Surveillance Role Players in San Diego

Those of you who have already read my latest Fortean Times article, “Strange Tales of Homeland Security" (which focuses on a series of Orwellian events in the city of San Diego), will be intrigued to know that Julie Wilson's 8-21-13 Infowars.com article about "Surveillance Role Players" in San Diego seems to confirm—to an eerie degree—many of the bizarre allegations I've documented in my FT article.  Wilson's piece, entitled "San Diego Craigslist Ad Searches for 'Surveillance Role Players'," begins as follows:
 
"A recent post on a San Diego Craigslist website advertises the need for 'motivated' Surveillance Role Players (SRPs) and scenario driven practical exercise Role Players (RPs). The ad claims to be looking to fill these positions to 'support military training activities in the San Diego, Calif. region.'

"The ad further states: 'Qualified personnel should demonstrate an established track record of conducting surveillance operations at various discretion levels, supporting surveillance training and military practical exercise training. Individuals with previous military, intelligence community and law enforcement experience are highly preferred.'

"The MASY Group, the company hiring, is looking for candidates that have a minimum of five years of counterintelligence (CI) or human intelligence (HUMINT), with at least two years of operational deployments in a CI/HUMINT military occupational specialty. Applicants are also required at minimum, to possess a secret clearance to qualify.

"According to the company’s website, their mission is to 'effectively address and solve our client’s emerging and most complex leadership, organizational and operational challenges.'"

You can read Julie Wilson's entire article by clicking HERE.

Postscripts #30/31 Now Available for Pre-order

Postscripts #30/31:  Memoryville Blues (which contains my short story "Selections From The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook") is now available for pre-order.  Edited by Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers, this hardcover anthology also contains stories by the likes of Forrest Aguirre, Ramsey Campbell, Jack Dann, Barry Malzberg, Mike Resnick and many others.  For ordering information, click HERE.

"Strange Tales of Homeland Security" in the latest Fortean Times

My latest article, “Strange Tales of Homeland Security,” is the cover feature of the most recent FORTEAN TIMES MAGAZINE (#305), the one with the September cover date.  If the issue’s not on the stands where you are now, it should be within a few days or so.  I highly encourage you to seek it out at your local Barnes & Noble (or any well-stocked newsstand).  “Strange Tales of Homeland Security” is a bizarre—but 100% true—first person journalistic account of government harassment taken to the nth degree.  This article covers a great deal in a relatively short space:  Homeland Security agents run amok in the Pacific Beach area of San Diego, the use of electromagnetic nonlethal weapons to torture homeless people, drug users and ex-prisoners in “America’s Finest City” (as the locals refer to San Diego), back-engineered optical camouflage technology misappropriated by Naval Criminal Investigative Services and a nefarious corporation called Science Applications International Corporation (which is based in San Diego), AWOL Marines, stolen Department of Defense laptop computers containing Above Top Secret information compiled by intelligence specialists stationed in the Persian Gulf, homicidal marijuana farmers, UFOs, invisible midgets—and much, much more.  I think it’s safe to say that, no matter what, you won’t be bored by the piece.

Allons-y!

"Cryptopolis" Receives Honorable Mention in Year's Best Horror

I just heard from Leslie What, the co-editor of PHANTOM DRIFT, that my short story "Cryptopolis" (which was published in PHANTOM DRIFT:  A JOURNAL OF NEW FABULISM #2 in the fall of 2012) has received an Honorable Mention from Ellen Datlow in her annual YEAR'S BEST HORROR anthology.  It's quote an Honor Roll!  You couldn't ask for better company.  To see the entire list, click HERE.

Michael Hastings Update (Part 2)

A brief excerpt from Paul Joseph Watson's 8-13-13 article entitled "Michael Hastings Was Investigating CIA Director John Brennan":

"Journalist Michael Hastings was investigating CIA director John Brennan before his untimely death in a suspicious car accident it has been revealed, with the report set to be published posthumously by Rolling Stone Magazine within the next two weeks.

"According to San Diego 6 News reporter Kimberly Dvorak, 'John Brennan was Hastings next exposé project.' Dvorak says she received an email from the CIA, 'acknowledging Hastings was working on a CIA story,' although the text of that email was not displayed.

"Dvorak also cites a Stratfor email hacked by Wikileaks and first published last year which names Brennan as being, 'behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources [...]'

"Before being sworn in as CIA director in March this year, Brennan was a counterterrorism advisor for the Obama administration and helped compile the 'kill lists' for the White House’s drone assassination program."

Read the entire article by clicking HERE.

The Special Operations Division of the DEA

Two recent articles detailing the unconstitutional hijinks engaged in by the Special Operations Divisions of the Drug Enforcement Administration....

First up is a 8-5-13 Washington Post article entitled "The NSA is Giving Your Phone Records to the DEA.  And the DEA is Covering It Up." by Brian Feng.  Here are the first two paragraphs of Feng's article:

"A day after we learned of a draining turf battle between the NSA and other law enforcement agencies over bulk surveillance data, it now appears that those same agencies are working together to cover up when those data get shared.

"The Drug Enforcement Administration has been the recipient of multiple tips from the NSA. DEA officials in a highly secret office called the Special Operations Division are assigned to handle these incoming tips [...]. Tips from the NSA are added to a DEA database that includes 'intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records.' This is problematic because it appears to break down the barrier between foreign counterterrorism investigations and ordinary domestic criminal investigations."

Read the entire article HERE.

John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke of Reuters report the revelations in further detail.  Here's a brief excerpt:


"The unit of the DEA that distributes the [illegal] information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred.

"Today, much of the SOD's work is classified, and officials asked that its precise location in Virginia not be revealed. The documents reviewed by Reuters are marked 'Law Enforcement Sensitive,' a government categorization that is meant to keep them confidential.

"'Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function,' a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use 'normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD.'"

This unconstitutional "reconstruction" of illegally obtained data is referred to as "Parallel Construction" by law enforcement officials.

Read the entire article HERE.