Drone Pilots Courageous - Occupy Everywhere Lives! (Necessitating Obama Enabling Executive Branch to Control All Communications?)

[BREAKING NEWS: House Farm Bill Fails to Support Healthy Food and Farms]

Justin Tatham, Union of Concerned Scientists

Excerpt: "The House bill weakened the new whole farm revenue insurance program that would benefit diversified, organic and healthy food farmers - who are critically important for expanding the production of healthy food. The bill also pulled funding for important rural development programs that help farmers produce food in local and regional markets."

READ MORE

I know Glenn Greenwald used to be a pretty straight-laced Republican, but I can't help remember when that wasn't necessarily a pejorative.

The Bravery of Joystick Executioners



Glenn Greenwald

Salon

Greenwald writes: "So medals would be awarded for sitting safely ensconced in a bunker on US soil and launching bombs with a video joystick at human beings thousands of miles away."

(Credit: Reuters)

The effort to depict drone warfare as some sort of courageous and noble act is intensifying:

The Pentagon is considering awarding a Distinguished Warfare Medal to drone pilots who work on military bases often far removed from the battlefield. . . .

[Army Institute of Heraldry chief Charles] Mugno said most combat decorations require “boots on the ground” in a combat zone, but he noted that “emerging technologies” such as drones and cyber combat missions are now handled by troops far removed from combat.

The Pentagon has not formally endorsed the medal, but Mugno’s institute has completed six alternate designs for commission approval. . . .

The proposed medal would rank between the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Soldier’s Medal for exceptional conduct outside a combat zone.

So medals would be awarded for sitting safely ensconced in a bunker on U.S. soil and launching bombs with a video joystick at human beings thousands of miles away. Justifying drone warfare requires pretending that the act entails some sort of bravery, so the U.S. military is increasingly taking steps to create the facade of warrior courage for drone pilots:

The Air Force has been working to bridge the divide between these two groups of fliers. First off, drone operators are called pilots, and they wear the same green flight suits as fighter pilots, even though they never get in a plane. Their operating stations look like dashboards in a cockpit.And drone pilots themselves are propagating boasts of their own bravery more and more:

Luther (Trey) Turner III, a retired colonel who flew combat missions during the gulf war before he switched to flying Predators in 2003, said that he doesn’t view his combat experience flying drones as “valorous.” “My understanding of the term is that you are faced with danger. And, when I am sitting in a ground-control station thousands of miles away from the battlefield, that’s just not the case.” But, he said, “I firmly believe it takes bravery to fly a U.A.V.” — unmanned aerial vehicle — “particularly when you’re called upon to take someone’s life. In some cases, you are watching it play out live and in color.” As more than one pilot at Holloman told me, a bit defensively, “We’re not just playing video games here.”

READ MORE

occupyphiladelphia on livestream.com

Occupy is alive and growing. It's global. And local. (But that's what we planned, so surprise!)

You don't know this because the mainstream media (MSM) will not cover the truth.

But that's no surprise, is it?



Video streaming by Ustream

Live Coverage: Occupy Worldwide

Reader Supported News Special Coverage

The seed planted on September 17th in New York City has grown into a national and international movement. Occupy Wall Street has branched out with hundreds of groups organizing Occupy protests in their own communities. Reader Supported News highlights some of the more significant actions from around the country here. Share this page with your friends and associates and check back often for the latest developments.

READ MORE

Remember how it was solemnly intoned that Obama could have done so much good at the beginning of his administration if he'd just signed a few executive orders? But, no, he decided to compromise with the reasonable Rethuglicans who vowed to make him a one-term President.

Some compromise(s).

He's a different man today. Or is he?

Obama Seizes Control of All Communications Systems With Executive Order

By Susanne Posel
Global Research
July 9, 2012

occupycorporatism.com



President Obama has usurped all available forms of communication for use and discretion of the US government. Under executive order (EO june 6, 2012), Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions, Obama has enabled the executive branch to control communications  “under all circumstances to ensure national security, effectively manage emergencies, and improve national resilience.” (for full text of the Executive Order, seen Annex below)

Radio and wired communications systems “of all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and the public must inform the development of national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) communications policies, programs, and capabilities.”

Cellular phone corporations like Sprint owned Boost Mobile have released messages to their customers concerning the US government’s allocation of their phone communications at the whim of the President. In a text message to customers, Boost Mobile said that: “. . . you can receive national and local emergency alerts directly on your phone.”

Back in 2011, Hillary Clinton admitted that the US government, via the mainstream media, is losing their “information war” with the American public. As alternative media becomes more prevalent, the propaganda must be taken up a notch in order to keep the masses onboard with the agendas of the US government.

Danny Schechter, filmmaker and investigative journalist, explains that MSM cannot compete with the alternative media. Schechter says that “America feels on the defensive because it can no longer” monopolize the thoughts of citizens domestically and abroad. Since the US government thinks “its point of view is the only point of view” these new news outlets are “extremely damaging” to the US continual purveyance of propaganda.

The Presidential Alert was announced in August of 2011, wherein the Commissioners for the FCC required that television, radio stations and cable systems (including satellites) will redirect broadcasting if the President wants to “alert Americans of impending danger”.

This EO explains that the establishment of a NS/EP Communications Executive Committee (CEC) will “serve as a forum to address NS/EP communications matters”. The CEC will answer to the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and advise Obama on the “prioritization of radio spectrum and wired communications that support NS/EP functions”.

Designees of DHS and Department of Defense will be co-Chairs of the CEC. While the CEC will now advise on policy to Obama; they will have control over the “future architecture of the NS/EP communications” and define those communications in a “long-term strategic vision”.

The funding for this all-encompassing control over our radio, television and digital communications will be taken from the taxpayers by way of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Under Obama’s discretion, all radio and digital communications can be intercepted with recommendation by the assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and the Director of OSTP. The executive branch’s authority derives from the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (47 U.S.C. 606), Section 706.

The US governmental agencies involved in this endeavor are the heads of:

• Department of Justice
• Department of Defense
• Department of State
• Department of Commerce
• Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
• Office of the director of National Intelligence (DNI)
• General Services Administration
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

The President enables the “regimes to test, exercise, and evaluate the capabilities of existing and planned communications systems, networks, or facilities” and provides “quarterly updates to the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and the Director of OSTP”.

The Secretary of Homeland Security (SHS) will create an Executive Committee Joint Program Office (JPO) that has been tasked with “coordination of programs that support NS/EP missions, priorities, goals, and policy. The JPO and the CEC will meet with governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to decide on “development of policies”.

The SHS also has the responsibility of facilitating communications in the event and support of Continuity of Government on the federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal levels. In an emergency the SHS will alert “non-military executive branch communications systems; critical infrastructure protection networks; and non-military communications networks, particularly with respect to prioritization and restoration”.

The Secretary of Defense will develop, implement and sustain NS/EP communications in response to national security needs as directed by “the President, Vice President, and senior national leadership, including: communications with or among the President, Vice President, White House staff, heads of state and government, and Nuclear Command and Control leadership; Continuity of Government communications; and communications among the executive, judicial, and legislative branches to support Enduring Constitutional Government”.

In conjunction with EO 12333, established by former President Ronald Reagan; wherein the powers of all US intelligence agencies were extended and all heads of federal agencies were admonished to comply with information requests from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), this new EO further empowers that already established fact.

All communications avenues must allow for the receipt, integration and dissemination of NS/EP communicational information that is supplied by the US government for the intention of American citizens. Whether private or publicly owned, those communications resources can and will be usurped by the President and/or governmental agencies.

“Relevant supporting entities” like the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service, Wireless Priority Service, Telecommunications Service Priority program, Next Generation Network Priority program will provide organization and management structure with the CEC, SHS and the President.

In the event of an “emergency” the Secretary of Commerce will allow for the takeover of radio frequencies as well as television and digital communications with the use of electromagnetics. These communicative abilities are now “belonging to and operated by the Federal Government” as resources to be utilized “during a crisis or emergency”.

The Administrator of General Services will purchase all necessary equipment to provide the US government capabilities to take over communications.

If the CIA or DNI deem it so, they are enabled to influence policy directives, procedures and guide issues that are relevant to the securing of national security.

The FCC’s role in this is to acquiesce “all entities licensed or regulated” by the FCC to ensure that messages are received and disseminated to the American public.

This latest EO is but one in a long string of presidential shows of authority that lays the foundation for the establishment of a dictatorship in America.

Like someone said, too bad he was so stingy with those executive decrees early on. They might have taken the sting out of the later ones.