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Israel On Alert: Israel Appears To Be Readying For Conflict With Lebanon

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Photo Credit: APSenior Israeli officials have indicated that the Jewish state is gearing up for a major “war with Lebanon,” according to sources close to the Israeli government.

The Israeli military has reportedly deployed missile defense systems to the northern part of the country, which sits near Lebanon, and has ordered all civilian aircraft to evacuate Haifa airport, the Jewish state’s northernmost air hub.

Senior Israeli officials have warned of an impending conflict in closed-door meetings in Washington, D.C., sources said.

The “world needs to be prepared for the next war with Lebanon,” a senior military adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said during a private meeting with representatives of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a D.C. think-tank.

“All of Lebanon is now South Lebanon,” the official reportedly said, referring to Israel’s ongoing attempts to prevent the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah from replenishing its weapons cache.

Read more from this story HERE.

New Stealth Clothing Line Hides Wearer from Drones

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Surveillance cameras are ubiquitous, especially in the U.K.. and in the United States, Congress has already approved the use of drones for domestic surveillance. Then there’s the “Stingray” tool used by the FBI to track cell phones. It’s enough to make even those who’ve gotten nothing hide feel nervous.

New York-based artist Adam Harvey doesn’t like it one bit. So he’s taken it upon himself to design anti-surveillance clothing to foil government snoopers.

Harvey has been looking at the effects of such surveillance on culture for some time. Last year he designed a kind of face makeup called CVDazzle to avert face-recognition software.

In the spirit of fooling cameras – and messing with surveillance – Harvey has now come out in a set of hoodies and scarves that block thermal radiation from the infrared scanners drones use. Wearing the fabric would make that part of the body look black to a drone, so the image would appear like disembodied legs. He also designed a pouch for cell phones that shields them from trackers by blocking the radio signals the phone emits. For those airport X-ray machines, he has a shirt with a printed design that blocks the radiation from one’s heart.

The materials the clothes are made are specialized and expensive, so these aren’t the kinds of fashions that the local discount store will have – at least not yet. Harvey does plan to offer the clothes for sale, though.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Life-Size Flying RC Superman Startles Southern California Beach Goers

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A life-size model Superman has been flying up and down southern California’s coast line, startling beach goers.


The nearly-adult sized custom-made Superman looks surprisingly lifelike as it flies a through the air.

It is apparently a remote controlled-craft that has ingeniously hidden a propeller somewhere in the model.

To keep it aloft and rigid, it was likely handcrafted from ultralight materials.

At the end of the video, the model rockets nearly straight up.

Take a look at the fascinating video:

Homeland Security Increasingly Loaning Drones to Local Police

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Far from the battlefields of Afghanistan, a Predator drone was summoned into action last year to spy on a North Dakota farmer who allegedly refused to return a half-dozen of his neighbor’s cows that had strayed onto his pastures.

The farmer had become engaged in a standoff with the Grand Forks police SWAT team and the sheriff’s department. So the local authorities decided to call on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to deploy a multimillion-dollar, unarmed drone to surveil the farmer and his family.

The little-noticed August 2011 incident at the Lakota, N.D., ranch, which ended peacefully, was a watershed moment for Americans. It was one of the first known times an unmanned aerial vehicle owned by the U.S. government was used in local police work.

Since then, The Washington Guardian has confirmed, DHS and its Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency have deployed drones — originally bought to guard America’s borders — to assist local law enforcement and other federal agencies on several occasions.

The practice is raising questions inside and outside government about whether federal officials may be creating an ad-hoc, loan-a-drone program without formal rules for engagement, privacy protection or taxpayer reimbursements. The drones used by CBP can cost $15 million to $34 million each, and have hourly operational costs as well.

Read more from this story HERE.

Revealed: Administration Drew Up Top-Secret Rulebook for Drone Warfare to Hand Over to Romney in Case Obama Lost Election

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Although drone strikes may not have come up much during the presidential election campaign, the controversial tactic may one day be remembered as one of Barack Obama’s signature policies during his time in office.

But while it is now routine for the U.S. to use unmanned planes to assassinate suspected terrorists, there are still no official guidelines governing the use of the deadly weapons.

So before the election, administration officials spent weeks trying to hammer out a rulebook on drones which they could hand over to Mitt Romney in the event that he had defeated Obama, it has been revealed.

Those guidelines were so confidential, however, that they were not allowed to be sent by email, and had to be transported by hand to the officials working on them.

Most details of the drone programme are a closely guarded secret, and its existence have never been publicly confirmed by authorities.

But two officials from the Obama administration have briefed the New York Times on the steps that have been taken to draw up rules for the use of drones and ensure that their deployment is always legally justified.

Read more from this story HERE.

Now the UN Wants To Use Drones for Surveillance

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photo credit: scazon

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations wants to use drones for the first time to monitor fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where Rwanda has been accused of aiding rebels, officials said Friday.

Peacekeeping chiefs have been in contact with the governments of DR Congo and of Rwanda about the sensitive move, which could set a precedent that would worry some United Nations members, diplomats said . . .

“Ultimately, to introduce these, we would need the support of member states to equip the mission,” [UN peacekeeping spokesman] Dwyer said . . .

“The UN has approached a number of countries, including the United States and France, about providing drones which could clearly play a valuable role monitoring the frontier,” a UN diplomat said, on condition of anonymity.

“Clearly there will be political considerations though,” the diplomat added.

Read full story HERE.

US Drones Circled Benghazi During Attack, Rescue Considered by Obama Admin. But Rejected

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American drones were in the skies above the U.S. consulate in Benghazi as the deadly attack that killed ambassador Christopher Stevens unfolded, it has been revealed.

Defense department officials considered sending troops in to rescue the ambassador and staff, according to CBS News, but ultimately decided not to.

They would haven been able to watch the attack on-screen as it unfolded.

The revalations came a day after it emerged that U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens repeatedly pleaded with the State Department to ramp up his security team in Libya — requests that the Pentagon ultimately denied — in the weeks, days and hours leading up to the terrorist attack that killed him and three other Americans, newly released cables have revealed.

Stevens, who was killed in the 11 September attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, warned the State Department of a ‘security vacuum’ in Libya ‘that is being exploited by independent actors’ in one cable that described rapidly deteriorating security conditions.

Read more from this story HERE.

DHS Now Pursuing Minitiarized Drone Technology for Domestic Surveillance

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There was a time when the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t enthusiastic about its drone fleet. Unmanned flying surveillance ‘bots had the potential to freak out the public, top DHS science and technology officials worried. That time has evidently passed — particularly for smaller flying spies.

In the coming months, Fort Sill, Oklahoma will become a proving ground to learn what small surveillance drones can add to “first responder, law enforcement and border security scenarios,” according to a recent solicitation to the country’s various drone manufacturers. Each selected drone will undergo five days’ worth of tests as part of a new program from DHS’ Science and Technology directorate, called Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety or, gloriously, RAPS.

Like many in the military experimenting with drone miniaturization, DHS is thinking small. The drones it wants to bring to Fort Sill will ideally be launched by hand, like the Army and Marines’ Raven. They should weigh under 25 pounds. Assembly should take a matter of minutes, and training for their remote pilots and technician a matter of days. DHS isn’t looking for drones that can loiter over an area for a long time: just 30 minutes to two hours, a hint that the department doesn’t foresee drones becoming a primary surveillance tool. “Law enforcement operations, search and rescue, and fire and hazardous material spill response” are some of the potential drone missions the RAPS program envisions.

Still, it’s something of a turnaround for DHS. Back in January 2011, Ruth Doherty, a DHS science & tech official, expressed skepticism about using drones to patrol for signs of terrorism or to protect big public events like the Super Bowl. “A case has to be made that they’re economically feasible, not intrusive and acceptable to the public,” Doherty told Danger Room at a D.C. conference. In addition to the potential public outcry, drones have been a headache for DHS at times. A DHS ground station in 2010 lost communications with one of the first Predators it used to surveil the southern U.S. border, and the department has had trouble finding enough pilots and technicians to operate its initial drone fleet.

Read more from this story HERE.

We must fight the emerging drone culture

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Photo credit: An Honorable German

As instruments of war, pilotless aircraft have already become essential. The Washington Post reported last year that more than 50 countries had developed or purchased drones to use in surveillance — and that many of those nations were working to weaponize the aircraft. Deadly missiles fired from drones are among the most effective U.S. weapons against the Taliban and al Qaida.

There has been far too little discussion of the moral calculus involved in using flying robots as tools of assassination. At the very least, the whole thing should leave us uneasy. Collateral damage — the killing of innocents — can be minimized but not eliminated. And even if only “bad” people are killed, this isn’t war as we’ve traditionally understood it. Drone attacks are more like state-sponsored homicide.

But similar complaints were raised when tanks replaced horses on the battlefield, and nothing stopped the mechanization of war. Drones allow governments to achieve military objectives without putting the lives of soldiers, sailors and pilots at risk. Robots do not bleed and do not vote, so they will do much of the fighting for us.

The thing about drones, though, is that the technology required to deploy them is nowhere near as daunting as is needed, say, to develop nuclear weapons. As they become more commonplace in the arsenals of the world, we will surely begin seeing them used by “rogue” nations — or even by nonstate actors such as terrorists and drug smugglers.

If Colombian cartels are able to build dope-smuggling submarines, when will Mexican crime lords begin sending up surveillance drones to identify unpatrolled sectors of the U.S. border? Soon, I reckon, if it’s not already happening.

Read more from this story HERE.

GPS expert stuns Congress: Drones in US airspace can easily be hijacked by criminals, terrorists

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A House Homeland Security subcommittee today heard sharp warnings about the plan to allow drones to fly widely in U.S. airspace starting in 2015.

GPS expert Todd Humphreys of the University of Texas was the star witness: “I am worried that it could be a weapon in the arsenal of organized crime, or state actors, or organized terrorists,“ Humphreys told a stunned committee.

In a Fox News exclusive last month, Humphreys demonstrated how, with a relatively inexpensive GPS “spoofer,” he could take control of a GPS-guided drone in flight, and make it do whatever he wanted. The potential is there, he told the panel, for terrorists to do the same thing.

“The nightmare situation that I articulated here as a panelist,” Humphreys told Fox News, “was that five or ten years from now we haven’t fixed the problem and now the drones are much larger, maybe delivering FedEx packages. I don’t want it to get to that point before we say ‘ok it’s a problem.’”

Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas was clearly alarmed by Humphreys’ testimony:  “This is astounding that you could hijack a UAV and bring it down,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.