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Archive for category Threat Watch
Bodies Found In Western Mexico
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 27/Aug/2013 08:24
From Voice of America:
Mexican law enforcement officials said nine men, their hands bound and shot, were found Saturday in Michoacan state where local residents have been fighting the Knights Templar drug cartel.
Spec Ops Tracking Benghazi Suspects, Told To Leave Libya
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 26/Aug/2013 12:00
From Fox News:
Special operators in the region tell Fox News that while Benghazi targets have been identified for months, officials in Washington could “never pull the trigger.” In fact, one source insists that much of the information on Benghazi suspects had been passed along to the White House after being vetted by the Department of Defense and the State Department — and at least one recommendation for direct action on a Benghazi suspect was given to President Obama as recently as Aug. 7.
This is Why Angela Giron is Being Recalled in Colorado
Posted by Brian in Law, News, Threat Watch on 21/Aug/2013 08:40
Would any elected official even consider saying this about the first amendment?!
Planning for a Safe Trip
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 20/Aug/2013 08:26
“Planning for a Safe Trip is republished with permission of Stratfor.”
By Scott Stewart
In light of the current U.S. State Department global travel warning, it seems an opportune time for a discussion on how to prepare to travel safely. Perhaps the most important key to remaining out of harm’s way while traveling or working abroad is to know and understand — in advance — some of the idiosyncrasies of each country’s bureaucracy and the security risks that have been identified for your destination. This knowledge and guidance will then allow you to decide whether to even travel to a particular destination. If you do decide to travel, it will help you plan and implement proper precautions for the environment you will be visiting. Fortunately, finding safety and security information for your destination country is easier than ever in the Internet age.
Travel Advisories and Consular Information Sheets
One of the most important first steps U.S. travelers should take before beginning a trip is seeing what the U.S. government says about your destination country. A great deal of information can be obtained from the U.S. government. Travelers accordingly should read the consular information sheet and check for travel warnings and public announcements pertaining to their destination countries before embarking. Such information can be obtained in person at passport agencies inside the United States or at U.S. embassies and consulates abroad. This information also can also be obtained by calling the U.S. State Department, but the quickest and easiest way to obtain it is online: The State Department publishes them all on its website here. Read the rest of this entry »
Iran, Syria: Smuggling Weapons to Gain Influence in the West Bank
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 17/Aug/2013 08:00
“Iran, Syria: Smuggling Weapons to Gain Influence in the West Bank is republished with permission of Stratfor.”
Summary
There are growing indications that Iran, Syria and their local proxies may be attempting to build up militant capabilities in the West Bank to eventually threaten Israel. Physically transferring weapons into Fatah-controlled West Bank will remain a key challenge, as recent arrests of weapons smugglers in Jordan have shown. Though Iran and Syria face many constraints in trying to spread militancy to the West Bank, their quiet efforts are worth noting, particularly as Hamas and Iran are now finding reasons to repair their relationship after a period of strain. Read the rest of this entry »
Wachovia Ignores Mexican Money Laundering While Chase Harrasses Defense Distributed
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 15/Aug/2013 08:12
According to an article in The Gaurdian, Wachovia bank ignored evidence that Mexican cartels were laundering billions of dollars through said bank:
“Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations,” said Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor. Yet the total fine was less than 2% of the bank’s $12.3bn profit for 2009. On 24 March 2010, Wells Fargo stock traded at $30.86 – up 1% on the week of the court settlement.
Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year’s “deferred prosecution” has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine.
This comes just a few weeks after we learned that Chase bank cancelled Defense Distributed‘s account based not on illegal activity but because of politics. Here is Cody Wilson’s take on it from a recent interview with The Washington Post:
We’re regarded with suspicion. You might even say that it’s due, right? . . . So I have to file, like, affidavits that I’m not involved in illicit activity and online gambling, and I’m constantly just harassed with extra administrative supervision and stuff — this is while we were at Chase. We did like $18,000 in deposits one month this summer. We were doing business for Chase Bank, and treated more or less like — not resentment, but just like, “Ah, we’re a burden.â€
So here we have a law student who runs a non-profit given the 3rd degree to make sure he is not a criminal, and on the other hand the drug cartels are laundering millions if not billions through Wachovia without raising much suspicion. Yep, everything seems to be working as planned.
Israel Shoots Down Missile Launched From Egypt
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 13/Aug/2013 16:58
From: AP
Katyusha Rocket
Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, said the Iron Dome system shot down a Grad-style Katyusha rocket fired from Egypt after midnight.
ATF Arbitrarily Going After Legal Gun Parts
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 13/Aug/2013 08:19
From World Net Daily:
…I cringe every time I hear someone who supposedly supports gun rights – from politicians to the head of the NRA – calling for the feds to “enforce the laws already on the books.†The fact is, the gun laws that are already on the books are a labyrinth of confusion and booby-traps full of open-ended mandates, ambiguous definitions and unbridled bureaucratic discretion.
With Embassy Closures, the U.S. Errs on the Side of Caution
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 9/Aug/2013 13:57
“With Embassy Closures, the U.S. Errs on the Side of Caution is republished with permission of Stratfor.”
Summary
Global, nonspecific threats such as those that prompted recent U.S. embassy closures and travel warnings have rarely proved credible. These precautionary measures appear to be the result of two separate threats, one attack against an unspecified U.S. embassy and another against travel infrastructure — presumably an airliner. In response to the embassy threat, the U.S. government announced Aug. 4 that it had extended the closure of several embassies in the Middle East until Aug. 10 and that African posts would now be among the embassies closed. In response to the airline threat, Washington issued a global travel alert running from Aug. 2 to Aug. 31. The travel warning and the closures have commanded the media’s attention and have led to much speculation about the source and the credibility of the threats, but more often than not these threats fail to materialize. Read the rest of this entry »
NSA Targeted TOR Network With Malware
Posted by Brian in Comms, News, Threat Watch on 8/Aug/2013 13:06
From BoingBoing.net:
Initial investigations traced the address to defense contractor SAIC, which provides a wide range of information technology and C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) support to the Department of Defense. The geolocation of the IP address corresponds to an SAIC facility in Arlington, Virginia.
Chinese Hacking Team Caught Taking Over Decoy Water Plant
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 4/Aug/2013 18:26
From: MIT
A hacking group accused of being operated by the Chinese army now seems to be going after industrial control systems.
Recognizing the End of the Chinese Economic Miracle
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 1/Aug/2013 08:35
“Recognizing the End of the Chinese Economic Miracle is republished with permission of Stratfor.”
By George Friedman
Major shifts underway in the Chinese economy that Stratfor has forecast and discussed for years have now drawn the attention of the mainstream media. Many have asked when China would find itself in an economic crisis, to which we have answered that China has been there for awhile — something not widely recognized outside China, and particularly not in the United States. A crisis can exist before it is recognized. The admission that a crisis exists is a critical moment, because this is when most others start to change their behavior in reaction to the crisis. The question we had been asking was when the Chinese economic crisis would finally become an accepted fact, thus changing the global dynamic.
Last week, the crisis was announced with a flourish. First, The New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-recipient Paul Krugman penned a piece titled “Hitting China’s Wall.” He wrote, “The signs are now unmistakable: China is in big trouble. We’re not talking about some minor setback along the way, but something more fundamental. The country’s whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits. You could say that the Chinese model is about to hit its Great Wall, and the only question now is just how bad the crash will be.” Read the rest of this entry »
Colorado Concealed Carry Permits Skyrocketing
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 31/Jul/2013 13:09
From The Denver Post:
From January to June, 31,518 background checks were processed for concealed-carry permits by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, according to bureau data. For the same period last year, there were only 16,886 processed.
In addition, more background checks have been processed in the first six months of 2013 than in all of 2011 — and only 1,305 fewer than the total for all of 2012.
Global Arms Markets as Seen Through the Syrian Lens
Posted by Brian in Long Guns, News, Threat Watch on 30/Jul/2013 12:53
“Global Arms Markets as Seen Through the Syrian Lens is republished with permission of Stratfor.”
By Scott Stewart
The many and diverse efforts to arm the various actors in the Syrian civil war are really quite amazing to watch. These efforts are also quite hard to decipher — and intentionally so — since many of the arms transfers occur on the murky gray and black arms markets. Indeed, it is quite doubtful that anyone, whether Syrian intelligence, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service or the CIA really has a complete picture of all the channels used to funnel arms into the conflict. Certainly, I cannot hope to catalogue all of them here. However, the efforts to arm all of the factions fighting in Syria do provide a great opportunity to discuss the global arms trade and its various facets.
The Nature of Weapons
To understand the global arms markets we must first understand some critical things about the nature of weapons. First of all, it is important to realize that weapons are durable goods. While certain types of weapons and weapon components have a limited shelf life — such as battery-coolant units for the FIM-92A Stinger missile — numerous other weapons remain functional for many decades. It is not unusual to find a militant or a soldier carrying an AK-47 assault rifle manufactured before he was born — and in many cases even before his father was born. Read the rest of this entry »