Thursday, May 21, 2009
Spying in the UK: GCHQ awards Lockheed Martin £200m contract, promises to "Master the Internet"
From Antifascist Calling:
The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the National Security Agency's "kissin' cousin" across the pond, has awarded a £200m ($300m U.S.) contract for an internet panopticon.
American defense and security giant Lockheed Martin and BAE subsidiary Detica (yet another firm specializing "in collecting, managing and exploiting information to reveal actionable intelligence"), snagged the contract The Register and The Sunday Times revealed May 3.
According to The Register the new system, called Mastering the Internet (MTI) "will include thousands of deep packet inspection probes inside communications providers' networks, as well as massive computing power at the intelligence agency's Cheltenham base, 'the concrete doughnut'."
Lockheed Martin and Detica aren't talking and have referred all inquiries on the MTI contract to GCHQ. ComputerWeekly however, reported May 6 that Detica, a firm with close ties to MI5 and MI6, "has data mining software that can detect links between individuals based on their contacts with sometimes widely separated organisations."
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Scottish civil servants in Astroshamanism course row
Government staff get courses
SCOTTISH Government workers are being treated to courses in new age "astroshamanism", papercraft and Tai Chi, it is reported today.
More than 60 classes are being laid on for civil servants at Victoria Quay, St Andrew's House and Saughton House this week.
Other lessons included in the Learning at Work week include light-aircraft flying, adventure motor-cycling and line dancing.
Trance 'n Mental by Andrew Nicoll (The Scottish Sun)
Top civil servants are being treated to wacky courses in new-age meditation while the hard-pressed taxpayer toils during the credit crunch, The Scottish Sun can reveal.
Government chiefs are splashing out on classes in ASTROSHAMANISM — which merges Mystic Meg-style zodiac astrology with Asian witch-doctor shape-shifting mumbo jumbo.
So while the public are hit by very real job losses and mortgage misery, penpushers will be drumming and chanting themselves into a trance to shake off the “illusion” of reality.
Last night Matthew Elliott, chief exec of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: “This is a crazy way to spend taxpayers' hard-earned money.
[ ... ]
Labour Whip Michael McMahon also blasted the programme of free activities.
He said: “When everyone in Scotland is doing their best to get through the current global downturn you'd think that the senior civil servants behind this daft scheme would have thought again and stopped this dead in its tracks.
“When the Government should be tightening its belt this kind of money-wasting mumbo-jumbo does not reflect well on the bosses that passed this scheme or indeed the Scottish Government.
Government insiders ARE angered and embarrassed by the programme — but one aide claimed there is no cost to the taxpayer. He said: “People have been asked to volunteer their time.
“If they know how to paint, they have been asked to give painting classes. If astroshamanism is their thing, they can get on with it.”
He added: “It's all in their lunch hours so there's absolutely no cost to the taxpayer.”
Harmony
But when it was pointed out that the courses start at 9am and go on throughout the day, he stammered: “Well there's flexi-time. They can catch up later.”
Workers at all Government offices — including the three main sites of Victoria Quay, St Andrew's House and Saughton House — can take part. The transcendental meditation-style astroshamanism is available to the 2,000 workforce at Victoria Quay.
Emails sent to Government staff described it as “a system of healing and empowerment that uses shamanic techniques in conjunction with experiential astrology to enable people to develop connection with their inner sources of strength and achieve balance and harmony in their life”.
Its top guru is Franco Santoro, a member of the Findhorn Foundation eco village in Moray.
He developed it after “a transformational experience” in 1976 during a “vision quest” to Scotland.
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William Rodriguez and Annie Machon ex MI5 whistle blower
In 2007 I traveled across Europe with William Rodriguez and Annie Machon while filming my Feature length documentary The Elephant In The Room. We traveled across the south west of England, France, Holland and Germany for Just over two weeks. Spreading the word about William's experience of the events of 9/11 which directly contradicts the Official story. Annie Machon the former MI5 officer turned whistle blower organised the tour and spoke before William about her experience working at the heart of the secret state.
http://www.nosmokewithoutfire.co.uk
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