GOVERNMENT ORDERS SPY BLIMP

GOVERNMENT ORDERS SPY BLIMP
Friday, June 16, 2006 - FreeMarketNews.com

The government has hired defense subcontractor Lockheed Martin to design and develop an enormous blimp that will be used to spy on Americans, according to the Athens News. Government agencies such as the NSA are anticipating that as early as 2009 the blimp will be operational and begin supporting new ways of monitoring everything that happens in the country.

A prototype of the blimp is already being developed at a cost of $40 million. The spy ship, called the High Altitude Airship, will be seventeen times larger than the Goodyear Blimp and hover 12 miles above the ground. Although it is very large it will be invisible to both the naked eye and ground radar because of its distance from the earth. Fuel economic and self sufficient, it will be powered by solar energy and will be able to fly for years at a time.

The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command has already conducted a study to determine some of the uses of the spy ship. It has the capability of monitoring an area 600 miles in diameter at a time with surveillance equipment, such as high-resolution cameras. The government has ordered 11 of them – enough to monitor every parcel of land in the U.S.

staff reports - Free-Market News Network
http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=15095

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Lou Dobbs Tonight, June 20, 2006
• Body of Missing U.S. Soldiers Found Mutilated; President Bush At Summit Meeting in Vienna; U.S. Activates Missile Defense System; House Republican Leaders Believe Candidates Who Oppose Illegal Immigration Will Be More Successful; Significant Blow Against Forged Document Industry; Voting Machine Controversy; John Cornyn Discusses Workplace Enforcement of Illegal Immigration
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ldt.html

DOBBS: Serious questions about electronic voting machines are threatening to undermine confidence in our electoral system. All voters in the State of Georgia will cast their ballots on electronic voting machines this year. But watchdog groups say election officials can't verify the accuracy of the count and can't conduct a proper recount. Those groups say our democracy is at risk. Kitty Pilgrim reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Georgia has a primary in less than 30 days. Voting is 100 percent electronic, except for absentee ballots. Diebold has the contract for 24,000 TSR6 touch screen machines. Some activists are worried there is no proper record on this model.

JOHN FORTUIN, DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY: I have 20 years experience programming computers mostly for the financial sector, and the standards that are used in the financial sector are wholly absent from the Diebold voting system.

PILGRIM: At a state election board meeting this week, activists were demanding decertification of the machines. The Georgia Secretary of State office says that electronic voting will be discussed at a later date, adding that we do testing on every unit before the election.

Voting activists say even if machines are certified and tested before the election, the only real way to check results is with a printed paper record that is put into a lock box on Election Day. That will not be done in Georgia.

Another troubling issue for watchdog groups is current secretary of state Cathy Cox who championed the transition to electronic voting machines in Georgia and will certify the vote statewide is running for governor in that same election.

AVI RUBIN, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: That's a terrible conflict of interest. I think elections need to be run by unbiased, independent parties. And such things do not exist, what we need are very transparent voting mechanisms so no one has to bring into doubt anybody's motives or behaviors.

PILGRIM: Georgians for Verified Voting say their goals have nothing to do with politics.

DONNA PRICE, GEORGIANS FOR VERIFIED VOTING: It is not political. It is not with Cathy Cox. It is about making sure that the election is legitimate for Georgia.

Voting in a democracy is not about trusting that behind the curtain individuals will do the right thing. It's about security, transparency and auditability. It's about checks and balances. And Georgia's voting system fails on all counts.

PILGRIM: We called Diebold about this model, they did not return our calls.

(END VIDEOTAPE) PILGRIM: The secretary of state's office points out the votes are certified by local election boards first and historically other secretaries of state have run for another office, but activists say this only illustrates the broader concerns that electronic voting systems must have a voter-verified paper trail to establish trust with the voters -- Lou.

DOBBS: Well, how in the world can you verify the accuracy of a machine if you don't have an analog, if you will, control for it?

PILGRIM: There really is no question. It's not even debatable.

DOBBS: And the idea -- I love the situation -- I kind of like I guess if I were betting, I'd bet on, is it secretary of state Cox in this upcoming election? She gets to certify the results, decide on the machines, while running for governor.

PILGRIM: They say they're locally certified first, but she signs off on it statewide.

DOBBS: They have a secretary of state that's actually hooked up now with Diebold, right?

PILGRIM: That's exactly right. Their previous secretary of state, Louis Massey has a lobbying firm, Diebold is a client.

DOBBS: Quite a little industry. E-voting. Thank you very much, Kitty Pilgrim.

Taking a look now at your thoughts. Eugene in Indiana, "I'm a retired garbage man who retired after almost 34 years on the job. On June 15, 2006, on the Lou Dobbs program someone played the remark that being a garbage man is a job an American worker will not do. Who the hell do they think they are and what gives the politicians in Washington the right to degrade American workers the way they do and determine what jobs Americans will and will not do? Who do they think has done these jobs for all these years?"

I couldn't have asked that question better myself. And Jacqueline in Arizona, "If Congress wants a pay increase, they should tie it to their approval rating. More than 50 percent required for increases and a vote on the issue."

By the way, the approval rating is just under 30 percent. Down to 25 percent in some polls.

Ken in Virginia, "After hearing about the raise that our politicians gave themselves, only contested by one individual I might add, I have decided that there is only one thing left for me to do, become a politician."

Send us your thoughts at LouDobbs.com. And we hope you'll reconsider that possibility. We'll have more of your thoughts coming up here later.

Next, corporate America hiring millions of illegal aliens while the federal government does nothing to enforce our loss. Senator John Cornyn is demanding action. He wants to change all that. He's our guest coming up here next.

And why will a million students drop out of high school this year? That's right, in the United States of America. Christopher Swanson of the Education Research Center discusses his on our failing public school system. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/20/ldt.01.html