terrorism its reality Dr Marc Cetron

http://pfiresources.blogspot.com/2008/10/marc-cetron-on-analysts-corner.html

Marc Cetron on Analysts' Corner: Terrorism is a Real Threat
What is the future of terrorism? How should we look at the problem? Join me, Deborah Osborne, and Dr. Marvin Cetron, as we discuss terrorism and the future on Analysts' Corner Blog Talk Radio show.Dr. Marvin Cetron is the Founder and President of Forecasting International and is one of the foremost forecaster-futurists in the world. During his 20 year career in research and development planning and forecasting with the U.S. Navy, Dr. Marvin Cetron was in charge of the design, development and implementation of the most comprehensive technological forecast in the United States. Dr. Marvin Cetron has authored numerous articles, papers and publications and he has authored over three dozen books.
MY NOTES
Blog Talk Radio 102108 PRESENTED LECTURE AT PENTAGON TERRORISTS WILL HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS THE THREAT OF TERRORISM IS REAL AND NOT A MYTHICAL DANGER BUT WILL COME IN THE FUTURE PRESIDENT OF FORECASTING INTERNATIONAL WROTE OVER 3 DZN BOOKS
55 TRENDS NOW AFFECTING TERRORISM NO COST MATERIALS PROTEUS ARMY WAR COLLEGE
WILL USE TOXIC GASES BIO WARFARE AND WEAPONIZED BACTERIA
-USE OF FUSION CENTERS SHARING OF DATA AND PUBLIC INFORMATION
MOTIVES OF TH TERRORISTS INDISCRIMINATE AND BARBARIC FROM MOSLEM COUNTRIES
REFERENCE TO ABDUL (K)NADIR KHAN PERCEPTION OF THE WEST -INTERFERERS W THIR PERONAL LIFE AND VALUES AND SOURCE OF POLLUTION AND MORAL CONTAMINATION JUSTIFYING TERRORIST ACTS (7% OF WORLD'S MUSLIMS OR THE FUNDAMENTALISTS BELIEVE THIS TO BE TRUE) SUCH FUNDAMENTALISTS ARE WELL EDUCATED AND OF ABOVE AVERAGE WEALTH
26 MADRASAS INPAKITAN WITH BACKING OF THE SAUDIS ARE INSTRUCTING YOUNG OF THE NXT GENERATION IN TERRORISM
BRITAIN AND FRANC WILL BE FUTURE FOCAL POINTS OF ATTACK
POVERTY NOT BELIEVED TO BE MOTIVATING FACTOR
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/proteus-55-terror.pdf
EXCERPT FROM THE 55 TRENDS
Implications for Terrorism:
Networks of video cameras are just the first of many high-tech tools that will affect antiterrorist operations in the years ahead.
To prevent or interrupt terrorist attacks, nanotech sensors capable of detecting explosives, chemical, and biological weapons will be scattered around prime targets, such as major public gatherings, relaying the location of any possible threat to the local command center. This is a likely prospect for 2015 and beyond.
Intelligence analysts, already overwhelmed by the amount of data collected each day, will face a growing torrent of data in the years ahead. As surveillance spreads through society, this will be a problem for police agencies as well. Until automated systems become available to help monitor incoming data, much of the information collected by cameras and other tools will be used more to provide evidence for prosecutions than to prevent or interrupt terrorist actions.
To assist them, engineers will develop automated systems to help "mesh" information from incompatible data stores, recognize patterns in the data, develop rigorous hypotheses, perform collaborative analyses, and "capture" the skills of the most capable analysts so that others can benefit from them, even when the analysts themselves are not available. Eventually, these systems will spread from the intelligence community to law enforcement. These techniques may offer the best chance of giving security agencies a clear advantage over their adversaries.
The recent decision by an American court to block data mining by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a significant loss to security efforts in this country. While similar military projects continue, the DHS shares data with the regional Fusion Centers responsible for much of the work carried out at the local level. Loss of this resource will make their efforts notably less effective.


The events that followed—to include the anthrax events of 2001, West Nile Virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, monkeypox, and other disease outbreaks—all demonstrated to me that our government faces significant obstacles in effectively "connecting the dots" of knowledge held in the minds of numerous individuals working for different organizational units. Not only is the challenge to discern truth from fiction, but also to put all the pieces of knowledge together to form a complete picture. In this age of knowledge-overload, no one individual harbors sufficient knowledge to either mitigate negative outcomes or capitalize on positive opportunities. Knowledge exchanges in these government agencies must transcend physical group proximity, social networks, and the institutions themselves.


There is a significant correlation between globalization efforts and increasing knowledge velocity, volume, volatility, and veracity concerns. Human societies, economies, and civil infrastructures are increasingly interdependent and complex. Instead of attempting the traditional "top-down" approach to management, my research espouses a "bottom-up" approach to cultivating individual insights. Recall the events of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina: no one individual harbored sufficient knowledge to mitigate these events. Such realities will occur with increasing frequency for employees of either government agencies or private entities. To assemble the entire puzzle, knowledge exchanges must occur among multiple individuals in different organizational units and institutions without prompting from the "top," but instead must be motivated at the grassroots by collaboration-fostering incentives, values, and trust-relationships; such an idea embodies innovative "knowledge ecosystems."


5 – Privacy, once a definingrightfor Americans, is dyingquickly. (Trend17)
Internet communications, a basic part of life for many people, are nearly impossible to protect against • interception, and governments around the world are working to ensure their unfettered access to them. Postings to blogs and Web forums are nearly immortal.
The contents of most Internet-connected computers are open to virtually unobstructed snooping by ––anyone with a minimum of skill and the will to examine them. All but the most secure can be invaded by more-capable hackers.
Corporate databases are collecting and marketing data on individual credit-worthiness, incomes, spending • patterns, brand choices, medical conditions, and lifestyles.
While privacy regulations bar distribution of much personal information in the European Union, ––restrictions in the United States are much weaker.
Widespread surveillance of private individuals is technically feasible and economically viable, as tiny, • powerful cameras now cost next to nothing. Increased surveillance has become socially acceptable in an age when many people fear terrorism and crime.
In Britain, an estimated 4.2 million surveillance cameras watch over streets, office buildings, schools, ––and shopping centers, making the U.K. one of the most closely monitored nations in the world. On average, Britons are caught on camera an estimated three hundred times per day.
In the United States, the growth of surveillance also is driven by the fear that lawsuits following a future ––terrorist attack could claim that failure to install monitoring equipment constitutes negligence.
Video surveillance systems have been installed in Chicago, New York City, Washington DC, Tampa ––FL, and other cities around the United States, In most cases, local police departments have been a driving force in this movement. Protests thus far have been small and ineffective.
The USA Patriot Act of 2001 sets aside the constitutional requirement of a search warrant for government • officials who wish to search someone’s home in order to thwart possible terrorism. Its provisions have been used to justify searches in pursuit of drug dealers and even, in one attempt thus far blocked by the courts, copyright abusers.29 55 Trends Now Shaping the Future of Terrorism
Assessment:
Pessimists could say that privacy already is a thing of the past; society is merely coming to recognize its loss. We believe that enough effective privacy survives outside the most authoritarian countries to justify noting its continued erosion. However, this trend could easily reach its logical conclusion within ten years.
Implications:
In the future, privacy is likely to be defined, not by the ability to keep information truly secret, but by the legal power to restrict its distribution. Even this limited form of privacy will be eroded as both government and private organizations find legal justification for their interest in personal information. Once access is granted to any type of information, it is unlikely ever to be rescinded.
Most surveillance provisions of the USA Patriot Act will survive, even if the law itself is repealed or modified.
In the absence of a major terrorist event, most Americans will continue to consider privacy a "right," and privacy-related lawsuits are likely to proliferate as more people feel violated or inconvenienced by surveillance. However, courts will be unsympathetic to such suits for so long as conservative appointees dominate the bench.
In large and medium-size cities around the world, spaces that remain unwatched by video cameras will continue to shrink.
Growing numbers of companies, and even private citizens, will encrypt their computer data.
The number of criminal cases based on surveillance will grow rapidly in countries with the required technological sophistication and infrastructure.
Private citizens increasingly will use similar technologies to watch over government abuse, as in cases where bystanders have recorded police misconduct with their cell-phone cameras.
Implications for Terrorism:
It will be nearly impossible for terrorists to operate without being observed. However, until artificial intelligence systems "learn" to recognize suspicious activities, manpower will limit use of these observations. Except in obvious target areas, surveillance will be most useful in forensic reconstruction, rather than in active incident prevention.
What remains of privacy protections often conflicts with security needs. A good example is the recent decision to scrap an important data-mining program at the DHS on the grounds that it might implicate the innocent in terrorism or other illegal activities. A more appropriate solution would have been to require that data used by the program be confirmed by at least two independent sources, as is routinely done in the intelligence community.
This is clearly one of the ten most important trends for antiterrorism. It may be one of the top five

ALONG WITH ITEM 8 OF THIS LIST

9 – Advancedcommunications technologies are changingthe way we work andlive. (Trend35)
The Internet is as much a communications medium as it is an information resource.•
Telecommuting is growing rapidly, thanks largely to e-mail and other high-tech forms of communication. • About 80 percent of companies worldwide now have employees who work at home, up from 54 percent in 2003. The number of telecommuters in the United States reached an estimated 20 million in 2006.
AT&T says that 90 percent of its employees do some work away from the office, while 41 percent work ––at home one or two days per week. This saves the company a reported $180 million a year.
However, Millennials already have abandoned e-mail for most purposes other than communicating ––with "clueless" parents and grandparents. Most have adopted instant messaging and social-network Websites to communicate with their peers.
"Podcasting"—recording college lectures, news stories, business reports, and the like for playback on the • Apple iPod—allows users to listen at their convenience.42 55 Trends Now Shaping the Future of Terrorism
Better communications is a major goal of many government agencies, particularly in law enforcement • and disaster services, which need to coordinate the activities of many different agencies under emergency conditions.
So-called "Web 2.0" services are building communities nearly as complex and involving as those existing • wholly in the real world.
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Launched in 2003, by May ––2007 it had 6.8 million residents, 1.75 million of whom had logged on in the previous two months. Here in the real world, designers earn substantial incomes creating fashions and other paraphernalia for Second Life characters. One resident was banned when his character raped another "avatar" in virtual reality.
MySpace and Facebook have a total of more than 180 million members who form communities of ––friends, most of whom have never met except on the Internet.
A number of people have taken to wearing a small Web camera, either recording their entire lives or ––broadcasting them over the Internet.
Assessment:
Again, this trend has only just begun.
Implications:
E-mail promised to speed business. Instead, it absorbs more time than busy executives can afford to lose. Expect the nascent reaction against e-mail to grow as many people eliminate mailing lists, demand precise e-communications rather than open-ended conversation, and schedule only brief periods for dealing with mail.
Instant messaging is likely to be even more destructive of time for the under-thirty set.
However, e-mail is a major contributor to globalization and outsourcing, because it eliminates many of the obstacles of doing business across long distances and many time zones.
Unfortunately, e-mail and other modern communications techniques also have made possible a variety of crimes, from online fraud to some forms of identity theft.
They also make it virtually impossible to retract ill-considered statements or embarrassing online activities. Once something exists on the Internet, it is all but immortal and nearly impossible to hide.
Implications for Terrorism:
See Trend 34 (item 8 of this list
ITEM 8 TREND

Implications for Terrorism:
This is a top-ten trend.
International fraud, money laundering, and other economic crimes (particularly carried out via the Internet) are a growing problem, and one that can be expected to spread. At least some of these activities can be expected to finance extremist and terrorist movements.
In addition, entrepreneurial success in global markets could widen the gap between the rich and poor, worsening social strains in countries already vulnerable to extremist movements. It is likely to worsen the problem of international terrorism


Meilahn: This is a Muslim problem that can only be fought by Muslims. The more moderate Muslims must take on this fight, and the U.S. can help them. Currently only about 2 percent are radicals; but that is still a large number. According to a Gallup analysis of polls representing 90 percent of the world’s Muslim population, another 7 percent are "politically radicalized." That is, they believe the 9/11 attacks were completely justified and have an unfavorable view of the United States. And in 2006, the Pew Research Center found that 17.7 percent of Muslim respondents believed that violence against civilian targets in order to defend Islam can be justified "often" or "sometimes." At least some of the radicalized 2 percent can be re-educated about Islam and "de-radicalized," prevented from executing acts of terror. This group is the one the USG should concern itself with from a preventive standpoint.
Another point is that most of the Muslims who condoned attacks on 9/11 believe that it was justifiable because of U.S. "colonizing" and the way we are too controlling of other countries. The USG could do much with regard to its foreign policy to change its image from "occupier" to cooperative member of the world community. That would do much to decrease motivations for jihad, and keep terrorists away from our borders or our interests worldwide.


Tan: The startling failures of U.S. grand strategy after 9/11, particularly its disastrous strategy in Iraq, have been counter-productive to the global war on terrorism. From relative stability albeit under Saddam’s dictatorial hand, Iraq has slid into chaos and has become the training ground for the global jihad much as Afghanistan had become the training ground from which Al Qaeda emerged. However, the jihadists in Iraq are honing their skills in combating the world’s technologically most advanced armed forces and are learning to perfect techniques in IEDs, sabotage, sniping, kidnappings, assassinations, urban warfare, etc. Once dispersed throughout the world, these jihadists will re-constitute a post-Al Qaeda network that will be much more competent, effective, and deadly. Unfortunately, their first targets will be likely Muslim governments and allies of the U.S.A. throughout the Middle East. Can these regimes meet the emerging challenge of the post-Iraq militants? Will the radicalization being spawned in Iraq today seep through its borders to destabilize the entire Middle East? The question today is not how to win Iraq. The questions are: What can the U.S.A. and the West do to meet and contain the growing threat from radical Islam? How can we contain Iranian Shi’ite fundamentalism from threatening the stability of the entire Middle East
?