SEAL Team 6 and Homeland Surveillance

SEAL Team 6

The US Navy's elite counter-terrorism unit are the Sea, Air and Land teams or  SEALS. This unit trains the hardest and it's induction process is notoriously brutal. But it turns out the finest warriors known to the world, assets during combat with no equal. Their most high-profile operation happened last year when a team of the SEAL's best dropped in on Osama Bin Laden, killing him and siezing valuable intelligence on computer and in operational planning.

Breach of Security

The fact that it was revealed who was involved in this infamous raid is a breach in the security of this elite group. The acknowledgement by our civilian leadership of the existence of this group puts them in danger additional to the natural by-product of their job and it's dangerous commission. To further put them at risk ran counter to the overall success of this incredible wartime asset's chances of survival.

It is impossible to know if these admissions by the current administrations media mouthpiece led to advanced warning or possibly a set-up of the SEALS mere weeks later in Afghanistan when the chopper they were riding in was hit by rocket propelled grenade fire, downing the chopper and killing over thirty servicemembers onboard which included 20 of the elite unit SEAL Team 6 although US sources said no part of the bin Laden raid team was onboard. Among the dead were  17 SEALS, 5 Navy Special Ops who support the SEALS, 3 Air Force troops, a 5-member Army air crew and a Military dog.




Marine General John Allen, in a press conference declined to answer questions about the decision to have so many elite troops aboard a single aircraft, and why SEALs were sent to help Rangers. These are pertinent questions, as an extremely valuable asset was lost in a costly, avoidable action.

Lucky Shot or Specifically Placed Shooter?

The close proximity to steep hillsides gave the slow taking-off Chinook helicopter an extreme disadvantage during the raid. The team flew in and assisted the Ranger contingent, but when they flew out, the large twin-rotor helicopter is exerting it's maximum power and exhaust, an unmissable target for a heat seeking surface to air missile, or  a barrage of RPG fire. The Russians found this extremely costly when engaging the mujahedeen in the steep valleys and tight canyons during their war in the 80's.




It was reported the senior Taliban operative who fired the RPG that brought down the chopper was killed several days later in the same area as the chopper crash.











This tit for tat is no coincidence. When a valuable target is taken out, the person responsible for the mission itself is suddenly sought out and targeted by the opposition partially for propaganda purposes. I know it offered the Taliban a moral victory when this team of elite warriors were killed in one motion, specifically because they were part of the unit which had just killed bin Laden.

At a minimum, the commanders that night were acting strangely by assisting a prime combat unit like the Rangers. If a distress call came out, it was the duty to answer it. Perhaps the situation at times of war is hard to call at that moment, but to load that chopper and offer it to a thankful Taliban leaves me sick inside and burning with desire for an explanation and indepth investigation. My gut instinct is it was no coincidence that chopper was brought down. Intelligence is anything but robust in that region and we are being decimated because of it and other counter-productive situations such as local Taliban-friendly governments and limited rules-of-engagement policies.







Prove me wrong...go ahead...make my day.

 

"You take a mortal man, and put him in control"

Homeland Surveillance

Thanks to an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer's searches, it was revealed through documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that a device known as StingRay is routinely used to 'scoop' data from cellphones and other wireless devices to track criminal suspects. Moreover, it is disclosed that the probes didn't utilize a judges' signature in every case. This is because the target of the probe is sought by combing through a "dragnet" of electronic information. This puts people who are nearby, neighbors and passersby within the range of the Cell Site Simulator, or StingRay.

"Cell Site Simulators" simulates a cellphone tower and enables agents to collect the serial numbers of individual cellphones and then locate them. The main issues with this practice according to the judges and activists who've sounded the alarm about the use of a system so invasive, are two-fold: Whether federal agents are informing courts when seeking permission to monitor suspects and whether they are providing enough evidence to justify the use of this tool. The device sweeps data not only from a suspects' wireless device, (sometimes through the walls of the suspect's home), but also from those of bystanders in the vacinity.

 

"Watch him become a God, watch people's heads roll"



This past year, in an article dated September 2012, a FOIA search showed the use of these and other phone tapping procedures have dramatically increased in the last two years.

The use of procedures and methods of surveillance such as pen register and trap and trace devices, which the ACLU acknowledges are "powerfully invasive surveillance tools" is being ramped up by the American government and the rampant use of these spy programs targeting more and more US citizens on American soil has increased to an exponential level: In 2000 there were just over 5,000 requests for surveillance orders signed by courts. In 2011 there were 37, 616 requests.


“It is important to Americans' privacy and their ability to feel secure when availing themselves of new communications technologies that they understand the degree to which these technologies are subject to government surveillance.” ACLU

FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which enables US intelligence services to act quickly to gather intelligence on foreigners acting as combatants against the United States. When I say 'act quickly' its code speech for circumvent the usual rules of surveillance of a suspect according to US law, (You need a court order, or a judge to sign off on this proposed surveillance). Of course by extension the US spies will act against any enemy of our allies as well. But remember, this law was put into effect to fight the “War On Terrorism” after the 9-11 attacks which brought us to the forefront of the battle against radicalized Islamic Jihadists bent on destroying the West. It was never intended to spy on American citizens on American soil.

-katykarter

"Just like the pied piper, who led rats through the streets
We dance like marionettes, swaying to the symphony of destruction"  -mustaine

(web credits: washingtonpost.com, russiatoday.com, foxnews.com, latimes.com, wikipedia, ilovedogs.com, dave mustaine[symphony of destruction lyrics])

Romancing the Drones

Predator Drones are reportedly patrolling in civilian skies more and more and Americans had better educate themselves about the use of these machines in law enforcement and the potential for their use to shatter our conceptions of freedom and what is private.





Suppose you are walking down a street. You've just left a bar and it's nighttime, late. The streets are deserted but just then a police cruiser pulls up in a driveway blocking your way, and another pulls up quickly from behind. With guns drawn, they demand you drop your weapon and get on the ground. You just came from a bar and no one saw or knew you had the small pistol in your boot. You're working out of town and feel more comfortable with the backup of the .380 should you need it. How did they know you had a gun?  You didn't know it, but you're in a jurisdiction that outlaws the posession of firearms. They knew your name, and not only you had a gun, but where you're hiding it...right now! Impossible? Of course since you don't carry a gun or work out of town! But this scenario is actually happening with the technological aid of the UAV high above the scene. It is far from impossible.

New UAV's are being produced, at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, that possess the capability to, among other things, detect a weapon on a person on the ground, and through high-res video can match an identity through facial recognition software. These new features include being able to detect, home in and track a cell phone user, as well as monitor the conversation.

The use of this technology on civilians on United States soil is disconcerting. Those of us who pay attention to this see it for what it is: a further ability of the Government to strip away our privacy. We have another common belief...that you can't trust the Government. This type of technology on their hands will most assuredly be used against us...as needed. So it's time to aquiant ourselves first with the military's UAV's, then with the civilian versions of the original eye in the sky, the Predator Drone.

The Predator is 27' long and has a wingspan of 49'. It was built by General Atomics from San Diego, Ca, whose Tier II platform first flew in '94, first entered production in 97, although early versions were put into service immediately during the Bosnian War in the mid-90's.

The RQ-1 was a long endurance, medium altitude UAV providing surveillance imagery from synthetic aperture radar, video cameras and forward looking infrared or FLIR. Data can be distributed in real time to both the front line soldier and the operations command or worldwide in real time via satellite. New Updates and Upgrades are MQ-1 and  MQ-9 Reaper UAV which has seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The system operates at an altitude of 25,000 ft and at a range of 400nm. Cruising speed is over 70kt. The vehicle is equipped with uhf and vhf radio relay links, a C-band line-of-sight data link which has a range of 150nm and uhf and Ku-band satellite data links.

On the Civilian Version, surveillance and reconnaissance payload capacity is 450 lbs. including electro-optical and infrared cameras, and synthetic aperture radar. DLTV television is equipped with a variable zoom and 955mm spotter. High resolution FLIR has six fields of view, from 19mm to 560mm.

Senator Rand Paul has stood up for us and our rights, including that of due process and privacy by staging a filibuster to block the nomination of the new head of the CIA, John Brennan. As Sen. Paul says, Mr. Brennan appears to be a man who has no problem with the use of predator drones on civilians...and thats a problem!

We should send a letter to our local and state representatives and explain our opposition to being spied upon and having our privacy shrunk even further from complete privacy- which we haven't had , sadly, for a very long time.

-katykarter