The Process Church of the Final Judgment and the Manson Family

The Robert F. Kennedy Connection
by Adam Gorightly //http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/2013/01/the-process-church-of-the-final-judgment-and-the-manson-family-2/
In The Ultimate Evil, author Maury Terry contended that the Son of Sam killer, David Berkowitz, was a member of “The Children,” a satanic cult based in Venice, California, with links to the military and intelligence establishments. According to Terry, The Children is a splinter group of The Process Church of the Final Judgment, which—although officially disbanded some thirty years ago—continues to operate secretly in six major U.S. cities. Terry claims that The Process Church has changed its name many times, along the way accumulating millions of dollars in real estate holdings, and operates from a “remote enclave” in New York.
According to Terry, Berkowitz—though admittedly involved in some of the Son of Sam murders—was set up as a fall guy by The Children for the series of murders, in the same way that Charles Manson may have been manipulated in the Tate-LaBianca murders. In his treatise, Terry accused The Process Church of Hitler worship, animal sacrifice, drug running, kiddie porn, murder, and complicity in Son of Sam murders. Process apologists argue that Terry took Process founder Robert DeGrimston’s symbolic teachings too literally, and that The Ultimate Evil suffers from poor logic and dubious sources, and is littered with “red herrings.”
From these sources, including Berkowitz himself, Terry learned that one Son of Sam murder was videotaped, and that the cameraman, Ron Sisman, was subsequently murdered by cult members when they went to recover the Son of Sam snuff film. Terry pinned this murder on a mysterious figure dubbed Manson II, whom he later identified as W. Mentzer, an “occult superstar” and hit-man who moved through the same late-1960s milieu of sex, drugs and porn as Manson, and who had been intimate with Tate-LaBianca murder victim, Abigail Folger. Terry quoted his source on Mentzer/Manson II as “someone in the intelligence community.”
The Mayfair Mindbenders
In 1963, Robert DeGrimston Moore met Mary Anne MacLean at the Hubbard Institute of Scientology in London where they both worked as auditors and instructors. This relationship led to marriage, and the pair eventually left Scientology, taking with them some of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s principles and methods. They incorporated them into a new group called “Compulsions Analysis,” which used a technique or “process” similar to Scientology.
Eventually, “Compulsions Analysis” evolved into The Process Church of the Final Judgment. According to Ed Sanders in The Family, during his stint with Scientology, DeGrimston had attained the level of “Clear,” just as Charles Manson claimed to have reached the same lofty level while studying Scientology in prison. The textbook Scientology definition of “Clear” is “an individual who can be at cause knowingly and at will over mental matter, energy, space and time (MEST).”
In March of 1966, The Process moved into a mansion on Balfour Place in the Mayfair district of London, followed by twenty-five young acolytes, who turned over all their worldly possessions to the DeGrimstons. Garbed in matching black uniforms—consisting of tailor-made magician’s capes with the Mendez goat of Satan stitched in red on the back—The Process sponsored public gatherings during this period. For a half-pound admittance fee, the faithful were treated to telepathy circles, midnight meditations, “I Ching” interpretations, group encounter games (for instance, one called “Rape”), and guidance in the Tarot and Kabala. Many of these activities took place in a coffee bar called Satan’s Cavern, located in the basement of Balfour Place.
Later in 1966, the group moved their headquarters to Xtul, on the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, and there things took a decidedly spiritual turn, the resulting cosmology of which consisted of four co-equal entities: Christ, Jehovah, Lucifer and Satan; each representing a different spiritual path that a Process member could adopt.  Some members took these archetypes symbolically, while others—it is said—began to worship the actual deities. It was during this period that DeGrimston came to fancy himself the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. It was this Christ-like persona he affected in photos of the time, projecting all the trappings of Jesus come again, with beard and messianic countenance staring righteously upon humankind.
At Xtul, The Process acquired an estate, which included four miles of seashore, a palm tree jungle, a lagoon, and various wooden huts. In November 1966, lawyers representing the parents of converted Processeans flew to Mexico in the prospect of bringing back their sons and daughters. An article in the London Sunday Telegraph entitled “The Mindbenders of Mayfair” dealt with the return of the youths from their jungle hideaway.
After their Xtul sojourn, The Process returned to London and made forays into the pop music field, trying to attract into their ranks the likes of the Beatles and Mick Jagger. During this period they became very adept at the art of “End Times” proselytizations, holding lectures, demonstrations and outdoor rant sessions in Hyde Park. They also began publishing a magazine to further the cause called, quite fittingly, Process, which adorned its covers with pictures of battlefield death imagery. Around this time, they managed to attract Mick Jagger’s girlfriend, Marianne Faithful, into the fold. In issue #3 of Process, she appeared on the cover, lying down, as if dead, and holding a rose. Earlier, Jagger himself appeared on the cover of another Process one-shot magazine, Freedom of Expression.
In “The Death” issue of Process from 1971, a brief article by Charles Manson appeared, entitled “Pseudo-profundity in Death,” which Charlie penned during the course of the Tate/LaBianca trial. In this article, Manson described death as “total awareness … Coming to Now … and Peace from this world’s madness and paradise in my own self.” While The Process took measures to distance themselves from the Manson camp, the inclusion of Manson’s essay only further muddies the waters of an alliance that, at the very least, shared many of the same philosophical tenets.
Unholy Alliances
In 1967, Robert DeGrimston and other Process members descended upon San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district during the Summer of Love, taking lease of a property located at 407 Cole Street. Meanwhile, Charlie Manson and his girls lived at 636 Cole Street, a mere two blocks away. One of the more controversial assertions I’ve heard suggesting contact between Manson and The Process comes courtesy of John Parker’s Polanski, which claims that Manson was a regular visitor at The Process headquarters on Cole Street, “reaching the fourth of the six levels of initiation, that of ‘prophet.’” At the end of 1968, he was established as a leader of a group which he called “Satan’s Slaves.” During their Haight Ashbury period, Parker contends, The Process also attempted to form a union with Anton LaVey, high priest and founder of the San Francisco-based Church of Satan. However, these efforts were unsuccessful.
Through his own calculated Satanic-related media events, LaVey attracted the attention of such Hollywood bigshots as Sammy Davis, Jr. and sexpot Jayne Mansfield. Through these Hollywood connections, LaVey made inroads into the movie industry and was on the payroll of both The Mephisto Waltz and Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. In the latter, LaVey appeared on screen as the Devil himself, bedding down comely Mia Farrow and impregnating her with the literal spawn of Satan.
Eerily enough, one young beauty LaVey attracted was Susan Atkins, who appeared topless in his Witches’ Sabbath show playing the fitting role of a vampire. Three years later, Atkins would confess to licking blood from the knife that she used to kill actress Sharon Tate, when her theatrical vampire fantasy became reality during the Tate-LaBianca murder spree. Photos from this period show Atkins in her predestined vampire role, wearing a long, open black robe, revealing her nude body, as mock blood dripped from her lips. Later, of course, she fell into the loving arms of Father Manson, and the rest is dark history.
In another strange twist of fate, Rosemary’s Baby was filmed in New York City at Manhattan’s Dakota Apartments, a massive gothic building that later was the home and sacrificial death site of former Beatle John Lennon, co-writer of a song that influenced Manson, “Helter Skelter.” (see Paranoia, issue 33)
The Process Church opened a chapter in Los Angeles in early 1968. They stayed in public view until a few days after Robert Kennedy’s assassination on June 5, 1968, after which they dropped mysteriously from sight. By this time, The Process had become subdivided into three sub-groups: the Luciferians, the Jehovans and the Satanists.
The Luciferian branch were fun-loving hedonists, celebrating sensuality. Conversely, the Jehovan branch were uptight, narrow-minded zealots, both anti-sex and austere, who beat each other as punishment, and were into self-flagellation. The Satanists were both cold and calculating, on the violent end of The Process cosmological spectrum. According to an individual’s personal desires, one could become an advocate of any of the branches of the group; it didn’t really matter, because in the long run they were all going to unite during the End Times.
Some observers have described The Process as a society dedicated to aiding and abetting the end of the world by stirring up murder, violence and chaos. In The Process’ End Times scenario, they would survive the wrath of the apocalypse as the chosen people, which was identical to the Manson Family worldview. The Process philosophy was summed up in Robert DeGrimston’s 1967 book As It Is:
Christ said: Love thine enemy. Christ’s enemy was Satan and Satan’s Enemy was Christ. Through love, enmity is destroyed. Through love, saint and sinner destroy the enmity between them. Through love, Christ and Satan have destroyed their enmity and come together for the End. Christ to judge, Satan to execute judgment.
It was this marriage of Heaven and Hell that Charles Manson grooved with. Manson’s cosmology—though similar to The Process—projected a more simplistic dualism, as he was known to his followers as both Satan and Christ. Like The Process, Manson preached the Second Coming, and that when Christ returned this time, it would be the Romans (i.e., the Establishment) who went up on the cross in his place. Following is a list of other similarities shared by the Manson Family and The Process:
Manson spoke frequently of the bottomless pit; The Process, of the bottomless void.
Within its organization, The Process called itself “the family,” and referred to its members as brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.
Fear was a focal point for both The Process and Manson. A special issue of Process magazine dealt exclusively with the topic. “Fear is beneficial,” wrote the author of one article. “Fear is the catalyst of action. It is the energizer, the weapon built into the game in the beginning, enabling a being to create an effect upon himself, to spur himself on to new heights and to brush aside the bitterness of failure.”
The Process Church symbol was that of an inverted swastika, the very same symbol Manson later carved into his forehead.
Both The Process and Manson recruited biker groups. The two biker gangs closest to the Manson Family and The Process were the Satan Slaves and the Straight Satans.
Bad Vibrations
The Process, like Charles Manson, sought out rich and successful people. In addition to John Phillips and Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas, they approached record producer Terry Melcher around the same time that Melcher first met Manson. In fact, author Maury Terry suggests that it was at John Phillips’ parties that the paths of Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, and the rest of the unfortunate Cielo Drive crowd initially crossed paths with the Manson Family.
Manson had other celebrity connections. Prior to the Tate-LaBianca murders, Beach Boy Dennis Wilson is said to have been a Manson supporter. The Manson Family, in fact, lived in Wilson’s house for a few months, supported by Wilson, and Manson recorded some songs at the home studio of Beach Boy, Brian Wilson. However, Dennis Wilson soon became frightened by Manson and fled the rented house. Manson and friends remained but were soon evicted by the landlord. Nevertheless, a song by Manson, with slightly altered lyrics, appears on the Beach Boy’s album 20/20. The original song was prophetically titled “Cease to Exist,” but it is called “Never Learn Not To Love” on the album.
When The Process arrived in Los Angeles in early 1968, John Phillips put them in touch with real estate agent Artie Aarons. Once a week, the Processeans would go around cleaning and repairing various properties owned by Aarons. In return for their services, Aarons let The Process use a large, two-story house in south central L.A. In the following weeks, The Process members—while working for Aarons—visited the old John Barrymore mansion at 1301 Summit Ridge Drive, which was located several blocks down the hill from where Roman Polanski was renting a house from actress Patty Duke at 1600 Summit Ridge. Manson and his minions also lived for a short period in a shack on Summit Ridge Drive.
According to Ed Sanders, not long after moving into the Summit Ridge house, Sharon and Roman gave a housewarming party, where a strange event occurred involving Roman and some vicious dogs from down the hill. Apparently, the Polanski’s had agreed to take care of Patty Duke’s sheep dog, and the dog had a habit of getting loose. On the night of the party, the sheep dog once again bounded away, and Roman Polanski went after it.
Somewhere down the hill, Polanski encountered a group of vicious German Shepherds belonging to—as Sanders phrased it after a libel suit by DeGrimston—”English occultists who were in America to promote the end of the world.” Somehow, during his attempt to retrieve Patty Duke’s pooch, Polanski got locked in a garage trying to escape the cult’s dog pack, and managed to break a rear window out and escape up the hillside.
In Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi recounted how Manson had been bragging about a relationship with The Process, until one day he was paid a visit in jail by two brethren of the church, “Father John” and “Brother Matthew.” After their departure, Manson seems to have clammed up for good about The Process, and since then has made no further comments. Prior to the visit by these two mysterious Processean MIB’s, Manson was asked by Bugliosi if he knew Robert DeGrimston, and his reply was to the effect, “He and I are one and the same.” After their visit with Manson, the two Process members met with Bugliosi and assured him that Manson and DeGrimston had never met.
The RFK Assassination
In his 1973 book, America Bewitched, Daniel Logan presented the theory that black magic cults were responsible for Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. The cults in question, which Logan pinpointed, were “100 percent white, hated the black race, and felt that the way world chaos could be ignited was to incite whites against blacks.” According to Logan, persons belonging to “black-arts churches” were seen in full public view, black hoods and all, on the streets of Southern California communities right up until the RFK assassination, after which they suddenly vanished from sight. Logan went on to list several “coincidences” swirling around RFK’s assassination:

• Many black-arts California-based cults such as The Process Church taught the destruction of America through chaos and mass violence.
• Members of these cults generally hated blacks.
• Robert Kennedy worked for the advancement of blacks and was generally liked, trusted, and respected by them.
• Black-arts cults were mainly localized in the Los Angeles area.
• Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.
• Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy, had studied mysticism and was a devotee (albeit a misguided one) of Mme. Blavatsky, the woman who founded the Theosophical Society, many of whose beliefs were not only mystically but politically inspired. (While living in India, she openly denounced the pacifist ways of Mahatma Gandhi, who was himself eventually assassinated.)
• Charles Manson, while in prison in the 1960s, had also studied the occult teachings of Mme. Blavatsky, along with those of other mystical personalities.
• The night before Robert Kennedy was murdered he had his last dinner with Sharon Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski.
• A few months later, Sharon Tate and her friends were killed by Charles Manson’s family.

Rumors Writ in Blood
Ed Sanders, in the first Dutton edition of The Family: The Story of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion, suggested that The Process Church had “a baleful influence” on Sirhan Sirhan. During the spring of 1968, Sirhan had visited clubs in Hollywood on the same turf where The Process was proselytizing their doom-and-gloom philosophy. Furthermore, Sirhan talked several times prior to Kennedy’s death about visiting a certain occult group in London.
Among the rumors disseminated by Sanders was that a Process member named Lloyd worked as a chef at the Ambassador Hotel at the time of RFK’s assassination. Perhaps it was only coincidence, but Sirhan visited a friend in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen only a day before the assassination. In the revised 2002 edition of The Family, Sanders recounted a 1974 investigation into “a satanic group of English origin” conducted by an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) criminal investigator named Richard Smith. After Sanders’ publisher, Dutton, lost a libel suit to The Process Church over the first edition of The Family, all editions thereafter contained this oblique reference.
According to Sanders, an investigator working for him contacted Smith and was allowed to read his report, which stated, “English satanist cult members invited Sirhan Sirhan to a number of parties that were sponsored by television people in Los Angeles, and that one of the parties took place at Sharon Tate’s residence. At these parties, it was averred, sexual and ritualistic activities were reported to have occurred.” According to the INS report, this “English satanic group” purportedly took out a contract with Manson to kill Sharon Tate because of something she overheard at these parties regarding Sirhan Sirhan.
As Sanders alleges, in December 1968, Manson Family member Bruce Davis went on a pilgrimage to England where he spent roughly five months. While in London, the rumor goes, Davis was employed by the Church of Scientology, working in the mailroom and studying Scientology courses in his spare time. The Church of Scientology fired Davis after a couple of weeks because of drug use. According to a homicide investigator close to the Tate-LaBianca case, Davis began hanging out at the Mayfair townhouse of The Process Church. Davis later returned to England in May of 1969 in the company of five women alleged to be witches.
According to Sanders, Joel Pugh, husband of Manson follower Sandra Good, accompanied Bruce Davis on his first trip to London. On December 1, 1969, Pugh’s decomposing body was found in the Targarth Hotel in London, lying naked on his back with a sheet covering his lower body. His throat had been cut with razor blades, there were slash marks on both wrists and his blood had been used to inscribe “backwards writing” and “comic book drawings” on a mirror in the room. Scotland Yard investigators ruled the death a suicide, but when Inyo County (California) District Attorney Frank Fowles learned of the death, he made official inquiries through Interpol to check Davis’s visa.
Officials confirmed that Davis had been in London in April of that year, and had been there more recently, but they had no official record of the exact dates. Davis was next reported to be in Los Angeles in February 1970, according to Sanders, when he was questioned in Inyo County on auto theft charges, then released. Davis then disappeared once again, resurfacing on December 2, 1970, four days after the mysterious disappearance of Manson Defense Attorney Ron Hughes, who was later found dead.
According to Bill Nelson in Manson Behind The Scenes, on November 21, 1969, the corpses of two Scientology members—15-year old James Sharp and 19-year old Doreen Gaul—were discovered in a Los Angeles alleyway, each stabbed in excess of fifteen times. The two reportedly lived in a Scientology commune, and it has been alleged that Gaul once dated Bruce Davis. When detective Earl Deemer of the LAPD arrived on the murder scene, his first reaction was, “The people who did this, did Sharon Tate.” This murder was later attributed to the infamous Zodiac killer. (In a September 29, 2003 article in the New York Post, Mentzer (aka Manson II) was linked to the Zodiac killings.)
News reports placed Doreen Gaul, prior to her death, at the same residence where Bruce Davis was living: reportedly, a Scientology commune at 1032 South Bonnie Brae in Los Angeles. According to Nelson, the “Manson Family bus” was parked on this street on several occasions. While Davis had admitted to living in this “Scientology commune,” he denied ever having met Doreen Gaul.
Rumors have long run rampant concerning alleged ties between Charles Manson and the Church of Scientology. Not long after Manson’s arrest for the Tate-LaBianca murders, strange tips began trickling into a prominent west coast magazine concerning a rumored Manson-Scientology connection (Cabot). This spurred the Church of Scientology to offer a reward to anyone with information leading to the conviction of the libeler/slanderer who had spread the still unsubstantiated rumors of Manson’s involvement in Scientology.
©2005 Adam Gorightly, author of Death Cults, published by Sisyphus Press, P.O. Box 10495, State College, PA. 16805-0495 (available at www.wingtv.net/commonsense/deathcults.html, $7 US postage paid, $10 Canada). In this underground classic, Gorightly links cults like The Process Church of the Final Judgment and the Manson Family to elements of the underworld and intelligence communities, brushing back the cobwebs of the occult to reveal a truly disturbing story that continues to haunt us today. Gorightly is also the author of The Shadow Over Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control and the Manson Family Mythos, www.mansonmythos.com.
References
Bugliosi, Vincent. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, W. W. Norton, Reprint, 2001.
Cabot, Tracy, ed., Inside The Cults, Holloway House, Los Angeles, 1970.
DeGrimston, Robert. As It Is, 1967.
Gorightly, Adam. “We All Live in a Yellow Submarine: The Manson Family and the Beatles.” Paranoia, Issue 33, Fall 2003.
Logan, Daniel. America Bewitched: The Rise of Black Magic and Spiritism, Morrow, 1974.
Nelson, Bill. Manson Behind The Scenes, Pen Power Publications, 1997.
Parker, John. Polanski, Orion, 1995.
Sanders, Ed. The Family, Thunder’s Mouth, updated 2002.
Terry, Maury. The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation into America’s Most Dangerous Satanic Cult, Doubleday, 1st edition, 1987.
 This article will appear in his book, The Beast of Adam Gorightly soon to be available as a kindle version from Feejee Press

Theft Is Deflationary - Especially The Crony-Capitalist/State Kind

January 31, 2014

Source: Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog

Monopoly power in all its forms--in our system, crony capitalism and its partner, the neofeudal state--enables theft on a systemic scale.

If a monopoly forces its customers to pay more for low-quality goods and services because they have no choice, how is that not theft?

If the Mafia raises the price of "protection" on small businesses (another case of monopoly and no other choice), how is that extortion not theft?

When a local government raises junk fees to fund its cronies' excessive (i.e. non-market-rate) salaries and pensions, how is that monopoly power to extort more money from those with no other choice any different from Mafia extortion/theft?

If a pharmaceutical company extends a patent on a costly medication by changing the dosage slightly, how is that not theft via regulatory capture? If a government contractor charges the Pentagon $1,000 for a hammer (all those overhead charges, tsk-tsk--lobbying corrupt politicos costs a lot, you know), how is that not theft of taxpayers' money?

When the Federal Reserve drops the yield on savings to near-zero to funnel all that stolen wealth to its cronies on Wall Street, how is that not theft?

Monopoly power in all its forms--in our system, crony capitalism and its partner, the neofeudal state--enables theft on a systemic scale. When crony capitalism and the state are essentially one system, the propaganda organs of the state and mainstream corporate media combine to persuade the stripmined populace that their theft is not theft, it's "capitalism and democracy at work." This is known as The Big Lie. What we have is systemic theft, predation and exploitation.

Calling things what they really are would upset the apple cart of systemic exploitation. Let's Call Things What They Really Are in 2014 (January 15, 2014)

Correspondent Jeff W. explains that all this systemic theft is inherently deflationary:

 

ll forms of stealing are deflationary. Stealing cuts into the average citizen’s disposable income, it reduces how much he can buy. Because there are now fewer dollars chasing more goods, deflation is the inevitable result. Stealing is actually worse than a zero-sum game. Society loses more than the thief takes. In addition to losses from theft, a victim often has to spend more on security measures. Theft also has a chilling effect on capital investment and commerce in general.

Consider how many different kinds of theft the American citizen is exposed to: street crime, sickcare industry ripoffs, legal system ripoffs including huge fines for traffic violations, high taxes, interest earnings on his savings that amount to ZIRP, a corporatist state determined to suppress his wages by any means necessary, unending victimization at the hands of predators enabled and protected by the state. If he owns a small business, he has to deal with a corrupt regulatory state, higher taxes, and an enlarged menagerie of predators. Today there are thieves everywhere.\

So one big deflation trend is theft. As theft increases, deflation increases. As society collapses and thieves start roaming freely all over the landscape, a deflationary collapse can be expected—absent a determined and persistent campaign of money printing.

Exhibit A for the case that stealing is deflationary is the Dark Ages. Stealing was rampant in the Dark Ages. How did people react to that? By “going medieval.” They wore clothing that made them look poor so as to avoid attracting the attention of thieves. Their dwellings looked poor for the same reason. If they had cash, they would bury it in the ground; no one could be trusted. Unless one was an insider who could get protection from the state, no one’s property was safe.

Capital investments were much too risky, and out of the question. What were the price characteristics of the Dark Ages? Wages were low. Real estate valuations low. Prices of manufactured items (such as they were) were low. Only food was expensive. People can cut back on clothing and shelter, but there is a limit to how much they can cut back on food. In the Dark Ages, people really hunkered down and just focused on basic survival.

Exhibit B is Detroit. Detroit for many years has been a high crime area, i.e. it had lots of thieves running around. What are the price characteristics of Detroit? Wages low. Real estate valuations low. There is very little manufacturing being done inside the city limits today because of high property taxes and crime. There is also very little capital investment for the same reasons.

There is a vicious circle at work here.

1) Thieves control the government;

2) Which results in increased stealing;

3) Deflation results from that;

4) Which gives the thieves a reason to print money and give it to themselves;

5) Which enriches the thieves some more;

6) Which gives them more resources they can use to consolidate their control of the government;

7) Back to step 1.

Many people seem confused about how there could be deflation in the paper (or digital) money era. If they would recognize how much stealing is going on, and if they understood the powerful deflationary effect of stealing, then perhaps they would not be so surprised to observe price decreases, particularly in wages and the prices of manufactured products.

Thank you, Jeff, for explaining the causal connection between systemic theft and deflation. To all those terrified of deflation (for example, central bankers and their cronies holding trillions of dollars in phantom assets and illusory collateral), the solution is obvious: get rid of systemic theft. But since those terrified of deflation are at the top of the monopoly-power thievery pyramid, that is asking the impossible: for the thieves to relinquish their power to steal.

China's elite linked to secret offshore entities

By Gerard Ryle

January 21, 2014, http://www.icij.org/blog/2014/01/chinas-elite-linked-secret-offshore-entities

Relatives of Chinese leaders such as president Xi Jinping have held secretive offshore companies. Photo: Shutterstock.
East meets West on Treasure Islands: China has become a leading market for offshore havens that peddle secrecy, tax shelters, and streamlined international deal making.
ICIJ has today published the latest part of the largest investigative reporting project in its 15-year history – revealing that close relatives of China’s top leaders have held secretive entities in offshore tax havens usually associated with hidden wealth.
Our work draws on confidential records obtained by ICIJ as part of its "Offshore Leaks” investigation.

Among the investigation’s key findings:

• Relatives of at least five current or former members of China's Politburo Standing Committee – President Xi Jinping, former premiers Wen Jiabao and Li Peng, former President Hu Jintao and former leader Deng Xiaoping – have held companies in the Cook Islands or British Virgin Islands, the records obtained by ICIJ show.

• PricewaterhouseCoopers, UBS, Credit Suisse and other Western banks and accounting firms played a key role as middlemen in helping Chinese clients set up trusts and companies in tax havens.

• China’s oil industry, which has been shaken by a series of corruption scandals, has extensive links to offshore centers. The country’s three big state-owned oil companies – CNPC, Sinopec and CNOOC – are linked to dozens of BVI companies that show up in the ICIJ files.

• As the country has moved from an insular communist system to a socialist/capitalist hybrid, China has become a leading market for offshore havens that peddle secrecy, tax shelters and streamlined international deal making.
   

Nearly 22,000 offshore clients with addresses in mainland China and Hong Kong appear in the files, including at least 15 of China’s richest citizens, members of the National People’s Congress, and executives from state-owned companies entangled in corruption scandals. The records also include details of roughly 16,000 clients from Taiwan.
The documents are part of a cache of 2.5 million leaked files that ICIJ has sifted through with help from more than 50 reporting partners in Europe, North America, Asia and other regions. Since last April, ICIJ’s stories have triggered official inquiries, high-profile resignations and policy changes around the world.
Until now, the details on China and Hong Kong had not been disclosed.

Working in China 

This part of our reporting project has proved particularly challenging. It is difficult at the best of times to get people to respond to questions, however working on China brings its own unique set of difficulties.

In November, a mainland Chinese news organization that was working with ICIJ to analyze the data we obtained withdrew from the reporting partnership, explaining that authorities had warned it not to publish anything about the material.

Investigation Continues

On January 23, ICIJ (a project of the Center for Public Integrity) will name more than 37,000 offshore clients from China Hong Kong and Taiwan in its Offshore Leaks Database, adding to about 70,000 names from the rest of the world published in June 2013.
The names are part of a body of information that totaled more than 260 gigabytes of data—about the same amount of information as would be found in half a million books. It is one of the biggest collections of leaked data ever gathered and analyzed by journalists.

What we do at ICIJ – a nonprofit, investigative reporting organization – is slow journalism.

It is expensive and unique, and is increasingly under threat as media organizations around the world continue to downsize and back away from investigative reporting. Therefore we greatly appreciate your readership and the public support we receive.

Who Killed Tom Clancy

Friday, January 31, 2014

(Before It's News)

Tom was working on a novel very “Manchurian Candidate-ish”. But it was replete with fact and exposed the Saudi Muslim plant in the White House and the direct funding that went into it. Birth Certificate? Want the real one? Tom had it.    Search Tom Clancy:  http://www.westernjournalism.com/
Clancy was killed because he was getting too close to a secret they don’t want the world to know. Dr. Garrow,  executive director of The Bethune Institute, states Obama had Tom Clancy killed, noting that it takes 5 days for plant toxins and most poisons to break down and leave no traces in the human body. Strangely (or not), doctors did not perform an autopsy on Clancy’s body for 5 days.
He said the Obama administration is made up of Marxist Muslims who all take their orders from Senior Adviser to the President, Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett. Garrow said it is well known to intelligence agencies all over the world that Obama is a foreign plant who was placed on the path to the presidency by ultra-rich Saudi nationals. This is why all of Obama’s education records have been permanently sealed.        http://dcclothesline.com/2013/10/11/ex-cia-agent-says-obama-andrew-breitbart-tom-clancy-assassinated/
Tom Clancy, master detective writer, died mysteriously on October 1^st, at the age of 66.  The reason he was taken before his time is as mysterious as his books.  Clancy’s publicists are still not telling.   John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore has not released a statement either.  The Baltimore Sun announced, most discretely, that the cause of death was, “a brief illness”.  No source was provided.  His family has added to the intrigue by saying they were not expecting to lose him.
66 is not the average age of death; 75% of us will survive to our seventies and many far longer. How did Tom Clancy succumb when he was surrounded by family, success, recognition and wealth?  His newest thriller and a pending new release of his latest book, Command Authority, are due for release in December.  Mr. Clancy had much to live for. Tom Clancy is dead at 66, but the cause of death is still a mystery.
http://guardianlv.com/2013/10/tom-clancy-dies-at-66-but-its-a-mystery/
Tom Clancy was murdered by people within the federal government? The author was too good at predicting events and had become a threat to the nation. This man predicted everything from 9/11 to the Bin Laden raid with razor-like accuracy. To silence him, the feds had him killed — and they did so during the shutdown of the government so that as few people as possible could potentially ruin the plot. Or, could he have committed suicide? Maybe he utilized his amazing speculative ability and saw something disastrous coming. Thus, in order to avoid a more painful demise, he decided to bow out gracefully now.   Total Collapse Mouse Trap:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpiz2-0eDy0  The Whistleblowers
The most compelling mystery is who has his final rough manuscript? Was it destroyed by the Government, or is it still safely in the hands of his family? And more importantly, who will step up to complete this great man’s last novel? RIP Tom Clancy. We won’t rest until we get answers.
The Manchurian Candidate
/obama/2013/12/the-manchurian-candidate-wishes-you-a-happy-new-year-2459214.html

Spy Agencies Work On Psychologically Profiling Everyone. Predicting Everyone’s Thoughts and Actions

              & u STILL don't think we r turn~in  2  fucking NAZI LAND  huh ?                                                     

By Washington's Blog

Global Research, January 31, 2014

Washington's Blog

Region: USA

Theme: Intelligence, Police State & Civil Rights

Spies Want To Predict Everyone’s Thoughts and Actions

Newly-released documents from Edward Snowden show that the NSA and other spy agencies are tracking people’s psychological and lifestyle traits such as sexual preference, extroversion-versus-introversion, and whether people are leaders or followers.  See this and this.
For example, the following are slides leaked by Snowden from Britain’s spy service regarding profiling people psychologically:


IC Off the Record reports on future spying techniques being developed by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity:

In 2006, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) was created to invest in high-risk, high-payoff classified programs uniquely designed to provide research and technical capabilities for the Intelligence Community. IARPA-funded researchers are currently studying novel ways of processing and analyzing the explosive growth of domestic data. ***

• The Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination (KDD) program will develop advanced analytic algorithms that can effectively draw inferences across multiple databases to allow the Intelligence Community to create virtual fusion centers enabling analysts to produce actionable intelligence.

• The Socio-cultural Content in Language (SCIL) Program will develop novel algorithms, techniques and technologies to uncover the social actions and characteristics of members of a group (ie; within discussion forums, online comment sections, social media, etc.) by examining the language used in relation to acceptable social and cultural norms.

• The Reynard Program starts from the premise that “real world” characteristics are reflected in “virtual world” behavior. The program seeks to identify behavioral indicators in online virtual worlds and “massively multiplayer online games” that are related to the real world characteristics of the users. Attributes of interest include gender, age, economic status, educational level, occupation, ideology or “world view”, and physical geographic location.

Indeed, the NSA  is working on building a “pre-crime” computer system that uses artificial intelligence and massive amounts of data to try to predict how every thinks and what everyone is likely to do.

EXCLUSIVE: Obama's high school pot dealer who he thanked for the 'good times' was beaten to death with a hammer by his gay lover

• Raymond Boyer was known as 'Gay Ray' to Obama and his marijuana smoking 'Choom Gang' of privately-educated kids at Hawaiian high school
• Ray was bludgeoned to death with a hammer in 1986, seven years after he supplied the future president and his friends with drugs
• Lover Andrew Devere, a male prostitute, gave police a variety of reasons for the murder
• He said surfer Boyer put him down constantly and broke wind in his face
• Court documents uncovered for the first time by MailOnline
• Choom is island slang for pot smoking and group went on excursions to countryside to get high and party, sometimes in Ray’s surf van
• Devere is now living on the mainland after serving his life sentence
• Obama last week said marijuana was no more dangerous than alcohol
• Devere's new wife Elizabeth told MailOnline doing drugs is fine if you are rich and 'have the tools to deal with it' but not if you are poor with problems

By Richard Alleyne In Honolulu, Hawaii
PUBLISHED: 09:17 EST, 29 January 2014 | UPDATED: 14:45 EST, 29 January 2014

President Obama’s high school pot dealer who he thanked in his yearbook for the 'good times' was beaten to death by his lover after a series of fights over flatulence and drugs, MailOnline can reveal today.
Raymond Boyer, known as 'Gay Ray' to Obama and his marijuana smoking 'Choom Gang', was bludgeoned to death with a hammer seven years after he sold the future president and his friends drugs.
His lover Andrew Devere, a male prostitute, gave police a laundry list of reasons for the killing, including that Boyer, a surfer and unemployed chef, constantly put him down, made him beg for drugs and had a habit of breaking wind in his face.

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Good times: Obama thanked Ray in his high school yearbook alongside his family and his Choom Gang buddies

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Pot head: Obama and his 'Choom Gang' of privately-educated friends used to score drugs off Ray. Ray was murdered seven years after the gang left school by his lover for a myriad of bizarre and frankly petty reasons

The sordid end to the life of Boyer at 37 was in direct contrast to the young men he supplied drugs to who all went on to lead successful and productive lives.
Since getting high with Obama and his private school educated friends he lost his job as the manager of a local pizzeria and ended up on welfare living above a car repair shop.
The full extent of Ray's grisly end and the bizarre reasons for it were set out in mitigation by Devere, who was jailed for life for the murder.
Appeal court documents from 1991, uncovered for the first time by MailOnline, reveal Devere killed Boyer on New Year’s Day 1986 because: Boyer was killing a friend of his by supplying that friend with drugs; Boyer embarrassed Devere and put him down in front of other people; Boyer had developed a habit of farting in Devere's face; Boyer once attacked Devere with a knife, slicing Devere's finger; Boyer made Devere beg for drugs.
Finally, the documents say the last straw came on the morning that Devere killed Boyer when the victim had refused to give Devere money to buy medication to soothe the murderer's sore throat.
Obama has never hidden his drug taking youth and recently put on record that he felt that marijuana was no worse than alcohol.

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Killer: Andrew Devere, pictured in a variety of mugshots over the years, was sentenced to life for the grisly crime. He said he killed Boyer because he broke wind in his face, was killing a friend by selling him drugs, didn't pick up his medicine for a sore throat and insulted him in public. Devere is now free and living on the mainland

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Party bus: Obama and the Choom Gang used to go to parties in the hills in Ray's surf van (file photo) and get high. Weed was rife in Hawaii during the counter-culture years of the 1970s and often smoked openly

He mentioned in his own autobiography that he took drugs. And David Maraniss’s book ‘Barack Obama: The Story’ revealed the existence of the Choom Gang (Choom is slang for smoking pot) and their dealer 'Ray'.
It was even known that 'Ray' had been murdered but only now can the MailOnline can reveal the full tragic story of his life.
Raymond Boyer, originally from California, was an athletic surfer who earned a living as the day manager of a pizza restaurant near the private school where Obama and his teenage friends were taught in Hawaii.
Mama Mia Pizza restaurant, which also had a bar, was at the centre of a thriving university scene in Honolulu during the counter culture days of 1979.

 

More...

• 'America does not stand still and neither do I': Obama vows 'year of action' with or without the backing of Congress in his State of the Union address
• 'He never gives up and he does not quit': President honors war hero injured on his 10th tour of Afghanistan in State of the Union address before leading emotional standing ovation in his honor
• Roll up for the county fair: Denver offers joint-rolling contests and prizes for the biggest marijuana plant at summer show

At the time, marijuana – or pakalolo as it was known locally - was flourishing on the island. It was grown in the hills and sold and smoked openly on the streets and beaches.
Boyer, 30 at the time, lived the archetypal hippy existence, sleeping in an old bus with two pet monkeys, and enjoying in full the promiscuous and hedonistic lifestyle of the gay community on the Pacific island.
He also dealt drugs to friends  - and it was through supplying marijuana that he came into contact with the young Obama, known as Barry, who was attending Punahou school nearby.
Obama, 18, who was only just beginning to explore his black roots – having been brought up by his white grandparents – was a leading member of a group called the Choom Gang.
Choom is island slang for pot smoking and the group went on excursions to the countryside where they would get high and party, sometimes in Ray’s surf van.

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Experiments: Obama, 18, who was only just beginning to explore his black roots – having been brought up by his white grandparents – was a leading member of a group called the Choom Gang

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Choom: The gang, whose other passions were beer and basketball, even made up rules about the smoking of 'bud'. Obama was particularly fond of the 'interception' and 'roof hits', according to a biography

The gang, whose other passions were beer and basketball, even made up rules about the smoking of 'bud'.
One of them was that you skipped a turn if you did not inhale properly and the other, a favorite of Obama, was that you could grab an extra drag of a joint if you elbowed in and shouted 'intercepted'.
The young Obama popularized the concept of 'roof hits', when all the windows of a car were rolled up so you could suck up the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.
'Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,' Tom Topolinski, one member of the Choom Gang, told Maraniss.
'Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted "Intercepted!", and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.'
Ray, although older, was an integral part of the gang, known for his ability to 'score good bud' and drive them up nearby Mount Tantalus to party.
He even got a mention in Obama's school yearbook as the teenager wrote his thanks to: 'Tut [his grandmother], Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.'
While the other members of the gang went onto university and careers as lawyers, writers and businessmen, Ray’s wild life was just beginning to unravel.
He lost his job at Mama Mia’s and lived above a car repair shop in a rundown area of downtown Honolulu.
His relationships became ever more sordid and he ended up sleeping with a gay prostitute drug addict called Andrew Devere, 17 years his junior.
This was to be his undoing. 
As he slept on New Year’s Day 1986, Devere, upset with Ray’s treatment of him, took a claw hammer and literally beat his brains out. His body was not found until eight days later.
Devere said that he had meant to shoot Boyer but could not get a gun and was planning to kill him at night but he fell asleep. He finally bludgeoned him to death the next morning.

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Formative: It emerged last week that Obama believes that marijuana is no more dangerous than booze

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Privileged: Devere's current wife Elizabeth suggested that rich people have 'the right tools' to deal with taking drugs, but those like Devere, a former male prostitute, didn't and they 'subtract from the good'

He said: 'I wasn't mad at him at the time that I did it.... But I knew I had to do it because.... later on ... I knew that I would, you know, I would forget about how he treated me'.
Devere, who jailed for life for the murder but released in 2007, has since moved to the mainland.
He now has a wife and although has since been convicted of minor drug offenses holds down a job.
He is too traumatized to talk about his old life but his wife, Elizabeth, told MailOnline that the gruesome episode was a warning to anyone.
'He is embarrassed about it but I told him that you cannot run from it,' she said. 'Drugs always alter your mind. I have a past myself. Because of the drugs and his lifestyle it was a really tough environment to survive in.
'He survived by being a prostitute. I think drugs affect people in different ways. It depends how you are brought up.
'If you have the right tools to deal with them then it’s okay. But if not they definitely subtract from the good.'

Read more:

• 951 F2d 359 Devere v. Falk | OpenJurist

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547667/EXCLUSIVE-Obamas-high-school-pot-dealer-future-president-thanked-good-times-yearbook-beaten-death-gay-lover-fights-flatulence-drugs.html#ixzz2rwP9jBfD
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

The MyRA Propaganda Begins: "A Start To A Secure Retirement" Promises Treasury Secretary

ready 2 get fucked some more America ?  the ass pipes in D.C. (degenerate city)  & "their" elites arms up "their" (ass pipes)  asses  r gonna give U.S.  "another"     "retire~ain't"  ....fucking scam  ....yea "they"  r look~in out fer the ...people LOL  ..yup after you "pay" yer Ass~slam~our~asses~care ....the "rest" of our $$$  will go in  up ~our~asses~retire~ain't ....counts LMMFAO  (laughing my motherfucking ass off )  ..yea we ALL's gonna get 1 :O

January 30, 2014

Source: Zero Hedge

You didn't think the US could at first slowly, and then all of a sudden, expropriate retirement accounts and invest them in the "no risk, guaranteed return" MyRA Ponzi scheme introduced by Obama during the State of the Union address without lots of behavior-modifying indoctrination in the "friendly press" first now did you? Sure enough, here is the first major propaganda salvo, coming from none other than the US Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, which will be published tomorrow across the McClatchy media empire.
* * *
Just out from the US Treasury Department, "In an op-ed to be published in the January 31, 2014 editions of McClatchy Newspapers, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew discusses myRA -  a simple, safe and affordable starter savings account to help low and moderate-income Americans begin building towards a more secure financial future."
myRA: A start to a secure retirement
Over the past five years, our country has accomplished a number of big things.  The economy has grown stronger after being shaken to the core by the worst recession in our lifetimes.  Our businesses have created more than 8 million jobs.  The financial system is more resilient, with better protections for consumers and investors.  And investments in domestic energy production have helped put the promise of American energy independence in sight.
In the meantime, health care costs have grown at their slowest rates in years while millions of families now have access to affordable health care coverage so they are not one hospital visit away from falling into financial ruin.  Our auto industry is surging even as home values are rebounding.  And the federal deficit has been cut by more than half.
So we have made clear progress.  But we all understand that we are not where we want to be yet.  Too many Americans cannot find a job.  Too many Americans who do have a job are not getting paid enough to support their families and make ends meet.  And too many Americans do not have the skills they need to succeed in today’s economy.
As President Barack Obama made clear in his State of the Union address, it is time to focus on restoring opportunity for all.  That means helping to make sure more Americans can take part in our growing economy and build some economic security for the long term.  To get that done, we are putting forward real, concrete solutions to our most pressing problems—from college affordability and job training to fair wages and a stable retirement.
Now, when it comes to retirement, you would think that the vast majority of working Americans would be putting some money away for their future.  But the truth is, many are not.  For millions of working men and women, it is not easy to save for the long haul.  Many employers do not offer a retirement plan.  And setting up a retirement account and maintaining it can often be too difficult, expensive and time-consuming.
The statistics paint a stark picture.  Only about half of all workers have access to an employer-based retirement plan, such as a 401(k).  And left on their own, few workers save.  It is estimated that fewer than one out of 10 eligible workers actually contribute to an IRA.
Still, every American deserves the chance to build a secure retirement.  That is why the Obama administration has designed a new way for working Americans to start saving for the future.  This program, which will begin later this year, is called myRA or My Retirement Account.
This account is designed to help low- and middle-income workers, who are too often overlooked or ignored, begin saving for retirement.  We are talking about the waitress who is holding down two part-time jobs to support her kids; the recent graduate who landed a job but is grappling with student loans; the janitor who has never been given the chance to invest in a retirement account.
Here is how myRA, which is simple, safe and affordable, will work.
You will be able to start saving with an initial deposit of as little as $25 and contribute as little as $5 each payday.  If an employer chooses to participate, contributions are made through automatic payroll deductions, making them hassle-free.
There are no fees—100% of any contribution goes into the account and is invested in a Treasury security.  That means it will be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, will earn the same interest rate that is available to federal employees for their retirement savings, and the balance will never go down.
Finally, myRA is not tied to any one employer—it belongs to the worker, not the workplace.  In other words, the account is portable and can be easily rolled into a Roth IRA.  And if myRA savers ever need to, they can withdraw their contributions tax-free, at any time.
MyRA is a specific way in which we can help hardworking Americans save for the future.  But there are other things we can do.  In particular, the President has consistently called on Congress to help tens of millions of middle class Americans save for the future by opening up access to automatic IRAs in the workplace.
And we will continue to look for ways to help increase economic security, strengthen the middle class, and provide more ladders of opportunity into the middle class.  That is how we will help make sure every American can take part in this recovery.  And that is how we will help usher in a stronger, more prosperous future for our country.
Jacob J. Lew is the secretary of the Treasury.

The Next U.S. Weapon at Sea Could Be Sound Waves

On November 14, 2013 by stratagem

Editor’s Note: US Department of Defense Tactical Electromagnetic Cyber Warfare: Plant Malware Through the Air
Source: NextGov

The next Cuban missile crisis could be resolved through the power of music rather than an armed standoff between nuclear powers, military officials and researchers speculate.
It is believed that sound waves can “jump the air gap” — or hack a machine that is not on a network — to paralyze a ship’s control systems. Instead of using a blockade or firing Tomahawk missiles to prevent Russia from delivering weapons to Cuba, the United States could use malicious tones.
“This is where you talk about fleets coming to a stop. Our ships are floating SCADA systems,” retired Capt. Mark Hagerott, deputy director of cybersecurity for the U.S. Naval Academy, said at a summit in Washington organized by Government Executive Media Group. He was referring to supervisory control and data acquisition systems that control industrial operations. “That would disrupt the world balance of power if you could begin to jump the air gap,” Hagerott said.

It’s conceivable sound waves can be transformed into malicious electrical signals. An air disruption causes the diaphragm of a speaker to create an electrical signal made up of ones and zeros. Targeted ones and zeros can override a computer-driven ship.
Acoustic hacking “gives you a nonlethal warfare capacity at sea,” Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution national security analyst, said in an interview after speaking at the Defense One Summit. A president could say, for example: “Don’t let this enemy fleet seize these island chains but also don’t let it turn into a shooting war.” It would warn the adversary that if it crosses a certain boundary, the United States will flip the switch. “Now their ship is floating but you haven’t killed anyone,” Singer said.
Even the Stuxnet virus, an alleged U.S.-Israel creation that breached an air-gapped Iranian nuclear production system, required more proximity. Someone inserted an infected jump drive that made the nuclear centrifuges go haywire.
Onboard, “you think you are secure. You didn’t put a flash drive in. There’s no wires,” Hagerott said.
(Image via argus/Shutterstock.com)

Should a robot decide when to kill?

The ethics of war machines

By Adrianne Jeffries on January 28, 2014

30
inShare

• 
  http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/28/5339246/war-machines-ethics-of-robots-on-the-battlefield

By the time the sun rose on Friday, December 19th, the Homestead Miami race track had been taken over by robots. Some hung from racks, their humanoid feet dangling above the ground as roboticists wheeled them out of garages. One robot resembled a gorilla, while another looked like a spider; yet another could have been mistaken for a designer coffee table. Teams of engineers from MIT, Google, Lockheed Martin, and other institutions and companies replaced parts, ran last-minute tests, and ate junk food. Spare heads and arms were everywhere.

It was the start of the Robotics Challenge Trials, a competition put on by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the US Department of Defense dedicated to high risk, high reward technology projects. Over a period of two days, the machines would attempt a series of eight tasks including opening doors, clearing a pile of rubble, and driving a car.

The eight robots that scored highest in the trials would go on to the finals next year, where they will compete for a $2 million grand prize. And one day, DARPA says, these robots will be defusing roadside bombs, surveilling dangerous areas, and assisting after disasters like the Fukushima nuclear meltdown.

Mark Gubrud, a former nanophysicist and frumpy professor sort, fit right in with the geeky crowd. But unlike other spectators, Gubrud wasn’t there to cheer the robots on. He was there to warn people.

“DARPA’s trying to put a face on it, saying ‘this isn’t about killer robots or killer soldiers, this is about disaster response,’ but everybody knows what the real interest is,” he says. “If you could have robots go into urban combat situations instead of humans, then your soldiers wouldn’t get killed. That’s the dream. That’s ultimately why DARPA is funding this stuff.”

As the US military pours billions of dollars into increasingly sophisticated robots, people inside and outside the Pentagon have raised concerns about the possibility that machine decision will replace human judgment in war.

Around a year ago, the Department of Defense released directive 3000.09: "Autonomy in Weapons Systems." The 15-page document defines an autonomous weapon — what Gubrud would call a killer robot — as a weapon that "once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator."

The directive, which expires in 2022, establishes guidelines for how the military will pursue such weapons. A robot must always follow a human operator’s intent, for example, while simultaneously guarding against any failure that could cause an operator to lose control. Such systems may only be used after passing a series of internal reviews.

"It's a veto power that you have about a half-second to exercise. You're mid-curse word."

The guidelines are sketchy, however, relying on phrases like "appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force." That leaves room for systems that can be given an initial command by a human, then dispatched to select and strike their targets. DARPA is working on a $157 million long-range anti-ship missile system, for example, that is about as autonomous as an attack dog that’s been given a scent: it gets its target from a human, then seeks out and engages the enemy on its own.

Some experts say it could take anywhere from five to thirty years to develop autonomous weapons systems, but others would argue that these weapons already exist. They don’t necessarily look like androids with guns, though. The recently tested X-47B is one of the most advanced unmanned drones in the US military. It takes off, flies, and lands on a carrier with minimal input from its remote pilot. The Harpy drone, built by Israel and sold to other nations, autonomously flies to a patrol area, circles until it detects an enemy radar signal, and then fires at the source. Meanwhile, defense systems like the US Phalanx and the Israeli Iron Dome automatically shoot down incoming missiles, which leaves no time for human intervention.

"A human has veto power, but it’s a veto power that you have about a half-second to exercise," says Peter Singer, a fellow at the Brookings Institute and author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. "You’re mid-curse word."

Gubrud, an accomplished academic, first proposed a ban on autonomous weapons back in 1988. He’s typically polite, but talk of robotics brings out his combative side: he approached DARPA director Arati Prabhakar at one point during the challenge and tried to get her to admit that the agency is developing autonomous weapons.

He may have been the lone voice of dissent among the hundreds of robot-watchers at DARPA’s event, but Gubrud has some muscle behind him: the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC), an organization founded in 2009 by experts in robotics, ethics, international relations, and human rights law. If robotics research continues unchecked, ICRAC warns, the future will be a dystopian one in which militaries arm robots with nuclear weapons, countries start unmanned wars in space, and dictators use killer robots to mercilessly control their own people.

Autonomous robots by design

Humanoid

Most robotic weapons in the military don’t have hands or faces; they tend to look more like airplanes or small tanks. Android soldiers are still unnerving to imagine, though, because they do resemble people. Such robots are useful in disaster response because rescue takes place in human environments, DARPA says. But robots that can walk around in post-earthquake rubble would also be suited for combat in places like Baghdad and Kandahar.

Underwater

It’s harder to accidentally kill civilians when you’re underwater, and for that reason we may see autonomous weapons proliferate there before we see them on land. Autonomous undersea weapons could range from sea mines and torpedoes to submarines known as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Radio signals also don’t travel well in water, creating an incentive for programming greater autonomy.

Land

The most autonomous weapons currently in use are land-defense systems that react to incoming threats. Examples include the "close-in weapons systems" employed by the US to shoot down missiles, or the Samsung Techwin SGR-A1, which is replacing human guards along parts of the South Korean border. That robot detects when a person enters its range and asks for a password. If a person offers the wrong one, the SGR-A1 can be set to fire automatically.

Concern about robot war fighters goes beyond a "cultural disinclination to turn attack decisions over to software algorithms," as the autonomy hawk Barry D. Watts put it. Robots, at least right now, have trouble discriminating between civilians and the terrorists and insurgents who live among them. Furthermore, a robot’s actions are a sum of its programmer, operator, manufacturer, and other factors, making it difficult to assign responsibility if something does go wrong. And finally, replacing soldiers with robots would convert the cost of war from human lives to dollars, which could lead to more conflicts.

ICRAC and more than 50 organizations including Human Rights Watch, Nobel Women’s Initiative, and Code Pink have formed a coalition calling itself the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Their request is simple: an international ban on autonomous weapons systems that will head off the robotics arms race before it really gets started.

"Tireless war machines, ready for deployment at the push of a button, pose the danger of permanent ... armed conflict."

There has actually been some progress on this front. A United Nations report in May, 2013 called for a temporary ban on autonomous lethal systems until nations set down rules for their use. "There is widespread concern that allowing lethal autonomous robots to kill people may denigrate the value of life itself," the report says. "Tireless war machines, ready for deployment at the push of a button, pose the danger of permanent (if low-level) armed conflict."

The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons will convene a meeting of experts this spring, the first step toward an international arms agreement. "We need to have a clear view of what the consequences of those weapons could be," says Jean-Hugues Simon-Michel, the French ambassador to the UN Conference on Disarmament and its chairman, who persuaded the other nations to take up the issue. "And of course when there is a particular concern with regard to a category of weapons, it’s always easier to find a solution before those weapons exist."

Watching the robots stumble around the simulated disaster areas at the DARPA trials would have been reassuring to anyone worried about killer robots. Today’s robots are miracles of science compared to those from 20 years ago, but they are still seriously impaired by lousy perception, energy inefficiency, and rudimentary intelligence. The machines move agonizingly slowly and wear safety harnesses in case they fall, which happens often.

The capabilities being developed for the challenge, however, are laying the groundwork for killer robots should we ever decide to build them. "We’re part of the Defense Department," DARPA’s director, Arati Prabhakar, acknowledges. "Why do we make these investments? We make them because we think that they’re going to be important for national security." One recent report from the US Air Force notes that "by 2030 machine capabilities will have increased to the point that humans will have become the weakest component in a wide array of systems and processes."

"If we can protect innocent civilian life, I do not want to shut the door on the use of this technology."

By some logic, that might be a good thing. Robot shooters are inherently more accurate than humans, and they’re unaffected by fear, fatigue, or hatred. Machines can take on more risk in order to verify a target, loitering in an area or approaching closer to confirm there are no civilians in the way.

"If we can protect innocent civilian life, I do not want to shut the door on the use of this technology," says Ron Arkin, PhD, a roboticist and ethicist at the Georgia Institute of Technology who has collaborated extensively with Pentagon agencies on various robotics systems.

Arkin proposes that an "ethical governor," a set of rules that approximates an artificial conscience, could be programmed into the machines in order to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law. Autonomy in these systems, he points out, isn’t akin to free will — it’s more like automation. During the trials, DARPA deliberately sabotaged the communications links between robots and their operators in order to give an advantage to the bots that could "think" on their own. But at least for now, that means being able to process the command "take a step" versus "lift the right foot 2 inches, move it forward 6 inches, and set it down."

"When you speak to philosophers, they act as if these systems will have moral agency," Arkin says. "At some level a toaster is autonomous. You can task it to toast your bread and walk away. It doesn’t keep asking you, ‘Should I stop? Should I stop?’ That’s the kind of autonomy we’re talking about."

"No one wants to hear that they're building a weapon," says Doug Stephen, a software engineer at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) whose team placed second at DARPA’s event. But he admits that the same capabilities being honed for these trials — ostensibly to make robots good for disaster relief — can also translate to the battlefield. "Absolutely anything," Stephen says, "can be weaponized."

His team’s robot, a modification of the humanoid Atlas built by Boston Dynamics, earned the most points in the least amount of time on several challenges, including opening doors and cutting through walls. When it successfully walked over "uneven terrain" built out of cinder blocks, the crowd erupted into cheers. Stephen and his team will now advance to the final stage of the challenge next year — alongside groups from institutes including MIT and NASA — to vie for the $2 million prize.

That DARPA funding could theoretically seed the rescue-robot industry, or it could kickstart the killer robot one. For Gubrud and others, it’s all happening much too fast: the technology for killer robots, he warns, could outrun our ability to understand and agree on how best to use it. "Are we going to have robot soldiers running around in future wars, or not? Are we going to have a robot arms race which isn't just going to be these humanoids, but robotic missiles and drones fighting each other and robotic submarines hunting other submarines?" he says. "Either we're going to decide not to do this, and have an international agreement not to do it, or it's going to happen."