SecurityFocus.com's Mark Rasch is shedding new light on the FBI's move:

The demand that journalists preserve their notes is being made under laws that require ISP's and other "providers of electronic communications services" to preserve, for example, e-mails stored on their service, pending a subpoena, under a statute modified by the USA-PATRIOT Act.

The purpose of that law was to prevent the inadvertent destruction of ephemeral electronic records pending a subpoena. For example, you could tell an ISP that you were investigating a hacking case, and that they should preserve the audit logs while you ran to the local magistrate for a subpoena.

It was never intended to apply to journalist's records.

Similarly, the letters go on to inform the reporters that the FBI intends to get an order for production of records under the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act, a statute that applies only to ISPs. Citing that law, they insist that the journalist is mandated to preserve records for at least the next three months and possibly longer. This demand is all the more egregious in that it comes more than a year after the articles and interviews first appeared -- after any actual Internet logs would have been routinely deleted.

THERE'S MORE: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is now weighing in on the FBI's calls.

NET-WAR QUESTIONED

In recent years, the priests of the Pentagon have developed a new orthodoxy: network-centric warfare. That's the notion that every infantryman, every pilot, every drone and every general will share everything they see and hear over an Internet for combat. It's become the unquestionable centerpiece of the U.S. military's vision for its future.

On the eve of Gulf War II, Defense Tech highlighted a couple of heretics, who weren't sure network-centric fighting was such a great idea. Now, Aviation Week reports, more of these thinkers are emerging.

Yale professor Charles Perrow notes that sharing information at all levels could easily lead to generals micromanaging battles.

"It isn't difficult to envision the fog of war being replaced by the fog of systems," he writes.

Defense analysts Loren Thompson, with the Lexington Institute, says both the U.S. and her adversaries will have access to Internet technology.

"This means enemy forces will be able to use it themselves, and they will understand how the U.S. employment of networks can be used against U.S. forces."

Network-centric warfare proponents seem oblivious to the vulnerabilities they themselves might create, he adds. The Navy, for example, isn't requiring that its systems withstand an electromagnetic pulse.

"We are acting like the danger doesn't exist at the same time we are pursuing similar [anti-electronics] weapons," Thompson told Aviation Week.

JETBLUE: WHY THE FUSS?

The fear of flying wasn't some abstract, idle concern for Joshua Gruber. It was as tangible as the pile of concrete and steel and flesh and ash, smoldering at Manhattan's southern end on 9/11, the day he was in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

But flying home to California for Christmas on JetBlue -- his first cross-country trip after the tragedy -- made the whole thing easier to take. The staff seemed like human beings, not corporate automatons. The planes were brand-new. Best of all, as he flew, Gruber could watch the Food Network on his own private television screen.

"You'd sit down, watch Food TV, and, before you’d know it, you’d be there," Gruber said. "It made it easier to fly after September 11 to have that distraction."

Although the airline is known for its cheap fares, he added, "I'd pay more to fly JetBlue. I had, in fact. And I had encouraged my friends to try it."

All of which makes JetBlue's decision to hand its passenger records over to a firm doing a government terrorist-screening study even more maddening to Gruber.

"It made it sort of like I had been betrayed by a friend, rather than by a big company," he said.

Businesses sell, trade, and swap their customers' data with each other all the time. That's why every product registration card includes information about income, age, occupation. That's why web-based companies – even privacy-savvy ones like TerraLycos (which owns Wired News) -- "will sometimes share personally identifiable information with third-party companies and organizations."

But the JetBlue privacy debacle has unleashed unusual passions in the public. Already, there's a class action lawsuit against the carrier for its data handover. Already, Gruber has received more than a thousand e-mails from outraged JetBlue customers. And already, the Department of Homeland security is beginning to conduct an internal investigation into how passenger data is used.

Why the fuss? Passengers, privacy advocates and airline analysts all sound a common theme: fliers like Joshua Gruber developed powerful ties to JetBlue, ties that were unusual in business – and especially rare the notoriously nasty airline industry.

When the company turned over its customers' private records without their knowledge -- in violation of JetBlue's own privacy policy -- that sense of corporate love quickly exploded into rage.

My Wired News story has more.

THERE'S MORE: Defense Tech reader KH writes, about "an interesting popup ad I saw on the computerworld.com site. The text is: 'We helped JetBlue Airways do something unique with their data: treat customers like people. Unisys.'"

Ah, the irony...

AND MORE: Gen. Wesley Clark was on the board of one of the companies involved in the JetBlue data mess, Glenn Reynolds notes.

AND MORE: The ACLU now has a web site where JetBlue passengers can file a request to find out what the government may be holding on them.

UH, UM DEFENSE TECH ON AIR

Public radio's "Future Tense" program interviewed me about my run-in the gub-ment. Listen to me mumble on the topic here.

BRIDE OF "TIA" LIVES

Congress may have driven a stake through Total Information Awareness. But there are lots of other government data-mining programs -- eeriely similar to TIA -- that are still very much alive.

One TIA-like project is Novel Intelligence from Massive Data (NIMD), an initiative of the little-known Intelligence Community Advanced Research and Development Activity, notes secrecy guru Steven Aftergood, with the Federation of American Scientists.

"Pursued with a minimal public profile and lacking a polarizing figure like Adm. Poindexter to galvanize opposition, NIMD has proceeded quietly even as TIA imploded," Aftergood writes.

The NIMD effort aims to comb through "structured text in various formats, unstructured text, spoken text, audio, video, tables, graphs, diagrams, images, maps, equations, chemical formulas, etc." to help "intelligence analysts to spot the telltale signs of strategic surprise."

By now, we all know what that means.

CONGRESS PUTS BRAKES ON CAPPS II

Congress is delaying the planned takeoff of CAPPS II, the controversial new airline passenger-profiling system, for about four months, until a privacy study can be completed. Wired News has the story.

HOUSE AGREES TO DARPA CUTS

Last week, Defense Tech reported that the Senate was looking to cut off funding for most of Darpa's Information Awareness Office -- the group of minds, formerly headed by John Poindexter, that was responsbile for the Total Information Awareness uber-database and the "terror market" mess.

Now, the House has agreed to the Senate's position, notes Associated Press writer -- and Defense Tech pal -- Mike Sniffen. And so it looks like many of the creepiest Pentagon surveillance programs will have their purse-strings cut -- or will at least be driven to the classified side of the Pentagon ledger.

THERE'S MORE: Some of the less creepy Darpa programs, previously cut by the Senate, have now been restored. The $35 million Continuous Assisted Performance program -- an attempt to help soldiers go long periods without sleep -- is back, for example. Now, according to one of the scientists working on the effort, its budget has been cut only by a sixth, the $24 million.

AND MORE: Darpa's information technology research budget should be boosted, according to a new report from the National Academies' Computer Science and Telecommunications Board.

FORMER DRUG SMUGGLERS RUN ANTI-CRIME DATABASE

Defense Tech has highlighted dozens of fear-inducing government efforts to find bad guys in the data-trails of ordinary citizens. But, if this Associated Press report is accurate, it's enough to make the iron-willed hide under the bed and suck their thumbs.

The existence of the Matrix (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) database has been known for a while, now. It's an effort by a few state governments, including Florida, to set up a kind of local Total Information Awareness – looking for crooks, as well as bomb-throwers.

But new details about the program are coming to light. And they are not pretty.

The project is billed as a tool for state and local police, but organizers are considering giving access to the Central Intelligence Agency, said Phil Ramer, special agent in charge of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s intelligence office...

Matrix houses restricted police and government files on colossal databases that sit in the offices of Seisint Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla., company founded by a millionaire whom police say flew planeloads of drugs into the country in the early 1980s…

Criminal history files in the database are maintained by 15 Seisint employees, watched over by Florida state police, Ramer said.

Yet a Florida Department of Law Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press shows potential lapses in oversight. The memo says background checks on Seisint’s Matrix workers took place only last month, more than a year into the program, and a privacy policy governing the database’s use has yet to be finalized…

California and Texas (have) dropped out (of the Matrix program), citing, among other things, worries over housing sensitive files at Seisint. And a competing data vendor, ChoicePoint, decided not to bid on the project, saying it lacked adequate privacy safeguards."

The Register notes that "Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Ohio, and Utah have signed on to the scheme. Residents of other states are safe, for now."

(emphasis mine)

ARMY ADMITS USING JETBLUE DATA

Conspiracy theorists, fire up your browsers.

Millions of JetBlue passenger records were used to test out an Army program that could be a first cousin of the notorious Total Information Awareness uber-database.

Last week, defense contractor Torch Concepts came under heavy scrutiny after Wired News revealed that the company had crunched fliers' private data without their knowledge.

On Monday, Army spokesman Maj. Gary Tallman said that Torch used the information to run a prototype data-mining system. The project was designed to screen out terrorists who might want to infiltrate or attack Army bases.

According to a corporate press release from May 8, 2002, the Torch-built system would identify "abnormal events or activities that may include rebel actions before damaging events occur." To do this, the contractor would apply "intelligent pattern recognition in identifying latent relationships and behaviors that may help point to potential terrorist threats."

To privacy advocates, that sounds a lot like TIA's mission of uncovering "indications of terrorist activities in vast quantities of transaction data."

Lee Tien, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said, "This looks and feels like the data Valdez."

THERE'S MORE: The Associated Press is reporting that a "group of passengers has sued JetBlue Airways Corp. for passing their personal information to a Defense Department contractor."

"The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Trade Commission announced Monday that they had opened investigations into the move," according to CBS News.

AND MORE: A New York Times editorial says that "plenty of questions remain unanswered about this espisode and about the real extent of government involvement. A Congressional inquiry may be appropriate, given the scope of the Bush administration's ambitions regarding surveillance."

AND MORE: Despite the privacy flap, JetBlue's stock is at its highest levels in years, notes Defense Tech pal KK.

"People are such freakin' sheep," he says. "They'll keep flying Big Bro Airways, personal freedoms be damned."

THE FBI COMES A-CALLIN'

The FBI says it will soon demand reporters' notes in its attempts to nail the so-called "Homeless Hacker," Adrian Lamo.

On Friday, FBI agent Christine Howard told me in a brief phone conversation to expect a federal order to surrender all notes related to Lamo. In March 2002, I wrote a profile of the 22-year-old Lamo from Sacramento, California, who has been charged with multiple computer crimes, including breaking into the New York Times intranet.

"All reporters who spoke with Lamo" should expect similar calls from the bureau in the days to come, said Howard, who is assigned to the Cybercrime Task Force in the FBI's New York field office. The FBI was seeking Department of Justice approval to subpoena journalists' records concerning Lamo. Once the go-ahead was given, she said, "you're going to have to turn it all over."

There's more, naturally, in my Wired News story.

THERE'S MORE: Last year, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds wrote about the strange case of Vanessa Leggett in the Wall Street Journal.

Leggett was putting together a book about a murder case -- one in which the defendant had been acquitted on state charges, "but the possibility of federal prosecution remained."

According to Glenn, the feds took the unusual step of subpoenaing "all of Ms. Leggett's records and notes -- not merely copies -- ... because it claimed that she was not a 'professional journalist.'"

HOW TO FIX THE SPACE PROGRAM

America's space programs -- both military and civilian -- are in the dumps. How can they be fixed? Winds of Change says there are two missing pieces.

"One is cheaper launch technologies. The other is a space industry that doesn't have to depend solely on NASA and other central-planning agencies."

DRONES GO GLOBAL

If you thought flying drones were exclusively American, think again. After a series of mishaps, the British and Russian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programs are back on track, Aviation Week reports -- part of a worldwide trend towards the pilotless planes.

During the Cold War, the Soviets were among the planet's leaders in drone development. According to the magazine, in the mid-60's -- decades before the U.S. deployed its high-flying Global Hawk unmanned eye in the sky -- the U.S.S.R. had a high-altitude, supersonic spy drone, the Yastreb ("Hawk").

But UAV efforts collapsed in the 90's, after the meltdown of the Soviet system. Only very recently did a recovery begin. The low, fast-flying Tu-300 Korshun may become Russia's first armed drone. And Russia's premier fighter-maker, Sukhoi, is working on a number of UAVs similar to the American Predator and Global Hawk.

The U.K.'s drone program never reached the heights of the Soviet effort.

"If not quite the nadir of system development in the 1980s, then the only reason the Phoenix reconnaissance (UAV) program did not garner this most unwelcome of accolades was the fierce competition," Aviation Week sniffs.

But now, the Brits are getting back on track. The Watchkeeper tactical UAV is meant to be in place by 2007, maybe earlier.

THERE'S MORE: "The Soviets weren't the only ones" doing drones in the 60's, notes Defense Tech reader JA. He provides a link to a Lockheed UAV from '64.

THE TECHNOLOGY OF WES CLARK'S WAR

Turn on Fox News, and you'd think America's technology-driven military sprung from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's head, fully formed.

But many of the high-tech hallmarks of the American campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq -- Predator drones and JDAM satellite-guided bombs, to name two -- first saw major combat in Kosovo, under former NATO commander, and new presidential candidate, General Wesley Clark.

The 78-day air war in Kosovo had more than its share of controversies, of course. The decision not to use ground forces to oust the Serbs seemed cowardly, to some. The drip-drap approach to bombing in the war's early days couldn't have been further from "shock and awe." Air Force officials at the time called it a "disgrace." Matters only got worse when a mis-targeted American smart bomb flattened the Chinese embassy in Sarajevo, touching off an international incident.

But, in the end, 1999's "Operation Allied Force" forced Serb troops out of Kosovo -- without a single combat casualty. And in that fight, the Pentagon began implementing a number of advances that have become central to its more recent military triumphs.

My Tech Central Station article has more.

THERE'S MORE: Jeff Quinton has a round-up of the mostly nasty things people are writing about Gen. Clark.

AND MORE: Oh, boy. This is no good.

UNDERWATER DRONES SURVEYED

ScienCentralNews takes stock of the Navy's menagerie of AUVs -- autonomous underwater vehicles, or ocean-going drones.

(via Robots.net)

$100 MILLION FOR S.A.M. COUNTERMEASURES

The White House is committing "$100 million to the first phase of development of an antimissile system that could be installed in passenger airplanes," the New York Times reports.

That's tens of millions more than what had previously been proposed for the effort. But since the strikes on an Israeli passenger plane last year, administration officials have become inreasingly spooked by the possibility of terrorists using shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles to take down a commercial jet. Several of these missiles have been fired by Iraqi insurgents at planes attempting to land in Baghdad's airport.

The $100 million research program doesn't necessarily mean that passenger planes will be protected from these threats, the Times cautions.

"The Bush administration has suggested that a decision to outfit commercial planes may be years away," the paper says. "And in the proposal to defense contractors, the Homeland Security Department requested only that prototypes be manufactured. Defense industry officials say that it would cost $1 million to $2 million to outfit a commercial plane with the sort of antimissile technology now used in the Pentagon's fleet."

DEFENSE TECH CORRECTION

On Monday, I uncorked on Erik Baard for a story on robotics researchers who refused to work with the Pentagon. In my post, I accused Erik of only having one source for this counter-trend of laboratory peaceniks. In fact, he had three. I apologize to Erik and to Defense Tech readers for my error.

TERRORIST MASTER LIST UNVEILED

"The Bush administration unveiled plans today for a master database of known and suspected terrorists that would be used for background checks at visa offices, border crossings and airports," reports the Washington Post.

The Terrorist Screening Center -- to be located in Crystal City (Virigina) and run by the FBI -- will cull information from nearly a dozen watch lists held by agencies throughout the federal government in order to provide "one-stop shopping" for U.S. consular officials, airport workers, border agents, local police and some private industries, officials said.

One of the key aims of the screening center is to avoid the type of communication breakdown that occurred prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, when the CIA placed two of the future hijackers on a terrorist watch list but failed to immediately notify the FBI and immigration authorities. By the time the other agencies were notified in August 2001, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi had already entered the United States.

JET BLUE TO TEST CAPPS II

"An offer by JetBlue Airways to test the CAPPS II internal border control system has been accepted by the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration," privacy activist Bill Scannell writes.

Scannell has more info on his website. Wired News has a story on it, too. Yikes.

THERE'S MORE: Scannell writes, "In September of 2002, JetBlue Airways secretly gave the Transportation Security Administration the full travel records of 5 million JetBlue customers. This sensitive travel data was then turned-over to a private security contractor for analysis, the results of which were presented at a security conference earlier this year and then posted on the Internet."

AND MORE: "JetBlue Airways began sending out apologetic e-mails Thursday to customers who are infuriated that the airline gave 5 million passenger records to a defense contractor investigating national security issues," according to Wired News.

DARPA FACES SENATE AXE

Under increased scrutiny for a series of controversial programs, the Pentagon's far-out research arm has had its proposed budget for next year slashed by hundreds of millions of dollars in the Senate.

Some of the cuts to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency were expected: Lawmakers have been trying for the better part of a year to excise the notoriously far-reaching Terrorism Information Awareness database program.

But others seem to have come out of regulatory left field. Widely hailed research into using the brain to control robotic limbs, and training the mind to function on little or no sleep, will come to an end if the Senate's version of the Defense Department Appropriations bill becomes law.

"Darpa got too much of the wrong kind of publicity, the kind that invites mockery and ridicule, and now the agency is paying the price," Steven Aftergood, with the Federation of American Scientists, wrote in an e-mail.

My Wired News article examines what gets lost if the cuts go through.

THERE'S MORE: As reported here in June -- and in the current Village Voice -- the Senate Armed Services Committee has ordered an investigation into Darpa and other military research centers, to see whether the labs are sticking to their charters of funding fundamental science.

AND MORE: "We all may pay the price if DARPA's budget is slashed," writes Phil Carter. "The overwhelming majority of DARPA projects go nowhere -- but they do stimulate research in basic science and applied science areas that would otherwise not be funded. To some extent, we all benefit from this kind of scientific research, just as we benefit from basic science research done on the MIT or Berkeley campuses. For decades, DARPA has been one of the most vibrant federal agencies in existence with respect to innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. It has also spurred development in universities and the private sector through its creative ideas and funding grants. We will all suffer if this agency takes a big hit."

AND MORE: "Some DARPA programs may be worthwhile, such as one to study the effects of sleep deprivation and ways to combat it. But, it looks like the baby will be thrown out with the bath water," adds Jeralyn Merritt. "In our view, Poindexter tarnished the reputation of the agency, making Congress skeptical of just about everything bearing its name. Good riddance, Admiral."

U.S. GEAR IN IRAQ WEARING DOWN

It's not just the troops that are getting worn down by an extended tour of duty in Iraq, ABC News reports. The equipment is, too.

Keeping vehicles running is as important as keeping the troops fed. The longer the U.S. military is there, the harder it gets. For example: The Army says helicopter blades and engines are rapidly being "eaten by the sand."

The heat and terrain are shredding tires on Humvees. Some $236 million has been spent to replace them since the war began in March, instead of the $80 million normally needed.

Bradley fighting vehicles are in the worst shape. The Army can't replace worn track on the Bradleys fast enough. Stockpiles have now been depleted, and won't be re-supplied for months...

The heavily armored Bradleys now are needed to escort military convoys, dramatically increasing the amount of use.

Bradleys normally log about 800 miles a year. In Iraq, some have logged 1,200 miles per month.

"I don't think we quite saw the magnitude of having to secure all the convoys with Bradleys," Gen. Paul Kern, commanding general of the U.S. Army Material Command, told a small group of reporters recently.

DODGY DRONE STORY AT THE VOICE

Erik Baard regularly writes fascinating, tech-infused musings on the future for the Village Voice, among others. But his article in this week's Voice is somewhere between dishonest and just plain silly.

He opens the story, "As American warfare has shifted from draftees to drones, science and the military in the United States have become inseparable. But some scientists are refusing to let their robots grow up to be killers."

Cool premise, right? But there's a problem: all three of those clauses are questionable, at best.

1) As American warfare has shifted from draftees to drones... There are, maybe, a hundred or so drones currently deployed in Iraq. Compare that to 130,000 flesh-and-blood troops. Now tell me, just how much has American warfare shifted?

2) Science and the military in the United States have become inseparable. "Since when was science not 'inseparable' from the military?" asks Defense Tech pal CT. "Hell, we wouldn't have half the science we do if not for military spending."

3) But some scientists are refusing to let their robots grow up to be killers. Baard does find one researcher who's refusing to deal with the Pentagon. But that's it. In fact, Baard has three scientists saying this. The rest of his sources -- people like physics Nobelist Steven Weinberg -- say things like, "A lot of people did it [refused military money] 30 years ago during the Vietnam War, but I don't know of anyone doing that today."

One person does not make a trend. And Erik should know better than that.

THERE'S MORE: The "notion that we wouldn't have half our science were it not for military funding is overblown," writes Defense Tech Dad -- and author of Laboratory Warriors : How Allied Science and Technology Tipped the Balance in World War II -- Tom Shachtman. "Science and the military became inseparable during World War II, when scientists in the US, GB, and other Allied nations realized that a military victory against the Axis was necessary if they and their science were going to survive.

"The alliance of science and the military and continued in the post-war period especially as scientists learned that the military would underwrite basic and far-out research, not only weapons and sensing equipment development."

FIRST CONTRACT FOR HOMELAND R&D OFFICE

The Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency -- Tom Ridge's answer to the Pentagon's controversial research arm, DARPA -- is set to offer its first contract.

Federal Computer Week says HSARPA will soon be taking bids on a project to build new "detection systems for biological and chemical countermeasures."

Many other efforts are sure to follow. The new agency is supposed to have $800 million at its disposal in the upcoming fiscal year.

HOW TO TRIM PENTAGON FAT

"This year, if all goes as President Bush plans, the United States will spend more money on the military than in any year since 1952, the peak of the Korean War," writes Slate's Fred Kaplan.

So what can be cut out of this $487 billion behemoth? Kaplan offers four suggestions:

Stealth fighter planes. The budget includes $5.2 billion to build 22 F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and $4.4 billion to continue research and development for a smaller, single-engine version known as the F-35 Joint Strike fighter... (These jets) are designed as stealth "air-superiority" fighters — planes whose main mission is to shoot down enemy planes... (But no) air force in the world, except perhaps those of Israel and France, could shoot down more than a few American non-stealth fighter planes in even a large, protracted dogfight (and most of those shoot-downs would be by dumb luck).

Helicopters. The only American weapon that performed poorly in Gulf War II was the AH-64D Apache attack helicopter—in its only massed assault, 30 out of 32 were shot up, mainly by Iraqi small-arms fire, and had to scurry back to base, most of them in disrepair. Yet the budget includes $777 million to keep buying Apaches.

Nuclear weapons. For the past decade, the Pentagon has been denuclearizing its atomic arsenal. B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers have been converted to carry conventional bombs and missiles. Four of the Navy's 11 Trident submarines are being similarly altered to fire non-nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles. So why does this budget include $780 million to buy 12 more D-5 Trident II nuclear missiles for the other Trident subs?

Missile defense. President Bush's much-cherished missile-defense program is not nearly ready for prime time—even by the Pentagon's own (if sometimes understated) acknowledgement. Yet the president persists in his plans to deploy the beginnings of an anti-missile missile system before the end of the year and to continue to accelerate more advanced aspects of the program, even though all analyses indicate that the technology does not exist to support them.

THERE'S MORE: During the war, when Kaplan first starting criticizing the Apache, others countered that the helicopter itself wasn't flawed -- it was the way the Apache was used. The helicopter was designed to travel with fixed-wing air support, but had none during the disastrous encounter in Iraq.

AND MORE: "The real problem with weapons programs it that their cost tends to balloon as they age," Phil Carter notes. "Defense contractors push a lot of their costs to the back end so that they can get the Pentagon to buy in when a project looks cheap. As the costs balloon, the contractors can file a claim for the costs, usually based on some sort of constructive change in the contract. The result is that large procurement programs have a deceptively small cost in the short-term, and a larger cost in the long-term, and an overall cost that's much higher than anticipated."

AND MORE: In the late 70's to mid 80's, writes Defense Tech pal JA, "Army aviation became it's own branch... and in the spirit of separatism strove to develop a more muscular role as an independent actor on the battlefield...

"The problem is that their weapons are still best suited to a supporting role *over* friendly troops, not in front of them. The outcome of the Flight of the Apaches was not real hard to predict... but apparently was easy to overlook or ignore in favor of seeing the choppers have a shot at kickin' big butt on their own. "

AND MORE: Defense Tech reader RD notes, "Let's not forget to mention that the best front line support for troops which can be shot up, still deliver weapons, and get back to base" -- the A-10 -- is being slowly phased out. "There is no effective replacement in the pipeline, and they are frittering away money on the F-22 and JSF programs."

N. KOREA MISSILE BASED ON RUSSIAN TECH

"North Korea has used Russian technology to develop a new, intermediate-range missile that may be the most capable and accurate system in Pyongyang's arsenal," Reuters reports.

"American officials said the missile is based on the Russian SSN6, a submarine-launched ballistic missile deployed in 1969 with a range up to 3,400 miles."

But the North Korea missile doesn't appear to be quite as fearsome, according to Global Security Newswire. It "is land-based and does not have the range to reach the United States, a U.S. source said."

REPORTERS SMUGGLE DEPLETED URANIUM INTO U.S.

The country is still shockingly vulnerable to terror attacks, this expose shows.

"For a second year, U.S. government screeners have failed to detect a shipment of depleted uranium in a container sent by ABC News from overseas as part of a test of security at American ports. "

The Feds are "considering criminal charges" against the reporters who pulled this off, according to the Associated Press.

THERE'S MORE: Blogger James Rummel wasn't too happy with the original headline for this post -- REPORTERS SMUGGLE URANIUM INTO U.S.

We are, of course, dealing with the depleted variety. The stuff that's so low in radioactivity that it's actually used as radiation shielding... Wouldn't know it by the headline, though. I suppose it's all part of the "If it bleeds..." school of journalism. If you don't "sex up" the story then I suppose that no one would be interested in reading what you wrote.

While I don't agree with the last statement, his first is spot on, and I've changed the headline.

WHAT TO SAY?

I don't have anything particularly profound or moving to say on this tragic anniversary. I'm just so glad my beautiful home town has survived with its soul intact. And I hope to God I never again have to breathe in that acrid smell of ash and death and crumpled dreams that filled Manhattan two autumns ago today.

WESLEY CLARK: BIKE MESSENGER

General Wesley Clark is a hot topic in the chat rooms and clubhouses of Democratic politics, where pundits and activists are working themselves into a lather, debating his possible presidential candidacy. More than $1 million and 13,000 volunteers have been pledged as part of an online movement to draft General Clark, the former NATO supreme commander and CNN military analyst, to enter the 2004 race.

But today, General Clark wants to talk about bicycles.

The retired general has been devoting much of his time to running a company making a new kind of electric motor that does not require gears or a transmission, but uses computer algorithms to maximize torque and efficiency.

The company, WaveCrest Laboratories of Dulles, Va., hopes to put these motors into hybrid gas-electric cars or even hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars one day. But for now, WaveCrest is focused on bikes.

My New York Times article has more.

BUSH JOINS PATRIOT ACT II CHANT

Surrender some of those silly Constitutional rights, and we'll keep you safe from terrorists. That's been the chorus of a tune Attorney General John Ashcroft has been singing in campaign-style tour of the country.

Until today, President Bush has kept his mouth shut while Ashcroft screeches. But in a speech at the FBI Academy, Bush added his voice to Ashcroft's ensemble. He backed up Ashcoft's words, and called on lawmakers to "untie the hands" of law enforcement agencies, the New York Times reports.

Bush urged Congress to pass three major measures as part of a follow-up to the notorious USA Patriot Act, according to Reuters:

-- Allowing law enforcement authorities to bypass a judge or grand jury and issue "administrative subpoenas" in terrorism investigations where "time is of the essence." Such authority is available in other investigations such as drug probes...

-- Denying bail for terrorism suspects, to prevent them from fleeing. "Suspected terrorists could be released, free to leave the country, or worse, before the trial," Bush said, adding that this disparity in the law "makes no sense" and should be changed.

-- Imposing the federal death penalty for terror-related crimes, such as sabotage of a military or nuclear facility "in a way that takes innocent life." Bush said this "kind of technicality should never protect terrorists from the ultimate justice."

H-BOMB FATHER DEAD

Edward Teller, popularly known as "the father of the hydrogen bomb," has died.

It may sound trite, but I can't help wondering: Do we praise Teller, one of the earliest members both the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, for his towering intellectual achievements? Damn him for helping to bring an instrument as terrible as the H-bomb into the world? Or both? It's the question that surrounds all military scientists, I suppose...

The Livermore lab has put up an extensive collection of all things Teller here. And quotes from his memoirs -- about his Los Alamos days, mostly -- are here.

THERE'S MORE: Teller "was a forceful critic of government secrecy, particularly secrecy in scientific matters, which he considered self-defeating and detrimental to the national interest," according to Steven Aftergood, chief of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. Aftergood offers up some select Teller quotes to prove his point:

"A short time ago, the Soviet Union was the most secretive organization in the world; it no longer exists," he wrote in 1992.

"Our keeping of secrets has often misled and confused our own people but has been ineffective in denying information to our enemies or competitors."

"Let us pass a law requiring all secret documents to be published one year after their issuance," he proposed, to no visible effect.

SIX WARS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!

Defense Tech pal -- and Salon writer -- Farhad Manjoo digs a hidden gem out of a routine political story in today's Washington Post:

"With $166 billion spent or requested, Bush's war spending in 2003 and 2004 already exceeds the inflation-adjusted costs of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Persian Gulf War combined, according to a study by Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus. The Iraq war approaches the $191 billion inflation-adjusted cost of World War I."

NOW THAT IS LOW

As as bass player, I'm into those low, low loooooowww notes; the ones that make your chest shake, and your bowels do the rhumba.

So imagine my delight today when NASA informed me that their Chandra X-ray Observatory detected, for the first time, a deep, deep tone rumbling from a supermassive black hole.

"In musical terms, the pitch of the sound generated by the black hole translates into the note of B flat," NASA says. "But, a human would have no chance of hearing this cosmic performance because the note is 57 octaves lower than middle-C.

"For comparison, a typical piano contains only about seven octaves. At a frequency over a million billion times (below) the limits of human hearing, this is the deepest note ever detected from an object in the Universe."

TECHNO-PASSPORTS DELAYED

Next month, the State Department was slated to begin enforcing a new law: that some of the countries friendliest to the U.S. would have to start issuing passports that could be read by a computer scanner. It's a precursor to a October '04 deadline, to embed those passports with face-scan and other biometric data.

If those nations – so-called "visa-waiver" countries, because their citizens ordinarily don't need a visa to get into the U.S. -- hadn't started down the biometric road, their residents would need to get new, biometrically-enabled visas from U.S. authorities, or they couldn't enter the country.

This seemed like a train wreck waiting to happen. Just last week, I spoke with Kelly Shannon, with the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs. She admitted that crucial preparations for embedding the biometric information in visas hadn't even begun.

"We haven't chosen which technology we're going to be using yet," she noted.

So it comes as only a small surprise that officials at State will likely put off the computer-scanning regulations for at least a year. The New York Times has the story.

THERE'S MORE: Wired News has a creepy little tale about the use of fingerprint-scanners in a Pennsylvania school district.

TERROR MARKET THEORIST GRILLED

"Look what you get for hanging around Admiral Poindexter."

That's how Wired magazine kicks off an interview with Robin Hanson, the George Mason University economist whose theories were behind DARPA's the so-called "terror futures" market.

Wired also has a quick run-down of the next generation of surveillance drones. But the list is maddeningly incomplete. The Navy's new tactical UAV, the Silver Fox, isn't there. And neither are most of the ten types of drones used in Iraq.

AIRLINE PASSENGERS WILL BE COLOR THREAT CODED

"In the most aggressive -- and, some say, invasive -- step yet to protect air travelers, the federal government and the airlines will phase in a computer system next year to measure the risk posed by every passenger on every flight in the United States," reports the Washington Post.

The new Transportation Security Administration system seeks to probe deeper into each passenger's identity than is currently possible, comparing personal information against criminal records and intelligence information. Passengers will be assigned a color code -- green, yellow or red -- based in part on their city of departure, destination, traveling companions and date of ticket purchase.

Most people will be coded green and sail through. But up to 8 percent of passengers who board the nation's 26,000 daily flights will be coded "yellow" and will undergo additional screening at the checkpoint, according to people familiar with the program. An estimated 1 to 2 percent will be labeled "red" and will be prohibited from boarding. These passengers also will face police questioning and may be arrested.

(via Drudge)

MILITARY MALARIA DRUG COVERUP ALLEGED

UPI: "A Naval Reserve commander who volunteered for the Iraq war says the military doctored his medical file to eliminate all traces of an anti-malaria drug that he believes made him severely ill, suicidal and aggressive, and that he has the before and after evidence to prove it."

The drug in question, lariam, has been around for years to fight malaria. Lariam's maker says it's safe -- with only mild "neuropsychiatric events such as headache, somnolence, and sleep disorders." Others contend that the drug made them feel downright crazy.

THERE'S MORE: "Ten more Marines and sailors who were in Liberia last month are being hospitalized with symptoms of malaria, bringing to 43 the number of suspected cases among those who participated in the mission," the Associated Press reports. "The 43 represent nearly a third of the 150 who went ashore to assist West African peacekeepers."

AND MORE: "I took Lariam when I went to Africa," writes Defense Tech pal Victor Ozols. "The shit gave me nightmares and rough sleep. Didn't make me crazy, though. It is sad, though, that Lariam is the best drug we've got vs. malaria. Most of the people I met working in Africa say they'd rather suffer malaria than Lariam, and thus they use bug spray to avoid the problem altogether."

"TURMOIL" FOR U.S. CHEM-WEAPON DESTRUCTION PLAN

The Pentagon's program to get rid of America's stockpile of chemical weapons is in "turmoil," according to a new study from the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm.

"Long-standing leadership, organizational, and strategic planning issues remain unresolved," the report notes. "Roles and responsibilities are often unclear," leaving "the program without a clear road map."

Simply put, there are "no assurances" that the Defense Department "will be able to meet the program's principal goal—to destroy the chemical stockpile in a safe manner and by the Chemical Weapons Convention 2007 deadline."

REPORT: MILITARY SPACE PROGRAM IN DISARRAY

The American military space program is in a state of near-total disarray, says a report from the Defense Science Board, released yesterday. The troubles run so deep, they're beginning to rival the mess at NASA, its counterpart in civilian space.

Among the "systemic problems" the group found: "widespread lack of budget reserves required to implement high risk programs on schedule; and an overall underappreciation of the importance of appropriately staffed and trained system engineering staffs to manage the technologically demanding and unique aspects of space programs."

"Cost has replaced mission success" as the "primary means" for evaluating new military space equipment, the report notes. And "low cost estimates throughout the acquisition process" have "lead to unrealistic budgets and unexecutable programs."

The U.S. military has become increasingly reliant on space to wage war. Global Positioning System-based "smart bombs," "eye-in-the-sky" surveillance, and satellite phones are just a few examples of how American troops lean on space technology to talk, track friend and foe, and fight.

(via Secrecy News)

ENERGY DEP'T SLASHES NUKE POLYGRAPHS

"The Energy Department says it is sharply cutting back on the number of lie detector tests for people with nuclear secret access," UPI reports.

"Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow made the surprise announcement at a Senate hearing. He said the new policy likely will reduce the number of people given polygraph tests to 4,500, mainly in sensitive arms and intelligence posts. Some 20,000 are given the test now."

BRAVE NEW SKIES: WHY?

"If Sept. 11 could have been avoided by four pilots with four .22s, why is the response to that to profile everybody?" asks conservative activist Grover Norquist.

It's the central question Washington power brokers are putting to the Transportation Security Administration, as it attempts to push its creepily invasive CAPPS II passenger-screening program forward.

Everything you wanted to know about the database effort -- and a whole lot you probably didn't -- is in this fine story from Salon's Farhad Manjoo.

MCGYVER ON LOCK DOWN

Locked in a California prison, Angelo needs a cup of coffee. Bad. But electric heaters used to make instant joe are often contraband in jail. So his cellmate combines the metal tabs from a notebook binder with a couple of melted toothbrushes and some rubber bands.

And soon, Angelo is sipping Folgers.

The jury-rigged heater is one of nearly 80 improvised items Angelo meticulously diagrams in a new book, Prisoners' Inventions. Working with the Chicago-based art group Temporary Services, Angelo (not his real name) shows how inmates fashion dice from sugar water and toilet paper, dry bologna jerky on jail-house light fixtures, turn hot sauce bottles into shower heads and make grilled cheese sandwiches on prison desks.

"This gives a glimpse into the everyday lives of the outrageous number of people we have in our prison system," said Temporary Services' Mark Fischer, who first started trading letters with Angelo in 1991. "And it's a celebration of the creativity that comes in response to their restrictive environment."

In the movies, "prisoners only create things to escape, get high or kill each other," Fischer notes.

Angelo's objects show a more banal, more human side of locked-down life: one where soda cans filled with rocks become crude alarm clocks and inmates cool their drinks in toilet bowls.

My Wired News article has more.

AMMO MAKER WANTS "GREEN" BULLETS

Ammunition giant Alliant Techsystems has "embarked on the somewhat oxymoronic quest," the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports, "to design a new 'green' bullet that is every bit as lethal to people but doesn't pose the same threat to the environment as lead-based ones."

"If Alliant is successful," the paper notes, "the U.S. military hopes to eliminate lead from most of its bullets over the next decade."

BATTERY LACK ALMOST PULLED PLUG ON IRAQ WAR

Major combat missions during Gulf War II almost ground to a halt -- because of a shortage of batteries.

The BA 5590 non-rechargeable battery is the military’s most widely used portable power source, juicing up all kinds of communications gear. They power items like the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio Systems (SINCGARS) radios, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) alarms.

"We literally [came] within days of running out of these batteries," Navy Capt. Clark Driscoll, with the Defense Contract Management Agency, tells National Defense magazine.

The shortage was a "near-term disaster," he adds. Only a quick war kept the military from running out of batteries completely.

The Marines alone were using 3,028 of the BA 5590s per day. They eventually had to ask over 30 countries for enough batteries to last the war.

TOP BRASS BLASTS U.S.' IRAQ EFFORT

High-level criticism of the White House's afterwar effort continues to mount. Maybe it'd be possible to blow off any one of the critiques from former Army Secretary Thomas White, former Navy Secretary James Webb, the current Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the Congressional Budget Office. But taken together -- it's hard to imagine a more damning assessment of the path President Bush is pursuing in Iraq.

FLAPPING BOT DEBUTS

Researchers have been fascinated with the idea of ornithopters -- aircraft propelled by flapping wings -- for two hundred years.

Now, the Washington Post reports, University of Toronto scientists have built a hovering, flapping, winged robot -- a real, live orthnithopter.

It's called "Mentor." And this tiny machine looks "like a cross between a dragonfly and a Chinese lantern."

Mentor came into being in response to a vision of a "fly-on-the-wall spy" put forward by James McMichael at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1997. He envisioned stealth "micro-air vehicles" with the size and flying ability of insects deployed to gather intelligence on enemy terrain.

Flapping wings offer several advantages over the fixed wings of today's reconnaissance drones, such as the Predator used by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flapping wings allow insects and birds to fly at low speeds, hover, make sharp turns and even fly backward.

(via Robots.net)

NEXT UP FOR DARPA

What's next for DARPA, the Pentagon's beleaguered research and development arm?

DARPA has taken heat recently for controversial projects like the Policy Analysis Market (an online trading floor dealing in the possibility of terrorist attacks), LifeLog (an all-encompassing, uber-diary effort) and Combat Zones that See (a surveillance network designed to put an entire city under watch).

Now, Associated Press writer -- and Defense Tech pal -- Mike Sniffen looks at what's ahead for the agency. Those new projects include:

-Studying the feet of geckos, the tiny lizards with adhesive discs on their toes. The goal: to build small, legged robots that can climb walls.

-Studying hibernating Arctic ground squirrels, who quickly regrow synapses that support memory, and whales and dolphins, which put half their brain to sleep while the other half surfaces them to breathe. The goal is to determine how to