The 2014 Grammy Awards: Still Pushing the Illuminati Agenda

truther February 1, 2014 

VC

The 2014 Grammy Awards featured a black magic witchcraft ritual disguised as a Katy Perry performance. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. This has been going on for years. We’ll look at the Illuminati Agenda pushed in the 2014 Grammy Awards.

This year’s Grammy Awards apparently had something for everyone. While old-school rockers might have enjoyed seeing Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson and Metallica performing live, it is the current industry puppets who reach the youth. And it is their performances that are riddled with symbolism and messages. Unlike the older singers, the performances given by Beyoncé, Katy Perry, and even Mackelmore, were not strictly about the music. Their performances were vehicles to push the Illuminati-sponsored Agenda.
For years, I’ve been stating that music awards ceremonies are a celebration of what the Illuminati industry stands for, as their choreographed format offers the industry an opportunity to imprint the collective mind with specific messages and symbolism. After each award season, I notice a growing number of people realizing that something is “off” with the music industry and that it promotes a specific set of values and attitudes. Is the public getting wiser or is it just all becoming too obvious to ignore? Whether the case may be, the show prompted people such as Former University of Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron to tweet:
Even E! Online tweeted during the show:
Let’s look at the lowlights (a term I coined because that’s pretty much what I do on this site) of the 2014 Grammy Awards.

Beyoncé Representing Beta Kittens

The awards began with Beyoncé singing the words:

I’ve been drinking, I’ve been drinking
I get filthy when that liquor get into me
I’ve been thinking, I’ve been thinking
Why can’t I keep my fingers off it, baby?

From that point, we knew that these awards would probably not be child-friendly. Dressed in a leotard revealing most of her “bootyliciousness”, Beyoncé’s performance was as suggestive as the song’s lyrics. This prompted many parents to complain about why this was televised at 8pm, while children (many of whom look up to Beyoncé) are still awake. Others noted that if Miley Cyrus gave the same performance, there would probably be a violent revolution right about now.
Beyoncé’s performance was in fact an accurate representation of her recently released “visual album”, which contains a bunch of very suggestive videos. After watching that album, I can safely estimate that about 80% of the footage consists of closeups of Beyoncé touching herself in a sensual matter. In fact, in this album, Beyoncé appears to play the role of a Beta Kitten that is programmed to be “on” all the time (if you don’t know about Beta Programming, read this article). Some videos in Beyoncé’s album contain Monarch programming symbolism.

This scene of the video Partition is a true nod to Beta Kitten Programming. There are two Beyoncé’s (representing split of personalities); They are behind bars (representing being an MK slave) and they are covered in animal prints (representing Kitten slaves in Illuminati symbolism).
Beyoncé’s Grammy performance is therefore in line with the main theme of her visual album – Beta Kitten programming. Televised at the very beginning of the awards, her performance is yet another instance an award show exposing millions of young minds to over-sexualization.

Katy Perry the Witch

The most blatant part of the awards was undoubtedly Katy Perry’s performance, which was so blatant it even caused many “non-aware” viewers to be disturbed by its satanic undertones. The performance began with a sinister voice saying:

“She casts spells from crystal balls. Invoking spirits. She put me in a trance.”

Inside a crystal ball, Perry sings while four horned demon-like figures rise above her.

Some of the sinister figures have Baphomet-like horns.
Katy then gets out of the crystal ball moves around with her backup dancers, remotely controlling them as if they were under her spell.

Seeing the performance, we quickly understand that the song is not about love but about being under occult possession.
The chorus of the song basically reflects what happens to those accepting dark pacts … not unlike most of the successful people in the entertainment industry who were in the audience.

So you wanna play with magic
Boy you should know what you’re fallin’ for
Baby do you dare to do this
‘Cause I’m comin’ at you like a dark horse

Then Katy apparently summons a dark horse – is it a reference to the dark horse of the Apocalypse?

The dark horse’s musculature, bluish color, and glowing red eyes are strikingly similar to another horse seen on this site: The “devil horse” of the Denver International Airport.

This scary horse stands in front of the Denver International Airport – a place full of NWO symbolism (read the article about it here). Is the horse in Katy’s performance a reference to the “demon horse” (that’s what people in Denver call it) of the DIA?
Katy then dances around a witch’s broom-turned-stripper pole for a while. To complete the ritual, her backup dancers light up a circle of fire around her.

Fire around Katy while the horned figures watch over her.

The glowing red cross on Perry’s dress is very similar to the red cross of the Knights Templar.
The Knights Templar were a medieval occult secret society that is considered to be the originator of Freemasonry, the Bavarian Illuminati and the keepers of the secrets of sex-magick as practiced by Crowley’s O.T.O.. The Knights Templar were prosecuted due to their alleged worshiping of Baphomet and for practicing of witchcraft. Perry wearing their cross is therefore very fitting. It also represents the occult elite’s philosophy as a whole.

The cover art of Dark Horse features an All-Seeing Eye at the top, signaling that this is sponsored by the occult elite. Also, the bird and the cage hint to the occult mind control elements of the song.
In short, Katy Perry’s performance is the reason why I call most awards ceremonies “mega-rituals”.

Promoting “Maleficent”

Continuing in the exact same vein as Perry’s black magick-themed performance, the Grammy’s were also used to promote the latest Disney movie “Maleficent”.

The movie will feature Angelina Jolie as the horned evil witch from Sleeping Beauty.
The trailer shown at the ceremony featured the song “Once Upon a Dream” sung by Lana Del Rey – another figurehead for Beta Kitten Programming (see 98% of her music videos). Not unlike most of the Grammy’s, this Disney movie appears to be aimed at young people, but there not-so-hidden dark undertones to it.

In the trailer, we see Maleficent, dubbed “the Mistress of All Evil”, placing a curse on baby Aurora. This is a good image to represent what mass media does to the youth.
The trailer ends with Maleficent saying:

“There is evil in this world. Hatred. And Revenge … HAHAHAHAHAH!”

Whatever you say, Disney Corporation.

The Church Service

The awards then took an odd turn when Mackelmore performed his pro-gay song “Same Love”. The performance featured 33 couples (a symbolic Illuminati number) being wed by Queen Latifah. Right after, Madonna, the Grand Priestess of the music industry herself, came out to sing to her subjects.

Holding a scepter, symbol of power, Madonna gives her Grand Priestess’ blessings to the mass weddings.
The performance took place in a mock-church, complete with a gospel choir, under which 33 couples were legally married. That is essentially what the Illuminati industry is trying to do: Become the new religion of the masses … complete with televised mega-rituals.

In Conclusion

As usual, the 2014 Grammy Awards rewarded the artists the industry wanted to reward and pushed the messages the Illuminati wanted to push. While many performances were simple and sober, those given by the most influential artists today were heavy in messages and imagery. From Beyoncé’s Beta-Kitten performance to Katy Perry’s black magick ritual, we once again saw that important events are almost always used to brainwash the youth and to steer it in a specific direction.
Why is it all about indoctrinating the youth? As Katy Perry’s song says: “Cause once you’re mine … There’s no going back.”

Here We Go: Wal-Mart Cuts Guidance, Blames Foodstamps, Weather

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/31/2014 // http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-31/here-we-go-wal-mart-cuts-guidance-blames-cut-foodstamps-weather

• Brazil
• China
• India

 

That didn't take long. Moments ago the world's largest retailer (sorry AMZN) WoeMart (sic) just confirmed what everyone who is not an economist knows - the US consumer is barely alive. The reasons: cut in foodstamps, and of course, the weather: "“Despite a holiday season that delivered positive comps, two factors contributed to lower comp sales performance for the 14-week period for Walmart U.S. First, the sales impact from the reduction in SNAP (the U.S. government Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits that went into effect Nov. 1 is greater than we expected. And, second, eight named winter storms resulted in store closures that impacted traffic throughout the quarter."
And all this just half an hour before we learn just how little savings US consumers have left with which to provide the same kind of one-time boost we saw in early Q4 before it all went to hell.
From the release:

The company provided fourth quarter diluted earnings per share from continuing operations (EPS) guidance of $1.50 to $1.60, which included a $0.10 per share impact from two discrete items, which resulted in an underlying1 EPS guidance range of $1.60 to $1.70. For the full year, the company expected to deliver EPS of $5.01 to $5.11 and accounting for the $0.10 of discrete items, the range for underlying EPS was between $5.11 and $5.21.

“We now anticipate that our underlying EPS for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 will be at or slightly below the low end of our range of $1.60 to $1.70,” said Charles Holley, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. chief financial officer. “For the full year, we expect underlying EPS to be at or slightly below the low end of our range of $5.11 to $5.21.

“Today, we are providing updated information on previously disclosed items, as well as new additional discrete items that were not anticipated when we provided our fourth quarter and full year guidance. These discrete items will impact EPS results for the fourth quarter and the year,” said Holley.

It wasn't just the weather though. The company also listed the following factors:
Detailed explanation on discrete items:

• Brazil and China store closures: Approximately 50 underperforming units between these two markets were closed.
• India transaction: Walmart terminated the franchise and supply agreements related to retail stores. The estimated charge for this transaction is now approximately $0.05 per share versus the previous estimate of $0.04 per share.
• Brazil non-income tax contingencies: The company is subject to tax examinations for non-income taxes in Brazil. A number of these examinations are ongoing, and in certain cases, have resulted in assessments from taxing authorities, some of which we are currently contesting. As part of the company’s standard review process and as a result of changing conditions and circumstances, the company expects to record additional liabilities related to these loss contingencies.
• Brazil employment claim contingencies: We expect to record additional charges related to employment claims. Walmart Brazil has experienced a significant increase in employment claims in recent years as a result of company efforts to improve productivity and reduce costs. The company has performed a detailed review of potential liabilities related to these claims, as well as a review of our historical processes and practices related to accounting for court deposits required to litigate such claims. As a result of this review, the company expects to record charges to increase our liabilities and account for settlements of historical employment claims.
• China store lease expense charges: We identified a historical lease accounting practice that did not conform to our U.S. GAAP-based global policies. As a result, the company expects to record a charge to conform to this accounting practice.
• Sam’s Club U.S restructuring and club closure.: Sam’s Club is implementing a new in-club leadership and staff structure to better align U.S. club teams with the sales volume of each club, and expects to record a charge for severance-related costs. Additionally, one club is being closed.

Well, there's always a reason.

Man shot in the back of the head by FBI during 8-hour interrogation

Was Ibragim Todashev executed by the FBI for knowing too much?

Posted on January 24, 2014 by O.D. in News

Abdulbaki Todashev says his son, Ibragim Todashev, was “executed” by the FBI. He holds up photos of his son’s bullet-riddled body during a press conference. (Source: AP / Alexander Zemlianichenko)

ORLANDO, FL — An unarmed man was shot to death in his own apartment by the FBI after a grueling 8-hour interrogation.  The man was Ibragim Todashev, a Chechen immigrant being investigated because he was an acquaintance of one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.   He was ultimately shot 6 times in the chest and once in the back of the head, which his father describes as an “execution” performed to “silence” his son.  Months later, the Feds still have not offered any cogent explanations of the the incident or why their agents altered their story multiple times.

Ibragim Todashev Orange County booking photo.
(Source: Daily Mail)

Ibragim Todashev’s death came during the third of three separate interrogations by the FBI in the spring of 2013, according to his father, Abdulbaki Todashev. The first time the FBI visited Ibragim Todashev it was to question him about his relationship with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects accused in the Boston Marathon bombings. His second encounter with the FBI dealt with a triple murder in Waltham, Massachusetts, that the police believed Tsarnaev was involved with. The third, and final, interview took place in Orlando, Florida, at the home of Todashev and included both FBI and Massachusetts State Police.
The final interrogation took place on on May 22, 2013.  It took on a different focus and tone than the previous two interrogations. Earlier interviews focused on his relationship to the slain Boston bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarvaev — though officials stated that Todashev was not suspected of involvement in the April 15 bombing. This time, Todashev faced a Boston FBI agent and two Massachusetts State Police troopers, one of which was assigned to the Middlesex district attorney’s office tasked with investigating a triple-homicide unrelated to the Boston bombing incident that took place in the Boston suburb of Waltham on September 11, 2011.

Ibragim Todashev and wife, Reniya Manukyan.
(Source: a-w-i-p.com)

His widow, Reniya Manukyan, says that until mid-2013, he had never been questioned about the murders that had occurred 1.5 years earlier.    During the final interrogation, law enforcement officials grilled Todashev for 8 hours in his own apartment, without a lawyer present.  The situation was highly unconventional.
The interrogators suspected that Tsarnaev carried out the Waltham murders, and have said that Todashev implicated Tsarnaev before being shot and killed.  Law enforcement sources claim that at about 12:15 in the morning, Todashev sat down at a table brought into the room by agents to write a formal confession regarding the Waltham murders. He never wrote a word, but instead overturned the table and lunged at the interrogator, forcing the confrontation and justifying the FBI agent to shoot Todashev 7 times.
According to a statement released by the FBI the day of the killing:

“The agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers, and other law enforcement personnel were interviewing an individual in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by the individual. During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries.”

Todashev was shot 6 times in the chest and once in the back of the head, autopsy photos revealed.
The FBI’s narrative contradicted itself regarding whether Todashev was armed.  Some accounts stated Todashev was armed with a knife, others said a metal pole or broomstick, and another alleged a samurai sword.

“Should something happen to me, call my parents.”

A New York Times article claims that injuries sustained by the agent to his face were due to the table being thrown at him and knocking him down.  The WBUR sources claim that the state trooper witnessed Todashev “coming at him with ‘a pipe’ and believed Todashev would have split his skull if the agent had not shot first.”
These allegations posed a problem given that Todashev was found without a weapon.  Two law enforcement officers, whose names have not been disclosed to the public, told the Washington Post that Ibragim Todashev was unarmed when he was shot and killed by the FBI.
The fact that the FBI cannot get its story straight has only served to cast doubt on everything that has been said so far regarding Todashev’s relationship to the Tsarnaevs and the Boston bombings.  Alexander Abad-Santos, author at The Wire, impressively documented each of the conflicting reports and their original sources.

Khusen Tamarov (left) and work-out buddy Ibragim Todashev (right). (Source: MCT)

During the exceedingly lengthy interrogation of Ibragim Todashev, his friend, Khusen Taramov, was also questioned by the FBI separately outside of Todashev’s home.  Taramov says that Todashev wanted him to remain in his house to be a witness, but the FBI quickly separated the two. “Should something happen to me, call my parents,” were Todashev’s last words to his friend. Todashev’s father claims that Taramov was “sent off” after being interviewed for three hours and told to return later due to the ongoing questioning of Todashev, noting that “the interrogation would take a long time.”  Hours later when Taramov returned, local police and an ambulance were already responding to the scene of Todashev’s death.
The FBI and Department of Justice are conducting an internal investigation into the shooting, but the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the ACLU have called for independent inquiries into the shooting due to the government’s secrecy surrounding the case. Both requests have been rejected by law enforcement, saying that it would be inappropriate.
In October, the Boston Globe reported that the Florida medical examiner’s office said that Todashev’s autopsy report was completed and ready for release on July 8th of 2013. The following Tuesday, the 16th , the medical examiner’s office told reporters that the FBI had ordered the office not to release the autopsy report because of the federal agency’s ongoing internal investigation into Todashev’s death.

Khusen Taramov
(Source: dailymail.co.uk)

“(The FBI) took me and my friend, the suspect that got killed. They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back.
They never brought him back.” — Khusen Taramov

“Maybe my son knew something, some information the police did not want to be made public. Maybe they wanted to silence my son,” Todashev’s father said.
The secrecy surrounding the shooting and the nature of the internal investigation has done little to help answer lingering questions while creating many more. In a newly detailed account of the interrogation, David Boeri of WBUR Boston shines unprecedented light on the events leading up to Ibragim Todashev’s death. His sources say that at some point during the long night of questioning in the cramped, oppressively hot condominium, Todashev cracked and blamed Tsarnaev for the Waltham murders.
“I was there, but I didn’t do the murders,” Todashev allegedly said, according to those who killed him.

Ibragim Todashev’s blood-spattered apartment. (Source: Abdulbaki Todashev)

One irregularity noted in Boeri’s article is the strange phone call made by the state trooper assigned to the Middlesex D.A.  The trooper apparently left the room to place a call to officials back in Middlesex, described as “no ordinary call at midnight.”  This left only the FBI agent and the other state trooper in the room with Todashev. According to the articles sources, Todashev was able to leave the room where the remaining state trooper observed him hide what he believed could have been a potential weapon. This begs the question of why such an important interrogation took place in such an unsecured location.
“They tortured a man for eight hours with no attorney, no witnesses, nobody. We can only guess what was going on there, until there is an official investigation,” the elder Todashev said.
“He did not believe the Tsarnaevs did this. He said they had been set up. These were his exact words.”
The latest account of the chaos in the interrogation room claims that the FBI agent fired seven bullets in two bursts. The first cluster of three shots put Todashev on the ground momentarily. The second barrage came after sources say Todashev unbelievably rose from the ground after being hit three times and again went after the agent. The agent fired four more shots, riddling Todashev’s body with a total of seven bullets. Todashev’s father, however, believes that autopsy photos prove that one of those bullets was fired into the back of his son’s head.
Zaurbek Sadakhanov, a Chechen Lawyer present at the May 30th, 2013, news conference in Moscow, Russia, and which included Abdulbaki Toadashev, offered a pointed litany of unanswered questions lingering around the suspicious death: “Why was he interrogated three times without a lawyer? Why no recording? Why seven shots? And why should I believe their version? Why do American policemen believe they can do whatever they want?”
Former Los Angeles police officer turned investigative reporter Mike Ruppert gave his opinion of the encounter to RT.com identifying two irregularities with the official story being reported in the media. First, he notes that standard operating procedures do not seem to have been even remotely followed, and second, that it appears to him that the FBI is involved in setting the situation up.

“There’s an escalation-of-force scale which was obviously not followed in this case”, he said, referring to the officers’ decision to draw firearms. “But my second huge problem with the law enforcement story is he (Todashev) was supposed to be signing a confession to a triple murder…I don’t care even if you are the FBI – which doesn’t have a good reputation – you have somebody who’s about to sign a confession, you have him in a jail house, in a secure setting, and the police officers around him are not armed because he’s in a secure setting. For the FBI, this was, at best, horribly mishandled. But it sounds to me very much like they went there with the intent to provoke him and stage a shooting,” Ruppert went on, recounting a similar shooting from decades ago.

Ibragim Todashev was active in local MMA gyms. (Source: Splash News)

Why would the FBI interview a suspect whom they believed to be violent, connected to alleged terrorists, and an accessory to murder in his home at midnight rather than within the security of a police station of FBI office with an attorney or prosecutor present?

“Maybe my son knew something, some information the police did not want to be made public. Maybe they wanted to silence my son.”

Perhaps the answer lies in what he may have known regarding the Boston bombings: “He did not believe the Tsarnaevs did this,” Todashev’s father said. “He said they had been set up. These were his exact words.”
“A reasonable and prudent investigator before conducting an accusatory interrogation would ensure his or her safety and the safety of his subject in question,” said Tom Shamshak, a police trainer, instructor in investigations at Boston University and former Massachusetts police chief.
For Todashev’s sake — or anyone’s for that matter — he should not have spoken a word to the FBI without a lawyer being present.  This provides him not only with legal consultation, but a witness when being confronted by those who might try to do him harm.
But was he allowed a lawyer?  The FBI, in its spree of interrogations, rounded up another of Todashev’s acquaintances, Ashurmamad Miraliev.  He says he was interrogated for six hours only about associations with Todashev despite repeatedly requesting his right to an attorney, CAIR-Florida said. The FBI agents allegedly responded, “That is not happening.”
While there is no shortage of varied, often conflicting accounts of what happened at the home of Ibragim Todashev on the night of May 22, 2013, there remains a short supply of credible, objective witnesses to the event. In the absence of a video recording of the interrogation, there are no disinterested, third-party witnesses left to give an evenhanded account of the events leading up to the death of Todashev. It is not unreasonable to believe that his family and friends may never know the whole truth about why he was killed in a tiny room on a sweltering night in Orlando.
More worrisome still is the precedent an event like this creates for law enforcement to conduct “extrajudicial executions” and outright murder without fear of reprisal. Ibragim Todashev’s death should sound an alarm for foreigners and citizens alike who fear the loss of our constitutional rights and breakdown of the rule of law in police-state America. Earlier fears of assassinations taking place in within the borders of the United States seem to have now been confirmed with the state-sponsored termination of Ibragim Todashev due to his alleged ties to the accused Boston bombers. To paraphrase former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, perhaps he should have had more responsible friends.
Graphic pictures of the aftermath of Ibragim Todashev’s encounter with American law enforcement can be viewed online: here. Some readers may find the photos unsettling.

Ibragim Todashev’s Father Writes Open Letter to Obama, Releases Photos Surrounding Son’s Death [Warning: Graphic]

Abdul-Baki Todashev is calling for justice for his son, the Tamerlan Tsarnaev associate who was killed by the FBI in Florida.

By Susan Zalkind | Boston Daily | December 30, 2013 //http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/12/30/ibragim-todashevs-father-writes-open-letter-obama-releases-photos-surrounding-sons-death-warning-graphic/

Abdul-Baki Todashev, the father of Ibragim Todashev, the Tamerlan Tsarnaev associate shot to death in his Orlando, Fla., apartment by a FBI agent in the company of two Massachusetts State Troopers in May, has released an open letter to President Obama calling for justice.
His letter includes photos of the bloodied Orlando apartment taken about a week and half after Ibragim was killed, images of his bullet-ridden body, and a photo of his knee following a surgery he had in March.
Federal prosecutors have officially stated the government’s contention that Todashev implicated Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a 2011 triple murder in Waltham. Anonymous FBI sources also told reporters that Todashev implicated himself in those murders, along with conflicting reports about how Todashev died.
In the letter, Abdul-Baki Todashev accuses FBI agents of deliberately killing and torturing his son (citing bruise marks near his left eye) and threatening and deporting his son’s acquaintances. Todashev asks the president to ensure that the FBI does not interfere with the independent investigation into his son’s death.
Earlier this year, Todashev’s live-in girlfriend, Tatiana Gruzdeva, was arrested and deported to Moscow. ICE officials told her she was deported for giving Boston magazine an interview. At the time of the interview, she was granted deferred action by ICE. It is unclear what the terms of her deferred action were. Ashurmamad Miraliev, a friend of Todashev, was denied repeated requests to an attorney during a six-hour interrogation with the FBI after his arrest according to the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Abdul-Baki Todashev states in the letter:

“Did my son know that he had the right to remain silent or did he have rights at all, including the right to live? Being a citizen of another country he might not be aware of the laws as he was only 27 years old and wanted to live so much. No, they left no chances for him inflicting 13 gunshot wounds and multiple hematomas on his body. After what FBI agents have done to him whatever excuses they come up with nobody would believe them because my son is dead and cannot talk for himself. They did it deliberately so that he can never speak and never take part in court hearings. They put pressure on my son’s friends to prevent them from coming to the court and speaking the truth.
I rely on you, Mr. President, and hope that the prosecutor’s office and the court do not let the agencies conducting internal investigation on this case prevent the truth from coming to light so that at least some part of our grief, caused by the murder of our son, is relieved, and that the murderers stand trial instead of sit in their desk chairs.”

Florida State Attorney Jeffrey Ashton is currently conducting an investigation into the FBI killing. Earlier this month, he released a statement saying that he recently received additional information from the United States Department of Justice and would release the findings of his report early next year.


Below, the images released by Todashev. Warning: Some photos are extremely graphic.

State crime labs are incentivized to get false convictions

Study shows how many crime labs are paid per conviction... not per test.

Posted on January 31, 2014 by PSUSA in News

(Source: HealthDay)

To understand why the United States is the most incarcerated nation in the world, all aspects of the legal system must be scrutinized.  One of the least considered points of corruption is the crime lab.
A recent study found that crime labs across the country are literally being incentivized to turn out results that will be favorable to prosecutors in getting criminal convictions.   Some say that this introduces a point of compromise in a process that is supposed to be free of bias and partiality.
Its not hard to imagine why.  Biased reward schedules are how animals are trained.  When a performance is rewarded, a subject will produce more of it.  When a performance is not rewarded, a subject will produce less of it.
Like a puppy being rewarded for performing a trick, the government rewards crime labs for “verifying” that unknown substances are illegal narcotics; for finding a driver’s blood alcohol content to be over a certain arbitrary number; for determining that a package of drugs is over a certain arbitrary weight so a more draconian charge can be imposed.
Impossible?  Consider the recent corruption scandal in Massachusetts, in which a biased crime lab chemist used her position to intentionally forge test results, casting doubt over the validity of tens of thousands of cases.
Here’s what Roger Koppl and Meghan Sacks found in a study for the journal Criminal Justice Ethics:

Funding crime labs through court-assessed fees creates another channel for bias to enter crime lab analyses. In jurisdictions with this practice the crime lab receives a sum of money for each conviction of a given type. Ray Wickenheiser says, ‘‘Collection of court costs is the only stable source of funding for the Acadiana Crime Lab. $10 is received for each guilty plea or verdict from each speeding ticket, and $50 from each DWI (Driving While Impaired) and drug offense.’’
In Broward County, Florida, ‘‘Monies deposited in the Trust Fund are principally court costs assessed upon conviction of driving or boating under the influence ($50) or selling, manufacturing, delivery, or possession of a controlled substance ($100).’’
Several state statutory schemes require defendants to pay crime laboratory fees upon conviction. North Carolina General Statutes require, ‘‘[f]or the services of’’ the state or local crime lab, that judges in criminal cases assess a $600 fee to be charged ‘‘upon conviction’’ and remitted to the law enforcement agency containing the lab whenever that lab ‘‘performed DNA analysis of the crime, tests of bodily fluids of the defendant for the presence of alcohol or controlled substances, or analysis of any controlled substance possessed by the defendant or the defendant’s agent.’’
Illinois crime labs receive fees upon convictions for sex offenses, controlled substance offenses, and those involving driving under the influence. Mississippi crime labs require crime laboratory fees for various conviction types, including arson, aiding suicide, and driving while intoxicated.
Similar provisions exist in Alabama, New Mexico, Kentucky, New Jersey, Virginia, and, until recently, Michigan. Other states have broadened the scope even further. Washington statutes require a $100 crime lab fee for any conviction that involves lab analysis. Kansas statutes require offenders ‘‘to pay a separate court cost of $400 for every individual offense if forensic science or laboratory services or forensic computer examination services are provided in connection with the investigation.’’
In addition to those already listed, the following states also require crime lab fees in connection with various conviction types: Arizona, California, Missouri, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.

Could crime lab incentives corrupt the results of certain unscrupulous technicians?  It would be naïve to believe it couldn’t.
Absolute impartiality should be maintained in the analysis of evidence.  The integrity of the system, and the freedom of innocent people, depends on it.  Crime labs should never be given preferential treatment for finding a certain result.  Technicians should be isolated from the names and details of the cases, and audited for accuracy with periodic case-neutral samples.
An even better reform would be to stop imprisoning people for arbitrary reasons such as “possession” of a substance without permission.

The Chinese High Speed Threat. Hypersonic Weapon Use Is Nuclear & Conventional

February 1st, 2014 – The Washing Free Beacon

China’s new high-speed maneuvering warhead is a “great concern” because it appears designed for use with both nuclear and conventional Chinese military forces, a Pentagon intelligence official said Thursday.
Lee Fuell, a technical intelligence specialist with the Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center, said during a congressional China commission hearing the recently tested hypersonic glide vehicle “is basically a ballistic missile-launched system that gets the target—or gets the payload fast and high, pitches over, dives to hypersonic speed, and then basically just glides to the target.”
“At this point, we think that’s associated with their nuclear deterrent forces,” Fuell said. “Of great concern would be if they were to apply the same technology and capability with a conventional warhead or even just without a warhead because of the kinetic energy that it has.”
Combined with medium-range ballistic missiles “hypersonic vehicles of any kind—whether they’re glide vehicles or cruise missiles—are extremely difficult to defend against because just the time is so compressed between initial detection, being able to get a track, being able to get a fire control solution,” Fuell said.
The ultra high speeds make the maneuvering missiles difficult to counter with missile defense interceptors, he added.
“If that’s combined with more traditional ballistic missile attacks forcing a target to defend against very high aspect warheads coming in this way at the same time they have to defend against low altitude, very high speed targets coming in this way, it makes the defense problems orders of magnitude better,” he said.
The Washington Free Beacon first disclosed the test of an experimental hypersonic glide vehicle on Jan. 9. The vehicle appears to be an unpowered maneuvering vehicle that is lofted to near space and then is guided to its target at speeds of up to Mach 10 or nearly 8,000 miles per hour.
Chinese military commentators said the vehicle is planned for use in potential attacks against aircraft carriers at sea.
Fuell’s comments expressing concerns about the hypersonic threat contrast with those of Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, who said last week that he was not particularly concerned by the Chinese hypersonic weapon. Locklear later acknowledged to reporters that the high-speed weapon would be a factor in “the calculation of how we’re going to maintain a peaceful security environment in the future.”
Commission member Larry Wortzel, who asked Fuell about the hypersonic weapon, said China is developing the high-speed vehicle as an outgrowth of its anti-ship ballistic missile, the DF-21D.
“It’s a big deal,” Wortzel said in an interview.
Wortzel said that unless the U.S. military develops directed energy weapons, including lasers and pulsed rail guns “we don’t have a counter” to the hypersonic missile threat.
“It really forces us further away from China’s coasts,” he said.
In a prepared statement for the hearing, Fuell said China is developing a range of systems designed to counter ballistic missile defenses, including maneuverable reentry vehicles, or MaRVs, and multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs. The hypersonic glide vehicle is considered a maneuvering re-entry vehicle.
Other anti-anti-missile systems include decoys, chaff, jamming, thermal shielding, and anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, he said.
“Together with the increased mobility and survivability of the new generation of missiles, these technologies and training enhancements strengthen China’s nuclear force and enhance its strategic strike capabilities,” Fuell said.
New long-range mobile missiles and China’s beginning of strategic missile submarine patrols are expected to give the Chinese military more sophisticated command and control systems.
On China’s multiple warhead missiles, Fuell said the additional warheads will bolster the capability of its strategic nuclear forces.
“MIRVs provide operational flexibility that a single warhead does not,” he said. “Specifically, they enable more efficient targeting, allowing more targets to be hit with fewer missiles, more missiles to be employed per target, or a larger reserve of weapons held against contingency.”
China is expected to use its MIRVs to be able to hit more targets and allow a greater number of weapons to be held in reserve.
He did not say whether China has deployed multiple warheads only that it appears to be preparing to do so in the future.
The use of multiple warheads is likely to renew debate within U.S. intelligence circles about the number of China’s nuclear warheads. U.S. intelligence agencies claim China has around 200 to 300 warheads.
However, outside analysts insist that, based on the number of strategic missiles and the estimated large amount of fissile material produced by China, Beijing’s strategic warhead stockpile is far larger, perhaps between 600 and 1,000 warheads.
Fuell testified that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is steadily building up both ballistic and cruise missiles that are increasing in range and precision.
“PLA ballistic and cruise missile development is progressing at a steady pace,” he said in prepared remarked. “The PLA is expanding its conventional medium range ballistic missiles to increase the range at which it can conduct precision strikes against land targets and naval ships, including aircraft carriers, operating far from China’s shores out to the first island chain.”
Conventional intermediate-range missiles, like the maneuvering DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile is also being developed and will “increase [China’s] capability for near-precision strike out to the second island chain” – hundreds of miles from Chinese coasts.
China is also building long-range air- and ground-launched cruise missiles, he said.
“In the sense that China is developing a large number of new precision guided weapons, whereas 10 years ago they had very few, there has been an acceleration in modernization,” Fuell said.
“New precision guided munitions and conventional missiles continue to emerge and will continue for the foreseeable future as Chinese investment in these technologies remains high.”
Land-attack cruise missiles (LACM) will be combined with ballistic missile strikes in combat, Fuell said. The weapons combine the capability of hitting targets at long distance with high accuracy, he said.
“These weapons are likely to reduce the burden on ballistic missile forces, as well as creating somewhat safer strike opportunities for Chinese aircrew, allowing them to engage from much longer distances and/or from advantageous locations of their own choosing,” Fuell said. “This in turn will complicate their adversaries’ air and missile defense problem.”
By combining attacks with both cruise and ballistic missiles, the Chinese will be able to hit a range of targets while making it more difficult for missile defenses, he said.
On China’s naval forces, Jesse L. Karotkin, senior intelligence officer for China with the Office of Naval Intelligence, said China’s navy is expanding from a coastal force to a modern, high-tech force, with an aircraft carrier, large numbers of submarines, and advanced warships.
The new Chinese navy is preparing for a conflict with Taiwan and the enforcement of its broad maritime claims.
The PLA Navy “currently possesses approximately 77 principal surface combatants, more than 60 submarines, 55 medium and large amphibious ships, and roughly 85 missile-equipped small combatants,” Karotkin said.
Last year over 50 naval ships were laid down, launched, or commissioned and a similar number is expected for this year.
“Major qualitative improvements are occurring within naval aviation and the submarine force, which are increasingly capable of striking targets hundreds of miles from the Chinese mainland,” he said.
In particular, anti-ship cruise missiles and China’s DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile “will allow China to significantly expand its ‘counter-intervention’ capability further into the Philippine Sea and South China Sea over the next decade,” he said.
“Many of these capabilities are designed specifically to deter or prevent U.S. military intervention in the region.”
China is also building up its naval aviation forces and has deployed armed drones, he said.
China’s aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, is still being developed and has limited capabilities, Karotkin said.
“The Liaoning is suited for fleet air defense missions, rather than U.S.-style, long range power projection,” he said.
China’s most modern submarine is the Yuan class attack submarine. Eight of the submarines, which are equipped with an advanced and quiet air-independent power propulsion, are currently deployed and up to 12 more are being built.
Its nuclear submarines include three JIN-class missile submarines that will begin operational deployments this year. They are armed with JL-2 submarine-launched missiles.
“With a range in excess of 4,000 nautical miles (4,600 miles), the JL-2 submarine launched ballistic missile, will enable the JIN to strike Hawaii, Alaska, and possibly western portions of [the continental United States] from East Asian waters,” he said, noting that a total of five submarines are planned.
Chinese military drones (UAV) include several strike and intelligence aircraft.
“For well over a decade, China has actively pursued UAV technology and they are emerging among the worldwide leaders in UAV development,” Karotkin said. “China’s latest achievement was the unveiling of their first prototype unmanned combat aerial vehicle, the Lijan, which features a blended-wing design as well as low observable technologies.”
Karotkin warned that China intends to settle its several maritime disputes through diplomatic means but is preparing to use force in the future.
“In the event of a crisis, the PLA [Navy] has a variety of options to defend its claimed territorial sovereignty and maritime interests,” he said. “The PLA [Navy] could lead an amphibious campaign to seize key disputed island features, or conduct blockade or [sea lanes of communication] interdiction campaigns to secure strategic operating areas.”
Rick Fisher, a China military affairs specialist, said the testimony by the two intelligence officials was significant.
“It seems that the Obama administration is turning a corner on its willingness to disclose China’s military buildup,” Fisher said.
“Following on Undersecretary of Defense Frank Kendall’s stark warning on Monday that China could overtake U.S. military technology in five years, both the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center have provided their most detailed assessments of China’s rapidly improving naval and air power,” he said.
“It is this level of detail that should also be reflected in the Pentagon’s annual report to the Congress on PLA modernization.”

“Big Brother is Watching You”. Beyond Orwell’s Worst Nightmare

By Marjorie Cohn

Global Research, February 01, 2014

Huffington Post

Region: USA

Theme: Intelligence, Police State & Civil Rights

“Big Brother is Watching You,” George Orwell wrote in his disturbing book 1984. But, as Mikko Hypponen points out, Orwell “was an optimist.” Orwell never could have imagined that the National Security Agency (NSA) would amass metadata on billions of our phone calls and 200 million of our text messages every day. Orwell could not have foreseen that our government would read the content of our emails, file transfers, and live chats from the social media we use.
In his recent speech on NSA reforms, President Obama cited as precedent Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty, who patrolled the streets at night, “reporting back any signs that the British were preparing raids against America’s early Patriots.” This was a weak effort to find historical support for the NSA spying program.  After all, Paul Revere and his associates were patrolling the streets, not sorting through people’s private communications.
To get a more accurate historical perspective, Obama should have considered how our founding fathers reacted to searches conducted by the British before the revolution.  The British used “general warrants,” which authorized blanket searches without any individualized suspicion or specificity of what the colonial authorities were seeking.
At the American Continental Congress in 1774, in a petition to King George III, Congress protested against the colonial officers’ unlimited power of search and seizure. The petition charged that power had been used “to break open and enter houses, without the authority of any civil magistrate founded on legal information.”
When the founders later put the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures into the Bill of Rights, they were attempting to ensure that our country would not become a police state.
Those who maintain that government surveillance is no threat to our liberty should consider the abuse that occurred nearly 200 years later, when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover conducted the dreaded COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program).  It was designed to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” political and activist groups. During the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, in an effort to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, our government engaged in widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone with unorthodox political views. Thousands of people were jailed, blacklisted, and fired as the FBI engaged in “red-baiting.”
In the 1960’s, the FBI targeted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a program called “Racial Matters.” King’s campaign to register African-American voters in the South raised the hackles of the FBI, which disingenuously claimed that King’s organization was being infiltrated by communists. But the FBI was really worried that King’s civil rights campaign “represented a clear threat to the established order of the U.S.” The FBI went after King with a vengeance, wiretapping his phones, and securing personal information which it used to try to discredit him, hoping to drive him to divorce and suicide.
Obama would likely argue that our modern day “war on terror” is unlike COINTELPRO because it targets real, rather than imagined, threats.  But, as Hypponen says, “It’s not the war on terror.” Indeed, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent federal privacy watchdog, found “no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”
The NSA spying program captures all of us, including European leaders, people in Mexico, Brazil, the United Nations, and the European Union Parliament, not just the terrorists. Although Obama assured us that the government “does not collect intelligence to suppress criticism or dissent,” our history, particularly during COINTELPRO, tells us otherwise.
Obama proposed some reforms to the NSA program, but left in place the most egregious aspects. He said that the NSA must secure approval of a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before it gets access to the phone records of an individual. But that is a secret court, whose judges are appointed by the conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, and it has almost never turned down an executive branch wiretapping request since it was created in 1978. Most significantly, Obama did not say that surveillance without judicial warrants or individual suspicion should be halted.

“One of [Obama’s] biggest lapses,” a New York Times editorial noted,

“was his refusal to acknowledge that his entire speech, and all of the important changes he now advocates, would never have happened without the disclosures by [Edward] Snowden, who continues to live in exile and under the threat of decades in prison if he returns to this country.”

Snowden’s revelations will reportedly continue to emerge. And you can bet that Orwell will continue to turn in his grave for a long time to come.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, a past president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her next book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues,” will be published this fall by University of California Press.

Background on the HAARP Project

By Rosalie Bertell

Earthpulse Press
November 5, 1996

Military interest in space became intense during and after World War II because of the introduction of rocket science, the companion to nuclear technology. The early versions include the buzz bomb and guided missiles. They were thought of as potential carriers of both nuclear and conventional bombs. Rocket technology and nuclear weapon technology developed simultaneously between 1945 and 1963. During this time of intensive atmospheric nuclear testing, explosions at various levels above and below the surface of the earth were tried. Some of the now familiar descriptions of the earth's protective atmosphere, such as the existence of the Van Allen belts, were based on information gained through stratospheric and ionospheric experimentation.

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The earth's atmosphere consists of the troposphere, from sea level to about 16 km above the earth's surface; the stratosphere (which contains the ozone level) which extends from about the 16 to 48 km above the earth; and the ionosphere which extends from 48 km to over 50,000 km above the surface of the earth. The earth's protective atmosphere or "skin" extends beyond 3,200 km above sea level to the large magnetic fields, called the Van Allen Belts, which can capture the charged particles sprayed through the cosmos by the solar and galactic winds. These belts were discovered in 1958 during the first weeks of the operation of America's first satellite, Explorer I. They appear to contain charged particles trapped in the earth's gravity and magnetic fields. Primary galactic cosmic rays enter the solar system from interstellar space, and are made up of protons with energies above 100 MeV, extending up to astronomically high energies. They make up about 10% of the high energy rays. Solar rays are generally of lower energy, below 20 MeV (which is still high energy in earth terms). These high energy particles are affected by the earth's magnetic field and by geomagnetic latitude (distance above or below the geomagnetic equator). The flux density of low energy protons at the top of the atmosphere is normally greater at the poles than at the equator. The density also varies with solar activity, a minimum when solar flares are at a maximum.

The Van Allen belts capture charged particles (protons, electrons and alpha particles) and these spiral along the magnetic force lines toward the polar regions where the force lines converge. They are reflected back and forth between the magnetic force lines near the poles. The lower Van Allen Belt is about 7700 km above the earth's surface, and the outer Van Allen Belt is about 51,500 km above the surface. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Van Allen belts are most intense along the equator, and effectively absent over the poles. They dip to 400 km over the South Atlantic Ocean, and are about 1,000 km high over the Central Pacific Ocean. In the lower Van Allen Belt, the proton intensity is about 20,000 particles with energy above 30 MeV per second per square centimetre. Electrons reach a maximum energy of 1 MeV, and their intensity has a maximum of 100 million per second per square centimetre. In the outer Belt, proton energy averages only 1 MeV. For comparison, most charged particles discharged in a nuclear explosion are range between 0.3 and 3 MeV, while diagnostic medical X-ray has peak voltage around 0.5 MeV.

Project Argus (1958)

Between August and September 1958, the US Navy exploded three fission type nuclear bombs 480 km above the South Atlantic Ocean, in the part of the lower Van Allen Belt closest to the earth's surface. In addition, two hydrogen bombs were detonated 160 km over Johnston Island in the Pacific. This was called, by the military, "the biggest scientific experiment ever undertaken". It was designed by the US Department of Defence and the US Atomic Energy Commission, under the code name Project Argus. The purpose appears to be to assess the impact of high altitude nuclear explosions on radio transmission and radar operations because of the electro-magnetic pulse (EMP), and to increase understanding of the geomagnetic field and the behaviour of the charged particles in it.

This gigantic experiment created new (inner) magnetic radiation belts encompassing almost the whole earth, and injected sufficient electrons and other energetic particles into the ionosphere to cause world wide effects. The electrons travelled back and forth along magnetic force lines, causing an artificial "aurora" when striking the atmosphere near the North Pole. US Military planed to create a "telecommunications shield" in the ionosphere, reported in 13-20 August 1961, Keesings Historisch Archief (K.H.A.). This shield would be created "in the ionosphere at 3,000 km height, by bringing into orbit 350,000 million copper needles, each 2-4 cm long (total weight 16 kg), forming a belt 10 km thick and 40 km wide, the needles spaced about 100 m apart." This was designed to replace the ionosphere "because telecommunications are impaired by magnetic storms and solar flares". The US planned to add to the number of copper needles if the experiment proved to be successful. This plan was strongly opposed by the International Union of Astronomers.

Project Starfish (1962)

On 9 July 1962, the US began a further series of experiments with the ionosphere. From their description: "one kiloton device, at a height of 60 km and one megaton and one multi-megaton, at several hundred kilometres height" (K.H.A., 29 June 1962). These tests seriously disturbed the lower Van Allen Belt, substantially altering its shape and intensity. "In this experiment the inner Van Allen Belt will be practically destroyed for a period of time; particles from the Belt will be transported to the atmosphere. It is anticipated that the earth's magnetic field will be disturbed over long distances for several hours, preventing radio communication. The explosion in the inner radiation belt will create an artificial dome of polar light that will be visible from Los Angeles."(K.H.A. 11 May 1962). A Fijian Sailor, present at this nuclear explosion told me that the whole sky was on fire and he thought it would be the end of the world. This was the experiment which called forth the strong protest of the Queen's Astronomer, Sir Martin Ryle in the UK.

"The ionosphere (according to the understanding at that time) that part of the atmosphere between 65 and 80 km and 280-320 km height, will be disrupted by mechanical forces caused by the pressure wave following the explosion. At the same time, large quantities of ionizing radiation will be released, further ionizing the gaseous components of the atmosphere at this height. This ionization effect is strengthened by the radiation from the fission products...... The lower Van Allen Belt, consisting of charged particles that move along the geomagnetic field lines ... will similarly be disrupted. As a result of the explosion, this field will be locally destroyed, while countless new electrons will be introduced into the lower belt." (K.H.A. 11 May 1962)

"On 19 July.... NASA announced that as a consequence of the high altitude nuclear test of July 9, a new radiation belt had been formed, stretching from a height of about 400 km to 1600 km; it can be seen as a temporary extension of the lower Van Allen Belt." (K.H.A. 5 August 1962)

As explained in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "... Starfish made a much wider belt (than Project Argus) that extends from low altitude out past L=3 (i.e. three earth radiuses or about 13,000 km above the surface of the earth)" Later in 1962, the USSR undertook similar planetary experiments, creating three new radiation belts between 7,000 and 13,000 km above the earth. According to the Encyclopaedia, the electron fluxes in the lower Van Allen Belt have changed markedly since the 1962 high-altitude nuclear explosions by the US and USSR, never returning to their former state. According to American scientists, it could take many hundreds of years for the Van Allen Belts to restabilise at their normal levels. (Research done by: Nigel Harle, Borderland Archives, Cortenbachstraat 32, 6136 CH Sittard, Netherlands.)

SPS: Solar Power Satellite Project (1968)

In 1968 the US military proposed Solar Powered Satellites in geostationary orbit some 40,000 km above the earth, which would intercept solar radiation using solar cells on satellites and transmit it via a microwave beam to receiving antennas, called rectennas, on earth. The US Congress mandated the Department of Energy and NASA to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment on this project, to be completed by June 1980, and costing $25 Million. This project was designed to construct 60 Solar Powered Satellites over a thirty year period at a cost between $500 and $800 thousand million (in 1968 dollars), providing 10% of the US energy needs in the year 2025 at a cost of $3000 per kW. At that time, the project cost was two to three times larger than the whole Department of Energy budget, and the projected cost of the electricity was well above the cost of most conventional energy sources. The rectenna sites on earth were expected to take up to 145 square kilometres of land, and would preclude habitation by any humans, animals or even vegetation. Each Satellite was to be the size of Manhattan Island.

Saturn V Rocket (1975)

Due to a malfunction, the Saturn V Rocket burned unusually high in the atmosphere, above 300 km. This burn produced "a large ionospheric hole" (Mendillo, M. Et al., Science 187,343, 1975). The disturbance reduced the total electron content more than 60% over an area 1,000 km in radius, and lasted for several hours. It prevented all telecommunications over a large area of the Atlantic Ocean. The phenomenon was apparently caused by a reaction between the exhaust gases and ionospheric oxygen ions. The reaction emitted a 6300 A airglow. Between 1975 and 1981 NASA and the US Military began to design ways to test this new phenomena through deliberate experimentation with the ionosphere.

SPS Military Implications (1978)

Early review of the Solar Powered Satellite Project began in around 1978, and I was on the review panel. Although this was proposed as an energy program, it had significant military implications. One of the most significant, first pointed out by Michael J. Ozeroff, was the possibility of developing a satellite borne beam weapon for anti-ballistic missile (ABM) use. The satellites were to be in geosynchronous orbits, each providing an excellent vantage point from which an entire hemisphere can be surveyed continuously. It was speculated that a high energy laser beam could function as a thermal weapon to disable or destroy enemy missiles. There was some discussion of electron weapon beams, through the use of a laser beam to preheat a path for the following electron beam.

The SPS was also described as a psychological and anti-personnel weapon, which could be directed toward an enemy. If the main microwave beam was redirected away from its rectenna, toward enemy personnel, it could use an infrared radiation wavelength (invisible) as an anti-personnel weapon. It might also be possible to transmit high enough energy to ignite combustible materials. Laser beam power relays could be made from the SPS satellite to other satellites or platforms, for example aircraft, for military purposes. One application might be a laser powered turbofan engine which would receive the laser beam directly in its combustion chamber, producing the required high temperature gas for its cruising operation. This would allow unlimited on-station cruise time. As a psychological weapon, the SPS was capable of causing general panic.

The SPS would be able to transmit power to remote military operations anywhere needed on earth. The manned platform of the SPS would provide surveillance and early warning capability, and ELF linkage to submarines. It would also provide the capability of jamming enemy communications. The potential for jamming and creating communications is significant. The SPS was also capable of causing physical changes in the ionosphere.

President Carter approved the SPS Project and gave it a go-ahead, in spite of the reservation which many reviewers, myself included, expressed. Fortunately, it was so expensive, exceeding the entire Department of Energy budget, that funding was denied by the Congress. I approached the United Nations Committee on Disarmament on this project, but was told that as long as the program was called Solar Energy by the United States, it could not be considered a weapons project. The same project resurfaced in the US under President Reagan, moved to the much larger budget of the Department of Defence, and called Star Wars. Since this is more recent history, I will not discuss the debate which raged over this phase of the plan.

By 1978, it was apparent to the US Military that communications in a nuclear hostile environment would not be possible using traditional methods of radio and television technology (Jane's Military Communications 1978). By 1982, GTE Sylvania (Needham Heights, Massachusetts), had developed a command control electronic sub-system for the US Air Force's Ground Launch Cruise Missiles (GLCM) that would enable military commanders to monitor and control the missile prior to launch both in hostile and non-hostile environments. The system contains six radio subsystems, created with visible light using a dark beam (not visible), resistant to the disruptions experienced by radio and television. Dark beams contribute to the formation of energetic plasma in the atmosphere. This plasma can become visible as smog or fog. Some has a different charge than the sun's energy, and accumulates in places where the sun's energy is absent, like the polar regions in the winter. When the polar spring occurs, the sun appears and repels this plasma, contributing to holes in the ozone layer. This military system is called: Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN). (See The SECOM II Communication System, by Wayne Olsen, SAND 78-0391, Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 1978). This innovative emergency radio system was apparently never implimented in Europe, and exists only in North America.

Orbit Maneuvering System (1981)

Part of the plan to build the SPS space platforms was the demand for reusable space shuttles, since they could not afford to keep discarding rockets. The NASA Spacelab 3 Mission of the Space Shuttle made, in 1981, "a series of passes over a network of five ground based observatories" in order to study what happened to the ionosphere when the Shuttle injected gases into it from the Orbit Maneuvering System (OMS). They discovered that they could "induce ionospheric holes", and began to experiment with holes made in the day time, or at night over Millstone, Connecticut, and Arecibo, Puerto Rico. They experimented with the effects of "artificially induced ionospheric depletions on very low frequency wave lengths, on equatorial plasma instabilities, and on low frequency radio astronomical observations over Roberval, Quebec, Kwajelein, in the Marshall Islands and Hobart, Tasmania. (Advanced Space Research, Vol.8, No. 1, 1988)

Innovative Shuttle Experiments (1985)

An innovative use of the Space Shuttle to preform space physics experiments in earth orbit was launched, using the OMS injections of gases to "cause a sudden depletion in the local plasma concentration, the creation of a so-called ionospheric hole". This artificially induced plasma depletion can then be used to investigate other space phenomena, such as the growth of the plasma instabilities or the modification of radio propagation paths. The 47 second OMS burn of July 29,1985, produced the largest and most long-lived ionospheric hole to date, dumping some 830 kg of exhaust into the ionosphere at sunset. A 6 second, 68 km OMS release above Connecticut in August 1985, produced an airglow which covered over 400,000 square km.

During the 1980's rocket launches globally numbered about 500 to 600 a year, peaking at 1500 in 1989. There were many more during the Gulf War. The Shuttle is the largest of the solid fuel rockets, with twin 45 metre boosters. All solid fuel rockets release large amounts of hydrochloric acid in their exhaust, each Shuttle flight injecting about 75 tonnes of ozone destroying chlorine into the stratosphere. Those launched since 1992 inject even more ozone destroying chlorine, about 187 tonnes, into the stratosphere (which contains the ozone layer).

Mighty Oaks (1986)

In April 1986, just before the Chernobyl disaster, the US had a failed hydrogen test at the Nevada Test Site called Mighty Oaks. This test, conducted far underground, consisted of a hydrogen bomb explosion in one chamber, with a leaded steel door to the chamber, two metres thick, closing within milliseconds of the blast. The door was to allow only the first radioactive beam to escape into the "control room" in which expensive instrumentation was located. The radiation was to be captured as a weapon beam. The door failed to close as quickly as planned, causing the radioactive gases and debris to fill the control room, destroying millions of dollars worth of equipment. The experiment was part of a program to develop X-ray and particle beam weapons. The radioactive releases from Mighty Oaks were vented, under a "licensed venting", and were likely responsible for many of the North American nuclear fallout reports in May 1986, which were attributed to the Chernobyl disaster.

Desert Storm (1991)

According to Defence News, April 13 - 19, 1992, the US deployed an electromagnetic pulse weapon (EMP) in Desert Storm, designed to mimic the flash of electricity from a nuclear bomb. The Sandia National Laboratory had built a 23,000 square metre laboratory on the Kirkland Air Force Base, 1989, to house the Hermes III electron beam generator capable of producing 20 Trillion Watt pulses lasting 20 billionths to 25 billionths of a second. This X-ray simulator is called a Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator. A stream of electrons hitting a metal plate can produce a pulsed X-ray or gamma ray. Hermes II had produced electron beams since 1974. Thes devises were apparently tested during the Gulf War, although detailed information on them is sparce.

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program HAARP (1993)

The HAARP Program is jointly managed by the US Air Force and the US Navy, and is based in Gakona, Alaska. It is designed to "understand, simulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems". The HAARP system intends to beam 3.6 Gigawatts of effective radiated power of high frequency radio energy into the ionosphere in order to:

- generate extremely low frequency (ELF) waves for communicating with submerged submarines,

- conduct geophysical probes to identify and characterize natural ionospheric processes so that techniques can be developed to mitigate or control them,

-generate ionospheric lenses to focus large amounts of high frequency (HF) energy, thus providing a means of triggering ionospheric processes that potentially could be exploited for Department of Defence purposes,

-electron acceleration for infrared (IR) and other optical emissions which could be used to control radio wave propagation properties,

-generate geomagnetic field aligned ionization to control the reflection\scattering properties of radio waves,

-use oblique heating to produce effects on radio wave propagation, thus broadening the potential military applications of ionospheric enhancement technology.

Poker Flat Rocket Launch (1968 to Present)

The Pocker Flat Research Range is located about 50 km North of Fairbanks, Alaska, and it was established in 1968. It is operated by the Geophysical Institute with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, under NASA contract. About 250 major rocket launches have taken place from this site, and in 1994, a 16 metre long rocket was launched to help NASA "understand chemical reactions in the atmosphere associated with global climate change". Similar experiments, but using Chemical Release Modules (CRM) have been launched from Churchill, Manitoba. In 1980, Brian Whelan's "Project Waterhole", disrupted an aurora borealis, bringing it to a temporary halt. In February 1983, the chemical released into the ionosphere caused an aurora borealis over Churchill. In March 1989, two Black Brant X's and two Nike Orions rockets were launched over Canada, releasing barium at high altitudes and creating artificial clouds. These Churchill artificial clouds were observed from as far away as Los Alamos, New Mexico.

The US Navy has also been carrying on High Power Auroral Stimulation (HIPAS) research in Alaska. Through a series of wires and a 15 metre antenna, they have beamed high intensity signals into the upper atmosphere, generating a controlled disturbance in the ionosphere. As early as 1992, the Navy talked of creating 10 kilometre long antennas in the sky to generate extremely low frequency (ELF) waves needed for communicating with submarines.

Another purpose of these experiments is to study the Aurora Borealis, called by some an outdoor plasma lab for studying the principles of fusion. Shuttle flights are now able to generate auroras with an electron beam. On November 10, 1991, and aurora borealis appeared in the Texas sky for the first time ever recorded, and it was seen by people as far away as Ohio and Utah, Nebraska and Missouri. The sky was "Christmas colours", and various scientists were quick to blame it on solar activity. However, when pressed most would admit that the ionosphere must have been weakened at the time, so that the electrically charged particle hitting the earth's atmosphere created the highly visible light called airglow. These charged particles are normally pulled northwards by the earths magnetic forces, to the magnetic north pole. The Northern Lights, as the aurora borealis is called, normally occurs in the vortex at the pole where the energetic particles, directed by the magnetic force lines, are directed.

Conclusions

It would be rash to assume that HAARP is an isolated experiment which would not be expanded. It is related to fifty years of intensive and increasingly destructive programs to understand and control the upper atmosphere. It would be rash not to associate HAARP with the space laboratory construction which is separately being planned by the United States. HAARP is an integral part of a long history of space research and development of a deliberate military nature.

The military implications of combining these projects is alarming. Basic to this project is control of communications, both disruption and reliability in hostile environments. The power wielded by such control is obvious. The ability of the HAARP / Spacelab/ rocket combination to deliver very large amount of energy, comparable to a nuclear bomb, anywhere on earth via laser and particle beams, are frightening. The project is likely to be "sold" to the public as a space shield against incoming weapons, or , for the more gullible, a devise for repairing the ozone layer.

Further References:

C.L. Herzenberg, Physics and Society, April 1994.
R. Williams, Physics and Society, April 1988.
B. Eastlund, Microwave News, May/June 1994.
W. Kofman and C. Lathuillere, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 14, No. 11, pp 1158-1161, November 1987 (Includes French experiments at EISCAT).
G. Metz and F.W. Perkins. "Ionospheric Modification Theory: Past Present and Future", Radio Science, Vol.9, No. 11, pp 885-888, November 1974.

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