It is our duty as activists to
hold them on that and that's where everything collapses, because there
is a crisis of trust.
Listen, there is not a single great civilization in the history of the
world that has not fallen to war or environmental impacts -- and many
that have fallen to conquest have fallen to conquest as a side effect of
(human influenced) environmental impacts of some sort (for example,
heavy metals contributions theory of the decline of Rome
http://www.poweredbyosteons.org/2012/01/lead-poisoning-in-rome-skeletal.html).
Much as I do not trust the conclusions of the military based on the
simulations they may run through, it is, in fact, their duty to run
through simulations based on the four horsemen scenarios they can
imagine. And it is in fact their duty to to imagine that the
environmentalists are going to trump them by lathering everyone up into
freaking out that the sky is falling (because, nearly literally, it is,
and the government are obscurantist cowards who want to get re-elected
--- oops, was that my outside voice saying that inconvenient truth?) so
just as they wiretap the Society of Friends (Quakers) in times when the
peace movement is bucking a war effort and making their propaganda
suppository of casus belli seem not so smooth an insert, yes -- they are
going to track climate change activists if they are worried about panic
in time of crop failure and rationing and empty shelves in the
not-so-supermarkets of the breadbasket of the world.
Short on petrochemicals? Most of our crops are made of them you know,
between fertilizer, transportation, and various. Worried that
revelations that disruptive health effects of glyphosphate (Round-up
from Monsanto -- which is responsible for most of the corn/soy
monocropping grown in the US now and a good proportion of other crops in
this country and worldwide) in mammals may make revelations of DDT in
the 60s look tame? Oops, there goes the 20% of the grain capacity of
our current "green revolution" phase. That brings the planet down by a
billion in carrying capacity, without global warming.
These are the kinds of ecological messages that might make the military
nervous. (Hi, for those of you who are listening! :) And they are
correct to be nervous. They should be planning for rationing and unrest
if a severe scenario comes up -- if for no other reason than that we
will have hungry neighbors that will make a zombie apocalypse look pastoral.
And these are ugly scenarios to think about. That's what we delegate to
the military and law enforcement, ideally, as a sacred trust (the other
side of sacred being taboo -- we don't *want* to have to ponder what
happens in our neighborhoods when the food supply should go away for
whatever reason and FEMA isn't the answer).
So this is why one might, as a conservative even, think Prism is an
UTTER TRAGEDY. Because it represents a broken social contract by pure
dissonance, a lack of trust so profound, a disengagement so deep and
suppurating, that we can't even imagine any more why it is that we would
need a military to know these things that we could trust. (And as a
disclaimer: I have family in the military, and have for generations,
and have stubborn hope these things are fixable through both
military/DHS/civilian elected/non-elected leadership)
The problem is NOT that these scenarios are being spun out. They should be.
The problem is, what is the response to each scenario proposed to be? I
don't see that?
And I expect that would be in executive control at the time of crisis.
And there's where trust falls apart.
Because this:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-04-12/html/2013-07802.htm
essentially repeals this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
...and even with my background? I have a hard time with that. A very
very hard time with it. This is not "the cat is dead and not dead."
The cat is DEAD, wrapped up in a brown shirt, weighted down with
stones and dropped in the river.
I am sorry, I do not understand how this can happen in this country
without open discussion with the electorate. This is not something you
do, undermining the Posse Comitatus by a snippet of regulation from the
executive branch. That is not the way this democracy works.
yrs,
SN
On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 3:26 PM, LilBambi <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Thanks for all the great food for thought.
So much going on...
On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 10:24 AM, Eugen Leitl <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/jun/14/climate-change-energy-shocks-nsa-prism
Pentagon bracing for public dissent over climate and energy shocks
NSA Prism is motivated in part by fears that
environmentally-linked disasters
could spur anti-government activism
US domestic surveillance has targeted anti-fracking activists
across the
country. Photograph: Les Stone/REUTERS
Top secret US National Security Agency (NSA) documents disclosed
by the
Guardian have shocked the world with revelations of a
comprehensive US-based
surveillance system with direct access to Facebook, Apple,
Google, Microsoft
and other tech giants. New Zealand court records suggest that
data harvested
by the NSA's Prism system has been fed into the Five Eyes
intelligence
alliance whose members also include the UK, Canada, Australia
and New
Zealand.
But why have Western security agencies developed such an
unprecedented
capacity to spy on their own domestic populations? Since the
2008 economic
crash, security agencies have increasingly spied on political
activists,
especially environmental groups, on behalf of corporate
interests. This
activity is linked to the last decade of US defence planning,
which has been
increasingly concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home
triggered by
catastrophic events linked to climate change, energy shocks or
economic
crisis - or all three.
Just last month, unilateral changes to US military laws formally
granted the
Pentagon extraordinary powers to intervene in a domestic
"emergency" or
"civil disturbance":
"Federal military commanders have the authority, in
extraordinary emergency
circumstances where prior authorization by the President is
impossible and
duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the
situation, to
engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell
large-scale,
unexpected civil disturbances."
Other documents show that the "extraordinary emergencies" the
Pentagon is
worried about include a range of environmental and related
disasters.
In 2006, the US National Security Strategy warned that:
"Environmental destruction, whether caused by human behavior or
cataclysmic
mega-disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or
tsunamis. Problems
of this scope may overwhelm the capacity of local authorities to
respond, and
may even overtax national militaries, requiring a larger
international
response."
Two years later, the Department of Defense's (DoD) Army
Modernisation
Strategy described the arrival of a new "era of persistent
conflict" due to
competition for "depleting natural resources and overseas
markets" fuelling
"future resource wars over water, food and energy." The report
predicted a
resurgence of:
"... anti-government and radical ideologies that potentially
threaten
government stability."
In the same year, a report by the US Army's Strategic Studies
Institute
warned that a series of domestic crises could provoke
large-scale civil
unrest. The path to "disruptive domestic shock" could include
traditional
threats such as deployment of WMDs, alongside "catastrophic
natural and human
disasters" or "pervasive public health emergencies" coinciding with
"unforeseen economic collapse." Such crises could lead to "loss of
functioning political and legal order" leading to "purposeful
domestic
resistance or insurgency...
"DoD might be forced by circumstances to put its broad resources
at the
disposal of civil authorities to contain and reverse violent
threats to
domestic tranquility. Under the most extreme circumstances, this
might
include use of military force against hostile groups inside the
United
States. Further, DoD would be, by necessity, an essential
enabling hub for
the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or
nationwide civil
conflict or disturbance."
That year, the Pentagon had begun developing a 20,000 strong
troop force who
would be on-hand to respond to "domestic catastrophes" and civil
unrest - the
programme was reportedly based on a 2005 homeland security
strategy which
emphasised "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty
incidents."
The following year, a US Army-funded RAND Corp study called for
a US force
presence specifically to deal with civil unrest.
Such fears were further solidified in a detailed 2010 study by
the US Joint
Forces Command - designed to inform "joint concept development and
experimentation throughout the Department of Defense" - setting
out the US
military's definitive vision for future trends and potential
global threats.
Climate change, the study said, would lead to increased risk of:
"... tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and
other natural
catastrophes... Furthermore, if such a catastrophe occurs within
the United
States itself - particularly when the nation's economy is in a
fragile state
or where US military bases or key civilian infrastructure are
broadly
affected - the damage to US security could be considerable."
The study also warned of a possible shortfall in global oil
output by 2015:
"A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of
production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to
predict precisely
what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall
might
produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the
developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would
exacerbate
other unresolved tensions."
That year the DoD's Quadrennial Defense Review seconded such
concerns, while
recognising that "climate change, energy security, and economic
stability are
inextricably linked."
Also in 2010, the Pentagon ran war games to explore the
implications of
"large scale economic breakdown" in the US impacting on food
supplies and
other essential services, as well as how to maintain "domestic
order amid
civil unrest."
Speaking about the group's conclusions at giant US defence
contractor Booz
Allen Hamilton's conference facility in Virginia, Lt Col. Mark
Elfendahl -
then chief of the Joint and Army Concepts Division - highlighted
homeland
operations as a way to legitimise the US military budget: "An
increased focus
on domestic activities might be a way of justifying whatever
Army force
structure the country can still afford."
Two months earlier, Elfendahl explained in a DoD roundtable that
future
planning was needed:
"Because technology is changing so rapidly, because there's so much
uncertainty in the world, both economically and politically, and
because the
threats are so adaptive and networked, because they live within the
populations in many cases."
The 2010 exercises were part of the US Army's annual Unified
Quest programme
which more recently, based on expert input from across the
Pentagon, has
explored the prospect that "ecological disasters and a weak
economy" (as the
"recovery won't take root until 2020") will fuel migration to
urban areas,
ramping up social tensions in the US homeland as well as within
and between
"resource-starved nations."
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was a computer systems
administrator for
Booz Allen Hamilton, where he directly handled the NSA's IT systems,
including the Prism surveillance system. According to Booz
Allen's 2011
Annual Report, the corporation has overseen Unified Quest "for
more than a
decade" to help "military and civilian leaders envision the future."
The latest war games, the report reveals, focused on "detailed,
realistic
scenarios with hypothetical 'roads to crisis'", including "homeland
operations" resulting from "a high-magnitude natural disaster"
among other
scenarios, in the context of:
"... converging global trends [which] may change the current
security
landscape and future operating environment... At the end of the
two-day
event, senior leaders were better prepared to understand new
required
capabilities and force design requirements to make homeland
operations more
effective."
It is therefore not surprising that the increasing privatisation of
intelligence has coincided with the proliferation of domestic
surveillance
operations against political activists, particularly those linked to
environmental and social justice protest groups.
Department of Homeland Security documents released in April prove a
"systematic effort" by the agency "to surveil and disrupt peaceful
demonstrations" linked to Occupy Wall Street, according to the
Partnership
for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF).
Similarly, FBI documents confirmed "a strategic partnership
between the FBI,
the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector"
designed to
produce intelligence on behalf of "the corporate security
community." A PCJF
spokesperson remarked that the documents show "federal agencies
functioning
as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate
America."
In particular, domestic surveillance has systematically targeted
peaceful
environment activists including anti-fracking activists across
the US, such
as the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, Rising Tide North
America, the
People's Oil & Gas Collaborative, and Greenpeace. Similar trends
are at play
in the UK, where the case of undercover policeman Mark Kennedy
revealed the
extent of the state's involvement in monitoring the
environmental direct
action movement.
A University of Bath study citing the Kennedy case, and based on
confidential
sources, found that a whole range of corporations - such as
McDonald's,
Nestle and the oil major Shell, "use covert methods to gather
intelligence on
activist groups, counter criticism of their strategies and
practices, and
evade accountability."
Indeed, Kennedy's case was just the tip of the iceberg -
internal police
documents obtained by the Guardian in 2009 revealed that environment
activists had been routinely categorised as "domestic
extremists" targeting
"national infrastructure" as part of a wider strategy tracking
protest groups
and protestors.
Superintendent Steve Pearl, then head of the National Extremism
Tactical
Coordination Unit (Nectu), confirmed at that time how his unit
worked with
thousands of companies in the private sector. Nectu, according
to Pearl, was
set up by the Home Office because it was "getting really
pressured by big
business - pharmaceuticals in particular, and the banks." He
added that
environmental protestors were being brought "more on the radar." The
programme continues today, despite police acknowledgements that
environmentalists have not been involved in "violent acts."
The Pentagon knows that environmental, economic and other crises
could
provoke widespread public anger toward government and
corporations in coming
years. The revelations on the NSA's global surveillance
programmes are just
the latest indication that as business as usual creates
instability at home
and abroad, and as disillusionment with the status quo
escalates, Western
publics are being increasingly viewed as potential enemies that
must be
policed by the state.
Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for
Policy Research &
Development and author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of
Civilisation: And
How to Save It among other books. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmed
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