Is this a good time to mention Amber's article in The Guardian today,
too?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/31/internationalcrime
Nice one!
David.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Research and teaching on surveillance
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of amber marks
>Sent: 31 March 2008 02:21
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: The Pentagon's Battle Bugs
>
>If you are interested in this topic you should enjoy my book Headspace!
>
>On 3/30/08, Eric Toepfer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> this might be interest for those list members who are interested in
>> the military dimension of surveillance.
>> eric
>>
>> +++
>>
>> Tomgram: Nick Turse, The Pentagon's Battle Bugs
>>
>> We at Tomdispatch love anniversaries. So how could we have forgotten
>> DARPA's for so many months? This very year, the Pentagon's research
>> outfit, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), turns
>> 50 old. Happy birthday, DARPA! You were born as a response to the
>> Soviet Union's launching of the first earth-girdling satellite,
>> Sputnik, which gave Americans a mighty shock. To prevent another
>> "technological surprise" by the Soviets -- or anybody else,
>any time,
>> ever -- the agency has grown into the Pentagon's good right arm,
>> always there to reach into the future and grab another wild idea for
>> weaponization. Each year, DARPA now spends about $3 billion on a
>> two-fold mission: "to prevent technological surprise for us
>and to create technological surprise for our adversaries."
>>
>> Next month, the agency will celebrate its anniversary with a
>> conference that aims to "reflect on [its] challenges and
>> accomplishments... over the past 50 years and to consider the
Agency's
>> goals for the next 50 years." What a super idea! Think of that. The
>> next 50! If only Tomdispatch is still around
>> -- my brain well preserved and renewed (thanks to some nifty
>> cutting-edge science from the TD Advanced Research Projects
>Lab) -- to
>> see War 2058 arrive and blow out those 100-year anniversary
>candles on the planet.
>>
>> In the meantime, the future is now and Pentagon expert Nick Turse is
>> at work
>> -- see below -- on the latest developments in DARPA's plans
>to help an
>> overstretched military by reaching into the insect kingdom for its
>> newest well weaponized recruits. The first larval Marines, perhaps.
>> Ten-HUT! Unlike Americans at present, they should simply
>swarm to the recruiting offices.
>>
>> It's a strange (not to say hair-raising) subject for a
>journalist who
>> has lately been covering the air war in Iraq and elsewhere for
>> Tomdispatch. But the Pentagon's urge to weaponize the wild
>kingdom is
>> a topic Turse has long been familiar with and that he deals with
>> powerfully in his remarkable new book, The Complex: How the Military
>> Invades Our Everyday Lives. It is -- believe me -- the single most
>> powerful look yet at all the subtle and complicated ways American
>> lives have been militarized during the last decades. (For a short
>> video discussion I had with Turse, click here.)
>>
>> Oh, and here's a suggestion for DARPA from a New Yorker. When you're
>> recruiting those bugs, don't forget the roaches in my
>kitchen. They've
>> been idle too long. Tom
>>
>>
>>
>> Weaponizing the Pentagon's Cyborg InsectsA Futuristic Nightmare That
>> Just Might Come True By Nick Turse
>>
>>
>>
>> Biological weapons delivered by cyborg insects. It sounds like a
>> nightmare scenario straight out of the wilder realms of science
>> fiction, but it could be a reality, if a current Pentagon
>project comes to fruition.
>>
>> Click here to read more of this dispatch.
>>
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