DHS Warns That "Weaponized Drones" Are A Serious Terror Risk

In what appears to be an expertly timed exercise in fearmongering less than two weeks after the horrifying Halloween terror attack in lower Manhattan - the deadliest attack in America’s financial center since 9/11 - the Department of Homeland Security has issued a bulletin warning the public about the risk of drones being used to facilitate acts of terrorism.

Drones, which are now easy to obtain and modify in potentially deadly ways (one Connecticut man was investigating after he published a video of a drone equipped to fire a nine-millimeter) DHS is warning about the threat of weaponized drones being used to carry out chemical attacks and the targeting of commercial aircraft, according to ABC.

"We continue to face one of the most challenging threat environments since 9/11, as foreign terrorist organizations exploit the internet to inspire, enable or direct individuals already here in the homeland to commit terrorist acts," reads the bulletin.

The National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin, which replaced the old color-coded system, is used to give the public and local law enforcement a summary about ongoing and potentially new terror threats.

A senior DHS official told ABC that there"s been an "uptick in terrorist interest" in using unmanned aerial systems as weapons in the United States and other western countries.

These tactics have been used by terrorists on the battlefield, and the department wants to "guard against those tactics being exported to the west," said the official.

The official said that DHS wants to be "forward leaning" about seeing what terrorists are doing overseas and tactics they might adopt in the future.

DHS has been implementing wide-ranging security measures for all airports and airlines that fly directly to the U.S. In June, the administration announced "enhanced screening" of passengers and their electronic devices, as well as "seen and unseen" security around the aircraft and inside the airport.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said terrorists still see "aviation as the crown jewel target,” when the security measures were announced.

At the time, he was the head of DHS, a cabinet-level department that was created by George W Bush after 9/11.

The measures, which are being rolled out in phases, are aimed at detecting concealed explosives, insider threats and identifying suspicious passengers.

The US has been urging other countries to adopt similar measures, according to current acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke.

The new bulletin also warns of the use of "poisons or toxins," which the DHS official says there has been increased chatter about in the terror realm.

The "big picture" is that the homeland security fight is shifting, the senior DHS official told ABC.

The department"s response to the terror threat is adapting as ISIS is close to defeat in safe havens, but continues to have branches and affiliates around the world, according to DHS.

For the record, here’s the video of the handgun-firing drone...

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Read the full bulletin below:

 

17 1109 NTAS Bulletin by zerohedge on Scribd

 

CNN Reports Comey Has Changed His Mind, Now Believes Trump Tried To Influence Him

Clearly disappointed to have been left out of the headline heroics from Friday night (courtesy of The Washington Post and The New York Times), CNN has decided that anon-sourced perspectives on officials" feelings now warrants reportage.

The latest in the sad sage of mainstream media"s downward spiral, as The Hill reports, is that former FBI Director James Comey is expected to testify that he believes President Trump was deliberately trying to meddle in the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the presidential election, according to a report late Friday.

Despite swearing under oath that he "had never" been influenced during an investigation, and further that if he had he would have reported it immediately...

CNN now reports that, according to a source, Comey has come to believe the president intended to influence him...

Former FBI Director James Comey now believes that President Donald Trump was trying to influence his judgment about the Russia probe, a person familiar with his thinking says, but whether that influence amounts to obstruction of justice remains an open question.

"You have to have intent in order to obstruct justice in the criminal sense," the source said, adding that "intent is hard to prove."

Comey will testify publicly before the Senate intelligence committee after Memorial Day, the panel"s leaders announced Friday.

The central question at that blockbuster hearing will be whether Comey believed the President was trying to interfere with his investigation.

Sources say Comey had reached no conclusion about the President"s intent before he was fired.

But Comey did immediately recognize that the new President was not following normal protocols during their interactions.

So to clarify, a disgruntled fired employee, who previously said no effort to influence was undertaken, has now changed his mind, according to sources, and thinks his former boss was trying to influence him (according to sources).

Comey’s Revenge: Former Director Hopes Trump Taped Their Conversations, In Order to Prove Obstruction of Justice

It"s all coming to a head now. The firing of James Comey has opened up a pandora"s box that is sure to obliterate the Trump presidency. What will follow this is something that will likely be remembered, along with the same vein as the civil war. There isn"t a chance that his ardent supporters will accept his removal from office on such obvious acts of sabotage.

But it"s happening.

According to CNN,  sources close to Comey say the former FBI director is hoping Trump taped their conversations, in order to corroborate his contemporaneous notes regarding a request to end the Flynn investigation.

Comey is very eager to testify, but only if it"s in a public forum. Hmm, I wonder why?

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

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CIA's Creator Came to Regret It ... Said the CIA Was a "Government All Its Own" Which Was Destroying Democracy

President Truman created the CIA.

He explained that it was solely an attempt to consolidate intelligence from many different intelligence agencies (page 285):

I needed … the President needed at that time a central organization that would bring all the various intelligence reports we were getting in those days, and there must have been a dozen of them, maybe more, bring them all into one organization so that the President would get one report on what was going on in various parts of the world. Now that made sense, and that"s why I went ahead and set up what they called the Central Intelligence Agency.

But in the 1970s, he told his biographer, Merle Miller (page 285):

I think [creation of the CIA] was a mistake. And if I"d know what was going to happen, I never would have done it.

***

Why, they"ve got an organization over there in Virginia now that is practically the equal of the Pentagon in many ways. And I think I"ve told you, one Pentagon is one too many.

Now, as nearly as I can make out, those fellows in the CIA don"t just report on wars and the like, they go out and make their own, and there"s nobody to keep track of what they"re up to. They spend billions of dollars on stirring up trouble so they"ll have something to report on. They"ve become ... it"s become a government all of its own and all secret. They don"t have to account to anybody.

That"s a very dangerous thing in a democratic society, and it"s got to be put a stop to. The people have got a right to know what those birds are up to. And if I was back in the White House, people would know. You see, the way a free government works, there"s got to be a housecleaning every now and again, and I don"t care what branch of the government is involved. Somebody has to keep an eye on things.

And when you can"t do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damn secret, why, then we"re on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn"t have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don"t mix. And if what happened at the Bay of Pigs doesn"t prove that, I don"t know what does. You have got to keep an eye on the military at all times, and it doesn"t matter whether it"s the birds in the Pentagon or the birds in the CIA.

Similarly, President Kennedy said he wanted “to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds”.  But he was assassinated a month later.

Hat tip to Jeff Deist.