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CHANDIGARH: As Jat leaders prepare their teams to seal the borders of Delhi, the Haryana government on Tuesday authorized the district magistrates (deputy commissioners) to invoke the National Security Act (NSA) in their areas.

According to provisions of NSA, the police can house arrest any person for 90 days. According to orders issued on Wednesday, the government has also equipped 381 officers in nine districts while designating them as special duty magistrates.

A maximum of 107 special duty magistrates have been appointed in Rohtak district while 77 officials have been designated in Jind, said additional chief secretary (home) Ram Niwas.

In an order issued on Tuesday, the government has empowered the officers to take their call on notifying NSA in their area.

NSA empowers the police to apprehend anyone posing threat to the law and order and that too without registering a case against him or her. The person can be detained for 90 days.

A senior officer in the intelligence wing of Haryana Police confirmed that the powers had been delegated after taking reports from the ground. The government has also authorized to ban websites and social networking sites alleged to be involving circulation of socially provocative material.

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Government authorizes DMs to invoke NSA - Times of India

January 31, 2017

Agency called for worldwide psychic registry, expected mind control as a practical military concern by the 90s

A version of this article appeared on Glomar Disclosure

Last week, we looked at the early days of the CIAs foray into extrasensory espionage. Today well be following up with the veterans of the NSAs psychic wars, which they foresaw being waged well into the 90s and beyond.

The NSA document, dated from early 1981, calls for a number of steps to be taken, including identifying the potential for mind control.

Once the individuals had been identified, the Agency wanted to create cadres of talented synergized gifted people for special problem solving tests. However, the NSA was afraid that these people could be hard to control Consciousless [sic] or morbid people of talent must be strictly screened out of active programs because of the danger of severe mental illness and unscrupulous violation of security.

Beyond personnel available to the NSA, the Agency wanted to build a database of psychics around the world.

Additional NSA documents, produced by the government later in the year after MKULTRA had been shut down and all mind control programs had been disavowed, show the governments continued interest in researching mind control techniques, no matter how esoteric they seemed.

A number of predictions were made about the development of psychic warfare, including that subconscious mind control through telepathy would be possible by 1990. The report concluded grimly that there is no known countermeasure to prevent such applications.

At least one prediction came true - CREST documents show psychic trials still being performed as late as 1992.

The NSAs guidelines are embedded below:

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Image via National Security Agency

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Veterans of the NSA's psychic wars - MuckRock

We've become accustomed to the NSA's infamous Glomar responses. The agency is fond of telling FOIA requesters that it's not saying it has the sought-after documents on hand, but it's also not not saying that either. It's the public records Schrdinger's box, where requested documents lie in a dual state of existence and nonexistence, supposedly because any hint either way would rend the national security fabric in twain.

Brendan O'Connor of Gizmodo reports that a January 17th response to his FOIA request contains some new additions to the NSA's usual Glomar.

The notoriously secretive National Security Agency is raising security concerns to justify an apparent new policy of pre-emptively denying Freedom of Information Act requests about the agencys contractors.

The policy was cited by John R. Chapman, the agencys chief FOIA public liaison officer, in a letter to Gizmodo on January 17, 2017, three days before Donald Trumps inauguration. In explaining that the agency had declined to even conduct a search for records about a company called SCL Group, Chapman wrote, Please be advised that due to changing security concerns, this is now our standard response to all requests where we reasonably believe acquisition records are being sought on a contract or contract-related activity.

The NSA is building its own wall, apparently: one that will stand between FOIA requesters and documents related to government contractors in its employ. The NSA simply isn't going to respond to these requests. And if it's already decided it's not going to respond, then it's not going to be wasting time searching for records it has zero intention of producing.

But the non-response response to Gizmodo's FOIA request goes even further than a pre-emptive denial. It also contains language instructing empty-handed requesters not to jump to conclusions about the documents the NSA won't search for or release. From the FOIA non-response [PDF]:

The NSA/CSS FOIA office has not conducted any sort of search to determine whether or not records exist.

Obviously, if the NSA is unwilling to discuss the existence/nonexistence of documents it won't be searching for, it's not going to explain what sort of "changing security concerns" have prompted this new state of denial. Perhaps the agency feels there might be some reining in of transparency under the new administration. Or maybe the FOIA office has received new instructions on handling certain FOIA requests. If so, those instructions haven't been made public and, according to FOIA experts, this kind of denial is a first for No Such Agency.

This sounds like a non-Glomar Glomar response, Bradley Moss, deputy executive director for The James Madison Project, told Gizmodo, using a nickname for the notorious practice of national security and law enforcement agencies refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records. There are existing reasons to categorically deny a request, and even to refuse to conduct a search, Moss said, but hes never seen such a response justified in this way.

Theyre clamping down across the board, Moss said. There is clearly a determined and deliberate attempt to plug any gap that might allow the public to see how the national security apparatus actually works.

As Gizmodo points out, the NSA issued a 22-page guidebook to its FOIA office that addressed requests for contract info specifically. And nothing in it points to blanket denials and preemptive refusals to even search for records.

Gizmodo is seeking information about the SCL Group whose subsidiary, Cambridge Analytica, has had a hand in both the Trump presidential campaign and the UK's Brexit push. It could be that this attempted peek into SCL contracts raised red flags with the incoming administration. Those might be the "security concerns" hinted at in the NSA's response. If so, the blanket denial may be in place to prevent requesters from drawing conclusions about certain denied documents. If no one can have anything contract-related, then no one can draw inferences from their particular denial.

If this is the new status quo, then the departing administration is as much to blame as anyone. Obama talked a lot about government transparency, but year after year, his administration set new records in FOIA denials and deployed exemptions. This looks to be more of the same, only without the empty promises of greater accountability.

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NSA Cites New 'Security Concerns' In Preemptive Refusal To Even Search For Contractor Documents - Techdirt

For the second time, the Federal Government applied to the Federal High Court in Abuja for protection of witnesses that will testify against the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, in the charge of unlawful possession of fire-arms and money laundering brought against him.

The fresh application to that effect was brought to court by Oladipo Okpeseyi recently engaged by the federal government to lead the prosecution.

In the motion dated January 23 and filed January 24, the government is insisting that the witnesses be given protection by the court by not allowing their names and addresses to be made public in the course of the trial.

But in an opposition to the fresh request, Mr. Dasuki asked the court to dismiss the government motion on the ground that it lacks merit and constitutes a gross abuse of court process.

The Ex-NSA in a counter affidavit filed by his lead counsel, Ahmed Raji, argued that there was no justification for the Federal Government to have brought the motion for secret trial for the second time having lost in the first motion.

The defendant insisted that the federal government had on its own volition placed the charges against him in the internet where the names, addresses and positions of the witnesses were conspicuously put at the disposal of the general public.

Besides, Mr. Dasuki maintained that when the first application was argued by the then Director of Public Prosecution of Nigeria, Mohamed Diri, Justice Adeniyi Adenola of the same court in a landmark ruling dismissed the request on the ground that the witnesses were already known by the public having given their names through the internet.

Mr. Dasukis lawyer further said that bringing the same motion to the same court constituted a gross abuse of court process and that what the prosecution ought to do if not satisfied with the decision of Justice Ademola, was to have gone to the Court of Appeal to ventilate its anger.

Mr. Dasuki, who attached a copy of the earlier court ruling on the application, urged the trial judge, Ahmed Mohammed, not to allow the fresh motion for secret trial to be entertained because it would violate his right to fair trial and will run contrary to the principle of the rule of law and natural justice.

When the motion came up on Tuesday, Mr. Opeseyi could not move the motion on the ground that the defence had just served him a voluminous counter affidavit objecting to the motion.

The prosecution counsel told Justice Mohammed that so many fundamental issues were raised in the counter affidavit and that plethora of authorities were also cited in the counter affidavit.

He, therefore, applied for an adjournment to enable him study the counter affidavit and respond to it appropriately.

The defence did not object to the request for the adjournment but clarified that the fresh motion for secret trial was served on the defendant last Thursday, hence their counter affidavit prepared over the weekend was served today within the time allowed by law.

Justice Mohammed has therefore fixed hearing of the motion for March 1.

The Federal Government through the Department of the State Security Service had in 2015 slammed a 2-count charge of unlawful possession of fire-arms and money laundering on Mr. Dasuki.

But the trial suffered a setback last year when Justice Ademola withdrew from further conducting the trial following his arrest by the SSS, also called DSS, on allegations of corruption.

The withdrawal of Mr. Ademola from the trial prompted the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Ibrahim Auta, to transfer the case file to the present judge

The Ex-NSA who pleaded not guilty to the charges was in 2015 admitted to bail by Mr. Ademola but was disallowed by the SSS from enjoying the bail. The security agency rearrested him and kept him in its custody since December 2015. Other courts like the ECOWAS court have also granted Mr. Dasuki bail, with all ignored by the SSS.

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Nigerian govt insists on secret trial of ex-NSA Sambo Dasuki - Premium Times

National Security Council Changes Are Very Significant, Hayden Says NPR January 30, 20174:58 AM ET. Heard on Morning Edition. Rachel Martin talks to ex-NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden about the reorganization of the White House National Security Council. Political adviser Steve Bannon has a permanent seat at the table ...

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National Security Council Changes Are Very Significant, Hayden Says - NPR