Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told officials in a closed meeting that he prefers the U.S. “do the work" in a potential strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, Barak Ravid of Haaretz reports.  

Based on unnamed officials who attended the meeting, Ravid reports Netanyahu admitted that the U.S. is not prepared to pursue a military option at this point.

Netanyahu knows that Israel doesn't have the bombs to penetrate Iran's underground bunkers as it only has at least 55 of the 5,000 lb GBU-28 bunker-busting bombs.

Any attack would require Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) – 30,000 lb bombs that can crash through 60 feet of reinforced concrete and detonate up to 200 feet below ground – which the U.S. announced were ready for action last week. 

President Barack Obama reportedly offered Netanyahu bunker-busters and refueling planes in March in exchange for an agreement to postpone an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities until 2013, but Netanyahu feels the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

Netanyahu reportedly said he would accept responsibility for any fallout after a U.S. attack, saying “the Israeli home front will be hit with ricochets no matter what happens.”

From Haaretz:

At one point during the meeting, a participant asked Netanyahu what he thinks could possibly happen the day after an Israeli strike on Iran. According to one official present at the meeting, the question angered Netanyahu. “If an investigative committee is formed, I’ll go and say that I, I am responsible,” said Netanyahu, as he pounded the table, and his chest, with his fist.

Netanyahu reportedly detailed the following criteria for a U.S.-led strike: Iran enriching uranium to 90 percent (instead of 20), an Iranian attack on American interests in the Persian gulf, or a massive Iranian attack against Israel.

Some officials present at the meeting told Ravid that Netanyahu’s comments seemed to be part of a “psychological warfare” campaign of Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to pressure the U.S. into attacking Iran itself.

The Prime Minister's Office responded to that report by saying, “We do not comment on issues discussed in closed meetings, including when the quotes from them are inaccurate.”

SEE ALSO: Iran Says America's Bunker-Buster Bomb Could Set Off A Global Conflict >

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Palantir is a company founded by Peter Thiel — of Paypal and Facebook renown — that has software which absolutely changes the game with intelligence.

It's one of the best programs at coordinating the vast databases accumulated by the U.S. intelligence apparatus. It's already in use in federal domestic security.

But it's also caused a massive fight inside the Army intelligence command. 

Palantir is one of the first Silicon Valley companies to view the government as a customer rather than an annoyance and — after stepping into a game dominated by top contractors like Lockheed Martin, IBM, and Raytheon — it's proven controversial in both what it does and if it should be used. 

What it does is assemble comprehensive dossiers on objects of interest, collated from the sprawling databases of intelligence agencies. 

If that sounds over-broad, it's intentional. 

The databases and dossiers in question are on everything from Afghan villages to crooked bankers. The can pull crime information and collate it with recent debit card purchases.

The software was developed with the idea that had it existed in 2001, 9/11 would have been obvious. Palantir would have been able to identify the pilots as people of interest from countries that harbor terrorists, connecting that with money wired around, and connecting that  with one-way airline tickets to create actionable intelligence. 

One controversy comes with the civil liberties issues that come with that particular business model.

The other controversy is much less philosophical: The Army intelligence community is full of infighting over this Valley competitor to defense contractor tech. 

The Army Intelligence community is split over software. The $2.3 Billion DCGS-A system, developed by the standard crowd of defense contractors, is either panned by some as complicated and slow or defensed by others as the future of military distributed intelligence. 

Likewise, the culty following of Palantir's alternative have been dismissed as on the take from the Silicon Valley firm. That tech has been deployed by data mining Wall Street banks interested in tracking down fraud, and an early investor in the company was the CIA. The Army, however, isn't sold. 

This fight could go on for a while, but Palantir the company will keep at what they're doing.

As it stands, they've dropped immense amounts of money on lobbying, so they probably trust their K-street friends to smooth the government over.

They're busy on applying the tech to more than finding broken bankers and busting bombers. They're applying their data mining engine toward health care to cut on fraud, pharmaceuticals law enforcement and more. 

Check out the 20 advanced government research projects that will change your life >

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Through this past week and continuing into August 5,000 servicemembers and Department of Defense civilian personnel are converging on Muscatatuck Urban Training Center and various other locations throughout Indiana for a huge practice run on disaster relief operations.

Named “Vibrant Response 13,” the national-level field training exercise under the direction of U.S. Army North is designed to demonstrate response in the event of a CBRN incident: a chemical, biological, radiological / nuclear catastrophe. 

Responders are tasked with tasks including medical care and evacuation, communications, route clearing, decontamination, law enforcement and providing shelter to civilians.

The training grounds simulate conditions that members of the armed forces and first responders would encounter in the event of an unthinkable attack, with obvious implications towards terrorism but also large scale natural disasters.

Sets simulate burning rubble, crushed vehicles and collapsed structures, while mannequins and role-actors play the part of casualties and the injured (respectively).

At a soccer stadium on Muscatatuck, military police escorted the would-be survivors of a nuclear blast and assisted members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross in handing out food, water and medical treatment as necessary.

More importantly, members of the VR exercise got a taste of the psychological impact of such a mass event.

The DoD has been concerned with fast response to CBRN events since the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and subsequent legislation has been enacted to organize elements from all four services -- including active, reserve and national guard.

 Vibrant Response, now in its thirteenth year, is one of three major training scenarios designed to maintain the military and the Department of Defense at the ready, the other two being Ardent Sentry (natural disaster) and Vigilant Shield (invasion of U.S. soil).

Captain Crispin Burke, a helicopter pilot currently observing some of these exercises, has posted some video from Muscatatuck here  and images are also available via the DVIDS website 

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A Republican senator released his hold on the Army’s next acquisitions chief’s confirmation Wednesday while chastising Army senior leaders on the Senate floor for making soldier rifles one of the service’s lowest spending priorities.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., had placed a hold on the Senate confirmation of Heidi Shyu, the nominee for the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisitions, Logistics and Technology in early June. Coburn demanded the service explain why it will take two more years to decide whether it will replace the M4 carbine.

The senator released the hold after he said Shyu had been very responsive in trying to explain the Army’s small arms strategy.

“It’s an important position. She is in charge of $28 billion dollars in expenditures; my objection was due to the Army’s continued lack of urgency in modernizing and fielding new rifles, carbines, pistols, light machine guns and ammunition for our troops for combat,” he told his fellow Senators.

Coburn remains unsatisfied with the Army’s low priority on the individual weapons that soldiers rely on in battle.

“There is nothing more important to a soldier than his rifle or her rifle,” said Coburn, who questioned why more focus is not placed on the individual weapon when updating a soldier’s kit.

“I can tell you why. Because the guys that are responsible for making the decision on purchasing the rifles are not the guys that are out there on the line,” he said.

Army acquisitions and legislative-affairs officials were aware of Coburn’s speech, but chose not to offer reactions to the speech, an Army spokesman said.

Coburn has often stood alone since 2007 in his critique of the M4 carbine’s reliability. The senator used his right to issue a hold on Army Secretary Pete Geren’s nomination until the service took steps to consider replacing the M4.

Congressional nomination holds are commonplace in the highly-politicized world of senior military posts.

Shyu may be clear of Coburn's hurdle, but she still must deal with another hold placed on her nomination by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. He chose to stall Shyu’s nomination in June to shine a spotlight on a Defense Department contract with a Russian state-controlled arms export firm that has sold military equipment to Syria.

The U.S. Defense Department spent $171 million on a no-bid contract with Rosoboronexport to buy 30 Mi-17 helicopters for the Afghan Air Force. Cornyn said he wants to open up the competition for the U.S. to buy the helicopters from a company not selling arms to Syria.

“[Sen. Cornyn] asked for a full audit of the Pentagon’s contract with the Russian arms broker, emphasizing its importance in the context of the stalled nomination of Heidi Shyu to serve as the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology,” according to a statement issued by Cornyn’s office.

Shyu took over as the Army’s acting acquisitions chief when Malcolm O’Neill stepped down from the post in June 2011. She had served as his deputy and filled both roles for more than a year. She spent most of her career in the defense industry, primarily with Raytheon, before joining the Army’s acquisition team in 2010.

Shyu might not have much time shooting a rifle, but her specialty lies in advancing technology. She made the Army’s next generation network and communications system as a top priority since she took the reins as acting director. In October, the Army will deliver Capability Set 13 which includes smartphones and vehicles equipped with the latest Army radios and mapping programs.

During Coburn’s 14-minute speech, he questioned why such high-tech programs outweigh the need to equip soldiers with the most modern small arms available on today’s market.

“Over the past few years, we have spent $8,000 per soldier on new radios but we are still using a weapon that is 25 years old when it comes to their M4,” he said.

The Army first adopted the M4 carbine, made mostly by Colt Defense LLC, in 1994.

Coburn also pointed to the speed the U.S. military built and deployed the Mine Resistant Ambush Protective vehicles fleet.

In Afghanistan, “we determined that the MRAP was not suitable for the rocky terrain compared to what we used it for in Iraq,” he said. “In less than 16 months … a new MRAP all-terrain vehicle that was designed specifically for Afghanistan – a complicated piece of vital equipment costing a half a million dollars each – started arriving in Afghanistan,” Coburn said. “So it’s not that we can’t supply our soldiers with a new rifle. It’s not that it can’t be done; it’s that we refuse to do it.”

The Army is currently in the middle of its Improved Carbine Competition, an effort it launched in June 2011, four years after Geren assured Coburn that such a competition would take place.

“It’s all about acquisitions and culture rather than about doing the right thing,” Coburn said. “I don’t like giving this talk that’s critical of the leadership of the Army. But when it’s going to take seven years to field a new rifle and in 18 months we can build and design a completely new $500,000 piece of equipment, an MRAP for Afghanistan … there is no excuse for it. We should be embarrassed. We should be ashamed.”

By comparison, Coburn said it would cost $1,500 per soldier to equip the force with a new carbine. Army officials maintain that even if the carbine competition yields a winning design, the service will conduct a study to determine if it’s a worthy investment.

“There is something wrong with our system; our priorities are out of whack,” Coburn said. “If the Department of Defense had spent just 15 percent less on radios, they could give every soldier in the military a new, more capable modern weapon.”

Coburn directed his closing remarks at Army Secretary John McHugh and his fellow lawmakers.

“A lot of people do a lot of things for our country, but nobody does for our country what the soldier on the front line does. This is a moral question, Mr. Secretary of the Army … get the rifle competition going,” Coburn said. “Members of Congress; members of the Senate who are on the Armed Services Committee, don’t allow this to continue to happen.”

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The insanity defense is all the rage these days.

Jared Lee Loughner, who's accused of shooting former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, is still being held in a prison hospital in Missouri while doctors try to ensure he's "mentally fit" to stand trial, the Associated Press reported in June.

And in the case of Anders Breivik, the man accused of shooting 77 people to death in Norway, many of whom were teenagers, prosecutors had called for an insanity ruling, the Associated Press reported in June. In an unusual twist, Breivik's lawyers attempted to portray him as a political militant rather than a madman.

Most recently, the media has questioned the sanity of notorious Colorado movie-theater shooting suspect James Holmes following a pair of bizarre court appearances.

A panel of doctors determined John Schrank was insane after he shot President Teddy Roosevelt.

The case began when Roosevelt decided to run for his third term in office.

Schrank shot the former president while he was campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisc., according to the Smithsonian. The bullet hit Roosevelt in the chest.

Schrank later told police former President William McKinley appeared in a dream and said he had been assassinated by Roosevelt.

"I looked upon his plan to start a third party as a danger to the country; my knowledge of history, gained through much reading, convinced me that Colonel Roosevelt was engaged in a dangerous undertaking," Schrank told police, according to the Smithsonian. "I was convinced that if he was defeated at the Fall election he would again cry ‘Thief’ and that his action would plunge the country into a bloody civil war.”

Doctors eventually declared Schrank insane, and a judge sentenced him to life in an asylum, according to PBS.

A Virginia jury declared Lorena Bobbitt temporarily insane after she chopped off her husband's penis.

Bobbitt chopped off her husband's penis and tossed it out the car window while driving along a Virginia highway.

She said she did so because her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, emotionally, physically, and sexually abused her during their marriage, according to The Los Angeles Times, which covered her acquittal in 1994.

She also claimed her husband raped her on the night she cut off his penis.

Jurors acquitted Lorena Bobbitt of the crime, agreeing with the defense that she suffered an "irresistible impulse" caused by the abuse, the Times reported.

Bobbitt was ultimately committed to a mental hospital. However, the judge ordered her released from the hospital five weeks after her acquittal, according to the LA Times.

American poet Ezra Pound was declared insane after he used a radio show to praise Hitler and Mussolini during World War II.

Pound allegedly received money from the Italian government during World War II to create pro-Fascist radio broadcasts.

He went on anti-American and anti-Semitic rants all the while idolizing Hitler and Mussolini and calling President Roosevelt "that Jew in the White House," according to PBS.

Pound was extradited to the U.S. following Mussolini's death where he was ultimately declared unfit for trial. He was committed to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, an asylum, for 12 years.

However, that decision later sparked some controversy years after the fact, with historians and psychiatrists alike questioning whether Pound was actually insane.

Professor Stanley Kutler told The New York Times back in 1981 that Pound was "eccentric" but not insane.

"The judgment of the doctors was that he had personality-trait disturbance and a narcissistic personality - but that is not a psychiatric judgment," Kutler told the Times. "Nobody ever actually said he was insane. He himself chose to plead that way."

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It seems like the Pentagon was also glued to the television last week, watching the Olympics instead of buying more weapon systems. 

Even though the Department of Defense spent $7.5 billion in a week the last time we checked in on them, the Pentagon cut down on purchasing last week, spending only $3.6 billion.

That's not to say that they didn't buy anything. The Defense Department picked up more SM-3 missiles, billions worth of shipping, and much more during the first week of August.  

America — enjoy your recent purchases:

Up to $1.6 billion worth of international shipping

The Department of Defense has been buying up an unprecedented amount of international shipping lately, with number abnormally above the typical annual purchases. 

This batch of contracts is, however, not really unprecedented. With an international presence, the Military needs bulk international door-to-door and port-to-door shipping to move servicemembers' possessions around the world, and this contract is probably that. 

The firms that split up the pot are World Airways Inc., Liberty Global Logistics, Lake Success, American President Lines, and National Air Cargo Group. 

We've speculated before that these investments in cargo shipping have to do with the pullout of machinery from the Middle East, so of course that remains a possibility. The contract is for $365.7 million in the first year, then up to $1.6 billion over three years. 

$382 million for firetrucks

Well, it's a little bit more complex than that, but that's the gist of it. 

Kovatch Mobile Equipment Corp was awarded a $382.5 million contract for commercial fire and emergency vehicles. 

The military needs ambulances and fire trucks just as much if not more than civilian municipalities. As an international operator of massive airports, nuclear facilities and explosives, the military needs a way to put out fires fast. 

All the branches of the military — as well as federal civilian agencies — will benefit from the contract. 

$77.2 million for more of the SM-3 naval air defense missiles. 

The Missile Defense Agency just exercised another option on the Standard Missile 3 Block IB contract with Raytheon.

Last week, we showed you how this batch of missiles operates, in case you missed it. 

This contract buys nine containers of the still-in-development missiles, to be delivered in the middle of 2013. 

This contract brings the cumulative value of the SM-3 Block IB missile project to $1.7 billion. 

$28.1 million for almost a thousand Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems. 

The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) is a laser guided missile which has semi-active laser homing and uses a Hydra 70 rocket. BAE Systems is the contractor in this case. 

Particularly interesting about this contract is the fact that, in addition to uses in the Marine Corps, the APKWS system is being integrated into the MQ-8 Fire Scout drone. This purchase — of 985 guidance sections — is contracted specifically by the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River, Maryland. 

The Naval Air Systems command is the group that oversees the Naval drones. 

Now step aboard the Navy's prized next-generation submarine >  

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Iran has been threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz since last year and a new book out by David Crist offers insight into why those threats should to be taken seriously.

Tony Capaccio at Bloomberg reports Crist has little doubt the Iranians would mine the narrow strait through which nearly 40 percent of the world's oil passes, as a "last resort", when "all else fails."

Its inventory of mines, many of the type laid during the 1980s against Iraq and international shipping, has grown to more than 5,000, Crist wrote. Let’s just say they have enough resources and forces to do it if they set their mind to” attempt a disruption, Crist said. “That’s provided that there’s no international effort to stop it, which I think there would be,” he said.

Disrupting shipping has been on their minds for a long time, Crist said. During a September 1987 attack on the Iran Ajr vessel after it laid mines to disrupt shipping in the Gulf, U.S. Navy Seals discovered a war plan to close the Strait, approved in 1984 and called “Ghadir,” Crist writes in his book. A class of Iranian midget submarines -- another potential threat to shipping in the Gulf -- uses the same name, taken from Ghadir Khumm, an Islamic holy place in modern-day Saudi Arabia. 

Not just the Pentagon is taking the possibility of a mine ridden strait seriously, 19 other countries are lined up to join the U.S. for the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise 2012. An 11 day exercise beginning in mid-September that will use eight of the Navy's minesweeping ships and unmanned Seafox submarines to perform exercises identical to what they would if the strait were mined with live explosives.

Iranian mines damaged U.S. ships in both 1987 and 1988, so most at the Pentagon probably understand it could certainly happen again.

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Injured British soldiers working as volunteer archaeologists discovered the remains of warriors who died more than 1,400 years ago, Maev Kennedy of the Guardian reports. 

The discovery astonished archaeologists leading the excavation as earlier digs had turned up empty ration packs and spent ammunition. 

The soldiers – who are recovering from injuries suffered in the Afghan War – found shields, spear heads, hundreds of amber and glass beads, a Roman brooch and a silver ring among the remains of 27 individuals.

From the Guardian:

Mike Kelly, from 1 Rifles, found a skeleton with its head covered by a shield. He believes the position was a sign of respect to a fallen warrior. "I have been to war myself and I can imagine what the soldier would have felt as he went into battle. Knowing that as a modern-day warrior I have unearthed the remains of another fills me with an overwhelming sense of respect."

The excavation was part of Operation Nightingale, which Kennedy describes as "an award-winning project to give soldiers new skills and interests as part of their rehabilitation."

Eight of the soldiers are now going on to study archeology at Leicester University.

 SEE ALSO: This Tragic Story Sums Up The Position Many Veterans Face When Coming Home >

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Iran's possible nuclear program is dominating news from the Middle-East because Israel knows if it perfects a thermonuclear device, Tehran likely has the ability to deliver it aboard some of its current missiles.

Israel thinks this is too great a threat for it to allow.

The Jewish state has worked with the U.S. over the years to develop a pretty comprehensive missile defense system and we've outlined a rough version of it here, along with Iran's biggest threats.

While Israel's system strives to be fully comprehensive in its defense, if any of Iran's rockets were strapped with a nuclear device — or if Iran could hand deliver a device into Israel — none of this preparation would mean much at all.

The homemade Qassam rocket has already been sent into Israel

The Qassam rocket is typically manufactured by Palestinian militants and fired into Israel without advanced guidance capabilities. They cost an estimated $800 each. 

They're a very, very basic type of missile, propelled by a solid mixture of potassium nitrate fertilizer mixed with sugar. The warhead is typically scavenged TNT or urea nitrate. They have no guidance mechanism beyond aiming, and an estimated 2,048 were fired into Israel in 2008. 

Grad missiles have killed 22 people since 2000

Since 2006, Hamas has been lobbing ex-Soviet 122mm Grad missile into Israel. The missiles are likely copies imported from Iran or China, brought into the Gaza strip from tunnels to Egypt. 

These rockets have a range of 20 kilometers, but are typically fired from a moving launcher, greatly expanding their abilities. 

The Grad rockets, with the improvised Qassam rockets, have caused some of the most pain in Israel, claiming the lives of 22 citizens since 2000.  

The Sejjil missile is capable of striking Tel Aviv, Israel

Tel Aviv, Israel is roughly 1,600 kilometers from Tehran, Iran. That, for all intent and purposes, is the magic number here; a central point in Iran to a central point in Israel is roughly 1,600 km. These are the ballistic missiles that can allegedly make that trip. 

The Sejjil missile is a solid-fueled Iranian surface-to-surface missile that is roughly 58 feet long and can travel between 2000 and 2500 kilometers, bringing Israel well within its range. 

That missile is strikingly similar to the Iranian Ashoura missile, with an alleged range of 2,000 km. That medium ranged ballistic missile has been in service since November 1997. 

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On July 19, 1969, U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger wrote the following about Israel's nuclear weapons program: "There is circumstantial evidence that some fissionable material available for Israel's weapons development was illegally obtained from the United States by about 1965."

In the new book, Divert!: NUMEC, Zalman Shapiro and the diversion of US weapons grade uranium into the Israeli nuclear weapons program, Grant Smith details the circumstantial evidence through hundreds of declassified documents regarding the illegal diversion of U.S. government-owned highly enriched Uranium-235 (HEU-235) – a key material used to produce nuclear weapons – from the NUMEC nuclear processing plant in Pennsylvania to Israel's secret nuclear weapons program. 

The story revolves around a brilliant nuclear chemist and professed American Zionist named Zalman Mordecai Shapiro.

Shapiro received a PhD in chemistry from John Hopkins University in 1948 and began working on the USS Nautilus, which would become the world's first operational nuclear-power submarine in 1954. The project was planned and supervised by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, who cited Shapiro as one of the four individuals most responsible for the program's success.

On December 31, 1956, Shapiro incorporated the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC), a nuclear-materials processing facility that began receiving a steady stream of government contracts to produce fuel for the Navy's growing fleet of nuclear-powered vessels.

The company's start-up capital was organized by David Lowenthal, an American citizen who secretly fought for Israel during its 1948 war for independence alongside who would become the country's first head of intelligence (Meir Amit) and its first prime minister (David Ben-Gurion). According to FBI files, Lowenthal traveled "to Israel on the average of approximately once per month."

Many members of NUMEC's venture capital network and board of directors were dedicated Zionists who, like Shapiro, held leadership positions in the Zionist Organization of America – "an American membership organization founded in 1896 dedicated to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine," according to Divert!.

Between 1957 and 1967, NUMEC received 22 tons (44,000 lbs) of HEU-235. A 2001 Department of Energy audit revealed that NUMEC lost at least 593 pounds of HEU – about 2.0 percent of what it received – before 1968. 

The losses exceeded the industry average (.2 percent) by several times and still hold the dubious record for the highest losses of bomb-grade material of any plant in the United States.

In June 1966 Shapiro formed a company called the Israel NUMEC Isotopes and Radiation Enterprises Limited (ISORAD) in partnership with the Israeli government. The company was ostensibly created research projects involving exposing agricultural products to radiation to kill microorganisms and extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.

Smith notes that Shapiro's business partner, Ernest David Bergmann, chaired the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission – "the primary cover organization for Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons program" – from 1954 to 1966.

About the same time that NUMEC sustained unaccountable losses of HEU-235, the FBI notes, NUMEC was developing and manufacturing food irradiators for Israel. 

According to Smith there is no single smoking gun that Shapiro diverted HEU-235 to Israel – but many smoking shell-casings. They include:

• In 1965 a NUMEC employee walked near the NUMEC loading dock and encountered people he could not identify loading cans about the size of HEU-235 canisters onto a ship that was headed to Israel. The employee detailed the event in 1980 when interviewed by FBI agents. Based on the number of reported canisters, Smith estimates up to 346 lbs of U-235 could have been shipped to Israel in this single incident.

•In 1968 NUMEC invited and received Israel's elite nuclear weapons development officials and its top spy under the cover of being "thermo electric generator specialists." They included Avraham Hermoni (technical director of Israel's nuclear bomb project), Ephraim Biegun (head of the Israeli technical department of Israel's Secret Service from 1960-70) and Rafael Eitan (long-time Mossad and LAKAM operative who later directed spy Jonathan Pollard's spy program against the U.S.).

Smith notes that in 1986 Middle East operative analyst Anthony Cordesman said there "is no conceivable reason for Eitan to have gone [to NUMEC] but for the nuclear material."

• In June 1978 Department of Energy investigators told former Atomic Energy Commissioner (AEC) Glenn T. Seaborg that traces of Portsmouth U-235 – the government-owned material primarily delivered to NUMEC for processing into fuel – had been picked up in Israel.

Seaborg, who frequently defended Shapiro during his time as AEC chief, later refused to be interviewed by FBI investigators.

Smith's analysis concludes that enough U-235 to produce dozens of nuclear weapons was not lost but diverted directly into Israel's as-yet-to-be-officially-acknowledged nuclear weapons program.

In the 1969 memo, Kissinger noted the general intelligence assessment at the time: "Israel has 12 surface-to-surface missiles delivered from France. Israel has set up a production line and plans by the end of 1970 to have a total force of 24 - 30, ten of which are programmed for nuclear warheads. The first domestically produced missile is expected to be completed this summer. Preparation of launch facilities is under way."

SEE ALSO: DER SPIEGEL: Israeli Nukes Are Deployed Underseas On Subs Bought From Germany >

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In the 67 years since the first nuclear weapon was used, there is only one time the so-called nuclear briefcases were broken out and opened up, and on January 25, 1995 they nearly launched Russia's nuclear arsenal at the United States.

When Norwegian Kolbjørn Adolfsen gave the nod to send a Black Brant rocket from the Andøya Rocket Range off the northwest coast of Norway to study the aurora borealis, he wasn't concerned at all.

Sure the Brant is a large, four-stage rocket that would fly to 930 miles above the earth near Russia, but he'd contacted the proper Kremlin authorities and hadn't given the flight a second thought.

What Adolfsen didn't know when he left the rocket base shortly after the missile was launched, is that the Brant's radar signature looks just like a U.S. sub-launched Trident missile.

The radar operators at Russia's Olenegorsk early warning station promptly reported the incoming missile to their superiors, but not a soul on duty within the military had been notified of Adolfsen's plans.

The officers at Olenegork believed it could be the first leg of a U.S. nuclear attack.

Four years after the Berlin Wall came down and Russia was in the throes of change, stable systems had been demolished and replacements had yet to fall into place. One thing that had gotten only more developed since 1991, however, was the Kremlin's mistrust of the United States.

So as the Brant streaked its way near Russian airspace, military officers had to decide if this was an electro-magnetic pulse attack that would disable their radar and allow for a full on American attack, and what they should do about it.

The matter was decided when the Brant separated, dropped one of its engines, and fired up another. The radar signature now looked so much like a multiple re-entry vehicle (MRV), a missile carrying multiple nuclear warheads, that military officers no longer had any doubt.

There were now five minutes during which the missile's trajectory would be un-tracked by Russian radar, and when it could strike Moscow; a slice of time that was devoted to deciding whether to launch a counterattack.

Boris Yeltsin was alerted, and immediately given the Cheget, the "nuclear briefcase" that connects senior officials while they decide whether or not to launch Russia's nuclear weapons. Nuclear submarine commanders were ordered to full battle alert and told to stand by.

Apparently Yeltsin doubted the U.S. would launch a surreptitious attack and within five minutes, Russian radar came back confirming the missile was heading harmlessly out to sea.

Russian citizens didn't find about about the incident for weeks, and of course it's been reported in the U.S. news since. But the event never achieved the renown of the Cuban Missile Crisis, though it seems to have brought us even closer to the brink of nuclear war. 

We thought it an interesting enough story to tell again.

Now: Step aboard the Navy's $2.4 billion Virginia-class nuclear submarine >

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Control of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency has been in the hands of the Army since Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983. And while recent events aren't entirely to blame for sending control of the agency to the Navy, they haven't helped.

It started in early July when a Defense Department report surfaced accusing Army Lt. General Patrick O'Reilly of abusing his staff so ferociously that they were afraid to voice even the mildest opinion.

O'Reilly had been in charge of the Missile Defense Agency since 2008, and the report was made public after three complaints were issued against him. Only then did the paperwork fall under the auspices of a Freedom of Information request.

Reuters found that the general's "yelling and screaming" was a factor in many individuals' decisions to leave the agency.

Even then O'Reilly may have escaped real damage, but there followed accusations by Army Secretary John McHugh that the general lied to Congress about the morale of his staff. This sent a new investigation O'Reily's way, one coming straight from the Pentagon's inspector general.

Within days the Missile Defense Agency was warned by the Pentagon that its staff and contractors needed to stop using the MDA's computers for pornography.

From Bloomberg:

“Specifically, there have been instances of employees and contractors accessing websites, or transmitting messages, containing pornographic or sexually explicit images,” James wrote in the July 27 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

“These actions are not only unprofessional, they reflect time taken away from designated duties, are in clear violation of federal and DoD regulations, consume network resources and can compromise the security of the network though the introduction of malware or malicious code,” he wrote.

Then on August 6, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that Navy Rear Admiral James D. Syring was tapped for promotion to the rank of Vice Admiral and Directorship of the Missile Defense Agency—the first time the agency will not be led by an Army officer in history.

To be fair, the Navy holds 28 ballistic missile Aegis ships that provide a wide area of missile coverage across the globe. Combined with the fact that many ranking military officials believe diversity at the helm of the MDA is long overdue, and perhaps it makes sense for the Navy to assume the lead.

No word yet on O'Reily's fate, but becoming the Army general who lost control of the MDA to the Navy is undoubtedly a career cramping note in his file.

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This November's presidential election will test if election and military officials can make absentee ballot voting easier for servicemembers after 120,000 troops reported not receiving a requested ballot in the 2010 election.

Absentee military ballots have regained the spotlight as political analysts expect a tight presidential election in which military voters could sway races in key battleground states such as Ohio, Virginia and Florida.

President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney have already traded barbs after Romney accused Obama’s campaign of trying to restrict military voting with a lawsuit in Ohio. Obama’s supporters have called those claims false, saying Romney has misrepresented the lawsuit aimed at expanding the deadline for absentee ballots to include those from servicemembers.

Even as state election officials across the U.S. have noticed a rise in military voting, a disturbing trend has appeared. The rate active-duty military voters who reported not receiving a requested absentee ballot almost doubled from 16 percent in 2008 to 29 percent in 2010, according to a survey done by the Defense Department’s Federal Voter Assistance Program (FVAP).

“It is a very real challenge” to get ballots out to forward operating bases in Afghanistan and other duty stations worldwide, said Paddy McGuire, FVAP’s deputy director for Elections Assistance. Mail services must also return those ballots as servicemembers try to keep track of ever-changing voting deadlines and the blizzard of federal, state and local election laws.

The political parties have added to the confusion of who can vote and when. Both Republicans and Democrats have dispatched platoons of lawyers to challenge or defend local election laws as they jockey for advantage.

The parties have clashed recently over an Ohio law that allowed military absentee ballots to be accepted up to the day before the Nov. 6 general election day. The cutoff for civilian absentee ballots is Nov. 2.

The National Guard Association filed a motion backing Republicans seeking to keep the three-day window for the military although Joseph Goheen, an NGA spokesman, said the motion was filed reluctantly.

 “Our intent was to ensure that our members had a voice in this,” Goheen said. “But it’s been twisted in every direction by those seeking to politicize this.”

He said he supported the solution of accepting all absentee ballots up to Nov. 5 as requested in the lawsuit filed jointly by the Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee and Ohio Democratic Party in July.

“We have no problem with that. We’re really not taking sides in this,” said Goheen, who explained that NGA’s main concern is making voting as easy as possible for servicemembers overseas. 

McGuire admits a “complexity problem” still exists for troops trying to navigate the absentee ballot process.

The acronyms for the different laws alone can be an obstacle. On the federal level, there is the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), the Military and Overseas Empowerment Act (MOVE), and the Uniformed Military and Overseas Voter Act (UMOVA).

Then, each state has its own election laws and guidelines, and the counties within the states have their own registrars and timelines troops must meet.

Under UMOVA, states can approve voting by e-mail, which McGuire said could help root out a lot of the confusion surrounding the request for and mailing of absentee ballots

UMOVA has only been adopted by the District of Columbia and seven states: Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia. FVAP itself is not enthusiastic about e-mail voting because of privacy concerns.

Despite the legal and bureaucratic hurdles, registration and voting rates by troops have improved to rates comparable to that of the general population, according to FVAP and the non-profit Overseas Vote Foundation.

“This is despite the fact that military members face more difficulties in voting than the folks at home,” McGuire said.

Military voters are also overwhelmingly male and in the 18-24 age group that traditionally has a lower participation rate.

In 2006, the adjusted voting rate for the active-duty military was 43 percent compared to 48 percent for civilians. In the 2008 presidential election year, the military rate was 54 percent and the civilian rate 64 percent, FVAP surveys showed. Two years later, the military rate had drawn even at 46 percent.

The military has voting assistance officers for all units with more than 50 servicemembers, but they sometimes work against a culture in which troops refrain from voting to stay non-partisan.

“There is some tradition, particularly in the officer corps, of choosing not to vote,” McGuire said. “We are not trying to turn people who’ve made a choice not to vote into voters.”

Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president of the Overseas Vote Foundation, said “it almost makes you want to cry” to see troops who are defending democracy rejecting the opportunity to participate in elections.

“We don’t think it has to do with the system anymore. The system has dramatically improved.  The real challenge is not in the process so much as it’s in the outreach,” Dzieduszycka-Suinat said.

The outreach has deadlines. Pentagon officials recommend that troops mail their absentee ballots from the following countries no later than:

—Iraq: 22 days before the election;

—Afghanistan (excluding Airstop locations), Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, Oman and Turkmenistan: 17 days before the election;

—Germany: 11 days before the election;

—Afghanistan Airstop locations, Guantanamo Bay, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates: 10 days before the election.

—Japan, Korea and the Philippines: seven days before the election.

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In the coming weeks Judge Katherine Forrest will decide whether to issue a permanent ban on the indefinite detention section of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Journalists and activists have sued to stop the provisions, which would allow the government to indefinitely detain anyone who provides "substantial support" to the Taliban, al-Qaeda or "associated forces."

The plaintiffs claim that the provisions are so vague they would chill free speech and restrict the ability to associate with people the government doesn't like.

Based on the her previous ruling to temporarily block the provisions, Forrest is expected to make the controversial provisions permanently null and void for the time being.

The government will do everything it can to overturn any ban by appealing to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and potentially the Supreme Court. 

Carl Mayer, one of lawyers for the plaintiffs, said the case is "a tough fight" because in the history of the U.S. there have only been 130 laws that have been declared unconstitutional and upheld as such by the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, Mayer is optimistic because of Forrest's previous opinions.

In May Forrest ordered a preliminary injunction on the grounds that the provisions are so vague that they are unconstitutional based on the the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The First Amendment protects free expression, including freedom of press rights so that journalists aren't targeted due to the nature of their work and opinions they express. The Due Process Clause Fifth Amendment requires that U.S. citizens be "entitled to understand the scope and nature of statutes which might subject them to criminal penalties."

The defendants — Barack Obama, Leon Panetta, John McCain, John Boehner, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor — then argued that the order only stopped the government from indefinitely detaining the plaintiffs.

But Judge Forrest clarified her decision on June 6 to "leave no doubt" that U.S. citizens cannot be indefinitely detained without due process. 

The arguments revolve around Section 1021 of the bill, which says:

The President has the authority to detain persons that the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks.The President also has the authority to detain persons who were part of or substantially supported, Taliban or al-Qaida forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act, or has directly supported hostilities, in the aid of such enemy forces. 

The government has argued that Section 1021 does nothing new and is simply an "affirmation" of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a joint resolution passed a week after 9/11. But the AUMF only says that the president has the authority "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those ... [who] aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such organizations or persons."

The plaintiffs argued that the "substantial support" and "associated forces" language added to the NDAA is so vague that it would actively suppress free expression and association because the government could detain U.S. citizens without trial for speaking to anyone considered a "terrorist."

Forrest has agreed with the plaintiffs so far.

She even provided the government the opportunity to define which actions and associations would lead to indefinite detention – thereby limiting the scope of indefinite detention powers – but the government chose not to.

Below is a very informative Revolution Truth panel held last week that included several of the plaintiffs and their lead attorneys as well as activists and journalists (including this reporter):

SEE ALSO: This Amendment Legalizes The Use Of Propaganda On The US Public >

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Despite aircraft carriers immense cost, the Navy believes there is no replacing a well-armed, aircraft equipped, sovereign piece of U.S. territory, powered by dual nuclear reactors.

Former Defense Secretary William Cohen was fond of saying that without "flattops" the U.S. has "less of a voice, less of an influence."

Perhaps, but there is another school of thought that questions the wisdom of floating something that expensive within range of an attack that may send it to the bottom of the sea.

Despite which group you fall into, carriers are likely here to stay as the U.S. works to replace its aging fleet with the new Ford class carriers and China builds up a fleet of its own. We thought we'd take a look at the carriers each country has in service today.

The NAe São Paulo was bought by Brazil for $12 million from France in 2000

Length: 869 ft

Commissioned: 2000

Carries: 39 aircraft including A-4 Skyhawks and S-70B Seahawk helicopters

Crew: 1,920 seamen 

Propulsion System: 6 boilers, 4 steam turbines, 2 propellers

History: For an absolute bargain price of $12 million, for a naval flagship, the São Paulo was bought by Brazil to upgrade their ailing fleet.

Originally launched in 1959 by France as the Foch, she served in a number of NATO efforts all around the world.

Since the transfer to Brazil, she underwent an upgrade from 2005 to 2010 and has been stocked with S-70B Seahawk helicopters and A-4 Skyhawks, the latter bought from Kuwait. 

The INS Viraat was Britain's flagship in the Falklands War before being sold to India

Length: 743 ft

Commissioned: 1987

Carries: Up to 30 aircraft, including the Sea Harrier and the Sea King

Crew: Maximum 2,100 crew. Typically 1,207 sailors and 143 airmen

Propulsion System: 4 boilers, 2 steam turbines

History: India purchased the HMS Hermes from England in 1986, renaming it the INS Viraat after a series of upgrades and modifications. The Viraat has been refitted to last for another 20 years while India builds its own aircraft carriers. 

As the Hermes, the ship was the Royal Navy Flagship during the 1982 Falklands war 

The Cavour is one of Italy's two aircraft carriers and will host the F-35 JSF

Length: 735 ft

Commissioned: 2008

Carries: 20-30 aircraft, including the Harrier combat jet. 

Crew: 451 crew, 203 airmen, 140 command staff and 325 Marines.  

Propulsion System: 2 gas turbines, 6 diesel generators

History: Launched in 2004, the Cavour's first mission was an aid mission to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

The Cavour  will be eventually be stocked with the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter, replacing the aging Harriers. It has room for ten F-35Bs in the hanger and six on the deck.

The F-35B is the version of the jet with a short takeoff and vertical landing capabilities.

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An Afghan police commander and his men invited at least three U.S. Special Forces soldiers to dinner Thursday to discuss security, and killed them in an apparent ambush.

Abdul Malik at Reuters reports the police had drawn up a plan to kill the soldiers, shot them, and then fled.

This may be one of the most striking of what are called "green on blue" shootings, when the Afghans who Americans are tasked to train turn their weapons and target U.S. troops.

There have been about 28 such attacks this year killing 34 coalition troops, following 35 killed in 21 attacks in 2011.

Matthew Rosenberg at The New York Times reports the meal was at an outpost and says the number of U.S. troops killed may actually be four.

Rosenberg also mentions that at least one of the Afghan officers had been working with the Special Forces troops for four years, and that shootings like this may arise from personal disputes, not Taliban infiltration.

But the Los Angeles Times reports that is not the case in this incident, as the Taliban have claimed responsibility for the killings, and say the gunmen have defected to the insurgency.

The LA Times goes on to say that the Taliban are calling the police commander a "hero" who brought the militant group his store of weapons, as well.

Special Forces (SOF) soldiers are commonly used in Afghanistan to train local police. It's a procedure meant to lower the attrition rate of the police force and establish long-term relationships with local law enforcement.

This is part of a wider U.S. policy that calls for more SOF troops on the ground in Afghanistan as ground troops prepare for withdrawal in 2014.

There is speculation this plan is in response to the deteriorating situation in Iraq following the U.S. withdrawal, but there is no confirmation on this from the Pentagon.

Either way the maneuver will leave U.S. soldiers, like these that were killed yesterday, on the ground in Afghanistan well beyond 2014.

Now: See what life is life for US Sailors and Marines aboard the USS Wasp >

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One of the major possibilities in the future of gun control — and manufacturing in general — is the potential of 3D printers to build items from scratch. 

That has led to at least one person designing and printing parts for an AR-15 rifle. He may be the first to test his work. 

This morning Wired's Danger Room had a post about engineer Michael Guslick's effort to print an AR-15 from scratch. Using the schematics for the firearm, Guslick was able to digitally represent parts of the rifle and print them. 

That data file is sent to the printer, which interprets it and "prints" a 3-D real world model of the file. The process is legitimately used in design when developing prototypes and models of engineering designs. 

The gun is made of polymer plastic, but the technology behind 3D printing is progressing at a rate that could make inexpensive metal "ink" a possibility soon. Some companies already have prototype metal 3D printers.

The part of this story that nobody is covering is how Guslick's work can be spread around the internet. Moreover, it — or an imitator's work — already has. 

There's a very active "Physible" community that spreads designs that contributors wrote up in code. By spreading this around, different people with 3D printers can collaborate and expand on their work. A lot of people use bittorrent sites to spread these around.

Bittorrent is a downloading system where a group of people who have a file each send a portion of the file to a downloader. This is coordinated by a downloadable .torrent file that links the group together. With standard downloading, the transaction is from one uploader to one downloader. With bittorrent, it's teamwork.

Quick heads-up: Due to their dubious legality, Torrent download sites may be considered not safe for work. They have racy advertisements too. So use judgement when clicking these links.

Here, for instance, is a downloadable file for a 3D print of Mark Zuckerburg's head. Innocent enough. Here's a file to print a model aircraft. Here's a videogame necklace. 

Here is the data file to print an AR-15 rifle part. Here's the data file for the receiver and magazine.

Now, we haven't checked these files to make sure they're the real deal. But if they are, they introduce a whole mess of legal questions.

When guns can be downloaded and manufactured reliably, that's when gun control as it is currently understood goes completely out the window. It becomes obsolete. 

In order to regulate, the government would have to contend with an assortment of free speech issues; would possession of the code for an illegal gun be a crime? Can writing that code be considered an expression of free speech? Can executing it?

Right now, the technology has not progressed to the point where an operational firearm can be printed and used. But it's getting there, and the designs are already becoming free to share and download.

Once the tech catches up, though, prepare for one of the first controversies involving both the first and second amendment. 

Now check out the 20 aircraft carriers in the world >

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The House of Representatives approved in July a bill that’s likely to spark a showdown on military spending.

In the face of looming defense cuts and amped-up warnings on Capitol Hill, there are three things that experts wish every American – and politician, for that matter – knew about the Pentagon’s financial state of affairs.

1. America today spends more on defense (even adjusting for inflation) than it did during the Reagan buildup

Supporters of robust defense spending tend to justify these expenditures by claiming that the world is much more dangerous today. 

“[T]he evidence for that is pretty thin,” says Christopher Preble, vice president for defense and policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “The Soviet Union on its worst day was capable of ending life on this planet in a few minutes. It could do more damage in a few minutes than Al Qaeda has managed to inflict in over a decade.”

Still, the United States continues to spend some $520 billion every year – plus the costs of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars – for U.S. military operations. In an acknowledgement of this, Reps. Mick Mulvaney (R) of South Carolina and Barney Frank (D) of Massachusetts proposed an amendment to freeze Pentagon spending at current levels. It passed with support from 158 Democrats and 89 Republicans, and the House voted July 19 to give the Pentagon $607 billion in total this year. This is more than the Senate – which has yet to propose its own version of the defense bill – or the White House says it wants.

2. Most Americans, regardless of political party, support more defense cuts

A new study finds that Americans want more defense cuts than do the politicians who represent them. They are also willing to accept on the order of one-quarter more cuts in military spending than the Obama administration is proposing. The White House has been anxious to seem hawkish on defense, particularly in an election year.

Americans surveyed by the Stimson Center proposed the highest cuts for the Afghan war, where they would like spending to be $53 billion. Annual spending in Afghanistan currently totals $115 billion. The administration has proposed a drop to $89 billion.

Most interesting to Matthew Leatherman, a research analyst at Stimson, is that support for defense cuts is equally strong in congressional districts that would stand to lose the most from them – in other words, areas where big defense corporations and jobs are based.

Indeed, 75 percent of voters in the top 10 percent of districts that benefit the most from defense spending actually want more cuts than the average of voters in the survey.

There was a slight partisan divide, Mr. Leatherman says. Voters in Democratic districts would cut defense spending by 22 percent, while voters in Republican areas would cut defense spending by 18 percent.

Still, the difference is “statistically insignificant,” Leatherman says. “We’re hearing a lot of rhetoric right now on the Hill and on the campaign trail about this being a wedge issue. But in our survey, the wedge just wasn’t there.”

3. Automatic defense cuts won’t devastate the U.S. economy – and may even help it

The companies that make America’s fighter jets, drones, and big-ticket weapons items warned in a press conference this week that a series of forced budget cuts known as “sequestration” would cost America more than 2 million jobs if it goes into effect.

Among other things, sequestration involves some $55 billion worth of automatic cuts in the defense budget. It’s set to go into effect in January unless Congress and the Obama administration can agree on a plan to curb the nation’s deficit.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned that such cuts would have dire effects on U.S. national security.

Moreover, the cuts would reduce America’s gross domestic product by $215 billion, says Stephen Fuller, an economist at George Mason University who works with the Aerospace Industries Association. “The results are bleak but clear-cut,” he said. “The unemployment rate will climb above 9 percent, pushing the economy toward recession and reducing projected growth in 2013 by two-thirds.”

It’s not an uncommon view. Travis Sharp, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, which has close ties to the Obama administration, warns that sequestration will “most definitely have negative impacts on employment and on workers in the defense industrial base.”

He worries, too, about the impact on defense research-and-development dollars, something he fears will be disproportionately affected by sequestration cuts. “A lot of the things that people use every day started out as research projects at the DOD,” he says, citing, for example, the Internet.

Others, however, say it's a good idea to keep the budget cuts in perspective. The DOD base budget under sequestration would be $469 billion – about what the Pentagon spent in 2006, when it was in the middle of fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It was “not exactly a lean year for the Pentagon,” Dr. Preble notes.

Indeed, many of the predictions are overly dire, says Preble, who has studied regions that have experienced reductions in military spending in the past. Cuts initiated after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 “were far deeper and faster than what we’re contemplating under sequestration,” he says.

Still, after an initial economic impact, those communities closely tied to the defense sector nonetheless “recovered quite quickly and prospered with a more diversified economy,” Preble says. “So the question really comes down to, How long is that economic adjustment process?” Research indicates that the effects are most dramatic the year they happen, then decline dramatically over time.

As for claims that defense cuts would mean millions of lost jobs? “That seems implausible considering that the cuts would amount to less than 3/10s of 1 percent of GDP,” Preble says. “More to the point, the defense budget should never be seen as a jobs program.”

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The U.S. cable networks won't be covering this one tonight (not accurately, anyway), but Trapwire is making the rounds on social media today—it reportedly became a Trending hashtag on Twitter earlier in the day.

Trapwire is the name of a program revealed in the latest Wikileaks bonanza—it is the mother of all leaks, by the way. Trapwire would make something like disclosure of UFO contact or imminent failure of a major U.S. bank fairly boring news by comparison.

And someone out there seems to be quite disappointed that word is getting out so swiftly; the Wikileaks web site is reportedly sustaining 10GB worth of DDoS attacks each second, which is massive.

Anyway, here's what Trapwire is, according to Russian-state owned media network RT (apologies for citing "foreign media"... if we had a free press, I'd be citing something published here by an American media conglomerate): "Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology—and have installed it across the U.S. under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by Anonymous.

Every few seconds, data picked up at surveillance points in major cities and landmarks across the United States are recorded digitally on the spot, then encrypted and instantaneously delivered to a fortified central database center at an undisclosed location to be aggregated with other intelligence. It’s part of a program called TrapWire and it's the brainchild of the Abraxas, a Northern Virginia company staffed with elite from America’s intelligence community.

The employee roster at Arbaxas reads like a who’s who of agents once with the Pentagon, CIA and other government entities according to their public LinkedIn profiles, and the corporation's ties are assumed to go deeper than even documented. The details on Abraxas and, to an even greater extent TrapWire, are scarce, however, and not without reason. For a program touted as a tool to thwart terrorism and monitor activity meant to be under wraps, its understandable that Abraxas would want the program’s public presence to be relatively limited. But thanks to last year’s hack of the Strategic Forecasting intelligence agency, or Stratfor, all of that is quickly changing."

So: those spooky new "circular" dark globe cameras installed in your neighborhood park, town, or city—they aren't just passively monitoring. They're plugged into Trapwire and they are potentially monitoring every single person via facial recognition.

In related news, the Obama administration is fighting in federal court this week for the ability to imprison American citizens under NDAA's indefinite detention provisions—and anyone else—without charge or trial, on suspicion alone.

So we have a widespread network of surveillance cameras across America monitoring us and reporting suspicious activity back to a centralized analysis center, mixed in with the ability to imprison people via military force on the basis of suspicious activity alone. I don't see how that could possibly go wrong. Nope, not at all. We all know the government, and algorithmic computer programs, never make mistakes.

Here's what is also so disturbing about this whole NDAA business, according to Tangerine Bolen's piece in the Guardian: "This past week's hearing was even more terrifying. Government attorneys again, in this hearing, presented no evidence to support their position and brought forth no witnesses. Most incredibly, Obama's attorneys refused to assure the court, when questioned, that the NDAA's section 1021 – the provision that permits reporters and others who have not committed crimes to be detained without trial – has not been applied by the U.S. government anywhere in the world after Judge Forrest's injunction. In other words, they were telling a U.S. federal judge that they could not, or would not, state whether Obama's government had complied with the legal injunction that she had laid down before them. To this, Judge Forrest responded that if the provision had indeed been applied, the United States government would be in contempt of court."

If none of this bothers you, please don't follow me on Twitter, because nothing I report on will be of interest to you. Go back to watching the television news network of your choice, where you will hear about Romney's latest campaign ads, and whether Obamacare will increase the cost of delivery pizza by 14 to 16 cents.

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David Seamanon

Now, check out the 20 most powerful ships on the seas, the world's Aircraft Carriers >

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