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By Udora Orizu

The House of Representatives has asked the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) and the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development to immediately stop issuing licences to oil serving companies for the importation of explosives.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Mines and Steel Development, Hon. Micheal Enyong Okon, gave the directive in his ruling at an investigative hearing on licencing and sale of explosive devices by chief executives of some oil servicing companies in Nigeria.

He said some companies were not complying with the extant laws, and with the prevailing security situation in the country, there is the need to ascertain the adherence of these companies to extant statutes and regulations on explosives control vis-a-vis the administration and utilisation generally.

The lawmaker said the companies were importing more than authorised, fearing that the explosives could get into the hands of terrorists who may use it against the country.

Okon said: It is important that we educate them on the need to ensure that the administration and utilisation of explosives is in accordance with the Explosives Act of 1967 as contained in the laws of Nigeria. The permit is issued by the Ministry of Mines and Steel, and the end users certificate is also issued by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA).

The end user certificate would also show the items you brought into the country. You can have less of these products. It is not a problem, but when you have more than what was authorised, what you were allowed in the permit, it therefore means that you are importing these explosives illegally into the country, and that is worrisome, especially in the prevailing security situation in the country. So, we want to know the whereabouts of these explosives. We want to make sure these particular items do not end up in the wrong hands-it can be terrorists, aliens. Thats why we are here to make sure there is a corresponding inventory from the end users.

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Insecurity: House Urges NSA to Stop Issuing Licences for Importation of Explosives - THISDAY Newspapers

By Paul Rosenzweig, Ph.D., The George Washington University Law SchoolTerrorist Investigations Before 9/11

As the 9/11 Commission states, in December 1999, the NSA picked up the movements of Khalid al-Mihdhar, an individual then identified as Nawaf Mihdhar, which linked him to a terrorist facility in the Middle East.

Mihdhar was tracked to Kuala Lumpur, where he met with other then-unidentified individuals. Some photographs were taken of these men on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. The surveillance trailed off when three of them moved on to Bangkok on January 8, 2000. Those pictures became relevant to the FBIs pre-attack criminal investigation in July 2001.

Unfortunately, as the 9/11 Commission found, the NSA reports contained caveats that their contents could not be shared with criminal investigators without the Office of Intelligence Policy Reviews (OIPRs) permission.

Therefore, an FBI intelligence analyst who reviewed the material concluded she could not pass the information contained in these reports to the FBI. She neither asked OIPR for permission to share the reports, nor did she explain to the agents anything about the caveats, only that she could not share the information due to a wall.

And what was this wall? In October 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed into law the FISA legislation that established a new framework for American policy, mandating a strict separation of the CIA and the FBI. In effect, the Congress erected a wall between intelligence gathering and law enforcement.

This is a transcript from the video series The Surveillance State: Big Data, Freedom, and You. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

The creation of the wall, and rules governing it, erected a compliance culture within the FBI, where failure to follow procedure could result in adverse personnel actions.

The failures of 9/11 were less about statutory language and more about human fears, hesitations, an abundance of caution and the inability of bureaucratic organizations to adapt to discrete circumstances.

Even more than a wall, the law created a spacea dangerous voidbetween the governments criminal and intelligence sides of the house.

Learn more about local police on the cyber beat.

In late September 2001, the executive branch sent to the Congress a draft legislation proposing changes to FISAs certification requirement for electronic surveillance and physical search applications. In the area of foreign intelligence collection, the prescribed change was from the purpose to a purpose.

Associate Deputy Attorney General David Kris testified at a September 24, 2001, hearing on the legislation that the animating purpose of the change was to bring the two sides together; allow for a single unified, cohesive response; and avoid splintering and fragmentation.

Even then, some civil libertarians expressed concern. Critics of the legislation thought that simply requiring that foreign intelligence be a purpose of the collection was too big a blank check for the government to make use of FISA.

As a compromise, the proposed law was changed from the purpose to a significant purpose.

The FISA Court of Review, as an appeals court for the FISA Court itself, summarized the new standard.

It said that the FISA Court should not deny an application if ordinary crimes were inextricably intertwined with foreign intelligence crimes.

So long as foreign intelligence was a realistic option, using the relaxed FISA procedures was acceptable. On the other hand, the review court said the FISA process cannot be used as a device to investigate wholly unrelated ordinary crimes.

Learn more about East Germanys Stasi State.

What all of this demonstrates is the cyclical nature of legislative and judicial branch oversight of national security activities over the course of U.S. history.

The pendulum swings back and forth, over and over again. The CIA, the FBI, and later, the NSA undertook extensive surveillance of Americans during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. These activities were largely unregulated, hence the response by the legislative and judicial branches was to impose controls.

Congress passed Title III, mandating judicial pre-approval of electronic surveillance; then the Supreme Court decided the Keith Case in 1972, interpreting Title III to extend to domestic security investigations; and then Congress passed FISA in 1978, bringing surveillance activities aimed at foreign intelligence collection under judicial review as well.

A comparable cycle occurred after 9/11. The Bush Administration took the position that the Patriot Act of October 2001 authorized it to frequently task the NSA to conduct warrantless surveillance. Then came public backlash and, later, somewhat greater restrictions.

For now, we can end with a better understanding of why so many voices in the intelligence community were convinced that the government needed to share intelligence information more widely than it had before the 9/11 attacks.

We cannot prove a counterfactual premise that had the FBI possessed the information it was not allowed, the terror attacks would have been averted. But that is our suspicion and so, just like in Berlin a generation earlier, the wall had to come down.

Before 9/11, intelligence was sometimes shared in inappropriate manners like using evidence collected illegally for a criminal case which would lead to the evidence being thrown out.

Before 9/11, the FBI feared using evidence or even asking for authorization. They began being very cautious when it came to handling evidence and this led to criminal and intelligence institutions cooperating less than ever.

After 9/11, many changes were introduced in the system but when it came to FISA, the Congress acted very quickly. They proposed changes to the legislation so as to cover its weak points like when it came to certification requirements for surveillance and physical search.

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The Effects of 9/11 on Intelligence Sharing - The Great Courses Daily News

MANILA, Philippines -- The Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines (ABAP) managed to qualify two boxers to the Tokyo Olympics, just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the sports world last year.

Middleweight Eumir Marcial and flyweight Irish Magno booked their tickets to the Olympics in the Asia and Oceania Boxing Qualification Tournament in Amman, Jordan, with Marcial even bagging the gold medal in the 75 kg division.

ABAP, headed by President Ricky Vargas, is hopeful that at least two more boxers will secure their spots as well, once the International Olympic Committee Boxing Task Force comes out with its final list of qualified boxers to the Tokyo Games. The final qualification tournament, set in May, had been cancelled due to the pandemic.

The federation is pinning its hopes on flyweight Carlo Paalam and bantamweight Nesthy Petecio, a former world champion, to make it based on their current rankings.

For its consistent work of sending Filipino boxers to the Olympics, ABAP will receive the National Sports Association (NSA) of the Year award in the Philippine Sportswriters Association Awards Night on March 27, to be held virtually.

This is the second straight year that the boxing federation has received the award.

ABAP qualified two boxers in the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympics in Rogen Ladon (light flyweight) and Charly Suarez (lightweight), although none of them was able to get past the round-of-16.

This time, the federation hopes to surpass the numbers should Petecio and Paalam make it to the final qualifying list.

But the 25-year-old Marcial looms as boxing's biggest hope for a possible first ever gold medal following his impressive triumph during the Asia-Oceania qualifiers last year.

Now fighting as a pro, the native of Lunzuran, Zamboanga eked out a close 3-2 decision against Abilkhan Amankul of Kazakhstan to win the gold and make it to the Olympics.

The 29-year-old Magno, was not fortunate to make the semifinals of the same tournament in Jordan, but clinched a berth in Tokyo after winning her box-off against Sumaiya Qosimova of Taijikistan, 5-0, to become the first Filipina boxer to reach the Olympics.

Pro golfer Yuka Saso headlines the 2020 honor roll of the country's oldest media organization headed by President Tito S. Talao, sports editor of the Manila Bulletin, as she will be recognized with the prestigious Athlete of the Year honor.

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Philippine Sportswriters Association, PSA Awards Night, ABAP, Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines, boxing, Eumir Marcial, Nesthy Petecio, Irish Magno, national sports association

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ABAP named NSA of the year after sending 2 boxers to Tokyo Games - ABS-CBN News

Having signed the four basic US military foundational agreements necessary for interoperability the last of those in October 2020 the Narendra Modi government will now be taking Indias military relationship with the United States several notches higher. If things move at the governments pace, India will soon be a de facto US ally without any clarity on how this will enhance the countrys defence against the combined China-Pakistan threat. Or how it would help establish geopolitical equilibrium with China.

When US secretary of defence Lloyd J. Austin III comes to India (March 19-21) after his visits to Japan and South Korea both formal US allies in Asia on the table for discussion will be the Pentagons multi domain operations (MDO) warfighting concept. That this is in the offing was indicated by the army chief, General M.M. Naravane during his February 24 address at a webinar organised by the Vivekanand International Foundation (VIF). According to Gen. Naravane, multi domain operations are the future of war for which the Indian Army is preparing.

Coming to grips with the shift in US military thinking

While the army chiefs sudden switch to MDO from network-centric operations (NCO) may have come as a surprise to many, the national security advisor, and by extension the Prime Ministers Office (PMO), had been working the ropes to get under the broader and more definitive US security umbrella. I believe that the NSAs office was acquainted with the idea of MDO during the Ladakh crisis, when in desperation the government was looking at all options to counter China. These included seeking non-traditional (by Indian thinking) means as well. A few start-ups, familiar with some of the technologies involved, have been working with the NSAs office on developing an Indian version of MDO. This was the reason the Modi government rushed to sign Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) last year even when it was unclear if Trump administration would return to power.

The Biden administration is determined to do more than incorporate allies and partners (like India) into its MDO warfighting concept. Even before the US Indo-Pacific commander (INDOPACOM), Admiral Philip Davidson recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Chinese military aggression towards Taiwan and India could manifest in fact in the next six years, the White House had asked the Pentagon to conduct a task force review on how to meet the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) challenge in Asia. Senior US officials, including the joint chiefs chairman, General Mark Milley, have gone public in suggesting what steps needed to be taken to stem the US military downslide.

The steps suggested by US military officers are meant to address two major issues: How to meet the PLAs anti access and area denial (A2AD) challenge, and how to strengthen US militarys conventional deterrence by MDO.

A2AD is the US military term for what the PLA calls its counter-intervention strategy comprising its long and medium range ballistic missiles, hypersonic and supersonic cruise missiles, early warning and long-range radars, integrated air and missile defence system, long range reconnaissance satellites and aircraft, cyber, electronic, and counter space capabilities. The counter-invention strategy or A2AD weapons are meant to disallow US military access to its bases, and to deny force operational freedom of action once there.

At the heart of this strategy is Chinas systems destruction warfare exemplified by its awesome projective-centric (missiles) warfare and ability to destroy US networks which connect its kill chain. The latter also called the Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) loop is a three-part process consisting of understanding the situation, deciding on the course of action at the command-and-control operating centres, and ordering the appropriate shooter (missiles, guns, laser guided bombs, laser weapons, cyber weapons, jamming, counter space weapons) to destroy the targets.

The US militarys three priorities

US military officers say that the A2AD challenge is huge and requires three actions to meet it. First, the US should increase its missiles production rapidly. The Trump administration had withdrawn from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 2019 since it prevented the US from building conventional land-based missiles over 500km range. Since China was not part of this treaty, it could unabashedly test and operationalise ballistic missiles in large numbers unmatched by any nation.

The second action relates to the challenge of PLAs long ranges and accurate missiles, especially when they would soon be enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) imbedded in them. These intelligent missiles, called lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) would be able to operate independently. Able to accomplish given tasks by themselves, LAWs would not require software networking communication with the human controller. Incidentally, this network which connects the missile to the control station is its most vulnerable part. It can be destroyed by the adversary in Chinas case, by the US thereby blinding the missile.

The answer to this problem, the US military says, is to abandon its limited and permanent Asian bases with a high density of troops in places like Japan, South Korea, and Guam. Established after the Second World War, these would be easy targets for PLA missiles. Instead, the US should seek diffused bases, at many places, where troops could be placed on a rotational basis. It is argued that dispersed and expeditionary US troops across the INDOPACOM would be a less vulnerable target and provide better conventional deterrence. Looking for such bases amongst partners in the region would be a high priority for US defence secretary Austin when he meets Indias NSA.

Would the Modi government, which has gone out of its way to seek US security, refuse an American request for rotational troops on Indian soil?

The third action the US military intends to take is to permanently position the US army-led multi domain task force (MDTF) closer to the Chinese A2AD firewall to potentially penetrate it before a major attack is mounted by the US forces arriving from rotational bases. The MDTF would comprise long-range US missiles and cyber capabilities (under the US army cyber command) meant to destroy PLA missiles.

India and the US warfighting concept

Interestingly, at the aforementioned webinar, General Naravane spoke about the need to address the PLAs grey zone capabilities short of war by the framework of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and the Department of Military Affairs under him. The grey zone referred to the PLAs capabilities in the virtual domains of cyber, space, and electronic (electromagnetic spectrum) warfare. According to the army chief, Indias defence cyber agency under the CDS and the armys demonstrated swarm drone capability on Army Day on January 15 would be able to hit the A2AD bubble.

Since this is wishful thinking, will India ask the visiting US defence secretary to help raise an India-specific MDTF with capabilities procured from the US across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China? After all, the PLA has raised a smaller version of the A2AD firewall it has for Taiwan the distance between Taiwan and mainland China is 110 miles. If India goes down this path, the presence of US military experts close to the LAC could make China review its India strategy, leading perhaps to an escalation neither wants.

Defence secretary Lloyd would likely discuss Indias involvement in the USs MDO warfighting concept with Ajit Doval, with perhaps the CDS in attendance. The MDO involves the virtual networking of long-range fire, electronic, space and cyber warfare capabilities with the physical war domains of land, air, sea, and information operations. It would involve MDO command-and-control or operating centres where information from all listed entities/weapon systems from all domains would come at a central place for decision-making to close the kill chain faster than the enemy.

The MDO operating centres, depending upon the level of headquarters, would be huge halls with umpteen computers manned by service personnel from all arms and services sitting together to make sense of the information pouring in at the speed of light in nanoseconds. There is difference between data and information which should be understood. Raw data on situational awareness procured by thousands of miniaturised sensors (electro-optical, radars, infrared, lidar, numerous acoustic sensors) placed in physical war domains would be processed instantly by edge computing. Making sense of the raw data, edge computing would turn it into actionable information which would then be passed to the MDO operation centres. The latter, which will include senior officers from all services, will then take quick decisions on action to be taken on the information coming to them.

At present, the USs individual services have their own version of MDO with two shortcomings: First, the services (army, air force, navy, marines and space force) need to interact with one another usually by voice calls and data transfer, which is an archaic way of communication. And second, software networks which link various systems or nodes are inflexible with industrial age architecture which can be destroyed by the PLAs system destruction warfare, leaving commanders blind. General Milley has proposed a joint warfighting concept Joint MDO whereby all services would be networked, bringing information into single MDO operating centres for all three services. Thus, instead of fighting wars as army, air force, navy, marines, and space forces, the US military would fight wars as a nation with allies and partners in INDOPACOM. The underlining idea of joint warfighting concept would be to make data/information from all war domains available to every participant including allies and partners into their MDO operating centres.

What India needs to ask itself

However, all this leads to critical questions. Would India be a part of the bigger US MDO for INDOPACOM? Or would it seek US help in setting up its own MDO operating centres? If yes, what purpose would they serve considering the Indian military understands warfare only in physical domains with the army as the lead service. Endorsing the MDO concept would require, in the least, the Indian Army to shift away from the outdated concept of massed territorial profile of defence and offense. More importantly, are the Indian military and the NSA/CDS working on different warfighting concepts, totally removed from one another? What about the much-publicised military reforms announced by the CDS?

The problem does not end here. Worried about the PLAs intelligent, autonomous, and thinking software networks with AI inserted into them, the US military, in 2017, had asked its Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to improve technology and warfighting concepts to match the PLAs AI enabled intelligenised warfare. The latter is a total break from the mechanised, network centric, and MDO concepts of the past and the present. In this new warfare, which is referred to as mosaic or algorithmic warfare by DARPA, technology would not support humans, but replace them. It would become algorithmic war one algorithm fighting with the algorithm of the opposing side. This software driven war would have intelligent networks, intelligent internet, intelligent military internet of things, and intelligent weapons. This would be a reality soon.

Once that comes about, the evolving US Joint MDO concept would need to make major changes in doctrines, concept of operations, and force structuring. The big change would be the removal of most MDO operating centres since most machines would communicate directly with machines within the US military and perhaps with the machines of allies and partners. To the numerous sceptics in India, frozen in military thinking, Intelligentised war, according to China would be a reality by 2027, much quicker against India, perhaps by 2024.

Indias limitations are real

The Indian military is far removed from intelligentised warfighting. This was evident from General Naravanes assertion, made twice in the VIF webinar, that while the character of war changes constantly, the nature of war does not change. Nature of war refers to defining the war, which is violence and bloodshed, and character of war is how it would be fought, and refers to technology and war fighting concepts. With technology replacing human soldiers in combat, there would be little bloodshed and violence. This would, for the first time in global war history, change the nature of war. This should give an idea of where warfare is headed, and once India hitches on to the US military bandwagon there would be no coming back.

India lacks capability, capacity, indigenous military-industrial complex, and above all military intellect to understand the deep hole we might get into by accepting any of US secretary Lloyds proposals for cooperation in combat. Surely, India would not want to get into an avoidable war with China when the possibilities of crafting a smart strategy for peace in the region exist.

Pravin Sawhney is editor, FORCE news magazine. He is writing a book on artificial intelligence enabled future warfare

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Why India Must Avoid Hitching Itself to US Military's Plans for China and the Indo-Pacific - The Wire

When Attorney General Merrick Garland was asked at his confirmation hearings earlier this month what his priorities would be if confirmed, he responded immediately that it would be a vigorous pursuit of domestic terrorism. He did not say he would lead vigorous prosecutions, just vigorous pursuits.

This is dangerous business for the Department of Justice because it transforms its role from prosecuting crimes after they happen to predicting who would commit crimes that never happen.

How could the feds predict crimes? They would attempt to do so by a serious uptick in domestic surveillance of broad categories of people based on political and ideological views. The government loves to cast out fishing nets -- so to speak -- and then intimidate or prosecute whomever they bring in.

The National Security Agency -- Americas 60,000-person strong domestic spying apparatus -- already captures all data transmitted on fiber optic cable into, out of, and within the U.S.; thats every email, text and phone call. But they dont admit to this.

SENATE CONFIRMS MERRICK GARLAND AS BIDEN ATTORNEY GENERAL IN BIPARTISAN VOTE

When the FBI desperately sought to gain entry to the cellphones of two deceased mass murderers in San Bernardino, California, a few years ago, the NSA would not help them because doing so would acknowledge the NSAs mass warrantless spying.

Stymied by their own colleagues refusal to admit their unconstitutional behavior, but emboldened that the NSA could get away with this, federal agents either would break the law themselves by engaging in warrantless surveillance or obtain warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court by claiming foreign terrorism as a pretext for domestic law enforcement surveillance.

Under the unconstitutional standards employed by the FISA court, if the feds present probable cause of an Americans communication with a foreign person, the FISA court would issue a search warrant for surveillance of all communications of the American.

This is unconstitutional because the standard for obtaining search warrants from a judge is articulated in the Fourth Amendment, which neither the Congress nor the courts can change.

CAPITOL RIOT INVESTIGATION: DOJ EXPECTS AT LEAST 100 MORE TO BE CHARGED

That standard is probable cause of crime -- is it more likely than not that the place to be searched contains evidence of crimes -- not probable cause of communication with a foreigner.

The former is a high standard intended to compel the courts, before issuing search warrants, to take account of the natural right to privacy, prevent government fishing expeditions and force the government to focus its law enforcement efforts on real, not imagined, crimes.

The FISA standard -- which morphed by a series of secret judicial opinions from probable cause of being a foreign agent to probable cause of communicating with a foreign agent to probable cause of communicating with a foreign person -- is far easier for federal agents to demonstrate than is probable cause of crime. It means that a call to my cousins in Florence is a sufficient basis for the feds to get a search warrant to surveil legally all of my communications -- telephone, texting and emails.

FBI and other federal agents know this. They know how easy it is to get a warrant from the FISA court. The most recent statistics revealed that it granted 99.96% of all surveillance applications.

When FBI agents go to the FISA court with probable cause of communication with a foreign person, but they are really looking for their targets domestic criminal communications, they have engaged in an act of corruption, deceived the court and cut holes in the Constitution they have sworn to uphold.

Once they have all of a persons communications, their plan is to find something that would constitute probable cause of crime or enable them to use fear of exposure to induce the person to work for them undercover.

If your neighbor tells you on the phone how happy he is in his anti-government group, and then someone in the group trespasses on government property and is arrested, expect a knock on your door from the feds who will demand to know what you knew and when you knew it.

If the trespass is a felony, they will claim that they can prosecute you for your silence. This, too, is unconstitutional. Silence is protected by the First Amendment.

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This is the danger of the Garland devotion to predicting who would commit crime; and it will get worse.

Expect the next legislative step to be proposals that impose the legal obligation to report suspicious activities -- and the failure to do would be a crime.

This would turn the U.S. into East Germany where thousands were prosecuted for failure to report their neighbors, friends and family; and thousands more suffered from prosecutions based on false reports.

The Fourth Amendment was written to prevent this. Under the Constitution, the government may not seek punishment for silence, surveil for beliefs or charge for crimes not committed. But if a wired undercover agent can get someone the government fears to inculpate himself with his words and then persuade that person to take a small step in furtherance of those words -- even if no actual crime is committed -- this is enough to charge conspiracy; the prosecutors favorite crime because it is the easiest to prove.

In the years following 9/11, hundreds of folks in America were set up by the feds and prosecuted and convicted for crimes that they never committed, but which they merely agreed to commit when persuaded by an undercover agent.

The government loves to give the impression that it has caught bad guys before they struck, thereby keeping us safe. Dont believe it.

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The governments first task is to keep us free. But when it violates the Constitution, it keeps us neither safe nor free.

Who will keep us safe from the government?

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Judge Andrew P. Napolitano: Merrick Garland, the Justice Department and the coming war on privacy - Fox News