Violating the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948?

Files Prove Pentagon is Profiling Reporters | Stars and Stripes

Here's what you need to know: “It’s troubling that the military is contracting a private PR firm, paid with U.S. taxpayer dollars, to profile individual reporters,” said one servicemember who declined to be identified for fear of official retribution. “It shows utter contempt for the Constitution, which we in the service pledge our lives to defend.”

These guys are an embarrassment to our national security & continue to play weird little (self-dealing) games in that dangerous intersection where "information operations," PsyOps and Public Affairs intersect. There's a law governing how this sort of stuff is done. We really don't want the military/government propagandizing our own citizens. Really, we don't!

I understand that Rendon was dumped by the CIA under a cloud years ago -- & then wandered down the George Washington Parkway to peddle their schtick at the Pentagon. Judicial Watch obtained US Navy documents detailing Rendon's involvement in trying to influence the outcome of a public vote on the Vieques bombing range. Now, that's "creepy" -- the Navy hires a PR firm to run an influence campaign attempting to alter the outcome of a public vote? I'm eagerly awaiting any legal challenge to Rendon's (or other's) "information" efforts. It's very encouraging that Stars & Stripes had the courage to print this article.

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The CIA Reports Cheney Wanted Released

Judicial Watch Obtains New CIA Documents Detailing Results of Detainee Interrogations

and,

the Washington Times explains the Obama Adminitration's position:

Obama vs. CIA

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How Many More "Agents Provocateur" are the FBI Currently Running?

Comment from "Subversion & Espionage" Blogger: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a recruited asset of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At least I don't think so.

Attorney: FBI Trained NJ Blogger to Incite Others

Aug 18 03:51 PM US/Eastern
By KATIE NELSON
Associated Press Writer

EXCERPT: HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A New Jersey blogger facing charges in two states for allegedly making threats against lawmakers and judges was trained by the FBI on how to be deliberately provocative, his attorney said Tuesday.

Hal Turner worked for the FBI from 2002 to 2007 as an "agent provocateur" and was taught by the agency "what he could say that wouldn't be crossing the line," defense attorney Michael Orozco said.

"His job was basically to publish information which would cause other parties to act in a manner which would lead to their arrest," Orozco said.

Prosecutors have acknowledged that Turner was an informant who spied on radical right-wing organizations, but the defense has said Turner was not working for the FBI when he allegedly made threats against Connecticut legislators and wrote that three federal judges in Illinois deserved to die.Sphere: Related Content

Meanwhile, back @ Fort Lewis . . .

The Modern Day "Garden Plot" Saga Continues to Unfold:

Army Investigates Fort Lewis Employee Accused of Infiltrating Olympia Anti-war Group
GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
4:21 PM PDT, August 6, 2009

EXCERPT: SEATTLE (AP) — The Army is investigating an anti-war group's claim that it was infiltrated by a civilian employee of Fort Lewis in violation of federal law barring the Army from conducting domestic law enforcement.

John J. Towery, a criminal intelligence analyst for the post's Force Protection Division, attended meetings and protests and administered an e-mail list for the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance group over the past two years, members of the anti-war group said.

The members said Towery identified himself as an anarchist named "John Jacob," and they learned his true identity after receiving documents from the city of Olympia under a public disclosure request.Sphere: Related Content

The Point Where You Can't Let the Cartels Win -- No Matter What

Mexican Officials Defend Drug War Strategy as Deaths Rise |
Dallas Morning News
By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com

EXCERPT: CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – As the drug war's bloodiest month ever in this border city ended, the administration of President Felipe Calderón defended its strategy for battling powerful drug cartels but signaled that it will make adjustments as needed.

In a visit to Ciudad Juárez last week, Interior Secretary Fernando Gómez Mont said the administration is considering adjustments to the strategy – which relies on the deployment of thousands of soldiers and federal police agents – but insisted that any shift would come in response to a change in tactics by the cartels.

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A Return to "Operation Garden Plot"?

Army Spy Posed as Anarchist

Dan Stein of SpyTalk @ CQ-Politics reports (excerpt): An Army civilian from a Fort Lewis, Wash., "force protection division" infiltrated a Seattle-area antiwar group posing as an anarchist who could steal classified information for the organization, according to little-noticed news reports.

A member of the antiwar group said documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that his friend and fellow activist "John Jacob" was actually military spy John Towery.

A Fort Lewis spokesman confirmed that Towery was employed on the base but would offer no additional information because he "performs sensitive law enforcement work with the installation law enforcement community."

Comment -- See: "Operation Garden Plot" Sphere: Related Content

Welcome to the 19th Century!

The EMP Threat

Excerpt: Imagine you're a terrorist with a single nuclear weapon. You could wipe out the U.S. city of your choice, or you could decide to destroy the infrastructure of the entire U.S. economy and leave millions of Americans to die of starvation or want of medical care.

The latter scenario is the one envisioned by a long-running commission to assess the threat from electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The subject of its latest, and little discussed, report to Congress is the effect an EMP attack could have on civilian infrastructure. If you're prone to nightmares, don't read it before bedtime.

See also: The Slow Motion Economic Collapse of the U.S.

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The Top 10 KGB operatives

Times Online - WBLG: The Top 10 KGB operatives

Excerpt: Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve
Vyacheslav Konstantinovich was head of the Okhrana, the Tsars' state security outfit, from 1881 to 1904.

Solzhenitsyn ironically mocks his soft-heartedness, his squeamishness about 'perlustration' (the ungentlemanly practice of opening other people's mail) and the pitifully small number of people he sent to Siberia.

Perhaps for these reasons, the institution he once led signally failed in 1917 - a lesson not lost on Lenin and his successors.

Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky
Though not strictly a Russian secret policeman, it is impossible to omit this austere Pole, who was the founding father of the modern Russian state security apparatus.

An intimate associate of Lenin, he was a Jesuitical ideologue who believed that their revolutionary ends had the historical, even the eschatological, importance to justify any means.

Though he died in 1926, the influence of Iron Feliks echoed on throughout the Soviet period.

More . . .Sphere: Related Content

National Forests & Parks Are Drug Cartel Smuggling Havens

Madera Canyon, Coronado National Forest

A future blog will focus on the occupation of hilltops and ridgelines across the U.S. Southwest by armed, organized, paramilitary forces -- operating under the control of drug cartels.

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Pentagon Intel Ops

Comment: Some great links inside the article discussing "Operational Preparation of the Environment." This will make the Oversight guys nervous. I find it kind of reassuring.

Pentagon Intel Ops “Often” Evade Oversight

From the Project on Government Secrecy:

Excerpt: Last month, the House Intelligence Committee complained that the Department of Defense has blurred the distinction between traditional intelligence collection, which is subject to intelligence committee oversight, and clandestine military operations, which are not. Because they are labeled in a misleading manner, some DoD clandestine operations that are substantively the same as intelligence activities are evading the congressional oversight they are supposed to receive.Sphere: Related Content