By Larry Shaughnessy
American arms exporters, in the midst of a defense spending slowdown here in the U.S., are enjoying an increase in overseas sales, according to a new State Department report.
The government authorized the sale of more than $44 billion in military and other U.S. technical hardware in fiscal year 2011, a jump of more than $10 billion over the year before, according to U.S. officials.
In order for a company to sell military hardware or sophisticated non-military hardware, like satellites, it must obtain a license for each sale from the State Department.
FULL POST
By Tom Cohen
The White House announced Monday that President Barack Obama signed an executive order allowing new sanctions against companies that enable Syria and Iran to use technology such as cell phone monitoring to carry out human rights abuses.
The announcement was part of a broader strategy intended to strengthen the administration's ability to prevent atrocities, including creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board. FULL POST
By Pam Benson
While the Obama administration is urging North Korea not to go ahead with its expected rocket launch, the launch does present one benefit: The U.S. intelligence community will get the rare opportunity to more precisely see just how far North Korea has progressed with its long-range missile technology program since its last launch three years ago.
Although North Korea says it is merely deploying an Earth observation satellite, something it has failed at doing in the past, the United States believes the secretive nation is really testing technology that would also enable it to fire a ballistic missile carrying a warhead, one that could potentially strike the United States.
But the real question is whether the rocket performs as intended, especially that third stage, which releases the satellite.
FULL POST
By Adam Levine, with reporting from Barbara Starr, Jamie Crawford and Santiago Melli-Huber
Key al Qaeda online forums have fallen silent in the past two weeks, leaving terrorism experts to wonder the cause and whether a key communications mode of the terror group and its affiliates has been purposely undermined.
The sites, where al Qaeda posts messages and jihadists and wannabe jihadists post messages and discussions regarding their ideology and loyalty, started disappearing on March 23, said Aaron Y. Zelin, a researcher in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University. Zelin also maintains the website Jihadology.net.
The outages were first reported by the Washington Post. No entity has claimed responsibility and U.S. officials contacted by CNN would not comment.
By Jamie Crawford
The United States is providing Syrian opposition groups specialized equipment to help the opposition organize and communicate outside of the watchful eye of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
The equipment comes in addition to the increase in financial contributions that were announced this past weekend.
"The United States is going beyond humanitarian aid and providing additional assistance, including communications equipment that will help activists organize, evade attacks by the regime, and connect to the outside world - and we are discussing with our international partners how best to expand this support," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday in Istanbul at a meeting of the so-called 'Friends of Syria.'
With the uprising in Syria entering its second year, the administration said the communications assistance is needed to supplement the $25 million in humanitarian assistance already pledged.
FULL POST
Over at Time's Battleland blog, they are taking a close look at the Reaper and whether it is really the future of warfare. Or, as Mark Thompson puts it, "they’re not always the wonder weapons some believe." So for the next five days, weapons expert Winslow Wheeler "kicks the tires of the MQ-9 Reaper and, well, finds it lacking."
Read the beginning of the series on Battleland.
And if that doesn't satisfy your urge for all-things-drone, Foreign Policy has "10 Things You Didn't Know About Drones" including how for all the talk of military use, the civilian use is expanding even faster.
By Larry Shaughnessy, with reporting from Elise Labott at the State Department
The Pentagon spelled out in billions of dollars on Monday precisely how it wants to save nearly half a trillion dollars in defense spending over the next five years, as the Department of Defense and other parts of the American national security apparatus sought to rebalance their books to account for new areas of concern.
Beginning this year, the military wants to spend far less on the war in Afghanistan compared with recent years as the U.S. draws down its forces, with an eye on the exit for most by the end of 2014.
In 2013, the Department of Defense expects to spend $88 billion on overseas contingency operations, almost all of it on the war in Afghanistan. That's compared with the $115 billion it expects to spend this year.
Those savings have to come from somewhere. FULL POST
By Jennifer Rizzo
The military's tech incubator has revealed its latest effort to perfect a robotic beast of burden.
The LS3, which has been in development since 2010, is being built to carry heavy loads for troops in the field, and the Defense Department's research and development arm has for the first time released footage of the new mule-like robot in action.
Designed to carry 400 pounds of equipment, travel up to 20 miles at a time, and move at speeds as fast as 10 mph, the LS3 is meant to fit into a Marine or Army unit in a "natural way," the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said in a news release.
FULL POST
By Mark Milian
U.S. soldiers will be among the first to receive newly approved smartphones capable of capable of handling classified government documents over cellular networks, according to people involved in the project.
The phones will run a modified version of Google's Android software, which is being developed as part of an initiative that spans multiple federal agencies and government contractors, these people said.
The smartphones are first being deployed to U.S. soldiers, people familiar with the project said. Later, federal agencies are expected to get phones for sending and receiving government cables while away from their offices, sources said. Eventually, local governments and corporations could give workers phones with similar software.
The Army has been testing touchscreen devices at U.S. bases for nearly two years, said Michael McCarthy, a director for the Army's Brigade Modernization Command, in a phone interview. About 40 phones were sent to fighters overseas a year ago, and the Army plans to ship 50 more phones and 75 tablets to soldiers abroad in March, he said.
"We've had kind of an accelerated approval process," McCarthy said. "This is a hugely significant event."
Read the whole story here
By Jamie Crawford
Guided by an army of "geeks with a conscience," a network of digital activists, working mostly in the shadows, is emerging to challenge the restrictions of repressive governments around the world.
Sascha Meinrath is part of that army.
Working with a team of tech experts inside a nondescript building in downtown Washington, Meinrath is developing new technologies that could one day be used to evade government censors and secret police. "You can imagine any of the world's hot spots, and we have been contacted by people there," he told CNN.
With governments in Iran, Syria, Cuba and elsewhere around the world trying to clamp down on freedom of expression both in public and online, the march is on to put a stop to it.
Since coming into office, the Obama administration has actively supported the construction of detours around Internet censors in repressive environments like Iran and Syria, thereby enabling activists to communicate with each other, and organize, without the threat of surveillance by the very governments they are trying to subvert.
FULL POST
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