Archive for January 22nd, 2009
From Livejournal: Throwingstardna
- Obama rescinded Bush’s 2001 executive order
allowing former presidents, vice presidents, and their heirs to claim executive privilege in determining which of their records get released to the public. Even better, he’s requiring the signature of both his White House counsel and the attorney general before he can classify a document under executive privilege.
- Issued a memorandum
to all executive agencies asking them to come up with a new plan for open government and complying with FOIA requests. He is also instructing three top officials, including the U.S. attorney general, to come up with a new policy on open government. The new policy would replace the existing policy, infamously set by a 2001 memo from John Ashcroft that instructed federal agencies to essentially to take every measure they can to refuse FOIA requests.
- Put a freeze on the salaries
of top White House aides.
And:
Moving quickly to reverse his predecessor’s policies on the treatment of terror suspects, President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an executive order to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year.
He also signed an executive order to require that all U.S. interrogations of terror suspects must now conform to the U.S. Army Field Manual, a move meant to restrict what the CIA can do. The presdient created an interagency task force to advise him on detainee policy.
In addition, the man tapped to oversee U.S. intelligence is promising Congress there will be no torture, harsh interrogations and warrantless wiretapping on his watch.
Excellent start…
Tasty Blackberry!
Just because you’re one of the most power person in the world does not mean that you can use whatever phone you want. So will President Obama get to keep his Blackberry? The short answer is “maybe” pending approval from NSA. CNN contacted NSA inquiring whether the agency will approve the super-secret $3,300 Blackberry and was directed to the White House which wouldn’t say which device the President has.
What makes this Blackberry so special? Well, for starters, it’s one of the most expensive Blackberry in existence and on top of that, it’s not available for normal folks like you and I. Pres. Obama’s Blackberry, is actually two Blackberry devices in one, made by General Dynamic. It’s unclassified PDA that can go out to the Internet to sites like Weather.com or check flights, and with a click of a red button, the device switches over to a classified website granting access to secret emails or secret websites. Making phone calls comes in two modes; non-secret and secret mode with a click of the red background and it’s a top-secret phone.
While this new device addressed a lot of the security concerns, we’ll have to see how this plays out. I’m left with questions like does it have a self or manual destruct button in the event of loss or being stolen? There was no mention of finger print scan for access. We’ll stay on top of this and get back with you as soon as we hear more. For now, enjoy CNN’s inside look at the device
Me likey… Though I have to wonder about the function on this puppy. It must have two RIM BB servers that it works off of as well as some heavy duty crypto capability onboard as too!
229 million in British Pounds…
Hackers tried to steal hundreds of millions from bank
CYA: Leaking RED TEAM info to TSA
Exclusive: Covert Operations Used to Identify U.S. Security Vulnerabilities Leaked to TSA?

Al Qaeda Maghreb in Algeria: 40 Qaeda Dead From Plague

Y-Pestis
Plague claim makes al-Qaeda new priority
Seven years after they transformed George W. Bush’s presidency, al-Qaeda terrorists are pushing to the top of his successor’s priority list.
The very day Barack Obama was sworn in as president, warning Americans “our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred,” there were reports an al-Qaeda affiliate recently abandoned a training camp in Algeria after 40 terrorists died from being exposed to the plague during a biological weapons test.
The report, which first surfaced in the British tabloid newspaper The Sun, claims members of al-Qaeda in the Land of the Maghreb (AQLIM) hurriedly abandoned their cave hideouts in Tizi Ouzou province, 150 kilo-metres east of the Algerian capital Algiers, after being exposed to plague bacteria.
The newspaper said they apparently became infected while experimenting with biological weapons.
Algerian security forces discovered the body of a dead terrorist alongside a road near the abandoned hideout.
U. S. intelligence officials, speaking anonymously to The Washington Times newspaper yesterday, could only confirm the sudden base closure after an unconventional weapons test went wrong.
The officials said they intercepted an urgent communication in early January between the AQLIM leadership and al-Qaeda’s top leaders in the tribal region of Pakistan. The Algerian terrorists said they were abandoning and sealing off a training area after a leak of a chemical or biological substance.
AQLIM, once known as the Salfist Group of Call & Combat, is one of the most radical and violent Islamist groups operating in North Africa. It has ties to Moroccan terrorists who carried out the 2004 Madrid train bombings and bombed the UN headquarters in Algiers in 2007, killing 41 people.
There are two types of plague. Bubonic plague, which is spread by bites from infected rat fleas, killed a third of Europe’s population in the 14th century, but can now be treated with antibiotics. Pneumonic plague is less common but more deadly. It is spread, like the flu, by airborne bacteria, and can be inhaled and transmitted between humans without the involvement of animals or fleas.
For years, U. S. Defence Department officials have warned al-Qaeda operatives have been actively pursuing sophisticated biological weapons research.
News of the latest al-Qaeda threat broke as two million people crowded into Washington’s National Mall to witness the inauguration of Mr. Obama. It also came four days after Mike McConnell, U. S. director of national intelligence, said Osama bin Laden’s third eldest son and heir apparent, Saad, has been released from house arrest in Iran.
The 27-year-old, who was groomed by his father to assume a leadership role in al-Qaeda, had been detained since after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
U. S. intelligence forces say during his detention, Saad bin Laden was allowed to continue to operate. He played a prominent role in ordering a 2002 suicide bombing of a Jewish synagogue in Tunisia, commanded a series of bombings that killed 45 people in Casablanca, Morocco, in May, 2003, and sent suicide car bombers who killed 35 people in Riyadh, also in May, 2003.
During his final news briefing of the Bush administration, Mr. Mc-Connell said Saad bin Laden is now “probably in Pakistan.” His departure might suggest al-Qaeda is moving to consolidate its leadership in territory under its control in Pakistan.
I have to say that this story is worrisome on a few levels. First off, just where did they get hold of the Y-Pestis in the first place? I know that Biopreparat had some as also we did here in the states for biowarfare studies, but, I had thought it had been secured. I guess we will have to see (if we ever do) if the smears taken from Algeria match any known strains that we or the Russians worked on. Perhaps it is just natural and they cultivated it. as Algeria is known as a place it is common. Outbreaks have occurred there recently and they likely just got a body or something to use to collect the bug.
What this really says though is that they are more than likely well on their way to potential deployment of this bug as a bioweapon… Consider this then, they infect some of their boys and let it incubate. They then send them on flights to other countries. If they do in fact get some shaheed to infect themselves, then they likely could make good small impact bioweapons. Of course, if they have tampered with the bug at all, or got their hands on re-engineered Y-Pestis, then it could be much much worse. Imagine something along the lines of what Ken Alibek worked on in Biopreparat.
So, if this bug was something that got out of say Russia from their programs, then we could have a real problem on our hands….
Stay tuned…