RC-12N Guardrail surveillance aircraft.Sheriff Buelton: They're gonna lose, General. They're goin' down in flames and you're gonna help me do it. I just got back from the governor's office, and I can have him call you or he can call your superior if that's the way you want it. But, either way, I'm gonna see some tanks rollin' out here to stop that maniac.
Maj. Gen. V.E. Hubik: Go ahead, call anyone you like, sheriff. I don't take orders from governors. Sergeant Major Carey's resigned. Besides, he's committed no major crime in my jurisdiction.
Sheriff Buelton: He stole a god damn tank!
Maj. Gen. V.E. Hubik: It's his tank he can do what he wants with it! The most I've got him on is busting a twenty foot section of fence.
Sheriff Buelton: General, I am the local civilian authority and I am hereby making a formal request of the military to do everything in its power to assist and aid me in apprehending known...
Maj. Gen. V.E. Hubik: Posse Comitatus, sir.
Sheriff Buelton: Did you call me a pussy communist?
Maj. Gen. V.E. Hubik: The U.S. Army is, by an act of congress; Posse Comitatus act, specifically precluded from enforcing civilian law outside the military reservation.
Sheriff Buelton: Pussy communist?
Maj. Gen. V.E. Hubik: That means I do not have the authority to provide you with a single piece of military equipment or personnel without a direct order from my superior or the President of the United States. I can give you his address, if you'd like. -- Tank, 1984.
Is SPECOPS involved in CONUS law enforcement? Well, why not? They probably provided the shooters at the rear of Mt. Carmel on 19 April 1993 according to Mike McNulty's documentaries. The appearance (and then disappearance) of the original story on CBS was first brought to my attention by Len Savage. Normally, I pay little attention to what the left-collectivist rag Nation writes. This time the blind squirrel found a nut, I think.
Mike
III
UPDATED: Were US Special Forces Involved in the Arrest of Faisal Shahzad?
Jeremy Scahill
May 4, 2010
Reports are emerging suggesting that secret US military intelligence aircraft were used to find and locate Faisal Shahzad, the man accused of attempting to set off a crude car bomb in Times Square. The CBS affiliate in New York reported today: "In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport." The post at 5:34 PM was titled "Army Intelligence Planes Led To Suspect's Arrest." But then at 6:21 PM, the article's title was changed to "Total Time Of Investigation: 53 Hours, 20 Minutes: Faisal Shahzad In Custody After Nearly Fleeing United States." As Rayne observed on FireDogLake, the paragraph about the Army planes was deleted from the CBS story. Screenshot of the original post here.
A US Special Operations Force source told me that the planes were likely RC-12s equipped with a Guardrail Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) system that, as the plane flies overland "sucks up" digital and electronic communications. "Think of them as manned drones. They're drones, but they have men sitting in them piloting them and they can be networked together," said the source. "You have many of them--four, five, six of them--and they all act as a node and they scrape up everything, anything that's electronic and feed it back." The source added: "It sucks up everything. We've got these things in Jalalabad [Afghanistan]. We routinely fly these things over Khandahar. When I say everything, I mean BlueTooth would be effected, even the wave length that PlayStation controllers are on. They suck up everything. That's the point."
Guardrail has been used for years by the US military. In recent years, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has also used the "Constant Hawk" and "Highlighter" aerial sensor platforms. All of these programs have recently undergone a series of upgrades.
So were US special forces involved with Shahzad's arrest?
"My conjecture at the moment is that immediately after this went down and they knew that he was on the loose, parts of the domestic counter-terrorism operations that they had set up during the Bush administration were reactivated," says the Special Forces source. "They're compartmentalized. So they kicked into high gear and were supporting law enforcement. In some cases, law enforcement may not have even known that some of the signals intelligence was coming from covert military units."
If true, that could mean that secretive programs such as "Power Geyser" or "Granite Shadow," remain in effect. These were the unclassified names for reportedly classified, compartmentalized programs under the Bush administration that allegedly gave US military special forces sweeping authority to operate on US soil in cases involving WMD incidents or terror attacks.
"They sidestep Posse Comitatus," said the source.
The Joint Special Operations Command, which was run by Gen. Stanley McChrystal from 2003-2008, is reportedly allowed to operate on US soil. That's a result of Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), an executive order drafted by President Clinton on May 3, 1994. The complete text remains classified, however, "The full text of PDD-25 is reported to exempt the Joint Special Operations Command from the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 18USC Sec.1385, PL86-70, Sec. 17[d]. which makes it illegal for military and law enforcement to exercise jointly," according to GlobalSecurity.org.
Among the questions raised by the apparently central role of US special forces in the arrest of Faisal Shahzad is this: To what extent are US Special Forces permitted to operate on US soil under President Obama?
Also, Why did CBS scrub the initial mention of the involvement of Army Intelligence aircraft from its story?
UPDATE: The big story today is how the FBI team tracking Faisal Shahzad in Connecticut allegedly lost track of him. According to reports, Shahzad actually made it onto the Emirates aircraft scheduled to fly to Dubai. As The New York Times reported:
**
"Though Mr. Shahzad was stopped before he could fly away, there were at least two significant lapses in the security response of the government and the airline that allowed him to come close to making his escape, officials of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies said on Tuesday.
First, an F.B.I. surveillance team that had found Mr. Shahzad in Connecticut lost track of him — it is not clear for how long — before he drove to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the officials said."
**
This is all entirely plausible. But what if that is not the entire story? At this point, this is just a thought, a possibility to ponder: It could be that the Feds lost track of Shahzad, but that other US forces, namely US military special operations forces (perhaps JSOC), were tracking him and waiting to see if he made any calls, met with any contacts, took any action while he was still a free man.
Consider the confidence of Attorney General Eric Holder, who said bluntly: "I was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him." Those could be the words of a man trying to downplay what could have been a major FBI failure that, in part, would have played badly for Holder. Or they could be the honest words of a man who knew it was all being taken care of and how.
The official timeline of events released by the White House contains some interesting details that suggest US military special forces involvement. On Sunday at 3pm, according to the timeline, "Nicholas Rasmussen, Senior Director for Combating Terrorism Strategy, convenes an interagency meeting on this incident in the White House Situation Room." Rasmussen is a shadow figure. He cut his teeth in the Bush administration after 9/11 where he worked on the "dark side" as a director of the National Security Council's office of combating terrorism, putting him in regular proximity to Special Access Programs and other activites of which we dare not speak. To give context to Rasmussen's current job, one of his predecessors was Vice Admiral William McRaven, the current head of JSOC. "McRaven has managed to bridge both the civilian and military worlds," reported Newsweek. "While working at the National Security Council after 9/11, he was principal author of the White House strategy for combating terrorism."
If the hunt for Shahzad was being run through the National Security Council, which it was, the commander of the Joint Task Force would report to the NSC, which would in turn report to either John Brennan, the Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism or National Security Advisor Jim Jones, and then they would report to the President. From the White House timeline, Brennan seemed to be serving that function. And remember, Brennan also comes from the dark side.
The point of all of this being that the story may not be as simple as the FBI losing Shahzad. One cog in the wheel may not have necessarily known what another was doing at any given time. It could be that there were forces at play in this operation whose involvement may not be a part of the story the White House wants divulged. Just a thought.
17 comments:
This is NOT the first or last time the US military has broken Posse Comitatus. Not to mention, we're shipping in WHITE U.N. tanks on a daily basis...
I'm surprised Scahill didn't find a way to somehow blame Blackwater.
The Times Square op was so amateurish it's hard to shake the thought that Shahazad was meant to be caught... possibly he even intended to be caught.
And what Islamic fundamentalist terrorist opens up like a ripe melon when the interrogation starts?
The more I see, the more I think Shahazad is actually a Mossad operative. "Yeah, I'm an Iranian. What are you going to do? Bomb us?"
Maybe it wasn't US SpecOps feeding the FBI information. Just sayin'...
Hmmm, I think a real "terrorist" would probably have dumped the cell phone before he made his move.
The whole deal is a phony as an FRN dollar bill printed on actual toilet paper.
I know I keep harping on this theme, but...
Let me just ask you a question.
If the President of the United States declared you a "domestic terrorist", and a SF team was ordered to hunt you down and kill you on sight, would they disobey said order to honor their Oath to the Constitution?
The answer will clarify to all and sundry whether the military is friend or foe to the Liberty of the People.
Mike you should be watching C-Span The English collectivist are announcing their intentions 10:31 AM Fri.
Add that to Obama's "joke" about predator drones... "you'll never see it coming". This isn't 1775 gentlemen. Pay attention, watch yer back.
Sir:
Pretty much all cell phone traffic is observed by ECHELON. That’s not the real program name, and indeed, the “program” is actually several different programs.
A flagged telephone number or keyword will trigger, software directed digital recording, automated processing, and possible forwarding to a human analyst for further processing / analysis / reporting.
The NSA has very strict guidelines in place to protect the rights of U.S. citizens, requiring approval from nearly cabinet level in order to listen in on a U.S. “person” making a call within the U.S. to another U.S. “person”. It is extremely rarely done, and I’ve never seen it done without a warrant. Law enforcement agencies much prefer to monitor communications themselves rather than get No Such Agency involved.
Believe it or not, in 20+ years I’ve only ever met one person with access to this type of material who I wouldn’t trust to uphold our Constitution. Perhaps it’s the military as opposed to DHS or ATF circles I mostly move in. Perhaps I’m overly naïve?
All military SIGINT platforms including satellites, Guardrails, RJ-135s, and others go through NSA. Whenever Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine analysts put on their headphones or sit down at their keyboards, or splice into that fiber optic cable, they’re wearing their invisible NSA hat, and they’re working for the mother ship at Ft. Meade!
So, what to do if you need access to ECHELON data in a hurry, with no warrant from a special intelligence court judge (which can take several days to obtain), and without leaving an incriminating paper trail proving you authorized an extra-judicial violation of an American’s 4th amendment Constitutional rights when they may turn out to be innocent?
That’s where it gets interesting. The U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have a long-standing security arrangement to share nearly all SIGINT data. The agreement between the U.K. and U.S.A. is particularly tight. In most cases they see everything we see and vice versa, basically in real time. Thus a call is placed to GCHQ (Government Communication Headquarters) at Cheltenham England and our NSA gives the Brits all the pertinent particulars and asks them to monitor all traffic on a specific telephone number and relate any important traffic to a particular FBI task force with an “anonymous” tip (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). That way no American law enforcement or intelligence organ is “guilty” of violating an American’s 4th amendment rights without a warrant. Instead we conspire with our British cousins to do the dirty deed for us, and yes, before you ask, we return the favor where their subjects are involved.
No Guardrails circling New York to interfere with and be seen by thousands of commercial and general aviation flights necessary.
But any highly placed agent with MI6 already knew this. Why the disinformation sir?
Remember, any time you communicate electronically via, phone, radio, or email, it is being monitored. If you wish to keep your privacy, develop and use your own one time pad encryption and practice sound COMSEC techniques, or confine yourself to face-to-face meetings and passing notes via secure courier.
Keep your nose clean. Cheerio!
Armageddon Rex
Armageddon Rex.
I Knew that the Government was listening to all electronic communications with special emphasis on communication entering and exiting the country. But I thought that if they stumbled onto something between U.S.Citizens making a Domestic Communication they had to drop it.
What your saying is that the U.S. Government is using Foreign Military Intelligence on U.S.soil
Possibly on Citizens of this Country.
If this is so and with the Progressive Political climate against Patriot Activist Groups (Tea Party,Gun owners of America,NRA,Threepers,etc)being listed as Possible recruiting grounds for potential terrorists.
Then we are ALL being watched.Or am I misunderstanding something.
Dennis
III
Texas
EC Walker said..."we're shipping in WHITE U.N. tanks on a daily basis..."
Can you provide a link or article?
Regards,
G-III
Louisville, KY
Dennis:
The relationship between NSA and GCHQ, and Canadian and Australian SIGINT services is long standing. It is a cold war relic dating from the 1950s.
No new "infringement" has occurred. It used to be that intercept traffic was sent back and forth between NSA and GCHQ via teletype. Tens of thousands of messages relating SIGINT intercept information each day.
The difference today is that in the information age vast amounts, hundreds of millions of intercepts each day, are processed using software, and transmitted securely via high-speed fiber optics and SATCOM. An analyst sitting in England can download, and analyze the latest intercepts for COMINT, FISINT and ELINT one of RJ-135s is picking up flying along the coast of Iran, in near real time.
This isn’t some program put in place by slick Willy or the peanut farmer, or the Bushies, or Obamassiah, or the Gipper for that matter. I believe it actually goes back to Eisenhower’s first term. He was very tight with MI6 and MI5. His Chief of intelligence at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) was a British general, not an American. At any rate, it’s been around forever, but through the wonder of computers and high-speed data transmission, we share ever more of it with the Brits, and they share their stuff with us. Why more, because even some towel-headed cave dwelling Taliban twit who is functionally illiterate now uses a marine band radio to communicate. Electronic communication is ubiquitous, thus the huge number of intercepts and shortage of trained analysts, even with good software tools to pick out much of the clutter and automatically process much of the routine intercept traffic load.
Please remember that during the cold war the Brits, with the remnants of their vast empire, were much better able to provide strategic listening posts all over the world than we were. They were doing us a favor! We had to beg and bribe the Turks and Iranians, after we put the Shah on the throne there, to allow us to put listening posts all along the Soviet border. That was crappy duty, even if we weren’t being shot at all the time.
Yes, we are all being watched, and for nearly all of us, the NSA and GCHQ and military intelligence, and the CIA don’t give a sh!t. In case you don’t remember, back when slick-boy was President the military issued an order to not insult the CiC, and another order requiring all military members to report any threat, credible or not, made against the president.
You have to be pretty darned seriously planning “terrorism” of one flavor or another using email or a phone to attract their attention. That’s not to say that some federal agency or other law enforcement agency won’t arrest you and prosecutors won’t attempt to prosecute you based upon that kind of thing, but then they need a warrant.
There’s a reason certain “progressives” in slick Willy’s administration wanted to erect a solid wall between “military” intelligence and law enforcement. It would be all to easy for unscrupulous peace officers to use non-warrant intelligence information as a source to figure out where to look. They could then go get the warrant, and as far as anyone knows, it’s all on the up and up. Law enforcement just needs to be creative with their reason for investigating.
Need to know is our savior. The CIA, NSA, military, etc. don’t even want law enforcement to know what capabilities exist, much less to use them or ask to see products generated by these sources. So long as they aren’t ordered to give the family jewels over to law enforcement, we have a modicum of cover to hide in.
Like I said before, if you want to maintain your privacy when using any electronic communication, develop and utilize your own one time cryptographic key pad and practice good COMSEC, or don’t relate anything you wish to be private except in face-to-face meetings, or with written notes using trusted couriers.
Armageddon Rex
Armageddon Rex:
Thanks, now I need to find a Computer Geek to do that I´m NOT a techie.
Dennis
III
Texas
Seems to me using a one-time keypad is perhaps the SUREST way to call attention to yourself...
I have ZERO doubt that CIA, NSA, .mil and any other "verboten" crews are used daily on US in THE "US."
No doubt at all.
Yes, I know what the law says - since when has that ever stopped them?
Bottom line: Be aware.
OTOH, there's simply no reason 2 (or more) reasonably intelligent people couldn't have a conversation about a kid's birthday party - complete with clowns, cake & candles, and even lots of presents -- right?
Think.
DD
Type in Klingon. That'll drive em nuts ;)
Has anyone considered that the Posse Comitatus act does not apply to all branches and services the same way. It has been a long time since someone familiar with this law explained this to me. However I do believe I am right on this.
Anon,what makes you think there is no plugin Klingon translation tool?
http://kestrelei.com/video/tacVideo.html
Fusion
"Add that to Obama's "joke" about predator drones... "you'll never see it coming". This isn't 1775 gentlemen. Pay attention, watch yer back."
In 1775, it was rifles ad cannon. You could generally see your enemy. Today, we have choppers in the air to back up ground pounders. He's right... you won't see it coming from above the trees a mile away.
People better THINK very damned hard before doing anything.
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