Obama administration acknowledges drone strikes killed 4 Americans since 2009
Four American citizens have been killed in counter-terrorism drone strikes since 2009, the Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday.
Attorney General Eric Holder disclosed the previously classified information in a letter to a top senator that also included the names of those killed and the revelation that only one was directly targeted in the strikes that began in 2009. He did not specifically call them drone strikes – rather, he referred to “counterterrorism operations” – but most of the individuals he mentioned are known to have died in drone strikes.
The targeted individual, Anwar al-Awlaki, was a radical Muslim cleric whom U.S. officials said was involved in planning Al Qaeda operations and terror attacks. He was killed in September 2011 in Yemen.
The acknowledgement came ahead of a major counterterrorism policy speech by President Obama scheduled for Thursday.
Holder said in the letter that the Obama administration is “aware” of three other U.S. citizens killed in such counter-terrorism operations besides al-Awlaki: Samir Khan, Jude Kennan Mohammed and Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, Holder said.
However, Holder wrote, “these individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States.”
Holder addressed the letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Khan died in the same drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki. Abdurrahman, al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son and a Denver native, was killed in Yemen two weeks later. Mohammed was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan.
The White House responded just minutes after the information was made public in another news report, saying President Obama ordered the disclosure to build on his effort – included in this year's State of the Union address – “to pursue greater transparency around our counter-terrorism operations.”
A White House official told Fox News the release of the information coincides with a scheduled speech Thursday by the president in which he will discuss the country’s “broader counter-terrorism strategy,” including the policy and legal rationale for the use of targeted, lethal force against Al Qaeda and its associated forces.
The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico native who was educated at George Washington University, was widely known even before the release Wednesday and sparked widespread debate over whether an American citizen abroad or on U.S. soil should be targeted and killed without a trial.
Holder laid out the administration’s case in specific detail, writing, “al-Awlaki was a senior operational leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the most dangerous regional affiliate of al Qaeda and a group that has committed numerous terrorist attacks overseas and attempted multiple times to conduct terrorist attacks against the U.S. homeland.”
The attorney general also said al-Awlaki was “intimately involved in detailed planning and putting in place plots against U.S. persons” and that he made clear he wanted the attacks to kill Americans.
Holder cited in his five-page letter the justification he made in 2012 for the program, when he said “it is an unfortunate but undeniable fact” that a “small number” of U.S. citizens “have decided to commit violent attacks against their own country from abroad.”
"Since entering office, the president has made clear his commitment to providing Congress and the American people with as much information as possible about our sensitive counterterrorism operations," Holder also told Leahy. "The administration is determined to continue these extensive outreach efforts to communicate with the American people."
California Congressman Darrell Issa's committee wants one major question answered: Who decided to use the IRS to target political opponents? [IRS executive Lois] Lerner may know. She decided to invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. She refused to answer questions. Yet she badly miscalculated.
She began with a self-righteous opening statement claiming she did nothing wrong. Only after defending herself did she invoke her Fifth Amendment rights.
Republicans on the committee thought they had been defeated, but [former prosecutor Rep. Trey] Gowdy knew better. Once a person issues a statement, Fifth Amendment privilege is waived on the substance of the statement. By issuing an opening statement, Ms. Lerner was testifying. Her right to stay silent on that testimony was gone forever.
A panicked liberal Elijah Cummings of Maryland pointed out that while congressional hearings are "like" a court of law, they are not in actuality a court of law. Even Congressman Issa, normally a very sharp and prepared operator, had to check on whether Gowdy's interpretation applied... It absolutely does. So what do Republicans do next?
Long ago, Obama took the gloves off because he rightly concluded that Republicans did not have the stomach for a protracted fight. They would back down because they always do. They are so scared of being seen as "mean" and "partisan" that they would rather just say they tried their best and roll over.
Gowdy does not roll over, but he is not in charge. Issa has a major decision to make.
Since Lerner waived Fifth Amendment privileges, Issa must compel her testimony. If she refuses, then she must be arrested and held in contempt of Congress. She can sit in a cell until she agrees to testify.
As i said earlier in a comment today: "This is just the beginning expect similar ' attacks' in Paris , Brussels and all the main European capitals. When we warned about the potential danger we were called 'Islamophobes , racists , Crusaders'...... But who's doing the killing?"
Asghar Bukhari, of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Blames Britain for Woolwich Beheading
MEANWHILE, THE MUSLIM COUNCIL OF BRITAIN CONDEMNED IT.
DONT' BE FOOLED.
THIS IS WHAT MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS DO; PLAY GOOD COP/BAD COP WITH US.
IN THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES, THE PLO WERE THE BAD ORGANIZATION. BUT THEN THEY CHANGED THEIR NAME TO THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, AND THEN HAMAS BECAME THE BAD OCOP TO THE PA'S GOOD COP.
Issa: Lerner waived her rights by giving an opening statement, so we’re bringing her back before the committee
From Hot Air:
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said embattled IRS official Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights and will be hauled back to appear before his panel again…
“The precedents are clear that this is not something you can turn on and turn off,” he told POLITICO. “She made testimony after she was sworn in, asserted her innocence in a number of areas, even answered questions asserting that a document was true … So she gave partial testimony and then tried to revoke that.”…
“I understand from her counsel that there was a plan to assert her Fifth Amendment rights,” he continued. “She went ahead and made a statement, so counsel let her effectively under the precedent, waive — so we now have someone who no longer has that ability.”
Allah asks, Are the precedents clear? It’s true that you can’t take the stand as a criminal defendant to give your side of the story and then go quiet during cross-examination, but what about at a congressional hearing where you’re merely a witness? One expert on the Fifth Amendment tellsNew York magthat the privilege can always be invoked circumstantially in situations like this:
First, unlike in a trial, where she could choose to take the stand or not, Lerner had no choice but to appear before the committee. Second, in a trial there would be a justifiable concern about compromising a judge or jury by providing them with “selective, partial presentation of the facts.” But Congress is merely pursuing information as part of an investigation, not making a definitive ruling on Lerner’s guilt or innocence.
“When somebody is in this situation,” says Duane, a Harvard Law graduate whose 2008 lecture on invoking the Fifth Amendment with police has been viewed on YouTube nearly 2.5 million times, “when they are involuntarily summoned before grand jury or before legislative body, it is well settled that they have a right to make a ‘selective invocation,’ as it’s called, with respect to questions that they think might raise a meaningful risk of incriminating themselves.”
In fact, Duane says, “even if Ms. Lerner had given answers to a few questions — five, ten, twenty questions — before she decided, ‘That’s where I draw the line, I’m not answering any more questions,’ she would be able to do that as well.” Such uses of selective invocation “happen all the time."
Alan Dershowitz: Lois Lerner Waived Her Fifth Amendment Right By Making Statement, “She’s In Trouble. She Can Be Held In Contempt” By Congress
Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service’s embattled director of Exempt Organizations, could be held in contempt of court and jailed for refusing to testify before Congress, civil-rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz says.
“She’s in trouble. She can be held in contempt,” Dershowitz told “the Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.
“Congress . . . can actually hold you in contempt and put you in the Congressional jail.” Lerner, grilled Wednesday on the IRS’ targeting of conservative organizations, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination — but not before insisting “I have done nothing wrong.”
Her brief statement of innocence has opened a legal Pandora’s Box, according to Dershowitz.
“You can’t simply make statements about a subject and then plead the Fifth in response to questions about the very same subject,” the renowned Harvard Law professor said. “Once you open the door to an area of inquiry, you have waived your Fifth Amendment right . . . you’ve waived your self-incrimination right on that subject matter.”
A mother-of-two described tonight how she put her own life on the line by trying to persuade the soldier’s murderers to hand over their weapons.Cub scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett selflessly engaged the terrorists in conversation and kept her nerve as one of them told her: “We want to start a war in London tonight.”Mrs Loyau-Kennett, 48, from Cornwall, was one of the first people on the scene after the two Islamic extremists butchered a soldier in Woolwich, south east London.She was photographed by onlookers confronting one of the attackers who was holding a bloodied knife.He was in full control of his decisions and ready to everything he wanted to do.
I said 'right now it is only you versus many people, you are going to lose, what would you like to do?’ and he said I would like to stay and fight.”
The suspect in the black hat then went to speak to someone else and Mrs Loyau-Kennett tried to engage with the other man in the light coat.
She said: “The other one was much shier and I went to him and I said 'well, what about you? Would you like to give me what you have in your hands?’ I did not want to say weapons but I thought it was better having them aimed on one person like me rather than everybody there, children were starting to leave school as well.
Mrs Loyau-Kennett was not the only woman to show extraordinary courage. Others shielded the soldier’s body as the killers stood over them.
MPs praised the “extraordinary bravery” of the women and raised concerns about why it took armed police 20 minutes to arrive at the scene while people’s lives were at risk.
According to a security source the delay in the armed police response is “particularly surprising” because there is a heavily armed police presence at Woolwich Crown Court, which is just two and a half miles away.
Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, said: “We are all grateful for the local people who responded so quickly.
“I do want to pay tribute to them [members of the public] – I think what
they have done is extraordinarily brave and courageous.
“It shows the spirit of London that people are just not prepared to allow an attack of this kind. I pay tribute to what they have done.”
Patrick Mercer MP, a former army officer and former shadow counter terrorism minister, paid tribute to the people who shielded the body of the soldier.
He said: “This is courage of the highest order, it sounds as if these members of the public are not soldiers, not policemen, not people whose duties demand this, they are extremely courageous people and that courage deserves to be recognised at the highest level.”
Robert Buckland, a Conservative member of the justice select committee, said: “It it is the case [that police took 20 minutes to arrive] it is very worrying. If there was any unwarranted delay then that that needs to be investigated.”
Not sure if the eyewitness mentioned above is the same one that video taped the statement from one of the savages involved and is on tape discussing his interaction with that savage here:
“Mr. Issa, Mr. Cummings said we should run this like a courtroom and I agree with him. She just testified. She just waved her Fifth Amendment rights. You don’t get to tell your side of the story and then not be subjected to cross examination. That’s not the way it works. She waved her right to Fifth Amendment privilege by issuing an opening statement. She ought to stand here and answer our questions. (Applause)”
Democrat raises prospect of special prosecutor for IRS
A Democrat on the House’s investigative committee raised the specter of a special prosecutor on Wednesday to investigate political targeting of conservative groups at the IRSfrom 2010 to 2012.
“We know where that will lead, it will lead to a special prosecutor. … There will be hell to pay if that’s the route that we choose to go down,” he said.
The Democrat’s reference to a special prosecutor was noteworthy, since the most vocal criticism for theIRShas come fromGOPranks in recent weeks.
Carry on, Obama, Ms Jarrett, Plouffe, Pfeffier, Axelrod, and Center for American Progress … carry on.
Or tell the truth.
NO MATTER. I have a feeling the die is long since cast on arrogant self entitled actions by the self blessed.
Two men attacked another man near a London military barracks today, in what British authorities were investigating as a possible terror act. One man is dead and two others were injured.
While details were scant, Prime Minister David Cameron called the killing "truly shocking" and said he had asked Home Secretary Theresa May to call an urgent meeting of the government's emergency committee.
A British government official who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the investigation said the details that had emerged were indicative of a "terrorist-motivated attack."
Several witnesses described seeing a "beheading" while another described seeing a man wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt being attacked with a machete-style knife and dumped in a south east London street.
Woolwich and Greenwich MP NickRaynsford said it was his understanding that one person, a serving soldier, was dead and his two alleged killers were taken to hospital.
London Ambulance Service confirmed a man was found dead at the scene, while two other men were taken to hospital, one of them in a serious condition.
One witness, identified as James, said he and his partner saw two black men attack a young man aged around 20 in a Help for Heroes T-shirt with kitchen knives like he was "a piece of meat".
"They were hacking at this poor guy, literally," he told LBC radio.
"They were hacking at him, chopping him, cutting him."
Fighting back tears, he added: "These two guys were crazed.
"They were just animals. They dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road and left his body there."
He said that after the "horrendous" attack, the two men, in their 20s, just stood around, waving knives and a gun, even asking people nearby to take pictures of them "as if they wanted to be on TV or something".
"They were oblivious to anything, they were more worried about having their photo taken, running up and down the road," he said.
"They had no intention of running off or leaving or anything.
"In my opinion, they were waiting for the police to arrive to be shot by the police. That's the only thing I can think.
"It's horrendous what they were doing to that guy."
Some "brave" women tried to shield the man on the ground from them, he added.
He also said that it was 20 minutes before armed police arrived at the scene.
"When the armed police came flying around the corner, the man with the beanie hat, the tall guy, he charged at the police vehicle," he said.
"A shot was fired by the other guy with the gun.
"Six shots were fired, both men went down and we now know they are dead as well."
London Air Ambulance confirmed that one patient was airlifted from the scene, while another was taken away by road ambulance.
Mr Raynsford said he had spoken to both borough commander Richard Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Bob Christopher at Woolwich Barracks.
He said: "The incident occurred early afternoon. One individual is dead, two others are seriously injured and in hospital.
"The circumstances causing the incident are not yet clear. It's been suggested it was the product of a road traffic accident, but that's pure speculation.
According to witness statements here, it was not a road traffic accident.
17.43 The attackers shouted "Allahu Akbar" (the Arabic expression meaning "God is Great"), according to Whitehall sources - BBC News.
18.28 Fred Oyat, who saw the incident from the window of his flat, tellsJosie Ensor that two black or Middle Eastern men were wondering around the street, walking over the dead body on the floor:
"The two men were shouting," he says. "They had three knives including a machete and a meat cleaver as well as an old gun.
"The white man was already dead on the floor, his fade covered in blood. He had a big neck wound and his neck was almost off."
"They seemed to be encouraging people to take photos and waited there until police arrived as if they wanted a fight.
"There was blood running down the streets. I still can't stop shaking."
18.22 One witness, who declined to be named, tells Jasper Coppingthe attackers were "praying likeit was a sacrifice" and "making people take videos".
Tempers flared in a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday, with members on both sides of the aisle castigating the Internal Revenue Service for targeting conservative groups with special scrutiny, and then hiding the practice from Congress.
Rep. Darrel Issa, the committee's chairman, said that the committee learned just yesterday that the IRS completed its own investigation a year before a Treasury Department Inspector General report was completed.
But despite the IRS recognizing in May 2012 that its employees were treating right-wing groups differently from other organizations, Issa said, IRS personnel withheld those conclusions from legislators.
'Just yesterday the committee interviewed Holly Paz, the director of exempt organizations, rulings and agreements, division of the IRS,' Issa said. 'While a tremendous amount of attention is centered about the Inspector General's report, or investigation, the committee has learned from Ms. Paz that she in fact participated in an IRS internal investigation that concluded in May of 2012 - May 3 of 2012 - and found essentially the same thing that Mr. George found more than a year later.'
Why did Issa dismiss Lerner instead of making her sit there and repeatedly invoke the Fifth to every question?
Issa should have asked her questions like, "If you have not done anything wrong, why do you need to plead the fifth, which protects you from self-incrimination?"
He should have grilled her, and made her marinate in the fact that she is lying.
She says one of the basic functions of the fifth amendment is to protect innocent individuals.
Look, I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that is the purpose of asserting one's right not to incriminate oneself.
Having watched this now, I think Issa is showing himself to be incompetent.
Riots in Stockholm, should we read between the lines? Or is that racist?
Some 200 youths hurled rocks at police and set cars ablaze in a largely immigrant suburb of Stockholm on Tuesday, the second day of rioting triggered by the fatal police shooting of a man wielding a knife.
Dozens of windows were smashed, 10 cars and several containers were set on fire, and seven police officers were injured. Cars and containers were also set ablaze in another of the Swedish capital's suburbs, Fittja, although police said it was not clear whether the two events were linked. The unrest began Sunday night in response to the May 13 shooting, in which police killed a 69-year-old man who had locked himself in an apartment in Husby, west of Stockholm. Police refused to give the nationality of the victim.Six youths were arrested early Tuesday, but two were released after questioning, police spokesmanJorgen Karlsson said.
Many local residents see the shooting as an example of police brutality, and the violence has stirred debate in Sweden.
Known for its strong welfare state and egalitarian society, the country has nonetheless had the biggest surge in inequality of any OECD country over the past 25 years, according to a recent publication by the global economic watchdog.
"This is not OK. We will not give in to violence," Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said. "We must all help out to regain calm. The residents of Husby need to get their neighborhood back."
Reinfeldt added that Husby — where around 80 percent of the roughly 11,000 residents are first- or second-generation immigrants — has been going in the right direction during his seven-year tenure, with employment increasing and crime falling.
The atmosphere was tense on Tuesday, with residents expressing both anger at police and sadness about the destruction. City workers were seen clearing the debris of a burnt-out container and documenting fire damage.
"It's frustrating and difficult to see how those of us who live here get affected by something that has nothing to do with us," said university student Muhamad Abukar, 24. "And then outsiders get the idea that we are animals, uncivilized."
Abukar said he had seen the riots from his balcony and that those involved were mainly teenagers aged 13 to 16.
Reza Al Bazi, 14, and his friend Sebastian Horniak, 15, said they witnessed the violence throughout the night. "The people of Husby have become tired of police brutality, so they react like this," said Al Bazi.Horniak claimed he witnessed police firing warning shots in the air and calling a woman a "monkey." ''I got upset yesterday because I saw police attack innocent people, they beat a woman with a baton," he said.
Horniak's claims of racist remarks were backed up by the organization Megafonen, which represents citizens in Stockholm's suburbs. One of its representatives, Quena Soruco, said she heard police use abusive words such as "rats, hobos, negroes."
Sweden's Justice Minister Beatrice Ask told the TT news agency that anyone who feels mistreated by police should file a report.
Prosecutors have launched an internal probe into the shooting. Police say they shot the man in self-defense because he attacked them with a knife when they broke down the door to an apartment where he had locked himself up with a woman.
Meanwhile, of course with no connection....
There is this, and this, and this, and this
It’s been nice having a nation, but: Senate panel OKs tax-welfare benefits for newly legal immigrants
Immigration to the USA from it’s inception to 1924 is what MADE this nation.
The Irish and German immigration here from about 1845 onward was critical to the end of slavery here in the USA.
The peoples from the far east who immigrated here at the same time BUILT the railroads and towns which built the far west.
The influx from eastern and southern Europe from about 1890 to 1924 are the blocks of victory in World War 2.
One thing all these immigrants had in common was a desire to build a new life out of their own efforts in freedom and without any govt interference in their day to day existence.
They did not come here for welfare.
They did not come here to owe their vote to one party or another. They were not ‘succored’ here by BOUGHT allegiance.
I have ALWAYS stated that immigration to the USA should be PRECISELY as it had been from about 1845-1924. But there should be no access AT ALL to public funds for support of immigrants. Immigrants should be coming here to be free Americans, not dependent ones.
In the catholic church the act of buying votes for political reward is known as SIMONY.
There is NO POSSIBLE ARGUMENT that what this Senate Panel has done is PRECISELY THIS as a functional equivalent.
The SenateJudiciary Committee voted Monday to allow illegal immigrants who get legal status to begin collecting tax-welfare payments, as the panel spent a fourth day working through amendments to the massive immigration bill and party-line splits began to emerge.
In one major change, the committee voted 17-1 to make a third drunken-driving conviction a deportable offense for the newly legalized immigrants if at least one of those offenses occurs after they are approved for legal status.
But immigrant-rights groups called that a rollback of due-process rights for the immigrants and said a drunken-driving incident shouldn’t cost someone a chance at citizenship.
“We cannot and will not support hard-line proposals that take away discretion and limit an individual’s ability to pursue the pathway to citizenship,” said Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Lawyers Guild’s National Immigration Project.
Overall, the committee continued to maintain the delicate balance struck by the “Gang of Eight” senators who negotiated the 867-page bill: Quick legal status for illegal immigrants, but delaying citizenship rights until after the administration spends more money on border security, puts in place a new electronic verification system to check workers’ status, and enacts an entry-exit system to check visas at airports and seaports.
In previous days’ action, two Republican members of the Gang of Eight — Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona — joined with Democrats to block a series of GOP amendments to stiffen the bill’s security.
But on Monday, the two Republicans sided with their party colleagues on key questions on giving illegal immigrants public benefits.
And if that is not enough…
Immigration bill backers say not all back-taxes will be paid
The Senate immigration bill’s authors acknowledged Tuesday that their legislation does not require illegal immigrants to pay all back taxes, saying it would be too difficult to make them ante up everything they might owe.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is chief sponsor of the bill, said illegal immigrants by definition are living in the shadows, and requiring them to reconstruct their pay history could be tough — and potentially keep many of them from legalization.
Meanwhile:The Chinese military is already bragging about how they are printing parts for their next-gen aircraft.
Missile reloads printed at sea in special fabrication ships? Or in a module built into every fighting vessel?
Parts damaged in surface battles custom fabbed from files in secure submarine manu-vessels?
UCAVS printed on demand for launch from robot ships using synthetic fuel made from airscooped gases?
An army moving forward with printed robots? PRINTED ON DEMAND by the advancing troops as and how needed?
Wired’s Danger Room:
In Tomorrow’s Wars, Battles Will Be Fought With a 3-D Printer
A 3-D printed drone is shot down by insurgents near a far-flung base manned by the U.S. military. Within hours, a small lab dropped onto the base by a helicopter days before churns out a replacement — along with plenty of ammunition and reinforced shelters for the troops. A few miles off a nearby coastline, a naval ship-turned-factory harvests resources from the sea and uses on-board printers to make everything from food to replacement organs.
It’s a far-out vision for future combat, but at least one naval officer thinks it could happen. According to Lt. Cmdr. Michael Llenza, who sketched out the scenario in the latestArmed Forces Journal, 3-D printing could arguably “upend the way we think about supply chains, sea basing and even maritime strategy.” And by we, Llenza doesn’t just mean Americans. The Chinese military is already bragging about how they are printing parts for their next-gen aircraft.
Aside from drones — which have already been printed — ammunition could potentially be produced with the machines, as the casings would be “relatively easy,” he writes. (The Pentagon would just have to find a way to produce the propellants.) Additive manufacturing also “offers a new way to think about building shelters or other structures on a beachhead or forward operating base.” The hope, as the theory goes, is that large-scale investments in 3-D printing could take a lot of strain off the supply lines modern military forces depend on to survive.
None of this amounts to the official position of the Pentagon, but publications like theArmed Forces Journalserve as influential arenas where many theories and ideas from military officers — some which are later incorporated — are first put up for debate. And it’s no surprise the potential (and existing) military uses of 3-D printers has been getting a lot of recent ink.
In April, Navy lieutenants Scott Cheney-Peters and Matthew Hipple sketched out a theoretical future Navy in the widely read U.S. Naval Institute journalProceedingsthat imagined ships capable ofharvesting the oceans for 3-D printing material, and floating factories capable of manufacturing repair parts for a fleet of ships. Even shipyards, the authors wrote, could be effectively converted into giant 3-D printers. Llenza, who is also a Senior Naval Fellow at the non-partisan Atlantic Council, has taken that concept and run with it.
But there are also dangers, he warns. It’s not the 3-D gunmakers who are posting videos of their weapons to the internet. Those guns are crude and expensive compared to a homemade zip gun or bomb. “As far as printing guns, I’m not worried about it in its current state,” Llenza tells Danger Room. “I’m more worried about knee-jerk legislation and some idiot getting a hold of one. Plans to make zip guns and bomb making recipes have been online forever, so not much is new there.” (Though over time, the technology could advance with machines that can work with both metal and plastic simultaneously, or with printable composite materials that can withstand the heat and pressure of repeated use.)
Llenza is worried about larger military-grade material being reproduced by anyone with a 3-D printer. “This has implications not just for corporate intellectual property but national security,” he says. That could mean, for instance, military blueprints for a 3-D printed device or weapon being pirated and re-produced on the fly, instead of having to physically steal a machine and reverse-engineer it. Even more radical, Llenza writes that spies could one day use a “hand-held computed tomography scanner” to peer through containers to scan weapons, which “automatically generates the digital blueprints to print it.” Or hack 3-D printers as a form of sabotage.
3-D printers are also being incorporated into the armies of America’s potentially future foes. China, a rising competitor to the United States, does not have the luxury of a global and (relatively) efficient supply chain for its military, nor does it have a network of bases around the world. China has decided to sidestep the century it took the U.S. to develop its carrier fleet — though China isnot nearly at the U.S. Navy’s level, and it’s another matter entirely when it comes to putting anoperational carrier to sea for months. But 3-D printers, Llezna says, could help China move a little faster.
“First off, these are my opinions and not the U.S. Navy’s. Now that that’s out of the way, absolutely, China is 100 percent all-in on this,” Llenza tells Danger Room. “The technology has great potential to shorten logistical supply chains, and is especially beneficial to a state which is developing a deployable navy.” That includes titanium parts China is now printing for theJ-15 Flying Shark— a carrier-borne fighter currently being developed. The J-15′s chief designer told Xinhua News Agency in March that printable components are being used “in major load-bearing parts, including the [J-15’s] front landing gear.”
The U.S. has yet to certify 3-D printed parts for load-bearing structural aircraft parts. “Frankly, as an aviator, I’d like my parts to be certified before I go flying with them,” Llenza says. “But it goes to show, if they’re telling the truth, that they’ve bought in. Also, and again, this is my opinion, but the ability to print titanium and employ these lightweight parts in their aircraft can only help with what I understand to be a history of fabricatingunderperforming aircraft engines.”
In the end, the Pentagon may be better positioned, or at Llenza hopes. The military already uses 3-D printers to manufacture some non-critical components for aircraft, and has deployed prototype 3-D printing labs to Afghanistan. The Obama administration has plunged into 3-D printing technology, pledging $200 million in funds this month for three proposed research institutes that include 3-D printing as a key area.The Pentagon will oversee two of those institutes. So perhaps that 3-D printed military isn’t as far off as it might seem.
All of us, every single man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth were born with the same unalienable rights; to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, if the governments of the world can't get that through their thick skulls, then, regime change will be necessary.
"The problem is if they think they )the citizens) are not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does, the central government defines what is right and wrong and whether or not they target you. So, it’s not up to the individuals. Even if they think they aren't doing something wrong, if their position on something is against what the administration has, then they could easily become a target."
--- William Binney, National Security Agency
"An Islamic regime must be serious in every field," explained Ayatollah Khomeini. "There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humour in Islam. There is no fun in Islam."
****************
"I want to be very, very clear, however: I understand and agree with the analysis of the problem. There is an imminent threat. It manifested itself on 9/11. It's real and grave. It is as serious a threat as Stalinism and National Socialism were. Let's not pretend it isn't." ~~~~~Bono~~~~~
She began with a self-righteous opening statement claiming she did nothing wrong. Only after defending herself did she invoke her Fifth Amendment rights.
Long ago, Obama took the gloves off because he rightly concluded that Republicans did not have the stomach for a protracted fight. They would back down because they always do. They are so scared of being seen as "mean" and "partisan" that they would rather just say they tried their best and roll over.
Original Artwork By Bosch Fawstin
The Blasphemous Book of Queen Kafirtiti
The Martyr's Prize: A Tale of American Exceptionalism and Ruthlessness in the Age of Religiously Inspired Terrorism 
