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Organised crime is changing and becoming increasingly diverse in its methods, group structures, and impact on society, reveals Europol’s 2011 Organised Crime Threat Assessment (OCTA), published today.

The bi–annual report, which assesses current and expected trends in organised crime affecting the European Union, explores how a new criminal landscape is emerging, marked increasingly by highly mobile and flexible groups operating in multiple jurisdictions and criminal sectors.

The report highlights the fact that criminal groups are increasingly multi–commodity and poly–criminal in their activities, gathering diverse portfolios of criminal business interests, improving their resilience at a time of economic austerity and strengthening their capability to identify and exploit new illicit markets. Activities such as carbon credit fraud, payment card fraud and commodity counterfeiting attract increasing interest due to a lower level of perceived risk.

Summary of the Report (Full Report Below)

EU Organised Crime Threat Assessment: OCTA 2011

Phi Beta Iota:  This is the executive summary paragraph that resonates with us:

• The knowing cooperation of specialists in the transport, financial, real estate, legal and pharmaceutical sectors is a notable facilitating factor for organised crime. In the current economic climate businesses, particularly in sectors capable of providing support for commodity trafficking or money laundering, have become more vulnerable to corruptive influence.

Amazon Page

Electronic Privacy Information Center (Author), Marc Rotenberg (Editor), Harry A. Hammitt (Editor), Ginger McCall (Editor), John A. Verdi (Editor), Mark S. Zaid (Editor)

I’m exploring a major campaign to expose illegal actions across the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals and the Defense Intelligence Agency in particular, and in talking to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) leadership got a chance to understand just how vital and USEFUL this guide is.

Senator Patrick Leahy, co-sponsor of the OPEN Government Act of 2007, and many others are on record as considering this the single most indispensable tool in any citizen’s toolkit.

For myself, having seen the capricious, arbitrary, and often unethical and even abusive manner in which DIA Personnel “cooks the books” and manipulates job announcements and screening decisions, and having been personally privy to enormous abuse by the Director of the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals and a specifc group of his subordinates, consider this manual essential to my own search for justice.

Although I will use it more to inform myself so I can assist the specialist lawyers in making the most of what I know in their probing inquires at DIA and DOHA, I certainly recommend it to any citizen that has a specific concern that is not getting a fair hearing.

I also recommend the publisher and experts that put it together, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Many folks do not realize that they have been one of the leading champions of open government, and have also been one of the leading champions in exposing fraud, waste, and abuse that has been concealed by secrecy.

The US Government, in my view, as a general observation, is out of control and no longer representative of We the People. This is the handbook for citizens to use in holding every branch of the federal government accountable for its misbehavior and its dereliction of duty in failing to represent the public interest as opposed to the interest of its very big stakeholders who are recipients of the tax dollar rather than contributors to the treasury of the Republic.

Arm yourself with this knowledge, and go into battle confident in the righteousness of your cause.

See Also [Amazon book link still broken]:

Piercing the Veil of Secrecy: Litigation Against U.S. Intelligence by Janine Brookner

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167 Page PDF

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Source (December 2005)

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Kristan Wheaton posted the below to his blog yesterday:

Thursday, March 31, 2011

How To Negotiate A Ceasefire (HDCentre.org)

The Pentagon Labyrinth

It is my pleasure to announce the publication of The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It. This is a short pamphlet of less than 150 pages and is available at no cost in E-Book PDF format, as well as in hard copy from links on this page as well as here and here.  Included in the menu below are download links for a wide variety of supplemental/supporting information (much previously unavailable on the web) describing how notions of combat effectiveness relate to the basic building blocks of people, ideas, and hardware/technology; the nature of strategy; and the dysfunctional character of the Pentagon’s decision making procedures and the supporting role of its  accounting shambles.

Chuck Spinney
The Blaster

This pamphlet aims to help both newcomers and seasoned observers learn how to grapple with the problems of national defense.  Intended for readers who are frustrated with the superficial nature of the debate on national security, this handbook takes advantage of the insights of ten unique professionals, each with decades of experience in the armed services, the Pentagon bureaucracy, Congress, the intelligence community, military history, journalism and other disciplines.  The short but provocative essays will help you to:

• identify the decay – moral, mental and physical – in America’s defenses,
• understand the various “tribes” that run bureaucratic life in the Pentagon,
• appreciate what too many defense journalists are not doing, but should,
• conduct first rate national security oversight instead of second rate theater,
• separate careerists from ethical professionals in senior military and civilian ranks,
• learn to critique strategies, distinguishing the useful from the agenda-driven,
• recognize the pervasive influence of money in defense decision-making,
• unravel the budget games the Pentagon and Congress love to play,
• understand how to sort good weapons from bad – and avoid high cost failures, and
• reform the failed defense procurement system without changing a single law.

The handbook ends with lists of contacts, readings and Web sites carefully selected to facilitate further understanding of the above, and more.

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Marcus Aurelius Recommends

(1) If true, probably a good idea.

Amazon Page ($25)

This Handbook entry is inspired by the search <first earth battalion operations manual>.  We really appreciate searches of this nature, as they cause us to add entries that *should* be here.  Thank you for the search.

First Earth Battalion Home (Current!)

Wikipedia Page First Earth Battalion

First Earth Battalion Field Manual Free (Display & PDF for Print or Download)

Alternative Source of Field Manual Free (PDF)

First Earth Battalion Field Manual Text Only

Ran Hock

PLATINUM LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT, Dr. Ran Hock

Dr. Ran Hock has done more than any single individual to educate both government and private sector parties with respect to the value of the deep web.  He has single-handedly trained hundreds of individuals in the nuances of this major new intelligence resource base.  Emphasizing individual analytic skills and common sense rather than arcane expensive and generally unproductive technologies, he represents the intersection of integrity, intelligence, and intuition in the service of all legitimate governments and organizations.

OSINT Online Training Handbook

The blurb from Arno Reuser, founder and chief of the Dutch military open source intelligence division, says essentially that attending Ran Hock’s course once a year made him look smart for the entire year.  Arno is a master librarian and a giant in the field, he is being modest, but this is the kind of praise that Ran Hock’s earns from the “best of the best.”