THE PEACOCK REPORT (TPR)

DHS 'Racing' to Fill Border Patrol, Customs Vacancies

The Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) has come up with a new idea to help secure the nation's borders and airports: by sponsoring NASCAR racing teams.  DHS is soliciting bids from marketing firms capable of arranging the placement of Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) advertising on the cars of winning racers in competitions in the coming years. The goal of the endeavor is to entice potential recruits to fill critical vacancies at CBP. According to a Request for Proposals that The Peacock Report located via a routine search of the FedBizOpps database, DHS wants to secure "Primary sponsorship of a vehicle in 29 domestic races during the 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series and the transportation and setup of a Government-furnished recruiting booth at these events." DHS did not disclose the estimated value of the contract.

TSA Seeks to Take 'Intelligent' Surveillance Technology to Next Level

The creation of next-generation "intelligent" surveillance systems capable of sensing group- and individual-behavioral changes could be deployed across U.S. airports and other transportation centers -- if the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can indeed achieve such a capability. The agency's wish-list of new surveillance capabilities includes "micro-behavior detection," an outcome which TSA seeks to accomplish, for instance, via automated recognition of changes in facial expressions "that indicate stress and other anomalies," according to a procurement document that The Peacock Report has located. TSA's Office of Security Technology seeks to create additional micro-behavior detection capabilities such as the "detection and identification of nervous related actions" such as sweating and pacing, the document says.

The first step that TSA's "Intelligent Closed-Circuit Television" (ICCTV) project will take toward achieving this capacity is an assessment of commercially available "automated and semi-automated technology," according to a TSA Request for Information (RFI) dated Feb. 24.  Assessing and cataloging these technologies could be followed by subsequent contracting actions necessary to bring about "an easily-integrated 'system of systems,'" the RFI says:

It is envisioned that such a video system… could be part of an integrated approach to enhancing the security of the national transportation system in the United States by means of remote surveillance… The objective of this RFI is to solicit input from industry related to technologies with operational capabilities that enhance and automate or are capable of automating some of the remote surveillance processes and tools available to meet the TSA’s requirements.

The ICCTV system that TSA envisions likewise would be capable of "macro-behavior detection." Such capabilities would include "individual-level anomaly detection," enabling the agency to spot people "walking in the wrong direction" or simply loitering. That surveillance function would unfold concomitant with the automated or human "tracking or following of individuals within a facility" using multiple cameras, it said. Similarly, it hopes to deploy remote surveillance tools to agents in the field who could tap into this system.

TSA points out that it is carrying out its post-9/11 congressional mandate to deploy advanced technologies that modify and enhance the agency's airport-screening checkpoint capabilities and infrastructure. Such enhancements later could be employed in settings other than airports, according to the RFI:

Finding solutions that secure the aviation transportation mission is the primary focus for this RFI in the near term, but the TSA is interested in the eventual application of operationally effective and suitable security screening technologies for other transportation modes as well.

Marines (Almost) Create Counterintelligence Link With State, Local Police

The U.S. Marine Corps last month launched a recruitment drive for a private-sector analyst who would serve as Corps liaison among DoD- and federal-wide counterintelligence agencies as well as with state and local law enforcement agencies. The position was created to help coordinate and disseminate "domestic threat information," according to a presolicitation notice dated Aug. 20. However, on Sept. 4, the Corps cancelled the Request for Proposals (#M20001-07-R-0001) in its entirety, solely noting that "If the government later determines a need exists for this requirement it will re-solicit for it at that time."

Building Bridges: Did You Know Your Tax-Dollars Are Funding Mexican Port & Highway Projects? (Commentary)

The blame-game has begun over this week's deadly collapse of the Interstate 35 bridge in Minnesota. Pundits and analysts are posing questions such as "Is the federal government doing enough to maintain the nation's bridges and highways?" The Peacock Report (TPR) poses an additional question: since there are indeed such structural shortcomings in the national infrastructure of the United States, why, then, are U.S. taxpayers being fleeced to help upgrade Mexico's highways and ports? The answer, of course, is that such subsidies enable U.S.-based multinationals to simultaneously siphon the U.S. Treasury -- and hence the pockets of U.S. citizens -- to more effectively exploit the Mexican labor pool.

As previously reported here at TPR, the U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA) last year began funding "feasibility studies" leading toward the eventual financing of projects to modernize Mexican transportation and shipping networks. The goals of these endeavors were twofold: one, to ease the shipment of goods in and out of Mexico; plus, to ameliorate the flight of companies from Mexico to Asia.

It's time for policymakers and the mainstream media to take a closer look at this theft by the USTDA. See U.S. Developing Port & Highway Master Plan and U.S. Helps Fund Mexican Road Projects As Industry Flees To Asia -- both which provide direct access to relevant federal-procurement documents -- for additional info on these questionable initiatives.

'Environmental Surveillance' on Tap at DHS

"Environmental surveillance" is the next area of research & development that the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) is targeting as it broadens its portfolio of preventative capabilities. According to a planning document dated July 23, DHS intends to award a sole-source contract for this endeavor to The National Academies, which will undertake a year-long effort to develop a report outlining a potential:

R&D strategy for development of a surveillance and detection system for novel, emerging, and engineered biological threat agents. The report will inform the Chemical and Biological Research and Development's (CBR&D) program plan for the development of such surveillance and detection systems to allow first responders and state, local, and federal officials to accurately identify and effectively manage bioterrorism attacks against citizens of the United States.

Let the Hearings Begin!

This week marks the beginning of congressional hearings on waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars -- three federal- government issues that The Peacock Report targets most frequently. For more information on these events, which begin Tuesday, Feb. 6, go to the website of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The focus of the hearings will be on Iraqi reconstruction, Homeland Security contracting, and prescription drug pricing.

America: Freedom to Fascism

Get your hands on a copy of America: Freedom to Fascism and you will help support the sort of investigative reporting and commentary you've come to expect from The Peacock Report, which will receive a portion of the proceeds from such sales. Click on the image to your literal right, and ponder for a moment that: America: Freedom to Fascism is "a compelling and troubling account of how the wealth of our nation was silently passed from its citizens to a handful of powerful bankers in 1913. That's the year the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment were introduced, giving a privately held corporation the means to control our finances while ensuring its interest payments through the strong arms of the newly-formed Internal Revenue Service.

"Ever since then, Russo suggests, Americans have been gradually conditioned to accept fewer freedoms and a lower standard of living... all the while considering debt and servitude as distinctly American values. Russo's first and most cogent point is simple: Americans are not required to pay a federal income tax. That's a bold statement to make, as few people believe that such a fraud could be perpetrated for so long. My father, himself an accountant, insists that the income tax is a very real thing. Russo takes that same belief to IRS employees and simply asks them to cite where it says an unapportioned income tax is required of us all. Guess what? They can't.

"In a telling segment Sheldon Cohen, former commissioner of the IRS, goes so far as to reject Supreme Court rulings and the Constitution as benchmarks over what is legal with regards to taxation. Russo also interviews members of the tax honesty movement as well as disenfranchised IRS agents who agree that no law on the books conjures up a requirement to send the government part of one's hard-earned paycheck. Russo then showcases court cases where those accused of tax evasion have won precisely because the prosecution cannot provide evidence of a legal federal income tax law.

"It's shocking to have it hammered into your head over and over that you've thrown your money away for nothing, but repetition is good; it helps knock loose the deeply entrenched belief that we owe a portion of our livelihood to our government."

DHS To Seize Eyeballs At U.S. Airports

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is ringing in the New Year with a plan to address the arguably unbearable time it takes for airline passengers to traverse their way through screening checkpoints, The Peacock Report has discovered. TSA will achieve this heightened scale of efficiency by joining hands with another hallowed U.S. institution: the advertising industry.

According to a presolicitation notice that TPR located via a routine search of the FedBizOpps contracting database, TSA and the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) soon will launch a pilot project that seeks to turn airport checkpoints into bombardment centers of commercial offerings. TSA's stated short-term goal for the one-year experiment is an assessment of "industry interest in advertising on available spaces within Passenger Screening Checkpoints," the Dec. 21 document says.

The agency's unstated, implicit goal is to generate additional revenue for the federal government, a task it will accomplish by seizing a captive audience of eyeballs, 24/7, "in select airports throughout the [U.S.] and its territories."

An official "Industry Day" for the "Advertisements Within Security Checkpoints Pilot Program," as it is formally known, is slated for Jan. 11 at TSA Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. For more information, call DHS Contracting Specialist Gregory Fields at (571) 227-2266, or contact him via e-mail at gregory.fields@dhs.gov.

DoD Hiring Private Contractors For Domestic Counterintelligence Ops

The Dept. of Defense (DoD) is planning to hire private contractors to "orchestrate" counterintelligence (CI) operations conducted in the U.S. and elsewhere in the near future, according to a presolicitation document that TPR located during a routine search of the FedBizOpps database. The document, dated Nov. 17, briefly notes that "Counterintelligence Support Element," or CISE, providers will be hired to carry out strategic CI efforts in order to "systematically identify and degrade foreign intelligence and terrorist threats at various sites to include National Capital Region (NCR), Hawaii, Florida, Germany, North Carolina, Illinois, Nebraska, Colorado and other locations as deem [sic] necessary by the United States Government..."

Although the FBI is the lead agency for CI ops taking place on U.S. soil, it should be noted that the Bureau nonetheless works jointly with the U.S. intelligence "community" on CI measures. It remains unclear whether the FBI will have oversight of -- or will anything to do with -- these contractors, however.

Further details on this endeavor are expected to be released on or around Dec. 5, when DITCO, the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO) will make the full "solicitation and related documents" available.

DHS 'Tactical Infrastructure' Border Project Underway

Check out the latest contribution to The Narcosphere from TPR's Steve Peacock, who maintains a Drug-War Reporter's Notebook Follow the Money: Bird's Eye View.