Russian Sleeper Agent Allegedly Tried to Recruit Son Into Spy Business

Tim Foley (left), son of alleged Russian spies, exits a courthouse after his parent's hearing. Photo: Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

A Russian spy who was kicked out of the U.S. has now been accused of trying to recruit his son into the espionage business. And the son reportedly went along with the plan.

According to anonymous U.S. officials cited by the Wall Street Journal's Devlin Barrett, the plot stemmed from a group of infamous Russian sleeper spies who were unmasked and deported back to Moscow two years ago. Before they were kicked out, they allegedly attempted to use their children as intelligence agents to bypass security clearances. Peter Krupp, the attorney who represented one of the accused spies, declined to answer the accusations on-the-record. But he told the Journal that the allegations from U.S. officials are 'crap.' His client, the attorney said, would never have taken the risk of revealing his secret identity.

The story focuses heavily on one alleged spy kid, Tim Foley. According to the Journal, his parents revealed to him sometime before their June 2010 arrest by the FBI that they were spies. Foley then agreed to join his parents in their pursuit of espionage. U.S. officials said Foley then 'stood up and saluted 'Mother Russia,'' and said he was willing to return to Russia for spy training, Barrett writes. This moment was reportedly captured by federal agents who had bugged their home.

Foley is now believed to live in Russia, leaving the U.S. at the age of 20. It's not known whether he left before or after his parents were arrested and deported. Foley also hasn't been formally accused of espionage and reportedly wants to return to the United States.

But it had a certain logic, if exploitative and dangerous. The parents, being Russian expatriates, did not have close access to the centers of power in Washington ' a tough job for a spy. They were more on the distant periphery, if even that. Foley's father, Andrey Bezrukov (also known as 'Donald Heathfield') was a member of the World Future Society, a futurist think tank. The CIA, it ain't.  Foley's mother, Yelena Vavilova (or 'Tracey Foley') worked for a real estate company.

But kids, growing up within American culture and speaking in fluent American accents, would be more likely to successfully pass the background checks needed to access state secrets ' once they got older, of course. And with Russian background and language skills, it stands to reason the U.S. government might have considered them to be potential candidates for a sensitive job. But in reality, they'd actually be working as assets for Russia.

Another purpose for the plan, the Journal notes, would be to use the spy kids as intermediaries for more entrenched Russian spies operating deeper within the government, and who risked being monitored by U.S. counterintelligence agents. The theory is that the kids wouldn't attract much attention.

The sleeper cell, also known as the 'Illegals Program' after the espionage term to refer to spies operating with minimal support, sought to build ties with the American elite. The agents were accused of working under the direction of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, the successor organization for the KGB's international spy section. The accused spies were later kicked out of the country and traded for the release of three Russian nationals convicted of spying for the West. The most famous of the lot, spy babe Anna Chapman, went on to become an international celebrity.

Coincidentally, today in spy news, the Russian Supreme Court upheld the treason conviction for Vladimir Lazov, a Russian ex-army colonel who was accused of selling thousands of classified military maps to a U.S. intelligence agent. The ex-colonel is facing 12 years in prison.

There was also an amateurish feel to the spies' work. Their secret spy computers were apparently junk. They reportedly didn't bother to change up their Media Access Control address when communicating over the group's wireless network, which helped the FBI trace them. They also made a series of classic blunders including betraying a cash drop site and leaving a password written down inside one of their homes.

It's worth wondering just how dumb the effort to recruit their kids really was, and a lesson for parents out there: Please don't recruit your kids as spies. But had it worked, and had more kids gone along, they might have been more successful than their parents were. But then again, that depends on your parents not blowing their cover because of a bunch of stupid mistakes.

Rumsfeld's Intel Chief: Iraq War 'Greatest Decision of the Century'

Stephen Cambone (center) was sworn in the Pentagon's intelligence chief on March 11, 2003. Photo: DoD

ASPEN, Colorado ' There's a broad consensus in the U.S. defense establishment today that the choice to invade Iraq was ill-considered and that the initial plan to stabilize the country was even worse. But for Donald Rumsfeld's one-time intelligence chief, the Iraq war wasn't just the right call at the time. It was 'one of the great strategic decisions of the first half of the 21st century, if it proves not to be the greatest.'

Stephen Cambone, who served as the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence from 2003 until 2007, surprised the audience at the Aspen Security Forum this weekend when he hailed the Iraq war as an alloyed triumph that paved the way for the rebellions now sweeping the Middle East. 'It will be one of the greatest strategic victories of the United States because'. of the aftershocks that you see flowing through the region, whether it be in Libya, or in Egypt, or now in Syria,' he said.

Even among alumni of the Bush administration, the unapologetic perspective is somewhat unusual. Bob Gates, who succeeded Rumsfeld as Pentagon chief, told a group of West Point cadets last year that 'any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.'' Ryan Crocker ' who served President Bush's ambassador to Iraq and Obama's representative in Afghanistan ' recently cautioned tomorrow's policymakers to think hard before launching any more invasions.

'I would many times over liberate Iraq again from Saddam Hussein,' former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently said. 'But we didn't understand how broken Iraq was as a society and we tried to rebuild Iraq from Baghdad out. And we really should have rebuilt Iraq outside Baghdad in.'

In 2008, Bush said that the decision to go to war was the right one at the time, given the intelligence he received about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. But Bush added that 'the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq.'

Cambone, who served as one of Bush's top intelligence officials, didn't express the same sort of remorse.

'There was a preponderance of evidence that led one to believe that it was reasonable to suppose that there was in fact weapons of mass destruction in that country,' he told the Forum (where, full disclosure, I served as a panel moderator). 'The conclusion was mistaken. To draw the conclusion might not have been a mistake' You only know what you know at the time and you have to fill in the rest. So was it reasonable to draw that judgement at the time? I think the answer ' based on what people, the judgement they did draw ' yeah it probably was. In retrospect, was it accurate? No.''

Cambone also offered a prediction: that the wave of unrest unleashed by the Iraq war would soon hit American allies in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. This was an extremely positive thing, Cambone added: 'After Syria comes Lebanon and after Lebanon come Jordan, and after those come Saudi Arabia; this place is in motion in a way that it hasn't been for a century ' and we have an opportunity to shape that.'

Killer-Drone Showdown Set as Lockheed Unveils Jet-Powered 'Bot

Sea Ghost concept. Image: Lockheed Martin

Sometime in the next few years the world's most sophisticated drone prototypes will likely face off in what could be a multi-billion-dollar competition to shape the future of air warfare. And now we finally know what all four contestants look like.

On Friday, number-one defense contractor Lockheed Martin released the first official teaser image of its Sea Ghost jet-powered killer drone. Along with previously disclosed unmanned aerial vehicle designs from rivals Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics, the Sea Ghost will go head-to-head for a Navy contract to put fast, stealthy, missile- and bomb-armed drones on the decks of aircraft carriers by 2018.

Plus, the Air Force is considering also buying whichever UAV the Navy picks for the so-called Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike requirement. The 'bot that comes out on top in UCLASS could dominate the pilotless warplane business for a generation.

Last week's image, featured above, is deliberately vague but seems to confirm what aerospace observers widely suspected. The Sea Ghost, in development for several years, is a tailless flying wing ' similar to a miniature B-2 stealth bomber. That means it's got radar-evading qualities but is potentially difficult to control in flight, as it lacks the vertical stabilizers most planes possess.

It also means the Sea Ghost shares engineering philosophies with Boeing's and Northrop's UCLASS contestants, both of which boast roughly 50-foot wingspans. Boeing hasn't officially publicized its 'bot, but the company has recently flown the latest version of its X-45 killer drone, a flying wing with design roots stretching into the 1990s. Most observers expect Boeing to tweak the X-45C with tougher landing gear and other special modifications for carrier ops.

Northrop, for its part, is already testing copies of its X-47B, another flying-wing design and a rough contemporary of the X-45. The X-47B has flown land-based test flights in California and, as of this weekend, in Maryland ' all under a separate Navy demonstration contract. The Northrop UAV is slated to perform the first carrier launch of a jet-powered drone warplane sometime next year.

That leaves General Atomics as an outlier with its Sea Avenger, a sort of grown-up version of the MQ-9 Reaper but with a jet engine in place of the Reaper's propeller. The Sea Avenger has swept wings and vertical tails, just like today's manned, carrier-based fighters. General Atomics' drone could be the conservative option. 'Avenger provides the right capabilities for the right cost at the right time,' company president Frank Pace said.

The Sea Ghost's general outline can be deduced from the teaser image. Beyond that, Lockheed's not revealing much at the moment. 'Sea Ghost ' leverages ' experience with the RQ-170 Sentinel Unmanned Aircraft System, the Joint Strike Fighter F-35C and other Navy program technologies,' the company said on its website.

The F-35C ties are no-brainers: the Sea Ghost could share water-resistance stealth coatings and other radar-defeating techs such as special antennas with the Navy version of the too-big-to-fail Joint Strike Fighter.

But the Sea Ghost's connection to the marginally-stealthy RQ-170 is perhaps more surprising ' as is Lockheed's eagerness to tout the relationship. The RQ-170 is most famous for winding up in an Iranian gymnasium after one crashed mostly intact on the Iran-Afghanistan border in December, presumably while spying on Tehran's nuclear program. Every few months since then, the Iranian government has loudly claimed to have copied some of the RQ-170's secrets.

On the other hand, the RQ-170 is also an all-wing design and could help Lockheed refine the delicate algorithms necessary for controlling a tailless aircraft in tough flying conditions.

Amid all this speculation, it's actually possible we've already seen the Sea Ghost ' albeit from great distance. Last month, blogger George Kaplan highlighted a commercial satellite image, dated December, that depicted what appeared to be a new kind of flying-wing UAV at a Lockheed facility in California.

Melissa Dalton, a Lockheed spokesperson, said the thing in the photo was part of a research project looking into 'different shapes and materials for both manned and unmanned vehicles.' But she didn't specify which unmanned vehicles, leaving open the possibility that Sea Ghost's debut actually occurred six months ago.

In any event, the lineup is complete. The four candidates for America's future killer drone are either already flying or preparing to take to the air. Sometime in next few years, the lethal flying 'bots will battle each other in a battery of Navy tests as the Air Force looks on. And by 2018 under current plans, the winner will takes its place on the front lines of autonomous warfare.

How to Defeat the Air Force's Powerful Stealth Fighter

An F-22 over Alaska. Photo: Air Force

The fast, stealthy F-22 Raptor is 'unquestionably' the best air-to-air fighter in the arsenal of the world's leading air force. That's what outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz wrote in 2009.

Three years later, a contingent of German pilots flying their latest Typhoon fighter have figured out how to shoot down the Lockheed Martin-made F-22 in mock combat. The Germans' tactics, revealed in the latest Combat Aircraft magazine, represent the latest reality check for the $400-million-a-copy F-22, following dozens of pilot blackouts, and possibly a crash, reportedly related to problems with the unique g-force-defying vests worn by Raptor pilots.

In mid-June, 150 German airmen and eight twin-engine, non-stealthy Typhoons arrived at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska for an American-led Red Flag exercise involving more than 100 aircraft from Germany, the U.S. Air Force and Army, NATO, Japan, Australia and Poland. Eight times during the two-week war game, individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.

The results were a surprise to the Germans and presumably the Americans, too. 'We were evenly matched,' Maj. Marc Gruene told Combat Aircraft's Jamie Hunter. The key, Gruene said, is to get as close as possible to the F-22 ' and stay there. 'They didn't expect us to turn so aggressively.'

Gruene said the Raptor excels at fighting from beyond visual range with its high speed and altitude, sophisticated radar and long-range AMRAAM missiles. But in a slower, close-range tangle ' which pilots call a 'merge' ' the bigger and heavier F-22 is at a disadvantage. 'As soon as you get to the merge ' the Typhoon doesn't necessarily have to fear the F-22,' Gruene said.

This is not supposed to be the sort of reaction the F-22 inspires. For years the Air Force has billed the Raptor as an unparalleled aerial combatant. Even former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who in 2009 famously cut F-22 production to just 187 copies, called the stealth jet 'far and away the best air-to-air fighter ever produced' and predicted 'it will ensure U.S. command of the skies for the next generation.' And it's slowly getting taken off the probation it incurred after seemingly suffocating pilots.

Admittedly, advanced air forces plan to do most of their fighting at long range and avoid the risky, close-in tangle ' something Gruene acknowledged in his comments to Combat Aircraft. But there's evidence that, in reality, most air combat occurs at close distance, despite air arms' wishful thinking. That could bode poorly for the F-22's chances in a future conflict.

In a 2008 study (big file!), the Air Force-funded think tank RAND warned against assuming long-range missiles will work. RAND looked at 588 air-to-air shoot-downs since the 1950s and counted just 24 that occurred with the attacker firing from beyond visual range. Historically, American long-range air-to-air missiles have been 90-percent less effective than predicted, RAND asserted.

Despite the historical facts, there persists in Air Force circles 'a hypothetical vision of ultra-long range, radar-based, air-to-air combat,' to quote air power skeptic Pierre Sprey, co-designer of the brute-simple F-16 and A-10 warplanes.

It remains to be seen whether the Raptor and its AMRAAM missiles can reverse these trends. If long-range tactics fail, the F-22 force could very well find itself fighting up close with the latest fighters from China, Russia and other rival nations. And if the Germans' experience is any indication, that's the kind of battle the vaunted F-22s just might lose.

Marines Catch 'Deserter' ' 5 Years After His Honorable Discharge

Alan Gourgue poses for a portrait near his home in Oceanside, California Photo: Dan Krauss/Wired

SAN DIEGO, California ' On Jan. 26, 2011, a pair of U.S. Marines put Alan Gourgue in handcuffs and a restraint belt and hauled him across the country to face trial as a deserter. Gourgue was distraught and completely confused; he had been honorably discharged in 2006 and finished his reserve obligation four months earlier.

Gourgue's ordeal provides a glimpse into a rarely seen, slow-moving, stiflingly bureaucratic world of military desertions, where one administrative mistake can result in a catch-22 that Joseph Heller couldn't have invented.

In the military, there are two types of unauthorized absence: Absent without leave (AWOL) and desertion. The key difference between them is that AWOL is a misdemeanor, while desertion is a felony that assumes the missing soldier abandoned the service with the intent never to return. To employ a school analogy: AWOL is like cutting classes, while desertion is dropping out altogether. If a soldier is gone for more than 30 days, the charge is automatically converted to deserter status, according to Victor Hansen, a professor specializing in military law at New England Law, Boston. It's like a teacher striking a missing kid from the rolls after a few absent weeks to make room for another student.

Once a soldier is classified as a deserter, the soldier's name is added to a national crime database. Then the Marines wait.

'Typically, they turn themselves in or they get picked up for something else by local law enforcement,' Marines spokespersons Capt. Gregory Wolf says. 'We don't have thousands of guys looking [for deserters] ' People have information that they put out there. They kind of do themselves in or they come to their senses.'

This passive system of deserter capture has been pretty successful for the Marines. According to data provided by Wolf, the Marine Corps has recorded 7,323 desertions since 2005, with the number peaking in 2008 with 1,491 deserters. Over the same period, 7,072 deserters have returned or been caught. As of June 12, the Marines had 584 open desertion cases on the books, some dating back to World War II.

But the system didn't work out so well for Gourgue, who was neither AWOL nor a deserter. Yet he languished in custody for more than a month before he was released with an apology for the mistake and a ticket home.

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No, Syria Doesn't Have Saddam's Chemical Weapons

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein did not give his chemical weapons to Syria. Photo: U.S. Commerce Department

As if warped by some giant conspiratorial black hole, any discussion of Syria's chemical and biological weapons inevitably bends back in time and space to Iraq in 2003. Remember the meme that Saddam Hussein transferred his deadly weapons to Syria ahead of the U.S. invasion? If not, you can bet you'll hear it if Bashar Assad follows through on his threat to use chemical weapons against a foreign incursion. But this retroactive justification for the Iraq invasion will be just as bogus as every other time it's come up in the last 10 years.

I've already debunked one of the rumors about Iraq's WMD. I'm not buying this one.  Here's why.

First: Think about it for a second. Strategically and militarily, it made no sense for Saddam to transfer his weapons of mass destruction to Syria. Saddam worked on acquiring WMD for a reason: to stave off an invasion and hold on to power.

Just listen to a defeated Saddam for a second. In a post-invasion interview, Saddam admitted that he had been bluffing about his WMD. This is actually case-closed for the conspiracy theories about his weapons transfers.

But for a moment, let's suppose that Saddam circumvented the most intrusive sanction regime the world has ever known and rebuilt his WMD programs after inspectors (and Israeli jets) destroyed them. His reasoning would have been deterrence ' as Thomas Schelling put it, Saddam would have given his enemies a 'threat that leaves something to chance.' That's why the Assad regime threatens on and off to use WMD: It keeps the foreign hordes at bay. So why, with U.S. massing forces on his border, would Saddam give up the one thing he had to raise the cost of invading to the Americans?

Second, let's say that Saddam wasn't so concerned about the Americans ' a miscalculation that Saddam seems to have made. That's actually not a rationale for transferring weapons to Syria. Just like in 1991, he faced the collapse of his regime. Except back then, he slaughtered jubilant Shiites and used chemical weapons on the Kurds. Why, in 2003, would Saddam give up the worst threat he could make against his people?

Third, the Iraqi Ba'athists and Syrian Ba'athists are far from allies.  Syria's Allawites are minority Shiites and proxies to Iraq's arch-enemy Iran. They fought on the allied side against Iraq during Desert Storm.  Why would Saddam turn over his deadliest weapons Iran's best friend in the region? Remember: Saddam says he made his WMD threats to cower the Iranians.

Fourth, from a U.S. military perspective, the transfer would have been impossible to hide.  I worked at U.S. Central Command's Mideast headquarters before, during, and after the invasion, which gave me a good understanding of what was going on at the time.  The region was blanketed by U.S. military assets.  Operation Enduring Freedom was in full swing in Afghanistan, and Operations Northern and Southern Watch were still in place over Iraq.  If something moved ' like, say a convoy of Winnebagos of Death heading for Syria ' it could be detected and killed.

For example, as the clock ticked down on President Bush's deadline for Saddam and his sons to leave Iraq, the dictator was detected at Dora Farms. The U.S. was able to scramble F-117s over Baghdad and bomb Dora Farms with impunity as the clock ran out. If Saddam were moving his allegedly massive stockpile to Syria, it would have been impossible to hide from the United States. A convoy of illicit material moving through the Western desert would have been a perfect target: the U.S. could strike it from the air; and then insert teams on the ground to take forensic samples of the material.

Do you think anyone in the administration or the military would have turned down the chance to justify the war before it started?  Further, does anyone honestly think that if the Bush administration had good evidence that the material was somehow making its way into Syria, it wouldn't have acted? Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was threatening Assad almost as soon as U.S. troops reached Baghdad.

As tragic as the decision to invade Iraq was, I'm not making any apologia for Saddam's brutal regime.  Had there been no invasion and the sanctions somehow lifted, I believe he would have been back in the WMD game quickly. He retained a cadre of scientists, machinery and other latent capability to do it. But in this case, sanctions, inspections and containment worked.

Not that you'll hear that if Assad uses his weapons. You'll hear TV talking heads mumbling about how we now know where Saddam's WMD went, amplified by ignorant blog posts and tweets. Even Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee, has flirted with this long-debunked theory. The truth is that Syria has had chemical weapons programs for decades. Keep that in mind if Assad actually puts it to use.

U.S. Spies Probably Won't Blow Up Our Airplanes, TSA Concludes

TV spy Maxwell Smart holding his shoe phone. Photo: Wikimedia

ASPEN, Colorado ' For years, America's spies had to take off their shoes before they got on planes, just like the rest of us. No more. The Transportation Security Administration has quietly enrolled government employees at three of the nation's intelligence agencies in a program that allows them to pass through airport security with less hassle.

It's part of a larger push by TSA chief John Pistole to move away from the brain-dead, one-size-fits-all mindset that treats all passengers as equally likely terror risks. That effort is still very much a work in progress; just last month, for example, a female flier was groped by a TSA screener ' so she groped back, and was promptly arrested.

Still, there are signs of sanity emerging. Kids are no longer subject to pat-downs. And certain elite members of frequent flier programs from American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, U.S. Airways, and Alaska Airlines can keep their shoes on and their laptops inside their bags at 19 airports. Two million passengers have now gone through the so-called 'pre check' program, since it was begun last year. The logic is that these people fly all the time, and have given their personal information to the airlines. That makes them rather unlikely terrorists.

Same goes for the more than 800,000 people who hold top secret clearances in this country. They've already gone through all kinds of background checks. So, intelligence community consultant Jim Carlson asked Pistole at Friday's session of the Aspen Security Forum, why not let them sign up for this 'pre check,' too.

Well actually, Pistole told the group, somewhat sheepish, we are.

'We haven't advertised that,' he said, but the TSA signed an agreement with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in February to do include members of the intelligence community in 'pre check.'

It's a voluntary program, Pistole added. 'So, if for example you have a NOC [a "non official cover," or spy without any open connection to the government] who doesn't want to be identified in any way, it's optional.'

'The beauty of it from my perspective is that the information that the person is a known and trusted traveler is embedded in a bar code [in the passport]. And it doesn't distinguish between a member of the intel community [and a] frequent flier,' Pistole told the Forum (where, full disclosure, I'm serving as a panel moderator). ' So the security officer at the checkpoint doesn't know whoever you are.'

The increased security measures at American airports have become a substantial burden for undercover agents, as Danger Room reported in April. The use of eye-scanners and biometricallly-enhanced passports have made it tough for a spy to assume another identity. But if that spy is willing to use her own name, well, she can go right ahead keep her heels on. In the bizarre world of post-9/11 security, that counts as a small sign of progress.

 

'Hot War' Erupting With Iran, Top Terror-Watchers Warn

ASPEN, Colorado ' There have been acts of sabotage, assassinations, explosions, and cyberattack. But the increasingly violent shadow war between the U.S., Israel, Iran, and its allies haven't hit targets on American soil ' yet. That could change before too long, the administration's current and former top analysts of terror threats warned.

'We're seeing a general uptick in the level of activity around the world. Both Hezbollah and the [Iranian] Quods Force have demonstrated an ability to operate essentially globally,' Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told an audience of more than a hundred security professionals gathered here on Thursday.

'There are times when we are briefing the White House [on terror threats that] at the top of the list are Hezbollah or Iran,' Olsen added. The al-Qaeda network of Sunni extremists is still America's undisputed Public Enemy #1. But for the first time in a long time, there's competition, at least week-to-week.

The signs of escalating tension with Iran are everywhere: the sizable American armada building off of Iran's shores; the American accusation that Iran tried to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.; the deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists, widely blamed on the Israelis; and, of course, last week's bombing in Bulgaria, which U.S. and Israeli officials have pinned on Hezbollah, the Shi'ite militant group backed by Iran.

'This is a hot war that has gotten hotter,' Michael Leiter, Olsen's predecessor at the NCTC, told the Aspen Security Forum. 'The Iranians have considered this a shooting war for some time.'

And with no agreement is sight over Iran's nuclear program, those skirmishes will undoubtedly continue. For now, though, America is safe from any direct attack from Tehran or its allies. Even the expected blowback from the U.S.-Israeli campaign of online sabotage against Iran hasn't arrived.

When Stuxnet ' the Washington-directed worm that took out more than a thousand centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility ' was discovered in June of 2010, there was widespread speculation that elements of the cyberweapon would be pointed back at U.S. infrastructure. That speculation only increased last month when American officials admitted that Stuxnet had been part of a White House-led cyberespionage campaign.

So far, however, there's been no blowback, according to National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander. 'I don't see the correlation there at all,' he said. 'I don't see anything that goes to Stuxnet or anything like that.'

Yes, critical infrastructure companies have reported a 17-fold increase in attacks on their networks. But while Stuxnet used several first-of-their-kind exploits to access the industrial controls at Natanz, these are attacks or much simpler: denial-of-service strikes or exploits against known weaknesses in an operating system. Alexander said that the attackers are more-or-less evenly divided between nation-states and criminal hackers.

Alexander was preceded at the forum (where, full disclosure, I'm serving as a panel moderator) by former Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair. He caused a stir at last year's even when he essentially called for the Obama administration to put a halt to the drone war in places like Pakistan.

On Thursday, Blair was arguably even more incendiary. First, he called for tearing up the laws that govern America's deniable, so-called 'covert actions' like the attack on Osama's bin Laden's compound.

'There are ungoverned areas of the world in which the United States needs to take action. And this action should be secret but it should not be deniable. The raid that we heard about for Osama bin Laden was done under covert action authorities. If there was any action in the history of the United States that was not going to be denied, that was it,' he said. 'The entire concept for covert action should be revisited and we should have new legislation to authorize it.'

Then Blair called into question whether these covert actions were really amounting to much.

'We don't have a strategy' for fighting terror or for defeating al-Qaeda, the nation's former top intelligence official said. The Obama administration has carried out all kinds of raids and robotic attacks on suspected terrorists. But it's a global game of whack-a-mole ' something to 'keep you busy,' in Blair's words ' with no attempt to reinforce societies that make al-Qaeda an unattractive ideology.

'Our long-term goal of getting out this business of flinging away at terrorists around the world is very clear in front of us. That is a strategic thought,' added Blair. 'Not how did you do against Abu-bin-so-and-so.'

Blair was a lonely voice when he served in the Obama administration. And on Thursday, he didn't get much support here in Aspen. Instead, the government officials, defense contractors, and policy-makers gathered here were more interested in looking for new threats ' rather than evaluating our whole system for considering dangers.

Navy: We'll Never, Ever Overpay for Biofuels

The oiler U.S.N.S. Henry J. Kaiser delivers a biofuel blend to the guided-missile cruiser U.S.S Princeton during the Great Green Fleet demonstration. Photo: U.S. Navy

Last week, Danger Room published a critical look at the Navy's efforts to launch a renewable-powered 'Great Green Fleet' ' and kickstart the market for biofuels in the process. Not surprisingly, the Navy's leadership had all sorts of objections to the piece. But they took particular exception to the section about the price of the biofuel. A Pentagon-sponsored study says that the Navy could spend as much as $1.76 billion annually for all the biofuel they've promised to use by 2020. In this exclusive op-ed, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy Tom Hicks says the Navy will never pay that kind of premium.

Danger Room incorrectly reported that the Navy could spend as much as an extra $1.8 billion per year on biofuel; a completely incorrect projection lifted from a 2011 Congressionally-mandated report (.pdf) that did not use realistic data or take into account the Navy's commitment regarding biofuel purchases for operations. The figure is based on a crude extrapolation of analysis and is wrong for several reasons.

First, the $1.8 billion figure assumes oil prices won't be higher in 2020, and that biofuel costs won't go down. We just don't live in a world where oil prices never go up, technology doesn't advance, and economies of scale don't bring down cost; in fact, history tells us that the exact opposite is true. Eight years ago, the cost of petroleum was just under $40 per barrel and the annual volatility was plus or minus 10 percent. Today, the price of petroleum has more than doubled and the annual volatility is more than 30 percent. It is impossible to accurately predict where prices will be eight years from now, but with ever-increasing global demand and continued political unrest in oil-producing countries, nearly all experts agree that oil prices will increase, and we have seen the price of biofuel drop.

Second, left out of Danger Room's commentary about biofuel cost is the Navy's well-known and much-publicized commitment to only purchase operational quantities of biofuel blends when they are competitive with petroleum, period. Future operational purchases of biofuel must be cost-competitive with conventional fuels. We simply cannot afford it otherwise and will not do it.

Nor does the Danger Room column mention that the government is already implementing one of the recommendations in the report for bringing down the estimated cost of biofuel, the Defense Production Act (DPA). DPA is an authority dating back to 1950 that has been used to advance the Navy's nuclear propulsion program as well as many other defense-critical domestic industries. Taken together, these errors and omissions provide opponents with cover for repeating factual inaccuracies and misrepresenting the Navy's biofuel program.

Danger Room made other errors about Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and about congressional support for the Navy's biofuel program. For one, Secretary Mabus has never turned down a meeting with a member of Congress on any topic, including on the Navy's energy initiatives. Also, there is such a significant and public show of support for the military's biofuel initiatives ' including bipartisan support, as seen most recently in the Op-Ed penned by Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Susan Collins ' that it is irresponsible to speculate on the outcome of this ongoing debate, particularly so early in the legislative process.

There have been efforts in Congress to restrict the Department of Defense's ability to pursue all alternatives in order to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, but the potential consequences to these efforts are not well-understood. Until biofuels are qualified as fit for use, costs will be driven high by necessary tests and by temporary storage requirements. The House bill and the Senate Armed Services Committee amendments restricting the Department of Defense's (DoD's) abilities to pursue all domestic alternatives to foreign sourced fossil fuels guarantees that biofuel prices will remain unsustainably high.

These congressional efforts would prohibit DoD procurement of operational quantities of biofuels unless they were at parity with conventional fuels. Because there is a modest cost to blend alternatives with conventional fuel, the language favors foreign sources of fuel over domestic alternatives. Confronted with a choice between purchasing foreign fossil fuels sourced from outwardly hostile regimes or areas of political unrest and domestically produced biofuels at the same exact cost, it would be illegal under these provisions for DoD to purchase the domestic alternatives in operational quantities.

This same piece of legislation also appears to prohibit the DoD from using DPA, which would proscribe any actions whatsoever that would make domestically produced biofuels cost-competitive with conventional fuel. Another potential consequence of this legislation is that the DoD may be prohibited from purchasing non-biofuel alternatives such as hydrogen, fuel used for UAVs, which inherently cost more than conventional fuels.

Prohibiting the DoD from pursuing cost-competitive alternatives severely limits our ability to reduce reliance on fossil fuels sourced from outwardly hostile parts of the world. It is a policy position that is bad for energy security and bad for national security. As we continue the debate in Congress and across the nation about America's energy future, let's pursue all the options that can achieve greater energy security for our country, and not allow the conversation to be sidetracked by oversimplifying or misstating the facts.

Tom Hicks is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy.

Darpa's Flu Fighters Ramp Up Veggie-Based Vaccines

The military wants to boost vaccine production for the deadly flu, and do so with tobacco plants like these, pictured at a Medicago greenhouse in North Carolina in May 2012. Photo: Darpa

In the event of a global and highly lethal flu pandemic, we'll need to churn out millions of vaccines as soon as humanly possible. Not easy to do considering a true vaccine can't be developed until the pandemic has already arrived. So it's not surprising the military wants better vaccines that can be produced at blazing speed. Preferably ones it can grow.

The trick is to make lots of flu vaccines by growing tons of vegetables. That's under exploration by researchers who hold $21 million worth of funding from the Pentagon's mad scientists at Darpa ' and Darpa has been pursuing veggie-based vaccine research, called Blue Angel, since 2005. This week, Darpa-funded vaccine firm Medicago announced it hit a key goal: producing 10 million doses of a plant-based H1N1 influenza vaccine within a month.

A month might sound like a long time during flu season. But a fast-spreading, lethal contagion is perhaps the most likely kind of mass-casualty disaster humans can face. Remember the 2009 H1N1 influenza? According to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate, the virus killed an estimated 284,500 people worldwide.

If H5N1, another subtype of influenza we know as 'bird flu,' mutated into an airborne virus, the global mortality rate could reach higher than 60 percent. (By comparison, the last major pandemic in 1918 killed 50 million people with a mortality rate of 2.5 percent.) Your target population for the vaccine? Everyone, according to the World Health Organization (.pdf). That means the 7 billion people of Planet Earth would need to be vaccinated.

'In short, the potential for a pandemic exists and current technological limitations on defensive measures put the health and readiness of U.S. military forces at risk,' a DARPA statement announcing Medicago's grow-your-own vaccine achievement reads. 'A technological solution to increase the speed and adaptability of vaccine production is urgently needed to match the broad biological threat.'

The standard method of creating flu vaccine involves chicken eggs. Seriously: researchers combine the virus with a chicken embryo. But it takes months to ramp up production, and it takes a lot of eggs to cover a population. One estimate has it at nearly a billion eggs just to cover the U.S. alone. That's a billion eggs you might not have during an outbreak.

Plant-based vaccines, however, are developed using 'virus-like particles,' which actually resemble viruses on a genetic level but are non-infectious. They can't spread between people, and they help produce anti-viral antibodies. To produce the particles, scientists synthesize the DNA of the flu virus, combine the flu DNA with bacteria, and then soak the plants with it. After soaking for a few minutes, the plants then start producing the flu-fighting particles. Those particles then become the basis for a vaccine.

The most popular plant? Tobacco, as it grows relatively fast. The U.S. is also estimated to produce a heaping 450 metric tons of tobacco per year. And the whole process of turning tobacco into vaccines only takes a matter of weeks to complete. On a large enough scale, plant-based vaccines could be conceivably produced at 100 million vaccines a month. Egg-based vaccines, though, can take months just to develop.

A flu pandemic would also be a new kind of flu, striking a global population without a pre-existing immunity. This means the virus can take more than one dose of vaccine to prevent. But Darpa hopes the plant-based vaccines can be produced strong enough to only require a single dose. The fewer the doses per person, the fewer vaccines you have to produce.

In 2009, the Army expressed fears in an annual summary of its military programs that 'High rates of absenteeism [caused by a pandemic] could generate civil unrest, requiring Army action at a time when the Army's own readiness might be degraded.' The military could also be called on to help prevent the influenza from spreading, and it won't be able to do that if its troops are incapacitated with the illness.

The military better hurry. And Medicago still has to send the vaccine through clinical trials before it gets FDA approval. While H5N1 hasn't mutated into a form that can spread into humans ' outside of a laboratory, that is ' the virus has blown away any doubts that it can. All it might take is a chance mutation to make the threat real.

Russia Is Stockpiling Drones to Spy on Street Protests

A Zala 421-06, a drone that can fly for 90 minutes at 6,500 feet above sea level. Photo by Wikimedia Commons.

Small surveillance drones are starting to be part of police departments across America, and the FAA will soon open up the airspace for more to come. This drone invasion has already raised all kinds of privacy concerns. And if you think that's bad, across the ocean, Russia seems hell-bent on outdoing its former Cold War enemy.

Russia's leading manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles, Zala Aero, has provided the Russian government with more than 70 unmanned systems, each containing several aircraft. According to an article published yesterday on Open Democracy Russia, the Kremlin's romance with drones started in 2006, when the Interior Ministry deployed a Zala 421-04M to monitor street protests at a G8 summit in St. Petersburg. The Russian government has also bought drones from Israel.

Vladimir Putin himself is ready to jump on the drone bandwagon. 'We need a program for unmanned aircraft. Experts say this is the most important area of development in aviation,' he said in early June. 'We need a range of all types, including automated strike aircraft, reconnaissance and other types.' Indeed, Russia is going to allegedly spend around $13 billion on unmanned aerial vehicles through 2020.

According to its Zala executive  Maksim Shinkevich, almost every Interior Ministry air group has a drone these days. Their favorite one? The Zala  421-08M, a 5.5-pound, 31-inch wingspan unmanned vehicle equipped with a camera that can fly for 90 minutes at almost 12,000 feet. At the right angle, a drone like this can take a quality snapshot of a car's license plate. What about, say, a protester's face? 'Capturing faces in any detail would however require a very heavy drone with a good camera; more precisely, with a heavy, specialized platform,' Shinkevich told Open Democracy Russia.

No matter, these small drones, like the Zala 421-06, are perfect to monitor dissatisfied Russians marching down the streets. 'They will be used mainly to maintain public order during local demonstrations and marches, when we shall be keeping watch from the air to avoid any incidents,' said Sergei Kanunnikov, the head of the air operation center in the Department of the Interior of the eastern state of Amur.

Drones will also be deployed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, a Russian city on the Black Sea. And Sochi won't be the first Olympic city to secure its skies with robots; London will do the same starting this weekend.

Russia's infatuation with drone technology to monitor and spy popular protests is the Kremlin's latest attempt to clamp down on civil unrest, both on the streets and online. On Saturday, the Russian government announced a law that requires all NGOs to register as foreign agents, and on July 18, Russia's upper house of the Parliament passed an Internet censorship bill.

With a new fleet of drones, flying robots will be the new Russian spies and in case you're wondering if the Russians are particularly concerned about privacy, think again. According to Shinkevich, 'the secrets of our private lives have become a thing of the past.' And that's another thing which the two old superpowers can agree on.

5 Things We've Learned About How Mitt Would Run The World

Mitt Romney addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Nev. Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli)

The foreign policy of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is still a work in progress. It's clear that Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and businessman, thinks President Obama is doing a terrible job overseas as well as at home. But the specifics of what Romney would do differently are harder to pin down: Republican senators are scratching their heads over what their nominee will do in Afghanistan and Syria, for instance.

Romney's Tuesday speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars provided some additional specifics ' and some surprising ones. Sure, speeches are at best imperfect guides to how presidents will govern. (Remember when Obama was going to get out of Iraq within 16 months?) But they lay down markers, at least, for judging how candidates approach what Romney called a 'dangerous, destructive, chaotic' world. Here are five new and notable aspects of Romney's emerging foreign policy ' some of which look surprisingly familiar.

1. Mitt Agrees with Obama on Afghanistan, Egypt and Maybe Iran.

Put aside the rhetoric. (Obama has 'diminished American leadership' was one of the nicer things Romney had to say about his opponent.) Romney sketched out a fair amount of policy continuity with Obama, even if he came to it kicking and screaming.

First, Afghanistan. Romney doesn't like Obama's 2014 timeline for ending U.S. combat in the decade-long war, which he called politically motivated. But he likes what it gives him: cover to get out of Afghanistan without getting called weak. 'As president, my goal in Afghanistan will be to complete a successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014,' he said. He pledged as well to 'evaluate conditions on the ground and solicit the best advice of our military commanders' ' after saying that his goal is to leave, not to stay. Kind of like the current president.

Then there's Egypt, which Romney said 'has the power to tip the balance in the Arab world toward freedom and modernity.' If Romney's perturbed by the recent Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egypt's first free(ish) presidential election, he didn't show it. The billion or so dollars in annual aid to Egypt will keep flowing, under unspecified 'conditions' to 'foster the development of a government that represents all Egyptians, maintains peace with Israel, and promotes peace throughout the region.' You'd have to get really granular to see a difference with Obama there.

Finally, Iran. Romney thinks Iran is 'the most severe security threat facing America and our friends.' How he'll deal with it can be hard to pin down. He didn't reiterate his November call for new sanctions to halt its nuclear research. 'At every turn,' Romney said, 'Iran must know that the United States and our allies stand as one in these critical objectives.' That's what Obama says, too, to justify the multinational sanctions his administration placed on Iran. But it's no secret that Obama and Israel are out of step, and that's probably what Romney meant: he's about to start a foreign trip that'll take him to Israel.

Still: Romney didn't deride the effect of sanctions. He didn't pledge more cyberattacks. He didn't offer any (bigger) naval buildup around Iran. He called for a 'full suspension of any [uranium] enrichment,' possibly as a precondition for talks with Iran ' it's a bit unclear from the text of his speech ' which his surrogate Dan Senor called 'the only basis of any deal.'

That, at least, is different from Obama's position, which reportedly is moving away from a no-enrichment stance. Still, it means Romney isn't ruling out a deal with the Iranians, which is something that Republican politicians do not typically endorse. There are more continuities with Obama here than there are deviations.

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Syria Uses Air Strikes Against Rebels (Which Usually Fail)

The crumbling regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad reportedly unleashed its air force on Wednesday in what could be the biggest aerial onslaught in a civil war that's more than a year old. Jet fighters fired on the northern city of Aleppo, Reuters and the BBC reported. But if Assad thinks his jets can tip the balance against his opposition, he doesn't understand air power.

Fixed-wing air attacks ' rare events in this bloody, grinding conflict ' can be visually impressive. But attacks by fast-moving warplanes are rarely effective in dislodging fleet-footed insurgent forces from urban areas. Bombings can, however, kill unprotected civilians and devastate homes and businesses. An air attack that kills or injures civilians 'provides insurgents with a major propaganda victory,' the U.S. Army's counterinsurgency handbook (.pdf) warns.

To be sure, most of the fighting in Syria pits the regime's infantry and mechanized forces against insurgent foot soldiers armed with rifles, machine guns and, if they're lucky, a rocket or two. Increasingly Assad's forces have deployed Russian-made Hip helicopters armed with rockets. Damascus attempted to acquire new Hind attack copters from Russia last month, but Moscow bowed to international pressure and recalled the cargo ship transporting the Hinds.

The rebels aren't defenseless. As the aerial threat escalated, the Free Syrian Army fought back with heavy machine guns and captured government anti-aircraft weapons, apparently destroying at least one helicopter, as depicted in the video above. The rebel arsenal possibly includes a captured ZSU-23-4, a fast-firing, gun-armed vehicle that was one of the most fearsome aircraft-killers of the Cold War. And the opposition has been building up its weapons expertise on Facebook and YouTube.

In general, Assad's jets fly too high and too fast for the rebels to easily hit, though insurgent fighters did manage to destroy at least one aged MiG-23 on the ground by sneaking up to the airfield and firing a rocket-propelled grenade. But the speed and altitude that protects the jets also makes it difficult for them to effectively strike rebel positions. To accurately hit Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force relies on highly-trained observers on the ground. It's unlikely Damascus employs similar specialists.

Some reporters covering the fighting are skeptical that Syrian planes have even fired ordnance at all. The Associated Press described jets swooping over Aleppo and breaking the sound barrier as a bloodless 'show of force' ' a favorite tactic of American warplanes in Afghanistan. The AP attributed widespread destruction in the city to helicopters and artillery.

In any event, the Syrian air force could be quickly exhausted. Damascus possesses around 460 fixed-wing warplanes, according to a 2011 survey by the  Center for Strategic and International Studies ' a not insignificant arsenal. But more than half of the planes are 30-year-old MiG-21s and MiG-23s; only 40 or so MiG-29s can be described as modern.

The Syrian air force suffers 'low operational readiness, low combat sortie rates and an over-centralized battle management system,' CSIS concluded. Morale among pilots could also be low. One flier, Col. Hassan Hammadeh, defected to Jordan in his MiG-21 last month.

An air force that decrepit gets used rarely ' and only when the stakes are high. But that doesn't mean aerial attacks on insurgent forces actually work.

Aurora's Arsenal, Explained: Feds Can't Track Stockpiled Guns

Aurora massacre suspect James E. Holmes appears in Arapahoe County District Court on Monday, July 23, 2012. Photo: AP/Denver Post

Updated 10:25 a.m., July 24

If you want to kill large numbers of people, you should seriously consider buying a handgun or assault rifle. As the movie-theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado demonstrated, chances are federal law enforcement and homeland security and counterterrorism agents won't see you amassing an arsenal of assault rifles, handguns and ammunition.

Longtime law enforcement and intelligence veterans say that the feds simply don't have ways of spotting stockpiles of firearms. It stands in contrast to their successful post-9/11 efforts at stopping the spread of bomb precursors like chemical fertilizer.

There is no watchlist that captured Aurora suspect James Eagan Holmes, who appeared in court on Monday, as he spent thousands of dollars on AR-15s, Remington shotguns, Glock pistols and body armor. Holmes did much of his ammunition shopping online, where he purchased thousands of bullets and hundreds of shells with what the New York Times called 'a few keystrokes.'

In short, one of the most useful tools for killing people is effectively excluded from the attention of federal agents who have received sweeping powers over the last decade to prevent mass-casualty events. 'I don't know of anything' about Holmes' gun purchases 'that would've notified law enforcement as a matter of policy right now,' says Jack Cloonan, a retired FBI counterterrorism agent.

It doesn't work this way with bomb precursor material. While there isn't a government database of the stuff, the FBI and affiliated law enforcement agencies have spent countless hours convincing manufacturers, distributors and retailers to alert the authorities when suspicious or anomalously large purchases of chemical fertilizer or other potential explosives occur. 'You would know a lot more about people who buy chemical fertilizer than people who buy firearms,' says Aki Peritz, a former National Counterterrorism Center analyst.

'There are protocols in place, voluntary ones, for people to call in to the Department of Homeland Security' when potential explosives get bought in bulk, adds Cloonan. 'Every time there's an uptick in the terror warning, they have robust ' and I mean robust ' outreach' up and down the supply chain for potential explosives.

Those alerts apply to people with criminal backgrounds or who are on terrorist watchlists, as well those who don't. It doesn't work the same way with firearms. There is no federal database of gun owners or gun purchasers. The Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 prohibits the feds from maintaining one. But there are a few exceptions that give law enforcement and intelligence and counterterrorism agents some visibility into private small-arms stockpiles.

First, when someone seeks to buy a gun or rifle from a licensed gun dealer, federally mandated background checks will pick up if the suspected purchaser is on a terrorism watchlist. If so, his or her name will get sent to the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center. That's an internal Justice Department practice, not an alert that the gun dealer has anything to do with; indeed, the purchaser won't know that his name resides in the data banks at the Terrorist Screening Center. However, people on terror watchlists can buy guns.

Another exception, for those that aren't on terrorist watchlists and don't have criminal records: Someone seeking to buy two or more of certain kinds of rifles ' semi-automatics; calibers higher than .22; detachable magazines ' will attract the attention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) along four southwest states bordering Mexico. So will someone who tries to buy two or more handguns within five days, wherever the sale occurs. The ATF can retain information on those individuals for up to two years, if there's no active investigation resulting from it. Several counterterrorism sources consulted for this story were unclear as to whether intelligence or counterterrorism operatives could access that ATF data.

Ammunition purchases, however, are functionally unregulated and off-limits to federal law enforcement. The only way law enforcement would know about bulk ammo purchases is if the dealer decides he or she is dealing with a shady customer and alerts the authorities.

By contrast, when convicted would-be subway bomber Najibullah Zazi emailed a contact in Pakistan who was under U.S. surveillance for ties to terrorism, an FBI agent near Zazi knew within hours. That agent's home? Aurora, Colorado.

This may help explain why the primary mode of mass murder in the United States in the post-9/11 world remains a single shooter using an assault weapon or handgun. Holmes will soon face charges for shooting 71 people, at least 12 fatally, on Friday in Aurora. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army major, used an FN Herstal 5.7 tactical pistol to kill 13 people and wound another 29 in his 2009 Fort Hood, Texas shooting rampage. Seung Hui Cho outdid them both: he killed 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech in 2007 before turning his gun on himself. Jared Loughner shot 19 people in Tucson last year, including U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

'If you're concerned with people stockpiling weapons, you have to have some sort of way to maintain a database on this,' says Peritz, now an analyst with the Third Way think tank in Washington. 'Current law does not allow this. I love the Second Amendment as much as the next guy, but it would be nice if law enforcement had some inkling of a guy sitting on a mountaintop of guns.'

Update, 10:25 a.m., July 24: Text updated to reflect that information about multiple-rifle purchase only applies to certain kinds of rifles for sales occurring in four southwest states bordering Mexico.

Satellite Spots Syria's Iranian-Made Drones

Since at least February, the Syrian government has been using Iranian-built drones to track and target Free Syrian Army rebels in their strongholds, including Homs and Hamah. Now some fresh commercial satellite imagery provides new details about the unmanned aerial vehicles' possible tactics and capabilities.

Based on the imagery, acquired by George Kaplan for his blog Open-Source Geo-Intelligence, the small unarmed, propeller-driven Mohajer 4 drone is apparently limited in range. The Mohajer 4 most likely relies on control signals radioed from its launch base, unlike some Western 'bots which can be controlled via satellite from facilities pretty much anywhere in the world. The Syrian UAV's ability to transmit video is probably equally constrained.

The first glimpse by outsiders of drones in Syria came in February, when someone uploaded a video to YouTube depicting what appeared to be a UAV flying over the rebel-controlled town of Kafr Batna. (The February video has been rehosted several times.) Later there was at least one more sighting of a UAV in the insurgent city Homs.

Damascus is not particularly known for operating UAVs. So there was speculation that the drone was U.S. or Israeli and being used to spy on the regime ahead of any possible intervention. But informed observers soon identified the Kafr Batna 'bot as an Iranian-built Mohajer 4, also known by its general term pahpad, which debuted in a 2010 Iranian naval exercise. 'In addition to reconnaissance flight over the operation field, this kind of drone brings ease to battle command by transferring real-time data,' Iranian Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh boasted at the time.

The Pentagon later copped to sending its own drones, most likely high-flying Global Hawks or stealthy Sentinels, over Syria to monitor the escalating civil war. Compared to the large, sophisticated American models, the Mohajer 4 is tiny (just 10 feet long), non-stealthy and likely limited in capability. Damascus does not possess a global satellite communications network, so its drones are likely controlled via line-of-sight radio. Assuming a 100-foot-tall radio antenna and a UAV flying at an altitude of 300 feet, the useful range of the Mohajer 4 is probably no more than 40 miles.

Indeed, Kaplan's latest GeoEye satellite imagery shows the Mohajer 4s operating from Shayrat, a jet base just 18 miles from Hamah. 'This ' may suggest a shorter operational range for the pahpad than initially thought,' Kaplan wrote.

Syria's rudimentary communications network also argues for a simple, point-to-point imagery transfer from drone to ground station. In other words, a Mohajer 4 drone probably beams back video directly, and solely, to the ground station from which the UAV is also launched and steered. Contrast this with U.S. drones, the biggest of which can beam imagery to many, distant locations simultaneously. Kaplan's images from Shayrat depict what is apparently the Mohajer 4s' control station, a shed-like facility with some kind of vehicle attached.

Damascus is not the only foreign government or group to benefit from Iran's homemade drone tech, plus whatever insight Tehran has gleaned from its captured U.S. Sentinel. Hezbollah has operated Iranian UAVs. Tehran is also helping Venezuela develop a basic drone. But Syria is different: Here Iran's UAVs are contributing to a brutal and bloody campaign of oppression.

Fortunately, the Mohajer 4s are about as rudimentary as military drones get these days.

Spy Satellite Companies Form Space Monopoly

Earlier this year, the spy satellite industry was hit hard by defense budget cuts. For the top two commercial satellite companies, which survive largely by providing imagery to the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies, the cuts left only enough money for one to survive. Now budget austerity has forced the companies to merge together and create a new space monopoly with control over what we see from orbit.

On Monday, Colorado-based satellite firm DigitalGlobe announced it's merging with Virginia-based competitor GeoEye in a stock and cash deal worth $900 million. The merger works out in DigitalGlobe's favor, which keeps its name intact and whose shareholders will control 64 percent of the new company. DigitalGlobe will also take over GeoEye operations. Best known for providing imagery for applications like Google Earth, the companies combined provide more than three-quarters of the U.S. government's satellite images.

The company also has somewhat of a codependent relationship with the Pentagon. For one, the companies help serve a need for satellite images that the government's own aging fleet of satellites can't always fulfill. Meanwhile, the companies are dependent on funding from Congress and the Pentagon's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in order to stay afloat. This year, that funding got cut ' severely.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon announced it was pushing 'significant reductions' for commercial satellite imagery for fiscal year 2013. Although the total amount the government spends on reconnaissance satellites is kept secret, analysts expected losses up to 50 percent. This served as the catalyst for an austerity-driven merger war.

A week before the budget dropped in February, GeoEye launched a failed hostile takeover bid for DigitalGlobe, offering to acquire the company for $792 million. DigitalGlobe called GeoEye's bluff, saying GeoEye's offer 'substantially undervalue[d] the company in relation to DigitalGlobe's standalone business and financial prospects' ' i.e., their company's ability to withstand a body-blow brought on by defense cuts.

Then in late June, doubts emerged whether GeoEye's funding would continue. The NGA diced into two parts GeoEye's share of the agency's 10-year, $7.3 billion EnhancedView program, which provides funds for imagery and helps develop satellite technology.

The agency gave GeoEye two options: either renew the contract for EnhancedView for three months or nine months instead of a full year. It was a worrying sign the agency was looking for a way out of the contract. If the agency renewed with GeoEye for a full year, the agency's cost would come out of a budget that might get cut. If Congress was set to cleave apart that budget, the NGA might not have the means for pay for it.

GeoEye's stock plunged. There was speculation the company wouldn't be able to secure lending from banks ' already considerably difficult for companies that depend on a static defense budget for contracts.

But competitor DigitalGlobe also had a share of the EnhancedView contract, and it wasn't touched. With its competitor now on the ropes, DigitalGlobe was set up to consume it.

Of course, with the merger, that means DigitalGlobe is now the main player in the satellite industry. The company is currently building two new satellites: the World View-3 and is finishing GeoEye's latest orbital, the GeoEye-2. The company plans to launch one sometime in 2013 or 2014. The GeoEye-2, though not as zoomable as the governments' top secret spy satellites, is expected to be able to photograph the ground at higher resolutions than the best current commercial satellites. Whichever satellite doesn't launch is planned to be kept grounded as a spare.

DigitalGlobe expects the merger will also allow net savings of up to $1.5 billion, saving taxpayers money while allowing the company to diversify. But with most of the U.S.'s geospatial intelligence now absorbed by one company, it's worth wondering what that will do to satellite costs over the long term. It's not difficult to factor that monopolies distort the marketplace, and exclude competitors which work to keep down prices.

It also means more and more space imagery will be the preserve of one company. Like it or not, that means DigitalGlobe will control an increasing amount of what we can ' or can't ' see from space.

Russia's Top Cyber Sleuth Foils US Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals

Eugene Kaspersky, Soviet officer turned software tycoon.
Photo: Stephen Voss

It's early February in Cancun, Mexico. A group of 60 or so financial analysts, reporters, diplomats, and cybersecurity specialists shake off the previous night's tequila and file into a ballroom at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. At the front of the room, a giant screen shows a globe targeted by crosshairs. Cancun is in the center of the bull's-eye.

A ruddy-faced, unshaven man bounds onstage. Wearing a wrinkled white polo shirt with a pair of red sunglasses perched on his head, he looks more like a beach bum who's lost his way than a business executive. In fact, he's one of Russia's richest men'the CEO of what is arguably the most important Internet security company in the world. His name is Eugene Kaspersky, and he paid for almost everyone in the audience to come here. 'Buenos dias,' he says in a throaty Russian accent, as he apologizes for missing the previous night's boozy activities. Over the past 72 hours, Kaspersky explains, he flew from Mexico to Germany and back to take part in another conference. 'Kissinger, McCain, presidents, government ministers' were all there, he says. 'I have panel. Left of me, minister of defense of Italy. Right of me, former head of CIA. I'm like, 'Whoa, colleagues.''

He's bragging to be sure, but Kaspersky may be selling himself short. The Italian defense minister isn't going to determine whether criminals or governments get their hands on your data. Kaspersky and his company, Kaspersky Lab, very well might. Between 2009 and 2010, according to Forbes, retail sales of Kaspersky antivirus software increased 177 percent, reaching almost 4.5 million a year'nearly as much as its rivals Symantec and McAfee combined. Worldwide, 50 million people are now members of the Kaspersky Security Network, sending data to the company's Moscow headquarters every time they download an application to their desktop. Microsoft, Cisco, and Juniper Networks all embed Kaspersky code in their products'effectively giving the company 300 million users. When it comes to keeping computers free from infection, Kaspersky Lab is on its way to becoming an industry leader.

But this still doesn't fully capture Kaspersky's influence. Back in 2010, a researcher now working for Kaspersky discovered Stuxnet, the US-Israeli worm that wrecked nearly a thousand Iranian centrifuges and became the world's first openly acknowledged cyberweapon. In May of this year, Kaspersky's elite antihackers exposed a second weaponized computer program, which they dubbed Flame. It was subsequently revealed to be another US-Israeli operation aimed at Iran. In other words, Kaspersky Lab isn't just an antivirus company; it's also a leader in uncovering cyber-espionage.

Serving at the pinnacle of such an organization would be a remarkably powerful position for any man. But Kaspersky's rise is particularly notable'and to some, downright troubling'given his KGB-sponsored training, his tenure as a Soviet intelligence officer, his alliance with Vladimir Putin's regime, and his deep and ongoing relationship with Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB. Of course, none of this history is ever mentioned in Cancun.

What is mentioned is Kaspersky's vision for the future of Internet security'which by Western standards can seem extreme. It includes requiring strictly monitored digital passports for some online activities and enabling government regulation of social networks to thwart protest movements. 'It's too much freedom there,' Kaspersky says, referring to sites like Facebook. 'Freedom is good. But the bad guys'they can abuse this freedom to manipulate public opinion.'

These are not exactly comforting words from a man who is responsible for the security of so many of our PCs, tablets, and smartphones. But that is the paradox of Eugene Kaspersky: a close associate of the autocratic Putin regime who is charged with safeguarding the data of millions of Americans; a supposedly-retired intelligence officer who is busy today revealing the covert activities of other nations; a vital presence in the open and free Internet who doesn't want us to be too free. It's an enigmatic profile that's on the rise as Kaspersky's influence grows.

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U.S. Admits Surveillance Violated Constitution At Least Once

Updated, 6:15 p.m.

The head of the U.S. government's vast spying apparatus has conceded that recent surveillance efforts on at least one occasion violated the Constitutional prohibitions on unlawful search and seizure.

The admission comes in a letter from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declassifying statements that a top U.S. Senator wished to make public in order to call attention to the government's 2008 expansion of its key surveillance law.

'On at least one occasion,' the intelligence shop has approved Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to say, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found that 'minimization procedures' used by the government while it was collecting intelligence were 'unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.' Minimization refers to how long the government may retain the surveillance data it collects.  The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is supposed to guarantee our rights against unreasonable searches.

Wyden does not specify how extensive this 'unreasonable' surveillance was; when it occurred; or how many Americans were affected by it.

In the letter, acquired by Danger Room (.pdf), Wyden asserts a serious federal sidestep of a major section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

That section ' known as Section 702 and passed in 2008 ' sought to legalize the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance efforts. The 2008 law permitted intelligence officials to conduct surveillance on the communications of 'non-U.S. persons,' when at least one party on a call, text or email is 'reasonably believed' to be outside of the United States. Government officials conducting such surveillance no longer have to acquire a warrant from the so-called FISA Court specifying the name of an individual under surveillance. And only a 'significant purpose' of the surveillance has to be the acquisition of 'foreign intelligence,' a weaker standard than before 2008.

Wyden says that the government's use of the expanded surveillance authorities 'has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law' ' a conclusion that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence does not endorse. The office does not challenge the statement about the FISA Court on at least one occasion finding the surveillance to conflict with the Fourth Amendment. Danger Room initially misunderstood the letter to mean that its author, top intelligence official Kathleen Turner, made the statements she was merely informing Wyden he could to issue publicly without revealing classified information.

But this is a far cry from how Director of National Intelligence James Clapper typically describes the new FISA law. When the law was up for reauthorization this spring, Clapper wrote to congressional leaders to say its renewal was his 'top priority in Congress,' (.pdf) as the law 'allows the Intelligence Community to collect vital information about international terrorists and other important targets overseas while providing robust protection for the civil liberties and privacy of Americans.'

Suspicions about abuse of the government's new surveillance powers are almost as old as the 2008 expansion of the law. In 2009, citing anonymous sources, the New York Times reported that 'the N.S.A. had been engaged in 'overcollection' of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic,' if unintentional. The Justice Department told the Times that it had already resolved the problem.

But as the American Civil Liberties Union noted in a May letter to lawmakers, 'There is little in the public record about how the government implements' the expanded law. An ACLU Freedom of Information Act request discovered that the Justice Department and intelligence bureaucracy refer to 'compliance incidents' (.pdf) in their internal accounting of the new surveillance ' which seemed to suggest difficulty staying within the broadened boundaries of the law. (Full disclosure: My wife works for the ACLU.)

Wyden has been a lonely congressional voice against renewing the government's broadened surveillance powers. Last month, he quietly used a parliamentary maneuver to stall the renewal after it passed a key Senate committee.

Wyden's argument was that the government had not fully disclosed the extent of its new surveillance powers. It argued to Wyden that it is 'not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed under the authority of the [FISA Amendments Act].' Separately, the National Security Agency insisted that it would violate Americans' privacy even to tally up how many Americans it had spied upon under the new law.

On Friday, Wyden said in a statement: I applaud the DNI for agreeing that transparency should prevail in this situation' I believe that protections for Americans' privacy need to be strengthened, and I believe that the FISA Court's rulings help illustrate why this is necessary. I look forward to debating this issue on the Senate floor.'

In her letter to Wyden, Turner insisted ' as the government has in the past ' that all Constitutional and legal problems with the expanded surveillance have already been rectified. The government, she writes, believes the FISA Amendments Act is 'a well-calibrated statute that strikes an appropriate balance between protecting national security and safeguarding privacy and civil liberties.'

'At no time,' she continues, 'have these reviews found any intentional violations of law.'

GPS Hijacking Catches Feds, Drone Makers Off Guard

The University of Texas Radionavigation Laboratory drone, an Adaptive Flight Hornet Mini. Photo: Courtesy Todd Humphreys

UPDATED 7/20/12, 11.30AM

On June 19, when University of Texas researchers successfully hijacked a drone by 'spoofing' it ' giving it bad GPS coordinates ' they showed the Department of Homeland Security how civilian drones could fall into the wrong hands, exposing a potentially serious security flaw. It was exactly what Todd Humphreys, the lead researcher, anticipated in a TEDx talk in February: 'You can scarcely imagine the kind of havoc you could cause if you knew what you were doing with a GPS spoofer.'

On Thursday, a month after the experiment, the investigations panel of the House Homeland Security Committee held a hearing on how civilian drones could affect the security of the American airspace. 'These findings are alarming and have revealed a gaping hole in the security of using unmanned aerial systems domestically,' said Rep. Michael McCall, the panel's chairman. 'Now is the time to ensure these vulnerabilities are mitigated to protect our aviation system as the use of unmanned aerial systems continues to grow.'

Problem is, the FAA and the Department of Homeland security have yet to come up with specific requirements or a certified system to protect drones from GPS attacks. And what's worse, neither of them takes responsibility for it. 'The Department of Homeland Security mission is to protect the homeland. Unfortunately, DHS seems either disinterested or unprepared to step up to the plate,' said McCall, noting that representatives from the DHS declined to testify at the hearing. The FAA declined to comment on GPS security after the spoofing test.

Some of the drone manufacturers have their own systems to counter spoofing attacks, but others either think this is not their job, are not worried at all, or were completely taken by surprise.

'We've always been aware of [GPS threats like] jamming and lost satellites,' said Dennis D'Annunzio, Chief Technical Officer of drone maker Rotomotion, which produces drones used by local police like the North Little Rock Police Department in Arkansas. 'But spoofing and taking control was something that we weren't anticipating.'

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U.S. Missile Shield May Make China Build Better Missiles

Guided missile destroyer U.S.S. Hopper launches a SM-3 interceptor at a test ballistic missile in the Pacific on July 31, 2009. Photo: Navy

China has bet the security of its billion citizens largely around one weapon system: missiles. Which is why planned U.S. advancements to Washington's mobile missile shield is freaking Beijing out. Its military chiefs figure they need to upgrade their own cache of various missiles or risk losing the ability to deter the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Not exactly the response American military planners had in mind.

The PLA 'will have to modernize its nuclear arsenal' because American missile interceptors 'may reduce the credibility of its nuclear deterrence,' Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu of China's National Defense University told a panel in Beijing on Wednesday. Chenghu elaborated to a Reuters reporter that the U.S.
interceptor system 'undermines the strategic stability.' He was referring to the United States' planned anti-ballistic missile system, which is slim at the moment, but by 2020 is supposed to shield Europe from short, mid-range and eventually intercontinental missile attacks.

While the shield is intended to defend Europe against an attack from Iran, the interceptors are both land- and ship-based ' meaning the system can be packed up and moved. If, say, North Korea starts tossing missiles around, the United States could send ships to shoot them down. Those same ships, Chenghu's thinking goes, could be used against China.

China depends on missiles more than you might think. While China is modernizing its military by boosting its defense budget, retrofitting a Russian aircraft carrier, and building new submarines and destroyers, its security in the near term depends on its massive stockpile of missiles. The U.S. believes China possesses 130 to 195 missiles capable of being armed with nuclear warheads, according to Reuters. To fill gaps in its conventional military, China has boosted its missile arsenal up to nearly 2,000 non-nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles. It could potentially lob around a thousand of them as an initial strike weapon against Taiwan or U.S. bases in the Pacific.

But that over-reliance on missiles has left China with a glaring vulnerability. That's where the U.S. missile shield comes into play.

Today, the main bulwark of the U.S missile shield is in the early stages of implementation, in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. There's a radar station in Turkey and the destroyer U.S.S Monterrey ' armed with SM-3 interceptors ' in the Mediterranean. NATO plans to put in ground-based missile interceptor sites in Romania in 2015, and press ahead with more interceptors in Poland by 2018. More stressful from China's perspective: Alaska and California also both have SM-3 sites.

And the Pentagon is getting better at downing ballistic missiles. There's no guarantee the untested system will work in combat. But in case there's any doubt about the United States' role in the Pacific over the coming years, the U.S. Navy will emphasize 'air-to-air, electronic attack, electronic warfare, anti-submarine, and our capabilities in anti-ship ballistic missile and anti-ship cruise missile defeat,' Adm. Jonathan Greenert told reporters late last month.

That poses a serious risk to China. By investing so much in ballistic missiles, the United States responds by upgrading its missile defense system. In response, China has to build even more missiles, in the hope of getting past the system. And it's not just building more missiles, it's building more capable ones, too, like the DF-21D, which is supposed to be able to kill an aircraft carrier. That's where the logic of over-relying on missiles takes you.

But there's an irony in here for the United States, too. Its new animating concept for the Navy and the Air Force is to be able to stop any adversary from pushing ships, subs, jets and bombers away from its shores or its skies. The number-one way most adversaries do that: missiles. If China reads the revamped U.S. missile shield as a provocation that requires a new wave of missile advancement, that's going to make the Navy and Air Force's job more complicated. (Complicated isn't the same as impossible, though.) China may not be the only nation locked into faulty defense logic.

Real-Life Horror: Shooter Slays 12 At 'Dark Knight' Screening

The brutality of Christopher Nolan's Gotham City became horrifyingly real during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado as a gunman burst into the theater and murdered at least 12 people. And at least some in the theater initially thought the incident was part of the show.

While information about the massacre is still sketchy ' there's a Reddit page compiling a timeline of the attack ' early reports indicate that a man wearing a gas mask and body armor and carrying a rifle burst into the ninth theater at the Central 16 cineplex in the Denver suburb. He threw what witnesses described as a gas canister before beginning a shooting spree that wounded about 50 people ' at least 12 fatally.

'We were just watching the movie and up to the right it sounded liked some firecrackers went off,' Zachary Golditch, who was seeing the movie in the nearby Theater 8, told local TV news. Golditch was shot in the neck, 'a clear in and out wound,' as the chaos spread to theater eight.

Another moviegoer in Theater 8, Alex Milano, told a reporter that 'loud bangs and smoke took over the right of the theater.' Before he realized he was under attack, Milano said he and a friend thought, 'Special effects, midnight showing, that's awesome, what theater does that anymore.' But when he saw 'something come through the wall, multiple objects flow through the wall,' he dropped his younger sister and himself to the ground and spirited them out of the movie.

Police announced that they have a 24-year old man in custody, named James Holmes. His motives are as yet unknown ' but became the subject of quick, rash speculation on the Twitter hashtags #aurorashooting and #theatershooting. where people used the tragedy to promote their agendas on everything from gun control to counterterrorism. Twitter became a portal into the tragedy, as cellphone videos filmed from the theater circulated alongside outpourings of support for the victims and rage at the crime. The social-media fracas even prompted an area man who shares a name with the suspect to compose a Facebook post explaining, 'I am not a 24-year old gun-slinging killer.' Already, a Facebook group assembled urging the 'death penalty' for a suspect who as of yet has not been charged with the crime.

Warner Brothers released a statement extending 'our sincere sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims at this tragic time.' It has cancelled the red-carpet premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Paris.

While fears of sophisticated domestic terrorism have circulated since 9/11 ' Nolan plays off them in his Batman trilogy ' most mass killings in the United States still typically rely on a single individual or small group of people using assault weapons. From the Littleton Colorado shootings of 1999; to the D.C. area sniper rampage of 2002; to the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007; to Maj. Nidal Hassan's Fort Hood attack in 2009, this pattern has held. The 'complex attacks' familiar to the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan ' so-called because they combine insurgent tactics, such as homemade bomb explosions with small-arms or rocket fire ' have still not migrated back to the United States. But Aurora might be an intended exception.

As of 11 a.m. EST, TV news is reporting that police on the scene have evacuated buildings near Holmes' apartment building because of suspicions the building is booby-trapped. MSNBC is saying Holmes himself, in custody, told police about the suspected boobytraps himself. Should these boobytraps turn out to be actual bombs that go off outside a controlled explosion, then that would probably count as a rare complex attack inside the United States. Police have surrounded Holmes' building, described as containing incendiary or explosive material, as of this writing.

And it may be a coincidence, but the Joker in Nolan's The Dark Knight also booby-trapped buildings that he lured police (and the Batman) toward. If it's more than a coincidence, it would follow earlier incidents of killers copycatting comic-book and movie violence. In 2009, an Army specialist stabbed a fellow soldier while painting his face like the Joker before police shot him to death in Shenandoah National Park. That same year, a Belgian man also dressed like the Joker went on a stabbing spree at a day-care center. Many years earlier, a serial killer in New York cited the Robocop franchise as inspiration for his murders.

Sophisticated terrorist attacks like 9/11, where multiple teams of terrorists synchronize an assault, remain the exception, not the rule. It's notable as well that the homegrown attacks encouraged by the web magazine of al-Qaida's Yemen offshoot are more grandiose than killing moviegoers; none have manifested yet.

The U.S. Army, concerned over speculation that the shooter might have been a veteran ' and eager to stifle the meme of the psychotic veteran before it spread ' felt compelled to email that a database check of the suspect resulted in 'no evidence suggest[ing] this individual served in the Army.' Spokespeople for Buckley Air Force Base, near to Aurora, said servicemembers were among the wounded.

Christopher Nolan's third Batman film is based in part on the 1993 comic-book saga 'Knightfall,' in which the psychopathic villain Bane subjects Gotham City to a campaign of escalating violence as a plot to lure out and cripple an exhausted Batman. In Aurora, the story came far too close to reality.

Pentagon, CIA Sued for Lethal Drone Attacks on U.S. Citizens

Armed MQ-9 Reaper drones like this one are used by both the U.S. military and the CIA. Photo: USAF

Survivors of three Americans killed by targeted drone attacks in Yemen last year sued top-ranking members of the United States government, alleging Wednesday they illegally killed the three, including a 16-year-old boy, in violation of international human rights law and the U.S. Constitution.

'The government has killed three Americans. It should account for its actions. This case gives us an opportunity to do that,' Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a press call.

The suit, (.pdf) is being litigated by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU. It seeks unspecified damages and highlights the government's so-called unmanned 'targeted killing' program. The ACLU and the Center maintain the drone attacks have killed thousands, including hundreds of innocent bystanders overseas. (Other estimates of the campaign come to widely different conclusions.)

The suit, the first of its kind, alleges the United States was not engaged in an armed conflict with or within Yemen, prohibiting the use of lethal force unless 'at the time it is applied, lethal force is a last resort to protect against a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury.' The case directly challenges the government's decision to kill Americans without judicial scrutiny.

At bottom, Jaffer said, 'the question is whether the government is justified in killing without charging them or trying them for anything.'

The suit is brought on behalf of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a radical cleric and a native of New Mexico. He was originally known for his incendiary blog and YouTube videos. But according to the Obama administration, Awlaki's role morphed from marketer to operational planner and recruiter for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. U.S. authorities claim he had contacts with the 9/11 hijackers, the underwear bomber and others.

He was killed Sept. 30 last year. Also killed was Samir Khan, the editor of the English magazine Inspire, which allegedly was published by Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Two weeks later, the cleric's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, was killed in a separate Yemen attack.

The defendants include Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, CIA Director David Petraeus, U.S. Navy Adm. William H. McRaven and U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Votel.

Citing U.S. officials, the Washington Post has reported that the son and Khan were not intended targets.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond for comment. The administration refuses to release the Justice Department memo that legally justifies targeting Americans, and according to the New York Times, President Obama approves or denies who gets added to the 'kill list.'

But Attorney General Eric Holder said in a March speech at Northwestern University Law School that 'Our legal authority is not limited to the battlefields in Afghanistan.' He said the legal authority Congress passed following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks covers Yemen and Somalia, where other unmanned drone attacks have been carried out.

Holder said the administration takes action with 'the consent of the nation involved or after a determination that the nation is unable or unwilling to deal effectively with a threat to the United States.'

In another suit, the ACLU is invoking the Freedom of Information Act seeking details of the government's drone program. In that case, the CIA refuses to confirm or deny the covert military use of drones to kill suspected terrorists overseas.