Tag: pentagon

Suspected Iranian Spy Ariane Tabatabai Receives a Pentagon Promotion

Ariane Tabatabai, a Pentagon official whose troubling links to the Iranian regime were revealed more than a year ago and who is reportedly suspected of being behind the leak of top secret US intelligence documents related to Israel, is no longer chief of staff for Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher Maier.

Politico reports that Tabatabai has been promoted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Education and Training, a position she’s (also) completely unqualified for:

ARIANE TABATABAI is now the deputy assistant secretary of defense for force education and training within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a position she was offered last month. She was previously chief of staff for assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

Note that Politico pointedly asserts that Tabatabai was offered the position last month, likely in an attempt to make people believe that this move wasn’t in response to the document leak.

In her position as chief of staff to Maier, Tabatabai had access to extremely sensitive intelligence assessments because of what Maier’s role entails:

ASD(SO/LIC) oversees and advocates for Special Operations and Irregular Warfare throughout the Department of Defense to ensure these capabilities are resourced, ready, and properly employed in accordance with the National Defense Strategy. In this role, the ASD:

  • Exercises authority, direction, and control of all special operations peculiar issues relating to the organization, training, and equipping of special operations forces
  • Is the Principal Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Official within the senior management of DoD
  • Sits in the chain-of-command above USSOCOM for special operations-peculiar administrative matters; provides civilian oversight of the SOF enterprise.
  • Advises, Assists, and Supports the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy on Special Operations and Irregular Warfare policy matters.

A defense official with knowledge of the investigation told RedState on Saturday evening that investigators believe that the top secret documents related to Israel’s activity/preparations to strike Iran that were leaked to an Iranian-linked Telegram channel were leaked by Tabatabai, and Sky News Arabic reported the same on Monday. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters Wednesday, though, that, “There’s no OSD official being named as a part of this investigation.”

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DoD shreds all remaining constitutional protections from Posse Comitatus Act in anticipation of post-election Civil War 2.0

In anticipation of rioting or even a second civil war following the upcoming election, the Department of Defense (DoD) is preliminarily gutting the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 to allow for the U.S. military to execute law, i.e., martial law, on American soil.

As it was written, Posse Comitatus does not allow for any constitutional exceptions. The U.S. military is not supposed to be involved with law enforcement activities in any capacity whatsoever, and yet the Congress-passed bill has been so watered down over the past 50 years or so that armed soldiers could soon become commonplace on the streets of America.

“The law allows only for express exceptions, and no part of the Constitution expressly empowers the president to use the military to execute the law,” explains the Brennan Center about how Posse Comitatus is supposed to work.

“This conclusion is consistent with the law’s legislative history, which suggests that its drafters chose to include the language about constitutional exceptions as part of a face-saving compromise, not because they believed any existed.”

Despite all this, the DoD has decided that there are constitutional exceptions of Posse Comitatus. And because nobody with any power is willing to do anything to stop the DoD, the militarization of America’s police forces will continue to expand like a frog boiling in a pot.

“The Department has long claimed that the Constitution implicitly gives military commanders ’emergency authority’ to unilaterally use federal troops ‘to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances’ when doing so is ‘necessary’ and prior authorization by the president is impossible,” the Brennan Center further says.

“In the past, the department also claimed an inherent constitutional power to use the military to protect federal property and functions when local governments could not or would not do so. The validity of these claimed authorities has never been tested in court.”

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The Pentagon Wants to Use AI to Create Deepfake Internet Users

The United States’ secretive Special Operations Command is looking for companies to help create deepfake internet users so convincing that neither humans nor computers will be able to detect they are fake, according to a procurement document reviewed by The Intercept.

The plan, mentioned in a new 76-page wish list by the Department of Defense’s Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, outlines advanced technologies desired for country’s most elite, clandestine military efforts. “Special Operations Forces (SOF) are interested in technologies that can generate convincing online personas for use on social media platforms, social networking sites, and other online content,” the entry reads.

The document specifies that JSOC wants the ability to create online user profiles that “appear to be a unique individual that is recognizable as human but does not exist in the real world,” with each featuring “multiple expressions” and “Government Identification quality photos.”

In addition to still images of faked people, the document notes that “the solution should include facial & background imagery, facial & background video, and audio layers,” and JSOC hopes to be able to generate “selfie video” from these fabricated humans. These videos will feature more than fake people: Each deepfake selfie will come with a matching faked background, “to create a virtual environment undetectable by social media algorithms.”

The Pentagon has already been caught using phony social media users to further its interests in recent years. In 2022, Meta and Twitter removed a propaganda network using faked accounts operated by U.S. Central Command, including some with profile pictures generated with methods similar to those outlined by JSOC. A 2024 Reuters investigation revealed a Special Operations Command campaign using fake social media users aimed at undermining foreign confidence in China’s Covid vaccine.

Last year, Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, expressed interest in using video “deepfakes,” a general term for synthesized audiovisual data meant to be indistinguishable from a genuine recording, for “influence operations, digital deception, communication disruption, and disinformation campaigns.” Such imagery is generated using a variety of machine learning techniques, generally using software that has been “trained” to recognize and recreate human features by analyzing a massive database of faces and bodies. This year’s SOCOM wish list specifies an interest in software similar to StyleGAN, a tool released by Nvidia in 2019 that powered the globally popular website “This Person Does Not Exist.” Within a year of StyleGAN’s launch, Facebook said it had taken down a network of accounts that used the technology to create false profile pictures. Since then, academic and private sector researchers have been engaged in a race between new ways to create undetectable deepfakes, and new ways to detect them. Many government services now require so-called liveness detection to thwart deepfaked identity photos, asking human applicants to upload a selfie video to demonstrate they are a real person — an obstacle that SOCOM may be interested in thwarting.

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Drone swarms targeting US military bases are operated by ‘mother ship’ UFO, claims top Pentagon official

A retired, senior Pentagon official has confirmed that UFO ‘mother ships’ were spotted ‘releasing swarms of smaller craft’ — adding further mystery to the still-unexplained intrusions over multiple US military bases.

His statements come amid the release of 50 pages of Air Force records related to provocative ‘drone’ incursions, that one general calls ‘Close Encounters at Langley.’

For at least 17 nights last December, swarms of noisy, small UFOs were seen at dusk ‘moving at rapid speeds’ and displaying ‘flashing red, green, and white lights’ penetrating the highly restricted airspace above Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

Senior ex-Pentagon security official Chris Mellon told DailyMail.com that the episode was ‘part of a much larger pattern affecting numerous national security installations.’

‘Two of the notable aspects,’ he said, ‘are the fact our drone signal-jamming devices have proven ineffective and these craft are making no effort to remain concealed.’

‘In fact, in some instances,’ as Mellon took pains to emphasize, ‘it is clear they want to be seen as though taunting us.’

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How release of Pentagon’s secret UFO programme could be a ‘game-changer’

The US government is keeping tabs on any and all claims of UFO sightings as part of an ‘above top-secret’ programme, a whistleblower has alleged.

‘Immaculate Constellation’ is an alleged database of high-quality photographs, videos, firsthand accounts and electronic sensor evidence of UFOs.

Officials use the off-the-books programme to ‘detect’ and ‘quarantine’ UFO materials without congressional knowledge or oversight, according to a leaked report shared with the Substack newsletter Public.

American military and intelligence officials have a ‘high level of confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the data gathered’, which includes mentions of not only UFOs but ‘Alien Reproduction Vehicles’, or reverse-engineered crafts.

If confirmed, the very existence of ‘Immaculate Constellation’ would be a ‘game-changing development’, the UK’s top UFO expert told Metro.

In one sighting described in the report, ‘orb’ unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), as UFOs are now officially known, swarmed an advanced fighter jet.

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UFO drones are surveilling America’s most sensitive military sites — and the Pentagon says it can’t stop them

Fleets of dozens of mysterious UFO drones are surveilling America’s most sensitive military sites, and the Pentagon admits it can’t do much to stop the aerial intruders, according to a new report.

Drones of unknown origin have been spotted flying over military bases in Virginia and Nevada over the past year, including the secret base for the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six commando unit and Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval port, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Federal laws, however, prohibit the military from shooting down the drones over the potential risks to troops and civilians.

Jamming their signals was also ruled out in high level White House meetings, according to the Journal — over concerns that it could interfere with 911 systems, WiFi network and commercial airliners.

The result is that the Pentagon has little recourse to halt the potential surveillance from foreign adversaries.

Former US Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly was first made aware of the drone sightings in December 2023, where officials at the Langley Air Force Base along the Virginia coast reported seeing dozens of drones flying over the base at night, according to the WSJ.

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In a rare disclosure, the Pentagon provides an update on the X-37B spaceplane

After more than nine months in an unusual, highly elliptical orbit, the US military’s X-37B spaceplane will soon begin dipping its wings into Earth’s atmosphere to lower its altitude before eventually coming back to Earth for a runway landing, the Space Force said Thursday.

The aerobraking maneuvers will use a series of passes through the uppermost fringes of the atmosphere to gradually reduce its speed with aerodynamic drag while expending minimal fuel. In orbital mechanics, this reduction in velocity will bring the apogee, or high point, of the X-37B’s orbit closer to Earth.

Bleeding energy

The Space Force called the aerobraking a “novel space maneuver” and said its purpose was to allow the X-37B to “safely dispose of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation.”

While the reusable Boeing-built X-37B spaceplane is designed to land like an aircraft on a runway, the service module, mounted to the rear of the vehicle, carries additional payloads. At the end of the mission, the X-37B jettisons the disposable service module before reentry. The Space Force doesn’t want this section of the spacecraft to remain in its current high-altitude orbit and become a piece of space junk.

“Once the aerobrake maneuver is complete, the X-37B will resume its test and experimentation objectives until they are accomplished, at which time the vehicle will deorbit and execute a safe return as it has during its six previous missions,” the Space Force said.

The Space Force has identified mobility in orbit as a key focus for its next-generation space missions. This would allow satellites to more freely move between altitudes and orbital inclinations than they can today. Commanders don’t want a spacecraft’s movements to be constrained by the amount of fuel it carries, allowing satellites to “maneuver without regret.”

Space Force leaders have discussed in-orbit refueling, more efficient propulsion technologies, and other ways to achieve this end. Aerobraking is another way to lower a spacecraft’s orbit without using precious propellant.

“This first-of-a-kind maneuver from the X-37B is an incredibly important milestone for the United States Space Force as we seek to expand our aptitude and ability to perform in this challenging domain,” said Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations.

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Heavily Redacted UAP Briefing Between UAP Task Force and NASA Released

A recent release of documents obtained through two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by The Black Vault in 2021 and 2022, has shed light on a briefing about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (now referred to as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena [UAP]) by the UAP Task Force (UAPTF) for NASA.

The UAPTF was a U.S. Department of Defense program established to investigate UAP reports, running from 2020 until its transition to the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) in 2021.

The requests specifically asked for “all communications, emails or otherwise, between the UAP Task Force, and NASA,” after it was revealed in NASA FOIA Case 21-HQ-F-00507 that the UAPTF had requested NASA brief them on UAPs in September 2020. That case sought all communications between the task force and NASA. A second case was filed in 2022 to specifically request a “classified slide deck on Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP), created by Jay Stratton, that was shown to NASA and likely other agencies in October of 2020” also revealed by previously released documents.

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Report names ‘Immaculate Constellation’ UAP program: Journalist

A leaked whistleblower report says the Pentagon is operating a secret UFO retrieval program called “Immaculate Constellation,” according to independent journalist Michael Shellenberger.

The report revealed for the first time the name of an alleged UAP program, stating that the executive branch has been managing UAP issues without congressional knowledge or oversight, possibly for decades.

Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough denied records of the alleged program in a statement to NewsNation Tuesday evening.

“The Department of Defense has no record, present or historical, of any type of SAP called ‘IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION,’” she wrote.

Shellenberger told NewsNation’s Ross Coulthart he has been in touch with the whistleblower, whose exact role and other identifying details, including gender, he has withheld because they fear what could happen if they were publicly known.

“I don’t think that they’re faking it or that they’re lying about their fear,” he said. “This person discovered this material accidentally. This was not something they had expected to encounter.”

That fear is why Shellenberger said the whistleblower did not share intelligence imagery showing UAPs.

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White House Ignored Warning from Pentagon, State Dept that Israel Was Creating a Catastrophe in Gaza

Recently released emails from Reuters show that officials in the White House ignored warnings from their counterparts at the Defense and State Department warning that Israel was committing war crimes and creating a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Reuters reviewed emails from the Departments of Defense and State from last October, showing that high-ranking officials warned about supporting Israel as it committed war crimes in Gaza.

“As Israel pounded northern Gaza with air strikes last October and ordered the evacuation of more than a million Palestinians from the area, a senior Pentagon official delivered a blunt warning to the White House, the outlet reported. “The mass evacuation would be a humanitarian disaster and could violate international law, leading to war crime charges against Israel.”

The warning came from Dana Stroul, then the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East in an Oct. 13 email sent to senior White House aides. She explained an assessment by the International Committee of the Red Cross that had left her “chilled to the bone.”  

Stroul and other officials were pushing the White House to take a more sympathetic position on the suffering of Palestinians and ask Israel to give Gazans more time to comply with Tel Aviv’s evacuation orders. 

While the Biden administration claims that it did pressure Israel early in the onslaught and that did make a difference, Reuters reports that the White House had little impact on Tel Aviv’s military operations. 

“But Washington was slow to address the suffering of Palestinians, said three senior U.S. officials involved in the decision-making process,” the article explains. “And while the ground invasion was ultimately delayed by about 10 days, the three officials attributed the pause more to operational preparations by the Israeli military than U.S. pressure.”

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