Four Star Blogger

During his talk at the IFPA "New Triad" Conference, General James "Hoss" Cartwright mentioned his blog.

How did I miss this?

Back in March, "Timmer" at The Daily Brief noted that General Cartwright had been "talking up his Command and Control Blog (you couldn’t get to it even if I did link to it)" and posted some guidance that Cartwright issued about not letting the chain of command get in the way the information he needs. (Another blogger, with the handle Sgt. Mom, noted that a blogging 4-Star isn't that odd.)

Any way, the story bumped around the blogosphere (for example) before petering out.

The Huntsville Times reported General Cartwright's blog in August after he mentioned it at the Annual Space and Missile Defense Conference.

Cartwright's comments -- as reported by Timmer and the Hunstville Times -- suggest that he "gets" the potential for blogging.

"The first thing that came out was 'Don't post anything on that blog without clearance from the commander,' " Cartwright said. "We had to beat that down."

The next firewall thrown up to Cartwright's blog were responses that came from only senior staff officers like captains and majors "giving me only what their commanders wanted me to hear," he said. "I called that the 'tethered goat' response and it wasn't all that helpful.

"What I wanted was information and context to help with decision making. I can't wait for the perfect advice," Cartwright said. "If there is a bad decision then that's on me. That's my responsibility."

Finally after "blowing the doors down and sitting on" the blog nay-sayers, Cartwright is getting what he wants from STRATCOM's Web tools, he said.

Of course, one doesn't become a flag officer (or anything else essentially political) without some skill at self-promotion, so grain of salt and all.

I know that DefenseTech.org (and Arms Control Wonk.com, where this is cross posted) get lots of STRATCOM traffic -- so, folks, I'd love to hear about how the STRATCOM blogs are working. Drop one of us a line:

jeffrey-AT-armscontrolwonk-DOT-com or
defense-AT-defensetech-DOT-org

-- Jeffrey Lewis

Not a Deal Maker, or an Arms Broker

I feel ridiculous even typing this. But enough companies have written in, asking me to help them market their products to the Defense Department, that I feel obliged to respond. Here's my answer, in a nutshell: no.

I received the latest come-on just a few days ago, from a company that claims to make radio frequency jammers.

...COMPANY is able to quickly produce most professional [customized] solutions for Every requirement of jammers, the best in the world, and most competitive in terms of price. The only issue is that currently we don't have yet connections with the US Military.

Can you help us make the US Army immediately aware of our superior capabilities ? because we understand that there's an immediate top-urgent requirement of Professional IED Jammers for the US Army troops in Iraq. Needless to say that if you help us in this matter you (or your organization) will be highly compensated for the same.

Your prompt response will be very appreciated. Thank you very much in advance...

Look, I'm a journalist. Not a deal maker. And not an arms broker. I'm happy to consider writing about your product, whatever it is. But I'm not about to start lobbying the government to take the technologies I cover. That would pretty much shred whatever last little bit of credibility I still have. How could I appear to be an objective observer if I'm pimping gear behind the scenes? So, please, do everyone a favor -- no matter how revolutionary and awesome your new doodad is: back off.

Sub's Unmanned Buddy

A while back, I briefly mentioned the Cormorant, Darpa's idea for a sub-launched flying drone. Reader DS points us to the agency's quick write-up of the 19-foot "multi-purpose unmanned aerial vehicle," or MPUAV.

The idea is that the drone could handle "all-weather reconnaissance, battle damage assessment, or specialized mission support (e.g., special forces re-supply)" for the sub.

The Cormorants would be kept in the sub's ICBM launch tubes, and released into the water as needed. From there, they'd be launched into the air "using two Tomahawk missile-derived solid rocket boosters."

Upon mission completion, the turbofan engine-powered MPUAVs return to a designated retrieval point at sea, initiate engine shut down, and splash down to await recovery. During recovery, the submerged [sub] would deploy a remotely operated vehicle to secure an in-haul cable from the [sub] to the recovery tether deployed by the MPUAV. The [sub] would then haul the MPUAV to its designated launch tube [with a] saddle mechanism, where it would be docked and retracted into the missile tube.

StrategyPage, for one, isn't so sure all that trouble is worth it.

Aircraft operating off submarines is nothing new... [During World War II], the Japanese built 44 subs that could carry a small float plane for reconnaissance. This idea was fine in theory, but much less successful in practice... Someone may read a history book before that, or remember that the United States has plenty of other satellite and long range UAVs that could provide air reconnaissance needs of U.S. subs.

And Darpa admits there are a whole bunch of technical hurdles to leap before the Cormorant would begin to make sense.

The launch and recovery procedure -- including that "saddle" thingy -- would have to go through "key risk reduction demonstrations." So so would the drone's high-pressure turbofan engine.

Rapid Fire 12/28/05

* Houston's Katrina crimewave

* Pentagon's wireless shift

* Old planes' new networks

* Nuke lab blogger bows out

* Chem plants still at risk

* Euro-GPS takes off (background here)

* Laser = IED finder

* DHS = lame

* Carter 1, eavesdroppers 0

(Big ups: JQP, Early Brief, RC, CA)

Free Press in Kurdistan, Take Two

So I tracked down the staff of Hawlati, the only independent newspaper in Kurdistan, to get their take on press freedom in this country so utterly dominated by two powerful political parties. Editor Faisal Khalid says that only Hawlati will tackle stories related to government corruption, of which there is a lot in Kurdistan. In retaliation, Hawlati staff have been threatened and, in a few cases, bribed by the government to become informants.

If the Hawlati staff believes an employee's loyalty is wavering, that employee is promptly fired. Recently three Hawlati reporters were jailed for covering corruption stories; all three are out on bail awaiting trial. What makes this legally possible is the absence of Miranda Rights in Kurdistan and a law prohibiting loosely-defined "slander", which editors have told me might include criticism of the major political parties.

Incredibly, even the courageous Hawlati staff cows away from certain subjects. "Past the red line," is how Khalid describes them. When I asked what subjects were past the line, he refused to answer, saying only that everyone knows what subjects are absolutely taboo. If government corruption is fair game in this place where government is worshipped, what in the world is off-limits? My cynical Western mind suspects that these subjects are related to sex and religion. More on that later.

-- David Axe

Hummer Limos Enter War Games

The next wave of Army fighting vehicles are still on the drawing board. So, in the meantime, "Boeing is outfitting 34 commercially produced limousine-style Hummers with radios and computer networking equipment to stand in for the... vehicles during tests and exercises," according to Inside Defense.

In early January, seven of the vehicles will drive up California’s Interstate 15 to Nellis Air Force Base, NV, located near Las Vegas, to be used in the Air Force-led Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2006...

To find the actual vehicles, Boeing conducted two separate competitions -- one among Hummer dealerships near Huntington Beach, CA, and another among companies that make vehicles into limousines by cutting them in half and adding length to the middle as needed. Hummer of West Covina, CA, and LA Custom Coach Inc. won out.

The Hummers were delivered to the Huntington Beach SOSIL [System of Systems Integration Laboratory] facility with an added alternator, dual oil filters and run-flat tires. Then they were handed over to the limousine company, where their length was increased by 65 inches...

After the expansion to a six-door vehicle was complete, the Army added air conditioning because the vehicles will be running with computers and radios in the heat of the desert. They also were painted with the service’s signature camouflage print.

On Growing Old (and Being Young) in Kurdistan

There are few things rarer than an old Kurdish man. Decades of oppression, poor nutrition and medical care, war, flight and starting over have taken their toll. The low life expectancy of Kurdish men goes a long way to explain why the survivors are so revered.

More than most, Kurdish culture is patriarchal and personality-worshipping. And no patriarchs' personalities are more worshipped than the Barzanis. In every office, shop and home hang portraits of Mustafa Barzani, the deceased Kurdish revolutionary, and his son Massoud, the current head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the dominant party in Erbil and, with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan based in Sulaymaniyah, the heart of the Kurdish coalition that has been kicking ass at the polls since January.

Extremely high birth rates -- an artifact of Kurds' obsession with nuclear families -- mean that despite historically high death rates among men, Kurdish population is exploding. All Iraqi peoples have very very young populations. (That many Arabs have multiple wives contributes to this.) High birth rates aren't all good. Feeding, clothing and educating all these kids is a real challenge. At the public hospital in Shaqlawa, a resort town north of Erbil, Dr. Bestum Ali is doing all he can to keep thousands of kids healthy. That means up to 50 innoculations per day and aggressive childrearing education for new mothers. Ali says things are getting better, especially since the fall of Saddam. Medicine, personnel and expertise move more freely, international aid is up, and expatriate doctors like Shaqlawa head of pediatrics Dr. Yusef are returning to Kurdistan from places like Zurich. The result of all this and of Kurdistan's new era of peace, hopefully, is that old Kurds will one day be as common as young ones.

-- David Axe

Merry Christmas, Iraq

At the Erbil Ministry of Culture's media hall, the Iraqi-Kurdistan Symphony Orchestra has just struck the final chord of the Kurdish national anthem, and the audience -- Kurdish Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Turkomens, maybe even an Iraqi Jew or two, all in black ties and gowns -- bursts into loud applause, foot-stomping and cheers. It's Christmas Eve in the oldest city in the world, and the city's million-and-some residents are in a pretty good mood. Maybe it's the successful election they had just two weeks ago.
Maybe it's the Christmas cheer of the city's sizeable Christian minority rubbing off on everyone else. Or maybe it's just that Kurdistanis love being Kurdistanis.

Sure, Iraqi Kurdistan's got troubles. Corruption hamstrings the economy. Intense security limits civil rights. A dearth of natural resources has ministers begging for foreign investment. But despite all this, and against the backdrop of a country descending into an Arab civil war, Kurdistan is prospering. People are making money, raising their kids, going to school, travelling abroad, making plans, dreaming and enjoying life.

This is it folks, this is what a peaceful, democratic, multi-ethnic and religiously-tolerant Iraq looks like. The Western media's myopic focus on Baghdad and Arab Iraq means it's missed a quarter of the story, the northern quarter, where five million people are building the Middle East's first indigenous democracy from scratch. Every day Kurds thank me, believing I represent all Americans. They thank me for freeing them from a murderous tyrant. They thank me for saving their lives and their families' lives. They tell me that they understand we went to war for many reasons, some quite bad. Still, they say, no American has died in vain here, for even if there were no weapons of mass destruction, even if Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11, there is at least one good reason to fight and die in Iraq.

In fact, there are five million.

Merry Christmas, America. Merry Christmas, Iraq.

--David Axe

NSA "Tapping Into... Telecom's Main Arteries"

"The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States... by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries," the Times is reporting.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged...

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications.

When the NSA domestic spying story broke last week, I had a hunch that the eavesdropping technology at work was a whole lot different than what you'd find in an average wiretap. A former signals intelligence specialist wondered whether the NSA "may have compromised... a telecom carrier."

That guess looks to be dead-on.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.

"All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active involvement in that area," said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets.

The Times article also makes clear why Senator Jay Rockefeller compared the program to Total Information Awareness, the Pentagon's uber-database project.

The N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.

This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.

The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system... [which was] ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.

But the Bush administration regards the N.S.A.'s ability to trace and analyze large volumes of data as critical to its expanded mission to detect terrorist plots before they can be carried out, officials familiar with the program say. Administration officials maintain that the system set up by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not give them the speed and flexibility to respond fully to terrorist threats at home.

Some will say this story is old news. The NSA has long been rumored to have the ability to vacuum up huge swaths of data at once.

"The NSA is intercepting huge streams of communications, taking in 2 million pieces of communications an hour," James Bamford, the author of two books on the NSA, told the Boston Globe on Friday.

"They have a capacity to listen to every overseas phone call," added Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University."

But the question has been: how do you turn all that data into something useful? You've got to find a realtively simple way to get rid of 99.99999% of the calls and e-mails quickly. Otherwise, it's like drinking from a firehose.

But as link analysis and data mining programs have become more sophisticated, that sifting process has gotten easier. And, I'll bet, it is simpler still when the telecom companies are playing ball.

Inside the Air Force's Laser Lab

I love the bit in Bond films where 007 goes round Q’s laboratory checking out the latest top-secret gadgets. That’s why I enjoyed talking to Capt.Wegner and his colleagues at ScorpWorks, source of a variety of laser weapons and other one-of-a-kind devices.

The ScorpWorks is the Air Force Research Laboratory’s in-house development team for laser system prototypes. Although it has existed since 1992, they have shunned publicity until this year. A laser weapon does not need to convert the target into smoking rubble: they are much more versatile than that.

The Laser AirCraft CounterMeasures (ACCM), which I detail in this week's New Scientist, is a nonlethal coaxial laser that sits alongside a helicopter door gun. It dazzles the target, preventing them from firing accurately and providing protection for the helicopter, but without risking civilian casualties.

It’s more than a dazzler. Experience with the Saber 203 laser dazzler in Somalia showed that it was too low-powered to affect vision, but anyone illuminated beat a hasty retreat as they knew a weapon was being aimed at them. The ACCM should have a similar effect, scattering potential threats on the ground and leaving only the truly dangerous ones - and the 4,000 rpm minigun should deal with them.

The PHaSR laser-dazzling rifle unveiled a few weeks ago is similar (and not a hoax). In a riot-control situation, the idea is that lighting people up with this portable laser will separate peaceful protesters from the stone-throwers. The PhaSR’s dual-wavelength laser will also make countermeasures difficult, and Capt. Wegner points out that the end product will probably be very different to the bulky prototype.

The PHaSR is a relative of the Portable Efficient Laser Testbed (PELT). This is another riot-control weapon, but one that works by heat – "the first man-portable heat compliance weapon of its kind" Take a close look at the picture of PELT on page 52 here and you'll see a signature Scorpion logo – a rare visible sign of ScorpWorks handiwork.

Elsewhere they've been utilizing the laser as a sensor. By picking up the reflections back from the human eye, invisible laser sensors can detect people looking at them - similar to the way animal eyes light up when you shine a flashlight on them. A sniper detection system is in the works.

Even more sophisticated is BOSS, the Battlefield Optical Surveillance System. This is a vehicle-mounted setup which uses retro-reflection and a number of other technologies to spot targets in pitch darkness. It can be locate, identify and invisibly designate targets, so they won’t even know they've been spotted until a laser-guided weapon hits (and probably not even then). Exactly how far advanced BOSS or its successors are is not known.

The ScorpWorks name is a deliberate echo of Lockheed’s famous Skunk Works, renowned for producing world-beating aircraft like the F-117 stealth fighter and SR-71 Blackbird on time and within budget, a feat achieved following a set of bureaucracy-busting rules laid down by the legendary Kelly Johnson.

ScorpWorks reckon that many projects get completed within two years and with prototypes built for less than $300k. At that price you could get about 20,000 different projects for the price of one Airborne Laser.

The Skunk Works is famous for the many black programs that originated there, and you do get the impression with ScorpWorks that what they have revealed is the tip of the iceberg. We know their customers include Special Operations Command, Air Force, Marines, DARPA and the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, but we don’t know what they bought. Even their unclassified programs can only be discussed in broad terms. If they told me more, they’d probably have to kill me – but I bet they’d use a really impressive laser.

-- David Hambling

Corruptistan

Kurds talk big when it comes to democracy, but old undemocratic ways are hard to shake, and Kurdistan is very very old. Corruption here isn't as bad as in, say, Baghdad, a city built on closed-door deals and dead Kurds. But it's still pretty obnoxious.

Take the multi-million-dollar four-lane highway being built near Erbil that doesn't seem to connect any major population centers. It doesn't make much sense until you realize that the highway begins at the regional prime minister's house and ends at his office.

Most corruption isn't so grand. At the Erbil airport, my co-camerman David burch got shook down for $80 by the customs guys despite having everything he needed to get into the country: a precious Iraqi visa courtesy of His Honor Ambassador of Iraq to the United Kingdom Dr. Salah Al-Shaikhly and an American passport. Fortunately, Kurdish bureaucrats are as inept as they are corrupt, and David simply smiled and hurried through the shakedown line without paying, and nobody noticed.

Outside Erbil, at Kes Nazan, the Kurdish Regional Government is building a $50-million, 3,000-unit apartment complex with oil revenue provided by Baghdad. (How much of that revenue winds up in Kurdish ministers' pockets, I'd love to know.) The complex is intended for poor families being displaced from Erbil by new commercial construction, but sources tell me that many of the units have already been assigned to wealthy powerful Kurds using fake names.

It's a shame, made all the more shameful by an accute historical irony. The land around Kes Nazan is flat and featureless, not because no one has ever lived here, but because it used to be populated by conservative rural Kurds until Saddam swept in, killed a bunch, rounded up the rest, put them in camps then bulldozed their homes. Their graves still dot the area. Some of these surviving displaced peoples are returning to the area, soon to find their land occupied by the local upper class -- a newer, more familiar oppressor, albeit a less cruel one than Saddam.

-- David Axe

Rapid Fire 12/22/05

* Patriot Act's brief extension

* Spooks spooked by domestic wiretaps (background here)

* Secret court judges spooked, too

* DHS' ugly birth

* Defense bill, packed with pork

* De-nuked subs head to sea

* $50K reward for missing explosives

* Israelis, Saudis eye U.S. shoreline ship

* Racers = military R&D

* The overlords look back

(Big ups: Early Brief, Eric, RC, Murdoc)

SSG Johnnie Mason, RIP

Staff Sergeant Johnnie Mason was smiling when I met him, a few days after he had dodged death. He was part of an Army bomb squad team in Mahmudiyah, not far from Baghdad. An improvised explosive device, stuffed underneath a set of corpses, detonated just feet away from him in mid-July. Only his kevlar bomb suit -- and a quick duck behind a mound of dirt -- kept him alive.

If Mason was bothered by the experience, he didn't show it. "All I've got is a little short-term memory loss. There are four roads on post -- I keep getting lost," he laughed.

But he had enough wherewithall to get back to work, he promised his commanding officer. Mason eyes grew big, and he cracked a toothy grin, when he got the okay.

I shook my head in wonder at Mason's easy-going bravery then.

Now, I'm cradling my head in my hand, after getting this message from Sergeant Jon Ferraro, from the "Baghdad Bomb Squad."

On 19 December 2005 @ 23:30, my team leader SSG Johnnie V. Mason was killed in the line of duty in Al Mahmudiyah, Iraq. We were working on an IED in the median of a road, when a possible secondary IED was found in our safe area. SSG Johnnie Mason responded immediately to the secondary and took immediate actions on the device. He was trying to safe the device when it detonated...killing him instantly from the explosion (at exactly 23:30). He saved at least 4 soldiers that night who were within feet of the device. SSG Johnnie Mason is a fallen brother. A brother in arms. An EOD brother. A husband to his wife Brook and a father to his 2 step children: Ashley (18) and Adam (16). He will not be forgotten. His loss will not be in vain.

He was my team leader. He was my NCO. He was my best friend. He was my brother. I have never gotten so close to someone in such a short time. I first met Johnnie when I got to Ft.Campbell, KY back in January of this year. I found out he was going to be my team leader for Iraq back in March. Ever since then we have been inseparable and we've had a brothers bond.

We were Team 8 "Jokers". When we rolled out on an incident, everyone knew who we were. Johnnie was a joker. He's the guy that makes everyone laugh and smile. Everyone liked him or loved him. He was always in a good mood and made the best out of every situation. He was cool under pressure and was an amazing team leader. He taught me alot as a person, as an EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] tech...and soon to be husband. We had fun on every incident we ran. We ran safely, as fast as possible, and held high standards as a team. Everywhere we went on post, someone would say hey to Johnnie from the lowest ranking private to the Brigade Commander. Everyone knew him.

I ask that everyone take a moment of silence and pray for his family and friends during this horrible time. I ask God to keep them strong and safe during this time of Christmas. I ask that you forward this to all the EOD techs you know and the friends and loved ones of his.

Thank you and God bless,

SGT Jonathan M. Ferraro
717th Ordnance Company (EOD)

UPDATE 12/22 8:52 AM: More on Johnnie here and here. If you're interested in sending condolences or flowers, e-mail me.

UPDATE 12/25 11:46 AM: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has some choice snippets of Johnnie's battlefield humor. And the Ft. Worth Star Telegram hangs out with Johnnie's Dad.

California Keeps Los Alamos Control

For more than sixty years, the University of California has run Los Alamos National Laboratory on the Energy Department's behalf. And, despite a seemingly-ceaseless array of financial, security, and safety scandals at the birthplace of the atom bomb -- the latest came out just yesterday -- the University will hold on to the lab's $2.2 billion per year management contract. Just goes to show, no amount of incompetence can lose you a fat government deal. The Santa Fe New Mexican has the scoop. LANL: The Real Story has employee reacts.

Rapid Fire 12/21/05

* Secret court judge resigns over wiretaps

* "Purely domestic" calls snagged

* Sub found -- 7,500 feet above sea level

* Stalin's half-man, half-apes

* GIs' cool, cool vests

* Private space launched, scrubbed again

* Mil sims get real

* "Future Combat" timeline, revised

* Border patrol job = tchotchkes!

(Big ups: /., TP, TS, Roland, Adam)

Iraq's Beautiful Trash

I was having my morning chai at the Shahan Hotel in downtown Erbil when, out the window, I saw something very exciting. A garbage truck, stopped at the curb, and garbage collectors tossing in boxes and bags. I was so amazed that I lunged for my camera like I'd just spotted Bigfoot. That's when I saw another garbage truck rounding the corner. I snapped photos on the fly like a paparazzi tailing Tom Cruise.

In five trips to Iraq totalling five months, these are the first garbage trucks I've seen -- and they're the best evidence so far of the development of civil society -- if not in all of Iraq, then at least here in Kurdistan. Elsewhere, garbage including animal parts and discarded food piles up in big festering heaps on the streets until somebody with a pickup truck volunteers to haul it to the city limits, where it gets dumped in sprawling fields of waste 30 years old and hundreds of acres in size. The garbage is so dense in places that during hot summers, it spontaneously combusts, fueling putrid garbage fires that burn uncontrolled for days. The upside of garbage fires is that they keep down the populations of vicious wild dogs that live in the garbage, venturing into the cities at night to terrorize pedestrians and domestic animals.

What Iraq needs, more than any election or military campaign, is basic civic infrastructures like garbage collection. There's little sense of public good or public ownership in most Iraqi cities, which contrbutes to the lack of security. If you don't care enough to keep your streets clean, how in the world are you going to muster the enthusiasm to ward of terrorists and foreign fighters, both public nuisances that, unlike garbage, can kill you?

-- David Axe

Zero Hour for Los Alamos

Jeez. As if things couldn't get any busier around here. Now the Santa Fe New Mexican is reporting that there's a winner in the monster fight to grab control of Los Alamos National Lab -- and its $2.2 billion per year contract.

"Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is scheduled to announce the winning contractor... at noon Mountain Time," according to the paper's Los Alamos blog.

A whole lot more than money is at stake here. If the Lockheed Martin-led team wins, some scientists worry, the nuclear lab's culture of innovation could be crushed. But if the University of California continues to run Los Alamos -- as it has since the days of the Manhattan Project -- the lab's seemingly-endless series of scandals may never stop. Stay tuned to the New Mexican's site, and to LANL: The Real Story, where lab insiders dish and vent hot.

Pain Ray Headed to Iraq?

It's been talked about for years. But the Pentagon's microwave-like pain ray may finally be headed to Iraq, Inside the Army reports.

Developed by the Air Force, the so-called "Active Denial System" (ADS) fires out milimeter waves -- a sort of cousin of microwaves, in the 95 GHz range. The invisible beams penetrate just a 64th of inch beneath the skin. But that's deep enough to heat up the water inside a person. Which is enough to cause excruciating pain.

Seconds later, people have to run away. And that causes mobs to break up in a hurry. It's no wonder, then, why less-lethal weapon guru Charles "Sid" Heal calls the ray the "Holy Grail of crowd control."

Raytheon has been developing a Humvee-mountable ADS for the Pentagon over the last couple of years, as part of an ACTD, or "advanced concept technology demonstration."

By now, the system was supposed to be in the field. But there have been concerns that the ADS tests weren't sufficiently realistic. The Pentagon ordered additional trials. More than 2,370 ADS shots were fired during a pair of "military utility assessments" over the fall.

Now, the head of the Army's Rapid Equipping Force -- the unit in charge of getting gear to the troops in a hurry -- is saying: enough.

The system's "capabilities have, to date, been sufficiently demonstrated in the ACTD [advanced concept technology demonstration] to prove its value to the solider," Col. Robert Lovett notes in a memo, obtained by Inside the Army.

And the 18th Military Police Brigade has requested ADS "to help 'suppress' insurgent attacks and quell prison uprisings."

ADS' technical manager, Diana Loree, said the system "now meets all of the ACTD performance parameters," Inside the Army notes.

"Because the system is a hand-built, one-of-a-kind technology demonstrator, it does not meet conventional humvee curb weight requirements... However, the technology team worked closely with [Humvee manufacturer] AM General to ensure the safety of the system and its occupants."

There has also been talk, at least, of building an airborne model of ADS -- as well as putting together a Hummer with both pain rays and sonic blasters. Needless to say, neither project is as far along as the basic Active Denial System.

Wiretap Mystery: Spooks React

A few current and former signals intelligence guys have been checking in since this NSA domestic spying story broke. Their reactions range between midly creeped out and completely pissed off.

All of the sigint specialists emphasized repeatedly that keeping tabs on Americans is way beyond the bounds of what they ordinarily do -- no matter what the conspiracy crowd may think.

"It's drilled into you from minute one that you should not ever, ever, ever, under any fucking circumstances turn this massive apparatus on an American citizen," one source says. "You do a lot of weird shit. But at least you don't fuck with your own people."

Another, who's generally very pro-Administration, emphasized that the operation at least started with people that had Al-Qaeda connections -- with some mass-spying master list. As the Times, in its original story, noted:

The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, they said....In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said....Since 2002, the agency has been conducting some warrantless eavesdropping on people in the United States who are linked, even if indirectly, to suspected terrorists through the chain of phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

But this call chain could very well have grown out of control, the source admits. Suddenly, people ten and twelve degrees of separation away from Osama may have been targeted.

Deputy Director for National Intelligence Michael Hayden hinted at what might be going on in a press conference yesterday:

And here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger. It's a subtly softer trigger. And the intrusion into privacy -- the intrusion into privacy is significantly less. It's only international calls. The period of time in which we do this is, in most cases, far less than that which would be gained by getting a court order.

That points to a diferent type of technology at work, as I suggested the other day. Senator Jay Rockefeller, in a remarkable pair of handwritten letters (one kept for safe keeping, in case someone tried to say later on that he approved of the program) seems to back this point of view.

As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter's TIA project sprung to mind, exacerbating my concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance.

TIA, of course, would be "Total Information Awareness," Darpa's effort to find potential enemies of the state in the data trails of ordinary folks. The program was cancelled a few years back. But a whole bunch of similar efforts continue throughout the government.

A former sigint type -- who also talked to Ryan, apparently -- suggests a different technological approach: the NSA "may have compromised a hardware manufacturer -- say Motorola or a satellite phone manufacturer, a telecom carrier or a satellite(s)."

I'll keep my ears open.

UPDATE 11:27 AM: There's a ton of surveillance-related news that has come out in the last day, including:

- FBI spied on PETA

- Bush personally asked the Times to kill its NSA story

- "Pentagon's Intelligence Authority Widens"

- DoD: gay law school groups a "credible" terror threat

UPDATE 12:22 PM: Laura points us to an absolute must-read post from Bill Arkin today:

In the spring of 2001, NSA began to change direction in its counter-terrorism targeting under Lt. Gen. Hayden: rather than analyzing the mass of what was collected hoping for the gem in the growing mass of available material, NSA began a methodical process of dissecting terrorist target communications practices and network to determine what to collect. This is commonly referred to at NSA as hunting rather than gathering. It was a procedure that was in its infancy on 9/11.

So what happened? The perceived shackles of domestic collection were removed, the gathering process began again to overwhelm the hunting process, new software, data-mining and link analysis methods were applied to isolate potential domestic targets.

UPDATE 2:07 PM: Check out Bruce Schneier for a quick history of domestic eavesdropping. Our old pal Hannibal from Ars Technica rounds out the review. And Garrance from around the block dives into the data mining laws.

Next-Gen GPS Takes Off

The first modernized GPS satellite is now operational, according to a Lockheed Martin press release:

A joint U.S. Air Force/Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] team announced today that the first modernized Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite has been declared fully operational for GPS users around the globe following extensive on-orbit testing of the spacecraft's new military and civilian signals.

Launched on Sept. 25 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. the GPS IIR-14 (M) satellite is the most technologically advanced GPS satellite ever developed. The spacecraft features a modernized antenna panel that provides increased signal power to receivers on the ground, two new military signals for improved accuracy, enhanced encryption and anti-jamming capabilities for the military, and a second civil signal that will provide users with an open access signal on a different frequency.

The second modernized GPS sat will launch early next year. A total of eight of these birds is planned.

Meanwhile, the first launch of Europe's sat-nav program, Galileo, was pushed back from December 26th to the 28th. The satellite, built by Britain, will be launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Meanwhile, India is going to use GLONASS, Russia's answer to GPS and Gallileo.

--cross-posted by Murdoc

In Iraq, Free Press (Kinda, Sorta, Maybe)

Everyone in Kurdistan is proud of saying that there's no censorship here, that their media is free and independent. But poking around the edges of some small-time magazines in Erbil, I discovered something strange. From the smallest fry to the biggest fish, almost all media in Kurdistan is government-funded.

When I asked Karwan Abdula, editor of Caravan literary magazine (and a former communist) if government funding shaped his mag's editorial ethos, he said no, of course not. But then, he added, we would never think of publishing anything critical of Kurdistan's two major parties.

I ran this past the media bigwig in Erbil, Minister of Culture Sami Shorish, and he explained that while there are no laws restricting free speech, there is one important law restricting speech that isn't free and never should be. "We provide freedom to media, provided the media doesn't act in a slanderous way."

And would criticizing the ruling parties entail slander? I asked Abdula.

Yes, he said.

In all of Kurdistan there is only one privately-financed newspaper, Hawlati, which has been an on-again off-again affair. Its editors come and go with shocking frequency. Sources tell me that there's a lot of pressure on Hawlati on account of its independence. I'm trying to get in touch with the current editor to get his take.

To the Kurds, it seems, censorship ain't censorship as long as you call it something else.

-- David Axe

Rapid Fire 12/19/05

* Mach 5 for scramjet

* Robo-copter, super-catamaran team up

* Bats Fly-by-touch

* DHS, stuck on Windows 95

* Cops heart game Nazi

* Ham jockey hears Mars orbiter

(Big ups: RC, JQP)

China Bosses' Best Pal: Cisco

It was a disgusting, when Yahoo helped China jail a dissident writer in September. But it wasn't exactly uncommon. Lots of American technology companies have been helping out the autocrats in Beijing, Legal Affairs notes.

Take Cisco. The company "earns $500 million a year in revenues [in China] and holds 60 percent of the Chinese market for routers, switches, and other sophisticated networking gear."

That includes "the watchdog router that prevents Internet users in China from gaining access to banned websites."

And it includes Policenet,
which "connects officials of the Public Security Bureau — a national agency with local branches that handle security, immigration, 'social order,' and law enforcement — to each other and to electronic records that store a wealth of information on every citizen in China."

Cisco marketed Policenet at China's 2002 Information Infrastructure Expo (a trade show for potential suppliers to the Golden Shield [uber-database] project) by touting how the technology helped police in California match the faces of criminal suspects with images captured through surveillance cameras in department stores. [Here's a brochure] It's hard to get upset about devices that help law enforcement officials lock up shoplifters. Yet the technology itself seems to change when, rather than being operated by police who are subject to the constraints of search warrants and evidence rules, it is used by security forces concerned primarily with suppressing dissent. Policenet may be effective against crime in California, but it also lets China's Public Security Bureau obtain information about the political beliefs and Internet use of innocent people and their family members...

Public law — the criminal and civil statutes and case law that shape corporate conduct — would be clumsy and probably ineffective in trying to [stop Cisco from this kind of thing]. Far more promising would be... shareholder pressure and lawsuits. Though no law required it to do so, Nike adopted a code of conduct to improve working conditions at its sneaker factories abroad. It succumbed to pressure from labor rights groups and from lawsuits that claimed the company had committed false advertising by misrepresenting working conditions. Boston Common Asset Management, which holds 67,000 of the billions of Cisco shares outstanding, filed a shareholder resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission in May 2004 demanding that Cisco consider human rights issues when choosing wholesalers for its products. The investment firm said it worried that "corporations doing business with repressive governments face serious risks to their reputation and share value." Cisco argued that the human rights policies set forth in its code of business conduct were enough to ensure proper behavior and asked the SEC to exclude the resolution. The SEC refused, allowing shareholders to decide in effect whether Cisco should balance individual freedoms with the goal of earning profits.

New Tech Behind NSA Snoop Case?

There's more to the NSA domestic spying case than the current storyline -- that much is clear. The idea that the Bush Administration needed to bypass the courts to get wiretaps quickly makes no sense; under the current system, you can start eavesdropping, and get a warrant later. The notion that disclosing the surveillance would somehow tip off potential terrorists is laughable, too; Al Qaeda types know they're being monitored.

That's all assuming, of course, that the wiretaps in this case are the same as in any other. But maybe they're not. Maybe there's something different about this surveillance. It could be in its scope, as Laura suggests. But I'm guessing -- and this is just a guess -- that the real difference is in the technology of the wiretaps themselves.

Look at what former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who was briefed on the eavesdropping program, told the Washington Post:

"I came out of the room with the full sense that we were dealing with a change in technology but not policy," Graham said, with new opportunities to intercept overseas calls that passed through U.S. switches.

Or what New York Times editor Bill Keller had to say about the paper's year-long delay in breaking the story:

In the course of subsequent reporting we satisfied ourselves that we could write about this program -- withholding a number of technical details -- in a way that would not expose any intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the public record.

So maybe the NSA wiretaps were using a new kind of capability; one that terror suspects might not have know about; one that might have even made the FISA court uncomfortable, somehow.

It's a lot of mights and maybes, I know. But the current threads of this story are so thin, it's time to start considering some alternatives.

Bomb Squad Story, Blown

From the AP and NPR reports, you'd think that the the big deal about the military's revamped IED training course was new, mock buildings that the government put up for the class. You'd be wrong.

I went down to the military's bomb squad school over the summer, while those buildings were being constructed. (Here's a picture, right) I talked to the guys who are running the IED program. The new structures are the least important part of the change that's going on in bomb squad training. Think of it like the movies: The scenery matters, sure. But what really counts is the acting, and the plot. Here's what I wrote about the school for Wired:

When [a bomb technician] was deployed to the Balkans in the late 1990s, his main task was to sweep unexploded ordnance from battlefields and firing ranges once the action was over. He followed a cold war playbook - when to get the tools out, when to just blow something up. But that playbook only works when you're up against mass-produced bombs. Guerrillas in Iraq cobble together weapons from whatever they can find. A bombmaker in Mosul might use dynamite and a timer from a washing machine. One in Baghdad lashes artillery shells to a motorcycle battery and a cordless telephone. Insurgent cells swap tactics on Web sites, and when American forces catch on, the terrorists move to newer tactics...

The ever-shifting conflict is forcing bomb squads to develop new, more improvisational tactics. On the red clay ranges of the military's EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] school in Niceville, Florida, Marine gunnery sergeant Eric Slachter teaches the next generation of bomb-disposal troops. His syllabus: There is no syllabus. "The basic classes here, they're all about following procedure. This is an advanced course - you think on your feet. You've got a brain, some experience. Now use it," he says. "We'll take it from the headlines, what killed a GI. We'll make that device. And we'll learn to defeat it."

Not too long ago, IEDs were treated as almost an afterthought during explosives training. They were the pipe bombs that 16 year-olds left in school libraries -- kid's stuff, really. Real men handled roomfuls of grenades, or thousand-pound building-killers.

Some of the feaux-buildings at Eglin reflect that history. There's a mock library there, in fact, with books and everything. But that's a relic of the past, not a pointer to the future. Which is why it's particularly silly for the press to focus in on it.

(Full disclosure: NPR's Phillip Davis interviewed me for his story on the IED school. I tried to tell him all this. But I didn't make it into his piece. Some might say, then, that this post is sour grapes. But really, I'm just sour about the point of the story being missed.)

Rapid Fire 12/17/05

* Space spiders spin sats?

* Darpa AI chief joins Yahoo! (background here)

* Tomcat's last call

* Secrecy vs. biodefense

* Guided weapons: a history

* One Excel spreadsheet, 800+ satellites

* Pricing out the Navy's super-carrier

(Big ups: JQP)

Wiretaps' Fishy Rationale

It's no surprise that the President defended the NSA's domestic eavesdropping this morning; the guy backs every decision he makes, to the death. And it's no surprise to learn that the President had "reauthorized the program more than 30 times since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and plans to continue doing so," according to the AP.

But what's odd is why the Administration felt they needed to avoid geting warrants for the wiretaps, in the first place. As Josh notes:

[T]he prime rationale for this program appears to have been to avoid the time and bureaucratic hurdles involved in getting warrants.

In the abstract, there sounds like there might be some merit in that argument, especially considering the importance of speed in counter-terrorism work.

The problem is that the FISA Court -- the secret court set up to handle just such warrant requests -- is designed for speed. And it is known for being extremely indulgent of government applications for warrants...

It turns out that FISA specifically empowers the Attorney General or his designee to start wiretapping on an emergency basis even without a warrant so long as a retroactive application is made for one "as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance." (see specific citation, here)...

All of this, of course, is separate from the issue of the president overruling a federal statute by executive order -- something that by definition a president cannot do. But something seems fishy about the rationale itself.

But that's not the only fishy thing here. In his radio address today, the President said:

The existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.

Which implies that, somehow, suspected jihadists might not have known before that the government could be eavesdropping on them. Realistically, what are the chances of that?

UPDATE 2:05 PM EST: Also, if the Administration thinks it basically has the power to do whatever it damn pleases -- detain Americans indefinitely, torture terror suspects, eavesdrop without a warrant -- then why bother pushing for the Patriot Act? What do you need new laws for, if you're already allowed to use every trick in the book?

UPDATE 12/18/05 AM: Ryan says the same thing, but better. And be sure to check out this WaPo page one analysis:

In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s.

UPDATE 12/18/05 PM: Be sure to check out Glenn Greenwald on whether or not these warantless wiretaps were legal or not. (Hint: no.)

We’re not talking here about an unconvincing or erroneous legal argument. This is something different entirely – it is an argument based upon a fundamental misquoting of the law in question designed to make illegal behavior look legal.

(Big ups: Jeralyn)

The Muftis of Kurdistan

Here's the second of David Axe's dispatches from the electioneering in northern Iraq.

Kurds have become relentless self-promoters, pitching for aid and recognition with characteristic unity. But two brothers, Adnan and Kanan Mufti, play the public relations game a whole lot better than most.

Kanan Mufti is the Kurdistan Director of Archeology and a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. He's also an unofficial ambassador of Kurdistan. He receives journalists, academics and foreign dignitaries in his well-appointed two-story home in Erbil. Listen to what he told me on Dec. 14: “The Kurdish people is the only people in the Middle East with respect for other nations. We used to cohabitate in a brotherly fashion with Jews. Now we have the district of Ankawa populated by Christians. Kurds have been oppressed, but they oppress no one.

You might wonder where this is going. After a drag on his cigarette and a sip of chai, he asked off-handedly why Kurdistan, with such a great human rights record, couldn't have independence.

Because it would tear Iraq apart and invite a Turkish invasion, is why. But Kanan's not the only person wondering. Kurds everywhere dream of independence, consequences be damned.

Kanan's brother Adnan is a big wig in the rival Kurdish political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. He's currently speaker of the regional assembly.

Adnan Mufti isn't as blunt as Kanan. Taking a break from a press conference with local journalists on election day, he tells me that the elections are important because they will mean a new government and new laws that will reinvigorate the U.S.-Iraqi partnership. “To struggle together against terrorists and terrorism and to have a new Iraq federation respecting human rights … that’s why our people suffered, to have this one day.”

In my experience, “human rights” is Kurdish code for “Kurdish rights”. Adnan Mufti is too clever not to couch his regional patriotism -- and his desire for more U.S. involvement in Kurdistan -- in federal Iraqi terms.

Mufti, by the way, means "powerful". You can bet that the opinions expressed by Kanan and Adnan shape those of millions of Iraqi Kurds.

-- David Axe

Election Day in Erbil

Defense Tech superstar correspondent David Axe made it to Iraqi Kurdistan, just in time for the elections. Here's the first of his reports for the site. (The pics are his, too, sent by satphone.)

There's a party in northern Iraq, and everyone's invited.

While the insurgency in north-central Iraq enters its third year, the Marines root out foreign fighters in the western desert and southern Iraq becomes increasingly aligned to Islamist Iran, northern Iraq is peaceful, secure and relatively prosperous, thanks to an uneasy alliance of two rival Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

The Iraqi Kurds had been fighting for independence since Iraq's inception in the wake of WWI. In the wake of Desert Storm, with Saddam Hussein's army in ruins, the Kurds went on a massive offensive and carved out an autonomous province with two capitals: Erbil the west under the KDP and Sulaymaniyah in the east under the PUK. From 1994 to 1997 the two parties fought each other until M. Albright intervened. When U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003 the Kurds increased their hold and cemented their truce, fielding a single slate of candidates in both the Jan. elections for an interim assembly and today's election for the first permanent assembly. During these years of peace between the parties, the Kurds have built a regional elected assembly, highways, industry, an army, police, a judiciary and airports. They've welcomed back former expatriates, including sizeable minorities of Jews and Christians. Kurdistan has grown and prospered and diversified.

But cracks are showing. More Kurds and demanding that their control extend south to oil-rich Kirkuk, which would alienate the Arabs that form 60 percent of the central government. Others want formal independence, which would piss off pretty much everybody, especially Turkey which has its own Kurd problem. And while the KDP and PUK have stayed tight, they have a new Kurdish rival now, the radical Islamic League of Kurdistan. While most Kurds are Muslims, few are radical, and the ILK threatens to upset the moderate progressive atmosphere. Recent weeks have seen riots at ILK headquarters. Everyone is blaming everyone else.

Today's elections were typical of the votes in Jan. (interim assembly) and October (referendum). With my interpreter and driver we toured three polling places, chatted with workers and voters and cops and found everything in order. It appears the KDP-PUK coalition will sweep. Tonight, with polls closed, Kurds are dancing and singing in the streets. So the peace holds ... for now.

I'll be in Erbil for two weeks, exploring local politics and getting a feel for how Kurds are balancing their growing aspirations against the concerns of their neighbors and countrymen. Stay tuned.

-- David Axe

UPDATE 11:39 EST: Word has it there's been voter fraud in Kurdistan. Big deal.

It's Friday evening in Erbil. Election Day euphoria is fading. Walking the market with my C-SPAN co-cameraman David Burch, we find an internet café with blinking fluorescent lights and a chugging generator powering some ancient hardware. Everyone's smoking cigarettes at their stations.

"How much?" I ask in bad Kurdish. The proprieter shrugs. We settle on a dollar per hour.

I log on and see that NPR is reporting voter fraud here in cheery Kurdistan.

I'm not surprised. Earlier David and I hailed a cab ("How much?" I asked in back Kurdish. The driver shrugged.) and dropped in on our Norwegian buddy Per Thorsdalem at the high-security Sheraton hotel -- with working toilets!

Per is a businessman. He's here as an advance party for some Norwegian firm. He figured, hey, I'm in Erbil. Why not be an international elections observer?

He told me this morning that he witnessed two types of fraud: family voting, where fathers dictate their childrens' votes; and multiple voting. The former is an inevitable artifact of a patriarchal society. The latter is no surprise in the Middle East, and easy to perpetrate, what with the red-dye-and-finger method of preventing it.

But neither Per nor I is as scandalized as NPR apparently is. The elections here went off without a hitch. No bombs. No violence at all. Quiet. As orderly as things get in Iraq. And, man, were the Kurds ever thrilled to vote. Per told me that in one rural village outside Erbil, info on registration procedures never got out, and hundreds of villagers were turned away f