Was Titanic Sinking an Insurance Scam?

April 15, 2012





The  Olympic, damaged in a collision and destined for the scrapyard, may have been disguised as its sister ship, the Titanic. This raises questions about the true nature of the "accident" which took place 100 years ago today. 








by John Hamer
(Reprised from July 2011)
 

In 1908, financier J.P. Morgan planned a brand new class of luxury liners that would enable the wealthy to cross the Atlantic in previously undreamed-of opulence.  The construction of the giant vessels, the 'Olympic', the 'Titanic' and the 'Britannic,' began in 1909 at the Harland and Wolff  shipyard in Belfast, Ireland.

Unfortunately for Morgan, this money-making venture went a little awry.  The Olympic, the first of the three sister-ships to be completed was involved in a serious collision with the British Royal Navy cruiser, HMS Hawke in September 1911 in Southampton a few weeks after its maiden voyage. It had to be  'patched-up' before returning to Belfast to undergo proper repair work.
 
In hindsight, it does seem strange that the Olympic, the first of the 'sisters' to enter service, was never given the publicity her younger sister, the Titanic, enjoyed the following year  Why would that be? 

In the meantime, a Royal Navy inquiry into the accident found the Olympic at fault for the collision and this meant that the owner, White Star Line's insurance was null and void.  The White Star Line was out of pocket to the tune of at least £800,000 (around $90m today) for repairs and lost revenues. 

However, for Morgan and the White Star Line, there was even worse news.
 It is believed that the keel of the ship was actually twisted and therefore  beyond repair, which would have effectively meant the scrapyard. The White Star Line would have been bankrupted, given its precarious financial situation..

According to Robin Gardner's book, 'Titanic, the Ship that Never Sank?'
the seeds were sown for an audacious insurance scam - the surreptitious switching of the identities of the two ships, Olympic and Titanic.
 
Gardner presents credible testimonies, indisputable facts and evidence, both written and photographic, that suggest that the two ships were indeed switched with a view to staging an iceberg collision or other unknown fatal event.

According to Gardner, "Almost two months after the Hawke/Olympic collision, the reconverted Titanic, now superficially identical to her sister except for the C deck portholes, quietly left Belfast for Southampton to begin a very successful 25-year career as the Olympic.
Back in the builders' yard, work progressed steadily on transforming the battered hulk of the Olympic into the Titanic.  The decision to dispose of the damaged vessel would already have been taken. ...  Instead of replacing the damaged section of keel, longitudinal bulkheads were installed to brace it". 

How significant then in the light of this statement, that when the wreck of the Titanic was first investigated by Robert Ballard and his crew after its discovery in 1987, the first explorations of the wreckage reportedly showed (completely undocumented in the ships original blueprints) iron support structures in place which appeared to be supporting and bracing the keel. 

This was never satisfactorily explained but would certainly be significant as it was reported by the puzzled Ballard himself who of course at that time knew nothing (and probably still does not even now) about the alleged switching of the two ships' identities.

---
Part Two - Questions Surround Official Titanic Story

Questions Surround Official Titanic Story

July 28, 2011



This is part two of "Was Sinking of Titanic an Insurance Scam?"


"The surviving crew were detained overnight and forced to sign a pledge under the  'Official Secrets Act', promising to keep secret forever, the actual events of the night of 14th / 15th April, 1912"








by John Hamer
(henrymakow.com)

The Captain of Titanic, Edward Smith (left) had been traversing the North Atlantic waters for more than a quarter of a century.  He was regarded as the 'world's most experienced master' in the North Atlantic but Smith knew all along that his ship would be made to sink on its 'first' voyage. 

He also had complete knowledge of where the icebergs were.  Under his boss J.P. Morgan's secret orders, he propelled Titanic full speed at 22 knots on a moonless night and through a ice field 80 square miles in size. 

Captain Smith's actions were totally out of character.  Significantly and conveniently, Smith in the age-old tradition, as Captain, went down with the ship.  Could Smith have even been 'allowed' to survive, knowing as he did, the real truth about the incident? 

As is well known, there were not enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew. Some boats left the ship as little as only one quarter full.  The Captain strangely ordered white flares knowing full well that the international standard for distress flares was red.  Other ships passing within sight of these flares were intentionally confused and thought the Titanic was having a fireworks party. 

In his book, "Titanic, the Ship that Didn't Sink," Robin Gardner states, "As I delved deeper into the story, more and more inconsistencies became apparent.  Inconsistencies that individually meant little but collectively pointed to a grimmer reality than that usually depicted in the heroic legend".

He continues, "Officers who were later acclaimed as heroes were exposed as anything but.  One in particular removed a little boy from a lifeboat at gunpoint, before escaping in that same boat himself".

"Descriptions of the collision and damage supposedly sustained by Titanic do not agree.  The 'slight scrape' with the ice that was hardly noticed by most aboard contradicts solid evidence of structural damage at least 5½ feet (1.6 meters) within the outer hull of the vessel".

"Then came evidence to show that the ice the ship encountered was seen first not 500 yards (480 meters) ahead but more like 11 miles (17km).  I began to wonder if perhaps the sinking of the Titanic might not have been an accident after all".

Indeed, did Titanic actually strike an iceberg at all?  We only have the testimony of four people believe it or not with which to confirm or deny this fact.  First Officer Murdoch would have been the fifth witness but he did not live to tell his story.

The Titanic was not the only ship at that precise location that night.  For example, there is a photograph of a drifting lifeboat sporting the colors of a different ship than the Titanic.

Then there is the gouge in the side of the ship itself - 1.6 meters deep through the outer steel plates and into the inner skin!  Compacted ice is known to be very strong, but it is not capable of doing such damage to steel. 

INQUIRIES

Both the American and British official inquiries were considered 'whitewashes', with much evidence ignored and eye-witness testimonies being twisted or indeed fabricated to fit the 'official' story. 

Of the 102 witnesses called to the British Inquiry, only two were passengers. None of the witnesses (crew or passengers) were allowed to offer first-hand evidence of any kind and were strictly restricted to the simple answering of questions without elaboration.  By any standards at all, this sounds very much like a 'whitewash' to me. 

A 'yellow-funneled steamer' observed in the proximity of Titanic by the officers and crew of the Californian at around the time of the incident. This ship has never been identified.
"...I saw another steamer approaching, and asked [the wireless operator] what vessels he had within reach; he replied: 'The Titanic', whereupon I replied, 'That is not the Titanic; she is too small and hasn't enough lights.' 
Shortly afterwards this steamer stopped and was bearing S.S.E. about five or six miles from our position.  ...the chief officer was sweeping the southern horizon with his glasses, and finally reported he saw a four-mast steamer with a yellow funnel to the southward of us, and asked if we should try to get down to have a look at her."  Captain Lord of the Californian in an interview with an American newspaper reporter in 1914. 

The crew of this ship (whatever she was) must have been aware that they were close to the Titanic, so why did no-one volunteer any information? 

Could this mysterious yellow-funneled vessel have been responsible for the devastating damage to Titanic?  The 'iceberg collision' is just a cover story concocted to protect the guilty.

Furthermore, upon arriving back in England, from New York aboard the steamer Lapland, two weeks after the disaster, 173 of the surviving crew me denied their right to speak with their trade union representatives. 

They were also detained and forced to sign a pledge under the  'Official Secrets Act', promising to keep secret forever, the actual events of the night of 14th / 15th April. 

Otherwise, they would be prosecuted and 'never work again', not just for White Star but for any other employer.  In those now far-off days, the inability to procure gainful employment could be almost a death sentence to the crews and their families. 

CONCLUSION

Did Captain Smith deliberately steer Titanic into a huge ice-field without reducing speed to create a cover-story for the Titanic to be rammed by the yellow-funneled mystery ship? 

Along with the officer on duty on the Bridge at that time, First Officer William Murdoch and Quartermaster Hitchens plus Quartermaster George Rowe on the after-bridge, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee were the only other ones known to have personally witnessed the appalling events.

Of these five witnesses, four survived, significantly all of them 'lower-class' people. Forcing four working-class people to keep quiet over a century ago, would have been a relatively simple task. 

First Officer Murdoch is said to have 'committed suicide' in the aftermath of the collision whilst the ship was being abandoned. He has also been accused of shooting passengers before turning a gun on himself, something that his family and descendants have disputed. Could there be a more sinister explanation for his demise along with that of Captain Smith? 

Down the years, suicide has always been a very convenient cover-story for many a silencing murder. How easy would it have been under the circumstances for a paid assassin to dispose of Messrs Smith, Murdoch, as well as the financiers Guggenheim, Strauss and Astor?

Thus, these wealthy men, who may have opposed the formation of the Federal Reserve System (granted, due to their own conflicting financial interests and not out of any great concern for the plight of the masses), were disposed of, along with the 'collateral damage' of 1517 other innocents. 

------
John Hamer, 59,  has a horse-racing business in Yorkshire. This is an excerpt from his book, 'The Falsification of History - Our Distorted Reality' which will be published in mid 2012.  John can be contacted at john@pegasusracingclub.com

Was the Titanic Sinking the First Staged 9/11?

Thursday, June 13th, 2013. http://www.zengardner.com/was-the-titanic-sinking-the-first-staged-911/

Zen Gardner
If this is new to you strap in for a treat. As always the PTBs want more power and control and to maximize their financial advantage at whatever cost they can get away with. Rest assured that with almost every historical event we weren’t told the honest truth, and this is no exception.
You might call this a Titanic lie since it’s literally so, but whichever, always, always re-examine so called recounted history very carefully from a conscious and aware viewpoint. Their antics will be increasingly easier to spot as the dots continue to connect and the patterns reveal themselves.
Here’s a couple of related posts and explanations leading up to the video. – Zen

VNNForum
Question – If it was the Olympic that sank, then what happened to the real Titanic?
Answer  -  It sailed as the Olympic up through WWI where it was converted into a troop transport, then it was finally scrapped. Watch the videos. It makes sense. J.P.Morgan cancelled his trip the same morning it sank, kinda like Lucky Larry having a doctors appointment the morning of 911.
Olympic was nailed by a military ship prior to Titanic’s completion. The repairs were too much money and White Star would’ve gone under. With an iceberg accident they would and did collect more than the ship was worth. They were 12 miles off of the rendezvous point which is why the rescue ship failed.
 ConniesCafe
Here’s what was rumored right away when the Titanic went down.
The new ship was well-insured, but its already-in-use sister ship, the Olympic, had sustained damages several times — maybe hard to steer those Big Girls??

Haven’t we all thought the Titanic was the first (and only) of its kind?  Not so.  The identical-in-structure Olympic was launched earlier, a luxurious passenger liner in 1911.
But there had been incidents, accidents.  Repairs were getting out-of-sight expensive (not to mention the ship being repeatedly disabled from profitable service), and the insurance premiums were going sky-high.  (Or perhaps ocean-deep.)
Maybe the Titanic was so highly promoted as “unsinkable” because fears had developed over the Olympic’s numerous problems.
And so… while the as-yet-unlaunched Titanic sat in dock beside the banged-up Olympic, some highly paid workers made cosmetic changes (so that previous Olympic passengers would be convinced they were aboard the “new” Titanic), with Titanic letters being bolted over the Olympic letters on the prow  — the scuttlebutt is that the wreckage does reveal an exposed “M” and a “P” where there should be the “A” and “N” –
TitANic lettering overlaid on OlyMPic –
and voila!
“The Titanic” and its big insurance pay-out was ready to go down, and the Olympic would be an albatross no more.
(The empty Californian out on the ocean was awaiting the signal to come rescue everyone, but that got fouled up.  Talk about “Oops!”)  I’m pretty sure the White Star Line did not actually want to create lost-life liability, whereas the 9/11 plotters counted on great loss of life — to drive us into their desired wars.
This documentary is pretty good — LOTS more details — with the producers stating that all the information is a matter of public-domain record.

+++                     

Titanic: the first staged 9/11? ~ Full Length

ZenGardner.com

Don’t Look for Answers – Find the Questions

Saturday, June 23rd, 2012.http://www.zengardner.com/dont-look-for-answers-find-the-questions/

by Zen Gardner
Researching the internet for information has taught me so many things. First of all, explore. Remain open and take the time to follow your heart and the leads and little nudges you’re given.
I know I’m preaching to much of the choir here, but these basic principles have such a wealth of wisdom to be gleaned.
We also soon find out the deeper one gets in the labyrinth of rabbitholelandia, the lonelier it appears to become. It isn’t really in the cosmic sense, but we become estranged to our previous ways of thinking and quickly realize our very lives are about to be drastically changed when we truly adopt the new Truths that are becoming increasingly apparent.

Baby AND the Bathwater – Out They Go!

And estranged we become. Thankfully. The first period of a genuine awakening is the most difficult for most since everything, as in everything, gets reset. There’s really nothing to hold on to from your past or previous conceptions of anything if you’ve had a bonafide wake up. Oh, there are ideas and some concepts that seem to endure from tidbits learned along the way, but it’s not the same.
Everything takes on a new living, continually changing, wonderfully creative amorphous nature.
Quantum physics has one of the best explanations if you want to try to rationalize the experience of awakening to consciousness. We’re living in a land of probabilities and nothing exists except in our minds when we aim our attention in some direction. Then it theoretically “exists”. But it’s just probabilities in a bunch of empty, yet energized space, coagulated by thought and intention within the perceiver.
That clear enough? Ha!

We Really Don’t Know – Do We Even Need To?

If we look for some catch-all solution or theory of everything it can lead to a lot of frustration. Not to say it isn’t worth the pursuit, but the pursuit is ultimately the end in itself.
Besides trying to fit the ocean in a tea cup and various other apt analogies, we simply will never grasp infinity with a finite mind. Quantum physics has pretty much put Newtonian and empirical science on its head, or better yet, blew it out of the building.
And yet again, what building?
They are all constructs is my point. Some apparently are group imposed like Jung’s archetypes that float in the collective subconscious like blipping inter-dimensional star ships or something, and some are like morphing ephemeral gossamer wafting through the ether as in societal trends and fashions.
We don’t know, but we have these conscious impressions. Which, ironically, are way closer to reality than anything you can touch or feel.
The beauty of it all is that our pursuit drives us to the end of the finite mind and into the infinite–our true observing yet indwelling consciousness and connectivity to each other and everything in the Universe. And that very hunger that drives us to find that resource and manifest it is what should direct our daily lives. Because that is where all of society’s and mankind’s solutions already exist.
Once we operate in that conscious awareness and the allowing of Love and Truth to express, everything else will follow.

It’s in the Going, not the Arriving

This is a bit of an aside, but as the mind’s questions and hunger for knowledge start to get satisfied and the false construct that has been foisted upon humanity gets exposed, a tremendous peace and assurance sets in. Somehow you know all is well and as it should be. Yet you also have free choice as we keep on living within this dimension where we find ourselves within these vehicles called bodies we’re automating around.
I know, very sci-fi.
Once you find out about the wonder of it all, the temptation is to just sit back and groove on it. Yet there’s this war going on around us. Not only this fear and scarcity based prodding to constantly worry about our survival, but nasty beings have somehow positioned themselves in places of power and are abusing the vast masses of other beings here on this planet.
Herein is the dilemma. What do we do about it? What can we do about it?
And that’s for each individual to find out based on their new found connectivity with consciousness. And to act on it.

“Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Nicely summarized, wouldn’t you say? Respond.

You Have to Ask the Right Questions

As we’re seeing here, any so-called answers that may be out there are going to be fluid, adaptable, often seemingly nonsensical, and constantly changing.
In spite of a world built primarily on rational confinement, the answer’s the same.
You really can’t nail jello to a tree.

But man, asking the right questions will keep you putt-putting down the path to greater truth, love and freedom like nothing else! People ask me how I find all these cool, apt illustrations for my articles. It’s all in the search question. And sometimes I’ll spend more time looking for the right illustrations than I will on the text!
You know why?
As many of you have found out, research is all about using the right key words, especially now with CIA/Google screwing with the search algorithms or whatever the hell they’re doing lately. It used to be easier to get to the information but they’ve screwed with it to make it more difficult. I like to use Startpage but they use Google anyway for images.
Secondly, when searching you run into so many amazing articles and cool blogs! If you use the images feature things will come up that catch your attention and off you go down the rabbit hole sometimes for hours! I end up with so many tabs open I’ll almost crash my computer!
It’s so much fun!

Ask the Right Questions and Outcomes Lose their Importance.

Being aware enough to ask the right questions is a big leap in consciousness. It has a lot to do with questioning everything. That requires detachment from emotional or otherwise over-involvement in your surroundings.
Takes some doing, but it’s primarily about commitment.
Many people can’t afford to stand back from the worlds of influences around them. They’re employed by manipulative people with whom they have direct dependencies. Or they’ve submitted to a societal network of some branded form of interacting they can’t get free from, such as circles of friends with similar likes and dislikes, or family with strong cultural and/or religious ties, etc.
Breaking free from that is no easy task. But that’s only true if you value those connections more than your connection to conscious truth.
Therein lies the rub.
You very often can’t have both. You can live peaceably with the unenlightened but you can’t do it for long. You have to establish a conscious living lifestyle, and let the chips fall where they may. It’s a decision everyone faces at many levels all the time. For the real Truth researcher, it is extremely profound with vast implications, and which we absolutely revel in.
It strengthens you.
I’ve sold almost everything I own. I live simply and frugally as best I can. Most of all, I dedicate my time to what I love. And that is the pursuit and propagation of Truth spoken in Love.
It’s almost like a leaky boat in reverse. I want to punch holes in the false paradigm around us and let the vast waters of Truth flood into this arid wasteland inside their lying matrix as fast as I can. And helping others question what they’ve been handed from any and every source, including me or anyone, is a healthy pursuit for a healthy, conscious humanity.

Don’t Be Attached to the Outcome

Big tip to help anyone stay conscious. Follows from the above.
Don’t be attached to the outcome. This can be anything from a simple planned activity to attempting to achieve some lifelong accomplishment. It could be the most limiting and debilitating thing anyone can do to their life.
Society operates totally on this one-track mindset of setting goals and making everything fit to obtain that goal. Besides that, they’ll sell you their goals!
This type of thinking is like putting cats in a box. It’s idiotic.
Goals should be very temporary, very fluid. How are we going to follow life’s signs or let synchronicity lead us into its magical realm of wonder if we’re set in our ways? There’s no room to get in.  It’s like people fuming at the stop light instead of grooving on the sights around them. How often do we all fall for this “hurry, push, push, don’t think” insanity of the world around us?
It’s designed to distract and keep everyone distracted and operating in tension in the micro world of limited mind.

Cut Loose and Stay Free!

Let things pass. Cut your ties with energy wasters. Free your time to live and love and learn. Watch what occupies your mind and heart during any day. How much is worry, playing “what if” games, or spending time on regrets or longings for stuff of any sort?
Get free. Do what you can do and watch the Universe/God/Source/Chi or whatever floats your boat kick into action! But you gotta make some commitments with action. Pare down your life to the essentials. Get away from mass media,  wrong food addictions, and other energy vampires.
Just do it. One thing will lead to another. Get serious about your desire for Truth and Love in your life.
Universe responds. Because it is, always has been, and always will be! In fact, time is another illusion, but that’s for another “time”….ha!
Ah, Universe! Now that’s all the “Universe-ity” humanity needs!
Have a great continual moment!
Love always, Zen
www.zengardner.com

Is there a secret US space program?

Friday, May 10, 2013 23:58

(Before It's News)

Below you can read a revised version of my “Is There a Secret Space Program?” article from issue 4 of UFO Matrix Magazine.
 

 
——————————————-
 

Is There a Secret US Space Program?

By Richard Thomas

 
 
In an article for the May 16, 2010 edition of the Scottish Sunday Express it was reported that the UK UFO hacker Garry McKinnon was – to quote the newspaper article – “set to avoid extradition and be tried in Britain.” The 43-year-old, of course, made international headlines back in 2005 after he was charged with various counts of hacking into Pentagon and NASA computers, in search of what the computer wizard described as “free energy technology,” which McKinnon believed the US Government had reversed engineered from recovered UFOs.
 
To the disappointment of the British UFO community, however, this news that McKinnon was set to face trial in the UK was never confirmed by British Government, and leaves us with more questions than answers. Why have the US Government fought so hard for so long to get McKinnon in the first place? Or, put another way, what might have Garry stumbled upon that warranted such a heavy handed reaction from the US authorities?
 
Up to “60 years in prison” seems a bit of an overreaction for someone who was simply searching for something which according to the US Government isn’t even supposed to officially exist anyway. Could have McKinnon really have found evidence of UFO crash retrievals, or, did the UFO hacker find something else entirely the US military-industrial-political complex would rather you didn’t find out about?
 
While the mainstream media largely concentrated on the US Government’s dubious claim that McKinnon caused some $700,000 worth of damages to its computers, some truly out this world comments the supposed ‘cyber terrorist’ made to the author of The Men Who Stare At Goats, Jon Ronson, in an interview printed in the July 9, 2005 edition of The Guardian were all but ignored. In particular, McKinnon’s assertions that while hacking into the US space command he discovered “lists of officers’ names” under the tantalising heading “Non-Terrestrial Officers” as well as records of what McKinnon called “fleet-to-fleet transfers” and even “a list of ship names.”
 
Rather than extraterrestrials, though, the computer hacker told The Guardian columnist that he thought he had found evidence of a secret space program of some kind. When Ronson asked McKinnon “The Americans have a secret spaceship?” McKinnon answering, “That’s what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe.”
 
McKinnon’s suggestion that NASA and its 2004 “vision” to return to the Moon by 2020 (over 50 years after the Apollo 11 landing!) could just be a cover for a much more advanced and deeply clandestine or “black” space program might sound like just another conspiracy theory but McKinnon isn’t the first to advocate such a hypotheses. The concept of a secret space program first gaining some prominence in 1977 when the UK’s Anglia Television (now ITV Anglia) broadcast the now infamous Orson Welles War of the Worlds-style hoax documentary: Alternative 3. The plot, of which, revolved around a global conspiracy to resettle missing scientists onto the Moon and Mars in preparation for an imminent environmental cataclysm.
 
While Alternative 3 is obviously science fiction. Something the lengthy interview with a fictitious Moon walking Apollo astronaut “Bob Grodin” (played by Shane Rimmer) as well as the list of programme credits run at the end should make clear. It is at least interesting that today climatologists are alarmingly forecasting exactly the kind catastrophic global warming predicted in the mock documentary. A fact which has led to much speculation on the world wide web that the April Fools hoax might have started out as a genuine investigation before having the plug pulled by sinister dark forces … perhaps the same forces calling for the extradition of Garry McKinnon.
 
In Jim Marrs’ Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us, the underground bestselling author briefly considered the Alternative 3 controversy. Marrs writing in Alien Agenda of respected UFO investigator and television documentary filmmaker Linda Mouton Howe’s involvement in investigating the controversial docudrama.

“I was curious,” Howe said, “and I had a discussion with a BBC producer about it. I was told that the program began as a BBC documentary on the so-called British ‘brain drain’ of the 1970s. You might remember that a large number of British scientists were leaving, reportedly for better-paying jobs in America. I was told that the program never came off because the BBC could not locate any of the scientists once they left Britain. It was all very odd. It was like they disappeared.”

Further, Marrs also writes in Alien Agenda that “Howe said writers Ambrose and Miles wrote a script for Alternative 3 based on real interviews conducted by the BBC.”
 
Journalist and author of Science Fiction Secrets: From Government Files and the Paranormal Nick Redfern wasn’t convinced of this, though. When I asked the paranormal investigator about McKinnon’s comments in a 2008 interview for the popular esoteric website Binnall of America, Redfern telling me “Non-Terrestrial Officers is of course a provocative term that conjures up all sorts of imagery. I think, however, that like much of Ufology, we have a few fragments of a story with what McKinnon found. But what the term might mean is very much down to personal interpretation.”
 
Other researchers, however, have been less sceptical about the possibility of a secret space program. Author of Need to Know: UFOs, the Military and Intelligence and Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-up Timothy Good even going as far as suggesting an extraterrestrial connection. “In addition to having reverse engineered some recovered alien vehicles, I believe that we’ve been given highly advanced technology – including spacecraft – by certain allied extraterrestrials. As Ben Rich stated at the University of California School of Engineering in 1993: ‘We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects … and it would take an Act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity.’”
 
And Good is not alone. Acclaimed UFO Historian and author of the definitive multi-volume UFOs and the National Security State, Richard Dolan, has also spoken out about the possibility of such a covert program indeed existing. Initially sceptical, the Oxford educated Historian writing in a special guest article for my website that “Slowly, by degrees, I have come to the opinion that there is a secret space program.”
 
According to Dolan he was told by an individual with “impressive scientific and intelligence credentials” that he “should not dismiss” the supposed anomalies located in the Cydonia region of Mars, such as the famous “Face” and “City” photographed by NASA’s Viking 1 Orbitor in 1976. And that “there were in fact many people within the classified world who took them seriously.”
 
Dolan writing, “That’s when I realized, very concretely, that the notion of space anomalies was indeed a serious topic. I began to consider: if there is covert interest in the anomalies on Mars, would there be a covert space program to investigate? To this day, I don’t know the answer with certainty, but over the years I have encountered no shortage of quiet, serious-minded people who tell me of their knowledge that there is such a covert program. One component of this, it appears, has to do with the Moon. Are there bases on the far side of the Moon? Again, I do not know for sure, but I cannot rule it out. More than once, people I consider to be informed insiders have steered me in this direction.”
 
However, it isn’t just the opinions of credentialed but anonymous insiders about the possibilities of alien architecture on Mars and perhaps even the Moon that interests Dolan.

There is another reason to suppose the existence of an advanced, clandestine space program. An enormous amount of video of space missions has been downloaded and is available for anyone to see. These include missions of NASA, the European Space Agency, Russia, and China. Much of this was downloaded and made available by a gentleman named Jeff Challender, who unfortunately died in 2007. Jeff spent an enormous part of his life downloading and reviewing – very carefully – video recordings of those missions. There can be no denying that there has been a great deal of activity in Earth’s orbit. Much of what was recorded undoubtedly has conventional explanations. But, frankly, many events do not offer easy explanations. I firmly believe there is something unusual going on in Earth’s orbit. Fortunately, after Jeff’s death, I was able to upload his entire site and attach it to my own. His site, known as Project Prove, now has a permanent home at keyholepublishing.com.

This cocktail of tempting space anomalies on the one hand, which if indeed artificial or extraterrestrial might offer whichever nation studied them first tremendous leaps in technology, and video evidence of covert activity in space on the other. Not to mention the US Government’s determination to extradite McKinnon after he was caught hacking into NASA, does seem to add up to good grounds for suspecting a covert space program as Dolan suggests. There is only one problem with all this speculation, though, how would the US Government or anyone else for that matter fund such a vast and deeply clandestine project – possibly for decades if any of the information presented in Alternative 3 is to be taken seriously – without anyone even noticing? Any space program along the lines of Alternative 3 or envisioned by Dolan with bases on the Moon would cost trillions of dollars, surely there would be evidence of such incredible spending?
    
The short answer is yes, there would be … and YES there is. In 2001, at the National Press Club, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld admitted to the media that amazingly “According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.” What more, this took place somewhat suspiciously on September 10, the eve of the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, guaranteeing the story would get buried by the mainstream media and forgotten about the next day.
    
This is where things get more complicated. Up to now we’ve assumed that the US authorities wanted McKinnon because of what he might have stumbled upon in relation to UFOs or a secret space program. However, it’s worth considering that McKinnon was hacking during and in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. While the date of Rumsfeld’s $2.3 trillion admission is suspicious it is circumstantial evidence of prior knowledge at best, however, we must ask is it possible Garry stumbled upon something relating to the 9/11 instead? If so, McKinnon is remaining quiet. And with the extradition efforts of the US authorities dragging on, it might be some time before we find out more.
   
  
Sources:
 
Express.co.uk – Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | UK News :: Hacker Gary McKinnon to be tried in Britain
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | Hacker fears ‘UFO cover-up’
Jon Ronson meets hacker Gary McKinnon | World news | The Guardian
Expert challenges UFO hacker’s $700k bill – 9/22/2009 – Computer Weekly
Nick Redfern :: A Room 101 Interview – Richard’s Room 101
The War On Waste – CBS News
A Room 101 Interview with Timothy Good – Richard’s Room 101
PARA-NEWS: Richard Dolan’s ‘Musings on a Secret Space Program’‏
Jim Marrs, Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us, (New York : HarperCollinsPublishers, ©1997), p.260.


Source: http://www.para-news.com/2011/05/is-there-secret-us-space-program.html

The Nazi UFO Mythos. 00 Introduction. Kevin McClure

Posted on February 17, 2009 by johnr

An Investigation by Kevin McClure

1. Foo Fighters

2. Renato Vesco, Feuerball and Kugelblitz

3. Major Lusar, the saucer builders and the test flight

4. W A Harbinson and Projekt Saucer

5. Vril, Haunebu and interplanetary travel

6. False histories

7. Unnamed Soldiers

8. Authorities from Earth and Elsewhere

9. Official comments and Intelligence

10. Mistakes and fantasies

11. Conclusions

INTRODUCTION

The following is, essentially, the article published under the title ‘Phoney Warfare’ in Fortean Studies 7. Having allowed a decent interval for those who had intended to buy Fortean Studies to do so, I’m happy to have it appear on the Magonia site so that it can reach a wider – and undoubtedly discerning – audience.
* * * * * * * *
The relationship between the history of the paranormal, and the ‘consensus’ history that most of us, informed by historians and the mainstream media, agree on as real, is usually pretty distant. Forteanism could be said to lie somewhere between these two histories, in that it notes the allegedly factual, but possibly anomalous accounts recorded in the media of ‘consensus’ history, while often rejecting the ‘consensus’ explanations given for dismissing the strangeness of those events, and the rationale and reasoning adopted in doing so. Fort was lucky to live and work before the worst excesses of Ufology and the New Age appeared. His method of approaching existing, already-recorded facts with an open and wide-ranging mind would often have been thwarted by the sheer lack of facts, and the predominance of imaginary elements, in both of those disciplines. He was generally able – and willing – to trust the reports his research uncovered. To take that approach now would invite ridicule.
The investigations I’ve set about during the last twenty-odd years usually had their origins in my unease at the wild interpretations being made of reports which had never been properly researched. The ‘Egryn Lights’ of evangelist Mary Jones and others were being turned into evidence for the ‘earthlights’ lobby. The Fatima visions and the ‘Dance of the Sun’ were becoming a ‘classic UFO event’, artificially extending the history of the UFO thirty years back before 1947. The ‘Angels of Mons’ legends, in contrast, were being too readily debunked. The usual sceptical explanation was too trite, and I think mistaken.
Similarly, most of my research has been in areas where, although the phenomena in question has been visible – audible, tangible even – to certain individuals, its visibility has been selective. There was always room for a debate about why certain persons subjectively perceive extraordinary sights, and events, and information, while others do not. The situation here, where vast metal disks were meant to be thundering across the European skies before the summer of 1945, is completely different. They were either there or they weren’t.
What prompted me to start questioning the accepted wisdom about ‘Nazi UFOs’ was that awful period in Fortean history, two or three years ago, when newsstand magazines of limited quality and dubious intentions blossomed all over the UK. In addition to FT itself and ‘UFO Magazine’, suddenly there was Alien Encounters, Sightings, UFO Reality and all sorts of other, short-lived titles, all struggling to fill their pages with startling and saleable material. Rotten writers started submitting articles half-heartedly strung together from a handful of second-hand sources, and a couple of hours on the Internet. The publishers accepted these articles with open arms and small amounts of money, and old myths were revived and new myths born. Among them were myths based around the creation and flight of Nazi UFOs.
The more I looked at the emerging tales of astounding Nazi technical achievement, and compared them with Germany’s ignominious and ruinous defeat, the less sense that contradiction made. It isn’t – and I know I need to make this clear – that I’m asserting that the Axis had no plans, designs, or hopes for the production of high-performance flying disks. Nazi Germany was good at plans, and designs, and – perhaps fortunately for the rest of the world – wasted much time on speculation, and dreams of achievement and power. But it looks as though no high-performance disc so much as left the ground, and if that proposition is true then the Nazi UFO mythos, now celebrating a half-century of vigorous existence, is the most sustained, widespread, complex and multi-faceted hoax ever contrived in our field. A hoax, strangely enough, in which few of the principal participants even knew each other, but which has attracted hundreds to play their part in its development and many, many more individuals to believe that some or all of its claims are true. Tentative as some of my findings of fact may be as yet, what is published here is what I’ve established so far.
This is not a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Like all the best myths it starts when somebody either thought of it, or first recounted publicly a pre-existing tale. It looked to the past to find support for its claims and then, as time went on, spiralled out of control as further elements were added. My intention in setting out this ‘first investigation’ of the Nazi UFO mythos is to make available, in one place, the principal sources for all of the reports and claims that seem relevant and of which – of course – I’m aware. I’m sure there will be more. I make no pretence of having done all this work myself, or of having any kind of monopoly on the subject. If others want to use this piece as a basis for pursuing their own research, I’ll be more than pleased. If I’ve quoted or adopted anyone else’s work without crediting it, please accept my apologies.
I’ll start by giving a substantial overview of what is probably the only genuine unsolved mystery in all of the speculation about wartime aeronautical technology. This is the first of five specific ‘cores’ of key material that I’ve concluded lie at the heart of the mythos. Having set those cores out first, I’ll deal with many of the other contributors to the development of the mythos, both deliberate and unplanned. One brief explanation in advance – while I’ve almost certainly made errors of my own in translation, and the names of people and places, I’ve generally refrained from correcting the spelling and grammar of quoted material. Sometimes, style and presentation conveys almost as much as content!

Link to Part One – Foo Fighters

Tour de France Google Doodle J'ACCUSE!

Posted by George Freund on June 29, 2013

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Comrade Google seldom lets the masses down. The wicked never rest. It is the start of the 100th Tour de France bicycle race. Google has entered a new sport not included in the Father's Day doodle, but still a very important father's duty teaching the use of the bicycle.
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The Tour de France started in 1903. It was a day very much like today. There was a bicycle race and there was a great national security scandal. In that time was the Dreyfus affair. It involved a soldier my the name of Alfred Dreyfus who was charged and convicted of giving state secrets to the enemy to the Germans. Nothing has changed much in one hundred years. There is a bicycle race, and there is a man who stands accused of giving state secrets to the people. He is Edward Snowden. Then as now the world is divided on the apparent guilt of the man. The sides are deeply divided.
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In the day of Dreyfuss the polarization centered upon a war of words the started in the popular press. One paper was called Le Vélo. The other was named L'Auto. It was that paper that started the race we know on 19 January 1903. The numbers commence in the twilight language as well. 191 or the infamous 9/11 and 13. The date keeps appearing. These papers took opposite views on the guilt or innocence of Dreyfuss who was framed by the way. An anecdote to the story was that a famous gun bore the name of the first paper. It was called the Vélo Dog. It was used by cyclists to shoot aggressive dogs while they were riding. Many so called 'traitors' are deemed dogs and liable to be shot.
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Emile Zola
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How journalism was practiced in a bygone era
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The race was not overly accepted by participants as first announced. It was reduced in time and scope. L'Auto even cited the famed author Émile Zola who was famous for his byline J'accuse I accuse. Emile led the people to the exposure of the culprits in the Dreyfuss Affair. Of course alternative media like the Cafe still contain the substance if not the byline of J'accuse.
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France 36 wins

Belgium 18 wins

Spain 12 wins

Italy 9 wins
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The tree is the inverted cross 999
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The race was amended to be 19 days from the 1st to the 19th of July. The fee was cut to 10 francs. We get two more 9/11's. The prizes were 3,000 francs daily and a 12,000 franc purse for the overall winner. The race started at 3:16. That gives us the 3 and 3 for a six with 3 times seven for a 21 which is another three for the infamous 666. We are in the race. The race started outside the Café Reveil-Matin by starter Georges Abran. Hopefully the George at this Cafe isn't a dog but a Velo
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There is a segment of the race being held on the island of Corsica. It is known for its code - vendetta. The 'V' mask has become quite the symbol for the resistance. The island is 11 kilometers wide. It is 90 kms. or 56 miles from Tuscany. Another 9/11 I'm afraid. Napoleon was imprisoned there after his duties in global politics. His vendetta involved being poisoned.
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You can always see the future by looking into the past. The twilight language is the shadow of the fourth dimension that has cast its light on the third all through time. That is why history repeats itself. So we can plot the eddies and flows of its currents. So can you by supporting the ultimate cafe Conspiracy Cafe. It is a science you've never heard about. Our riders in the doodle are two. The direction is two. It is still up in the air so to speak. The riders wear yellow jerseys. It is the caution flag from the shadow world. J'ACCUSE! Snowden way be just an innocent patsy as opposed to a double agent. Hastings was most likely the more important of the two. We wait to see the victor of the race. We have seen the enemy, and it is thus.

The Government’s Mass Spying Is An Affront To Democratic Values. Let’s Also Not Pretend It’s An Effective And Efficient Way Of Keeping Us Safe

truther June 29, 2013 /http://www.pakalertpress.com/2013/06/29/the-governments-mass-spying-is-an-affront-to-democratic-values-lets-also-not-pretend-its-an-effective-and-efficient-way-of-keeping-us-safe/

Top Terrorism Experts Say that Mass Spying Doesn’t Work to Prevent Terrorism

Never mind the fact that – if the government’s spying was really only aimed at protecting us from terrorism – the NSA probably wouldn’t put so many resources into spying on our allies at the G20 summit,  the European Parliament or Chinese universities (or perhaps even our own government officials).

America’s terrorism experts say that the NSA’s mass surveillance program doesn’t make us safer.

An article on Bloomberg notes that  real terrorists don’t even use the normal phone service or publicly-visible portions of the web that we innocent Americans use:

The debate over the U.S. government’s monitoring of digital communications suggests that Americans are willing to allow it as long as it is genuinely targeted at terrorists. What they fail to realize is that the surveillance systems are best suited for gathering information on law-abiding citizens.
***
The infrastructure set up by the National Security Agency, however, may only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The Prism surveillance program focuses on access to the servers of America’s largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not the services that truly dangerous elements typically use.
In a January 2012 report titled “Jihadism on the Web: A Breeding Ground for Jihad in the Modern Age,” the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service drew a convincing picture of an Islamist Web underground centered around “core forums.” These websites are part of the Deep Web, or Undernet, the multitude of online resources not indexed by commonly used search engines.
The Netherlands’ security service, which couldn’t find recent data on the size of the Undernet, cited a 2003 study from the University of California at Berkeley as the “latest available scientific assessment.” The study found that just 0.2 percent of the Internet could be searched. The rest remained inscrutable and has probably grown since. In 2010, Google Inc. said it had indexed just 0.004 percent of the information on the Internet.
Websites aimed at attracting traffic do their best to get noticed, paying to tailor their content to the real or perceived requirements of search engines such as Google. Terrorists have no such ambitions. They prefer to lurk in the dark recesses of the Undernet.
“People who radicalise under the influence of jihadist websites often go through a number of stages,” the Dutch report said. “Their virtual activities increasingly shift to the invisible Web, their security awareness increases and their activities become more conspiratorial.”
***
Communication on the core forums is often encrypted. In 2012, a French court found nuclear physicist Adlene Hicheur guilty of, among other things, conspiring to commit an act of terror for distributing and using software called Asrar al-Mujahideen, or Mujahideen Secrets. The program employed various cutting-edge encryption methods, including variable stealth ciphers and RSA 2,048-bit keys.
***
Even complete access to these servers brings U.S. authorities no closer to the core forums. These must be infiltrated by more traditional intelligence means, such as using agents posing as jihadists or by informants within terrorist organizations.
Similarly, monitoring phone calls is hardly the way to catch terrorists. They’re generally not dumb enough to use Verizon.
***
At best, the recent revelations concerning Prism and telephone surveillance might deter potential recruits to terrorist causes from using the most visible parts of the Internet. Beyond that, the government’s efforts are much more dangerous to civil liberties than they are to al-Qaeda and other organizations like it.

The top counter-terrorism czar under Presidents Clinton and Bush – Richard Clarke – notes:

The argument that this sweeping search must be kept secret from the terrorists is laughable. Terrorists already assume this sort of thing is being done. Only law-abiding American citizens were blissfully ignorant of what their government was doing.
***
If the government wanted a particular set of records, it could tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court why — and then be granted permission to access those records directly from specially maintained company servers. The telephone companies would not have to know what data were being accessed. There are no technical disadvantages to doing it that way, although it might be more expensive.
Would we, as a nation, be willing to pay a little more for a program designed this way, to avoid a situation in which the government keeps on its own computers a record of every time anyone picks up a telephone? That is a question that should have been openly asked and answered in Congress.

William Binney – the head of NSA’s digital communications program – says that he set up the NSA’s system so that all of the information would automatically be encrypted, so that the government had to obtain a search warrant based upon probably cause before a particular suspect’s communications could be decrypted. But the NSA now collects all data in an unencrypted form, so that no probable cause is needed to view any citizen’s information. He says that it is actually cheaper and easier to store the data in an encrypted format: so the government’s current system is being done for political – not practical – purposes.  Binney’s statements have been confirmed by other high-level NSA whistleblowers.

Binney also says:

• Massive surveillance doesn’t work to make us safer

• The government is using information gained through mass surveillance in order to go after anyone they take a dislike to (a lieutenant colonel for the Stasi East German’s agrees)

Israeli-American terrorism expert Barry Rubins notes:

What is most important to understand about the revelations of massive message interception by the U.S. government is this:
In counterterrorist terms, it is a farce. Basically the NSA, as one of my readers suggested, is the digital equivalent of the TSA strip-searching an 80 year-old Minnesota grandmothers rather than profiling and focusing on the likely terrorists.
***
And isn’t it absurd that the United States can’t … stop a would-be terrorist in the U.S. army who gives a power point presentation on why he is about to shoot people (Major Nadal Hassan), can’t follow up on Russian intelligence warnings about Chechen terrorist contacts (the Boston bombing), or a dozen similar incidents must now collect every telephone call in the country? A system in which a photo shop clerk has to stop an attack on Fort Dix by overcoming his fear of appearing “racist” to report a cell of terrorists or brave passengers must jump a would-be “underpants bomber” from Nigeria because his own father’s warning that he was a terrorist was insufficient? 
And how about a country where terrorists and terrorist supporters visit the White House, hang out with the FBI, advise the U.S. government on counter-terrorist policy (even while, like CAIR) advising Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement….
***
Or how about the time when the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem had a (previously jailed) Hamas agent working in their motor pool with direct access to the vehicles and itineraries of all visiting US dignitaries and senior officials.
***
Suppose the U.S. ambassador to Libya warns that the American compound there may be attacked. No response. Then he tells the deputy chief of mission that he is under attack. No response. Then the U.S. military is not allowed to respond. Then the president goes to sleep without making a decision about doing anything because communications break down between the secretaries of defense and state and the president, who goes to sleep because he has a very important fund-raiser the next day. But don’t worry because three billion telephone calls by Americans are daily being intercepted and supposedly analyzed.
In other words, you have a massive counterterrorist project costing $1 trillion but when it comes down to it the thing repeatedly fails. In that case, to quote the former secretary of state, “”What difference does it  make?”
If one looks at the great intelligence failures of the past, these two points quickly become obvious. Take for example the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. U.S. naval intelligence had broken Japanese codes. They had the information needed to conclude the attack would take place. [Background.] Yet a focus on the key to the problem was not achieved. The important messages were not read and interpreted; the strategic mindset of the leadership was not in place.
***
And remember that the number of terrorists caught by the TSA hovers around the zero level. The shoe, underpants, and Times Square bombers weren’t even caught by security at all and many other such cases can be listed. In addition to this, the U.S.-Mexico border is practically open.
**
The war on al-Qaida has not really been won, since its continued campaigning is undeniable and it has even grown in Syria, partly thanks to U.S. policy.
***
So the problem of growing government spying is three-fold.
–First, it is against the American system and reduces liberty.
–Second, it is a misapplication of resources, in other words money is being spent and liberty sacrificed for no real gain.
–Third, since government decisionmaking and policy about international terrorism is very bad the threat is increasing.

(And see this.)

Mass Spying Actually HURTS – Rather than Helps – Anti-Terror Efforts

Not yet convinced?

Former NSA executive William Binney – who was the head of the NSA’s entire digital spying program – told Daily Caller that the spying dragnet being carried out by the government is less than useless:

Daily Caller:  So it seems logical to ask: Why do we need all of this new data collection when they’re not following up obvious leads,  such as an intelligence agency calling and saying you need to be aware of this particular terrorist?
Binney: It’s sensible to ask, but that’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re making themselves dysfunctional by collecting all of this data. They’ve got so much collection capability but they can’t do everything.
***
[All this data gathered is] putting an extra burden on all of their analysts. It’s not something that’s going to help them; it’s something that’s burdensome. There are ways to do the analysis properly, but they don’t really want the solution because if they got it, they wouldn’t be able to keep demanding the money to solve it. I call it their business statement, “Keep the problems going so the money keeps flowing.” It’s all about contracts and money.

***

The issue is, can you figure out what’s important in it? And figure out the intentions and capabilities of the people you’re monitoring? And they are in no way prepared to do that, because that takes analysis. That’s what the big data initiative was all about out of the White House last year. It was to try to get algorithms and figure out what’s important and tell the people what’s important so that they can find things. The probability of them finding what’s really there is low.

Indeed, even before 9/11 – when Binney was building the precursor to the NSA’s current digital collection system – there weren’t enough analysts to look through the more modest amount of data being collected at the time:

The danger of the mass collection of data by the NSA is that it “buries” analysts in data, said Binney, who developed a surveillance program called ThinThread intended to allow the NSA to look at data but not collect it. The NSA dumped that program in favor of more extensive data collection.
“The biggest problem was getting data to a manageable level,” he said. “We didn’t have enough people, we couldn’t hire enough people east of the Mississippi to manage all the data we were getting.”

Terrorism expert Barry Rubins writes:

There is a fallacy behind the current intelligence strategy of the United States, the collection of massive amounts of phone calls, emails, and even credit card expenditures, up to 3 billion phone calls a day alone, not to mention the government spying on the mass media. It is this:
The more quantity of intelligence, the better it is for preventing terrorism.
In the real, practical world this is—though it might seem counterintuitive—untrue. You don’t need–to put it in an exaggerated way–an atomic bomb against a flea. The intelligence budget is not unlimited, is it? Where should hiring priorities be put?
***
It is not the quantity of material that counts but the need to locate and correctly understand the most vital material. This requires your security forces to understand the ideological, psychological, and organizational nature of the threat.
***
If the U.S. government can’t even figure out what the Muslim Brotherhood is like or the dangers of supporting Islamists to take over Syria, or the fact that the Turkish regime is an American enemy, or can’t even teach military officers who the enemy is, what’s it going to do with scores of billions of telephone call traffic to overcome terrorism? It isn’t even using the intelligence material it already has!
If, however, the material is almost limitless, that actually weakens a focus on the most needed intelligence regarding the most likely terrorist threats. Imagine, for example, going through billions of telephone calls even with high-speed computers rather than, say, following up a tip from Russian intelligence on a young Chechen man in Boston who is in contact with terrorists or, for instance, the communications between a Yemeni al-Qaida leader and a U.S. army major who is assigned as a psychiatrist to Fort Hood.
That is why the old system of getting warrants, focusing on individual email addresses, or sites, or telephones makes sense, at least if it is only used properly. Then those people who are communicating with known terrorists can be traced further. There are no technological magic spells. If analysts are incompetent … and leaders unwilling to take proper action, who cares how much data was collected?
***
Decision-makers and intelligence analysts only have so many hours in the day. There can only be so many meetings; only so many priorities. And the policymaking pyramid narrows rapidly toward the top. There is a point of diminishing returns for the size of an intelligence bureaucracy. Lower-priority tasks proliferate; too much paper is generated and meetings are held; the system clogs when it has too much data.

PC World reports:

“In knowing a lot about a lot of different people [the data collection] is great for that,” said Mike German, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent whose policy counsel for national security at the American Civil Liberties Union. “In actually finding the very few bad actors that are out there, not so good.”
The mass collection of data from innocent people “won’t tell you how guilty people act,” German added. The problem with catching terrorism suspects has never been the inability to collect information, but to analyze the “oceans” of information collected, he said.
Mass data collection is “like trying to look for needles by building bigger haystacks,” added Wendy Grossman, a freelance technology writer who helped organize the conference.

New Republic notes:

This kind of dragnet-style data capture simply doesn’t keep us safe.
First, intelligence and law enforcement agencies are increasingly drowning in data; the more that comes in, the harder it is to stay afloat. Most recently, the failure of the intelligence community to intercept the 2009 “underwear bomber” was blamed in large part on a surfeit of information: according to an official White House review, a significant amount of critical information was “embedded in a large volume of other data.” Similarly, the independent investigation of the alleged shootings by U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood concluded that the “crushing volume” of information was one of the factors that hampered the FBI’s analysis before the attack.
Multiple security officials have echoed this assessment. As one veteran CIA agent told The Washington Post in 2010, “The problem is that the system is clogged with information. Most of it isn’t of interest, but people are afraid not to put it in.” A former Department of Homeland Security official told a Senate subcommittee that there was “a lot of data clogging the system with no value.” Even former Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that “we’ve built tremendous capability, but do we have more than we need?” And the NSA itself was brought to a grinding halt before 9/11 by the “torrent of data” pouring into the system, leaving the agency “brain-dead” for half a week and “[unable] to process information,” as its then-director Gen. Michael Hayden publicly acknowledged.
National security hawks say there’s a simple answer to this glut: data mining. The NSA has apparently described its computer systems as having the ability to “manipulate and analyze huge volumes of data at mind-boggling speeds.” Could those systems pore through this information trove to come up with unassailable patterns of terrorist activity? The Department of Defense and security experts have concluded that the answer is no: There is simply no known way to effectively anticipate terrorist threats.
***
The FBI’s and NSA’s scheme is an affront to democratic values. Let’s also not pretend it’s an effective and efficient way of keeping us safe.

Fortune notes that the NSA’s “big data” strategy is ineffective:

The evidence for big data is scant at best. To date, large fields of data have generated meaningful insights at times, but not on the scale many have promised. This disappointment has been documented in the Wall Street Journal, Information Week, and SmartData Collective.
***
According to my firm’s research, local farmers in India with tiny fields frequently outperform — in productivity and sustainability — a predictive global model developed by one of the world’s leading agrochemical companies. Why? Because they develop unique planting, fertilizing, or harvesting practices linked to the uniqueness of their soil, their weather pattern, or the rare utilization of some compost. There is more to learn from a local Indian outlier than from building a giant multivariate yield prediction model of all farms in the world. The same is true for terrorism. Don’t look for a needle in a giant haystack. Find one needle in a small clump of hay and see whether similar clumps of hay also contain needles.
You need local knowledge to glean insights from any data. I once ran a data-mining project with Wal-Mart (WMT) where we tried to figure out sales patterns in New England. One of the questions was, “Why are our gun sales lower in Massachusetts than in other states, even accounting for the liberal bias of the state?” The answer: There were city ordinances prohibiting the sale of guns in many towns. I still remember the disappointed look of my client when he realized the answer had come from a few phone calls to store managers rather than from a multivariate regression model.
So, please, Mr. President, stop building your giant database in the sky and quit hoping that algorithm experts will generate a terrorist prevention strategy from that data. Instead, rely on your people in the field to detect suspicious local patterns of behavior, communication, or spending, then aggregate data for the folks involved and let your data hounds loose on these focused samples. You and I will both sleep better. And I won’t have to worry about who is lurking in the shadows of my business or bedroom.

Likewise, Nassim Taleb writes:

Big data may mean more information, but it also means more false information.
***
Because of excess data as compared to real signals, someone looking at history from the vantage point of a library will necessarily find many more spurious relationships than one who sees matters in the making; he will be duped by more epiphenomena. Even experiments can be marred with bias, especially when researchers hide failed attempts or formulate a hypothesis after the results — thus fitting the hypothesis to the experiment (though the bias is smaller there).

If big data leads to more false correlations, then mass surveillance may lead to more false accusations of terrorism.

(Just what we need …)

  when did the American People ..become the enemy ?        when did that happen!          

U.S. Military May Consider You a Potential Terrorist If You Are Young, Use Social Media, Or Question “Mainstream Ideologies”

Posted on October 2, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog

Warning Signs …

Wired reports today:

These are some warning signs that that you have turned into a terrorist who will soon kill your co-workers, according to the U.S. military. You’ve recently changed your “choices in entertainment.” You have “peculiar discussions.” You “complain about bias,” you’re “socially withdrawn” and you’re frustrated with “mainstream ideologies.” Your “Risk Factors for Radicalization” include “Social Networks” and “Youth.”
***

That was the assessment of a terrorism advisory organization inside the U.S. Army called the Asymmetric Warfare Group in 2011, acquired by Danger Room.

And the government has more or less classified journalists as terrorists.
So it’s time for an updated list of actions and beliefs which government officials have said may indicate “potential terrorism” …

The following actions may get an American citizen living on U.S. soil labeled as a “suspected terrorist” today:

• Being young (if you live near a battle zone, you are fair game)

• Reporting or doing journalism

• Speaking out against government policies

• Protesting anything

• Questioning war (even though war reduces our national security; and see this)

• Criticizing the government’s targeting of innocent civilians with drones (although killing innocent civilians with drones is one of the main things which increases terrorism. And see this)

• Asking questions about pollution (even at a public Congressional hearing?)

• Paying cash at an Internet cafe

• Asking questions about Wall Street shenanigans

• Holding gold

• Creating alternative currencies

• Stocking up on more than 7 days of food (even though all Mormons are taught to stockpile food, and most Hawaiians store up on extra food)

• Having bumper stickers saying things like “Know Your Rights Or Lose Them”

• Investigating factory farming

• Infringing a copyright

• Taking pictures or videos

• Talking to police officers

• Wearing a hoodie

• Driving a van

• Writing on a piece of paper

• (Not having a Facebook account may soon be added)

Holding the following beliefs may also be considered grounds for suspected terrorism:

• Being frustrated with “mainstream ideologies”

• Using social media

• Valuing online privacy

• Supporting Ron Paul or being a libertarian

• Liking the Founding Fathers

• Being a Christian

• Being anti-tax, anti-regulation or for the gold standard

• Being “reverent of individual liberty”

• Being “anti-nuclear”

• “Believe in conspiracy theories”

• “A belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack”

• “Impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

• “Insert religion into the political sphere”

• “Those who seek to politicize religion”

• “Supported political movements for autonomy”

• Being “anti-abortion”

• Being “anti-Catholic”

• Being “anti-global”

• “Suspicious of centralized federal authority”

• “Fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

• “A belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in … survivalism”

• Opposing genetically engineered food

• Opposing surveillance

Postscript:  Given that the U.S. government is directly supporting Al Qaeda and Iranian terrorists – and the fact that the government has removed some of these groups from the list of terrorist organizations for political reasons – a reader satirically jokes that only those U.S. citizens who join one of the actual terrorist groups which the U.S. now supports will avoid being labeled terrorists.