The Boston Globe
January 4, 2010
What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. Chertoff disclosed the relationship on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.
An airport passengers’ rights group on Thursday criticized Chertoff’s use of his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients.
1. Terrorism is the gravest threat facing the American people.
Americans are at far greater risk of being killed in accidents or by viruses than by acts of terrorism. In 2008, more than 37,300 Americans perished on the nation's highways, according to government data. Even before H1N1, a similar number of people died each year from the seasonal flu. Terrorism is a real and potentially consequential danger. But the greatest threat isn't posed by the direct harm terrorists could inflict; it comes from what we do to ourselves when we are spooked. It is how we react -- or more precisely, how we overreact -- to the threat of terrorism that makes it an appealing tool for our adversaries. By grounding commercial aviation and effectively closing our borders after the 2001 attacks, Washington accomplished something no foreign state could have hoped to achieve: a blockade on the economy of the world's sole superpower. While we cannot expect to be completely successful at intercepting terrorist attacks, we must get a better handle on how we respond when they happen.
2. When it comes to preventing terrorism, the only real defense is a good offense.The cornerstone of the Bush administration's approach to dealing with the terrorist threat was to take the battle to the enemy. But offense has its limits. We still aren't generating sufficiently accurate and timely tactical intelligence to adequately support U.S. counterterrorism efforts overseas. And going after terrorists abroad hardly means they won't manage to strike us at home. Just days before the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the United States collaborated with the Yemeni government on raids against al-Qaeda militants there. The group known as al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula is now claiming responsibility for having equipped and trained Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to blow up the flight. The group is also leveraging the raids to recruit militants and mount protests against Yemen's already fragile central government.
At the same time, an emphasis on offense has often come at the expense of investing in effective defensive measures, such as maintaining quality watch lists, sharing information about threats, safeguarding such critical assets as the nation's food and energy supplies, and preparing for large-scale emergencies. After authorities said Abdulmutallab had hidden explosives in his underwear, airline screeners held up flights to do stepped-up passenger pat-downs at boarding gates -- pat-downs that inevitably avoided passengers' crotches and buttocks. This kind of quick fix only tends to fuel public cynicism about security efforts. But if we can implement smart security measures ahead of time (such as requiring refineries next to densely populated areas to use safer chemicals when they manufacture high-octane gas), we won't be incapacitated when terrorists strike. Strengthening our national ability to withstand and rapidly recover from terrorism will make the United States a less appealing target. In combating terrorism, as in sports, success requires both a capable offense and a strong defense.
3. Getting better control over America's borders is essential to making us safer.Our borders will never serve as a meaningful line of defense against terrorism. The inspectors at our ports, border crossings and airports have important roles when it comes to managing immigration and the flow of commerce, but they play only a bit part in stopping would-be attackers. This is because terrorist threats do not originate at our land borders with Mexico and Canada, nor along our 12,000 miles of coastline. They originate at home as well as abroad, and they exploit global networks such as the transportation system that moved 500 million cargo containers through the world's ports in 2008. Moreover, terrorists' travel documents are often in perfect order. This was the case with Abdulmutallab, as well as with shoe-bomber Richard Reid in 2001. Complaints about porous borders may play well politically, but they distract us from the more challenging task of forging international cooperation to strengthen safeguards for our global transportation, travel and financial systems. They also sidestep the disturbing fact that the number of terrorism-related cases involving U.S. residents reached a new high in 2009.
4. Investing in new technology is key to better security.Not necessarily. Technology can be helpful, but too often it ends up being part of the problem. Placing too much reliance on sophisticated tools such as X-ray machines often leaves the people staffing our front lines consumed with monitoring and troubleshooting these systems. Consequently, they become more caught up in process than outcomes. And as soon procedures become routine, a determined bad guy can game them. We would do well to heed two lessons the U.S. military has learned from combating insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan: First, don't do things in rote and predictable ways, and second, don't alienate the people you are trying to protect. Too much of what is promoted as homeland security disregards these lessons. It is true that technology such as full-body imaging machines, which have received so much attention in the past week, are far more effective than metal detectors at screening airline passengers. But new technologies are also expensive, and they are no substitute for well-trained professionals who are empowered and rewarded for exercising good judgment.
5. Average citizens aren't an effective bulwark against terrorist attacks.Elite pundits and policymakers routinely dismiss the ability of ordinary people to respond effectively when they are in harm's way. It's ironic that this misconception has animated much of the government's approach to homeland security since Sept. 11, 2001, given that the only successful counterterrorist action that day came from the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93. These passengers didn't have the help of federal air marshals. The Defense Department's North American Aerospace Defense Command didn't intercept the plane -- it didn't even know the airliner had been hijacked. But by charging the cockpit over rural Pennsylvania, these private citizens prevented al-Qaeda terrorists from reaching their likely target of the U.S. Capitol or the White House. The government leaders whose constitutional duty is "to provide for the common defense" were defended by one thing alone -- an alert and heroic citizenry.
This misconception is particularly reckless because it ends up sidelining the greatest asset we have for managing the terrorism threat: the average people who are best positioned to detect and respond to terrorist activities. We have only to look to the attempted Christmas Day attack to validate this truth. Once again it was the government that fell short, not ordinary people. A concerned Nigerian father, not the CIA or the National Security Agency, came forward with crucial information. And the courageous actions of the Dutch film director Jasper Schuringa and other passengers and crew members aboard Flight 253 thwarted the attack.
Stephen Flynn is the president of the Center for National Policy and author of "The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation."
NoWorldSystem
December 31, 2009
A path has been cleared for the government to publicly roll out dangerous full-body scanners after the failed terrorist attempt on flight 253. Neocons are quaking for the government to implement the human x-ray machines on a nationwide scale, radiating travelers with unhealthy amounts of ionic radiation all for the sake of preventing the next Mutallab from boarding another U.S. airliner.
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| Virtually all passengers and airline crews who pass through airport screening checkpoints in the U.S. may soon be forced to submit to compulsory, whole-body X-ray exposure. | |
Airport Travelers To Get Ionizing X-Ray Radiation
According to a recent Zogby poll, traveling Americans approve long lines and gridlock at airport passenger screening points. The majority polled appreciate delays and hassles of flying today’s suspicious skies and feel safer because the federal Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is in charge of airport screening. These happy line campers should be delighted to learn about TSA’s grossly invasive new security plans. The good times have just begun.
TSA Security Laboratory Director Susan Hallowell recently announced the agency’s intent to use back-scatter X-ray machines for passenger surveillance. These hugely expensive, closet-sized zappers can find the plastic bombs hidden in grandma’s underpants, while delivering a smacking dose of ionizing radiation to her breasts and thyroid gland.
Snooper X-rays penetrate a few centimeters into the flesh and reflect off the skin to form a naked body image for TSA security personnel to inspect. These machines are already being field tested at several U.S. airports, including JFK, LAX and Orlando.
The most lucrative growth industry of our times is the “terror” business. Legions of companies lusting for government contracts are churning out police state technology at a frantic pace. In the last 17 months, TSA has received over 30,000 proposals for Big Brother technology and equipment needed to keep 280 million citizen-suspects under careful surveillance from the inside out.
Big winners include companies whose equipment is assisting TSA’s Advanced Technology Checkpoint Project to nudify airline passengers. Digital Security Systems of Miami is promoting its ConPass Security Body Scanner, which can perform virtual cavity searches using deeply penetrating X-radiation. Company engineer Thomas Wiggins says the scanner can detect explosives hidden inside bodies or surgically implanted under flabby folds of skin. Wiggins admits that before 9-11, “The thought of using an X-ray system would have been like ordering our own death sentence.” Now Wiggins claims that the ConPass scanner “could scan a pregnant woman around 200 times without a health risk.”
Virtually all passengers and airline crews who pass through airport screening checkpoints in the U.S. may soon be forced to submit to compulsory, whole-body X-ray exposure. Some fliers could be “fried” several times in one day. Frequent fliers could get hit hundreds of times each year. Pregnant women, infants, the chronically ill and immune suppressed would get the rays. Grateful herds of traveling livestock, prodded by TSA drovers through federally-funded “nuke chutes,” are expected to believe Hollowell’s scientifically unsupported assertion that ionizing radiation delivered via backscatter will be “about the same as sunshine.”
Officials must naturally defend compulsory passenger X-rays as harmless. But they are signing no guarantees because ionizing radiation in the X-ray spectrum damages and mutates both chromosomal DNA and structural proteins in human cells. If this damage is not repaired, it can lead to cancer. New research shows that even very low doses of X-ray can delay or prevent cellular repair of damaged DNA, raising questions about the safety of routine medical X-rays. Unborn babies can become grotesquely disfigured if their mothers are irradiated during pregnancy. Heavily X- rayed persons of childbearing age can sustain chromosomal damage, endangering offspring. Radiation damage is cumulative and each successive dose builds upon the cellular mutation caused by the last. It can take years for radiation damage to manifest pathology.
A leading U.S. expert on the biological effects of X-radiation is Dr. John Gofman, Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Gofman’s exhaustive research leads him to conclude that there is NO SAFE DOSE-LEVEL of ionizing radiation. His studies indicate that radiation from medical diagnostics and treatment is a causal co-factor in 50 percent of America’s cancers and 60 percent of our ischemic (blood flow blockage) heart disease. He stresses that the frequency with which Americans are medically X-rayed “makes for a significant radiological impact.”
This highly credentialed nuclear physicist states: “The fact, that X-ray doses are so seldom measured, reflects the false assumption that doses do not matter…[but] they do matter enormously. And each bit of additional dose matters, because any X-ray photon may be the one which sets in motion the high-speed, high energy electron which causes a carcinogenic or atherogenic [smooth muscle] mutation. Such mutations rarely disappear. The higher their accumulated number in a population, the higher will be the population’s mortality rates from radiation-induced cancer and ischemic heart disease.”
A report in the British medical journal Lancet noted that after breast mammograms were introduced in 1983, the incidence of ductal carcinoma (12 percent of breast cancer) increased by 328 percent, of which 200 percent was due to the use of mammography itself. A Lawrence Berkeley National Lab study has demonstrated that breast tissue is extremely susceptible to radiation-induced cancer, confirming warnings by numerous experts that mammograms can initiate the very cancers they may later identify. Dr. Gofman believes that medical radiation is a co-factor in 75 percent of breast cancer cases. So why would girls and women want their breast tissues irradiated every time they take a commercial flight?
Cancer is number two cause of death in the U.S. behind heart disease. The more marathon walks and cookie eating contests we sponsor to fund the “war” on cancer, the more cancer we get. “America isn’t winning the war on cancer after all,” the Wall Street Journal recently reported. The National Cancer Institute admits that America’s cancer rates in almost every category are rising steadily. Airline pilots and cabin crews suffer a significant incidence of leukemia, skin and breast cancer due to chromosomal damage from ionizing cosmic radiation encountered during years of flying at high altitudes.
Dr. Gofman’s research reveals a dose-response relationship between medical X-rays and fatal heart disease, the number one killer of Americans. He found that X-radiation is a powerful atherogen, causing mutations in smooth muscle cells of coronary arteries. These radiation damaged cells are unable to process lipoproteins correctly, resulting in atherosclerotic plaques and mini tumors in the arteries. Radiation used to treat breast cancer can badly damage the heart.As Dr. Gofman and other experts argue for improved diagnostic techniques and equipment to reduce medically necessary X-ray exposure, TSA gears up to impose frivolous, nonmusical exposure, even though conventional airline security measures have proven adequate since 9/11. To date, the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association have been silent about TSA’s sinister plan to deliver unlimited doses of carcinogenic, mutagenic, heart damaging radiation to the flying public. No health studies are planned to gauge short and long-term effects of the radiation TSA will deliver to inspect our innards.
Big Brother’s zap madness is a predictable result of America’s post 9-11 security hysteria. But here’s the irony: Dr. Gofman says X- radiation has the effect of “grenades and small bombs” on human cells. If we permit TSA to continually “bomb” our DNA in the name of security, what have we accomplished?
Besides ionizing beams, the feds are also testing other types of surveillance radiation. A flubbed holographic scanner developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory allows officials to strip search humans with ultra-high frequency radio waves. Millivision of Amherst, Mass., has engineered a millimeter wave scanner using radio frequencies 1,000 times higher than those of an FM broadcast. These waves pass through clothing, packaging and building materials. Ultra-high radio frequencies include radar, a spectrum of radiation known since WWII to cause cancer and neurological disability in humans. Microwave frequencies are documented by recent studies on cell/cordless phone radiation to be carcinogenic and teratogenic (causing abnormal embryonic development).
An example of unexpected health repercussions caused by high frequency radiation used on humans is fetal ultrasound technology. Ultrasound equipment bombards a fetus for up to one hour with megahertz radiation. This radiation, which cycles millions of time per second, can cause mutation and bleeding in the intestinal cells of rodents. Swedish scientists say routine ultrasound scanning of pregnant women may be causing subtle brain damage in unborn babies. Approximately half of all pregnancies in the U.S. result in prenatal or postnatal death, or an otherwise less than healthy baby. Many wonder if routine exposure of America’s fragile unborn to megahertz radiation might be a factor, among others, of this shocking national statistic. Is fetal ultrasound exposure playing some part in the national epidemic of delayed development in infants, plus learning and behavior difficulties suffered by millions of our school children? Exposing the unborn to ionizing X-radiation at airport checkpoints is an even more dangerous game of roulette.
Fedgov’s planned use of health damaging radiation on the traveling public seems especially tragic and abusive to those of us convinced that the War on Terror is a giant con job. Massive evidence indicates that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were intentionally staged to justify increased power over and surveillance of Americans. Key NORAD and other military officials had to be in on the ruse. President Bush ambushed himself when he openly lied about what he knew and when he knew it on the day the Twin Towers went down.. He has been caught lying about so many issues that Homeland Security should issue a red alert every time he is about to move his lips. The Bush administration’s ongoing cover-up of 9/11 is so blatant that even Bush’s own investigatory commission has expressed outrage at his efforts to block its requests for vital information and resources.
Meantime, TSA claims concern that Americans may feel humiliated at being viewed naked by X-ray screeners. But whatever airport nuke-nazis see through our clothing is nothing that the undertaker won’t see after excessive, state-mandated radiation puts us “down” for good. Mandatory airport surveillance radiation delivered to an already grossly ill population would afford our financially strapped government an ingenious “final solution” to numerous political and economic problems. No muss, no fuss, this cull in the Cuckoos’ nest. Each useless eater lines up for his deferred-lethal dose. The weak will die soonest, the strong will eventually become the weak–no questions asked and nothing proven. It’s hard for a Prozac nation to imagine such sinister motives behind the terror industry, but the documented truth is, our amoral leadership has been brazenly murdering Americans for decades. Genocide specialists have been especially fond of unleashing various forms of deadly radiation on the unwitting masses, as documented by the federal Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. Now here we go again!
Consumers could derail TSA’s sinister surveillance projects in a heartbeat. It’s called boycott: We simply refuse to get nuked to naked. If we stop booking flights, the airline industry must grind to a halt. TSA would have little choice but to scrap its plans to endanger the national health with unnecessary radiation.
Americans who are still able to think must launch an effort to save ourselves and warn others. 1. Let’s demand that Congress mandate TSA’s radiation experiments be strictly voluntary. 2. We must demand the right to request that TSA conduct a non-radiation search of our persons. 3. We must demand our right to abstain from security procedures that may harm our children. 4. We must initiate an e-mail campaign to convince TSA and the airlines that forcible assault by radiation makes the cost of an airline ticket impossibly prohibitive.
TSA’s consumer e-mail address is: TSAContactCenter@dhs.gov. It’s toll free comment line is: 1-866-289-9673. [Source]
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to create a new military command to coordinate the defense of Pentagon computer networks and improve U.S. offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare, according to current and former officials familiar with the plans.
The initiative will reshape the military's efforts to protect its networks from attacks by hackers, especially those from countries such as China and Russia. The new command will be unveiled within the next few weeks, Pentagon officials said.
The move comes amid growing evidence that sophisticated cyberspies are attacking the U.S. electric grid and key defense programs. A page-one story in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that hackers breached the Pentagon's biggest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter, and stole data. Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote to the defense secretary Tuesday requesting a briefing on the matter.
Lockheed Martin Corp., the project's lead contractor, said in a statement Tuesday that it believed the article "was incorrect in its representation of successful cyber attacks" on the F-35 program. "To our knowledge, there has never been any classified information breach," the statement said. The Journal story didn't say the stolen information was classified.
President Barack Obama, when he was a candidate for the White House, pledged to elevate cybersecurity as a national-security issue, equating it in significance with nuclear and biological weapons. A White House team reviewing cybersecurity policy has completed its recommendations, including the creation of a top White House cyberpolicy official. Details of that and other proposals are still under debate. A final decision from the president is expected soon.
A draft of the White House review steps gingerly around the question of how to improve computer security in the private sector, especially key infrastructure such as telecommunications and the electricity grid. The document stresses the importance of working with the private sector and civil-liberties groups to craft a solution, but doesn't call for a specific government role, according to a person familiar with the draft.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to announce the creation of a new military "cyber command" after the rollout of the White House review, according to military officials familiar with the plan.
The Pentagon has several command organizations structured according to both geography and operational responsibility. Central Command, for example, oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the Special Operations Command is responsible for operations involving elite operatives such as Navy Seals.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to announce the creation of a new military 'cyber command' after the rollout of a White House review.
The cyber command is likely to be led by a military official of four-star rank, according to officials familiar with the proposal. It would, at least initially, be part of the Pentagon's Strategic Command, which is currently responsible for computer-network security and other missions.
Pentagon officials said the front-runner to lead the new command is National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander, a three-star Army general. In a rare public appearance Tuesday at a cybersecurity conference in San Francisco, Gen. Alexander called for a "team" approach to cybersecurity that would give the NSA lead responsibility for protecting military and intelligence networks while the Department of Homeland Security worked to protect other government networks. His spokeswoman said he had no additional comment.
Former President George W. Bush's top intelligence adviser, Mike McConnell, first proposed the creation of a unified cyber command last fall. The military's cybersecurity efforts are currently divided between entities like the NSA and the Defense Information Systems Agency, which is responsible for ensuring secure and reliable communications for the military. The Air Force also runs a significant cybersecurity effort.
Advocates believe the new command will be able to avoid duplication and better leverage the technical expertise of the agencies and the military services' cyberwarriors.
Cyber defense is the Department of Homeland Security's responsibility, so the command would be charged with assisting that department's defense efforts. The relationship would be similar to the way Northern Command supports Homeland Security with rescue capabilities in natural disasters. The NSA, where much of the government's cybersecurity expertise is housed, established a similar relationship with Homeland Security through a cybersecurity initiative that the Bush administration began in its final year.
NSA's increasingly muscular role in domestic cybersecurity has raised alarms among some officials and on Capitol Hill. Rod Beckstrom, former chief of the National Cyber Security Center, which is charged with coordinating cybersecurity activities across the U.S. government, resigned last month after warning that the growing reliance on the NSA was a "bad strategy" that posed "threats to our democratic processes."
Gen. Alexander countered in his speech Tuesday that the NSA did "not want to run cybersecurity for the U.S. government."
—August Cole contributed to this article.
London Telegraph
March 12, 2009
The file, called Pifts.exe, requests permission to dial out to the internet. But users of Symantec’s Norton Internet Protection software have found it almost impossible to find more information about the file’s origins and purpose, and the situation has led to a rash of rumours on online message boards about the true purpose of the file.
Security experts, however, believe the file is innocuous and does not pose a threat to internet users.
Many users first became aware of the file on Monday, when their internet protection software popped up a warning that Pifts.exe was trying to access the internet. The location of the file pointed to a non-existent folder within the user’s Symantec LiveUpdate library.
Further investigation by some Norton users suggested that the file attempted to dial out to Norton servers in Africa, while others wildly speculated that “Pifts” stood for Public Internet File Tracking system, and was a sinister attempt to monitor users’ online behaviour.
The rumours were further fanned by Symantec’s apparent decision to delete threads related to the issue from its user support forum, leading some web users to suggest a cover-up by the software company.
But security experts have said that early indications show the file is not malicious and is related to Norton’s security products. It has a build date of March 5, suggesting it has only just been created, said Graham Cluley, a security expert with Sophos.
“Pifts attempts to connect to a webserver (stats.norton.com), passing information such as product name, version number and a series of other non-obvious parameters,” he wrote on his blog.
“We feel fairly comfortable in debunking the internet rumours claiming that Pifts might be a rootkit [a tool used by hackers] or a government-sponsored backdoor to spy on the masses.
“We think it’s more likely that Symantec’s programmers simply forgot to properly tag the file as having permissions to perform its functions. Indeed, a private communication from a Symantec employee reassured us that the problem was more likely to be an error by one of their staff, rather than a sinister plot against Norton users.
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