Public Intelligence

The following photos were taken in late March and early April 2012.

This Thursday Terrahawk, LLC will show off its Mobile Utility Surveillance Tower (MUST) to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate along with their staffs; with MUST, law enforcement agencies can quickly set up a mobile surveillance tower for emergency response, crowd control, or general surveillance. This Thursday Terrahawk, LLC will show off its Mobile Utility Surveillance Tower (MUST) to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate along with their staffs. With MUST, law enforcement agencies can quickly set up a mobile surveillance tower for emergency response, crowd control, or general surveillance. Using an automatic hydraulic stabilization system, in less than two minutes a single operator can launch a vehicle-mounted elevated surveillance tower as high as twenty-five feet without ever having to leave the safety of the interior of the vehicle.

Recent unrest in London has sparked media interest in the U.S. military’s plans for civil unrest, including a report from the Atlantic on a little known document called CONPLAN 3502. With economies declining around the world and social unrest spreading throughout the Middle East and even into Western democracies, many wonder what would happen if this sort of unrest and violence were to spread to the United States. Would the response be measured and calm, respecting popular movements and upholding fundamental human rights, or would the response look something more like what is happening in Syria? To understand just what would happen in the event of widespread unrest in the United States, you must first familiarize yourself with CONPLAN 3502, the classified military plan for civil disturbances. A slide from a U.S. Northern Command presentation previously published by this site indicates that CONPLAN 3502 is one of several Contingency Plans (CONPLANs) for domestic U.S. military operations in the event of a disaster, terrorist attack or national security special event (NSSE). Several of the plans deal with Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA) in times of disaster or crisis, including pandemic influenza outbreaks, nuclear and radiological events, as well as chemical weapons attacks. Though, CONPLAN 3502 is unique in that it deals exclusively with support operations conducted with local authorities during times of “civil disturbance”. Because CONPLAN 3502 is classified “Secret”, it has not been released to the public and little is known of its contents. However, through bits of information found in a number of relevant documents, a fairly coherent picture of military civil disturbance planning may be ascertained.

Foxtongue – http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxtongue/ BrittneyBush – http://www.flickr.com/photos/tzofia/ eych-you-bee-ee-ahr-tee – http://www.flickr.com/photos/eych/ refreshment_66 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/15574096@N00/

The US army is planning to field “rubber bullets” for machine guns. Military officials claim the ammunition will allow them to more effectively quell violent protests without loss of life, but human rights campaigners are alarmed by the new weapon. The final design for the XM1044 round has not been selected, according to an order placed on the Federal Business Opportunities website last month, but the army’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has been working on a ring aerofoil projectile for some years. The round is a hollow plastic cylinder 40 millimetres across, looking something like a short toilet-paper roll. In flight its shape generates lift, giving it a longer range. The army’s existing crowd-control rounds are single shots fired from handheld grenade launchers with a range of about 50 metres – the XM1044 would double this range. It would be supplied in belts for the Mk19 grenade launcher, a truck-mounted weapon that can fire almost six rounds per second. The Mk19 has been exported to some 30 countries, including Egypt.

Hundreds of youths have clashed with security forces during protests in the northern Algerian town of Akbou. Police reportedly used tear gas and batons to drive back crowds protesting over unemployment. About 30 people, most of them protesters, were hurt. In January Algeria was the first in a string of countries to see street protests, as people rallied against high food prices and unemployment. Several people were killed as unrest spread across the country.

These photos are from the last several days, beginning approximately January 26, 2011. Photo credits are at the bottom of the page.   Special attention should be given to the fact that Al Jazeera English and many reporters have released their coverage of recent events in Egypt under a Creative Commons license. abcharlie – http://www.flickr.com/photos/abcharlie/ [...]

Fabrizio Terrezza – http://www.flickr.com/photos/fabriter1985/ Michele Massetani – http://www.flickr.com/photos/gigiomc/ Giacomo Cosua – http://www.flickr.com/photos/jacko83/ Andrea Veroni – http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreatm/ Alessandro – http://www.flickr.com/photos/diffaphoto/ makisraf – http://www.flickr.com/photos/efthymios-gourgouris/

Britain’s coalition government survived the most serious challenge yet to its austerity plans on Thursday when parliament narrowly approved a sharp increase in college fees. But violent student protests in central London, including an attack on a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife Camilla to the theater, provided a stark measure of growing public resistance. The 62-year-old heir to the British throne and his 63-year-old wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, were said by palace officials to have been unharmed in the incident, which occurred when a group of about 50 protesters, some in full-face balaclavas and shouting “Tory scum,” broke through a cordon of motorcycle police while approaching London’s theater district in slow-speed traffic. A photograph of the couple, in formal evening dress, showed them registering shock as protesters beat on the side of their aromored, chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce with sticks and bottles, smashing a side window, denting a rear panel and splashing it with white paint. A Jaguar tailing behind and carrying a palace security detail was so battered that the police ended up using its doors as shields.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jymography/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tralamander/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurence-hardy/

Financial markets tumbled as protests erupted across Europe at the human cost of painful cuts as new EU rules to prevent national governments bowing to pressure over unpopular cuts were tabled in Brussels. The European Commission, concerned that some eurozone governments are wavering in the face of mass protests yesterday (WEDS) moved to introduce huge fines if national governments failed bring their public spending within levels set by the EU. Spain was gripped by a general strike, in Greece doctors and rail workers walked out and the Irish parliament was blocked with a cement truck to protest at the high cost of bank bailouts at a time of deep cuts to public spending. Brussels was paralysed by 100,000 trade union demonstrators from 24 countries, including Britain. As protests mounted, the European Commission proposed new measures threatening euro zone countries, such as Spain and Ireland, with multi-billion fines if they did not hold firm on budget cuts aimed to stop a Greek-style debt crisis tearing the European single currency apart.

Refugees fleeing Kyrgyzstan’s spasms of violence are accusing the central Asian nation’s security forces of carrying out some of the deadly attacks. Emerging video and witness accounts point to units of the Kyrgyz military taking part in the violence. Uprooted people on both sides of the Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan border said they are frightened by the Kyrgyz military.

Deadly gun battles raged in the Kyrgyzstan city of Osh where bodies littered the streets Monday as ethnic violence escalated and Uzbekistan raced to cope with a massive refugee influx. Amid sporadic gunfire, charred corpses lay unattended in an ethnic Uzbek shop destroyed by petrol bombs, fires burned and Osh streets were littered with shell casings under an acrid, black pall of smoke.

Rioting erupted across Bangkok after Thai security forces backed by armored vehicles cleared an anti- government protest camp and forced its leaders to surrender. “It’s going to be total lawlessness for another 48 hours,” Sanit Nakajitti, a director at PSA Asia, a Bangkok-based security and risk consulting firm, said by phone. “This is their retaliation. And gangsters, youngsters, drug dealers, anyone with a grievance will join them.”

Greek legislators have defied public outrage at a draconian austerity plan, approving cutbacks as police battled hundreds of protesters outside Parliament. Amid new global market turmoil, Parliament approved the plan – needed in exchange for a mass EU-IMF bail-out – a day after three bank workers died in a firebomb attack on the sidelines of huge protest marches in Athens.

Photos by blackhalos and Verani Federico.

The new leader of Kyrgyzstan moved swiftly to strengthen ties with Russia yesterday as the ousted President was accused of looting the country’s banks. Roza Otunbayeva sent a team to Moscow to request aid a day after Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, offered to help to rebuild the former Soviet republic. The delegation was led by Almazbek Atambayev, her deputy in the provisional Government. Officials accused President Bakiyev of ransacking the state treasury before he fled Bishkek during the revolution, in which 75 people died and 400 were wounded. They froze the banking system, saying that it contained only $22 million (£14 million). “The state coffers are almost empty. All the funds have been transferred,” Edil Baisalov, Ms Otunbayeva’s chief of staff, said.