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])