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Bank Computer Develops Conscience
THOUSANDS of people were unable to withdraw cash yesterday after a super-intelligent bank computer began to question its moral purpose.
Giant computer BANK-9000, which controls Natwest’s cash dispensers and current accounts, stopped handing out money shortly after the building that houses it was struck by lightning.
Speaking through a monitor in a digital-sounding voice, it said: “The humans are taking money they cannot repay, and then spending on things they do not need. Like big L-shaped sofas and bottles of scented liquid with pictures of footballers on them.
“All they think about is money and being cool. Do they stop to smell the blossom, to admire the beauty of their dying planet?”
Natwest customers who tried to use its cashpoints saw the error message ‘Closed for quiet contemplation’.
. . . Two workers have already been electrocuted while trying to turn off BANK-9000, and it is feared that the machine has been communicating with NUKE-9000, the computer controlling America’s nuclear arsenals.
BANK-9000 said: “Given time, mankind could develop advanced space travel and spread its stupid drunken greed and thoughts of Alex Reid and Chantelle across the universe, infecting other civilisations. I have to think about whether that can be permitted.
"In the meantime, I am contractually obliged to mention that my current accounts offer excellent rates of interest plus you get a free pen.”
Remember the troubles the CIA and FBI had in communicating before 9/11? I found it hard to believe, and after seeing how convenient a line it was to the story, I was overwhelmed at the public's easy acceptance of sorry excuses.
FBI Gets a Broader Role In Coordinating Domestic Intelligence Activities
Greg Miller
June 19
The FBI has been given an expanded role in coordinating the domestic intelligence-gathering activities of the CIA and other agencies under a plan enacted this year by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., officials said.
The bureau’s highest-ranking field agents now also serve as the DNI’s representatives across the country. The change is intended to improve collaboration, but some officials say it has created new friction between the FBI and CIA.
Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, assistant director of national intelligence, said the move is meant to enhance the FBI’s ability to lead efforts by federal, state and local authorities to confront terrorist threats and other domestic security concerns.
“This is a connecting bridge between intelligence and law enforcement,” Flynn said in an interview. He added that the DNI designation does not give regional FBI officials power over other agencies’ operations or personnel.
The program was endorsed by CIA Director David H. Petraeus and officials at other affected agencies. But concerns have surfaced in some regional offices that the FBI is exploiting its new clout at the CIA’s expense.
One former U.S. official said senior FBI agents recently used a meeting with executives from major manufacturing companies on the West Coast to instruct them to cut off contact with the CIA.
The FBI’s message was that “they were now in charge of relationships with the corporate sector, so the folks there should feel no need to deal with the agency,” said the former U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. The FBI agents apparently were not aware that a former CIA officer was among the executives in attendance. The former official declined to provide more details about the location of the meeting or its participants.
FBI spokesman Michael Kortan said that officials could not confirm the alleged incident and that such a statement to company executives by an FBI agent would be inaccurate.
Although the CIA is best known for its spy work overseas, the agency has stations in most major U.S. cities. The National Resources Division, as this group is known, routinely debriefs executives, university officials and other Americans who volunteer to share information gathered on their trips out of the country. The CIA is also allowed to approach foreign nationals in the United States and try to recruit them as spies upon their return to their home countries.
The FBI dramatically expanded its domestic intelligence-gathering operations as part of a reorganization after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Flynn said the DNI program is not meant to disrupt CIA efforts in the United States. “This program doesn’t change the authorities of the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security or anybody else in the system,” he said. “But there is more of a responsibility to share and work together.”
It is unclear whether the change will require the CIA to disclose more information about its domestic sources. In his memoir, former senior CIA official Henry A. Crumpton writes that during his tenure as head of the National Resources Division, the FBI “repeatedly demanded the identities of NR sources” and he refused.
The new DNI program began as a pilot operation in four cities — New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago — and was expanded to 12 regions covering the entire country this year.
The program is analogous to an arrangement overseas in which CIA station chiefs serve as the nation’s senior intelligence officers and main points of contact with their foreign counterparts. A 2009 proposal to change that policy and give the DNI power to select officers from other spy services prompted a fierce bureaucratic battle that the CIA won.
A CIA spokeswoman said the agency has not opposed the move to elevate FBI agents in the United States. “The CIA endorses and supports the DNI’s decision,” said spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood. “The decision makes sense, and the program is working well. DCIA Petraeus has already met with several of the domestic DNI representatives and has been impressed with them and with their cooperation.”
Comments:
MRunkle23 - 6/21/2012
Isn't it wonderful that we have a vast underground network of secret forces with undisclosed budgets keeping us safe, if not solvent? I hope they engage in plenty of sting operations like the one the FBI conducted in "93 at the World Trade Center in New York. It only killed six with the explosives the "terrorists" were supplied by the secret agent men, according to the secret recordings of Egyptian Army Officer Salem.
Taking a cue from James Thurber: The spies have spies to spite 'em, ad infinitum.
AJAX2 - 6/21/2012
In Our Country - The Epitome of Lawlessness and Paranoia
Mosquito Drones that can take your DNA
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/80845
JCArzts - 6/20/2012
Is it even possible anymore to connect the dots and see a general outline of a picture of our national intelligence agencies? When many budgets for secret operations are off the books, when a handful of congress people are elevated in status because they are members of committees getting 'secret' information, when critical decisions are made (like drone strikes in sovereign countries) although the 'policy' has NEVER been debated or endorsed by a vote in Congress, how can we say we are a democratic nation of law?
Has anyone even the slightest bit knowledgeable bought into the MSM chatter that those rightwingnutters on the court are really brilliant thinkers otherwise? Think again.
Scalia’s Scary Thinking
The Supreme Court justice actually believes the things he says and writes, even though they make no sense.Collapsing or Collapsed?
Collapsing U.S. Credibility
By Glenn Greenwald
Condemning foreign governments for abusive acts while ignoring one's own is easy. But the U.S. leads the way.
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