NEW YORK -- Edible forms of nanotechnology could help make smart programmable drinks and more effective drugs. If the prospect of edible nanotech sounds frightening, "it is not about carving little robots for use in food," physicist Anthony Dinsmore at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst told UPI's Nano World.
Instead, scientists are creating edible capsules only nanometers or billionths of a meter in size to enhance food or medicine. "We're creating nanoparticles that can assemble themselves and made of materials already found in foods. We're not doing any exotic chemistry," Dinsmore said of his group's work.
Edible nanoparticles can be made in a wide range of shapes, from spheres to pipes, and are composed of materials either relatively inert in the body, such as silicon or ceramics, or materials that react with the body's heat or chemistry, such as polymers. The contents that each nanoparticle lugs around can include flavorings, drugs or even fluorescent dyes.
One key advantage edible nanoparticles have over larger particles "is how nanotechnology can take something that is extremely insoluble in nature, like some drugs, and by breaking them up to the nano-level help release them in the body," said Roger Aston, strategy director of pSivida in Perth, Australia.
One surprising source for edible nanoparticles could come from the halloysite clay of the Old Dragon Mine in Utah. Long, naturally occurring ceramic nanotubes exist within the clay, said Bill Jacobson, president of Atlas Mining in Osborn, Ind.
"We have at least 300,000 tons of this clay, and we think there might be more," Jacobson told Nano World. "Probably 85 percent or 90 percent is tubular."
Atlas Mining is working with NaturalNano in Rochester, N.Y., to develop the halloysite nanotubes. "We're thinking about maybe getting the vitamin industry involved," Jacobson said.
Nanoparticles can be built so they deliver their contents exactly the way their designers wish. For instance, they can release their contents upon reaching specific targets -- growing porous upon reaching acids in the stomach, expanding when exposed to heat, or bearing molecules such as proteins that make them stick or other react with certain types of cells, such as cancerous tumors.
In terms of enhancing the nutritional quality of food, "you can imagine there are some things that you would want to deliver to, say, the intestine and not the mouth, such as fish oil," Dinsmore said. "For administering drugs to a patient, you can imagine delivering a medicine to the part of the body where it's needed most and not have to go everywhere else, so the overall dose you use is lower but the drug is used more effectively. This is clearly a way to help keep healthcare costs and side effects down -- some of the more pressing issues out there."
In addition to releasing drugs, nanoparticles could release a dye or trace chemical in the body upon making contact with proteins specific to cancer, "to let doctors know something is there," Dinsmore suggested.
Edible nanoparticles could release their contents when given a specific trigger, "such as a light stimulus," he said. "You can shine light into the body, and it will penetrate. This way doctors can activate the release of a drug at the most beneficial time from outside a patient's body using lamps."
Aside from carrying drugs with precision, nanoparticles have the capability to break open upon command, something that could lead to smart, programmable foods and drinks.
Dinsmore is a member of the NanoTek Consortium, a group of 15 universities and companies dedicated to using nanotechnology to improve the food industry. NanoteK scientists have proposed using specific frequencies of ultrasound or microwaves to pop nanoparticles containing specific aromas, flavors or dyes, so food makers could program a drink to be the color or taste desired.
Another concept under development involves nanoparticles that can stick to specific parts of the gut, something nanotech experts acknowledge could be a real challenge.
"The mouth-to-anus transit time is about 30 hours and in the place with the highest surface area, the small intestine, the residence time of small particles is often just three hours, so there's not a lot of time for absorption," said pharmaceutical scientist Patrick Sinko at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J.
To enhance the absorption of medicines, researchers are creating nanoparticles that can hook onto the gut and thus stay longer, increasing drug uptake. For instance, Sinko noted, the herpes drug Valtrex and the AIDS drug Retrovir hook onto nutrient transporters in the intestines, giving them higher rates of absorption.
"We know viruses get taken up in the gastrointestinal track, so we're following up on viral mechanisms to investigate," Sinko told Nano World. He said the hope is nanoparticles can double or even triple the amount of time for drug therapies to be absorbed by the body.
In general, he said, "people are starting to hope that nanotechnology can allow folks to deliver drugs that we today can't deliver orally. It would be great to take a drug that you normally have to inject and dry it, turn it to a powder, put it in a nanoparticle and have a tablet for a more convenient method that can enhance compliance (to a medical regimen) in patients."
The challenges for edible nanotechnology developers -- in terms of the substances finding widespread commercial use in food -- lies in building capsules "robust enough to stand whatever processing they go through, and will yet release the active agents whenever you eat them," said materials scientist David Weitz of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., a NanoteK Consortium member.
Still, edible nanotechnology should reach the market "fairly fast," Dinsmore said. "We're talking about pretty simple and scalable techniques that can maybe be done at large scales without changing too much around. The big issue for new applications in food is that the cost always has to be really low -- so that excludes robots."
The future of edible nanotechnology could be silicon, Aston suggested. His firm makes nanoparticles of honeycombed silicon, with each cell of the honeycomb filled with drugs that leak out as the silicon dissolves in the body to become silicic acid, a dietary form of silicon found in foods such as beer, rice and wine.
Unlike nanoparticles made of polymers, he noted, silicon does not need exotic chemical bonds to hold each nanoparticle's contents in place, bonds that conceivably could alter the content's properties.
"With this silicon, the contents are just held there physically," Aston told Nano World.
Carefully engineering a honeycomb's thickness and pore size will allow it to dissolve on cue, Aston explained, The edible silicon made by pSivida "has the capability of holding processors, so you could program chips in foodstuffs like you would computers or air conditioners."
Aston said the company has submitted its honeycombed silicon to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval.
The Aids epidemic may have been triggered by the mass vaccination campaign which eradicated smallpox. The World Health Organization, which masterminded the 13-year campaign, is studying new scientific evidence suggesting that immunization with the smallpox vaccine Vaccinia awakened the unsuspected, dormant human immuno defence virus infection (HIV).
Some experts fear that in obliterating one disease, another disease was transformed from a minor endemic illness of the Third World into the current pandemic. While doctors now accept that Vaccinia can activate other viruses, they are divided about whether it was the main catalyst to the Aids epidemic.
But an adviser to WHO who disclosed the problem, told The Times: 'I thought it was just a coincidence until we studied the latest findings about the reactions which can be caused by Vaccinia. Now I believe the smallpox vaccine theory is the explanation to the explosion of Aids.' 'In obliterating one disease, another was transformed.'
Further evidence comes from the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington. While smallpox vaccine is no longer kept for public health purposes, new recruits to the American armed services are immunized as a precaution against possible biological warfare. Routine vaccination of a 19-year-old recruit was the trigger for stimulation of dormant HIV virus into Aids.
This discovery of how people with subclinical HIV infection are at risk of rapid development of Aids as a vaccine-induced disease was made by a medical team working with Dr Robert Redfield at Walter Reed. The recruit who developed Aids after vaccination had been healthy throughout high school. He was given multiple immunizations, followed by his first smallpox vaccination.
Two and a half weeks later he developed fever, headaches, neck stiffness and night sweats. Three weeks later he was admitted to Walter Reed suffering from meningitis and rapidly developed further symptoms of Aids and died after responding for a short time to treatment. There was no evidence that the recruit had been involved in any homosexual activity.
In describing their discovery in a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine a fortnight ago, the Walter Reed team gave a warning against a plan to use modified versions of the smallpox vaccine to combat other diseases in developing countries.
Other doctors who accept the connection between the anti-smallpox campaign and the Aids epidemic now see answers to questions which had baffled them. How, for instance, the Aids organism, previously regarded by scientists as 'weak, slow and vulnerable,' began to behave like a type capable of creating a plague.
Many experts are reluctant to support the theory publicly because they believe it would be interpreted unfairly as criticism of WHO. In addition, they are concerned about the impact on other public health campaigns with vaccines, such as against diptheria and the continued use of Vaccinia in potential Aids research.
The coincidence between the anti-smallpox campaign and the rise of Aids was discussed privately last year by experts at WHO. The possibility was dismissed on grounds of unsatisfactory evidence. Advisors to the organization believed then that too much attention was being focussed on Aids by the media.
It is now felt that doubts would have risen sooner if public health authorities in Africa had more willingly reported infection statistics to WHO. Instead, some African countries continued to ignore the existence of Aids even after US doctors alerted the world when the infection spread to the United States.
However, as epidemiologists gleaned more information about Aids from reluctant Central African countries, clues began to emerge from the new findings when examined against the wealth of detail known about smallpox as recorded in the Final Report of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication.
The smallpox vaccine theory would account for the position of each of the seven Central African states which top the league table of most-affected countries; why Brazil became the most afflicted Latin American country; and how Haiti became the route for the spread of Aids to the US. It also provides an explanation of how the infection was spread more evenly between males and females in Africa than in the West and why there is less sign of infection among five to 11-year-olds in Central Africa.
Although no detailed figures are available, WHO information indicated that the Aids league table of Central Africa matches the concentration of vaccinations. The greatest spread of HIV infection coincides with the most intense immunization programmes , with the number of people immunised being as follows: Zaire 36,878,000; Zambia 19,060,000; Tanzania 14,972,000; Uganda 11,616,000; Malawai 8,118,000; Ruanda 3,382,000 and Burundi 3,274,000.
Brazil, the only South American country covered in the eradication campaign, has the highest incidence of Aids in that region. About 14,000 Haitians, on United Nations secondment to Central Africa, were covered in the campaign. They began to return home at a time when Haiti had become a popular playground for San Francisco homosexuals.
Dr Robert Gello, who first identified the Aids virus in the US, told The Times: 'The link between the WHO programme and the epidemic in Africa is an interesting and important hypothesis. 'I cannot say that it actually happened, but I have been saying for some years that the use of live vaccines such as that used for smallpox can activate a dormant infection such as HIV. 'No blame can be attached to WHO, but if the hypothesis is correct it is a tragic situation and a warning that we cannot ignore.'
Aids was first officially reported from San Francisco in 1981 and it was about two years later before Central African states were implicated. It is now known that these states had become a reservoir of Aids as long ago as the later 1970s.
Although detailed figures of Aids cases in Africa are difficult to collect, the more than two million carriers, and 50,000 deaths, estimated by the World Health Organization are concentrated in the Countries where the smallpox immunization programme was most intensive. The 13-year eradication campaign ended in 1980, with the saving of two million lives a year and 15 million infections. The global saving from eradication has been put at dollars 1,000 million a year.
Charity and health workers are convinced that millions of new Aids cases are about to hit southern Africa. After a meeting of 50 experts near Geneva this month it was revealed that up to 75 million, one third of the population, could have the disease within the next five years.
Some organizations which have closely studied Africa, such as War on Want, believe that South Africa's black population, so far largely protected from the disease, could be most affected as migrant workers bring it into the country from the worst hit areas further north. The apartheid policy, they predict, will intensify its outbreak by confining the groups into comparatively small, highly populated towns where it will be almost impossible to contain its spread.
IMPORTANT CAVEAT: Most of the information in two articles "Former Russian Prime Minister/ex-KGB Head to Work for Homeland Security and "Ex-KGB Heads Hired to Help Spy on Americans" by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt must be attributed solely to Al Martin and to his National Liberty Press since I have not yet been able to obtain documentation from U.S. Government sources. Al Martin's original article "Get Ready for the Sovietization of America" which provoked this writer to respond, appeared in the 4/21/03 issue of American Free Press. Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt
The old saying "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" could be applied to George Dubya's ability to "manage" controversial information. He is walking in his ex-CIA Daddy's footsteps, following intelligence guidelines on how to vaporize controversial information, or if unable to vaporize it, to simply move it around to another agency or individual, and hope no one catches on.
The following revelation, obtained from National Liberty Press, is even more interesting than information in the original Martin story since it reveals the lengths to which the government will go to disguise its controversial activities, thereby "snookering" Al Martin, myself, and others, through the use of disinformation. However, the truth will out, and the truth, outlined below, is in this case even more shocking than the original information which proved to be untrue.
Former KGB counter-intelligence chief, General Oleg Kalugin, who is a Fox News commentator, recently stated that Admiral Poindexter's Office of Information Awareness (OIA) which is involved in spying on United States citizens, had hired both General Yevgeny Primakov and General Aleksandr V. Karpos, former KGB heads, as consultants and advisors. (Primakov in addition served as Russian Prime Minister in the late nineties.) (Note: The KGB was the Secret Police in the former Soviet Union)
Al Martin, whose credibility has been questioned by a couple of NewsWithViews.com readers, had previously reported that Primakov and Karpov were hired by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This information was disinformation provided by the Bush Administration to cover up the fact that Poindexter's OIA had hired Primakov and Karpov.
When the Bush administration realized it couldn't get away with lying about the hiring of Primakov and Karpov by Poindexter's OIA, it put out out very effective disinformation to the effect that these two former Soviet spies had a relationship with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is a lie.
In this way, when the media goes on its wild goose chase and calls the Department of Homeland Security...and the media has been persistent in getting the truth related to this most unusual story... the DHS legitimately says that the former KGB chiefs are not connected with the DHS. What Governor Ridge's office isn't telling the media is that these two ex-KGB operatives are working not for DHS but for Poindexter's OIA which has been set up to spy on Americans.
It does boggle the mind to find out that the administration which has waged war against Saddam Hussein (considered by President Bush to be responsible for the 9/11 terrorist act) would be hiring Primakov, a very close friend of Saddam Hussein's and a terrorist himself, to assist our government in fighting terrorism.
"The Soviet/Russian KGB created, and still controls, the international terrorist network. Under the reign of "ex"KGB officer Vladimir Putin, the Russian government--including the deniable commercial entities assisting the Iraqi war effort - is very much on the side of the terrorists." (The New American, April 21, "Our Enemy, Our Ally", by William Norman Grigg, www.thenewamerican.com)
This action on the part of the Bush Administration is perhaps even more bizarre than that of naming former Soviet agent Henry Kissinger to head up the committee investigating 9/11. Can we hope that these two ex-KGB Generals will resign, as did Kissinger, and return to Russia? Don't count on it. Beltway salaries, restaurants and boutiques will keep them in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
P.S. In order to understand the magnitude of this Bush Administration action, an analogy is in order: President Truman in 1945 hiring the former heads of the SS/German Gestapo as paid consultants to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The full text of Al Martin's article published in the 4/21/03 American Free Press can be obtained by calling 202-544-5977 or by accessing www.americanfreepress.net
Chantal Rumble BOTTLED water may soon contain added fluoride amid rising concerns about childhood tooth decay.
Consumer, health and industry groups were united yesterday in calls for the national food regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, to overturn its ban on added fluoride. Only naturally occurring fluoride is allowed in bottled water.
Two months ago Prime Minister John Howard described the increase in tooth decay as a national tragedy and called for parents to give children at least one glass of fluoridated tap water a day.
Consumer watchdog Choice said allowing manufacturers to add fluoride to some bottled water would help arrest the dramatic increase in children's tooth decay.
A survey by the Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health last year showed the rate of permanent tooth decay among 14 and 15-year-olds had increased by more than 70 per cent in the six years to 2002. And about 20 per cent of children aged five and under get at least one filling when they visit the dentist.
"It's the young people from this recent bottled-water generation who are exhibiting the problems with their teeth," Choice spokeswoman Indira Naidoo said. "We want people to have the option of fluoride in their bottled water and we want the manufacturers to clearly label which ones have fluoride and which ones don't," she said.
Australian Dental Association chief executive Robert Boyd-Boland said: "It has been a concern to us that there has been an increased consumption of bottled water that doesn't contain fluoride and that this could be, in part, a factor in the increased decay rates that are being evidenced in children."
Australian Beverages Council chief executive Tony Gentile, in Canberra yesterday to lobby the Government to overturn the ban on added fluoride in bottled water, said bottled water was not linked to the increase in children's tooth decay.
"We believe that the industry is unfairly accused of being a contributor to the rising levels of dental decay � It's due to a multiplicity of other factors including poor dental hygiene and the lack of fluoride in some tap water," he said.
Instead, the bottled-water sector wanted the ban overturned to open another product line.
Australians buy more than 700 million litres of bottled water annually. In the US, where added fluoride is approved, fortified water makes up about 10 per cent of the market.
The Australian Beverages Council has applied to Food Standards Australia New Zealand for permission to add fluoride to bottled water, but this could take up to 12 months. Its application will not be looked into until September.
Regulator spokeswoman Lydia Buchtmann said all applications to fortify food and beverages with vitamins and minerals required rigorous safety assessment and rounds of public comment before approval.
Freedom from Fluoridation Federation of Australia chairman Glen Walker said there was no scientific proof fluoride worked or was safe. "Fluoride is one of the great health scams and money rorts of the century. Compulsory fluoridation has turned out a complete failure because dental decay around Australia is epidemic," he said.
Please note: InformationLiberation is neither liberal or conservative. When one takes the time to research the "liberal elite," whom the conservatives oppose, and the "conservative elite," whom the liberals oppose, one finds both "elite" are one and the same. "Liberal" or "Conservative" is not a substantive choice, it is only the carefully crafted illusion of a choice, for both parties come together when they are instructed to.
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson." A letter written by FDR to Colonel House, November 21st, 1933
"Fifty men have run America, and that's a high figure." Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, in the July 26th, 1936 issue of The New York Times.
If you care to know who runs the world you live in, view these films. If you care not then I leave you with this quote to ponder:
"There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution." Aldous Huxley, Tavistock Group, California Medical School, 1961 Audio - Transcript
30 to 40 rounds fired behind the house noise heard in the woods every one is at battle stations this in not a drill i repeat this in not a drill. Danny
It appears that the effort to implant microchips into humans is not only alive and well but moving ever closer to getting under everyone's skin.
Delray Beach firm VeriChip, the nation's only FDA-approved company allowed to produce microchips for injection into people, got a boost recently from the American Medical Association.
The AMA said such devices "may help to identify patients, thereby improving the safety and efficiency of patient care." But the council warned that the devices' safety and security are unclear.
That was enough to create a stir in the technology and medical worlds as well as among privacy and religious folks. And enough to put a smile on VeriChip's face.
Scott Silverman, chief executive officer of VeriChip, says the primary aim is to help high-risk medical patients such as those with diabetes, Alzheimer's, cancer and heart conditions.
The chip, implanted in the upper right arm, allows medical personnel to access a patient's medical history in the event the person is unconscious or otherwise unresponsive. The person's data is stored in VeriChip's database.
Sounds a little spooky, and makes George Orwell seem more like a prophet than a novelist.
Silverman says it could save lives, "it's fairly safe and there have been no side effects." VeriChip's sister corporation, Digital Angel Corp., has been implanting chips in pets for 15 years.
"It should be first and foremost voluntary," Silverman says. "No one should ever be forced to get an implantable microchip."
But Katherine Albrecht, a co-author of the book Spychips, whom I'm sure drives Silverman crazy, argues that VeriChip is taking us down a treacherous road.
"You can feel the writing on the wall that this is the direction our society is moving," said Albrecht, who received her doctorate in education from Harvard, specializing in adult development and consumer education.
The chip uses technology called a Radio Frequency Identification tag.
Albrecht points out that the RFID technology used in the chips is becoming increasingly pervasive throughout our society as merchants use it to track inventory and purchases.
"If everybody had a chip in them ... we would be blissfully unaware of Big Brother," Albrecht said.
She says the program is flawed because if there are problems accessing VeriChip's database, the chip will prove useless. And, she says, as the AMA pointed out, there are questions about patient security.
And the religious have concerns of biblical proportions: tagging people with such devices reads like a precursor to the "mark of the beast."
Silverman says his company's focus is on medical patients. And the chip they use is "passive" or, simply stated, it does not emit a strong signal. To read the chip, medical personnel must use a scanner and be within 12 inches.
And he says the data is stored in a facility as secure as any of the best. He does admit once you have a chip, it could be used for other "applications." You can tie financial accounts to them and other data.
He points out a year ago one company injected two employees with chips for security reasons. In addition, nightclubs in Barcelona, Spain, Rotterdam, Holland, and Edinburgh, Scotland, use them so patrons can access VIP lounges and make purchases.
A bit much for me. The only chip I want in my body is a potato chip, maybe a tortilla chip. Definitely not a microchip.
In a move startlingly similar to that of the East German government during the Cold war, the FBI wants to recruit thousands of covert informants in the US and work with the CIA to train them in an effort to expand and adopt more aggressive intelligence capabilities. ABC's The Blotter reports that according to a recent unclassified report to Congress, the FBI, driven by a 2004 directive from President Bush, wants to recruit more than 15,000 informants in the US, entailing a complete overhaul of its database systems at a cost of around $22 million. The FBI expects its informants to provide secrets about possible terrorists and foreign spies, although some may also be expected to aid with criminal investigations, in the tradition of law enforcement confidential informants. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment on this story. The move comes in addition to other proposals to expand the collection and analysis of data on U.S. persons, retain years' worth of Americans' phone records and even increase so-called "black bag" secret entry operations, the Blotter reports. Though the FBI has decided not to completely adopt CIA training methods on recruiting informants, which include bribery, extortion, and other patently illegal acts, the two are to work closely together on the program. Though the reasoning is, as ever, to target terror cells in the US, the report also states that "some may also be expected to aid with criminal investigations, in the tradition of law enforcement confidential informants". Within the last two years it has come to light that the FBI, along with the Pentagon and the NSA has been spying on antiwar activists, rights groups and peace campaigners within the US, labeling some of them as "terrorists" and placing them within their databases. It appears operations are now to be stepped up to include the Stasi like recruiting of informants within such groups to report what is deemed to be politically subversive behavior among American citizens. In 2004 the ACLU revealed that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 sparked the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism,” Attorney General John Ashcroft scrapped an FBI guideline—enacted after the agency infiltrated numerous groups during the 1960s and 1970s Civil Rights Movement—that blocked its agents from spying on groups and individuals unless they were investigating a crime. By scrapping that policy, Gen. Ashcroft was, “essentially encouraging FBI agents to do fishing expeditions to spy in mosques, in anti-war meetings ... without any reasonable suspicion that a crime was being committed,” ACLU attorney Ben Wizner said. In late 2005 lawmakers expressed concern that the FBI was aggressively pushing the powers of the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act to get access to private phone and financial records of ordinary people. Around the same time it was revealed that the Bush administration had secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without [obtaining] court-approved warrants. Though this was dubbed by the corporate mainstream media to be "a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices", eavesdropping on citizens is nothing new, the only shift that has occurred is that the government can now TELL us that they're spying on us and it will slowly be accepted. If the mainstream media is to be believed, the National Security Agency engages in “some eavesdropping inside the country,” There are hundreds of sources that prove however that the intelligence services have been operating similar programs for decades. The FBI itself has been targeting domestic groups since its inception, the most notorious example being Hoover's COINTELPRO (Counter-Intelligence Program) which covertly spied on all manner of organizations and individuals from Dr. Martin Luther King to the National Lawyers Guild. Operation CHAOS under the CIA highlights another example of domestic spying: “In June 1970 Nixon met with Hoover [FBI], Helms [CIA], NSA Director Admiral Noel Gaylor, and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) representative Lt. Gen. Donald V. Bennett and told them he wanted a coordinated and concentrated effort against domestic dissenters,” Verne Lyon - former CIA undercover operative. For over fifteen years, the CIA, with assistance from numerous government agencies, conducted a massive illegal domestic covert operation called Operation CHAOS. It was one of the largest and most pervasive domestic surveillance programs in the history of this country. Throughout the duration of CHAOS, the CIA spied on thousands of U.S. citizens. The CIA went to great lengths to conceal this operation from the public while every president from Eisenhower to Nixon exploited CHAOS for his own political ends." There are also multiple Pentagon projects in operation that involve the collection of intelligence through domestic eavesdropping. One example is the Defense Department's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) Consider this from William M. Arkin of the Washington Post: "CIFA already has these authorities, has its own agents, and collects information on common American citizens under the guise of "sabotage" and "force protection" threats to the military. Since 9/11, functions that were previously intended to protect U.S. forces overseas from terrorism and protect U.S. secrets from spies have been combined in one super-intelligence function that constitutes the greatest threat to U.S. civil liberties since the domestic spying days of the 1970's." "On May 2, 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz signed a memorandum directing the military to collect and report "non-validated threat information" relating to U.S. military forces, installations or missions. His memorandum followed from the establishment of the Domestic Threat Working Group after 9/11, the intent of which was to create a mechanism to share low-level domestic "threat information" between the military and intelligence agencies." Then we have the "Total Information Awareness" program whereby every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
Shortly after the announcement of TIA, the Pentagon backtracked and told us that TIA was shutting down, but on reading the second paragraph in this article, it becomes clear that the tools are there waiting to be used. The Pentagon has since started up multiple programs all bearing exact similarities to TIA. The Tools of TIA include "LifeLog" which is described as "a multimedia, digital record of everywhere you go and everything you see, hear, read, say and touch". Another tool is the MATRIX database, A federally funded crime database run by multiple states at once. Operation TIPS and similar programs were geared towards turning citizens themselves into domestic spies. Then of course there is the joint NSA / Government Communications Head Quarters of England (GCHQ) Project Echelon. This long running operation was first exposed in the mid nineties and then again most prominently by author James Bamford in his 1999 book Body of Secrets. Bamford comments, "The cooperation between the Echelon countries is worrying. For decades, these organizations have worked closely together, monitoring communications and sharing the information gathered. Now, through Echelon, they are pooling their resources and targets, maximizing the collection and analysis of intercepted information." In the greatest surveillance effort ever established, the NSA global spy system captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world. Quite obviously they cannot listen to everyone anywhere ALL the time, but they have the capability to choose when to listen and who to listen to, wherever they may be.
James Bamford famously recalled how the NSA successfully intercepted satellite calls from Osama Bin Laden in the late nineties as he was talking to his mother. "I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." - Senator Frank Church, quoted in ECHELON: America's Secret Global Surveillance Network Under the Clinton Administration Echelon certainly turned its attention to citizens of countries everywhere and monitored millions of calls and other communications. Echelon expert Mike Frost, who spent 20 years as a spy for the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, told CBS's "60 Minutes" that the agency was monitoring "everything from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs." Domestic spying is nothing new, there has been at least half a century of such activity in America. However, the general public will believe that government spying on them is new, and secondly, they will just accept it because they are being told in a very unsophisticated fashion, that it is keeping them safe. On Tuesday current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales once again gave testimony concerning the ongoing investigations into the legality of "terrorist surveillance program" and seemed to confirm that numerous domestic surveillance programs are in operation. The fact that less than 0.01% of Homeland Security cases are related to terrorism in America begs the question why does America need an army of secret police to keep tabs on its own citizens? Domestic government surveillance is becoming accepted as the norm. The fact remains however that you cannot have a free state that relies upon a covert network of government spies and recruited informants to maintain law and order within its own borders.
ABC News July 25, 2007 The FBI is taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities. According to a recent unclassified report to Congress, the FBI expects its informants to provide secrets about possible terrorists and foreign spies, although some may also be expected to aid with criminal investigations, in the tradition of law enforcement confidential informants. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment on this story. The FBI said the push was driven by a 2004 directive from President Bush ordering the bureau to improve its counterterrorism efforts by boosting its human intelligence capabilities.
The aggressive push for more secret informants appears to be part of a new effort to grow its intelligence and counterterrorism efforts. Other recent proposals include expanding its collection and analysis of data on U.S. persons, retaining years' worth of Americans' phone records and even increasing so-called "black bag" secret entry operations. To handle the increase in so-called human sources, the FBI also plans to overhaul its database system, so it can manage records and verify the accuracy of information from "more than 15,000" informants, according to the document. While many of the recruited informants will apparently be U.S. residents, some informants may be overseas, recruited by FBI agents in foreign offices, the report indicates. The total cost of the effort tops $22 million, according to the document. The bureau has arranged to use elements of CIA training to teach FBI agents about "Source Targeting and Development," the report states. The courses will train FBI special agents on the "comprehensive tradecraft" needed to identify, recruit and manage these "confidential human sources." According to January testimony by FBI Deputy Director John S. Pistole, the CIA has been working with the bureau on the course. The bureau apparently mulled whether to adopt entire training courses from the CIA or from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which like the CIA recruits spies overseas. But the FBI ultimately determined "the courses offered by those agencies would not meet the needs of the FBI's unique law enforcement." The FBI report said it would also give agents "legal and policy" training, noting that its domestic intelligence efforts are "constitutionally sensitive." "It's probably a good sign they are not adopting CIA recruitment techniques wholesale," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, an expert on classified programs. U.S. intelligence officers abroad can use bribery, extortion, and other patently illegal acts to corral sources into working for them, Aftergood noted. "You're not supposed to do that in the United States," he said.
References Warning by Former Forbes Writer Benjamin Fulford to Halt Genocide by Race-Specific Bio-Weapons Aaron Dykes / JonesReport.com July 26, 2007 Stephen Colbert made heavy reference to the Illuminati and their plan to depopulate the world, noting that he too can make strange hand signs and wants to be recruited. Whether Colbert takes depopulation seriously or not, it truly is a key part of the globalist's plan for world domination-- as documented below. Colbert brings up the Illuminati in conjunction with Benjamin Fulford, a former Forbes magazine writer, who alleges that the Illuminati network seeks to use race-specific biological weapons to decrease Asian populations to 500,000,000.
Benjamin Fulford: Chinese Secret Society Challenges Illuminati "A Chinese secret society with 6 million members, including 1.8 million Asian gangsters and 100,000 professional assassins, have targeted Illuminati members if they proceed with world depopulation plans, according to Tokyo-based journalist Benjamin Fulford, 46." Benjamin Fulford on the Global Economy While we have not yet fully evaluated Fulford's claims, it is true that radical depopulation schemes have been published in a number of government documents. It is a major subject in the upcoming Alex Jones' film ENDGAME. South Africa developed race-specific bioweapons and later sold them to Israel. Dick Cheney mentions the use of race-specific bioweapons in future warfare in the September 2000 Project for a New American Century document "Rebuilding America's Defenses" [page 60]. Henry Kissinger endorsed major planks of the 1944 Royal Commission on Population, headed by George VI and included them in his NSSM 200 memorandum on population reduction, which lists 13 countries for specific targeting and mentions that "food is a weapon." Clearly the United Nations and its subsidiaries also participate in pushing this agenda. Also, many of the United States' most wealthy contribute billions to population reduction programs, including Ted Turner, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, just to name a few. Prince Philip has stated his wish to return to earth as a deadly virus in order to cull human population. Dr. Eric Pianka, of the University of Texas, calls for 90% population reduction to stabilize the earth. Even the esoteric Georgia Guidestones call for a world population of not more than 500,000,000. Bertrand Russell writes in his essay, "Effects of Scientific Technique" (Contained in The Impact of Science on Society): "If there is not to be an endless succession of wars, population will have to became stationary throughout the world, and this will probably have to be done in many countries as a result of governmental measures....[or] War may become so destructive that, at any rate for a time, there is nodanger of overpopulation."
Loose Change producer reveals startling new details to Prison Planet, Fox News, including how arresting officers cut his phone lines, came out of the woods - Fort Drum officials immediately released Rowe following barrage of phone calls
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Thursday, July 26, 2007
Korey Rowe, the Afghanistan and Iraq combat veteran and producer of Loose Change, who was arrested on Monday under charges of desertion, presented his honorable discharge papers to the arresting officers and yet was grabbed after a sophisticated operation where police staked out his house from the woods and cut his phone lines.
Rowe was interviewed about the events today for a Fox News report. Korey Rowe, 24, who served with the 101st Airborne in Afghanistan and Iraq, told FOXNews.com that he was honorably discharged from the military 18 months ago — which he said he explained to sheriffs when they pounded on his door late Monday night.
“When they came to my house, I showed them my paperwork,” Rowe said. “The cops said, 'You’re still in the system.'”
Rowe was turned over to officials at Fort Drum — the closest military base — who then booked him on a flight to Fort Campbell, Ky., where his unit is based, to try to straighten out why the military issued a warrant for his arrest.
“A warrant for my arrest came down and showed up on the sheriff’s desk,” Rowe said. “Where it came from and why it showed up all of a sudden is a mystery to me.”
Rowe said he was sitting in his living room watching the show “Cops” and drinking a beer Monday night when police banged on the door.
“I thought it was the TV,” he said. “There was f-----g mad cops out there. I thought, here we go.”
There were at least five sheriffs on hand for his arrest, Rowe said. They told him he had an active-duty warrant from the military.
“They pulled a whole operation. They cut my phone lines. They came from the woods. It was crazy — it was ridiculous,” he said.
Rowe shared further details with us about the sequence of events than is revealed in the Fox News article.
According to Rowe, Army officials at Fort Drum, where Rowe was held for a day and a half, seemed uninterested in the case until their phone lines were incinerated by a barrage of calls from listeners who responded to our call to action yesterday morning.
It was at that point that officials checked into Rowe's record and immediately confirmed that he had received an honorable discharge and told Rowe he was free to leave, and even offered to pay his way to get back to New York. They were baffled as to why a warrant would be out for his arrest when he had clearly been given permission to leave the Army in 2005.
It was Korey Rowe's personal decision to travel on to Fort Campbell Kentucky in an attempt to ensure his name was completely expunged from the system and that such events would not repeat for a third time, with Rowe having been arrested once before under a similar pretext. Rowe was able to board an airplane without being apprehended, as he had been many times before the incident, because there has never been a warrant against his name in the database. Though Korey Rowe puts the arrest down to a probable "administrative error", many in the 9/11 truth movement will be wondering if this was part of a pre-emptive strategy to discredit the upcoming cinematic release of Loose Change Final Cut. The documentary is set to include explosive new interviews that will shake the political spectrum to the core. The nature of the arrest certainly has Army intelligence planning written all over it and we will be certain to share more details upon Korey Rowe's return from Kentucky, which is expected to be in around a week's time.
Iraq, Afghanistan veteran handed over to military officials by police under charges of "deserting the Army" Prison Planet | July 25, 2007 Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson Loose Change producer and Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Korey Rowe has been arrested and handed over to military officials without bail for allegedly "deserting the Army".
According to a report in the New York Daily Star , Rowe was arrested on Monday night at a county Route 47 residence in Oneonta.
Rowe was arrested on a "military warrant" that Devlin said was brought to the attention of deputies by the Oneonta Police Department, who received information from a source outside of that department.
Rowe was living at the Route 47 home, Devlin said.
City police officials who were able to comment on the case were unavailable Tuesday night.
After deputies received the information from Oneonta police, they reached out to the Army, and officials from Fort Knox faxed a copy of the warrant, deputies said.
Arrests and court martials for deserters are incredibly rare and this appears to be an obvious case of political persecution as the Loose Change crew prepare the cinematic release of the final version of their popular documentary.
According to MSNBC , "Despite a rise in desertions from the Army as the Iraq war drags on into a fifth year, the U.S. military does almost nothing to find those who flee and rarely prosecutes those it gets its hands on."
The Army court-martialed just 5% of deserters last year, with that number dropping to just 1 per cent or less for the Navy and the Marines.
Rowe enlisted in the Army in August 2001 and left in June 2005. He has been out of the Army for over two years. He was previously arrested under similar circumstances but was immediately released.
Alex Jones interviewed Rowe at a conference in Chicago last year (watch above), during which he exposed how CNN and the military would stage photo-ops to make it appear as if Al-Qaeda members were being killed in Afghanistan, along with a host of other cover-ups and atrocities.
This will inevitably backfire on the authorities, but only if we put intense pressure on them to release Korey. Relevent phone numbers to the appear below, please be polite and ask for information on Korey Rowe and demand his release.
Fort Campbell, Kentucky (where Rowe is apparently now being transfered to) 798 6160 6403.
Conditioning the kids for their future on the global plantation Infowars.net | July 24, 2007 Steve Watson Schools have become hi-tech prisons. Children all across America and the UK are being conditioned to accept that they are not free and that they must submit to draconian laws and measures for their own safety. Soon enough children will not even know what it is like to act as a private individual within society. Don't believe this? Read on.
All over the United States and Britain children are increasingly being subjected to measures that wouldn't look out of place in maximum security prisons.
Everyday we post reports from mainstream news sources documenting this disturbing trend.
Today The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that schools across America are banning backpacks that are made of non see-through materials .
If students walking between classes want to use a backpack, it must be made of clear plastic or mesh so its contents can be seen at a glance. Cloth backpacks can be carried into the school in the morning but must be stored in lockers.
So the students should all now feel much safer due to the fact that they can all see each other's personal items right? Wrong.
The move has unleashed a torrent of protest from some Wissahickon students, who say high schools are coming to resemble "prisons or police states," in the words of one. Brandon Hemmen, a senior, said the clear bags will make it easy for thieves who already rip off students every day. And "bags will get mixed up; we'll have to use name tags," he added. "This is wrong. They can't take all our freedoms away."
A second item today comes from Security tech website Security Park which reports that Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania is to deliver the convenience and security of contactless payments by cell phone to students and the faculty.
Beginning in July, Slippery Rock University's 8,500 students, faculty and staff will receive a new official campus ID card and a separate contactless token designed for use with their mobile phones.
Using either the card or the phone, they will be able to make payments at on-campus locations as well as participating merchants in the surrounding community....
The new mobile phone tokens incorporate the same standards-based contactless technology (ISO 14443) used worldwide by MasterCard, Visa and leading card issuers in the payment and identity sectors.
Good, prepare the kids first and then bring in the cashless society nationwide, with an ID card of course, which you will need to be able to buy and sell. We have long warned of the dangers of a cashless society putting total control into the hands of state regulated and private corporations and the break down of basic freedoms that it encompasses.
Still don't feel there is anything to worry about in schools?
Do a prisonplanet.com google search on the word "school", you will be confronted with literally hundreds and hundreds of news articles from the past few years that detail the police state takeover of schools all over the US and throughout the UK.
There are far too many to mention, however, a quick overview of linked headlines follows.
Fingerprinting, Iris Recognition and biometric hand scanners in schools
These are not isolated incidents, I could have posted hundreds under each category.
Our Schools and institutes of higher education are now total breeding grounds for the big brother police state. Kids are conditioned from day one to accept surveillance and draconian security policies as the norm.
The youth are being indoctrinated to accept the fact that they must swipe or be scanned to have access to buildings or books. In schools it is now normal to be chipped, tagged, tracked, traced and filmed by cameras at all times, while having all items on their person in clear view to everyone.
There is also a dangerous precedent being set whereby kids are made to feel important if they carry a card or a chip. They can gain access to places other people cannot go, open doors electronically and have the use of superior resources. In actual fact the technology given to them merely tracks their every move and is nothing more than a form of control.
By the time students leave education and move into the wider world, encountering surveillance technology everywhere, they are completely unfazed and totally conditioned to it.
Do you know what big brother measures are already in place in your child's school? Are you a teacher in a school that has been overrun by Orwellian technology? It is clearly up to parents and teachers to do something about this if not for the sake of their own freedom then for the freedom of their children.
Report: George W. Bush's Grandfather Plotted Fascist Coup to Overthrow America New investigation sheds light on clique of powerbrokers, including Prescott Bush, who sought to overthrow U.S. government and implement Hitlerian policies
Prison Planet July 24, 2007 Paul Joseph Watson A BBC Radio 4 investigation sheds new light on a major subject that has received little historical attention, the conspiracy on behalf of a group of influential powerbrokers, led by Prescott Bush, to overthrow FDR and implement a fascist dictatorship in the U.S. based around the ideology of Mussolini and Hitler. In 1933, Marine Corps Maj.-Gen. Smedley Butler was approached by a wealthy and secretive group of industrialists and bankers, including Prescott Bush the current President's grandfather, who asked him to command a 500,000 strong rogue army of veterans that would help stage a coup to topple then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. According to the BBC , the plotters intended to impose a fascist takeover and "Adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression." The conspirators were operating under the umbrella of a front group called the American Liberty League, which included many families that are still household names today, including Heinz, Colgate, Birds Eye and General Motors. Butler played along with the clique to determine who was involved but later blew the whistle and identified the ringleaders in testimony given to the House Committee on un-American Activities. However, the Committee refused to even question any of the individuals named by Butler and his testimony was omitted from the record, leading to charges that they were involved in covering the matter up, and the majority of the media blackballed the story. In 1936, William Dodd, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in which he stated, "A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime.... A prominent executive of one of the largest corporations, told me point blank that he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism into America if President Roosevelt continued his progressive policies. Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there. Propagandists for fascist groups try to dismiss the fascist scare. We should be aware of the symptoms. When industrialists ignore laws designed for social and economic progress they will seek recourse to a fascist state when the institutions of our government compel them to comply with the provisions." The proven record of Prescott Bush's involvement in financing the Nazi war machine dovetails with the fact that he was part of a criminal cabal that actively sought to impose a fascist coup in America. Prescott did not succeed but many would argue that two generations down the line the mission has all but been accomplished.
In his documentary film Martial Law , Alex Jones interviews John Buchanan, who was instrumental in uncovering the documents tying Prescott Bush to the financing of the Third Reich. Watch a clip above. The subject is also covered in Alex's upcoming film, End Game, which includes rare video of Smedley Butler's testimony. Click here to listen to the BBC Radio 4 investigation
National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51
HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-20
Subject: National Continuity Policy
Purpose
(1) This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes "National Essential Functions," prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.
Definitions
(2) In this directive:
(a) "Category" refers to the categories of executive departments and agencies listed in Annex A to this directive; (b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions; (c) "Continuity of Government," or "COG," means a coordinated effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency; (d) "Continuity of Operations," or "COOP," means an effort within individual executive departments and agencies to ensure that Primary Mission-Essential Functions continue to be performed during a wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies; (e) "Enduring Constitutional Government," or "ECG," means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency; (f) "Executive Departments and Agencies" means the executive departments enumerated in 5 U.S.C. 101, independent establishments as defined by 5 U.S.C. 104(1), Government corporations as defined by 5 U.S.C. 103(1), and the United States Postal Service; (g) "Government Functions" means the collective functions of the heads of executive departments and agencies as defined by statute, regulation, presidential direction, or other legal authority, and the functions of the legislative and judicial branches; (h) "National Essential Functions," or "NEFs," means that subset of Government Functions that are necessary to lead and sustain the Nation during a catastrophic emergency and that, therefore, must be supported through COOP and COG capabilities; and (i) "Primary Mission Essential Functions," or "PMEFs," means those Government Functions that must be performed in order to support or implement the performance of NEFs before, during, and in the aftermath of an emergency. Policy (3) It is the policy of the United States to maintain a comprehensive and effective continuity capability composed of Continuity of Operations and Continuity of Government programs in order to ensure the preservation of our form of government under the Constitution and the continuing performance of National Essential Functions under all conditions. Implementation Actions (4) Continuity requirements shall be incorporated into daily operations of all executive departments and agencies. As a result of the asymmetric threat environment, adequate warning of potential emergencies that could pose a significant risk to the homeland might not be available, and therefore all continuity planning shall be based on the assumption that no such warning will be received. Emphasis will be placed upon geographic dispersion of leadership, staff, and infrastructure in order to increase survivability and maintain uninterrupted Government Functions. Risk management principles shall be applied to ensure that appropriate operational readiness decisions are based on the probability of an attack or other incident and its consequences. (5) The following NEFs are the foundation for all continuity programs and capabilities and represent the overarching responsibilities of the Federal Government to lead and sustain the Nation during a crisis, and therefore sustaining the following NEFs shall be the primary focus of the Federal Government leadership during and in the aftermath of an emergency that adversely affects the performance of Government Functions: (a) Ensuring the continued functioning of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government; (b) Providing leadership visible to the Nation and the world and maintaining the trust and confidence of the American people; (c) Defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and preventing or interdicting attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests; (d) Maintaining and fostering effective relationships with foreign nations; (e) Protecting against threats to the homeland and bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes or attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests; (f) Providing rapid and effective response to and recovery from the domestic consequences of an attack or other incident; (g) Protecting and stabilizing the Nation's economy and ensuring public confidence in its financial systems; and (h) Providing for critical Federal Government services that address the national health, safety, and welfare needs of the United States. (6) The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination. (7) For continuity purposes, each executive department and agency is assigned to a category in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and responsibilities in support of the Federal Government's ability to sustain the NEFs. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall serve as the President's lead agent for coordinating overall continuity operations and activities of executive departments and agencies, and in such role shall perform the responsibilities set forth for the Secretary in sections 10 and 16 of this directive. (8) The National Continuity Coordinator, in consultation with the heads of appropriate executive departments and agencies, will lead the development of a National Continuity Implementation Plan (Plan), which shall include prioritized goals and objectives, a concept of operations, performance metrics by which to measure continuity readiness, procedures for continuity and incident management activities, and clear direction to executive department and agency continuity coordinators, as well as guidance to promote interoperability of Federal Government continuity programs and procedures with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate. The Plan shall be submitted to the President for approval not later than 90 days after the date of this directive. (9) Recognizing that each branch of the Federal Government is responsible for its own continuity programs, an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall ensure that the executive branch's COOP and COG policies in support of ECG efforts are appropriately coordinated with those of the legislative and judicial branches in order to ensure interoperability and allocate national assets efficiently to maintain a functioning Federal Government. (10) Federal Government COOP, COG, and ECG plans and operations shall be appropriately integrated with the emergency plans and capabilities of State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to promote interoperability and to prevent redundancies and conflicting lines of authority. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall coordinate the integration of Federal continuity plans and operations with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency. (11) Continuity requirements for the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and executive departments and agencies shall include the following: (a) The continuation of the performance of PMEFs during any emergency must be for a period up to 30 days or until normal operations can be resumed, and the capability to be fully operational at alternate sites as soon as possible after the occurrence of an emergency, but not later than 12 hours after COOP activation; (b) Succession orders and pre-planned devolution of authorities that ensure the emergency delegation of authority must be planned and documented in advance in accordance with applicable law; (c) Vital resources, facilities, and records must be safeguarded, and official access to them must be provided; (d) Provision must be made for the acquisition of the resources necessary for continuity operations on an emergency basis; (e) Provision must be made for the availability and redundancy of critical communications capabilities at alternate sites in order to support connectivity between and among key government leadership, internal elements, other executive departments and agencies, critical partners, and the public; (f) Provision must be made for reconstitution capabilities that allow for recovery from a catastrophic emergency and resumption of normal operations; and (g) Provision must be made for the identification, training, and preparedness of personnel capable of relocating to alternate facilities to support the continuation of the performance of PMEFs. (12) In order to provide a coordinated response to escalating threat levels or actual emergencies, the Continuity of Government Readiness Conditions (COGCON) system establishes executive branch continuity program readiness levels, focusing on possible threats to the National Capital Region. The President will determine and issue the COGCON Level. Executive departments and agencies shall comply with the requirements and assigned responsibilities under the COGCON program. During COOP activation, executive departments and agencies shall report their readiness status to the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary's designee. (13) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall: (a) Conduct an annual assessment of executive department and agency continuity funding requests and performance data that are submitted by executive departments and agencies as part of the annual budget request process, in order to monitor progress in the implementation of the Plan and the execution of continuity budgets; (b) In coordination with the National Continuity Coordinator, issue annual continuity planning guidance for the development of continuity budget requests; and (c) Ensure that heads of executive departments and agencies prioritize budget resources for continuity capabilities, consistent with this directive. (14) The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall: (a) Define and issue minimum requirements for continuity communications for executive departments and agencies, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President; (b) Establish requirements for, and monitor the development, implementation, and maintenance of, a comprehensive communications architecture to integrate continuity components, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President; and (c) Review quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities, as prepared pursuant to section 16(d) of this directive or otherwise, and report the results and recommended remedial actions to the National Continuity Coordinator. (15) An official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall: (a) Advise the President, the Chief of Staff to the President, the APHS/CT, and the APNSA on COGCON operational execution options; and (b) Consult with the Secretary of Homeland Security in order to ensure synchronization and integration of continuity activities among the four categories of executive departments and agencies. (16) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall: (a) Coordinate the implementation, execution, and assessment of continuity operations and activities; (b) Develop and promulgate Federal Continuity Directives in order to establish continuity planning requirements for executive departments and agencies; (c) Conduct biennial assessments of individual department and agency continuity capabilities as prescribed by the Plan and report the results to the President through the APHS/CT; (d) Conduct quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities in consultation with an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President; (e) Develop, lead, and conduct a Federal continuity training and exercise program, which shall be incorporated into the National Exercise Program developed pursuant to Homeland Security Presidential Directive-8 of December 17, 2003 ("National Preparedness"), in consultation with an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President; (f) Develop and promulgate continuity planning guidance to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators; (g) Make available continuity planning and exercise funding, in the form of grants as provided by law, to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators; and (h) As Executive Agent of the National Communications System, develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive continuity communications architecture. (17) The Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall produce a biennial assessment of the foreign and domestic threats to the Nation's continuity of government. (18) The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall provide secure, integrated, Continuity of Government communications to the President, the Vice President, and, at a minimum, Category I executive departments and agencies. (19) Heads of executive departments and agencies shall execute their respective department or agency COOP plans in response to a localized emergency and shall: (a) Appoint a senior accountable official, at the Assistant Secretary level, as the Continuity Coordinator for the department or agency; (b) Identify and submit to the National Continuity Coordinator the list of PMEFs for the department or agency and develop continuity plans in support of the NEFs and the continuation of essential functions under all conditions; (c) Plan, program, and budget for continuity capabilities consistent with this directive; (d) Plan, conduct, and support annual tests and training, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, in order to evaluate program readiness and ensure adequacy and viability of continuity plans and communications systems; and (e) Support other continuity requirements, as assigned by category, in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and responsibilities General Provisions (20) This directive shall be implemented in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 U.S.C. 19), with consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved. Heads of executive departments and agencies shall ensure that appropriate support is available to the Vice President and others involved as necessary to be prepared at all times to implement those provisions. (21) This directive: (a) Shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and the authorities of agencies, or heads of agencies, vested by law, and subject to the availability of appropriations; (b) Shall not be construed to impair or otherwise affect (i) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budget, administrative, and legislative proposals, or (ii) the authority of the Secretary of Defense over the Department of Defense, including the chain of command for military forces from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the commander of military forces, or military command and control procedures; and (c) Is not intended to, and does not, create any rights or benefits, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person. (22) Revocation. Presidential Decision Directive 67 of October 21, 1998 ("Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations"), including all Annexes thereto, is hereby revoked. (23) Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes, attached hereto, are hereby incorporated into and made a part of this directive. (24) Security. This directive and the information contained herein shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure, provided that, except for Annex A, the Annexes attached to this directive are classified and shall be accorded appropriate handling, consistent with applicable Executive Orders.
