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I'm sorry, but you still don't quite have it. Classified Sources And Methods Information (SAMI) can be protected as Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) or any other Special Access Program (SAP). These types of information are marked with a compartment name. However, per DCID 6/5 there is also non-SCI SAMI, which is marked with a label that controls dissemination but does not require SCI or SAP access. This marking is similar to other caveats like PROPIN (proprietary information) or RELROK (Releasable to the Republic of Korea).

So you could have something like SECRET//MAJIC//RELROK for secret (causes serious damage to national security) UFO info that can be given to Korea, but that doesn't necessarily tell anyone how we got the UFO data. It's classified, it's compartmented, but it's not SAMI. OTOH, you could have SECRET//-//SAMI that does tell how the goods were got, but anyone with a secret clearance & a need to know can have. Also classified, but no compartment, and sources. I guess you could have UNCLASSIFIED//-//SAMI, but I'm not sure & can't imagine anyone would bother

Note: All information in this post was prepared from unclassified sources, authorized for public release.

Another interesting effect, of course, is the difference between provenance of researcher and location of publication. The US and the UK are particularly good at draining other countries of already well-educated people, but this doesn't mean that the US or the UK have performed the academic preparation necessary to produce excellent researchers.

Just a sec, it's mostly US and UK institutions that are doing the educating, at least at the post-grad level, not people studying abroad and then migrating. It is sad that so few Americans choose to peruse the sciences right at home, but given that Americans tend to value high salaries, good work-life balance, and healthy job prospects it's no wonder many of then shy away.

"Number of links" has always struck me as an odd metric (see also PageRank). The greatest work from the PoV of scientific advancement isn't necessarily the most cited. The greatest determinant will be how fashionable a particular field is - a few leading researchers in a particular field are likely to have a huge number of cites, especially if they constitently reach the well-known publications, but it doesn't necessarily mean the field is very scientifically interesting.

Then, even if great progress has been made, you get the effect that people don't necessarily cite the seminal investigations so much as the pioneering refiners.

Another interesting effect, of course, is the difference between provenance of researcher and location of publication. The US and the UK are particularly good at draining other countries of already well-educated people, but this doesn't mean that the US or the UK have performed the academic preparation necessary to produce excellent researchers.

I do feel that part of the problem with nuclear power has been the culture of secrecy fed by, to be frank, the scientific and engineering ignorance, emotionalism and sometimes near-hysteria of the antis.

I would guess, instead, that most of the bad practices of the nuclear power industry were baked in by the US government, which kicked the whole thing off. I suspect that the rest of the world learned from our example.

The problem is that power generation was initially spun out of military weapons fuel generation projects. The US has never had a terrific history of dealing with radiation when national security is at stake --- for example, here for example, for a series of really terrifying US government experiments, in which they injected --- mostly unsuspecting --- patients with Plutonium to see what would happen. They did even nastier things to troops during the days of open-air nuclear tests.

In the early days of nuclear generation, civilian protections were negligible, since most people didn't realize the danger of radiation. Where they did realize, the government became very good at stonewalling. This did a lot of damage to people's perceptions of nuclear power.

Some of this damage was undone as nuclear power generation became truly unstuck from the military, but there is a certain amount of momentum and quite a few bad lessons were learned by the industry. And since the US gov't still insures the plants, they still have a sizable policy interest in minimizing the public's perception of danger. It's an unhealthy recipe.

Invalid assumptions. Oil doesn't equally disperse and life isn't equally dispersed either. If the *heavy* oil drifts to the bottom, as the article suggests you're looking at layering the *life rich* ocean floor with 341 gallons per square mile. Too much for my taste.

And realistically its more like a 10,000 square mile affected, 21,000 gallons per square mile. = more than enough to kill off all life.

Invalid assumptions indeed. First off, most oil is lighter than water and floats. Secondly, the majority of the oil left the Gulf waters through various mechanisms. From "Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: The Fate of the Oil" report produced by the Congressional Research Service:

• Evaporated or Dissolved: 24%
• Directly Recovered: 17%
• Chemically Dispersed: 16%
• Naturally Dispersed: 13%
• Burned: 5%
• Skimmed: 3%

That leaves a grand total of 22% of the oil unaccounted for, with an unknown amount being biodegraded by oil-eating bacteria.

Given that between 24 million gallons and 70+ million gallons of oil are released into North American waters each year from natural seepage, the ocean ecosystem clearly has the ability to thrive despite some oil release. It's quite likely the damage from the Deepwater Horizon spill is being exaggerated by the environuts for the usual reasons.

With ideas like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_center its all in the mix. FBI is the DHS and they chat with the NSA, Army ect.
Next up is "Satellite Surveillance: Domestic Issues" http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL34421.pdf

Either China is the next superpower whose superiority is backed by superb cyber offense capability, or one of these days their "victims" are gonna expose their hubris and gonna send them(China) back to IT stone age. Chinese were quick off the blocks as regards information warfare Add to that their military doctrine is about hiding their strength, obscurity et al. So if they are attacking and not bothering to hide, hmmm.. What are they upto?

My understanding(IANAL), is that they would have to demonstrate intent to destroy evidence. See here starting on page 16 and page 64 for a summary of the Federal stuff...

If you don't know about the investigation, and always destroy hard drives after use, proving the necessary intent would likely be pretty tricky, even if the HDDs sometimes contained evidence of some crime or other. They might well tack it on, just to see if it would stick; but the other evidence would have to be really compelling.

If there were evidence that your SOP was what it was because you were operating a criminal enterprise and wished to avoid discovery, well, you might have a much clearer problem.

If you specifically destroy something after you hear about the investigation, you are fucked.

If you specifically destroy something after a subpoena for that something, double fucked.

Here you go.

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1999_h/99-02-11daly.htm

A lot of pilots have heard about this and are scared. Do you know what's scarier than a laser dot bouncing around your cabin full of shiny reflective things that could possibly blind you if it gets in your eyes? A laser dot that you can't see. This is a major issue with green and blue lasers because they might be putting out a lot of non-visible energy. All it takes is an instant to blind you permanently. Some green lasers can do it.

Care to cite a law which backs that up.

Sure.

Under 18 USC 793, persons convicted of gathering defense information with the intent or reason to believe the information will be used against the United States or to the benefit of a foreign nation may be fined or sentenced to no more than 10 years imprisonment. Persons who disclose that information to any person not entitled to receive it are subject to the same penalty. Classified documents may remain within the ambit of the statute even if information contained therein is made public by an unauthorized leak.

Statements taken from this document.

Amazon should not have to wait until a user has been convicted of violating US law before deciding that user has violated the "do not break US law" portion of the terms of service, especially when there are clear sections of US law that the user is violating. Otherwise, they would be unable to remove users who e.g. distribute child pornography until those users are convicted in court.

You may disagree about whether 18 USC 793 applies. That's fine. Your disagreement has no consequences. Amazon bears some risk as a result of their understanding of this law whichever way they interpret it, so it should not be surprising that they choose the safer interpretation.

At any rate, this entire argument is stupid. Wikileaks was offline for no more than a day or two as a result of Amazon's action, and they suffered no harm. Why get mad at Amazon for choosing a less risky interpretation of the law, when no harm was caused to Wikileaks as a result?

The US has no Official Secrets act. It is perfectly legal for anyone to tell classified information to anyone else as long as they have not sign documents stating they will not do that.

Basically, all punishment for leaking classified information is contractual. Mannings agreed to it, and hence he be punished.

Not quite.

18 U.S.C. 793 : US Code - Section 793: Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it;....

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(g) If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of
the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.

This also looks interesting: 18 U.S.C. 798 (disclosing classified information)

As does this: 18 U.S.C. 2511. Interception and disclosure of wire, oral, or electronic communications prohibited

The Pentagon Papers case does not have the expansive application that many assume.

II. There is no Clarity in Current Constitutional Doctrine Over Whether The First Amendment Permits the Criminal Prosecution of Reporters for the Mere Possession or Subsequent Publication of Classified Material. There is, however, Substantial Reason to Doubt that Current First Amendment Doctrine Does Bar the Making of Mere Possession or Subsequent Publication of Classified Material Criminal. Testimony of Dean Rodney A. Smolla, United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary

There is plenty of reason to believe that the investigation against Assange is motivated by his behavior, not by some government conspiracy.
10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Julian Assange
The wildly promiscuous lifestyle of WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange: Look away now Jemima as our report reveals the sordid truth

Contrary to some people's ideas, Interpol does get involved in rape cases.

Since when does the CIA investigate crime?

The CIA has its own Inspector General, and no doubt other investigators. There are plenty of circumstances that might call for investigations when national security is involved in a large organization like the CIA.

I'm just a little baffled that the CIA is openly admitting the government is trying to figure out ways to charge Assange with a crime.

Assange was/is allegedly?/apparently? involved in a conspiracy to procure and publish hundreds of thousands of stolen classified US Government documents on the web so that any enemy of the United States can access them and hunt down named info

Wikileaks is guilty only of receiving the data and publishing the parts they feel are morally justifiable to make public, not stealing, and not espionage, and certainly not treason (they aren't even eligible to commit that one).

Well, thats kind of the problem.

Taliban Study WikiLeaks to Hunt Informants
WikiLeaks Comes Under Fire from Rights Groups
Wikileaks Fails “Due Diligence” Review

This could turn into a feedback loop. If enough informants against the Taliban and Al Qaeda are killed as a result of Wikileaks, it could have consequences in the United States or Europe.

The diplomatic consequences have already been considerable.

What motivates Assange?

In December, 2006, WikiLeaks posted its first document: a “secret decision,” signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a Somali rebel leader for the Islamic Courts Union, that had been culled from traffic passing through the Tor network to China. The document called for the execution of government officials by hiring “criminals” as hit men. Assange and the others were uncertain of its authenticity, but they thought that readers, using Wikipedia-like features of the site, would help analyze it. They published the decision with a lengthy commentary, which asked, “Is it a bold manifesto by a flamboyant Islamic militant with links to Bin Laden? Or is it a clever smear by US intelligence, designed to discredit the Union, fracture Somali alliances and manipulate China?”

The document’s authenticity was never determined, and news about WikiLeaks quickly superseded the leak itself. Several weeks later, Assange flew to Kenya for the World Social Forum, an anti-capitalist convention, to make a presentation about the Web site. “ No Secrets

Assange the Anti-American

Manning supposedly had some encrypted chats with Assange prior to releasing any material. It will be very interesting if those come to light.

One possibility is that Wikileaks and Assange are losing public support.

They are.

WikiLeaks: A Document Dump Too Far

WikiLeaks Comes Under Fire from Rights Groups

Reports that Wikileaks released the names of Afghan informants hasn't helped

Sad, but true. Hopefully none are killed. We need as many informants against the Taliban as we can, both to protect the Afghans, and to protect the US from more terrorist attacks.

WikiLeaks Reportedly Outs 100s of Afghan Informants

profiles of Assange (such as the one in the New York Times) don't paint him in a very flattering light.

They aren't the only ones.

10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Julian Assange

The wildly promiscuous lifestyle of WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange: Look away now Jemima as our report reveals the sordid truth

Exposed: The 'creepy, lovesick' emails WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange sent to 19-year-old girl student

No one gains from this 'rape-rape' defence of Julian Assange

My understanding from the Times article is that even within Wikileaks, there is a lot of controversy about how Assange has acted.

Is WikiLeaks Reneging on its Financial Promise to Bradley Manning?

Former WikiLeaks Activists to Launch New Whistleblowing Site

‘Chaos’ at WikiLeaks Follows Assange Arrest

Although not internal to Wikileaks, thought provoking.

Wikileaks Fails “Due Diligence” Review

These are what systems are required to do in the way of security measures, as defined by the Federal Information Processing Standards, the Orange Book and the Common Criteria.

A lot of the documentation can be found at the Information Assurance Support Environment website, Policy and Guidance

To summarize, information that is labelled "Secret" can only be stored on a machine that - in the Orange Book system - is classed as B3 or better. The use of security labeling and a mox of host-level and network-level mandatory access controls is supposed to ensure that this is actually mandated at the OS level on each machine and between machines. B3 is equal to the more modern Commmon Criteria EAL4.

(It is impossible, in theory, to transfer information that is classified at one level into a lower classification, on the same machine or by going through a series of machines. To be able to do so is a violation.)

To be given an EAL4 rating, that precise combination of hardware and software MUST be tested by an approved laboratory and shown to meet all of the criteria.

Further, as noted on the FIPS website: "With the passage of the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, there is no longer a statutory provision to allow for agencies to waive mandatory Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)."

• Minimum Security Requirements for Federal Information and Information Systems (FIPS 200)
• Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems (FIPS 199)
• Standard Security Label for Information Transfer (FIPS 188)

Mandated Criteria, Rainbow Series and Related

• Computer Security Requirements (CSC-STD-003-85)
• Security Requirements for Automated Information Systems (AISs)
• A Guide to Understanding Configuration Management in Trusted Systems (Orange Book, Rainbow Series)

Mandated Criteria, Common Criteria

• Common Criteria for Information Technology Seciryt Evaluation, Part 1
• Common Criteria for Information Technology Seciryt Evaluation, Part 2
• Common Criteria for Information Technology Seciryt Evaluation, Part 3
• Comon Methodology for Information Technology Security Evaluation

These are NOT optional. These are Federally-mandated requirements. If Manning's computer did not meet these standards, it was NOT authorized to be on the network and the machines that transferred classified information to it were NOT authorized to do so.

These are what systems are required to do in the way of security measures, as defined by the Federal Information Processing Standards, the Orange Book and the Common Criteria.

A lot of the documentation can be found at the Information Assurance Support Environment website, Policy and Guidance

To summarize, information that is labelled "Secret" can only be stored on a machine that - in the Orange Book system - is classed as B3 or better. The use of security labeling and a mox of host-level and network-level mandatory access controls is supposed to ensure that this is actually mandated at the OS level on each machine and between machines. B3 is equal to the more modern Commmon Criteria EAL4.

(It is impossible, in theory, to transfer information that is classified at one level into a lower classification, on the same machine or by going through a series of machines. To be able to do so is a violation.)

To be given an EAL4 rating, that precise combination of hardware and software MUST be tested by an approved laboratory and shown to meet all of the criteria.

Further, as noted on the FIPS website: "With the passage of the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, there is no longer a statutory provision to allow for agencies to waive mandatory Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)."

• Minimum Security Requirements for Federal Information and Information Systems (FIPS 200)
• Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems (FIPS 199)
• Standard Security Label for Information Transfer (FIPS 188)

Mandated Criteria, Rainbow Series and Related

• Computer Security Requirements (CSC-STD-003-85)
• Security Requirements for Automated Information Systems (AISs)
• A Guide to Understanding Configuration Management in Trusted Systems (Orange Book, Rainbow Series)

Mandated Criteria, Common Criteria

• Common Criteria for Information Technology Seciryt Evaluation, Part 1
• Common Criteria for Information Technology Seciryt Evaluation, Part 2
• Common Criteria for Information Technology Seciryt Evaluation, Part 3
• Comon Methodology for Information Technology Security Evaluation

These are NOT optional. These are Federally-mandated requirements. If Manning's computer did not meet these standards, it was NOT authorized to be on the network and the machines that transferred classified information to it were NOT authorized to do so.

Well if you are looking for 20 informative pages http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/R41404.pdf that is a CRS report on how laws may or may not apply to wikileaks and Assange. I have not read it yet only found it a few min. ago. Important note for those who don't know Congressional research service (CRS) is a research service for Congress and their reports are not distributed to the public. They are not classified and you can receive copies by asking your Congressmen and are often available online. However there is no one source where you can get all reports. CRS is often described as Congress' thinktank.

What laws have they broken?
Receiving and distributing classified information that causes harm to national security is against the law.

Which nation? Australia? That's where Julian is from.

What specific information in the thousand or so cables published to date has endagered the security of any nation?

Whose(sic) laws?
The laws of the United States.

That's not how (sic) works. You put (sic) after what I actually wrote to indicate that you believe I spelled it wrong, but are leaving it that way to maintain the integrety of the quote.

Getting the quote wrong, then putting (sic) after it kind of defeats the purpose of using (sic).

Re: "the laws of the United States" see above.

Yes. It was even tested in court prior to this. See here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/rosen080906.pdf

You're joking?

I wasn't familiar with the case, so I went to Wikipedia. Here's an excerpt from the article about Steven J. Rosen:

He was under federal indictment from August 4, 2005 for alleged violations of the Espionage Act in the conduct of AIPAC's work, but the prosecution dropped charges once it was clear that they would not be able to convict him. The case has received wide attention more because it raises new issues about the conflict between Bush Administration national security policy and civil liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment. Floyd Abrams, a leading First Amendment attorney, said the AIPAC case "is the single most dangerous case for free speech and free press" (Washington Post, March 31, 2006) and Alan Dershowitz called it "the worst case of selective prosecution I have seen in 42 years of legal practice" (Jerusalem Post, January 31, 2006).

So you've actually brought my attention to another case that illustrates why it is important to speak out against the attacks on WikiLeaks, and ensure free speach and freedom of the press is vigorously defended whenever it is attacked by the government of the day.

You must be retarded to have to ask those questions.

I should have just stopped reading your comment there.

You must be retarded to have to ask those questions.

What laws have they broken?
Receiving and distributing classified information that causes harm to national security is against the law.

Whose(sic) laws?
The laws of the United States.

Were those laws written prior(sic) to the commission of the crime?
Yes. It was even tested in court prior to this. See here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/rosen080906.pdf

Actually the New York Times did get a hold of some documents back during the Vietnam War. It ended up in the US Supreme Court (look up "Pentagon Papers").
Secrecy is necessary. There is no question of that. But then KEEP IT SECRET! After 9/11 when the government got slapped for not sharing intel, they responded by letting everybody and their uncle read this stuff. That's not the way to keep secrets.
Trying to wrap your head around what intel needs to be kept and who really needs to be able to see it is a huge task. One that has not been handled well.
For some other disucssions around this topic check out the Secrecy Blog ( http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ ).

You're talking out your ass, fuzzy. Freedom isn't free - you have that much right.

I argue that while freedom is not free, is much less expensive than giving it up for increased security.

Here are some citations (and I don't need Wikileaks to find them):
1. TSA budget for 2009 - roughly$ 8.1 billion dollar
2. cost of single month of war in Iraq and Afghanistan (waged also in the name of security) - 11.1 billion dollars

What amazes me is that the various "war on..." had placed US in this situation, yet US still persist in them crazy spendings (monthly cost of Iraq+Afghanistan - $11.1 billions; TSA budget 2009: roughly $8.1 billions).

Even letting aside the legitimacy/efficiency of the said "wars", at least the question of affordability springs into mind.

I don't think information should be made public for the sake of making it public. There are some things that are better off kept secret.

I guess then comes down to the definition of public, not secret. http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/12/crs_block.html

Section 798 deals with the disclosure of information. The information was already disclosed, however. So where is the problem?

The wording of the law is "Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes". It doesn't really matter how they got it.

"The provision applies only to information related to cryptographic systems and information related to communications intelligence specially designated by a U.S. government agency for "limited or restricted dissemination or distribution.""

Criminal Prohibitions on the Publication of Classified Defense Information - Congressional Research Service - October 18, 2010

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/R41404.pdf

We already have several laws that make the disclosure of US Defense information illegal.

Disclosure is not publication.

". . . we are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it. . ."

Criminal Prohibitions on the Publication of Classified Defense Information - Congressional Research Service - October 18, 2010

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/R41404.pdf

They fear the rule of law more than death and Government is their God.

Yes, and they also kidnap infants and drink their blood at their Satanic gatherings.

Can we stop with the hysteria yet? People in the US government are like people anywhere else -- some good, some bad, most just trying to pay their bills and keep out of trouble. Just because it's in the political interest of certain right-wing media organizations to regularly vilify them doesn't mean you have to mindlessly play along.

People with security clearance fear the law and follow it ruthlessly. See here http://www.fas.org/sgp/isoo/guidelines.html

So it's reasonable to believe people in the government aren't like people everywhere else because unlike everybody else they know how not to get in trouble.

Can't help but notice that you didn't include any actual citations. If you're going to bother quoting, then the least you could do is provide links.

You should be able to verify any of these quotes easily. This is a slashdot comment, not an academic paper. But just so everyone knows what I said is accurate:

At its launch, WikiLeaks said it was "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa", and that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". - Source

Steven Aftergood, a veteran crusader against excessive government secrecy and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, notes, "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals." - Source

And no, their efforts haven't just focused on the US because of the volume of materials involved. I don't care what has or hasn't been pulled from the web; the point is that the focus of WikiLeaks' efforts have changed to target primarily the US, instead of "oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". Julian Assange's single-minded crusade against the US has caused rifts within WikiLeaks itself:

Despite latest coup, WikiLeaks facing challenges, Washington Post

Indeed, as WikiLeaks is trumpeting its latest coup, a number of former WikiLeaks activists are painting another picture of an organization that is out of control, still too driven by the personality and ego of its mercurial founder, Julian Assange.

"I'm too busy ending two wars," is the response one reporter got in an e-mail from Assange after asking for clarity on an issue, according to a source who saw the e-mail, and thought it captured Assange's crusading and peremptory nature.

[...]

But the phenomenal rise of WikiLeaks over the past six months has come at a price, former activists say. At least five people from the core group have left because of disagreements over the way Assange was running the operation, said Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old Icelandic activist who moderated a WikiLeaks chat room until about a month ago. "Quite a few others" who were more tangentially involved have also left, he said.

He said too many editorial decisions were being made solely by Assange, including to title the Baghdad video Collateral Murder, a move that suggested to some that WikiLeaks is not neutral. "It had unnecessary effects on how the project was perceived," he said.

Former colleagues questioned the focus on high-profile disclosures such as the Afghanistan records, which, they said, not only meant smaller projects languished but that the rushed staff was ill-prepared to vet so many records to ensure that names of civilians had been redacted.

WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety, New York Times

Mr. Assange’s detractors also accuse him of pursuing a vendetta against the United States. In London, Mr. Assange said America was an increasingly militarized society and a threat to democracy.

[...]

In an encrypted online chat, a transcript of which was passed to The Times, Mr. Assange was dismissive of his colleagues. He described them as “a confederacy of fools,” and asked his interlocutor, “Am I dealing with a complete retard?”

"I am the heart and soul of this organisation, its founde

I'm a USAmerican and while I'll admit to sucking at math, I think it's a stretch to say I suck "so badly." I'm not exactly sure what The Problem with America Today is, but if I had to guess I'd say a lot of it has to do with extremely large organizations motivated solely by profit (AKA news media) manipulating the international discourse in ways that are profitable, which has nothing to do with a sane representation of reality. It's probably not even that satisfyingly conspiratory, unfortunately, but I do know that I've never seen anyone ram together a few legitimate data points like I have in this blog post (which I'm reproducing in entirety here to save everyone the effort of having to click through to a foreign environment):

In the style of Harper's Index, if with so much less elegance...

Number of deaths in the USA due to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in 9/2001: 2,996
Estimated number of those that were US citizens: 2,669
Number of deaths in the USA due to traffic accidents in the same month: 3,303
Number of deaths in the USA due to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists between 9/12/2001 and 12/31/2008: 0
Number of deaths in the USA due to traffic accidents in approximately the same period: 303,841
Total approved, as of 12/2009, for the three military operations initiated to combat terrorism in response to 9/11 (excluding funds for CIA, FBI, TSA, Homeland Security, etc.): $1,086,000,000,000
Estimated budget for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the same period: $6,520,000,000
The NHTSAs budget, expressed as a percent of the amount allocated for these military operations: 00.
Estimate, in 2008, for the final total cost of the Iraq war alone: $3,000,000,000,000
Amount allocated to the military per terrorism related US citizen death in the USA since 9/11/2001: $406,893,967.78
Amount allocated to the NHTSA per traffic related death: $21,458.59
Amount allocated to the military per terrorism related US citizen death in the USA since 9/12/2001: Undefined
Percentage of causes of death in the USA that kill more people than terrorism: 100
Percentage of causes of death in the USA that receive more public money for prevention than terrorism: 0
Percent change in gross federal debt between 2001 and 2010: 232.97
Percentage of gross federal debt in 2001 that would have been eliminated by 1.086 trillion dollars: 18.8
Amount each US household would receive given 1.086 trillion dollars evenly distributed: $9443.48
Rank of defense, excluding expenditure on active military operations, among all categories of federal spending: 1
Percentage of federal spending in 2009 that went to defense: 23
Percentage of federal income in the same year that came from individual income tax: 43
Percentage that came from social security/social insurance tax: 42
Percentage that came from corporate income tax: 7


Sources: http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHTSA Global Terrorism Database, with specific query used The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, by the Congressional Research Service (pdf) The three trillion dollar war

You could have googled it pretty easy if you were actually interested in knowing. http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html which doesn't show mothballed warheads, just active.

Do note that the term "Border" got redefined to be anywhere within 100-miles of the physical border inland entry points. International airports count as entry points. 2/3rds of the US population is technically within this area.

Citation needed.

Too lazy to use Google, eh? Have a look at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL31826.pdf

In general, the border is the point where entry into the United States is first made by land from the neighboring countries of Mexico or Canada, at the place where a ship docks in the United States after having been to a foreign port, and at any airport in the country where international flights first land.

Border searches can also occur in places other than the actual physical border. Two different legal concepts authorize such searches: (1) searches at the functional equivalent of the border; and (2) extended border searches. These concepts allow federal officers to conduct border searches even in situations when it is not feasible to conduct the search at the actual point of entry (e.g., examining a person upon arrival at a U.S. airport rather than during a mid-flight crossing into the country).

INA 287(a)(3), 8 U.S.C. 1357(a)(3). This statute also authorizes searches without warrant “within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States.” Reasonable distance is defined by 8 C.F.R. 287.1(a)(2) to mean “within 100 air miles from any external oundary of the United States or any shorter distance which may be fixed by the chief patrol agent of CBP, or the special agent in charge of ICE.” External boundary is defined by 8 C.F.R. 287.1(a)(1) to mean “the land boundaries and the territorial sea of the United States extending 12 nautical miles from the baselines of the United States determined in accordance with international law.”

This entire argument is already rendered moot by virtue of a few executive orders.

Executive Order #10995: ASSIGNING TELECOMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS
(Seizure of all communications media in the United States.)

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1962.html
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-10995.htm

I am certain a "cyber attack" would constitute a State of Emergency.

Bill Clinton reaffirmed this Executive Order and a few others with Executive Order #12919: (Signed June 3, 1994,)
It encompasses the above Executive Order and more.

Executive Order #12919: NATIONAL DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES PREPAREDNESS
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1994.html
http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/eo/eo12919.htm
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo12919.htm

This entire argument is already rendered moot by virtue of a few executive orders.

Executive Order #10995: ASSIGNING TELECOMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS
(Seizure of all communications media in the United States.)

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1962.html
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-10995.htm

I am certain a "cyber attack" would constitute a State of Emergency.

Bill Clinton reaffirmed this Executive Order and a few others with Executive Order #12919: (Signed June 3, 1994,)
It encompasses the above Executive Order and more.

Executive Order #12919: NATIONAL DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES PREPAREDNESS
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1994.html
http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/eo/eo12919.htm
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo12919.htm

NASA ... now has to hold the equivalent of a technology "bake sale" for funding. when does this stop?

It's all about what's "important" (he said sarcastically) - perspective:

• The 2011 budget for NASA: $19 billion
  [ NASA Budget]

• U.S. consumer spending on cosmetic surgery (2009): $10.5 billion (down 20% from 2007)
  [Spending Less on Plastic Surgery]
• U.S. consumer spending on cosmetics: $8 billion
  [ various ]

• U.S. Military budget (2010): $663.8 billion
  [Military budget of the United States]
• Iraq/Afghanistan war expenses to date: $1.121 trillion
  [ The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11]

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-054.htm

Love the "UNCLASSIFIED" yet censored documents. Don't you?

Generations allowed the NSA and GCHQ with their helper countries to do this and more. Cheap US cryptography was gifted to NATO that kept the Soviets out but gave plain text back to the NSA.
European cryptography was subverted from inception and exported to the world.
Now this is happening to the next generation of hand held devices and people sit up?
Another country is getting what a select few had for decades.
The strange question is - why is anyone with anything interesting to say still silly enough to use any of this tech?
Numbers, IM's, friends lists, voice prints - all collected and searched for 24/7.
Make a call in some parts of the world and your voice is on file eg :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/3949099/Royal-Marine-killed-on-Christmas-Eve-in-Afghanistan.html
I guess everybody now wants their own internal SIGmod
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/uk/isc2005-06.pdf
The real bite is the effort to get this into a public legal framework.

Furthermore, if only 10% of the money that is spent on the US military in Afghanistan is spent on simply bribing everyone, from Karzai down to the most lowly peasant, the Taliban would not have a leg to stand on.

Compute. yearly spending on contracts and pay alone in Afghanistan in 2009 was $43.2 billion (source ). The Afghanistan GDP was $10.6 billion in 2006. So, simply dumping 4.2 billion dollar per year in the population would lift the GDP by a third!

Better yet, there are 27 million people in Afghanistan, spreading out $4.3 billion will give each Afghani, man, woman and child, a check of $1600 dollars annually. Given that the per capita income of the Afghani was a mere $800 in 2008, this will mean a 200% rise in income. Promise the same amount for the next 10 years (1 year of warfare), and focus on building an infrastructure that works. Of course, in Taliban controlled areas, the check cannot be paid out. And witness what the population will do.

It might not solve the problem, bribery and buying drugs is morally reprehensible (killing apparently isn't), but it seems to be a hell of a lot cheaper than trying to shoot your way out.

You'll get sued, and you might even spend a day or two in jail for contempt of court after a court ordered you to turn something over and you refused to do so.

No.

You'll remain in the county lock-up until you turn over the keys or until hell freezes over.

Whichever comes first.

[For H. Beatty Chadwick, it was fourteen years]

But you do realize that if you had the key to a building, and were fired, and refused to hand those keys over, you wouldn't be going to prison, right?

Wrong.

Consider how "Obstruction of Justice" is defined in the federal system:

"Obstruction of justice is the frustration of governmental purposes by violence, corruption, destruction of evidence, or deceit. It is a federal crime. In fact, it is several crimes. Obstruction prosecutions regularly involve charges under several statutory provisions. Federal obstruction of justice laws are legion; too many for even passing reference to all of them in a single report." Obstruction of Justice: An Abridged Overview of Related Federal Criminal Laws

Interfering with government operations is broadly criminal.

I'm betting that if you hold the keys to a Catholic hospital - or to the server rooms within a Catholic hospital - you would also be looking at criminal charges.

The stakes are simply too high.

There are plenty of African countries that are at least as fucked up as Saudi Arabia without US sponsorship.

You're forgetting that the Saudi Arabian government is propped up partially by our willingness to sell them advanced weaponry. How many F-16s do we sell to Congo?

Assange has a long history of making vague conspiratorial claims of harassment that don't stand up to scrutiny

Similarly a New Yorker piece commented on the leaked video and noted that

These pieces of missing information are not just inherent limitations in video. The producers themselves have chosen not to provide them. There appears to be a purpose to the omissions, which is underlined by the Orwell quote at the start, the prefatory explanation, the quotes and dedication at the end, even the way the helicopter crew’s cruel remarks are edited in a few places for effect. Although the producers identify the camera of the Reuters journalist who, along with his assistant, will be killed by Apache cannon fire, they don’t point to the AK-47 or the RPG launcher carried by other men with whom the journalists are walking in a group. Stripped of much context and weighted with commentary, this video is both an important document of the war, courageously leaked after the military had steadily refused to release it, and, in its way, a propaganda film

Another article

Last year, for example, WikiLeaks published the “secret ritual” of a college women’s sorority called Alpha Sigma Tau. Now Alpha Sigma Tau (like several other sororities “exposed” by WikiLeaks) is not known to have engaged in any form of misconduct, and WikiLeaks does not allege that it has. Rather, WikiLeaks chose to publish the group’s confidential ritual just because it could. This is not whistleblowing and it is not journalism. It is a kind of information vandalism. In fact, WikiLeaks routinely tramples on the privacy of non-governmental, non-corporate groups for no valid public policy reason. It has published private rites of Masons, Mormons and other groups that cultivate confidential relations among their members. Most or all of these groups are defenseless against WikiLeaks’ intrusions. The only weapon they have is public contempt for WikiLeaks’ ruthless violation of their freedom of association, and even that has mostly been swept away in a wave of uncritical and even adulatory reporting about the brave “open government,” “whistleblower” site. On occasion, WikiLeaks has engaged in overtly unethical behavior. Last year, without permission, it published the full text of the highly regarded 2009 book about corruption in Kenya called “It’s Our Turn to Eat” by investigative reporter Michela Wrong (as first reported by Chris McGreal in The Guardian on April 9). By posting a pirated version of the book and making it freely available, WikiLeaks almost certainly disrupted sales of the book and made it harder for Ms. Wrong and other anti-corruption reporters to perform their important work and to get it published. Repeated protests and pleas from the author were required before WikiLeaks (to its credit) finally took the book offline. “Soon enough,” observed Raffi Khatchadourian in a long profile of WikiLeaks

Problem with that is that the reloading capacity of these Aegis equipped ships isn't fast enough to protect against a volley of Dong Feng 21Ds.

You're a couple of decades behind the times - Aegis ships don't need to reload in combat.
 

Since capabilities of this missile are not fully known to US Navy, their strategy to combat it currently is SM-3 interceptor rockets launched from Aegis destroyers and cruisers that escort Aircraft Carriers.

SM-3's and also almost certainly electronic warfare and chaff to decoy or defeat whatever they're using for terminal guidance. So, not only behind the time - but less than completely informed on the defensive capabilities available to US warships.
 
On top of which, under such an attack, the ships will go to flank and start maneuvering - which might or might not help (depending on the capability of the terminal maneuvering system) but surely won't hurt.
 
Not to mention you've made the classic mistake of the armchair admiral - assigning all the advantages to one side and failing to realize the other will evolve and respond as well.

Prior to the convention the US (through Martin-Marietta / GE) developed the Stingray laser system. My recollection was that it was man portable, but FAS says it's mounted on a Bradley AFV. It's putatively designed to disable enemy sensors; it has a scan mode where it sweeps low intensity lasers around and looks for back scatter from optical systems. When that occurs, it illuminates the source with much more powerful radiation, to disable the optics. Thing is, if the optics in question have a human retina at the far end rather than a CCD, it still serves it's functional role of "disabling the sensor". I presume that the system was shelved in '86 because of the protocol mentioned above, but am not sure.

Anyway, a risk of "less than lethal" systems is that it drops the activation energy for their use. If something like the Stingray were deployed, I'd think it would get co-opted for use in roles beyond just disabling range finders. Another link with more blinding systems.

We did?

I've a pro-fission guy, and pro-atomic weapons, but even I realize that Plutonium was a fraking mess at best.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/science/earth/11plutonium.html?src=mv

Triple the amount of waste in the soil than was projected at Hanford, in a couple hundred years it'll be in the Columbia River.

And we produced more than twice the amount of Plutonium we needed

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/gao/rced97098.htm

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06352.pdf

It cost 10 billion dollars to clean up Rocky Flats, a "clean" site compared to Hanford.

It's going to cost the UK a total of 146 billion dollars to clean their Plutonium site up.

So why in 40+ years didn't we figure this out if we were so damned good at it?

We only made it in the US at Hanford and Savannah River, both of those are shut down now.

It's very toxic, very hard to work with and very flammable and very much controlled, so thats why no private companies are in the market to produce it.

To produce Pu-238 you produce a ton of weapons grade plutonium, do we really need more of that crap churned out?

http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/plutonium.htm

Um, no, my question was whether it was practical. Not as a theoretical possibility, but, would this be useful in the real world?

Certainly.

In the case of an abort near the pad, thrust termination ensures the discarded booster doesn't punch a hole in VAB or a hotel full of tourists. In any abort scenario it ensures the discarded booster stays within the bounds of the range (I.E. the area kept clear for the launch). It prevents recontact between the discarded booster or it's plume with the departing module. It ensures the discarded booster lands well clear of the descending module. (And it means your escape boost system can be smaller and lighter.)

I.E. pretty much the same reasons that liquid fueled boosters have the capability to be shut down and destroyed.

As it's been explained to me, thrust venting works by opening both ends of the rocket. Since the thrust is now exiting equally from top and bottom, they cancel each other out. Given that, I would think that if you instead tried to direct the vented thrust to the side, that would not cancel out the "normal" exhaust. The rocket would instead veer sharply to one side. In the case of an outrigger (like STS), that would be directly into the main vehicle. In the case of a single rocket stack, it would still leave the normal exhaust pushing the solid rocket into the next stage. Am I missing something here?

You're missing several things... Yes, venting to side does contribute to canceling out the 'normal' thrust, both by directing the vented thrust in a useful direction (usually about 45 degrees from the vehicle's axis) and by controlling the relative vent areas between the forward and aft ends of the vehicle.

Keep in mind that you don't simply blow the end(s) off the vehicle. The usual method of venting the forward end is to provide a stack (a pipe) between the motor dome and the skin of the vehicle. When the time comes to vent, you blow a hole in the motor dome and in the skin and the stacks direct the vented gas in the chosen direction. If you look at this picture of a Poseidon missile, you'll see a series of ovals at the forward end of the missile - those are the skin panels over the end of the trust termination stacks. (Poseidon narrows at that point for other reasons, it's not strictly needed for thrust termination.) This picture shows the Orion escape rocket being tested (so it's pointed at the ground so as not to take flight), but it shows roughly what the front end of the Poseidon shown above would have looked like during thrust termination.

The nozzle may or may not be blown off depending on the desired thrust termination profile. Equal (and large) areas provide maximum thrust decay, proving larger vents forward (or not blowing off the nozzle) provides maximum deceleration and separation between the discarded booster and the departing module. The designer chooses the relative areas and timing of blowing the vents at each end to provide the desired profile.

The vehicle doesn't veer because you design the vents so that they vent symmetrically about the vehicles axis. In the case of the design originally proposed for the shuttle, if you look at the shuttle from the nose and imagine the orbiter is on North side of the vehicle, then (relative to the ET center line) the 'East' SRB vented to the NE, E, and SE, while the 'West' SRB vented to the NW, W, and SW. No veering and no vent plume directly impinging on vehicle structure. You can see the same symmetrical effects in the picture of the Orion escape system above.

And once the vehicle is in flight, if you can afford to jettison the solid rocket, I don't see the point in bothering with thrust venting. You don'

You're sure there are abuses? well so am I. In fact I have no doubt personally that the abuses far outweigh any possible good that can come of the classification system. Time after time throughout history the US government has classified information for the sole reason that it's embarrassing to those currently in power. Until we require a judge to review every classification for legality (and I mean every one from presidential orgies to black ops) the abuses will continue. The government's record on this is absolutely unacceptable.

It looks like it too

Its more about policy, but your right, they keep on coming. Few surveys I read though is that they still like their health-care and free education. Just can't go down the street and shout "The king is a FINK" without getting shot. Oh and having no job prospects is another one:P

To be honest, I am torn. When you have good health-care insurance from your company, everything is dandy. But now that I am laid off, once its gone, Cuba is looking good:P

TanDEM-X will generate the most consistent and highest-resolution digital elevation map ever of the Earth — 12m = 40ft. pixel pitch.

The US had ten times better than that twenty years ago.

" Study after study show that using technology often hurts, instead of helps, student performance"

I believe this has to do with the lack of GOOD quality education software. Check this out for instance... we desperately need more projects like this.

http://www.fas.org/immuneattack/

they can just have the FBI spy on us

Actually it's the NSA at Menwith Hill sitting on phone lines http://www.fas.org/irp/facility/menwith.htm that should have us up in arms, or maybe Pine Gap (another NSA listening post in Australia). The Brits spy on US citizens, the US on British citizens and then trade the data... It's the next best thing to legal compared to the other crap they've been pulling lately. BT lawyers gave paperwork to opposing counsel in a trespassing case in 1997 that admitted they put three high capacity cables from their network into the NSA facility! http://duncan.gn.apc.org/menwith.htm Facebook's published on the web and meant for sharing. Did you think they weren't gonna data mine it?

Now that's all a big clusterF* of he-said she-said that political spin gets to amplify 100-fold, but what really gets me is the comparison to NIF. Read the next few sentences very carefully:

1. NIF requires its tiny fuel pellets to be perfectly symmetrical, encased in a gold hohlraum, and perfectly centered, then shot at by the most powerful laser system ever created in earth.

2. NIF is a giant weapons research project, funded mostly by the DOD (Department, of, Defense) because we want to play nice and not test full blown warheads, and are instead simulating their fusion reactions in a laboratory (Go google NIF's funding, or enjoy the tid-bit that hohlraum was a classified word less than 30 years ago, the mention of which could get you interrogated by the FBI)

3. The laser system used to beat the crap out of the carefully assembled perfect heavy-water pellet has less than 1% efficiency. I don't care how big your Q is, the technology to fix THAT problem is way more than decades away.

4. Finally, a real powerplant, using the current studies NIF is undergoing, would require over ~60 perfectly frozen pellets (purpose is for yield, either of turbine-driving energy or more realistically better warhead modeling) per second fusion rate, lasers with a hundred times better efficiency (putting it at, oh say 10%? hah), and quite a bit of gold, that or another mechanism which they aren't studying.

That all sounds impressive until you realize that it's not that far away from viable power production, compared to the tokamak angle. The story has ITER sucking up 20 billion dollars. Meanwhile Wikipedia indicates the NIF cost about a fifth that much (even with massive cost overruns) and already has a high value, concrete use other than power generation (namely, the mentioned nuclear explosion generation). To be blunt, for power generation, I think we'll find that both are dead ends. For 20 billion dollars, you can buy up to 10 GW of baseline generation (see page 17 of this report for crude estimates of cost of generation from $1200 per KW for natural gas generators to $3000 per KW for fission and geothermal with $2100 per KW for the rest). World electricity production is roughly 2 terrawatts in 2008. So that money could have increased electricity generation by about half a percent. I see this as huge development and opportunity costs given the potential benefit.

Aside from the fact that the Army had no reason whatever to believe that the "unarmed civilians" featured in "Collateral Murder" were "unarmed", and the fact that he skipped out on a planned appearance at a panel today in Las Vegas, NV...

In free and democratic societies, an individual deciding on his or her own to leak classified information is a subversion of that very democratic process. In the US, we have collectively decided, as a society, that some information should be kept secret, even from The People, and we have empowered and entrusted the government with the power to do so.

When an individual, on his or her own, decides that some secret information should be leaked -- no matter the reason -- they subvert that process. It is nowhere near akin to leaking sensitive information from totalitarian or repressive regimes, or even from corporate entities.

Some might assert that information is overclassified, or classified such as to hide wrongdoing or illegal or questionably behavior. Fine, but:

1. You don't get to make that determination yourself. However...

2. ...if you do, this kind of decision is a moral/ethical one which must necessarily be tempered with consequences. I.e., if, in a free and democratic society, you really believe that a piece of classified information should be released, and you're going to unilaterally decide to do release it because of your own personal beliefs or convictions, you should be willing to pay your society's consequences for it.

People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences (unless they stupidly out themselves, as Manning did). This creates an unhealthy environment for any kind of legitimately protected or sensitive information -- indeed, the rule of law -- in a democratic society.

Your own personal view on whether something should or shouldn't be classified is irrelevant. There are well-known and established processes that govern classification.

Just about the only thing WikiLeaks believes should be protected from leaking is negative information about WikiLeaks itself.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I hope for intelligent responses to this post that actually acknowledge the need for some information to be protected, and for processes to protect that information, of which the government is the steward. Or, for any reasonable alternative other than any and all information should always be able to be indiscriminately leaked without fear of reprisal.