The Ethics of a Drone Contractor - Green Hills Software, Inc.

A continuing series of articles written for publication on Drone Free Zone in cooperation with PsychoBusters, a coordinated project carried out to awaken the public to the reality of those presently providing contracting services and products to the military and governmental agencies. 

 

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster



Around January 21^st 1998 a meeting, or series of meetings, took place at Green Hills Software, Inc., between Dan O'Dowd and Glenn Hightower. The meeting included on their agenda approval of a false stock option agreement to replace the award of shares made to Craig Franklin in 1996.

This was the final step Dan needed to take before exercising the sudden death partnership agreement between himself and Hightower, who had provided the original funding which allowed Green Hills to open its doors in 1982. More on Hightower

Dan had cut a deal with Franklin, agreeing to help him evade characterization of the stock award as marital property in exchange for Franklin's assistance to prevent Hightower from exercising his right to buy out the company for 47 million, far less than the approximately 350 million it was actually worth.

Franklin's wife, Melinda, had no idea her husband was divorcing her, though later she would find out he had filed the day he returned from their Hawaiian vacation with the entire family of six children on January 1^st. It was planned not as a divorce but as take-no-prisoners war.

Melinda had every reason to believe their marriage was stable. The previous year she had saved Craig from the tax disaster his non-filing of returns had caused. He had, in fact, never filed until Melinda forced the issue the previous year when she discovered the reason they were bankrupt was Franklin's non-filing.

Other things she did not know came very close to killing her and the couple's son, Arthur. More

Hightower found out about the plan just after the meeting during which he was persuaded to sign off on Franklin's new share agreement. Dan informed him the sudden death partnership agreement had been exercised.

Shocked, Hightower returned to Pasadena and began to make arrangements to raise the capital. This, he believed, would not be difficult for him. He had started and still owned other companies. He was wrong only because he did not know Craig was to persuade the other vice presidents and critical employees to agree to walk out if he owned Green Hills. Craig did just this the next summer. When the due diligence team came to Green Hills a walk-out occurred. Lavish promises of additional stock and other benefits had been made to the senior personnel. Not all promises were kept, but after the fact there was little they could do about it.

Dan and Craig are both psychopaths. More about them here, “When psychopaths cooperate”

Over the next nearly two years the outcome of the Hightower buyout remained in question because Glenn, outraged by Dan's manipulations, which had begun with an restraining order keeping him from making contact with employees, filed a law suit after the orchestrated walk out. Law suit, Exhibit 7 “Morgan Pillsbury – Franklin Transcript”

Dan, who has all of the human skills of a piranha, evidently finally realized he needed someone to create a more human face for the corporation. Since Dan hoped to take Green Hills public this should also be someone with an impressive corporate resume able to make affirmative introductions to potentially useful board members, essential to acquiring credibility.

And thus entered a new member for the GHS Team.

John B. Douglas III, Unlikely Addition to the Green Hills Team

Douglas Bio from Green Hills Site

“Jack Douglas, Vice Chairman, joined Green Hills Software in 2003, after having worked with the company in a consulting capacity since 1998. Mr. Douglas was Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from 1999 to 2003. Previously, he was Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Apple Computer where he played a key role in restoring Apple to financial health. From 1986 to 1997 Mr. Douglas held senior executive positions at Reebok International Ltd, helping Reebok grow to over $3 billion in revenue, and ending as Executive Vice President responsible for Legal, Human Resources, and Public Affairs. Mr. Douglas received his law degree, from Harvard Law School in 1978, and an BA in Economics, from Colgate University in 1975.”

Douglas' association with Green Hills Software actually began simultaneous with the time Dan was feverishly working to ensure he had the 47 million locked down to buy Green Hills himself. Reading the various and carefully worded resumes which abound on the Internet for Jack you find this phrasing at Bloomberg Business Week. “Mr. Jack Douglas has been Vice Chairman at Green Hills Software since April 2003. Mr. Douglas served as Chief Executive Officer to obtain multiple forms of debt and equity financing and on other strategic initiatives. Mr. Douglas also acts as a key advisor to other growing companies. ”

Chief Executive Officer of what, Green Hills Software, during the time they were attempting to go public? Of course, it could be a mis-statement by an online site which was perpetuated through reposting. But there are other indications money was tight during the period of 1998 – 2003 when Green Hills became a government contractor.

Dan borrowed a million dollars from Dr. Carl Franklin, Craig's father, supposedly to pay for Craig's stock options. It would have seemed reasonable for Craig to then use the generous dividends being paid from 1998 on to repay this, but evidently this did not happen. The money was extracted from Dan. Craig never repays loans since he has better uses for the money. This has been true his entire life, with only a few exceptions.

This 'loan,' for what ever reason it was made, was not repaid when expected and only firm action on the part of Dr. Franklin's other two sons, Sterling and Larry, both attorneys, resulted in extracting the money from Dan.

Someone with Jack's qualifications must have seemed like a dream come true for Dan at the time because along with Jack's connections he also brought a far more normal personal manner than either Dan or Craig had to offer as officers of the company.

Also, there was Dan, strapped for money, with Hightower suing and only Craig to provide him with comfort and ideas.

Craig at this time, late 1998 through 1999, had became obsessed with having a hit man kill his wife, according to affidavits given later by those talking to him every day. (Affidavit, Middle of Page 2) This came about because Melinda was, like Hightower, not following the carefully scripted plan he and Dan had laid out. She was supposed to die during the divorce from her heart condition, as Hightower was supposed to just go away. Therefore, it is doubtful Dan found their daily lunches together very comforting. Craig's public rantings probably made Dan, who is far more cautious, uneasy.

Craig Franklin    

Jack Douglas 

Craig looks far more normal here than he actually is. Despite appearances, he is highly intelligent with an I. Q. of 180, making him smarter than Einstein.

Jack not only looks normal, he looks charming, sophisticated, and intelligent. His resume, which includes his graduation, summa cum laude from Harvard Law, speaks for itself. Jack could be depended on not to shock potential investors with his table manners, too, an iffy proposition with Craig.

Additionally, Jack's masterful analysis for running an in-house division for corporate counsel, “The Reebok Rules,” is filled with sage advice, some of which Jack might have found useful himself. 

 

Now, what motivated John B. (Jack) Douglas III, to go to work at Green Hills, besides money? Jack had received stock when he was working for Apple and, presumably, his income from the stellar corporations, including Reebok, where he held senior executive positions , “helping Reebok grow to over $3 billion in revenue,” also provided substantial remuneration, as did Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

 

Each of these jobs seems to have grown shorter in duration. Jack was at Reebok for ten years, the others for far shorter periods, compressed into the time he had also assumed a consulting role with Green Hills. 

 

By all reports, if they are to be believed, it was not any problem with his professional performance which caused him to move on. That leaves personal considerations and, of late, we have had indications all was not normal with Jack's personal life. 

 

On April 17^th Jack was arrested for committing an act of, “Lewdness, open and gross, c 272 s16 (272/16)” in plain sight of a family seated for a meal at the Olive Garden Restaurant in Taunton, Massachusetts. The father of the children, an off duty police officer immediately confronted Jack, this leading to his arrest and arraignment. The event took place at 3:49pm. The facts are recounted in the POLICE REPORT.

 

Evidently, Jack is an exhibitionist, a form of sexual perversion, “known by several names including: flashing, apodysophilia, and Lady Godiva syndrome, according to Thrive Boston. 

 

According to the same site ”Some exhibitionists have a conscious desire to shock or upset the person or persons they are exposing themselves to. In contrast, a high percentage of exhibitionists hope or fantasize that the target of their exposure will become sexually aroused and want to engage in sexual activity with them.

In some cases an exhibitionist will masturbate while exposing him or herself.” 
 

The first part of this accords with Jack's reported activity. 

 

The Defense Human Resources Activity (DHRA) site provides the outcome of studies which state male exhibitionists may be sexually inhibited, or even impotent, this starting before age 18 in most cases. Most common in men in their twenties the impulse supposedly diminishes during the 30s and 40s, becoming less common. Another study found, “that the typical exhibitionist is married, has above average intelligence, is satisfactorily employed, and shows no other evidence of serious emotional problems.132  and that,” The absence of other emotional problems has been a consistent finding in a number of studies. 130 “

The condition is reported to be treatable and treatment programs are available which lower the rate of recidivism to 'rare.' Today Jack is entering his sixties, however, making him somewhat unusual for an exhibitionist.

It is therefore unlikely the incident in Taunton was the first time Jack exhibited himself, raising the possibility his changes in employment and frequent changes of address are not unrelated to this condition. 

 

It is conceivable Green Hills provided a safe harbor for Jack because events in his personal life had overcome him. By leaving Millennium and 'hiring on' at Green Hills he could continue to live in Massachusetts and still have an active professional profile, even if it was one which radically changed his previous, far more prestigious, trajectory. 

 

Also, he did not actually have to live in Santa Barbara and see very much of Dan and Craig but he knew, through his interactions with them, beginning in 1998, the company would cover for him if questions about his personal life were raised. Dan had certainly provided this service to Craig, who was guilty of raping women in his office during working hours, to say nothing of his after hours activities. 

 

And, given the arrest cited above, it is very likely he knew it would be well to have an understanding and helpful employer. 

 

Despite not inconsiderable research on the web there is actually very little to be found about Jack's personal life. Those with which he is associated are better understood as extensions of his professional life. 

 

Unlike his fellow Team members Jeff Hazarian and Jason Issacs, he appears to be uninvolved in his local community in any not-for-profit organization. Hazarian and Issacs both joined Green Hills after the events of 1998 and are in stable marriages. Hazarian is very active in his church. Issacs and his wife contribute and participate in local charities, which other members of the GHS management team, do not appear to do. 

 

In effect, Dan provided a sanctuary for those employees inclined to engage in personally unethical behavior. This became a perk of employment, where it obtained the services of individuals who otherwise would not have tolerated his unwillingness to share profits and a business strategy which included providing weapons used to commit human rights violations around the world.

The score card for the management team can be read like this.

Dan and Craig – Psychopathic.

Dave Kleidermacher and Dave Chandler – Caught by greed and their complicity in Dan's 1998 fraud.

Jack – Sexually Deviant, needs assistance in finding an effective treatment program.

Chris Smith – Unknown.

Tim Reed – Cal Tech graduate, still researching.

Jeff and Jason – Tolerant of the corporate culture which financially benefits them.

Next:

The genocides of the 20^th Century and how they link to America's present wars.

CIA chiefs face arrest over horrific evidence of bloody 'video-game' sorties by drone pilots

From:  Mail Online

COMMENT - Clearly,  the military is not aware it violates the Constitution to bomb other nations. Of course, the CIA does not seem concerned with those details, either. 

By David Rose

The Mail on Sunday today reveals shocking new evidence of the full horrific impact of US drone attacks in Pakistan.

A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into  the strikes’ targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones’ dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes.

The dossier has been assembled by human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who works for Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve.

Filed in two separate court cases, it is set to trigger a formal murder investigation by police into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes. They are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Islamabad station, and John A. Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief lawyer. Mr Akbar and his staff have already gathered further testimony which has yet to be filed.

How the attacks unfolded...

‘We have statements from a further 82 victims’ families relating to more than 30 drone strikes,’ he said. ‘This is their only hope of justice.’

In the first case, which has already been heard by a court in Islamabad, judgment is expected imminently. If the judge grants Mr Akbar’s petition,  an international arrest warrant will be issued via Interpol against the  two Americans.

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The second case is being heard in the city of Peshawar. In it, Mr Akbar and the families of drone victims who are civilians are seeking a ruling that further strikes in Pakistani airspace should be viewed as ‘acts of war’.

They argue that means the Pakistan Air Force should try to shoot down the drones and that the government should sever diplomatic relations with the US and launch murder inquiries against those responsible.

According to a report last month by academics at Stanford and New York universities, between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed since the strikes in Pakistan began in 2004.

The report said of those, up to  881 were civilians, including 176  children. Only 41 people who had  died had been confirmed as ‘high-value’ terrorist targets.

Getting at the truth is difficult because the tribal regions along the frontier are closed to journalists. US security officials continue to claim that almost all those killed are militants who use bases in Pakistan to launch attacks on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan.

In his only acknowledgement that the US has ever launched such attacks at all, President Barack Obama said in January: ‘This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists, who are trying to go in and harm Americans.’

But behind the dry legal papers seen by The Mail on Sunday lies the most detailed investigation into  individual strikes that has yet been  carried out. It suggests that the US President was mistaken.

Missile attacks in in Pakistan have had devastating affects, the dossier revealed

The plaintiff in the Islamabad case is Karim Khan, 45, a journalist and translator with two masters’ degrees, whose family comes from the village of Machi Khel in the tribal region of North Waziristan.

His eldest son, Zahinullah, 18, and his brother, Asif Iqbal, 35, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone that struck the  family’s guest dining room at about 9.30pm on New Year’s Eve, 2009.

Asif had changed his surname because he loved to recite Iqbal,  Pakistan’s national poet, and Mr Khan said: ‘We are an educated family.  My uncle is a hospital doctor in  Islamabad, and we all work in professions such as teaching.

‘We have never had anything to do with militants or terrorists, and for that reason I always assumed we would be safe.’

Mr Khan said: ‘Zahinullah, who had been studying in Islamabad, had returned to the village to work his way through college, taking a part-time job as a school caretaker.

‘He was a quiet boy and studious – always in the top group of his class.’ Zahinullah also liked football, cricket and hunting partridges.

Asif, he added, was an English teacher and had spent several years taking further courses to improve his qualifications while already in work.

Mr Khan said: ‘He was my kid brother. We used to have a laugh, tell jokes.’ His first child was less than a year old when Asif was killed.

Included in the legal dossier are documents that corroborate Asif and Zahinulla’s educational and employment records, as well as their death certificates. Killed alongside them was Khaliq Dad, a stonemason who was staying with the family while he worked on a local mosque.

Mr Khan, who had been working for a TV station in Islamabad, said he was given the news of their deaths in a 2am phone call from a cousin.

Drones have caused untold damage, and the dossier reveals just how devastating they have been for families

‘I called a friend who had a car and we started driving through the night to get back to the village,’ he said. ‘It was a terrible journey. I was shocked,  grieving, angry, like anyone who had lost their loved ones.’

He got home soon after dawn and describes his return ‘like entering a village of the dead – it was so quiet.  There was a crowd gathered outside the compound but nowhere for them to sit because the guest rooms had been destroyed’.

Zahinullah, Mr Khan discovered, had been killed instantly, but despite his horrific injuries, Asif had survived long enough to be taken to a nearby hospital. However, he died during the night.

‘We always bury people quickly in our culture. The funeral was at three o’clock that afternoon, and more than 1,000 people came,’ Mr Khan said. ‘Zahinullah had a wound on the side of his face and his body was crushed and charred. I am told the people who push the buttons to  fire the missiles call these strikes “bug-splats”.

‘It is beyond my imagination how they can lack all mercy and compassion, and carry on doing this for years. They are not human beings.’

Mr Khan found Mr Akbar through a friend who had attended lectures he gave at an Islamabad university. In 2010, he filed a criminal complaint – known as a first information report – to police naming  Mr Banks. However, they took no action, therefore triggering the  lawsuit – a judicial review of that failure to act.

If the judge finds in favour of  Mr Khan, his decision cannot be appealed, thus making the full criminal inquiry and Interpol warrants inevitable.

According to the legal claim, someone from the Pakistan CIA network led by Mr Banks – who left Pakistan in 2010 – targeted the Khan family and guided the Hellfire missile by throwing a GPS homing device into their compound.

A senior CIA officer said: ‘We do not discuss active operations or  allegations against specific individuals.'

Mr Rizzo is named because of  an interview he gave to a US reporter after he retired as CIA General Counsel last year. In it, he boasted that he had personally authorised every drone strike in which America’s enemies were ‘hunted down and blown to bits’.

He added: ‘It’s basically a hit-list .  .  . The Predator is the weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head.’

Last night a senior Pakistani  security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Pakistan’s own intelligence agency, the ISI, has always been excluded by the CIA from choosing drone  targets.

‘They insist on using their own networks, paying their own informants. Dollars can be very persuasive,’ said the official.

He claimed the intelligence behind drone strikes was often seriously flawed. As a result, ‘they are causing the loss of innocent lives’.

But even this, he added, was not  as objectionable as the so-called ‘signature strikes’ – when a drone operator, sitting at a computer screen thousands of miles away in Nevada, selects a target because he thinks the drone camera has spotted something suspicious.

He said: ‘It could be a vehicle  containing armed men heading towards the border, and the operator thinks, “Let’s get them before they get there,” without any idea of who they are.

‘It could also just be people sitting together. In the frontier region, every male is armed but it doesn’t mean they are militants.’

One such signature strike killed more than 40 people in Datta Khel in North Waziristan on March 17 last year. The victims, Mr Akbar’s dossier makes clear, had gathered for a jirga – a tribal meeting – in order to discuss a dispute between two clans over the division of royalties from a chromite mine.

Some of the most horrifying testimony comes from Khalil Khan, the son of Malik Haji Babat, a tribal leader and police officer. ‘My father was not a terrorist. He was not an enemy of the United States,’ Khalil’s legal statement says. ‘He was a hard-working and upstanding citizen, the type of person others looked up to and aspired to be like.’

Khalil, 32, last saw his father three hours before his death, when he left for a business meeting in a nearby town. Informed his father had been killed, Khalil hurried to the scene.

‘What I saw when I got off the bus at Datta Khel was horrible,’ he said. ‘I immediately saw flames and women and children were saying there had been a drone strike. The fires spread after the strike.

‘I went to the location where the jirga had been held. The situation was really very bad. There were still people lying around injured.

‘The tribal elders who had been killed could not be identified because there were body parts strewn about. The smell was awful. I just collected the pieces that I believed belonged to my father and placed them in a small coffin.’

Khalil said that as a police officer, his father had earned a good salary, on which he supported his family. Khalil has considered returning to the Gulf, where he worked for 14 years, but ‘because of the frequency of drones I am concerned to leave my family’.

He added that schools in the area were empty because ‘parents are afraid their children will be hit by  a missile’.

In another statement – one of 13 taken by Mr Akbar concerning the Datta Khel strike – driver Ahmed Jan, 52, describes the moment the missile hit: ‘We were in the middle of our discussion and I was thrown about 24ft from where I was sitting. I was knocked unconscious. When I awoke, I saw many individuals who were injured or dead.

‘I have lost the use of one of my feet and have a rod inserted because of the injuries. It is so painful for me to walk. There are scars on my face because I had to have an operation on my nose when it would not stop bleeding.’

Mr Jan says he has spent £3,600 on medical treatment but ‘I have never been offered compensation of any kind .  .  . I do not know why this jirga was targeted. I am a malik [elder] of my tribe and therefore a government servant. We were not doing anything wrong or illegal.’

Another survivor was Mohammed Noor, 27, a stonemason, who attended the jirga with his uncle and his cousin, both of whom were killed. ‘The parts of their bodies had to be collected first. These parts were all we had of them,’ he said.

Mr Akbar said that fighting back through the courts was the only way ‘to solve the larger problem’ of the ongoing terrorist conflict.

‘It is the only way to break the cycle of violence,’ he said. ‘If we want to change the people of Waziristan, we first have to show them that we respect the rule of law.’

A senior CIA officer said: ‘We do not discuss active operations or  allegations against specific individuals.’ A White House source last night declined to comment.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220828/US-drone-attacks-CIA-chiefs-face-arrest-horrific-evidence-bloody-video-game-sorties.html#ixzz2S5ZMf0K3
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Drones GCHQ civilian staff face war crimes charge over drone strikes in Pakistan

From:  The Observer

COMMENT -  Green Hills management is apparently in the position of being liable for the murders, according to the article below.  


Human rights lawyers claim in High Court that civilians are 'parties to murders'

Mark Townsend  
The Observer, Saturday 10 March 2012

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

More than 300 drone attacks in Pakistan have been reported. 

Civilian staff at GCHQ risk being prosecuted for war crimes as a result of a legal action being launched tomorrow over the alleged use of British intelligence in the CIA's "targeted killing" programme.
Human rights lawyers will issue proceedings saying that employees at the UK intelligence agency who assist the US in directing drone attacks in Pakistan could be liable as "secondary parties to murder" and that any UK guidance allowing the passing of information to the CIA for use in the strikes is unlawful.
Pakistan has previously condemned the attacks as a violation of its sovereignty, amid concern that the use of US drones contravenes international humanitarian law. Hundreds of innocent civilians are thought to have been killed as a result of drone attacks.
Questions are also mounting over the role of British officials in assisting the CIA's targeting of alleged militants in Pakistan. Reports suggest that GCHQ, the intelligence agency for which the foreign secretary, William Hague, is responsible, provides "locational intelligence" to the US.
The legal action, brought by the law firm Leigh Day & Co and the legal action charity Reprieve, is directed against Hague on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan last year.
Malik Daud Khan was presiding over a peaceful council of tribal elders in the North Waziristan tribal area when a missile was fired from a drone, believed to have been CIA-operated. Khan was one of more than 40 people killed.
The attack has intensified scrutiny over the levels of complicity between the UK and US over drone strikes. Reports have quoted GCHQ sources as justifying their forwarding of intelligence to the US as being in "strict accordance" with the law, a claim contested by lawyers.
The issuing of legal proceedings at the high court tomorrow challenges the lawfulness of such alleged complicity, arguing that "there is also a significant risk that GCHQ officers may be guilty of conduct ancillary to crimes against humanity and/or war crimes, both of which are statutory offences under the International Criminal Court Act, 2001".
Only individuals entitled to immunity from ordinary criminal law in respect of armed attacks are considered under international law as "lawful combatants" participating in an "international armed conflict", according to the legal papers.
Richard Stein, the head of human rights at Leigh Day & Co, said that staff at GCHQ are civilians, not combatants, and that there is no recognised "international armed conflict" in Pakistan.
He added: "We believe that there is credible, unchallenged evidence that the secretary of state is operating a policy of passing intelligence to officials or agents of the US government; and that he considers such a policy to be 'in strict accordance' with the law.
"If this is the case, the secretary of state has misunderstood one or more of the principles of international law governing immunity for those involved in armed attacks on behalf of a state and/or the lawfulness of such attacks; and his policy, if implemented, involves the commission of serious criminal offences by employees of GCHQ or by other officials or agents of the UK government in the UK."
Lawyers want to discover if there is any UK policy or guidance dealing with the circumstances in which information possibly used in directing drone attacks in Pakistan can be shared with the US.
Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal action charity Reprieve, said: "What has the government got to hide? If they're not supplying information as part of the CIA's illegal drone war, why not tell us? And if they are, they need to come clean."
American officials have privately admitted that the CIA's drone programme has killed many Taliban and al-Qaida commanders. A Foreign Office spokesman said that he could not comment on the issue.

A hidden world, growing beyond control

From:  Washington Post 

COOMENT - After you finish reading this article from the Washington Post, you will understand no one is in control of the cancerous infrastructure which includes government, agencies, and multinational corporations of every imaginable kind.  

This is one reason no one noticed how highly psychopathic the management of Green Hills Software is and took no action regarding the illegal use of drones, although the implications go far beyond the Santa Barbara based company.  

Monday, July 19, 2010; 4:50 PM

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation's other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

These are not academic issues; lack of focus, not lack of resources, was at the heart of the Fort Hood shooting that left 13 dead, as well as the Christmas Day bomb attempt thwarted not by the thousands of analysts employed to find lone terrorists but by an alert airline passenger who saw smoke coming from his seatmate.

They are also issues that greatly concern some of the people in charge of the nation's security.

"There has been so much growth since 9/11 that getting your arms around that - not just for the CIA, for the secretary of defense - is a challenge," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in an interview with The Post last week.

In the Department of Defense, where more than two-thirds of the intelligence programs reside, only a handful of senior officials - called Super Users - have the ability to even know about all the department's activities. But as two of the Super Users indicated in interviews, there is simply no way they can keep up with the nation's most sensitive work.

"I'm not going to live long enough to be briefed on everything" was how one Super User put it. The other recounted that for his initial briefing, he was escorted into a tiny, dark room, seated at a small table and told he couldn't take notes. Program after program began flashing on a screen, he said, until he yelled ''Stop!" in frustration.

"I wasn't remembering any of it," he said.

Underscoring the seriousness of these issues are the conclusions of retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who was asked last year to review the method for tracking the Defense Department's most sensitive programs. Vines, who once commanded 145,000 troops in Iraq and is familiar with complex problems, was stunned by what he discovered.

"I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities," he said in an interview. "The complexity of this system defies description."

The result, he added, is that it's impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. "Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste," Vines said. "We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe."

The Post's investigation is based on government documents and contracts, job descriptions, property records, corporate and social networking Web sites, additional records, and hundreds of interviews with intelligence, military and corporate officials and former officials. Most requested anonymity either because they are prohibited from speaking publicly or because, they said, they feared retaliation at work for describing their concerns.

The Post's online database of government organizations and private companies was built entirely on public records. The investigation focused on top-secret work because the amount classified at the secret level is too large to accurately track.

Today's article describes the government's role in this expanding enterprise. Tuesday's article describes the government's dependence on private contractors. Wednesday's is a portrait of one Top Secret America community. On the Web, an extensive, searchable database built by The Post about Top Secret America is available at washingtonpost.com/topsecretamerica.

Defense Secretary Gates, in his interview with The Post, said that he does not believe the system has become too big to manage but that getting precise data is sometimes difficult. Singling out the growth of intelligence units in the Defense Department, he said he intends to review those programs for waste. "Nine years after 9/11, it makes a lot of sense to sort of take a look at this and say, 'Okay, we've built tremendous capability, but do we have more than we need?' " he said.

CIA Director Leon Panetta, who was also interviewed by The Post last week, said he's begun mapping out a five-year plan for his agency because the levels of spending since 9/11 are not sustainable. "Particularly with these deficits, we're going to hit the wall. I want to be prepared for that," he said. "Frankly, I think everyone in intelligence ought to be doing that."

In an interview before he resigned as the director of national intelligence in May, retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair said he did not believe there was overlap and redundancy in the intelligence world. "Much of what appears to be redundancy is, in fact, providing tailored intelligence for many different customers," he said.

Blair also expressed confidence that subordinates told him what he needed to know. "I have visibility on all the important intelligence programs across the community, and there are processes in place to ensure the different intelligence capabilities are working together where they need to," he said.

Weeks later, as he sat in the corner of a ballroom at the Willard Hotel waiting to give a speech, he mused about The Post's findings. "After 9/11, when we decided to attack violent extremism, we did as we so often do in this country," he said. "The attitude was, if it's worth doing, it's probably worth overdoing."

Outside a gated subdivision of mansions in McLean, a line of cars idles every weekday morning as a new day in Top Secret America gets underway. The drivers wait patiently to turn left, then crawl up a hill and around a bend to a destination that is not on any public map and not announced by any street sign.

Liberty Crossing tries hard to hide from view. But in the winter, leafless trees can't conceal a mountain of cement and windows the size of five Wal-Mart stores stacked on top of one another rising behind a grassy berm. One step too close without the right badge, and men in black jump out of nowhere, guns at the ready.

Past the armed guards and the hydraulic steel barriers, at least 1,700 federal employees and 1,200 private contractors work at Liberty Crossing, the nickname for the two headquarters of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its National Counterterrorism Center. The two share a police force, a canine unit and thousands of parking spaces.

Liberty Crossing is at the center of the collection of U.S. government agencies and corporate contractors that mushroomed after the 2001 attacks. But it is not nearly the biggest, the most costly or even the most secretive part of the 9/11 enterprise.

In an Arlington County office building, the lobby directory doesn't include the Air Force's mysteriously named XOIWS unit, but there's a big "Welcome!" sign in the hallway greeting visitors who know to step off the elevator on the third floor. In Elkridge, Md., a clandestine program hides in a tall concrete structure fitted with false windows to look like a normal office building. In Arnold, Mo., the location is across the street from a Target and a Home Depot. In St. Petersburg, Fla., it's in a modest brick bungalow in a run-down business park.

Each day at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, workers review at least 5,000 pieces of terrorist-related data from intelligence agencies and keep an eye on world events. (Photo by: Melina Mara / The Washington Post)

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Army extends Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) technology development phase by six months

From:  Military and AeroSpace

COMMENT - See the end of the article for, "Also on the BAE Systems GCV team is iRobot, which will serve as the unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) integrator, and will enable the GCV to operate the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV).  It strikes me these people are ramping up for ever more killing.

Posted by John Keller

 

WARREN, Mich., 24 April 2013. U.S. Army combat vehicle designers are extending by six months the technology development phase of a program to build a modern, networked armored fighting vehicle to replace and augment versions of the M113 armored personnel carrier, M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and the Stryker armored vehicle.

The Army on Tuesday awarded contracts to General Dynamics Land Systems and BAE Systems Land and Armaments LP, both based in Sterling Heights, Mich., to extend the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) technology development phase. The original technology development contracts were awarded to these companies in August 2011.

The GCV will use vehicle electronics (vetronics) that meets a new and evolving open-systems standard called Vehicle Integration for C4ISR/EW Interoperability (VICTORY).

On Tuesday General Dynamics won a $180.4 million contract, and BAE Systems won a $159.5 million contract to extend GCV technology development, which calls for the companies to build early prototype Ground Combat Vehicles.

Planning had called for the first GCV prototypes to be completed in 2014 or 2015, but this latest program extension may delay those dates. The GCV was to be deployed by 2019, but that schedule now may be stretched.

Ultimately one of the two competing GCV teams will be selected to build as many as 1,874 Ground Combat Vehicles. Awarding Tuesday's contracts were officials of the Army Contracting Command in Warren, Mich., on behalf of the Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command.

Related stories -- Curtiss-Wright to supply vetronics computers and network switches in GCV competition -- Industry teams win $889.6 million in technology development contracts under U.S. Army Ground Combat Vehicle program -- Warfighters call for innovative, responsive, and reliable vetronics in combat vehicles.

For fiscal 2014 the Army is requesting $592.2 million for GCV research and development, which is a slight reduction from the $639.9 million for GCV research the Pentagon requested for this year. The GCV infantry fighting vehicle will provide an infantry squad with networking, mobility, force protection, and firepower.

On the General Dynamics GCV team are Lockheed Martin Corp., Raytheon Co., and Tognum America Inc. On the BAE Systems team are Northrop Grumman Corp., QinetiQ North America, Saft Group, and iRobot Corp.

On the General Dynamics team, Lockheed Martin will build the turret, lethal and non-lethal effects, and embedded training; Raytheon will build the GCV's rocket-propelled-grenade-protection system, as well as indirect-vision and sensor integration; Tognum America will build the GCV's engine, transmission, and generator.

General Dynamics C4 Systems leads the network and communications integrated product team and has responsibility for network integration, communications, computing, and information assurance.

On the BAE Systems team Northrop Grumman will design and integrate hardware and software for the GCV's command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR).

Northrop Grumman has hired Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions in Ashburn, Va., to design open-architecture embedded computer and network switch subsystems. The Curtiss-Wright mission computer going onto the BAE Systems-Northrop Grumman entry in the GCV competition uses four commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) single board computers in a rugged chassis.

QinetiQ will provide the BAE Systems GCV's hybrid electric drive transmission, while MTU will build the combat vehicle's diesel engine. Saft will provide the GCV energy storage system using lithium-ion batteries. L3 Communications will provide the GCV with hydropneumatic suspension units.

Also on the BAE Systems GCV team is iRobot, which will serve as the unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) integrator, and will enable the GCV to operate the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV).

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Uncertainties remain as FAA integrates drones into American skies and COMMENT

From:  McClatchy 

COMMENT -  All assertions for the domestic use of drones ignore the most relevant issues as to the  legality of their use.  

Is their use by law enforcement Constitutional without a previously, and legally acquired warrant obtained through the courts?  I would say not.  The units are costly.  Our economy is struggling.  We can not afford them, and local areas would be likely to view acquiring them in just this way.  The Federal government has proven itself far too likely to assert control over the states, which are, Constitutionally, subject to the wishes of their own citizens. 

The fact the roll out of the technology carried with it the ominous threat of further terrorism by government against the people is enough to quash the use of the technology by government unless, and until, the issues of liability for the chronic abuse of power locally, and by the Federal government are solved. 

University of Missouri students guide a quad-copter drone off the ground | David Eulitt/Kansas City Star/MCT

More on this Story

• Story | Push in Congress to protect privacy amid growth in drone use
• Story | Industry looks to use drones for commercial purposes
• Story | Immigration plan would add drones, already under scrutiny, to border security
• On the Web | More McClatchy coverage of the nation's capital

By Josh Solomon | Medill News Service

WASHINGTON — Thousands of unmanned aircraft systems – commonly known as drones – could be buzzing around in U.S. airspace by 2015 because of a law passed last year, aiding in police investigations, scientific research and border control, but also raising safety and privacy concerns among some lawmakers and advocacy groups.
Already, drones are in use to count sea lions in Alaska, to conduct weather and environmental research and to monitor drug trafficking across our borders. In fact, 327 drones already have been licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly over U.S. soil.
But the FAA expects that number to increase to 30,000 by 2020, fueling what could become a $90 billion industry.
The drones used domestically bear little resemblance to the war machines making headlines overseas; the drones being flown in the United States often look more like toys, and none carries weapons.
The 2012 law, called the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, contains a seven-page provision – known as the Drone Act – requiring the FAA to fully integrate unmanned aircraft into the National Airspace System by September 2015. Additionally, the Drone Act allows law enforcement agencies, including local police forces, to buy and use unmanned aircraft for evidence gathering and surveillance.
Leonard Montgomery, a police captain in North Little Rock, Ark., said his department hopes to use its drones for surveillance of high-crime neighborhoods during drug investigations and other police work.
“Mobile drones will be able to quickly move to get a better perspective,” he said. “They’re both faster and more flexible than any other forms of surveillance.”
The department has one unmanned aircraft now, an SR30 helicopter-type drone that can only be flown over unpopulated areas while it awaits FAA rules for use over the more populated cities.
“They will only be used in public areas where people have no expectation of privacy,” Montgomery said. “We’re not flying at low levels looking into your bedroom windows.”
The new technology has potential in a wide range of applications.
Mario Mairena, spokesman for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, which lobbies on behalf of the drone industry, said drones can provide assistance to first responders in search and rescue missions and during or after natural or manmade disasters, and they also can aid in scientific research.
Unmanned aircraft can be equipped with infrared cameras, allowing responders to identify the heat signature of a body underneath a bank of snow on a mountain or under a pile of rubble in a disaster area.
Researchers are also using drones. For example, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks uses them to monitor sea lions, because the animals retreat under water when approached by larger and louder manned craft.
Mairena also outlined potential commercial uses for unmanned aircraft. Farmers, he said, want to use unmanned aircraft for crop dusting and disease detection, while oil and gas companies want to use drones to inspect rigs and pipelines. Hollywood, too, wants to get its hands on unmanned aircraft to capture innovative camera shots and save money on manned aircraft costs.
A company called Darwin Aerospace has even developed the Burrito Bomber, a drone equipped to carry and drop a parachute-wrapped burrito, which it calls “truly the world’s first airborne Mexican food delivery service.”
Transitioning drones into domestic airspace has raised safety and privacy concerns. The unmanned vehicle industry, though, thinks the benefits associated with civil drone use outweigh any concerns.
Earlier this month, a small drone was spotted 200 feet from a passenger airliner within airspace controlled by John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. This isolated incident may be the first of many, though, as 2020 approaches.
There are provisions in the Drone Act to protect manned aviation – airplanes and helicopters – from unmanned flight. But those provisions cannot prevent an inadvertent breach of controlled airspace. Also, as the drone population grows, so do the chances of a midair collision between two drones.
In addition to concern over drones entering closed airspace, some worry unmanned aircraft could have their signals interfered with or fall victim to a “spoofing” attack.
University of Texas professor Todd Humphreys and his team developed a software-based GPS transmitter designed to deceive – spoof – a drone.
Humphreys said sophisticated drones have two wireless communication linkages: the command-and-control link, which allows the operator to control the aircraft, and the GPS navigation link, which keeps the craft abreast of its own position. Spoofing is when a third party targets the GPS link, through which he or she could manipulate the drone.
Drones also are susceptible to communications jamming, leaving the operator unable to control the aircraft. A craft with dual linkage then would go into “lost link protocol,” which likely would navigate the vehicle, using its remaining GPS connection, to a pre-designated landing spot.
Unmanned aircraft already are finding homes in local police departments and other law enforcement agencies. The specific provision in the Drone Act authorizing law enforcement and other government-funded entities to use drones now, while the FAA creates final regulations for commercial use, mandates aircraft must weigh 25 pounds or less, cannot be operated higher than 400 feet above the ground or near airports and must remain within naked eyesight of the operator.
Right now, law enforcement can use drones to survey anything that is visible to the human eye without a warrant, said Amie Stepanovich, counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
But drones can be equipped with penetrating technology like infrared thermal imaging cameras to uncover details that are not visible to the naked human eye.
“It is physically impossible to hide from a drone within the typical home” if the drone is equipped properly, she said. At this point, with the technology being so new, Stepanovich said it is unclear whether such examinations would be considered “searches” under the Fourth Amendment, which would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant.
Mairena disagreed. He said the industry thinks the Fourth Amendment provides ample protection for citizens from invasions of privacy.
“We respect and support individuals’ rights to privacy, and if anyone is misusing this technology, they should be punishable to the fullest extent of the law,” he said.
The concerns related to privacy go beyond just what drones can see. Because purchasing an unmanned aerial vehicle is much cheaper than buying a manned one – hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy as opposed to hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars – law enforcement can afford to have more of them in the sky.
American Civil Liberties Union senior policy analyst Jay Stanley said that in American legal tradition, police don’t watch over citizens unless they have individualized suspicion that a person is about to do something wrong. But, he said, drones could allow police to constantly monitor people, tracking their movements and vehicles.
The unmanned vehicle lobby and the International Association of Chiefs of Police have both put forth guidelines for proper drone use. The lobby’s code of conduct includes one sentence addressing privacy that reads, “We will respect the privacy of individuals,” but it provides no detail as to which uses do and do not violate an individual’s right to privacy.
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, introduced the Preserving American Privacy Act last month. It would ban all drone surveillance unless a warrant was first obtained, except during emergencies, if consent is given by the subject of the surveillance or within 25 miles of the border. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol currently operates 10 Predator drones.
Virginia is considering a two-year moratorium on drone use. Thirty other states have introduced legislation to protect privacy and limit unmanned aircraft use.
Ashley Balcerzak and Taylor Hiegel of Medill News Service contributed.

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The Medill News Service is a Washington program of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

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