The New Energy Era: The Impact of Critical Minerals on National Security. A future powered by renewables is not in the distant horizon, but rather in its early hours. This new dawn comes from a global awareness of the environmental impacts of the current energy mix, which relies heavily on fossil fuels and their associated greenhouse gas emissions. Technologies such as wind, solar, and batteries offer renewable and clean alternatives and are leading the way for the transition to clean energy. However, as with every energy transition, there are not only new technologies, but also new material demands. Copper: A Key Piece of the Puzzle This energy transition will be mineral intensive and it will require metals such as nickel, lithium, and cobalt.
However, one metal stands out as being particularly important, and that is copper. Today’s infographic comes to us from the Copper Development Association and outlines the special role of copper in renewable power generation, energy storage, and electric vehicles. Why Copper? ConductivityDuctilityEfficiencyRecyclability. Flooding's national security risk - Axios.
Bases of Confrontation: the US Military Empire. On 26 October the New York Times carried an intriguing commentary about spying. Its front page headlined a 1200 word report which included the statement that “Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the crucial undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some US military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.” It is obvious that in the event of conflict Russia would do its best to destroy enemy undersea communications cables, just as its adversaries would try to do the same, but this wasn’t the point of the article, which somewhat lamely went on to admit that “there is no evidence yet of any cable cutting.” Of course not. The cable story was only a lead in to the deeper intention of the piece which was to add to the drumbeat of anti-Russian propaganda.
At which you have to have a quiet smile. Church Committee, White House and CIA. Washington, D.C., July 20, 2015 - Forty years ago this year, Congress’s first serious inquiry into CIA abuses faced many of the same political and bureaucratic obstructions as Senate investigators have confronted in assessing Intelligence Community performance since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Records posted today for the first time by the National Security Archive document the often rough-and-tumble, behind-the-scenes dynamics between Congress and the Executive Branch during the “Year of Intelligence” – highlighted by the investigations of the congressional Church and Pike committees. Among White House and Intelligence Community stated concerns during the period of the Church and Pike inquiries were preserving the effectiveness of the CIA and reassuring future operatives who might fear their “heads may be on the block” for their actions, no matter how well-intentioned.
The White House of President Gerald R. By John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi President Gerald R. A Conversation With CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou. John Kiriakou is widely known as the former CIA case officer who, in an interview with ABC News in late 2007, confirmed that the CIA had tortured al Qaeda prisoner Abu Zubaydah on the waterboard. Kiriakou was aware of only one instance in which Zubaydah was waterboarded, but his revelations set off a slew of investigations that sent America’s secret clique of torturers and their political bosses running for cover. Even the Senate, with feigned sincerity, initiated an investigation in 2009.
The vicious CIA wasn’t pleased, to put it mildly, nor was the Obama administration, which sicced the FBI on Kiriakou. As the controversy percolated and the authorities closed in, Kiriakou became a bit of a media sensation. Facing 40 years in stir, Kiriakou copped a plea in October 2012. John Kiriakou, however, was not an ordinary convict.
That doesn’t mean Kiriakou has it easy. This is not a typical interview with someone who has freedom of speech. John Kiriakou walks a fine line. JK – I don’t know. A Private Tour of the CIA's Incredible Museum. A chill wind whipped off the Warnow as a retired railroad worker shuffled through the streets of the port city of Rostock one winter night in 1956. He wore the drab clothes typical of East German residents. But when a second man appeared from the shadows, the elderly German revealed that he was wearing a pair of distinctive gold cuff links embossed with the helmet of the Greek goddess Athena and a small sword. The second man wore an identical pair. Wordlessly, he handed the German a package of documents and retreated back into the shadows.
The German caught a train for East Berlin, where he handed the package and the cuff links to a CIA courier. The courier smuggled them to the agency’s base in West Berlin—to George Kisevalter, who was on his way to becoming a legendary CIA case officer. The man who retreated back into the shadows was Lt. It was Kisevalter who had decided on the cuff links as a recognition signal. How quiet was it? “I knew early on he was in the CIA. Declassification Engine. FBI Admits It's Not Really About Law Enforcement Any More; Ignores Lots Of Crimes To Focus On Creating Fake Terror Plots.
A couple years ago, it was revealed that the FBI noted in one of its "counterterrorism training manuals" that FBI agents could "bend or suspend the law and impinge upon the freedoms of others," which seemed kind of odd for a government agency who claimed its "primary function" was "law enforcement. " You'd think that playing by the rules would be kind of important. However, as John Hudson at Foreign Policy has noted, at some point last summer, the FBI quietly changed its fact sheet, so that it no longer says that "law enforcement" is its primary function, replacing it with "national security.
" Of course, I thought we already had a "national security" agency -- known as the "National Security Agency. " Of course, while this may seem like a minor change, as the article notes, it is the reality behind the scenes. The FBI massively beefed up resources focused on "counterterrorism" and... then let all sorts of other crimes slide. The article correctly notes that this has had a big impact: James Clapper: Spying On Leaders Not Significant Enough To Tell Congress. WASHINGTON -- It is "unrealistic" for the White House to know about reported United States eavesdropping on foreign leaders, and perfectly reasonable for intelligence officials to have neglected to tell Congress, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper argued Tuesday. Clapper was among a clutch of officials who trouped to Capitol Hill to testify to Congress about the ongoing surveillance programs revealed over the summer by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
But their appearance came after revelations that the U.S. monitored the phones of other leaders, including allies such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Clapper suggested such activities were not particularly remarkable and didn't rise to the significance meriting explicit notification to Congress or the White House. He said trying to figure out what foreign leaders are thinking is a mainstay of his job.
When Rep. "We think by and large we met, complied with, the spirit and the intent of the law. Greenwald: Is U.S. Exaggerating Qaeda Threat to Silence NSA Critics? How the NSA’s High-Tech Surveillance Helped Europeans Catch Terrorists. NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander testifies before the House Select Intelligence Committee on the NSA's PRISM program during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on June 18, 2013. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) Aroud later returned to Europe, remarried and started an Islamist website that attracted a group of French and Belgian extremists.
Led by her second husband, Moez Garsallaoui [2], half-a-dozen of them went to Waziristan, where they joined several thousand al-Qaida fighters, including a Latino convert from Long Island, learned to make bombs and plotted against the West with terrorist kingpins. The authorities — American, Belgian, French, Swiss, Italian, Turkish — were all over them. U.S. surveillance had tracked their radicalization, their emails from Pakistan, even calls made to their mothers before they trudged through snowy Iranian mountains.
An intercepted photo that Garsallaoui sent his wife showed him holding a grenade launcher. “We were inside their computers,” a source said. Bill Moyers & Glenn Greenwald on the High Cost of Government Secrecy. People visit a make-shift memorial on Boylston Street on April 20, 2013, near the scene of the Boston Marathon explosions.Photo Credit: AFP April 27, 2013 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. This first appeared on BillMoyers.com. BILL MOYERS: Welcome. In the aftermath of the Boston bombings and the massive manhunt which led to the death of one suspect and the arrest of another, both of them Muslims, there have been calls for increased surveillance and scrutiny of the public at large and Muslims in particular.
On Fox News the other day, New York congressman Peter King said: “If you know a threat is coming from a certain community, that's where you have to look. " My guest, the journalist and columnist Glenn Greenwald, was flying here from his home in Brazil as events in Boston were unfolding. Among his best-selling books: How Would a Patriot Act? GLENN GREENWALD: Great to be back. GLENN GREENWALD: Absolutely.