Tax Havens / Offshore Financial Centers / Crime Commission Havens

Tax Havens / Offshore Financial Centers / Crime Commission Havens

Call Them What You Will .....

Fighting Terrorism and International Crime Means Catching All of the Big Fish -
not just Allen Stanford and Bernard Madoff!

We already have examples of the pathetic Small Fry who have tried to profit financially from the Terrorist Attacks including 9/11. Now We want Answers about the Big Fish and details of the transactions made by the Real Organizers of Mass Casualty Incidents including 9/11 and 7/7. We Know where Funds have flown and we know how they would be Disguised....

Which countries and people refuse to help and/or have obstructed the road to full disclosure and transparency of foreign account holders and financial transactions in Tax Havens/Offshore Financial Centers/Crime Commission Havens? Non-disclosure of Foreign Account Holders is Collusion.

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Introduction to Tax Havens, Offshore Financial Centers and Crime Commission Havens....
A tax haven is a place where certain taxes are levied at a low rate or not at all. Individuals and/or firms can find it attractive to move themselves to areas with lower tax rates. Different jurisdictions tend to be havens for different types of taxes, and for different categories of people and/or companies.

Most economic commentators suggest that the first "true" tax haven was Switzerland, followed closely by Liechtenstein. During the early part of the twentieth century, Swiss banks had long been a capital haven for people fleeing social upheaval in Russia, Germany, South America and elsewhere. However, in the years immediately following World War I, many European governments raised taxes sharply to help pay for reconstruction effort following the devastation of World War I. By and large, Switzerland, having remained neutral during the Great War, avoided these additional infrastructure costs and was consequently able to maintain a low-level of taxes. There was a considerable influx of capital into the country for tax related reasons.

An offshore financial centre (or OFC), although not precisely defined, is usually a low-tax, lightly regulated jurisdiction which specializes in providing the corporate and commercial infrastructure to facilitate the use of that jurisdiction for the formation of offshore companies and for the investment of offshore funds.

Offshore financial centres are often (but not always) current or former British Colonies or Crown Dependencies, and often refer to themselves as offshore jurisdictions. An "offshore financial centre" in regarded as a politically correct term for what used to be called a tax haven.

The IMF considers the following to be characteristics of an offshore financial centre:

1. Jurisdictions that have relatively large numbers of financial institutions engaged primarily in business with non-residents;
2. Financial systems with external assets and liabilities out of proportion to domestic financial intermediation designed to finance domestic economies; and
3. Centres which provide some or all of the following services: low or zero taxation; moderate or light financial regulation; banking secrecy and anonymity.

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2008 Liechtenstein Tax Affair - A Case To Watch

The 2008 Liechtenstein tax affair is a series of tax investigations in numerous countries whose governments suspect that some of their citizens may have evaded tax obligations by using banks and trusts in Liechtenstein; the affair broke open with the biggest complex of investigations ever initiated for tax evasion in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is seen also as an attempt to put pressure on Liechtenstein, one of the remaining uncooperative tax havens — along with Andorra and Monaco — as identified by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2007.

Millions of Euros belonging to hundreds of citizens living in Germany were channeled into the LGT Bank and other banks in Liechtenstein. According to the prosecutor's office these trusts “have been created apparently only to evade paying taxes.”

According to the lead prosecuting office responsible for economic crime in Bochum, Germany, which is supported by prosecuting offices in other towns as well as the criminal police, currently about 600 to 700 individuals are suspected in the investigations.

The affair became known on February 14, 2008, when a raid was conducted against Klaus Zumwinkel, the former chief executive of Deutsche Post AG, under the suspicion that he evaded about 1 million € ($1.46 million) in taxes.

According to a report by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Heinrich Kieber, a bank computer technician, sold a CD with incriminating bank information to the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), which handed the material over to the tax investigation office in Wuppertal. Kieber was paid €4.2 million by the Federal Ministry of Finance for the data on which the investigation is based.

The informant also had sold data to the government of the United States. In July 2008 the U.S. Subcommittee determined that offshore tax haven supported tax cheats to the cost of about $100 billion per year for the U.S. taxpayer. Specifically mentioned were Switzerland's UBS AG and Lichtenstein's LGT Group.

On 24 February 2008 it became apparent that secret bank information had also been sold to the British tax authorities and that about 100 individuals in the UK are at risk for investigations for tax evasion. The informant also provided the governments of Australia, Canada, and France with data.

On February 26 it became known that the German government was willing to share relevant data of the about 4,500 accounts with other governments; two third of these accounts belong to accounts of non-German individuals or entities. Fiscal authorities in Ireland, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden indicated interest, and while the Danish government initially declined - it considered the material to have been stolen - it appears to have reverted its position. The governments of the Czech Republic and Spain have also announced investigations derived from Germany's list. India, however, has thus far not considered Germany's offer despite reports that many wealthy Indian citizens might have accounts in the bank.

The principality of Liechtenstein is directly affected by the affair as the LGT Bank is owned by the ruling royal family.

Liechtenstein Affair - Further Reading

Tax haven probe targets rich Britons - 22 July 22 2008 - Financial Times

About 300 wealthy Britons who secretly salted away more than £1bn ($2bn, €1.26bn) in the tax haven of Liechtenstein are facing investigation and possible criminal prosecution by the UK tax authorities.

Revenue in £1bn tax haven probe - 22 July 2008 - Financial Times

IMF set to end offshore ‘stigma’ - 14 July 2008 - Financial Times
The distinction between “offshore” and “onshore” financial centres has been dropped by the International Monetary Fund, in a victory for more than 40 small countries that complained they had been unfairly stigmatised in the fight against financial crime.

Europe vs the Super-Rich - 4 March 2008 - The Independent

The European Union will declare war today on Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra and Switzerland. Weary of losing billions of tax euros, the EU's 27-strong high command of economics and finance ministers, Ecofin, is meeting in Brussels to agree a strategy aimed at bringing the continent's tax havens under control. Their weapon of choice will be a strengthened version of the EU's 2005 savings tax directive, which has proved pathetically easy for armies of accountants, lawyers and specialist tax planners to outflank.

Much of the money that winds up in them is tied into the illegal international trade in drugs, corruption and embezzlement – and terror. Tax havens launder money, much to the annoyance of other governments, and grant terrorists current account facilities. Michel Camdessus, a former managing director of the IMF, put the amount of cash laundered globally at about 2 per cent of its GDP, or about $2.1trn (£1trn). Kleptomaniac dictators from Mobutu to Mugabe have known where to stash the cash, as does al-Qa'ida.

"What are they going to do – send the tanks in?" asked one tax expert yesterday responding to the EU's plans. The answer to that, hopefully, is no; but official sanctions, levies and a general will to make life difficult for tax havens is defiantly there. Hostilities have begun.

Tax Havens of the World - 4 March 2008 - Global Policy Forum (Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations)

Germany's crackdown on secretive bank accounts in Liechtenstein has put the spotlight on tax havens combining low taxes, strict banking secrecy rules and an unwillingness to cooperate with other countries. Around 40 countries are still widely viewed as tax havens, according to international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and the IMF. The Tax Justice Network (TJN), an anti-tax haven lobby group, estimates that global tax authorities miss out on around $250 billion each year because people hold money off shore, calling that estimate "extremely conservative".

Many off-shore centres are small states, and several are dependent territories of the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand or the Netherlands. Most countries on the OECD's list of tax havens have promised to adopt the organisation's standards for tax transparency. But Liechtenstein, Monaco and Andorra have not, and are therefore still on the OECD's list of uncooperative havens. A proposed new law in the United States, the Stop Tax Havens Abuse Act, also targets a large number of countries, while the IMF has its own list of off-shore centres in different stages of the Fund's monitoring process. Tax consultancies such as www.taxresearch.org, which works closely with TJN, have their own lists.

A table of countries that are on the respective lists of these organisations.

OECD reports progress in fighting offshore tax evasion, but says more efforts are needed
12 October 2007 - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Many financial centres, both onshore and offshore, are making progress in improving transparency and international co-operation to counter offshore tax evasion, but some still fall short of international standards that have been developed over the last seven years, according to OECD assessments.

Significant restrictions on access to bank information for tax purposes remain in three OECD countries (Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland) and in a number of offshore financial centres (e.g Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Panama and Singapore). Moreover, a number of offshore financial centres that committed to implement standards on transparency and the effective exchange of information standards developed by the OECD’s Global Forum on Taxation have failed to do so.

Two newly published OECD reports highlight both what has been achieved so far and what still remains to be done. Improving Access to Bank Information for Tax Purposes – the 2007 Progress Report describes developments in OECD countries and six others (Argentina, Chile, China, India, the Russian Federation and South Africa) with respect to access for tax authorities to bank information. Tax Co-operation: Towards a Level Playing Field – 2007 Assessment by the Global Forum on Taxation compares the legal frameworks for international tax co-operation of 82 OECD and non-OECD economies. It is the second in a series of factual reports by the OECD’s Global Forum on Taxation, which was formed as part of the OECD’s efforts to curb harmful tax practices.

“No one country or even a small group of countries can address the issue of harmful tax practices on their own,” commented Paolo Ciocca, chair of the OECD’s Committee on Fiscal Affairs and co-chair of the Global Forum. “This is a global challenge which requires a global response. In co-operation with partner financial centres, that is what OECD is seeking to achieve.”

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Tax Justice Network

The TJN - Tax Justice Network promotes transparency in international finance and opposes secrecy. We support a level playing field on tax and we oppose loopholes and distortions in tax and regulation, and the abuses that flow from them. We promote tax compliance and we oppose tax evasion, tax avoidance, and all the mechanisms that enable owners and controllers of wealth to escape their responsibilities to the societies on which they and their wealth depend. Tax havens lie at the centre of our concerns, and we oppose them. Tax havens and offshore financial centres have created an interface between the illicit and licit economies, corrupting national tax regimes and onshore regulation.
http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/front_content.php?idcat=2

ATTAC - The World is Not For Sale
What is Attac? - As financial markets and the profit motive increasingly take over society, Attac seeks to be a source of alternatives. Attac was founded in 1998 and its first concrete proposal was the taxation of financial transactions in order to create a development fund and to help curb stock market speculation. This is what gave A T T A C its name: the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions to Aid Citizens. Today, the Attac network is present in many countries and is active on a wide range of issues: the WTO and international financial institutions, debt, taxation of financial transactions, tax havens, public services, water, free-trade zones (Mediterranean, American, European etc.). In each country, the association has groups working on various themes. All of these groups are involved in national and international campaigns whose aim is to propose concrete alternatives to neoliberal orthodoxy, based on solidarity.

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Outside Box Post - The Whole Spirit!

The Whole Spirit - Oxygen Tank

Focusing on Imagery. This post will be somewhat meaningless to many people. A Little Bit of Magic for the others......

Qantas Flight Q30 - From London, England via Hong Kong to Melbourne, Australia with a Forced Landing in Manila, Philippines.

Investigator: Shrapnel went into jetliner's cabin

The shrapnel came to rest in the cabin ceiling after it sheared off part of the door handle and knocked it half-way out of position, said Julian Walsh, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's director of aviation safety.

July 30 2008 - Associated Press

Qantas jet blast 'turned door handle'

"It's an incredibly rare event for the oxygen tank to explode, and for it to hit the door handle and rotate it open is just eye-watering," a source said.

July 30 2008 - The Australian


Fragments found on Qantas jet support oxygen tank theory
- July 28 2008 - The Guardian

How Much Does a Suicide Bomber Cost? Find and Ask A Middleman....

How Much Does a Suicide Bomber Cost?
Find and Ask A Middleman...
(You will Pay for the Rest of Your Life for Doing This To Me! Their JV with my Blood Relations and Associates)

A Suicide Bomber (SB) will always be recognized as a lethal and formidable weapon. Any weapon which can maim and kill hundreds, will always be recognized as a tradeable commodity.

We know real SBs act on ideology. We also know the majority of Muslims are not interested in being SBs. The majority of Muslims are in fact concerned with living. We know Wealthy Muslims, the Saudi Royal Family and Ruling Elite in many Middle Eastern Countries will never become Suicide Bombers.

The fact that SBs are recognized as lethal weapons, means they will be tradeable. All weapons have a PRICE. Who is actively involved in the Arms Trade with countries in the Middle East?



Who has had an established presence in the Middle East and had long term relations with the Ruling Elite and Security Services, over many years?

Who attends International Arms Fairs?
Who has contact with the religious/training establishments where SBs are trained?
Who has no interest in being a Suicide Bomber but is actively involved in organizing SB missions?

London (7/7) and Madrid (11/3) were attacked. Both countries have had long term fights against terrorism i.e. IRA and ETA.

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ONE OF THE ARMS TRADE FAIRS

International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS)

Venue: Karachi Exhibition Centre, Karachi, Pakistan
Frequency: Every two years
Dates:

14th - 17th September 2004 / http://www.regibeauinternational.com/en/ideas2004.pdf

21st-24th November 2006 / http://www.chowrangi.com/ideas-2006-arms-for-peace.html

24th - 28th November 2008 / http://www.ideaspakistan.gov.pk/softlaunching.htm

Organisers and Sponsors: The event is co-ordinated by Pakistan's Defence Export Promotion Organisation.
Principle Focus: Weapons, military vehicles and most other military equipment.

Attendance: Along with the usual suspects, North Korea, Myanmar (Burma), Zimbabwe, Iran, Sudan, China and Indonesia have all sent delegations to IDEAS, taking advantage to Pakistan's lack of circumspection over who buys its arms. US companies exhibited for the first time in 2004. Publicity after IDEAS 2002 claimed 140 companies from 20 countries exhibited, with over 20,000 trade visitors.

UK Involvement: Land Rover was the only UK-based company to exhibit at the first IDEAS in 2001, but more UK companies have exhibited in recent years.

Notes: Operating with the bizarre slogan 'Arms for Peace', IDEAS is primarily about establishing the military regime in Pakistan as a supplier in what it sees as an expanding defence market in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Since Pakistan has explicitly said it would probably only rule out Israel as a customer, IDEAS can cater to the military needs of various pariah states.

The show is not just about Pakistani weapons though, and US firms such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon turned up in force in 2004, since Pakistan has now become a US ally in the 'war on terror'. The 2004 event was used as the occasion for the announcement that the US is now prepared to reverse its previous opposition to selling F-16 jets to Pakistan. The expo, then, is also about Pakistani procurement. Publicity also boasts of "the world's largest firing demonstration."

WTC Building Seven - Seven Years Later

BUILDING SEVEN

COLLAPSED SEVEN HOURS AFTER THE TWIN TOWERS

SEVEN YEARS LATER The National Institute of Standards and Technology Decides To Release Its Findings

FROM THE BBC: 4 July 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7485331.stm

9/11 third tower mystery 'solved'
By Mike Rudin BBC, Conspiracy Files

The final mystery of 9/11 will soon be solved, according to US experts investigating the collapse of the third tower at the World Trade Center.

The 47-storey third tower, known as Tower Seven, collapsed seven hours after the twin towers.

Investigators are expected to say ordinary fires on several different floors caused the collapse.

Conspiracy theorists have argued that the third tower was brought down in a controlled demolition. Unlike the twin towers, Tower Seven was not hit by a plane.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, based near Washington DC, is expected to conclude in its long-awaited report this month that ordinary fires caused the building to collapse. That would make it the first and only steel skyscraper in the world to collapse because of fire.

See World Trade Center 7's location and structure

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's lead investigator, Dr Shyam Sunder, spoke to BBC Two's "The Conspiracy Files": "Our working hypothesis now actually suggests that it was normal building fires that were growing and spreading throughout the multiple floors that may have caused the ultimate collapse of the buildings."

'Smoking gun'
However, a group of architects, engineers and scientists say the official explanation that fires caused the collapse is impossible. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth argue there must have been a controlled demolition.

The founder of the group, Richard Gage, says the collapse of the third tower is an obvious example of a controlled demolition using explosives.

"Building Seven is the smoking gun of 9/11. A sixth grader can look at this building falling at virtually freefall speed, symmetrically and smoothly, and see that it is not a natural process.

"Buildings that fall in natural processes fall to the path of least resistance", says Gage, "they don't go straight down through themselves."

Conspiracy theories
There are a number of facts that have encouraged conspiracy theories about Tower Seven.

Although its collapse potentially made architectural history, all of the thousands of tonnes of steel from the skyscraper were taken away to be melted down.

The third tower was occupied by the Secret Service, the CIA, the Department of Defence and the Office of Emergency Management, which would co-ordinate any response to a disaster or a terrorist attack.

The destruction of the third tower was never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. The first official inquiry into Tower Seven by the Federal Emergency Management Agency was unable to be definitive about what caused its collapse.

In May 2002 FEMA concluded that the building collapsed because intense fires had burned for hours, fed by thousands of gallons of diesel stored in the building. But it said this had "only a low probability of occurrence" and more work was needed.

But now nearly seven years after 9/11 the definitive official explanation of what happened to Tower Seven is finally about to be published in America.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has spent more than two years investigating Tower Seven but lead investigator Dr Shyam Sunder rejects criticism that it has been slow.

"We've been at this for a little over two years and doing a two or two and a half year investigation is not at all unusual. That's the same kind of time frame that takes place when we do aeroplane crash investigations, it takes a few years."

With no steel from Tower 7 to study, investigators have instead made four extremely complex computer models worked out to the finest detail. They're confident their approach can now provide the answers. Dr Sunder says the investigation is moving as fast as possible.

"It's a very complex problem. It requires a level of fidelity in the modelling and rigour in the analysis that has never been done before."

Other skyscrapers haven't fully collapsed before because of fire. But NIST argues that what happened on 9/11 was unique.

Steel structure weakened
It says Tower Seven had an unusual design, built over an electricity substation and a subway; there were many fires that burnt for hours; and crucially, fire fighters could not fight the fires in Tower 7, because they didn't have enough water and focused on saving lives.

Investigators have focused on the east side where the long floor spans were under most stress. They think fires burnt long enough to weaken and break many of the connections that held the steel structure together.
Most susceptible were the thinner floor beams which required less fireproofing, and the connections between the beams and the columns. As they heated up the connections failed and the beams sagged and failed, investigators say.

The collapse of the first of the Twin Towers does not seem to have caused any serious damage to Tower Seven, but the second collapse of the 1,368ft (417m) North Tower threw debris at Tower Seven, just 350ft (106m) away.

Tower Seven came down at 5.21pm. Until now most of the photographs have been of the three sides of the building that did not show much obvious physical damage. Now new photos of the south side of the building, which crucially faced the North Tower, show that whole side damaged and engulfed in smoke.

OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION

BBC - Q&A: The collapse of Tower 7
The official version, the conspiracy theories and the evidence surrounding the collapse of World Trade Centre 7 on September 11.

NIST Status Update on World Trade Center 7 Investigation - 29 June 2007

NIST WTC 7 Technical Approach and Status Summary - December 12, 2006

NIST Comprehensive Presentation on Collapse of WTC 7 (pdf) (April 5, 2005)

NIST WTC Investigation Archives

National Institute of Standards & Technology

Whistleblowers - National Security, Government & Armed Forces

Human Rights Violators, National Security, Government & Armed Forces-
THE WHISTLE BLOWERS

It takes a certain type of person to be a Whistle blower. Forget weak people who have no backbone and have never taken a serious stand on any issue. Certainly forget the Wealthy and the Corrupt who throw money around to cover up their crimes. Such people can not be relied anyway, to act in the interests of their country, when Greed is of selfish and Primary Importance to Themselves.

This post presents some of the most famous Whistle blowers who have sought to expose the reality about people in National Security, Government and the Armed Forces. They have

• Exposed the Secret Rendition Program, Foreign Spy Rings, Nuclear Weapons Trade, etc
• Exposed Human Rights Violations in different countries as well as torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib.
• Exposed Disinformation - Fixing Intelligence for political purposes in the lead up to invasions such as Iraq and Iran. Different governments have dared to use this intelligence.
• Exposed Secret No Bid Contracts involving a President's Associates and Coalition Partners.All instigated in or by a select few from Democratic Countries
  

Any Whistle blower who exposes blatant violations of state and international laws by their own government and citizens, should receive the highest commendation from their country. Boundaries are clearly defined in many transparent legal instruments.

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PHILIP AGEE
Philip Burnett Franklin Agee (July 19, 1935 – January 7, 2008) was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and writer, best known as author of the 1975 book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, detailing his experiences in the CIA. Agee joined the CIA in 1957, and over the following decade had postings in Washington, D.C., Ecuador, Uruguay, and Mexico. After resigning from the Agency in 1968, he became a leading opponent of CIA practices. He died in Cuba in January 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Agee

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ERNEST BACKES
Ernest Backes (1946, Trier, Germany) was #3 of clearing chamber Clearstream (formerly Cedel), in charge of relations with clients, and was fired in May 1983. According to himself, he was "fired because (he) knew too much about the Ambrosiano scandal." Banco Ambrosiano collapsed in 1982, but the scandal wasn't yet public when Ernest Backes was dismissed. Ernest Backes was the primary whistleblower in Revelation$, the book he co-authored with Denis Robert and which in 2001 caused the Clearstream scandal. In 1971, he was hired by Cedel, set up in 1970 by a consortium of 66 international banks. With Gérard Soisson, Cedel's manager, he helped design and install Cedel’s computerized accounting system in the 1970s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Backes

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SHAWN CARPENTER

Shawn Carpenter is an American Navy veteran and whistleblower (previously employed by Sandia National Laboratories) who tracked down a Chinese cyberespionage ring that is code-named Titan Rain by the FBI. He came to national attention when his story was reported on in the September 5, 2005 issue of Time magazine.

After informing his supervisors of the breaches, he was told that his only concern was Sandia computers, and to drop the issue. His employment was later terminated when Carpenter disobeyed his management and communicated the information about the security breaches to the United States Army and the FBI. He was a confidential informant for the FBI for almost half a year before Sandia discovered his actions. Carpenter reportedly felt betrayed by the termination, as he viewed his actions were a service to his country, similar to that of his previous military service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Carpenter


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A Special John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award was presented to Sgt. Joseph Darby May 16 at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.Darby was presented the award for respecting the “rule of law” and turning photographs over to Army investigators depicting humiliation of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. Darby is a member of the 372nd Military Police Company, an Army Reserve unit from Western Maryland that served in Iraq for 18 months.

SERGEANT JOSEPH M. DARBY
Sergeant Joseph M. Darby (born c. 1979), of Corriganville, Maryland, is best known as the whistleblower in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. Darby is a graduate of North Star High School, near his hometown at the time, Jenners, Pennsylvania. At the time, Darby was a U.S. Army Reservist who served as an M.P. at the Abu Ghraib prison, in Abu Ghraib, Iraq. After learning of the abuse, Darby was the first person to take steps to alert the U.S. military command.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Darby

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MATTHEW DIAZ
Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) Matthew M. Diaz is a former staff judge advocate in the U.S. Navy, Judge Advocate General's Corps. In mid-to-late 2004, Diaz served a six month tour of duty in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as deputy director of the detention center's legal office. Early in 2005 as LCDR Diaz was concluding his tour, he sent an anonymous note to a New York civil liberties group containing the names of the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In July 2006, the United States government formally charged Diaz in a military court with five criminal counts related to the improper disclosure of classified information to an individual unauthorized to receive it. In May of 2007, he was convicted by a seven member jury of military officers on 4 of 5 counts. He served a 6 month prison sentence and was discharged from the military. In April 2008, he was awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Truth Telling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Diaz

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SIBEL EDMONDS
Sibel Deniz Edmonds (born 1970) is a Turkish-American former FBI translator and founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). Edmonds was fired from her position as a language specialist at the FBI's Washington Field Office in March, 2002, after she accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving foreign nationals, alleging serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence which, she contended, presented a danger to the United States' security. Since that time, court proceedings on her whistleblower claims have been blocked by the assertion of State Secrets Privilege. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets - The Times - 6 Janaury 2008 /
FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft - The FBI has been accused of covering up a file detailing government dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets - The Times - 20 Jan 2008 /
Tip-off thwarted nuclear spy ring probe - The Times - 27 Janaury 2008

DANIEL ELLSBERG
Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is a former American military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers (Top Secret McNamara study of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68) to the New York Times, the Washington Post and 17 other newspapers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg / http://www.ellsberg.net/bio

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A. EARNEST FITZGERALD
A U.S. Department of Defense auditor who was fired in 1973 by President Richard M. Nixon for exposing to Congress the tidal wave of cost overruns associated with Lockheed's C-5A cargo plane. After protracted litigation he was reinstated to the civil service and continued to report cost overruns and military contractor fraud, including discovery in the 1980s that the Air Force was being charged $400 for hammers and $600 for toilet seats. Mr. Fitzgerald retired from the Defense Department in 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_whistleblowers

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BUNNATINE "Bunny" H. GREENHOUSE

Bunnatine (Bunny) H. Greenhouse is a former chief contracting officer (Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting (PARC) of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On June 27, 2005, she testified to a Democratic Party public committee, alleging specific instances of waste, fraud, and other abuses and irregularities by Halliburton with regard to its operations in Iraq since the Iraq War. She described one of the Halliburton contracts (secret, no-bid contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR)—a subsidiary of Halliburton) as "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Greenhouse

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FRANK GREVIL
Frank Søholm Grevil (born in 1960) had the rank of major in Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste [FE] (Danish military intelligence agency). On February 22, 2004 he acted as a whistle blower leaking classified information about the FE's assessment of the possibility of weapons of mass destruction [WMD] in Iraq. These documents showed that FE was not as certain that WMD's existed in Iraq as the danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Grevil

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KATHARINE TERESA GUN
Gun is a former employee of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency. In 2003 she leaked top-secret information to the press concerning alleged illegal activities by the United States and the United Kingdom in their push for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. On January 31, 2003, she received an e-mail from a United States National Security Agency official named Frank Koza. This e-mail requested aid in a secret and illegal operation to bug the United Nations offices of six nations: Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, Pakistan, Mexico and Chile. These were the six "swing nations" on the UN Security Council that could determine whether the UN approved of the invasion of Iraq. The plan clearly violated the Vienna Conventions, which regulate global diplomacy. Gun leaked the email to The Observer, hoping to prevent the war. After her revelation, she was fired from GCHQ. "I have no regrets and I would do it again", she said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Gun / http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Katharine_Gun

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ADRIENNE KINNE

Adrienne Kinne served in the US Army and Army Reserves from 1994 through 2004 as an Arabic linguist in military intelligence. She was activated in the Reserves for two years following the events of 9/11 and served stateside in direct support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as a voice interceptor. She now works in the Department of Veterans Affairs as a health science specialist (psychology) and as the New England Regional Coordinator for Iraq Veterans Against the War. She lives in Vermont.

In 2008, Adrienne Kinne, a former U.S. military intelligence officer, revealed that she had seen secret documents listing the Palestine Hotel as a possible military target prior to the 2003 shelling incident. Reports from Kinne suggest that the attack on the hotel was a deliberate attempt to control news coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq as the Palestine Hotel was a popular place for international journalists.

Justice for Dead Journalists - http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/85512/ - May 15, 2008.

New NSA Whistleblower Speaks - A former member of U.S. military intelligence has decided to reveal what she knows about warrantless spying on Americans and about the fixing of intelligence in the leadup to the invasion of Iraq. - http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/24183

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MARK KLEIN
Mark Klein is a former AT&T technician who leaked knowledge of his company's alleged cooperation with the United States National Security Agency in installing network monitoring hardware to spy on American citizens. The subsequent media coverage became a major story in May 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Klein

'Turning In' AT&T Over NSA Program - Washington Post - 7 November 2007
His first inkling that something was amiss came in summer 2002 when he opened the door to admit a visitor from the National Security Agency to an office of AT&T in San Francisco."What the heck is the NSA doing here?" Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, said he asked himself.......

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DAVE LARSON
On January 08, 2008 a Whistleblower named Dave Larson made significant disclosures to the Dept. of Defense Office of the Inspector General and to Senate members substantiating allegations made by Russ Tice and which detailed unlawful criminal acts committed under Special Access Program (SAP) provisions. This matter remains pending and current with the Dept. of Defense Inspector General as case #103586.

Dave Larson has been involved in the development of government funded implantable medical device technology since March 1997, as a Biomedical Engineering student, research subject, Microsoft Certified Technician, programmer and FCC licensed operator KI6JJN. His site details the ongoing legal effort regarding criminal misconduct and abuse of Defense Special Access Program provisions, and a campaign for government ethics and reform. A "Special Access Program" (or "SAP") is described as "a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information" by the U.S. Department of Defense, more commonly known as "black projects". His site details one such project that may well be the darkest, blackest, highly classified project ever to receive public exposure. Extensive research efforts, ongoing legal efforts, and Freedom of Information requests have resulted in the factual data, and comprehensive documentation explicitly detailing U.S. Government efforts to develop implantable medical device technology for deployment as a Defense Tactical Weapon, and Intelligence Tool. What began in 1997 as an inquiry has evolved into a moral and ethical dilemma that has personnel from the NIH (Hambrecht, Heetderks and Loeb), the United States Dept. of Defense (Col. Ling, and OSD components), the FBI, and Defense Contractor, the Alfred E. Mann Foundation, committing acts of felony criminal misconduct, fraud, and civil rights violations under the protections of "National Security", the Patriot Act and governmental contractual obligations. Civil litigation is being sought in the interest of justice and public interest.

http://www.larsonmedia.net/special_access/biomed.htm

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DAVID MACMICHAEL
David MacMichael is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst. A ten-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, he was a counter-insurgency expert in South-East Asia for four years. He also served as an analyst for the National Intelligence Council from 1981-1983. MacMichael graduated with an MA and Ph.D. in History from the University of Oregon. MacMichael resigned from the CIA in July 1983 because he felt the Agency was misrepresenting intelligence for political reasons. His public resignation from the Agency gave credence and notability to his vocal indictment of the Reagan Administration's policy toward Central America. He was considered the "key witness" in Nicaragua v. United States. The case was heard in 1986 before the International Court of Justice, which ruled that the United States had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their war against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. MacMichael also testified in front of Congress on this matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_MacMichael

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STEWART MENZIES
Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, KCB, KCMG, DSO, MC (pronounced "mingis", with a hard 'g') (30 January 1890 – 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6, British Secret Intelligence Service, during and after World War II. He joined the counterintelligence section of Field Marshall Douglas Haig, and in late 1917 reported to high British leadership that Haig was fudging intelligence estimates, which soon led to Haig's removal. This whistle-blowing was apparently done very discreetly. Following the end of the war, he entered MI6 (later SIS) and became a deputy of its director-general Hugh Sinclair.


In 1924, Menzies was allegedly involved — alongside Sidney Reilly and Desmond Morton — in the forging of The Zinoviev Letter. This forgery is considered to have been instrumental in the Conservative Party's victory in the United Kingdom general election of 1924, which ended the country's first Labour government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Menzies

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VASILI MITROKHIN
Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (March 3, 1922–January 23, 2004) was a Major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, and co-author with Christopher Andrew of The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, a massive account of Soviet intelligence operations based on copies of material from the archive. The second volume, The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB in the World, was published in 2005, soon after Mitrokhin's death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Mitrokhin

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CRAIG MURRAY
Craig Murray (born October, 1958) is a British political activist, former ambassador to Uzbekistan and current Rector of the University of Dundee. While at the embassy in Tashkent, he accused the Karimov administration of human rights abuses, a step which, he argued, was against the wishes of the British government and the reason for his removal. Murray complained to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in November 2002, January or early February 2003, and in June 2004 that intelligence linking the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan to al-Qaeda, suspected of being gained through torture, was unreliable, immoral, and illegal. He described this as "selling our souls for dross". Murray was subsequently removed from his ambassadorial post on October 14, 2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_murray / http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

**

DEREK PASQUILL
Derek Pasquill leaked documents relating to the US "Extraordinary Rendition" programme, a practice of secretly transporting terror suspects to places where they risked being tortured, and the UK government's policy towards Muslim groups.
Civil servant who leaked rendition secrets goes free - Guardian - 10 January 2008
I had no choice but to leak - New Statesman - 17 January 2008
Terror rendition prisons 'did exist' - Channel 4 TV - 7 June 2007

**

CLIVE PONTING
Clive Ponting a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence who leaked classified documents to Labour Member of Parliament, Tam Dalyell confirming that the General Belgrano was sunk by United Kingdom Forces during the Falklands War while outside the total exclusion zone, contradicting statements by the UK Government. The documents revealed that the General Belgrano had been sighted a day earlier than officially reported, and was steaming away from the Royal Navy taskforce. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Ponting

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SAMUEL PROVANCE
Samuel Provance was a military intelligence sergeant who is most notable for going public, against the direct orders from his commanders, with what he knew about what happened at the Abu Ghraib Prison, where he worked as a U.S. Army computer systems supervisor from the fall of 2003 to the spring of 2004. Despite the consequences, he continued to defy those orders. The main points of his "whistle blowing" is the role of military intelligence, specifically military and civilian interrogators, in abusing detainees (that they directed the military police and were abusers themselves), the extent of knowledge of such abuse through the U.S. Army chain of command, and the subsequent cover-up of these practices when investigated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_provance

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RON RIDENHOUR
Ronald Ridenhour (April 6, 1946 – May 10, 1998), a young GI who served in the 11th Infantry Brigade during the Vietnam War, played a central role in spurring the investigation of the My Lai Massacre. A helicopter gunner, Ridenhour heard of the massacre from friends while serving in Vietnam. While still on active duty, he gathered eyewitness and participant accounts from other soldiers. On his return to the United States, he sent letters to 30 members of Congress and to Pentagon officials, spurring a probe that led to several indictments against those involved, and the conviction of William Calley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Ridenhour

**

Francisco Vincent Serpico (born April 14, 1936) is a retired New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who is most famous for testifying against police corruption in 1971. The majority of Serpico's fame, however, came after the release of the 1973 film, Serpico, which starred Al Pacino in the lead role. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico

**

DAVID SHAYLER
David Shayler is a British journalist and former MI5 (British Security Service) officer.
Shayler earned notoriety after being prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act for his passing secret documents to the Mail on Sunday in August 1997 that alleged that MI5 was paranoid about socialists, and that it had previously investigated Labour Party ministers Peter Mandelson, Jack Straw and Harriet Harman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shayler / http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davidshayler

**

ROD STONER
Rod Stoner is a former British army corporal from the Parachute Regiment who was employed as a security consultant by the private military contractor Aegis Defence Services in 2004 and 2005. Rod Stoner became disgruntled with the management of Aegis in Iraq, where it is contracted to the U.S. Department of Defense, and left Aegis during 2005. In October 2005, Stoner set up an illicit website and published a number of videos allegedly showing Aegis personnel shooting indiscriminately, and without warning, at Iraqi civilian vehicles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Stoner






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RUSS TICE
Russell D. Tice (born 1961) is a former intelligence analyst for the U.S. Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and National Security Agency (NSA). During his nearly 20 year career with various United States government agencies, he conducted intelligence missions related to the Kosovo War, Afghanistan, the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. In December, 2005, Tice helped spark a national controversy over claims that the NSA and the DIA were engaged in unlawful and unconstitutional wiretaps on American citizens. He later admitted that he was one of the sources that were used in the New York Times' reporting on the wiretap activity in December 2005.

Tice began to receive national attention as a whistleblower in May, 2005, after speaking publicly about alleged retaliation by government officials for reporting his suspicions that a DIA colleague might be a Chinese spy, and about the need for legislation to protect national security agency whistleblowers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tice

NSA Whistleblower Alleges Illegal Spying Former Employee Admits to Being a Source for The New York Times - ABC News - 10 January 2006

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SARAH TISDALL
Sarah Tisdall was a Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) clerical officer who was jailed for leaking British government documents to a newspaper in 1983. Sarah Tisdall anonymously sent The Guardian photocopied documents detailing when American cruise missile nuclear weapons would be arriving in the United Kingdom. The documents set out the political tactics Michael Heseltine, then defence minister, would use to present the matter in the House of Commons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Tisdall

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LANA VANDENBERGH
The circumstances surrounding the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes would not have come to the public's attention without whistleblower Lana Vandenbergh. Lana worked as an administration secretary for the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent man, was shot and killed at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground by police. Initially, police falsely claimed that he was wearing bulky clothing, had vaulted the ticket barriers and run from police. It soon become clear that de Menezes did not vault and run from the police, but police did not correct the misinformation until the correct information was leaked to the press. At first the police tried to cover up this dreadful mistake. Vandenbergh leaked details of the police enquiry, which was very different from the version then in the public domain. http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Lana_Vandenbergh

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MORDECHAI VANUNU
Mordechai Vanunu, born in Marrakech, Morocco on October 13, 1954 is an Israeli former nuclear technician who revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently kidnapped in Rome by Israeli agents and smuggled to Israel, where he was tried and convicted of treason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu

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ANDREW WILKIE
Andrew Wilkie (born 1961, Tamworth, Australia) is a former soldier and intelligence analyst who resigned from the Office of National Assessments (ONA), an Australian intelligence agency, in March 2003 over concerns that intelligence was being misrepresented for political purposes in making the case for Australia's contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, the Australian, UK and U.S. governments were asserting that intelligence reports showed that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. Wilkie resigned at this time, claiming that the reports did not support such claims and in the years since his resignation, no valid evidence supporting the pre-war claims of weapons of mass destruction has ever been found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wilkie

**

BASSEM YOUSSEF
Mr. Youssef is the highest ranking Arab-American agent employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He is currently a Unit Chief in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. Prior to holding his current position, Mr. Youssef coordinated the national counterterrorism investigation into the Islamic Group (the organization responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing). He speaks fluent Arabic (the highest ranking FBI official with this skill).

In 2002, Youssef blew the whistle to the director of the FBI and Congress that discriminatory practices within the Bureau were undermining the effectiveness of America’s counterterrorism efforts. Speaking publicly for the first time on the subject, the Egyptian-born Youssef said that FBI officials consider that “cultural understanding of the Middle East and radical Islamic groups, as well as the Arabic language, was unnecessary” in conducting counterterrorism investigations. Although the FBI has claimed to be “working hard to get Arabic-speaking agents,” Youssef said he has been completely sidelined since the September 11 attacks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassem_Youssef / http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2008/january2008/bassemyoussef.cfm
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SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact. Our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by all types of people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources. http://wikileaks.org/

National Whistleblowers Center - http://www.whistleblowers.org/

International Association of Whistleblowers - http://www.internationalassociationofwhistleblowers.net/

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition - http://www.nswbc.org/

Remote Control Technology - Interfering With Mobile Phones, IEDs and Vehicles

Scratching at the Surface of
REMOTE CONTROLLED MILITARY/CIVILIAN TECHNOLOGY -

MOBILE PHONES,

IEDS AND CARS/VEHICLES

This post scratches at the surface of what communications and electronic technology is commercially available today and has been used in the past by Terrorists, the Armed Forces and Security Services. We can not ignore the fact that this technology was available first in many cases, to the Armed Forces and Security Services.

Everyone knows James Bond and his many gadgets. Personally, I find 007 rather Embarrassing. Why? He has fueled the fantasises of too many men. Regardless, People should have a serious interest in 007 technology and gadgets because they often become reality later.

Bond Gadgets: Never Say They Will Never Work - 28 May 2008 - NewScientist.com

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MOBILE CELL PHONES - WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Intro to Mobile Phone / Mobile Phone Jammer

GPS Tracking - A GPS tracking unit is a device that uses the Global Positioning System to determine the precise location of a vehicle, person, or other asset to which it is attached and to record the position of the asset at regular intervals. Such systems are not new; amateur radio operators have been operating their free GPS based nationwide realtime Automatic Position Reporting System since 1982.

Questions & Answer Time - GPS Trackers - (18 May 2008)

Using the GPS for People Tracking including Mobile to Mobile Tracking (April 2008) Some tracking solutions enable you to access tracking maps on a mobile device. The ability to track someone using a cell phone, by using another cell phone ....

FBI Taps Cell Phone Mic as Eavesdropping Tool (December 2006) - CNET News.com
The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

'This goes no further...' (2 March 2004) BBC. Following revelations about bugging at the United Nations, is there any way of ensuring that your private conversations stay that way? The most powerful tool for the modern spy is the mobile phone. Mobiles that double as listening devices can be bought over the internet.

Remotely Activated Mobile Phone Microphones
Some mobile phone microphones can be activated remotely, without any need for physical access, even when the phone is switched off. This roving bug feature is reportedly being used by law enforcement agencies and intelligence services to listen in on nearby conversations. While it is not possible to do this with every mobile phone as of 2006, some models are susceptible to being remotely reprogrammed (over the air using methods meant for delivering upgrades (Firmware updates) and maintenance) with this capability without the knowledge of its owner. Examples for such mobile phones are Motorola Razr and Samsung 900 series mobile phones.

Mobile Tracking Devices on Trial (24 February 2006) Your mobile phone is a beacon - a radio transmitter in a box. Therefore it is possible to trace the signal and work out where it is. There are now several web companies which will track your friends' and family's phones for you, so you always know where they are.

F.B.I. Seeks Access to Mobile Phone Locations (17 July 1998) - Director Louis J. Freeh of the F.B.I. has asked members of a Senate committee to change the Justice Department appropriations bill to require telephone companies to provide police agencies with the precise location of cellular phone users, in some cases without a court order. After learning last week of Mr. Freeh's meeting with members of the Appropriations Committee, civil liberties groups and the telecommunications industry began marshaling opposition. Privacy advocates say the proposal is a dangerous and unconstitutional invasion of privacy, and the telecommunications industry predicts that implementing such a law would cost billions of dollars.

Cell Phone Spy Extracts Deleted Texts, Data (25 February 2008) INFORMATION WEEK - BrickHouse Security sells a small, portable SIM card reader that it says can retrieve deleted messages and data from cell phones.

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IEDS (Improvised Explosive Device) and MOBILE PHONES - PAST AND FUTURE

Network Technologies for Networked Terrorists - Assessing the Value of Information and Communication Technologies to Modern Terrorist Organizations - RAND Homeland Security

Early generations of terrorist detonation devices could frequently be jammed because they could only receive transmitted signals on a limited number of frequencies. In the future, a single PDA or smart phone will likely be able to receive information using conventional cell-phone signals or WiFi, as well as Bluetooth or other available communication signals. The diversity of signals could make jamming devices based on these technologies difficult. Furthermore, in certain areas, wireless communication on those frequencies may be so critical to providing emergency services or other public or private functions that it may not be possible to jam them at all.

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IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE (IED) FACT SHEET

Powered Portable Cellphone Jammers - The C-Guard EXP is a portable cellphone jamming device that can block different cellular frequency bands and networks simultaneously, used by EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) units to prevent detonation while the team neutralizes Cellular IED threats and satellite phone IED threats. Attached to explosive devices or home made bombs, the cellphones can be operated from any distance, allowing terrorists to escape from crime arena and activate the improvised bomb remotely. The cell phone attached to the IED acts as a receiver, once it receives a signal from a phone transmitter it causes detonation.

Remotely Initiated IEDs: GSM Phones and Beyond - Scoping Paper. OSS.Net Survey of RC IEDs - Southeast Asia - Feb 2003 - Oct 2005. Prepared by OSS Southeast Asia Division October 2005. This brief scoping paper is based on over 5,000 news items warehoused by OSS Southeast Asia, and additional OSINT collection. At the end of the paper is a table of gisted reports of those IED incidents reported to be remotely initiated, together with other items such as reports of counter-measures. The focus is Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines.

Curbing the Roadside Bomber JANES Security News (12 December 2005) - Rupert Pengelley - The proliferation of remote-control improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to a seesawing battle between measure and countermeasure technologies. Terrorists first began to make significant use of radio transmitters and other forms of commercially available remote-control (RC) switches to initiate improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the 1980s. Since then the business of countering such initiators has been kept under wraps for understandable operational reasons.

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MADRID BOMBINGS - How The (Mobile Phone) Devices Worked JANES Terrorism & Insurgency Center - JTIC TERRORISM CASE STUDY No.1 : THE MADRID RAIL BOMBINGS

The devices used mobile phones as initiation mechanisms, with the language settings in Spanish. Each mobile phone was pre-set to alarm at a designated time and set on vibrate mode. It is understood that the IEDs were not booby-trapped. The ability to wire a mobile phone ringer circuit to a detonating cap is a delicate operation that requires an individual to be well trained.

The use of mobile phone triggers is now well within the capabilities of a variety of Islamist militant groups, including elements of the Zarqawi network, Jemaah Islamiyya (JI) and Palestinian factions. National separatist groups such as ETA and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) are also well-versed in such techniques and were among the first groups to use them successfully.

Terrorists have noted operational failures stemming from the incorrect setting of a phone's alarm. This sometimes prompts the use of remote 'detonation-on-demand' tactics, which may involve calling or sending text messages to the mobile phone. Terrorists are also aware of the risks of identification through inadvertent capture and analysis of the SIM card and various methods have been used in an effort to overcome this. However, for security reasons, the specific details cannot be discussed here.

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CELL PHONES AND IEDS IN THE NEWS SINCE 2003

WASHINGTON -- Cell phones found during the investigation of the recent terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia were rigged to detonate explosives by remote control, the FBI said Wednesday, urging U.S. law enforcement officials to be on the lookout for such devices.

FBI: Cell Phones Triggered Bombs - 11 June 2003

Cell phones trigger bombs (Bali Bombings) - 10 July 2003

Bomb outside Jakarta Hotel was detonated by a mobile phone (7 August 2003)

Police say foreign terror groups involved in Andhra blast Hyderabad (19 May 2007)

The IED problem is getting out of control. We've got to stop the bleeding.' PART 1 (of 4) - (30 September 2007) - Washington Post

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WHERE ARE WE WITH DRIVERLESS / REMOTE CONTROL OF VEHICLES / CARS?

Dickmann's Mercedes 500 SEL

1994: Autonomous vision-based VaMP robot of Dickmanns and UniBW drives in Paris traffic, tracking up to 12 other cars simultaneously. The "VAmP" Mercedes 500 SEL drives more than 1000 km on the Paris multi-lane ring, up to 130 km/h, automatically passing slower cars in the left lane.

1995: UniBW Munich's fast Mercedes robot does 1,000 autonomous miles on the highway - in traffic. The famous S-class car of Dickmanns and UniBW autonomously drives 1,678 km on public Autobahns from Munich to Denmark and back, at up to 180 km/h, automatically passing other cars.

Driverless car - / Smart car - / Mercedes Benz S-Class robots - / Automotive technologies - / Driverless cars / Autonomous Vehicle

Vehicle Tracking System - A vehicle tracking system is an electronic device installed in a vehicle to enable the owner or a third party to track the vehicle's location. Most modern vehicle tracking systems use Global Positioning System (GPS) modules for accurate location of the vehicle. Many systems also combine a communications component such as cellular or satellite transmitters to communicate the vehicle’s location to a remote user. Vehicle information can be viewed on electronic maps via the Internet or specialized software.

DRIVERLESS VEHICLE PROJECTS

The VaMP Driverless Car was one of the first truly autonomous cars along with its twin vehicle, the VITA-2. They were able to drive in heavy traffic for long distances without human intervention, using computer vision to recognize rapidly moving obstacles such as other cars, and automatically avoid and pass them. The VaMP was constructed by the team of Ernst Dickmanns at Universität der Bundeswehr München and Mercedes-Benz in the 1990s as part of the 800 million ECU EUREKA Prometheus Project on autonomous vehicles (1987-1995).

In 1995, Dickmanns´ re-engineered autonomous S-Class Mercedes-Benz took a 1600 km trip from Munich in Bavaria to Copenhagen in Denmark and back, using saccadic computer vision and transputers to react in real time. The robot achieved speeds exceeding 175 km/h on the German Autobahn, with a mean time between human interventions of 9km, or 95% autonomous driving. Again it drove in traffic, executing manoeuvres to pass other cars. Despite being a research system without emphasis on long distance reliability, it drove up to 158 km without human intervention. The 500 SEL Mercedes was re-engineered so that it was possible to control steering wheel, throttle, and brakes through computer commands based on real-time evaluation of image sequences. Software was written that translated sensory data into appropriate driving commands.

Video of Self-Driving Cars on HowStuffWorks. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense that's responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. Their latest project is to encourage the development of vehicles that will drive themselves, autonomously.

Control of Vehicle As automotive technology matures, more and more functions of the underlying engine, gearbox etc. are no longer directly controlled by the driver by mechanical means, but rather via a computer, which receives instructions from the driver as inputs and delivers the desired effect by means of

electronic throttle control, and other drive-by-wire elements. Therefore, the technology for a computer to control all aspects of a vehicle is well understood.

Navigation System The ability to plot a route from where the vehicle is to where the user wants to be has been available for several years. These systems, based on the US military's Global Positioning System are now available as standard car fittings, and use satellite transmissions to ascertain the current location, and an on-board street database to derive a route to the target. The more sophisticated systems also receive radio updates on road blockages, and adapt accordingly. Refer Automotive navigation system

DRIVER-ASSISTANCE COMPONENTS
The following products and projects do not aim to create a fully autonomous car. They are seen as incremental stepping-stones in that direction. Many of the technologies detailed below will probably serve as components of any future driverless car. Driver-assistance mechanisms are of several distinct types, sensorial-informative, actuation-corrective, and systemic.

Sensorial-informative
These systems warn or inform the driver about events that may have passed unnoticed.
Lane Departure Warning System (LDWS), eg Iteris. Rear-view alarm, to detect obstacles behind. This system gets activated when the reverse gear is engaged. Visibility aids for the driver, to cover blind spots and enhanced vision systems such as radar, wireless vehicle safety communications and night vision.

Actuation-corrective
These systems modify the driver's instructions so as to execute them in a more effective way, eg ABS, power steering is just a convenience. Anti-lock braking system (ABS) (also Emergency Braking Assistance (EBA), often coupled with Electronic brake force distribution (EBD), which prevents the brakes from locking and losing traction while braking. Traction control (TCS) actuates brakes or reduces throttle to restore traction if driven wheels begin to spin. Four wheel drive (AWD) distributes power to all four wheels and lessens the chances of wheel spin. It also suffers less from oversteer and understeer. Electronic Stability Control (ESC) (also known for Mercedes-Benz proprietary Electronic Stability Program (ESP), Acceleration Slip Regulation (ASR) and Electronic differential lock (EDL). Uses various sensors to intervene when the car senses a possible loss of control. The car's control unit can reduce power from the engine and even apply the brakes on individual wheels to prevent the car from understeering or oversteering. Dynamic steering response (DSR) corrects the rate of power steering system to adapt it to vehicle's speed and road conditions.

Systemic
Automatic parking: e.g. technology from Toyota. The Lexus LS can park itself (parallel/reverse) via the 'Advanced Parking Guidance System' – though only controlling the steering. Death Brake; there is a move to introduce deadman's braking into automotive application, primarily heavy vehicles, and there may also be a need to add penalty switches to cruise controls.

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This post is dedicated to Princess Diana and also someone else I knew, who was killed in a road accident. In both cases there were Motives for removing these people.

D&D's inquest focused on excessive speed, alcohol, seat belts and flashing lights. The ignorant mass naturally bought into these reasons, simply because so many other car accidents have been attributed to these causes.

Given advanced communications technology and remote electronics systems available at the time, why didn't anyone challenge and expose what else could have interfered with the electronics in this vehicle and on their persons? Diana's Mobile Phone went conveniently missing.