ET’s Working with US Government ?

05/08/2013

“Something is monitoring the planet, and they are monitoring it very cautiously, because we are a very warlike planet,” said Mike Gravel, a former Democratic senator from Alaska who ran in both the Democratic and Libertarian presidential primaries in 2008.

Mr. Gravel and his fellow panelists were assembled by the Paradigm Research Group, which says it is committed to ending the government’s “truth embargo” on the existence of extraterrestrial life. The lawmakers were there in hopes that their presence and political credibility would be enough to persuade Congress to take the issue seriously.

Called the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, the event might have been mistaken as advocacy for government transparency, and some of the panelists had impressive résumés.

“I’ve come to understand and appreciate the importance of open, transparent government and the power of truth,” said Paul T. Hellyer, who served as Canadian minister of defense during the 1960s.

“We are not alone in the cosmos,” he added.

One reason the ex-members of Congress agreed to sit on the dais and ask questions may have been curiosity.

“Our country has trivialized it, has made it a joke, has made it green people with horns sticking out,” said Carolyn Kilpatrick, a Democratic representative from Michigan who lost her seat in 2010. “Now I find that it’s much more than that. And it’s not a joke. And there is scientific data that there may be something there.”

Another reason might have been the $20,000 the organizers said they paid each panelist. But they are still maintaining a healthy skepticism.

Despite the ridicule that usually accompanies the discussion of U.F.O.’s, they have been quietly talked about in corridors of power here. Some panelists at the event this week counted among true believers John D. Podesta, a chief of staff in President Bill Clinton’s White House, because of his role in Executive Order 12958, which requires the declassification of most government documents over 25 years old.

But the possible existence of extraterrestrial life is not exactly why he believes in government transparency, Mr. Podesta said.

“At the end of the day, there are going to be people who say that even if you did that, there must be other files that exist that you’re not disclosing,” he said in an interview.

But objects in the sky have piqued his interest. In June 2011, the Center for American Progress hosted government officials, from the Pentagon, NASA and the Department of Transportation, as well as Congressional staff and former officials from intelligence organizations, for a briefing by Ms. Kean and experts from academia and foreign militaries.

The private briefing was organized to discuss a proposal that the government establish a small office of two staff members who would selectively investigate mysterious skyward sightings and seek to understand them by applying scientific method. The proposal did not refer to U.F.O.’s, but rather, U.A.P.’s, unidentified aerial phenomena, as if those who drew up the proposal were keenly aware of how their objective could be perceived.

“They were interesting, credible people who had observed aerial phenomena that were unexplained and worthy of additional follow-up,” Mr. Podesta said. “Going back and looking at and declassifying whatever government documents exist is a smart thing to do.”

If any citizen is looking for one reason why they should care about Disclosure, it is the prospect of a technological breakthrough that could lower the cost of energy by 90+% and eliminate carbon based fuel pollution.  The most common component within all the challenges faced by civilization in the 21st  century is the cost of energy.

Are you offended by this?

If “yes”, then you should ask yourself the following questions?

Do you think these?

Run on this?

If your answer is “no”, then the following questions need to be posed to the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency:

1) does the United States Government have in its possession vehicles of extraterrestrial origin?

2) if “yes”, has the United States Government for decades been studying the energy and propulsion physics of such vehicles?

3) if “yes”, when will this technology be available to address the growing challenges facing the planet and the human race?

More Info:  Paradigm Research Group

Anonymous Calls For ‘Internet Blackout Day’ To Protest CISPA

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which passed the House of Representatives this week, has drawn a lot of criticism from activist groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation for potentially undermining users’ online privacy. In particular, the EFF has said that the bill gives Internet companies the right “to monitor user actions and share data – including potentially sensitive user data – with the government without a warrant” and also “overrides existing privacy law, and grants broad immunities to participating companies.”

Hacker collective Anonymous this week called for a massive online protest against CISPA to occur on April 22nd through an “Internet Blackout Day” by asking “web developers and website owners to go dark” and to also “display a message as to why you are going dark, and encourage others to do the same.” The group’s call for an online blackout day echoes a similar protest that occurred last year against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in which Reddit and Wikipedia both went dark to protest the bill while Google blacked out its famous Google doodle to symbolize its opposition.

A video of Anonymous’s call for an Internet Blackout Day is posted below.

Via http://bgr.com/2013/04/19/anonymous-cispa-internet-blackout-day-450586/

Is Anybody Listening? U.S. Intel Chief Says Iran Isn’t Building Nukes.

By Nima Shirazi

April 19, 2013 “Information Clearing House” -”WAIA“ – In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday March 12, 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper reaffirmed what the U.S. intelligence community has been saying for years: Iran has no nuclear weapons program, is not building a nuclear weapon and has not even made a decision to do so.

The annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment,” which compiles the collective conclusions of all American intelligence agencies, has long held that Iran maintains defensive capabilities and has a military doctrine of deterrence and retaliation, but is not an aggressive state actor and has no intention of beginning a conflict, let alone triggering a nuclear apocalypse.

While the U.S. intelligence community assumes that Iran already has the technical capability to produce nuclear weapons, “should a decision be made to do so,” Clapper’s report states (as it has for years now), “We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

Were this decision ever to be made, Iran wouldn’t even be able to secretly start building a nuclear bomb. “[W]e assess Iran could not divert safeguarded material and produce a weapon-worth of WGU [weapons-grade uranium] before this activity is discovered,” Clapper told Congress.

Even Clapper, who is no stranger to alarmism, acknowledges that “Iran prefers to avoid direct confrontation with the United States” and would only act defensively “in response to perceived offenses.”  Iran’s “decision making is guided by a cost-benefit approach” based on considerations of “security, prestige and influence, as well as the international political and security environment,” Clapper said, thereby dismissing allegations that the Islamic Republic is an irrational martyr state. Speaking at a national security conference in Herzliya on Thursday, Israel’s own military intelligence chief concurred with Clapper’s assessment. While sure to continue advancing its nuclear program in the coming year, he said, Iran had not actually decided to build a bomb.

Such findings are wholly consistent with past assessments.

In April 2010, Defense Intelligence Agency director Ronald Burgess told the Senate Committee on Armed Services, “Iran’s military strategy is designed to defend against external threats, particularly from the United States and Israel” and “to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities.” The following year, he explained that “Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict or launch a preemptive attack,” and reiterated this conclusion in early 2012.

With these findings in mind – assessed and reaffirmed as they are year after year – it is alarming indeed that journalists, pundits, establishment think tank analysts, and a wide array of government officials continue to parrot the claim that Iran is “the world’s most dangerous state” and “one of the gravest threats to international security.”

Such hysteria and fear-mongering, as always, is simply not borne out by the facts.

UPDATE:

April 18, 2013 – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee today and reiterated the same assessment regarding Iran as was delivered in March 2013.

The exact same statements – verbatim – were included in Clapper’s unclassified report, including the assessment that “Iran is developing nuclear capabilities to enhance its security, prestige, and regional influence and give it the ability to develop nuclear weapons, should a decision be made to do so. We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

Of course, as Clapper notes, Iran’s ability to potentially manufacture the components is inherent to its advanced nuclear infrastructure and is not an indication of an active nuclear weapons program, which all U.S. intelligence agencies agree Iran does not have.

As such, Clapper told the Senate Committee, “Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons. This makes the central issue its political will to do so.”

In his testimony, Clapper stated that, were the decision to weaponize its nuclear energy program to be made by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran could theoretically reach a “breakout” point within “months, not years.”  His report repeats the assessment, though, that “[d]espite this progress, we assess Iran could not divert safeguarded material and produce a weapon-worth of WGU before this activity is discovered.”

Again, undermining the bogus claims that Iran is an irrational and reckless actor, Clapper maintained the judgment that “Iran’s nuclear decision making is guided by a cost-benefit approach,” balancing its own domestic interests with “the international political and security environment.”  Iran also has a defensive – not aggressive – military posture, one based on “its strategy to deter – and if necessary retaliate against – forces in the region, including US forces” were an attack on Iran to occur.

 

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev arrested

04/20/2013

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been arretsed following an extensive manhunt that ended in the Boston suburb, Watertown. Law enforcement units from around the country were involved in the search.

The crowd around the standoff scene in Watertown burst into cheers as it became clear that Tsarnaev had been taken into custody following reports that a negotiator was on site.

He will be transported to Mount Auburn Hospital, the same facility where a police officer shot in a standoff with the Tsarnaevs is recovering, the Boston Globe reports. Tsarnaev is listed in “serious, if not critical condition” after suffering gunshot wounds to the neck and leg, according to CBS News.

Despite earlier reports to the contrary, arresting officers will not read Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda rights, citing a so-called “public safety exception.” The Department of Justice has listed Tsarnaev as a “high value detainee” on their website.

Tsarnaev’s father, Anzor, is confirmed to be en route to the United States, according to ABC News. Anzor Tsarnaev previously denied that his son could be responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings, calling Dzhokhar “a true angel.”

Tsarnaev, 19, and his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, are suspected of detonating two improvised explosives during the Boston Marathon on Monday, after which a manhunt began that lead to a shootout with law enforcement agents, a stolen car and finally Dzhokhar’s hideout in a boat parked on a lawn in suburban Watertown.

The older Tsarnaev brother was pronounced dead by law enforcement early Friday, shortly after both men were named as suspects in Monday’s blast. Police believe the brothers reportedly shot and killed a police officer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), later identified as 26-year-old Sean Collier.

Local and national law enforcement agencies in the United States — including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — descended on New England this week to help the Boston Police Department in their probe of the marathon tragedy, which US President Barack Obama declared in the aftermath as an act of terrorism. But despite receiving assistance from multiple branches of the Justice Department and agencies as far away as the NYPD and Israeli police, the FBI did not go public with any leads until Thursday afternoon.

At around 5pm Thursday, FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers presented the media with surveillance camera footage of two men — originally identified as only “Suspect One” and “Suspect Two” — and said they were believed responsible for Monday’s blast and should be considered armed and extremely dangerous.

As afternoon turned to evening, new photos taken by marathon witnesses quickly circulated of the suspects, and by sundown authorities connected the Tsarnaev brothers to a series of criminal activity committed in the Boston area, including the terrorist attack.

Across the world, eyes were focused on the greater Boston region into Friday morning as local news stations followed-up feverishly on what became an increasingly chaotic manhunt for both men. Police responded by shutting down much of the vicinity, ordering residents to stay inside with locked doors and urged to avoid interacting with anyone other than law enforcement. Transportation company Amtrak suspended rail service going in and out of both Boston and nearby Providence, Rhode Island, and local public services including rail, bus and taxi all stopped servicing the area.

In all, roughly one million residents in New England were told to stay indoors until the lockdown was lifted on Friday evening.

Authorities said that the brothers fired dozens of rounds at police, critically injuring another officer, during which Tamerlan Tsarnaev was injured. He was reportedly apprehended by police and later pronounced dead. According to some sources, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev fled the scene in a vehicle, riding over his brother’s body in the process.

As the police escalated their manhunt for the surviving Tsarnaev, authorities warned of multiple explosives on the scene across Watertown and called in a bomb squad to assist in the investigation.

Via RT

 

Cartoonish form of despotism’ – Assange on Bahrain activist Rajab’s imprisonment

04/20/2013

If Bahrain really wants to improve its human rights record, then it should free Nabeel Rajab, says Julian Assange. In an interview with RT, the WikiLeaks founder called Rajab the most prominent voice in the Bahraini Spring.

Anti-government protests have been breaking in Bahrain since February 2011, resulting in dozens arrested and over 80 people killed. The protests have again intensified ahead of the Formula 1 racing event, resulting in violent clashes, arrests, and police using teargas on demonstrators including schoolchildren.

Amnesty International has accused authorities of using the event as a platform to “show progress, with claims that the human rights situation has improved, whilst stepping up repression in order to ensure nothing disturbs their public image.” Nabeel Rajab’s tweets against the government and its bureaucracy, as well as the king, the PM and other top figures, back in 2012 were seen as an attempt to incite a revolution by organizing protests, and that was with what Rajab had been charged.

Julian Assange recalls that while Rajab was on his program The World Tomorrow, he already knew that a prison cell was waiting for him back home. He was detained at Bahrain’s international airport on his return.  Yet he told Assange:

“Well, I’ve got to go back. I’ve got to face these people. I’ve got to go back.” During the interview, the activist told Assange he had already been detained, kidnapped and beaten in front of his family due to his sharp criticism of the regime.

While in prison, Rajab was subjected to inhuman treatment and degrading conditions, as he was thrown into solitary confinement on the first day of his imprisonment, according to his wife. He’s is solitary confinement, although he was supposed to be there for three months.

Julian Assange  said in the interview to RT that the key human rights figures in the region and a real force to call attention to Bahrain’s problems.

RT: You interviewed Nabeel Rajab for your show the World Tomorrow on RT. Why did you invite him?

Julian Assange: Bahrain has 900,000 people. Nabeel Rajab has 150,000 Twitter followers comprised predominantly of the population of Bahrain. Since the arrest of a number of other activists in the Bahraini Spring in 2011, Nabeel Rajab became the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) and was the most prominent voice for the Bahraini spring.

RT: What were your impressions of him?

JA: Nabeel… a very courageous forthright man. On the show I asked him… Nabeel explained to me that as he was driving to the location in London – the secret location where I was under house arrest where we were going to film his interview – that he’d received a call saying that his house was surrounded by the police, from his wife. I said: “What are you going to do?” And he said: “Well, I’ve got to go back. I’ve got to face these people. I’ve got to go back.” And I thought to myself: “Um… doesn’t sound like such a good idea to me.” But he’s very much of the view that that is his homeland. That’s where his family is. That’s where his community is and his life is. Even though he was facing a risk – he would go back and face it.

I mean as time goes by, his calculation may well be right. I mean what has happened to him, it’s a cartoonish form of despotism where he’s been sentenced to three years of imprisonment for a number of tweets in relation to bureaucrats and authorities, the king, the prime minister and so on – as well as organizing protests. It’s not like you see in more sophisticated regimes where you find a convenient excuse to put someone in prison. Here they wanted to make sure – very nakedly – what it was that the Bahraini regime didn’t want people to do. And what they didn’t want people to do is to criticize the regime. So they directly charged him for criticizing the regime. What they didn’t want people to do is organize protests and so they charged him directly for organizing protests.

RT: What do you think Rajab’s prospects are now?

JA: I think his long-term prospects are quite good. He has stood by the courage of his convictions. Even when he was imprisoned and then briefly released, he did not [give up] …. He kept the same stand of criticizing the authority. It’s hard to find people with that much courage, who can’t be a coward. So I think his long-term prospects are quite good, provided the international pressure keeps up.

RT: In terms of international pressure… Why do you think the response from the US in relation to the human rights abuses in Bahrain has…

JA: Has been quite muted? It’s disgraceful and the British involvement is even worse. You had the former organizational chief of Scotland Yard coming over to Bahrain to help them control Bahrain in the same way that London is controlled in relation to police and control of demonstrations. The muted behavior by the United States has to do with the US naval base that’s in Bahrain. And geopolitically Bahrain is very close to Iran, it’s close to the straight where a lot of oil shipping is done. The US wants to keep its naval base in order to control this area. And that’s all.

RT: You mentioned that it was almost a cartoonish imprisonment, which happened to Nabeel Rajab. Can you give an assessment of the regime in Bahrain altogether?

JA: I was born in 1971. The prime minister of Bahrain [Khalifah ibn Sulman al-Khalifah] was put in power in 1971.

RT: So, is there absolutely no democracy in Bahrain?

JA: That’s the answer to your question. There’s 42 years this man has been in power in Bahrain. There’s no significant democracy. The Shia group is very significant, people argue – slight minority or a slight majority of the population, kept out of political life. The relationship between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – the two countries face each other and they share a border with each other. And the Saudis are economically dominant to Bahrain, and are worried about any sort of resistance gaining power in Bahrain because the political movements in Bahrain have a habit of seeping over into the Saudi Arabia and into the Shia populations in Saudi Arabia. That’s why you saw during the uprising a desperate measure by the Bahraini regime of pulling in Saudi troops, to crack down on their own population.  The Bahraini regime sold its sovereignty in order to crack down on its own domestic population.

RT: You mentioned: “provided if the international pressure keeps up” in relation to Rajab. Do you think there’s been enough international pressure on the Bahraini regime?

JA: There’s obviously hasn’t been enough in the West. I mean look at the example of the US and the UK. There has been some, and it’s interesting to look at what Bahrain has done in response. Well, it’s flown in Kim Kardashian and these other people, who will sell their soul to promote the Bahraini regime. You see Kim Kardashian putting tweet after tweet about how wonderful it is thanks to the sheik and so on. It’s disgusting. These people are disgusting. Everyone should know that their loyalties are for sale, similarly, with the Formula 1, exactly, the same thing.

Bahrain has just bought that in order to cover up its human rights abuses and its bad reputation. There’s another way of dealing with things, which is – you can improve your reputation by actually stopping what you’re doing. Instead, Bahrain if it really wanted to improve its reputation it could release Nabeel Rajab. Until it releases Nabeel Rajab, no serious organization should have any involvement with the Bahraini regime. No organization who’s involved with Bahrain can be seen to be credible when Nabeel Rajab is in prison.

Via RT