http://ap.google.com/…

The U.S. military, with help from Seattle startup Delve Networks, has launched a video-sharing Web site for troops, their families and supporters, a year and a half after restricting access to YouTube and other video sites.

TroopTube, as the new site is called, lets people register as members of one of the branches of the armed forces, family, civilian Defense Department employees or supporters. Members can upload personal videos from anywhere with an Internet connection, but a Pentagon employee screens each for taste, copyright violations and national security issues.

Part of Delve’s work was to build speedy tools for approving and sorting incoming videos. Its technology also crunches video files into several sizes and automatically plays the one that best suits viewers’ Internet connection speeds.

But the startup’s real forte is making sure searches on the site turn up the best video results. Delve’s system turns a video’s sound into a text transcript. It pares unimportant words like “this” and “that,” then compares what’s left against a massive database of words commonly uttered in proximity to each other, collected from crawling hundreds of millions of Web pages.

The result: Even if speech recognition software trips on the one word someone is searching for, there’s a good chance Delve can still deliver relevant results.

In May 2007, the Defense Department banned employees and soldiers from accessing sites including YouTube and MySpace, citing security and bandwidth issues. Delve Chief Executive Alex Castro called TroopTube a “retention tool” aimed at a generation of soldiers who bring laptops to the front lines.

“A lot of people are excited in the company to be doing something for the people who make sacrifices,” said Castro, his eyes tearing. “We’re proud of this.”

So to fix bandwidth issues they introduced a new system which while providing multiple streams is still a heavy when compared to regular traffic? My guess is it’s those things listed in the title which were the real problem.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

As Ted Galen Carpenter has noted, the War on Drugs is active in Afghanistan. Below is a photo from the DEA website of Special Agents burning a bunker of hashish in Afghanistan. Repeat: These guys are DEA agents, not U.S. soldiers.

Looks like they are putting their domestic training of busting down people’s doors to good use.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/…

Northcom has announced that two more U.S. military units will be assigned for domestic homeland security missions, bringing the total number of combat ready service members operating inside the U.S. to around 4,700, as fears grow about the increasing militarization of law enforcement.

The announcement follows the controversy surrounding a September 8 Army Times report (revised on September 30), which revealed that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, fresh from combat duties in Iraq, would be operating inside America for tasks including “civil unrest and crowd control,” a detail that was later denied by Northcom despite the concession that forces would be armed with both non-lethal and lethal weapons as well as having access to tanks.

“In the next three years the military plans to activate and train an estimated 4,700 service members for specialized domestic operations, according to Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command, which was created in 2002 for homeland defense missions,” reports the Colorado Independent.

“It’s to help us manage the consequences of a large-scale event,” said Renuart. “We have one [unit] now trained and equipped and assigned to the Northern Command. We’ll grow a second one this calendar year of 2009 and a third one in the calendar year 2010 so we can provide the nation three sets of capabilities that could respond to an event of the size of 9/11 or larger.”

But as Mike German, national security counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office in Washington., D.C., points out, “This isn’t a military police brigade or a civil affairs brigade. This is actually a combat brigade being assigned a domestic mission.”

With these stories… combined with Biden and Powell saying shortly into the Obama presidency he will face a great test… well the conspiracy theorists sound less crazy. Lets hope they aren’t.

http://www.syracuse.com/…

The city of Syracuse has asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by a woman whose 303 Gere Ave. apartment was gassed last year during a police standoff with her neighbor.

The motion to dismiss, filed this week in U.S. District Court, responded for the first time to Eileen Malay’s allegations that police violated her constitutional rights March 17, 2007, during a 29-hour standoff with her landlord, Thach Ros, 62.

Ros, who lived in an attached house, fatally shot his son and wounded his wife before eventually killing himself.

While arguing Malay, 59, has no grounds to sue the city, the motion did not dispute Malay’s account of the gassing. She fled the apartment that day and hasn’t been back.

In the motion, the city argues police officers were confronted with a deadly situation and didn’t know whether Malay was in her apartment.

“A reasonable police officer would not believe that deploying gas to diffuse a lethal situation could (violate) Plantiff’s civil rights, particularly if they were not even aware that she was inside the apartment,” wrote Jennifer Savion, assistant corporation counsel.

Also, the city argued, police didn’t violate Malay’s constitutional right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure because of the imminent danger the gunman posed.

“There can be no doubt that there were exigent circumstances sufficient to allow police action to try and diffuse the situation,” Savion wrote. “That meant using CS gas inside the property to try to disarm Ros.”

CS gas is a type of tear gas that the U.S. military has agreed under international treaty not to use in warfare.

How does the fact that the gunman posed an “imminent danger” negate the fact that they ruined her property with a chemical that even the military has agreed not to use? They harmed this woman and she should be paid restitution. Period. If anyone other then government thugs tried to use this excuse the public would be outraged. Collateral damage is still damage and those officers are still responsible. The gang of which they are a member of and the colors they were do not put them above to fundamental societal concepts.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/…

Two former secretaries of State unveiled a plan Tuesday to require better consultation between Congress and the president over sending U.S. troops into war.

The legislation, the product of a blue-ribbon commission headed by James A. Baker III, secretary of State under President George Bush, and Warren Christopher, who held the same office under President Bill Clinton, would establish a joint congressional committee and require that the president consult with its members before sending the military into battle.

“This statute gives Congress a seat at the table in deciding whether or not to go to war — not just a seat at the table, but one with a permanent staff, a permanent professional staff, and access to all the available intelligence information,” Christopher said.

Christopher and Baker urged Congress and a new administration to quickly take up their proposal, and said they had reached out to the campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama , D-Ill., and John McCain , R-Ariz.

The plan also would require Congress to vote on a concurrent resolution to authorize the conflict within 30 days after military action begins. If that resolution fails, it would allow an expedited vote on a joint resolution of disapproval, which would become law only with the president’s signature or over his or her veto.

Any military action expected to last more than a week would require consultation, and formal consultation would continue every two months. If action requires secrecy, the president would have to consult within three days after the action began. Covert operations, humanitarian missions, limited reprisal against terrorists and repelling attacks on the United States would be exempt.

Under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war. However, since the end of World War II, presidents have committed the U.S. military to several conflicts without asking for declarations of war, though in some cases Congress has enacted authorizing resolutions, as it did in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Congress also has the power to limit spending for military operations, though it could be politically difficult to do so once U.S. troops have been committed to a conflict.

The proposal would replace the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which the commission concluded was ineffective at best and unconstitutional at worst.

OHHH. I see what they are saying. Congress does have a say. They just don’t bother to use that power. Nor do they use the power to impeach and try the president for high crimes of going to war without a declaration. Lets take a look at that “Constitution” thing they speak of.

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11: The Congress shall have the Power To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8: Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:–”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Article 2, Section 4, Clause 1: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Seems pretty clear to me. “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” He is the Commander in Chief only when the Congress calls the Army, Navy and/or Militia of the several States into actual service. When can they be called into service? When the Congress declares war, “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” That’s it as far as I can tell.

And what did James Madison say on the topic?

In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man; not such as nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary successions of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

Hence it has grown into an axiom that the executive is the department of power most distinguished by its propensity to war: hence it is the practice of all states, in proportion as they are free, to disarm this propensity of its influence.

So it seems even more obvious that Congress not only has a say but it is the only voice. Will such a setup as proposed fix anything? I don’t see how. The more strict and constitutional ways for military deployment has failed for decades. This plan has no teeth. Hell, the president can veto the “joint resolution of disapproval.” Even if the president couldn’t what would that do? It’s just a disapproval resolution. It sounds like a UN security council resolution. There is nothing to back it up.

http://adventuresofcitizenx.com/…

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

Every year for the last five years [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], I have written an article commemorating the Waco siege: the 51-day standoff from February 28 to April 19, 1993, between government agents – ATF, FBI and US military – and the Branch Davidians: a conflict ending in a conflagration that consumed the lives of 76 civilians, including 21 children.

That I’ve written about this so consistently raises some questions: Am I obsessed? Why do I, and a number of other commentators, feel the need to keep bringing up this sad episode in modern American history?

Waco still matters. Not just because it has become the paradigmatic symbol for federal police power gone out of control. Not just because it starkly demonstrates the American government’s militarism unleashed against its own people. Not just because it showcases the propensity of politicians and law enforcers to deceitfully cover and obscure their wrongful actions. No, Waco’s still important mostly because it shows exactly what happens when people resist the unjust incursions of their own government, including under democracy.

Consider, in contrast, what has happened quite recently in Texas. This time, state and local officials seized 416 children from the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints (FLDS) Church. The supposed justification was the abuse of minors, but there is in any event no reason to assume these children would be less abused in the custody of the Texas government, whose foster system has been rife with child rape, poisonings and murder.

This mass seizure of children featured officials “wearing body armor and carrying automatic weapons, backed by an armored personnel carrier.” The militarization of domestic police has infected every level of American government, down to the local. The Texas police were ready to conduct a warlike raid of the Fundamentalist Mormon home, and the particular justification for it has shifted from a specific report of abuse (still unconfirmed, and possibly a prank) to a more general one, just as the rationale behind Waco shifted (from a methamphetamine lab, to illegal guns, to child abuse).

Thank goodness the family under siege this time around did not forcibly resist, because it could have ended violently, with many of those kids not just kidnapped, but killed. Is this not a lesson to learn from Waco – that outright resisting the police state will likely get you killed, and most Americans will still side against you? Indeed, it has been downright troubling how many Americans have unquestioningly swallowed the government’s line on this FLDS affair, just as they swallowed the government line on Waco.

It’s unfortunate that the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents are so foreign to the general public. It’s good that the FLDS hadn’t resisted. While on its face it seems as if the government wouldn’t possibly attack a group of people which include children… Waco shows that they have no concern for them and will lie, cheat and spin to make it so that the horror of the situation is hidden and blame ends up squarely on those whom they attacked.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/27/business/drone.php

The Miami police could soon use cutting-edge flying drones to help fight crime.

A small pilotless vehicle manufactured by Honeywell International, capable of hovering and “staring” using electro-optic or infrared sensors, is expected to be introduced soon in the skies over the Florida Everglades.

If use of the drone wins U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approval after tests, the Miami-Dade Police Department will start flying the 14 pound, or 6.35 kilogram, drone over urban areas with an eye toward full-fledged employment in crime fighting.

“Our intentions are to use it only in tactical situations as an extra set of eyes,” said Detective Juan Villalba, a police department spokesman.

“We intend to use this to benefit us in carrying out our mission,” he added, saying the wingless Honeywell aircraft, which fits into a backpack and is capable of vertical takeoff and landing, seems ideally suited for use by SWAT teams in hostage situations or dealing with “barricaded subjects.”

And the Miami-Dade police are not alone. Taking their lead from the U.S. military, which has used drones in Iraq and Afghanistan for years, law enforcement agencies across the United States have voiced a growing interest in using drones for domestic crime-fighting missions.

Not that the Posse Comitatus Act is really in effect anymore but many people still believe that the military can’t be used for policing domestically. Well those pushing for a fascist police state have figured out how to get around that. Make the police like the military instead.

And really… as if this will stop crime. It will only escalate it. Any crime it stops a petty thief has given up will be made up by the professionals in severity.