Home » Posts tagged 'us navy' (Page 2)

Tag Archives: us navy

The Tor Project – a private nonprofit known as the “NSA-proof” gateway to the “dark web,” turns out to be almost “100% funded by the US government” according to documents obtained by investigative journalist and author Yasha Levine.

The Tor browser, launched in 2001, utilizes so-called “onion routing” technology developed by the US Navy in 1998 to provide anonymity over computer networks.

In a recent blog post, Levine details how he was able to obtain roughly 2,500 pages of correspondence via FOIA requests while performing research for a book. The documents include strategy, contract, budgets and status updates between the Tor project and its primary source of funding; a CIA spinoff known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which “oversees America’s foreign broadcasting operations like Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe.”

By following the money, I discovered that Tor was not a grassroots. I was able to show that despite its indie radical cred and claims to help its users protect themselves from government surveillance online, Tor was almost 100% funded by three U.S. National Security agencies: the Navy, the State Department and the BBG. Following the money revealed that Tor was not a grassroots outfit, but a military contractor with its own government contractor number. In other words: it was a privatized extension of the very same government that it claimed to be fighting.

The documents conclusively showed that Tor is not independent at all. The organization did not have free reign to do whatever it wanted, but was kept on a very short leash and bound by contracts with strict contractual obligations. It was also required to file detailed monthly status reports that gave the U.S. government a clear picture of what Tor employees were developing, where they went and who they saw. –Yasha Levine

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Deploys Third Aircraft Carrier To Western Pacific Ahead Of Trump’s Visit

October 25, 2017

US Deploys Third Aircraft Carrier To Western Pacific Ahead Of Trump’s Visit

Ahead of Trump’s Asian tour, which in addition to a trip to Beijing also includes a visit to the Korean Peninsula and perhaps a surprise visit to the DMZ, the US navy is bringing out the big guns, and has deployed a third nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Nimitz-class USS Theodore Roosevelt and its strike group which on October 23, to the Western Pacific Ocean amid increasing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea the US Navy announced in a statement.

On Monday, the carrier strike group entered the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet area, which is the Navy’s biggest forward-deployed fleet, with its area of operations stretching from the International Date Line to the India-Pakistan border, and from the Kuril Islands in the north to the Antarctic in the south.

The USS Roosevelt strike group has arrived in the west Pacific

The 100,000-ton warship and its strike group joins two other carriers located in the 7th Fleet area amid fears of war with North Korea: in addition, the U.S. Navy announced that the USS Nimitz strike group consisting of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Howard, USS Shoup, USS Pinckney, USS Kidd, and the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton returned to the 7th Fleet area of operations on October 25 following a deployment to the Persian Gulf.

While it is unclear if the final rendezvous of the three ships is North Korea, it is still largely unprecedented to allocate three aircraft carriers in the region at one time, and is a huge gathering of US sea power according to naval experts. Ultimately, the USS Theodore Roosevelt is expected to make its way to the Persian Gulf to replace the USS Nimitz. The U.S. Navy has not announced any specific missions for the two carriers.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Former White House Sr Advisor: “The Cult of Credibility” Will Take Us “Further Up The Escalation Ladder in Syria”

June 21, 2017

Former White House Sr Advisor: “The Cult of Credibility” Will Take Us “Further Up The Escalation Ladder in Syria”

Colin Kahl: he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President from October 2014 to January 2017; image via Flickr

Russia will not back down, and neither will its Syrian and Iranian allies on the ground, says a former White House insider.

After the dramatic downing of a Syrian Air Force jet over Raqqa province by a US Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet on Monday, a former senior national security advisor to the Obama administration, Colin Kahl, warns that the Washington “cult of credibility” will lead the United States into “quagmire” and “further up the escalation ladder in Syria.”

Kahl’s statement on the incident, issued via Twitter, gives rare confirmation of a hawkish Washington national security culture which dangerously places credibility and political careerism over genuine US interests and defense.

As former Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President specializing in the Levant and Persian Gulf region, Kahl was directly involved in formulating Syria and regional policy in the Obama White House.

Here is Kahl’s statement as published through a Twitter thread [emphasis mine]:

The cult of credibility is as popular in DC as it is dangerous. Watch Syria. The risk of sliding into a big war is rising. For years, hawks have argued that Assad & Iran (& Russia after 2015) were essentially paper tigers in Syria. The Axis of Assad could be backed down & easily deterred if the US just showed some muscle. A few threats, strikes, no-fly zones. Voila! Obama was often criticized for being too cautious & concerned about escalation & quagmire risks in Syria. But consider Team Trump has now: Retaliated vs Assad for CW, Bombed Iranian-backed militia 3 times, Shot down an Iranian-made drone, Downed Syria jet. Yet the regime/Iran/Russia haven’t backed down.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

FAA Warns That Mystery Military Tests May Lead To Widespread West Coast GPS Disruptions

June 7, 2016

FAA Warns That Mystery Military Tests May Lead To Widespread West Coast GPS Disruptions

Starting today, and continuing for the next month, the FAA has warned airplane pilots that GPS signals on on the West Coast, and especially over California and Nevada, may be impacted.

The reason why is not exactly clear, but as Gizmodo notes, the US military will be testing a device or devices that will potentially jam GPS signals for six hours each day. Officially the tests were announced by the FAA but are centered near the US Navy’s largest installation in the Mojave Desert, China Lake, located “just down the road” from Area 51. The Navy has kept silent about the nature of the tests.

An aerial view of the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake

As Gizmodo adds, the FAA issued an advisory warning pilots on Saturday that global positioning systems (GPS) could be unreliable during six different days this month, primarily in the Southwestern United States. On June 7, 9, 21, 23, 28, and 30th the GPS interference testing will be taking place between 9:30am and 3:30pm Pacific time. But if you’re on the ground, you probably won’t notice interference.

The dates and times of potential GPS outages per the FAA are shown below:

7 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
9 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
21 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
23 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
28 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
30 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z

The testing will be centered on China Lake, California—home to the Navy’s 1.1 million acre Naval Air Weapons Center in the Mojave Desert. The potentially lost signals will stretch hundreds of miles in each direction and will affect various types of GPS, reaching the furthest at higher altitudes. But the jamming will only affect aircraft above 50 feet. As shown in the FAA map below, the jamming will almost reach the California-Oregon border at 4o,000 feet above sea level and 505 nautical miles at its greatest range.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Radically Changes Its Story of the Boats in Iranian Waters: to an Even More Suspicious Version

January 16, 2016

U.S. Radically Changes Its Story of the Boats in Iranian Waters: to an Even More Suspicious Version

When news first broke of the detention of two U.S. ships in Iranian territorial waters, the U.S. media — aside from depicting it as an act of Iranian aggression — uncritically cited the U.S. government’s explanation for what happened. One of the boats, we were told, experienced “mechanical failure” and thus “inadvertently drifted” into Iranian waters. On CBS News, Joe Biden told Charlie Rose, “One of the boats had engine failure, drifted into Iranian waters.”

Provided their government script, U.S. media outlets repeatedly cited these phrases — “mechanical failure” and “inadvertently drifted” and “boat in distress” — like some sort of hypnotic mantra. Here’s Eli Lake of Bloomberg News explaining yesterday why this was all Iran’s fault:

Iran’s handling of the situation violated international norms. … Two small U.S. sea craft transiting between Kuwait and Bahrain strayed into Iranian territorial waters because of a mechanical failure, according to the U.S. side. This means the boats were in distress.

Lake quoted John McCain as saying that “boats do not lose their sovereign immune status when they are in distress at sea.” The night the news broke, Reuters quickly said the “boats may have inadvertently drifted into Iranian waters” and “another U.S. official said mechanical issues may have disabled one of the boats, leading to a situation in which both ships drifted inadvertently into Iranian waters.”

The U.S. government itself now says this story was false. There was no engine failure, and the boats were never “in distress.” Once the sailors were released, AP reported, “In Washington, a defense official said the Navy has ruled out engine or propulsion failure as the reason the boats entered Iranian waters.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Iran Seizes 2 US Navy Boats, Crewmen

January 12, 2016

Iran Seizes 2 US Navy Boats, Crewmen

Tensions were already running high between Tehran and Washington in the wake of Iran’s move to test-fire a next generation surface-to-surface ballistic missile with the range to hit Israel.

And then the IRGC conducted a live-fire rocket test within 1,500 yards of a US aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, in a further escalation, Iran has reportedly seized two US Navy ships.

2 U.S. NAVY BOATS IN IRANIAN CUSTODY, PENTAGON SAYS: AP
RHODES SAYS U.S. WORKING ON RETURN OF CREW
RHODES SAYS U.S. WORKING TO RESOLV

But nobody panic, because Iran has promised to return the crew “promptly.” From AP:

The Pentagon says it briefly lost contact with two small Navy craft in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday but has received assurances from Iran that the crew and vessels will be returned safely and promptly.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook tells The Associated Press that the boats were moving between Kuwait and Bahrain when the US lost contact with them.

Cook says, “We have been in contact with Iran and have received assurances that the crew and the vessels will be returned promptly.”

US Will Send Warships To China Islands “Twice A Quarter”, Pentagon Says

November 2, 2015

US Will Send Warships To China Islands “Twice A Quarter”, Pentagon Says

Last week, the US did a silly thing. The Pentagon sent the USS Lassen to Subi Reef in the Spratlys just to see if Washington could sail by China’s man-made islands in the South Pacific without getting shot at.

(Subi reef)

(USS Lassen)

As ridiculous as that sounds from a kind of “let’s not start World War III” perspective, it’s an entirely accurate assessment of Obama’s “freedom of navigation” exercise. There was no reason whatsoever for the US to be there and the pass-by served no purpose at all other than to test Beijing’s patience.

To be sure, China isn’t innocent here. They’ve built 3,000 acres of sovereign territory atop reefs in disputed waters and built runways, ports, and cement factories on their new “land” which understandably makes Washington’s regional allies like The Philippines a bit nervous.

Still, it isn’t as if the PLA is about to invade Australia and it seems likely that if one could listen in at The Pentagon, US officials could probably care less about these “sandcastles.” But America’s “friends” in the region think that “this is the time for courage” (to borrow and alter a classic Gartman-ism), and so, Washington felt compelled to sail a warship by the islands just to prove it could. China didn’t fire on or surround the US-flagged guided missile destroyer, but the PLA did follow it and Beijing subsequently expressed its extreme displeasure at the “exercise.”

As we noted before and after the “incident”, most “experts” believe the US will need to keep up the patrols if they’re to be “effective.” Sure enough, The Pentagon now says destroyers will sail within 12 nautical miles of the islands twice every three months. Here’s Reuters:

The U.S. Navy plans to conduct patrols within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands in the South China Sea about twice a quarter, a U.S. defense official said on Monday.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Declassified 1952 Footage of the U.S. Navy’s Plans for “Offensive Biological and Chemical Warfare” is Released

October 13, 2015

Declassified 1952 Footage of the U.S. Navy’s Plans for “Offensive Biological and Chemical Warfare” is Released

Screen Shot 2015-10-12 at 6.16.52 PM

Earlier this year, I published a post titled, Conspiracy Fact – How the Government Conducted 239 Secret Bioweapon Experiments on the American People. Here are a few excerpts:

It all began in late September of 1950, when over a few days, a Navy vessel used giant hoses to spray a fog of two kinds of bacteria, Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii — both believed at the time to be harmless — out into the fog, where they disappeared and spread over the city.

The unsuspecting residents of San Francisco certainly could not consent to the military’s germ warfare test, and there’s good evidence that it could have caused the death of at least one resident of the city, Edward Nevin, and hospitalized 10 others.

Over the next 20 years, the military would conduct 239 “germ warfare” tests over populated areas, according to news reports from the 1970s.

These tests included the large-scale releases of bacteria in the New York City subway system, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and in National Airport just outside Washington, D.C.

So how seriously was the U.S. military planning for offensive biological and chemical warfare? Very seriously, as this recently declassified 1952 video demonstrates (h/t to Motherboard for highlighting this):

Surely I’m not the only one who noticed that 90% of the video is dedicated to “offensive” use of biological and chemical agents, with only a couple of minutes at the end briefly describing “defensive” capabilities.

Imagine the labels your neighbors would have called you in the 50’s if you had warned them that this was happening.

For related articles, see:

Conspiracy Fact – How the Government Conducted 239 Secret Bioweapon Experiments on the American People

Documents Show the U.S. Military Sprayed Radioactive Zinc Cadmium Sulfide on Poor People in St. Louis

10 Chemical Weapons Attacks the U.S. Government Doesn’t Want You to Know About

U.S. Navy Considers Setting Up Ship Base in Australia

February 10, 2015

U.S. Navy Considers Setting Up Ship Base in Australia

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. is in talks with Australia about “basing” Navy vessels in its main South Pacific ally, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert said, a move that would risk inflaming tensions with China.

“We’re doing a study together with the Australia Defence Force to see what might be feasible for naval cooperation in and around Australia, which might include basing ships,” Admiral Greenert said during a speech Tuesday at a university in Canberra. It was unclear if Greenert was referring to permanent basing or rotational placement of ships.

U.S. is in the midst of a “pivot-to-Asia” that will see 60 percent of its naval forces deployed in the region by 2020, a response to its growing strategic importance. It’s a policy China claims is an attempt to contain its own military expansion into the South China Sea and Indian Ocean.

“Increasingly the Indian Ocean is becoming a geostrategic hot spot,” said Rosita Dellios, an associate professor of international relations at Bond University on Australia’s Gold Coast. “Africa, India, the Gulf states all share the Indian Ocean and Australia is an important player.”

China sent submarines into the India Ocean last year, with one visiting a Sri Lankan port near India’s coast in a show of power that unsettled Indian leaders. China is also promoting a “Maritime Silk Road” that would see it developing ports and infrastructure in Indian Ocean countries including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Pakistan.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Uncertain Radiological Threat’: US Navy Sailors Search for Justice after Fukushima Mission

February 5, 2015

‘Uncertain Radiological Threat’: US Navy Sailors Search for Justice after Fukushima Mission

On March 11, 2011, the American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reaganreceived orders to change course and head for the east coast of Japan, which had just been devastated by a tsunami. The Ronald Reagan had been on its way to South Korea when the order reached it and Captain Thom Burke, who was in charge of the ship along with its crew of 4,500 men and women, duly redirected his vessel. The Americans reached the Japanese coastline on March 12, just north of Sendai and remained in the region for several weeks. The mission was named Tomodachi.

The word tomodachi means “friends.” In hindsight, the choice seems like a delicate one.

Three-and-a-half years later, Master Chief Petty Officer Leticia Morales is sitting in a café in a rundown department store north of Seattle and trying to remember the name of the doctor who removed her thyroid gland 10 months ago. Her partner Tiffany is sitting next to her fishing pills out of a large box and pushing them over to Morales.

“It was something like Erikson,” Morales says. “Or maybe his first name was Eric, or Rick. Oh, I don’t know. Too many doctors.” In the last year-and-a-half, she has seen oncologists, radiologists, cardiologists, blood specialists, kidney specialists, gastrointestinal specialists, lymph node experts and metabolic specialists. “I’m now spending half the month in doctors’ offices,” she says. “This year, I’ve had more than 20 MRTs. I’ve simply lost track.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Navy deploys laser weapon to Persian Gulf for first-ever combat mission — RT News

November 15, 2014

US Navy deploys laser weapon to Persian Gulf for first-ever combat mission — RT News.

The US Navy has deployed its first ever combat laser. The futuristic weapon has boosted the arsenal of the Fifth Fleet’s command vessel in the Persian Gulf. The laser is said to be effective against numerous small targets, such as Iran’s gunboats.

A 30-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System has been equipped on the USS Ponce amphibious transport ship since late August, Navy officials told Bloomberg.

The device is capable of focusing beams from six solid-state commercial welding lasers into a single strong beam, which can be used both as a blinding warning shot and as a weapon capable of setting fire to a drone or small boat.

It took Naval Sea Systems Command technicians seven years and $40 million to develop the technology to the current stage. The tour in the Gulf is more of a trial continuation than regular duty, as the Navy wants to learn more about its new tool.

The technology’s big advantage is its operational efficiency, as firing one shot costs just around $1, the Navy stressed. But lasers have their own peculiarities, with their efficiency depending on weather conditions, the presence of dust and vapors in the air, and other factors. The range of the laser, which is limited by those factors, remains classified.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: us navy

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts